Chapter Text
He didn’t dare to take another look back, afraid that if he did so, he wouldn’t bring up enough courage to leave at all. But leaving really was his only option. So he just walked on and on and on. Leaving the beach behind and getting on his way to L.A. His first stop would be at the hotel to get his marginal belongings and then he would head out of the city and see where it would take him. As Katie once said to him, he always landed on his feet and so it would be this time.
Nevertheless at this point, Marius really couldn’t fathom how much he would miss them. He still couldn’t believe that he kind of willfully disregarded the first rule of the “life”: Never get attached! But really, how could he not get attached? He was preaching to the choir with the Bernhardt’s and their craving to welcome the long-lost grandson in the sweet bosom of the family again. Even with all his flaws, or at least the ones they did know of, they accepted and even loved him nonetheless. They made him part of their family, a real family. Although they were a strange bunch of people to begin with, but he had grown so unbelievably fond of them, somehow wishing the goodbye wouldn’t be necessary right now. And what a bittersweet goodbye it had become. He lingered in Otto’s arms and was wishing for this hug to never end. His fake grandfather really was a hugger. On the outside he was the more emotional one in comparison with Audrey, but Marius knew, that the matriarch of the family also took a liking to him, even though she wouldn’t show it in the ways, that her husband did. He would miss nosy Carly and Taylor, too. And of course Julia. When his thoughts turned in her direction, he felt his insides convulsing. The last three days, since Julia had been kidnapped, where awfully stressful and took a toll on him; of course he would never let anything happen to her. He had always felt a certain connection to Julia, right from the beginning. She was such a smart, strong woman and with her being the only one in the know about his real identity this special bond paradoxically grew stronger, although since finding out, she wasn’t being her nicest self towards him, For a split second he even had thought that Julia had asked him “Do you love me?” instead of “Do you love her” and meaning Lizzie. This could have either been a Freudian slip on Julia’s side, or just wishful thinking on his side. Marius thought about his feelings towards her a lot lately, but he didn’t come to a real conclusion. And as any real relationship was off limits anyway, he didn’t bother to get a definitive answer.
Thinking of Lizzie, Marius really didn’t feel anything anymore. It was kind of true, what he said to Julia on the beach, he did love her, but sometimes just love wasn’t enough to maintain a solid bond with another person. It seemed to him, that they both had moved in different directions. Lizzie had this aura of crazy around her, always doing the unexpected. Of course, that was one of the things that attracted him to her in the first place, but he was not in his twenties anymore and over the last couple of days it became apparent, that they wanted different things out of life. Marius had no idea, where the life would take her now, that they once again parted ways. For all he knew, she managed to escape the cops, who had showed up at the warehouse just in time to get to Chuck aka Damon Neeskins and his thugs, leaving the Bernhardt’s bail bonds office still short of the 250,000 dollar bond, but Marius already took care of that. So to him this goodbye on the beach seemed like a pretty clean cut, only leaving him with the nagging suspicion that his fake family knew more, than they let on. Carly telling him about her ambition to study psychology and her emphasis on the “why people do stuff” seemed to be an excellent fit for his situation and with Audrey one could never be sure, what she was thinking. Perhaps real Pete would come back to the farm sometime and clear up the whole charade or Julia would eventually tell them, who knew. All Marius knew, was that, he wanted to visit his brother on his way back to the east coast, because, what he had learned in this couple of weeks, he spent with the Bernhardt’s, was that family is really all that matters.
“The burgers, fries and soda were fucking delicious, weren’t they?” Julia asked in the round, “I’m really no west coast fan, but all this fuss about the good food in this area seems to be true!”
This was her third or fourth desperate attempt to lighten up the mood and get a conversation going, even though she was the one, who was entitled to feel miserable. After all she was the one, who had been held hostage for nearly three days, even more, when counting the hours she spend in Sean’s “custody”. Plus she had this whole shit to deal with back in Connecticut and she was missing Marius, too, more than the other family members would know. At first Otto had been hopeful, that Pete, as Marius was still known to them, would return. But with each passing minute it became clear that he was gone for good. Disappeared, vanished, just as quickly, as he had come into their lives merely two month ago. Funny really, Julia had the feeling she had known Marius a lot longer than just the couple of weeks it had been in reality.
Now there were glum expressions everywhere she looked. Audrey had thrown a quick fit, and then the family ate their food in pregnant silence, only accompanied by the clatter of cutlery on the plates and an occasional sigh or smack.
“All right, so let’s get the bill and head to the hotel. We need to check-out by 4 p.m. I’m not planning on spending any more money, money, which we don’t have by the way. In fact I recall something about losing a skip, and with her 250,000 dollars,” Audrey was the first one to break the silence. “I am driving with Taylor and Otto, so that we can take turns in the driver’s seat. And Julia, you and Carly will take the flight at 20.35 this evening.”
“Grandma, I had…,” Carly’s protest was cut short by her grandmother “There’s nothing to discuss here, I already booked the flights and you have to get back as soon as possible anyway, I remember a certain college essay, which needs some work done.”
Julia only nodded in response, completely lost in her thoughts. Money had been her cue and suddenly the diamonds sitting in her left jacket pocket felt massive, not like the tiny, twinkling stones they were, but more like solid rocks. How the hell was she supposed to get them into cash? And why ever did Marius give them to her in the first place? He was such an odd guy. Every time she thought, she had figured him out; he or his actions proofed her otherwise. She still needed to catch up on all that had happened prior to her rescue, but apparently Marius had been a big help and without him, she might as well have ended up as fish food. His commitment left her puzzled, all the more so, as she hadn’t been exactly kind to him, since she found out that in fact he was just a common crook and imposter and not really the long-lost family member. But who was the real Marius Josipovic? She knew nothing or merely nothing about this guy, and as he decided to leave them all behind, she would never know. All her gut feeling told her was, that he somehow wasn’t a bad person even though his chosen profession would suggest otherwise. Plus she had to admit, that she cared about him and liked being around him. For now she didn’t have the energy to explore more of his actions and what story they told or her own feelings towards him. Julia concentrated on what lay ahead and was really happy that she would get on a plane in the evening and be in Bridgeport by tomorrow morning, so that finally she could see her kids again.