A/N Yeah, it's not really like I went anywhere, is it? Apart from Jumping Beans, so my baby could be encouraged to do a bunch of stuff she really didn't want to. I should just stay home and let her poke the cat. It's a lot more entertaining. For her, not the cat. He's a bit stressed now.

So this is the next story. Originally I thought I might do the Civil Union as one story and then having Sam as another, but I think I'll just continue on and do it all as one. So that's where we're headed this time.

Disclaimer: Not mine, although I do occasionally have references to babies who poke cats.

SPOV

Probably having any kind of ceremony on the beach at Piha in November was going to be a dumb idea. It was now September and although that's officially Spring, it's really not. It was raining every day, it was still cold and Eric kept asking when it was going to be warmer. It was tempting to tell him he'd moved to entirely the wrong country if he wanted to be warm in September but I let him off.

Secretly though, I was a bit worried that the weather wasn't going to cheer up by November. I didn't fancy standing around on wet sand while the wind whipped my dress around. God, it would look like we'd wandered onto the set of The Piano or something.

It was all a bit stressful really. I was trying really hard not to be stressed. I didn't want to be one of those Bridezilla people that they make reality shows about. And I wasn't even really a bride, anyway. Maybe I was, I wasn't really sure.

Eric still wasn't really sure about the whole Civil Union thing at all. And that all came to a head the night we met with the celebrant, a rather lovely, if slightly eccentric woman called Octavia Fant, who turned up and talked us through what would happen and how she liked to conduct things, and urged us to write some of our vows ourselves, which made Eric look a bit pale as I don't think he was particularly keen on the idea of standing up and telling everyone how much he loved me. I think if he could have just put a ring on my finger, kissed me and signed a bit of paper he wouldn't have been at all unhappy.

And it didn't sound that bad to me either.

So Octavia came and went, in a flurry of colourful scarves and big hand-gestures and it was just Eric and I again. The kids were in bed, the rain was beating down again and Eric decided to pick a fight, again.

"From what she said" he began, "it really does sound like its pretty much like a marriage. And the forms are fucking identical when you look on the website."

"Well, of course it is, but it's not. If you get what I mean." Obviously he didn't.

"So, what I don't get" Eric said, wandering into the kitchen to put the cups we'd all used when Octavia was here in the dishwasher "is why then, we can't actually get married?"

I sighed. "I keep saying, and you keep saying you understand I might add, that I've been married. And this is different. So I want it to be different."

"Why?"

"Oh, God, you sound like Amelia!" I said, kind of hoping he might just laugh at that and it would all blow over. But he didn't. He just looked at me, waiting for an answer. "Why not?" I said in the end, because sometimes that does work with Amelia, then I picked up the dish-cloth and started wiping the bench a bit, just to have something to do with my hands.

Eric just looked away and sighed. "He really did a number on you, didn't he?"

"What?" Now it was my turn to sound like Amelia.

Eric looked back at me. "Bill, he fucked you over in a major way."

"I don't know what you're talking about" I said defiantly, and despite the fact I did have an idea what he was trying to say to me.

"Well you married him. And now you won't do it again. Fuck, Sookie. How do you think that makes me feel?"

"I would think you'd feel happy that I don't want it to all be the same again."

"I just want you to be my fucking wife."

"Well I will be. But we don't have to get fucking married first!" I was yelling and Eric was getting a bit loud too. This was not the best way to spend a rainy night at home.

"I still don't see why not? You, you fucking asked me to marry you. I don't know why you didn't invite me into a fucking civil union then. I would have at least known what I was getting in to."

Eric glared at me, I glared at Eric. Then I got so mad I just threw the dishcloth at him and ran. It wasn't the best way to win an argument, God knows throwing things had never got me very far with Jason, who'd just throw something bigger back, and the one time I'd thrown my shoe at Bill in a fit of rage he'd just sat there sadly and talked about how he didn't think I was 'that kind of girl', which was kind of deflating.

But I was really mad. Mad enough to forget all the lessons of the last 35 years and just react. And then my reactions got even worse because I started to cry. I got to the bathroom and sat on the floor and put my face in my hands. This was not the way I thought my night was going to go.

Note to self though, when running off for a nice, long, self-pitying cry always lock the bathroom door behind you. Eric burst in and looked at me. "Stop fucking crying, Sookie" he said. He wasn't pleading and he really wasn't trying to comfort me. It sounded like a command and like he was really, really pissed off with me.

I looked at him and said "Fuck off, Eric", and at that moment, I really did wish he would fuck right off out of my bathroom. He could go back to the States or on one of his infamous bourbon-binges; I didn't give a flying fuck. As long as he wasn't standing there looking at me like he was now I really didn't care.

"No" Eric said, still standing there.

I looked around and wondered if throwing something might help this time. I could only lay my hands on my hairdryer though, and it was an expensive hairdryer and I liked it. Plus of course there was a chance it might actually damage Eric if it hit him, but that was the secondary reason for not throwing it if I was honest.

It's hard to find good hairdryers.

I reached up to get the tissues off the bathroom vanity and hoped that if I looked like I was settling down for a good long cry Eric might get the hint and leave. Or I could throw the tissues at him. But instead he sank down to the floor and sat with his back against the door, blocking the exit. He is incredibly annoying at times.

"I really don't get you sometimes" he muttered.

I blew my nose. "Well I certainly don't get you. You said you were OK with all of this, and now it's like...now it's like you're going back on your word." I blinked a few times to try to hold back the next lot of tears that were threatening to fall.

Eric dropped his head back against the door and looked at the ceiling. "I just…I'm just trying to understand why him and not me?" he said after a while, still looking up.

"It's not a competition; please don't turn it into one."

Eric looked at me and frowned. "No, I know. It's just well…I get you did it before, and it wasn't what you expected, and it turned out horribly etc, etc. But Sookie, this is us. It won't be the same. I feel…" Eric trailed off, I guess either he didn't want to say what he felt or he was trying to figure it out. I waited for a bit and eventually he said. "I feel that you're trying to hold me back…or, hold us back or something, in case it all goes wrong again. And it won't, at least I don't think it will. Although it's gone pretty fucking wrong tonight." He looked at me again and I guess he was laying some of the blame for it going wrong at my doorstep. I would have to take that, I was the one throwing things. But I was still mad at him for not saying any of this sooner and just letting me think we were all OK. He was an arse…sometimes.

Now it was my turn to have a think before speaking. Eric waited for me to say something. "I'm not trying to hold us back" I said eventually, "but I just want it to be…I just want it to be something we own, something different…" I trailed off; I wasn't saying anything new and obviously when I'd said it before it hadn't resonated with Eric. He didn't get me. I wondered if he actually got anything I said. Maybe I'd spent the last ten months talking to a brick wall. A really pretty wall, but a particularly dense one all the same.

I looked down at my hands, which were still clutching the tissue I'd used before. "You just don't get it" I said, quietly. I wasn't sure what else to do now.

"I want to, though" Eric said.

I looked at him. "Are you sure you just don't want me to come around to your way of thinking?" I asked. I wasn't sure that this wasn't all just a way to get me to go along with his idea of what we should be doing, which was getting married.

"I'd be lying if I said that I didn't hope you would" Eric said. I looked over at him. As annoying as that statement was I couldn't fault him for his honesty. Damn all those stupid counselling sessions, he'd obviously got something from them. "But" Eric continued, "but I really do want to understand why you feel so strongly about all this, because you obviously do. Strongly enough that you want to throw the most disgusting germ-ridden thing in the kitchen at me." Eric raised an eyebrow and I felt a bit sheepish about the throwing incident. Maybe I needed the counselling as well.

I bit my lip and huffed out a breath. "How much do you really want to know?" I asked Eric.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, if I tell you stuff. About me. About…Bill, then I need to know you're not going to use it against me, that you're not going to turn around and tell me that whatever happened with him is better than what I'm offering you."

I looked over to see Eric's reaction to that. He looked thoughtful, which was better than angry. I would have loved to know what was going through his head. Although on second thoughts, maybe not. Maybe I really didn't want to know that. Maybe he really did think I didn't want him as much as I'd wanted Bill.

Maybe he needed a good look inside my head.

"OK" Eric said at last.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I am. If I'm ever going to understand then I need to know."

"OK then." I stared at the shower, and not at Eric and thought about where to begin. "On the day I got married I smiled so much that my cheeks hurt. Tara kept gushing about how happy I looked and that it must really be love because of that. I wanted to punch her in the face, but I always thought the wedding where the bride and the matron of honour got into a fist-fight would be Jason's, not mine." I paused and heard Eric chuckle, but I still wasn't looking at him.

I went on. "So anyway, I just remember sitting on that little stage at the front of the church, hidden under my big white veil and stuffed into my big white dress…I just remember thinking that if anyone could see what I was thinking, what I really felt, then they'd fly me to Hollywood and give me an Oscar there and then because I was obviously the best fucking actress who ever lived."

I snuck a look at Eric. "OK" he said. "I get that you didn't really want to marry him. But…I still don't get why it stops you wanting to marry me."

"When we got engaged, it felt wrong. I kept thinking I could just back out of it, but the wedding snowball started rolling and I realised I didn't want to. We even had to go to a whole bunch of classes in order to get married in the Church. They made us sit some kind of compatibility test so they could counsel us before we took the plunge. I just checked the answers I thought they'd want to hear, the ones that would cause the least trauma for everyone." I stopped. This was hard. Eric was at least being very quiet, but he still wasn't there with me on the page.

"So anyway, I just carried on regardless. I went through with it, doubts and all because I was a girl too scared to say no and upset anyone."

Eric snorted. "And yet…" he stopped himself, but I got the message. Not afraid to upset Eric, was I?

"But it wasn't just that. It wasn't just about not rocking the boat. When I think about it now, it wasn't that I chose marriage to Bill because I was so scared to be alone, although the alone part did scare the shit out of me. I chose marriage, not Bill. He just happened to be the only guy who asked me, hell, he was the first guy who ever showed an interest in me. And then he stuck around. And I didn't tell him to go. So of course I figured that marriage would naturally follow on. And I really, really wanted to be married. I maybe wasn't so worried about the who to." I looked down and wiped away the tears that were starting to fall again. I was so ashamed to be admitting this, even to Eric. Because that was what all the shallow girls of the world did, wasn't it? They spent their childhoods planning the perfect wedding then nabbed the first husband they could. I had been so stupid, and so selfish.

"And so this time…this time I didn't want it to be about the marriage. I didn't want to be the woman who just woke up one morning and went 'oops, lost one husband, wonder if I can snag that guy who passed out on my couch?' I didn't want it to be about choosing a…a…an institution which just has so many things, so many religious and cultural …I don't know, things, stuff, whatever. So much significance that I couldn't give a shit about. What's the point? It has nothing to do with me. It has nothing to do with us." I looked at Eric, but he just stayed quiet.

"So I wanted it to be about us. About the fact that I don't care if we're married, I don't care if we never get married, but I do care about being with you. I want to be with you, Eric. Forever, full-fucking-stop. And I do like the fact of us standing there and telling other people that, that this is what we've chosen, that I'm yours and you're mine and this is our family. But I'm not choosing marriage. I'm choosing you. And not because I'm scared to be alone. If you walk out the door tomorrow, well...I'd hate it, but I'd cope. I know that now. I'm stronger than I was, and partly that's thanks to you. Because you and me...us, well that's the best thing I've ever had. And that's nothing to do with how we formally acknowledge that to the rest of the world, and everything to do with how I feel about you in my heart. And that's all that matters to me." I stopped talking and just looked at Eric. There wasn't anything left to say. That was it, if he didn't get it now he never would. I felt slightly sick; it was like stepping off the Harbour Bridge and hoping the bungy cord was really going to hold you. If it didn't and you hit the water there was really no recovery from that.

Eric looked thoughtful. "It matters to me too" he said quietly. "It really fucking matters that you chose me. And I was just worried…" he stopped and looked away.

I crawled over to where he was sitting and traced the side of his face with my fingers. "Did you really think I wouldn't choose you?"

Eric shrugged. "I didn't fucking know what was going on. You were starting to sound a bit like my dad."

"What?" I asked. That seemed a really weird comparison to just come out all of a sudden.

"He's spent fucking years going on and saying what a shitty thing it is to get married, how it's the worst thing he ever did, how he's never fucking doing it again. Why anyone would fucking want to marry him, I don't know. But he seems to think he's a fucking catch."

"Oh. And, what? You wanted to prove he was wrong?"

Eric shrugged again. "I guess. Maybe. Don't know." I climbed into Eric's lap and put my arms about his waist. He held me against him. "But I do get it now. What you were trying to say. About it being about the us and not about the thing we're doing…that's it isn't it?"

"Yeah, that's it. Good paraphrasing."

"Mmm, comes in handy sometimes." Eric was quiet then he said "I like that there's an us. I guess...I mean...really, that's what I've wanted. From the start. For you to want there to be an us."

We sat there like that for a bit. And then I thought of something I wanted to ask Eric, but I wasn't sure what his reaction would be and I felt a bit reluctant to rock the boat. And then I remembered what I'd just spent the last however how-long trying to explain to Eric and figured if he didn't have his sea-legs now I should really throw him overboard.

"Eric?" I said. "So, when your dad said that it was a mistake, marrying your mum. Did you think he meant that you were a mistake?" I looked at him, but mostly I just saw his jaw. I wasn't sure his expression would give much away anyway; he was pretty good at hiding a lot of things.

"Yeah" he said. "I know that's what he meant."

"Oh." I rubbed his back, knowing there was very little I could do to make that one right for him. But then I suddenly realised what part of his problem was, it wasn't just the feeling that I'd marry Bill and not him. "Amelia and Felicia weren't. They were never mistakes. Not even when I was giving birth with a P-addict in the delivery room. They weren't mistakes. They were the best thing to come out of me being with Bill. I will never regret having children. And the fact that my relationship with their, um, biological father failed rather dramatically…well, it wouldn't stop me having any more."

I hadn't realised that Eric had still been a bit tense, until I felt him relax underneath me. "Oh, OK" was all he said to that speech.

We sat there like that for a few minutes more and then Eric started to move. "It's not really comfortable on the floor" he complained. "Next time you want to hide yourself away, can you maybe do it on the couch or something?"

I laughed. "Yeah, I'll remember that. Sorry about the dish-cloth. It is pretty gross, and throwing things isn't the best idea.

Eric kissed the top of my head. "You're forgiven. But I have to say, you don't throw like a girl."

"Of course I don't throw like a girl! You can't win at beach cricket if you throw like a girl! "

"Beach cricket? Is that an actual sport?"

"It is in our household. One day I'll teach you."

"Yeah, um. Great."

I got onto my knees and Eric stood up, and then held out his hand to help me up. "I might even add it into my vows, make you promise to learn about cricket or something."

"Oh. Would you be allowed to do that?" Eric asked.

I shrugged. "Guess so. I mean Octavia said it was all about us, so you know, we can do anything we like."

Eric got an evil gleam in his eyes. "No!" I said. "Don't you dare!"

"What?"

"Whatever you were thinking, it's not going in the vows."

"How do you know what I was thinking?"

"You'd be surprised how much I know about what you're thinking sometimes. Right, now sod off so I can get ready for bed."

"I love you, you know" Eric said as he opened the door. "Even if you do talk shit about knowing what I'm thinking."

"Ha ha, now bugger off before I start explaining why we think Australian's are a bunch of under-arm bowling cheats."

"Yeah, OK. I'm gone." Eric stepped through the door.

"But I love you so I might not."

"OK. Not taking any chances though."

"Very wise. It's a long story. Without even cats or Jason to liven it up." But Eric had disappeared into the bedroom and I'm not sure he heard.

A/N The underarm bowling incident of 1981 took place when Australia was playing New Zealand in a One Day International cricket match. In order to prevent New Zealand from scoring the six they needed to tie, the Australian captain instructed his bowler to deliver the last ball underarm, along the ground. This action was technically legal, but seen as being totally against the spirit of cricketing fair play.

Thanks for reading!