I sit down to edit my chapter of Nature's First Green Is Gold and I come up with this instead. In my defense, Roxanne and I have been talking about this scenario and I needed to get it out of my head.

She doesn't even care when Wylie and Cho decide to go canvass, leaving her behind with the mountain of paperwork. She cares a little bit about the stupid grin on her face, but it's been such a long time since she's felt this good about things. Her job is going well – Cho finally trusts her again, and she's found a family that she never expected. She and Wylie are going to a League of Legends tournament and they are going to destroy everyone else. She's never seen him play that one, but he gives her a run for her money in everything else they've played and it's going to be a blast. She's just as excited about dinner afterward, despite her earlier reservations about seeing anyone. Wylie's different. She likes who she is when she's around him. She wants to be around him more.

"Sir, can I ask you a question?" she says hesitantly when she encounters Abbott in the break room.

"About your date with Wylie?"

She stops. "How did you know?"

"I saw those Cheshire grins on your faces when you were talking by his desk this morning," Abbot says with a grin. "It's not my first rodeo, you know."

Vega is glad her complexion doesn't betray blushing too easily. "Yeah, well...you told Lisbon the other day about how your wife, when you guys met, you were both very career focused. How did you let go enough to be in a relationship without jeopardizing you careers? How do you know if you really want that?"

Abbott smiles. "Somehow you just know, you know that you have these goals and you think you can't deviate from that, but then you meet a person and you realize you want both. And you realize you can have both." He looks at her. "You already said 'yes', you know. Before you came to me. That's your answer right there."

She has a split second to make a decision when they ask her if she wants to come, but her head shakes back and forth immediately and firmly. When she was four, she was at her uncle's side when the ambulance didn't get to the scene of the accident fast enough. When she was twenty one, she squeezed her father's still warm hand as she pressed her forehead to the edge of the mattress so no one would actually see her cry. She is bad luck. She is staying behind. She's seen too much in her lifetime.

"Hey, you okay?"

Her eyes are trained on her hands, which are clasped in her lap, but they aren't actually looking at anything when she raises them to focus on Lisbon. "I don't understand. It was a routine canvass."

Lisbon bites her lip. "I know."

Vega's eyes drop, her view blurring into nothing again.

"I remember when he told me that the guys downstairs called him "The Coyote," and he didn't know why. Somehow the conversation led him to believe there was a children's cartoon about sex trafficking." The corner of Cho's mouth turns up. "He was absolutely horrified."

Lisbon smiles. "I remember when he..."

She goes off into a story about him having a program on his computer that announced the time, and how irritated everyone got, and how he'd turn it on at random times to make everyone jump. Then Jane talks, and Vega doesn't remember the details of what he says, but she does remember that his story, like everyone else's, was of something that happened before she joined the team.

Another cruel reminder that while all of them have lost him, they have months of memories of him that Vega doesn't.

Jane vanishes after the funeral. Lisbon is distressed, and Cho and Abbot are clearly struggling with how to keep the team together. Vega offers to work extra hours. It keeps her distracted for the most part, but there are always those moments when she thinks of a joke, a pun, and she turns in her chair with the words already on her lips, only to see his empty desk and have to excuse herself to that small broom closet on the floor right below theirs where she used to go to compose herself after another failed apology to Cho.

Saturday comes. Vega feels lost. She's halfheartedly playing hackey sack in her kitchen when her oven beeps. She doesn't remember turning it on. Or owning a hackey sack, for that matter.

Her phone buzzes. It's Cho. Jane is back, and they have a case. Vega heads into work, determined to shake this feeling off, to focus on the job, to stop letting something that she can't change distract her. She was willing to take that risk for Wylie, but there is no sense in it now.

Her focus wavers when their case involves a supposed psychic. He tells her Wylie is okay. Wylie isn't in pain anymore. Wylie wants her to be happy. She knows – she didn't know him that long but somehow she knows – if their positions were reversed Wylie would cling to that, to want to believe this man was for real, would convince himself that he was, just so he could believe that she was at peace.

Vega doesn't buy it for one second. "Don't you dare try to play with me like that," she snaps at him. "Don't you dare use me."

"You aren't a believer," he says, smiling at her. "That's okay. It doesn't change the fact that Agent Wylie wants you to know he needs you to be okay, to be happy. He can't stand to have hurt you like this." He steps forward and puts a hand on her shoulder.

Vega snaps, pushing him violently away. He falls to the floor, shouting a protest at her, and she screams something at him that has Lisbon and Cho pulling her back, Cho shouting for her to contain herself and Lisbon telling her it's okay, they'll go back to the FBI, she didn't have to interview him, it'll be okay. She'll be okay. She'll be okay.

Of course she'll be okay. She gets to live. She'll learn how to again, one day.

"Jane, I need to talk to you."

He looks up from stirring his tea. "Of course."

"Or rather, not talk to you," Vega says. "I have to tell you something."

"Sure."

She sucks in a deep breath. "I don't know what Wylie and I were. We were friends...we were moving toward something...but I don't know what would have happened with us. All I have are these...these memories, and these imagined outcomes, and..." she sets her jaw and stares him down. "I don't know what we would have been and I don't get to find out, and you ran. You left Lisbon behind and gave her an ultimatum because you're scared." She puts her hands firmly on the table and leans on them, staring him down like he was a suspect. "You love her. You're going to love her whether you are with her or not and that means if something happens to her you're going to hurt. Don't add to that hurt a wonder of what you might have been in the time that you weren't with her because you were afraid of what would happen."

Jane stares at her; she can tell he's absorbing what she's saying.

"You have to be better than this," she says firmly. "If you love her, forget this fear that something will happen. Don't push her away because you're afraid of being hurt because trust me, if you lose her when you two are some undefined something, it's going to be worse." Her voice softens. "I didn't know Wylie long enough to love him, and I don't know if I would have, but..." she stops and bites her lip before continuing. "But I wish I'd had the chance to know. You do know. Don't screw that up."

Jane continues to stare, then sets his teacup down, giving a nod. He says nothing as he leaves the room.

Two days later, Jane and Lisbon walk into the office and announce that they're engaged. Vega goes to the wedding, lingering on the side of the dance floor when everyone begins to celebrate. She sees Cho chatter excitedly with some old colleagues. She watches Lisbon dump out her alcohol when no one is watching, then take Jane's hand and lead him off into the thicket. She feels nervous when Cho approaches her, knowing what he is going to say.

"You don't want to join the party?"

She sighs. "I can't."

"Yes you can. Rigsby is going to request the chicken dance."

She shifts her weight. "Sir...the last time I danced..." she looks down into her cup as if she expects to find something other than beer in there. "My last dance was with Wylie, and I'm just not ready for that to not be my last dance anymore."

Cho gives her a sympathetic look. "Michelle, I know you miss him. But you know if it was you, he'd be out there. He'd dance by himself while everyone else is in pairs, and he'd believe you were there with him. That's the kind of person he was."

She smiles. "I know. I just...I don't know if I can believe that."

"They say a person isn't really gone unless people forget about them," Cho tells her. "And this isn't the kind of thing I usually think about, but I think Wylie would like to be at this wedding and you're the only one here who can make that happen."

She bites her lip, then nods. "I'll see you guys out there."

When Cho turns back to the floor, Vega looks up at the sky. There's a star somewhere out there named Vega. She doesn't know if it's visible this time of year, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's out there somewhere. That psychic being a fraud doesn't mean that Wylie isn't someplace too.

She heads out onto the dance floor, slowly relaxing, her arms out, spinning, smiling, holding her cup in the air and closing her eyes. If one isn't really gone until people forget, her pretending Wylie was there with her might just mean that somehow he is.

Happy...Wega Wednesday?