Gosh, I'm so sorry this chapter took so long, it being the last chapter especially! A lot of you suggested 'love' be a continuation from 'anger', and I thought that was a great idea, so this is set about a week after 'Anger'. The ARC team are going to some sort of event to meet prospective donators (after all, they'd need money after Burton died).

I hope you enjoy it.

"Stupid… thing! I put batteries in you yesterday," Jess mumbled, complaining to the remote in her hand as she tapped it viciously against the coffee table. "I know I did."

"Err, Jess?" Abby asked as she entered the living room, still attempting to put one of her earrings in. "You do realise you're talking to yourself?"

"I know, but the remote won't work, and I need to record Grey's Anatomy,"Jess smiled at her roommate as she turned and saw what she was wearing.

Abby had a short, tight, red halter neck dress on which showed off her body perfectly. It shone along with her earrings and necklace, making her look amazing.

Abby laughed. "Have you tried turning the TV on manually?"

"I was getting to that," She grinned. "It was Plan B."

"Abby!" Connor's strangled cry came from down the hall, followed by the sound of him walking in to the beam again, and then he was standing before them in a tuxedo, looking surprisingly dapper, if it hadn't been for the pathetic knot he'd tied round his neck. "Abby, it won't stay."

Abby rolled her eyes, then stepped forward to fix Connor's tie. "God, Connor, what did you do to this? It's stuck tight."

"But it'll come off, right? I'm not gonna die, am I?"

Abby and Jess shared an amused look. "No, Connor, you're not. But I need scissors to cut it off. They're in the bathroom, come on."

As they wondered down the hall again, Jess heard Connor complain and then Abby sigh, "At least you have a spare tie…"

Jess glanced at the clock above the TV, and then at the mirror on the wall beside her as she called to them, "Don't be long - Becker will be here soon with the limo."

She wore a 50's style dress - the top half was almost like a corset, the skirt half was short, almost tutu-like in the way it ruffled. Instead of her usual random colours, however, Jess had decided to tone it down tonight - the top half was black, but the skirt was deep red, matching her lipstick.

She grinned at herself in the mirror.

"The one time he has to wear something specific, and it's still black," Abby called back, jokingly regretful.

"I'm starting to think we'll never see him in any other colour," Jess replied, grinning.

Then Connor squealed like a girl, and Abby decided to concentrate on solely cutting his tie off.

There was a knock on the door, and Jess felt the butterflies in her stomach. She checked her reflection in the mirror one last time, just to make sure, then strode across the room in her heels and pulled the door open.

"Becker," She grinned. "You look… nice."

He stared at her.

Then swallowed.

"You look…" They both knew he was struggling for an adjective, but she just grinned at him mischievously, letting him know she wanted him to finish the sentence. Finally, he gave up pretence, and just went with the word he'd originally thought. "Beautiful."

She blushed. "Thank you…"

They stood there in awkward silence for a moment.

"Connor and Abby not ready yet?" Becker inquired.

"Oh, gosh, sorry! No, Connor managed to trap himself inside his tie, and Abby's trying to save him. Come in, please. That was rude of me, I should have invited you in earlier."

Becker grinned as she trotted back over to the TV, babbling, and he followed her into the apartment, shutting the door behind him.

She occupied her attention with the remote as she rambled, mostly to avoid looking at him because she knew that if she did, she'd stare. He looked gorgeous.

"My mum always tells me you should be polite and invite people in if they're waiting. I mean, it's just polite, isn't it? You wouldn't want to be standing outside in the cold. Not that the corridor is 'the cold' as such, it is inside, I just mean… oh, god, I'm rambling aren't I?"

Becker smirked as he stepped right beside her and gently slid the remote out of her hands. She glanced up at him through her eyelashes as their fingers touched, hardly daring to breath because he was so close.

He seemed unfazed.

Seemed.

"Trying to record Grey's Anatomy?" He teased her.

She stared at him in surprise. "How… How did you know?"

He shot her an amused look. "I know you, Jess. You love that show. Don't think I haven't noticed you watching it at work."

"Only when I miss it!" She complained on reflex, then clamped her hands over her mouth, eyes wide. "Oops, I shouldn't have admitted that."

Becker laughed.

Then Abby and Connor joined them, a new tie round Connor's neck.

"Ready to go?" Becker asked.

"Now that Connor finally looks sophisticated," Abby teased him. "I think so."

"Hey! I'm always sophisticated. I'm the master of sophistication," He told them, then fell flat on his face.

Abby helped him up. "I love you, Connor, but sometimes I think you're just an accident waiting to happen."

Jess and Becker laughed. Connor pretended to be offended.

"Jess is more steady than you, and she lives in four inch heels," Abby teased again.

"No fair!" Connor replied, pointing at Jess with a smile on his face. "She sits in a chair all day."

"And I have had to catch her on more than twenty occasions," Becker smirked. "She's a health and safety hazard for the rest of us at the ARC."

"Lucky for Jess you're always around then," Abby teased them. Jess blushed.

"Ready to go then?" Becker asked to divert attention.

"Oh, hold on, I forgot my purse."

"Where d'you put it?" Connor asked, glancing around the kitchen counter.

"I think I left it in the bedroom."

"You sure?"

"Of course I'm not, Connor, otherwise I wouldn't have said 'I think', would I?"

"It wasn't on the bed," He commented, unfazed.

"But I could have sworn…" And she wondered back down the corridor to their bedroom to look. After a few moments Abby called back to Connor. "I swear it was here, Connor!"

"Did you put it in the bathroom?"

"I don't know," She called back again. "Can you check for me?"

He grumbled the whole way back down the hallway and disappeared into the bathroom.

Becker and Jess turned to each other at the same moment.

"So…" Becker began, "How late do you think we'll be?"

"About twenty minutes if they keep this up," She grinned.

"We've still got to stop off at Matt's," Becker pointed out.

"I don't think that will take too long though. Emily's etiquette is perfect, and she's always punctual…"

"What about Matt?" Becker asked as he followed Jess over to the kitchen.

"Emily's got him wrapped around her little finger. You said be ready at a quarter past seven, they'll be ready at ten past."

"Oh good, they've only been waiting for…" He checked his watch as he leaned on the counter. "Ten minutes already."

Abby and Connor could be heard calling to each other from various rooms but neither Jess or Becker commented: Becker because he didn't want to get between any couple and Jess because she was too busy thinking about reprimanding Becker; a reprimand which came a moment later.

"You know, you're going to crease that tux if you lean on the counter like that."

He immediately stood up straight, inspecting his outfit for the dreaded creases.

Jess laughed.

"What?" He couldn't help the corners of his lips from twitching as she smiled.

"Nothing," She tried to hold back the amusement from her voice, but failed miserably. At his mock glare, she acquiesced, "You really are a soldier through and through, aren't you?"

After a pause in which he considered her words, he replied, "You say that like it's a bad thing."

She smiled as she put a few mugs away, then gave him a teasing look. "I bet you make your bed every morning?"

"Why not?" He asked in defence. "What's wrong with being tidy, Jessica?"

"Nothing, nothing at all, Becker," She grinned. "I wish I was that tidy. I wish you made my bed every morning."

You'd have to sleep in it though…

Jess!

He creased his eyebrows in half-amusement, half-surprise at her words and her blush: they were innocent enough, but the double meaning and her red cheeks suggested an implied innuendo which he found amusing and odd coming from sweet, innocent Jess Parker.

Becker smirked at her, and she glared at him, daring him to smirk some more. He did.

"You know what I mean…" She mumbled as they heard Connor call to Abby, "What colour was it again?"

"You should really let the rest of us do the talking tonight, Jess," He grinned, going and casually sitting on her sofa and flicking the TV on. "You don't want to give off the wrong impression to all the government officials…"

She gave a sarcastic laugh as she went and sat beside him. Then she gave a frustrated sigh. Becker turned to look at her cautiously. "I hate these parties. All of the stupid, stuck up government prats wander around like they do all the hard work, and we have to be nice to them…"

Becker gave her a sympathetic smile. "It's just part of the job, Jess. Once a year Lester has to make sure they know the ARC's still an legitimate organisation. That's all. They don't even know what we do, they just know that we're still doing it."

She sighed. "I know… it's just…" She leaned her head on his should quite naturally - unexpectedly, but neither of them moved. "You know what the worst part is? I know it's horrible to think and I'm a firm believer that there's someone out there for everyone, it's just that… these boring, conceited liaisons all have someone. Even Abby, Connor, Matt and Emily have each other."

She sighed again, and Becker subconsciously placed his arms around her and she leaned into him. He breathed in the smell of her hair as she continued.

"It's not that I'm not happy for them… I just wish I wasn't the only one without someone, you know?"

Not the only one, Becker thought.

"What about Paul?" He asked reluctantly, but softly, carefully. He didn't want to annoy her, like he had before, last week at the ARC.

Jess made a noise that sounded like a snort. Her voice was genuinely sceptical. "What about him? I don't like him like that. You were right, Becker," She shifted so that she was more comfortable on the couch and that her body was closer to his. "He wasn't the right guy for me."

"You… listened to me?" Becker was genuinely surprised. Jess Parker had been beyond angry that day at the ARC. He'd probably overstepped a boundary, but they hadn't discussed it since then. He'd accepted, as much as it pained him to think it, that she had probably gone on that date with Paul.

He knew he shouldn't have been, but he was happy that she hadn't.

"Of course," She smiled up at him sweetly through her eyelashes, their faces not far apart now. "I respect your opinion, Becker."

She took a deep breath, then glanced at the TV as she spoke, even though Becker knew she wasn't actually watching it. "So what if I never find that one person out there who could potentially be my one and only true love? So what if I only date a few guys and don't get married… I'll just… get cats. Yeah, I'll get some cats. I like cats… they're… not so bad… once I get past my allergies…"

Becker watched her carefully as she spoke and he was suddenly hit with the realisation that what she was telling him was one of her biggest insecurities. He couldn't imagine how her brain had come up with this, because to him she was perfect. She was Jess and there was no way some guy wouldn't be lucky enough to snatch her up. Hell, the men were probably lining up behind Paul to ask her out. How she couldn't see it was beyond him.

She was perfect to him. Which sounds like such a cliché, but it was her quirkiness and sensitivity and inability to shut up, like now, which made her her.

Jess continued to ramble about the cost of owning cats in the city and the fact that she didn't really like them all that much and that she would have rather preferred a large family of humans, until another realisation hit Becker.

And no, it wasn't because he also wasn't fond of cats, or that he wanted a large family or that he had suddenly acknowledged that Jess was completely wonderful to him, it was because he recognised that he actually enjoyed sitting on the sofa with Jess and hearing her ramble away and tell him things that nobody else knew.

And he loved seeing her everyday at work.

And he was glad she wasn't dating anybody.

And he didn't think anybody else was good enough for her.

And he always wanted to protect her, no matter what.

Oh god, Becker, you're in love with her.

Becker opened his mouth to say something, anything, to her, but Abby and Connor chose that moment to reappear.

"Took you long enough," Jess told them happily as she stood up abruptly and collected her purse from the kitchen counter.

Becker followed them to the door, trying to clear his head.

"Connor found my purse but there was nothing in it," Abby frowned. "So I had to search through all his junk to find it all, and, let me tell you, Connor isn't the tidiest man in the world..."

"No," Jess agreed, grinning, as she shot Becker a teasing look. "That would be Becker."

He grinned too.

What are you waiting for? Tell her how you feel! Don't waist even more time! You've been to Afghanistan, use your courage!

"So, have we got our introductions sorted?" Abby asked as they headed down the stairs of the flat. "You know, 'hello… please give the ARC some money… this is my name, you'll forget it in a few seconds anyway…'"

"Hello, my name's Connor Temple," Connor spoke in a strangely nasal voice. "I'm head genius and a computer technician for the ARC. This is my fiancée, Abby Maitland…"

They laughed as Abby shook her head and mumbled "genius…" under her breath.

"Hello, my name's Jess Parker. I'm the field coordinator and I'm going to be single for the rest of my life," she joked as Abby and Connor climbed into the limo, the driver giving them a dirty look for being so late.

Jess made to follow them in, but Becker caught her hand and spun her round to face him. "Jess… I promise you that some day soon, someone who cares about you is going to step up and tell you how he feels about you and it'll all fall in to place."

She blinked at him in surprise. "I… do love fairy tale endings," She tried to joke to lighten the mood.

"I'm being serious," He gave a weak smile as his hand came up to brush hair out of her face.

"You always are, Becker," She teased, mostly to cover up how flustered she was.

"You're not going to stand there all day, are you?" The limo driver suddenly interrupted irritably, slamming his door as he sat back in the driver's seat. He was too impatient to hold the door open for them.

"Great," Jess leaned forward to whisper into Becker's ear as they climbed into the vehicle. "Now he thinks it was us who were holding him up!"

Becker's lips twitched into a smile as he spread out along three of the seats and the driver took off.

"You're going to crease your suit like that," Jess reprimanded him for the second time that evening.

Becker rolled his eyes at her. "Relax, Jessica."

"But-"

"I'll move when we get to Matt's. It's not far."

She gave him her best irritated glare, but it didn't work. Even Jess herself knew it was half-hearted.

Connor spent the ten minute ride to Matt's taking pictures of everything with his new camera. He was just in the process of trying to get Becker and Jess to pose together for the sixth time, when the limo pulled to a halt and the driver, a little more cheerful now they had set off, called over to the back, "We're here."

"I'll go get them," Jess spoke up cheerfully.

"I'll come with you," Becker said, following her out of the car.

"You just don't want to be let with Connor," Jess grinned as he shut the door.

Abby's head appeared a second later, sticking out the window, "Don't leave me with him and that bloody camera!"

They laughed.

"He's your fiancé, Abby," Jess pointed out. "Just remember to smile in the pictures."

And they hurried into Matt's building and into the lift.

"By the end of the night he's going to be unmanageable, isn't he?" Becker mumbled. "This is going to be horrible."

"Abby'll stop him from drinking too much," Jess pointed out fairly.

Becker began to fix his tie uncomfortably. "It's not Connor I'm worried about."

"Don't worry, Becker," Jess grinned as the lift pinged to indicate that they'd reached Matt's floor. "I'll make sure you don't drink too much."

"I was talking about you, Jessica," He teased.

"Hey!" Her eyebrows creased, taking him completely seriously, as she stopped outside Matt's door. "I'm responsible."

Emily opened the door, wearing a long, sleek, shiny black evening dress.

"You look lovely, Jess," She told her, smiling. "You too Becker."

"Thanks," He mumbled, half sarcastically. "Lovely…"

Emily and Jess grinned.

"You to do," Jess returned the compliment. "Too bad I'm going to end up an old spinster."

Emily laughed, taking the comment lightly, and went to fetch Matt. Becker, on the other hand, turned to Jess with a frown on his face.

"What?" Jess asked, a smile on her face.

"You shouldn't keep joking about that, Jess," Becker told her sincerely. "You're only nineteen, hardly old enough to worry about being single."

"Emily was already married at my age."

Becker sighed. "Emily's from the Victorian era, Jessica. Of course she was married quite young."

"Well, I still think-"

"Jessica, seriously," Becker placed both his hands on her shoulders, looking straight at her. "Stop."

"I'm only-"

So he kissed her, hoping that Emily and Matt weren't about to reappear at that moment.

He should have done it sooner. Much sooner. And in a much more romantic setting, not on Matt's doorstep, but still… at least he'd finally done it.

When he pulled away and leaned on the other side of the doorframe, pretending to look deep into the apartment for Matt and Emily, Jess stared at him in shock.

He glanced back over at her, and she was trying to form words.

Becker gulped.

Maybe that wasn't such a good idea?

"You…" She sounded breathless, and her eyes were wide in surprise. "You almost gave me a heart attack!"

Her tone was accusatory, and it made Becker laugh. Her eyes narrowed, her expression back to her normal self. She slapped him teasingly.

"I'm sorry," He breathed out after a minute. "I'll give you warning next time."

Then he realised what that meant. What if she didn't want him to kiss her again?

He glanced at her in surprise and anxiety about her answer.

"You better," She grinned.

She turned as Emily dragged Matt out the door.

They all made their way towards the lift, Emily and Matt discussing his suit and Jess and Becker in relative silence. As they all entered the lift, Becker leaned over and whispered in Jess's ear, "Oh, I will."

So there's the last chapter. I hope you liked it, please leave a review? It would make my day! Thank you for reading! If you liked this, you can count on more Jecker from me! :D