A/N: There were two requests for this scene, so it had to be next! :D Also, thought it'd be fun to share what I was listening to on a loop while writing these. I'll go edit it into the first scene, you can go and see :)

II

The engagement of Zay Babineaux and Nadine Zhu
May 2024 (Endings, Beginnings, and the Journey in Between)

(Soundtrack: "The Book of Love" by Peter Gabriel)

On the whole, Zay's life had been wonderful. No, not just wonderful, it had been pretty perfect. He had great parents, he was part of a family he would be proud to call his own, every single day. He did pretty well in school, and his friends were his favorite people he was not related to by blood or marriage. He was a great basketball player, solid dancer, and he could be counted on for support and cheerfulness at every turn. And he had a girl… He had the most wonderfully smart, loving, beautiful girl in the whole of the world, as far as he was concerned, to call his girlfriend. He loved her, and she loved him, and when the time had come for them to decide where they would go for college as their high school days were drawing to a close, he had committed to follow her to Boston.

There had been no need to think about it for very long. This was a great opportunity for her education, her career in the long run, and where he was concerned, his own goals… Well, he could accomplish those anywhere. All that mattered to him was that he got to be with Nadine Zhu for the rest of his life.

Maybe for all that, maybe for the fact that he'd had this great, relatively trouble free life, the breakup had come and knocked him over out of nowhere, and it had ripped him to pieces.

Those months where they had been apart, where he'd gone to New York and stayed with his friends… He knew they had happened, he remembered them, but at the same time they just… they didn't feel real, they couldn't. It was like he was looking at his life from the passenger seat, not the driver's. He needed Nadine or else his heart just didn't know how to function anymore.

And then he'd had his miracle. She'd come to New York for Christmas. Well, Lucas and Maya had brought her to New York, after having visited her in Boston. Either way, she'd been there, and after not seeing her for so long, it was like his downed systems were being rebooted, little by little, and then on Christmas Eve morning it had been all systems go. He remembered that more than anything out of those months. He remembered every moment he spent with her from the moment he saw her outside the apartment building but that one…

He'd gotten up early, and the apartment was silent the way only mornings could make it. He'd walked out of his room, his sole intent being to get the coffee started. Only when he'd reached the kitchen, he'd discovered he wasn't the first one to get up. Nadine was there, standing next to the coffee machine, cup in hand as she leaned against the counter. She looked up, and if not for it clearly being their friends' apartment, this could have been their place back in Boston, on so many mornings. She'd be there, barefoot, long raven hair looking both dishevelled and perfect at the same time, and when she'd see him coming in, like a zombie that craved coffee more than brains, she'd do… pretty much what she did here, which was to casually offer him her own mug before she could take a new one for herself and fill it. Zay had taken the cup, looking back at her like he could feel his brain screaming at him. Say something! She's right there, don't screw it up again!

"Z, can I…" he'd started, pausing when his fingers had brushed against hers in the handoff. It was like a spark, and he knew she'd felt it, too. He'd looked back at her, and there had been tears in her eyes.

"Please…" she'd started, so quietly. "Come home."

He'd looked at her for a moment, blinking, before setting the cup on the counter. He'd turned back to her right then, and in the next moment he had one arm around her, one hand cradling her head, and he was kissing her. Her surprise had lasted no more than a second, and then she was kissing him back, arms encircling him like that was all they'd wanted to do from the day he'd left.

When they'd finally pulled back to look at one another, they'd been all smiles, like they'd forgotten for a while but remembered now all at once.

"Best Christmas ever," he'd declared, which had made her laugh.

"It's not Christmas yet, Z."

"Don't worry about it. It's Christmas somewhere."

It had been almost half a year since that day, almost half a year since he'd packed up everything he'd brought to New York and returned to Boston with Nadine. By now, a lot could be said to have gone back to the way it had been, but that wasn't entirely true, and for the better. Neither of them could ever want things to go back to the way they'd been before the breakup, not when it had caused the breakup. They'd both made mistakes, and one most of all. They had taken each other for granted, and for that… for that they'd nearly lost each other. That wasn't going to happen again. They had taken things slow in their return. He'd slept on the couch for a month after their return, by his choice. He wanted to the guy she deserved again, to treat her as she deserved to be treated.

After four of what might have been the best weeks they'd had in a long time, he'd woken up in the middle of the night to find her sitting on the edge of the couch, tapping at his hand as it sat on his chest. Once he'd been properly awake, she'd leaned forward until she could press a light kiss to his lips before taking hold of his hand and rising again. The message had been clear, and he'd followed her back into their room and into their bed.

Already on that day, he'd been thinking about how he would go about asking her to marry him.

He had the ring, he had the desire, but as he'd done since they'd gotten back together, he had wanted only to take his time, to ensure that they wouldn't rush into anything and spoil it again. He'd keep thinking about his GiGi and how she'd tell him the secret to her cookies – other than the ingredients, which she still would not tell a soul – was the timing. Take them out of the oven too early or too late and you might as well have gone for those store cookies, that was her opinion.

So, he'd waited. He'd waited, and he'd planned. One thing was for certain, and that was that he would wait until after she finished her semester and her finals. If all went well… if she said yes… then she could go on, stress free, and start planning. He knew her enough to know it would take no more than ten minutes before she'd have a notebook, a pen, her laptop, and her phone, and the research would begin. She'd send him for magazines, and he'd go at once.

The day finally came. It was the first one after she'd had her last exam. After thinking it might be a worthwhile option to propose when she came back home from school on that day, he'd changed his mind. It was better if he gave her an evening to relax, a night to sleep, and then the day after… yes… that would be the day.

It was in times like these when he really missed all their friends. Alright, they had made some friends here in Boston, and some of the others were in New York, which wasn't so far off. But in all honesty what he meant when he'd think that he missed his friends was really that he missed his best friend, missed Lucas, and he was all the way back in Texas. At Christmas, when he'd seen him, after his reunion with Nadine had cheered him, he'd joked that he missed Lucas more than he missed his parents. Some days, like today, it wasn't even a joke. He hadn't told him about his plans, which was the real surprise here, but then some part of him had been afraid that he might jinx things, wreck them, so he'd kept this a solo mission.

He woke up that day, afraid for a moment that he'd missed his shot when he opened his eyes and saw the time on his alarm clock. He'd slept in! He'd slept through his proposal! He'd…

No, wait a minute…

Very carefully, he'd looked over his shoulder and discovered Nadine was still in the bed, too, next to him. She'd slept in, too! In all the years he'd known her, he could count on one hand the number of times he'd known her not to be up super early, so maybe this was a sign. The universe was doing him a solid, he was still on the clock, he was…

She's waking up!

Smoothly as he could, Zay set his head back down and pretended to sleep, putting in a bit of snoring for good measure.

"Woah…" he heard Nadine gasp, probably from seeing the time, too. The mattress shifted, which would be her turning about, seeing him there. He played the good sleeping boy, and a moment later she got up and padded on her way out of the room. Zay waited, waited, like he could track her progress. Out of the room, into the kitchen and toward the coffee machine… She'd get it started, go to the bathroom, come back, take out her mug, and so on, and so forth.

There was the coffee machine, beep, and shuffling feet, and the bathroom door… Zay sprang out of bed, sliding to the dresser even as he ripped off his PJs, pulled the clothes he'd stashed at the ready in a drawer, and dressed up. Deodorant, check, hair… excellent, as always… Bathroom door! He hurried to stand just inside the door, straightening up his clothes again, breathing in, breathing out, waiting for the sound of the cabinet door… There.

Quietly stepping out of their room, he just managed to see her reach for her cup, and as she lifted it, a gasp, as he saw the small box hiding underneath. His heart was going so fast. When she picked up the box, he cleared his throat and she spun around to find him there, in his suit.

"What are you…" she breathed, just as he went and got down on one knee. Her face looked stuck between surprise and overwhelming emotion.

"I'm, uh… I'm gonna need that," he pointed to the small box with a smile. Nadine blinked, breaking from the shock. She took the four steps it took to arrive standing before him and placed the box in his waiting hand. When she did, he took her hand with the other, held it and looked up at her. "When I went to New York, I saw what my life would be like without you, Nadine. I don't ever want to feel like that again. The most important thing I want to do with my life is to spend it with you," he vowed, working the box open to present her with the ring it held. She was already halfway weeping, and now she was teetering on the edge, waiting for him to say the words she knew would follow. He took a deep breath, finding his own eyes were blurring before him. "Will you marry me?"

She couldn't speak, throat tight around happy tears, so she could only nod, though she did it firmly and without any uncertainty, and after he'd slipped the ring on her finger, after he'd stood back up and kissed her, she'd found her voice again.

"Yes… Anytime, anywhere," she laughed, kissed him again, and oh how he could have run around the world right now.

For the time being, the only run he took was down to the mailbox, grabbing the mail while Nadine had insisted on changing, so she wouldn't be standing around in her PJs while he was out here looking the way he did. As he climbed back up the stairs on springing steps, he flipped through the envelopes. Bill, bill, junk…

He stopped when he spotted one envelope, one heading in particular. It was addressed to Nadine, of course, but if it was what he thought it was, then it might well affect them both. It might mean their return to Texas.

"What do you think? Is this balanced enough?" Nadine asked as he walked back into the apartment. He looked up and forgot the envelopes for a moment.

"Well, you look ten times better than I do, so I'd say so, yeah," he coughed. Looking down to the envelopes in his hands again, he held up the important one. "About that 'anytime, anywhere…'"

More later!