Written in 20 minutes. Alternate Universe.  No revisions or typos fixed.

Elizabeth Webber stepped out of the hospital room and leaned her head against the soft blue plaster of the wall next to it. She took a deep breath, counted to ten, and tried to hold back the tears that burned behind her eyes.

“Elizabeth?”

She tried to paste a smile on her face and turned to face the concerned face of one of her closest friends, swiping at the few few stray tears that had escaped her eyes. “J-Jason. Hey, um…what are you—”

“Are you kidding me?” Jason Morgan asked, his light blue eyes darting past her, towards the room. “Emily called me. She said that Jake was here.”

“Right.” Elizabeth exhaled slowly, cupping her face in her hands, dipping her chin down towards her chest, and taking another deep breath. Jason had always been there for her three-year-old son even though the paternity tests they’d taken before his birth showed Jason wasn’t his father.

“Right,” she repeated. “I guess I should have called. Um…” Her hands fluttered to her sides and she swallowed hard. “Um, the tests aren’t back yet.” She paused, forcing the words out. “We don’t know if it’s…spread. They don’t know what type it is. They’re already starting the search for a marrow donor because—” Her voice broke.

Cancer. Her beautiful, precious baby was sick with childhood leukemia. God. How was she going to deal with this?

“Okay. What can I do?” Jason stepped towards her, his voice dropping down an octave. “Do you need someone to stay with Cameron? Is he with Emily? Let me do something—” She saw the muscles in his cheek twitch. “There has to be something—”

“Um, I guess…” She tried to think, pressing a hand to her head. “You could get tested for a bone marrow match, but, um, I don’t…I don’t think you’ll match. I mean…blood relatives—” Why couldn’t she think? “”Lucky…Emily managed to convince him to come in and get tested as a donor. We’re tested Cameron—” Her voice broke. “He wasn’t—”

“Why didn’t you call me?” Jason asked as he took her by the elbow and led her to a nearby sofa in a lounge area of the General Hospital Pediatric wing. “Emily said she’s been running around collecting donors so you could sit with Jake. Elizabeth…”

“I don’t want to be that—” She sucked in a deep breath. “I didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want to say it outloud. It would be real, and that’s so goddamn stupid. I know it’s real. Dr. Clay said maybe we caught it in time, but it doesn’t always—” She pressed the heels of her hand to her eyes. “I’m sorry. Of course you’d want to be here. I know how much you love him.”

“I want to be here for you, Elizabeth.” He took his hand in hers. “C’mon, you know me better than that.”

She managed a half smile. “I know, I just—after what happened with Sam, I just figured it’d be better to keep…” She shook her head. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m just…Jake is sleeping right now, but I know he’ll want to see you. Do you—do you have to go to work?”

“No, I talked to Anna,” he said, referring to the commissioner of the Port Charles Police Department. “She asked Dante to cover for me. He didn’t mind—he said if anything happened to Rocco—”

She shouldn’t feel relieved that Jason would able to stay here with her, to maybe even sit with Jake and be here when he woke up. Their friendship had only strayed over the line once, almost four years earlier when she’d been trying to save a wreckage of her marriage, and he’d been drifting away from his girlfriend at the time.

Since then, they’d remained close—closer than was probably wise. A few men had come and gone in her life who didn’t appreciate their close friendship and Jason had just ended another rocky relationship over his role in Jake and Cam’s life.

It was selfish of her to cling to Jason—he wasn’t the father of either of her children, though Lucky Spencer had never been much of a role model and could barely relied upon to pay child support much less spend time with either Jake or Cameron.

But right now, she needed him in her life and she wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.

She frowned when she saw Dr. Silas Clay striding up the hallway, followed by a technician she knew worked in the lab—Brad Cooper. They were murmuring to each other over some paperwork.

Oh, God. Elizabeth got to her feet as they approached her. “Are those Jake’s results?” she asked, her voice trembling. Jason stood, his hand hovering over her lower back as if to brace her if she fell. “Silas—”

“No, these—” Silas glanced at Brad who cleared his throat. “These are the results of Jake’s father’s test. Lucky Spencer…he’s not a match for Jake.”

“Oh.” Her heart sank. “But—but I thought he and Cam would be our best bet. Should I start calling my parents or my brother—”

“No, Elizabeth, actually…” Brad shifted his weight from one foot to another, his eyes darting back and forth between the doctor and Elizabeth. “Actually, the results—I thought something was wrong, so I ran a couple of further tests.”

Elizabeth furrowed her brow, traded a confused and worried look with Jason before focusing on Silas. “What are you trying to say? Just spit it out, Silas.”

“Lucky Spencer isn’t your son’s biological father. We’re testing the wrong man.”

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