Monthly Archives: July 2020

July 25, 2020

Good morning 🙂 No fic updates for you but checking in with some minor Facelift news.  One of the things I’m doing as I move stories out of the Short story and Ficlet section is revisiting them, adding some introduction to them (timeline set-up, etc) with an eye to also adding graphics to them.  I want to do this more slowly than all at once because I want to make sure the stories are tagged correctly for length and characters.  Today I just started playing with some of the first attempts — I moved two Short Stories written and set in 2002 over to the Alternate History category, so the link had to be updated.  I also updated it on the Alphabetical List. It’s always fun to go back and look at some of my earliest work.

Back at Jake’s and Left Behind were written when I was 18 and still very early in my Jason/Elizabeth writing career. I can see rereading this older stuff that I didn’t quite have my handle on either of the characters or their relationship — what made them work, so to speak. It’s one of my favorite pieces of my own development — to have this early stuff as evidence of where I started and to look what what I’ve written now.

I used to really hate my older stuff, but this last year — I realized how important it is for me to be proud of it. I’ve been writing this couple for 18 years – 18 years THIS WEEK actually as July 29 Jason & Elizabethmarks my 18th anniversary of posting my first chapter of Deserving at The Canvas. I can still remember writing those early chapters in an AOL document, lol, and posting, hoping someone would reply and like it. I’d written GH fanfiction before (LL2 stories that literally no one ever saw, LOL) and I’d written Roswell fanfiction that was relatively popular — but writing for this show has always pulled me back — writing for this couple and Elizabeth specifically. I turned 36 this year which means, as of this week, I’ve been writing fanfiction for this couple for half my life. It makes me proud to look back at these older stories and see where I was and who I am today.

If you’ve never read either of them, take a minute and enjoy the silly, melodramatic writings of a high school graduate who saw these two characters on the screen in July while recovering from foot surgery and HAD to write my own version. Thanks for being with me this long 🙂

Elizabeth WebberIn other news — thank you for all the warm wishes and support in my recent Flash Fiction hiatus. I don’t update you guys to get sympathy or to apologize, but mostly to keep myself accountable. By setting deadlines and creating features that are time-sensitive, it encourages me to write. When I don’t deliver, it’s important to me that I keep you guys in the loop. I like the accountability — it works for me, and I hope it’s working for you.

Thanks for the last 18 years. Here’s to hoping we don’t need 18 more years before we get our couple!

ETA: I just wanted to clarify — I’m not changing any of my older stories — Left Behind & Back at Jake’s are still the same as they were when I wrote them in 2002 and reposted in 2014. The only thing that’s different is that I’ve added an introduction to the stories to give you background about writing them and when they’re set. I didn’t even edit for typos or missed word.

July 24, 2020

Just dropping a note to let you guys know what’s up.  Even though I was hoping that I would only be feeling that bad one day, it turns out it’s lingering. I’ve been really trying to get Mad World done every day  (and I have — I don’t know how good any of it was, but at least it’s there for revisions). I wasn’t able to get a doctor’s appointment for almost two weeks (I’m going August 4) so I couldn’t even get a prescription to feel better.

This morning (Friday), I am feeling a bit more myself but now find myself stressed by everything that’s not done. I’m not referring to Flash Fiction, but really just real life stuff. I was already kind of procrastinating on househoold chores because I was rushing towards deadline on Mad World, but this week I almost missed my online classes — one of which I’m paying for. There was no way I was going to concentrate on a biology class, so it’s not like ditching Mad World would have helped.

Anyway, long story short — being behind and stressed about things has just made me decide to take a few days, concentrate on things that have to be done (dishes, basic chores, Mad World, biology) before trying to get back into my old routine.

I’ll be back with Flash Fiction on Monday and a new schedule for it. I still want to finish An Everlasting Love, so I might do that all at once so it can be off my plate, then I’ll get back into a routine for them.

For anyone worried, what’s wrong isn’t serious — at least not that I know of, lol. It’s just not resolving itself, and NJ is far enough along in the pandemic response that I feel comfortable going to a doctor. It just honestly drains all of my energy. I’m tired right down to my bone and the simplest things have been a struggle. It’s frustrating because I’ve been working really hard to eat well, get a lot of sleep and take care of myself, but that’s 2020 for you.

I’ll see you guys on Monday with Flash Fiction.

July 22, 2020

Hey 🙂 Not a lot to say here today. I wasn’t able to make any headway on the facelift yesterday beyond finishing up edits and organizing screencaps. I had to babysit in the morning, then got my haircut in the afternoon. I think I mentioned a few months ago in my site and story status post that I’d been having some minor health issues since May that occasionally messes with my energy and ability to write for long periods of time. This is the third month in a row that I’m having the same problem, so I’m hoping to see a doctor soon to get it sorted out.

Without getting into details (I want to wait until I see the doctor before I speculate on what’s wrong), it basically just means it’s hard for me to sit for long periods of time and I need a lot of breaks. I’m also really tired. With the Mad World deadline looming, time in front of the computer really needs to be focused on that draft. Today is particularly bad day — instead of feeling better as the day continued, I actually feel worse so I’m going to take a long break before coming back to work on MW in the afternoon.

Normally, in other months, I only had one really bad day where I couldn’t push through and get things done — so hoping I can come back tomorrow. I love writing Flash Fiction, and it’s killing me not to have the energy for something I enjoy particularly when I’ve been on a roll, word count wise.

I started looking at revisions for An Everlasting Love, reworking the setup and how the story unfolds. It’s been kind of fun to spend a lot of time on the setting, making sure it feels like a historicanext l romance. Once I’m finished the discovery part of the revision process, I’ll let you guys know when you might be able to expect the revised novella. The story will conclude Thursday.

July 21, 2020

Your Update Link: Desperate Measures, Part 13

Hello 🙂 Another day, another update. This one is earlier today because I’m babysitting from around 9-11 this morning. Once school starts, and I go back to work, I won’t get to see my nieces and nephew all that much because I’ll be isolating myself from family members just in case so I’m taking all opportunities this summer. As a substitute I might be forced to switch back and forth between districts and schools to make the full paycheck, and we just don’t know what the situation is going to be or if NJ is going to continuing to stay on the positive trend.

Anyway – most of the Facelift stuff is happening between the scenes. As I wrote in my update yesterday, my edits came and I spent most of yesterday ripping them to my hard drive and then screencapping. I’ve basically screencapped 1999-2008, which is great. None of it is organized, lol, outside of August 2002, but I’m going to tackle 2003 first since those are the images I need for the redesign.

The Working Alternate History page is still visible for you guys, and I’m also adding a Content Warning page with a general warning as well as individual story triggers so that you can see them if you need them and skip if you don’t. I’m working on writing copy and filling out details for the Short Stories/Series merge page, then I’ll be tackling Ficlets. Once those new details are done, I’ll start updating the stories. You’ll see what I mean once we get into it. I’ve been rewriting summaries for all older stories to make them more descriptive — they used to be pretty general and vague.

It’s been a lot of fun reorganizing the History section, I think I said this yesterday that it made me realize where I have some deficits in my writing. I haven’t written literally anything you can read set between 1999-2001 which is some of our best Liason stuff. I have things planned for 1999-00, but nothing for Jason’s return in August 2000 or his 2001 run on the show. I’m going to be brainstorming some ideas for flash fiction series and I have something planned for the Liason anniversary next month but I don’t want to get into it because I can’t really properly attack it until next week.

In Mad World progress news, the story just keeps growing. I was working on a really emotional, important chapter yesterday and a scene I thought might be around 1000 words ended up being 2600, and I had to add a few scenes to that chapter to build on what I’d written — which means Book 3 has grown from 35 chapters to 38 — and is now 40 chapters with a double epilogue planned. It’s kind of crazy, lol. Revisions should be interesting next month. You can always view my daily progress using the graph at the side — if you click on it, it takes you to a site where you can see each day broken down.

If you’re a Patreon supporter, I released an unedited Chapter 51 for all tiers. I’ll be releasing 52 on Thursday, and then 53 and 54 next Monday & Thursday to get ready for the alpha draft release for Patreon Supporters at the $3 and above levels. If you’re interested, check out Support for more details.

This entry is part 13 of 20 in the series Flash Fiction: Desperate Measures

Written in 20 minutes. No time for typos or edits. I mean it. I do not reread this before I post them, and I am aware there are errors. Please assume I have basic spelling comprehension and know how to reread and revise. Thank you. I can’t write almost 1000 words in 20 minutes if I worry about spelling or typos.

When Jason and Elizabeth went into the living room, they found that Diane and Cameron had let Drew into the apartment. He immediately strode over to Elizabeth and wrapped her in a tight hug.

“Hey. I’m sorry I didn’t come by earlier—I didn’t—the PCPD wouldn’t tell me if you’d made bail—”

Elizabeth hugged him back briefly, then stepped back. She couldn’t forget that this was another man who had chosen Sam, who had protected her, She folded her arms, stepping gingerly away from the brothers, looking over at Cam. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Diane and I worked out a statement in case the PCPD gets a material witness order.” Cam flicked his eyes at his lawyer. “And she works for me now.”

“I should be able to buy a very nice pair of discount sneakers…on clearance,” Diane said dryly. She cleared her throat, looked at Elizabeth. “I’m…sorry…if what happened before gave you reason not to trust me. But—”

“It’s—” Elizabeth bit her lip, looked at Jason for a moment, before returning her attention to the redhead. “It’s fine. It’s just been a lot today.” She looked at Drew. “What are you doing here?”

“I—” Drew hesitated. “I’ve been trying to find Sam. I believe you—” he told Jason quickly who had furrowed his brow. “I—I hate that I do, but with what happened last year—” He looked Diane. “It could be her.”

“It is her,” Jason said flatly. “Elizabeth remembered seeing her there.”

Drew closed his eyes, absorbed the hit, and nodded. “Okay. Okay.” He dragged his hands through his hair, then down his face. “Okay. I tried to find her, but she’s not returning her calls. Alexis hasn’t heard her—”

“Spinelli is tracking her down,” Jason said. He folded his arms, then frowned. “What happened last year?”

“Sam got sick,” Elizabeth said softly. “After Scout was born, she was really sick. And she had some sort of—” She hesitated, looked at Drew. “What did Finn say? A kind of psychotic break?”

“Toxoplasmosis,” Drew clarified. “She—she tried to kill Sonny.” His smile was grim. “I ended up shot and nearly died. It was…she’s okay. She recovered—at least that’s what the doctors told her—”

“That’s what she said the doctors told her,” Diane pointed out. She folded her arms. “The PCPD dropped charges—they didn’t mandate reports from the doctors, so unless you spoke to Finn directly…?” she trailed off and Drew shook his head.

“No. I never—I took her word for it. I—” He looked at Elizabeth. “I thought she’d recovered, but maybe—maybe it explains it. I mean—I know she’s done terrible things, Elizabeth, but this—this is different.”

“Is it?” Elizabeth asked numbly. “You have no idea.” She closed her eyes. Maybe it was easier for Drew to believe that Sam was sick. Maybe he was right.

“Mom?” Cameron asked quietly. “What’s wrong? Why—what are they talking about? I know—I know Sam was part of what happened when the house caught on fire—she shouldn’t have been following Jake around—”

“Following Jake?” Jason said, sharply. “What?”

“She thought he was—she thought he was in trouble,” Drew said, almost faintly as if it sounded as ridiculous now as it had then.

“He got hit by a car—again—running away from her,” Elizabeth told Jason. “She came into my home, accused him of doing things that would make Drew want to come back. He got scared, and she fell down the stairs. He ran away and nearly died. Again.”

Jason exhaled slowly. “I—I didn’t know.”

“You wouldn’t. We don’t talk about Sam’s crimes very often.” Elizabeth flicked her eyes to Drew who couldn’t meet her gaze. “Somehow when she does it, there’s an explanation. A justification.”

“Elizabeth—”

“Mom—”

“Do you remember when Jake was kidnapped—the first time?” Elizabeth asked Cameron. “You were young. He had just been born.”

“Yeah.” Cameron rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. Everyone was crying a lot, but Jason found him. Brought him home.” He managed a faint smile. “I remember that.” His eyes widened. “Wait. Did—”

“Sam watched Maureen Harper take my child out of the stroller and walk away from him,” Elizabeth told her son. “Then she refused to let me and Lucky go on her show to beg for him back. She came over to my house — knowing where my baby was, knowing he was Jason’s son — and told me we were the same. We’d both lost a child. She never told the truth, by the way.”

“She would—” Drew trailed off, looked at Jason. “She would have—”

“No.” Jason met Elizabeth’s eyes. “No. She probably wouldn’t have.” He cleared his throat. “You never told me she came to the house.”

She raised a brow. “If I had, would you still have forgiven her? Married her?”

“I don’t understand,” Cameron said, holding up his hands. “I don’t—Sam basically kidnapped my little brother.” He turned his eyes on Drew and Jason, who both had the memory. “She has tormented my mother since Jake was born — I know that. I’ve been there for that. She made sure that Drew left Mom and enjoyed it, by the way,” he added sarcastically, “and you’re telling me—that you still—you both still—” He looked at his mother. “I don’t understand.”

“That makes two of us.” Elizabeth took a deep breath. “But as I am often reminded by everyone, I am not entirely innocent. So let’s put all that away. Sam hates me and has for years. I can understand if she’s sick again that it might have escalated like this. So—” she faced the brothers who were both extremely uncomfortable. “Did Spinelli find her?”

“He hasn’t called yet,” Drew said, looking at Jason. “Did he call you?”

“No.” Jason took out his cell phone. “I’ll check in with him again.

—

Spinelli had found Sam, but he hadn’t told either Drew or Jason. He wanted to help—he wanted to fix things. He was sure it was all a giant mistake.

He knew Sam—he knew she wouldn’t do something so awful to Elizabeth and her children. Jason and Drew—they were wrong.

So he went by himself to the motel where he’d tracked down one of her aliases and knocked on the door. “Sam? It’s Spinelli.”

Sam answered the door a moment later, then stepped back. “Spinelli, come on in.”

A bit unnerved at the welcome, at the empty expression on her face, Spinelli gingerly stepped past her, into the rundown room. He looked around that water stained walls, the cracked drywall. “Sam, what are you doing here? No one—your kids—they haven’t heard from you.”

“They’re safe,” Sam said, closing the door. She turned to face him. “I had to make sure they stayed safe.”

Spinelli swallowed hard, searched her eyes, looking for some hint, some trace of the woman he’d considered a member of his family for so long. “Have you heard the news? What happened to Franco? And Elizabeth? At her house last night.”

“Yes. I know what happened.” Sam’s lips curved into a smile. “It’s about time someone ended his existence, don’t you think?”

“Uh. Yeah. Sure. But, uh, don’t you—I mean, Elizabeth was hurt—attacked,” Spinelli told her. “And she’s been charged with his murder—”

“I saw that.” Sam leaned against the door, her smile deepening. “Karma, ain’t it a bitch?”

Spinelli blinked, then shook his head again. “No—”

“She protected a rapist for years.” Sam shrugged a shoulder. “And now she’s paying for it. People generally get what they deserve, Spinelli. And she deserves this.”

July 20, 2020

Your Update Link: An Everlasting Love, Part 13

Hey! So next week, I expect to finish up Everlasting Love — which is great because it means I can slot Darkest Before Dawn on Mondays & Thursdays in just time for revisions to start on Mad World, Book 3. I can then take Sundays off again from writing because revisions are a pain in tush, lemme tell ya. An Everlasting Love will go into revisions, and I’ll let you know when you can expect the fleshed out novella.

In other news, a chapter misnumbering error has left me a few days behind  in my own self-declared deadline of July 31 for Book 3’s first draft. No big worries — I’ve pushed the date to August 3, but that doesn’t change the release date of October 6 at all so you guys won’t even see a difference. The only people slightly inconvenienced are my Patreon supporters on the Crimson Love tier, who were due to get the alpha draft on August 1. They’ve been super awesome about a few delay so far, so I’m happy to say I’m not stressed about it all. At least until we get to revisions, and I want to set the whole thing on fire, LOL.

I haven’t made any real progress in my Alternate History design since yesterday because I spent the entire afternoon writing Mad World (added 9k yesterday!). A lot of the images I need to make are from a time period I hadn’t screencapped yet. I did those this morning, so I’ll be working on them this week. Rather than having the History page changing all the time, I created a temporary Alternate History work page so I can play with it and update it so I can see changes, but it’s not crazy for you. You can see the work in progress page here, and I’ll be reporting on that as we move through the week.

I’m actually really excited because I just ordered some new DVD edits — I’ve finally got May-July 2002, and I’ll have more of 2008., as well as padding out my early Just Jason edits. These are great for me for graphics as well as inspiration. I was screencapping my 1999 DVD last night and got inspired to look at some of that time period — and I noticed my 2001 lack of story when I was making the History page so I’m going to see if I can work on that this fall with flash fiction.

UPDATE: After making this post, I ran out to my sister’s to drop off some earrings I’d bought for her, and she asked me to babysit tomorrow morning for my nieces — right around the time I normally do flash fiction. To give my sister credit, once I mentioned this, she offered to call someone else because she respects my deadlines but I told her I could reschedule around it. So tomorrow, flash fiction will be earlier — at 8 AM.

Also, I got back from the store, and my DVDs arrived! Stacey even tossed in a Steve interview DVD from 98-02 which is great because I’m going to be writing a lot from that era in some upcoming projects and I’m excited to have more Steve candid caps to work with. I also got my Liason 02 and 08 DVDs AND my Jason 97 edits. So excited to check them, rip them to my computer, and cap them. I get so much inspiration from these.

 

This entry is part 13 of 16 in the series Flash Fiction: An Everlasting Love

Written in 20 minutes.

The arrest of Ric Lansing by the still relatively new sheriff spread through Diamond Springs like wildfire, even to the ranches outside of the town proper. Patrick had brought the news to Elizabeth himself when he’d come out to take a look at the horses whose sale he was arranging on Elizabeth’s behalf.

Elizabeth had been stunned that Jason had not only meant it when he said he was taking on Ric directly, but that he’d followed through. She was sure the charges wouldn’t stick — Ric had stolen enough money over the years to keep him out of trouble—but no one had stood up to Ric like that before. She’d tried to report him — had tried to talk the previous sheriff into helping her and Cameron — but no one had believed her.

Jason had.

She wondered if Jason had planned to arrest Ric that day or if he had done so more quickly because she was leaving in the morning. She wondered if he’d come to see her, if he’d try to stop her again.

And believing he might, Elizabeth waved Gail Baldwin goodbye one last night as her son picked up for the ride back to town, tucked Cameron in tight for his last night in his room, then went to sit on her porch.

The moon was high over her head, after midnight when she caught sight of his horse in the distance. When Jason tied up the reins, Elizabeth stood and walked into the pool of moonlight. He blinked at her, then took a deep breath.

“You’re…awake.” He stepped onto the first step as she stood at the top of the staircase.

“I thought you might come.” She stepped down one step, then arched a brow. “What were you planning to do if I wasn’t?”

“Sit there.” Jason nodded at the bench. “Until morning. To stop you from leaving. I arrested Ric—”

“Patrick told me.”

They met on the middle step, but he didn’t touch her. Didn’t reach out to take her hand. She could only dimly see him in the moonlight.

“He’ll bribe someone,” Elizabeth told him, but she smiled faintly. “But he’ll spend a day or two in jail. That—that brings me more joy than it ought to—”

“He won’t buy himself out of this,” Jason insisted with a shake of his head. “He already tried to contact someone—but he didn’t remember something important.”

Elizabeth frowned, tried to search his gaze, but she couldn’t in the dark. “What?”

“My family—your family—the Lewises—they’ve been here longer. You remember Jimmy?”

“Jimmy? Your cousin?” Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. “Not really. He only visited a few times from San Francisco—”

“He’s a politician. And he remembers Dr. Lewis. And your grandparents. He also—” Jason exhaled slowly. “He was one of Ric’s victims. In exchange for political favors, Jimmy got to keep his house.”

“Then—”

“When he realized I could arrest Ric, he contacted two others in the legislature who had been exhorted by Ric. Ric played too many games. Went after too many people. He got greedy.” Jason reached for her hand. “They were just waiting for someone to stop him.”

Her lips trembled as she took that in, then she closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I wish I could—I know you believe it. I know you’re not lying to me, but I—”

“You’ve lost too much,” Jason finished. “I know. And no one else in this town stood up to Ric. You still plan to leave.” He rubbed his thumb over her palm. “I know.”

“I thought it would be enough to save the ranch,” Elizabeth admitted, “but I can’t. It’s not. Every where I look, I see something he destroyed. I want to start over. I want something new. I just—” She touched his jaw. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” he told her, roughly. “It’s not enough to fix it now. I should have came home when you didn’t answer the telegrams. I should have done more a long time ago.” He stepped closer to her, their bodies just brushing. “I should have taken you with me.”

Elizabeth bowed her head, her forehead leaning against his chest. “But I wouldn’t have my son. I can’t think about what ifs, Jason. I don’t have that luxury.”

“So we won’t talk about before anymore.” Jason tipped her head up, resting his fingers under her chin. “I know you have to leave tomorrow. I came here to tell you I understood. That it won’t stop me from making sure Ric pays, but that I—I think you deserve more. You deserve that new start.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. He caught a tear with his thumb, then brushed it away. “But that’s tomorrow. There’s—” She cleared her throat, then licked her lips as their eyes met, somehow connected in the darkness and shadows. “There’s still tonight.”

They were standing so close that she felt his breathing change—the way his chest moved against hers. “Are you—Do you mean—”

“I just—I want a memory with you,” she told him.” Elizabeth leaned up to brush his lips against his. Once, then twice—and on the third time, Jason crushed her against him. “Cameron’s asleep, but his room is in the back of the house,” she told him when they parted, their breathing shallow and raspy. “Mine is in the front. Will you—”

He answered her with another kiss, then lifted her in his arms and started up the stairs.

July 19, 2020

Your Link: Darkest Before the Dawn, Part 8

Hey! I started working on the Alternate History page. I’m going to slowly merge the novels with Short Stories and Ficlets. I actually like the way it looks so far. I haven’t linked any of the short stories yet, and I’m only done rewriting the section from 1997-2003. I wanted to also update the older stories with better summaries and give more descriptive details. Let me know what you think so far.

Back at Jake'sI’m slowly organizing my screencaps at night. A year ago, all of my screencaps were lost when my hard drive failed. I’ve been recreating them and organizing them so it’s easiy to find the ones I wanted. I’m almost done with August 2002, so I’ve added a featured image for Back at Jake’s, one of my, uh, lesser efforts in Short Stories. It’s actually a story I wrote in August 2002 that was centered around the August 27 anniversary of the third year since their fateful meeting.

Kind of insane that we’re almost at the 21st anniversary. This link will change when I move the story into the Alternate History section but if you’re interested in what 18-year-old me wanted to say about this day, go for it. I think this was probably the third or fourth story I’d written for GH. I’d only started writing fanfiction for Liason at the end of July 2002.

I’m going to use the redesign of Alternate History to work on the stories. I’ll finish that section first because it’s the largest one on the site. I’m going to finish rewriting the History page this week, taking it slow and making sure it looks good. Then I’ll start on the individual stories — cleaning up images, content, and moving some things around. Like I said, none of the site work ever takes away from my writing time. I write at 10 AM and 1 PM without fail every day.

This entry is part 8 of 16 in the series Flash Fiction: Darkest Before the Dawn

Written in 20 minutes. No time for edits.

“Cameron Hardy Webber—”

The eight-year-old dressed as Flynn Rider paused, his eyes wide, the unwrapped lollipop a centimeter from his mouth.

“I told you she’d see you,” Emma Scorpio-Drake sniffed.

Elizabeth shoved the pumpkin-clad Aiden at Jason and stalked across her living room to glare at her eldest son. Still clutching the lollipop, Cameron grinned back at her.

Behind Jason, still in the entry of the house, Patrick grimaced. “A Webber stand-off. We could be here for hours. Shove over, I need to remind my kid about rules.”

“Daddy, I told Cameron not to eat the candy before his mommy told him he could,” Emma assured her father. She fluttered her eyelashes.

“Uh huh.” Patrick, standing next to his fellow parent and comrade in arms, raised a brow. “What’s that on your face?”

“Where?”

“Corner of your mouth.”

Emma’s tongue darted out to lick the spot, and then her eyes narrowed. “It was Cameron’s idea!”

Stunned at this betrayal, Cameron whirled on his—now former—best friend. “You lie! You said we should sneak a piece!”

“And we would have gotten away with it if you hadn’t picked a Blow Pop!” Emma shot back. Her Rapunzel wig slumped foreward on her forehead. She shoved it back.

“You have chocolate all over your face—”

“Candy.”

Jason looked down at the two-year-old he held and saw that Aiden’s chubby hand was reaching for the plastic container he had on his arm—filled with Aiden’s candy. “Uh—no,” he told him. With one hand he set the container on the table and stepped down into the living room, behind the sofa.

“They always dime themselves out,” Elizabeth said as she traded a grin with Patrick. “Works every time.”

“Divide and conquer,” Patrick agreed. “God help us if they ever figure out they’re stronger together.” They shared another smile before Patrick strode over to pick up his daughter before she landed a kick to Cameron’s shins.

“Cameron, go upstairs and change and wash up. We’ll have order pizza, and then you can have some candy.”

Cameron scowled as he stomped across the living room, up the raised stair to the entry, then up the stairs, grumbling all the way about dumb girls and their stupid plans.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Patrick told Elizabeth as Emma kicked over his shoulder, railing at the injustice of taking the blame for the candy crime. “Dinner? Emma made you a card, so you can’t skip it.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you then. Bye, Emma—”

“Bye Aunt ‘Lizabeth,” Emma muttered, remembering her manners as Elizabeth closed the door behind them. She turned back to Jason.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” she asked, as she retrieved the pumpkin from his arms. Aiden pouted, pointed at the candy on the table.

“No. I, uh, don’t think I’ve been trick or treating in a while,” Jason admitted. “Joss usually goes with Jax and Carly. And Michael hasn’t gone out—” His mouth tightened slightly, remembering that Michael’s last Halloween had likely been the year before he’d been shot in the head.

“Thanks for coming, by the way,” Elizabeth said as she dropped Aiden on the sofa and started to strip him of the costume. “With three adults and three kids, it’s easier to keep an eye on them.” She exhaled slowly. “Last year, Cameron almost wandered in front of a car.”

Jason sat next to her, Aiden between them. “Hey.”

She met his eyes, smiled ruefully. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay. You want me to order the pizza?” he offered, relieved that the sadness in her eyes had been fleeting.

“Yeah, thanks. I’ll get Aiden washed up, and we’ll pick a movie.” She lifted Aiden, then hesitated. “Um…do you—do you want to stay? I mean, for the movie.”

“Sure.” Jason watched her go up stairs with her son, then pulled out his phone to make the call.

—

A few hours later, Cameron had passed out in front of the television, a pile of candy wrappers in front of him, the ending credits of his favorite Halloween movie, Hocus Pocus, scrawling across the screen.

“I might just let him sleep on the floor,” Elizabeth told Jason as she reached for the last slice of pizza in the box on the coffee table. “You know…” She looked at her son again. “I read somewhere that one day, you’ll realize that you picked your kid up for the last time, and you didn’t even know it. He’s—he’ll be as tall as me in a few years.”

“I can take him up if you want,” Jason offered. Elizabeth bit her lip, looked at him. “If you want,” he repeated.

“I—” Elizabeth hesitated, set the pizza down. “This is going to sound insane,” she said. “But I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”

“I won’t drop him—”

“No—” Elizabeth shook her head. “No, that’s not what I mean. I just—” She met his eyes. “I like having you around. With the boys. Tonight. I mean, Patrick and I—we’ve mostly got this single parent thing down. He’s struggling a lot, but he’s getting there. I’ve been doing it longer.” She paused. “I don’t want to depend on anyone to help me with the boys.”

She waited for him to tell her that it was just a trip up the stairs—that it wasn’t that serious—but Jason didn’t do that. He just took in her words, then nodded.

“I understand. I—” He looked at Cameron again. “I promised you once that I wanted to do that. To be with them. I thought—I thought he’d be mine,” Jason murmured, almost inaudibly. “And the last few weeks, sometimes I’ve….”

“Found yourself pretending,” Elizabeth offered when he trailed off. He managed a slightly embarassed smile.

“Yeah.”

“Me, too,” she admitted. It had been almost six weeks since that day at Sonny’s non-wedding. Since they’d brushed up against that line, and she’d run away from it.

And he was still here. Still not going back to Sam.

Was it time to stop being so scared?

“Why don’t you take him up?” Elizabeth told him. “I’ll be up in a minute to tuck him in.”

“You sure?” Jason asked as they both stood. He caught her elbow. “I don’t want to do anything that might hurt you—”

“I know.” She leaned up, their eyes met for a second before she brushed her lips across his. “But I think it’s time we stop pretending this isn’t happening, and find out if…this time…”

He tucked her hair behind her ear, leaned down to return the soft kiss. “This time, it’s different,” he promised her.

“I know,” Elizabeth said. She smiled at him, even as her stomach fluttered, even as her brain screamed at her that it never was. She was going to ignore all common sense and try—

Just one more time.

July 18, 2020

Your Update Link: Whatever It Takes, Part 12

Hey! Short and sweet update today as I didn’t get a chance to do a lot of site work yesterday evening. I wrote almost 7k for Mad World yesterday noon and my brain decided to die, LOL. I did however get started on the Recent Updates page. I had stopped updating it before the move. The text is there — I’ll add the links later.

I wanted to address a quick concern that working on the site is taking away time from writing — I have a highly structured routine right now. It’s the only way I know how to manage my time, lol, and that’s to make sure I’m keeping to a schedule. I write at 10 AM for Flash Fiction, then I write at 1 PM for Mad World. I generally work on the site right before Flash Fiction, and then for about 30 minutes afterward if I’m not doing a double flash fiction day. Later at night, after Mad World, I might do some more work.  But I guard those writing times pretty closely. (Except today — I have to go to a birthday party at 1.)

I’ll see you guys tomorrow!