Falling Slowly, The Sequel to Taking Chances

Summary: Sequel to Taking Chances. The time has come for Adrian and Rose's wedding, but will their lives together last when Rose gets some big news Adrian isn't prepared for?

Take this sinking boat and point it home, we still got time. Raise your hopeful voice, you have a choice, you make it now.

A/N: Ok, so lets say that Christian's parents left him all their money… so he's rich now too.

Lissa pulled me through the rows and rows of wedding dresses, making me regret letting her help me choose my wedding dress.

A woman in a black skirt led us into a small room in the back of the shop. "Hello." She said, "My name is Trina. And you must be Rose?" She gestured to me.

"Yeah. Hi. This is Lissa, my maid of honor."

I sat down in one chair, and Trina sat in another, leaving one chair between us. Lissa promptly sat in it. "Ok." Lissa started. "Rose really isn't into this that much but here's the gist of it: Rose doesn't want the classic dress. She wants something that fits her personality better. She's dramatic, and she wants something more sexy." Lissa really had thought a lot more about this than I had. I had thought vaguely about my dress. I had told Lissa I didn't want something traditional, and she had expanded on that. I really didn't care as long as I found a dress in the end.

"Alright." Trina said, and she led us out into the shop to look through the dresses. "What's your price range?" She asked me, and just as I was about to answer, Lissa cut me off.

"Adrian says that price doesn't matter for the dress." I shot a shocked look at her, and she just shrugged.

The woman pulled several dresses for me to try on, and on the way to the fitting room, Lissa spotted a dress on a mannequin. She loved it, and I thought it was pretty, so the woman went to get the dress. Lissa helped me into the first dress. It was strapless and made of silk. The neckline had delicate beading, and the bottom flowed out in a short train. The most interesting part of the dress was the bodice though. The silk cris-crossed until it reached my waist.

"It's pretty." Lissa said.

"I don't like it." The crosses were making me look fat. "I look fat."

"You do not." Lissa assured me. "But I don't see you walking down the isle in this dress."

"Neither do I." I agreed.

I tried on several more dresses, but then I found the dress I liked the most in the pile and tried it on. It was strapless and hugged my body in all the right places, accentuating my curves. It was made of silk and flared out at the bottom. There was a lot of beading, that started at the top then thinned out toward the bottom. It wasn't the most dramatic dress or the dress that fit my personality best, but it looked great on me. I could tell by Lissa's face that she loved it. And as I stood there looking at myself in it, I could see myself wearing it down the isle, see Adrian's face when he saw me, and then I decided. "This is the dress." I looked at Lissa in the mirror, and saw she'd gone all teary on me. "Liss!" I groaned, and she just shook her head at me.

"Whenever I imagined your wedding…" She started, "I always thought you'd be the bride in the jeans and t-shirt." She sniffed, and I hugged her. She seemed hesitant to touch the dress, as if her touch alone would destroy the delicate fabric. "I was thinking if I brought you here maybe you would get a dress… I just didn't know you would look so good in it." She started sobbing again.

"Lissa! Lissa calm down! It's a dress!"

"It's your wedding dress!"

"I guess it is."

Lissa and I left a little while later, heading back to our new home. It was about fifteen minutes from court, and it was big. It was a colonial, and it was three floors. The third floor had lots of dormers and all of the windows had shutters. The house was white wood, and the front door had a little square porch in front of it, with white fencing, slate steps, and everything. There were big green bushes and a huge tree in the front lawn, and a pathway to the door that was lined with white flowers. The grass was all very green, and there was a five-car garage (It was recently remodeled to accommodate Moroi and guardians), which came in handy because Adrian, Eddie, Lissa, Christian, Violet, Mia, and April all lived in one house. It had six bedrooms. Adrian and I shared one, Lissa and Christian had one, Violet and April shared a room, and Eddie and Mia shared a room (Eddie had proposed to her a week after graduation).

I was Lissa's guardian now, so Adrian and I lived with her and Christian. Adrian's guardian was Eddie, so Mia moved in as well as him. Mia's Guardian was April, and Christaian's guardian was Violet. We were all like one big happy family. Luke and Scott, who were dating April and Violet, were working in the court until they got assignments, so April and Violet got to see them a lot.

We pulled into the garage and I let my eyes scan all five cars. There was a black BMW that most of the rich Moroi families had for when they went out on official business with their guardians. There was also my Porsche that Adrian had given me and Lissa had a white beetle convertible, which she LOVED. Adrian had revealed that he had a red Ferrari F430 Spider and had brought it to the house too. There was also a Mercedes SUV for when we all wanted to go somewhere in one car. I thought it was excessive, but when you had three extremely rich people living in your house, these things tend to happen. I mean really, really, rich people. With really, really, rich families. Families that think a Mercedes is a good house-warming gift (but I wasn't objecting). I felt really awkward whenever how rich these people were came up, because I hadn't been raised rich like they had. I was pretty sure Eddie and Mia agreed with me. Violet and April on the other hand had been raised by their rich Moroi mother. She had kicked them out after some 'incident' that the twins refused to comment on.

Anyway, we were all happy living in our big house in the middle of nowhere. It was a good thing we had wards too, three of them. The queen had been nervous about Lissa living outside the court, so she sent out a team of Moroi to re-install the wards every two weeks.

"Rose?" Lissa called. She was standing in the doorway, staring at me. "You coming?"

"Yeah." I said, following her inside. She threw the folder she had been carrying and her car keys onto the kitchen table and kissed Christian on the cheek. He was making something for dinner, and it smelled really good. "Meatloaf?" She asked him, and he nodded.

Adrian walked into the kitchen, a glass of wine in his hand. He placed it on the counter and I hugged him. "Hey georgous." He greeted me.

"Guess what I just did!" I asked him.

"What?"

"I picked out my wedding dress!"

He grinned and whispered to me, "I always pegged you as the get-married-in-jeans type."