Ch 6

"You're awfully quiet tonight," Abby commented as they walked back towards home after dinner.

"Hmm? Oh sorry."

"It's okay. Mike, something wrong?"

"No. That's kinda the thing."

Abby stopped walking and turned to look Mike in the eye. "It's a 'thing' that nothing's wrong?"

"Yeah."

"Good or bad?"

"Good. Really good. Too good."

"No such thing."

"Only when you're afraid of messing it up."

"Okay Mikey, what's going on?"

"I've been going back and forth for a while now on whether or not I should ask you this. There's this voice in my head telling me that I'd be crazy not ask because if I don't I'll never know."

"Am I gonna like this?"

"God I hope so," Mike said as he looked at the sky. He sighed and then looked back at Abby. "I want to marry you."

"That's the second time someone's told me that in less than a year," Abby said without missing a beat.

"Yeah?"

"Uh-huh. Only this time I don't want to run screaming in the opposite direction."

"That's good. That's very good. What do you want?"

"I want to marry you, too."

"You mean it?"

"No, I'm just saying it so I can crush your spirit later," Abby said rolling her eyes. "Yes I mean it."

"So, we're getting married?"

"No, not yet. Not until there's a question asked."

"Right. Right. Okay-"

"Michael Logan, will you marry me?"

"That's my line."

"Not this time, it's not. We have always seemed to defy the norms. I figure the marriage proposal shouldn't be any different. C'mon, how many guys you know marry their first love decades after meeting them?"

"I love you, Abby."

"I love you, too," Abby smiled. Then she kissed him.

"Wait," Mike pulled back. "I have something for you."

"Really? What's that?"

"This. I've had it for a long time." He pulled the box out of his pocket and opened it.

"I recognize that."

"She left it to me in her will. Told me to give it to 'the one'."

"The one, huh?"

"The one who drives me crazy, the one who knows me better than I know myself, or the one I love more than anything in the world. She wasn't clear on which so I'm gonna go with the third option."

"But, I do the first two so well."

"Yes, you do," Mike smiled as he wrapped his arms around her. "But the last one-"

"Is true for both of us," Abby smiled. "Sometimes I think about when we were kids. You never bailed on me when it came to Maggie."

"You stuck by me, too, Ab."

"So, we'll just keep sticking by each other only instead of being live-in lovers, we'll be married."

"Husband and wife," Mike said with his smart-ass grin.

"Happily ever after," Abby added before she kissed Mike. When they parted she smiled up at him. "We're getting married Mike!"

"Hell yeah!" He picked her up and spun her round.

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"Dr. Carter, can you fasten your seatbelt? We'll be landing soon."

John nodded and did what was asked. He glanced out the window and could just see JFK in the distance. "Almost there," he whispered to himself.