courthouse.

[Danicka] On Christmas afternoon, Danicka is on her laptop on the couch downstairs. Kandovany is curled up against her thigh, kept from crawling all over the keyboard by Danicka's left hand steadily scritching the feline's head and neck while she searches, skims, and occasionally reads aloud her findings to

Lukas, in the kitchen, telling one machine to make coffee and another machine to cook the bacon and another part of that second machine to heat up the pan in which he will scramble eggs. He orchestrates breakfast mechanically, keeping his ears sharp to

Danicka, saying, "So I think we just need our IDs, fifteen dollars, and ...wow. Okay, that's really it. We don't even need to get a blood test, they just hand out a pamphlet that's like 'So You're Getting Married: Don't Spread Syphilis'. And we have to wait a day, but it'll take longer than that to get our parents in town. Um... yeah. Then we have sixty days to get it done, and since Cook County is big enough, a clerk can officiate so we don't have to try and get an appointment with a judge."

The truth is, she would rather be married by a judge. She doesn't know why she feels that way, she just does. Lukas comes in and puts a plate on the coffee table in front of her filled with one and a half times as much food as she needs -- which only means he's learning, and starting to exercise some restraint. And Danicka tells him, setting her laptop aside and shifting Kandovany a bit so she can curl up closer to her mate and eat a very late breakfast:

"I don't really care how it happens," this, quietly, as tenderly as much of what she said to him when they were still upstairs, in bed, nearly naked, talking about this for the very first time. "As long as it's soon."

Kandovany, lucky little beast that she is, gets fed a tiny bowl of cream. It is Christmas, after all.


The next day is not spent visiting family or friends. It is not spent going to the Unbroken or the Brotherhood or logging onto Facebook to announce their intention to marry -- they didn't bring it up over Christmas dinner at Katherine's house, even, but Lukas could see a quiet pleasure in Danicka, the result of having a secret. It's possible there is no delight more familiar to her, and it seems tenfold when she can look at him and know that he knows. He knows, and he's keeping it a secret, too.

The next day is, in fact, incredibly productive. Early enough that there is less chance of getting stuck in lines, they go to the clerk's office of Cook County and apply for their marriage license. Fifteen dollars. Proof of identity. Danicka has to fight not to laugh when she's given a pamphlet on knowing the facts about her sexual health, but she's grinning when she thanks the person who hands it to her.

License secured, they make some simultaneous phone calls from the den. Lukas is quite firm about his parents not talking to Anezka, he will deal with that, he'll talk to her. Danicka is viciously, ears-burningly firm about where Vladislav can stick his displeasure over Miloslav attending her wedding. She has her laptop out again and is ready to click a few buttons to reserve flights and a pair of rooms at the same hotel -- near one another, but not next door to one another -- after discussing with the Kvasnickas and with Miloslav timing, and rides, and various logistical details that Danicka has a smooth, well-trained grasp of arranging. She's being rather directive, in fact -- efficient, as though not prepared to dally around waiting for other people to make decisions that likely don't matter in the long run.

It is probably for the best that they are doing this as small as they are.

They trade phones for awhile. Danicka is delighted when she talks to Jaroslav about coming to see the den. No, they haven't done any of the work they talked about during Thanksgiving -- too cold to bother right now. Does he like cats? She speaks to Marjeta only briefly, her tone less familiar, more respectful. But there is a moment -- a moment Lukas may only barely be aware of, talking to Miloslav at the same time -- where Danicka tells his mother with a depth and vulnerability he knows as markers of her sincerity

it makes her happy that Marjeta will be there for Lukas. Whatever Marjeta says in response, Danicka closes her eyes, her lips pressed together, trembling. It isn't anger. It isn't anywhere near anger. She just nods, though Marjeta can't see her, and she whispers something that sounds like děkuji vám, matka. Though she resisted when Jaroslav called her daughter. Though that was never, ever what she called Laura Dvorak.

Miloslav is a quiet man. He speaks slowly. He tells Lukas that Danicka told him that Lukas fixed up the house and he is eager to see it -- the cabinetmaker, the carpenter, the carver: he wants to see the work Lukas did preparing the den for his mate. For Miloslav's daughter. At one point he gets distracted, comes very close to calling Lukas by some half-forgotten name from his past. Is audibly irritated with himself when he comes back from it, but does not dwell on it, either. He says Danicka told him that Lukas gave her an Awakened oak for her birthday, planted it with her, and that it grows. They talk, not surprisingly, about kolache. About how he had never made orange ones before, but Danicka,

she insisted. Lukášek wants orange ones? he'd asked her, and she'd been so annoyed with him, no, no, he wants candied orange ones, tatínek!

They do not trade phones again. They will see their parents in a few short days. Lukas would not let Danicka pay for his parents' plane tickets and hotel rooms. He won't even let her pay for all the hotel rooms while he pays for airfare -- and oh, she did argue about that before they even made the phone calls. Buttons are clicked. Danicka seems quiet after talking to his parents, her eyes a little faraway.

He asks her what's wrong, whispering it, touching her hair, fingertips warm and heavy on her cheek.

For the first time in all the time he's known her -- for the first time in years, he later learns -- Danicka turns to him, puts her arms around him, presses her face to his shoulder, and

very simply,

cries for several hard minutes because

her mother died when she was fourteen.


Much, much later, telling a jeweler they found who deals in tungsten rings as well as white gold what they want and when they want it, the woman will look at her schedule and look at their faces and Danicka will say, without any attempt at subtlety and with a sort of exasperated firmity: "What will it cost to put this on top of your priority list?"

Which means they will pick up their rings on the 29th.


They've already been at the den by then for days since the eclipse. Danicka has no classes currently, but Lukas needs to be in Chicago proper a little more. He has things to attend to. Danicka informs him she's going to stay in the den, which -- he later learns -- means that when he visits the next time, he could eat off the floors. Danicka is debating covering up the handprints. They feel private to her. They don't. But they sort of do. It is the one thing she obsesses over. Not rings. Not who performs their marriage. Nothing.

The handprints they made in wet paint, she obsesses over. Agonizes over whether she wants to keep them secret and just for Lukas and her, or if she wants them to be shown, shared. And he's seen her indecisive so rarely it's bizarre, but she fixates on this and holds Kandovany and scratches her and even when he distracts her to talk about something else she goes back to talking about it eventually. Makes a decision. Goes back on it. Finally just gives up and says

I don't know what the fuck. I'm crazy.

which she says while they're in bed together again for the first time in a couple of days, and she's burying her head under his arm, grumbling. Which apparently means the decision is up to him.


The next day, they pick up their rings, and Danicka bounces a little in place when she looks at Lukas's, and giggles slightly but won't let him look in the box, even though he knows what the hell it looks like because he picked it out. Considering how fast everything is moving, she's found time to go shopping: Lukas is suddenly not allowed to look in the downstairs bedroom closet, to which he reminds her he has no reason to ever look there except that she mentioned it. He teases her about if this is how she gets with only a week to plan, he can see why she didn't want a big wedding. Danicka flaps her hands at him and says she's excited, shut up. You're a booger.

You sound like Anežka. Fondly.

She sticks out her tongue.


Their parents arrive in the evening the day before New Year's Eve. It's a little too late to bring them all the way to Stickney then drive them back to Chicago proper, so they go out to dinner. Miloslav comments that it's too expensive, and Danicka seems to ache slightly, assuring him it's not, it's okay. He worries about money, a long-ingrained habit that echoes in the random simplicities of Danicka's own life: things she could easily spend more money on, but doesn't. Things she splurges ridiculously on, undulging herself. Finally.

Truth be told, once they drink a little, most of the conversation goes on between Miloslav and Lukas's parents. At one point Danicka covers her face and mutters Oh my god as her father recounts the story of the time she was so excited about her pretty new dress that she forgot to put on underwear. And when she tripped while running outside, her skirt flipping up to reveal her bare ass, her only concern was a sudden, dismayed cry of

Ale ne! Mám to špinavé!

"I was four!" Danicka all but wails in protest, laughing the words.


Their parents are not quite sure what to do, in all honesty, with the luxury the W Lakeshore affords.


Breakfast at a little bakery that Lukas likes, where they serve amazing coffee. Danicka and Jaroslav talk about books. Marjeta and Miloslav talk about cooking. Lukas and Jaroslav talk about ...well, simply put, Lukas's life. What he's been doing. What he's thinking about doing. Danicka glances over, watching Jaroslav glean from facts and musings on what Lukas does

new clues to who Lukas is. She smiles, and talks to her father about their garden. It turns out Marjeta actually knows a thing or two, or is at least interested enough to join in. Jaroslav and Miloslav talk about the past, about politics, about the Republic. They argue the way intelligent old men do. Danicka fields a few subtle mentions Marjeta makes alluding to marriage and the natural output of marriage, grandchildren for her, and puts her hand on Lukas's leg as though anticipating a panicked, defensive interjection on his part.

The conversation is, however, surprisingly honest.

I do want children, Danicka says, quietly, perhaps while the Menfolk Are Talking, but I don't want to have them out of duty. Or need. I don't want just... some piece of him to hold onto. I just want them to be wanted. For who they are, not what they represent.

It's over coffee and breakfast that Danicka and Marjeta break down a few of the guards still up between them. It's on the drive out to Stickney that Lukas and Danicka get some time alone, the buzzing of anticipation and excitement at the backs of their minds.

"My dad," she tells him, looking at her hands thoughtfully, "will seem like he's looking at the house like an inspector. He won't say anything -- you're Garou and he won't insult you. But ...don't be defensive, okay? I know how hard you worked," she says, looking at him. "Don't take it the wrong way if he asks you about... I don't know. Weather sealant or whether a flagstone is wobbly or something. Okay? It's his way of trying to connect with you. He doesn't think he has any other way to do it."

Danicka is not, as she once was, a nervous young woman. But she seems nervous, and it's not hard to understand why. The last time Lukas was around Miloslav was in her childhood home. He saw the man hug Danicka before she was quite literally kicked out. Now he's here and they're having nice dinners and brunches and talking about childhood stories and now he's going to come into the house that Lukas found and the home that Lukas and Danicka made

after she was pushed out of the home he made for her, when she was still his.


They eat a late lunch at the den, after a rather extensive tour of the house that takes more time than the size of the house warrants because everyone keeps talking. About the books on the shelf in the study. About the study turning into a nursery one day, though not any day soon. About what Lukas was thinking when he got those bean bag chairs, about how happy he is to grin and say he likes them! About that's where the Christmas tree was the first Christmas they were here. They talk about Christmas gifts -- Danicka laughs and says she guesses they won't be going to the planetarium with her new pass for New Year's Eve after all, since they have other plans.

Sightseeing around Chicago, if they want to do it, is for later. Jaroslav, Marjeta, and Miloslav have all of New Year's Day to themselves before they go back to New York. So today, it is just family. Family and home. Miloslav inspecting cabinets, listening to hinges idly, as though he does this as easily as breathing. He does talk to Lukas, but he mostly just asks questions -- he notices places that are new, as he puts it. He can spot a hole that was repaired from across the room, no matter how much his age shows in other ways. He goes out on the porch for a few moments in back, looking at the oak. Danicka joins him.

His arm goes around her. She whispers something in his ear and he laughs, she laughs, she kisses his cheek. Inside, Kandovany rubs against Lukas's parents' legs, demanding that her newest subjects pay their tithe of love, attention, and possibly cuddles. She's wearing her collar. It is a special occasion, after all.


There's really no reason for the ceremony and silliness that surrounds a human wedding. Danicka doesn't want the secrecy of what the bride looks like before a wedding, though. She kisses Lukas after he changes clothes and tells him to go on ahead with his parents, she'll see him at the courthouse. They haven't been alone with their parents since they go to Chicago.

So Lukas goes to the courthouse with his parents, after they make sure he has the license and Danicka's ring. And Danicka stays in the den with her father a bit longer, changing clothes, and drives herself to her wedding, her father seated beside her. He holds Lukas's ring box cupped in his hands while she drives, and tells him things

she could not say to him in their house over a year ago. Things she could not say in front of Marjeta and Jaroslav. Things she could not say, really, with Lukas there.

The Infiniti pulls up about five minutes after the BMW parks at the courthouse. Danicka gets out, wearing a silver dress that falls to just below her knees. It swirls slightly around her legs, does not cover her arms. Her hair is as it has been all day: lightly curled, mostly just in the natural waves it falls into. Her makeup hasn't changed. The only jewelry she wears is a silver bracelet on her wrist and a pair of plain pearl drops in her earlobes. She's wearing simple black peek-toe pumps. They tap on the pavement as she hurries up to Lukas where he's waiting for her, curling against his chest briefly.

"Inside inside inside," she says. "It's cold."


Inside, it's not that much warmer. Lukas won't take his arm from around her, and she doesn't laugh at him for it, nor complain. She has no bouquet, no need of one. Miloslav, almost somberly, carries the little black velvet ring box she gave him to care for.

And truth be told, they spend a little time waiting for the clerk, seated on old chairs and talking idly, chatting about Anezka and Dan and what is taking so long. When they go before the clerk it's not in some grand oak-paneled work of art but actually an almost run-down courtroom. The furnishings are nothing special or particularly attractive. There's seating, but nobody sits. There are tables, but nobody needs them.

There is no sermonizing. No attempt to personalize or romanticize. No reminders to say I love you every day, no kitschy and awkward rose ceremony, no candles, no particularly deep vows. Lukas and Danicka did not specify any real preference on the words used, so they are relatively standard -- Danicka did ask, beforehand, for til death to be retained, a practice long out of fashion. It made the clerk raise an eyebrow. Their names are said -- and corrected, by Danicka -- and it is mentioned that they've chosen rings as outward symbols.

Then, simply questions:

With full understanding of the committment you are entering into, do you, Danichka Musil, take Lukasch K'vashnicka to be your lawfully wedded husband? Do you promise to love and cherish him, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for better for worse, and keep yourself only to him, til death do you part?

The words are barely out of the clerk's mouth before Danicka says, simply and firmly, as though it was settled a long time ago -- and it was, in truth -- that: I do.

And promises:

I, Danička Musil, take you, Lukáš Kvasnička, to be my husband.

And pronouncement:

Lukasch and Danichka, having witnessed your vows of marriage with those assembled here, and by the authority granted me by the State of Illinois, I now pronounce you husband and wife.

And a kiss.


The truth is, the clerk can't really be assed to put much fever or emotion into the words. The fucking groom fills the room with a darkness that crawls up the back of the clerk's spine, clutching a weaker mind in a cold claw. It's hard to imagine why on earth a nice-seeming, beautiful-looking girl would look so damn happy when she, wearing a lopsided grin, puts a black (who the fuck gets a black wedding ring? yeah, prove to me now he's not a serial killer) wedding band on her new husband's finger. It's downright impossible to understand why two otherwise stoic older gentlemen with piercing blue eyes would be surreptitiously blinking away mist from their eyes, too proud and honorable to do something like sniff. And it makes no sense why the lone female witness to this madness looks on patiently, as though waiting for something much more important to happen.

Of course the bride -- in gray, isn't there a rhyme about what color you wear, something about going far away? -- shivers when the groom puts his arms around her so tightly that he lifts her slightly from her feet. Hell, who wouldn't shiver. For one thing, who wears a sleeveless dress in the dead of winter, thank you very much. Also, who wouldn't shiver when a sociopath is kissing you like he doesn't remember his parents are right over there. Christ, it is not possible to pay enough for this shit. Hope they enjoy their inevitable divorce.


Danicka smiles when he stops kissing her, though he hasn't let her down yet. She grins, that grin, her eyes bright, her arms still around his shoulders. "Můj manžel," she murmurs, as though the very words confuse her

and delight her

and make her laugh.

[Lukas] When Lukas took Danicka from her father and her father's house, he did not ask the kinsman's permission. He didn't even ask Vladislav's permission. He challenged him instead. The whole thing was a challenge, a fight, a struggle -- ultimately -- to survive. To make it through without damaging some intrinsic, terribly vital part of what they had.

This is different. Maybe that's why, the day after Christmas, as they sit hang around their kitchen and dining room calling their parents, and then talking to one another's parents -- maybe that's why when Danicka passes Lukas the phone, he blanks for a second and then says,

"Pane, mohu mít své svolení oženit vaše dcera?"

There isn't a shred of irony or mockery in his voice. Only after he says it does Lukas blink, apparently surprised at himself. He gets up from his seat at the table and wanders over to the window, and it's impossible to tell what it is, exactly, that Miloslav says to make him come back with a faint frown on his face.

It's not a denial, to be certain. A moment later Lukas says, "Thank you, Mr. Musil. I appreciate it."

-- and the conversation moves on. Miloslav seems a little more distant after that, which makes Lukas faintly nervous as he talks about the house, the tree, the kolache. Even though Miloslav talks slowly, even though he's a quiet man balancing on the edge of the greyness of old age, his conversation with Lukas still ends first. When it's over, Lukas puts the phone down on the table and looks faintly puzzled, faint troubled for a moment.

Then he goes get a glass of milk. When he comes back, Danicka is finished, and quiet, and he asks her what's wrong, and

she cries on his shoulder for a long time. Cries her mother died when she was fourteen and never lived long enough to see her daughter grow up, find happiness, thrive. Cries because her mother, even while she lived, wasn't really much of a mother at all. Cries for the mother she lost, perhaps, and cries for the mother she never really had.

In truth, that makes Lukas ache. It makes him wonder -- painfully, and all over again -- how his own children might fare. What it would be like for them to lose their father when they were five, or ten, or fifteen, or twenty. What it would be like for them to grow up with Lukas as a father; a creature who felt constantly angry to them, constantly on the verge of violence.

He holds Danicka, though, and he doesn't voice any of that. He knows -- he's learned -- that no matter what else, to turn away from something good for fear of something bad is the worst sort of cowardice.


Later on, on the way to the jewelers', Danicka drives and Lukas is quiet. The landscape is silent and white: snow on dark trees, open spaces and forest preserves passing by. After a few miles he says,

I asked your father for your hand. He ... said I didn't need his permission, but if I did he would gladly give it. And then he seemed to withdraw after that.

I don't know if I offended him.


By the time they're pondering the handprints, Lukas has recovered. He teases Danicka, she calls him a booger, he laughs -- but then he waffles over the exact same thing for about half an hour. In the end he decides to cover it; not out of fear of being scolded for messing up the paint, but because they would see the den, and the oak, and the fountain, and their tiny bonsai tree. Those are all private, secret, happy things they'd share with their families. But this, this one little thing: they'd keep it for themselves.

So it's agreed. They hang a picture over it, or maybe put a coat rack in front of it. They hide the handprints by the door, and

not too long after that, the day before New Year's Eve, their parents arrive.


On the way out to Stickney on New Year's Eve, Lukas laughs quietly as Danicka worries that he'll be defensive, or hurt, if her father questions him about the house. He looks over at his mate, fond and quiet, reaching over to wrap his hand around the back of her neck, rub gently at her shoulders.

"I won't take it badly, baby," he says quietly. "But thank you for telling me."

A moment later he adds, "I'm glad you and my mother talked."


Later on, Danicka hears Lukas and Miloslav discussing the cabinets in the kitchen. She hears Lukas explain that he's considering remodeling the entire kitchen because the cabinets are old, and he only really had time to fix the big things. Lukas points out a shelf that's a little rickety. Miloslav inspects the hinges. Danicka hears him advising Lukas on what sorts of wood to use; what finish to pick.


On the way to the courthouse, Jaroslav reminds Lukas -- three or four times at least -- to make sure he had the ring in his pocket. And not to drop it. And not to put it on the wrong finger. And --

Marjeta interrupts, finally, chiding: Just because you did all of the above doesn't mean Lukáš will.

The rest of the trip is Marjeta reminiscing, quietly, about her own wedding. Lukas's parents go inside first, out of the cold; he insists on waiting. He's not wearing a dinner jacket, but he is in suit and tie, and his mother straightens his tie -- or pretends to, anyway, because Lukas's ties are rarely askew -- before laying her hand briefly on his cheek and going in. His father hugs him, muttering something like happy for you and follows.

When Danicka comes to the courthouse steps, Lukas smiles to see her: that slow, broad smile that's hers, and only hers.


Inside, beside Danicka, listening to the simple and -- in all truth, rather methodical -- little spiel the clerk gives, Lukas is quiet and steady and warm. He's just a little nervous, though no one but Danicka would guess. And maybe his parents.

When questioned, though, he answers evenly:

I do.

And Lukas does not, in fact, lose the ring. Nor drop it. Nor slide it onto the wrong finger. He performs that minor task perfectly, promising: I. You. Wife.


The kiss goes on a long time. It makes their parents tear up a little. It makes the clerk uncomfortable. When it's done, they grin at each other, confused, delighted, laughing.

"Moje žena," he answers. In Czech, because --

it's different, in English. There are two words, man and husband, wife and woman. In Czech, there's only the one, as though the very act of claiming my makes all the distinction.

He kisses her again, briefly, sweetly, and then lets her down. There are no children throwing flower petals. There's no shower of rice, no run down to the limousine. There's just Danicka in her silver dress, Lukas in his black suit, with his silver tie that Danicka picked out for him earlier in the day. And their parents, coming to embrace them, kiss their cheeks, wish them well.

Walking out of the courthouse, it's all pragmatic details for Lukas the pragmatist. They drove two cars here, but leave in one -- Lukas handing the keys to his to his father; Jaroslav promising to call to tell him where the car was parked at O'Hare's long term parking garage. Lukas hugs his parents again and shakes Miloslav's hand before wishing them goodnight.

Then it's just them in Danicka's Infiniti. And Lukas is looking down at the wedding band on his finger, smiling, buckling himself in, looking up to say,

"Where to?"

[Danicka] For what it's worth, Miloslav doesn't feel mocked, but there's no way for Lukas to tell how he does feel. What that distance is, exactly. He doesn't bring it up to Danicka until much later, after her tears have stopped and they've had a snack and she's talked some of it out and come to terms with the rest. She's still a little raw, though, when they head out to go to the shop of the jeweler she found. So when he tells her that he asked her father for her hand, her emotions run quickly to the surface.

Her eyes glance at him suddenly at the first sentence, a lightning-fast frown flickering over her face. On another day, if it stopped there, if they weren't going to the jeweler, if she weren't so certain that this is what she wants, this might be the point where she pulls over and snaps Excuse me?

But that would all depend, too, on her not being the Kin of Garou. It would depend on Danicka not being raised knowing, absolutely knowing, that eventually who she was with would be partly determined by who she was permitted to be with. Who challenged and won. Who she was given to. That on some level, it was out of her hands. That frown may, in fact, just be an echo of whatever anger she feels at that injustice, that structure of their world that makes her, sometimes, little more than chattel.

Just a flicker, though, today, followed by a relenting as she keeps driving, looks at the road instead of Lukas. Her frown remainds, but changes. "I don't know if you offended him," she says. "But it was probably a painful reminder." She slows down a bit, flicking on her turn signal. Her brow tightens slightly for a moment, a pang of that same pain she thinks her father felt. "He's always... loved me more than anyone else in my family. But he's also always known it was never really up to him."

Danicka exhales a faint sigh. "The truth is, til you came to New York to challenge my brother and he blurted out that shit about smelling you on me, I think my dad was maintaining the pleasant fiction that I was a virgin. So even aside from the fact that it's been drilled into him since I was born that he had no claim whatsoever on me, it was sort of... a little too late to be asking him permission to be with me."

She looks over, apologetic, wounded... raw, in her own right. "I'm not saying that because I think you did anything wrong. I don't think my dad thinks that, either. And I know you would never do anything to disrespect him or hurt him or... anything. But something like that..." She winces. "Baby, that was sort of a twist of the knife for him." Danicka glances at traffic, then at Lukas, reaching over to squeeze his leg. "He wouldn't have said what you told me he did if he was angry. Or if he didn't mean it."


Days later, eating with Miloslav, spending time with him in Chicago, that conversation is long past. And Miloslav is there, clasping Lukas's hands with surprising strength considering that he grows older, he grows infirm day by day. He is respectful, but it is that distant respect of a kinfolk who has -- as Danicka put it -- had it drilled into them what they can and cannot do, what they can and cannot say, what they can and cannot

claim.

It is, in a way, like being with his family after he returned from his Rite of Passage. Miloslav doesn't call him Wyrmbreaker, calls him by his name or his childhood nickname, but some of that distance is still there. That respect that is a little too far away. And seeing how easy it is for Danicka to be with this man, how relaxed she seems, how trusting she is of him

he would not be blamed if he felt a bit of a twist in his own chest, too, a sharp comingling of ache for what is not and gladness to see what she had. That she at least had that, and has it to this day. That there was someone she -- small, nervous, shy -- could hide behind and hold onto.


And at their house, he asks so many questions. What kind of shelf does Lukas want to build? What is it for? Oh, then you will want ash, perhaps. You must make sure you apply a sealant. They talk of remodeling. Yes, Miloslav says, he can see -- these were shoddily built. He will make sketches, send them back to Lukas -- and god damned if Lukas doesn't know instantly that he's going to be getting snail mail. No computer graphics for him. No scans, even. That is what he says, the first firm and unquestioning thing he's said. He asks for a tape measure and spends part of their day together measuring the kitchen.

Danicka catches Lukas's eye, as she's heading out the back door to show her father the oak, and the flower garden, and the little patch she hopes to grow vegetables in. A soft smile. He had his parents his whole childhood, lost them for so long, is only now regaining them. She had her father her entire life, but for the last year or so. She may not be able to see him often, due to her brother. She may lose him again in due time to infirmity, dementia, the exhaustion with life of old age. But she has never, not even when her brother pushed her out, lost the closeness she has with her father.

There is ache all around them. Loss and the possibility of loss. Comfort and the price of that comfort. Joy, and the knowledge of what happiness can and cannot last.


Miloslav watches from beside the car as Danicka goes quickly to Lukas outside the courthouse. Watches how she beams, her nose turning pink from the cold so quickly. Watches how easily, how instantly, Lukas puts his arms around her to keep her warm, how it seems like instinct even though the expression on his face when he looks at her is far, far more than that.

He held Lukas's ring in his hands as they drove. He gave it what blessing he could, under what Gaia-given authority of faith no accident of birth could take from him.


When they were booking hotel rooms and flights and considering rental cars, they thought about going back to see their parents tomorrow -- take them to the airport, have one last meal with them. It was Marjeta, really, who was scandalized. Talked about their honeymoon, about how it was just wrong for the bridge and groom to be ferrying people about the day after their wedding and Danicka tried so very hard not to laugh at the time. When asked why:

Because I get it now. I see so clearly now where you get it. Oh, god.

It was an echo of an earlier conversation, where Danicka called him ridiculous, asked offhand: Where do you get these weird ideas of what's 'just not right' and all that? She had just cited his comment the day after Thanksgiving, how having sex when there were children in the house was just wrong, added in: how do you think you happened after your sister was born, honey?

At which point he all but clapped his hands over his hears, horrified, begging her to stop, oh my god, stop. Not okay. And she'd relented, kissing his ear softly instead, nuzzling his cheek. Being forgiven.


As Danicka starts driving away from the courthouse, Lukas smiles at her and asks her where now. What now, what next. She smiles over at him. "It's New Year's Eve," she says, though the sun has only set recently. "And it's so early. We can't just go home."

Leaning over while at a red light, she kisses his mouth, far different from the kisses she's given him since their parents landed in Chicago. Parting, sooner than either of them might want to. "I reserved a room for us," she murmurs. "So we can go anywhere."

A beat. "Even the planetarium."