AN: Some of you asked what Miss Steele did that had her all in a twist? Well... Ernest is going to react exactly as you might expect.

What comes of foolish deeds

Ramos landed the balloon in front of the Sheriff's office.

"Everyone is just going to assume you took down those Klan members, Ernie." Yonish tells him.

"I know. I know… but I don't think Jack wants credit for this even if he single handedly rescued them." Ernest Pratt groused.

"Wasn't him, he just did the yellin'. Was his lady friend Samantha who did all the shootin' of em." Delilah Jones told them."

"Indeed Miss Jones is correct. Samantha is our most accurate shot." Teal'c informed them.

"Reminds me rather of Miss Steele." Yonish says with an amused look at Ernest.

"Speaking of Abigail... She's coming up the road." Ramos said with some surprise.

Ernest didn't notice the broad grin the sound of her name brought to his face but he did recognize her hurried frantic pace. He and Yonish exchanged a concerned look.

"I will deal with Miss Jones. You handle Miss Steele." Yonish suggested.

"Why do I have to deal with Abigail?" Ernest whined.

"Quite simply, Ernest, because she is here to see you. Not. Us." Yonish told him an urbane and reasonable tone as he helped Delilah and James out of the balloon. "Ramos, we shall return!" He said dramatically.

"Ernie! Oh Ernie, I've gone and done something' terribly foolish." Abby cried as she reached him and flung her arms around his waist.

"Hey, easy. Let's go sit down and we'll talk about it all right?" Ernest often used his best 'everything is all right' voice on her because Abigail had a habit of getting wound completely over a situation and being unable to focus on anything else. It had ironically led to their first kiss a couple years ago which had left him befuddled and her blushing. He'd only been trying to get her to slow down and take a breath. He'd since done nothing about the matter as neither wanted anything like what he'd felt in that moment. Especially not Abigail who was determined to be her own woman and have no man lording over her.

"But he's only a couple days behind me and you been gone for two days which means he'll be here any minute."

"Who?"

"Why, my father, of course. You didn't get my message?"

"I've been in Topeka, Abigail. I haven't even been home yet,"

She wrung her hands worriedly and paced back and forth. Never a good sign with her Ernest knew. "I suppose you haven't heard from your mother then, have you? I'm sure daddy sent her a message after what I done."

"Abigail Florence Steele. What have you done?" he finally asked her in exasperation as they walked towards the hotel.

"I swear I just wanted him to stop, Ernie. I didn't mean ta say it. It just… popped out…"

"What popped out?" He demanded.

"Daddy kept on about how I needed to marry off. He's been havin' spells and doin' poorly and I swear I just wanted him to stop. He kept trotting me out like a prized pony to all his friends, young and old, and even some of the local farmers like I was for sale!" She had knotted her fingers together at this point and all but wailed the last word.

Worried for her, Ernest gently took her hands and untangled her fingers and held one of her hands firmly as they sat on the steps of the hotel. "Abigail, I'm sure it will be fine. I'll talk to Ethan." He pats her hand.

"But Ernie… I got so tired of him goin' on an on about how I ain't never been touched by a man that I told him in front of his friends that he needs to stop selling me like that 'cause you already done deflowered me ages ago." She said in a frustrated panic.

"You WHAT?!"

"I told yah you'd be mad at me. I'll get my things and go now on account I've sullied your good name. I just wanted to warn yah my father might be showin up ta shoot yah but he can't aim no more on account he's half blind and all." She said sadly and started to get up.

Ernest tugged her back down. "Why… why of all things did you tell them THAT, Abigail?"

"I'm so sorry, Ernie. I know I shouldn'a done it but… I was just so mad!" She looked up at him piteously with her big brown eyes and Ernest had no idea what to do. On the one hand… no… that was a terrible idea. They would kill each other. Most likely she'd kill him first as she wasn't afraid to put a bullet in a man.

He patted her hand that he was still holding reassuringly. "I'll think of something. Actually. Ramos will probably think of something. Yonish will fret and who knows what Jack will do."

"Who is this Jack? You never told me you had a cousin." She pointed out.

"Ah…. distant. Very distant cousin. From Chicago." He said helpfully.

"Ernest Pratt I know when you're lyin ta me." She pointed out.

"Ok… ok... He's not my cousin but I can't explain it out here where just anyone might hear." He said, cutting his eyes back and forth.

A carriage trundled up the main road south of town. "I think…"

"Yah… probably." Ernest said in resignation. "I'll handle him." Ernest says as he cups her face gently. And then he didn't know why but he brushed her lips gently and was disconcerted by the trip to his heartbeat. He didn't have time to think about it though as the carriage had stopped and Ethan Cartridge Steele stepped down with the help of one of his ranch hands.

"Ernest Pratt. You have defiled the good name of my daughter!" He yelled.

Ernie took his hat off and bowed his head. "Ethan… I know this looks bad but I swear I have an explanation for everything."

"The only explanation I'll be havin from you boy is a box or a weddin' ring." The older man snarls. His gait shuffles as he comes closer to Ernest and Abigail hides behind him though her body language is defiant.

Ernest tilts his head. "Now really, Ethan… we don't need to get that worked up about this. It's just a big... misunderstanding." He tried to dissemble. Behind him Abigail nodded vigorously.

Before Ernest could explain though or Ethan follow through with whatever he intended to do, a well appointed carriage rode in off the western road into town and stopped next to Ethan's more economy class coach.

"Well, that's just great." Ernest muttered. "I should have taken care of the Joneses."

"The who?" Abigail asked him while her father was distracted by Delilah Pratt stepping down gracefully from her coach.

"The nice lady and her nephew Jack and his friends rescued today." Ernest explained.

"Ernie darling!" Delilah Pratt called as she descended on her son and kissed him fondly. "Why do you still have this horrid mustache?" She said, pulling on it even while she embraced him.

"Ma!" Ernest tried to defend his face even as he hugged her.

"Abigail, dear, may I speak to you for a moment? Alone." The last word said with a pointed look at her son.

"Of course, Mrs. Pratt." Abigail said with a worried frown.

But Delilah Pratt just put the girl's hand through her elbow and led her off patting her hand.

Ernest watched them go behind the hotel with a worried frown.

"Yer lucky Dame Pratt showed up. I won't kill a man in front of his mother even if he had defiled my daughter."

"Ethan, I swear I never did anything but kiss her." Ernest insists.

"You callin' my Abby a liar, boy?"

Ernest's eyes went wide. Of all people Ethan had no business accusing his daughter of lying having done it several times himself. "Now wait just a minute. I never called her a liar. I just said it's not what it looks like."

"Looks to me like you're tryin' a get out of marrying my daughter." He accused.

Ernest pulled back. "On the contrary. I'd love to marry your daughter but I doubt very much she'd have me." And Ernest was most shocked to realize… he meant every word of that. Ernest sat down on the steps to the hotel in a heap.

"So you say they had her and the boy tied up and planned on a lynchin'." Sheriff Motes asked Teal'c.

"Indeed." He agreed.

"Sam, there are several witnesses and we are wasting time. Colonel O'Neill and his intended have the ones they could catch tied up just west of their land but they will need someone to cart them off." Yonish admonished the other man.

"Yuh. All right. I'll have Skeeter bring the wagon. How many would yah say?"

"I counted a dozen Samantha and Daniel shot and another five that Colonel O'Neill stunned."

"Stunned? Like one of those electric guns of yours, Bartok?"

"Yes, quite similar though the design is ingenious. Miss Carter says the mechanics are proprietary and won't let me open one up." Yonish complains.

"Both yah will need to be stayin' in town until the trial." Motes told Delilah and James.

"Of course, Sheriff. They are welcome to stay at my home." Yonish says smiling kindly at them.

"We couldn't impose…"

"Nonsense. I could use the company. Ramos doesn't talk very much." Yonish confided.

Delilah smiled shyly at him. "I'd be honahed." She says softly.

"Then it's done. Teal'c, let Ernest know I'll need him to pick up some ladies things for Miss Jones. He knows women's sizes better than I do."

"I shall return shortly." Teal'c says.

"An ifin yuh see Skeeter tell him to bring the cart round ta pick up the riff raff off Colonel O'Neill's land." Sam Motes called after him."

"I will indeed do so." Teal'c agrees and the door closes behind him.

He finds Skeeter staring with several other townsfolk watching what appears to be something of a standoff.

Delilah had returned Abigail to Ernest, not her father, which worried Ernest a bit as he was trying to extract himself from this and not make things worse until he was suddenly struck with the spirit of inspiration. "Just follow along. I've got an idea." He told Abigail under his breath.

She nodded but her brows were drawn together with worry. Dame Pratt had asked if she was with child and if so was she covering for someone else as Ernest had been clear in his letters to her that while he held Miss Steele in high regard when questioned he'd expressed that she could do quite a bit better than him if she chose and had no desire for a casual encounter.

Delilah had been a bit concerned, knowing her son the way she did, until Abigail had admitted that no, Ernest had never done more than kiss her and he'd been the only man to do so at that. Not that Ernest wouldn't do right by the girl either way by the way he'd looked at her. Really she should have known when Ernie had been overcome with something very close to fear at the very idea of bedding his dear friend Miss Steele. When he looked like Erato had slapped him between the eyes, she smiled. Ernie was pushing forty and it was past time he did something about passing on the family name.

"On account of my intentions towards your daughter, Mr. Steele, I'd like to formally ask you for her hand in marriage." Ernest said to the other man.

"Marriage?!" Abigail rounded on him and huffed in outrage.

"Abigail… hear me out…. Wait... no better yet… excuse us." Ernest said and tugged her around the same corner his mother had taken Abigail moments before.

Once they were around the corner though, Abigail pulled away from him. "I came here to warn you what I done, Ernie, not for you to buy into my father's cockamamie ideas!" she sputtered.

"Keep it down will yah!" He admonished her. "Look… it's the perfect solution. You don't want some needy useless husband underfoot and I don't want some whiny clingy wife. We'll get married... And you can go home and take care of your father if he needs it. I'll make that profound sacrifice. Then after he passes you can run your ranch however you like or sell it and tell everyone your husband died or something. Half the country thinks I'm really Nicodemus anyway. No one recognizes Ernie Pratt from Adam." His hands were on her upper arms and he was looking at her like he'd stumbled upon a magical solution.

"But, Ernie, how does that help you?"

"Abigail, I am ashamed to admit this... but I have been unfaithful to you." He said holding his hat over his heart which makes her snort with laughter.

"Oh, stop it would yah? Be serious for once." she admonishes him.

"But I am. No other fathers will be able to try to force me to take their daughters to wife if I already have one." He tells her. His eyes twinkling.

"And you won't put any demands on me?"

"If you want I'll have a legal contract written up before we even sign the certificate that what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours." He says sincerely.

She looks down though and her shoulders sag.

"Abby?" He didn't often call her by her pet name unless he was worried for her like the time she'd been shot when they were chasing down bandits outside her hometown.

She looks up at him with a worried frown. "Ernie… I ain't never been with a man."

"I would never force you to do anything you don't want to, Abby." He tells her sincerely.

"Ernie… I know you're used to experienced women… And we're only doin' this to make daddy happy… but… as long as we're gettin hitched anyway… I don't suppose you could bring yourself to have a proper wedding night?" She asks. A soft plea in her eyes. "I mean to say… is well… I'd like some experience in that regard if you can bring yourself to be with me that way."

"Abby, if we do that it's going to be very hard to get the marriage annulled later as unconsummated. What if you meet someone?"

"And what if I don't?" She pointed out heatedly. "It's all well and good for you to bed any woman you want but I ask it of you and you back down. Is it because you're afraid of whatcha feel when you kissed me?" She demanded.

"Abby, we'd drive each other up a wall. We get on fine because you don't have to live with what a pain in the ass I am all the time. I write all night. I'm gone half the time with Yonish and Ramos which you know because you're in half my books now, having gone with me. And what if I accidentally get you pregnant? Aren't you worried about that?"

"Ernest Ludwig Pratt, I want you to kiss me then tell me yah dun feel nothin' when you done it." Abigail challenged him. When he just stared at her slightly terrified, her chin tilted up in defiance. "Are yah chicken?" She gave him a sly grin. "Why what would your readers think to know Nicodemus Legend, hero of the west is scared of his own lil ol hear-"

Her taunt was cut off by Ernest who couldn't take it anymore and had claimed her lips in a desperate attempt to shut her up before she got any louder about it. Predictably it backfired on him when she melted into the kiss.

Skeeter had been discreetly observing them from around a blind corner. When they got involved enough in their kissing, he was able to walk right past them without either noticing. He returned to the main street where Dame Pratt stood with Ethan Cartridge Steele. He gave them an enthusiastic thumbs up.

"There. You see, Ethan? All you had to do was make her mad enough to do something about it."

"But how were you so sure he'd do right by her?" Ethan asked her in wonder.

"I know my son. He was far too quick to deny anything for things to be innocent. They have been beating around the bush far too long about this." She said reasonably.

"Ah suppose they're gonna be mad at us when they find out what we done." Ethan said worriedly.

"Then we'll make sure they don't hear a word of it until well after the wedding. Possibly once she'd got a couple babies already."

"You've a convoluted mind, Dame Pratt."

"Why thank you, Mr. Steele. That's kind of you to say." She says with a proud grin.

Yonish came down the road. "What's the hold up?" He asked everyone standing around and was pointed to the alley where Ernest and Abigail were still kissing each other. "Oh! Well. Can't he do that on his own time?" Yonish said in exasperation.

"Oh be still, Yonish. Ethan and I have been trying to get those two to see sense for years now."

"What did you do?" Yonish asked.

"Ethan aggravated her until she flew off the handle then we let nature take its course." Delilah said with both pride and amusement.

"Well, you could have warned me." Yonish said. "I suppose I had better start picking out a wedding gift."

"Your assistance with the hotel supply cart is required, Skeeter." Teal'c told the young man.

The sheriff came up behind Teal'c and stared with interest at Abigail and Ernest before saying "Need yah to take it down to the O'Neill homestead and load up the suspects. Take a couple friends to help." Sheriff Motes told the younger man that Jack had jokingly remarked reminded him of Marty.

"Yes sir!" Skeeter said with alacrity and sped off to follow through on his directions.