A/N Thanks to everyone who is reviewing this, I love, love, love getting them. I would promise teasers for those who review, but that requires more organisation than I can muster. I write on a just-in-time methodology I'm afraid!

A special mention to Northwoman who has just read all the way through Homestay and this story to date and left me lots of review love along the way!

Disclaimer: Not mine.

EPOV

As usual Amelia woke everyone else in the house up on Sunday morning. I might have told Sookie that I loved her too, but it didn't preclude me wondering whether it was possible to maybe lock in her room at night as her knee landed on my balls as she jumped on the bed.

"Fuck!" I yelled, which made Sookie sit up. Amelia frowned and said "Mum says don't say that."

"Yeah, well, sometimes it's necessary" I managed to say between gritted teeth. Fuck that was painful. I concentrated on just breathing through it.

"Amelia, can you say sorry to Eric please?" Sookie asked.

"Why?"

"For landing on him and hurting him."

"He's not bleedin'."

"No, but it still hurt him a lot."

Amelia looked at me like I was the biggest pussy ever. "Sorry" she said. "Can I have breakfast now? I'm hungry."

"Yeah, you head out we'll be there in a minute" Sookie said. Amelia stomped off and Sookie turned to me "You OK?"

"Yeah, I'll live. It fucking hurts though."

"I bet. Right, I better go and see what she's doing." Sookie kissed my forehead and left me to my pain. Fuck, I hoped Felicia was more co-ordinated when she learnt to jump.

I was heading out to the kitchen, and Sookie was coming back to check on me when we were both waylaid in the hallway by a yowling Bob. "Oh crap" said Sookie, "He's got something." She bent down to him, but he sidestepped her and dropped what looked like a small pile of green feathers at my feet, before heading off to the kitchen.

"Oh" said Sookie, looking somewhat put out. "I think that's your tribute then."

"What? I don't want a…" I looked down at what it was "…dead bird."

"It's a waxeye. Poor little thing." With that Sookie turned and walked off, still looking annoyed. I wasn't convinced that she was only annoyed with Bob, for some reason she was annoyed with me too. I picked up the tiny limp corpse and took it into the kitchen so I could put it in the garbage. Really, if Sookie wanted it she could have it.

"You're a bad cat, Bob" I said half-heartedly to Bob who was now eating his breakfast. He didn't even look up.

"He's not bad, he's just a cat" Sookie said. "Anyway, you got the present so you're probably supposed to say thank-you or something."

"Um, I'm not going to thank him for a dead bird. I don't think the bird would thank him either."

Sookie shrugged and muttered something while putting Amelia's breakfast dishes in the dishwasher. "What?" I asked.

"Nothing." She looked up at me and then said, begrudgingly, "I was just saying that I guess I know where I come now."

"What do you mean?"

"Well if you're getting the presents then I'm not Bob's person anymore, he doesn't report to me." OK, this was a really weird conversation.

"I don't really want him reporting to me with dead things. Or any live things for that matter." The last bit I directed towards Bob who didn't look up from his bowl.

"I don't know if you have a choice, I think you're now head of the household or something" Sookie grumbled, while still banging dishes.

"Seriously? Because the cat gave me the dead bird I'm head of the household?"

"Well, in his mind it works that way."

"And you care what goes on in Bob's tiny feline brain? Sookie he probably hasn't really thought it through like that."

She shrugged. "It just doesn't seem right is all" she muttered.

This was just getting fucking weirder by the minute. "Sookie" I said, putting my hands on her shoulders so she'd look at me. "I love you so much that you can have all of Bob's tributes, dead and alive, from here on in. OK?"

She sighed. "Fine, but you tell Bob that, then. He's your vassal or whatever."

"Yeah…I'll, um, do that. When I next see him…" Thank fuck he'd disappeared. I was really not getting into a conversation with a cat.

"Well, at least it means he accepts you now anyway" Sookie said, a bit brighter. I guess she'd decided to put a positive spin on it.

"Yeah…think I'm going to make coffee now." Hopefully that would be the end of that.

Sookie cheered up a bit over breakfast and then went off to have a shower, leaving me to the mercy of Amelia and her new horde of toys courtesy of the party the night before. There were a lot of fiddly things that had to be taken out of boxes. And some moon-hopper thing that I was going to have to ask Sookie if we had a pump for.

By the time I'd had my shower Sookie was busy cleaning. She was on her hands and knees, poking the vacuum cleaner under the Christmas tree trying to collect up all the dropped needles. I stopped to enjoy watching her for a bit, as she was wearing some really tight stretchy shorts which made her ass look fantastic.

Without turning around she asked "Are you going to stand there and perv at me or actually help?"

"Help."

"Good. Your arms are longer than mine, you can take over." With that she backed out of her spot and handed the vacuum to me.

"You can perv at me, if you want" I said, wiggling my butt as I took her place.

"Yeah, OK. If you like" and she stood there, with her head cocked to one side.

I carried on with trying to get all the needles that were stuck in the corner while Sookie just kept standing there. After a while she said "You know, you might be onto something Eric. It's not too bad this whole staring at bums thing."

"Yeah, I like it" I said, as I backed out from under the tree. "But I really only want to stare at yours, not my own so much."

"That's a shame, you've got a nice bum."

"Thanks." I stood up and kissed her.

"No problem. And thank you for getting the needles. While you've got the vacuum out you can finish off the living room. I'm off to clean the bathrooms. If you're really quick you might be finished in time to catch me while I'm still on my hands and knees cleaning the shower."

"I'm that predictable, huh?"

"I would be lonely if you didn't come and stare at me."

SPOV

Sunday morning we did housework which was boring, although marginally improved my staring at Eric's bum for a bit while he was under the Christmas tree. Even Amelia decided she didn't want to help because she had new toys to play with.

After lunch though she was bored so we made cupcakes, which she insisted in coating in a thick layer of 100's and 1000's over the icing. Eric gamely ate several even though the crunch of him biting through the sprinkles made me wince.

When we had enough shade coming from the house I dragged the paddling pool out again and filled it with water, although Eric was there to help carry the buckets this time.

All in all it was a very pleasant day. Despite the fact I was crampy and annoyed with everyone, including poor Eric for getting Bob's dead bird. Even I realised I sounded a bit over the top, but I couldn't help it. I was just so used to getting all of Bob's presents. He was my cat, and he was supposed to give this stuff, however disgusting it might be, to me. There were just some things I wasn't prepared to hand over to Eric.

And really, if I left Eric to deal with the next live rat we'd all have to move out of the house to wait for an exterminator to come.

So the day finished as normal, we ate dinner, put the kids to bed, had a small disagreement in the driveway over whether I was perfectly capable of dragging the recycling bin up to the curb. It was like a lot of other days. Except that I now knew Eric loved me. And I felt like I wasn't holding my breath anymore waiting for him to disappear on me.

EPOV

Sookie made me set an alarm for Monday morning so I would be up in time to get to Calvin's. Fuck, this hadn't even seemed like a really good idea at the time, now it just seemed like the worst idea in the world.

I wasn't going to tell Sookie that, though. She was positively gleeful about the thing, waiting for me to back out or something. No way was I giving her that satisfaction.

It turned out I didn't really need the alarm at all because I had Sookie who poked me in the chest several times and announced that it was 5.20am and I'd better get moving.

As I sat up in bed Sookie said "Wow. I didn't even know you could wake up this early. Unless there was sex on offer. Otherwise you're always asleep."

"Yeah. That seems like a pretty sensible decision on my part really."

"Yep, well. Have fun. I'm going back to sleep until Amelia or Felicia need me." With that, she rolled over and closed her eyes.

I went to find the clothes I'd put out the night before and my sneakers. I hoped like fuck Calvin wasn't going to expect too much of me.

As predicted, it wasn't pleasant. Although I guess it could have been worse. I probably needed the exercise. I'd been to the gym, what, once in all the time I'd been here? And I wasn't sure that running round after Amelia was really working off all the food Sookie kept giving me. And those cupcakes the day before were about 100 per cent sugar. But Amelia was so pleased with them I kind of felt compelled to eat them. And after a while they weren't that bad.

I was really glad though when the run was over and we got back to Calvin's and I could go home. And prepare myself to do it all again in two days' time.

When I got back home everyone was up. Amelia came over to greet me. "You're all sweaty" she announced.

"Uh, yeah."

"I know what makes you sweaty. It's the hotness." With that she wandered off again. I looked over at Sookie who was laughing hysterically.

"Um, I'll just go and shower then…" I said. Sookie looked up, "Yeah, you take your hot self off there Eric."

When I came out of the bathroom Sookie was standing around impatiently holding her handbag. "Right, I'm off to Pak N Save for the last big shop before Christmas, you're holding the fort. Bye!" With that she was off out the door.

What seemed like hours later she was back with the trunk of her car packed with groceries and full of stories of how busy it had been and how everyone else was an idiot in charge of a shopping trolley.

"I have just one thing to say to you Sookie" I said "On-line shopping."

"Yeah, yeah. I've heard it before." We had finished carrying everything in now and Sookie was putting it all away. "Oh, I have something to say to you though."

"What?"

"I ran into Maisie's mum, you know, Amelia's friend from pre-school. You met Becs and her husband at the pre-school Christmas party."

"Um, yeah."

"And she was asking me for details. About the wedding."

"What? Calvin and Judith's wedding?" Calvin had been complaining that it was all getting a bit out of hand and with only two months to go money was just walking out the door.

"No. Our wedding. The one we're supposedly having." Oh. Fuck. I was torn between trying to play dumb and saying they must be fucking nuts, or owning up that I fucked up. Again. I decided to go for casual, like it was no big deal.

"Um, yeah. They must have got the wrong idea from me saying we weren't technically married. I just struggle with the whole partner thing."

Sookie looked at me like she thought there might be more to it. "Well please try a bit harder not to give people the wrong impression, it's really embarrassing when I have no clue what they're talking about. Just think about my feelings for once."

"Fuck Sookie! What about my feelings? How do you think I feel when you're so embarrassed by the thought of marrying me?"

"Oh Eric! You know that's not it. I just hate hearing these stories about us when they're not true."

"Well it is true. Kind of."

"How? How is it true?"

"Well I would. Marry you. Someday. If you wanted." Fuck, I thought, I probably shouldn't have let that slip out.

"Yeah, well. We'll see." She turned back to unpacking the bags. I wasn't sure that was the best response, it sounded an awful lot like the 'we'll see' that Amelia got when she was asking about getting a marshmallow. But it seemed to be the only response I was going to get for now, so I started trying to find a space for the three packets of cat biscuits Sookie had bought. Shit, that would last about three minutes with Bob around. Also, they looked a lot fancier than the biscuits he normally had. Sookie, I realised, was trying to buy Bob's affections back.

I glanced over to where she was moving stuff around in the fridge, looking like she had a dark cloud hanging over her. Yeah, I wasn't going to tell her I was onto her right at that moment.

I left her alone until the cloud looked like it had mostly gone, which meant I got stuck with Amelia and her new horde of stuff. Which included some really fucking tiny dolls called Polly. She kept asking me to dress them and there was no way I could make clothes that small work, so she just got mad at me too. I was doing nothing right. Even Felicia yelled at me when I wouldn't let her roll over when I was trying to change her diaper.

By lunchtime Sookie was at least talking to me again and after Felicia's nap she suggested we all go for a walk to the village to 'get out of the house'. Amelia immediately perked up as she realised ice cream might be on offer and ran off to get her shoes. Sookie looked at me and said "Look, sorry about earlier. But really, just stop it, OK?"

"Yep."

"Well go and get your shoes on and let's go to the gelato shop. And maybe the butcher's while we're there. Oh, and I want to go to the bookshop to look for something for Tara's birthday present."

"How much shopping are we doing?"

"We're not doing any shopping. We're going for a walk and an ice cream. And maybe a couple of errands."

"What's the difference?"

"It would take too long to explain, get your shoes."

So we set off up the hill to the Village, Sookie pushing Felicia's stroller and stopping every so often to retrieve thrown toys or hats, and me either dawdling behind because I was going at Amelia's pace, or in front with her on my shoulders because she wanted to be 'the leader'.

It was nice out, but the walk got us all a bit sticky. As soon as we got near the shops Amelia wanted an ice cream but of course Sookie had some errands to do first. We went into the bookshop which was tiny and crammed with books. And a really large Siamese cat that Sookie and Amelia stopped to talk to. Fuck, they were odd sometimes. I looked at Felicia, who I was carrying because we'd had to leave the stroller outside on the pavement, and wondered if we could just pretend we weren't with them.

Sookie took forever trying to find something for Tara, so I browsed as well. Amelia was down the back with the kid's books loudly pretending to read to herself and neither Sookie nor I wanted to go and see how much mess she was creating. In the end I bought myself two books just to kill the time.

"Oh, did you get something for yourself?" Sookie asked, when we were finally leaving.

"Yeah. Well I've nearly finished that thing on the Civil War. Was that Bill's?"

"God no. He stuck mainly to Sci-fi and fantasy. The one you're reading was my dad's. I don't know why I kept it, I guess because I gave it to him for Father's Day before he died. He was the non-fiction reader, like you are." She went back to strapping Felicia in the stroller again.

Next Sookie 'ran into' a gift shop to get something else 'little' for Tara while I stayed outside with the two kids and Amelia stared longingly at the candy shop that was next to it and begged to be allowed to go in. It was only the promise of an ice cream soon that stopped her just going in anyway.

That mission accomplished we finally got to the gelato shop, which was at the end of the shops next to the bank. I happened to glance up and saw a whole bunch of people in suits going in. Poor fuckers, I thought, wearing suits in this heat. Some of them looked familiar though.

"Eric!" Peter shouted at me.

"Oh, hi Peter" I said, as he came over and shook my hand.

"Fancy seeing you here? Are you local?" he looked over at Sookie and the kids.

"Um, yeah. We are. You remember Sookie?" They shook hands and exchanged greetings.

"So Eric" he continued "Funny to run into you here. You were quite the hit at the Business Banking function we had and Geoff, the manager of the Mt Eden branch, is looking at doing something similar for his business customers in the New Year. Do you want to come in and meet him? We're just here to raise the profile of the Finance team and talk about the results for the year to date, but I'm sure Geoff wouldn't mind sparing five minutes to meet you. Maybe you could help him out with his customers?"

I looked at Sookie, who made a sort of go-on motion with her hands as Amelia was shout-whispering "I want an ice-cream!" at her. So I followed Geoff into the branch while Sookie took the kids in to get gelato.

Luckily it wasn't a very long meeting, although I got the feeling that left to his own devices that Geoff guy could out-talk Amelia. Peter kept him on-track though. It was also lucky that Peter's presence stopped Sophie-Anne doing anything stupid, other than glare at me. I thought I'd glimpsed her before I saw Peter, and I was right.

So after about 15 minutes I was in the gelato shop, where Amelia was still making her way through what was now a melted puddle of chocolate gelato, having agreed to 'help Geoff out', which I guess meant sit through another boring lecture on the New Zealand economy. Wearing a suit.

Sookie handed me the slightly melted gelato she'd bought me and asked what had happened, so I gave her a brief overview, missing out the bit about the glaring she-devil that was present.

"So, they want you to what? Consult with their customers or something?" she asked.

I shrugged "Yeah, possibly. I guess it's worth looking into."

"Yeah, I guess." Sookie bent down to retrieve Felicia's hat again. Felicia looked at me and said "Bub". I gave her some of the gelato off my spoon, just as Sookie sat back up again.

"Bub bub bub bub" Felicia said happily, clapping and opening and closing her mouth for more.

"Ice cream?" Sookie asked. Oh yeah, she'd missed that bit when she'd been sick.

"Yeah, well. It's got milk in it" I said, giving Felicia some more. Sookie sighed and said "It's probably fine. Although of course now she thinks she's got you wrapped round her little finger."

"Who's finger Mummy?" said a very sticky Amelia, who'd now finished.

Once Felicia and I had finished and Amelia had been cleaned down as best we could, Sookie went a few doors down to the butcher's shop. Which was jam-packed this close to Christmas.

"Right, I might get some steak for dinner, that sound all right?" Sookie asked, but she looked like she didn't really want an answer so I just nodded. She went to join the queue inside and I waited outside with the kids, again.

Felicia kept throwing her hat. The more I retrieved it, the more she giggled and I could soon see the game was to see how far she make me go to get it. The wind caught it and it started down the pavement and when I got back to the stroller Amelia was out of sight. Fuck.

"Amelia!" I yelled, but then I spotted her. And Sophie-Anne, who was bending down to talk to her. I pushed Felicia over to them in time to hear Amelia say "But Mummy said we're keeping him!", with the distinct sound of a sob in her voice. Fuck, they were either talking about me or Bob and I'm pretty sure Sophie-Anne didn't care about the cat.

I could see the tears starting to fall from Amelia's eyes and I reached over and picked her up. "What the fuck, Sophie-Anne?" I hissed, over Amelia's head.

Sophie-Anne shrugged and said "I was just talking to her and she got upset. Children. They're so emotional."

I opened my mouth to say something else when I heard Sookie's voice next to me say "What the hell is going on here?"

SPOV

We'd had a nice trip to the Village and then fucking Sophie-Anne appeared and made Amelia cry. As soon as I saw them all standing there when I got out of the butcher's I knew that's what had happened. And I saw red.

"What the hell is going on here?" I asked.

"Eric lost the child and I found her upset and crying" Sophie-Anne said casually.

"I fucking did not and you know it!" Eric yelled. Yeah, I thought, he's getting upset now. "You were telling her I was going to leave her. Fuck you are a prize bitch Sophie-Anne."

OK, him yelling wasn't going to help. Not to mention he was still cradling Amelia with the arm that wasn't holding the push-chair and she was hearing all of this too. "Sophie-Anne" I said, in as calm a voice as I could muster. "Can I just have a very quick word?"

She looked at me like I was filth, but sort of nodded imperiously and I steered us off to the corner of the building where there was an alley that led off the main street.

I smiled at Sophie-Anne who just said "Yes? What do you want to say Sookie?"

"I just want to say that you are the biggest fucking slag I have ever come across, and if you ever come near any of my family again I will make sure that everyone at the bank knows exactly what sort of person you are. Because unlike poor Andre, you have nothing over me. So get over your fucking pathetic schoolgirl crush on Eric and leave us alone."

Sophie-Anne sniffed. "Your family? Oh Sookie, don't be such a dumb bitch. What do you think is going to happen? That you'll get married and live happily ever after? It won't happen."

"Oh fuck off Sophie-Anne, of course it will happen. You know absolutely nothing about me, or Eric, or any of us. Hell, you couldn't even tell that Amelia wanted to be your friend, and you made a little girl cry because Eric didn't like you. Shit, if that's not pathetic then nothing is. Grow up and stop playing games. You're not 15 anymore, so fucking act like a woman and not a teenage girl."

With that I turned around, and just about bumped into Eric, who'd come up to us. "Um" he said "Amelia just wants to say something to Sophie-Anne."

Amelia had stopped crying, although her face was a bit red and very tear-stained. She looked Sophie-Anne in the eye and then said loudly "You are not a very nice lady and you are NOT my friend!", then she looked at Eric who just nodded his approval at her.

Sophie-Anne didn't say anything else, but just turned and walked off in the direction of the bank. I looked at Eric, who was grinning at me.

"What? Are you all happy because I told Sophie-Anne where to go?"

I took Felicia's pushchair from him and we started walking back in the direction of home, Eric still carrying Amelia. "No" he said "I'm all happy because apparently, and I'm quoting you here, we're getting married."

Oh shit. I was just as bad as he was. "It was the heat of the moment" I mumbled. "I was just trying to burst her bubble."

Eric giggled, which made Amelia laugh too, although she was a bit clueless as to what was going on.

"Don't gloat Eric!" I chastised, while picking up Felicia's hat again. I really needed to get her one with a strap.

"What's gloat?" asked Amelia.

"Being happy at someone else's expense" I answered.

"So what's expensive then? The ice cream?" Amelia was totally lost.

"Yeah, it was a very expensive trip out for Mummy. It's cost me very dearly" I said, cursing Sophie-Anne who was the cause of all of this.

"Oh, Sookie. You have no idea!" Eric said gleefully. I was seriously regretting buying him ice cream and steak now. He patently didn't deserve it. He fell into step beside me and put the arm that wasn't carrying Amelia around my shoulders. "I guess it's a good thing you love me" he said.

"Yeah, lucky for you I guess."

"Because a marriage without love would just be sad."

"Eric, if you don't shut up now I will hurt you in your sleep!" I tried to look stern, but I'd lost it. I was giggling too now. "It's not funny!" I said, laughing still.

"Stamp your foot again, because you really look like Amelia when you do that."

"Shut up!"

"Great comeback."

"I mean it."

"I have no doubt you mean everything you say, including all the things you said to Sophie-Anne…"

"You're impossible!"

Thankfully Amelia broke in then, bored by the two of us carrying on. "Can I watch a movie tonight?"

"Yeah, let's do that" I said. "Let's just pretend today never happened."

Eric thankfully decided enough was enough and shut up for the rest of the walk home, but he kept nudging me and smiling at me. I was never going to live this down. Bloody Sophie-Anne.

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