Disclaimer: All publicly recognisable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. Original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

A/N Another long one, I'm on fire! muahahaha! But I promise you'll like this.. Review please, thanks..

Chemicals React.

Bradin sat on his table in a futile effort to concentrate on his Calculus homework, books sprawled over the table, his mind had been preoccupied since the kiss he shared with Aaliyah hours ago. She'd escaped from spending time in his presence with the excuse that Zac needed help with His Calculus homework.

"Hey boyfriend," came a voice from behind and a pair of arms draped over his neck breaking his trail of thoughts.

"Hey," he replied turning around greeting his girlfriend with a pasted on smile.

"Did we have a date or something?" he asked through his confused mind.

"No, just thought I'd pop by, say hi, so.. Hi," she said leaning over to kiss him but he stood up instead.

"We haven't been spending time, I know, but I've been busy with school and stuff," he said shiftily and guiltily wondering when the last time it was he had an actual conversation with her let alone gone out with her.

"We could spend time together now," she said seductively taking a step to stand right in front of him looping her arm over his neck.

"Yeah we.. We could.." he said clearing his throat, "But I got like a ton of Math to work on.." he said pushing her arm off.

"Is it just me or are you totally blowing me off here?" she asked.

"Look, babe, I've just got.."

"Brae, I know you're busy, with school and surfing, but I really can't be the one keeping this up, you're the one who wanted to do this," she stated referring to their relationship. Lately, conversations and efforts to get together seemed to be awfully one-sided, and not from the side that originally initiated the relationship.

"It's just.. I've just been.." he started, thinking of an excuse "busy.." he finished somewhat lamely.

"Then make time, like right now," she said backing him up, looping her arms around his neck again, "I've missed you,"

And somewhere deep inside, Bradin knew the right thing to say right now was "I missed you too," but he didn't feel like he did, but a reply didn't matter anymore as he felt Erika's insistent lips on his as they flumped onto the bed. It took him a moment but it wasn't long before he was kissing her back too. Tipping his head back, Erika kissed away from his mouth, down his jaw and across his neck, her tongue skimming his earlobe pulling away just a moment to pull his shirt over his head before connecting their lips again.

Bradin felt her hands run up his chest and he allowed his hands to dip into her short shorts at the waist.

He opened his eye for a moment to check the door and from the corners of his eyes he saw the door swinging close before he heard it slam shut, convinced that out of the corners of his eyes he saw Aaliyah's brown hair whipping around before the door closed.

"Shit!" was the first thing that pooped up in his head..

"Damn! Damn! Damn!" was the next as the two pulled away from each other.

"That wasn't-" Erika started but he cut her off.

"I think that was Allie," he said "You should go, it's almost dinner time anyway,"

"And Ava wouldn't like it if I stayed," she continued his sentence for him as he fished to get his shirt off the floor.

"Call me," she said leaning over for another kiss, getting an awkwardly short one on the lips before leaving the room.

Bradin put his head to his hands as he thought of how he was gonna deal with the mess.

"Okay, awkward,"

The door clicked shut softly.

Bradin's eyes snapped open and in the dark saw the silhouette of Aaliyah deftly trying to lock the door with her slender fingers without a sound.

"What are you doing?" he asked groggily.

"Ah!" she jumped to find Bradin awake. He picked up the clock next to him to check the time.

"It's 4 am where the hell were you?" he asked noticing that she entered from the balcony door.

"Out," she answered simply.

"Yea, I noticed, do you know what time it is?" he asked wide awake now.

"Who died and made you my mum?" she asked back in a stage whisper, pulling up her sweaty hair into a pony tail. It was dark but he could make out her tank and shorts, and see that it stuck to her body as though it were wet, which it probably was. Aaliyah sat on her bed and pulled off her shoes.

"You went out for a jog?" he asked as he squinted at the shoes she pulled off.

"No, I went for a swim with my jogging shoes," she snapped back as loudly as she could in a soft tone of voice, careful not to wake anyone as she grabbed a towel. It had been days since the day he had just been dreaming of when she entered, and things were as normal as things could be between them again, they were back at their usual petty squabbles and both seemed to have pushed thing far from mind.

"You went out for a jog at 4 in the morning?" he asked again with disbelief, squinting to make out her form on the bed catching a small glimmer on her finger as she pushed a lock of hair behind her ear while undoing her shoes.

"Technically it was 3 in the morning, I ran for bout an hour," she replied, "Couldn't sleep,"

"Thoughts of me keeping you up again?" he said for some reason, smirking The two had overlooked the little incident days before and this was the first time Bradin suggested something like that in a while.

Allie turned around to face him in the dark and wondered how she almost forgot how good looking he was when she saw him on the bed, without a shirt on, hair mussed up on the pillow no doubt and still looked like an add. Her sudden silence startled Bradin who was starting to think "You idiot Westerly!"

"You have truly outdone yourself Westerly, just when I thought there actually was a limit to your self-praise," she said sardonically.

"I do not-"

"All the ladies love me," Aaliyah gave a bad imitation of Bradin

"I-"

"God, it's so hard to run away from all the screaming and begging girls," she ploughed on rolling her head while saying it.

"As I was saying," he chipped in before she continued, "I don't praise myself, I.. tell it as it is," he continued with a smirk.

Allie scoffed and turned to go for a shower, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Good evening, and do you know why the evening is good? Cause you've a date right now, both of you and I'm gonna be home tonight, alone," Allie said with a bright smile as she entered the kitchen that morning.

"Are you high?" was all Ava could say, Aaliyah was not such a homey person but she seemed to be ecstatic to be staying home.

"Nope, just happy,"

"You have a big party planned tonight don't you?"

"I do not!" tearing open a bag of chips in her arms.

"Well cancel it, Susannah's will be staying at Matt's tonight and Nikki and Derrick are going to be home, and you need to baby-sit," Ava said.

"No problem," she said plopping a chip into her mouth from the massive bag of chips in her hands.

"With Bradin," Johnny added

"Okay big problem," she said through a mouthful of chips.

"Why?" Ava asked.

"You mean apart from the fact that Bradin and I won't have any adults to stop us from killing each other?"

"Nikki and Derrick will do just fine,"

"Have fun," she called out after them as Johnny and Ava turned to leave.

"Don't tear down the house," Johnny joked as they made it out the door.

"Don't be home before 12," Allie called out after them as the door closed.

It was a little a little past one and Bradin and Aaliyah had successfully made it through the night baby-sitting Nikki and Derrick together without killing each other. After dinner, Bradin had run out to get a movie and they curled up on the sofa watching it while eating popcorn Allie whipped up. It was a smart thing to do as they couldn't properly and affectively argue without disrupting the movie. And to avoid any possibility of setting off an argument, she took one couch with Nikki where as Derrick sat on the floor and Bradin sat alone on the one-seater.

Aaliyah and Bradin cleaned up everything and after Allie had checked to see that Nikki and Derrick were really in bed, she turned out all the lights and headed her room to find that Bradin was on his bed, under the blanket, falling into sleep and that she had left Her blanket in the hall where they watched the movie, Nikki was feeling cold so she had brought out her blanket so they could curl up comfortably on the sofa.

As Allie went to get her blanket however sounds of Ava and Johnny's laughing could be heard. She opened her door a slight bit to take a peek.

"So do you think this counts as our first date, or like our millionth?"

"Millionth, definitely," Johnny answered confidently.

"Why?"

"Cause if it was our first, I wouldn't be able to do this," and he leaned over to give her a kiss. Allie looked away for a moment hoping they'd go to bed soon so she could retrieve her blanket but a lot later they'd still haven't broken apart, and they were embroiled in a full make out session, flopping onto the couch. As Ava pushed Johnny's jacket off Allie shut the door closing her eyes, "Okay, not watching anymore,"

"Watching what exactly?" came a voice and her eyelids flew open.

"Johnny and Ava, on the couch, doing.. stuff, on my blanket," she said flatly.

"Okay, not image I needed in my head,"

"Not an image I need on my blanket," she upped his comment.

"Ugh.. Why is it so damned cold? Its California damn it, not the Antarctic's ," she said to no one in particular hugging herself as she flumped onto her bed. She had opted for her flannel pajama top and shorts instead of her usual tank and pajama pants as it rained in the evening, downing the temperature by a very large notch.

Bradin seemed to contemplate it for a second before voicing out what was on his mind.

"Okay, just shut up and get here,"

Allie paused for a moment. "What?"

"Do you want to freeze to death or what?"

"Uhmm.."

"Just get in bed,"

"No," she argued for her pride's sake but then came a gust of wind out of nowhere which sent shivers down her spine.

"Allie, you're gonna get catch a cold and Johnny and Ava are gonna kill me, just get your ass here,"

"Fine," she finally caved and got under the covers in Bradin's bed. It was a single bed so there would have no space for maneuvers to start with but with both of them in it, there was even less space for anything. Allie lay on her back for a while and decided she wanted to flip to her side, but instead she fell out of bed forgetting how little space there was for movement of any kind.

Bradin let out a chuckle.

"This isn't funny,"

"Actually, it kinda is" he taunted her laughingly sitting up on the bed.

"Shut up, like you've never fallen out of your bed before," she snapped while on the floor.

"Oh, you see I haven't which is why exactly why this is funny, even after waking up a zillion times by your flumping on the floor,"

"Oh, go away," she answered before stubbornly staying on the floor with her arms crossed.

"Just come on Aaliyah," he said offering his arm to pull her up. She looked up at his hand in the dark before taking it and Bradin pulled her up onto the bed. This time, she lay on her side facing outwards. Another blast of air came from no where again and she shivered involuntarily. He heard Bradin sigh before his arm pulling her close.

"Uh, what are you doing?"

"Keeping you warm," he replied curtly.

"I'm fine," she said as she tried to suppress another shiver.

"Yea I'm sure,"

"I am! It's your bloody breaths that making me shiver," she insisted willfully, resisting his strong arm.

"Just stop being so damned stubborn okay," he said as her body gave another unvoluntary shiver and he persistently pulled her close draping the blanket over both of them tightly.

It wasn't long till Aaliyah was warm and effectively dozing off, Bradin however had no such luck, the smell of her hair overwhelmed him and the feel of her body against his under the sheets kept his mind sufficiently conscious, but after several more minutes, sleep prevailed and his eyes slid close.

Allie awoke during the night to find herself facing Bradin and her arm resting on his naked chest under the sheets and his around her, and for some reason just didn't give a damn. Perhaps it was because she wasn't even awake enough to start with but as for now, she'd just go back to sleep with his toned upper body so close to her that she could feel the warmth and she almost snuggled in closer to bask in the warmth in the cold mid night.

It was late in the morning when Aaliyah awoke to find that Bradin was still asleep in front of her, and she was still wrapped closely in his arms. She wanted to snuggle closer but her brain being mindfully aware of what a light sleeper he was refrained from doing so, not knowing that Bradin had been awake for some time and was thinking the very same thing with his eyes shut, so instead she closed her eyes and tried to lull herself to sleep again.

And then her eyes snapped open again and she jumped out of bed when she realized, "Did I just contemplate snuggling closer to him?" she wondered shaking her head.

"Hey," Bradin greeted her sitting up realizing that she was finally awake.

"Hey, yea, sorry did I wake you?"

"Actually I've been up a while, didn't want to wake you,"

"Clearly you were more considerate," she chuckled, "Sorry," she apologized again.

"No problem,"

"I wonder if it's safe to go out there?"" she wondered aloud.

"Well I wouldn't, they could be naked or or or.. like still going at it or something, you've no idea the scars you'd get from walking in on that,"

"I'll clearly be needing a new blanket,"

"Ya think?"

"Oh, God," Allie groaned