Chapter Text
For the first time, and what would likely the only time, Sara Ellis was glad her flight was delayed. It meant she could replay the dizzying experience of a proposal atop The Empire State building over again with her feet planted firmly on the ground. Sara knew herself well enough to know as soon as the plane took off, as soon she was above the clouds, the poetry of it all would have been too much. She settled back into the uncomfortable bench seat, and closed her eyes briefly.
She was surprised when he stalled. They stood awkwardly amongst the tourists; she lightly teased him for having cold feet. She learned that “here goes nothing” is easily amongst the worst things a man could say when he’s getting down on one knee in front of you. She had never been one for nervous laughter, but the sound spilled involuntarily from her lips.
She was even more surprised when he stalled again. She tore her gaze from him, feeling the heat of onlookers’ stares. When she brought her eyes back to his, there was something in them that she couldn’t quite place. If she didn’t know Neal Caffrey, she might have called it sincerity. She didn’t have time to convince herself one way or the other of it, though.
“Okay, people are starting to watch us. I think you should say something.”
They hadn’t rehearsed. She hadn’t felt the need to. If she could count on Neal to be one thing, it was extravagant. What she hadn’t counted on him being, was genuine.
“Sara Ellis, will you marry me?”
She found herself feeling taken aback by hearing Neal use her real name. She knew he wasn’t using his. She hadn’t realized she was crying until Neal kissed a tear off her cheek.
“You bastard, that was a little too real, and it was damn good.”
“Well, make it look good, that’s my job.”
They were escorted up to the 103rd floor, Neal insisting all the way that the view only gets better.
“And a lot scarier,” Sara remarked at the top. Though, she didn’t want to think too deeply about whether the fear was really of the heights, or if it was something more personal.
She took a swig from the flask he offered; it was her favorite white.
“I did like your speech,” she offered, letting the adrenaline embolden her.
“I had something else prepared,” he said, taking the flask back from her. “But I uh,” he paused, and lifted his eyes to meet hers “I meant that one.”
Stunned, Sara tried to recover quickly. “Another time, another place, right?”
“What would that look like?”
In the moment, Sara hadn’t allowed herself to consider the question seriously, but as she opened her eyes in JFK terminal 7, she wished she had. She scanned the departures screen for her flight number, and sighed— debatably from frustration or relief— when she found it was still delayed.
Her thoughts wandered back to a different load-bearing question Neal once asked her: “Would you have come with me?”
Sara was scared then too. She was terrified because she almost wanted to. Posing as Mrs. Dupont alongside Neal, living a life of luxury, it was tempting. Being his wife was tempting. If Peter hadn’t walked through that door, hadn’t read them the riot act, hadn’t pointedly been a reality check, she might have.
She deflected with a question, “How would that even work?”
Back then, he didn’t ask her to go and she didn’t ask him to stay. This time was more or less the same; she couldn’t ask him to go, and he didn’t ask her to stay. History had a funny way of repeating itself.
“To the same old us,” she murmured.
The gate agent broke her from her memories announcing, finally, that they were now boarding.
The clouds beckoned.
———————————————
Neal locked himself in the penthouse at June’s, hoping he wouldn’t hear from Mozzie or Peter. He pulled a bottle from his wine rack and gave himself a generous poor. James had been arrested for the murder of Senator Terrence Pratt, a murder he’d tried to frame Peter for. His father was a dirty cop, a liar, and a murderer, and that wasn’t even the heaviest thing on his mind.
Neal turned the ring slowly between his fingers, letting the lamplight catch on the stones the way June had designed it to. It was elegant, unassuming, quietly impossible to ignore. It was borrowed.
June hadn’t hesitated when he asked. She just smiled in that knowing way of hers, the way that always suggested she’d been waiting for him to catch up to a conclusion she’d reached years ago. She presented him with a tray of rings from her collection, and though it didn’t really matter which one Neal chose for the job, he found himself wondering which one Sara would like best.
“Bring it back,” she’d said. “Or don’t. Rings like that have a way of ending up where they belong.”
The top of The Empire State Building replayed itself in fragments. He’d meant to be smooth; he meant to be dazzling. Instead, he’d been honest. That terrified him more than the heights, and scarier yet, it thrilled him more than any con ever had.
He couldn’t have stuck to the plan if he had wanted to. The moment he found himself on one knee in front of Sara Ellis, the only words that came to mind were unscripted.
Neal closed his fist around the ring and leaned back against the counter. He thought about the last time he’d stood in front of Sara asking her a question of that magnitude.
“Would you have come with me?”
They both knew the answer. She didn’t cross lines she couldn’t come back from, and he’d never ask her too— so he didn’t. Asking him to stay would’ve been the same metaphorical line from the other side, so she didn’t.
At the time, he’d told himself it was respect; they were two capable adults refusing to tether the other to a decision they couldn’t make. He didn’t ask her to go and she didn’t ask him to stay. Now, older, a little wiser, he recognized it for what it really was: heartbreak disguised as grace.
He understood she couldn’t ask him to go with her. London is famously more than two miles from New York. He couldn’t exactly call the proposal asking her to stay, even if the “yes” was the only part of the script that had been stuck to.
The symmetry of it all wasn’t lost on him. He used to be a runner. Now, the future was standing right in front of him, and for the first time in his life, he wasn’t trying to outpace it.
Neal glanced at his phone on the counter, resisting the urge to check her flight again. He knew it was delayed. He suspected, or maybe hoped, Sara was replaying the same moments he was. He knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t allow herself to meditate on New York any longer than she was on the ground here, and he found solace in knowing there was just a little more time she could be thinking about him.
“Another time, another place, right?” she’d said.
“What would that look like?” he mused, understanding that there wouldn’t be a real answer.
“To another us,” she’d said.
He imagined another them, but not the hypothetical parents to baton wielding con children. Another Neal and Sara who answered the questions they’d once left hanging in the air between them in sincerity.
A sharp knock on the door shook Neal from his thoughts. It was only a matter of time before Peter or Mozzie caught up with him after the kind of day they’d all had. He was anticipating Peter, because Mozzie would have just picked the lock and let himself in, which made it all the more staggering when he opened the door to Sara.
“Can I come in?”