O'Hara Random Legacy

[loveSims]

Can't wait for next update! Absolutely awesome.

[Gogowars329]

Awww, that was really sweet!

[ArianaJade]

Aww, I knew they would be together. I can't wait for the next update!

I guess it was fairly obvious, haha! Thanks!

Can't wait for next update! Absolutely awesome.

Wow, thanks!

Awww, that was really sweet!

Thanks! They're possibly the most in love sim couple I've played, they just won't stop popping wishes for one another.

[ArianaJade]

Not Quite A Fairytale

The drink in the week was also forgotten. By the day they'd chosen, Wednesday, James had given his notice to his landlady and moved his few belongings out of the flat and into Ellie's house. With the few items of furniture he was able to bring and the money left in his account they were able to buy a few furnishings for the house. It was less bare, now, but it still didn't look very much like a home.



The open-plan kitchen/diner, as James jokingly referred to the half of the main room nearest the bathroom, contained three chairs and a table he'd salvaged from the junkyard and a fridge someone had thrown out. The oven and counters had been there when Ellie bought it, and presumably for many years before that as well. The rust on the taps of the sink made them almost impossible to turn on, and the stains on the counter-tops wouldn't budge even after James spent an entire afternoon working on them. Their one luxury in that room was a novelty stereo, which at least made it a bit more cheery when it remembered how to pick up the Twinbrook radio station.



The bathroom was the worst, though, Ellie thought. Mould seemed to be ingrained into the tiles on the wall, and the floor was cold as ice even in the warm swamp summer. Not to mention the state of the shower. Suggesting, though, that they should perhaps sell the shack, was not an option, as James quickly discovered. Despite shuddering every time she saw the state of it, Ellie was not leaving the house.



It didn't look likely to get improved any time soon, however.  James had gone to work that morning only to be summoned by his boss and told that the whole staff was being made redundant with immediate effect. He knew work had been slowing up lately, and he'd been spending more and more of his day drinking tea and discussing the latest Lola Belle film with the other lads, but nobody had suspected it was this bad. He hadn't liked the job anyway, he said to himself, but that didn't change the fact that he was now unemployed and had just spent all of his cash on a bed for him and his new... was she a girlfriend? They hadn't actually discussed that yet.



Ellie, meanwhile, had got a job at the school. She'd always wanted to teach, and had she stayed in Sunset Valley she'd have gone to the college in the neighbouring city and done her training courses. Kirsty and Jacob had always been prepared to pay, and she knew that they probably still would if she returned. Thinking of the the half-filled application forms on her desk in her old room almost made her think twice about staying in Twinbrook, but no. It wasn't a choice to be made.

Without qualifications, though, the school had only been able to take her on as a playground monitor and general dogsbody. She couldn't deny she was disappointed. After talking to the school headmaster she'd gone to the library and researched how to achieve her teaching qualifications without going to the college. It looked next to impossible, unless she was to find a school that'd be willing to train her. 



“I don't know what I'm doing,” she confessed to James that night over the wilted salad he'd borrowed from the community garden. “I had a family, and now I don't. I wanted to be a teacher and instead I'm just pulling kids apart from fights in the playground and making sure everyone eats their sandwiches and doesn't shove them down the back of the radiators. I've bought a house, but it's falling to pieces and it stinks of sewage and there's what looks like a bloodstain on one of the bedroom curtains and the bathroom floor squelches.”

“Come outside,” James said, placing their plates in the sink and pulling her out the back door.



“See that star up there, Ellie?” he asked. “That's where you'll be in a few years. You might be here in the swamps now, metaphorically and physically, but you're going to achieve whatever you want to. Look at you. You can achieve anything. If I knew anything about stars I'd be able to tell you which one I was pointing at, but I don't. So I shall call it Ellie-Mae. Just don't look it up in a book, else you'll discover it's named after someone who killed their goldfish or something.”

She giggled. “What if I like the swamp?”

“Then you're an even stranger girl than I first thought. So if it's not living in the swamp or the job that's the problem, what is it?”



“I just, I guess, I never thought it'd be like this. Adult life was supposed to be so much more simple!”

“Yet here you are with some man you've only just met living with you. You're dirt poor. And there's some great big sewage dam in the background, which even if you do claim to like the swamp you can't say is the nicest bit of it, ruining your nice romantic moment.”

“This is meant to be a romantic moment?” she asked. He pulled what she thought was supposed to be an offended face. “Go on then, show me what you can do, Mr Romantic!”

“Miss Ellie-Mae O'Hara,” he said in a mock-formal voice as she tried to stifle her laughter. “I have only known you four days, and this is so very forward of me, but I do believe I love you! Will you do me the very great honour of being my girlfriend?”



“I love you too,” she said. "What took you so long to ask?"

[xFezIsAFreakx]

I don't know how I missed this thread, but I'm very glad I found it! This is fantastic, I love your characters and your writing is so top! I wish I could write like you. Ellie-Mae and James are such a lovely couple, I'm looking forward to reading more about them!

[alex51299]

They are just the cutest couple ever! 

[loveSims]

They are so cute together, and I love the fact that they are so dirt poor.

[ArianaJade]

I don't know how I missed this thread, but I'm very glad I found it! This is fantastic, I love your characters and your writing is so top! I wish I could write like you. Ellie-Mae and James are such a lovely couple, I'm looking forward to reading more about them!

Wow, thanks, glad you like it!

W

They are just the cutest couple ever! 

Thanks, I think they think so too

They are so cute together, and I love the fact that they are so dirt poor.

I've played ahead a bit, and they had to sell their sofa in order to be able to afford a crib. I can't help but feel sorry for them!

[Lisey]

Ohmygosh, I have to be a broken recorder and echo that they're such a cute couple! I love how supportive James is. <3

[ArianaJade]

Ohmygosh, I have to be a broken recorder and echo that they're such a cute couple! I love how supportive James is. <3

Thanks! I just hope I'm not overloading people with cuteness, especially with a wedding update...

[ArianaJade]

To Be Married



“Congratulations!”

“How did you know I'd get it?!” she asked.

“A little birdy told me,” he replied, grinning. “He told me there was no way you wouldn't get it so I might as well just buy the flowers. You're just so amazing that obviously they were going to beg you to take the place.”

“Shut up,” she said, only half meaning it. “Come on, I'll buy you dinner.”

Ellie's employers at Stary Community School had set up a trainee teacher scheme, half on-the-job training and half distance learning with a nearby college. It wasn't anywhere near as prestigious as the course Ellie had wanted to apply to as a teenager, but she decided to apply anyway. There were only four slots in the first year of the programme and it covered a wide area but the headmaster had seen how good she was with the kids in the playground and had made sure she got on the scheme. It wasn't much of a promotion, pay-wise, but it'd open the doors to a real teaching career which to Ellie was priceless.

For James the situation hadn't improved nearly as much. There were few jobs in Twinbrook. That was maybe why the competition for the teacher training had been so strong. He'd set up a garden, with the aim to supply the grocery store but really it only produced enough for them to eat. At least it meant Ellie's salary could go on stuff for the house, and he was slowly working his way around upgrading everything and repainting walls. It wasn't all that much fun, but he was an optimist.



They ate outside at one of the little cafes in the town centre. James was nervous and twitchy throughout the meal, and Ellie noticed this despite his attempts to be relaxed and chatty. She began to be worried. Bad news? No, he'd have said, wouldn't he?

After the waiter had taken their dessert order, James stood up.



“Where are you going?” she asked. “Our desserts will be here soon.”

“Hang on,” he said, fumbling in his pocket.

“Ellie, you are the best thing that's ever happened to me. It sounds over-dramatic but it's true. I wake up in the morning and I feel happy straight away because you're there with me, and when you're at work I miss you. I want to be with you forever, and I want you to marry me.”



“I...I don't know what to say.”

“Yes would be good.”

“Yes, of course yes you fool! Other than yes. I mean...wow...I love you.”

“Come here, you silly.” He slipped the ring onto her finger, the very last of his redundancy money well spent. “I love you too.” Behind them applause broke out from the waiters and the other diners, and the chef could be heard half-heartedly shouting at her staff to get back to work.



Wedding planning was more work than either of them could have anticipated. Ellie's course books became buried under piles of catering firm leaflets and dress catalogues. James opened the  door one night to immediately trip over a selection of  flowers, and found Ellie in amongst them in despair.

“They've delivered them!” she shouted.

“Who's delivered what?” asked James, trying to salvage the lilies he was standing on and in the process squashing another bunch.

“The flowers, the ones that are everywhere! I asked them for a quote, and then the next thing I know there's a truck coming to the door  and they've dumped them all in the house because they'd got the wrong end of the stick. And there's an arch in the garden which they brought too and they won't take it back even though the wedding's not for six months!”

So that's how that got there, James thought. He picked her up off the floor, sacrificing several more bunches of flowers in the process, for a hug and some comfort.

“I wonder sometimes,” he said, “whether we really need a fancy wedding. We might as well do it out in the garden now and save ourselves some time and some hassle.” He was hoping he hadn't misjudged her and that Ellie wasn't someone who was desperate for a big princess wedding. Judging by the fact she was marrying him, in all his unglamorous poverty, she probably wasn't, but he'd never yet met a woman who didn't seem to want a big white fluffy wedding.

He needn't have worried, as her eyes lit up. “Can we? I thought you wanted a special day, though...”

“Come on.”

They went outside and stood under the mistakenly-delivered arch. Tomorrow they could try and flog it secondhand on SimBook or something, but tonight they could at least get some use out of it. They exchanged rings in the darkness, able to see no further than each others faces as the mist swirled around them and the stars came out overhead.





Because, James reflected, you don't need overpriced flowers or a fairytale dress or tiny, bland canapes. You needed the woman you loved and some rings.



And maybe, just maybe, the patter of little feet on the floorboards of your home.

[loveSims]

Aww James is so sweet. I love the update it was wonderful and so romantic! Wonderful writing.

[samoht04]

Loving this story so much! 

[ArianaJade]

Aww James is so sweet. I love the update it was wonderful and so romantic! Wonderful writing.

Thanks! I think this is one of my favourite sim weddings so far, despite James and his swimming trunks. Stupid sprinklers, haha.

Loving this story so much! 

Thanks, glad you like it! Which reminds me, I need to finish reading your legacy

[ArianaJade]

Broken Toilets and Babies

“Why is the toilet broken again?” James asked the completely empty house. It was clogged for the fourth time this week, and it was only Wednesday. Maybe it was time to buy a new one. With what money he wasn't sure.



Not for the first time since meeting Ellie, he considered trying to talk her into moving to Bridgeport or somewhere else with jobs. Not that he'd ever dare. Her current obsession, when she wasn't studying for her teaching qualifications, was searching the old newspaper back copies in the town library for any traces of the name O'Hara. Before that, it had been the marriage certificates at City Hall. She hadn't found anything yet, so Twinbrook it looked likely to be for the foreseeable future.

Maybe he could take up crime. Not that he could think of many famous criminals who actually got rich. Or busking? If only he wasn't tone deaf.

Just as he had unclogged it and got back onto his task for the day of scrubbing the rust from the oven, Ellie dashed in through the front door and into his freshly-cleaned bathroom. He heard the sounds of retching and then the unmistakeable sound of the toilet breaking for the fifth time. He sighed, and picked up his toilet plunger.



Ellie had felt terrible all day, constantly rushing off to thetoilets at work. It had eased for a while at noon, but had come back with a vengeance as soon as she stood up from the sofa in the staff room. One of the other teachers had gone so far as to accuse her of trying to get out of teaching, but luckily Alma Drill had stepped in.



As she read over the book reports her class had written that day, a thought occurred to her. What if...

“James?”



“Yes dear?” he replied, from where he was still silently musing money-making ideas.

“Do you think... Is there any chance... Could I be...”

“Pregnant?” he said. His voice was hopeful. She knew he'd always wanted kids, but until then hadn't realised quite how much. “Am I going to be a daddy?”

The test was completely, undeniably positive. They were having a baby.



James was over the moon. He took every possible opportunity to chat to the baby or feel it moving in her stomach. They'd decided to keep the gender a secret, and so he'd taken to referring to her stomach as Titch. And Ellie for her part found that she enjoyed being pregnant. She loved the baby, even though she had no idea who or what it would become.

The pregnancy also intensified her desire to discover her roots. The baby, if she couldn't find her biological mother, would grow up with only one set of grandparents, and even they were miles away. James had attempted reassurance that the baby wouldn't mind, that few babies cared about more than love and regular feeding, but she was determined to give her child their full heritage. After exhausting the newspaper archive at the library, she'd been searching the graveyard for family history clues. But nothing.



She knew James was worried, but she didn't feel she could stop searching. Well into her second trimester she was still in her routine of work, studying, family history research and then some time with him before bed. On a good day she might have conceded that he had a point, and that maybe she should slow down and relax, but most of the time it failed to even enter her head. An argument brewed around the house for a few weeks, being averted by the double luck of doctor at the hospital telling her in a tone she could not ignore to slow down and her graduation from the teaching course and promotion to supply teacher.

She tried to become interested in the nursery, which James had set up in the spare room and painted yellow. He claimed yellow symbolised happiness, but they both knew it was more because he'd found the paint at the junkyard.



The beach became a favourite place for her in the last few weeks of the pregnancy. It had been her favourite thing as a child, to run down to the beach in sunny weather after school with a bunch of neighbourhood kids. They'd work on their homework as a group, in theory, but really mostly waiting for Kaylynn Langerak to come up with the answers so they could copy. Then they could play until someone's mum arrived to make them all go home.

Twinbrook's beach was dirtier and less visually appealing than Sunset Valley's, but it still brought back memories.



Maybe her mum had other kids by now. Maybe she'd taken them down to the beach the way Kirsty and Jacob had when she was a toddler. Or maybe she actually hated kids, and chased them off beaches like Thornton Wolff had to her and Bella Bachelor that time back in grade school. For a brief moment Ellie considered that her mum may not even want to meet up with her, but brushed it to the back of her mind. Of course she did. Who didn't want to know their kid?

The reminiscing became slightly too much, in her over-emotional pregnant state, and she went home and wrote the letter she'd been trying to write ever since she had become pregnant. Weird twinges came and went in her back, which she passed off as just another symptom of her pregnancy.



That night, she realised that they actually meant the baby was coming. James phoned for a taxi, but she knew they weren't going to make it there on time. The baby was going to be born here at home, whether she liked it or not.