Gaia began to sneak down to sleep with Erik more and more frequently, although she was always gone in the morning when Erik woke. Erik understood why this was necessary, but it still made him sad to fall asleep to her warm touch and wake up cold and alone in bed. Well, not entirely alone; Gaia always left a note on her pillow wishing him a good morning and promising him tea upstairs.
After many months, Erik was finally regaining the use of his arm. He knew it would never be as good as it once was and already it was starting to ache as the weather cooled, but it was a significant relief he could use it at all considering the alternative meant the abrupt end of his career. Even though he could work again, the build was kept on hiatus in preparation for the wedding that was drawing ever closer. After months of preparation, the day had finally arrived. Gaia was fitted into her mother's gown and Erik was talked into buying a tailored suit rather than a simple working vest and shirt which he was prone to wearing. It had taken some convincing, but once the suit was purchased Erik found he rather liked how it looked; for some reason a suit made the mask seem less obvious, he felt, whereas when he dressed like the average Italian working man the mask seemed to draw a considerable amount of attention.
Erik was adjusting his tie and getting ready to go to the roof where the ceremony was being held when he saw the reflection of Gaia slip into the room in full wedding garb. She looked the image of an angel, dressed in white silk, except for her sleeves and the back of the gown which were made of an intricate lace. Of all the beauty he had seen in Italy, he was relatively certain Gaia was the most beautiful sight to be had. "Isn't it bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding?" He teased some, though he was glad she had come down; he was growing nervous as the minutes ticked down and the guests began arriving. It was a small affair, only Gaia's family and a few of the local Freemasons Erik was to join the following new year who were eager to share in the event if only to learn more about Erik.
"It is, but I just couldn't wait to see you," Gaia smiled. "What do you think?" She asked, turning around with her arms out for him to inspect.
"I think God will be livid with me for taking his most beautiful angel as my bride," Erik promised with a smile, and Gaia grinned.
"Oh I'm so glad you like it. I was afraid it would be a little old fashioned, but my mother always had exquisite taste. You look wonderful yourself. I'll have to give myself a pat on the back for filling you out, once I can reach my back without ripping anything."
Erik laughed. "With your cooking I'll wind up a portly old man before I'm forty," he teased, and Gaia rolled her eyes playfully.
"If you get fat on me I'll get fat on you right back," she threatened emptily.
"You could be larger than any elephant in India and I wouldn't love you any less," he promised, not realizing what he had admitted until Gaia's eyes widened.
"You love me?" She ventured timidly, and Erik gaped for a moment trying to find his words.
"I… Yes. I love you," he admitted quietly, eyes on the floor. "But I understand the marriage is one of convenience, I swear on my life I won't hold you to any of the standard conventions. We'll simply be strange housemates."
With a small smile, Gaia moved up to Erik and took his hands, pecking his lips gently. "I love you too. I will be proud to be your wife in every sense of the term, and I will be very, very cross with you if we're only 'strange housemates'," she told him, still smiling. Erik wasn't quite sure how to respond. Even though he had dreamed of her love and debated in his mind for ages on why she would have possibly accepted his proposal, it still seemed like such a foreign idea. He, Erik with no surname, no family, no friends, and no home was loved. Could it really be possible? As if testing this idea Erik reached down and took a kiss from his fiancé gently, and Gaia returned the gesture with glee. A gift he couldn't even be given by his mother, he had just taken from this girl who was to be his bride, with no complaints. A true kiss, more than the simple peck on the cheek or lips she sometimes gave him that made his heart flutter… How wonderful kissing was! A simple brush of the lips made his heart dance but a real kiss made it sing. Erik was in love and was loved. Where life had once seemed so bleak and hopeless, he simply couldn't ever imagine it being anything but filled with wonder and life from now on.
Erik went up to the roof first, to ready himself by the priest performing the ceremony. Gaia seemed to float down the aisle on her father's arm. There was the hint of a tear in the old man's eyes as he paused at the altar to hug his youngest daughter tightly before joining his other girls and their husbands and children in the seats nearby. Most of the guests were foreign to Erik; he had never met any of Gaia's family before, and while he had seen several of the Freemason representatives around the city the only one he had truly met was the Physician, Sergio, who had cared for him when he first arrived and when he was shot. There was also a figure sitting towards the back of the small group in a hood against the sun Erik thought he vaguely recognized, but he couldn't think of who it might be.
Vows and rings were exchanged, Gaia smiling tearfully at the simple beauty of the ring Erik had chosen for her. It had nearly leapt out of the case at him, so reflective of her was its beauty. There were more elaborate rings with more diamonds for adornment, but the thin white gold band with a single modestly sized diamond was simple perfection. Erik adorned his thicker gold band with pride, pleased that the entire world would know the strange masked man was married at all, and to an angel no less.
With delicate hands, Erik folded back Gaia's veil to kiss his bride, a proper kiss. To his surprise and mirth Gaia leapt into his arms and kissed him back firmly through her tears of joy. Erik let her down carefully to walk back with her down the aisle, grinning like a boy on Christmas. When they passed the last aisle of the guests applauding them, he realized the hooded figure was now gone. Perhaps the figure's appearance had only been a trick of the lighting… but it was a clear, crisp autumn day with hardly a shadow to be had up on the roof. The young man was too pleased to fret about it much when his wife grinned up to him and allowed him to carry her down the stairs into the house where the reception was to be held.
At Erik's request the couple had not been wed in a church, which was a great convenience for everyone involved even if it was unconventional; drinking and eating were two of Italy's favorite past times, and moving from the roof into the house gave them all the more time to do just those. Erik stayed close to his new bride and thanked their guests politely, uncomfortable in large crowds even after nearly two years in the bustling city. He was growing and changing quite a bit, but there were some habits he knew he would never be rid of. Fortunately for him, Gaia shared his distaste for crowds and pulled her husband off to dance when one of her sisters made her way to them.
"That's Contessa. She's thick as mud and just as hard to get rid of," Gaia explained, and Erik chuckled as they danced like they had practiced in days before the ceremony. The music slowed, and Erik pulled his bride close against him to turn with her quietly. "When did you know you loved me?" She asked curiously, looking up at him as his brow furrowed under his mask.
"I'm not sure exactly when. Soon after I asked you to marry me, when I started thinking about what our lives would be like if you said yes."
Gaia smiled and rested her head on his good shoulder. "You thought that much about it?"
"It consumed every free thought, actually," he smiled back and rested his head on hers. "It was never quite the same, but it was always wonderful. Sometimes we had a handful of children and you were a marvelous mother, sometimes we had none but didn't seem to mind because we had one another. In every scenario we were nothing but happy."
"I had been hoping you would ask to marry me," Gaia confided quietly. "I know this probably sounds strange, but I'd been watching you and Papa for a while, whenever you were in the house or when I saw you while I was out running errands. I didn't trust you at all, not at first. But the more I saw of you the more I realized how genuine you really are. I didn't think there was anyone so… honest in Rome anymore. And I suppose there isn't considering you're not from here. You have your quirks and sometimes your short temper worries me… but there's nothing false about you at all. Some things are hidden maybe, but nothing is a lie," she smiled, touching his mask gently at that last statement. "That reminds me. What is my new name?" Gaia hadn't realized until then that she had no idea what Erik's surname was, and therefore what her new name would be. She would have to practice her signature…
"I suppose the same as it is now," upon seeing Gaia's confusion, Erik elaborated. "I don't have a surname."
The young bride frowned some, but only for a moment before shrugging. "Then I suppose I don't have one either. I'll be simply Gaia from now on," she smiled.
Erik felt a slight tap on his shoulder, and turned to look before freezing solid on the dance floor. Every drop of blood in his body turned to ice when he saw the figure of an older woman wearing a hooded cape… the same cape he had seen before on the roof. Gaia frowned some when she saw Erik's whole body seem to change. "Erik, what's wrong?" She ventured. "I'm sorry Signora, do we know you?"
"Erik does, but I'm afraid we haven't met," the older woman smiled and curtsied politely to the bride before speaking again in her heavily accented Italian. "I'm the mother of the groom. If you don't mind, I would like to have this dance."