For Claire, the past week had been pretty much a blur, it was filled with hasty preparations, surprised congratulations, and constant headaches. Her house had become a horrid mess filled with fabric material, letters, ribbons, make-up and much more, all in an attempt to prepare for what should have been the most perfect day of her life.
She should have known nothing was perfect in the world, especially when it involved certain ridiculous blacksmiths who refused to help with wedding preparations.
Wedding stuff like this is such a girl job, why the hell am I helping?
Claire scowled to herself. Something like this was a joint project, but as the week wore on she found herself cooped up in her house getting help from everyone but her 'fiancé'. She shuddered at the term, well not exactly at the term itself, more like the term on the person she was getting married to.
At least, she kept telling herself, she wasn't going to be huge and heavy with a baby when she was in her wedding dress. At least. How long had it been anyway? She checked her reflection, no protruding belly, even if she'd been gaining a little more weight recently.
Glancing at her calendar she stared at the circled date that stated 'wedding'. Time had crept up on her, it was scheduled for tomorrow. Everyone in town was excited for this, except maybe herself and Gray, but of course they didn't show it. Everyday she'd have to plaster on a fake smile and try to sound genuinely happy when people cheered for her or congratulated her or told her how lucky she was. Lucky was probably the polar opposite of what she was feeling.
Yeah, she'd thought to herself that maybe this whole plan they'd come up with wouldn't be so bad. Maybe it wouldn't turn into one huge horrible mess and she'd be able to live out the rest of her life peacefully on her farm. Just maybe, she'd thought. But now she'd realized she was being idealistic. Nothing worked out that well, sure her and Gray got along well before, but now they could barely find it within themselves to be civil to each other.
Every conversation melted into an argument, every little thing she said he blew way out of proportion. It pissed her off, but what was she going to do? She certainly didn't want her child to grow up without a father, it would be the scandal of the century in a town like this.
There was a soft knock at her door, breaking Claire out of her internal brooding.
As she peeked outside she was absolutely delighted to find an old friend standing on her doorstep.
"Shouldn't you maybe…I don't know, be over at Claire's right now?"
Rick pushed his glasses up as he spoke to a sour looking Gray.
"Why should I be at Claire's?" he queried as he propped his feet onto the table. From across the room Ann was glaring daggers at him.
"Well, maybe it's because you're sort of getting married tomorrow?"
"Oh right. That." Gray tapped his chin thoughtfully and then shook his head. "She can handle it, besides, I'd just piss her off or something. There's really no point." He shrugged, as if he hadn't the slightest care.
Rick found this extremely odd behavior, now if he were getting married he'd just be throwing himself into preparations. Wasn't it supposed to be a bonding experience with your soon to be spouse? Now that he thought about it Gray hadn't even taken much of an interest in his wedding, in fact he seemed to be avoiding it altogether, spending all his free time inside the inn, even outside the church playing with Stu, May and the Pastor.
Rick scratched his head quizzically but said no more, he remembered Gray's sour moods from when they were younger. Sighing he suppressed the memories from his awkward adolescent years.
"So…how'd you do it?"
Gray stopped chewing on his toothpick. "How'd I do what?"
Rick blushed and averted his gaze, "You know, how'd you propose?"
"Oh – I…" Gray tilted his chair slightly backwards, looking thoughtful. "I guess you could say it certainly wasn't one of your run of the mill proposals."
"Right, right." Rick nodded vigorously, his hair flipping around. "Like one of those proposals where the guy dresses up as Santa Claus and surprises the girl by giving her a ring!"
"Not really." Came Gray's flat reply.
"Oh."
"Well then…" Gray sat up suddenly and stretched, "I'm out of here. See ya."
Taken aback by Gray's sudden decision to leave, Rick nodded and silently waved as Gray walked out of the inn. He thought to himself that Gray was definitely avoiding something.
In fact, Rick was quite correct. Gray was definitely avoiding something. He was aimlessly wandering the streets, going anywhere but Claire's farm. He knew he couldn't steer clear of the whole ordeal forever, he'd been the one who bought the feather for her in the first place. He also knew it was very unfair of him to just dump the whole wedding prep on Claire's head but he knew they'd just disagree about everything.
He was in such deep thought he failed to hear the footsteps trailing him and suddenly a pair of gloved hands reached from behind his head, covering his eyes.
"Guess whoooo!" A feminine sing-song voice said loudly.
Gray sighed heavily, "Popuri, get off."
"Aw! You're no fun, you don't even try and guess!" Gray glanced behind him to see her pouting, but she brightened up quickly. "So watcha doing out here? I hear Claire's still doing last minute preps for your wedding!!"
"Oh, is she? Good for her."
"Hey Gray, shouldn't you go over and heeelp?" She was twirling a lock of her pink hair, looking pensive, "When I was there this morning she seemed pretty swamped…and mad at you."
He shrugged and leaned against a lamp post, "If she wanted my help she'd ask me, right? I also try to steer clear of her when she's mad at me."
"Yeah, but…but this is your wedding! Even if she hasn't asked you and even if she's angry, you should go and talk to her about it right? I mean that's what I think, it would probably make her happier to see you as well, she was so down in the dumps today." Popuri looked at Gray but he hid his eyes under his hat.
Popuri really wanted to help Claire, but sitting and planning was way to boring for her so she'd decided to bring Gray over instead! He'd do a much better job at that sort of meticulous work than she would, Popuri was sure of it! In fact, it was a fantastic idea, she just needed Gray to get to Claire's, but it didn't look like that would be happening anytime soon.
"Oh!" A new clever idea had suddenly sprung into her head and she reached out towards Gray.
"Uhh, hey, what're you doing?"
Popuri snatched his hat right off his head and ran.
"You want it back Gray? Come and get it!" Popuri laughed happily as she ran towards Claire's farm, Gray in hot pursuit. Of course Popuri didn't get very far running in her dress, Gray caught up with her quickly and plucked the hat out of her outstretched hand.
"What in the name of the Harvest Goddess is your problem?" He sighed angrily as he put his hat back on.
Again, Popuri pouted sadly. "I just wanted you to go help Claire…"
"I already told you that if she needed or wanted my help she'd ask right? Don't do something like that again Cotton Candy."
Popuri giggled, she loved that nickname.
"Aww Gray we're already at the entrance of her farm! Let's go together!" She hooked arms with the protesting blacksmith and marched purposefully foreword to Claire's house.
The coffee was getting cold, but Claire drank it all the same.
"It must have been really hard on you…" Her guest spoke softly as she traced the rim of her glass.
"I think 'really hard' is a bit of an understatement. It was all sorts of horrible! It still is!" Claire crossed her arms in a huff, "The fact that he hasn't even come to help makes it even worse."
"Well, you know Gray, he gets like that when he's…uncomfortable."
"Uncomfortable my ass, he's just a lazy bastard, lazy and unreliable!" Claire shook her fist angrily, but let her arm fall limp, it just wasn't worth the effort at this point.
The two of them sat silently for some time, Claire occasionally nodding off because of fatigue until she finally fell asleep sitting on her chair.
Her guest sighed, Claire had really gotten herself into a fix this time.
"Helloooo!" Someone called from outside as they knocked on the front door.
Popuri smiled at Gray, who was looking slightly sick. "Don't make a face like that, she'll just get angrier at you."
The door opened, but Claire didn't stand behind it. Popuri burst out into happy squeals and Gray was in a state of shock.
"Mary! I misssssed youuuu!!" Popuri abandoned Gray's arm and gave the black haired woman a huge hug.
"I missed you too Popuri!" Mary laughed softly as she readjusted her glasses, then she looked at Gray and smiled in a heartwarming manner.
"I missed you too Gray." She held her arms out for a hug, but he couldn't bring himself to embrace her, instead his eyes narrowed at the ring on her left hand.
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Popuri is a fun character to write about, so is Rick.
Wellll, this one took me forever D: But I'm already working on the next chapter, so hopefully it'll be out soon.