A/n: I'm sorry..there are some really painful typos in this chapter..But..Um ..it's not going to be published..so..Please bear with me :P

I wasn't sure what to say, until the business woman shrieked and threw her arms around Ed. "OH...of course I'll marry you!" she said.

"Ed..." I said softly. Ed gulped and pointed to the paper now in the woman's hand.

It was a marriage proposal written in Auntie's handwriting...addressed to the woman's name (Sara) from Ed.

"So when does the rest of your family come?" Ed asked quietly.

I coughed and turned my head to the side to hide my smile. Ed looked to me in questioning, and then gave a yawn. "Well, I'm going," he said. "It's been nice knowing you and all..."

I blinked. "You're going just like that?!" This boy was insane to no end. Ed sighed, and glanced my way.

"Look...Patrick," he said softly. "You've been very nice to me but -- How do I say this? I CAN'T GET LEGALLY MARRIED..."

I blinked. Oh yes, if the police found out about this, the would most likely throw the poor girl into jail for pedophile. I sighed, blinking away tears. "I forgot how young you were still..."

Ed rolled his eyes. "Hey old man -- I'm not walking down the wedding aisle in diapers."

I sighed. "All right all right...Just give me a few hours to dissuade them from continuing this charade."

It hadn't been hard to get Ed to agree to a marriage -- as any mention of it left him dumbstruck and unable to do anything but gape like one of the various bear jars that I had in the house. He frowned and crossed his arms -- wanting nothing more than to leave, but knowing that it'd be honorable to at least tell the woman before he abandoned her at the wedding aisle. I sighed and asked him one of the weirdest questions I would ever have to.

"You know -- you two have been talking about equivalent trade a lot -- could it be that you really like her?"

Ed froze and then glanced at me in something like anger and horror. "How do you know about that?"

I sighed, and shook my head. Though Ed and Sara had a one-sided relationship, it hadn't escaped me that she had seemed to know him. When they were not busy arguing about where to have the marriage like somewhere in the middle of the desert versus Rome or Paris, they were sitting in the corner, both staring out the window like it were a contest of whose sorrow could break it first.

Right now, Ed was looking mighty skittery. I wonder if he was trying to ask me if I approved of their relationship. I suppose I was looked upon as some sort of unofficial guardian for him, but as no one knew this, I didn't think it necessary to have advised him to go forth and spread his wings...like they did in little children's fairy tales.

"So," I started. "When shoud I have invited my family here...?" I smirked. "If not for the fact that there's a big storm out there already -- I'd say you were acting perfectly normal."

"Ed honey!" shouted Sara. "Are you ready to er..go out?"

I looked suspiciously at them. Who ever heard of bride asking the groom into the wedding chapel?

Ed paused, staring at the floor and looking at the wall. A small blotch of something fell to the floor and I realized it wasn't mine. When the wedding song started, I watched him walk away and enter the doors to the ceremony, dressed in a suit of black oddly fitting to our mood. Ed was quite strange in many ways...

There were times when he seemed like a brilliant tactician and others - a tiresome litle brat. There weren't many chances for us to converse, as he rarely spoke to me during the various chessgames we had played. I found myself wondering what the heck I was doing.

What was I doing sending off the only thing I would even come close to condsidering as my child to marriage within six weeks of meeting eachother? When examined by the doctor; it was determined that he should only be fifteen or sixteen? And the fact that he was not even legally a citizen of the United States?

I made up my mind. Ed was going to get married...over my dead cold hands. Not for a promise he didn't make or a reason he had not consulted me with. After all -- the doctor's bill would've sent the other half of my house to heaven, and the lucky brat still hadn't repayed me for it.

I reached to open a door before getting roughly jerked back by a person with a guard uniform. He had cold gray eyes and a tough looking mustache which looked like it could've been strong enough to resist a comb. "Only person allowed in here are family members. According to the laws of equivalent trade -- you are not."

"There must be some mistake," I said. "I'm the father of the groom.."

"Father..eh, boy?" snarled the guard. "I need your idenitfication card..."

A few minutes later I was drenched, cold, and out in the rain, having been kicked out of a church...to put it simply.

"How humiliating...."

But there was no time to waste. I walked the streets in search of a disguise shop, and instead came upon the only other building within walking distance. It was a shop called Ms. Marie's clothing shop with frills on the coners of the sidestops. It was a miracle that the place wasn't dirty, so I decided to take a peek in, as there was nothing but a window full of boring dresses and flowery desgins on the outside.

"Hello!" I said to someone who would've been around. "This is a catastrophe! I need something monstrously hideous...pehaps a bear suit with extra long claws?"

A lady with eyes like beetles walked across the counter and glanced at me. "You look like a fine young sir," she said softly. "May I interest you in some smelling salts?"

"What?" I flabbergasped.

It was then that I fully took in my surroundings. The entrance had been gaudier than a circus stampede as there were vairious paintings lined with fabrics of all types. Strange per-fumes protruded from dust clean shelves. The walls were covered in cave man paintings with cave men carrying rings and cavewomen carrying bouquets with silk linings glued onto them as well and velvet curtain framing.

There were also a picture of some lions mating in a courtyard and some vultures carrying flowers in their beaks.

I was almost beginning this were a shop for the sane.

"How about a vacuum...?" continued the woman.

"N - no thanks.."

"A chest of gold and jewelry?"

"No.."

"A magic lamp..made from china!"

"No...and aren't those made in India?"

"Erm...how about these nice sets of earings and a sword! To impress your wife!"

"Heavens no..I'm only 20.."

"Let me guess," said the woman. "You're here to get a wedding ring...?"

I shook my head, no.

"Ack..I knew zat was getting old.." said the woman.

"I need something to stop a marriage!" I shouted. I had been only planning to get in but time was running out.

I was roughly handed a light blue, dimonded included with heels...pair of bracelets...and the most horrifyingly "happy" blue flower GIRL dress that I had ever seen in my life.

By the time I could react...I had been kicked out of the store as well, and sent on my way to the church...as Auntie Mame.

Did I mention that I now despised psychics?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I made it just in time for the wedding vows to start. Ed's had already done his and I didn't have a chance to catch it. Apparently, Sara had chosen to do an entire legion of poetics, which would rule and conquer the entire audience to oblivion. She was quite good at it too -- with nothing more than a blink of an eye as Aunt Malady burst into tears at her melodramatic stanzas.

"It feeds on the ideas of hoplessness sadness and turmoil and it doesn't take emotion until the will is gone completely. The idea of sadness which I love..will only be devoured in my death," she finished.

"Ahem, I suppose that is an I do then?" the priest muttered. "So if anyone has any objections to this.."

"I do," I said.

Both Ed and Sara looked at me. "What?!"

Every single pair of eyes stared at me, and someone gasped out. "It's Auntie Mame!"

"Don't be silly Merry Indy..it's only Patrick in drag -- "

"Oh. My. God."

"He looks like a bleeding woman -- "

"With makeup!"

"Quiet!" I shouted.

"I object to any idea of this particular wedding because, according to Riley, Sara Mame wrote a will to return her entire fortune to me and it was fulfilled on the day of my birth!"

I looked to Sara. "Who are you really?"

Sara looked at me sadly, and then lifted her hands. Air around us trembled with a shiver as her aura caressed the stunned and speechless audience. "I am Sara Mame..." she said. "I am...your mother."

Everyone gasped, and I stared speechlessly at her. "I'm sorry Patrick," she continued. "But...an equivalent trade has been made...My happiness for life...if unfulfilled..is my second death."

With a celestial glow in her hand, a pink light started to form around us. My conscious was doubletaking and I thought I would go blind. Ed looked away from me and out the window, sighing and shaking his head. "She's gone," he said softly. "So is Al...Maybe now he can rest in peace..with her."

Perhaps it had been the bill that Riley told me about just as I informed him of Ed's wetting a few hours ago. Or that truly pitifully forlorn expression on his face -- but I was certainly having none of it.

"Rest in peace my arse!" I shouted.

"Listen here, Romeo." I growled sarcastically. "I did not pay a hell of a fortune to get into the wedding with a dress that will never see the light of day again -- that I will pay a measly few cents later to gain the satisfaction of seeing it burn from the sweet fumes of the gasoline flames! And neither is my dad..once he finds out about this! So we're going to get back those letters AND your brother..now MOVE..you lazy piece of shrimp!"

Ed was too shocked at first to respond as I dragged him out the door.

"He really is Auntie Mame's grandchild," said wise aunt Jane. "They have that same insane glint in their eyes."

"And the same dress..." said my uncle. His young and overpaid second wife's slap was punctured only by Ed's outburst from the hallway.

"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!"

And here my friend is the Rocky beginning of Ed, Auntie Mame/Patrick and the missing letters.