Three| Fortune Favors the Prepared…Sort Of

"Uughhh…eww…" he whines loudly, flinging a clingy blob of fresh, slimy green ectoplasm from his scuffed fingers and then groaning as he sits up, bringing his clean hand to the already budding lump on the back of his head. "Aww, man…" He winces, twisting to crack his back and stretch any number of abused muscles before forcing himself to a wobbly stand, "…guhhh…yup, definitely gonna feel that one, come morning…"

Footsteps scuff up loose asphalt down the alley, coming towards him – the pounding footsteps of running feet – and he turns, squinting. Though he can't make out much feature-wise, he'd recognize that run anywhere, and his suspicions are confirmed the next second when she calls out to him.

"Oh, God…there you are…babe," Despite being fantastically fit, she's out of breath by the time she makes it to him – not that he can blame her, after that fight, "are you…okay?" she pants. "One second you were…there, and then…I couldn't find you, and-"

"I'm fine," he says, suddenly smiling in spite of himself – despite the dizziness in his head and the throbbing in his leg – and he reaches out, running a slow, seeking hand over her cheek and checking by feel for any obvious signs of scrapes or bruising. "You?" he asks. "And what about the ghost? Did-"

"They got it," she assures him, her tone significantly less harried now, and she leans into his touch, then catches his fingers in her own before he can withdraw, holding them by her cheek. "We're all good, now…" she says, quieter, and her breath is a whisper of heat and moist air on his lips the moment before she kisses him – not quite chaste, but tender and enduring – and in the span of those passing seconds, he's convinced – as he has been before and will be again, he has no doubt – that she's skies above him and miles out of his league, and it's only by some ineffable miracle of fate that she's really his. "I was worried about you," she admits when she pulls back, and he does his best to shrug without wincing.

"Eh, I've had worse…"

She snorts, but there's enough lightheartedness to it that it goes by smoothly. "Yeah, uh-huh…y—what's wrong?" The question catches him off-guard.

"Huh?"

"You have that expression," she accuses, "the one where you're thinking about something and it's bugging you, but you're not sure you want to talk about it."

"Oh." He blushes, caught. "Umm…nothing important?"

He can just make out the deepening furrows of her frown. "Oh, no. You're not getting off that easy. If-"

"I was just thinking you deserve better," he blurts, because throwing his will against hers is like trying to commit an advanced text on hyper text markup language to memory – when it's written in binary code – and before she can cut in, he barrels on. "You deserve to have one night where there isn't a ghost attack or an explosion or a near-death experience…one night done right, where the biggest thing on your mind isn't a bunch of guns and shrapnel and ectoplasm…and I've been trying to arrange that night for ages now, it feels like, and I thought I finally had it, you know? I had everything planned out – the walk and the restaurant and even the music that was playing there-"

"I wondered if you had something to do with that…"

"-and it was all set, and the mood was right, and no one was bugging us, and nothing was pressing for you to leave so I could finally, finally propose in peace, when the night was all about us and nothing else…but then this-"

"Wait, hold up-"

"-had to happen, and the restaurant manager's probably banned us for life for all the property damage, and-"

"Tuck-"

"-there's a hole in my only tux, and we might well get sued and-"

"Tuck-"

"-I didn't even get to finish my filet mignon beca-"

"TUCKER LEONARD FOLEY!"

Tucker's lips clap shut. Valerie stalks in, dropping one hand to either side of his head, caging him; he swallows. "Errr…yes, dear?" he peeps timidly.

"You wanna back that up and run it by me once more again at a human pace?"

"Umm…the uh, part about my filet mignon?" he asks. "Because that really was irritat-"

"Tucker!"

He clears his throat. "Yeah?"

Her tone softens. "You were gonna propose?"

He blushes. "Ah, oh uhh…that bit…well…" His hand makes it halfway to the bridge of his nose before he remembers he can't readjust his glasses to stall for time because, well, they're not there. He clears his throat, again, instead. "See, I didn't actually mean to say that out loud…to you…right now…because this is, umm…well, I mean, it's obviously messed up, now, and I wanted everything to be perfect when I actually did ask, so-"

"Tucker…" She holds a finger gently to his lips, hushing him, and he wishes he could better see the smile he hears in her voice, "…how about you just ask?" she suggests, taking back her hand only after she knows she has his attention, and he blinks, mildly taken aback.

"Here?" he asks, as if it's the most absurd idea ever.

"Why not?" she counters.

"Now?" He begs for clarification, because really...really? In an alley? What kind of romance novels were women reading these days, anyway?

"Uhh…yes?" she responds, and he shakes his head.

"But…this is…this place is dirty," He continues to resist, "and I'm covered in ghost-goo, and I don't even know what happened to my left shoe, and I left the ring back in the-"

"Tucker…" She cuts him off again, this time finally verging on impatient, "…I don't care about any of that…I'm a pretty practical girl, remember? You think I can't take a proposal with a few scrapes and bruises around the edges?"

Tucker considers this. "Well, I suppose…if you're sure…" And then, because he has to ask, "…but are you positive you don't want to just wait until the stocks on my newest encephalic neuro-sensory holo chip to take off and I have enough cash to fly us to Fiji and ask there—because they damn well better not have ghosts in Fiji—and make it a proper-"

"Tucker Foley," Valerie clips tersely, "if you do not ask me to marry you within the next fifteen seconds, I swear to God-"

"Okay! Okay, jeez, woman…cut a man some slack…" he teases, rolling his eyes, but smiling nonetheless. "I mean, if I knew you felt this way about it, I would have just asked the other day…you know, when I had you on top of the laundry machine with your legs on my-"

"Tucker-"

"Valerie…" Tucker starts solemnly.

She stops, and waits.

"…darling, babe, sweetheart…love of my life…most elegant angel ever to set foot on this dark, dreary earth whose very voice is music to my ears—"

She opens her mouth.

"—make me the happiest man alive and tell me you'll marry me?"

For all his complaints about the setting, the only thing that honestly bothers him is that he can't clearly see her face when he says it. It probably doesn't matter, since there's no way she's surprised by now, but it still bugs him, and it's the first time he ever seriously considers getting contacts – if only because they were probably much less likely to get lost in the middle of a ghost fight. Then they're kissing, and even that detail doesn't matter.

"Valerie?"

"About damn time you got around to asking…"

"So…is that a 'ye-"

"Yes, Tucker, of course…of course it's a yes."

"Oh, okay, good…great, 'cause, umm…you know I was getting worried there. For a second."

"Liar…"

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

A/N: Hyper text markup language = HTML, fyi. My boyfriend thought the sentence where I used that was confusing/overly-complicated, and he's more of a computer geek than me, so I debated heavily about whether or not to change and/or nix it completely, but eventually decided against it because I'm picky and stubborn. Did it make sense in context? (You don't have to say yes, I'm just wondering.)