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This was the second time Kate Stewart had been married to a man she didn’t love.
The first relationship was a young love of an inexperienced kind to a man who was less than appreciative of having Kate around. Her son still wore his name like an uncomfortable scar. She preferred to ignore that he even had a middle name so she didn’t have to think about the now long-gone ex-lover who, surely, was never going to stick around. She wished she had seen it coming.
Now, Kate stood in a clean, whitewashed bedroom of some fancy hotel on the outskirts of London, squeezing into a dress two sizes too small and six-inch stilettos that crushed her toes and heels as if they too were desperate to escape this nightmare.
”Sorry, do you mind me leaning on you? I can’t balance in these things.” Kate groaned, clutching Osgood’s shoulder with a ferociously strong grip.
Her colleague laughed, trying to stay upright herself as Kate nearly sent them toppling across the room like dominoes.
Osgood smiled at her closest friend, watching her stumble across the room as if she were drunk. As much as she loved Kate, the scientist would’ve been the first to admit that this wasn’t her most glamorous look.
”I’m going to fall over in the middle of the service!”
”No, you won’t, Kate.” Osgood attempted to reassure her as she pirched on the edge of the bed beside her.
Kate looked decidedly more downtrodden than a typical bride, staring out ahead of her like the blank wall was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen. Osgood resisted the urge to place a hand softly on her cheek and turn her face towards hers. Instead, she rubbed the same hand along Kate’s back and silently watched her despair. It was becoming quickly apparent that the head of UNIT didn’t seem to want to tie the knot at all.
”Osgood, if I ask you something, will you answer me entirely honestly?”
Kate whipped her head around to look at her friend, blank, exhausted eyes that had been contemplating this very question with no rest for what looked like several sleepless nights.
“When have I not?”
Kate tried to crack a smile, Osgood noticed her struggle to bring it to her lips.
”I don’t think he loves me, what do you think?” She said, in an intimate whisper as if her husband-to-be was about to walk in.
Osgood’s eyes roved up and down Kate, in her tight white dress that flared around her ankles, hair curled at the ends and neatly pinned half-up, eyes dressed with an unflattering shade of blue that had smudged ever so slightly down her cheeks. This was a woman that supposedly couldn’t have been happier on her wedding day, but instead carried a deep sense of dread and regret heavy on her shoulders. Something deep within her that had been once again repressed building up, only to be lost with a few simple vows. In this dress, this makeup, this awkwardly styled hair; Osgood could barely recognise the woman who sat beside her.
The man waiting somewhere downstairs was not a terrible person by any means. He seemed kind enough, but never really loving. He appreciated Kate, sure, but Osgood could sense that he didn’t truly care for her. Rotating around and around her ever busy brain was the familiar fear that, within only a few years, Kate would be right back where she started. Divorced once again, leading with such false confidence at work, hiding and trying to forget what she really wanted from life.
“No, Kate. I’m sorry-“
”You don’t have to apologise, Osgood.” Kate snapped back, a sense of anger in her voice.
“I’m sure you’ll be happy.”
”Right. Of course. This is all I’ve ever wanted, isn’t it?” She laughed half heartedly.
Although Osgood had never been an expert at picking up on the subtleties of Kate’s often confusing communication style, she took her remark with a large pinch of sarcasm. Kate didn’t want to get married. She was a scientist, a leader, a trailblazer - a defender of earth. To be reduced to “just” this idiot’s wife was an insult, and one of her greatest fears. Over the years, she had saved the earth countless times, made great discoveries, fought Zygons and Cybermen and all sorts of extraterrestrial threats. She had been with many men, ditched many more and lived an extraordinary amount of lives. Through all of this, she felt as if she had never been so at ease as she had in what should have been some of her darkest moments, when she was alone, just herself and her closest scientific advisor, talking it out. The company of a woman that understood her better than anyone else ever had, perhaps a welcome consequence of her unique career.
Now, however, as the sun began to rise and warm orange light streamed in through a gap in the curtains, Kate didn’t feel so comfortable anymore. Osgood’s company was making her nervous, sending shivers down her spine and making her dizzy with regret. In a matter of hours, she would be bound to the supposed love of her life, opening a new chapter, or perhaps an entirely different book. One in which her best friend was a background character, one that could drift swiftly into Kate’s memory and become nothing but a monochrome still of a life she could’ve led. Kate Stewart didn’t want to do this.
She snapped herself back to reality, feeling the warmth of Osgood’s steady hand on hers. Cold and shaking, Kate leant into Osgood’s touch, nestling her head in the scientist’s shoulder and allowing her to wrap her arm around her. If this had been their last night truly together, Kate wanted to make the most of it.
Osgood smiled, feeling Kate relax a little, but couldn’t suppress the growing sense of anger that was building inside of her with every second they tiptoed closer to the wedding. All these years that they had spent with each other, the stressful working days saving the world by each other’s sides, the late nights talking calmly down the phone, or reassuring each other gently as they embraced, getting to know Kate’s children, her family, letting them stay in her flat when things fell apart or the world was particularly close to ending. All the days and nights they spent closer than Kate had ever been with her fiancé, or any ex-partner, and she couldn’t even manage an ‘I love you.’ Not once had Kate admitted that what she felt for her closest advisor was anything more than admiration, friendship. Yet, the secret kisses they had shared felt so real. More real than anything else could have been.
The clock ticked steadily, a militant marching drum to foreshadow the impending disaster Kate was facing.
“How do I look, Os?” Kate laughed uncomfortably.
”You’re stunning, Kate.” She smiled back, tracing her hands along the edge of Kate’s shoulders and down her back.
”Don’t lie to me, I look a mess! I’m a bloody trainwreck!”
Osgood watched Kate pull away, head falling heavily into her hands that rested on her knees, digging into the soft lace of her dress.
In this light, Kate looked like a Queen. Straight out of a renaissance painting, the melancholic bride and her last prayer for survival. The sun cast warm red highlights through her hair, early morning light catching the shimmering rhinestones that were dotted across her dress. She sparkled like a mirrorball in the middle of a nightclub dance floor, surrounded by emotion-fuelled mistakes and drunken reflection. Her eyes were filled with tragedy and Osgood’s mind was swimming with fury. They slowly moved in closer to each other, Osgood caressing Kate’s face and running a hand through her hair, crimped and crispy with too much hairspray. This wasn’t who Kate was, and she knew that.
“You look…great. You’ll be okay.” Osgood whispered as she pulled Kate in to a gentle kiss.
There, in the freezing cold hotel bedroom with the blinding white walls and tasteless wedding decor, the two women relaxed into each other’s kiss, hands in each other’s hair, eyes closed, lips locked together. It was messy and unplanned. It was a way of keeping the tears from their eyes, of journeying into a loveless marriage without regretting not sharing one last moment with the woman she truly wanted to walk down the aisle with. It was a comfort to the both of them.
After seconds immersed in the warmth of Osgood’s honest, caring love - Kate felt her heart thump in her chest and her hands shaking once more. She longed to stay in the moment, but instead she pushed her advisor away, wide-eyed and panicked, she leapt up - careful not to break her ankle in the god-awful shoes she had been gifted by her insufferable sister-in-law.
“Kate?” Osgood called out, panic-stricken as Kate fixed her hair, attempted to hide the smeared makeup that now covered her face and brushed down her dress.
“I think I should go, Osgood. I have somewhere to be.”
”Kate, please, listen.”
Kate ran towards the door, frantically jiggling the stubborn handle and attempting to pry it open. Osgood held back tears, following her once-lover to the doorway.
Once she had opened the door, the reluctant bride-to-be hurried outside but hesitated in the corridor. Turning back, mind on fire with the memories of her time with Osgood and the sense of dread that was quickly creeping up on her, she took one last look at the woman she loved - breathless and flustered, trying to manage a smile.
“I love you.” She said, for the first time.
”Osgood, I love you.” She said, for the last time.
Still standing there, shaken, frozen in place in the dusky, unwelcoming hotel room - Osgood smiled back, nodding carefully. She knew what this meant, and couldn’t look in Kate’s eyes anymore. She could hear the woman’s laboured breaths as she turned her back, eyes darting around the room. One last kiss. One last I love you before Kate could never be hers again. What if she came running back? It was inevitable, surely, the falling out, the falling apart. Osgood thought she might turn her away for not taking her chance when she had it. She knew, however, that she’d always have a space in her heart for that strong, steady and ever so loving woman who was signing her life away. Their love was passionate, close, caring - but it would never mean so much to the rest of Kate’s world as her partnership with this man. She spotted the tightly wrapped bouquet still sitting abandoned on the bed and scooped it up into her hands. The red and white flowers twirled around in a delicate arrangement, bound in gold ribbon in a neat bow. How she wished it could be her handing this little token to Kate at the end of the day. One last time, Osgood turned back to face her, sadly. She tossed her the bouquet, and as she watched Kate turn to walk away she called out, in love, in sadness, in hope, in anger, in anguish.
“Kate?”
Kate stepped slowly towards the stairs, hurling herself feet first into a relationship she didn’t care for, trying desperately to stifle any feelings she had left for her beloved advisor. Her best friend. Her love. Osgood smiled.
“Good luck, babe.”