Summary: The truth about Jake's paternity is revealed.
Rated:NC-17
Disclaimer: I don't own them. I just write about them.
...Come What May
"He's my son."
Three little words. Life altering words. And rather than gauge the reactions of the three people he'd said them to, he concentrated on the sensation pouring through his veins. Freedom. He knew it would be short lived, that his momentary lapse would have far reaching consequences but he would savor this instant of having the burden of keeping this secret finally removed from his shoulders.
The silence was so thick that he could almost hear their thoughts racing. Here they stood in the middle of the Spencer living room bearing witness to life as they knew it changing forever. As his words finally began to penetrate through the thick wall of lies, all he could do was wait for the fallout. It wouldn't be pretty. Destroying lives, futures, and dreams couldn't come without pain and suffering.
Hatred.
If he thought he had enemies before, he knew they would be nothing compared to the one he'd just made in Lucky Spencer.
With three words, he'd stolen something precious from the man. All the reasoning and rationale made no difference and he was perfectly willing to accept the anger and resentment he knew he deserved. He thought he had learned this lesson with Michael and AJ, only it seemed he was doomed to make this mistake until he finally got it right.
Should he have remained silent? Should he have kept his promise to Elizabeth? The mother of his son who stood astonished and silently weeping next to the husband who was slowly pulling away from her in disgust. Those blue eyes that he cared for looked at him with such confused emotion. Yet what he saw underneath all of it was...relief. Relief that he had found the strength she lacked to expose the lie that was slowly tearing all of their lives apart.
He meant what he had told her all those months ago when she finally found the courage to tell him the truth about their child. He could never hate her. He would always care about her. Care about the young woman who had mourned the loss of her boyfriend, care about the woman who had been torn between two men. Care about the woman who had defended his hated enemy against him, who would never choose him.
Courtney had asked him once if he loved Elizabeth and he had denied it. For he really didn't have a word to describe how he felt about her. Perhaps he never would.
Then he chanced a glance at the woman who he would have done anything for. The woman who had stood by him, walked through hell and death with him. The woman who had changed everything he knew about love. The woman he had loved more than life itself. And if Sam thought him a stranger, if she wondered how she could ever have loved him, he could only mourn the loss of her. Miss the life they had once shared and know that he played the biggest role in their destruction.
He understood her anger with both him and Elizabeth. He deserved it, for he had done things this past year that he never thought he would. Made mistakes that a simple 'I'm sorry' could never repair. If he could go back, could he honestly say he would behave any differently?
At what point did the lie become betrayal? Was it the afternoons he and Elizabeth would bump into each other at the coffee shop? Or the evenings they would find each other on the bridge? When did he stop talking to Sam and turn away from her? When she woke from the coma and he broke things off with her? When he turned a deaf ear to her pleas? The night of the blackout?
Or had they been slowly tearing apart and neither of them not acknowledging that fact because it was better to love than to face the growing fractures?
All he knew was this woman standing across from him with that malicious smile wasn't the woman he loved anymore. And there was no way either of them could go home again, when once home had always been in her arms.
"You're lying," Lucky was the first to speak up, blinking several times as tears threatened to spill over. Though Lucky tried denial, Jason knew that the painful bullet of truth had pierced his heart. The light in his eyes was slowly dying away just as if he had pulled a physical trigger instead of an emotional one. "I don't know what you hope to gain by lying-"
"I'm not lying," he told the man quietly. "I have nothing to gain by lying. You know I'm not lying."
"Nothing to gain but my son," Lucky growled, taking a threatening step forward, "If you think I'm going to let you steal my son away from me, you'd better think again, Morgan."
"Jason," Elizabeth whispered and Sam began to laugh bitterly.
"Even now you're going to deny it, aren't you. You're such a lying slut. Hiding behind your halo of hypocracy, as if you're too good and perfect to have lied to Lucky all these months about Jake being his son."
"You don't know what you're talking about," Elizabeth shot back, though her voice was laced with tears and guilt.
"I know exactly what I'm talking about," Sam sneered. "You manipulated Jason into giving up his son and then lied to Lucky for months about being Jake's father. If that wasn't enough, you had to run to Jason for all of your problems so that he could save you even after you remarried Lucky. All so you could keep your perfect image squeaky clean and no one would see you for the liar you really are."
"That's enough Sam," he spoke up quietly and she turned that fury on him.
"Even now, you'll take up for her. God, Jason can't you see she's just using you. She's perfectly willing to steal your son from you and cry on your shoulder about her problems but she isn't willing to step up and be apart of your life."
"It's enough!"
"Why are you yelling at her?" Lucky finally found his voice again, "It seems she's just telling the truth. You and Elizabeth have been lying for months. For MONTHS about Jake being my-" he choked off painfully, scrubbing a hand over his face. Then he turned to his wife, "Has anything that you've said to me been the truth? Has one word out of your lying mouth ever been the truth!"
"Lucky, I was just trying-"
"To protect him?" Sam cut in, "Poor Lucky needed the martyr Elizabeth to protect him from himself? Is that the lie you use to justify your actions?" Sam shook her head, folding her arms over her chest, "You don't deserve a baby or Lucky."
"Is that what you've been hanging around Lucky for? Thinking you would turn him against me and then steal my baby from me? Do you realize how pathetic that sounds?"
"You have no idea what you're talking about!" Sam yelled and Jason could see her pain. Pain that he was responsible for. If it weren't for him, if she hadn't been involved with him, she would be able to have a child of her own. Had his lies and actions so warped Sam that this is what was left? "You don't love that baby, you just use it as a pawn to play Jason and Lucky against each other."
"This is getting us no where," Jason murmured, "No one is innocent here, none of us are without fault but I won't allow my bad choices to affect my son's life."
"You should have done this in the first place," Sam shouted, "If you and Elizabeth had just told the truth from the beginning, none of this would have happened. If you had just trusted me with the truth about your son, we would still be together."
Maybe she was right. Maybe not.
"I trusted you to help raise my daughter and you wouldn't do the same with me." She wiped a hand beneath her nose, quickly over her cheeks to catch the tears spilling from her eyes. "Instead you and Elizabeth chose to lie. You chose to sneak around with your secret."
"Who are you to question our choices?" Elizabeth demanded. "We were trying to do what was best for our son. And that's something you don't seem to remember, Sam. Jake is our son. Not yours."
"At least she was willing to tell the truth," Lucky growled, looking from his wife to him as the leash on his temper strained dangerously taut. "At least Sam wanted me to know the truth about my wife, my wife, who has been lying to me for months. Letting me believe that another man's child was my son. That he was a Spencer, when it was a lie all along."
"Sam doesn't care about you," Elizabeth shouted, "All she cares about is hurting me and trying to make me pay because she thinks I'm the reason she and Jason broke up."
"You are the reason!" Sam pointed out, "If it weren't for you, none of this would have happened. You were married and you slept with another man. If you hadn't climbed fifteen flights of stairs in the black out so that you could sleep with Jason, none of this would have happened!"
"I might have climbed fifteen flights of stairs," Elizabeth began quietly, "But you were already sleeping with Ric by then, so don't you dare pretend like you aren't at fault! Or that you're some innocent victim here! And while you're expounding on the sanctity of marriage, maybe you've forgotten the one you destroyed by sleeping with your mother's husband."
"At least I don't pretend like I'm perfect, I admit my faults."
"I've never claimed to be perfect."
"No, you just pretend to be helpless so that Jason can rescue you and you can make Lucky feel like he's worthless because he can't compete with Jason and his hero complex."
"Stop it! This is getting us no where," Jason shook his head in disgust. "Tearing each other apart isn't going to change the truth and it isn't doing Jake any good."
"And where is this big show of concern coming from," Lucky asked, "You don't give a damn about anyone but yourself, that's why you did this."
"You think I gave up my son because I only care for myself?"
"Isn't it? Just one more heroic gesture for the honorable Jason Morgan, who just happens to be a hit man that works for Sonny Corinthos. I have to know, doesn't the white knight routine get old after awhile. How long are you going to chase after Elizabeth anyway. Ten years? Twenty? How long before you get it that she will never chose you?"
"I'm not asking her to chose me." Because he knew she never would.
"Aren't you? Isn't that the reason why you're here tonight. Trying to score points with my lying wife and steal my sons."
"I lied," Elizabeth murmured bringing three sets of eyes back to her. "And there's no excuse for lying to you but attacking Jason isn't going to make things better. I was wrong to both of you. I went to Jason and asked him to give up his son, to allow you to be Jake's father when I knew how much his child meant to him. I told myself I was protecting you. That you had stopped using drugs for the baby and I didn't know what would happen if you found out the truth. I told myself I had to protect you because of everything you did for me. I even told myself that I was trying to keep Jake safe from Jason's life."
"Because you're too much of a coward to ever accept Jason's life," Sam bit out.
"No," Elizabeth denied, "I didn't want to be an obligation to Jason. I knew how much he loved you and I didn't want to be the mistake that tore his life apart. Because I loved him too much to ever destroy his life that way."
"So, you'd destroy mine instead. You'd stay with me out of obligation instead of love. Even now you're defending him," Lucky rolled his eyes with fury, "What is wrong with you? If you're so damned in love with the man, why did you remarry me?"
"Because I do love you," her blue eyes pleaded with her husband.
"You have a strange way of showing it," Sam muttered.
"You have no idea what Lucky and I have been through together. I didn't stay with you just out of obligation. We, before everything that happened that summer, we were barely holding on Lucky. It started with the surrogacy and me losing the baby. I don't think we really recovered after that, we just pushed it aside and got married then there was the train accident. With your back injury and the bills that kept adding up, then you accusing me of having an affair because I was trying to protect your pride by not telling you about working the extra job. We were self destructing," she looked down at her hands helplessly, "And we did nothing to stop it."
"So you lie to me? You think all your explainations and excuses can defend what you did? You can't claim to love someone and then lie to them about something so important. Do you even realize what you've done? If you had just told me the truth-"
"What Lucky?" she retorted in cold sarcasm, "You would accepted Jake anyway? When you conviently forget about Cam? I'm not saying I wasn't wrong, I know I was. I lied and I hurt you, but you hurt me too. Every time you accused me of having an affair. Every time I found you in bed with Maxie you hurt me. Every pill you took, every promise you broke. You couldn't even find the strength to go to rehab until you found out about your real child, me and Cam weren't enough for you."
"So you punish me?"
"I wasn't trying to punish you!" She turned her head away, biting her lip, "I don't know what I was trying to do. Hold the life we built together the best way I knew how."
"You lied to me about my son!" Lucky's face twisted with increasing rage and shock. "Nothing I've done, deserves that."
"Maybe you're right."
"Oh he doesn't need your permission to be right," Sam sneered. "You're so used to leading Jason and Lucky around, that you think your opinion is all that matters."
"Why are you even here?" Elizabeth flashed Sam a look of disdain. "This doesn't concern you?"
"Yes it does. The lies you told affected my life, just like Lucky's. I'm Lucky's friend-"
A sharp bark of laughter filled the air, cold and mocking, "The only person you care about in all of this is yourself Sam. Let's not pretend, here. You can barely hold back your glee because you think I'm finally getting what I deserve."
"That's because you are. You deserve to have your life, everything you've built shattered at your feet just like you destroyed my life. Now you should have to pay for it, because now that Jason has admitted that Jake is his son, it proves you lied on the stand during his trial. You perjured yourself to keep you dirty little secret. It proves that you're nothing but a liar and a slut who destroyed my life!"
"I didn't destoy your life."
"Asking Jason to lie to me about his son? The two of you sneaking around together? What do you call that Elizabeth? Let's hear you excuse that with all your pretty words and tears. I should have told Lucky the truth in the beginning. I should have told Lucky about Jake when I heard the two of you in the hospital promising to keep your secrets."
"You knew?" Lucky whirled to stare at Sam. "You've known since Jake was born that he was Jason's but when I asked you if there were anymore lies, you looked me straight in the eye and lied to me as well."
"I couldn't tell you," a shadow of alarm touched Sam's face. "I wanted to tell you, Lucky because you deserved the truth."
"So why didn't you?"
"Yes, Sam, why didn't you? Because your revenge was more important than your so called feelings for Lucky." Elizabeth chided. "Your pretense at friendship was nothing but a part of your plan. You don't give a damn about Lucky. Or the truth."
"The only reason I didn't tell Lucky the truth was because Jason-"
"Jason what?" Lucky gave her a narrowed glinting glare after she broke off. Jason knew exactly why Sam didn't tell Lucky the truth. He could still remember the threat he'd made ringing in his ears. A threat he'd never thought he would make against her. Anger that he'd never thought he would feel toward her.
"He threatened you," Lucky turned that anger back in his direction. "You're threatening women now, Morgan? What has Sam ever done to you but love you? Defend you to everyone who said you were nothing more than a cold blooded killer? And you turn on her and threaten her life so that she can keep your secrets."
"Jason would never threaten an innocent woman," Elizabeth shook her head, her hands twisting nervously in front of her.
"No Lucky it isn't like that," Sam chose her words carefully.
"It's exactly like that." Fear flickered in her eyes and Jason shook his head. If they were exposing truths, then all would out. It was exactly as he'd said. None of them were innocent in this. "I threatened Sam. She wanted to tell you about Jake, she said you deserved the truth just like she had. I told her if she said anything to you about Jake being my son, I would tell the police that she watched Jake being kidnapped and did nothing."
"What?" Twin echoes of disbelief filled the silent air.
Elizabeth recovered first, hands fisting at her sides as she seethed with mounting rage. "You watched?"
"If you had been paying attention to Jake in the first place it wouldn't have happened."
"You watched my son being kidnapped?" the angry question hardened her features. "You came to my house, drunk, pretending to be sympathetic. Telling me that we were the same because we had both lost children. You refused to let us plead to the kidnappers on your show, when all along you knew that woman had stolen my son?"
"You watched her take Jake?" Lucky whispered, "You let us suffer, let us worry that we'd never see our son again and you knew all along who had him? Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you tell someone? Anyone!"
"I don't know," she swallowed thickly, "I was hurt because Jason was lying to me and scared. I don't-"
"Hurt! You were hurt! You allowed my son to be stolen and all you could say is that you were hurt! He's an innocent little boy! He's done nothing to you!"
"He was born!" Sam shouted, blinking back sudden tears. "He should have been my child. Jason gave you a child and refused to have one with me. Jake should have been our son, not yours."
"How could you do something, so, so, horrible?" Lucky asked, his eyes blazing with white hot wrath.
"I told you," Sam's face contorted with pain and guilt, "I didn't know what I was doing. After all the lies and hurt-"
"You knew exactly what you were doing what you were doing. You stood by and watched a woman steal my child. A child you've already said I don't deserve. You would have let us lose Jake because you wanted me and Jason to suffer." Elizabeth countered icily. Then she turned hurt blue eyes toward him. "Why didn't you tell me? Why were you protecting her after what she did? If she had told the truth you wouldn't have had to break bail and go after Jake. You wouldn't have spent all that time in Pentonville."
"It's where he belongs," Lucky replied, his eyes darkened like angry thunderclouds.
"She betrayed you, Jason and you protected her?"
"He betrayed me first by sneaking around with you," Sam shot back.
"I don't care," he shook his head, tired, tired down to his very soul. "Any of this, the lies the betrayals, who did what to whom, I don't care anymore."
Spend enough time in a eleven by fifteen box and a man begins to understand what's important. He thought he could walk away from his son. He thought that allowing Lucky Spencer to raise Jake would protect his son from the life he chose to lead. Having Jake believe that a man like Lucky Spencer was his father had to be better than the rumors and danger that surrounded Jason Morgan.
He couldn't have been more wrong.
Because if Lucky could accuse Elizabeth of being an unfit mother and try to take her son from him, when every choice she'd ever made revolved around Jake there was no way he would stand aside and allow it to happen.
Or maybe it was pure selfishness on his part. Maybe his heart just couldn't bear to be apart from his son anymore. Either way, the truth was finally out and he would be a part of his son's life.
"And that's supposed to matter? Because the great Jason Morgan doesn't care anymore, you think I'm going to stand aside and let you take my son from me?"
"You can fight me if you want," he understood that as well. Lucky loved Jake. Biology didn't matter when the heart was involved. "It won't change the truth that I'm Jake's father."
"You're dangerous. People around you die and I won't allow you to put Jake in danger. He's my son!"
Here they were, man to man, deseperately loving the same little boy and wanting the same things for him. For Jake to grow up to be a happy loved child. For him to be safe from danger. Wanting to be his father.
"He's my son as well, Lucky. I won't let you push me out of his life. I won't allow my son to grow up wondering about who he really is. The lies have to stop now before the one person we're trying to protect is hurt. And that's Jake. We're going to have to find some way to co-exist with each other for Jake's sake but my son will know me. He will know that I love him."
"If you're in prison, if I find the evidence to put you behind bars where you belong, Jake will be safe from you."
"Do you really want to be the one who puts me in prison? Do you want to tell Jake that you put his father in prison out of spite?"
"I did it once, I'd do it again. You're a criminal, it wouldn't be a lie."
Jason nodded once, knowing Lucky's words for the truth they were. Lucky would do anything, stop at nothing to hurt him for stealing his son away from him. He couldn't blame the man for doing exactly what he would to keep his child.
Only for once he wasn't going to worry about another's feelings. For once he was going to be selfish and claim what he wanted and damned who was hurt in the end. "Do what you will but he's my son, Lucky. Nothing will ever change that. I will always be his father."
When he turned to walk away, away from the rage in Lucky's eyes, the sorrow in Elizabeth's, a slender hand on his arm stopped him and he was faced with the glimmer of hope that was paired with a ragged anger in Sam's. What was he to say to her? What did she expect from him?
He had no more words. He had nothing to offer. All that mattered was his son and the truth he should have told from the very beginning. He would have to own his mistakes, the hurt he caused. He would have to live with the consequences of his actions and what results they wrought on his life.
Somehow he would rebuild his life.
As he gently pulled his arm away, he watched her stiffen, momentarily abashed by his actions, her beautiful eyes glittering with tears, he grieved for her but knew they could never go back. Too much had happened. Too many lies. Too much hurt. Unforgiveable betrayal on both sides. All he could do was let go.
Let go.
Let go.
Open the door and walk toward a life that would bleed and ache for a long time.
But he would have his son.
And Jason Morgan found he could live with that.