Hey guys, another one shot for you all! This will also be my last story for a little while as I've got three weeks of vacation time ahead of me during which I don't think I'll be able to post any new stories. But don't worry, I've still got loads of ideas, so I'll be publishing new stories again after my vacation!
This story is based on some Twitter talk - it was suggested (as a joke most likely) Greg and Morgan may elope in S15, so I was thinking: what would happen if they suddenly got married? This is what I came up with - enjoy and let me know what you think in a review! :)
I do... I really do...
Morgan looked from the building to Greg. "You know… I feel like I'm catching up with this girl I used to go to high school with. She's already been married six times!"
Smiling, Greg looked from Morgan to the wedding chapel. "Well, this is the fifth time we're here this week, so, yeah, you're getting pretty close!"
Grinning, Morgan grabbed her kit and followed Greg inside the wedding chapel. At the door they were greeted by detective Morris.
"Same thing all over again," he told them. "During the ceremony two men wearing black ski masks came in, pointed their guns at the couple and then forced them to hand over the wedding rings and the bride's engagement ring. Then they just took off again…"
He sighed before pointing at two wedding guests. "Brother and sister of the bride. Brother tried to go after the two men, but he says he lost them…"
Morgan nodded, she knew the story. The wedding chapel was located in the middle of a maze of small alleys and streets, it was easy to lose someone around here. Which is probably why they it's this wedding chapel the robbers go to every time, she added in thought.
"What did the couple remember?" Greg asked detective Morris. The detective grinned for a moment. "Actually I think they're trying to get their divorce settled… When I asked about the rings, the groom confessed the engagement ring was worth only eighty dollars… The bride got kinda angry about that, to say the very least, as she thought they had to get married here because the groom had spent all of his money on her engagement ring…"
Morgan and Greg laughed as well.
"Well, let's go see the happy couple," Morgan then said. She and Greg followed detective Morris to the bride and groom who were still arguing.
"Eh… sorry to interrupt, but I'm CSI Brody and this is CSI Sanders," Morgan said. "We'd like to talk to you about what happened and maybe see if we can collect some evidence. Did the robbers touch you anywhere?"
The bride, after giving the groom one last angry look, held up her hands. "Yeah, one of them grabbed my hands and took my wedding ring. When he tried to take my engagement ring, I tried to pull my hand back, I think I scratched him. My engagement ring meant everything to me, so I wasn't just gonna let him take it. Until I found out what it was actually worth, of course… I might as well just have given him the ring!"
She gave the groom another angry look. Morgan just forced a polite smile. "I'll see what I can find on your hands then."
She got to work while Greg checked the groom's hands. After they had both collected some samples, they checked the rest of the wedding chapel. At the altar they found Pastor Sam Flores, the man who had been leading all five interrupted weddings.
"I might as well close the chapel if this continues," he said, heaving a deep sigh. He looked up when he heard a phone ring. "How much do you wanna bet that's a cancellation?"
Morgan and Greg looked at each other before returning their attention to the aisle.
"I got some shoe prints here," Greg said, already taking photos.
"I'll check the door: last three times one of the robbers kicked it in, I'll see if I can find a shoe print there as well," Morgan decided. As she started to make her way over to the door, Greg suddenly asked her: "So what about you? Would you rather have a small wedding in a wedding chapel like this or a really big one with hundreds of guests, the color of the napkins matching the bride's maid's dress and flowers imported from the Netherlands?"
"Dutch flowers are beautiful," Morgan said seriously before she smiled at him. "I honestly don't care. When I get married, all I care about is the man I'm marrying, not if there's five guests or five hundred. Or if the color of the napkins matches the bride's maid's dress!"
Smiling, Greg lifted another shoe print. "Same here… Well, for me it'd be about the woman I'd be marrying, not about the man of course…"
Morgan grinned as she saw him blush.
"I got that," she said with a warm smile. He smiled back at her. Before he could say anything else, Pastor Sam came back into the wedding chapel.
"A tourist wedding this afternoon!" he told them. He wrote down the names of the couple on the wedding sheet, which was posted outside the chapel so people could see when there was a spot available. Morgan and Greg both knew the sheet as they had four copies of it back at the lab already.
"I'll make you a copy before I post it," Pastor Sam said as if he knew what they were thinking. Morgan smiled at him. "Thanks!"
She and Greg spent another hour at the chapel before realizing they weren't going to find any more evidence. They returned to the lab where they ran the shoe prints they had found and the samples Morgan had taken from the bride's hand. As Greg ran the DNA sample (Henry was so busy he had offered to do it himself) Morgan studied the wedding sheets pastor Sam had given them.
"All five couples that were robbed were Las Vegas locals," she said as she highlighted their victims' names on the sheets. She looked up at Greg. "Think that might be a lead?"
Greg took the results from the DNA test from the printer. "Maybe… The robbers could be after local couples only. Like detective Morris said about the bride and groom of this couple – maybe the robbers think that when Las Vegas locals get married in a wedding chapel like this one they spent all their money on the rings instead of on their wedding."
"True," Morgan agreed with him. "So, did you get anything from that DNA sample?"
Greg shook his head. "No, unknown male, that's all."
He sat down next to Morgan to study the wedding sheets, looking at the highlighted names.
"They really are all Las Vegas locals," he said as he read the names. "The robbers didn't miss a single couple! Here, check out Wednesday: they first interrupted the Copperfields wedding at eleven, then the wedding chapel was temporarily closed for our investigation and these three tourist weddings were moved to the next day, but there was another local wedding later that day, which was also interrupted…"
"Which means our robbers are using these wedding sheets to see when they can strike," Morgan said. She looked at him with a sad smile. "Which means it could be anyone walking by the chapel as the sheet is posted right outside…"
She turned around when she heard a sound and saw Russell was entering the DNA lab.
"Hey," he greeted them. "How's the wedding case coming along?"
"Well, we figured out how our robbers select their victims, but it doesn't get us anywhere," Greg told him. "They check out the sheet to see which couples are locals and then they strike. But we can't just arrest every man who looks at the sheet longer than a minute, they might actually be checking to see when they can get married!"
"We could set a trap for them," Morgan suddenly softly suggested. Both Russell and Greg looked at her.
"We could fake a wedding," she continued. "Get two names on the sheet with LV, NV written next to it, invite police officers to the wedding and then see if they strike… If they do, we'll catch them right in the act…"
Russell thought for a moment.
"I suppose," he finally said. "It should be safe enough and if it does indeed help us catch these robbers… Question is just who would we use for this fake wedding…"
Morgan looked at Greg and then at her supervisor. "How about Greg and me?"
She looked back at Greg, whose cheeks were starting to turn red.
"You two wanna fake a wedding?" Russell said, unable to hide the surprise in his voice. "You two?"
"Yeah, why not?" Morgan said, smiling a little. "We've been working on this case, so we might as well finish it. And if we have to get married to do so, well, then we just have to."
She nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear trying to avoid looking at Greg. "I have a dress at home that I could wear, I'm sure we'll have some rings that were once evidence but never picked up…"
Russell looked from her to Greg and back.
"Alright," he finally slowly said. "I'll contact sheriff Ecklie and see if he approves."
Luckily for Morgan, her father had no problem with the fake wedding. He even agreed to be there to walk her down the aisle to make the wedding look even more real. In the meantime Russell checked out the rings that were in the evidence locker and never picked up and showed them to Greg. After hesitating for a while Greg finally chose what would be the engagement ring and the wedding rings, just as Morgan and Ecklie walked in.
"Oh, it's beautiful!" Morgan said when she saw the engagement ring. She smiled at Greg who held up the ring with an insecure look on his face. "Want me to put it on your finger? I mean, you're supposed to wear it during our wedding…"
"Okay…" She kept smiling as Greg placed the ring around her finger. Looking up at each other they missed the looks Russell and Ecklie gave each other. Because they kept looking at each other, Russell finally cleared his throat to get their attention. "I'll call Pastor Sam and see when he has something available."
Greg and Morgan finally looked at him.
"Okay," Morgan simply nodded. "Thanks, Russell."
Pastor Sam still had a spot available for later that night, so Russell and Ecklie quickly alerted detective Morris and had him find some officers to attend the wedding. Morgan and Greg both rushed home to change and met up again at the wedding chapel. Greg stared at Morgan when she got out of her car. "You look… beautiful!"
She smiled shyly as she walked up to him in a simple white dress and her hair in a bun with curls popping out of it. "You don't look so bad yourself either…"
Greg smiled as he looked down at his tuxedo. "I still had it from this official event thing years ago… But thank you!"
Smiling they made their way over to the entrance of the wedding chapel. Ecklie pointed at Pastor Sam. "He's ready, what about you two?"
Morgan smiled at Greg before looking at her father. "Yeah, we're ready!"
Greg quickly took his place near Pastor Sam while Morgan waited with her father for the music to begin. When it did, she slowly walked down the aisle, unable to stop smiling the entire time. Greg had a smile on his face as well, something Ecklie and Russell didn't miss.
Pastor Sam kept the ceremony simple, ending it with the traditional question: "Gregory Hojem Sanders, do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish as long as you both shall live?"
Looking at Morgan, Greg smiled. "I do."
Pastor Sam then turned his attention to Morgan, repeating his question for her. Smiling, Morgan looked up at Greg. "I do."
An undercover police officer handed them the rings after which pastor Sam announced: "I now pronounce you husband and wife! You may kiss the bride!"
Greg carefully bent towards Morgan and gave her a soft kiss on her lips. He could feel she had to hold back to hide her eagerness to kiss him back. Suddenly, the door of the wedding chapel was being kicked open and two men wearing ski masks and waving their guns ran inside. It only took the police officers five seconds to pin them to the ground and arrest them.
"Well, that was easy," Ecklie said after the two men had been taken away. He looked at Morgan. "Good idea to plan this fake wedding!"
Biting her lip, Morgan looked from Greg to pastor Sam. "Was it really a fake wedding? You pronounced us husband and wife…"
Pastor Sam shook his head. "The wedding isn't official until you've signed these documents. I had them here just in case I had to take this fake wedding really far, but I'll throw them away now."
Greg and Morgan looked at each other for a second before both calling out: "Wait!"
From the corner of her eyes Morgan saw her father frown, but she ignored it.
"You sure?" she whispered at Greg. He nodded. "I am… Are you?"
She nodded as well, a smile appearing on her face.
"Wait, wait… Are you two serious?" Ecklie called out. "You can't get married, you aren't even dating…"
The expression on his face changed. "You aren't dating, are you?"
Morgan turned around to look at him, taking Greg's hand. "For over a year already… We didn't tell you because we were afraid you'd force one of us to change shifts… But I love Greg, Dad, I really do!"
Ecklie seemed at loss for words. Next to him Russell seemed just as surprised to hear Morgan's confession.
"We're sorry for not telling you, but like Morgan said: we were afraid one of us would have to change shifts," Greg softly said. "But we can date and work together professionally… Or…"
He turned to Morgan. "Be married and work together…"
Morgan smiled warmly at him before turning back to her father. "I really wanna marry Greg, Dad, but I won't sign unless you approve. Just tell me, I can handle it…"
Holding Greg's hand she waited for her father's response. He heaved a deep sigh and shook his head. Then he reached inside his jacket and handed her a pen. A huge smile appeared on both Morgan and Greg's face.
"Thank you, Sir!" Greg said. Ecklie shrugged his shoulders. "You call just call me 'Conrad'. I mean, you're family now, right?"
Smiling, Morgan signed the wedding document after which she handed Greg the pen. He quickly signed as well, looking up at Pastor Sam. He nodded. "Yeah, just kiss the bride again… You can, she's your wife now!"
Smiling from ear to ear Greg pulled Morgan into his arms and kissed her, a kiss full of love. She eagerly responded this time, wrapping her arms around him. Ever since they had first started dating she had known this day would come. Okay, it wasn't anything like she had ever imagined their wedding to be, but did it matter? No, all that mattered was that they were going to spend the rest of their lives together.
