Nathan and Moira, Friday afternoon

[x-cable.livejournal.com]

Nathan asks her a question. Yes, that one. Finally.



It had all worked out, Nathan thought, staring out at the gardens. All the planning, all the scheming, and here they were, in the perfect place, on the perfect day. It was cool and crisp and sunny, and all the colors of the gardens seemed all the more vivid for it.

The drive up to Kykuit, the former Rockfeller estate, had been long, but thoroughly enjoyable. Moira and Anna and Billie had babbled happily at each other, and he'd been content to listen, glad that he'd arranged things so that they would both be here. It had just felt... right. Necessary, to have them here.

At the moment, they had purportedly gone off to visit the tea house. They hadn't, of course; they were lurking somewhere in the immediate vicinity with a camcorder and a camera. Lying in wait. Nathan smiled a little, looking around again.

And this was the perfect spot. The little gazebo here in the East Garden, in front of a stone-lined reflecting pool, was deserted apart from him and Moira. The breeze rippled gently through the trees, the sun glimmered off the water...

He turned and smiled at the sight of Moira with her eyes closing, inhaling the cool air. "Perfect weather," he said wisely. "Isn't it?"

Moira leaned against the railing of the gazebo gently, almost afraid it would break since it looked that fragile, and smiled at him, basking in the sun. "Aye, couldnae ask for a better day. Cool enough for me, as well." There was a teasing tone to her voice. There had been days she had been absolutely miserable outside, disliking the heat of the summer in New York. "Fall in America 'tis much better than summer. An' this place is gorgeous, where did ye 'ear about it?"

"Research. Copious amounts of research." Kykuit's Italian gardens were one of the things that were apparently not to be missed when one was traveling the Hudson Valley, and he'd fallen in love with the pictures. Nathan let his gaze roam around their quiet surroundings for a moment longer, that odd, unsettled excitement coming back.

There was something on the link and Moira tilted her head slightly, unable to follow it. After a moment, she shrugged. When he was ready, he would tell her. Moira turned and walked forward a little to get a better look at the reflecting pond. As always, she was drawn to the water, no matter how still. "Breathtakin'."

"So," he finally said, very softly, an entirely pleasant tightness in his chest as he watched her. "Have you figured it out yet?"

Moira turned around and pouted at him, but only a little bit. "I've recognized th' clues but I've got nay idea where yer goin' wit' all o' this," she finally admitted. "'Tis nay easy ta pull one over on me, either."

"Just a little walk down memory lane," he said quietly. His hands were shaking, so he shoved them into the pockets of his coat. His left hand came into contact with that little fabric-wrapped package, and he smiled again, a bit unsteadily. "You know what was hard? Picking only six. I had a whole long list..."

"Seems like I'm nay th' only one wit' a list, then, aye?" she asked, teasing.

He laughed softly. "You have a list, I have a list... we're alarmingly organized, you know." There were still several steps between them, and he didn't take them right away. He stayed there, in the shade, watching her as she stood in the sun. How the sun glinted off her hair, finding all the gold amid the red. He watched her, fixing this moment in his memory, sure he would never forget a single detail.

Another tilt of her hair and a raised eyebrow. "Yer starin', sweetie," Moira pointed out, laughing at him. "Ye okay?"

"Ask me in five minutes or so," Nathan said with a helpless sort of smile. His hand closed around the fabric-wrapped package. "I should be able to tell you then."

"Wha's goin' ta 'appen in th' next five minutes?" Moira asked, suddenly a little leery. Normally when he gave her that look, water was involved.

"Well..." He started towards her, slowly, step by step. He could swear he could hear his own heart beating. "It's, um, sort of like this. This hasn't just been an exercise in nostalgia."

"Oh? Wha' 'as it been? Exercise in writin' poetry?"

"That too. More than that, though." He reached her, pulling one hand - the one that didn't have anything in it - out of his pocket and raising it to caress the side of her face, just for a moment. "You look absolutely beautiful today, you know that?" She was casually dressed, in a cream-colored cowl-necked sweater and dark slacks, a light jacket over top of it all. "Even more beautiful than you did on Saturday night."

Both eyebrows went up at that comment. "Really?" Moira asked, confused but enjoying the touch. "Thought dressin' up was better than dressin' down? Guess I was wron'." She was watching him warily, trying to figure out what his next move was going to be. The link was shielded up tight and she wasn't getting anything from it now.

"It doesn't have anything to do with the way you're dressed." Nathan swallowed and pulled the fabric-wrapped package out of his pocket, laying it in her hands. She blinked down at it, startled. "When I haven't been writing poetry this week," he said very softly, "I've been making that."

Curious, Moira gently nudged aside the folds and wondered what he could have been making. Everything in her froze, breath and movement, when the last corner of fabric was put aside and the ring suddenly came into view. Subtle, gorgeous, it sparkled brightly in her hand despite her shadow falling across it. This...this wasn't like the other ring he had given her, and her eyes darted back up to him, startled but not wanting to second-guess.

"I'm not doing this right," Nathan muttered suddenly, his voice shaky again, and got down on one knee. Moira stared down at him, wide-eyed, and he reached and took the ring in one hand and her hand in the other. "No bad poetry this time," he said with a ghost of a laugh. "Or even good poetry. Got all of that out of my system..."

The world was suddenly very misty and tear-filled, she thought, confused. Her heart felt like it was going to leap from her throat and run away, only she couldn't move, still frozen to the spot. Moira's other hand darted up to clutch tightly to the other ring, the one that always hung around her neck. She was still unable to say anything.

"I thought I would have given it away," Nathan murmured, gazing up into her eyes. "With the bit about 'shouting it from the mountaintops'." Her mouth moved, but silently, and she kept staring down at him, her eyes bright with tears. "I'm also shocked no one spilled the beans. Almost everyone knew."

"E-except me," Moira managed, smiling though it was a wobbly smile.

"I like to think you knew I wanted to surprise you," Nathan murmured, the smile coming a little easier. "So you convinced yourself not to figure it out." She gave a soft, gasping laugh, and he squeezed her hand.

"So here we are," he went on, just as softly. "In a garden instead of a mountaintop. Because I thought it was the perfect place to propose to my Scottish rose."

She whimpered slightly, throat closing up a little bit. "Oh, Nathan..." Well, it was still his move to make.

"I know it hasn't been easy. Not this last seven months, not the five years before that. But here we are," he repeated, his voice husky suddenly, "despite it all. I'm not sure whether that makes us tough or just terminally stubborn."

"Maybe bot', I think," she responded. Words were coming a little more easier now but the tears and the shaking of her hands hadn't stopped just yet. They probably wouldn't, not for a while.

"Both is good. I think both is what makes us work." He gazed up at her for a long moment. For some reason, he couldn't remember what he'd been planning to say at this point. The carefully-considered words had gone right out of his head.

"I love you," he said finally, simply, almost in a whisper. "You make the world make sense. You make me want to be a better man. And I can't think of anything that would make me happier than to be with you, every day, for the rest of our lives. To wake up beside you every morning."

Moira tightened her hand on his and went to respond but something made her pause. He wasn't quite finished, she sensed.

The link was... indescribable. No words for it. None. "I think we've both been afraid for long enough, don't you?" he asked huskily, Moira's face blurring in his vision just a little. "Take a leap of faith with me... marry me?"

With a little gasp, Moira fell to her knees in front of him, ignoring the way her knees protested. "Aye." She was aware of Nathan shakily sliding the ring on her finger and then she was holding him tightly to her. The kiss sent shockwaves through her and she shuddered, tears escaping at last. #Ayealwaysloveyemine# was sent tumbling and spiraling down the link.

He hadn't thought that anything would ever beat that first kiss. How very, very wrong he'd been.

As they finally drew apart, he laughed shakily, stroking the hair back from her face. "Those had better be happy tears," he teased her gently, telling himself that he really wasn't floating. It just felt like it.

She nodded, reaching up to wipe her eyes. "Aye, verra 'appy tears..." Moira looked at him and almost burst into tears again. She was shaking more than before but she didn't mind, not now.

"This is where you tell me you're glad I didn't do this in front of the whole school, you know."

More sniffles and then she smiled. "Th' poems were enough, I think."

Nathan took her face between his hands, then leaned in and kissed her again. "Thank you," he whispered, leaning his forehead against hers for a moment before he drew back. "I think, when you picked me up in Lichtenstein, I'd forgotten how to be happy. Don't think there's any danger of that anymore. All I have to do," he said, giving her a slightly wobbly smile as he straightened, "is look at you."

Moira flushed, smile still bright, as she looked at him. "There's nothin' I can say ta thank ye, tell ye 'ow much I love ye," she responded, reaching up to touch his face. "Nay now, nay ever. But I can try."

Nathan rose, helping her up - and abruptly caught her up in a fierce embrace, swinging her off her feet for a moment. She just laughed. "Ohhh," he finally said, grinning helplessly, setting her back down but not letting go. "I think I could probably float home. You?"

Moira looped her arms around his waist - he was too tall for her to comfortably reach his neck for long periods of time - and grinned up at him. The grin would never die, she thought happily. "Aye but we've got company tha' cannae float wit' us," she teased, tugging him down for another kiss.

"Ah, right," he said wisely, once he'd kissed her soundly, again. "The people with the cameras. Anna? Billie?" he called, his grin turning wicked at the way Moira's eyes widened. "What, you didn't think there weren't going to be pictures, did you?"

"Oh ye sneaky, evil man," Moira gasped, giving him that look that told him he would regret it later. It wasn't quite convincing, given that she was still laughing in delight at the entire thing. "Ye are all evil!"

Anna merely grinned and raised the video recorder one more time. "But ye know ye love us!"

Nathan intercepted a thoroughly approving look from Billie and grinned back at the older man. Moira was probably going to shriek, just a little, when she found out he'd called Billie to ask permission to ask her to marry him. He could cope. Never let it be said that he neglected the niceties.

"'ere, Da, old this," Anna instructed and then leaped at Moira, barreling into her and Nathan. "Congratulations! 'Tis 'bout bloody time!"

Laughing again, Moira found herself squished between Nathan and Anna, with Billie approaching to throw his weight into the hug.

No, Nathan decided, grinning delightedly, that floating sensation wasn't going away. Moira leaned back against him as the impromptu group hug finally came to an end, and he slipped an arm around her, happier than he'd been in more years than he could remember.

"So," he said brightly. "I have reservations at a very nice restaurant just down the road. We've probably got about another hour to see the rest of the gardens..."

Moira beamed up at him, hand covering the one on her waist. "Let's nay waste any time then, aye?" she asked as Billie leaned over to kiss her on the cheek.

"No," Nathan said very firmly, meeting her eyes. "No more wasted time. Not a moment."