Disclaimer: Not mine

Twenty Four: Forever

Lying there side by side, still holding each other tightly while catching their breath and letting their pulses slowly return to normal, reminded Samantha of the old days, their old days. This was the time when they would lie together, casually touching and talking once their physical release of passion had been spent. They told themselves—at least she had—that it was just physical and no one would get hurt, but this was the part that belied that assertion; as they shared parts of themselves that no one else knew, they began to get closer and closer in a way that she knew now would bind their souls together for the foreseeable future. She felt like that now, like they were bound and still winding themselves more tightly together, but this time, maybe, if they were lucky, nothing would be able to come between them again.

"So how is it here, now?" he asked her, and she knew he was referring to spending her nights alone after sleeping with him for so many nights. She never stopped running her hand along his face and the contours of his body, barely seeing him but instead taking him in through her sense of touch, recording everything she took in through her fingertips.

"It's the same, and different, too." She had never lived with him, before. They had spent nights together, occasionally, but it had been different, waking up with him every morning, and even though it had been for the purpose of her recovery, she had enjoyed it very much. She thought that it was something she could get used to on a permanent basis very quickly. She looked up at him, then looked away, for fear of getting too close, too fast. "It's familiar, and it's lonely, too, now without you here."

He liked the sound of that very much, liked the idea that she missed going to sleep with him and waking up with him just as much as he did, with her. He moved in closer, kissing her neck lingeringly. "Whenever you're ready to make it permanent, just say the word. I'm ready to have you with me all the time, have been for a while."

She looked at him in shock, surprised to hear him say it out loud. "We never really… we never really talked about it, before." Because both of them were so sure that it wouldn't last, both of them so sure that they would respectively do something to screw it up.

"We should have," he said quietly. "I should have. I should have told you that it was forever, for me. I should have given you my ring a long time ago."

Samantha looked at him, stunned into silence. Never had they gone there before. She hadn't thought about getting married. She'd thought he never would again, after the disaster of his marriage.

"I want forever, with you," he said quietly, no doubt anywhere in his eyes, so resolutely that his confidence gave her the courage to believe in it with him. "I want us to be a family: you, me, Finn and my girls. I want to give you another child, if you want one, part of both of us, together. Before I left for vacation, I was looking into the possibilities, for the future. I can retire, if I want to, and I've had more offers in the private sector. But I've also had an offer of a promotion, a desk job, if I want it, that I could take if we were together, so that we wouldn't have to keep hiding from the Bureau." He smiled at the way her mouth dropped open in shock, his fingers sifting through her short hair and moving carefully over her newest scars, reminders to him of how close he almost came to losing her, for good.

"I did a lot of thinking out there at the beach, in the middle of nowhere, away from everything but my girls. It was easy, there, to pinpoint what was the most important to me, and all I came up with, apart from the girls and Finn, was you." His fingers traced over her face, her delicate bone structure, her lips, her jaw. "I was going to come back here and take the job and ask you to try again, with me, not necessarily in that order," he said softly. "And then I got that call, and I thought it was too late." He took a deep breath, remembering that horrible, horrific moment, and the desolation that had enshrouded him. "I don't ever want to feel like that again, that you're lost to me."

Samantha had no words. She couldn't process everything that he had said, so she just stared, at him, knowing that there was nothing that she could ever say or do to make her worthy of this man.

Jack had to chuckle a little, at the shell-shocked look on her face. He kissed her softly. "Hold that thought. I'll be right back."

She thought he was just going to the bathroom, so she was even more shocked when, upon his return, he stopped at her side of the bed, waiting patiently for her to turn over to look at him, grinning at the frozen astonishment on her face when she saw him there, down on one knee in his boxer shorts, because he thought that was a little more dignified than doing it buck naked. Of course, he'd planned on doing this at a fine restaurant, but somehow the timing seemed right, and he'd decided in a split second that it had to be now. Of course he had the ring with him; he'd been carrying it around with him for a while now.

He looked up at her, staring down at him with her mouth open in shock, and took her hand. "Samantha Spade, I love you with everything I am. Will you marry me?"

What could she say to that? She had loved him forever, but had never thought that he could possibly be hers. They had done things ass-backwards from the beginning. She had made so many mistakes. She had never thought far enough ahead for this to be a possibility. And it was funny to think that out of the two of them, he would be the one to make this grand romantic gesture, that he would be the one to want forever, to believe them capable of it together, even when she didn't.

She had never thought she would get married, had never thought she would be able to move on from him enough to love anyone else and surely never thought he would feel this way about her, but he really didn't leave her much of a choice. Even as she knew she didn't deserve him, even as she knew how short life could be and everything that could possibly go wrong in the space of a heartbeat, she also knew that life was too short not to go after what you really wanted, and she'd lived long enough to know she would never love anyone the way she loved this man: truly, completely, without care or compunction.

He even had a ring, a beautiful antique ring that sparkled in the moonlight filtering in through the blinds, and all the reasons she once would have had for saying "no" no longer seemed valid when she looked at him, strong and hopeful and steadfast. But she had no words right now, couldn't make herself speak through the lump in her throat, so she nodded through her tears and pulled him up by his shoulders to kiss him deeply, relieved when he followed her down to the bed and pinned her to it with his body, taking over the kiss until it took on a life of its own, becoming everything that they wanted and needed to say to each other.

Finally she opened her eyes and looked at him, surprising him with the fierceness of her expression. "I won't ever be lost to you," she said, and kissed him again, hoping to express everything she felt for him, when words were inadequate.

And then later, much later, he slid it onto her finger. "It was my grandmother's. Let me tell you about her…"

TBC…