Two and a half hours later.

Madeline opened her eyes slowly as she woke up in Jesse's arms. She put on arm around him and laid her head on his chest, still basking in the after glow of their love making. She glanced up at him, smiling at the way he was still sound asleep. She shifted slightly and pressed a soft kiss against his lips.

Jesse woke up at the feel of Madeline's lips against his. He cradled the back of her head as he gently kissed her back, his fingers tangling in her hair.

Madeline broke the kiss and laid back down in Jesse's arms. "I've really missed you." she whispered softly as she took a deep breath in and then let it out slowly.

"I've missed you too." he gently rubbed her back. "I don't think that you've changed a bit since the last time that we were together." he laughed slightly when she hit him. "Maybe you have gotten better though."

She smiled slightly, her mind already starting to drift back towards sleep. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost you now. I just got you back, and now I have to worry that some woman who doesn't even really care about you is going to try to steal you back from me. Can't you do something to make me feel a little bit better about it?"

Jesse shook his head slightly, feeling almost as if he was coming out of a trance. "You really are out to cause far too much trouble. How the hell did you manage to get me in bed with you, and don't you dare try using one of your coy little answers." Jesse demanded as he grabbed up his clothes from the floor and started to pull them back on.

"I only went along with what you wanted. All I had to do was kiss you, and then your heart took control of your mind and body. I have to say, I'd forgotten how flexible you are. Of course that little fling you had with that woman could have developed some agility in you." she shifted slightly so the sheets slipped down slightly to revel her breasts. "Just forget about her, and take those clothes back off. I want to give the sex thing another round."

"Madeline! Just stop it!" he got out of the bed and sank down into the computer chair. "I really don't know how in the world you managed to get me to….to engages in sexual intercourse with you. I'm supposed to be getting married tomorrow! How do you expect me to face Lexa when she gets back today? She trusted me enough to leave me here alone with you today while she went out to get ready for our wedding, and the first thing that I did was get into bed with you. She has had enough trouble learning to trust me with out us having gone and done something like this."

"If she doesn't have the ability to forgive you, then she doesn't deserve to be with you." Madeline slipped out of the bed and sauntered over to him, allowing each step and slight twist to show off her nearly flawless body. "You know that I'm not going to hold anything against you. I understand how hard it must have been on you after you thought that I had died. You probably spent forever hurting, and the first person who made you feel better was all that you wanted. You probably felt that Lexa would be able to keep you feeling that good forever, and that is why you are about to marry her. Blake, you've got to trust me on the fact that she's not going to be able to keep you happy for the rest of your life. For a little while she may be able to keep your mind off your problems, but eventually that interest is going to fade. What we had was real, and if we give it some time we can get back to that kind of relationship."

"I'm not interested in having that kind of relationship with you, Li. I am trying not to yell and throw you out of her. Do you have any idea of what you've put me through during the last twelve years! I don't think that you have heard a single word that I've told you about what you did! I fell in love with you, Li! I gave up my entire world just so we could be together, and then when I thought that you had died I had no where to turn! Adam still didn't want me to come back to the team because he thought that I was too much of a liability! It was years before I could even feel again! Even before you showed up here you had caused me to nearly loose Lexa several times! There were so many times that she nearly walked out on our relationship because she felt that I couldn't be there for her, and that I couldn't love her enough to make a change in our relationship! She tried to get me to propose for years, and I couldn't get over you to do it! If it hadn't been for you, I would have married Lexa a long time ago!"

"It is not all about you!" Madeline hissed as she turned on her heel and gathered up her clothes. "I am not about to deal with you if you are going to be so damn self-concerted. If you want to spend your life with some bitch that is your prerogative, not mine." she glared at him for a second and then stormed out of the room.

Jesse sat in the chair for a few moments longer before getting up. For a moment he considered ripping the sheets off his bed and burning them in a desperate attempt to erase his earlier actions from his mind. He took a deep breath and then pulled the sheets off his bed so he could was them and was away any trace of Madeline's scent.

After he had put the sheets into the washing machine, Jesse went back to his room to put fresh sheets on the bed. He finished making the bed and sat down on it, trying to figure out how he was going to deal with the newest turn in the day. His eyes fell on a picture of himself and Lexa. He reached over and picked up the frame. Looking at the picture he started to remember the day that it had been taken.

Flashback

One year earlier.

Lexa laughed as she leaned into Jesse's arms. The wind whipped her black hair around and the bright summer sun shown down on them. "It's the middle of summer, but this wind is going make me freeze to death."

"Not to mention what it's going to do to your hair." he pressed a soft kiss to her neck and held her tightly. "You might actually be warmer in the water."

"Don't you even think about trying to get me in that water!" she twisted slightly so she could kiss him. "I'm glad that you decided to drag me out here today. I probably would have gone crazy if we had stayed inside all day."

"Do you really miss Shal and Bren that much?"

"I'm just worried about them." she laid her head on his shoulder. "I guess what I mean is that I'm worried that they are going to decide that they've had enough of this life and that they are going to try to start living a normal life."

"I can't see them trying to live a life that was not full of excitement. They might wanna take a bit of a break if Shal got pregnant, but they'd come back after Shal and the baby were ready."

"Looks like we are going to have to be careful to make sure that we don't get pregnant until they are ready to come back to work."

"Even if you and Shal both get pregnant at the same time Bren and I can handle running things with a little bit of help from our contacts. I've been trying to prepare things for this ever since Adam left."

"You know that you over plan everything." her eyes slid close as she rested in Jesse's arms. "I think that I actually want us to be married before we start a family. I don't wanna spend my honeymoon attending to a baby. Now once we've married we are going to seriously get to work at starting a family. We're both too old to be waiting around."

"I'd like to know who you are calling old. I'm two years older than you and I still feel like I'm nineteen."

"I hate to say it, Jess, but you're not nineteen anymore. Neither of us are really that young. Now you maybe able to father a child when you're in your forties or even your fifties, but I don't have that long if I want to be a mother."

"Hey, don't fly apart over this. We'll get married and then see about having a couple of babies. We could have at least three by the time we get to our fifth anniversary. Maybe by then we can even be living in a farm house on a sprawling section of fifty acres or so. You can have a garden and we can try to supply some of our own food. Of course we'll have a great computer center in the basement, and a second one hidden somewhere on the land."

"Do you really want to move to the country? There won't be any computer hubs or any Starbucks out there."

"I can give up Starbucks to raise our kids in clean, fresh hair and plenty of room to run around. You'll never have to worry about them getting into trouble by joining a gang or anything. We can bring in a private tutor and have the kids taught at home."

"You've definitely thought this out." she pulled away from him as the wind died down and the sun finally started to warm her skin. "You really need to take a break from all that thinking and relax for a while." she stood up and shook her long hair out before reaching to take Jesse's hand. "I think it's warm enough we can hit the water."

"Alright, I'm getting up." Jesse stood up and followed Lexa out into the water.

They waded out into the waist deep water, trying not to step on any sharp rocks or shell fragments. For a while they played in the water, splashing each other and trying to pick up the prettier shells that rushed by them. After a while Jesse pulled Lexa into his arms so they were in a back to front hug looking out over the water.

Lexa smiled serenely as she rested in Jesse's arms. She closed her eyes and put her hands over Jesse's. "You really need to spend more time like this."

"We both do." Jesse half-whispered as he moved his hands from her waist and intertwined his fingers with hers. "This has been one of the best days that we've had."

"I don't know if you are going to be able to get me to come back here. I think that the saltwater and wind have managed to ruin my hair."

"Let's get back out of the water." Jesse dropped one of her hands and started to lead her back to their towels.

Lexa followed him slowly and then leaned back into his arms as they cuddled up together. "How would you feel about us having an outdoor wedding? Not necessarily a beach wedding, but something outdoors."

"We could do an outdoor wedding. If we do it during the summer we could even have a beach wedding if you wanted. You could go barefoot so you don't have to ruin your shoes, and you could wear a simple white sundress."

"You wouldn't mind not having a fancy wedding?"

"The wedding is about you. It's the woman's job to fuss over the wedding and all that goes along with it. All I have to do is follow the directions that you give me and make sure that you don't want to kill me on our wedding night."

"Oh, I plan on killing you that night, but not in a way that would put me in jail." she smiled softly. "You are going to enjoy yourself far too much on our wedding night."

"I think that the general idea is that we should enjoy our wedding night." he softly kissed her neck on what he knew was a sensitive spot and smiled as she shivered slightly. "And since we already knew what each other likes we'll really be able to enjoy ourselves."

"You are positively wicked!" she playfully slapped at his hand and then closed her eyes as she took a deep breath. "I don't want this day to end. It has already been far too nice."

"How about if I can preserve the day for you?" Jesse asked as he shifted so he could get into their beach bag. He pulled out a camera and opened the lens cap. "You can at least have a picture to remember the day by."

"I'd still prefer it if we could find away to make time freeze, but I guess that this will have to do for now." she took the camera from him and held it out at arm's length. "Smile." she whispered just before she pressed the button. The camera flashed as the picture took and then Lexa turned it around so she could check and see how the picture turned out. "It's prefect."

"I'll print a couple of copies when we get back home." he took the camera back from her and tucked it away in the beach bag. "What do you want to do now?"

"Maybe it's time that we go back home. We can climb into bed and get a good nights sleep after we get in a good one-on-one work out."

"You really have quite the mind for crazy ideas sometimes." he kissed the top of her head and gently rubbed her arms. "Are you really ready to go back home?"

"Unless you can think of a better place for us to go so we can hook up."

"I think that we could work something out. My parents have a beach house about a quarter of a mile down the beach. They stopped going there a few years ago when some stuff happened in the family, but they keep it up for family friends to stay at."

"Are they going to care that we snuck into it?" Lexa smiled as she sat up.

"Considering they game me a key I don't think they are going to care about us using the beach house, as long as we don't trash it over and leave it in a mess.

"Then what are we waiting for!" Lexa laughed. "Let's get over there!"

"Alright, Alright. Let's get everything packed up quickly and then we'll head over. Hopefully the maids and the groundskeeper's schedule wont have changed." Jesse helped her up and started to pack up their things.

End of Flashback

Lexa stepped into Jesse's doorway and smiled slightly at how he was looking at one of her favorite pictures of the two of them together. "Everything go alright while I was gone?" she asked as she made her way over to get bed and sat down next to Jesse, resting her head on his shoulder.

"There was a bit of a disagreement." Jesse began as he wrapped one arm around her. "Li and I still have a few issues that we need to work out."

"He and I hooked up while you were gone." Madeline explained from the door way. "Let me say that the man is even more amazing in bed now than he was twelve years ago."

"You two?" Lexa fully sat up, pulling slightly away from Jesse. "No! He'd never sleep with you while he was engaged to me! He's not that kind of man!" she got up and went over to Madeline. She took the woman by her shoulders and shook her harshly. "He would never do that to me!"

"Lexa, stop." Jesse whispered. "She's telling the truth." he got up and pulled Lexa away from the red head. "I don't know exactly how, but she managed to get me to have sex with her. I didn't mean to do anything like this. I love you Lexa."

"How could you do that!" Lexa demanded as she hit him in a fury of rage. "How can you have sex with another woman! We are supposed to be getting married tomorrow! I'm pregnant with your child! You can't do this to me!"

"Lexa, honey, please. Just calm down and we'll talk aobut it." he caught her by her hands and pulled her to him.

"How could you do this to me?" Lexa demanded as she sobbed in his arms. "How could you go and sleep with that woman? She doesn't even love you the way I do. She's not the one who is about to give you a child."

"No, I'm the woman who did carry his child! I'm the woman who loved him enough to step back from my own life and let him live." Madeline whispered harshly. "I gave up everything to protect him, and I carried his child for nine months even though my pregnancy cost me ever last one of my promotions during those nine months. I loved him so much that I had to go to a shrink for a long time after I had to leave him and I nearly killed myself when my baby was still born."

Lexa pulled harshly away from Jesse and flew over to the other woman, her eyes dangerously electric. "You had no right to go anywhere near him while I was gone today! I'm beyond caring that he was married to him twelve years ago! I have been with him for the last six years! You've spent twelve years out there somewhere letting him think that you were dead!"

"And you think that you're some kind of angel!" Madeline raised an eyebrow. "You were the one who sent his friends into that circus with out checking it out! You were the one who was going to let them face that human virus alone! You were responsible for every single time something went wrong because you chose not to tell them everything that you knew! Oh, and let's not forget about that guy you were so willing to get in bed with to get those paintings! You got yourself pretty damn used then!"

Lexa froze for a minute as the memories of everything Madeline had brought up ran through her mind. She shook her head slightly as she tried to clear all the memories from her mind. "There is no way that you could know about any of that! No way unless you're a Psionic or Jesse told you, and I know that he's not about to tell you a single thing!"

"She's not a Psionic." Jesse sighed. "She's just well connected. Trust me, I was with her for a year. I know all that there is to know about her, and she has absolutely no new mutant powers."

"You are making a mistake by crossing me, Lexa. The only smart thing to do is step back and forget about what has happened in the past between you two and let me take over. I promise that I wont hurt him, and that you can bring the baby to see him all the time." Madeline's voice was sweeter than honey. "I promise that it will all be for the best if you break your engagement and let Blake and I renew our vows tomorrow."

Lexa struggled for a minute, trying to figure out what was going on in her mind. She could feel two sides of her mind battling it out. The first side kept saying that she should listen to Madeline and break up with Jesse, but the second half of her mind told her that something was going wrong. Finally one side of her mind won out. "I don't know what game you are playing, but there is no way in hell that I can even begin to think about letting you make up this relationship. Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to marry him, and I will do whatever I have to do to make sure that you don't go in and mess it up. I don't want you to even think that I'm not upset that he had sex with you, but I'm pretty damn sure that you did something to make sure that he got in bed with you. The second I figure out what you did to him I'll be at your doorstep, ready to do whatever I have to."

Madeline's eyes sparkled brilliantly as she looked directly into Lexa's eyes. "Bring it on then. I only ask that you want till after you deliver so the baby doesn't get hurt."

"As if you care." Lexa hissed as she took half a step closer to Madeline. "I bet you'd love for me to get hurt and loose the baby. You probably want me to loose the baby and him to get so upset about it that he doesn't want me to marry him anymore. You are just hoping that he'll give up on me and come running back to you."

"Why don't you just accept that I've got the right to have him and you don't. He and I were actually married, and all you are is a distraction for him." she smiled sweetly at Jesse. "I bet that if he was still single he'd have taken me back the second I walked back into his life."

"Why don't both of you just chill out for a while." Jesse broke in and pulled Lexa away from Madeline. "If you two don't find away to settle your differences I will make both of you stay in a locked room, just the two of you together, until you can find some way to figure some sort of compromise out."

"Why don't you then?" Madeline gave Jesse an even broader smile. "Put us in that locked room and wait to see what happens. I bet that neither one of s will concede our rights. I love you too much to just hand you over to some tramp, and I get the feeling that she is too selfish to let you go no matter how clear it is to all three of us that you belong to me."

"Madeline, I know that you aren't used to hearing someone tell you no or that your wrong, but in this case you are just going to have to hear it. I'm not your property." he let go of Lexa and walked over to the door. "I'm giving the two of you an hour to get your thoughts together. I don't care if you want to do it in here together or somewhere alone, but for the next hour I'm not going to speak to either of you."

Madeline smiled coolly at Lexa's shock when Jesse walked out the door. It would be far too easy to get what she wanted now that he was going to ignore them for the hour. "How many times have I tried to tell you that he doesn't really care about you? He just couldn't wait to get away from you, and of course we know that he's going to hid from you. He's just waiting for me to get back to him. He rather enjoyed our little round of sex, and as soon as you are gone he'll be back begging me for more."

"He's right about you. You just can't hear it when someone tells you no. I'm starting to wonder what made him marry you in the first place. You are just so full of yourself." Lexa hissed and stepped closer to the woman. "What did you do to him? I don't know why he doesn't question you, but I'm not that trusting. I don't care if every single one of our mission files were placed in your lap, there is no way that you could have known about those things."

"I'm connected, Lexa, I spent a year in Sanctuary, and there are things that are beyond your comprehension. I don't care the least bit about the things that have been going on around here. You hardly know a drop of what is going on around you. I could tell you things that would shock even you."

"Alright, so why don't I just call you Carla Kolchak?" Lexa smiled slightly. "He's wrong about you when it comes to one point. I don't care what lie you told him or were planning to tell me, he never would have slept with you unless you had done something to his mind."

"I wouldn't go making accusations, Miss Pierce." Madeline reached out and gently stroked Lexa's face with the back of her hand. "You are just far too pretty for death."

"And you don't want to make those kinds of threats." Lexa's eyes glittered dangerously. "You're a psionic. You've been playing him and his emotions since you came back. That is how you know the details of those missions, and how you got him to get in bed with you."

"You wicked little thing." Madeline firmly cupped Lexa's chin in her palm. "If you weren't pregnant I'd kill you now. You are in so much trouble now, and it is time that you face it."

"I've lived in trouble for years." Lexa smirked. "Now why don't we settle this in a nice civilized manner. You go to your room, pack up you things, and leave. If you take your time you might even get a chance to tell Jess goodbye before you leave."

"Oh no, sweetheart. I'm not the one that is going to be leaving him." Madeline put her freehand behind Lexa's head and leaned in so that her lips hovered just above Lexa's. "You, my dear, are the one who's going to leave him. I mean, why would he harbor a woman who tried to kill someone? Jesse may love you, but the second you try to kill me that will all be over."

"Why would I try to kill you? You are going to be out of here in just a little while. We both know that he's never going to stay with you, not after the things you've done to him and the things you've done since you came here. Even if he gets rid of you just so he's not tempted to sleep with you again, you will be gone in just a little while."

"Oh, honey, if you only knew what was in store for the two of you." Madeline whispered and then slowly exhaled. "You are going to do many evil things that he won't forgive you for. How do you think he'd feel if he knew that you were going to go have that little problem of yours taken care of? There is no need for you to have his child now, because after you try to kill me you'll be going off to jail, and once you're there, there is such a small chance that your child will live."

Lexa blinked her eyes slowly, her mind starting to fog over. There were so many voices in her head. Some of the voices told her that she needed t stop because she was under Madeline's control, others told her that Madeline was an evil that needed to be taken care of and others added that she did not really want the child that she was carrying.

"Oh, so very good." Madeline smiled. "I know that you want to kill me. Everything that you are thinking is in there, Sweetheart, you've just had most of those feelings hidden. You want to get rid of me, and nothing would make you happier than knowing that I'm out of the way permanently." she gently ran the back of her hand down the side of Lexa's face in an almost loving gesture. "Then there is that baby. You don't want to marry Jesse and start a family, you still want your freedom, not to mention that strong part of you that does want to have the white picket fence dream is scared that the baby will be sick and die."

"You are the most vile, evil woman that I have ever met." Lexa hissed through clenched teeth. "I don't know what you did to get him the first go around, but I'm not about to let you have him again." She pulled away from Madeline and picked up a pocket knife that had been accidentally left on Jesse's dresser. Her fingers quickly opened the blade and she wielded the knife in her hand. "You are not going to touch him ever again."

"Whatever you say, sweetheart." Madeline slowly backed to the door, carefully avoiding Lexa and the knife. "You just make sure that I'm out of his life forever." her voice was barely above a whisper. "H should never have to deal with me again."

Lexa slashed at Madeline with the knife, slightly cutting the woman's bare arm. She surprised herself slightly by smiling as she watched the blood trickling down, she raised the knife and got ready to bring it down again.

Madeline closed her eyes and steeled herself as she let Lexa make contact again. She waited until she saw Lexa raise the knife again and then let out a blood curdling scream.

Jesse was in the computer lab working when he heard Madeline's scream. Although he had promised himself that he would stay out of what the girls were doing, the pure terror he heard in Madeline's voice required him to go to the two women. For the time it took him to get back to the women he was scared to find out what had happened. The second he stepped into the room his worst fears were confirmed.

Lexa had Madeline back against a wall and was holding a pocket knife over the woman, ready to bring it down and plunge it into Madeline's body. In a quick moment he was behind Lexa with his hand tightly over hers. "What do you think you are doing?" he demanded as he took the knife from Lexa. "I told you two to work it out. I meant for you to talk things out, not for you to try to kill her."

Lexa snatched away from Jesse and glared at him. "I was just trying to do what I thought was best." she turned on her heel and walked down the hall to her room where she slammed the door shut behind her.

"Oh, Blake." Madeline sobbed as she fell against him. "She just turned on me after you left the room, and I didn't know what to do."

Jesse held her tight and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "How badly did she hurt you?" he asked as he stepped back to look her over.

"It's not so bad. A couple of slashes on my arms, but that is all. I just need you right now." she wiped at her tears and stared up at him. "I was so scared, Blake. I didn't know what to do and she looked so ready to kill me. I probably could have fought her, but I didn't want to chance hurting the baby. I know that the baby means so much to you."

"Come here, Li." he held out his arms to her and pulled her to him. "You are just something else sometimes. Let's take you to the lab and see about treating those cuts. Then I'll get you somewhere safe while I go find Lexa and see what is wrong with her."

"No, no, please don't!" Madeline begged and desperately held on to him. "I don't want you to go near her. I don't want you to get hurt."

"I'll be all right." he gently let go of her and led her to the medical lab. "Just sit down on the chair and I'll see what I can do." he stepped over to the cabinet and pulled out a tray, which he set beside Madeline. Another couple of steps to his left and he quickly washed his hands before going back over to the woman. "I'll clean this up and see how deep the cuts are."

"What are you going to do about her?" Madeline asked as she let him carefully clean the first cut.

"I don't know." he sighed slightly. "Talk to her first, try to figure out exactly why she snapped like that. She normally doesn't act like that." he glanced up at her to make sure that the antiseptic wasn't hurting her too much.

Madeline smiled slightly when he looked up at her. "Thank you for coming to save me. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to hurt the baby, but I also didn't want to be hurt."

"It's alright, Li." Jesse whispered and softly kissed her forehead. "You are going to need stitches. You alright with that?"

"I trust you. You've always had such steady hands, and I know that you won't hurt me."

"Right." Jesse smiled softly as he went to get the things he would need to put in the stitches, even with all of the things going on, he was starting to truly remember his feelings for Madeline. The tenderness he had held for her was returning, as was his driving need to protect her. He had loved her more than anything once. He had given up a life that he loved to be with her. For a short time he had even dealt with his family so he and Madeline could have a beautiful wedding. She had done things to him that he couldn't believe, and he had been devastated to loose her. That was all over now. She was sitting in front of him still completely trust in his skills. She had always trusted him, even when he didn't feel like he could trust himself. Madeline whimpered slightly pulling him out of his reverie. "You alright, Li?" he asked as he tied the last stitch.

"I've never been a good patient." she smiled. "Thank you. That was the best bit of sewing that's been done to me over the last couple of years."

"I'd guess that means you've got some bad scares" he dug through another cabinet. "You want to get rid of some of them?"

"You would actually try to take away my battle scars?" Madeline asking laughing. "I hope that thing is as good as you think it is because most of these are pretty bad. I've had more bullets graze then the entire NYPD." she took off her shirt and reached for her bra clasp. "You might wanna lock the door so Lexa can't get in here."

"Right." he quickly hit the lock keys on the lab door. "Let's see if we can't work a little magic now." he carefully plugged the device into the scanner array and turned the scanner on. "You know in all of the confusion that we've had in the last day or two I've never gotten to find out what you know about Adam."

"He's alive and well." Madeline answered, closing her eyes as the scanner's light approached her face. "I've got some files for you in my suitcase if you still want them."

"How easy is it going to be for us to get him and bring him back here?"

"Blake, I'm not sure that he wants to come back. He's being held by some of my people now, and he's got the freedom to leave whenever he wants. I think that he's enjoying his job there. He's got more information and resources than he' ever have here."

"So he's off playing made scientist and leaving us here on our own." he sighed slightly. "Does he know that you are alive?"

"Yes, and he thinks that I should leave you alone. For some reason he approves of your relationship with Lexa, but still doesn't want you to be with me."

"He probably still holds what happened in the past against you. The last thing he wants right now is to have to come back here and run things because I've left. It will be another six months at least before Shal and Bren are ready to get back to work, and there would be no way for Lexa to run the whole thing by herself."

"I'll never make you leave again." Madeline smiled slightly. "If we got back together I'd let you stay here. It might take a little time for Lexa to come around to me, but I'd deal with it. I don't want to make you give up your whole life again. I know how much this job means to you and how much you love what you're doing here."

"You didn't make me leave the last time. That was Adam." he switched off the scanner. "That took care of some of those scars, and I'll give you another session later."

"Why are you playing nice all of a sudden?" Madeline asked as she pulled her clothes back on. "It's like you were waiting till something happened to me before you decided to be nice."

"Li, don't play that game." he gently cupped her face in his hand. "You don't have a way to understand what is going on right now. I love you, I've never stopped loving you, but you've been gone for so long that I had to let you go. I had to move on and finding Lexa was a good thing for me."

"You love both of us, and you can't decide which one of us you want to be with." she leaned forward and laid her head on his chest. "I just want to be with you for a little while. I want you to spend some time with me, and I don't want you to spend all that time on the offensive. Just relax and actually enjoy a little time with me. 'The grave's a fine and private place.'"

"'But none, I think, do there embrace.'" Jesse finished the quote. "Andrew Marvell. You read that the second time that Adam and Shal left us alone at Sanctuary while they were out."

"'To His Coy Mistress.' Written in 1681. Of course you were the one who wasn't cooperating at that point. You felt guilty about the last time we'd been left alone, and were determined to get all of your work done in that one day."

"And you knew me well enough to know that poetry would get you everywhere." he gently stroked the back of her head as he held her.

"Well you were so old school that I figured you had to love poetry." she pulled away from him and smiled. "We had such an easy marriage. I know that planning the wedding caused us a fair amount of stress, but once we got past that it was all easy."

"We were only married for a week. How hard could it have been on us?" he smiled and then gently kissed her. "We did have an easy relationship."

"I can feel myself slipping back. It wasn't all that long ago that we were together. At least not in the scheme of things." she slipped off the medical bed and took his hand. "We could start over, at least go back far enough for us to get married again. We could try to have another baby, one that we can raise together and no one will hurt. It wouldn't take all that long for us to start back over."

"Li, you don't know how tempting it would be. We could easily spend our lives together, but no one could ever know about you. You would have to spend your life hidden away from the world. There would be no chance for you to go out into the real world. No chance for you to even begin living normally." he kissed the top of her head. "I know you too well to believe that you could stand to live that kind of life. You love your freedom too much to be able to live that way. You'd go crazy within a week, a month tops."

"I could handle it, that is if I really had to hide out in here. You are the only thing that I need. I could stay here most of the time and only go out into the real world when you needed my help with a mission or something. I know that I could handle hiding in here, but I know that you are convinced that I'd go crazy." she smiled slightly. "All my people have to do is put back my records, or I can use my fake id."

"You know that I want to say yes but you also know that there is a lot going on. You and Lexa are both going to have to give me sometime to figure this out."

"Alright." Madeline nodded. "We'll give you time to think. I'll go take a luxuriously long bubble bath while you go talk to Lexa, and then I'll leave you alone for as long as you need us to. I promise that I won't pest you to death aobut making a decision. I love you too much to do that, and because I love you I promise to respect whatever choice you make."

"I really do understand how hard this is on you, Li. And I promise that I'm going to try to com up with an answer soon. Waiting has always been the hardest part for you, and I'm going to try to make sure that you don't have to do too much more of it." he lightly kissed her and then left the lab. He walked quietly down the hall as he made his way to Lexa's room. After the scene he had seen earlier, he was nervous about what he would find once he set foot in Lexa's room. He didn't know what had happened, but there was one thing that he knew for sure, something had made Lexa snap. He had to find out what was going on. Lexa may have been a mercenary, but she had stopped killing that way. In the last several years the only people that she had killed were those who were truly evil. It was completely unlike Lexa to try to kill someone over a lover's dispute. There was no way that she would have killed Madeline. It did not matter how irritated she was with the woman or the situation, it was just flat out not Lexa's style to kill someone in that way. She might have roughed up Madeline a little if she had not been pregnant, but she would have never picked up the knife to kill her. It was the most non-Lexa action he had seen in a long time, probably in years. He stood outside her door for a minute, not sure that he wanted to know what was going on in the woman's room. Finally he made herself open the door and step into the room. It took him a second to find the light switch so the pitch black room was illuminated. Lexa was in the floor, her dark hair falling down over her eyes and face. Jesse walked over to her and sat down in the floor next to her. He gently pushed her hair back behind her ears and gently lifted her chin so she was looking up at him. "I want you to calm down and stop crying." he whispered as he wiped away her tears. "You need to get yourself together so you can explain to me exactly what is going on. I know you better to think that you would do that. You are not the kind of person who goes off and tries to kill a person over a lover's dispute. Even in the old days when it was your job to kill you never killed anyone who didn't pose a real threat to all of society."

"Jess, I promise that I was not trying to kill her." Lexa whispered. "She is not what she seems, and she did something. She wanted me to try to kill her, wanted you to see me when I tried to kill her. I could feel her in my mind, and I could feel her telling me what to do. All she wanted was for me to do something that you couldn't forgive me for doing. I could see myself standing over her with the knife, but I couldn't stop myself from trying to kill her, it was all I could do to not plunge that knife down into her heart. I know that most of it came from whatever it was that she did to me, but all of the thoughts and feelings I had were in me somewhere. I hate myself for starting to think that way. I love you, and I love our life together. I don't want to risk messing up what we have."

"Alright." Jesse sighed. "Let me see if I have this figured out. You are saying that Li did something, found a way to get in your head. Once she was in there she brought some of you hidden feelings up to the surface so that you would try to kill her so I would see you doing something that I would not be able to forgive you for doing. You knew what she had done to you, and could see what was going on, but had no way to stop it before you did a bit of damage and I caught you in the act of trying to kill her. Lexa, that is probably the most common story for out kind. Even out in the normal world everyone tries to use the old mind control excuse, and when one of us who knows the truth uses it, the excuse is a little too cliché and cheap of an excuse."

"I'm not playing with you, Jess. There really is something up with your beloved Li, something that you don't see. You have to believe me and try to see what is going on there. She is not what she seems to be. I don't know what is going on exactly, but I do know that I'm right about her. She's a psionic and she's been lying to you for years."