Hello! First and foremost, a big thank you to all the kindhearted individuals who took the time to read and the doubly kindhearted ones who took a few moments to review my last chapter. Even for a writer, I cannot begin to explain my gratitude. I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Really wanted to update on such a monumental day of my life. As of this morning, I have officially completed high school. It's the end of an era! My best advice for any seniors or anyone doing year 12 (here, a lot of people say it's worse than Uni) is to cry. I am not overemotional, I'm not much of a crier at all, but when it starts getting to 4 A.M. and you're convinced you'll be legitimately getting an F for your assignments (but you never do, trust me!), the best motivational recharger is to watch something short, but insanely sad. So it might only be death/funeral/goodbye scenes from your favourite shows/movies or even songs that last a few minutes to have a blubbery outburst but good gosh it makes the world of difference.

Anyway after a bittersweet day of tears, goodbyes and pampering, I feel like obliged to update... Plus I feel like it's been a hundred years since a Zane chapter... Enjoy!


Chapter 29 – Mr Fix-It

Zane's POV

"You're quiet" I commented, breaking the silent environment of the car trip as Bella and I ventured to our first stop from fleeing her apartment. "I've never known you to be so quiet."

"I just left my boyfriend and all I can do is hope that I have done the right thing, the best way possible. Sorry if I'm not commentating on my every thought."

I could hear the female in my company fidgeting and fumbling with the handbag that was sitting on her lap. It was only when we stopped at traffic lights, or for other necessary pauses, that I noticed the shake and tremble of her hands from the glow of yellow light from overhead street lights and lampposts that illuminated the dark car at this time of night.

"Sorry…" I eventually offered to the rattled female, only minutes before my time would have run out from our arrival at the police station. "And you have done the right thing, by the way. It's not safe for you, or your daughter, to be with him after the way he's treated you. Trust me, you never know when the intensity of his erratics are going to increase."

"Yeah. I know… But thank you" she muttered simply, but concisely, leading to a silence that neither of us wanted to threaten.

We were in a place that I could only assume was mutually comfortable for myself and for Bella, since we had never really had a chance to move off the base of acquaintances to each other, from behind the shadow of our mutual friends. However, she had trusted me enough to acquire my help, and I in turn had reassured and comforted her nervous actions since the evening had began.


The stop at the Police Station had turned out to be at least an hour detour as I waited for Bella to make the appropriate statements against Daniel and applying for an apprehended violence order against her boyfriend to protect herself and Allie.

By the time that we arrived back to boatshed safely, it was well and truly passed midnight. Yet, as we approached the makeshift house, it wasn't hard to tell that the current occupants were still up, as the light from inside reflected out onto the water from the cracks that weren't covered by window furnishings.

I didn't knock as I opened the door, while carrying the other last minute bits that Bella had pulled out of the house with her, including the incriminating laptop that I couldn't get past the password of to delete the necessary files.

The scene that was momentarily in place before being interrupted, upon registering the noise and what the opening door meant, was Rikki sitting on the floor, with her back up against the wall as she talked to Will who was in a similar position to her as held the sleeping blonde little girl while Tam looked like she had crashed or accidentally fallen asleep on the lounge in an uncomfortable position.

"Oh thank god you made it" Rikki said quickly as both she and Will breathed sighs of relief as we entered. Rikki rushed over to us first and wrapping the girl who had entered with me into a massive hug. Moments later, Will carefully stood up and walked over to our direction too.

I heard a few whimpers from the girl's direction, but was interrupted from listening further as Will ensured that I was 'all good' too. Finally, Rikki and Bella separated and after quickly dabbing her glistening cheek, Bella held her arms out to Will, for a very different reason than why she had with Rikki. After handing Allie to her mother, Will tried to explain that she had woken up about twenty minutes ago briefly, but I noticed that Bella appeared to be far from listening as she gently pressed repetitive kisses to her sleeping daughter's hair.

"Did you get the AVO? Did Dan realize you were leaving? What did the Police say?" These were just a few of the questions that both Rikki and Will began firing at us, and while I answered the questions that I could, there were questions there that only Bella had the ability and right to answer. However, with each and every word, I noticed the same nervousness and shake that I had witnessed earlier in the car.

"Sorry, but is it okay if I just go to bed? I'm quite exhausted" Bella finally spoke after only answering a question or two.

The topic and conversation was changed on a slightly different track as Will and I both agreed to let Bella and Rikki take Will and Sophie's old beds, which unfortunately left the two of us with the five star option of sleeping on the wooden and boarded floor with a pillow or blanket, if we could find one.

Shortly after the confirming the sleeping arrangements, Bella hurried off to bed, while Rikki failed to ceasefire on the questions at myself, basically wanting an exact re-enactment of the happenings of tonight. Being too tired to answer many deep questions after a long night meant that Rikki didn't exactly receive the answers she had wanted, giving up and retiring to her temporary bed before too long.

With the girls in bed in the small shack that housed limited options and opportunities that would not carry the noise around and threatened to awaken the other four, Will and I both decided to crash too. There was one pillow that was available on the lounge and not being used by Tam. That one pillow, along with a few jumpers and one light blanket was the only bedding available between the two of us.

Will and I decided to share the pillow, taking half each with the top of our heads only touching as we both sprawled out on the floor to make one long and tall line, doing so to avoid and obliterate any chances that we could wake up after an uncomfortable nights sleep to discover that at some point we had moved to spoon each other or unconsciously try out any other intimate positions.

I 'bagsed' the blanket while Will took the jumpers to create a marginally comfier environment. While no point of comfort was really reached, my only hope was wriggling around on the floor to find some sort of position that I might actually be just comfortable enough to sleep in.

"Zane" Will whispered in a hiss through the dark, with the noise behind my head being able to be heard clearly. "You still awake?"

"I'm fast asleep. You?"

"Same" my friend replied, joining in the game that I had initiated. "How did things go tonight? Sorry if Rikki and I were being a bit overkill on the questions when you first got back."

I shrugged, a motion that in the dark my friend would not have even been able to see. "I don't know. The end result was good, that's all that matters really, isn't it? I got bored waiting for Bella, Bella got rattled when she left, I got the computer out and she got herself out. I don't get what else there is to talk about and what else you guys want to know."

"Alright then…" Will replied, his wording revealing the fact that he was backing off from the question after my snappy response. "So what about you? What did you four get up to while we were gone?"

"Not much… Tam interrogated me, Rikki snapped at Tam, I snapped at Rikki, Tam was a lifesaver and babysat Allie for me and I tried to reason with Rikki about it."

I could tell that Will's response was a direct response to my snap at his question, mimicking my own manner from a minute earlier.

"Sounds like an exciting night…"

There was a grunt or some form of noise in acknowledgment to my statement from my friend that I could hear through the quiet darkness. "Yeah. Something like that."

"So did Tam and Rikki get a chance to sort out whatever their problems with each other are?"

"Nah. I think we all just used each other to avoid one another. Tam used Allie to avoid Rikki, Rikki used me to avoid Tam, I used Tam to avoid Allie. One big game of happy families."

I scoffed at the explanation, laughing at the irony of how pathetic the strong-willed individuals were all being in regard to facing their demons in each other, when they would usually never even stop to hesitate with thinking before they spoke. Just goes to show that all of us are scared of something and with our own ways of dealing with it.

"I think that they don't know how to go about dealing with each other. I think they need something to intervene and just push them together for once and for all. And when I say something, I mean me."

Will groaned a little too loudly for our positioning centrally to the other four current occupants in the shack, and a little too loudly given the hour and fact that all of the girls were likely asleep. "What on earth could you possibly have planned to intervene this time? Pashing Tam didn't work out all that well for any of you, did it? It probably just drove them further apart, so you better not turn this into round two."

"No. That's not on the agenda. In fact, think of this as being compensation for the kisses."

My mate hissed at my suggestion, and me, immediately jumping to the worst-case scenario conclusion, which I did not especially blame him for. "Don't tell me you're going to try and give Rikki a kiss or something stupid like that to even out the playing field for those two? You don't play with and tug on a minor's heartstrings, Zane! I don't agree with Rikki's paranoia that she's evil, but you know a woman scorned…"

"I know! I know!" I retaliated out of self-defense. "It's nothing like that. I was thinking about arranging a weekend away for the girls. Somewhere sort of isolated, where they're forced to deal with each other and where they can't just avoid and stay away from each other for the entire weekend."

"A weekend holiday?! That's one hell of a gift, Zane! You can offend me and try to buy make my trust any time you like."

I smirked to my companion and confidant despite the dark, regarding my plan that was only developing in my head as I spoke. "I'm thinking bunk beds, one bedroom cabin, the Glasshouse Mountains…"

"You are evil. You know if your plan doesn't work and they clash heads even more, Rikki's going to come back with Tam in a body bag, not with a newfound appreciation for her. You better not tell the girls that the place will be like that though… Drum it up to sound like some five-star retreat."

"Call me evil? You're just as conniving, my friend… I'll make some calls and arrange it for this weekend in the morning."

"Alright. I might nod off now that you've got that sorted anyway. Night" Will informed me, as I heard rustles in the dark close to me as I assumed my friend was moving around to reach a position of comfort for his slumber.

I too shuffled marginally to try and warm myself with the makeshift blankets on the hard, cold floor we were crashing on. "Night. And make sure you keep your distance from me. I would rather die than wake up to spooning you or anything like that."


The following morning, my discomfort woke me up from the similar position on the floor as I had eventually dozed off to sleep in.

I slowly and gradually sat up and from my results of gauging the silence since I had woken up, I assumed I was the first one awake. Standing up, it became clearer that Tam was still fast asleep on the lounge, as Will was too from nearby myself on the floor, while there was no trace of the other two girls having woken up either.

Out of boredom, I made my way over to the small sink to first find and then fill a glass with the water that appeared to be the only option in the shack. Tap water, not sparkling, not mineral, not stilled, but tap.

"Good morning" I heard from behind me. The voice had startled me not from its familiarity, but from my blasé attitude that was easily startled and lulled into a false sense of reasoning.

As I stopped to face the voice that belonged to Bella, I was startled further by the scene. She was sitting on the bed, her phone in her hands and even more surprisingly was the fact that her daughter was just as awake as she was, sucking a dummy quietly and contently playing with some animal toy as she alternatively swapped from holding it in one hand to her other. "Morning. I didn't think anyone else was up. And hell, that is one quiet kid right there… Is that even possible?"

"She's quiet, but I wish that I wasn't up!" Bella laughed before elaborating on her response. "That's just one of the joys of toddlers!"

"I'm not complaining, she didn't wake me, so it's all good… Anyway, I just remembered that I've gotta make a few phone calls before the others wake up."

Bella nodded, too busy preoccupied with handing Allie her phone to play with. "Alright. By the way, thanks again for your help. I know you put yourself on the line in case Dan saw you or anything."

"Anytime" I replied, walking off to make the phone calls outside and away from the listening ear of either one of the two sisters I was trying to avoid…


Later that day, as we were eating our scrounged together lunch that was really only a somewhat suitable lunch to feed six people, pulled together from the dregs of long life cans and tins of food, I decided to inform the two girls of the arrangements that I had made on their behalf.

"So, have you ever been to the Glasshouse Mountains girls?" I asked, posing the question to Rikki and Tam as I looked between the two of them. The question resulted in the two looking at each other for a momentary flicker of a glance, before they consecutively answered my question.

"Nope" was the first answer that the elder of the two sisters answered, while Tam elaborated on her answer far more than what Rikki had. "Yeah, I went there for a school camp in year six."

I nodded in acknowledgment of the girl's different answers. "Alright then Tam, you can take the lead then."

"Take the lead of what exactly?!" Rikki hissed unhappily, and I was actually unable to distinguish whether her fury was sparked from being out of the loop of my surprise plan or that her sister of all people was elected to lead when every man and their dog knew that was always Rikki's self-elected role.

"Cancel your plans, announce it to the news, you two are headed to the Glasshouse Mountains this weekend. Courtesy of yours truly" I informed, grinning with a proud beam as I took in the two different reactions. Rikki looked as though she had seen a ghost, while Tam looked far more calmly content and agreeable as though she was being partnered for a group task at school.

When no 'surprise' or 'gotcha's!' came after thirty seconds of dead silence, Rikki must have realized that there was no joke or punch line behind my announcement as she quickly stood from where she was sitting, moving as far away as possible from us in the room. "I was going to try and give her another shot, but I never, ever agreed to be submissive to your conniving and trickery. Over my dead body will I be forced to spend a whole weekend with her! I can think of so many far greater ways to waste my own time."

I guess it is yet to be known whether my money was going to be wasted or not, but Rikki knew I am a rival to her stubbornness, just as she is for my own. Time will tell who is going to be crowned the champion of this round…


After a long, very sleep-deprived year I was hoping for a bit of a freedom break, but my next few months will be filled with the happiness of bridesmaid's duties, helping one of my best friend's with her engagement party, trips interstate, parties, work and of course keep up with writing this and my other stories more! Bring it!

Next chapter (may change though, long story!): Lewis's illness and helpless guilt leads him on a dark road he has never visited before.

If you people of the FanFiction world get reviewing, I don't mind updating soon-ish as the next four chapters are waiting to get up here!