#memory headcanon

Scratch hovered, staring at the swirling black portal, and wondered if he might be crazy.

He avoided the Ghost World on principle, too many people he couldn’t just disappear from if he didn’t want to be seen, too many eyes on him, especially now that he wore The Cloak. The food was serviceable at best and the company worse. Plus, practically every visit to the Ghost World in the past year had been a result of the Council dragging him under, kicking and screaming the whole way, so obvious negative connotations there.

And now, here he was, seeking them out.

All because of a stupid old soda.

Most of him was grateful to Molly, and Libby, and Darryl, for risking their safety on their dumb little heist. It showed (in their own obsessive, pushy, annoying way) that they cared for him, and he could appreciate that. But a smaller part regretted the whole ordeal, a pain in the neck that had opened too many doors.

Like this one. To the Ghost World.

Scratch turned away, the portal swirling closed behind him. This was stupid! He shouldn’t even bother making the trip to the Council, all they’d do was stuff him into the robe again and demand he make decisions that weren’t ‘where to hide the caramel ribbon ice cream so Sharon wouldn’t find it’. Lame, unimportant things, and a two minute trip would take two hours, and he had a nap scheduled that he couldn’t afford to miss, and—

A vehicle pulled away outside, the sound drifting in with a breeze that rustled the curtains, and Scratch was slammed into the Memory without warning: curly brown hair, a sunny smile that matched a yellow shirt, artificial strawberry on his tongue. “Every time we drink this soda, we’ll think of each other—”

And just as suddenly, the world crashed down again, leaving him disoriented and annoyed and shaken. He gripped his head in his hands and growled at the dark sensation of loss clawing open his gut, riding out the displaced emotion like a wave of nausea. Why? Why this memory? Why couldn’t he remember something nicer, like a family pet, or a nice meal, or even his own name?

The next portal opened, inches from his nose. Well that was embarrassing, he was making them involuntarily now.

Way too many open doors lately. In his head, in the ether, downstairs whenever Ollie came over. What he wouldn’t give for some closure.

Yeah right. Like he was ever that lucky.

Scratch paced in angry circles, fists flexing at his sides, all the while eyeing the new portal. He moved towards it, backed away. Advance, retreat. He turned his back on the twisting abyss, form tight with stress. No, he wouldn’t go, he’d call it off—

“That way, I’ll never forget you. And you’ll never forget me.”

Spirits below, fine!

He launched himself through the portal before he could change his mind. The Ghost World hit like a smelly, dour slap to the face. Or maybe that was just the vibe of the Council chamber. His four ‘advisors’ sat hunched over their massive curved desk, quill pens in hand, and not a single one of them looked up at his presence. Almost out of habit, Scratch flinched at the empty slot between them, the silhouette of the (former) Chairman looming in negative space before Scratch blinked and the illusion disappeared.

Not foreboding at all.

He waited, hovering over the spot where he was normally summoned. Nada. “A-hem.”

Alistair gestured over his shoulder to that huge, vacuous with his quill. “You know where to be, Scratch.”

Curse these chuckleheads and their rules. “Yeah, no, I’m not ‘Chairmanning’ today,” he fingerquoted. “Taking my two weeks vacation. All year.”

“Then you’re dismissed.”

Oooh no, no one could just dismiss Scratch anymore. “Trust me, I’d love nothing more than to be as far away from you guys as possible, but I got a quick question.”

“Is it about competency,” Bartholomew grinned nastily, “because then it won’t be quick.” The others sniggered loudly at the quip. It wasn’t even that funny! Pete could do better! Fury spiked down Scratch’s arms and back in a ripple of agitated ectoplasm, size swelling briefly as he fought down the urge to adopt a scare form. They’d probably just make some kind of dumb comment about how he could catch up on his scare quota.

There was really no one else in the Ghost World for these questions?

Through gritted teeth, Scratch bit out, “it’s about memories.”

Quills stilled and the Council glanced at each other in that secretive, in-jokey way that made his form bubble. Alistair set down his quill to rest his chin on the bridge of his hands, looking an equal mix of suspicious and smug. “What about memories?”

How to get them back? How to get rid of them forever? Suppression? Answers? All those felt too… personal. “Why do ghosts come here with out memories of their past life?”

Another infuriating round of glances, and Scratch was tempted to put The Cloak on just to yell at them in Scary Chairman Voice when Grimbella said, “All ghosts have memories.”

The world tilted, the metaphorical rug whipped out from his metaphorical feet, and the world dimmed as Scratch’s opacity flickered the slightest bit. All ghosts. A fact. So why didn’t he? “They remember everything?”

“Not exactly,” Lucretia set her quill down in its pot. Had none of them ever heard of pens? “The amount of retained memories change with the ghost, but generally important memories regarding personal identity remain intact.”

He’d intended to come into this conversation casually, but to his humiliation, Scratch burst like a dam. “But why only some memories?” He demanded, floating up to their desk and pacing again. “Why are some more important than others? Who decides? What makes a memory important enough to bring to the afterlife?”

Grimbella answered easily, not one iota of attention paid to his turmoil. “A ghost keeps them based on what they knew in life.”

Oh, if they’d been keeping this from him, he was going to sic the frightmares on them so fast. “What do you mean?”

“The exact details are still being researched,” Alistair admitted with a snooty shrug. “But patterns suggest that a ghost’s memories are most strongly linked to the interpersonal connections that they held in high regard during life.”

“Like you,” Scratch turned on Grimbella, and her cool disinterest brought up another surge of annoyance. “Grunhilda, or whatever. You know your name!” And he got it wrong on purpose out of spite.

A shimmer of satisfaction lit his core as her unflappable brow finally furrowed. “Grimbella,” she corrected icily, and Scratch made a mental note to get her name wrong at every possible opportunity. “It’s true, my family name was very important in my upbringing. Most of my strongest memories are of the pride my parents showed when teaching family history.” She trailed off, wistfully staring into the middle distance with a dreamy look. Gross.

“But names are a low bar,” Bartholomew cut in, casting Grimbella a side-eye. “An interpersonal relationship doesn’t have to be strong for a ghost to remember their name. As long as there was someone to give voice to a name during life, a ghost could remember it after death.”

“Not that you’d know much about that, Scratch,” Alistair pointed out greasily, and the next round of barely contained snickers nearly popped Scratch’s eyes out.

“At least I didn’t get stuck with a name that sounds like it crawled right out of a medieval toilet,” he snapped back.

Up went the quills again, their interest in him noticeably waning. “Don’t get waspish about it,” Alistair’s face hardened. “Some ghosts would kill to be in your position. Not all memories are warm and fuzzy.”

He’d mentioned something about his dad once, hadn’t he? On the list of ‘Things Scratch Cared About’, Alistair’s past was somewhere below ‘amount of carbohydrates in a loaf of garlic bread’, but recent events pulled a twinge of guilt from him.

He’d said he didn’t want to know. That was still true. And it wasn’t. Would he be better or worse if he’d remembered every second of being a lonely, bitter, jaded man in life? He’d still be Scratch either way, right? Except he wouldn’t be, he’d have a human name.

He’d absolutely been Scratch this morning. Now he wasn’t sure. Was anything about him real?

“Scratch?” His head whipped around to Lucretia, half from being torn out of his thoughts and half because he’d never heard her sound so gentle. Almost sympathetic. She still hunched over her book, but pinned him under an unreadable stare. “If it’s any consolation, there have been numerous cases of ghosts discovering more of their memories as their time here lengthens.”

Scratch’s colour shuddered, and he refused to believe it was hopeful. “How?”

“Through intense meditation and unparalleled self-discipline, of course.”

Scratch gagged. “Hard pass.”

Lucretia’s expression clouded back to it’s normal stormy gray. “Then I hope you enjoy your afterlife as a nobody.”

He knew a final dismissal when he heard it (those jerks, still finding a way to snub him even after he became their boss). He wasted no time building a portal back to Molly’s room, and the moment it closed behind him a huge weight lifted from above his head. Hello, Damocles. Ugh, every second he spent in the Ghost World was a second too long.

Something pulled insistently at his mind, and the ripples of his ectoplasm went still. The confusion and uncertainty and sorrow tearing at him as he faced the Council had… just flown away with that weight. He wasn’t a ‘nobody’ in this room, in this house.

He was Scratch McGee.

He had a best friend, and two (three?) good friends. He liked bread and ice cream and comedy, and thought the Crazy Carl movies were overrated, and got into arguments about it. He’d had a sleepover, and ridden a motorcycle, and hadn’t done pottery yet but still kind of wanted to try. He had a family that loved him, and a house, and a town.

Maybe he’d been someone before Scratch. But Scratch had a life too, and it was pretty darn good. A forgotten past didn’t make his present any less real. He had experiences and fun and wants and dreams, like any living person.

Like now, in fact. After dealing with the headache that was the Council, he dreamed of leftover meatloaf and a nap on the couch.

Maybe his past would come up again. Maybe not. But in the meantime, he’d enjoy being Scratch McGee.