The wedding was small. Erin wore a white dress and was so nervous she threw up twice. Holtz wore a beautiful white tailcoat tuxedo and although she was pretending otherwise, Abby and Patty could tell she was nervous too. They were getting married in the firehouse, and while Erin got ready upstairs, Holtz paced and tried not to get grease on anything white. When Abby came down to get something, Holtz stopped her, looking uncharacteristically serious, hands moving nervously and asked,
"Abby, is she still up there? Does she still want to marry me?" And Abby's heart broke just a little bit.
"Yes Holtzmann, yes, she is still up there waiting very impatiently to marry you." She replied, and watched relief flood the other woman's features. Abby smiled and watched as Holtz went back to doing Holtz things, this time quietly mumbling a tuneless song as she went.
"Erin wants to marry me and she's upstairs getting super pretty and I'm gonna have such a smart pretty wife today and its Errriiinnnnnnn"
As she turned to go back upstairs and fulfill her duties as maid of honor, Patty came out of the bathroom in her suit; tails like Holtz, but black, and with a skirt instead, a la Judy Garland. Abby laughed.
"Lookin good, Patty!" She called as she ascended the stairs. Walking out to the full length mirror, Patty whistled at herself as she smoothed out her jacket. "Damn! No kidding! I see why you do the whole tuxedo thing, Holtzy, it's a good look!" She said, and Holtz walked over to look, hands jammed in her pockets.
"Heh. Told ya so." She said, smirking.
When the time came and Erin came down the stairs, Holtzmann's hand flew to her mouth before she had a chance to stop it. Abby giggled and Patty clapped her on the back.
"That's your girl, Holtzmann!" Patty whispered, and even though it was most decidedly uncool, a couple tears squeezed out of Holtzmann's eyes at the thought of getting married to the angel of a woman who had just descended the stairs. She had her hands out to take Erins before she was even halfway there. She took Erin's hands in hers and despite the explosion in her chest and the stubborn wetness in her eyes, they didn't really have the time for Holtz to give a speech, so to try and diffuse the nervous tension on Erin face she settled with a quiet,
"You clean up nice, Gilbert", that had them all laughing at the understatement of the century.
At 'you may now kiss the bride', Holtz wasted no time in grabbing Erin by the waist and dipping her toward Abby as she they kissed. Abby got a great picture of them that was remarkably reminiscent of the famous kiss picture from VJ day that Patty had a poster of. Abby had black and white prints made for both of them. Erin's was framed on her desk, Holtz's was tucked into the corner of her chalkboard, beside the nail she hung her ring on when she was working.
Holtz's ring was silver, and she liked it because it looked like someone had taken a thin piece of wire and wrapped it around her ring finger. It was surprisingly delicate in design for someone who thought Pringles were a food group.
Erin's was silver too. A simple silver band was all she wanted; she insisted she liked the simplicity. Holtz had other ideas. First and foremost, she wanted to make their rings, because of course she did. Erin loved the idea until Holtz started pitching ideas about making rings out of Hafnium to get that weird purple shine and to make sure that Erin's ring finger at least would be protected from accidental neutron radiation (which, to be honest, was not an unfounded concern), or to make them out of miniature vacuum tubes with tiny batteries to excite the gas inside so that they glowed like neon signs, or that conversation she had with Abby about a jewel thief who owed them a favor, and how big a rock she thought they could get. Erin insisted that simple was better, so Holtz took the silver superconductor out of the first reactor she ever built and melted it down, forging it into a ring, and because she really did think it needed a diamond, she grabbed a small, industrial grade diamond, a pretty grey/green one she had picked out of the batch for a special occasion, and pressed it into the cooling metal. The rough matte rock didn't stick out much, but it was a nice touch. Erin loved it. She knew where the diamond came from, Holtz made batches of them fairly often to cut things with and she would always pick out a couple of the more colorful ones and set them on the windowsill, but Holtz never told her where she got the metal. Erin never told her that she had Holtzmann's initials engraved on the inside of her ring, either, but they both found out anyway.
Erin found out about her irradiated metal first, via Abby. As it turns out, shutting down a prototype reactor and avoiding contamination is a two man job, and Holtz had enlisted Abby's help to do it. When she asked why Holtz was taking apart her favorite little reactor, she didn't really answer, just mumbled about it 'going to a better place'. The reactor, which sat in a corner of the lab in what was basically a glorified fish tank and fueled by Uranium Holtz had scrounged out of smoke detectors happily glowed a pretty Cherenkov blue and Holtz and Abby both were very fond of it. As Holtz prepared to flood the fuel chamber with Xenon and effectively extinguish the flickering chain reaction, Abby stopped her.
"Holtzmann, stop, why are you doing this?" She asked.
"Because, Abs. It must be done." Holtz replied dramatically.
"But why?"
"I need something from it for… something else." She dodged, gesturing vaguely at the glowing machine.
"What could you possibly need?" Abby said, and Holtzmann brought her fist to her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut.
"I need the- the silver- the superconductor, it has to come out, I need it."
"For what!? What could you possibly need it for!? We can get silver, Holtz. YOU, of all people can get silver. Get it somewhere else!"
"No. nonono, it's has to be this silver, Abs," Holtzmann said, with great conviction, taking Abby's face in her hands. "It's for Erin."
Realization dawned on Abby's face as Holtz let go and went back over to where the reactor was waiting to be shutdown.
"In that case, you're right, it's going to a better place." She said. "Erin's gonna love it, Holtz." she added, giving her hand a squeeze before putting on her gloves and diving into the machine.
About a week after the wedding, Erin came into the kitchen looking worried. Abby was drinking coffee and jotting notes about what they might need for future busts as Erin hurried over to the sink and let out a sigh of relief as she picked up her ring from the side of the sink where she had set it down to do dishes.
"Where's the fire?" Abby teased as Erin put her ring back on.
"I took my ring off to do dishes, I can't believe I left it here. I thought I had lost it… God, I can't even imagine what I would do if I lost this ring." She said, shuddering at the thought.
"Yeah, you only build your first reactor once." Abby said a little absentmindedly as she flipped the page in her notebook. Erin just looked confused.
"You only… what?" She asked, causing Abby to look up.
"You know, your ring?" She said, smiling, "Holtz's reactor?" Erin just raised her eyebrows in confusion. "Oh my god, she didn't tell you." Abby realized out loud.
"She didn't… what? Tell me what?" Erin asked.
"Huh. Well maybe she didn't want you to know." Abby pondered for a second before shaking her head. "That sentimental idiot, you should know."
"Then tell me!"
"The silver from your ring used to be the superconductor in Holtz's little reactor."
"The one in the fish tank? I was wondering where that went."
"It was the first reactor she ever built, back in college. It paid for her to go to MIT, it literally brought her here."
Erin didn't know if she wanted to smile or to cry, so her face just split the difference and she was left opening and closing her mouth like a guppy with nothing to say.
"Wow, that's…" She finally managed.
"Yeah." Abby said. "She really loves you, Erin."
Holtz didn't know about Erin's addition to her ring until they had been married for well over a year.
Erin had left her ring on the bathroom sink (to shower this time - she knew exactly where it was), and Holtz, who had hopped up on the sink to chat about whether or not they had time to stop at Krispy Kreme before work, picked up up Erins ring absentmindedly to try it on. She held it out and wiggled her fingers, smiling at her handiwork. She took it back off and rolled it in her hand, inspecting the stone to make sure it wasn't coming loose and making sure the metal was still shiny. She almost missed it, but the little scratches on the inside of the band caught her eye. JLH. Whatever she was saying stopped mid sentence. A few seconds of silence propmted a worried 'Holtz?' from the shower.
"Yeah." She replied, running her fingers over her initials.
"You ok?" Erin asked. Was she ok? She was swinging her feet on the sink in the apartment she shared with her wife (wife!), who was the most talented and beautiful person she had ever known, who loved her this swallowed around the strange lump that had suddenly jumped into her throat before replying,
"Yeah, never better."