"Hey, Jemma? Do you want free ice cream?" Skye asks after a lovely dinner on their weekly date night, a mischievous glint glittering in her eyes.
"Always... wait, are you about to do something illegal or bad?" Jemma asks nervously as Skye gets out of her seat and approaches her like Jemma was a scared cat that might run away.
"That sort of depends on how you look at it." Skye's grin widens and she drops to one knee, pure laughter sparkling in her eyes as she clears her throat dramatically.
"Jemma Simmons, you are the single most brilliant mind that I have ever met, and I fear that sometimes that is all that people will see of you. I swear that, if you marry me, I won't ever miss a thing. Dr. Simmons is...please do me the great honor of being my wife?" Skye asks in a loud voice, but makes it clear that Jemma is the only person in the room that she is speaking to.
"Wait...what?" Jemma's eyes go very wide, very quickly, trying hard to keep up what is going on around her.
"This is the part where you say yes, darling." Skye whispers, suddenly acutely aware of all of the eyes on her.
"Oh, of course I will." Jemma answers and Skye pops up with a smile again, grabs Jemma by the waist, and swings her around in circles, right there in the middle of the restaurant. The tension breaks and everybody in the room explodes with applause.
"And...cue the free food." Skye whispers into her ear before kissing the base of her neck and then her lips, full in view of everybody else to the sound of even more applause. When Skye lets her go. Jemma sits and just stares at the ring on her finger. She finally recognizes that it is plastic and fake...just like the proposal itself. Surprised, her heart falls, and her smile. Yes, she had been shocked, but she had also been happy to have had Skye propose to her.
"It's an old trick that Miles and I used to use to con ourselves into some free food. Almost always worked. I thought that it would be cool and fun to give you a taste of the full Skye experience." she says amiably as a waiter brings them both icecreams and a piece of cake.
"Congratulations." she says. It's incredibly obvious that she doesn't mean it, but Skye pretends to rapturous levels of enthusiasm anyway. Jemma tries to match it, but can't. She was really sort of disappointed that Skye hadn't actually been proposing to her and she was really rather surprised at herself for feeling that way.
Over the next couple of months, Jemma tried really hard to put the incident out of her mind. It didn't work. It kept niggling in the back of Jemma's mind and she just couldn't shake it. Those feelings, of course, leaked into her relationship with Skye and the younger girl had no idea what was going on with her. All she knew was that Jemma was upset and she kept getting brushed off whenever she would ask what was wrong or what was going on with her. It was confusing and hard and sad until one day she was folding the laundry and she found that stupid plastic ring still riding around in Jemma's jacket pocket.
"OOOooohh." she whistled to herself and just locked herself in the bathroom to think alone for a while. The next week she went shopping out with Fitz, called Jemma's parents in England, bought plane tickets, and reserved a private room at the Olive Garden.
"Jemma, are you ready?!" Skye asks, suddenly incredibly nervous. Her palms were sweating and she was pretty sure that she could feel her pulse in her face.
"Coming!" Jemma yells, snapping her earrings into place. Skye had suddenly been acting so odd and flighty and weird and that in turn was making Jemma antsy as well. The younger woman had even requested that they both dress up special for the night. She steps out of their bedroom to join Skye and stops short, jerking them to a stop.
"Mom? Dad? What are you doing here?!" she launches herself into her parents' arms.
"Skye invited us. She wanted surprise you." Jemma's mother answers. "Your young lady, has worked very hard to set all of this up."
"You have just seemed so off lately and I thought that maybe they could help you out more than I could. I mean, I am your girlfriend and all but there are just some things that you can't talk to me about and I get that." Skye looks sheepish, shifting from one foot to the other, not making eye contact with her.
"I love you." Jemma hugs her tightly, barely able to process all of the things and emotions and thoughts that were running through her mind and heart at the moment "this is the actual sweetest and most thoughtful and considerate thing. I can't believe you." She cups Skye's very surprised face in one hand and runs her thumb across Skye's cheek.
"Well, uh, dinner?" Jemma's dad suggests, seemingly uncomfortable with the expressions of so many feelings. He couldn't help how incredibly British her was in the face of such things.
"Yeah, let's go." Skye answers with a soft smile, taking Jemma's hand after wiping off her own on her jeans.
When the meal was over, Skye looks nervously at Jemma and glances over at her parents, suddenly nervous that she might actually throw up. Slowly, she slides the little blue box out of her pocket and pushes herself up and out of her seat.
"A little while ago, I proposed to you in this exact spot all because I wanted to play a joke and get free ice cream. I thought that it was something funny from my past and didn't take your feelings into consideration, and for that, I'm sorry. However, I am not sorry that it put rings into our minds, because as you can see, I kind of already asked your mum and dad for permission. Jemma, we are good together and you wouldn't believe how good you are for me. I love you more than all of the ice cream in the world. With you around I feel like I could take on the world. For real this time, Dr. Jemma Simmons, will you marry me?" Skye asks, her voice soft and her eyes not leaving Jemma's for a single second.
Once again the doctor stands there completely silent and wide-eyed, her mind having gone completely blank. She couldn't even have remembered her own name if someone had asked her. She wasn't sure if she was happy or sad or angry. Jemma could only hear Skye's words floating through her mind over and over again on repeat.
"Jemma, this is the part where you say yes, of course, Skye. Of course, I'll marry you." Jemma's mother reminds her.
"I..." Jemma starts, suddenly kind of dizzy. "Are you stupid? Of course I'm going to marry you!" she finally says, collapsing to the floor and hugging Skye, crying into her shoulder.
