A/N: One shot. Someone asked me to do a fluff L/J fic. I don't think this is quite what they had in mind. Nevertheless, here it is, and someone please stop this guy screwing up Good Riddance before, having heard it, I'm too embarrassed to look Billie Joe in the face ever again.

Inevitable

Number one, why all this is wrong.

Well, actually I'm not entirely sure on that count. I forgot to think things through before I went further with it all; I know, mistake mistake.

Number two, why I thought it was all wrong.

Very simple. I am the victim; he is the crook. Mine is the hurt; his is the fault. I am the innocent; he is the guilty, and I don't care jack for any moron in the legal system who makes claims about innocent until proven. He's been proven. He's proved himself to me, time and again, over and over. There's no question, no doubts. No room for anything but simple condemnation.

If I was someone else, anyway.

Number three, why it seems right nonetheless.

How do I explain this so people will understand? And why am I making this such a big deal anyway? Is it love, or is it lust, I don't know, the result's the same. Its not a question, its an answer that I can't understand. Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road. Time grabs you by the wrist and tells you where to go. It's the weight of him and that sneaky smile, and that joviality of nature when we met. And a terrible warmth when our wills clashed. The warmth wasn't him; the warmth was from me.

And I can't say, and he can't claim, that he didn't feel it. Not truthfully, at any rate.

I may have to steal you, he says; a telling phrase. He doesn't want to conquer me, not really to triumph. He doesn't want to seduce me. He wants to steal, to take me away, and make me his own. It may not be a question of setting up our own lives somewhere else; he's an art thief, if I may be so conceited, and I'm going to be abducted to be put on display in some concealed showroom underneath his basement, to be taken out and handled lovingly after he gets home from work, hidden from all other eyes. With or without my cooperation in the matter.

The really bad part is that I don't seem to mind. Handling brings to my brain images… well, not so much images as brilliant flashes of color. Warmth and light. Brilliant, iceblue eyes. Heavyweight. God, is he ever built.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Number four, where was I?

Do I feel guilty when I think things like that? Well, yeah. I'd have to be a complete emotional black hole not to feel guilty. He was orchestrating the death of my father (orchestrating, hmm, long long fingers weaving magic in the air, drawing music out of whatever instrument he chooses to stroke, no, no, sorry, there I go again) and after all, he did head-butt me. I don't think I deserved that. And he did deserve everything I did to him, of course; because I was right, and he was wrong.

Just like a traditional marriage.

Number five, what about our life together in the future?

For instance, how's he going to be on our wedding night? Manipulative and demanding? Soft and gentle and tender and loving and sweet? Sexy and dangerous? All that together?

Well, yes.

Sometimes I doubt if he could stop being all those things, if he has some sort of off button, or a dimmer-switch or something like that. There is something purely fantastic about him when he breathes, even though that's a bit labored now, through my own doings. The part with the pen was sheer brilliance, and I think in time he will come to admit that on his own.

This is how I see us, when all is said and done.

Sitting on the couch as evening wanes toward true nightfall, black and pure.

Lights reflect off his eyes. Those starred, shining, beautiful eyes.

His collar is loose, and I unbutton it further. He's had a hard day at work, some more respectable job now than assassination, or setting up assassinations. (I can hear his protest now. "I don't kill people! People I ask to kill people kill people!") We'll have had a laugh or two over dinner, because I more than likely burnt it slightly. But he won't complain; he knows better than that.

We don't have kids yet; but its not for lack of trying.

I snuggle closer and tongue the scar I've left on his neck. He's ticklish there, and when I discovered that I was delighted. He's thinking of covering the scar with a tattoo of some sort, like "Lisa Was Here" or something like that.

He curves his arms around me, curls his fingers over my shoulder.

Later on, we'll have a tussle in honor of the good old days; I will threaten him with a sexy pen, and will allow him to headbutt me.

Now, though, we are content to sit and love each other, as we loved each other from the first time we set eyes on each other. Well, almost the first time. To be perfectly truthful, the very first time I saw him, in line at the airport, I thought he was gay.

This is our life; this will be our life. And no amount of numbers can change that.

Now, though, he's two rooms away, at least I think he is, I'm not quite sure, hopefully I can get him before he gets me; I think it hurt when I stabbed him with my shoe, though. There's probably blood all over my dad's house.

Some people might call all my consideration a bit premature.

I say there's no harm preparing for the inevitable future.