The next morning, the family continued on with its normal routine. Drew worked in the fields, the children went off to school, and Gwen stayed in the house and kept up with the chores. Both Jeremy and Jill noticed immediately that their parents were not speaking or acknowledging each other, but neither of them mentioned it. Forcing a reconciliation would only make the fight much, much worse, and they had witnessed enough disputes between them in their young lives to have figured this out.

"Kids, get your backpacks," Gwen said. "The bus will be here in ten minutes."

Their son and daughter ran from the room, happy to leave their parents alone in their uncomfortable silence.

"Drew," Gwen began once satisfied that her children were out of earshot.

He continued to read his newspaper, pretending that his pestering wife and her currently annoying voice were nothing more than figments of his imagination.

"Drew, please stop being so childish."

Just to continue to spite her, he stuck his pointed nose just a little higher in the air. He smiled internally as a growl escaped the back of her throat. There was something morbidly exciting about intentionally angering her.

She threw her dishcloth onto the counter top as she placed her hands on her hips. "We went to bed angry, and I'd rather not spend the day that way."

His eyes lowered. Not enough to be significant to most people, but Gwen saw easily that his whole face had softened at this. Despite his hardened, stubborn, pain-in-the-arse exterior, he hated when they fought too.

She took this as his concession and approached him, wrapping her arms over his shoulders and pressing her lips into his cheek. "I don't want you to spend the day upset with me. I love you."

"Then promise me you will drop it," he said, still not taking his eyes from his newspaper, although he was quite obviously not reading it. His fists were clenched around the already creased pages, his palms turning white. "You won't bring this nonsense up again. You won't try to force me to want something that I don't."

"But..."

"No." He did look at her then, his grey eyes cold and narrow and fixed. A lesser woman would have cowered, but not Gwen. And that was fine. He didn't want to intimidate his wife or make her feel weak, like she wasn't his equal, because she was. They were partners, and he loved and respected her opinions and the fact that she wasn't ashamed to be a powerful woman, but he was not going to back down from his stance on this. "You have to tell me that you are going to let go of whatever idealistic nonsense you have about how it is possible for you to recover our memories because we don't bloody need them."

"Drew, don't you..."

"No," he emphasized once more, but this time he raised his voice. "No. The answer is no!"

She looked like she was going to cry, and Drew was honestly sorry for that. He didn't want to upset her or make her feel badly about herself or their relationship, but this was something he felt strongly about. A husband's sole job was to protect and to take care of his family, and he wasn't going to fail at that. Gwen could never find out about the man he had seen her with. He could never allow her to feel that pain ever again. He couldn't let her remember.

"I love you, Gwen," he whispered, his hand reaching for hers. He kissed her knuckles. "Please do me this favor, all right?"

Her lip was caught between her teeth, biting and tugging for a long moment. "I'll try," she said eventually, though the words scratched at her throat like sandpaper. "I can't promise anything more than that."

With a sharp, playful tug on her wrist, Gwen was in his lap. One hand rested at the back of her neck, the other was held along her rib cage, just under the curve of her breast. He smiled down at her, his lips quirked into a self-assured smirk. "How much longer til the bus gets here?" he whispered, eyes wanton and lust-filed.

"Any minute."

"Meet me upstairs?" he asked.

Gwen nodded and smiled, getting up from her husband's lap just as the kids came rushing back down the stairs. She was thankful for their timing. She wouldn't have liked for her children to see them in such an intimate position. They were far too young, and she wasn't ready for them to begin asking questions.

Drew dabbed a napkin at the corner of his mouth and got up, passing by his kids as he went upstairs, stopping only to pat Jeremy on the back and to plant a warm kiss on Jill's forehead.

He waited for his wife in the bedroom, choosing to ignore for now how much of a bloody prick he had been by bullying her. He let himself pretend that her smile had reached her eyes. He allowed himself to be deluded into thinking that his reasons for not wanting to think about what little he remembered were purely selfless. He chose to pretend that he had not dreamed of Gwen and the dark-haired man with the green eyes.

He closed his mind to the memory of the man calling her Ginny just before he kissed her.

Another week went by. Their routine was the same. They would wake up for breakfast, and everyone would go off to their own jobs. On the weekends, Drew would have Jeremy to help him and Gwen would have Jill. Their lives reeked of normality, and Gwen could do nothing but think about how bored she had become. Her life was mundane without her daydreams of a happy childhood, of the one sister and one brother she had imagined for herself. But she had not had it in her heart to indulge in her fantasies since her disagreement with Drew. She had made a promise that she would try to let it all go, and she wasn't going to break it, even if she did resent him for forcing her to make that promise in the first place.

It was Sunday afternoon, and the Drew and Gwen had squeezed every penny that they had earned that month so that they could afford to take the children into town for a bit of fun.

They had gone shopping in Towne Square, had gone to a nearby farm where there was a lovely petting zoo, and had even gone to a pumpkin patch so that they could make homemade pumpkin pies to embrace the change of season. It had been a wonderful, beautiful afternoon, and both Jeremy and Jill were sad to see the day end.

The drive home had been in relative silence. The radio played softly in the background, Jill had fallen asleep with her head against the window, and Jeremy was reading a book about astronauts. Drew and Gwen had hardly spoken the entire way, and the tension between them was thick enough to cut with a knife.

"I thought we were okay, Gwen," Drew said, keeping his voice low in hopes that his son was not eavesdropping. "We talked about all of this, and I thought you were fine with it."

"When did I ever say I was fine with anything?" she hissed back.

"The day we talked about it."

"I said I'd try to let it go. I never said I was happy about it."

Drew exhaled sharply. "You're insufferable, do you know that? Nothing ever makes you happy."

Her eyes widened with disbelief and anger all mixed into one. "You're joking, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not. Do you... do you even want to be married to me?"

She gasped, feeling as though she had been slapped.

"You aren't happy. That much is blatantly obvious. You never want to talk to me, you never let me touch you. If you think they -" he nodded towards the back of the car "- can't sense that there is something wrong between us, then maybe you need your head examined because you must be bloody stupid."

She stared straight ahead, unwilling to look at her husband or to respond to the ludicrous nonsense he was spilling. This was by no means the first time they had fought, but it was the first time he had ever questioned whether or not she wanted to be married to him. That hurt more than anything. Of course she loved him. She loved everything about him, about their marriage – their home, their children, the way that even when he was exhausted, he never turned down an opportunity to make love to her. She loved how he made her feel. This on-going dispute between them had changed that, though. He had made her question herself and how they felt about each other. That was painful, and she wasn't going to stand for it.

"Jeremy is asleep," Drew said, breaking their silence once more. He sighed heavily. "Gwen, I didn't mean what I said."

"Which part?"

"Any of it. I'm just overtired is all."

"Fine."

"You're still pissed, aren't you?"

"Does it show?"

Her arms were crossed over her chest. She leaned her head against the window. Their arguing was making her overheated, and the cool glass against her hot skin was divine. She stared aimlessly, vaguely aware that her husband was still speaking to her.

"You know, it hurts my bloody feelings, too," he was saying. "The kids', too, I'd reckon. They hear you prattling on about your life back in England, and you act like the shit that you can't even remember was the greatest part of your life. What are we to you, Gwen?"

She knew he was rationalizing. It was what he always did when he was wrong. He had never been man enough to just apologize, and really she didn't care. He always made more of an arse of himself when he tried to justify the things that came out of his mouth, and somehow her internal struggle not to laugh in his face would usually make her accept his apology for what it was and move on. She was hoping that this would be the case for this time, as well.

"And we do appreciate you, you know," Drew continued. "The kids and I. You're so good at taking care of us. You never leave us wanting for anything, and it's such a relief for me to be able to get my work done and then be able to come home and not have to worry..."

"Stop the car!" Gwen cried, interrupting him without a second thought. "Drew, pull over now!"

He did without question.

Gwen was barely aware of her children stirring in the back seat as she bolted from the car, her husband following in tow. She kicked her shoes off as she ran, her backless sandals inhibiting her speed. She could see it in the distance, in the center of the field. It was the woman with the radishes, and she was alone in the middle of nowhere. It made no sense, but Gwen had to go to her.

"Gwen! Stop!"

She didn't. She ignored the cries of her husband and kept running. She was almost there.

The radish lady was amidst the tall grass, her legs folded beneath her. Her long, blonde hair was whipping around in the breeze, and a crown of freshly-picked flowers sat atop her head. Her smile was dazed and dreamy and serene.

"I knew you'd come here," said the woman. "I knew if I sat here long enough you would pass by, and then I could see you again. There are things I want to tell you."

Gwen clutched her stomach as she tried to catch her breath. "What are you doing here? Who are you?"

The blonde smiled. "I can't tell you that," she said. "You're one of the fallen. So is he. So am I."

"The – the fallen?"

"Yes."

"What does that mean?"

"I can't tell you that either. Once I do, you can't go back. You'll know, and you won't be able to fix it. And you have your family to think of. Knowing will only put them in danger."

Gwen's breathing had finally steadied. She could feel Drew behind her. He had caught up, but she had more to ask the radish lady. She couldn't just go back. "Does that mean you are in danger?"

"Yes, I am. But it's quite all right. I'm all alone, you see. There is no one who will be hurt if something bad happens to me."

"What do you mean by fallen?" Gwen asked, falling to her knees. "I don't understand!"

"I wish I could tell you, but I can't. You will learn, though. You will learn in time, and when you do, you won't be able to look back. You need to get out of here. They'll come for you soon enough, even if you don't know, and if that happens you will lose everything. Take your family and leave Iowa, Ginny."

Drew coughed.

"My name is Gwen," she said automatically. "Not Ginny."

"Of course it is," said the blonde, her smile spreading just a little.

"Gwen, let's get out of here!" Drew exclaimed, pointing to the car. "The kids!"

"No! I can't. I can't leave until she tells me what she means," Gwen cried, gripping onto the blonde's shoulders. "We're in danger? Please, what are we in danger from? Can't you at least tell me that?"

The woman nodded solemnly. "I wish I could. But there are others. Find the others and stay together. Together, we can defeat them."

"This is ridiculous."

Drew reached around Gwen's middle, hoisting her up onto his shoulder, all of his strength built up from manual labor being used to hold Gwen in place as she struggled. His arms wrapped around her knees, one had reaching up to whack her on the bottom. "Your children are in the car, Gwen. They are waking up. Anything can happen to them if we aren't there."

"Drew, I – ow!"

He whacked her once again on he behind. "Do you see? Do you see now why I say this nonsense you are so obsessed with is dangerous? That woman is clearly mental!"

Gwen continued to struggle. "She is not! She knows something! She knows why this happened to us!"

"Because my wife is a lunatic?"

"Because we are the fallen!"

"Yes, my wife is a lunatic."

"Drew!"

Her wiggling had caused his balance to shift and his grip on her had slackened. She tumbled out of his arms onto the ground, his weight crashing on top of her as she did. They were a tangle of arms and legs, sore from the contact with the hard earth.

"Sorry," he muttered, getting to his feet and hoisting her up. "I didn't mean to hurt you. But we have to get back."

"But... just... wait." She sighed, combing through her hair with long, exhausted fingers. "She knows something about us. She knew we'd be here. She knew about our memories, our children. I never told her any of that!"

"She's bloody mental, and I'm beginning to honestly wonder if you are, too!"

"Drew..."

"Gwen, get in the car."

"But she's still...over there..."

Except she wasn't. She wasn't in the middle of the field anymore. She was gone, and there was no sign of her anywhere. It was as if she had vanished into thin air, and Gwen was left startled and confused.

"Will you get in the car now?" Drew asked.

Gwen didn't answer, but she did comply. And she didn't say another word the rest of the way home.