No More Tears - Chapter Six
Author: Michelle Perry
Fandom: Journey
Warnings: M/F (Steve/OFC), Strong language, Violence
Part: 6/7
You Can Never Go Home Again
Beth watched Ozzy’s house recede as Steve drove away. I can’t believe it, she thought. I’m free. I’m really free. She looked at Steve and a wide grin spread across her face. She was so giddily ecstatic that the blood rushed to her head. Suddenly, she felt light-headed and queasy. She leaned forward, groaning as the movement sent a flash of pain up her arm.
“What’s the matter?” Steve asked. “Are you okay?” Beth tried to say she was fine, but what came out was a nauseated groan. “Uh-oh.” Steve pulled the car over. Beth opened the door and stuck her head out just in time. Her stomach began to heave violently. Since she hadn’t eaten in over forty-eight hours, the only thing that came up was bile, which burned her throat severely. Eventually, she stopped retching. She sat there, looking at the gunk that had until recently resided inside her stomach, and took several deep breaths. She noticed that Steve’s hand was gently rubbing her back. “Are you okay?” he asked her. Beth nodded. She spat out the last of the bile and wiped her mouth. Then she sat back in her seat, wincing as her arm was jarred again.
“You don’t look okay,” Steve said. He reached over and pulled the fabric away from the cut on her arm. “You’re still bleeding! I need to do something before you lose any more blood. I have to go to the trunk to get some water, but I’ll be right back, okay?”
Beth gave him a weak smile and he left. He was back in a few seconds with a gallon of water and a little black bag. He took a tiny pair of scissors out of the bag and began cutting away her ripped and bloody sleeve. Then he took off his own shirt and started to rip it into strips. Beth’s eyes widened when she saw that his chest was covered with bruises and cuts. “Steve!”
He looked up, startled. Then he smiled. “It’s okay. I’ve given up on going home with any of my shirts in tact.”
“Not that! You’re covered with bruises. What happened to you?”
Steve grimaced. “Oh, that. A little present from your father’s guards.”
“He set the guards on you?!”
“Don’t worry,” Steve said. “It looks a lot worse than it is.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Beth told him. “I’ve seen what those bastards are capable of.” Beth was getting angrier by the second. “I can’t believe he would do that to you when he knew you were only trying to help me.”
Steve shrugged. “He wanted to get rid of me.”
“I’m so sorry,” Beth said. She lightly touched Steve’s chest, and hurt, angry tears filled her eyes. “I won’t ever forgive him for this.”
“Don’t feel bad. I’m fine. Really.”
“But what about…”
She felt Steve’s hand on her face, and she looked up at him. “Okay. I’ll be honest with you, Beth. It was awful. All of it. I was on my knees to more bankers than I can even remember to get the money for your ransom. But at least I didn’t despise them. Crawling to Desmond Westlake was a different story. It was pretty hard the first time. The second time was absolute hell. And what did I get out of it? I got the crap beaten out of me, that’s what I got. When the guards were finally done with me, I thought I was going to die. But you know something, Beth? I would do it all over again. The bruises, the humiliation - all of it, and more. As long as it meant having you here with me now.”
Beth looked down. More tears spilled down her face, but they were no longer tears of anger. She wiped her face and looked at him. “You have got to be the sweetest person I have ever met.”
Steve smiled and finished tearing his shirt into strips. He wet one of them and began to clean the blood from her arm. She knew he was working as slowly and as gently as he could, but it hurt terribly all the same. She held her breath and tried to pretend it hurt less than it did so that Steve wouldn’t worry. Finally it was done. He wrapped both the cuts with his makeshift bandages. Then he cleaned the blood from her neck and wrapped another strip loosely around it. “All finished,” he said. “That should be okay until I find a hospital.”
Steve drove on, and Beth watched him, thinking about how lucky she was. This man knew hardly anything about her, but he had gone through so much to help her - even risking his life by coming back to Ozzy’s house to get her. What a guy. Kind, funny, handsome, and brave. Not a bad combination, she said to herself, smiling drowsily at him. Not bad at all.
Steve looked over at Beth’s sleeping form. Pretty, he thought. She’s so pretty. And sweet. And brave. He could only imagine what it must have been like for her. Trapped in Ozzy’s basement, not knowing whether she would even be alive the next day. And she was so caring. There she was, literally sick from the deep slashes Ozzy had given her, and she had concerned herself more with his bruises than her own wounds! He liked her. A lot. He wished he could take her home with him. But soon, he would be taking her home so she could get back to her own life. Maybe he could at least ask her to go out some time. Or for a phone number? No. It might seem like he was making that a condition of rescuing her. That wouldn’t be fair.Steve sighed. Soon, Beth would go back to life in her mansion, and Steve would go back to his tiny apartment, waiting tables and trying to break into the music industry. Failing to break in, he amended wryly. He thought about his disastrous auditions and began to feel depressed. His original reason for going to the East Coast had failed. He’d succeeded in saving Beth by the skin of his teeth, but now that adventure was coming to an end, and he would have to go back to his dull life without her. And now he had the added stress of having a huge loan to pay off on a waiter’s salary. What a drag.After a while, Steve found a hospital to take Beth to. He accompanied Beth into the doctor’s office. After all the preliminary questions, weightings, etc. they waited a little longer for a doctor to come. The doctor asked Beth what had happened, and she told her all about how Ozzy had attacked her. Steve found out how Beth’s right wrist had gotten bruised, and just how the cuts got on her arm. The doctor nodded and shook her head alternatively while she inspected Beth’s wounds. Then she put stitches on Beth’s cuts, re-bandaged all of them - including the cut on her left hand that Steve had noticed the first day he met her. She prescribed some pain medication for Beth, and said that Steve could use it as well, since he had obviously had some rough handling himself. She gave Beth some instructions regarding her stitches - don’t pick and don’t get them wet - and said she should change the bandages every few days. She then suggested that they fill out a police report as soon as possible and sent them on their way.
When they got to L.A., Beth asked Steve to take her to her father’s house. “Of course,” Steve said, although he looked as if he would rather not. They drove back to the mansion and he looked at it in distaste. They sat in the car for a while, and Beth didn’t move. Finally, she turned to Steve. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “You’ve been really silent this whole trip.”Steve looked a little surprised. “I… I guess I’m just not ready to say good-bye yet.”"Good-bye? Why would we be saying good-bye?”
“Because you’re home now, so you don’t really need me anymore.”
“What do you mean, I don’t need you anymore? Of course I need you!” Beth was getting upset. She’d hoped to get the chance to be with Steve when her ordeal with Ozzy was over. Now that she could, it looked like he was just going to drop her off and fade out of her life. “Don’t…” she began hesitantly. “Don’t you want to be with me?”
“Of course I do!” Steve answered immediately. “I’d like nothing better than to take you home with me. It’s just… Well, since I’m the one who rescued you, I thought… Maybe it would seem like…”
“Like I had to pay you back.”
“Exactly. And I didn’t want you to feel that way, so I didn’t ask. And I also know you’re used to being wealthy and everything. But I don’t have much to offer you in the way of money. So I thought I would just take you home and let you get back to your normal life.”
Beth shook her head. “First of all, my life in that house was not normal,” she said. “Far from it. My father didn’t approve of my friends, so he treated me like some kind of prisoner. I couldn’t go out alone, and I was always under close surveillance. He even took away all the phones upstairs, so I couldn’t use the phone unless he knew about it. Whenever he went on business trips, he kept me locked in that house with no visitors, and guards watching me all the time. I had about as much freedom with my father as I had with Ozzy. Less, really. At least with Ozzy I could stay up as long as I wanted to at night. I’m 21 years old, and my curfew was 10:00! It was strictly enforced by him and his rotten guards. So, even if I don’t go with you, I’m not going back there. I’ll never go back to living that way. Not ever.
“As for money, that is the last thing I care about. My father has about as much money as a person can have, and what good has it ever done me? He used it to imprison me, and when I needed it the most, he flatly refused to part with it. I know you can’t offer me much in the way of money. But you offer me something better than that. You care about me. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank you enough for what you’ve done for me. You saved my life more than once. You’ve gone to more trouble than most people would even consider going through for some chick they met on an airplane. And don’t tell me it’s because I saved your life first. You wouldn’t have come to the house at all if you didn’t care about me even then. I’ll be grateful to you for a long time, Steve. Probably forever. But if you ask me to come with you to San Francisco, I won’t do it because I think I need to pay you back. I’ll do it because I think you’re a wonderful guy and I would love to be with you.”
Steve smiled broadly at her, and she returned his smile. “In that case, will you join me at my place in San Francisco?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “I’ll just go in and say good-bye, and we can be on our way.”
Steve watched Beth get out of the car, but she didn’t go anywhere. After a moment, she looked back at him. She no longer looked happy and confident as she had before she got out of the car. She looked anxious. “Will you come with me?” she asked. Steve didn’t really want to come within 100 yards of the house again, but he could tell she needed support. He got out of the car and they walked toward the front door together. As they got closer, Beth slowed down, and eventually stopped altogether a few feet from the door. “What’s the matter?” Steve asked.Beth didn’t answer at first. Then she said, “I don’t want to see my father.”"I can understand that,” Steve told her.
“That’s not all.” Beth sighed and looked at the ground. “This is going to sound really silly,” she said at last. “But I feel like if I go in there, I might never get out again.”
“It doesn’t sound silly at all,” Steve said. “Believe me. I’m feeling the exact same way.” He took her hand in his and squeezed it reassuringly. Then he stepped forward and pounded the knocker.
After a few moments, the door opened and their butler poked his head out. He scowled when he saw Steve. “You again?! One would think you’d have learned your lesson by now. Go away, or I’ll - ”
“Open the door, Gregory,” Beth said sternly. Steve raised his eyebrows at her imperious tone. He grinned a little when Gregory just stood there for several moments looking at her in utter shock. “Some time today, please,” Beth prompted.
“Oh… er, of course, Miss Westlake. Come right in.” He opened the door and Beth walked in, still holding Steve’s hand.
“Tell my stepmother I’m here and I’d like to see her.”
“Right away.”
The butler shuffled away, and Beth sat down next to Steve on one of the couches. “I’m impressed,” Steve said.
“With what?” Beth asked.
“The way you handled that butler.”
Beth rolled her eyes. “He’s a big jerk,” she said. “He always used to treat my friends like that. Back when I was allowed to have friends, that is. I just treat him like the asshole he is.”
They waited for a short while. Then Steve heard footsteps coming from the hall. They stood up, but Steve was disappointed to see Beth’s father instead of Renee. Steve looked at him with distaste as he spread his arms wide and smiled at Beth. “Elizabeth! I’m so glad you’ve come home at last!” He came toward her as if he were going to give her a hug.
Beth recoiled, and Steve stepped in front of her. “Back off,” he said. “Beth doesn’t want to see you right now.”
“How dare you come between me and my daughter?” he asked. “Stand aside!”
Steve shook his head. “Not on your life.”
“I told you to stand aside! Must I call my guards?”
Steve certainly didn’t want that, but he stood his ground anyway. He was tired of being threatened by this creep, and he wasn’t going to give in. It seemed, however, that Beth had had enough as well. She pushed forward, seething with rage. “You heard what he said,” she growled through clenched teeth. “I don’t want to see you right now. Now or ever!”
“Elizabeth! How can you speak to me that way? After I planned to give you a special gift now that you’ve returned home?”
“Shut up, you bastard!” she shouted. Steve’s eyes widened. He’d never seen her so angry before. Beth took another step toward her father, shouting even louder. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do! You think you can just give me a big grin and a few dollars and I won’t tell anybody what you did to me. Well you can forget it! Every reporter I can find is going to get an earful about what a greedy asshole you are!!”
Her father looked mildly alarmed. Then he smiled smugly. “You can’t. You have no real proof.”
“You think I need proof? They’ll print my story whether there’s proof or not. And I hope it ruins you! You may not go to jail for what you did, but you’re going to pay!” It was Steve’s turn to give a smug smile. So there, he thought.
“Now, Elizabeth,” he said, a little nervously. “Let’s just sit down and talk about this.” He stepped toward her, and she held up her hand.
“NO!” she shouted. “Back. Off. If you take one more step toward me I swear, I’ll hurt you.” Steve thought that under normal circumstances Westlake might have laughed at such a threat. Beth was a good three inches shorter than he, and one arm was heavily bandaged and obviously useless. But Beth was practically vibrating with fury. Steve felt sure that if Westlake had taken that one step forward, she would have caused some serious damage before the guards arrived to save him. Apparently, Westlake wasn’t going to take that chance. He stood still, looking at her with a mixture of anger and worry.
At that moment, Renee arrived. “Beth!” Renee came over, completely ignoring her husband’s presence, and took Beth in her arms. Beth’s father slunk out of the room while they hugged. “I’m so glad you’re safe,” Renee said, breaking the embrace at last. “Thank you, Steve. You said you’d get her out, and you’ve done it.”
Steve shook his head. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Yes, thank you so much, Renee,” Beth said.
“I’m just glad I could help.” Renee smiled at Beth for a few moments. Then she said, “Where are you headed now? I don’t think you plan to stay here, do you?”
“Oh, no. Steve asked me to stay with him, so I’m off to San Francisco.”
“That’s wonderful, dear. Is there anything I can give you before you go?”
“I just need a few of my clothes right now,” Beth answered. “I can send for the rest of my things later.”
“Certainly.” Renee called the butler, and told him to pack a bag for Beth. “But what about money, dear?” Renee asked when the butler had gone.
“I have my savings,” Steve said. “I’m sure we’ll be all right.”
“I know you don’t think I should pay you back, Steve, but I insist on helping the two of you with something. Now wait here and don’t argue.” Renee left the room, and came back shortly with a thick envelope. “This isn’t much - just some cash I had in the house with me, but I insist that you take it.” She handed the envelope to Beth. “Consider it a parting gift, dear.”
“Thanks, Renee,” Beth said. Steve thanked her as well. Soon, the butler came with Beth’s bag. They said good-bye to Renee, went back to the car and drove off.
“I just need to make one more stop, and we can go, okay?” Steve asked.
“Sure.”
Steve drove them to the bank where he’d finally managed to convince someone to give him a loan. They went in, and he asked one of the tellers if Malcolm was available. He was, and Steve took Beth back to his office. Steve tapped on the open door, and Malcolm looked up. He smiled. “Hello, Steve! I must say, I’m surprised to see you here.”
“Well, I did promise to show you what the bank was investing its money in. So here she is.” Steve stepped into the office, and gestured for Beth to come in too. She did so, and smiled shyly at the banker. “Malcolm, meet Beth. Beth, this is the banker who lent me your ransom money.”
Beth’s smile widened even more. She walked up to Malcolm, put her good arm around him and hugged him tightly. “Thank you so much,” she said.
“I… you’re welcome,” Malcolm said. He looked completely flabbergasted. Beth let him go after a while, and went back to stand beside Steve. Malcolm shook his head a couple of times. “I’m not sure I ever fully believed your story until now, Steve,” he said. “I just went out on a limb when I gave you that loan. But I’m glad I did.”
“So am I,” Steve said. “So am I.”
After their visit with Malcolm, Steve took Beth out for lunch. He had been quiet for some time, and Beth wondered what was wrong with him. Finally, she asked him what the matter was. “I was just thinking about your house. And Renee. I mean, she talked about the cash she just had lying around the house, and she gave you over a thousand dollars!”"So what?”"So I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting into by coming to live with me. There’s no way I can offer you that kind of lifestyle.”
“I know that, Steve. I don’t want you to try.”
“It’s going to be really hard living with me, you know,” Steve warned. “I still have that loan to pay off, and my job isn’t really worth much. We’ll be struggling a lot.”
“I know.” Beth frowned at him. It sounded like Steve might be changing his mind about her coming to stay with him. “Why are you worrying about this?” she asked. “I’ve already told you that I don’t care how much money you have. I don’t expect to live like an heiress. And it’s not like I can’t get a job myself. So what’s the problem?”
“I just don’t want you to change your mind when things start getting rough,” he said.
“Steve, what kind of person do you think I am?” she asked, getting frustrated. “Do I look like some kind of weakling who’s going to run to daddy the moment I can’t afford designer jeans!? I know it’s not going to be easy. But I’ve been through worse. Look at me! I’ve been kidnapped, slashed at, and almost murdered, for heaven’s sake! What makes you think I can’t handle being poor?”
Steve looked down at his plate. She could tell he was embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Beth,” he said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“It’s okay. Just don’t scare me like that anymore! I want to be with you, and that’s all that matters to me. I need you to believe that, okay?”
“I do,” Steve said. He touched her cheek and gave her a soft kiss. “Come on. Let’s go home.”