Set vaguely after Elizabeth left the penthouse in 2002, like close to the end of the year in November or December but it’s not really important. This was written as Canvas Flash Fiction Challenge, written in 60 minutes. The prompt was: Power is the ability to walk away from something you desire to protect someone you love. It’s kind of crazy to look back and see how much shorter my Flash Fiction 60 minute entries were. I’m much faster now, LOL.
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“I’m sorry.”
“Goodbye.”
They were words that had ceased to have meaning for Elizabeth Webber. She’d heard them so many times over the past three years. From her parents. From her friends. From everyone in her life.
Her mother was sorry they missed her ballet recital–Sarah had to go shopping for her Homecoming dress. Her father was sorry he’d missed the concert in which she had a Christmas solo–Steven had a ice hockey game.
Her parents were always sorry when they passed her over for Sarah and Steven. They were always apologetic and they tried to find ways to make it up to her. Mostly through gifts and money.
Material possessions and money became the way Elizabeth measured her parents love. The more she received, the more they loved her. It didn’t matter that they never said they loved her or that they were always too busy with Sarah and Steven to really care about her.
They’d said goodbye when leaving her at the Johnsons. They’d been offered the chance of a lifetime–to take care of soldiers in Bosnia. They’d always wanted to make a difference. Steven was in college by the time this happened, Sarah a senior in high school and Elizabeth a sophomore.
They’d only be gone a year–they’d keep in touch.
She didn’t see them again. A year in Bosnia led to one in Switzerland which led to two in Russia. After that, they decided they preferred Europe and were going to stay. Steven and Sarah decided they preferred Europe as well.
Elizabeth Webber lived alone in a cold and drafty studio. Her only family–her grandmother Audrey Hardy—had a massive coronary on Christmas Eve and died in the early hours of December 27.
She had no one else in the small town of Port Charles, save for a few friends and a couple of former friends.
She’d been sitting at Audrey’s bedside when she heard the news that Brenda Barrett and Jasper Jacks had fled the jurisdiction. Jax couldn’t be prosecuted for the murder of Luis Alcazar and Brenda wouldn’t have to testify.
She’d been making the funeral arrangements for Audrey when the murder charges were dropped and the divorce for both Jax and Brenda came through. Skye had a change of heart or something along those lines and had granted the divorce. Jason Morgan signed the divorce papers when it became clear Brenda wasn’t returning.
She was packing up Audrey’s house when she heard that Courtney Quartermaine was pregnant.
And that was the final piece of news that sealed her decision. Courtney Quartermaine was pregnant and she’d been sleeping with Jason for a little over a month. She said the baby was his.
It didn’t matter that even Elizabeth could tell the other woman was lying–that she couldn’t be sure if AJ or Jason were the father.
Jason didn’t think so. He believed Courtney.
Carly Corinthos had decided that she didn’t want Courtney and Jason together after all and came to tell Elizabeth that Sonny had blown a gasket when Courtney turned up pregnant. He’d all but ordered Jason to marry Courtney.
Carly told Elizabeth that Jason had argued very logically that the baby could be AJ’s. And Sonny had countered with a threat.
Carly had filed for divorce and came to tell Elizabeth that she was sorry for the way she’d treated her after Sonny had faked his death. Carly said that Elizabeth had had a right to know.
She asked Elizabeth if there was anyway to change Elizabeth’s mind–if maybe she’d try and give Jason another chance.
Elizabeth explained very simply that she couldn’t do that. She confided that she still loved Jason very much, but he was no longer the man she’d fallen in love with. The man that never would have slept with Courtney while they were each still married. The man that would never have let Sonny Corinthos order him around.
She couldn’t give their relationship another chance. No matter how much she loved Jason, she wouldn’t allow herself to settle for a shadow of the man he’d used to be.
She’d done that once before and it hadn’t worked out. She wouldn’t compromise who she was again.
She’d walked away from something she desired to protect someone she loved.
Herself.
And she wasn’t going to turn around.
The day Jason Morgan married for the second time, Elizabeth Webber got a flight to Venice, Italy.
This was a response to the Flash Fiction challenges at The Canvas in October 2002. The prompt was “missing in action” and is set very shortly after Elizabeth left the penthouse in October 2002. She was pulled briefly into the Spencer drama where Luke had disappeared following Laura’s breakdown, and Lucky was trying to find him.
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Elizabeth Webber shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she stood at a pay phone on the docks. She’d been on hold for ten minutes and had already had to feed more money into the machine. “Come on,” she muttered.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jason stalking towards her and she grimaced. He must have found out what she was up to. Knowing it wouldn’t do any good, she turned her body away to give her more time.
“Yes. I need two bus tickets to Atlantic City. Right. Atlantic–yes, tonight. As soon as possible–directly–” the phone was jerked out of her hands and she was roughly turned around.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.
She raised an eyebrow. “It’s a little late to be interested in my activities, don’t you think?”
He didn’t even flinch. “That’s a low blow.”
“Too bad,” Elizabeth snapped. She turned back to the phone, already digging in her pocket for more money. She really needed a cell phone. “How’d you find out anyway?”
“One of the waitresses at Kelly’s,” Jason replied.
Elizabeth turned back around and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, because Marisa would just jumping to tell you I was leaving town. How’d you really find out?”
“One of the waitresses came up to Courtney and told her.”
“Oh, you were with Courtney. There’s a surprise,” Elizabeth remarked. “Do you have a problem with me leaving or something? Because it’s a little late to act like you give a damn.”
“Elizabeth, you can’t just go to Atlantic City with Lucky Spencer to…” Jason stopped. “Why are you going with Lucky?”
Elizabeth frowned. “Wait a second. You’re all worked up just because I’m going with Lucky…not because we’re going to look for Luke?”
“You’re looking for Luke,” Jason repeated. “Are you insane?”
“No,” Elizabeth said, defensively. “You know what? Go back to Courtney. The big bad stalker’s probably attacking her at this second.”
“That’s not funny,” Jason said, his expression dark.
“I think it’s hysterical,” Elizabeth muttered. She began fishing through her purse. “I know I have change in here somewhere… You know what really irritates me? You guard her personally. That’s what so infuriating. I get shot at, my life’s actually in danger and you stick me in a penthouse, but aww…Skipper gets a little scared by some heavy breathing and there goes Super Jase–off to save the day!”
“What are you talking about?” Jason demanded. “Are you jealous?”
She looked up from her purse, her eyes blazing. “Jealous? Jealous? You self-centered pig!” She put the purse on the ledge of the pay phone and shoved at him. He didn’t move an inch, but she got her point across. “You think I’d be jealous of that little…that little twit?” she raged.
“Then what’s wrong?” Jason asked, throwing his arms up in frustration. “You’re not making sense!”
“Why are you the only one that can protect her?” Elizabeth demanded. “Why does she get you when I got a nameless guard? What? Does she mean more? Are you in love with her? You sleeping with her? Was AJ actually right?”
“You know you don’t really think that.”
“Then why does Courtney get your personal attention? Why?” Elizabeth asked. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. You’re not my boyfriend–and I don’t give a damn how you spend your time.” She grabbed her purse and stalked away.
He followed her and grabbed her arm. “You can’t just go searching for a fugitive, Elizabeth.”
She whirled around and shoved him again. “You know what, Jason? Go to hell! The only reason you care is because I’m doing something that doesn’t involve you! You’re the one who’s jealous–you came here all upset at me because I’m going somewhere with Lucky–and then you go and accuse me of being jealous of Courtney? Make up your damn mind!”
“That’s not it and you know it. Don’t you know how dangerous–”
“Oh, shut up!” she groaned. “I don’t think looking for Lucky’s father is any more dangerous than being with you, so just save your breath and go back to Courtney. I’m sure she saw her shadow or something.”
“Will you stop that?”
“Stop what?” Elizabeth demanded. “Jason, it’s too late to act like you care about who I see and who I’m with. You had your shot and you blew it. You’re the one who never called, who never came home, who let me worry for no good reason.”
“We’re back to that?”
Elizabeth was positively hysterical with rage now. “You knew I was worried sick–you knew I was scared for you and you let me sit in that penthouse wondering if you were dead or alive while you and Sonny were out there perpetuating a lie, so don’t act like you’re innocent. This was never about Sonny faking his death and you not telling me–this was about you making me feel like I was worth next to shit in your life. Well, you know what? I’m through–I’m through waiting around for you to wake up and see what you’re missing–you let me walk away so you deal with that. I have some phone calls to make.”
He let go of her arm and stepped back. “Just…just be careful.”
The anger seemed to drain out of her body as she just stared at him. “You really are an idiot aren’t you?”
“What did I do now?” he asked, irritated.
“You always do this!” she cried. “You make me think you care and then you just stop–you shut down. What is wrong with you?”
“What? I’ve made it clear I don’t agree with this–but you’re going to do what you want anyway!”
“Damn right I am, but–” Elizabeth just stopped and shook her head. “Fine. Just remember something–when you’re done protecting Courtney and taking care of Carly and doing what Sonny tells you…and you go home to that empty penthouse of yours…remember that it’s no one’s fault but your own.” She turned around then and stalked away.
Elizabeth Webber shoved the coffee pot into its place and glared at nothing in particular. After an entire day of working, she was more than ready to call it a night and sleep for a week. She hated this job and she hated Port Charles. She should have never moved here. What had she been thinking? Trying to connect to a sister and grandmother who quite clearly didn’t want her here?
She checked the clock. Ten minutes until closing. She could do this. The diner was nearly empty anyway. A couple in one corner and one man—drinking coffee in the courtyard.
She bypassed the couple–she was in no mood to deal with young love–and breezed out of the doors—in time to see the explosion.
The man drinking coffee in the courtyard had been alone when Elizabeth had served him. Now, a brunette was sitting across from him and a blonde was in the brunette’s face. Both were arguing bitterly and the man seemed to content to let them kill each other.
Elizabeth almost walked back in–but she found herself curious. The trio hadn’t noticed her appearance, so she crossed her arms and leaned back to enjoy the drama.
She learned the brunette was Robin, the blonde Carly and the man Jason. The blonde seemed to be blunt, bordering on the crude while Robin the brunette was sweetly cutting. Every word that came out of her mouth could be interpreted about a dozen ways. The man, Jason, wasn’t speaking at all. In fact, he seemed to be ignoring their presence.
Elizabeth discovered that Jason had been in relationships with both of them at one point or another. He had a son with Carly and had broken up with both of them–which meant he was single, Elizabeth decided, looking over the muscular blonde Adonis. Not a bad thing.
Robin accused Carly of wrecking her life and anyone else’s that came along while Carly accused her of betraying Jason. Robin said something along the lines of Carly being a slut which Carly laughed off.
Elizabeth arched an eyebrow as Robin called Carly insane and was pleasantly surprised when Robin brought up the son that apparently wasn’t Jason’s after all. Just as Robin finished telling Carly that she should take her son and leave town, Jason suddenly sat forward.
He told Robin in no certain terms that she was never to mention Michael’s name again. Carly smiled gleefully until Jason turned to her and told her to go home to Sonny. Robin stood and left, throwing a hurt glance towards Jason. Carly seemed to back off after the Sonny comment and left.
Amused, Elizabeth came forward with the coffee pot. “Is there anything else I can get you?”
“No.” Jason looked up. “How long were you standing there?”
“I came out just as Carly showed up,” Elizabeth replied. She pulled out her order pad and scribbled the amount. “Sounds like you have your hands full.” She put the check in the table. “You ever get them squared away? Give me a call.” She grinned at him and headed back into Kelly’s, her cell phone number in a circle underneath the amount of his check.
All of the old stories from the Song Fiction category are available under the ‘Short Stories’ section. I reread them, and got a kick out of how often I used the same type of dialogue to reunite Jason and Elizabeth in the 2002-04 years. I thought about how much better Cry Ophelia would have been if I hadn’t been trying to insert Jason/Liz reunion stuff in there.
The new revised Shadows has been started and I’m pleased at how it’s coming along, since it’s the first fanfiction I’ve written in almost four years, and the first fiction writing I’ve done in almost a year. I’m moving over the short stories and series mostly, but I think I’ll move over I Shall Believe and Sanctuary first, of my completed long term stories.
I’m putting together Spotify playlists of some of the songs I featured in my stories, but several of them are not available through that program. I’m looking into alternate, legal options.
This is an episode tag to April 18, 2006. During the quarantine in February of 2006, Robin had been stunned to learn that her father, Robert, was still alive. He’d been believed dead in an explosion in 1991. Anna had returned from the dead in 2003, but she’d been given amnesia to explain her absence. Robert never lost his memory, but willingly stayed dead for over a decade. Robin and Robert struggled to rebuild their relationship at first.
This is also set in the early days of Robin and Patrick’s relationship, before they were official.
Inspiration
Around this time same, I had listened to a song by Lindsay Lohan (do not laugh, I will find out).
The foundation of Robin Soltini Scorpio’s life was that her parents had loved her above all else. Even after their death, their love was something she could wrap around her and use it to protect her from the harsh realities of her world.
And when she’d been granted a miracle with her mother’s return from the death, she’d never dared to think that her father could have survived. If he had, he would have returned to her.
It was the one certainty that Robin had allowed in her life.
I wait for the postman to bring me a letter
After the disastrous confrontation on the docks during which Robin reaffirmed the belief that if Robert Scorpio had ever loved her, he no longer did. He had been in town, had intended on leaving again without once letting her know he was there.
She hadn’t listened to his excuses, to his explanations. She didn’t want to hear them again. There would never be any words that would justify what he had done to her and to her memory of her beloved father.
She almost wished he’d stayed dead so that Robin could have clung to the illusion that he loved her.
I wait for the good Lord to make me feel better
Robin returned to the hospital and disappeared into the lab to catch up on various projects that had gone abandoned while she had dealt with Noah Drake’s transplant and the fall out that had occurred thereafter.
“Normal people go home after their shift is over.”
Robin glanced up at the familiar voice of her cousin Georgie. “Since when have I been normal?” she asked quietly.
“Since the twelfth of never,” Georgie said with a smile. “I wanted to let you know that your dad was in town today to extradite Luke back to the Markham Islands. I couldn’t come any earlier because there was a command performance at the mansion but I thought you should know.”
“Thanks, but I ran into him on the docks,” Robin said dismissively. She adjusted the slide under her microscope.
And I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders
“Ah.” Georgie slid her hands into the back of her pockets. “Sometimes I think about tracking down my real father and asking why he left me and Maxie.” She shrugged. “But then I realize I have Mac and you know what?”
“What?” Robin sighed. She made a note in her file.
“The lack isn’t in me or Maxie. It’s in him,” Georgie said.
A family in crisis that only grows older
“It must be nice,” Robin mused softly. “To have that certainty.” She smiled briefly at her cousin and Georgie was struck by the emptiness in the expression. “There’s always been so much about my life that’s unpredictable and uncontrollable but the one belief I had that I could never be shaken was that my father loved me.”
“He does, Robin,” Georgie said. “But—”
“I appreciate you coming by,” Robin interrupted. “But I really have work to do.”
Why’d you have to go
She avoided all contact for the rest of her shift and for the first time since returning to work after her suspension, Robin left the hospital when her shift ended.
She went home to her apartment and went straight to the closet in her room and dug out the cardboard box that she had lugged from place to place for fifteen years.
Why’d you have to go
It had stayed with her in her Uncle Mac’s house, in her dorm rooms at Yale and the Sorbonne. In the cottage and the penthouse, in her apartment in Paris. Robin had dragged it everywhere because she needed the comfort it gave her.
Why’d you have to go
She tugged it out to the living room and poured herself a glass of wine, bringing the bottle out to the room with her.
Tonight, Robin Scorpio was going to get good and drunk. And she was going to destroy the memories in this box because man contained within no longer existed and she was beginning to believe he never had.
Daughter to father, daughter to father
I am broken but I am hoping
Three glasses of wine later, Robin had sorted through hundreds of photos, photos of Robert Scorpio and Anne Devane, young and old. She had collected these after their deaths, had scoured through her mother’s possessions, her father’s and her uncle’s to put together a complete picture of the parents she’d only had for seven years.
She’d wanted to remember every inch of them.
Daughter to father, daughter to father
I am crying, a part of me is dying and
She set the family portraits aside—those of her with her parents, with her father, with her mother. She put those that depicted Anna Devane alone in a separate pile.
The ones of Robert Scorpio went into a pile of its own. Along with newspaper clippings of his exploits in Port Charles, of his adventures and the days when he’d saved the world. Ticket stubs to movies and plays he’d taken her to; the wedding announcement from the Port Charles Herald when her parents had remarried. Those all went into a pile in front of the fireplace.
These are, these are
The confessions of a broken heart
Robin was struggling with a piece of firewood when someone knocked at her door. “Go away!” she called, stumbling as she finally managed to get the log set up. She reached for the box of matches and was about to strike the first one when the door opened.
“Look, Scorpio, I don’t have time for your avoidance issues—” Patrick Drake broke off when he saw the scene before him. Robin, surrounded by hundreds of photographs and mementos, tear stains on her cheeks, a match in her hand. “Oh.”
“Go away,” Robin sighed, too tired to deal with him. “Whatever grievance you have can wait until tomorrow.”
Patrick set the patient’s file on the coffee table and nodded. “Sure. It’s not cold enough for a fire, you know.”
And I wear all your old clothes, your polo sweater
Robin smiled faintly. “It’s not for warmth. I’m just getting rid of some things.” She lit the match and tossed it into the fireplace. She sighed when it didn’t catch hold.
“Obviously, you’ve never set the mood before,” Patrick said. He took the matches from her. “First you need some douse the firewood with some gasoline or accelerant so the flames will catch hold.”
Robin frowned and then stared at her half full glass of wine. Patrick followed her stare and then looked at the half-empty bottle of wine. The scene was beginning to come together for him.
Robin tossed the wine onto the firewood. “Will that work, you think?”
Wordlessly, Patrick struck another match and tossed it into the fireplace. This time the flames caught hold and ignited. Robin sank to her knees and reached for the first photo to toss in.
Patrick kneeled across from her and stopped her. “Robin—what happened?”
I dream of another you
“Nothing.” Robin tugged her hand from his grasp and tossed the photo in. They both watched the flames eat away at Robert Scorpio’s handsome face as he was dressed in a suit for his best friend Luke Spencer’s wedding.
“Yeah, I’ll believe that.” Patrick watched as she tossed another photo in, this time one of a very young girl and Robert. He surmised the girl was Robin. When she went for a third photo, he took her hand. “Why burn them?”
“Because these are just memories,” Robin said softly. “Memories of a man I made up in my head.” She tossed the third one in. “My father came back.”
The one who would never (never)
Leave me alone to pick up the pieces
Duh, Patrick wanted to say but he refrained. He wasn’t one for emotional conversations but Robin had stood by him when his father was at death’s door, he could attempt at least to do the same for her. “I guess it didn’t go well.”
“You’re right.” Robin reached for the bottle of wine and poured herself another glass. “But you’re always right, aren’t you?”
Not falling the easy trap, Patrick didn’t answer. “What happened?”
“He was never going to tell me.” Robin tossed half the glass back in one gulp. “Never going to tell me he was back. He was going to get Luke and then take off again.”
Not for the first time, Patrick wished he could put Robert Scorpio through a wall. “I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about.” Robin took another photo, again of herself and her father. “He just confirmed what I’ve suspected all along.”
He watched her toss the photo in before asking, “What’s that?”
“I used to think I was just a poor judge of character,” Robin said instead. “That Sonny couldn’t stand by me because he was wrong or that Jason couldn’t love me enough because something was wrong with him. But now I know it’s not the people in my life.” Her empty eyes met his. “The lack is in me.”
A daddy to hold me, that’s what I needed
“No,” Patrick denied immediately. “Sonny and Jason are just idiots and your father sucks, Robin, but there is nothing wrong with you.”
She smiled, a twisted bitter smile. “It’s nice of you to say so but it’s okay because I understand now.” Another photo was eaten by the flames and the air in the apartment was beginning to smell acrid. “My mother loves me, I know that. But not quite enough to give up her adventurous life style.”
Another photo.
“Jason loved me, but never quite enough to stop sleeping with Carly or stop choosing her over me.”
Another photo.
“Sonny loved me, but only until I broke his rules to live by.”
Another photo.
“But my father—” Robin shook her head. “I thought I could always believe in that, always believe that when all else failed, I had my father’s love.”
She picked up a photo of herself and her father, taken shortly before the boat explosion. “But it seems I didn’t even have that.”
So why’d you have to go
He was out of his element here, he had no idea how to handle a woman in the midst of an emotional crisis, he’d never let himself get that close before. But it was beginning to dawn on Patrick that whatever he had with Robin was going to be completely different than what had come before.
“You have your uncle,” Patrick pointed out.
Robin sighed. “I do have my uncle. He’s my rock, the one person in my whole life I’ve ever been able to depend on.” She went to throw in another photo but Patrick took her hand.
“You’re upset right now but you shouldn’t burn anymore. You’ll only be sorry for it later.”
Robin shook her head. “No, I’ll be glad for it. I’ve been dragging this stupid box around for fifteen years because it was all I had of my parents, of our lives together. I thought what was inside was real, that it meant something to them—to him.” She ripped a photo in half and heaved them into the fire. “When I found my mother alive, I knew I’d been granted a miracle but I never once imagined my father was still alive too.”
“Why? I mean, wouldn’t it have been a logical assumption?”
She focused on him and the heartbreak in her eyes nearly broke him. “Because he loved me and he would have come back if he was alive. He never came back, so he was dead.”
Why’d you have to go
And then Robert Scorpio had shown up, alive and well without a trace of the amnesia that kept her mother from her. He could only imagine how that would have crushed her.
Before Robin could take another gulp of the wine, Patrick nipped the glass from her fingers and set it on the coffee table behind them. “Come here.”
Robin rolled her eyes but was too tired to fight Patrick as he pulled her towards him and set her in his lap. “I’m not that drunk,” she quipped.
“Ah, there’s the Dr. Scorpio I know and love,” Patrick returned. “Relax, no funny business.” He took a deep breath. “When my mother died and my father drowned himself in alcohol, I put away all the pictures of my parents. I put them in a box, like you, and I put them on a shelf. I took the box with me when I went to medical school and I would probably have them now if I hadn’t burned them one day.”
Robin closed her eyes and rested her cheek against his chest, she could feel his heart beating through his shirt. She felt safe and protected in his embrace and she wondered absently if she could stay here forever. “Why’d you burn them?”
“Because my father showed up to my med school graduation drunk and made a fool out of himself and of me.”
Why’d you have to go
There was a long silence and Robin swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
“I was so angry at him for destroying that day, a day that my mother had been waiting for her whole life and never got to see.” He cleared his throat and forced himself to go on. “I was angry at him for destroying the memory I’d had of him until my mother died—the strong doctor who never let anything fail him. He was my hero, Robin, and I felt betrayed when he proved himself to be anything but.”
The parallels in their situations were so strong that Robin was quiet for a long moment. “My father didn’t know about me until I was seven but once he did know, he made all my dreams come true. He was a wonderful father, he was so funny and he was kind and he made me smile all the time. He made me feel safe and loved. And I thought that he would always feel that way to me.”
Daughter to father, daughter to father
I don’t know you, but I still want to
“You opened my eyes and made me see my father for the flawed person that he is,” Patrick said. “Because of you, I started to understand how my father could have lost himself after my mother died and because of you, I know that I don’t have to lose out on having my dad around for the rest of my life. People make mistakes, Robin, and they’re not infallible.”
She smiled, he felt the movement of her lips against his chest. “It’s not fair using that against me.”
“Since when do I play fair?” Patrick replied lightly.
“I’m more angry at my father for taking that memory of him away than I am at him for not coming back,” Robin admitted. “I’m angry that the way I remember my father isn’t the way he is now and that it’s likely that I’m still seeing him through the eyes of a seven year old girl who’d always wanted a father.”
“It’s hard not to measure up to how people want to see us,” Patrick said after a moment. “Knowing that you could never be what they need to you to be, no matter how much you want to.”
Robin didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Are you just talking about my father?” she asked hesitantly.
“No,” Patrick admitted. “But that’s another topic for a different time. Robin, your father has his reasons for doing what he did. You can’t change them and you can’t go back in time to when he was your hero. But he’s alive now. I’d give anything to be able to see my mother again, to talk to her, even if she had played dead for the last decade.”
Robin exhaled shakily and he could feel her tears, warm and wet on his shirt. “I’m sorry, I must seem so awful. I’m lucky, I know I am. I got my parents back and that doesn’t happen to everyone and instead of being happy and grateful, I’m being ridiculous and pitying myself—”
“That’s not true,” Patrick said. “And even if it were, there’s no handbook for how you have to feel. You get to do whatever you want. You want to be angry, be angry. Be happy, be sad, but don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not allowed to feel that way.”
“Careful, Dr. Drake,” Robin said softly. “I might begin to think there’s a heart beneath the lothario exterior.”
“There wasn’t before you.”
Daughter to father, daughter to father
Tell me the truth, did you ever love me
Flustered, Robin extricated herself from Patrick’s arms and started to gather the photos together again. “I should put these in an album or something,” she said. “And—you’re right. I’m upset right now and I’ll kick myself for burning these later.” She smiled though. “He did love me once. Even if it’s not true now, he loved me once and that’s—that’s enough.”
“He still loves you, Robin,” Patrick said hesitantly. “He just doesn’t know how to show it. You don’t make it easy on a man to tell you how he feels.”
Robin met his eyes, startled but looked away almost immediately. She wasn’t ready for what was reflected back at her. She shoved a pile of photos into the cardboard box. “Thank you for this, Patrick. I—thank you.”
“Will you talk to your father?” Patrick asked.
She hesitated and glanced towards the phone. “I could call him, I guess.” She chewed on her lower lip. “He gave me his cell phone number before he left the first time.”
“You should call him,” Patrick advised. “You have a second chance, it’d be a shame to blow it.”
Cause these are, these are
The confessions of a broken heart
Later, after Patrick had gone and Robin had put the box back in her closet, she hesitantly dialed the number Robert had pressed in her hand the day he’d left the hospital two months ago.
“Scorpio.”
I love you,
Robin smiled briefly. He still answered the phone the same way. “Dad?”
Robert’s voice changed. “Robin—I didn’t expect to hear from you.”
“I’m angry at you, I don’t know how to change that,” Robin began painfully. “But I want to.”
I love you
“I’m sorry, Robin. I wish there were words—but the way you found out, it was not what I wanted. I thought a thousand times how it should go but that wasn’t it.”
I love you
Robin nodded, but he couldn’t see her. “Dad?”
“Yeah?”
I, I love you
“‘The biggest reason I’m angry is because I have to see you as an adult now and not just as my dad. As a human who makes mistakes and makes decision I don’t agree with. Part of me—part of me just wants you to be the hero I knew when I was a kid.”
Daughter to father, daughter to father
I don’t know you, but I still want to
“And I wish I could be that for you, sweetheart. I wish that more than anything in the world.”
“Will you come and see me?” Robin asked hesitantly. “When you get your case wrapped up?”
Daughter to father, daughter to father
Tell me the truth
“The very second it’s over, I’ll book a plane ticket,” Robert promised. “And I’ll take a real leave of absence. Robin, I love you. I want you to know that, even if you don’t believe it.”
She didn’t believe it but maybe she would one day.
“I love you, too, Dad,” she answered softly.
Did you ever love me
Did you ever love me
“I have to go now, but I’ll call you again. And we’ll talk right?” Robert said.
“Yeah, call me again and I promise to answer this time,” Robin replied.
These are
The confessions of a broken heart
When Robert Scorpio stepped out of the gate three months later to visit Robin, this time, they had the reunion he’d wanted. She flew into his arms and he picked her up off the ground and twirled in her in a circle before setting her back on her feet. “You look well rested,” he said. He touched her tanned face.
Robin bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder where Patrick waited for them. “I just came back from a weekend at Martha’s Vineyard.”
Robert narrowed his eyes. “Oh, really,” he remarked with deliberate irritation.
Because she’d secretly dreamed of how Robert would have treated Stone and Jason, Robin giggled. She’d always wanted to bring her boyfriend home to her father.
“I’m glad you came,” Robin said softly.
“I’m glad you called,” Robert answered. He kissed her forehead, picked up his duffle. “Let’s go meet Dr. Drake.”
This is set in the summer of 2004, after Elizabeth had left Port Charles to have Cameron. On the show, she abruptly left Ric in April of 2004 when she overheard him taunting Sonny about being the better man and raising another man’s child. She decided that this was the last straw (yeah — this and not the other bullshit) and left. Rebecca Herbst was on maternity leave for about two months. When she returned, they’d closed off the Ric storyline. They divorced and didn’t revisit a romance for about a decade.
As for Jason, he was in flux at that point. His marriage to Courtney was on the rocks (they’d separated and she’d filed for divorce), but he hadn’t yet moved on to Sam.
Inspiration
I’m pretty sure that I wrote this while she was on the maternity leave. I know that I heard the song by Melissa Etheridge and wanted to write it. I hope you like it.
Banner Here
It’d been six months since she’d left Port Charles and in that time, she hadn’t been in contact with anyone she’d left behind. She’d preferred it that way and after her divorce came through—she quietly moved across country where her ex-husband would never find her. She rented a post office box in Nebraska for the alimony payments and once a week all the mail in that box was forwarded to her new home.
Whatever Ric’s faults had been, his alimony was generous and he even paid child support so Elizabeth Webber Lansing had bought a small home with two bedrooms—and a backyard. She’d never live in another apartment, she promised herself.
Her baby was four months old—a little girl she’d named Emma Audrey. Emily Audrey had been her first choice but the name had sounded slightly awkward to her ears and Emma had been the final decision.
She’d cut off all ties with her previous home and she thought that everyone else there had forgotten about her.
Which is why it surprised her when she caught a glimpse of Jason Morgan in San Diego.
I played the fool today
She decided it was a coincidence—that Jason was not looking for her and if anyone would look for her, it would not be her somewhat ex-boyfriend. It’d be Lucky or Emily.
She concluded that if it had been Jason—and she wasn’t even sure of that—he did not know that she lived in San Diego and even if he did—she wasn’t sure why he’d care enough to know, anyway—it would not matter to him.
And I just dream of vanishing into the crowd
Jason was there to find her, though. Emily was getting married—not to Nikolas as everyone had expected—but to Lucky Spencer and the only thing Emily wanted for her wedding was for Elizabeth to be her maid of honor.
Jason promised to bring her home. For his sister, for Elizabeth’s grandmother—for himself.
It hadn’t been difficult to get the address of the post office where Ric sent a monthly check. Once he’d located the post office in Nebraska, he’d paid handsomely for the information of Elizabeth’s current location.
It hadn’t been more than seventy-hours since he’d left Port Charles and he was standing in front of Elizabeth’s home, watching her sit on a blanket on her lawn with the baby cradled in her arms.
Longing for home again
She’d changed in the six months since she’d left—becoming a mother was just one of those changes. Her hair was longer—curlier than he remembered. Almost as curly as those days he’d spent in her studio healing from the gunshot wound. Had it been almost six years since that time?
She hadn’t lost all of the weight from the pregnancy but he didn’t think it looked to bad on her, actually. She had always been beautiful but being a mother had added something extra to that.
He didn’t call out to her at first—he knew that she’d left Port Charles to escape memories and no matter how much Emily wanted her home, he would not disturb her if she were happy here—happy being away from the misery her life there had given her.
But home is a feeling I buried in you
“Are you cold, Emma?” Elizabeth cooed. She tucked the pink blanket in more tightly around the squirming baby. “I can’t believe how fast the summer has gone. Before you know it, I’ll be decorating for Halloween. I found the cutest kitten costume for you.”
As if actually understanding her mother, Emma cooed and kicked her legs. “And then it’ll be Christmas. I used to have lots of Christmas decorations—but I had to leave those behind so we’ll be buying new ones and we’ll get a tree and you can pick what I’ll put on a top. A star or—an angel.” She held Emma up and smiled as Emma giggled. “Which would you rather have?”
“An angel’s supposed to watch over things.”
He didn’t know he’d actually spoken until she lowered Emma into her baby carrier and looked at him. Whether or not she was surprised at his presence, her face never changed.
I’m all right, I’m all right
“Jason. I didn’t think you knew where I was.”
He strode across the grass then and sat on the edge of the blanket, regretting the way the light had gone from her eyes with his arrival. “It wasn’t so hard to find you—once I found the PO Box in Lincoln.”
“I don’t want Ric to know where I am,” Elizabeth admitted. She started to put Emma’s various toys into her diaper bag. “It’s easier that way. Each check he sends, he sends with it a letter asking me to come back.”
“And you don’t plan on going back?”
“Not to him.”
“But you’d consider coming back?”
She looked up at him and frowned. “Why are you here, Jason? Why would you to go the trouble of finding me?”
It only hurts when I breathe
“Emily wants you to come home. She’s getting married and she wants you to be her maid of honor,” Jason informed her.
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “She’s getting married? But—it’s so soon after Nikolas died—”
Jason sighed and looked away. “I didn’t realize—you left before—he’s not dead, Elizabeth.”
“He’s not?” Elizabeth asked, startled. She pressed her lips together firmly. “Don’t know why that doesn’t surprise me as much as it ought to. No one in Port Charles stays dead. Not Lucky, not Brenda Barrett, not Nikolas—not Sonny.” She shrugged and zipped the diaper bag shut. “So she and Nikolas are getting married.”
“Nikolas fell in love with someone else. He had amnesia and when he finally got his memory back—he went back to Emily but the woman who’d taken care of him—he loved her.”
“That must have devastated Emily.”
“By the time Nikolas returned, Emily had moved past her grief and she was already—moving on in a sense.” Jason hesitated. “She’d changed while he was gone and neither of them were the people they’d been when they’d fallen love.”
I can’t ask for things to be still again
“I can understand that. Who is she marrying?”
“Lucky.” Jason shifted. “It’s in a few months—you wouldn’t have to decide right away but she wants you there and the only thing she wanted from me as wedding gift—was to find you.”
“I wish I could,” Elizabeth said softly. She held her finger out to Emma who curled her tiny hand around it. “But I’m not sure it’s a good idea for me to return to Port Charles.”
“Ric would not be a problem for you—I’d see to that personally,” Jason pledged.
“It’s not Ric I’m worrying about. I can handle the letters he sends—because he’s been generous with alimony and child support and I don’t have to work. I can spend all my time with Emma.”
“Emma,” Jason repeated. He glanced at Elizabeth’s daughter who was studying him with her open brand of curiosity. The baby was tiny with creamy skin, wide blue eyes and light brown—almost blonde—hair. “She’s beautiful.”
“I wanted to name her Emily but the name didn’t go well with her middle name,” Elizabeth explained. “Emma Audrey Webber.”
“So if it’s not Ric you’re worried about—then what is it?”
I can’t ask if I could walk through the world in your eyes
“Old memories,” Elizabeth said briefly. She stood and swung the diaper bag over her shoulder before lifting Emma’s carrier into her arms. “Go home, Jason. Tell Emily that I love her and I wish her all the happiness in the world. But I can’t go back there.”
She turned towards the door and was almost there when he called out to her. She glanced over her shoulder. “What are you scared of?” he demanded.
Elizabeth pursed her lips and sighed. “Grab the blanket and come inside. The least I can do is feed you before you leave.”
Longing for home again
She put Emma down for her nap and beckoned Jason to join her in the kitchen. “I don’t have any beer—”
“Elizabeth, I don’t need—” He broke off. “Why won’t you come home?”
“This is my home now,” Elizabeth murmured. She started making two sandwiches—one pastrami and the other a simple bologna and cheese. “I worked hard to make this my home and I can’t—I can’t risk it.”
“Can’t risk what?” Jason leaned against the Formica counter and frowned at her. “Where’s the risk in going to her wedding?”
“Because I don’t like who I am in Port Charles,” Elizabeth said simply. “And you can’t change my mind about it. Give Emily my address and phone number if you like—I’d like to keep in touch with her. But please don’t think you can talk me out of staying here.”
He sighed heavily. “Elizabeth—”
“I’m finished talking about it.” She shoved the pastrami sandwich towards him. “It’s not as good as Kelly’s but it’ll do.” She hesitated. “So—I know what Emily, Lucky and Nikolas are doing. How about you?”
But home is a feeling I buried in you
“I’m divorced, too,” Jason offered. “We got divorced in April—around the time you left, actually. Courtney left town—she and Sonny had this—.argument and they don’t talk anymore.”
“That’s too bad.” Elizabeth shifted. “Sonny and Carly get back together?”
“No—they actually signed divorce papers,” Jason informed her. “Carly’s gone, too. She and Alcazar—they imploded and he’s—” he hesitated. “Gone,” he finally said. “Carly’s living in Florida—with Courtney actually.”
“Sonny?” Elizabeth asked. “Does he still see his boys?”
“Not as often as he’d like but yeah—he’s engaged to Sam.” Jason grimaced. “Not sure if I like that.”
I’m all right, I’m all right
Elizabeth laughed. “Oh, why not? I always liked her.”
“She talks a lot,” Jason said simply. “Too much—and she’s always asking me advice about Sonny. If she should do this, or do that—I know she wants to make him happy and all but—it’s just—irritating.”
“So—basically—you just listen to Sam talk, you work and you talk to Emily.” Elizabeth nodded. “Sounds—like you’re okay.”
He shrugged. “It makes the day go by faster. What about you? Is it just you and Emma?”
“If you’re asking if there’s someone in my life—no. No guys, no friends—I don’t need anyone else but Emma.”
“Why?” he asked bluntly.
“Because I had friends once—I had someone that I loved and it brought me nothing but pain. I left Port Charles to keep that from happening again and I just—I’m not interested in doing all of that again.”
It only hurts when I breathe
He sighed and pushed his plate away. “When I said I was here on Emily’s behalf—that was partially true.”
“Then what’s the rest of it?” Elizabeth asked briskly.
“I had to see for myself that you were okay.” He exhaled slowly. “Six months and no word—I’ve never gone that long without knowing.”
She frowned. “You were gone for a while year—”
“But I could ask Sonny if you were okay or Emily or hell, even Alexis. I knew when you faked your death, when you had your accident—about your wedding with Lucky—I was never out of touch with someone back home so six months was a long time.”
She stared at him. “I didn’t realize you’d thought of me so often.”
“All the time,” he admitted. He rounded the counter and stood in front of her. “I should have told you some of this when I came home the last time.”
I’m all right, I’m all right
“It would only have hurt me worse if I’d known,” Elizabeth said softly. “Because at least then—I could believe you didn’t care.”
“And thinking that I didn’t care hurts less than knowing that I do?” he asked—a little baffled.
“Because if you didn’t care—I wasn’t losing anything.” Her voice was shaky now and she hated him for doing this. For coming into her clean and private world and shaking it around—making her feel—making her remember. “Because if you didn’t care—losing you wouldn’t destroy me and—it didn’t. Because I knew I didn’t matter.”
He shook his head sharply. “No—that’s just not true. You did matter—you still matter—”
“No—I’m not doing this.” She turned away from him and left the kitchen. He followed her into the living room. “I want you to leave.”
“I’m not leaving.”
It only hurts when I breathe
“Why?” Elizabeth spun around and jabbed a finger in his chest. “Why now? When I’m away from it all—when I’ve put it all behind me? Why do you do this now instead of five seconds after I walked out that door?”
“Because I didn’t think you cared anymore and if you didn’t care then I wasn’t losing anything.” Her own words were spit back in her face—and oh, how they stung.
“That’s not fair.”
“No, it’s not,” Jason agreed. “It wasn’t fair to feel that way then and it’s still not fair that we both feel that way now. When I came home that last time—I came home for you.”
My window through which nothing hides
She paled and stepped away. “No—that’s not true—you came home for Sonny—”
“I knew you weren’t with Lucky anymore and I thought enough time had passed that you were over him but you weren’t. And I’d already waited for two years—I didn’t think a few more months would change anything.”
“Jason—this is ridiculous—why are we rehashing things that happened two years ago? We had our chance and whatever was between us—it wasn’t enough to survive. You married Courtney. I married Ric. You have no right to come here and pretend like it’s the morning after I walked out on you—”
“I didn’t intend to say any of these things but I thought you should know the truth. I married Courtney, yes. But she didn’t understand me. She didn’t get me half as much as you did. She called the cops on her own brother and knocked me out to save Alcazar.”
“She did what?” Elizabeth asked, stunned. “Why would Courtney be anywhere near—how could you let her that close to a job?” she demanded. “Do the two of you have any sense?”
“Elizabeth—you are the only woman in my life who has never betrayed me and I think I finally figured out why that is.”
“Because I have the common sense that God gave a mule?” Elizabeth said dryly. “Jason—I don’t—”
“Because you know me and you know what would hurt me and you would never do anything to hurt me deliberately just like I would never do anything to hurt you deliberately.”
“That’s not true—Jason, you’re not being very clear here—”
And everything sings
“Do you remember the way we used to be?” Jason interrupted. His voice had changed—it was quiet now. “When we were in the studio and it was just the two of us.”
“We work when we’re alone—but other people screw it up,” Elizabeth said. She backed up from him and turned away.
“I felt safe there and I thought it was because no one knew I was there. But that wasn’t it at all. And when you were at the penthouse, it felt like a home to me.”
She turned back then, her guard down a little—her eyes wary. “It did?”
“But it was never the studio that made me feel safe or the penthouse that felt like home—it was you.”
‘Cause I’m counting the signs
“Jason—” Elizabeth trailed off uncertain. “I don’t know what you want from me—”
“I want you to tell me why you won’t come home,” he challenged.
“I told you.”
He stepped towards. “And this time—I want you to be honest with me.”
“It hurts,” Elizabeth whispered. “It hurts to be around you. It always has—but I thought I could make it okay—that if I could have your friendship—”
Cursing the miles in between
“Are we just friends?” Jason interrupted, “or do you want something more from me?”
She stared at him for a moment before answering. “Yeah—yeah, I do,” she breathed.
“Then come home. Just for a little while—just for Emily’s wedding.”
“What about after that?” Elizabeth asked cautiously.
Home is a feeling I buried in you
“I don’t know,” Jason admitted. “But I know that I don’t want to go another six months without seeing you.” He held a hand out to her. “Come home.”
I’m all right, I’m all right
“All right,” Elizabeth agreed, hesitantly. She took his hand and smiled faintly as he held it tightly. “I’ll come home.”
This was definitely one of those times I heard a song and I wanted to write something for it. I don’t really have other memory of this, lol.
Timeline
Other than just generally being set sometime in 2004, there really isn’t a lot of setup here. It’s during Elizabeth’s marriage to Ric, but after the birth of her child (who we didn’t know was a boy when I wrote it.) It’s kind of a foggy history story — it’s set in the GH world, but there’s nothing really tethering it to a time or place.
Banner Here
Sooner or later she feels the morning come
She wakes up, a smile on her face. Her husband thinks it’s because he’s there and he smiles back at her.
But her smile—the light in her eyes is not for him. Not today.
He leaves for work with a kiss to her cheek and a cup of coffee. When his car has pulled out of the driveway, she spurs into action.
Isn’t it safer — dark thoughts all gone
Today is the day she makes her escape.
What a sensation
She packs as many of her daughter’s clothes as she can cram into three diaper bags and a suitcase. She tosses in the stuffed animals the baby can’t live without, formula—nearly everything the little girl owns.
She herself is only taking two suitcases and a few art supplies.
She has made it through one more tomorrow
She doesn’t bother leaving a note—doesn’t care enough to tell him that she’ll never come back. That she doesn’t love him.
That she’s almost sure she never did.
It’d been an illusion—a trick of light.
Raising up her eyes to a brand new sky
She will never be tricked again.
She knows the truth at last
She packs the car up, locks the door tightly and fastens her daughter into the car seat. The divorce papers that she’d tricked him into signing the week before have already been signed and filed.
He’d thought it was a form for the doctor’s office about the baby.
She’s never coming back
She wants to slam her foot on the pedal and never look back. But she doesn’t want to draw attention to herself so she drives the speed limit and follows every traffic law to the letter.
She’ll be gone
So many years
She arrives at the meeting point and sits on the hood of her car with her daughter in her arms. This is a safe place for her. It always has been. A hundred yards away sits an old dilapidated boxcar that isn’t visible to her but she can feel it sitting there.
She’ll be gone
Melting away
A lifetime ago, she found him bleeding in the snow like some sort of tragic snow angel. She’d picked him off the ground and forced him to live—to breathe.
And weeks ago, he’d found her crying in the snow. Her daughter is almost a year old, she has the house in the suburbs, the perfect husband—the life she should have wanted.
The life that suffocated her, trapped her.
He’d forced her to live—to breathe again.
She’ll be gone
This is the day
Her daughter stirs in her arms and starts to cry, confused by the strange surroundings.
She rocks her back to sleep. Hers eyes are trained on the road. Willing this not to be a cruel joke.
Someone is walking up to the bedroom door
In the fifteen months since her second marriage to the same man, she has become the trophy wife she’d sworn never to be. The pretty woman on his arm at social functions as he butters the wealthy up for reelection campaign funding. The doting wife who organizes dinners for his colleagues and always has his warmed in the oven when he works late.
Hearing him knocking
She knows what it’s for
He never asked her to make these changes but she felt the pressure to be perfect—to make his life perfect. It choked her and six weeks ago, it threatened to kill her.
But he’d found her crying in the clearing near the boxcar. He’d forced her to tell him what was wrong—forced her to treat him like the man she’d once thought she’d imagined.
She’s at the window wondering why there is no one to save her
And on that day, their plan to escape their lives had been borne.
Raising up her eyes to a brand new sky
Their respective lives that choked them, that trapped them—that changed who they were at the very core—
They would run away and never look back.
She knows the truth at last
she’s never coming back
Just as she thinks she might have imagined that day in the snow, she hears the rumble of the familiar bike.
He coasts the bike to a stop and approaches her. He takes the baby from his arms and cradles her in his own as if she were his.
She’ll be gone
So many years
“You’re late,” she tells him, teasingly.
“Traffic.” But he’s smiling too. Her daughter is awake now and she’s smiling, reaching her chubby fists for his leather jacket.
She’ll be gone
Melting away
“Ready to go?” she asks. He nods and although it pains him, he leaves the motorcycle where it’s parked. He has enough money to buy another and they need the car to get to the airport.
He’ll send for it one day, he tells himself. One day, he’ll tell his sister to send it to where they end up.
She’ll be gone
This is the day
She moves the car seat to the back and he fastens the little girl inside, making sure the straps are tight. He gives her a beaten up giraffe he’d hidden inside his jacket. He’d given it to another baby once upon a time—a little boy he’d loved as a son.
And now he was giving it to a little girl he’d raise as a daughter. After all—she had her mother’s blue eyes.
Raising up her eyes to a brand new sky
She knows the truth at last
Jason Morgan started the car and backed it back onto the road taking Elizabeth and Audrey Lansing away from Port Charles.
Ric really doesn’t get enough crap for how close he came to killing Elizabeth repeatedly in the summer of 2003. First, he allowed her to drink poisoned lemonade to keep his Carly secret, then he drugged her with birth control pills and sedatives which led to a pulmonary embolism. As if that wasn’t enough, he nearly smothered her with a pillow to avoid being caught for Carly’s kidnapping.
And yet, they got back together and got married all over again! Oy.
GH stays trash.
Timeline
This is set in July 2003, directly after Elizabeth finds Carly in the panic room. She passes out from the embolism as soon it happens and Ric locks Carly back up. Elizabeth is unconscious in the hospital and Ric considers smothering her to keep himself out of trouble.
Banner
I just want to feel safe in my own skin
I just want to be happy again
The pillow is in his hands. His fingers are clenching the sides of the material so tightly that they are numb.
She sleeps peacefully or as peacefully as she can with the knowledge he knows she holds. Her face is pale, her hair spread over her own pillow, falling around her face.
She is the most beautiful person he’s ever known—inside and out. And he can say that for a brief moment in time, she loved and believed in him.
I just want to feel deep in my own world
He walks quickly down the hall—not too quickly though. He doesn’t want to bring any attention to himself. He has one clear goal for this night. He wants answers and he finally believes she’s in a position to give them.
Her room is just at the end of the corridor and if he can get there without any hospital personnel stopping him…there might yet hope for them all.
But I’m so lonely
I don’t even want to be with myself anymore
He steps towards her and starts to lower the pillow. He closes his eyes as he does it and when he feels the resistance of her skin stopping it’s descent, he presses harder.
Her arms start to flail on the bed and they claw at his forearms. He can hear her gasping for air and he wants to stop but he knows there’s no turning back.
On a different day
If I was safe in my own skin
Then I wouldn’t feel lost and so frightened
He’s at the door and about to push it open when a nurse steps into the hallway. He moves into the corner, into the shadows until she’s gone.
But this is today
And I’m lost in my own skin
He can feel her struggle lessening. Her arms aren’t moving as rapidly, her chest isn’t heaving. He can almost feel the life slipping from her.
And I’m so lonely
I don’t even want to be with myself anymore
He turns the knob slowly and pushes the door open.
And I just say oh, oh
I feel, oh, oh
He doesn’t even hear the door opening as he finally lifts the pillow from her face. He turns to see Jason Morgan in the doorway. Ric Lansing doesn’t speak, he doesn’t cast one last look at his now dead wife. He sets the pillow on the bed.
Jason is unable to move, unable to process what it is he thinks he’s seeing. But as Ric begins to slow move from the room, Jason pins him to the wall with one hand.
“What did you do?” he demands, harshly.
And I’m so lonely
I don’t even want to be with myself anymore.
“The only thing I could,” Ric chokes out. Jason twists his head back to look at the woman in the bed, panicking when he notices that her monitors have been unhooked. He turns back around and slams his fist in the other man’s jaw. Ric sees stars before he blacks out, the liquor he’ drank before coming here taking effect.
Jason lets the scum slide to the floor before hurrying over to her bed.
I just say oh, oh
And I’m so lonely
Elizabeth Lansing isn’t breathing but he can feel a faint pulse in her neck. He uses the call button and then starts CPR.
A nurse comes in, sees the man on the floor, the man performing CPR and darts back out. The call for a crash cart is heard and before Jason knows it, he’s pushed out of the way.
I feel oh, oh
I don’t even want to be with myself anymore
Elizabeth is technically dead for two minutes. But the doctors are quick working and the crash cart is there in seconds. Her small body convulses into the air as they use the paddles to bring her back.
A nurse has hooked up her monitors and the horrible screech of the flat line echoes in the room for a few moments before her heart starts to beat again.
I just want to feel safe in my own skin
She doesn’t quite remember everything when she wakes up, but she does know that Carly is in a hidden room in her home and she tells Jason how to open it.
When she learns that her husband nearly killed her, she isn’t able to speak for a moment or two. But when she does, she just thanks Jason for saving her life.
This was a challenge from The Canvas, issued in early September. I’m so sorry that I can’t remember the username right now — I only remember that they wrote fanfiction I liked, lol. They wanted a montage like the good old days in the late 1990s and they specifically wanted the timestamps. This was right around the time Kelly Clarkson won the first season of American Idol, and I’d heard this song on the radio while driving to class.
Recap
This is set in September 2002, after Sonny faked his death, and Jason wasn’t coming home to the penthouse often. The story also features Carly and Sonny, AJ and Courtney, and Skye and Jax.
[00:00-00:18}
What if I told you
It was all meant to be
Would you believe me
Would you agree
Carly enters the room of the safe house. Her hand flies to her mouth as she sees Sonny standing before her. Tears fill her eyes as she drinks in the sight she thought she’d never see again.
[00:19-00:35]
It’s almost that feelin’
That we’ve met before
So tell me that you don’t think I’m crazy
When I tell you love has come here and now
AJ unlocks the door to the apartment and enters. He closes it behind him and turns to see the apartment decorated in candles. Courtney is leaning against their dining table, smiling. AJ closes his eyes and thanks whatever miracle brought him here.
[00:36-00:53]
A moment like this
Some people wait a lifetime
For a moment like this
Some people search forever
For that one special kiss
Skye’s eyes drift open and she looks over at Jax sleeping next to her. She can hear another storm raging outside—and she’s so thankful that she’s here, safe from her own personal thunder and rain.
[00:54-01:08]
Oh, I can’t believe it’s happening to me
Some people wait a lifetime
For a moment like this
Jason rubs his eyes as he enters the penthouse. He’d just dropped Carly off with Sonny—and he wasn’t looking forward to this moment. He spies Elizabeth sitting on the couch, wrapped in an afghan. A weak smile graces his face as he realizes she fell asleep sitting up, waiting for him.
[01:10-01:22]
Everything changes
But beauty remains
Something so tender
I can’t explain
Carly hesitates only a moment before throwing herself into Sonny’s arms. She clings to him, the tears she’d tried to desperately to hide spilling down her cheeks. Sonny wraps his arms tightly around her and hopes she’ll understand why he did this.
[01:23-01:40]
Well I may be dreamin
But still lie awake
Can we make this dream last forever
And I’ll cherish all the love we share
Courtney takes a short step from the table. AJ drops his keys next to the door and closes the rest of the distance. He touches her face, amazed at this beautiful woman who’s made his life worth living again.
[01:41-02:09]
A moment like this
Some people wait a lifetime
For a moment like this
Some people search forever
For that one special kiss
I can’t believe it’s happening to me
Some people wait a life time
For a moment like this
Skye tightens her grip on Jax and sighs. She’d be willing to elope tonight if he would let her. All she wanted to do was spend the rest of her life proving to him that trusting her again would not be a mistake.
[02:12-02:24]
Could this be the reign of love above
I wanna know that you will catch me when I fall
Jason crouches next to Elizabeth. Her head is resting on the armrest and her face is scrunched up. He knows he should go upstairs and not touch her but he can’t resist brushing a piece of hair out of her face.
[02:25-02:37]
So let me tell you this
Some people wait a lifetime
For a moment like this
Carly pulls away from Sonny and stares at him for a second. She shocks them both by slapping him—the sound echoing in the nearly empty room. She throws her arms around him all over again.
[02:38-02:47]
Some people spend two lifetimes
For a moment like this
Some people search forever
The dinner forgotten, AJ and Courtney are dancing to music only they can hear. He’s holding so tightly—he’s afraid that he ever lets go, she disappear like the angel that she is. He leans in to kiss her, relishing that for one moment in his life, it’s perfect.
[02:48-02:58]
For that one special kiss
Oh I can’t believe it’s happening to me
Some people wait a lifetime
Jax opens his eyes to look at Skye sleeping peacefully. Some might say he was justifiably insane for accepting her back in his life—but he couldn’t honestly imagine his life without the fiery redhead that made everything worth it.
[02:59-03:06]
For a moment like this
Elizabeth opens her eyes sleepily and smiles. Jason is home—he’s safe. “Hi,” she whispers. “I made you a sandwich—it’s in the fridge.” He stares at her, his blue eyes filled with emotion. Elizabeth notices his hair is wet and runs her hand through it. “You’ll catch a cold.” He clasps her hand as it traces his jaw and presses a soft kiss to her palm.
[03:07-03:22]
Oh, like this
Some people search forever oh yeah
Carly kisses Sonny passionately—scared to death that that he’ll disappear. She can’t quite believe he’s here with her. She just buried him—and now she’s standing here, with him. His warm body pressed against hers—Carly was floating and never wanted to come down.
[03:23-03:30]
Some people wait a lifetime
For a moment
Jason released her hand and moves to stand. She reaches out both hands and grasps his shoulders to keep him at eye level. “I’m glad you’re home.” Home. A foreign concept to Jason that he thinks might get used to.
“I had someone to come home to,” Jason whispers, touching her face. She smiles. And for one brief moment in his constantly changing and moving world—for this moment—he lets himself love her.
The famous panic room reveal aired on July 11, 2003. It was a Friday, and the episode ended up on Liz pressing the button and turning to look at Carly, horrified. At the time, I can’t remember if we knew that pulmonary embolism was coming or if i was just spoiler free. That doesn’t sound like me, but you never know. Anyway, a cliffhanger Friday meant LissieLove writing a story on Friday night.
Timeline
This takes place in July 2003. Ric has kidnapped Carly and has held her hostage in the panic room while Elizabeth doesn’t know anything.
Banner
Something went wrong
You’re not laughing
It happened almost as though in a dream. One moment, she’d been unpacking a box of books. The next, Carly had vaulted out of nowhere and was screaming her name.
“Elizabeth!”
Elizabeth whirled around so fast that she slipped and fell, staring up at Carly with a shocked expression. No one had seen Carly in almost a month. She’d vanished from the face of the Earth.
“C-Carly—”
“Elizabeth, thank God,” Carly cried, almost weeping. She reached down and practically hauled the other woman to her feet. “We need to get out of here.”
“Wait, wait.” Elizabeth pushed away from her and put her hands to her head, closing her eyes. “You—where have you been? What’s going on?”
“I’ve been here,” Carly said, frantically, already pulling her towards the door. “In that stupid panic room. Come on, Elizabeth!”
“In what panic room?” Elizabeth demanded. Her eyes drifted past Carly to the open room behind her. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened a little. “Oh my God—”
“Elizabeth, please, we have to go!” Carly cried.
Elizabeth nodded. “You’re right. Let’s go—”
She heard the door open before she could finish. She turned and looked at her husband. “Ric.” Carly’s hand tightened on hers. “What’s going on?” she demanded.
Ric’s eyes darted between his wife and his captive. “Elizabeth, I know you don’t understand right now—”
“You kidnapped Carly!” Elizabeth cried. “She’s been missing for a month—”
Ric stepped forward and Elizabeth impulsively retreated a step, backing into Carly. “I’m doing this for you,” he tried to explain. “Just like we discussed. Another baby.”
Elizabeth blinked. “You—you think we’re going to raise Carly and Sonny’s child?” she asked softly. “You’re crazy.” She shook her head. “We’re leaving.”
Ric reached behind him and pulled out a small pistol. “No. You’re not.”
It’s not so easy now to get you to smile
You gotta be strong
Elizabeth paced the small space of the panic room. “I can’t believe I was so stupid.”
Carly’s brown eyes followed the tiny brunette from side to side. “You weren’t stupid. He was good. Very good.” She gestured towards the television screen. “I saw how he acted with you.”
Elizabeth stared at the different screens, each showing a different spot in the house. Their bedroom. Their kitchen. Their living room. “How did he hide this from me?”
“He was careful,” Carly said dully. She sank onto the cot and stared at the crib next to her. “He had this completely set up before he took me.”
Elizabeth frowned. “The night of the wedding—” she trailed off. “You must have been struggling. Why didn’t I know?”
“You were asleep on the couch,” Carly answered. “The police came. I saw it.”
“But Ric said—” Elizabeth stared at the couch on the screen. “I’m not a deep sleeper. I haven’t been in so long.” She stepped closer to the screen and something caught her eye.
A prescription bottle.
She reached for it, on a shelf above the television screens. “This is a sedative,” she said softly. “In my name. He got a prescription for a sedative in my name.”
“Elizabeth—”
“He drugged me,” Elizabeth murmured. “Oh my God. He drugged me so I couldn’t stop him.” The bottle clattered to the floor and she stepped back, her vision blurring. “Oh my God, my husband drugged me.”
“Elizabeth—” Carly stood, feeling out of place as she tried to comfort the other woman. “I’m sorry.”
“He said we made love, but I didn’t remember,” Elizabeth went on. Her hands were starting to tremble. “I thought it was just the wine, but I didn’t remember.”
To walk these streets
And keep from falling
“Elizabeth—”
“My clothes were off,” Elizabeth choked out. “He undressed me—or we made love and I just don’t remember—”
Carly closed her eyes, remembering the moment she’d woken up next to Ric, also nude. They hadn’t slept together then, but she hadn’t known. The thought had haunted her for moments, causing more than one nightmare. “Elizabeth, he violated you.”
“No—but—”
“He drugged you,” Carly said firmly. “You said yourself you don’t remember anything. Jesus, Elizabeth. Take the blinders off. If he just undressed you, it’s still violating you.” She closed her eyes. “And if he did more—”
Elizabeth sank onto the cot, pressing a hand to her mouth. Tears spilled onto her cheeks. “No—it’s just not possible. I can’t—” She cleared her throat. “We need to talk about what we’re going to do.”
“What can we do?” Carly asked, sighing. “Believe me, I’ve thought of it all. I’ve even gotten out of here a few times, but he always catches me.”
“Only one of us needs to get out of here,” Elizabeth said softly. “I’ll take care of Ric. You run and just keep on running, okay?”
“I can’t leave you in here,” Carly said. “I’ve got leverage. I’ve got the baby he wants. You go.”
“Carly, you being pregnant is precisely the reason you should go,” Elizabeth argued. “Look, this is my fault. I have been blind to who my husband really is. I defended him when I was wrong. God, I must have defended him a thousand times to Sonny and Jason just this month and look how wrong I was!”
“You had no idea!” Carly insisted. “I heard everything he told you. He snowed you, Elizabeth. He led you to believe he was something that he wasn’t. You’re not the first person to buy into his bull.”
“Everybody lies to me,” she whispered softly. Elizabeth closed her eyes. “Nice to know some things will never change.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, Carly. You run. Get help. I can hold my own against him. He won’t hurt me.”
“Won’t hurt you?” Carly scoffed. “Come on. He raped you!”
“No!” Elizabeth cried. She shook her head vehemently. “No.”
“No!” Elizabeth screamed. “Not again! It didn’t happen again!”
But when you’re not, just let yourself cry
Carly paled and looked away, remembering how Elizabeth had come to the penthouse, desperate to believe that Ric was different. She’d been sleeping with him and Carly understood Elizabeth needed that reassurance.
She only wished she’d been able to give it. “Elizabeth—”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Don’t. Don’t okay? Don’t pretend that you like me or even feel sorry for me.”
“No woman deserves that,” Carly said firmly. “To be violated like that. Not by their husband, not by someone they thought was their friend—”
“And not by some stranger in the park,” Elizabeth said softly. She closed her eyes and sank to the floor. “I feel sick.” She was on her knees, one arm braced on the floor, the other around her middle. “Oh my God.”
Carly crossed to the bathroom and shoved the door open. “There’s a toilet in here.”
Elizabeth made it there, but only barely. She vomited until she nearly passed out, and then she slid away, sitting against the wall, her knees in the air, and her head in her hands. “I can’t believe this is happening to me,” she whispered. “I can’t believe I married someone who could do this to me.”
Carly stepped inside the small space and flushed the toilet. She grabbed a toothbrush and squeezed some of the paste on it before handing it to Elizabeth. “Here.”
You’ve been working hard
Just trying to pay the rent
When Elizabeth had brushed her teeth and splashed some water on her face, Carly left her in the bathroom, closing the door behind her, sensing she needed some time alone.
She crossed to the television screens watching as Ric paced the bedroom nervously. She glanced up as she heard the doorbell ring and looked back to the screen.
Elizabeth came out and frowned. “What was that?”
“The doorbell,” Carly murmured as she watched Ric hurry to answer it. “It’s Emily.” She glanced at the other woman. “Don’t bother screaming or pounding on the wall. It doesn’t work.”
“I figured as much.”
After a few moments, Ric closed the door and looked towards the panic room. He crossed to it and they watched him take the remote out of his pants. Elizabeth crossed to the other corner.
“As soon as I get him distracted, run,” Elizabeth told her. “Okay? Run as fast as you can and get out of here.”
“Elizabeth,” Carly began, but the door began to slide open and Ric entered.
Before he could say anything, Elizabeth charged him and jumped on his back, wrapping her small hands around his head. “Run!”
Carly darted out of the room and only spared one look back before she flew out the front door.
Ric easily tossed Elizabeth off, making her land with an oomph on the cot. “Why’d you do that?” he roared.
She tossed her dark hair out of her eyes and glared at him. “Why’d you rape me?” she hissed.
He blinked, the word rape draining his anger. “What?” Ric asked incredulously.
“You drugged me,” Elizabeth seethed. “And then you either just undressed me or we had sex. And I don’t remember a damn thing.”
“That doesn’t make it rape—”
“The hell it doesn’t!” Elizabeth screamed. “You drugged me! How was I supposed to say no?”
“Elizabeth, I just needed to make sure you wouldn’t stop me,” Ric tried to explain. “I did this for you—”
“You did this for yourself,” Elizabeth shot back. “You’ve been trying to replace our child with Sonny’s. Did it occur to you that I don’t want a child?”
Ric shook his head. “No, no. That’s not true. You want a family. We both do.”
“Not with you,” Elizabeth snapped. “You’re insane, and you’re a rapist.”
“I am not a rapist!”
Tryin’ to draw the line between who you are and who you invent
But if you throw a stone
Something’s gonna shatter somewhere
Carly stopped at the first payphone she found, her hands shaking as she called Sonny’s cell phone collect.
She screamed her name when they asked for it and Sonny hurriedly accepted the charges.
“Carly? Jesus, are you okay? Where are you?”
“Sonny, you have to go to Ric’s!” Carly cried. “Elizabeth is there and she’s alone with Ric, he took me and Elizabeth is there! You have to get there! Sonny, go!”
“Wait, wait, where are you?”
“Damn it, Sonny, he raped her and you have to get her out of there! I’ll meet you there. Just go!”
She slammed the phone down and took off down the block. She’d be damned if Elizabeth was going to sacrifice herself.
It took her five minutes to get back to the Lansing home and she was out of breath, ready to keel over when she got there. A month inside a small dark room had really drained her. Her eyes were sensitive to light and she felt so weak.
“Elizabeth!” she screamed as she crossed the threshold. She saw the open door of the panic room and Ric standing in the doorway. He was glaring at something she couldn’t see. “Elizabeth!”
Ric looked at her and smiled. “Well, look who returned.”
“Get out of here, Carly!” Elizabeth yelled. She came into Carly’s line of vision suddenly, launching herself at her husband as they crashed into the rack of black boxes against the wall.
She heard a car screech to halt behind her. Carly whirled around to see Sonny and Jason throwing open their car doors and rushing up the walk. “She’s in there!”
Jason pushed past her and crossed the living room in a few quick strides, drawing his gun from the small of his back. He pointed at Ric. “Let her go.”
“Let her go?” Ric demanded. “She’s got me in a headlock!”
Which was true. Elizabeth was on Ric’s back, her tiny arms wrapped around his neck, trying her best to squeeze the life out of him. Every time he tried to shove her off or reach his arms up to pull her hands from his throat, she switched angles.
Jason had fight against smirking, but didn’t lower his weapon. “Elizabeth, let him go and go outside.”
“No,” Elizabeth snarled. She dug her nails into his throat, eliciting a growl from her husband. “He’s going to pay for what he did to me!”
Jason frowned and shook his head. She never did know when to quit. “Elizabeth, just let me handle this.”
Finally Ric managed to throw Elizabeth off. He aimed for the cot, but she went flying past it and crashed into the crib. Without thinking, Jason discharged his gun twice, sending Ric flying backwards and into the bathroom. He didn’t move.
We’re all so fragile
We’re all so scared
Carly pushed past Sonny and darted into the house as Jason hastily tucked his gun back in its spot. “Stay back, Carly. I’ve got her. Tell Sonny to call a crew.”
Jason stepped around the cot and knelt beside the unconscious brunette. He checked her pulse and sighed in relief when he found it steady and strong. “She’s alive. She’ll probably have some bruising. We’ll get her back to the penthouse and get a doctor there to see her.”
Carly watched in worry as Jason easily lifted the tiny woman into his arms and was on his heels as he carried her outside.
Sonny blanched when he saw Elizabeth limp in Jason’s arms. The image was hauntingly familiar. Barely a year ago, Jason had carried her from an about to explode crypt.
“Get her and Carly out of here,” Sonny said quietly. “I’ll wait for the crew. Is Ric—?”
“I don’t know,” Jason answered. “I didn’t look. He’s out though.”
“Okay, go.”
You say you wanna learn how to live your life without tears
But we’ve been trying to do that for thousands of years
While a doctor was taping Elizabeth’s ribs, Jason cornered Carly downstairs in the penthouse living room. “Sonny told me what you said on the phone.”
Carly sighed and tugged at the bottom of her shirt. “Where’s Courtney?” she asked, changing the subject. “And Michael? I want to see them. I haven’t seen them in a month.”
“They’re on the island,” Jason said impatiently. “Carly, you’re avoiding my question. You told Sonny that Ric raped Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth didn’t know I was there until today,” Carly said softly. “She was doing something and it triggered the panic room door. We were on our way out of there but Ric stopped us.”
“Carly—”
“I’m getting there,” Carly snapped. “He locked us both in the panic room and Elizabeth was freaking out by then. Jason, she had no idea what Ric is really like. She thought he’d changed. There were these television screens in the room and I saw the way he played her. He made her believe he’d let this vendetta go. He played the part of the perfect husband.”
“Finding out differently must have thrown her,” Jason interjected.
“Yeah, well, turns out the night Ric locked me in there, Elizabeth had a blackout of some sort. At the time, he convinced her it was just the wine she’d drank earlier. But today, she found a bottle of sedatives. He drugged so she wouldn’t stop him. And when she woke up, she was—well,” Carly shrugged. “Naked.”
“Jesus,” Jason exhaled. “So he drugged her and you guys think—?”
“He violated her, Jason,” Carly said firmly. “Whether it was no more than just taking off her clothes like he did to me or it was more. She was definitely violated.”
“If he wasn’t already dead—” Jason trailed off and shook his head. “Is she okay?”
“She was upset,” Carly admitted. “Lost it for a few minutes. But I think she shoved it aside to get us out of there. The second he stepped inside, she jumped him and kept screaming at me to get out of there. She’s—she’s got guts, Jason. A lot of them.”
Jason nodded. “Yeah—she’s always been like that. She wanted to protect you.”
“She did. So I got her help and went back in case she needed me,” Carly finished. “Of course, it looked like she was holding her own.” She looked towards the stairs. “She’ll be okay, right?”
“Physically, yeah. Just some bruised ribs and a concussion,” Jason answered. “But—”
“Yeah,” Carly said, understanding what he didn’t say. “Jason, don’t take this the wrong and please do not tell anyone else what I said. But—after today? I kind of—well, respect her now. And—I want—” She hesitated and glared at her friend who was trying not to smirk. “Don’t give me that look. She put herself in danger to protect me.”
“Yeah, I get that. It’s just strange coming from you.”
“I want to help her,” Carly said bluntly. “I want her to stay here or something. She’s going to be really upset when this hits her, and I guess I want to be there for her. I think she could use a friend.”
“She will, Carly.” Jason hesitated. “It’s good that you want to be there for her. But I know her. She won’t let you.”
“You knew who she was a year ago,” Carly said quietly. “I know her. I’ve watched her every day for the past month. I know that she sings when she paints and thinks no one else is in the room. I know that she makes extremely bad coffee and about the only thing she can make are brownies. I know that her face scrunches up when something in her painting isn’t working—”
“Okay, okay, I get the point. You know her better than me,” Jason said. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I used to know her better than anyone, you know? I knew when she was lying, when she was upset. And now, I don’t know her at all.”
“Do you miss her?” Carly asked, tilting her head to the side. “As a friend or whatever?”
“Sure,” Jason said easily. “She was one of my best friends. She mattered to me.”
“Then maybe this is your chance to get that back,” Carly murmured.
So go on and cry Ophelia
It’s the only thing to do sometimes
Elizabeth laid on the bed, staring up at the ceiling blankly. It was easier if she didn’t move. She could just stare at the white ceiling and she wouldn’t have to think about the fact that she was in the guest room at Carly’s penthouse.
If she didn’t think about her location, she wouldn’t think about why she was here. That her husband had kidnapped a pregnant woman and kept her captive for a month while he fed his gullible wife a lot of bullshit about being a changed man.
Or that he’d drugged and possibly raped her the night he kidnapped the other woman. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling tears in the back of her throat. Oh, god. It had happened again.
She turned on her side and drew her knees to her chest, ignoring the pain in her ribs. She started to cry and once the first tears trickled down her cheeks, they only came faster and stronger. Soon she was sobbing, her face buried in the pillow.
She didn’t hear the door sliding open or feel Jason’s weight sink into the bed as he sat down. He smoothed the hair away from her face and she only cried harder.
Her own husband, someone she’d trusted and loved, had drugged her and then violated in the worst way possible. In a way Elizabeth had once vowed would never happen again.
“You shouldn’t pull your knees up like that,” he said softly. Jason straightened her legs. “It’s not good for your ribs.”
“I don’t care,” she choked out. “I just want to be by myself, okay?”
“Okay,” Jason said, amiably. He smoothed her hair again. “I’ll check on you later. Do you need anything?”
“The last few months of my life to disappear?” she sobbed. “Can you do that?”
“I wish I could,” Jason said. He stood and closed the door behind him.
You know I’m crying too
Right there with you
He closed the door behind him and shook his head wordlessly. He wondered what existed in some men that gave them the urge to do this to people. How Ric Lansing could have fooled Elizabeth into thinking he was so wonderful—so that he could turn right around and violate that trust, trust he knew she didn’t give easily.
She was still crying, he could hear her through the door. Even after all this time, after the pain, the nasty words—it still ripped at him when he heard her cry.
Sonny had gotten home when Jason came down the stairs. He was arguing with Carly insisting she go to the hospital.
“You’re probably dehydrated or suffering from malnutrition,” he was saying.
Carly rolled her eyes. “I am fine. What I want you to do is bring Michael and Courtney home. I need to see my son.”
“They’re already in the air,” Sonny said. “Now will you go?”
“No,” Carly said. She caught Jason’s eye. “Hey. How is she?”
Jason sighed. “She’s okay. Upset, but physically fine.”
Sonny frowned. “Now might be a good time to explain what you said on the phone.”
Carly shifted uncomfortably. “It’s really her business, not mine. Maybe she doesn’t want everyone to know.”
Sonny exhaled slowly. He put his hands on his waist, leveling his trademark intense glare on his wife. She braced herself for a fight and was prepared to stand her ground.
After a moment, Sonny nodded “You’re right. If she wants me to know, she’ll say so.”
“How’d things go at the house?” Jason asked. “Where’s Lansing?”
“Dead,” Sonny answered. “He bled out—painfully, I might add. We’ll arrange for the body to be found sooner or later. Good clean ending for Elizabeth.”
“He deserved to be cut into miniscule little pieces and fed to the wolves,” Carly muttered.
Sonny nodded. “Yeah. For what he did to you and the havoc he apparently wreaked on his own wife. What did he hope to accomplish by kidnapping you?”
Carly sighed. “He wanted our baby. He blames you for her miscarriage and wanted to replace their baby.”
“That’s sick,” Sonny declared.
“Yeah, it is,” Carly replied. She rubbed her abdomen. “You know, I watched her these last few weeks. She never trusted him fully, she was always a little suspicious.” She bit her lip. “He lied and lied to her and all I wanted to do was scream at her stop believing him.”
“Come on, I’ll make you some dinner,” Sonny said. “Jason, will you check on Elizabeth one more time before you go to the airport?”
“Yeah. No problem.”
It’s alright, Ophelia
Everybody cries
She wasn’t crying when he entered the room the second time. She was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling.
“Do you need anything?” Jason asked.
“I think we covered that question,” Elizabeth murmured. “Did Carly tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“What Ric did.”
“That he—” Jason hesitated. “That he drugged you and—”
“She shouldn’t have said anything,” Elizabeth whispered. “It’s bad enough she knows.”
“She’s worried about you,” Jason told her. He shut the door behind him. “I am, too.”
“Why?” she asked dully. “You were right, weren’t you? Ric was bad news. I had no business being with him. I was just protecting a rapist.”
“I never should have said it that way,” Jason admitted. “But I’d just found out what happened to Carly and here you were, being so damn stubborn—it was like you weren’t listening just to spite me.”
She chuckled dryly. “Yeah. Everything I do is always about you Jason.”
“That’s not what I meant—”
“I defended Ric because he made me believe that my love mattered, that I was enough,” Elizabeth said softly. “That I hadn’t wasted my time trying to make another relationship work. Just another mistake, Jason. Nothing more. Had nothing to do with you.”
“I’m sorry, Elizabeth.”
“Is he dead?”
“What?”
“Is he dead? Am I a widow?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?” Jason asked, stuffing his hands into his jean pockets.
“I think you just did.” Elizabeth sighed and folded her hands across her abdomen. “You know—I was waiting for him to come today. I was so excited—because I knew how happy he’d be.”
Jason walked towards her, trying to catch her eye, but she kept her attention firmly on the ceiling tiles. “About what?”
“I’m pregnant,” she whispered. “Silly me. I thought when he meant he wanted a family, he wanted my child. Should have known he wanted some blonde’s instead.”
Jason closed his eyes, feeling a sharp pain lance through him. “He was sick, Elizabeth. Sick and twisted.”
“Yeah, I guess he’d have to be to pretend to rape one woman and then drug and rape the wife he kidnapped someone for.” Elizabeth sighed. “I sure can pick ‘em. A brainwashed cheater, a hitman and a sociopath. I wonder what’s next. Do you think I’ll just settle for a homicidal maniac who has weird fetishes? Like he likes to wrap his victims in toilet paper before he slits their throats?”
“I’m not a hitman, Elizabeth and you know that,” Jason retorted.
She laughed again, coldly. “Forgot. That’s just one area of your job. We never did discuss the aspects. I was always too weak and fragile to handle it, huh?”
He shook his head. “What are you going to do?”
“About the baby?” Elizabeth asked. “Don’t know. I mean, what kind of child is it going to be? The offspring of an unemployed loser and a rapist?”
“You’re not a loser and it doesn’t matter what the father was like. Ric is dead and he can’t hurt you anymore.”
“If that’s what you believe, then you have a lot to learn about relationships, Jason. Just because someone’s gone, it doesn’t mean it’s over.” She turned and curled up into a ball, hissing when her knees came into contact with her sensitive ribs. “Sometimes it’s just beginning.”
“Elizabeth—”
“Tell Carly and Sonny I’ll be out of their way in a day or two. When I figure out what’s going through my head, okay?”
“You can stay here as long as you need to,” Jason assured her.
“With the happy mob squad? I’d rather chew nails.”
He hesitated. “Carly’s—”
“Worried about me, yeah I know. You already told me that.” Elizabeth closed her eyes. “Just leave me alone, okay?”
He shook his head. “No. I’m not going to leave you alone so you can sit up here and feel sorry for yourself.”
She jerked into a sitting position then, her cold gaze burning into him. “Is that you think I’m doing?” she seethed. “I’m trying to deal with the fact that my husband—who is dead now—not only lied to me with every single word out of his mouth, but that he drugged me and that I was raped for the second time in my life. I’m so sorry if I’m cramping your style or I’m not bouncing back as quickly as you think I should be, but I can’t—”
“I’m sorry,” Jason interrupted. He sat on the edge of the bed. “I shouldn’t have said that. I know you better than that.”
“Do you?” Elizabeth demanded. “Did we ever know each other at all? Or were we just fooling ourselves?”
Thank god for my bad memory
I’ve forgotten some of the stupid things that I’ve done
“Of course we knew each other,” Jason said, almost startled by her vehement words. “We were friends.”
“Yeah,” Elizabeth sighed, the fire drained from her body. She laid back down. “Friends.”
“I’m sorry, Elizabeth—”
“You’re always sorry, Jason. It never changes anything.” She closed her eyes. “Could you please go now?”
“Elizabeth—”
“Jason, there’s nothing left to say. You’re always sorry. And I’m always alone.”
“You’re not alone, Elizabeth—”
“Emily and Nikolas were married last week. A small chapel just outside of town. Lucky was there, Alexis, Luke, Monica, other members of both families. And I heard about it on the news,” Elizabeth said softly. “Lucky’s been mourning his girlfriend’s death for a month, but I found out about it in the newspaper. The only people I have are my grandmother and Ric—and I can’t look at my grandmother in the eye.”
“Why not?” Jason asked.
“Because I weaved a little fairy tale for her. About the wonderful and kind Harvard lawyer who swept me off my feet. That we had the perfect courtship and that marriage, with the minor inconvenience of a miscarriage, has been idyllic. How do you suppose I tell her that he was a monster? That he’s dead and I’m glad?”
“Why tell her anything?”
“You mean lie?” Elizabeth asked, raising her eyebrows. She smirked. “Why, you the paragon of virtue, are encouraging me to mourn my rapist husband? Tell me, Jason, does the word hypocrite mean anything to you?”
He stood and shook his head. “Sometime in the next week, his body will be found. So that you can have a quick ending to all of this. Your marriage will be over, and you won’t have to explain his absence.”
‘”I think it’d be for the best that I am at the house when he’s found then,” Elizabeth said softly. “So that when the two of you are questioned, I don’t have to be in a position to explain why I’m here.”
“Probably,” Jason admitted. “But Carly and Sonny want you to stay.”
“And I’m not going to complicate your lives any further. You have Carly now. You and Courtney can have your little wedding and I’ll just sell the house and try to get my old studio back.”
“Elizabeth—”
“Yeah. I know. You’re sorry.”
I’ve come to a little wisdom through a whole lot of failure
So I watch more carefully what rolls off my tongue
He never made it to the airport. He didn’t leave the room and eventually she fell asleep. He sat in a chair and watched her sleep. She was a restless sleeper, tossing and turning. Her breathing was shallow at times and he found himself worrying about her concussion.
When Courtney called about a ride home, Sonny just sent a guard out to get them. He knew that Jason was still upstairs and decided to leave him alone. It wasn’t every day that your ex-girlfriend was raped by her husband.
When Elizabeth woke a few hours later, he was still sitting there. Staring at her, his eyes trained on her face. She frowned. “Why are you here?”
“I’m worried about you.”
She sighed and slid into a sitting position, setting her feet on the ground. “Tell me,” she began quietly, “where does this sudden burst of concern come from? Where has it been in the past ten months or so?”
He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his thighs, clasping his hands together. “Tell me,” he echoed, “have you ever made a mistake?”
Elizabeth eyed him suspiciously. “Is this a trick question?”
“The day you walked out on me, when you demonstrated your inability to handle my life—”
“That is not what that was about!” Elizabeth fumed. “That was about my inability to come last, to be neglected. My inability to accept that promises are allowed to be broken for the sake of business.”
He knitted his eyebrows together in a frown. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“Silly me, I thought I did,” Elizabeth snarled. “I guess I was depending on your ability to understand me. Hoping for too much again, huh?”
He shook his head. “When you walked out, and you turned your back on me every time I tried to talk to you—”
“Yeah, both times,” Elizabeth muttered.
“It occurred to me that maybe you didn’t care about me anymore,” Jason told her. “I’m not sorry I moved on. I’m not sorry I listened to you when you told me we were over, that I’d ruined any chance we had. I’m not sorry that I fell in love again and you’re not going to make me sorry for that.”
She closed her, willing the tears to stay where they were. “I deserved it,” she whispered. “Because I walked away so many times from what I really wanted, I deserved what I got.”
“You did not deserve to have Ric Lansing drop into your life,” Jason said firmly. “No one deserves that.”
“Yeah, okay.” Elizabeth sighed. “Well, I’m all right. I feel fine. You can go.”
“I didn’t finish,” Jason interjected. “I’m not sorry for any of those things, but I am sorry that our friendship suffered.”
“Suffered,” Elizabeth scoffed. “Died, you mean.”
“Elizabeth—”
“Yeah, you’re sorry. We established this.”
He sat next to her on the bed. “Do you remember when I told that sometimes when you go away, it doesn’t make the feelings go away? That it just makes it clearer?”
“Yeah—” Elizabeth sighed. “I remember that.”
“Sometimes you don’t need to go away.”
Elizabeth frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means that I miss you.”
Elizabeth blinked and stared at him. “You miss me,” she echoed. She laughed. “Well, goody for me. Should I bow at your feet now?”
“Why do you do this?” he asked. “Why are you so angry with me?”
“Maybe it’s because you think telling me you miss me is supposed to fix the way you’ve treated me.” She launched herself off the bed and crossed the room. “Well, I miss you too. I miss talking to you and taking rides on the bike. But you know what I don’t miss? I don’t miss the phone calls, I don’t miss the way you’d run out to help Sonny and Carly with a hangnail. I don’t miss the way you shut down on me without the slightest provocation. I don’t miss the way you make me feel inferior, like I’m not good enough for you because all I wanted was your trust.” She found her shoes underneath the bed. “Yeah, I miss our friendship Jason, but not enough to sacrifice my self-respect—what I have left anyway.”
She ended her tirade by slamming out of the guest room, leaving Jason stunned and speechless in her wake.
You pray for rain
But you don’t want it from a storm
Courtney and Michael were home when Elizabeth rushed down the steps. Courtney jumped to her feet and immediately looked at the brunette suspiciously. “Elizabeth.”
Carly frowned. “Where are you going? You should be resting—you have a concussion—”
“I’ll be fine,” Elizabeth said quickly. “I appreciate everything, but it wouldn’t look right if I were here when—Ric—well—” she tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “You know what I mean.”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to back to him!” Courtney scoffed. She rolled her eyes. “My God, how naïve can you be? What does he have to do so that you realize what scum he is? Does he have to rape you too?”
Elizabeth paled and her eyes filled with tears. “It’s funny you should say that Courtney,” she whispered. She heard Jason’s footsteps on the steps behind her. He stopped on the landing. “Real ironic, you might say.”
“Courtney, just go home,” Carly advised. “This isn’t the time or the place—”
“No. Because Elizabeth is too stupid to see what a monster her husband is, he had the opportunity to kidnap Carly,” Courtney interrupted. “Now how did he manage to pull that off without you noticing? Did you help? Were you part of the plan?”
“Courtney, that’s enough,” Jason ordered. “Stop it.”
Elizabeth was trembling now. “You’re such a hateful person, Courtney. You automatically think I’d do something like that?”
“Well, I don’t know, Elizabeth. Maybe the reason you’re going back isn’t because you’re scared of him or because you just don’t see it. Maybe you like it,” Courtney snarled. “Maybe you get off on being with a rapist—”
“Shut up!” Elizabeth cried. “You don’t know anything about me!”
“Courtney, that is enough,” Carly said firmly. She put a hand on the blonde’s shoulder. “You don’t know what happened—”
“I don’t need to. Here Elizabeth is, all ready to return to her rapist husband. So, what is it, Elizabeth? What makes you love him despite the terror he inflicts?”
“Courtney, stop it,” Sonny cut in. “Carly’s right. A lot of things happened today—”
“All of which has done nothing to make you see what he’s done! Did you come and beg for Ric’s life just like you begged for Zander’s?” Courtney demanded. “You’re so selfish, Elizabeth—”
“No, that would be you,” Elizabeth cut in softly. “For your information, I’m not going back to Ric. He’s dead. I’m going back to the house so that when his body is found, the police won’t be able to connect this back to Sonny and Jason. And that is all you deserve to know, so you can take your accusations and hateful words and shove them.”
She pushed past them and left the penthouse, slamming the door behind her. Courtney sighed. “Well, at least that’s over.”
Carly stared at the other woman, surprise written all over her face. “Is that what I sound like?” she asked no one in particular. “When I go off without any of the facts? When I throw tantrums and accuse people of things they didn’t do?”
“Honestly?” Sonny asked, a small smirk on his face. “Yeah.”
She glared at him but turned the intensity of the glare onto her sister-in-law who was staring at her strangely. “All you had to do was shut up when we told you to. But you just sat there and kept yelling at a woman who had her entire life ripped out from underneath her today. Do you ever think about anything but yourself?”
“That’s not fair,” Courtney cried. “I’ve been so worried about you these last couple of weeks. I’ve done everything I can to keep your son from worrying about you. We postponed our wedding until we found you! How can you say that I don’t think about anyone but myself?”
“You know, being self-absorbed is one thing, but being cruelly selfish is another.” Carly shook her head. “I can’t deal with this right now.” She held her hand out to her son, who’d been watching the events unfold with an interested expression. “Come on, Mr. Man. You and me need to get caught up.”
“Okay, Mommy.”
Carly led to the stairs and they disappeared onto the second floor. Courtney sighed. “Okay, so what the hell happened today?”
Jason didn’t answer her. Instead, he shook his head. “I need a ride.”
“I’ll come with you,” Courtney said quickly.
“No. I need be by myself for a while,” Jason told her, holding his hands up to ward off her approach. “I’ll see you when I get back.”
Yeah, you find a rose
And cut your finger on a thorn
She entered the house which Sonny’s men had cleaned up that afternoon. The panic room was closed and she had no inclination to open it or tell anyone that it was even there when she sold the house.
She closed the door behind her and stared at their living room. This morning, she’d been in love with her husband and tonight—
She crossed the room and stared at the photographs she’d unpacked before Carly had fled the room and shattered her life. The biggest one was a framed photo of them on their wedding day.
She picked it up and studied it. Studied her smile, the ecstatic look in her eyes. She remembered how overwhelmed and happy she’d felt when he’d taken the rings out of his pocket.
At the time, she’d been floating on air. His vows had made her feel so cherished, so valued. And now they made her skin crawl. Every word, every promise, every touch, every kiss—it felt vile and she could feel the disgust spread throughout her body. She’d given herself to him, more than once, without inhibition. She’d made love to him, believing he loved her.
She’d made love to a rapist.
Tears blurred her vision and her throat felt tight. She gripped the frame tighter and then hurled it against the wall. “I hate you!” she screamed. It shattered and slipped to the ground, the picture still intact.
She swept everything off the back table, the vase and the water the flowers were sitting in went flying to the floor. She took a lamp from the table and flung it towards the door. It missed its target and went flying through the front window, shattering it.
She sank to the floor, sobbing.
So go on and cry, Ophelia
It’s the only thing to do sometimes
He saw the broken window first before the shards of the lamp at his feet. He was inside before he could think twice.
The living room was destroyed. She’d thrown anything she could find against the wall and now she was crumpled into a tiny ball behind the couch, sobbing.
Jason crossed the room in a few quick strides and lowered himself to the ground. “Elizabeth,” he said intently. “Are you hurt?”
She raised her red-rimmed eyes to him and nodded. “Yeah, but you can’t see where I bleed,” she choked out. “It’s here,” she told him, pressing a hand to her heart. He closed his eyes and instinctively gathered her into his arms, pressing her sobbing face into his chest. He didn’t tell her it’d be okay, or that everything was going to be all right. She didn’t need to hear the right now and for the first time in nearly a year, Jason knew exactly what Elizabeth needed from him.
He just held her while she cried.
After a while, she’d exhausted herself and couldn’t cry anymore. She wasn’t sleeping or passed out. She was just quiet. The only sounds in the room were their breathing.
“Why are you here?” she whispered, her voice hoarse.
“I was out riding—” Jason hesitated. “I just—found myself here and—I thought—you might need me.”
She closed her eyes and for once, she didn’t throw up her defenses. She didn’t give him some smart comment about how she’d never needed him. She just spoke the honest truth. “You’re right. I did.”
He smoothed a hand down her back before pulling away from her a little bit. “I’m sorry about what Courtney said,” he told her, reluctant to bring up the topic of his fiancée while she was so upset.
“She was right,” Elizabeth whispered. “I was stupid and I was selfish. All that time Carly was in there and I just kept throwing you out when you tried to tell me. When you tried to explain that Ric was bad—that he was keeping secrets—I just laughed in your face. And you were right all along.”
“I didn’t want to be,” Jason admitted. “I wanted—I wanted to believe you were happy, that he was treating you right.”
“I’m glad he’s dead,” Elizabeth said emotionlessly. “He’ll never hurt anyone again and that’s all that matters to me.”
“What about—” Jason trailed off.
“I’m keeping this baby,” Elizabeth said firmly. “I thought—I thought about having an abortion the first time around, but I couldn’t do it then and I know I can’t do it now. I just have to find a way to make sure I can take care of her.”
“If you need anything,” Jason began to offer automatically, but she cut him off.
“I don’t think Courtney would appreciate you making a promise like that,” she said softly. “I mean—I’m grateful that you’d offer, but let’s face it, Jason. We can’t—we can’t be friends anymore.”
“Why not?” he demanded. “Why shouldn’t we be?”
“The simple fact that if I ever have to see your fiancée again I’m afraid I might have to pummel her into the ground,” Elizabeth answered easily and without hesitation. “I won’t apologize for it, but I hate her. It doesn’t matter that she was right, she had no right to say what she did today and I just—can’t be around her.”
“So what does that have to do with us?” Jason asked.
“Don’t be thick, Jason. You—” Elizabeth sighed. “You’re going to marry her. You’re going to do whatever it takes to make her happy and you hanging around your ex-girlfriend won’t do that.”
“Don’t do that,” Jason told her. “Don’t go making your mind up about me like that. You hate when people do that to you, don’t do it to me. I’m not just Courtney’s fiancé, and I’m not just Sonny’s enforcer either,” he added.
“No,” Elizabeth murmured looking away. “But sometimes that’s all you think you are.”
You know I’m crying too
Right there with you
“I want to help,” Jason told her, ignoring the comment and the truth behind it. “And if Courtney can’t accept that, it’s not my problem.”
“There’s nothing for you to do,” she told him. “This is my—.life—.I have to start taking responsibility.” She pushed herself to a standing position. “And as soon as I get this all cleared away, I’ll figure out what I want to do.” She saw her easel across the room. “I still have that one woman show Ric set up. Why not take advantage of the one good thing he did?”
“Okay,” Jason said, rising to his feet. “But just because there’s nothing for me to do—does that mean we can’t talk?”
“What would we talk about?” Elizabeth asked. She started picking up shards of glass.
“We never needed a set list of topics before did we?” Jason questioned, helping her.
“This isn’t before, Jason. We’ve both changed and—there’s still—I’m still angry with you,” Elizabeth admitted, her eyes downcast. “And I don’t see that going away.”
“But why are you still angry?” he questioned. “You’ve moved on, what does it matter what happened in the past?”
“Because I trusted you. I trusted you with my life—and you wouldn’t return that. You didn’t trust me,” Elizabeth replied. “And we can’t be friends without trust.”
“Elizabeth—”
“I’m going to be okay now,” Elizabeth said, crossing to the kitchen to throw the shards into the recycling bin. “You can leave.”
“I don’t want to—”
“Don’t argue with me,” Elizabeth told him. She turned to face him. “Don’t make this difficult, Jason. You know we can’t be friends. It wouldn’t work.”
“Why can’t we just start over again? Develop that trust over again?”
“Because you will never trust me the way I want you to. And besides, Jason, we’ve come too far to just start over and be friends.” She bit her lip. “The truth of the matter is that we will always be more than friends and I just—.I need to deal with that.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Jason persisted, following her back to the living room. “If we’re still more than friends—”
“Because I still feel the same way I felt last summer,” Elizabeth confessed, crouching to pick up her wedding photo from among the glass shards. “That hasn’t changed, Jason. And I can’t be friends with someone I’m still in love with and watch them get married and be happy with someone else. Not right now. Not at this point in my life.”
He didn’t answer her, his mind still stuck with the still in love with part. She stared at the photograph again before starting to tear into tiny little pieces.
After a few moments she looked at him pointedly. “Don’t you have a wedding date to set?”
It’s alright, Ophelia
Everybody cries, Ophelia
“I figure that we can just do it all over again the same way,” Courtney told Jason. “Same outfits, same wedding guests, you know?” She frowned when she realized he was reading the newspaper rather than listening to her. “What are you reading that’s more important than our wedding?”
“Ric’s body was found last night,” Jason reported. “It only took three days. I’m just wondering how long it’ll be before Baldwin decides to come get us.”
“Well, it’ll be okay. There’s no evidence you guys did anything.” Courtney smirked. “In fact, I bet you anything Elizabeth is the one who gets charged.”
Jason frowned and stared at her. “What do you mean by that?”
She shrugged. “Well, it’s not a big stretch. There’s no evidence against you two, it automatically turns to the wife. The wife who won’t show a lot of emotion, who will probably put the house on the market immediately, the wife who doesn’t have an alibi because she was unconscious. She can’t defend herself without incriminating you guys and if she knows what’s good for her, she won’t do that.”
Jason nodded. “Yeah, you’ve got a point. They just might turn it around on her.” He folded the paper and tossed it aside. “I need to talk to Sonny.”
“Wait a second, Jason, the wedding—” Courtney trailed off when he shut the door. “Damn it. When do I come first?”
Sonny was reading the same article when Jason entered the room. “I suppose you’ve read this already,” Sonny said.
“Yeah. I give Baldwin an hour tops before he knocks on your door,” Jason replied. “Courtney brought up something. They can’t pin this on us—but what about Elizabeth?”
“Courtney brought it up?” Sonny asked. “I don’t see Elizabeth running into any trouble.”
“Baldwin’s going to be suspicious if Elizabeth ends up selling the house really quick, she doesn’t have an alibi, she won’t be that upset, you know what I mean?”
“Baldwin will just assume she’s covering for us,” Sonny mused. “It’s nothing to be worried about it and if turns out to be something, we’ll deal with it.”
It’s the perfect thing to do sometimes
You know I’m crying too, right there with you
She slept in the guest room and had her things all packed, just waiting for time to pass so that she could put the house on the market. She had cried appropriately when Detective Capelli reported Ric’s body had been found. She had filed a missing person’s report the day before.
She had an appointment with the funeral home for the next day. Elizabeth was playing the grieving wife perfectly so she wasn’t sure why Jason was standing in front of her, encouraging her to leave town.
“Jason, they don’t suspect me,” Elizabeth tried again. “I’m not worried.”
“Well I am,” Jason replied. “You don’t know how Baldwin thinks. He’ll see this as a way to get to me and Sonny. He knows you didn’t do it, but he thinks we did.”
“Well, for once he’s right,” Elizabeth muttered. Jason’s face darkened.
“Does it bother you?” Jason demanded. “To know that I killed him?”
Elizabeth looked at him, stunned. “Jason—”
“Does it bother you to know that it’s not the first time I’ve taken a life?” Jason continued. “Or did you just never think about it?”
Her mouth wouldn’t work and she suspected even if she could get words out, she wouldn’t know what to say. What could she say?
“Look, forget it,” Jason said after a moment of silence. “I don’t want Baldwin coming after you, thinking he can use you.”
“Where is all this concern coming from?” Elizabeth asked curiously. “You’ve barely looked my way in months. And now I couldn’t get rid of you if I wanted to.”
He stepped closer to her. “I told you that I’ve made mistakes. I’m trying to make them right.”
“Jason—there are some mistakes you can’t fix,” Elizabeth said helplessly. She stepped back and turned to stare at the wall she knew hid the panic room. “If I didn’t need the money from selling this house, I think I’d bulldoze it to the ground.”
“Will you at least think about leaving?” Jason asked. Before Elizabeth could answer his cell phone rang and her face twisted in bitterness, thinking of all the other times it had interrupted them.
He turned away to fish it out of his pocket and answer. “Yeah?”
“It’s me,” Courtney chirped. “Where are you? We’re supposed to discuss a new date today.”
“Can’t it wait?” he replied, almost impatiently.
Courtney was silent for a moment. “Jason, where are you?” she asked softly.
“I’m at Elizabeth’s,” Jason answered without hesitated. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Elizabeth slip into the hallway that led to the kitchen.
“Why are you there?” she asked, irritated. “I thought it was over and done with.”
“Elizabeth and I are friends—”
“Since when?” the blonde demanded. “You two haven’t talked in months. What could you possibly have to discuss now?”
“I’m not going to do this with you,” Jason replied, not bothering to hide his impatience or tense tone.
“Do what? Discuss the fact that you’re over another woman’s house?” Courtney snapped.
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Not when it comes to Elizabeth.”
There was silence for a moments before Jason was able to speak. “I guess that’s it then. I’ll stay somewhere else. You can deal with the penthouse. Goodbye, Courtney.”
It’s alright, Ophelia
Everybody cries, Ophelia
He hung up the phone and slipped back into his pocket before turning around to find Elizabeth was back in the room, taking the painting from her easel. “You’re packing already?”
“It’ll save me the trouble,” she murmured. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“No,” he answered. “Not anymore.”
She frowned at him momentarily before stacking a blank canvas on top of the unfinished one. “Okay.”
“You didn’t answer me. Will you at least think about leaving?”
She sighed. “Maybe. If what you say about Baldwin is true, I’ll think about it, okay?”
“Okay.” Jason shifted. “I should go anyway. Let you get back to packing.” His hand was on the door handle before she said his name. He looked at her over his shoulder.
“It doesn’t bother me,” she said softly. He frowned and turned around fully. “About Ric, I mean. You were just protecting Carly. He would have kept coming after her and probably Sonny, too.”
“I was protecting you too,” Jason admitted. “He just—threw you off him like you were a coat and you went flying across the room. I was worried you’d been hurt more seriously.”
She bit her lip. “And it’s not that I avoided thinking about your job, but most of the time I just—didn’t think of it. But if you really want my answer, I’ll tell you. No, the fact that what happened wasn’t the first time and that I’m aware it won’t be the last time—it doesn’t bother me and it never did.”
“Why not?” Jason asked, curiously.
“Because I knew it was either you or the other guy,” Elizabeth said softly, meeting his eyes. “And I was always grateful you came back.”
Cry, Ophelia
I’m crying too, right there with you
He stared at her for a few moments before looking away. Total acceptance what he did had never happened to him before and to tell the truth, he didn’t know how to respond to that.
“Are you gonna be okay here?” he asked. “I mean, by yourself?”
She sighed, stared at the couch where she knew it’d taken place. “I haven’t slept in three days,” she confessed quietly. “Every time I close my eyes, he’s there.”
Jason ran a hand through his hair. “I could stay if you want.”
She shook her head. “No. That’s okay. If it gets too bad, I can just go to a hotel or something. Besides—Courtney wouldn’t like it.”
Jason hesitated, thought about telling her that he’d just broken things off, but refrained. “Okay. But call me if you need something, all right?”
“All right,” Elizabeth agreed reluctantly. She smiled then, just a small weak one, but the closest thing to a genuine smile he’d seen in a long time. “You know what I could go for?”
“What’s that?”
“A ride,” Elizabeth said. “Do you have time?”
“Sure. Come on.” Jason pulled the door open and held it open until she passed him and headed towards the driveway where his bike was parked.
It was a start.
It’s alright, Ophelia
Everybody cries
Cry Ophelia won favorite short story in the 2003 General Hospital Reader’s Choice Awards!
