Very prompt this time, please enjoy and review!!

Chapter 13:

"A party, huh?" John asked casually from under the sink. It had been playing up for a while and Margaret had asked 'darling John' if he could take a look. John, forever trying to impress his mother-in-law-to-be happily said he'd fix it, just like he fixed the bathroom light fixture, her late husband's antique gramophone and her car. Margaret thought it was important that he learned to be helpful around the house, but Elizabeth believed it was almost slave labour; John wanted her approval and her mother was taking advantage of that.

"Uh-huh...just a party." Elizabeth replied innocently as she flicked absentmindedly through the Washington Post. She made a conscious effort today to be a lot nicer to John; she needed to butter him up. Whilst comfortable with people he knew or with people he had things in common with, John had proven to Elizabeth on various occasions in the past to be very shy in an, she hated to say, 'upper crust' environment, where bureaucrats were rife and every woman in the room wore pearls and she was about to throw him into a party of about 200 of D.C's finest: politicians, academics, businessmen, all their families...many of them snobs. Oh, and my entire family. She thought wryly. There is no way he is gonna want to marry me after tonight.

"So we're not having the sit-down meal anymore? Is the party going to be here?" He asked, pulling a spanner out the toolbox.

"Er, no. No, the party will be held at mum's friend's house Geoff. He often has these...um, small, little cocktail parties and he thought we could tell everyone then. It should be good."

"Oh, sure...are the same people still going?" John said, breathing heavily as he tried to twist the old pipes.

"Yeah, my mum's sisters Judith and Abigail will be there as will Dad's brothers and their kids...and a few others." She sipped her cup of tea, nonchalantly.

"A few others?" John asked curiously coming out from under the sink to test the taps.

"Uh-huh. A few others." Elizabeth smiled at him, the picture of innocence.

Satisfied his work was complete, John wiped his hands on the kitchen towel and lent against the sink counter. "Elizabeth," he asked, seriously, "how many people are going to be at this guy Geoff's house?"

She grimaced, knowing his reaction. "Two hundred."

His eyes widened and paused for a moment. "Two hundred people?" She nodded unwillingly. "Wow, that's...that's a lot of people." He swallowed nervously.

"I know, I know...I am so sorry." She closed the paper and looked at him earnestly. "Honestly, if I had known earlier what my mother had planned, I would have stopped her, or at least found an appropriate excuse for us not to go-"

"Elizabeth-" He stepped away from the sink and made his way to the kitchen table.

"You don't want to go," She interrupted, "I don't want to go, but she would really appreciate it if...I mean I know she probably can't be your favourite person in the world right now, but she's still my mum and-"

"Elizabeth," He tried again, sinking into the chair next to her.

"We don't have to stay long, we can make our announcement before they've even began serving drinks-"

"Stop!" He laid a hand over hers, stunning her into silence; she looked down at their hands. "It's okay." He grinned at her. "I like parties."

She sighed, unconvinced, knowing John was just saying this to either make her feel better, please her mother again, or both. "John...you know the sort of people who are going to be there, right? These people are, what you have often referred to as, the blood-sucking, moronic, selfish-"

"They are your friends," she looked at him pointedly. "Fine, a few of them are your friends and most of them are your mother's." He conceded. "Nevertheless, we will go to this party."

"Nevertheless?" She grinned at him.

John rolled his eyes. "Jeez, now you have a problem with 'nevertheless'? Any word that even hints at sophistication and you look at me liking I'm speaking Russian."

"Vy govorite po-russki?" She sipped at her tea, casually.

He narrowed his eyes at her, unable to stop himself from grinning at her "Shut up, you."

She laughed before they fell into comfortable silence. "What did you say to them?" She blurted out the question that had been on her mind for weeks.

"Say to who?" He asked distractedly, as he stole her paper and began to look through it.

She paused, suddenly scared to see the question through. "...the IOA."

John looked up then; they gazed at each other. He knew exactly what part of the IOA interrogation she was referring to. "They asked me to choose. I said there was no choice. I want to be with my child...I want to be with you, Elizabeth...always have." He said simply, as if his answer was completely obvious.

A relieved breath left her, and she smiled softly at him, lovingly at him. She opened her mouth to speak, but found that no words could express the gratitude, the love, that she had for him, realising that she was a fool for ever doubting him. He had chosen her and he'd spent every moment since then trying to fit into her life, make this work, be the best father, the best husband, the best son-in-law...the best man he could be. So, she did all that she could do and lent forward and softly brushed her lips against his. John went rigid for a moment, but quickly recovered from his shock and returned the kiss ardently. After a few moments they broke apart, and she rested her hand on his cheek, caressing his five o'clock shadow.

"...Thank you." She whispered. It wasn't 'I love you', but it was close and the contented look on his face told her that he didn't need those three little words to know how she felt. The kiss had told him all he needed to know.

"You're welcome." He whispered back, and leant back in his chair, not caring that he was grinning like the cat that got the cream.

"You want me to make some of my killer chocolate chip pancakes? " She grinned back. "It's the least I can do for fixing the sink."

"Sounds good to me." He said smugly, folding his hands behind his head.

"Morning, mum." Elizabeth yawned as she walked in the kitchen in her Harvard sweatshirt and polka dot pyjama bottoms that she'd slept in.

"Morning sweetheart." Margaret smiled at her daughter as she turned on the coffee maker. "I'm going to pick up Sedge today from the kennels, if that's alright with you?"

It's about time! During Elizabeth's time on Atlantis her mother had worried about her daughter's safety and continuously complained that there was just no reason why her daughter couldn't pick up the phone and call her every so often, but Margaret Weir's biggest problem with her daughter's, what she could only describe as, 'disappearance' was looking after Sedgewick. A lovely dog for her beloved owner, but acted like a spoilt puppy when Elizabeth wasn't there. Unsurprisingly, Simon had left Sedge with her mother within a month of Elizabeth's leaving. The result: Mrs Weir sent her to the kennels for a few days once every couple of months because she had simply had enough. Annoyed at Elizabeth for having an illegitimate child, her mother had declared that dogs were dirty, filthy animals and she would not have her unborn grandchild put at risk. Last night, however, had obviously been enough for her mum to let poor Sedge out of the doghouse, so to speak.

"That sounds wonderful, Mum. I've missed her so much...I went to the kennels last weekend and she's seemed to have made some doggy friends." Elizabeth said, relieved at her mother's sudden change of heart.

"That's nice, dear..." Her mother said, distractedly, not particularly bothered by Sedge's social life. "I'll make you some chocolate chip pancakes if you want, your favourite." She offered, getting the milk from the fridge.

Chocolate chips pancakes as well? She really was impressed last night. As promised, John and Elizabeth went to the party and, to her mother's pleasure, John proved himself to be quite the schmoozer. Whilst he'd been nervous at first, his flyboy charm quickly had the ladies declaring him to be, in the words of Senator Hull's wife, a 'real dish' and the men of the party soon warmed up to him when they discovered he was a decorated Air Force Major. Elizabeth snorted inwardly; of course, it wasn't all plain sailing. Her stuck-up Aunt Judith quietly declared to her that he simply didn't come from the 'right stock' and, whilst her slightly nutty Aunt Abby could be relied on to love everyone and everything, Elizabeth had to rescue John from her on more than one occasion as she tried to read his palm and educate him on the best tantric sex positions for a pregnant woman. Her dad's brothers, easy-going Uncle Martin, a cardiac surgeon who lived in New York, and fun-loving Uncle Robert, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, were not so easily impressed. Being the youngest cousin and the only girl on dad's side of the family meant that her Uncle Weirs felt it was their place to fill in the over-protective, over-judgmental, father-figure gap where her father would have been. They did not like the fact that they hadn't met him before now, and they certainly did not like the fact that she found out she was pregnant before he'd even proposed, but eventually, as her Uncle Bob had even admitted, "..whilst grilling the boy has been fun, all I need to do is look at you and know you're making the right decision. You've never looked happier, kid." All in all, he'd gone down a treat; he was intelligent, he was witty, he looked good and he wasn't a Republican and that was good enough for Elizabeth's friends and family.

Elizabeth was shaken out of her ponderings by the object of her thoughts entering the room. All thoughts of making chocolate chip pancakes left Margaret's head at once. "Here's the man of the hour!" She said proudly, giving him a loving tap on the cheek. "I was just telling Elizabeth how I knew you were going to be fabulous!"

John, taken aback by such affection and from being called 'fabulous', smiled graciously at Margaret, before grabbing himself a mug and pouring himself some coffee.

"You did?" Elizabeth whispered sarcastically at her mother.

"Well, I was about to..." Her mother defended, taking it upon herself to usher John to sit down at the kitchen table whilst she made him the coffee herself. "Do you like pancakes, John?" Elizabeth rolled her eyes and sat next to John; this morning it was quite clear who was the golden child.

"Well, I-"

"Or French toast? You want French toast?"

"Sure." John smiled. "Whatever is going is fine by me, mam."

"'Mam'? Oh no dear, you must stop that now. We are going to be family! No more 'mam' or 'Mrs Weir'...just call me Margaret." She smiled at him, again, before setting about to making some French toast.

Elizabeth turned to face John, grinning. "Margaret? My word, she certainly does like you. I dated Simon for five years and she still insisted he call her Mrs Weir."

"I must have a 'je ne sais quoi' about me that warrants me calling her Margaret." He said proudly.

"There can be no doubt." She agreed, still smiling.

"So!" Margaret said loudly, interrupting their little tête-à-tête. "What have we got planned today then? I thought I would take you two lovebirds to Macy's and buy you a crib. What do you think?"

"Oh...that's sweet of you, mum." Elizabeth smiled appreciatively. "But John was talking to me last night about a really beautiful house that he drove past the other day and it's on the market, so we thought that we'd go find a good house retailer."

Margaret leaned against the kitchen counter, stunned. "Oh...I, you have found a house?"

"Oh mum..." Elizabeth muttered sadly, taking in her mother's crestfallen face; despite the arguing and the frustrations having the two Weir women under one roof caused, Elizabeth knew her mother enjoyed having her company and, when they left, she would be all alone...again.

"You must be sick of us by now!" John said, trying to be cheerful. "We figured that we'll need a place of own before the baby is born and, whilst the house I saw may not be the house, we should really start looking. Don't you think, Margaret?"

"That's Mrs Weir to you, young man." She said coldly, blinking away any tears.

Elizabeth stood up from the table, walked up to her mother and held both her hands in her own. "It's not going to be like before, mum. I'm not going off to God knows where...John wants us to stay in D.C, as do I...we're going to be close by and this way you will be able to be the best grandmother in the world without having to live 24/7 with a screaming baby." She tried for a little humour, but her mother saw nothing funny about. She was heartbroken.

"You say it as if it would be a burden. It's my grandchild, I would happily share my home with my grandchild!" She wrenched her hands free from her daughter's.

"Mum..." Elizabeth sighed, willing her mother to understand.

"Fine, Elizabeth. Or as you like to say...whatever." She hissed, before stalking out of the room leaving a sad Elizabeth and confused John in her wake.

As they heard her stomp up the staircase, John scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "So much for 'call me Margaret'." He muttered.

"And you can take that mongrel of a dog with you!!" They heard her call out from upstairs, followed by the slamming of a door. Elizabeth sighed once more, her mother proving yet again that she seemed to have dual personalities, but she knew that her mother was in pain. And that's what Weirs did when they were hurting, either kept it bottled deep down or got really pissed off.

John merely sat there, his jaw on the floor. "What, John?" Elizabeth asked, annoyed at how the conversation had gone.

"Mongrel of a dog? That's a nice thing to call the guy who fixed your sink!"

TBC...

Please, please review...they are my bread and butter and what makes writing these stories worth writing; it's really helpful to hear you feedback. (Oh and in Russian Elizabeth is asking 'do you speak russian'...I hope)