Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. I just like breaking them out for playtime.

Spoilers: The Day We Died. This fic takes place inside the time loop of 2026. It's a little ficlet of what P and O's life could have been like leading up to that particular future.

I was told I'd never do a marriage fic, or a lemony-limey taste of tantalizing goodness, so I decided to wager that bet. As my last fic, this is all the same story, but broken down into chapters to make it more easily readable. Cause, like always, it ends up being longer then I'd intended.

This is dedicated to all my fans. Especially Eliays. You're such a sweetheart and you make publishing these worth it. ;)

There's hot breath on the back of her neck, between her shoulder-blades, falling in waves of contentment over the thin cotton of the shirt that she's claimed for herself.

This is what she's grown use to, at three in the morning, the emanation of his peace rolling over her upper back, the segment of her body that he buries his face in when he's pressed up and behind her.

He deserves the sleep, she thinks, feeling the splendid sore between her legs and the whisper of his hands on her hip bones, digging into her skin to balance them both above the height of this bed.

She feels her cheeks flush on the thought, because he's quite good at it, this love thing, this showing her his affection runs so much deeper then his surface thing. She feels it crash into her, every time he guides her through another toe-curling, mind-numbing stratosphere of bliss and heaven.

And she has an excuse now, to live in it, everyday, for the rest of their extreme and crazy lives.

He shifts a little, pushes himself into her just a little bit more, and she melts into his heat and the touch splayed across the side of her thigh. It's the metal of his wedding band, amid the warmth, two centimeters of cool silver evoking goosebumps on her sweat-dried flesh.

Every night, he touches her like this and every night, despite exhaustion, despite his physical diligence forcing her structureless, she stays awake to feel the excitement of her papillae from the caress of his left-hand.

Even her skin reacts to the promise he's become.

And she chose, two months ago, when he proclaimed on a car-ride that Bishop would suit her first name, to find amidst the darkness of their calling, the happy of hers he holds in blue flecks of gray eyes.

In his own way, he'd proposed, and catching him off guard, she'd said Olivia Bishop would look good on her office door.

And she was right, because it does. In the same way it looks good on her mail, and her name plate, and the love lines formed at the corner of his eyes.

Two weeks ago, she became his wife, and she was told her sister cried, and Astrid cried, and Ella clapped with Broyles when it was all over, but all she remembers is Peter's face, and the love written in each and every beautiful contour that dared her heart combust with the eight million degrees of his devotion.

That same devotion swam through her veins tonight, excited her neurons, came alive like nights before in greedy lips and hands and slick, ravenous bodies and bedsheets.

For the rest of her life, they are too each other a late night escape from the terrors of the world.

The only one left in the consequence of their yesteryear heroics.

Because that other universe is gone, and his father was blamed, and she'd held Peter for hours as he cried into her shoulder at the end the trial.

Their lives in the daylight thrive on real nightmares. It's only in here, that they dare dream out loud.

And so for six beautiful, somber hours like these, nothing exists but the feel of him against her and the glory he heats every cell in her blood with.

In this darkness, there are no monsters.

She puts her hands on his, on the thought, traces the outline of his band with her index finger and thumb and because she's so completely overwhelmed by the normalcy, the domestic tranquility these rare moments derive of, she scoots further back and into him, letting herself merely feel.

He's become part of her own biological make-up, an intricate part of her DNA; his life-giving morsels of heat, electricity and affection impelling the rest of her to stay alive and survive.

If only to experience her turn at providence, the kind of fortuitous all-over heaven-scent gratification his every ion titillates her with. As it's titillating her now, sending a low, deep pulse of heat straight through to her solar plexus, a growing impatience of a faint, always-there desire that burns in her lower abdomen.

In plenty more ways then one, she'll always need him.

She wriggles against him, and that pulse quickens, excitedly, and in response he groans, low and sexily, and she bites her lip because she knows she's just wrestled him, with the thrill of her hips against his torso, into her waking world.

"Again, Jesus Liv, you're going to kill me. I'm still not over the last time." his voice is hoarse, propelling the hot words into the top of her spine.

"I think I got a splinter from the headboard, I told you it was a crazy idea."

She laughs, low and it's a sound that resonates through the bedroom.

He's moving his hand now, up and down her thigh, leaving tickles of aftershock to dance on her skin.

And when it climbs up to her hip-bone, she catches her breath, closes her eyes. If he keeps this up, she won't be able to settle down her growing ache; the sister-desire of the urge he'd just satiated, an hour ago, before they'd fallen to the mattress with matching, raised heart-rates.

"Well I liked it."

She confirms, and feels him smile against her shoulder.

"Of course you did. You always like it. It's why you married me."

She turns into him, and his nose now nuzzles the crook of her neck.

"And see, here I thought I married you for your irresistible charm."

"More like my irresistible something else."

Her laugh is precocious, a happy, auditory impression that's become second nature in his air.

"You're right. I've been made."

She feigns, and he chuckles, in the kind of amusement forced from tarrying sleep.

"I don't blame you." he says into the pillow, his voice tickling her ear."I only married you so I could have my way with you whenever I wanted."

She wants to do more then smile,wants to grant him the praise he deserves for the humor, but she can only clench her lip, clamp down on the over stimulation of her body brought on by his words.

And lazily, he slides his hand up a little higher, caressing the soft skin of her belly, and his ring makes a home at the top of her navel. So she shifts, trying to steel her self-control, but it only moves his hand lower.

"I don't remember that bit in your vows."

She says, tampering her nerve-ends as he breathes her in.

"It was in the fine print." he responds, then for effect, "You'd know that if you followed the asterisk."

Again, she can't laugh, because there's goose-flesh where he's exciting her tissue. It's his desire too, that's seeping into her now, frustrating her still body into a rage of lust and need that's borne of his synchrony.

This deluge of his allure, always finds its way into her, and his inner under-coursing of things felt makes it hard, if not impossible, for her to remain self-contained.

On these nights, in these dark hours, his magnetism sends a primal kind through her, and the end is a primitive pleasure she's helpless against.

An unrelenting excitement that instigates her surrender.

There's moonlight stretching now, filtering through the blinds above their bed, and she catches her band in the nocturnal light. She admires the smooth silver, the way it shines against milky-peach in the emblem of her vow to him.

In here, this ring was her anchor, grounding her in a mind-set of genuine possibility. It reminds her that good things can appear in the clearing of darkness.

Years ago, he taught her this.

And now it's no longer just a Peter thing, it's a Bishop one.

"Hey, you okay?"

He's felt her re-direction, the turning over of her contemplation in the heavier quiet of the room and rigid pose of her body.

He can do this; read her, even in early-morning darkness with closed eyes and a sleep-hazed shroud, his every sense is keenly aware of her mood, her silence.

Then again, it's not silence at all when facing his stunning perception.

She can't hide in her own mind from his straight-through-to-her-bones deduction, his gene-specific discernment of her any constitution that knows only her, ascertains only her.

He comprehends every thought she ever has.

They're inner-connected more deeply then words and rings. Body and soul, they're individually indiscernible now.

The heart in her chest pumps her blood to his beat.

"Yeah." she says, her voice quiet. " Yeah, I'm wonderful."

Her mouth curves, as she runs her hand along his forearm, her fingers tracing the soft hair before she entwines his hands in hers.

"Good." he says,"According to this hot blond I know, I'm pretty wonderful, too."

Louder then before, she laughs, a pull of her diaphragm that fills her in the only way he can. And she feels his smile, a light vibration down the length of her back, her legs and the bed.

This is what she needs, and he knows it.

Because every part of his juvenile, three am humor makes her forget-in the horrid consequence of their nine to five life, that they wrote their destiny the day he went into that machine.

For all intents and purposes, it was the day they died.

But in these moments he never lets her ponder it, digresses her thoughts away from the auto-pilot of her dark place. Instead, with his touch and his kiss and his taste and his flesh, he reminds her that not everything has to be lost.

Somethings are found in the simplest of places.

Her euphoria hangs on the edge of his wit, his mind, and the bourbon nectar sweetness of his mouth that stakes it's claim on her skin.

The thrill of it all expands under her sternum, a swift implosion of her chest's core muscle that latches itself onto everything he means to her. And when she squirms under him, he groans again, his hot breath on her shoulder then above her, his hand trailing down to her ribcage as she turns to face him.

He's disheveled, stunningly so, his hair, a messy tuft of her impatient, roaming hands. It's a little longer now, then he usually wears it, but she likes the way if falls on his temples, short waves she brushes back now with a gentle sweep of her fingers. It makes him look younger, innocent almost if not for the beautiful lines of experience etched in his face. And after his hair, she traces his jaw, the stubble there tickling her finger-pads, a fine sandpaper that leaves her skin red and raw in all the hidden places he brands her.

Then it's his lips she finds, brushing the thin flesh with her thumbs, imagining again, the haste in them finding her own, swelling her own, fusing into her more promise then a kiss should hold.

And suddenly she sees a little boy with his eyes and a small girl with his hair, a future she's surrendered-in the moments when they've talked about a family-to impracticality and risk. There's too much danger now, in this chaotic, dark world. Still, she runs away with the thought, imagines him loving the child they want so badly, that two hearts crack in the silence of a rational choice.

In any other reality but this, one plus one would make three.

And it's now, that her quiet, has him raising a brow, a silent question indented between them, and when she meets his eyes, they're a striking pale-blue in the bleeding moonlight, thick lashed, and half-drawn, an introspection of desire, arousal, and the shallow absorption of a lingering exhaustion. And through it all, he smiles at her, an assuring grin that teases her with it's brilliance, that tells her no matter where she's at, she'll find his comfort here, at the end of her faraway place.

He's so painstakingly beautiful, in every way possible, it's stolen the air from her lungs.

"God, I love you."

She says it so strongly, so powerfully, the force of it drives her heart mad, fast flutters of kinetic incitement, an electric pull of his everything her whole body gives in to.

It makes his smile stretch, a captivating tug of his reaction that makes his teeth clamp down on his bottom lip. And his eyes turn dangerous, obsidian, straying away from hers to find her mouth.

It's carnal desire, this response, a predatory concentration that's descrying it's prey, that's derailing her heart's mania, turning it inside out, upside down and haywire, the way it always does when he's enthralled with her this way.

And he conquers her with it, pressing his lips to hers in a soft kiss, then he deepens it, as his hand finds her cheek, caresses the skin, his tongue tracing the edge of hers, sending every nerve-end there out downward, until the heat of her arousal is seizing spasmodically through every system under her flesh.

And she doesn't want him to stop, wants all of this to go further, the way it always does but this time he pulls back, leaves her body alone in it's maddening impatience.

He's breathing heavy, when he brushes a loose strand of hair from her face, concentrates again on her eyes and the love she safe-guards there.

"You'd better love me." he says, and she knows, from the twinkle in his stare, he's about to say something cocky. "I don't risk injury for just any reason."

He lifts his finger to her vision, and draws down his face, an over-dramatization of the small assault on his finger-pad, the invisible splinter he apparently has. This makes her roll her eyes, grin, press her palm to the one he has raised, and entwines their hands.

"Well I'm glad you'd risk it for me."

She tells him, and during a few, quiet seconds, under slats of the night's reaching white-light, his eyes change, dark to pale-blue again, a piercing emanation of his soul that buries into hers, weighs it down with the strength of his love for her.

Every night, this is the way he looks at her, in the quiet minutes just before dawn, when he's rustled her awake, and she opens her vision to the glorious sight of him. And just because he can, he tells her he loves her, and no matter what the day will bring, he'll love her even more by the end of it.

Admittedly, in their first days together, he was a self-interested cynic. But even then, he couldn't stop his quiet romanticism from showing his true colors.

And to this day, she's blinded by them.

This look now, is his wordless promise, the same one she saw five years ago, on the first night they spent together, and it's the same one she'll see until the sun dies away.

His gaze finds her collar now, and her clavicle, and when he takes his hand back, his fingers find the unbuttoned hem of her shirt, and they trail along her breast-plate before they stop, right above the swell of her breast. Then he cocks a brow, an animation of the same, smug grin that just appeared on his face.

"It's hard not to love you when you're wearing my shirt." he says, in a teasing tone. "Or when you're not."

Then slowly, carefully, he undoes one button, then two, lighting the skin under his path. But before he exposes her completely, he stops, again. He knows what he does to her, when he teases her like this, has her flirting with an edge he won't let her find, makes her want him, so viciously, every part of her burns like wildfire.