ephemeral | Jenlisa [COMPLETED]

Epilogue

"Are you ever going to ask me to marry you?" Lisa's voice cut through everything else happening in that moment.

And there was a lot happening in the moment.

Still, the shock sluiced so strongly through Jennie that she nearly fell right where she stood, and had to be steadied by Lisa's hands on her elbows. She could feel them stroking even though her thick parka.

Or maybe she just knew the exact movement Lisa's hands were making, even if she couldn't quite feel it.

"Excuse me?" She choked out.

Lisa raised her eyebrows. She looked real innocent for someone who'd shocked Jennie out of nowhere. "You heard me. You're not even wearing the earmuffs you insisted on having."

She lifted her gloved hand to touch at Jennie's earlobe and rub lightly. Before she asked again, "So?"

Jennie blinked at Lisa, repeatedly, as her mind whirled and tried to catch up with the actual words Lisa had genuinely spoken to her.

Marry her?

"You don't want to get married," she finally said, finding some words. Big brown eyes blinked down at her, this time. "Says who?"

Jennie narrowed her eyes as she reached up to lightly push at Lisa's shoulders. "Says you! You said it for the first time when you were..." She narrowed her eyes, trying to think back to it. To the exact first time she remembered Lisa saying the words. "Seventeen."

Lisa's mouth fell open. "How do you remember that?!"

She shrugged, feeling the back of her neck heat up at the shocked look in those dark eyes. "I just... do. I have a good memory. You know that," she tersely responded.

It was because Lisa had announced it at the breakfast table while the Manobans and Jennie had been having omelets, and all Jennie had been able to think about at thirteen-going-on-fourteen was the ridiculous and annoying plunging of her stomach as Lisa had denounced the institution of marriage.

She did have a good memory. She just so happened to have an impeccable memory for... Lisa.

Jennie cleared her throat. "Anyway. You said it again when you were twenty-eight. You came home for Somi's wedding and you made me dance with you –"

Lisa reached out and looped her arms around Jennie's neck swaying softly with imaginary music. She should have seen that coming. "Hmm, okay, this one is ringing a bell for me. Keep it going."

Jennie sighed, but let her hands fall to Lisa's hips through her jacket and moved with her. She'd gotten used to this, in the last year and a half. The spontaneous, random dancing Lisa liked to do, whether it was by herself or with Jennie.

And for as much as it wasn't necessarily who she was, she always indulged in it. Her stomach always fluttered with it.

"Anyway, you said that Somi was getting married so young, but that you hoped it worked out. And that you would never do that to yourself," she mumbled.

The words hadn't hurt her then, at twenty-four. She'd been long, long over entertaining the idea in any way that this could happen between them.

Lisa pulled her closer, whispering, "I seem to remember that I didn't have to force you to dance."

Jennie closed her eyes at the warm breath washing over her skin, relishing in the feeling. Still, she shook her head. "No, you definitely did."

"We can agree to disagree. Let's keep on topic." Lisa tapped her hands against Jennie's shoulders, as if scolding her. Like it had been her who had mentioned marriage out of nowhere.

"Is my willingness to dance with you on top of an iceberg in Antarctica not enough of a commitment?" Jennie asked, gesturing to the blinding white around them.

Antarctica was Lisa's dream. The dream she hadn't taken the opportunity to see, because she wanted to be with Jennie.

So when Lisa had asked her to come, her voice a little tentative, when she'd been planning the trip for the second time, she hadn't let herself think about everything – the fact that it was a month long trip, how cold it would be, how much research she had to do to know what to expect. All she'd thought about was that Lisa wanted her adventure, but that she wanted Jennie with her.

Lisa just gave her a knowing look. "Like you haven't loved it, Jennie. From the second you read four different lists of essentials to pack to bring with you to the arctic."

"The treading on the boots is really important," she insisted for about the hundredth time.

Lisa only continued to smile at her. That smile that was so, so full of affection that she gave Jennie every day for some reason or other. Even when Jennie was just being her usual, grumpy self.

"You loved seeing those baby penguins yesterday. I think if I hadn't stopped you, you would have taken one home. You enjoy it, Jennie. You're loving this trip even when you're freezing your ass off. Just like you loved Greece six months ago."

Lisa might have been right. She had loved Greece. And she... well, she might be loving this even more.

"You already got me to admit that there was more to the world than Sacheon!" She huffed out a breath.

Lisa had used nefarious means to seduce those words from Jennie's lips. Namely, she'd used her own lips all over Jennie's body while she'd had Jennie tied to the headboard and... yeah.

It had been fucking amazing.

Lisa swayed closer, taking Jennie's hand again, holding through the gloves they both had on and somehow, it didn't feel silly. Maybe it was because of the look in Lisa's eyes that was so unbearably tender.

"Maybe I've said those things in the past... but in the past I was never with you," Lisa whispered, and it was just enough to be heard over the wind.

"So, you want to get married?" She asked, full of disbelief.

That Lisa wanted marriage as an option at all, that she wanted it with Jennie. Somehow, it had been over a year together, but it still amazed Jennie that after everywhere Lisa had gone and everyone she'd met, somehow she wanted to end up with Jennie in Sacheon.

But after a few months together, she'd finally started to really see that it had been true.

She'd watched for the signs. The signs that Lisa was losing interest, that she was feeling restless. They never came. Lisa had thrown herself into a life in Sacheon the same way she threw herself into everything else.

And when Lisa had taken her first mini-trip – as Lisa had called it. Jennie called it a full-length one, since Lisa had left for three weeks to travel to the Netherlands  – Jennie had barely been able to sleep. Waiting for the moment that Lisa emailed her and said... that was it. She really had missed traveling constantly and it was time to go back to her life.

But – she never did. She came back. She'd come back and ran at Jennie in the airport, encasing her in the tightest, warmest hug. She wouldn't ever forget that moment, she didn't think. It was the one where she really knew it. The one where she really knew that Lisa was hers.

Lisa tilted her head to the side, her lips pulling into that wide, full, blinding grin. "Jennie, a proposal?! I had no idea this would be happening here... but I thought you'd never ask."

She rolled her eyes as she groaned, "Seriously?" But the smile that took over her face felt big enough that it might break her open.

Wasn't that just the definition of Lisa? Somehow, Jennie wouldn't want it any other way.

~FIn~