Summary: After her confrontation with Elizabeth (Blackmail), Sam calls Jason to her hospital room. He agrees to meet her but is unaware that she knows the truth about what he did for Elizabeth.
Author's Note: This is the confrontation Sam and Jason never had about his part in protecting Elizabeth when they all thought she was the one that ran Sam down. Only in this story, she actually did.
Jason stood outside Sam's hospital room and mentally prepared himself for whatever she was about to pull. When he heard her voice on the other end of the phone the day before, not only was he shocked but he couldn't help but be a little suspicious as to the reason behind her call.
It had been months since they'd had a civilized conversation. The last time he had spoken to her was the time he had visited her a few days after her initial accident to pump her for information about what she remembered. He had learned through both Lucky and Elizabeth that the incident with Diego Alcazar had aggravated her hip injury and that she had sustained a new one, a broken leg.
Maybe she's angry that Diego went after her in the first place, he thought to himself but then he recalled Mac telling him that her connection to him was not the only reason Diego had taken her. Apparently, Diego blamed Sam for starting the events that led up to his father's demise after she shot him and everyone assumed he was dead afterwards.
Despite everything, he didn't believe she would hold him responsible for being held captive. So what did she want then?
"Who's there?" Sam's suspicious voice pulled him from his thoughts. He smirked despite himself. It seemed her instincts were as strong as ever. If things were different, he would be proud of that.
He walked into the room, thus revealing himself to her. "It's just me."
"Why were you lurking outside my room?" Sam asked, looking at him suspiciously.
"I wasn't lurking," he immediately defended himself. "I was just thinking."
"Whatever." Sam shrugged off his lame existence and then rolled her eyes at the annoyance she could see in his eyes. It surprised her that she could still read him so well. She noticed that he seemed nervous about being in the room with her and given the fact that he was helping his whore cover up her crime, he had every reason to be.
"How are you feeling?" Jason asked, taking in her condition for the first time. It was one thing to hear about her injuries but another thing entirely to see it in person.
She was bruised and cut up. Her leg was secured in an apparatus that looked like a cross between a hammock and a sling that was suspended from the ceiling. Whatever it was called, it couldn't be good for her hip and he guessed that it wasn't because she kept readjusting her position on the bed.
"I've been worse," was all she said in response and he found that he really couldn't argue with her. She had been in the hospital more often than most people, almost more than him.
"I was looking forward to see whoever ran me down pay," she said, and then studied his face for a reaction. There was nothing really significant except the fact that he had shifted his weight from one foot to the other. And that was what she was waiting for. He did that when he was uncomfortable.
"But you made damn sure that's not going to happen."
His face grew slack as realization dawned on him that she knew that Elizabeth was the one that hit her and that he had covered it up. "How?"
"I remembered seeing her behind the wheel of her car right before the headlights blinded me," she replied. She repositioned herself once again so that she was sitting up while she stared him down. "I also overheard Lucky and Elizabeth talking about closing the case, leaving it unsolved and then when I confronted her, Elizabeth told me that there was no way she'd go to jail because you made sure there was no evidence left behind."
"Look, Sam, I-" he started to tell her that there was no way to be certain that Elizabeth was the one that hit her at the time he had her car fixed but she shook her head in refusal.
"How dare you!" She exclaimed furiously. "That bitch almost killed me. She didn't even check to see if I was okay, Jason. How could you help cover it up?"
"I did it," he started to say but stopped midsentence when her cane came flying at him.
"If you say you did it to protect Jake, I won't be responsible for what I do to you," she warned him.
"That's why I did it," he said unapologetically. "I wasn't about to let my son grow up without a mother because you have an axe to grind."
"You're assuming that I would've pressed charges."
"You just said that you wanted whoever did this to you to pay," he pointed out.
"I was goading you." Sam's voice was incredulous. "If Elizabeth had been honest with me and admitted that she was the one that hit me when I talked to her and then apologized, I would've let it go."
"But instead she chose to do what she always does; she lied and then had you clean up her mess. She played the 'Jake and Cameron' card to get Lucky to close the case. And then the three of you made a decision and left me—the victim—out of it."
"Sam, it was an accident," Jason tried to reason with her. She was very volatile when she was angry and judging by the rage he could see in her eyes, she was planning to cause a lot of damage to Elizabeth's life.
"That's your excuse?" She scoffed incredulously. "Elizabeth was on drugs that night. She had no business being behind the wheel of a car and she was supposed to stay in the hospital. But she just had to see you."
"That's what this is about?" he demanded angrily. She was jealous of his relationship with Elizabeth.
"Don't flatter yourself. I couldn't care less about what the two of you do together but I don't understand why whenever you two decide on something—whether it be having a secret affair or lying about Jake's paternity—I get hurt."
"I never wanted you to get hurt," he said.
"You're a little late." She regarded him with disgust. "If you had bothered to come to me, you would have realized that the only thing I wanted was an apology. But once again, you decided not to trust me with the truth and put all your energy into protecting another one of Elizabeth's lies."
"So you're going to tell the police and press charges against Elizabeth?" Jason asked. He felt ashamed of his actions but he knew that faced with the same situation, he would do it all again. He couldn't trust that Sam wouldn't hold this over Elizabeth's head or go back on her word.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't."
"If you say anything, you'll go to jail as an accessory to kidnapping." He didn't like threatening her but he wouldn't let her tear his son's life apart.
"Good luck making those charges stick," she countered, unfazed by his threat. She had seen it coming. "And before you say that you'll have me charged with assault, let me warn you that if you and Elizabeth go forward with that story, I will have my mother call you as a witness and force you to admit that Jake is your son."
"You wouldn't."
"Oh, yes, I would," Sam looked at him smugly. "After all, the only thing I care about is me right?"
"I didn't used to think so," he told her and for a split second, she saw a glimpse of her Jason.
"And the only thing you care about is protecting Jake, even at the expense of innocent people," Sam said.
"I love my son," Jason admitted. "And I want to keep him safe but I do not like the fact that you keep getting hurt."
"And yet, you still covered up Elizabeth's crime." She looked at him sadly. "What if I had died that night, Jason?"
He didn't even want to think about that possibility.
"What would you have done?" she asked. "Would you have turned Elizabeth in or would you still cover it up? I mean, after all, I would be dead. It's not like it would've mattered to me if she paid or not."
"I don't know," he chose to go with honesty in answering her question. "But you're not dead."
"I could have died that night, but you didn't even think about that," Sam said, her voice finally allowing him to see how hurt she was by his actions. "And now that the truth is out, not one of you has even apologized."
"Would it make any difference if I did now?" he asked.
"It would have if you had apologized at the beginning of this conversation but apologizing now would be a useless gesture."
"Why?"
"Because you wouldn't even be thinking about it if I hadn't said anything."
"What do you want me to do, Sam?"
"I want you to leave," she said, her voice hard. "And I want all of you to stay the hell away from me."
So he finally did what she asked of him. He turned around and left, feeling worse with every step he took away from her.