it's not the chase that i love, it's me following you
.
She's in a wedding dress, and probably shouldn't be riding a train.
Yeah.
Not a good idea.
People keep giving her odd looks, like they've never seen someone in a (really, pretty, made-just-for-her) wedding dress before.
Chyea.
Admittedly, she probably should have changed before getting on her.
(She'd gotten a discount, though, on her ticket. The guy at the desk either thought she was crazy or felt sorry for her.)
Elizaveta decided to ignore the many stares in her direction (including one annoying kid in a sailor suit who was tugging on a stoic looking man's arm and gesturing towards her), and instead focused on taking her hair out of its pins.
Gah.
Why did that stupid hairdresser use so much hairspray? Her hair might light on fire if she got close to a match, and also it managed to look like it had frozen solid after a dog attacked it without all the neat little pins.
Life sucked.
"The Greenway, Corner of Bridgeham and North."
That sounded familiar. Was that his address?
She knew she should have paid more attention when he called. Of course, at the time, she'd been busy trying to figure out all the addresses of Roderich's different relatives and hadn't had time to deal with a stupid albino telling her all about his new house, and then she'd gotten pissy and yelled and he'd laughed at her and then she'd told him about her honeymoon plans and then he'd shut up, and she'd felt guilty for the rest of the day.
Damnit.
She was getting off the train. If it wasn't his address, another one had to come at some point, right?
Also. She was getting rid of the shoes.
No one ever mentioned how hard it was to be a runaway bride in 5-inch heels.
She left the bus, accidently hitting about 5 people in the face with a combination of lace and silk.
When one stood up to comment, she just narrowed her green eyes at him.
She was not in the mood.
.
You know, in all the chick flicks she'd watched, no one blatantly stared at the girl running away from her wedding. No, the people in those movies had been helpful and cheerful and full of joy.
They certainly hadn't asked if she was a hooker when she asked directions.
Her green eyes narrowed, and she really did resist the urge to hit the offending man with something.
It wasn't a hooker wedding dress.
It was actually kind of a perfect wedding dress, white and perfect, with a fluffy skirt and a strapless top that didn't look like a hooker in any. There had even been these perfect little purple ribbons, to go with Roderich's eyes.
She might have ripped those out in frustration on the train ride here. But she'd used on to tie her hair-spray attacked hair into an almost decent ponytail.
Again, though. What kind of hooker wears a ponytail?
The man seemed to sense her sort of troubled state of mind at the moment.
"Um… But, um, miss; I don't really know where you could find an apartment building where an annoying albino man lives."
"Okay. Well. It starts with an M! Or maybe an N. Or an H? Something like that."
"Well, there's an apartment building right now the street, I guess. Fitzgerald Place or something like that."
He was still looking at her funny. Really, like he had room to talk, with his stupid hair sticking straight up like that.
Ignoring that, she quickly thanked him, hurrying down the road.
.
That man was a crackhead.
These apartments were not right down the road, and it was starting to get close, and she was pretty sure it was about to rain.
Rain.
Really?
At least it would get part of the whole chick flick cliché right. She just wished it had been white horse to ride away on, or maybe a song at the end.
Not stupid rain.
Also, this walking barefoot thing was not the best idea. Her feet hurt and there were all these random sticks she kept tripping over.
Next time she left someone at the altar she was bringing tennis shoes.
Also, possibly, a cell phone would be a good idea, because it was dark and cold and about to rain and she was lost and she was going to get murdered in a fucking wedding dress and end up inspiring some Lifetime movie and they would get someone blonde to play her, she just knew it.
Then, completely interrupted her inner monologue, she almost ran into a sign.
"Fitzgerald Apartments."
Oh thank god.
Now… What number was he in?
She should know this.
He had been her best friend (sort of) since she was 5, and also, kind of more importantly, he was the recently decided love of her life, she should definitely know what apartment number he was.
Of course, she hadn't known the name of the building.
But she'd known the street!
Sort of. She'd guessed. Whatever. It was close enough.
He was still the love of her life.
God.
Gilbert Beilschmidt was the love of her life.
That was probably really sad on about 20 different levels.
That number, though.
It started with a two, right?
.
In the end, she asked the man behind the counter if an albino idiot lived there.
"Are you here to kill him? I could give you a gun, you know."
Yeah.
She was in the right place.
"Um. I mean, no. But, what number is he in, exactly?"
"Apartment number H-12. Right over there. Can I ask why you're wearing-"
"No." She cuts him off, and begins to walk to the apartment.
And proceeds to have a small panic attack when she gets to the door.
.
It says H-12, right on the door, and it looks so perfectly normal and peaceful and scary, because they haven't talked in two weeks, not since he told her that he wasn't going to the wedding and then choked out that he thought she could probably do better, and what if he was with someone else, or what if he yells at her or –
Actually. She probably deserves to be yelled at.
She could deal with yelling.
Only what if he didn't yell, what if he just gave her that dead look, like he did when she showed her the ring or when his grandfather died or what if he wasn't even there, because he had someone new and she was just a silly little girl who didn't deserve anything good in life and…
The deep breaths help, she thinks.
Only then, when she finally gets up the courage to knock, he doesn't answer and Elizaveta is starting to doubt anything in the whole wide world loves her and that this is probably karma for hitting so many people with frying pans and leaving one of the nicest men in the whole world at the altar, and probably that time she'd showed Feli those pictures of Alfred and Arthur together, and then Ludwig had been upset with her for the next week and a half and, god, it was really cold out here.
Only then she pushes the door open, and it's unlocked, and this one part of her brain wants to yell at him for doing that, because he could get hurt or robbed or something, only then the other part just really wants to be warm and to find him.
He's sitting on the couch, blankly staring at the TV, with a beer bottle in his hand.
Judging by the amount littered around him, he'd been at it for a while.
She worries, for a second, that he's drunk himself into a coma.
"Gil?"
He whips around, pales like he's seen a ghost, and freezes.
She inches forward, slowly, because you're not supposed to make sudden moves in situation like these. And actually, now that she thinks about it, that's wild animals, but she's not at all sure there is protocol for situations like this, so she's going with the no-sudden-moves-thing.
"Liz, Liza, what – What? What the… Why are you…" He trails off, his red eyes turning crimson. "Married yet?"
She realizes that he, even quite a bit buzzed and dressed in black slacks and no shirt, looks pretty fantastic. She also realizes that with her screwed up ponytail, tear and makeup streaked face, and ripped up and mud stained wedding dress she looks a bit like something from a horror movie.
"See. That's the thing. I kind of… Didn't marry Roddy."
He blinks. Slowly. She takes it as a sign to continue.
"I mean, I was in that little room, the one for brides to change in, and it was really pretty and all, Feli picked out the church, you know, so I guess it would have to be. But I was in there, and it was all white and red and gold, instead of purple and white and silver, like the colors we decided on and then, like, suddenly it felt real, because I don't think it felt like that before, and then… I just couldn't do it."
He's still not talking.
She wonders if she gave him a heart attack, but keeps talking anyway.
"And, so, also, I sort of realized on the train ride over here and while I was leaving the church and taking this really long walk to find your apartment, that I think you might be the love of my life."
"… You rode the train? In a wedding dress?"
"Gil. Focus."
"What?"
"I love you."
"Well, yeah. Who could possibly resist the awesome me?"
It's her turn to stare at him. He runs his hands through his silver hair, sighs, apparently thinking.
"Lizzy… I think you still love Roddy."
"No! No, Gil. Okay. I love you. Like a lot. Like I threw the ring he gave me down a sewer grate, only I'm convinced karma got me back for that one, because seriously, look at my hair."
Then there's this sort of hopeful look on his face, hopeful, but still a bit cautious.
"Your hair always looks pretty."
And then she's kissing him, and he tastes like him and also a little bit of beer, and he's kissing her back and his arms are around her waist and her hands are tangled in his hair, only then he's pulling back.
"I can't kiss you while you're wearing that thing. It feels completely un-awesome. I mean," He stumbles over his words, just a bit, "Not the kissing part, because I am definitely okay with doing that for as long as humanly possible, but the wedding dress part is creeping me out. You taste like perfume and lipstick."
She grins again, because this, this feeling makes up for her entire crap day.
"I can definitely take the dress off."
And then she's tugging him to the bedroom and for right then, and possibly forever, life is completely and utterly perfect.
.
Gah. Ending has problems. But the rest of it, I'm kind of in love with. Or. Mostly just runaway brides riding trains.
But it's kind of the same thing? (Or not. Probably not.)
Reviews would be great.
Favorites without reviews will still be appreciated, but kind of a lot less.