Melody sighed her contentment and rolled toward him, expecting, from his stillness, to find him asleep.
He wasn't.
Mac was lying on his side; his eyes, half-lidded with drowsiness, but awake enough that the smile on his lips was touching them, were fixed on her face. He'd been too sleepy to get up and get coffee and too happy to do more than just lie in bed looking at her.
She smiled warmly. "Good morning."
He slid over closer, draping an arm over her middle as he nestled into her shoulder. "Good morning, Mrs. MacGyver."
"I really like that a lot," she said, tucking her head against the side of his chest.
"Me, too."
"I know it was kind of impulsive …"
Mac grinned. She wasn't looking at it but she could definitely hear it. "Sorry about that."
She lifted her head. "Sorry? It was my idea."
The grin broadened to the point where she noticed he had dimples in both cheeks. She'd always thought it was just the one. Then she had to sobering, slightly sad thought that she had known him for almost five years at this point and she'd never seen him smile enough to really show all his dimples.
He unintentionally distracted her with with his light answer. "Yeah, but your ideas usually come with plans. I think the wedding officially solidifies my 'bad influence' status." His head dipped down again and kissed her shoulder. "All you got in the bad influence fight was getting me to agree to showers after missions that I really wanted to take with you already. So I win."
She cracked up. She couldn't help it. It was such a contagious, infectious sound, Mac started laughing too.
As their laughter tapered off they locked eyes and were suddenly kissing again, hands in each other's hair, murmuring little appreciations in the spaces in between like they always did.
For the next almost hour, the world fell away.
Afterward, they were a complicated knot of warm limbs and soft sighs and whispers of affection.
They lay like that for a little while. Mac was almost motionless ain a way she wasn't accustomed to. Mel thought maybe he'd gone back to sleep. She sort of wanted to, too, but she also didn't want to spend the two weeks Matty had given them off jet lagged and in their room.
She reached up and traced the newest scar, the one on his side that had sort of forced them to truly voice the depth of their feelings, or at least had prompted him to kind of propose in his totally Mac-like way, with her finger tips and was rewarded immediately with him rolling toward her and twining his fingers with hers.
"No tickling. New honeymoon rule," he murmured.
"I thought you were asleep."
"I kind of am. But not that asleep. You want some breakfast?"
"I think it's more like dinner," she said, checking the old digital clock on the nightstand.
"Yeah, it is isn't it?" He paused. "You want to get dressed and go get some food?"
"Does this offer come with a shower first?"
Mac's eyes opened all the way then. "I'd be going back on my end of our deal if it didn't. I've come to expect post mission showers."
She laughed. "Was marrying me a very taxing mission?"
"Well …" he trailed of with a teasing note in his voice.
He wasn't quite sure how she managed it, but somehow she was suddenly straddling his hips, more or less pinning him to the bed with strategically placed hands. "I think I might want to make you take that back." She grinned down at him, and he smirked in return. He deftly switched places with her setting her laughing and a little breathless. "How did you ..?"
"I'm a spy, remember? Wrestling an opponent is one of my skills. And I needed a chance to finish what I was saying before you decided to apply your usual unfair interrogation and negotiation tactics."
Her eyes sparkled with amusement, and something else. "Go on."
"The wedding was the easy part, the briefing so to speak. But sneaking past the security Matty sent along … It's easy to get lost in Venice! … then the sneaking back in ... I had to climb a tree to get in here unnoticed … that must count as a mission. And I don't recall a shower entering into the um … debrief … last night, this morning. You know, whatever."
"You didn't have to sneak out. One of those guys would have taken you or gone out. That what Matty sent them for."
"Of course I didn't have to," he laughed. "But my way was more fun. I've never gone on a prosecco acquisition mission. It's important to continue to grow as a professional."
She was smiling broadly now. "You're right. I have been derelict in my duties. Can't start slipping just because we've altered our paperwork, I suppose. But … do you think a bath in that ridiculous sunken tub counts?"
He grinned, once again showing all his dimples. She resolved she was going to give him a reason to show them more often. "Definitely."
0-0-0
"We should get a tree."
Mac stopped reading the morning news and put down his tablet. "Hmmm?"
"A tree. When we get home. We should get a Christmas tree. For the house."
He smiled and shook his head. "Thanksgiving isn't until three days after we get home. That's a little early don't you think?"
She put down the paperback tha had given her the thought in the first place. "I was just thinking, we have all those beautiful decorations we bought for the wedding … and it would be a shame to let them go to waste just because I couldn't go another day without hearing you say I do."
There was a light, teasing tone in her voice, but Mac's forehead had started to crease. "We can still have the reception. I'm pretty sure your mom and dad are expecting …"
"We haven't caught Murdoc yet," she blurted. "I'm not … I don't … He'll never let us have …"
She'd gone from talking about something simple and fun like decorating for Christmas to going pale and stammering. Without even thinking, he pulled her into his arms and found himself being clung to for dear life. "Hey, shhh, it's okay," he soothed almost automatically. "We're not going to let him take that from us, alright? Matty will take care of security and we'll still get our day. He's not going to try anything. We won't let him."
He wasn't about to admit it out loud, because while she hadn't started, he could tell from the almost desperate way she held him that she was close to tears, but he'd been thinking the same thing about the wedding until the twins birth changed their plans. He'd been thinking they should postpone the wedding, that it was a perfect invitation for the bastard to try and ruin something else of Mac's.
He hadn't said anything because he didn't want to postpone anything, he hadn't wanted to wait. Now Melody was his wife. His wife. And they'd been so happy to be able to say I do. On the surface. Now he knew this fear of Murdoc highjacking their lives once again was weighing on both of them.
Mac's teeth clenched. Mel heard the freak of the muscle in his jaw, so tense it sounded like an old piece of leather being stretched to far. Like an old set of reigns. She realized that was probably a really appropriate metaphor. It was the sound she associated with Mac holding himself back, with not allowing himself to feel.
She sat up, resting her hand on his chest. The pain of coping with what Murdoc had been doing to his life, yo their lives, was there for a split second, but he wiped it clean in less than no time. He couldn't quite look neutral though. That was beyond him at the moment.
"I'm sorry," she began.
He frowned. "What for? Wanting Christmas? We can get a tree as soon as we get back and as far as the party …"
"Don't. Don't do the thing where you pretend everything is okay with you." Mac's eyes widened a little, somewhat taken aback by the heat in her tone. "I meant I'm sorry I brought up Murdoc. It's not like you needed to be reminded. It was shitty of me. If he's in my head as much as he is, what must it be like to be you?"
"Don't be sorry," he said immediately, scooting himself all the way up to sitting and pulling her into his arms again. "He's screwed with your life too. At least the 'me' part of it. And it never even occurred to me you wouldn't still want the reception and stuff. That was the part we were really looking forward to anyway, the important part for our friends and for us. The wedding was …" he trailed off and she pulled back to get a good look at his face.
"Was what?"
He blushed furiously looking like he didn't want to go on, but Mel wouldn't let him off the hook and he knew it. He gave her one of his sideways smiles. "A formality. You've had my heart in your pocket since long before we got to that chapel."
She smiled softly. "I think you should have been a poet instead of a spy."
He grinned. "Hey, there's still time."
A while later Mel stretched and swung her feet over the edge of the bed. "Shower?" She asked.
"Mmmm," Mac mumbled, not opening his eyes. Then after a minute, "Whafor?"
"I thought we were going to do the whole gondola tourist thing. Do you still want to?"
He cracked an eye open. "We could. Or … we could stay here."
"We've barely left the house all week," she said, amused.
"Pretty sure that's what honeymoons are for," he smirked, finally getting himself out of bed too.
She laughed. "Well then, we've been doing a hell of a job. But it might be nice to see the city too."
"You don't mind going out with the security detail? I feel so foolish wandering around with an entourage."
"Never bothers you to drag Jack along," she observed lightly, stepping into the bathroom and turning on the hot water for them.
"Jack's different."
She grinned. "He certainly is." She paused. "Have you heard from your dad at all?"
Mac nodded, using some mouthwash. After he spit it out, he shrugged. "You were asleep but he finally called last night to congratulate us."
"That's nice," she observed, sounding reasonably neutral. "I wouldn't have minded if you woke me up to say hello."
Mac shook his head and stepped into the shower, waiting for her to join him to speak. "You don't have to try so hard to like him, Mel. I appreciate it. But it's not necessary."
"He's your father."
"Yeah, he is. But …"
"But what?"
Mac shrugged, reaching for the shampoo. "But he's not … he's not really my dad. I'm glad we're speaking, glad I have a chance to try to work through my stuff with him about the past … about my mom … I don't need you guys to feel any particular way about each other. You know? Does that make sense?"
She nodded thoughtfully. "I guess so. I do know I really wanted my dad to like you though."
He laughed. "Well I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty pleased that he seems to. But … Jack likes you … That's enough for me."
She grinned. "I love Jack. As far as surrogate father-in-law's go, I've pretty much hit the jackpot, so to speak."
"Oh no, not you too! No bad puns or word games! I can't take more than one of you doing that!"
She took the shampoo from him. "I'll try to restrain myself. Do you think he'll come to the reception … since we're going ahead with it?"
"Keep Jack away from a party? Fat chance."
"Not Jack! Jack's always there. For everything. I meant your father."
Another shrug. "Maybe. I can't really say with him. If he does, that'll be nice … if he doesn't, I'll already have all my real family with me, Mel. That's … I think that the biggest thing I've figured out the last couple of years."
"What's that?"
He pulled her under the water with him and she wrapped her arms around him. "That family is a choice, that happiness is too really. When you've figured that out nothing and nobody can take it."
Her expression sobered. "Not even Murdoc?"
"Especially not him."
When they were drying off, Mac caught her mischievous expression in the mirror. Serious talk time was apparently over with. "What are you thinking?"
"That maybe boat rides in dirty water are overrated. Maybe we could just go back to bed? I know we made plans, but I think … Maybe plans are overrated too."
"Oh, Mrs. MacGyver, I like the way you think."
