A/N: thanks to Jane Doe, who pointed out that I forgot to expalin a point in this chapter.
Once we gets to her apartment, Teresa retrieves her documents while I keep guard to the door, in case the groom would be back- I have no doubt that whoever knows Teresa and considers her family, friend, prefers seeing her with me, so I'm not worried about them- it's kind of strange to think about it. Teresa is such a good person, loyal and faithful and kind, with a pure heart and I've never thought to be worth her. I doubted it so much I almost let it go of her. and yet, seeing the doubt printed all over her family's faces helped me to man up and confess her my feelings.
While I watch her running to her room, I lean against a window, still amazed of what a lucky bastard I am, because one thing was telling her how I fell. But Teresa didn't just hear me out: she left her groom and told me she reciprocates my feelings; I knew she felt something for me, I just didn't know what it was and how deep it run. But now, here we are, ready to run to Vegas and elope- on the day she was supposed to get married to Marcus Pike.
Despite my begging, when she joins me in her living room I see that she has changed into something more comfortable; I'm not sure what I feel about it. I mean, I would have loved to drive the whole way to Vegas with her dressed as my bride at my side, but I can see why she prefers jeans and a T-shirt. At least she still takes the dress with us, and no- even if it's not the dress she would have chosen for her, even if she had taken it to marry another man, I don't care- ehy, if Wayne didn't care, I don't either. Besides, I'm planning on marrying her again as soon as possible. This time it will be the wedding she had always wanted to have, and she'll be the one planning it (with my help, of course. I'd hate to pass for the husband/boyfriend/father who doesn't care about sharing duties with his love).
Uhm. Maybe we could get married on Christmas. Or maybe on our first anniversary. Or maybe… I smile a little, few tears leaving my eyes as I dare to imagine what could once day be reality. I'm not a believer, nor I have faith, but were Teresa and I to have a child, I would allow her to Christen them, and I would support her every decision. So, maybe, who knows, we could get married on our child's christening.
"Happy thoughts?" she asks as she kisses me on the back of my neck, as I'm still looking outside the window. I turn in her arms, and I smile, kissing her sweetly. It's just a peck, but somehow I think it's more… affectionate than any make-out session we could have together. Don't ask me why, but I think small kisses and pecks on the lips are the greatest form of love, affection and intimacy.
I smile, and I hug her, like I did when I got back from South America and I found her waiting for me in Austin, and it's astonishing how similar the feel is: back then, I was finding Lisbon after two years apart, today I find Teresa when I thought all was lost.
"You ready?" I ask her, holding her hand and searching for her eyes. What I mean is, are you sure you want to do this? I don't question her love for me- trust me, now that everything is out in the open, I can read her so much better – I just don't want her to this for the wrong reasons. I want her to marry me because she loves me and can't imagine her life without me – a boost to my ego and my self-esteem, and before you could ask, yes, I'm a mess of self-insecurities. Didn't I tell you I love wearing masks, after all? – not because she fears that I'd take it back, or tell her that I was so hyped up during her wedding that I talked without wiring my mouth and my brain together so I really don't know what I told her.
"Teresa…" I say, my voice low and husky. I almost groan, because now she is my Teresa and from my position I can see her bedroom. And her huge king-sized bed. I'm almost tempted to tell her that maybe we should reconsider the whole marriage thing for a few days, and opt for a more traditional approach to the whole thing, when I suddenly understand that no, I'm not going to make love to her in that bed, never, ever. She and Marcus had slept together in that bed: I know that I sound crazy- she'll marry me with the dress she had chosen for another man, after all- but I just can't sleep with her over there. My assets are still frozen after the retrial for Red John's death – man, law is quick to freeze your assets, but once they have to release them, it takes at least an year – and my paycheck as an FBI consultant isn't exactly heavy, but I think I could be able to afford a new bed. And new linens. And a new mattress. Oh, and new pillows. Many new pillows. My Teresa loves her pillows, after all.
Basically, I'm going to buy her a brand new bedroom altogether. I wonder, though, if I should buy her a whole new home. Despite everything, this place is suited for a single, and not a family, and if Teresa will be ok with that, I think we may start working on an heir as soon as possible. As in, later today, after we had gotten married. After all, neither of us isn't getting any younger, and there's a good chance we'll not conceive for a while.
"I want this." She says, kissing me on the corner of my lips. "I want you." She clarifies, kissing me once again on the mouth- where the hell is her bedroom? –and I laugh. And smile. And cry. Again.
God. Teresa always told me I'm a good man. Well, I guess from now on she'll have to tell me I'm a sappy, because, wow, I didn't remember being so… emotional. Unless It's Teresa: she is an alpha, after all, and it's well known that alpha women influence the production of progesterone of the people closer to them. Maybe she is going to menstruate soon and she is giving me PMS as well- don't laugh, it's true. I read it in a book once. I think. or maybe it could have been a movie? Sorry. I don't remember a lot of what happened in Vegas, as I was wasted on alcohol the 90% of the time.
We leave her place, and as we enter in my car, the wedding dress on the backseats of the Citroen, I wonder if I should go to the airstream and change as well; after all, Vegas is over 18 hours from here, and I don't want to be all sweaty and rumpled after so many hours behind the wheel. But the airstream is in the FBI parking lot, and if I go there, there's a good chance I'll meet people who had heard of the wedding- or worse, were there to begin with. All I need is with me, my papers and few money in case I have to buy a new suit, and I guess it will have to do.
We don't talk a lot on the road for Vegas. Really: Teresa and I never need verbal communication, a look was enough. Our problem has always been the fact that we sued to wear masks with each other. Well, no more: so, I smile for the first four hours of driving – my face is almost hurting, but I really don't care- when we stop in Sweetwater and have a late lunch. I take tea and eggs, as this morning my stomach was such a knot and I didn't have any – while Teresa opts for coffee and a salad- she fears she'll not enter in the dress any longer if she exaggerates. Poor dear, as soon as we'll be married, I'll order strawberries, chocolate, ice cream, whipped cream and champagne through the room service, and I'll let her indulge in all her kink food fetishes as long as she wants.
"I'm taking the next turn." She tells me as she produces a small GSM device from her purse. "And yes, it's non-negotiable." She orders me, and I smirk. I think I'll never be able to listen to her giving me orders without thinking of her as the mistress of my body and soul.
Maybe I should start working with Kim exclusively from now on, as Teresa's presence may be distracting. Unless… well, I'm pretty sure that were Teresa to use her sex-appeal as a blackmail weapon, I think I could turn into a humble consultant for her.
We stop every four hours, more or less, always exchanging driving duties. I keep smiling, and in one occasion, I fall asleep, a little miracle for an insomniac as me, and I'm gone for almost Teresa's whole turn. When she wakes me up and offers me a late snack (we've been on the road for over sixteen hours, and it's almost 2 AM) we are just a couple of hours from Vegas, and it's my turn to drive once again. Teresa wakes me up with a cup of tea- it's terrible, but at least it's tea- and kissing me on the lips. When I open my eyes I look at her, and her bright smile, and I don't think she has ever been that happy.
It almost makes me cry, knowing that she feels that way because of me.
That this is all true.
That she is mine.
So, the "little kiss" that she wanted to give me turns pretty quickly into a serious make-out session, with a lot of groping and roaming hands. There are also a couple of attempts to undo buttons and flies, but whistling teenagers passing us by and encouraging us to just get naked already make us jump, and we part, panting.
I groan, hitting my head against the window, unable to leave my seat just now – my body has responded in a certain way to Teresa straddling me and trying to get rid of my clothes – and I swear that as soon as we'll be in our hotel room (aka: as soon as we'll have found an hotel) I'll practically rip her clothes apart and jump her on the spot.
Yes, I'm an old, perverted pig, and I'm proud of it, as she is the one making me an old, perverted pig. Besides, I'm pretty sure that underneath all that Catholic school girl attitude, Teresa is a vixen in bed (remember the story about messy women? We already talked about it) so I'm sure she'll not mind my (lack of) manners for once.
During the last two hours of our trip, I drive, and ask Teresa to check on her smartphone for more information on weddings in Vegas; I may have thought about getting married, her, but I admit I haven't thought this through, and as big as my memory palace is, "how to get married in Las Vegas" hasn't a room in it.
Until now.
Teresa puts in the GMS the address of the Clark County Marriage Bureau, and we park the car nearby- they'll not open for other three hours – and in the meanwhile I take from the last phone booth in Vegas the Yellow pages and, with Teresa taking yet another coffee at a diner, I make some calls, both to the chapel to make a reservation for today at 10 AM, and then to an local hotel; I already know where we are going to spend our first hours as a married couple, and I don't care if Teresa will tell that we have to drive to Austin asap: as soon as she'll be my wife, I'll give a taste of our honeymoon, few hours at the Venetians. It's not the real deal, but for now it will have to do. And then, one day… One day, I'll give her everything she wants, the prefect wedding and the honeymoon in Europe just like she had always wanted.
We walk for a short while- it's a nice zone of the city, this one, and besides, Teresa can handle herself, and I know she has a gun with herself, along with her badge -Wouldn't be stopped because she was carrying an hidden weapon, my love. We don't take too long, though, as we want to be the first there as soon as they open at eight, getting the license may be a few minutes deal, but there are still few arrangements to take before 10 am; we both have to change – and I have to but me some clothes, on top of that- and we need to find flowers. Yes, I know we could get them at the chapel, but 110 $ for few flowers? Over my dead body.
When the office opens, we are the first to enter, and when the annoyed and lacking sympathy sixty-something lady asks for our IDs, I give her my FBI badge AND my driving license; she looks at me quizzically, like she couldn't believe that such a man could work for the FBI (I'm not sure if it's a compliment or if I should be offended), and while I took hold of Teresa's shoulders, I explain with a grin that we met on the job and almost dying forced us to re-evaluate our priorities, and so we escaped to Vegas in the middle of a murder investigation.
It's a lie, but we are just playing a little; everybody here in Vegas are someone they are not, it's the allure of the city, after all. When I came here almost four years ago, I too was pretending to be someone I wasn't, and now…
Oh. I just realized the irony of this all. I'm going to marry Teresa in the same town where, four years ago, I told her I'd been too hyped up to remember how I felt about her. Is she really all right with this? After all, we decided (well, I did) because it's the only place I know where you want to get married, you get married, but maybe there are memories too painful to bear for her here, and I may be a monster who didn't (and doesn't) take in consideration her own feelings.
We pay our 60$ fee, cash only, and despite my best effort to be her knight in shining armor, I can't talk her into allowing me to pay for this all, and we end up making 50/50- but if she thinks I'll allow her to pay for the honeymoon suite at the Venetians, she is oh so wrong.
Before reaching our chapel on the Strip- the wedding bell Chapel, famous for its Elvis impersonator- I stop to a local bank I used to use when I could be often spotted in Vegas; I still have a safe-deposit box there, and there's something I need to retrieve before the wedding, but I want it to be a surprise for Teresa. She complaints as I leave her in the car, but I give her a peck on the nose, telling her that she'll like this surprise and it will be all worth it.
I do what I set my mind to, and then, as we reached the neighborhood of the chapel, we walk around until we don't find what we need. I think first about my suit, and on a whim I purchase a three pieces Kalvin Klein black number, with the addition of a tie (because I know Teresa loved the vest, and still does. I think it's in many of her erotic fantasies of us.), and when I see Teresa's pupils dilate as she seems me trying on the suit, I know it's the one; we then purchase the rings (Celtic Claddagh wedding bands, as we are both if Irish heritage) and then flowers for both of us; I go with white, as it's the color of her dress, but instead of roses, I opt for tulips and freesia, and a touch of green given by emerald-colored ivy; my boutonniere is a simple flower of freesia, but I feel like it's the most precious thing in the universe right now.
We reach the chapel ten minutes to ten, and the personals guide us towards the dressing rooms, where we change in our new, fancy clothes; then, like it was a "real" marriage (you get what I mean, right?) I wait for her at the altar, with my best man (a boy who could be my son and work there as best man for the people who chooses to elope at the last minute, like us) and wedding music all around us.
God. I can't believe how I'm feeling right now, just like I did when I married Angela. And back I had been eighteen. And we had planned our wedding- as simple as it had been. But maybe… maybe it's because I still can't believe that it's real. As… powerful as my mind can be, I still have troubles acting like I fully comprehend that Teresa wants me and she is mine now. There's a part of me that thinks that soon I'll wake up in my bed in the airstream, just to find out it's been all a dream and she has gotten married to Pike and she is on her way to DC.
"Here comes the bride" starts playing and I turn, seeing Teresa and her maid of honor/witness/chapel employee walking towards me. She is beautiful, my Teresa. I don't know if it's because of the big smile that is illuminating her features, or because, different from yesterday, she had left her hair down, allowing it to curl naturally at the end. I've never told her that, but this my favorite look on her. And I think she just understood it, because as soon as she saw my expression she smiled more.
"Ehy." I tell her as she joins me in front of the aisle. My hands are sweating, and I feel like crying out of happiness; with Teresa right before me, I can finally accept that she is really mine. Suddenly I feel the well-known sensation of guilt I carry around with me since I can remember, and I wonder if I'm being right towards her. am I being as selfish as Marcus had been, when he has asked her to follow him half-around the Country? Does she feel pressured into marrying me? Is this the kind of wedding she wants? Is it hard for her marrying me here, in Vegas, where I gave up on a decade of celibacy- something I should have done for her and her alone – to sleep with mistress of the man who murdered my first family? The town where I took back that I loved her?
Suddenly, I can't bring himself to wrong her again, so I grab her shoulders, and with a voice filled with panic, I ask her if this is really what she wants.
Her next words make me the happiest man alive. "All I've ever wanted is you, Jane, so… I don't care how, when and where, if this is how I get to make you mine for all the days to come… so be it." she smiles and kisses me, while the Minister, a guy in his fifties, clears his throat, a bit annoyed with us, cutting so short our ceremony, doing things backward and going strictly to the end.
Teresa, blushing, hides her face in my neck, and I take the chance to kiss her hair, remembering all the times I've done so in the past with this or that excuse, and I have to say, I can't wait for when she'll take along, lavender-scented bath, as there's nothing like the fresh scent of vanilla or lavender on her hair, few minutes after she has taken a bath or a shower- yes, I know it's scary the way I got expert on the topic, and I am aware that it's slightly stalkerish, but ehy, a man does what a man gotta do.
The officer is already starting to talk, when I suddenly remember that, in my pockets, I have the surprise I retrieved from my deposit box for her- I can't believe I was so lost in all things Lisbon that I forgot about it – and I turn towards the man, stopping him with a lifted finger. "Uhm, excuse me, there's something I need to give her, first."
Smiling and looking at Teresa, who's clearly confused (and I think, a bit scared. I don't blame her, not one bit), I took the item in my pocket in my fist, closing the fingers around it. then, I lift my hand to Teresa's eye-level, and when I open my hand just a tiny bit, the chain, still in my hand, swing, like it was one of those old watches I used to hypnotize people back in the day.
"Jane, what.." Teresa says, gasping, skimming with a perfectly manicured finger the gold of the jewel I'm presenting her with. I can see she is teary, probably because she had recognized the collier: it's the one I bought for her eight years ago or so, the one she thought I had gave away. But I never did: I couldn't, not when she was already the queen of my heart. In my mind, I always thought that I would have given this to her as a wedding present, but never, ever, I would have dared to think that she would have worn this at our own wedding.
"It was yours." I tell her as I move her hair out of the way and I close the necklace around her neck, deciding to leave the cross where it is, thinking that this way she'll feel like her mother is with her in this moment. "I couldn't get rid of it." she gets teary, and I wonder what she'll do when I'll give her the matching earrings- they are in the other pocket, but I prefer to wait for another occasion to give them to her. Besides, Teresa doesn't like wearing too many jewels
The ceremony is short, just few minutes, and even if the minister isn't all right with it (the guy is grunting- I have to remember to put on a bad review for this place on Trip Advisor) we makes our own vows- sort of. Teresa repeats the words she has told me before, saying that all she has ever wanted was for me to be in her life and reciprocate her feelings, and I tell my own words as well (seen, Marcus? If Teresa is at your side, you don't need weeks pf preparations, nor to be Shakespeare, to be inspired).
"I know that you've always thought of my words as empty promises, but now that you've accepted to be at my side, now that we'll become one, I promise to do better. I'll always be the man used to be, I can't change- and I know you wouldn't want me to either- but I promise to be worth you. Because Teresa, you inspire goodness and greatness, my love."
I can't help but think about Angela as she puts the ring on my finger, and when I do the same to her, I know her minds goes to Marcus and how she feels we wronged him, but I hope she knows it's for the best: we would be all miserable, had she gotten through with the marriage. Besides, as I tell myself, the past is in the past, and reminiscing about it is pointless. After all, we wouldn't be here if not for our past, so we have to be grateful for who and what helped us to get here.
We kiss, and I take her in my arms, bridal style (and she is my bride, after all) as we go back to my car and we drive to the Venetians (something she doesn't know about yet). She shakes her head as I park the car and help her outside, but she simply lean against me, her arm in my own, as we walk towards the reception; there, we are awaited by a young woman, a romantic at heart who seems very happy to see such a couple in love (but the truth is, she gets an instant crush on Teresa) and we get an upgrade (and all the delicious stuff I have planned to get Teresa) thanks to my smile and my affection for the love of my life- people can't resist us. Now, what do you think will happen when we will produce a child? Easy: we'll get the future ruler of the world, with our combined looks and my charisma and Teresa's strength and attitude for weapons and command, that's what.
Once we check in our room, we don't leave for hours, and when I finally get lost in her body, in her… it's the most perfect feel in the world, her face as she reaches the edge is something that will stay with me forever. Just like Teresa does and will, because I belong to her, body and soul.