Five Times Cutter Considered Proposing To Claudia (And The One Time He Actually Built Up The Courage To Do So)
i.
They are sitting in their living room, on their couch, in front of their TV, and Nick is struck by just how natural this feels. Already the room is saturated with the memories they have filled it with: the many nights they have eaten takeaway on this couch because neither of them can cook to save themselves; the first time they watched Titanic together on that TV and he wasn't afraid to cry in front of her. Claudia's legs are curled up beneath her and he has one hand resting gently on her thigh; the other taps an erratic rhythm out on the armrest as he toys with the idea of doing it right now.
It would be so easy to slip off the couch and onto his knees as his hand ducked inside his jacket pocket to where the ring hides in its little box. It is not the same ring with which he proposed to Helen, all dazzle and shimmering stones; it was his mother's ring and it will be Claudia's, too, one day. He looks over to her and she returns his glance with a raised eyebrow; a question forms on her lips, but he simply folds his hand over hers and offers a smile. It will be Claudia's ring one day, but something about the casualness of this atmosphere isn't right. He wants it to be special. He wants it to mean something.
ii.
It's their fifth day on the boat and the captain is turning it gently east to head home. Claudia told Nick once that her secret ambition before the anomalies was to quit her job and sail around the world; he booked the boat for their twenty-month anniversary and the joy in her face when she saw it was worth every second of fretful planning. They are sitting on the deck – Claudia is watching the sun rise, and Nick is watching the colour of her hair change in the dawn light. He lifts his hand to run it gently through the strands of gold, and she leans into his touch.
Perhaps now? At dawn, at sea... It doesn't get much more romantic than that. It's the same thought he has had for the past four mornings, though, and again he can't help but mentally follow it up with all the things that could go wrong: a particularly vicious wave could drown out the sound of the question and with it his courage; he could drop the ring over the side of the boat and never see it again. There is, of course, also the slight risk of her saying no, but that's one he refuses to think about too much. The captain approaches to let them know that they'll be returning to land in about six hours, and the moment is lost as the dawning sun retreats behind a cloud.
iii.
They go to Oxford to visit Claudia's parents, and by some miracle it goes well. Claudia's father is a lawyer with an enormous moustache and a love of classical music; her mother is soft-spoken and polite and eager to know all about Edinburgh because she's always wanted to visit Scotland. Somehow Nick manages to win his way into their good graces, even if he has to lie about his job. He tells them he's still a professor at CMU and describes the position at length, though the bigger lie is when he answers in the affirmative when Mrs. Brown asks if he enjoys it.
He plays golf with Claudia's father and talks about his hometown with Claudia's mother, and when they finally pronounce their approval it's almost as much of a relief as it would be if he'd proposed and she'd said yes herself. They go for a walk, just the two of them, in the nature reserve next to the house where Claudia grew up, and when she pauses for a moment under the shade of an oak tree to tell him a story from her childhood, he's seized so powerfully by the knowledge of just how beautiful she is and almost, almost, almost goes to one knee. But her eyes are far away as she's lost in the memory of her past, and he feels it would almost be presumptuous to disturb her, to intrude upon the memories she has of this place and overwrite them with one of him.
iv.
Nick has been stuck in the Triassic without food or water for three days now, and he's beginning to think the hallucinations have finally started because there's no way he would have let Claudia come through with him. She's there, though, running towards him over the sand, reaching out a hand that he grasps with what little strength he has left, pulling him to his feet and into an embrace. Then she is leading him towards an anomaly and he realises: I didn't bring you through; you came looking for me.
After three dozen steps they are home, back in the present and safe, and the medical team is descending on him with stretchers and bandages and oxygen masks. As they rush him towards an ambulance, shouting complicatedly long words like "hypotension", his dehydrated brain thinks for a moment that maybe this is the last chance he'll get. He tries to reach into the pocket of his jacket for the ring, but he can't find the strength to raise his arm anymore. The ambulance doors slam shut and Claudia's worried face vanishes behind them.
v.
For their two-year anniversary they have two weeks away. Lester, of course, is reluctant to let them go for so long, but he would prefer for the two of them to be, as he so charmingly put it, "sickeningly sentimental" somewhere very far away. Nick takes her to Scotland, to the place where he grew up. The summer is the right time of the year to catch the Edinburgh Festival, and they see what seems like dozens of performances; music, dance, theatre, comedy. He shows her museums, parks, libraries, and his childhood home. He finds himself opening up to Claudia, recounting memories he'd never shared with anyone else.
It's been years since he was last in Edinburgh, but almost everything is just as he remembered it. It is a part of his history, and he is grateful for the chance to share it with her. Somewhere in this city, the city of his childhood, his father knelt once to present the woman who would become Nick's mother with the same ring Nick carries now. Surely there is no better place for Nick to do the same? But again he hesitates, and again he decides against it. He wants to do it on his own terms, not following in anyone's footsteps. When the time is right, he will know... he hopes.
I.
In the end it happens almost without him thinking about it. An anomaly opens in the Royal Botanic Gardens and keeps them busy for much of the day, rounding up half a dozen Oviraptors. When they're finally finished – miraculously, the anomaly closes only seconds after the last dinosaur is herded through – the team pat each other on the back, proud of a job well done, and relieved that everything went relatively smoothly. They head their separate ways; they'll rendezvous later at the ARC.
With an unspoken agreement, Nick and Claudia take time to explore the gardens. They wander through rows of flowers, not speaking much, but never straying further than a few feet from one another. Dusk is falling; Nick gives Claudia his coat, and she smiles when their fingers touch, despite the dirt of a day's work that covers his. A bird coos softly from the high branch of a tree, but it is otherwise quiet.
They reach the top of a hill just as the sun is setting. Nick takes the time to look at her; the fading light bathes her hair in red brilliance and brings out the flecks of gold in her eyes. He counts the freckles that spill over her cheeks, even though he knows every one of them by heart by now. She turns to look at him, perhaps to ask him what he's staring at, an unusually bashful smile gracing her lips. When he stretches out his hand, she gives him hers and watches with gentle confusion as he bends to kiss it.
He watches the muscles in her throat work as he moves to one knee, but she doesn't take her eyes from him, just as his are fixed on her face. He finds his voice, somehow, fumbling for words just as he fumbles for the little box in his pocket and offers it up to her with the question he has wanted to ask for so long:
"Claudia Brown... will you marry me?"
The last rays of the sun disappear below the horizon, but he doesn't need light by which to see her smile, and in any case his heart is lit from within when she gives her response.