"There are times you throw the textbook out the window and go with your gut."

Her training officer had said that, much to the chagrin of the higher echelon. Standing in her office, she realized that Frisco was right. Because Corinthos wasn't.

Her partner, who had watched her back more times than she could count, was missing and nobody in this forsaken place seemed to care. Well, she did. It was time to stop pussy-footing around the rules while Jason was out there.

Flipping the letter on the desk Elizabeth grabbed her gun, and walked off the reservation.

"Tell me about Italy."

He had mocked her dream, and it was the last time she got drunk with Jason.

Her path had had lead her across America to remote hell-holes she never knew existed - they'd been in places that had made Jason sweat; to the jungles of Beliz and Colombia - after the murder in Cali she knew Corinthos would never take her back. Now she stood in a cacophonous Moroccan bazaar looking at her next clue.

Of course she'd have to go to Italy to look for him. The cosmos had a twisted sense of humor.

"You're beautiful, baby."

Hours later, his words still made her teeth grate. It was the drugs talking. The same drugs that made him heavier than a linebacker, and as nimble as an elephant on acid, as she drug him from that compound in Italy.

Getting shot in the process.

It was the drugs.

That didn't mean she wasn't going to punch him for saying it. Right?

He was her partner, her friend. He didn't look at her like that. Because he was...gorgeous. No. Wrong word.

He was. Especially with everything soft, gray around the edges.

Was she falling?

"I'm here, Jason."

He thought he was hallucinating, dreaming - as he had for months - of being rescued. When he woke up and realized he was out, that he was free and she'd bandaged his wrists rubbed raw by handcuffs, he'd been elated.

Until he saw her.

Passed out, blood pooled under, the bullet still inside. He dug it out, dressed the wound, worked to bring down her fever.

It wasn't breaking.

Through her ramblings and her bag he pieced together what she'd done, where she'd gone. He was stunned.

"You're gorgeous," she murmured feverishly.

He hadn't expected that.

A/N: The prompt didn't work in well with the series, but I refused to just give up and not do one for this week. So, I'm not terribly happy with it, but I suppose it's better than a poke in the eye.

"You're an impatient man, aren't you?"

She'd teased him when he'd marshaled the unwieldy customers and brand new employees who were keeping him from his needed Krispy Kremes, but there was truth there. He was a man of action.

So he hated sitting in a roach motel waiting for Elizabeth's fever to break, using what meager supplies he'd scrounged. It was too risky for a doctor despite her being sicker than the mule whose balloon broke when Jason infiltrated the mob.

Enough was enough, though. She needed to awake...to explain her words.

Until then, he could only wait.

"Please, Jason, no more soup."

His captors had found and chased them from Italy, until they arrived here; waiting for his contact to bring passports and cash so they could flee the Continent and truly run.

Elizabeth was healing, though still pale and thin, and declared she'd shoot if he brought soup again. So he stood in a bakery, perusing pastries, wondering if he could bribe her into talking.

He knew she loved sweets.

"Two chocolate strudels."

He wanted answers...to her actions...to her words.

Plus he knew this would make her smile.

Man, he was such a sap.

"She's not a girl; she's my partner."

How those words spoken with the guys tormented him now. Tortured him.

Elizabeth was gorgeous. She was kind, fun and her voice was like whiskey on a warm night.

She was also flirting with the unscrupulous crew of the boat they'd bought passage on. While wearing a bikini.

Too much skin; not enough ire at the men's comments. Didn't she know what they were doing? Didn't she know what they wanted?

He stalked forward, interrupting the tete-a-tete and placed his arm around her slender waist.

"Back off," he growled lethally, "she's my woman."

"I hate public displays of affection. They make everyone else uncomfortable."

The statement had been made to cover her unease when she and Jason had to pose undercover in order to sneak across an unfriendly border. Schmoopy doctors in love, they'd barely stopped kissing while handing the guard their papers.

Jason had dragged her towards his cabin but never made it. He pressed her against the wall and ravaged her mouth. She should be angry; she should stop him with a well-placed knee.

But his kiss was too intoxicating, his touch too mesmerizing. She'd kiss first and demand explanations later.

"I love my gun; it's the only thing in my life that hasn't let me down yet."

Just when Jason probably thought he was going to get lucky, he ended up staring down the business end of his own gun. Like her, he always kept one tucked under his pillow to cuddle up to at night.

After finally falling through his cabin door and onto the bed, she had enough presence of mind to realize they needed to slow down.

"Elizabeth," he breathed out raggedly, then arched his brow. "A little foreplay?"

"Think of it as birth control. Let's talk."

"I hate roses and any man who gives them to me."

Elizabeth wasn't like the women Jason dated. She didn't need jewelry or meals at expensive restaurants; she liked ribs and shooting ranges. He'd always thought of her as one of the guys.

Maybe that's why the dates never worked, and why he knew more about his partner than his girlfriends.

He had to convince her the kisses weren't a joke and his desire for her wasn't because she was the only girl around.

But how to tell her he loved her and not have her shoot his head off?

"I don't let a woman control me; in the car or the bedroom."

He'd been so smug saying that; she'd seen the look in his eye. It meant she was less than a woman because she was in control.

Now her control over him wasn't about being less. It was because he was willing to be vulnerable. He told her he loved her. Not because he lusted after her or because she'd saved his life. Nearly losing her had changed him; made him finally see what was right before him.

She'd call him a sap if she wasn't so moved.

"When I come home from an assignment, all I want to do is sleep for days."

For a blissful week, they cohabitated on the ship. Feelings were discussed, walls were let down, emotions were shared. Yet the looming specter of home now intruded. What would they do when they returned to the States?

Elizabeth had left the Bureau and refused to go back. They'd left Jason a captive; refusing to look for him because it wasn't politically expedient. She couldn't follow their orders anymore.

Would Jason want to return? She realized she'd follow him anywhere. Would it break her, though?

"I'll die an agent."

Jason always thought he'd die on the job, and almost had. If not for Elizabeth walking away from the Agency they'd been honored to work for, he wouldn't have been saved.

"Welcome home," Corinthos smiled when he walked through the doors. "It's great to see you back where you belong."

"Where I belong," Jason mused. "Well, I guess that doesn't mean here."

He placed his battered and blood-stained badge on the desk and turned for the door, "I choose the woman who risked her job and her freedom to save me. I'm done with you."

"I'll never be tied down with a house."

Jason had loved being an agent; he traveled, he never got bored, he was unfettered. When he quit the only job he'd ever had, he asked Elizabeth to travel with him. They explored countries where there wasn't a bounty on their head, and relished their time together.

Then he said the words she'd never expected to hear. "Let's buy a house."

She wondered why, argued if it was for her, she didn't want him to change. She loved him as is. His next words floored her.

"Because our kids deserve a home."

"Admit it; you're a closet Christmas freak."

Undercover during the holidays, he'd clashed with Elizabeth's all-out decorating blitz. Yet, he'd got caught up in her love for her favorite holiday, arranging lights and wreaths.

Now, he was decorating a tree in August because he wanted to surprise her. Stunned by his talk of a house and children, she'd made him realize he had missed a crucial element.

There was only one ornament amongst the paper chains; an engagement ring to show how much he loved her and reall did want a family with her. He was committed.

"Jason?"

He was caught.

"Don't give me a plant; I can kill a cactus."

Elizabeth once declared she wasn't nurturing. She didn't own plants, pets and declared she had no plans for children. As an agent, it was understandable. It was hard to think long-term when she could pack up in two hours and be gone for six months.

But Jason knew she'd been hiding her true self. Away from the Agency, she blossomed like the flowers that grew in their garden. She learned to cook, using the fresh vegetables from their land, and glowed with peace and contentment.

Actually...she just glowed.

"Elizabeth?"

"Tell me about Italy."

Once she thought Jason had mocked her desire to see Italy; now he'd made it happen. A comfortable house with a beautiful yard; she could paint, he could restore motorcycles and they could watch their children grow. It was a scene from a fresco.

When she set out to find him, she was determined to not let her partner down. One last job; she knew she'd be done forever as an agent. She'd never expected anything that happened.

He'd been her partner, he became her friend and now he was her husband.

He was her home.

The End