Written in 68 minutes.

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May 2000

He didn’t move a muscle, frozen solid to the ground, her soft lips covering his hesitantly, her fingers trembling against his chest, pressure light, almost non-existent. And he just let it happen, half thinking she’d pull away, and he’d survive this with his sanity intact—

Until she actually did, her hand sliding slowly away from his chest, her mouth leaving his, their eyes opening at the same time, her terrified blue depths looking back at him, almost bracing herself for the rejection. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t let her keep thinking that she wasn’t exactly what he wanted.

Jason caught her hand before it fell to her side, trapping against his chest, the way he had on that long ago night that haunted him more than it should, and then he leaned down, capturing her mouth with his, sliding his other hand into her hair, his fingers sliding through the silken strands. She made a sound, soft sigh then relaxed against him. Just a gentle caress at first but when her hand reached the back of his neck, her nails scraping lightly against his skin, he let go of the hand at his chest and dragged her against him, tilting her head back to deepen the kiss. Her mouth opened, and he dove in, learning, savoring the taste of her.

Somewhere in the back of his head he knew it was too much, too fast—his jacket hit the ground, and her hands fisting in the back of his shirt—his hands were at her hips, his fingers brushing the skin left bare by the hem of her t-shirt. She shivered slightly, breaking away just for a moment, and he kissed the soft skin beneath her jaw, trailing his lips back to her mouth, and taking it again. Her hands hands were underneath shirt, scorching a path from his abdomen upwards.

Jason walked her backwards just a few steps until they came to the table up against the far wall, and then he lifted her, her arms curling around his shoulders, never breaking contact, because if he stopped kissing her now, if he let himself think too much, it would be over and this was all there could be—

But maybe she knew it, too—knew that they couldn’t keep pushing forward because in another few minutes, his shirt would be gone, and maybe hers, too, and they’d reach a point of no return that neither of them were ready for. Her kisses slowed, and he returned his hands to cup her face.

When Elizabeth finally pulled away, she didn’t go far, kissing him again, but sweetly, with only slighted parted lips, a gentle caress. “Tell me,” she whispered, stroking his cheek, easing back just enough so that their eyes could find each other. “Tell me why we can’t have this.” He didn’t want to answer that, so he kissed her instead, but didn’t attempt to deepen it, mirroring the lightness of hers. He brushed his thumb across her bottom lip. “Tell me,” Elizabeth said again. “Because if you can’t, then neither can I. I just want to understand so I can find a way to live with it. You can tell me anything.”

He sighed, rested his forehead against hers, closed his eyes. “It’s hard,” he said finally, “to find the words. Because right now, I want to believe it’ll be different, but it never is.”

“What will be different?” she asked, that softness still here. No judgment. No resentment. Where did she find the courage to be that open, he wondered? Had he ever been like that?

“Your face.” He opened his eyes, found hers looking back at him with a mixture of warmth, desire, and maybe a little hope. “That you’ll always look at me this way. That it won’t change.”

“Why would it change?” She stroked her fingers down his neck. “Why wouldn’t I keep looking at you the way I do now?”

“Because it always does.” Jason moved back just half step, slightly standing between her parted legs, but not pressed against her. He reached for her hands, looked down at them, tracing the line on her palm.

“Always? Or do you mean Robin’s did?”

He sighed, then looked up. Still nothing approaching resentment or impatience. Just curiosity. He wanted to deny it, wanted to tell her this had nothing to do with the past. But he couldn’t lie to her. “Over and over, we argued and walked away from each other because of the choices I made. The life I chose,” he said. “We both tried to compromise, but we kept hurting each other until, I think, by the end she hated me. Maybe other people can make this work. But I can’t.”

“You think I’d do that?” Elizabeth asked, drawing her brows together. “Promise you that it wouldn’t matter and change my mind?”

“You wouldn’t mean to, and maybe you think you won’t. But I can’t—” His throat tightened and the words were stuck. “I can’t take that chance.”

“Why?”

Jason exhaled slowly, looked at her again. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about these last few months, the last year,” he admitted. “Wondering when I looked at you and something something more. It was your smile.”

“My smile?” Elizabeth blinked, her lips parting.

“It lights up your whole face. You just…you glow,” he murmured. He touched her cheek .”It’s contagious, and I’m smiling back before I even know what I’m doing. And all I want to do is protect that. To keep that light shining. That day outside of Kelly’s, after the airport with Emily, and Juan, and we were laughing. Do you remember that?”

“I—” She nodded, staring at him as if she’d never seen him before, but he kept talking because she had to understand, she had to see why it had to be this way. That it was for the best. “Lucky came, and we had a fight—”

“No. A fight has two sides. He only said a few words, and it was like—he flipped a switch, and that all went away, and I could see you crawling back inside yourself. I wanted to deck him,” Jason muttered.

“You came after me that day. You drove me home for the first time.” Her mouth trembled. “That was…that was so many months ago, Jason.”

“I just—I had to make sure you were okay. I told myself it was just because you’d done so much for Emily, and someone needed to fix it, but I never asked myself why it had to be me. I could listen to you talk, even when you ramble. You always apologize, but you could keep talking for hours, and I’d never stop you.”

“No, you never do,” she murmured. “I thought it was because you’d mostly tuned me out—”

“I just like the way you sound when you’re happy and how you throw yourself into everything. Everything that makes you who are, that makes you special, that makes me want you—” He took a deep breath. “My life would drain that away. The secrets, the dangers, the worry, the guilt of knowing what I do, I can’t do it. I can’t watch all of that go away. I can’t be someone who takes away the light.”

—

There was nothing in her entire life that prepared for her this entire night, for sitting on a table where Jason Morgan had lifted her while kissing her passionately, and then he’d spoken the most beautiful words anyone had ever spoken about her in her whole life. And he’d done it as a way to explain why despite all of that, it had to end here.  And he’d been so intensely open, vulnerable. She felt sure he could see her trembling because every piece of her was profoundly shaken.

Elizabeth licked her lips. “I’m scared, too,” she confessed and he tipped his head, just the slightest bit. Because of course, he hadn’t said those words, but she knew what he meant. She knew what was beneath all of that. “Not about your life, though, okay, now it’s on the table, I guess it should give me pause. And maybe I need to think about that more. It’s hard because I know who you are, we’ve talked about that. But I—I know that’s not what you mean. That it’s not living with the reality of it the way I would be if…if this was more.” She bit her lip, looked down at their hands, still joined. “But it’s not what scares me. And it’s not why I didn’t kiss you that night on the island. B-Because I could have.”

“What scares you?” he asked gently, and she lifted her gaze to his, bolstered by the concern, the kindness she saw there. And just like she’d promised he could tell her anything, she knew it was true for him.

“This…” She raised a hand to gently brush against his chest, the soft skin over the hard muscle, satin over steel. “The…physical stuff. It’s…too easy to say that I know you’d never hurt me. I do know that,” she added quickly. “But I—I also knew that about Lucky. And it wasn’t true.”

Jason exhaled on a slow, shaky breath. “Elizabeth.”

“I thought he was being patient with me, you know? He never, not once, pushed for more. Never got angry. Never complained. And I thought it was because he knew—because he’d been there, and that with time and trust, we’d get there.” She closed her eyes. “I didn’t know he was holding it in. That it was just one more thing I was doing wrong and he was building up this tidal wave of anger, resentment, frustration until he let it fly and in one minute, in just a few words—” She choked back a sob, and looked away.

Jason’s hands cupped her face, his thumbs gently brushing the tears away as they escaped. “You don’t have to—”

“I have to. I do. Because I need you to know that I’m scared, too. Right down to the bone, and you need to know why. I need to say it. You know the basics of it. The cheating. With you. You knew that already. B-but it’s not just that. It was—” She drew in a deep breath. “He said it was because you had experience and I wanted that to make sure I liked it this time.”

His eyes went cold, and every muscle visibly tensed as the words rolled through him. But his touch remained gently. “It is,” he began carefully, “a very good thing I did not know that four months ago.”

She laughed, but it came out as a broken sob and he leaned in, kissing her forehead. “It’s okay,” he murmured, his lips trailing down her cheeks, soothing away the tears, the horror of it. “I’m sorry. So sorry that he said that to you. That you ever had to hear it.”

Elizabeth fisted her hands in his shirt. “I’m scared because I never saw that coming. I never saw it, and I didn’t know that he could be that way—just a few words, and it destroyed everything I ever thought I knew. I can’t even look back and remember when it was sweet because it’s gone. I can’t trust it. A-and I’m scared that I can’t ever trust it again. That maybe you won’t get frustrated with me, too, and I know you wouldn’t. But I know it the way I thought I knew it about Lucky, and I hate that he took that from me. I worked so hard to get it back, and he stole it, and I don’t know if I get to have it back.”

They stood there for a long time, her ragged breathing gradually easing until it was calm again, and his anger had eased, his body relaxing.

Elizabeth opened her eyes, looked at him, and took a deep breath. “So I’m not going to promise you that my face won’t change. Because I don’t know the future. I could tell you that I’d make that choice knowing who you are, and complaining about it later seems like a dick move, but I know that’s not the point you’re making.” His smile was quick, but she was bolstered by it. “Just like you’re going to tell me you’d never rush me or resent any…problems in that area…though, I’m going to tell you—” She squinted, touched the table next to her. “Judging where I ended up, my brain mostly turns off when you touch me—so maybe not a big problem, actually.” Jason laughed, though it was just a quick, surprised burst of sound.

Elizabeth touched his face, her fingers trailing along his jaw, the smile on his fading. “But just because I’m ready to risk being wrong, that doesn’t mean you are, and that’s okay. Thank you. For telling me. For making me feel beautiful and cared about. I don’t know any other man who could reject someone so nicely.”

His brows drew together and he shook his head. “No. It’s not—” he sighed. “I don’t want it to be,” he muttered. “It’s stupid. I’d run into a burning building to save your life, and I wouldn’t care if it cost me mine. But this—” Jason hesitated. “I don’t know. It should be easier. And knowing what you want through just a few months ago, that you’re standing in front of me, ready to risk that again, you need to know I understand the gift you’re offering. That I’m—I’m not saying no because I want to—”

“Then I won’t offer it,” Elizabeth said softly. “We know where we both stand, right? We won’t close the door. We’ll just—” She gestured to to the space behind them. “We’ll go in another room. And if you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

“That seems too easy,” he said, almost suspiciously. “Too simple.”

“It can be if we let it. Love—not that it’s what I’m saying,” she said quickly, “I’m just saying — that category of emotions, you know—it’s not supposed to be a burden you force on someone else. An obligation you suffer through. You reminded me of that when I was willing to suffer less. I care about you, and being angry about something you don’t seem very happy about either, well, it doesn’t really get us anywhere does it?”

“No, I guess not.” The corner of his mouth curved up.

“I think you’re worth waiting for,” Elizabeth said, and he just stared at her, then kissed her again, just a soft slow press of his mouth hinting at the passion he’d shown earlier.

Then he stepped away fully this time, putting distance between them. She slid off the table, and he cleared his throat, taking a few more steps away. Elizabeth lifted her brows. “You running away or something?”

“No. No. It’s just—” He scooped his jacket up from the ground, held it in both hands. “When you’re near enough to touch,” he muttered, “sometimes I can’t stop myself.”

She grinned now, a full blooming smile that she felt down to the tips of her toes. “You’re kidding, right? I’m sorry. I’m kind of obsessed with that idea, and I’m taking it as a compliment. But it’s okay…” She scooted to the other side of the table, flattened herself against the wall. “See? As far as I can go. I’ll stay right here. You’re safe.”

Jason laughed again, and it was less pained, more full and natural. “Okay. Great. You’re making fun of me.”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“I should go. My willpower only lasts for so long, and some—” He squinted at her. “I don’t think you’re going to help me.”

“Not in my best interest, so no.” She tipped her head, still smiling. “See. We can do this. We’ll go back to being friends. Even if we just run into each other at Kelly’s, and that’s all there is for right now.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. We’ll…try that.” Jason reached the door, touched the lock, then looked at her. “Okay, but also, we’re going to be friends who give new doors with better locks.”

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