#interplanetary dust

You remembered nothing. Absolutely nothing. The doctors were surprised you even remembered your name before you passed back out. When you awoke for the second time, you still had no idea what day it was, what city you were in, and all you could feel was a sharp pain radiating through your body. Especially your right leg. God, what happened to your right leg? What happened to you? Prying your eyes open, the sounds of the extremely white room you were in started making their way past your ears to become recognized by your brain. You heard a steady beeping, a couple people chattering, and the rain hitting the window to your right lightly. You made no movement with your body, just your eyes, so no one knew you were awake yet. Had you been asleep long? What happened? You had so many questions and you felt like you had no energy to do anything about it. You took a slow, deep breath in to try and ground yourself further, and by the time you exhaled all the air, you realized there was a hand on your knee, your left knee. You put every fiber of your being into moving that kneecap ever so slightly to get the attention of the person who was there. A face you could not see from where your head laid. You managed to move your knee maybe a distance of three inches, but it was enough. Soon, you heard a swarm of voices and footsteps approach you, and you forced your neck to crane around slightly to see who all was in the room. You could see doctors and nurses – white lab coats and scrubs giving them away. Then you saw a few crew members you recognized from your job, but you could not remember their names nor what their jobs were. You could not even really remember your job at the moment. Then you saw a cluster of three guys that were just a little bit more recognizable than the crew workers, but again had trouble remembering names. One had a dark, bushy mustache, one had shaggy blonde hair, and the third had a frizzy poof adorning his cranium. Clearly recognizable appearances, so why could you not remember their names? Then the face attached to the hand that was on your knee made its way into your field of view. Again, you recognized it. Then one of the doctor’s spoke up.

“Y/N? Are you with us again?”

All you could manage was a nod, even trying to smile hurt too much.

“Wonderful. I hate to rush right into things, but there are some new faces in the room and I need to know if any of their names come to mind. I’m going to point to each one and you can say their name or say you don’t remember it. But do tell if you at least recognize the face.”

The doctor started at the opposite side of the bed from where the hand on your knee came from. He first pointed to the shaggy-haired blonde. You shook your head, but squeaked out a short fragment of a sentence that told the doctor you know the face. The face dropped slightly, feeling sad that you did not remember his name, but at least recognized him. The same exact process happened with the mustached man, the frizzy poof man, and the people you recognized as crew members for something. You expressed to the doctor that you remembered that part, but not what they do or who they work for, and that you could not remember your job, either. Then the doctor’s hand went to the body on your left. The one with its hand on your knee. You had barely made eye contact with the full-volume dark curls when you quietly yet triumphantly said his name.

“Brian.”

His eyes shone brighter than the sun hearing his name come from your mouth. Despite feeling disappointed that you did not remember their names, everyone around beamed at you, proud that you were not completely amnesia ridden. You swore you even saw Brian flush with color, realizing that he had gone pretty pale waiting to see if you would remember his name. First a pale white, and now red as could be.

“I remember Brian. He… plays an instrument. Guitar. Built his own.”

“Bloody hell, why does Bri get all the attention from ‘er?”

“Relax, Roger.” Freddie placed an arm on Roger’s shoulder while Deaky spoke to him.

The doctor spoke up again, clearly bemused by the antics shared between the bandmates and overflowing with joy and relief at the fact you remembered something more than your name.

“Alright, well, I have good news, but I need to talk to the four of you,” motioning to the band, “in private, seeing that you guys are her bosses and she fell on the job.” He then motioned for the four of them to follow him into the hallway and the nurses informed the crew that they could leave if they wanted while they checked on your vitals. Once everyone but the nurses were out of the room, you felt a single tear roll down your cheek, fully aware that you had gotten into some kind of accident and that something was clearly wrong with your brain. Through a choking sob, you managed to ask the nurses who flocked over you a question.

“Could someone please tell me what happened?”

~

“As you are probably aware by now, Y/N was on a scaffolding that collapsed under her and pieces of it managed to fall onto her by the time she collided with the ground. Nothing metal hit her head, but the impact of the fall caused quite a jolt to run though her entire body, her brain being no exception. That is what is causing the amnesia. On top of all of that, one of the heavier pieces of metal managed to crush her right kneecap, which we replaced. She will be able to be discharged today, but she will need to be in a wheelchair for a week, and then we have a full leg brace that she can walk on slowly after that for about eight more weeks. Basically, the duration of the tour, if I understand correctly. I’m not so much worried about her leg healing properly, considering she could push herself around on the wheelchair, if necessary. However, my concern is the amnesia. I’m not as worried as I would be if she could not remember anything. But she did recognize all your faces, knew that some people had the label of “crew member,” and she clearly remembers Mr. May, here. So, I’m sure with some reintroducing, everything will come flooding back in due time. My request of you guys is to just keep an eye on her. From the conversations I have overheard, she seems like the kind of girl who can fend for herself, but regardless of what she says, she needs at least one person by her side for a while. Just until things are back to normal. Did you catch all of that?”

The members of Queen all silently nodded their heads in the direction of the doctor. Each of them knew they would be helping her, but none of them minded. Especially Brian. For some reason, he felt that he had an obligation to help her more than anyone else considering what she was doing when the fall occurred. That is his specialty. This would be his chance to get close to the girl whom he would like to call his. Once the small, one-sided conversation between Queen and the doctor concluded, they made their way back into the hospital room to see that you were already in your wheelchair with the brace on your leg, dressed and ready to go. The nurses told you everything that the doctor told the boys, and now that you all were on the same page, Brian stepped up to push you through the hospital to the van door.

“I got you, love, no need to exert yourself more than you already have.”

After a smug look was exchanged between the boys and Brian, you were rolling your way through the hospital, ready to get back to… whatever it was you did for a living. Eventually, the van you were riding in pulled into its destination, which to you looked like a massive arena. This could not possibly be related to what your job was, right? Why would someone like you work in a place like this? The van parked, and Brian scrambled around to your side of the van to help you into your wheelchair. He might be lanky, but the boy is strong. He was pushing you into the wide empty floor of the arena where the janitors were already cleaning up when he spooked you with a question.

“Anything here look familiar, love?”

“Not really. I can’t even imagine what it would be that I do for a living in a place like this. I’m no security guard.”

Brian chuckled behind you, so quietly you never even heard him. He wanted to just tell you everything, now that he had an excuse to really talk to you, but the voice of your doctor rang in the back of his mind. He was not supposed to tell you things, he was just supposed to show you things and hope it jogs your memory. You cannot relearn the things you knew. If they do not come back on their own, there is no hope for getting them back. Brian noticed something about the stage – it had not been put away yet. When the fall happened, everyone rushed to the hospital, and they all wanted to stay while you were operated on, but their management insisted that they go back and do the show and come back once you were awake. The stage was just as they had left it, and Brian got an idea.

“Would you feel comfortable if I left you alone for a second and hopped up on stage to grab something?”

You shook your head at him, practically expressionless, and he slowly turned away from you to hop up onto the stage, long legs making him look like a frog jumping. You saw him grab a guitar. The guitar you mentioned when you were still in your hospital bed. He also grabbed a stool and made his way back down to you. About forty feet from the edge of the stage. He plopped the stool down directly in front of you and plopped himself right down on top of it. Then he started to play. And you remembered. Well, you at least remembered why you were at this arena, what your job was. Nothing else really came back, like the name of the band, the names of his bandmates, anything like that. But hearing Brian play helped you remember something. And that was all he needed to do for you. He was there to be a walking memory. As he played, he made eye contact with you to try and see the little stars in your eyes he always looked at. They were there when you were happy, and that was all he wanted to make you feel in this moment. He could tell you were feeling defeated about the whole situation and he just wanted to see your eyes light up. Little did he know that you would make him feel the way he wanted to make you feel.

“You Take My Breath Away.”

“You… remembered.”

“I… I guess I did. I also know that that is the guitar you made. The one I remembered.”

“…”

“But I still can’t remember the name of your band.”

At this point, you and Brian were laughing so hard it was a wonder neither of you had started crying. He had stopped playing, and the light started to leave your eyes again. Brian could see it, and he started to think he did something wrong.

“What happened? Are you feeling okay?”

“Please keep playing.”

“Wh…what?”

“Play for me. It helps. My memory and my mood. Please keep playing.”

Brian continued to strum and sing quietly for you, testing your knowledge on the band whose name you could not remember.

~

A week had gone by, and slowly but surely, you were starting to remember things. You watched a show, and before it all started you gleefully shouted “QUEEN!” at the boys, signaling that you remembered their name. Then you went one by one and pointed at them, exclaiming their names, making them beam with pride. Other things you remembered were your job, your birthday, and some of the interests you had. The one that you really could not forget was your love of all things space. It was what got you into this mess in the first place. Something you had not remembered, though, was that Brian, the bandmate who had been by your side this entire past week, had a degree in astrophysics. Meaning he knew space stuff. Brian made no effort to tell you that, because he was afraid it would trigger something in your brain and that you would forget him. He voiced that fear to his bandmates and they all called him dramatic. He did not feel that his fear was over the top, but it was three to one, so he lost by default. On the first day you could walk on your leg, everyone doted on you, making sure you did not fall. You felt fine, but really only accepted help from Brian. You had come to trust him more than anyone else after all he had put up with this week. He had seen sides of you that no one had really ever seen, especially in vulnerable moments. At hotels, you two shared a room because you needed help in the bathroom and getting changed and whatnot. At least, that is what Brian told himself to keep himself from admitting the obvious. But now that you could be own your own, he felt like there was not much he still needed to do for you, which made him feel slightly depressed. He wanted to help you all the time, and he meant all the time. Not just when you were hurt. He wanted this companionship you had formed to be a lifelong one, filled with more than just the occasional shy look exchanged between the two of you. He wanted more. He wanted you. The bus had pulled into the hotel where the boys would be staying that night, and you shocked everyone by what you said to the check-in lady.

“Make that one less room, put Brian May and myself together, please.”

Brian gaped at you, completely red in the face, while his three bandmates snickered behind him, knowing how he felt about you and how oblivious you seemed to be about the whole thing.

“Love, my room is for one person.”

“You have a queen bed, we can fit, silly.” Then you saw the look on his face. “Unless you… don’t want to share your room with me.”

“Room 445, May and Y/L/M. It has a nice ring to it. Who am I to say no to that?”

You all made your ways to your respective rooms. Once you and Brian were settled in for what you thought would be a relaxing night flipping through television stations, he proposed an idea. Something to jog the last parts of your memory that had not come back yet.

“Would you be opposed to coming outside with me for a few moments, my dear? There is something I want to show you.”

“As long as I can borrow that sweatshirt you’re wearing, I have no complains, Bri.”

You flashed him a warm smile, still completely oblivious to how much you had him wrapped around his finger. He would do anything you asked him to do, no questions asked in any situation. He tossed you the sweatshirt he was wearing. The two of you quietly started to make your way to the back entrance of the hotel, and you found yourself being helped by Brian up this small hill at the back of the property with nothing on it but a lonesome bench. How Brian knew it was there was beyond you, but you did not find yourself questioning it, either. He helped you up the hill carefully, so as not to cross a boundary but make it as easy for you as possible. Once you made it up the hill, with a few stumbles along the way and grabbing of hands and torsos, you sat down side by side in a comfortable silence. You heard Brian sigh lightly next to you, and you turned your head and body to face him.

“What’s troubling you, big guy?”

“Nothing. I just want to talk to you about space.”

He said that as a precursor. A warning. He wanted to gauge your reaction to see if you leaned into his words or scooted away from them. He did not catch a grimace, or see your body tense in anyway, so he milked the moment. He wrapped an arm loosely around your shoulders and lightly squeezed as if he wanted to capture you in his embrace. You gladly moved yourself so your side was flush against his. Except Brian felt even more confident, knowing that you were not shying away from him. He had no reason to believe you were feeling for him the way he felt for you, but he wanted to take this moment by the horns, since he was not certain he would get to do this again. He reached down with his free arm, hooked your legs in it, and he swung them over so your body was facing perpendicular to his with your bum seated against the side of his legs and your legs laid across his lap. You turned lightly so you could still face partially the same direction he was facing, and pressed your side into his once again. Then he began to talk in that calming voice of his.

“Let’s see who we’ve got to work with tonight…” Brian started rambling off the constellations he could clearly see and tried to get you to see them yourself. He loved the look on your face – despite feeling frustrated with yourself that you could not see them, he thought your scrunched-up nose was adorable. He could tell you were genuinely interested in all the space stuff he talked about, unlike past girls he found himself enamored with. He continued to talk and you even asked him a few questions you had wanted to know the answers to, things about black holes, supernovas, comets, and the like. Brian practically felt like he was up amongst the stars seated next to you talking about all of this stuff. To him, you shone like brighter than all of them combined with the sun, and even if he was too shy to do anything about it, just being able to spend time with you was what he wanted. Eventually though, he took a break from his rambling ask you a personal question.

“Do you quite understand why I asked you to come out here with me so I could talk about space?”

“Do I have to? I’m really happy listening to you. Everything you say is… enthralling. Enchanting, if you will, Bri.”

His heart swelled. So much that it actually hurt his chest a little.

“Well, allow me to explain myself.” He turned his head to he was no longer looking at the stars, but the expression on his face when his eyes landed on yours made it seem like he still was. “You and I have known each other for a little while now, about six months, if I’m not mistaken. Besides your obvious personality quirks,” you lightly punched him, smiling up at him, knowing it was a playful jab at you, “there is something about you that I have noticed. Any time we are playing a show that has no roof, you find something you can climb so you can look at space. Even when there are nights with a venue that has a roof, you climb all the way up to find a window or go outside. Clearly, you are just as enamored with the scenery up above as I am.”

“Clearly, Bri. You just rambled off more facts about space than I even thought possible.”

“Well, that’s just the thing – there is something you need to know about me.” For some reason, he was nervous to admit he had his degree. Like it would make you think he is too nerdy and that you would be repulsed by him. “I actually have a degree in astrophysics. I specialized in interplanetary dust, but if simple facts about comets are enough for you, there are plenty more where that came from, love.”

You laughed from your core. It was music to his ears, and he wished he could make that sound come from your lips every day. Very few girls that he had dated in the past found him funny. They found him too stoic or serious. Yet somehow, you appreciated that side of him and the dry humor that came with it. He was certain by this point that the stars you so fondly gazed at had aligned in all the right places to get you two on this Earth together at the same time in the same place. He continued…

“But back to the matter at hand. I mentioned before that you always find a way to look at the sky at night before shows, and I’ve sworn I’ve seen you do it after some shows, too, if we get done early enough and you have time before all the vans leave. I sincerely don’t want this to come across as strange or uncomfortable, but I’m just speaking my truth in an effort to get you to see and hear me.” He took a shuddering breath, knowing by your expression that your full attention was on every word that dripped from his intelligent mouth. “Every time I see you do that, I stop what I’m doing to look at the expression on your face. You always look so calm and at peace, and I have never seen someone look at space the same way that I do. Everyone thinks I’m a dweeb, frankly. But you… you’re different. You look at space the same way I look at space. I also look at you the same way I look at space. You’re like my very own personal constellation, love, and if it isn’t already obvious, you have me wrapped around your little finger. I am infatuated with you, and this is one instance where I truly don’t know how to handle the situation.”

You had just been staring at him wide-eyed, trying to process the words coming from him. Brian was… infatuated with you? You knew what the word meant, you just weren’t sure if he meant it in regards to just how you held yourself, or if he was… in love with you. So, one of your signature quirks, as he liked to call them, came out when you bluntly asked him to explain himself further.

“Bri, when you say infatuated with me… do you mean what I think you mean?”

Brian was not the confident type around women, but for some reason, a surge ran through him at the prospect of you not completely rejecting him already. This surge coursed through his veins and overtook his senses. The next thing you felt were his lightly chapped but somehow still soft lips gently pressing and moving against your own. It was the definition of a kiss filled with love. He answered your question, alright. You pulled away from each other, lips remaining close enough to brush each other with each word spoken breathily.

“I, uh, I guess I know the answer to my question. Huh, Bri?”

“I guess you do.”

“You really feel like that for someone like me? A nobody?”

“Y/N, love?”

“Yeah?”