This story was written for Spacecadet72 for the 2018 Night on Fic Mountain exchange. She asked for more "between the proposal and wedding" content.

THREE MONTHS

Jack: When did you start seeing Peter?
Lucy: September 17th.
Jack: Three months…that's quick.
Lucy: You have no idea.

...

Three months ago, Lucy had been stressed out, anxious, and guilt-ridden as she tried to keep up the pretense of planning to marry a man in a coma. At the same time, Jack, that man's brother, had been jealous of Peter for having something…or rather someone…whom he could not. Despite his envy, Jack could not believe that his brother had gotten engaged to anyone, not even a great girl like Lucy, after only three months. However, the ironic thing was not even that he had been right about that situation. No, the real irony was that only three months after that predicament, he was the one who was now engaged to that very same woman! Yes, their engagement had been quick…mainly because they had fallen fast and hard for each other (sometimes literally…like they had in the icy courtyard of her building) and they had taken action almost immediately once the truth had finally come out. However, now that they had decided that they would definitely be together forever…they realized that it was time to get to know each other better. They just did not realize how interesting that process was going to be.

Lucy: I have a cat. I have an apartment. Sole possession of the remote control…that's very important. It's just, I never met anyone I could laugh with.

...

"So…what kind of movies do you like to watch? Something with explosions, right?" Jack asked as he sat down on her couch and settled the tub of popcorn on his lap while Lucy retrieved some soft drinks from the fridge.

One of the first things that they quickly realized about each other throughout their "getting to know you" process was that they both preferred spending quiet time alone together rather than going out to loud and busy places. Hence, the first movie night that they were about to spend at her place. Just as Jack reached for the remote and started to flip through the channels, Mel the cat hopped up next to him and stared at him while she purred intensely. Jack was normally a dog person, but he soon realized that Mel was both adorable and lovable…just like her owner. Therefore, he gave in and fed her a piece of popcorn out of his hand. She quickly crunched it up and then proceeded to lick the butter off of his fingers.

Just then Lucy came into the room and smiled at the sweet scene. "Stealing my cat and my remote?" she asked as she stuck her bottom lip out mischievously and pretended to pout. She then quickly plucked the remote out Jack's hands while he was distracted by the thought of kissing those pretty pouty lips. "No explosions!" she then admonished lightheartedly as she waved the remote around teasingly. "No bombs on buses, no futuristic police dramas, no computer espionage, no football, no space disasters…"***

"No fun!" Jack muttered good-naturedly in response.

When Lucy stuck her tongue out at him, Jack became distracted by her lovable silliness again. As they laughed, he suddenly decided that there was something else that he would much rather do than watch a movie and reached for her instead. When Lucy decided that she liked Jack's new idea better, as well, the previously contested remote soon ended up completely abandoned and was consequently lost between the couch cushions. Then Mel found the unattended popcorn bowl, and proceeded to help herself to all of the buttery salty goodness – especially since the humans were too busy with each other to even notice what she was doing.

Jack: You don't know whether to hug her or just really arm wrestle her.

...

Jack and Lucy found themselves in the exact same situation the next time that they attempted to have a quiet night in. This time it was game night, and they soon realized that they had very different ideas of the perfect game to play together. Clue was her choice, but his vote was for a few friendly hands of poker.

"I'll arm wrestle you for it!" Lucy said suddenly with a gleam in her eyes.

"Don't you think that one of us might have an unfair advantage?" Jack replied as he put on an exaggerated show of flexing his flannel shirt-clad muscles.

"Yeah…you're right…but I'll try to take it easy on you, anyway," she responded as they both struggled to keep a straight face during the increasingly absurd conversation.

"Alright, then," Jack agreed and he just could not stop the small grin that escaped as she turned away to pull him to her dining table.

They sat down on opposites sides of the small table and assumed what they believed were the correct positions. After a bit of good-natured trash talk on both sides, they finally began in earnest. Jack had already determined that he would let Lucy win…eventually…but that she was going to have to work for it first! After only a couple of seconds, however, he felt her free hand running up the inside of his thigh. The pleasant sensation of this surprise strategic move caught him off guard so completely that he momentarily forgot what he was doing. Meanwhile, Lucy took advantage of his distraction and slammed his arm down onto the table with a triumphant grin.

"That was cheating!" Jack pouted as he pretended to be upset. However, he could barely keep a straight face. How could he - especially when the love of his life was grinning so cheerfully at him because of her success? "Alright, you win," he finally conceded. "We'll play Clue."

Lucy smiled at him victoriously and set up the game. She even graciously allowed Jack to go first. However, neither of them ended up solving the murder because Jack soon decided to distract her in much the same way that she had led him astray during their match.

They agreed…much later…that they were both winners that night.

Jack: Do you have an extra pair of pants in your apartment?
Lucy: If you fit into my pants, I will kill myself.

...

One night after a pleasant stroll and a casual dinner at her apartment, Jack and Lucy were telling each other stories about their childhood. Jack got a little too excited as he described a prank that he and Peter had played on Saul as children and he managed to spill an entire glass of wine in his own lap. After she practically collapsed from the force of her giggles at the sight of his embarrassment at the red stain spreading across his crotch, Lucy gave him a towel to clean up with and went in search of something for him to wear. She soon returned from her bedroom carrying a pair of sweatpants.

After she handed them to him, Jack cracked a joke that she was "just trying to get him out of his pants again." Then he realized exactly what they were as he held them up in disbelief. They were much bigger than he was, so there was no way that they belonged to him…or to his slim fiancée, either. When he looked at her questioningly, she just shrugged. "They're Joe Jr's…but they do have a drawstring, so it should be okay." His eyes practically bugged out of his head when he heard the identity of the owner and Lucy could not help but to smirk when she realized what he was thinking.

"Um...why are Joe Jr's pants in your apartment?" he asked hesitantly…even though he now knew, due to their earlier misunderstandings on the subject, that she was just friends with her landlord's son.

"Well," she answered with deadpan calm. "He and I are having a torrid clothing-based affair, you know."

Jack's mind cleared immediately at her outrageous statement. "Oh, really?" he asked, now clearly amused. "Do I even want to know what kind of scandalous apparel-centered behavior my fiancée engages in with the other man?"

"Well, sometimes we try on my shoes," she said truthfully with a grin. "Mostly, though, we end up together in the basement laundry room at about the same time almost every week. The last particularly steamy laundry event occurred last night, in fact. Somehow in the process, a pair of his sweatpants, along with a sock, and strangely enough, a rather large pair of a lacy red panties…Don't ask!...got accidently mixed in with my load in the dryer."

Jack gulped, both his earlier worry and merriment now completely forgotten in the face of this horrific new discovery. "Um...lacy…red…panties?"

"I told you not to ask!" Lucy exclaimed, shaking with laughter at the look on Jack's face. She knew that he would never be able to look at Joe Jr. the same way again.

Lucy: I've had a really lousy Christmas. You've just managed to kill my New Year's. If you come back on Easter, you can burn down my apartment.

...

"I didn't actually mean it, Jack. You do realize that, don't you?" Lucy asked her fiancé with a mixture of exasperation and amusement as she surveyed the damage that the extinguisher had left all over what was supposed to be a romantic candlelight dinner to celebrate their three month anniversary. He could not believe that it had only been three months since he had first met the woman of his dreams, the one who was supposedly engaged to his brother, as she tried to sneak out of his parents' house early in the morning…all the while looking disheveled…and simply lovely…from spending the night on the couch. However, now that they were exactly where they were supposed to be – together – he wanted to mark the special occasion. Since they had already had plans to spend the next day with his family in order to celebrate Easter, this night was supposed to be just for the two of them. Therefore, he had cooked dinner. The blackened and smoky remains of said dinner were now covered in the contents of the big red canister, though. That was not supposed to be part of the plan!

Lucy bit her lip as she shook her head at the mess, but then covered her mouth with the sleeve of one of the oversized sweaters that she liked to wear so that he would not see her smile. "Mr. Wong's?" she asked through the sleeve while her eyes continued to dance with merriment above it.

"Yes…Mr. Wong's," he agreed with a sigh as he ran his hand through his hair while he eyed the disgusting mess on the stove. As she tried to regain her composure, Lucy grabbed her phone and planned to take it into the living room so that she could place their usual order for delivery. However, her twinkling eyes met his when he finally looked up…and they both lost it right then and there. As their hearty laughter died down, he could not resist crossing over to give her kiss. Therefore, neither one of them noticed when Mel jumped up on the counter, eyed the unappetizing mess, and then stalked off in search of something that was actually edible while the silly humans were distracted with each other again.

Lucy: Peter once asked me when it was that I fell in love with Jack…and I told him, "It was while you were sleeping."

...

The next morning, Jack made his fiancée breakfast in an effort to make up for the dinner disaster of the night before. He watched her for a moment as she fed Mel a piece of bacon and marveled at her sweet nature and casual beauty. She was lovely, even in an old flannel pajama shirt that had belonged to her father, and with her hair piled up haphazardly on her head in one of her usual easygoing styles. He knew then that he was the luckiest man in the world. "Let's get married!" he exclaimed suddenly as she sat back up and their eyes met over the rims of their coffee cups.

"I thought that we had already decided to do that," Lucy replied cheerfully and held up the hand on which she wore her engagement ring. She wriggled her fingers teasingly.

"No…I mean yes, we did…but we haven't set a date, yet. However, I don't want to wait any longer, so why don't we just run away to Vegas this weekend and…"

"Jack," Lucy interrupted him gently. "I hope you know that I love you…and I would marry you this minute…if I could. However, I just can't do that to your family – especially not after what happened with the last wedding…with Peter." Here she paused and blushed with embarrassment as they both remembered that disaster three months ago. Jack thought about how he had foolishly almost let her marry his own brother just so she would have a family of her own, a stamp in her passport, and the knowledge that she would never have to be alone again. Fortunately, they had both come to their senses in time. She had objected at her own ceremony...and he had followed suit. He then soon asked her to marry him instead.

Jack lost himself in these thoughts and memories when he realized that he could not bring himself to be unhappy about the change of circumstances that had brought them to this point – Peter's coma, his and Lucy's accidental engagement, not even the failed wedding - especially since nobody else, not even Peter, held a grudge over it. In fact, because of it all, Peter was now closer to his family than he had been in years. Jack finally had his best friend and big brother back, and Peter had even demanded Best Man rights whenever Jack and Lucy's wedding happened. Lucy's next words, though, brought Jack out of his reverie.

"I agree that we should set a date. Let's just make sure that it is one that is not too far away. You're not the only one who doesn't want to wait."

Jack quickly looked back up into her warm brown eyes and nodded his head in agreement. "Three months!" he answered decisively. "If we have the wedding three months from yesterday…that will be six months from the day we met…the day that changed everything for me."

"Three months?" Lucy whispered, secretly thrilled at his romantic reasoning. When he nodded again, she put down her cup and slid over to his side of the table and into his lap. "That's so perfect!" she exclaimed and she proceeded to show him just how much she loved the idea.

Lucy: I guess you might say that Jack gave me the world.

...

Jerry was happy to pull a few strings at the CTA for his favorite employee. Lucy had been working for him for many years, first in the booths and more recently as his administrative assistant. She had never let him down, and he liked her down-to-Earth fiance, too – especially since he knew all about the crazy situation that brought them together in the first place. Therefore, he was happy to do anything that he could to help both of them when they came to him and explained what they wanted to do for their wedding.

Consequently, three months later, Lucy and Jack exchanged vows during a small and simple ceremony in the last car of the Orange Line train on the way to Midway airport. Peter and Mary stood with them in the swaying car as their Best Man and Maid of Honor while Saul watched proudly, Midge openly wept with joy, and even Ox sniffed a few times because of his "allergies." A few of their other close friends observed the event from the remaining seats, as well.

"Come on, Idiot. Kiss her!" Elsie called out at the end of the beautiful little ceremony…just as she had on the day when they stood, uncertain and embarrassed, under the mistletoe together until they had shared a shy little peck to appease the watching family. However, this time was different. This time they truly belonged to each other and, thus, their confident kisses lasted all the way to the airport. There they had arranged for a conference room to accommodate their small reception and the wedding pictures. After the festivities, however, Lucy and Jack changed clothes and hopped straight on their flight to Florence…where they both received stamps in their passports on their way to their own personal happily ever after.

Author's Note:

*** You might recognize these descriptions as some of the movies that Sandra Bullock starred in.