Reese woke up the next morning with a twinge of a hangover. Joss was not the only one who got a bit tipsy last night. Next to him he heard Joss let out a small groan.

"Damn champagne," she growled. John kissed her, taking care to be very gentle for both their sakes.

Joss put her head on his chest, "Do we have to get up?" she fussed.

John checked his phone on the bedside night stand, "No messages from Finch and you don't have to be home until Taylor gets out of school this afternoon. So no, we don't have to get up."

"Good." And with that, she snuggled up against him and went back to sleep.

John smiled and hugged her close. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this happy. Well he could, it was when he had been in Mexico with Jessica in that hotel room before the planes hit the twin towers. He'd quit the army, was going to ask Jessica to marry him and he'd had a whole future in front of him that involved settling down into a nice quiet normal life. Then he'd thrown it all away to go fight for the greater good, and he had simply accepted that he would never feel truly happy again. To him, it was nothing short of a miracle that he felt like THIS again, for the first time in years.

This time, he swore to himself, he wasn't going to screw it up. Sometimes you need to lose something before you understand just how valuable it is, and no one could appreciate that more than John. He had been given a second chance, a chance he was well aware that he didn't deserve, and he was going to protect it and fight for it with every fiber in his being.

Later that day, John pulled up in front of Joss's building and parked the car. "Do you want me to come up with you?"

"No, it's OK. I need to spend some time with Taylor since I haven't seen him in three days and do a bunch of chores. Maybe we can all have dinner together tomorrow night?"

"I might have a new number in the morning, but I'll see if I can break away for a couple of hours."

Joss squeezed his hand and got out of the car. John watched her walk into the building. She paused at the door, turned, waved and smiled and went in. John drove home, already missing her.

John entered his apartment alone for the first time in days. He took a few steps in and looked around. It already seemed different, lonely and cold without Joss there.

John was used to being alone, but he was not used to feeling lonely; now he felt lonely. The woman he loved had been in his home for a few too short days and he found that he liked it. He found himself wanting to make a real home with her.

His reverie was broken by the buzzing of his phone in his pocket. He glanced at the caller ID, it was Fusco. He realized something bad was up, Fusco had no reason to be calling him unless something was very wrong.

"Yes, Lionel?"

"Is Carter with you? This thing ain't over yet."

John gripped his phone harder and his voice dropped to the deadly growl he used when he was upset, "What do you mean?"

"After Vasquez's preggo mistress was shot, there was a witness outside the building who saw the killer leave. Carter was in the process of looking for that witness when she was shot and you stashed her in the Bat Cave. She asked me to keep looking."

"I take it you found the witness?"

"Yeah, I did, just a few hours ago. Get this, the gunman wasn't a man, it was woman. They identified Elsa Vasquez, Carlos's wife, from a picture. Elsa snuffed her competition, not Carlos."

John felt sick to his stomach, "Carlos was protecting the mother of his children by confessing."

"Yeah, Carter always did feel like there was something hinky about the confession. She knew he cracked too easy."

"It wasn't Carlos that put the hit on Carter, it was Elsa."

"That's a good bet. Mulroney tells me Elsa is known to be possessive and meaner than a junkyard dog. Where's Carter? Please say she's still with you."

"I dropped her off at her place a little while ago, she was meeting Taylor there."

"We better get over there, fast."

"I'll meet you there."

John hung up and hit the preset for Joss's phone as he ran for the car.

As soon as Joss stepped into her apartment, Taylor came running from his room and gave her a big hug. Joss happily returned the hug, despite the fact that she had enjoyed her time with John, a lot more than she should have given the circumstances, she had missed her son terribly.

"How's Grandma?" she asked.

"She's fine. She said to remind you that she is expecting us for dinner Sunday night, And she wants you to bring, as she put it, 'the new man in your life'."

Joss snorted, she could just see John eating a family dinner while her mom grilled him. That was worth a laugh or two. Then a thought occurred to her, "Hey, wait a minute, how did Mom know I have a new man in my life?"

"Um, I might have accidently let it slip…" Taylor looked embarrassed.

Joss folded her arms and glared, "How the heck did you know?"

"John and I talked, man to man. He wanted to be sure I was cool with him hanging around."

Joss's eyes narrowed, "Oh he did, did he?"

"Hey, don't be mad at him, Mom! He knows we're a package deal. I'm good with it."

Joss sighed, as unhappy as she was with the fact that John had gone behind her back to talk to Taylor, she had to acknowledge that she and Taylor were a "package deal", and she should be grateful that John did understand that and was willing to work with it. She also recognized that she should be grateful that John and Taylor got along. If they hadn't, that would have been a deal breaker.

Joss had to smile when she thought about John. She still could not believe that he wanted HER of all people. She kept waiting to wake up from the dream. She wasn't quite sure they were going to be able to have a real relationship, but damned if she wasn't going to do everything in her power to make it happen. She wanted this, she wanted him, more than she had wanted just about anything in her life before now. She wasn't sure how much time they had before she got that dreaded call from Finch telling her that John was gone forever, but she was going to make the most of every minute they had together.

She smiled and brought herself out of her daydream, time to focus on her son.

"Go put your stuff away and bring me your laundry, I have some cleaning to do. After I'm done, we can get pizza and watch the game if you want."

Joss, as usual, emptied her pockets onto the side table by the door and then walked back into her bedroom. She hummed happily to herself as she sorted laundry, thinking of a pair of soulful blue eyes and a soft sexy voice. She did not hear the frantic buzzing of her phone by the door as John tried to call her.

So Taylor had no idea he should not answer the knock on the door a few minutes later….