A/N: This is not in any way an ending that could have been achievable by the end of the game, but I sort of think it should be. I'll try to make it clear over the course of the story what would have needed to happen in order to make this possible, but it might get a tad awkward/crammed.

Scott Shelby swung lazily upright, the bedsprings creaking beneath him. It was a late, lazy Saturday morning, the light falling through the blinds into yellow stripes across the bed.

"Hey," he said, twisting backwards to look at the woman curled up behind him on the bed, her back to him. She didn't move, and he wrapped one large hand around her hip, squeezing her through the blanket. "Hey, Lauren."

She only grumbled at him, curling up tighter.

"Come on, babe," he said, and shook her hard, playfully. She smacked at his hand – he kept it there – pulled the pillow over her head, then gave up pretending she could remain asleep.

"What?" she said.

"Do you want breakfast?"

"Depends. Are you going to burn it?" She was beginning to stretch, lazily, under his hand.

"Well, I could make cereal," he said, thoughtfully. "I can't burn cereal." He shifted to rest his palm against the bed as she brought her head out, rolling onto her back to squint up at him.

"You're telling me," she started slowly, "That you woke me up and asked me if I wanted breakfast, so that I could make you breakfast."

"Yeah, well," he smiled shyly at her. He was ready for it when it came, but he still flinched when the pillow nailed him in the spine.

"That means I get the bathroom first," she announced, and slipped out of bed, draped in one of his ancient t-shirts, to make good on her promise. He watched her go, still smiling fondly at the now-familiar roll of her hips underneath. Their time together had already filled so completely with a thousand small habits – the mock fights over the cooking, over how to squeeze the toothpaste, the slow inevitabilities of their evenings in together on the sofa, the way they let each other keep their private sorrows.

He never asked about all the men who had come before, her clients, or the grief that surrounded the death of her son. He didn't need to know, though he swore privately that he'd listen if she ever needed to tell him. She reciprocally let him dwell shyly in his own past, in the webs of secrecy around his work. Their being together was comfortable, soft, familiarly close, like the old shirts of his that Lauren wore to bed.

He stepped wordlessly into the bathroom after she was done, not bothering to shower. It was good enough, right now, to simply wash his face, shave. By the time he'd emerged, she'd put together a better breakfast than he ever would have on his own – cereal, fruit, yogurt.

"Dang," he said, pausing in the doorway to the kitchen. "That? That looks delicious. And you didn't even burn it."

She scowled at him, and he relished the transformation of her gorgeous face as he dragged out one of the kitchen chairs. She joined him, peeling apart an orange.

She always would have been a pretty woman, he thought. But her sorrow had made her beautiful. The sad lines that grief had formed on her face gave her a kind of regality.

"I forgot to ask you last night," he started, cautiously. "How's the job hunt going?"

She shook her head and looked at him miserably. "It's not."

"Hey," he said, and leaned over to tuck her hair behind her ear with one set of thick fingers. "Give it time."

"I've given it time." She sounded upset, and now Scott was sorry he'd brought it up. He knew she'd looked terribly hard for weeks. Lately, her searches had become more haphazard, but he could hardly blame her. She wasn't stupid, but she had very little education. She was diligent, but had no employment record of any kind. And she had a moral sense more passionate than his own, but an arrest record that set off warning bells to any potential employer who bothered to scratch the surface of her background. Getting turned down for absolutely everything she applied to was starting to wear her down, and he could tell.

"Lauren, relax. You know it's okay. Something will come up. I just want you to be happy. We can get by on what I make. You could spend all day at the movies for all I care."

She grabbed his hand, the one still touching her hair, and pressed it against the side of her face. "I know. It's just so hard. It's like being told how worthless you are, over and over again. That's what I was trying to leave behind."

"You shouldn't ever hear that," he said, and freed his hand from her grip. He used it now to grasp her chin gently and turn her face towards his own. "You ever hear that, you come talk to me. You're worth about a thousand of the people I talk to every day, and I'll tell you that as long as you don't know it yet."

"You don't count," she said. He made his mean face and grabbed her leg just above the knee, squeezing it hard in a pincer grip. She squealed.

"Dare you to say that again," he snarled, and as she squirmed to work her way out of his grasp, he grabbed her hard around the waist, wrestled her on to as much of his knee as peeked out under his belly. "I got ways of making you listen to reason."

She was laughing helplessly, and wrapped both arms around his neck as she readjusted her weight across his lap. "I'll be good. I'll go to the movies, even."

"You'd better, miss." He pressed his face into her shoulder until she turned to him and kissed his forehead.

She leaned lazily against him, moving one foot on the floor as she eased her way off his legs. "What do you want to do today?" she asked. "We've got a whole weekend, sort of. We did the zoo last time, right?"

"Oh, babe." He gave her an apologetic squeeze. "I gotta work today."

Her face fell a little. "Oh, Scott. Do you have to?"

"You know I'd rather spend it with you. It won't be an overnight, promise. You know what? We should go to the movies." He kissed her lightly on the cheekbone. "You pick one, you're good at that. Plan to go after eight. I'll eat beforehand. You should too, Twiggy. We'll meet back here first. If I'm going to be too late, I'll call. Okay?" She hesitated, and he grappled her in a bear hug until she gasped, giggling.

"Okay, Scott. But you have to pretend to like whatever I pick."

"I won't have to pretend, because you'll be there." She flushed, and he let her flee his lap. She disappeared into the bedroom, hips swinging, and he returned contentedly to his breakfast. They were half old married couple and half junior high, still figuring out where they fit together, still courting.

A/N: Think I'm going to reorganize the rest of this. I know, it's a really short first chapter. I'll probably lengthen it at some point. I sort of just need to publish it so that I'm motivated to fix up the rest of it.