They lay beside each other, completely spent. Artemis let her fingers drift lightly across his toned chest as he brushed his hand over her hair, letting his finger tips caress the small of her back before repeating the process. "Wally?"

His hand stilled at her temple, "yea, Babe." He whispered, afraid anything above a light timbre would shatter this dream he'd allowed himself to concoct.

"What's going to happen now?" She shifted, wrapping her leg across his knee as she put her chin on his chest and he looked down to meet her eyes.

"What are you talking about? We're going to go home as soon as we can, take Nelson for a walk, get back to normal." He hoped the conversation ended at that, but he knew it wouldn't. They'd been through too much.

"Wally. You know what I mean." She pushed herself up and rested her chin in her hand; she let herself smile when his eyes traveled to her chest as the sheet slid to her waist.

But he knew she wouldn't let this drop, so instead he said, "What you did, you did for the team, and for the world, Artemis, they know that!" Even though it didn't seem like it, with the League in the midst of investigating her for treason, among a host of other things. The whole reason he couldn't take her home was because they wanted her to remain under surveillance. "They're going to be pissed at all of us for keeping it a secret, but that's what we've been trained to do, that's why the team is here." His hand went to her hip and his thumb stroked her softly, "And you're okay now, so I really don't want to think about anything else besides the fact that you're here."

"It's more than that. You think we're going to be able to go back to retirement? It was hard enough for us the first time, when we thought we were ready, when we thought it was what we wanted-"

His arm dropped and he sat up, "It was what we wanted."

She sat up behind him and put her hands on his shoulders before kissing the base of his neck, "But not anymore, right? Wally, we both knew this wasn't permanent. One day your uncle is going to retire, and I'm already getting sick of just sitting around doing nothing!"

"We're not doing nothing. How can you call any of this nothing? You were gone for two months, Artemis. TWO. MONTHS." He ran his fingers through his hair angrily, "You have no idea what that was like, pretending it was all real. I had to keep going back to the exercise-" he didn't need to elaborate, she knew exactly which exercise. The same one he would still wake up with nightmares about. The first time she put her chin on his shoulder and he let out a heavy sigh, as though the whole world was on his shoulders. With her body pressed against his back, he closed his eyes and sought out her knee.

She put her left hand on top of his and squeezed, "It was hard for me too, but I'm home now. I'm not going anywhere again."

"You can't promise that, neither of us can. Not with what we do." He caught her raised eyebrow, "You know we're both going to be suiting up as soon as we can, don't give me that look," he laughed before kissing her. He pulled away for a second and she saw a determination in his eyes, "but I've been doing a lot of thinking, since before you even left, and there's one thing you can promise me." He lifted the hand on top of his and kissed it, "you can promise to make me the happiest man alive." He took a deep breath. "Artemis, will-"

She ripped her hand out of his, "oh, you are so not proposing to me right now."

His smile faltered but the look she gave him made him hold his resolve, "And what if I am?" He asked bravely, raising his chin in mock defiance.

She stared at him unblinkingly, "Wally, I'm not telling our children you proposed after screwing me for the first time in two months."

"We can make up a story."

"Or you can ask me tomorrow at sunset on the beach. Until then, this never happened."

"Did you just say yes?"

Artemis smiled as she reached for his lips, running her fingers through his hair before pulling back, "guess you'll have to ask me tomorrow."