Title: The Nurse and The Scoundrel (The Beauty and The Beast)

Author: Jailynn

Fandom: General Hospital

Couple: AJ Quartermaine/Elizabeth Webber

Rating: PG-13 (with the potential to move to R)

Summary: He feared he would be alone forever, because really who could ever learn to love a beast?

Feedback: Oh please.

Word Count: 1839

Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine. They belong to ABC and other more important people.

Prologue: A Monster Alone, A Nurse on her Own

White, gray smoke curled from the engine into the night sky. A loud horn pierced the otherwise quiet night. A man groaned, pinned to the wreckage by a safety belt across his chest. Rolling his tongue in his mouth, he tasted the rich coppery taste of his own blood. The fluid was thick in his mouth and the sensation of it made his stomach turn and knot. His left hand fumbled with the button release on the seat belt, pressing his thumb hard into the red plastic. All at once the tight cord released, sending him hard into the steering wheel.

AJ Quartermaine opened one blurry eye, then the other, looking all around him at the over turned cars and destruction. His stomach rolled again at all the damage. It was too much. He shut his eyes forcibly hoping it was all a nightmare. One he would wake up from at any given moment. Like now. Now would be a good time. He chanced a glance outside his shattered window again. Nothing had changed. In fact it had gotten worse. Because his vision had cleared a little, things, details came into clearer focus. He could make out one of the other cars, a red Ford Focus, turned over onto it's roof. He could see an outline of something, please don't let it be a body, next to another car, this time a light silver BMW SUV, in a ditch.

He shook his head, wanting to shake the scene clear from his thoughts like a kid shook an Etch-a-sketch to rid it of a picture. The throbbing in his head that AJ didn't realize was there originally began to hurt in earnest. He pushed gently at the dented and broken door. The glass crumbled from the frame of the door to crash onto the dark, wet pavement at his feet. Red colored his vision. He stumbled, his knees slamming to the hard ground, causing him to grunt and groan in pain.

Bending his head toward his chest, he wiped at his eyes, removing some of the red. He pulled his hand away, fascinated by the blood that covered it. His. His blood. Oozing from his head and onto the rock under him. Another wave of nausea hit, barreling through his insides like a train speeding down the tracks. He turned his head and released some of the sickness, shutting his eyes to avoid looking at the mess. Tasting it was enough.

The convulsing eased after a while and he tried to stand. His feet felt heavy, his limbs felt like lead swinging from his body. AJ moved with slow calculated steps toward the other vehicles. He checked the red one first since it was the closest to him, "Hey," he called with a strangled voice. Swallowing as much as he could against the saw paper that was his throat, he tried again. "Hey, are you alright?"

The smell of gasoline punched through his hazy existence, it got stronger the closer he got to the little car. He leaned down to see if he could help the others in the accident. His heart jumped into his throat. Dead. Two teens, probably on a date, probably not even old enough to enjoy anything, were dead. AJ couldn't make out their features because all he saw was Michael's face on the boy's. His son. What if this had been his son? The girl in the seat next to him was not much younger than her boyfriend.

AJ looked away. He couldn't stare into those faces any longer. He made his way over to the other car but before he got there he saw what the outline was. A woman. In her forties. Her legs bent at an odd angle, her nice dress covered in grime, her breathing labored. Her chest rose and fell rapidly and her eyes were wild. He glanced over her with worried eyes.

"Hey," he whispered because he somehow knew that yelling would not be the brightest move right now. "What's your name? Do you know your name?"

"What," she stopped, her breathing increased. "What happened?"

"An accident," he reached over and took her hand in his. It was cold. "There was a car accident."

Her head turned, her glazed over eyes, sharpened, "You. You caused it."

"Wha..." he lost his words at her venomous statement.

"You caused it." Her tone grew stronger even as her grip on his hand loosened and her body temperature dropped further. "You always cause it. It's always you. You're a monster AJ Quartermaine. A beast. You are and will always be a beast."

Her face changed, lines that were minimal, deepened, creasing her features. Her blue eyes turned silvery, glimmering in the moonlight. Her light brown hair that was tinted with red, suddenly became coal black. AJ fell back, dropping her hand. His own hands slamming into the concrete, pain blazed up his arms.

"All your fault," another voice. AJ turned his head and came face to face with the teens, one of them wearing Michael's face. This time there was no mistaking it. It was his son accusing him. "You shot your father, my grandfather. You tried to kill your own brother. You are everything my mother said you were. A monster."

"You don't understand," AJ started to explain but was swiftly cut off by a chorus of chants from all the bodies around him, now including Jason and Alan and Carly and all the others he hurt along the way.

"A monster!"

"You deserve to die."

"You are a beast."

"No one will ever love you!"

"Who could ever love a beast?"

AJ shot up in bed. His hands shaking, his forehead covered in sweat. He tried to take in oxygen but his lungs weren't working. His heart was pounding in his chest. His hand shook as he reached for the glass of water that was on his nightstand in the his bedroom at the Quartermaine mansion. The liquid coated his throat, but didn't wash away the sick taste that was rising in his jugular.

It was just a dream.

But the words in it were never more truthful, he was a beast.

Everyone thought so, even him.

Light broke through the shades and onto the bed. Waking up the sleeping woman. Breaking into the dream that cause her throat to hurt from unreleased screams. Elizabeth Webber opened one eye, staring at the clock on her nightstand. She buried the side of her head into the pillow, refusing to give into the light and the time. She placed a slender hand against her face, her eyes snapping open at the wetness she found.

Stumbling from the nice warm covers into the bathroom, she flicked on the light and looked into the mirror. Her long brown hair fell around her face into broken waves. There were creases on her cheek from the pillow. And there were tears, ones she didn't remember shedding, sliding from her eyes. The air became thin around her. Her throat was closing up on her.

"Breathe," she commanded as she stood in front of the mirror, tear stains on her cheeks. "Breathe."

The word pushed from her pink, chapped lips in a gush. Her heart pounded, stopped and pounded again. Her stomach twitched with nervous energy. Her palms were moist with perspiration. Every cell in her body bounced, flickering through her system. She couldn't remember ever feeling this way.

Blue eyes, her blue eyes, stared at her from the looking glass. Elizabeth could see her own pain clearly. It didn't make sense. Why should she be hurting? Why should she want to curl up on her comforter and turn out all the lights? She walked into her room, glancing quickly at her calender. The answer reveal itself. The number, the month, the memory. Her knees started to shake.

Jake.

Her sweet, sweet boy. One year. It's been a year already.

The air she had just forced into her lungs, left her, punched from her stomach as if someone balled up their fist and slammed it into her. Her eyes clouded with tears, gathering at the corners and slipping out the sides. Liz wrapped her arms around her waist to ward off a chill that was freezing her spine. She had almost forgotten, only she hadn't.

Something inside her hadn't.

Her broken and bruised heart remembered. Recalled the pain that she had tried, and thought she had succeeded, to numb. It was so easy to pretend. To act like all was right with the world. Like a piece wasn't missing.

Jake...

The floor tilted underneath her and she fell to the bed. One year. He would have been five. He would have been getting ready for school. He would have been learning his numbers and letters, working out new words to say. He would have been...

But he wasn't. He wasn't given a chance. Sometimes she hated Luke, when she remembered what happened, what he did. Other times she can almost believe that it was someone else. Someone she didn't know behind the wheel. Someone she didn't consider another father, maybe the closest father she had because her other one, her real one, hadn't been in her life for a while.

She felt alone. Her father wasn't in her life. Her sister, God she hasn't seen her sister in forever. Lucky was gone. Robin- her best friend- gone. Her brother was in prison. Jason was dead... Jake... People she loved. People she lost. Her heart throbbed, burning with pain and some anger. Why did life have to hurt so bad some times? What did she do to deserve this?

She shook her head, hard. She couldn't dwell on this. She still had two other boys, beautiful boys, that needed her. Steeling her resolve, forcing her spine to straighten, Liz shed her last tear. She could break down again later, maybe tonight when all the lights were out, maybe in her dreams like she had this morning. It didn't matter when, as long as it wasn't now.

Getting up, she grabbed her robe from the back of her vanity chair and wrapped it around her thin body. Tying it off, she opened the door and slapped a smile on her face. It was time to be mommy. It was time to lock the agony away and be the rock her family needed her to be. Her phone beeped on the nightstand. Liz walked over to it, grinning a little more genuinely. It was from AJ.

"Smile though your heart is aching smile even though it's breaking. Nat King Cole. Genius. I know this is a tough time but if you need a friend, I'm here. Like you've been for me."

She held the phone to her heart and took a breath. Her first easy one since she woke up. Liz walked a little more confidently toward the door. Maybe she could face the day after all.