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"Lucy?"
A soft voice calls out to her from the other side of the curtain.
Blinking through the haze of fear clogging her senses, Lucy tears her left hand away from where she has been using it to claw at her own throat and thrusts it under the hanging fabric, digits searching for something to hold on to.
Her fingertips are met with the goosebumps on someone's arm, but their other hand—their left hand—quickly grabs her wrist and moves it down to their palm, interlacing her fingers with theirs.
A dam in her breaks and the metaphorical gag blocking her trachea falls away, the tears she had been fighting to contain make loose their constraints and trickle down her cheeks.
Lucy fills her lungs with a large gasp, shoulders rising so high with the motion that they almost touch her ears.
"Thankyou," She sobs, the fingernails on her right hand digging into that spot on her left ribs as she forces oxygen in through her nostrils and carbon dioxide out through her mouth.
Her left hand is squeezed. "You're welcome." The person on the other side murmurs, and she recognizes the voice as Nyla's.
Nyla's voice, yes— because she is her maid-of-honour. Because they are at a bridal store, trying on wedding dresses. Because her closest friends are separated from her by a few inches of drywall and plaster. Because Lucy had come back to her private dressing room to change into the next dress and had never gone back out—how long has she been in here this time around?—and her friends are probably concerned. She had sent the attendant out and told him she'd press the button on the pager if she needed him to help zip her up, but that she otherwise wanted to do it herself.
Nyla does not push the matter, does not attempt to question Lucy or disturb her process of re-collecting herself by saying words, only strokes the skin on the bride-to-be's hand as the latter attempts to regulate her breathing.
Several minutes later, once Lucy can think about speaking without gaining the violent urge to cry, she clears her throat.
"How long?" She asks her maid-of-honour in a hoarse whisper.
"You've been in here for twenty-five minutes," Nyla answers calmly, "but there's no rush, Lucy. We can sit here for as long as you need."
Lucy manages enough energy to return the hand squeeze, hoping it communicates her gratitude.
"Do you want me to call Tim?" Nyla inquires cautiously.
Lucy ponders it for a little while.
"No," she concludes, "I'll survive."
They sit like that a couple minutes longer until Lucy decides she has had enough and stands, pulling her hand away from her friend's as she smooths out the wrinkles in the dress and pulls the curtain aside.
Nyla's jaw drops and Lucy struggles to read her facial expression.
"Well?" She clears her throat, feeling self-conscious as she stands awkwardly, presenting herself.
"Damn." Nyla says at last. "You sure you're alright settling for Bradford? I'd marry you, shit, this dress is gorgeous."
Lucy peers around Nyla and observes her reflection in one of the mirrors.
The neckline cuts straight atop her breasts and meets with two thin straps hung from each of her shoulders. The panel covering her breasts wraps around her back and connects at just one point in the middle of her sternum to the dress's skirt; a lovely, simple satin thing the colour of sunlight shining through the leaves. It's a soft earthy shade of sage green. Usually she is not a fan of light green, but the colour is just… heavenly.
This is the dress of Lucy's dreams.
She'd never been able to picture it in her mind before, had never known what her wedding dress would look like, but this is it. This is the dress she is going to get married in.
She notices it then… the stark black ink tattooed across her ribs reading "DOD12919"
That tattoo is a little over eight years old, such an inherent part of her that she hardly ever thinks of it, nowadays.
It had once been her shame, her greatest insecurity, but Tim had opened her eyes to the testament of strength it truly was.
But it had always remained a private pride of hers… she had never gone about intentionally choosing clothing she knew would show it off to the world.
Nyla, of course, had seen the tattoo— their time spent undercover in Baja had forced them to get comfortable being uncomfortable with each other.
The woman had helped clean sand out of her ass, for goodness' sake.
She knows, even before she turns around, that there will be no judgement on her friend's face.
Nyla looks at Lucy with tears glistening in her eyes and quivering lips.
Lucy rotates herself in a circle, shivers erupting across her skin as she spins.
"Do you like it?" She asks Nyla with a watery laugh.
The other woman exhales shakily as she presses a finger against her mouth.
"Oh, Lucy…" Nyla murmurs, opening her arms and embracing her friend tightly. "It's absolutely perfect.
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Lucy and Tim set their wedding date for just a few months later.
Had it been difficult? Absolutely, throwing a wedding together in Los Angeles in a matter of months is nearly impossible. However, nothing is impossible when one has an Aaron Thorsen.
She starts her walk down the aisle a few minutes after two in the afternoon on the nineteenth day of July, 2027.
Percy West is at her right side, arm linked with hers as he focuses intently to make sure he does not step on her dress. He doesn't even try to pretend that he is not crying, and Lucy respects him all the more for it.
She feels many, many eyes fixed on the exposed skin on her ribs, specifically on the left side of her body where the tattoo lies. But she doesn't care. Lucy is soaring.
"If you tell me to drop it, I will, but I'm extremely curious— what kind of dress did you choose?" Tim asks as he sits down in the other chair on their backyard patio, holding out a dinner plate to her and keeping the other for himself.
"All I'll say…" Lucy decides, "…is that it matches the colour of your tie. Having Genny along was really helpful for that, by the way."
"Oh?" Tim says mischievously, "Do tell."
Lucy loses her composure for a brief moment before steeling her expression—semi-successfully—and looks back to her fiancé, "It's going to make you cry, probably." She tells him honestly. "It made me cry, at least. When I chose it."
Tim leans over to kiss her softly.
"I can't wait."
Her eyes are half-glazed as she locks on to Tim's gaze, and once she does, Lucy ceases trying to hold back the tears.
Angela gives a handkerchief to the groom, which he practically snatches in order to dab at his eyes.
It's a slow procession, but Lucy's heart is racing as she reaches the apex and stands across from Tim, hardly even cataloguing the movement behind her as Nyla fixes the short train of the wedding dress.
Tim's palm ghosts her skin as he lightly cups her jaw. She knows they're not supposed to kiss until the end, but she can't help it when he gives her that half-lidded look like he is right now. She allows herself a single kiss, pressing her lips softly to his for just a solitary moment, only a life-time. Cheers float up from their seated friends and family.
What brings them back is Wade clearing his throat loudly. They pull back and give him their very best sheepish, apologetic looks; but he only throws his hand up in a see what I've had to deal with for the past nine years? gesture.
Tim appears to be unaffected by the noise, his gaze fixated on her dress, eyes covered in a misty sheen as they fixate on the now-sacred tattoo on her ribs.
"Do you like it?" Lucy whispers, loud enough only for her soon-to-be-husband to hear.
Tim produces another handkerchief, passed to him subtly by his best woman.
"I do," he sniffs, the love clear on his face. "I do.
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