A/N Hello! I'm back, after a rather busy weekend that involved throwing the baby a first birthday party and the first of many kid's Christmas parties we're going to. It's the joys of a summer Christmas, every organisation puts something on for the kids.
A few reviewers last time said they were sad this was coming to the end. Don't worry, it's not. I'm going to keep on going past the Civil Union to what's next. Christmas is coming after all!
Discliamer: Not mine.
EPOV
The ceremony felt like it was over in about five minutes. I heard Octavia speaking. I'm pretty sure I said something. At a couple of points Sookie was talking, but I wasn't really listening. Mostly I was just watching Sookie. Occasionally her lip would wobble a bit and I was worried that she might cry, but she didn't.
And then at the end of it, Sookie was mine. It had only taken me a year. A year of not going, and then going and coming back. Of figuring out how not to fuck everything up every time I got scared. Of trying to work out how I fitted into Amelia and Felicia's lives. Of learning about Sookie and all her various moods and quirks; her bizarre desire to buy everything on sale, her inability to admit that she's just as stubborn as Amelia, the way she talks incessantly when she's happy, but hides in the bathroom when she isn't. The way she looks after Bob as if he's really a member of the family. The way she's always looked after me.
It's been so fucking long since I had anything that resembled a family, and I'm not even really sure that I ever did. It's been a steep learning curve. But it's been so fucking worth it.
Because I had Sookie.
However, I also had a small mountain of sand over my feet and I was trying to figure out how to dig myself out of Felicia's construction when I noticed all the bubbles drifting past. "Bubbles?" I asked Sookie. I didn't remember this being part of the plan, but it was entirely possible I hadn't been paying attention somewhere along the line.
She shrugged and smiled really broadly. "I thought it was appropriate" she said, and then she turned to watch some of the bubbles drift out towards the surf. I remembered the afternoon I'd asked her, over the paddling pool in the back yard, if she'd marry me. It was after the bubbles. I'd wondered if the whole thing had been so off-hand that she hadn't really noticed. But somewhere in there she'd been paying attention.
"And now" I said "I get to celebrate with my wife." I looked at Sookie, and I could almost hear her start to tell me that wasn't what she was, but in the end she bit her lip, narrowed her eyes and let me have it for today.
I managed to get my feet free of the sand and we signed the register Octavia had set out. People started drifting over to congratulate us. Sookie got cornered by Judith, who was complaining about a whole bunch of stuff I really didn't want to hear, and Calvin shook my hand. "Congrats" he said. "Well done. That's the hard bit done now, anyway." He laughed.
"Yeah" I agreed, although it hadn't seemed that hard at the time. Calvin, though, had taken it upon himself to see me through the day, even though I really didn't really feel the need for that much moral support. The company had been kind of nice though, while I was waiting for Sookie earlier. I hadn't paid a lot of attention to what Calvin was saying to me, but I had picked up on the subtext, which was that he wished he'd brought his surfboard and not his heavily pregnant wife. I could kind of understand where he was coming from, even if my one attempt at going surfing with him had resulted in me spending a lot of time in the water. I'd told Sookie I'd enjoyed it though. But I wasn't going back in a hurry.
I looked over at Sookie who was still stuck talking to Judith. I just hoped that Sookie was better at pregnancy than Judith seemed to be.
Eventually Calvin and Judith moved on and everyone else started to drift over to say congratulations to us. Sookie's Aunt Linda was particular effusive and seemed very keen on hugging me as well as Sookie. We only got rid of her after she decided she was desperate for a cigarette.
The rest of the guests drifted through and then Sallie, one of the owners of the lodge where we were having the reception, came to tell us it was time for photos. She was doubling as the photographer for the day and Sookie had said she 'didn't want a lot of really formal photos'. I didn't really have an opinion on that subject so I'd just kept quiet.
Sookie turned to me after Sallie told us to meet her over by the sand-dunes. "We should probably do photos with the girls before they end up as sandy messes. Um, you get Felicia I'll try and pry Amelia away from her new best friend Octavia" she said.
"OK" I agreed, heading off to find Felicia. It was a bit too late on the sandy mess front. "Felicia, is it really a good idea to use your shoe as a shovel?" I asked her. She was sitting building a sandcastle again, but had obviously decided that she needed better tools than just her hands. And she was ignoring me, engrossed as she was in her task.
"Leesha, we need to go for some photos now" I said, and she looked up at me.
"Wha'?" she asked.
"Just, um, come with me now." Felicia stood up and I realised that she wasn't actually wearing her skirt anymore, but instead had been sitting on it. It was half-covered in black sand. Fuck, I didn't think Sookie was exactly going to be thrilled at that.
I picked the skirt up and gave it a shake. The sand seemed to be determined to stick to the weird netting stuff that the skirt was made of. I brushed it off and decided we'd just have to live with it. Felicia wasn't keen on putting it back on though. "Nooo Daddy! Prickly!" she yelled when I tried to get her to step into it.
"Come on, it's just for a little while" I said, as I held her with one arm while trying to pull the skirt on with the other. Felicia took the opportunity to grab my face. "Not prickly" she said.
"Nope, not any more" I agreed. I picked up her shoes and shook them out too. "Shoes on" I said.
"Nooo!" Felicia stepped back.
"Come on, you need your shoes on"
"No shoes!" she said, pointing to my feet. Oh, yeah. I figured she had a point so I gave up on the shoes, and just picked her up to carry her back to Sookie for the photos. "Not prickly" she said again, stroking my cheek.
"Is it better?" I asked her.
She looked at me and nodded. "Not prickly."
We found Sookie, Amelia and Sallie who were all waiting for us to get started. "So, Octavia says that when I'm bigger, I could be in charge of weddings too. You get to stand at the front and everyone has to listen to you." Amelia was saying as we approached.
Sookie gave Felicia a critical look over and stopped at her feet. "Where are her shoes?" she asked me.
"Oh, um. They're around but she was using one as a shovel, so it's pretty sandy."
"No shoes!" Felicia re-iterated for her mother's benefit.
"Yeah, fine, OK. No shoes then" Sookie agreed, although she reached over and had another try at brushing all the sand off Felicia, before Sallie took over and told us how to pose.
We did some shots with the kids standing, then I picked up Amelia and Sookie held Felicia. That lasted for a minute or two before Felicia threw herself forwards and tried to get to me, and Sookie nearly dropped her in the process. "Daddy!" Felicia cried.
Sookie put her down and we did a couple of photos with me holding both of them, and then Amelia wanted Sookie to hold her. To her credit Sookie managed a few minutes holding Amelia before she had to put her down. I put Felicia down too, and the pair of them ran off to join the other kids.
Sookie stretched her arms out and looked at me. "Yeah" she said, "I'm obviously not as strong as I thought I was."
I kissed her on the head. "You're the strongest person I know" I said to her.
Sookie looked thoughtful, but didn't say anything. "What are you thinking?" I asked.
"Oh. I'm just letting you off because it's your wedding day" she said. "I'm just not even going to comment on the mushy stuff."
"You love the mushy stuff" I told her.
"Well I love you, anyway." Sookie reached up and kissed me again, and I was vaguely aware that the flash from the camera went off again.
When we broke apart, Sookie moved so she was standing further up the sand-dune. I just watched her. "I don't want to look like a complete short-arse" she muttered, rearranging her dress when she felt she was high enough. I just chuckled and we went back to posing for photos. Sallie snapped a few shots with Sookie in her newly elevated position, and then I put my arms behind her and scooped her up in my arms. "Ooh, warn me when you're going to do that!" Sookie said.
I kissed her on the forehead. "Well, if you wanted to be higher up, I thought I'd help."
"Yeah. OK. I trust you" she said, looking down, as though she was worried she was going to hit the sand any moment.
"Of course you do."
SPOV
I was glad when the photos were over. It's not really me, all that standing around and smiling. And no matter how much I liked my dress I was still always going to feel a bit like Mrs Blackbird standing next to Eric. Mrs Blackbird, who doesn't even get to be black but is stuck being boring old brown. Yeah, that was me.
Eric liked my dress too though, it appeared. When the photos were finally over, after we'd had some taken in the garden of the lodge as well as on the beach, and we were walking over to join the rest of the party, he stopped and pulled me to him, fingering one of the roses that decorated the neckline. "I like the dress" he murmured. "You look…lovely."
"Thank you" I said. "You look lovely too." I didn't mention the shaving again. He'd done it; we'd leave it at that. And look forward to next Movember, I guessed.
His hand though started to wander down from the rose until he was cupping my boob. "Really, Eric?" I asked him. "A boob-grab?"
"Mmm" he said. "I think it's allowed. I'm sure it was in the fine-print of that stuff we signed that I'm allowed to do that. Or encouraged. Or something." I just rolled my eyes. "You're wearing a lot of fabric though" he said, frowning.
"Yeah, well. There's a bra under there too. You'll have to wait until later to see that."
"You're no fun" Eric huffed.
"Nope. I don't have to be fun now. We're married."
Eric let out an exaggerated sigh. "Fuck, they warned me about this, but I didn't think you'd be one of those women."
I laughed. "Yep, I've got you now, you know. Trapped you forever. Stink for you." I patted Eric on the arm. "But now, we'd better go and find out what the guests are up to.
"Yeah, I guess" Eric said. "I'm sure all the other guys will commiserate with me."
"Yep. Except for Jason. He'll just laugh his arse off thinking he's escaped and you've been had. I think he doesn't realise that he's pretty settled now with Crystal."
We walked over to where the tables had been set up in the garden. The guests were standing around chatting and eating the hors d'oeuvres. Aunty Linda and Hadley were off on their own creating a little cloud of smoke. Lovely, I thought, they couldn't even make it through one night without their smokes. They waved me over.
"Lovely ceremony, love" Aunty Linda said.
"Yeah, it was nice. Although I didn't really get it" Hadley said. I refrained from rolling my eyes. There was a lot of stuff that Hadley didn't get. "Why did she keep saying civil union?"
"Because that's what it was. A civil union" I said, wondering if Hadley had even looked at the invitation.
"Isn't that for the gays?" Hadley asked, dropping her voice to a whisper as though gay was a dirty word.
"Not exclusively" I said. "Anyone can do it. And I didn't want to be, um, married again."
"Too bloody right" Aunty Linda agreed. "I never wanted to get married again after Had's father bloody left me. Arsehole. But Trev was OK with that, weren't you love?" The last bit was shouted at Uncle Trev who turned to us, looking confused.
"Eh?" he yelled back.
"Never mind" Aunty Linda shouted at him. "But marriage is a crock of shit if you ask me."
"I'd just like to be fuckin' married once, eh?" Hadley grumbled, looking at me with what I figured was a bit of envy. I guessed it was hard. Four kids to two dads and neither of them had exactly raced to marry her.
"Um, well, maybe you should ask Tony?" I asked her.
"Yeah, his Mum doesn't like me at all. Because I'm not Tongan and a good church-going girl. So he won't do anything to upset her." Oh. I didn't really know what to say to that. How did you stay with someone who was happy to father your kids but wouldn't marry you because his mum would be upset. I guessed she must really love him. Or something.
"Well, maybe one day…" I said, a bit vaguely, hoping to get off the subject. "Anyway, I should go and mingle."
"Yeah, you go love. When's the food coming out?" Aunty Linda asked.
"Soon I think. So the kids don't get too ratty" I replied, watching the kids racing around in the distance. Felicia had lost her skirt again. I was going to have to go and find her some leggings out of her bag before she got cold legs.
I drifted off to see who else I could talk to. Jason and Crystal came over. "Beautiful ceremony" Crystal said, kissing my cheek.
"Yeah, fuck Sookie. It was a bit fuckin' weird though, eh?" Jason said. "All that partners for life, shit."
"OK, thanks Jase" I said, a bit shortly.
"Oh yeah, sorry, eh?" Jason said, as Crystal glared at him. "I just meant, well. It's not like a normal marriage, eh?"
"It's completely normal, Jason, you're just an unsophisticated moron sometimes."
Jason face shifted between angry and thoughtful, and Crystal looked like she was struggling not to laugh.
"Anyway" Jason continued in the end. "I'm glad Eric made an honest woman of you and I didn't have to fuckin' beat him up or anything, eh?"
Crystal gave up and burst out laughing. "What?" Jason asked her.
"Yeah, like you fuckin' could Jason" Crystal said. "Fuck, Wayne bloody took you down the other day, eh? And he's 10."
"Fuck off" Jason replied. "We were just messing around, playing rugby and I let him have the advantage. Poor kid, if I don't let him have his chance he'd just get discouraged."
"Where are the kids anyway?" I asked, trying to stop this going too far. Jason wouldn't want his pride dented any further and was likely to get a bit snippy. And possibly want to demonstrate just how tough he was.
"Oh, it was a bit too far to bring them, eh?" Crystal said. "And Jase gets all bent out of shape if they make a mess in his precious fuckin' ute."
"They talk like there's no bloody tomorrow" Jason added. "But you'll see them at Christmas."
"Christmas?" this was new to me.
"Yeah, well Crystal's got family in Houhora, so we're going camping up there."
"Wow. That's like 6 hours from here, it will be a huge drive from your place" I said, starting to see where this was going.
"Yeah, so we thought we'd break it up."
"No worries, you can stay with us" I said.
"You've got room to put the tent up, eh?" Jason asked.
"Yeah, we could put it out the front, so the backyard is still free for the kids" I said, thinking on the fly. "Is it still the same tent?"
"Mum and Dad's old one? Fuck yeah. That tent is a fuckin' classic." Crystal rolled her eyes at that statement. I kind of believed her. She'd obviously stayed in it a lot more recently than I had. It had to be about 20 years old now. At least.
"Great, thanks Sook. It'll be great to have a family Christmas again." Oh, I thought. What? I hadn't realised they were going to be there for Christmas day.
"Oh yeah, no problem. It will be great." I was sure I could cope with Jason and Crystal and three kids. It would be easy.
"Fuckin' fantastic. Right, I'm going to go and get some grub, eh?" Jason said, wandering off with Crystal in tow. I could hear her saying "You said you'd asked Sookie and it was OK. Fuck, Jase, don't spring stuff like that on her. On her wedding day. I'm glad you're not my brother!"
Oh well, I thought, luckily I was used to him. I'd long lost Eric, although I could see him standing over talking to Andy. Probably moaning that I was no fun anymore. I went off to find Felicia some replacement clothes before the food got served.
EPOV
Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves which I guess is what you want at these things. It was kind of weird to have people coming up and congratulating me all the time. It wasn't like I'd really done a lot, other than show up. Thank fuck Sookie had as well. I hadn't really doubted her, but still. I felt a lot fucking better now that it was signed and sealed. Even if she had decided she didn't have to be fun anymore.
I suspected I could still persuade her to fun occasionally though.
I ended up talking to Andy. He was holding Ruby, who promptly burst into tears when I tried to say hello to her.
"Clingy stage?" I asked.
"Yep. It's a nightmare. She even cries when she sees her grandmother. It gets Halleigh down a bit."
"Yeah, they get through it though" I glanced over at Felicia who was now sporting some rather jaunty striped leggings. I guessed Sookie had re-dressed her at some point.
Ruby still looked small to me, although she was the same age Felicia was when I first moved in. It still fucking amazed me that it had only taken a year to get from a baby who didn't move and who cried at strangers to the small person currently chasing her sister and some other kids around in a garden. She was fantastic, when she wasn't running around at night. But still.
I kind of liked the baby bit. And I kind of wanted to do it again. From the start. I wondered how long before I could bring it up again, or whether I had to wait for Sookie this time. Surely if we were 'life-partners' or whatever the fuck Octavia had pronounced us, I got a say too?
It looked as though Judith was moaning to Sookie again. Fuck, I thought, she'll put Sookie off completely soon. The sooner she gave birth the better.
Halleigh came over and fussed over Ruby and I left them to it. I went to grab a drink and ran into Jason.
"Hey, Eric mate!" he said, slapping my shoulder. "Fuck, eh? She got you and now you're fuckin' stuck here…or…" Jason frowned. "You're not fuckin' going to take Sookie back to the States are you?" He looked a bit worried.
I shook my head. "No. No, we're staying here. I've just resigned myself to the fact that none of my kids will ever say fish and chips correctly." I smiled at Jason, but he still looked a bit worried.
"Oh right. I was just a bit worried about Sookie, you know? 'Cos, fuck. From what I've seen on the telly, she'd hate the fuckin' States eh? Too many plastic people and shit like that."
I didn't want to tell him that he couldn't exactly believe everything he saw on TV. So I just said "No, definitely not going back. Everything I love is here."
"Cool. That's, um, fuckin' great, eh?" Jason looked relieved. Maybe he cared more about Sookie than he wanted to admit. "And you've got us coming for Christmas, so we'll be able to show you how Kiwis fuckin' celebrate, eh? It'll be choice." And maybe, I thought, he just wanted Sookie to be there to give him Christmas lunch.
"Yeah, it'll be great."
"Right, better get Crystal her drink before she fuckin' starts moaning. And she isn't even my fuckin' wife." He winked at me, and then he was off.
Calvin turned up again, to get another soda water for Judith. "She's not enjoying it today" he commented. "I hope the baby comes soon or else we might be getting divorced."
"Mmm" I said, not really wanting to talk about divorce today.
"Sookie happy you shaved?" he asked me.
"Oh. Yeah, I think so. She hadn't said she hated it, but it was pretty obvious. Leesh hated it too."
"Yeah, Jessie wasn't keen at all, either. None of them bloody were. Although I'm not sure Jude really cared. It was mainly her mum. She has…ideas. It's a bloody pain. But you feel a bit sorry for the old bat. It can't be easy to lose a kid like that…" He stopped and looked at the ground, realising, I guess, that I maybe didn't need to hear about Bill today. I didn't really care. His role as Lorena's son really meant fuck all to me. I didn't want to stop her being sad about it and if that was going to translate to her deciding how Calvin was going to look, then that was his fucking problem. As long as she didn't upset Sookie, or my kids, she could do what she wanted.
I just hoped she was OK with them tonight. Because as much as I loved them, I really wanted Sookie all to myself. We had a hotel room booked and it was going to be fucking fantastic. And we could have some fun. Probably a lot of fun.
And then they asked us all to sit down for dinner and I left Calvin and went to rejoin my wife.
A/N Houhora is pronounced Ho-hor-rar.
Thanks for reading!