Jack Sawyer

Jack stood in the hallway leading to the clinic; he was still shell shocked.

When asked, he'd told anyone and everyone that he didn't care if they were having a boy or a girl. He still believed that was true. If the news they'd been given just moments before had been different, he was sure he would have been just as elated since the rest of the news they'd received was that the baby was growing well and healthy.

He was trying to focus on that, and not on the fist gripping his heart while he waited for his wife to join him.

He wasn't about to hang out his shingle as the island's resident wedding planner, but all things considered, he thought he'd managed things fairly well. Their guests would be fed sandwiches and fresh fruit as well as muffins and cookies from the bakery. There was a decent sampling of wine and other adult beverages and a simple yet elegantly decorated cake, also from the bakery.

Jack himself had spent nearly three days at the clothes box in search of his own clothes. After what felt like the hundredth teal/maroon/sky blue tux with matching ruffled shirt, he'd started to seriously consider just grabbing one and making the best of it. His fingers were curled around a lavender bow tie when he remembered it. The swing competition they'd participated in not long after they'd become a couple. The ruffles had been deep-sixed into the box and he'd practically run back to the hut to find it.

When he pulled the clothes bag from his closet and unzipped it, he found the tux was still in perfect form. In a twisted way, he supposed the box was forcing his hand, and his twitchy memory; it gave him no other option but to remember that he already had the perfect outfit.

So dressed in his swing dance finest, Jack took one last look over the after-wedding spread, the white fabric runner spread between the two sets of chairs, then took his place at the head of that runner. And waited, breath bated, to wait for the love of his life to walk towards him.

For her part, Florence had hardly slept at all in the Compound room she'd taken for the night, away from Jack for just one last night so he wouldn't see the dress or anything else she was wearing. She knew everything would be ready, everything would go well, and even if it didn't, it didn't matter. What mattered was that tomorrow she'd be married to a wonderful man that she loved more than she ever thought possible. A man that made her feel safe and smart and silly and sexy all at once. A man that had never made her unhappy and never would. That wasn't what kept her up. What kept her up was something else, something more indistinct that she couldn't even identify until early in the morning.

She missed her family. On the rare occasions when she let herself picture this day back home, it was always with her foster parents in attendance, and the few friends of her birth parents who would tell her how proud her father would be. It hurt and it wasn't until the early morning when she decided how she could make that feeling go away. Sure, it involved sending someone to sneak into their hut for a little pre-wedding burglary right before the ceremony, but it was worth it when she tied the little bag containing the White King and Queen from her father's chess set around her wrist. She couldn't have her parents, but she could have something of them. Something old.

When she walked down the aisle, she finally breathed a sigh of relief. Her dress, finally finished by the talented combination of Kahlan and Jane, was as beautiful as she'd imagined it would be, fit perfectly and didn't trip her up once as she took her place and said her vows. Charlie, who'd gamely stepped up to do the ceremony, said all the right things in all the right order, and almost before Florence could breathe, she was married. She almost managed not to cry, but what was a wedding without a few tears?

Gathering style for the reception. Tag Jack, tag Florence, tag each other. There are tables with drinks, sandwiches, fruit, vegetables, cookies and muffins, and the cake. After the ceremony, the chairs were moved for dancing and Jack's Bose system is kicking out jazz, swing, and classical music for dancing.

Also - note that there's a bunny hutch on the outskirts of the party, Jack and Phil in attendance for the event.

Once Jack got home with the laundry, he went straight to the small desk in his hut. The Compound had been buzzing loudly about the random bouts of people forgetting things all over the island. No stranger to amnesia, he also knew that the reports were starting to stress Flore out. He could see it in the set of her shoulders, and the worry in her eyes whenever anyone even hinted about it.

It had taken him a while to get the dinner makings together, as well as a bottle of wine. While the chicken had been frying, he'd searched every closet and cupboard for the three things he needed that weren't dinner related. He'd had a mix of success and failure, but even for the failure he'd found something close enough to work.

With dinner made and ready to serve, he sat at the desk and took the paper and pen he'd found in a random drawer and started to rite, the little box perched at his elbow.

He was still laughing over the Rhett Butler comment when he finally got them to Flore's door. She was still comfortably settled in his arms and he managed to get her door opened in front of them and shut behind them without dropping her or bumping her head/bad ankle on anything.

He called that an unmitigated success. Minor miracle fit, too.

"Home sweet home," he said with a grin, dipping in to kiss her softly as he set her down on the bed, managing to catch the wine bottles and set them aside. "I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to whatever special occasion we save these for, even if it's just celebrating the fact the sun came up."

As it turned out, Jack didn't need a florist.

Tropical islands turned out to have enough flowers to fill his needs just fine. He didn't realize until he had his hands full of them that he was missing something much more vital. Someone to arrange them.

And did he ever need that. Because no matter what luck the Talisman had left with him all those years ago, an ability to bundle flowers together was not a part of that luck. No matter what he tried, it looked like he did it blindfolded. And with his feet. At least the wine had been easy.

So in the end, he took the best of the bunch by it's long stem, tucked the wine under his arm, dressed in the first outfit the island had gifted him with - white linen shirt and loose cargo pants - and made his way to the Compound kitchen where they'd agreed to meet.

He stopped just outside the building and looked up. "A little help, huh, Henry?"

His best friend had no answer. He, Jack, was on his own.

Hopefully tonight went a little bit better than the last time.