See You Later – Part 2
Thirteen Months later
"Cameron, don't push him so hard," Elizabeth says to Cameron, who is pushing Jake on a swing.
They're enjoying a late spring day in the park. She has her little girl, 10-month old Emily Lila, in a baby swing and is gently pushing her. She giggles every time she swings, which makes Elizabeth's heart melt each time.
"She likes it, mama," Cameron says, looking over at his little sister.
"I think she does," Elizabeth agrees.
Jason stands off to the side, hidden behind the bushes so his family can't see him. He took a chance that they might be here today, and it paid off. His heart aches at not being able to be with them, but it's not the right time. He needs to let Elizabeth know he's still alive in the right way, at the right time.
He stares at the little girl in the swing and can't get over how much she looks like Elizabeth. She has the same hair color, same eye color, same porcelain skin. She's beautiful.
Then he turns his attention to Jake, who jumps off of the swing when it's up in the air and he stumbles and falls to his knees. Jason stops himself from running out there to pick him up but Jake hops back up on his feet, brushes his skinned knees off and runs over to the slide.
"Jaaakkkeee," Cameron says annoyed. He's now left with an empty swing to push. He's grown so much in the last year, Jason can't get over it.
"He's okay, why don't you get on the swing," Elizabeth suggests.
Cameron instead, opts for the jungle bars and starts to swing on them.
Elizabeth's cell phone rings and she stops pushing Emily to answer it.
"Hello?" she answers. "Oh hi Monica. No, you're fine. Oh okay. Yeah, now is a good time, we're at the park. No, it's no problem. The kids love playing there. We'll get on our way now. Okay, bye."
She hangs up the phone.
"Guess what?" Elizabeth asks.
"What?" Cameron asks which makes Jake ask "what" as well.
"That was Grandma Monica and she wants to spend some time with you."
"Can we go swimming?" Cameron asks excitedly.
"Swimmin," Jake repeats.
"You'll have to ask her. Come on, let's get going," she says, lifting Emily out of the baby swing.
A couple hours later, Elizabeth approaches Jason's gravesite with a bouquet of roses. She tilts her head and bites her lip as she gets closer to the headstone.
No matter how many times she's done this in the last year, it doesn't get easier.
She sets the roses down in front of his headstone and sits down on a bench that is next to the grave.
"Hi baby," she whispers and starts to softly cry. "It's me, Elizabeth."
She chuckles at herself and wipes the tears from her cheeks.
"I don't know why I say that every time. I hope you realize it's me." She looks up at the sky for a few seconds.
"I brought you roses from Lila's garden. I dropped the kids off to play with Monica…and Edward, even though he won't admit he loves playing with those kids," she smiles. "I think it helps keep him young at heart. Anyway, I picked these roses for you."
Jason leans against the wall of the mausoleum where his grandmother, father and sister are laid to rest. He's just out of Elizabeth's site, but he can hear every word she's saying.
"Today was Emily's 10-month check up. She had to get a couple of shots…she didn't like that very much," she adds. "But she's doing well. She's caught up to the standard height and weight for her age range."
Jason leans his head back. He knew that Emily had been born a little over a month early and that she had been a relatively small baby, so he was glad to hear that she was getting bigger. He rubs the stubble on his face.
"Oh, she cut another tooth," Elizabeth says suddenly. Then she seems tired. She leans over and rubs her forehead. "It's been so hard doing this by myself, though. I mean, Cameron's at that stubborn, "I know everything" stage. Jake is running around like a mad man," she chuckles, just thinking about it. "And Emily cries all the time because she's teething."
Her voice lowers and Jason has to really strain to hear her. "I am still pissed at you for leaving me, by the way."
She sits up a little straighter and her voice returns to normal. "I know I was going to do this on my own before we got back together, but I got used to having you around, you know? You can't do that to me. Make me depend on you and then leave me."
Jason pushes himself away from the wall and turns to face her. If she turned her head enough, she could see him.
Even though he doesn't make a noise, Elizabeth feels someone's presence.
"Is someone there?" she asks cautiously, slowly turning her head.
Her eyes stop at the figure standing next to the Quartermaine mausoleum.
They stare at each other for what seems like minutes, even though it's only seconds.
"Elizabeth," Jason says.
Elizabeth closes her eyes. She never thought she'd hear her name from that voice again.
"Elizabeth."
The voice grows closer and Elizabeth feels the hair on her arms stand up.
"It's me. Open your eyes."
She can tell he's standing right in front of her now. She shakes her head. If she opens her eyes, she'll realize she's dreaming.
"Elizabeth…baby," he says, gently lifting her arms so she stands up.
She whimpers at his touch.
"Open your eyes. It's me. I'm right here."
She slowly opens her glistening eyes and looks up at him.
His hair is a little longer and there's stubble on his face. His eyes look tired, but it's her Jason. Her husband.
"Jason," she whispers.
He nods. "It's me."
He takes her hand and touches his face with it.
"It's me," he repeats.
"Jason."
She takes her other hand and touches his other cheek.
"I'm here….I'm alive," he says, getting emotional.
She studies his face slowly, her hands touching every where her eyes look.
"You're here," she says.
He nods.
She lets go of his face and she reaches back and slaps him.
"You bastard," she says angrily. "You promised you wouldn't leave me."
Before she could do anything else to him, he pulls her into his arms and lets her cry.
"I'm so sorry, Elizabeth. I'm so sorry. I love you, just know that. I love our children…."
"Then why….why did you leave?" she asks, her voice muffled against his shirt.
He gently rubs her back and lets her crying subside a little. When he feels it does, he takes her hands in his and looks into her eyes.
"I left because it was the only option."
She shakes her head. "No, you didn't give me the option, Jason. I thought we were in this marriage together."
"We were….we are," he corrects.
"I saw you die," she says, shaking her head. "I felt for a pulse…."
"It was something we had set up beforehand. The guy that finally shot me was actually undercover and the bullets were fake. I wore a vest that had fake blood pellets."
She lifts a shaky hand to move a strand of hair away from her eyes.
"But your pulse, you weren't breathing."
"When Lucky got to me, he had a syringe of something that would slow my heartbeat and breathing down but not enough to kill me. That way I would be declared dead and he took care of the rest…"
"Lucky?" she asks in disbelief.
He pulls her to sit down next to him.
"I need to start from the beginning. There was a new organization out of Boston…"
"The Perez family," Elizabeth interrupts. "Yeah, Lucky had a hand in taking them down," she says, suddenly realizing that it was only a couple of weeks ago that the organization was completely dismantled. Half of the family was in prison for life, the other half were dead.
"Right. Well, they had contacted me and warned me they were taking over shipments in Port Charles. Of course, I didn't think anything of it. I used to get threats like that all the time. But this one kept coming up. Then, a couple of shipments were destroyed…which was annoying," he shrugs, "But nothing I couldn't handle. It's when the threats against my family and friends started that made me watch them with caution."
"We had guards, Jason. You made sure we were safe," Elizabeth says, taking his hand.
He shook his head. "I went on a business trip overnight once, I'm not sure if you remember it," he says, pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand. "I met them…in Boston."
"You took so many trips," she says, trying to figure out which particular one he's talking about.
"This one shook me. They showed me pictures," he says, pausing to try to push those memories to the back of his mind…but they were fresh.
"What kind of pictures?" she asks, wrapping her other hand around their joined hands.
"Of what they had done to the women and children of other heads of organizations."
Her eyes shift downward.
"I had never seen anything like that."
"They could have been bluffing," she says.
He shook his head. "I thought that. I had it checked out, Elizabeth. It was true. He had the wives, girlfriends and children of families in New York and Philadelphia…and other places too, he had them butchered…" his voice catches and Elizabeth reaches around him to rub his back.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she asks.
"I got back to Port Charles and you told me you were pregnant," he says through tears, which makes her start to cry.
"Oh my God, now I remember. I could tell something had happened and I thought my news would help. It probably made it harder."
He composes himself and shakes his head. "It made me happy…of course it did. You and I were going to have another baby," he smiles.
She wipes her tears away and smiles.
"I had to figure things out. Soon after that, I overhead Lucky on his phone and he mentioned Juan Perez…he was the leader."
She nods.
"And so I asked Lucky to meet me where I knew we wouldn't be followed or bugged…and I told him everything I knew. I knew that I needed help from more than just other organizations. I couldn't trust anyone at this point."
"You could have trusted me, Jason."
"It wasn't about not trusting you, Elizabeth. I trust you more than anyone."
"Then why couldn't you have filled me in on any of this?" she asks.
He looks at their joined hands. "Because I didn't want to take the chance of the stress harming you or the baby."
"So, if I hadn't been pregnant, would you have told me?"
He shrugs and looks away for a second. "I don't know. Maybe. But you were pregnant and this is the decision I needed to make at that time. Plus the less you knew, the safer you were if anything happened."
"I'm still a bit confused," she says, shaking her head. "Loosing you was the hardest thing I've ever gone through….you don't think that put any stress on the pregnancy?"
He shakes his head. "It wasn't supposed to happen the way it did. It was one of many scenarios Lucky and I came up with. Pretending to be dead was going to be the last resort."
"So, what happened?"
"There must have been an insider or a snitch, I'm not sure anymore. But things started to fall apart. The quickest solution at the time was for it to look like they killed me. Once that happened, I planned on telling you…"
"Why…why didn't you?" Elizabeth asks, starting to get a little upset.
"Again, things didn't go as planned. There was a woman involved who was even more heartless than the rest of the family."
"I met her. Rita, right?"
Jason nods. "Right. She made sure you met her right before all of this happened. If there was any chance that she didn't see you as a grieving widow, she would have killed you and our children."
Elizabeth lowers her head and shuts her eyes. She adjusts their joined hands so that their fingers are entwined. He smiles at that small gesture.
"I knew I was taking a chance to put you through that but I know how strong you are and we had every indication that our baby was strong, so, the decision was made very quickly to go ahead with the plan."
"Did you know when you left me that morning?" she asks softly.
He shakes his head. "No. When I left to meet with Lucky that day, I knew he had found something out but didn't know what."
"I can't believe Lucky was in on all of this," she says, the tears starting to pool in her eyes again.
She lets go of his hand and stands up.
"You can't believe Lucky and I actually were on the same side for once or that he didn't tell you?" Jason asks, trying to make the situation a little lighter.
She smirks. "Both." She turns around to face him. "He has been a good friend to me, Jason. He took care of me through the funeral and the rest of the OB appointments."
He nods.
"He was there when Emily was born," she whispers. "Our little girl."
"I know. He kept me up to date on everything."
She tilts her head to look at him. "He has been in contact with you the whole time?" she asks in disbelief.
He nods and stands up next to her, but she turns her back towards him.
"Yes. No one would suspect a detective. Especially not with our history."
"I can't believe this," she says, shaking her head. The one person in the last few months who helped her through everything had been lying to her.
"He didn't want to lie to you. The last thing in the world he wants, is for you to be angry with him."
"How can I not be? Rita was arrested a couple of months ago, Jason. Why couldn't he tell me you were alive then?" she asks, turning around to face him.
Jason rubs his forehead. "I asked him not to. I didn't want to take any risks with you and the children when I wasn't there to protect you."
She takes a deep breath and looks up at the sky.
"Elizabeth," he says gently when she doesn't say or do anything for a few moments.
"I need time," she says, looking down at her hands.
He lowers his head and the hand he was getting ready to reach out to her with.
"I understand." But he didn't. "How…how much?"
She finally looks at him. Her heart breaks at the look on his face. She knows that he wants to be with her and his family.
"I don't know."
"I can stay at the MetroCourt…." he starts.
She studies his features. "You look tired."
"I'm fine," he says, rubbing his face with both hands.
"Why don't you come with me to pick up the kids?" she asks. "Monica will want to know you're alive…."
He nods.
Elizabeth slowly walks into the living room of the Quartermaine Mansion. Jason stays out in the foyer.
"Hi guys," she says softly, because Emily is asleep in the porta-crib on the floor.
"Mommy," Cameron yells, but doesn't get up from table or the puzzle he's putting together.
Jake, however does get up and walks over to his mom. She picks him up, kisses his cheek and lets him rest his head on her shoulder.
"Do you need a nap, buddy?" she asks, rubbing his back.
"He was laying down, just wasn't sleeping," Monica says, walking over to them. She studies Elizabeth's face. "You okay?"
Elizabeth nods and then glances around the room. She sets Jake back down, next to Cameron.
"Sit with me," she tells Monica.
Jake rests his chin in his hand as he watches his brother hard at work, but he catches something moving out in the foyer so he gets up to go see what it is.
"I have some good news to tell you," Elizabeth starts, taking Monica's hand in hers. "Shocking, but good."
Jake slowly opens the door all the way. His eyes get big as he sees his daddy. Jason can't do anything else but stare down at his son with a smile.
"Dada," Jake says in a normal tone of voice. Neither Monica nor Elizabeth hears Jake at this point.
Jason's surprised that Jake even recognizes him still.
"I was at the cemetery, visiting Jason's grave…" Elizabeth starts.
Monica nods.
"And….God, well, how do I put this?" Elizabeth says, trying to come up with the least shocking way of announcing this.
"Dada dada dada," Jake starts singing, reaching up for Jason to pick him up.
Jason reaches down to pick up Jake, when he does, his elbow pushes the door open all the way. He holds him tightly, shutting his eyes.
The door opening catches Monica's attention and she looks over in time to see Jason holding Jake. Elizabeth looks over at the same time and her eyes fill with tears at the sight before her. A sight she never thought she'd see again.
"Jason?" Monica says.
Jason's eyes open and he slowly walks into the room.
Elizabeth stands up and watches Monica to see what she's going to do.
"It's me," he whispers.
Cameron looks up from his puzzle. He gets off of his chair and stands next to it, suddenly feeling shy. Mommy told him Jason was gone forever. That he was with the angels…
"Oh my God, Jason," Monica says rushing over to him.
He sets Jake back down and reaches down to embrace her. Elizabeth watches with a teary smile on her face. She's overwhelmed with emotion at what she's witnessing. Then she notices Cameron, standing by the table.
"Come here, Cam," she says holding out her hand.
He slowly walks over to Elizabeth.
"You told me he was with the angels," he whispers to her once he's at her side.
She crouches down so she's eye level with him. "I know I did. I thought he was…but I was wrong. He just went away for awhile. But he's back now."
Even saying it out loud, she can't believe it.
Monica pulls away from Jason. Jake grabs Jason's jeans and tugs on them, making him look down at him.
"Tameron," he says, pointing to Cameron.
"Hi Cam," Jason says.
"Hi," Cameron says softly. "I thought you were gone…"
Jason squats down. "I know. I'm sorry I was gone for so long."
"Mommy cried…"
Elizabeth shuts her eyes as she feels the sting of tears again. Cameron was so brave through everything that happened that she would forget how young he really was.
Jason looks up at Elizabeth. "I know….and I'll never forgive myself for that."
He looks back down at Cameron. "But I'm here now and I don't want to leave you guys again."
"You promise?" Cameron asks.
Jason pulls Cameron into a hug. "I promise, buddy."
Jake leans into Jason's side and then Emily wakes up.
Elizabeth walks over to the crib and lifts her up. "Hi baby, did you have a good nap?" Elizabeth kisses her cheek and walks over to Jason.
He stands up and watches them approach. He can't take his eyes off of his daughter. Monica bites her lower lip as she watches Elizabeth hand over their daughter to Jason.
"Emily," Jason starts but is overwhelmed by emotion. He shuts his eyes and lets a few tears fall, which makes both Elizabeth and Monica get emotional. "My baby girl," he whispers. He kisses the top of her head and then her forehead. "She's beautiful," he says, looking at Elizabeth.
"I think so, but I'm biased," she says as she rubs Emily's back.
Monica breaks the silence. "How is this all possible?"
"It's a long story," Jason says.
"It has to do with that Perez family, doesn't it?"
He nods.
"Jason…I hope this convinces you to leave the business," Monica says.
Jason looks at Elizabeth. "It's not that easy."
Elizabeth nods.
"But I can see what I can do."
She smiles at him.
"I'm sure the five of you would like to get home. It's been an emotional day," Monica says, looking at her family.
"It has," Elizabeth agrees. She runs her fingers through Cameron's hair as he leans in against her side.
"I can…I can help you get the kids settled in before…" Jason starts.
Elizabeth cuts him off. "You're not going anywhere. I just got you back. We'll go back to the Penthouse and have dinner…all of us."
Jason nods. "Okay."
Jason hugs Monica one more time before the Morgan's head for home….together.
"Let's go home, Jason," Elizabeth says.
Those words are music to Jason's ears.