It was 4:00 am when Lee woke up on the third day. It was still dark since the sun wasn't due to rise for another 45 minutes. He lay there staring at the ceiling, thinking back over the last few days. Amanda and his uncle had stayed at the house for most of the day before since "Lee" hadn't wanted to leave and his uncle was equally concerned that "Amanda" was home alone with a concussion. Finally though they had had to go before any of her family came home and Lee had been left for another evening alone with Dotty and the boys.

It had actually been pretty enjoyable. It had been Philip's turn to pick the Saturday night movie so of course it had been something with a lot of car chases and action. Lee had made a mental note to never let him near the Corvette. Jamie had still been pretty quiet but seemed to be getting over the fears of the night before. Nonetheless, he had spent the evening cuddled up to Lee on the sofa. He'd found the physical contact comforting and after two days of Amanda's habits popping up, he had not been surprised at all to find himself absent-mindedly stroking Jamie's hair as they watched the movie. He had actually been sad when it had come time to say goodnight to everyone, getting and giving the hugs, listening to the sounds of Amanda's family settling down for the night. It wasn't exactly the Waltons with the two boys squabbling over almost everything, but to someone who had never experienced family life, it was a revelation. He couldn't wait to get back to his own life and he prayed it would really happen after the next dawn, but he also knew he had been given the opportunity to glimpse a tiny slice of domestic heaven.

Sighing deeply, he got up and headed downstairs. When he walked outside, he wasn't surprised to find Amanda already sitting the gazebo, head in her hands.

"Nice place. Come here often?" he quipped as he walked up and sat down beside her.

"Pretty often" she answered in an exhausted tone. "Lee, what is this doesn't work? What if I have to sit across the street watching you raise my kids for the rest of my life?"

"Oh, we'll have to get married and you'll retire to stay home and be Mr. Mom because there's no way the current Scarecrow is going to survive for more than day out in the field with the KGB after him when he can't even hit, let alone shoot anybody." Lee was trying to make her laugh and almost succeeded. She did laugh, but with a slight sob in it.

She managed to answer him though. "Can you imagine if the current Amanda King suddenly became Billy's top operative? I'd come visit you at work just to watch Francine's face."

That set them both off laughing hysterically until they managed to calm themselves, worried that they'd wake up Dotty or the boys. Finally they had sat back, leaning into each other for comfort and waited for dawn. He didn't remember drifting back to sleep as they sat there, but he knew something was different when he jerked awake. Turning his head slowly toward the person he could feel sitting beside him, he found himself looking down into Amanda's brown eyes and he knew the expression of relieved wonder he could see on her face was mirrored on his own.

"Hi beautiful" was the only thing he could think to say.

Amanda burst into tears. "Oh Lee, I have never been so glad to see you in my entire life!"

"Ditto" was all he could manage to get out before she had thrown herself into his arms, sobbing on his chest while he held on tight.

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His first stop on Monday morning was T.P.'s office. The antiquarian had looked up when he poked his head around the door and leaned back to stare at him for a moment through narrowed eyes. Whatever he saw made him nod in satisfaction before saying "Welcome back, Lee."

"Yeah, I, uh, came by to say thanks for the research on the amulet. It was pretty useful."

"So how is it being back in your own body? Did you enjoy your gift from the gods?"

Lee's jaw dropped. Amanda had never told him that T.P. had seen through the curse and recognized her two days before. "You knew? How do you know it's me now? And what do you mean 'gift"? That was a curse through and through."

T.P. shrugged. "If you say so. As for knowing it's you now, it's like I told Amanda, it's the eyes. You know the phrase 'the eyes are the window to the soul'? Well, when she came by last week, it was like a familiar soul looking out, not wrong exactly but not altogether right either. You two really are twin souls I think. That's your own special magic."

Lee rolled that thought around in his mind testing it out before finally asking, "What did you mean when you said it was a gift?"

T.P. grinned at him. "Amanda really didn't tell you anything about our conversation last week, did she?"

"We didn't have a lot of time for conversation alone to be honest."

"Well, the short version is that you were both given the chance to see through someone else's eyes and come to a more complete understanding of them and yourself in the process. I trust you learned something from all of this?"

"More than I could have imagined T.P., more than I ever could have imagined."

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