AN:
As usual I do not own a single thing that's in regards to the show, The bold and the beautiful, because it is owned by the Bell-family. Neither to I own the song that inspired me to name this story Goodbye to yesterday, It is a song from Eurovision Song Contest 2015 by Elina Born and Stig Rösta from Estonia.
Please remember that I do not live in the US so I do not have any particular knowledge about medical practices, school or anything like that.
Yes, this is the follow up story for my one shot where Steffy does not go to Italy for the Lope wedding in Puglia for my One shot collection What if... you might want to read that one first, it's the seventh one. So, to recap that one shot.
Steffy met with Wyatt Fuller to discuss a joint business venture.
Ridge and Eric were positive about it.
Liam and Hope got married.
Steffy and Quinn had a first conversation.
Quinn was asked by Steffy if Wyatt was Liam´s brother.
Previously on Goodbye to yesterday
What Liam does next does not surprise Steffy one bit, but it angers Hope to no end.
Liam walks over to Steffy and places his hands on her cheeks. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, the Spencer sword gave it away even more."
Then he gives her a hug, a hug that was a little to long for a man who has his wife in the same room he's talking to his ex-wife in while she's wearing lingerie and practically nothing else.
"Liam. Liam! Liam!"
Steffy taps Liam on the shoulder.
"Liam, you can let go now." Steffy whispers into his ear. "Your wife is upset!"
Liam had completely forgotten Hope was even there after getting the news.
"Right." Liam is so confused.
Goodbye to yesterday
Chapter one
Across the hallway, there were only two people left in Steffy´s office.
"What's wrong mom?" There's real concern in Wyatt´s voice.
"I should have done my research before letting you approach these people, but I didn't. Steffy figured out your relationship to the Spencer family, she's telling Liam right now." Quinn looks a little guilty.
"It's okay mom, I knew it would come out sooner or later. It doesn't matter. That's what she wanted to talk to you about?"
"Yes, she handled it really well. I guess it's a regular occurrence that people find kids they didn't know about in this family." Quinn gives her son a hug.
"I think we should continue this meeting now." Quinn nods her head.
"Yeah. I think we should." So he goes and opens the door. Liam is standing on the other side.
"So, you're my uncle huh?" Wyatt nods his head. "Okay. I'd like to get to know you."
Wyatt nods his head once again. "Yeah, me too!"
"Well, who's ready to get back to business? Do you have any sketches with you for them to look at Hope?" Steffy directs her gaze towards the newly wed.
"Yeah, I have." Hope goes over to her bag and picks out a few design sheets.
"You got the pieces with you?" Steffy asks the question to Quinn.
"Yes, I do." Quinn picks up a few little pouches with necklaces and earrings in them from her bag.
"Come check them out with me."
And so the three women went behind Steffy´s desk with Steffy sitting in the chair. As they're watching them, Steffy makes an almost invisible gesture that only Ridge sees and so he walks over as well.
"Yeah, I see what you mean. It doesn't work as we wanted. At least not these pieces with those designs. Now that you've seen the design sheets, do you think you could design something specifically for those designs?" Ridge is specifically speaking with Quinn.
"Of course I can, I've been designing jewelry for designs your clients have bought in to us from you for years now." Quinn glances at Ridge to see if her point has gotten across.
"Oh, right." Ridge chuckles a little bit. "I forgot about that. Sorry!"
"No worries!"
"Hey!" Steffy exclaims. "Did the pieces you were wrestling with fall in line?"
"They sure did! Turned out kind of the way I wanted them too. But they work now at least and they're not that hard to make." Quinn shares really proud of herself. "When do you want to see the new pieces?"
She directs the question to Ridge.
"Well, we're not releasing a new Hope for the Future this fall, so next spring, but of course we'd like to see them before fall comes. If that's workable for you? A new line for Intimates and Couture will be released this fall, so we'll need to start promotions pretty soon."
"Yeah, that's perfectly fine, I'll doodle some designs and then I'll send the design sheets over for you to look at and we'll see where we're at. The designs for Intimates and Couture will probably be the same I guess because of the exquisite work presented by Steffy earlier today?" She looks towards the three people in charge of the company, Eric and Ridge, and in charge of the campaign from Forrester Creations, Steffy.
All three of them nod.
"The first collection of jewelry is already done, we're just waiting on your designs for that. We're already done with the work and can do the promotions when ever you're ready! We'll start with the jewelry for the next Hope for the future line that you said was going to be released next spring." Once again she looks towards Eric and Ridge, both nods. "So, we've got a plan set in motion to figure out if a collaboration would be possible between our two companies?"
She's looking around the room, all present nod their heads and a chorus of "Yes"s are heard through out the room.
"We'll let you get to it then! Have a nice weekend and we'll get in touch some time next week to decide when to do the photo shoot for and film the promotions?"
Steffy nods her head to this request and shakes Quinn´s hand.
~Goodbye to yesterday~
When they came home to the beach house that night, Liam knew that there was trouble ahead. He didn't understand what Hope wanted him to do. He had married her, he had chosen her. What more did she need?
"Why did you do that? Why did you give Steffy that hug?" Hope throws her handbag on the couch and turns around and glares at him. "Seriously, I thought you'd have her out of your system by now and she'd be out of our lives. I thought it was bad enough you couldn't get her to sign those annulment papers, because you know just as much as I do that you never loved her, it was all manipulated."
"Why I gave Steffy a hug? She had just told me that I have a uncle I had no idea was even out there. I have just found my father a year or so ago, found out I have an aunt, a baby brother and a cousin and I felt overwhelmed and overjoyed. What are you so scared about? You really need to let this fear of Steffy go or I don't know we could ever be happy in this marriage. It's either us or your fear of Steffy. You decide what you want." Liam goes to the kitchen.
"Well, if you felt overwhelmed and overjoyed, why didn't I get that hug? I'm your wife, I should be the one you turn to when your feelings get the best of you." Hope looks scared, like she doesn't really want to know the answer.
"Because I was focused on the woman who had just told me that the man in her office is my uncle, forgive me for not turning around and hugging the most negative person in the room at the time. Or are you going to deny that you weren't being pissed at Steffy at the time? That you didn't feel angry at her for daring to speak to her ex-husband about things in his family? I chose you, that should be enough, when is it going to be?" He's looking at her with empty eyes.
"I don't know. How long is it going to take for you to stop drooling over her when ever she's in her lingerie?" Hope fires back.
"You know what? I thought all of these nails thrown at me due to your insecurities about Steffy were going to stop the moment I asked you to marry me again, apparently I was wrong. Maybe you should go and talk to someone, because I have moved on from that whole part of my life, you on the other hand seem to be stuck in it." He opens one of the cupboards and takes out a glass which he fills up with water and then he watches her go to the bedroom.
He waits for her in the kitchen for twenty minutes while drinking his glass of water. When she walks out of the door, she has a suitcase with her.
"I'm going home to my mothers. You need to figure out a way to let her go."
"If you leave this house right now, you are walking out on our marriage and you do not need to come back!"
His threat makes her stop in the doorway and then turn around back into the house and walk into the room next to the patio doors.
"If I have to threaten to end our marriage every time we have a fight, I don't think I can stay in it. You either want to work it out or you don't. You either want this marriage or you just wanted to beat Steffy and if that's what you wanted, I've got news for you, but I don't think you want to hear them." Liam throws out there a few things for her to think about.
"What's that then? What could you possibly tell me that would make me even remotely care about Steffy in any other way then the threat she poses to my marriage?" Hope smirks.
"She signed those annulment papers in Aspen after you ran her down on that slope!"
Hope is devastated.
"You mean we could have been married months ago and you've never told me about it? Why not? Why did you make me believe that she hadn't signed them and where on earth are they?" Hope has walked out of the room now.
"She signed those papers in the hospital because she didn't want anyone else getting hurt and in the process, she hurt herself more then she'd ever been hurt by anyone else, including your brother." Liam watches Hope walk out of the room with a guilty look on her face. "Yeah, she told me about that!" Liam remembers how they had spent the evening in front of the fire behind the house. "She also thought it was fitting that her marriage ended where it started. She gave the papers to me and then I tore them up."
Hope slaps him in a fit of rage.
"What did you just say?"
"I just said that I tore the papers up. Right down the middle and then I threw them in the creek. I had made a promise to her that I would not annul our marriage because it did mean something to me, because even if you can't get it through your head, there was actually love shared between me and Steffy, we did love each other. I would have said no to the wedding on that mountaintop otherwise. But she did sign them, I'm the one who chose divorce. So you can let go of the thought that Steffy only ever wanted to keep us apart. Because that's simply not true. She didn't want the marriage to end because it meant something to her and to be honest, if I had known this was the behavior you had waiting for me on the other side I don't think I would have divorced her either. I want a marriage based on friendship, trust and love. I have all of that with Steffy, but I don't with you and I do want to be with you, I really do, but the trouble we're having are issues that lay with you, not me, so you need to work through them and I suggest you start doing that tomorrow. Now, I'm tired and I need to get up early tomorrow, I have a column to write at work."
He walks through the door to the bedroom and closes the door, letting her know she is not welcome there at the moment.
She walks to the room she's chosen for herself and goes to bed. She silently cries herself to sleep.
~Goodbye to yesterday~
Friday, July 13th 2012
The next day has Steffy sitting at her desk when a red eyed sleepy looking blonde walks through the door.
"Hi Hope! What's up?" Steffy lifts her head up to look at the blonde. "No, strike that, what's wrong?"
"Liam and I had a fight yesterday and he said something, and now I want to know if it's true." Hope has trouble talking because she started crying the moment Steffy started talking. "Did you sign the annulment papers you had in Aspen or did he say that to hurt me?"
"I never thought he would let you know about that. We knew what we had and that it had been a marriage and we weren't going to let an annulment make it less than it was and that's why we decided on divorce." Steffy can see that what she's saying isn't calming Hope down, so she decides to not say anything about the fact that Brooke knows about it. "But just because he chose to divorce me instead of annulling the marriage doesn't mean he loves you any less it just means that what he promises actually means something to him."
"I really didn't want it to be true." The tears are falling freely now, but it's calmed down from the storm it was just a few minutes ago. "I really really didn't want it to be true."
She starts walking to the door.
"You need to talk to Liam about all this and most of all, you need to stop seeing scenes like they are something they are not. Like yesterdays hug for example. You were there for the conversation that the hug ended. When you saw Liam and I kiss in the car the night before your wedding, I was saying goodbye and what you should have done instead of leaving the ring on the mantle and running home to mommy was that you should have confronted him about it and had faith in your relationship."
Hope just nods her head and then she leaves. Where she goes, Steffy have no idea, but to protect her from knowing her mother knew, Steffy sends a text to Brooke telling her to keep her mouth shut about it. After that, Steffy goes back to work.
~Goodbye to yesterday~
Liam was plonking away at the keyboard when his father walked by the door. He stood there for about two minutes listening to his son abusing the keyboard of his work laptop before he decided he's had enough.
"Okay, so, you got married two weeks ago and you're already fighting about something?"
Liam looks up and glares at his father.
"Yeah, she just cannot let go of her insecurities about Steffy. I mean, I got a divorce and then I married her, I really think the fact that I chose her should be enough for her to trust in us. But she doesn't. Any issue we have in our marriage right now all come from her insecurities about Steffy. I mean, they are part of the same family so we will be in the same place from time to time. But those issues Hope has about Steffy is starting to bother me."
"I understand that completely, Steffy is a girl that's hard to get over and the fact that you married her so easily is probably a big issue for Hope. Especially since it didn't take that long for her to leave you until you were married to someone else." Bill shrugs his shoulders.
"Yeah, well, Hope made it perfectly clear that we would never get back together, so I moved on. Yes, it was a little fast, but Steffy showed me over and over and over again that she wanted to be with me, Hope ran off to Oliver the first time we had a argument and almost slept with him. She almost ran off to her mothers in the middle of yesterdays argument. It's her default setting, if it's not going the way she wants, she runs off to the person she feels would hurt me most. She's been like that for as long as I've known her." Liam has picked up a pen that he's tapping on the desk with as he's talking. "She never wants to just work things out. It's either her way or no way."
"Anyway, how is the column going?" Bill tilts his head slightly as he waits for his sons reply.
"It's going good. Another thing that happened yesterday is that I met my uncle."
"Oh, Wyatt is in LA?" Bill is surprised.
"Yes, he and his mom is going to be working together with Forrester Creations to promote the new lines for both companies. If you want to know more, talk to Steffy, she's the one in charge of the whole venture."
"How is Quinn doing? Last I heard her company was really taking off.." Bill is suddenly interested again.
"She seems to be doing good, lots of work to do. They're actually very successful. Why didn't Wyatt get a part of Spencer Publications when grandfather died?"
"Dad never claimed him. When Quinn came and told him she was pregnant, he screamed at her to get out because there was no way that baby could be his. So, he never claimed the baby and Karen and I didn't know about it until just after dad died. He told us in the recorded will that he wanted us to get to know Wyatt if he was his son. So we did a test to see if we were brothers and the lab was 99% certain that we were siblings on the fathers side. Last I talked to Quinn, Wyatt had just come back from college the year before and that was three years ago I think. After that stuff happened and we sort of lost touch. They had been living in Florida until they moved here. So you say he's here now?"
"Yeah, I got to meet him yesterday briefly. He seems like a nice guy."
"Well, if he is we know he doesn't have that from our dad. Do you have a way to get in touch with him?" He gets his answer when he sees Liam slap his own forehead. "I take it you don't?"
"No, I don't. I knew there was something I should have talked to him about before we left." As he's talking a text comes to his phone.
"Who's that from?" Bill asks curiously.
"It's from Wyatt, he wants to know if I would like to meet him for lunch some time and could I ask my father the same question?" Liam´s eyes light up. "So, what do you think?"
"Yeah, sure. Ask if he can meet us in a couple of hours." So Liam sets off to text his newly found uncle back and save the contact.
Five minutes later the father and son have a lunch set with the uncle.
~Goodbye to yesterday~
When the clock strikes 12:30 PM, Steffy Forrester peaks her head through the door of her fathers office.
"Hi! I'm heading out to lunch! I'll see you in an hour or so."
Ridge just waves her off.
She walks to the elevator and waits for it to come to the floor she's on. She actually manages to get all the way to her car when she realizes that she's forgotten her bag. So she's got to go back to her office and get it.
On the way back she runs into Brooke Logan.
"So, you gonna congratulate me or what?" Brooke actually expects her to be happy that Brooke is engaged to her father again.
"For what?" Steffy plays oblivious.
"For getting engaged and for Liam and Hope´s wedding." Brooke smirks.
"Really? Last I heard Liam and Hope were on the brink of divorce and you and my dad have been engaged so many times I wonder if you even remembers how many or how they ended. Really not an achievement to get engaged to him again." Steffy makes a move to leave.
Brooke grabs her hand.
"Why can't you just be happy for me? Or Hope and Liam?"
"Oh, trust me, I was so happy for Hope and Liam. Then Hope went and got all insecure and tried walking out on him yesterday and now I'm not happy for them anymore and you? I'll never be happy for you! Not after all the things you've done!" Steffy looks at Brooke like she's disgusted.
"You're not completely innocent yourself you know!" Brooke barks.
"If I'm not, I learned from the best and was damaged by the best´s son! Now, I'm on my way out to lunch." Steffy walks away, then she turns around just before she reaches her office. "By the way, have you heard your son sound like a chicken yet?"
"What are you talking about?" Brooke is confused.
"Have you listened to the recording of your son taunting my father yet?" Steffy stares her down. "No? I didn't think so. You wouldn't do anything that would make you think your son did anything wrong, but trashing me at any given time is perfectly fine!"
Brooke throws her arms up in the air and walks away in defeat.
Steffy walks through the door of her office, finds her bag and goes off in search of a restaurant or a hole in the wall somewhere where she could get something to eat.
~Goodbye to yesterday~
They had just been seated when a familiar brunette found her way to the restaurant.
"Hey Steffy!" Bill shouts towards her.
She turns from the bar to look for who ever shouted for her and what she sees she's happy about and she walks over.
"Well, if it isn't my favorite Spencer-boys and Liam." The smile is constant for both Wyatt and Bill, but when she comes to Liam, it doesn't quite reach her eyes.
"You want to join us?" Bill asks.
"Sure, scoot over!" She says to Bill so that he's sitting in the chair next to Liam and she's sitting next to Bill who has Wyatt next to him and then Liam on the other end of the booth.
"So, have you talked to your wife yet? I mean, that was quite the bomb you dropped on her yesterday." Steffy questions Liam.
"What? How do you know about that?"
"Guess who came to see me this morning." Steffy raises her brows. "You really couldn't have chosen a time more wrong to tell her then that! Why did you tell her that piece of our history during an argument? She looked totally devastated."
Liam looks so guilty.
"Well, at least you have the decency to look guilty about it." Bill looks to his son.
"Well, she was talking about how I never loved Steffy and that she thought it was bad enough that I couldn't get her to sign those annulment papers because 'both of us know' that there was nothing between Steffy and I that should lead to us having a divorce rather then an annulment."
"Yeah, so he blurts out that I did sign those papers and then he threw them into the creek. I hope you didn't tell her about the kisses that happened after that." Steffy looks at her former husband. "Good, there's no reason she needs to know about those, neither does she need to know about her mother knowing about the annulment papers. There's been enough hurt brought on Hope by her mother, she doesn't need this to cause even more."
"Why are you so concerned about Hope? She's not interested in you the slightest unless you are within 3 feet of Liam." Bill scratches her head.
"Because I'm not Hope, nor do I have Logan-blood in me!" Steffy says with certainty.
"Oh." Liam is confused.
"The only Logan´s I care about are my brother, my cousin, your son, Bridget and her son, the rest of them can just stay clear of me." Bill sees the signs of a Logan-confrontation on Steffy´s behavior.
"I take it you ran in to one recently?" Bill raises his eyebrows.
"Well, there was Hope this morning and then there was Brooke as I was about to leave and now Liam right here on this table. I really didn't need the Annulment papers-drama today. I have enough on my plate." Steffy searches through the menus that were laying right in front of her.
Five minutes later the waitress has been by to take their orders and right now they are waiting for the food.
"So, how has the day been since we last saw each other?" Steffy looks to her newly found friend.
"Well, it's been good so far." Wyatt sends a smile her way.
"That's good. Have you been here before?"
The conversation continues and as Bill watches his son, what he sees makes him concerned. He sees Steffy trying to move on with her life, but he also sees Liam display signs of jealousy.
~Goodbye to yesterday~
"Why where you acting so jealous during lunch Liam? Isn't this what you wanted when you married someone else?" Bill watches his son from the door to his office. "For Steffy to move on?"
"Yes, I want that. I want her to move on. But did you know that it hurts more watching her talk to another man knowing she's not mine anymore then it did when I watched Hope with Thomas when Steffy and I were married?" Liam moves his fingers through his hair after sighing as he finished talking.
"Well, like I said before lunch, she's a hard girl to get over." Bill points out.
"Yeah, she is." Liam looks up from the computer with a frown on his face. "What if marrying Steffy wasn't a mistake?"
"What are you saying? That you regret marrying Hope!" Bill leans into the door frame and tilts his head so it does the same.
"No, I don't, but Hope´s behavior right now is confusing."
"Yeah, I get that. But if you don't regret marrying her, why are you jealous about Steffy moving on? Isn't that a consequence of the two of you divorcing and you marrying someone else?"
He can tell that Liam is getting angry with him.
"Yes, it is and I shouldn't be this jealous about it because I am married to the love of my life!" Liam is almost screaming at the end.
"But if you are jealous of Steffy only talking to another man, how come you just said that you didn't feel as jealous when the so called 'love of your life' was involved with another man? It doesn't make sense." Bill air quotes the words love of your life with his finger.
"No, it doesn't, not even in my mind. Which is why I'm so confused." Liam scratches his forehead in confusion.
"Well, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to come to terms with the fact that you are married to a woman and your ex wife will have to move on or are you going to leave your wife and pick back up with the woman who's making your blood boil with jealousy every time you see her with another man?"
"I'm going to come to terms with the fact that I chose to marry Hope and not care about who Steffy is with." Liam seems determined enough.
"Okay then, I don't want to see that look on your face ever again. You go and start that fairytale family Hope wants and leave everything else behind. Nothing that Steffy does is any of your business and it stopped being that when you placed that ring on Hope´s finger in Italy. Don't cause her any trouble! You just focus on your marriage!" Bill then walks away from Liam´s office without letting him say anything.
~Goodbye to yesterday~
After leaving Steffy´s office, Hope wandered the streets of LA for a bit, then she went home to her mother and waited for her there.
She's sitting on the couch when her mother walks through the door and when Brooke sees her daughter, she's both surprised and concerned.
"Hi Hope! How are things?" Brooke walks over to the couch and sits down next to her daughter.
"Well, things would have been great had Liam not ripped those annulment papers that Steffy signed up. Then we would've been just fine. We would've been married months ago. I can't believe he would do that and not tell me about it. I really was wrong about the depth of his feelings for her and most importantly I misjudged her feelings for him." Hope starts crying while she's talking.
"No, you didn't. She doesn't love Liam, she never has. All she wanted was to keep you two apart and win over you. That's all there is."
"But mom, Steffy signed those annulment papers in Aspen two months ago, I planned a wedding for us after Aspen and then Liam tells me that she didn't sign those papers. But she did sign them mom, we could have gotten married after Aspen."
"Oh please, Steffy didn't sign any annulment papers in Aspen and if she did, she most certainly wouldn't give them to Liam. You really shouldn't listen to Steffy, all she does is lie." Brooke is certain that Steffy was the one who told her daughter about the papers to hurt her and there's no way Liam would have told her.
"When I asked Steffy if what Liam said last night during our fight was true, she said it was. Why would she lie if Liam has already said it's true?" This statement shocks Brooke.
"Why would Liam tell you that? There's no way it's true."
"We were having an argument, I said some things and in order to shut me up, he told me that Steffy signed the papers in the hospital because she didn't want anyone else hurt." Hope has stood up from the couch and started pacing.
"Honey, there is no way Steffy signed those papers and Liam didn't rip them up and throw them in the stream and he did not kiss her on that mountaintop. Those are all lies and I can't believe you fell for it. You know Steffy better then that!" Brooke is so wrapped up in her truth, she doesn't realize she's spilled the beans on her knowing about it and some things that Hope doesn't know.
~Goodbye to yesterday~
AN:
So, first chapter of the follow up story for my seventh One shot for my What if...-story.
What do you think? R&R!
