Skyfall

Chapter Sixty-One

"Where do we begin?" Harvey asked, staring at her.

"I don't really know." She admitted.

"I'll start." He sighed. "All day long I've been thinking back to our wedding day."

"That was a good day."

"The best day." He agreed. "But I know it wasn't exactly what you wanted it to be."

"It wasn't what I imagined but it was ok…"

"You've been saying that a lot lately." He pointed out.

"Saying what?"

"It's ok." He sighed. "It's been coming out of your mouth a lot lately, like a broken record. No matter what happens, you've been saying it's ok. I think I could probably tell you anything and you'd come back with 'it's ok'. And it isn't just lately. It's been that way for a long time now."

"What do you want me to say instead of it's ok?" She shrugged. "Do you want me to yell at you? Scream at the top of my lungs? What good would that do either of us?"

"I don't know." He shrugged back. "It just…I just…I know over the years you have made a lot of sacrifices for me. And I know that lately it doesn't seem like I am appreciative of it. But I am and I don't want you to think I'm taking you for granted…"

She scoffed. "Harvey, I'm going to stop you right there. I think I know what you are getting at. This anger I have isn't about that. Ok?"

"Then what is this about?" He sighed.

"Scottie intimidates me and I am jealous of her in many ways." Rebecca admitted without any preamble. "Ok? I could try to blame it on the pregnancy hormones and say they are making me crazy or paranoid but the truth is that's not the case. She has always intimidated me because she was able to hold your attention throughout college and afterwards. You obviously cared about her to be with her for so long and you maybe even loved her at some point. I thought I was the first woman you let into your heart but maybe I was wrong because you were able to tell her about this stuff with Marcus when you couldn't tell me and…"

He cut her off by closing the distance between them and kissing her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and she wrapped her arms around his neck. After he stopped kissing her, he pulled away so he could look into her face.

"You are the only woman I've ever loved and the only woman I'll ever love." He told her. "I'm sorry that I've made it possible for you to doubt it for even a moment, but please don't ever doubt that again. Scottie…well she was more of an infatuation that I allowed myself to get involved in for too long. She and I…we weren't a healthy match. But it doesn't matter because I don't look at her that way anymore. In fact, the only woman I look at that way is you. You have nothing to be worried about."

"I know you wouldn't cheat on me." She told him, pulling away from him and going over to the railing. "But, and I know your ego will inflate because of this but I have to say it anyway, you are an incredibly good looking man. I mean, one could even use the word gorgeous. And there are women out there who may not respect your moral code…"

"Rebecca..." He chuckled. "It doesn't matter what other women think about me. Though I am glad to know you still think of me as gorgeous."

She grinned. "Don't get a big head about that."

"Too late." He smirked. "I love you and you are the one I chose to marry. You are the one that I want to be with."

"But you didn't tell me about Scottie being in town or your history with Donna." She pointed out. "I've told you about my history with men. You know all about my exes. There are no surprises waiting to blindside you there. My life before you has been an open book, but you obviously can't say the same."

"I definitely should have told you." He sighed. "And I'm sorry I never did. I didn't tell you about Donna because I didn't want to ruin the friendship you had with her."

"Donna and I are fine." She assured him. "We talked in the ladies room."

"Good."

"Why didn't you tell me about Scottie being in town?"

"I don't honestly know." He admitted, walking over to her. "I know that I didn't keep her from you out of any kind of malicious intent. I just…didn't want to get into it."

"I may have overreacted a little about you going to Scottie for advice." She admitted after a few moments.

"I shouldn't have done it though. It wasn't fair to you." He told her, grabbing a hold of both of her hands. "And I should have trusted you a long time ago with the stuff about Marcus. I was just afraid."

"I don't want you to be afraid of telling me anything."

"I just thought that you would leave me if you knew how cruel I was to him and how it shaped his mindset."

"Can I ask why you felt like you could talk to Scottie before you could talk to me?" She asked softly. "I mean if all you needed was someone to listen before you told me, you had so many other people you could have talked to first. Why Scottie of all people?"

"I thought about it while you slept last night." He explained. "I was ashamed of my actions and how I treated Marcus. I thought the people in my life I loved and cared about would turn away from me if they found out. But then I saw Scottie sitting there. I don't love or care about her as anything other than a friend. I don't think it was a completely conscious decision, but I think I chose her to talk to about it first because if the worst case scenario happened…if she was disgusted with me and wanted nothing to do with me after finding out…then I would know how you and everyone else would react. And she was expendable."

He knew it was a long-winded explanation but it was the truth. He didn't think it was intentional. But he used Scottie as an indicator of how others would behave after they found out. He watched Rebecca's face as she absorbed what he told her. After a moment he continued with his explanation.

"I needed to be able to gauge how you might react. I needed a test subject. I needed to see how bad of a reaction I'd get because you are the one person in my life that I can't lose. While it would hurt quite a lot if my mom decided never to speak to me again after finding everything out, I could handle it. I could handle it if all of our friends ended up hating me or judging me. But the thing is I needed a practice run. I needed someone who would tell me impartially if I was responsible for Marcus' suicide. I didn't want to take the chance that my mom or our friends would abandon me. I could handle Scottie never wanting to talk to me again though. So I told her about some of the things going on. When she didn't have a bad reaction, I thought it might be safe to tell you everything. Does that make any sense?"

"Yeah." She nodded. "I guess so."

"I honestly wasn't trying to hurt you by telling Scottie certain things before I told you."

"Ok." She nodded.

"And I'm not lying when I say I can't lose you." He continued. "I love you and I don't know what I would do without you."

"But you haven't had me these past several weeks." She pointed out. "I've been…well I haven't been good…but you've been seemingly fine—unhappy and stressed but functioning and fine."

"I'm just good at compartmentalizing." He explained. "There's been a hole in my heart where you should have been. I've been miserable without you."

"Most of the time it didn't seem like it had any kind of effect on you."

"It has." He assured her. "And as for the Donna thing…you're right. I should have told you about it."

"I know you aren't harboring some secret love for Donna or anything like that." She assured him. "I just…I find it concerning when I think I know I everything about you and then all of a sudden there's something like that which comes along and feels like a punch in the gut."

"That's understandable." He agreed. "Do you want to know what I think?"

"Of course." She nodded.

"I think there is a part of you that is mad at me for the way I've treated you the past several weeks. But I think you don't want to let that show and so part of your anger about this is really anger about that." He explained.

She scoffed. "It's not that."

"Isn't it?" He asked. "Look, I've been horrible to you. And you have been incredible about not rubbing it in my face. But…"

"Harvey, I'm going to stop you right there." She interrupted. "It's like I just told you. Am I mad about the way you have acted the past several weeks? Of course I am! I'm not some kind of saint or doormat. I'm a human being with human feelings. I feel angry and abandoned. But that's not what this is. This anger I have right now is because I feel like you are too good at keeping secrets from me."

"You don't trust me?" He questioned.

"I want to." She explained. "I want it to be like before where I trusted you completely. But it's hard to. You said today you've been thinking a lot about our wedding day."

"That's right."

"Well I've been thinking a lot about what happened the day after our wedding. Do you remember that?"

"Of course I do." He nodded.

Harvey walked down the hallway, holding Rebecca's hand. He stopped her right before the got to the door.

"What is it?" She laughed. "Why did you stop?"

"Since we got married yesterday at home, I didn't get a chance to carry you over the threshold." He grinned. "I thought maybe I could do that now."

"It's sweet of you." She leaned in and gave him a kiss. "It's not necessary."

"I know." He whispered. "But I want to."

"Ok. Far be it from me to keep you from doing something you want to do." She smiled, leaning over and opening the door for him.

He scooped her up in his arms, enjoying the giggle that escaped from her. After clearing the doorway, he kicked the door closed with his leg.

"You can let me down now." She told him.

"I'm not ready to." He leaned in and gave her a quick kiss.

"No seriously." She laughed. "Harvey! Put me down."

"I will in a minute." He told her, walking through the place towards the bedroom.

"You know you could have put me down on the couch or the floor." She reminded him.

"I know." He grinned, gently putting her down on the bed and climbing on top of her.

"I get it. This is why you wanted to carry me over the threshold. You wanted to get me right here." She laughed, putting her hands on his face and bringing her lips up to meet his.

"It was just a secondary perk." He winked.

She gave him one more kiss before sliding away from him. "We will have plenty of time for that later. Let's finish what we started earlier."

"Ok." He reluctantly got up from the bed and pulled out two blue velvet boxes from his jacket. He handed her one. "Here. This one is mine."

"Good." She smiled. "We were lucky your jeweler was open at 11am on a Sunday."

"I may have paid him extra to open up for us." He admitted.

"Really?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "I felt bad about not having rings yesterday. I didn't want to let you down twice in less than twenty-four hours. I didn't think that would bode well for our marriage."

"It wouldn't have let me down." She closed the gap between them and gave him a quick kiss. "But thank you."

"You're welcome." He kissed her.

"Besides, I think it works out better." She smiled. "This way we get to do our own, personal and private vows and no one but us will know what they are."

"That's a perfect way to look at it." He smiled back at her. "Do you want to go first or do you want me to?"

"I'll go first." She volunteered, opening up the velvet box that was in her hand. She took out his ring and held it up. "Harvey, I could stand here and go on and on about how much I love you and how wonderful I think you are. But honestly I think that is something I should be doing on a regular basis. I don't think this is the right time for that. I think this is time that I should be telling you that I'm not going to run away. We are going to argue and we are going to have fights. Some of those fights are going to be bad and some are going to be stupid fights. It's just something that I know will happen because we are both stubborn and at times we both think we are right when we stand on opposite sides. And it's ok that we are going to fight. That's a part of life and a part of marriage."

She paused for a moment before sliding the ring on his finger. "But I promise you this. When we fight, I may leave and go for a walk or clear my head, but I'm not going to leave you. And if I leave the room or go for a walk, it won't be because I'm thinking of leaving you. It will be because I want to cool down so I don't say or do something which will either hurt you or make the situation worse. We may go to bed still angry with each other. We may push the pause button and continue the fight a few hours or days later. There will be times that we don't like each other and we will be furious with each other. But we will always work through our problems together because you are now stuck with me."

"I wouldn't have it any other way." He interjected. "I want to be stuck with you."

"You say that now." She smiled. "But what about thirty years from now?"

"Thirty years from now, I'll be insanely happy that I've been married to you for thirty years." He grinned.

"Good answer." She nodded. "So Harvey, this ring symbolizes that I will still love you even when I don't like you. I won't run away, even if things are difficult. And I am hopeful that you will do the same."

"I will." He promised.

"Good." She smiled.

"My turn." He opened his ring box and took out her wedding band. "I don't know how I got lucky enough to first of all find you and secondly manage to get you to fall in love with me. But somehow those two things happened and I couldn't be happier. I know I've talked a lot about us being a team. It is something I believe in and I take it very seriously. We are so much stronger when we work together than we are when we are apart. We need to work together, trust each other and tell each other everything. It's the only way we can survive. These rings are a symbol of our commitment to be a team."

He put the ring on her finger and then brought her hand to his mouth to kiss it. "I know that in the past we've had issues being a team. I know that some of those issues have been mine. But I promise you I will work on not making the same mistakes again."

"I promise to try and work as a team too." She promised.

"Is there anything else that you want to promise to each other?"

She wrapped her arms around his neck. "I promise to always speak my mind."

"I promise to always do whatever I can to protect you."

"I promise that we won't let work come between us."

He nodded. "That's a good one. I promise to continue working on not lashing out at you when I am angry."

She leaned in and kissed him. "I think that is enough promising right now…unless your next promise was going to be that you were going to take me to bed right now."

"I can definitely promise that." He winked.