Just In Time... But Was It Worth It?

[SAM27#]

Would never have guessed Annie would help Aden, but I liked how she was able to help Aden make a decision.......I loved how you wrote their interaction!!!

Can't wait for more!!

[matticus01]

that was just so . .. ..

Amazing, the interaction between Aden and Annie, and how Annie told Aden what to do, and he obeyed, and the way she helped him was just so fantastic

update soon

[wrongturntaken]

Thanks for all your comments! I'm sorry this took so long, i've been so busy!

I originally only did the first section of this chapter and then decided it was too short so now it has become the longest i've done in a while. I tried to give you fluff but... well you'll just have to read and see! lol

warning: themes of sex.

Enjoy!

Chapter 21.

"Liz?" Aden asked his mother tentatively, trying to get her attention when back at the diner.

She had been staring in to space for some time and her tea was now cold as she continued to hold it before being brought back to reality by the sound of her son's voice.

"Aden?" she said hopefully.

"I'm sorry that I ran out," Aden said slowly, as he tried to smile but found he couldn't quite make it work. "I was just… confused and…"

"Its okay, Aden, I get it," Liz told him; grateful he was even speaking to her.

Aden sat down opposite Liz as Belle walked over and brushed her hand over his back on her way to serve a different table. Liz smiled slightly at the site, they both obviously loved each other very much as Aden didn't even acknowledge or flinch at the surprising touch.

"I think that I… I… would like to get to know you," he said, taking his time to get the words out.

"I would really like that," Liz said; trying not to appear too excited even though inside she was ecstatic.

"…but we have to take it slow, okay?"

"Anything you say," she smiled and added, "Thank you," genuinely.

Aden attempted the smile again, it didn't quite reach his eyes, but it was a start. "So I have two sisters?" he asked her, thinking that that was the safest place to start.

Liz smiled at the mention of her daughters, "Tessa; she's 12, 13 soon and Caitlin is 8. They know they have three brothers and they'd really love to meet you," she told him hesitantly. "When you're ready and if you want to of course."

Aden had momentarily lost his thoughts at the mention of his brothers but brought him self back to Earth quickly, "Yeah, I'd really like to," he answered sincerely and Liz smiled. "What about you? Are you married or…" Aden said, finding it slightly weird he was asking his Mother these questions.

"I never remarried but my partner died a year ago," she told him sadly.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Aden said sympathetically.

"It was cancer," she continued, "…but we had known it was coming for a long time."

"That must be hard on the girls," Aden commented thinking of how he felt when he thought the woman in front of him had died.

"It is, but we're getting by," she said giving him a sad smile. "So what about you, tell me about yourself?"

"Well… there's Belle," Aden said; smiling more now. "She's pretty much my whole life."

Liz smiled at him and Aden looked slightly embarrassed.

"You probably think I'm too young to say that, don't you?" he asked her timidly.

She shook her head, "No, not at all. Judging from what I've seen today, you look really close…you look like you love each other very much."

"We do," Aden nodded, "…we've been through a lot."

"What else?" Liz said, moving the conversation along. "Do you work here full time?"

"No," Aden answered, "I go to school and work here on the side."

"Oh," Liz said, "I thought you would have finished school by now."

"I'm repeating year twelve," Aden explained. "Let's just say it took a while for me to get my life sorted," he added sadly but he didn't want to dwell on the past so he moved the conversation on, "I used to play footy but I busted my knee, I was relying on that more before so I wasn't concentrating on my studies…" he said shrugging his shoulders as Liz smiled encouragingly at him.

"I understand if you don't want to talk about it but… what about your dad and brothers?" she asked tentatively.

Aden paused, not knowing how this news would affect her as she had once loved the man he had let die. He swallowed that thought, sweeping it under the rug of the past. "Dad passed away a couple of months ago," he told her.

She was visibly stunned and croaked out, "…how?"

"Alcohol," Aden answered her quietly, trying not to let on how much hate he had for that word, in his voice.

"I'm sorry," Liz said and Aden gave her a curt nod, "Where do you live now then?"

"With one of the people that owns this place; Roman," he told her. "Actually I moved in with him a few months before Dad died," he went on. "We finally started dealing with everything and it was just good for both of us. But then a couple of months after that, things started to go downhill again and…" he trailed off, allowing Liz to draw the conclusion of Larry's death for her self.

"Is it good now then?" she asked unsurely.

"Yeah, it's great, I really like living there, and he has a 17 year old daughter as well so we're pretty good friends," he smiled.

"What about your brothers?" she questioned.

Aden smile evaporated and he swallowed, "Sean is in prison and I have no idea where Justin is, he ran away five years ago, and we haven't heard from him since," he told her shrugging his shoulders as he went. He was fairly indifferent to his brothers now and just found it simpler to pretend that they didn't exist.

"Oh," Liz said sadly as an awkward silence settled between them and apparently planned on staying until Liz broke it, "Well I better get going, I need to pick up the kids from school," she said. "It was really nice to talk to you."

"Yeah," Aden said unsurely, "Maybe we could do it again sometime, this week maybe?"

Liz nodded, "I would love that." Aden smiled and they exchanged phone numbers.

He sighed as once again his mother disappeared from his life, hopefully for a shorter time than before.

"Hey," Belle said softly as she came up to him from behind and placed an arm around his waist.

"Hey," he said softly back, placing his hand on hers.

"How'd it go?"

"Good, we're going to meet up again soon," he said breathily.

Belle moved around to face him, "You okay?"

Aden looked at her and smiled, this time it reached his eyes and he nodded as he replied, "I think so."

They both moved into the kitchen and saw Irene busily preparing some food. She looked up as they walked in, "What are you doing back here?" she said to Aden kindly. "Belle told me what happened so it's fine for you to go home," she added in the same tone.

"Thanks Irene, but you look quite busy out there and I'm fine now so I think you could do with my help," he told her.

She smiled at him, "Well, alright, but if you change your mind, just say, the diner will just have to cope without you," she glanced at Belle looking at Aden lovingly and added, "I'm not sure Belle will though," as she laughed.

Aden slipped his hand inside Belle's and smiled at her, grateful that she knew him so well to make him see what he wanted to do even when he couldn't see it to start with.

*

"…anyone home?" Aden called, walking into Roman's apartment with Belle trailing behind him, holding hands at arm's length to one another.

"Guess that's a no," Aden said cheekily to Belle, turning to face her and grabbing her waist to bring her in tight towards him and kissing her suddenly.

"Aden!" Belle said shocked, struggling to get the words out as Aden kissed her but she responded heavily anyway and they ended up shuffling their feet until Aden fell over the edge of the sofa and landed lying down, pulling Belle with him as she flew over to land on top of him, face down.

He continued to kiss her and went for her T-shirt, Belle broke away from him suddenly, "Aden what are you doing?" she exclaimed.

"What?" he said, pretending he didn't know why she was reacting that way.

"What if someone comes in?" she hissed.

"They won't," he reassured her; laughing.

"Maybe we should go up to your room," she said; obviously still worried.

"Where's the fun in that?" was Aden's response as he pulled her back into him by her waist and felt her body relax on top of his as she gave in. He turned her over suddenly, so that she was below him and they both started to breathe more heavily as Belle hurriedly took off Aden's T-shirt and did the same to her. They paused for a moment to just live in the kissing before Belle undid Aden's belt and flung it across the room so it nearly hit the TV. They both looked in that direction and laughed quietly before returning quickly to their hurried activities.

They had both become much more adventurous in their sex life lately and although Aden was usually the one to initiate it, Belle had relatively few objections and was enjoying being with him more than she ever had.

Aden had just undone Belle's flies when…

"Oh my God!" came Nicole's horrified voice from the top of the stairs as Aden an Belle looked up to see the blonde hair swishing away from them as she raised a hand to her eyes to block her vision.

The couple scrambled quickly from their positions on the couch to hurriedly put their

clothes back on. Luckily they hadn't got far enough for Nicole to see anything too

revealing.

"Nicole, what are you doing here?" Aden exclaimed.

"I live here!" she answered him angrily.

"Why didn't you answer when I called?"

"I was in the shower!" she answered him exasperatedly. "…and I don't expect to walk

Into the living room and find… this!" she gestured to them. "Anyone could have walked

In, what if I had been Roman?"

Aden looked slightly embarrassed as Belle gave him an evil glare.

"Anyway, I'm going out now and I'm going to pretend that this never happened," Nicole

Informed them importantly, coming all the way down the stairs, purposefully avoiding

eye contact with either of them as she made her way out the door.

After she had left Aden started laughing but stopped when he realised Belle wasn't.

"What?" he asked her concernedly.

"Aden, she was right! Anyone could have walked in on us and you didn't seem to care,"

She said questioningly.

"Neither did you a minute ago," Aden said cheekily going to pull Belle into him but was

surprised when she backed away. Aden furrowed his borrow caringly, "What's up with

you?"

"What's up with me?" she exclaimed rhetorically. "What's going on Aden?"

"What do you mean?" Aden answered her stonily, they hadn't had a fight in quite a long time and this looked like it was about to become one.

"You always want to… you know," Belle said.

"Why is it so bad that I want to be with you, Belle?" he asked her trying to keep his voice low.

"It's not bad but… Aden, it's every single time I see you, it always leads to this, sometimes I just want to hang out for a while and not think about where it's gonna be this time, like we used to before…"

"What? Before I tried to kill myself or before we started having sex?" Aden said eerily calm.

Belle was stunned into silence, it was the first time she had ever actually heard him say that that was happened and this was not where she wanted her point to end up.

"I didn't mean like that!" she retorted as Aden refused to look at her and she felt herself beginning to get upset and knew that she had to stop this now. "Aden… I don't want to fight," she said levelly. "I just want to know what's going on with you," she added softly.

"I just want to be with you," he said quietly and desperately, just trying to get her to accept it.

"It's not just that though is it?" Belle pushed gently and she saw Aden let his guard down and become visibly upset, letting her in, as he was usually able to do easily now.

"You're gonna hate me," he whispered.

"Of course I'm not going to hate you," she soothed, rubbing her hand up and down his arm. "Let's sit down."

They did as she said as he turned to her, "I just want to be with you so much," Aden started. "…and I was scared that if we didn't… you know… then you might get bored, and I wanted to prove to you that I could do it, I could be with you… properly, the way you would want to be with someone… normal."

"Aden," Belle said softly, tears stroking the backs of her eyes. "You're not normal, Aden, you're the most wonderful, caring, amazing person I know. And that's definitely not normal, but you don't need to prove anything to me. I know how much you love me because that's how much I love you too, and I need to be with you just as much as you need to be with me," Belle insisted and watched Aden smile with a quiet happiness. "I don't function without you… I just can't," she added shaking her head gently at him.

"Really?" Aden asked her.

"Yeah."

They stared at each other for a moment as they both came in and wrapped their arms around each other and enjoyed the closeness they felt through this kind of embrace.

"Come on," Belle said as they broke apart, "Let's go to the bedroom," she added, giving him a suggestive smile, which he laughed lightly at before taking her offered hand and letting her lead him up the stairs.

I hope you liked it! Please leave me a comment, i really love reading them!

Next chapter

Who returns to the bay and gets Aden and Belle thinking?

[Deborah]

I loved that chapter! Nicole made me laugh walking in on them Lucky it wasn't Roman!

The chat they had after getting busted was so aww & I'm glad he has decided to get to know his Mum. Thank you for the fluff.

Looking forward to next update!

[Taniya_K]

AOLs!

So glad that Aden wants to get to know his mum again. And his sisters. Sweet.

Lol at them on the couch! Glad it was Nicole, but I would love to have seen Roman's reaction lmao!

Awwwww at Aden's explanation! Seriously - I want myself an Aden

Cannot wait for more. Who's coming to the Bay?!

xoxo

[xknomex]

haha at Nicole walking in on them..

AOL the whole scene with his mum and then the talk at the end

Tanyia.. I think everyone wants an Aden

Update soon

xx

[LAURZY!]

Loved Nicole walking in on them

This chapter was so

Great update

[Lise]

Nicole's funny!

Aden and Belle's wee chat was nice and I'm glad that Aden wants to get to know his Mum.

More soon, please!

[Inactive User]

Great chapter.

Hahaha at Nicole

Glad Aden is getting to know his mum

Update soon

[SAM27#]

Hehehe Nicole!!! Very funny!!!!

Its great that Aden is giving his mum another chance!!

I am really intrigued with who this person that arrives at the bay is!!! Mmmm I really have no idea who it could be.....

Another fantastic chapter, can't wait for more