Haley was apprehensive about going out with the combination of people Lucie had suggested. After all, Haley had barely spoken to Marnie in the whole time she'd lived in Pelican Town, and she actively avoided the mayor half the time. It wasn't that they were unpleasant people, just Haley didn't get them. She didn't know how to talk to them. She didn't know how to dress - oh Yoba, what was she going to wear to this stupid meal?

"Emily!"

This was ridiculous, and a stupid idea, and Lucie was almost certainly just doing it to torture her, but there was no way for her to get out of it.

"Emilyyyyyy."

Why was her sister never in when Haley needed her to be?
She banged on the door, then rattled the door handle, fumbling to open it. Just as she managed to get a purchase on the door, half turning the handle, it was wrenched from her grasp and there stood her sister, looking highly unimpressed.

"Yes?" Emily sighed, world-weary Emily, disrupted Emily - very nice Emily who would hopefully let Haley whine at her for an hour.

"Say, if you were going for a meal with your fiancé, the mayor, his fiancée, and then the idiots who live on the farm… what would you wear?" Haley grinned weakly at her, shrugging slightly. Emily raised an eyebrow.

"Are you genuinely asking me for fashion advice?" She asked, incredulously, moving past her sister and towards the kitchen. If Haley was going to interrupt her mediation, or daydreaming if Emily was honest, then Emily was going to get some more coffee.

Haley fiddled when the neckline of her dress, making a small high pitched noise, then elaborating:

"More asking for advice on how prudish Marnie and Lewis are." Haley sighed dramatically, and flung herself down on to the couch as the kettle boiled. "You understand middle aged people better than me! You practically are one!"

"This isn't making me feel willing to help you," Emily drawled, hunting for the coffee. Which Haley had put in the wrong place. Again.

"Sorry - third shelf in the cupboard to your left - I just don't know what to wear!" Haley wailed, pulling herself back upright, and holding her body there by clinging on to the cushions on the arm of the couch. "And I know you think it doesn't matter, and it's frivolous and stupid-"

Emily looked at Haley and Haley let the word die on her tongue, her face crumpling slightly.

"Yeah, I do think all that. But this stuff matters to you, and you are my baby sister, so I can make it matter to me for five minutes," Emily sighed, and gestured towards Haley's room. "Why don't you show me what you'd wear if it was just you two, Lucie and Shane?"


The five minutes that Emily promised Haley turned into fifteen, then crept upwards towards an hour. She'd had to go get more coffee at about the forty minute mark, then returned to the room to lean against the door and purse her lips, deep in thought.

"Why don't you wear the dress you picked up first - no, the blue one - and wear flats instead of heels, and wear a jacket type thing?" She suggested. "'Cos then it's still nice but it's less…"

"Slutty?" Haley suggested, laughing lightly at herself. Emily smiled despite herself and shrugged slightly.

"You said it, not me," she laughed. Haley grinned at her, then did something very unusual. She thanked her, promised to not whinge whenever Emily asked her to go buy something from Zuzu when she went, and swore she'd do the dishes tonight. Emily knew only one of those two things would happen, and it wasn't the dishes, but she appreciated the thought nonetheless.


Lewis required some persuasion that going out for a meal with four children was a good plan. Marnie had to first of all insist that they weren't children. Mostly they weren't even all that childish - and Lewis liked Lucie! Haley was nice enough, and neither Marnie nor Lewis had spoken to her as much as they ought to have, and Lewis was always saying he wanted to get to know the younger ones better. And, if conversation ever ran dry, Marnie would just need to mention Grid Ball and both Alex and Shane would talk enough for the six of them. So, Lewis was going, and he was going to enjoy himself.

"Fine," Lewis had finally relinquished. "So long as you make Lucie swear there is no chance of her father interrupting."


Lewis went as far as showing up at Lucie's farm to get his reassurance that Jacques would not appear, and would not mock him any further. He was laughed at quite a lot before Lucie could give him any assurances. And then laughed at some more. Lewis had turned bright red by the time Lucie had stopped laughing enough to apologise, then explained at Lewis was the fifth person to ask her that.

"It's almost like my dad is very loud and annoying, or something," she grinned. Lewis' pink face faded a little and he allowed himself a small smile. "But, no, he's away on business for the next month. Absolutely no chance of an additional member of my family disrupting us."

Lucie leant back against the fence surrounding her vegetable patch and smiled at Lewis. Feeling awkward under her stare, he looked around the farm and hunted for something to say.

"You've made the most of this land. It's unrecognisable from when you moved in." It was clunky, but it would do. It shifted the conversation. Lucie beamed with pride, surveying her small section of the world with pride.

"Yeah, you'd hardly believe there was practically a forest here only three years ago," she said, dispensing with any sense of modesty. It was an impressive achievement and she needed someone to notice it.

"Has it been three years already?" It wasn't a forced comment from Lewis, he genuinely was surprised to hear it was both so long and not at all long. It felt like she'd been a part of the community for decades, but also that he was showing her to the farm only yesterday. "Your grandfather would be so proud of you."

"You think?" Lucie's eyes were wide as she looked at the mayor. She seemed to form a word, but no sound came out, then she swallowed and tried again. "If you'd like - I mean, if you have time - I could show you want I've done? I know you're busy-"

"I'd like that."

"Really?" Lucie was struggling with comprehension today apparently. She silently cursed herself, whilst smiling broadly at Lewis. "Well - I've been repairing the greenhouse recently…"


Lucie rambled happily about her farm as they wandered around the site, Lewis nodding and smiling, occasionally adding small interjections about how the farm had been before her grandfather had gotten too old and it had fallen into disrepair. She probed him about stories about her grandfather, beaming whenever he told her that he was just like her.

The easy chatter of Lucie reassured Lewis that maybe the meal wouldn't be so painful after all. There was a childishness in the way that Lucie talked, but it was more one of wide-eyed awe and innocence than of being an annoying brat. And, after all, Lewis did know Shane, knew him to be a nice enough lad, just a bit hard on himself.


Why he'd ever been concerned, he didn't know.