Hey all. I think it's time for a new chapter! I was hoping to get this up sooner, but much like the rest of this year, had so much going on in between the last update and now... Been interstate with a big group of friends for a quick holiday, some friend's have got engaged and a close family friend had a baby (so it's like having a new baby sibling for me hehe!).

Thank you so very much to all the lovely people who took the time out to read and review my last chapter! Perhaps it's just me, but it seemed like a lot of reviews were quite long last chapter, so an even bigger thank you to the people who contributed to that. Reviews are always such a pleasure to read and they give me so much to go off of.

Anyway, enjoy the new chapter and the rest of your day! I'm off for a girls night before the annual Royal State Show tomorrow (A.K.A. the highlight of my year. Showbags and rides can win me over any day - I'm such a child at heart)!

Chapter Fourteen – Boy Made Good?

Will's POV:

Previously: My tunnel-vision is so intense and focused on my environment that I barely notice the three nurses and two other couples that walk past us; until finally, I am about to obliviously pass my ex-boyfriend in the hospital corridors too... That is until the thing I do recognize, my name, is called out.

"Bella! Hi..."

In the corridor, Bella and I have been walking hand-in-hand through the maze of doors and walls, through the different wards on our way to reaching the pediatric ward we are looking for. We are there for Allie who is nestled in my arms and where I can feel her body temperature dropping to dangerously low, before heating up to boiling hot for intervals of time.

However, Allie isn't my only concern anymore as Bella and I stand opposite my girlfriend's ex-boyfriend. Her formerly abusive and unstable boyfriend, might I add. In a small way of being able to protect and defend my girls, I hold onto Allie a little tighter than what I have been and I increase my hold of Bella's hand, turning it into an arm that I wrap around her.

"Dan... W-wh-" Bella says in incomplete words, in a small voice, not much louder than a whisper, even though I can tell she is trying to ask what he is doing here.

"What are you doing, Dan? In here? This is a hospital... Are you alright?" Bella asks, finally managing to speak and get her complete question out.

Before giving my girlfriend, his former girlfriend, an answer, he just smiles as he looks around the hallway to take in the environment that not so many people find to be desirable.

"I am doing well, thanks... Really great actually - thanks to you, Bella. Every single day I still regret my role in our relationship and the way I treated you, you know? I am still so sorry. However I'm actually working here in the hospital. It's not a paid job, but I'm just volunteering in the pediatric ward. I do things like dress up as a clown for some of the sick kids, talk to and provide support for the kid's parents and I arrange little excursions or internal activities like face painting -things like that- for some of the kids that are stuck in here. It's so rewarding here. I love it."

After listening to Daniel's whole 'warm and gooey' recounted explanation of his new volunteering job, there is one big question that stands out in my mind immediately. I want to know how the hell that he could have possibly had the Government or Police security clearance to work at or help out in a hospital -a children's hospital at that- when he had been in a ward of his own -a psychiatric ward- the last time that I had seen him.

I should have more trust in two of my girlfriend's to know that my internal question would not go unanswered for very long when I know that she is more than capable of talking (or babbling on) and asking questions to satisfy her prevalent curiosities.

"So how come you're able to work here with your um, criminal record, if you don't mind me asking" Bella questions Daniel as my grasp on my sick daughter in my arms tightens a little more once again at the reminder of the series of events from three years back, all of which led up to my little girl being kidnapped by the man standing in front of us.

"It's all under these ridiculously water-tight and high-security conditions. Honestly, I would list them and explain a few of them, but there are so many different rules and they are so intricate that it would take me all day to tell you them all! Basically, my gig is like a community service initiative for re-introducing people like me into society after doing time inside. If I mess up with this volunteering, then it's straight back to jail or some sort of serious consequence like that - it's very high responsibility and punishment. Not to mention all the mental and physical tests you have to go through; it's worse than a council job!"

Looking between Bella and Daniel, the interactions and the discussion between the ex-lovers who have experienced a very complicated and tumultuous relationship in the past, I can't help but feel a little bit uncomfortable standing in the midst and middle of the two who are seeing each other for the first time since the day that Bella had stopped Dan from committing suicide years ago.

There is an awkward silence and Bella looks a little bewildered as though she has completely forgotten why or what we are doing here in the first place. So, I give her shoulder a gentle and comforting squeeze, while Daniel looks at something hanging up high and over our heads, before returning his gaze to our close embrace while I am preoccupied with keeping Allie and Bella as close to me as possible.

"So what about you guys? How have you been? Are you two back together? And Allie... I cannot believe how big that girl has gotten since I saw her last! She would have just turned what, four, recently, right?"

Bella and I share an unspoken communication as if to ask or say who is going to answer back to the question that has just been directed at both of us, before I speak up.

"We're good, thanks. Yeah we've just started seeing each other again recently. She turned four last month."

"Glad to hear it! Oh and I see its congratulations on number two, by the way."

Bella and I share another exchange of oblivion between our shared glances, checking whether the other knew what is being referred to, or not, in our case.

"Number two what?" I ask on behalf of both of our puzzlement, trying to put two and two together to understand what Daniel means. Maybe he isn't quite as mentally stable as I had first thought that he had become...

"Baby number two... right? What else would you two be doing in the maternity ward?"

While the man in front of me had initially seemed confident in his assumptions and congratulations, I can see as the uncertainty floods over him. For good reason.

Meanwhile, at the same time Bella is desperately sending me 'as if' signals with an eye roll.

Ironically, while everyone is busy - Daniel is trying to work out and decode what part of his reasoning or conclusion he had got so badly wrong, Bella is busy giving me eye-messages and while my own head is darting back and forth between looking at the two of them, however it is the littlest person who hasn't spoken one word since arriving at the hospital, let alone since seeing Daniel in the corridor who is the one to speak up.

"A baby? Really?!"

Even despite my little girl's sickness and weakening effects that have been taking a toll on her little body, I can hear the excitement in her voice. It is the same as when she is given or allowed a special treat or when she asks for her favourite movie to be watched.

"No sweetheart" I whisper simply, pressing a kiss to Allie's hair as her head falls back down onto my shoulder, as though lifting her head up and asking the three word question about our conversation had taken up and absorbed all her diminishing energy.

All the while, the awkwardness of the question still hasn't resulted in an actual answer to Daniel.

"No way. I'm no pregnant again, Dan. One kid is great, but two? ... Do I look like I'm about to kill myself?!" I can tell that Bella is trying to light-heartedly laugh and use humour to defuse the awkwardness, but as soon as the words leave her mouth she claps her own hands over it. However, it's too late to take her careless wording back and I can see she knows the mistake of her terminology.

Yet another increasingly uncomfortable and awkward silence falls over the corridor and over the four of us who are currently standing in the middle of it, before Bella transitions into her motor-mouth mode to attempt to compensate and resolve the mistake she just made.

"Oh my gosh, Dan. I just didn't think. I am so sorry. That was terribly insensitive of me. I didn't mean it like that..."

"Don't stress. That was a long time ago. I've covered a lot of ground in that time. I'm not going to break down at the mention of suicide, Bella. And I get your point. Stupid assumption. No baby's on the cards or currently being cooked. So what are you guys doing here anyway, then?"

In the time between Daniel posing the question and Bella answering it, the other man looks above our head again as I follow his gaze to the large blue 'MATERNITY WARD' sign that is hanging above our heads, explaining a lot of the awkward confusion based off of incorrect assumptions.

"I'm not too sure of the layout of the hospital, but from the directions we we're given by the receptionist, I assume we had to walk through the maternity ward to get to the pediatric one. We're here for Allie. She isn't well."

I can see the look of genuine concern spread across Daniel's face. I can recognize it so accurately because I know that it resembles my own reaction when I first noticed that my daughter is sick, as well as when Bella and I had taken notice of her condition worsening.

"Here?! Are you sure that's safe for her? Did you think about what could happen if they run tests? What they could find?"

"Yeah... It's a risk we have to take. She's been getting worse."

Daniel nods, at Bella in particular, before trying to look at Allie who is well hidden in my arms, with her back facing Dan as her head snuggled in somewhere in my shoulder or over it.

"Poor girl... What's wrong with her?"

"We're not too sure exactly what's up, but she's had a bit of a strange twist on a fever and this rash that comes and goes. She'll get really hot or really cold, but whatever she looks like she's feeling, her temperature is actually the opposite. She goes pale when she heats up or bright red when she's shivering cold. It's a bit of a worry."

As Bella explains our daughter's illness, I check her for her extreme temperature now, feeling her forehead. Allie has been slightly cold, coming out of her extreme phase of being chilled for an hour or so before that, but now I can feel her little body has transitioned to feeling so hot that I can even feel the stickiness of my shirt sticking to my body underneath where Allie is lying on me. The hard thing to understand is that even though she feels like a heater or like burning embers of wood nestled in my arms, she still looks so pale.

"So were you guys here to get Allie medication or to run tests or something?"

"Because it has all been such a sudden thing, we haven't had very much time to talk about it and sort out a plan, but basically, we just want to make sure that whatever this is isn't life-threatening. Basically, we want to avoid blood tests or anything like from being run, for the obvious reasons, but just make sure she's going to be okay" Bella explained, shooting a few worried looks over to our daughter in my arms as she provided Daniel with an explanation.

Yet another silence ensues and I am about to suggest to Bella that we should remember why we are here at the hospital in the first place. We are here for Allie's sake to both try to resolve whatever is wrong with our little girl or in the very least find out what is wrong and make sure that she would be okay. We aren't here to have a good old catch up with her ex-boyfriend.

"I think I can help you. I think I can help Allie. Trust me... I want to make this right."

I can't say that I know Daniel all that well at all. If anything, we have just passed the level of acquaintances. However, with his almost pleaded request for Bella and I to trust him, I feel an odd and uncomfortable feeling wash over me.

I have no idea what Daniel thought that he can do to help us, to help Allie, but I have a bad feeling and really, is it unreasonable for me to feel as though I would never be able to trust the bloke? The last time I saw him, I had made amends and thanked him for being there as a father for Allie when I hadn't been there. But the times before that, he'd kidnapped my daughter and almost killed himself after Bella left him, ending their abusive relationship.

"What do you mean? How could you help her?" Bella questions, giving me a cautious glance.

"Well, just know that it would mean bending a few rules. But, I can get access to medication which can help her temporarily and then I can run a few tests for you, bypassing the pathology lab and doctors."

I'm not a doctor, or a practitioner or even a nurse. My background and experience with the health and medicinal industry consists of my ability to apply a band-aid, measure out the correct amount of medicine accurately into one of the provided measuring cups and to be able to take my own or somebody else's temperature with the use of a thermometer. Needless to say, anyone who claims that I can be considered a medical professional must have lost their marbles. However, from my basic and humble knowledge of the medical industry, every inch of me is screaming out and telling me how wrong Daniel's idea sounded.

Pathology and lab testing meant accuracy and proper diagnoses or prognoses, while doctors mean dealing with and handling whatever the pathology labs testing was telling them. Skipping those steps, especially when the three of us are anything but medical experts, seems completely wrong. Not to mention, completely illegal.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, mate, but when you say 'bending the rules', you just mean 'breaking the law', right?"

While the man in front of me hesitantly nods slowly, out of the corner of my eye I also see my girlfriend contributing to the answer with a nod, as if questioning how I could possibly have reached any other conclusion.

"No. No way. I'm not a bad boy. I'm not breaking the law. I can't do this. Bella and I are no good to Allie if the two of us wind up in jail!"

"What's the alternative, Will? Would you rather risk Allie's life or risk Allie's, and us other girls, secret? What good are we to Allie in jail or not if she doesn't get better?"

I have no answer to that. Under every circumstance, in any thought and in any scenario, my daughter's life was the most important and my paramount priority. And Bella knows it.

I would do anything for Allie.

However, I had just never imagined that safeguarding my daughter's life would come down to determining whether I want to stay on the right side or the wrong side of the law.

"Fine..." I scowl unhappily to ensure that my stance and attitude of this situation is well known to the other two.

It feels like being stuck between a rock and a hard place in regards to what decisions I have. I certainly am not doing this willingly. The two potential outcomes are that there is the risk of my daughter's health worsening or the alternative that anyone and any doctors discovering her genetically-inherited secret could set her and possibly her mother up for a life in an enclosure at a theme park if she is exposed. If it isn't for the fact that either one of those risks could sentence my daughter to unimaginably terrible outcomes, I wouldn't ever even be considering to break the law. Let alone be about to do it.

"I don't know if I want any tests to be run on her, especially not by you, sorry, but is there at least something that can help her out for the time being? Some medication or relief or something?" I question Daniel, glancing over to Bella, who shoots me a nod of agreement, to ensure that we are aware of being on the same page.

Daniel nods, pressing a finger to his lips as the universal gesture to be quiet or silent, before signalling for us to follow him further down the corridor. Bella follows his lead first, before I start and catch up a few moments later, continuing to carry Allie around the hospital.

We reach a locked door to the hospital's staff room which Daniel obviously has access to, telling us to wait there while he sneaks inside quickly, closing the door behind him. Under a minute later, Daniel exits the room that seems quite small from the exterior, holding a box. Then, oddly he walks off, straight past Bella and I, into a room before walking out, back over to us very quickly after. However, upon returning, he seemingly appears to be holding nothing.

"Sorry about that. There are cameras around here. They only record picture, not sound though. I needed to make it look like I was just checking something. Anyway, there was a kid here about a fortnight ago that sounded like he had a similar thing to Allie with a fluctuating temperature that kept going up and down, just not quite as extreme. The doctor gave his parents this. It's normally a prescription medicine from the doctor, or they can supply it here in here if it's a serious enough situation. She should only need it for a week. The amounts and information is all detailed on the box."

Bella looks at me and then over at Daniel oddly.

"Um. What medicine, Dan? What did you do with it?"

"Trust me... Come here, give me a hug" he replies strangely. It is only when he opens his arms to her when I see a flicker of white in the sleeve of his long shirt. Instantly, I can foretell what manoeuvre he is trying to execute.

My girlfriend looks over to me for a non-verbal approval that I am okay with her moving into the arms of her ex-boyfriend. I'm not okay with it, but I nod anyway.

Painfully, I witness the closing gap and reduction of space between Bella and Daniel. Her hands rest on the top of his back, just below his shoulder blades, while his hands are far more adventurous. Initially his arms snake around her waist, into and between the layer that separates her coral pink camisole shirt from her short sleeved trench coat jacket.

For the task at hand, Bella's clothing is unintentionally perfect. The very top few inches of her jeans are covered by the short sleeve jacket that wouldn't be keeping her very warm anyway. Aside from the slight movement and imprint of a hand moving around at the very top of her jeans and backside, the medication is unable to be seen or identified as being planted. Still, I quickly look away, not wanting to think too hard or use my imagination to think about where Daniel's hands may have ended up during that process. Instead, I try to cease my pang of jealous discomfort at the purposeful embrace between the former lovers by focusing on my daughter in my arms, pressing a kiss to my little girl's head who had fallen asleep at some point.

Eventually the two retract and pull away from the hug with each other and instantly I feel that little bit more at ease, especially after what I could hear from where I am standing as he had started to whisper into her hair: "I'm so sorry, Bella. I haven't spent one day not thinking about how sorry I am."

I am thankful once the two separate and I am even more thankful when my girls and I separate from him altogether, leaving to return to Bella's apartment.

"We smuggled prescription medication out of the hospital, Bella! We broke the law!"

"I know that we did. But it was for Allie and I would do it all over again if I had to."

Arriving back at Bella's apartment, the two of us are alone with Allie, while Kyle is out catching up with some new friends that he has already managed to make in his time here.

Since getting back, Bella has spent the time nagging me to trust Daniel and let Allie have the medicine already, while I have spent every minute trying to gather up as much information as I can on the medicine we had been given, any cases of it being used and any bad cases of it or whether or not it has any side effects. Within half an hour, I probably could have written a book on the stuff.

Fortunately, and on the contrary to my expectations, all the searches I have made and all the information I have found to see if the medicine is discreditable in any way or not was turning up blank.

'"Fine. She can have the medication but if she has a few doses of it and she doesn't get any better, or, if she gets worse we are taking her off them immediately."

She nods (but not without rolling her eyes first) and grabs the box that had been slipped into the back of her jeans earlier that day before checking the quantity that is recommended for our four year old daughter.

"That's fine. I'm okay with that. But what are we going to do about the tests? I'm really worried that whatever is wrong with her is more of a long term problem... Do you trust him enough to try and work out what's wrong with Allie?"

"No way, no. I am not giving him even just an ounce of evidence that could prove that Allie's a mermaid. We'll contact Lewis and see if he knows enough to be able to do it. It might not be 100% accurate, but you know that he would be happy doing more research to try and teach himself how to if he can't."

After feeding our daughter who is bundled in blankets, watching a movie on the smaller lounge and ensuring that she had ingested the medicine, Bella joins me on the lounge I am sitting on resting a hand above my knee.

"Listen, Will. I get what you're saying. He broke my trust in him badly, remember? But, unless you think I was mental from the day that I started dating him, the Daniel we saw today is almost exactly like the Dan that I had first fallen in love with. Just like he changed for the worse in the time that I was with him, I honestly believe that he's changed for the better since then, too. Heck, he put himself on the line just to get us some medicine so that we could avoid a doctor and all the tests that go with needing a prescription for the medicine he gave us. Even if we were caught, the consequences for him with all of his high stakes conditions would have been way worse than what they would be for us. You heard what he'd been telling us about how if he stepped one foot wrong at the hospital, he could land back in jail, let alone what would happen if they caught him breaking the law there. And even when I was with him and even through the worst of it, he never, ever mistreated Allie or treated her poorly, so why would he now?"

I let out a pent-up sigh. It is completely frustrating that when I want nothing more than for Allie to be safe and secure, that there is no way to achieve that.

Lewis would be perfect to run the tests, someone both Bella and I can be confident in knowing that any evidence of Allie would stay safe. But although Lewis would be able to run the tests, he has previously admitted that diagnosing Allie and trying to determine her sickness is way out of his depth. Then again, for any normal parent taking your kid to a professional and to see a doctor would be the automatic option. However, when your child is a mermaid, that is not such a feasible option. Then there's Daniel, who already knows about Allie and with access to professionals and everything we needed, he would have been the perfect option. If it isn't for the fact that he is my girlfriend's abusive ex-boyfriend who's done stints in both a mental hospital, as well as jail; someone I don't really ever want to rely on and trust.

"Let's just take this as it comes and choose the best way to ride this out when the time comes. Lewis might be able to find out more, or better yet, Allie might end up fine in a few days' time" I explain, pressing a kiss to the top of Bella's head that had somehow ended up on my chest. At the same time I shoot a glance over in my daughter's direction. She doesn't look any better and she looks stiflingly hot, meaning the poor girl is probably freezing again.

"There's got to be one way to ride this one out safely..."

Well, some tough choices had to be made right there, hey? Who's envious of Bella & Will with their damned if they do, damned if they don't dilemma - ha ha? However, what is everyone's thoughts? Did they make the right call or what would you do better? And Daniel? What did you all think about his re-introduction? Who does or doesn't believe Daniel has turned a new leaf to bring his life around? And just like Wella, we're still no closer to knowing what is going on with Allie...

179 reviews for the next chapter!

Next chapter: You don't want to miss the next one ;) Zane takes a bad day to an irreversible extreme after a fight with Rikki and a lunch with his dad goes badly, before it all hits the fan. In a 'game-changing' chapter, it will lead to devastating consequences for both himself and others... What does he do?