Obsession (Dark!AndyBarber AU)

-27-

"You said you'd never hurt me..." She now told him, backing up slightly and a little unsure of just what he'd do.

"What the hell are you even talking about? I just wanna know why you're in my study at 2am and looking at my photo albums!" His voice raised slightly as he demanded answers from her.

Felicity felt a little braver. It was now or never. She had to do this now. 

"I want to know the truth and I want to know it now. You've been hiding things from me, and even now we're more serious than before you still won't tell me what's on your mind". She began. "So, I'll tell you something I've found out, and see whether that may help you to open up to me". 

"Felicity" Her warned but she cut him off. 

"Years ago, and I only recently found this out, my mother had a sister - my aunt. She was called Julia, and she was murdered - wanna take a guess as to who did it?" She looked at him. 

The realisation now crossed his face. It couldn't be...surely not? The look on Fliss's face told him that she wasn't lying though. "Oh you've gotta be shitting me..." 

Felicity shook her head. "I went to see him as well, your father. Billy..."

"You did what!" He now exploded, "Are you insane!" What the hell had even possessed her into going to visit his father? The man he'd spent years trying not to be like, and to keep those memories locked deep within - never to resurface. 

Except now they had...

"I wanted answers for my family Andy! You cannot blame me for wanting that!" She now argued back.  "He never gave them to them years ago..."

"Oh, so what did he tell you!"

She stared at him. "That he was obsessed with her, and it went too far..."

Andy's blood ran cold. If he'd had gone to see his father, then he wouldn't have found that out. But now after hearing it from her, he felt his heart drop into her stomach. 

He couldn't be like him.

He refused to be. 

But somehow now it was too late. 

"Apparently I look like her" Felicity said in a small voice

Double fuck.

"Your father tried to plant things into my mind, making you out to be just like him. But I know you're not like that...unless it all comes down to the answer of this next question that I'm about to ask you".

"You really think I'd hurt you like he did to Julia!" 

She looked at him, "I don't know...did you take my scarf? On that day it disappeared, were you the one to take it?"

Andy ran a hand through his hair. "I took it with the intention of buying you a warmer one". He told her. 

"That and you wanted some piece of me, because at that point - you didn't know whether you'd ever have me or not..." Fliss stated. "Your father took Julia's scarf...as some kind of messed up prize for what he'd done and to remember her by..."

"So what? You're comparing me to him? He's a fucking murderer Fliss! He's gonna try and get into your head! Why do you think I never have been to see the asshole? He was a shitty father and an even shittier husband to my mother! She went through hell when he was around, both of us did!"

"If you say you're nothing like him then for the love of god tell me that you didn't murder your wife...and that boy! He's your son, he has to be! Where are they Andy!" She pointed to the picture that was now back in her hand. "You said your son is in Boston, but is he really?" 

He stared at her, "Have you gone insane! Of course I didn't murder them! They were my damn family! My whole world!" His voice thundered, then he grabbed her arm and dragged her out down to the living room. "Sit down here and wait a minute. You wanna know why I won't talk about Jacob and Laurie? Well, you're about to find out".

Her heart was racing.

Jacob and Laurie.

That was the first time she'd ever heard their names or was able to put them to their faces.

He now came back and thrust a cutting from a newspaper at her. "Read". He commanded in an icy tone.

Fliss looked down at the article and her heart sank as she read the headline and the article. "Oh my god..."

"I lost the people I loved within just months of one another - that's why I don't talk about them...I can't".

Felicity swallowed the lump in her throat and now looked up at him. "But why? Why did it happen?"

The article in her hands told her all that she needed to know in order to finally piece this puzzle together. Jacob Barber had only been just fifteen when he'd been murdered by his classmate, Ben Rifkin in what seemed to be an unprovoked attack as he walked through the park to school one morning.

"They didn't get along, however that seemed to be a good enough excuse for the kid to go stab my son and leave him lying there". Andy's words were bitter. "Even wrote some messed up story on some site just days after that basically told of how he killed him in detail, how he felt - even if the characters names were changed, it was obvious it was about Jake". He paused. "Now he's spending the rest of his life behind bars where he should be. After the trial, Laurie wasn't the same. She walked out the door one morning to return back to work, but she never came home. Instead, I get the cops showing up at my work later on telling me what she'd done. She had every intention of leaving me alone, but she didn't care about what it would do to me. She just wanted to be back with Jake". He now looked at her, the pain in his expression clear. "Jake is buried back home in Newton. Laurie's wish, not mine. I'd have much rather have had him cremated and with me than cold in the ground". 

She was silent for a moment before she spoke. "How did you cope?"

He now looked up from where he'd been staring into his lap. "I didn't. In some ways I'm still not - but I'm moving on slowly, and that's because I took control, I came here to start over, and I met you...now can you see why I've said nothing?" There was truth and seriousness to his words. She could easily tell that.

He cared about her. He'd lost everything and now she knew she was the one helping him to pick up the pieces.

Fliss put her head in her hands. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry about everything I said, accused you of..."

"Visting my father didn't help".

"I needed answers for my family, and I got them. I tried not to let him get into my head...but he did..." She sighed. "I should go".

"No, Fliss..."

"Andy", She brushed past him and out into the hallway, looking back at him, but he stopped her.

"Fliss, if you still have your doubts and that you think I'm like my father, then you can walk out that door and you won't have to see me again. I won't even try to stop you - I'll give you your wage to cover the next couple of months so at least then you're not struggling..."

She looked at him, her expression broken and the tears sliding down her cheeks, but she said nothing, now turning and making for the front door, not caring if she was walking back to her apartment in just her nightwear - Steph would be there anyway. 

It was only then she heard the footsteps now come after her as she put her hand on the handle to open it...