a/n: This chapter may seem a bit over the place, but I promise there is a point for all of it. So do go forth and read; foreshadowing and even more mystery await! :)

His night continued as sleepless, and he found himself immensely thankful that the children were regularly awakened by rooster. As soon as the dawn broke, their eyes opened, and Drew smiled at them as he stood from beside his wife.

He knelt on the floor near his daughter's side of the bed, letting the corner of his lips raise into a smile as he saw the look of glee crossing over her face. Even in times that were so terrible that Drew did not know how his family could possibly get through, her hopeful smile and childhood innocence seemed to brighten his mood. How differently his life could have turned out if he didn't have Jill and Jeremy to help him look at the positive side of things. How differently he could have been without his reason to wake up each morning.

"Daddy, I missed you," Jill said as she wrapped her short arms around his neck as tightly as she could squeeze. "I dreamed that we were back home and that I didn't get to kiss you before I went to school."

"Oh, how terrible that must have been, baby," Drew responded with kind sarcasm that he knew she was far too young to pick up on. "I promise you, for as long as I live, I will always be there to kiss you every morning."

"Good."

After a few more minutes of being hugged so tightly that Drew had actually begun to feel light-headed, Jill released her grip.

"Now listen, kids, I need to talk to you about something important."

"Is Mum having another baby?" Jeremy asked, his voice hopeful, but with a twinge of an emotion that Drew could not identify.

Drew was honestly taken aback. "What on Earth gave you that idea?"

Jeremy shrugged. "I was just guessing."

Drew laughed softly as he reached out to ruffle his son's shaggy blond hair. "No, I promise your mum is not going to have another baby."

"So what do you need to tell us, Daddy?" Jill asked.

The father bit his lip as he looked on at his two beautiful, healthy, and happy children. He had wanted to try, in simplest terms as possible, to explain to them what was going on and why they had left home. He wanted for them to understand what had happened to their happy life. But after looking at their bright faces, so filled with optimism and hope, he didn't want to burden them with anything. He wanted their faces to remain young, their hearts to remain naive, and their concerns to remain minimal.

He wanted them to have the childhood he was sure that he had never had, for them to never have to grow up too fast.

Drew swallowed back the lump in his throat. It was in that moment that he realized that he had everything. He didn't need money or answers to impossible questions. He needed the very life that he had now, the life with his beautiful wife and his two gorgeous children.

"I just wanted to tell you both how sorry I am that we had to leave home. But I promise you, one day soon we will get to go back there. Everything will be like it was."

Jill smiled so big that Drew was sure he could see each and every one of her missing baby teeth. "Wow, Daddy! You made us three promises!"

He had. He had promised to kiss his daughter every morning for as long as he lived. He had promised his wife was not having another baby. He had promised that they could go home again.

But despite his good intentions, he couldn't have known how few of those promises he would truly be able to keep.

Gwen was furious that Drew had let her sleep until nearly ten o'clock that morning. There were so many things that she wanted to get a head start on. Most of her goals for the day did, of course, include finding out who the twins were and discovering whether or not they were in the same situation that she was in. More than anything, she wanted to make sure they weren't any danger, as the warning from the crazy blonde lady that they had met in Iowa was still embedded in her thoughts.

But when she opened her eyes to see her husband lying on the kids' bed, Jill perched on his lap as Drew read her one of her favorite books, her anger quickly faded into a memory. There was nothing that warmed her heart more than seeing her husband with the children.

"Mummy, you're up!" Jill squealed delightedly as she jumped from her father's lap to the adjacent bed.

"If I wasn't before, I definitely am now," Gwen said playfully. "Mummy needs a shower."

"I took the kids down for breakfast," Drew said, grabbing her arm and pulling her against his chest as she approached the bathroom. He kissed the side of her neck. "I let Jill pick out her clothes. Jeremy insisted on doing schoolwork."

Gwen smiled despite how sad that last bit actually made her. "I wish you had woken me up."

"You needed the sleep." He planted more kisses along her shoulder blade. "And the twins weren't here this morning. They work the afternoon shift, at three o'clock. There was nothing for you to do but sleep." More kisses against her cheek and at the base of her ear. "Merlin, you're delicious."

Gwen snorted at her husband's bizarre comment. "What did you just say?"

"You're delicious."

"But…" She turned to face him. "You said, 'Merlin'."

"I did?" Drew seemed to be honestly puzzled. "I don't… I'm not sure why I would have."

She seemed uneasy. "Merlin. He was… he was a wizard, wasn't he?"

Drew raised an eyebrow. "I… I don't know."

"There's got to be a reason you used the name. You never have before. You never… you've never said that. Why would you say it now? Did you remember something? Whatever has happened to us, do you think it has to do with… with Merlin?"

"Christ, Ginny. Will you calm down?"

Her eyebrows shot into her hairline. "Gin - Ginny?"

It took him nearly a minute to realize what he had said.

"That's my name, isn't it?" she said slowly. "Ginny. It's what the lady who said we were in danger called me, and now you've called me that. Drew, do you remember something else?"

He seemed equally as baffled as she was. Words were coming out of his mouth that he wasn't intending to say. He was calling her names he hadn't meant to call her, cursing names he had never known before.

"What's happening to me?"

"Do you remember, Drew? Tell me if you know something!"

"I don't, Gwen. I swear, I don't! I - I don't know what I'm saying."

She was suddenly even more alarmed, scared for him and his well being. The blonde woman had told them that once they knew, they couldn't undo it and they would be in danger. Did this mean danger for them?

And why was it that Drew suddenly remembered things that she couldn't?

It was early afternoon, and Drew and Gwen had taken the children to get a bite to eat for lunch. The diner that they had chosen was dingy and dusty, but the atmosphere was pleasant enough. The fact that the shutters were closed to block out the bright light of the sun was a bit odd, in Drew's opinion, but the menu options were plentiful and the prices were as low as he could have hoped.

He could feel how tense she was beside him. He had called her by a name he had known to be truly hers for days now, and it was obvious that she thought he knew something. Which he sort of did. He did not know everything and he certainly did not have answers to the thousands of questions he was sure that she had, but he did know things she didn't. He had seen her in his dreams, her true self from before their memories had gone. Drew had witnessed an intimate moment in her past that she, herself, hadn't the slightest inkling of.

In theory, this should have made him feel closer to her. She wasn't always the easiest person to read - not that he was much better, of course - but seeing her in such a weakened, vulnerable state just made him feel ill. He knew things he had no business knowing.

And of course the fact that she had another child did little to quell his conscience. How could he even begin to tell her about that? It would lead to even more questions, some of which he had answers to, and some of which he couldn't possibly begin to help her with. Was it better to keep it all to himself? Was she better off thinking he was as lost as she was?

Then again, she didn't think that anymore, did she? He had called her Ginny. He had called her by a name that she didn't recognize as her own, a name that had felt so right slipping from his tongue. So natural and right. Calling her Gwen suddenly felt like swallowing sandpaper.

Her eyes were boring into him, fixing a glare against the side of his face. He didn't want to face her until he knew more. At least until he knew why it was happening to him and not to her. Despite everything that had changed, his desire to protect her at all costs was still as prominent and desperate as ever.

"I'm sorry," Drew whispered, quietly so that the kids would not hear him, yet loudly enough that she could. "I'm sorry that I called you that name. It was a mistake."

"Was it?" she challenged, her eyes narrowing further.

"I didn't mean to say it."

"But it's my name, isn't it? It's who I am?"

He ran his hands over his face in exasperation. "Christ Almighty, your name is not who you are. Your name does not dictate your personality or your intelligence. It was a mistake. A bloody Freudian slip."

"But if there is something you're not telling me…"

He cut her off with a glare of his own. His look was so fierce that it made her flinch. "If there was something to tell, I'd tell. But as it is, there's nothing. So drop it."

She threw her fork at the table, pointedly ignoring the fact that the rest of the diner had suddenly gone silent, that her children were looking on at her with wide eyes. "Don't you tell me to drop it, Andrew Raymond Montrose. I am your wife, not your mistress. You don't get to order me around like I'm rubbish. Speak to me like I am your equal."

"Gwen, you're making a scene."

"Do I look like I care?" she shouted, gesturing wildly. "Does it seem like it matters to me if people I don't know, that I will more than likely never see again, are staring at me? Do you think I care that a bunch of bloody strangers know that I am angry with my husband?"

He inhaled and exhaled sharply, attempting to calm himself. "Stop it."

"No! No, I can't, Drew. There is something you're keeping from me. There is something you don't want me to know! I know when you're lying. I knew four years ago when you had that affair. I knew ten years ago when we got married that you didn't really love me. I knew three months ago that we were having financial troubles with our farm and that the bank was getting ready to foreclose."

"Now that's enough!" With slightly pinkened cheeks, Drew gestured to their waitress. "I will double your tip if you sit here with my children while I have a word with my wife."

Without waiting for a response, without looking to the waitress for a reaction, Drew yanked Gwen by the arm and dragged her outside and into the back alleyway. He paced back and forth, attempting to cool off and gather his thoughts for a long moment as he saw her stand against the brick wall of the building, arms crossed and face unreadable.

"First of all," he began, turning to her abruptly, "I love you."

She raised both eyebrows in response. Clearly, that was the last thing she had expected him to say.

"When you got pregnant, Gwen, we - we barely knew each other. We were stupid kids. I didn't love you - yet. But - but it didn't take long for me to fall for you."

Gwen swallowed hard, keeping her gaze fixed over his left shoulder so as not to meet his eyes. "Likewise," she said.

"And maybe I told you I loved you because I knew that one day I would. Or maybe I wanted you to feel better about marrying someone you barely knew, but Christ, if you could only see what I see in you now." He put one arm around either side of her head, resting his palms against the building. "When we met, I wanted you because you were beautiful. I slept with you because I thought you were magnificent. I married you because I needed you and because you needed me. But I fell in love with you. I might not always say it, and maybe it frustrates you that I can be so emotionless, but right now all I have is emotion. I feel you slipping from me, and it's… terrifying."

She tilted her head back, stemming the tears he could see were threatening to fall. "But you cheated on me."

Drew shook his head slowly. "It was one stupid mistake. One night when you and I fought that I drove into the city and got drunk. I never saw her again. I… I don't even know her name."

"Is that supposed to make it okay?"

"No!" He slammed his fist against the bricks, pointedly ignoring the trickle of blood that soon followed. "I lied to you, and I hoped you'd never find out because I was ashamed."

Gwen snorted. "As if it could have been more obvious. You suddenly wanted to pick up the slack around the house. Jill was just a toddler. I was losing my mind. Before that night all you gave a damn about were the crops. I knew you felt guilty. And I could see it in your eyes that next night when we went to bed together. I knew what you'd done."

"So why didn't you say something?" he asked.

She shrugged, once again averting his eyes. "Because it didn't matter. You came home to me, to the kids. And maybe I kept hoping I was wrong." She bit her lip. "I didn't think you loved me, anyway. I was just grateful that you weren't gone for good."

"Baby…"

"Don't," she answered fiercely. "I shouldn't have said anything. I was being petty and childish in there. I was angry because I know there's more that you're keeping from me."

"There's not…"

"Don't lie to me." Her voice was a low hiss. "I can always tell when you're keeping secrets. You may think that you can hide from me, but after ten years of marriage to you, I know your tells."

He held up his hands in concession. "Fine," he admitted. "I had a dream. It was a memory, from right before we came to America, I'm pretty sure. But I just didn't know what to make of it. And I didn't want to hurt you. Again."

She cracked the smallest of smiles, and relief flooded through him that she hadn't yet asked him to elaborate further.

"And about the foreclosure on the farm…"

"Don't," she said again. "I understand why you didn't say anything. I was… I was wrong for holding that against you."

Drew exhaled. "So let's start again. Let's be who we were before all of this happened."

"This is who we were. This has all been building for a while, Drew." She shook her head. "I believe that you love me, and I know you're sorry for that stupid mistake. But since then, all I've had for you was… suspicion."

"Gwen, you don't mean that."

"Yes, I do." She pushed off from against the wall, nudging him backwards with the force of her body. "I just didn't realize it until now. I loved you. I gave you everything I had. But you never treated me like a wife. I was always beneath you. You told me when the conversations were over, when the subject was to be dropped, when you wanted us to make love. It was always you, and I would just let it slide because I didn't want to lose you. I couldn't. I depended on you."

Her hands slowly came up to his chest, sliding them down over his torso until her fingertips reached the hemline of his t-shirt. She pulled it over his head so quickly that it made him dizzy. His knees weakened as her lips came crashing down on his, trailing a line over his jaw, to his neck to his shoulder as her hands made quick work of the clasp of his jeans.

"Gwen, what…"

"It's my turn, Drew," she said, between kisses. "It's my turn to tell you what I need." She pulled down his jeans and his boxers just enough. "And right now, I just need my husband to put his hands on me."

It took him only a moment to notice the intense look in her chocolate brown eyes, to understand the meaning behind every word she was saying. It wasn't that she thought their relationship was doomed or that something wasn't working for her. It was that it finally was. Years and years of her being too timid to fight back, of her allowing herself to be bullied into submission, were finally over. She was taking control.

He rushed forward, hiking up her skirt and lifting her up against the side of the diner, entering her so quickly that it made her dizzy. This was what they both needed. In the midst of the stress and the insanity that was their life, they needed grounded - reminded that they were so desperately, so hopelessly in love with one another that they could forgive and forget all of the harsh words, the thoughtless actions, the dishonor and disobedience.

Sharp quivers racked her body, her nails digging into the smooth skin of his back as his rhythm against her finally let up. He could feel her shaking even once his motion had completely stilled.

And when he looked into her eyes, all he could see was Ginny Weasley - even though when she looked back, all she could see was Drew Montrose.