Author's Note: Hello everyone! Due to extremely bothering Uni matters, I decided to change my posting schedule from Monday to Wednesday, hope you don't mind. Anyway, here's the next chapter, one of those that came quite easy to write as I could literally picture each of the scenes. I hope you will like it and, so, enjoy your reading!

Take Or Leave, chapter 8

Blake was finally getting better. The courage to go out and protect Julie made him aware that he could do more, and he did just that. Days ago they promised each other to go enjoy the sunset on the hill in front of their house and it seemed the perfect day for it. It was also an occasion to celebrate Julie's success after all that evilness and Blake's almost complete recovery. They prepared sandwiches, snacks and drinks to have a picnic there, brought with them blankets and pillows, and crutches for Blake, to help him while walking. They came out of the house and made sure to have closed it, then took the car and reached the hill.

They put the blanket on the grass and laid on it comfortably: Julie had her legs crossed, Blake's head was rested on them and she stroked his hair tenderly while watching the sun slowly coming down. Blake took flowers for her and while she was smelling some, he put others between her hair, making her look so natural and pretty. He would have loved to stare at her for the rest of his life. It was so nice to be finally having a moment of peace, a moment of solitude and relief from all the madness that had overwhelmed them in the past few days. It was being a lovely afternoon.

In the meanwhile Patricia had been reported but no one could find her. Where was she? She certainly had been at the house talking to the mad crowd and making interviews about how she had been treated, but after that no one had seen her. Had she travelled to some other country not to get arrested? She could have done that, but she didn't.

She actually was still in Julie and Blake's house. When the police arrived to take away the crowd, she had quickly entered in their apartment and hid behind one of the bigger bushes of their garden and had remained there for quite some time hoping to hear them fighting and finally achieve her desire for revenge ruin their relationship. But when she saw them going out for the picnic it literally drove her nuts, she had to do something, but what?

When she was nervous or had to concentrate she used to smoke a cigarette and as usual she did it that time too. She couldn't think of anything until she realized that the answer to her question was literally between her hands. With total unconsciousness of what she was about to cause, she set fire to their home which started to burn up quickly. In a matter of minutes the fire had almost rambled to the second floor and when she realized the damage she called the firefighters and ran away. As they arrived, they called Julie and Blake that quickly rushed there. When they arrived they couldn't believe what had happened. Fortunately, the firemen had arrived in time to save most of the house but the first floor had been seriously damaged so they couldn't have slept there until it was restored, it would have taken a couple of weeks, or more.

Julie was devastated: Blake had been shot, the whole world had gone against her, her house had been burned and everything had happened so suddenly. She couldn't handle it all.

They decided that they would go to sleep into a hotel and at the reception Julie decided to take two separate, single rooms. At first Blake was surprised by the choice but he sensed that Julie needed that, that she needed some alone time. As a matter of fact she wanted to reflect upon all those things going on in their lives: they had all been caused by Patricia so probably they wouldn't have happened at all if she didn't got involved with Blake.

That night she sat on the bed unable to sleep. She was torn between her endless love for Blake and the alternative of leaving him to avoid him any other pain. She was constantly tempted by the inexorable desire to reach his room and see him, but she prevented herself from it. Actually she prevented herself from a number of things: she didn't eat anymore, she didn't speak to anyone or get out of the room for days, the only thing she was able to do was spending whole days crying endlessly.

Blake often walked to her room hoping to be let in but the door was always closed and it was so bad to know that it was because she wouldn't have accepted his help because this time she had to make peace with herself and her feelings of guilt.

Days later, quite by accident, the door was finally opened and it was heartbreaking for him to hear her crying copiously. He knocked the door but she pretended not to hear him. Blake tried again:

- "It's Blake, can I come in?"

Julie would have ran into his arms but she forced herself to resist and still didn't answer. Blake wasn't willing to give up so he insisted again and continued to knock the door until she answered.

- "I don't want to talk, Blake" she mumbled against her pillow

- "Fine. I won't speak to you then ... I will just kiss you".

He silently entered the room and sat beside her, with his knee on the bed. She felt his weight lightly crush the mattress behind her causing her to turn further.

- "Come here, honey"

He slid a hand under her wet cheek and it took a second for her to give in to him and turn to his side. They looked for a while into each other's eyes, both brimming with tears. Blake ran his thumb down her temple to wipe her tears and she looked down, in a vain attempt to prevent them from falling. When she looked up again she saw him raising her head from her chin before getting close to her lips.

- "Oh Blake please don't ..." she mumbled quickly but couldn't stop him from kissing her tenderly.

Only for a little while she lost control over herself before becoming lucid again and pulling away from it.

- "It's better for us to be separated ... At least you would be safe..." she sadly sighed

- "Don't you see that I love you? Don't you see that I would give my life for you?" he made her look back into his eyes

- "Yes but ... I'm so frightened that you could get hurt again, I could never be able to bear it and then you..."

Blake stopped her words capturing her lips into another kiss and this time she didn't pull away, she abandoned herself into his endlessly loving lips. She briefly came up to catch her breath and hugged him in relief and let tears of joy fall down her cheeks wetting his neck.

He decided to lay next to her into the single bed, his arms wrapping her shoulders tightly to make her feel protected and safe. She rested her head on his chest, her eyes up to his as he drew the lovely curve of her nose with his forefinger.

- "I don't want to see another tear fall from those eyes. You don't need to worry about what could happen. The only thing that matters is that we are together, okay?" he kissed the tip of her nose

- "I won't let you alone, I promise" he finally reassured and then kissed her all over her face.

Her forehead, her tired closed eyes, down her cheeks to her lips, her chin, her jaw line as she slowly relaxed until the thought of leaving him for his safety abandoned her mind forever.

That night Blake left his room to move into hers. All the others were occupied but they didn't mind a little bit about it: having a single bed just meant sleeping closer to each other. There wasn't anything more comfortable than sleeping holding each other so tight that they could feel each other's warm skin merging with theirs. After all that suffering, now that everything seemed to be over, they just needed to feel each other presence.

Two more days passed and then they received the joyous news that their house had been restored and they could come back living there. At first, when they finally arrived to move in again and Blake opened the door, Julie was a little anxious about it. She confessed him that her feelings were due to the fact that that house had been the stage of Patricia's plans so many times and this made come back really unpleasant memories. Blake looked in her eyes in a very understanding way as she was explaining and when it was his turn to speak he reminded her that it was also the house where they spent their first moments as a couple and then reassured her saying that they would have moved somewhere else if it made her feel uncomfortable. As it turned out they loved being back in their own lovely country house, ready to make them spend the best of their days.

The days that followed, after that the couple got enough time to settle in again, Julie and Blake received a lot of invitations to host television programs, press conferences and other events to talk about all their recent troubles and the way they came out of them. They weren't so pleased about it, there had already been too much gossip around them, but to one point they understood that if they used them as an mean to spread a message of strength and resilience towards all the other people who might be experiencing the same situation, then it would have been helpful for someone and certainly worth it.

One afternoon, as they were just about to leave to make one of those interviews, the phone rang and Blake answered since Julie was already outside waiting for him. He was surprised to discover that it came from the police station. They started off with saying, in a rather aggressive way, to be extremely careful. Then afterwards explained that thanks to some of their plainclothes agents they had intercepted Patricia pretending to be another person by changing her identity and getting hired on the show staff for that very day. Surely she was up to something and they had sent some sentries to discover it. Blake pointed out that therefore it was better for them to remain home but the policeman disagreed reasoning that she would have attempted continuously and that unless they caught her in action, they could never have arrested her. Therefore their collaboration was necessary despite the danger. The last recommendation the man did was not to tell Julie anything not to scare her and act like everything was normal.

When they arrived at the studio and it was their turn to came out, they sat on their armchairs in front of the interviewer, the camera rolled on and the man started questioning them. Blake tried his best to remain as still as possible but he couldn't stop looking around the set, trying to recognize some of the sentries and hopefully Patricia too. If he recognized her it would have been easier to protect Julie from the danger. After a while they were given a break due to a commercial on the television channel where their interview was being aired. As the bell rang Julie looked at Blake very concerned at his odd behavior.

- "Is everything alright Blackie?" she stroked her hand on his arm in a reassuring gesture

Five more seconds before the commercial ended and the show started again and Julie bent down to take the cup of tea on the little table in front of them to clear her voice before speaking. A male voice, very serious, very solemn suddenly shouted "Do not drink it!".

The minute those words echoed around, sentries came out of every angle of the studio and everyone in it panicked: the cameras were told to stop filming, Julie looked around trying to understand what was going on, Blake held his breath in tension, anxious to see the woman caught. A girl with blonde short hair started to run as fast as possible to get out of the room but fortunately got stopped by two of the sentries who handcuffed her and brought her to the commander. It was Patricia. Blake had seen her bringing cups of tea to everyone but she was so well camouflaged that even he couldn't recognize her. The commander explained that one of the sentries had seen her pouring some drug into Julie's cup of tea so that she would have drank it and when he analyzed it, it was discovered that it was a very powerful drug that would have made her fall into a deep coma.

Patricia was furious about it, her plan to ruin and seriously hurt Julie in front of the eyes of the vast American audience had gone up in smoke and she got mad at all of them. At first she screamed unspeakable words to poor Julie but the sentries drove her away till the car in which they took her at the police station.

Before leaving the commander smiled "Thank you Mr. Edwards" and walked away.

The sirens of the car were heard further and further away until they disappeared in the silence of the shocked set.

- "You knew about it?" Julie asked Blake with a terrified look in her eyes, she was distraught

He nodded slightly and didn't even had the time to explain himself better because she threw herself into his arms to cry her stress out.

- "Everything is over now, my love" Blake whispered in a reassuring voice as he breathed out in relief.

Now that Patricia had been arrested, Julie and Blake were finally freed from their torment, and could now coronate their love dream.

Author's Note: Thank you very much for taking some time to read, I was quite unsure about the last part but eventually I decided to keep it where it was meant to be. I'd love to know your thoughts on this chapter if you could leave some reviews but, in the meanwhile, I wish you a good rest of the week and hope to see you again for the next chapter!