song
part 1: love at first sight
Premise: The future? LiRic, mentions of Journey, Liason, and L&L2.
*
No rest without love, no sleep without dreams.
-- From the poem 'Song' by Allen Ginsberg
*
It had all become muscle memory. She picked up the glasses off of the table and placed them onto the tray, placed the tray down on the chair, wiped off the table, picked up the tray, pushed the chairs in, moved on to the next table. It was a routine, one she had to stick with, because she knew that if she didn't, her façade might just crumble and then people would see how much she was hurting.
The anger, the betrayal, the pain-that was the worst. Feeling as though she had taken a chance on people, put her faith in them, and they had crushed that underneath their shoes, not caring, not ever looking back, not even bothering to tell her.
Elizabeth Webber was tired of being treated like she was expendable. She was tired of being taken for granted. Lucky did it; Lucky was probably the worst of all, because of how much she had loved him. He had known that she would just always be there, and he had thought that even after he had moved on to Sarah. Her own sister. Jason did it, and somehow that betrayal had hurt more, the sting more bitter, because she had thought that he was going to fight for her, was going to try to regain her affection. Instead, he had simply moved on to a dumb blonde. That was what Lucky had done, too.
She had seen him in Kelly's with the New Girl. She had never seen her before, but it didn't matter, because she had seen a hundred like her. Was this what Helena Cassadine had done to him? Given him bad taste in women? The resemblance to Lucky's own mother, Laura, was stunning, but that wasn't what had stung about it. It was Lucky and Sarah. It was Jason and Courtney. It was Lucky and this new girl. It was a symbol of every man she had loved and failed to win.
She picked up the glasses off of the next table, put them on top of plates, put them on the tray, placed them on the chair, wiped off the table. It would be better, she decided, if I just got amnesia. Then I could start over. What I have instead is boxcars and leather jackets, guitars and baseball bats, bracelets and motorcycles. She didn't even know if she had any right to be angry with Jason for his so-called betrayal. It was like Courtney had said, Courtney, the hypocrite, Courtney, the married woman, Courtney, the pretty blonde who had pretended to be her friend. Elizabeth had told Jason it would never work out, and she left.
What Courtney missed out on was that Jason was supposed to follow her. Chase her. Try and win her back.
Something stopped him, something less tangible than Courtney herself. Fear? Pride? Elizabeth didn't know. All she knew was that now she had lost him.
She smiled as a memory from the previous night crossed through her confused head. Well, there was one bright point, you showed up. Ric. Ric Lansing.
Did she even have any right to be thinking about him? She had ruined everything else in her life-did she want to go there with Ric? This was a friendship they were developing. She trusted him already, and that was a bad sign. If she handed her heart over to him, he would undoubtedly stomp on it, spit on it, and then stick it in a blender and act like nothing had happened. That's what everyone else had done. The thought of Ric left a different taste in her mouth than the thought of Jason had. This had nothing to do with Jason. At first, yes, she had entertained some fantasies of using such a gorgeous guy to make Jason jealous-but that was before. Before Courtney. Before she had seen him on television, before she found out he had been arrested for Luis Alcazar's murder. Her stomach had churned when she had seen that, her heart plummeted, her hands grown clammy, her mouth become dry. Not a thought for Jason had been in her head. Only Ric, all alone at the PCPD, hassled by Scott Baldwin and Marcus Taggert. He had no friends, no family, no one he could call or count on.
So she had gone. And she wasn't dumb; she had seen that look on his face when he had seen her. How was it that this guy could make her feel more like a woman than anyone else ever had? Lucky made her feel like a teeny- bopper, Jason, although giving her independence, made her feel like she couldn't take care of herself, like she needed a man to take care of her.
She had waited for him to call her, knowing that he probably wouldn't, but hoping-praying-that he would. And then he had shown up at Kelly's and smiled at her and told her that she was the bright point in the night.
She moved on to the next table, cleaning it up, placing plates on the tray, wiping the surface. Courtney had ducked out early again, gone to be with Jason, no doubt. The girl had no sensitivity, didn't care. All Courtney cared about was herself, her own needs. Elizabeth smiled as she remembered AJ in Kelly's the day before, angry with Courtney. The girl was self- destructive. It was just a shame she was going to take Jason down with her.
Paint in her hair. Helping with the register. Snowballs on the dock. Hot chocolate and guitar on Christmas Eve. The bickering, the sensitivity. He talked to her differently than he talked to Carly. He was softer, warmer. He was HumanRic, not BusinessRic. It didn't matter, she liked both of them. She liked everything about him. The curve of his mouth, the twinkle in his eyes, the way he carried himself, his confidence. She was scared of him, though. What was his past? Where had he come from? What was he doing in Port Charles?
And worst of all, what if he was using her?
She wasn't going to get played. She wasn't.
She wished she had a closer female friend, someone she could talk to, someone her own age, someone who wasn't going to go after the man she thought she might have been in love with. A female friend would have assured her she was insane.
All she had right now was herself.
Her own strength.
Which didn't amount to much, but she was getting stronger every day. She had Zander, and she had Nik. But like everyone else, they were dealing with their own problems, and she didn't want to burden them. Em was who she needed. Or Lucky, the way he was before.
She finished clearing the tables and she put the tray up on the counter and crossed around the counter to the other side. How many times had she closed alone? How many times had she stood here, completely alone, standing strong in spite of everything? She had overcome so much, come so far, become a different person, and who had noticed?
Elizabeth Webber, who was once little Lizzie Webber, tossed her rag down beside the tray and stood behind the register, her eyes gazing out an empty Kelly's. Her memory, her imagination, filled in people, regulars, Alexis Davis, Sonny Corinthos, Carly Corinthos, Jasper Jax, Lucky, Luke Spencer, Bobbie Spencer, Scott Baldwin, Nikolas and Gia, and Jason. Courtney. And Ric. She could see faces, hear the laughter, talking, tinkling of glasses and utensils against plates. Was she stuck here forever?
Her arm moved and she accidentally knocked a glass down off of the counter and it shattered on the ground, breaking into a thousand pieces. Great, she thought. A metaphor. She picked up her rag again and bent to start cleaning it up.
As she picked up the last couple of pieces, a shard cut her hand, and she cried out.
"Elizabeth?" she heard, and she stood up slowly, clutching her now-injured and now-bleeding hand, pressing the once-white rag into the wound. "Are you okay?"
Ric. He stood on the steps leading upstairs, wearing a black button-up shirt, the sleeves pushed up, and dark gray slacks, nicely pressed. He looked tired, like he had been working, but he still looked beautiful. "Yeah," she said. "The glass-it . . . attacked me." She held up her hand to show him, trying to demonstrate to him that it wasn't a big deal, nothing to worry about.
"Let me look at that for you," he said to her, coming down from the stairs and crossing to the counter.
"It's not really a big deal-" she started, but he gave her a look that told her that he wasn't going to buy that. He sat down at the counter across from her, and he took her hand from her gently. She was surprised at how warm his hands were. He held his injured hand in his two hands, cradling it.
"It's just a scratch," he told her, looking at her and smiling. He was unassuming, not cocky with her. She liked that. "Do you-have a band-aid back there anywhere?"
"I'll do it later," she said flippantly.
"Well, at least wash it off. Clean the wound."
"I will," she said softly, with a smile. They made eye contact, his eyes locked with hers, for just a moment, a fleeting moment. He still held her hand in his, and he smiled at her, that slow, spreading smile. "Were you working?" she asked, trying to change the subject.
"On what?" he joked, pulling his hands away as she pulled hers away. "I don't have a job anymore."
"It could always be worse. You could work here," she teased him.
"I don't think that would be so bad."
"Oh, it is that bad," she assured him.
His eyes twinkled as he said, "Well, this place does have one thing going for it."
"Which is--?" she asked. She waited for him to say that she was the one thing going for it, but she should have known that that was too obvious, too obvious for someone as subtle as Ric.
"It's got a killer jukebox. Not to mention mediocre coffee." He grinned at her, clearly teasing her.
"Well, Carly likes you, doesn't she?" she asked, a hint of suspicion in her voice. She was jealous of Carly, had been jealous for a while. There were things Elizabeth wasn't jealous of-Carly's hair, Carly's figure, her fashion sense, or her hostility towards all people, but she was jealous of Carly's relationship with Jason. And her apparent relationship with Ric. "Maybe she can convince Sonny."
He watched her carefully, as though trying to figure out what her game was. She wasn't even sure she had a game. "Carly is a . . . . business associate. Or rather, she was."
"Do you-want a drink?" she asked him.
"Water would be fine."
She turned and got him a glass of water with her uninjured hand and then turned back to Ric. She handed the glass to him, and as she did, their hands brushed. He looked at her, and then he placed the glass down on the counter. He took her uninjured hand in his own, and then covered it with his other one. "Did I-did I ever thank you for coming down to the police station?" he asked her.
She looked down at their joined hands and smiled. "No. You didn't. But I don't need to be--"
He brought her hand to his lips and pursed them slightly in a kiss. "Elizabeth. Thank you."
"I just had to go. I saw you on the TV, and I had to go."
He looked at her, her hand still at his mouth, and as he spoke, she could feel his lip moving against her knuckles. "Would you want to go and do something?"
"Now?" she asked. She didn't know if he was asking her out or not, but if he was, she wanted to go. She wanted to go so bad.
But she was scared.
"Yeah, now," he replied, grinning.
"I have to-I have to close the store." She watched his face fall, just slightly, but she saw the disappointment. Come on, Elizabeth, she told herself. Come on. Just say yes. Tell him that you don't know what this is, but you want to give it a try. Kiss him. Just do it. "But-tomorrow? We could do something tomorrow."
The light in his eyes came back, and he smiled again. He released her hand, and he stood up, taking the water with him. "Tomorrow then. I'll find you here?"
She chuckled lightly, and she said, "Yes. You'll find me here."
"Good." He stood and turned and walked back up the stairs. She watched him go with a biting regret. She had to trust it, she had to let herself feel the feelings towards him that were coming so quickly, so suddenly.
"Tomorrow then," she echoed softly.
To be continued . . .
Was tired of running out of luck Thinking 'bout giving up yeah Didn't know what to do Then there was you
-- "Love at First Sight", Kylie Minogue
Premise: The future? LiRic, mentions of Journey, Liason, and L&L2.
*
No rest without love, no sleep without dreams.
-- From the poem 'Song' by Allen Ginsberg
*
It had all become muscle memory. She picked up the glasses off of the table and placed them onto the tray, placed the tray down on the chair, wiped off the table, picked up the tray, pushed the chairs in, moved on to the next table. It was a routine, one she had to stick with, because she knew that if she didn't, her façade might just crumble and then people would see how much she was hurting.
The anger, the betrayal, the pain-that was the worst. Feeling as though she had taken a chance on people, put her faith in them, and they had crushed that underneath their shoes, not caring, not ever looking back, not even bothering to tell her.
Elizabeth Webber was tired of being treated like she was expendable. She was tired of being taken for granted. Lucky did it; Lucky was probably the worst of all, because of how much she had loved him. He had known that she would just always be there, and he had thought that even after he had moved on to Sarah. Her own sister. Jason did it, and somehow that betrayal had hurt more, the sting more bitter, because she had thought that he was going to fight for her, was going to try to regain her affection. Instead, he had simply moved on to a dumb blonde. That was what Lucky had done, too.
She had seen him in Kelly's with the New Girl. She had never seen her before, but it didn't matter, because she had seen a hundred like her. Was this what Helena Cassadine had done to him? Given him bad taste in women? The resemblance to Lucky's own mother, Laura, was stunning, but that wasn't what had stung about it. It was Lucky and Sarah. It was Jason and Courtney. It was Lucky and this new girl. It was a symbol of every man she had loved and failed to win.
She picked up the glasses off of the next table, put them on top of plates, put them on the tray, placed them on the chair, wiped off the table. It would be better, she decided, if I just got amnesia. Then I could start over. What I have instead is boxcars and leather jackets, guitars and baseball bats, bracelets and motorcycles. She didn't even know if she had any right to be angry with Jason for his so-called betrayal. It was like Courtney had said, Courtney, the hypocrite, Courtney, the married woman, Courtney, the pretty blonde who had pretended to be her friend. Elizabeth had told Jason it would never work out, and she left.
What Courtney missed out on was that Jason was supposed to follow her. Chase her. Try and win her back.
Something stopped him, something less tangible than Courtney herself. Fear? Pride? Elizabeth didn't know. All she knew was that now she had lost him.
She smiled as a memory from the previous night crossed through her confused head. Well, there was one bright point, you showed up. Ric. Ric Lansing.
Did she even have any right to be thinking about him? She had ruined everything else in her life-did she want to go there with Ric? This was a friendship they were developing. She trusted him already, and that was a bad sign. If she handed her heart over to him, he would undoubtedly stomp on it, spit on it, and then stick it in a blender and act like nothing had happened. That's what everyone else had done. The thought of Ric left a different taste in her mouth than the thought of Jason had. This had nothing to do with Jason. At first, yes, she had entertained some fantasies of using such a gorgeous guy to make Jason jealous-but that was before. Before Courtney. Before she had seen him on television, before she found out he had been arrested for Luis Alcazar's murder. Her stomach had churned when she had seen that, her heart plummeted, her hands grown clammy, her mouth become dry. Not a thought for Jason had been in her head. Only Ric, all alone at the PCPD, hassled by Scott Baldwin and Marcus Taggert. He had no friends, no family, no one he could call or count on.
So she had gone. And she wasn't dumb; she had seen that look on his face when he had seen her. How was it that this guy could make her feel more like a woman than anyone else ever had? Lucky made her feel like a teeny- bopper, Jason, although giving her independence, made her feel like she couldn't take care of herself, like she needed a man to take care of her.
She had waited for him to call her, knowing that he probably wouldn't, but hoping-praying-that he would. And then he had shown up at Kelly's and smiled at her and told her that she was the bright point in the night.
She moved on to the next table, cleaning it up, placing plates on the tray, wiping the surface. Courtney had ducked out early again, gone to be with Jason, no doubt. The girl had no sensitivity, didn't care. All Courtney cared about was herself, her own needs. Elizabeth smiled as she remembered AJ in Kelly's the day before, angry with Courtney. The girl was self- destructive. It was just a shame she was going to take Jason down with her.
Paint in her hair. Helping with the register. Snowballs on the dock. Hot chocolate and guitar on Christmas Eve. The bickering, the sensitivity. He talked to her differently than he talked to Carly. He was softer, warmer. He was HumanRic, not BusinessRic. It didn't matter, she liked both of them. She liked everything about him. The curve of his mouth, the twinkle in his eyes, the way he carried himself, his confidence. She was scared of him, though. What was his past? Where had he come from? What was he doing in Port Charles?
And worst of all, what if he was using her?
She wasn't going to get played. She wasn't.
She wished she had a closer female friend, someone she could talk to, someone her own age, someone who wasn't going to go after the man she thought she might have been in love with. A female friend would have assured her she was insane.
All she had right now was herself.
Her own strength.
Which didn't amount to much, but she was getting stronger every day. She had Zander, and she had Nik. But like everyone else, they were dealing with their own problems, and she didn't want to burden them. Em was who she needed. Or Lucky, the way he was before.
She finished clearing the tables and she put the tray up on the counter and crossed around the counter to the other side. How many times had she closed alone? How many times had she stood here, completely alone, standing strong in spite of everything? She had overcome so much, come so far, become a different person, and who had noticed?
Elizabeth Webber, who was once little Lizzie Webber, tossed her rag down beside the tray and stood behind the register, her eyes gazing out an empty Kelly's. Her memory, her imagination, filled in people, regulars, Alexis Davis, Sonny Corinthos, Carly Corinthos, Jasper Jax, Lucky, Luke Spencer, Bobbie Spencer, Scott Baldwin, Nikolas and Gia, and Jason. Courtney. And Ric. She could see faces, hear the laughter, talking, tinkling of glasses and utensils against plates. Was she stuck here forever?
Her arm moved and she accidentally knocked a glass down off of the counter and it shattered on the ground, breaking into a thousand pieces. Great, she thought. A metaphor. She picked up her rag again and bent to start cleaning it up.
As she picked up the last couple of pieces, a shard cut her hand, and she cried out.
"Elizabeth?" she heard, and she stood up slowly, clutching her now-injured and now-bleeding hand, pressing the once-white rag into the wound. "Are you okay?"
Ric. He stood on the steps leading upstairs, wearing a black button-up shirt, the sleeves pushed up, and dark gray slacks, nicely pressed. He looked tired, like he had been working, but he still looked beautiful. "Yeah," she said. "The glass-it . . . attacked me." She held up her hand to show him, trying to demonstrate to him that it wasn't a big deal, nothing to worry about.
"Let me look at that for you," he said to her, coming down from the stairs and crossing to the counter.
"It's not really a big deal-" she started, but he gave her a look that told her that he wasn't going to buy that. He sat down at the counter across from her, and he took her hand from her gently. She was surprised at how warm his hands were. He held his injured hand in his two hands, cradling it.
"It's just a scratch," he told her, looking at her and smiling. He was unassuming, not cocky with her. She liked that. "Do you-have a band-aid back there anywhere?"
"I'll do it later," she said flippantly.
"Well, at least wash it off. Clean the wound."
"I will," she said softly, with a smile. They made eye contact, his eyes locked with hers, for just a moment, a fleeting moment. He still held her hand in his, and he smiled at her, that slow, spreading smile. "Were you working?" she asked, trying to change the subject.
"On what?" he joked, pulling his hands away as she pulled hers away. "I don't have a job anymore."
"It could always be worse. You could work here," she teased him.
"I don't think that would be so bad."
"Oh, it is that bad," she assured him.
His eyes twinkled as he said, "Well, this place does have one thing going for it."
"Which is--?" she asked. She waited for him to say that she was the one thing going for it, but she should have known that that was too obvious, too obvious for someone as subtle as Ric.
"It's got a killer jukebox. Not to mention mediocre coffee." He grinned at her, clearly teasing her.
"Well, Carly likes you, doesn't she?" she asked, a hint of suspicion in her voice. She was jealous of Carly, had been jealous for a while. There were things Elizabeth wasn't jealous of-Carly's hair, Carly's figure, her fashion sense, or her hostility towards all people, but she was jealous of Carly's relationship with Jason. And her apparent relationship with Ric. "Maybe she can convince Sonny."
He watched her carefully, as though trying to figure out what her game was. She wasn't even sure she had a game. "Carly is a . . . . business associate. Or rather, she was."
"Do you-want a drink?" she asked him.
"Water would be fine."
She turned and got him a glass of water with her uninjured hand and then turned back to Ric. She handed the glass to him, and as she did, their hands brushed. He looked at her, and then he placed the glass down on the counter. He took her uninjured hand in his own, and then covered it with his other one. "Did I-did I ever thank you for coming down to the police station?" he asked her.
She looked down at their joined hands and smiled. "No. You didn't. But I don't need to be--"
He brought her hand to his lips and pursed them slightly in a kiss. "Elizabeth. Thank you."
"I just had to go. I saw you on the TV, and I had to go."
He looked at her, her hand still at his mouth, and as he spoke, she could feel his lip moving against her knuckles. "Would you want to go and do something?"
"Now?" she asked. She didn't know if he was asking her out or not, but if he was, she wanted to go. She wanted to go so bad.
But she was scared.
"Yeah, now," he replied, grinning.
"I have to-I have to close the store." She watched his face fall, just slightly, but she saw the disappointment. Come on, Elizabeth, she told herself. Come on. Just say yes. Tell him that you don't know what this is, but you want to give it a try. Kiss him. Just do it. "But-tomorrow? We could do something tomorrow."
The light in his eyes came back, and he smiled again. He released her hand, and he stood up, taking the water with him. "Tomorrow then. I'll find you here?"
She chuckled lightly, and she said, "Yes. You'll find me here."
"Good." He stood and turned and walked back up the stairs. She watched him go with a biting regret. She had to trust it, she had to let herself feel the feelings towards him that were coming so quickly, so suddenly.
"Tomorrow then," she echoed softly.
To be continued . . .
Was tired of running out of luck Thinking 'bout giving up yeah Didn't know what to do Then there was you
-- "Love at First Sight", Kylie Minogue