This is the last chapter in our month-long timeline, which will be followed by a ridiculously long epilogue which I wrote before this chapter (but have revised since then), which was so long that I had to break it into three parts. It covers proposals, weddings and children. Please watch for those as I plan to post those one at a time over the course of this week.

XXXVII

Half an hour after the ceremony, Charlie and Jane were still taking pictures: pictures by the roses, pictures against the corner of the stone house and pictures on the porch swing, Jane turned with her skirted legs over Charlie, arranged just so. It was so many pictures that Jane felt like hinting to Cher that they had had enough. All she wanted to do was to celebrate with their friends and family rather than miss their whole party.

Finally, Charlie said, "I can't possibly smile for more pictures until I have a bathroom break and a beer or two."

"And some of those bacon wrapped dates," Jane added, imagining the perfect bite of crunchy, savory and sweet.

"We're losing the light quickly," Cher noted.

"That's okay," Charlie replied, "You've been diligent and now it is time to rest for a while."

Seizing on that thread of the favor they were doing for Cher, Jane urged, "You've got to try the appetizers we ordered before they are gone and kick back a little with a nice glass of wine. And of course you are invited for dinner, too."

"I wouldn't mind getting a few shots in the tent," Cher responded.

Charlie suppressed a laugh, imagining Cher gulping down several shots of hard liquor, when he knew she meant taking photos instead. "Yes, but later," Charlie replied; he couldn't help but smirk a little as he made sure his reply would work for either kind of shots.

Jane added, "You can get us cutting of the cake, the throwing of the bouquet, the first dance. Enjoy yourself a little before then; you deserve it."

"Well, okay then," Cher responded. "You know you are just the nicest people, a match made in heaven."

"Don't I know it!" Charlie gave Jane a saucy wink. Before Cher could change her mind, Jane and Charlie jumped up and hurried toward the house, hand in hand. After they were done and had gotten in a few well deserved smooches to tide them over, they walked over to the tent.

Jane was briefly disappointed to see that her preferred appetizer was gone, but brightened immediately when her Uncle Edward intercepted her by the serving table and said, "Your aunt and I prepared you both plates. They are waiting at your table."

It took Jane and Charlie more than fifteen minutes to make it to their own table, as inundated as they were with guests wanting to greet them and all the well wishes. Once they finally got to the table, they only got in a few bites between the steady stream of guests to see them.

The dinner went well, but Jane mostly ate by herself as Charlie was too busy seeking out those guests they had not yet spoken to. However, she did not mind having a bit of peace after all the stress and emotions she had been through that day. As she reflected to herself, I'll have Charlie all to myself when we leave for our honeymoon.

She noticed that both Elizabeth and Darcy and Mary and Henry were not yet sitting at their assigned table. Instead, it was only two of Charlie's friends, Charlotte, David and on Charlotte's other side, Bill Collins. Jane wrinkled her head a little at that, as she was certain she had assigned Bill to sit with her parents. As Elizabeth had wickedly suggested, "Since Mom was so insistent that we invite Bill, surely she would like to enjoy his company, and since Papa didn't support you when you tried to put your foot down, shouldn't he have the pleasure of Bill's company also?"

Jane saw when Elizabeth and Darcy entered the tent hand in hand and sat down at their table, Darcy flagging down a server to get their food. But of Mary and Henry, she still saw no sign.

After dinner, Jane delayed tossing her bouquet, waiting for Mary to make an appearance. She noticed that when Mary and Henry finally did appear, that Mary looked rather flushed. Just at that moment, Charlie returned to the table. "Cher's been asking when you are going to throw the bouquet and me the garter."

"Now is a good time," Jane noted.

Cher coordinated lining the women up, deciding the most photogenic spot was to place them in front of the flower arch which had been moved from the outside to just behind the wedding cake table. As the women hurried to line up, Jane briefly surveyed the crowd and pondered who would seize the bouquet. There were at least fifteen women clustered, including her sisters and Charlotte. Jane had been to weddings where two women both grabbed a hold of the bouquet at once and a fight nearly broke out. She hoped rather than believed that her guests would be more dignified.

Jane turned her back to the women and tossed the bouquet over her shoulder in a clean arc. As the women scooted back, jockeying for the best position, not having anticipated how well Jane could throw, someone bumped into the cake table, with a loud thump. Jane turned to see the bouquet land perfectly in Mary's hands just as the cake table suddenly collapsed on one side, causing the cake to slide and then tumble over, squashing into the ground.

All the women clustered around the spilled cake in horror. Cher could be heard to exclaim, "I never even got any shots of the cake!"

Jane, anxious to salvage the situation, came over to examine what had happened. One of the servers came running over with a large serving plate and suggested, "Maybe we can slide this through and save the bottom layers, that didn't hit the ground, that are now on top."

Jane held onto the white cardboard circle that was still attached to the bottom layer of the cake, and also held onto the side near her, as the server slid the plate through. The whole lopsided cake trembled during the process and Jane got frosting all over her fingers, but in the end they had a block of damaged, upside down cake.

A few minutes later, someone came to clean up the rest of the cake and throw it away. No one thought to inquire as to whether the pink swan topper could be salvaged, as the topper was thoroughly buried in cake. So although undamaged, it was thrown away with the rest of the squashed cake. During this whole debacle, Mrs. Bennet was heard to loudly exclaim, "Tom, this is all your fault, if only you'd had the rental company set up the tables and chairs as I requested, the cake would still be okay."

In the confusion, Mary escaped back to her table before Cher could take her picture with the bouquet. She was almost certain that Caroline had bumped the table in her scramble to get the bouquet, but she was also fairly certain that this was a true accident and the table would not have collapsed but for the securing piece not being snapped into place.

Mary blushed when Henry whispered in her ear, "Atta girl, Mary. You did great. I'm going to do my best to get the garter."

It was much harder for Charlie to round up guys willing to try for the garter. Only Darcy, Henry and teenager Jack Lucas lined up at first, so Charlie went to find more single men. As Darcy and Henry were standing around, Darcy finally figured out where he knew Henry from (Henry had already made the connection while watching the wedding). "It is you," Darcy said. "You're the one who gave me good advice in the hospital. I should have put all the dots together when Mary said she was dating a hospital chaplain."

"Yes," Henry admitted, "but to be fair, I had no idea who you were talking about at the time and while in the interim I found out Elizabeth had started dating someone, I didn't know it was you."

"Well, it looks like it worked out very well for both of us," Darcy noted. "Mary's great and she needed someone that thought the world of her for herself. I like her, I really do, but in a 'I hope you'll be my sister someday' kind of way. Still, that conversation never happened, right?"

"Right," replied Henry. "As I told you then, I keep those conversations confidential."

Darcy gave Henry a friendly thump on the shoulder. "You'll do for Mary, but don't you think for a second that you are going to get that garter; I'm getting that for Lizzy."

After several minutes, Charlie bullied David, Raimundo and a few other guys to get up as well. Unlike the women who were poised and ready, most of the guys just stood there with their hands to their sides. But it was Darcy who reached up above the other guys as the garter was descending down, and easily snagged it in his hand. When he returned to the table, Elizabeth rewarded his prowess with an enthusiastic kiss, prompting one of Charlie's friends who was already inebriated to shout, "Get a room."

Cher stalked over to their table and insisted she needed a picture of Darcy with the garter and Mary with the bouquet. The two of them stood awkwardly next to each other as Cher snapped her pictures. When she was done, Mary asked, "Can you get one with my boyfriend, too?" Cher was quick to oblige her.

Then it was time for the bride and groom to dance, followed by Jane dancing with her father. As by now, those who wished to be were pleasantly buzzed if not entirely sloshed, when the general dancing began, they were many participants.

Bill tried to lead Charlotte to the dance floor, but she declined vehemently. David, seeing the problem, and indeed to his mind Bill had been a problem the entire night, insisted, "Charlotte agreed to dance with me," even though they had made no such arrangement.

"And it is my turn after you, if the pretty lady will oblige me," Raimundo added (having been sent over by Charlie to help Charlotte).

Charlotte happily agreed. She danced with David and then Raimundo. David was an indifferent dancer, but Raimundo could really move!

Meanwhile, having been thwarted in his attempts to dance with Charlotte, then Elizabeth and then Mary (their boyfriends were quite firm in insisting that their dates would only dance with them), Bill spotted Caroline sitting down. Caroline was a little put out that the other singles at her table had partnered up and left her alone. It wasn't fair that all the guys were taken! She was especially envious of Elizabeth and Charlotte. Elizabeth had Darcy and Charlotte had two men taking turns in dancing with her!

Earlier, she'd been asked to dance by an obviously inebriated teenager. He said, "You're hot, Miss Carrot-Top. How about we dance?"

"I don't think so, whoever you are," she replied, "I doubt you are even 18."

"I'm Jack Lucas, and I'm almost 17."

"Well, Jack Lucas, don't you think you should find someone who is closer to your own age to dance with? And also, don't you think you are a little young to be drunk?"

"I like older women, and besides, I was just finishing up the dregs that people left. It is recycling, you could say," he said, while swaying on his feet.

"I think you'd better sit down rather than dance," Caroline suggested.

Jack shrugged and then wandered onto the dance floor by himself.

Caroline wondered if she should tell someone about Jack, but then decided it really wasn't any of her business. She nursed a drink for a long time, while wishing someone who was a little older would ask her to dance.

Therefore when Bill came over and asked her to dance, even though he wasn't up to her typical standards, Caroline agreed with the idea that once she was on the dance floor that other men would notice her and she could hopefully move up.

Bill's dance moves were even worse than Caroline had feared, and both her feet were trod upon in short succession by Bill. And then, a slow song started and Bill held her tight in his sweaty grip. In a word it was awful!

After that song, Caroline told Bill, "I think I am done dancing for the night." She turned to go, when Raimundo grabbed her by the elbow.

"May I not have my turn?" he asked her.

Caroline smiled, consented, and then spent the rest of the night dancing with Raimundo.

Bill managed to find another dance partner for a bit, but quickly enough the woman wised up to what an awful choice she had made and walked off from dancing with him in the middle of the song. After that, Bill just stood by the side of the dance floor and waited to find someone who was unoccupied.

As he waited, Jack came stumbling by and then grabbed onto Bill for support. Seconds later Jack, who was still holding onto Bill's arm, leaned over and vomited, down the front of Bill's suit.

The rest of the dancers moved to the far side of the floor. As the caterers had long ago left, it ended up being poor Aunt Philips who sopped up the floor. Bill wiped at himself with cloth napkins and then prevailed on his cousin to let him shower and then get him some other clothes. Mr. Bennet obliged him, managing not to laugh in Bill's presence. As Bill was far heavier than Tom Bennet, in the end the only clothing of his that fit was plaid flannel pajama pants and an extra large Halloween t-shirt that Elizabeth had gotten him several years back as a joke (it read "Have a Happy Halloweenie" and had a picture of a Dachshund dog wearing a hot dog costume).

Feeling severely abused that Tom Bennet did not have proper clothing for him, Bill Collins decided to drive home then, his soiled suit folded up in a large Walmart bag. If anyone missed him afterwards, no one remarked on it, not even Mrs. Bennet.

When the evening was winding down, the bride and groom having long ago left and with only a few couples remaining who were determined to shut down the party, slowly swaying on the dance floor. One of those couples was Darcy and Elizabeth. Darcy was pleasantly relaxed from having consumed three alcoholic drinks and had no wish to return home to his empty house.

Earlier, in Elizabeth's old bedroom, he had actually voiced the words he had only hinted at earlier, saying "I love you, darling. This past month has been the best one of my life, and if I am dreaming I don't want to wake up."

"I love you, too," Elizabeth responded. "I don't want to be with anyone else."

Darcy was reflecting on Elizabeth's words as they danced. Did she really mean that? Did she mean just for now, or forever? Darcy knew it was too soon. While he'd known Elizabeth for months, they had only dated for a little while. But still, he decided to whisper to her at an inaudible level that no one could hear over the dance music, "Someday, will you marry me?"

The "someday" was drowned out by the music, which abruptly cut out just after that word, the DJ having determined to pack up at exactly midnight, which was the end of his paid gig. So Elizabeth heard Darcy say, "Will you marry me?"

Elizabeth stiffened in his arms, stood still and stared up at him.

Darcy wasn't sure what to do. He hadn't meant to proposed just then, but he did not want to take it back either, or explain that he had just been voicing aloud what he wanted some day.

"What are you thinking, Darcy?" Elizabeth asked. He looked past her, avoiding her eyes.

Darcy made no answer and Elizabeth began to think about what he had said. This is quicker than Charlie proposed to Jane; although I have known Darcy longer, I didn't really know him before. But when it is right, it is right. Right? But getting engaged so soon is madness. He's insane; I'm insane for even considering it.

Elizabeth remembered that in her high school, there was a girl who had a promise ring, which she explained to everyone who would listen that it meant that her boyfriend had promised they would get engaged someday. Elizabeth had thought it just gave the girl an excuse to go all the way without looking like she was taking the whole thing too casually, but in this moment Elizabeth wanted something similar, the promise of an engagement in her future.

"Darcy, it isn't that I don't want to say 'yes' and I am not saying 'no' but ask me again when we've been dating longer, okay?"

Darcy, who had been prepared to be completely shot down and knew that he deserved it, who was suffering from a sudden, stabbing fear that his impromptu proposal might make Elizabeth send him packing, and was considering admitting to her that he didn't really mean to ask her just then, breathed a big sigh of relief. If he understood her right, she wanted him to propose in the future, if not yet, on this particular night.

"So after how long would it be reasonable to ask?" Darcy inquired. He knew that guys often screwed things up because they interpreted the same response different then women.

Elizabeth thought for a minute. "How about when we've been dating three months. If everything is still going as well as it is now."

"Okay," Darcy responded, beaming as if she had said "yes" right then, for it felt as if she had. "So, that's from the first day we kissed, right?"

"Right." Elizabeth counted up from that day. By her mental calculations, they would reach the three month mark at just past the end of May.


Author's Note: If you are curious as to the real life events that inspired this story, read on. If you prefer not to see how the sausage is made, skip this and wait to read the epilogue.

A week and a half before I started writing this story, in August 2020, I had a retinal tear. Unlike Mary, I was not in an accident. It just happened because I am extremely myopic and have lattice, and I was at higher risk because my mother had a partially detached retina.

Fortunately, my eye-doctor had warned me before of the signs of a retinal detachment: flashes of light, black curtain across part of my vision, sudden change in vision or sudden increase in floaters. Like Mary, the only symptom I had was a sudden increase in floaters, but it took me most of a day to figure out that what was going on (I really did think I had hair across my eye) and I almost didn't go into the ER because it was a Saturday, my husband was out of town until Monday and I was the only one around to take care of our kids (they aren't that young but two of them have special needs so my husband and I had never both been away from them overnight) and was also responsible for tube feeding our cat every four hours (she is okay now and eats on her own).

I went to my local ER first and spent seven hours there before being told to go to a different ER an hour and fifteen minutes away at a teaching hospital (that has a medical school) that always has an on-call ophthalmology. I then spent another seven or so hours there. Then I was discharged to have my laser treatment at the Eye Institute.

My Dr. T. was awesome and did the laser treatment that saved my vision. It is a good thing I went in when I did; he told me that had I waited a couple of more days, my retinal tear would have certainly progressed to a retinal detachment and would have required surgery to save some vision in that eye. However, I was also told that if I ever had problems again, day or night, that I should just call the Eye Institute and arrange to come in.

As it was, immediately after the laser treatment I was able to drive home, although it was not that pleasant to drive a long distance with two dilated eyes. The next day, I had to drive back to that city to pick my husband up from the airport.

Like Mary, the only restriction I had was not reading for 3 days; boy that was a long three days, I was so bored not being able to read or write fanfiction. For the first couple of months afterwards I still got headaches off and on when I read more than a couple of hours, which meant I had trouble doing my job and really shouldn't have been reading or writing any fanfiction (although I did anyway). Eventually the headaches went away and four months after the procedure I had elective laser surgery in my other eye to try to prevent getting a retinal tear in it. Other than a little discomfort afterwards, within a day my other eye felt fine.

As things stand, I still have a ton of floaters in my left eye which makes my vision a little blurry in that eye (I think that was what caused the headaches), but I do see better than I did at first and some of those floaters have been absorbed. When I describe what Mary sees, it is straight from my own experience. I wrote this story because I am hoping my experience can help save someone from vision loss and I thought, "What if I had a Darcy to help me, rather than having to figure out and deal with everything on my own? That would have been so nice! And what if the person to have this injury was Mary, and in helping her Darcy happened to make Elizabeth see him in a new light?"

Most other things in this story are purely a matter of my own invention, although in every story I end up using some little aspect of my life. Many bits of these appeared in the epilogue, but they have been suitably altered and transformed to fit this story.

I do not know anyone who has had a stroke, but with this story I saw a chance to educate readers about strokes, too. I wish you all good health, but if you ever have any of the symptoms of retinal detachment or a stroke, don't wait! Please seek help right away.