Pollux and Autumn Proposal 7

Pollux dropped the ring in the Champaign glass, "Then she chokes to death and dies," Pollux said to himself taking the ring out. Their kitchen table was set up nicely in their little apartment.

People hardly believed him when he told them that he had attended culinary school, he never seemed like the cooking type, but he was. He was currently working as a chief in an Italian restaurant in Little Italy. Autumn was in a Graduate program to earn a masters degree in botany. Due to conflicting schedules, they rarely had time to see each other any more, so Pollux had taken the night off and asked Autumn to a romantic dinner in their apartment.

He wanted to propose to her tonight. He had recently asked her father, Autumn was a daddy's girl, and he had seemed reluctant but generally happy. He met her father for the first time after they had been dating for a year; it was junior year of college.

He knew Autumn would be home soon so he put the rind in his pocket and waited. He looked around and made sure he had watered all of her plants, which filled the house. Some were for school others were decorations. His eyes passed over one of her pictures; it was of her, about seven years old, on her fathers shoulder. Her curly auburn hair was shoulder length and there was a big sunflower, about the size of her head, tucked behind her ear. Autumn had always loved sunflowers.

Autumn was the oldest daughter of Demeter and had moved into the city freshman year of high school and quickly befriends Melody, a daughter of Apollo, and Ryan, a son of Aphrodite. When the three of them, Pollux, and Drew (a fun-loving gay mortal boy, not the daughter of Aphrodite) all ended up going to college in the city, it was a fun time.  They had gotten together after waking up next to each other in bed with very little memory of the night before.

Pollux was still walking down memory lane when his phone rang. Looking at the caller I.D he saw if was Autumn.

"Hello?"

It sounded like she was crying, "Pollux?"

"Yeah, Autumn? What's wrong?"

"Just, come meet me at the emergency room,"

"Autumn what happened?"

"Just come, please,"

Pollux grabbed his coat, keys, and blew the candle out.
~*~*~
Fifteen minutes later he was walking into the emergency room. He want up to the woman working the desk to try and find Autumn, "Hi, I'm looking for Autumn Corcoran," He sounded a lot calmer than he was feeling.

"Um… we have no one named Autumn but there is…"

"Pollux?" Autumns voice made him turn around, she looked like she had been crying, her face and eyes were red and her voice was shaking. The first thing he thought to do was pull her into a hug, which proved to be the right thing to do, because the moment he she did, she broke down crying into his shoulder.

"What happened?" He asked, still hugging her.

"My father…. He… he had a heart attack," She said crying again. The ring in Pollux's pocket suddenly felt very heavy. He knew Autumn idolized her father, and losing him would kill her.

"Is… is he okay?"

"He's alive, but they're not sure if he's going to be okay. They're running some tests,"

"Have you seen him yet?"

"No… they won't let me until they are done with all the tests, it should only be a few more minutes…"

"I'm so sorry Autumn, he'll be okay,"

Pollux's big plans for the evening had been shattered, he couldn't propose to her at such a sad time. So for now, he would just hold her.
~*~*
A little while later they were let in to see him. Pollux followed Autumn and her stepmother into the hospital room. When they saw him there, both girls started crying, almost at the same time. They hugged each other and when they pulled apart they asked Pollux to leave.

He sat in one of the waiting chairs think about how he just seen him three days ago, he had seemed perfectly fine. Things always happen too fast, things change.

When they came out, Pollux asked to go in. Autumn nodded listlessly, as if her soul had been sucked from her. All the brightness and life that use to fill her brown eyes was gone, and replaced with sorrow and hurt. Pollux wanted to make all of that pain go away, but he knew from personal experience there was nothing he could do.

Pollux entered the room, and saw Autumn's dad hooked up to a lot of different machines. "We have him in a medically educed coma, just until he is stable," the doctor, a young brown-haired man, told him.

Pollux wasn't sure what to say to him, they had never been close. Far from it. But seeing him like this, hooked up to so many different tubes, looking pale and thin, made Pollux upset. He thought of his girlfriend and took the ring out of his pocket, and knew what to say. "I was gonna ask her tonight, I guess you knew, had to do something to keep her away from me," Pollux joked. He felt kind of stupid talking to a man he hardly knew. "Look, you probably can't hear me, and even if you can you probably wouldn't want to listen, but Autumn couldn't live without you. You are her hero. I lost my twin brother when I was seventeen, and I'm still not over it. Castor was to me what you are to Autumn. If you don't pull through, I don't think she'll ever be the same,"  

Pollux put the ring back in his pocket. He probably wouldn't need it for a while.
~*~*~*
Autumn's father came around a week later, he was stable and would be all right. He was discharged from the hospital a few weeks after being in ICU. When he first came around and spoke to Pollux for the first time, he assured him that he didn't have a hear attack to keep Pollux away from Autumn. Pollux didn't know if her father telling him this was coincidence or if he could here Pollux speaking to him. If it was the latter, Pollux felt really stupid.  

Some of the light and happiness had come back to Autumn's eyes, though she often spent hours at a time on the phone with her father. This didn't bother Pollux as long as he could see her happy again, it had been so long.

Now, two months after the incident, Pollux was standing in his kitchen. It looked exactly the way it had that night. Now that Autumn's father was okay, Pollux was going to give it a second try.

When the dinner was finished, Pollux took Autumn's hand across the table. She was a hopeless romantic and loved it when he did this. He had a feeling she would like it even more. In his hand was the ring, which he slipped into hers. He pulled his hand away and let her see the ring.

"Marry me?" Pollux said simply.

"Yes,"

She stood up and walked over to him and kissed him. They woke up the next morning the same way they did when they started dating, except they remembered the night before with amazing amount bliss.