Sorry it took so long for me to update this story! I got carried away by The Lightening Strike! This chapter is slightly spiritual/contemplating life so I apologize if that's not your plate of Oreos.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, handsome, talented, exceptional?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking for the reason that others will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. In my profession it is imperative to remind myself that when our greatest fears are presented to ourselves, we are the ones to put away the evils of humanity.

Who am I but a witness to the madness of life that we all so often fall for? The glory of illumination is within us. It is not just in some of us.

It is in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to follow in our footsteps, to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Spence has been home for a month with little to no progression in his memory and yet I find myself in the throes of contemplation at the hours of dawn. Too many times have I come to the conclusion that this is my chance. This is my chance to do it all over again with him.

Mercifully Strauss and the iron fists of the higher federal powers have given my subordinate and I a month's leave from the Bureau in the hope that a few weeks will warp my almost lover back into the genius agent he was before he left us. Of course every now and again Spencer will get this glint his eyes like we're sharing a private joke over the dinner table and all of a sudden we're us again and it's alright and we're alright but once more it is gone before I can entirely register it. Then there's Jack, who remains a stranger to the man.

It is nothing more than a dull stab to my old heart when my son looks to me with the beginnings of tears when Spence doesn't remember how he would always read with Jack at bedtime. And regardless of forgetting, Spencer will still sit down with him when asked and recite divine stories with all the excitement in the world as though he really did remember their prized bond.

That's just the way he is. Spence will always put others ahead of himself and I admire him arduously for it.

Me? I watch. I am a quiet voyeur to this new situation. I am patiently waiting for the catastrophe of my being to seem beautiful again and loveable. I am longing in high spirits and bitterness for the day when we wake up and he knows again. When he knows everything. It may be the coldest day of the year and the snows and skies of memories may be diminished or even dead and yet when he knows...when he knows who he is and was...I will be myself again. Into the darkness of familiarity the hope is but a small comfort against the vast light of the unknown.

Spencer is the sun that I orbit around and his detached self knows no bounds and I sometimes find myself on the outer rings of Saturn it seems, desperately clinging to his radiant gravity because I might spin so far away that I lose light of this insane situation that I am so in love with.

Thirty days and I have come to welcome our friendship as a break to the years we would fight and love each other in intervals. It is a clean slate. Painful, but the brief days of support from the team has eased most.

Dave has been marvelous with Spence, as is JJ on occasion. Morgan is angry and frustrated as he has every right to be, as my new housemate still remains wary of his brotherly teasing and zeal. Emily and Garcia are small slivers of grief that take it to the heart when Spence does not return their embraces and declines offers to spend time "with the girls" like he so often did in the past. There are moments of fastidious dismay when we try to ignore our situation and forget that we have a new presence in our team. It is like welcoming someone new to our family in the darkest of hours and we want not to replace Spencer but commemorate him when he is not even gone.

There are some things broken and some things lost but there are other things that may be restored and replenished. Our bridge as a team has crumbled under the weight of such an upset. But then there's the silver lining: the chance for something special to be built.

All of us together.

There are of course the doctors that hover around him and more and more I find myself at a loss for words and don't want to hear other people talking about it either. Their conversations and condolences seem false and empty and I prefer the company of solitude, which says nothing and never makes me really feel alone, or with this familiar and new man in my life. He is a hybrid of sorts, a mold of timidity from the past and confident sarcasm of the present that I am growing accustomed to. This intense sort of reminder makes the days when he is a total stranger a little easier to bare.

So here we are tonight and I'm up late sitting at the kitchen table, polishing off the last of the annual reports I still am required to complete despite my sabbatical.

The blonde moon is a glorious slice in the apricot sky when night finally deigns to crawl over the horizon. Mustard scraps buff gas puffs into oblivion and all of Virginia is serene and a bore. Is it only when I rub my eyes in tiredness that I notice the shy shadow bouncing in the entranceway to the kitchen.

"Hey," I breathe, taking in the sight of Spence, my almost husband and my never forever.

"Hi Aaron," and my name on his lips is music and the small twinge in my chest is sadness. He has developed the pattern of saying my name frequently in spoken speech as a method in which to drive his mind to remember.

Alas, nothing.

I have not breached our cool friendship in hopes that a wild night of lust will frighten him into remembering just what we are and I just tell myself that we need time. Patience and time. And with my quiet ignorance, he has come to ask questions regarding the nature of our friendship and it has brought a croak in my voice on numerous occasions to deny it all. He doesn't believe me, I know it. The narrowed gazes and the furrowed brow during family time broadcast more than enough. He knows that beneath the tentative smiles and skating on eggshells lies something incredibly and passionately secret.

It is frustrating to not come completely clean so I am only somewhat alarmed when a pale and creamy hand covers mine tonight.

I glance up, an archaic pair of brown colliding with inquisitive amber and my heart is at once a dampened fire.

Those looks he would give me all those years ago...they never aged. And here it is again: the same look with an owner who is unaware.

Few moments pass in uncomfortable silence and we both eye our overlapped hands for what seems like an eternity.

"You lied but you never hid anything," he says in the barest of whispers and I strain to catch his words. "You kept pictures around...of us... and I don't remember any of them." He pauses and the steady hum of my body is the only noise to be heard, I am sure. "I keep telling myself to remember...please, Spencer, remember. But being in this house...the smells, the furniture, the feelings...I just know."

"Know what?" My voice is but a passing glimpse of sound because I need to know what he is thinking.

And then in an instant, his hand tightens around mine and his eyes take on the cloud of nostalgia, a terrific change and all at once his thoughts are in his face.

The smallest breath hangs in the air and then he leans in, over all the mess of paper and over all the mess of ourselves until our lips are a few inches away.

"We were in love, weren't we, Aaron?"

This will perhaps be my greatest battle. This I will remember in my older years when I sit and look out at those who pass me by. I'll sit and watch and dream about Spencer's words and how his eyes looked in that moment.

You know, we pretend to know what we're doing. We pretend to know when and where we're going and what life will hold for us and what we would do if we could go it all over again.

But in all honesty, we have no idea.

All we hope is that somehow, someday, we end up where we're meant to be.

Someday, we'll get there.

Someday, we'll get it all right.

"Yes," I finally say in tears, "and it was a beautiful love."

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