Thank you to everybody who read or reviewed the last conversation. You are also fabulous.

Day 214: Will you be my proposal planner?

Starfleet emergency message for cadet Elizabeth Chan from Lieutenant Commander Sulu; care of Captain Spock.

Subject: I need your assistance

I just want to start this message by letting you know everything is okay. The worst thing happening right now is Peter is still having a bit of separation anxiety. So, take a deep breath, this is not one of those messages. I promise it's not.

I'm writing for a happy reason. It's just something that is time sensitive. I'm sure Ben told you that I am okay with him taking the Sulu last name sooner rather than later due to the chaos with his father-in-law. He also mentioned his sister saying that I really do need to get him a ring before he changes his last name. I agree, and since you are fabulous and already set up a video conference on October 3, I thought that would be the perfect time to propose.

However, to pull off a proposal in a week, from deep space, I need your help. Can you help me pull off a surprise proposal? You don't even have to do the logistical work if you asked my sister for help. She is a professional, just don't let her go overboard. No birds or skywriting. Also, no more than three dozen red roses. Under normal circumstances, I would say no entirely to her being involved, but I feel like she still needs the distraction. Is she doing any better?

Mostly I need your help getting a ring. One, everything I can order from deep space will be tacky and won't get there in time. Two, you are one of the few people I trust with my financial information. Therefore, I'm okay with you making a major purchase on my behalf. Three, you know Ben better than my sister and will pick something out that he likes. I have a couple of ideas. I've attached pictures of the top three choices. However, jewelry stores being what they are, you will have to make the final choice if you agree to help. I trust your judgment and only ask that you choose something in Ben's size. Unfortunately, I don't know what that size is, but I am sure you will be able to figure out what it is without asking him directly. I am partial to the past, present, future design but I'm not sure they can pull that off in a week. So, my only stipulation is I want you to include the inscription "you are my heart."

Will you please help me pull this off? Otherwise, it's going to have to wait until probably Christmas.

Xxxxx

Starfleet priority personal message from cadet Elizabeth Chan to Lieutenant Commander Sulu.

Subject: Yes, I'll help you plan your super secret proposal.

I'm a little bit mad at you for using the emergency communication system because we expected the worst when we saw the message, mainly because it was from you and we just got a regular email from you yesterday. If it were just from Jim, I would assume he was writing me back to me regarding my school project. Although, he probably hasn't even got that message yet. We all know that if something terrible happened to Jim, you would be the one contacting us because Spock would be an absolute mess. Last year when Jim died, he went off the deep end and then went into a coma. I expect something like that to happen if Jim dies again. And if its Spock, we don't expect Jim to put a coherent sentence together for at least a week.

Because Jim died last year, Kevin's in a fragile place and expected the worst. It took us an hour to get up the courage just to open the email. We are both relieved to find out we're only being asked to help you propose. Of course, we will help, just promise next time to use the priority channel instead of the emergency channel.

Honestly, I was expecting this letter after what you wrote last time to your baby girl. Not the Quaaludes part, but asking me to get a ring. I'm just glad I have a week to prepare.

However, because school is still psycho, I called your sister to help. She is on board. She promises to restrain herself. She also promises no birds or other ridiculous displays. Although she did try to involve a full orchestra, I told her no. Although I expect for her to try again for your actual wedding. However, to appease her, I need you to send me a playlist of music to play during the proposal; otherwise, I am using World on Fire as your proposal song. The original not, one of the 300 remakes.

Yes, your sister doing okay considering. The memorial service was a couple of days ago, and she handled it well. It was ridiculously ostentatious, but I think it was cathartic for everyone involved. It seems like your sister is glad to be moving on to planning something happy. We are currently working on getting your other sister there, but she's on a mission that only my mom knows about which is never a good thing.

We got your first choice of engagement ring. I like the past, present, future design myself, and so does Kevin. They agreed to put in the birthstones of both D and K. It cost a little extra, but we'll have it done before the proposal.

Unfortunately, the sister of Sue's ex-boyfriend, you know the one that thankfully did not end up your daughter's father, saw us ring shopping. I have no idea why she was there. I'm sure by this point you are aware she's a hateful person and blames us for her getting academic probation. No, it wasn't her poor grades that landed her in academic probation, it was us. Thanks to her, the whole campus thinks I'm engaged because I'm pregnant. Unfortunately, my mom, Kevin's mom, and your boyfriend all asked us if we were getting married, but thankfully, they were all too polite to bring up the pregnancy part of the rumor.

To avoid being forced to take another pregnancy test by Winona Kirk and my mom, we had to tell the moms that you're planning to propose to Ben. Good news, my mom is okay with it because she is still disappointed that Ben is not at least Kinsey five so the three of you could have a cute adorable poly family. However, she supports your engagement efforts and is giving us access to one of the better conference rooms where we are going to be able to throw a little party afterward. I'm not sure that you're aware, but my mom really likes you possibly more than Kevin.

Winona was equally happy to find out about your proposal. She's confident that Ben will say yes. Winona is also glad that the engagement pregnancy rumor is a complete lie. Winona is also helping us get his ring size. Due to her being in London until at least mid-October to help Adm. Pike settle in at Starfleet London, she's using the excuse of wanting to get him a souvenir ring. He quickly sent her his ring size without asking too many questions.

We told your boyfriend we were getting a bracelet for Desi and just happened to look at the rings for a minute because your daughter thought they were shiny. Which was when the evil one happened to snap a picture. We're not entirely sure he believes us because he sent me the electronic business card of an excellent OB/GYN, but he doesn't suspect that the ring is for him. That's really all we can hope for now.

We are trying to come up with a cute way to sneak the ring into the room. If the kids were a couple of years older, we would have them carry it into the room, but your daughter is in her 'stick everything in her mouth' phase and rings are small. We barely kept her from eating a Hot Wheels car this morning. Kevin's now sad that he's going to have to put all his collectibles in storage until they are no longer a choking hazard.

Regardless of what we end up doing, everything will be perfect and beautiful. Everything will be filmed because you know my sister is going to want to see it all. She is your number one cheerleader. I wish we could tie her into the conference, but the Hamilton is going to be in blackout mode for the next two weeks around the time of the proposal on some big diplomatic mission that mom won't tell me about. Although I am going to give her a heads up now. I hope that's okay.

BTW, I probably won't be able to respond until the day of the proposal because there are only so many emergency messages I can get away with, and I'm going to save the rest for real emergencies like when Winona falls off the wagon or has another mental health emergency (or when I need Jim's help with homework). It hasn't happened yet, but it's always a concern.

Zzz

Starfleet priority personal message to cadet Elizabeth Chan from Lieutenant Commander Sulu.

Subject: You Are the Best

I'm so sorry about scaring your boyfriend. My original message did include the subject line "will you be my proposal planner," but Spock said the system wouldn't allow that subject line, so he just went with something else. He apologizes for freaking Kevin out. Jim also agrees that if something horrible happened, I probably would be the one sending that email. I hope that never happens.

Jim also wants to know what this mysterious homework assignment is. Obviously, he's just going to have to wait for your regular email to get here whenever that might be.

It's an excellent idea to record the entire thing. Sue is going to be mad that she can't stream it live. For that reason, it's probably best to let her know sooner rather than later. I know nothing else about where the Hamilton is right now. The rumor mill is quiet. It's been about a week since I last wrote to her and you know how long the lag is between messages. The only thing I got was she really hates it there and is upset her therapist is switching to Enterprise. Well, she hates her Captain and is probably hoping that he is eaten by a predator on the away mission.

What if you put the ring in the teddy bear purse that Desi has? She will be too busy playing with it to look inside. If I think she is about to eat the ring, I will go straight to the proposal. World on Fire is fine. JoJo plays that album sometimes when we're fencing, so I'm familiar. I'm still surprised Jim did not choose that as his wedding song.

Thank you so much for helping. I owe you so much chocolate. I am so sorry about everybody thinking that you're getting married because you're pregnant. But look on the bright side; at least that woman is not your co-aunt. At least, you kind of like my sisters. Thank you for giving me an update and thank you so much for helping with her. Liz, you are the best person ever.

To be continued

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