"Oh, I'm your mate now, am I?" he asked with another smirk. "Do you mean that in the English sense of the word or the American?" Of which he was neither. He was Rhy'Din born and bred, though his mother was American. He chuckled at the ruffling of his hair - the only person who was really allowed to touch the patented, insured Jon Granger curls - and followed her to his feet. "What do you feel like" I'm thinking pasta." He made his way to the kitchen and started poking around in the cupboards and fridge, pleased to find Trish had arranged to have the kitchen stocked.

"I thought you were ordering out?" she laughed back to him, dragging their luggage toward the bedroom she'd spied on the way in. It was just as well he wasn't seeing that; Vicki wasn't exactly being gentle with herself this evening, given the sheer weight of the bags she was manhandling through the condo. "Or have you forgotten already what happens when you cook and I'm handsy?"

It was definitely good he wasn't seeing that or he'd probably freak out. She was probably going to be in for a long nine months or so of coddling and fussing, once it actually sank in that she really was pregnant. He laughed as he started pulling things out of the cupboard and fridge, deciding on whipping up a little something himself. "Maybe that's what I'm counting on," he called back from the kitchen, the sound of him rummaging through cupboards and fridge accompanying his remark.

He backtracked to something she'd mentioned a few minutes ago about him needing to practice for the role, lifting his voice so she could hear him from the bedroom. "You realize filming a sex scene isn't exactly romantic or exciting." He knew she probably already knew this from watching him on the set of Crowes, but he did want her to think that meant anything more to him than a job.

More laughter wandered back to him from the bedroom. Vicki heaved Jon's main bag up onto the bed to flip it open and exhume his shirts, shaking them out one by one and hanging them to let gravity do its work on the wrinkles. "I suppose that really depends whether or not I finish doing this before you finish cooking," was her answer to his suggestion, before his reassurances made her smile again. She moved to the doorway of the bedroom, tilting her head to catch a glimpse of him in the kitchen. "Jon ....Aimee's sweet, but I'm feeling pretty confident that you're all mine these days," she said quite firmly. "Besides, I've got an on-set pass. I'll be sniggering into my hands while you're pounding away at her."

Jon furrowed his brows a moment, wondering what she was up to. She had mentioned hanging his clothes, but she wasn't doing that now, was she" Jon set the box of pasta down on the counter and poked his head out of the kitchen toward the direction of the bedroom, glancing then toward the living area and noticing his bag was missing. "Vicki, you didn't drag my bag in there, did you?" There was only one way to find out. Footsteps were heard heading that way. "Maybe I should have you banned from the set," he remarked, hands on hips as he glared down at her.

She'd already returned to her unpacking, not having even considered that hefting the heavy bags around wasn't something she should have been doing. Hearing Jon call to her, Vicki paused, looking toward the doorway as she hung yet another shirt in the closet. "You were expecting me to ferry your clothing one piece at a time from the living room?" she asked sweetly, deliberately mimicking his posture with hands on her own hips. Her head tipped back as she looked up at him with a grin. "What did I do?"

He blew out a slightly exasperated breath. "What am I going to do with you? All you had to do was ask." And it was too late to help now that she'd hauled his bag in there all by herself. He frowned at her, looking concerned. "You should be taking it easy." He stepped over and snatched up another shirt from his bag to hang it in the closet. In the meantime, dinner was on hold until he decided if he was cooking or hanging laundry.

Vicki's eyes, predictably enough, rolled as she laughed at his overprotective concern. "For goodness' sake, Jon, I'm not suddenly going to keel over just because you've packed one too many pairs of shoes," she protested, joining him by the bag to continue in her own manner unpacking his clothes. It was just as well he hadn't seen into her bag yet - the effort it had taken to get everything into one bag had been more than the effort to heave his main bag onto this bed. "I'm pregnant, not suddenly made of glass."

"I haven't packed one too many..." he snapped back defensively, before realizing she was being facetious. "Oh." There was that familiar concerned frown on his face again as he turned to her and pried whatever it was she had in her hands away from her. "Exactly. You're pregnant." He didn't look like he was going to give way on this one, but he couldn't unpack and cook at the same time. "Look, let's just go with the original plan. I'll unpack while you order out."

As stubborn as she was, Vicki knew when to give way. When Jon looked as though he was torn between pouting and scowling, then was the time to concede him a small victory and regroup to fight the battle another day. "Fine," she smiled, releasing the blazer as he tugged at it, stepping back to hold her hands up peaceably. "Just don't have a heart attack when you see my packing." Flashing him a smile, she rose onto her toes, sweetening the warning with a tender, slow kiss. "Pasta, was it?"

He smiled as all seemed to be forgiven and he got his own way, settling a hand against her hip as she pressed a kiss against his lips, only too happy to return that kiss. "Whatever you want," he conceded, not really caring all that much what they ate, so long as it was edible.

That was Jon's weakness when it came to battle lines drawn; he never noticed when Vicki was just stepping backwards to regroup. She stroked her fingers against his cheek, smiling as she moved toward the living room. "You really have to work on relaxing when you think I'm being an idiot, love," she chuckled, slipping out of sight to investigate the menus by the phone.

He smiled back, thinking he'd won this round, calling after her as she stepped out of the bedroom. "Don't touch that suitcase!" he warned, regarding her own suitcase. Once she was out of sight, he took up the task of unpacking his suitcase and hanging his things in the closet - shirts, pants, suits, mostly dress clothes, but some casual things, as well. Whatever he'd forgotten could easily be purchased here.

"Yes, O Master Of The Universe," she called back to him with a snicker of her own, flipping through the menus.

Jon had mentioned pasta, so pasta it was. He was very patient when it came to her fussy dietary preferences, but she knew he missed eating meat as regularly as he used to, for some reason believing that she would be offended by him eating what he wanted. Tucking the phone under her ear, she dialled the appropriate number, pulling her own card out of her wallet. He was probably going to complain when he found out she was paying for dinner out of her own pocket, but Vicki found Jon's blinkered view of her bank account funny.

If Vicki had known in advance that Jon was going to be slightly obsessive about doing everything right, she might have been a little more careful with her birth control. But then, he was allowed to be obsessive; it was his first child, their first child. As he rolled to his feet, she sat up, watching him walk away as she lowered her shirt over her stomach once again, slipping from the bed herself to head into the kitchen, seeking out plates and glasses.

Thankfully, the delivery boy either didn't recognize him, didn't care, or was used so used to making deliveries to famous personalities that it didn't phase him. Jon exchanged cash for food, along with a few pleasantries, gathered up the parcels, and took them to the kitchen. "Whatever you ordered smells great," he remarked as he set the parcels down on the counter and took a peek at the contents.

Vicki laughed softly, setting plates out on the counter as he came into sight again. "That should be rosemary chicken ravioli for you," she told him. "And eggplant parmesan for me. And the gelato is for later, so -" She smacked his hand lightly, taking that carton to put away for the time being.

He chuckled as she smacked his hand. "No dessert before dinner?" he asked, waggling his brows at the innuendo, pleased that she ordered him chicken, though he would have been perfectly happy with the eggplant. She had yet to completely convert him to vegetarianism, but he rarely complained. "I was thinking we could eat on the terrace. It should be cool this time of evening."

"I think that's a lovely idea," she agreed warmly, turning back to him with a brush of lips to his shoulder as her fingertips smoothed down his spine affectionately. "You can open the wine. I'm not going to make you lick it up off the floor again." Blue eyes sparkling with teasing laughter, she loaded her arms with plates, cutlery, and food, blowing him a kiss on her way past.

"Are you going to make me drink it from your shoe?" he teased, with a smirk and a gleam of blue eyes as he took up the wine bottle and a couple of glasses to follow her out onto the terrace.

Laughing aloud once again as her bare feet negotiated the soft carpet and out onto the cool masonry of the terrace, Vicki glanced over her shoulder with fond amusement. "This, from the man who declared my work boots to be a secret biological weapon developed by MI6 under the cover of 21twelve studios," she countered cheerfully, bending to unload her arms onto the table. A moment later, she straightened to look out over the view of the city skyline and waterfront. "That's a wonderful view."

"You know, I was in the running for Bond once," he remarked as he followed her outside into a perfect evening, high above the city, a refreshing breeze cooling down the heat of the day. "It is, isn't it?" He smiled fondly, as he set the wine glasses on the table and paused to enjoy the view, not only of the city, but of the lovely woman he was going to marry, the woman who was carrying his child, the woman whom he was convinced was his soul mate.

Copper red hair ruffled in the breeze across her shoulders, tickling over the bare skin of her arms as she sighed happily. As much as Vicki teased and fussed about wealth and spending more money than most people made in a year, she did enjoy the sense of being pampered that came with luxury surroundings. Realising Jon wasn't talking about the city view, she flushed faintly, sweetly touched by his unthinking compliment. "You, Mr Granger, are a hopeless romantic," she informed him with a chuckle, turning her attention back to serving the food onto their plates.

"Guilty as charged, Miss Marshall. Would you prefer I wasn't?" He smiled back, charmed by the blush that was so rarely seen in her. Ironic how such a small, innocent compliment could bring out a blush in her, when bawdy comments and behavior did not. He twisted the cap off the bottle of wine and filled two glasses, not spilling a drop. "I've been thinking..." he started, his eyes on the wine-pouring. Thinking was usually a good thing where Jon was concerned, but he was uncertain how Vicki might react to what he'd been thinking about.

"Oh, I wouldn't know what to do with you if you weren't a chronic sap," Vicki chuckled fondly, carefully portioning just enough food onto their plates to make a meal without overfacing either of them. She was a great believer in left-overs, after all. Her eyes turned toward him curiously as he poured out the wine, her body moving to lower down into a chair. "What have you been thinking?"

Once the wine was poured, he set the bottle down and took a seat across from her, the evening breeze blowing over them both, soft as a caress. He averted his gaze just long enough for her to know that he was feeling a little uncertain about what he was about to suggest. "I was just thinking that with you pregnant and all, maybe we shouldn't wait until October to get married." He chanced darting a glance at her, as if to gauge her reaction. "I know I promised you a big, white wedding and all, but..." He trailed off, frowning uncertainly.

"Jon." Vicki's smile was warm, but there was that matter-of-fact expression in her eyes that usually meant she was about to burst a little of his romantic bubble with a nod toward reality. "You promised me a lot of things I never actually agreed to, one of them being the big white wedding. Can you truly see me surviving a big formal event like that without offending someone?" She laughed softly, reaching across the table to smooth her fingers over his palm. "If you're about to suggest we elope as soon as possible, then I feel it's only fair I should warn you that I've already started researching how we could get married before going back to Rhy'Din." She flickered him a shy glance, not entirely sure how he was going to react to this.

His reaction to this was typically Jon - the arch of a single, surprised brow, a sigh of relief, and a small smile that turned up the corners of his mouth and dimpled his cheeks. His fingers curled around hers as he smiled fondly back at her. "Have you?" he asked, blue eyes shining. He'd thought he wanted a big, white wedding, but the trip through Vicki's past had changed him in ways even he hadn't yet comprehended. "What did you find out?"

Her smile shared a tenderly loving glance with him as he asked the inevitable question. "That there are several places we can get a special license and be married in the same day," she told him, gently sliding her hand from his to take up her fork and begin eating. "Everywhere from Gretna Green in Scotland, to Turtle Island. We would just have to decide when and where."

He studied her as she revealed what she'd learned, only a little surprised by this turn of events. After all, one of the reasons he loved her so much was the fact that they thought so much alike - almost as if they were made for each other. A match made in heaven, or so he thought. So, she didn't have her heart set on a big, public wedding, after all. He withdrew his hand to take up his fork and poke at his chicken, darting another glance her way as he changed taking the suggestion a step further. "What about Cornwall?" he asked, innocently enough.

His eyes followed that trail of fingertips as they moved enticingly along her neck, feeling that swell of arousal at the thought of those fingertips trailing against his bare flesh, watching her almost as if he was entranced. He couldn't very well return the compliment as he didn't really remember anyone before her, but he knew the effect she had on him, and he knew he wanted no one else.

"Were you ever afraid I'd never fall in love with you?" he asked suddenly, out of the blue, remembering the last time she'd seen him before he'd returned to the present. They'd argued, their first and only real argument, but it had been short-lived, neither of them really wanting to hurt the other.

The tease in her eyes faded, paying him the courtesy of taking his question seriously, considering her memories before offering him the answer he already knew. "Yes," was the quiet, truthful response. "When you announced your engagement to Correy, I ....I nearly gave up. But you'd promised me, and I promised you, and I knew you'd show up at some point. I couldn't bear the thought of disappointing you that way." It had been hard, to see him so happily in love with Correy; harder still, to keep hoping, to keep holding onto the promise that she would be with him soon. "I'm glad I didn't give up."

"I don't remember any of that," he said, frowning. She already knew that, too, but he thought it bore repeating. The Jon before the shooting hadn't been the same Jon she'd fallen in love with, and he'd tried to tell her as much when he'd visited her past. "You never gave up on me," he said, with just a hint of wonder in his voice. How many had in the past' His father certainly, though he didn't remember it. "I'm sorry I put you through all that, but I've no regrets. I'm here with you because of everything that happened, and I wouldn't change a thing if it meant losing you."

Her smile softened, her gaze caressing his with the kind of intimacy only possible when two people knew each other inside out. "I think we should buy Dominic something spectacular as a thank you," she suggested, lowering her fork to her now empty plate. "Without his little potion, we wouldn't be here."

There was that frown again that his family assumed was angsty, but in reality, it was just his reluctance to hide what he was feeling, despite being an actor. "The only thing Dom would want is to have Gwen back," Jon told her sadly.

Vicki's own eyes clouded, saddened by the knowledge that he was completely right. The only thing his cousin would ever want would be the wife he had lost almost a full year ago; it was pretty much the only thing no one could give him. "We can't turn back the clock, no matter how much we want to."

"I know, but..." Jon paused a moment, saddened by Dom's loss, but knowing that life went on. "It took a long time, but your father found Marie. Maybe Dom will find someone else." He felt almost foolish suggesting it, knowing if anything were to happen to Vicki, he'd be devastated and wouldn't want anyone else, but he wasn't Dom and she wasn't Gwen.

"Maybe," she agreed quietly. And just as she did every time Jon was groping through sadness or pain, Vicki closed the distance between them, rising from her chair to stand beside him. Her arms curled about his head, drawing his ear to her belly, to rest over the womb where their child was growing. She bent, touching her lips to his hair. "Grief is a part of life, Jon," she murmured softly. "We'd be doing him a disservice if we tried to shorten his mourning."

He couldn't hear a second heartbeat, but somehow he knew another life was living inside there somewhere. A daughter, a son, maybe both. It didn't matter. A child of their own, a product of their love. He turned his head toward her, looking up into that freckled face that looked so like her mother, and he wondered how Gwen's death hadn't destroyed Dom, how he'd found the strength to go on. In that moment, Jon admitted his own deepest fear. "I don't want to lose you. I want to grow old with you."

Her fingers smoothed against his cheeks, tracing the much loved, well known lines of his face as she met his gaze, deeply moved by the very real terror in his eyes as he confessed his fear. Vicki had never lied to him; she was not about to start now. "Oh, love ..." she sighed softly, lowering into a crouch beside his chair, holding his gaze earnestly. "I can't promise that I'll be here with you until you're ready to let me go, anymore than you can make the same promise to me. But I can promise to make the time we have together the very best it can be."

He followed her with his eyes as she crouched down beside him, turning to face her as she did her best to reassure him. Nothing lasts forever, he knew, and that was sort of the whole point of wanting to get married as soon as possible, no more time wasted between them. He cupped her cheek lovingly with the palm of his hand, blue eyes serious and adamant. "Life is too short, Vicki. I don't want to waste a single moment."

One of her failings was not being able to stay in the moment if it was serious or solemn, no matter how much she should. Vicki's lips twitched, her smile stifled but not before it offered up a warning that she was about to change emotional gears again. ?"Well, then," she murmured playfully, "why are you taking so long to finish your dinner?"

To Jon, it wasn't a failing, as he was her exact opposite, often losing himself to a serious moment and unable to drag himself out without her help. In such a way, they were perfect for each other and always had been. "Impatient, are we?" he asked, sliding a hand up against her bare arm.

"Hmm, let me see ..." Her lips curved into a warm smirk as a faint shiver rippled through her under the trace of his hand against her skin. "Yes." Blunt and honest as ever, she moved to rise to her feet. "Especially since one of us has to get the dishwasher started before the residue turns into concrete," she added, bending to kiss the very tip of his nose with a grin. "Before anything else."

He pouted up at her practicality. He could care less about the dishes. He caught hold of her hand before she could go and pulled her back to draw her down into his lap. The sun was slowly going down, setting the sky on fire, not unlike the flames in his heart. "The dishes can wait," he told her matter-of-factly. He'd scrape them himself later if he had to.

Vicki laughed as he blocked her escape, knowing her practical side did annoy him from time to time. Drawn down onto his lap, however, she had no objection to being overruled this time, looping her arms around his neck as the sunlight slowly turned from gold to red, bathing them both in the last rays of the evening as her lips touched his. "Something tells me you can't wait, though," she teased impishly, nipping at his jaw as one hand smoothed down his chest once again, a thumb flicking a couple of buttons open in its wake.

He smiled, happy to have his way, or maybe this was what she'd wanted all along. He'd eaten enough to sustain him for a while, and there was plenty left for later, so long as they didn't wait too long to get it packed in the fridge. "I'm impatient when it comes to you," he admitted, his lips rekindling the fire he'd started in the bedroom before dinner had arrived, tracing her jaw to end with a nibble at her earlobe.

She was putty in his hands within moments, pliable to his whims as he reignited the smouldering desire she had banked away before their food had arrived. The speed with which that arousal rose shocked the breath from her lungs, her fingers curling through his hair as she shuddered in his arms, easing her palm beneath his shirt, over his heart once again. "Believe me," she breathed, tipping her head until her forehead touched his, eyes dark with promise, "I'm just as impatient for you."

"Then, what are we waiting for?" he asked, his heart beating steadily against the palm of her hand, pulse leaping with desire. Though they were high above the city and the prying eyes of onlookers, he wanted her all to himself, somewhere soft and comfortable where he could take his time with her, despite his impatience. He moved to his feet, easily scooping her up in his arms and carrying her back inside, back to the bedroom to finish what they'd started.

((Yup, Jon and Vicki are incommunicado on Earth for the next four weeks or so. Here's hoping they aren't brutally murdered by the Grangers when they return if they do manage to get married before getting home! Thanks to Jon's player, as always, for a brilliant scene!))