It's just a marriage of convenience...
Or is it? (Hint: no. No it is not.)
Aka the smutfic where Laurie proposes to Amy before Fred does, says he can take care of her and her family, which she takes to mean he's proposing to her just 'cause he can't...
His lips collect your whispers like the heavens collect stardust, and the promises you kiss into the constellation of his skin fade into the cosmos that still lingers within his bones. He consumes all of you, like a slowly dying galaxy, and you let him.- lostcap
"I'm not a poet," Amy told him. "I'm just a woman. And as a woman," she went on, "there's no way for me to make my own money. Not enough to earn a living or support my family." She needed him to understand. She wasn't sure he could. "And if I had my own money, which I don't," she continued anyway, "that money would belong to my husband the moment we got married. And if we had children, they would be his, not mine. They would be his property," she stressed, "so don't sit there and tell me marriage isn't an economic proposition, because it is. It may not be for you, but it most certainly is for me."
He looked at her then, really, truly looked at her, and she wondered if he was actually seeing her, if he'd ever actually seen her.
When he unlaced her apron, she found herself wishing he'd step closer to her, put his arms around her. She didn't understand why, only knowing that she wanted to be close to him, as close as she could get.
Her heart stopped when he called her beautiful, she thought.
It didn't matter.
He is not mine, she told herself. He is not mine to have.
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"Are you going to marry him?" he asked her when she was drawing him one day.
He'd asked her that before. She didn't know why he kept bringing it up.
"It's what's best for my family," she said, not looking up from her piece of charcoal moving across the parchment.
She heard a rustling, and raised her gaze to see him sitting up and looking at her intently.
"Do you love him?"
She looked back at her drawing, reinforcing the lines she'd made. "Does it matter?"
"Yes." His voice was soft, hesitant.
Amy sighed. "Why?"
"Because if you don't," he said, "wouldn't it be better to marry someone who knows you better, that you've known longer?"
Amy shrugged but didn't stop her drawing. "I need to marry rich. It's necessary for my family. Out of all the rich men of marriageable age who are available, I've known him the longest."
"I'm rich and you've known me longer," Laurie pointed out. "And I'm only a couple years older than Fred."
"I said 'available'," Amy reminded him without looking up.
