The all too brief honeymoon had ended. Her house was now his house now too. The discussion had not lasted long. Her house was bigger, Aaron wouldn't have to change schools, and it would be easier for him to move. Jim had moved a lot of his clothes over and would eventually move the rest of his personal items through the rest of the week. Most of his furniture would be sold or given to charity, but he waould leave it in the house while it was on the market. The real estate guy told him that houses sell easier when they look occupied. He had no particular fondness for the furniture, so those decisions had been made without effort. He was happily settling into their life together.

Aaron had two soccer games that week and Jim arranged his sleeping schedule around them. He was going to get this Dad thing right this time and that meant being there for his games. Aaron seemed more and more comfortable calling him Dad and Jim loved hearing it. Yeah, Jim Brass was lovin' life right now.

At work, they had just finished a wild case. Grissom had gotten the call originally but Jim had been pulled into it as a favor; sheriff to sheriff. So he had driven out to the Sugar Cane Ranch to aid in the investigation. It turned into one of the whackiest cases he'd ever been involved in, but he actually had fun throughout the investigation, when he wasn't being frustrated by the constant changes in COD and associated suspect. But everything seemed more fun to him right now. No matter how bad things went at work, he knew his day would be better once he got home. Jenna was going to love hearing about this one, he knew.

She had teased him every morning with the "hard as a gun barrel" thing from the honeymoon. Truth was that few men could keep up with the pace or expectations from their special night; especially not men Jim's age. They both had accepted that reality with humor and relief. He sensed that Jenna wasn't really prepared to keep up the pace either...not that things weren't very good between them, just not that hot all the time. She had performed her "victory dance" on the second morning when he surrenderd, declaring that he just didn't have what it took that day. They had done some good humored smooching and cuddling before he had collapsed into the bed for some much needed sleep. Jim knew that he walked around smiling all the time, the looks from his co workers told him how silly he looked. But he didn't care. For no reason in particular, he hadn't told anyone that he had gotten married. It wasn't that he was trying to keep it secret, he just wasn't ready to share.

As he walked through the door that morning, she greeted him from the kitchen, as did the smell of breakfast. Wandering into the room, he eased up behind her, wrapping his arms around her and nuzzling into her back. "Mmmmmm, you smell good." he murmered. Then he handed her a single red rose, something he brought her each morning.

"Me or the bacon and eggs?" she laughed as she smelled the flower. "Jim, you really don't have to bring me one everyday."

"Both...but mostly you. And as for the roses...I want to."

She turned and hugged him, her face fitting into the crook of his neck. Drawing back suddenly, she exclaimed, "well, you don't smell so good. Where have you been?"

"Oh...yeah, well, it's like this...Gil and Nick and well...me, we all were out at a cathouse all night and most of the morning."

"You were where?"

"Sugar Cane Ranch...they have a special deal for guys in law enforcemnet.." Jim was giving her his most innocent look. "Yeah, Binky and Doris wanted to be sure we were properly thanked.

"Thanked for what?" Her face wore a bemused expression.

"Solving the case, of course."

She was holding a mean looking spoon in her hand and waving it as she kept up the questioning. "You solved a case and so they wanted to thank you...exactly how did they want to thank you?"

He was watching the spoon closely. "I told you...the special deal...you know, on the girls. Two for one, I think they said...or maybe it was a discount. I really don't remember. I was too focused on Dreama."

His deadpan look was making her crazy, he could tell. "Dreama?"

"Yeah, you know the song...'dream a little dream of me'...get it, Dreama?"

She turned and took the food off the burners, turning them off. Then she turned back to him, arms folded. Her glare was enough to stop an elephant charge, Jim thought. "What...no food?"

"You got that right...now out with it, Brass. You come home smelling like cigarettes, booze, cheap perfume, and musk and you're talking about some special deal on a whore named Dreama...damned straight I'm not fixing your food and I won't be doing any other cookin' for you either until you fess up. What's the real story?"

"Well, can I ..uh, at least get a cup of coffee?"

"I'm tempted to pour it over your head," she said as she poured him a mug and handed it to him. He walked toward the family room and sat on the couch, patting a place next to him for her to sit. She sat at the other end. Grinning, he began to tell her about the case.

"Well, Grissom and Sara got sent out to the Sugar Cane Ranch on a DB call. Turns out it was a boxer named Happy Morales.." He told her how he got called in on the investigation too and had to interview everyone there. Nick was also called in. He went through the whole list of possible suspects. Eventually he got to his interview at the station with Dreama.

"I asked her, 'Is that your real name? Dreama Little started singing... 'Stars shining bright above you, night breezes seem to whisper "I love you," birds singing in the sycamore tree, dream a little dream of me." He paused to let the song sink in and sip some coffee.

"Then I asked, 'Do I look like Paula Abdul to you? Dreama answered, 'My daddy gave me that name 'cause he liked that song.' I went on with the questions about Happy and her realtionship with him until she said, 'He liked them other girls, but he was obsessed with me. Look, look what he did." He sighed as he realized he might be getting into hot water with this part of the story. "Then she lifted her blouse to show me her bruises. She told me he had punched her in the ribs, just for fun. Then she showed me bruises on her back. Then that night, he had come into her room, ready to do his thing...you know... and she hit him with a crowbar. So we thought she was guilty because at the time we thought that was the COD. I was just about to get a signed confession from her when the phone rang and it was Doc Robbins. He had just autopsied the head and the blow from the crowbar wasn't what killed the bastard."

Jenna was still glaring but not as intensly. "So who killed him?"

"Well, that's what took us so long. This case actually began night before last ..." Jim went on to explain how before being hit by the crowbar, he was shot with an arrow, injected with snake venom, fed shellfish to which he was allergic, and then hit by the crowbar. "He ended up sitting in a chair by the pool and the leg bent, spilling Happy into the pool. That was it...the chair did it."

She stared at him in disbelief. "The chair did it?"

Jim sipped more coffe and then smirked, "yeah...the chair. I think Doc Robbins is still at the morgue trying to decide how to fill in the paperwork. The DA is gonna love this one."

She started laughing. So that's why you spent all night in a whorehouse?"

"Well, actually, I was there the night before too. I mean, I want to be honest with you...relationships need honesty...or so I'm told." His eyes were dancing as he teased her.

Shaking her head, she relented. "Okay...well, Mr. Cathouse...you go shower while I get your breakfast going again. And next time there's a murder at a whorehouse...send somebody else."

He smiled..."Baby, you don't have to worry about me with any of those skanky girls. Especially when I'm getting more action than I can handle right here."

She leaned over and gave him a very arousing kiss. "Just remember that and I might let you off your chain."

"As long as you're holding my chain, Baby...I don't want off." She walked back to the kitchen, putting a little extra wiggle in her walk for his benefit. He was having trouble deciding what was more important; a shower or following her. But he decided that if he smelled as bad as she said he did, he wasn't getting next to her anyway so he headed for the bathroom, whistling Dreama's song.

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Okay, this one was a little fluffy. But I couldn't resist having Jim have to explain his whereabouts through Ending Happy.