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Date Posted: 15:03:41 07/25/02 Thu
Author: Zzanee
Subject: False Hope Part 2

False Hope - 2


Todd closed his eyes and just breathed in the moment. That was his child kicking. And a ribbon of sheer pleasure spread up through him. The half-remembered image of Max standing behind Blair and running his hands over her large belly flashed through his mind again. That would never happen now. Max Holden was about to get his! Asa would make sure Gabrielle stuck with the plan.

And Blair? What would she get? What did she deserve for lying to him about his child?

After months of fetus-envy, Todd felt that he could finally look at her swollen stomach without wanting to crush something or without wanting revenge. Against Blair for choosing to carry Max’s child. Against Max for gloating! And because he was Max and needed a good whack with a shovel every once in a while just for the hell of it. Against nature for allowing that thing inside her to grow and develop. Against God for making him take this test again. And against himself for once again failing miserably at it.

A more forgiving, generous man could have accepted another man’s child, if he loved its mother. A stronger, more resolved man would have walked away and just let it go once he determined that he could not accept the situation. But Todd Manning was neither forgiving, generous, strong nor resolved when it came to Blair Cramer. He was nothing of those things with her.

With her, he was…well…himself…whatever that happened to mean at the moment…Who was he kidding?

Not Todd Manning and not Blair Cramer. They both knew who he was and what that meant. It meant he could not stomach her carrying another man’s child but it also meant he would remain part of her life whether she liked it or not! If he could not be her hero, he’d just as happily be the villain. The man she hated. The man she loathed. But the man she would, nevertheless, lay awake thinking about at night.

It only seemed fair because he was wide-awake thinking about her. What they could have had, if she had not destroyed it! The first time with her baby lie! The second by screwing Thornhart on his living room and carrying his brat to term. The third by believing Dorian and Thornhart over him about that yacht. The fourth by letting Max into her bedroom the night before their aborted wedding. The fifth by choosing to have Max’s child and to marry him.

So, Todd had felt justified in tormenting his disloyal unfaithful woman to his heart’s content. His goal was never to destroy her. Destroying her or killing her, as he told Gabby, was too quick and he would have nothing further to play with or enjoy. Besides Blair Cramer was indestructible. At the end of the world, there would be cockroaches, a few televanglists and Blair.

No, he wanted to make her suffer the way he suffered. His goal was to ruin her happiness by taking away the things that brought her pleasure. Starr, Max, her freedom and this baby, if he could!

Why? Good question! After reading that note in Sam’s file and listening yet another pep talk from Vicki, he had gone to talk to her at the Millhouse…not happy…the only thing that made him happy was having Max’s child disappear…

No, that day he had been hopeful for the first time since he stupidly turned her clothes into the cops. Todd had gone there so hopeful only to have Blair tell him that she loved Max! That she wanted to marry Max! That she was going to marry Max and have his baby! That she was going to take Starr from him!

That had been his breaking point! Nobody would ever separate him from Starr again! Blair could marry Max and have his baby, if she wanted! Todd hoped Max gave her the happiness she deserved! He trashed her like yesterday’s newspaper, got his daughter and left town for good!

But even as he played with Starr on the beach and visited all the tourist traps of the Sunshine State, Todd had thought about Starr’s mother. The more he thought about her the angrier he got! Blair belonged with them! Starr should have her mother and he should have his wife!
Blair was too busy with her new family to care about the old. Sure, she would have welcomed Starr into her new family with open arms but there was no room in that new family for him. She wanted him left out in the cold with no one to love him!

For her indifference and her cruelty, Todd decided that she had to pay. So he put Starr in that summer camp and returned to exact his revenge. On his first night back, he lucked into that Asa’s revenge scheme against Max. Possession of a certain tape, Blair’s signature and the right amount of pressure insured that Blair would be going down with Max.

There would be no wedding! No triumph of true love! No new family! No happily ever after for Blair! If that scheme had gone off according to plan, Blair would lose her beloved Max, her unappreciated freedom and that thing she carried.

Blair would also be completely at his mercy with her future totally dependent on him. She would finally understand that she was under his control. It would not take her long to figure out that if he was the man damned her, he would also be the only one man who could save her. Finally, she would acknowledge that she belonged to him and he would do with her as he wished. He would have finally won her on his terms, not hers! And she would give him everything he wanted!

But that great plan was destined to remain his fantasy, because Asa’s scheme fell to pieces. Max cancelled the wedding. Gabby got cold feet. Blair decided to leave town.

In spite of what she had said outside the hospital, Todd knew that he had not won a damn thing if he did not have her to agonize over him. He could not allow her to just walk away from him. And he had run out of ways to control her. Even Starr had ceased to be a useful weapon anymore. Todd had not felt that lost and hopeless since the exposure of his DID fraud when he was forced to leave town in disgrace.

That was why Todd thought she was so hell-bent on leaving town. Without Max or Starr, Blair had no reason to remain in Llanview. All the other Cramers, except Addie, were gone. Sam and Ben were her only real friends. So what was the point, if she could not see Starr and Max dumped her for Gabby?

Todd also knew that Blair would not leave without saying good-bye to her crazy mother, Addie. So, he had gone to St. Anne’s with the expressed purpose of getting her to delay her departure for a few days until Asa could bring Gabby back in line and the scheme could proceed. Once the scheme proceeded, Ms. Cramer would not be going anywhere but the county jail. Then, Blair would be living the life he had planned for her or spending the rest of her life in Stateville.

So he walked into Addie’s room and there was she. Beautiful, determined, pregnant and something else, de-attached from him. Watching her disconnect from him one more time set him off. But pushing the right buttons changed Blair from a de-attached serene Madonna to furious, screaming banshee in about three seconds. They fought low and dirty.

Todd grinned thinking there was nothing in this earth closer to heaven or hell than fighting with Blair.

Hell, it was almost better than sex! Well, maybe not sex! But fighting was the most stimulating thing with Blair outside of actually sleeping with her. The woman had him so worked up that he had halfway back to the Sun before realizing he had done nothing to keep her from hopping the next plane out of town.

By the time he got back to St. Anne’s, Blair was gone but Addie had given him this letter that Blair had written him but had torn up in her anger. Addie had kindly taped it back together for him but it did not make a lick of sense. So he had left the letter at the Penthouse with Starr who managed in two weeks to get herself thrown out of that fancy boarding school he had put her in.

Starr, a tiny furious copy of her mother, was sick of being away. She was sick of traveling. She wanted to come home. She wanted to go her old school and to see her friends. But most, Starr wanted as she emphasized with a stomp of her tiny foot, was her mother. In no uncertain terms, Starr wanted her Mommy. She expected him to get her mother immediately. To stop fighting with her, to bring her home and to make them a family with the new baby, even if it was Max’s. A tall order for a tiny kid!

But Todd barely heard her as he rearranged the pieces of the torn letter as was able to make out the phrase, ‘it’s your baby, Todd, ours’. The rest was all flowery nonsense as far he was concerned. He had the part that mattered most. Blair had written that her baby was his!

That became his reason to track her down. But baby or no baby, Todd knew perfectly well that he would never just let Blair go like he had Tea. Blair was not Tea. So, escape was never a possibility for her. They were fated for each other and deep down Blair knew that. Love, obsession, call it whatever you wanted, it bounded them together forever.

After confirming the truth from Sam’s and her doctor’s files, it had taken Todd another hour to track her down through airline reservations and real estate listings. All her transactions were in cash but Blair had foolishly used her own name on everything.

It was almost as if Blair wanted him to find her! Had she? Now here they were together on her bed feeling their child kick. Todd did not know, if that was a kick in the head or a kick in the teeth. So he found her and they were having another child together. What happened now?

They badly needed a way to deal with this, Todd thought, easing her back against his chest and between his legs without removing his hand where she had placed it with her hand on her belly. He was furious with her for lying to him about this child. And he planned to give her holy hell about her damn lie, once he got past his joy about his child. Todd had wanted this child to be his eversince he learned she was pregnant.

With ironic laugh, Todd realized that he had gotten his wish. Max’s baby had disappeared. But it was better than that! He was going to be a father again. He was going to have another child. Not just any child! Another child with Blair! Another Starr or someone just as fabulous was growing inside this woman.

His woman. And for once Blair was not fighting him, pushing him away, screaming for Max or throwing him out of her life. She was just sitting there letting him enjoy her, their baby and this moment. Breathing in her scent, Todd knew what he wanted as his fingers lightly brushed her neck.


Subject: False Hope - Part 3

False Hope - 3

The woman was a chronic liar! A deceptive snake in the grass! Two-faced gold-digger! A manipulative conwoman! Under-handed and untrustworthy! He could not trust her any further than he could throw her! She’d stab him in the back the first chance she got. If he was not such a persistent man, she would have disappeared with his baby and he would have never known a thing about it.

Todd snorted in displeasure as he ran his fingers lightly through her soft, blonde hair. His fingers moved down her back of her head to massage the tense muscles in her neck. Blair should be twisted and tense after the stupid stunt she just tried to pull. How could she do something this stupid and heartless to him and them?

Something like this would be understandable, if he did it, since he was supposed to be the selfish, irrational and immature one. She was supposed to be the forgiving, sane and mature one. It was how they worked. How was he supposed to deal with this role reversal? Should he shout at her, tell her to pack her things and drag her back to Llanview?

What if she told him to go take a long walk off a short pier? What was he supposed to do then? What was the right way to handle this mess she had gotten them into?

And make no mistake! This whole thing, everything bad that he did and said since her hearing, was completely Blair’s fault, because she lied to him. Repeatedly! She had derived much pleasure from telling him that she was happy to be having Max’s baby and not his! Every time she got angry with him she used that lie to twist the knife in deeper.

Was he angry? Hell, yes! But anger was a gross understatement of what he felt. Anger was too mild a feeling to describe his feelings about her lie. Better words? Try blind fury! Try towering rage! Fire and brimstone! Wrath of god! A plague on your house kind of feelings! Todd felt he could rip the beating heart from her chest and eat it raw.

He could…hold her down and kiss the lie right out of her. What the hell was he supposed to do with her?

Blair sat still on the bed, certain this wonderful, peaceful moment of them just sharing their baby was quickly coming to an end. They seemed to have forgotten the simple joy of just being. She could stay like this forever.

If she closed her eyes, she could pretend that Starr was in the next room playing and they were having one last vacation before she was too big to travel. Having Todd stroke her belly was a normal, daily occurrence. Her family all together was an ordinary thing. Natural, the way it should be. The way they should be.

The way they never would be. Soon, the fighting would begin again. Then, the threats! He would storm off and she would cry her heart out. You can’t build a life or a love on false hope.

So why did she continue to expect to do just that? As if the fact that he knew he was the father of her baby would magically change all the pain and anger between them?

Now, it would be worse. Todd hated her lies almost as much as he hated her infidelity. On a good day, he would find a way to live with what he saw as her sins. That was not to say that he would ever forgive or forget them. Todd kept them neatly filed in the back of his mind to use as needed on the appropriate occasion.

So what was he going to do about her latest transgression? Todd was going to do something, right? He was incapable of letting something this big go, right? He was not going to just sit there massaging her neck?

Though, his fingers felt so good. In spite of her nap, she was still so tense and tired from her trip, her emotional decision to leave town and naturally waking up to find him here beside her, knowing that he knew the truth.

Impatiently Blair wished he would do whatever he was going to and just get it over with already. She could not help but think he was luring her into a false sense of security, so his punishment would seem twice as terrible. Todd Manning had cruelty down to an art form.

Look at her staring at him all doe-eyed! The picture of maternal innocence! Blair was doing at that glowing Madonna thing with her clear, green eyes. Todd was sure she did on purpose to make him guilty when she was the one committing the sin! Those big, green eyes trusted him to let her off the hook, because she was Blair, Starr’s mommy and the mother of his unborn child.

As if that was anywhere good enough! Blair deserved to suffer his wrath.

He should find a way to make her pay for every unkind, murderous thought he had about his own child! But what was he doing instead? He was giving the treacherous, deceptive, under-handed liar a back massage! Oh yeah, she was really suffering here! But the hell was he supposed to do? Take revenge on a beautiful, relatively helpless woman six-months pregnant with his child?

Right! Even his heartlessness had its limits! Maybe, he was just getting soft in his old age!

“Todd” she groaned contently as his thumbs kneaded out a big knot under her left shoulder blade.

“Shut up, will you?” he asked unhappily, running his hands across the top of her dress as he decided he had gotten out most of the bigger knots.

“Thank you,” she said gratefully, leaning back against him without giving much thought to the action. The room was cool. Todd was warm. It seemed like the natural thing to do.

“For god’s sake, Blair!” he grumbled very uncomfortable with his reaction to her causal closeness.

“What?” she asked confused, turning wide eyes up at him.

Again with the doe eyes! Did she have a clue about what she did to him with all the touching? He was a man, not a couch for her to drape herself all over. It was bad enough that she was beautiful and smelled great. It was worse that he had not touched a woman little over six months. But if you added that to the fact that the beautiful, great-smelling woman whom he had not touched in six months was Blair...

Settling down against him again, Blair thought he was in his usual surly mood, wasn’t he? At least, they were not fighting! She was uncertain why they were not fighting but she was not complaining either! Maybe, Todd was tired from his trip. Maybe, he was like her just tired of fighting. Or maybe he was gearing up for the next round.

Anyway, she was not going to upset the apple cart by starting a fight with him! So if Todd Manning wanted play that particular game, he would have to play with himself.

With a sly smile, Blair wondered if he did just that when he got…well…antz…she could almost see him…she mused pressing her butt down against his front.

And jeez… he needed to remember that he gave her that swollen gut! He had knocked her up and she would be having his kid in less than three months! So he should not even remotely be considering doing the nasty with her, however nice her bottom felt pressed back against him. Sex was not a consideration!

Instead, he should be thinking about the baby! The little life they made together!

It had to have been that first time after she kissed him and he was ready to burst. What the hell had she expected? It had been damn near…well…a long time, since he had…anyway…he pressed her back on the bed, yanked her skirt up and her panties down. They were both panting like a couple of teenagers. Then, his damn zipper was got stuck. He thought he would pass out from his erection when she finally got the zipper open and pulled him inside her. What was it five, ten seconds tops before they both came?

Yup! That’s how they made this one! It had to be! The other three times she made him wear a condom so this of thing would not happen! He always said they were a fertile couple! This was their third baby together! So, this was really his one trip to the store without a raincoat baby! Not Max’s rainy season brat!

Yet, until seeing that line in her letter, it never occurred to him that this baby could be his! Unbelievable! The monster was his baby! Did that make him Frankenstein? Shouldn’t he get to see his creation?

“What are you doing, Todd?” she asked jolted of her very visual daydream as she suddenly felt him pulling the teeth of her dress’s zipper apart.

“I want to see you, Blair. I want to see the baby. I want to see where our baby is growing. I want to see what I have done to you. I want to see the result of our passion. I want to see what our baby is doing to your body. I want to see where you’re nourishing him and letting him grow,” he answered softly, deliberately choosing his words as he finished unzipping her dress and waited for her reply to his request.

Blair got off the bed, turned around and stared hard at him. She could not believe that he had just said that to her. What was he trying to do to her? Mess with her heart? Play with her head? Reek his usual mayhem? Or was this how he planned to punish her?

If so, Todd could not have picked a cruel form of punishment. This was what he had said to her the morning after his plane ride proposal. She had been laying in their bed, applying moisturizer to her pregnant, swollen belly when she looked up to see him watching her from the doorway.

Feeling as big as a house, she quickly pulled the bedsheet up to her chin, saying that she did not want him to see her fat and naked. That would ruin their love life. Todd disagreed strongly and said those sweet words to her as he pulled the sheet down and applied the cream all over her fat, naked body. They did not get out of bed that day until noon.

Blair studied his neutral face for the meaning to his words. Seeing nothing to alarm her, she decided the words meant what they meant. Then with the hope that he was sincere, she pulled the dress from her shoulders and let it fall at her feet. She stood before him naked except for her bra and underwear. Stepping out of her dress, she came back to the bed.

Scooping to the edge of the bed, Todd smiled into her inquisitive green eyes as he touched the taut skin of her stomach. The last time he had seen her stomach it was flat. Now, it housed his child. This was where his child had been growing for the past six months and where he would remain for another two. Two more months, that was what he had before this child came.

Two months to make things right for this baby and its big sister. This time he would be there. Wild horses would not drag him away. Starting now, he would always be here for this baby. Todd promised himself and his child as he kissed the center of its mother’s belly.

His baby’s mother was so beautiful. She was always beautiful. Never more than when she was pregnant. Blair just glowed when she was pregnant with the light that shone inside out. It had happened with their first baby, Starr, Brendan and now this one.

The fact that he was responsible for her glow this time delighted him. Todd reveled in the fact that he had done this to her. It felt good and right to him. He was proud that he had been the one to take this beautiful woman and make her more beautiful with this wonderful glow that his child gave her.

The idea that first Thornhart and then Holden had done the same thing to her drove him nuts. It made him crazy in fundamental way that stuck at the core of who he was. It messed him up inside. It turned into this caged beast ready to claw anyone foolish enough to get close to him.

Todd knew in the most simplistic terms that it boiled down to the fact that he hated to share her. With anyone ever. Not just another men but her Cramer family and her friends. The only exceptions to this rule were his children. Rationally, he knew that was completely selfish and way beyond over-possessive. But it was how he felt at heart.

Most times he could keep his desire to keep her locked away somewhere under control. He usually tolerated her need for other people’s company. More recently, he had reluctantly even come to terms with the fact that Blair had slept with other men. Three other men but who was counting? Thornhart, Holden and Sam.

Todd forced himself to forget Sam about most of the time, because Sam was Sam and Todd could not hate him. Anyway, Blair’s affair with Sam was brief and meaningless. Sam was trying to forget Nora and Blair, though she would never admit, was trying to forget him. Few weeks and it was over with. Blair and Sam remained friends. There were no lingering romantic feelings. Todd felt he could write their affair to the same mad season he faked DID and wasted many hours massaging Delgado’s feet in a pathetic attempt to stay out of jail.

Thornhart and Holden were very different. Both of those bastards were determined to leave their marks on Blair by saddling her with their brats. That was one privilege he refused to share. There had to be a rule somewhere that Blair could only have his children. And if there was not, there should be.

Because violators of that rule paid dearly. Todd never regretted any of the things he did to Patrick Thornhart and doubted if he would regret letting Max get what was coming to him. He knew he was an unforgiving man and shortly so would Max Holden. Funny how at peace he was about that!

Doubtless, it was the joy of impeding fatherhood, Todd smiled and stood up off the bed, running his hands possessively over Blair’s belly. Knowing that this child was his had somehow restored his equilibrium. He felt things were right and as they should be. He could let go of his anger towards Blair because he was once more at peace with the world, nature and god.

Now all Todd wanted was to make peace with Blair. The lie, while it was something they would work out later, was not important enough to stand between them. Not when she was having his baby. There was a lot they needed to do before this baby gave. A lot before Starr showed up tomorrow.

Where should he start to repair the damage and make them into a family again? The answer was easy. He’d start with these big, green doe eyes and move onto Blair’s soft full mouth, Todd thought as he eased her in his arms and kissed her.

This is not feel like fighting, Blair thought uncertainly as she stood still and let him touch her mouth with his. That seemed to be working so far. Since she did not want to fight with him and break this unexplained cease fire in their hostilies, she decided she could let him kiss her, run his arms around her back and hold her close. The room was cool and Todd was warm. It felt like just the thing to do.

Dear lord, what was Todd doing to her now? What did he want from her? He couldn’t possibly want her?

Impossible! She was as large as a house! So Todd could not want sex! He was trying…what was he trying to do? Oh dear! Wasn’t that the snap of her bra? Why had Todd opened her bra? Did he want to have sex with her? What was she supposed to say to that?

“Todd, I…I’m…not ready…I’m going to…have a shower…we’ll…hmm… talk… later…” she babbled incoherently, backing away from him and pulling her bra together.

Todd removed his hands, raised an eyebrow but said nothing. To indicate where he would be, he plopped back down on the bed and watched her nervously gather her bathroom things out of one of her bags. Blair gave him the uncertain doe eyes one more time and closed the bathroom behind her.

She so wanted him! Todd smirked at the closed door.

That had gone better than he had expected! Second base and the night was still young! He was in no hurry but he did plan to score tonight. Hell, he had waited six months. What difference did a few hours make at this point! The big battle was over! He could relax. The baby was his. Blair had just hesitantly accepted that he was going to be the man in her life again. This whole thing was going to work just the way he wanted it.

After making two quick telephone calls, Todd decided to see if Blair would let him scrub her back. He discarded his clothes and opened the bathroom door to the sound of running water.

Also hearing the running water, Paloma opened the bedroom door and poked her head in the room. The rumpled bed and the discarded clothes told her they were in the shower together. Shaking her head, this job would not be as easy with two people instead of one.

A lot of things would not be easy, if the man remained here. Hopefully, he was just visiting. Much was dependent on the woman being alone.

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