As you stood in the kitchen washing dishes on Christmas Eve, you couldn't help but strain your ears to listen in on the conversation going on in the other room. You held a metal bowl aloft in one hand and used the other to scrub over it with a sudsy sponge, going round and round in circles.

Distracting you was the matter of that conversation you were trying to listen in on, the contents of it gripping you like a vice. You'd been involved with one DI Hardy for a good while now, having met when you provided a witness statement for an incident of theft and started dating shortly thereafter. When the case was closed up, of course. Adherence to good ethics prevented anything from happening beforehand.

He really was the sweetest man. He had a little trouble expressing how much he loved you, but over time, you gathered that that was really just how he was rather than a reflection of how he felt for you. And when he did want to make a show of how much he cared, he went all-out. Romantic restaurant dates, chores taken care of, wine and flowers and chocolates. Everything he could think of. It wasn't incredibly often, but it was often enough that you knew he wasn't merely stringing you along. And now you were beginning to discuss the possibility of marriage.

Of course, this was a big step. This was Alec. He'd been burned quite badly before, a story he'd been hesitant to tell you, and he'd never thought he would marry again. But here you were, a bright ray of sunshine amid the gloomy gray of the crimes he dealt with every day. How could that sappy, romantic side of him not want to be tied to you for the rest of his days?

So there he was. In the other room, talking to your father, asking permission to ask you to marry him. It was old-fashioned, sure, and he was going to ask you no matter what your father said, but he felt it'd be nice to have the man's blessing.

"...and I'd like to ask for yer blessin' to ask {{user}} to marry me."

The question was out.