Who: Archie and ISOBEL MACMILLAN (Nope, still not tired of that) and a brief appearance by Timothy Greengrass
What: A welcome home! Of sorts.
Where: The Scotland Manor (OMFG CRISTINA WE NEED TO NAME THAT)
When: This afternoon!

Isobel MacMillan was very tired of not sleeping with her husband.

They hadn't even spent one night together since they returned from their honeymoon! With the disaster that was the manor, they'd been sentenced to her parents' house, and with the revelation of her pregnancy, Archie was banned from the Egg premises. It was really the worst way to start off a marriage, Izzie couldn't think of anything worse, but she had always been one to take her life into her own hands, to do as she wished.

So, she was going to stay with her husband at the ruins of the manor.

Don't think that she didn't know where he had been staying, she wasn't his wife for nothing. Izzie had talked to some of the construction workers on the scene, and they'd casually mentioned how frequently Archie had been seen on the site. Now she knew his schedule, she knew when he was supposed to get out of work and stuff, so. Her ridiculous husband was lurking around the premises at odd hours of the day (or night!), and she was going to put an end to it.

"Do you think it's sturdy?" she asked the worker she'd taken a liking to. Izzie remembered him from school, Timothy, and if she recalled correctly, he used to stutter and blush whenever she looked in his direction. So, he was definitely the one to take advantage of and use to her benefits. Izzie stared up at the tent...thing with curious eyes.

"I think so," Tim said, also looking up at the structure, "we use these for overnights all the time."

Archie MacMillan was not finding married life to be the sweetest.

Truthfully, that was a blatant lie, because Archie MacMillan had not gotten a chance to experience married life yet! Since the day they'd gotten back from the honeymoon, his entire world had been turned upside down. Ruined houses, being forbidden from seeing his wife, growing scales, almost drowning. Life was getting to be incredibly exhausting, and he hated it. In fact, he was getting to be such a walking wreck that he declined invitations from both Ioan and Elliot (and even Malcolm!) to stay until the manor was renovated fully and just lived in the wreckage.

He tucked a small quilt and pillow in his briefcase (along with two sets of robes, which he had been meaning to set up a small laundry line for, what with the loch so close) and laid out a corner of the dingy ground level to sleep. Imagine his surprise when the construction team showed up a week earlier than expected and nearly tried to hex him half to death because they thought he was a swamp monster (he would like to interject that he was very well-dressed at the time, they were unexpected company, and why was everyone assuming he was some sort of reptilian beast that had emerged from the swampy, aquatic depths, anyway!). After that mess was sorted out, he had to spend thirty minutes arguing with their head about finding some other place to stay because this was a magical hazard zone and they couldn't accept responsibility for accidentally letting a levitating beam drop on Archie and sever him in half.

Disregarding the occasional tramping about from the workers, though, it was oddly peaceful. He was a real man! An outdoorsman! Living off the land like the homely wizards of the past. Just as his ancestors did! Only, without a roof or real bed, or House-Elves... The scales were a very light shade of green, which meant that they had to be clearing up soon. The claws had receded to sharp tips on his nails, and the curious silver-green shade his eyes had been was very nearly gone! Then his house would be fixed, and he could take his Isobel away from her parents, and they could live happily ever after and be joined by an Isobel or Arcturus junior, and life would be wonderful!

These were the thoughts running through his head as he Apparated back to the hilltop and trudged down to the ruins he was calling "home," wondering what he should eat, when all of a sudden, he saw a blonde woman.

"Isobel!" He called pleasantly, eager to greet his wife, and--wait. Why was his wife here? Archie's jaw dropped.

"Isobel!" he shrieked, quickening his pace over to her. "What are you doing! What is that--thing? Why are you letting her be here?! She's pregnant! She can't stay in that--in that--" Archie was distracted by the canvas construction that was standing next to his wife and their contractor, expression becoming both horrified and stern. "Is that a tent?" he asked, accusingly.

She turned quickly toward the frantic voice of her husband, or, well---stepped oddly to the side until she was able to face him completely. Izzie was not very comfortable with this new body of hers, and while she was studying prenatal yoga and found that it was helping, she still had much to get used to. Imagine how hard life must be for a woman who was able to contort into all kinds of lovely shapes to have trouble simply bending over!

"Archie, stop yelling!" Izzie nearly yelled, but she had enough sense to know that if she wanted to win the impending argument, she had to remain level headed. There was nothing that pissed a person off more than a level-headed opponent, she knew that for a fact. Isobel planted her hands on her hips and looked up at her husband, frowning immediately at him and his silly concerns. What, was she not allowed to visit the construction site? It was going to be her house as well, she should be allowed to watch over the ongoings...even though she had no idea what any of the ongoings were. Tim had given her a quick tour of things, and it was looking tremendously better than the shambles it had been in a few weeks ago.

"Will you stop it? I'm just looking around, and---" she looked over at the tent (yes, it was a tent) and smiled, "And isn't it lovely? I picked it out myself."

Izzie felt herself cheering up instantly and she would've bounced on her toes if she could've handled the weight.

AIEE! he almost cried, remembering his hideous scales and claws (the primary reason he had stayed away). "Ye--no! No, it isn't lovely! It isn't lovely because there are things here, and they could hurt the baby, and I will not have anything hurting my unborn child!" Archie yelped, dropping his suitcase as to gesture wildly more effectively, hoping the claw points were less noticeable than they had been. The water down antidote was most certainly not helping as fast as the Healers said they would. But then again, what ever went the way they said?

Except he couldn't deny that seeing Isobel was positively the nicest thing that had happened all week. And he'd had a long bloody week too, that was for sure. So the part of him that said to hell with the rest of the world was insistently tell him to shut up, you damn fool, and go kiss her!, while the far more sensible part of him cried in protest, "Damn fool"! You'd be a damn fool if you let her stay here, that's for certain!, and so the two parts waged a quick and mostly silent war within Archie's mind. But every time he was complacent with the fact that his very pregnant wife was standing here, in front of him, someone would chop something, or saw down a flat with their wand, or his fading scales would itch, and Archie would remember his lady, his wife, the one who, if he had his way, would be on bedrest from now until the child was born, was wandering about happily, singing praises about the tent she'd picked out herself. And this was no place for a lady, no sir! Which was why he had to reason with her, of course! Even in his wildly panicked state.

"Isobel," he pleaded nervously, standing more to the side, rather than face her head on, but still clasping his hands to shake them at appropriate intervals. "Wouldn't you be happier sleeping in a real bed? And having House-Elves do things for you! With a solid roof over your head? Can a tent really give you and the baby the support you need?"

"Archie," Isobel started with a sigh. She noticed that Tim had slowly crept away, like the good boy he was. She definitely didn't need to have people listening in on their very important conversation. "We're a good nine meters from any serious construction, I'm not going to go climbing up rafters or anything like that!"

Izzie's mouth twisted, knowing that he really was upset about everything. She was too, of course she was. She was back at home, living with her bleeding parents for god's sake! Izzie hadn't been home since she finished Hogwarts, and now to be a married woman, a pregnant married woman, living under her father and mother's constant surveillance? No, no she definitely knew what Archie was going through.

Though she supposed that having scales would be rather annoying, but.

She stepped forward and pouted lightly (okay, greatly) and took hold of the front of his shirt, tugging him toward her. All Izzie wanted was to be with him, honest. She could deal with her parents if she had Archie, she would deal with them for the rest of her life if he could be there with her---but she really hoped she didn't have to.

"I want to wake up next to my husband," she said, dropping her gaze down to her hands.

All the logic and arguments in the world that the lightly-scaled Archie could think of at that moment in time could not quite compare to the point his wife (wife! Must he keep repeating it til it actually started to become true!) had just made.

Defeated, and well-aware of the fact, Archie gave her a slightly sulky you-know-I-hate-it-when-you-use-pathos-arguments look, still trying to find ways to win at other arguments (although the idea of not being separated from his wife for so many more days or week--or heaven forbid--months was probably a win enough for both of them and a few construction workers to boot!). "You have to promise to be very safe. And I am putting wards up on the tent, no matter what you say. And if there is a night where I am coming home late, I want you to go stay with someone immediately, because I absolutely forbid you to spend the night here alone."

Archie's face softened slightly out of his own pout and he grabbed her hands, pulling her as close as her stomach would allow.

"You do realize I will never be able to set foot in your parents' home again, don't you?"

"You will, once the baby's here," Izzie said happily, pushing up as far as she could toward him and scrunching her face to get Archie to close the rest of the space between their lips. She smiled happily as they finally kissed (it felt like it had been years!) and she dropped back down, flat on her feet, "No one will be able to resist the cuteness of our child."

The wind caused the tent's flap to smack against the other opening, and Izzie's eyes widened with excitement. Oh, oh. This tent definitely didn't need a million and one wards, not at all! There was no way that Izzie would continue to make her husband live like a wild man, absolutely not! She had her connections, she---well, okay, she had spoiled siblings who, when forced to go on family outings, didn't exactly appreciate being in nature, like she did. So, Izzie knew how to live in the lap of luxury while being in the middle of nowhere.

It was really quite easy! Magic tended to do that.

"We should christen our tent," she murmured, raising her eyebrows. Her hormones were going mad, after all. And her chest was huge, they clearly had to take advantage of all of that, right? Izzie gripped his hands tightly and started walking backwards, feeling more and more excited with each step.

He couldn't contain the grin that was slowly creeping onto his face, quite happy that the bed supplied by the tent looked quite comfortable. And considering it had been so, so very long since they had actually gotten to spend time together, like this, or otherwise, it felt all the sweeter.

Before he became fully, fully committed to the simultaneous christening of their tent and welcome his wife home, Archie found himself vaguely hoping the tent was both sound-proof and not opaque in the slightest.

But then again, that was the beauty of magic.