Chapter four

"You make my heart beat faster,"- Faster by Matt Nathanson

Kingston, New York

Four months ago

Charlie didn't want to go to Vegas for her wedding, despite Damon saying how fun it would be to gamble while in her wedding dress. Atlantic City was out of the question too, Charlie wanted a wedding in a church. She wanted to have a priest marry them, and she wanted to be in a dress. She wanted at least a few parts of the wedding she had planned when she was eight years old. And Damon wanted to give it to her.

So he compelled a few people to be able to skip the waiting period, and Charlie found herself in a simple but gorgeous white dress in a church only two days after Damon had proposed to her. She was alone- it would be just her and Damon at their wedding- but she didn't mind. She found that the wedding itself didn't matter that much. Just the man that would be her husband in less than an hour.

She smoothed the white dress down again, the hem skimming her knees. Her dark hair was down, because she knew Damon liked it that way. Charlie took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. She knew that they were moving very fast- she had only known Damon for eight months- but she loved him. They didn't have time on their side either. She had no doubt in her head that she and Damon were meant to be. She had no doubt that their marriage would work.

There was a knock on the door, making Charlie jump. "Did the bride make her escape yet?" Damon called through the door.

Charlie grinned. "The window's jammed, so I guess I'm stuck. Besides, I look too good in my dress not to have a wedding."

She heard Damon chuckle. "Lucky me then." He said, before trying to open the door, but Charlie stopped him.

"No, Damon! its bad luck to see the bride in her dress before the wedding!" she exclaimed, holding the door shut.

"Really Charlie?" she could practically hear his eyes roll.

"Mister Salvatore, I will see you in twenty minutes, you'll just have to wait until then. It'll be impossible to miss me; I'll be the one in white." She joked.

Damon sighed. "Only for you." He muttered, and she heard him walk away.

Charlie grinned to herself, the butterflies flapping like crazy in her stomach. She knew that that was true; Damon did a lot of things that he would only do for her. But that was love, and if there was one thing true in this world, it was that Damon Salvatore was in love with Charlie Mathews.

Charlie hummed Beatles songs to herself as she fried up eggs. Her dark hair fell in her face, and she constantly had to push it out of her eyes. Just as she slid her breakfast onto a plate, she heard somebody walk down the stairs.

"Oh, hey Charlie," she looked to see Elena looking at her awkwardly.

"Hey, Elena." She grinned back, walking over to the kitchen table. She patted the chair next to her as she dug into her eggs. "Come sit."

"I have school," Elena told her apologetically.

"High school I assume?" Charlie asked, and Elena nodded. "Ugh, I hated high school. Especially when I was forced to quit a lot of my activities." She groaned.

Elena was interested to hear more about Damon's wife, and sat down next to her. "What were you in?" she asked.

"I didn't run with the popular kids, I was an art freak. I tried it all- plays, musicals, choir, art classes. Only I'm a complete klutz and am tone-deaf, so dancing and singing was out for me. I was in plays though, an okay artist, and I was the editor of my school newspaper. But mostly, I played football. I love football." Charlie grinned reminiscently.

"Football?" Elena raised an eyebrow.

"Soccer, I mean. I was the co-captain for my team, but I was forced to quit." She frowned. She missed playing football.

"Why?" Elena asked.

"Wasn't good for me." Charlie answered absentmindedly.

Before Elena could ask for further explanation, Charlie continued. "I was born in London, but when my parents got divorced when I was six, my mum and I moved to New York. What about you?"

"Lived here all my life." Elena answered, as Charlie finished her eggs.

"You know about… Stefan and Damon, right?" Charlie asked awkwardly, and Elena nodded.

"Yeah, I know that they're vampires." She said, just as two girls walked into the kitchen.

"Elena, ready to go?" a blonde asked, a curly haired black girl next to her.

The two girls' eyes trained on Charlie, as the young woman played with the hem of Damon's shirt. "Hi, I'm Caroline." The blonde introduced herself cheerfully.

"Bonnie," the other girl smiled kindly.

"Charlie," she said, as she stood up with her plate. "Damon's wife."

Bonnie and Caroline had the same reaction to Charlie's news as everyone else. They literally froze in shock. Charlie put her plate in the sink, and then turned to Elena. "It was nice talking to you, Elena." She said, before walking up the stairs.

"Damon is married?" she heard the two girls exclaim, as she walked to the bathroom.

Charlie nervously paced her room, pre-wedding jitters getting the best of her. She thought about her friends' reactions to Damon's proposal. One of Charlie's closest friends Trina immediately demanded to know if Charlie was knocked up. Of course, Charlie wasn't pregnant because vampires couldn't have children.

Charlie's friends didn't like Damon very much, but none of them could deny that he treated Charlie very well. Since Charlie was so stubborn, they didn't even try to talk her out of the shotgun wedding, but that didn't stop her mother.

Karen Hart was just as stubborn as her daughter, and loathed Damon. When she found out that he was about to become her son-in-law, she tried every tactic in the book to get Charlie to change her mind. Charlie never did.

Since her friends and her mother weren't very supportive of her and Damon, Charlie didn't invite them to the wedding. Damon's relationships back in Mystic Falls were too messy to get into, so there were no guests.

There was a knock on Charlie's door, and the priest opened the door. "We're ready, Charlotte. Are you ready to get married?"

Charlie took a deep breath and followed the priest out of the room. It was show time.

As Charlie took a handful of pills that tasted terrible and didn't have the best side effects, she felt arms wrap around her waist. Charlie smiled, and then put away the empty pill bottle.

"That reminds me, we need to go to the hospital. Dr. Walker recommended one when I told her that I was coming here. Besides, I need refills." Charlie said, as she stretched up and kissed her husband.

"She knew?" Damon mumbled against her lips.

"Of course, she gave me permission." Charlie smirked, pulling out a note and handing it to Damon. He frowned, reading the doctor's words, before throwing it away.

"I'm still mad that you came here in the beginning." Damon said, and Charlie rolled her hazel eyes.

"If I can get over you not telling people about our marriage." She told him, as she walked over to her bags and pulled out a pretty blue dress.

As she pulled on the dress, she noticed how bloated her stomach was. Not to mention her swelled legs, feet, and ankles. She groaned, and pulled the dress over her tummy.

"Dammit." She complained, and Damon's eyebrows furrowed.

"What's wrong, Char?" he asked, as she glared at her favorite wedges that she wouldn't be able to wear now.

"I'm just all bloated up, like a balloon. You have a balloon for a wife." She muttered, and Damon sighed. She definitely needed more of her meds. They were supposed to take down all the bloating and swelling. Charlie was very self-conscious about that.

"If it counts for anything, you're a very sexy balloon." He told her, pulling her into his arms.

"You suck at making people feel better." She mumbled into his chest, and Damon laughed.

"Maybe, but I make you laugh." He smirked.

Charlie pulled away and frowned at him. Damon tickled her sides, causing her to shout with laughter. "Jackass," she cried out between laughter.

"Maybe, but you love me." Damon smirked, as he stopped tickling his wife.

"Never said that I didn't." Charlie smiled at him, as she breathed heavily from laughing.

"Do you, Damon, take Charlotte to be your lawfully wedded wife? To have and to hold from this day forward, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish as long as you both shall live?" the priest asked Damon, as Charlie beamed up at him.

"I do," he said calmly, though his eyes never left Charlie's hazel ones.

"Do you, Charlotte, take Damon to be your lawfully wedded husband? To have and to hold from this day forward, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish as long as you both shall live?" the priest asked Charlie.

"I do." She gasped out.

Damon slid her ring onto her finger, and she did the same to him. "Then I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride." The priest announced.

Without another word, Charlie threw her arms around her new husband, and Damon's snaked around her waist. They kissed, still reveling in the fact that they were now Mister and Missus Damon Salvatore.

A/N: what's wrong with Charlie? Any guesses?

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~Abby!