Together is my favourite place to be❤️

Chapter 11

This is a long one... sorry! Quite strongly Vicley oriented! Enjoy...

*Jen's house*

The next morning, Vic had woken up with her legs intertwined with Luke's, her head in the crook of his neck and his arm draped over her middle. She started the day feeling all warm and fuzzy because she knew she didn't have to hide her man or her relationship for the day. Her mind quickly fell back on the words she'd heard Lucas say the night before when she was dosing in and out of sleep. 'It's a check in the box on a HR form' he had said. Her mood instantly dropped and her heart sunk as she thought about whether or not he loved her quite as much as she loved him. She was all but consumed by him, his scent, his smile, his slender yet strong firefighter build. She kept thinking that maybe she'd imagined the immensity of love he had for her and that she was somehow wrong to be so in love with him. To make matters worse, the one person Vic wanted to talk to about all of this was Andy, and she wasn't sure if she could trust her right now which hurt in a different sort of way, but was still terribly painful. A single tear rolled down her cheek and on to Lucas' chest, quickly followed by what seemed to be a flood. She tried to stop the tears but her whole body shuddered under her attempt causing Lucas to stir beneath her. As he started waking up he could feel her shake with each breath trying to calm herself down. "Hey hey hey, shhh, shh it's okay, what's wrong?" He asked, feeling now that his front was all wet. Concerned for his girlfriend he continued to comfort her and give soft kisses on her forehead, encouraging her to speak to him. " I can't help you if I don't know what's wrong baby."

"I...I..." she whispered between sobs before taking a deep breath. "I don't understand why... why she didn't feel she could tell me, was I not a good enough best friend? Was I untrustworthy?" She continued, rambling now. "And you, you don't love me enough to really want to marry me and.."

"Wait h..h..hang on, hang on, what are you talking about?" Lucas interrupted. "What do you mean? Of course I love y.."

"Last night," she cut in, " you told Jen you wanted to 'check a box on a HR form.' Is that so you won't lose your job? Is that all you care about? Your job?" She said, getting louder and louder as she spiralled down this dark train of thought.

"Are you serious?" He asked, half expecting to wake up out of a very strange dream. "You're mistaken, you didn't hear the whole sentence. I promise with everything inside of me that I love you more than anyone has ever loved a person before." Hugging her tightly now, pulling her in to his chest. "I want to marry you because I want to spend the rest of my life with you and have little mini Luke and Vic's, grow old together and travel the world." Chuckling slightly to himself now, he said "this definitely isn't how I would have liked to have brought up the topic and proposed to you, but seeing as we're knee deep in the middle of it.. Victoria Hughes, will you..."

"No, I don't want it to be like this" she interjected before he could finish his question. She untangled herself from him, got out of bed and went to lock herself in the bathroom.

Completely taken aback by what just happened, Lucas just lay in bed trying to rack his brains as to how that had managed to go so wrong. He went downstairs to get a glass of water and a cup of coffee for Vic thinking she may want it when she comes out. Lost in his thoughts he bumped in to Jen in the kitchen who steadied him and then asked if he was ok.

"Yes..no...I don't know." He hesitated to continue but Jen gestured for him to keep going. "I woke up to Vic crying and she said she overheard some of what I said last night and thinks I now only want to marry her to check a box on a HR form, which obviously isn't true, she's spiralling and I don't know what to do or how to fix it." He blurted out.

"Ok, first of all, breathe." She replied soothingly. "You literally just told me last night that she's all out of sorts because of this whole Herrera - Sullivan business. She's bound to take anything you say the wrong way at the moment. Her whole perception of normal has just turned on it's head and questions about her best friend's whole life have been brought up. She's probably thinking that even if you do get married, she'll still have to hide because they chose to hide their relationship from her to protect their jobs. I've seen the way that girl looks at you Luke, I can promise you, that that's a girl head over heels in love." She continued.