Because She Loved Him

Nothing To Go Back For.

Bjorn lost no time, the quicker they got through all this and put it together the quicker he'd be on the road and closer to her. He poured himself a coffee and settled next to Benny " We've been over all this so many times and I still feel like we're missing something" he grumbled "it's like something is staring me right in the face and I just can't quite see it" "I know what you mean" Benny agreed "but for now we just need to focus on what we do know and what you can tell Anna with surety, what we know to be true" "and what is that?"Bjorn asked tiredly "I've lost every bit of clarity I've ever had right at this moment. I've looked at it all so much that I can't think. I'm jumping ahead to seeing Anna and that's all I can think of. Trying to focus on this is horrendous" Frida felt a twinge of sympathy, this was an unholy mess and it would take a lot to unpick. She got up and fetched a notebook and pen and passed it to Bjorn "writing always helps you focus, Benny hears music and you see words. Maybe it will work for you now. Put number one" she directed. Bjorn felt an unwilling grin tug at his lips "you might be right" he allowed and obediently wrote 1. "What do we know?" he asked "1. Lena deliberately targeted Anna" Frida said firmly "whether we can actually prove it is irrelevant to me" "I think we can" Bjorn said "prove it I mean" he said in response to Frida's questioning look. He sat forward and rifled through Lena's paperwork "here, look. The paper is the same as the letters, thin like airmail paper, it feels strange" he dug in his bag for the letters "it is the same" he mumbled "I knew it was" he wrote it down "2. The papers are lying." He put the notepad down and flicked through the papers with no pride or artifice allowing Benny and Frida to see the lies "I know nothing happened because she's made it all up to get in the papers. I don't like that" he pointed to a passage about a sexual fetish that he had never had any interest in and Anna would know that, it gave him comfort "I don't have a mole there" he pointed to another page "I've never been there" he added at mention of a restaurant date "and they would know if I had" he said this as a man with no ego, he knew the crowd that he drew when they went out anywhere "this photo is taken out of context" he pointed to one of him on Lena's porch. I don't have that car, that's a lie. She got that wrong, there's so bloody many,  all of these articles are either downright lies or stretching a grain of truth to the realms of ridiculousness" he subsided. Frida had been reading them all "it's all certainly designed to paint you in the very worst light but for those that know you it's easy to see the lies, here" she pointed to another article "this one says you took her to Gamla Stan before we went on tour" she consulted her diary "you were with us doing that press release at Polar, you didn't say anything but you were there and there were pictures taken of all of us" she flicked to another magazine "this is badly edited, they've cut the picture in half of all of us at Drottningholm and put her in. How anyone could not see it's a fake is beyond me" she sat back with a huff "wonder how much money she's made from all this muck raking" "enough" Bjorn said bitterly "there's never been any hint of scandal before for us and now it's all over the bloody world. The downfall of the mighty clean cut Abba and it's me at fault" "we'll deal with that after we have Anna" Benny snapped "it won't do us long term harm and who cares if it does. We know the truth and we'll survive, it will blow over. Abba has had its share of scandal before and no one cared. You forget I was a teen father and unmarried. Frida is divorced with 2 children, just because you and Anna accepted us doesn't mean it was that easy elsewhere" Benny reminded him "and if it doesn't?" Bjorn demanded "that's a problem for another day mate" Benny repeated "now is our time, We've done our duty and now you need to find Anna and we need to support you and see our children. Our time" Benny emphasised firmly "the only people that matter in this is us Bjorn, we all lost sight of that a bit" Frida said softly " me more than most" Bjorn sighed "but yes, it's a lesson that none of us will forget.
Frida focused on the press side of it and she went through all the papers that Bjorn had stolen from Lena's desk thinking that there must be a reason other than ego had made her keep them, she read and re read all the articles and she noted down the slanderous comments about Anna, the lies about Bjorn, the relationship between her and Anna and its supposed difficulties, none of which were true and Frida had a small insight into how Bjorn must be feeling. She spent time writing down every discrepancy that she came across, by the time she had finished she had a fair page full of useful wrongs.