Thank you as always to EC Brenway for your lovely review! Always enjoy reading them!
Aww yes it's been 4 years and Elly's still questioning if it's Chloe for her - even after everything points to them being together! Extreme denial or extremely not wanting to complicate Chloe's life? Keep reading to find out! oooh pierce mentioning to Elly he wants to impregnate Chloe would definitely bring about a vicious territorial Elly!
The Chemistry In Darkness
Chapter Sixteen
Tuesday 19th November 2024
Elly stood casually at the end of Chloe's driveway, leaning against the fence like she had been when Chloe first spotted her there before their run. Chloe and Elly had run back to the street from Grease Monkey's, with Elly outpacing Chloe soon enough though she had taken a bit longer this time to do so and couldn't help but feel an enjoyment out of staying within Chloe's eyesight for the most part.
Elly sighed when she heard the front door of Chloe's house open, as she knew it could only be Pierce as she could almost hear his breathing as he walked down the steps. Elly frowned, suddenly realizing that Chloe hadn't mentioned Hendrix during their brief catch up.
Elly stepped around the fence so that Pierce could see her waiting there for Chloe, "Pierce, it's been a while."
Pierce frowned as he spotted Elly standing there, "Elly…so the rumours of your return are true."
"Sure are," Elly winked.
Pierce glanced at his watch, his other hand carrying his briefcase, "If you're here to see Chloe, she's on her morning run, she should've been back by now, she's late and I've got to get to work. The kids have already been dropped off here, where is she?"
"Oh, I've already seen Chloe, we were on a run together, she'll be back soon, I kinda outpaced her. It's my fault she's late, we stopped at Grease Monkey's to chat for a bit," Elly explained.
Pierce narrowed his eyes, wondering why it didn't look like Elly had being on a run as she was barely sweating but then he shook his head, "Ugh Grease Monkey's, can't think of any worse kind of food to put in your body. Don't tell me Chloe broke her healthy eating for that muck."
Elly rolled her eyes at him, "Live a little, Pierce, it's just food but no, Chloe said she had breakfast waiting at home for her. Couldn't even tempt her with a milkshake."
Elly watched as Pierce glanced at his watch again, clearly impatient, then was distracted herself as she overheard the sound of Chloe's heartbeat and feet pounding the ground on the street that leads onto Ramsay Street, "Here's Chloe now…in…three, two, one…"
On one, Chloe rounded the corner onto Ramsay Street, running the rest of the way home. Pierce frowned at Elly once more, wondering how she had managed to predict the exact moment Chloe was gonna round the corner up ahead. Chloe looked exhausted when she came to a stop in front of Pierce and Elly.
Pierce frowned all over again as he glanced between the two women and how different they looked after their run with Chloe out of breath and sweaty but Elly had barely broken a sweat, "Chloe, the kids are inside already. You right to take them to school cause I'm already late for work?"
Chloe put her thumbs up, "Yep…I'm good."
Pierce chewed on his lip at the thought of Elly sticking around to spend more time with his wife and his curiosity of finding out why Elly had returned got the better of him, "Why don't we get you inside, Chloe? I can be a few more minutes late."
"I'll leave you both to it," Elly decided, "Chlo, you want to make this morning run together a regular thing?"
"You gonna kick my ass and outrun me every day?" Chloe smiled.
"Count on it," Elly winked, "See you tomorrow bright and early."
"Just no stopping at Grease Monkey's every morning, okay? I can't sit there and watch you eat an insane amount of food and still outrun me without getting a stitch," Chloe decided.
"Okay but we do still need to catch up on some things as I still have a lot to tell you. Do you want to do dinner tonight?" Elly asked.
"We'll be busy tonight; Chloe's got a busy day today. Why don't you join us for dinner tomorrow evening?" Pierce stepped in before Chloe could answer, inviting himself to their plans before they had a chance to arrange something between them.
"Only if I can bring Aster with me as she's already wanting to spend more time with Chloe, although dinner would be too late for Aster, maybe we should make it lunch instead," Elly settled, hoping she could catch Pierce off guard to his decision to join her and Chloe and she couldn't help but feel curious at the thought of her daughter spending time with her and Chloe.
"I'll make sure I take the time off work," Pierce immediately countered, feeling threatened at the idea of Elly spending time with his wife, "And I'll give our chef, René, a call to make sure he can rustle us up a nice meal for us all."
I'll just hope there's a crisis at the hotel tomorrow.
"Perfect," Chloe agreed.
Nearly perfect…
Before Elly could turn around to go back to the Kennedy's, all three of them turned at the sound of Hendrix's voice from behind them, "Morning, Chloe. Running late for work. Bye, Chloe."
"Hi Hendrix, have a good day," Chloe called out.
Elly frowned as she realized Hendrix was across the road from them exiting Aaron and David's house before waving at the young man.
Hendrix suddenly paused when he recognized Elly standing there with his Dad and Chloe, "Elly...? Okay, I'm late, I'll call Chloe later on to find out what I've clearly missed. Bye, Chloe."
Chloe waved goodbye to him once more as Elly creased her eyebrows at the fact Hendrix had been at the house across the road and both Hendrix and Pierce had completely ignored interacting with one another.
Before Elly could ask about that, Pierce placed his hand on Chloe's shoulder, as Elly turned back to them, "We look forward to seeing you and Aster tomorrow at lunch... When are you taking her to Switzerland or is that where you've been for the past 4 years?"
Elly frowned even more, "Why would I go to Switzerland?"
Taking in Elly's question, Chloe raised her hand in a swiping motion to Pierce but he ignored her, "Aster should have her Dad in her life, if you clearly haven't been there the past four years, then I'm surprised you're not already on your way there."
"What are you talking about? Shaun's dead, he died in the avalanche," Elly pointed out.
Chloe cleared her throat, "I think you might want to speak to Bea...about Shaun...cause he's kinda..."
"Alive," Pierce finished for her, surprised when Chloe thumped him across the chest.
"What?" Elly asked in shock.
"I didn't know Elly didn't know," Pierce grumbled as he reacted to Chloe swatting him.
"I should go…talk to Bea," Elly swallowed hard, her mind spinning once more.
Chloe could barely get out a goodbye before Elly was gone, Pierce squeezed her shoulder, then lead her up the driveway, asking her, "So, you gonna tell me where Elly was all this time?"
Chloe shrugged, feeling bad Pierce had stunned Elly with the news about Aster's Dad before her family had had a chance, "I'm not sure, we mostly spoke about me. We were supposed to talk about Elly when we got back here…but I guess that's not going to happen until lunch tomorrow...nice going with telling Elly about Shaun. How about you don't go telling Elly things you simply think her family have already told her?"
"I'd have thought Bea would've told her and the way Elly took off, she's probably going to skip lunch tomorrow and get on a flight straight to Switzerland," Pierce mused hopefully.
As Chloe climbed the stairs with Pierce, she glanced back over her shoulder but was surprised to see Elly was nowhere to be found.
Please don't rush back off to chase Shaun...I just got you back...
Elly bolted back over to the Kennedy's house, spotting Aster sitting in between Bea and Yashvi having breakfast, "Bea, can I talk to you?"
Bea raised her eyes at Elly's abruptness, "Ah...sure."
Yashvi eyed the pair then leant over to Aster, "Has anyone taken you out the back to see Karl's green house or the pizza oven?"
Aster shook her head, "Pizza!"
"Okay, pizza oven first, let's go give you a tour of the outside area of the house," Yashvi said, helping Aster down from her chair then led her outside.
As soon as Aster and Yashvi were out of earshot, Bea chewed on her lip, "What happened?"
"Shaun?" Elly stated simply.
"Oh...that," Bea sighed then stood up and started moving their breakfast dishes to the kitchen, "Chloe told you?"
"No, Pierce told me he was alive, Chloe told me to talk to you about it," Elly responded abruptly.
Bea stood opposite Elly in the kitchen, "Shaun survived the avalanche...he spent 7 months locked up in a hut living on rations with an injured ankle. He was determined to survive for..."
"Aster," Elly realized.
"Yeah and maybe you because you two had kinda started things before he left. But anyway, he rocked up here out of nowhere having jumped on a flight as soon as he got back to Geneva. He didn't even see his mum before coming out here. He didn't know about what had happened to you, the baby or Finn. We had to break it to him that you had disappeared in December before you'd had the baby and that about 6 weeks prior to his miraculous return...Finn had disappeared too after regaining his memories. Shaun was devastated by all of it...felt like he'd survived a nightmare to walk straight into another nightmare. Shaun looked for you...or I mean he hired a detective and that detective was part of declaring that...Finn had murdered you and taken off to Shanghai. Shaun couldn't handle it...he got help back in Switzerland but...he went back there after the case was closed," Bea explained.
"Do you know how he is?" Elly wondered.
Bea shook her head, "You and Finn were his only connections and with you both gone...and seemingly connected...he didn't have anything to keep him here. We haven't heard from Shaun in about three years...last time we did...he'd gotten things together; he was taking over his mum's role in her company and...he was considering dating again. What do you want to do?"
"I can't really keep this from Aster, he's her Dad but I don't want to go chasing Shaun in Switzerland. Shaun's probably moved on with his life and I don't need him jumping on a jet to come here. We just got back here, I want Aster to be settled and I want to get used to being back here with you all. And just because Shaun and I kissed the last time I saw him, doesn't mean anything should happen between us and I don't want to confuse Aster over this. I don't know. What do you think I should do?" Elly sighed.
I can't even entertain the idea of getting on a flight to Switzerland, what if I get stuck there in some custody argument with Shaun? I can't go overseas as a werewolf and risk being found out. And to be honest, I haven't given Shaun a single thought in years...but I can't have Aster find out from someone like Pierce.
"I think you should tell Aster the truth about her Dad being alive. If she desperately wants to meet him, then let her…but I agree that you should stay here 'til your settled…we just got you back," Bea tried to hide her emotions at the thought of Elly leaving again let alone for a guy she barely knew even though Shaun was Aster's Dad.
"I'm not going anywhere," Elly promised, "I just need some time to think."
Bea nodded as Elly then wandered off to her bedroom, praying her sister didn't want to go running after Shaun.
Okay, I need to figure out what to do...
Entering her room, Elly pulled out her phone, dialing Lexa's phone number, waiting patiently until she picked up, "Didn't even last a day before you called us, Fresh Meat! How's the family? Don't tell me you want to come back to us this quickly."
Elly rolled her eyes at her friend, "Aster and I have been fine here. I made the right decision for us to come back…but I do miss you guys quite a bit, kinda can't wait until I can get back to see you all next month if you don't come visit me here earlier. Family are good, shocked obviously as they thought I may've died…which I'm gonna go off at you and Raven when I do see you both next…but that's not why I'm calling…I have a problem and I don't know what to do about it…"
"I'm listening," Lexa replied when Elly went silent for a few seconds.
Elly ran her hand through her hair, "I think…I may've met my mate."
Next time - Will Elly go chasing after Shaun of the Dead for Aster or stay in Erinsborough for her mate?