Chapter Six: Give Me Pause

"Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You."

-Dr. Seuss

Three... Two... One...

"Wake up, Arthur Gibson."

There's something warm on me. I crack an eye open and then throw an arm over my face. "Go away."

She laughs. "Can't. Morning person, remember? I'm just going to stay here and bug you until you get out of bed, lazy pants."

It's not her chatter that finally does it; it's the finger jabbing. I growl and she squeals as I trap her underneath my own body. For a moment, there's silence as we kiss. "How did I ever end up with a morning person?", I say when I pull away slightly, putting emphasis in my sigh.

She places both her hands on my face. The sunlight is streaming in through our bedroom window and falls just so on her face. I am dazed as she smiles. "You can't escape what was meant to be, buddy."

My finger trails the side of her cheek. "Es, eras, eris semper amor meus in aeternum."

She turns her nose up in the air. "You think you're so slick. I bet that was the motto of your alma mater, wasn't it?" Despite her disaffected tone, she can't hide the reddening of her cheeks.

I lower my head and run my lips against the side of her neck, underneath her jaw. It's something which always makes her purr and it doesn't fail us now. "You speak as if you didn't matriculate from college. A rather prestigious one too, I might add."

She's a fast little devil, is what I think as she whacks me on the head, hard enough to make me lose balance and topple beside her. In an instant, her face is looming over mine. "Valedictorian, mind you."

I grin. "How can I forget that, ah, memorable speech at graduation? I hear the Dean has its transcription framed and hung on the wall behind his desk."

She starts to get into the subject but stops in time. "I know what you're trying to do, you know." She wiggles a finger at me. "Don't give me that face. We promised. If you don't get up soon, we're going to be late for brunch."

I let a rude noise slip out, but, sit upright and swing my legs off the bed. "You'd think we were having tea with the Queen. And by the way, next time, could you check in with me before you so readily agree to socialize with my parents?"

"Why? You make plans with mine all the time without asking me first."

"I like your parents; what's more, YOU like your parents."

She throws me a look over her shoulder as she sifts through the rack of clothes in our closet. "Your mother and father are perfectly lovely people, Arthur. We should be spending more time with them. It's not right that we don't."

"Admit it, you've been trying all these years to get into my mother's good graces. So she'll stop not-so-secretly comparing you to my college girlfriend." I narrowly avoid the shoe that flies past my head.

"You mention her more frequently than your mother does. What was her name again?" There's a dangerous light in her eyes.

I tap a finger on my chin. "Hm. Can't remember." I laugh as she holds another shoe in mid air. "Didn't you say something about being late for brunch? I'm going to wash up."

We're running fifteen minutes late; I am shrugging into my jacket as we step out of our house and into the driveway. "Got the keys?"

She jangles them in one hand. "Yep. You know, I can drive." She says this in response to my wiggling fingers.

"That's ok. I want to."

She rolls her eyes. "I know you want to. You always want to. Maybe I want to, too."

"Ok, next time." I take the keys and open the passenger side door for her.

She pouts as she climbs into our car. "You always say that. One little accident and now you always have to drive. You know, just like you, I get behind the wheel every day to go to work."

"What if it has nothing to do with the accident, hm? What if I enjoy chauffeuring you around whenever possible?" She doesn't grace me with a verbal response, she just snaps the seat belt into place as she rolls her eyes. Her words give me pause. "About that. Do you remember what happened in the accident?"

She places a hand over my forehead. "What a funny thing to ask. Are you feeling ok?"

Before I can come up with an answer, however, my phone is ringing. I stifle the urge to make a face. "Hello, Mother."

"I just wanted to call and see if you're almost here."

"Yes, we're five minutes away."

"Very well. I'll have Carmen take out the biscuits. They will be at the perfect temperature just as you're arriving. We're all waiting."

I don't have time to continue with my line of questioning after that; after that, I'm too busy getting us to my parents' house without endangering lives. She sits in the passenger front seat, clearly amused. "Next time I need you to do something without giving me lip, I'll just have your mother command you."

"She's going to assume it's because of you that we're running late, you know. If I had married what's-her-face, she would have gotten us there early. That's what she's going to think. Honestly, I'm just trying to be a good husband and spare you the grief."

"Whatever. Mama's Boy." I grin; she sees it from her peripheral vision and musses my hair. It's unusual when she's at a loss for a clever comeback.

We get to the house nearly twenty minutes later. My mother gives me a look to which I respond by blaming our tardiness on an unexpected traffic jam on the freeway. Dad is sitting out in the patio with Dan - I'm assuming they are talking about whatever sports game has recently been on.

My wife offers to help but as usual, to no avail. We all sit down and our brunch is served by the silent and very efficient Carmen. "How's work?" This, of course, from Dad.

I bob my head up and down as I answer. "Good. Busy."

Dan says, "Weren't you thinking about becoming your own boss? I've been keeping an eye on some nice properties, if you're serious about that."

Trust my brother to find a way to make it about himself. "Thanks, Dan. I'm still mulling the prospect over. I've been talking it over with a colleague of mine - last name is Cobb. We think it might work in our favor to combine our specialties and start a partnership."

"Partnerships can be hard, even with the right people involved. You have to make sure the other person is dependable - I read articles in the paper all the time about someone running away with the money and leaving his partner with all the debt. They end up financially ruined. It can go horribly wrong", Mom warns.

"I trust Cobb with my life. The problem is whether or not the market is over saturated. We've been looking into hiring a consultant to take a needs assessment. Meeting with one on Monday, in fact."

"Who is it?"

"Eames? Can't remember his first name." Something jogs in the back of my mind as I tell them this. A fluttering that I can almost touch, but not quite. I turn my head as my peripheral vision catches a wisp of white. In the line of palm trees, behind a trunk, I think I see someone. Someone I've seen before, but I don't know where. I can't even recall features to the face, but it's familiar nonetheless.

"Hon? You ok?"

I turn to her, my wife. She slips her hand into mine as she angles her face to mine. We're standing out by the pool in the backyard; the sun is casting rays down on the back of our necks and the sky is clear. I put my arm around her as we admire the view; she drops my hand to wind her arm on my waist. "I'm mentally wiped out. Are you happy now? Will you agree with me when I say we have more than sufficiently filled our quota of quality time with your in-laws?"

She gives me such a look that I can't resist kissing the patch of skin on her left hairline - I've kissed that spot so many times I wonder it hasn't formed a dent that would fit my lips perfectly. "Arthur, since when did you become such a curmudgeonly, old man?"

I snort. "Sometime between Mom's comments about the biscuits being two degrees too cool and my brother trying to bum rush me into buying one of his commercial properties."

"They're not as bad as you paint them to be."

"If I didn't know just how smart you are, I'd think you were missing a screw in your head. They're exactly as bad as I paint them to be and it's time you admitted it." She looks at me, her mouth set in a firm line. "I've put up with your weird Pollyanna attitude about my family long enough. Not another ten years of this. Not another ten minutes of this."

We stare at each other so long that my eyes start to water. Finally, finally, she concedes with, "Ok, they have a tendency to be strong willed, at times." It's as much as any victory I've ever been able to wring from her.

I lean over until our foreheads press against each other. "Strawberry shortcake for you tonight. From Ichabod's."

Her expression doesn't waver as she says, "Strong willed or not, bribe or no bribe, we're going to see your family again. For Easter weekend."

Her whole person doesn't allow me to groan out loud, but, I cannot refrain from saying, "Mrs. Gibson, you suck."

It makes her giggle. She leans up, on her tiptoes, to brush her lips on my nose. "Aw, I love you too. Come on, I heard you mention something about cake from Ichabod's."

One cake order later, we are on our way home. It's going to be a lovely late afternoon in Los Angeles. My wife is singing, rather enthusiastically, to the latest pop song they are playing on all the radio stations. She's snapping her fingers, bobbing her head from side to side, and, completely out of tune. As soon as she pauses for a breath, I say the thing that's been on my mind all day. "Remind me again - why haven't we invested in the white picket fence, the dog, the 2.5 kids?"

"Ah... What?"

I give her a quick glimpse. "I'm serious."

"I know you are, but I'm trying to figure out why my husband, who has been exhibiting strange tendencies all day, suddenly and casually tosses this out. Kind of a bomb, don't you think?"

"Because I look at my beautiful wife, who's trying so hard to keep me connected to my crazy family and it makes me wonder - why aren't we trying to start our own little, crazy family?"

She laughs. "What? You want to start now, here, on the freeway? Or maybe we should take a little more time to fully consider it before I start knitting onesies." We drive for a few more minutes in silence. I don't have to look over to know that she is fiddling with the zipper on her sweatshirt. "I'm not opposed to it, you know."

I clear my throat. "I know." One of my hands goes to one of hers. It's warm and soft and I wonder what my life was like before I was able to touch her like this. I can't quite remember. But that nagging feeling from before returns and I realize, once upon a time, I didn't have all of this. Once upon a time, her hand was forbidden to me for some reason, something that felt important. Once upon a time, I was unhappy and alone. I recall this condition, this state of being, vaguely, but I am fighting it. I want to remember only the good things that have happened since - traveling to Asia and Europe after graduation, starting my internship, meeting my future wife on that cold, rainy day in Paris. Everything else, I want to obliterate. I don't know why this desperation exists in me, why my heart speeds when I dwell too long on the murkiness I've left behind. What I will focus on is now. Nothing else matters. I can choose not to remember.

AN: I thought I would start the new year with a bit o' fluff. Some of you may be wondering (1) who did Arthur marry? Paige? Or Ariadne?; and, (2) why I decided not to identify her. I thought it would be more interesting to let you the reader come to your own conclusion on the mystery woman. And to be honest, for the longest time, I couldn't figure out who she was... and then it was just plain ol' fun not to name her. )

Anyway, I hope you enjoy and it won't take me nearly a month to update the next chapter to this story!