A/N Bioware's sandbox I just like playing and can't seem to stop atm. Also I guess this technically goes before 'delivery' but posted as a separate one-shot because it can stand alone.
The Proposal.
He was pathetic.
Absolutely and completely and utterly pathetic.
Men, other men, managed to do this every day. Every. Damn. Day. He was a marine; a marine and a Spectre, and in the past few years he'd seen and been through things that those other men wouldn't even dare to imagine.
Yet, they managed to do this, and he couldn't seem to.
He wasn't quite sure what the problem was.
He loved her, he loved her so much it hurt, and after everything they'd come through, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that no-one could ever take her place in his heart. He knew that more certainly than any of those other men knew, because he'd already lost her once and he knew,firsthand, how empty a life without her could be. He never wanted to go through that again.
Ever.
And he knew knew she loved him too.
She told him, she told him every day and she showed him, in a myriad of tiny miniscule little ways all the time.
But a part of him still thought she might say no. Not because she didn't love him, but because maybe she didn't see the need, or maybe she didn't believe in it, or maybe it was all too 'normal' for her.
Maybe.
He'd managed to find the perfect ring. It was small, simple, elegant, a single diamond on a band of white gold. It practically screamed Shepard. He could even picture her wearing it.
He'd managed to talk to her mother.
(Who had simply asked for his service number and made him stand there for probably 10 minutes longer than necessary while she checked his record. Then she'd told him that his marksman scores needed improving. He'd promised her he'd work on them and then she'd agreed.)
So all he had to do was pose the question.
Perhaps the problem was how to do that?
Part of him wanted it to be one of those incredibly romantic swoon-inducing proposals. Fireworks in the sky, cloud writing, candlelit dinner, something like that. Except Shepard wasn't exactly the 'swooning' type. In fact, she'd probably laugh at him and call him a sweetheart. Not in the nice way she sometimes called him a sweetheart but in the condescending 'you're such an idiot' way. Somehow he couldn't seem to picture her saying 'yes' under those circumstances.
Part of him wanted it to be really simple. Like really really simple. Like they were watching TV one night, and he would just say 'hey wanna get married' and then she'd say 'sure' and he'd toss her the ring and she'd slip it on. He could picture that clearly, but it didn't seem like enough of a statement. He wanted it to feel like the commitment it was. More than that, it was the culmination of everything they'd fought for, everything they'd suffered through and he didn't think something that had that much weight behind it should be that simple. Also, he wanted her to actually say the word 'yes'.
For perhaps the millionth time that day he reached into his pocket, pulled the box out and flipped the lid in order to gaze at the precious contents. Then the door swished open and he immediately snapped the lid shut, hastily stuffing the box back into his pocket.
"Hey you," she said, entering the living room. Too late he realised that he'd also leapt to his feet, because that didn't look suspicious at all.
"Hey," he said, reaching for a nearby data pad and trying his best to act like that was the reason he'd gotten up. From the look of that raised eyebrow, she didn't buy it. Mercifully, she chose not to call him on it.
"Hungry?" she said. "Because I'm starving."
He rolled his eyes and felt the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"You're always hungry, Shepard," he pointed out in response. She narrowed her eyes at him, but she was smiling too so he knew she was only kidding when she said, "Pot, kettle, black much?"
"Not the point," he countered.
"Uh-huh," she replied sarcastically.
A moment passed. "You wanna head to Apollo's then?" he asked.
"Sure."
15 minutes later they had their usual steak sandwiches and were sat quite comfortably at 'their' table in the centre of the Citadel. He was telling her some story about his biotic students and what dipshits they were and she was laughing.
God, she was pretty when she laughed.
And it wasn't just the musical sound of the laughter that was so uniquely her, and so rarely heard, and treasured all the more for both those reasons. It wasn't just the smile on her face that still, after all these years, made his heart skip a beat or two or ten. It was the way her eyes sparkled with mirth and danced with the mischief that always simmered below the surface.
God, he loved her.
He realised that now was the perfect time; that it didn't need to be anything more than him telling her that he loved her and that he wanted them to be together in every way they could be.
He took a breath.
"Shepard..."
BOOM!
The shockwave of the explosion rocked the cafe and they were both thrown sideways onto the floor. He immediately reached up and pulled the table down as makeshift cover, his other hand moving to unclip the pistol at his hip.
"GET DOWN!" he heard Shepard yell in the general direction of the other patrons. As he peeked over their 'cover', clocking targets and generating a barrier that would cover the both of them, he had two absurd thoughts:
1) He wished he'd eaten faster and finished his sandwich sooner.
2) You couldn't take Shepard anywhere. Literally, you couldn't take Shepard anywhere… unless for some reason you wanted to get into a fire-fight.
Afterwards, as the mercenaries were led away in cuffs by C-Sec officers, and the ambulance crews were picking over the wreckage, they sat side by side.
He was holding an ice pack to the head wound that he'd sustained, trying to protect Shepard's left flank and ducking behind cover a fraction of a fraction of a second too late. She was holding a bandage to her right arm from where he'd gone careening round a corner and she'd had to haul his ass back and a shot had grazed her arm.
There was a smudge of dirt smeared across her forehead, and her hair, which had been down, was in complete disarray. She smelled of burnt out eezo and spent thermal clips, which was somehow, and against all logic, the best combination of smells ever, and she was scowling in the direction of the mercenaries. Beautifully and spectacularly pissed off, and because nobody died and this was Shepard, he knew she was probably more pissed off that her favourite steak sandwich place looked like it was going to be out of commission for a while, rather than being pissed off about the wholesale destruction of the Citadel and the implications of a band of mercenaries actually being able to carry out such a strike. And damn if that wasn't slightly insane, and he'll be damned if he doesn't love her for exactly that reason.
He leant slightly to his left, knocking his shoulder against hers.
"Marry me, Shepard" he said. Her head swung round towards him, eyes widened in surprise and her mouth dropped open. He cursed himself. He'd gotten it wrong, there was no way she was going to...
The smile lit up not only her face, but the entire world around him.
"Okay," she whispered, voice tight. He blinked.
"Okay?"
"Okay." She shrugged, and they both returned to watching the mercenaries be led away
"You're supposed to say yes, you know," he said. He didn't look at her, but he heard her huff of laughter.
"Well, you didn't actually ask," she pointed out.
"Still."
That little huff of laughter again.
"Yes," she murmured directly into his ear. "Kaidan Alenko, I will marry you."
He felt his heart begin to race and had to close his eyes in order to control the surge of desire that she was no doubt intending to provoke. Thankfully, she moved away after a moment and returned to watching the hive of activity around them.
"You're supposed to have a ring, you know," she said.
He nodded.
"What, like this one?" He reached into his pocket. Again, her head swung round to him, somehow managing to look pleased and surprised all at once. He pushed the box into her hand, and after a moment, she opened it. If possible, her smile got even brighter as she laid eyes on what sat inside.
"Kaidan it's..." He smiled internally; he knew he'd got that bit right.
"I know," he said, then, "Here," and he took the ring out of its box. He took her left hand and slid the ring home. They both took a moment to look at it, sitting there, and marvelled at the fact that they had somehow managed to make it to this point.
"We should give our report to Commander Bailey," she said.
"Yeah," he said, taking a firmer hold of her hand and hauling her to her feet.
They walked through the wreckage of the Citadel, hand in hand towards their future, the diamond sparking between their entwined fingers.