Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
A nervous Eric Sweet knocked on the heavy and ornate door he had somehow willed himself in front of.
"Come in!" a chorus of feminine British accents greeted to him from the other side.
"Unless you're the groom!" one voice added after the fact.
A tall blonde and a short brunette turned to glare at him when they caught his reflection in the large bright mirror they were huddled around.
He cleared his throat at their coldness, "Pardon my intrusion. A word with the bride please, if I may?"
The young woman in the vintage wedding dress tensed at his aged but familiar voice.
"She's busy," Amber shot.
"Yeah, some of us actually want this wedding to happen," Joy added.
Eric's face twisted into pain, the truth hitting him hard. It was no secret that he had been hesitant about this union from the moment Eddie had first let him see the ring.
"It's okay guys, I can handle it. Just give us a minute," Patricia spoke up, her eyes locked onto his in the mirror.
"Okay, but I'm getting my dad to wait outside the door," Amber warned as she and Piper passed by her old teacher.
The bride stood in all of her glory to face him. The scowl on her face was not even enough to taint how beautiful she looked.
"Patricia, my…you look…" he began when the last of his former pupils had clicked the door closed.
"Save the formalities, Eric. What do you want? Shouldn't you be reminding your son what a terrible idea this is?"
He looked down to his wringing hands. Even after all this time her tongue was as sharp as ever.
"I have already been to see Edison and he insisted that I not bother you."
She sat back down in front of her mirror, her patience for this conversation already running thin. Nothing he could say would change her mind about today.
"Still not listening to him then?"
She picked up her eyeliner, adding more black to an eyelid. Against her better judgment she had let Amber apply her makeup for the occasion. Her oldest friend had insisted that a softer look was better for a summer wedding but she wasn't buying it. It just wasn't her.
"I can't let you marry my son."
Her hand dropped, the bride preparing to lay into him. She only got as far as turning her chair and opening her mouth before he spoke up again.
"That is, not until you've heard what I came to speak to you about."
"Well, I'm listening," she sneered.
"What you overheard me begin to say to Edison in regards to you…"
"Oh, you mean how relieved you were that I would be a Miller and not a Sweet? …Yeah, don't worry," she turned back around to do the other eye. "The feeling's mutual."
He lightly grinned, unphased by her insult, "You always were quite the spitfire, Patricia. You know, I could always count on you to turn up in my office and you certainly kept me on my toes over the years. I think I underestimated you for a long while. And then Edison came over and—"
"And you regret the moment we met, I know."
"And I was jealous of you, Patricia," he corrected softly.
She placed her pencil on the vanity, her eyes now matching and her face looking more familiar to her.
"What? But that doesn't even make any sense!"
"I had anticipated that he would want to catch up with me…make up for lost time. I wanted to try to be the father I should've been to him all along. But then you came into his life and you were all he focused on…I resented you for that. You were as much a stranger to him as I was and he chose you…"
She watched his eyes shy away from hers just as Eddie's always had when he let his guard down. He looked tired, she decided, but still favored her husband to be.
"But that wasn't my fault, Mr. Sweet. I didn't even know—"
"I know you didn't," he nods. "And it wasn't fair of me to treat you the way I have over the years. The truth of the matter is, you've certainly made my son a better man than I ever could've. You are lucky to have found one another."
"…Thank you, I guess," she responded hesitantly as their eyes met in the mirror again.
"I am so proud of the woman you have become Miss Williamson." The corners of both their mouths tugged up slightly knowing that today was the last time he would be able to address her as such. "And I would be more than pleased to have you as my daughter-in-law…that is if you will have me?"
The unanswered question still hung above her head.
"But what about what you told Eddie? You didn't want a Patricia Sweet?"
He pulled his old standby handkerchief from his jacket, removing his glasses to clean their smudges as he spoke.
"He didn't allow me the chance to explain… Neither of you deserve to be burdened by the Sweet name and what I have done to it. I have placed you children in harm's way more times than I care to admit. If there were a way for me to take it all back, I wouldn't hesitate to do so. But this must end with me. I cannot allow any more Sweet's to be associated with the Rodenmaars or the Frobisher-Smythes or even myself. I was so careless, so selfish, I—"
Blame it on the stereotypical sappiness of the day, but Patricia startled him by striding over and wrapping her arms around him…he was a rambler, just like Eddie, always dancing around the "I'm sorry". This was the man she remembered. The one who would secretly cut her some slack when she'd turn up in his office. The one she would secretly miss when she completed her years at Anubis.
The man she wished would be the father that Eddie Miller deserved.
Sweetie set his glasses back in place with a chuckle and patted a hesitant hand on her back.
"If only my talk with Edison had gone this well…"
"Are you booty calling me, Yacker? We're going on a honeymoon in like six hours. Slow your roll."
The smirk in his voice through the receiver didn't even garner an eye roll from her.
"I can't marry you, Eddie."
"Excuse me? Was that another typo, robo-Williamson?"
Still no reaction to his playful, almost giddy tone or the reference to their first official date.
"I won't marry you, Eddie. Not until you fix things with Sweetie. He came to talk to me and—"
"And he doesn't listen at all, I told him not to bother you!"
She was calm and collected but firm in her response to his outburst, "And neither do you. If you had, you wouldn't have needed to ban your own dad from your wedding. My family is all here, we worked out a temporary agreement. I need you to at least do the same, for the both of you. You might be surprised at what he has to say."
She finally smirked to break the silence when he wouldn't respond, "After all, you're his only son and you're only going to get married once if I have any say so, Slimeball."
He sighed; there wasn't much Patricia couldn't talk him into. He trusted her, far more than he trusted his dad. He also knew she wouldn't have forgiven that easily unless she had good reason to.
"Sure thing, Yacker. I'll call you back when we're ready."
THE END.