Chaotic Tangents

By S. Faith, © 2008

Words: 3,181

Rating: T / PG-13

Summary: Vignettes. Deleted scenes, if you will.

Disclaimer: Characters? Aren't mine.

Notes: Little scenes I would have liked to have included in "Chaos Theory", didn't really have a place for them… but they've been sitting in my head, gestating.

There is a bit of a Christmas connection, here. ;)

I.

"It'll be fine," she said quietly, patting his arms reassuringly. "They'll adore you."

He was not so sure. To meet her friends at last, to bear the scrutiny of those who had heard God-knows-what about him, was a terrifying prospect. He had never had to endure such scrutiny with her parents, because they already knew and liked him… but her so-called Urban Family was another story.

"What have you told them about me, anyway?"

"Well, not a whole lot, but it wasn't like I could hide the fact that I was glowing," she said bashfully, her cheeks tingeing pink. "I didn't want anything to possibly hurt you until your divorce was final."

Once more he thanked the heavens that it was.

"What did you tell them?" he pressed on, suddenly worried that she might have told them every tiny detail of their love affair and sexual trysts.

"Well," she said tentatively, "that you're kind, and sweet, and handsome… and married, of course, but to a bitch queen from hell."

He smiled, sure that she'd told them much more than that. "And…?"

"No 'and'."

He raised a brow.

"Okay," she said, "I may have gushed a time or two about, well, you know." She now blazed positively crimson. "But you've really made me so happy I couldn't help myself."

He felt his nervousness ebb as he took her in his arms. Surely her friends could see that happiness, would like him and accept him as her boyfriend.

"Like I said," she whispered into his ear, "they'll adore you."

………

They were late and came bearing wine. Mark could not help but feel under a microscope. It wasn't as if he'd meant to avoid meeting them until now. The time just had not yet been right, planning-wise.

The blonde, whose hair was pulled back into a clip, eyed him with a severe look on her face, great intensity in her dark eyes. "You must be Mark."

He nodded. "It's nice to meet you."

"This is Sharon," said Bridget quickly. "And this is Jude and Tom. And yes, guys, this is Mark."

The tenderness with which she finished up her sentence made him turn to look at her, smiling to match her own tender grin.

"Bridget tells us you're a barrister," said Jude. Her expression was hard to read.

"That's true," he said. "Human rights law."

"And she also tells us you're married," said Tom suddenly.

"Tom!" said Bridget.

"No, it's a fair question," Mark said. "I was married. My divorce has since been finalised."

"Ah," said Tom. He felt the full weight of their gazes on him.

"So is Bridge the first mistress you've had?"

"Sharon!" said Bridget, looking mortified.

"I think it's a fair question, too," continued Sharon, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. "I mean, if he cheated on his wife, he could easily cheat on you."

Tom and Jude both pursed their lips, furrowed their brows, clearly eagerly awaiting Mark's answer. He realised that this was what all of the hostility was about. Men who were unfaithful with their wives were often serially so. He had to assure them otherwise.

"Yes, she was," he said, a strength in his voice he was not expecting, turning his eyes to Bridget. "And as I love her with all of my heart, more than I thought it possible to love anyone, there'll never be another. Don't think it wasn't an agony for me to choose love over the commitment I'd made, but I'd suffer again in a heartbeat."

They seemed stunned, unable to respond… and then he watched as Sharon cracked a smile, then started to laugh.

"Jesus Christ," she said. "That's fucking beautiful."

He smiled, then watched as Jude and Tom both started to smile too.

Most importantly, Bridget smiled, her eyes suddenly glossy with tears as she leapt up to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him. He returned the embrace but, aware of her friends' eyes on the two of them, pulled away after just a moment.

Their smiles had only broadened.

"Well, now that that's settled and the ice is sufficiently broken," said Tom, "and we know we won't have to skin you alive for hurting our dear Bridgeline, can we fucking eat already? I'm starving."

Bridget laughed, took Mark's hand and walked towards the table, her friends close behind.

………

As the night progressed, it became obvious that her friends were fiercely loyal and obviously very much cared about Bridget's happiness. They seemed as equally quirky as she was, which he rather liked, and despite their insecurities about themselves and their own respective love lives, they were good, well-meaning people.

"I told you they'd like you," she said after they'd gone.

"I don't know," said Mark. "Sharon still looks at me askance."

She laughed. "I've had time to adjust to the fact that you're a Tory," she said. "Shazzie will definitely need a little more than one night."

"Does that ever bother you?" he asked. "That politically we don't see eye to eye?"

She shook her head. "We literally don't see eye to eye anyway," she said with a devilish grin, "but we make up in other ways for the difference in our heights, don't we?"

It was a naughty innuendo, and frankly, he would have been surprised had she not made one. He simply smiled, reached down and lifted her up; she quickly wrapped her legs about his waist and her arms around his neck, grinning madly.

"Kind of like this?" he asked.

"Mm," she said, drawing herself forward so that her nose brushed against his. "Kind of."

"Or maybe more like this?"

He then covered her mouth with his, passion for her flaring in an instant.

"Exactly like this," she said throatily, then kissed him again.

………

II.

"One thing I want you to remember," he overheard Bridget say to her girlfriends, "is that Daniel is going to come tonight."

He watched Sharon's eyebrow lift suggestively.

"You know what I mean," she added exasperatedly. "He's a very nice guy, really, just commitment-phobic beyond all reason. Forewarned is forearmed."

"Right," said Jude, though she too looked intrigued.

"Judith," said Bridget. "You don't need to get involved in all that again."

Mark had been following, via Bridget, the ups and downs of her friends' love lives, more than he really wanted to know, but happy to be so involved in her life that he hardly cared. He knew that Jude was in an on-again-off-again (currently off) relationship with someone they referred to as 'Vile Richard', which, from the sound of that name, she was probably better off.

Despite Bridget's warning off of her friends, Mark was glad Daniel was coming to their housewarming/holiday party. Mark had asked her to move in at the Alconbury's autumn harvest party; she had accepted and now, after a few weeks of almost-newlywed-like bliss living together, he was feeling just as antsy as he had when he was planning on asking her to live with him.

The small black velvet box burned in his pocket. He knew he couldn't wait until Christmas Day proper, and planned on taking her aside during the party so that an engagement could then be announced in turn.

If she accepts, the devil on his left shoulder whispered to him.

Of course she'll accept, the angel on the right retorted.

Just because you're ready, the devil insisted, doesn't mean she is.

"Mark?"

It was his mother, who had recently herself arrived with his father.

"You're looking quite peaked. Everything all right?"

"Yes," he said, suddenly feeling a bit woozy.

"Mark," she whispered. "You look like you're about to pass out."

"I'm fine," he said. "I'm just a bit nervous."

She grinned. "I know you aren't crazy about parties, but honestly, you're the host."

"No, not because of the party," he said. He looked around, saw that he and his mother were now alone in the foyer, and slyly slipped the box up out of his pocket enough so that she could see the top edge of it.

Her eyes got very wide, and she smiled up at him. "Is that what I think it is?"

He nodded.

Unsurprisingly she slipped into concerned mother mode, despite her fondness for Bridget. "Are you sure? Even though you haven't even been divorced a year?"

"Never been more sure in my whole life about anything," he replied in a low tone.

He watched his mother's eyes soften and gloss over. "And I've never been happier for you."

"She hasn't said yes yet."

"Oh, she will," said Elaine, smiling knowingly.

………

The party filled out quite nicely, and Mark had still not gotten his chance to pull Bridget aside and pop the question. She was, true to nature, the perfect social butterfly, and it seemed everyone wanted to talk to her.

It was after Mark had had a few glasses of wine that he was practically body checked into the wall in the foyer by a clearly inebriated Sharon.

"Mark, we have to talk. Now," she said, grabbing him by the wrist and yanking him into the loo, slamming the door closed.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I bloody hope you're going to do the right thing," she said cryptically.

"About what?"

"About your unborn child, that's what!"

Mark felt the blood drain out of his head, felt dizzy, felt himself sinking with no power to stop himself, landing to sit on the closed toilet seat.

"Oh, Jesus fuck," she said, covering her mouth with her hand. "You didn't fucking know!"

Surely, surely, if Bridget were sure enough about being pregnant, she would have told him, and would not be drinking alcohol at the party this evening.

"She isn't," said Mark. "She would say so. Where on earth did you hear this?"

"Daniel," she said, swaying on her feet. "He said he heard it from someone else, who overheard your father say something about having a grandson soon."

He felt relieved; not that a baby would have been the end of the world, but he was barely prepared for the enormity of starting a family already, not when he'd been with Bridget for less than a year. He even started to laugh in such a way that made Sharon look at him like he'd gone mad.

"Mark?" she said placidly. "You're not about to snap and tear my head off, are you?"

"No," he said, his laughter calming at last. "It would seem that my father—"

Just then there was a loud pounding on the door.

"Mark, are you in there?"

It was Bridget. From the sound of her voice, she'd heard the rumour, too.

"Yes, darling. Hold on."

He stood again on uncertain legs then walked over to open the door. She looked at Sharon with obvious bewilderment, clearly wondering why Sharon was in the loo with him.

"I'll be going then," Sharon said quickly, then ran out as fast as her drunkenness would allow.

Bridget looked stunned and hurt. "What were you doing in the loo with Shaz?" she asked, her lip trembling.

"You don't have to look like that," he said gently, taking her in his arms. "She pulled me in here, I believe, to skin me alive. Apparently there's a rumour going around—"

She pushed away to look at him. "It isn't true, Mark, I swear. I'm not preg—" She then stopped, as if what he's said just trickled through. "Why would she have done that?"

"I believe she was going to try to force me to 'do the right thing', as she put it."

Bridget sighed in relief. "Oh, I'm so glad you didn't think I was holding back news like that from you."

"I did have a moment of panic before reason took hold again," he said with a reassuring smile. "Even if it were so, Sharon would hardly need to force me into anything."

It was hardly the appropriate locale—not that the first floor bathroom was anything but swank—but it was the right time, especially when he saw the look on her face, especially knowing how difficult it had been to get her alone that night.

"Bridget."

She suddenly looked utterly trapped, gulping in big breaths, not daring to blink at all. He took her hands, which were suddenly icy, and trembling.

"I fear this may be the source of the rumour."

"What is?"

Releasing her right hand, he dove into his pocket for the little box and pulled it out, dropping down onto one knee as he did so.

"Oh my God," she said breathlessly, her right hand clamping over her own mouth.

He popped open the box, looked at the sparkling solitaire nestled among the blue velvet. "I was going to save this for—"

"Oh my God," she said again, pulling her hand away from her mouth, her eyes spilling over with tears. "Yes!"

He blinked, feeling a little disappointed. "May I at least ask the question?"

"Yes!" she said again. "I mean of course!"

He chuckled, finding the imperfect quality of this perfect moment as endearing to him as she was. "Will you marry me?"

Instead of another 'yes' as he expected, she burst into uncontrollable sobs, smiling as tears slid down her cheeks, nodding her already-given affirmative. He pulled the ring from the box and pushed it onto her finger; it was a little rough going as her finger seemed to be a little swollen, maybe from drinking.

Once it was on though, she tugged his hand with her newly-adorned left one. He hastily got to his feet and was barely standing when she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

After many moments of bliss, she broke away with a breathless, "Yes," meeting his eyes and smiling again.

He reached up and brushed his thumb over her damp cheek just as there was another insistent pounding at the door.

"I suppose we have been in here rather a long time," he said, drying off her other cheek. She still seemed unable to properly speak, nodding her head, smiling, sniffing. "Someone might really need to go." She laughed, reached up and kissed him again, just as he took her hand and reached for the doorknob.

Pulling the door open nearly made him fall down in shock. There, in the foyer, it seemed like the entire party had assembled around the loo door. At the forefront was Sharon, looking smug. "Honestly, in your own house," she said, snickering, as she came up close to the two of them. He noticed that others in the crowd were smirking too.

"What?"

"'Yes! Yes!' ring a bell?"

"What?" Mark asked again, feeling incredibly stupid.

"Come on, was it too much to sneak up to your own bedroom?" she asked. "Eager to prove that rumour true?"

He kept tight rein on his features but saw Bridget's mouth drop open into a horrified O.

"No!" she exclaimed, her voice unsteady. "That's not it at all!"

"May I have your attention, please," Mark said in his most commanding voice, causing the murmuring and the tittering to cease instantaneously. He'd sensed she was becoming upset at the assumptions they were all making so soon after such a special moment in their lives. "Please, I'd like everyone to come into the hallway." He squeezed her hand, felt the ring pressing into his palm.

He saw a couple of people duck into the sitting room and come back out with streams of more people, including his mother and father, her parents, Tom, Jude and Daniel.

He drew himself up to his full height, peering out into the assembled partygoers his expression very serious. "I have a very important announcement to make, if I might have a moment of your time."

"Boy or girl?" piped up one of Bridget's married friends, a curly-haired merchant banker called Cosmo, to which several in the crowd giggled.

Mark glared at the man so severely that Cosmo clapped his mouth shut. Mark then continued to speak.

"Bridget has just done me the honour of agreeing to be my wife."

A collective gasp issued forth from the crowd; after the initial shock, there were bursts of applause, hoots and hollers of 'Hurrah!' and 'Well done!', and from Sharon, "You proposed in the bloody loo?"

Bridget laughed. "It was perfect."

"I wanted her alone to propose, I wanted to do it tonight with you all here to celebrate—and the night was not getting any younger."

He felt his hand being shaken, his arm clapped affectionately in a series of congratulations, he watched Bridget receive hug after hug from her friends in turn. He saw his mother and father come near to offer their well wishes; her parents came near too, her mother grinning like mad as she hugged him, his father shaking his hand.

"If it's all right with you," Mark said to Colin Jones.

"All right to marry my little girl?" Mr Jones said with great gravity. "I suppose I shall have to think about it..."

Pamela Jones lightly slapped her husband's upper arm. "He's teasing, Mark. Of course it's all right!"

Colin Jones' grin told him it really was.

"A toast! We must have a toast!"

It was Daniel, and he held a glass of wine aloft, and there was no trace of bitterness in his time, no overindulgence of alcohol driving his words. He continued:

"May my best friend and my ex-girlfriend have a long and happy life together."

There were some chuckles as everyone with a drink raised it aloft.

"To Mark and Bridget," finished Daniel.

"To Mark and Bridget," echoed everyone.

From the unflinching way Daniel was meeting his gaze, Mark knew that his best wishes were sincere, and he smiled and nodded his thanks.

In fits and starts the party went back to normal, to mingling and drinking and raised voices and fun; it was only when Bridget was dragged off by her girlfriends for a thorough examination of the ring that his mother came to his side and spoke to him privately, knew that she never would have said anything in public that might have potentially embarrassed him.

"I'd say that I wish you and Bridget all the happiness in the world," she began, a smile spreading across her features, "but you hardly need me to wish for what you clearly already have."

Sheepishly he smiled, looking down, digging his hands into his pockets nervously. At least she hadn't said I told you so. "Thanks." He lifted his eyes, saw Bridget with her left hand splayed out before her as Jude, Sharon, Tom and some others whose names had escaped him (little wonder, what with the subject of proposing occupying his thoughts) oohed and aahed over the ring.

As if sensing his eyes upon her, she looked up and met his gaze, then smiled tenderly at him before blowing him a little kiss. All of the friends immediately looked to Mark, and though he felt his face flood with heat, he could not help but smile and blow a kiss in return.

The end.