-Epilogue-

If You're So Smart…

Nineteen Years Later…

Oswin was perched on the edge of the bed with her legs crossed, drinking tea and staring out at an endless, pink sunset and a glittering, white beach. An orange sun and two porous moons hung in the sky; when the sunk sank below the horizon, a third moon would appear for the duration of a strange, twenty-hour night cycle. She did not know the name of the planet the simulation was presenting them with, but from the suite-like interior, it looked as though they were in a small house overhanging the incoming, rosy tides.

"Do you know what planet this is supposed to be?" she called.

"It's not," said Adam Mitchell from the kitchenette in the next room, "I mean, it's customised." They were always on a waterfront in the simulation. Either they were in a clone of a grimy, grey sea on an overcast day plucked somewhere from the British Riviera, or they were floating listlessly along the frozen oceans of Titan with Saturn and an industrial blip representing Horizon making up the backdrop. It was Titan, or it was Devon, and more often than not it was the latter; Adam liked the familiarity, while the novelty of watching Saturn's gaseous planes twist and turn had slipped away from Oswin long before she had left. But she liked the rose-gold creation in front of her now.

Adam returned with a fresh cup of coffee for himself and a box of chocolate truffles. Not the expensive kind, a mass-produced brand you could trust to be delicious. Their surroundings may not be real, but the imagined chocolate tasted better than any that had been exported to the outer solar system during her lifetime.

"I thought we could go out later," she said, taking a truffle out of the box.

"Out where?"

"To, you know, eat somewhere. Like a restaurant. One that doesn't exist in the sex-sim." They'd been in there for a few hours so far that day. It was late afternoon outside, or thereabouts – time didn't matter too much on the TARDIS.

"Don't call it a sex-sim…" he mumbled.

"But that's what it is," she reminded him. He really didn't like it when she called it that, but she hadn't stopped.

"Don't you like it here?"

She raised her eyebrows, "Did you do it? Didn't run some kind of randomiser?"

"Of course I did it," he said defensively, "And you don't want to stay?"

"No, I… I just… I do like it, a lot," she stumbled, "I just thought it might be nice to go out somewhere, for once. You know we never do." Because they both had much too intense social phobias to go outside for long; Oswin never strayed off the TARDIS on her own, while Adam locked himself indoors whenever his presence wasn't requested by that whole 'managing a gigantic tech company' thing.

"You want to go to a restaurant? To eat? Even though you can't eat?" he said. As if to prove him wrong she picked another truffle out of the box resting on his leg.

"Yeah."

"Oh my god," he nearly dropped his coffee as he stood up, knocking the truffles to the floor.

"Babe…" she complained, looking at them lying there sadly on the ground. She finished the one she had in her hand, grieving.

"You're… you… no."

"Sorry?" she frowned, "We don't have to go anywhere you don't want to, teddy-bear."

"Don't 'teddy-bear' me when you're…" He was very riled up now, much to her confusion, and had to put his coffee down on a nearby dresser so that he didn't spill it everywhere. Were his hands shaking?

"Adam, what's the matter?" she asked seriously, standing up (standing up without the aid of a cane and a fake leg never got old.)

"I was gonna… and now you're gonna… I'd rather you just tell me if you want to break up, instead of going out to some restaurant-"

"You're panicking relax; I don't want to break up," she took both of his hands, "Come and sit back down, baby. Deep breaths." He'd still not quite grown out of his insecurity where she was concerned, though she sensed there was something else at play in this exchange. "I just thought it would be nice for you if we went out somewhere."

"But what do you mean 'for me'? Why would it be nice for me, unless you wanted to, I don't know – lull me into a false sense of security. Placate me."

"Placate you?" she questioned, "No."

"You know, you've been weird all week."

"I've been weird? You're out here customising the sex-sim-"

"Don't-"

"-to make it all warm and sugary, how do I know you're not planning to break up with me? For exactly the same reason?"

"Because, I was…" he stammered, "Why do you want to go out?"

"Oh, for… I was, maybe, a little bit, considering seeing if you might want to get married. And I don't mean us just saying to each other, 'Oh, we'll get married someday,' I mean making someday today. Not literally today, though." He was completely frozen, and not because of his cryokinesis. "I just wanted to do something nice for you because I didn't want you to feel emasculated by me asking."

"I wouldn't be emasculated," he said.

"Well, I don't believe you." He made a face.

"That's not fair."

"What?"

"That you beat me to it. I was going to… that was the whole reason behind this…" He waved a hand vaguely at the landscape through the window.

"If I could offer some constructive criticism, I'd avoid proposing in the sex simulation. Pretty as it is."

"But you just did."

"I didn't, I just told you what I was planning. Not that it's much of a plan – I didn't get you a ring. I didn't know if you'd want one. In my century, it's common for both people to wear a ring, or even neither." He looked at the floor, while she crossed her legs and faced him on the bed. "Did you tell anyone?"

"I asked Clara for her advice."

"You did?" she was surprised, "But I asked Clara for advice, too… that means she… that little shit… what did she say?"

"To do what I felt was right. Which was apparently wrong. I hate this – there's so much subterfuge involved in something that should be good, you know?" he sighed. "I didn't get you a ring, either… I thought if you said yes, we could get one together. If you wanted."

"Obviously I want a ring – I still wear this ring my ex-girlfriend gave me," she held up her left hand – she was a big fan of rings, "We should both get them! We can buy them together, so they match."

He smiled a little, "That does sound nice."

"It's kind of funny, though. When you think about it."

"What is?"

"Both of us deciding to propose on the same day."

"Maybe…"

"Why don't we just forget the whole thing? Why don't we just say, you know, we're engaged now? Because you're right, I think, about the subterfuge. We should start as we mean to go on – doing everything together, and deciding everything together."

"But we won't have a good story."

"Again, the sex simulation is not a good story. And since when do we tell other people our stories, anyway?" she asked. It wasn't like their lack of exciting, easily sharable stories had impeded them so far; the tale of how they got together was dreadful, after all, and consisted entirely of Adam dropping into the TARDIS one day and bothering her until she agreed to spend some time alone with him. Then she had installed herself in his bedroom and stayed there ever since.

"I didn't even get a chance to get down on one knee."

"Okay, well, how about we go out and choose some rings and then you can do that, if you like. And then we'll go somewhere really cool – like that hotel made of diamonds inside a volcano, or that planet with the sugar coral – and make our own story."

"So, what? We're engaged now?"

"It's our twentieth anniversary in five weeks. We could do it then."

"Get married? In five weeks?"

"What do we have to plan? I don't want a big thing. Do you want a big thing? I thought you want it small, and intimate. And it'll be very numerically consistent if we do it that way, which makes me feel better." He was staring at her. "I will marry you, but please don't ask me until we're back in the real world."

"…Alright. Do you want to go now? For the rings?"

"No. I want to go back to bed."

"Oh, right. Shall I go in the other room?"

"Sorry?"

"If you want to have a nap-"

"No, babe," he was so soft sometimes, "I mean sex."

"Right. I'm with you now."

"Are you alright?"

"August 22nd? That's our anniversary."

"Yeah," she smiled, "Is that okay? You seem like you're freaking out."

"Obviously I'm freaking out – it's you, you're amazing, you're beautiful, you're a genius, you make the stars align, and I'm… are you sure? Because I won't mind, you know, if you actually want to, like, go find somebody else to marry." Oswin didn't even have to heart to make a snide comment or glib remark. No, at that moment, she had to be sincere.

"I only want to marry you, and I've loved you since the day we met. Don't ask me why because I really don't have a clue, you were definitely a wanker – no offence. But despite your wanker-ness, I still loved you, just as much as I do now."

"Just as much?"

"Maybe a bit less. Like I said, you were a prick."

"Can't believe I'm gonna be Mr Oswald…"

She visibly cringed, "Don't change your name."

"In spirit, then."

"I don't care what you do with your spirit, as long as you get yourself back into this bed in the next ten seconds."

"I suppose when you put it like that… how could I say no?"