The Planner-Teer's Wedding
Disclaimer: I don't own this show and I'm not making any money from these stories, they're just for fun.
Summary: The first wedding to be held on Hope Island is fast approaching, but not everyone is happy about it. Leg 2. The Wedding Planner-teer AU fic
A/N: This story took a detour while I was writing chapter one. I went back and wrote the story as I'd originally planned (posted as 'The Wedding Planner-teer') but then I decided I liked the second version too, that's this one. It's a degree less fluffy than the first one, and a bit longer, but I hope you'll enjoy it too.
Chapter 1
Wheeler entered the common room, took one look at the ribbons, flowers and material samples spread across the room, grunted, and walked out again.
"What was that about?" Gi asked, looking up from her contemplation of two pieces of fabric that Linka privately thought were exactly the same.
The lovely Russian shrugged, "Too girly?"
"He has been like that all week." The third girl observed shyly. She brushed a long strand of dark hair back away from the strangely pale olive skin of her face and tucked it behind her ear. "I do not think he is very happy about the wedding."
The two Planeteers looked surprised and Linka said, "He does not have any reason to mind."
"Oh?" Alda peered through her eyelashes at the woman who was shortly to be her sister-in-law. "I thought perhaps he was jealous?"
Gi laughed freely, "No way," but her best friend still looked troubled.
Linka didn't see the Fire Planeteer again until dinner time, and since it was his turn to cook, she was almost surprised to smell the delicious aroma of cooking pizza as she stepped into the kitchen. The empty packaging was stacked neatly by the recycling and he was putting out plates on an extended table.
For a brief instant their eyes met and he smiled at her the way he used to, but then the shutters went down and the smile turned cold. "Hungry?"
She hated the way he insisted on acting like nothing was wrong between them but when she'd first challenged him he had reminded her that they still had to work together. Since nothing she did made a difference, she'd given up. Shrugging in response to his question, she went to retrieve their cutlery to start laying the table.
After a few moments of awkward silence, Linka asked, "Is something wrong?"
"No"
She took a breath to stop herself reacting to the emotionless tone, "Are you sure? You have not been yourself…"
"Don't worry about it." There was some emotion this time; annoyance.
"I cannot do that." She persisted, "We are friends are we not?" When he didn't answer she pushed, "Wheeler?"
"Yeah, sure. We're friends."
He didn't sound very convincing but she didn't want to look too closely at that. "Then…"
"Linka just trust me for once, you don't want to have this conversation. It'll just start an argument that neither of us wants. Let it go."
"Alda thinks you are not happy about the wedding…"
He swore and yanked the oven open with more violence than was necessary, causing the door to bounce. He got the pizzas out and all but threw them on the table.
"She thinks you are jealous of Pontus," she persisted, not willing to let it go.
"I am," he growled.
Linka visibly paled but he was slamming cupboard doors and not watching. She was glad she managed to keep her voice steady. "I did not realise you had those sort of feelings for Gi."
"What?" He looked at her with disgust, "is that supposed to be funny?"
She shook her head, "you said you were jealous."
"And that's what you come up with? Wow. I get that it didn't mean to you what it meant to me but I thought you'd at least remember!"
Impatient, but a little relieved that it wasn't about Gi, she said, "would you just tell me?"
"I asked you to marry me! This should have been our wedding that you're planning!" He thumped the cabinet with the flat of his hand, in frustration. "Clearly you can look at all this without having the slightest feeling about it but I can't."
Linka swallowed hard, "That was years ago… I know you have never really forgiven me but it has nothing to do with Gi and Pontus. We were too young and…"
He held up a hand, "Don't bother. I have all your 'reasons' memorised and they're all bull. You didn't want to be with me, and that was all you ever had to say."
Annoyed now, "I would never have gone out with you if that were true, but…"
"You can't control how I feel Linka! You can't be logical and argue me out of feeling this way." He was looking over her shoulder, out of the window. "The wedding bothers me, period. Deal with it."
"We need to talk about this." She tried, but he shook his head.
"No. I didn't start this conversation, you asked and I told you. I don't expect you to care." He headed for the door as it opened and barged past Kwame to get out of the kitchen before the others started asking questions.
Linka had been dismissive of Wheeler's mood with the others rather than explain, but she'd had a hard time swallowing her dinner around the lump in her throat. Continuing to enthuse about the wedding arrangements while the happy couple were cooing over each other was something of a trial as well.
She'd never been more grateful to get back to the privacy of her room but as exhausted as she felt, sleep wouldn't come.
Wheeler's words kept coming back to haunt her, as did the guilt of what she'd concealed. She hadn't known what he meant at first, or made any connection between his mood and the failed proposal, but it wasn't true that she had forgotten about it.
They had tried several times to date but they always ended up arguing. In their late teens, it wasn't unusual for misunderstandings to arise, especially when Wheeler ran into a pretty girl he just had to flirt with. He always said it didn't mean anything but Linka craved stability and she was torn between her feelings and her logic. In the end she hadn't been able to make the leap of faith the American had demanded, though she knew he hadn't seen it that way. For him marriage was giving her all the commitment she was asking for, a solution to the problems they kept having.
She'd ended things with him, not just rejecting his proposal, and he'd withdrawn from her. It wasn't obvious to the others, he was careful when they were around… sometimes they would even forget there was anything wrong until they were alone again.
The truth was though, that although she knew Wheeler felt some continued reluctance to be close to her the way he was with the others, she had come to believe that he was over his feelings for her.
She got out of bed and retrieved something from the back of the wardrobe, fumbling in the dark, before going to sit on the mat in the bathroom. Hopefully if they saw the light on in there, no one would ask her about it!
Linka sighed as she ran her hand over her guilty secret.
As Gi's wedding planner, Linka had industriously listed all the things they would need and kept a sample of each in a book she'd created for the occasion. There were sketches of dresses, coloured ribbons and invitations. Even pressed flowers to represent the bouquet her friend would carry down the aisle.
But the book in her hand now didn't represent Gi's wedding. Gone was the ocean theme, there were no crystals in sight and it was certain Gi would never choose fire lilies. It belonged to someone with a very different taste.
The Russian slowly turned the pages, brushing away the moisture that collected at the corners of her eyes.
She hadn't been able to resist the little extra samples, even though she'd been telling herself that it had no particular purpose. Gi had caught her looking at the flowers and teased her about looking for things for her own wedding without ever really suspecting, and she'd laughed it off. 'They are pretty, maybe I will get some for my room.'
After what Wheeler had said though, she couldn't deny that she had been as stuck in 'what if' as he was.
At twenty five, he was everything she had ever wanted and not believed he could be. But now he does not want me to care…
To be continued…