August 22, 1994

**The Artist POV**

I awaken and turn around looking for a good morning kiss, but to my surprise Lani is nowhere to be found. Her pillow is cold, telling me she's been up for a while already. "Lani!" I call out, receiving nothing but silence in response. Huh...I wonder where she took off to...

As I crawl out of bed to head toward the shower, I find a note from her on the fridge.

Hey honey,

Sorry I'm already gone. You looked so peaceful that I didn't have the heart to wake you. I just made a quick run to the store for some supplies. Be back soon.

Lani xoxo

Well, that's one mystery solved...

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Now clean and freshened up for the day, I make myself a quick breakfast and decide to take it outside to eat on the porch, enjoying this sunny summer morning.

I found my mind drifting back to everything that happened last night, a wicked grin making its way onto my face with the memory. Seems little mama is full of surprises...

However this was short lived as my mind eventually wanders back to the memory flash snippet of the night before, as I try to search my mind for answers...to my increasing frustration though, I'm finding more questions than answers. Why did I get that flash then? What does it mean?

Just as I'm finishing up my breakfast to my relief I see Lani pulling up, drawing me out of my conflicted thoughts. I head over in greeting, and to help her unload the car. "Hey, mama. Seems someone was up early this morning." I say with a grin, before our lips meet in a good morning kiss.

"Good morning to you too," she greets back as she pulls away to unlock the trunk.

"So what did you buy for us this morning?" I ask, opening the trunk and looking through the bags in curiosity.

"Not much, I'm afraid...seems that store has little to offer besides junk food. Oh, and this..." she replies, handing me a newspaper. "I thought we could use something to read, and since they didn't have any decent books there either, I figured this would do."

"Fair enough...we can take a look at that later," I murmur, rooting through for the comics section. Seems it's the coloured weekend edition...odd... I note that its yesterday's edition. Why am I not surprised? This whole area is out of date... "So what did you want to do today?" I ask, grabbing up some bags to carry inside.

Following me with her hands also full she looks at me with a smile, responding with, "Let's take a walk. You can show me around a bit, since I wasn't up to going out yesterday."

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**Iolani's POV**

It seems he was right about there not being much out here. I'll have to give Zola a piece of my mind on this place once I get home.

After all, she's the one who told me how great this place is. When's the last time she's actually been out here? I mean seriously! Talk about steering someone wrong...

Still, I have to admit that it's been nice being away from the stresses of home and to have some uninterrupted time with my e ipo. I'll give this vacation that much...

I find myself pulled out of my thoughts with him excitedly pointing out some baby bunnies hopping along the path. Now that's pretty cute...I'm not gonna lie...

After wandering around all morning with no deer in sight to my disappointment, we stumble onto the meadow of wildflowers he'd pulled together my bouquet from and I'm astounded by how beautiful this area is.

Everywhere I look I see flowers... Hummingbirds, various butterflies, and bumblebees are frittering about in the warm summer breeze. This moment though...I wouldn't trade it for the world...

Overcome by the beauty of the area, I find myself drawing him into a soft kiss as we settle down on a soft patch of grass amidst this gorgeous, colourful summer oasis. Mmmmm...this is nice...

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**The Artist POV**

We make an impromptu decision to pack up a mini picnic to enjoy over by the stream, so we pulled together a few things we thought would make for a decent lunch and headed out.

It didn't take us long to set up and dig into our meal, and before we knew it, we were full and contentedly taking in the nature all around us.

Eventually though, our competitive nature stepped in and the next thing we knew, one hell of a food fight was in progress..

"Hey Lani! Watch this!" I say with a smirk as I place a pea onto a spoon, lobbing it right into the top opening of her blouse. Score!

"You think that's something? Get a load of this!" she retorts as she flings over a piece of coconut cream pie, hitting me squarely in the nose.

"Oh...it's on now, mama!" I exclaim with a wicked glint in my eye.

In the end, we both won...or lost, depending on how you choose to look at it.

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Once we managed to make our way back to the cabin to change into fresh clothes, we decided to just chill on the front porch and take a look at the paper.

I pulled out the comics, and for a few minutes was drawn in as Lani perused the remainder of the paper.

The very last comic on the page caught my attention with a chuckle, and I hear Lani pipe up, "What's so funny, mister?" with a curious twinkle in her eye.

"Get a load of Garfield. Those spiders are hilarious...." I reply, offering her the paper.

Looking at the comic, she starts to giggle. "Fang..." she murmurs, shaking her head with a grin.

Picking up her piece of the paper again, she quickly peruses it before looking over at me. "You haven't seen this yet, have you?"

"Seen what?" I ask, confused.

"There's a small article in here about 'The Artist'. I thought you might want to take a look." she offers, extending the page my way, her finger on the article. "Apparently, he's still missing..."

Now that is interesting... I reach over and take the paper, eyes finding the article Lani's pointed out to me.

I read through it quickly, but there's really no new information of note. Like Lani's already said, it seems 'The Artist' is still missing after almost a month. Despite many unsubstantiated sightings all over Minneapolis, it seems they're no closer to finding them than the day he went missing, and these sightings have dried up over the last few days. At this point, they're beginning to suspect foul play, but having so little to go on, are unsure how to proceed. You'd think they would've found this guy by now, especially with so many people looking for him...strange...

The article itself wasn't all that interesting, but the fact that it was accompanied by a small picture was. It was too small and grainy to make out clearly, but it looked to have been taken at a concert venue and was filled with thousands of adoring fans.

This brought my memory flash from last night back to mind. Maybe Lani will have some insight into the meaning behind all of this...

"Lani...?" I ask hesitantly, unsure of what her reaction will be to all this.

"Yes. What is it?" she replies, looking up from her section of the paper.

"There's something I think I should tell you." I begin, eyes on the ground. Well here goes nothing...

"Okay...you're making me nervous here. What's going on?" she asks, confusion lacing her ocean coloured eyes.

"After we went to sleep last night, I had another short burst of memory." I continue, meeting her gaze for the first time.

"You know that's a good thing...it means there's hope of you getting your memory back, something we've both been wishing would happen for a while now," she replies with a wistful smile. "This isn't the first memory flash you've had...what makes this one different from all the others?" she continues baffled, voice full of concern.

"This one seemed more personal to me somehow. Most of the others were more generic...just me playing various instruments and whatnot, but this one felt different." I start, looking a bit nervous. "In this one, I was playing a complicated guitar solo in front of thousands of people cheering me on..." I continue, clearly unsettled.

"Now that's interesting..." Lani replies, eyes locked on mine intently. "How did you feel about this memory? What do you think it means?" she asks, looking to me for feedback on this latest development.

"That's just it. I don't know," I offer with reluctance. "One part of me feels elated to be getting more of these memories back...and this memory was good one. But the other part of me is unsure how much truth there is in flashes like these..."

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