Fiona squeezed Drake's hand and gave him an encouraging smile. "It won't come to that, but if it does, I'll be the best hype man your hair's ever had," she assured him.
Down the short hall from the elevator was a set of doors, and beyond them was a waiting room disarmingly identical to the waiting room on the first floor. Inside of the room were five people, two of which Fiona didn't recognize. Over by the far wall sat her mother, a plump squat woman who looked very much deep into her fifties, who wore age like a fashionable gown rather than a burden. On either side of her were two girls who looked strikingly similar to Fiona. The shorter one look closer in age, but the structure of the taller one's face matched Fiona's almost identically, and yet somehow, there were still differences in that.
Fiona squeezed Drake's hand again and took point in this, leading him toward her gathered family. Her sister glanced up distractedly and did a double take before hitting her mother's arm, who followed her gaze. The woman, standing just barely over five feet, bounded to her feet and exuded the same kind of senseless joy that overcame Fiona at times.
"Oh Fiona, you came," she said as she wrapped her daughter - who was a fair bit taller than her - in an exuberant hug tight enough to briefly pick her off her feet.
"Of course I came, mama," Fiona said. She sounded just a touch more breathless than she had before. "And I brought someone with me. This is Drake Lee, and he's a very important person to me. He's my husband."
That was met with a resounding silence. From her mother, from her watching sisters. She didn't take offense to the resounding silence from the two strangers, they likely weren't doing that on purpose. She watched as her mother put her hand to her mouth and briefly turned away, as if collecting her thoughts and deciding how she was going to approach this, before turning back toward them.
"I'm sorry, hun, I think my hearing's going. I didn't hear that last part."