The first Dance

Disclaimer: As with any other story that I write for this site I make no money from the stories I write on this site and as always the characters of the Terra Nova universe are the sole property of their creator. The only characters I own are any O.C's that I might or might not create for this story or any other.

Summary: The day that Maddy and Mark has been waiting anxiously for has finally arrived…their wedding!

A/N: I know that there are probably loads of Maddy and Mark wedding stories out there and maybe people are fed up with them but here is another one for you or at least or those who are not fed up with them.

Credit goes to Fenrisulven and Ice-Cold-Diamonds for their interest in my other Terra Nova stories and reviewing them but also for giving me the inclination to get off my writer's butt and get on with uploading the first of a whole batch of Terra Nova stories that I have had in note form for I am not going to admit how long but it has been a while.

I will admit however to there being about 20 -25 of them, at the moment there might be more by the time I have finished uploading them and though most of them are one shots there is about three that are multi chaptered and all will be uploaded over the next year.

So happy reading! (I hope).

Maddy opened her eyes and for a moment savoured the smell of the new day, she could feel the suns heat as it flowed through the window it felt glorious and she closed her eyes as she relaxed in the warm air and bathed in the feelings of security that it gave her.

All of a sudden her eyes flew open as she realised that it was here finally her day, her and Mark's and she felt her excitement and anxiety rising as she thought of the day ahead of her, a day in which by the end of it she would not be Maddy Shannon any more but Maddy Reynolds.

The sound of the door being pushed open and the sound of a pair of small feet running across the floor was the only warning she had before her sister jumped onto the bed startling her out of her thoughts as the little girl excitedly wished her good morning and hugged her big sister, Zoe was so excited for her and she loved her more than anything but she loved Mark as well and although she felt a little uneasy about him taking her sister away from the family she was thrilled with the prospect of getting another brother in the family especially one as nice as Mark.

The door sliding open again alerted both girls to the fact their mother was up and she was entering the room, Zoe moved over so her mother could sit on the bed and she sat holding her hands out to Maddy who grasped them with intensity her anxiousness clear on her face.

"Oh Maddy what's wrong? Are you worried about today?"

Maddy bit her lower lip as she nodded her confirmation to her mother, she was too nervous to speak and she was certain her mother would think she was being foolish if she admitted her fears to her.

Elizabeth smiled at the lost little girl look her eldest daughter had on her face at that moment, she understood exactly what her daughter was feeling, she had felt the same on the day she had married her Jim.

"Oh sweetheart," she said her eyes swimming with love and warmth for her baby girl, "every woman feels this way on her wedding day. Well at least most of them and I felt exactly the same on the day I married your father and I am sure that Mark is also feeling nervous today. You are both about to start on the first of the two biggest journeys of your lives together."

"The first….there is another?"

"Yes," Elizabeth told her daughter still smiling as she took in the still slightly nervous young woman who sat before her, "the second will begin when you and Mark have your first child."

Maddy gulped as she thought of the time when she and Mark would have a child of their own to cherish and as much as the idea filled her with a degree of glee there was also a small amount of trepidation at the thought of such a tiny life being totally dependent on her.

"However that is not something you should be worrying about today, today you are getting married and will be becoming someone new, Mrs Mark Reynolds something you have been wanting for a long time. So before the others get here and the chaos that always accompanies wedding days begins lets the three of us get breakfast together one last time as a family, one last time that I can think of you as my little girl."

"Oh mum I'll always be your little girl," Maddy told her.

"And I'll always be your baby girl," Zoe piped up.

Across the compound in the military sector of the colony a very hung over head pushed the sheets back and groaned as the too bright sunlight hit his eyes, his mouth felt like the bottom of a sandpit and he felt sure that something had laid its home in the pit of his stomach.

Groaning as the hung over stag member rolled over and glanced over to the other bed where the man of the day, the groom who in five hours would be marrying his sister was sleeping, to see if he was in any better state than he.

The other bed was empty, Josh sat up with a start at the sight of the empty bed but pain blossomed in his head at the sudden movement and he gripped his head, falling back and groaning as his head reconnected with the bed.

The door opened another popped his head in at the sounds of Josh's groans which had awoken him from his slumber and he saw Josh on the bed clutching his head in pain. Shuffling over, not registering the empty bed on the other side of the room the newcomer gingerly knelt down to the side of the bed and placed a glass of water on the side table along with a couple of aspirins.

"Take the aspirin and drink the water mate, you'll feel better trust me and try and wake sleeping beauty up, I know he must be feeling as bad as the rest of us but he has got to get married in five hours. If he turns up late mate, your dad will be going after him with a pulse rifle."

"Can't." Came a pain filled groan from the bed.

"What do you mean, of course your dad will, he is not as hung over as the rest of us."

"Mark is not here," came Josh's muffled reply.

"Don't be daft mate, he right over on the other bed."

The newcomer turned and stared at the other bed that he had passed without even looking and for a moment Josh heard nothing as Daniel, one of the other soldiers who had shared Marks military quarters for the last five years suddenly made the connection of what Mark had been trying to tell him.

"OH SHIT!"

"How is the bride to be feeling, nervous?"

Skye and Tasha called as the let themselves in through the open front door of the Shannon household after they heard Elizabeth call that the door was open, walking through the sitting area into the kitchen they saw the mother of the bride sitting, talking to Alicia Washington-Taylor who herself was nursing a cup of hot tea and the bride to be who was sitting back enjoying the peace before the rest of the ladies appeared.

"A little." Maddy admitted to her two closest friends in the colony.

"Well it is a good job that the two of us are here isn't it, we'll soon get rid of those nerves for you and make you the most relaxed and chilled out bride there has ever been unless of course you would rather just call the whole thing off!"

"NO!"

Maddy screamed at her two friends, her mother and Alicia jumping a little at the intensity of conviction in Maddy's voice.

Tasha and Skye looked at one another at her outburst and giggled.

"Oh well, at least the boys cannot say we didn't try."

"What do you mean, the boys cannot say you didn't try, what's going on?"

Alicia asked suspiciously as the two girls both went a little pink at her question.

"Nothing, the boys well that is Josh and I think it is Daniel, Marks house mate wondered if you wanted to call the wedding off, you know what guys are like I bet they were trying to see if Maddy was serious or not!"

"Oh were they, I think I will be having words with my son later on today that is if I don't get his father to have words with him first."

Dr Shannon said looking at the two girls intently, there was more to the request she was sure but the look on Maddy's face stalled any more question from the two women.

"Come on then Mad's let's get you chilled and in a better state of mind by doing your hair and make-up. We don't want you all stressed out and frazzled before you see Mark as you walk up the aisle to him do we."

Tasha and Skye bustled forward pulling Maddy out of her chair and pushing her towards her room passing Zoe who had disappeared for a moment.

"Don't you disappear again Zoe, I'm going to do your hair nice just like your sisters in a minute."

Leaving behind two older and slightly bemused older ladies whose curiosity at the girls earlier words were beginning to cloud their minds. Alicia excused herself for a moment as she wandered outside pulling her radio out of her pocket, concerned that something might have happened to the groom the night before.

She put a call into her husband, Commander Taylor to just make sure that everything was all right, I mean he had promised both her and Dr Shannon that nothing would happen to Mark on his stag do and that he would be waiting for Maddy at the square where their marriage was taking place later that day and besides Jim Shannon, Maddy's father was with them and there was no way he was going to allow his daughter to be shown up on her big day.

Heck if the lad didn't turn up Jim Shannon would be the least of his problems because Dr Shannon bless her, would take a pulse rifle to him, for all her pacifist tendencies she would not let him leave her daughter at the alter daughter and let him get away with it.

A rather hurried and harried group of Stag do survivors were gathered in the kitchen area of Marks shared military quarters trying desperately to remember where they had lost the groom to be when the bride's father and Commander Taylor made their way into the house.

"What's going on here?"

Commander Taylor barked but not as loudly as he normally would have, he was feeling a little hung over from the night before and he was sure that more than a few of the rather sheepish and startled young men in front of him and the colony's sheriff were feeling the same way.

"Umm." Josh gulped as he stepped forward somewhat nervously, he could see that none of the others wanted to tell the commander or his dad come to that fact that they had misplaced the groom. "We've lost Mark."

"What do you mean you have lost Mark, where is he, what have you done with him?" his dad asked somewhat annoyed at the news his son had just revealed.

Josh spread his hands somewhat hopelessly, a little bit of a scared look on his face. He did not want to have to be the one to tell his dad that the wedding might be off.

"We don't know dad, he was with us at the bar last night but I don't remember if he came home with us or is still at the bar or tied up or whatever somewhere."

"You had better be joking mister, if you have lost the groom not only are you going to have to deal with your sister and mother but also my wife because I am not going to be the one to tell her."

The commander told him, at that moment his radio beeped in his pocket and he pulled it out hoping that whoever was contacting him was not doing so to relay any more bad news to him, not that the news he had received already was what he had wanted to hear on this day of days.

"Commander is everything aright at your end, the girls have just arrived with a rather strange question for Maddy asking her if she wanted to call off the wedding. Nothing has happened to Mark has it?"

Commander Taylor looked with some alarm at the radio from which his wife's voice reverberated out off, he gulped knowing that if he told her the truth she would blow her top. He was aware of silence and held breath in the room as all those present wondered what he would say and do next pressing the button on the side of his radio he spoke to his wife.

"Everything is fine Lieutenant Washington, you know the girls probably trying to spook Maddy on her big day. Mark is in the shower as we speak, getting ready to meet his beautiful bride later today."

"I'm glad to hear that sir, after all it would not be a good thing if he wasn't there nor if you were lying to me right now would it!"

"No dear, don't worry we will all be there and on time. Just make sure you ladies are there or we will think that Maddy has changed her mind."

"Sorry to concern you then my love, we will see all of you later today, Washington out."

The radio clicked silent and Taylor looked at those present before growling.

"You had better get out there and find him, seeing as you have all just made me lie to my wife and you had all better hope that she never finds out because if I get hell because of all this you can all guarantee I will make your lives hell…NOW MOVE!"

"YES SIR!"

Mark groaned as he opened his eyes as he became aware of his surrounding he became aware of two things, one he was not in his bed and two he was naked!

"Oh God where am I?"

As he glanced around at the scenery he could make out the sounds of what sounded like running water.

"Where are my clothes? Oh God, I hope no one comes along right now!"

But the fates were not on Marks side or were they as he heard the engine of an approaching of a Jeep.

Maddy and her two girlfriends giggled as they listened to the older women who were discussing things out in the kitchen, talking about their own weddings days and reminiscing about how they had felt. She was startled a little as she listened to her mother saying how nervous she had been on the day more than twenty five years ago when she had thought that Jim was not going to show and her relief when he had.

"Maddy what do you think?"

Maddy turned at Skye's question bursting into a smile when she saw her sister's hairstyle.

"Oh Zoe you look lovely, Skye you are a real artist when it comes to doing hair."

Skye beamed at her friend's praise of her hairdressing skills.

"Well ladies it is time for the final preparations then we must be going."

"Final preparations?"

Maddy asked a little timidly of Alicia Washington who with her mother was standing in the doorway. Alicia smiled as she held up a simple garter to go around Maddy's leg her and her mother holding a simple blue pendant on a chain.

"Something borrowed, something blue, something old and something new."

"Oh."

Josh skidded around the side of a building only just stopping in time before he almost ploughed into Dr Foster one of his mother's colleagues at the medical centre, Daniel who was behind him did not stop in time and ran into the back of him.

"Oof sorry Josh, didn't see you stop."

Dr Foster watched on bemused as the two young men in front of him tried to untangle themselves and look less startled than they appeared to be to anyone who did not know what was going on, not that he knew what was going on either or at least that is what he let them think as they made some excuse for the way they were behaving.

"Sorry sir we did not mean to almost run into you sir just having a little problem at the moment finding something sir."

"Something is missing do you say or would that be someone."

Both young men looked a startled and uneasy at his words and both started to come up with another excuse, Daniel getting there only marginally quicker than Josh did.

"The commander has misplaced the rings that were placed in his care last night and we are trying desperately to find them, don't want to let Maddy or Mark know sir, it might upset both of them really badly."

"Now that is a bit careless of the commander now isn't it boys, I will let you get on with the search and if by any chance you are going near Boylan's bar you might want to pop in there and pick up the other missing 'item' from the stag do."

The doctor smiled and tried to keep a straight face as he delivered Boylan's message to Josh, he had not believed it when he and Boylan had headed out to the area of the jungle where Boylan kept one of his stills to find a rather naked and embarrassed looking bride groom sitting on the ground tied to the still. It had been quite a sight and one which although he had felt every sympathy for the young man in question he had in fact found quite funny as it was something similar that had happened to him on his own wedding night, oh so long ago!

As the doctor made his way into the medical centre, the two young men heard a cough behind them and turned to find Taylor and Jim standing right behind them, Daniel gulped nervously as he realised that the commander had heard him say he had lost the rings and by the look on the commanders face he was not going to like what was going to happen next.

Boylan reached under his bar and lifted out a bottle that he kept for very special occasions, it was a 200 year old scotch and normally it was not one he opened for just anyone but he quite liked the young man who was sitting at his bar clutching a blanket around himself as he finally started to feel less embarrassed as he had done when Boylan and Foster had showed up in the Jeep and he had all but fainted when the two men had hopped out and done their best not to laugh at his predicament.

"Here you go boyo, seeing as you have had a rather nerve racking night and about to embark on them second most frightening journey of a man's life…..marriage!"

"Thanks…what's the first?"

"First what?"

"You said that marriage was the second most frightening journey of a man's life?"

"Oh that…is becoming a parent."

"OH!"

Boylan grinned at Mark's shocked expression and both men turned as the door to the bar opened and Josh hurried into the bar followed by his father and commander Taylor. All looking very relieved at having found Mark, the sheriff had a bundle under his arm and the bar owner realised it was some clothes.

"I see you managed not to lose his clothes gents, that was one thing at least I suppose."

"I'm glad it amuses you Boylan, now we have got only twenty minutes to get you ready Mark."

The commander said as both Josh and his dad grabbed Mark and pulled him to the back of the bar to dress and somehow make himself presentable for his wedding.

The afternoon was glorious as Maddy and the others of her bridal party made their way towards the square where the wedding was taking place in just a mere few minutes, the weather was still beautiful and Maddy could not believe that nothing had seemed to have gone wrong, she had been so worried this morning that something might go wrong but she knew now that she had been worrying herself foolishly.

She thought back to the few moment before she had left her parents' home and the items she had been given to comply with the wedding tradition or wedding tradition of the future, she had on a garter that had been lent to her by Alicia and her mother had given her a blue pendant that she had seen in her jewellery box when she had been a child and had always admired, it was simple pendant but one she had always loved and her mother had told her that she had always meant for her to have it on her wedding day so that was the borrowed and blue taken care off.

Her husband Mark would be her something new, that and the new hander kerchief that her sister Zoe had given her, shyly telling her that she had embroider the flowers on it herself and although they looked a little wonky she loved the hankie any way because her little sister had made it for her. She wondered what the something old would be but her mother had told her that her father would be giving that to her when he joined them to escort her the rest of the way and there he was waiting for her on the corner looking a bit harried but pleased none the less to see her approaching.

"Hello Maddy, you look gorgeous!"

"What's wrong dad?" Concerned for a moment that something had happened to Mark.

"Nothing," her father told her a she looked at her and took in the beauty of the woman standing before him.

"You do know that you are the third most important thing to ever happen to me don't you, your mother agreeing to marry me and then your brother being born but you are my little girl and always will be even though I am giving you to another man today."

"Oh dad."

"I know I am being silly but I can't help it Maddy, you have grown from a lovely happy little girl into the beautiful amazing woman standing before me and I have never been more proud of you than I am right now honey."

Maddy blushed at her father's words as the two of them stood in the street waiting for a few moments before they would continue Maddy's journey to tie the knot with the only man she had ever loved in the way that she did. She realised her father was pulling something from his pocket and it was a small jewellery case.

"I want you to have this Maddy, it belonged to my mother and her mother before her back more generations then I know but they say it brings good luck in a marriage and it has always brought your mother and my luck and it will do so for you and Mark."

Opening the case she saw an old silver sixpence brooch, shining in the days light.

"Oh it's beautiful and so old dad."

"I know sweetheart and I know according to the rhyme it is supposed to go in your shoe but I don't think you want this in your shoe."

Maddy shook her head as her father lifted it out of the box and then attached it to her dress.

"Now are you ready for the next journey of your life to begin?"

"Yes and thank you dad."

"For what?"

"For being the best dad in the world."

Jim smiled as he linked arms with his daughter and he walked proudly at her side as the two of them walked into the packed square but Maddy had eyes for only one person in that square and he stood at the end of a long line of people, Mark the man she was about to marry.

Elizabeth Shannon leaned against her husband as she watched her first born daughter sitting next to her new husband giggling at something he had said. It had been a successful day, Mark had been at the alter to wed her Maddy despite her initial fears that something might have happened on the stag do the night before that would have stopped him from being there but when she had seen him waiting in the square for Maddy she had been so relieved that her husband had kept his word that nothing would go wrong.

The sound of peoples conversations stopped as Boylan walked onto the stage and hushed everyone.

"Ladies and gentlemen it is the end of a joyous day for this colony another of our young couples has tied to knot and joined together in marriage, mind you I had thought at one moment today that the marriage might not take place when I found something very interesting attached to my still just beyond the gate but it all worked out in the end and I am so pleased to announce the first dance. So please will you all stand for the first dance and would the new Mr and Mrs Reynolds take to the floor please."

As Mark and Maddy made their way to the floor Elizabeth and Alicia both turned to their respective husbands and asked.

"What did Boylan find at his still?"

Both men looked nonplussed as though they did not know what it was that had been found at Boylan's still and both made a vow to themselves that after this night was over they were going to take two pulse rifles out of the armoury and go hunting.

Meanwhile out on the dance floor Maddy and Mark enjoyed their first dance together as man and wife.

THE END.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this story, I certainly had fun writing or I should say typing it! As always I hope you will take the time to leave me a review as they are appreciated.