Birthday Fluff

[troublewillfindme]

She presses a kiss to his cheek, and walks out the door, bag in hand.

Away from XCOM.

Away from Washington.

Away from him.

 

He can’t blame her, not after what happened, not after what they did to her, but god, does it hurt.

“What will you do?” He’d asked.

She shrugged. ”I may not like teaching, but at least I got there on my own merit.”

He doesn’t even make it a week without her. She’s a text, a call, a video chat away, but it’s still not enough.

He texts her the Thursday after she’s left. What time are you teaching tonight?

4:45-6:15, comes the response. Why? Planning on crashing my class?

He doesn’t even respond, just marks the rest of his calendar off as a personal day, and heads home.

He doesn’t bother to change out of uniform, just grabs his bag and the small velvet box he’d neglected to tell her about.

The drive isn’t bad. He’s used to long hauls, and the four and a half hour drive to Pittsburgh is light on traffic at this time of day. By the time he’s found a place to park, and found her room, the clock is just striking five.

He should wait outside. He should let her teach.

But he’s in uniform and that affords a certain social currency, one that he’d be a fool not to use.

The whole room turns to stare when he opens the door. “Dr. Regan?” He asks. “Can I impinge?”

Lizzie stares at him a moment, slack-jawed. “Yeah … of course,” she says, regaining her composure. “Take five, everyone.”

She follows him out into the hall. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but I was kidding about crashing class. I would have cancelled if I knew you were actually coming up.”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t know I was coming up until I texted you.”

She quirks an eyebrow. “Nice of them to give you such ample notice.”

“Wasn’t them.”

“What?”

“They didn’t send me.”

“Who did?”

“No one.”

She cocks her head at him. “It’s a long way to come just to say hi.”

He nods. “That’s not why I came.”

“I’m listening.”

He reaches for the box in his pocket, and gets down on one knee.

He really wishes he had planned ahead.

“Lizzie …there’s no one I would rather have spent the last two and a half years with. You’re incredible. There’s no way around it. And you’d think after those two and a half years, I would have put two and two together, but … I couldn’t. I was so hung up on shit that it turned out doesn’t matter. I thought you’d always be there. And when you weren’t … I realized that two and a half years wasn’t long enough. I’m not sure the rest of our lives is gonna be long enough. But, even so, will you marry me?”

He doesn’t count on her trying to nod through tears, scrubbing at her eyes with her free hand while he slips the ring on.

He likewise doesn’t count on the gaggle of student photographers, phones out as he catches her in the kind of kiss that he’s only ever seen in movies, her hand on his cheek and his arms tight around her waist.

He is completely unsurprised when, over dinner that night, she leans into him and presses a kiss of her own to his lips.