Author's Note: So Angsty. I got inspired and had to write some more. I basically love this plot—the plot bunnies have been nibbling holes in my brain all day long, so I'm sure it's going to get interesting. NEWSFLASH: re-formatted for your reading pleasure. UPDATED 4/26/2016 to reflect some plot changes I made in Hey There, Delilah.

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and some of the things you don't.
P.S.
If you see The Doctor, send him my way. ;)

Playlist:
Across the Universe - The Beatles
Another One Bites the Dust - Queen
Hold You in My Arms - Ray LaMontagne
Wake Up Acoustic - Coheed & Cambria

Even though she'd lived through it five times before, June third never got any easier, but June seventh was even worse. The irony in having Guy's funeral on the day they were supposed to get married, in the church they were going to get married in, was not lost on her. She'd take a June third over a June seventh any day. This June third was particularly terrible because it was the first that Charlie wouldn't be there with her in person.

Breathing deeply, Connie held her breath for what seemed like ages as she gripped the steering wheel of her car so tightly that her knuckles began to turn white. Slowly, she looked from the clock on the dashboard to the cell phone in her cup holder. Twelve o'clock: time to call Charlie. Exhaling heavily, she reached for the phone, moving as if she were stuck in slow motion. Breathe, she reminded herself as the cold plastic of the phone made contact with her hand. Connie flipped open the cell phone and searched for Charlie's number, and upon finding it pressed the 'call' button.

Ring. Answer the phone, Charlie.
Ring. I can't do this without you.
Ring. I need you! "Hey," he answered, and it felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from Connie's chest.

"Hey," she replied, unable to say what she'd intended. Unable to tell him that she was angry that he wasn't there and she couldn't do it on her own. That she was grateful he'd answered. That it seemed like her entire life hinged on him answering. That she was almost crying because those three rings made her think he might have forgotten. There was an awkward silence and she wanted so much to end it, but she couldn't.

"Are you okay?" he asked, worry clear in his tone.

"I'm fine," she answered curtly. "How about you?" her tone was softened, an unspoken apology. He was mourning too; it was hard for her to remember she wasn't the only one who lost someone dear when Guy died.

"You aren't fine," Charlie replied, ignoring the question. "Neither of us is fine. We aren't supposed to be fine." He was angry, but Connie couldn't tell if it was directed at her or at the situation. "Do you have everything?" he asked after a pregnant pause, his voice softer than it had been before.

"Yeah." Connie gazed out of the car window, looking for Guy's headstone. She couldn't see it from the car.

"You've got the flowers?" He sounded nervous, perhaps afraid that if he weren't there, things wouldn't go correctly.

"Calla Lilies," she replied, looking at the bouquet of white flowers in the seat next to her. "Just like he always brought me, and just like we've always brought him."

"You know why he liked Calla Lilies?" Connie rolled her eyes; he always explained why Guy likes the flowers, as if she'd never heard it before. "Because they look like your-"

"Charlie, now really isn't the time for that."

"You've got the boom box and the CD?" And extra batteries.

"Yeah, Charlie."

"You ready?" There was a long silence before she answered.

"Charlie, I'm never going to be ready for this." Pausing only a moment more, Connie wedged the phone between her shoulder and her ear, and then gathered up the items in the front seat. With some degree of difficulty, she got out of the car while Charlie's soothing voice coached her through each step. It was easy for him—he wasn't actually there. Moving quickly, Connie made her way through the cemetery gate and towards Guy's grave, a path she knew well but rarely took. The faster she got this over with, the better. When she reached it—the headstone—when she saw his name carved into the rock, she let out a loud sob, so like those she'd cried in the church years ago.

"Are you there?" Charlie asked, one-thousand, five-hundred and nineteen miles away.

"Yeah," Connie answered, nodding softly. After standing at the foot of the grave for some time, the dark-haired woman closed her eyes and swallowed hard. This was something she had to do. She had to learn to do it alone. "I'm putting the flowers in the vases on the sides of the headstone now," she told Charlie as she divided the bouquet and set the halves into the sculpted pots on either side of the marker.

"Good," Charlie encouraged. His voice had cracked. He swallowed hard at the lump in his throat, urging it away. Heading back to the foot of the grave, Connie set down the heavy boom box, and then plopped down beside it. Crossing her legs in a child-like fashion, she pressed the play button and turned the volume up to its highest setting; there weren't any other mourners in the cemetery today, so there was no one to disturb. "Good girl," Charlie assured her as the pumping beat of Guy's favorite song reached him through the telephone.

"Steve walks warily down the street with the brim pulled way down low," they both began to sing in unison with Freddie Mercury. Their voices were soft at first, barely audible over the boom box. "Ain't no sound but the sound of his feet, machine guns ready to go." Their voices were getting louder now, Connie sitting in the cemetery in Minnesota, Charlie in his office in California. "Are you ready? Are you ready for this? Are you hanging by the edge of your seat?" They were practically screaming into their telephones now, imagining that Guy was still there with them, singing along. "Out of the doorway, the bullets rip to the sound of the beat!" And in the next four beats, they both lost it. They always lost it at that point. Every time they'd come to the cemetery in the past five years, every time they'd heard the song in the car, they couldn't choke out the next line. It was just too much.

Another one bites the dust.

Crumpled into a ball, Connie Moreau lay on the grass at the end of Guy's grave, sobbing as she held her phone to her ear. Fifteen hundred miles away, Charlie Conway sat huddled on the floor underneath his desk in his office at Ambrose & Halberstam Law Firm, crying along with her. Connie assumed it would be easier so far away, but Charlie knew that it was even harder to deal with the void Guy left in his life when there was nothing familiar to comfort him.

And another one gone, another one gone,

"Connie, I've got to go now, okay?" Charlie's voice was still shaking. The song had ended, and neither had spoken.

"Okay," she answered, righting herself on the green lawn. Reaching over with a small hand, she turned the player off. "I need to go, too."

"I'll call you tomorrow, okay?" With that, he was gone. Connie picked up the boom box, brushing her hair behind her ears with her free hand.

"I love you," she whispered to the headstone. "I'll always love you." Turning, she took a few hesitant steps toward the cemetery gate, but she stopped. "I'm so sorry," she called over her shoulder.

Charlie didn't call her the next day. He didn't call her the day after that. Charlie actually didn't call her until June seventh, which was good because she needed to talk to someone that day, but it wasn't good for her nerves to be waiting that long. You weren't supposed to be alone on days like this. What was it they'd said in grief counseling? "Surround yourself with the love of others, so your love for him doesn't hurt so much." Connie scoffed at the thought; it didn't matter who she was with, her love for Guy threatened to rip her apart.

She'd become sort of a recluse now, spending her free time at home. Of course, summers were long with school being out of session, but she'd taken up several hobbies including knitting and needlepoint, so her house was decorated with a style of its own, and she always had last-minute gifts. She rarely spent time with the other teachers at the middle school, but she did have friends. She wasn't totally socially inept; she just preferred to keep her personal life completely to herself.

She sat on the couch now, knitting needles in hand, working on a new sweater. The room was dimly lit with naught but a lamp sitting on the end table and the television lighting the room. It was tuned to BBC America, and she'd escaped into the world of Rose and The Tenth Doctor. Currently, Connie wanted nothing more than a trip in the TARDIS back to the first June third that mattered, so that she could stop him from leaving that morning, or maybe get him home early that evening. Maybe she could even get The Doctor to fix the lady's tire with his Sonic Screwdriver. She was almost finished with the back of her sweater, only a few more rows to go, when the phone rang.

"Hello?" Connie answered without checking the CallerID. No one called her. Well, no one but Charlie, and she'd given up on waiting for his call.

"Hey," a familiar voice answered, sounding slightly abashed. "Are you doing okay?" Connie rolled her eyes at his question and gave a heavy sigh. When were they going to get through this 'okay' stage? She wasn't okay. She wasn't ever going to be okay!

"Charlie, I'm doing as well as can be expected." She sounded angry, and she didn't do anything to alter her tone. He was supposed to call her three days ago! He couldn't make her worry like that. "What about you?"

"I'm fine. I'm good." Connie gave a derisive snort at the reply: ironic, considering his tirade on the phone four days earlier. She fought back the urge to remind him that they weren't supposed to be fine. There was a moment of utter silence, and then Connie cleared her throat.

"You didn't call." Her tone wasn't accusatory. It wasn't sad. It was just there—a statement.

"I'm sorry, Connie. I really am." He fumbled for words for a moment, searching for what to say. In her mind, Connie could see him sitting at his desk or in his car or wherever, twirling a bit of hair on his forehead as he thought. "There's just a lot of stuff going on around here. I'm really busy at the law firm." And she was sure he had. He'd just graduated from Stanford Law and found a job at one of the state's most prodigious firms. He was doing great for himself, but it was a lot of work.

"I understand. It's okay. I was just…" Connie trailed off, thinking about the horrible conclusions her mind had come to as to why Charlie hadn't called. "I was just worried about you." Worried that another important person in her life had disappeared. That was why she didn't have close friends. She couldn't handle losing someone else.

"I know, Connie." There was another long, uncomfortable silence. "Hey, I have something to tell you." He sounded unsure and excited at the same time. "I wanted to be the one to tell you first, instead of you hearing it from somewhere else."

"Sounds important." Connie replied, almost certain she didn't want to hear his news.

"Oh, believe me. It is." He sounded nervous now, as if he didn't want to tell the news any more.

"Okay?" Connie waited for an answer, still knitting away.

"Do you remember the girl I brought with me last year?" How could she forget? She'd been so mad that he brought some home with him for their annual trip. So angry. She'd embarrassed herself , treating the girl so coldly as she had. What's-her-name was a nice girl, and didn't deserve that. She didn't ask for that.

"The kindergarten teacher?" Connie asked, trying her best to play dumb.

"Yeah, Millie." His voice sounded funny at first, and then he spoke so fast Connie could barely process what the man was saying: "Well-well, I proposed to her. We're getting married." Connie, who'd been able to keep up with the mindless, repetitive task of knitting up until now, let the needles drop to her lap; her ball of yarn rolled off of the couch and across the living room floor. There was long pause where no one said anything, and Charlie began to doubt if there was anyone still on the line. "Well… aren't you going to congratulate me?"

"Charlie," Connie croaked, a frog in her throat. She swallowed hard before continuing. "Charlie, do you really think it's appropriate to tell me something like that on the seventh anniversary of my dead fiance's funeral which also happened to be our intended wedding day?" Her voice grew with volume and intensity as she spoke; she could hear her heart beating in her ears.

"Connie, I…I just wanted to tell you personally, so you didn't hear it from someone else. The wedding is next month and I want you to come. We're getting married here to be close to her family." He was speaking so fast that it was hard to keep up, as if he was afraid that Connie were going to cut him off at any moment. "I want you to be a part of the wedding, too." He slowed down for that last bit, perhaps so she could hear him clearly. "I know it's unconventional, but I want you to be my groom's maid, I guess." Wait, did she hear him right? Did this guy just tell her about his wedding on the anniversary of her not-wedding, and then ask her to be in his? "With you and Banks I'll have a Best Man and a Best Woman."

"Charlie, I can't!" She yelled into the receiver. What was he thinking? Was he trying to drive her mad?

"Yes you can!" he screamed back. "You have to!" He sounded so desperate, so like the little boy he once was.

"Charlie-" she began, but he cut her off.

"Connie, you have to be there for me because Guy can't! You have to! Guy and Adam were supposed to be there!" His voice was beginning to crack, and Connie could tell that he was crying. "They were supposed to fight over who got to be Best Man. They were supposed to play pranks on me and get me drunk at the bachelor party before the fun stuff even started!" No one said anything for sometime; they were both too busy crying to be able to speak. On the receiver, Connie could hear Charlie clear his throat fifteen hundred miles away. "You have to be there Connie. You have to be there and do what Guy can't do." He was pleading with her now. "I've known you longer anyways, and I'd want you there even if Guy hadn't been part of the picture."

"Yeah, by a whole year." They both gave soft laughs, remembering how young they were when they met. Guy had moved to their school in the middle of first grade, and he'd instantly become part of their twosome. He was always so likable.

"Connie?" Charlie began, still waiting for an answer.

"Okay." It was what Guy would have wanted, anyway.

"What?" Charlie sounded so surprised, as if he'd heard wrong, as if he'd thought that despite his pleading he had thought she'd still refuse.

"I'll do it. I'll come." She was so solemn now, even at times when a normal person would be overjoyed. But Connie wasn't much of a normal person anymore. She wasn't much of a person anymore.

"Connie! Thank you so much! The wedding on July twenty-first, but I want you out here before that. I'm going to send you a ticket for the tenth. I'll send two, so you can bring a date if you want."

"Charlie-" He knew she didn't intend to get romantic with anyone again, so maybe that's why he cut her off.

"I know, Connie, but just in case. A date can just be a friend." It was almost sickening, the way she could hear the happiness in his voice.

"Alright. I've got to go, Charlie." She couldn't take this anymore, not today.

"I love you, Connie." His voice was shaky as he spoke, fearful of what the words might do to her. There was a time where she didn't let anyone say that to her. He could hear the girl clear her throat over the phone line.

"I love you, too."

"I'll call you again soon."

"Okay." He probably wouldn't, but she was okay with that. That's how Charlie was—he forgot things sometimes.

"Hey, Charlie?" "Yeah?" There was a hint of concern in his voice, as if the magnitude of what he'd just told her set in.

"Congratulations." She almost fooled herself, the way she was able to sound excited for him.

"Thanks."

The young woman stood at her open closet door, naked. She was dripping wet; water from her hair ran down her back, and her damp bath towel lay at her feet. Slowly, her fingers danced over the hangers, feeling the texture of each sweater and blouse until she came across what she was looking for: a garment bag that hung at the back, hidden. It was in there. She told everyone that she'd gotten rid of it, that she'd taken it back not long after...well.

She couldn't look at it, so she kept her view blocked by and arm's length of clothes as she unzipped the bag. Tucking her hand inside, she felt the cool satin, the texture of the beading at the waist. She felt the lace at the neckline and the pearl buttons that lined the back. He'd thought they were so sexy. Maybe that's why things went the way they did: it was bad luck for the groom to see the dress before the wedding.

Eyes brimming with tears, Connie quickly zipped up the bag. Bad Idea. Sighing deeply, she leaned against the closet door for support, her naked body crumpling to the ground.

Such a bad idea