Written in 65 minutes. Sorry. Went a bit over. No time for spellcheck.

---

“I need you to run that by me just one more time.”

Patrick growled as he pushed past the speechless chief of staff and stalked towards an empty wheelchair. “I’ve got Elizabeth in the car—burning up from infection—and you’re gonna start with the jokes.”

“What do you expect from me?” Steven Webber demanded as he jogged after his best friend towards the SUV parked haphazardly at the curb. “You just told me you two days ago you and Bits were taking off without any damn notice, and now you’re saying my sister was stabbed in Greece—what the hell was—“

Then he stopped as the passenger door shoved open and Robin stepped out. His eyes grew wide as he looked back at Patrick who was carefully lifting Elizabeth out of the backseat, helped by Robert while Anna leaned over to let them know she was parking the car.

“What the absolute hell is going on right now?” he demanded. Steven jabbed a finger at Robin. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

“Supposed to be. I’m not. It runs in the family,” Robin said dryly as she followed Patrick and her father into the hospital. “Try to keep up.”

“Where the hell is Jason?” STeven demanded. “Why aren’t you dead? Where are my nephews? How did this—“

Elizabeth winced as she pressed a hand to her side. “Jason had to go home to be with the boys. He’ll be here later.” She offered Patrick a dry look. “Unless you were lying to him about me not dying.”

“Hey, all I ever promised was that I’d get you to GH alive,” Patrick said. He wheeled her up to the nurse’s desk where Epiphany Johnson merely lifted a brow. “Everything after that is on you.”

“Damn it, tell me what the hell is going on!” Steven exploded. “Who stabbed you? Was this because of Jason? I told you—“

“Actually—“ Elizabeth grimaced. “It was because of me. So shut up, get out of my way, and let Patrick give me some goddamn pain medication.”

—

Jason had wanted to go with Elizabeth to the hospital—hadn’t wanted to let her out of his sight, but she’d pushed him to take Jake home. To get back to Cameron and Spencer who were probably scared as hell.

It was one thing to stick together in the woods in Greece, sending Jake back to the boat with Sonny and refusing to leave her then—but they were parents now. The danger was over.

If she was going to be in the hospital, Jason had to step up at home.

Jason put the SUV into park in the driveway, and glanced over his shoulder at Jake in the booster seat in the back of the car, his head lolled over to the side, dozing gently, before looking at Laura in the passenger seat next to him.

Her face was grimly set as she stared at the house. “Maybe we should have put this off longer,” she murmured. “Dante could have kept the boys at Greystone.”

“He could have,” Jason said. “Laura—“

“It’s just—Spencer’s been through so much. And the last thing, I want him to tell him is that his father might not—“ Her voice broke slightly. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. This is so selfish. You want to be with Jake, and Jake needs his brothers. And Cameron—God, Cameron needs Jake—“

“Laura.”

Jason waited for her to meet his eyes. “I’m angry about what happened to Elizabeth,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t remember what you’re going through. Spencer needs you, but I think maybe it might help him to see Jake. To see what his father did. If Nikolas didn’t make it, I will always be grateful that the last thing he ever did was get my son away from Stavros Cassadine.”

“Thank you.” Laura took a deep breath. “Let’s go inside.”

Inside, Dante was at the dining room table with the trio of gathered around him, all of them picking at slices of pizza. When Laura pushed open the door, he shot to his feet. “Hey. You’re back.”

“You’re—“ Cameron swung his head around as Jason came in behind Laura, Jake cradled in his arms, still sleeping. His blue eyes were wide as he took in his brother. “That’s…that’s really him.”

Spencer was quiet as he got to his feet, shoving the chair out. He looked past Jason — but no one else was coming in. “Where’s everyone else?” he asked. “Where’s my dad?”

“Where’s Mom?” Cameron asked, his voice rising sharply. “Mom! Is she in the car?”

“Laura—“ Jason looked her, and she sighed.

“Dante, do me a favor,” Laura said to her son-in-law. “Come upstairs with me? We’ll take Jake up to finish his nap, and I can talk to Spencer. Jason needs to talk to Cameron.” She paused. “Emma, you can stay down here.”

“Okay,” Dante agreed as Cameron started to blink rapidly, his chest rising. He strode over to Jason, looking at the little boy cradled against Jason’s torso. “Hell of a thing,” he muttered as the older man gently transfered the precious little boy to Sonny’s son. “Look at him.”

“Spencer?” Laura said, gently.

“Okay.” Spencer looked at Cameron and Emma. “Whatever happens,” he said, taking a deep breath, “it’s okay. Because Jake is home. And that’s what everyone wanted. Honor—I think maybe honor is restored. And your mom would be happy.”

With that, he followed his grandmother up the stairs and Jason gestured for Cameron and Emma to come sit on the sofa.

“First, Mom’s okay,” Jason told Cameron who exhaled on a quick rush of air. “She got hurt, and we were worried for a minute. But Uncle Patrick took real good care of her.” He looked at Emma. “And so did your mother.”

“My—“ Emma’s eyes were round. “What? Wait. What.”

“Aunt Robin?” Cameron asked. “Wait—“

“The Cassadines didn’t just take Jake away,” Jason told them. “They made us all think Robin was gone, too. Emma, your mother is alive. And she’s at GH with your father, taking care of Elizabeth.”

“My mom—“ Emma’s lip trembled. “My mom is okay? She’s alive? She’s okay. She’s home. She’s here. My mom? Mommy—I want to talk to her. I want to see her.”

“I know. And I want that, too. She wants that. She wanted me to bring you to her.” He looked at Cameron. “And your mom wanted that, too. We just—we needed to bring Jake home. And Spencer needs to know—“

“His dad isn’t here,” Cameron said quietly as Emma swiped at her eyes. “He didn’t come home.”

“We don’t know where he is,” Jason said carefully. “When we got to Greece, everything happened very fast, and Nikolas got Jake to us, but he couldn’t leave with us. He wanted to make sure we got off the island safely. And we did. Except your mom was hurt, and we got slowed down. So he stayed behind. And there was an explosion.”

“Why is it always an explosion?” Emma wanted to know. “That’s how they said my mom died.” She turned to Cameron. “So maybe he’s okay, then. No one ever dies in those, do they?”

“Sometimes,” Cameron said tightly, his eyes on Jason. “Sometimes, they do.”

“Yeah, sometimes they do.” Jason paused. “Whatever happens, Nikolas helped us save Jake’s life. And your mother’s. If he doesn’t come back, Spencer is going to need his family. Even if sometimes he’s a pain.”

“His dad helped save my mom, too. We’ll take care of Spencer,” Emma promised. She looked towards the stairs, bit her lip. “I want to see my mom,” she admitted in a small voice. “Do we have to wait? We should, but—“

“No,” Jason said, with a shake of his head. “You don’t have to wait. No one blames you—“

“I want to,” Cameron said. He straightened his shoulders. “You can take Emma to the hospital. You should see your mom,” he told her. “But Spencer is my cousin whether he likes it or not.”

“We can…” Emma nodded. “We can wait a bit. Mom and Dad are probably busy yelling at people and taking care of Aunt Elizabeth.”

—

Dante went back downstairs, leaving Laura alone with her grandson in Cameron’s room. Spencer sat on the edge of the bed, digging his toe into the carpet. “You don’t have to say anything,” he muttered. “Dad’s not here. He’s dead.”

“We don’t know,” Laura said, sitting next to him. “There was an explosion, and we could—we couldn’t wait to to find out. Everything happened so fast—we were already at the airport—“

Spencer looked at her, his dark eyes so quiet and solemn. “So he might still be back there. He might be okay?”

“He might be. Cassadines don’t go down easy,” Laura told him. “But I also—“ she hesitated. “If he could have contacted us, I think he might have. I don’t know if he’s coming home, Spencer.”

Spencer pressed his lips together and was quiet for a long moment. “Was Aunt Elizabeth right?” he asked dully. “Was he a good guy? He was helping?”

“He gave up his chance to get off the island with the rest uof us to make sure Elizabeth had time to get back to the boat,” Laura told him. “By the time Jason and Elizabeth and Sonny got to the place where Jake was, she was hurt really bad and moving slow. She almost didn’t get out. But Nikolas distracted everyone else with the explosion, and gave them enough time to get away.” Better to think it was Nikolas who had set the explosion than the alternative—that Stavros had caught up with Jason and Elizabeth in the woods because Nikolas was already dead.

“So he’s a hero.”

“Yes. I will miss him if he’s gone. He’s my son, and I love him. But I love Jake and Elizabeth. They’re my family, too,” Laura told him. “And he would have wanted them to be okay.”

“He did a good thing,” Spencer said. His lower lip quivered but he firmed it quickly. “He did the honorable thing. That’s good. That’s important. I just—“ His voice faltered. “I wanted him to be here.”

“Me, too.” Laura drew him in for a tight hug, pressing her lips to the top of his dark head. “I wanted that, too, baby. This wasn’t the ending I wanted, either.”

He wrapped his arms around her tightly, clinging to her, and Laura sighed in relief as she finally felt him break and the tears start.

—

“I just want to go over this one more time,” Steven said at the nurse’s station as as Epiphany rolled her eyes and Patrick shoved a chart at the nurse behind the desk. “Elizabeth and Jason get news that maybe Jake is alive, and they take off to Greece. They don’t tell me—“

“Well, what are you gonna offer the situation?” Patrick wanted to know. “You don’t have any skills that are remotely useful in this situation—“

“And you do?” Steven demanded hotly. “You’re more useless than I am—“

“I’ve clocked more time in the field than you have. Robert,” Patrick said, nodding to his father-in-law on the other side of the counting, glaring at that phone in his hand. “Tell this dinkus about the Markaam Islands. I did good work there.”

“You did zero work,” Robin reported. “You ended up being helicoptered out of there after we nearly got shot by mercenaries holding my dad and Luke—“

“I did great undercover work,” Patrick retorted.

“Kissing me isn’t really undercover work—“

“Can we go back to the part where my nephew is alive?” Steven demanded. He glared at Epiphany. “Why are you smirking like that? Robin is alive. Jake is alive. Who the hell else is alive that I don’t know about?”

“Well, it is Port Charles. You learn to just go with it,” Epiphany suggested. Behind them, the elevator doors opened and Jason stepped out, followed by Cameron, then Emma.

Emma stopped in the middle of the hallway, her eyes wide as she took in her mother standing next to her father. “Mommy.”

“Emma.”

“Mommy!”

Emma took off like a lighting bolt, and Robin bent down to sweep her daughter in her arms, swinging her around in a circle, the two of them laughing and crying as the world around them came to a stop.

Jason took a deep breath as he stepped up to Epiphany. “Hey.”

“Hey, you.” Epiphany grinned, then peered down at Cameron. “Looks like we got ourself a whole lot of a good news today, huh? Emma’s got her mama back and Jake is home.”

“Yeah. I didn’t get to talk to him yet,” Cameron reported. “He was tired, and Grandma Laura is staying with him to make sure he’s not scared when he wakes up. But he’s home. We’re here to see Mommy.”

“I figured.” Epiphany looked over at Emma and her parents who were clustered around each other—then joined by Robert and Anna.

“Bits is down the hall,” Steven said, still trying to adjust to the entire situation. “At some point, do I get to know who exactly stabbed my sister?”

“Later,” Jason said, nodding to Cameron. “He wants to see his mother, and I—I haven’t seen her since we separated at the airport.”

“I’ll walk you down.”

Elizabeth was pale but awake when Cameron and Jason came in—Steven was a little irritated when Jason closed the door in his face, but Jason didn’t much care about that. Steven had always been one of the ones encouraging Elizabeth to go back to Lucky Spencer two years ago, so he didn’t have the time or patience for his questions right now.

“Mommy!” Cameron rushed over to her side, but stopped short of throwing himself at her the way Jake had done on the plane. “You’re okay? Jason said you were hurt.”

“I was, and it was scary,” Elizabeth admitted. She squeezed his hand. “But Uncle Patrick does pretty good work.” She looked at Jason. “They want to keep me a few days, but I’m going home tomorrow. I don’t want to be away from Jake—“

“You can stay here,” Cameron told her. “We’ll take care of Jake, and we’ll bring him to see you. You need to be okay, Mom.”

Elizabeth pursed her lips. “We’ll see. Did Emma come with you? Did she see Robin?”

“She did. It was really nice, Mom. I’m so glad Aunt Robin is home. I’m sorry Uncle Nikolas might not be, but I’m glad he took care of you and Jake,” Cameron told her.

“Me, too. How did Spencer take it?” she asked Jason.

“Okay, I think,” Jason said. “Emma and Cam wanted to make sure he was okay before we came to the hospital.” He put a hand on Cam’s shoulder. “Hey, why don’t I walk you down to the nurse’s station to hang out with Uncle Steven for a while? Your mom and I need to talk for a minute.”

“Okay.”

When they were out in the hallway, Cameron turned to him, squared his shoulders. “Before we go, though, I wanted you to know it’s okay if you changed your mind.”

Jason frowned. “About what?” He led Cameron over to a bench and they sat down.

“About me,” Cameron said. He swallowed hard. “You got Jake back now. And it’s okay. We’ll be a family anyway,” he added. “But it’s okay if you don’t need me anymore—“

“Need you?” Jason shook his head. “That’s not how this works, Cam. Not for me. Not now. In Greece, I came close to closing everything. It got—it was bad for a minute,” he admitted. “I didn’t know if me or your mom was coming home. And the last thing running through my head was not telling you myself how much I love you. It’s okay if you don’t want to make it legal, and I don’t expect you take to take my name. But you’re already mine, Cam. I love you. You, Jake, and Aiden. We’re a family.”

“You still—“ Cameron blinked at him. “You still want to be my dad? But I thought—“ He cleared his throat. “I thought maybe Jake was back. You had your real son—“

“There’s no such thing as real,” Jason insisted. “There’s blood connections, and that matters, yeah. But so does choice. My mother chose me, and my sister a long time ago. And she helped make us a family. She and my father. Just like your mom made us a family. I want to choose you, Cameron. I’d choose Aiden, too, if I could. But that’s different.”

“Because Lucky’s alive,” Cameron said soberly. He nodded. “Okay.” He nodded again. “Okay. Then I want to choose you, too. You came back. And you made sure Mom came back. That’s most important.” He leaned and hugged Jason. “But I’m gonna stay a Webber, because that’s what Mom is.”

“Then Webber it is,” Jason promised.

Halfway across the world, a man stood on the pier in Mykonos, staring out at the smoldering ruins of the great estate. He pursed his lips, and turned to the harbor master. “What happened out there?”

The man spoke in a rushed Grecian dialect, but the words were mostly clear — great explosion—but no casualties.

“No bodies? Really?” Surprised the man turned back to the island, considering it carefully. “They’re still looking?”

“Yes, yes, but no bodies. Island empty.” The harbormaster shrugged and went back to his work as Valentin Cassadine considered exactly what to do next.

← Flash Fiction: A Shot in the Dark – Part 14 | Flash Fiction: A Shot in the Dark – Part 16 →