Disclaimer: These characters are the property of FOX--but they have escaped to have a little fun with me.

Summary: Post "Spaceman in a Crater." An exploration of how the rest of Jack and Angela's evening might have gone, after she turns down his second proposal. Rated M for adult content.

"The Second Out"

Jack tucked the small box containing the ring back inside his coat pocket.

Out of sight, out of mind, he thought.

Unfortunately, it wasn't as easy to forget the words spoken between them as they finished their desserts under an awkward silence. When Angela wasn't staring down at her crème brulee, she would look up briefly and meet his eyes, her own pleading for his understanding and forgiveness.

"Thank you for the wonderful meal," Angela offered hesitantly. She reached over to cover Jack's hand with her own.

Jack managed a smile, but moved his hand out from under hers to draw his wallet from out of his breast pocket. Angela cast her eyes down once more, feeling the rebuff, however slight.

"My pleasure," he answered quietly, and then added, regretting his brusqueness, "We don't do this often enough. If I'd known you'd look this beautiful, I would have taken you here months ago, and on a weekly basis."

This brought a wan smile to Angela's lips. Her hopes rose that he would forgive her.

The waiter glided silently to their table and retrieved Jack's credit card.

Another awkward silence followed.

"We still on for lovemaking at my place?" Jack finally blurted out, unable to stand the tension between them any longer.

Despite the trampling I've done to his heart tonight, his libido is certainly still in working order… Angela thought with relief.

After a pause, she answered, "Yeah, I'd like that."

As if on cue, the waiter returned with the credit card and receipt.

Jack helped Angela out of her chair using his best restaurant manners. His hand on the small of her back, he maneuvered her through the tables of couples, all engaged in their own intimate conversations and dramas. Jack couldn't help but wonder how those men managed with their women. But then again, they weren't lucky enough to have a woman as interesting—or aggravating—as Angela Montenegro.

A short while later…

The drive from the restaurant in Downtown D.C. to Jack's estate along the Potomac in Maryland seemed like an eternity to Angela. Jack had turned on the radio immediately, perhaps to give them both an excuse not to talk.

She found she was staring out the passenger side window and replaying their conversation over and over again in her head.

"I'm prepared to put you ahead of me for the rest of my life…" he had told her, with so much sincerity in his blue eyes. She was still reeling from that one statement, trying hard to grasp its full meaning. The rest of their lives seemed like an awfully long time. She was having a difficult time as it was wrapping her mind around the fact that she'd been with him for a full six months straight. Not that the time had been a burden on her. Their time together had passed by like the blink of an eye. She had been lulled by his devotion, by the indescribable pleasure of making love to a man who seemed to understand her every need, both intellectual and physical. She had gone into the relationship with some trepidation about its impact on their working relationship, but without much thought for long-term emotional consequences. Long-term just wasn't part of her vocabulary. But then one morning she had woken up in his arms, and realized for the first time that she was in love. She'd been wallowing in the sensation ever since, unable to see beyond how emotionally gratified she felt for the first time in her life. Jack, on the other hand, did seem to see a further possibility beyond their present happiness. So why couldn't she?

About three miles into their drive home, Jack suddenly reached across the console to take Angela's hand. He grasped it tightly, his eyes still focused on the road. Except to shift gears as they drove down the interstate, he held her hand for the remainder of the journey home. Angela found her eyes were welling with tears, and she blinked them away, looking once more out into the passing darkness. If nothing else, Jack had made her realize that her relationship with Kirk, with its narrow parameters, had been nothing more than a glorified summer-vacation fling. She felt ashamed.

As they entered the grounds of Jack's estate, Angela found herself panicking. What if she just said yes to him and got it over with? As much of a relief as that would be, the idea of marrying Jack was followed by an immediate wave of fear. Although Angela couldn't explain to herself why she was afraid, she knew that it didn't have anything to do with the man himself. He was perfect. She adored him. The fear had a deeper origin, from a place that predated her relationship with Jack.

Although she couldn't name the fear, it always manifested itself by making her want to run and hide. She wanted to run and hide now, but there was nowhere to go. Nowhere but out of the car, and into the house, and into Jack's bedroom.

Midnight

Jack had lit a few candles, throwing the bedroom into shadowy relief and casting a golden glow on their naked bodies. He had been going down on her for the last twenty minutes, carefully and patiently trying to work up her arousal. Occasionally, Angela uttered a small sigh, but he couldn't tell if it was from pleasure or frustration. He wasn't accustomed to getting so little return for his efforts.

"Oh Sweetie, it's just not going to happen," Angela finally announced, miserably. She covered her face with her hands, not wanting him to see how close to tears she was.

Emitting a heavy sigh, Jack raised himself up to hover above her, pulling her hands away gently. "You know, I've got a track record to preserve here. Tell me what I need to do to stay in the game…"

"I don't know, Jack. Tonight's been…" Angela couldn't finish her sentence. She didn't know how. This was the first time in their relationship that emotions had sabotaged their lovemaking.

Propping himself up on one elbow next to her, Jack smoothed her hair off her forehead. "You're still thinking about my apparently lame attempt to propose to you, aren't you?"

At first, Angela couldn't trust herself to answer. Instead, she buried her face in his shoulder. When she finally looked up, the tears had welled over.

"It wasn't lame," she whispered, reaching up to smooth one bearded cheek.

Something else had been bothering Jack ever since their conversation in the restaurant, but her refusal of his proposal had sublimated it to the back of his mind—until now.

Searching her eyes intently, Jack voiced his thoughts, "Angela, why would you think I wanted to break up with you?"

Confronted with her own words, Angela shrank from him, guilty. "I… I don't know," she answered, rolling over on her side away from him.

Jack snorted in disbelief. "What do you mean, you don't know? There must a reason why you said what you did. You should have seen the look on your face when I was trying to tell you how much I love you. I might as well have been calling you a fucking bitch and telling you that I never wanted to see you again."

Angela trembled at his words. He was getting angry, she just knew it. Maybe someday he will say those things to me, and I'll deserve it, she couldn't help but think to herself, as if punishing herself for some unknown sin she hadn't yet committed.

"I'm sorry, Jack, I told you I wasn't thinking straight…" Angela began, her voice muffled in the pillow.

Jack wasn't angry—yet—but he was losing patience with her. "That's what you said in the restaurant, Angela, but it doesn't explain anything. It doesn't explain how I can love you more than I love myself—which is considerable, as you know…"

Despite herself, Angela had to laugh.

"…and how…" Jack continued, "…you can't seem to see that, or accept it as real. What exactly do I have to do to prove myself to you?"

He reached a muscular arm around her shoulders to pull her back into an embrace. She didn't resist. It was pleasantly reassuring, and she needed that now.

"You don't have to prove anything. I know how much you love me, Jack. What I said… it was my own weird reaction to you offering me the world. I guess I still don't understand why you would want to," Angela tried to explain, the words only now occurring to her.

"You don't understand why I love you? Is that what you're saying?" Jack asked, incredulously. He had her facing him now, his forehead pressed against her own. He felt her affirmative nod against his brow. "Okay, you'd better not just be fishing for compliments," he teased her lightly, tipping her chin up to force her to meet his eyes.

Angela had to laugh. He could still make her do that without any effort at all.

"I love you," Jack began, disengaging from her slightly in order to lay a hand lightly on belly and nuzzle her neck, "because you have the most natural, sexy laugh of any woman I have ever met."

Angela laughed again, self-consciously, and threaded her fingers through his curls.

"I love you because you see the good in other people…" Jack continued, pausing only to find her pulse and caress it with his lips, "…and since I myself suffer from misanthropic tendencies, I am grateful for your beneficent influence."

"You really give me too much credit," Angela protested, burying her face in his hair and laughing again.

"If you're going to disagree with me, you're going to have to stop talking," Jack cut her off playfully. "Perhaps I can distract you while I sing your praises at the same time."

"Please don't—I mean sing," Angela requested with feigned politeness, sighing gently as his hand cupped and stroked one breast. Her nipple peaked instantly, sending a circuit of pleasure coursing through her.

"I love you because I am in so much awe of your talent. I love how what you do translates everything sordid and biologically base about our work into something beautiful and full of humanity. In that respect, you are my goddess."

"Wow. Goddess, Hodgins? That's laying it on a little thick, isn't it?" But Angela was warmed by his appraisal of her, nonetheless.

"Mmm hmm, you heard right, Baby," Hodgins murmured against her breast, mouthing her between responses while one hand began to stroke her hip, her thigh. "Goddess…"

"And what else?" Angela sighed pleasantly, as a feeling of liquid warmth began relaxing her limbs and causing her to stretch them languidly under his touch.

"Ooh, feeling full of ourselves, aren't we now?" Jack chuckled, moving his hand tentatively to her inner thigh, his fingertips trailing softly over her satiny skin.

His voice lowered an octave as he continued, "I love you because you take me seriously—most of the time, anyway. You tell me the truth about myself, even when it isn't pretty, but you love me in spite of it. I love you because although you're a good six inches taller than me when you wear your stilettos, you make me feel like the biggest man in the… in the…"

Jack couldn't finish his sentence. Angela had melted under the assault of his sweet words and way his fingertips had wandered between her thighs to caress her intimately, and she had reached for his slumbering erection and began to stroke it in turn.

"I love that you love me," Angela said simply, pulling him over on top of her.

She grasped his buttocks, moving him between her thighs. Completely rigid now, Jack happily took the cue and settled in position, pushing gently as Angela lifted her hips to take him in. She was finally wet with desire as Jack insinuated the warm, hard length of his erection into its beloved berth. Pulling out slightly, Jack pushed back in firmly, causing them both to sigh contentedly.

"I love you…" Jack managed to breathe between deep, slow thrusts, "… I love you because you make me crazy sometimes… I love you because you are an aggravating, unpredictable, upsetting woman, I love you…"

Angela's hips were beginning to move erratically under Jack's pelvis, and her sudden, low moan cut him off. Her hands were clenching the thick muscles of his back, and her thighs were trembling as they pressed against his ribcage.

Instinctively, Jack bore down on her, pumping his hips in tempo to her movements. He was rewarded by another moan, and another.

"You coming, Baby?" Jack gasped, surprised yet delighted by her fevered reaction so soon into the game. Angela answered by escalating her moans and digging her fingernails into his flesh.

"Apparently so…" Jack answered his own question. He flashed a smile into her half-closed eyes, and then proceeded to smother her moans with passionate kisses.

Angela cared only that the sensation was building to an extraordinary degree, and that Jack was doing his best to facilitate it. When her orgasm hit, it came with tidal wave intensity, annihilating all thought but one—I love you. She must have said it out loud between the keening cries that accompanied her release, because Jack answered back.

"I love you too, Baby, I love you too…" and then he was gone, lost in the oblivion of his own climax, too wound up to hold back.

Shuddering in each others' arms, Angela and Jack reaffirmed the emotional bond that existed between them—despite the fact that she still couldn't say yes to him, yet.

"Did I just improve my chances?" Jack whispered tenderly in her ear as he held her afterwards.

"Your chances are fine, Jack--it's not that. Just please, please don't give up on me…" Angela pleaded, snuggling closer into his embrace.

"No, I won't," Jack answered gravely, kissing the top of her head. Some how, some way, there was a key to unlock that part of her heart that remained closed to him. Tomorrow, it would be back to the drawing board. But for now, he would simply find solace in the fact that they loved one another.

"Thanks," Angela whispered back. "You know, I really do love you, Jack."

"I know, Baby, I know."