AN: Things I should be doing:
1) Cleaning my room.
2) Preparing for school to start.
3) Figuring out what song I should sing for an audition I have coming up.
4) Memorizing a monologue.
5) Working on my multichapter stories.
But I'm not doing any of that! Instead I am writing this random oneshot because it won't get out of my head, so enjoy.
Jack Kelly had never thought about marriage. Sure, he thought it was nice that his parents had been married, and he wasn't opposed to the idea of it in general. But he'd never pictured himself getting married. From what he could tell, that was the natural thought process for most people - you grow up, get a job, meet the love of your life, and then marry them.
Jack figured that he was just going to have to skip those last two steps, and that didn't really faze him. He didn't love the idea of being seventeen years old and having already gone as far as he was going to get in life (he already had a job at The World, after all) but he acknowledged that that was how life worked for him. He was low class and he lived on the street, and guys like that didn't get married.
That was why Katherine Pulitzer was such a surprise to him. When he first saw her, he knew she was different, he knew he felt different about her than other girls, but he certainly didn't expect anything to come of it. Even less so did he expect her to kiss him on the rooftop, and then actually keep her promise and stay after the strike ended.
He still never thought he was going to marry her. It wasn't that he didn't want to, the thought just never crossed his mind. As a general rule he tried not to think too much about the future. He found that life was easier when you live from day to day. If you don't think about when your next meal is going to be, you won't worry about it. So that's what he did with Katherine - enjoyed every day that he spent with her, every moment that he spent loving her. But he didn't think about marriage.
Katherine, however, had been raised differently, and she was eager to think about the future. And a little over a year after she and Jack had gotten together, she decided that it was time to at least start thinking about their future together.
"Jack?"
"Hmm?"
They were sitting on the fire escape outside of Katherine's apartment together, gazing out at the city below them, with Katherine settle comfortably in between his legs and leaning against his chest. Jack wasn't totally paying attention, and for all Katherine knew he could be half-asleep, but the idea had come into her head and she was curious.
"Have you ever thought about marriage?"
That got his attention, and he jerked his head up, looking down to stare at her. "What?"
She shifted, turning around on his lap to look at him. "Not right away, of course. But have you thought about it?"
"I... not really. Not 'til now."
"Well, now that you're thinking about it, what do you think?"
"About marriage?" Jack repeated dumbly, staring at her.
"Yes."
"Marriage to you?"
"No, to my sister." Katherine rolled her eyes. "Yes, to me!"
"You think we could get married?"
She nodded. "Someday." She couldn't read his expression, and was starting to worry that she'd scared him off by bringing up something she wouldn't normally. "It was just a thought, we don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."
"No, it's just... I dunno, I never thought about it before. I ain't ever pictured myself getting married."
The idea of that alone made Katherine laugh. "Whereas I've been trained to prepare myself for marriage from the time I could walk." She said, mostly to herself. "I was just thinking about it, and I can see myself marrying you."
It probably shouldn't have, but that surprised Jack. "Really?"
Katherine nodded, and he believed her. "Really. Not anytime soon, of course. But... someday."
He raised an eyebrow. "Is this some kinda early proposal?"
She thought about that for almost longer than he was comfortable with, but she smiled before answering. "Not a proposal. More like a promise to stick around long enough to think about it more seriously later."
He smiled at that. "Yeah? Well then I promise to stick around, too."
And just like that, Jack was thinking about marriage, and he liked those thoughts.
