WARNING: LONG AN BEFORE I ACTUALLY GIVE YOU THE CHAPTER. HAHA.
I'm back with a new chapter! The response to the first one was absolutely astounding and I have to thank all of you for it.

I had planned chapter 2 so differently, but sometimes, things just come to you like lightning. Tonight, I decided to write and turn something that has recently happened to me into a little plot bunny to make me slightly happier. hihi.

This chapter is also inspired by a song I heard two nights ago in a concert. I've heard this text set to different music, but this was just too amazing. Text is actually a Sara Teasdale poem entitled "I am Not Yours". The text is here, but do search for the music setting arranged by Randall Stroope on Youtube. It's just... brilliant.

I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love—put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in a rushing wind.

Sadly however, Auggie Anderson still isn't mine. Nor is the rest of CA.

Chapter 2

Often, fate has a cruel way of bringing you to different realities. Auggie Anderson knew that better than anybody. He'd had the whole of his life at the palm of his hands when he had enlisted ad had been deployed to Iraq, but fate had other plans. He returned to the United States a very different man than he had been before.

Losing his eyesight was only the tip of the iceberg. There was much, much more that Auggie had little choice but to give up after that explosion. No more was the extremely spontaneous boy he had been, instead an extremely calculated man who had everything in order would surface. He forced himself to adjust- he knew that it was one thing he was good at. It was how life was when he was at the agency. As much as you do everything to fulfill a mission, you do anything to survive it too.

The thing is, simply surviving isn't living. It was something he'd never known, and at that moment that Decker made him realize just that, he knew it was something he knew he had to give a chance. Everything had gone full circle then. Tash was back with him and he could finally have that happily ever after that the agency couldn't grant him before.

Except there was a little problem.

Was his happily ever after then and now the same? Auggie, out of everyone, would know that rarely is something ever constant. Everything moves, everything changes. It had been years since he and Tash had been together. It almost even felt like a lifetime ago.

Because it was. Auggie wasn't the boy he was then. What he had wanted then was different from what he wanted now. Now that he understood that no matter how he tried, things could never be the same.

Auggie had been swept under his feet with the idea of exploring the world with Tash. But a month and a half in 3 different cities later, he was beginning to lose his head. He had hoped that Tash would be quick to learn the trade of living with a blind guy, but it was proving to be a headache. She'd always been such a mess when they were together and he had been sighted, but now, it only seemed worse because he suffered the consequences of her lack of organizational skills. He'd lost his cool so many times, and Tash was quick to point out the reason why things weren't working for them.

"You're not the Auggie back then," she'd repeated so many times. He wanted to say he was, but knew it would be the biggest lie. Many things had changed- things even he couldn't stop from changing if he wanted to.

He was reaching the end of his straw at this point. He'd thought if it would have been better if he'd just stayed at the Agency- in DC, in the comforts of his apartment… with Annie. Annie who in a heartbeat had learned to move around him with such ease that even he forgot of the plight that his Iraq deployment had left him with. Annie whom he'd learned to love and let go.

He thought it was easy to let her go, if only because he had Tash now- like it should've been with him from the beginning. Like it should've been when he wasn't so angry that the CIA had denied his close and continuing that he had himself flown to Iraq. But nothing now was easy- not even remotely comfortable. He had reached the end of the string with Tash, and it snapped in an instant with a message he had received in his email. It was brief- from his brother Anthony.

Come home, it had read. Dad's really sick. It's pretty serious.

Tash had been on a warpath the evening that Auggie proposed that they go back to the US. She wanted nothing to do with the place- not after everything she'd had to go through. She'd pretty much declared herself on self-exile.

"I'm not going back there," she'd argued over and over. Auggie only shook his head. He told her he didn't want to either- he and his father have always been at odds- but he had to, and he would go even without her. He begged her to come with him, but she wouldn't have any of it. She'd packed her bags and left him, the way they were so used to doing. He'd cursed everything to hell when she did it again, but then, he realized how entirely peaceful he seemed without her presence. Tash was a firecracker, but she was one he couldn't handle. He learned he was better off without her, learned he was better off alone.

But he didn't want to be. He knew who he'd always wanted to be with. So after booking a ticket back to the US, Auggie sent that one person whom he knew would always have his back a message.

I'm coming home.