Teacher's Pet || A Joseph Quinn AU

The Vows

 When she woke up she was hungover and not even in her own bed. At some point she'd passed out on the couch but she didn't even remember when that had happened. It was the first time she'd ever gotten that level of drunk in her life which was stupid to do the night before her wedding. If there even was one. She vaguely remembered a fight about her kissing Jamie and not telling Joseph as the world came back to life around her. Then she got sick and ran to the bathroom to puke. Only seconds after she had finished was Gina in there yanking her to her feet.

"Come on get dressed, wedding...wedding." Gina was saying, leaving her to question how her friend wasn't nearly as hungover as she was.

"There's not going to-"

"No one called it off, there's going to be a wedding." Gina said, "I checked."

"But-"

"You're super hungover I know." Gina cut her off again and held out a glass of something and put two unfamiliar looking pills in her hand. "This is the cure, get going." Since her friend seemed to be completely fine she figured that there was no harm in drinking whatever the weird smelling drink was or taking the pills so she did just that. Then she took a moment to try not to puke them back up before forcing herself all the way upstairs to the master bathroom to basically clean herself up to get ready for everything else.

Twenty minutes later they were at the salon with her stylist and she was feeling a lot better. Almost too good and that was when she realized she had to be at least a bit high. Not completely wasted out of her mind but she was feeling good, chilled out, and her head wasn't screaming at her. Nor was she nauseous. She still hadn't asked what the hell it was that Gina had given her but she didn't think it mattered. That was as long as she didn't crash before the end of the night after the reception. She was also drinking tons of water, at the insistence of her friend so she figured that was probably helping as well.

Once her hair and makeup were done it was time to get dressed in the gown that she had already picked out which was less complicated since she'd done it a few times after it had arrived. She also had Gina there with the other bridesmaids to help. The whole time she questioned how they all knew there was going to be a wedding when she didn't even hear about that and Joseph wasn't responding to her texts so she was at least a bit worried that all of this was being done for nothing. That she would show up at the venue only to walk down the aisle to no one being there. Since her father wasn't a huge part of her life she had decided to walk down the aisle alone. Her mother had chosen not to attend the wedding either so that wasn't an option and almost all of the friends she currently had were bridesmaids (which she was fine with). It had been hard to trust anyone since the stalker situation, especially after the shooting.

Once she was ready they got into the limo and it took them to the venue which was as private as possible for being a public place. It was late fall by that point, and the weather was nice (thankfully) but the botanical gardens were technically closed to the public. They were, however, still booked for weddings and though the ceremony was to take place outside the actual reception (directly after) would take place indoors in a hall they had for different types of events. As Gina helped her out of the limo she saw plenty of paparazzi with cameras waiting for her and she sighed. Still, she was able to put on a happy face as they walked past the shouting masses of photographers and through the gates that barred them from entering or getting a good view of the actual event. She was taken to a small tent which was set up for her and her bridal party which was across from another one meant for Joseph and his arrangement of friends. There was definitely something going on in that area but no one would let her leave to look or go bother him.

"He's actually there though, right?" She asked Gina, "Can you look?"

"I did look, he's there. You don't want to see him before the wedding, it's bad luck." Gina said, forcing her to sit down. She grabbed a glass of champagne and held it out.