One month later

"You know, maybe I don't want a big wedding after all," Natalie sighed, looking over the ever-growing checklist of to-do items given to her by their wedding coordinator. The paperwork took up the entire coffee table in front of her.

"Too late now," Adrian said from behind his newspaper. "We've paid the deposit, and it's non-refundable."

"Well, you're no help," she muttered.

"I thought the point of a wedding coordinator was to minimize the work involved for us," he said mildly.

"She has minimized it," Natalie returned. "But there's still a lot to do — especially with less than four months to plan everything. And we have to check off on all the final decisions."

"If you want more time, we can afford to lose the deposit," he pointed out. Her father's gift had made that entirely possible.

"We've already had this discussion, Adrian," she said, annoyed. "I'm happy with June fourth as our wedding date, I love the Four Seasons, and I adore Cassandra. I just wish I could add a few more hours onto the day, that's all."

Adrian and Natalie had decided to hold their wedding at the San Francisco Four Seasons, the site of their first kiss, and the place where they had, in their minds, officially started their romance. Thanks to the generosity of Bobby Davenport, they were able to afford to purchase an entire "wedding package" so that the bulk of the preparation for the ceremony, reception, and dance would be handled by the hotel staff.

The package also included the services of their own personal wedding coordinator, a charming young woman named Cassandra Donaghue. She and Natalie had hit it off, one reason being that Cassandra was a Navy brat (her father was currently deployed), just like Julie had been.

Unfortunately, the weekend days at the Four Seasons had been booked solid, with the first available Saturday or Sunday being nine months out. Unwilling to wait that long, Adrian and Natalie had opted instead for a Friday evening wedding, with the ceremony beginning at 5pm, a cocktail and hors d'oeuvres party for the guests while the wedding party completed pictures, a dinner reception starting at 7pm, and a dance from 9pm until midnight. Their package included a room at the hotel for their wedding night, and the next morning they planned to have a celebratory brunch for the wedding party and close family members at the hotel restaurant.

Although excited, Natalie was beginning to feel the strain. Having never had a wedding of this scale before, she hadn't quite realized how many details there were to take care of, or how many decisions had to be made. Oddly enough, sometimes she even wished her mother was willing to help out. Peggy Davenport excelled at planning fancy events — the elegant wedding she'd been able to throw together for Jonathan on short notice was more than enough evidence of that — and although Natalie knew her mother would likely ignore her input, she still found herself wishing she could at least ask for advice. Sadly, so far Peggy Davenport was proving intractable.

Julie and T.K. were pitching in where they could, but Julie was swamped with a busy school schedule and musical rehearsals, and T.K. was busy preparing for a big appliance convention she'd be attending for the magazine she worked for, so neither of them had been as available as she'd hoped.

Adrian was content to leave most of the decisions to her, save the ones that directly involved him — so far he'd chosen his own tuxedo, as well as those the groomsmen would be wearing, and they were going to go pick out their wedding rings in a few days. Still, that left a lot on her plate. Tonight, she had to finalize the invitation wording so they could be addressed, stamped, and mailed out — all of which had been outsourced to a local print shop, the guest list and addresses having already been provided. Then would come the task of managing the RSVPs. She still had to finalize the menu for the reception, the cake choice, the wine list for the cocktail reception, and she even had to decide if she wanted the cocktail napkins engraved — along with a hundred other tiny details. It was overwhelming.

Natalie buried her head in her hands, feeling a headache pounding at her temples. She still hadn't had any luck convincing Ambrose to attend the wedding, either, which posed a problem with the wedding party. Natalie thought Ambrose should be Adrian's best man, or at the very least a groomsman, but Adrian was unwilling to commit to either plan since Ambrose still wasn't sure about coming. Added to that, they seemed to have an overabundance of groomsmen and not enough bridesmaids.

Natalie had asked Julie to be her maid of honor, of course, and both Sharona and T.K. had eagerly accepted the role of bridesmaid. Adrian had asked Leland and Randy to be groomsmen (with Leland a strong contender for best man if Ambrose couldn't make it), and he wanted to ask Jonathan Davenport (who had vocally sided with his father and against his mother in support of Adrian and Natalie's engagement) to be a groomsman as well. However, that left them one bridesmaid short, assuming Natalie could convince Ambrose to be in the wedding, but she wasn't close to any of her cousins anymore and she didn't want to ask a random female relative to be in her wedding solely for the sake of rounding out the wedding party. There were no female relatives of Adrian's that she could ask, either.

On top of everything else, they were still trying to decide who should move where. Both of their leases were up for renewal on June 1, so they had to give notice to one of their landlords by April 1, which was only a few weeks away. Then one of them would have to start packing up and moving. But although they'd weighed the pros and cons of his apartment versus her house, they hadn't yet made a decision. For now, Natalie was mostly staying at his place.

Plus they still had their jobs to do. The article about their engagement in the Dispatch had drawn a surprising amount of attention to Adrian's career, and as a result they were both busier than they'd ever been — not only with SFPD cases, but private cases as well. It was good for their budget, but not good for her sanity.

Strong hands suddenly began to massage her shoulders, his fingers digging into the tense muscles of her shoulders with incredible deftness. "Oh God," she groaned, slumping over the arm of the couch in relief. "Don't stop."

Adrian frowned in concern as he massaged her shoulders. He'd never felt her so tense, and he hadn't realized how anxious she was making herself. Maybe he'd done the wrong thing in letting her handle all the decisions. He'd thought he was doing her a favor, letting her have it all her own way — Trudy hadn't needed help, but then she'd had her mother's assistance, and she'd loved planning dinners and social gatherings and other events.

Natalie had many talents, but event planning wasn't one of them. Granted, she'd done a terrific job with his 50th birthday party, but he knew it'd been complicated and stressful for her — and his birthday party had been small in scale compared to their wedding.

When she was limp with relaxation, he gently lifted her onto his lap so that they were both facing the coffee table. "Okay," he said, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder. "How can I help?"

She sighed, her eyes still closed. "I'm really not good at this."

"That's not true. You're just inexperienced." He kissed her neck. "What's at the top of your list?"

She cracked open her eyes. "The invitations."

"What needs to be done about the invitations?"

"I need to finalize the wording tonight so that they can start printing tomorrow."

"What are the options?"

"I'm trying to decide between these two." She leaned forward, selected two cards from off the table, and handed them to him.

He studied both options.

The honor of your presence is requested
at the marriage of
Natalie Jane Teeger
and
Adrian Monk
etc.

and

Ms. Natalie Jane Teeger
and
Mr. Adrian Monk
invite you to share in their joy
as they exchange marriage vows
etc.

"The second one," he said immediately, pointing at it. "I like the part about sharing in our joy."

She blinked. She'd spent the better part of an hour trying to decide, and he'd taken less than a minute. "All right." She wrote it down in the binder she was using to keep track of everything.

"What next?" he asked.

"Cake," she said. "I've already settled on the design" — she showed him an image of a cake that had four squares in graduating sizes, iced in white, with a simple solid ribbon in their wedding color decorating the base of each layer — "but I keep changing my mind about the flavor." She consulted a list in her binder. "The choices are classic chocolate, double lemon, banana truffle, red velvet, cheesecake, almond cream, chocolate toffee truffle, and berries and cream. They all sound good to me and I can't decide."

"Well, that's easy," he said, admiring the cake design. He knew she'd picked it with his preferences in mind, even though he'd told her to go with whatever she wanted, and he loved her for it. "Cheesecake. It's what we had the night we were engaged."

She blinked again. Put that way, it was easy. "What if some people don't like cheesecake?"

"No one's forcing them to eat it," he said. "Do you really think you'll be able to pick one flavor that everyone will like?"

She felt foolish that she'd let herself agonize over that very question for so long. "I guess not."

"Okay, mark that as done, too. Now what?"

They plowed through her list with impressive speed, and by the end of the evening she felt amazingly better by what they'd accomplished.

"When did you get so good at making decisions?" she asked, touching her forehead to his.

"I think it happened around the same time I decided to propose to you," he said, nuzzling her neck. "I'm sorry I didn't offer to help before. I thought you wanted to do it all on your own."

"I did, at first," she admitted. "I just didn't realize there were so many details. I never want to plan a wedding like this again."

"Good," he said, amused. "I hope you never have another wedding."

She lightly smacked him on the shoulder. "You know what I mean. Poor Julie. If she expects me to help plan something like this if she gets married someday…" She trailed off.

"She'll probably want to handle most of it herself. You'll just be support staff."

"I guess so." She rested her forehead against his. "Now can you decide where we're going to live?"

He grimaced slightly. "I'm having trouble with that one, actually."

"Me too." Natalie sighed. "I like your apartment, but if we live here, then Julie has no place to stay during summer vacation and holidays. And we'd have to put all of her furniture and things in storage."

"And I like your house, but my apartment is in better repair, it costs less, and it's closer to the police station," he said. "Dr. Bell asked me today if we'd thought about finding a new place altogether."

"And when would we have time to go apartment or house-hunting on top of investigating cases and all the things we have to do before the wedding? It's bad enough that one of us is going to have to pack up and move on top of everything, but both of us?"

"It's a problem," he said, frowning.

They sat in silence, thinking, for a long while. Finally, Natalie spoke up. "I need to talk to Julie again before we decide anything. She'd said she'd been thinking of renting a house with her roommate and a few other friends this summer, and if that's the case it might make our decision easier."

"Sounds good," he agreed. "What do you say we — "

He was interrupted by a knock on the door.

"What on earth — " Natalie said in surprise, glancing at the clock. "It's after eight."

Adrian crossed to his apartment door and opened it. "Hello, Leland."

"Hey, Monk," his friend greeted, stepping over the threshold. "Hey, Natalie."

"Hi, Cap — Leland," she said, rising to greet him. He'd implored her to start using his first name, at least socially. She was trying her best, even though she found it difficult, for reasons she couldn't articulate.

"What brings you here so late?" Adrian asked, closing the door.

Leland scratched the back of his neck. "I can't stay, I'm late getting home the way it is, but I gotta tell you something." He scrubbed his hands over his pants, and then looked at the two of them. "Dale Biederbeck died today."

Adrian clutched Natalie's hand. His throat worked furiously, but it took several seconds before he could croak, "How?"

"Heart attack. He was meeting with his lawyer, and he was officially served with the grand jury indictment for the criminal charges in connection with the Navy child trafficking scandal." Leland smiled grimly. "Including two counts of conspiracy to murder for Trudy and Mitch. My sources say he was so furious that he started screaming, and then he just keeled over — well, in a manner of speaking, anyway. He was pronounced dead at the scene. It took six guards and a reinforced gurney to get him to the prison morgue."

"I hope it was painful," Adrian said, equally grim.

"Adrian," Natalie murmured.

"I do," he said stubbornly, releasing her hand and folding his arms across his chest. "Trudy's death was painful. It's only fitting if his was, too."

"How will this affect Wally Dougal's plea deal?" Natalie asked Leland.

"He kept up his end of the bargain — he'd already given an evidentiary deposition for the grand jury, and he was set to testify at trial — so his deal will be honored."

Natalie nodded, her feelings mixed. She felt a surprising amount of sympathy for the man who had killed her first husband, but she still felt a great deal of anger as well. Still, she'd opted to pursue justice rather than revenge, and in the grand scheme of things, Dale Biederbeck had been the one responsible. Wally Dougal had just been a pawn, just as Frank Nunn and Warwick Tennyson had been pawns in Trudy's death.

"But," Leland continued, "with Dale dead, that effectively nullifies the reason for the gag order on the case. From what I've heard, the district attorney's office plans to petition for it to be lifted in the next week or two. I don't know how much longer things are going to be kept under wraps. Parts of the Navy file on this are still considered classified, but —"

"Trudy's case isn't," Adrian finished. "Good. I want the whole world to know he was responsible."

"This doesn't just affect you, Monk," Leland muttered, glancing at Natalie.

"It's going to come out sooner or later," she said, her tone one of tired resignation.

"Yeah," Leland acknowledged, "but I still wish Dale could have waited a few more months to kick the bucket. You two are under a lot of stress the way it is, and this just adds to it." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I gotta go, but I wanted you to find out from me and not from the news tonight."

"Thanks, Leland," Natalie said, patting his arm. "We appreciate it, really."

"We'll talk more tomorrow, okay?" He nodded at the two of them and left the apartment.

There was an uncomfortable, awkward silence after he'd gone. Adrian was staring at a picture of Trudy, one of the few still remaining around the apartment. In deference to Natalie, he'd removed and carefully packed away nearly all of them, although she had insisted that he keep a few up.

"It's almost a shame," Adrian finally said, mirthlessly. "I was going to send him a wedding invitation."

"Adrian!" Natalie exclaimed, aghast. "Why would you do such a thing?"

"Remember when he told me I'd never be happy again?" he demanded, whirling to face her. "That was going to be my proof that he was wrong. Why do you care?"

"It's the principle of the thing," she objected. "Generally, you only send invitations to people you want to be there."

"So why are we sending one to your mother?" he asked caustically.

She flushed. "That's different, and you know it."

"How so? Aren't we only sending it to her to rub it in her face?"

"No," she said hotly. "We're sending it to her so she knows she's welcome to come if she decides to apologize. Our wedding invitations aren't weapons, Adrian."

"I didn't say that they were," he returned. "But can you blame me for wanting to rub it into Dale's fat face that he was finally getting the comeuppance he deserved?"

"Yes, I can, when you intended to use our wedding invitation to do it!" she fired back. "It's not just yours; my name is on it, too."

Adrian's eyes shot fury as his voice raised. "Well, I can't do it anyway, because he's dead!"

Natalie reflectively stepped back. She could count on one hand the number of times she'd seen him this angry. "It doesn't matter that you can't do it; what matters is that you wanted to do it!" She folded her arms and glared at him. "You saw no problem at all with dragging me into some stupid revenge scheme against my will."

"My mistake," Adrian said, his voice turning cold and mocking. "It's not like he killed your husband. How silly of me to think you might care."

She paled. "How dare you." Her voice was trembling with fury. "I'm going to go home before I say something I'll regret."

"Fine," he spat. "Leave. I'd rather be alone anyway."

He stomped down the hall, into his bedroom, and slammed the door. A few moments later, there was an answering slam from the front door as she stormed out.

Adrian paced his room, too angry to sit down. "'Stupid revenge scheme,'" he muttered. He looked at the picture of Trudy that was still on his bureau top. For the first time in his memory, she seemed to look at him reproachfully.

"It wasn't stupid," he said to her picture. "Dale would have deserved it."

But her gaze didn't change.

He began to feel very uncomfortable. "It's not wrong to want some payback for all of the horrible things he did," he argued. "Why shouldn't I want to get some of my own back?"

Adrian, is that what I would have wanted? he could almost hear her say. Even with all Dale did to me, did I ever stoop to seeking petty revenge against him during my life?

"No," he muttered. "No, you didn't."

So what did you hope to accomplish?

He was overcome by a fresh surge of anger. He grabbed her picture and shoved it into a drawer, blocking it from sight.

Adrian spent the next hour or so prowling around his apartment, restless, wishing he had a punching bag; preferably, one with Dale's face on it.

He saw the wedding paraphernalia that Natalie hadn't taken with her spread out over his coffee table and scowled. As he paced the living room for the thousandth time, the mock-ups of the wedding invitations caught his eye, and he stopped to look at the one he had chosen.

Ms. Natalie Jane Teeger
and
Mr. Adrian Monk
invite you to share in their joy
as they exchange marriage vows
etc.

"Share in our joy," he murmured. "Oh, God."

He slumped on the sofa, his head in his hands. He was an idiot. A first-class, grade-A, certifiable idiot. First, for even remotely considering the possibility of hijacking what was a symbol of their love and joy and using it for the opposite purposes — hatred and bitterness. And second, for taking out his pain and anger — borne out of his now-permanent inability to personally and finally confront Dale the Wale with the sure knowledge that he had been responsible for Trudy's death — on the woman he claimed to love. He cringed as he replayed their argument in his head — cringed at the horrible things he had said to her.

He snatched his cordless phone from its cradle and dialed Natalie's cell phone number. It went straight to voicemail, but he hung up rather than leave a message. He tried her home phone. Still no answer.

Cursing himself roundly, he paced around the living room, trying to decide what to do. Should he walk to her house and beg her to talk to him? Should he give her the night to cool down and then try calling her again in the morning? Should he call Julie and see if she'd have any luck passing a message along? No, it wasn't right to involve Julie in this.

Agonized, he glanced at the clock. It was half past ten. Maybe he should call Leland and — he sighed, rubbing his temples. Leland had probably gotten home not too long ago; it wasn't fair to drag him into this either.

A knock on his door startled him. Maybe she'd come back — maybe she'd come back so they could talk or —

He rushed to the door and wrenched it open. But it wasn't Natalie on the doorstep.

It was Leland Stottlemeyer.

"Leland," he said, puzzled and disappointed. "I thought you were going home for the night."

"I was," Leland said, and Adrian suddenly noticed how anguished he seemed. His face was drawn and pale, his eyes shadowed. The last time his friend had looked like that had been —

"Oh God," he whispered, the blood draining from his face. "Please, no."

"Monk," Leland said, the misery in his eyes deepening. "There's been an accident."