Written in 75 minutes. Sorry. Ran over.

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Kelly’s: Dining Room

Jason flipped the white ceramic cup over, resting it right side up on the matching saucer. “Can I—”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Elizabeth cleared her throat, went to the hot plate. “There should be enough for another cup. Unless—I could brew it fresh. I don’t know how long it’s been sitting—”

“I know you’re getting ready to close. Whatever’s in the pot is fine.”

So careful with each other, not making eye contact now, she thought. She lifted the carafe, brought it over to the counter. There was just enough to fill the cup.

Behind him, one of the two final customers tossed some money on the table, and Elizabeth grabbed the green tub. She busied herself bussing the table, and then the last customer, as if realizing the time, decided to take their milkshake in a to go cup.

Within a few minutes, it was just the cook in the back, Elizabeth, and Jason — pretending to drink his coffee. She bit her lip, watched him keep his eyes on the counter, then went into the kitchen. “Hey, Don. Why don’t you finish clearing down and head home? I can close. It’s just Jason, and you know he’s good.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Trust me. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She returned to the dining room, went behind the counter. “Did you come here for a reason or is this just an accident?”

Jason lifted his head finally, looked at her. “Both,” he said finally. His voice sounded a bit rusty. He straightened, rubbed his throat. “I came here because I needed to get out. And I thought you were working the opening shift.”

“I switched to closing. Needed a change.” From the kitchen, Don called out his goodbye, and she heard the back door open, then close.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have stayed—” Jason reached for his wallet, but she  held up her hand.

“It’s three-hour old coffee and you didn’t even touch it. I think we can spot you this one time.”

He exhaled slowly, then brought his hand back to the counter. “Then let me help you close up.”

“I’m not going to turn that down,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll clean the tables, you put the chairs up?”

“Sounds like a plan.” Jason slid off the stool, and she went into the kitchen to get the rag to wipe down the tables.

They made quick work of most of the room, until there were only two tables left. Jason turned the wrong way and they crashed into each other. He brought his hands up to her shoulders to steady her, then just left them there a moment too long. Snatched them back.

“I’m sorry—”

“Stop apologizing,” she said abruptly. Then sighed. She sat down at one of the tables they hadn’t cleaned yet. “Stop apologizing,” Elizabeth said, looking up at him. “You get to come in for coffee, okay? And it’s not like you grabbed me or—we’re not doing anything wrong.”

Jason sat in the other chair, picked up a leftover straw wrapper, began to shred it into smaller pieces. “I’m doing everything wrong,” he muttered more to himself. “I’m hurting everyone and I don’t even know if I’m doing the right thing.”

“The right thing,” Elizabeth echoed. She smiled faintly. “What does that even mean? Who decides it?”

Now he smiled, and it looked almost genuine. “I was asking myself that question a few days ago. I wish I knew.” He looked past her, towards the brick wall behind the tables. “I know Courtney was in here yesterday. If she said something about a wedding, it’s not happening.”

“Jason, you don’t owe me any explanations—”

“Yeah, I do. Maybe I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time.” He rested one arm on the table, and with the other hand pushed around the little pile of shredded straw paper he’d created. “But I know that I don’t get to—I don’t get to do what I did last week, say the things I did, and then let you walk around thinking I’m getting married anyway like none of it mattered.”

She let those words settle inside of her, soothing her. “I’d be lying if I told you that…I don’t know. If it’s not like hearing her talk about it made me cry myself to sleep or anything. I knew you were engaged. People generally get married when they’re engaged. Most of the time anyway. And plenty of people get married after they have affairs.”

His mouth tightened, but he didn’t argue with the label. He couldn’t.  “Well, I’m not. I told her that. She was telling you, asking Emily to be the bridesmaid, planning it with Carly—to make Carly happy,” he said almost bitterly. “I told her no, and she didn’t—” Jason broke off, shook his head. “This isn’t what I came here to do. I just…I need to get out.” He looked back at her. “I don’t know what I’m doing. How am I supposed to go back to what I was doing before? Pretend it didn’t happen? But—”

“But there’s that whole other part where you were happy with her, and you have a right, Jason, to make sure you’re not just…hitting a bump in the road.” Elizabeth picked at the ragged edge of her nail. “I don’t really know what I’m doing here either. There’s not a handbook for being the other woman—”

“You’re not—”

“I am,” she said gently, and he just shook his head. “Two years ago, Jason, you were the other guy, and I was sitting on your side of the table. Neither of us particularly wanted to be in that position. And I’m trying—” Her voice trembled just a little. “I’m trying to be the friend you were to me. It’s harder than I thought it would be, you know? How did you do it? How did you always put me first when I was hurting you?”

“You were hurting yourself more,” Jason said, his eyes gentle. “I always knew that.”

“But you never pressured me. You’d argue, but you’d stop when you realized I was like a brick wall, and I never ever felt like you were pushing me to make a choice. Or make a change. I knew you were disappointed, hurt, but I never felt like you were giving me ultimatums—” The corner of her mouth curved up. “Maybe you can give me some tips. How do I be that person for you?”

“I knew you were getting it enough pressure from everyone else,” Jason said. “Everyone wanted you to be something different, and you were being pulled in so many different directions. I didn’t want to be one more person you had to make happy. I didn’t want to be the reason you were hurting.”

Pulled in so many directions. She tipped her head. “It’s kind of crazy how we’re sitting here in exactly the same place now. I don’t want to be someone you have to take care of, Jason. Whose feelings you have to manage. I want to be your friend. The rest of it—everything else, I don’t know. I guess we missed our moment, and I’ll live with that regret for the rest of my life—I made so many wrong turns. You need to know I regret how I left last year. The things I said that night, and God—” She winced. “Defending Ric — it was just a parade of absolutely terrible decisions—”

“It’s not like I was much better,” Jason said, and she frowned. “I married Brenda three weeks after you walked out the door,” he told her. “That was pretty stupid.”

“I know you stayed married later because of the trial, but—” She furrowed her brow. “Why did you do it in the first place? Did—I mean, you went all the way to Vegas, so it couldn’t have been a drunken impulse?”

“At least that might have made sense.” Jason rubbed the back of his neck. “She wanted someone to take care of her when her disease took over. And she said if I didn’t, she’d break up Sonny and Carly’s marriage. I knew if anyone could, it’d be Brenda. I needed Sonny focused with Alcazar in the picture, so…I did it.”

Her throat tightened. “Why is it your job to save their marriage?” she asked softly.

Jason didn’t answer for a long moment, and she thought maybe he wouldn’t. But finally, his eyes on the table, he did. “I don’t know. It wasn’t always like this. I didn’t…I wasn’t like this before. I had a life of my own.”

“Do you have one now?” she asked.

—

Wasn’t that the question of the day? Did he have a life of his own now? Jason focused all his attention on the paper shreds he’d continued to rip apart until they couldn’t be divided anymore.

“I don’t know,” Jason said finally. “When you left,” he said, then looked up at her. “You told me that I was Sonny’s enforcer. First, last, and —”

“Always,” she finished. “I regret that—”

“You said you hoped it would be enough,” Jason cut in. “I didn’t want to believe that you were right. It hadn’t been true before, you know. I’d—I’d made time for you before. And for Emily, and my grandmother. I had Robin and Michael. My life was mine. I worked hard to have control of it. I didn’t blindly follow Sonny’s orders. Ever.”

“I’m sorry—”

“But I followed that order,” Jason interrupted again, “and you were leaving. And I wanted it not to be true, but then Brenda happened, and I knew that was for Sonny and Carly. I justified it in my head as trying to keep him focused on Alcazar, but it wasn’t just that. And then, you know, Courtney happened. I don’t know how or why, really.” He rubbed his forehead. “It came out nowhere. Maybe we were lonely, and it wasn’t complicated. She didn’t ask for a lot. Or argue. Or—”  He broke off, looked at Elizabeth again. “I know how that sounds. That I started things with her because she was easy. But it’s the truth, and I’m not going to lie to you.”

“I wasn’t—”

“I don’t even know if it was going to go anywhere,” he continued, because now the words were there, and they were pouring out of him. “Sonny found out and he said—he told me it had to be over. He ordered me to break up with her—and I just—if I did that, if I did that, even if I wanted to, well, you’d be right. I’d be just blindly following orders. And I refused, and then it just kept getting away from me. Every time I turned around, it was one more thing. It never seemed to stop. Ric was there, things were out of control. He hurt Carly, and went after Courtney, and then we found out he was Sonny’s brother, and then there was a moment to breathe, but Carly said you know, maybe I should marry Courtney because she’d been through so much and she’d stuck with me, and she made me happy, and she fit—so I went and I bought a ring, and I asked her, and then it was planned, and then Carly was kidnapped. It just…it never stopped.”

But now he  was stopping, and he finally looked at Elizabeth, her eyes wide. “I’m sorry. That’s—that’s not what you asked.”

“I don’t even remember the question. But I get it, Jason. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, making decisions in the minute, and not thinking about the big picture, and then you look up one day, and the world around you has changed and you didn’t even see it coming. The Cassadine stuff — that felt like that,” she told him. “I wasn’t really doing that great after I backed out of the Face of Deception. You’d left, and I thought — well I’d picked Lucky, so I had throw my whole self into it, and he proposed, and I said yes, and then the brainwashing was back, and God it was so bad. The next thing I knew, Nikolas was explaining why I had to fake my death, so I did it, and then I was standing at the altar and Lucky didn’t love me anymore. There was this car accident, and Lucky and Sarah were lying to me—and I just woke up and I realized I didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t know who I wanted to be. And I didn’t start making better choices,” Elizabeth added almost ruefully. “We don’t have to talk about how stupid Zander was. I didn’t want to take orders from anyone ever again, so I picked the absolute dumbest hill to die on, and I didn’t trust you enough, and Ric—” She looked away, towards the front of the diner, her eyes distant. “I got out of the hospital and I realized I’d burned my life to the ground and I didn’t really know what was left.”

Neither of them said anything for a long moment — the words had simply flowed the way they always had. He’d always been able to talk to her, and it seemed insane that it was still true.

“I have Emily, and Nikolas, I guess,” Elizabeth said. Their eyes met. “But I don’t get to keep you now. Because of what we did.”

He wanted to argue with her. That they could still be friends. They’d managed it two years ago, hadn’t they? But two years ago, he hadn’t kissed her. This time, they’d gone too far over that line to go back.

“I know I shouldn’t be here. We shouldn’t be having this conversation,” Jason said slowly. “And maybe you’re right. Maybe I don’t owe you reassurance that I’m not marrying Courtney in a month. I just—I’m trying really hard not to hurt anyone, but I’m hurting everybody, and I don’t know how to stop. If I do what I want—” He stopped, swallowed hard. “Everything falls apart. And if I do what’s right—” he stopped. He didn’t want to finish that sentence, even though leaving the words unspoken didn’t leave them any less unformed in his mind.

“I can’t tell you what to do,” she said. “Because you’re the one that has to live with your choice. It used to drive me crazy, you know, that you didn’t kiss me two years ago.” She rested her hand on her fist, smiled. “I thought, God, if you’d just leaned in a little bit, and kissed me, I could have kissed you back, and it would have been so different. But you couldn’t. It had to be my choice. Because it was my world that would be broken by it. And if I couldn’t make that choice—it wouldn’t have made it any easier if you’d pushed me over the edge.”

“It wasn’t exactly easy,” Jason said, and her smile deepened. “I wanted to. But I knew I wasn’t staying in Port Charles. If I kissed you, forced you to really see what was there, the only way to do it—you’d have to go with me. I tried, but, well, I knew you’d say no.”

“What happens,” she asked, softly, “if you do what you want? What falls apart?” Their eyes held for a moment, and he didn’t answer right away. Because maybe they both understood that what he wanted was her.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “It’s the not knowing that’s…stopping me. But there’s…I don’t want Sonny and Carly to be the first thing I think about when I wake up,” he said suddenly. “Did they get into a fight since I spoke to them? Is Sonny going to have a good day? Is Michael going to keep being put in the middle? How many times am I going to find him curled up in a ball, pretending he doesn’t hear them screaming at each other?”

She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “And there it is. Michael. That’s why you don’t let Sonny and Carly destroy each other. Because you still love him the way you did when he was a baby. Like a father. You’ve put him first. You want to protect his world. Make sure nothing can hurt him until he’s old enough, strong enough to defend himself.”

Jason shook his head. “Michael’s not my son. I know that—”

“Oh, okay, well, then I’m glad you cleared that up. I guess you can stop loving him then. Is that how it works?”

“No. No, it’s not.” His phone rang  and he pulled it out, looked at the screen. Courtney. He grimaced, pressed the button to silence it, the left it on the table.

“If you’re the only thing keeping Sonny and Carly together, is that any kind of life for any of them?” she asked. “Are you actually doing them any favors patching them up for the next time?”

“No. But it’s not just—” Jason made a face. “Sonny isn’t just Sonny. He’s Sonny Corinthos. He’s been…not doing well,” he said finally because he’d never told Elizabeth about the darkness that swirled inside of Sonny. The rages, the blackouts. And he didn’t want to burden her with that. “When he’s like this, he’s unfocused. He’s been like this off and on since last year with Luis Alcazar, then Ric, and now Lorenzo Alcazar—”

“You’re afraid of what he might do,” Elizabeth said.

“I thought about just leaving,” Jason confessed. Her lips parted in surprise. “Like before. Just getting on my bike and never looking back. But there are people depending on Sonny keeping himself together. I can’t leave them. Not like this.”

The phone rang again, and he sighed.

“You should probably go,” Elizabeth said, leaning back in her chair.

“I know. I shouldn’t have stayed. I just—you’re not part of any of that,” he said finally. “I needed to breathe. I needed to—I needed to think about all the reasons I can’t make changes. Not right now,” he added, more for himself. More as a reassurance that maybe he could one day. He looked at her. “But I shouldn’t have made you sit through all of that. It’s not fair to you.”

“I decide what’s fair to me,” Elizabeth said, and now she was smirking.

Startled, he let out a half laugh. “Did you memorize everything I’ve said to you?”

“Everything that matters,” Elizabeth said. “I don’t want you to worry about hurting me, Jason. I can take care of myself. I’ve hurt you, haven’t I?”

“Yes, but I don’t—” He shook his head. “I don’t want you to think about that anymore. To feel bad about this last year. Or two years ago. Or two weeks ago,” he added. “We did what we did. I’m not sorry it happened,” he said, and her eyes widened slightly. “I should be. It would be easier if I was. But I’m not.”

“Me, either,” Elizabeth said. “Listen, I know what happened that night — technically it was wrong. But Courtney chose to forgive you. I know how you can get. You feel guilty because you’re not sorry. And that guilt? It can drown you, and make you do things that only hurt you worse.”

“Like wake up one morning and put on a tux because it’s front of me,” Jason said, and she nodded. “Yeah. I know. I’m working on that.” He rose to his feet. “I…Thank you. But I won’t come back. I made my choice. I need to see it through.”

“Is that what love is supposed to be?” Elizabeth asked. “Something you have to push through?” She also stood, folded her arms. “That’s not me pressuring you, it’s just a question.”

“What I said before about things happening one after another for months—then looking up and trying to breathe?” Jason said. “I don’t know…I don’t know if I feel this way because things are bad right now, and they’re hard, or if this is actually how I feel. I just don’t—I don’t want to run when things get hard.”

She flinched, looked at her hands.

“I didn’t mean it that way—”

“No,” Elizabeth said. She raised her head. “No. That’s what I did. I ran when you didn’t act the way I thought you should. I never let you in again. You’re not wrong to have doubts about that. Relationships — you know, that’s how they are sometimes. You go through bad times. You go through bad times, and sometimes you come out the other side. And sometimes you don’t. But you won’t know until you know.” She bit her lip. “But you’re right. This has to be it. Because you’ve made this choice. And if you don’t see it through, you’ll always wonder if you made the right one. You need to put everything into it. And you won’t do that if I’m here, with a willing ear, reminding you of what happened. So…let’s finish cleaning up, you can walk me to my building, and then go home, Jason..”

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