Birth, Marriage and Death

An Unexpected Guest

A/N: After moaning yesterday that I was stuck on this story, inspiration struck last night.  You might need your tissues...

*~*~*~*~*

Poppy

You'd think a small wedding would be quick and simple to organise, but it seemed like I spent pretty much all of the next two months either on the phone to the wedding coordinator at our chosen venue, or travelling between London and Leeds to talk to her face to face and try samples of food and drink for the wedding breakfast.

Sometimes Ricky came with me and sometimes I went alone. I didn't mind going on my own, I was able to stay with Ricky's parents and I found myself growing closer and closer to his mum in particular. She was as excited about the wedding as we were and on one of my visits north I went shopping with her so she could choose an outfit for the big day. Of course, this was something I should also have been doing with my mother, but that wasn't happening because she wasn't coming to the wedding. I didn't even know if my dad would be there. I knew he wanted to come – and give me away (at long last, he would say!) – but I also knew it was difficult for him because it meant taking sides. But then if he didn't come, it would look as if he was siding with my mother. I really felt for him; it was almost as if he couldn't win whatever he did.

With the doubt over my dad being there on the day we'd arranged that Harry would walk me down the aisle and once that had been decided he and Ricky, along with Ricky's brother who was going to be best man, had had a fun and rather boozy day out choosing suits. They'd come home from their day out in such a drunken state that I was rather doubtful that they'd actually chosen anything to wear or at least anything suitable. Ricky decided he was going to play me at my own game and refused to tell me what they'd bought, and Harry went along with this. To say I was nervous was an understatement.

As well as wedding planning, I was busy with work. Ricky didn't really want me to work for the remainder of my pregnancy – there was a lot of standing up for long periods of time and sometimes long days – but I wanted to try and mend some of the relationships I'd left in tatters when I'd suddenly stopped working without warning at the end of last summer. I'd upset and annoyed clients with my last minute cancellations and it was important to me to try and do something to restore my reputation. It had yet to be decided how much I was going to work after the baby came along, but if I mended my professional relationships before our daughter arrived then I at least had the option of returning to work when I was ready to.

There were plenty of other things on the "To Do" list as well, the top one being sorting out the spare bedroom and turning it into a nursery. That, however, would have to wait until after the wedding. There were only so many hours in the day.

Finally it was the day before the wedding. We'd travelled up to Leeds a couple of days beforehand to finalise all the last minute details and spend a bit of time with Ricky's family before the big day. The evening before the wedding we had a small dinner in the hotel and then I retired upstairs to spend the night – alone – in the bridal suite. Ricky was going to spend the night at his mum and dad's, albeit rather reluctantly.

He walked me up to the suite after dinner, the first time we'd been alone all day. I didn't mind too much that we hadn't had much time to ourselves; the day after the wedding we were going to drive down to Cornwall and spend a week there, just the two of us, before Ricky had to return to London and start work on The Voice again.

"Can I come in?" He asked as we paused at the door for me to get the key out of my bag. His finger stroked down my spine as I bent my head to rummage in the tiny bag, wondering how you could lose something in a bag that small.