A/N: Not beta'd. Sad. Sorry. (And yes, IOTaM is done in first draft. I'm working on the second draft, then I send it off to the betas. It WILL be posted before May 3rd) Again, remember, these don't have anything to do with each other.

Echoes
by Em

"And I can't remember life without you / The way it used to be..."
- If You Ever Leave Me, Vince Gill & Barbara Streisand

Celluloid
(16: Video Clips)

He heard the distant sound of a crowd and music the moment he stepped into the entry hall. He knew he hadn't forgotten about a party and the sound seemed to be coming as if from far away anyway, so it wasn't very hard to figure out where it was coming from even before he heard the recorded voices muted by the distance between him and the family room at the back of the house.

Even though all he could make out were the sounds of an obvious party; laughter, bits of conversation, music, he knew, somehow, exactly what was playing and when he walked into the family room and saw the shaky images of finely dressed people under a beautiful blue sky on their big screen flat panel, he felt his throat constrict.

"Gar, you keep shaking that camera any more and people'll think they're watching an earthquake!" Victor's voice said sharply through the television's speakers.

"I am NOT shaking the camera!" Garfield's voice came through, a defensive whine.

"Let him shake the camera," Raven's droll voice cut in, quickly being followed by her visage as the camera did a dizzying pan to find her. "The less I remember about me in this dress, the better off I'll be in the future."

The camera panned from Raven's face which looked as if she were wearing no makeup save for a dash of color on her lids, a lining around her eye and the barest hint of a natural shade on her lips down her body in the peach-pink taffeta long gown, pausing when it reached her matching peach-pink slippered feet before making it's way up the princess cut dress all the way up to her gently upswept purple hair.

He smiled as he remembered how much she bitched about how not only did the dress not go with her skin, it certainly clashed with her hair.

"I see nothing wrong with it," Gar's voice came, highly amused, from next to the camera's mike.

"How many times do I have to warn you against checking out my girl, Garfield?" his own voice said, as he made an appearance from her left, stepping up to Raven and wrapping his arms around her waist from behind, tucking her against him and smiling at the camera.

"Awww," Victor cooed, "How cute. It's like a fairy tale: the Best Man and the Maid of Honor!"

"How cliché'd is that?" Karen asked, coming up to the group of them.

Raven slipped her hands into his hands and he still remembered what a thrill he got each and every time she did. "And if it isn't the high school sweethearts talking about clichés," she said with a smile to her tone.

"You tell 'em babe," he joked, resting his chin on her shoulder. She turned her face to him and smiled so that only he could see it. It was her secret smile. She had only ever given it to him.

"Hey," Victor defended. "at least we figured out that we were meant to be together way before you two hard heads did."

She turned back to him and raised a brow.

"So…" Karen preempted a meaningful pause. "Getting any ideas here you two?" she asked them, waggling her eyebrows. "I mean, do I have to rig it so that Raven gets the bouquet at the end of this thing or are you guys planning on tying the knot anytime soon?"

They looked at each other, something akin to panic in their expressions (or, as close to something like panic could cross Raven's features) and Raven looked somewhere behind camera and camera-man (including most of their friends who were facing them on Gar's side) and pointed.

"Oh, look!" she said with false brightness in a transparent attempt to change the subject. When their friends (and with another dizzying pan to the right, the camera) turned, she faltered momentarily for something to have been pointing at, finding nothing except the band coming back from break on the makeshift bandstand. "Music!"

He turned her around in his arms and smiled into her slightly amused eyes, "Shall we dance?"

"Lets," she said, beginning to show signs of relief.

He led her gracefully out onto the dancefloor where they fell in with the other couples executing a charming waltz.

"Damn," Karen exhaled under her breath. "We nearly had them this time."

"Curse the musicians for giving them an out," Victor concurred. They watched them dance in silence for a few moments, before Victor turned to Karen. "Can you really rig the bouquet thing?" he asked.

Karen smiled wickedly. "With Kori's help, sure."

"Then get to it, woman!" Victor said, pecking her on the lips and sending her on her way with an affectionate pat on her own peach-pink taffeta covered behind.

"Oh, you're so gonna get your ass whooped for that," Gar teased, the camera shaking a little as he laughed.

"Maybe," Victor said mischievously and there was promise and expectation in his smile as he watched her walk away. When he turned back to the camera, he frowned. "Now get that camera off so we can plan our next move!" he demanded.

"Oh, right!" Gar exclaimed, and the picture went dark, followed by static.

Teether, although he's too old to answer to that childish nickname anymore, on the couch in front of him, finally turned to face him, tears in his eyes and staining his cheeks. "Why didn't you ask her to marry you that day?" he asked, his voice soft and strained.

Richard swallowed passed the bitter ball in his throat and managed to find his voice, "We thought there would be more time." A harsh whisper was all the came, even though he was trying to be casual.

Teether (he had only ever let Raven call him that after his eighth birthday) scoffed, flicking off the television and uncurling from the couch. "I guess you were wrong," he said with only some bitterness in his tone.

Robin closed his eyes and could still see the ghost of her secret smile.