"Are you ok now Elizabeth?" Jim asked and she nodded. For a while there she had lost it. His home coming meant more to her than he had known it would seem.
"Yes I am. I didn't mean to break down. I'm sorry." she said to him gently as she turned to face him.

"Me being back. Its new for both of us. I think we just need to read ajust to one another, so I do." he said as he kissed her for head. "We're going to be ok." he promised her and she nodded. "You trust me don't yer Liz?" he said and she nodded.

"Of course I do." she said to him. What reason did she have not to trust him. "So mr MacDonald, how do I look?" she asked him.

"Beautiful, and I am sure those clothes are going to look just as good on the bed room floor later on.

"Right, are we going to go and see our sons or what?" she said to him brightening back up. They were going to be so happy to see there dad on the out side again.

-

"There coming." said Steve to the pub and Bev dimmed the lights as Steve came down to his brother from where he had been standing on the chair waiting to see his parents coming over.

From what he had been able to see the pair both looked very well and once again deeply in love. He wondered how long that was going to last. Hopefully the night. He knew how much his mother had been looking for ward to his for so long.
Standing at his brother's side he watched with great anticipation as the door opened. He was a very different man to the boy he had been when his dad had last been out of jail. He was some one to be proud of now and he was set that his dad was going to be.

As they went in to the bar every one was quiet before screaming 'surprise' at Jim.
The Irish man had had no idea his wife to be and his kids had planned this for him but he was darn grateful for it.

"You..." he said to Liz who begun laughing. "You knew all about it!" he said in to her ear as he held her tight.

"I might have had an idea." she said to him smirking. "You didn't think I was going to let you off as easily as a drink with he boys surely darling." she said as she kissed him. "Welcome home my love." she said and he laughed. What a hell of a welcome home it was too.

"We have a pint on your name on it here, dad." he heard a voice say and his eyes landed on Steven who was smiling. By his side Andy was brimming with as much happiness as the rest of the family.

Going over to his sons Jim embraced them both in turn, so pleased he was too see the faces of his boys. He had not felt such joy in years, well except the previous night. He was petrified at the same time though; what if all this was really just a big dream and he was going to wake up in his cell soon.
Turning back to Liz he smiled. She beamed back at the sight of the three men in her life back together.

"You don't know how long I have waited for this day." she said to him as they embraced again before she left him with the boys. They had to catch up and she had a shift to work. Bev had given it to her off but she would rather work it and give the others time with her husband to be. She had Jim all to herself when she got home tonight.

As Jim supped his first pint with his sons for the first time in so long he felt as if he was going to burst with pride, the two of them telling him all the things they had succeeded in since he had been in jail.

"Steven, your mother tells me I have ter ask yer about a girl named Amy."
Steve paled. He had not yet told his father he was a grandfather. Damn his mother for bringing it to Jim's attention. He had hoped to choose the opportune moment to tell him but his mother had blown that.

"When I tell you, you are going to shout at me. Can we leave it till the morning so we can all just enjoy the night," he asked and Jim nodded. Though it made him ever so suspicious of his lad, he was not going to let any thing wreck his home coming night.

Liz, from where she was behind the bar watched as the three McDonald men interacted. Everything was going smoothly it seemed just as she had hoped.
"Darling, are you sure you want to work tonight?" asked Bev who was also doing her shift.

"Yeah of course I am. I get to see what he is doing all the time from here." she said as she got Kevin Webster a pint.

"I don't remember being this happy in so long!" she said as she carried the pint over to her friend, "that will be two twenty please love!" she said as she took the money.

Just then though she looked to the bar and she saw two people she really had not waited to turn up tonight.

"Why are they here?" she said to Bev as she saw Michelle and Vernon come in to the pub,"If you two are here to cause trouble for our Elizabeth you can go out right now." said the land lady.

"I promise we're not." said Michelle to her as she sat at the bar. "We just want a quiet drink."

"As long as that is all you want!" she said doubtfully as she prepared to take there order. "Come on then what so you want?"

On the other side of the bar Frankie Baldwin introduced her self to Jim. She had to say she could see why her friends had wanted him back so. He had a kind of dark beauty to him and every one loved a rebel.

"So yer the famous Frankie. Liz has told me about are you?" asked Jim.
"Me? I think it is you she has had verbal vomit over these past months. She didn't leave one bit of you to the imagination." she said to him.

"Really?" he asked and she nodded before turning and walking away. What the hell was she doing? It had been as if she had been flirting with him and Liz was one of her best friends and though he had not knocked her back she had - he must have thought she was a right fool.

Unhappy with the way she had presented her self she left the pub. What a fool!
-
Jim watched as the women he had just met left the pub. Why had she done that? Run out. He had thought they had been getting on.

"What's up with Frankie?" he heard Liz ask him. What had just happened there, he thought too himself. Had he been flirting with another? Already? Surely not...but as he thought on her he found himself unable to deny that there had indeed been a spark there. He didn't know why but she hoped she had felt it too.

He loved Liz though and she had and always was going to be the one he wished to be with.

Steve who had watched didn't know what to make out of it. His dad wouldn't do anything to harm his mum but then again would he... no...

-

Vernon watched the meeting too and he didn't believe what he had seen. He was a man and he knew when a man had felt some thing for a women and even after she had left Jim eyes took a while to leave the pub door where Frankie had fled. He couldn't be thinking of betraying his wife yet, could he?

Going over to Liz he had no plans to cause trouble, not yet but he had to be sure.
"You're going to stay with him?"

"Yes," she said to him. "Why otherwise would I have done all this for him?" she asked.

"You would not have for me?" He asked.

"Because I never loved you." She revealed.

"But I don't think he loves you!" Said Vernon and Liz shook her head.
"You have known him for two minutes. I have known him over thirty years. He loves me." She reassured herself.

But if she was so sure, why did she need to say it and reassure herself?
Liz looked over at him happily laughing with his sons. He had waited so long for this so why would he risk it by hurting her.

"But will he really love you as you deserve he never had before from the stories I have heard."

"Stop it!" she demanded. She had no room for doubts. If she did then her love with him stood no chance at all.