Till Death Do Us Part

by bohemianbabe

Just before he is to marry Lexa, Jesse's past comes back to haunt him. Can he deal with the truths that he is about to learn, or will it be over with for Jesse and Lexa.

9. A History of Love

Till Death Do Us Part.

Chapter 9.

"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."

"Madeline has kept her secrets, we've all kept our secrets, but she has never lied to me the way you are suggesting!"

"She has got you right where she wants you." Lexa grabbed his hand. "Jess, please don't let her confuse you any further. I know that you love her, but I also know that you love me. Even if you don't care about me, I have to beg you to think about the baby, our baby. Madeline has tried to make sure that we're driven apart. It has been her goal all along."

"I know that you don't like her or the fact that I was involved with her, but Madeline is not that kind of a person. She's a good person, Lexa. You are the one who has kept so much of your past hidden. You need to take a step back and realize for once that I did have a life before you."

"Don't you dare go down that road! I've told you about my past, you know everything that has happened to me over the years. You are the one who has kept so much of the past hidden! What happened to our trusting relationship? Do I really mean that little to you?"

"If I had told you the truth about Madeline we would probably have broken up. You were already so nervous about us getting involved, and the last thing I wanted was to give you a reason to run. Now I want you to stop dancing around this and tell me why I found you standing over Li with a knife."

"Does it really matter what I tell you? All you are going to listen to is me saying that I did try to kill her, but that would be a lie. You aren't going to care what I tell you if it goes against what you want to hear."

"Just forget it, Lexa." he got up and walked over to the door. "You can come find me when you are ready to talk and you have a legitimate explanation." he walked out of the room, leaving Lexa in a rage."

Lexa got up, wiped away all of the tears she had cried, and then set out to take care of a little problem. She quietly stole down the hall past the computer lab where Jesse was working, and into the lab where she looked through the cabinets until she managed to find what she needed.

Madeline was in the bathtub, covered with piles of rose scented bubbles, half-asleep. She had felt Jesse's anger earlier and knew that Lexa was soon to be kicked out of her 'home.' It wouldn't take much longer for Jesse to get rid of Lexa, and then she would have exactly what she wanted. The door flew open, interrupting her peace. Madeline slowly opened her eyes and frowned to see Lexa standing in front of her.

"If you are here to try to kill me again I wish you luck. I've been thinking about it, and I'm pretty sure that we can have a nice little fight with out hurting the baby." Madeline closed her eyes again. "Of course I'm starting to think that Jess doesn't care about it as much as I thought he did. I guess he's starting to realize that he doesn't want to have a child with you."

"You have really got a lot of nerve. I don't know why you are doing this, but I'm willing to get that it has nothing to do with you loving Jesse. There is something going on here that I don't know about. Jesse may have a clue that would help me figure this out, but you've made sure that he isn't talking to me. You play a good game, a very good game, but there is no way that I am going to let you win here. I've spent enough time fighting for him and love him love too much for me to loose him to you. You may think that you know all about winning men, but somehow I think that you don't know a thing about love. It just doesn't seem to be a single part of you and your personality composition."

"Would you just get out of here and let me finish my bath? I'm going to go a head and flat out tell you that he and I are getting back together. He still loves me very much and we are going to sit down and work through our problems. There is nothing that you can do to prevent it." Madeline picked up a razor and started to shave one long, shapely leg. "He's been in love with me since the day that we met, and he has not stopped loving me since that day. I do have to admit that if I had not come back here he probably would have been content to spend a lifetime with you and any children that you two had together. Of course, that is not a problem here because you two are just about to be separated now that I'm back. You've done your job, completed your mission. Now all I need you to do is step back and let me get back to my mission."

"That is all he is to you, isn't it? Jess has never meant a single thing to you, he's just been part of some mission that you've been on for a long time, and now you are ready for another step towards it." Lexa sat down on the counter. "You may want me to leave you alone, but I think that I do have a right to know the truth, and I mean the whole truth. If you are going to come in and disrupt everything I've been working towards for the last several years you are going to explain to me why."

Madeline stared at the other woman as she thought about it. "Alright, I'm going to make you a deal. I want you to tell me about your relationship with him for the past five years, and then you will get a chance to hear about me and who I am. This is a onetime chance. If you don't accept it now there won't be another offer. Take it or leave it right now."

"You've got a deal." Lexa agreed. "I just think that it is fair to warn you that I'm not going to put up with you trying anything stupid. If you don't hold up your end of the bargain there will be hell to pay, and I can assure you that you will pay for whatever happens." she closed her eyes for a second as she thought back. "It was right after we blew up the Dominion's base. The four of us were on the run, and the only place that we could think of was an 'unsafe-safe house' as the boys called them. Back then I had no idea of why they called them that, but that was a private joke I soon learned."

Flash back

Five years before, about two days after the end of 'The Assault.'

Jesse punched in the security code to silence the alarm of the safe house and then turned on the lights. "It looks like we should be safe here for now. I doubt there's anything around here to eat, and if there is it is probably not edible." he sat down at a computer console and turned on the computer. "Let's just hope that I can hack into Adam's off-shore accounts before everything is frozen or we won't have anything to survive on."

Shalimar and Lexa had already started to dig through the kitchen cabinets and the pantry, hoping to find at least some edible food to eat. The cabinets where practically empty, but a couple of boxes of saltines were un-opened, and there was a small stash of canned goods in the pantry. After a moment's hesitation they opened the fridge and managed to find only bottles of water and a few cans of soda. They headed back to the main room to see what Brennan and Jesse had accomplished.

"I've got good news and bad news." Brennan announced. "I've checked all of the rooms and everything seems to be in working order, but we've only got two bed rooms, and each of them only has one bed. It isn't a problem for me and Shal, but I don't know how you two feel about sharing a bed, in this or any circumstance."

"I'll sleep on the couch." Jesse volunteered with out looking up from the computer. "We've only got about ten thousand to live on now. It was all that I could save from Adam's off-shores. Our personal accounts have already been frozen, and I doubt that we can do anything. On the plus side, I did manage to save us from complete poverty, and with some help we'll be able to get started on earning some money soon. It won't be much, but I can get us enough money to get an apartment."

"We've got about enough food for a day or two, but that is about it." Shalimar said as she sat down in a chair. "I don't know how we're going to survive, not with out a lot of help. We've got government issued warrants on us, Brennan has a long list of crimes he's still wanted for, and none of us have a credit rating to secure an apartment."

"That would be where you're wrong." Jesse smiled as he finally turned away from the computer. "After Adam left us I made up fake id's for all of us. I couldn't quite get in to clear Brennan's record though, so if he gets caught by someone who knows him there is nothing that I can do."

"Fake id's are great, Jess, but they won't be any use if they were back in Sanctuary." Lexa said as she sat down in a chair next to him and slid it over slightly closer to his. "If we don't have them we can't use them, so you may have let all of your efforts go to waste for that one."

"They were in Sanctuary until I had to go see Alisha for that mission. A couple of weeks afterwards I asked her to hold onto copies of them." Jesse explained as he silently reached over and took Lexa's hand. "We've only lost one set of them in the explosion, and there are still a couple of sets other than the one's Alisha has."

"Is there anything else that you've done that we need to know about?" Shalimar asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not even sure what's happened between the two of you." Jesse answered evenly. "It might help me to know if I need to kill Brennan."

"We're together." Shalimar smiled. "And I already thoroughly warned him about what you would do to him if he was to ever do anything to break my heart, so I don't think that you have even one, single, tiny thing to worry about. Now what about you two?"

"We're talking." Lexa shrugged. "This last year has changed us all, and for now we just have to see where things go. Either way he's got a lot of work to do right now and we can't afford for him to be distracted."

"Does Alisha have a copy of our computer files or are those gone?" Brennan asked as he put his hands on Shalimar's shoulders. "If you're going to do anything we'll need those."

"After I've been with Adam for as long as I have I think I've learned a thing or two about being obsessive about back-up systems. Alisha has one, Toni has a partial, and Dr. Marcus has a partial. In fact he's been working on finding that elusive key to stabilization. All we have to do is find a way to pick up what we need."

"What we need is a good night's sleep." Lexa said as she got up and pulled Jesse to his feet. "You'll never get to sleep on that sofa, rich boy, just come on and we can share the bed"

"Looks like she's right about how much things have changed." Shalimar whispered when the two moleculars were out of earshot. "I don't know how long it is going to work for, but at least they are going to try to get along for now."

"Come on, let's go on to bed and let them do whatever they are going to do with out us speculating." Brennan turned and headed to the bedroom that he and Shalimar would be sleeping in.

In their shared bedroom, Jesse was waiting for Lexa to climb into the bed. For a woman who always seemed to act rashly she was very hesitant to get into the bed and it was driving him crazy.

"Lexa, just get into the bed." Jesse sighed as he got up and walked over to her. "I promise that I won't bite."

Lexa opened her mouth to make a smart remark, but could think of nothing to say. "Alright, I'll get in bed." she let him lead her over to the bed but froze when he laid down and held up the blanket for her. "I can't do this. It was a bad idea for us to try to share the bed, I'll go sleep on the sofa."

"Lexa, relax." Jesse sat up and pulled her onto his lap. "What is so wrong with you getting into the bed with me? We're just going to be sleeping. I promise that I won't even touch you." he reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm not expecting you to have sex with me, alright? Just lie down and go to sleep."

"That's the problem, Jess." Lexa whispered. "I've never shared a bed with a man that I haven't had sex with, well excluding a few times when Leo and I were on the run, but he was my brother."

"You don't have to earn a place in this bed, Lexa. I just want you to get some sleep so you're ready for whatever tomorrow may bring us." he softly kissed her temple. "You need to get some sleep, Lexa. It is what will get you through tomorrow."

Lexa turned slightly and kissed him, softly forcing him to lie down. "I may not have to earn a place in this bed, but I do want to be with you." her long body curled against him and she closed her eyes as she kissed him. "We've only got tonight. Tomorrow is going to put us in too much danger, and I want to do this before I die."

"Alright." Jesse agreed as he ran the fingers of one hand through her hair. "We'll spend the night together, and other day we'll talk about our relationship."

"One day at a time." Lexa whispered as they sank into a kiss.

The next morning.

Lexa woke up, slightly surprised to find herself in bed with Jesse. It was a surprise that they had both stayed in the bed. She had fallen asleep, expecting one of them to get up in the middle of the night, but they were still together.

Jesse woke up as Lexa stirred in his arms. "He gently played with her long, dark hair as they laid in the bed. "Morning, Lexa." he whispered after a few minutes of silence.

"Morning." Lexa whispered and closed her eyes again as she rested in his arms with her head on his shoulder. "Are we ok?"

"I think we are." he stopped playing with her hair and took her hand in his. "You ready to talk about us, or are you wanting to wait a little while longer to do that?"

"We can't be together right now." Lexa whispered as she cuddled closer to him. "You have to have your mind on finding a way to stabilize us, and that is all there is to it. We can try a relationship later. Once you have the answers that we need then we'll figure all there is to it. We'll know what we're doing."

"And whenever you get the need for sex you'll just come to me for it? That is how you ruin friendships, Lexa. If we are going to try to be together we need to do that now, not later after we've messed up what we have. You are not going to keep me from my work, in fact you might actually help. I'm going to need something to keep me from stressing out too much, and I'm sure that you could be a great help in that field."

"If you want to do this you are going to have to agree to one day at a time. We'll take it slowly and see what happens. I can't promise that we'll stay together. It's just beyond my power."

"It's alright." he held her close for a second. "You and I can take this how ever you want. There is no reason for us to rush through this. We can spend as much time figuring this out as you want."

"We need to get up." Lexa said as she pulled away from him and stretched out his arms. "We've got to get all of our things together if we want to make it."

"We're not going out there today." Jesse sighed as he closed his eyes. "We need to give it a day or two before we go out and do anything. Besides, none of us want to get up this morning, not after two days of walking and hitchhiking to get here. That was the first night of sleep any of us has had in the last three nights."

"Fine." Lexa sighed as she climbed back into the bed next to Jesse. She was irritated by the idea of them waiting to make a move, but her irritation faded to concern when she saw Jesse wince as she curled up close to him. "You alright."

"I'm fine." he wrapped an arm around her should so she could rest with him. "I've probably got a couple of bruised ribs after the other day. It's no big deal."

"You've been in pain for the past three days, and I had no idea, none of us did." she sat up slightly and gently pushed his blonde-brown hair out of his face. "We were not the last bit gentle last night, you must have been in horrible pain while we were at it last night."

"The pleasure out weighed the pain." he smiled slightly and pulled her back down into his arms and let her lay her head on his shoulder. "I just want to get a little rest for now. You can play doctor later."

"Alright." Lexa agreed as she carefully put one arm across his chest and closed her eyes. "You had better tell me if you feel even the slightest bit of pain."

"You just need to stop worrying about me and get yourself some rest." he kissed her forehead and started to gently stroke her back. "I'll be alright in a day or two, Lexa. You don't have to worry about me so much." he pulled her closer against his body and closed his eyes as they drifted back to sleep.

Two weeks later

Alisha Keary's office, in the newly rebuilt ZTD agricultural company

"Oh, Jess." Alisha sighed when she walked into the office. She hugged him tightly, kissed him on the cheek, and hugged him again. "I was so worried about what had happened to you when all they said was that it was 'about Mr. Kilmartin.' There is a rumor in the paper that a man fitting your description died in an explosion a few weeks ago."

"You know better than to believe what you hear." Jesse stepped away from her and sat down on the sofa. "I need to get the things I asked you to hold onto for me."

"Of course." Alisha walked to a picture hanging on the wall. "I put everything in here because I didn't want anyone else to know about it." she pulled out the two small bundles and handed them to Jesse.

As Jesse took the packages from Alisha he noticed a bright sparkle on her left hand. "Who is the lucky guy that gave you that ring?"

"Aaron Matthews, you probably knew him when you were in boarding school. I think that you two went to the same schools all your life."

"Congratulations." he got up and quickly hugged her. "I've got to go. It's only a matter of time before someone comes here to question you about me."

"Hold on a second." Alisha walked back over to the vault and pulled out another bundle, one that was larger than the first two. "Your father signed over your portion of the stock to me. This is your dividends for the past few years." she gently cupped his face in her hand for a second. "Be safe."

"You too, and thanks for the help. I'll try to come to the wedding if I can, but you probably won't see me." he turned and left.

"Took you long enough." Lexa said as Jesse got in the car. "She give you everything that you need?"

"She gave us what I asked her to hold onto for me, and some money that she says I supposedly earned through my stock share."

"Hopefully it will be enough to get us something to eat for a while." Lexa pulled the car out onto the road. "I'm just glad that Shalimar managed to get this car for two thousand instead of the six thousand that guy was asking for."

"We need it, and now that you and Shal are going to be starting to work it will be a little easier on us." he opened the first package and started to go through the fake ids. "You two have your first parties tonight, don't you?"

"One big party." Lexa sighed. "First we'll play with the make up and then we pull out the lingerie, whips, and leather straps for 'romance enhancement.' I really do want to kill you for making us do this."

"Don't worry so much, Lexa." he reached over and took her hand. "Brennan has got a few jobs lined up. It is all normal stuff like mowing lawns and painting houses, but it is something at least."

"I don't know why you don't go to MIT and get a job. I'm sure they'd love to have you up there as a teacher. Think of how much you could teach those students and how much money you could make for us."

"And how much distance would be between us." he gently squeezed her hand. "I'm going to find something here. I'd rather be near you."

"Believe it or not I'm not going to pledge my love for you because you are wanting to stay." she turned onto the highway. "I actually think that you are being an idiot for not going and getting yourself a job that you can probably support all of us with. You just need to go out and try to do something for real. It is pointless for you to be waiting around on me. You are never going to get anything from me, and it is just going to be that way. I want you to go off and make something of yourself, you'd be happier that way."

"Pull over." Jesse ordered. "Just go and pull over." he waited till Lexa had pulled over into the emergency lane and put the car in park. "What are you talking about, Lexa? I thought that we had talked about this and that we were going to try to get involved in a relationship. We agreed to take it slow, and I promise that I'm not going to rush you. In fact I need to take some time myself to get adjusted to this. I've got my own issues to work through too, Lexa."

"It's not a good idea, Jess. I know that it is something that we both want, but there is just not a way for us to make this work. We need to accept it and move on. You and I are not going to work here and now."

"Lexa, if we can make a relationship work now, with all that we have going one, we can survive anything that is thrown against us. This time that we've been spending together has been a good foundation for us to start a relationship on. It has been the best thing that I've been involved in. We have something, Lexa. We actually have an honest chance to make this work, a chance to really have a defined relationship. If you try to end it now we could loose all that we've gained between us during the last couple of weeks."

"Jess, if it is that easy for us to loose whatever this relationship of ours is, then maybe we aren't as strong together as we thought. Maybe we should just forget what has happened to us since the destruction of the Dominion."

Jesse leaned over and pulled Lexa to him for a passionate kiss. "Answer me one thing before you say that you really want to break up. When we're together is it just sexual intercourse or are we making love?"

Lexa bit her lip as she hesitated for a second. "I'll admit that I've thought of it as us making love, but how does what we call it matter?" It doesn't decide if we should be together."

"If you're already deciding that we've been making love for the last few weeks it is an important part of if we should be together. Lexa, we're good together. We make this work, no matter how much it shouldn't be working. Now if you are sure that you really want to go off and ruin whatever it is that we have, that is your choice, but I'm fighting for us, Lexa. I want to be with you, maybe for the rest of our lives."

"There is a lot to talk about." Lexa whispered as she gently caressed his face with her fingertips. "We both want very different things from our lives, and some how we've got to make it all work. in the last year you've somehow broken down every wall that I ever built and forced me to start caring again. After years of me only caring about my brother and building walls to protect both of us, you broke in with just a few simple stupid things that made me forget why I couldn't trust other people."

"And what kind of simple, stupid things made this happen to you?" Jesse asked as he put one hand behind her head and gently stroked her cheek with his thumb.

"The way you never had any respect or my privacy. You never knocked on the door or called me on the com-link, you just showed up, pestering me about whatever it was you needed from me. Then there was the way that you used to get me to sit and play chess with you, just so we could have a little time to talk alone. It was all of that, and so many other things that you just did because they were a part of who you are. You did so many things to break down my walls, and you never knew."

"Can we give us a try then?" he gently kissed her. "Can we just try having a relationship, being together? It doesn't have to be anything serious yet. We can just see what we want to do together. We don't have to make a commitment. I'm not even ready for that."

"If we aren't going to make a commitment what are we going to do?" her ice-blue eyes were locked into his softer blue ones. "You have never been able to do anything that you didn't take seriously. How are you going to deal with us and whatever relationship that we have unless there really is going to be eventually be something real and serious between the two of us."

"I guess that we just look at it as an experiment. Neither one of us is ready to get married, or even to think about a lifetime together, but I know that both of us are interested in trying to be together. It doesn't have to be anything major or permanent. All I am thinking about is a possibility."

"A possibility." she smiled as she repeated the word. "A possibility for what?"

"I don't know. I guess a possibility for a whole lot of things between us."

"If we really want to do this we need to decide exactly what we want. We need to make some rules. If there aren't any boundaries set up for us right now, we'll both end up going places that we'll later regret going and I know that is the last thing that we want to do here."

"You've probably got that right." Jesse agreed as he softly kissed her. "Just tell me that we do get to be physical or I'm not ever going to have the patience for this." his bright blue eyes sparkled with a playful glow. "I've already had to wait almost a year to get you into bed with me."

"And if you don't behave yourself you won't be getting in bed with me again. I want us to set up rules about other things." she pulled away from him and started the car again. "We need to pull out of the emergency lane for now and get to a place that is not part of a highway to have this discussion. I'm not sure that it would be a good idea for a cop to be around us since we are carrying four sets of fake ids. I just don't think that would look too good for us right now."

"You're probably right." Jesse sighed as Lexa pulled back onto the highway. "Why don't we go out somewhere tonight to talk about it? It can be just the two of us so Shal and Bren don't have to know what we are talking about or how serious we are about starting a relationship together."

Four months later.

An old farmhouse just outside of town. a.k.a. "Safe Haven."

Lexa closed her eyes as she let the steaming water of the shower flow down over her body and rinse off all the mud that clung to her skin after her day of gardening. If she had learned anything that day, she had learned exactly how much she hated to dig around in the dirt, even if it meant that they might be able to produce their own food to support themselves for a while. Out of the four of them only Shalimar seemed to like the 'great outdoors' and even then it had not been the feral who was so keen to attempt to raise a massive garden. No, it had been her preppy, computer geek, rich-kid boyfriend that had come up with the idea and then talked Lexa into going out and planting the garden.

She shivered slightly as the shower curtain partially opened, but immediately warmed up when she felt Jesse's arms wrapping around her. Even though she was still upset about having spent the day in the dirt, the feel of their bodies so close together, underneath the hot water, was enough to let her start to relax. "Do you have any idea of how much trouble you are in after today? Shal and I have a party tonight and I had been hoping that you and I could spend a little time practicing my craft before I had to go out and help other people improve themselves in bed."

"We've still got sometime." Jesse answered softly as he gently kissed first her shoulder and then her neck. "I think that by showering together we may be able to save you a few extra minutes that you can spend with me, alone, in our room."

"I just guess that we'll have to see about it. You know that I still want to kill you for getting me involved with this whole 'romance enhancement' and make up business. It's just not my kind of work. I'm much better at other things."

"I'm pretty sure that I couldn't find you another job as a mercenary, no matter how hard I worked. It is just not the kind of job that you can look for in the help wanted pages." he turned her around to face him and kissed her softly. "Why don't we finish washing this mud off and then go make our way back into bed? You can take out all your anger there."

"You aren't worried that I might 'accidentally' hurt you?" Lexa raised an eyebrow as she kissed him and then pushed him back against the wall. "We both know how dangerous I can be when I'm ticked off. Wouldn't want to ruin what we have by me getting a little too rough for you."

"Then why don't we start experimenting with you level of annoyance here where we've got easy access to the first aid kit?" he cupped her chin and kissed her harshly. With in just a few minutes they had forgotten about their shower and were busy making love.

Late that night.

Lexa stared out the window as Shalimar drove back home after their 'party.' Both of them had sold plenty of merchandise, but neither of them really wanted to be out that night.

"You know, this is one of the craziest ideas Jesse has ever had." Shalimar said, finally breaking the silence. "I really don't see how either one of us is fit for going out and telling people how to improve their sex lives when we don't even have time for sex lives of our own. It's been over a week since Brennan and I have had a chance to make love."

"I don't know." Lexa sighed. "At least we manage to make tons of money by doing this. We net more money than either of the boys do. We make in a night what they make in a week." she looked back over at Shal. "Has Jess always been such a romantic?"

"I don't know." Shalimar answered slowly. "What do you mean?"

"You talk about how we don't have time to romance our men and how you and Brennan haven't been together sexually in a good while, but Jess and I hardly go more than a couple of days. He manages to figure out when we'll have exactly the seconds needed for sex and finds me. Then there are other little things he's done. Right now he's probably drawing the water for my bath so I can get in the tub the second we get in. he does it every single time that you and I have a party. Then after I get out of my bath he'll fix me up a snack and massage first my back and then my feet."

"He definitely does spoil you." Shalimar smiled. "I really cant think of him having ever been 'that' good to any of his past women, but he also never really had a chance to spoil any of his past girlfriends. You're really the first of his little parade of girls that he's actually lived in the same place as. It make sense for him to be all that sweet and romantic though. He's always been a good friend to me. Now if only he'd take a break from plotting and planning how and when to seduce you and use some of that time to teach Bren how to be romantic."

"With all of the things we tell other women and all the sexual stuff we sell them, you can't teach your own guy how to be romantic?" Lexa teased, her cool blue eyes sparkling in rare amusement. "You've got to make him do what you want him to do. It is all about teaching him that unless he does exactly what you want him to do he's not going to get what he wants from you."

"Is that what you do to, Jess! Tell him that if he wants to get laid he has to treat you like a princess!" Shalimar laughed. "No, really what did you two agree on for the little 'rules' of your relationship? Jesse said that you two have to talk about every decision that is going to affect both of you, but that is all that I've heard of the little collection of rules that you two have."

"We really didn't make that many rules. All that we really wanted to do was put out a few boundaries that we wouldn't cross yet. We both need just a little time before we make any sort of commitment, and to keep us from over stepping our comfort levels we decided to set down just a couple of rules. Then we do have a couple of rules that he feels that any relationship should have." Lexa's tone was even, but she was fighting to keep it that way. She had thought that Jesse needed to keep quiet about the agreement that they had made when they had set up their rules. It had been her understanding that they weren't going to share the details of their lives with the others. Now it seemed as if she had been alone in that thought.

Maybe she should have talked to him about it, but then it had been so hard for her to keep his mind on their discussion that night. Of course that too could have been helped if she had managed to keep her own mind on the subject of their rules. She had found herself falling the same way Jesse had. That night all either of them had wanted was to finish making rules and get into bed so they could get to making love, and even as they wee making the rules they had been making advances towards the bed and towards sex. If her mind served her right, she and Jesse had ended up making love and rules at the very same time, and if she was right, their last rule, the one about telling each other everything, had been made just seconds before an absolutely mind blowing orgasm that had left her completely spent. It had been the first time that she had ever reached that point of climax with him, and since that night she knew that he had done all he could to make it happen each time that they were together.

It was a care that none of her previous lovers had made, and in all truth she couldn't remember ever having one of her lovers bring her to more than the brink of an orgasm before abandoning her. It was one of the many reasons she was still letting Jesse get away with so many things that she probably would have put a stop to very early in. One of those days she was going to make herself make him behave, she just had to do it.

"We're home." Shalimar said as she parked the car. "Let's go in and see how many of your predictions about Jesse are right. If they are, I may just go ahead and give your ideas on how to control men a try. I would love to see what it would be like if Bren was just as good at this spoiling process as Jess is. It could be an interesting situation."

"Just as long as you don't tell either of them that it was me who gave you those ideas. I don't think Jess would be happy with me forgiving away his secrets."

"Oh, don't worry. I don't even want Bren to know that those ideas were anything but my own observations. he wouldn't be very happy if he thought that you and I had been gossiping about him and Jess. He'd really hate the idea of us comparing his romantic style to Jesse's." Shalimar smirked as she pulled out both of her make up cases and walked over to the climate controlled closet where they stored their make up while Lexa put the display lingerie into the cedar closet. "I actually have wanted to ask you something. Since you've had the opportunity to make out with both of them, between the two of our dear boys which one is the better kisser?"

"I don't know if I'd really be the right one to ask about that. Both of the times I kissed Brennan it was something very un-romantic. He and I only kissed because I wanted to prove a point. At least that is why I kissed him the first time. The second time it was only because I was helping him out on that mission. He resisted too much that second time for it to be anything at all, and that first time he was so shocked that he could do anything. Besides," her blue eyes sparkled brilliantly, "would I still be with Jess if he wasn't a good kisser and extraordinary in bed? Those things are very important."

"You know, there really are times that you crack me up, especially when it comes to the guys. But really, what would you say about my question. Which of our two boys do you think is the better kisser? And actually, why do you think that they are the better one? I'd really like to know since we've started into our guys."

"Jesse, bur probably because I'm his girlfriend and he and I have a connection. I've learned a lot lately about relationships, and something that I've learned is that kissing and sex aren't really all that good unless you have some sort of connection between the two of you. Maybe Brennan and I can't judge each other only because there was no connection be the two of us." Lexa took a slow breath, she was being more honest with Shalimar then she ever had been and it was slightly scary. "Is there any girl that they both dated?"

"Bren and Jess ever dating the same girl? That would only happen when hell freezes over. I've seen them both into the same girl, but neither of them will date anyone that the other has already dated. It is just too much of a contest between them. Once one of them wins the other doesn't want to be second place. If you ask me that is the most disgusting thing."

"Men can be so full of themselves!" Lexa laughed. "I don't know why they have to be competitive about everything, but those two are horrible. They keep getting into all sorts of competition. I don't thing there's been a day since I came back to Mutant X that I haven't seen the two of them trying to compete with each other over something or another. Probably over every single thing they could ever compete over has been competed over, and they still manage to find away t compete over at least one thing everyday."

"Those two really can be enough to drive you crazy." Shalimar unlocked the door and they walked into the house. "Be glad you've only been dealt with them for a year, I've been in it for over three years now. After all of the competition that goes on around here I don't know how anyone has managed to deal with those two. If they don't ever grow up I'm going to have to kill them."

"You're going to have to kill who, Shal?" Jesse asked as he stepped into the kitchen and pulled Lexa to him for a quick kiss. "If anyone is bothering you two I'll handle it. It's probably my fault if you've got some creep following you after one of those parties. You two know I'd never have you in this job if I didn't have to."

"Don't worry, Jess." Lexa whispered as she let him wrap his arms tight around her waist. She reached up and gently caressed his face with her fingertips. "We were actually talking about you and Bren. A bit of a discourse on what annoying habits you tow have. Of course, I guess that even if you get on our nerves we do love you two quite a bit. Now, why don't we go upstairs and slip into that bath together? I might like to have a just a few minutes alone with you, and a slightly different version of this morning might just be a bit of fun to experiment with." her voice was a low whisper and as she said the last part, she smiled gently, knowing that Jesse was falling under her spell.

Maybe all of her work with the romantic enhancement parties had managed to teach her a couple of new tricks after all. She slowly kissed him, try to work over the part of him that she knew wanted to hear the flaws that she and Shalimar had found in him. His insane level of curiosity was one thing that still made her wonder how he had managed to stay a love for as long as he had. The one thing that she had learned was the greater the curiosity you had the greater chance that you were going to get yourself killed. She bit her lip as she thought about loosing Jesse and then wrapped her arms tight around him to help reassure herself. She was determined that nothing would ever take him away form her. For several seconds she held him tight as tears dripped from her eyes.

Six Months Later

New Years Eve

Inside New Sanctuary

"We really did it!" Jesse said as he poured the champagne into everyone's glasses. "We finally managed to rebuild!" he pulled Lexa to him for a quick kiss. "We'll celebrate tonight and then tomorrow we can get right back to work!"

"And the fact that this is New Years Eve makes it even better than it would have been any other day!" Shalimar smiled brightly and leaned back into Brennan's arms. "A new beginning to a new life! I know that we've never done this before, but w all should talk about what we are going to do to improve ourselves over the next year."

"How do you improve on perfection?" Brennan joked. "Alright, over the next year I'll actually start making some steps to get Shal and me married."

"About time that you two finally got your act together." Jesse reached over and took Lexa's hand. "I'm going to take the time to finally get the last dregs of my past out of my life." he paused, but managed to lose his fear when Shalimar gave him a gentle, reassuring smile. "As of today I'm working towards the future, and everything that happened before I joined Mutant X is gone, so is anything that happened in those early days that is still affecting me."

Lexa smiled tightly, she now wanted to know what skeletons Jesse had hidden in his closet, but she also knew that there was no way he would tell her if he did not want to. "I'm sticking with the same challenge I've had for a long time now, learning how to let people in again."

"I feel guilty about this since I'm the one who suggested that we do this, but I don't really know what to say." Shalimar laughed. "I guess I just want to improve in everyway that I possibly can."

Two and a half weeks later.

Lexa sipped at her wine while she waited on Jesse to finish up his work at the computer. They ad planned a quiet, romantic night at home. It was going to be just the two of them since Brennan and Shalimar were gone for the weekend. Now it was all falling apart.

Barely ten minutes into their romantic night the computers had signaled that something was wrong. Jesse had promised that it would only take a few minutes to get the work done, but after two hours he still was not done.

She could have forgiven him if it had not been for the fact that Jesse had done this several times already. every time that they had planned something to be together something had happened to keep them from being able to follow through their plans. At first she had ignored the little interruptions, but now she was starting to feel as if Jesse felt it was more important for him to work on the new systems than to spend time with her.

She had been ignored every time there had been even a small glitch in the system. There had been times that he felt he considered perfecting the computer system and making sure that everything was working perfecting the most important things in his life.

She set down her glass and stalked over to the computer to see how much more work he had to do. "Are you even going to be spending a second with me tonight or do I need to go swap this naughty negligee for some sweat pants and a t-shirt?"

"I'm working as fast as I can, Lexa." Jesse answered with out looking up. "I should be done in just another minute or two, but if you don't stop bothering me I'm never going to get this done."

"Is that what I am! A bother!" Lexa demanded as she slammed her fist down on the counter. "Would you rather just spend your time with your precious little computers! You spend more time with them in a day than you've spent with me in a week!"

"Lexa, don't start into this right now!" Jesse snapped as he finally looked up from the computer. "I am trying my best to keep this place as safe as possible, so why don't you let me do that!"

"We haven't made love since New Years Eve, and even then you left me on the brink of my second orgasm because your precious little computers sounded an alarm about needing to be de-fragmented! I'm starting to think that you don't even want to be in this relationship anymore! Not if it is going to mean not being at the computers twenty four seven."

"I'm not at the computer all the time, Lexa! I have done everything that I can for you! As for our sex life, you are the one who falls asleep before I can come to bed. It's like your asleep the second after your head hit's the pillow. If it was actually important to you, you'd at least try to stay awake."

"Oh, no you don't! I tell you that I'm going to bed and you say you'll be there in just a minute, and then you just don't come for hours. I've waited nearly five hours once and you still didn't come to bed! Do you even care any more, Jess!"

"You should know how I feel about you! If you don't know how I feel then maybe we shouldn't be together anymore!"

"Maybe we shouldn't! It's not like we're going anywhere in our relationship! Let's just end it now and forget about it!"

"Fine! It's over! Just don't expect me to listen to you if you come in tomorrow morning talking about how you weren't thinking. If we end this now we end it for good. We're not going to come back to this!"

"It is completely over!" Lexa hissed and then stalked off to move her things out of Jesse's room and into one of the spare rooms. As she moved her things and opened and closed dresser drawers and doors, Lexa made as much noise as she possibly could. Once everything we moved out of Jesse's room she took up an old t-shirt and a pair of shoes to change into and headed into her bathroom for a long bubble bath.

The second she slipped into the steaming water, her tension began to melt away. Getting into the fight with Jesse had been the last thing she had wanted to do that weekend, but it was something that she could call 'for the best.' It had become more and more apparent that Jesse was not going to make the changes their relationship needed. Whatever problems he had with commitment were still affecting him, and he wasn't ready to let them go. They had been living together for a year, and he still hadn't mentioned marriage. It was an instinctual thing. If he wasn't even willing to broach the subject, he wouldn't be willing to actually get married. It was that easy. The soft lapping of the water against her skin began to relax her, but no matter how relaxed she became, there was no way for her to forget what was happening to her.

Granted, Jesse had been ignoring her for the last few weeks, and when he had managed to find some time to spend with her his mind had been miles away from where they were they really were; but then there still was the fact that the was over attentive, but she had always love it. He had managed to spend time with her even as he had worked on the stabilization cure. If he hadn't proven his love then, he never could have.

But all of that didn't matter any more. No matter how strong their relationship had been during the beginning, they had started to drift away from each other. She had found it harder and harder to put her thoughts and feelings into words for him, and slowly she ha stopped talking to him about anything that really mattered. The silence became more and more natural, and the last thing that she wanted to was talk.

After a while Lexa got out of the water, pulled on the clothes that she had brought in with her and headed to what was now her room to go to bed. At first she couldn't get to sleep, not with being so used to having Jesse hold her tightly. She had to make herself fall asleep with out him. It was a task that took several hours, but at last she was sound asleep.

Four months later.

Main computer lab of New Sanctuary.

"Ok, try it now." Lexa said as she finished typing in a command on the computer.

"Alright…it's not working." Jesse sighed. "I really thought that one was going to work."

"Take a break and get back to it later." Lexa suggested as she pushed her hair back from her face. "You don't have to do this now you know."

"Hold on, let me check and see if there is something that you're missing." he got up and walked over to her. "Don't bother getting up, I'm just looking it over." he stood behind her and put his hands on the computer desk to support him as he leaned towards the computer screen.

Lexa felt a slight shiver go down her spine as their bodies came into such close contact. The room was already warmed by the heat of the computers, and the added closeness between them was almost more than she could bare. It had been four months since she had broke up with him, and even now there still weren't many things that she had managed to tell him.

Only a week after their break up they had found themselves in a heated argument, and then they had found themselves in the middle of a furious round of sex. Just a couple of weeks after that Lexa discovered that she was pregnant. For a month and a half she stressed over how she was going to tell Jesse the news. The had finally started to act as they had when they first met, and the last thing she wanted was to ruin that. The same day that she decided to tell him, she lost the baby.

She had been lucky that it was a day that Jesse had left on a mission for a couple of weeks. All of the time she had spent bonding with Shalimar had been to her own good; and the other woman had spent the whole day with her. It had been the only way that she had managed to get through it.

"Looks like everything is exactly how it should be." Jesse sighed as he looked closely at the screen. "I don't know what the hell is wrong with all of this!" he roughly pushed back from the desk.

"Come on, Jess." Lexa got up and gently rubbed his shoulders. "Let's go and get something to eat, and then we can try again."

"We've got to get this done, Lexa. That is the only way that we're going to keep this place safely running." he turned back around to face her and partially froze. It had been months since they had touched, not since that last furious time together. Her hands had been soft against his skin, and the last thing that he wanted was to end the contact.

"You're stressed out, Jess." Lexa pulled her hands away from him and held her arms firmly against her sides. "Go take a nap or find something that relaxes you."

"I think I've got something." he whispered and pulled her to him for a long, slow, deep kiss.

Lexa's eyes shot wide open and then fluttered close. She leaned into him and wrapped her arms tightly around his body. For several seconds she was relaxed. Jesse's strong hands were already tugging on the tie of her halter top, and he held her tightly so that she had no chance to get away.

After several long, time-stopping seconds Jesse pulled back from Lexa and gently cupped her face in his hand so that he could stare into her eyes. "Hey." he almost laughed and broke out into a charming smile.

Lexa melted at his easy smile and good nature. "Why did you do that?" she was already stepping closer into his arms.

"I don't know." he confessed as he gently put one arm around her waist and held her close to him. "I've really missed you."

"I've been right here, Jess." Lexa whispered as she unsteadily reached up to caress his cheek with her fingertips. "I've been right here the whole time."

He could not move away from her and stayed there with his arms tightly around her. For several long seconds he could not speak and even breathing had become difficult. Finally the spell broke enough that he could step back from her. "We probably need to talk."

"No." Lexa shook her head violently. "We don't need to talk. Whatever just happened between us was nothing but a very serious mistake. There was a reason that we broke up, actually there were a lot of reasons."

"That was then, Lexa. A lot has happened since we broke up, and I'm ready for us to try again."

"We said that we were going to be final if we broke up. You were even the one who declared that if we broke up it would be permanent. That was your decree, not mine."

"I was angry when I said that." he took a slow, deep breath to calm himself. "Lexa, I want to at least talk. We may have broken up, but every time that we get involved in an argument or our emotions run high we end up in each other's arms. Even while we're pretending to hate each other we can't seem to keep our hands off of each other. I love you, Lexa."

"I'm not interested in getting back together with you. I've spent my life protecting my heart and the one time that I really let someone in it gets shattered to pieces. You knew what was the matter with me, and you still got me to take the chance. You knew full well that you had me completely out of my safety zone, and then you let me get hurt. How can I trust you again after you did that to me?"

"Lexa, baby, don't go down that road. I'm sorry that we had those problems, alright? But those are in the past. We've got a chance, one last chance to get it right. Don't waste this, Lexa. Just give me a chance to make this right for you. I promise that I won't let you get hurt like you did before. We will take it slow, and I'm going to make sure that my priorities are different than they were last time. I've got the computers nearly ready to take care of everything with out me having to get up and check on them. We've just got to work through the icy silence of the last few months."

"I don't want to get back with you." She whispered softly. "I don't want to go back through the things that happened last time. It was just too much for me to deal with. You need to go find someone that is actually going to work for you. We're too fiery hot and furious. The last thing that we need to do is try to make our relationship work. If it is not working out it is not going to work in the future."

"Fine." Jesse sighed. "I'm going to finish up in here. I think that I might could actually get this done."

"Good luck." she whispered as she turned and walked out of the room, heading to her bathroom for a shower to relieve her body of the heat and sexual tension.

Six weeks later.

Lexa stretched out across the sofa as she waited for the nausea to go away. She shut her eyes tightly and focused on stopping the spinning in her head, it was beginning to be a very bad day. The last thing that she had wanted was to get sick, not the same day that she was supposed to go trying on bridesmaids dresses. She was already dreading putting up with a lot in the planning of the wedding.

The wedding would be the very last thing that she would put up with when it came to one Jesse Kilmartin. They would have to put up with each other as the only bridesmaid and the best man. For the day of the wedding they would fool all of their friends into thinking that they were still able to get along, but nothing could be further from the truth. Since their last encounter things had become more and more strained between the two of them.

The fights had been constant and non-relenting. Both knew how to argue with the other, and almost every time they disagreed it ended in a draw. They would stay at each other's throats until the other two pulled them apart. Looking at it from any angle it was easy to see that the problem was a deep running tension, one that was sexual and emotional. The last thing that either wanted to do though, was eliminate the tension with the only solution that had been found.

"You alright, Lexa?" Brennan asked as he walked into the living area and found Lexa lying on the sofa.

"I'm fine I guess." Lexa answered as she sat up. "Shal and I were discussing the reception and I started to feel just a little queasy so I thought that I'd come lay down for a bit."

"If I didn't know better I'd think that you and Jesse had caught something from each other. He dropped out of his discussion with Shalimar by saying that he wasn't feeling that good. My guess is that it has something to do with the fact that you two have to be all mushy at the wedding."

"I don't know why we can't tell everyone that Jesse and I broke up. It is not like they are going to stop helping us because Jess and I split."

"They need to be confident in our team, and if they are not going to be confident in us if they thing that we can't get past our own personal problems."

"Alright, fine." Lexa sighed slightly. "I guess I need to get ready to for dress shopping."

"Have fun, and remember, it's about a year until the wedding. You and Jess have plenty of time to get through your problems. Maybe by then you two won't be trying to kill each other anymore. It maybe a long shot, but at least there is a slight chance."

"I'm not a big fan of long shots." Lexa answered coolly. "Maybe I can hold back my desire to kill him at the wedding. The hardest part will be dancing at the reception."

"Don't worry." Brennan laughed. "I promise that he won't try to kiss you."

"He'd better not." Lexa called over he shoulder as she left to go find Shalimar.

Two months later.

Lexa held her breath as the dressmaker tightened the ties of the corset that went under her dress. The corset tightened over her body, pulling in the minimal amount of fat she had and pushing her breasts up. The second that the woman finished tying the corset, Lexa let out her breath and slowly let herself catch up with the oxygen that she had missed. A second later the soft, ice-blue dress that she was to wear was slipped over her head and zipped up in the back."

"You look really good." Shalimar said as she walked in, her white flowing dress fluttered behind her. "You may steal the show at the wedding."

"Only if I faint from lack of oxygen." Lexa answered as she carefully straightened out her skirt. "This corset is really tight."

"It is supposed to be. It was the dressmakers idea, not mine." Shalimar carefully tuckered hr hair back behind her ear. "We'll have our pictures done next month so that there is plenty of time for us to get all of the custom made invitations ready to go out."

"I don't know why you feel like Jesse and I need to be in the pictures with you. This is your wedding, not ours. Most definitely not ours."

"The wedding picture of me and Brennan will go on the invitations, and the other of all four of us will be tucked in with the letter that is going out to everyone." Shalimar looked up at her. "it will be a quick five minutes. The second that they're done with the photo you and Jesse can get into a huge fight over anything that you want to fight over."

"You've got a deal." Lexa almost laughed. "Now let me get out of this dress and back into my good old street clothes so that we can get out of this place."

"You are really going to make me crazy when it comes to this wedding." Shalimar answered as she started to help Lexa undo the dress and the corset. "As long as the dress maker doesn't think to make your dress fit perfectly over the corset I'll make sure that we don't tie it up too tightly for the wedding. I don't want you passing out at my wedding any more than you want to pass out."

"No, we don't want the wedding going that way after all of the fancy lying we've done just to make our 'friends' think that we're all still getting along all kissy-kissy."

"Don't worry!" Shalimar smiled. "I'm sure that over the next ten months you and Jesse will be back to a friendly relationship."

Nine and a half months later

Shalimar moved one of her chess pieces and then sat back to wait on Lexa to make a move. She smiled slightly as the other woman studied the board. It had been a difficult plan to carry out. First Lexa and Jesse had to be convinced to take part in the 'chess tournament.' and then she and Brennan both had to loose. The process of believably loosing the games had been the harder part, but Jesse had won with out much help and now if Lexa paid attention she would win.

Lexa finally made her move and knocked over Shalimar's queen.. "Check mate."

Shalimar shook her head slightly so she could make her loss more believable. "I guess it looks like you and Jess are going to be playing each other now."

Lexa glanced over at Jesse and froze for a second. "Lets get started then." she said as soon as she found her voice again..

"Right." Jesse took Shalimar's seat and stared to set up the pieces again. "You want to time the moves?"

"I think we'll be alright with out the timing." Lexa sat up her own pieces. "I hope that you're ready to loose."

"I'm not the one who is going to be loosing." he answered coolly, a spark of competitiveness glimmering in his soft blue eyes.

"Care to make the stake a little bit higher?" she smiled slightly "We could always lay a little bet on the game. Say if I win you finally see about getting that spa room finished and if you win…"

"We sit down and talk through our problems. No more of us being ready to kill each other, and no more of this irritating silence. We're actually going to give at least our friendship another shot."

"Fine." Lexa agreed. "Let's play."

Shalimar and Brennan exchanged a look and then quickly and silently slipped out of the room.

Two hours later

Lexa held her breath while Jesse plotted his next more. They had both played very hard, neither wanting to loose, and now t was near the end of the game. Her last move had been difficult to find, and even though she had used it, it still left her slightly open to loose. As Jesse reached to make his move she tightly closed her eyes.

"Checkmate." Jesse said slowly. "You want to talk now or do you want to get some alcohol to ease the process?"

"Jess, there really is nothing for us to talk about. We have not found a way to make this work after our break up, and I doubt that we are going to be able to get through our problems right now."

"Lexa, I just want to try. We had a good thing going for a while, and for the life of me. I can't figure out how we got to this point where we can't stand the be around each other any more."

"How can you not know what caused us to break up! Of course, you were too busy working to know that your work was the problem. After we moved in here you were so busy with the computers that you couldn't spend thirty minutes with me before you went rushing off to see that the computers were running smoothly. And there was no apology. You just left me and expected me to understand. I needed you and you couldn't find it in yourself to be there for me. You actually had the audacity to blame me too. Saying that I bothered you while you were working and that I didn't make any effort to wait on you."

"Lexa, those things were said in the heat of the moment. I didn't mean them." he reached over and took her hands gently in his. "Give me a chance to prove that I love you. I can't spend any more time away from you. We've tried this whole being apart thing, and it is just not working. Lets give up on this experiment and go back to what we know works. There is no point in making our selves miserable about this. We've got a shot to try again, and I'm ready to take that shot. The only thing that I'm waiting on now is for you to be ready to take that shot, so are you?"

Lexa hesitated as she thought about what Jesse was saying. She could hear every ounce of the conviction in his voice, but the last thing that she wanted to do was give in and let herself make another huge mistake. She was still hurting from her first try at a relationship with him, and there was no way that she was going to deal with getting her heartbroken by him again. Her thoughts raced as she ran over every possible scenario in her mind. Nothing that she could find told her that one way was better than the other.

She could not make a single decision about what she wanted to do, but she knew that she had to say something. "I'm ready to try." she blurted out, her voice and words sounding strange to her own ears. She had no premeditation of saying the words, but found herself absolutely meaning them.

Jesse smiled and then leaned over the table so he could softly kiss her. "I love you." he whispered just before their lips met in a soft, long kiss.

Lexa relaxed into the kiss, trying her best to not let him pull back away from her. Finally she had to let him pull away so they both could get a real breath. 'I've missed being with you." she whispered as she got up and walked over to him.

"I've missed you too." Jesse whispered as he gently pulled Lexa onto his lap and started to slowly kiss her neck. "We are just going to have to work through our problems and make sure that we don't repeat them. I never want to loose you again, Lexa. Not after we've worked so hard to get back together."

"I think you mean how hard Brennan and Shal worked at it." Lexa whispered as she softly kissed him. Her hand was resting gently on his cheek and their eyes were locked together. "I'd bet anything that they've been plotting and planning on how they were going to get us back together."

"We do seem to have a couple of plotting and planning friends on our hands." he kissed her again and took her free hand in his. "Why don't we slip out of here and find some place just a little more private to talk. We could slip off to one of our bedrooms so we don't have to deal with Shal and Bren interrupting us."

"Not to mention the amount of fun that we can have if we are off in one of the bedrooms." Lexa smirked slightly as she rested her head on his shoulder. "You know, it's been a long time since I've had any action that wasn't battery operated or the shower head in my bathroom. I think that it might be a very good idea for us to go in another room."

"I'd say that you are probably right." he gently stroked her face with his fingertips and then slowly kissed her. "Why don't we go ahead and slip out of here and go to my room. We won't be bothered while we're in there."

"That sounds good." she smiled softly and then got up and started to walk towards Jesse's room. After taking a couple of steps she turned around to see if Jesse had gotten up. "You coming or not?"

"I'm coming." Jesse said as he got up, walked over to Lexa, and then scooped he up in his arms so he could carry her back to his bedroom. He closed and locked the door behind them and then put Lexa down on the bed.

A week and a half later, On the beach about five miles from sanctuary.

Lexa and Jesse stood beside Shalimar and Brennan as the couple exchanged their vows. The sun was shining brightly, reflecting the clear blue of the ocean, and a soft cool breeze gently blew. it was perfect weather for the beach wedding, and it was going to turn out to be a perfect day.

Lexa blushed slightly as Jesse caught her eye and slightly nodded towards a small beach hut and gave her a mischievous smile. She smiled back and nodded very slightly. They would probably miss half of the reception if they allowed themselves to wonder over to the hut, but it would be a chance to rid herself of the dreaded corset. The dress maker had made sure that her dress would only fit if she wore the corset, otherwise the bust was too loose and the waist would not fit properly. It was one thing about the wedding that she was not going to forgive Shalimar for, but maybe if Jesse got her out of that corset for a while she would forgive the bride. She shook her head slightly when she saw that Shalimar and Brennan were kissing. She handed Shalimar her flowers and got ready to make her way off with Jesse.

Once the newlyweds were most of the way down the aisle and no one was paying attention to them, Jesse and Lexa quickly slipped over to the beach hut. The second they were inside with the door shut behind them, they were drawn almost magnetically into each other's arms..

"Get me out of this damn corset or I'm going to kill you." Lexa whispered as she started to work on getting him out of the tuxedo that he was wearing.

"Lexa, slow down." Jesse whispered as he gently pushed her back a couple of steps. "You've got to stay in your dress. There is no way that I'm going to be able to get you back in that corset properly."

Lexa raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest. "So why, exactly, did you want me to come here?"

"Oh, you know why." he answered as he pulled her back into his arms/ "I'm pretty sure that we can find a way to make this work."

Two hours later

Jesse and Lexa stepped on to the pier where the reception was set up. Silently, they merged into the crowd that was dancing. They both half-hoped that no one had noticed that they had been gone for the two hours since the end of the nuptials. The curious glances from a couple of the guests dashed their hopes, but they still chose to ignore them. The only thing that they were still hopeful about was the possibility that Shalimar and Brennan had not missed their presence. For a few moments they could not locate the other couple in the crowd, but relaxed once they saw how distracted Shalimar and Brennan were. The only thing that they had to do now was go through their required parts in the wedding and then they would be free to spend the evening as they wished.

Later that night, on the way back home to Sanctuary.

"So, Jess." Shalimar said as the car turned onto the final road back home, "how in the world did you manage to get Lexa so perfectly back into her dress? I'm a woman and that corset confuses even me."

"I have no clue what you are talking about." Jesse answered, keeping his eyes on the road and fingers firmly around the steering wheel. "Lexa has stayed in her corset for the whole day, trust me, I wouldn't be even thinking about taking her out of that dress unless the day was over."

"See, Shal." Brennan said, a playful tone to his voice. "I told you that you were wrong about seeing them going over to that beach hut. They just spent two hours with our guests and we couldn't find them. They both knew that their responsibility was to be with our guests today, and there is absolutely no way that they slipped out of the wedding to have sex, knowing that we will be gone for the next two weeks. They are both too mature to have just dropped their responsibilities like that."

"You saw us?" Lexa asked as she turned around to face the newly wed couple. "You actually saw us sneaking off after the ceremony?"

Shalimar smiled wickedly as she looked at the other woman. "I was actually pretty curious how long you two could last with out going at each other. Since you two got back together there hasn't been that much time that you haven't been off somewhere having se, and I really wanted to see if you could make it through the day with out having gone off like that." she reached up and took out the clip that held her blonde curls up, letting them cascade down over her shoulders. "Of course I'm not upset. I think Brennan and I would have done the very same thing if we could have, but since we were the ones who had gotten married we had to stay at he reception."

"Just as long as you're not too upset with us. I guess that we can owe you one for the next time you two need to slip out of something." Jesse smiled slightly, a good natured and laughing tone to his voice. "For now though, we will get you all packed up to go off on your little trip. Wouldn't want you to miss your flight."

"Only because you two don' want to miss out o a single second of the time that you could be spending together." Brennan laughed. "These next two weeks should give you more than enough time to make up for what you missed out on while you were fighting."

"I doubt that." Jesse's smile faded slightly as he looked over at Lexa. "She and I are never going to be able to make up for the last couple of years. That is always going to be something that I will regret about the last couple of years. If I had a chance to go back in time, I'd have never let her go. I'd have fought like hell to be able to keep her."

"You are way too romantic sometimes." Lexa whispered as she reached over and took his hand. "So, why don't we all go grab a drink and laugh over some of the wedding before you two rush off to Aruba, Honolulu, or wherever it is you're off to."

"We're going off to a week of jungle trekking South America for me." Shalimar laughed. "And then Brennan wants to spend a week in England. We'll be able to enjoy some of the most historic places in the worlds, and I'll be able to do some serious shopping."

"The one good thing about South America is that our little jungle trek will keep us far away from any shopping opportunities." Brennan sighed as Jesse finally pulled into Sanctuary's garage and parked the car. "Of course the bad thing is that we will be surrounded by tons of mosquito netting and bugs."

"I'm sure that she'll make up for it when you get to London." Jesse got out of the car and walked down to help Lexa out of the car. "I know that when I went with my mother we spent about two weeks shopping and still didn't get to all of the stores she wanted to go to. You'll have to just hit the highlights if you want to see the sights too."

"You know." Lexa began as a thought suddenly entered her mind. "We could all go on a nice little trip to England. I'm sure that the four of us would have a good time together."

"That is a great idea!" Shalimar exclaimed. "We could all go in a year or two and see the sights together. We might even be able to cash in some of our long over due vacation time and let some of the Underground leaders run things for a while. It would give them a bit of practice for an emergency that might pull us away."

"We'll talk about it later." Brennan said after exchanging a quick look with Jesse. "For now lets go chill a little bit before we leave."

End of Flash backs

"He and I have been together for almost two and a half years now. He asked me to marry him the day after Shalimar and Brennan's wedding, and we've been working through getting to our wedding. There has been some great times and some horrible times, but we're ready now. Ready to take that step." Lexa finished.

"Interesting." Madeline smile slightly, a dangerous glow in her eyes. "I guess you expect me to tell you about myself now."

"That was our deal and I've kept my part."

"Alright." she let her fingers trail in the water. "Jesse and I spent a year together, hiding our relationship from Adam. We got married and he got kicked out of Mutant X. I ended up with some pretty vicious people on my tail so I faked my own death to keep Jess safe. It ended up that I was pregnant when I left, and when I gave birth my baby was still born. I've spent the last twelve years fighting to get back to Jess, and now that I'm here again I'm just as determined to hang onto him as you are. Of course since I'm not the one who tried to kill someone, I'll be chosen. Pity he can't understand that you know the truth about my powers."

"Then I guess we'll just have to see who he chooses." Lexa said and then turned on her heal as she walked out of the room.