New "Grey Gardens" of mildly dubious quality. Hmmm.
Series Title: Movies Of Myself
Title: Stop Me Falling Down, Stop Me Making Movies Of Myself
Fandom: House MD [Grey Gardens AU]
Characters: Petra/Eric, James, Robert, Allison, Greg
Rating: PG-13
Premise: A ridiculously complicated AU which started out with the idea that Wilson has the infarction instead of House, and now has become its own mad little world.
Sequel to: Grey Gardens, April Fools and Natasha. You do slightly need to have read all three.
Summary: Petra Gilmar has always hated weddings.
Author’s Notes: I decided, rather than trying to write a big plot, I’m going to write lots of little plots at different times in this universe. This means I have plans for weddings, funerals, births and ketamine. *grins* I’ve gotta do something this summer.
Stop Me Falling Down, Stop Me Making Movies Of Myself
(Set post Grey Gardens)
Petra Gilmar has always hated weddings.
That’s not to say she doesn’t want to be married, because she does (well, probably, anyway, but that’s a whole load of stress she can worry about sometime later that isn’t now), but right now the wedding she’s attempting to organise with varying degrees of success is making her crazy.
Weddings are never fun. The bride and groom are overwhelmed by anxiety and itchy clothing, the guests are either jealous or drunk, there are punch-ups and bitch fights and young women crying in the bathrooms, and everyone eats and drinks far too much and spends several days recovering. She would have eloped months ago were it not for the fact her mother would never forgive her. She is the only daughter, after all. But between trying to figure out how to make the napkins and flowers compliment each other and trying to find a date when everyone can attend and also what colour the invites should be, Petra is starting to suspect that she’s going to hate this wedding long before it happens.
She likes Eric. God knows she’s been through enough with him to suspect that this is probably what corny songs refer to as the Real Thing, which is all well and good except there is such a thing as spending too much time around a person, and what with living with him and also working with him in a claustrophobic little glass room that also contains Greg House, Petra finds herself craving breathing space. That worries her. She’s fairly sure a person three months off marrying someone who’s supposedly the love of their life shouldn’t be avoiding them at every free minute.
In the end, Petra goes to talk to the one person who might know something about this whole situation and give her straight answers.
“Wilson,” she says, leaning around the door to his office mid-afternoon on a Thursday, “Can I buy you a coffee?”
James Wilson has been married four times, and if he doesn’t know everything worth knowing about this whole getting-married thing, then Petra doesn’t know where she’d turn. Luckily, there’s something in Wilson’s eyes that says he knows exactly what she’s going to ask, although it makes Petra faintly uncomfortable that he predicted she’d come to him.
Wilson winds up buying their coffee, in the nearest Starbucks to the hospital, sits her down in a quiet corner, and gives her that gentle smile that still makes most of the nursing staff weak at the knees, even if he is currently shacked up with one of the hospital’s [male] lawyers.
“Scale of one to ten,” he begins, “How close to calling off this wedding are you?”
Petra looks at him, rabbit-in-the-headlights, surprised at his bluntness.
“Calling off the wedding?” she asks, the words tasting bitter in her mouth, it’s not something she’s consciously considered, at least until now. “What-”
“Petra.”
Petra flushes and looks down at the froth on her cappuccino because she can’t face looking in Wilson’s well-meaning and altogether too perceptive eyes.
“Seven and a half,” she admits softly, twisting her hands together in her lap. Part of her can’t believe she just said that aloud, but if she’s going to admit it to anyone, she might as well admit it to Wilson. They’re not close, never really have been. She’s one of House’s diagnostics fellows who can’t seem to get herself a life and escape to another hospital, she’s Robert Chase’s best friend, she and Lisa Cuddy have reached some sort of middle-ground, but she and Wilson have never really been friends. She can trust him, and, more than that, he’s not going to persuade her to go one way or the other. It’s probably just as well.
“Are you scared?” Wilson asks thoughtfully, taking his time peeling the paper casing from a chocolate chip muffin, because they’re doctors and therefore technically know all about nutrition. Ha. “Is it pre-wedding nerves?”
“I’m sick of organising the wedding,” Petra tells him, feeling some form of relief at being able to tell someone, “I’m tired of choosing between flower arrangements and ways of folding napkins and placemats and cutlery and menus and how many tiers the wedding cake should have. How should I know?” Wilson smiles, and Petra adds: “But you’ve done that, right?”
He looks embarrassed, but manages a smile.
“Actually, I always made a point of not getting involved with the wedding planning,” he tells Petra. “Which wasn’t always the best of ideas but it did make for some great photographs.”
“You never got involved in the planning at all?” Petra asks incredulously.
“Never,” Wilson replies.
“But you’ve been married four times!”
“I’ve been divorced four times too,” Wilson points out.
Petra smiles. Wilson should be perfect husband material, but she knows enough, and has heard enough, to know that he is in fact the complete opposite. Or at least, he used to be. Her eyes ghost over the wooden cane he uses to get around these days, and wonders if things would be different if he tried to get married now.
“It’s not just the wedding planning,” she says, “Although it’s a complete nightmare. I’m spending half my time trying to persuade my mother that I know what I’m doing and she’s not to get involved.” Petra sighs, and watches Wilson suppressing a smirk. “There are five of us and I’m the only girl,” she reminds him, “I think she wants me in yards of something shiny and peach.” Wilson grimaces. Petra laughs. “Exactly.”
“If it’s not just the planning,” Wilson begins a moment later, when she can’t bring herself to keep talking, “Then what else is it?”
Petra flushes, suddenly wishing she was anywhere but here, with Wilson’s understanding expression and a little too much caffeine.
“I love Eric,” she starts carefully, with no idea how the sentence is going to end, “But it’s complicated.”
At least they don’t argue any more. Petra hated the arguments, that began the minute the first few weeks of the honeymoon period finished, when they realised that although there was a great deal of love between them, it wasn’t quite enough to gloss over the fact that they had such a destructive history that things could never be simple. Petra would accuse Eric of wanting to be in a relationship with her simply to cover the mercenary way they had started sleeping together, and Eric would point out that if she hadn’t been sluttish enough to give in in the first place they wouldn’t be here now, and it looked for an unsettlingly long while that things weren’t going to work out.
Things are better now. For one thing, they don’t voice their derogatory opinions of one another aloud any more. And Eric proposed and Petra accepted. She supposes that means they can move on from the less-than-romantic beginnings of their relationship. She supposes that means she can be happy without worrying she’s messed up somewhere.
“I just want space!” Petra explodes, trying to shuffle all her thoughts into a coherent order and giving up. “I spend practically 24/7 with Eric, and he’s lovely and everything, but-”
Wilson nods.
“Well, you know the simple method of getting some breathing space,” he tells her.
Petra stares at him.
“I’m not moving out,” Her tone is full of horror. Wilson smirks.
“That wasn’t what I meant. I was talking about the other method of getting space.”
Petra frowns until she realises what Wilson is implying.
“I can’t leave diagnostics,” she tells him quickly. “House would never forgive me. Or Eric.”
“How badly do you want to get married?” Wilson asks in a deceptively calm tone. “Because if you want breathing space, then not working in the same department has got to give you some time alone.”
Petra swallows. It’s true that spending so much time with Eric is suffocating her and part of her suspects that they will spend most of the honeymoon just staring at each other, unable to think of anything to say. She longs for anything but ambiguity and boredom.
“I can’t leave diagnostics,” Petra repeats, unsure how she would explain the move or if Cuddy would even let her do it.
“Ok,” Wilson replies, and doesn’t push the subject, clearly sensing that Petra needs time to think it all over. They discuss neutral topics for the rest of Petra’s lunch hour, and by the time they return to the hospital she’s beginning to think that maybe transferring is her only chance for a reasonably happy marriage.
But before she can even consider that she has to sort out the shoes.
*
It’s Monday afternoon and, at last count, there were thirty-six shoeboxes of various colours and sizes on the floor of the conference room. Eric is doing clinic duty and House has disappeared somewhere with Wilson in order to avoid doing any work this afternoon, and Petra and Allison are struggling through a sea of pink tissue paper in the hope of finding a pair of decent shoes. It isn’t paying off.
Robert Chase walks in and looks in mild perturbation at the mess the two women have made, the empty coffee cups and post-its with crosses on them stuck to the lids of various boxes. Neither Petra nor Allison notice him, and he makes a complaining sound as Petra throws a shoebox in frustration behind her and it hits him in the leg.
“Sorry,” Petra says, straightening up, thoroughly sick of shoes in general and wondering why the human race felt the need to invent them in the first place, “Didn’t see you there.”
“You look like you’re having fun,” Robert says mildly, making his way through the obstacle course on the floor to flop into one of the chairs. Petra just makes a small sound of frustration through her teeth.
“You shouldn’t be throwing those boxes around anyway,” Allison points out, putting the kettle on so they can all have some coffee, “If you damage them then you can’t return them to the store, and then you’ll be stuck with thirty-six pairs of shoes you hate.”
Robert gives Petra a horrified look.
“Thirty-six?” he repeats incredulously. “Petra-”
“Help me,” she pleads, cutting him off before he can admonish her about how obsessive she’s being. If she can’t get the goddamn napkins to look right (should they be folded into origami swans, or would that be pretentious?) then she can at least get the perfect pair of shoes. All through her life, Petra has prided herself on wearing the right shoes at the right moment. Now, when it really, really matters, she can’t find a pair she’s happy with.
“I can’t pick the shoes,” Robert begins reasonably, “I haven’t seen the dress yet.”
“There isn’t a dress,” Petra replies distractedly, accepting a mug of coffee from Allison, “I’m picking the shoes first. The dress will just have to go with them.”
“Jesus.” Robert accepts a mug of coffee and then walks over to look at the shoes. Allison and Petra are both beyond flagging and into some entirely new territory of exhaustion, so hopefully some fresh eyes will be able to sort something out. But Robert is looking equally non-plussed when faced with thirty-six pairs of similar-looking shoes and that isn’t a good sign.
“I thought you were supposed to know about things like this,” Petra says, sounding more petulant than she means to, “Otherwise what’s the point of having a gay male best friend?”
“Making the decision to sleep with men doesn’t mean you automatically know everything there is to know about Prada,” Robert tells her in a long-suffering voice, and then a thoughtful expression flits across his face. “Lay out the shoes in their boxes, tidy up a bit, I’ll be back in ten.”
“What are you-” Petra begins, but the door’s already closing behind him. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Petra is in no mood of the ‘eeny-meeny-miney-mo’ method of decision-making, so she and Allison lay the shoes out neatly on the table.
“Was it this stressful when you got married?” she asks Allison, scraping up a smile so that Allison won’t take her too seriously; Allison is a great romantic and disillusioning her would be a little like disembowelling a puppy.
“We thought David only had six months to live,” Allison replies easily, returning to her coffee, “Shoes weren’t exactly at the top of my to-do list.”
Maybe everyone’s weddings are secretly screwed-up and Petra just hasn’t noticed. She picks up her coffee too, and then watches as Robert leads a disgruntled-looking House into the office.
“You decided to start being a drag queen, Galadriel?” House enquires, looking amused but willingly making his way over to the table.
“Pick a pair of shoes,” Robert says, while Petra gives him a what the hell do you think you’re doing? kind of look. He shrugs, his returning glare telling her: it can hardly make things worse.
“They’re not in my size,” House complains.
“They’re also not for you,” Robert responds calmly. “Pick some.”
House looks at the three of them in a you’re completely mad kind of way, then turns his attention to the array of footwear.
“They all look the same,” he says, studies them for another moment, and then points at the second box from the left. “Those.”
Petra walks over to pick up the cream silk shoes with little shiny beads sewn in looping patterns over them.
“Ok,” she says softly, “I can work with these.”
“Good.” House sighs. “Can I go now? You don’t need me to judge a swimsuit competition or anything, do you?”
“No.” Robert gives the diagnostician a surprisingly sunny smile.
“You should be in the clinic-” Allison begins tentatively, but quails under House’s glare.
“I am leaving now,” he informs them steadily. “If Cuddy asks, you haven’t seen me. I’ve been eaten by killer bees.”
Petra carefully puts her wedding shoes on top of the bookcase so she doesn’t lose them, and then she, Allison and Robert carefully begin packing everything back with tissue paper in all the right places. For a minute, she’s almost calm, and almost happy that she’s getting married.
*
It’s an impossibly late evening and Petra has a medical dictionary under her right hand and a brides magazine under her left, and everyone seems to be in various stages of dead or dying and she’s got a headache on top of everything else. It’s one of the evenings when she wants everyone around her to be a very long way away or even possibly dead, and her sense of goodwill disappeared a good two hours ago.
Wilson makes his way in, walking in an extremely ungainly fashion because he’s got a couple of huge clip files tucked under his left arm and it’s making keeping his balance on his cane difficult. Petra isn’t feeling quite vindictive enough to leave him like that, though, and so gets up to take the folders from him.
“What are these?” she asks, putting them down on the table.
“Rose and Elizabeth’s wedding folders,” James explains. “I thought you could steal their colour schemes, if you wanted. House and Cuddy are the only ones likely to notice, and House was blind drunk at both weddings so won’t notice, and Cuddy will be far too tactful to mention it.”
Petra represses a smile, instead opening the clip folders and flicking through. The wedding plans are frighteningly detailed.
“Have all your weddings been like this?” she enquires, gesturing to pages covered in extravagant (and slightly over-ambitious) flower arrangements, pages torn from magazines of dresses that more resemble large cream cakes than actual clothing, and references to receptions in places large enough to hold thousands of people. James shrugs.
“Pretty much,” he says.
This is beyond cold feet. Petra is drowning in something resembling I have to call off the wedding, I have to call it off now.
“You should go home and get some sleep,” James advices her softly, maybe realising that he’s tipped her over the edge; and for once, Petra agrees with him.
*
“Is it the permanence that freaks you out?” Tuesday morning, and Petra is once again having a coffee with Wilson, because he seems to be the be-all and end-all when it comes to knowing stuff about marriages. She also seems to be on the brink of stealing the colour scheme for his second wedding, through no fault of her own. Rose just had really good taste.
“Marriage isn’t permanent,” Petra reminds him with a pointed look. “Marriages fail all the time.”
Wilson considers this.
“Allison and David are still together,” he points out.
“That’s because David recovered from brain cancer,” Petra tells him, “When people recover from brain cancer you can’t divorce them.”
“Would it be impolite?” Wilson has a little smirk playing around his mouth and Petra doesn’t like it.
“It’s not marriage that scares me,” Petra begins, ignoring that particular line of conversation because it can’t end well, and she doesn’t want to get into a discussion over whether it’s acceptable to divorce one’s spouse once they’ve recovered from cancer, “It’s the fact that I have no idea why Eric and I are getting married in the first place!”
Wilson looks at her in the way that House looks at people when he’s finally figured out what their disease is, although admittedly without the whole God-complex aspect.
“Have you talked to him about this?” he asks in a walking-on-eggshells voice.
“No.” Petra swallows. “I mean, how do you build a marriage on the fact you started sleeping with someone because they were your boss and you were trying not to get fired?”
“Stranger things have happened,” Wilson tells her, shrugging. “It’s no worse than marrying someone you’ve only known a few months because you’re still sore over your last divorce and aren’t really sure how to interact with people any more if there isn’t a ring involved.”
Petra opens her mouth to tell him that he isn’t helping, but maybe he is. After all, whatever she does with this wedding, it will be something Wilson has done already - and done much worse. It’s almost surprising, how comforting that thought is.
“You’re over-thinking this,” Wilson informs her after a long, long pause. Petra glares at him but has to admit that he probably has a point. Although if she’s going to over-think anything, she might as well over-think this. Whatever Petra may think about marriage being impermanent, it is at least a pretty damn big commitment (even if she isn’t going to change her surname; after all, it will only be confusing if there are two Dr Foremans in the diagnostics department, and House will only delight in exacerbating the situation into a big confusing mess).
Petra wonders if it’s normal to be more annoyed than scared in the months leading up to your wedding, and then realises that she’s been asking entirely the wrong person. Wilson has been married more times than the average person but that doesn’t mean he knows the first thing about marriage. The four sets of divorce papers and the fact that although he and Robert are apparently content doing whatever it is that they actually do, he’s getting into the habit of flirting again, with anything and everything that falls into his path, imply that Wilson isn’t exactly the most sensible of relationship advisors.
“Wilson,” she begins thoughtfully, “You are really not the person to be asking here, are you?”
He laughs.
“Took you long enough to notice,” he murmurs.
*
“This had better be worth it,” Petra says without thinking on a Friday evening. She and Eric are curled up on the couch watching TV and it is in no way the time to be having it out over their upcoming wedding, but everyone else in her life seems to be unbelievably useless when it comes to advising her. Eric looks at her for an impossibly long moment and Petra wonders suddenly if this constitutes shooting herself in the foot, but then handing the responsibility to someone else might make a nice change.
“If you’re that upset about the wedding, call it off,” Eric suggests.
Petra stares at him.
“You’ve just been waiting for this,” she mutters bitterly, “The slightest excuse.”
Eric refuses to get angry, and the calm expression he keeps on his face alternately hurts and infuriates Petra.
“One day,” he begins, “You’re going to figure out that I actually love you, and I’m not trying to break up with you every other week. But if a wedding is too much for you to handle right now, then we won’t. We’ll wait until sometime later when we’re both ready.”
Petra gives up on being angry; instead, she groans and buries her face in Eric’s shoulder.
“You’re being reasonable,” she complains, “I don’t want you to be reasonable.”
“Fine,” Eric tells her, “I won’t be. Come on.”
“Where are we going?” Petra asks, not without considerable interest, as he gets to his feet and begins to pull her somewhere in the direction of the front door.
“We’re going to drive all the way to Vegas,” he tells her, “And we’re going to get married tomorrow in a tacky wedding chapel. Ok? No organising. No invitations. Just you and me.” Eric pauses, and Petra realises that he’s been thinking through this for a while, which is a little worrying, but surprisingly gratifying. “You’d better call up Robert,” he adds as an afterthought, “I know you won’t want to get married without him.”
Petra can’t help something similar to a gleeful smile spreading across her face, and obediently runs for the telephone. Wilson answers the phone and explains that Robert’s in the shower, so she explains the whole situation to him in a situation that’s bordering on a little hysterical. He laughs.
“Laura and I did that,” Wilson tells her, in a faintly nostalgic tone. “I don’t think my mother ever forgave me.”
Petra suddenly remembers that she’s forgotten what her mother will say about all this, then decides that she’ll just keep on forgetting her and sort something out later.
“You neglected to mention the elopement when telling me about your other weddings,” she tells Wilson reprovingly.
“It wasn’t my finest hour,” Wilson replies, “We’d only been dating two months. We both woke up in bed with House and I’m still not sure exactly what happened.”
He promises to get Robert out of the shower and to drive down and meet them; and then wishes Petra luck. She thanks him, telling him she’ll probably need it, but it’s a lie. Luck has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.
There are still a few too many unanswered questions and the whole thing is still a bit scary and complicated, but Petra knows that she should take this chance while it’s here, before her nerves get the better of her. She loves Eric, as long as she strips away all the edges and the curves and problems. As long as she looks forward and doesn’t look back. As long as she breathes. Love with caveats, yes, but then nothing is ever simple.
She knows, that when she gets back, she’ll have her husband, but she’ll have to leave her job. It’s the only way she stands a chance of making this work. But right now, even that doesn’t seem so scary.
“Ready?” Eric asks, and she’s relieved to see he, too, looks fairly petrified at the fact they’re actually doing this. Maybe they can work out how to cope with this together. Maybe not. But it’s almost a relief to return to the anxious and slightly unsteady aspect of their relationship; Petra realises that she’s forgotten how much she always liked the unpredictable side of Eric.
“Wait,” Petra tells him, and hurries into their bedroom, and the shoebox in the bottom of their closet, which she hastily shoves into a bag. She didn’t go through all that only to forget the shoes in her hour of need.
“Ok.” Petra lets out a long breath. She still hates weddings, but then this isn’t the average wedding and it’s only one day in many. One day at a time, one step at a time, she should figure out how to do this. “Let’s go.”
Title: Stop Me Falling Down, Stop Me Making Movies Of Myself
Fandom: House MD [Grey Gardens AU]
Characters: Petra/Eric, James, Robert, Allison, Greg
Rating: PG-13
Premise: A ridiculously complicated AU which started out with the idea that Wilson has the infarction instead of House, and now has become its own mad little world.
Sequel to: Grey Gardens, April Fools and Natasha. You do slightly need to have read all three.
Summary: Petra Gilmar has always hated weddings.
Author’s Notes: I decided, rather than trying to write a big plot, I’m going to write lots of little plots at different times in this universe. This means I have plans for weddings, funerals, births and ketamine. *grins* I’ve gotta do something this summer.
Stop Me Falling Down, Stop Me Making Movies Of Myself
(Set post Grey Gardens)
Petra Gilmar has always hated weddings.
That’s not to say she doesn’t want to be married, because she does (well, probably, anyway, but that’s a whole load of stress she can worry about sometime later that isn’t now), but right now the wedding she’s attempting to organise with varying degrees of success is making her crazy.
Weddings are never fun. The bride and groom are overwhelmed by anxiety and itchy clothing, the guests are either jealous or drunk, there are punch-ups and bitch fights and young women crying in the bathrooms, and everyone eats and drinks far too much and spends several days recovering. She would have eloped months ago were it not for the fact her mother would never forgive her. She is the only daughter, after all. But between trying to figure out how to make the napkins and flowers compliment each other and trying to find a date when everyone can attend and also what colour the invites should be, Petra is starting to suspect that she’s going to hate this wedding long before it happens.
She likes Eric. God knows she’s been through enough with him to suspect that this is probably what corny songs refer to as the Real Thing, which is all well and good except there is such a thing as spending too much time around a person, and what with living with him and also working with him in a claustrophobic little glass room that also contains Greg House, Petra finds herself craving breathing space. That worries her. She’s fairly sure a person three months off marrying someone who’s supposedly the love of their life shouldn’t be avoiding them at every free minute.
In the end, Petra goes to talk to the one person who might know something about this whole situation and give her straight answers.
“Wilson,” she says, leaning around the door to his office mid-afternoon on a Thursday, “Can I buy you a coffee?”
James Wilson has been married four times, and if he doesn’t know everything worth knowing about this whole getting-married thing, then Petra doesn’t know where she’d turn. Luckily, there’s something in Wilson’s eyes that says he knows exactly what she’s going to ask, although it makes Petra faintly uncomfortable that he predicted she’d come to him.
Wilson winds up buying their coffee, in the nearest Starbucks to the hospital, sits her down in a quiet corner, and gives her that gentle smile that still makes most of the nursing staff weak at the knees, even if he is currently shacked up with one of the hospital’s [male] lawyers.
“Scale of one to ten,” he begins, “How close to calling off this wedding are you?”
Petra looks at him, rabbit-in-the-headlights, surprised at his bluntness.
“Calling off the wedding?” she asks, the words tasting bitter in her mouth, it’s not something she’s consciously considered, at least until now. “What-”
“Petra.”
Petra flushes and looks down at the froth on her cappuccino because she can’t face looking in Wilson’s well-meaning and altogether too perceptive eyes.
“Seven and a half,” she admits softly, twisting her hands together in her lap. Part of her can’t believe she just said that aloud, but if she’s going to admit it to anyone, she might as well admit it to Wilson. They’re not close, never really have been. She’s one of House’s diagnostics fellows who can’t seem to get herself a life and escape to another hospital, she’s Robert Chase’s best friend, she and Lisa Cuddy have reached some sort of middle-ground, but she and Wilson have never really been friends. She can trust him, and, more than that, he’s not going to persuade her to go one way or the other. It’s probably just as well.
“Are you scared?” Wilson asks thoughtfully, taking his time peeling the paper casing from a chocolate chip muffin, because they’re doctors and therefore technically know all about nutrition. Ha. “Is it pre-wedding nerves?”
“I’m sick of organising the wedding,” Petra tells him, feeling some form of relief at being able to tell someone, “I’m tired of choosing between flower arrangements and ways of folding napkins and placemats and cutlery and menus and how many tiers the wedding cake should have. How should I know?” Wilson smiles, and Petra adds: “But you’ve done that, right?”
He looks embarrassed, but manages a smile.
“Actually, I always made a point of not getting involved with the wedding planning,” he tells Petra. “Which wasn’t always the best of ideas but it did make for some great photographs.”
“You never got involved in the planning at all?” Petra asks incredulously.
“Never,” Wilson replies.
“But you’ve been married four times!”
“I’ve been divorced four times too,” Wilson points out.
Petra smiles. Wilson should be perfect husband material, but she knows enough, and has heard enough, to know that he is in fact the complete opposite. Or at least, he used to be. Her eyes ghost over the wooden cane he uses to get around these days, and wonders if things would be different if he tried to get married now.
“It’s not just the wedding planning,” she says, “Although it’s a complete nightmare. I’m spending half my time trying to persuade my mother that I know what I’m doing and she’s not to get involved.” Petra sighs, and watches Wilson suppressing a smirk. “There are five of us and I’m the only girl,” she reminds him, “I think she wants me in yards of something shiny and peach.” Wilson grimaces. Petra laughs. “Exactly.”
“If it’s not just the planning,” Wilson begins a moment later, when she can’t bring herself to keep talking, “Then what else is it?”
Petra flushes, suddenly wishing she was anywhere but here, with Wilson’s understanding expression and a little too much caffeine.
“I love Eric,” she starts carefully, with no idea how the sentence is going to end, “But it’s complicated.”
At least they don’t argue any more. Petra hated the arguments, that began the minute the first few weeks of the honeymoon period finished, when they realised that although there was a great deal of love between them, it wasn’t quite enough to gloss over the fact that they had such a destructive history that things could never be simple. Petra would accuse Eric of wanting to be in a relationship with her simply to cover the mercenary way they had started sleeping together, and Eric would point out that if she hadn’t been sluttish enough to give in in the first place they wouldn’t be here now, and it looked for an unsettlingly long while that things weren’t going to work out.
Things are better now. For one thing, they don’t voice their derogatory opinions of one another aloud any more. And Eric proposed and Petra accepted. She supposes that means they can move on from the less-than-romantic beginnings of their relationship. She supposes that means she can be happy without worrying she’s messed up somewhere.
“I just want space!” Petra explodes, trying to shuffle all her thoughts into a coherent order and giving up. “I spend practically 24/7 with Eric, and he’s lovely and everything, but-”
Wilson nods.
“Well, you know the simple method of getting some breathing space,” he tells her.
Petra stares at him.
“I’m not moving out,” Her tone is full of horror. Wilson smirks.
“That wasn’t what I meant. I was talking about the other method of getting space.”
Petra frowns until she realises what Wilson is implying.
“I can’t leave diagnostics,” she tells him quickly. “House would never forgive me. Or Eric.”
“How badly do you want to get married?” Wilson asks in a deceptively calm tone. “Because if you want breathing space, then not working in the same department has got to give you some time alone.”
Petra swallows. It’s true that spending so much time with Eric is suffocating her and part of her suspects that they will spend most of the honeymoon just staring at each other, unable to think of anything to say. She longs for anything but ambiguity and boredom.
“I can’t leave diagnostics,” Petra repeats, unsure how she would explain the move or if Cuddy would even let her do it.
“Ok,” Wilson replies, and doesn’t push the subject, clearly sensing that Petra needs time to think it all over. They discuss neutral topics for the rest of Petra’s lunch hour, and by the time they return to the hospital she’s beginning to think that maybe transferring is her only chance for a reasonably happy marriage.
But before she can even consider that she has to sort out the shoes.
*
It’s Monday afternoon and, at last count, there were thirty-six shoeboxes of various colours and sizes on the floor of the conference room. Eric is doing clinic duty and House has disappeared somewhere with Wilson in order to avoid doing any work this afternoon, and Petra and Allison are struggling through a sea of pink tissue paper in the hope of finding a pair of decent shoes. It isn’t paying off.
Robert Chase walks in and looks in mild perturbation at the mess the two women have made, the empty coffee cups and post-its with crosses on them stuck to the lids of various boxes. Neither Petra nor Allison notice him, and he makes a complaining sound as Petra throws a shoebox in frustration behind her and it hits him in the leg.
“Sorry,” Petra says, straightening up, thoroughly sick of shoes in general and wondering why the human race felt the need to invent them in the first place, “Didn’t see you there.”
“You look like you’re having fun,” Robert says mildly, making his way through the obstacle course on the floor to flop into one of the chairs. Petra just makes a small sound of frustration through her teeth.
“You shouldn’t be throwing those boxes around anyway,” Allison points out, putting the kettle on so they can all have some coffee, “If you damage them then you can’t return them to the store, and then you’ll be stuck with thirty-six pairs of shoes you hate.”
Robert gives Petra a horrified look.
“Thirty-six?” he repeats incredulously. “Petra-”
“Help me,” she pleads, cutting him off before he can admonish her about how obsessive she’s being. If she can’t get the goddamn napkins to look right (should they be folded into origami swans, or would that be pretentious?) then she can at least get the perfect pair of shoes. All through her life, Petra has prided herself on wearing the right shoes at the right moment. Now, when it really, really matters, she can’t find a pair she’s happy with.
“I can’t pick the shoes,” Robert begins reasonably, “I haven’t seen the dress yet.”
“There isn’t a dress,” Petra replies distractedly, accepting a mug of coffee from Allison, “I’m picking the shoes first. The dress will just have to go with them.”
“Jesus.” Robert accepts a mug of coffee and then walks over to look at the shoes. Allison and Petra are both beyond flagging and into some entirely new territory of exhaustion, so hopefully some fresh eyes will be able to sort something out. But Robert is looking equally non-plussed when faced with thirty-six pairs of similar-looking shoes and that isn’t a good sign.
“I thought you were supposed to know about things like this,” Petra says, sounding more petulant than she means to, “Otherwise what’s the point of having a gay male best friend?”
“Making the decision to sleep with men doesn’t mean you automatically know everything there is to know about Prada,” Robert tells her in a long-suffering voice, and then a thoughtful expression flits across his face. “Lay out the shoes in their boxes, tidy up a bit, I’ll be back in ten.”
“What are you-” Petra begins, but the door’s already closing behind him. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Petra is in no mood of the ‘eeny-meeny-miney-mo’ method of decision-making, so she and Allison lay the shoes out neatly on the table.
“Was it this stressful when you got married?” she asks Allison, scraping up a smile so that Allison won’t take her too seriously; Allison is a great romantic and disillusioning her would be a little like disembowelling a puppy.
“We thought David only had six months to live,” Allison replies easily, returning to her coffee, “Shoes weren’t exactly at the top of my to-do list.”
Maybe everyone’s weddings are secretly screwed-up and Petra just hasn’t noticed. She picks up her coffee too, and then watches as Robert leads a disgruntled-looking House into the office.
“You decided to start being a drag queen, Galadriel?” House enquires, looking amused but willingly making his way over to the table.
“Pick a pair of shoes,” Robert says, while Petra gives him a what the hell do you think you’re doing? kind of look. He shrugs, his returning glare telling her: it can hardly make things worse.
“They’re not in my size,” House complains.
“They’re also not for you,” Robert responds calmly. “Pick some.”
House looks at the three of them in a you’re completely mad kind of way, then turns his attention to the array of footwear.
“They all look the same,” he says, studies them for another moment, and then points at the second box from the left. “Those.”
Petra walks over to pick up the cream silk shoes with little shiny beads sewn in looping patterns over them.
“Ok,” she says softly, “I can work with these.”
“Good.” House sighs. “Can I go now? You don’t need me to judge a swimsuit competition or anything, do you?”
“No.” Robert gives the diagnostician a surprisingly sunny smile.
“You should be in the clinic-” Allison begins tentatively, but quails under House’s glare.
“I am leaving now,” he informs them steadily. “If Cuddy asks, you haven’t seen me. I’ve been eaten by killer bees.”
Petra carefully puts her wedding shoes on top of the bookcase so she doesn’t lose them, and then she, Allison and Robert carefully begin packing everything back with tissue paper in all the right places. For a minute, she’s almost calm, and almost happy that she’s getting married.
*
It’s an impossibly late evening and Petra has a medical dictionary under her right hand and a brides magazine under her left, and everyone seems to be in various stages of dead or dying and she’s got a headache on top of everything else. It’s one of the evenings when she wants everyone around her to be a very long way away or even possibly dead, and her sense of goodwill disappeared a good two hours ago.
Wilson makes his way in, walking in an extremely ungainly fashion because he’s got a couple of huge clip files tucked under his left arm and it’s making keeping his balance on his cane difficult. Petra isn’t feeling quite vindictive enough to leave him like that, though, and so gets up to take the folders from him.
“What are these?” she asks, putting them down on the table.
“Rose and Elizabeth’s wedding folders,” James explains. “I thought you could steal their colour schemes, if you wanted. House and Cuddy are the only ones likely to notice, and House was blind drunk at both weddings so won’t notice, and Cuddy will be far too tactful to mention it.”
Petra represses a smile, instead opening the clip folders and flicking through. The wedding plans are frighteningly detailed.
“Have all your weddings been like this?” she enquires, gesturing to pages covered in extravagant (and slightly over-ambitious) flower arrangements, pages torn from magazines of dresses that more resemble large cream cakes than actual clothing, and references to receptions in places large enough to hold thousands of people. James shrugs.
“Pretty much,” he says.
This is beyond cold feet. Petra is drowning in something resembling I have to call off the wedding, I have to call it off now.
“You should go home and get some sleep,” James advices her softly, maybe realising that he’s tipped her over the edge; and for once, Petra agrees with him.
*
“Is it the permanence that freaks you out?” Tuesday morning, and Petra is once again having a coffee with Wilson, because he seems to be the be-all and end-all when it comes to knowing stuff about marriages. She also seems to be on the brink of stealing the colour scheme for his second wedding, through no fault of her own. Rose just had really good taste.
“Marriage isn’t permanent,” Petra reminds him with a pointed look. “Marriages fail all the time.”
Wilson considers this.
“Allison and David are still together,” he points out.
“That’s because David recovered from brain cancer,” Petra tells him, “When people recover from brain cancer you can’t divorce them.”
“Would it be impolite?” Wilson has a little smirk playing around his mouth and Petra doesn’t like it.
“It’s not marriage that scares me,” Petra begins, ignoring that particular line of conversation because it can’t end well, and she doesn’t want to get into a discussion over whether it’s acceptable to divorce one’s spouse once they’ve recovered from cancer, “It’s the fact that I have no idea why Eric and I are getting married in the first place!”
Wilson looks at her in the way that House looks at people when he’s finally figured out what their disease is, although admittedly without the whole God-complex aspect.
“Have you talked to him about this?” he asks in a walking-on-eggshells voice.
“No.” Petra swallows. “I mean, how do you build a marriage on the fact you started sleeping with someone because they were your boss and you were trying not to get fired?”
“Stranger things have happened,” Wilson tells her, shrugging. “It’s no worse than marrying someone you’ve only known a few months because you’re still sore over your last divorce and aren’t really sure how to interact with people any more if there isn’t a ring involved.”
Petra opens her mouth to tell him that he isn’t helping, but maybe he is. After all, whatever she does with this wedding, it will be something Wilson has done already - and done much worse. It’s almost surprising, how comforting that thought is.
“You’re over-thinking this,” Wilson informs her after a long, long pause. Petra glares at him but has to admit that he probably has a point. Although if she’s going to over-think anything, she might as well over-think this. Whatever Petra may think about marriage being impermanent, it is at least a pretty damn big commitment (even if she isn’t going to change her surname; after all, it will only be confusing if there are two Dr Foremans in the diagnostics department, and House will only delight in exacerbating the situation into a big confusing mess).
Petra wonders if it’s normal to be more annoyed than scared in the months leading up to your wedding, and then realises that she’s been asking entirely the wrong person. Wilson has been married more times than the average person but that doesn’t mean he knows the first thing about marriage. The four sets of divorce papers and the fact that although he and Robert are apparently content doing whatever it is that they actually do, he’s getting into the habit of flirting again, with anything and everything that falls into his path, imply that Wilson isn’t exactly the most sensible of relationship advisors.
“Wilson,” she begins thoughtfully, “You are really not the person to be asking here, are you?”
He laughs.
“Took you long enough to notice,” he murmurs.
*
“This had better be worth it,” Petra says without thinking on a Friday evening. She and Eric are curled up on the couch watching TV and it is in no way the time to be having it out over their upcoming wedding, but everyone else in her life seems to be unbelievably useless when it comes to advising her. Eric looks at her for an impossibly long moment and Petra wonders suddenly if this constitutes shooting herself in the foot, but then handing the responsibility to someone else might make a nice change.
“If you’re that upset about the wedding, call it off,” Eric suggests.
Petra stares at him.
“You’ve just been waiting for this,” she mutters bitterly, “The slightest excuse.”
Eric refuses to get angry, and the calm expression he keeps on his face alternately hurts and infuriates Petra.
“One day,” he begins, “You’re going to figure out that I actually love you, and I’m not trying to break up with you every other week. But if a wedding is too much for you to handle right now, then we won’t. We’ll wait until sometime later when we’re both ready.”
Petra gives up on being angry; instead, she groans and buries her face in Eric’s shoulder.
“You’re being reasonable,” she complains, “I don’t want you to be reasonable.”
“Fine,” Eric tells her, “I won’t be. Come on.”
“Where are we going?” Petra asks, not without considerable interest, as he gets to his feet and begins to pull her somewhere in the direction of the front door.
“We’re going to drive all the way to Vegas,” he tells her, “And we’re going to get married tomorrow in a tacky wedding chapel. Ok? No organising. No invitations. Just you and me.” Eric pauses, and Petra realises that he’s been thinking through this for a while, which is a little worrying, but surprisingly gratifying. “You’d better call up Robert,” he adds as an afterthought, “I know you won’t want to get married without him.”
Petra can’t help something similar to a gleeful smile spreading across her face, and obediently runs for the telephone. Wilson answers the phone and explains that Robert’s in the shower, so she explains the whole situation to him in a situation that’s bordering on a little hysterical. He laughs.
“Laura and I did that,” Wilson tells her, in a faintly nostalgic tone. “I don’t think my mother ever forgave me.”
Petra suddenly remembers that she’s forgotten what her mother will say about all this, then decides that she’ll just keep on forgetting her and sort something out later.
“You neglected to mention the elopement when telling me about your other weddings,” she tells Wilson reprovingly.
“It wasn’t my finest hour,” Wilson replies, “We’d only been dating two months. We both woke up in bed with House and I’m still not sure exactly what happened.”
He promises to get Robert out of the shower and to drive down and meet them; and then wishes Petra luck. She thanks him, telling him she’ll probably need it, but it’s a lie. Luck has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.
There are still a few too many unanswered questions and the whole thing is still a bit scary and complicated, but Petra knows that she should take this chance while it’s here, before her nerves get the better of her. She loves Eric, as long as she strips away all the edges and the curves and problems. As long as she looks forward and doesn’t look back. As long as she breathes. Love with caveats, yes, but then nothing is ever simple.
She knows, that when she gets back, she’ll have her husband, but she’ll have to leave her job. It’s the only way she stands a chance of making this work. But right now, even that doesn’t seem so scary.
“Ready?” Eric asks, and she’s relieved to see he, too, looks fairly petrified at the fact they’re actually doing this. Maybe they can work out how to cope with this together. Maybe not. But it’s almost a relief to return to the anxious and slightly unsteady aspect of their relationship; Petra realises that she’s forgotten how much she always liked the unpredictable side of Eric.
“Wait,” Petra tells him, and hurries into their bedroom, and the shoebox in the bottom of their closet, which she hastily shoves into a bag. She didn’t go through all that only to forget the shoes in her hour of need.
“Ok.” Petra lets out a long breath. She still hates weddings, but then this isn’t the average wedding and it’s only one day in many. One day at a time, one step at a time, she should figure out how to do this. “Let’s go.”