Thanks to my beta, Isi.
Disclaimer: I don't own McLeods Daughters.
19. Barbies For Everyone
Claire started to wash the salad, one of the few things in the kitchen she was good at. After that she tried to do the same things she had watched Meg doing more than once but she failed immediately when she tried to fix a dressing. That moment she thought about Meg's offer from before and let go of the salad. Instead she started to get the dishes and a table cloth out of a cupboard to prepare the table on the veranda. The barbie had to be cleaned so she did that next.
After that she had done the things she was good at so her part of the work was finished. Beside of that from all the work and walking today her leg was hurting like hell. She was lucky that there was still some time left until Alex would arrive so she sat down at the veranda, rested her leg on another chair and started to do some paperwork.
----
Meanwhile Alex brought his mother back to Killarney.
Liz got out of his car and went to his door. "You've chosen well today my son. Believe me you'll make her happy." She said.
After she had finished Alex got out of his car too. "Thanks for your help today. You're the world's greatest." He replied and hugged her. "You can come over tonight. We'll have a barbie at Drovers."
"You young people don't want me to be there. I'll come around another day."
"No, it's ok. You can bring Dad along."
"If it's really ok for you, we'll be there. Which time then?"
"7 o'clock. I'll go there now. We'll see each other later then, Mom." He said, got back into his car and drove away. Now everything was arranged how he had imagined it.
----
Tess was with the alpacas. Until now she hadn't worked at all although she had gone where she had to go. Instead of working she just sat in the alpaca's paddock and watched them.
While she did that she thought about her life, her love and how it went wrong again. For once she wanted to do something right but she couldn't do that because she was afraid though she had no reason. "Why? WHY?" She wanted to scream but just another sob left her mouth.
----
Alex was finally back at Drovers Run.
"One day away and you already miss it. No, you don't, you just miss her." While he thought that he slightly touched the pocket of his jeans and felt the box in it.
There wasn't much time to waste so he went directly into the kitchen. In there was just Meg, preparing some food for the barbie.
"Thanks Meg, you made me very happy." He said with a relieved smile on his face.
"Yeah, I know. Happily I could talk her out of prepairing the barbie by herself."
"Good work. So where is she?"
"Out on the veranda, doing some paperwork. But actually she's having a nap right now. I guess being pregnant is more exhausting than she has imagined."
"Ok, so I'll be with her. Call me if you need a hand."
"Sure, I will. Would you please take this glass of water with you? She has to drink something."
"Sure." He answered, took the glass and left the kitchen.
----
When Alex walked out of the house onto the veranda he immediately saw Claire who was having a nap.
"Peaceful and beautiful all in one, that's her, that's what you really want but maybe you'll never get it."
He put down the glass on the table in front of her and got himself a chair which he placed next to her. He sat down on that and watched her. Nothing would ever change his feelings, especially not after this moment.
She had given him a sharp time to be back and it was already past 6 o'clock but her nap took its time. When she finally awoke she wasn't aware of where she was at . first and what was going on but after some seconds she was back completely.
"Hey Alex, you're early."
"No, Claire. Actually you're too late."
"No, I'm not, I just had a short nap over the paperwork."
"Well, I don't know what short means to you but the guests will be here soon."
"What?" She asked unbelieving.
"Yeah! So if you really want to talk to me then we have to talk now otherwise there won't be much time because I would like to freshen up a little and you'll maybe freshen up a little too."
"Yeah, you're right. It's about ... We shouldn't discuss it here, everybody could listen. Let's go upstairs. You can freshen up and we can talk in private."
"No problem."
----
Slowly Claire got up from the chair but had to ask Alex for help because the pain in her leg was immediately back when she tried to put the normal weight on it which was too much. The rest had done good work to her leg but only for the time she had rested it. Because of that they had to walk inside slowly.
Although she looked like she was in pain he didn't mention again to lift her up the staircase because she hadn't wanted him to do that the day of her return from hospital. But after one step Claire had to give up and turned around on her healthy leg to look at Alex. This look told him what she wanted him to do. So he did that, lifted her up and carried her up the staircase into her room. There he laid her down onto her bed. But she immediately sat up, leaned against the bedstead.
"Thanks, Alex."
"No worries, you know I'm there for you. Just make a sound if you need me, day or night."
"I will. And thanks for Mr Spock too. I know what he means to you and I'm happy that you hand it over to the little baby girl."
"I'm too old for it anyway so he should get it." His reply was working and she forgot her pain for a moment. "So what do you want to talk about? You sounded serious on the phone."
"Tess and Nick ..." She started and told him what she knew from her sister and what she had assumed by herself.
"So you are right. We've to pair them off tonight but first I'll freshen up. You wait here. I'll get you down in a few minutes."
"Why do you have to, Alex? You look like you've sitting in your Ute the whole day driving around. There's no need to do that at all."
He looked away because she had noticed that something wasn't fitting into the picture, mostly because she knew him too well. "No uhm yes, you're right but I ... I need it. By the way I've invited my parents over. I hope that's ok."
"Sure, although it could be a problem. You know how Liz reacts towards Tess, especially when it's about her thing with Nick."
"Yeah, but ..." Actually there was no reason why he had invited them, at least none that he could tell. They just should take part in tonight's event when he would put the ring on her finger. But he couldn't tell her that so he stopped in the middle of his words and started all over again. "I'm going to the bathroom now. Won't take much time."
"Ok." She gave in and let him go.
----
After a few minutes, the arriving of the guests was close, she was bored as hell and couldn't concentrate on anything else than this guy in the bathroom. So she did something really unusual for her but something she had had in mind for some seconds and called him. "Alex."
"What's up?" A mumbled voice was asking.
"Come here, please."
"Why?"
"Because I'm begging you." She replied with a grin on her face which he obviously couldn't see.
"I'm nearly done here."
"Now, please."
He didn't answer anymore but she noticed that he let something drop in the bathroom and heard his steps on his way to her. After some more seconds he stood in front of her, a guy only wearing his pants. "Handsome as I remembered." And saw his appearance after their night together again, only in his boxers. Same guy, same appearance, same handsomeness.
"Something wrong, Claire?" He asked and got her back into the present.
"Actually yeah, I don't want to sit here all by myself, I need company so either you get dressed immediately and we get back downstairs or you take me with you into the bathroom so I've got company and am not bored. Your choice."
A bewildered look appeared on his face. "That must be the hormones." He hoped because that wasn't her. "Well then, come with me. I'll carry you."
When he had lifted her up she was close to his bare chest and rested her head onto it what gave her butterflies in her belly. Alex felt her head on his chest and loved it once more. But their way was too short and they had to get back to the real world fast.
In the bathroom he sat her down on the toilet while he got back to the basin to do the rest. After some minutes he was done, took his shirt back on and carried her down again.
They had only a few minutes left so he left her at the veranda and helped Meg with the preparing.
----
Meanwhile Claire thought about her sister again and noticed that she hadn't seen her for a while, neither upstairs nor downstairs. So she did as her fiancé had told her to do, again. "Alex." She called him.
"What's up this time?" He asked her laughing while he left the house with a tray in his hands. Actually he was curious what weird idea came into her mind now.
"I don't know where Tess is. She has to be somewhere. Please look for her." Sorrow was the one thing she didn't need right now but it was time for them to come up because she hadn't seen her sister since their talk in the morning.
"Oh, something serious this time." Still laughing.
"Alex, I'm really worried. Please look for her." She said more concerned than before.
By her voice he looked into her eyes and could see that she meant it serious this time. "I'll look for her, don't worry. She'll be fine. But first I'll tell Meg that she has to do the rest by herself."
"When I last saw her she talked about going to the alpacas and I haven't seen her since then, so start to look there." She explained to him. "Thanks a lot, you're great."
He didn't say another word, instead he just smiled warmly at her and went away to look for her sister.
----
His first try was the alpaca paddock as Claire had proposed and he found her there sitting on the ground, still lost in thoughts.
"Tess." He started to talk calmly.
For the first time since he had entered the paddock she looked up and left her thoughts behind for a moment but turned her head away after a few seconds and let her thoughts start to wander off again.
"Tess." He said again. "Come on, we've to go over. You don't want to give your big sister anything to worry?"
She looked up at him again and thought about his words which made sense to her. So she stretched an arm towards him and he helped her up.
When she finally stood on her own legs again she put a faked smile on her face. Both knew it was faked but she wanted to be there for her sister. Claire and the unborn baby were more important than anything else, at least for the moment.
"Sorry, but there'll be a barbie tonight. I don't know if Claire told you about it."
"Nope, she hadn't but I'll manage. I'll be there and smile. That should be enough."
"I guess so too." Alex replied but thought about Claire's plan to pair Tess off with his brother. "That won't work out."
At the same time he was worried about his own plan to propose to Claire properly tonight. Everything seemed so confusing at the moment but he wanted to do that one thing right.
Together they walked back to the house, where he accompanied his future wife while Tess got upstairs to freshen up herself and get some clean clothes on.
----
Claire and Alex said silently together on the veranda, waiting for the guests to arrive and for Tess to come back down.
As he had told his parents they arrived sharply at 7 o'clock with two presents in their hands, both wrapped carefully. They handed one to their son which obviously contained a bottle from his mother's collection and one to their future daughter-in-law. Claire just wanted to put it aside but Liz didn't let her.
"You have to open it, Claire."
"Ok then."
As she was told she ripped the paper off and took a closer look on the content of the package. It was a beautiful picture book for all her memories of her first pregnancy.
"Thanks." She said with a wide smile on her face and shook Harry's hand but hugged Liz. "I'll show you the first pictures, if you're interested."
"Well, I would like to see them. Have you seen them, Alex?" His mother asked.
"No, I didn't know that you already had had an ultrasonic. I thought the first would be at the next appointment."
"Sorry, I didn't know that either and I've forgotten to show them to you this morning. But now we all can have a look at them together." She answered and hoped that he wouldn't be angry with her. "Alex, will you please get them. They are in my bag in the hall. You know I can't." She said and pointed towards her injured leg.
"Sure." He said and walked into the house to get the pictures.
After some time he came back with her bag in his hand and gave it to her. She only had to take one look into it and found them immediately. Then she handed them over to Alex as the father so he could get the first look who handed them over to his parents when he was done with a faked happy smile on his face, only to keep the story up in front of his parents. It should be his, not from that damn bloke, Peter.
His parents took a close look but like their son and his future wife they didn't recognise much at them. When they were done, they handed them back to Claire who put them back to her bag. Meanwhile Alex excused himself because he wanted to start the barbie. So Claire sat there with his parents and talked about farming and got lots of good advice from her upcoming mother-in-law.
Finally the others arrived. When she saw Becky and Jodie coming over to the main house Meg left the kitchen. They were too late but that didn't matter much because Tess was still upstairs, the barbie wasn't working yet and there was no sign of Nick, so they had had plenty of time left.
It took some more minutes until Tess came downstairs again. She had taken a shower and put some fresh clothes on. So she was beautiful although she didn't feel like it. This time she did something for her sister and smiled like nothing had happened today. But that smile vanished when she heard acar arriving. Only one person was missing, the one person she didn't want to see at all. At that moment Nick was walking up the veranda. Both looked at each other for a short moment and then he walked towards his parents to greet them. Afterwards he started a conversation with Jodie and Becky. Not one look went back to Tess who watched him all the time. This wasn't the way she had wanted this.
Meanwhile Alex had started the barbie and after some time he started to hand out the meat.
----
Nick got a sausage and ate it because he had told Claire that he would be there tonight but he didn't want to talk to anybody, especially not to Tess, but she saw him walking away from his brother and followed him.
"Nick."
"Leave me alone. I'm serious. I'm here because your sister begged me to be and so I'm definitely not here because of you." He answered and turned around immediately to walk away but Tess grabbed his arm.
"Nick, please."
"Why, Tess, why? I'm not a bad guy, I've got work to do, I live on my own, I explained to you, I told you about my feelings and asked you about yours but you just went into the bathroom as if nothing had ever happened."
"But I ..."
"But what?" With every word he spoke Nick's voice sounded angrier than he wanted it. "There's no need for a talk anymore. I'm here because of Claire. That's it."
Tess could hardly hold her tears back so she turned around, walked back and disappeared into the house. Something inside of him wanted to follow her but he had to stay otherwise his words from before would lose their meaning.
----
While she walked into the house she passed her sister, who was still sitting in the same chair, without a look. But Claire had noticed the look on her face but she couldn't get up to follow her because of her leg. For once she had luck because Meg had watched the weird scenery too and came to Claire.
"What's up with them?"
"I can't tell you but please do me a favour and follow Tess. Maybe she needs someone. I can hardly walk because the pain is nearly killing me so I'll never manage the staircase."
"No worries, I'll take care of that but you could ask Alex. I guess he would help you."
"Yeah, he would do that but he is going to talk to Nick." She said, pointing towards the brothers.
"Oh, I see. So I'll check on Tess." Meg replied and went into the house.
Luckily nobody else had noticed or wanted to show. So Claire stayed on the veranda and was watching the others, especially the two brothers and wished she could understand what they were talking about.
----
Meanwhile the two brothers were standing close to the barbie. Alex had called Nick over when he was going to leave after his fight with Tess and started to talk to him.
"What's up, brother."
"Nothing."
"Come on, everything seemed to be fine between the two of you this morning but now ..."
"What do you know about this morning?" This words were words out of anger. Tess had told their story everybody, even his brother.
"Nothing but you've forgotten to close the door last night so Claire and I have had a perfect view on you and Tess when we went downstairs."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"No hard feelings brother. So what's up with you and Tess?"
"She is so ... scared of whatever reason although I never would do any harm to her."
"Nick, you know her as long as I do and she has been scared since forever. You know that and I know that too. Believe me she knows that too." There was already a change visible because Nick didn't seem to be as angry as he had been before instead he really started to listen to the words of his brother. "But you belong together and one day you will be together but you won't if you run away like that every time she starts to get scared. Show her that there's no reason to be scared or to hide herself. Go upstairs instead of listening to your older brother who doesn't have the guts to do that."
The words of his brother overwhelmed him. There was more in them than the hint to follow Tess. Not only he should finally get serious with Tess, his brother wanted that too, obviously with Claire.
One step of Nick towards the house was the sign for Alex that his speech had left an effect on his little brother for once. But before he made his way towards the house and Tess he turned around and put his hand on his Alex shoulder.
"Thanks for talking some sense into me."
"Any time."
"You should be with her instead of me." Nick said while he glanced at Claire.
"I will be."
They exchanged a warm understanding smile and Nick walked away towards the house.
After he had gone away Alex looked into Claire's direction and wanted to get her attention but that wasn't neccessary because she was watching him. So he just gave her a thumb up as a sign that his talk had been good as an impression before he walked back to the barbie.
----
Nick had to pass Claire too but he avoided her look and she let him do that. It was important that he was going to sort out things between him and Tess.
----
At the same time when the boys had their talk, Meg was sitting next to Tess, who was lying on her bed, and stroked her back while she was crying. When she had arrived upstairs after her talk to Claire, Tess was already lying there and hadn't moved since then.
Both didn't say a word. While she sat there Meg thought about their conversation from yesterday again and blamed herself that she hadn't responded more directly and hadn't told her what she really thought. Now she was just trying to help out because Claire wasn't abtle to.
After some time, Tess had stopped crying and was just sobbing into her pillow, Meg heard the staircase jarring. So she turned her head around and saw Nick approaching at the door.
There was nothing that she would do without Tess' approval so she stopped stroking her back and touched her shoulder instead. That was unexpected so Tess turned her head around to see what was going on. When she saw him, she sat up. Her eyes where red and swollen from all the tears but she wasn't ashamed of them. There was nothing he could say or do to make her uncomfortable because he had done that very well before.
They had some things to discuss so Meg got up, left the room and accompanied the others downstairs again.
----
When they were finally alone none of them found a way to start a conversation because there was obviously something different between them.
This time she wouldn't apologise herself although she had still feelings left. Actually she loved him but he had given her a hard time although he knew her and he knew how she would react if somebody held a pistol to her head.
"That wasn't my intention" He thought when he saw the expression on her face and the marks her tears had left. It hadn't even been a day since he would have married her without another thought and he still would do that today and was already sorry about his behaviour towards her but he wasn't able to tell her so he just looked at her.
"What are you looking at?" She wanted to scream towards him but instead she just looked at him while he looked at her.
"Are you going to stare at me the whole time because then I would put a picture in front of you." Tess snapped at him. Although she had cried because of him and had had a bad day she wasn't in the mood to let him get away with this, not this time. "Yes, you made your way upstairs, but don't expect me to do the rest for you."
"I'm here to say sorry. I didn't mean to upset you, I didn't want to be as rude as I've been to you. I just want you. Believe me or not, I love you and maybe I will until I die but I can't take that anymore. It hurts. Yesterday compared to today doesn't match, that doesn't match at all."
Her eyes opened wide by his words. The defence she had build to resist him was falling apart slowly. Her feelings for him hadn't gone away. So instead of an angry reply she told him the one thing which she never had intended to say. Her voice was nearly silent when started to talk. "I love you too, Nick."
When she had finished her last words he slowly started to move towards her. While he did that he looked deeply into her eyes until he was at her side then he pulled her up and kissed her slightly on the mouth. Something he had waited for long. The even better part was that Tess started to kiss him back and to keep him close but she didn't forget the world around her and remembered her sister and the barbie downstairs so she slowly moved away from him.
"What's up?" Immediately he thought about what had happened now.
"Nothing. We just forgot the barbie downstairs. Even your parents are there."
"Oh. So what now?"
"We should go downstairs but first I'm going to the bathroom. I'll accompany you in a couple of minutes."
"Ok." But instead of leaving her he looked another time at her and kissed her again but she resisted her urge to kiss him back and moved her head away with a bright smile on her face. Then she made her way to the bathroom but turned back her head one last time when she was at the door to smile at him once more.
----
Some seconds later Nick made his way downstairs with a smirk on his face.
When he got out onto the veranda where Claire was still sitting she watched him and immediately noticed the expression on his face. "So you're happy. I wonder why?" She thought and had to smile too. It was sure to her that they had made it for once.
Alex was glancing over to Claire every now and then from the barbie. While he did that he saw his brother and noticed the same smirk like Claire. "Good work, little brother."
Everybody watched Nick so that he started to feel uncomfortable although he was happy at the same time.
----
When Tess finally came down to join them, she had proved the prejudice, that women need more time than man to get ready.
With a bright smile she stepped out and looked directly into the eyes of her sister who did the same. That look gave Claire all the information she needed to be sure about her impression of Nick. They were happy and they were together.
----
From the distance Alex watched that scenery. They made their way he could tell by the look at their faces.
Now it would be his time, it was finally there so he walked over to the others. Luckily Meg had taken the rest of the meat away from the barbie shortly before Tess had left the house so he was free to go over.
The little siblings made their way but it was obvious that they didn't want to spread the news right now so he took advantage of that and of his own plan by walking straight towards Claire who smiled at him as brightly as her sister at Nick.
He kneeled down in front of her.
"Claire, I wasn't prepared the last time I did this but I am now. It's not a secret anymore that we're going to marry but you haven't got the thing a woman usually gets at that occasion. So I ask you again. Will you marry me?" He opened the box with the ring in it in front of her.
First she looked surprised at him because she didn't understand. It was just an arrangement, they had agreed on that. No strings attached beside of his name on the birth certificate. "Just bloody friends!!!" Her head screamed while a tear appeared in the corner of her eye. But she didn't show it.
"Thanks, Alex."
After she had said that she got up and hobbled into the house although her leg hurt like hell. She had to stand that pain to be able to stand the pain in her heart.