A/N: Thanks for reading and supporting the story, guys. Means a lot! xx
"How did you manage to get a table here with such short notice?" Her eyes shifted from the people in the bar who had been waiting for a table long before they even arrived. It had been too long since a guy had taken her out to a fancy restaurant, she realized. It worried her that he was making such an effort, and yet it wooed her, slowly pushing the knowledge of his memory loss, or gain, to the back of her mind.
"I might have pulled some strings," he smirked. "A special occasion calls for a special setting."
"You shouldn't have…" She objected.
"I wanted to," he countered, and she nodded, offering him a small smile.
"To calling in favors," he smiled while raising his glass and clinking with hers.
"So what special occasion calls for this setting? Me not wearing a ring?" As soon as the words left her, she recognized why that would be a perfect reason for their prompt date. It was strange thinking of this as a date, but from Gil's point of view that would be exactly what it was. A chill ran down her spine, but she rationalized that he couldn't possibly have gotten a ring in time for this.
"Yes."
"Gil… You don't… I don't need a ring." She did not. If he had actually proposed to her, a ring would be in place, but he never had. Again, she imagined things from his point of view and could see why he would think she did. He was silent for a while, looking at her, annoyed? Perhaps she seemed uninvolved, detached. God, playing the part was a lot harder than she had thought it would be.
"Cath… Here's the thing," he finally said with a sigh, and her heart almost stopped.
"I… I don't remember how I proposed…" Her heart definitely stopped. "If I proposed."
She looked into his eyes in an attempt to convey the truth and plead for comprehension, but he shied away from her gaze. Sometimes she felt like he could look right into her soul. There were so many things she wanted to say, but she could not string words into a coherent sentence, her mind busy overanalyzing the reason for his reluctance to look at her.
"Or if it was just the natural next step, and we just agreed," he finished. He looked up at her, carefully meeting her gaze, and then it hit her. He was embarrassed. "Must have lost some short term memory during the accident," he mumbled.
"Oh, Gil," she smiled sympathetically, grabbing his hand from across the table. "It doesn't matter."
Her attempt at comforting him did not do the least, or so his look told her. And of course it mattered. You would think it was important, and it made her go back on her promise of not adding to the illusion. She tilted her head in sympathy. "You didn't get down on one knee or anything like that, but we agreed that we'd both like to get married." It was not entirely untrue. Though she had not thought about remarrying, the opportunity not having arisen, it was not something she had definitively dismissed.
"So when we told the others at the hospital, we weren't even properly engaged. We aren't really engaged."
"I wouldn't put it like that, but yeah, it took me by surprise when you were suddenly telling everyone about us. I don't think they even realized there was an us yet." That part was completely true, 'they' including herself.
"Cath, I'm sorry." His privacy had always been very dear to him, but she was long used to her personal life being the focus of the talk around the water cooler.
"Gil, I'd marry you then as much as when I said I would. We were as good as engaged; I didn't need a ring to make it official. " It felt so right to be here with him, and the heartfelt conversation was neither awkward nor uncomfortable. He nodded and offered her a small smile.