Hello everyone! Hope you're enjoying Canadian Thanksgiving as much as I am! I just want to say how thankful I am to have met so many people through Twitter and Fanfiction as there have been some tough times in my life this last year and knowing I could go to them and just talk it out or write it out here with you that got me through it. I won't name names because you know who you are but I will say I love you all so much and you mean the world to me.

'What flight number is it?'

'Ah, let's see, British Airways, two-two-one-seven, should be landing...there!'

Alexis pointed to the info-board above the Arrivals gate at Newark Airport and grinned. 'She's here! She's here, she's here!'

Shane had to laugh; it had been awhile since he'd seen his bride-to-be so upbeat. The debate on her counseling position was eating away at her, not to mention the wedding planning and the her studies so when she announced her old flatmate from England was coming to visit for the week to get fitted for her bridesmaid's dress he'd breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Theresa was a fantastic girl, just a complete bucket of sunshine who never failed to make Alexis laugh.

'Okay, my sweet, she still has to clear customs, and that says they've just cleared passengers from the cabin.'

'I know, but still, she's here!'

Alexis was so jazzed about seeing Theresa that she didn't even notice it was nearly forty minutes later when she saw her old friend walking through the sliding doors, tugging her luggage-on-wheels behind her.

'Theresa!'

'Alexis!' Theresa threw her arms around her friend, squeezing hard and smiling. 'So good to see you! And Shane, oh man, I knew when you came to visit her, you'd be the one that stuck with her.'

'Nice to see you again too,' Shane replied and felt a little wobble in his stomach when he saw that the smile didn't quite reach Theresa's eyes. He wanted to ignore it, brush it off as jet-lag since Theresa had taken a red-eye from Gatwick to Newark, but the itch on the back of his neck. Instead he reached for her suitcase, while Alexis kept her arm looped through Theresa's as they left for the parking lot. 'How was your flight?'

'I've had worse going over the Atlantic. There wasn't a single edible thing on the flight, thank goodness I'd packed a couple of biscuits in me purse.'

'Well, not to worry, we've got a reservation tonight at seven o'clock for dinner, so you can relax and shower, take a nap to get right with the clock,' Alexis reassured her friend, patting her hand, 'and we can catch up on everything.'

'Shane will you be there?' Theresa inquired, making the itch come back with a vengeance on his neck.

'Yeah, I'm spending the night down here with Alexis, but not to worry her flatmate is out of town and has generously said you can stay in her room.'

'Splendid.'

'And of course Shane is coming to dinner!' Alexis all but sang it. 'We have lots of wedding things to discuss!'

As Alexis had to study and all afternoon while Theresa napped and Shane was making notes to prepare for a court date coming up the following week he was able to keep his worries about Theresa to himself. He knew he was being ridiculous, there was no way they could be that cursed when it came to wedding-planning.

But the feeling stayed with him as they headed out to The Lamplighter Steakhouse, especially as he saw the look on Theresa's face as Alexis started to talk about the troubles they'd been having trying to get everything organized. When they ordered drinks and Alexis stepped away to the ladies' room to find some tissues for a sudden sneezing fit, Shane inched closer and looked at Theresa dead in the eye.

'Out with it,' he ordered her in a low controlled voice; Theresa's hand shook ever so slightly as she reached for her gin and tonic. She went to open her mouth, but Alexis had popped back into her seat and was looking at Theresa with excitement as she pulled out her iPad from her oversized handbag.

'So, the tailor gave me this amazing software for us to play with to find the right look for your bridesmaid dress,' she started, then stopped when she saw Theresa give a little sigh. 'Tee, what is it?'

'It's...I can't be in the wedding anymore.'

'What?'

'It's part of the reason I came to talk to you. I've been working at an amazing telecommunications firm and they've offered me an eight-month contract training the new employees in Hong-Kong. I start on May twenty-fifth.'

'Wha...when did this happen?' Alexis asked, completed blindsided.

'Two months ago, but-'

'Two months,' Alexis repeated stiffly, her face going very pale.

'I've been busy, getting everything prepared to move my life half-way around the world.'

'And letting me know you're dropping out of my wedding, my wedding, wasn't worth at least a phone call, oh I don't know, when you found out back in February?'

'It's just one day, Lex, this is the opportunity of a lifetime, and I'm sorry I can't be there for you.'

Theresa and Shane just watched Alexis as she sat there numb, staring at the mini-hurricane lamp in the middle of the table as if in a fugue state. 'Lexy,' the groom-to-be ventured, taking her hand in his, 'Yo, earth to Lexy.'

'I'm sorry there's a roaring ocean in my head not much is getting through right now.' Alexis pulled out her iPad and began to tap on it, making Shane wonder if his financee's brain had broken. Then he watched her hand it over to Theresa. 'This is the name of a hotel near our house. Text me when you've checked in, and your luggage will be dropped off. Now get the fuck away from me.'

'Lex, you're being a little ridiculous, don't you think?'

'No, I don't think I am,' Alexis replied, a little too calmly. 'I have dreamt about my wedding day since I was about seven years old and not once in any of my fantasies about my wedding did I envision a trusted friend, or someone I thought was a trusted friend, telling me it's just one day.'

'Alexis, come on you know I don't-'

'Theresa, it's time for you to leave,' she said with such subtle finality, Shane had a flash of his soon-to-be wife dressing down their future children for a wrongdoing. He wondered what it said about him that he also thought it was totally hot and bad-ass how she was laying down the law.

He watched the two women stare each other down, and finally Theresa gathered up her purse along with her coat and scarf, and made her exit silently if aggressively stalking past their poor waiter. It took about thirty seconds after her departure before Alexis let out a shaky breath and pressed her hand to her mouth.

'Shane.' She looked at him with tear-filled eyes and he was gripping her hand tightly.

'It'll be okay-'

'Shane, not now.'

'Alright. What do you want to do, then?'

'Right now, I want to think about something other than school or the wedding, I just want my biggest concern right now to be either the goat cheese salad or the pot roast soup for an appetizer.'

'Okay. If the waiter comes back, order me a draft of Heinie, alright?' At her nod, Shane kissed her head and got up like he was heading for the men's room, but ducked into the lounge area instead and pulled out his cellphone.

'Hey, it's Shane, listen I know this is kind of short notice, but you need to come to Princeton for Alexis. Yeah it's another wedding thing. A bad one. Okay, I'll see you in the morning.'

The following morning, Alexis rolled over and groaned. She'd spent the night quietly crying herself to sleep after they'd returned from the restaurant where she'd made a point of not talking about anything related to school or the wedding with her fiance. She knew she was shutting him out but she could not afford to break down. She really couldn't, not with everyone counting on her.

Yawning, she padded to the door of the bedroom, not giving Shane's absence a second thought - he liked having the shower first in the mornings so that by the time she was done with her morning ablutions, she could dress and he'd have breakfast made for them.

'Morning, baby girl.'

Alexis stopped short when she saw her fiance sitting at the kitchen table and Beckett at the stove, nudging fat slices of bacon around in a pan while bread cooked in the toaster. 'What are you doing here?'

'Shane called me, and my first question is, why didn't you?'

'Why didn't I what?'

'Call me last night, why am I hearing about Theresa walking out on the wedding party from him and not you since she was a bridesmaid?' Beckett asked sternly, pouring her girl a cup of strong black coffee, dumping in sugar in sloppy spoonfuls in her anger. 'I could just strangle you right now for making me worry like this I really could!'

'Why? Is it taking too much time away from your real family?' Alexis snapped moodily. 'My multiple crises over the wedding is taking too much time away from precious Jojo?'

'You are my real family Alexis,' Beckett countered; she wasn't an ace in interview because she looked pretty, 'and you better damn well get it through your head that just because I have a newborn girl to take care of doesn't mean you mean less to me. Now tell me what the hell happened.'

Alexis wanted to be a bitch, to use Beckett as an emotional punching bag over her own insecurities about her new little sister replacing her position in the Castle clan. But one look at the woman's eyes and she found herself spitting out instead, 'I am down a bridesmaid and I have no idea how to ask anyone else without sounding like they are a second-stringer being called in from the bench.'

'Well, then go get your wedding planning binder and we'll get planning.'