This chapter may have been totally influenced by a particularly steamy picture on tumblr (under the sneakers tag on my blog for those interested) and an unhealthy obsession with Taylor Swift's song This Love. For the floor plan to this place, also check the sneakers tag on my tumblr. It's pretty sweet.

As always, please enjoy!

This Love Came Back To Me

"You know what your problem is?"

The spray of the water on his face makes his words splutter a little bit. He runs the last of the shampoo out of his hair, wiping his eyes clear as well, and then sways under the spray to warm his exposed shoulder.

"What's my problem?"

The single greatest feature of their master ensuite will undoubtedly be the double shower, when they finally get around to renovating the upstairs bathrooms. Liz is insisting on two showerheads mounted on opposite walls – something Bishop thinks a little unnecessary and wholly indulgent – but the idea of having their own streams of water to stand under is very attractive. They haven't got around to it yet; they're renovating the house in stages, and the fourth level bathrooms were too usable to justify spending limited funds on them, especially when other rooms downstairs were so in need. But their entire living quarters on the top floor is next on the agenda, and he plans to make sure the bathrooms are first to be updated. (Liz loves the water scolding hot under a soft spray and he likes it a little cooler and firm. For now they dance around each other; it's not so bad, he thinks – if a little warmer than he prefers.)

"A complete lack of imagination"

She chuckles at him, the way he imagines a politician may chuckle at the joke of someone they don't like very much. It's a little unnerving just how quickly the mental image comes to him of Liz in a business suit standing in the Mayor's office debating policy with a guy who looks suspiciously like Werner. (He extrapolates further and imagines her verbally wiping the floor with the guy, a smug grin on her face. Suddenly he thinks it's a shame she was never a poli-sci wonk.)

"I have plenty of imagination" she says. "I just don't think your idea is very good"

He scoffs at her as he moves around to let her under the spray and he watches as she rinses out her own hair, eyes closed and head tilted back. (There's a lingering smirk on her face which he dutifully ignores, because they both have too healthy an ego for him to comment on it.) The movement of her raised arms creates a tantalising view of her breasts, but given they spent the better part of the morning in bed he's not feeling at all neglected; he'll call it the dénouement to their earlier activities and try to keep his hands to himself. (The conclusion is yet to come, so to speak, and he almost laughs at his own mental pun.)

"My plan is not the issue here" he says. "In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's foolproof"

"Fool-proof, yes; but it's not Mother-proof"

He makes a face. "I didn't think of that"

She merely gives him a look, but graciously refrains from saying I told you so. But just barely.

"Not to mention" she says, fiddling just a little more with her hair. "Hiding clues around the house so he can go on a treasure hunt for his birthday present is only going to piss Crease off. He doesn't even like birthdays"

"He doesn't like getting old – there's a difference"

She smiles because she knows he's right, and reaches for the conditioner.

"Well, whatever the reason, you know Mother will find half your clues before you even finish creating them"

Bishop sighs and nods, knowing once again she's right. He moves to leave, quickly dropping a kiss on her wet shoulder first. She grins at him, scrunching her nose and holding back a giggle as she squirts the conditioner into her palm. He steps one foot out the door and goes to reach for a towel just as she raises her arms again to apply the conditioner; he is overcome by the sight, and instead of leaving he reopens the glass door and steps right back into the spray with her, his arms framing her hips so neither of them slip.

"What are-?"

"It's too cosy in here with you to leave yet"

She looks at him in bewilderment, which quickly melts away to fondness. He is by far the more affectionate one, but as a recipient she is more than willing to play along with his sweet ideas; he always manages to surprise her with the moments he chooses to show it. She likes to think she's not nearly so obvious, but already her lovely students ask her questions about when she and Bishop are going to get married. She's embarrassed to own up to the little flutter her heart gives when she gets the brief mental image of the two of them dressed in matching black and white, posing in front of church. (Not that they would necessarily get married in a church. Or at all. With all the money being injected into this house they'd be lucky to scrape together the measly marriage license fee. But she can admit – if only to herself – that she sometimes thinks about it, in the same way she thinks about a lot of things now that she can.)

So much of the pain in their shared history relates directly to his inability to be fully invested in a life with her; the burden his false identity brought was the limitations it set on their future. Now that they can share a mortgage, car insurance, a home business and a silly, half-baked idea to turn half of downstairs into that ridiculous little bookstore they once talked about… well, now she can entertain those other future plans too, fleeting though they may be. She sometimes still worries about the jobs he does, but she no longer worries about whether or not he's coming home to her; they have a plan, a direction, and finally the stars have aligned to allow them to explore it all together.

So it's not like being married to Bishop would be entirely awful. Her mother would certainly be pleased at the very least.

"You are utterly ridiculous, you know that?" she says to him with a smile. She nudges him with her elbow, since her hands are still coated in conditioner.

He smiles at her in that soft way that is utterly Bishop. "I sure do. Turn around"

She rolls her eyes, but complies anyway, shifting so the water can hit them both a little bit. His hands come up and run through her hair, combing the conditioner through as he slowly rinses it out, mindful that she doesn't like to get it right on the roots. Her hair is getting longer – almost past shoulder length now, and styled with the requisite layers through the front. It makes her face softer – gentler than the very short cut, though she insists she's going to cut it back to that length for the convenience.

He hopes she doesn't. Not because she doesn't look gorgeous either way; he just likes the world to see the true Liz, with her big heart and dry wit. Her reserved persona is a true part of her, but not the sum of her; the boys like to joke that she's a prude, but really Bishop knows it's a defence – a natural distance she puts there for her own reasons, and perhaps he was one of those reasons at one point along the way, but he is also one of the few to see completely past it now. He likes that the rest of the world gets a glimpse of that too, and if that's through a hairstyle then so be it; not everyone can be privy to her dance moves, after all. Plus, he's heard more than one of her young female protégées compliment her when she wears it down, insisting that they'd like to style it for her or start a braid chain with half the class. Liz just laughs and asks if they've been practicing their scales. But she will always wear her hair down again the next class whenever they mention it, so Bishop thinks she's more flattered than she lets on.

He spins her around in the shower and frames her with his arms, continuing to run the conditioner out with his fingertips, although it's mostly done by now. Liz lets him, silent, a strange look on her face that he knows well – a depth of thought there far beyond the surface. (That was always the other aspect to her that he liked to see beyond; sternness not for the sake of being prim, but to hide a racing mind lost deep in music or mathematical theory, teeming with post-doctoral ideas. A mind near anxiety if not for the peace and focus her music brings, and the joy teaching brings to her spirit. He doesn't think she would have lasted as a mathematician, even if she had been inclined to pursue it, not least because all the maths professors he has ever met were wound tighter than a spring.

Liz may be anal, but he's also seen her curled fast asleep on the club house couch with her head on Mother's knee, Full House reruns playing while Carl and Mother play a game of Go Fish in the space around her.

A capable mind led by a gentle heart; that's his estimation.)

She must notice his mind has wandered, because she meets his eye with more insistence, her gaze beseeching. He smiles at her, returning to himself.

Without preamble she stretches up and kisses him, fully, her arms wrapping up around his waist, her fingers splaying on his back and pressing into the divots between his ribs. He's surprised, but recovers quickly. His hands leave her hair, framing her neck, holding her steady, as his lips runs a track down her jaw, down further to her neck, finding the same pulse point he was exploring so thoroughly in bed not very long ago. She pants into the kisses but doesn't outright moan, and he knows that she's enjoying herself but still aware of her surroundings; conscious not to fall. The embrace is heated; sensual but without expectation – lost in the moment without being out of control. The warmth of the water hits their shoulders equally, the both of them careful not to slip in the old porcelain tub.

"This is not conducive to getting motivated" she says through her heavy breathing, her voice pitched low.

"Do you care?" he mutters against her skin. He was the one who had eventually conceded that they should get up and perhaps spend a rare Sunday out in town deciding on new drapes for their master room (when they actually get around to starting it; when they're no longer sleeping on her old box spring and mattress stacked on bare floor with no carpet. When the stripped walls looks like a master suite and not the skeleton of a half-conceived room. Some days he wonders why the hell they chose to buy a gutted and unfinished dump, even if the transformative process of self-renovating it together seems cheekily metaphorical. When it's finally finished – from garage to top floor, four storeys of perfect rebuilt home complete – he'll be glad of it.) The shopping is just an excuse to spend valuable time together, but he knows she gets antsy just sitting around the house the whole weekend, and with the morning quickly fading into afternoon he'd been the one to suggest they 'get motivated'. He's starting to regret that decision now, when she's naked and wet in his arms.

"Not particularly, no" she says, shaking her head as his hands run down her back to grip her backside firmly. He pulls her close to him so she can feel his stirring erection. She pushes herself more firmly against him just to tease. They both know he won't get all the way hard again so quickly, but that doesn't matter. It's the in between that counts just as much.

Her hands run lower, framing his hips as his lips ascend to hers once more, via her jaw, her ear, across her cheek. The feeling is captivating, drawing her so thoroughly into a deep and overwhelming sensation of just being; of existing in this moment with him, without another thought in the world.

That is, until very suddenly and without warning, the water goes ice cold.

"Holy shit" he yells, and Liz lets out a high-pitched shriek as she jumps out of the cubical. She almost takes the door off its hinges in the process, but she makes sure to leave space for Bishop to follow her out, and wraps herself in the largest bath sheet she can find as he turns the water off.

For a few moments they stand there trying to rid their skin of the cool droplets.

They haven't yet replaced the hot water system, since not all the bathrooms – or their temperamental plumbing – have been upgraded. There's a time limit on the length of showers until they do, which they had naturally forgotten in their activities. (She likes to count the length of their kisses in heartbeats and hickeys, not minutes of hot water left.)

"I think the house is trying to tell us something" he says, rubbing off the cold water from his skin with his own towel, shivering from the sudden change in temperature as he wraps it around his waist and tucks it into itself.

"Not to get frisky in the shower?" she asks incredulously. She wraps her hair in a smaller towel expertly, keeping the bath sheet firmly over her shoulders. "Well the house better listen up right now…"

He just laughs at her.

She walks into him, snuggling close while holding her towel up over herself, demanding affection. His arms come around her and he runs his hands quickly up and down her back in a gesture of comfort.

"I think that's our cue to stop fooling around" he says with a smile.

"This bathroom really does need to be the very first thing we work on up here" she says, a tone of defeat in her voice.

"Didn't I say-"

"Yes yes, alright"

He grins at her in that charismatic way as she moves to step away with an eyeroll. He holds her in place and kisses her again, softer than before. Her hands unfurl from where she's huddled into herself, her palms landing flat on his chest as she responds to the kiss, the frame of his arms holding her towel around her.

"Have I ever told you how glad I am to be building a house with you?" he asks.

She smiles. "It's not really building, as much as renovating-"

"Will you ever not argue with me?"

She just laughs at him, and at the indignant look on his face. "I think we can safely assume I will always argue with you, Bishop"

The name has stuck, because he is one and the same, and truly what is in a name anyway. She calls him Bishop because she always has, just as the other boys in his club have their lasting nicknames too. He never seems to mind.

"I kind of like it" he says with a playful grin. She makes a face and smirks at him right back. She knows that; he does it often enough and with gusto; there must have been some sick pleasure in it for him.

"I like being dressed"

He sighs, kisses the tip of her nose, and then lets her go. She shivers once and then walks towards the door to the bedroom. Their large closet is just outside. Before she can leave completely, she turns and frames the doorway with her hand, leaning against it with her upper body.

"Bishop?"

He turns and looks at her; the distinct unsureness in her voice and her suddenly timid body language gives him pause. Liz is rarely so quiet.

"Yeah?" he asks, listening closely.

Her face takes on that familiar quality again, of being deeper in her mind than he can fathom, and of thoughts racing too far ahead for her to capture any single one. Her eyes flicker to him and away and back to him, and he thinks maybe she's contemplating just how much to say. They are brutally honest with each other these days, but they also have such a rich history to navigate. No longer children, it can be difficult to articulate the multitude of feelings that accompany any one moment.

She finally meets his eye, a flicker of a smile in her features when she sees him standing there; unmoving even as her mind cannot stand still.

"I kind of like arguing with you too" she says with a sheepish grin.

And he just grins right back at her. The tenderness in his eyes gives away the depth of his own emotion, and the love he feels for her in any random moment of the day.

"Then let's keep arguing" he says in response.

She laughs lightly at him, nodding and resting her temple against the doorway as well. Her body is dry now, after standing around long enough in the towel. She hadn't really been paying attention to that. She stands with a smile on her face, looking him in the eye with a tender sort of ferocity; unbridled emotion with a surety of purpose to hold it steady in the tempest.

"I'm glad we got back together" she says softly, not a hint of joke in her tone.

"Me too" he says, with equal feeling.

They hold each other's gaze just a fraction longer before she nods at him once and then abruptly turns, making her way into the walk-in robe to find the day's outfit. He watches the place she had been standing, his mind going back into that place it goes sometimes when he allows himself to ponder on their journey. So many tiny steps and big decisions and he ended up in this half-broken bathroom in an old Victorian in the middle of San Francisco, living with the only woman he's ever truly loved and thought he'd lost forever.

It strikes him anew to think of how this life fell into his lap. His heart clenches as he thinks, just today, to hold it a little tighter in gratitude.