KOTLC Sokeefe One-Shots, Alternate Endings, etc

Flashback 23 (Keefe POV)

"When you say 'shattered'," Fitz asked Tiergan, "do you mean what happened to my dad's memories when his mind broke?"

"Yes and no. In your father's case—and Prentice's as well—it was their sanity that shattered, and the mental breakdown caused everything else to fracture. But in Keefe's case, the damage is limited to targeted memories. Whoever did this is incredibly talented."

"Gethen told me his washing skills were the reason the Neverseen recruited him," Foster said quietly. "I'm assuming this is what he meant. But why were some memories shattered and some washed?"

"I can only speculate, of course," Tiergan replied. "But I'm assuming there are certain moments that will eventually need to be triggered in order for Keefe to understand the full scope of his alleged legacy. Those memories would've been washed. But then there could've been other instances where Keefe discovered something they hadn't meant for him to learn, and those were shattered to prevent him from remembering."

"That makes sense," Fitz agreed. "Wasn't the first damaged memory something you saw by accident?" he asked Keefe. "And your mom seemed kind of desperate in this new one, so maybe she had to involve you in something she didn't want you to know about."

"But she didn't tell me anything!" Keefe argued in frustration. "So unless you want to search the entire city of London for a house with a green door..."

They began discussing symbols again after Foster pointed out the seal on the envelope.

He hadn't done this to find more frustrating, hard-to-decode symbols.

He realized the Lodestar symbol had been a map, but still.

Secretly he'd been hoping for a memory of his mom saying "here's my master plan--and here's how to stop me!"

But, life was never that easy.

"I bet the important stuff's in the part of the memory we're still missing," Fitz said quietly. "Keefe probably talked to every single person he saw, or found a way to read the letter--or both."

Keefe would've smirked if he weren't so frustrated. Fitz knew him too well. "Sounds like me," he agreed. "So how do we find the missing piece?"

"We may not be able to," Tiergan warned him. "Think of it like smashing a piece of glass. Gethen would've aimed his blow at the most crucial spot, and that section would shatter far more than the outlying area. So there's a very good chance that this is all that remains--at least beyond fragments too small and scattered to piece together."

"Okay, but we have Foster, remember?" Keefe couldn't hep but ask. His tendency to believe her capable of anything made it hard for him to accept Tiergan's words right away. "Can't she just heal the memory, the same way she healed Alden and Prentice?"

But Tiergan told him she healed their sanity, which was more tangible, and that Prentice's memories from before the break hadn't really recovered.

Shockingly, he even told them that Alden had probably lost a few memories too, but had been able to retain most of them due to the break being such a short period of time.

"But...he seems normal," Fitz said with a frown.

Tiergan explained that Alden was still himself--and that trauma doesn't take away who a person really is, even though it undeniably leaves its mark. And when he mentioned the toll it must take on Alden knowing that there's a Wanderling that bears his name and grows with his DNA, Keefe felt Foster's mood shift.

A touch of denial--he assumed she was wanting to deny that Alden wasn't fully restored to who he'd been before his sanity shattered, since she had blamed herself for it.