September 25th, 2018: Tuesday afternoon
2:32 pm

Eddie's a little unhinged with Justin, their arson suspect, he thinks, though she's certainly within the parameters of the angry/reasonable cop act they sometimes do. She's also using it as an emotional pressure valve. Something that hadn't occurred to him that he himself might need, until he found himself hauling off on the fire guys, earlier, and Eddie hauling him off again.

He should be fine. Dr. Clarke was happy enough with him, though she gave him her usual invitation to come and talk over his stuff any time. But he wasn't the one who killed a guy, after all. No, no, just the guy who had a gun pointed between his eyes from fourteen inches away, who looked into the eyes of his assassin, and who should be dead right now. He'd gone through all kinds of crazy feelings after that, from wobbly relief to raw sexual release and a surge of gratitude for being alive, to a kind of greyed-out endorphin downer as he and Eddie both regained their balance.

And then they got engaged, and had every intention of marrying in 48 hours. Okay, maybe trying to take some sort of control over their lives and establish a new normal on their own terms was part of a post-traumatic reaction.

Maybe all this pent up blaming his father for everything since childhood isn't really about Frank. They tend to overlook the impact of close calls, in their line of work. Maybe Dr. Clarke is onto something with her invitations.

Eddie smelling of smoke gets under his skin a little, as they stand interrogating young Justin in the interview room. He feels silly for having asked her (no, he admits, he told her) to wait on the sidewalk. The protective instinct that came hulking out of him at the sight of her with baby Marisa in her arms isn't going away, and it's something he's going to have to deal with. It's her job he was interfering in, and she isn't even singed. Nothing another shower and her usual dry cleaner can't fix.

He goes for a walk to clear his head, after Justin is placed in cells, and Eddie goes off for a quick cleanup. She'd have to change every article of clothing and shower twice to get rid of the smell completely, and there's no time for that, so for now she just rinses the worst out of her hair and skin, and changes her shirt.

He brings her back a large mocha. She thanks him, her eyes dancing, but explains that it won't taste good with the smoky smell she's still covered in.

"Like s'mores," he suggests. She shakes her head.

"Maybe if it was plain old woodsmoke. Not electrical fire and tar-paper as well."

"You were amazing," he tells her, honestly, "And I know I'm not the only one who's glad you ignored me about staying outside." She understands the mocha then, and nods slowly.

"Team effort. What we do best."

She carries her drink to the break room fridge to have cold later on, and then kisses him, sweetly and silently, both of them listening for footsteps passing by.

He slides his hand around the back of her neck, and rests his forehead on the top of her head for a moment.

Huh. Yesterday they were concerned that smelling the same might give them away. Today they both smell of smoke and nobody seems to notice except to make sure they're okay.

Funny sort of business they're in.

Eddie's hand grips his waist just a second longer, and then she pushes herself away.

"Talk later?" he murmurs.

If they're both still a bit of a reactionary mess, at least they can be a conscious mess and figure out what's useful and what isn't. This, he thinks, is probably part of what Danny was trying to explain. The power of not being bowled over by things, or at least, knowing what to expect and watch out for in each other, as spouses, not as police partners.

"Fight night," she reminds him. "Class ends at seven. I could bring takeout over after?"

"God, yes."

He makes a plan to stock up on some of the shampoo and things she likes, before she gets there. She keeps a supply in her emergency go-bag, but they're looking at a period of drifting between apartments at least for the foreseeable future, and he wants her to feel properly at home.

It's not a ring, but it's a statement. They'll work on the rest later. They're a work in progress.

His plans get derailed by another invitation – this time, one that can't be politely ignored. Detective Baker, on behalf of his father.


September 25th, 2018: Tuesday evening
5:00 sharp

He's not sure which is worse, the look that's back in Abby's eyes with redoubled intensity, or the fact that Jamie stands and salutes him until he responds. Or that Abby watches the whole thing, and keeps the look going until she closes the door.

Jamie couldn't have said more clearly in words that if his father is going to be such a failure as a father, he's only going to deal with him as a superior officer. With impeccable correctness, too. Jamie learned the power of maintaining a cool and calm exterior at a very young age, as the youngest of a heap of highly demanding, highly different siblings, and parents with high expectations and not much time for sorting out which one had actually started the latest war.

He trained the kid, after all. He's the only one to blame, for a lot of things.

Jamie seems to have come prepared for a peace parley, anyway, and to start from the beginning, because he starts off easily enough, "Look, I know you have reservations about me riding with Eddie."

"A little more than reservations."

There's so much he wants to explain that he's at a genuine loss where to begin. If he's angry with Jamie at all, it's only because he doesn't like the position Jamie's put him in. Jamie and Danny are the only two cops in the entire NYPD that could make such a demand, and they're the only two that Frank absolutely cannot do favors for.

He tries to keep things on Jamie's terms, for now, and reach him halfway. Hopefully the words will come to him for the rest. They've never been good at direct emotional contact, not without Mary sitting with them, or later, Linda. And Jamie doesn't need the extra weight on his shoulders of trying to be the best cop he can be, while never risking himself enough to place himself in actual danger, just for his old man's sake.

It's not until he reminds Jamie that Captain Hollis needs to be informed, as his CO, that Jamie glibly responds that he hasn't had the opportunity. That's the first whiff of bullshit in an otherwise very civil and clear conversation. It may be true – Hollis may be hiding out, not wanting to deal with either of them in light of his past insinuations and Eddie's recognition – but surely the e-mail system still works. They could request a meeting. They could have told Renzulli, and asked him to pass a message to Hollis.

Except they don't want to get Tony Renzulli in trouble for not splitting up their partnership years ago, and they don't want to give Hollis the satisfaction of knowing he was more or less on the right page, even though his insinuations were out of line and technically incorrect at the time.

Frank rolls his eyes mentally. Of all the reasons to ban romantically attached cops from serving as partners, this kind of gossip and intrigue is near the top of the list, too.

"I promise you, me riding with Eddie won't affect my performance on the job."

"Then why'd you get into it with the firefighter?"

He begins to lose patience with Jamie's prepared responses. The kid's lawyering him around now, right down to insisting that he's not, even as he uses regulations to back himself up, and splits hairs over "fiancée" and "partner".

Frank finally brings out the big guns, painting a picture of Jamie and Eddie both going down at a scene, and what do they want him to do with their kids?

And that's when Jamie – quietly, politely – walks out on him, with a soft little laugh, as if he might have known the old man would try something like that.

It's not until later that night that Frank, cooled down now and into a second whiskey, remembers the partner that Jamie couldn't save, and that Eddie very nearly went down not that long ago, and he feels physically sick with shame. He pushed Jamie off of the ground he knows best, and onto ground that only Frank has lived through. It's not fair, he knows. Jamie's experienced plenty of deaths close to him, and it was terrible of Frank to trump that with the fact that he's lost both spouse and child, neither of which Jamie has even had.

Mary would probably not be speaking to him on a night like this, he thinks.


September 30th, 2018: Sunday evening
5:12 pm

He'd warned her there might be some tension, but it's awful.

Springing herself upon them as an unexpected dinner guest and a future in-law was downright normal compared to this. They'd arrived just in time to drop their dessert off in the kitchen and sit down, with no pre-dinner chat over wine, and barely time to even say hello. The family had said Grace in a garbled rush, not in the least like the thoughtful way they'd injected meaning and gratitude into the words last week.

There's a very weird interlude of napkin-shaking and salt passing, and nobody says a word. Nobody asks after anyone else, or seems to notice she's feeling way out of her depth, even Jamie.

It's Sean who seems to remind everyone she's new, offering her the cornbread, and Frank wakes up and offers her an actual welcome.

"Thank you, Commissioner," she smiles at him in relief.

"Frank," he reminds her.

"Or Dad," Erin adds, a little wistfully, but still with a big-sisterly poke, recalling Eddie's experimental dropping of the title last week. This, Eddie thinks, she can handle. Maybe everyone just needs a hot meal inside and a chance to clear the air a little. It seems to be so, because everyone starts spinning the usual sort of chatter that people do when trying to learn something about each other.

"Just don't use your phone or iPad at the table," Nicky advises.

"Or curse. They hate it when you curse," Sean adds.

She'd laugh and make a crack about being adopted already, but there's something in the kids' voices that makes it sound like an actual warning. She's feeling all out of place again when Danny cuts the kids off.

So it's back to the standard script about lovely meals and all, and then the sparring begins.

If it's not Danny levelling spears at his hapless sister for doing her job and saving their asses from being laughed out of court or hauled up to IAB, it's Jamie prodding his father about blaming him for an imaginary unwritten wrongdoing when no wrong has been done by anyone. Erin, exhausted, merely brushes Danny's barbs away with a minimum of words. Henry asks for civility.

It's not as if they're using her as an audience, and projecting their grievances at her – they're so deeply immersed in that they're barely aware she's even there. Even Jamie. She tries to support him when she can, but it's so far over her head and packed with subtext that she doesn't know where to begin. She can't even call him out the way she usually would, not at a family dinner, and she ends up sounding just like her own mother when she says his name.

The kids, bless them, end up apologizing for their elders, which they shouldn't have to do. It seems to work for a few moments, with everyone suitably chastened.

She's just starting to breathe again when Danny gets a nightmare call about a mafia murder case, and blames Erin directly for another death as he leaves.

This cannot possibly be normal, even for a family of crime-fighters and prosecutors, she thinks. Can it?

Oh, God, what if it is? What is she walking into?

She tries to at least break the silence, not caring if it sounds inane. This time, not even Erin has the energy to answer her, and the kids look like they know better than to open their mouths.

If this was a crime scene and they were all suspects, or at least reluctant witnesses, she and Jamie would have the entire table singing in chorus in five minutes flat. But this is family, and it's personal.

Eddie pulls herself together and reminds herself that she's hardly inexperienced at dealing with cranky Reagans, one in particular. He had to learn his habits from somewhere. And she's not his best friend and kick-ass partner for nothin'. Taking a deep breath, she goes back to what is, in fact, a fantastic dinner that would be a tragedy to waste, and blithely pretends there's no tension at all. If they can't keep up a civil conversation, it won't be on her head.

Out of the corner of her eye, she thinks she sees Frank's eyes glimmering at her in amusement.

Well, that took long enough.


September 30th, 2018: Sunday evening
8:38 pm

He'd warned her there might be some tension, but it's awful.

He's embarrassed by the behaviour Eddie saw, and he's still sore as hell at his father, and he needs to blow up, but not at Eddie. He just wants to get home, get Eddie settled and maybe go for a run to clear his head. When his mind packs up like this and he stops being able to sort out his thoughts, the only thing to do is hit the reset: exhaust himself physically and burn out the gunk. Eddie's seen him like this plenty of times, and knows where to look for him. He grudgingly loves it that she'll track him down and find him, even if she sometimes underbudgets how much time he needs. That's hardly on her.

If he can just get her home, kiss her good night, explain he needs some time, and then book it. Hit the speedbag at the night gym, or just run himself soggy. She'll understand.

It doesn't work.

"We need to think about not partnering together," she says, as if she's already decided.

He feels the hot spark take hold behind his eyes. "What?"

"It'll solve the problems with your dad. And – "

Placating his father is the last reason he'd want to do anything, just now. What the hell does she think the last two weeks have been all about? They were working together to make this happen, weren't they? Hold onto whatever time they have left to be partners at all?

He hears his own rising anger, and a note of churlish petulance that makes him furious with himself, too. "Eddie, you don't want to ride together anymore?"

"No! It's just your dad clearly has a problem with us riding together."

"You can't just cave every time you don't agree with someone in my family!"

It's hardly fair to yell at her for not getting up in the Commissioner's face at his own table, but that's sort of why he's furious in the first place. All his stored-up rage at his father has been swirling around all week, and just when it seemed like they were finally hearing each other, his dad went full asshole. Now Eddie's saying it wasn't even worth it.

"And you can't ignore it like this gonna go away! D'you really want to hide the fact that we're engaged from the department, and fight with your dad – just to ride together?"

Don't they? Wasn't that the plan? Just lay low, put off the wedding, wait till one or both of them got promoted, and deal with everything then? No harm, no foul, no asking anyone to pretend they didn't know?

Except they tried to do the right thing by his family, and not lie to them, and now it's a huge big deal just because he's a fucking Reagan.

"I thought that's what we both wanted," he says, making an effort to sound calm, though the worst of the wind is seeping out of his sails.

"I just want you."

Her quiet, sad little voice stops him in his tracks. He finally sees her face, and understands what she's trying to do. She's panicky and miserable about being the cause of a family rift at the outset of their relationship finally taking off. She's never known a family that isn't liable to disappear when they're needed most. She's trying to find a way to save everyone, but her top priority is Jamie, and keeping their relationship intact, even if it means sacrificing her first plan. She's not the one sacrificing his pride – that's all his doing.

That's the look he's seen on his mother's face when she negotiated a family truce, and nobody knew what she'd compromised to make it happen. He's seen that look on his sister's face when her ex-husband was mouthing off about something, and she wasn't going to call him out in public or apologize for him, but had to think fast to find a solution to let him save face and get them out of the situation, fast.

He adds another promise to his list: Get really fucking better at spotting emotional labor, really fucking fast, you jerk bastard.

He reaches for her hand and slows them down. At first she shakes her head and tugs against him, just wanting to get home. He thinks she's fighting tears down.

"Wait. Wait a sec. I'm being an ass and it's just about me and dad. Not you. Not us."

She slows down and comes to a halt beside him.

"Those times I disappear and go thrash everything out?" he begins. "This is one of those."

"You gonna head to the night gym?" she asks, trying to be understanding. It feels strange, coming from her. His partner Janko would simply glare at him and say, "Go do your workout and don't come back till you stop being a dick." And he, as her partner, could more or less tell her to save her own attitude for fight class or find them a suspect to chase. Or they could roll the cruiser windows up and yell themselves done, eventually circling around to whatever was really eating at them.

He wants both. He needs both. That's why Eddie trying to be all wife-y at the table was setting him off, too, though he's not sure what else he expected. They can't bring their usual raw, ribald partnership to dinner.

He shakes his head.

"No. I wanna be here with you. I'll go for a run or something later. You're way more important. Just, my head's overclocking and I know I gotta let off steam sometime soon. I'm – " he sighs and rubs the back of his head with his free hand. "I wish you hadn't seen all that at dinner. And I didn't mean that, the way it came out. I mean, it's true my dad's always gonna come down hard on his way of doing things, and I've had to learn to stand up to that, or I'll get steamrolled every time, but that's – that's just me. You and Dad'll find your own level. He does respect you."

Her hand slowly slides out of his grip and up his arm, to settle in the crook of his elbow as they start walking again.

"It's like he thinks we want to go on riding together forever. He knows that's not it, right?" she asks, a little steadier.

"I honestly have no idea. We nearly got to talking about it and he pulled out this fucking grenade about us both being taken out at a scene and him having to take care of our kids."

"He did that?" Now it's Eddie's turn to get fired up. "Good lord."

"Tuesday. When he called me in to grill me about the thing with the fire guys. That's what it turned into instead."

Eddie thinks. "That's what's had you so touchy since then."

"Yeah."

"I wasn't saying anything about it 'cause I thought it might've been about the shooting. I know Dr. Clarke warned us we'd probably have different feelings about it every day for a while."

"I think it probably is, at the heart of it. Dad's always been Dad, and he doesn't usually get to me like this." He looks over. She's chewing on her lip in that way she doesn't realize till it's scraped raw. He kicks himself some more. "How're you doing? With all that?"

"Keeping going," she says, thoughtfully. "But every now and then I do catch myself flashing back. It's only been, what, a week and a bit? I think I might go talk to Clarke some more. So things don't have to come to a head."

"It was a big deal." He sees her starting to get a bit goosepimpled in the rapidly cooling night air, pulls her a little closer and wraps his arm around her bare shoulders. "But guess what. We're here. We won. We get to walk home together, just us, not hiding from anyone. Because the woman I love kicks ass, and what she did was awesome, and brave and heroic. And more patient with me than I deserve."

"All true." She cuddles in, and looks up with a smile for the first time all evening. He feels himself take a much needed deep breath. "He seriously talked about having to look after our kids?"

"He did. Not his finest moment. Not mine, either. I walked out on him."

"Don't blame you." They walk a few more paces, and then she says, very casually, "Erin thinks we'll be expecting a kid by next Easter."

He turns and looks at her. "That's what she was saying about Easter? Last week after dinner?"

"Yup."

"Huh," he says. He's surprised Erin went there so fast, but then, who knows what counts as bonding between sisters-in-law? He can certainly imagine Erin and Linda whooping it up over being co-Aunts to each other's kids as soon as possible. Then: "Scarlett? Really?"

She throws him a look in return. "Not like O'Hara, more like the kick-ass superheroine."

"But I mean, can you ever really get away from the O'Hara, with a name like Scarlett? You gotta think ahead to the schoolyard."

"Okay, maybe as a middle name."

"Shannon Scarlett. Mm. Not quite."

"Grace Scarlett – oh, no, that's just not good."

"Alannah Scarlett."

They both slow their step and look at each other. They both feel it. What's between them has always had a life of its own, growing and learning and fighting for breath and every bit as demanding as each of them. And quite suddenly, some part of it has a name.

It's a physical jolt, and he finds himself a little envious, a little relieved and a whole lot in awe of her that she would put her body through all that for the sake of that little life. For him, as much as for her. Humbling isn't even the word for what that whole-bodied, whole-hearted agreement means to him.

He swallows hard. "What about a boy?"

"David," she says instantly, as if he should have known. He probably should have.

"David Janko-Reagan," he says, almost to himself. Again, with that physical thrill coursing through his stomach, his limbs. This is real.

"Just Reagan," she says, surprising him.

"Sure?" he asks. "Thought you were bent on keeping yours. And God knows there are enough Reagans around."

"Yeah, I am, but Janko-Reagan?" she asks, "It's a lot, for a kid. You gotta think ahead to the schoolyard."

"Reagan-Janko?" he says experimentally. She hums thoughtfully.

"Definitely better, but still…Maybe Alannah Scarlett can add it as another middle name later if she wants."

"Maybe we could all be Reagan-Janko."

"What?" she laughs aloud.

"There's precedent. It's less out-there than it used to be. I even know a couple cops who added their wives' names to theirs. One took his wife's name completely."

"I remember that. But that was because nobody could spell or pronounce his name, anyway."

"Still precedent."

"Yeah, but for a Reagan?" Eddie looks up at him. He shrugs.

"Maybe. Just saying, I'm not ruling it out as an option. There's no regulation against it."

There's the glare. She pinches his side as they walk. "Ohh…watch it, Mister."

He kisses her crown. "I'm sorry I was an asshole." She looks up and he kisses her mouth, too, gentle and unhurried.

"We do take each other for granted as a dumping ground," she says by way of acceptance, "Which is usually okay. But sometimes not."

"Sometimes definitely not. Let me…make it up to you?"

Fight it, flee from it or fuck it: humans are so predictable, he thinks, a second later. But Eddie's apparently on the same page.

"Oh, you're gonna make it up to me," she murmurs back. Under the pretty summer dress and fussy clutch purse, his old partner Eddie is waiting, ready to give as good as she gets and then some. He's always loved that about her. He's always lusted after that, too, if he's honest, and she knows it.

"What do I gotta do?" he asks her, low. This might just be better than the gym.

"You," she says, "are going to let me do to you. And then…"

Jesus Christ, if it isn't one of his most intense fantasies sprung to life. It's far more than he deserves, but Eddie's going to make him work for every second. "And then?"

"And then we'll see," she smiles serenely.

He gets them walking just a little faster to the train.


September 30…
and sometime into October 1, 2018

It's not roleplay. It's Eddie, all Eddie, and she has been waiting for this for a long time.

She's got him stripped down to his trousers, laid out on her bed, and she's all but riding him, slow and tortuous, in the little white lacy bra and g-string she had on under her dinner dress all along. His pupils are blown, his mouth slack with the feel of her stroking fingertips, her soft hair and light kisses brushing over his skin. His hands are gathered into fists at his sides. If he moves, if he lifts a hand to touch her or reaches up to kiss her, she wins.

If she releases him, if she begs him to fuck her, he wins.

She's had a thousand fantasies of him under her hands, her body, but nothing in the world was ever like this. Jamie Reagan, all the latent strength of him, all that fine intellect and attention span, focussed only on her. How they're not naked and rutting like wild creatures already, after the emotional tension of the evening and the pent-up stress of the week is beyond her, but he's given her complete control, and she takes that seriously.

His chest is so warm, radiating heat, and her heart skitters at the feel of his own pulse, thumping away under her palm.

"You," she murmurs, fluttering the pads of her fingers over his sensitive nipples, and down the tautness of his belly, "Get to stay very still while I do this."

She traces around his navel and he jumps a little, but then her fingers keep going, sliding down to his belt. She pulls back the tab slowly and slides the buckle open. As her fingers work on button and zipper, she leans forward, kissing and tasting and teasing just above his waist, as she unzips. A groan cuts off in his throat as she stretches up to tease a nipple with the tip her tongue. His hips are bucking slightly under her already.

"Very still," she reminds him. He curses and has to close his eyes briefly, but he doesn't want to miss a second of this, either.

"Up," she says, and he lifts up enough for her to drag his trousers down and off.

Oh, my, she thinks. Jamie in his boxers, nearly out of his head with arousal and rock-hard for her has been a long-running nighttime serial. Jamie out of his boxers is even better. She carefully slides them off as well, and takes a moment to enjoy the view. His eyes fall hungrily to her mouth, her breasts, and he licks his lips unconsciously. Her nipples rise as she thinks of that mouth tugging wetly at them. Soon…soon. She lets her eyes rove over him as well; his gleaming eyes, the slight sheen on his chest as it rises and falls, the smooth lines of his torso, and the fine arrow of hair pointing to the fine straight cock that's straining for her touch.

Bending over him, she kisses a slow, sweet line down the curve of one hip and then gently pins down his other hip as she breathes over his cock. He grunts and tenses with the effort of keeping still as she kisses up his the underside of his cock as well, and she swipes a pearl of pre-cum that leaks from the tip.

She slips one hand under his balls and wraps the other loosely around his cock, and slides up and down, once, twice, just enough to send him into a whole new level that gets him panting and muttering.

Still he doesn't reach for her.

"You get a reward," she tells him "But you have to watch."

"Uh huh," he breathes.

She slides off him and slips the scrap of lace down her legs and off the side of the bed somewhere, and then straddles him again, resting her slick heat right up against his balls. He drops his head back and curses, his fists clenching.

"Watch me," she whispers. Jesus, she's soaked. It's been so long since she did this in front of anyone she can't even remember. It's been such a forbidden territory for them, dangerous to even think about. "Watch me."

She slides her fingers down the sides of her breasts and then up over her peaked nipples through the lace, her mouth opening on a sharp bolt of pleasure. She does it again and again, pinching ever so slightly, and his cock pulses as he gasps with her. She wants to touch him so bad, wants to feel that hard pulse in her hand, the mindless arching of his hips under her. To know that she can bring him to the depth of release he needs.

Just a while longer, she tells herself.

She slides her fingers down, and down, and watches his eyes as she parts her lips for him. Rubs a slow finger up and down her slick opening, then two. Oh, fuck, she's so sensitive tonight, she nearly comes just from that light touch and the heat of his gaze.

"Fuck Eddie," he groans. Then, as she takes a steadying inhale and slides two fingers down and inside herself, as she rises up on her own hand and down again, he falls to incoherent growling.

Still furrowing deep inside, she manages to pant out, "D'you know – how many nights – I needed it to be you?"

"Fuck yes," he whispers harshly. His head is thrashing on the pillow, his hips tight and trembling under her, but still he won't let go.

She grits her teeth, she tries to hold out, but it bursts from her in a breathless plea as she topples forward against him and his arms come up to catch her. "Fuck me. Jesus, Jamie, fuck me. I need you so hard."

"Ah, God – " His mouth is merciless on hers, his tongue swirling deep as his big hands shoot up to dive through her hair, grab at her hip. He lifts her just enough to get a hand between them, angles the head of his cock just right, and she slides him all the way up inside in a rush. "Fuck," he gasps against her mouth, and thrusts home.

She's about to pull herself up and ride him properly, but he tugs her even closer, hooking a hand under her knee before rolling them both over, and oh, holy shit, the man can fuck like there's no tomorrow. His hips slide between her thighs as her legs wrap high around his ribs. His hands come up to pin her wrists to the pillow, and it doesn't take more than a couple of experimental thrusts before he's taking her hard and deep, merciless and relentless. They're so far gone it's not going to last long, but time is meaningless. She's spinning up higher, crying out, riding the ragged crest of pleasure to its peak, and Jamie…Jamie's panting out her name, his body wracked with the intensity of it, and he does something with the circling of his hips that gets her clit just right, just right, not too hard but just soft wet pressure right there, and Jamie's shuddering and groaning against her neck, and oh – God – it's – yes – just

She's never come so close to actually screaming out her pleasure in her life.

"Who won?" he mumbles sleepily against the back of her shoulder, some time later.

"We did," she says.