what is love? [OPEN/CLOSED]

[circumitus]

Who: Rey and Maketh Tua + Nick Valentine and OPEN prompts to anyone who wants in on that small town wedding business.
What: An actual firefighter wedding turns into more of a shotgun wedding and not quite like how those movies usually end.
Where: The Park + Church.
When: The last day of Stepford Summer.

[ooc: Prompts will be in individual comments below. Some details of the plot are here and here, but feel free to contact me if you have any questions!

[Otherwise, feel free to assume that your character has received a wedding invitation and they're there... or square.]

Comments

[synthedick]

"You don't know why?" Nick asks, puzzled. He gives her a reassuring smile. "Because you're her daughter, Rey. She loved you more than anything else in the world, and no matter how much work she put into this wedding, I can guarantee she'd rather you be happy."

But it does strike him as beyond odd that she'd even say such a thing. Undine was Rey's mother; of course she'd have done anything for her, desite—

... despite what?

Nick's brow tightens just a fraction. Undine was absolutely Rey's mother, no question about it... then why did he question it just then? Why was there even a second of doubt in his mind, as though it'd have been reasonable for Undine to hold something against Rey, but chose not to? It must be something wrong with his processor, Nick insists inwardly, his memories not connecting in his head. Did something happen between Rey and Undine? Or was it between himself and Undine?

There's a flash of a memory he can't place, an image that's there for only an instant -- the riverside, blood in the water, a gunshot that rings in his ears. He'd say it came from a nightmare, but he doesn't sleep; he doesn't dream.

Not that he knows of.

Aware of his moment of distraction, he tightens his grip on Rey's hand, focusing on her to bring himself back to the present.

[circumitus]

It should be so obvious, and yet the answers are muddied in her mind. Like everything else, it's been hard to think clearly. Think outside of the scope of her goal. Right now, that goal happens to be at the end of an aisle...

The squeeze of Nick's hand around hers grounds Rey as well, trying to keep herself focused on what is happening now.

"I am happy," Rey says with a strained smile.

Maybe not with the event itself, but it was done out a labor of love. The last thing her mother ever prepared for her. Though Undine passed just weeks before this day, she at least has the closest thing to a father she's ever had to be here with her, and that makes her happy.

[synthedick]

Rey says she's happy, but that strained smile of hers says something else entirely, something he can't just blame on prenuptial jitters. She might be happy to have him there, but if he had to guess, she's not happy about much else at the moment.

And that's ultimately worrying. This wedding had a lot of love put into it by Undine in her final days, but Rey is the one who has to go through with it. She's the one who the day is really about -- not Undine. Nick has no doubt her mother would agree... but Rey's never been the type to put herself first. Undine knew it, Nick knows it -- hell, anyone who has seen how hard she works knows it. Even her husband-to-be probably knows.

"If you say so," he replies, giving her hand another squeeze as he gets ready to go. He doesn't release it quite yet.

"I've got to get back and make sure things are going all right with the preparations, but... if you're having second thoughts about all this, you know your mother would come back to haunt us both if you went through with it anyway, just for her sake."