It was perhaps the longest three hours of Jason's life before he finally saw Patrick Drake's lanky form come dragging through the swinging door of the operating rooms, his eyes lifeless and his posture defeated. Jason knew immediately that the news wasn't good, but he couldn't tell if he was coming to offer his condolences to Jax or to all of them. Patrick's eyes met Jason and held for a moment before he nodded toward the hallway. "I need to talk to you," he announced as he came into the waiting room. The tiniest bit of relief washed over Jason when he realized that the surgeon was speaking to Jax. It lasted only a moment before he realized what that meant for Carly.
Jason was past Patrick and halfway down the hall before Jax even stood up to hear the bad news. He paused outside the door to Carly's room, watching her through the small glass window as she sat alone in her bed. Her expression was just as numb as Patrick's had been, but Jason knew that she was only waiting for him before she broke down. He knocked once before coming into the room. "Oh, God, Jase," came her choked sob, the only words she managed to get out before he had swept her into his arms.
Wires and monitors be damned, Jason crawled onto the bed next to her and held her quivering body close to him as they both wept openly and freely. "It's not fair, it's not fair," Carly moaned over and over again. Jason had no answers, no way to legitimize and explain the whole thing away. He couldn't promise her that it was going to be okay or that this had happened for a reason. It was hard to find logic in this senseless tragedy. He was as lost as he had been that night when he had held Carly's hand while they held vigil over Michael.
Carly clawed at him desperately every time he moved away even the slightest bit. Jason had always known how fragile she could be, but he had never seen her this broken before. It wasn't fair. Carly had lost so much, and now, she had lost the one thing that had truly given her hope in the last year. "I don't understand," she lamented tearfully, her words barely above a whisper as she kept her face pressed into the soft leather of his coat. "I had faith. I really believed that everything was going to be alright."
He wanted to tell her that he had believed that she wasn't going to have to lose her baby, but a part of Jason had known from the first moment she had told him that she had the condition how this was going to end. Preferring reality to false hope, he had never really been able to convince himself enough to become an optimist. He knew that he had to prepare for the worst because Carly was going to be the one that needed him to save her if and when things fell apart. As much as he had wanted to believe here, he couldn't. He had to be ready when Carly needed him, and right now, she needed him more than she had ever needed anyone in her life.
Tilting her chin slightly, he looked into her blue eyes that were swimming with grief and uncertainty. "We are going to get through this," he promised her meaningfully. He wouldn't leave her side until she could go a minute – an hour, a day, a week – without falling apart. "I am here. I am going to get you through this, Carly. I promise you."
"Maybe this is my punishment for everything that I have done wrong. I guess I didn't learn my lesson hard enough when we lost Michael, huh? I kept lying, kept scheming and doing whatever it took to get my way," she said coldly. Jason hated to see her blame herself. "I've done so many bad things in my life, Jase. Why do my kids keep paying for my sins? I just wanted this. We needed this little girl so bad. Without her, Jax and I are never going to make it. I don't even think we want to anymore."
She had always been a swirling confusion of emotions, but Jason had never seen her this fragmented before. "Carly, this isn't your fault," he assured her. He could tell that she didn't believe him by the way that she refused to meet his eyes. It killed him that she couldn't bear to even look at him. "Look at me. This is not your fault. We've all done things, made mistakes. It's not your fault that you lost this little girl anymore than it is my fault that Emily was strangled. You wouldn't let me blame myself then, and I will not let you do that to yourself now. You still have so many people here that love you, and I am not about to let you go into that dark hole so that they lose you, too."
There were so many things that Jason knew that he would have to tell Carly. He would have to tell her that her husband's brother was one of the people behind the shooting that put their little boy in a coma. He would have to admit that Sonny's wife had masterminded the entire thing. He would have to live with the fact that he couldn't completely blame Claudia. He would have done the exact same thing if someone had grabbed Emily and tortured her the way Sonny had ordered. Sonny would have ordered a hit in an instant if someone had done that to Courtney or Carly or even Jason. The fact that Michael was shot rested fully on Ian Devlin's shoulders, and he was likely paying for that in whatever afterlife he had inherited. It didn't make it an easier to swallow the fact that Claudia and Jerry were walking the earth as if nothing happened while Michael lay strapped to a bed. It was just a situation that was hard, and he feared that there were no right answers for what had happened.
However, before he could even begin to go there, he had to get Carly through this. "Carly, Morgan needs you so much right now. He's lost just as much as you have this year, and you are the one thing that has been consistent in his life. His entire little world revolves around you. I'm not telling you that you have to be strong. You get to scream and cry and mourn this as much as you need to. I just need you to find a way to hold onto the tiniest sliver of light for Morgan," he told her quietly while he stroked her hair. "And maybe it's selfish, but I need you with me, too. I'm just realizing everything that you mean to me and I'm pretty sure that it can't be coming at a worse time. I just need you to hold on so that we can find our way together."
"Kiss me."
Jason looked at her a moment hesitantly. He knew that it was a bad idea, but it was the only thing that she had asked him to do since he'd come here. They might regret it later, but for now, it was what she needed. Tangling his fingers in her long curls, he pulled her as close to him as he could manage and kissed her softly. He could taste the salty tears on her lips as she deepened the moment by turning her head slightly. Her hold on his tee shirt grew even more desperate. Finally, he pulled away reluctantly. He hated that the kiss wasn't about him but about her need to feel anything other than pain.
"Jase, please," she implored as she pulled on his coat sleeve, trying to entice him into another moment.
He shook his head and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "You're not in a good place right now, Carly. Neither am I," he admitted. "You just went through something terribly difficult less than an hour ago. You haven't even started to deal with this. I know how much you're going to need me. We can't go there, right now."
They were both reckless to a fault, but it was always Jason that found his head just in time. It was something that she both loved and hated about her best friend. A begrudging part of her knew that he was right, but the biggest part of her didn't care. She wanted comfort right now, even if she was still stuck in this hospital bed. She wanted to forget, to delay the inevitable of having to truly mourn the little girl she had lost. She didn't want to have to think about the fact that her marriage was over. There were a lot of things that she wanted to ignore, and Jason was supposed to be the perfect distraction. It was really unfortunate that he loved her so much sometimes.
She decided then and there that if he wasn't going to give her physical comfort, she was going to have to take the emotional support that he had always given her. He was going to make her deal with it whether she wanted to or not. He would allow her to mourn, sure, but he wasn't going to let her drag it out. Jason was right; she still had Morgan to consider. "Okay, fine," she grunted, knowing that she sounded like a brat. "If you are going to make me deal with this, I guess I should start by telling you what happened. I lost the baby, Jason. My little girl died because I was too stubborn to do the right thing in the first place. I wanted a little girl more than I wanted to live. How is that fair to Morgan? Don't answer, I know it's not. I shouldn't have put you all through this."
"She was your daughter. You were the one who got to decide, just like you are the one who is feeling this the most," he reminded her as he pulled her back against his chest. They both watched as a pair of nurses passed by the door, pausing to look at the two of them on the bed. "What can I do for you?"
"I need to see Jax…"
"Do you want to see him?"
Carly shrugged. Of course she didn't want to see him right now. He would be just as broken up as she was, and she would just start to feel guilty all over again for putting him through this. She had already done it once before when she had fallen from the pier last year. It wasn't his fault that he had stupidly fallen in love with a reckless blonde who had already given her heart away years ago and would never fully love him back. It was just another selfish thing Carly had itemized in her inventory of guilt. "Not really, but he needs to know what's going on," she answered finally. "I owe him that much."
"You don't owe anyone anything, especially not right now," he professed gently, running his fingers down her bare arms until they found her hands. "Patrick will tell Jax everything. I can go get him right now if that's what you want. He is your husband. He should probably be the one who is here with you anyhow."
She knew that he was right, but she didn't care. She had long ago accepted her selfishness, and this was one time she was going to exercise her right to have her way. "No, I want you here," she affirmed. More than that, she needed him here. "I know it's wrong that I don't want my husband. I just…you're the one."
"I know," he murmured as he squeezed her hand. How many times had he called out for Carly when there had been someone else at his side? Through the brain surgery, when he was in jail, after he was shot – she was always the one that he wanted there. As crazy as it sounded, Carly was his sanity. "What else did the doctors tell you?"
"Dr. Lee wants me to have a full hysterectomy as soon as we can get it scheduled," she told him. Her voice was edgy, and he knew that she could start to cry again any minute. "I'm never going to have my little girl, Jase. I can't have any more children. She said that there is no way I could survive this again."
Jason shook off all the imagers of that little blonde girl that he had always held so dear in his heart. If a future with Carly didn't include a daughter, he would find a way to be okay with that. He just needed to know that she would be there. "Then we'll deal with that, too," he avowed. "I'll make sure that the house is stocked with all your favorite junk food. I'll come stay with you to help with Morgan. We'll watch movies and make popcorn."
"I really wanted a little girl."
He looked down at her over her shoulder and nodded silently. "I know that you did," he retorted, dropping a kiss on her forehead. He could feel all the pain that she was. He had wanted this little girl just as much as she had. It was an amazing feeling, to mourn the loss of a child that was never his as if it were his own. "I will find a way for you to have a daughter, Carly. We will have our little girl."
"We? Our?"
There were a lot of details to work out, and like he'd said earlier, the timing was horrible, but they both knew that they were going to be together after this. That was what that whole conversation before the surgery had been about. They had wasted too much time apart to lose another chance after something like this. "Ours," he repeated, emphasizing the word so that she would believe him. It was too soon for it to be anything more than a promise, but it was a dream that both of them could cling to. "I don't care if we have to harvest your eggs and find a surrogate. We can adopt if you want. It doesn't matter how we do this, Carly. I will make sure that we have the little girl that you have always wanted."
"I'm a bad wife." Jason laughed for the first time since he had come there. The light moment brought a smile to her face. "Come on, you know it's true."
"Maybe," he admitted with a smile, "but you're an incredible best friend and an amazing mother. Right now, that's all I'm really worried about. Look, I know I should feel bad about what we're doing to Jax, but I think he kind of figured it out when you wanted me with you instead of him. You're going to have to talk to him. He lost your child with you. I have all of these conflicting emotions about what I should be doing, but that all falls to the side when I know that you need me here with you."
"I'm always going to need you, Jase," she said sleepily. Carly snuggled her head against his chest as she yawned. Sleep was starting to overcome her, her body exhausted from the physical and emotional trauma that the day had brought. With Jason's strong arms entwined around her, she finally felt safe enough to allow the dreams to come. Even if she had a nightmare, he would be right here waiting for her.
When he was sure that Carly was asleep, Jason allowed himself to doze off. There was no leaving her now, not that there ever had been. As his own dreams came, he saw images of himself with his family, walking through the park with Carly and the boys and their little blonde girl. He saw the life that he had always wanted, the one that he was meant to live. He saw what he knew now to be his future, the life that they were finally going to live.
The only thing Carly and Jason didn't see as they slept in each other's arms was a shattered Jax watching them from the hallway, knowing full well that he hadn't just lost his child today. He had lost Carly. He had lost his family. Jax wasn't sure that either had ever really been his in the first place. Maybe they had both always belonged to Jason. It would only be a matter of time before Jason and Carly were together. They had found their way back here again.