A/N: For those in the know, this is a re-posting of my old stories after I left the fandom for what I thought was forever and ended up being less than a year. See my profile for more details. For those of you who are reading this for the first time, welcome. This was originally written back in 2013. I have gone through and done some polishing before reposting. This story picks up after Notorious Nineteen. Thanks for reading.

"Why would I want to be in your cousin's wedding?"

"Because the bridesmaid I was supposed to escort down the aisle broke her leg and Sophia thought you would be a good replacement," Morelli said with a shrug.

Sophia Morelli was marrying Tommy Mangiacavallo in two days and her college roommate, Jackie Lewis, had disqualified herself from the role of bridesmaid after breaking her leg while trying to do a sexy pole dance at the bachelorette party.

"The dress probably won't fit me and I'll bet it's hideous," I said, trying to figure out how many excuses I could come up with to get out of being in this wedding.

Morelli walked over to the closet by his front door and pulled out a black dress bag.

"Sophia sent the dress over and said to try it on. The seamstress said she can squeeze you in today or tomorrow if it needs adjustments," he said, handing me the bag.

I groaned loudly and accepted the bag. This was going to be a disaster. Not only would I have to see Morelli's crazy grandmother, but I'd have to do it in an ugly dress. This was the second wedding in three months' time in which I'd been placed into the wedding party at the last minute. I had been named maid of honor in the wedding of one of Ranger's friends and had been made to wear a horrid pink taffeta dress with a hideous bow only to have the couple elope right before the wedding. I didn't think I was going to get so lucky that Sophia and Tommy would elope before Saturday.

I stomped out of the room and upstairs to Morelli's bedroom to try on the stupid dress. I hoped it was canary yellow and so small that there would be no possible way for it to be altered to fit me. I closed my eyes as I unzipped the bag and pulled the dress out. Opening one eye, my mouth fell open at the sight.

It was a gorgeous black halter dress in satin. I was mesmerized as I stripped out of my t-shirt, bra and jeans and dropped the dress over my head. I hooked the clasp behind my neck and adjusted it so my boobs weren't popping out. It elegantly skimmed the floor and felt dreamy as it moved against my bare legs. I walked over to the mirror in the corner of the room and gasped. The dress was perfect. It fit as though it had been tailored for me originally.

"How's it going?" Morelli asked, knocking on the door.

"You can come in," I said, not able to take my eyes off my reflection.

I saw Morelli walk through the door and stop when he saw my reflection in the mirror.

"Wow, Cupcake. You look great."

I had to agree.

"Okay, I'll be in the wedding," I told him. "Just so I can wear this dress. I've never seen such a great bridesmaid's dress."

Morelli shook his head and picked up his phone to give Sophia the good news while I kept staring at myself in the mirror.

The rehearsal took place the next day at the same church in the Burg that my family attended and that I had gone to for Robert and Amanda Kinsey's wedding a few months earlier. I had put on the conservative blue dress that I wore for family occasions and pulled my hair back in a clip. I dreaded seeing Bella, but figured the sooner the rehearsal was over, the sooner we could get through dinner and get away. She would be occupied tomorrow at the actual wedding, leaving me to enjoy my perfect dress and wedding cake in relative peace.

I was the bridesmaid immediately before the maid of honor, so I gathered in the back of the church with Sophia, Morelli's sister, Cathy, and two other women I didn't know. Cathy was the maid of honor, and I lined up in front of her and behind the two nameless women who kept glaring at me as though I'd stolen their spot in the bridal party hierarchy.

We started the wedding march down the aisle and I locked eyes with Morelli. I was reminded of when I had done this same walk in the other wedding, only headed towards Ranger, who had been the best man. At that rehearsal, I'd had a moment where I'd imagined myself walking down the aisle to marry Ranger. It had been so overwhelming that I'd had a hard time keeping myself together. Looking down the aisle at Morelli, I tried to picture the same situation with him. But as hard as I tried, I couldn't find the same image or emotion in the idea of walking down this aisle to marry him. I started to feel cold and clammy and couldn't picture a blissful wedding. All I could see where the fights that would ensue afterwards, which would span from me quitting my job as a bounty hunter to stay home and pop out babies to staying away from Ranger all together. I felt like I had been kicked in the gut by the time I reached the altar. Morelli and I had been in an off-and-on, semi-exclusive relationship for more years than I cared to think about. We had danced around the idea of marriage, not sure if we could bring ourselves to commit to it or each other. We'd been briefly engaged, mainly to get my family off my back, but there hadn't been any actual plans to get married. We'd lived together before, but those times usually fell apart when one or both of us thought the other was being unreasonable about something.

I gazed back at Morelli, whose expression was serious, but distracted. I wonder if he had been having some of the same what if scenarios running through his head as I had walked down the aisle, though I had no idea if they were as horrifying as the ones I'd had. The priest and couple did a quick pretend walk through of the ceremony then we all proceeded down the aisle for the processional. I grasped Morelli's arm and we walked down behind the best man and maid of honor in silence, avoiding each other's gaze. The awkwardness carried over to the dinner afterwards at Gioia, a new Italian restaurant located just outside the Burg. I tried to ignore it, engaging in conversation with Cathy, who was my age and had been in my class in high school, but it felt like there was an elephant in the room. Thankfully, no one else seemed to notice it.

Once dinner was over and Bella had threatened me with the eye if I made her grandson late for the wedding tomorrow because I was "being a slut", Morelli and I got into his new blue Explorer and drove back to his house. By the time we pulled up in front of the house, I was cracking my knuckles out of nerves. I didn't know how to handle the situation at the church. Morelli was clearly having some thoughts on the matter as well, so I didn't think I'd be able to ignore it.

Morelli turned off the car, but made no move to get out. I had unbuckled my seatbelt, but stopped short of opening my door when I realized he wasn't moving.

"What's going on with us?" he asked, picking at a spot on his steering wheel.

I swallowed, feeling a lump form in my throat. "What do you mean?"

Morelli sighed. "At the church, when you were walking down the aisle towards me, could you picture us getting married?"

So Morelli's mind had gone to the same place as mine.

I bit down on my lower lip, unsure of how to answer the question. To say "no" seemed insensitive, but I didn't want to lie either.

"I tried," I said, hoping that answer would suffice and knowing full well that it wouldn't.

Morelli nodded. "Me too. But all I ended up imaging was us fighting about your job, having kids and you staying away from Ranger."

My eyes widened at this pronouncement. Geez, we'd been on the exact same wavelength.

A quiet "Yeah" was all I finally offered.

We sat there in silence for a few minutes, Morelli kept running his index finger along his upper lip and I nervously jiggled my foot. My mind was running the gamut from break up to elope, wondering if one of them was the right answer or if we should just keep living in the moment the way we had been.

Morelli finally broke the silence. "I've been wondering about this for while. I've been hoping for some sign that would tell me if I was supposed to marry you or if we needed to give it a clean break once and for all. Last week, the head of the Gang Reduction Task Force with the State Police called me, offering me a job down in Camden. I told him I'd need a little time to decide, and was wondering what it meant for us. I didn't know if it meant we needed to break up and I move down to Camden to allow each of us a fresh start or if we were supposed to get married and move to Camden together. I think tonight's trip down the aisle finally showed me which direction we're supposed to head in."

I was stunned not only to learn of the job offer that he'd never told me about, but that he'd been contemplating our future.

"And that is?" I asked, trying to keep my voice level. I knew I was going to be feel miserable no matter which answer he gave me.

"I need to take the job in Camden. Alone. We both need to move on with our lives."

Despite the tears stinging my eyes and a giant lump in my throat, I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Morelli was right. We did love each other, but it was painfully obvious that it would never be enough and we would only be hurting ourselves by going down this road any longer.

Tears began falling down my cheeks as I stared out the window and watched a man walk his dog across the street and into an open garage. I felt Morelli reach over and pat my hand and I turned to look at him. He had tears in his eyes too. I reached across the console and hugged him, knowing we'd reached a moment years in the making. We stayed like that for a minute before pulling apart and wiping our eyes.

I blew out a shaky sigh before I spoke. "Let's not tell anyone until after the wedding is over. We don't want to take any focus off of Sophia and Tommy."

Morelli cleared his throat and nodded. "Yeah. Good idea."

We got out of the car and went inside, Bob rushing over to greet us with his normal exuberance. I had been planning to spend the night at Morelli's, get ready for the wedding and ride over together to the church the next afternoon. Now I didn't think that was such a good idea.

"Look, I'll get the dress and my stuff and go back to my apartment tonight. You can pick me up on the way to the church," I said, heading towards the stairs. Morelli nodded and walked into the kitchen.

"Do you want a beer?" he asked awkwardly.

"No thanks. I won't be long."

I went upstairs and grabbed the dress bag out of Morelli's closet and then headed over to the drawer where I kept some underwear and socks and emptied the contents into my shoulder bag. I moved onto the bathroom, where I grabbed my toothbrush, hair dryer, make-up, shampoo and conditioner and deodorant, stuffing them into the bag as well. I didn't keep much at Morelli's, so it only took me about five minutes to be certain I had everything.

I went back downstairs to find him drinking his beer standing up at the kitchen counter. He gazed at my overflowing bag, understanding that I had packed up all of my possessions that had found a temporary home at his house. We didn't speak for a minute, but continued to awkwardly glance at each other off and on. Finally, Morelli finished the last of his beer and put the bottle in the recycling.

"I'll pick you up around three tomorrow."

I nodded silently. Any attempt at speech would have only resulted in sobs.

Without saying good-bye, I headed out the front door and laid the dress down flat in the back seat of the ten year old Camry I'd bought a month ago. I put my shoulder bag in the passenger seat and got in the car. Years of driving on the Jersey freeway and perfect knowledge of Trenton's streets were the only things that allowed me to make it back to my apartment in one piece. My eyes had been blurry with tears on the drive home to the point that I had barely been able to distinguish between red and green stoplights. I thankfully met none of my neighbors in the lobby or elevator of my building and got myself inside my apartment before the gasping sobs started. I knew I wasn't devastated over the break up, but I was sad and confused. Morelli had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember and after the wedding tomorrow, I had no idea as to how much I may see him in the future. I felt like I was grieving the death of a friend, and in reality I was. I was grieving the loss of a relationship in which I had invested time and emotion. I was also losing a friend. I let myself cry until I couldn't anymore. I hung up the bridesmaid dress, gave Rex a carrot and fresh water and fell into bed with my clothes on.

I would face tomorrow when it came.