Chapter 44

"How was school sweetie?" asked Hope.

What she wanted was for Ciara to say she had had a great day and take her mind utterly off the fact she had had an awful one. If the two of them could go home and draw the curtains and chill, may be somewhere in this messed up world that they lived in they were going to be able to find a bit of peace.

Ciara looked thoughtful for a minute and Hope felt her heart drop that she had to think about it. So it had not been as great as she had wanted her daughter's day to be.

"It was ok but everything is as bit weird between me and Chase."

Ahhh – Hope had been so caught up in the adult drama going on she had forgotten what they had got up to lately was going to impact on the kids in that way. And of course it was going too.

"I see."

"It is ok -I think we are going to come through it and hopefully still be friends, but I would rather it be like this and you are daddy be friends then me and Chase!"

Hope could not help but smile at Ciara's description of her and Bo as friends until she felt her daughter eyes expectantly upon her.

"What?"

"Don't what me," Ciara replied in a tone which said she had herd her mother say that to her too many times. "Daddy slept over the other night – so when are you going to ask him to move home?"

It was on the very tip of her tongue to tell her it was far too soon for any of them to begin thinking like that and they were just going to have to see where it went before they did start thinking about Bo moving home… but Hope knew that was why the love of her life had stopped at the bottom of the stairs the other night.

If she had wanted to be able to fob their daughter off then there was her chance to do it but if she had let her father stay the night… she had done so knowing their daughter was going to have plenty of questions after that.

And this was always going to be the big one.

"Are you ready for your daddy to move home? Is that what you want?" she asked. In all of this she had tried her best to make sure she did think of what Ciara wanted.

It had never been just about her and Bo. Not for a long time now.

Ciara had been through so much and the two of them had a lot of making up to do when it came to her.

If this was one of the ways which they could do it…

Ciara did not have to think twice about nodding for fear her mother was going to retract the question and start throwing up walls again.

Bo coming home was all she wanted.

"I want it to go back to how it was when I was small." She was so sick of it being just the two of them – of seeing her mother sad when she was able to see she had a chance of being so happy.

Life was too short for all that. They both knew it.

Hope nodded. She had wanted that too. Before she had written about the divorce she had prayed for it daily. But now she had a chance to bring him back, to see their husband and father home safe and for the sake of her daughter she knew she had to take it – to give their family one more go.

"I will ask him home, ok sweetie?" her mother beamed.

"You will?" her mother could be so stubborn at times that Ciara had had no idea she was going to say she would just like that.

She had thought she was going to have to beg her for weeks.

But she seemed to be a different version of her mother of late.

She seemed softer in a way and she was glad for that. So glad.

She had needed that even more than she had.

"I love you mommy."

"Oh I love you too Ciara Alice," Hope replied as she took her in her arms.

She loved her little girl more than any one save her siblings. Nearing the love she had for her children was the love she held for the man who had given them to her. So it was time to get him home so they could live their lives together. It was the only thing that made sense to her anymore.

Going home with Ciara, asking Bo to come back to them though was not going to solve every problem which Hope Brady had.

More than anything in the world Hope Brady hated the fact she was required to look for more evidence to get the conviction which the family needed against Grayson.

The medical reports and Kayla's word she knew should be enough and if her sister in law had come forward the day of the attack she had a feeling that it would have been enough but suffice to say that events had over taken Kayla and that had not been possible.

None of them blamed her for it. Besides, this was their job – hers, Bo's and Steve's and they would fight for any women who came found and said she needed help.

The fact that it was Kay who needed that help made them all want to fight for her just that little bit more.

She knew what she had to do to try and get that further evidence to get the conviction. To talk to other women who he had harmed.

And she knew enough of his past to know there were rumours against him. Rumours started in fact and reality.

What she hated though was that she only knew one person who held the kay to his past and those rumours and his name was Aiden Jennings.

x x x

"I was not expecting to find you here," said Adrienne as she got back to the flat to find Jack was sitting on the sofa.

If it had been not so long ago then she would not have batted at eye lid but he had made his home with his wife and kids at last.

Not that it was not nice to see her brother and have him back for a while, but she couldn't help wondering why.

"I hope you do not mind – I still had my key."

She shook her head as she shut the door behind her.

"Of course I do not mind."

He had not given the key back when he had left she released and even then she did not want him to give it back to her.

There was no need.

But if he had come here when he could be with his wife and kids then there had to be a reason for that.

"How are you?"

"Not too bad –" in fact in so many ways he was a lot better than he had been in so long.

He had Jen and he had the kids, he felt as if he had a life once more.

But at the same time it was all rather loud and there was so much going on and then there was the absolutely crippling guilty.

He could not shake the feeling that after everything Kayla had gone through –

That it was his entire fault even this time around.

He had enough sense to know if he spoke to Jen about it she was going to say he was going crazy.

And besides the two of them had just got back together and – that chapter of his life was so ugly.

He did not want to remind her of it. He wanted to be Jen's Jack and the man she saw him as.

Not the one he knew himself to be.

A voice in him rebelled against that – told him he was thinking crazy but… he knew who he was and who he wasn't.

But he couldn't shut it up.

He couldn't talk to Jen. He didn't want to talk to the kids about it ever. Steve had enough going on.

And he just wanted quiet. Funny he went to the home of a new-born baby for that, but he found he had missed his sister and her daughter.

"Just missing my sister and her best girl, is that so hard to believe?" he asked as he went over to the pram where Katie was sleeping so peacefully.

"Well I think anyone who is away from her for more than ten second and does not miss her is crazy so no it is not hard for me to believe at all," she said as she looked at her baby and her face became alive with love for her.

"How is she?"

"Oh she's just fine – we went to the hospital this morning and everything is as good as it can possibly be," she said with a great big smile on her face.

"Then went to the park for a bit of fresh air and after Little Miss has her nap we are going to go met her daddy, Sonny, Will and Ari for lunch."

"That sounds as if it is going to be a lot of fun," smiled Jack. "Do you have time for a coffee with your brother first?"

Adrienne tried to shake the feeling there was something which was wrong with her brother but she could not. However knowing him as she did it did not seem a good idea to push him. She would keep an eye on him instead,

"Of course – always!"

x x x

Hope came out of her office into the larger one where she was able to see the love of her life working.

Ever since she had talked to Ciara in the car she knew she had had to have a conversation with him – a very happy one.

But considering she had to talk to Aiden to it was not a purely happy one they were destined to have.

The last thing in the world which she was going to do was hide the fact she was going to talk to Aidan from Bo. In the past when they had been young and foolish they had hide things from each other.

No more, she promised herself.

Seeing as the two of them were alone in the office she crossed the room to him, put her hands on his shoulders and kissed the back on his head, only to find him relaxing back into her arms which was always a lovely sensation.

"You ok Fancy Face?" he asked. As soon as she had come over he had known she had needed to tell him something. He knew her.

She looked down on what he was working on to see it was the search for Grayson… well that was a rather appropriate way into the conversation. .

"I am going to have to go and talk to Aiden about all this."

She wished there was another way round this but the more she thought on it there was not.

She had to talk to him as he was not the only one who knew the bastards history.

Bo sighed.

He could tell how much Hope wanted to do this and it was about as much as he wanted her not to do it.

But that was not due to jealous but down to her discomfort.

"I can do it if you want."

In that moment she loved him more than ever for offering but if the wanted to get any information out of him then that was not the way to go about it.

"No, I think this is something which I have to do."

"I thought you were not going to carry on punishing yourself for what happened."

He did not want to watch as she put herself thought some sort of self-inflicted purgatory.

She did not deserve that.

"I have for the most part." but if she could do this then she was sure she was going to be able to forgive herself at last.

"Well I am not going to argue with you," he said at last for he knew there was not a lot of point in that.

She was so headstrong and she had always been. She did what she thought was right and though she listened to counsel, she had ever been one to follow her own conscience.

Now he was a dad himself he felt for Doug and Julie and the way they must have worried over her when she had been young. It must have been terrified trying to raise her… from when she was small right up to when she had got on the back of his bike.

"Good – because if we are not arguing I can ask you a question."

He smiled up at her for the first time since they had begun having this conversation he felt as if he was able to hear something which sounded a little like hope in her voice.

And it was a beautiful sound.

So much of their family's life had been lived in the shadow of late that he was going to jump at any opportunity for it to be taken out of that.

"What is that then?" he asked with a big smile as he got up to face her.

"Well I want to know If you want to move back home." Hope had thought when she said those words she was going to have to rush through them to get them out but she had not. When the moment for it had come she had been able to say them with confidence. because it felt so very right to be saying them.

Bo in that moment felt as if he had died and gone to heaven.

They were the words he had wanted to hear ever since he had got back to Salem but part of him wondered if he had screwed up too much for Hope to ever consider saying them to him.

He would not have blamed her if that had been the case – he knew he had screwed up more than any man had the right to and then expect to go home once more but she was looking at him so earnestly.

"Are you serious?" he asked with open eyes.

She nodded.

"After all we have been through to get back here I am not going to joke about it I promise you that." she said as she came close and put her arms about his neck.

God it was good to be able to do that.

"Bo the last few years we have made so many mistakes." She was not foolish enough to think he was the only one who had made them though his counted among the big ones.

"And we do not get to live any day more than the one."

If the truth was known she was beginning to get the feeling that she had wasted too many in her life time already. And if she was not going to face up to that then she could say that was down to Bo or Aiden or anyone else.

But when it came down to it she knew the only one responsible for any bad days was herself. She had power over her own life and the only way she lost that was when she gave it to others.

She could carry on as she was, lonely for her best friend – but that was not the way she wanted to live her life any more.

She wanted to live another way.

"And I want to live every day I have left to me with you Fancy Face," said Bo.

She did not think she could voice it any better herself.

That was what she wanted as well.

He cupped her face and looked at her as if she was the most precious person in his life which she was.

She nodded, blinking back the tears she did not want to cry at that moment.

"I am never going to –"

She cut him off, placing her hand over his mouth. "Please let's not make promises we can't keep right now. Let's just agree to go home and love each other the very best we can."

"Fancy face, that works for me," Bo nodded as he wrapped his arms about her and kissed her forehead savouring every moment.

The image of Steve and Kayla curled up on the hospital bed together flashed in his mind at that moment and he found he was no longer jealous. He just felt peaceful and whole in a way he had not done for many years.

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