Chapter 101 - She Never Wanted The Moon

Not able to deal with her, not able to deal with what she did with Stephanie right there, Beth left the room.  Every ounce of her being wanted to rip Dorothea's hair out of her head, but she would never do anything like that in front of Rose.  

She takes her pissed and heartbroken self to their office and sits in Jon's chair, waiting for her to leave.

"What the fuck did you do that for?  You have no business cleaning out the fridge, Dorothea."

"What do you need breast milk for?  The baby is gone." she says with a smirk on her face.  Dorothea knew damn well that Beth was saving that for whatever reason.  Dorothea dumped it out for no other reason than to be vindictive, to be mean.  Jon raises his hand and points toward the front door.

Stephanie can see that he dad is at the end of his rope, "Come on mom, you have met your bitch quota for the day."  Stephanie grabs her arm and pulls her to the door.

"Hang on, I want to hug your dad goodbye."

"Steph, please take her home."  Jon hugs and kisses his daughter, "Thank for coming, do you want me to get you tomorrow or send a car for you?"

"A car, I'll call you when we're done at the park."

"I love you."

"I love you too dad."

Stephanie and Dorothea leave and Jon walks off to find Beth.  He knows the direction that she went, but isn't sure where she ended up.  As he walks through the big empty house, he notices how empty that it really is.  There is no sound at all.  No TV, no kids laughing, no kids crying, there is a lot of nothing going on and that makes Jon feel hollow.

"Are you okay?" he asks as he walks up to her at his desk.  "I'm sorry she's such a bitch."

"I deserved it." she flatly states.  "I had I coming."

"How do you figure?" he's quick to respond, having no idea where that came from.  He sits on the corner of his desk, the same spot that Beth has claimed as her own many times over the years, and looks at her. He can see that she feels defeated, that she wants to crawl up into a ball and just die.  He feels the same way.  Without saying a word, he watches her play with the bracelet on her wrist that he bought her, the one that matches the one he bought for himself and McKenna.  It tears at him to see her so down and what's even worse, there is nothing he can do about it. 

"Well, let's see.  I took her husband, her home and her dreams away.  My love for you and your love for me drove her to suicide.  Her children can hardly stand her and the people that she grew up with, the people that she considered family have all turned their back on her.  I took you and I took all of that.  I guess that maybe in her mind, she owed me."

"Do you really believe any of that?"  He pulls the chair that she's in closer, with his foot.  When she's within reach, her leans over and kisses the top of her head.  "No one deserves or is owed what you have gone through, what we have had to deal with."

"I'm scared, Jon."

"Of what?"  he moves in closer and sits on her lap.  His touch does so much to her, both good and bad.  She loves him with every breath that she takes and here they are again, living the life that no one could ever imagine.  Then on the other hand, she doesn't want him to even touch her.

She looks up at him, "I drove you to Dani, or whatever the hell her name is and look what happens.  Am I that bad of a judge of character?"

"We both made that same poor judgment.  I'm sorry, Beth.  What do you want me to say?"

"I don't know.  What I do know is this.  We let a women into our home, our lives and she killed our baby.  That bitch stuck a needle into my baby and took her life.  She is crazy and now we have to deal with her trial.  When will it end?"  She rests her head on his shoulder, "When can we be happy?  Will we ever be happy?"

It was time for Jon to leave and embark on the multiple city Greatest Hits Tour.  It was the last thing that he wanted to do, but it was his job.  The last few days gave him very little to stay home for.  The kids have spent a lot of time with their mother as he was busy preparing for the tour and Beth was at her office up to 18 hours a day, using a car service to get home at night.  She knew that she would fall asleep at the wheel.  The nap that she takes on the ride home at night re-energizes her enough to go directly to work when she would get home.  Jon was sick and tired of what was going on.  Her depression was more than he could take at the given moment.

When he gets up and sees her sleeping at her desk, he wakes her up.  He leaves in 4 hours for the tour.  "Hey!' he says loudly from the office door.  "Beth, get up."

She lifts her head and says, "I'm up.  I'm sorry, I feel asleep while working."

"I know.  I leave in a little bit, do you want to have breakfast with me?" he stands there and waits for her answer. 

She rubs her eyes and says "Yeah, are we going out?"

"No, Maria is here.  I'll get you some coffee."  And he disappears.  She sits there and looks out at the river.  She feels nothing, except exhaustion.  Getting up, she grabs the report that she was working on and takes it into the kitchen with her.  She sits at the island with Jon, and when he sees that report in  her hand he decides that he will drive himself to the airport.  He wasn't even going to mention it.  Handing her her cup of coffee,  "When I'm gone, I want you to take a few days and go somewhere and clear your head.  I can't and I refuse to live like this.  We have a trial coming up and you are a robot in zombie mode."

She looks at him and is on the defensive.  "Go somewhere, like where and do what."

"Anywhere that will make you feel better.  You need to get out of this funk so we can put Dani away for a long time, and I can't do it alone."

She sets her coffee on the counter and moves into Jon.  She climbs up on him, on the bar stool and straddles him.  She starts to nibble on his ear and whispers to him, "Let's go have sex before you leave."  He pushes her back a little bit and gives her a sad, sorry look.

"Look at you, do you think that's what I need?"

"Don't you want it?" she tries to kiss him and he pulls back.  

"Beth stop!"  She doesn't listen, tries to kiss him again.  "Damn it Beth, knock it off, I mean it."

Beth steps back and has only one thought, a thought that she needed to voice, "Why couldn't you have said that to Melissa?"  And she leaves the kitchen with her coffee and her report.  She takes it up stairs and climbs into bed.  A few minutes of scanning her report and not 'getting' it, she slides down in the blankets and tries to go to sleep.

She was just about a sleep when Jon enters the room, flipping on the lights.  "What are you doing?"

"Trying to sleep, can you turn the light off?"  He does just that, shakes his head and leaves her in the bedroom.  

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Bon Jovi land in London and the UK press are just as interested in their story as the US is. Reporters are everywhere, shouting for Jon.  He can hear his name, McKenna's name, Dani's name and the word murder.  He politely walks by, even though he wants to stop and tell them all to fuck off.  One reporters stands in his way, just a little itty bitty thing, "Jon, how can you go on tour so soon after losing a child, her killer not yet brought to trial?"  He didn't skip a beat.  He gave an angry smile and flipped her the peace sign, thinking he should talk to her, but the headlines would then read Jon Bon Jovi goes off on reporter.  He kept on walking.

In the car he turns his phone back on and waits for everything to load.  Once it's done, he sees a text from Beth that says you could have woke me to tell me goodbye.  He looks at when she sent it.  It was sent 6 hours ago.  Alone in the back of the car, he sits there and looks at the message for what felt like forever.  He sees the word goodbye and then it hits him, that was goodbye.  There is no until we meet again or no until next time.  When he left, it was goodbye.  He has a few days to work it out in his head before he breaks it to her.