Justin

I walked around the reception, talking to a couple of people that I knew, and trying not to stay in one crowd too long.  I didn't want anyone to notice that Jhondie had been in the "bathroom" for an awful long time.  Katie asked me where she was, and Mick translated for me that dinner didn't quite agree with Jhondie.  Katie grinned and said Denise probably poisoned her food.  I didn't disagree.  Denise probably would have if she could have.  At least Denise was down here and not causing any problems.

I wanted to know what Jhondie was hearing.  The way she was talking made it seem like there were others that could come after her.  I knew not all of the X-5 had escaped.  God, I hoped she wasn't planning on letting Senator Martin know who she was.  She said they were acting like they didn't like Manticore, but that could change the second they had a rogue walk up to them and expose her barcode.

I was talking to Mick and a friend of Bradley's from Harvard, who I must say was much more interesting than his friend, when Denise came up to us.  "Last chance for me to wander around," she said, casually interrupting our conversation.  We forgot that the world revolved around her for a moment I guess.  "Mother is going to have us busy with the cake and bouquet and such in a few minutes," she added.

I glanced back to the stairs.  No Jhondie.  It had been almost twenty minutes.  Where was she?  I wondered if she had walked into wherever they were talking.  I was going to give her another fifteen minutes, and then I was going after her, no matter what.  I was too busy thinking about Jhondie to run when I heard the first chords of the next song being played.  "She's All I Ever Had" by Ricky Martin.  Me and Denise's song to be exact.  Wasn't that an amazing coincidence?

Her eyes lit up and she looked at me.  "Now you know we've never heard that song without dancing to it," she said, and grabbed my hand.  She was couth enough not to add that if we weren't dancing vertically to it, she would have us dancing horizontally.

"I, uh…" I tried to protest as she started dragging me to the dance floor.  I didn't want to call attention to the fact that Jhondie had been gone a while, but I didn't want her coming back and seeing me with Denise either.  I figured it would be easier to explain things to Jhondie then deal with Denise causing a huge scene, so I let myself be dragged out onto the floor.

Denise tried to get just a little too close, but I kept her at a proper distance.  Nuns at a parochial school wouldn't have been able to complain.  I had danced with Denise a million times, but this time it felt odd.  My hands weren't in the right places, and I realized it was because she was just wrong.  I was so used to Jhondie's body that I couldn't get comfortable.  I think she could tell something was wrong because I wasn't moving like I was earlier with Jhondie, although we were doing much better than her and Bradley had done.  She wasn't the dancer Jhondie was, and it was awkward.  She pretended not to notice, I think.

"I am so glad you're here," she said softly.

"Well, you know me," I replied rather vaguely.  She was working her way closer to me, and I was trying to back up without shoving her off of me.  I twirled her gracefully, and when she was back around, I caught her further back then she had moved up to.  Ha!

"You and me here," she said dreamily.  "It just doesn't seem real."  I could feel my heartbeat increase.  Was she fantasizing that this was our wedding?  Crap.

"Well, I'm glad you found the right guy and married him," I said pointedly.  I discreetly glanced around, looking for the groom.  Please let him come in here and save me.  Maybe he was being smart and climbing out a window while she was distracted.

"I certainly did," she replied in that same dreamy voice.  She was creeping closer again.  Couldn't she tell that I wasn't interested?  When Jhondie and I were together, we were a breath apart.  I was holding Denise like she had a pair of dirty gym socks in her bra.

"Well, your mother certainly did a great wedding for you and Bradley," I said, desperate for something that would remind her of a little thing I like to call reality.  "Jhondie and I were talking that if we ever took the plunge, we didn't think we could pull off something at this scale."

"You're thinking about…being with her permanently?" she asked, the dreamy expression dropping as she returned to Earth.

"There's nothing formal," I said, "but yeah, it's that serious."

"You've only been together a short time," she said quickly, her voice rising in pitch, as she looked for a way to stop this breach in her little delusion.  "You said that you wouldn't ever get married to someone you hadn't been with for at least five years."

I shrugged.  "I hadn't met her when I said that either."  She didn't say anything back.  How could she?  The song wound to a close, and I let her go as her mother bustled up.

"Honey," Mrs. Martin said.  "You need to run upstairs and fix yourself.  We need to have you perfect for pictures."

Denise stepped away from me, looking dazed.  She looked back at her mother, then me, then her mother again.  "Pictures," she said, sounding slightly strangled.  "Yes, pictures."  She smiled.  "I must look my best, right."

Mrs. Martin looked confused.  "Would you like Candace to help you?" she asked.

Denise shook her head.  "No, mother," she answered more naturally this time.  "I'll be back in just a few minutes."  She scampered away quickly, heading up the stairs.  I didn't think there was a chance of her running into Jhondie.  Jhondie didn't want to be seen, and when she didn't, she wasn't.

I checked my watch.  Another ten minutes and I was going up there.  If she was talking to them, then they were going to connect her to my family anyways, so me being there wasn't going to do much.  I couldn't believe that she would do that anyways.  It wasn't safe for her.  But it might be her one shot at being free from Manticore.  God, I hoped she was being careful.

"Need some disinfectant?" Dad asked, coming up beside me.  He had been talking to Mr. O'Malley while Denise and I were dancing, and had looked like he was going to burst into laughter at seeing me try to fend Denise off of me.

I smiled.  "I thought you were supposed to use salt to get a leech to let go," I replied.  He laughed lightly.

"Where's Jhondie?" he asked.  Damn.  Dad was more perceptive then most.

"Um, she's in the bathroom," I answered.  I couldn't lie very well to my father.  Didn't have the practice in it most guys my age did.

Dad gave me an odd look.  "She's been gone for a while."

I shrugged.  "I think being nice got to her and she needed a few minutes to herself."

"Good thing she missed that," Dad remarked, indicating the dance floor.  Five more minutes.

"Yeah," I replied, quite honestly.  "But I think I let Denise know where we stood."

Dad went to say something else when a faint shriek floated down to us.  Hundreds of pairs of eyes immediately looked up to where the balcony was that the bride was supposed to too her bouquet off of.  The doors to it flew open, slamming against the walls hard enough to crack into the plaster, and Denise was coming through them like a 747 coming in for landing.

The next events, though they happened in less than a second, seemed to drop into slow motion.  One second Denise was on the balcony, trying to slow down, but her dress and heels were tripping her up.  A loud scream echoed through the hall as she hit the railing of the balcony, the mass of her dress combining with her momentum to make her continue moving into and then over the railing.  For a second she hung suspended, and then plummeted down, her train streaming gracefully behind her.

It wasn't a far fall really.  It wouldn't have been so bad except that Mrs. Martin had really gone all out for the wedding and used ice sculptures for decoration.  She was pleased with the punch bowl.  It was a particularly ornate sculpture.  It certainly made for an interesting display as Denise crashed into it from above, shattering bowl, table and splashing punch in all directions.

I glanced up to the open doors and caught just the slightest hint of green that suddenly blurred with super-fast motion.  Well, I guess someone wasn't spilling her guts to the US government.  I wasn't sure for a moment which option I would have preferred.  Killing Denise at her wedding was a little more than I was expecting when I thought of the things Jhondie might do.

Dad and I went quickly over to where everyone was gathering around Denise.  From the screaming, she couldn't have been hurt too terribly bad.  Bradley was with her and her parents and the wedding party was all around, and people were talking, but not much could be heard over the shrieks.  I almost laughed when I saw her.  It was bad, I know, but seeing her in the center of a shattered table, in a puddle of melting ice, her white dress now various shades of pink and white, it was funny as hell to say the least.  I think that's when I forgave her for intentionally putting the red shirt in with my laundry that time because I didn't want to wear black silk boxers for her.

Denise was finally stopping screaming, and that's when I noticed her wrist was at a rather odd angle.  She was clutching it as her wails were tapering off to breath-hitching.  "She's never going to get that dress clean again," Jhondie said very low from almost behind me.  I glanced over my shoulder, and she shrugged a little.  "A real pity," she added with an innocent smile.  I stared at her for a second, and her cute smile faded.  "I never touched her," she mouthed.  I wanted to believe that.

"Denise, sweetheart, what happened?" Bradley cried out, trying to get his arms around his new wife.  The emergency room was not exactly the way he was expecting to spend his wedding night I was sure.

"I…and then…I…and…" she sputtered, her eyes darting about wildly.  For once, I don't think she was trying to see that everyone was paying attention to her.  Her eyes lit on Jhondie and she seemed terrified for a moment.  "There was a…a mouse and I ran and fell," she explained, tears sliding down her face.

"Okay, okay," he said soothingly.  "We're going to take you to the hospital, and it'll be all better."  She was sobbing again too loud to hear anything else as Bradley and her mother circled her.  I heard her complain about her ankle I think, and she said something about her arm and shoulder, but an ambulance got there before she could go into detail.

As they strapped her onto a stretcher, she was more complaining than wailing.  The coup de grace was when the wheel got tangled in her dress and tore about a yard of satin and lace right off of it.  That got a wail of outrage and the paramedics got berated the whole way out by her mother about them being incompetent.  I noticed one other little thing too.  As they lifted her up carefully, her hand opened, and something fluttered out of it to the ground.  They wheeled her away, and I came closer to get a better look.  The blood drained from my face as I realized that it looked like the corner of an instant photograph.

Jhondie had stepped back with Dad and was looking just as innocent as can be.  "Maybe it's a good thing you weren't here when she fell," Dad was saying as I walked up to them.  "I don't think anyone would have appreciated you cheering when she splattered onto the punchbowl."

Jhondie looked a bit offended.  "I am not the type to take pleasure in other's pain."

Dad raised an eyebrow at her.  "Just waste perfectly good yum-yum?"

I put my arm around Jhondie's waist.  "I guess we can get going," I said.  "I think it's proper to leave after the bride and groom anyways."  Dad caught my expression.  I wanted a minute alone with Jhondie.

"Well, let me see if I can get our car, and we can get back to the hotel," he said, and left.  I could feel Jhondie take a deep breath as she turned around.

"I never touched her, I swear!" she said immediately.

"Sweetheart," I said calmly,  "If I should happen to look at those pictures later, are all of them going to be intact?"

She didn't answer.  Her eyes dropped.  Crap.

"I can not believe you did that," I said, feeling slightly sick.

"Do not even say a word," she said heatedly, her voice low.  "You weren't up there listening to her babble on about how you were some commitment-phobe, and not going to nail her."  I blinked.  She looked away and lost some of her steam.  "I just…I don't know.  I was there trying to decide if I should announce myself or call Zack or just walk away…and it was just not the best time for her to start on me.  It was just one picture."

"I'm sorry," she added in a small voice.  "But I honestly didn't touch her.  She went after the picture and I took off running, and I ducked out of the way and she hit the door."

I could believe that.  It was strange, but I really did believe her.  Then the mental image of Denise seeing a picture rose to my mind, and I couldn't stop the snicker.  Jhondie looked back at me, but I wasn't letting her off that easily.  "Okay, I can see the humor in it," I admitted, "but I almost wish you would have just, you know, done the usual on her."

Darkness clouded her eyes.  Wrong thing to say obviously.  What had she heard up there?  "I won't let violence be the solution to everything," she said fiercely.  "Just because that's what they think…" her words trailed off as Dad came back over to us.

"Kids ready to go?" he asked.  His smile faded a bit as he noticed both of us seemed rather serious.

Jhondie smiled at him.  "I certainly am."  Her ease seemed to relax him a bit.

"Works for me," I said.  What was going to work far more was getting some serious answers as soon as we got back to the hotel.  Jhondie didn't like talking about Manticore, but tonight, she was going to have to.  One way or the other, I was going to be getting some answers out of her.