#getoveryourselfmate

Clarke didn’t miss a beat. “You could find something that contributes to not being miserable. Something that improves your life instead of making it worse.”

“What a concept.”

Her lips pressed against his shoulder. “It’s your decision, I’m not going to tell you what to do. But–at some point, you have enough money to realize that it isn’t worth it to do whatever you can to get more money. I hope you get there soon.”

Jobs like this one had been why he went into pre-law, why he went to law school. He saw Jake Griffin with his big house and his perfect family, and it made so much sense. Lawyers are rich; if he was a lawyer, and he’d have a good life too.

And he did have it, of course. He was dating Jake’s perfect daughter, and they didn’t have a house of their own yet, but they did own their condo. They had a mortgage. This was what success looked like.

But it wasn’t what he wanted.

Two months from the next Christmas, and Bellamy’s got a new job, a worse one, by most objective standards. He makes less money and has less prestige, but he’s not expected to work every hour of the day and he’s no longer worrying that he’s actually making the world a worse place. He has more time to spend with his girlfriend and his friends, to feel like a person.

He has a good life, and it feels like the next step is marriage, but for some reason, it’s tripping him up.

“How did you decide to propose to Monty?” he asks Miller. The two of them have been married for two years now, and Bellamy remembers having the conversation again with Clarke at their wedding: this will be us someday. It hadn’t seemed pressing, particularly.

“I wanted to,” Miller says, with a shrug. “And I got a good idea for it.”

Bellamy has to smile. Miller had gone into Monty’s Stardew Valley game in the middle of the night and changed the names of all his livestock to Monty will you marry me? I hope you’re seeing these in order, which of course he hadn’t. He’d spent ten minutes writing down all the words until he got to marry, at which point he’d figured it out and said yes.

“Don’t tell me you’re worried about proposing to Clarke,” Miller adds, giving Bellamy a look. “You guys have been married since before you started dating.”

“I think that’s my problem,” he admits, with a sigh. “I don’t know how to–it’s a big deal, but not a big deal, you know? It feels like what I should be doing, but why do it now? Why not last month or next year?”

“Why not next year?” Miller asks, as placid as ever. “Why are you thinking about it now?”

“I think it feels like the next step. Like–everything else is set, time to get married. But that’s–shitty.”

“You know she wants to marry you. You know she’s going to. It doesn’t matter when you ask. If you want to marry her, you should marry her. If you’re thinking about asking, maybe it means you’re ready. But I think you’re going to know when it’s right. You’ll think about doing it, and it’ll just click. Everything will come together.”

“You’re so wise,” he teases.

“You asked me for advice, you don’t get to make fun of me for giving it to you. Look, you’re in great shape, okay? You found the woman you’re going to marry, all you have to do is figure out when you’re going to marry her. If you don’t do it soon enough for her, she’ll ask you. I’m not saying it’s impossible for you to fuck this up, but you’d probably actually have to be trying. You know how to make Clarke happy.”

“Yeah, I know.” He gives Miller half a smile. “And I know this isn’t a real problem.”

He shrugs. “It’s an opportunity. You’re get to do something romantic for your girlfriend, and there’s no rush. Come up with something good and figure out how to do it. You’ll know it when you know it.”

“That’s true.” He smiles. “Thanks for the advice. I knew I could count on you.”

“I’ve been waiting to be your best man for like ten years,” he says, with a shrug. “Just say the word.”

“Yeah,” says Bellamy. “You’ll be the second to know.”

*

With most problems in his life, Clarke is the first person he talks to. Sometimes, like with his old job, she talks to him about his problems before he’s even aware of them, before he’s willing to admit they are problems. It’s one of the amazing things about having someone like Clarke, someone who knows him as well as he knows himself, and part of him expects her to figure out the engagement thing, to have realized he’s worrying about it.

But the thing about proposing to her is that it’s not really bad worrying. It isn’t grinding him into slow misery like his job was, isn’t a problem for her to help fix. It reminds him of nothing so much as those months between the Halloween party when he realized he was almost ready to tell her how he felt and her parents’ party where he actually did, a strange, pending state between relationship upgrades. There’s the same anxiety, the same persistent doubt that something will go wrong, despite every rational part of his brain telling him that it won’t.

So it’s mostly a nice kind of worry, nothing Clarke would notice, nothing she has to fret over.

Which actually complicates things a little.

“Is that a new ring?” he asks, tapping the band on her right hand. It’s not, and he knows it, but she doesn’t wear it that often, and for whatever reason, society has decided that people don’t just say I’m thinking of proposing and I want to get you a ring. It’s a surprise. And he needs information.

Clarke blinks, frowns. “No, my mom got it for me last Christmas, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. You don’t wear it that much, I forgot what it looked like.”

She shrugs. “It’s not really me, I guess. Not my style.”

If she’s deliberately giving him clues, there’s no indication of it. She’s so casual. “Yeah, you’re not much of a jewelry person.”

“I don’t dislike jewelry,” she protests. “But my mom thinks giving cash is tacky, so she gives me jewelry, and she doesn’t know what I like.”

“Your mom doesn’t know what to get you for holidays? Wow, I can’t relate at all.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says, laughing. “I know. She’s doing her best. And it’s a really nice ring! Plenty of people would love to get it. And maybe I could get comfortable with it. Besides, if I’m not wearing it at Thanksgiving, Mom will think I didn’t like it–”

“Which you don’t,” he teases, and she elbows him, grinning.

“It was a nice gesture. I can be nice back.”

His fingers trace the band. It’s gold, which he knows isn’t her favorite, with small, bright red gemstones, probably rubies. It’s a pretty piece, and he understands what she means. It would suit another person; it would suit Abby. But Clarke isn’t her mother.

“Could you try to drop some hints about what you actually like? Do you want me to help? If she’s going to buy you this stuff, we might as well try to make her get you something you like.”

“Maybe I’ll add some jewelry to my wish list. She’d never buy it for me, but maybe she’d get the general idea.”

“Can’t hurt.”

She snuggles closer. “Is it bad that I already can’t wait for the holidays to be over? We’re still a few weeks away from Thanksgiving and I just want it to be, like, Martin Luther King Day. I get the day off work and I’m not expected to do anything.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s why people have kids, so they’ll get excited about holidays again.”

She groans. “God, don’t remind me. You know we’re going to get a ton of questions about when we’re getting married and reproducing.”

His breath catches, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “Yeah, that’s how it usually goes.” Once his heart rate is under control, he kisses her hair. “Seriously, we’ve still got a few more weeks to Thanksgiving, why are you already worrying about it?”

“Not to be an asshole, but because your sister got married.”

He has to laugh. “Okay, yeah. That makes total sense. I’m happy for her, but there’s definitely going to be more pressure on us.”

“You’ve been dating for so much longer than Octavia and Lincoln, I don’t see what you’re waiting for.”

“So you’re going to wear the ring your mom gave you and hope she doesn’t notice you don’t have one from me?” It feels a little risky, bringing it up so directly, but apparently he’s hitting a deep vein of stress he hadn’t picked up on. It’s so much more important to check in with Clarke and make sure she’s feeling okay than it is to keep his proposal plans secret. If he needs to offer now to reduce the amount of stress in her life, he can do that.

“The perfect crime.”

“Do you want to be engaged?” he asks, gentle.

She twists around to kiss him, firm. “I’m not fishing for anything. I don’t really care, I guess? Obviously I’m going to marry you, we all know that, but I don’t really need to marry you, you know? I don’t get why everyone acts like it’s such a huge deal. We’re going to do it, and it’ll be good when we do. But for all I know we’re already common-law married.”

“There’s no common law marriage in Massachusetts,” he says, absent. “But yeah, I get what you mean. I still want to marry you, obviously. But I get tired of people thinking it’s a red flag that it hasn’t happened yet.”

“Thanksgiving won’t be so bad. A few passive aggressive comments from my mom about how much she loved Octavia and Lincoln’s wedding, probably a lot of questions for them about when kids are coming, but mostly fine. It’s just one day.”

Thanksgiving generally is the better of their holidays; he and Clarke and Octavia all go over to the Griffins’s along with any of Abby’s residents who aren’t going home, and it’s always pretty small and lowkey. Plus, they’re still in Boston, so they don’t have to travel anywhere or be away from home. It’s basically an intense family dinner, a prelude to going to Virginia to spend Christmas and New Year’s with Clarke’s extended family.

The first time Bellamy went, he was convinced they’d hate him, and he remembers clearly telling Clarke how surprised he was that Christmas Eve wasn’t a disaster. She’d given him a look full of fond exasperation and reminded him that what they were seeing wasn’t a poor boy on a scholarship, but a smart, handsome young man studying law at Harvard. He’s still getting used to the idea that he’s seen as a good match for Clarke, someone who deserves her.

They’re not upset that he’s marrying her, just that he hasn’t done it yet. It’s a staggering thought. The Christmas visits are always intense, but it’s love that’s smothering them. That helps.

“We could do something else for Christmas this year. I could say I have to work.”

“I like seeing most of them. It’s not–” She huffs. “I’m just tired of having an awesome life and hearing how it’s not good enough because I don’t have–” She smiles at her hand. “A ring.”

“I’m going to get you one,” he says. It feels safe enough. “Someday. If you want one sooner–”

She kisses him again. “Whenever you’re ready,” she says. “I’m not in a rush.”

*

“I want to propose before Thanksgiving,” Bellamy explains to the cheerful woman at the ring showroom. He set up an appointment during his lunch break, let Charles know where he’d be and why he might be late coming back. His boss had been thrilled, of course, almost comically supportive, and he thinks everyone else will feel the same. This is going to be good news. “But I’m not sure–” He huffs. “I feel weird picking out a ring.”

“Well, that’s why you come here,” she says, smiling. “We help you figure out what you’d like.”

“It’s not what I’d like, it’s what she would want. She’s not big on jewelry, and she’s the one who’s going to have to wear it.”

“Okay, well, we can work with that.”

He cocks his head. “Really?”

“You’re not the only person to have this problem. You’ve got two options.”

“Only two?”

“Two general options,” she says, with a wave of her hand. “We’ll start with the first and if it doesn’t work go to the second.”

“Which is?”

“First, we’ll talk about what you know about what your girlfriend likes and what might be a good fit for her. If you come up with a design you like, we can go with it. If you don’t, we have placeholder rings you can use for the proposal, and then you can come back with her to have her pick.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m going to do that.”

“Still, you can look,” the girl says, with a grin. “You can always show her what you came up with, even if you don’t go with it.”

Once she’s made that suggestion, there’s no way Bellamy’s going with anything else. But the woman is good at her job, and she draws out answers he didn’t even know he had in him. No, Clarke doesn’t like yellow gold, she prefers silver or platinum. Diamonds are fine, but she doesn’t get the big deal about them. Her favorite color is blue, and she’s said she likes blue and silver. Harper shows him some of the sapphires they have in stock, some settings it could go in, and he ends up getting talked into putting a 30-day hold on his favorite gem. She prints off a picture of the ring he designed, a preview image from the website, and sends him home with a placeholder ring on deposit.

The whole thing doesn’t even take an hour, and it leaves him dizzy and a little confused, reeling that there is an actual ring in his actual pocket, and he has a deadline for when he needs to tell Clarke about it if he doesn’t want to lose the gemstone he reserved.

He’s proposing to her, in the next few days, ideally. So they’ll have time to get all their ducks in a row for Thanksgiving. He just has to figure out what to say.

Charles gives him a big grin when he gets back to the office. “How did it go? You find one?”

“Yeah,” he says, hoping his smile isn’t too dazed. “I’m all set.”

*

He spends the rest of the afternoon failing to work and googling romantic proposal ideas, getting increasingly fed up with them. It’s not that any of them are bad, but he liked what Miller said about proposing. He has an opportunity here to do something nice for his favorite person in the world, and while he never needs an excuse for that, he wants this to be special, a good memory that will stay with her. He wants to look back at this and think he did it right.

But a lot of the romantic things he finds don’t really feel like they’d be the right gesture for Clarke. He doesn’t want to take her out to a fancy dinner and put the ring in a flute of champagne or get down on one knee in the park. He sinks another full day on How They Asked, and while the stories are all great, they just reinforce that none of those work for him and Clarke.

He tries to think of good memories he could use as inspiration, but so much of their early courtship wasn’t, and it’s not like he wants to recreate the time that asshole tried to grope her in his car or the time he took her to the ER and his then-girlfriend dumped him as romantic proposal memories.

But then Clarke comes back from work on Friday a week before Thanksgiving in utter exhaustion and says, “I don’t want to do a single thing this weekend.”

“Not even one?”

“As little as possible.”

“Bad week?”

“So much to do before Thanksgiving. I’m probably doing overtime next week, so I just want to have a good time this weekend.”

The thing Bellamy has learned about romance is that it’s relative. He couldn’t propose to Clarke like Miller did to Monty and have it mean as much. He buys Clarke a day planner every year for Christmas because she likes having a physical one in addition to her phone and her iPad, and she loves the gift, but plenty of other people wouldn’t. And there are also people who would want a big, bombastic proposal, but he doesn’t think that’s Clarke.

Clarke is tired and wants a relaxing weekend, and he can give her that.

He goes shopping by himself on Saturday morning, assuring her he doesn’t mind and she can sleep in. She’s awake and on the couch in pajamas by the time he gets home, so she helps him put everything away, smiles as she sees all the special things he bought.

“Wow, you’re going to spoil me, huh?”

“It sounds like you need it.”

She leans up and kisses him. “You’re the best, thank you.”

“If you could cook, you’d do the same for me.”

“I’d pay for your takeout.”

“I know you would. But you’re the one who needs a break this weekend, so sit down while I make you pancakes.”

It’s not an answer all by itself, not a sufficient plan for proposing. But he can spend the weekend pampering her and wait for the right moment. He has the ring box in his bag, almost always close enough if the urge to propose strikes with no risk of her finding it. He can have it on very short notice.

They watch Netflix for most of Saturday, and on Sunday, she decides she wants to get a pet.

“A pet?” he asks, surprised. “You want a pet?”

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I was going to do it as a Christmas present, but that seemed shitty. Pets shouldn’t be a surprise.”

“No, probably not. Is this really the best time?”

“You’re off after Tuesday, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And then I have something nice to come back to. Other than you,” she adds quickly, and he laughs.

“Yeah, you’re used to me. Have you already researched shelters? Where are we going? What kind of pet do we want?”

“I might have some ideas.”

By “ideas,” she of course means spreadsheets, because that’s how Clarke is, and he adores her beyond all reason. She checked yesterday while they were watching TV, came up with a list of options. She wants either one large-ish dog or two cats, and when Bellamy votes for the cats so they’ll each have one and don’t have to take them on walks, Clarke pulls up a few options.

“I think my first choice is these two, they’re siblings. But that’s if they like us, and if they’re still available when we get there, so they’ll probably be pretty in demand, so–”

He grins. “So we should go as soon as possible, right?”

“This doesn’t derail your weekend plans, does it?” she asks, sounding sheepish. “You still haven’t cooked all your fancy groceries.”

“They’ll keep. The weekend plan is to make you happy, so if cats will do that–”

“You want them, right? We aren’t going to adopt two cats just because I had a bad week. But I thought you liked pets.”

“I do like pets. And now if anyone asks us when we’re having kids at Christmas, we can just say we’re busy with our new cats.”

“As a bonus.”

It’s not too far to the shelter Clarke found, and there’s little enough traffic that it’s not quite open when they get there. There’s a Starbucks near by and they pick up drinks and split a slice of coffee cake, eat it quickly enough they’re still the first people to be looking at pets. The two cats Clarke selected are a boy and a girl, siblings, one gray and the other white, just under a year old. They’re bright and eager for attention, and when Bellamy picks up the girl for the first time, he knows there’s no way they’re going home without these cats.

It doesn’t take any longer than the ring appointment did, all these things that feel like they should be huge, monumental things, and instead it’s done in a matter of minutes. Just like that, he and Clarke are cat owners, and she keeps the two of them in her lap as they drive first to the pet store for supplies and then back home. The ring is in his pocket now, the weight pressing against his leg.

It’s going to be so soon.

They set up food and litter boxes and toys, let the cats start to explore. Their names, at least at the shelter, were Shadow and Milkie, but they were abandoned, and don’t seem to have any attachments to the names. Clarke let Bellamy name them, and he goes with Artemis and Apollo, obvious, maybe, but on-brand for him.

“Sorry I couldn’t wait for Christmas,” says Clarke, as they watch Apollo pounce on a catnip mouse. “But I kind of–I thought about it as a Christmas present, but it didn’t feel like that, I guess. It felt like just something we should do.”

“I know exactly what you mean. I’ve actually got a present like that for you.”

She looks up at him, surprised. “Yeah?”

It’s so much easier than he was expecting, one fluid motion of kneeling down and pulling the box out of his pocket, opening it up for her.

There will be more to talk about after this moment, the picture of the ring he designed (which she’ll love), discussion of when to tell people (after Thanksgiving, at Clarke’s request) and what they want the wedding to be like (small and lowkey), but those things will come later.

What he wanted to give her most was this single, shining moment, the happy surprise that engagement is supposed to be. And as the joy spreads over her face, the laugh bubbles out of her throat, the tear springs into her eye, he finally gets it. This is how it’s supposed to be. This is what people want to achieve with all their complicated surprises.