Chapter 2

Jason stared at the blood on his hands, Carly's blood. This scene was all too familiar. It hadn't even been a year since he had been in a similar situation with Sam, only this time Carly had chosen to get shot. She had actively chosen to shield his body from harm with hers.

A little voice in the back of his head kept taunting him; it's different because she's the one you love.

Was that it? Or was it just the thought of losing the one person who always had his back, who would walk through fire to save him?

"Oh my god! Jason what happened?" Emily ran up to her brother in fear, "Where are you bleeding?"

"It's not me, it's not mine…" Jason mumbled in a daze.

"Whose is it? What happened?" Emily tried to get her brother to look at her but he just stood facing the ER operating room doors waiting with a worried look on his face.

"Carly… it's Carly… they don't know if…" Unable to finish his sentence and unable to let his sister see him break down, he turned and walked away. He didn't know where he was going; he only knew he had to do something besides stand there like a dumbass.

"Oh please, I know I am not supposed to say this, but wouldn't the world be just a little nicer if that woman died?" Robin chuckled and nudged Emily in the ribs.

In the moments that Emily had exchanged that tiny bit of conversation with her brother it had hit her, Jason loved Carly, not just as a friend, but something more. Whether or not he had realized it she didn't know, but she hoped for his sake that Carly pulled through this.

Turning she threw a solemn glance at Robin, "You know after the hostage incident how everyone said I was the one that saved your life, well, I may have done the surgery, but Carly risked her life just so that I could do the surgery. If hadn't been for her arguing with the head guy, you would have bled to death."

Seeing that she had made her point and chosen her stance, Emily quietly walked away. She needed to call Jax… and have Bobbie paged… where had Jason gone?

Jason stood outside the nursery staring threw the window at his son. His own piece of immortality lie in an incubator just three feet away. He couldn't blame this innocent child for the events that had taken place, but he could blame himself and maybe Liz. If they had handled this different, maybe Lucky wouldn't have lost it.

"Jason?"

Turning he noticed that Monica was standing next to him, a worried look on her face.

"I've been paged to operate on Carly. The bullet nicked something and she is bleeding internally, the bullet could be the only thing keeping her from bleeding to death."

Jason gave a terse nod and waited for her to continue.

"I know technically I should be asking Jax, but we can't seem to get a hold of him. Carly as you listed as her representative in this kind of situation, so I need to ask you…" Monica cleared her throat, there was no easy way to ask what she had to ask.

"Do what you have to do to save her." Jason didn't wait for her to finish as he replied without hesitation.

Monica placed a hand on his shoulder and turned to walk away. A warm hand grabbed hers, stopping her in motion. Turning she looked back at her son in question.

"Mom, I need her. Please, don't let her die." Jason looked straight into Monica's eyes in a silent plea.

Monica gave him a quick nod, "Why don't you get cleaned up? It's ok. I'll take care of her, I promise."

Carly opened her eyes.

Where was she?

The fresh smell of roses lingered in the air and a sense of peace filled her. Roses? Had Jax bought roses for her?

Looking around she realized that she could see nothing but white in every direction.

"Go back! For god sake woman, can't you do anything right?"

Carly gasped and spun around in disbelief, "Alan?"

"Unfortunately, yes, it's me." Alan complained.

"Ok, the last time I cracked I didn't see dead people… come on Carly, this is just a really weird dream." Carly closed her eyes, squeezed them tight and then reopened them.

Nothing changed. The late Alan Quartermaine was standing right in front of her.

Fear clutched her heart, "Does this mean… am I… am I dead?"

"Not yet. I'd be thrilled if that was the case, then Jason would be free of you. I always told A. J. that you ruined his life and look how he ended up. Ouch!"

"What?" Carly looked around expectantly.

"That was mother. She makes sure that I feel her displeasure. Alright! I'll do it." Alan looked up as if to agree with someone.

"Lila's here? That would be why I smell the roses." Carly smiled. She had always loved Lila. She couldn't see or smell roses without remembering her.

"No she's made it to heaven, unlike me who's forced to stick around and make sure people like my sister and that no good uncle of yours act right… Anyway, that's neither here nor there. The point is whenever I do something she approves of the smell of roses fills the air. So you can imagine it doesn't happen to often." Alan actually smiled at that.

"So, I'm not dead, but I could die, and you're here because?" Carly let the question hang in the air.

"I'm here because if you die that son of my will never find happiness. For some unknown reason he needs you…" Alan looked up again as if anticipating some response to his comment, "And because as much as I don't approve of you, you did save his life."

"Oh yeah, I remember… we were standing in the penthouse… Lucky shot me." Carly looked up for confirmation.

"Yeah, who would have thought such a nice boy would do something so terrible. Anyway, I have things to do so… Just go back. Fight to stay, you like to fight it should come easy."

Before Carly could comment Alan started to walk away. "Fight? How? Don't you think I would if I could?"

Alan turned impatiently, "Look, I said what I was supposed to say, the rest is up to the man upstairs… Oh, do me a favor, if you see Monica tell her… Tell her I'm waiting."

Jason sat in the waiting room, his head in his hands.

Milo had shown up with a clean shirt and pants for him, but he still felt as if he were covered in her blood.

Sonny was pacing the floor nervously, a frown on his face. He had been understandably upset to find out that Carly was shot and he was even more upset when he found out that no one had been able to locate Jax yet.

"Jason?"

Jason stood up and walked toward a tired Monica.

"She made it through surgery. We managed to stop the bleeding, but… well, we lost her for a few minutes on the operating table and I won't know the extent of the damage it caused until she wakes up. She's in stable condition for the moment."

Jason looked at Sonny and saw the relief mirroring his own in the other man's eyes.

"Monica, can I see here?" Sonny asked.

Monica looked at Jason and saw him tense up in reaction to Sonny's attempt to claim "his" territory.

"She's going to be in SICU for at least 4 hours, then we'll move her into ICU… You won't be able to see her until the morning, I'm sorry."

Sonny gave her an accepting nod and turning to Jason he managed to hold his own fear in check.

"I'll keep the boys at my house… God only knows where Jax is. Do you want me to take care of Spencer?"

Jason understood what he was being asked and shook his head in the negative.

"I've got it under control. I'm just going to go up a check on the baby… and Liz." He added in almost an after thought.

After Sonny left Jason turned toward Monica, "Thank you."

"Jason… if you want to see Carly for a second, I might be able to sneak you in."

Wearily Jason smiled, "I was going to try and sneak in later anyway."

"I know." Monica smiled and led Jason to Carly's room.