It's been a very long time since I've felt Jackson's heartbeat.

To be more specific, both heard and felt it, right under my ear. I can't remember the last time we laid together, cuddled like this. There's a pain in my chest as I realize that there was no way we could've known that time, whenever it was, would be our last for so long. Would we have made it more special?

Would we have made different choices in general?

Right now, we're the only people in the world. At least that's what it feels like, so I'm choosing to believe it.

I can barely wrap my mind around the fact that this is happening. For the past few months, we haven't even been able to coexist in the same room without fighting. Or without snide comments thrown, at the very least. And now, we're tangled up in each other after having amazing, reconnecting sex last night.

When I woke up in his arms, my first instinct was to pull away and retreat to my own room. And I'd tried. But my movement woke him, and he pulled me back into bed, back to his side.

And I've always been so weak for a sleepy, snuggly Jackson.

We've been awake for a while now, exchanging sporadic conversation, running fingernails over each other's bare skin. This is how we used to wake up while we were happy and married; I used to look forward to sleeping because I knew this was ahead of me the next morning.

"You mean that?" he asks, voice gravelly inside his chest. "About me being a good father?"

I press my palm against his chest and push myself up to look into his eyes. They're clear and sober in the crisp Montana light; it's been awhile since I've seem them so up close.

"Yes," I say. "Of course I mean it. I wouldn't say it if I didn't."

I lay back down, tightening my arm around his stomach.

"Why would you think I didn't?" I say.

His chest rises and falls with a deep sigh. "No one's ever said something like that to me before," he admits. "Come right out and said it like that."

"I don't see why not."

"I guess you've always been the one to do that for me, though," he says, quietly like he's realizing it himself for the first time.

But I've always known. A person like Jackson, who grew up with the expectant childhood that he did, doesn't get told genuine affirmations. He got built up in different ways, and later had his ego inflated by flocks of women. It doesn't surprise me that I'm the only person who's ever dug deep enough to see that, on the inside, he's more insecure than anyone would assume. He's just like everyone else in the way that he needs reassurance. He's not superhuman, and it didn't do him any good growing up when he got treated as such.

I fell in love with the real person inside; the fragile heart that's bared only for me. And now, lying here in this soft paradise of a bed, his layers are pulled back and I'm seeing the gem inside all over again.

"Do you think she'll speak today?" I ask, in regards to our patient. We haven't gotten a call that she's awake, surprisingly. She needed the rest, though. I'm not worried, and neither is Jackson. But I am curious about her recovery.

"Maybe," he says, running his fingers through my hair softly. I close my eyes, so tempted to fall back to sleep, and stroke his skin with my thumb. "Thank you, by the way," he says, out of the blue. "I should've said it earlier. Thank you."

"For what?" I ask. I'm not baiting him, I'm genuinely curious. I'm not used to hearing that from him, at least not lately.

"Being here," he answers, after a beat of silence passes. "Helping me. Performing the surgery."

"It was your idea," I say, letting the credit roll off my shoulders. I won't let him give it all to me.

"I wouldn't have ever gone through with it had you not been here," he says. "I don't think I would've even thought of it. Just… accept it, okay? Thank you."

I chuckle once. "Okay," I say. "You're welcome."

A thousand questions race through my mind as the next pocket of silence passes. What does this, what we're doing right now, mean for our relationship? Was it a one-and-done type of deal, something to relieve the stress and release adrenaline from our partnered surgery? Or was it something more; a rekindling of the two of us as a couple, our marriage?

What will life look like for us when we get back home?

Nothing here in Montana feels quite real. This could be a dream, for all I know. Lord knows I've had dreams very alike to this in the months we've spent fighting. I've missed Jackson a lot. It was something I'd never admit out loud while we were at odds with each other - I'm too proud for that - but lying in my cold bed at night knowing he's across the apartment sleeping alone, too, never sat right with me.

But all I can do is take this at face value. We're together right now. I can't plan for the future, even the near version of it. All I can hold in my hands is this present moment, and I don't want to waste it. I don't know when I'll get it back again, if ever.

I want to tell him I love him, because right now the feeling surging through my body is so powerful that it's hard to ignore. But I won't, I know that, because… I don't know why.

Maybe I should speak up, but I stay quiet. We've never been masters of communication, and I don't have the courage to start now. I don't want to ruin this, on the chance he doesn't feel the same about me anymore.

Jarring me out of my thoughts, I feel lips on my hairline. I lift my eyes to meet his and smile softly, stroking his chest slowly as I situate to wrap one leg around both of his. I wince just slightly from the soreness, and he notices with a slight grin.

"Sore?" he asks.

I nudge him playfully with my knee. "Shut up," I say, then just admit it. "Yes. It'd been awhile since I…" I meet his eyes poignantly. "The last time for me was making Harriet."

I'm sure I don't want to know when his last time was. I don't want to imagine him in another woman's bed, making another woman's body feel like I know he can, touching her, kissing her. I can't think about that. I'll fly into a jealous rage.

"Me, too," he says.

I'm shocked.

"Really?" I ask, picking my head up.

He looks amused. "Yes," he says. "Is that so hard to believe?"

I return my head to his chest, taking a moment to contemplate before I respond. "But you-you've dated," I say.

"Yeah," he agrees. "And so have you."

I snort. "Barely."

"But you have. You've gotten all dressed up and gone out to see guys."

"There were like, two," I say. "The first one didn't count. The one I faked a page on."

He chuckles. "But still. Dates. Just like I have."

I sigh. "But we're different. You… you know that. There's no way I'd have sex with a guy I was only just dating, but you-"

"You had sex with me," he says. His tone isn't argumentative or cocky, and he's right. I did. All that time ago, when we were screwing in supply closets without a real name for what was between us, I did have sex with him. A lot of sex.

"That was different," I say.

"How?" he pushes. I've forgotten how much he loves to do that, loves to push my buttons. Not even to get a rise out of me, though that is his goal most of the time, but to pose a challenge.

"I… I don't know," I say, losing a bit of confidence. "There were feelings. You said it yourself, a lot of feelings there. And with the guys I saw… there wasn't anything."

He's quiet for a moment. "Same here," he says.

I listen to the beat of his heart, rhythmic and steady under my ear. "But you didn't just sleep with them, anyway?" I ask.

"I'm not a total pig," he says. "Contrary to popular belief."

"I didn't say that."

"You were thinking it."

"I really wasn't," I say. "I just know that… you're a man, who happens to really love sex. I should know. I was married to you."

He laughs a little. "It's not my fault I couldn't keep my hands off you," he says. "You're smart, sexy and witty as hell. What more could I ask for?"

Butterflies spin around in my stomach. He hasn't complimented me so outright in a long time; I've almost forgotten that he's capable.

"I was so damn excited that you were my wife," he says. "I'd have been stupid not to sleep with you every chance I got."

The wife comment sits in my brain, and I badly want to call attention to it, but I don't. I let it stay dormant. "At work, at home, in the car…" I trail off.

"God, the car," he says. "I'm still not sure how we pulled that off."

"Well, you didn't do much," I tease, and he yanks me closer and jostles my body around. I laugh, and continue. "I did most of the work. You pretty much just sat there."

"I cuddled you after," he says. "Every time."

"Husband of the year right here," I tease.

"Oh, shut up," he says. "I made sure you came every time. I never let us finish without at least two orgasms from you."

My body buzzes at the mention, but I try not to let it show. I lost count of the orgasms he gave me last night, and they were amazing. I felt them throughout my entire body, and if I concentrate hard enough I can still feel the aftershocks dully throbbing under my skin.

"Imagine counting all of them up," he continues. "Oh, god. And double it during pregnant sex. You were so sensitive, when I-"

"Until we had to stop," I say, cutting him off. The memory of Samuel inundates my mind. Finding out his diagnosis, choosing to get induced and watching our son die in my arms. Burying him, attending his funeral.

Coffins should never be that small.

I think about him every day, but never talk about him. It strikes me as odd that this is the second time in a week that he's been brought up.

"Right," Jackson says, the luster in his voice gone.

I pause for a moment, threading together the right words to convey what I'm feeling. The other day replays in my mind, when we stood in front of the dying son and his father and Jackson said he'd had a child die, too. He likened his experience to that father's while I stood right there, the mother of Jackson's dead child, and watched silently. He didn't include me in that narrative. I know there wasn't a conducive way to do it without an excess of explanation, but it had still stung.

"You know, that was my life, too," I say, body growing rigid. "Samuel was my son, too."

"I know that," he says.

"The other day…" I begin. "I was standing right there when you told the father of that boy that you had a child die. I was right there." I prop myself up on one elbow. "I'm Samuel's mother."

He searches my eyes and I try to read his expression. "I know," he says. "But I didn't want to spew our whole life story to that guy. He needed a commonality, so I gave it to him. And we needed his son as a donor, so-"

"So you used Samuel as a way to push him into it," I say, feeling my fingertips go numb - something that always happens when I'm finding my way to anger.

"No," he says, adamantly. "Not at all. It wasn't to guilt him. It was to show him that I know how it feels. To have something and watch it slip away. Right in front of me."

We stare, studying each other's faces, for a long moment. Suddenly, I realize that he isn't just talking about our dead son. We've shared plenty of things, abstract and concrete, and almost all of them have disappeared because our differences have allowed them to. But we have a child, a little girl who needs and loves us, and she's not going anywhere.

I don't want the love we shared to go, either. I want it back.

"I don't want it to happen again," he says, reaching up and curling a tendril of hair behind my ear.

"Me, neither," I say, my voice dropping to a whisper. I lean down and rest my forehead against his, and he holds me close while I stay there, eyes gently closed.

When we kiss, I feel a thousand things. Hope, joy, and redemption all flow through me, and I put the entirety of their emotion into kissing him. I want to show him how much I love him. I hope he already knows.

"It was always you," I say, pulling back and brushing the tip of my nose against his. "I want it to always be you."

He smiles so wide that it reaches his eyes, and pulls me back down for another kiss. "I love you," he says. And everything falls back into place.

Our patient speaks again, using a method that Jackson and I coined together. It wasn't coincidence, it wasn't happenstance, it was a couple working as a team to create something groundbreaking and beautiful.

When we get in the private plane to head back to Seattle, I've never felt so confident. We did an amazing thing, and we did it together. Nothing can change that, and no one can take it away.

I sit across from Jackson instead of the awkward distance to his side like I did on the way here. I watch the snowy atmosphere of Montana shrink and disappear as we rise into the air, amazed at it in a way that Jackson isn't. Flying is old news to him, but the fact that we're in an Avery aircraft is still baffling to me.

Once we're up in the air and served drinks, I look at him with a soft smile. "We did it," I say, and lift my dainty champagne flute to toast.

He lifts his in return. "Yes, we did," he says, then pats the small spot open on his seat so I'll lift my feet up.

I do, crossing one ankle over the other, and rest my body weight back on the cushioned chair. I close my eyes and feel him undo the laces of my boots, and the air hits my socks when he takes the boots off and tosses them to the floor.

I sigh, completely relaxed, as he massages my feet.

"You have such tiny feet," he says, chuckling.

"Stop," I murmur, kicking him lightly. He always used to tease my small feet and claim to wonder how they kept me standing. "Size 6 is not that small. 6.5, even, after the babies."

"I could fit my big toe into one of your shoes," he says, digging his thumb into the middle of my arch.

"Because you're huge," I say, setting my empty glass down. "An abnormally large man."

He lifts my feet from the chair and places them in his lap. He snorts, then says, "You know, one time I heard Karev and Wilson talking about how they wonder how I don't break you."

I open my eyes and narrow them. "What's that supposed to mean?" I ask.

He has a playful glint in his eyes. "When we were married," he says. "They were talking about like, sex-wise."

I widen my eyes now. "That's so inappropriate!" I exclaim. "Why were they talking about us?"

"Bored, probably," he says.

"What did you say to them?"

"I was eavesdropping," he says, hands sneaking up to my ankles under my jeans. "I couldn't let them know I was listening. But I specifically remember hearing Jo say how does he not crack her hips in half?"

I scoff and roll my eyes. "You liar," I say.

"Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little," he admits, pleased with himself. "But they were talking about it."

"I can handle you and your… size perfectly fine," I say. I raise my eyebrows. "You're all I've ever known, anyway. I wouldn't be satisfied with anything less."

His eyes flash and he holds my ankles tighter. "Come to the bathroom with me," he says, dipping his fingers inside my socks just slightly.

"Do you need an escort?" I ask, looking at him sideways. "And either way, I don't have to go."

He pinches his lips. "Not like that," he says.

It dawns on me. He wants to have sex in the bathroom - the bathroom on his private plane. Oh, god. I wish I could say I'm totally adverse to the idea, but I'm not. Not at all.

He watches me realize what he means. I gasp slightly and his eyes darken as he sets my feet back on the floor. "Put your shoes on," he says. "And meet me there."

He stands and leaves, and I take my time tying up the boots that had done me so much good in Montana. There aren't any other passengers to notice our conspicuousness, but there are plenty of flight attendants that I don't want knowing mine and Jackson's personal business. We still have to keep this subtle.

He's been gone for about five minutes when I knock softly on the bathroom door. It opens, and Jackson quickly pulls me in and shuts it behind me, making sure the lock clicks, too.

He steals the breath from me when he presses my back against the closed door and anchors his hands on either side of my head, trapping me as if I planned on going anywhere. I close my eyes when he kisses me, melting against the door as he pins my hips against it with his own.

My hands sneak to his waist, taking fistfuls of his button-up dress shirt and untucking it from his pants. I open my mouth and let out a rattled sigh when his hands drop to my belt, unbuckling it and undoing the button and zipper with quick fingers.

"The whole time we…" he breathes, going for my neck. I lean my head to the side and grip the back of his skull, digging the pads of my fingers in. "We were apart, I thought about this. About you," he says.

He pulls my sweater off over my head and my hair gets ruffled because of it. "You did?" I ask, opening my mouth in a silent moan as his lips drop to my chest, to the swell of my breast peeking out over my black bra.

"At night," he says. "All the time. I wanted you."

I graze my hands down his sides, then center them in the middle of his shirt to start on the buttons. I undo them quickly without fumbling until I can push the fabric to either side of his chest, exposing his familiar muscles.

"Now you have me," I say. "What are you gonna do with me?"

He groans, stripping his shirt fully off to toss it next to my sweater on the floor. Interrupting my kissing his chest with an open mouth, he grabs my hips and forcefully spins me around so I'm facing the mirror, hands planted firmly on the sink. He bends me over, runs a hand up my spine, and plants a hot, wet kiss between my shoulder blades.

He pulls my pants down until they hit the floor, and I step out of them and resume my position. I hear the clink of his belt and jeans hitting the tile, too, and arch my back impatiently towards him.

"I'm gettin' there, babe," he says, tone light.

My head falls forward when he grips my hips and pushes inside me, snapping his pelvis to bury himself to the hilt. I lift my gaze and meet my own eyes in the mirror, my mouth open as I feel every inch of him deep in my body. When I look at him in the mirror, I see that he's wearing a concentrated, but completely blissed-out expression.

"Fuck," he hisses, thrusting. He doesn't start gentle, and I hadn't hoped that he would. I fall forward onto my elbows from his force and he keeps a tight hold on me as he keeps moving, and I let my head drop again.

When he starts moving faster, my moans and whimpers get louder, out of my control.

"Shhh…" he says, stroking my back with a flat palm. "The girls will hear."

I press my lips together and rock back against him, feeling that I'm on the precipice of an orgasm. I take one of his arms and direct his hand to my breast, which he squeezes roughly over my bra and covers my mouth with his when I look back over my shoulder.

"We don't have a ton of time," he murmurs. "Baby, I need you to come."

"Then help me," I say, and move that hand on my chest down between my legs. He doesn't need any other prompting, he rubs his thumb in circles over the electric nerves just inside me, and I let it all go with a loud, clipped scream.

His hips keep moving as I let my forehead fall to rest on the cool porcelain sink, back heaving with deep breaths. When he finishes, he kisses a path up my spine and pulls me to a standing position so he can turn me around and kiss the life out of me.

"God, that was…" I say, breathlessly.

"I know," he says, pushing my sweaty hair back. "It was so amazing. But now… we need to stagger our exits. These women are narcs, and if it gets to my mom she'll give us endless shit. If she doesn't somehow already know."

I pull up my pants, sensing his urgency, and fiddle with the buckle as my fingers tremble.

"Here," he says. "Don't worry. I got it."

He lowers to his knees and looks up at me through his eyelashes, licking his lower lip. Instead of buckling my belt, he unbuttons and unzips my jeans that I had just done up, and pushes them to the floor again.

My underwear go soon after, and he swings one of my legs over his shoulder. "We have a bit before we land," he says, and runs his hands up my thighs. "And you know what, scream. Be as loud as you want. I don't care what they think. I just… right now, I need you."

I let my weight fall back on my palms braced on the sink, and smile down at him. Because I need him, too. And we're on our way back to being who we used to be, with Montana as our push in the right direction, not necessarily slowly - but surely.

He makes me come twice more in that bathroom, and we do our best in making ourselves look decent before we deboard. If Catherine knows anything, she doesn't ruin our reunification with our daughter by saying anything, and Jackson and I can't keep the smiles off our faces as we greet our little Harriet.

The glint in Catherine's eyes tells me she knows exactly what she did. It'd be easier to be frustrated with her if her plan hadn't worked out so perfectly.

Holding my daughter with Jackson's eyes on me, I smile at him and hug her closer. We're a family. We're pulling back together. And everything will be better than it was before.