Disclaimer: I don't own Primeval or its characters.

Chapter Summary: Shopping for the wedding and this time it's the guys turn.

Chapter Length: 2967

Author's Note: This chapter is a lot longer than the previous ones, so I hope you still enjoy it, I definitely enjoyed writing it.

Open Mic Nights

Chapter 7 – Shopping Again

Part of Becker was glad that it was just going to be him, Matt and Connor today. Sure, he was enjoying all the extra time with Jess—something he would deny to everyone—but spending so much time together was starting to confuse him. When he'd spoken with Abby she had implied that Jess had feelings for him, but in all the time they spent together he didn't see any indication that this was true. Yes, they always ended up next to each other, but that was only because the other members of the team were couples. When you were the only two singles in your group of friends it was natural to gravitate towards each other.

Abby's words had stayed with him since they'd spoken, and the thought that he might be denying Jess happiness killed him. He knew Abby was right, with their jobs they did need to take whatever came their way. But Becker didn't know if he deserved to be happy, not when he had failed to protect so many people.

God, when did I become so melodramatic?

Arriving at the flat, Becker parked on the street and then went to let Connor know he was there. They were going suit shopping—much to Becker's horror—and he had to give Connor a lift, since his and Abby's car had been destroyed during the last creature incursion. Hopefully this wouldn't take too long and they wouldn't insist on getting dinner together afterward, Becker felt like he could use an evening to himself after all the time he had been spending with the team lately.

The door opened to reveal Abby, but unlike last time she wasn't laughing. She appeared to be less worried than when he had seen her yesterday, but she still looked troubled.

"Hey, they'll be out in a minute."

Becker nodded, and then raised an eyebrow when her words registered. "They'll?"

"Emily told me about the blue suit, so now she and Jess are going to go with you."

"You know we wouldn't actually let him get it, we have some sense."

"I know, but I feel better knowing Jess will be there."

Becker sighed.

"You don't want Jess there?" Abby asked, surprised.

"Yes…no… I don't know."

"Have you thought about what I said?"

"It's practically been the only thing on my mind." Becker admitted reluctantly.

"Yet you haven't told her how you feel."

"There's nothing to tell."

"Really? We're going to play that game?"

"What game?"

"The one where I insist you have feelings for her. I know I'm right, and you know I'm right, yet you continue to deny it profusely."

"No, we won't be playing that game, because I do not have feelings for Jessica."

Abby grunted in frustration. "Fine, keep telling yourself that. I don't have the time to worry about when you're going to come to your senses." At this rate it was going to take locking them in a storage cupboard—or pushing them through an anomaly—to get Becker and Jess to admit their feelings for each other.

Abby stormed inside, leaving Becker outside to wait for Jess and Connor; he needed a moment to himself before he was around Jess again. He may have managed to get Abby to lay off him, but his inner voice wouldn't be silenced that easily.

What are you doing? You're making a mess of everything, Abby's stressed enough as it is, and she doesn't need to be dealing with your moods as well. You decided to leave your relationship with Jess the way it is, so stop pining and acting like an idiot.

Connor and Jess came outside then, interrupting his internal ranting.

"We've been assigned a chaperone mate."

"So I heard."

"What, aren't you happy to see me?" Jess teased, smiling at him as she skipped towards the car. Becker grinned—it was impossible not to when she directed that smile at him—and followed her and Connor to his car.

They went to a formal wear store in the centre of London, not far from where the girls had gone earlier that day to get their dresses. The store prided itself on having high quality suits at affordable prices. The front windows displayed several mannequins modelling a variety of suits. Becker could see that Jess had her eyes glued to the windows and he got the feeling that this was going to be a long afternoon.

Crossing the road they found Matt and Emily waiting for them outside the store.

"So, I take it Abby doesn't trust us to dress ourselves." Matt said.

"Well, can you blame her? When she sees what you all wear to work every day." Jess teased.

"What's wrong with how we dress?" Connor asked, sounding offended.

"Nothing really, it just doesn't inspire the most confidence in your ability to choose formal wear."

The men stared at Jess; Becker and Matt looked amused by the exchange while Connor looked insulted.

"Well I think you all have a lovely sense of dress. At least you don't dress like those other young men I've seen, with their trousers falling down." Emily said in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"Let's just get started, shall we." Matt said, following Emily's lead.

When they entered the store the group was greeted by a shop assistant who immediately latched onto them. He began by asking them countless questions; first about what they needed the suits for, and then about what style they were interested in. He seemed particularly pleased when Connor told him that the suits were for his wedding and that Matt and Becker were the groom's men. Becker suspected that he was going to try and use this fact to his advantage. As the sales assistant continued asking questions—throwing around words that Becker wasn't sure he even knew the meanings too—he became more and more thankful that Abby had sent Jess with them, as he was sure none of them would have been able to provide an answer, and then who knows what they would have walked out of the store with.

Once he was done with his seemingly endless list of questions, the sales assistant proceeded to take the three men's measurements. He then walked them around the store, showing the group the variety of suits that where in stock. With each new suit they were shown Becker grew more and more irritated. He wasn't a fan of clothes shopping in general, though he may have been able to tolerate it if it had been just the five of them, but this sales assistant was starting to get on his last nerve. He kept insisting that all these different accessories were necessary and that it simply wouldn't be a proper wedding without them. Naturally, Temple was dumb enough to fall for it and would have already walked out the store with hundreds of dollars' worth of merchandise if it hadn't been for Jess. The fact that Becker kept catching the man staring in his direction wasn't helping his case; and he was sure that his touch had lingered longer than necessary when he was taking his measurements.

"I don't think Abby would like that. What do you think Emily?" Jess's commented, drawing Becker's attention back to the task at hand. The suit they were discussing consisted of black pants, a white shirt, black bowtie, and a white jacket with black lapels. In short it was hideous.

"I have to agree. I think Abby would much prefer it to be all the one colour."

"Well, why worry about this girl's opinion. I can assure you these suits are what's in at the moment."

"Yes, why worry about what Abby would think? She's only the bride; it's not like her opinion matters." Becker said dryly.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I thought it was the two of you getting married." The sales assistant said, gesturing between Connor and Jess. "You said you were the groom, and with how vocal you've been, I assumed you were the bride."

Becker stiffened; both at the thought of Jess with anyone other than him, and at the look that came over her face at being told she was being vocal. It was clear she had been offended by the remark and Becker wouldn't stand for it. No one insulted Jess and got away with it.

"What's that supposed to mean? She's just giving her opinion on the suits. Frankly it's a good thing she's here, as it's clear you have no sense what so ever. That last thing was horrendous."

The shop assistant stared wide eyed at Becker. Clearly he wasn't used to being spoken to in this manner. He was surprised by what Becker had said, though he wasn't surprised that he was coming to the defence of this young lady. He had been watching the pair as he showed the group around the store, and had noticed the closeness between them. At first he had thought that he was the girl's brother—though there was no resemblance between them—but as he continued to watch them, he realised it was not brotherly affection in the man's eyes. This threw him, as he had assumed she was the shorter man's bride to be, and he was confused as to why the groom would have included him in the wedding when he was clearly in love with this young girl.

A silence had fallen over the group after Becker's outburst. He noticed a flush creep across Jess's face at his words, and that Connor and Matt shared a look, similar to the one they had at the pub all those weeks ago.

Becker knew his words could probably be considered rude, but he didn't care, no one insulted Jess. Besides he was just saying what he was sure everyone had been thinking. He refused to believe that he was the only one that was finding the constant blabber of the sales assistant irritating. He could tell the man was getting on Jess's nerves; she was just too polite to say anything. Hopefully the man would now leave them alone.

It was then that a bell rang, signalling that other customers had entered the store.

"Perhaps, you could leave us to browse while you assist your other customers. If we need any help we will come find you." Emily suggested, defusing some of the tension.

"Of course." With that he was gone, leaving the group to their shopping.

They continued wondering the store, and this time Becker found the task to be far less irritating. Though that was probably because he loved watching Jess when she was doing something she was passionate about, and she was definitely passionate about anything to do with the wedding.

With the sales assistant gone, Jess and Emily were able to properly discuss the pros and cons of each style. Becker could tell they were both taking the task seriously, probably far more seriously than he, Matt, and Connor would have. They were trying their hardest to find a suit that would look good on all three men, which wasn't going to be easy, considering they all had very different builds. Currently they were debating whether a two or three piece suit would be best.

"Perhaps we should have them try some on, and then we can decide which style is more appropriate." Emily suggested.

"That'd probably be the best way to decide."

The girls fluttered around the store, pulling suits off the racks. Once they were satisfied that they had selected a large enough range, they led the group over to the fitting rooms and Becker prepared for the truly horrible part of this trip: trying on everything the girls chose for him.

They started by trying on three suits, one of each of the styles the girls were trying to decide between. One suit had three pieces—pants, vest, and jacket—as well as a shirt, while the other two were only two pieces. Becker wondered why they had given them two suites that were exactly the same, but when he queried this, Jess pointed out that they were completely different, as one was worn with a regular tie and the other with a bowtie. With that Becker was ushered into the changing rooms and ordered to put on the suit accompanied by the bowtie.

Once dressed, Becker emerged from the dressing room to stand beside Connor and Matt as Jess and Emily assessed the suit. After a long discussion, in which they pointed out what worked and what didn't, the girls proclaimed that it was a possibility, before ordering the men back into the changing rooms. They repeated this process for the other two suits, after which Jess and Emily decided that they were definitely going with the three piece suit.

Once style was decided upon, the next decision that needed to be made was what colour the suits should be. Before he knew it, Becker was handed another stack of suits and strict instructions on what order to try them on in. Sighing, Becker made his way back into the fitting rooms.

Hanging the first one on a hook Becker looked it over, thinking that it looked too small to fit him.

"Jess!" He called. "Are you sure this is the correct size? It looks too small."

"Of course I'm sure." She called back. "Have you tried it on?"

"No."

"Well, then how can you know it's too small?"

Conceding, Becker pulled off his t-shirt and tried on the shirt, only to find he was right, it was too small. He had just taken the shirt off when the curtain of his dressing room was pulled aside. Spinning around he found a wide eyed Jess standing in the door way.

"Uh, sorry, I…um…gave you Connor's stack by mistake." She said, looking down while handing him the suits in her arms.

Becker smirked as he saw a blush come over her face and took the suits out of her arms, before replacing them with the ones he had hanging on the wall.

Finally—after spending a larger portion of his afternoon than Becker would have liked trying on more suits than he could remember—Jess and Emily had decided on what would be worn to the wedding. They were all wearing suits that consisted of a shirt, pants, jacket, and a vest; but that was where the similarities ended. Becker and Matt were both wearing dark grey suits, while Connor's one was light grey—drawing attention to the groom. They also had on different colour ties. Becker and Matt had blue ties—though when he referred to them as blue Jess promptly snapped that they were in fact turquoise, which she said would match the bridesmaids' dresses. Connor, on the other hand, was wearing a white tie with a rose hue, which he insisted was pink and refused to wear. That is, until Jess and Emily told him that it would complement Abby's dress nicely.

Paying for his suit, Becker looked at his watch and saw that it was now six o'clock. They had been in the store for far longer than he had originally thought. The fact that it was so late wasn't lost on the rest of the team either, as when Becker joined them outside they were discussing going to dinner.

"What about that Italian place that's just opened up?" Matt was asking.

"Ooh yeah, I've been wanting to try that place." Connor exclaimed excitedly.

"Italian food sounds lovely. Does that suit you Jess?"

"Sounds great. We should see if Abby wants to come."

"Excellent. Why don't you and the Captain get Abby, and Matt, Connor, and myself will go to the restaurant to secure a table." With that Emily turned around and marched to the car her and Matt had come in, leaving Matt and Connor to scramble after her.

Becker wasn't thrilled at the idea of going out to dinner, which—judging by what Jess said next—must have shown on his face.

"You don't have to come if you don't want too. I know it's been a long afternoon and I don't want you to feel like you have to come with us if you'd rather go home. Not that I don't want you to come, I do, and I hope you do come, it'd be fun to go to dinner together. As a team." Jess's voice trailed off as she looked up at him, her bright blue eyes shining in the evening light. Looking into her eyes Becker knew he was going to go to dinner, he just couldn't say no to her.

"Of course I'll come."

"Great! I'll just call Abby and then we can go." Taking out her phone Jess stepped away from him to make the call.

He really didn't feel like going out, but the smile she gave him when he agreed to go made it worth sacrificing a quite night at home.

He watched Jess as she talked to Abby on the phone. Sensing that he was looking at her, Jess turned around, throwing him another smile. Becker smiled back at her; he couldn't help it, just seeing her smile made everything instantly better.

She doesn't realise the hold she has on me. Or that I would do anything for her.

That's because she doesn't know how you feel about her; whispered a voice that sounded suspiciously like Abby's.

Off the phone now, Jess came back over to Becker.

"Abby said she'll bring my car and meet us there."

As they walked to the car Jess spoke animatedly about how much she enjoyed their day shopping, and what she liked most about each outfit. Becker smiled at Jess, he loved how happy she was and he found it infectious.