Ok, once again it's been a silly long time; given what was said I'm no longer giving this story out for a free for all and in all honesty I'm just missing getting reviews so that's why I'm posting this, I have a lot written, still to come, but now it's just a case of fixing it all together so it's not completely horrible in terms of the story.
It's beginning to seem to me, my momentum having slowed slightly that this weekend at Maggie's could become a story in itself…and maybe one day it will!… but as yet they are still there, as I've become stuck in a rut so, so have they, so bare with me and hopefully in max two chapters they'll be leaving!
To any one who is remembers this or is reading it or anything really I appreciate it and I hope that my slight wavering trying to give the whole thing away hasn't put anyone off.
I made a decision to put my all into everything I post on this from now on, so it'll be sporadic but it will be here, I'm with you, it disserves to be finished and it disserves to be finished well and I will do that or die trying!!! – that's fighting talk.
Anyway we're back and I hope you enjoy it. xxxKay
Abby was shaking the contents of the Scrabble box out onto the coffee table in Maggie's living room, Amelia and Eric were engaged in an amiable conversation as they put the last of the washing up away from dinner and Maggie was getting Lauren and Imogen into their pajamas before they came to play.
"I can't believe you told her about me getting caught smoking pot and not about you getting caught in the boys locker room with Justin Finch." Eric said as he took a seat on the couch, placing a mug of tea down in front of Abby who stopped and looked at him; a little horrified at the memory as Amelia chuckled and seated herself on the floor on the opposite side of the table ready to play.
"I can't believe you told her about Justin Finch." Abby retaliated frowning.
"Rumor has it that neither of them were fully clothed and at the time rumor had it that one of them was entirely unclothed." Eric said looking from Abby to Amelia conspiratorially.
"I wasn't the one who was entirely unclothed, I was fifteen and also shut up." Abby frowned at him laughing slightly as Amelia smiled between them.
"She tell you about the garage incident?" Eric asked raising an eyebrow nodding in Abby's direction as he looked at Amelia.
"Ok, stop it otherwise we're going to go routing through the period where you thought you'd try to be a Goth." Abby said seriously as she warned Eric who took the hint and stopped, smiling at Abby.
"No, come on, now you've started on all your youthful indiscretions you have to see them through." Amelia said smiling as she crossed her legs and reached for her tea looking between Abby and Eric.
"Ok, we'll go tit for tat on this, you have to give us one of yours and then I'll tell you hers since she seems to have told you all of mine." Eric said leaning forwards, resting his elbows on his knees as he looked at Amelia.
"Ok." Amelia started, smiling a little, narrowing her eyes searching for what she deemed an appropriate story. "Oh, ok, when I was fourteen, fifteen maybe a friend of mine and I…" She started as Abby and Eric looked on interestedly, both leaning forwards a little.
"Mommy I'm ready to play." Lauren announced excitedly interrupting as she arrived topless and with Imogen's pajama bottoms on and threw herself onto Amelia who semi tried to ignore her, but failed.
"Where's your top and why are you wearing Imm's PJ bottoms?" Amelia asked frowning a little at her, trying to make her stand up.
"I don't need a top and I can't find my bottoms." Lauren told her as she knelt by the table, her hands steadying her as she lent forward to look at the board.
"Ugh, come on." Amelia said standing up and reaching her hand down for Lauren to take.
"No, Mommy I'm ready to play." Lauren said irreverently as she shook Amelia's hand off her shoulder.
"No one wants to play with you half naked come on." Amelia said trying to catch Lauren's shoulder again.
"No, Mommy." Lauren wined a little, shaking Amelia off again.
"You know Lo," Abby started, leaning her elbows on her knees as she bent towards Lauren talking conspiratorially, "you just stopped Mommy from telling us what naughty stuff she did when she was little." She said looking at Lauren, her eyes narrowed; Lauren paused suddenly turning to look at Amelia.
"No, Mommy what naughty stuff did you do?" She asked excitedly looking up at her mother who was now standing, hands on hips, looking between Lauren and Abby.
"I never put anyone else's Pajama pants on or told anyone I was ready to play games when I was only half dressed. Come on." She answered as she picked Lauren up and turned her upside down carrying her away to get her sorted out.
"She's cool y'know." Eric said shrugging a shoulder in Amelia's direction looking at Abby.
"Yeah she is." Abby nodded back at him, smiling her agreement.
"What do you think her youthful indiscretion stories are like?" He asked sharing a grin with Abby who shook her head and shrugged.
"I'd imagine she has one or two, they probably wouldn't rival ours but they might come close." Abby told him as she smiled and winked, as Eric chuckled lightly.
"Lauren looks exactly like I remember her y'know." He mused as Maggie reappeared, her previous task having been taken over by Amelia, who clearly had far more practice in handling the two girls in question when it came to getting ready for bed.
"D'you thinks so?" Abby frowned slightly at him as he nodded back at her.
"You don't?" Eric asked frowning back at her.
"I don't, …I' don't know." Abby said quietly shrugging it off as Maggie took a seat on the couch.
A couple of minutes later Amelia was preceded by two little pajama clad girls, ready and raring to play, both were dragging cuddly toys with them. Eric was seated beside Abby on the floor as Lauren ran out and hurled herself onto the couch beside Maggie.
I'm not on Mommy's team." Lauren announced to the collected company as she shuffled herself close to Maggie.
"Maybe I don't want you on my team." Amelia shrugged back at her, a smile twitching her lips.
"Yeah you do." Lauren told her presumptuously.
"Oh do I?" Amelia said laughing slightly.
"I'll be on your team Mealia." Imogen said, pulling herself away from Abby, moving around the table to sit down beside her.
"Thanks Imm." Amelia replied smiling back as Imogen moved to sit in her lap.
"You can't win if you're on her team, she's rubbish at this game." Lauren informed Imogen looking genuinely concerned about Imogen's well being.
"Who told you I was rubbish at this game?" Amelia questioned as Imogen began to arrange their letters.
"Daddy." Lauren replied presumptuously.
"Oh right." Amelia said with a small eye-roll.
"Happy about that?" Abby asked laughing a little.
"Well he's right, but no." Amelia said as a smile broke over her face.
"Looks like it's you and me then." Abby said looking over at Eric as Lauren settled on Maggie as her teammate.
"No, there's no way you and I are playing this together." Eric shook his head laughing as though the idea was entirely preposterous.
"Why, I'm good at this game?" Abby frowned looking slightly offended.
"Because you never let anyone else put any words down." Eric pointed out as he decided to be his own team.
"That's not true." She retaliated, still frowning as she defended her scrabble playing tactics.
"Right." Eric laughed back.
"It's not." Abby continued.
"Ok, ok, can we not have any arguing before the game even starts?" Maggie frowned between them, knowing that before the game was over there was almost certainly going to have been at least one argument. Lauren decided on 'Cat' as their first word and they began.
Scrabble was well under way, Eric, Abby, Maggie and Imogen had all confirmed that Lauren's original assessment of Amelia being 'rubbish' had in fact been extremely accurate; to the point where Imogen had left Amelia's team and become a fixture on Abby's. Eric and Amelia had, as a result decided that the only hope they had was to join forces as the game became more heated, Abby, Amelia noticed had some kind of bizarre, overwhelming desire to win board games and was taking the whole thing really quite seriously, to the point where she was arguing with pretty much everything anyone else did. At present she was in the process of accusing Maggie of selecting letters.
"What d'you recon?" Eric asked as he arranged the letters on their rack in front of Amelia to spell out a word.
"It's definitely a word, I'm just trying to figure out if they're going to be able to read it." She said glancing smilingly from Eric to Lauren and Imogen.
"Too inappropriate?" Eric asked chuckling slightly as he looked at Amelia.
"No, if they can figure it out then hats off to them, go for it." Amelia decided shrugging as Eric began to lay down 'asshole'
"Oh, come on, you can't put that down there." Abby chastised them, waving vaguely at the board.
"Mommy what's that word?" Lauren asked frowning from the letters and over to Amelia.
"It's a word, and we get a triple word score for it, which, I believe puts us ahead of you." Eric said grinning from the board over to Abby smugly and down at their score sheet.
"You can't put that down." Abby pushed.
"Give me a break, you're swear word vocabulary is way more extensive than anyone else's here, don't pretend that offends you." Eric told her with a throw away tip of his head.
"That's actually not true, you should listen to what comes out of her mouth when there's no five year olds in the room." She said indicating Amelia, who instantly added,
"And sometimes when there is." For good measure with a raised an eyebrow.
"You can't put that down." Abby finished shaking her head at the board.
"Show me where in the rules it says I can't put that down." Eric retaliated.
"I think it should at least be a PG rated game." Maggie said looking at Eric and Amelia pointedly.
"Well in that case we definitely can't lay that down." Amelia said laughingly as she pointed at 'wanker' that was now laid out in front of her and Eric.
"Fine, ok, fine." Abby waved it away as she laid 'xylophone' down.
"And your accusing me of choosing letters." Maggie said looking mockingly at Abby.
"Granny what word did Mommy and Eric put down?" Lauren asked as she looked interestedly up at Maggie beside her.
"It's a naughty word that I think probably you're almost certainly not allowed to say." Maggie told her as Lauren frowned and looked over at Amelia.
"Is it a naughty word?" She asked frowning at Amelia, who would have looked suitably ashamed of herself had she not been trying desperately not to laugh as she nodded at Lauren.
"Is it a you naughty word or is it a Daddy naughty word?" Imogen asked frowning up towards Abby from her place on Abby's lap.
"It's just a naughty word and Maggie's right you're not allowed to say it." Abby confirmed for her as she frowned and began to study the spelling.
"If I can read it can I say it?" Lauren asked looking hopefully over at Amelia.
"If you can read it then you can whisper it to me but you're not allowed just to guess words." Amelia told her seriously as she nodded her understanding and went back to studying the word.
"Should we just take it off the board?" Maggie suggested with a raised eyebrow.
"Only if we can still have the points." Eric replied instantly.
"What's the difference between a you naughty word and a Nick naughty word?" Amelia asked frowning laughingly at Abby.
"That would be something I would say to him, but he's fairly unlikely to say that to me, where as there are things he would call me that I wouldn't call him, see, so it's pretty much a gender definition swear word situation we've got going on." Abby said looking a little sheepish as Amelia nodded and smiled at her.
"So this would be a Nick naughty word?" Eric said smiling as he pointed to the word still set up in front of them, turning it towards Abby for confirmation.
"No, that would be me again, that's something I'd call him." She nodded and laughed. "Although that's not something I say particularly regularly." She pointed out.
"See with this system that would be Jasper's word." Amelia said narrowing her eyes contemplating for a moment.
"What, he call's you that?" Abby asked frowning as she laughed a little nodding her head at 'wanker' laying on their rack.
"No, but he certainly says it more frequently than I do." Amelia shrugged, laughing as she added, "Actually in reference to your future husband more than anyone else."
"Yeah well, as far as I recall Nick has a few choice phrases that are reserved exclusively for Jasper." Abby said with a raised eyebrow as Amelia nodded her agreement with a tip of her head.
"Right, ok, can we get on and not discuss how much any of you swear at each other please." Maggie said pointedly, smiling tightly between her children as she removed the offending word from the board much to Lauren and Imogen's, and in fact Eric's disappointment. "You can still have the points." She said begrudgingly, pacifying Eric.
The words kept coming as they rounded the board, Abby managed 'deceptively', 'onomatopoeia', 'chagrin' and 'usurped' much to Imogen's delight as they soared way ahead of the others as Lauren and Maggie came up with 'other', 'actual', 'retail' and 'that', Eric and Amelia had pretty much given up having found that all they could come up with were four letter words that were deemed far to inappropriate, 'shit', 'bitch', 'fuck'; Amelia had been happy with 'wazzuk' until it became clear that no one else had ever used the word, and they all, even her teammate, agreed that it wasn't a word, it was only when Lauren piped up that it was a word 'because that's what Mommy says Daddy is all the time' that she decided that in fact she probably shouldn't use it, although she'd been more than satisfied with the hug she'd received from Lauren after she'd established that she'd always known there was some Mackenzie solidarity there somewhere, although she'd sent her back to Maggie fairly swiftly when she realized the next word she and Eric had set up on their rack was 'cunt' which Eric had pointed out they maybe shouldn't even ask about putting down. 'Bollox' had also been rejected, deemed inappropriate, despite Amelia and Eric's insistence that, it was not only a word, it was actually an anatomical feature. Their argument had finally been put to rest by Abby, who pointed out that they were right, it was a word, it could be used in a non swearing sense, but they'd spelt it wrong so that was the end of that. 'Nincompoop' had finally been accepted much to their delight, until the dictionary had been retrieved to ensure that Abby's spelling of 'narcissistic' was correct, which it was, then, the fact that 'nincompoop' wasn't a word that appeared in the dictionary determined that it should be taken off the board and the points removed, so they were sitting happily back at the very bottom of the points pile, clearly finding the whole situation far funnier than their competitors.
It was only when Lauren slid herself off the couch and headed towards Amelia's lap that Amelia checked her watch, bed time in the Mackenzie/Carmichael household was eight O'clock, for the younger contingent at least, she was well aware that it was half past eight in the Johnson/Lockhart household; that was a matter that had caused her a lot of grief over the last few months, what with all the 'Immo doesn't have to go to bed yet's' that she'd dealt with, but this was a special weekend for Lauren, and for Imogen, and for Maggie really as well, and she knew that there was no way she would have still been in the comfort, or uncomfort, whichever way you chose to look at it of a bed at half past nine this morning had Maggie not been looking after Lauren. But now, as it was, her little girl was snuggling into her lap, her head resting against her chest, her thumb edging towards her mouth, which Amelia, instantly, automatically pulled away, that was another reaction, forged over the last five-something years, Lauren sucking her thumb meant future orthodontic bills, and now, although she'd be able to afford them, she still stopped Lauren doing it, that had been the reason for discouraging her in the first place, money; now though it was habit. Amelia glanced towards Imogen to check her state; that, like removing Lauren's thumb from her mouth was an automatic reaction. She smiled a half glance with Abby who had just been checking on an almost asleep Imogen.
"I think it might be bed time." Abby said smiling a little as she bent her head around to ascertain Imogen's agreement. Imogen's eyes were sleepy and faltering but clearly focused on Eric; she was intrigued by him, she had been for hours now, she couldn't let it go. And she couldn't let go of Abby.
"I can do that." Maggie offered, pushing herself up off the couch, reaching her hand out for Imogen to take, Imogen hesitated for a second, tearing her eyes from Eric to look up at Maggie. She faltered momentarily before taking Maggie's outstretched hand, pushing herself up out of Abby's lap.
"Is it bed time?" Lauren checked looking up at Amelia.
"It's actually past bed time." Amelia told her as Maggie and Imogen paused beside them, waiting for Lauren to take her other hand.
"Are you going to come say goodnight?" Lauren checked as she pushed herself up and Amelia winced slightly as Lauren's hand dug, entirely unintentionally, into her hip.
"I will, but you have to be almost asleep when I do." Amelia said nodding at Lauren with a raised eyebrow as she reached to take Maggie's hand.
"Who's going to read us a story?" She asked still looking at her mother.
"I am." Maggie told her as she gave her hand a little squeeze and she ushered them away.