Chapter 10

Time seemed to have frozen still. It was just Alec and this man in the world at that moment. Alec felt as if an eternity had passed since the last time he had seen him at the park on the outskirts of the city. They both were looking at each other, truly looking at each other for the first time. Magnus, his name was Magnus and it suited him. It was powerful and somehow sweet—like him. Alec wanted to say it out loud to see how it sounded when it rolled off his tongue.

"Have you two met?" His father asked confused, and Alec panicked. He didn't know why, but he didn't want them to know that they had met before and that, in fact, they knew each other pretty well. He couldn't tell them that he had been falling in love with his future husband for months.

"We bumped into each other once." Magnus lied, smiling at everybody with grace. He looked relaxed and somehow not so surprised by this twist of fate.

"Well, that's good, right?" Magnus's father said, grinning.

"It is." Magnus smiled again.

Alec wanted to say something, to do something, but he couldn't. He was completely petrified with surprise.

"Well," Alec's father said, "you can now go for a stroll to the gardens to know each other better while we talk. We'll call you both when it's time for dinner."

"You want me to go with you?" Jace asked in a whisper, clearly taking Alec's sudden silence as a sign of his nervousness and probably disappointment about his future husband, but little did his brother know that it was the complete opposite. It was taking all Alec's self-control to keep calm, because all he wanted to do now was to run into Magnus's arms and kiss him until they became one.

"No." He said, barely shaking his head. "It's fine."

"Are you sure?"

Alec nodded.

"Raj will go with you two." Alec's mother intervened.

Alec wasn't expecting any less. Couples couldn't be left alone before they were married, it was considered improper.

Alec and Magnus walked awkwardly next to each other until they reached the gardens of the house. The silence between them was eerie, uncomfortable. Many nights they had stayed in complete silence just enjoying each other's company and it had never felt like this. It was as if there was something standing between them. Alec knew it probably had to do with the fact that both had thought they had lost each other forever.

"I don't even know what to say." Alec whispered. He could see Raj standing a few steps behind them. "You don't seem too surprised to discover that we're getting married."

"I'm not."

"Have you known it all along?" Alec asked. There was a sense of betrayal taking shape in the pit of his stomach.

"No." Magnus said sincerely, and Alec relaxed.

"When did you find out?"

"A couple of days after I got your last letter." Magnus explained. "My father came to talk to me about the wedding. He said it would happen in a couple of days since the family, your family, was in a hurry to settle the arrangement because they had some financial problems. It didn't take me long to put two and two together. We were getting married the same week, my future husband lived in the city and his family had financial problems. Besides, my father said that according to what he knew, my future husband was extremely handsome and sweet, and there's only one person in the entire world that fits into that description."

Alec couldn't help but smile. "Why didn't you tell me? You could have sent me a letter. These two weeks have been a living hell."

"I'm sorry, but I wanted to respect your decision to put your family before us. I know it mustn't have been easy for you to make that decision, but you had to be at peace with it and with yourself. I can't even imagine what it meant for you to send me that letter, but I understand why you did it, it hurt and broke my heart, yes, but it also made me proud to be in love with someone like you. You're a noble and good man, and you care about your family. I can only hope you do the same for the one we're about to start."

For the one they were about to start. That thought still seemed unreal to Alec's ears. It was too good to be true and he didn't know what to say. There were so many things on his mind at the moment.

"Are you still so opposed to this arranged wedding happening in two days?" Magnus asked, following Alec's silence.

Alec shook his head because if he had something clear in the chaos that was his mind was that for some twist of fate he was going to marry Magnus. He was going to marry his Stranger. "I'm not, and you? I suppose you aren't either?"

Magnus smiled. "You suppose right. In fact, I wish we could get married right now so I could kiss you."

Alec blushed. "I thought I'd lost you." He said, finally letting all the agony of the past days to leave his body.

"I thought the same thing, my Alexander."

Alec smiled. He had always hated his full name, that was why he always went by Alec, but somehow listening to Magnus saying it made him change his mind. It sounded right, it sounded real.

"Magnus." Alec said, pronouncing that name for the very first time and noticing the same reaction he had had in the eyes of his future husband.

They had always said that it didn't matter what their names were, but it had been a lie. Their names gave them identity, their names made them real people.

"I could get used to that."

"To what?"

"To you saying my name, Alexander, I like it."

"I like it too." Alec confessed, smiling but his smile wasn't reaching his eyes yet.

Magnus dared to take his hand and stroke it tenderly. "What's bothering you, my love?"

Of course this man knew there was something bothering him. He knew him better than anyone. "I want to apologize…" Alec said, lowering his gaze, "for that letter, for what I did, I never meant to-"

"There's nothing to apologize for, okay? You did the right thing, it hurt, yeah, but hey?" Magnus said, encouraging Alec to look up. "We're still together, and without hiding."

Alec's smile finally reached his eyes. It was true. Despite all that had happened, despite the sacrifice he thought he had made, they were still together, and better than before because now it was official. They didn't have to hide. They could live their love out in the open. "I love you, you know that, don't you?"

Magnus smiled, turned around to see if the coast was clear, and taking full advantage of the fact that their chaperone seemed to be very distracted contemplating the sky, he leaned over and gave Alec a quick kiss on the lips. "I do, and I love you too."

Alec squeezed Magnus's hand tightly. It was finally dawning on him that he was going to have a lifetime to be with this man and he couldn't wait for it to start. "We're getting married!" He exclaimed.

"We are." Magnus agreed, mirroring the same enthusiasm. "Are you ready to be with me forever?"

"More than ready."

o-o-o-o-o

Two days later when the wedding finally took place and the grooms sealed their union with a kiss, no one questioned the big smiles on their faces nor the glow that seemed to emanate from both of them, because sometimes, just sometimes, letting fate write your story wasn't as bad as it sounded.

So, what do you think? I wanted to change the trope a bit and instead of having them marrying different people, set them to marry each other, I know that historically speaking that was impossible, but that's why this is called fiction and why I warned y'all about it since the beginning.

Anyway, thanks for all the support and your constant encouragement, you guys are the best readers in the world! See you all next Friday with a new story. Spoiler alert: It's going to be very, very long.

PS: You can find a rebloggable version of this story on my tumblr (link in bio).