January 4, 2006

The Spencer House: Living Room

Lanie’s second birthday party was in full swing when Laura pulled Elizabeth aside in the kitchen. Elizabeth left her daughter to the supervision of Laura’s daughter Lulu and her friends.

“I can’t help but notice that you and Jason weren’t speaking to each other when he dropped the two of you off this morning,” Laura said. She poured Elizabeth a glass of iced tea and gestured for her to join her at the table.

Elizabeth sighed and rubbed her eyes. “It’s been a rough couple of days. That letter from Faith…that I received the day of the christening? Well Carly had hidden it in Morgan’s baby book and we forgot about it. It fell out on New Year’s Day and I guess you could say it didn’t go over well.”

“Well…” Laura sighed heavily and glanced through the open door way where Lanie decorating Maxie Jones’ hair with bows. “I told you and Carly two years ago and I’ll tell you again–you should have told him.”

“Maybe…” Elizabeth shook her head. “I just wanted to be normal for a while. If he’d thought Faith was threatening again, I would have been locked in the penthouse for another year and I just…” she exhaled slowly. “Is it so wrong what I did, Laura? Is it so unforgivable?”

“Is it that bad between the two of you?” Laura asked, worried. She squeezed Elizabeth’s hand. “Because you know that Jason learned a lot of about women from Sonny and Sonny’s usual answer to this sort of thing is divorce–”

“No, no…” Elizabeth shook her head. “He’s not that angry–I mean–he hasn’t said anything like that. He just…he hasn’t said much to me period. He asks me how I’m feeling in the morning, if I need anything but…” She bit her lip. “And of course when Lanie’s around, he does his best to act normally but I know he’s angry but he won’t talk about it.”

Lanie rushed into the kitchen and held out a piece of paper with scribbles on it. “Mommy, look!”

“It’s beautiful, sweetheart. Maybe Grandma Laura will want to hang it on the fridge.” At this, Lanie turned to her attention to Laura who happily accepted the drawing. Lanie then rejoined the party.

“I could try to speak to him if you’d like,” Laura offered. “Or I could send Luke in to kick his ass.”

“No, that’s not necessary. I’ll just have to work it out with him. I mean, it’s not like our marriage is in serious trouble,” Elizabeth said, trying to sound confident but her voice broke towards the end of the statement. “I’m pregnant and Lanie’s his whole world. He’s not…he wouldn’t…” she closed her eyes. “Right?”

“Honey, maybe he just needs some time.” Laura patted Elizabeth’s hand. “And if not…you fight. Don’t let him walk out the door and don’t let him shut you out. That’s the worst thing you could do.”

“Hey, Mrs. S., Lanie’s digging into the pile of presents,” Georgie Jones called. “Maybe we shouldn’t stall her any longer.”

Elizabeth laughed and stood. “I suppose not.” She looked back at Laura. “For right now, I’m just going to celebrate my daughter’s birthday and leave everything else for later.”

Corinthos Morgan Warehouse: Jason’s Office

“I made some calls,” Sonny began taking a seat in front of Jason’s desk and ignored the scowl on his partner’s face. “No one has heard or seen Faith Roscoe since she left Port Charles two years ago. She’s dropped off the face of the Earth.”

Jason shook his head and stood. “I don’t buy that. Faith is poison. She creates trouble no matter where she goes. There’s no way she could have stayed hidden.”

“I agree but…” Sonny hesitated. “I don’t know that Faith or anyone for that matter would wait two years for their revenge.”

“Ric waited a lot longer,” Jason pointed out. “And he nearly succeeded. He got in good with Carly, he started to date Elizabeth. He set things up almost just the way he wanted them. But he was thrown off track when Elizabeth got pregnant. He had to move certain things up and that’s when it started to go wrong. He started to get impatient. And it was Faith that we trusted would know when to throw the towel in. We know now that she sent that letter to Elizabeth a few months after she blew out of town. What’s to say she didn’t hole up somewhere and stay under the radar?”

“Because someone like Faith isn’t able to stay under the radar. Too many people were looking for her. She was never someone who was able to keep their agenda hidden.” Sonny leaned forward, planting his hands flat on the desk. “I’m telling you that I don’t think Faith is a threat. And if I’m wrong, we can still step up security a little. Elizabeth gets a full-time guard again and so does Carly. We put men on the locations that everyone frequents.”

“All right,” Jason agreed after a long moment. “I suppose it’s the best we can do.”

“And it’s all we could have done two years ago, Jason.” Sonny straightened and went towards the windows. “I don’t agree with Elizabeth or Carly about keeping that letter a secret but it’s done with Jason and no harm has come to anyone in all this time. I think you should think about forgiving her.”

“She didn’t trust me,” Jason said quietly. “After all that we had been through together and all that we’ve been through in the last two years, she never trusted me to protect her. I don’t know how to forgive that.”

“Well, take it from someone who knows better–it’s not worth losing your marriage over. You and Elizabeth were happy together,” Sonny replied. “She’s pregnant, is this really something you want hanging over your head as she heads into this thing? She had a hell of a time with Lanie. I don’t think she deserves another stressful pregnancy.”

“I would never hurt her,” Jason said, irritated. “And I know what she went through with Lanie. I love them both, I just don’t know if I can…” he shook his head. “Never mind. I’ll set up the assignments and I’ll let Elizabeth know the new arrangements.” He hesitated. “I want people on the Spencer house and on Laura. Laura’s been good to Elizabeth and I don’t care that Luke can take care of her, I know Elizabeth would want Laura safe.”

“I’ll let you be the one to tell Luke about that one.” Sonny opened the door and was startled to find Elizabeth on the other side. “Hey, Elizabeth. I thought you were at Lanie’s party.”

“After we opened the presents and Lanie had about three pieces of chocolate cake, she passed out in the middle of the wrapping paper so that pretty much ended the party.” Elizabeth looked passed Sonny to Jason who had fallen silent and turned towards the window at her entrance. “Sonny…if you weren’t in the middle of anything, I’d like to speak to Jason.”

“Sure, sure.” Sonny patted her on the shoulder and disappeared into his own office.

Elizabeth closed the door behind her and stood just in front of it. “Jason, I don’t know how much more of this silent treatment I can take. I need to know where we stand and I can’t wait for you to decide to grace me with your decision.”

“Elizabeth…” Jason turned and leaned against the windowsill. “I don’t want to do this with you right now. Where’s Lanie?”

“She’s napping at Laura’s–I don’t care what you want to do, we are going to deal with this.” She strode forward. “And I’m not leaving until we do.”

“You’re real good at deciding when we’re going to deal with something.” Jason folded his arms across his chest. “You left me because I lied to you about Sonny, because I didn’t trust you enough to tell you. So maybe you can understand why I’m just a little pissed off that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me that Faith threatened you, threatened our daughter–”

“It never about not trusting you,” Elizabeth cut in. “It was about protecting you, protecting Lanie. You would have driven yourself to exhaustion trying to find Faith. You would have locked me in that penthouse, you would have kept Lanie under lock and key and Sonny would have done the same to Carly. Carly and I discussed and we both agreed that it would do more harm than good.”

“You knew what my life was like, you knew that there would be times like those and you chose to be in my life, to stay married to me, to let me raise your daughter as my own–”

“So this is what it’s going to be?” Elizabeth asked. “Because I did something you don’t agree with, everything we built is gone?” She shook her head. “I don’t accept that, I can’t.”

“Everything we built is on the basis of lie,” Jason stated. “I thought that you trusted me and you don’t–”

“I do trust you, Jason,” Elizabeth argued. “Maybe I made a mistake, I’m willing to admit that. But I did what I thought I had to do. It was two years ago, Jason…” She rounded the desk and touched his arm. She flinched when he pulled away from her and put some distance between them. “Jason, I love you. Please don’t shut me out.”

“I’m not. But I don’t know what you want me to say,” Jason said. “And I know you think you did the right thing. But for two years, you’d led me to believe that you trust me enough to protect you, to take care of you and our family and I find out it was all a lie. I can’t put that away because you don’t think there’s a problem.”

“So we’re going just going to live in silence until you decide how you want to punish me?” A tear slid down her cheek. “Jason, please…” She took a step towards him and felt a slice in her heart when he took a step back. “We can’t live like this, Lanie will know something’s wrong…”

“You’re right.” Jason looked away. “And she doesn’t deserve that. I’ll get a room somewhere or–”

“You’re going to leave me?” The color drained from her face and her skin was almost translucent in the fading afternoon sun. “That’s your answer? You’re moving out of our home?” Her voice started to break, her breath began to hitch.

“Elizabeth, I’m just…I need some time. And Lanie doesn’t need her parents arguing. And you don’t need it either.” He looked away. “You went through a high-risk pregnancy with Lanie. Your blood pressure was through the roof most of the nine months and Dr. Meadows cautioned you against stress this time around. If I’m at the penthouse, we’ll argue. Or there will be same tension that’s been there since I found the letter. I’m not doing that.”

“You’re leaving me and our daughter for the good of the family. Okay.” Elizabeth wiped her eyes. “Fine. You know, you’re right. I’m not sorry. Because I saw my chance to protect you and take care of you, to keep you driving yourself insane searching for a woman who’s done more to wreck our marriage by staying gone than if she had come back at all. Why is it okay for you to make all the decisions and expect me to accept them and then be so angry when I try to do the same?”

She paused in the doorway, “And for the record, Jason, I did not leave you because you lied to me or because you faked Sonny’s death and didn’t tell me. I left you because I came dead last. I came after Sonny, after Carly, after your job…” she chuckled bitterly. “I came after Courtney on your list of priorities. I left because I didn’t like the feeling that being in that penthouse left me with. Feeling worthless, like you didn’t need or want me there. That’s why I left you.”

The door slammed shut behind her and Jason sank into his desk chair, rubbing his hands over his face. How had things gone from nearly perfect to devastation in the matter of a few days?

His eye caught a sheaf of papers to his left and he saw Sonny’s paperwork on the investigation into Faith’s disappearance.

She may be gone, but she was still destroying lives in her wake.

A Room

Faith Roscoe leaned back in chair and crossed her legs, still laughing over the scene between Jason Morgan and his mousy little wife. She’d watched it more than once, still delighting in the fact that she’d broken them up without having to raise her pinky finger.

“It’s almost too easy,” she sighed, pressing the rewind button and then paused so she could focus on the distraught expression on Jason’s face as he reserved a room at the Port Charles Hotel.

She turned back to her table and spread the photos out again. She tucked away the Spencer family photos, knowing that Laura and her children would be under Sonny’s protection as well as Luke Spencer’s. They would have to wait.

But there were others in their lives that perhaps they wouldn’t think to protect. Faith slid a set of photos out from beneath Carly’s. Information was a powerful weapon, she decided. The more you had, the more damage you could do.

“Just by looking at your photo, I can understand why Carly Corinthos can’t stand you,” Faith murmured as she lifted a candid photo and tacked it to the wall. “You do look like a pretty little princess that can’t keep her nose out of everyone else’s lives.”

General Hospital: Locker Room

“How’s your first week of rounds going?” Robin Scorpio asked as an exhausted Emily Quartermaine changed back into her street clothes, balling her green scrubs into her backpack.

“They’re going,” Emily smiled at her old friend. “If I’m this tired as a med student, I shudder to think about interning.”

“You get used to it after a while,” Robin confided. She slipped her purse over her shoulder. “I’m going to grab some dinner at the Outback, you wanna join?”

“No, it’s Lanie’s birthday today and I wanted to drop a present off. I missed her party,” Emily shrugged. “It’s just a My Little Pony set but I want to make sure she gets it tonight. Besides, I haven’t seen her since Christmas.”

“It’s still so weird to me that Jason married Elizabeth Webber,” Robin laughed as they exited the locker room. “When I moved to Paris, she was practically married to Lucky. But you know, they suit each other.”

“It took me a while to see it,” Emily admitted. “And I screwed up my relationship with my brother for good, but yeah, they do. And Lanie is just the most adorable ever.”

They took the elevator down to the lobby and started for the parking lot. “So how has it been adjusting back to life in Port Charles?” Emily asked.

“So much has changed since I moved away,” Robin admitted. “People, places. It was only five years but it feels like so much longer.” She waved to Emily who walked in the opposite direction towards her car and then Robin stepped off the curb to go to her car.

A car that had been moving very slowly down the road suddenly gunned its engine and careened straight towards the petite doctor.

“Robin!” Emily called frantically. Robin turned and her eyes widened at the sight of the car. Before she could take another step, someone grabbed her arm and dragged her back onto the curb and out of the path of oncoming car.

Robin took a shaky breath and looked at her rescuer. “Thanks–I didn’t even see that car.”

Emily dashed over to join them. “Thank God, I didn’t think–” she embraced Robin tightly. “That car could have killed you.”

“I should have been watching where I was going,” Robin laughed tremulously. She looked back at the dark-haired man who had grabbed her. “Really–thank you.” She held out her hand. “Robin Scorpio.”

“Patrick Drake–and I think you should ask yourself who has it out for you,” he ignored her hand. “I heard that car gun its engine the second you stepped off the curb.”

Robin let her hand fall to her side and she looked out to where car had disappeared into the night. “That’s…that’s ridiculous. Who would want to hurt me?”

A Car

Faith pulled over to the side of the road and slammed her hand on the wheel. “God damn Good Samaritans,” she snarled.

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