AN: I meant for this story to be a one-shot. I really did. But then a reviewer said they wanted to see others in the same vein. I had no intention of following through. As a rule, I'm not a fluff writer. Then I tried to write the lead-up to Crystal Tokyo last night, and I realized there were some gaps I wanted to fill first. So here we go, part two of the wedding series. This will likely not be in chronological order and might have to be fixed as I go along. Oh well.

Disclaimer: Always and forever not mine.

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"I think we should get married."

Blinking, Rei turned to look at the man she was fairly sure was in fact her husband. "Call me crazy, but I thought that already happened. Or at least that's what the ring on my finger and our marriage license says."

"Well, yeah, but I meant we should actually get married. The thing with the dresses and flowers and speeches and whatever. With our friends."

The priestess took a second to think through what her idiot was trying to get at. "So you want to have a ceremony?"

Jomei sighed. "No. I want to propose to you properly. I want to plan a wedding and hold a big affair for everyone we care about. I want all the hearts and gooey nonsense Neph and Shocker have been gushing over the past few weeks. After theirs, obviously, because it would be pretty awful to force our way into the middle of their time. I'm talking about a real wedding and a real marriage, Rei, not this… I don't know, thing that started out as a way to get rid of your dad and just kind of became real." Realizing what he'd said, he pressed on hurriedly. "Not that marrying you was only ever just about getting rid of him. It's always been real to me."

"Hold on." Rei held up a hand to stop him before he could say anything else potentially damaging. "I understood you. I'm just not sure where this is coming from. We've been living as a married couple since I graduated. Why the sudden change? Is this just because of Makoto and Nephrite getting ready for their wedding?"

A flush wound his way up into his ears, and he silently cursed his oddly pale complexion. It wasn't like him to feel embarrassed, or to struggle with words. They were his strongest gift, damn it! "It's… not all that sudden. I've been thinking about it the whole time."

She studied him, a little concerned. "You've been worrying about not having a wedding all this time? Jomei, that was nearly four years ago."

"I know. And I know that under the circumstances, we couldn't have done anything even if we'd wanted to. Part of the problem is the whole business with our past. I've spent two lifetimes trying to plan our perfect happily ever after, and then when it happens it's all wrong. You gave me a home and a new life, and I couldn't even give you this one thing."

Jomei's vulnerability and seriousness was a rare and precious thing to see, and Rei forced herself to check the sarcasm and attitude that so often characterized their interactions. She sat down on their bed, gently pulling him with her.

"I love you," she told him quietly. "I don't say it as often as I should, I know, but it's always been true. I never needed a ceremony, and I certainly don't think you owe me anything for giving you a place here when the fact was that it was always there for you to take. I'm only sorry I didn't see how this was bothering you. I knew how excited you were when we were planning our wedding as Mars and Jadeite, and I should have realized you still wanted that."

"Does that mean you'll marry me?" he asked hopefully.

Rei shook her head but smiled. "I'll never understand why it's such a big deal to you, but you know I will. After Makoto and Nephrite have their ceremony, we'll start planning. But," she added firmly, "We're keeping it simple."

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"This is not simple," Rei asserted irritably.

Jomei had just dragged her through cake tastings, flower decisions, venue tours, catering samples, and whatever other fuss went into weddings. All in the course of a single afternoon. How he'd managed it she'd never know.

He turned his faux-guileless blue eyes her way, sporting a pout that could draw tears from a stone. She refused to be moved. Much.

"It's only a little more," he wheedled. "It'll be over before you know it."

"Jomei, no!" she protested as he pulled her into a jewelry store.

"You'll love it. I promise."

Rei scowled, fully prepared to hate whatever was about to happen. He pulled away to talk to the clerk, who went into the back and returned with a neatly done bag. Her scowl slowly morphed into confusion. She'd thought he was going to force some big, expensive ring on her, but whatever it was seemed to be a done deal already. Jomei gave the young woman a credit card and chatted quietly with her as she rang him up, beaming his perfect grin as the transaction was completed. Little bag in hand, he returned to his wife's side and guided her back out the door.

That left Rei at a total loss. She hated that. And he just. Kept. Not. Saying. Anything.

He took her out to dinner, going on animatedly about various aspects of the less-simple-than-she'd-hoped wedding, seemingly unfazed by her too short and terse responses. And to be fair, it was quite likely that he really was unfazed, considering how long he'd known her. Her frustration only grew as he made no mention of the jewelry store while making sure to order all her favorites for the meal and generally being a sweet and doting husband.

She finally snapped just after the waiter brought out their desserts. "Would you mind telling me what in fire's name is going on?!" she demanded.

She'd wanted him to jump or in some way be surprised by the outburst, since she thought she'd been doing a relatively good job hiding her growing temper. That anger only flared further when his smile widened into a mischievous grin. She knew that smile all too well – he'd baited her deliberately, waiting for her to go off.

"Weeeeell," he drawled, "I was going to wait until we got home, but if you're in a rush…"

He set the bag on the table in front of her. That was it. He didn't explain himself, didn't go down on one knee and propose in a ridiculous fashion, nothing. That pretty bag sat there, taunting her. After a brief but furious internal monologue, Rei reached out, grabbed it, and dug in.

As expected given where it had come from, the bag held a jewelry box in the midst of its fancily folded tissue paper. The box was larger than she'd expected, though. Far too large to be a ring, which would have been a logical find. She wasn't the jewelry expert Minako was, but she thought it was about the right size to hold a bangle bracelet.

She looked up at him, bemused. Still no explanation was forthcoming. Jomei just sat across from her, watching without a word. Even his annoying smirk was gone. He was just… watching, still and silent in a way he so rarely was.

There was nothing to be done to ease Rei's confusion except the obvious. She'd have to open the box. The lid came off with a gentle tug, and rather than immediately look inside, she turned it over her hand so that whatever waited inside fell into her palm.

It was a bracelet, as she'd already thought. More surprisingly, it was a single piece of metal, nothing covered in gems or other expensive materials. Just a reddish metal twisted and molded to look like – "Fire," she said quietly.

"Fire," he agreed. "It's bronze, and the whole thing is a single piece so there's nothing for you to break if you're wearing it while you work."

Rei slipped it onto her wrist and turned her hand, watching the light dance across the surface of the metal. It really did resemble her element, twisting in multiple directions with no clear pattern. She twisted it again, frowning when a bit of roughness on the underside grazed her fingertips. Pulling the bracelet off, she lifted it up so she could see the inside of it.

Jomei's lips twitched. "If you're trying to read it, you've got it upside down."

She scowled at him but flipped the bangle over, silently grateful for his help as she deciphered the writing etched into the metal. After several long seconds, she set it down in front of her. She swallowed hard, trying to find the words.

"This – this is what you said to me when you proposed before."

A tentative smile edged onto his pretty face. "Well, it's as close as I could come to a phonetic equivalent in katakana. When I placed the order, they were pretty confused about why I wanted a string of nonsense inscribed. I had to tell them it was a secret code only we knew."

She understood why they'd think that. The language he'd originally spoken those words in was long lost, and of course the writing system was something only their group remembered. Asking for an inscription like that could have potentially caused them some serious trouble.

She'd thought the words cliché and overly sappy when he'd first said them all those centuries ago, and had long since put it out of her mind. His proposal had been less important to her than the end goal, the one they'd waited so long to achieve. Now, though, the nostalgia hit her hard, and she nearly choked at the sweetness of the gesture. She read it again.

Let your fire always be the light that guides me home.

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AN: The sap, it burns! Where is my angst and character death? Where?! *ahem* Anyway. If things go according to plan – though they rarely do – this will now be a little set of five. I'm not going to go through the whole mess of writing a bunch of weddings and whatever, so it's just these little pieces, one for each couple, as a way of bridging the gap between the end of Stars and the mysterious horribleness that will eventually create Crystal Tokyo. As such, try to stick around. Hopefully I'll be better about updating for a change. Please review and let me know what you think, blah blah, you've heard it all before. Till next time!