"What the hell did you to her?"

Amanda didn't swear very often and her question lingering in the air was a sure sign he needed to be on alert. Lee looked up from where he was kneeling, as he finished picking up the pieces of the vase he'd just knocked off the counter. "What did I do to who?"

"The vase! What did you to her?" Amanda was staring down at the broken pieces in his hands with a stricken expression.

"This is one of your 'hers'?" Lee asked in a pained voice that meant he knew he was in more trouble than he'd realized.

"You knew that! I told you that!" She looked up at him accusingly, and to his horror, he could see the sheen of tears in her dark eyes.

"No, you didn't," he said gently. He carefully placed the pieces he'd collected of the delicate porcelain on the newspaper he'd laid out on the counter, and turned to face his wife.

One of the more intriguing things he'd had to get used to in married life was finding out that certain of Amanda's possessions had been assigned a gender. The station wagon had been a 'she' but the Wagoneer was a 'he' – as was the 'Vette, to his secret relief. The cherry tree at the back of the garden was a 'her', the treehouse tree was a 'him'. He still hadn't figured out everything that was in this category or why, but now he knew that a simple act of clumsiness had been elevated to almost a death in the family.

"I must have told you," said Amanda, still in that voice that said she was trying not to cry because she knew he hated it. To be fair, they both knew it wasn't the crying he hated, it was having been the cause. The fact that she wasn't succeeding very well at disguising it this time meant that he'd really messed up.

"C'mere," he said softly, pulling her into his arms and tightening them around her. "So why was she important?"

Amanda didn't answer right away, just buried her face in his chest and giving little hiccupping sighs that said she was still trying to get her voice back to normal.

"You'll think it's stupid," she managed to get out finally.

"No, I won't," he promised. "There must be a story behind why a simple vase was important to you. Was it a gift from someone?"

"Sort of," she gave one last shuddering breath into his shirt before lifting her head. "From you, in a way."

"From me?" Lee glanced over at the broken pieces in confusion. "I never gave you that."

"No, you didn't. But you gave me the first flowers that ever went in it."

"I give you flowers all the time." Lee was still completely at sea in this conversation.

"These were special." Amanda pulled out of his arms and went to stand by the counter, reaching out to gently touch the pieces that lay there. "I bought this the day after we had that run-in with Serdeych and you brought me roses." She looked up at him, eyes shining with unshed tears again. "That was the first time you'd really talked to me, really opened up. The first time I started to let myself hope that maybe, someday, we'd be…"

"Here?" he finished, with a soft smile as he began to understand why she was so upset.

"Here," she agreed, returning his smile. "And I knew the flowers wouldn't last, but I wanted to remember them."

"So why this one?" he asked, stepping up beside her and looking down at the broken porcelain. "What made her exactly the right vase for those?"

"I don't know really," Amanda was still caressing the pieces with a fingertip. "There was just something about the blue check like gingham and the yellow paint strokes like wheat that made me think of Kansas and Dorothy, I think. It seemed to fit."

"You wanted to remember Dorothy?" he questioned. "Why?"

"I wanted to honor what she'd been to you, your first true love – she helped make you the man I love."

"Oh." Lee wasn't sure he was going to be able to speak without choking up now either. "I can mend her – the vase, I can mend her," he managed to get out finally.

Amanda shook her head sadly. "I don't think so, Lee. She's pretty far gone." She took a deep breath and turned to him. "And it doesn't really matter – all the things I hoped for when I bought her? I still have those – and I don't need a vase to remind me how much I love you."

"I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I love you too." He watched as Amanda began to carefully pull the newspaper around the shards of pottery. "No, wait!" he said as she turned to put it the garbage can under the sink. "I'll, uh, I'll take it outside. Wouldn't want anyone to accidentally cut themselves putting anything away."

"Okay," sighed Amanda, turning and handing him the bundle as if it was precious – which he now knew it was.

Lee went out the back door and glanced back to make sure Amanda was no longer watching before walking straight past the garbage cans and placing the newspaper bundle in the storage compartment of the 'Vette.

It was several weeks later when Amanda came home to find a carefully wrapped box sitting on the kitchen counter. She looked suspiciously at Lee – she knew today wasn't any of their anniversaries. "What's this?" she asked

"Open it," he grinned. "And find out."

"What have you done, Stetson?" she shot back. "Is this a grovel gift for something I don't know about yet?"

"In a way, yes," he answered, tone slightly more serious now. "Just open it."

With one last suspicious look at him, Amanda began to carefully unwrap the present. Clearly, it hadn't been wrapped by Lee – everything was very precise and even and lovely, right down to the origami flower that adorned the box in lieu of a ribbon. Finally she pulled the lid off and stared down at the contents nestled in the safety of a bed of tissue paper.

"I don't understand," she whispered, reaching out to touch it as if she didn't believe it was true. "What is this?"

"It's Dorothy's vase." Lee pushed off the counter and came to stand behind her, arms around her waist as she continued to stare down at the box.

"But what did you do to it?" Amanda's fingers were tracing the jagged lines of the broken pieces that were now held together with shining gold in the cracks between pieces.

"I had her mended. It's called Kintsugi," Lee explained carefully. "It's an old Japanese tradition for repairing broken pottery."

"I don't understand," she repeated.

"Well, it's a repair process, but it's also a philosophy," he answered. "The Japanese mend broken pottery like this, with a glue that's mixed with gold. It's supposed to highlight the beauty of the object, and the repair that extends its life. It's a way to embrace imperfection and the acceptance of change in all things."

Amanda turned in his arms so that she was facing him. "And which of those did you want to do?"

Lee glanced at the vase and back into her eyes. "All of them." He stepped back so he could take her hands in his. "When I first broke that vase, I didn't give it a second thought, because I didn't know it was important to you – and then when you explained why it was important to you, this seemed like the obvious answer."

"But why?"

"Amanda, you bought that vase as a symbol of the beginning of our relationship. Neither of us knew it then, even though we were both hoping, but you were right – sharing Dorothy with you was a real turning point for me, but as important as she was, she was someone I met along the way to you."

He stopped to wipe away the tears that were starting to flow down Amanda's cheeks.

"That repair? That's what you've done for me time and time again. You've seen me break and you've put me back together – sometimes even when I didn't want to be. Your love is like that glue – there isn't one part of me that doesn't have a golden thread of you shot through it, holding me together."

"Oh Lee," she sighed.

"The vase might have been a symbol to you of my road here but the gold that's repaired it? That's us – the acceptance of the way we've changed each other, the imperfections that make us who we are, the beauty in the everyday we create together, the way I love you…" He stopped to pull her back into his arms when she began to cry. "Hey, c'mon now, that's not fair – I've been practicing this speech all day."

Despite the scolding words, she could hear the smile in his voice. "I'm sorry, I can't stop. I know you hate it," she choked out.

"Are they happy tears at least?" he teased. "If I've made you cry, at least tell me they're happy tears and that you like her."

"Yes! Of course, yes!" Amanda cupped his face in her hands and reached up to kiss him.

"Good – I'm glad," he answered, kissing away some of the tears on her cheeks. He reached past her to pick up the vase and walked into the family room, Amanda following him. He surveyed the room for a moment indecisively before nodding and walking to carefully place the vase among their family photos on the shelf He stepped back to admire her, a keepsake to add to the growing collection of items of their life together. "She should be safe there."

Amanda walked forward to wrap an arm around his waist and lean against his shoulder. "She's so beautiful."

"Like you." Lee turned to kiss her, his fingers tracing her face gently. "You always saw the beauty in her, Amanda, and now, she's beautiful to both of us."