A/N: AU - I'm mixing a bunch of different past storylines for this one. This is set a little less than a year after Lucky Spencer's return from the dead. I am using the "Carly intro" storyline to bring Sam to town instead. AJ is still alive (and, as always, I refer to Sean Kanan's AJ). For the purposes of this story, Maxie is only a couple of years younger than Lucky. I'm pretty much aging the characters to what I want them to be, since the show has played with their ages all over the place. SORAS for the win! Pairings are:

Jason/Sam, Elizabeth/AJ, Nikolas/Emily, Lucky/Maxie, Jax/Alexis

This is my first time writing two of these couples, so hopefully it turns out okay.

"I'll take that."

Elizabeth Webber's head whipped around so quickly that her dark brown hair slapped her face. The hair hooked on her nose and eyelashes, and she fought it until it went back to its rightful place behind her ears. Of course, it fell back into her face, because why should anything go the way she wanted it to go? Not even her own hair was under her control. It was just kind of life she was having lately.

She watched as AJ Quartermaine took a drink from the glass, but she only watched for half a sip. There wasn't a person in town that didn't know about AJ's drinking problem. Elizabeth may have been in a really pissy mood, but she wasn't a complete jerk. She snatched the glass back from him halfway through the drink and it spilled down his chin.

"Thanks," AJ said with a grunt, swatting at the specks of whiskey that fell on his shirt. "Now, I'm going to smell like liquor."

"That's what you get." Elizabeth finished the glass and put it down on the bar. She waved at the bartender and said, "Another, please."

"Make it club soda," AJ said as the bartender came their way. "Actually, make it two." AJ sat down on a bar stool beside Elizabeth and she groaned. AJ either didn't hear her or didn't care. He probably didn't care.

"I was doing just fine before you got here," Elizabeth said.

"I can see that." AJ grunted. He picked up a napkin from the bar and blotted at the whiskey stain on his shirt. "Luckily," he said, "whiskey comes out in the wash."

Elizabeth groaned. She was amazed at how often she could hear some form of that word now and only think of him. Before she was ever forced to live in Port Charles, lucky meant a lot of things. Now, it just meant her first true love and every incarnation of the word reminded her that he wasn't hers anymore. That he may never be hers again.

With a grunt, Elizabeth said, "I'm sure you can afford another one if you need it."

"Uh huh." AJ rolled his eyes. "Are you even old enough to be in here? I realize Jake's doesn't card that often, but…"

"I look young for my age," Elizabeth said with a groan. The bartender came back and put three glasses of club soda in front of them. At the third, he gestured to AJ's shirt. AJ nodded and dipped a napkin in, then started blotting the whiskey stain. Good, she thought. Let him pay attention to his shirt and not to her. Maybe she could sneak another drink out of the bartender without him knowing.

Elizabeth had been a good girl for a while now, and that was because of Lucky… and what had happened to her. She had blamed herself for that Valentine's night in the park. If she wasn't so hard-headed. If she didn't dress the way she used to dress. If she had just been more like Sarah… It was Lucky that had convinced her that it wasn't her fault, that she hadn't been "asking for it." He had taught her how to be a person again. He had shown her love, and the night of the fire, he had inadvertantly taught her how to hurt like nothing she'd felt before.

Now… Now, Lucky was teaching her something else. He was teaching her that things didn't last, that life changed people. She should have known that. Hadn't she been changed after the rape? The feisty Elizabeth was still in there somewhere, but she was more subdued. She had been changed for the better, though. Lucky…

"He's so different, now," Elizabeth said. She didn't realize that she was talking out loud until she saw AJ's head jerk up in her direction. Elizabeth shook her head. "Sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have said anything."

"It's fine," he said with a shrug. "You obviously need to say it."

"That's what people keep telling me," Elizabeth said. "Nikolas and Emily… They have this idea that I need to tell Lucky how I feel, and that I need to tell them how I feel, too, but.. I've tried telling Lucky how I feel, and he doesn't care."

"I doubt that."

"Doubt all you want," Elizabeth said, "but it's true. He doesn't care, because he's not the same Lucky that died in that fire. Whatever Helena did to him while he was gone…" She shook her head and sighed. "The light's gone in his eyes, ya know? Or, at least it is when he looks at me. I used to think Lucky and I were going to be forever, but now… Now, I don't even know if we can be friends."

That's what hurt Elizabeth the most, that the friendship was gone. She had counted on Lucky, trusted him, needed him. Now, she could barely talk to him. She knew it was partially her own fault. She could lay all the blame on Helena, but the truth was that she expected him to be something that he wasn't any more. A lot had happened since the night of the fire, and Lucky had changed. Elizabeth liked to think that she had changed, too, that she was a different person than the one that had tried to run into that fire to save Lucky, but she knew that there was a part of her that had never changed, the part that loved Lucky. Changing that meant to stop loving him and that… That was so hard.

"Maybe things will change," AJ told her with a shrug. "Maybe… I don't know. Maybe he just needs more time to adjust, to remember everything that he lost while he was gone."

"It's been almost a year!" Elizabeth closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. Her lips snapped shut. She was being a bad person, she knew that. Lucky had been through a lot, and if he needed time, then he deserved to get that time. Problem was, Lucky's time didn't equate with what she had expected to happen, and it was hard for her to keep from trying to force it.

Everything seemed okay, at first. Lucky came home, and he tried to pick up his life where it left off. It was good for a while, but Elizbaeth felt him slipping away after a few weeks. She could tell that he was pretending, and figured out that he had been pretending all along. He did what was expected of him, acted the way people wanted him to act, but that could only go on for so long. He started getting angry, and then he got sullen, and after a while, the Lucky that Elizabeth knew was gone, and she had to admit that he may have never even been there. Helena Cassadine had finally gotten her ultimate revenge on Luke Spencer. She had taken away his son and turned him into someone else. In the process, she had also taken him away from Elizabeth.

"Why can't it be like with Emily?" Elizabeth asked. AJ rose a curious eyebrow and she sighed. "Whatever Helena did to him, Lucky still loves Emily. She's still like his little sister."

"Emily's everybody's little sister," AJ said with a shrug. "There's something about her that makes you want to take care of her."

"He used to be that way with me. He doesn't…" She sighed. "He remembers what happened, what brought us together, but it's like he remembers it like it happened to someone else. The connection we had isn't there, and I don't know if we'll ever get it back."

AJ looked at her, but he didn't say anything. Wonderful. He was probably thinking that she should stop whining. There were more important things than her relationship with Lucky, after all, and Elizabeth knew that. She knew that she should just be happy that Lucky was home, and she was happy. He was alive and he was back with his family, and that should have been the most important thing in the world. He wasn't with her, though. Elizabeth didn't even think that he felt anything for her, and that hurt.

Elizabeth knew that it was selfish. That was why she was in Jake's that night, drinking. She thought she had changed a lot since she had first come to Port Charles, but if she could be this selfish, then she hadn't changed that much. Elizabeth had come to Jake's in an attempt to call up the old Elizabeth, the bad girl that didn't care about anything and pretended not to care about anyone. If she could bring that Elizabeth back, then maybe she could forget the pain of losing Lucky. Because that's what had happened. She had lost him, and she was starting to think that she should stop trying to get him back.

"Lucky's not the only one that's changed, Elizabeth."

Lost in her thoughts, Elizabeth had forgotten about AJ. She rose an eyebrow and said, "Huh?"

"Lucky was gone a long time," AJ said. "You moved on with your life. Your goals in life changed, your desires. Were you even considering going to nursing school when you were with Lucky?"

Elizabeth sighed. "We were getting ready to go to New York," she said. "That next day… We were going to be starving artists. I would probably get a waitressing job and Lucky would get something so we could make ends meet, but our art was what was important. I was going to be a great painter, and Lucky was going to be on stage with his guitar."

AJ shrugged. "Dreams change," he said. "Can you really see that, now? Where you are in life, can you see just giving it up and running off to the city?"

Elizabeth groaned. She took a sip of the club soda in front of her and winced. The ice had already started to melt and the soda was going flat. If she was going to drink something without a fizz in it, AJ should have let her keep her whiskey. That was the kind of drink that went with her thoughts, because he was right. Elizabeth had set up a life, had forgotten all about running away. She still painted, but she didn't think about making a living of it. She just did it for fun, mostly, and she did it for the memories of when Lucky failed at posing for her in her studio. Now, the studio was gone. The New York dream was gone. Lucky was gone.

Elizabeth grunted. "What are you doing here, anyway? I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be in a bar."

"I was supposed to meet Jason, but he cancelled at the last minute. As in, I was pulling into the parking lot, last minute."

"So, you decided to come on in and have a drink. Yeah, that's smart." Elizabeth rolled her eyes. She had been a nice, non-sarcastic girl for so long now that she was surprised how easily the sarcastic tone came back to her voice.

"Actually," he said, "I saw your car in the parking lot when I was getting ready to pull back out, and thought I'd come in."

"Oh, really?"

AJ shrugged. "I could lie and say that I decided to come in and go on a bender, except if I tried to order a drink, you'd see the bartender refuse to sell to me." He grunted. "My brother, ladies and gentleman. Apparently, he sees keeping me sober as his way of thanking me for getting him out of the Quartermaine family."

Elizabeth didn't know exactly what to say. It was common knowledge, now, that AJ had been the one driving when his brother, Jason, was thrown from the convertible when it hit a tree. Just because it was common knowledge, though, didn't mean that it was something people talked about in front of AJ or Jason. Of course, Elizabeth was trying to give up being a nice, polite person, but it was really hard to change that. It just seemed cruel to talk about it, even if AJ was the one that had brought it up.

"Truth is," AJ said, "Em asked us all to keep an eye out for you. She's worried about you, and you know how Em gets when she's worried."

"She makes sure that you're okay," Elizabeth said with a sigh, "even if it means getting other people worried about you, too."

"Exactly." AJ picked up the glass of club soda that he hadn't been using to clean his shirt and drank about half of it down. He set down the glass and stood up from the bar stool. "How about we get out of here, huh? You don't have to go home, but you gotta get the hell out of here, and all that."

"It's not last call," Elizabeth told him.

"I think it is for us." AJ reached in his pocket, pulled out a few bills. He tossed the bills on the table, then put his hand out. "I'll walk you to your car."

"What's stopping me from just driving to another bar?"

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe the fact that you don't really want to do this?" He shrugged. "You're not this person anymore, Elizabeth, and believe me, drinking is not going to solve your problems."

Elizabeth took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She looked at AJ's hand. She wasn't going to say that he was right. For all she knew, she was that person, again. Maybe losing Lucky for a second time had thrown her back to what she had been before Lucky picked her up from the snow. Maybe she just needed to give more alcohol a try, see if a little more liquor solved the problem.

Or maybe she just needed to go home and get some sleep. Tomorrow was another day and all that. Still, though, she didn't think that tomorrow was going to bring anything different. It was just another day for Lucky to reject her, unless… Unless she made tomorrow the day that she didn't give him that chance. If tomorrow was the day that she rejected fantasy…

Elizabeth sighed and took AJ's waiting hand. She stood up and looked up into his eyes. Wow, he was tall. "I'm not saying that you're right."

"Of course not," AJ said with a smirk.

"I'm just saying that I don't want to have to call Emily to come get me, and if I sit here drinking, that's what I'll have to do because I won't be able to afford the taxi home."

"Okay."

"Just saying," she said. Elizabeth let AJ lead her out of the bar, but she threw a glance over her shoulder, toward the bar, to the bottles lining the mirror behind the bar. She was finally old enough to sit in a bar and drink her problems away. Of course, someone would show up and stop her. Wasn't her world turning into one big life interrupted?

Elizabeth sighed and looked at the door as AJ opened it and gestured for her to go through the door. "Just saying," she mumbled as she went out into the cold winter night. Just saying.