An explanation: This was written before the baby swap came out.
Anything that happened since then (including all the Jan stuff and now
Cassie / Colin / huh?) never occurred, OK?
That means Shawn and Belle never split up, Chloe doesn't have leukaemia, and JT is still around, but they did have their Island Adventure and he did promise her Someday. All clear so far? Don't worry, it's about to get very murky.
I disclaim: This is angst filled, posted elsewhere, and written with a bias against Chloe.
B u Standing In the Doorway bu
Chapter 1 I'm Sure Gonna Give You A Try
It was the night of graduation day, and the sky sparkled with fireworks and stars. The smell of beer and barbecued meat filled the warm air as Bo grilled hamburgers in the back garden of his suburban house and the Horton, Black, Brady and Kiriakis families gathered to celebrate the graduation of their children. Chloe, Nancy and Craig were there too, though they had receded into the shadows compared with the raucous Alice and the boisterous playfulness of Jack, Jenn and Abby Deveraux.
Shawn wrapped his arm around Belle's slender shoulders, holding her as closely as he could to him. Tonight was going to be special, he knew that, though at the time neither of them realised its consequences on the rest of their lives. He wanted to ask her something, but he couldn't do it here, and he didn't know how to extricate her from their families' loving watches to get her where he wanted. He had loved her for years, and she knew that now, he showed her how great his passion was every day, but he was such a fool that it hadn't been until their summer adventure in the Caribbean that he had brought up the courage to kiss her for the first time, some seventeen years after he had first fallen madly in love with her. He had tried before, chickening out most of the time, but on that beautiful night in a moonlit lagoon, he had finally succeeded in showing his best friend how deep his emotions went. Their love was so strong, so powerful and so all consuming that it was remarkable that it had taken him so long, but it had always seemed that Fate, with a capital F, was conspiring against them. Even now, they had to fight against her father's overprotective nature and Brady's tendency to interrupt them as soon as they started to move beyond French kissing.
Belle's beautiful blonde head leaned against his shoulder, so she was comforted by his warmth and the way he kissed her forehead as they watched the water rippling in the moonlight. She was remembering their dance on his parents' wedding day, when they had been so close to kissing only for him to notice that damn can beneath the ice behind her head. That can had helped to bring them together, but at the time she had hated it more than anything else in the world.
Shifting beneath her on the swing seat, Shawn wondered if now was the moment to ask her, to tell her. He started moving out from under her, and Belle moaned softly in protest. She didn't want to move, to leave their quiet sanctuary, to return to their families and the future that awaited them.
Shawn's movements were arrested by his great grandmother's voice calling out to them. He loved her dearly, but at that moment, he wished she would just shut up and let him be with Belle in peace.
"Shawn, dear, come back over here with your charming girlfriend," Alice's voice came to their ears high and reedy. Shawn silenced his own groan, but heard Belle mutter something under her breath.
He took her hand in his, rubbing gentle circles with his thumb, and led her back to the group. "We're here, Gran."
Alice turned with a smile on her face and stared openly at her grandson and his girlfriend. "Everyone has to dance tonight, and it's your turn now."
Shawn inwardly groaned, keeping his smile fixed, because though he and Belle were famous for their dancing, he wanted to keep her to himself. He put an arm around Belle, drawing her closer to him, and twirled her about. "Dance now to get them off our backs for later." He whispered in her ear, tickling her with his warm breath. She nodded her agreement, pressing her slender form closer into his.
The music was fast, so they danced a rumba to it, Ricky Martin's Living La Vida Loca blasting from the stereo. They moved gracefully, swiftly and with ease as Ricky's voice was pumped out around them.
"You remember 'Rhythm Divine'?" Shawn breathed in his girlfriend's ear, watching the hair around it flutter.
She smiled and her eyes became like two sapphires in the night, the torch light turning her hair from blonde to richest gold. "How could I forget?"
"I wanted to tell you then," he chuckled, "but I was too scared, Belle. You were the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, and I couldn't believe that you wanted to dance with me. I was such a stupid kid."
She laughed then, and his heart burned brighter than the moon that hung above them in fullness and peace. "Shawn, I wanted to tell you that you were the handsomest guy in the world to me. Honey," and her voice dropped to a husky whisper that wiped all other thoughts from his teenage brain, "John Travolta had nothing on your hips."
He wanted to kiss her there and then, but his parents, and more importantly her ex-mercenary father and well built brother, were on the sidelines, watching as the loving couple twirled.
Instead he dipped her, making her laugh uproariously with one of his better jokes, and started leading her, still dancing to Ricky's fast lyrics, off of the torch lit dance floor.
The adults watched, amused, though John and Brady were less amused than the rest, as the kids danced further and further into the darkness, ending the dance with Shawn pulling Belle out of the garden altogether and running with her down the path into the woods.
"Where are we going?" Belle's strapped high heeled sandals and knee length filmy blue dress was inadequate for hiking through the woods at night. She would have fallen if he had not been holding her hand, guiding her through the darkness with an ease that at another time she would have suspected.
"You'll see," was his cryptic answer. He led her deeper and deeper, the moonlight shifting through the trees and reflecting off her golden hair in a way that made him think she was more beautiful than ever. His heart was racing for two reasons that night.
At last they came to a clearing with the moon illuminating it from between the trees and Shawn sat Belle down on a fallen log that was covered in green moss. The smell of the woods was pungent, a glorious aroma of night and the animals rustling softly in the night.
"Close your eyes, Isabella," he murmured, seating her on the log and kissing her hand gently. She nodded solemnly, but with a smile dancing across her pink lips. Taking out a candle and a cigarette lighter from his pocket, Shawn lit the wick, then lit all the other candle wicks in their secret clearing. Then he reached over and pressed play on the carefully concealed tape recorder.
"Now just listen," he whispered, putting the thickest white candle between Belle's hands, he went down on one knee and looked up at her. His voice was shaking with nervousness, and he could barely hold her look, but he got the words out somehow.
I "Everytime our eyes meet
This feeling inside me
Is almost more than I can take
Baby when you touch me
I can feel how much you love me
And it just blows me away
I've never been this close to anyone or anything
I can hear your thoughts
I can see your dreams
I don't know how you do what you do
I'm so in love with you, it just keeps getting better
I wanna spend the rest of my life with you by my side
Forever and ever
Every little thing that you do
Baby I'm amazed by you
The smell of your skin
The taste of your kiss
The way you whisper in the dark
Your hair all around me, baby you surround me
You touch every place in my heart
Oh, it feels like the first time everytime
I wanna spend the whole night in your eyes
I don't know how you do what you do
I'm so in love with you, it just keeps getting better
I wanna spend the rest of my life with you by my side
Forever and ever
Every little thing that you do
Baby I'm amazed by you
Every little thing that you do
I'm so in love with you
It just keeps getting better
I wanna spend the rest of my life with you by my side
Forever and ever
Every little thing that you do
Oh, every little thing that you do
Baby I'm amazed by you." /I
His voice was strong at the end, and as he stared into Belle's eyes, he saw tears of joy melt down her cheeks, destroying her mascara and glinting as they fell from her jaw.
He took a deep breath in and took her hand in his, careful not to upset the candle that turned her face heavenly. In a voice that shook and trembled, the words came, "Belle, I have loved you for as long as I can remember, and I can't imagine my life without you, you are everything to me. I know we're young, and I know we've only been together for less than a year, but I am so happily in love with you and I just want to spend the rest of my life adoring you. Isabella Marie Black, would you do me the honour of marrying me?"
Belle's eyes were full of tears. She had not expected him to propose, she had been half worried that he was going to break up with her. He was leaving in September for the Merchant Marines, and she was going to college. She resisted the temptation to run away, to tell him that they were too young, too inexperienced, and were going to be too far apart in the autumn, that they would be unhappy, and realised what he was trying to give her was a lifetime of happiness with her one true love.
"Yes," she sobbed out, blowing out the candle and throwing her arms around him. "I will marry you!"
He kissed her then, and it was a kiss different to any that they had ever shared before, because this kiss was a promise, a promise between them as binding as any wedding vow to love each other forever.
"Come on," it was Belle's turn to lead, to take Shawn even further away from the party, the lights, the music, and their parents.
He didn't ask where they were going, happy just to be with her. She was everything he had ever wanted in a woman, his Perfect Girl, and she was going to be his wife. He was surprised when she led him not only to the penthouse, but up to her bedroom, kissing him sweetly and fumbling with his shirt, but lost in the blue of her eyes, he was too delirious with happiness to think about what they were doing. They had waited so long, and the kiss they had shared in the woods was as good as a marriage ceremony to them.
"You promised me the stars and the ocean," Belle sighed happily as she opened the door to her room. "You promised me a Someday that I would remember forever."
"And," Shawn whispered seductively, kissing her neck, "I'll give it to you. Someday."
"That's where you're wrong, Tough Boy," she breathed huskily, "because tonight, Shawn, I'm giving it to you."
Leading him into her still dark bedroom, she turned on the soft light, which above changed the ceiling above them from a dark blue to the night sky, and pressed play on her tape recorder. Above the sound of waves, in the room painted to look like a tropical paradise, Shawn whispered Belle's name in love and amazement.
The male vocalist's voice rang out, slow and deep and strong.
I "Just a perfect day
drink sangria in the park
And then later when it gets dark
we go home
Just a perfect day
feed animals in the zoo
Then later a movie too
and then home
Oh, it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on
you just keep me hanging on
Just a perfect day
problems all left alone
Weekenders on our own
it's such fun
Just a perfect day
you made me forget myself
I thought I was someone else
someone good
Oh, it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on
you just keep me hanging on
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow." /i
The passion of a lifetime was built up between them, and making love was the release. Sleeping in each other's arms afterwards, they were happier than they had ever been before.
Shawn snuck out of Belle's room at half past eleven, walking through the dark streets back to his own home whistling softly to himself. He was so happy that unhappiness seemed like a half remembered dream, distant and unreal, cruel fate an impotent force for as long as Belle was in his life.
Song credits: 'Amazed' by Lonestar, and far more importantly, 'Perfect Day' by Lou Reed.
Chapter 2 coming very soon.
That means Shawn and Belle never split up, Chloe doesn't have leukaemia, and JT is still around, but they did have their Island Adventure and he did promise her Someday. All clear so far? Don't worry, it's about to get very murky.
I disclaim: This is angst filled, posted elsewhere, and written with a bias against Chloe.
B u Standing In the Doorway bu
Chapter 1 I'm Sure Gonna Give You A Try
It was the night of graduation day, and the sky sparkled with fireworks and stars. The smell of beer and barbecued meat filled the warm air as Bo grilled hamburgers in the back garden of his suburban house and the Horton, Black, Brady and Kiriakis families gathered to celebrate the graduation of their children. Chloe, Nancy and Craig were there too, though they had receded into the shadows compared with the raucous Alice and the boisterous playfulness of Jack, Jenn and Abby Deveraux.
Shawn wrapped his arm around Belle's slender shoulders, holding her as closely as he could to him. Tonight was going to be special, he knew that, though at the time neither of them realised its consequences on the rest of their lives. He wanted to ask her something, but he couldn't do it here, and he didn't know how to extricate her from their families' loving watches to get her where he wanted. He had loved her for years, and she knew that now, he showed her how great his passion was every day, but he was such a fool that it hadn't been until their summer adventure in the Caribbean that he had brought up the courage to kiss her for the first time, some seventeen years after he had first fallen madly in love with her. He had tried before, chickening out most of the time, but on that beautiful night in a moonlit lagoon, he had finally succeeded in showing his best friend how deep his emotions went. Their love was so strong, so powerful and so all consuming that it was remarkable that it had taken him so long, but it had always seemed that Fate, with a capital F, was conspiring against them. Even now, they had to fight against her father's overprotective nature and Brady's tendency to interrupt them as soon as they started to move beyond French kissing.
Belle's beautiful blonde head leaned against his shoulder, so she was comforted by his warmth and the way he kissed her forehead as they watched the water rippling in the moonlight. She was remembering their dance on his parents' wedding day, when they had been so close to kissing only for him to notice that damn can beneath the ice behind her head. That can had helped to bring them together, but at the time she had hated it more than anything else in the world.
Shifting beneath her on the swing seat, Shawn wondered if now was the moment to ask her, to tell her. He started moving out from under her, and Belle moaned softly in protest. She didn't want to move, to leave their quiet sanctuary, to return to their families and the future that awaited them.
Shawn's movements were arrested by his great grandmother's voice calling out to them. He loved her dearly, but at that moment, he wished she would just shut up and let him be with Belle in peace.
"Shawn, dear, come back over here with your charming girlfriend," Alice's voice came to their ears high and reedy. Shawn silenced his own groan, but heard Belle mutter something under her breath.
He took her hand in his, rubbing gentle circles with his thumb, and led her back to the group. "We're here, Gran."
Alice turned with a smile on her face and stared openly at her grandson and his girlfriend. "Everyone has to dance tonight, and it's your turn now."
Shawn inwardly groaned, keeping his smile fixed, because though he and Belle were famous for their dancing, he wanted to keep her to himself. He put an arm around Belle, drawing her closer to him, and twirled her about. "Dance now to get them off our backs for later." He whispered in her ear, tickling her with his warm breath. She nodded her agreement, pressing her slender form closer into his.
The music was fast, so they danced a rumba to it, Ricky Martin's Living La Vida Loca blasting from the stereo. They moved gracefully, swiftly and with ease as Ricky's voice was pumped out around them.
"You remember 'Rhythm Divine'?" Shawn breathed in his girlfriend's ear, watching the hair around it flutter.
She smiled and her eyes became like two sapphires in the night, the torch light turning her hair from blonde to richest gold. "How could I forget?"
"I wanted to tell you then," he chuckled, "but I was too scared, Belle. You were the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, and I couldn't believe that you wanted to dance with me. I was such a stupid kid."
She laughed then, and his heart burned brighter than the moon that hung above them in fullness and peace. "Shawn, I wanted to tell you that you were the handsomest guy in the world to me. Honey," and her voice dropped to a husky whisper that wiped all other thoughts from his teenage brain, "John Travolta had nothing on your hips."
He wanted to kiss her there and then, but his parents, and more importantly her ex-mercenary father and well built brother, were on the sidelines, watching as the loving couple twirled.
Instead he dipped her, making her laugh uproariously with one of his better jokes, and started leading her, still dancing to Ricky's fast lyrics, off of the torch lit dance floor.
The adults watched, amused, though John and Brady were less amused than the rest, as the kids danced further and further into the darkness, ending the dance with Shawn pulling Belle out of the garden altogether and running with her down the path into the woods.
"Where are we going?" Belle's strapped high heeled sandals and knee length filmy blue dress was inadequate for hiking through the woods at night. She would have fallen if he had not been holding her hand, guiding her through the darkness with an ease that at another time she would have suspected.
"You'll see," was his cryptic answer. He led her deeper and deeper, the moonlight shifting through the trees and reflecting off her golden hair in a way that made him think she was more beautiful than ever. His heart was racing for two reasons that night.
At last they came to a clearing with the moon illuminating it from between the trees and Shawn sat Belle down on a fallen log that was covered in green moss. The smell of the woods was pungent, a glorious aroma of night and the animals rustling softly in the night.
"Close your eyes, Isabella," he murmured, seating her on the log and kissing her hand gently. She nodded solemnly, but with a smile dancing across her pink lips. Taking out a candle and a cigarette lighter from his pocket, Shawn lit the wick, then lit all the other candle wicks in their secret clearing. Then he reached over and pressed play on the carefully concealed tape recorder.
"Now just listen," he whispered, putting the thickest white candle between Belle's hands, he went down on one knee and looked up at her. His voice was shaking with nervousness, and he could barely hold her look, but he got the words out somehow.
I "Everytime our eyes meet
This feeling inside me
Is almost more than I can take
Baby when you touch me
I can feel how much you love me
And it just blows me away
I've never been this close to anyone or anything
I can hear your thoughts
I can see your dreams
I don't know how you do what you do
I'm so in love with you, it just keeps getting better
I wanna spend the rest of my life with you by my side
Forever and ever
Every little thing that you do
Baby I'm amazed by you
The smell of your skin
The taste of your kiss
The way you whisper in the dark
Your hair all around me, baby you surround me
You touch every place in my heart
Oh, it feels like the first time everytime
I wanna spend the whole night in your eyes
I don't know how you do what you do
I'm so in love with you, it just keeps getting better
I wanna spend the rest of my life with you by my side
Forever and ever
Every little thing that you do
Baby I'm amazed by you
Every little thing that you do
I'm so in love with you
It just keeps getting better
I wanna spend the rest of my life with you by my side
Forever and ever
Every little thing that you do
Oh, every little thing that you do
Baby I'm amazed by you." /I
His voice was strong at the end, and as he stared into Belle's eyes, he saw tears of joy melt down her cheeks, destroying her mascara and glinting as they fell from her jaw.
He took a deep breath in and took her hand in his, careful not to upset the candle that turned her face heavenly. In a voice that shook and trembled, the words came, "Belle, I have loved you for as long as I can remember, and I can't imagine my life without you, you are everything to me. I know we're young, and I know we've only been together for less than a year, but I am so happily in love with you and I just want to spend the rest of my life adoring you. Isabella Marie Black, would you do me the honour of marrying me?"
Belle's eyes were full of tears. She had not expected him to propose, she had been half worried that he was going to break up with her. He was leaving in September for the Merchant Marines, and she was going to college. She resisted the temptation to run away, to tell him that they were too young, too inexperienced, and were going to be too far apart in the autumn, that they would be unhappy, and realised what he was trying to give her was a lifetime of happiness with her one true love.
"Yes," she sobbed out, blowing out the candle and throwing her arms around him. "I will marry you!"
He kissed her then, and it was a kiss different to any that they had ever shared before, because this kiss was a promise, a promise between them as binding as any wedding vow to love each other forever.
"Come on," it was Belle's turn to lead, to take Shawn even further away from the party, the lights, the music, and their parents.
He didn't ask where they were going, happy just to be with her. She was everything he had ever wanted in a woman, his Perfect Girl, and she was going to be his wife. He was surprised when she led him not only to the penthouse, but up to her bedroom, kissing him sweetly and fumbling with his shirt, but lost in the blue of her eyes, he was too delirious with happiness to think about what they were doing. They had waited so long, and the kiss they had shared in the woods was as good as a marriage ceremony to them.
"You promised me the stars and the ocean," Belle sighed happily as she opened the door to her room. "You promised me a Someday that I would remember forever."
"And," Shawn whispered seductively, kissing her neck, "I'll give it to you. Someday."
"That's where you're wrong, Tough Boy," she breathed huskily, "because tonight, Shawn, I'm giving it to you."
Leading him into her still dark bedroom, she turned on the soft light, which above changed the ceiling above them from a dark blue to the night sky, and pressed play on her tape recorder. Above the sound of waves, in the room painted to look like a tropical paradise, Shawn whispered Belle's name in love and amazement.
The male vocalist's voice rang out, slow and deep and strong.
I "Just a perfect day
drink sangria in the park
And then later when it gets dark
we go home
Just a perfect day
feed animals in the zoo
Then later a movie too
and then home
Oh, it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on
you just keep me hanging on
Just a perfect day
problems all left alone
Weekenders on our own
it's such fun
Just a perfect day
you made me forget myself
I thought I was someone else
someone good
Oh, it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on
you just keep me hanging on
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow." /i
The passion of a lifetime was built up between them, and making love was the release. Sleeping in each other's arms afterwards, they were happier than they had ever been before.
Shawn snuck out of Belle's room at half past eleven, walking through the dark streets back to his own home whistling softly to himself. He was so happy that unhappiness seemed like a half remembered dream, distant and unreal, cruel fate an impotent force for as long as Belle was in his life.
Song credits: 'Amazed' by Lonestar, and far more importantly, 'Perfect Day' by Lou Reed.
Chapter 2 coming very soon.