Written in 57 minutes. I had a little trouble getting the first part of the scene together, so writing went a little slower than I wanted.

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June 2000

He didn’t recognize the wallpaper. Jason squinted, his bleary gaze trying to make sense of the dark-colored wall in front of him. His bedroom was a bland white, so he wasn’t home. And the ache he felt when he moved his hand, the fire that raced down his side as soon as he tried to shift on the bed stopped any movement of his body. So he turned his head, slowly until his right cheek was resting against the pillow.

Beside him lay Elizabeth, curled up on her side, her curly hair spilling over her shoulders, one hand tucked beneath her cheek, the other wrapped around her waist. She had a shirt that was too big for her—something gray that slid off one shoulder. Jason squinted. There was a cut on the skin left bare. And a scrape. Was she hurt? Why was she sleeping next to him?

And then it came back in a rush—the parking lot, the headlights, shoving her to the ground, the look in her eye when she was looking for her shoe—and then the rest of it was gone. He didn’t remember anything else.

Jason looked past her, to the door, then exhaled slowly. That he recognized. His old room at Sonny’s, when he’d first moved in. He hadn’t gone upstairs until after Michael was born, and he’d needed to be closer.

He’d made it to the Towers, he thought, remembering now that had been his goal. Get Elizabeth to Sonny. He’d done that. She was safe.

Jason touched his side, hissing when the pain lanced through him again. He tried to sit up, sliding one leg to the side and barely managed to lift his upper body up, hanging on to the edge of the nightstand with a death grip. “Damn it,” he muttered. He just wanted to get to the bathroom or to a mirror to see how bad it was.

He heard rustling behind him, and sighed. He’d wanted to be out of bed before she woke up, hadn’t wanted that picture in his head, of knowing what she looked like when just opening her eyes.

“Jason?” Her voice was sleepy, his name half-yawned, then spoken. Then she said it again, worried. “Jason! What are you doing? You got shot!”

“Yeah, I figured,” he grunted, but she’d already raced around the side of the bed, had a hand on his shoulder.

“You have to lay down. The doctor said you needed to rest. I’ll get Sonny, okay? A-and if you’re in pain—” She released his shoulder, then to look at the night table, picked up some bottles. “There’s something here for that—”

“I don’t like pain medication,” he said.

“But—”

“I don’t want it,” he cut in, and his voice was sharp enough that Elizabeth flinched, set the bottle down. “I don’t like the way it makes me feel.”

“I know—”

“How would you know that?” he demanded, then felt like an asshole when she dropped her eyes. “Look, I just—I need to talk to Sonny—”

“He told me you wouldn’t want pain medication when you woke up,” Elizabeth said, and he closed his mouth. “That’s how I know. And that’s why I stayed in here. Because he said the minute you were up, you’d try to get up and you weren’t supposed to. He said you’re a terrible patient who never listens to the doctors, so he thought maybe you’d listen to me.” Her lips curved into a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Well, I guess on that he was wrong. It’s not pain medication. Not that way.” She showed him the bottle. “It’s just something to help with the inflammation.”

“I’m—” Jason grimaced, looked down at the carpet, though that didn’t help because her bare feet were in front of him, and they were painted the same color she’d been wearing the night before, a bright pink that made him think of throwing her to the ground, scaring her. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

“You got shot, you’re entitled to be cranky.” But she kept her eyes averted. “I’ll get Sonny. I know you’ll want to talk to him.”

“Elizabeth—” He called after her, but she was already in the hallway. Damn it. He dragged a hand over his face, feeling the stubble beneath his fingers.

When Sonny came in a few minutes later, Jason had hobbled to his feet, using the headboard for balance. The older man just sighed. “So much for hoping a pretty face would make you a a better patient. Sit back down before you tear open those stitches—”

“I just want to see—” But Sonny was in front of him, and Jason had no choice but back up, then to sit down, wincing at the pressure on his side. “I just wanted to see how bad it is—”

“Entry and exit wound. No internal damage, you lucky son of a bitch. If you follow orders, you might be up and moving in a few days, and back to your normal in a few weeks—”

“I don’t have a few weeks—”

“Sure you do. Now take your medicine.” Sonny held out two pills and a glass of water. “Start thinking of ways to apologize to that very nice young woman who dragged your sorry ass from the parking garage up here—”

“What?” Jason demanded, but Sonny just lifted his brows, pressed his lips closed. “Fine,” he muttered. He took the pills, chased them with the water. “What are you talking about? I got her back here—”

“You got as far as the parking garage and practically keeled over. And instead of calling 911 like a normal person might or running away screaming, Elizabeth managed to drag you to the elevators. You don’t remember any of that?”

“No—” Open your eyes. Lean on me. He winced. “A little.”

“And she agreed to stay here while I tried to get to the bottom of whatever the hell happened last night. But maybe I should have put her in a safe house considering she looked miserable when she came down to get me.”

“Do you know what happened?” Jason asked, ignoring the rest of it.

Sonny stroked his jaw. “Yeah. We got the shooter. Don’t get too excited — he’s not one of Moreno’s men so we can’t neatly tie it. He got a contract.”

“A contract—” Jason repeated. “What—”

“Shooter got the contract directly from an old friend of ours. You remember David Reece?”

Jason squinted, then realized how he knew the name. “Messenger for the cartels? The one who told you that there was a hit on you before the wedding?”

“Yeah. Shooter can’t connect us to Moreno, so I can’t say for sure it was him. I don’t know who else it would be,” Sonny said. He ambled over to the window, peered through the blinds. “But a contract makes sense for how it got set up. He picked the contract up yesterday morning, but couldn’t get a clear shot of you until last night.”

“But—”

“You were always around other people, and he had orders to minimize casualties. And to under no circumstances open fire with Emily around. No one wants the kind of heat she’d bring. Shooter waited until she left last night, and after that—” Sonny slid his hands in his pockets. “He didn’t much care about who was next to you. So you were worried Elizabeth was part of it, she wasn’t.”

“She was just standing next to me.” Jason closed his eyes. Just like Nikolas Cassadine that night at Luke’s.

“If she’d gone with Emily, he would have shot you then.”

“Okay. Okay. So Elizabeth is safe. That’s all that mattered.” And after last night and this morning, he figured that had put the period on whatever relationship she thought she wanted. She’d be running in the other direction.

“Well—”

Jason lifted his head, not liking the tone of Sonny’s voice. “What? What’s the rest?”

“Shooter doesn’t know who paid him, so he only talked to David Reece. We caught him on the phone with Reece.” Sonny hesitated. “They know you’re alive — and they know you didn’t go back inside the club like maybe you could have. And the brunette? Her name is in the paper this morning as a person of interest. The PCPD have been calling Audrey Hardy and Emily down at the pool house.”

“Shit.” Jason dropped his head in his hands, wincing at the pain. “So if they didn’t—”

“If there was any chance of thinking she was just a random woman standing next to you, everyone knows now it was Elizabeth Webber, roommate to your little sister. Add that in to the fact that you made sure she was with you when you left the scene—”

“Damn it. Damn it. I should just gone back inside.” Jason gripped the headboard again, pushed himself to his feet. “I should have called you—”

“You’d been shot, Jason. You didn’t know if you’d pass out, if Luke was still inside the club, if they were going to come back. Give yourself a break. All you wanted was to get Elizabeth somewhere you were sure was safe. And you did that.”

“And made it worse—”

“You couldn’t have known that. Look, we can complain about how we got here, or we can deal with the situation as it is. The contract is unfilled, so Reece is just going to hand it out to someone else. You’re in no shape to be seen in public. The PCPD will have a thousand questions if they find out you’ve been shot. And Elizabeth—”

“Will get dragged in, too. Okay. Okay. So I’ll go away. I’ll go down to the island until I can walk—”

“Exactly.” Sonny paused. “Except for the part if you disappear from public, you’ve just David Reece and probably Anthony Moreno all the ammunition they need to pull you back.”

“Elizabeth. She’ll be a target. So will you, but—”

“But I’m already a target. And it’s not like they’ll kill her right away. They’ll hold her hostage, lure you in—”

“Stop talking. I got the point,” Jason bit out. He swayed slightly, his head spinning. “Safe house. You have to keep her safe until I can come back and handle this.”

“Right. I’ll put her with some strange guards she’s never seen before, tell her to pack up her whole life for a few weeks while you recuperate in the Caribbean.” Sonny cleared his throat. “And you’ll be just fine and normal, following doctor’s orders down there, not worried about her at all.”

“No,” Jason bit out, because he knew the only answer to all of this. He’d gone out of his way to keep Elizabeth away from this part of his life, but in a moment of weakness he’d gotten her those stupid tickets so he could make her smile, and maybe make up for how he’d hurt her—and he’d ruined everything. She’d been shot at, thrown around, and had, apparently, been left to deal with him after he’d passed out from the gunshot.

He wouldn’t have to worry about keeping his hands off her on the island. She’d probably insist on a room on the other side of the house, if she agreed to go at all.

“She has to go with me,” he said, and saw Sonny’s shoulders relax. “You should have just said that from the beginning—”

“And miss watching you tie yourself in knots trying to get out of it?” Sonny scoffed. “Not a chance. You needed to realize for yourself this is the best way. I won’t have to worry about you, because you already bit her head off about following’s doctors orders and you feel bad so you’re not doing it again, right?”

Jason clenched his jaw. “She told you that?”

“No, I’m freaking Colombo putting together clues. You’re on your feet, and she was upset. Now, lay back down and I’ll arrange things. And I’ll be the one telling her because you—” Sonny stabbed a finger at him. “—need to practice not making that face when she’s in the room. She saved your life last night, idiot. Don’t make me or her regret that.”

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