it's enough for this wide-eyed wanderer that we got this far (back-dated: july 4)

[sciencesaggressively]

In the end, there'd really only ever been the one right way to do it.

He realizes the text he'd sent her had been maybe a little vague, maybe even a little more of a cause for concern. We need to talk had seemed fine at the time but then he'd remembered that the phrase carries a whole bunch of negative connotations with it that really aren't fair for people who are in relationships because sometimes, the need to talk really is there but it totally comes off as a bad thing.

A follow-up text had let Kate know that she should join him on the roof, and Newt has gone to great lenghts to make sure they won't have any unwelcome visitors by creating a false memo for every resident of Dimera--that's a lot of fucking residents, just for the record--that the door would remain locked for the evening. Kind of rude considering it's the Fourth of July? Maybe. He doesn't care all too much. His primary concern is that inviting Kate up to the roof isn't in itself isn't a dead giveaway because the roof has totally been their happy place since they'd started dating.

The flamingos are still up here, the telescope aimed in the direction of their stars, the table and chairs, the boombox--all of it's here. Nobody had thought or cared to move it, and it almost feels like that alone makes the roof theirs. He's been pacing back and forth for a solid half hour, pausing every so often to poke his head out over the ledge to see if he can spot her on the ground because she should be on her way back any minute but the fireworks are going to start soon and Christ, he's not nervous about what this whole thing is going to lead to but there's still that tight pulsing in his chest, there's the overwhelming sense of this could go terribly wrong.

What he clings to is the knowledge that there's not a single part of him that doubts how much he wants this. He's never felt about anyone the way he feels about Kate, has never felt this much love for a single person, and sometimes he wakes up wondering if Darrow hadn't just been one very long, very detailed dream. He couldn't have predicted this or even imagined it because the life he'd had before this wouldn't have allowed it. But right now, standing up on this roof waiting for Kate to arrive with his hand in his pocket, clutching at the ring, he knows that this is where he's supposed to be. This is what he's supposed to do.

Tonight, he's proposing. Tonight, he's going to be the happiest man in Darrow.

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[everyonetakes]

She's sort of late -- not much just like, ten minutes -- which has her kind of pissy, because she'd told her boss she needed to leave on time today and it's not like she doesn't stay late like, all the time already. Which she knows would shock pretty much everyone who knew her before Darrow, but whatever, she loves her job and sometimes she gets distracted by unpacking new inventory and spends an hour more than she's supposed to just sorting and hanging clothes and that's fine. But that also means she's given that place probably a million unpaid working hours and so the fact that she needs to leave on time tonight -- not even early, just on time -- and her boss makes her stay behind for ten minutes to clean all the mirrors in the dressing rooms pisses her off.

But as she approaches the building, she shoves all that down, because Newt's been working a lot lately, and she gets to hang out with him on the roof and hopefully watch the fireworks and hopefully not get dumped, because we need to talk is freaking ominous as hell. Except she thinks if he was about to dump her, she'd probably know it. It'd probably feel different. Busy is one thing, busy is different, too, but he still crawls into bed with her every night and wraps his arm around her and she figures that stuff would probably change if he suddenly didn't want to be with her anymore.

Still, she's kind of nervous as she takes the elevator up to the top floor, then heads for the roof. It's a beautiful, clear night and she's actually surprised there aren't more people up on the roof for the fireworks when she opens the door. But it's totally empty. Just her and Newt, and she smiles when she sees him, any nerves she had just totally melting away, because this is Newt.

"Hey," she says. "Sorry I'm late, my boss was being sort of a dick tonight."

[sciencesaggressively]

She walks through the doors and for a split second, he's worried that he isn't going to have anything to say. Then he remembers that it's him and it's her and this night is about to be important as hell, but he's got a few minutes before the fireworks starts so he shakes his head with a soft smile and steps toward her until he closes the gap between them. He takes her hands, lifting them so he can press his lips against her knuckles before tugging them to wrap around his waist.

"Don't be sorry, do you want me to give your a boss a piece of my mind? I'll so go over there be like, y'know, hey, stop being such a dick, and knock a mannequin over or something. But then I'd pick it back up and make it all nice again because I know how hard you work." He kisses the tip of her nose before pulling back to look at her, really look at her, because it's not like he needs a reminder of why he wants to be with Kate for the rest of his life--or as long as Darrow lets them be together but no, fuck that, for the purposes of right here and now, it's totally going to be for the rest of their lives--but he's had so few chances over the past few months to just let himself relax in her arms that he wants to cherish every second of this.

He brushes a loose strand of hair behind her ear and offers a small but genuinely affectionate smile. "You know I love you, right? Like, a lot. Like, you know how much I love food and kaiju, but I totally love you more than both those things and that's how you know it's real." He's teasing, he knows she'll know that, but he lets out a short laugh before pulling her closer to him into an embrace as he rests his chin on her shoulder. He can glance down at his watch this way and it tells him that he's got about a minute left before the fireworks start. "I have something for you, by the way. I've been holding onto it for a while now."

[everyonetakes]

It doesn't surprise her, really, because they've always been affectionate, right from the start. The first day she'd met him she'd been touching his arms to look at his tattoos, leaning against him in the coffee shop; they'd danced on their first date, right there in their living room and she remembers sitting on the couch with her knee brushing his, her fingers stroking patterns against the skin of his arm. They've always been this way, but there's something about the way he looks at her that makes her smile every single time. No one has ever looked at her that way. She's been in love before, she's been with someone who loved her, but she doesn't remember him ever looking at her the way Newt does.

"I know," she says and she laughs at the way he phrases it, because it's so perfectly Newt to put it like that. To compare her to food and kaiju, which is fair, because she knows how much he loves both those things. It'd be like telling him she loves him more than food and fashion and dancing, which is true, she loves him far more than those things, but she loves those things an awful lot, too.

Tightening her arms around him, she smiles as he rests his chin on her shoulder and she turns her head, burying her face against the crook of his neck. "You have something for me?" she asks, her voice bright even though she has her eyes closed, her lips brushing against his skin as she speaks. "I love presents."