"Elena."
Two and a half years before, he'd taken me to dinner once. It had been nice, but we'd talked about work the whole time and it had not been repeated.
"Elena?"
Six and a half months ago, we'd gone into the Norther Crater hunting for Jenova's... anything really. We found her head and the three Remnants had found us. Battered nearly to death, Valentine had found us and done a fantastic mending job.
"Wake up, Elena."
Two weeks ago, while he invented things to do and phone calls to take too long on, I'd had enough. Snapped, tossing his phone out the back door of Healin, watching with glee as it crashed to pieces on the rocks. He'd been LIVID for the amount of time it took me to march him off to his bedroom and relieve him of his clothes.
What followed had left bruises on my hips and a suspicious red line around his throat that his collar barely covered. We'd both gotten a bit smarter since then.
As my eyes cracked open and focused on his face hovering over mine, the line around his neck was only pale pink this time and sat lower. I smiled and shifted, my breath catching just a little when the movement reminded me that his hand could be just as ungentle to my arms as mine could be to his throat.
"What do you have on for this morning?"
All business, even with tousled hair and swollen lips. I heaved a sigh and thought. "Just the usual, I think. Financial reports, spreadsheets."
Tseng twisted his mouth in thought and hummed briefly. "Can it be put off until this afternoon or do you have other commitments?"
This was a weird conversation to wake up to, even from him. "Yes, they can be put off. My afternoon was going to be more of the same, but I can just work a little later. Why?"
"The registry office opens in an hour. If you are willing, we can have breakfast, I can make some calls, and I am reasonably sure we can be married before lunch today."
The conversation that followed that is of minor importance. I was willing in the end and our morning ran almost to his prediction with us exchanging vows and rings at the stroke of noon. Back at Healin in the early afternoon, our family-by-choice was collectively surprised but not stunned. I spent the afternoon and well into the evening getting caught up on what the morning out had cost me.
It was odd. That wasn't how I'd ever pictured spending my wedding day. The night that followed did not disappoint, though.
I had admired and loved him for a long time, so I got the luxury of watching him fall in love with me by inches.
At a month and a half, he asked me the story of the tattoo on my hip. At three months, I caught him staring at me while I put on my make-up. At five months, he and I took a whole day off and he smiled the whole time. At six months and a half months married, he took a bullet from a Deepground soldier that was meant for me.
They dug the bullet out of his chest and patched him up. I had planned to tease him about keeping it when he woke up, but he beat me to the mark coming around while I was curled up sleeping nearby. He woke me with a cough, followed by a groan of pain.
"I want that bullet," he said, sipping water and staring at me like he was seeing me for the first time in ages. "I like that bullet. It's tangible proof."
"Of what?" It was about 4am and I had no coffee. Confusion was to be expected.
"Tangible proof that I'm in love with you."