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Never Said Goodbye Chapter 15
by Rebel Goddess (no login)
Don't say I'm not good to you. I don't really like this chapter (never have), it's too much like filler, but utterly necessary.
I disclaim.
Banner courtesy of AndieMc.
Chapter 15
The next day dawned cold and bright, like the feelings in Shawn’s mind. After weeks of indecision, of heartache, now he was fixated on a point three hundred and sixty four days away. If he could live until then, live without Belle for a single year, and she came back to him, everything would be alright. As he was doing his morning work out, he couldn’t help but smile. Megan had told Rose about Philip’s big break up with Chloe, and Rose, who had noticed Philip in particular before they left the café, was grinning like the Cheshire cat. Megan was happier too, because Shawn seemed to be happy again. She thought that he was with Belle, but she didn’t have the courage to ask him in case he wasn’t. It would be horrible if she congratulated him and he wasn’t with her. The pain in his eyes would be too much to bear.
Shorty, however, had no such qualms. She was desperate to know why their JD Gonna Be was smiling so suddenly, and she hoped it was something to do with Belle.
“Hey, SD, did you finally kiss Belle last night?” Shawn choked on the apple he was eating, and Rose and Megan burst into the room, eager to hear properly what they had been eavesdropping on a minute before.
“No,” Shawn looked half sad and half expectant.
“So?” Shorty wasn’t about to let him get away with such a short answer. “What’s going on with you two?”
“We’ve agreed to remain friends.” Shawn didn’t seem to unhappy about it, but the answer wasn’t enough for his girls.
“Is that it?” Rose didn’t look too happy.
“We’re parting company at the end of this year. She’s going to college and I’m joining the Merchant Marines to see the world. There’s no point in us starting a romance now. When do we get to meet Jean-Luc and Pierre? We skipped out of the café before we could be introduced.” Shawn was desperately trying to get them to shut up about Belle. The subject was still a little touchy for him.
“You can’t get away from us that easily,” Shorty began.
“Yes, he can. We’re late,” Rose informed her, rushing past Megan and Shawn, grabbing her bag and racing out of the door.
“This is not over,” Shorty growled as she hurried after Rose.
Shawn stood back and watched Megan as she bustled around the kitchen. She, by any means, did not have high household standards but between three teenage girls and a seventeen year old boy living in it, the house was in a terrible state. He couldn’t let her do it alone, though, and so he put on some music, put his arm around her waist, and together they cleaned up the cottage until the floors and surfaces sparkled. ‘Build me up, Buttercup’ played as Shawn, with Megan under one arm and a mop in the other, washed the kitchen floor. Under the grime, there were huge grey flagstones, and the cottage was really lovely once it was clean. It wasn’t that Shorty and Rose were too lazy to clean it. They just didn’t see the point, and they also didn’t have much time. At ten, Megan and Shawn stood back to admire their handiwork. Then, realising that if they wanted to meet the others on time they would have to hurry, they raced out of the cottage, forgetting their breakfasts and remembering only their wallets and their guidebook.
“Where is he?” Belle was frustrated that he couldn’t be on time. She needed to know how to act around him. Whether flirting was OK, or if they just went back to being the friends they had been when they were twelve, and without those kinds of feelings for each other.
“There they are. Hey, Shawn, you’re late again!” Philip yelled across the street as Megan and Shawn came out of the subway station. Immediately, there were six pairs of eyes on them. Shawn looked beyond gorgeous in his jeans and his jacket, and Megan looked very cool too. Watching them, Belle wondered why Shawn wasn’t talking to Megan as he usually did, and why Megan kept trying to start conversations that they weren’t about to finish. Shawn looked happier than before, not himself, but better. Perhaps they could make this thing work.
“Hey Perfect Girl,” it was the first time in almost a month that he had used that name. Belle’s heart melted into a pulsating puddle.
“Hey Tough Boy, what do you want to do today?” She smiled at him, this felt better. Not just better, right. The others just looked at each other and shrugged. Whatever huge fight the pair had had on New Year’s Eve was evidently forgotten. There was no point in trying to keep up with their friendships status, as it changed practically every hour.
“Well, Pink and I were going to the Musee d’Orsay, and then we had a few ideas about hair dye.” Shawn grinned his trademark smile at a now blushing Pink.
“Is that all? Come on, Tough Boy, we’ve got to do better than that!” Belle took him by the hand, and the group was off.
Chloe was still trying to make Philip apologise so they could make up and she could shove her tongue back down his throat, but he muttered something about tonsillectomies and took Megan by the arm. “You know Rose, don’t you?”
Megan was looking at him oddly, but he didn’t really notice. “Yes, why?”
“I want to ask her out, and now Chloe’s out of the picture, do you think she’d say yes?” Philip, for all his reputation and his status at Salem High, really liked Rose and was suddenly feeling nervous about asking her out.
“Yes, she likes you, she would probably say yes, but you’ll have to ask her. Is that why you broke up with Chloe?” Megan cocked an eyebrow, though any reason to break up with Chloe was probably a good one.
“Um, are you going to hurt me if I say yes?” Philip was rather in awe of Megan’s reputation. There was a rumour going round Salem before they left that she had actually beaten the linebacker of the football team to his knees for trying to feel her up. Philip could believe it. She might not look it, but Megan was the toughest cookie, other than Kitty perhaps, that he had ever met. Or wanted to, for that matter.
“No, I like Rose and I like you. As long as you don’t break her heart, you’re safe.” Megan smiled at him, but Shawn would have seen the familiar glint of Mess With Megan appearing once again. It had been missing for a while, but not long enough for her to have lost her prowess in fighting.
“Good, now can I have her cell phone number?” Philip was almost pleading. Maybe if Chloe saw him moving on with a certain brunette beauty she would leave him alone.
“Why don’t you ask her in person? She’s coming out with Shawn and I tonight, you can talk to her then.” Megan grinned a little, and Philip’s new romance began quietly.
The two weeks French trip passed in a blur of American accented French, newly blossoming romance between Mme Simone and her new artist beau, Rose and Philip, Pink and the guy from London who looked like Shawn, Marco, and even Jan and Jason seemed to be getting on better. Mimi found herself thrown together with a certain Kevin Lambert, otherwise known as Sexy Dexy, Megan’s favourite nickname for the geek of a boy with the finest kisses this side of SD Brady, and when Mimi thought about it, if she couldn’t have Shawn, she might as well take the boy who could kiss almost as well as him. There was definitely an almost there.
It was the last afternoon, hot and sunny, and the kids were desperate for something to do. They had been to every art gallery, museum, bridge and clothes shop that it was worth going to, they had trailed through cathedrals, churches, and other sites of historic interest, they had ridden on tourist buses, subways and even once taken a ride in a horse drawn carriage. They had walked on the Left Bank, hung out at all the coolest clubs, and Jason had even managed to get drunk and fall into a French sewer. On the last evening, there was nothing left to do as they sat in silence in Philip’s hotel suite.
Then Shawn remembered something Pink had said on their flight over. Leaning over to whisper in the now pink haired girl’s ear, he purred, “How about you and me pay a little visit to the Tower tonight. I may not be JD, but you know I’ve got a rebellious streak in me.”
Pink giggled, and suddenly everyone in their group was looking at them. She blushed, but Shawn leaned back nonchalantly, put his hands behind his head and winked at her. She blushed harder, and Megan elbowed him in the ribs.
“Are you trying to make Belle jealous?” She whispered in his ear fiercely.
Shawn suddenly looked upset. “No, I’m not. I just wanted to know if Pink wanted to go to the Eiffel Tower tonight. There’s some kind of party at the top and we’re invited.”
“So why didn’t you ask us all?” Megan hissed at him angrily like a spitting cat.
“Because Pink said to me that she wanted to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower particularly at night, and because Philip, Jason and Chloe had just been talking about going out for drinks. You were already to go out with Belle and Mimi to do something girlie,” Shawn cringed at the word, “so tell me, Mess With, how exactly am I trying to make Belle jealous or leaving you out?”
Megan felt annoyed that Shawn had won the argument, but didn’t let it show. She retired from the field of battle with good grace, but added after a moment’s thought, “You don’t honestly think I want to do girlie stuff tonight, do you? Don’t you know me at all?”
Shawn laughed at the expression of woe on his friend’s face.
“Shawn D. Brady!” Belle wasn’t mad, a little frustrated with the situation maybe, but she knew he would be as soon as she called him that, and she wanted to know what was going on. “What are you doing?”
Shawn looked at her through lazily half closed eyes. ‘Damn he’s gorgeous like that,’ Belle swore to herself, feeling her skin grow warmer. For all their talk of waiting a year, she couldn’t just switch off her feelings like a light bulb. In Paris, in two weeks, she had fallen even harder for Shawn than ever before. She wouldn’t have believed it possible, but something about the promise of love to come made her waiting heart tremble and beat faster whenever she saw him. Even more than usual, that is.
“Talking to Pink and Megan,” Shawn wasn’t sure what Belle was about to do, but there was a familiar gleam in her eye that was beginning to make him nervous.
“I can see that, you idiot,” here came the insults, he must really have done something wrong. “I’m asking you what you’re talking about that Megan has to drag you back on your leash!”
“Ouch, Belle, that really stung,” Shawn was laughing at her. Suddenly Belle was mad.
“I’m bored, and you’re too lazy to do anything interesting! Some rebel you turned out to be!” That was the first remark that got to him. He couldn’t help it if he was a little touchy on the subject. His love for Belle had kept him out of trouble, sort of anyway. Now she was accusing him of being a wimp or worse, being like Jason. The others just rolled their eyes as another one of Shawn and Belle’s famous fights began.
“I’m not the one who’s too stuck up to go into a bar just because it has a bike sitting outside of it!” Shawn’s voice was loud and it made Belle’s skin shiver.
“There wasn’t just one bike! There was twenty of them! I can’t help it if you’ve fallen for some two bit waitress in a French café and are now too cowardly to even talk to me properly!” The remark about Kitty was below the belt. Shawn had been talking to her a little, and they were beginning to become close friends. He knew more about her than anyone else in Paris did, and Belle, though she refused to admit it, was jealous.
Shawn didn’t say a word. He just glared at her and stormed out. After everything he had promised her two weeks before, it was too cruel of her to bring Kitty up in that way. He didn’t love his Kitty, he doubted she would ever love him like that even if he did, and Belle throwing it in his face as if she was some cheap tramp was bitterly ironic.
“Belle,” Pink said in a voice quite unlike her usual one, “that was mean.”
She went out silently, following the trail of anger that Shawn had left behind him. She found him leaning against the nearest bridge that crossed the Seine to their hotel. She remembered surfing the internet one day and finding a certain quote that had made her think of Shawn even then. Something to do with the leather jacket and the desire to help those in distress.
“Forget the white horse, I'm riding to heaven on my Harley.” Pink quoted to him softly.
He jerked around to face her. For a minute, he thought it was Belle, come to apologise. He smiled when he saw Pink. She had been quite pretty before, but she was a stunner with her pink hair. Different, perhaps a little punk, but then he liked that, except on Belle. Why did his mind always operate in circles, constantly bringing him back to her? “Hey Pink,” he murmured to her.
“Why’d you freak?”
“To the point, aren’t you?” Shawn sighed. “Belle and I have fought like this for years. It’s the best part of our friendship, that and the making up afterwards. Recently, though, she keeps dragging in all these other people that she shouldn’t. She doesn’t even know Kitty and she’s acting like Kitty’s some cheap French prostitute. Belle’s weird at the moment.” Pink, acting completely out of the instinct to comfort her friend, put her arm around Shawn’s nicely muscled waist.
“It will be alright, Shawn. Belle is just feeling a little left out. You haven’t spent so much time with her recently. Let’s go back inside, get our jackets, and you can sweep us all off our feet on the way to Eiffel Tower.” Pink smiled up at him.
“Won’t Marco be a little jealous?” Shawn’s ability to raise one eyebrow to a high arch was almost as well developed as his mother’s.
“My new boyfriend will just have to accept it. He can’t be out until later, too much business work, but he’ll meet me wherever I am.” Pink nodded her head buoyant at the thought of a different pair of brown eyes, perhaps less soulful and less like molten pools of chocolate than the ones before her, but still lovely, and more enamoured to her heart because the owner was in the process of falling in love with her.
“Right, the Tower it is. Do we really have to take the others?” Shawn nearly cringed at the thought of another evening with the bitching gargoyles, and their faithful lackeys Mimi and Jason.
“Yes, now go get your jacket.” Pink only just restrained herself from slapping his very fine ass as he broke away from her embrace. She thought it might be a little too much for such a short friendship, though she had to admit it was a very fine ass.
The Eiffel Tower was beautiful, lit up with a hundred lights as there was a party going on. What Shawn hadn’t told the others was that it was a party where the tickets were rather expensive, but everything else was free, including the finest view of Paris for miles. He had talked Mme Simone into buying the entire class tickets because of all the money she had saved as Megan and Shawn had stayed with friends. So when they got there, their entire French class was already dancing the night away. They were fashionably late, as Jan preferred to put it. Shawn said more truly that they were so late the food was on the second round and the football jocks had eaten, but not drunk, their fill. Belle and Shawn made up on the way to the Tower, mostly because Megan made them, but Shawn couldn’t help feeling that Belle had gone too far in her talk of Kitty before.
“Do you want to dance, Philip?” Chloe was nearly on her knees, begging him to come back to her. She no longer had a lap dog with dimples. It was too awful.
“No, Chloe. I don’t. There’s Rose, I’ll see you guys later, OK?” Philip was off like a shot, leaving an embarrassed and resentful Chloe in his wake.
“Wow, would you look at the ass on her?” Jason addressed himself to a rather bemused Shawn, who had to agree that the girl’s ass was particularly nice. Belle was not looking happy after that, and Jan grabbed her boyfriend and ran off with him into a corner before he could do anything else that was mortifying to her.
“Hey Pink-a-doodle-dandy, I see a guy who looks suspiciously like your boyfriend,” Chloe said slowly, “and it looks like he’s got someone with him.”
“Hey Short Stack!” Megan yelled at the petite girl next to Marco. “Get your ass over here! Jean-Luc’s coming!”
Shorty moved not like greased lightning, she was faster than that, she moved like Chloe and Jan onto a new hunk in a bar. In reality she was a mite bit slower than that, as nothing was as fast as the Chloho when it came to cute guys.
“Hey!” Shorty called. “Have you seen Jean-Luc? He’s meant to be here by now.”
“Short Stack, is he tall, handsome and tends to wear tight clothes?” Megan was looking at someone across Shorty’s shoulder.
“That’s my boy!” Shorty yelped as she turned to face her new boyfriend. She was gone in a flash, rushing into his arms as if she hadn’t seen him in weeks rather than a matter of hours.
“Is it me or is Short Stack falling in love?” Megan said wistfully to Shawn.
“Ah, it looks like Shorty’s growing up fast. Do you remember the days when we thought it nothing to go skinny dipping at midnight in the lake?” Megan elbowed Shawn in the ribs.
“We’d still do that if the river outside your house wasn’t frozen, you moron. We’re no more grown up then we were back in boarding school, we’re just better at pretending that we’re grown up. By the time we’re eighty, we might actually reach maturity.”
“Some hopes, Mess With! We’re still going to be teenagers when our grandkids are our age!” Megan and Shawn were nearly falling over themselves with laughter. Belle was amused but didn’t feel herself to be part of the joke. She was trying to get through, as Mimi was too, the fantasising thoughts that the words ‘Shawn…skinny dipping’ were bringing up in her mind.
Chloe was feeling seriously horny after that. Realising that Philip was not an option, she grabbed the nearest football player whose girlfriend was currently unattached to him physically and dragged him off into a corner for some serious making out. Not even the Chloho was immune to the charms of SD Brady, or thoughts of him naked.
“Where did she go?” Mimi asked naively.
“I think Chad knows.” Belle was not being as innocent as she usually was. There was something about Paris that was having a certain effect on her inhibitions, namely releasing her from them.
“Oh, do you think Philip knows?” Mimi asked in a whisper.
“I don’t think he cares,” Shawn replied, pointing to Philip who was having a seriously good, if possibly illegal in certain countries, time with Rose. “It looks like he’s found the new love of his life.”
“What, again?” Megan raised her eyebrow, unbelieving that even Philip was so fickle.
“How many is that this year?” Belle asked her.
“Including movie stars? Four. Chloe, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Penelope Cruz, and our Rose.” Shawn reeled off without thinking. “Fantasy girls? Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jennifer Aniston. Other? Well, he did kind of like Stacey and Inara, the cheerleaders. No, wait, Inara was Jason’s girl. Philip preferred the brunette, um, what was her name?”
“Timena?” Megan offered helpfully.
“No, the other one, the one with the ass like nobody’s business?” Belle slapped Shawn around the back of the head, still emotionally smarting from his admiration of the other girl’s ass earlier. “What? I’m a guy, I can’t help but notice these things!”
“He means Laura.” Mimi responded. “You know, the cheerful one.”
Megan looked at Mimi with her mouth hanging open. “Mimi, you just made a pun on words.”
“Huh?” Mimi was startled. She didn’t know that she had just made anything.
“Laura’s a cheerleader, and you said she was cheer full, full of cheer, you know? Oh forget it.” Mimi wasn’t listening to Megan at all as she was being taken away by a smiling, and for once fairly smooth looking, Kevin to dance.
“Sometimes I wonder about that girl,” Belle said slowly.
“Why bother? There are two things running through Mimi’s head as a constant: boys and shopping.” Megan walked away after that, trying to find someone to dance with her as Shawn was off looking for Pink.
Belle, left all alone, was feeling a little upset with her friends until she saw a dark head and the black sweater Shawn had been wearing earlier. Another look confirmed that Shawn was dancing with Pink out on the balcony to a fast song and he was telling her some joke that was making them both laugh a lot. Then Belle forgot about feeling upset and left out and started to feel jealous.
“Two can play at that game, Brady,” Belle said softly to him and went looking for a guy to dance with so that Shawn would realise he wasn’t the only guy in her. There was Larry from her trig class, handsome, suave, with blonde hair and ice blue eyes. Cute, but nothing to Shawn. He was also a reasonable dancer. Belle decided that if Shawn was going to ignore her for another girl while they were in Paris together, she could do the same to him and seductively swung her hips as she walked over to Larry.
“Hey Belle,” Larry looked her up and down slowly, taking in her curves shown off spectacularly by an outfit from the most fashionable Parisian boutique, her blonde hair in its bouncing curls and her blue eyes, then wondered when he would be seeing Brady’s fist come flying at his face. He counted to three, and when no fist hit, dared to ask Belle to dance.
“I’d love to.” Belle giggled the way she had perfected years before when she had been trying to lure Philip Kiriakis into a relationship. That had been before Shawn had returned and reminded her to whom she was going to end up married one day. That was years away, at least one anyway, and if Shawn could have fun without her, she was going to damn well show him that her life didn’t revolve around him either.
The music got slower, and she saw Pink with her arms around Shawn, holding him close. Too close. Belle moved a little further into Larry, something he definitely approved of.
“Hey, would you look at those two?” Megan poked Philip in the ribs as they made their way over to the bar. “Looks like Belle got over Shawnie boy pretty darn fast.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it. Check out the balcony. I think Belle is trying to make someone jealous.” Philip pointed at two heads very close together. A pink haired girl was getting hot and heavy with a dark haired boy in a black sweater.
“Here comes trouble,” Megan took the shot glass from the bartender’s hand and knocked back the tequila as Jan and Chloe, fresh from the bathroom where they had been fixing their severely smudged lipstick shimmied towards them.
“I’ll see you later,” Philip was not prepared to deal with his ex-girlfriend at that moment.
“Coward,” Megan muttered as he left her to the torturing of the gruesome twosome.
“At least I’ll see graduation!” He tossed over his shoulder.
“Want to bet on that?” Megan called back, trying to justify her nickname. “Hi Chloe, Jan.” She couldn’t quite manage a smile but she was trying.
“I see Belle’s recovered quite nicely.” Jan sneered as Belle pressed her petite form into Larry’s large one.
“Yes, I did wonder after that fight she had with Shawn if she would be up for tonight.” Megan tried, and failed, to work out if Chloe or Jan were being nastier.
“Hmm, looks like Pink is getting some tonight.” Jan was staring at the pair, trying to work out who the boy was.
“Like you weren’t?” Megan retorted, finding even Jan’s hypocrisy a little hard to take.
“Hey, at least I was with my boyfriend.” Jan stuck her nose in the air and pranced off, with Chloe following equally snobbishly behind her.
Belle suddenly saw them through the window and cringed. “Larry, what do you say we get out of here?”
Larry couldn’t believe his ears. Little Miss Innocence Belle Black was sounding like Jan Spears. He was not the man to pass it up. Glancing swiftly for any sign of Shawn, he took Belle’s hand and they were off out of the door and down the elevator.
“Rose,” Philip whispered into her hair. “What do we do next?”
Rose lifted her head and looked into Philip’s eyes. “We break up. We can’t keep this going. Transatlantic relationships don’t work.”
“I’m sorry, Rose.” Philip sighed. “I hate this.”
“So do I. Do me a favour? Get back with Chloe.” Philip look horrified.
“Why? She’s a horrible person.” He pulled back from her a little bit, and looked into a large pair of tearful brown eyes.
“I know. Call it twisted, but I like knowing that your next girlfriend will treat you badly and you’ll be sighing after me for months, if she was nice, then how could you break it off with her when I come back to America and we can be together?” Rose knew Philip couldn’t really believe what she was saying, but if he was with Chloe, she knew that he wouldn’t ruin his life by moping after her and he wouldn’t be chasing anything in a skirt.
“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, huh?” Philip raised his eyebrows.
Rose nodded her head sadly. “I’ll come to see you soon. My exchange ends with this year, and I’m planning on going to college in the States. Who knows, we could be back together in less than six months.”
“It’s going to be a long six months.” Philip murmured as he put his head down to kiss her.
“Let’s make the first night go real fast?” Rose replied as she felt his lips touch hers and forgot about tomorrow, at least for a little while. They kept dancing slowly, oblivious to their surroundings and determinedly not thinking about the future.
Shawn came up behind a musing Megan and said, “Hey, Mess With, where’d Belle go?”
“You mean after your display with Pink outside?” Megan felt vaguely angry. She too had presumed the dark head belonged to Shawn after she saw them dancing together.
“What? We were only dancing.” Shawn was completely confused. “What was she doing with Larry?” He suddenly remembered the reason he had been feeling upset. Belle’s petite form pressed into Larry’s chest was more than he could take. He had hidden, like a coward, at the back of the bar and drunk a series of tequila slammers.
“Trying to make you jealous,” Megan looked outside and saw Pink with her arms around her dark haired, Shawn look a like of a boyfriend. “Oh, damn.”
Her mind racing, Megan turned back to Shawn. “I think Belle saw Pink out on the balcony dancing with you and then she saw Pink kissing a dark haired guy in a black sweater like yours and thought it was you.”
“What?” The scariest part of the way Shawn said it was that his voice was ice cold and hollow. He wasn’t shouting, he wasn’t screaming at her, he was almost detached.
“Er, I take it that’s Marco out there with his tongue down Pink’s throat?” Megan said softly, not wanting to know the answer.
“Yes, he cut in when we finished dancing. I’ve been over by the bar for the past ten minutes. Where’s Belle?” Megan was trying to remember when she had last seen Shawn so upset, and decided it was the day when Belle had told him she had a date for the Fall Ball.
‘Oh, this is not good,’ Megan thought to herself. ‘This won’t be pretty either.’
“She left, with Larry, a couple of minutes ago.” Megan had never thought a human being could go so white.
“Oh.” Shawn’s mind was a body numbing blank. Of course they had agreed that they could see other people, that it would only be right, but that she had done it out of some kind of sick revenge got to him. “I think I’m going to go now. Have a nice night, Megan.” He didn’t wait for her goodbye, or to see off any of his other friends, shooting out of the door and down the staircase like a bat out of hell.
“Oh, she’s screwed.” Megan took a deep drink of her cognac, threw the balloon glass at the bartender and followed her friend out. “I just hope Shawn doesn’t do anything stupid, like kill Larry, or worse, break Belle’s heart or his own.”
