Safe and Sound (Book 4 of "The Story of Us" series) [Completed]

Chapter 9 - It's Out

[Harley]

Ella hasn't been home 24 hours and already news has broke that it was our child that was involved in the Atlanta baby scandal and that we had already found her. I was scared to take Ella out shopping today. Instead, we drove to the smaller towns outside of Nashville and went shopping. I wore my hair up and a baseball cap, trying my best to disguise myself and we didn't seem to get spotted by anybody.

We picked Ella out a new bedroom suit – a bed, dresser, the works. She wanted to keep her bedroom the purple color and we picked out some decorations, including a poster frame for her new poster that I was getting someone from the fan club to bring over for me since going into Nashville wasn't the best choice.

Sadie was in awe of Ella and you could pretty much see it the entire time they walked side by side in the stores. Of course, Noah was too young to understand. He probably wouldn't even remember a time when Ella wasn't there in a few years time.

We had picked out a white bedroom set for her room and a darker purple comforter set. We got her some lamps and even a chair and purple curtains. Apparently purple is her favorite color, so I guess it's a good thing the room was already painted a shade of it.

I heard the door bell ring and I left Sadie and Ella in Ella's room and ran downstairs. I knew it had to be Britt from the fan club and when I opened the door, I saw the box of fan merchandise and a tube with some posters in it. I had made sure she got two of everything, because I knew once Sadie saw Ella with someone, she would want one, too.

"Mama, what is all that stuff!" Sadie yelled as I walked into the bedroom with the box, but I think Ella instantly knew what it was.

"It's some stuff I had my fan club bring over," I said, sitting the box down the bed. I opened it up, seeing some t-shirts inside, some CD's, photos, buttons, hats, everything that had been sold at shows. "I figured you'd like this," I said, handing Ella a small t-shirt. She held it up, seeing that it was me and she smiled.

"I never got a t-shirt with you before," she said as Sadie looked at her.

"Why do you want a t-shirt with Mama on it for?"

"Because I like her."

"But she's Mama..."

"Sadie, Ella was a fan of mine before she knew I was her real Mom," I said as Sadie looked at me and then back at Ella. You could see she was trying to comprehend it all in her head. "She had a poster of me in her room and it was kind of folded up, so I got her a new one to put up."

"I have a picture of Daddy and Uncle Donnie in police man uniforms in my room," Sadie said as I snorted.

"See, so Ella has one of me," I said as Ella put the t-shirt on over the top she had on. "There's a few more in here and some other stuff and here's your new poster," I said, taking the poster out of the tube. It was the same exact one she had. "Now we can put it in the poster frame and hang it over there on the wall."

"Can I have a t-shirt?" Sadie asked as I smiled, handing her a smaller size, just like the one Ella had on. "Ohhh, a Mama t-shirt," she said, putting it over the one she had on, just like Ella did.

"You didn't have to buy me stuff," Ella said as she looked down at her t-shirt as I put her poster in the frame. "The stuff in the room was okay."

"But it's your room now so you have to make it the way you want it," I said. "You can have posters up in your room if you want. I used to have posters up in my room when I was your age."

"Of who?" Ella asked.

"Shania Twain," I sighed. "Faith Hill... Madonna, the people who were really famous back then, that I wanted to be like," I smiled. "I even had one of Nick in my closet."

"You weren't married when I was born," Ella said as I paused and looked at her, shaking my head. "Why not?"

"We weren't ready," I whispered. "You were... kind of a surprise. We weren't expecting you."

"Was I surprise?" Sadie asked as I laughed.

"Yes, you were a big surprise, too," I said. "We wanted to have another baby with Noah."

"Are you going to have another baby one day?" Ella asked as I finished putting the poster in the frame and looked at it. So much had changed since that picture had been taken.

"Nope, this is it," I smiled, walking over to the wall where the nail was already placed to hang the frame. "We said two because... well, we thought we had lost you, and now we have three again and I think that's a good number."

"I'm gonna go show Daddy my new shirt," Sadie said, jumping off the bed as I looked over at Ella, pulling a CD out of the box, looking at it.

"You were young," she said as I looked to see that it was my first CD. "How old were you there?"

"I was 16," I said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, looking at it. "That's around the time that I met Nick for the first time. I actually think those pictures were taken a few days before I met him because 'Enchanted' was the last song I really wrote for my first album."

"Did you always want to be a singer?" she asked as I nodded. "I do, too. I want to be like you when I grow up. Will you help me be a singer?" I stared at her, not knowing what to say.

I heard her sing along with me the night before and she had a good voice, but what do I say to her? No, the music business will only make your life a living hell? Nick was pretty adamant about the kids being kids. But Ella wasn't really a normal kid. She had lived too much already.

"We'll see," I said as she smiled, reaching into the box to pull out more stuff.

[/Harley]

[Nick]

I had tried to give Harley time with Ella today, to get her situated living here and set her room up while Jon and I went and played a few rounds of golf. The others had pretty much went home after they saw that Ella wasn't a normal little girl who had been living a happy life the past few years and that we had a situation to deal with.

And I was honestly scared. What if I touched her the wrong way? What if I try to hug her and she freaks out? I'm so used to hugging Sadie all the time that what if I forget with Ella? I feel as if she's scared of me, even if she knew who I was when we met her.

"I'll be back in a few, I'm taking Sadie over to stay with Dad and Nadine tonight, she's been asking," Harley said as I gave Sadie a kiss on the cheek. I watched them walk out the back door and picked Noah up from his high chair and started walking towards the staircase with him.

"You know you have another big sister now," I said as he stared at him. He didn't really get it and I knew he didn't. I watched him hold onto his juice cup as we reached the second floor and I walked down the hallway, hearing one of Harley's old songs playing.

I stopped in the doorway, seeing Ella standing there in front of the mirror with her hairbrush, lip syncing to "Better Than Revenge."

Talk about ironic.

"You like that song?" I asked as Ella jumped, turning the song off. "You could have kept playing it, I don't mind."

"I just like singing and dancing," she said as she watched me.

"Can Noah and I come in?" I asked as she nodded, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "I like what you did to the room." I looked over, seeing the poster of Harley and smile. I remembered when that picture was taken. "That's one of my favorite pictures of Harley. That's the day I asked her to marry me."

"She told me, at a castle in England," Ella said as I nodded, staring at the picture.

"So... you feeling okay here?" I asked, looking back at her. "I mean, everything is okay, right?"

"I like having a little sister and a little brother," Ella said as I smiled, but jumped when Noah's juice cup turned sideways, spilling down my t-shirt. "Oh no..."

"It's okay, I have to go shower soon anyway," I said, putting Noah down on the floor. He walked up to Ella and she picked him up as I took my t-shirt off that had juice all over it.

"GO!!" Ella started screaming, holding onto Noah as I stared at her. "GET OUT!!!"

"What's wrong?" I asked as I started to take a step forward and she held onto Noah, climbing into the middle of the bed. She started screaming at the top of her lungs, causing Noah to start crying and I had no idea what to do. "Here, give me Noah," I said as I started to move closer and she started screaming more. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"GET OUT! LEAVE ME ALONE!!"

"What's going on?" I heard, looking over at Harley who was out of breath. "I heard screaming as I was coming back," she said as she walked over to the bed where both Noah and Ella were in tears. "What's wrong? What happened?" Harley asked as Ella pointed at me.

"I wasn't doing anything," I sighed. "Noah spilled his juice on me and I took my t-shirt off," I said, pausing when I realized what I had done. Fuck. She must have thought...

"He has those things on him," Ella cried, pointing to my arms.

"My tattoos?" I asked as she nodded. Then I realized... the guy must have had tattoos. That's why she was skittish around AJ and wanted nothing to do with him. "They're just marks..."

"Sweetie, he's not going to hurt you or Noah," Harley said, looking at Ella. "Did he have tattoos?" She nodded.

"And hair on his lip," Ella whispered, as I sighed. And there went why she didn't like Jon. "I don't want it to happen again and he took his shirt off... and I didn't want him to hit Noah for spilling his juice or touch me..."

I didn't know what to say. There was nothing I could say because nothing I would have said would have changed her mind. I just sighed, walking out of the room and leaned against the wall in the hallway.

I closed my eyes, trying my best not to cry but I didn't know how I was going to handle this.

I wasn't prepared for anything like this.

[/Nick]