Summary: Holding your peace is sometimes more difficult than telling the truth.

This story came from many horrible things that have happened to me in the past few weeks, but it did not take form until I heard a Spanish song I had not heard in a long time. The lyrics are reflected in this fic.

Standard disclaimer for all my stories: My stories are graphic, angsty, frustrating, filled with cliffhangers, drama and foul language. Read at your own risk – medical issues and subsequent bills are not covered by yours truly ;) If you don't like, please don't read. I appreciate reviews and constructive feedback but if you cannot stand the plot, save yourself and me some time and walk away. You don't have to love all IMAA stories :) I don't own IMAA. My stories are better viewed by using the "half screen" option of FFNET

A/N: This is not a happy story. It is the result of massive depression and exhaustion. It's what happens when life gives you so many problems, one after the other, that it leaves you with no option but to write a story in hopes that your bad streak somehow transfers over to the paper (or the file, in this case).

I apologize, my dear and Faithful Readers, but there is no happiness in me at the time.

Before

Beautiful neither began, nor was it enough to describe her. The truth was that there were not enough words to relay with absolute certainty how radiant and gorgeous my redhead looked before me. Her long, white dress appeared to have been ready-made by angels – tailored for her and her alone. The way her long, red hair fell in an artistic wave over her exposed shoulders did not take away from the shine in her large, hazel eyes filled with joy. Her lips, at the moment as red and as vibrant as her hair, made my mouth dry and my lips feel as alive as the day I kissed her for the first time. Pepper had always looked perfect in my eyes, but today that perfection was augmented by my feelings to a power of infinity plus one.

I could spend the entire day explaining and detailing how perfectly angelical the woman I love looks, but I know that there is not enough time in my life or in the entire universe to give justice to what my eyes admire behind my tears. The highly-awaited day had finally come, and just as I had promised her, here I was – just as I know I will always be, forever.

Just as I will forever regret letting her go.

The circumstances of the past do not matter. The details of my juvenile stupidity are not worth repeating. Reciting and cursing myself for hurting her and not fighting for her will not change the past, the present or the future. Nothing I can do or say right now or later will change the reality that I had her in my arms, that she gave her heart to me and I did not know what to do with that righteous gift. Nothing will change the fact that I wasted her devotion and love for me. Nothing will turn back time to allow me the undeserved right to fix what I broke.

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

In the same way that nothing will tear from my soul the love I still feel for her.

The love that I will always feel.

And it is that endless love that keeps me from standing up this very moment to scream from the rooftops that I love her. That I have always loved her. That I do not want her to abandon me the way I abandoned her. That even though I do not deserve even a mere glance from her, I still yearn for her and dream to live and die by her side.

No.

I do not let any of this come out.

I do not even drop the fake smile I have carried ever since the moment I arrived to the church and that I will maintain until the instant that she and Happy make their escape from the wedding reception to start their honeymoon.

No.

I say nothing. I just swallow my pain and my desperation, and I bite my tongue during the eternally long moment in which the minister awaits a response to his request that if someone has any objection to this wedding taking place, they are to speak now or forever hold their peace.

No.

I will forever hold my peace.

I cannot do this to Pepper. I have already hurt her enough.

It is now my turn to cry and suffer.

In silence.

Just as she once did because of me.

So now, as her eyes shift from staring at me to looking at her groom, and as the minister pronounces them husband and wife, I do not say a thing. I do not scream. I just pretend to be happy.

Happy.

The one thing she wanted to be with me.

And the one thing I could never make her.