Green with Envy (for splendid_roman)

[first_in_time]

It was one of the weekends John stayed with a friend, and his parents had the house to themselves for doing more or less whatever they liked without having to stop to answer questions or ask John to take his bath and get ready for bed. Of course they loved John and missed him terribly when he went away for the weekend, but it was nice to just have

Comments

[splendid_roman]

Ian stirred when she came upstairs, but was quite happy to take advantage of John's absence to sleep. No matter how nice a day it was.

[first_in_time]

"You've done it now," Barbara smirked, "we'll have fleets of invading aliens ruining our day now that you've said that."

[splendid_roman]

"I'm sorry," he said, pulling out of the drive. "We never seem to go anywhere without something happening."

[first_in_time]

"Don't apologise," she grinned, "I'll just blame you when we're put in chains and forced into slavery on some empire thousands of lightyears away."

[splendid_roman]

"Now you're just being pessimistic," he said, but he grinned back.

[first_in_time]

She laughed and run a hand down his arm. "You brought it up; you're the one who jinxed us. We're done for."

[splendid_roman]

"When was the last time we went out somewhere and nothing out of the ordinary happened?" He couldn't think of any, although it didn't help that he was concentrating on negotiating a busy roundabout at the time.

[first_in_time]

When they pulled up at a traffic light, she replied with: "John and I went grocery shopping on Thursday evening and nothing happened, except that I lost the cheque book in the bottom of my hand bag."

[splendid_roman]

"That doesn't count," he decided, on the spurious basis that nothing happened. "Nothing's going to happen today either," he decided as he parked the car.

[first_in_time]

Barbara still wore a look that read as though she hadn't changed her mind, but she didn't say anything more for the moment. Once she was out of the car, Barbara collected their lunch and found Ian's hand with her own.

"Maybe we should look for places to hide from the alien invasion. That way if it happens, we'll have somewhere to go."

[splendid_roman]

"We don't want to hide, we want to fight them," he complained. "What if the invading aliens look like plants and they're already here?" he said in a low voice, purposely trying to sound scary.

Although he then had to pay for their entry at the gates.

[first_in_time]

"If the invading aliens are plants," she carried on once they were out of earshot of the gates, "we'd have to find some weed killer and good hiding place. Somewhere plants can't find us."

[splendid_roman]

"There's bound to be a gardener's lodge with weed killer in." But they couldn't keep talking about hypothetical aliens (that Ian was sure weren't going to invade) with people about. "Let's go and look at some pretty plants," he suggested.

[first_in_time]

"Alright." Barbara let the subject drop because it seemed that Ian wanted to go that way, and walked with him. For a while, it felt like they were on a date, or just enjoying a day together like they used to before John. But as soon as that thought entered her mind, she was reminded and the feeling left.

"It's a pity we can't bring John here. It's beautiful."

[splendid_roman]

"It is." He didn't know a great deal about flowers, beyond biology, but he could at least appreciate all the colours and how they were arranged. "He'd be bored though, just looking at things."

[first_in_time]

"Maybe when he's older." That was always the concluding statement to these things, 'maybe when he's older'. At least, Barbara hoped he'd be interested when he was older.

She held the bag with her other hand so that she coul warp her arm around Ian's. "You should build me something like that," she grinned and pointed to a gazebo covered in ivy that twisted artistically around the pillars and roof.