Title: "Blue Sailors"
Challenge: "Fluffy"
Author: Green Owl
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1335
Summary: Just a quiet moment between a jittery bride-to-be and a man who always seems to be able to calm her down.
Author Notes: I've always loved wildflowers and this one is my absolute favorite. Also known as "chicory," "succory" and "coffeeweed," "blue sailors" grow wild in the cracks in pavement all over North America at the start of summer.

Only three more days to go.

Three more days until she waltzed down the aisle in that ridiculous dress, said "I do" and he put a ring on her finger. He was tall, handsome, decent, smart, kind, dependable and so very, very, very nice. Any woman would give her left breast for a shot at a man like him.

So why the hell was she sitting in the parking lot of her apartment building, calculating how much gas she had in the tank, wondering if she could make a run for it?

Ellie Bartowski had envisioned her Great Escape at least seventeen times in her head since she'd gotten out of the car and deposited her rear end on the concrete bumper in the empty space next to her slightly dusty Mercedes.

It wouldn't take much for her to disappear.

No one would ever dream that she'd be so insane as to pull a runaway bride 96 hours before the big day.

She knew that she had fifty bucks in her purse, three major credit cards including her Gold AMEX, and a pair of rakish sunglasses – everything a girl needed to make a break for the border of Mexico.

By the time the wedding party realized that she'd disappeared, she would be miles offshore, sailing the Pacific on a forty-footer as she sloshed through a bottle of Grán Patrón Platinum and did her best to forget that she'd ever met a certain USC grad her first day in epidemiology.

"It's not like I have to look after Chuck anymore," she muttered as she absently stroked the delicate petals of the chicory weed straining towards the sun from its inception under the bumper. "Dad's back. He can take care of him, not that he needs to. Chuck is…Chuck is growing…up. Damn!"

She'd pulled hard, but the plant hadn't been all that interested in coming loose. Rather, it had chosen to give her thumb, index and middle fingers a sharp little burn to remind her to stop abusing it.

"Hey, you okay?"

Ellie looked up at the dumpster where John Casey was depositing his weekly bag of garbage.

He was a creature of habit. Trash was taken out on Tuesday, shopping was done on Thursday, jogging happened every morning, and sometimes, when most sane people were asleep, a glass of Scotch and a cigar were featured when he stargazed late at night on his balcony.

She'd come home more than once after a long shift at the ER and glimpsed him, all mighty fine and mysterious in his black pajamas, sipping and smoking in contemplation.

She wondered what he'd say if she asked him if she could come up and share.

Knowing him, knowing her, he'd probably think she'd lost her mind.

Morgan, poster boy for "open-mouth, insert-foot, chew-to-the-hip" intelligence, had made a rather embarrassing observation about her lack of spontaneity while he and her mystifying neighbor were on dish duty six months ago.

"You know, I set my calendar by Ellie," the gatecrasher from Hobbiton had boasted.

"What're you yammering on about, Grimes?" John had asked, placing a sheaf of utensils in the holder.

"It's updo on Monday, hairband on Tuesday, ponytail on Wednesday, half-up on Thursday, side part on Friday and then catch-as-catch can on the weekends," Morgan blathered while wielding a towel in his hairy, child-sized hand, trying to get at the water droplets at the bottom of one of her many IKEA glasses. "It's been the same thing for the past ten years. Don't get me wrong – it's gorgeous, chewable, licorishy and all that – but Ellie could be in one of those Stephen-King-The-Stand-disaster movies and you could tell the passage of time by her hair."

Ellie had only been half-listening to the rather one-sided conversation because she'd been preoccupied with the way the seat of John Casey's pants stretched across his backside – she'd had to apply a death grip to the leftover three-bean casserole to keep from copping a feel as she passed him by on the way to the fridge because, damn, that butt was the stuff that dreams were made of – and she almost missed his throwaway remark.

"It's the half-updo on Tuesday, not Thursday," she heard him mutter. "That's hairband day."

Hairband day.

Great.

Just great.

Sounds like I put on ripped jeans, a tank top and I get busy with a curling iron and a can of hairspray while rocking out to Poison.

"Don't need nothin', but a good time, how can I resist…?"

Ellie wiped the heel of her hand across her eyes, flipped her Wednesday's-full-of-woe ponytail over her shoulder and gave him a wan smile. "Yeah, I'm okay, just some pre-wedding jitters."

"Gettin' ready to toss Ma and Pa Woodchuck out the window?" he asked as he settled down next to her, close enough so they could have a quiet conversation, far enough away that he didn't invade her personal space.

Ellie studied her burned fingers and flexed them one-by-one. "You're very perceptive."

"I'm a man of many talents," he mock-confided, inclining his head as he reached a massively muscled arm behind her and groped for something.

"What – what are you…?

He returned to an upright sitting position and gave her a lopsided smile as he presented her with the stalk of chicory that had given her so much trouble.

Coming from any other man, the gesture might have seemed contrived or affected, but he made it seem the most natural thing in the world to be offering it to her.

"Let me guess: this is your idea of something blue?" she quipped as she accepted it.

The smile melted from his face as he stood up and shoved his hands into his pockets.

She could've kicked herself, but he saved her the trouble.

"More like a down payment on your wedding present," he replied evenly as he turned to go.

"Hey," she called after him as she scrambled to her feet, "I never got your RSVP to, you know, the wedding?"

"I'm going to be out of town this weekend," he responded with an apologetic shrug. "I thought Chuck told you."

"Oh." Ellie bit her lip, mortified to have put him on the spot and more than a little sad that he wasn't going to be there. "Guess then I can't call you if I have second thoughts and I need a getaway driver?"

His face transformed instantly as he reached into his back pocket and drew out a business card.

"Here," he said, handing it to her with a quarter-grin. "I'm pretty sure it's going to be smooth sailing, but feel free to call me if your 'something blue' turns out to be your feet. I'll bring the Patrón."

"Okay," she said, her voice a little breathless. His silver sky eyes were pulling her in like the rip tide on Zuma Beach and all she could think as she watched him go was, Forget oceans and agave juice, this is the real endless blue…wait a minute!

"Hey!" she called out, "how did you know…?"

He didn't say a word as he looked at her over his shoulder, just put on his mirror shades, nodded to her and disappeared back into the courtyard.

In that moment, Ellie knew, she just knew, that if she needed him, he would be there, helping her stuff yard upon yard of ludicrously fluffy white skirt into the passenger seat, no questions asked except where she wanted to go.

And in that moment, she was free.

She glanced down at the hand that was closed around the stem of chicory he'd picked for her and felt herself start to smile.

Three days from now, she'd be walking down the aisle with a massive arrangement of the nicest roses, baby's breath and orange blossoms that the Exquisite Flower Shop could find.

It was scraggly, abused and already starting to wilt in her hand, but come Saturday, she knew that this little reminder of John Casey was also going to find its way into her bouquet.