PART ONE (FRIENDS), CHAPTER ONE

Perry White's voice boomed throughout the hall where nearly all the members of the wedding's inner circle were assembled. "Is she out of her goddamn mind?! This is just - It's egregious! That's what it is! It's downright egregious! And, I swear by Caesar's ghost, if she ever deigns to grace us with her presence…"

Martha Kent, who'd hoped the short-tempered man's patience wouldn't wear so thin so soon, excused herself from the company of the ceremony's officiant and hurried up the aisle toward the back of the hall, where Perry had been pacing about and seething for the last half-hour. By the time she reached him, though, both the rate of his profanities and the volume of his indignation had peaked.

"- Perry!" she scolded from just behind him. "There could be guests, to say nothing of their children, passing by just outside any of these doors."

The sound of Martha's reproach stopped him cold, and he spun around to face her. Beyond where she stood, he could see every pair of eyes in the space fixed on him - not that he cared. With a hand-wave and a wisecrack, he exhorted the wedding party, its attendants, and the various ceremony staffers and hotel employees to return to whatever had been occupying them. When all had done just that, he turned his attention to the one person whom he was indeed sorry to have offended.

"My apologies," he said to Martha, before getting right back to making his point. "But not only was she barely here long enough to meet-and-greet even a handful of her five hundred-odd invitees, she then entirely skipped out on the reception rehearsal and is now late to go through the ceremony, which - not that she's aware, apparently - is the whole point of this outsized, godforsaken affair! What kind of bride does this? And why am I the one left holding the bag? I don't know what the hell I'm doing -"

"- Perry, your language. Really."

"Well, excuse me," he rejoined with more severity than he intended. Promptly regretting his tone, he took a breath and attempted to rein himself in. When he finally felt calm enough to speak again, he softened the manner of his expression as he reiterated his contrition. "Truly, Red, excuse me."

With a slight chuckle, she unfolded her arms and stepped toward the humbled man. He'd grown increasingly irritable since the day before, when, as a member of the wedding party, he'd been asked to spend time with guests as they'd arrived at and settled into the hotel throughout the afternoon and evening. By the end of the first hour, though, he'd begun to squirm, as he'd found it difficult to remain sociable amongst inquisitive strangers in whose contentment he felt no personal investment. Moreover, that his primary reason for attending, let alone participating in, the early-July nuptials had disappeared soon after its first event began left him without much motivation to continue making polite conversation. Still, though he'd never admit as much aloud, he loathed even the thought of disappointing a person whom he esteemed above nearly all others, and thus, even in her absence, he felt obliged to remain on his best behavior.

Martha, of course, understood the basis of Perry's annoyance, and as she found his bluster, especially where his star reporter was concerned, comical, she didn't begrudge him his outburst. Accordingly, she made a point of reassuring him about the success of his civilities thus far. "You've done perfectly well," she told him. "I hear that even the folks who know you from work are impressed."

"Save the pep talk, Red," he retorted, largely in response to the smirk betraying her amusement. "I'm no good at this. Glad-handing, people-pleasing, sugarcoating - that's a politician's bailiwick, not mine."

His dig at her profession only widened her smile, and she returned, "My, you are cranky in the mornings, Mr. White."

Perry scoffed at her lack of sympathy, but didn't resist as she took his arm and began escorting him toward the staircase that led up onto the hall's indoor terrace.

"Come, come. Let's get you another cup of coffee," Martha said to him, her voice light and more than somewhat teasing.

As they made their way toward the row of double doors lining the back of the terrace, they passed by Clark Kent, one of his four groomsmen, and a sports columnist with whom Clark worked. Martha smirked at her son, who nodded his thanks to his mother for corralling the only person present who was bothered by the rehearsal's late start. Just then, though, the young man who Perry recognized as having been tasked with attending the bride throughout the weekend's festivities entered through one of the pairs of doors.

"Whoa!" called out Perry, loudly enough to draw the attention of everyone nearby. "Hold on!"

Page Nguyễn stopped in his tracks.

"Well, where is she?" demanded Perry, who'd understood that Page, along with a chauffeur, had left the hotel earlier that morning to go collect the bride from her and the groom's high-rise home.

Clark nearly laughed as he watched Page's face fall into the same perplexed expression that he imagined his own assumed whenever he was asked the same impossible question.

Before entering the hall, Page, a capable, clean-cut young aide, had spent the last little while up in the bridal party's penthouse suite, assisting the suite's butler with unpacking and arranging the bride's effects. He'd accordingly assumed that the bride herself would make it to the rehearsal long before he did. But upon peering over the terrace's balustrade and scanning the persons below it, he failed to locate his charge. Flummoxed, the attendant immediately began offering an explanation to the small group before him. "She was worried that she'd have to stop and talk to guests if she came in through the front, so she had us drop her off behind the building by the loading docks. But -" - checking his wristwatch - "- that was… twenty minutes ago."

Perry, piqued all over again, untwined his arm from Martha's. "That just figures," he angrily muttered, while yanking his mobile out of his pocket and pulling up his frequent contacts list. "We're all stuck here waiting for her while, chances are, she's off hunting down either a headline or a Ho Ho. Probably both."

"I-I do apologize," stammered Page, speaking to everyone at once. "I take full responsibility. I shouldn't have lost track of her."

Bartholomew Allen, who'd been chatting with Clark and his colleague for the last several minutes, snickered, "Ah, don't worry about it. Happens to Stretch all the time."

Clark feigned offense at his friend's gibe and elbowed him in the arm. Bart retaliated with a good-humored shove, only to end up in a headlock.

As Clark effortlessly constrained the wriggling smaller man, he told Page, "Really, it's fine. I'm sure she'll be here any minute."

"Maybe I should still go look for her, though. Ms. Cohen would most likely prefer I did."

"You can tell her I asked you to hang out here. Trust me, the bride-to-be does not take kindly to search parties."

All of a sudden, Perry, who'd just gotten his protégée's voicemail for the second time, drew everyone's attention as he shouted, "You know, the least she could do is answer one of her damn phones!"

Martha, heading off a devolving situation, took Perry's arm once more and reiterated her insistence that they get some more caffeine into his system. Grudgingly, he allowed himself to be led toward one of the exits, while Martha instructed her son to call her if the bride arrived before they returned.

"Yes, Ma'am," replied Clark, finally letting go of Bart as Ace Cohen came from below.

"Excuse me, Mr. Allen," said Ace, a tidy, all-business assistant in her early thirties. "I'm told you haven't yet settled on an order for the rehearsal luncheon. Perhaps you'd like another look at the menu."

Bart, who'd been dodging the members of Ace's staff since the day before, brushed her off, punched Clark in the arm, and dashed back down the terrace stairs. Clark apologized for his groomsman's indecision and suggested to Ace that she try Bart again a little later. With a forced smile and a nod, Ace left with Page, who, as one of the wedding party's handful of attendants, was under her supervision, and headed off to report in with her employer. Shortly thereafter, the sports columnist, who'd been passing along to the groom an update about their underdog team's game-seven showdown that evening, departed his company to go rejoin her family across the street from the hotel.

Left alone, Clark went to the balustrade to survey the activity below. Everywhere he looked, the several dozen people present were enjoying conversations with one another, making requests of the piano quintet and its additional member for the weekend, or busying themselves with preparations for the following day's ceremony. Pleased by the sight and feeling that only his fiancée's presence could make it entirely ideal, he breathed a sigh of satisfaction and headed back to the hall's three-tiered main floor.

As he descended the short flight leading down from the terrace, he noticed at the opposite end of the hall Ace and Page finishing their brief discussion with a diminutive young woman, who promptly returned her attention to the tablet computer in her hands. Even without seeing the screen, Clark knew what book was absorbing her yet again, and he chuckled to himself as he wondered how many more times she could read it.

His musings gave way to another focus, however, when his eyes settled upon the only person in the hall who was entirely removed from its goings-on. As he might've expected, she was still seated by herself in one of the five hundred or so chairs arranged within the space, casually observing everyone else from her vantage in a back row of the back tier.

Instinctively, he gravitated toward her, and she turned to him as he approached her side.

"Do you mind if I sit with you?" he asked, unsurprised by her having sensed his nearness.

Peering up at him, she articulated in her characteristically low, honeyed tone, "Are you not yet weary of my company, after having endured it to such an extent of late?"

"I could never tire of you," he gently avowed, paying her the compliment of a formal greeting by taking her hand and lightly pressing his lips to it. She smiled, and, upon seeing her pleased by both his sentiment and his gesture, he happily seated himself next to her. "Sorry about the holdup," he offered, once he'd settled in. "I have no idea where she is."

"Only as you have not endeavored to find her."

With a reminiscent smile, he explained, "Yeah, well, she gets pretty angry if I track her down for no reason other than that she's running late. 'On pain of a kicked ass, stalking only flies in case of emergencies.' Her words, not mine."

"That much was plain," the woman next to him dryly remarked. "In any case, I do not mind the wait. I am, after all, at your disposal for the next month."

"Can I get that in writing? Because history tells me there are limits to how long and how much you'll indulge even me."

Finding his eyes and regarding him pointedly, she smirked, "In any case, I imagine you will be spending our holiday far less interested in my indulgence than in that of your bride."

Her teasing intimation suffused his cheeks with a subtle blush. But, diverting their conversation from a subject that would only embarrass him further, he asked her whether she was disposed to extend her present willingness to oblige to his fiancée as well.

With a slight scoff, she leaned back into her chair. "Do you find my customary geniality toward her somehow wanting?"

"No. Not necessarily," he replied. "But, c'mon, you two hardly ever even talk to each other."

She offered only silence in reply, by which he wasn't surprised. In the year-and-a-half since he'd first introduced her to his now-intended, he'd never heard either of them speak openly about the other, whether in admiration or in condemnation. And although it was clear to him that the two women shared some sort of understanding regarding his relationships with each of them, the nature of that understanding had always confounded him. Every now and then, he'd asked for insight, but neither woman had ever been inclined to offer him any. He was, therefore, uneasy about their dynamic and couldn't help trying to improve it.

"Look, I'm not saying you two are meant to be the best of friends," he insisted to his companion. "I just think that you're both perfectly reasonable when you want to be and that whatever obstacle is between you can be overcome. For starters, when you're around her, maybe it wouldn't hurt if you tried to act just a little less… high and mighty."

"Ah, but there is the rub. I am both high and mighty - as you lately have come to learn."

"Yeah, but she doesn't know you in the ways that I do now. And I'm sure you understand that it can be hard for someone like her to warm up to someone like you if she doesn't get the reasons for how you are."

After a long sigh and a longer pause, she met his gaze, and replied, "My sweet, ever-striving Sunshine, not all that appears broken in fact is. Just as not all that is in fact broken can or ought be fixed."

"Are you telling me to look harder or to look the other way?"

"I am assuring you of my intention to accord the bride every courtesy. Perhaps I will even ask her for the favor of a dance during the reception."

"Really?"

"If it pleases you."

He smiled, silently thanking her for her kindness, but when several more moments had passed, he took the opportunity to broach a more difficult topic. Lowering his voice and directing his gaze far out in front of them, he edged, "Speaking of broken things…"

She bristled visibly and wouldn't deign to follow his eyeline. The man of whom the groom was speaking stood near the front of the hall, pleasantly conversing with both strangers and acquaintances, and occasionally checking up on the young woman who was still primarily occupied with her book. Although generally unheard of by the public at large, the man was widely known throughout high society, where he was renowned as the childless, companionless heir to his affluent family's vast empire. And yet, even amongst such patrician familiars, he was still an elusive figure.

That his childhood had been tragic was widely understood, and as he'd spent his early twenties anonymously traveling the world, his young adulthood was believed to have been similarly fraught. However, his deportment since retuning home several years ago belied his trying past. He was jovial, despite the solitude he seemed to prefer; erudite, despite being apparently unmoved by any one subject; charitable, despite his ostensible indifference to politics or any particular cause. He was a man charismatic enough to win the approval of all those with whom he interacted during the galas and functions that he regularly attended, but not intriguing enough to leave any meaningful impression on his many acquaintances once he departed their company and retired to his ancestral manor.

However, as only a few handfuls of people knew, the man's affability where all but his intimates were concerned was largely a put-on - a daylight façade carefully cultivated since the completion of his hard-won education abroad and solely intended to preclude any suspicion about the manner in which he spent his nights.

Regardless of the nobility of his endeavors, however, his relationship with the woman who'd neither looked at nor spoken to him since their respective arrivals to the hotel the previous morning had grown increasingly strained in recent months, of which the couple for whose nuptials they were present was especially aware. Of the four of them, the woman with whom the groom sat was the only one disinclined to resolve a matter that she was determined, if not obliged, to let stand. Accordingly, her initial agitation regarding the issue was both slight and fleeting, and she promptly recovered her poise.

Crossing her legs in the groom's direction, she rested a hand on his knee as she told him, "My sweet, ever-striving Sunshine, for both your sake and mine, do not worry yourself overly much about him and me for the next few weeks. I desire your happiness unclouded by marginal concerns."

A smirk tugged at a corner of his mouth as he considered her reply, imbued with not tenderness alone. Whether by nature or by intent, she always projected a certain degree of menace, which he imagined only increased her appeal to the man she'd just warned him against trying to discuss with her any further for the time being. Still, as was their way, he answered her chill with warmth, resting an arm against the back of her chair and quietly telling her, "I don't think of what concerns you as marginal to my happiness."

After holding his gaze for a moment, she retorted, "Save the romance for your vows." Nonetheless, in simultaneously leaning into him and letting him drape his arm around her, she conveyed her thanks for his sentiment. "By the way," she continued shortly thereafter, "I should like to offer you something, given the significance of tomorrow's occasion."

Failing to recognize her gravity, he returned, "It's not a toaster or Tupperware, is it? Because me and my absentee fiancée's 'no gifts' request still stands."

"Fear not; what I offer is no domestic trifle… but rather the embrace of Paradise. I would see your union sanctified by our rites, in the name of the goddess queen."

That he didn't immediately respond conveyed his sense of her proposal's weight, and thus warmed her through and through. It comforted, it gratified her that despite him not being of her world, he still grasped what it meant for her to make such a gesture. And by that further illustration of his understanding and his appreciation, she thought with still more pleasure of their recent journey to her native land.

For the ten days prior to and the ten days following the summer solstice, he'd resided with her on a vast isle, which, thousands of years ago, had been elevated to a higher realm by celestial decree. It was a lush, mystical place, peopled by an advanced, communal society that nonetheless maintained its reverence for and connection to the natural world. Her fellows were a nation of hunters and cultivators, artisans and apprentices, bards and philosophers, priests and acolytes. And all of them, regardless of their station or occupation, designated themselves by one title, one calling above any other: warrior.

It was over the course of those enchanting, revelatory three weeks that he came to understand her in a way that, for all his prior efforts, he'd never been entirely able to before. Amongst her people, she was open, active, engaged. And in seeing her thus, he was afforded knowledge of that in which every one of her convictions, motivations, and loyalties were truly based - her spirituality.

His most meaningful experiences where her beliefs were concerned occurred during the five days he spent with her alone in the wilderness, when he accompanied her on her pilgrimage to a sacrosanct spring. They traveled by water, drifting along a river in a flat-bottomed boat, spending the days fishing and foraging, spending the nights lying out underneath the moon and stars, and talking all the while. By the time they reached the spring, they'd shared every significant tale of their birthplaces' respective histories, and had discussed everything from their public personas to their private lives, from the duties to which they'd been born to the destinies to which they felt themselves called. And so, with nothing left to do but wash away their cares and revitalize their spirits, she led him by the hand into the consecrated waters of her home.

The ritual she performed as they bathed typified the many other customs and traditions he either witnessed or participated in while he immersed himself in her way of life. On one occasion in particular, he attended the binding rite for three of her oldest friends. Afterward, he asked her why, given her ability to do so, she hadn't presided over their vows herself. Glad to satisfy his curiosity, she explained to him that acting in such a capacity would require her to invoke her true nature and power, which she and her mother had long ago agreed should only be done under the most extraordinary of circumstances.

For that reason especially, he was finding it hard to believe what she was now proposing. "I won't bother asking whether you're serious; I know you don't joke about your people, your home," he thus replied. "I just… I thought you exercise your authority even less often than your mom. Does she know about this?"

"As my sole superior in this regard, of course she does. In truth, we were not discussing you when the present notion arose, and I cannot say whether it originated from her or from me. Whichever the case, though, it is an end to which we naturally arrived and a distinction that would please us for me to bestow."

"But why?" he asked after a beat, his eyes fixed on her profile. "I like to think I know where I stand with you and her, but I'm only one half of the marital equation here. Are you absolutely sure she's foursquare behind you making so big an exception for someone entirely of this world - a woman you seem able to only just tolerate?"

She didn't turn to meet his gaze. Instead, she shifted slightly, exhaled a contemplative breath, and merely said, "We have our reasons."

He paused, taking several moments to absorb, consider, and reconcile himself to her elusiveness. Once finished, he started thinking of how best to articulate his wholehearted acceptance of the privilege she was prepared to grant him and his betrothed, but in the midst of so doing, something of further significance occurred to him. "Hold on. Does all this mean you plan on explaining what you really are to my soon-to-be spouse? Because she still only knows what everyone else does. And, the way I understand it, there's no ritual you can perform without revealing that the whole ambassador thing doesn't even begin to tell the story of you."

Lightly, she returned, "Are you worried that the knowledge to which you are privy would prove too much for her?"

"Not so much," he chuckled. "She's always had a pretty high shock threshold."

"In any event, I feel it only appropriate that I pose to her the matter of the blessing. But I would prevail on you to explain to her the 'story of me,' as I expect any such a dialogue between us would prompt her to digress to the subject of… marginal concerns."

"He has a name, you know."

She cut her eyes at him for a moment, and, after smiling over his success in provoking her, he returned to the topic at hand, telling her that he'd be glad to share what he knew of her with the bride and going on to express how grateful he was for so rare a gift. "And, just in case you're wondering, even a worldview as secular as hers won't mean I'll be alone in feeling as honored as I do," he assured her. "So, how soon do you want to do the ritual?"

Looking out at the expansive hall and the bustle filling it, she replied, "When next the moon is full, I think. By then, I hope to have recovered from all of… this."

His mood, which had been especially bright over the last few days, was undaunted by her remark. Moreover, as he knew that her qualms regarding his and his fiancée's ceremony wouldn't prevent her from standing by him through it, he only hugged her closer and teasingly asked, "You do understand that 'this' holds a lot of meaning for me?"

"Of course, Sunshine," she gently returned, while resting her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes. "I would not be here otherwise."

He peered down at her as she nestled herself against his side, and he found himself pleasantly reminded of the days and nights they'd spent together on the river. Beyond question, he knew that she'd come to regard him as a piece of the home that she cherished above all things, as a source of respite and reassurance while she resided in a world so different, so distant from her own. And, to be sure, he readily assumed the role she granted him, for he was indeed as invested in and as protective of her happiness as she was in and of his.

With such thoughts filling both of their minds, they sat together in silence for some time, enjoying the ease and familiarity between them as they waited for the rest of the day to begin.

Soon enough, the moment they'd been anticipating came to pass when they heard a distinctive voice abruptly addressing them both.

"God knows I hate to break you two up, but I need to borrow my roommate."