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Part One
Carly looked at herself in the mirror as she wiped away the last of her ruined makeup. She immediately began reapplying determined to remain hopeful about how her Valentine's Day would end well for once. Just as she was considering her finished product, she heard a knock on the door. Her eyes lit up as she adjusted her lingerie and loosened her robe for maximum effect. Tony came back!
"Just a second!" she called excitedly as she hurriedly relit all the candles. She grabbed her used tissues and threw them away as rushed for the door.
Sucking in a deep breath and striking a sexy pose, she whipped open the door. "Glad you had time to enjoy Valentine's with me after all," Carly purred not looking up right away. "Do you like your gift?"
"Sure, but Carly, I thought we weren't doing that anymore," a desire-roughened voice said causing her chocolate gaze to fly to cerulean eyes.
"Jason?" she said with a frown of confusion. "Wh—" Then she rushed to close her robe when she noticed the direction of his distracted gaze. Fighting a flush of heat—whether from attraction or embarrassment she was unsure, she tried again. "Sorry. I thought you were—"
"Dr. Jones?" Jason supplied, trying not to stare at her scantily clad body as she nodded her assent. "But doesn't he have a key? Why would he knock?"
"Yeah, but I wasn't really thinking or I would have thought of that," she chuckled derisively. "Come on in."
Jason entered and looked around before letting out a whistle in acknowledgement of the effort Carly had placed into making the apartment nice for the holiday. "All this for Dr. Jones, huh? Where is he?"
"Well, since her got Thanksgiving and Christmas off, had to be on-call for New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day," she explained sadly. "And then earlier Bobbie called supposedly on 'Lucas's behalf'. So, of course, he had to go over there. We agreed that he'd stay until I had my surprise all set up, but the surprise turned out to be that—"
"Let me guess, he never did come back," Jason finished. "I'm sorry your night got messed up."
"Thanks," Carly sighed before shaking her head. "Don't worry about it. Not like it's your fault or anything. You hungry? It's not pizza or burgers, but I promise you'll like it. Then, you can tell me how you ended up here tonight instead of with Robin."
"Sure," he nodded following her into the kitchen and taking a seat.
"Is wine ok or would you rather have a beer?" she asked as she fixed them each a plate of fettuccine alfredo w/ chicken and broccoli.
"Wine's fine, I guess," he replied as she set their plates down. "Maybe later I'll get a beer."
His reference to later as if he had all the time in the world set her on alert, but she tried to reign in her instinct to push and sat down. She lasted only about 30 seconds. "Ok. Spill," she demanded curiously as she picked up her fork. "Why are you spending Valentine's Day with me instead of Robin?"
Jason paused in the middle of filling his mouth. As soon as he could swallow, he simply said, "This is great, by the way, but if you use fresher parmesan it'll come out even better."
"Thanks," she chuckled taking a bite and giving him a look.
"Sonny. Remember, I told you how he didn't trust me to feed myself?" at her nod, he continued, "Well, it would seem that included cooking lessons—although I don't even have a kitchen."
"Right." Carly nodded pointing her fork at him. "Makes a certain sense, but that doesn't answer my question."
"I-Well, I tried to do something nice for her, but she couldn't stop thinking or talking about Stone," he explained in exasperation. Carly immediately reached across the table and laid her hand on his offer comfort. "After a while, I couldn't take it anymore. I spend almost every day of my life with people coming to me wanting to talk about some dead guy, I couldn't take having what SHOULD have been OUR time together be all about yet another dead guy."
"Well, I say screw 'em both," Carly snapped squeezing his hand and raising her wine glass. "Tony and Robin's loss is our gain. Here's to having my best Valentine's Day with my best friend as my Valentine."
Mimicking Carly's gesture and turning his hand over under hers to grasp her hand, Jason grinned for the first time all day. "Yeah."
Tony let himself in feeling completely drained. Heaving a sigh, he admitted to himself that the source of his exhaustion came more from the idea of facing Carly with the weight of guilt from having sex with Lorraine than from the hours spent on his feet. As he dropped his bag, his eyes finally registered the disarray in the room. It was with a sense of shock that he pulled a scrap of red lace from the only of two lamps left standing. His noticed its twin lying broken on the floor amongst the debris of the living room was men's clothing.
Shaken, Tony followed the debris to the bedroom and taking a deep breath, pushed open the slightly ajar door. There in the bed he was supposed to be sharing with his girlfriend, a naked Jason nuzzled an equally naked, but sleeping Carly's neck. The door opening seemed to alert Jason to his presence because he looked up meeting Tony's eye briefly before returning his attention to the slumbering Carly.
"Mm, Jase," she groaned. "Again? God, baby, I'm exhausted. Where do you get your energy?"
Tony pulled the door closed on Carly's sex-roughened chuckle. Moments later, other sounds filtered through the closed door with ever-increasing volume and intensity. At a complete loss for what to do, he plopped on the couch and let his head drop into his hands as he tried to figure out how his life had taken such a drastic turn into insanity.
"Jason, I can handle toast, eggs, and bacon!" she chuckled as she backed out of the bedroom tying her long maroon robe, "but if you are determined to make me breakfast, please, don't let me stop y—Tony!"
"Carly" was his flat reply.
"I-I didn't know—I mean, I didn't want you to find out like this," she stammered nervously her eyes begging forgiveness.
"Hello, Dr. Jones," Jason said coolly as he fastened his pants from the night before nonchalantly. "If you give us 48 hours, Carly can be moved out of here. Unless you'd rather we take over the lease from you."
"I see," Dr. Jones nodded becoming calmer while Carly stood for once too shocked to do more than stare back and forth between the men in front of her in silence. "How long?"
"I swear to you, Tony, I—we didn't plan this. Last night was just—" Carly faltered.
"Last night was a wakeup call for both of us. Carly and I finally realized we were with the wrong people because the people we were devoting ourselves to couldn't or wouldn't do the same," Jason explained. "So what's it gonna be—are you moving out or is Carly?"
"I'll be back for my things later," Tony sneered at Jason's callousness. "I'm sure Lorraine won't mind me moving in with her for a while, especially after we bonded last night."
He watched the guilt and angst melt away as her mind realized that she hadn't been alone in her infidelity. "Good for you," she hissed through clenched teeth. "Well, don't let us keep you."
Tony noted the arm Jason slipped around her waist and the flicker of pain she tried to mask as she leaned into his embrace. He couldn't help, but flinch at the realization that he'd hurt her. No matter how she'd betrayed him last night with Jason, he realized now that he'd pushed her into his willing arms. Feeling worse than when he entered the apartment, he gave a stiff nod and left with as much dignity as he could muster.
With the closing of the door, Carly's knees unlocked and she fell into Jason's waiting embrace. "God, Jase," she cried into his shoulder. "I feel so stupid. I tried so hard to make him love me, but it was never quite right or good enough. So what does he do? He screws someone else! God, you must think I'm an idiot. Probably what I deserve after the whole thing with Bobbie, huh?"
Jason frowned in confusion as he allowed her vent. "Was I wrong?" he asked quietly. "Did you think last night was a mistake? Do you regret that we had sex?"
Carly's head whipped up, mouth open eyes wide with shock. "No! God, no! Never, Jase!" she swore. "I have never nor WILL I ever regret a single second spent with you! I'm SO sorry if you thought that! God I really am an idiot. What I felt for Tony pales in comparison to how I've ALWAYS felt about you. Everything is better with you than it has EVER been with ANYONE else. It just hurt me to think that while I was trying so hard, he just wasn't. It hurt me that it was so easy for him to cheat on me. But please, Jase, don't let that make you question what you mean to me. Being with you is like something out of a fairytale. Something so amazing and magical, I could never imagine it happening to me."
Carly stared into his eyes praying she could make him understand. As she saw it dawn, she released the breath she'd been holding and caressed his cheek. "Jase, I told you everything last night and looking in your eyes, I can see that it hasn't changed the way you feel for me. It somehow made us closer instead of making you hate me or become disgusting to you. You just accepted it as a part of what makes me me like always without holding it against me. And now you told Tony that you want to be with me, even knowing EVERYTHING. You are so incredible, Jason Morgan!"
"Finding out about my accident didn't change things for you either, so why should you telling me the truth change things for me?" he countered.
"I don't think it's exactly the same," Carly chuckled rising on her toes to nibble at his bottom lip, "but if you say so. Whatever you say, Jase, I believe it. And as crazy as it sounds, I hope you believe me when I tell you I love you because I do. I wanted to be able to have someone love me and to love them, so I tried to convince myself that what I had with Tony was real, but with you, it just is everything I tried to make my relationship with Tony be."
"You know you can't lie to me, Carly," Jason replied solemnly. "Nor do you ever bother trying. I believe you because I think I love you too. It's so different from what I feel with Robin, but it's because it's so much more. I never understood fear until you."
A tear trailed down her face and he brushed it away with his thumb as he cupped her cheek. Their mouths came together in a kiss so gentle it was as soft as air. But just as Jason would have deepened the peck, a knock sounded at the door. Carly pulled back nibbling at her lip and smiling, "You start breakfast while I get rid of whoever is at the door. It's probably just AJ, but if he sees you, it'll start gossip and since I know you care about Robin's feelings, let me tell you, through the grapevine is the WORST way to find something like this out."
Jason nodded, dropped another quick kiss on her smiling mouth, and headed off to the kitchen. With such euphoria bubbling inside her, Carly grinningly answered the door, "This is a very bad time," she chirped. "Robin?!"
"Sorry to interrupt, Carly," Robin spoke obviously uncomfortable. "I'm just looking for Jason. Sonny gave him last night off, and hasn't sent him out today. I've checked Sonny's and Jake's. I was beginning to think he took one of his rides, but I remembered sometimes he comes to see you since you're friends so I was wondering—"
"Carly, did you want your eggs scrambled?" Jason asked still shirtless.
"Jason?!"
"Robin," Jason replied coolly. "Why are you here?"
"I was looking for you," she whimpered her eyes darting from Jason's bare chest to the fidgeting Carly standing in only a robe. "God!"
"I'm gonna go take my shower while you two talk," Carly offered quietly meeting Jason's eyes questioningly. Once she received his nod of assent, Carly closed the door behind Robin and made a beeline for her bedroom.
"Please, Jason," she cried wiping at her tears. "Tell me I'm misunderstanding something. That I'm crazy to even consider the possibility that you might have slept with her last night."
Jason remained silent and cleared off the couch. "We should probably sit and talk."
"Jason, please."
"I can't do that, Robin" he sighed.
"Oh, GOD!" she gasped covering her mouth.
"I'm sorry that this hurts you, Robin," Jason said sighing again. "Last night made me realize that it was a mistake walking away from Carly for you because you're not over Stone and," he paused taking a deep breath, "I'm not over Carly."
"Jason, that's just LUST!" Robin sneered. "What we have is a love that is REAL and TRUE and PURE! It's about more than just sex, which is ALL a tramp like Carly could ever offer ANYONE!"
"You need to shut your mouth NOW!" Jason snarled. "You don't know what the hell you're talking about. What Carly and I have is between US and it is DEFINTELY more than sex. She knows ME and she loves me for ME. NO ONE knows me better than Carly just like NO ONE knows her better than me. God, I feel more for her than I've felt for ANYONE since I woke up from the coma, outside of anger. You can't know that what we have isn't REAL or TRUE because I KNOW that is."
"She broke up Bobbie and Tony's marriage. THIS is the apartment she shares with HIM!" she cried.
"They broke up," he replied flatly cutting of her tirade. "She knows being with Dr. Jones was a mistake, but he's a GROWN MAN. He's more responsible for the destruction of his marriage than Carly because he's the one who vowed to be faithful and then wasn't. Now, that we realize that we made mistakes we're going to correct them and NO ONE is going to stand in our way."