"Saiah, you’re going to leave me here with Elijah? It’s Valentine’s Day in a couple of days. You can leave after V-Day." Lynn pouted when Isaiah fetched her from JFK. She was supposed to have return earlier but as usual, something cropped up at the very last minute. His yearning to see her was dragged on for another week before it could be satiated, not to mention, his impending trip to follow up on the leads Fenton gave him.

She was extremely unhappy with the arrangement though Isaiah told her it was only for a few days.

"To Connecticut and Detroit. It’s not as if I am going all the way to Australia like you did." Isaiah reached over and pinched her nose while concentrating on the heavy traffic in front. "Besides, he seemed too preoccupied with someone else to be annoying you too much. You’ll love Lijah."

"There you go again, separating the boy from the man. They are one and the same. Now, repeat after me- Elijah is Lijah. Lijah is Elijah. Makes no difference." Lynn threw Isaiah a deadpanned look. Isaiah scowled at her and she sighed before shrugging away the sudden tension between the both of them.

"Are his memories back yet?" She asked him casually as if she was enquiring he had taken the garbage out.

"Sometimes, Lynn, I don’t know why I love you so much." Isaiah wrinkled his nose at her and she patted his thigh.

"Same here, mister. Seriously, I don’t approve of you trying your darn best to stop him from remembering. Could be bad for his psychological thingy or something and you know he’s already quite mad to begin with."

"Don’t worry. All my best efforts are thwarted by our dear friend, Anne. However, I told, no. I begged her to not try anything else until I come back from what I need to do." Isaiah could not believe the bitter tone in his voice. "She helped Elijah experience flashbacks from his childhood once. He thought he saw the fuzzy image of a crying boy only that he thought the boy he was me. If he could see clearer, he would surely not mistake the color blond for black."

"I still can’t believe they’re dating- when you told me that over the phone, I thought you were joking. You know something, Saiah? If Elijah remembers, he might not revert back to his old, disagreeable self. Maybe… maybe he’ll think we’re so nice to him and change his mind about being mean. Now, if you purposely try to stop him from remembering and he remembers, he’ll resent you all the more, thinking you’re too much of a coward to face up to his past."

"Now you’re making me more confused." Isaiah was really pissed but not at Lynn. He was starting to be angry at himself for the way he was handling Elijah’s memory loss and at the same time, he really did not think what he was doing was wrong. Elijah was happier- he was smiling, he was laughing and he was falling in love. He was given a second chance, almost like he was reborn.

"It’s not that confusing. Saiah, be honest with Elijah about everything and then, be there for him. I feel that’s the right way… to help him heal."

"Lynn, stop talking before I get out of the car and you have to drive yourself home." Isaiah warned her. "I’m trying my best not to blow up."

"Ok. Whatever. Either I shut up or talk to the hand, right? These are the times when I really wish you don’t have a brother…"

"Shut up, Lynn…" Isaiah growled, keeping his eyes fiercely on the road, "before I really lose my temper."

"Fine. I’m too tired about from my day long flight to argue." Lynn looked out of her side of the car window and there was dreadful silence for a long time.

Isaiah glanced at her briefly when he stopped at a red light. Seeing her defiant eyes shimmering with angry, hurt tears, Isaiah’s guts twisted with shame but he did not feel like saying sorry yet.

A couple of hours later, they reached the basement car park of the apartment block. Isaiah killed the engine after he parked and rolled down the windows. "Don’t go yet."

"Hmm," came a soft, disinterest reply. She had undid her seatbelt but stayed seated.

"I’m sorry." Isaiah apologized first, staring at the parking lot opposite theirs. "It’s just too much to handle..."

"I’m sorry too for being insensitive." Lynn finally let her hostility go. They faced each other before bursting out in soft laughter. Lynn reached over and hugged him across the gearbox. Isaiah held on to her, not wanting to let her go.

"You’re right…." Isaiah spoke softly. "I don’t want him to remember partly because I can’t deal with what happened to him. Heck, I don’t even know if I had dealt with what happened to me. Sometimes at night, I swore I felt the scars on my back bleeding… I…" Isaiah swallowed his tears. "I watched him. When he laughs, in my heart I cried because I know the laughter will not last… I can’t be as positive as you… I can’t. He’s asking me difficult questions and I don’t know how to answer him."

"Baby…" She soothed his hair and cooed into his ears words of love. "You’re the strongest, most courageous man I’ve ever known. You chose to heal from your abuse. You chose to accept your terrible gift and learn, still learning, to make it work for the good of other people. You can help Elijah through this. I know you can. You have so much… much strength and love…"

"Strength? Love? I’m not sure about the endurance on my part." Isaiah admitted finally and let his tears fall silently onto her shoulder.

***

With angry thoughts screaming in her head, Lynn furiously scrubbed an unidentified stain off her favorite beanbag in the living room. When she returned home a couple of days ago, she was pleasantly surprised at the state of neatness it was basking in. Marriage life made Lynn care a lot for Isaiah’s welfare, more so than ever and one major aspect of her show of concern was to keep the house sparkling clean so he would not have to face any mess which could push his already troubled mind under more duress.

Somehow, it slowly became an obsession to rid the house of all stains and dust. However, she suddenly realized she was becoming overtly fanatical about cleanliness when she caught herself screaming at Isaiah for dropping a crumb of cookie on the floor a few months back. Since then, she decided to relax and not be too anxious even if there were some fingerprints left on the wall- Isaiah’s fingerprints of course. It was real funny to see him rushing into the kitchen for that bottle of Jif, thinking that Lynn was expressing her annoyance in a new, innovative way by telling him to not fret because she was fine about it before resuming reading her magazine.

Nonetheless, when she was angry, all she wanted to do was clean. And after her stint in Australia which consisted of nothing but pure routine monitoring, she had two weeks break to do just that.

Elijah was turning out to be fantastic helper. He was busily polishing all her precious silverware- voluntarily. And he even offered to make dinner. She had the most amused smile on her lips when she saw him holding up the cook book with one hand and massaging the marinate into the slabs of de-boned chicken thighs with the other earlier in the afternoon.

"There! All done! What else can I help you with, sis?" Elijah called out across the small hall. She turned around and saw him grinning satisfactorily into the gleaming silverware, checking out his perfect set of teeth at the same time.

"Are you sure they are all done? I’m a very stringent inspector!" She kidded, smiling as warmly as she could despite the misgivings towards her husband eating up her heart. She could give Elijah a chance- actually she had been apprehensive about staying with him alone in the apartment but the fear was more upon herself. When she was helping out the brothers in the case of the bogus visionary, she had grown a little attracted to Elijah, despite her vehement vocalized displeasure with him. The tiny ping of her heart came into existence when Isaiah was in a coma and she had somehow gone to Elijah for some form of emotional support, an action of hers that always made her wonder about her IQ. It was difficult not to be attracted physically to the ice mountain and when he too crumbled and showed that heart-breakingly vulnerable side of him to her after he totaled Isaiah’s previous apartment, the ping grew even stronger out of some need to protect.

But she pulled herself together and knew that it was only because of Isaiah’s absence that she felt like she needed to cling on to someone. Isaiah was the brother she loved and wanted. Elijah was an entity that anyone would be curious about and, when their questions about him were not answered, frustrated with or even hate.

With Isaiah off to wherever he said he had to go in order to search for Elijah’s past and see if there was anything that could shed light on the arsonist, Lynn had been a little wary of herself. But the last couple of days alone with Elijah had assured her that she felt nothing for him, save that of the concern a human being would shower over another who was related to her.

"You can see your teeth sparkling in them." Elijah threw the rag he was polishing the silverware with into a small pail and walked over to her. She resumed wiping at the stain which she knew would most probably never disappear and heard him coughing uncomfortably.

"I’m sorry. I spilled some food on it… Isaiah tried his best to clean it up… I wanted to replace it but he wouldn’t let me… hmm… forgive me?"

"It’s all right. A little imperfection won’t kill its beauty. I still love it loads…" Lynn hugged the bean bag as if she was pacifying a crying child before she stood up finally, grimacing when she heard the creaking sounds of her cramped muscles.

"I’m sorry you had to take time off from work today to help me spring-clean the house. You don’t have to do it, you know…" Lynn proceeded to the piano with a reborn determination to buff the body until it was showroom’s standard.

"Oh, well. I have been putting in extra hours since I joined so it’s ok. I need the break too… besides, I’ll rather help you than wipe tables." Elijah replied good-naturedly. He had found a job as a waiter a few days ago and though Lynn thought it was a waste of talents when Isaiah told her about it, she kept her mouth shut because Isaiah strongly felt that a simple life could be what Elijah really needed.

"Actually, if you don’t mind my frank opinion, don’t you find this place a little cluttered with things? I mean, never mind…" Elijah’s sudden comments stopped Lynn in mid-action. She peeped out from the side of the piano she was burnishing and raised an interested brow.

"No... I’ll love to hear your comments…"

"Ok…" Elijah began cautiously as he knelt down on the other side of the piano and started polishing away. "You asked for it. There are too many ornaments, decorations and while they are nice, homely touches… don’t you find them distracting? If it’s me, I’ll keep everything bare… functional… maybe some sentimental trinket here and there… well, IMHO…"

Lynn frowned, disturbed by Elijah’s taste. It was almost as if she was hearing the Elijah she first knew speaking in a friendlier tone about his preferences. The old Elijah though would never share these moments of idle banter with anyone. Any chores besides what he needed to do were probably just actions to fritter time away.

Sometimes, since the old Elijah hated to waste anything, especially time, she wondered if Elijah even sleep.

"Then again, if it was bare, I guess I’ll feel extremely empty, even lost. I feel like… sometimes I feel like being pulled to two opposite extremes… like I can hate and love the same thing intensely…"

Lynn let out a nervous laughter- Elijah’s description could well represent the conflict inside him between the man he had become and the child he had been. It was then she understood what Isaiah had feared. The child had won because the lack of memories had freed his shackles. However, the man was still around, lurking in dark corners as he waited patiently for his turn again.

"Sometimes, I feel the same way too… to a girl, the feeling is called PMS." Lynn joked, trying to ease Elijah’s internal perplexity.

It worked for Elijah chuckled with mirth. "Anne told me the same thing too."

"So, where’re you bringing Anne tomorrow?"

Elijah placed a finger on his lips and had a most secretive glint in his eyes. "Shh… I’ll tell you after the date."