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“This is hopeless,” Kaidan said, running his hands through his hair for probably the fourth time in as many minutes. “All these rings are wrong. Too big, too gold, too clunky…”
Across the jewellery store, Joker, who had already had to trade out his cybernetics for actual crutches due to the many many laps around the Citadel, threw back his head and heaved an overdramatic sigh.
“Dude. Just buy a ring already.”
Kaidan gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to hit the pilot, or at least knock his stupid hat off his stupid head.
“Well maybe,” he shot back, far more sarcastically than he’d intended. “If someone’s robot girlfriend hadn’t already given her the perfect ring, we wouldn’t still be scouring jewellery stores.”
Damn, it seemed that over four hours of looking at shiny pieces of rock and metal had gotten to him more than he thought. At least Joker had the grace to look properly admonished.
“Okay so… maybe you don’t get her a ring,” he suggested, patiently. “Maybe you do something different like… I don’t know.” Joker paused, his gaze flickering over the various counters. “An engagement bracelet or an engagement tiara or… wait, is that a replica Avenger?”
It was. From the First Contact War too, decommissioned and missing its thermal coil, but dented and beaten in that special way that suggested the piece had seen real action.
“It’s perfect.” Joker hobbled over and scooped up the rifle from the display, where Kaidan had been admiring it with his eyes instead of his hands. “C’mon, can’t you just imagine getting down on one knee and handing her this gorgeous piece of weaponry?”
Was it weird that he could totally imagine that? But was it the result of four hours of shiny rocks and metal, or was legitimately a good idea?
Fuck, he was far too tired to judge.
He couldn’t even decide whether it was a good thing or a bad thing that Joker thought it was a good idea.
A vague memory floated to the surface of his mind.
They were in her cabin, though he couldn’t recall whether it was the SR1 or SR2. Either way, it had been one of those glorious evenings when it was just the two of them having dinner, reading reports and being normal.
“You know,” she’d said, a distinct twinkle of mischief in her eyes, “This. Us. Is probably the most normal thing to happen to me in the last ten years.”
He hadn’t been sure whether she’d meant it as a good thing or a bad thing and he’d been a little too terrified of the answer to straightforwardly ask.
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” She had smiled like she knew what he’d been thinking. “I like it.”
“Me too,” he’d agreed more than a little relieved.
“I’ll stick with the ring,” he decided, pointedly ignoring Joker’s answering groan, because yes, they would be going to another jewellery store and another and another until he found the perfect ring.
And then maybe, maybe, he could start getting his head around the proposal.
Later, he found himself alone in the apartment. Shepard was with Miranda or Tali or… Jack? Possibly all three? Didn’t matter, she was out and would be for a few hours, which meant he was free to closet himself in the study with the extranet and multiple datapads displaying several different brochures.
The problem was that that every single brochure had that ring.
And not just that ring, but little pop ups that said ‘as worn by Commander Shepard’.
If you had told sixteen-year-old Kaidan Alenko that one day he’d be considering dismantling a sexy AI robot lady with murderous intent, he wouldn’t have believed you.
But damn, he could have killed EDI.
Because yes, obviously a ring made from metals of all four council homeworlds bonded together was perfect for her. So perfect that there had even been a slew of ‘Commander Shepard Engaged??!!’ headlines from some of trashier publications, when she’d dared to wear it one day for one stupid swanky charity event.
One singular event. Which, of course, wasn’t putting any extra pressure on his search for an actual ring at all.
Not to mention the practical concerns. At the end of the day she’d still have to wear it under her armour (at least, he hoped she’d want to wear it under her armour) so it had to be small enough to fit and not impede her movement, yet still big enough to be noticeable.
Maybe he was going about this the wrong way. Maybe what he really needed to do was narrow the search.
Okay. It couldn’t be anything too large, so those were out. He didn’t want anything too small, so those were out. More stones were just more things to get lost, broken or chipped as a result of her day-to-day life, so those were out. Which left…
Hundreds. Hundreds of single gem rings; their stones cut in a variety of ways, square, pear and something called ‘princess cut’, that he was almost sure Shepard would shoot him for even considering. And if having innumerable cuts and shapes weren’t enough, there were an almost equal number of metals and alloys to choose from.
Palladium stood out. He was sure that Shepard would appreciate the fact that, if the Normandy were stuck between systems, they could always melt her ring down for that extra tiny bit of fuel.
That said, he’d rather that she didn’t have to sacrifice her ring to keep the Normandy afloat. It was, after all, definitely something she’d do and would land him back in the exact same situation he was in now, trying to find a replacement.
So maybe not palladium.
There was one ring he kept coming back to, and dismissing, because it was too simple, too normal. It was white gold with a single square cut diamond set close to the band. He wasn’t even really sure why he kept looking at it except that… for some reason he could clearly picture it on Shepard’s finger.
Maybe…
Maybe the ring didn’t have to be something grand and filled with symbolism. Maybe it could just be… normal.
Because, by god, something in their lives ought to be.
He had it up on the screen, finger hovering over the ‘order’ button when he heard the door to the apartment swish open.
He clicked order before he could think.
“Hey,” Shepard said, sticking her head into the study.
“Hey,” he replied, scrambling to block the screen as best he could.
“I picked up some grilled cheeses on the way back – you want in?”
“Sure!” He managed to squeak out the word before she mercifully left the room.
When he turned back to the terminal it was to see the words ‘Order confirmed’ flashing on the screen. He bought a ring. An actual engagement ring. A beautiful, small, perfect engagement ring.
Now all he had to do was propose.
Shit.