Small Packages

"She feels like my own," Angus said. "I can't imagine treating her any other way. But I did need to give you the choice." The crepes were good, but as much as he liked them, his mind was on Bella and the new life they were planning on creating together.

His mind went to her mother. He started to laugh. "Just wait until your mother finds out you're marrying an auror-or better yet the grandson of a werewolf slayer." On the other hand, perhaps when they realized his grandfather was famous, then perhaps they'd go a little easier on Bella about it. He had considered asking her family for permission to propose to her, but he honestly hadn't wanted any chance they'd refuse him. He took a sip of his wine, glad he had left the choice to her and not to anyone else.

"So, tell me. What does your dream wedding look like?" he asked.

"I'm glad that you feel that way." She said with a smile. "You are the most amazing person and the way you are with her. No matter what I would have gave you the choice of being with her like that." She ate the crepes and she thought they were amazing.

She laughed at his words about her mother, she just thought about the talk between her mom and her. "It would be one very interesting conversation between us." She said laughing some more. She couldn't help herself because she knew her mother was very odd person. She knew how the talk with her father would go which would be a good one. Her mother was the one who would question Angus until his ears would bleed.

She looked at him when he asked what her dream wedding looked like. "Well it's outdoors there's a beautiful array of flowers. It's in a open area there's an archway at the end of the aisle that has flowers on it that we would stand and chairs on either side. There's a long white sheet that covers the ground and goes down the aisle," She said grinning with smile just thinking about it. "It's simple but elegant, it's something that I want. Did you ever picture your wedding?" She asked looking at him curiously.

He paused a second. She really wanted to know? Oh boy. He laughed, a bit embarrassed.

"You're going to laugh," he said. "I used to only think of them in terms of other people, not in terms of myself. But, there was a time when the only thing I could being to wrap my head around, if I found the right girl, was to simply dash off and elope." He laughed. "I couldn't imagine a ceremony. Certainly not for myself, anyway. I've catered a lot of weddings, done a lot of wedding cakes, but its never been about me. Not like that.

"Seriously, though," he said, "now, its more about the people. I haven't given a whole lot of thought about what it would look like. I only thought about having the people that I care about there. So, if you want an outdoor wedding, I'm good with it. I think I'd rather be outside anyway.

"So, what sort of outside? Nighttime under the stars? Sunrise? In a woods? A garden? A beach? Or someplace specific? Any particular colors?" His questions were serious until he got to the last one. "I take it that a skydiving ceremony is out then?" He teased.

"I'm not gonna laugh I promise." She said with a smile. "Really? Where would you elope? To be honest I never thought you would want to elope." She asked curious about where he would go to elope. "Well it makes sense that you'd want to elope because of the catering you've done for weddings."

She listened to him talk and smiled thinking that he was definitely a wonderful man. "Well I thought outdoors because it gives you more room and you can smell the flowers more. Then of course it wouldn't be stuffy and no one would feel like they are cooped up in a building." She said thinking about what she would want it to be.

"I was thinking sunset in a garden somewhere. I have no idea on colors, I mean I always thought red and white paired together." She said thinking about it then laughed at his next question. "Oh darn and I thought you'd want an underwater wedding. Guess that's out of the question now." She teased back with a big grin on her face. "Though I don't think I'd be able to keep calm if I saw a shark swimming close by." She made a face at that thought.

"I don't know," he shrugged, laughing. "I don't think I ever thought about it very hard. I never had anyone I really wanted to marry. Not til now, anyway. I think I was trying to just avoid the whole thing, really.

"Sounds perfect," he said, as she described a sunset garden wedding. "If red and white is what you want, that's what we'll do. It sounds fine." He laughed when she mentioned an underwater wedding. "Yeah, I thought about that," He teased. "But I doubt I could cast that many bubblehead charms to accommodate everyone. Still, it might be interesting to see how a veil fits inside one."

"Have you ever been diving? It can be a lot of fun." Angus didn't expect her to like entirely everything he liked. They didn't have a lot of differences, and he liked that. But he also liked some fairly risky things too. He liked diving, and mountain climbing, and all sorts of sports.

"You know, my parents never approved of a lot of the things I liked. And they certainly didn't want me to become a werewolf hunter or a fighter or any kind. They were about as conservative as they come. My grandfather loved it, and my grandmother just brushed it off, saying it was just in the Donohue blood. I think that's probably why I've always been a bit closer to my grandparents than I was to my own parents. I haven't seen my parents for several years. I doubt they'll mend fences to show up at my wedding now. I'm fine with it. But I thought you needed to know that they might not show up."

She laughed at his words, "That's kinda how I was. Except I did it because my mother was constantly trying to get me to marry someone. She thinks that I need someone to protect Rose and me. She's kinda old fashioned and I wasn't. I'm glad that I'm marrying you though and not because you can protect me, but because I'm in love with you and you love Rose as well as me."

"Yeah it does." She said with a grin then got a mischievous thought in her head. "Well maybe not red and white. How about lime green and sunflower yellow?" She wanted to see what he would say but at the same time she was trying to refrain from laughing out loud. She laughed when he said he thought about that, "Hmm. Well there's always a wedding in hot air balloons." She said with a teasing grin. "Yeah that would be difficult holding that many. I didn't think about that one. It would probably all over my face to where I couldn't see."

"Diving? Like underwater diving with a tank and everything? Like muggles do? Then yes I've been diving. It's amazing down there watching all the fish swim around. My dad took me and he almost squeezed the instructor to death because a shark passed by too close. It was a small little tiger shark but he was still horrified." She said remembering what it was like doing things like that with her father. "I've also been rocking climbing with him and that was a lot of fun to do."

"I'm sorry Angus. I know that must have been difficult for you especially when you like doing those things. My mother didn't approve of my father doing the diving or rocking climbing with me. It's there loss that they didn't spend quality time with their son. They are missing out on a amazing man who has the biggest heart I know, they are the ones who are missing out on seeing what you've become." She said looking at him wondering if it hurt him that his parents didn't care for what he did. She certainly didn't like the fact that they didn't care for anything that Angus did or that they hadn't seen him in several years. "Look at what family you have right now sweetheart. You have the Lupins, Michael, your family in Tuscany, Rose and me. Family isn't only about blood it's about who's there for you when you need them most and stay around for always. If they do come, we'll show them what family is really about."

"Well, I'm glad she hasn't really seen what I do," he laughed. "We'll just go on letting her think whatever it is she thinks. That'll work until Rose is old enough to really get it. By then, hopefully it will be too late for her to offer up her opinion. No, seriously, it'll probably all work out.

"Lime green, huh?" He laughed. "I'm not going to even dare you to do that, or that's what we'll end up with." She mentioned hot air balloons, and for a moment, he had a visual of shortening a long reception by simply launching the guests. Yeah, he didn't see her approving of that.

"Oh, good," he said when she said she'd been diving. "That's something we can do sometime, then. There are so many great places to dive and wonderful things to see. I know some great tropical dives with some amazing fish. I've got a couple underwater cameras at the family compound in Tuscany. One for stills and one for wizarding photos You can use whatever one you want and take some pictures. Didn't know you were into rock climbing, but I've done that a couple of times. You know who is really into climbing, don't you? Michael. I swear he's half spider. I suppose that's what you get, though, when you've spent your life as a catburglar."

He brushed her concerns for his parents aside and said, "You're right. Its their loss. They live their lives as passively as possible. I think its sort of my dad's protest against my grandfather's line of work. They weren't ever happy that I liked being active like that. Its fine, though, really. I've always been accepted by the rest of my family, pretty much. And I'm very satisfied that I have such a large family of the heart." He was happy with all the people he had around him now. He was happy with his life and the fact that his family was going to get bigger by adding Bella and Rose.

"You sure you're ready for your family to get really big, really quick?" he asked.

The chef brought out two large tasting plates, one for each of them and pointed out the offerings. There was an orange spice cheesecake with a cranberry compote, hazelnut shortbread with topped with salted caramel and a dark chocolate ganache, and a flan with a rich apricot and brandy syrup, and some elegant looking cannolis filled with an unusual spumoni creme. The chef left them a couple of pads of paper and a couple of pens for their responses and left them to try the desserts.

"Robert clearly doesn't know what he's missing," Angus grinned. "They look good."

She laughed at his words as well. "She thinks your just a body guard not a werewolf hunter. Yeah hopefully she won't put her opinion in. I'm sure it will work out as well."

She grinned when he laughed about her suggestion of lime green. She laughed even more when he said he wasn't going to dare her. "Aw darn." She teased before she laughed some more. "On a serious note though, when we tell people we're engaged. Do we tell them that it's going to be a long engagement or will we set a date?"

"That would be wonderful." She said with a big smile. "I've only been a handful of times but I don't believe any of them were tropical dives. Oh it would be great to take pictures with both of them, one where the fish are still and one where their swimming. Yeah my father took me when I was a teenager because I tended to climb trees at the park. Really? Michael? He doesn't look like he would be into rock climbing. He's a catburglar?" She asked her eyes wide.

"I don't understand why they would want to live that way. That's still not a very good reason for living a passive life." She said trying to figure out what his parents would choose a life like that. To her a life without any adventure wasn't a life at all. "I'm glad that your accepted by the rest of your family and they seem to adore you from what I saw when I was there. It's good to have a big family like that." She said with a smile.

"Yes I'm sure. I've always wanted a big family." She said thinking that it would get big quick but she didn't mind in the least.

She looked at the desserts that the chef brought out and wondered how she was going to choose from such a wonderful offering. She knew she was gonna have a difficult time just picking two of them.

"Yeah he is definitely missing out on this." She said laughing softly. "Yes I don't know how I'll choose though. They all look so yummy."

"I think we do whatever fits us best. There will always be someone that we please and someone that we don't. All that matters is that it works for us. I don't see a lot of sense in making a long engagement unless that's what works for us. We're always going to be able to come up with reasons for putting it off for awhile longer in hopes that things could be more perfect later on. But life isn't perfect."

He looked down at the plate of desserts in front of him. "Its sort of like this plate. All of these choices look picture perfect. And if we offered these to a room full of people, we'd get a roomful of different answers. We can only tell the chef what we want.

"So, if we get married in a year, or if we go back upstairs and have Robert do it before we go home today, its fine so long as it works for us. I know that probably isn't the answer you're looking for, but, honestly, either way doesn't change the way I feel about you or about us being together. "

Isobella listened to him talk and smiled knowing how logical everything he said was. She loved how his mind worked on everything and she admired him for that. "Your right it's what we feel is right and everything else will fall into place." She said with a grin. "Let's enjoy some dessert and we'll figure things out from there."

She picked up her fork and took a bite out of one of them. She almost moaned at the goodness and the burst of flavour on her tongue. It was the hazelnut shortbread that she had tried first, it was delicious and she was definitely picking that one as her first. She was a sucker for anything hazelnut and this was by far the best one she had ever tasted. Next was the orange spice cheesecake, she like the cheesecake with it's spice but wasn't too fond of the cranberries. Next was the flan which was delicious but found the apricot was too rich for her. Finally she tasted the cannolis which were great because it had that shell around the filling that made them that much more better. So she wrote down what she liked about each of them then wrote down her choices on which ones she thought should be on the menu.

"I don't think I can eat another bite. They were so good." She said using her napkin to wipe her mouth gently before placing it on the table next to her. She smiled at him as she placed her hands in her lap, she played with the ring on her finger and smiling because there was one there. She didn't think that her day could get any better than it was right now. She was going to marry a man who she loved and who loved her back, also who loved her daughter like she was his own. She never thought she would marry again but she was so happy that she met Angus that fateful day at Babbity Rabbity's. She was also happy that she would soon would his wife whenever they thought the time was right.

A waiter came up to her and handed her a letter with her mother's writing on it. "It just came by owl madam," He said then walked away.

Bella quickly opened the letter and read it's one line text scrawled on the paper. You need to come quick something terrible happened. Bring anyone who can help please hurry. -JLW

"We have to go to my mother's now. Something bad happened and she needs me there immediately." She said wondering what could have gone wrong and what it was her mother couldn't explain on paper.