"Oh my God!" James gasped, as he threw his arms around Greg and practically knocked him to the ground, "yes! Yes! You crazy man! Of course I will marry you!" James screamed, and planted a kiss on Greg's lips, "I love you! I love you! I love you more than I've ever loved anyone else before! I've always loved you!"

"Probably good that I didn't attempt this in the restaurant then," Greg half joked, "I don't think that it would be nearly so gentle to have had other tables crashing to the floor from my loveable, but overexcitable Labrador of a… fiancée,"

James got up, and helped Greg get back up again too, "try it on," Greg encouraged, and James quickly grabbed the ring out of its little box and put it on his finger.

"It fits!" he exclaimed, before pulling his phone out, and switching on the torch, "I wanna see how it looks in the light," James grinned, as he shone the torch down onto his finger to see a gold band, but with tiny speckles of sapphires through it shining back at him, "its… its perfect, and its so unique, the sapphires remind me of your eyes…" he could feel his own eyes beginning to mist up.

"You remember that giant trip we took to South Dakota with Lisa?" Greg asked.

James rolled his eyes and then continued to inspect the ring, "how could I ever forget?" he laughed.

"One night on the trip over, you and I were talking about hypotheticals, and you said that if we ever got married, you'd want a gold band with blue sapphires sprinkled on top of it so that the blue of the sapphires could remind you of my eyes even when we're apart. I made sure that I remembered that and one day Lisa dropped me off at a mall in Aberdeen, and I went and ordered the perfect ring for you. I even had a little drawing in pen that I'd done on the back of a napkin to make sure that it was all perfect," Greg blushed.

"Oh my God!" James blushed, holding his hand over his mouth as tears began to spill out of his eyes, "I can't believe you remembered that for me,"

"Well, of course I did. You are my idea of perfection, James, and I'm going to love you for the next million years," Greg smiled back.

"I always knew that somewhere under that hard façade of toughness and barriers beat the heart of a hopeless romantic," James gently teased.

"Yeah, alright," Greg rolled his eyes gently, leaning back on his hands.

"You know, this mightn't be the proposal that you originally had in mind, but it's more beautiful and romantic than I could have ever imagined. It's a beautiful night, Greg," James commented as he looked out over the water and the stars shining down from above.

"What's that sound?" James panted later that night back in the hotel room, while Greg was deep inside him.

Greg grabbed the phone and passed it to James, "answer it, it might be the kids," as he paused what he was doing.

"Hello?" James asked.

"James, I'm so glad that I caught you," a familiar voice came over the phone.

"Cuddy? Why are you calling?" James turned his head towards Greg, "and why are you still inside me while I'm answering the phone? Get out!"

"Tell her to call back," Greg growled, ignoring his request, while running his fingers through James' hair and gently pulling back his hair back, "it's not an emergency, it can wait until we're done," Greg grabbed the phone from James' hand, "we're busy. Call back in half an hour," and hung up, "there. Problem solved, at least for the next half hour," as he tossed the phone onto the table and continued.

About 40 minutes later, Greg and James were lying in bed when James' phone started buzzing in his hand, he clicked 'accept' and before he could move to hold the phone up to his ear, Cuddy was taking up the entire screen, "What the hell!" James yelled as he dropped the phone like a hot potato onto his lap, "Cuddy's in the phone!"

"What do you mean she's in the phone?" Greg leant over, and picked up the phone, and stared into it. Cuddy sighed, and rubbed her temples, clearly Greg had either completely forgotten that she was going to call James or was doing a great job at acting. "Does this mean that she was watching us have sex before?" Greg turned to look at James.

"No! Have you two seriously never used Facetime before?" Cuddy just about yelled, "James, we need to have a chat about some of the things that were said,"

"Said? Oh, don't worry about it, Lisa," James flapped his hand as he picked the phone up from Greg, "what's done is done, history is history. Sleeping dogs lie, blah, blah, blah,"

Lisa got a good look at James now for the first time since the big fight, and Greg was right, he did look different; but he looked good. Sure, his muscle mass wouldn't be what it once was; but he wasn't the skeletal figure that she was expecting. His hair was now incredibly long, lush and healthy looking, she guessed that it might be longer than her own. But he had lost a lot of weight in the timeframe since she'd last seen him. "James, I said some awful and untrue things to you in the moment, I was repeatedly cruel to both of you- I'm sure that there are things said that all of us regret saying in the moment; but I just want to make sure that you're happy, healthy, and safe. As well as let you guys know that if you ever did decide to come back to Princeton, that there will be jobs available for both of you, with pay rises," Cuddy added.

"Why would you want us back?" James asked suspiciously, "all you used to do is complain about us, and the chaotic functional dysfunction that came with having us around,"

"Yeah, I know," Cuddy scratched the back of her neck awkwardly, "and I think that living with it 24/7 for nearly a month while we were travelling, living in each other's pockets, and with all the stress that came with where we were going and why; just got to be too much towards the end. But damn, if I don't seriously miss having the two of you here. The hospital just isn't the same without you two. It's so… quiet,"

"I thought you would've liked that," James raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"I thought I would have too, but in reality, I don't think that I do. You two had been here for so long that you were basically a part of the furniture. It's not just me who thinks this, other people have commented on how quiet it is and how they miss you guys," Cuddy admitted, "I said and did a lot of things wrong,"

"Right, those same other people who had no interest in having any kind of positive relationship with me or Greg while we were there are now interested and miss us?" James pointed out, starting to sound rather sharp in his tone.

"We're happy in Detroit, Lisa, I'm sorry. I mean, I'm not a department head anymore, and my pay does reflect that, but the cost of living difference means that we're living a higher quality of life and more financially secure than what we could have been in Princeton. We can easily survive on my income alone, and Greg can stay at home with the kids. And even though he doesn't work outside of the home, Greg has friends here, Lisa, real friends. It's not just me anymore who is the only one willing to be his friend. He's got his poker buddies that he plays with twice a week, for example, when back in Princeton he was having to invite random men from the bus stop down the street to his house to make up a table, and he's got other parents that he meets up with at the park with the kids and hangs out with here. Not to mention that I have work friends too. Things are just generally better for us here, Lisa, I'm sorry that you regret the way things went in the end, but we don't. It worked out for us," James stated, and Lisa had a sad smile on her face and nodded.

"That's fine, I understand that. I guess we never know what we have until we've lost it, there's no way to tell when the good old days are until they're gone… anyway how are you guys doing? You look like you're in a hotel room?" Lisa asked.

"Yeah, we are, we came out today for a weekend away… have to head back tomorrow. We're in Bay City, which isn't too far from Detroit… unfortunately we were held back for four hours by Tyson, our boy, throwing a tantrum that he couldn't come," James filled in.

"Yeah, bloody Tyson. He drives me absolutely insane sometimes," Greg muttered somewhere offscreen, and Lisa saw James' smile and eyes of love as he turned and grinned off screen at Greg, and felt a pang of pain in her heart that Lucas didn't look at her the same way that James was looking at Greg there.

"You just can't deal with a little mini me," James grinned, and laughed at some expression Greg must've pulled off camera.

"Show her your hand," Greg told him.

"Oh yeah, of course," James added, and held out his hand with a beautiful gold band sprinkled with tiny sapphires embedded in the gold around his ring finger, "we're engaged!" James turned his head and kissed Greg off screen, "we're so happy, I can't believe that I have found my person in Greg. He's amazing, that our friendship had developed into a relationship where we are going to be together forever. I've never felt love like this before with anyone else, not even remotely. It's like he was my missing puzzle piece that I was always searching for,"

"Oh my God!" Lisa screamed, "I'm so happy for you two! I knew you guys would make it!"

"Thanks!" James grinned back and looked over towards Greg who shouted his thanks from somewhere else in the room, and James then grabbed a coffee mug from offscreen and turned the camera away slightly as there was a quiet creak and the rustling of bedsheets; suggesting that Greg was getting back into bed.

"Oh, before I forget, I am actually coming to Detroit in a couple of weeks for a few days; I have a conference to attend," Lisa cut in.

"Oh cool, it's definitely the right time of year to come; the winter was absolutely miserable," James laughed.

"Oh, you poor, sweet boy, this winter was actually pretty mild, I mean the temperature and the 'feel like' temperature can get much lower, and the snowfall-" Greg began.

"Don't start with the numbers, please," James groaned; looking over at Greg with an exasperated expression and rolled his eyes, "I swear, Lisa, he's like a walking, talking encyclopaedia once he gets going with the numbers and the statistics that I'm yet to find the shutdown button for,"

"You know exactly where my shutdown button is," Greg said with a laugh and a wink, to which James just rolled his eyes.

Lisa smiled sadly and thought about how she missed it all, all the silly banter and carry on between them, and how she missed their effects on her life, "you know I was wondering whether I might be able to stay with you guys while I'm there," and watched an exchange of looks between the two of them.

"Lisa," James began, "hang on," the phone faced upward to the ceiling, "where's my hair tie? My hair is getting sticky and sweaty on my neck and back… thanks," a few seconds later the phone turned back and James had his hair tied back about halfway up his head in a long, wavy ponytail with a kick of a curl at the end, "the thing is Lisa, is that we'd be happy to have you stay with us, but because of the kids, we don't let anyone stay who we don't know, and doubly so for men that we don't know… you just can never be too careful with kids in the house, you know? So, if you did stay… you can't have any… male callers come around or stay," James backed up what Greg had told her the other day.

"That's fine," Lisa agreed, "I wasn't planning to, in fact I think now seeing you guys together, it's making me begin to doubt my own relationship that I'm in at the moment with Lucas. That I don't think that he loves me like you two love one another. That unconditional love where you both love each other without judgment of your flaws or try to change each other; but just accept each other for who you are, as you are. I want to hang out for that," Lisa admitted.

The phone call began to wrap up from there, and Lisa leant back and sighed after they'd hung up, sitting alone in her empty house; wishing things were different, that she'd made a move when she'd had the chance to, that different choices had been made.