Epilogue

Six months later…

Lisbon woke up with a large warm body curled up against her back and a small warm body curled up against her stomach.

She tried to get out of bed as unobtrusively as possible, but failed. Toby opened his eyes and cocked his head to the side in an expression of interest, but the large warm body groaned in displeasure and tightened its hold on her.

"Don't get up yet," Jane mumbled sleepily.

She rolled onto her back and turned her head to look at him. "Jane, I have to get up for my run now or I'll be late to work," she reminded him, not for the first time.

He leaned over and kissed her. "Stay right here," he said, smiling lazily. "I'll give you a workout that doesn't require you to leave the bed."

"I have to take Toby out," she told him. She gently extricated herself from his grip over his grumbled protests and got out of bed. Toby hopped down from the bed, too, ready, as always, to follow Lisbon anywhere she might lead.

Jane glared at the dog. "I knew that mutt was going to cause me nothing but trouble," he muttered.

Lisbon rolled her eyes. The big fraud. Like she didn't catch him sneaking Toby leftovers on a regular basis, no matter how many times she told him it wasn't good for dogs to eat human food. "Yes, it must be a real trial for you to have to sleep in while *I* take the dog out for a run."

Jane pouted. "It is a trial for me. You know I can't sleep without you here."

She leaned over and kissed him again. "Suck it up."

She knew she'd made a tactical error when she felt his hand snake around her waist to pull her closer, drawing her in more deeply. She broke the kiss with a supreme effort of will. "Jane," she said, warning in her voice.

He buried his other hand in her hair and softly pressed his lips to her neck. "What?" he said innocently.

She groaned, feeling her resolve weakening as he worked his lips against her neck. "I have to go."

"But I want you to stay. And you want to stay, too, don't bother denying it."

It was this kind of logic that had caused her to be late to work last week. Twice. She closed her eyes and reluctantly pulled away. "I'm leaving now."

"Fine," he sighed, temporarily defeated. "But you should know I'm not going to tolerate this kind of behavior once we're married. There will be no getting up early for a slavish devotion to exercise."

"I still haven't agreed to that, you know," she said dryly, as she pulled her shirt over her head.

"Meh. I give you another three weeks before you give in," he said, unconcerned. He watched her get dressed. "A month, tops." He yawned. "Wait til you see the proposal I've planned. You won't be able to resist."

"You already proposed," she pointed out. "I resisted just fine." This had happened about a week after they'd gotten together, on what Lisbon considered their third date, and Jane called their seventh date. She'd practically choked on her soup when he'd said the words, but he'd just thumped her on the back and continued to describe their future marital bliss in great detail as though her acceptance was a foregone conclusion. She said no, of course. It was too soon, and she wanted at least one thing regarding Jane's role in her life not to happen completely backwards. He didn't seemed fazed by her refusal. He said that he was perfectly all right with the idea of moving in together first, if she was afraid of getting cold feet and needed to ease into the idea. She ignored him, returning to her soup and hoping he'd give up on the idea and talk about something normal, for once. He hadn't, of course.

It had taken him four months to convince her to move in with him, but here she was, ensconced in his beautiful house—their house, as he insisted they call it ("Really, Lisbon, do you think I would have gone to all the trouble of decorating this all for myself? I would never have bought a Queen Anne style house for myself—I might have gone for a bungalow style, or one of those modern designs you so despise…"), complete with a dog and a picket fence. He'd signed over half of the house to her, despite her many protests, tricking her into signing the papers by sending them in with Van Pelt along with some expense reports while he distracted her with an unrelated argument connected to their current case at the time. Once the paperwork had been finalized, he'd then presented it to her with a red bow on top, claiming that now that he'd made it legal, she was on the hook for half the mortgage, so she'd better start taking the idea of joint home ownership seriously. She'd pointed out to him that he didn't have a mortgage, since he'd paid for the house with money he'd probably obtained through questionable means. He pretended to be wounded that she would accuse him of cheating at poker ("You know I'm good enough to beat anybody foolish enough to sit down at the table with me, Lisbon, so why would I bother to cheat?").

She'd muttered something about his insufferable ego, and he'd smiled at her. "Would it make you feel better if I let you pay half the property taxes?"

It had. She'd felt better about the whole thing from the moment she signed the first check to the County of Sacramento's Assessor's Office, and since then, she'd been able to start really enjoying the house, allowing herself to feel a warm glow stealing over her when she paused to appreciate one of the little touches Jane had added to the house because he knew she would like it. She'd been able to refer to it as their house much more easily after that. Which he'd known she would, of course.

"You won't be able to resist the next one," Jane was saying, bringing her back to the present. "The first one was just the means of laying the groundwork for the real proposal."

She raised an eyebrow at him as she looked up from tying her running shoes. "The first one wasn't real, then? Are you saying you would have backed out if I'd said yes then?"

He laughed at her. "You would never have said yes to the first one," he said confidently. "You're far too practical to allow yourself to be swept off your feet so completely." He looked at her meaningfully. "No matter how much you might have wanted to."

She flushed, and swatted him on the arm. She was childishly gratified to see him wince in pain.

"That's going to be the second rule," he told her. "No getting up early, and no hitting your defenseless husband."

She snorted. "Right. Because you're so good at adhering to structure and rules."

"Third rule," he continued, as though she hadn't spoken. "If you do insist on getting up early to run, I get to help you shower afterwards."

She rolled her eyes. "You're making a rule based on the assumption that your first rule will be broken?" She didn't know why he thought it was necessary to add this last one, anyway. As it was, Jane insisted on 'helping' her shower at least three times a week. Not that she was complaining. She was all for supporting the environment, and she was happy to do her part for the cause of water conservation.

He grinned at her. "Just covering all my bases."

"You're a ridiculous man," she told him.

He smiled at her. "But you love me anyway."

"Eh," she said, with a smile of her own. "You're all right, I suppose."

His smile widened. "Liar." He flopped back onto the bed and watched her tie her hair back in a long ponytail. "What do you want for breakfast when you get back, eggs or pancakes?"

"Jane, I've told you a hundred times, you don't need to go to all that trouble," she said. He insisted on cooking her elaborate meals practically every day, for reasons passing understanding. "I'll just grab some yogurt or something."

"Nonsense. Yogurt is not adequate nourishment," he said sternly. "You need a full breakfast to keep your energy up."

She smirked. "For a long day at work?"

"No, for shower related activities."

He was impossible. "In that case, I want waffles."

His eyes lit up. "You shall have them." He took her hand and pressed a tender kiss to her palm.

Her heart swelled in her chest. Well, if he was going to be like that, she could hardly help bending down to kiss him one more time before she left. "Good-bye, Patrick," she said softly.

He groaned as she straightened up again, taking her sweet softness away from him. He was always undone completely on the rare occasions she used his first name. "Hurry back. I think you're going to need an extra long shower today."

"We'll see," Lisbon said, smiling from the doorway. And she headed downstairs, Toby at her heels, before Jane could pull her even more completely under his spell.

She clipped Toby into his leash and went out the front door, walking up the front path and swinging the gate closed behind them. She realized she was smiling foolishly, thinking of Jane back in their bed, waiting for her to return. He'd lay there for a few minutes, and then he'd get up himself, heading down to the kitchen to make sure her waffles were ready by the time she got back. If she was lucky, there would be strawberries on top.

She turned east, taking deep pleasure in the early morning sunlight hitting her face as she ran up the street with Toby at her side.

She grinned to herself. There would definitely be strawberries.