((I have to thank all the reviewers so the encouragement you've given me to continue and apologize for the tardiness of the next chapter. I'll try to make it longer and more interesting for you!))

Where am I?

'She's my wife…'

Wife… I'm someone's wife…

So much darkness… Where do I know his face?

Light slowly crept up onto the darkness that had engulfed her. Eyelids opened softly… blurry from lack of usage over the time she was void on consciousness. How long was she out for anyway? Blurs of shapes and colors slowly become steady and visible. A curtain… a plain blue curtain blowing softly in the wind and sun. All was quite; minus the calming chimes she could not see and suspected were outside the window.

Where am I? A hospital?

She sat up carefully and the bed sheets fell off of her, white and navy blue sheets. Around the room was nothing like any hospital she had ever seen… if she had ever seen one that was. The walls were wood, a rich brown with a homey feeling. The room itself was obviously a bedroom… A dresser on the far side, a side table next to her, a door that most likely lead to a closet of some sort… The bed was pushed up against the wall on one corner below the window, which was cracked lightly and letting in the fresh cool air. She remembered the air… it was cool and crisp with the slight smell of moisture. Yes she knew she had felt that air before, somewhere.

Her legs draped out from the covers and touched a small carpet laid down before the bed. The rest of the floor was hard wood, but inviting. Slowly she stood feeling slightly dizzy, as if she hadn't walked for a few days… Her hair dangled down over her bare shoulders and along her back. Silky and blonde just as she remembered it… though it felt strange having it down and she didn't know why. Instinctively she padded around the room to try and find something to put it up. The only thing she could find was a small black elastic laying in a bowl on a dresser that had a mirror on it. She gazed into it to look back at a face she remembered seeing before. She knew the face, but she had no idea who she was…

Pulling her gaze away from the mirror she quickly threw her hair up into a ponytail high at the back of her head. It would do for now… Maybe she should try to figure out where she was first. Looking down she saw she was wearing a soft pair of cotton pajama pants of a white colour with blue strips in checkered pattern. Actually they more like little white squares outlined in thin blue. In any case they matched that simple white tank top she was also wearing… neither of which she ever remembered seeing before. Brushing that though off she wandered the room to find that the open door lead to a closet. Opposite the closet was another door, which remained closed. She guessed it was the way out of the room unless she was trapped in here and would have to climb out the window… however, she doubted that was the case. Walking towards the door she saw light coming out from the bottom, not a bright light but different from the light that would come out of a closet. Wrapping her hand around the plain chrome handle she turned it slowly and opened the door with a creak.

Sure enough the door lead out of the room and into what appeared to be a small hallway. Noises of life could be heard in the distance in what could be labeled of a living room. Slowly she made her way down the hardwood floor hallway until she reached the pale blue carpeting of the living room. The room was quite big, with a fireplace on the furthest with a small comfortable looking carpet laid in front. At the far right was what could be the sitting area with a couch and a love seat surrounding a tidy maple coffee table. Plants were placed in corners as well as some lamps and an overhead fixture in the middle of it all. It definitely looked lived in and not at all like a hospital. Why did she think she was in a hospital? Maybe it was because the last thing she remembered seeing was sterile white walls, after that it is all darkness and bitter cold.

"Your awake." A voice rang behind her and almost made her jump as she turned around to see the face that had been running through her dreams, if you wanted to call them that. The same one that had uttered the words that still rang through her head.

This morning had gone by quickly as his mornings were always early ones. He wasn't on the boats today as it was an unfish week as the men liked to call it. They probably wouldn't head out for another few weeks. It was just that time of the year…. He had gone down to the boats to fix some things and repair some nets, things he did on his day off when he wasn't down at the market. Having worked from 6:30 to 10:00 he figured he should head back to his home and check on the women resting on his bed. The same women that he had once blamed for his downfall… and soon realized that she blamed herself as well. It was evident the day she stood up and said a two-letter word, which gave him a second chance at life.

Upon walking back into his small beach cottage he thought about the real reason to his downfall and it had not been Quistis. It had been his pride and his inability to fallow and simple order. Things might have been different should he have… Then there was Rinoa… He would hate to admit it but he had gone to Timber to help Rinoa, who he had been dating at the time. Rinoa had been fast to ditch him when puberty boy came along. Quistis had fallowed him, trying to stop him from making a mistake. The girl was not a bad instructor… in fact he knew that he had been the reason her license was revoked. Yet through all the trauma he had given her she never gave up on him till he pushed her away and almost killed her.

He pushed his thoughts aside as it had been two years since he had even thought about it all. The past was the past and he could not change that. He entered his home and dropped his shoes and jacket at the door… he wasn't insanely neat but he didn't like to much dirt… beside should the place get too dirty he wasn't sure if he would have the time or energy to make an effort to clean it. With only a plain grey shirt and a pair of jeans he wore to work on the boat he walked through entrance and up the hall till he reached the connecting hall to the living room and bedroom. There he saw her with her hair slightly messy, sporting a pair of light coloured pajamas. It was a sight he had never seen before on Quistis Trepe! Yet… he liked it. No SeeD uniform, no glasses, and no stern face… she seemed confused. That's when he said it.

She turned to face him, but the sight of his face caught her off guard. Something flashed through her brain… a memory. She tried to grab it but it only made her flinch and grab her head, throwing her off balance. Immediately she was caught before her untimely fall to the carpeted flooring.

He swooped her up and carried her into the living room, placing her down on the couch. The doctors had told him that she would probably be a bit weak for the first few days. After all she had nearly drowned, nearly died of hypothermia, and she was suffering a terrible amnesia. Having laid her on the couch he fetched a blanket, which he laid on top of her.

"Am I really your wife?" There it was the question. The question he was afraid she was going to ask… this is where it all came down. He could lie to her or tell her the truth, saving himself a lot of grief but letting Squall know exactly where he was and what he was doing. If Squall and the others came to Fisherman's Horizon they would give him away and his newly found life here would be over. If they knew who he really was he would be banned from the small fishing village and forced to find a new life. Yet if he lied to her and told her she was his wife then Garden would not on his door step anytime soon. Plus he would get even more respect out of the people at Fisherman's Horizon if he had a beautiful blonde wife at home. It was a tough one… but in the end he knew what his final decision was.

"Yes you are…" He said sitting down on the couch next to her but with some space. She looked at him for a moment, deep blue eyes staring into his emerald ones.

"What happened to me?"

He sighed and rang a hand through his hair. It only took him a minute to spin a wonderful strand of lies that she would take in. "You don't remember anything?"

She shook her head, "I remember your face, that's why I believe what you tell me…"

So she believed him? Well that helped some; it would make this a lot easier. "Well… I'll start at the begging then." He said looking down at the carpet then looking back up. "We met a long time ago at school, you were the good student and I was the bad boy. We didn't get along at first…" He figured he'd make it somewhat true. "But after I asked you to help me pass a course I was failing we became friends… quickly something more. When we got out of school you went off to college but came back when the course you had taken was not giving you what you wanted. When you came back I had a job and proposed, hoping if I popped the question you wouldn't leave again. You said yes and we had a tiny wedding on the beach." He remembered the instructor saying something about liking the beach once. "We moved to a different town and hoped to start a family, but that's when the war broke out…" he paused to let the first bit sink in as he recoiled how he would put the second part. "We both joined, even though I begged you not too. The enemy captured you, along with many others, to be used as hostages. We never got you back and the war ended before an agreement could be made. It's been a year and we just finally found you, you escape them and we found you floating in the sea with barely any life left. I expected they had killed you…"

She listened to it all. How could she not remember it? This was frustrating… She nodded and looked to the floor, pulling the blanket up.

He felt award about this all. Sure he'd been with females, many of them in fact. But this was his ex instructor who had amnesia and could snap out of it at any moment and smack him in the face if her tried something. Maybe he would just act like he was afraid to touch her as the doctors said she might have sustained injury. Yeah that was it. He's let her come to him… that way he wouldn't feel completely guilty about the whole thing. I mean come on; she did save his ass… a few times.

"I'm going to make us some dinner." He said getting up, rubbing her leg as he went. This could be more difficult then he thought. He was tempted, so badly, to take advantage of the situation. But his conscious… or what was left of it, kept telling him no!

She watched him get up and walk into the kitchen. It was hard to read him, yet some where inside of her she felt like she knew him. Had always known him… it was a strange feeling to not remember anything, but she couldn't find anything wrong with the story he told her. And she had no reason thus far to not believe him… right?