"#JustMarried Thanks for the wedding gift Dad." Lucy and Wyatt get an unexpected present from Lucy's father.
A team emilodie joint, inspired by tweet on 9 Oct 2017 by Matt Lanter. Timeless et al are not our property. Please don't take this seriously. At all.
Finally free of the crush of friends, family and well-wishers, Wyatt and Lucy got back to their house. Newly wedded and blissfully alone, they traded promises of how (and where) they would celebrate properly as they got out of the ribbon- and shoe-bedecked limo that Mason Industries had sprung for.
"You think Connor had a guilty conscience or something?" said Lucy as she struggled her way out of the towering heels Amy had talked her into wearing. She turned to open the door, but Wyatt was already there opening it for her. She slipped gladly into his arms, nibbling at his ear and whispering, "Hello, husband," with great satisfaction. Then squeaked as he hoisted her up, and started striding towards the house with her in his arms.
"What?"
"Just want to start things off right. It is traditional for the groom to carry the bride over the doorstep?"
"Traditional?" Lucy huffed, "Since when are we traditional? I proposed to you as part of my testimony during your court martial, we got our engagement rings from Andy Warhol, and our first marriage was performed by the captain of the Titanic!" But she clung to his neck affectionately and gave a secret smile at the prospect of seeing their home from this vantage point.
Wyatt said, "Exactly! No way we could start our lives together with that kind of send-off. We need a walloping dose of tradition and good luck to get us off on the right foot." At the steps before their front door he paused and gave her a kiss. "Besides, is this really all that bad?"
Lucy leaned into the kiss, enjoying every moment. "Not bad at all," she said breathlessly when it was over.
"Just wait, Babydoll." Wyatt gave her his patented half-grin, got a firmer hold on her, then swung open the door and-
"Sweetheart, what's that smell?" said Lucy.
"What the hell?" said Wyatt.
There before them in their front hallway in full living color was a llama. It was a rosy cinnamon color on the back, with a sandy-colored face, and white and grey striped ears. It stood placidly chewing on some hay, tied with a rope to the stair bannister. A pile of droppings sat on the floor near its feet.
Lucy scrabbled at the air and Wyatt softly set her down inside. She gaped, looking at the animal and back at Wyatt trying to make sense.
"Is this a joke?" she pointed her finger at her husband.
He put his hands up, shaking his head. "Not me! Rufus, maybe?"
Lucy gathered up her skirts in one hand and walked closer to the animal. She saw a piece of paper on its neck.
"There's a delivery tag, with a return address for prison...from my Dad?" Lucy's voice shook with fury and astonishment.
Wyatt said, "And we thought Rittenhouse was diabolical before..."
Lucy read more from the card: "A menagerie for my princess. Say hi to Karma the llama."
"Your father is freaking nuts."
"I know, honey. Maybe this is his way of taking revenge?"
"Revenge? For what? Putting him in prison where he belongs? Even a panda would be better!"
The llama nudged the draperies hanging from a window next to the stairs. It lipped the fabric experimentally, then started chewing on it in earnest. Lucy tugged on the rope, trying to stop it and move it away from the window. It turned and gave her a deadly stare.
"Honey watch out!" cried Wyatt, too late. The llama took a breath and spat out a spray of spittle and chewed up hay straight at Lucy. She tried to dodge out of the way, only managing to take the brunt of it on the back of her wedding gown instead of right in her face.
"Vicious animals!" Lucy gasped.
Wyatt nodded, wiping the wet mixture off her back and steering her out of the llama's range (he hoped.) "I'm not taking one on."
Lucy and Wyatt gathered themselves in the kitchen. Lucy dried herself off with a dish towel. Wyatt stared at the animal, still gobsmacked with incredulity about the situation. He said,"See? Exactly what I was saying. We're not keeping a llama, too much drama."
Lucy shrugged, too stunned to fight the reality of the situation anymore. "Maybe Amy will want it?"
Wyatt said, "She wants a puppy and that mean creature isn't one. No, tell your dad if he wants to offer you an animal, let it be something softer."
A glitter of anger appeared in Lucy's eyes. "I'm with you. I mean he abandoned me and my Mom, then appears back in my life and on top of everything else he does this? Is there a return receipt for this critter?"
A week later, Wyatt and Lucy were snuggled in their cozy home. After much scrubbing, the stain (and smell) of llama came out of the curtains. The jury was still out on Lucy's dress ("Good thing I only have to wear this once!" "Damn straight.") The llama had been brought to a nearby sanctuary farm and was now guarding a flock of sheep. Its testy temperment an asset in that field.
The doorbell rang.
"I'll get it." Wyatt jumped up and went to the door. Lucy sipped her tea and turned the page, reading more about Napoleon looking forward to the bits they were involved in.
After a few minutes she heard, "Honey?" The tone of Wyatt's voice was unmistakeable. She leapt up, snapping the book closed and scurried to the doorway.
"My god, is that?"
"Yes. It is. A baby tiger."
"How on earth? How is he managing this from prison?"
"He has a weird definition of softer..."
"I mean, this tiger is beautiful, but.." the small creature growled at them from the cage, and they both jumped. "Oh my god, it's going to eat us!" Wyatt shouted.
Lucy smiled, unbelieving. "Maybe not now, it's still young but later...definitely." She turned to the delivery person, still standing by the door. "Please, thank him for the cat but tell him we'd rather stay alive." After some hours wrangling with the driver, they made calls to pull strings to get this animal returned to its home and redirected toward a wilderness release program. Lucy wrote out a letter to her father decrying his latest gift and sarcastically added on the back of the letter, "Maybe you should think about something to guard the house."
Another delivery, some weeks on.
"Is that an alligator!?"
A large rectangular box is sitting in a temperature controlled truck. After removing a loose fabric covering they jumped back as one. Through the air holes they could see the scaly back of the creature. It snapped at them and lashed the cage bars with its tail.
The truck driver was terrified. "This cannot be legal to transport!"
"Lucy, are you getting the idea that maybe we should have gone with the llama?"
"I'm done. I'm done playing his little game. He can keep his wedding gift, I don't want it."
"Why don't we send him something so he feels involved in his little girl's life?"
"We can't send him an animal in prison. Though I'm tempted to put an adder in a cake and send it to him at this point."
"What about pictures of you with animals? Maybe at a petting zoo?"
"That sounds just crazy enough to work." Lucy hugged her husband. "You signed up for better or worse, huh? Didn't expect this though, did you?"
Once the gang got wind of the scheme everyone was all in. Amy and Jiya figured out the best day for lighting and were in charge of the photography. Rufus managed the permissions and got them into parts of the monkey house, aviary and the lizard environment that they'd never seen before. Wyatt and Lucy got dressed up again in their wedding duds. The dress was still stained from the llama spit, but considering they were just going to end up in dusty habitats, get pooped on by birds and who knows what else, Lucy surrendered to fate and gave up on trying to fix her dress. It was a wonderful day. None of them had laughed that much in a long time.
They took the best of the pictures, got them bound in a volume and sent them to Benjamin Cahill, maximum security prison. As it turns out, they got multiple other copies and circulated them to all the conspirators, and the rest of their families, too.
Ben showed it to his fellow prisoners. "That's my baby! I tried to get her husband killed and threatened all her friends. I think she has my eyes."
He sent them one last gift, thanking them for the pics. And with this gift, Lucy was adamant on keeping it. She almost slammed the door to the delivery's guy face when he pronounced her father's name. However this time, the package didn't seem large and looked mostly inoffensive.
Then it meowed.
Lucy opened it to find a very cute kitten looking at her, small ears, big blue eyes. A Scottish Fold kitten. Lucy melted instantly.
"He couldn't send the kitten in the first place?" was Wyatt's reaction.
The kitten was a girl and Lucy named her Scottie. They found she liked to perch herself on people. Her favorite place being Wyatt's shoulder. Now, Lucy comes home to two pairs of glowing blue eyes. She gives her husband a kiss, scratches the cat between the ears and could swear the two are purring.