I don't really care about those storm clouds brewing / Oh, as long as you're here by my side
The Rest of Our Life – Tim & Faith
You roll through life like a rolling fire / I bring the rain like a thunderstorm
Live Forever – Little Big Town
She's the thrill of a lifetime a guy like me spends his whole life looking for / That girl right there's the perfect storm
Perfect Storm – Brad Paisley
Deacon was halfway up the incline on the bridge when he had to stop to catch his breath. He had jogged all the way there and the incline was steep. Rayna'd had a good head start on him, because he had stood in the alleyway long after she'd left, feeling justified in his anger and hurt and pique. But after she was gone, and all he could hear was traffic noise from the other side of the building and the roar of crowd noise from inside, it had come over him like a cold, wet blanket. I done it again. I disappointed her.
How many times had he done that, in all the years he'd known her? If it wasn't bailing on rehab or backsliding on sobriety, it was all the times he'd acted impulsively and made a mess of their lives, or it was all the times he ended up in a hospital, or jail. It was all the times he didn't live up to his promises and how he'd proven to her, over and over again, that he couldn't be the man she believed he was. He'd done it again, this time, by dismissing her concerns about Markus Keen bailing on her and Highway 65, the thing that, other than him and the girls, meant the most to her. It was her creation and it had meant everything to her, and he'd just turned his back on her. Told her it didn't matter.
He shook his head as he breathed in. Of course it had gone both ways, in their lives together, in ways that had been both known and unknown to him. Certainly there were the times she'd broken up with him, kicked him out, turned her back, almost always because of his drinking. And she had hidden her pregnancy from him, let another man claim his daughter, and raise her, and had lied to him about her for thirteen years. They'd done so much damage to each other, but they'd never let each other go completely, never threw each other away completely.
He had almost let her go again this time, stubbornly resisting her attempts to reconcile. But he'd had cancer then and thought he was going to die and he hadn't wanted her to be saddled with that. Not after everything else she'd dealt with in their relationship. He should have known, from the beginning, that he wasn't going to be able to make no stick. He loved her more than life itself. She was part of him, part of his soul and his blood. He'd never been able to shake loose of her, any more than she'd been able to shake loose of him. That they had finally found their way back to each other and survived his transplant and his impulsive purchase of the bar was a testament to their love. He couldn't screw it up now.
As he drew in one more deep breath and felt his heart beat return to normal, he saw her, standing along the railing, looking out over the dark river. The breeze lifted her hair, letting it dance around her face. Her posture looked defeated and he felt a lump in the pit of his stomach, knowing he'd put it there. The one thing he knew, though, with complete certainty – no matter what they did or said to each other – was that they had a bond that could not be broken. In the early days of their relationship, he had often thought he wasn't good enough for her, that she deserved better. But the one thing he'd learned, over all those years, was that that was never true. He never doubted her love for him and he never doubted they were meant to be together. It would be no different this night.
He started towards her, his footsteps measured. God, he hated hurting her, disappointing her. He hated that he'd made this whole thing with Markus about himself. He hadn't been fair to her. He'd done what he'd done before – pushed her away. But it was the music, the thing that had tied them together for all those years. He felt like they had lost that, a little, and he'd done what he'd always done. Turned away.
But as he approached her, she turned and looked at him and he'd seen that yearning in her eyes too. They'd been through so much, just to be together again, and they really did need to stop all the old patterns. So he got down on one knee and he asked her to be his wife.
A/N: A Nashie friend gave me this idea, to write Deacon and Rayna's wedding without all the angst and heartache, as well as to give us their honeymoon. So in this story there will be drama, because it can't be Nashville without drama, but none of the over-the-top stuff, at least on the wedding day. In this story, Beverly doesn't die and Cash is just a potential older mentor to Maddie. Together Deacon and Rayna work through the issues that threatened to derail them on the show and then have that beautiful wedding and the honeymoon of their dreams. I also pushed the wedding date back a little farther into spring, so the outdoor venue wouldn't seem so out of place. Laura, this is for you!