Cyrano de What?
Port Charles, the town that never changed, had changed immensely in the three years that he'd been gone. They finally had not one but two hotels in town, ending the Quartermaine-owned Port Charles Hotel's monopolist reign. The warehouses had been redone and pretty-fied, in Carly's words, and Sonny had even opened up a coffee shop right by his main office to put up a front of legitimacy.
And if that wasn't all surprising and new enough, Sonny and Carly were married and had two children. And all while he was overseas.
Jason could hardly believe it, but he was happy that the changes had all been good instead of otherwise. Carly and the kids had already gone to bed and would see him in the morning; right now, it was just him, Sonny, and a couple of the guards in the living room of Penthouse 4 on his first night home.
"And Emily and Nikolas have started dating," Sonny was explaining as he went through the other changes. "The Quartermaines are really happy about that – they're already planning the wedding."
Jason gaped at him. "But Emily's barely eighteen. And Nikolas – he's just twenty. The hell are they thinking?"
"They're thinking grandkids, idiot," Ritchie laughed, taking a swig from his bottle. "Oh, and AJ is dating Roy DiLucca's daughter, who also happens to be Taggert's ex."
Jason rolled his eyes. "I'm not even touching that. Anything else new and interesting?"
"Alexis and Jax got married."
"I thought they were already married."
"They got married for real this time."
"Oh."
The men all nodded and took a sip of their respective drinks. Beers for Jason, Max, Milo, and Ritchie, and scotch for Sonny and Francis. They had been sitting around in the living room for the past two hours, just catching up, and it felt so good to just kick back and relax that no one quite wanted to move.
"The town sure has changed these past three years."
The men nodded in agreement.
Jason lifted his feet onto the coffee table and crossed them at the ankles. "I think I'll stop by Quartermaine Manor tomorrow and see Grandmother. No matter how things have changed, she'll always stay the same. So will the rest of 'em, for that matter."
Max and Milo exchanged glances as Sonny smirked. "Uh…"
Jason arched a brow at them. "What?"
"Well…"
He looked over at Sonny. "What?"
Milo cleared his throat. "Well, while you were gone, your parents…welcomed an addition to the family."
Jason's eyes bulged as Sonny hid his laugh. "But they're too old to have any more kids!"
Francis sputtered, nearly choking on his scotch when he laughed. "No, no, Jason, he doesn't mean it that way. Your parents adopted another child."
"Well, to be fair, they didn't really adopt her," Max clarified. "They just agreed to be her legal guardians until she turns twenty-one in three years."
"Same difference."
Jason eyed the men warily, not entirely convinced that they weren't putting him on. "They adopted an eighteen-year old girl?"
Francis nodded. "Yes, she's one of Emily's closest friends, in fact."
"Her parents were doctors, part of the Doctors Without Borders organization," Sonny cut in quietly. "They were in Bosnia when they fell victim to a terrorist attack staged by local Serbs. She doesn't have any siblings, and her parents were always really close friends with Alan and Monica, so it seemed the next logical step for them to take legal guardianship of their daughter."
"Her name's Elizabeth Webber, and she's been a friend of Emily's for years," Milo added. "She's a really nice girl. If you wanna meet her and maybe say hi to Emily, we can swing by Quartermaine Manor. I'm actually headed that way in a bit."
Jason considered it and finally nodded. "Okay. Yeah, let's meet her."
--------------------------------
"Why can't we go to the door like normal human beings?"
Jason glared at the young guard. "You know why. If my grandfather sees me, he'll wake up the whole house and I'll never hear the end of it. I used to come visit Emily like this all the time. Her window's that one over there. Now shut up and follow me."
Milo did as he was told and the two men crept through the bushes around the side of the house to the balcony outside Emily's window. Once they were near enough to it, Jason began looking around for a few stones and hurled them one by one at his sister's window.
They heard scuffling inside and before long the young woman poked her head out, peering out into the darkness.
"Zander? Is that you? I thought you and Nikolas were meeting us there."
Jason's eyes narrowed. "No, it's me. Who's Zander?"
"No one," she grinned, beyond thrilled to see her big brother standing under her balcony. "Definitely no one as important as you. Jason! I'm so glad to see you! What are you doing home? Does anyone know you're back? Have you seen Grandmother yet? Do you want me to wake her up? You wanna come up? Where have you been these last few years? Did you do anything fun? When are you going to come visit me again?"
He shook his head, amused by her endless prattling. "No, no, don't wake anyone up. I just wanted to come see how you were and let you know that I was back."
"Hi, Em."
Her auburn hair tumbled past her shoulders as Emily leaned off her balcony ledge. "Hi, Milo! Is that a new suit? You look very handsome in it."
"Thank you," he replied proudly, and Jason had to wonder if the young guard and his sister had actually managed to become friends over the years. Yet another change. "You going out somewhere?"
Emily blinked. "Huh?"
"You're dressed," Milo explained, gesturing to her jeans and green draped t-shirt. "You look like you're going out somewhere."
"Oh, uh…"
"Emily," Jason warned, "it's almost midnight. You're not going anywhere."
"Who said we're not going anywhere?" came another voice from the adjacent balcony. "We're most definitely going somewhere. You ready, Em?"
"Ready," she called out, grabbing her purse. "Hey, Milo, catch this."
The guard could barely get a word out before she tossed him her little clutch, and the next thing Jason knew, his little sister was throwing her leg over the edge of her balcony and was climbing down the trellis.
"Emily! What the hell are you doing?"
"Say that a little louder, Jason," she hissed. "Grandfather's just one window over."
Jason clamped his mouth shut and quickly moved over to the trellis, ready to catch his sister as soon as she swung down. "Where the hell do you think you're going? Get right back up there or I will march you up to the front door and get you inside myself."
"No, you won't," she laughed, taking her purse from Milo. "There's no way you'll let Grandfather or Mom and Dad catch you here. And for your information, I am going someplace. I'm eighteen now, Jason, and you don't get to dictate my life. Especially since you've been gone these past three years."
"Who's down there?" came that same voice from earlier. "Whoever it is, tell them to wrap it up because we've got plans!"
"Elizabeth," Milo affirmed with a nod when Jason turned to look at him. "That's the newest member of your family."
Jason growled at the newest Quartermaine's penchant for getting his sister to do things she had no business doing and tried to get a better look at the interloper. But the way they were standing, he couldn't quite get the right angle. And his mother was reading a medical journal in the library just a few doors over, so if he moved around too much he ran the risk of alerting her to his presence.
"Where are you girls going tonight?" Milo wanted to know.
"We're going to Jake's! Where else?" Elizabeth replied from her bedroom. They could hear her stomping around, presumably trying to put on her shoes. "98 Degrees is performing, and I'm going to lick Nick Lachey. I don't know how, I don't know when, but I will."
"Noble aspirations," Milo called out. "Anyway we can stop you girls from doing that?"
"Sorry! I've been planning our great escape all day. And you better not say a damn thing about it, because if Alan and Monica catch me sneaking out one more time, they said they'd take away my car. I'm already on thin ice because they found my secret stash of cigs this morning, and there's no way I'm missing this."
Sneaking out? Cigarettes? That settled it: this girl definitely wasn't a good influence on Emily. Jason was just about to say as much when she poked her head over the balcony edge, revealing a sweet heart-shaped face and bouncy dark curls that just could not be tamed, and for a moment he could only stare up at her.
Milo wasn't similarly affected. "Okay, so how would you feel if Jason and I went with you, just to make sure you didn't get yourselves into any trouble?"
She arched a brow and braced her arms on the ledge, giving the mute enforcer an excellent view of her toned arms and modest rack. "I've got a question for you – How would you feel if I came down on you, hard?"
Milo let out a sigh. "Okay, so you're saying you don't want me and Jason coming with you?"
Emily stifled a laugh as Elizabeth shook her head. "No, I'm saying I need you to move just a little to the right – you're going to break my fall."
"What?" he yelped, alarmed. "Elizabeth, no! You're not going to use me to break your fall!"
"Just a little to the left, Milo – quit moving!"
"What? No!"
"Stop moving! I'm coming down!"
"No! Don't jump on me!"
"I'm falling!"
"DON'T JUMP ON ME!"
Jason leapt forward as soon as Elizabeth lowered herself off the balcony by way of a sturdy tree branch and then swung to the ground one and a half stories below her. His quick reflexes were entirely to thank as he managed to catch her before she hit the ground, and Jason stared at her as he held her cradled in his arms.
This was Elizabeth's first good look at Emily's derelict brother, and she was similarly struck as he had been earlier. An impish grin made her lips curl as she threw her arm around his neck and tossed her curls over her shoulder.
"Wow, am I glad you and me aren't biologically related."
« Last Edit: Dec 18, 2007, 11:36am by Huma the Guma »
The End.