Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Enjoy! Sorry I took so long to update. I rewrote this several times...

Let me know what you think!

Edit: I wrote 'Michael' in here... if you've already read this chapter, it was supposed to be 'Jace'. I was rereading and thinking about updating Destiny today, and he's a character in that story... So sorry. :)

Chapter Eighteen:

It would have been so much easier for me, to hate him.

We walked to the pizza restaurant, and not only did he hold doors for Sara, but for me as well. We sat down and decided on a pizza we'd all enjoy, ordered, and then he sat back, smiling, telling us to not let him bother us. …And he meant it. He wasn't playing games and he wasn't saying it was okay while being resentful… he honestly wanted us to talk forensics because he believed that was the point of us going for lunch. He had come all the way over to see her, and was content to watch her talk to another man about something he found boring and disgusting, just because it would make her happy and allowed him to spend some time in her presence.

How do you deal with a guy like that? I had this strange scene playing out in my head of Sara admitting to him what she'd been doing while he was at work the past few nights… going so far as to tell him that she'd wanted something to happen, and him… what? Smiling and kissing her temple and telling her to do what made her happy?!

I wanted him to get mad. To snap at her unreasonably. To be inconsiderate or annoying while we talked about my timeline regression lecture—she had more than enough questions to make our alibi believable—or to be suspicious and demanding. I wanted him to… I don't know, have bad table manners or be not very intelligent or not very attractive.

He was none of that, did none of that, seemed perfectly incapable of anything remotely like it.

When the pizza arrived, the conversation shifted away from bugs and bodies and, apparently, to me.

"Do you like Vegas?"

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "I do. I mean… there's a lot of excess there, but… it means you're rarely bored at work."

Sara smiled in amusement and Jace laughed, an open, happy, trusting sound. "Neither of us have ever been there, though we've talked about taking a trip, someday. How long have you lived there?"

"Oh, wow." I laughed. "Years and years… I worked in Minneapolis for a while after I left college… moved to LA… and the Vegas lab recruited me from there."

"Minneapolis, huh? It's a lot colder up there than down here… I don't know if we could ever live somewhere so cold."

He was being friendly—asking and sharing, giving and taking. But everything was me, and then him and Sara. I knew this was how things were… the way they were supposed to be. I knew that, but it was driving me crazy.

"I lived in Boston, Jace. …I love snow."

He gave her an affectionate smile, and I wondered what was behind it. Her words, which almost felt like a way in which she was distancing herself from him, put all kinds of thoughts in my head. Sara bundled up in a heavy winter coat, her nose and cheeks cold, her breath visible on the air. Sara curled up in warm PJs by a roaring fire while the wind howled outside. Sara in a red and white lace bra and panty set, with a Santa hat on her head.

"Okay, well, I could never live somewhere so cold. Besides, honey, Boston has an ocean. …I don't think you could live without an ocean."

She smiled. "There is that…" Sara on a beach in the moonlight. Sara in a swimsuit, sun in her hair. Sara lying on her stomach on a surf board on the sand, naked, her head resting demurely on hands folded under her chin.

I cleared my throat to rid the images, unintentionally drawing their attention to me. I picked up a piece of pizza. "Excuse me…" I said, taking a bite and hoping that would suffice. Jace seemed to remember he was trying to be polite and ask about me.

"Are you married?" I nearly choked on the piece of pizza, coughing and setting down my slice to meet his eyes. "Oh, I'm sorry… I mean, I didn't see a ring, but I thought… lots of men don't wear rings for their jobs. I always worry about Sara wearing hers to work…"

I shook my head. "No… it's fine. I just swallowed wrong. I… No, I'm… I'm not."

Jace smiled in a way that seemed a little sad for me, but surprisingly, managed it without seeming condescending. Seriously, did the man have no faults? He was younger than me, more attractive, nicer and more attentive… just as smart, as far as I could tell. And not to sound arrogant, but that was impressive. For example, earlier I'd quoted Shakespeare in response to something Sara had said about the case I'd used in my timeline regression lecture—Jace had been able to tell me that it was Shakespeare, the play it was from, the character who spoke it, and it which Act it had been spoken.

I had turned to him, asking if he'd minored in theatre or English in his undergrad, and he had shrugged and said no, he was just a fan.

I admit it—I was spiteful. At the first lull in the conversation, I raised an issue I knew might cause some problems. I wanted to see him in a light that wasn't… well, perfect. I wanted to see how they interacted around something they disagreed about, even if it was in front of someone. "So… the big day is this Saturday, you said? You have a honeymoon coming up?"

Sara gave me a look—she knew I knew the answer to this—but Jace just smiled, swallowing his bite of pizza and taking a drink of his soda for good measure. "We're still saving up. Neither of us have families with a lot of money, so we had to save up to pay for the wedding. We should be going in a year though…"

"Oh? Where are you going?" I asked, looking politely interested while Sara aimed a kick at me under the table and hit the table leg instead. It shook beneath us and Jace turned and gave her a curious look.

She smiled an embarrassed smile. "Sorry… I think I've got a rock in my shoe. I was kicking to make it move off to one side so it wouldn't bother me so much…"

I had to fight back a grin in this interaction. Jace shrugged, giving her a smile like he thought it was the most adorable thing in the world that she had nearly thrown our lunch to the floor in an attempt to free a rock, and looked back at me. "We're undecided. Sara has dreams of somewhere exotic—the rainforest or Paris, which would be great, but…" He gave her an indulgent smile, like he thought she was being a little silly in these desires. "Living in a tent outside a research center and 'walking in the footsteps of Darwin' sounds more like work than a honeymoon… and neither of us speak French. I'd like to go to somewhere like Hawaii, where we can lounge on the beach all day, walk twenty steps up to our little bungalow when it gets too hot… days long and languid and nights cool and sweet—dancing and drinking and walking under the stars."

It took everything in me not to take a page out of Sara's book and kick the man under the table. Seriously, this was supposed to be a topic of dissention and even in his refusal to give her what she wanted, he was being sweet and romantic. …How could I compete with this man?

Despite Sara knowing what I was up to, she turned to him anyway, perhaps just to make the conversation seem natural. "I keep telling him that there are beaches in Costa Rica too… and Paris is the City of Lights. Is there any place more romantic for a honeymoon? Or let's go to Australia—no language barrier, no tents, but we could surf and sunbathe and snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef…"

He clucked his tongue. "Maybe I'm just boring, honey… I'd like someplace simple and close to home… without a twenty hour plane trip."

She frowned and looked down at her pizza. He was more than kind… more than understanding… but she still wasn't happy. …While this gave me hope that she could still change her mind and leave him for me, it didn't make me feel confident that I would be able to make her happy. If this guy couldn't keep her from looking at me, what on earth made me so confident that I could keep her from looking at someone else? Did I really believe that if she left him and gave us a chance, she'd never be attracted to another man in her life? Never feel any connection?

And when she did… would I be enough to keep her coming home each night, even if I was working and would never know? …Would I be okay with her being mine, and not-cheating on me the way she'd been not-cheating on him, with me?

I felt… hopeless, when we left. I hardly fought to pay for the meal, though I had intended to, and then I made my excuses, saying I needed to prepare for my next lecture, so they could have the last half hour to themselves. I shook Jace's hand, thanking him for the meal—and meaning it; you just couldn't hate the guy—and wishing them both the best of luck with their wedding.

Once back in the lecture hall, alone, I pulled out my cell phone and called the airport. I had lied when I said my flight was on Friday—it left late on Friday afternoon. Chances were that I would be in town while they got married, though I wouldn't be able to attend the reception. …I had no intention of attending either. I tried to switch to a flight on Thursday first, just after my last lecture… but they were full. I tried for Friday… they said they could put me on standby. …I took what I could get, and agreed.

Despite how connected I felt to Sara… how attracted… how very much I wanted to see what we could become… I would be happy to go home and put San Francisco behind me.