Chapter 87 - I Still Got My Dreams

For Beth to hear those two words in the same sentence makes her weak at the knees.  Her natural response is to look at Jon, for an answer, a clue - for anything. 

She has no idea what to do, much less say.  Her heart is beating so hard, she can feel it through the knot of the sheet that she's holding.  "Beth, go inside!"  Jon barks at her.  She doesn't move.  All she can hear is Dalton and Brian, Dalton and Brian.  "BETH!!" he barks a little louder.  "Go inside and close the door.  All the while they are being recorded and photographed and Jon is livid.

Beth snaps out of the trance that she's in, shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she walks over to Jon and takes his hand, "We are going inside."  And she pulls.  He's like a dead weight, she can't get him to budge.  "Come on Jon."

'Go in and check on the kids." he firmly tells her, and when she looks him in the eye, she doesn't like what she sees.  Using that as her guide, she does as she's told and turns to go inside.  She looks back over her shoulder and knows that this isn't going to play out well.  In the press or in real life.

Beth closes the door behind her and makes sure that the shears are covering the windows.  The kids are all sitting in front of the TV.  The twins are drinking a juice box and Romeo is playing the PlayStation.  They older kids are sitting there, waiting - but they're not sure what for.  Once Beth is sure that they are safe from even the best of camera lenses, she sits next to Stephanie, "This is crazy."  She winks at the young woman, and before she could finish her next sentence she gets interrupted by Jesse.

"We should have known that something was going to happen." 

Beth can't help but laugh, because what he said was true.  Did they really think that they could get away for any length of time, did they think that they could have some quality family time without the prying eye of the press.  There's that, and did they really think that life could go along smoothly.

It was a while before Jon came into the suite, it was so long actually, the kids lost interest in what was going on out there.  Beth was still watching and when she seen Jon come her way, she met him at the door.  With it closed tightly behind him, he tells her, "We need to pack up and move.:

"Move?  What do you mean?  Why?"  her hands go on her hips, "Go where ?"

With a slight chuckle, Jon tells her, "Put your robe on and we'll talk."  Beth looks down at herself, forgetting that she had a bed sheet wrapped around her, tied in a knot.  They were so rudely woken up, she has been only in one train of thought.  She smiles up at Jon and turns to the bedroom, he is right behind her.  

She pulls her robe on and lets the sheet fall to the floor, "What's going on?"

"Well, they aren't going to leave us alone.  We need to go somewhere private and exclusive now."

"Why won't they leave us alone?" she sits on the bed and gives him her best pouty face, "Why can't they ever leave us alone?"

He sits next to her, resting a hand on her leg, "Well, it seems like this is quite the story.  Do you remember the car accident that we were in?"

"A long time ago, in Jersey?"

"Yeah, why?"

"The reporter that was just yelling for you was the first one on that scene, he's the one that took all of the pictures with you bleeding in the car.  The one that sold them for a ton of money." he starts to explain to her

"And, why is he here?" she fires back, reminded of that day some anger rises to the surface.  The first thing that came to mind was the spoons being all over the road.  She has a very vivid memory of that, the engraved baby spoons scattered about that New Jersey highway.

"He's been following us."  

"He followed us here?"

Jon slowly nods his head, having no intention of telling her that he has been following them for as far back as anyone could remember, as Jon could tell, he has been a shadow for years.  "He did follow us here,  they are why we need to leave.  We need to get out of here and someplace secluded."

Beth doesn't know what to say, she's not even sure if she has any thing to say.  She just looks at him. 

The knock on the door startled both of them, "Come in."  Jon answers.  The door creeped open and in popped Pete.

"I overheard the conversation, shall I get the kids's stuff together?"

"Could you, Pete?"  Jon asks, realizing how lucky they are to have Pete.  "And let them know that we are moving."

Beth doesn't want to run, she doesn't want anymore bullshit - she wants to enjoy her honeymoon with her new husband and the children.  "Jon, let's just get additional security and stay here.   I'm sick of running all the time."

Pete stands there and waits for further direction.  They love Italy and Beth wants to stay.  "With the bomb that was dropped on us at our ceremony, the press will not leave us alone - as long as we are accessible."

"But we're not accessible, they are the paparazzi."

"We know that and we know that the aren't going to leave us alone." he reminds her, "They will stay on this until we talk about it."

"We aren't talking about it, Jon.  This is our damn honeymoon."  his arm goes around her an in an instant, he's holding her close.

"We are leaving here.  We can find another hotel, or maybe a little villa up in wine country.  But we are not staying here." he looks up to Pete, "Will you get the kids ready?"

Pete takes her leave and rounds up the kids, getting all of their bags together while Jon and Beth do the same.  Once Jon has his bag packed, he starts making some calls.  After a few pissed off ones and a few calmer ones, he was able to find a villa up in the hills and they were soon on their way.

The villa was beautiful and it was very secluded and private.  They all seemed to like it and the kids immediately ran to the lake in the back, jumping into paddle boats.  Jon and Beth, hand in hand took a walk of the grounds and he could see in her eyes that she was thinking about her vineyard, "You miss it don't you?"

"I do very much." with his hand in hers, she gives him a gentle pull and pulls him to her, "But I wouldn't give up all of this family time to do it again."

"But you still miss it."

"I do, but I have the one in Jersey and the one in California and they are doing well.  That's all I need."

"Regret?" he kisses her forehead, looking over her at his twins running to catch up with Pete.  "Any regret at all?"

"About?"

"The vineyards, life choices, you know - is there anything that you would change?" he somberly asks her, knowing that there were several things that they both would change, if they could.

She starts to walk, pulling him along, "Sure, there is alot I would change, but I don't know if I could."

"What do you mean?" 

"What if we could go back and change things, would we be where we are today?"

"I don't know."

"Would changing my accident in the Bahama's brought us to here?"

Jon just shrugs his shoulders.

"Would regretting anything or changing anything lead us to where we are NOT right now?  Unmarried and apart"

Jon stops walking.  "If I could give up being married to you and change things, I would go back and change the fact that you were attacked, I would change the fact that we had to bury children..."

Beth can see that he means what he's saying and it breaks her heart to be reminded of all the horror that they have been through, but it's all fact.  It's happened and they managed to come out on the other side okay.  "I think that we needed to go through that to get where we are, silly, I know - but I think we were tested to see if we deserved being married to one another."

"You think so?" Jon questions, "I didn't think that you put too much faith in the powers that will be."

"I don't, but there has to be some reasoning behind putting one family through so much hell, right?"

"One would think." he states, seeing that in her own mind, she doesn't believe a word of it.  "So why are we still being tested?"

With a few more steps, they make it to the blanket that Pete had laid out and they sit down and continue the conversation, "Do you mean why is Brian back and Dorothea somehow involved."

"Yeah."

"God hates me."  Beth tells him, quite matter of factly. "That's the only reason I can come up with."