Sorry for the delay on this - lots of emotional stuff here so had to get it right for the rest of the story. Anyway, thanks for your patience if you're still reading and thank you to godric777 and Rjriot for your reviews!

The Perfect Proposal

"How would you like me to propose to you?" asks Benny.

Beth looks up from the timeline they are trying to pull together on the coffee table. Her eyes keep going unfocused when she looks at it, like her brain doesn't want to see it.

Beth has never planned her dream wedding. Not as a child, not as a teenager, and certainly not as an adult. She loves the aesthetic, the fashion of wedding dresses, but that is as far as her interest in weddings has ever gone.

A very large part of her thought she would never walk down the aisle and she wasn't particularly unhappy about it.

She knows her wedding to Benny is not real, but for some reason, planning the whole event down to the last napkin makes her feel queasy, like her bones are made of liquid.

"Propose?" says Beth. Her brain hurts.

Benny is seated in her stripy green and white armchair, his notebook open at the back, his pen paused on the page where he is trying to construct their new love story. The original story is still at the front of the book and Beth wishes Benny had just torn it out and thrown it away when they started afresh. She keeps wondering what he wrote and then she has to remind herself that she doesn't want to know and it was just a fabrication anyway – a crucial part of Benny's carefully thought-out plan.

And it's not the only part either. For their marriage scheme, Benny wants to create a fully-detailed love story, a relationship timeline, a day-by-day plan of the events leading up to the wedding, a list of reporters they're going to talk to about their impending nuptials…

Beth's bones feel liquid again.

Benny taps his pen against the notebook like he is getting impatient. Probably because this is the third question in a row that Beth has struggled to answer, but she doesn't like having to imagine an alternate love story for her and Benny. It feels wrong.

"I don't know," says Beth after a moment. "I've never given it much thought."

"As you keep saying about everything," says Benny. "But you've got to give me something. You're the one who refuses to include anything I wrote in my original story in the new version."

Beth's spine prickles, but she groans like a petulant child and lets her head fall onto the timeline on the coffee table.

"Careful!" Benny's hand darts forwards, his pen woven between his fingers, as though to stop her crumpling anything important, but she isn't crumpling anything anyway.

Beth looks up at him through her bangs. They are slightly too long, sweeping out to the side as Vogue suggests is the fashion.

Beth never keeps the same hairstyle for long. She starts to feel trapped – hemmed in – when she has worn the same clothes or hair for too many months.

Benny sighs, sliding from his armchair onto his knees in front of Beth. "Come on, Harmon," he says, leaning over her. "We've only been doing this for…" he checks his watch. "Three hours."

"Urgh," says Beth.

Has it really only been three hours? It feels like they've been planning the wedding forever.

"I'm pretty sure you have more stamina than this, Beth," says Benny, crossing his arms over his chest. "We used to pull all day chess marathons when we were in New York."

Beth's gaze snaps to his and his muscles go rigid at the same moment as though he too has just realised he is broaching a topic they have both been diligently ignoring for the last six years – New York.

How they were together. How she left and never came back.

How he never came after her.

Benny's fingers twitch, the pen curving through the gaps like a mini baton. Beth feels like her body has suddenly switched from nausea to electrification.

Memories hover in the air between them. Days at the chess board. Nights in Benny's room.

The brush of his fingers over the inside of her thigh, the warmth of his mouth against hers, the weight of his arm over her abdomen when he fell asleep, the way she gently removed it because it felt too much like an iron bar at a fairground, keeping her locked in.

Beth hates planning her fake wedding, but she hates thinking about New York even more, so she blinks hard, trying to ground herself in the here and now.

But it does nothing to dispel the memories.

Then Benny looks away.

"Well, we need to make a decision on it pretty sharpish," he says, shuffling the papers on the coffee table. "How I proposed to you is likely going to be a pretty major part of any interviews we attend."

Beth's heart is beating too loud in her chest. How can he just tune it out so easily?

She finds the schedule under the corner of the timeline, trying to ignore the tension in her limbs. "You mean the interview with Chess News?" she says – trying now to sound as unruffled as he does. "Or Chess National? Or Vogue – I still think that one's a bit ambitious."

"We are chess champions, Beth," says Benny. "Ambition is in our blood."

Beth snorts.

Their eyes meet again. And she knows in that moment that he hasn't managed to tune it out any more easily than she has.

Benny pushes himself to his feet like he can't stand to be near her any longer. "Alright, maybe we should take a break," he says. "Three hours is a long time. Coffee?"

Beth nods, forcing herself to look away now herself, but her gaze catches on the timeline again and unfocuses.

Benny heads over to the kitchen.

Beth watches in her peripheral vision as he finds the coffee. It's only been a few days since he got here, but he barely seems to have to think about it. Beth remembers suddenly how quickly she took to the location of the coffee in Benny's apartment. How it had become a reflex after only a few days.

Benny grabs two mugs off the draining board and puts the kettle on. Then he braces his hands against the kitchen counter, staring at the mugs for a few seconds, his shoulders as rigid as stone.

New York.

It is like the pawn approaching on the left hand side in a chess game. A pawn they both ignored because they had to deal with a rook or a knight or a bishop only to be forced to acknowledge it in the late stages of the game when it reached their back rank and suddenly it was no longer a pawn-sized problem, but a queen-sized one.

"We probably shouldn't mention anything about New York to the press," says Benny. His gaze is still fixed on the mugs.

Beth's skin prickles. The kettle steams gently on the counter. They haven't spoken about New York for six years and if it's not going in the plan, perhaps they'll never have to speak of it again. She feels both relieved and empty at the thought, but she focuses on the former.

Benny glances over his shoulder, his lips pulled into a thin line. "It wouldn't be good for your reputation," he continues. "I mean, I don't care and I'm sure a lot of people don't, but it's probably better to play it safe if our story lands in any national press outlets."

"That seems reasonable," agrees Beth and if she doesn't want to talk to Benny about New York, she definitely doesn't want to talk to the press about it.

"We might have to mention the training if asked though," says Benny. "Because people do know about it, but we should date the start of any romantic interest at least three or four years after that to be safe – I'm thinking the US Championship 1973 when we played each other in the final in Louisiana."

Beth nods. She remembers Louisiana well. A large wooden country house with the humid bayou stretching out just beyond the dock at the end of the back garden. Her and Benny kicking back on sofas in the second parlour, dissecting one of the casual games going on across the room.

Benny absolutely refusing to let her in on how he was planning to play. Beth absolutely refusing to let him in on how she was planning to play. And finally, meeting on the board in the final. Benny in his cowboy hat, Beth in fashionable navy pants and a green blouse.

She won. Thankfully.

She has only dropped one US championship to Benny since Ohio and she has sworn not to make a habit of it.

The kettle clicks and Benny pours out their coffees, bringing them over to the coffee table and setting Beth's down away from his carefully drawn up plans.

"Thanks," says Beth. She takes a sip. The moment of awkwardness over New York seems to have passed. Everything that needed to be said for their scheme has been said and now they can go back to planning the rest of it.

And the proposal.

Beth leans back against the sofa, her head sinking into the cushions. Even if she hates it, she should be grateful for Benny's thoroughness really. Thanks to him, their story is going to be as locked down as she felt with Benny's arm resting heavy on her abdomen in New York.

"Over a chess board," says Beth. Benny frowns. "You would propose to me over a chess board – one of those outdoor chessboards they have in parks."

Benny nods slowly and Beth finds she cannot look at him properly. If she does, a scene threatens to materialise in her head. A scene in a park – grey clouds up above, a faint chill in the air.

"And we both bring our own pieces," continues Beth, ignoring the image. "But as you start placing your pieces on the board, there is a ring around the white queen. A beautiful golden ring with an emerald stone."

Benny flips open his notebook. Without a word, he starts scribbling.

"And I guess you get down on one knee and take my hand," says Beth. "And then you ask me to marry you."

Benny's pen finishes on the page and he stares at it for a few seconds. Then, when he speaks again, Beth thinks his voice is more muted. Or perhaps she is imagining it. "Right," he says. "That's one major detail out of the way. Now we just need to get the rest of the plan in order."

Beth lets her head fall back against the sofa cushions again.

Okay, next chapter hopefully in October