Disclaimer: Not mine. I wish.
Spoilers: 4x12: A New Life
"So, hypothetically, you ever think of a honeymoon?"
Jules has never been the girl to daydream about weddings, planning out that perfect honeymoon. In a household full of men, she was raised tough. While girls were playing with dolls, thinking about days when they were grown up and dressed like a princess, being walked down the aisle by proud fathers, she was off rough-housing with the boys, getting dirty playing sports. If she had ever once been the type of girl to dream of a prince charming, her brothers had quickly teased it out of her. Yet she can't help but ask Sam as they separate from their team.
She knows it's like putting gasoline on a fire. They're not even publicly together. Sarge may know, the team probably considers it on occasion knowing their past, but it's not like it's something they talk about. They're not a normal couple, one who can just casually discuss their future.
And still, the question comes out. Donna's potential leaving makes it a little easier to ask. She likes to imagine that someday that could be them, getting married, although she hopes neither of them gets shot at their wedding.
"Love a honeymoon, hypothetically."
The question surprises him but his own answer doesn't. He's always pictured being married, having a family to come home to every day. Granted, it wasn't something he ever said out loud: that might have been the one thing that would have silenced his father; hearing his son was daydreaming something like that when he could be practicing or running through tactics in his head. It had become a fading figment of his imagination as time passed. Spending most of his time with his fellow soldiers fighting a war on foreign soil left little time to find a future wife.
Although he will always regret the circumstances surrounding him returning to Canada (he still missed Matt all the time), he can't regret leaving behind the war to join the SRU. It gave him a new perspective on life, a new group of people to call family, and Jules.
"Alright, just promise me it's not daiquiris on the beach."
Because someday this will be figured out and they can be together in every sense of the word. She's had time to think of the future. Steve's words about the big picture and fifty years down the road have come to mind more frequently now, in a way it never had when she was with him.
Deep down, she's always known that for her, it's Sam Braddock. All or nothing. Before him, her life revolved around Team One and her home renovations. And she'd been content with that: being in a relationship and keeping her position in the SRU seemed like a far-fetched dream. What kind of man would want to be with someone who kept the strangest hours, who occasionally killed people as part of her job description. She had settled for that life. She had achieved her goals and now all she had to do was fight to keep them. Sam turned that world upside down.
He made her want more for herself. Suddenly it didn't seem so impossible to be with someone: he understood the long hours, he worked them with her. Her position impressed him rather than intimidated. Her renovation pains were filled with flicked paint and laughter.
She's never been one to back away from a challenge so it would figure that the relationship she finds worth fighting for would be the ultimate challenge. Her career and her love life, so inextricably intertwined. Right now, it's all about the balance, until they can find a permanent solution that allows for a plan.
"Extreme hiking, remote trails, no outhouses."
The answer comes out with barely a pause, an implied promise that they will one day have a honeymoon to look forward to.
In fact, it's something he has thought about more often than he will ever admit since he met her. He's an army-trained sniper, a hardened soldier, not someone who has imagined what it would be like to have the chance to have a honeymoon with a sexy sniper chick.
While he doesn't mind the occasional day or two of just relaxation, he's a man of action. Too long of just sun and sand would drive him crazy. This type of honeymoon has always been something that has lingered on the edge of his mind. It became a more prominent dream when he and Jules were briefly together, in those few moments where he could pretend that they were a normal couple, not two officers sneaking around behind the backs of their teammates, who would likely end things the second it seemed like they could get caught.
He had buried the imagined honeymoon as deep as he could when they split up. After all, how many other women would want to spend their honeymoon doing something like that? Plus it definitely wouldn't have been the same. With Jules, he had met his match. There was actually no one else out there like her and he wouldn't have it any other way.
"Nice, I like it."
It's just another thing that makes her love him a little more. People say opposites attract but it's really how they're alike that makes being with him so amazing. It's so easy to be together. Not in a way that seems like they've settled for one another (that's impossible with the situation they're currently in. No one who has 'settled' would put themselves through this) but rather makes it all worth it. They click.
The picture he's put in her head is so unbelievably her that it could be something they had thought up together, discussed in passing. And the best part is that the picture is so much more than a hypothetical honeymoon. It's the suggestion of what would come after. The child she's been thinking about more and more as her biological clock began to tick (she hated when people said that, but with Sophie giving birth to Izzy, it had becoming more of a fixture in her thoughts) seems possible, a perfect blend of her and Sam.
It's that possibility of a life together that the honeymoon represents that she likes. It's that future that she's so determined that they get a chance to have.
"Oh, you mean with you?"
He's grinning down at her, relishing in the moment. Like he'd want it any other woman. He loves that they can talk like this; the banter with the underlying message. If this is how it feels to be together with Sarge knowing, even if they're risking it all, he's glad their boss knows. Maybe him coming down the stairs, shirt undone, hadn't the best way for their boss to find out, but it was all working out.
A real future had seemed so unlikely when they had first gotten together. It had still appeared that way as they rekindled their romance in spite their probation, but it is gradually becoming something they are wishing for vehemently.
This time around has been so different from their first attempt at a relationship. Back then, she'd always had a toe (not quite a foot, but inching there) out the door, ready to run when it started to conflict with the team. And she had, taking his heart with her in the process.
Now though, it's better in a way he couldn't have even imagined. She's as invested in them as he always has been and it's thrilling. To know that she loves him enough to risk something she's worked her whole life towards is mind-boggling and he's thankful for it every minute they're together. And that promise he's covertly made to her becomes engraved in his heart as she grins impishly up at him.
Someday, they'll get to go on that honeymoon.
AN: Still not sure how I feel about my writing in this, but I loved that Jam moment and it just wouldn't get out of my brain. So, here it is. =] Leave me some thoughts please!