"No no no. It's not going to work. You can't put the pool that close to the ocean, every time there's a storm it'll rise up and we'll have to drain it." Gregory pointed over the place near the beach AJ had just suggested. "Are you even thinking about this at all or are you just picking sites at random?"

AJ crossed his arms and his face hardened into marble. "You enjoy that don't you? Pointing out the holes in everyone else's thinking. You are the only one who can ever be right, aren't you?"

"When you're acting as distracted as you are, you don't have a leg to stand on." Gregory settled down on the edge of the bench near the future wall of the resort's main building. "I'm right because I'm paying attention. You're not even looking at the logic of what you're saying. If you don't want to be here just leave. I'm more than capable of planning this resort on my own."

"You haven't changed at all." AJ shot back as he took the other side of the bench. "You've always been more than capable, more than me, just that little bit better than everyone else." Leaning back against the bench, he took on a quieter tone. "What is it? Some kind of inferiority complex?"

Gregory's laughter cut through the air. "So you're a psychologist now Mr. Deschanel?" He shrugged and settled in. "This should be amazing. The wisdom of a man who's never spent more than a few months with the same woman." He reached down and picked up a handful of sand. Watching it drift back through the spaces in his fingers, Gregory smirked openly at AJ. "The logic of the man who let the one woman he's ever claimed to love slip through his fingers." Brushing his hands together removed the last traces of the sand. "Just like that."

AJ had to relax his fingers to keep them from turning into fists. "I didn't lose her. You turned her against me. You conspired with Bette and drove me out of town."

"It must have stung to have to leave the town your father built, or did you think it was a welcome relief from having to stick around to raise your bastard son?" Gregory wasn't sure which hatred burned at him more, Cole or AJ. "I thought you'd be grateful. Elaine might have asked you to marry her, and I can't imagine how horrible she'd feel if you'd left her at the altar."

Elaine didn't strike the same chord Olivia had and Gregory was disappointed when AJ's response was just a smile. "How is the altar? Was it as magical the second time around?"

Gregory could feel his teeth gnash together. "You've never gotten over the fact that Olivia got over you and had a life with me, can you?" Standing up to pace as he thought it all through, it suddenly started to make sense to Gregory. "She wasn't supposed to get over you. She was supposed to pine for you for the rest of her days, just like all of those other women you left behind like yesterday's garbage."

AJ flew off the bench, surprising himself by how quickly he was face to face with Gregory. "It must have stung when Elaine killed Del before you had the chance to get your furious hands on him. Tell me Gregory, does it feel as good as you thought it would to know you've bedded her best friend?" He leaned closer and dropped his voice to a polite mockery of a whisper. "Can you feel Olivia watching you when you undress her replacement?"

Gregory's eyes narrowed in a final warning. "You must be getting rusty. Olivia still hasn't succumbed to the infamous Deschanel charm. Perhaps the whole legend is a tad-" He looked pointedly at AJ's trousers. "Exaggerated."

"Olivia wouldn't even be around for you to continue to hurt if it wasn't for me." AJ's turn for smugness felt as triumphant for him as Gregory had a moment ago. "You let her go after your child died. That's how much you loved her. You let your grieving wife disappear because you couldn't deal with her pain." He knew he should hold back. Every part of good sense reminded him that there were things you didn't say. Even to your own worst enemy. Fury licked at his eyes, and suddenly, watching the quiet self-satisfaction on Gregory's face was too much.

"She was ready to kill herself when I found her. That's your legacy Gregory. Nothing but pain and death-" AJ stopped short as Gregory grabbed his lapels. Shock cutting off what reason refused to intrude upon.

"At least I lived with her." He hissed as he released AJ. Gregory pulled himself together, icing over the boiling lake of lava in his heart. "Olivia and I have pain, but we had more joy, more contentment and more joy than you've ever known-"

AJ opened his mouth to interject, but Gregory silenced him with a glare. "Why? Because for a time we were exactly what we wanted." All the anger melted out of his face. "It may not have been forever, but one moment. One instant of requited love is more powerful than all the stories in the world. One smile from someone who loves you is brighter than all the casinos of Monte Carlo." His dark eyes softened so much AJ began to wonder if he could look into the other man's heart.

"That's what you missed when you left Sunset Beach. Not the bondage of marriage, but the freedom of love. The power and perfection of knowing you can be yourself. Even if it's just in that room, in that moment, with her, you have eternity." Gregory's heart was naked there, crackling in the air between them before he put it away. "That's what you lost and that's what you;'ll never have-"

AJ took a moment to collect himself. He was ready to fight Gregory. To rip him apart as soon as Gregory threw the first punch, but this was entirely different. "Olivia isn't-" He looked to the ocean just long enough to cement his answer. "Olivia's not a frigid wasteland now that you're done with her. A woman doesn't become incapable of love just because she was once involved with someone like you."

Gregory raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, I didn't know we were talking about Olivia."

Dumbstruck, it was all AJ could do to stare at him as if he'd suddenly admitted to being the firstborn son of Satan himself. "Who else would-"

"You're not angry with me because Olivia loved me, and you're not still angry with me because Olivia chose me all those years ago." Gregory rolled his shoulders and all the tension evaporated from them into the air. "You're angry with me because I've managed to do the one thing you couldn't. I let myself love and it ripped my heart out." He stuffed his hands into his pockets and tilted his head thoughtfully as he watched AJ's eyes flicker.

"You've been carrying a torch for Olivia all these years. Wandering through life with nothing more than a fading memory of infatuation to keep all your other chances away." Gregory's right hand pointed thoughtfully at AJ and then curled under his chin as he finished his epiphany. "You know, I always thought you were foolish to let her go without more of a fight. But now-" He looked up and down the neat silk suit AJ was wearing and smiled the quiet smile of someone who knows he has seen the final battle.

"Now I know you're just a coward."

AJ's fist lashed out and connected solidly with the flesh and bone of Gregory's cheek. Spitting blood into the sand, Gregory's eyes widened in amusement as he dropped his jacket to the bench and began rolling up his sleeves. "So do tell me AJ, how long have you been in love with Bette?"

Gregory blocked one, but another hit got through, impacting his chin this time. He shook it off and grinned in wild amusement. "What bothers you more? The fact that I know or the fact that I've had what you can only fantasize about?"

AJ feinted and the real lunge a split second later caught Gregory and sent them both crashing into the two by fours and plaster of the temporary wall. The rattling came a moment afterwards.

Gregory spent a moment thinking that the entire structure was coming down around them before he realized the shaking was coming from all around them. Even the sand beneath his feet.

AJ grabbed his shoulder and dragged him back from the collapsing wall they'd just crashed so recklessly into. Enmity was forgotten in the sudden, desperate struggle for that which both of them prized more than their hatred for each other. They're very survival was at stake as they stumbled together a step away from the groaning scaffolding of the resort. Another step as the rumbling became a roar of fury. A roar echoed only by the crashing, splintering horror that was the death rattle of the resort. Neither of them even had a chance to see if the other had survived before darkness took them both.

Olivia ran her hand through the air over her sleeping son and forced herself to lift her gaze from his angelic face. Let him sleep. He was safe. He was with his mother. She left the door to the nursery open as she tiptoed down the hallway. She could have stood there all day and watched him dream his little dreams. He was her son. Her flesh and blood.

But he'd still be there. No one. No one was ever going to take him again. Not Annie, not Caitlin-

Annie was Bette's niece. She'd almost been Gregory's husband instead of Bette. Olivia couldn't even fathom how terrible that would have been. Bette she could forgive. Bette she could understand, but Annie. Anne was a witch. A criminal and the lowest form of life. She shouldn't tell Bette, not until she had more than her own fragile memory and Annie's word to go on, but she had too. She had to let the secret out of her chest before it ripped its way free of it's own accord.

Bette had a magazine open on the floor of the living room and she was sprawled on the sofa just above it. She looked up in surprise at the sound of footprints on the stairs. "Livie, you startled me, I thought you'd just stay up there with the little guy."

"He doesn't need me when he's sleeping." Olivia replied with a tiny smile. "And he is finally, asleep." She sank into the chair across from Bette and stared up at the delicately scrolled ceiling. "I still miss the old house. I don't even live here and it feels-"

"Wrong?" Bette offered with a heavy sigh of guilt.

"Odd." Olivia corrected as she offered Bette an apologetic look. "I'm sorry I've been so distant lately."

"I married your husband!" Bette sat up and her foot dropped to the magazine with the crunch of glossy paper beneath it. "I'm a horrible, thoughtless, self-serving btch- I'd hate me. If I was you."

"Maybe we should be happy you're not." Olivia retorted with a touch of relief. "I can't lose you too." She looked up at the ceiling and then across to her best friend. "You're the best friend I have. My oldest-"

"Ah-ah-ah. Don't go there. You had me at best." Bette winked at her and then left the sofa to fold Olivia into her arms. Together they overflowed Olivia's chair, but neither of them wanted to let go.

Bette sniffed, fighting back her tears. "I just don't know what I do if you hated me. Who would I talk to? Who could I call in the middle of the night? Who would go shopping with me?"

"Now that's a good question." Olivia pointed out with a sob that could have passed for a giggle of relief. "I know you don't love Gregory-" Her voice caught a little on his name. "I know that."

"Good!" Bette squeezed her again and rocked back on her heels to sit on the floor. "Oh Livie, I missed you."

Olivia patted Bette's shoulders and sighed happily. "I missed you too. You wouldn't believe how quiet the beach house is without you."

"I'm not sure if that's a compliment." Bette reached up and squeezed into Olivia's folded hands. "But I'll take it as one."

"I think that's a good idea." Olivia smiled again, trying not to get used to feeling comfortable once again in her friend's presence.

The silence that fell over them was pleasant. Olivia let Bette fidget with her fingers as she tried to find the words to explain her secret. She opened her mouth to start at least three times before she finally decided to come out with it. "Bette-"

"What?"

"There's something I have to-"

The chandelier was swaying.

Olivia stopped dead. Why was it swaying?

"The chandelier-" Olivia began to speak in silence, but as she tried to explain the air was suddenly alive with thunder. The sun was still setting over the ocean though the patio doors. It couldn't be a storm.

Bette heard it. She saw the chandelier begin to swing dangerously from its' mount as the groaning of strained wood added to the rumbling all around them. "What the hell?" She was the only person who heard herself speaking. The sound was all around them and it was so loud that it was inside of her. The heavy glass patio door exploded inward in a shower of glass and Bette reached for Olivia's hand. The doorway to the study was only a few feet away. They could make it.

Olivia strained towards the staircase, pulling out of Bette's grip as she went for her son. Bette felt her hand slip away just as the first beam fell though the ceiling. Plaster, wood and wiring exploded from the ceiling just over her head. Olivia's scream cut through the roaring around them. And then-

Darkness.