It's late March, it's Spring Break, Easter is right around the corner, and it's a relieving fifty-five degrees after months of hanging around zero.

The winter went by quickly, it seems; it's easy to stay warm when there's another body nearby.

Marianne covers Bog's left hand with her own; below the second knuckle of their thumbs, right in the meat of it, are a few words in a handmade font from Sugar Plum herself: Tough Girl for her, Tough Guy for him. She kisses his cheek.

Then she leans back and puts her helmet on, right as he puts on his own. He revs the engine.

"Ready, love?" he calls over his shoulder, over the roar of his bike.

She wraps her arms rightly around his torso and shouts back, "You know it!"

And they ride.

It feels like flying.

Marianne gets a job at King's Castle to be closer to Bog and Griselda, whom, upon the discovery that her favorite regular is one and the same as the girl who her son befriended and whom melted her son's heart, was overjoyed and all-welcoming and insistent on marriage and children and already planning for their firstborn to take over the bar next. Marianne calmed the woman to take this one step at a time, but she felt inside that she was right; Bog was The One, ye olde fabled and once thought impossible to find, yet holds true.

So Marianne serves or helps make drinks or cleans dishes or bathrooms, depending on her mood, depending on who calls in, depending on where Bog is situated. He bounces between bartending and the kitchen more often now; having Marianne around improves his temper, he finds. They keep each other in check.

Bog and Marianne save up to find a bigger apartment than Bog's, but a smaller one than the one she shares with her sister and Sunny, whom now want their own space for the same reasons Marianne wants hers.

Sunny makes a big break; he's secretly been going to auditions for talent-scouting TV shows, in between going to work or school or out with Dawn. He finally lands one that likes his voice, his creative mash-ups, and can sell his face.

He makes enough money to open up a nest egg, moving himself and Dawn to a small house, one ironically cheaper to rent than the three-bedroom apartment. They're engaged within the year. It doesn't take long to get to that point when someone dates someone they've known nearly their whole life. It just falls into place.

Marianne is the maid of honor, Bog is her plus one. Dawn is the most radiant bride Marianne has ever seen, and while Marianne was busy being a maidzilla to keep everything orderly and perfect for her precious baby sister, Dawn was the angel that came in and smoothed everything over. The ceremony is short and small, to save money. She and Sunny take a luxurious honeymoon to a private bungalow in the Caribbean with the wedding money they saved.

The pressure to be wed weighs heavily down on Marianne and Bog, but they don't cave in. They take their sweet time, content to finish their schooling while living together, working together, riding together. They don't get married until after they have both gotten their degrees, even when Bog completes his sooner. He waits, lets nothing distract Marianne from her goals.

Bog expands his range, making a move to own another bar in town, but Marianne encourages a restaurant instead, with Bog as head chef as well as owner. He agrees, they open it up, and he now spends all his nights at the new '50s-diner-style eatery, Butterfly Marsh. He gives King's Castle to his fiancé, Marianne. He debated this decision for a long time, worried he wasn't keeping it in the family, but Griselda came through with exactly what he needed to hear: that by giving it to Marianne, he was keeping it in the family.

They eloped to Las Vegas and for a weekend at Disney Land California as a honeymoon shortly after the establishment of the diner, once it was stable.

It's a cross-country trip on their bikes the whole way there and back.

It's the most blissful two weeks of their lives.

And it never ends.

There are arguments, stubbornness; there are spats and quarrels over money and the ride and fall of their businesses and whether or not if they want or are ready for children; it goes on and on. But there are also make-ups and long periods of comfortable peace and decisions made and minds changed.

They get cats instead of kids. Seven more to join Bones, during and after his time. Some of the cats are strays taken in and taken care of; some are adopted from shelters who have scars, like themselves; missing eyes, limbs, bits of ears. Some are perfectly healthy and are gotten since kittenhood from ads in the paper. All of them are well loved and fed and cared for.

Neither of them feel the ache of not being a parent; it disappoints Griselda, but she understands. She supports them. She lives to a very ripe old age, strong until the end.

They keep their matching tattoos fresh. Every time the black ink fades or gets fuzzy, they go back in and get it freshened up, with or without Plum at the parlor, even after the woman moves on to the West.

It's not perfect. It doesn't go as smoothly as Dawn and Sunny's marriage, because they cooperate more than they compromise, they have three beautiful, energetic, kind-hearted children. But Bog and Marianne don't need it to be perfect. They're both rough around the edges, but rough the way cogs fit together. They're both fiery, but what's life without some spice? They make it work, even if they sometimes both lose something. It works, and they wouldn't trade it for the Sunshine couple's life, nor for the world.

It's theirs and it's fate and it brought them together, and nothing on Earth can tear them apart now.

A/N: Sorry for the brevity and change in style; I rewrote this chapter, like, three or four times? I tried to do certain scenes/scenery/poeticisms, certain dialogues... but in the end, not everything I wanted to include was in there, so... instead, I typed out a summary narrative of sorts. I hope it's okay. There is just... not one good way to finish this fic, it seems. I probably should have ended it with chapter fourteen. :/