Chapter 79 - Stay Together, But Alone

"I thought you were dead." she says again, with a lump in her throat the size of Texas, "I buried you." 

 She sits there and stares at him, as he eases up to an easier sitting position, keeping an eye on Jon and Matt, as well as everyone walking by.  The whispers aren't quiet and the stares are obvious, but Beth is oblivious to it all.  She can't take her eyes off of Brian.  

"You're as beautiful as I remember." he says to her, wiping blood from his split lip, his heart is racing as he can't believe that he is face to face with her after all of this time.  

"You're dead!"

With a half smile and a black eye, he tells her, "I'm not."

"I seen the car.  You were killed in a car crash." is all she can say.  Jon watches her struggle with what's going on and kneels next to her.  He startles her, she looks over at him and bursts out crying.  Jon can only do one thing, he grabs her in his arms and stands her up again.  When she is to her feet, he swoops her up and takes her in his arms.

As he turns to take Beth in the house and out of the nightmare he tells Matt, "Let him go."  Jon takes his shocked and hysterical bride into the house.  Passing the guests that were still around, stopping to talk to no one.  Beth has her face buried in Jon's neck, mumbling and crying.  And Jon is thinking to himself this was our day, this was her day.

"Seriously?"  Matt mouths back, disappointed that this was the end of his security detail.

Brian, totally caught off guard by the reception that he got mumbles to Matt, "Hey man, I mean no disrespect.  I didn't know that there was a wedding going on until I crested the hill, but by then, I was committed."  Brian attempted to get to his feet, a little wobbly he manages to get upright, leaning on Matt's Mercedes Benz.  "I'll go.  I just had to see her."

"Why the fuck did you even come here?"

Brian, having really no idea who Matt is tells him, "When I figured out where she was, I had to see her.  I never meant to ruin her wedding day."

"Who the hell are you?"  Matt asks, getting in Brian's face, "Who?"  He screams.  Brian can see the veins in his head pop and his face turn red.  "And why are you here today?"

"I'm going to go.  Please tell Beth and Jon that I'm sorry, but I had to see her."  Brain steadies himself and starts to walk away, "I had no idea she was getting married today."

"Don't you read the paper or watch TV, man?" Matt sarcastically asks, "Have you been under a rock?  This wedding was the wedding of the century."

Brian stops, rights his clothes a little and runs his fingers through his hair, "Who are you?"

That pissed Matt off, kind of worse than ever before, everyone knows who Matt is, right?  "I'm Jon's head security officer and his brother.  WHO ARE YOU?"

"I was engaged to Beth a very long time ago."

"I know that.  Where have you been and why are you here?"  Matt is getting even more irritated with the situation and decides, "Ya know what, I don't even want to know.  Get in your car or however you  got here and don't come back."

Brian and Matt have a stare off that is interrupted by the police pulling down the long driveway, stopping at the bloodied man that's towered by the tall guy in a tux.

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Jon takes his new bride to their bedroom and lays her on their bed, gently he whispers "Can I get you anything?"  He kisses her forehead and waits for her reply.  There is none.  "Babe, what do you need?"

She just shakes her head no.

"What do you want me to do?" he pleads with her, just wanting to help her.

Beth lays on their bed, staring at the ceiling.  She can hear the twins running down the hall and that catches her attention.  She sits up, still in her dirty wedding gown, the flowers in her hair are messed up and falling out.  When she sees the twins, she snaps out of her daze, sort of.  "Hey you two." she reaches out for the twins.  "Come here and see mommy."  Spencer and Rowan take her hands and climb up on the bed with Beth.  Jon sits with them and watches some happiness come over her face, when she kisses her babies.  "Where are your brothers and your sister?"  she asks the twins.  She didn't need them to answer, the rest of the kids ran in with Stephanie towing the line.  "Hey."

"What's going on dad?" Jesse asks, standing before his dad like he's the protector of the family, "Who was that guy?"

"Yeah, the one that Uncle Tony beat up." Blurts Jake with the excitement of a young boy that just seen an MMA fight.

Jon knows that the time to explain it all isn't now, "We'll talk about it all later, okay?  Why don't you all get changed, the plane will be waiting for us."

Beth looks at Jon, in disbelief, "The plane?" she has Spencer on her lap and one hand holding Rowan from falling off the bed as she jumped.  "Jon...."

"We're going Beth."

"Jon."

Beth looks at the kids, all very unsure of what's going on or what's going to happen.  Romeo is focused on catching Rowan, convinced that she's going to jump off of the edge of the bed, and he's ready.  "Beth, do you want me to take them?"  Stephanie asks, "I can get them out of their clothes and into shorts."

Beth shakes her head no, "Did everyone leave?"  She asks the eldest of the kids, having no idea.  The last 20 minutes have been a blur.  An earth shattering, mind blowing blur.

"Yeah, almost everybody.  The cops are here now."  Jesse tells her, "Grandma and Grandpa are down stairs with uncle Tony.  He's still pretty fired up."

"Yeah, he was really upset." Stephanie adds, "His hands are pretty banged up."

Jon stands up, frustrated and feeling trapped.  There is nothing that he can do about the situation that they are now in.  He cannot undo the craziness that they just were thrown into.  He twists the new band that's on his finger, burning some nervous energy, "Rose, will you take the twins to grandma or Pete?  Beth needs to get cleaned up."

"Yeah dad." Stephanie and Jesse take the twins and the children go downstairs.  Leaving the newlyweds alone.

When they are alone, Jon turns to Beth, "What do you want to do?"

Beth gets up, gathering her dress in a bunch in the front of her and walks to Jon.  With a soft kiss she asks him, "Are you okay?"  His arms slide around her waist and he pulls her tight, holding her like he has never held her before, feeling like he has never felt before.

His lips rest on her head and he asks her, "How do you think I'm doing?  You're first love just objected to our marriage."

"It doesn't count." she tries to laugh, "We're married."

"How are you doing?" he knows the answer, but he has to ask, "You seem to be handling this a little better than I am."

She looks up to him and sees the uncertainty in his eyes, "I can't have this affecting me like it could, Jon."

"What do you mean?"

"I about had a heart attack when I seen him.  When it finally sunk in that he was alive - a million questions surfaced and a ton of feelings came back, but I looked at you and I knew that together, we will get through this.  I could so easily shut you out and deal with this on my own, but that is not what I just promised to do."

"What are you feeling?" he laces his fingers behind her back and keeps her close, he's not letting her walk away because if he does, she might not talk about it again and that would kill him.  "What are you thinking?"

Beth rests her head on his chest and starts to tell him, "I have so many questions, but I just want to know what happened.  Where he went, why he was gone for so long, did his parents know, why did he come here?"

"We can get those answers in time, I'm sure."

"I am so angry right now."

"I know, let's get on the plane and go.  We can get away, on our honeymoon, and think this through."

Beth looks up at him, "You really want to leave and go on our honeymoon?"

"I do.  And I think you need to get away, now more than ever."

"I can't just get on a plane and act like this never happened."

He takes a deep breath, "I asked you what you wanted to do, and you never answered me.  I think that staying here right now isn't in the best interest of any of us, babe."

"Why do you think that?" she questions, with a tone that pushes one of Jon's buttons and he lets her know it.

Holding her at arms length, he looks at her and says, "We just seen a man that you thought has been dead.  A man that you were going to marry.  He pops up from nowhere and do you think that this was a one time thing?"  Jon's voice escalates as he talks because he knows that she's not thinking clearly.  "Do you think that he won't come back?  What are his intentions?"

"We need to find out."

"Do we?  Do you really need to know?  He's ancient history and on the day that we say I do, he shows up.  Don't you think that all of that is suspicious?"

"Jon, he wasn't an angry man.  He didn't have a mean bone in his body."

"Beth!"

"Whhhaaatttt?" she snaps, pulling away from him.  As she tries to clear her head, she starts to take the flowers from her hair and let's the curls fall where they may.

"We are getting on that plane and getting out of town for a few days."

She looks at him, lifts an eyebrow and says, "I don't think that's a good idea."

"This will hit the press and we aren't going to have a moments peace.  Jesus Christ, we just got married."

Beth stands before him, back to him, "Can you untie this, please."  She needs his help getting out of her dirty wedding dress that no longer holds special memories for her.  As she feels it loosen, she's reminded of the dress that she swore she would get married in.  The one that she had when she was going to marry Brian.  The one that she saved all of those years and is sitting in a cedar chest just a few feet away from her.   "It's a good thing that Vera made this for me and I decided to start life with you with a new dress.  Imagine him seeing me in the dress I had picked when I was going to marry him."

The ties are undone and Beth is sliding the gown down her body.  Jon can see her beautiful body, in a lace bra and lace thong - along with matching garters and stockings.  He can see the piece of paper stuck in her garter belt, "What's that?"

Beth reaches down and slides the note from her garter, telling Jon, "That's the note that Rose delivered to me, what seems like a lifetime ago now."

"You had it with you?"  he's surprised by that.  

"As soon as I read it, I slid it in my garter.  It's priceless and it needed to be with me." she smiles as she steps out of the gown that lay on the floor in a heap.  She can finally see the dirt and the grass that's on it, no idea that it was that bad.  "Vera would be pissed if she seen this."

"BETH!!"

She turns on her heals, shocked with his tone.  "What Jon?"

"Stop!  Just fucking stop, please." he runs his finger through his hair, his habitual stress relief, then he starts to undo his die.  Once the tie is undone, the tie and the jacket get thrown on top of Beth's wedding gown, where he thinks it all should burn.

"Stop what?"  she almost mimics him, grabbing her robe from the closet.  "What am I doing now, Jon?"

"I think that you are in denial or something."

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are.  Look at the way you're acting."

"Acting?  I just got out of my dirty wedding dress, how is that acting?" she snaps, knowing where this could be headed.

"Your dead ex fiance was just here, he had his ass beat by my brother and you are acting like that is all okay." he starts to explain, but she walks away.  Beth leaves the master bedroom, in just her undergarments and bathroom and heads downstairs, looking out the windows as she goes.  Jon is right behind her, "Where are you going?"  

She keeps walking but she does say to him, "I need to go check on Brian."  Jon is furious.  Jon seen when the switch flipped and Beth reverted to the Beth that she was when she lost the twins and when McKenna was killed.  Jon called it her self preservation mode, and he understood it - but this time he wasn't going to let it happen.  She was going to deal with it and she was going to deal with it in the proper way and closing him out and walking away was not the way that it was going to go down.

Together they reach the bottom of the stairs, "Don't go out there.  We need to talk about this first."  he tells her, demanding that she stop.  She opens the french door and steps out.  As soon as she sees the cop car at the end of the driveway, she starts to run - toward the scene in the driveway that now had reporters lining the dead end street.  News travels fast when you're dealing with any Bongiovi, specially one that has had the life that Jon has had and now Tony is in the news for assaulting an ex fiance.  

Jon starts to run after her, but stops.  "Beth."  She keeps going.  He stands there and watches her run away, to the man that she once loved.  To the man that died and made her almost untouchable.  

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Jon turns around and goes into the house, finding his family.  They all are in the family room, watching the scene unfold in the driveway.  They all know that they can't go out there, the pictures and the misinterpretation in the press would be too much.  Over the years, they all have learned when to stay and when to go - and this is one time to stay.  "Get your bags, kids.  When she comes in, we're leaving.  The plane is still waiting."

"Are you sure that you want to leave?"  Tony finally speaks, "This is going to get ugly."

"That's exactly why we're leaving."

Senior decides to weigh in on this, "What the hell is going on?  Did you guys know he was alive?"  

Jon shakes his head no and looks to Stephanie, "Can you please go gather bags so we can go."  Jon can see the amount of reporters increasing at the end of the driveway, "We need to get out of here, while we can."

Mrs. B stands and tells Stephanie, "I'll help you Steph. Jon, do you want them to change?"

"Please." he says.

His mom and the kids all go get bags and get changed.  Jon's anxiety is growing, knowing the shit storm that's going to come.  "Do you need a ride home?"  He looks at Tony.

"No, I called Chris.  He's meeting me out back in an hour.  I'll grab a flight from Newark."

"Okay.  Thank you for your help out there."

Tony gives a forced laugh, "Isn't that my job, as your younger brother?  To protect you?"

"Are you okay?  Do I need to get you a doctor?" Jon asks his little brother, feeling a sense of closeness to him that he's never felt before.  

Tony shook his head, as he sat there drinking a beer.  "I think that guy might,"

"Beth is out there, if she thinks he needs to go - he'll go."  Jon sits on the arm of a couch and watches the madness outside.  Beth in her bathrobe, Brian bloody and swollen and Matt angry as hell, animated and upset, are all talking to the cops.  As the minutes passed and the family is ready to go, Jon's frustration is at an all time high.  

He opens the door and starts to walk out toward his wife and brother.  Matt was walking toward him and Beth was still back with the police officer.  As Jon and Matt passed, Matt mumbles, "This is fucked up."  He pats his brother on the shoulder and goes into the house.  Jon takes a deep breath and starts to walk toward the three still let in the driveway.  He makes it only a few feet when he sees Beth get into the cop car with Brian, and the cop car pulls away.  Stopping dead in his tracks, his heart is on the ground - he for the first time is paralyzed.  He can't move a muscle.

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Jon, Pete and all 6 kids board the Bon Jovi jet and embark on the honeymoon that he and Beth had planned.  He didn't wait for a phone call.  He didn't wait for her to return.  She never should have gotten into that car with Brian.  She knew his concerns and how could she forget that they were JUST married?