Back-seat Confessional

"You never learn, do you?"

That Gentiana was a sherry-sniffing bloodhound? No, she supposed not. Luna snatched the exposed bottle from her friend, trying to ignore the little stitch of guilt she felt under the woman's raised brow.

"Should the maid of honor really be drinking the night before the wedding?"

"Of course she shouldn't, nor is she. It was one glass, I'm not planning on getting black-out drunk."

"No one ever does."

Luna set the bottle down a little harder than she meant to, and the resounding noise it made against the dresser silenced the both of them. She could feel Gentiana's eyes on her like a gun pressed to her back. Luna didn't have the energy to disarm her so, she just surrendered what she wanted.

"We made a deal, you know. If we were forty and neither of us were married, we'd get married to each other. I guess I must have really liked that idea, more than I thought. I was counting on it…"

She watched the wine settle into stillness, as golden as the wedding ring she feared she'd never get to wear. Something bumped against the backs of her calves. Gentiana had pushed up a chair for her, one she gratefully relented to. The older woman's gaze softened as she perched against the arm of the chair, looming over Luna like the shadow of the Earth, hiding her from prying eyes.

"Are you in love with him?"

"No," Luna sighed. "But I was in love with the idea of marrying him one day; of being secure in the knowledge that I wouldn't die alone as a bitter old spinster."

"You won't be alone. You'll be the spinster, I'll be the shunned harlot, and we'll get matching tombstones just as sappy as any married couple. Big ones that take up half the cemetery. That'll get men tripping over us."

Maybe it was that one (okay, maybe it was two) glasses of sherry that lifted her frown, or maybe Gentiana was just that funny, but Luna laughed. Short and small and sad though it was, laughter was still laughter. The best medicine, apparently.

"Do you hate him?" Gentiana asked, feeling she'd sobered Luna enough not to get a wordless grunt for an answer.

"For falling in love? Of course not. The only bitterness I feel for him is envy. He beat me to the prize. If I hated him, I wouldn't have agreed to be his maid of honor, now, would I?"

"If not for heartbreak or hatred, then why are you drinking at nine o' clock the night before your best friend's to be married?"

Luna traced the lettering on the wine label, but it wasn't the patterns her fingers followed that she watched. She stared at her warped reflection on the dark bottle's surface. The darker fear that weighed at the bottom of her heart escaped past her lips in a vacant whisper.

"Lunafreya Nox Fleuret. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride."

"We're lost."

"If we have a map, we can never be lost, and we have a map so, shut up!"

Crowe used said map to slap his arm before burying her face back into its spider-webs of streets. If Nyx rolled his eyes one more time that night, he was sure they were going to roll right out of his head.

"Turn left," the GPS said and Pelna screamed.

"We've been turning left for the past two hours! Throw that thing out the window, see if it can find its way there without wheels."

"Would you please go to sleep or something?" Crowe snapped. "Your constant bitchin' is making it hard to concentrate."

"You think I can sleep with this jerk snoring in my ear?"

Pelna shoved at the dreaming lump sharing the back-seat with him. Libertus slumbered (and snored) on, completely oblivious to Pelna's distress.

"Then put on some headphones, Christ, help yourself a little bit!"

"Phone died on that third circle you took us around the Hammerhead gas station."

"Oh my God, pull your diaper out of the crack in your ass and go to sleep like a good little baby before I reach back there and give Nyx something to tell protective services about!"

"Maybe if you just asked for directions, Mom…"

"I have directions…"

"Oh? Do they lead up your – "

The tires squealed on the asphalt as Nyx jerked the Chevy to the side of the road, tossing both of his bickering passengers against the car doors. While they were cursing his name, Nyx pulled himself halfway out of the driver-side window to survey the sky. It had been raining earlier that day and cloudy for the rest of it. Those clouds were just starting to clear out so, it took him a second to find the moon behind them. Nyx bit down on a scream of frustration and climbed back into the driver's seat.

"We're going the wrong way," he growled.

"Like hell we are!"

"Told you!"

"Okay, you" – Nyx pointed at Pelna – "sit back and shut up or you're walking there. And you" – He glared at Crowe and tossed the useless GPS into her lap – "put all that crap away unless you want to end up on the side of the road with him."

Nyx spun the truck around and sped back the way they came, keeping the moon at the center of the windshield. Pelna sunk into his seat, arms crossed and sulking. Crowe quietly folded up the map and turned off the GPS. For a few minutes, the only sounds were the grumpy rumble of the engine and Libertus's blissfully unaware snoring – and the grinding of Nyx's own teeth. Then, Crowe braved the question.

"You've been in a real bitchy mood since we left. What's the problem?"

"I hate weddings."

"Well, try to sleep off the attitude when we get to the lodge. Remember whose son it is that's getting married tomorrow."

"I've never even met the kid, why are you making me go to this thing?"

"Because when your boss invites you to his son's wedding, you don't pass up that opportunity to make a good impression."

"I make a good enough impression by being great at my job."

"Then take this invitation as a compliment. We never get invited anywhere, and of all the people, our boss – the boss – likes us enough to ask us to this thing. So, suck it up and be good tomorrow."

"Assuming we ever get there," Pelna mumbled – in direct violation of Nyx's orders.

"Where are you even going, anyway?" Crowe asked.

"A trick I picked up in the army," Nyx said – his friends both groaned. "We need to be going south-west. The light side of the moon is pointing west tonight and if you draw a line from the bottom of the crescent's point, that's south."

"If you say so," Crowe muttered.

"Nerd," Pelna coughed.

They found the lodge within the hour, but Nyx found no relief from his anxiety when they got there. He didn't sleep a wink and stared at the moon from his guest room window until the sunlight banished it from the day.

"Groom-hood is a nice look on you."

"That your professional opinion?"

"Duty-bound opinion. Isn't it the maid of honor's job to make sure you're showered only with compliments all day?"

Noctis laughed, nervously, unsure if that meant she was lying and groom-hood was not in fact a good look on him. Luna had been watching him twist his tie into knots for the past twenty minutes. Finally, she got to her feet and batted his hands away so she could salvage the poor mangled thing.

"You know, now that you're getting married, it'll no longer be my job to do this for you," she teased.

"I can do it by myself, it's just that I'm a little… I don't know."

His hands were shaking and in an effort to still them, he folded them over each other in absent, intricate patterns; stuck in a ceaseless fidgeting loop.

"You're not getting cold feet, are you? I know it's my responsibility to talk you out of second thoughts, but, Noct, I'm not sure I can handle that kind of pressure."

"No, it's nothing like that," he assured her.

"Then, why are you nervous?"

"I don't think it's nerves, per se, I'm just… really fucking excited!"

He couldn't keep the laughter out of his voice, breathless and giddy. His eyes shined with so much happiness that it was contagious. It made Luna smile and blow out a sigh of relief.

"Oh, thank God! I was starting to worry that I would be chasing down a runaway groom before the ceremony."

"I wouldn't do that to you. Not in those heels, anyway."

"I have emergency sneakers in my car."

"Planned for everything, huh?"

"Absolutely! Although I'm not worried in the least that I'll have to use them."

She finished fixing his tie and smoothed out the lapels of his suit. No wrinkles, no stray hairs, no buttons undone; perfect. Just like this day was going to be. For all her teasing, Luna had known from the second that they announced their engagement that nothing could go wrong for the intended couple. She'd never seen two people more in love, nor did she think she'd ever see it again. Despite having smoothed his suit to perfection, Luna undid all her work by wrapping him up in a monstrously tight hug.

"I'm really, really happy for you, Noct," she said, barely able to keep the wobble out of her voice.

"Thanks, Lu. You've said that a lot this week."

"And I've meant it every time." She pulled away to dab at the dampness in her eyes, shaking her head in embarrassment. "Look at me. The ceremony hasn't even started and I'm already in tears."

"Thank God for that 'cause if you weren't crying, I'd be crying," Noctis chuckled.

"All part of the job description, right?"

"I promise to make it up to you with double the water-works at your own wedding."

Luna bit her lip to control those other tears – the ones that mourned her own lack of love rather than celebrated her friend's abundance of it. She didn't think Gentiana had snitched on her about the little breakdown she had the night before, but that didn't mean Noctis couldn't guess. He was more perceptive than he let on, especially as he got older and doubly so with Luna. They'd been friends for so long that they knew each other's minds like they were their own. It was one of the reasons that made the idea of marrying each other one day so novel. He fixed her in that knowing stare and it took all of her strength to smile rather than sob.

"Maybe I'll hold you to that one day, but today isn't about my fantasy wedding. This day is yours and your fiancée's and I could not be prouder of you."

"You're starting to sound like my dad."

"I'll take that as a compliment! You know how much I adore your father."

"The feeling is mutual, my dear." Regis tottered into the room, the picture of old world elegance in his pin-striped suit. "Thank you for all your hard work."

"You know it's my pleasure."

"You've done the impossible; you've made my son look like a gentleman."

Noctis rolled his eyes, but snuck a glance at the mirror anyway.

"Would you mind giving us a moment?" Regis asked Luna.

"Certainly. I have to go check on our minister, anyway – make sure he knows what he's doing."

Regis gave an absent smile that didn't really hear her words. He was too enthralled with the pride he had in his son. Luna glanced back as she was leaving to catch the tender exchange of Regis touching Noctis's shoulder and the two of them sharing matching smiles of such perfect affection. It made Luna's heart swell both with gratitude that the heavens had graced her lifelong friends with such happiness and with a longing that would never be fulfilled. Her mother had died when she was a child and she'd been estranged from her brother for years. Would anyone walk her down the aisle if she got married?

If…

Luna swallowed that self-defeating nonsense in a hard lump and shook herself out of it. Today was not the time to be selfish and feel jilted by the universe. You can curse the name of every god you know tomorrow, she promised herself. For now, she had an amateur minister to wrangle.

"How many drinks is it going to take to get you to smile?"

There was not enough alcohol in the world and Crowe knew that – when she wasn't a few glasses in herself. Besides the fact that he was a mean drunk, Nyx was the designated driver for the night. It gave Crowe the opportunity to down enough drinks to steel her nerves into asking the raven-haired beauty across the room to dance. The newlyweds made an enticing picture on the dance floor for any other potential couples.

The wedding ceremony had been small and short, taking place by the lake behind the massive lodge that the Caelums summered at to an assemblage of close friends, family, star employees, and plus ones. Nyx learned later that the "minister" who led the ceremony was ordained by the internet instead of the church – which explained his total lack of composure. The gangly blond recited the necessary words through tears, constantly interjecting that he "couldn't believe this was happening," that he was "so, so happy for you guys," and a bunch of other sappy sentiments.

Nyx seemed to be the only one that minded, but, then again, he was the only one that didn't want to be there. The grooms smiled throughout the whole watery endeavor, as accustomed to it as breathing. The best man – a giant of a man; all muscles and tan – as well as the maid of honor, didn't object to the emotional delivery, either. Evidently, they were all close friends. Nyx didn't think there was a single person on the property that actually had professional wedding expertise.

Eventually, they got to the "I do"s and the "you may kiss" part of the event, and that's when the entire wedding party started crying in unison. The minister, the best man, and the maid of honor all started bawling while the guests applauded and the two grooms kissed. Nyx threw up in his mouth a little. The one groom – the bespectacled one, the one that wasn't heir to a global energy empire – invited everyone to eat their fill and enjoy the night. Apparently, he'd prepared the feast himself and, also apparently, that was a big deal by the expressions on Nyx's friends' faces once they invaded the buffet table.

Nyx tucked himself into a corner as far from the food as possible. One thing he knew about parties were that if you wanted to avoid inane conversation, steer clear of the food. One second, someone was asking you to pass a spinach puff; the next, you were telling them where you lived, where you worked, your yearly salary, your blood type… buffet tables were a dangerous centerpiece for any event.

"Alright," Crowe was saying, knocking back the last dregs of champagne in her glass. "I'm goin' over. Wish me luck."

"Don't throw up."

Crowe shot him a venomous glare before straightening up and marching across the room, looking more militant than confident. Nyx watched the room, but didn't really see it. He found an area of empty space between all the celebrating bodies and tried to lose himself in it until the edges of the room turned into a blur. There was no use in trying, though. Every so often, someone would pass through his line of sight and break the comatose spell he was trying to cast on himself. His gaze would stray to some movement around the room and he'd get too distracted by that to zone out: his boss clinking glasses with old friends, Pelna failing to flirt with the busty blonde in the corner, the grooms making lazy circles around the dance floor.

Against his better judgment, Nyx let his eyes linger on the newlyweds and, as he'd expected, his observations only made him feel worse. Like a couple straight out of a romance novel, they stared at each other as if they were the only two people on the planet. They held each other so tenderly and smiled so dreamily. The most love-blind fool in the world could look at them and know, undeniably, that they were meant to be. Nyx hoped they were meant to last, too. Not everyone was both.

A motion at the corner of his vision drew his eye. Crowe was gesturing to him, beckoning for him to come over. Nyx shook his head. Crowe mouthed an expletive and gestured harder. If he didn't go over there himself, then she was going to drag him. It had happened before. Gritting his teeth and already plotting a revenge fantasy, Nyx cut across the room to join her.

"What," he hissed through his teeth.

"Be nice," she hissed back in warning before turning back to her companion. "He'll keep her company."

The raven-haired woman who Crowe was so keen to dance with gave Nyx a long, slow, appraising look from head to toe. Her red lips turned into a satisfied smirk and she reached behind her to pull her friend into the conversation.

"Luna, my dear. Entertain this gentleman while I go have a little fun."

Nyx recognized the dainty blonde as Noctis's maid of honor, still a little pink-eyed from the emotional ceremony. She looked about as awkward as Nyx felt, giving her friend a bemused stare.

"Nyx, this is Luna," Crowe quickly introduced, already taking her partner's hand to lead her out to the floor. "Luna, that's Nyx. Make small talk or something."

"Gen, wait!"

"Crowe, what the f—"

But, they were already gone, and the silence they left behind was the kind of silence where the only appropriate response was to awkwardly fidget in place and avoid eye contact. Luna tucked her face into a glass of champagne and Nyx shoved his hands into his pockets deep enough to push his collar up near his ears. It was a while before one of them steeled up the nerve to speak. She went first.

"It's, um, nice to meet you."

"Yeah, same."

Quiet again. Crowe and Gentiana spun circles around the newlyweds, oblivious to the situational discomfort that they'd created. To her credit, Luna tried to make the best of it.

"So, which side of the family are you here for?"

"Neither. I work for Mr. Caelum. He invited Crowe and me."

"Oh? What do you guys do for Regis?"

"Security."

"Like Gladio?" Luna indicated the best man, who Nyx now had no trouble recognizing with his face cleared of tears and no longer buried in the blond heads of his equally emotionally compromised companions.

"He works public security. We work private," Nyx told her, not elaborating any further – it was a confidentiality thing.

Luna nodded and they were stuck drifting into silence again. The question and answer approach didn't work very well when the answers part of it didn't leave much open in the ways of interpretation. Luna downed another slug of champagne and Nyx was really starting to wish he hadn't volunteered to stay sober that night.

"Not enjoying the reception?" Luna asked, an evident decline of effort in her voice.

"Could it be any more obvious?" Nyx grumbled.

"I noticed that you didn't seem to enjoy the ceremony, either."

"I'm not big into weddings."

"Jilted by a former lover?"

Nyx slid her a narrow glance. He couldn't tell if she was prying or teasing. Either way, he didn't like the question, nor her elaboration on it. "It's just that it's usually the cynical, single people that hate attending weddings."

Nyx glared out at the dance floor and bit his tongue. He glared at Crowe and Gentiana, gliding along the hardwood floor like two dark feathers on a spring breeze. He glared at Noctis and Ignis, hands interlaced, foreheads touching, and stupidly in love. It was hard not to remember another couple and another wedding that never happened.

"Excuse me for a moment," he barely remembered to say before marching to the nearest exit.

When Gentiana eventually returned to find Luna alone, her smile turned terse and Crowe's face chilled. "Where'd he go and what'd he do," she demanded to know.

Luna discarded her empty glass and bowed her head. "It's my fault, I'm sorry to say. I'm afraid I don't make for very good company tonight."

The look that Gentiana gave her pierced past Luna's very bones. Crowe crossed her arms and clicked her tongue, oblivious to the unsaid concern bridging between the two women.

"I'm sure that's not true," she said. "Nyx has been bitchy since we got the invite."

Gentiana titled her head to the side in a silent gesture that said to Luna, "You might know a bit about what that's like, huh?"

Luna glared at her, but couldn't disagree. It was her own ugly cynicism that had driven the man away, she was certain of that. Guilt twisted painfully in her chest as she'd watched Nyx leave, expounded by the sight of Noctis and Ignis spiriting off between the dining tables. She'd promised herself she wouldn't be like this today. It wasn't fair to Noctis, nor productive for herself, yet it was such a difficult promise to keep. Now, her mood had soured that of a stranger's, and if she thought she couldn't make herself feel any more wretched than she already was, she'd been horrifically mistaken.

"I assure you that the fault is mine and I fully intend to make amends for it."

Crowe was still skeptical about Nyx's innocence in the matter, but Gentiana smoothly distracted her with the nearest platter of hors d'ouevres so that Luna could slip away. Recovering Nyx proved to be more challenging than she had anticipated. The man had effectively vanished from the reception, an impressive feat considering the small window of time that had passed since she'd last seen him. Wringing her hands and following the gavel-smash of her heart eventually lead her to the parking lot on the fear that she'd literally driven him away. A quick perusal of the sleeping vehicles eventually found her the man she was looking for, laying in the bed of a beat-up old Chevy, staring at the moon.

A flicker of doubt stalled Luna from taking another step. She didn't know this man. What if he was the type of person that interpreted good intentions as further insults? What if by trying to make things right, she made them worse? Was she really there to be polite and apologize, or just to make herself feel better? Whatever the motivation, she'd set out with a purpose and she had to follow through on fulfilling it. She could barely hear the sound of her own voice when she spoke.

"Hello."

There was a brief pause where she was sure he didn't hear her before he gave her a glance of acknowledgment. Before the quiet which followed had a chance to settle, Luna ventured forward.

"I just wanted to apologize if I said something that offended you. I'm afraid that some personal prejudices of mine have cost me some of my decency for the night. It was rude of me to make assumptions, even in jest. I'm sorry."

Nyx sat up, legs hanging over the edge of the truck bed. He considered the gloomy darkness of the parking lot for a long moment before saying anything.

"You'd think with how shitty the world is these days, a couple of strangers could be a little kinder to each other. I wasn't and I'm sorry, too."

This time, the silence was full of relief rather than awkwardness and tension. It took about five minutes for them to ruin each other's night and five more to make it better. Amazing what a little humility towards one's own character could accomplish.

"I don't suppose there's anything I can do to make your reception experience any less terrible?" Luna asked.

"Not unless you can erase about three years' worth of PTSD." He meant it as a joke, but Luna didn't laugh and his dark smirk promptly fell.

The question hung heavily between them. Luna knew she had no right to ask and she was about to change the subject so he didn't feel the need to volunteer information he didn't want to give, but he beat her to the punch.

"I've never been engaged, but my sister was. She died before she could walk down the aisle. Weddings haven't sat well with me since."

The festive light of the Caelums' lodge was only a few steps away, but felt so much further. Luna looked down at her feet, but didn't really know what she was looking at. It just felt odd to be looking at the living while referencing the dead.

"I'm sorry for your loss," she said, even though she hated it.

"It was a while ago. I should be over it by now."

"Grief doesn't have an expiration date. It comes and it goes in its own time. You can't force it."

Nyx didn't meet her gaze and, for a moment, Luna feared she might have said something to upset him, but he laughed. It was a low and weary sound. "Leave it to me to bring up such a morbid topic at a wedding of all things."

"Well… Technically, the wedding's over."

Nyx snorted and dragged a hand down his face to try wiping some of the tiredness away. It was something Luna had noticed when Crowe introduced him: the man looked like he hadn't slept in days.

"Why am I talking to you about this?" Nyx asked himself. "I don't even know you."

"Maybe that's why. It's easier to tell a stranger something you won't tell your friends because a stranger's perspective is clear. I guess you haven't told Crowe and the others about your true feelings towards weddings?"

"No, I don't think they would get it. I hardly get it myself."

"Maybe they don't have to get it. All they need to know is that it hurts you and then, maybe they can help."

There was a pause where Nyx looked like he was considering the advice, casting a wary stare over to the lodge and its occupants.

"You'll never know unless you try," Luna pushed, gently.

"Yeah, but it's not a conversation for tonight." Nyx pursed his lips and let the idea cement before looking back at Luna. "Thanks for the advice."

Luna nodded and smiled. She was just about to excuse herself back to the party when he said, "Got anything you want to get off your chest in return?"

Her heart lurched at the opportunity to unload some of its weight, but her head stubbornly held it back. She crossed her arms in an unconscious effort to stay the thudding in her chest.

"You don't want to hear me mope, I'm sure," she said.

"I'm sure you didn't want to hear me mope either, but you did. I think it's only fair that I give you a turn."

Nyx sidled to the side and patted the space open next to him, invitingly. Luna worried her teeth over her lower lip for a prolonged moment before tentatively pulling herself into the truck bed. Even with the acceptance of the invitation, Luna still found it difficult to express herself. It took a little prodding from Nyx to encourage her.

"Is one of the grooms your ex-boyfriend or something?" he asked, calling back her "jilted lover" comment.

"No," she chuckled. "But, Noctis might have been my husband one day, if neither of us found love. It's not so much the man getting married that makes me sad, but the concept of marriage itself which does. Everyone always tells me that I have all the time in the world to find someone to spend the rest of my life with, but… One day, you wake up, and it feels like that's true, that all of time is yours. Then, the next day, all of a sudden it feels like there's never enough."

This beat of their rhythm belonged to the silence and the contemplation of an answer. Nyx studied the sky in order to find his.

"This is gonna sound really doofy and I suck at metaphors, but bear with me," he started. "Say that you're the moon and the person you want to marry is the sun. You can follow the sun around the earth as much as you want, but you're never gonna catch it because you don't belong in the same sky. The sun shines on its own every morning, but the moon's never alone at night. Maybe what you need to do is stop and look around at all the stars sharing your sky rather than trying to catch a sun that doesn't."

When the silence followed and Nyx glanced over, he found Luna smiling at him. "You should have been a poet," she suggested.

"Shut up," he mumbled, quickly turning his face away when he felt it heating up.

Luna looked up at the stars that he'd so eloquently prescribed and at the thin smile of a moon with them. She'd heard the advice about finding love once you weren't looking, but she was always in too much of a hurry to try it. She would have to take a little bit of her own advice: "you'll never know unless you try."

"Thanks for letting me vent," she said into the quiet.

"Back atcha."

"I should get back to the reception. I've been shirking my duties for too long."

"Yeah, I guess I should go back, too. Make sure Pelna isn't getting slapped, Libertus isn't in a food coma, and Crowe hasn't absconded with your friend."

"If you're worried about Gentiana, then I worry for your Crowe. Gen isn't one to be absconded; she's usually the one doing the absconding."

They hopped from the truck bed and headed back towards the lodge. The closer they came to the sprawling building, the quicker the awkwardness seeped back into the silence between them. Luna's brow creased, confused as to why the feeling had suddenly returned, until Nyx spoke up again.

"Hey, so… If I ever could use some more advice… Any chance I could text you or something?"

Luna's steps faltered for a beat, and the two of them paused within the main doorway to the lodge. Nyx rubbed the back of his neck and his eyes skittered in any direction that wasn't towards her. Luna took a deep, silent breath to regain her wits and fished out her phone.

"Sure. You can text me. I should warn you, though, that my advice doesn't usually come for free. Tonight's was on the house due to it being a special occasion."

"Uh oh, there's a consultation fee?" Nyx laughed, patting at his pockets for his own phone.

"Coffee."

"Oof!" He feigned a wince. "That price is pretty steep, but I think I can swing it."

Luna giggled and they exchanged numbers.

"Well, until our next session, Doc," Nyx said.

He ducked his head in a nod of farewell and traversed the reception hall in search of his friends. Not long after he had gone, an arm slung itself over her shoulders and Noctis said, "What was that about today being all about me?"

"Guess I'm not as selfless as most maids of honor."

"I like your taste," Noctis added, nodding after Nyx.

"Don't you have a honeymoon to be looking forward to?" Luna snorted in laughter.

"Still looking forward to it." He scanned the room for Ignis and found him battling off the drunk, strangling hugs of both Prompto and Gladiolus. "Just because I'm married now doesn't mean I can't still wing-man for you occasionally. If you ever need someone to sing your praises…"

"I'll be sure to call you. But, I think I did just fine on my own."

"Fightin' words there, Fleuret," he chuckled.

She grinned, straightening her shoulders beneath the weight of his arm. She watched Nyx haul Libertus off of the buffet table, grimacing in exasperation and searching for his other friends at the same time. At the rate his night was going, Luna might be getting that coffee consultation call sooner than she thought.