Chapter Text
It was New Year's Eve and John had spent the last couple of days, cleaning his apartment. Moving all of his files to ether his study in his apartment or his office in the precinct, he made the place more welcoming. As the clock turned to 9pm, he placed an order into a pizza place, set out bottles of wine and a cake that Liv had made earlier.
Fixing his light grey tie, with his more than casual dark grey suit. He was happy, more than happy when he heard the door open, he knew it was probably Olivia because she was the only other one that had a key.
"Hey, John you home?" He heard Olivia say from the door as she shut it behind her. The click of the lock could be heard as he opened the first bottle of wine.
"Nobody's home." He said sarcastically, as he walked over to her and kissed her cheek, noticing her simple black dress with long sleeves, black heels and a silver necklace that he had gotten her.
"Oh shut up" she punched his arm lightly as they teased each other. Placing her purse on the table near the door, she adjusted his tie looking up at him. "You know you look extremely sharp for a New Years Party. What's up with you?"
He gave a smirk to her "Oh my darling, you shall see." And with that their was a knock at the door and John pulled himself from her grip.
Opening the door he greeted Amanda and Fin who looked just as dressed up as he did. Thank god he thought, that Fin ether got the hint or just thought it was more of a dress up.
As one by one, the rest of the squad showed up, even Rafael Barba, the party started with them all laughing at one point.
It was almost 11pm and with midnight approaching one last knock on the door made almost everybody puzzled. "I got it!" Jumping up from his spot on the black leather couch, Barba walked over to the door and opened it revealing a sight for sore eyes, Cragen.
With a small smile Cragen walked into the apartment and Barba shut the door behind him, giving a look to John.
"Don!" Olivia said as she stood up, walking towards him dumbfounded more than everyone.
"Liv" he said happily as he pulled her into a hug. She was surprised, she hadn't seen him since they went for pizza a couple of months ago.
"What are you-" Olivia started to say, but stopped as she pulled out from the hug "What did John do that made you come back to Manhattan?"
"Because I was told-" Cragen paused and then he continued " John didn't do anything... He didn't tell you?" Don looked surprised and looked to Munch who shrugged still smiling, taking a sip of water that Fin had handed him.
"No he didn't, do all of you know?" She said with a raise of the eyebrow and a clearly curious look on her face.
Detectives nodded, Barba completely out of the loop.
"I'm here to take you all to time square, I have buddy of mine that got us up to the front near the stage." Cragen replied and John nodded.
"That's great, when shall we be leaving?" Munch said giving him another look.
~~~
It was about half an hour before they got to the spot, only having to flash badges once, they were amazed at where they were, looking back into the crowd as the were seated on a semi raised platform up against the stage.
"This is cool" Amanda said with slight excitement as John had trusted her enough to tell her what was really going on,
The MC walked onto the stage and started speaking, Olivia wasn't really paying attention but it did catch her attention when he said 'And now a few words from Liuentant John Munch from New York's finest.'
The people in the crowd were reluctant but clapped and cheered anyways as John stood up and walked to the awaiting mircophone.
His smile was one of the bigger ones anyone had seen before as he started speaking. "So I guess I'm here to surprise someone" he said with a laugh and he looked at his squad, motioning for them to come up here. The clock hit 11:45pm.
They came up and John whispered into Olivia's ear as she stood next to him "You may still resent some of the things I've done but I hope you won't resent this" Olivia turned her head towards him in surprise as John started speaking to the crowd again "There probably is a 1pp rule against this but-" he stopped, he got on one knee; fumbled with the ring in his pocket and said to Liv "Sargent Olivia Benson will you marry me?"
Liv would barely hear anything over the cheering crowd but it didn't matter because she nodded and said into his ear as he slipped the ring on her finger "Yes John Munch, yes."