Again, enjoy! And I love reviews! Keep 'em coming because they give me great ideas as to what to do next! (NB: I've had a little slip where I've been calling John Major instead of Colonel so I'm changing it to colonel like I did at the beginning of the story.)
Chapter 14:
"Well...she hates me." John sighed resignedly as he flinched at another price tag for a crib.
Elizabeth merely shrugged before pointing at another crib in the store. "What about that one? That's nice, traditional-"
"Elizabeth..." he whined, following her across the shopfloor. "This is the part where you're supposed to say 'of course she doesn't hate you John, you're just overreacting, my mother adores you.'"
She raised a mocking eyebrow. "Now John, that would just be a lie, wouldn't it..." She pretended to admonish as she started looking through the racks of baby clothes.
"Is this how our marriage is going to be? Me looking for support and you cutting me down..." He over-exaggerated, groaning as he looked at another crib price tag.
"It's how we've defined our relationship so far, I see no real reason to change." She smiled jokingly as he tried to look affronted before he sighed again; she stopped herself from rolling her eyes. "Oh would you please stop pouting? You've been doing it all morning. So, you're not in my mum's good books right now, big deal...the woman can hold a grudge, I'll admit, but, with a wedding just around the corner, she'll soon snap herself out of it and she'll be your number one fan again...satisfied?" She smiled.
"Satisfied." He agreed begrudgingly. "...but I thought you were my number one fan?" He pouted childishly again.
This time she gave into the urge to roll her eyes. "Why would I ever want a baby when I can have you?"
His face split into a grin. "Well, I try." He said smugly.
"I'll leave it to you to tell my mum that we've found the house we want then?" She smiled as she walked over to the prams.
The grin fell off his face immediately. "Do you want her to kill me?"
"Well, talking to my mum can sometimes be like ripping off a band-aid...it's better just to get it over with." She tested a pram, pushing it back and forth.
"I don't know...I like your mum's house, it's a bit grand but homely...we could just stay put, if you want." John shrugged casually.
Elizabeth titled her head to the side. "You're that scared of her, huh?"
"It's not like there's a lack of space. I don't know how three of you ever filled that place, you could invite the Waltons to stay and still have spare rooms!"
"It never was just the three of us..." Elizabeth contemplated quietly. "Uncle Martin used to live close so his three sons used to be always over either happily keeping me company or trying to kill me. Aunt Abby and Judith would always be with my mother in the kitchen laughing over either coffee or martinis and Dad loved to bring home some...character, either some ground-breaking lawyer or politician who was the toast of the academic society or just a guy he'd met on the subway who he thought had the potential to be brilliant..." She smiled wistfully at the memory and looked up at John's sympathetic face. "Every room in that house used to be filled with...something special, and then...he died, my dad died, collapsed out of the blue, and it was all over. My mum pretended like he had never existed for the first year and when she finally woke up from that nightmare and was willing to move on, it was just me and her. It will always feel like my house...it has so many memories, some good, some not so good, but mum should have sold it a long time ago, maybe it would have stopped her living in the past or something, I don't know. But, what I do know, is that I want to start a fresh for the baby...for us, I think it's important and hopefully my mother will learn to realise that."
John scratched his jaw pensively. "We picked a good house, not too big, wooden floors, quirky little add-ons here and there, good porch with a great porch swing and a huge backyard-"
"-which goes down to a little stream and a willow tree..." Elizabeth smiled.
John nodded. "It's a good house."
"It's a great house." She corrected; he smiled again in agreement and kissed her gently on the mouth, his hand on her belly as he did so.
"We're back!" Elizabeth called as she and John stepped through the front door, arms full of shopping from various baby stores. Dumping the bags by the stairs, she placed the car keys on the coffee table.
"Maybe she's gone out." John suggested, closing the door behind them and placing his bags with hers.
Elizabeth frowned. "But her car is in the drive."
"I'm in the parlour Elizabeth!" Her mum called from another room.
"The parlour?" John raised his eyebrows, smiling. "I've been here how long and I still haven't seen every room in this house. Where is the parlour? What is a parlour?"
Elizabeth frowned again. "It's like the living room, but much bigger with the posh furniture and bigger windows; it's the main entrance to the garden." She said absentmindedly, walking through her father's study in order to get to the parlour.
"You mean you have posher furniture than that antique stuff back there?" He said incredulously, pointing back at the living room as he followed her.
"Why would she be in the parlour?" She asked herself, ignoring him and opening the door to the parlour. "She hasn't used that room since Daddy-"
"SURPRISE!" Elizabeth and John both recoiled in shock. The room was full of about thirty people, most of them being familiar faces, Uncle Martin, Uncle Robert, Aunt Judith and Aunt-
"Teyla!" Elizabeth breathed as her eyes finally rested on the small party at the back of the room. Teyla, Rodney, Ronan, Carson, Katie Brown, Laura Cadman, Jack O'Neill and Hank Landry were all standing there, some quite awkwardly, smiling at them patiently.
"I thought you might want an engagement party more to your liking, Elizabeth...what do you think?" Her mother smiled nervously, clutching a glass of champagne. Elizabeth smiled. There were still hors d'oeuvres, champagne, waiters and a harpist playing to the side of the large room, but her mother had kept it small and invited the people her daughter liked and that was a first. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw John stroll happily over to their friends, but Elizabeth ignored her mum's question and pulled her into a great hug.
Wrapping her arms around her and kissing her cheek, Elizabeth closed her eyes willing herself not to cry. Pulling back from the embrace, she grinned at her mother, close to tears, but not. "I love you." She breathed.
Margaret's eyes betrayed some surprise but she quickly returned the sentiment in them. She wouldn't voice it, of course, hardly anyone in her family could, but Elizabeth could read her mother loud and clear. "You're welcome, dear." She patted her daughter on the arm affectionately. "Darling Jonathan was the only work friend from your secret military work that I knew about," she nodded towards Jack O'Neill who gave a wink and nodded in their direction, "and he was only too happy to fly some of your good friends from who knows where to be here for the wedding and I thought...well, why not have another engagement party...one that you would enjoy..."
Elizabeth kissed her mother on the cheek again. "Thank you."
"Oi!" Laura Cadman called out across the room. "What's a girl gotta do to get a 'hello' around here?"
If Margaret Weir was slightly taken aback by her daughter's friend's manners, she said nothing. She merely smiled and urged Elizabeth to go reunite herself with her much missed friends.
"I still can't believe you are getting married...but some things are meant to be, I guess." Laura teased, as Elizabeth blushed. "So you're looking decidedly more pregnant since the last time we saw you," Laura joked; Elizabeth's second engagement party now in full swing. "Are you sure your waters aren't gonna break before you say your 'I do's?"
Elizabeth raised an unamused eyebrow. "Well, if they do, I'll be counting on you to deliver this baby."
Katie smirked. "Well, Laura can't be midwife, she's already got a far more important job!"
Laura sighed unhappily. "Yeah, are you sure about that by the way? I'm sure Teyla and Katie can do a fine job by themselves." She looked at Elizabeth, pleadingly.
"Doing what?" Elizabeth smiled bemused.
"Being your bridesmaids, of course!" Katie grinned. "I am so excited! Your mum showed us the fabric, such a beautiful shade of green, I can't wait!"
Elizabeth looked across the room at her mother who was happily chatting away to Jack O'Neill and Hank Landry and gave a half-hearted glare. Baby steps...remember this party is a wonderful gesture...you can't expect her to all of a sudden morph into someone she's not...baby steps... "Oh, Laura...you'll have fun and you don't look half bad in green!" Elizabeth smiled evilly.
"Geez, thanks." Laura muttered, sarcastically. "On a more interesting note though" Laura brightened up, "who are they?" The Lieutenant gestured towards Elizabeth's cousins, Peter and Robin; Elizabeth rolled her eyes, but couldn't help but smile. Something's never change. Uncle Martin's boys were still the same heartbreakers they had been since they were sixteen and Laura was still on the look-out for fresh meat.
"No McKay! Over my dead body!" John shook his head, disgusted.
Ronan smirked knowingly. "Told you it would never happen."
Carson nodded, grinning. "I mean the name Rodney...acquired taste, don't you think?"
Rodney glared at Ronan and Carson, before turning to John once more. "Why not? All I want is a second name...Timmy Rodney Sheppard or-"
"No!" John held up a hand to shut Rodney up. "Timmy? Have you met me? There will be no Timmy and there will definitely be no Rodney!...Anyway, if I was really naming my kid after you, shouldn't I use Meredith?"
Katie spluttered on her drink. "Excuse me?"
"- but if you ever want me to babysit I'm just a phone call away." Jack grinned.
Elizabeth smiled back thankfully. "Mmm...you say that now, but when I'm crying down the phone at 3 in the morning because the baby won't sleep and John and I haven't a clue-"
"Then I'd tell you to go to hell! But, apart from at 3 in the morning, I'm all yours."
"Thank you, Jack." She smiled tearfully, her hormones causing her to cry at the drop of a hat these days, thankful that at least one of her friends wasn't going to go away again after the wedding. "...or should I say, darling Jonathan?" She teased.
Jack shrugged nonchalantly. "What can I say? Your mother is good for my ego...she's already told me that she thinks I'm, and I quote, one of a kind." He said proudly.
"That you are." Elizabeth acquiesced.
"Although..." Jack leant in, whispering. "I think I may have some serious competition." He nodded over to her mother who was chatting amiably, as she had done so all evening, with Hank Landry.
"-how that moron ended up in my department I will never know! He can't even make a decent cup of coffee, never mind grasp the intricate details of-"
"Rodney," Teyla said warningly, concerned Rodney would accidently say too much in front of Elizabeth's family.
"You have such interesting friends." Aunt Judith commented diplomatically to her niece.
"They're wonderful people," Elizabeth dared her aunt to contradict her, "...Rodney takes a little getting used to, but they are very special."
Her aunt gave a non-committal sound before signalling to a waiter to give her another glass of champagne.
"Interesting friends, huh?" John whispered in Elizabeth's ear from behind, giving a quick peck on the cheek.
"Oh, ignore her," Elizabeth leant into him as his hands came forward and rested on her waist. "She's just jealous because-"
"-General Landry is trying to chat up your mother?" John offered, light-heartedly.
"I was going to say 'because I've got you', but...you think he's flirting with her too?" Elizabeth turned around to face him, worriedly.
"Why the face? I think it's kinda nice..." John shrugged, putting his hands in his front pockets.
"I guess...I just haven't seen her flirt with anyone since...well, since my dad." Elizabeth bit her lip, anxiously.
"Well, you're never too old for a bit of romance and maybe seeing you getting hitched to the fantastically gorgeous me has inspired her to get back on the horse, so to speak..."
"Yeah...maybe," Elizabeth tried for a smile, not entirely convinced but less concerned.
"I like Margaret Weir, she's my favourite Weir after you...she deserves to be happy." He nodded decidedly; the parlour door opened once again as a familiar face to only John walked in the room.
"John..." the man gave a quick awkward smile as he came face to face with his brother.
"Dave..." John couldn't return the smile, completely shellshocked.
"Surprise!" Margaret Weir rushed over, her smile starting to wane as she saw her son-in-law-to-be was not happy. "You must be David Sheppard," Margaret said extending her hand to the stranger, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
John glared at her. "You are fucking unbelievable." He murmured angrily.
"John!" Elizabeth reproached.
Margaret was stunned into silence, swallowing nervously under the heat of John's gaze. "I'm sorry I only thought..." She trailed off, looking to her daughter in confusion. "I thought you would want..."
"What the hell would you know?" John demanded, before brushing past his brother and walking out of the room.
Dave looked back at the door, unsure whether to follow John, before looking back at a very stunned room full of people. Elizabeth was rooted to the floor.
Dave stepped forward to Elizabeth, in that familiar uneasy Sheppard fashion. "I hear congratulations are in order."
TBC....
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