To this day I still can't wrap my mind around how easy everyone let Elizabeth off the hook for keeping Jason hostage for seven months and keeping him away from Danny, so I need to get it off my chest. She's going down!

Chapter 1

Samantha Morgan was getting angry. Her stiletto boots carried her lithe body across Patrick's living room at a rapid pace, back and forth, increasing in momentum the angrier she got. Laura Spencer had just outright lied to her face, she knew it! Elizabeth Webber had known who Jason was for awhile and Laura knew it too, but had just tried to convince Sam that she was being paranoid thinking that they were keeping a secret about Jason. Sam spent years as a con so she knew a tale when she heard one, and what Laura had just spun was nothing but a tale. Suddenly Sam recalled the day that Laura had stopped by the house unexpectedly, only to tell Sam and Patrick that she just wanted to check up on them to see how they were. It was apparent now that Laura had wanted to come clean that day, but something changed her mind and she left without saying a word. Who else, Sam wondered silently, who else had that valuable knowledge and had kept it away from them? Who else had taken it upon themselves to run their lives and make decisions for them? She stopped short in the middle of the room, before spinning on her heels and grabbing her leather jacket on the way out the door. She needed answers, and there was one skanky bitch who had plenty.

It took Sam only ten minutes to get to the Webber house and as she knocked, she surveyed the porch with toys splayed everywhere and she remembered a time when it hurt her heart to see Elizabeth's happy little home, scattered with the love and light of children, when she had been labeled to never be able to know that joy. Now, she merely shook her head at the irony and falsehood of it all. As the feline in question opened the door to her knock, Sam looked at her with mirrored disgust and displeasure.

"Sam, what are you doing here?"

"We need to talk," Sam pushed past her into the house.

She stood with the door still open, inviting Sam to exit back through, "this is not a good time."

"That's too damn bad, now isn't it?" Sam was determined to get answers this time. She walked over in front of the couch and turned to face the woman, letting her see that she meant business. "I'm not going anywhere until you tell me just how long you've been keeping Jason's identity from him."

The astute PI in Sam didn't miss the panicked look that flew across the nurse's face, despite how brief it was.

"What the hell are you babbling on about now, Sam?" She closed the door and moved into the room to face Sam, trying her best not to show her rising fear.

"You, knew, didn't you, Elizabeth? You knew all along?"

"Knew what? I don't know what you're talking about."

Sam advanced on her slowly, eyes trained on her lying orbs as they darted to the left and she raised her head another inch. "You knew damn well that Jake Doe was Jason, and you kept it to yourself! How long, Elizabeth? How long have you known?"

"Sam, I want you to leave my house right now, please. I don't have time for another one of your delirious tirades." Elizabeth's heart was beating a mile minute. How could she have figured it out? She was never supposed to know, nobody was ever supposed to know, especially Jason.

Sam decided to call her bluff. "Laura gave you away. She was just at my house and she admitted that you've known all along who Jason was." Sam watched her closely.

Elizabeth smiled coyly at Sam, "now I know you're lying. Laura would never do that." She knew how much Laura loved her and would never give her away, no matter how wrong she thought she was. Sam was obviously pulling at straws. "I really need for you to leave now, I need to get supper ready for my family, my fiancé and the boys will be hungry when they get home." She turned towards the door but Sam wasn't done, not nearly. Sam grabbed her arm and spun her back around.

"Your fiancé? Jason is my husband, you delusional twit! Just because you lure a helpless, trusting, amnesiac man into your bed and whitewash his life with your lies and manipulations, doesn't make it real, and it doesn't make him any less my husband!"

Elizabeth spat out angrily, "Jason loves me. Jason and I were supposed to be together years ago, but the mob, you, Carly, you all kept getting in the way. Well, guess what Sam, Jason doesn't remember that life anymore. He wants a life with me and my boys, and we're happy, just like we would've always been if you people would've just left us alone."

Sam was seeing red now, "oh, sure…he loved you so much that he married me and started a family with me! He loved you so much that no matter how many sick games you tried to play with our lives he always left your sorry ass pining after him while he came home to me." Sam didn't care about her feelings anymore, she'd had enough of tiptoeing around this bitch. "What the hell is the matter with you? Do you honestly think that you can just bury your head in the sand and it'll make your fairytale real? Jason had a life, he had a family, we mourned and mourned him, Elizabeth! He was cruelly ripped out of our lives, ripped away from everyone and everything he cared about…how could you keep his life from him and then say you love him?"

"I'm not keeping anything from Jason. He doesn't want the violence in his life anymore, he's happy." She stepped closer towards Sam, her hands wringing together anxiously as she tried to be convincing, "so are you, Sam. You've moved on, you have Patrick and you're building a life together. Please, Sam, just leave Jason and I alone, go be happy with Patrick."

Sam whipped her head back, a dry laugh escaping at the woman's immense delusion. "You think people are just interchangeable to suit your crazy little whims, Elizabeth? You really think just because you want it to be that way that Jason is just going to turn his back on his old life, on the people he loved, the family that we built together, just so that you can live in some fantasy world that you dreamt up in your pea brained head?" Sam was yelling at her in frustration now, "Jason is a person, Elizabeth! A living, breathing, for real person with his own feelings and wants. He gets to make his own choices for his life, not you, not me, not anyone else, and if you were any kind of a woman you would want a man to want you for you, to choose you for what you uniquely bring to a relationship." Sam shook her head pitifully at her, "not you though, no, you stalk and manipulate, and settle for any lie that will get my husband into your bed." Sam was walking up on her again, two seconds from beating that ass, "but you can't keep him can you, Elizabeth? You've never been able to, and this time will be no different!"

Elizabeth moved towards the door again, "I'm done having this pointless conversation, Sam. You need to leave, right now!" She swung open the door as she yelled, "get out!" startled to find Jason standing on the doorstep, just about to open the door from the outside.

Jason looked from one angry woman to the other and his heart raced. "What's going on in here?"

Neither were quick to answer. He stepped over the threshold into the room and turned to Elizabeth, "what did I walk in on?"

Sam moved towards them, looking at Elizabeth. "Go ahead, Elizabeth. Tell him."

"Tell me what?" Jason was more than a little confused and didn't like the tension in the room one bit. He was aware that the two women were not friends, and since he found out who he was and asked Sam for a divorce, they had been even colder to one another, but they had managed to remain cordial for the kids' benefit. He didn't know what had happen to set them off, but he knew that he needed to get to the bottom of it - they were both the mother of his child and for his sons' sake, he needed to keep them in good standing with each other. "Somebody please tell me what I missed." Elizabeth looked white as a sheet and Sam was more than a little angry, and if the angry words Elizabeth had just yelled as she opened the door was any indication, they were not about to shake and make up.

Sam was antsy and angry. "Elizabeth, either you tell Jason, or I will!"

"Tell me what?" Jason looked questionably at Elizabeth who was wiping her hands furiously down her jeans.

She stated demurely, "Sam still can't accept that you've moved on and want to marry me, instead of her, and I'm just trying to get her to see how unhealthy it is that she won't accept what's right in front of her."

Sam reached out and grabbed her by the ponytail and yanked back, hard. "Really, bitch? You think this is a joke? You think my son's and my lives are a fucking joke?"

Jason leapt forward to defend his frightened fiancé, grabbing Sam's hand and pulling her away from Elizabeth. "Sam, what the hell?"

But she'd had enough. Sam was nearing a boiling point and she took aim at Jason now, yanking her arm away from his hold. "What the hell, my ass Jason! What the hell are YOU doing? How long are you going to run around here with your head stuck so far up this whiny bitch's ass that you can't even see what's right in front of you?" She took two steps back, shaking her head as they both stared at her as if she'd lost her mind. "This is your last chance Elizabeth, tell him now, or I will."

Jason wasn't going to listen to anymore. "That's it, get out of our house."

Sam looked at him in shock. He was angry, at her? "Jason…"

"I said get out, NOW!"

Elizabeth was looking from one to the other, holding her breath, not daring to breathe. Oh, God, please don't let Sam spill her secret, not now, not when she was finally so close to getting what she's always wanted. Jason was finally hers, and in just a few short weeks, he would become her husband, the way it should've been from the start. Jason was finally done with the tramp, he was angrier than she had ever seen him, and Elizabeth was both scared and happy, he wasn't listening to the con artist. He was taking her side and kicking the tramp out.

In a lightning flash, Sam was across the room, but she wasn't moving to the door like they hoped. Instead, she lunged at Jason and shoved his chest with all her might. He staggered back in shock, his mouth falling open as she screamed at him, "get out? Get out of your home?" She reared up and shoved him again, this time pushing him all the way back into the small table by the window. "Fuck you, Jason and fuck you, Elizabeth!" Sam turned towards the spineless woman who cowered away from her, expecting Sam to shove her too. But Sam was more interested in Jason. She whipped back around to him just as he regained his balance, only to stand and stare at her in shock. "You DO NOT get to belittle and degrade me, not ever, and most definitely not for her, not ever again!"

Jason found his voice finally. "You're attacking Elizabeth without provocation and I will not have it, and not in our home!" Elizabeth had been nothing but good and loving to him and he would not allow his soon to be ex-wife to enter her home and attack her. He had just finished defending her to Carly as well - why couldn't they see Elizabeth for the saint she was and love her like he did? He simply could not understand why the two women continued to dislike his fiancé, adamantly refusing to acknowledge her place in his life.

Sam was screaming at him again and instinctively he sank his feet into the ground, bracing for the moment that she would shove him again. "Elizabeth is not as defenseless and saintly as you think, Jason. She has never been, but you've always had her up on a pedestal, worshipping at her feet like she could do no wrong. Well, guess what, dear husband? Your Saint Elizabeth has been lying to you for months, haven't you princess?"

Elizabeth turned earnest eyes to look at Jason, "I have no idea what she's talking about, I just want her to leave."

"What are you gonna do if I don't Elizabeth, you gonna call the cops?" She turned and sauntered back towards Jason as she quipped, "oh wait, maybe my big bad enforcer husband will toss me out on my ass for you?" She shook her head deridingly at him, "no? Then maybe he'll threaten to kill me again for you?" She kept shaking her head at him, "no? Oh, that's right, Jason Morgan's lifestyle is too dangerous for this version of you. You're mild mannered, jovial Jason now, living in your homey little cottage with your mousy little housewife and two point five kids, leading the mundane, uneventful existence you've always craved. Where's the dog, huh? What's for dinner, meatloaf?" She became less threatening as she stared directly into his baby blues searchingly "except, guess what Jason? That's not who you are! It never was, and it's never going to be, no matter how much you and Suzie homemaker over there want to pretend that it is."

Her stilettos clicked against the floor as she moved towards the door, suddenly drained and anxious to get the hell away from both of them. She continued, "when this laughable house of cards start crumbling all around you, I hope you'll be able to find a little bit of my Jason left, to keep you from crashing down with it." She shoved past Elizabeth, forcefully smashing her bony shoulder, "that's if this pathetic bitch hasn't completely taken your balls by then." Sam stormed out the door, slamming it loudly behind her.

The room was deadly quiet after Sam left. Elizabeth stood on one side, staring at Jason with bated breath. Did he believe anything she said? How much damage control would she have to do? She wished he'd say something, anything, to give her an idea of where his mind was, but he just stared at the closed door, a look of on his face she could not read. She decided to get ahead of the damage and start fixing quickly.

"Jason, I hope you don't believe any of that. I hope you know that Sam is just bitter and unable to accept that you've chosen me again?" She moved to him quickly, placing a hand delicately on his arm, "please don't let any of those vile things that she said get to you."

He could hear her talking and he wanted to reassure and comfort her, he should reassure and comfort her, she was his fiancé, he was in love with her and people had been attacking her all day…but his heart was troubled with those thoughts and more. Why had Carly and Sam been so harsh about her? He knew that they really didn't like her very much, something that he couldn't wrap his mind around in the first place. Yes, there had been bad blood because of a past with him and he supposed there was some jealousy there, but Elizabeth was so sweet, so kind and giving, he just couldn't see how Carly and Sam continued to hate and distrust her, especially since they both had moved past their own issues with the old Jason and had become very good friends themselves. Why weren't they able to show Elizabeth the same kindness? When he was Jake Doe, both women had encouraged him to pursue his feelings for Elizabeth, had been happy for him when he proposed to her, and he could understand how they would've changed their minds about the marriage after he found out who he was, after all he was already married to Sam, but they had gone from being friendly and nice to Elizabeth to downright hating and distrusting her. It just didn't make any sense to him. He'd pleaded with Carly almost every day since he'd found out he was Jason Morgan, but she insisted on warning him at every turn, telling him what a mistake he was making, telling him how Elizabeth was lying and manipulating him. He'd gotten furious with Carly earlier that day for that very reason, and now Sam. In the year that he'd known Sam she had been a great friend and one of the first to forgive his transgressions when his mind was being controlled. She'd selflessly forgiven his attempt to kill her in her own home, and had become his friend, insisting that she understood he was under Helena's control at the time. At the time he couldn't understand why she wasn't afraid of him, why she didn't hate the very sight of him even, but then he'd gotten to know her and he found out how fearless and loyal she was. She genuinely cared about people, she understood his frustrations with his blank life, so much so that she went out of her way to help him put the pieces together, when Elizabeth had encouraged him to give up the search for his identity. In all that time, Sam was never cruel, or violent, or insensitive, so her behavior tonight threw him for a loop.

Something she'd said right before she left struck him harder than the rest, leaving a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach. He looked at Elizabeth to find her staring at him expectantly, a look of almost panic in her big brown eyes. He realized that she needed him to tell her that everything was okay. "What did she mean, threaten to kill her again for you?" Under Helena's control he had grabbed Sam and used her as an hostage when he'd freed Faison, but somehow, he knew that wasn't what she was talking about, because that had nothing to do with Elizabeth.

"What?" Elizabeth was thrown off guard by his question. She was expecting to have to come up with some quick lie about Sam's accusations, but here was something she could definitely use to her advantage over the hateful woman. "Oh," she began as she pulled him down by his arm so he would sit with her on the couch, "when our son was a baby, Sam watched him get kidnapped and did nothing. She watched us lose our minds for weeks and she said nothing, but you finally figured out what happened and got our baby back. She couldn't stand that you wanted to be a family with Jake and me, so she hired men with guns to scare us, hoping that I'd run away from being with you and that you would push us away because your life was too dangerous. You found out and threatened to kill her if she ever came near me or our family again, you told me all about it." She smiled and grabbed his hands, squeezing his fingers for emphasis as she continued, "you've always loved us more Jason, you've always protected us, even from Sam, and she can't stand that."

Jason was stunned. He could not reconcile the Sam that he had come to know over the past year, with the person that Elizabeth was describing. Sam lived for her son, would die for him, and she doted on other children. He couldn't believe that she would've put a child in danger like that. He stared at Elizabeth thoughtfully, and as he studied her beautiful face, he also noticed the look of cheshire satisfaction that danced in her eyes at his obvious shock at hearing about Sam. Something was so wrong here, but he couldn't put a finger on it. He rose restlessly from the couch and walked to the window, looking out into the darkness, hands shoved into the front pockets of his jeans. What the hell was going on? How had his quiet, happy existence suddenly gotten so complicated and noisy? His friends were annoyed with him, he was married to Sam and had a son with her, and his gentle, sweet fiancé was lying to him. Deep in his heart he knew there was some truth to Carly's and Sam's accusations, and he needed to find out what the hell was going on. He turned back to Elizabeth, who had risen from the couch and moved to stand behind him, rubbing his back. "What was Sam accusing you of lying about?"

He saw the hurt creep into her eyes, but not before he also saw the panic that she tried to mask. He found it disturbing as she repeated that she had no idea what Sam was talking about. He took her hands in his, stroking the back of them soothingly as he tried to coax her, "you know you can tell me anything, right?"

She smiled again, "of course I do. You know everything about me Jason, and you can trust me, you always have." She kissed his cheek lightly and said, "I have to finish the meatloaf, the boys will be home soon."

After she left for the kitchen, Jason stood in the middle of the living room, looking at the kitchen door, just as lost as when he'd walked in and found the two women arguing. He released a huge sigh, then turned for the front door. If he couldn't get answers at home, he'd go to the other source.