Written in 48 minutes. Did a spellcheck.

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Clinic

Carly bit down on her nail as she watched Elizabeth twist and turn in the small bed, her face flushed. “How bad is the fever?” she asked the doctor who had bandaged and cleaned the gun shot wound.

“High,” the man said grimly as he pressed down on Elizabeth’s good shoulder to keep her from reopening the wound. “But we’ll get it down with the antibiotics.” He looked at her. “She was partially lucid when they brought her in, asking for Jason.”

“They haven’t found him yet,” Carly murmured, forcing the words past the lump in her throat. Oh, God, what if they didn’t find him? What if he had already drowned—what if she’d never see him again?

She couldn’t stand to think of him sinking below the cold, dark waters of the lake. Dying alone. Drowning, desperate for air.

She turned away from Elizabeth and went back into the outside room where Max was pacing, talking into the cell phone.

“Any news?” she asked him, even though she knew the answer. She could see it from his face. “Max?”

“Hey, Mrs. C. One second—okay. Okay.” Max closed the phone and slipped it into the pocket of his trousers. His suit jacket had been discarded somewhere, and his dark hair was still damp from being out on the water. “Sonny’s on the pier, and Brenda and Richie and the others are still looking.”

“It’s been—” Carly folded her arms tightly around her upper torso. “It’s been an hour. Almost ninety minutes.” She’d been counting down since the moment the call had come over the radio that Elizabeth had gone overboard. Sonny had snapped into action and left their car to start the rescue.

Seventy-six minutes.

“The current is strong in the lake, Mrs. C. You know that. We think Jason just got caught up. Part of that current in some areas can bring him closer to the shore,” Max assured her. “He might even be on his way home now—”

“I want to be on the docks when Sonny comes back,” Carly said. “You can stay here with Elizabeth, can’t you? She’s—I’m not her favorite person on a good day, but, um—” She rubbed a finger across her bottom lip. “It’s my fault.”

“How do you figure that?”

“They weren’t telling anyone they were married because they knew the PCPD would go after her. She never would have been in lockup if it wasn’t for me.”

“Mrs. C—” Max stopped. He didn’t deny her statement, and somehow, that comforted Carly. “I’ll stay here, and have someone drive you down.”

Pier 52

Sonny paced from the cargo door of the Corinthos-Morgan warehouse to the pier where the rescue boat had launched, then back again.

Eighty-seven minutes. He, too, had started the count from the moment Jason had gone into the water after Elizabeth. It had taken almost twenty minutes to find them, another twenty to get Elizabeth to shore—

They’d been searching for Jason for almost an hour. He wanted to believe, like Richie and some of the other guards who seemed to understand these things better, that he might get lucky and get swept towards another part of the shore. He had men scouring the all the places Jason could have washed up—

But part of Sonny was terrified that the next time he saw his best friend, his partner, his brother would be when his body floated to the surface of Lake Ontario.

He picked up the radio. “Any sign?” he demanded. There was a crackling and then an exhausted voice came back.

“No. Not yet. But I’m coming back without him,” Brenda said. “Elizabeth?”

“Holding her own. Doc says infection is setting in and so is a fever, but she’s on meds. I want Jason next to her when she wakes up.”

Brenda was quiet for a moment. “Sonny—”

“I know.” He released the button, pressed the radio to his forehead and forced himself to take a deep breath.

“Sonny?”

He turned at the sound of his wife’s voice. Carly strode out of the dark, her sweater pulled tightly around her. “What are you—”

“Max is at the clinic. I couldn’t stand—” She stared out over the dark water, the lights of Spoon Island barely visible through the fog. “I couldn’t stand being there. I was afraid she’d wake up and I’d have to tell her. I can’t—” Her voice faltered. “I can’t be the one to tell her.”

“She was on these docks the night Zander was murdered because of me,” Sonny said faintly. Carly frowned at him. “Jason thought she was still being guarded after she left the penthouse, but I reassigned Marco. I didn’t realize—”

“Sonny—”

“Jason was right. I was selfish. I didn’t care about Elizabeth. I didn’t think about who Marco was protecting, even though I could have asked. Weeks when Alcazar could have grabbed her.”

“It—it worked out,” Carly said weakly. “They went to Vegas—”

“Because I dragged her there and lied to her.  Maybe it worked out—but at the end of the day, if I were a better friend—” Sonny stared out over the lake again. “I wouldn’t be waiting for his body to be brought back.”

Clinic

Elizabeth’s throat was scratchy and dry, her eyes almost too heavy to lift—but she forced them open when she realized the man sitting next to her wasn’t Jason.

“M-Max?”

“Mrs. M.” Max’s smile felt forced, even as he squeezed her hand. “Your fever’s better. Good. Doc was worried—”

“Where’s—” She licked her lips, sweeping her tongue over the cracked and sore skin. “Jason. Where’s…”

“Uh, we’re, um, trying to answer that question now,” Max told her.

“He’s—” It came back to her in a rush—the freezing water, the way Jasons’ body had trembled under hers as he’d pushed the life belt over her head. He’d been so tired—he’d dragged himself and her towards that boat—

“Max—”

“Don’t you worry a bit, okay? Mr. C is out there, and Brenda and the guys—we’re not coming home without him. And you know, Jason’s like a cat. He’s got nine lives, and he’s only used like…” Max’s voice sped up. “Oh, don’t cry. No. We’re going to find him.”

He’d gone into the water with no wet suit, no life preserver, to save her life, and then had used every ounce of strength to drag her to safety.

She couldn’t lay here and wait for someone to tell her was dead.

“I need to—” Elizabeth twisted, reaching for the IV in her arm, tried to drag it out of her wrist with trembling fingers. “I need to go—I need to help—”

“No, no. Jason wouldn’t want this, okay? He made Mr. C promise he’d make sure you were safe.”

But Elizabeth wasn’t listening. She tore the tape off the IV, barely even feeling the sear on her skin, then pulled the needle out. “Clothes. I need clothes.”

“Jason is going to kill me,” Max muttered as he got to his feet, holding Elizabeth up as she stumbled out of bed.

“What’s going on in here?” the doctor demanded as he appeared in the doorway. “What are you doing out of bed? Max—”

“Uh, find me some clothes—” Max said, wrapping an arm around Elizabeth’s waist as she swayed.

“She needs to be back in bed—”

“No! No! If you don’t take me to the pier, I’ll just walk,” Elizabeth said, shoving away the doctor’s hands. “No—”

“Listen,” Max said as Elizabeth stumbled towards a closet, hoping to find clothes, “she means it. I’ll go with her, and bring her right back as soon as we know.”

“It’ll be on your head,” the doctor muttered but went to find some sweats to put the patient in.

Pier 52

Ninety-eight minutes since he’d gone into the water.

Ninety-nine.

Then one hundred and five. One hundred and ten.

“She’s still out there,” Carly said as Sonny finished listening to Brenda’s increasingly weak voice say they’d cleared another part of the lake but were going to keep looking. “It’s almost two hours.”

“She blames herself.”

“A lot of that going around.” Carly rubbed her arms. “Sonny. It’s nearly one in the morning. I—I don’t know if—could he still be alive? If he’s still in the water—” Her husband turned to look at her. “It’s just—it’s so cold.”

“I can’t stop. He wouldn’t.” Sonny put an arm around her, drawing her into his embrace. “You’re freezing. Why don’t you—”

“So that you can get the news alone when they find him?” she shook her head. “No. If it’s the worst—” She cleared her throat. “No. We’ll face it together.”

There were footsteps shuffling behind them and they turned to find Max coming out of the darkness, carefully walking just in front of Elizabeth who looked like death warmed over.

“What the—” Carly blinked. “What you are doing here?”

“I couldn’t—” Elizabeth took a deep breath as the chill settled into her bones. Oh, God, the water was so cold. She knew Jason didn’t always feel the cold but it didn’t mean it didn’t effect him.

What if he was already—

“I couldn’t sit there and wait. I needed—” She winced as she moved her shoulder. “I needed to be here.”

“But—”

“You could go instead,” Sonny said, “into the warehouse or something—”

“I’m okay—”

There was a crackling over the radio as Brenda’s voice came in. “Sonny? Sonny!”

“I’m here,” Sonny said, raising the device to his lips. “What’s up? Where are you?”

“We—we found—just—” There was shuffle as Elizabeth’s heart began to pound and Carly clenched her hands into fists.

“Sonny?”

Sonny closed his eyes and Elizabeth’s knees buckled — because it was Jason’s voice, exhausted and faint, crackling over the connection.

“Hey,” Sonny managed. “Hey. She found you.”

“We’re heading back in, but he wanted to know about Elizabeth—”

“I can do you one better.” Sonny held the radio up to Elizabeth’s lips.

“Jason?”

“Elizabeth. You’re…okay.”

Tears stung her eyes as the wind bit into her cheeks. She didn’t feel the cold anymore. She took the radio from Sonny with her good hand. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m okay. Are you?”

“….tired…” His voice faded out and Brenda came back on the line.

“He washed up about three miles out. We were right about the currents, but he’s tired. He swam a long time. We’re trying to keep him awake until we come back—”

“I can help. I can help. Jason.”

“…yeah?”

“Remember that winter at my studio? When you were always trying to sleep and I kept you up because I hum and talk to myself?”

She could almost hear the smile in his voice. “Yeah.”

“This time I can do it on purpose. Oh, come all ye faithful,” her voice warbled and Sonny laughed. Carly pressed her hands to her face as Elizabeth continued to sing off-key and hoarsely to keep Jason awake as Brenda and the guards brought him home.

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