Dedicated to: @twinraven and @pentaholic45

Jane and Charlie didn't stir from his house for the next three days. They ordered out for copious amounts of food, which Charlie would collect from the porch after hastily pulling on some clothes. They devoured it in bed, laughing, talking, feeding each other their favorite bits.

Other than brief texts to Camilla and her family, Jane and Charlie didn't talk to anyone, though lots of people were very anxious to talk to Charlie, it seemed. Charlie didn't care. They ate, slept, made love, and showered, making a little cocoon that contained only the two of them, a warm place where only they existed, where they could reconnect and reaffirm.

"You look better," Charlie said, nodding, on the morning of the fourth day.

"Better than what?" Jane asked absently. She had just finished making a huge mountain of pancakes in Charlie's gorgeous, state of the art kitchen, and they were sitting at the sunny island in the middle, wearing a pair of Charlie's old pjs between them (Jane was wearing the shirt, Charlie the pants). She forked a huge bite into her waiting mouth.

"Better than when you arrived," he said. He took a bite himself, nodding for emphasis.

"Oh, did I look bad?" Jane asked. She put her fork down and patted at her hair in a futile attempt to change how it looked. She sighed.

"No, no, darling Jane," Charlie chastised her, smoothing her soft hair away from her face. He looked into her pale eyes, the sea glass eyes which had haunted him for the better part of a year.

He looked down at his lap, trying to collect his thoughts. He looked up at her again, wiping away a drop of syrup from her chin with a smile. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft and slow, washing over Jane like soft English rain.

"You are luminously beautiful," he began. "It's like you carry your own source of light with you, wherever you go.

"Laugh if you want," he continued as she began to grin. "I'm dead serious right now, Jane." He grasped the hand that been holding the fork. "If I could draw, or paint or whatever, you'd have a halo, like those angels the renaissance masters used to draw, yeah?" And Jane loved how Charlie said "renaissance," with the stress on the second syllable.

"When you arrived, you looked like you hadn't slept in a week, or eaten in a month," he explained. "Your lovely eyes looked too big for your face." He paused. "I would imagine I looked much the same?" he queried.

Jane took another bite and nodded as she chewed. "You looked kind of angry, to tell the truth," she finally said. "And tired," she added.

"But now you look like you used to," Charlie explained. "You're back to being my gorgeous Jane."

Jane beamed at Charlie as she ate, making Charlie smile back at her as he, too, took another bite.

"I think we should pop round to my parents' house today, okay?" Charlie continued, nodding.

Jane's smile disappeared.

"What?" he asked. "What's the matter?"

Jane shrugged. "Why? I think we're having a great time the way we are, don't you?"

"Of course," Charlie agreed, smiling. "Shagging and eating with you is just about the best way to spend time that's ever been invented, honestly, but you're going to have to go back to New Jersey, eventually, I assume, and I want you to at least say hello to them before you have to go, you know?"

He finally pushed his plate away. "I mean, Jane, we have to make some decisions about our future, don't we? The real world is out there, and, much as I love shutting it out and making believe we're the only two people on earth, we can't do it much longer, can we?"

"Our future?" Jane repeated. She wiped her mouth.

"Yeah," Charlie said, smiling. "I know that I don't want to be separated from you, ever again, until the day I die, or until you're so sick of me that you make me leave," he announced. He rose and began rinsing the dishes for the dishwasher.

Wow.

"Charlie," Jane said. "Charlie," she repeated when he kept rinsing dishes. He looked up at her, blinking in the brightly lit kitchen, as his hands continued their task.

"You're not even twenty years old," she said.

"I know," he said. "Your point?"

"You can't know you want to be with me until 'the day you die' when you're still a teenager," Jane responded. She sounded indignant.

"But I do," Charlie responded. He shut off the water, turned on the dishwasher, and wiped his hands. He grinned, coming around the island, his medallion and bracelet glinting. He reached for Jane's hands. "I do," he repeated softly, firmly. "Don't you?"

"Of course I do," Jane responded. "But that's different, I'm me, I'm not you, you know?"

"What the devil does that mean?" Charlie asked, laughing.

"I'm not a world famous singer and movie star and stuff, I don't have the, uh, options that you do," Jane said. "Come on, Charlie, don't be obtuse, you know what I mean. You're the one who was talking about 'the real world' and all that, so be real. You could have anyone, you can have..." she trailed off.

Charlie looked like a thundercloud. Not this again. He pulled Jane's slight form into his arms, clasping his hands around her back. "Jane, darling Jane." He took a deep breath. "Look. Like you said, I'm me. I've met loads of women, been with loads of women, you know?" At her nod, he continued. "So you have to believe me when I tell you that, no matter what my age, I've been around the block enough times to know what I want when I come across it, yeah?" He pulled her closer, so he could kiss her forehead, making her close her eyes.

"And I want you," he concluded. "I. Choose. You."

Jane looked at him and slowly nodded.

"So," he continued. "My parents?"

******************

"I don't have the right clothes to meet anyone's parents," Jane fretted. "And I especially don't have the right clothes to meet my boyfriend's parents," she added.

Charlie poked his head out of the closet, grinning. "Say that last bit again," he requested.

"I especially don't have the--" Jane began, but Charlie interrupted her.

"Just the important bit, about me being your boyfriend, please?" he implored.

Jane just gave him a look, but she did walk over to him and muss his hair. "Boyfriend," she murmured, kissing him. "Boyfriend," she repeated. "Boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend."

"Thank you, darling Jane," Charlie said, eyes closed. He opened his eyes. "And you look smashing," he added.

"You always say that," Jane said, rolling her eyes. But she smiled as she buttoned her blouse.

They left Charlie's house hand in hand for the ten minute walk to the house where his mother and father lived with his sister, Anna. It was a beautiful summer day, not too terribly humid, even though it was July in London.

The house looked similar to Charlie's, even to the wall around it. It was a necessity because of Charlie's fans. Charlie punched in the code and led Jane up the path to the door, where he used his key and let them in.

"Mum! Dad! Anna?" he called.

"Coming, love!" a woman answered.

A woman with Charlie's smile and a tall man with Charlie's hair and eyes entered, along with the young girl Jane had seen leaving when she arrived at his house that first day.

"Welcome, welcome, dear Jane," the woman said, giving Jane a light hug and kissing her on both cheeks.

"Jane, this is my mum, Helen," Charlie said with a smile.

"Welcome to our home, Jane," said the man, stepping in to hug her.

"And this is my father, Michael," Charlie continued. "And you remember Anna? She was on a bicycle the last time you saw her, I think?

"Everyone, this is my Jane," Charlie said, his smile growing. He slipped an arm around her, and Jane loved him even more for it.

Jane nodded and greeted everyone. She followed them into the lounge, where things had been laid out for tea.

"Your home is beautiful," she said. And it was. Like Charlie's, it was spacious and full of natural light, which could be in short supply in expensive London. Pretty antiques and books filled the hallway and the room where everyone sat.

"Well, we have our son to thank for that," Charlie's father said. "I don't know if he told you, but we're both teachers, and there's no way we could ever have afforded anything like this on what we earned.

"Thanks to Charlie, though, money's been taken out of the equation for us, and we've been able to focus on just teaching, on educating, which is such an incredible gift," he continued, as Charlie's mother poured out the tea. Jane could hear pride and gratitude in his voice.

"Yes, it must be wonderful," she responded. "I would think that, if we could all do just what we were really driven to do, with no thought to having to earn a living, our lives would be so much more fulfilling."

"And what do you want to do, Jane dear?" Charlie's mother asked. She smiled, and Jane was again struck by how much Charlie looked like her. "I know you're very young still, but have you considered what you'd like to read in college?"

Jane nodded. "I've always liked to write," she began. "But earning a living as a writer is so difficult these days, you know? So I was thinking of education, actually," she said, smiling. "Or law school. My father's an attorney," she explained.

"I was supposed to start school in the fall, but I deferred for a year because of--well, because of what happened," Jane admitted.

Charlie put an arm around her, and grasped her hand with his other.

Jane closed her eyes. Why had she brought that up? "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"No," Charlie's father said. He shook his head firmly. "No need to apologize. We all know what happened, and we all know that none of it was your fault, or Charlie's. It's not necessary to cover anything up, Jane."

"But you do intend to go to university eventually?" Helen asked, giving Charlie what could only be called "a look;" Jane had been on the receiving end of enough of those from her own mother to know what that felt like.

"Oh, of course," Jane said. She brightened noticeably as a plate of cakes and sandwiches was placed before her, a fact which was lost on no one. "School is everything in my family." She selected a sandwich and began eating.

Anna looked on approvingly and grabbed a cake, shoving the whole thing into her mouth.

"Yes, Charlie told us about you and your brother's names, and that of your cat as well," Helen said with a laugh. "Your parents must be delightful people."

Jane shrugged, smiling as she swallowed. "I think so," she agreed, reaching for a cake.

"Jane, try the one with the raspberry jam, they're ace," Anna said, pointing.

Jane nodded and picked it up.

Charlie smiled and grabbed some food as well.

"Actually, I kind of wanted to talk to you guys about all of this," he said, looking from his mother to his father.

"What, son?" his father asked.

"Well, I've been running myself ragged the last five years, making albums, movies, all that, you know?" Charlie said. "So I was thinking of taking a bit of a break."

"Yeah? To do what?" Anna asked.

"Go to school," Charlie said. He sat back to see the effect of his words.

Charlie's father nearly choked on a mouthful of tea, and both of them sat up to stare at their son.

"Really?" Helen asked, laying a hand on her husband's arm.

Charlie nodded. "I've been doing this other stuff for a long time, it's gotten a bit old, if I'm honest. Plus, I'm nearly at the point where Anna knows more than I do, I'm starting to feel stupid."

"That's because you are," Anna said with a sweet smile, reaching for another cake.

"Brat," Charlie said.

"Wanker," Anna responded.

"Anna!" Charlie's mother gasped, though she couldn't contain her laughter.

"And," Charlie continued, glaring at his sister, "Jane wants to go to school, and I want to be with Jane. Those are all perfectly valid reasons to put my career on hold for four years and go to Uni, don't you think?" And he leaned in and kissed Jane's cheek.

Jane smiled.

"And the fact of the matter is that, even if everything falls apart and I don't have a career to return to after, I already have enough money to last a lifetime," Charlie said. "I'd like the opportunity to study and learn, and not have to worry about the future, I mean, what a gift, as dad said, right?" He looked around.

"Absolutely, son," Michael responded. "You know how your mother and I feel about all this. We'll always be grateful for everything your success has brought you, always, but we've never been happy about the fact that you decided against Uni." He smiled at Jane.

"We owe you a huge thanks, young lady." Next to him, his wife was nodding.

"Oh, please, no," Jane said, shaking her head. "I love Charlie, and I'm so thankful that he even exists, so I need to thank you guys, honest."

And Charlie just sat next to her, looking and feeling as proud and as pleased as he'd ever felt. "Isn't she wonderful?" he finally burst out. "Isn't my Jane just the most marvelous, lovely girl you've ever met?"

"Oh my god, Charlie, stop," Jane nearly hissed, eyes wide. She could feel her cheeks burning and looked down at her lap desperately, wishing there were someplace to hide.

"Jane, Charlie's right," Helen said, leaning forward, speaking softly. "He's never brought anyone home to meet us before, and for good reason, I think, judging by what we saw in the papers and magazines.

"We're delighted to know you, dear, dear Jane," she finished.

"Absolutely delighted," Charlie repeated, leaning over to whisper in her ear.