Shattered Glass

[jdoddy]

that was like a punch to the heart. - terribly painful to read, yet absolutely brilliantly written - reactions seemed to be almost character-perfect

and you have a little star there in Jamie.. hope you cheer things up a bit next time, im not sure how much more the adelle shippers can take!

[MrsL]

That was amazingly well written and yet so heart breaking all at once. Fabulous I am in pieces right now

[Louise_2983]

and you have a little star there in Jamie.. hope you cheer things up a bit next time, im not sure how much more the adelle shippers can take!

Well I do happen to think he's the cutest imaginary child around but hey I'm just a little biased! Seriously though the saddest bit about ending this fic is that I won't be writing Jamie anymore.

And Aden's dead, it's not going to be very Adelle cheery at all I'm afraid. Next chapter is flashbacks

[jdoddy]

Hey Belle & Aden never really set off explosions for me to be honest - So I'm not to bothered that he is dead.

You could write some other stories with Jamie in but it might be hard to keep hold of his cuteness when he is pushing adulthood.

Maybe your relief bits could include exploring the whole Nicole, Sophie and Geoff dynamic

The whole bit with Drew and Nicole a few chapters back makes me feel hopeful for a reuniting

(a fictitious one is all I can hope for at the moment

[Louise_2983]

Hey Belle & Aden never really set off explosions for me to be honest - So I'm not to bothered that he is dead.

You could write some other stories with Jamie in but it might be hard to keep hold of his cuteness when he is pushing adulthood.

Maybe your relief bits could include exploring the whole Nicole, Sophie and Geoff dynamic

The whole bit with Drew and Nicole a few chapters back makes me feel hopeful for a reuniting

(a fictitious one is all I can hope for at the moment

The Nic and Geoff issue will be resolved in the next few chapters but whether you'll like it or not I can't say...

[LauraPhilly!!]

Louise that was AMAZING!!!

You truly are a fantastic writer..!!

[Zetti]

That was amazing. I have a puddle in my eyes now

[Red Ranger 1]

Hey Belle & Aden never really set off explosions for me to be honest - So I'm not to bothered that he is dead.

You could write some other stories with Jamie in but it might be hard to keep hold of his cuteness when he is pushing adulthood.

Maybe your relief bits could include exploring the whole Nicole, Sophie and Geoff dynamic

The whole bit with Drew and Nicole a few chapters back makes me feel hopeful for a reuniting

(a fictitious one is all I can hope for at the moment

The Nic and Geoff issue will be resolved in the next few chapters but whether you'll like it or not I can't say...

In case anyone's forgotten, Geoff and Melody shipper right here...

[Louise_2983]

Hey Belle & Aden never really set off explosions for me to be honest - So I'm not to bothered that he is dead.

You could write some other stories with Jamie in but it might be hard to keep hold of his cuteness when he is pushing adulthood.

Maybe your relief bits could include exploring the whole Nicole, Sophie and Geoff dynamic

The whole bit with Drew and Nicole a few chapters back makes me feel hopeful for a reuniting

(a fictitious one is all I can hope for at the moment

The Nic and Geoff issue will be resolved in the next few chapters but whether you'll like it or not I can't say...

In case anyone's forgotten, Geoff and Melody shipper right here...

I haven't forgotten. But if it does go the other way then just remember I gave you Gelle babies last weekend

The Nic/Geoff/Drew ending was set in stone a long time ago so nothing anyone says now is going to change it.

[Louise_2983]

Chapter 60

“Ok, different spin. When you were younger what did you want to be when you grew up?”

“Safe” he instantly replied in a whisper.

Belle and Aden - Stockholm Syndrome

*

6 hours earlier

Piercing, blood curdling screams filled the packed school corridor, sending an intense shiver shooting down the back of his neck, all the way down to the very tip of his toes. The pounding feet of the stampede of distressed students fleeing in a mass exodus, rattled the entire foundations of the building. Exiting the formerly safe haven of his office he couldn’t help but liken the panic stricken, chaotic scene before him to a herd of wild animals bounding through an arid dessert. Just like the desert there was no water but a trail of insipid, deep crimson blood leaked ominously down the laminate floor.

His big, blue eyes widened as they followed the transparent fluid down the corridor and up the shattered glass panel of the door over which it was smeared, seeping slowly into the spiders web of cracks in the pane weaving their way outwards from the bullet hole, obvious and gut wrenching in the centre.

Quickly his head twisted from side to side, scanning around for the bullet’s victim but the barrage of frightened teenagers, all clearly petrified but otherwise healthy, obstructed his view of anything else.

His heart throbbed anxiously against his chest as a series of gunshots rang out from elsewhere in the building. The screams got louder, the footsteps faster and more forceful.

“Ok guys, you need to try and keep calm!” he shouted, his voice almost drowning, a dead weight in the sea of distraught screams.

“Try not to run and watch out for the glass” he told them knowing it was useless. Who wasn’t going to run in a situation like this? Who wouldn’t choose a cut over a gaping bullet wound and potential

fatality?

“Jenny!” he called out to the school secretary as he spotted her by the doorway, half obscured by the crowds of students as she tried to keep them calm and usher them out of the building.

“It’s your blood!” he exclaimed, his gaze landing on the makeshift tourniquet she had created with her white, cotton cardigan. Tied tightly around her upper arm, bright red and plentiful, blood had

soaked through the garment, saturating it so that it was no longer performing its role effectively and the transparent liquid had leaked all the way along the corridor.

“I cut myself on the glass” she reassured him, applying pressure to her wound with a feminine hand.

“I wasn’t shot”

“Who has the gun?” he asked, his voice penetrated by fear.

“Did you see?”

She nodded quickly, pain and distress flashing across her lined face as a surge of nausea clearly hit her.

“I don’t know his name” she gasped.

“He’s in Year 12 I think, I’ve seen him around the place but I don’t know who he is”

“Ollie” Aden instructed, grabbing hold of his former step son gently as he rushed past with the rest of the crowd.

“Help Ms Edwards out, she needs her arm looking at. Everyone else” he shouted loudly addressing the crowds of students flurrying past him.

“Look I know you’re scared but panicking isn’t going to help here, just get out as quickly as you can. Make sure your friends are out. When you get out there if someone you know was in school today

isn’t there, let someone know so we can look for them ok?!”

A few murmurs of agreement greeted his words before he was ignored once more as they hurried to leave the building.

“Go on then” he nodded at Ollie who was frozen to the spot, blood already splattered across his white shirt as it dripped from the wound of the secretary beside him.

“And call your Mum as soon as you can to let her know you’re safe, she’s going to freak out when she hears about all this”

“Where are you going?” the young boy asked distraught as the only father figure he had known for years turned and headed away from the exit.

“I’m going to find whoever that is!” he announced as another gunshot echoed through the school.

“Aden, that’s not a good idea” Jenny Edwards cried, her eyes pleading with him although verbally she didn’t ask him not to go.

“It’ll be ok” he replied reassuringly, his uncertain eyes giving him away but before he could be questioned on his actions again he quickened his pace and disappeared amongst the throngs of students

rushing to get away from the danger he was heading straight towards.

Minutes before the first round of gunshots had rang out he’d been summoned to the Principal’s office and something about it didn’t feel right. The Principal wasn’t even in school that day having had to

attend some conference or other in the City and a haunting fear flooded through Aden’s entire being. He was certain that he hadn’t been the only person to receive an invitation to rendezvous with the

absent headteacher.

And he was correct.

His assumption was confirmed the minute he pushed open the door to the pristine office and his gaze fell upon a row of five or six students, sat petrified on the cold floor and pressed up against the far

wall.

As he slid his body into the room, the door slowly creaked shut revealing a tall, chunky figure clutching a weapon standing behind it.

Aden gulped as he twisted his head and found himself looking straight down the barrel of a gun.

“Nice of you to join us Mr Jefferies” the young boy Aden recognised as being Tristan Williams snorted.

“Don’t you know you get a detention for being late to class?”

“What’s going on?” Aden dared to ask even though he was worried it would provoke the student into doing something rash.

“Oh I’m just having a little gathering” he mocked.

“To thank everyone here for all that they’ve done for me”

“And what have they done?” Aden asked hesitantly as he scanned the row of fidgeting students besides him.

“Well she” Tristan announced pointing the gun straight at Amy Thomas, a petite redhead Aden recognised as a member of the girl’s hockey team. She cowered further back against the stone wall behind

her and bowed her head in horror.

“She laughed in my face when I asked her to the formal” he told Aden before turning the gun towards the captain of the footie team. Strong and strapping Adam Henry stared down the gun in his face

with a clear determination not to show just how scared he was in that moment.

“And he’s called me fat every day since kindy!”

“Well the normal way to end that would be to put yourself on a diet not to put a bullet in me!” Adam shouted, all false confidence and bravado.

“Adam! Enough!” Aden snapped not wanting anyone to make the wrong move that would see a bullet hitting them seconds later. He wasn’t going to let any of the people in that room come to any harm.

Not if he could help it.

“Oh yeah you know who he is!” Tristan scoffed knowingly.

“Of course you do. He’s the captain of the footie team and the hottest guy in school apparently. Everyone knows who he is! No one has a clue who I am!”

“ I know who you are” Aden stated simply.

“Tristan”

“Wow so someone actually does!” Tristan rolled his eyes before turning the gun on another of the students.

“He used to! He was my best friend until high school, when suddenly I wasn’t cool enough to know anymore!”

“That’s not how it was” the blonde haired boy Aden couldn’t put a name to objected.

“People change, we’re not kids anymore, we just drifted”

“We live next door to each other! Would it kill you to say hello in the street?!”

“No but it looks like it might have killed him not doing!” Adam interrupted again, only to be shut down by a disdainful look from Aden who questioned the young boy clutching the weapon like it held all

the answers in an attempt to stop him retaliating.

“And what about me? What have I done?”

“Well” Tristan laughed softly to himself.

“You seemed a pretty cool guy at first when you started working here”

“Well I like to think I am” Aden joked feebly but nothing could lighten the mood when a loaded gun was pointed straight at you and the finger hovering over the trigger belonged to an unbalanced teen.

“I thought I might actually be able to talk to someone about all this, to get through my problems instead of pulling a trigger. But when I finally plucked up the courage to make an appointment to see you

well...you were too busy pushing some hot little brunette up against the office door with your lips”

S**t

Aden cursed himself silently.

There was only one time he’d ever been in that sort of compromising position in his office. The day Belle had pursued him back to school after accusing him of the worst thing she could ever possibly

have chosen.

The day he’d finally admitted how he felt, to both Belle and to himself, had unintentionally been the catalyst for all of this.

“But then who could blame you” Tristan continued, flinging the gun around aimlessly.

“You’re obviously that guy. That guy with the perfect life, who always gets the girl, captain of the footie team, sports scholarship to some top uni, prom king no doubt”

“Trust me, I was never that guy” Aden half laughed at the mere thought.

“Right, yeah sorry” Tristan snapped in fury at Aden’s amusement, his finger shaking over the trigger.

“I’m sure your life must have been so hard picking between the latest batch of blond and brunettes!”

“There was a time, a long time, especially when I was around your age. When I thought I’d never have the option of either. When I thought I was the type of guy no one would ever be capable of loving”

Aden admitted quietly, taking his eyes off the gun for a second and glancing at the students beside him before returning his focus to Tristan.

“You’re probably the only person in this room who doesn’t know what happened to me...yeah I’ve heard the whispers” he smirked at the sheepish pupils lining the wall who clearly knew what he was

talking about.

“I’ve even seen some students brazen enough to Google me in the library. Tristan, there was a time when my life got so bad, when my state of mind was so unstable that I tried to kill my own father. I

held him hostage. Him, my girlfriend and Dr Armstrong...You’ve got a gun, I had a syringe full of drugs I knew would finish him off...we’re not that different you and me really. I got through it, you can

too”

“No I can’t” Tristan’s voice waivered as the gun shook between his fingers, Aden’s words clearly having struck a chord with him.

“Yes you can Tristan” Aden half whispered.

“Put the gun down, don’t ruin your life in this room”

“They’ll throw me in jail anyway, I’ve already ruined it”

“No they won’t, you can overcome this, just like I did. All you have to do is put the gun down Tristan” Aden urged as hope fluttered uncertainly through every other person in the room as they witnessed

Tristan consider Aden’s words carefully.

“I’ve already shot the secretary” he whispered regretfully.

“They’ll send me down for that for sure”

“You didn’t shoot her, she cut herself on the glass from the door you shot through. She’ll be fine with medical attention”

“Really?” Tristan scanned Aden’s expression doubtfully.

“Really” he nodded.

“Just put the gun down and let these guys go and then, whenever you’re ready you can talk this through. With me or we can find someone else who will listen and help you through this”

“Yeah the prison shrink!”

“ADAM!” Aden bellowed in annoyance as Tristan’s hand instantly tightened around the gun once more.

“Don’t do this, don’t ruin your entire life for this, for people you won’t even remember in ten years time, never mind what they thought about you” he pleaded with the student clutching the small hand

gun.

“What do you know?!” he snapped angrily, the gun pointed square towards Aden’s chest once more.

“My life’s already ruined! After this people will know who I am at last but I’ll still be the school weirdo, the kid everyone ignores except to shout names at him, the psycho who brought a gun to school.

This has just made everything worse, the only way to end this now is to...” he paused his fingertips lingering over the trigger as one of the girls gasped in horror behind Aden.

“It’s not the only way!” Aden hurried to assure him.

“You remember that girl I told you about? The one I held hostage? Well she doesn’t remember me as the psycho who held her hostage, she doesn’t define me by what I did all those years ago when I

was someone else entirely, she doesn’t call me a weirdo or a loser...she calls me her husband”

“Husband?” Tristan repeated, his green eyes bulging in shock.

“Yeah” Aden let his lips kick into a little smile.

“She married me...twice in fact. You’ve seen her actually, she was the hot brunette I was a little preoccupied with that day”

“You did that to her and she married you?”

“Yes” Aden nodded softly.

“It’s unbelievable I know but there are people out there who are willing to look past everything and find out who you really are. When I was your age I thought I would be alone forever and now I have

a wife and a son and a daughter who I love more than life and I know they feel the same way about me. That jerk who everyone hated in high school, who was tried for attempted murder, who only

avoided jail because he ended up in a psychiatric clinic...people love him and depend on him. He has a family now and if you pull that trigger then you won’t just be taking his life...my life...you’ll be

taking theirs too”

Aden paused as he saw his words register with the teenager who loosened his grip on the compact weapon slightly.

“You’re worth more than a few headlines about a school shooting, don’t let that be all anyone ever has to remember you for. You can be anyone you want to be but you have to start by putting that gun

down”

Slowly Aden witnessed the young boy’s grip slacken, his hand lowering slightly as his resolve to fire the gun at everyone in the room, including himself, disappeared.

A whooshing sigh of relief gushed out of someone in the background just as Tristan let go of the gun completely.

“No!” Aden cried in horror as it tumbled in slow motion towards the desk below it, spinning around so there was no way of knowing whether the trigger would hit the table before any other part of it.

Amy let out a gut wrenching scream as the gun, pointing straight at her every time it span towards them, hurtled towards the table.

Instinctively he slammed his body in front of her, mere fractions of a second before the gun bounced off the desk, trigger first.

A deafening bang pierced the tension filled air and instantly his entire world turned black.

***

3 hours earlier

“Geoff?” Roman asked as he busied himself washing the dishes stacked in the sink just to have something to occupy his mind.

“Do you think you could check o-”

“On Belle, yeah sure”

“No, not Belle” he shook his head softly.

“She’s changing Alyssia and I think practising how she’s going to tell Jamie given the lines I heard her reciting from the bedroom a few minutes ago. I was going ask you to check on Nic, she went to the

bathroom about half an hour ago now, I knocked 20 minutes ago and she said she was ok but she’s still in there”

“She’s not ok” Geoff shook his head sadly.

“Of course she’s not ok”

“No, she’s not” Roman shook his head too as his hands stilled and he lowered the plate he hand been washing back into the sink, his foam covered hands clutching the edge of the sink as he sighed

deeply.

“But we have to be strong, we have to keep it together. For Belle and Jamie’s sake”

“Maybe in front of them” Geoff agreed as he watched the older male struggled to contain his distress.

“But no one expects you to be strong all the time Roman, you’re allowed to be upset and you’re allowed to cry if that’s what you need to do. Belle wouldn’t want you to bottle it all up for her sake. You’re

allowed to hate the world and to break down over this if that’s what you need to do Roman” Geoff paused before finishing his sentence slowly.

“You’ve just lost your...son”

A loud sob slipped over Roman’s lips as his tears escaped, glistening softly just below his eyes as the light from the window reflected off them.

“I’m sorry” he shook his head, embarrassed to be doing this in front of anyone let alone Geoff. He had promised himself that he would be strong, that he wouldn’t break down or at least not until he was

alone. He had promised Aden, in his head, that he would be the one to keep it together for the sake of the others and yet a few hours later here he was crying.

“You know something?” Geoff smiled weakly.

“When Aden’s Dad died, when Belle had her ectopic pregnancy and they said she wouldn’t make it, when she did a runner for six months and then five years and when Alyssia was born so early and her

lungs collapsed...every time I saw Aden cry. He wouldn’t want you to hold any of this in Roman”

“No” Roman laughed through his tears.

“He’d be spouting some counsellor mumbo jumbo about letting it all out”

“Probably” Geoff chuckled softly as he gently patted Roman on the back reassuringly.

“But you know, he would have been right”

“He always was” Roman grinned wiping away the tears he had managed to control.

“Or at least he thought he was”

“Aden and I didn’t get off to the best of starts” Geoff sighed remembering what Aden had put him through.

“But he changed Roman, he became someone I could like and admire and part of that was down to you. You taking him in was probably the best thing that ever happened to him”

“Don’t” Roman whispered.

“You’ll set me off again”

“I won’t tell anyone if you won’t” Geoff laughed as Roman’s tears began to flow once more and he hesitantly hugged the older male, brief and minimal.

“I’ll check on Nic” he told him with a nod before strolling to the bathroom and tapping on the door gently.

“Nicole?”

“Nic?”

“Come on Nicole, open up. I know you’re upset but I can’t give you a hug through the door can I?”

The door slipped open and his gaze fell upon her, crouched in a ball on the floor, her back lent against the bath, her face red raw and tear stained.

“Oh Nic” he sighed, lowering himself down beside her and looping an arm affectionately around her shoulders as she sobbed into his chest.

“Why is life so unfair?” she cried in anguish as her fingers curled around his shirt, already sodden from her tears.

“What about Jamie and Alyssia and Belle? How are they going to cope without him?”

“We’ll help them” he whispered softly into her silky blonde tresses.

“How?!” she whimpered.

“How can I help them when I don’t know what I’m going to do without him either? I loved him, he was my brother, maybe not biologically but he was my brother and I loved him. Life is just such a

b***h Geoff! Jamie lost his Daddy today, his idol and Belle’s got to tell him when she’s heartbroken too because she lost the love of her life and Alyssia’s never even going to know him and you love

Melody and who’s going to call me Princess now?!”

He didn’t respond verbally to her rambling, he simply held her closer, pushing the door shut so no one else would witness her distress and let her cry against his chest, her body shaking gently with each

sob as she cried tears she wasn’t sure would ever run dry.

***

Present

“Has he come out yet?” Belle asked from the doorway as she watched Roman by Jamie’s door.

“No” he shook his head.

“I can hear him crying but he won’t answer and I’ve tried to get the lock off but it won’t budge. He’ll come out when he needs the toilet...or a cuddle from his mummy”

“He hates me, he blames me”

“No he doesn’t” Roman tried to reassure her before asking what needed to be asked.

“How did it go?”

“I couldn’t do it” Belle whispered almost in shame as she further entered the house with Geoff behind her.

“Geoff had to do it, I couldn’t see him like that. I don’t want to remember him lying there dead. I want to remember him how he was this morning, how he didn’t want to go to work and how he wouldn’t

stop kissing me and the way he cuddled Alyssia so close. I just want to remember that smile on his face, that last smile I ever saw, that gorgeous smile that was just for me when he blew me one last

kiss before leaving”

“Was it bad?” Nicole whispered in Geoff’s ear as Belle crossed the room and slumped into the sofa. She didn’t think she would have ever been able to identify Aden’s body so she could understand how

Belle hadn’t managed it.

“It was...he looked...peaceful” he sighed as she slipped a hand around his waist and briefly rested her head on his shoulder. He wasn’t sure if she was trying to comfort him or herself or if she was

thanking him for doing what Belle couldn’t but before he could decipher it she had moved and was sitting down next to Belle.

“What’s that?” Nicole questioned with a nod to the small box Belle rested in her lap.

“Aden’s things” she explained as she slid the lid off, the first thing she saw nestled in side being his wedding ring.

Her heart ached as she let out of a yelp of distress, taking the ring and resting it on the same finger where she wore her own ring. She struggled to comprehend how so soon after making their vows

again he had been so cruely snatched from her.

“They shouldn’t have taken this off him, I want it to stay with him forever. When I married him, it was forever”

“We can get it back to him” Roman reassured her from across the room.

“What else is in there?” Nicole asked, peering into the box as curiosity got the better of her.

“His dog tags” she replied as she pulled them out like a magician pulling a string of coloured handkerchiefs from his sleeve. He had worn them constantly since she had given them to him even if they

were hidden under his shirt like they had been when he was working or at their wedding.

“Jamie should have these” she told them adamantly.

“He loves them and his name’s on the back. We never got around to adding Alyssia’s. She wasn’t even meant to be here yet you know? I should have still had three weeks to go, she must have known

that coming early was her only chance to ever know her Daddy...even if it was for ten weeks. I’m just so glad he got to see her and to name here and to hold her and...” she sobbed loudly once more as

Nicole hugged her close, knowing there were no words to take away or even soothe her pain.

“There’s just his wallet” she announced as she pulled the last item out of the box, flipping open the tan leather and flicking through it.

“Credit cards, cash, the usual”

“Photos” Nicole nodded prodding the side of the wallet where a photograph of Belle and Aden with their children on their wedding day peeked out from behind a transparent panel.

“I can’t believe he’s gone” she sighed as she slipped the photo out between her fingers only to find another slotted behind it.

This time it was just her, smiling at Aden behind the camera. The photo she had last seen in his wallet when she’d been holding him hostage all those years ago.

“He carried that with him every day” Nicole murmured softly.

“All those years Belle, even when he was with Kirsty it was hidden behind the obligatory photo of her and him and Ollie and Jamie. I saw it, when I asked him about it he snapped at me and told me to

mind my own business. But he never got rid of it because he never stopped loving you Belle”

“I know” she nodded amidst her tears.

“I know he loved me, he’d promised he’d love me forever and now he’s gone and left me!” she sobbed before launching the wallet across the room.

“Damn you Aden Jefferies!” she screamed as the wallet bounced off the top of the TV set.

“Damn you! Why did you have to leave me?! I wasn’t finished loving you yet!”

“Belle” Nicole tried to comfort her softly.

“You would never have been finished, anytime would have been too soon”

“I wasted so much time” Belle sighed in heartbreak.

“I was away so long, all I ever did was leave him and all the time our time running out, ticking away like a bomb, silent but deadly. I messed things up so much, I made so many mistakes and life’s just

too short for that. I should have come home so long ago, I should have just been brave enough to come home and tell him how I felt”

As if something had clicked within her at Belle’s words Nicole rose to her feet immediately, tears flowing down her cheeks as she crossed the room and cupped Geoff’s face between her hands before

pressing her lips to his in a tender kiss.

“I love you Geoff Campbell” she announced matter of factly.

“And life’s way to short not to tell you that anymore. I know you’re married and you probably don’t want me and when you confirm that it’s going to hurt like hell. But life’s too short not to take that risk.

I love you, I want to be with you and now you know. What you choose to do with that information is up to you”

As he watched her startled, his mouth gaping slightly in disbelief she announced that she had to collect Sophie, hugged Belle quickly and walked out of the house without looking back.