Darkwing Duck: All About Elizabeth
Act VI, part II (Epilogue Pt II)
When Beth slid into bed that night, she lay staring up at the ceiling in the dark room, as she'd done so many nights during her childhood. She wished now that she'd put up some of those phony glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling; at least she'd have had something to stare at now, instead of the cloudy gloom that had always surrounded her in this room.
Going home; she was finally going home. And she finally felt relief at the thought, rather than dread.
She had to admit, though, that this time at her family home had not been what she'd thought it would. Difficult, yes; a trial to her patience, but... no one had been precisely what she'd remembered. Her mother...
Well, that was never going to be perfect, she supposed. Her feelings towards her mother were still pretty conflicted; the waving of the magic wand hadn't suddenly given her infinite patience and understanding in that relationship. But regardless, Beth was glad she'd had the chance to speak with her mother as openly as she had. Somehow, it seemed like she'd never really thought of her mother as human... the kind of human who makes mistakes, who regrets past choices, like everyone else. Beth, so intimately familiar with regret, had never suspected her mother felt the same about her own past.
But home - home would always be St. Canard, even though she knew now she could come here more often, and would actually want to come. Well, sometimes anyway.
Home. She missed it so much. She missed them.
She rolled over onto her side, pulling her knees up closer to her chest, and thought about her conversation with Launchpad. It had been such a relief to get those things out into the open... even though she still worried about things being different between them. Well, they would definitely be different; there was no getting around that. The conversation had mostly gone well, and he'd really seemed okay with what she had said; in any case, he'd sure taken it better than she had from Drake. But she couldn't shake this feeling that there were a couple of times when maybe they'd each taken different meanings from what had been said - hadn't there been a few moments when he had sounded... Well, she wasn't *sure* how he'd sounded, but it had made her feel sort of nervous and giddy in the pit of her stomach. It was very emotional.
All she could do was hope that he wasn't going to be too hung up on her when she got back home. And really - she rolled her eyes at herself and flipped over onto her back again, feeling slightly exasperated with her own line of thinking - really, it wasn't as if he was in love with her, after all. No one had ever said that. If he had been, he wouldn't have given up so easily, and he'd told her that he would move on. He'd said so.
Wait, had he actually said that? She tried to remember what, precisely, they'd said, but she'd been crying at the time (she rolled her eyes again, feeling utterly ashamed of herself; she was such a baby sometimes), and that part of the conversation had gone so quickly and been so emotional that she couldn't remember half of what had been said.
Well, it didn't matter. She was determined to get things back to how they used to be, and that was what was important.
It was funny, really. She'd gone over her feelings several times, both before calling him and after, and she still knew deep in her heart that she felt nothing but platonic love for Launchpad. And yet, for all the guilt she felt over being the object of his unrequited affections, and for all that she wished this had never happened, she was surprised to realize that she did feel flattered by his feelings for her.
Well, he'd said he wanted her to feel good about it, so... might as well go ahead. She'd just never admit it to anyone, that was all. Definitely not Launchpad - no good encouraging anything there.
She smiled, secretly, into the dark. Someone thought she was beautiful. For once in her whole life, someone had noticed her. Someone thought she was special. And, he was a pretty cool guy.
There was something pretty great about that.
She rolled over once more onto her side, pillowing her head with her hands, and realized belatedly that she hadn't thought at all of Drake since well before the phone call. That was surprising; she couldn't remember the last time she hadn't thought of Drake, at least in passing, on an almost hourly basis.
Maybe she really was getting over him. That thought brought an ache, but it was a mild one, which surprised her again. Just a few weeks ago the thought of getting over Drake had seemed like losing a part of herself. Now it just seemed to be getting easier.
All the more reason, actually, to never go through this again. It had taken way too long to reach this point; the best thing to do, for certain, was to just make sure she never fell in love again and stayed single for the rest of her life. She wouldn't be lonely; she had friends now, and as long as she had friends and companionship, she didn't need romance.
Goodbye, Drake, she thought; and she let him go. Feeling silly for being so melodramatic, she snorted contemptuously at herself in the darkness, and went to sleep.
May, 1992
To say that Beth disliked her job would not have been completely accurate. It was true that it wasn't what she'd thought she would be doing, five years ago when she'd pictured her future. It was supposed to have been temporary until the "real" job search held fruit. But that fruit didn't seem forthcoming, and when her "temporary" job had offered something more permanent, Beth had taken it with a feeling of excitement and even accomplishment. It was her first promotion; it was her first full-time job.
And the job was not all that bad, aside from the fact that it was a waste of her education. It was steady, low-stress (in general, anyway), and it gave her time to think; it paid well enough that she had been able to afford to buy her own house, although the house in question was tiny and smelled strange.
Bindler's Hardware store had offered her no official title other than "sales clerk" and Beth had not requested one. But she had only one supervisor, a woman named Henny Chickstein who held the position of store manager, and Beth was the only other full-time employee amid a tiny sea of weekend part-timers. She was, in effect, second-in-command. In keeping with that, Henny gave her a great deal of responsibility in both the front and back of the store; she got to keep the place clean and restocked, as well as keeping the register balanced and the paperwork organized.
And, of course, there was the selling, which admittedly was her weak spot. Beth firmly believed that hardware sold itself and it wasn't necessary for her to actively be a "salesman", although Henny felt differently and occasionally threatened to find a full-timer whose commitment to strong sales leads was firmer. After three years, Beth knew this to be an empty threat, but each time it came up she increased her dialogues with customers by a little bit for a week or so until Henny seemed to forget.
Beth had only one New Year's resolution each year, and that was to get out there and redo her resume and get her foot in a field related to her degree. But the world outside of Bindler's Hardware was cold and harsh, and Beth often felt exhausted before she finished reading the Want-Ads. Everyone wanted experience, and she had none. Each year by May she had convinced herself that she should stay right where she was. She had a full-time job, and what's more, it was a job with a future: she was likely to get her own store to manage someday. Why strive for more than that?
It was 3 pm on a Thursday, which meant that Henny's shift was nearly over and the midweek rush crowd would be making its way through in about two and a half hours. The store, in its midweek pre-rush state, had been straightened and restocked and, aside from Beth in the front and Henny doing paperwork in the back, was completely empty.
Pushing a broom absently in front of the register, Beth contemplated. It was May; she had some vacation time coming up but, as usual, nowhere to go. She'd lost most of her vacation time the past two years, except the small amount she used at Christmastime to see her family; this year, she was determined to actually GO somewhere. The question was, where?
Various destination names were flitting through her head when the bell over the door rang. Beth glanced in its direction to see a tall red-haired duck in an aviator's uniform step inside and look around to orient himself. He had a brown bomber jacket on, plus a tan scarf and an actual flight cap; the jodhpurs really completed the outfit. She blinked; you certainly wouldn't miss this guy in a crowd. In addition to the outfit, his looks guaranteed that he wouldn't just blend in. "Tall" and "red-haired" were just vague descriptive adjectives that didn't in any way acknowledge the fact that he was also exceedingly handsome.
Afraid she'd be caught staring, she huffed quietly to herself and focused on the floor as she swept. Attractive people made Beth nervous, and subtly uncomfortable. After all, she'd never had much luck with attractive people - well, with people in general for that matter, but the good-looking ones seemed most likely to be the ones to bring out the worst in her, and then laugh about it together. Past embarrassments had given her a particular aversion to redheads.
She glanced up to see him looking in her direction, so she quickly turned her attention to sweeping behind the cash counter, working it out towards the pile she already had in front. When she snuck a look again, he was navigating the store, slowly, peering down aisles and checking a list in his hand.
What could he want? she wondered. From the way he was dressed, he was either a pilot or else he was on his way to a costume party. Beth really was determined not to stare, but as she couldn't stop stealing looks at him, it resulted in a rather funny-looking head bob between the floor and the customer.
She lost track of him when he stepped into the far part of the store, and she was taken by surprise a moment later when he stuck his head out and said, "'Scuse me?"
She jumped. "Huh?"
"Sorry, but do you work here?"
"Oh!" Way to space out, Beth! she told herself... He was a customer, after all. She took a quick step forward, tossing the broom against the side of the cashier's counter. "I'm so sorry! I do, I -" The broom started to slip, and she lunged back for it, then turned back to the customer frantically. "Sorry, one sec-" Her attention diverted, she missed the broom, and it smacked her in the shoulder before sliding to the ground. "Eek! No!" she said, and mentally kicked herself immediately for saying it out loud.
"Lemme help you." The handsome customer somehow made it to her side without her noticing, and stooped to pick the broom up. Beth couldn't stop her momentum, and she bumped into him as she knelt beside him.
"Sorry!" she yelped. He didn't answer, just grinned and picked up the broom. She knew, for certain, that she was going to start babbling. "I'm sorry - you really don't have to, I - I have it..." That was an exceedingly stupid thing to say when he was now physically holding the broom himself, and she was not. She shut her eyes and took a breath, standing up as she did so. When she breathed out, she opened her eyes again and said, "Thank you."
He stood as well, and put the broom against the desk where she'd intended it to rest. "No problemo."
"How can I help you?"
"Well," said the handsome maybe-pilot, "I got a list here, an' mostly I need a couple of wrenches and some boxes of set screws, but I'm not seein' the screws."
"Yeah, they're small. I-I mean, the section is small," she said, and hurriedly took him to the far corner away from the door. "They're all over here."
"I checked here... I didn't see the kind I was lookin' for."
Great. She'd have to walk him through it. This was so far from being her forte that she felt a rush of nerves just at the realization. "What kind did you need?"
"The pointy kind," he said carefully, and she nodded.
"Cone point?"
He looked surprised, then impressed, that she knew. She was a little surprised, herself. "Yeah. I looked up an' down the wall, but -"
She checked as well, then grimaced. Drat, drat, drat - he would have to be after some of the ones they didn't carry. The idea of recommending him to a better hardware store simply didn't occur to her; maybe he was open to improvisation. "I'm, um, afraid we don't carry that kind. What did you need them for?"
"Oh, just some repair work."
"What specifically? The thing is there's more than one kind you can use and you might be able to use the knurled cup point screws instead."
The pilot gave her a look which might just have, momentarily, included something like awe. She fidgeted, uncomfortable in his gaze, and looked at the wall. "You can try them and if they don't work out just bring them back, okay?"
"Sure." He took a few boxes and looked at her again. "You really know your hardware. You do a lot of repair stuff?"
She led him towards the wrench aisle, and gave a choked laugh. "Me? No, no. I couldn't fix a salad." In addition to being a good line, this was actually a pretty close assessment of her cooking abilities. "I just got lucky on this... I read about these kinds of screws a week or so ago." Shut up, she told herself, he doesn't want to know this.
"You read about hardware?" He actually sounded interested. "I guess you have to, workin' here." He browsed his way through the wrenches with the ease of someone who used them often, and found the kind he was looking for.
Beth wondered if she should let the statement go. He hadn't actually asked it as a question, exactly - although it had been his own answer to his question, and he hadn't been exactly right. She gave a mental shrug. "Well, we don't HAVE to. Sometimes the manuals are lying around, though, and I don't have anything else to do, so I figure I'll just read up on the contents of the store. If you'd asked me about external combustion engines we'd have been out of luck."
He laughed. He actually laughed. Beth was too surprised at first to do anything, but after a moment she joined him, a little self-consciously. "I'll getcha some books on 'em, then. And after you read 'em, I can quiz you."
"Heh," she said, weakly. She wondered if he was making fun of her. Conversations didn't normally go on this long unless she was being made fun of. "Well, anything else I can help you...?" She let the question trail off.
He looked around, then shook his head. "Nah, think this'll do for today." She walked him to the register, then, and he kept looking around the store. "Is it always this quiet in here?"
"Oh, well, not always. This store supports a local do-it-yourself show, and it airs three times a week - one new episode on Friday nights, and then they rerun it Sunday afternoon and Thursday evenings. So every time they air it we get a rush of people coming in for the things they play up." He probably could have figured that out on his own, she thought. Beth was at a constant uncertainty as to how much information was too much.
"Yeah? Is the show any good?"
"I don't know," she said absently, filling out a receipt before she started punching in the prices on the out-of-date register. "I never see it, I'm always working when it airs."
"Huh, really?"
"Well -" She paused, and shrugged. "Wednesdays are my day off, then I work every Thursday night, Friday night and Saturday morning, pull an all-day on Sunday, and I get either Monday or Tuesday off. So yeah. I'm pretty much always here when it's on."
"Sounds like you're pretty much always here, period."
"Heh, well, I'm full-time so... I guess I am." She laughed again, nervously, amazed by how easily the customer seemed to take chatting. It just seemed to come naturally to him. She rang him up, half-hoping he'd stop talking to her simply because the longer he kept talking, the more likely she was to say that one particular thing that would make him decide she was a loser. She didn't know what it would be- she never knew - but there was always something, with everyone.
In a sense, Henny saved her. Bursting from the back room, her bracelets jangling together as she stretched her arms above her head, Henny announced, "That's it, I'm OUTTA here, and man is my butt killin' me after sittin' there doin' that paperwork!" Noticing the customer, she stopped, momentarily silenced.
"Hi," he said, his voice friendly but awkward.
Beth found herself on the receiving end of a glare from Henny that distinctly said, "How could you let me say that in front of a customer!" Pointing out to her that she had begun saying it before she was even fully out of the back room would be useless, so Beth smiled halfheartedly and shrugged.
"Hellooo," Henny said, recovering herself and evidently trying to make the most of the situation. She held her hand out to him, positioning it in the semi-seductive manner that wasn't quite right for a handshake but more suited for a kiss on the back of the hand. The pilot, looking confused, took her hand and shook it heartily. "I'm Henny, the manager here... Did you find everything okay? Did she help you out at all?" She nodded at Beth, not bothering to actually look at her. Beth took the cue, stepping backwards and fetching a bag for the goods that were being purchased and letting Henny take over the conversation.
"She was great," said the pilot, "she really knew what she was talkin' about."
"Oh," said Henny flatly. It clearly wasn't the answer she'd been looking for. "Well, that's really good. I'm happy to hear it."
"In fact," he went on, and Beth suddenly had a feeling she was going to regret this, "she gave me a real good suggestion when we couldn't find what I was lookin' for."
Henny turned her attention onto Beth. "What exactly are you telling people?" she asked.
Beth cringed reflexively. "Um -"
"Why are you telling people to buy things other than what they need?" she asked. "You're supposed to be helping customers, not conning them into wasting their money on worthless things!"
"Hey, no," said the pilot. "It was good advice!"
Henny swung back to him, looking sympathetic. "I'm really sorry. Let me give you your money back."
"I'm sorry," said Beth, flustered.
The pilot frowned. "No, I think she's right. I'll keep the screws she sold me."
Taken aback, Henny gave a very unladylike snort. "Well, I tried," she said, tossing her hands in the air. She tore the receipt off of the register feed, and handed it to him with more hands-on contact than was really necessary. "You're going to want to hang onto this," she said confidentially, and winked. "We're open late on Saturday - 'til 9 - so I'll be here all evening... So if you need to return anything, just pop right in."
"Sure," he said, and stepped back as Henny slid past him and sashayed out the door.
Beth, wishing she were anywhere else right now, handed the pilot his bag with shaking hands. "Um - sh-she's really right," she said, her voice trembling. "You should take your money back."
The pilot grinned, and patted her on the shoulder. "How 'bout this. I'll come back in soon, and letcha know how the screws work out."
Oh, please don't, she nearly said, but she caught herself in time. "I guess so." Maybe he'd forget. He probably would. People tended to forget promises like that, right?
"Great!" He started for the door. "See ya soon, then!"
"Uh-huh," she said weakly. He wouldn't come back. She'd have to be stupid to think he would, stupid and naive. She refused to get her hopes up, not that there was anything to get her hopes up over, since customers came and went all the time in this store and -
Oh, stop it. Really, now, just STOP.
She put her hand up, and waved slightly as he left. "See you."
Now
The drive was a long one, made longer by the fact that he really, really wanted to get there fast. Launchpad didn't have a problem with driving fast, but he in a car there was no way he would get there in less than an hour and a half or so, and taking the ThunderQuack really wasn't an option in a residential neighbourhood. Besides, DW probably wouldn't like the idea.
Beth had promised that the house was pretty easy to find, and her directions supported that; once he left the main highway he only had to make about three turns until he got onto her street. A couple of blocks down, and he saw her, standing at the curb outside a house, waiting for him. She was wearing a jacket that was much too big for her, and she looked a little bit lost in it. His heart leapt; no one had ever looked so good.
As he got closer he noticed the pile of objects around her, and recognized it as luggage. It dawned on him that she wasn't just waiting to greet him; she was ready to go. He parked the car and stepped out, and for a moment neither of them moved; Launchpad felt like he didn't want to move, he just wanted this moment that was so full of potential to go on and on.
She broke the silence first, stepping towards him, still smiling almost sheepishly. "Hey," she said. Her voice had that slightly embarrassed tone that crept into it when she felt like she was on the spot. "Um - was the - the drive okay?"
"Oh... yeah, real smooth," he answered. If he moved, the first thing he'd do would be to hug her, and if he did that then he probably wasn't going to stop any time soon - which might not be the best thing to have happen in this situation - so he stayed rooted to the spot. "Wow, nice jacket."
She looked down at herself, embarrassed. "It's my brother's. I only brought summer clothes with me and it's been kind of chilly this week so I had to borrow something."
Grinning, he said, "How big's your brother? I think we could fit two of ya in there."
"Har de har," she said, making a face at him.
Actually, now that he looked at her, she looked even thinner than usual. He decided that was as good an excuse as any to take her out to dinner at the earliest possible opportunity.
Beth looked back over her shoulder at her house, her manner suggesting that she was worried someone would emerge at any moment. He wondered if she was waiting for someone, but then she said, "Well... It's really good to see you." She didn't sound embarrassed anymore; her voice was quiet and a little thick.
"You too," he said, sincere and relieved. He took a step forward, paused, and then came the rest of the way onto the curb with her. There was an awkward, fumbling moment when she stepped forward to meet him, then backed up as he got closer, and then they each just stopped and laughed self-consciously. Uncertain, he held out his hand, and she stared at it with an almost comically confused expression before taking it and just holding it. "I missed you," he tried, hoping it was the right thing to say. Nervously he added, "Everybody did."
Beth smiled, and ducked her head down. "I missed everyone too," she said, her voice even thicker. She rubbed at the side of her eye, still holding his hand, not looking at him.
After a moment of silence, he said, "Well! So, should I get your bags?"
"Oh. Um, yeah. I'll - I'll help," she said, and let go of his hand to heft up the bag nearest her.
He grabbed the other two suitcases and made for the car door, then stopped. "Oh! Hang on," he said. He opened the back door and stuffed her bags in, then went in through the front door and grabbed the flowers off the front passenger seat. Hesitantly, he held them out to her. "I meant to give you these right away." She just stared at them, so he clarified, "Don't worry, they're just friendly flowers."
She blinked several times, and her eyes jumped from the flowers to his face, where she focused for a handful of seconds before her eyes seemed to just fill up with tears. But she smiled, which was good, and once she'd taken off her glasses to wipe her eyes she took the flowers from his hand and held them against her chest. "Thank you," she said, pushing the plastic wrapping aside to smell them. Having done that, she put the flowers and her bag on the ground, and slid her arms around his neck.
Launchpad could have grabbed her in that moment, and would have if he'd allowed himself to move. It took every ounce of willpower in him to stay motionless and count to five as she settled her head against his shoulder with a sigh. Beth always hugged spontaneously, and thoroughly; she held on tightly, like she was trying to absorb the other person into herself, and seemed completely unaware of the intimacy in her hugs - or of the effect they had on people, namely on Launchpad.
When he finally moved, it was less because he felt like he was more in control of himself and more because he was afraid he was going to miss his chance; after all, every hug had to end sometime, and the one-sided kind probably would end more quickly than one that was reciprocated. He put his arms around her, very tentatively at first, and she shifted slightly in response. He put a hand on her back, and he could feel her breathing; and after that he just held her, and breathed her in, until she shifted again and put her hands up to his shoulders, gently pushing him backwards until she could step out of his embrace.
Shooting an uncomfortable look back at her house, she said, "Um, we should go before my mom looks out here and wonders why I was hugging the taxi driver."
"Oh. Sure," he said. After that hug, for that to be the first thing that she said... He felt shot down, without even having tried anything. She picked her bag and flowers back up, swung the former into the back seat, and carried the latter with her around to the passenger side.
He picked up the remaining items that she had with her and put them into the trunk, then followed her lead and joined her in the car. She was settling the flowers on her lap, looking at them with a pleased expression, and he still could only feel stung. "Taxi driver," he said quietly and matter-of-factly as he started up the car. "Huh."
It came out before he'd thought about it, and he knew instantly that he shouldn't have said it; it wasn't fair to Beth, who hadn't meant the phrase personally, and it wasn't fair to him because now he just sounded grumpy.
Beth said quickly, "Oh, I don't mean that I think of you as a taxi driver! I mean - I'm so glad you came to get me, I really am! It's just, well, it seemed easier to tell my mom- see, if she knew you were coming, she'd want to meet you, and..."
She trailed off, and Launchpad shrugged a little. "I kinda figured I would meet her."
Beth looked down at her flowers, and ran her fingers along the plastic sheath they were wrapped in. "...Oh," she said.
He shouldn't have said that, either. He wasn't sure if she was reacting with discomfort or just plain guilt, but either way, this wasn't getting him anywhere and he was starting to run the risk of just making her clam up for the whole car ride. "Uh, but it's no big deal. I mean, I can meet her another time, right? An' your whole family, some other time!"
She nodded, but didn't look up from her lap. "Sure," she said.
"Sure," he repeated, trying to sell her on believing that he felt fine. "Hey, it's not like they don't even know I exist!"
Beth winced. "Um..."
His spirits fell again, more so this time because he'd just managed to make things undeniably worse. "...Really?" he couldn't help asking.
"The thing is..." Beth looked up, out of the window for a moment as the scenery flew along beside them, then at him with an apologetic look in her eyes, "It's not because of you, it's just that if my mom heard I was friends with a guy, she'd get all these ideas, and then she'd start asking all these questions and she'd never stop, and she'd drop all these hints, and no matter what you or I said to her she'd just get it into her head that we should-"
She cut herself off abruptly, leaving no doubt to what she'd been about to say. Launchpad cleared his throat awkwardly, as Beth turned and looked out the side window again. "Well, uh, can't have her havin' ideas, I guess," he said cheerfully. Beth groaned a little, and there was a quiet thump as she let her head fall against the window glass. He kicked himself. Why did he keep saying these things? This was bad - worse than he'd been when he'd first started falling for her, and couldn't stop being all nervous around her. He decided to try a straightforward approach to settling the matter. "Look, Beth, don't worry 'bout it. I don't have to meet your family until you're ready - or at all," he amended, as she looked at him a little warily. "This is all comin' out wrong," he said, shaking his head and laughing a little despite himself.
To his relief, Beth laughed a little too. "I know the feeling," she said weakly. He grinned at her, and she smiled back a little, then pointed at the windshield. "Um... could you maybe...?"
"Oh, sure. Don't wanna get lost," he said, turning his focus back in front of them.
Beth chuckled weakly. "Right... Well, look, just don't think I'm ashamed of you or anything like that. I'm not at all, I just... can't handle the questions right now."
"I didn't think you were ashamed of me," he said; it was only just slightly not true, since he hadn't precisely thought it, but he had worried about it. "Anyway, I gotcha."
"Really?" She relaxed a little. "Boy, my mother... My mother," she said again, sighing and shaking her head. "I talked a lot about my mother with Dr. Mortimer," she added.
"Makes sense," Launchpad said agreeably. "Isn't that what all shrinks ask people about? What kind of stuff did you talk about?"
"Oh boy," said Beth, but just as he thought maybe he should withdraw the question, she started in. They were about twenty minutes outside of town before she finished, most of it a confused back-and-forth monologue that went between frustrated venting and a sort of regretfully-guilty recanting of what she'd just said. By the end, he understood that Beth's mother was Irish (which he'd already been told), was headstrong ("bossy" was the word Beth used more than once, but "headstrong" was the one she seemed to keep coming back to), and was able to pull his mild-tempered Beth into emotional, knock-down fights. The idea seemed unfathomable and intriguing, so he wouldn't have minded if she'd kept talking about it, but she seemed suddenly tired and so he let her ride in silence for a while.
"Want any music?" he asked after a minute or two of quiet between them.
"Oh, sure," she said distractedly; she'd been staring out the car window as if hypnotized by the trees as they whipped past.
Launchpad had spent the previous day putting together a tape of music for the car ride, a fact which he would admit aloud to no one. He turned the stereo on and it sprang to life as if cued - which of course it had been - and a poppy group sang "Take a Chance on Me", and he tried to look innocent, as if totally unaware of any potential message.
Beth leaned on her hand, her eyes half-lidded, for less than a minute before turning to him apologetically and saying, "Sorry, can we switch this? I'm just not in the mood for this kind of music."
Embarrassed, he snapped the car stereo back off. "Oh sure. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of these guys either, heh."
"Oh, not the group, just the... you know. Subject matter."
He furrowed his brow. "Disco?"
"Romance," she elaborated, a little uncomfortably.
He nodded slowly. It occurred to him that it was going to take a lot longer than a car ride for him to get through to her; it would take weeks, maybe even months, and he was going to need a lot of patience and perserverence. Giving up on the subliminal-message tape for the time being, he said, "Well, y'know, maybe we don't need music anyway."
"Mmm," she said, and tilted her head to the side as she looked out of the car windows. She had a thoughtful expression on her face. "We could keep talking. If you want to, I mean. I promise I won't just complain about my mom," she added with a self-conscious grin.
"You can complain about whatever ya want!" he said emphatically. She raised an eyebrow, and he laughed a little. "Well, uh, I mean... Talkin' sounds great."
"Yeah. I think so too," she said, and she smiled at him, her head still tilted.
He looked at her, and he melted. Anything that had been left in him that had misgivings or worry just melted away, and all that was left was putty in her hands. No matter what she knew or didn't know, or felt or didn't feel, she was Beth, and she wanted to be with him for the rest of her life. That was all he had to remember.
"So, then," he said, "tell me somethin' I don't know."
End
A/N: I know - that's abrupt. But c'mon, we have chapters and chapters worth of information about Beth already so we really don't need more! Use your imaginations about what comes up. SO. OH MY GOD I FINISHED IT. I don't think there's much more that I can say. Um... Okay, a few fic-related announcements! That's it! Thank you all for reading this; I cannot believe it's such a monster. Various readers have influenced this as it's gone on, including LuckyDuck29 in the early stages and Darkwingpsycho who got to see stuff early whenever I needed a beta read (plus she was kind enough to let me use her OC, Ariana!). If you've made it to the end, please comment, especially on this scene because I am continuously squidgy about my own romance writings and would love some feedback to tell me if this just sucked, or left you cold. Pleeeeasse! I've you've been reading and haven't commented yet, now would be a really great time to let me know what you think... since it's over and all. :D One more time, thank you everyone!
1) The next story after this one is "The House on Avian Way", which I rewrote last year to conform to the new canon this story sets forth. It's been up here since 2005 or so, but if you've never read it, it's new to you! And if you didn't read the rewrite last year, it's still slightly new!
2) Please check my profile for the link to my Webfoot-related blog, where I do chapter notes and things like that. Lists of references, just babbling about inspirations and my thoughts on scenes, plus random stuf like deleted scenes and characterization posts. All kinds of fun. I'm just starting to tackle the notes for this fic right now.
3) Look for the rewrite of TWC2, "Sea of Green", to start surfacing soon, I've been working on it.