Singapore facility's ceremonial garden—purpose-built for exactly this occasion, completed three weeks prior after Rodriguez had quietly authorized construction the moment the date was confirmed—held perhaps two hundred people by early afternoon.
Seven years married. Seven years since a small, quiet ceremony that had happened without fanfare, before convergence crisis, before Coalition operations consumed every available hour, before either of them had understood what their partnership would be asked to carry. The wedding itself had been modest—practical necessity meeting genuine affection, witnessed by almost no one, formalized quickly because circumstances at the time hadn't permitted anything elaborate.
Seven years later, circumstances had finally permitted something else.
