Smut Warning!

The first thing they did was try to find Jimmy. Richard looked everywhere he could think of, but Jimmy's Ford wasn't anywhere-not the Commodore's, not the warehouse, not parked near the Boardwalk.

"We will take. Mmm. Tommy with us," Richard said as he took the frying pan Clara was attempting to scrub out of her hand and finished washing it. Tommy was still eating the scrambled eggs and toast she'd made while Richard had looked for Jimmy. "We'll leave. Jimmy. A note. We'll be back. Mmm. In the morning."

Part of him still didn't believe it was true, that something would go wrong and keep them from Maryland. No part of him believed that Clara would go through with marrying him. She'd realize what she was doing, she'd change her mind.

"You don't have to do this," she said rapidly. "I love you, but you don't have to marry me just because you want to save me from whatever Mr. Whitlock is afraid my father is going to do to make me pay for choosing Jimmy."

Clara was nervous, he thought. "Mmm. Is that what. We are doing. Today? I thought. We were taking Tommy. To Maryland for. The scenery."

For a moment she just stared at him, but then she smiled. "The scenery, and you know, I'm rather sick of being Clara Thompson. Seems like a good day to change that."

He reached forward to touch her cheek and Clara leaned into his hand.

"No kissing in the kitchen!" Tommy demanded from the table.

Richard and Clara stepped apart. Clara ran her hand through her hair.

"Your present! You're wearing it!" Tommy said delightedly. "I never told!"

Clara looked between Tommy and Richard.

"I didn't tell, even when I really wanted to! I helped pick it out!"

"Mmm. Tommy went with. Me to Blatt's," Richard said.

"I love it," Clara said, her voice not quite even. "It's what I always wanted."

They were packed and on the train to Elkton before lunch. When they arrived, it reminded Richard of a land-locked Boardwalk. Men hawking various wedding services lined the train platform and out into the street like carnival barkers trying to convince them to spend a nickel on their sideshow.

His plan had been to get to Elkton and get married. For once he hadn't thought of every step and was now at a loss.

"Well, I know there's not a waiting period but we do have to get married in a church according to Maryland law," Clara said as they stood in the lobby of the train station and tried to decide what was first.

A church, he thought. Was there a Catholic church in this town? Would the Catholic church marry them so quickly? Did it matter that he wasn't Catholic? Did he need to confess his sins, he had so many and he shouldn't tell...

"It doesn't matter to me which one, do you have a preference?" she continued. "After all, you are a better Lutheran than I am a Catholic."

"I'm hungry," Tommy whined next to them.

"He eats all the time," Clara whispered in Richard's ear before turning to Tommy. "Okay, kiddo, we'll get something in a minute, although you ate lunch on the train."

"That was before my nap," Tommy said, rubbing his eyes. "I'm hungry after my nap."

Unfortunately, Tommy had been sound asleep when the train pulled into Elkton. Waking him up had proven difficult and he had not been in a pleasant mood since they woke him.

"Mmm. We could. Try to find a Catholic Church."

Clara looked up at him and then looked away. "We'd have to promise to raise our children as Catholics. And that seems unfair. Especially since, if we're honest, we both know which one of us will probably end up taking them to church."

Richard looked down at Tommy so he didn't have to look at her at the thought of children to take to church. "We should get a. License."

Clara nodded, so he bought Tommy a bag of roasted peanuts from a vendor and they headed to the courthouse. Other couples stood awkwardly in line with them at the Courthouse, although no other couple tried to corral a four-year-old as they waited. Tommy's mood had not improved. They filled out the application, and Richard carefully tucked the license in his pocket when they set out to find a hotel and someone to marry them.

Pastors and those they hired to bring in customers made that easy. The first person who approached them was from the Little Chapel, so they made an appointment for that evening. Who knew, Richard thought as they continued down the list that Clara seemed to magically have in her head, that getting married would entail so many errands? The only thing there were more of than chapels were jewelry stores. They stopped in one to buy their rings.

Buying jewelry with Clara was an entirely different experience than buying it with Tommy. Clara brushed aside two trays of rings with barely a look and negotiated with the jeweler until he brought out a tray of plain rings in the same dark gold as her engagement ring and then she proceeded to barter about the price until Richard wanted to give the man any amount of money to make it stop.

"Do you want a wide or narrow band?" Clara turned to him with a smile at the same time as she grabbed Tommy's hand and whispered what sounded like a threat about what would happen if he even thought about touching anything in the store.

Beyond words, Richard pointed to the one he wanted and submitted to having the jeweler measure his finger. Clara chose a thin band and reached in her handbag for her wallet.

"Mmm. You can't," he started to try and stop her .

"You aren't paying for your own ring. I get to buy that," Clara insisted, and the jeweler took the money from her. Richard stopped arguing and took out the money to buy Clara's.

"What will we do about rooms?" Clara asked when they walked into the New Central Hotel.

Richard stared at her.

"Tommy will need somewhere to sleep tonight," she said, refusing to look away, even as she saw he understood her implication.. "But we can't exactly put him in a room alone, either."

Luckily the hotel had a parlor suite available, and as Clara watched Richard pay she added money to the neverending list of things they needed to talk about at some point. She had no idea how much he had or how much he made with Jimmy. She'd been able to save most of her pay from her writing jobs, and she planned on trying to work more now. She certainly planned on paying her share of their expenses, but she knew that was going to be a negotiation.

Clara emerged from the bath and used the bedroom to dress in. A far cry from Angela's wedding day, she thought, as she remembered the hours they had spent getting ready. The laughing. The talking. Clara allowed herself a moment of self-pity that after she had helped so many of her friends get ready on their wedding days, there was no one for her to share her happiness and her excitement with. Angela had told her that one day they'd be pinning flowers in her hair when she married Richard, and here she was, but without Angela to smile at her in the mirror.

The bed was reflected in the mirror, and Clara stared at it. Tonight, she and Richard would be in that bed. In a few hours, no one would ever be able to stop them from sharing a bed again. Her pulse hummed a little stronger. If she'd married Darcy, Angela, Rose, Romola, even Dorothy they would have all been there, trying to make her laugh, trying to ease her nerves. They would have helped her out of her wedding dress and into some expensive nightgown after the reception was over. And then they would have left her, and she would have been expected to hand the entirety of her being over to Darcy. Clara shuddered at the thought. This wasn't perfect, but it was right, she decided. Tomorrow morning she was going to wake up and be with Richard out of her own free choosing, and that seemed a little bit like a miracle.

The doorknob rattled, startling her.

"Clara?" Tommy called as he walked in.

"There's these things called knocking and waiting for someone to answer we might need to address, kiddo," Clara said, relieved all she had left to do was put on her jewelry, hat, and gloves.

"I thinking," Tommy began.

"I am thinking," Clara corrected.

"Is this where my mommy is?"

Clara gasped and lifted Tommy into her lap, forgetting about the delicate silk and embroidery of her dress. "Baby, no. Remember Daddy told you that Mommy went to live in heaven."

"That's not here?" Tommy asked quietly.

"No, this is just Maryland."

"But I want her to live with me in our house, not in heaven," Tommy said, wiping his eyes with fists.

"I know, baby. Me too. I miss her, and I know you miss her." Clara wiped her own tears from her eyes. "But just because we can't see her doesn't mean she's not with us. You know my mommy died when I was a little girl?"

Tommy thought for a moment, and then nodded. "That's why you live in a hotel with your Daddy."

Not any more, Clara realized. "That's right. And I still miss her. I don't miss her like I did when she first went to heaven, but I still miss her. I miss her a lot today, actually."

"Why?"

I have put none of this into words, not even to myself, Clara thought but she went on. "Because I'm getting married, and I want to tell her all about it. I want to tell her about Richard, about you, about my books, about Jimmy. I want to tell her how much I miss your mommy. And that's how you'll feel, sometimes. You won't always miss your mommy like you miss her today, but some days things will happen and you'll really, really want to tell her about it."

Tommy lay his head against her chest.

"But she loved you so much, Tommy. That doesn't go away. So she'll always be with you, and you'll find ways to keep her with you."

"How?"

Clara reached over to the velvet pouch on the dressing table. "When women get married, they are supposed to wear something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. My new is the ring you helped Richard pick out..."

"And it's blue!"

"Clever boy, it is blue. My old are these pearls," Clara said, pulling them and a bracelet from the pouch. "They were my mother's. Her father gave them to her the day she married my father. So wearing them makes me feel like she's with me today. And the bracelet is something borrowed."

"It's Mommy's!"

"That's right, because I also wanted to feel like your mommy was with me, at least a little bit."

Tommy readjusted in her lap. "I still want Mommy."

"I still want my mommy, too. You know what though, the other way you get to keep part of her? Is by being with people who loved her. So anytime Daddy, or Richard, or I hug you or tell you about her you get part of her back for a little bit. My Uncle Eli, he would always tell me stories about my mother, about how much she loved me and..."

Clara took a gaspy breath to try and keep from sobbing. She felt Tommy's chubby little hand pat her face.

Richard walked through the open door and stopped when he saw Tommy in Clara's lap, both with tearstained faces.

"We miss our mommys," Tommy said, and then frowned. "Where is your mommy?"

"She died," Richard answered.

"When you were a little kid?"

"Mmm. No. While I was. In the war."

"You miss your mommy?" Tommy asked.

Richard swallowed hard and nodded.

"When we hug each other she's here. Just like my mommy and Clara's." Tommy jumped down from Clara's lap. "Can I have ice cream for supper?"

Clara stood up, and ineffectually dabbed at the damp spot on her shoulder. "No. Tonight we eat cake.

It was not a storybook wedding, Clara thought as they went back to the room to see about settling Tommy for the night. The Little Chapel was rather like a factory for weddings. They'd stood in line with one couple who were so horrifyingly young Clara wanted to ask them if their parents knew where they were, and another couple old enough to be their parents. Suddenly they were in the chapel with the pastor, the official witness, and Tommy. .

Did she know his middle name was Henry, she wondered as the pastor efficiently moved them through the service and Tommy tried twice to hand them the rings before they had gotten to that part. Clara knew she shouldn't judge, since she had randomly said I do well before she was supposed to and the pastor made a joke that she was quite the willing bride.

And then suddenly the man said 'Mr. and Mrs. Harrow' and Clara thought, oh how odd. The witness doubled as a photographer. Tommy, of course, stood in the picture with them, and the photographer was sensitive enough to take it while they still stood facing each other.

They ordered room service when they got back to the hotel. Richard ate at the vanity in the bedroom while Clara and Tommy ate in the living room. Clara knew she should give Tommy a bath, but really, there was only so much one could handle in a day.

Every time the light hit Richard's ring she found herself staring at it. He was her husband, she thought, trying the idea out in her mind. Well, technically the marriage wasn't irrevocable until they went to bed, and so she doubled down on the idea of skipping bath time and just stuffing Tommy into his pajamas after he finished his cake.

Tommy, instead of settling down the way Clara desperately wanted him to, started running around the suite.

"I'm rather out of ideas," Clara admitted sitting back on the sofa.

"Mmm. Do you have. A book?"

Clara nodded, pulled out A Princess of Mars and started reading out loud, curling up against Richard's side, purposefully ignoring Tommy. When the first Martian showed up Richard took the book and read the lines in his voice, and Tommy could no longer resist. He bounded up into their laps and sprawled out until he finally fell asleep across both of them.

"I do have one question," Clara whispered in Richard's ear.

Richard's hands twisted, fearful that this was the moment Clara told him she felt she made a mistake.

"How is it possible that he's already so sticky when I made him scrub his hands before we put his pajamas on? It's like the stickiness comes from within!"

They carefully worked their way out from underneath Tommy, and Clara tucked him in while Richard checked the front door.

As they walked toward the bedroom door Clara felt shy. Don't be a goose, she chastised herself. It was hardly the first time they'd walked into a room together and shut the door with the intention of going to bed. But it was different, a voice in her head insisted. This was different. Suddenly she felt Richard's hand on the back of her knee and he was lifting her off the ground.

"What are you doing?" Clara whispered, afraid of waking Tommy up.

"Carrying you," Richard answered as they stepped through the door.

Clara shot one last look at the sleeping boy on the sofa before she caught the door with her hand as they went through. "Wait," she said, trying to lean down enough to twist the lock.

"Hmm," Richard said, seeing what she was doing. He readjusted her so he could reach under her and lock the door. Turning around he tossed Clara onto the bed with enough force that she bounced.

Clara laughed and looked up at him. Alone finally, she thought. A feeling of pure exhilaration flooded her. They were married. All the other emotions she'd tried to bury were storming within her. Her breath caught when she felt him looking at her, and she sat up on her knees as she reached her hands out and rested them on his forearms.

Everything was still for a moment before she felt the drag of his stubble across her cheek, and then his mustache brushing along the corner of her mouth before half her mouth felt his lips pressing warm and seeking against hers, while the half was rubbing against the cool tin of the mask. Clara felt one of his hands on the back of her neck while the other drifted below her waist and pushed her into him. The edges of his mask cut into her mouth and nose, and the corner of his glasses caught her temple. At the moment she didn't care, her hands pulling to free his shirt from his waistband so she could run her hands up his back.

"Missed you," Richard whispered.

"I missed you," Clara responded breathlessly. "Never again, okay?"

He pulled away and turned toward the nightstand, taking off the mask as he went. Clara started to follow but forced herself to stay back, instead working on undoing the hook and eye closures that ran down the side seams of her dress. The sound of his dogtags hitting the wood of the table made her look up.

It was the way he was looking at her that made her reach toward him. The long nights of missing him, of laying in a strange bed in Margaret's house thinking she'd never see him again crashed back over her and it seemed like the way to push back those feelings was to have him now. Their mouths met again and this time it felt like they were never going to let go. Clara's hands pulled at Richard's shirt while Richard's grabbed handfuls of her dress and slip. They pulled apart just long enough for her to pull his shirt and undershirt over his head and for Richard to pull her dress and slip off in one go.

His fingers slid along her cheek and back to her hair. He slowed down and kissed her gently. All she could think was that his mouth felt so good against hers, just as she remembered. She could taste their wedding cake in his kiss. They fell back against the bed without letting their mouths separate. He kissed her again and again, slow and soft, as his other hand skimmed her waist, sliding up to the bottom of her bra, making her whimper .

She could take it no more, her hand working between them and cupping him through his trousers before she started work on the buttons. Now he was panting heavily into her mouth but neither moved away for a moment, until he pushed her back on the bed and hooked his thumbs under the waistband of her tap pants and started pulling them down. Clara leaned up enough to let him free her while she reached back to unfasten her bra. The bed squeaked underneath them, and Clara looked up worriedly. Richard pulled them both off the bed, and then yanked the blankets and pillows down the floor. Clara finished unbuttoning his trousers and pushed them down with his boxers in one go.

Panting they sank down onto the blanket. His fingers trailed feather-light down her hips, thighs and then back up to her breasts. It occurred to her, even in the haze of lust, that he was tracing her freckles. The random touches changed to a circling motion as he moved towards the tips of her breasts. His touch grew firmer, much to her relief. It was more pleasurable but less teasing, she thought.

He was terrified of making a mistake, that she wouldn't like what they were doing. The little noises she made as his hands traced around her restored his confidence. He cupped her breasts in his hands, feeling their weight and running his thumb across her scar until finally he rolled her nipples between his fingers. Clara cried out and grabbed his shoulders. He lowered his head, capturing the sensitized flesh of one between his teeth on the good side of his mouth. When he finally, finally slid a hand between her legs he moaned at the wetness he found there. As his finger disappeared inside her she buried her face against his chest to mask the sounds she was making.

"Please," she whispered in his ear and sank back onto the blanket.