In the case of this chapter, I highly recommend listening to the song of the same name by Owl City, because it's cute as hell and provides the shippy fluffy feels. And although the inspiration for this fic was 'sex in every room', the final result is more like 'sex and its derivatives in every room'. I hope that's still okay.

Enjoy!

If My Heart Was A House (You'd Be Home)

He's late home, as he often is while working this particular job. It's a solo gig, testing and reinforcing the alarms of a bank in the Mission District. Not particularly challenging work, but the money is good now that he can take legitimate business, and they have a mortgage to pay now, so he doesn't mind taking the occasional slog.

She's sitting quietly upstairs, snuggled on the couch in their private lounge room. It's more of an open nook in the back corner of the top storey, opposite their master suite, but it's big enough for two couches and a television, and a small bookshelf lines the landing just before it. It's quiet, and comfortable, and exclusively theirs. (The boys have been banned from this level because they have a whole basement to play in, she says.)

Liz is reading a book, the television on low in the background with an episode of Cheers flickering light around. He stops at the top of the landing and smiles, watching her for a moment as he leans against the supporting wall.

She's the picture of domesticity, and he loves it.

It still shocks him sometimes; just last week he'd accidently started driving back towards the loft he no longer owns, before he realised he was going in the completely wrong direction and turned around. It's surreal to drive into their garage and think the big, looming house above him is his – theirs – and that it won't be taken away from him the moment he slips up. He's a free man, and as he walks up that first flight of stairs from the garage to the basement and sees the clubhouse all set up in it's new place, he has to pinch himself. Sometimes there's the sound of music floating from upstairs; Liz with her students, practicing away in the first finished room of the house. Or he'll enter the tech room and see Mother tinkering away and know that he's about to be embroiled in another untidy jaunt with the boys.

He never thought he'd be here. He'd prepared himself for solitude for so long that he's still adjusting to the safety and security of having a real home.

And then there's Liz. Cooking dinner and serving it at their kitchen table; bringing a pizza box down to the basement when they're all working late, sitting with Crease to catch up on the latest; falling asleep beside him without a care in the world.

He wasn't prepared for her either. Not like this. Not in a normal couple kind of way, with friends and jobs and a mortgage. (Some days it scares the living shit out of him.)

She looks up from her book, having heard him ascend the stairs.

"You're home late" she says with a smile, gently closing her book with her finger still catching her place between the pages. It's a classic – Dostoyevsky, if he had to guess from the cover – and he smiles and steps forward, pushing himself away from the wall.

He flops into the couch next to her with a quiet sigh. She smiles, places her bookmark in her book, throws it gracefully onto the coffee table, and then turns and looks at him with her feet curled on the couch under her.

"Got it all finished tonight" he says, by way of explanation.

"That's good"

"It will be better when they wire me my final fees for finishing the job, and then some" he says, rolling his eyes. (She's been hearing about the manager's incompetence all week; lack of security, both physical and electronic; no understanding of monitoring systems or alarms; no staff to operate and guard the security station. Bishop practically re-wrote their operations manual as well as upgraded their systems, and then spent a fair amount of time arguing that it should be noted as additional expenditures in his fees. She knows he was waiting with bated breath for this job to be over.)

"It's all done now" she says in comfort, running her hand through his hair. He places a hand on her leg with a smile.

"Some days I really feel like we should have kept an IOU with the NSA" he says.

She laughs at him. "I don't know that incompetent bank managers are within their jurisdiction"

"Well they should be" he mumbles, but he's relaxed now that he's home, and his gaze is drawn to the television screen. Liz's hand trails lazily through his hair a couple of times, her eyes still focused on him.

"Are you still enjoying your work?" she asks. To anyone else it would sound like an innocent question; asking him about his day, checking in that he's happy with the job he just finished, seeing if he's enthusiastic about the next one. But they have a history, and an unspoken (yet oft spoken about) dual life that demands so much of the both of them. She's asking if he likes the job, but he can hear underneath that she's still so uncertain of him; insecure in him staying here happily with her for the long term.

The first- and second-floor bathrooms are gutted, and the kitchen still needs floor tiles (even though they finally replaced the appliances last week); the house perpetually smells of new carpet and plasterboard, and their every spare moment is spent comparing paint swatches in various neutral shades or shopping for the few pieces of furniture they don't own in storage.

And yet she still doubts him, at least a little. (A lifetime of living in shadows is a hard habit to break, he won't deny; he still draws curtains tightly closed and hates driving in a car with authentic registration. But he's here, and he's hers, and it breaks his heart that their history proves so powerful that a whole house isn't a big enough gesture to reassure her.

Doesn't she know that she is his home?)

He sighs good-naturedly, throwing his arm over her head and around her. She shifts to her knees and closer into him, his arms encircling her waist. She leans up against him, and with his hands on her hips she swings one leg over his lap and settles against his thighs, her hands on his shoulders. She gives him a bemused expression, wondering why he needs to have a lap full of her to answer her question, though she'd never complain.

"I love my work" he says softly, tucking her hair behind her ear. "And I love this house"

He places his palms against her cheeks. "And I love you"

She smiles at him indulgently, confidently. (If she is insecure, she's not fully aware of it, and if she does need the occasional reassurance it's only to encourage him to initiate the kind of intense contact that inevitably leads to her having an earth-moving orgasm.)

"I do know that" she says gently, her hand briefly touching his cheek, her thumb stroking his chin. She got her nails re-done when they moved, shorter now that she's taking private students and occasionally has to play the piano with them. (She loved her long manicure, but can't stand the way they ruin her technique and clatter all over the keys when she plays.) Her shorter nails lightly scratch at the five o'clock shadow along his jaw.

"Do you ever doubt it?" he asks. They have to be honest about these things now. (Not being honest hurt them badly the first time, and then broken them firmly apart the second. The truth is their foundation, more than bricks and mortar could ever be.)

"Only briefly. Only when I forget for a second what we've been through together"

He smiles at her, almost laughing. Sure, there was always an element of danger in his work before, but gun battles and blind men driving and undercover Russians is as little bit much, even for him.

(He drove her to a shooting range two weeks after it all ended and showed her how to use a pistol. She doesn't have a desire to repeat any of that nonsense, but given she nearly took out poor Carl the last time she fired a gun haphazardly at the ceiling, they both figured it was a good skill to have anyway.)

"It was something" he says, cocking an eyebrow. His hands move over her hips, up to the bottom of her ribs and back down practically running over her arse then down to her legging-clad legs.

"Trial by fire" she says with a smirk, and that does make him laugh.

"You loved it" he accuses. He flutters his eyes and gives her a look. "Whisper in my ear…" he says in a high airy voice, "… passport"

She laughs at him in outrage and whacks his shoulder, trying to be mad that he dragged her into a ridiculous situation, but far too delighted at the thrill it brought to flirt and fool unsuspecting men. Aside from the bullets flying, it was an exhilarating evening. (She was always drawn to that part of his world; like an adult's dress-up party.)

"Who knew passports were sexy" he says between laughter.

"I'm always sexy" she says haughtily, raising an eyebrow at him.

"I won't argue with that"

She smirks at him and then leans in and kisses him firmly, hands on his shoulders. "You sure know how to make a girl feel better" she says with fondness.

"I hope you do feel better"

He sounds so sincere that she smiles. He was never a hard-ass, her Bishop. He always showed his gentler side, and especially to her, in quiet moments and when it truly mattered.

"I know this has been a… transition" he says, his hands once again mapping her hips. "But I don't want you to doubt for one second that I'm all in. Job, house, you, I want to be here. I really do"

"I know" she says. Her voice sounds whisper soft, and not at all uncertain. They aren't children; they understand life a lot better than they did when they first met all those years ago, and they wouldn't have invested so much (figuratively and literally) if they weren't positive this was the right choice.

It's still nice to hear it though.

"I love you" she says, just to be sure she's told him today.

He leans up and finally kisses her, their bodies shifting closer and tighter together until there isn't a breath between them that goes unshared. He gets lost in just holding her, and she him, and before long their breath comes in raged gasps.

He slides down the couch, keeping her above him, until he lays flat against the arm with her reclining over his body. He grins at her, and she returns the look before resuming her previous activities (that is, rendering him as speechless as humanly possible while keeping her pants on.) His hands run up her back and down again, sneak under her tee-shirt and grip at her skin, leaving it warm and tingling in its wake. Her hips grind without conscious thought into the zip of his jeans, creating a sweet burn without building up for release. It's anticipatory, and self-indulgent, and absolutely delicious.

"What…" he starts, getting cut off as she kisses him silent, her mouth moving over to his neck and back to his lips, her hand burying in his hair. "What time is your… your first… class tomorrow?"

"Midday" she says, her voice low and breathless. She's at the school until late tomorrow afternoon, but there's a senior curriculum meeting of the faculty in the morning. She isn't obligated to attend since she only works three days and takes the more junior classes. (She won't get around to explaining all that until late tomorrow morning, when they finally make it out to a very late breakfast at a café down the street.)

"That's good" he replies throatily, and it makes her laugh loudly at him, carried away as they are, because she can tell she's kind of ambushed him with her enthusiasm and she's not the least bit sorry about it. He's hot and heavy beneath her, the very beginning of an erection trapped in his pants. She likes the potential.

Slowing down her assault, she stretches languidly on top of him and settles down into his chest, propping her chin in her hand to look at him. His hand is still under her shirt, drawing lazy circles along her spine just to feel her shiver. (He's already figured out that she's not wearing a bra.)

"This is pretty great, isn't it?" he says, grinning at her.

She smiles at him – a big, carefree smile, full of unrestrained joy – and nods her agreement. "It really is" she says, and the serenity in her expression makes his chest constrict.

If he ever gets up the courage to ask her to marry him, this is how he'd like to do it; lying together, blissful and warm, no pomp or fanfare; the complete antithesis to the prim and proper woman he knows the world sees in her. This is the true Liz; lazy house clothes, reading Russian literature and cuddling into him like it's the middle of winter. They hardly need the ring – they both know that this is forever, and neither of them is going anywhere – but he thinks he'd like to be able to call her his wife, just to make the bastards jealous. (He doesn't know who 'the bastards' are, but he'd like to make them jealous all the same, because look at her… look at her, he thinks to himself.

He can't take his eyes off her. He'd follow her into the sun when she looks at him like that.)

"I'm really glad I get to argue about bathroom tiles with you" he says, just to feel her laughter against his chest. (She doesn't disappoint.)

A/N: "Circle me and the needle moves gracefully – back and forth; if my heart was a compass you'd be north. Risk it all and I'll catch you if you fall, wherever you go; if my heart was a house you'd be home"