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"I'm going to punch the next person who asks me if I got lost at the alter," Katie muttered as she sat next to Ryan at the rehearsal dinner. "'Girls belong on the left, dear,'" she mimicked in a shrill whisper. "'You were meant to stand with Lisa and Whitney on our side.'"
Ryan laughed. "Lemme guess, that was Sarah and Lisa's grandmother?" Katie nodded. "Yeah, she's… very traditional. She's not all that keen on most of this wedding, actually. Don't even get me started on her rant about Uncle Steven being the officiant."
She scowled at the mention of her father, but was distracted by a figure moving toward the head table. "Crap. Here she comes again," she said as a statuesque woman with silver hair pulled into a severe bun walked up to them.
Ryan stood up to intercept her. "Mrs. Clarke? I'd like to introduce you to my cousin, Katie."
"Ah, the lost girl," she said brusquely.
Katie felt Ryan's hand squeezing her shoulder, harder than she thought necessary, as she tried to stand up.
"She wasn't lost, Grandma," Sarah said as she joined them. "I explained all this to you before. She's Ryan's best woman."
"'Best woman.' Whoever heard of such nonsense." Mrs. Clarke scoffed. "In my day –"
Sarah rolled her eyes as she led the woman away. "Yes, Grandma, we've all heard what happened in your day. Many times. Shush."
"Sometimes I really hate that woman," Ryan said quietly as he sat down again. "Rules that family with an iron fist."
Katie snorted. "Yeah, because Meemaw didn't do the same thing in ours?"
"She wasn't cruel about it though."
"True."
A silence fell over them then, both lost in their own thoughts about their family. They didn't often bring up their grandparents, or their mothers, the memories too painful even seventeen years later.
"You know she'd give you hell for giving Uncle Steven the silent treatment for so long," Ryan said after awhile.
Katie glared at him. "Don't bring up this shit again," she said, resisting the urge to bang her head on the table. "This is supposed to be a happy occasion."
"It is, and you know what would make me really happy?" he said, an edge to his voice she hadn't heard in a long time. "If you'd let go of this petty shit and march your stubborn ass over to him and fucking apologize!"
She blinked. "You want me to do it now or are you good with not disrupting the rehearsal dinner that your fiancée worked really hard to organize, just for family drama?"
"To resolve family drama, and Sarah won't mind," he said, nudging her not-so-gently toward the edge of her seat. "If you do it now, I'll let you drink at the reception tomorrow."
"You weren't going to?" He narrowed his eyes and she held up her hands in surrender. "All right, I'm going, I'm going. Damn."
She looked around the room and finally spotted her father and Jason talking together by the bar. Jason stepped away as she approached, but she noticed he stayed within earshot, likely afraid she was going to cause a scene.
"Dad, I'm –" Her words were abruptly cut off as her father pulled her into a strong hug, all but completely cutting off her ability to breathe.
She could hear Jason laughing from a few feet away. "Steven, if you re-break her ribs, I suspect she'll just never speak to you ever again."
She immediately felt his grip loosen, but he didn't let go completely, only pulled back so they were looking at each other. "I've missed you, sweetheart."
"I missed you too, Dad. And I'm sorry I've been such a…"
"Petulant child?" Jason offered with an unrepentant grin as Katie glared at him.
She sighed. "Yeah, something like that."
Her father chuckled. "Let's just say I'm used to it by now."
"Hilarious, both of you," she grumbled, stepping away to perch on a bar stool. "Absolute jokers."
"Speaking of jokers, I was under the impression Jeff was supposed to be your date for tonight and tomorrow, yet I haven't seen any sign of him."
She raised an eyebrow. "How the hell did you know about Jeff's new nickname?"
"His father told me. Just because you stopped talking to me doesn't mean everyone else did."
"Yeah, yeah. Anyway, he was gonna be my plus one, but his CO had other ideas. So, my date tomorrow will be a bottle of whiskey."
Jason rolled his eyes. "Wonderful."
From: Jeff
To: Katie
Subj: Took You Long Enough!
Jesus, Katie, were you just gonna never talk to your dad ever again until Ryan promised alcohol? Jason's right, you are a petulant child.
Anyway, have fun for me. Wish I could be there, if only to see for myself that someone other than my mother is capable of convincing you to wear a dress without you throwing a hissy fit.
-J
PS: Try not to get into, or be the cause of, any fights this time.
PPS: Hilary says hi.
PPS: And my parents.
Katie didn't know how Jason did it, walking into the Argo day in and day out. Sure, it was his life's work, nearly every credit he'd earned in the Alliance had been sunk into the place. But after what his own bastard of a brother had done…
It had been almost exactly five years since the night the truth had come out, and yet she couldn't help feeling a sense of overwhelming dread sweep over her as she and Whitney followed after Sarah and Ryan, leading the wedding guests into the reception. Ecstatic as she was that they'd finally tied the knot, it took every ounce of willpower for her to keep a smile on her face through it all.
Finally, after the toasts and speeches had been given, the official dances done, and everyone was sitting down to dinner, Katie snagged a bottle of whiskey and a tumbler and slipped out the side door onto the balcony.
She took a few deep breaths, gulping in the cool ocean air, quickly calming her frayed nerves. After a moment, she looked around and was surprised to find she wasn't alone.
The man leaning against the railing and smoking a cigar looked oddly familiar, but she couldn't really place him. He looked a couple of years younger than her father and, from what she could see of his arms where his sleeves rolled up, was heavily tattooed. Even hunched over as he was, he had a clear military bearing, though she suspected his Alliance days were long past him.
"Nice speech in there," he said after a moment, his voice low and gravelly. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear you two were siblings instead of cousins."
Katie blushed faintly. "Not the first time I've heard that, even from our own dads." She settled on one of the benches lining the wall and poured scotch into her glass, looking at him thoughtfully. "Do I know you from somewhere?"
He snorted a laugh, his back still turned to her, and drained his own tumbler. "Not bloody likely. Your old man would have skinned me alive if we'd met before now."
She smirked. "Oh? So you're familiar with the overprotective tendencies of Steven Hackett?"
"Very." He turned to face her and she saw for the first time his mismatched eyes, one a deep green, the other the almost translucent grey of an implant. "We were war buddies, the three of us. But when I decided to leave the Alliance after the war was over, Steven decided my chosen career path wasn't… family friendly." He shrugged stiffly. "So, we've kept up over the years, but I was forbidden from hanging out around here whenever you were here."
"Yeah, that sounds like Dad." She cupped her chin in her hands, her elbows on her knees. "And does Mr. Not Family Friendly have a name?"
"Zaeed."
"So, Zaeed, what brings you outside when all the fun is in there?"
He shrugged again. "Crowds aren't really my thing."
"Not a party animal then?"
He laughed. "Not even slightly." Setting his glass down on the railing, he crossed his arms and eyed her somewhat critically. "What about you? You've looked uncomfortable and damn jumpy since you set foot in the bar."
"Just met but you already know me, do you?"
"No, but I can read people pretty goddamn accurately, their general emotions and the way they react to the environment. Comes with the job."
She evaded his question and asked a follow-up of her own. "And what job might that be?"
"Mercenary, bounty hunter –"
"'Good for nothing layabout' is how Steven's always described you," said Jason's amused voice from the doorway. He stepped out onto the balcony and raised an eyebrow as he looked back and forth between Katie and Zaeed. "You two getting chummy already?"
"I'd hardly call this chummy," Katie retorted as she held out the bottle of whiskey to refill Zaeed's glass. "Just… talking is all."
Zaeed nodded his thanks and took a sip. "Mostly about Steven."
Jason rolled his eyes. "I bet that was an enlightening conversation."
"Very," Katie said quietly. "So, what's up?"
"Your dad is looking for you, said something about wanting to dance just once before the night was over."
"And he wants to dance so much he couldn't come out and ask me himself?" She glared up at Jason when he swatted her on the back of the head. "What?"
"Be nice. You just started talking to him again, don't jeopardize that. And he may have gotten waylaid by Sarah's grandmother."
"Ugh." She rolled her eyes as she stood up and smoothed down her dress. "Just what I needed to cap off this evening, rescuing Daddy Dearest from the Queen B–"
"Be nice," Jason said again as he tried to steer her toward the door, glaring over his shoulder at Zaeed, who was snickering into his whiskey.
"Why? She's not my grandmother. With any luck, tonight will be the last time I'll have to see her for a long time."
Jason heaved a sigh. "Just go."
Katie turned in the doorway and flashed a smile to Zaeed. "Nice to meet you. Wish we could've continued this particular conversation."
He returned the smile and nodded. "Same."
"See ya around!"
"Not if your dad's got anything to say about it," Jason muttered in her ear as he passed by.
She ignored his comment and worked her way through the small groups of people gathered around the room. She finally spotted her father and the elder Mrs. Clarke near the makeshift dance floor, and steeled herself for any potential comments before she approached.
"Nice to see you again, Mrs. Clarke," Katie said, trying not to laugh at the sheer relief on her father's face.
"You gave a lovely speech, dear," the older woman said, "even if you did look damned odd standing on the other side."
Katie merely smiled, afraid of what she might unwittingly say if she opened her mouth again. After a moment, she looked up at her father and took his arm in a silent gesture asking "can we please go?"
He nodded and then smiled at Mrs. Clarke. "I'm sorry to cut this short, but I promised my daughter a dance before the end of the night."
"Pretty sure lying to grandmothers is a guaranteed ticket to hell," Katie remarked as they stepped onto the dance floor and began a slow circuit around it.
He chuckled. "It wasn't entirely a lie. And if I'm going to hell, it's for something other than lying to Sarah's grandmother."
"If you say so, Dad."
"So where'd you disappear to? Seems like I haven't seen you at all since before dinner."
She shrugged and rested her head on his chest. "It was all getting to be a little much," she admitted. "This many people in this size space, plus just being here at all, in this room."
He pulled her closer into a hug as they continued dancing. "Are you all right now?"
"Guess so. Met an old friend of yours outside and he kinda took my mind off of it all."
"Oh? Who was that?"
"Zaeed."
His fingers tightened ever so slightly around hers for a moment. "I see."
She glanced up at him. "He said you don't approve of his career choice."
"I don't." He sighed and fell silent for several moments before he continued. "But he's been damn helpful in the past. If it wasn't for him, I just don't know if you'd even be here right now."
"You mean he helped you with…" She trailed off, not even wanting to think the bastard's name.
"Yes. Ryan was the reason I started looking but Zaeed was the one who actually figured out where you were."
"Oh."
The song ended then and Katie felt her father press a kiss to the top of her head before he pulled away and they walked to the edge of the dance floor.
"I still stand by my decision when you were growing up," he said quietly, "but there are certainly worse men in the universe than Zaeed Massani."
