Till Death Do Us Part

“Oh, Blake!” she sighed as she closed the gap between them and threw her arms around his neck. “I’ve missed you so much!” She put her hands on his face and passionately kissed him.

Jesse closed his eyes and pulled her to him as he kissed her back. When they broke the kiss he put his hand behind her head and stared into her eyes. “How is this possible, Li? You died over twelve years ago in that car wreck. I identified the body. It is not possible for you to be standing here.”

“It is a long story, Love. I’m just happy to be back with you. You don’t know how much I needed you over the last few years. I have so much that I need to tell you, and I want to hear everything about your life.” she hugged him tightly and laid her head on his shoulder. “I can hardly wait to put back on my ring!”

“Li, we really need to talk.” he gently pushed her away. “You’ve got to understand that I really thought you were dead for these last twelve years. I’m supposed to be married the day after tomorrow.”

“You can’t get married, Blake! We’re married! We’re married to each other! You promised me, now and forever!” the tears started to run down her cheeks. “I still love you, Blake!”

“Li, our marriage was declared null and void after we all thought that you were dead. What did you expect me to do? Did you want me to spend the rest of my life alone?” he wiped her tears away and gently took her hand. “I’ll be honest, I don’t know what to do now. I still care about you a great deal, but you’ve been dead to me for the last twelve years. Lexa and I have taken a lot of time in getting to this point. I’m only able to marry her now because I’ve just gotten over loosing you, and now I have no clue of what to do. We are all three going to have to sit down and talk through this.”

“Blake, I need to know, do you still love me?”

“Of course I do, Li.” Jesse led her to the Helix Two. “But no matter how I feel about you there is still the fact that I am engaged to another woman who I love very much. I spent six years with her getting to the point where we could consider getting married.” he shook his head slightly “Lets just go to Sanctuary and talk to Lexa about this. And before I forget, I don’t go by my middle name at all any more. I’m not sure if Lexa even knows what my middle name is.”

“Alright, Jesse.” Madeline answered coolly. “But there are a few things that I should tell you about what has happened over the last twelve years.”

“We can talk about this when we talk to Lexa. I cannot do anything unless we are all three aware of everything.”

“You should know this before we talk to her. I don’t want you to hear this for the first time while we are in front of your fiancé.”

“Alright.” Jesse punched in a few command on the Helix Two so that the autopilot was engaged. “What do you want to tell me?”

“When I left, and I will explain to you about that later, I was pregnant.” she felt the tears stream down her face. “It gave me so much hope to know that I had a small part of you to carry me through. every time I stared to miss you too terribly, I looked in the mirror so I could see how my body was changing due to the child that was growing inside of me. Your child.”

“Is that why you apparently faked your own death? Were you too worried that Adam was going to find out and try to take the baby from us?”

“I didn’t know that I was pregnant until after I left. We conceived on our wedding night.” Madeline wiped at her eyes. “We would have had a son to raise together if I had known. He was the most beautiful thing that I’ve ever seen in my life and for the split second that I saw him nothing else in the world mattered to me. I don’t know how many times I’ve wondered how it could have been to be a mother, and I wish that I had been given the chance?”

“What happed to him?” Jesse took her hand and held it tightly.

“Bla-Jesse, I don’t know how I can bring myself to say this. It still hurts me so very much. My superiors did not want me to have a baby. They tried countless times to get me to agree to an abortion or to put the baby up for adoption, but I couldn’t do either of those things to our child. I think they decided that the only way to take care of the problem was to kill the baby. A week before I was due they gave me a shot, it was supposed to prevent me and the baby from catching some virus that was going around, but I know the truth. They killed the baby, and when I went into labor I delivered a still born baby. I saw him only for a split second and only because I begged the doctor to let me see him.”

“Oh, Li, I’m sorry.” he squeezed her hand. “I wish that I could have been there for you. I would have protected our baby.”

“I know that you would have.” Madeline smiled ever so slightly. “You always fixed my problems for me. Sometimes you fixed them before I even knew that I had them.”

“I just could never fix my own problems.” he let go of her hand and slammed a fist on the arm of his chair. “What am I going to do?! I married you twelve years ago, promised that I’d stay with you until death; and now I’m just about to marry Lexa, to make that same promise to her.”

“Are you still going to marry her now that I’m back? Now that we can finally have our life together back?”

“I love her, Li. I love her enough to chance making a life long commitment to her. I don’t know what to do though because I still love you.” he took a deep breath as he tried to think. “You know the only reason I came here was to find out where Adam is or if he is even still alive. I never expected to find out that my wife was still living, that a child I never knew we created was murdered by an organization that I probably know nothing about.”

“We are going to get vengeance for our baby’s death.” Madeline promised. “And then we are going to fix the problems in our marriage and I will give you a child, one that we can raise together. I’m sure that Lexa will understand once you and I explain everything to her.”

“Don’t make plans yet, Li. I am still not sure how to react to all of this. There is a part of me that wants to tell you that I’ll end things with Lexa, and that you and I will renew our vows and started our own family; but there is a part of me that is madly in love with a woman who I’ve spent six years getting to know, and that part of me wants to settle down and raise a family too, but with Lexa.”

“You told me that you fell in love with me from the moment we met and that absolutely nothing could ever change how you felt about me.”

“I know.” Jesse sighed. “I remember.”

Flashback

“I want you to meet Madeline Hart.” Adam said as he put his hands on the shoulders of the petite redhead beside him. “She is one of the best information specialists that you will ever meet.”

Shalimar stared at the woman for a moment, trying to get a feel for her. Finally she nodded, her decision about the woman made. “It is nice to meet you, Madeline. I hope that we will enjoy working together.”

“It is nice to meet you too.” Madeline smiled brightly. “I am sure that you and I will become very good friends.”

Jesse continued to stare at the woman. He could not help but think that she was the most beautiful and the most perfect woman he had ever met. “It’s nice to meet you, Madeline.”

“Thank you.” she gave him a slightly softer smile. “I understand that we will be working together a lot since you are the computer expert around here.”

“We probably will. I hope you have a high tolerance for people. Shal says that I tend to be extremely annoying about my interest in computers and get on everyone’s nerves by constantly talking about them.”

“Trust me, you and I will work everything out. I am absolutely sure that we can.”

End of Flashback

“Do you still believe that you and I can always make everything work out for the best?” Jesse asked as he got up and walked to the back of the plane to get two bottles of water.

“I don’t know.” Madeline admitted. “If we really could always make everything work out for the best I don’t know why I had to fake my own death, or why our baby was murdered before he even had a chance to live. Little Blake would have never caused hem any problems. I would have found someone to help me take care of him. There were plenty of women working only as secretaries that could have easily done the job.”

Jesse gave Madeline one of the bottles and walked back to the front of the plane where he sat in the pilots chair so he could land the Helix Two. “Then you know that somehow you might get hurt. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but a decision will have to be made. There is just no way around it.”

“I’m sure that you will make this work out.” she opened the water and took a drink. “You always do.”

Jesse nodded and then focused on landing the Helix Two. He set the plane down and cut the engines, all the time trying to figure out how he was going to handle the problem at hand. As he and Madeline stepped into the hangar Lexa came running to him, waving a plastic stick.

"Jess, you are never going to believe this!" she threw her arms around him. "I found out why I've been feeling sick for the last couple of weeks. I had my suspicions, but this just confirmed them and I'll let you run a scan to confirm it for sure. We're going to have a baby!"

"That's great, Lexa." he forced a smile. "That is really wonderful news."

"Hey, what’s wrong?" she looked him in the eye. "I thought that you would have been even more excited then me about this. Do you not want to have a baby?"

"I do, Sweetheart, I do." he kissed her gently. "There is someone I think you should meet and then my less then enthusiastic reaction will be explained."

"Alright." Lexa answered, her happiness over the baby washed away.

"Lexa, this is Madeline." Jesse held his hand out to the red-head. "Madeline Hart-Kilmartin. She's the informant that I've been talking to, but she is also my wife."

Blake is my middle name.” Jesse explained as he let go of Madeline’s hand and reached for Lexa’s. “I guess that I never told you that since it was never that big of an issue. You would have found out tomorrow when we sign the marriage license.”

Lexa took Jesse’s hand and sat down in his lap. “Jesse Blake Kilmartin, I like the way that sounds.”

“You two still haven’t gotten your marriage license?” Madeline raised an eyebrow. “You got ours almost on the same day that we got engaged. I can’t believe this, Blake.”

“I just haven’t had that much time to get that taken care of.” Jesse pulled Lexa closer against him. “Lexa and I have been planning the wedding and trying to run everything around here. If you’ll remember it is not an easy job to run things with just two people.”

“It helps when you actually focus on the job.” Madeline smirked and then gave Lexa a fake smile. “He and I really got to know each other that week while Adam and Shalimar were gone.”

Start Flashback

Madeline giggled as she walked up behind Jesse and put her arms around him. “Aren’t you ready to take a break yet?”

“We still haven’t gotten fully re-dressed after the last break.” he swiveled the chair around and pulled the giggling woman onto his lap. He kissed the top of her head and swiveled the chair back around to face the computer again. “Let’s get just a little work done and then we can have some more fun.”

“You are really no fun when you are around computers.” Madeline snuggled back against him. “How much work do we have to do before we get back to our fun?”

“A couple of hours, then I think that we should eat something. I haven’t had a singe bite to eat since Adam and Shal left yesterday.” he intertwined the fingers of his left had with hers. “I’ll need some energy if I want to keep up with you.”

“Alright, we can put a couple of hours in at the computers and then we can cook together. Then after we finished cooking and eat,” she cupped his face with her free hand and kissed him softly, ”you and I can get back into bed. Maybe we can try a few things that I picked up when I was working undercover in Vegas.”

“I guess while we cook I’ll show you some tricks I learned while I was in Italy. You would be amazed at exactly what the right combination of food and wine can do to a person.” he lightly kissed her, barely brushing his lips against hers. “You are really going to kill me you know.”

“Now we don’t want that.” Madeline rested her head on his shoulder. “are you enjoying yourself so far this week?”

“It’s been nice. I haven’t spent this much time with a woman cine my ex-fiancé and I broke up. It is almost relaxing to be with you like this.”

Adeline frowned slightly. “You’ve been engaged?”

:To my childhood sweetheart. She and I grew up together and we got engaged right after I got out of high school. We broke up almost a year ago.”

Madeline relaxed slightly. “I’m sure that we are going to have a real good time this week. We are involved in the perfect kind of relationship, al of the fun and none of the commitment.“ She smiled coyly as she relaxed into Jesse's arms. "Of course we are going to need to figure out how we are going to handle things after the others get back. I get the feeling that Adam is not going to approve of how we are going to be involved with each other."

"You are definitely right about that. Adam is not too fond of the idea of any of the team getting involved with each other. Friendship or a family bond is fine, but you can't move into the area of a physical or romantic relationship."

"Then it is a good thing that this is only temporary." she frowned again as another thought came to her. "Is he OK with us developing relationships that are romantic or physical with people who are not on the team?"

"He doesn't expect us to never engage in a physical relationship. He just feels that it brings too much stress when team members get involved with each other, and our jobs are stressful enough with out adding anything else."

"Well I guess that I can understand that. What would happen if two team members did decide to get involved with each other? Would they be asked to end the relationship or would Adam just kick them out of the team?"

"I'm not sure. We've never had the problem come up before. He might ask them to drop out or he might ask them to break up. For all I know he might even ask them to do something else. He could just do something like warn the couple that their relationship can't interfere with the job, and that if the relationship ended in a break up he would still expect them to be professional enough to work together."

"Do you really think that a couple could do that?" Madeline sat up and slid off his lap. She paced back and forth beside the computer. "I know how hard a break up can be if you share common friends, but if you have to work together in a job where you have to trust your team mates with you life, and if you possibly have to live in the same base of operations it would be almost impossible. And what about getting involved with someone outside of the team? Are you going to be asked to drop out of the team if you get serious with that person? Are you going to be asked to keep your powers and your work a secret? Are you going to be required to give up your entire identity to hide from any and all enemies?"

"Madeline, just take a breath and calm down. I don't know how Adam would handle either situation because it has never been a problem. Neither Shal or I have ever gotten involved that deeply with anyone."

"What about your ex-fiancé?" Madeline stopped in front of him. "Why did you break up with her?"

"Alisha and I broke up because I felt uncomfortable with the whole ordeal. I didn’t fit in that world, her world; and she would not fit here in my world. The only thing that I could do was break up with her. Now she's got a chance to find her own life with someone who will actually fit in with that life." He reached out and took her hand so he could pull her to stand in front of him. He put his hands on her hips, gently moving her so that she stood between his legs, and looked straight into her eyes. "Right now you've got nothing to worry about. I'm not going to tell Adam what is going on between us, all he knows is that I'm going to take you out and show you around town. He doesn't know that we are going to have a physical relationship, and it is none of his business if we have that relationship."

"I'm just trying to enjoy what we are doing, I really am. It is just hard for me to accept the fact that I may not be able to truly enjoy myself. I don’t want to have to give up my fun because of some silly rule that Adam has, but I also know that we aren't going to be able to sneak it around him for very long."


“You would be surprised about what you can get around Adam. I once managed to sneak in a new car and he didn't notice for six or seven months. If he hadn’t gone out to the garage he probably wouldn't have noticed for a while longer. Adam almost never comes out of that lab of his."

"And what about Shalimar?" Madeline took a deep breath to calm herself.

"Even if she doesn't see us sneaking around she will be able to tell. We'll both have each others scent strongly on us and I don’t think that we can get out of it no matter what we do."

"Shal wont really care about it. She's pretty easy going about most things. I'll have to reassure her that I'm OK with this, but there won't be a fight or anything."

Madeline smiled slightly and then leaned down and kissed him deeply. "Then we can lock Adam in his lab and explain anything to Shalimar that we need to. Maybe it won't be all that hard for us to have our fun."

"I'll be making sure that we get to have our fun." he pulled Madeline back onto his lap and kissed her. "You know, I think that I could take a break from the computer for a while. We could slip off to my room and have a little time together."

"That sounds great." Madeline smiled as she kissed him. Her pulse was already racing and she could feel her body heating up. "Oh, Jess, you are going to kill me."

He kissed her again, almost devouring her mouth. "You might just end up killing me first."

Madeline slipped off his lap and grabbed his wrist to lead him back to his bed room. "You'll think you've died and gone to Heaven by the time I'm done with you." she gave him a wicked smile and pulled him to her for another rough kiss.

Jesse held her close to him as he kissed her and then led her over to the sofa.

They fell back on the sofa, still kissing.

Madeline tightened her arms around him, enjoying the feeling of his weight over her. She softly kissed him and then flipped them, sending them crashing down to the floor.

Five days later.

Jesse woke up as Madeline kissed him. He smiled slightly as he returned her soft kiss and then pulled her close against him. "It's been a good week."

"I'd have to agree." Madeline answered as she stretched lazily. She laid her head on his shoulder and snuggled closer to him. "I have to go back home tonight."

"Don’t remind me." Jesse sighed. "I don't know what I'm going to do with out you around to keep me from getting bored."

"We should have time for one more round." she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her thoughts all went to how happy she was at that moment.

"And I'll think of an excuse to get you over to my apartment for a few days."

"That sounds like a good plan. Now, why don’t we forget about having sex this time and just spend an hour like this. I think that I might just enjoy holding you in my arms this way for a while."

"Good plan." Madeline relaxed further, letting herself start to fall asleep. "I don't think I have the energy for another round right now anyway."

Jesse closed his eyes and they slowly fell asleep.

Two and a half hours later

Adam and Shalimar walked into the compute lab of Sanctuary, looking for Jesse and Madeline.

Adam was surprised to see that neither of his two computer lovers were at work, but decided not to worry too much about it. "Shal, why don’t you go find Jesse and Madeline. It is still fairly early and they still be in bed. If they are wake them up and we'll all have breakfast together.”

"Alright." Shalimar left the computer lab and headed to the bedrooms to find Jesse and Madeline. She stepped into Jesse' room and her brown eyes went wide when she saw that both of them were in the bed together. “Jesse!” she harshly whispered.

Jesse woke up at the sound of his name and went pale when he saw Shalimar in front of him. "Oh, damn it. This isn't what it looks like, Shal."

"Right, not only did she decide to sleep in your bed with you she also was crazy enough to decide to have sex with you." Shalimar smirked. "You know that you can't trick me on this one."

"So what if she did." Jesse sat up, careful not to disturb Madeline. "She and I are both consenting adults."

"I won't tell Adam." Shalimar promised as she picked Jesse's clothes up off the floor and handed them to him. "In fact I think I'll help you sneak your little secret around him. I could use a little excitement."

"Don't tell Madeline that you know anything about this. I am going to explain it to you later, but for now I don't feel like getting into this right now. I'm just too tired."

"I'm sure that you are." Shalimar smiled slightly. "You two need to be in the kitchen as soon as you can be. I'll try to keep Adam from coming in here, but we don't want to make him suspicious."

"We'll be there in a minute." Jesse promised as he pulled on his shirt. "I wouldn't want to upset Adam over this."

"You wouldn't want to get caught in bed with Adam's newest pet project. He's really got some plans for her and her skills with information gathering."

"I'm sure." Jesse sighed. "Now get out of here so I can wake Madeline up."

"See you at the table." Shalimar smiled as she left the room.

Jesse laid down on his side and gently stroked Madeline’s jaw line with his fingertips. "Madeline, we've got to get up now." He whispered softly. "Adam and Shalimar are back so you don't get to sleep in this morning."

Madeline shifted slightly and slowly opened her eyes. "Do we really have to get up? Couldn't we just go ahead and tell Adam that we are doing this?"

"Madeline, you really need to wake up. You aren't even making any sense right now. Let's just get you up and dressed so we can get you some coffee."

"Coffee sounds good." she sat up carefully. "We'll get out coffee and then you can drive me back to my apartment. Maybe we'll even have a little bit of fun once we get there."

"As long as Adam doesn't expect me to drop you of and come straight back. He may have some work that he wants me to do for him." he softly kissed her. "Don't count too much on us having any fun because there is normally a ton of work for me to do once Adam gets back from one of his trips."

"Well if he doesn’t let you stay for a while when you drop me off, Adam will be getting a phone call from me saying I need your help on something." Madeline decided as she picked up a robe and wrapped it around herself.

"I'm not about to miss out on my fun."

"I can take you out tomorrow night. Late dinner and an even later movie, and then you can have me stay over with you so I don't have to drive back here so late at night."

"You are going to be very good at this." Madeline got up and walked to the door. "I'll see you at the table."

Two months later.

Jesse gently stroked Madeline's back and ran the fingers of his hand through her hair. His head rested against the heavy wooden headboard and Madeline was close beside him with her head on his chest and one arm tight around him. He sighed as he heard his cell phone ring. He carefully reached over and picked it up off the bedside table. Checking the number, he frowned when he saw that it was Adam calling him. "What's going on, Adam?"

"You and Madeline were supposed to be here three hours ago. I understand that you two have been working hard for the last week, and that your flight came in extremely late; but you need to get back here. I don’t want to wait any longer than I have to before I we go over the mission and Madeline's performance during it."

"She did an excellent job." Jesse answered, his words laced with a double meaning. "I'll wake her up and we'll be on the way with in an hour."

"Don't bother. By the time you got here it would be time for you to go back to her apartment. You two have to be there when her new neighbor arrives tomorrow. I want to make sure that the relocation goes smoothly."

"I'm sorry that we overslept. I promise that we'll be back to fill you in on all the work during the mission at the very first opportunity that we get."

"You can email the reports to me." Adam sighed. "Ever since Madeline joined the team you seem to be having trouble with keeping up with the time. We will have a serious talk about this when you get back in two weeks. Shalimar will bring you some more clothes for the next trip."

"Have you gotten any word on when our place will be finished?" Jesse shifted slightly and slipped away from Madeline so he could go to the living room. "Once we get that we wont have to be so dependant on commercial flights."

"At least another two months and then you will have to learn how to fly it." Adam took a deep breath. "You and Madeline are both going to have to work very hard if you expect me to allow you two to go on any more missions together. I cannot afford to have mistakes being made."

"This mission will go smoothly, and I promise that Madeline and I won't be late anymore." he sat down in one of Madeline's chairs. "I'll make sure that we stay on time from now own."

"You do that. I have always required a lot from you, and you have always done well. Don't let a woman mess up your nearly perfect record." Adam warned as he hung up the phone.

Jesse put his cell phone down just as Madeline walked into the room. "You get enough sleep last night?"

"Unfortunately." Madeline gave him a coy smile and then sat down in his lap, curling up close against him. "Who was that on the phone and what did they want?"

"It was Adam, and he called to reprimand us because we were supposed to be back three hours ago. He said for us not to bother going to Sanctuary though. We can email our reports to him and he's going to send Shal by with me some clothes for our next trip."

"Where are we going this time? Somewhere exotic or some where cold where I'll have to curl up close to you for heat?" Madeline kissed his neck and closed her eyes as she pressed close against him.

"Nevada, but it is still cool enough that you'll probably spend a lot of time with me, and we are going undercover as a couple again."

Madeline smiled and tangled the fingers of one hand in his nearly shoulder length hair. "I'm getting tired of us just fooling around. I love you."

"I love you too, Madeline." Jesse whispered as he held her close. "I've loved you from the moment that I met you."

"You know that this is going to be practically impossible, don’t you? Adam can never know that we've ever been involved, and Shal can never know that you and I truly care about each other. It is risky enough for her to know that we've been involved at all."

"We can make this work, Madeline. I know how to sneak things around Adam, and Shal will never tell anyone anything. She's good at keeping secrets. She's kept several of them for me." Jesse gently stroked her back. "I promise that we will find away to make this work. There are plenty of things that we can do."

"I don't want to loose you, Jess. I promise that I will do all that I can to keep you. I won't let anything or anybody come between us."
End of flashback.



"It was always a struggle." Madeline smiled wanly. "Adam always interrupted our dates, and sometimes he'd page Jesse at really bad moments. We fought so hard for our relationship."

"It was a fight." Jesse glanced at the clock. "We probably need to go to bed now. It is pretty late, and there is still a lot of this story to go over."

"And I've got an early morning appointment to get a manicure and a pedicure. Not to mention that there are still a few little things that I want to pick up for the wedding and the wedding night." Lexa got up and walked out of the room.

"She's totally convinced that you are still going to marry her." Madeline leaned in and kissed him.

Jesse resisted for a moment, but fell into the kiss. His hand cradled the back of her head, and the other hand rested on her waist.

Madeline moved over so she was straddling his lap and pressed herself close against him. "I want to be with you, Blake." She whispered after she broke the kiss. She locked her eyes on his and put her hands on his shoulders. "I want you to carry me off to your bed room and to make love to me for the rest of the night."

"I know you do, Li; but we cant. I'm engaged to Lexa, and she would not be happy if I did that."

"No matter what the hall of records says, you are married to me." Madeline's tone became slightly vicious. "Now, I can forgive you for hooking up with Lexa since you thought that I was dead, but you are not going to tell me no just so you can keep her happy. I won't have you cheating on me."

"I know that you can be territorial, but this is not up to you. Our marriage was annulled and you are going to have to accept that. I can decide what I want to do. I am going to be sleeping in one of the guest rooms unless Lexa has gone back to her old room."

"Fine." Madeline got up and stormed out of the room.

Jesse shook his head as he watched the woman leave. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the first number on his speed dial. "Hey, Shal. Sorry to call so late, but I need to talk to you about something."

"Hey." Shalimar answered sleepily. "I just woke up with a craving for some strawberries, so it is ok. what do you need to talk about?"

"You are never going to believe who my informant on Adam is."

"You picked him up?" Shalimar woke up instantly. "Who is he?"

"Special agent Madeline Hart Kilmartin." Jesse answered and gave a weak laugh. "She's not dead, Shal."

"Are you sure that it is really her?"

"Completely. I've never found another woman who kissed me the way Madeline did."

"Asking for trouble, aren't you?" Shalimar took a halting breath. "Madeline is back. That idea is really going to take some work to get used to."

"You're telling me." Jesse leaned back against the sofa. "What in the world am I going to do now?"

"It's not that bad is it, Jess?" Shalimar asked concerned about him. "I know that you love both of them, but you actually worked on developing a relationship with Lexa. When you and Madeline first got involved with each other it was just for sex and fun; there was never any real connection there."

"I thought that you liked her."

"She's alright, and she's always been alright; but I never really liked the idea of you two together. It always seemed like you two were rushing through every part of your relationship, and when you married here it was a shock to me. I never thought that you of all people would let a woman come between you and Mutant X."

"I still care a great deal about Madeline. I still love her a great deal. She was my first wife, and the first woman that I got involved with after my breakup with Alisha. Of course I also love and adore Lexa. She and I have been through a hell of a lot together, and I cant imagine living my life apart from her or the baby."

"What baby?" Shalimar asked, greatly surprised.

"Lexa is pregnant." Jesse shook his head slightly. "I wanted to have kids with her, I fought with her over it until she agreed to consider it, and then I fought with her until she decided that she did want to have a baby. This thing with Madeline is another stumbling block for me and Lexa. How do I tell either one of them that it is over?"

"I don't know, all I know is that I think you and Lexa have a better chance of withstanding the test of time. You know how impossible it can be once you get in a relationship, and from what I can see you and Lexa are far more compatible than you and Madeline are."

"I'll give you that one. One of us always ended up walking out when Madeline and I got into a fight." Jesse smiled as he thought back.

Flashback

Twelve years and two months earlier.

"Blake, I've got more receipts for you." Madeline called as she walked into Jesse's room.

Jesse stood by the computer with his arms crossed over his chest and gave Madeline a very serious look. "You are way over budget. We can't afford a wedding like this."

"I know that we can't." Madeline gave him a bright smile. "My parents can though. Daddy wants to pay for everything, and your father is going to through you a killer bachelor party."

"I asked you to leave them out of this." Jesse answered, not moving an inch. "I gave you a very generous budget and asked you to leave our families out of this."

"We couldn’t have had any kind of wedding on that budget!" Madeline's eyes flashed with indignation. "I've dreamed about a big, story book wedding ever since I was a little girl, and it is very important to me! I am willing to accept the help of our parents so we can have this wedding, and you will be willing if too if you really love me!"

"Up until a month ago our families hated each other! I have tried to keep them as uninvolved in this wedding as I could so it wouldn't be ruined!"

"And you never once asked me how I felt about it! Apparently it never once occurred to you that I just might want my parents at my wedding! That I just might want your parent's there!" her voice rose higher. "The problem is that you don't care what I want!"

"No, the problem is that you are a spoiled brat! All you ever think about is what you want!"

"Just forget it! I don't want to marry you!" Madeline pulled off her engagement ring and threw it down on the floor before she stormed out of the room.
End of flashback.

“I never explored my feelings for Emma. Shal and I both felt a spark between us; and all that I saw indicated that Em liked either you or Adam. I wasn’t about to cause that kind of trouble.”

“It’s a what if question. What would you have done if you had explored your feelings for both of them and if you had been put in a position to choose between them?”

“We both know that I want to say that I would have chosen Shal, but I have to be honest and say that I probably would have run as far away from the problem as I possibly could have at top speed.”

“Some how I doubt that. You managed to know which was the clone and which was the real Shal that time at the club.”

Flash back.

Brennan sat in the hot tub looking Shalimar who was sitting near him on a low chair. “Do you have any idea where they may have taken Lexa?”

Shalimar got up and kneeled down beside him. “I don’t know. I only left her alone for a minute. But this place goes on forever, she could be in any one of these rooms.”

Brennan nodded, continuing to stare at Shalimar.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.

“Like what?”

“Like you don’t even know me. Brennan, I‘m not the enemy here.” she glanced towards the door. “There’s one more thing I have to tell you. You‘re about to die!” she shoved him under the water, revealing that she was the a clone.

Brennan struggled, trying to come up for air.

‘Brennan!’ Jesse called over the com link ‘Brennan! They’re on to us!’

Brennan managed to struggle up for a breath, but was immediately pushed back under by the Shalimar clone.

‘Sebastian’s been popping off clones of the girls.’ Jesse explained. ‘Gia, Lexa, they’re all synthetics. I have no idea how to pull the plug on them.”

Brennan continued to struggle with the clone of Shalimar.

‘Wait, Nano-technology is based on bioelectronics, which means that,’ Jesse broke off.

‘Let him go!” Shalimar called as she walked into the room where her clone was trying to drown Brennan.

The clone looked at her for a moment and then got up, allowing Brennan to resurface.

Shalimar pushed back a lock of her hair. “Shame to mess up that pretty face.”

“What’s a girl to do?” the clone asked and took a kick at Shalimar.

The two engaged in hand to hand combat, swapping places back and forth so many times that Brennan could no longer keep up with who was who.

Brennan got out of the hot tub and started to dry off.

‘Brennan’ Jesse called over the com.

‘Jesse.” Brennan answered

“Finally figured out the off switch. Since these guys are based on Nano- technology the only way to…”

“Just cut to it.’ Brennan interrupted.

“Electricity. You could be the key, Sparky.”

“I’m soaking wet.”

“Well, you’d better dry your ass off fast.”

Brennan dried off as quickly as possible while the clone and the real Shalimar fought.

“Shalimar!” Brennan yelled. He formed a telsa coil, and then stopped, realizing that he was not sure who was who

“Brennan, get her, it’s me!” Shalimar called.

“She’s lying!” the clone yelled!

“Brennan, do it now!”

Brennan stared at both of them.

The Shalimar clone started to attack Shalimar again, but Brennan shot her with electricity, and she melted.

Brennan blew out a breath.

“How did you know it was me?” Shalimar asked.

Brennan, smiled as he walked towards her: “I figured I had a 50/50 chance.”

Shalimar stared at him, looking offended.

Brennan laughed “Oh come on, I’m not going to get you confused with some cheap imitation? What are you talking about?”

End of flashback

“Choosing between the real Shal and the fake Shal was just a matter of knowing her. It was just a clone of a woman, and the clone was essentially the same. It is the idea of choosing between two unique women that you are asking me to consider.”

“I risked absolutely everything I had back then so Li and I could be together. I was ready to give up my entire life for her and I never had a second thought about doing it.”

“She’s not what I expected for you. Lexa has always been forward and abrupt, but this one is an extreme. I was really expecting some quiet, well mannered girl; not the little firecracker that I met today.”


“Li was the most forward, demanding, and ‘wild’ woman that I ever met. She made me do all sorts of things that I never would have thought to do. Sometimes I wondered how I managed to survive being in a relationship with her.”

“I don’t understand how you managed to survive being with Lexa. She’s never been an easy person to get along with. I thought that she was going to kill you after a couple of the fights that you two had.”

“Some of those fights did get pretty rough.” Jesse laughed. “She always wanted to get me to see her point, and she was pretty loud until she finally managed to get me to agree with her.”

“There were a few times where you had to make her see your point.”

Flashback.

Lexa was packing her things when Jesse walked in.

“Running away is not going to make things any better.” Jesse stated flatly.

“No? Well I wouldn’t have to put up with people getting involved in my affairs.”

“Lexa working as a mercenary before didn’t make you happy did it? It’s not going to get any better now if you go back to it. But I know that there’s been times here when you’ve been one o us, and that has made you happy.”

“This is not what I want, Jess. I don’t belong here, OK?”

“So where do you belong.” He looked at her for a minute and then turned and walked out.

LATER THAT DAY

“Do you know where Richards is delivering the report?” Shalimar asked over the com-link.

“Uh, the federal building on Fairmount.” Jesse answered. “Why?”

“Something’s going to happen to Richards and we’re going to need all hands on deck.” Brennan explained over the com-link. “So you guys can make it there in an hour?”

“We’re on the move.” Jess answered as he shut off the computer and started to leave.

“I’m not coming with you.” Lexa announced.

Jesse turned back to her. “What?” he walked back over to her and threw his hands up into the air. “What?!”

“We’re different, Jess.” She answered, trying not to cry. “You know when I was a kid the only think I ever thought about was taking care of my brother. Everything I did for Eckhart, Adam, the Dominion; it was all about saving Leo, and I screwed it up.”

Jesse shook his head.

“I didn’t save anything.” Lexa pressed.

“You did what you could.” Jesse answered calmly, trying to reassure her.

“And I failed. You don’t need me. I mean the last person that counted on me ended up dead.”

“Is that what this is about? Are you worried about us?”

“No, I don’t know how I feel. I just know that I need to get away and figure this out.”

“Look when I first came here I was messed up too. The last thing I thought I wanted was to join a bunch of freaks in a cave, but, Lexa, once I was in I found something I could never fid on the outside. For the first time in my life I fit in. you’re a part of that now.”

Lexa nodded, thinking. “You need to go.”

Jesse stared at her for a moment longer and then left.

Later

Brennan kneeled down by Eddie, checking on the man.

“Brennan!” Shalimar called as the human virus jumped over the desk to kill Brennan.

Before anyone had time to react Lexa came into the rum and shot the human virus with laser lights. She took a couple of deep breaths and then looked at Jesse and Shal ‘Sorry I’m late.”

Jesse smiled slightly and nodded.
End of flashback

“Making her see my point wasn’t always that bad. She and I managed to find a few things that we could agree on with out either of us getting upset. I think that sometimes she argued with me just for some fun.”

“I can see Lexa doing something like that. I guess that you aren’t really going to be making a decision based on what Shal and I think. You are going to have to make the decision based off what you really feel. I’ll drive Lexa to where ever she wants to go so you and Li can have sometime to talk.”

“I’ve been trying to have Lexa around while Li and I talk. There are reasons about why Madeline left that I don’t know yet, and I’d rather have Lexa here with me when I found out whatever it is that Li is hiding.”

“Once you find out the truth about Madeline it might make your decision easier, and you don’t have to have the wedding tomorrow. I’m sure that everyone would understand if you chose to wait for a while.”

“I can’t do that. If I postponed the wedding now I’d never be able to make a decision. By the time I finally managed to decide on anything the baby would have graduated from college with a doctorate. It’s better if I go ahead and make my decision.”

“Jess, you are getting to be almost as stubborn as I was. The decision about what you want to do here is not going to be easy. Whatever you decide to do is going to affect you for the rest of you life. Even I wouldn’t make a decision like this in just a few hours. I’d have to take at least several days to decide.”

“That is the difference between you and me. I’m ready to get this over with. I want to be able to put all this insanity behind me as soon as I possibly can.”

“If the choice was going to be that easy you would have already made it.” Brennan stood up. “I’m going to the kitchen. I left with out eating and it smells like one of those women can cook.”

“Madeline.” Jesse smiled slightly. “She has always been an exceptionally great cook.”

“That’s definitely a point to consider in this decision. It is always good to have a woman who can cook for you.” Brennan joked as he left the room.

Jesse got up and went to his room. From the top shelf of his closet he pulled out a cardboard box. He gently lifted the lid and pulled out the photo album that was on top. His fingers ran over the gold script that read ‘Our Wedding’ before he opened it.

Madeline’s brilliant smile looked up at him from the first page. Her long red hair was twisted up in a bun and held with a diamond-studded barrette. The neckline of her dress scooped low and was embellished with soft lace. Her eyes were warm with love and adoration.

Jesse turned the page to two pictures of himself with Madeline. In the first picture they were facing each other with their hands clasped together. The second picture had Madeline standing in front of Jesse and his arms wrapped tight around her waist.

Jesse closed the album, unable to look any further. Every page showed either his and Madeline’s love for each other or Adam’s disapproval of the marriage. He carefully set the album down and picked up two matching wooden necklaces that each had raised script style writing. One read ‘Madeline’ and the other ‘Blake.’

Flash back

Twelve and a half years earlier.

Madeline stood in a store in the mall looking over the name necklaces. She had already found her name, but was unable to find Jesse’s.

“May I help you with something, ma’am?” a sales clerk asked as she walked up to Madeline.

“I’m trying to find my boyfriend’s name on one of these necklaces.” Madeline glanced over to where Jesse was looking for the tiara that Madeline wanted. “His name is Jesse.”

“We sold out of that one yesterday.” The girl smiled. “You could check back later when we get a new shipment it. It should only be a week or two.”

Madeline frowned and looked over the necklaces again. She smiled at one that caught her attention. “It’s alright. I can get one with his middle name instead.” She picked up the necklace. “Thank you though.”

Ten minutes later.

Jesse and Madeline left the store, heading back out to their car.

“I’m sorry that they didn’t have your tiara.” Jesse said as he pulled her close to him. “We’ll find it.”

“Don’t worry, the trip wasn’t a complete bust. I got you a present, Blake.” She pulled the necklace out of her shopping bag. “They didn’t have your first name, but they did have your middle name.”

Jesse kissed the top of her head. “You know that I love you, don’t you?”

“Of course I do, but put on your necklace.” She stopped walking and put the necklace over his head. “You look good.”

“I suppose that you are going to insist on calling me by my middle name now.” Jesse sighed.

“Maybe.” Madeline smiled. “Do we have time for sex before you have to go back to Sanctuary?”

“I’ve actually got a bit of a surprise for you too.” Jesse smiled. “I told Adam that I was taking you to a play tonight. I though that you might enjoy buying a new dress and then getting the full hair, make-up and nail jobs done.”

“You are absolutely amazing!” Madeline kissed him and tightly squeezed his hand. “I love you so much!”

“And I thought that you might not like the present. I’ll take you to the dress shop so you can get whatever you want and then we’ll go to the spa. I can read through some newspapers while they get you all dolled up, and then we can go to our favorite restaurant and then on to the play.” He stopped at the car and then opened Madeline’s door for her. “And what we do after the play is up to you. I’ll just be along for the ride for the rest of the night and you’ll get to call all of the shots.”

“Well I hope that you are up for some fun because I just bought a new Redbook that has a whole bunch of new tricks that I want to try out on you. I just hope that you are flexible enough for them.”

“I’m up for anything that you want to try as long as it doesn’t involve either of us getting hurt. I don’t want to have to explain anything to Adam.”

“It would be very difficult to explain something.” Madeline laughed and leaned back in her seat. “I don’t know how you manage to explain away all these dates and rendezvous that we have.”

“Adam still thinks that I’m doing this just to keep you from getting bored. He also things that it throws people off by making it look like you are involved in a relationship. Every now and then he has even suggested that I spend the night at your place.”

“Well that explains why you turn up on my door step sometimes. Of course Adam probably has no clue that we are involved in real relationship and that he is just assisting us.” She reached over and took Jesse’s hand. “I think that we may be able to work this to our advantage.”

“You always seem to find away to make things work to our advantage. It think that you could make an alien invasion work to our advantage if you really wanted to.”

“Well, we all have to be good at something.” Madeline laughed. “Now. What is the budget on my dress for tonight?”

“No real set limit, just try not to go too crazy. Adam is writing it off as a business expense so you’ll have something to wear if he ever needs us to go under cover at any formal dress advents. You’ve managed to impress him with your work on our little missions that we’ve gone out on; and I think that he is getting ready to move you up.”

“I mussed have really impressed him if he wants to allow me to do anything more than recon with you. He’s always seemed so uptight about the team. He worries about all sorts of things al the time, and it really makes me crazy! The man needs to loosen up a little and have some fun.”

“Adam is not very much into fun. He’d rather work in his office or lab than go out clubbing or on a date. There are times when I wonder about his past.”

“What do you mean?” Madeline raised an eyebrow.

“Just things about how he was treated when he was a kid. I guess it would be things like what kind of grade we he expected to make? Did he spend so much time with the books that he never learned how to party, or did he get partied out when he was young? I’ve never spent anytime around Adam when he wasn’t working so I’ve never gotten the opportunity to find out much more about him.”

“I’m sure that you will eventually get to find out about his past. Things will change and there will be a situation that requires him to tell you the truth. We all have our secrets, Blake; but we never get to keep all of them forever.”

End of flashback

Jesse carefully put the necklaces back into the box and picked up his wedding ring. The gold shimmered in the light, only slightly dulled by time. He slowly rolled it between his fingers and the slipped it on the ring finger of his left hand.

“You have a lot of memories about her, don’t you?” Lexa asked from the doorway. She slowly walked over to the bed, sat down, and picked up the photo album. “You were really happy with her back then.”

“Lexa, don’t do anything stupid just because of those pictures. You can ask Shal about those days and she’ll tell you that I was not all that happy. Madeline seemed to have some kind of hold on me. I was never happy back then. I was content and I enjoyed my relationship with Madeline, but never really happy.”

“Are you happy with our relationship?” Lexa asked coolly.

“Extremely.’ he cupped her chin in his hand and kissed her softly. “This is not a question about how happy I am with either of you. This question is about what direction I’m going to take in live. You have been a wonderful part of my love, and I love you. I don’t want you to doubt my love for a second.”

“You are never going to be able to understand what I am feeling right now. I love you so much, Jess; but right now I am really beginning to doubt how you feel about me. If you really loved me as much as you claim to do this would be an easy choice for you to make.” she closed her eyes trying to hold back her tears.

Jesse wiped away her tears, kissed both of her eyelids, and pulled her into his arms. “I want to be able to say that there is no real question here. I want to be able to say that I know what I want to do, but there is no way for me to do that right now. I love Madeline in a different way than I love you. She and I were just an arrangement when we got involved with each other. You and I have spent a long time together, working to get to a point where we could get married.”

Lexa wrapped her arms around him and held him close as she cried. “I don’t want to loose you. I don’t want to loose the stupid fights we have, our endless chess games, our nights of amazing sex, and all the other things that have made us who we are as a couple.”

“I know.” He rubbed her back gently. “I know that you don’t want to give up on our relationship, and you have to believe that I don’t want to give up on our relationship either”

“Please make her leave. Tell her that she ruined it and that you don’t want to give up your life for her. Tell her that you are happy with me and that she needs to move on with her life.”

“Lexa, don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.”

She pushed back from him and wiped at her eyes. “You are really going to consider going back to her. I thought that this was just some sort of shock effect. I didn’t think that you would actually be considering a break up with me to get back with her again.”

“She was my wife. How could I not be thinking about getting back with her?” He stopped when he saw Lexa start to cry again. “I’m not saying that she’s on the winning side. To be perfectly honest, you are going to be a stronger pull for be because we have spent so much time together.”

“Then why do you even have to consider her? I love you, Jess. I would never let anything come between us. She let something pull her away from you. The only thing that will ever pull me away from you is death, and that is only after a long, hard fight. I can’t understand why you’d want to be with someone who doesn’t put you as the most important part of their life.”

"Lexa, for all we know she was a part of some project that wanted to preserve human life and save the world from imminent destruction. Madeline was deep into the government, that is why Adam chose her. She was so deep into the government that none of us really knew that much about exactly what she did. For all we knew she could have been the president's personal secret informant."

"That is what makes it hard for me to believe that you want to get back with her. You always preached to me about not with holding information. You said that it was important for me to be honest with you."

"You are going to have a hard time believing this, but Madeline is the reason I always wanted you to be honest. I couldn't stand the thought of getting involved with someone who was going to hide the truth from me. I went through that enough while I was with Li."

"You know that I'm going to be honest with you. I've pr oven to you that I will be honest. She's lied to you, she's even lied to you about her death. I don't care why she did it, Jess. All that matters is that she did lie to you."

"Lexa, I don't want to have to make this choice. I don't want to have to face the fact that both you and Madeline have kept secrets from me or that you both have your own faults. I know that there have been things that you've kept from me because they are too painful for you to talk about, and that some of them could be flat out dangerous for me to know. I've never pushed you to tell me those things. You have to understand that some of Li's secrets are important to national security, and yet again she probably knows some things that would put me in danger if I knew them."

"You are so calm and cool about this that it is infuriating. I wish that you could hurry up and make a decision about what you want to do. I don't like having that woman in my home, trying to break up my relationship with you."

"I'm sorry that you don't like it." Madeline said from the doorway where she stood with her arms crossed over her chest. "I really hate to tell you this, but he's technically still mine. If anyone is trying to break someone up, it is you trying to ruin my marriage."

"You must excuse me." Lexa said as she got up. "I need to go buy a few things for my wedding night, and I must also spend sometime at the spa getting a manicure and a pedicure. I want to look perfect in my wedding dress." she walked to the door and locked her eyes onto Madeline's.

Madeline stood defiantly in place, refusing to move a single inch. She held Lexa's stare for a few seconds and then finally stepped aside to let the other woman by. "How on you do you manage to stand her, Blake? She's impossibly bratty."

"I'm pretty sure that she thinks the same thing about you." Jesse took off the wedding band and put it back in the box along with the other things. "Why did you do it? Was I not good enough to you? Was I just a job? What made you fake your own death and disappear the way that you did?"

"I love you to death, Blake. Nothing was going to change that. You knew what I did for a living when you chose to get involved with me. I'm sorry that my job ruined our marriage. You have no idea of how much I wanted to stay with you and have us make a life together."

"You never let anyone push you around or get in the way of what you wanted. Whatever made you leave must have been a matter of national importance or a danger to yourself or the team. I want you to sit down and tell me what it was that made you leave me."

"Jess, you are not going to like some of the things that I am going to have to tell you if I explain why I did what I did. I feel horrible about what i did to you by disappearing for the last twelve years."

"Li, you are going to have to understand that I've changed. What I went through with you and with loosing you changed me a lot. I don't put up with secrets the way I used to. Right now all I want from you is a flat out honest answer."

"Alright." Madeline agreed as she sat down on the bed beside him. "It started on our wedding night while I was getting ready to go to you..."