“Hooplah, Pt. 1” by Scripted Starlet

Rating: K+… I think.

Disclaimer: I don’t own them, I’m just taking them out for a spin.

Setting: Goren and Eames’ proper wedding. Set between chapters 27 and 28 of “Fallout”. Some of the context won’t make sense unless you’ve followed the series.

A.N. I know I was leaning towards a one shot, but it turns out I work better in installments otherwise I get… stalled. I need the encouragement, you see. Anyways, this is my first attempt to write fluff and nothing but fluff. I’m sort of scared because I usually hate fluff and nothing but fluff. But hopefully I can still make this entertaining with mini-plot contrivances. If not, well, crash and burn, people. I tried my best.

…

“It’s perfect,” she announced.

I gave myself the once over. And then the twice over. And even by the third time I still couldn’t believe it.

“Laura, I’m not walking the street,” I said, “I’m walking down the aisle, for crying out loud!”

Her smile fell and she looked at me confusedly. “You don’t like it?”

“I think what Alex is trying to say here is that maybe we ought to reserve your talents for the… honeymoon night?”

Laura turned to shoot a death-glare at Amy. “And just how am I supposed to help her out tomorrow when she’ll be on the other side of the Pacific?”

Ames shrugged. “Ma, what do you think?”

For the first time since Mom had started fussing over my dress’ hem, she looked up. Her hazel eyes blinked behind her tortoise-shell reading glasses and she sucked the inside of her cheek as she sat the iron up on its bottom, shaking out the fabric alongside it.

“Laura,” she said definitively in that quiet, no-nonsense voice of hers, “take it down a notch, won’t you?”

My poor sister looked as though she was about to throw in her cosmetology license as she well as the towel. Suddenly feeling remorseful, I gave her drooping fingers a squeeze of confidence. “Laura, it’s great. Really great but it’s just… not me. Could we try it again—a little less eyeliner this time?”

Laura accepted the sheet of tissue that I handed her and I sat stiffly as she went back to work. Despite my encouragement of the task I actually hated having my makeup done. It reminded of being at the dentist and having some know-it-all inches away from your face and commenting on your personal hygiene. But Laura had always enjoyed playing Mary Kay and I had always loved my sister. What choice did I really have here?

A sharp rap gave all four of us a start.

“I’ll handle it.” Amy had already elected herself guardian of the Ladies’ room. She opened the door just a crack and then groaned tellingly. “Bobby, what the hell do you think you’re doing? You know that it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding.”

“Is she dressed?”

Laura had the tip of her finger on her lips and was glancing thoughtfully at a vat of rouge…

“No,” Amy huffed.

She pulled at the drawer of some sort of miniature filing system and took out a container of glitter…

“Then it’s not bad luck.”

When she shook it the sparkles flew up and then floated down like flakes in a snow globe…

“How do you figure?”

I imagined those flakes on my cheeks and pictured them sprinkling down the top of my pristine dress…

“Well, she’s not a bride yet, now is she?”

Mom chuckled at his logic just as Laura picked up a bright pink powder puff that must’ve been spawned by Jezebel herself. I leapt from the chair and away from the instruments of torture, scurrying across the room and wedging myself in front of Amy before she could protest.

“Hi,” I said breathlessly, feeling rather whelmed by the sight of my towering groom in a crisp black tuxedo.

Amy let out a disapproving noise before giving me a gentle push. The door closed behind us and I closed my eyes in pure pleasure as Bobby bent to kiss me.

“So this is a new look for you,” he murmured, after our lips had slowed and his forehead was resting against mine.

“We call it ‘The Hustler’.”

“You look like the women at my bachelor party.”

I swatted him even though I knew he was kidding. Like I ever would’ve permitted him a bachelor party after we were already married.

“You don’t want to get on my bad side, Goren. Not today.”

“You planning on jilting me?”

“Well, that wouldn’t do me much good now, now would it?”

Bobby laughed dryly. “I got you something.”

He dug a thin silver band from his pants pocket and then clasped it around my bare wrist. The metal was uncomfortably cool and I instantly broke into a barrage of gooseflesh. It certainly wasn’t decorative enough to amount to a gift, but for some reason its giver was looking at me with a certain degree of sentiment.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a sea-sickness bracelet.”

“Hmm. And here I thought we were flying tonight…?”

“We are. This is for your morning sickness.”

My mouth parted in understanding. Anytime sickness, was what Bobby meant.

Yesterday evening we’d been sprawled out on the couch watching another one of Goren’s boring documentaries on television. Fortunately this one had nothing to do with bacteria, mosquitoes or vivisection and so I’d settled in alongside Bobby, fully intending to fall asleep with my head in his lap. But then it seemed that not even the Spanish Civil War was safe from my stomach, because no less than twenty minutes after the show began a bout of nausea had me racing to the toilet.

Bobby had held my hair and stroked my back, something he’d gotten accustomed to doing and always without complaint. Later he’d fixed me some herbal tea and listened as I’d worried about the wedding, expressing all sorts of fears of getting sick during the ceremony.

“What if I spit up on you?”

“We’ll pack you a burp blanket.”

“Bobby!” I was not amused. “I mean it. If I throw up on my wedding day my brothers will never let me live it down. They’re still ragging me about the time I ‘decorated the grand canyon’. And that was thirty years ago!”

“Alex, you’re going to be fine.”

“How do you know that? This sickness—it comes and it goes. I can’t control it. What if the priest says, ‘you may kiss the bride’ and then you look over and see the bride’s turned green?”

I slumped over the table and pressed my forehead against its surface, wishing I’d insisted we got married a few weeks from now, when all of this was behind me.

Bobby set his hand on the nape of my neck and got back to stroking. “Well, I’d still kiss you. After you cleaned up a little…” I let out a low moan and he laughed. “Alex, believe me. Nobody’s going to give you shit. I would never let them.”

“You think they’re afraid of you?” I snorted. “Give ’em half a chance and my family would eat you for breakfast.”

He laughed again and I lay there in unmitigated poutiness, not wanting to give Goren the satisfaction of knowing that his hand and voice were soothing me.

“What can I do to make this better?”

Lifting my head just enough to see his face, I rounded my eyes beseechingly. “Could we watch a movie instead?”

“Why? You’re only going to fall asleep again.”

The pained expression I took on must’ve been what made him stop teasing me. “Okay,” Bobby murmured, pulling me towards him with obvious concern. He didn’t know it, but one of the reasons I loved being pregnant this time around was that, with the exciting advent of a husband, I got to be the baby. To varying degrees, of course.

But still, it was so nice to be cared for…

“Does this really help?” I wondered aloud, back in the present as I peered at my bracelet.

“Two mothers at the pharmacy swear by it.” Bobby brought both of my hands to his mouth and bid them promptly. “I’ve got to go, Eames. I’ll see you at the altar.”

“Don’t leave. The way things are going now Laura’s going to have me meet you in a pair of daisy dukes and a halter top.”

“Sounds enticing,” he joked. Or so I thought he joked until he reached for me again. I clung to his neck feverishly, surprised by how aroused I was getting inside of a church. And at my age, no less.

Something to analyze later, people.

Goren grunted and pulled back as though he’d heard. “To be continued,” he said longingly.

“Bobby, if you even dare to grab me like that in front of my father—”

“Oh, I’ll clean it up." I cocked a brow and he smiled. “Honestly, Alex, we’ve come this far. I’d hate to have him withdraw his blessing now.”

I bit my lip as I watched him go, suddenly so very eager to see whether he’d keep his word.