November in New York City was wrapped up in Thanksgiving and the build up to Christmas as the weather worsened and the dark nights drew in. Working a fourteen-hour day was never much fun, but somehow it was worse when you went into work in the dark and left in the dark. The only sunlight Beth got to see during working hours at the moment was on her lunch-break. Thankfully she only worked two or three days a week, and today was her last before she got a good four days off - a really long weekend, for once.

Of course, this being the case, she shouldn't have been surprised by the emergency that crashed through the doors of the E.R. ten minutes before the end of her shift, caught up in the treatment of this particular patient for a good forty minutes before she could finally hand over and get herself on the way home. Thankfully, the condo wasn't too far away from the hospital, even if she was an hour later than she'd been expecting, but finally, at twenty past ten in the evening, the key jangled in the lock, and Bethany Granger could consider herself home for the night.

As for Jason, he'd had an equally long day. Holidays in New York tended to bring out the crazies in people, and though the pre-holidays craziness hadn't hit its peak yet, it was definitely getting underway. He had somehow managed to beat Beth home, though his work schedule was almost as erratic as hers was. It wasn't unusual for her to be late, and so he went about his normal routine. He took a shower and changed and put some pasta on the stove. First one home usually did the cooking, unless they were going out. They had fallen into a mostly comfortable routine since moving in together and were already practically like an old married couple.

"I hate my job," she called out as she pushed in through the door, her tone as light as it would have been if she'd gone with the cliched, "Honey, I'm home!" Chuckling to herself, she toed out of her shoes by the door, leaving her coat and scarf hanging on a hook nearby, and wandered toward the kitchen, following her nose as she drew her engagement ring off her necklace to reinstate it on her finger. "Hey, handsome, what?s cooking?"

He was standing at the stove stirring the pasta when she came in, and he turned his head toward her to offer a warm and welcoming smile. "Welcome home, beautiful. How was work?" he asked as she made her way into the kitchen. "And you do not hate your job or you'd quit."

"I hate my job when it doesn't let me leave at the end of my shift," she qualified her statement with a grin, sidling up behind him to have a good grope of his rear end as her lips brushed his cheek. "Work was a gruesome display of blood and guts, as usual. The colder it gets, the more stupid people get. How was yours?" She nuzzled to him affectionately, always only too happy to shower her Jason in open warmth whenever she could.

Since his hands were already occupied with the pasta making, he was unable to return the groping or to resist. Instead, he only smiled momentarily, at least until she got more specific about her job. With her working the E.R. and him a homicide detective, each saw their own share of horrors in a days' work and both had equally learned how to set it aside when the day was done. "All the crazies come out for the holidays," he agreed, though he wouldn't go into specifics, not because he wasn't supposed to, but because he didn't want to. "Why don't you grab a shower and get comfy' Dinner should be ready soon."

"Hmmm ..." Her arms smoothed around his waist as she leaned into his back. Despite their both working equally stressful jobs, Beth never felt any pressure to either talk about her work day or to keep it a secret from Jason. He was supportive in just the right way, which certainly boded well for their married life. Her lips brushed his neck once again. "You know, if you weren't cooking, I'd insist you come and scrub my back," she informed him playfully. "But I guess I'll just have to save that for tomorrow." She sighed, making the most out of her feigned disappointment, and giggled into his ear, dropping a last kiss on his cheek. "Okay, hot stuff, I'm gonna wash it all off and prance around in nothing but one of your shirts for the rest of the evening. How's that sound?"

He liked the feel of her arms around his waist, which didn't inhibit him a bit when it came to cooking dinner. "You're off tomorrow, aren't you?" he asked, already presuming to know the answer to that question. They were both well aware of each other's schedules, but those schedules were also liable to sometimes change without much notice. "I was thinking maybe we should go to dinner and show."

"Mmm, I'm off the next four days," she agreed with a warm purr to her tone. "We get a weekend together for the first time in ages." Barring either of them being called in on short notice, that was. Thankfully, it didn't seem to happen very often. "And I think that sounds great," she agreed with a grin, glad to have a stretch of days off where she didn't have to hop the portal to Rhy'Din. She loved her mother, but getting a weekend alone with Jason was rare enough that Beth guarded them with a vengeance. "I'll grab a shower. Won't be long."

Weekends were short enough, what with squeezing in visits to see his mom, getting settled into their new home in Miranda's old condo, and preparing for the wedding. Every minute they could steal away alone together, no matter how short, was precious and taken full advantage of. Tonight was the first night they'd actually been able to sit down to dinner together in a few days, but that only made the evenings they were able to spend together that much more pleasurable. "Okay, dinner is just about ready," he warned.

"I'll be quick," she promised, offering up one last squeeze of his backside before she tore herself away to go and make use of the facilities. She paused briefly to strip out of her tunic and pants and throw them into the washing machine on her way past, but was quickly out of sight, though still audible as the shower started up.

He chuckled again when she gave his backside a squeeze, blue eyes sparkling with amusement. He checked on the garlic bread in the oven while half-listening to her in the shower. Dinner for them was not just a time to enjoy a meal, but a time to catch up with each other and share the various goings on in their lives, both with their respective careers and otherwise, and it was the favorite part of Jason's day.

Her wide mouth quirked into a half-smile at that obvious sign of his surprise, pausing for a long moment to finish another mouthful of pasta. "Well, it's not something I ever really thought about, before I met you," she confessed, more amused by the admission than embarrassed by it. "I'm not saying I want to rush into things before we're ready, or that I want to fill the house with children we can't afford to look after. But ....well, yeah. If you're on board, then I would like to have kids someday."

"Of course I want children!" he exclaimed, laughing a little with relief. "I just wasn't sure you did." He seemed to relax a little now that he knew they were on the same page, at least where a family was concerned, and he really didn't want to live in Miranda's condo forever either. "Two. A girl and a boy," he suggested with a teasing smile, though there was no assurance things would turn out that way. In fact, he didn't really have a preference either way.

Beth relaxed as he laughed, as pleased as he was that they were on the same page with this one. It wasn't something they'd discussed before, except to share their mutual distaste for the various wrong reasons other people had children. "And Mom said making big decisions was hard in a couple," she teased fondly, chewing on another piece of garlic bread. "Well, see, I was thinking ....we get a house, or whatever, somewhere that's ours. And I can get out of the E.R. into a job that has better hours, so we can fix it up the way we like it. So when we're ready, you can impregnate me and we'll take it from there." She winked impishly. "Not that we won't be doing a lot of practicing before that decision is made. We really should be experts by the time we actually decide to make the most of our fertility."

The corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled, relieved to be having this discussion at last and before they got married. Not that it would have mattered - he had loved her through countless lifetimes and would love her again, whether they had a family or not, but it was good to know they were on the same page. "I think that sounds like a great idea. In fact, I was thinking the same thing. As nice as this place is, it doesn't feel like home. If we want to raise a family, we need a house with a yard and that's close to schools and parks and a playground. And we need to get a dog. You know, I've never had a dog" Mom was allergic." He frowned briefly at the mention of his mother, though he was excited they were making plans for their future.

His fiancee's eyes lit up at that last suggestion. "I've always wanted to get a dog," she confessed through a wide smile. It wasn't that she hadn't noticed his frown, but she wanted to hold off on the conversation that was coming until their meal was over. "But, you know, here Mom had Andy, and in Harlem, I just didn't have space or, you know, time. And for some reason, I find it really easy to imagine you with a Great Dane." She chuckled softly, wiping up her pasta sauce with a last piece of bread.

"A Great Dane?" he echoed, laughing. "And here I can see you with a poodle." He smiled over the table at her as the two of them finished up their dinner. "Maybe we should visit a shelter sometime. Get a rescue dog. After we move." There was that frown again as another thought came to mind. "I don't really want to leave a dog home alone all day while we're at work."

Beth bit her lip, wondering just how he was going to react to what she was about to say. "Well, there are a couple of choices there," she pointed out. "I mean, if I get a job at a doctor's office close to where we move to, I'd be able to come home in the middle of the day, so the dog wouldn't be alone for more than four hours at a time. Or ....or you could transfer to the dog handling unit and take on one of those fellas."

From the expression on his face, he was more than a little surprised by her suggestion, but she was right. If they really wanted to raise a family together, they were going to have to make some changes and those changes might include their careers. "You want me to join the Canine Unit?" he asked, never having considered that possibility before.

She laughed, shaking her head. "I'm not saying it's my lifelong ambition to see you manhandling a German Shepherd," she grinned. "It's just a thought, it's a way to have a dog and not have to worry about leaving him or her all alone for a few hours at a time. But it is just a thought. Personally, I'd rather go with one or both of us being able to get an hour in the middle of the day to rough-house with a dog, but we don't always get what we want." She shrugged. "It's your career, Jason. I'm not going to tell you what you should or shouldn't do with your career."

"I just never thought about it much," he admitted. "It's an interesting thought. I've been working Homicide for so long, it's kind of become a habit." And like her, though he knew his job was important, he was starting to get burned out. "I'll look into it. It's not like it has to happen overnight, but I might have to take a cut in pay." He assumed there was probably a waiting list, and he'd have to go through the training process.

"I had a couple of thoughts about money, too, actually," she offered up, this time a little awkward. "I thought that, maybe, we could ask my parents to put up the money to buy a place outright, so we wouldn't need the mortgage, and we could pay them monthly repayments. That way, if money gets tight, we don't need to worry so much about being chucked out, because I highly doubt they'd do that to us."

He smiled at her suggestion, or more likely at the thought of her parents kicking their own daughter out onto the streets for skipping their mortgage payments. He knew enough about Miranda to know she wasn't hurting for money, though he didn't want to take advantage of that. "Yeah, I don't see your parents kicking us out." In fact, just the opposite. Knowing Miranda, they might actually have to insist on repaying their debt. "When do you want to start looking?" he asked as he moved to his feet to start collecting up the dirty dishes.

Swallowing a mouthful of water, Beth rose to her own feet to help, taking advantage of the new position to nip his jaw affectionately. "I was thinking maybe we could take a quick tour of a few real estate agents day after tomorrow. Just the morning, after we visit your mom. It's not a big rush, or anything, but it might be nice to have somewhere we can move into not too long after we tie the knot."

"Day after tomorrow?" he echoed as he got his jaw nipped, unable to reciprocate as his hands were full of dirty dishes. "I think I can swing that," he added agreeable, after a short pause to go over his work schedule in his head. He rarely brought work home or talked about it, but the constant grind was starting to wear him down. He turned to set the dishes in the sink, a thoughtful frown on his face. He was glad his life - and hers - was starting to come together, but there was still one very big decision that needed to be made, and he was reluctant to bring it up.

He rested his head against a hand, fingers buried in his hair. It was a lot to think about, and he didn't want to think about it all alone. This wasn't just his decision to make; whatever was decided would affect her life, too, and possibly the lives of their children, if and when they had them. "No, but they'd want to know about her treatment. They'd want to know how she was cured." It seemed there was no perfect solution to this predicament, and he hadn't even decided if he was willing to shorten her lifespan to cure her condition. "Or we move her to private care," he suggested, unsure if that would work.

"That could work," she agreed, her voice quiet as they talked it over. Her arm wrapped about his shoulders, fingers rubbing gently against his shirt as she thought this one over. "I'm pretty sure this healer in Rhy'Din could be convinced to pose as a private specialist to take over her care from her current doctor. Then it would just be a matter of fudging the paper trail, and I've been involved in enough transfers to know how to do that. All we'd have to do would be find a house outside the neighborhood her doctor works in, and she could live with us in relative anonymity."

"Do you really think that could work, Beth?" he asked, tilting his head toward her. He was about at the end of his rope where his mother's illness was concerned and was almost afraid to hope. It wasn't a perfect solution and certainly wasn't a true cure, but it would theoretically give her a few good quality years of life, as opposed to another decade in a nursing home where she was bound to deteriorate even further. "I need a few days to think about it," he admitted, drawing comfort from her touch. He wished he could ask his mother what she wanted, but there was no way to do that, and no matter how supportive Beth was, in the end, it was his decision to make.

"It'd need a lot of organizing, and it would probably take a few weeks to sort out and be believable," she told him. "There'd have to be at least one visit by whoever we get to be our doctor to see your mom as she is and not do anything, as well as the transfer of information from her care team. But ....yeah, I think it could work." She leaned close to him, itching to offer her own opinion on the decision, but not wanting to push him.

"Do you think it could be done in time for the wedding?" he asked, for the first time since his mother's diagnosis, starting to feel hopeful. If there was anyone's opinion he trusted, it was Beth's - not just because she was his fiancee, but because she was in the medical profession and he knew she would be honest with him.

"Uh ..." That was a tough one to answer, but at least she could answer that question. "The fastest transfer I was ever involved in was three weeks from the day of referral to the new doctor," she told him, nodding as she spoke. "So ....yeah, we could probably get it done in time for the wedding. Things slow up a little around the holidays, but if we put enough pressure on - and the fact that we wouldn't actually be waiting on a bed in a private care home - we should be able to get it sorted out that quick. Maybe even in time for Christmas."

"Are we going to Rhy'Din for Christmas?" he asked, as another topic that needed deciding on made itself known. He wasn't even sure if he'd be able to get time off work for Christmas yet, though he'd put in a request for it. He wasn't sure yet, but he might have to remain on call. The crazies had a tendency to crawl out of the woodwork during the holidays.

She shook her head regretfully. "I'm working until Christmas Eve," she admitted reluctantly. "I'm glad I took four weeks instead of just the three for the honeymoon, though. Means I get a week before the wedding to snoodle up with you. Did you manage to get the four weeks as well, or are you gonna be working up until the wedding day?"

"I got four weeks, but that means I'll probably have to work Christmas or, at least, be on call." He smiled a little, trying to see the bright side of things. "It'll be our first Christmas together," he said, with a soft caress against her cheek. He hadn't really had much to celebrate the last few years. Christmas had either been spent at the nursing home or at the precinct. Unfortunately, criminals didn't take a holiday.

"Well, I'm working until 9pm on Christmas Eve, I think I can handle you being on call for the day itself," she chuckled fondly, leaning into his caress with a tender smile of her own. "First of many together," she assured him, catching his hand between her own to kiss his fingertips. "I love you, Jase. Always have, always will."

"I love you, too, Beth," he replied, mirroring her smile as she drew his fingers to her lips. Always was a long time, and in their case, it didn't just mean one lifetime, but many - a culmination of lifetimes starting in Ancient Rome. "We're gonna have our happy ending this time around, Beth. Promise."

"Hey, I just gave you the right to insert a squatter in my womb at some point," she teased him warmly, leaning close to brush the tip of her nose to his. "I'd say that's a pretty good indicator we're already working on that happy ending, wouldn't you?"

"A squatter," he echoed laughing. "Are you going to try charging rent?" he asked with a smirk, his mood lightening. Their conversation had run the gamut tonight and though it had turned temporarily solemn, they had circled back around to the possibility - the inevitability - of children.

"C'mon, you know squatters don't pay rent," she laughed, cozying up to him affectionately. As serious as their conversation had been, they couldn't continue on it without a decision being made, and she knew it was too soon for that. So she was turning to humor to help change the subject. "They do get evicted after a certain amount of time, though."

"About nine months in this case," he added in agreement. "There's no rush, Beth. We have plenty of time to sort things out." But not plenty of time to decide on what to do about his mother. He was already leaning more one way than another, but needed a few days to think it over before coming to a final decision. "So..." he started, reaching to pull her into his lap. "Do you want dessert now or later?" he asked with a mischievous smile, letting her assume what she might.

It didn't take much to get her into his lap, her arms curling around his neck as she met his mischievous smile with her own. "Can I draw a smiley face on you with my dessert and lick it off?" she asked him sweetly, offering up a cheeky way in which to combine the two suggestions being made.

He slid his arms around her waist as she settled herself on his lap. "That depends on where you want to draw it." And hence, where she wanted to lick it off of. "You know, I think the dishes can wait. What do you think?" he asked as he leaned close to leave a trail of kisses against her neck.

She purred softly as his lips caressed the line of her throat, her eyes falling closed to savor his affection for a long moment before she answered. "I'll do them tomorrow," was her eventual response, somewhat muffled by the way she tipped her head to touch her forehead to his, her own lips less than an inch from his as she spoke in the barest moment before catching him in a slow, tender kiss.

It was the first weekend they had alone together in weeks, and Jason intended to make the most of it. What started with conversation had eventually led to an embrace, a tender kiss, the stress and tension of their everyday lives and jobs drifting away as they relaxed and surrendered to the other's affection, forgetting the outside world for a while to focus on each other. For a little while at least, nothing else mattered outside of each other. The rest of the world could wait awhile; this time was about them.

And the rest of the world would wait a while. Beth was very good at ignoring anything and everything that wasn't Jason whenever she had the opportunity. For years, her world had centered around her mother and her work; now she had someone who touched her heart and soul, and she wasn't going to make the mistake of putting him anywhere but at the top of her list of priorities. Jason reaped the rewards of that single-minded attention in more ways than one, secure in the knowledge that in just over a month, there'd be one less Granger and one more Daly in the world.

((Finally they're making actual life decisions together - it's about time! :grin: Huge thanks to Jason's player for indulging me!))