Engaged

Chapter 11

Four months later, Elizabeth was working on her computer in the office of the apartment she and Iain had moved into together a few weeks earlier, when her phone rang from her agent.

At the end of the season seven press tour, Elizabeth and Iain had decided that it had been long enough to officially start dating each other. After several weeks of interviews wanting to know where her fiancé was, if he'd be joining her on the press tour at all, whether or not they had a date picked out yet, and questions of the like, Elizabeth had finally admitted that she and her fiancé had broken up, that she just hadn't wanted to talk about it and take away from the show they were supposed to be promoting. After that, she deflected all the questions that came her way as best she could, saying they had just realized they weren't going to work out together, that it was still too soon for her to want to talk about it, and that the two of them were still on good terms.

But despite this, rumors still started floating around that she had broken up with him for Iain, even though the two of them hadn't been spotted alone with each other the entire tour, always either being with everyone else from the cast or else in interviews together that they obviously hadn't been the ones to set up. It was what they'd hoped to avoid for all three of their sakes, but the media was tenacious when they wanted to be, and had soon spread the rumor far and wide despite having zero evidence to support it whatsoever. But such was life in the spotlight, and Iain and Elizabeth brushed it off as best they could. After all, it wasn't like it was the first time they'd ever been rumored to be together, only this time it happened to actually almost be true.

On the last night of the press tour, the entire cast went out to eat supper together. They were waiting on their food to arrive when Chloe leaned over to them and asked quietly, "So now that everything's over, you two going to start dating for real?"

Elizabeth looked over at Iain sitting next to her for a second, before nodding and smiling shyly. "We have an apartment picked out and everything. We decided that we've known each other so long, and I stayed with him at his parents' house for about a week right after filming, that even though we've never officially dated before, and have had to keep even more space between us than normal on this tour, we're going to move straight in together."

"But it's away from all the normal paparazzi hotspots, and isn't near where either of us lived before, so we're going to try to still keep it quiet for a while. It is still very soon after she told everyone she was no longer engaged and all the rumors started that she broke up for me. So we're hoping to avoid any further press until we've been together for a while, and then we can announce us as a well established couple," added Iain. "Probably wishful thinking, but it's been three months, and we're tired of waiting."

"Also, it's two weeks before we actually move in there, and we're both going to visit our parents most of that time and won't see each other again until we do move in, which we've planned to be a few days apart, so maybe most people will have moved on to more juicy gossip by the time we're actually seen together again," finished Elizabeth.

"Well best of luck, and if you're moving in first Lil, I'll be happy to come help move if I'm available, and maybe throw anyone off track if they see you but also see me with you before Iain's there."

But that was over a month ago, and they were now comfortably and happily settled into their new apartment together, and Elizabeth picked up her phone to see what her agent had for her.

Her agent quickly got to the point, saying, "We're in discussions with a studio to pick up an eighth season of Shield. I obviously can't give you any details on the plot, but you know, typical extinction level event and FitzSimmons and recently born daughter having to go back to Zephyr One and the field from their Perthshire SHIELD secret lab sabbatical and raising a family and all that. But the executives of the studio have heard of the rumors of you breaking up with your fiancé because of Iain, and just want to make sure you and Iain can still work together before they continue discussions about whether or not they really want to pick it up, and what the plot would have to look like with one or both of you gone. So can you two still work together?"