Written in 53 minutes. Honestly, I wrote myself to that last line and was too proud of myself to think of continuing and knew I’d never finish another scene.

Dear reader
Burn all the files, desert all your past lives

There were no time machines, no magic buttons to press, to switches to turn, nothing that could be done to turn the clocks back to the person he’d been once — to the fresh-faced young woman he’d driven home from a bar once upon a lifetime ago —

But for just a few minutes, for just a few precious moments, with the wind roaring in his ears, the flashes of road coming closer on every turn when he went just a little too fast, Elizabeth’s arms wrapped around his torso, her squeals of delight when they hit the outskirts of town and he could really pick up speed —

For just a little while, time did stand still and he was that man again. He’d seen her fighting with a stranger at Jake’s, and he’d stepped in—

And nothing had ever been the same.

He didn’t think very much about where to take her — there were the obvious choices — to the summit of the cliff roads at Vista Point where they’d shared a kiss and too many unfinished conversations — to the bridge where he’d taught her to box or where they’d stood in quiet contemplation of the son they’d thought lost to them —

But if she wanted to turn back time, if she really wanted to go back to a different moment —

Jason eased off the speed, exhaling a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He’d wondered if this land had ever been sold — if even this had changed in the time he’d been gone. But the driveway to the old estate was still there, and the statues still at guard, though time had worn away more of the stone. There was just enough moonlight to look around.

Elizabeth slid off the bike when it was safe to do so, tugging the helmet from her hair, and her hair falling to her shoulders. She set the helmet on the back of the bike, combed her fingers through hair. “I completely forgot about this place,” she murmured, heading for the statues that had once graced elaborate gardens, long fallen into ruin. “We came here once.”

“I remember.” He switched off the bike. “You never came back?”

“No.” Elizabeth stopped by the statue of the girl, studied her for a long moment, then looked at him. “Jake’s home. I should have said something back at the house, but I was just—” She rubbed her chest with a fist. “Everything started to go wrong, and I couldn’t think anymore.”

“He said he would try to get a flight before the service.” Jason approached her, sliding his hands in his pockets. “He’s at the house?”

She nodded, folded her arms. “Yeah. He said he and Aiden would spend the night. Monica, she, ah, gave them a standing invitation. She’s been kind, you know. Like Laura, not treating any of the boys differently.” Elizabeth bit her lip. “He said he’s putting school on hold.”

“What?” Jason straightened. “Why? What happened?”

“He’s worried about Danny.” There was a bench, and she sat, perching at the edge, her knees angled towards the center. She stared down at her hands. “The kids—they were all upset. Rocco heard his dad saying Alexis wants custody.”

Jason flinched, then dragged his hands down his face. “They shouldn’t know that yet. They shouldn’t be a part of it yet.”

“So it’s true?” She looked at him, and he averted his eyes, unable to hold her gaze. “Alexis wants custody?”

“She told Drew and me tonight.” He kicked at a larger piece of rock that had become dislodged from the base of the statue. “It would keep the kids together.”

She said nothing, and when the silence became uncomfortable, he lifted his head to find her watching him. “That’s what Danny wants. He told me he wants to stay with Rocco and Scout. I—I can’t do anything about Scout, but—”

“What? You’ll let Dante have custody and you’ll visit so Danny can stay with Rocco?” Elizabeth asked, and he grimaced, looked away. When he and Dante had broached the uncomfortable topic, the suggestion had lurked in his mind, but had been unsaid. Hearing it from her lips —

It sounded wrong.

“I wish I could blame myself,” Elizabeth said, and he frowned, opened his mouth, then shook his head, bewildered. “I know I pushed you out of Jake’s life, and that I must have made you question whether you’d be a good father—”

“No—”

“Don’t do that thing where you absolve me of all wrongdoing,” Elizabeth interrupted gently, and he sighed. She rose to her feet. “You didn’t used to do that, you know? When I was wrong, you always told me. About Lucky—God, the arguments we had about Ric and Zander—but that stopped after Jake.” She tipped her head to the side. “We can save that for another argument. But I know this isn’t about that. You came home seven years ago and found out Danny was your son and Jake was alive. You went from no children to two sons just like that—” She snapped her fingers. “You were patient with Jake, you built a relationship with him. You had visitation with him. I know things were a little more complicated with Danny, but you were their father, Jason. And when we lost you three years ago, it devastated them.”

His throat tightened and he looked away. “I never meant for any of that—it wasn’t supposed to be like that.”

“Before we lost you, if this had happened, if there was a question of Jake or Danny needing to live with you, you would have done it.”

“I—”

“Something’s different about you,” Elizabeth continued. He pressed his lips together, kept his eyes on the ground beneath him. “I noticed it the first time we saw each other last April.”

“Two years is a long time,” Jason said after a long beat of silence. “It’s not like last time. I didn’t know five years had passed. I—I felt it. Every day I was gone.” He cleared his throat. “It doesn’t matter. Drew made it clear he doesn’t support Alexis taking Scout, and if he’s taking her to DC, then there’s no point in Alexis taking Danny—”

“All of that might be true, but why aren’t you saying that Danny is your son and you want him with you?”

“It’s—he’s old enough to decide where he wants to live. And he’s—they’re both so—I’ve missed most of their lives,” Jason said. He fisted his hands in the pockets of his jackets. “Danny wants to be with Scout, so I’ll do whatever I can to make that happen—”

“Do you think Carly feels that way about Bobbie? They didn’t meet until Carly was in her twenties. And Dante and Sonny—I know we’re not supposed to talk about it, but I’m pretty sure Sonny didn’t know who Dante was until he shot him. And look at them now. You never used to make excuses.” Elizabeth took another step towards him but he kept his eyes looking just past her. “Why are you making them now?”

“I’m not,” Jason said carefully. “I told you, I’ll do what’s right for Danny—”

“The way you always tried to do what was right for Sonny, and what was right for Carly, for me, for Sam—” Her fingers brushed his jawline forcing their eyes to meet. “What about what’s right for you? When was the last time you did something just because you wanted to?”

“It’s not a good idea for me to think that way.” He reached up, took her hand in his and squeezed it. “I usually get into trouble—” He started to release her hand, but she held on, turning it so that she look at his knuckles. “Elizabeth—”

“I wondered where those bruises came from,” she murmured, her fingers sliding over the bruises and one thin cut. “I saw you and Drew at the house looking like you wanted to murder each other.”

“Like I said, I get into trouble when I do what I want,” Jason said gently tugging his hand from her grasp. “And don’t ask—”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Her lips curved into a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You wouldn’t tell me anyway. It’s all right for you to rescue me when I need it, to listen when I’m having a bad day, but when I check in on you, when I try to be your friend, well, you change the topic as quickly as you can. I can take a hint. I hope there’s someone you can talk to. Spinelli. Sonny. Carly.”

Jason opened his mouth, but he didn’t have the words, didn’t have the ability to make her understand everything that was in his head, in his heart, in his gut, he never knew how to do that now. “There’s not,” he said finally. “If there was, it would be you.”

She sighed, then nodded. “All right. We should, ah, find some time to talk to Jake. Try to talk him out of staying home next semester. I think we should do that as united front, make it clear to him that you’ll take care of Danny, and that Jake needs to focus on his future. I’ll call you tomorrow when he gets home, and we’ll set up a time.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

Elizabeth waited another moment, the silence hanging between them, her eyes searching his, but whatever she was looking for remained unanswered. She started back towards the bike, pausing when he called her name.

“The girl. The statue. With the long dress. I can’t tell if she’s smiling. You asked me that once, and I never—I never came back to find out.”

Elizabeth looked from him to the statue. “I can’t tell,” she said. “I guess I should have come back before now. Even statues crumble when they’re made to wait.”

I wish I could to tell you that the last line is my own, but it belongs to my queen, Taylor, and The Prophecy one of the perfect songs from TTPD: Anthology. I honestly couldn’t resist, lol.

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Written in 60 minutes.

Dear reader
Get out your map, pick somewhere and just run

took earlier flight n uber down at boathouse with danny.

Elizabeth squinted at the text on her phone, then held it a little further away from her eyes to read it more carefully. Maybe it was time to pick up reading glasses after all, though she still wasn’t entirely sure how she’d reached the age of forty-two with two sons in college and the third only a few years away—

Where had her babies with their curls, sticky fingers, and missing teeth gone?

The path between the main house and the boat house on the edge of the Quartermaine lake had been widened over the years and lighting had been added since the last time Elizabeth had followed its flagstones down to the wooden structure that jutted partially out onto the water.

Though it was a tragic reason to have Jake back in Port Charles, Elizabeth was eager to have her middle son back at home, even if for a few days. It had been such an anxious time, organizing the visa and financial documents, making sure Jake had secured good housing—and preparing to be parted from her miracle baby for the first time since he’d been returned to her all those years ago.

Elizabeth had rarely let Jake out of her sight for more than a few nights a time, and that had always been with the supervision of another adult — whether that was a friend’s parent or his father.

But Jake had been entirely on his own in Barcelona, and his command of Spanish was decent, but was it really good enough—

She took a deep breath — she was already spiraling and of course Jake was fine. He’d come home hadn’t he? Sent a text from his own phone.

She came around the corner and hesitated when the boathouse came into view and she saw that it wasn’t just Danny and Jake down there, but the rest of the kids had found their way here. Escaping their parents, Elizabeth thought. Out here on their own, just the way she and Emily had in high school.

Grief rippled through her, sharp and keen, wishing that her best friend was up at the house, that Emily’s children were mixed in down at the boat house. Elizabeth pressed a fist to her middle, took a deep breath. Not everyone could come back from the permanence of death, and Emily was still resting on the other side of the estate, at the family mausoleum, where she’d been for nearly twenty years.

Time. It marched on, with no respect for anyone it destroyed in its path.

Elizabeth started again towards the building, but stopped again when the voices started to rise, and the youngest of the children, seven-year-old Scout, cried, “But I don’t wanna go with Grandmom! I wanna stay here!”

“Maybe you heard it wrong,” Aiden said. He looked to Rocco. “You heard it wrong, right? Your dad said you could stay here—”

“It’ll be okay,” Danny insisted. “Okay? My dad will fix it. He asked me what I wanted, and I told him I wanted to be with you guys. He’ll tell Grandma Alexis, and we’ll stay together.”

“Danny, man, you can’t promise her that,” Jake told his younger brother. “Dad’s not a miracle worker. And you know your grandma doesn’t like him—”

With a wince, Elizabeth cleared her throat and stepped up into view, the cluster of kids turning to look at her. “Hey. I’m so sorry—I’m not—I’m not eavesdropping. Promise. I just—”

“She got my text,” Jake told Danny, getting to his feet. “I’ll be right back, okay? And cool it promising your sister things,” he warned in a low voice. “Cam used to do that sometimes and he meant well, but you’ll just have to pick up the pieces when Scout doesn’t get what she wants—”

“But she will—”

“Maybe. But her dad just got elected to Congress,” Jake said, and Danny grimaced, looked away. “Let me go talk to my mom, and I’ll be back.” He put a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out. I’m not going back to Barcelona until I know you guys are good.”

He crossed the deck and bounded down the steps, pulling his mother into a hug. “Hey! I missed you!”

Elizabeth held him tightly for just a moment, then forced herself to release him. She framed his face. “I missed you, too. I’m sorry if I’m interrupting, but I was going to see if Aiden was ready to go—”

“Yeah, let me walk you back up the house. I wanna run something past you.”

—

Alexis stood in front of the brothers, her chin lifted, and Jason had heard that particular tone enough to understand Alexis wasn’t expecting a discussion or a negotiation. She’d spoken, and that was the end of it.

Jason didn’t want to look over at the other man — as far as he was concerned, Drew didn’t exist. But Danny loved his little sister, and he’d been pretty clear on what he wanted.

“I understand that you want to keep Scout and Danny together,” he said finally when Drew remained silent. “That’s what I want, too. Danny made that very clear when we spoke about it—”

“Then we’re in agreement—”

“I’m sorry, but we’re not,” Drew said. He shook his head. “Scout’s my daughter, and I don’t intend to be separated from her.” He sent a dirty look towards Jason. “Maybe you won’t even notice Danny’s not there. It’s not like you’ve ever been a present father—”

“We’re not doing this,” Jason interrupted, turning to face the scumbag head on. “We’re not taking shots at each other. You know why I beat the shit out of you, and if you want to get into it right now, maybe I’ll tell Alexis why.”

Drew scowled. “You wouldn’t—”

“Uh, I’d actually like to know that very much,” Alexis said, leaning in slightly. “Because if you are going to pummel each other, the last thing either of you need is my grandchildren in your custody. They come first.”

“I’ve spoken to Danny. He wants to stay with Rocco and Scout. Dante and I have spoken about it, too. We’re looking at options that keep them all together. You can’t offer that,” he told Alexis who flinched. “I’m sorry. I wish we weren’t having this conversation. I wish Sam were still here. But she’s not.”

“I will make sure Danny and Scout have all the contact with Rocco that they could want, but I didn’t bring the two of you in to argue about it. It isn’t a discussion. It’s a statement. My grandchildren will be staying with me. And if you want to fight me in court, then I’ll do that. My only goal is ensuring those kids grow up safe and sound which isn’t something either of you can guarantee.”

With that, Alexis left the kitchen, leaving the brothers behind.

Drew lightly touched the corner of his mouth which still sported a split lip. “So, ah, I’m assuming you’ve spoken to Michael.” When Jason said nothing, he nodded. “That doesn’t change the fact you had no right to put your hands on me.”

Jason wanted to punch him again, his hands at his side bunching into fists, the anger coursing through his veins, blood pounding in his head. Just do it.

Instead, he stalked back out the patio doors.

—

“I didn’t realize the kids were so worried about being split up,” Elizabeth said, walking back towards the house, her arm wound through Jake’s. “I guess I should have. Your father talked to Danny about it, and he didn’t seem worried. He said they’d figure it out.”

“Yeah, well, Rocco overheard his dad talking to Miss Davis. She’s going for custody.” Jake made a face. “It’s stupid, but I’m glad we never had to worry about that. I never worried that anyone was gonna separate me from Cam and Aiden.” When Elizabeth said nothing, he stopped on the path, looked at her. “Mom?”

“It’s given me some restless nights, worrying about what would happen to me if you were all minors,” Elizabeth admitted. “For a long time, it was Cam and Aiden, and well, there weren’t really Spencers in town to take Aiden. My grandmother was too old. I asked Patrick to be their guardian.”

Jake looked away, then kicked at the dirt between the flagstones. “And then he moved to California and I came home.”

“And so did your father. At least, we thought he was your father. Drew—Jason—Drew—” Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. “It’s hard to keep it straight. But he obviously wanted custody of you when I updated everything. And I wanted to keep you together, but—”

“He didn’t want Cam or Aiden?”

“No. But then Laura came home and she was happy to sign on for all three of you. And then your dad actually came home, and I made him guardian so he could have you, and he never flinched at taking your brothers. Thank God we never had to worry about any of that.”

“Yeah, can’t imagine how Dad would have handled that,” Jake said, a bit of distaste in his tone, and Elizabeth bit her lip. “Who would he have dumped us on when he needed to pretend to be dead?”

“Jake—”

“I’m working on forgiving him, okay? I mostly have because you want me to, and well, I’m not a kid anymore, so it’s not like I have to see him if I don’t want to. But Danny still worships him. Thinks he’s a hero, that whatever he was doing was worth all the time we lost.” Jake dragged a hand down his face. “He’s still a kid, you know?”

“And you’re not,” Elizabeth murmured, her chest tight. “I’m sorry. I never meant to make you feel like you had to forgive your father.”

“You have, though, haven’t you? You forgave him the first time you saw him, I could tell. I don’t get it,” he muttered. “I never will.”

“Whether I forgive him or not has no bearing on you. It shouldn’t. I’m an adult, and he and I have been forgiving each other for so long. It’s what we do, Jake, but that doesn’t mean you have to.”

“Yeah, well, I’m just not looking forward to Danny learning he can’t count on Dad either. But I’ll be there.” Jake took a deep breath. “Because I’m gonna take the next semester off, and come home.”

Elizabeth inhaled sharply. “What?”

“I’m taking the semester off. Danny needs me. He’s my brother, and Scout—well, for a while I thought she was gonna be my sister. Cam did a lot for me when I came home from the Cassadines, and when they screwed with me. That’s what older brothers do, and hell, Aiden’s dad is here, too, so someone has to be here when he takes off. My brothers need me, Mom.” Jake folded his arms. “You can’t talk me out of this. I already filed the paperwork. That’s why I didn’t come home earlier.”

“I—”

“I’m an adult now, right? I make my own choices. You told me you moved out when you were my age because Gram didn’t think you could make your own choices.”

“Well, yes, but—” She pressed a hand to her temple. “Wait. I need you to think about this—”

“I don’t need to think about this. They need me, and well, what are you going to do? Tell them that their dads are going to fix everything?” Jake shook his head. “That’s not what they do. Sometimes fathers stick, like Dante, but mostly they don’t. And Danny and Scout and Rocco don’t have a mother to take care them like me and Aiden. So it’s gonna be me.”

“We can’t just—we need to talk—”

“No, we don’t. I’m gonna stick here tonight. Grandma always says I can stay anytime, me and Aiden because we’re family. So you can head home without us. I’ll call you tomorrow.” He came forward, hugged her again. “I love you, Mom.”

“Okay, but Jake—” Elizabeth tried to hang on him, but he was too quick and had already let her go, and was heading towards the boat house. It took everything she had not to chase after him.

But she didn’t. She couldn’t. If she did now, she’d start to cry and he’d get upset, and she was already so worried that she’d influenced him into forgiving Jason—

She squeezed her eyes closed, took a deep breath, trying to catch her breath. And then turned around, started towards the house. She walked quickly ignoring the rushing in her ears, the roaring of her brain trying to make sense of everything Jake had just thrown at her, the bombs he’d dropped—

The damage she’d done to him—the damage Jason had—

Her steps quickened as she grew closer to the long winding drive where cars had been parked, then stopped dead when she realized her car was blocked by at least two others. Oh she just wanted to go—she wanted to run and keep running—

Where had her babies gone? Where had time gone? Where had they all gone wrong and could it ever be fixed—

“Elizabeth?”

She spun around, not registering the speaker until she saw Jason several steps away. Her breath rushed out, and she pressed her lips together, trying to gather herself. “M-My car is blocked in,” she managed.

He came towards her, looked at the sedan for a long moment, then back at her. “Is that why you’re upset?”

“I’m not—” She closed her eyes again, the words wobbling. “I want to go back.”

“Back where?” His voice was closer, and she heard the crunch of gravel. “I can take you back to the house. Do you need—”

“No, just back.” Her eyes flew open. “I want to go back to the Black and White Ball and n-never leave Emily’s side, and I want to go back to that moment in your penthouse and tell you Jake is yours so he never doubts how much you love him and I want to go back to the park and just go home and back—I just want it to stop. I want it to stop. They keep growing up, and growing away, and changing, and why don’t they stop—”

Elizabeth pressed her hands against her mouth, finally stopping the spiraling spill of madness, hot tears coursing their way down her cheeks.

In front of her, Jason looked pained, his eyes glimmering, his throat tight. He looked away, swallowed hard, then looked back. “I can’t help with any of that.”

“N-No, of course not—”

“But I can give you a ride home.”

She closed her lips, then laughed suddenly, a short gasp of hysterical giggles that sounded as ridiculous as they felt. “Oh, well, okay.”

“And maybe—” Jason took a deep breath, stepped closer, so that she had to tilt her chin up to meet his gaze. “If you want, we could stop by Bobbie’s, and I could get my bike. I know it’s not really turning back time—”

“But maybe it’ll be close enough. Yeah, yeah, I want that. I want to go nowhere. Fast.”

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