“I want to be your wife,” Finn says one morning, middle of season seven, sunlight coming through the kitchen window strong enough that she has to squint her eyes to get a good view of Kennedy. She’s curled in the armchair in the corner; she pretends she doesn’t notice the way his steps falter for a moment as he processes what she’s said, before he regains his footing, brings their matching mugs of coffee to the table and nudges her to the side so he can sit beside her.
“Is that a proposal?” His eyebrows are raised. It’s like a staring contest; she can’t look away from him, wants to catalogue every reaction, store it in her memory forever.
“It can be, if you want,” she says. “Or not! I can do something bigger — I don’t have a ring, or anything, but I figured, well, we’re already pretty much there, right? And I’d like to call you my wife, and have you call me your wife, even if we don’t have time for a big wedding, or anything — I don’t think I’d want anything big, anyways, you know? Just —” and she picks up one of Kennedy’s hands, twines their fingers together as much as she can without squashing the webbing between hers. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Ken’s smiling, eyes crinkled at the corners. Finn looks and looks and looks, doesn’t dare blink and miss a moment. “Obviously I’m saying yes,” he says, and that was never really in doubt but Finn still breathes a sigh of relief, half-giddy at hearing it. “Obviously. I’d be honored to call you my wife, Finn.”
It’s one thing to think about it, conceptually; to roll the idea around in her mind at night or to blurt it out in the morning. It’s another thing to hear the words in Ken’s voice. Finn is breathless for a moment; she leans forward, her forehead pressed against Kennedy’s, his glasses knocked askew by her nose. “My wife, Kennedy,” she says softly, the joy of it overwhelming her. “My wife, my wife, my wife.”
Kennedy leans in the remaining centimeters, presses his lips to the corner of her mouth, to her cheek, to her forehead. He’s smiling too much for them to properly land, and she laughs. It’s been a hard season, and it isn’t even halfway over, but this is good, this is nothing but pure ocean breezes against bare skin and fish swirling around feet in the shallows — happiness, to put it simply.
“Should we tell the rest of the Crabs?” Finn asks, after a while.
Kennedy thinks for a moment. “Let’s see how long it takes them to figure it out,” he says, grinning.
