Jake woke the next morning to an armful of warm Cassandra. He hummed happily and tightened his arm around her. And that's when his half asleep mind signaled something was off. Why was he wearing a long sleeve shirt in bed with Cassandra? Perplexed, he loosened his hold and looked down.

Okkayy, boxers but two layers of shirts?

Then his mind came back online. He remembered now being so exhausted last night that he'd barely been able to shuck off his jeans before falling asleep. Asleep alone. . . . Cassandra definitely had not been there when he fell asleep.

He looked over at her. The blanket was half pulled up over the two of them but she was in a camisole, probably shorts and tights. Evidentially she had come up and crawled into bed with him after he'd fallen asleep. Not that he wasn't pleased to see her but he wondered why. He'd crawled into her bed a couple of times but she'd never returned the favor.

"Cassie?" He whispered.

"Hmm? Oh, morning Jake."

"Good morning to you. Not that I ever mind wakin' up with you in my arms, but I'm pretty sure . . . ."

She turned to face him. "I came up here to talk to you last night but you were asleep." She giggled. "It was kinda cute, like a little kid too exhausted to change. I was gonna leave but I kissed you and you said my name. And I couldn't."

"I was beat. Hang on, I need the bathroom."

He got out of bed, shaking his head at himself and grabbing a pair of pajama pants off the chair on his way.

When he returned, Cassandra slipped past him into the bathroom. She'd put her skirt back on but he was pretty sure she was wearing one of his shirts. She did keep a few things at his place: a toothbrush, basic toiletries and often a change of clothes. Same thing with his stuff at her place. He did wonder why they didn't keep more, these days they usually shared a bed even if they hadn't made love that night. And the thought from last night about living together resurfaced.

He thought about getting dressed but Cassandra seemed to have something on her mind. So they'd be late, unlike the original Library, the annex didn't have a working library over it. So it wasn't as if the public expected them to be open. Baird had set the hours to try to bring some sense of normalcy to the job, but if he had a dollar for every time that flew out the window . . . .

He was sitting cross legged on the bed when Cassandra returned. She'd changed her tights and oddly enough the ones she kept in his place matched the shirt she'd stolen out of his closet.

"I can change before work." She offered as he glanced at her and smiled.

"No way. You wear that. The last time you came to work in one of my shirts, Jones blushed so hard he couldn't make jokes. That was the best day ever, didn't think that boy could get embarrassed about anything."

She smiled, tightening the knot she'd made in the tails to have it fit better across her smaller frame. "So were you going to get dressed?"

"In a bit. I was wondering what it was you wanted to talk about." He patted the bed next to him. "C'mere and tell me what's going through your head."

She sat next to him and suddenly felt shy. In the morning light, she wasn't exactly sure how to voice the conclusions she had come to last night. Did she out and out tell him she wanted to get married? How would he react to that?

She felt Jake's eyes on her. "Cassie? What's wrong?"

"It's not wrong exactly." Her voice was soft. "I'm just not sure now how to put what I want or what I'm feeling into words. I'm . . .you're better at words than I am."

"Don't know about that. I tend to use someone else's words to say what I need. I thought a lot about us last night. About my own childhood, about other options for us to have children. Children that I do want, by the way."

She beamed briefly. "Oh, Jake." Then her face fell just a little. "My childhood was almost non-existent."

He curled an arm around her. "I know, honey, but I don't think you'd make your parents' mistakes. I know I won't make mine. We'd be great parents, you and me. If your health . . . ."

"I know. We have to do a great deal of research into that option. But there's more too. About our relationship. . . ."

"Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about that too. We both want to spend . . . " Jake winced. "Um, whatever time we have left together. Right?"

"Jake, you don't have to sidestep around it."

"Our jobs are dangerous though, sweetheart, I could be . . . .There's no certainty of anything other than I want to share my life with you."

"And I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

He smiled at her tenderly and kissed her. As they pulled away, he said, "Will you . . ."

"Marry me?" Cassandra blurted.

"Move in with . . .Wait, what?"

"Marry me." Cassandra grinned. "Will you marry me? I really want to marry you."

Jake started laughing. Cassandra looked really confused until he pulled her into his arms. "Oh, of course I'll marry you, Cassandra Cillian. But aren't I supposed to ask that? You know with a ring?"

"It's the twenty-first century, Jacob Stone, and I'm not an ordinary girl. We'll both get rings."

He winked at her. "You'd be surprised to learn that I would not be opposed to that idea. So just so I'm clear, we just got engaged right?"

"Yes. Also, yes on the move in idea. I think we'll need a bigger place though."

He nodded. "Yeah, I have a little experience in the living together department, a one bedroom gets very crowded very fast."

Cassandra sighed just a little. Jake frowned confused. Then, he figured out what was wrong when she looked over at the clock. "We should get to work."

"The hell we are." Jake pulled her back into him, toppling them back over. "If they need us, they'll call. Otherwise, we're spending, oh, the rest of the morning in bed. The afternoon ring shopping and then probably the evening in bed too."

Cassandra's giggle signaled her agreement and after that, very few words were exchanged.