Author's Note: Hi! Bet you didn't expect me so soon! :) I got a request for Carina finding the ring from season 1 (we all know it) thinking Jack kept it for Maya, but then she find out it's for, well, somebody else (and we all know who that is, too). I'm working on all of the other requests and I'll get to them soon (as I'm still taking requests, keep on sending em). :) Hope you guys like it! Sorry for any typos! :) Also aha so nobody addressed my Taylor Swift blurb in there - story time - I had that in there because the song they were going to sing was going to be Lover but I changed it and obviously forgot to take out that part so -um - yeeah. Thanks for the grace :P The love from you guys has been sooooo nice *sending hearts*

What If He Kept It

Carina was marching towards him, and by marching, he meant walking quite briskly, those crazy heels tap-tap-tapping on the ground, staccato and blunt. Very, very, blunt. She had something to say, and she was going to say it.

People didn't call them hot Latin lovers for just any reason. (Well, oaky, that was Vic's nickname for Carina, sorry, Dr. DeLuca where he was concerned, and he'd kind of made it Andy's too. Except, nobody knew about that).

They had been doing good. So good. He and Andy, the two of them, together, Jack felt like they could take on the world; he was falling in love and he was falling fast; and he knew by the way she kissed him, by the way she snuggled into his chest at night (yes, she snuggled, in that completely no holds barred, childish, vulnerable way that had him sometimes gasping for air just as much as when she would kiss his neck and leave a hickey or two in her wake). Just two weeks ago, she said the words. The three, little words.

They were laying there, in bed, after yet another round of mind-blowing sex, soaking in all of their luxury, not bothering yet to clean up after themselves, to ruin the moment, and her breath was against his chest, his own causing a small breeze to move through those baby hairs on her forehead, and then, there they were. I love you.

He said it back; of course he said it back, because he felt it too, and was just so relieved to know that none of this was one-sided. If it were, he wouldn't be able to handle it. Last time they did this, made a go of the two of them, was proof of that.

He couldn't do what she wanted, he couldn't partake in that kind of thing and sacrifice his integrity, his own lifelong happiness for a fleeting few months of hers. He loved her then, he loved her so much, but nobody who really respected themselves could love her enough. But now, now, everything was different. Now, everything was better. She said she loved him, and she meant it. He knew she did; he could feel it in his bones, deep down to his core.

Love for her, it was ingrained in him. He couldn't wait any longer. It's not his nerve he's afraid to lose, and it's not her, this time, either. He just knows that tragedy doesn't wait for you to be ready. It strikes when it wants to. The skyscraper was part pf that. The warehouse fire. The storage unit. Pruitt. Do what your heart tells you to do, son. These are our last days on earth, how do you want to spend them? Married. To her.

Jack wanted to spend his last days on earth married to the love of his life. That's all there is to it. There seems to be a problem, though. He feels hastily around his pockets, front and back, and nothing. The ring was there, before. Now it's just gone; and Carina – ahem – Dr. DeLuca is still tap-tap-tapping her way over here, and the sound is just as unnerving as the scowl on that sharp-boned face of hers.

He could see why Maya found her attractive. One cheekbone looked like it could slice cleanly through flesh. She stopped in front of him, hands on her petite, form-fitted waist. Everything about her was form-fitted. Her body was small, but her personality was big. Not one to underestimate, and Jack learned that the hard way, and he had a feeling he was about to again.

"Jack? Can I ask – why did I find this ring in your locker?"

"You were in my locker?"

"Yes, now focus."

"Carina – "

"What have I told you? It's Dr. DeLuca to you. Now, focus, please."

"Okay. Sure. But Carin- Dr – ugh, screw it. Look, you don't get it. The ring is – "

"For Maya. How do you expect me to believe it's not for her? She's so easy to love, to fall in love with, I get it. But we're together now and you can't – you can't take her from me. Not like you tried to before."

She sounded more than a little pissed. He also detected hurt, insecurity, like maybe she did feel threatened, after all.

"What? No, Carina I'm not trying to take Maya from you. I never was. I see what you to have together and I'm not interested in ruining that. You have to believe me. It's just like what Andy and – "

"Andy? What does she have to do with this?"

If only she knew the extent of it, if only she knew the real story. He thought about Andy again, her beautiful, smiling face, her dark hair that went blonder in the spring and summer, those hips, and the way she could move them (he swore that a few country songs were written about those hips). He couldn't wait to propose to her. Propose to her again. This time it would be different – this time –

"Jack?"

Maya came up behind Carina and wrapped her arms loosely around the woman's waist, practically moulding herself into her back.

"Baby? Why do you have that? Ooh…is it for me?"

Maya had become so much more physically receptive to affection, and giving affection, ever since meeting (and very obviously falling in love with) Carina DeLuca. It was like a whole other side to her, one that made her softer, and the thought of Maya Bishop as human, a real, live, human, and not, like, a firefighting robot, well, he'd had feelings for her at one point, he'd put it that way. Feelings that were not there now, and definetly not enough to put a ring on her finger, but, he could safely assume, that was what her girlfriend didn't know. It was what he'd been trying to tell her, this whole time.

"Sorry, Bishop. The ring is not Carina's and it's not for you. It's mine."

Jack stole the ring from Carina's grasp, held in between his thumb and finger, appraising the diamond. It was the same one. He hadn't gotten around to getting another one, and frankly, he didn't want to; this one, it was so much a part of their history, a history he didn't want to forget, and not to mention that he had picked it out for a reason.

Something in the way it reflected light, something in the way the edges of the thing were sharp, but still beautiful and soft in the right light, at the right angle, something in the way it would look on her finger, on her finger with the vein that led straight to her heart, something about it was just so Andy.

He couldn't explain it, not really, not in words, and it was a wonder how he was going to ask her to marry him, while holding that ring, the ring that had him at a loss for words, because like that ring, she too, had him grasping for words that just wouldn't come. He was naïve in thinking that this moment, the most nerve wracking moment of his adult life, would be any different.

"It's mine and it's for – "

"Andy."

Maya sounded nonplussed, as though she were just stating a fact, and for all he knew, maybe she was, maybe Andy had told her after all, even though they had agreed that secret was the best way to keep their relationship right now.

Right now but not forever; so maybe, she'd broke and told her one day over one too many beers and was it wrong of him to say that he was almost relieved.

Relieved that somebody else knew besides the two of them and was it even worse of him to have his reason for that – if they go up in flames, they have witnesses, witnesses that would bring them back together, because if it were up to the two of them, up to her, they'd be more than likely to drive each other further apart.

"Jack – what…is that my ring?"

Jack turned around. His eyes were wide. He could feel them. Funny, Maya's neutral and shocked tones were eerily similar, but he guessed he should have known that. Now, Andy was looking at him and he's never seen that look on her face before; it was as if her face just cracked open and all of her emotions were spilling out onto her skin. Her eyes were just as wide as his, beautiful, bright, endless, and he felt like he was drowning in them, drowning, gasping, fighting for his life, but he knew that she would let him live. Let him go, she would never, and he didn't want her to, not one bit, but she'd let him live, live the life they were meant to, together, with her. It wouldn't be the same otherwise. She knows that. My ring. He knows she knows that.

"Oh." Carina sighed and then laughed a little and both sounds melded together.

It was something he would without much thought freely associate with Carina – or Dr. DeLuca (a Dr. Deluca-ism, if you will, and he did – but he also calls her Carina in secret or to piss her off, depending on the day. He kids, it's what he does). He doesn't doubt either that it's something about her that Maya goes crazy for, and the thought kind of makes him smile, makes him wonder if there is something like that about him, something that Andy goes a little bit crazy for. Hm. He smiles at that, too.

"Oh," she said again, hit her forehead with her palm in a way that makes it feel more like an exclusively American thing than what it is and that's not an exclusively American thing. It makes him smile. He's doing a lot of smiling right now. "It's Andy. Of course it is. The way you two have been looking at each other lately is obvious."

Andy raised an eyebrow at Carina, her eyes filled with tears, a smile of her own on her lips. "Were we?"

"Obvious?" Jack said, taking his hand and cupping her cheek, turning her face towards him. He stared at her, gratitude filling his lungs as he takes a breath. "Yeah."

"Yeah?" she repeated, her body responding instantly to his touch. She leaned further forward so that their foreheads were touching as she bit her lip. "So are you going to ask me?"

He gazed at the ring in his hand, turned it around. Without a word, he knelt down on one knee in front of her, right there, in the middle of the fire station because proposing to her anyplace else would just be stupid.

There was no other place. Not for them. This is where they met. This was where they fell for each other, once, then twice, and this, here, is where they get engaged, promise each other that one day, they will become husband and wife.

"Marry me. No – wait – that's not how I wanted to do that."

"I don't care."

She laughed, shaking her head, and it was then he noticed her hair was down, and those delicate little baby hairs that she normally tried so hard to hide, brushed her forehead and her temples; and the only word he could come up with for her in this moment, cheesy smile and glimmer in her eyes was precious. She was absolutely precious.

"I didn't get to do it the first time around. I was caught. I hadn't been ready. Hell, I'm not ready now, but I – "

"Jack -"

She laughed again, and the sound was like the windchimes on the front porch of the one house that he felt safe. Her laugh was calling him home.

"I don't care. Marry me today. Tomorrow. I don't need a fancy venue, just like I don't need some fancy speech. Okay? I love you; you love me, we're promising forever and that is all that matters. Nothing else."

She took the ring from him and was about to slide it on her own finger, but he stopped her there.

"Hey now, that's my job." Just then, the alarm rang throughout the station. Aid 19, Ladder 19, Structure fire, civilian in distress, 443 Dallas Road.

She rolled her eyes, but still, she was smiling. She couldn't stop. He liked that.

"Well then, get to it. We have lives to save."

He slid the ring onto her finger and pulled her in for a kiss; a kiss that rivaled every other, a kiss that was like a dream he never wanted to wake up from. (She would kill him for that comment, but thankfully, she's no mind reader).

As she parted her lips a little more, he slipped his tongue in between them and there was not a single breath taken as she enveloped his tongue in hers, let it go, then brought it back. He nearly moaned.

"Saving lives can wait…."

"No – no they can't." Maya fake gagged, pulling Andy back from him and she made a face at her friend.

"Hey! I wasn't finished."

"Well the rest of us were," Maya said to her, leaving no room for further argument before he could agree with his fiancée's comment.

His fiancée. He loved the sound of that. And there was that laugh again, another sound he absolutely loved, calling him to her, calling him home.

He listened to the call; in the same way he would listen to it for the rest of his life. Their lives. Their lives, together.

Author's Note: I'm not sure about the ending - I wrestled with the last line (to keep or to leave) but obviously ended up keeping it. Eh. Thoughts? :) Till next time! Xx