There’s no one in town I know
You gave us some place to go
I never said thank you for that
I thought I might get one more chance
What would you think of me now?
So lucky, so strong, so proud?
I never said thank you for that
Now I’ll never have a chance
– Hear You Me, Jimmy Eat World
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
General Hospital: Sonny’s Room
She was still furious after arguing with Jason and watching that bitch simper over him like he’d hung the moon — why couldn’t Robin Scorpio have just disappeared from the world completely? Why had she ever returned to Port Charles?
Carly stood at the end of the bed, her blood running hot. “It’s your own fault you’re in this bed,” she said. “What happened to Michael—that’s your fault, too. Jason can’t see how everything would have been better if you’d just never come home all those years ago—” She dipped her head, her voice breaking. “If you’d never come, I’d never have loved you. I’d never have driven myself to desperation to keep you—”
She brushed at her tears. “I thought we were in a better place. We were. I was trying to be. For Morgan’s sake. But for the last month, I’ve been sitting in this damn room, waiting for a miracle, and you know what? I’m glad I didn’t get one. Because you don’t deserve it. Michael does. And if he can’t wake up, then neither should you.”
Carly shook her head. “I don’t even know what the point of any of this is. It’s not like you can hear us. If you’d cared at all about any of us, you wouldn’t have gone to those docks with a gun. Without a guard. How could you make the same mistakes you made with Michael? My God, Sonny, did you really learn nothing?”
She dragged her hands through her hair. “We’re better off without you,” she muttered. “All of us. We always were. I just wish I didn’t have to lose my son to learn that.”
General Hospital: Hallway
“Thanks, Gram. No, I don’t know how much longer we’ll be. I’ll see you when we get back.” Elizabeth slid the phone in her back pocket, then caught sight of Nadine turning down a different hallway. “Nadine!”
The blonde turned back around, smiled. “Hey. I didn’t think you were on the schedule today.”
“I’m not. I’m here with Jason.” Elizabeth walked towards her. “Thanks again for helping with his transfer. I couldn’t, and well—”
“Johnny mentioned, um, it might be related to him,” Nadine said, biting her lip. “I would have done it anyway, but—”
“Well, there was an element of that,” Elizabeth admitted. “There’s not a lot I can do to make Jason’s life easier, but there are these little things, you know? How’s that going, with Johnny, I mean?”
“Oh. It’s fine, I guess. Mostly. The heat’s all died down, so….” Nadine waited a long moment. “It just feels so strange, I guess. Being involved when I already—I mean, I was there that day. I know what happened to him—”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Elizabeth said, lifting her brows, and Nadine flushed, looked away. “You have nothing to feel guilty about. You’re doing a favor for a friend.” She squeezed Nadine’s arm. “Carly and Jason are going to say goodbye to Sonny, so the paperwork is ready, right?”
“Yep. And the ambulance is downstairs, so whenever you guys are good, we’re all set. I, um, I’m going to sit with my sister for a while. Seeing Sonny has me thinking about her. So if you need me—”
“Thanks. We’ll have to catch up later. I’m sure there’s a lot we can talk about,” Elizabeth said, “but I really do need to get back.”
General Hospital: Waiting Room
Elizabeth returned to the waiting area just as Carly did, and she was struck by the tension in the air despite Robin’s absence. “Gram says Jake is fine. We can pick Cameron up when we’re done if you want.”
“Yeah.” He slid his hand in hers, squeezed it. “I would. Maybe we can work on the paper chains for Christmas. Your grandmother could stay, maybe add some chains.”
“Can you go say goodbye and get this over with?” Carly asked sourly, drawing both their attention. “Obviously you have better places to be.”
“That’s not what—” Elizabeth started, but Jason just shook his head, and she fell silent.
“You can be as angry with me as you want to be,” Jason told Carly, who just folded her arms, stared at the floor. “But Robin telling the truth was the best thing that ever happened to either of us—”
“You don’t get to decide that—” Carly’s head snapped up. “It was—”
“Fine. Then it was the best thing for me,” he retorted. He looked at Elizabeth. “Do you want to come with—”
“No, I’ll stay out here.”
Jason released her hand, ignored Carly as he went around the corner, and Carly’s irritation faded away. She scrubbed her hands down her face, then sat in the chair, staring at the floor again.
Elizabeth sat across from her, reached for a magazine, and waited.
“I can’t believe he still doesn’t see her for what she is,” Carly muttered. “After what she did to us, he wants me to be nice to her?”
“I don’t think Jason thought nice was on the menu,” Elizabeth said, flipping to another article. “I think he was hoping compassion was. But you know, Jason, the eternal dreamer.”
Carly scowled. “Shut up—”
“You started it. You always start it. Don’t shake your head at me.” Elizabeth slapped the magazine down. “Jason’s not here to protect you or make me feel bad. You didn’t have to pick a fight with Robin. You did it to make yourself feel better. You didn’t care about Jason. You never do—”
“You don’t know a damn thing, you never have. Jason’s picked you for now, and I’m putting up with you until he sees you for what you are—”
“And what am I?” Elizabeth drawled with an air of amusement that only caused the flush in Carly’s cheeks to deepen. “An unfeeling bitch who picks fights to make herself better? Who throws stones when she’s the queen of a glass castle?” She snorted, looked back at the magazine. “You’ll never change, Carly.”
“Don’t think you’ll be able to get rid of me, okay? I know you’ve been trying to edge me out. To spend time with Morgan and my mother, and not me. I—”
“I don’t have to do anything but wait, Carly.” Elizabeth met the blonde’s angry gaze. “Because this is what you do. You pick and poke at everyone else until we’re as miserable as you are. Before you know it, you’ll be alone.”
“Jason will never abandon me. And if you make him choose—”
“You make him choose,” Elizabeth cut in and Carly closed her mouth. “Every time you insult me. Every time you throw a comment at me, every fight you pick, you make him choose. But I’m not going anywhere. You’re going to have to figure out how to make your peace with that.”
“I’d rather eat battery acid.”
General Hospital: Sonny’s Room
There was no sound save the beeping of machines, and for a long time, Jason didn’t know what to do. What to say or even if there was a point to standing here. He’d avoided this room for more than a month, wishing it away, pretending it wasn’t happening.
He and Sonny had lived separate lives after the warehouse shooting—even before that, Jason acknowledged. Since Emily’s death, Jason had closed himself in, focusing really on Elizabeth, thinking about Jake. Going through the motions in the rest of his life. Sonny had been on his own journey, building a relationship with Kate—
And then that terrible day at the warehouse when Sonny had broken a lifetime of protocol, taking Michael to the warehouse without guards. When the bright beautiful boy Jason had held as a newborn had been struck by a ricochet bullet, and all the life had gone out of him. Enough remained to leave a thin layer of hope somewhere beneath despair, but for Jason, after losing his sister so brutally—
“I’m supposed to say goodbye,” Jason said, his voice sounding strange, almost echoing off the walls. “Or tell you what you meant to me. How much I’m going to miss you. Something like that. Elizabeth would know. She could probably put it into words for me.”
There was a hospital tray hanging over the edge of Sonny’s bed, one used for meals. Jason gently pushed it away, then tugged it closer, then away again.
“Maybe because this is the last time I’m going to look at you unless you wake up, the last words I’ll ever say to you—” He paused, clearing his throat. “But I already said those. I told you to take care of your own problems, and then you went out and got shot in the head, so I guess…” Jason scrubbed hand down his face. “I don’t remember the last thing I ever said to my sister. To Alan. Or my grandmother. I don’t remember what I said to Michael. But you? I won’t be able to forget it.”
There was no response, of course not. Only the beeping, the signal that his heartbeat was regular and steady.
“Because what happened to you is my fault. And yours. But mostly mine. Because I knew you were out of control, I knew you were on the edge, and it didn’t matter to me. Nothing about what you were going through mattered enough to me that day. And I can’t apologize for that. I won’t. You always wanted me to put your family first, and I did that. I did that until it almost cost me everything. And that day? You wanted me to do it again. I chose her. I chose myself, and now that’s the last thing we’ll ever have.”
He scratched the skin above his upper lip. “I’m sorry our last moments were angry,” Jason said. “You…were a friend to me for a long time, and I learned a lot from you. But since Jake—I’ve started to resent you. To blame you for the choices I made. And it’s not fair. You tried to talk me out of it. I just…couldn’t see what I was giving up, and now it’s too late to stop it.” He fisted his hand, rested on the tray. “I don’t know who I’d be today if I hadn’t met you. I don’t know who I’m going to be now that you’re not here anymore. I guess we’re going to find out.”
Jason sighed, stepped back from the bed. “Goodbye, Sonny.”
General Hospital: Jolene Crowell’s Hospital Room
Jolene’s shining blonde hair was limp, laying like strings of noodles against the flat hospital pillow. Her cheeks were slack and pale. Her arms laying perfectly still at her side. A physical therapist came in to work her muscles, to make sure she wouldn’t get any blood clots from remaining in one place for long.
“Sorry I haven’t been here in a while,” Nadine said, taking a seat next to the bed. “I’ve been…busy, I guess.” She twisted the diamond on her finger. “I got married. Bet you weren’t expecting that, huh? You always told me no one liked a girl who spent all her time in the books, but then again, no one likes a girl who commits murder—” She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry. That’s not fair. Shouldn’t take shots at you when you can’t fight back.”
Jolene would have, Nadine thought. Her sister always had something cutting to say when they saw each other. Maybe that’s why they so rarely saw each other when they lived in the same place, and why Nadine only visited rarely, and hadn’t bothered in months.
“You’d like him, probably. He’s a night owl, though we’re working on that. He doesn’t really know what he wants from life. I guess maybe he’s never needed to know. You always did,” Nadine said, almost wistfully. “You knew you wanted to have as much money as you could and find someone to keep you in style. Honestly, if you met Johnny, you’d probably try to sleep with him and get him to leave me for you.”
She smiled faintly. “It wouldn’t work. I know it probably sounds weird—I mean, you don’t know this, but Johnny’s loyal, you know? He’s still in love with Lulu, and you probably think I’m some kind of doormat because that doesn’t bother me, but it really doesn’t. I think it’s human to have contradictory feelings for people. You know, like be in love with a woman three thousand miles away and care about someone a lot who’s right in front of you. I think he cares about me,” Nadine said, furrowing her brow. “He’s hard to read sometimes. But I think maybe he just doesn’t open up to anyone. They always end up leaving. Or trying to kill him. Except his sister, who’s pretty scary. I think you might have some competition in that area.”
The door opened behind them, and Nadine twisted to see a nurse entering, an IV bag in her hand. “Oh,” the nurse said, startled. “I didn’t realize anyone would be here—”
“I’ve been lax in visiting. I can get out of your way—”
“No need.” The nurse smiled, then turned to switch out the fluid bags. “See, all done. You have a nice chat with your sister.”
“Thanks,” Nadine said, already forgetting the nurse as she closed the door behind her.
The woman kept walking down the hallway, heading for the elevators, stopping only to grab a purse she’d left just behind a planter. Once on the elevator, she quickly shed her nurse’s scrubs, pulled on a sweater, jeans, and boots, and a red wig to cover the black hair.
Ten minutes later, she was sauntering out of General Hospital.
General Hospital: Waiting Room
When Jason returned to the waiting room, both women were silent, sitting on opposite sides, but the air seemed thicker, stuffier than when he’d left it.
Elizabeth noticed him, started to rise but grimaced when Carly bolted out of her chair, coming to him first. Elizabeth settled back into the chair, picked up her magazine.
“I’m sorry,” Carly said, immediately. Typical of Carly — to make a scene, throw a tantrum, and wish she could take it back when the smoke settled. “Really, Jase. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Jason said. He didn’t want to hear more empty promises from her. She always felt sorry in the moment, but it would never stop her from repeating the insanity later. “Let’s just—”
“No, I do. I do.” She forced a smile. “How many times did you look after us, Jase? Take on all the weight of our problems and put your own to the side. Too many to count,” she added when he just sighed. “You’ve got the boys now, and I—I desperately want you to have that. You deserve it. Not that it’s mine to grant or anything. That’s not what I meant—””
“Carly,” he said, holding up a hand to stop her rambling. “It’s okay. You’ll call if you need anything?”
“Sure. Sure.” She pasted a smile on her face, laced her trembling fingers together. “Thanks again for taking Morgan. I’ll go get things started. Get it over with.”
She headed towards the nurse’s station to get things started. Jason sighed, looked at Elizabeth. “I’m sorry if she started a fight—”
“I think maybe I started this one,” Elizabeth said. She set the magazine aside, came to him, and slid her arms around his waist. He drew her against him, his arm around her shoulders. He just let himself stand there for a long moment, breathing her in. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I wish there was more I could do. Something to make this better.”
“Going home with you, to the boys—that’s all I need today.” He drew back, took her hand. “Let’s go home.”
General Hospital: Jolene’s Room
Her pager vibrated against her waistband. Nadine tugged it loose, saw the notation. “Well, time to help Sonny Corinthos take his last trip,” she said, getting to her feet, reattaching the pager. “I promise I won’t—”
There was a beeping on one of the machines—the heart monitor began to spike wildly—and then Jolene’s body jolted—and began to seize.
Nadine raced for the call button, pressed it, but then there was another sound—
A flatline.
Nadine yanked the door open. “Code Blue! Code Blue! Code Blue!”
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