Title: "Dancing in the Dark" 4/4

Author: Mala

E-mail: malisita@yahoo.com

Fandom: "General Hospital"

Rating/Classification: 'R', AU, language, sexual situations, C/M, BJ/AJ,

Disclaimer: Oh, boy. I REALLY don't own them.

Summary: In a slightly alternate timeline, Max Jones hates where she's been and Coleman Radcliff hates where he is. Barbara Jean Jones hates where she is and AJ Quartermaine hates... everything. So, where can they go together besides straight to Hell?

"I'll shake this world off my shoulder."--Bruce Springsteen.

Her best friend had maybe six months to live. Graduation was in two weeks. Her final round of auditions was in four days. And her heart was going to break in an hour.

These were certainties.

Barbara Jean was used to certainties. Because that was what her life consisted of. Knowing when she was getting up in the morning, what time she had what class, how many times a day her brother took insulin, when her father had legal visitation, and how her mother's schedule was split between the hospital and Kelly's. Knowing how many minutes she had to stretch out before attempting a perfect pirouette, how long to hold an extension, and when her toe shoes needed to be replaced.

Last night, she had tried to do something that couldn't be scheduled, plotted on a calendar. And all she had really done was set herself up for disappointment.

Now, she could be absolutely certain that AJ Quartermaine was out of her ife.

She sighed, flopping down on the couch and shoving Lucas's stinky feet inside. And then the doorbell rang...so amidst his grumbles, she shoved his feet right back again and leapt up. Probably a prospective renter. One of the terrace apartments was available. She worked the locks and yanked the paneled door open, putting on her best professional smile.

Which automatically shifted into a genuine goofy grin the size of the Port Charles River. "AJ!" So much for certainties! "What are you doing here?"

He was leaning, sheepishly, on the doorframe, scuffing at the ground with the toe of one polished loafer. "Can I interest you in a copy of the Watchtower?"

She muffled a giggle against her palm...and shot a dirty look over her shoulder at the interjected, "What's *he* doing here?"

"Shut up, Lucas. Go upstairs," she snapped as she ushered AJ inside. And when she was answered by a rude mumble and the pounding of Nikes on the stairs, AJ muffled a more masculine variation on a giggle.

"He didn't want to become a Jevohah's Witness?"

"Jehovah's *witless*, maybe," she allowed. "I can't wait to go away to school."

His dark eyebrows knitted together thoughtfully. "So...you'll have to find an apartment in Manhattan..." he began.

She laughed, cautiously. "I'd planned on it, yeah."

His eyes twinkled with deep warmth. "Need some help looking?"

She tried to keep her heart from leaping. Bad girls didn't leap. They rocked back and look smug. But she leapt anyway...smugly. "What are you going to do? Check the fire codes?"

He chuckled, reaching out and brushing a few strands of her hair out of her face. And his fingertips weren't icy at all. They felt wonderful against her skin. "I thought you were only sarcastic after great sex?"

"Preemptive strike," she said, unable to keep from grinning as she wrapped her arms around him. "Chalk it up to my infallible optimism." And infallible optimism turned very, very fallible, when the front door was suddenly flung open and her father stormed into the living room. "What the Hell is going on here? BJ? Why is that man here?"

Oh. Shit. This was so much worse than Lucky throwing a few punches. So. Much. Worse. AJ wouldn't need a food tube and a wheelchair when her dad was done with him. He'd need a coffin.

She set her jaw and kept herself, firmly, between them.

"I...I came by to talk to Barbara Jean about Emily," AJ lied, immediately. And it cost him. She could see the fringes of frost on his eyelashes. "She...she's been kind to my family during a really difficult time and I wanted to give her an update on Em's condition."

There were no updates. She'd checked her messages after coming home. Emily was simply herself. Coping beautifully. Loving passionately. Wanting to know if she'd taken any chances.

And she had. Once.

So she would again.

"He's lying, Dad," she said, evenly. "AJ came to see me because we were together last night."

Because they'd been together last night...and perfect in their mutual imperfection. Partners in a pas des deux. Flint and steel.

She wasn't going to give that up. Not when she'd just found it.

Not when she finally knew exactly who she was.

Barbara Jean. Just Barbara Jean.

Her own person.

***

Crying all over herself and telling Coleman all about her stupid family had not been part of her plan. No, letting people know what you were running away from... it didn't facilitate you getting any farther from it.

But what it had done...was bring her closer. To him. Wrapped up in his arms and his lips and the safe-wild sense that this was right. She'd meant it when she said he was her oasis. And maybe he didn't believe her...didn't *want* to believe her...but he couldn't resist her. And she had to keep counting on that.

Not that she could count anything at all with his drugging kisses scrambling her brain, just like he'd scrambled the eggs, and his hands slipping beneath her blouse, spanning her rib cage...fingers stroking up and down her sides.

She tugged, frantically, at his shirt and he shook his head. "Hey...hey, slow down."

"I can't...please...." And she wasn't even sure what she was pleading for. No...no she was... she'd never been more sure of anything. "Gimme just a minute, Max..." he said, raggedly, against her throat, before he drew away, leaving her. "I...I have to get something."

The minutes he was gone felt like an eternity and the hot lights pounding down on her, coupled with the cool stage against her back, made her feel like a sweat-soaked, boneless mass of nerves.

And then he was back...lifting her up into his lap, cradling her close, holding her so tightly she couldn't breathe...didn't want to. And she was suddenly realizing that this...*this*...chest to chest, breath entangled, sensation... was probably why her mother followed her father to the ends of the earth and back. *This* was why she couldn't come with them, couldn't share it. *This* could only belong to two people at a time.

This...was Coleman pressing a soft kiss to her forehead, murmuring, "Baby Doll," like it was his last prayer. And chasing it with an "I'm sorry."

And her body instinctively went still. Her heart skidded to a full stop. "You're...sorry?" she repeated. "Why are you sorry?"

He averted his eyes. So she couldn't see the black heat of desire fade.

And in that instant, she knew.

Max Jones did *not* chicken out.

But Coleman...? Had done exactly that.

He released her in a painstakingly slow series of beats and climbed off the extended part of the stage. So he was a good six feet away from her when her aunt Bobbie walked in.

She barely heard him whisper, "You have to go home. You can't be here," over the blood rushing against her eardrums...and when she would've spat, "I AM home," Bobbie was coming forward to take her arm and help her down.

"Oh, Honey...Maxie...look at you...why didn't you tell us you were here?" her aunt wondered without rancor, without accusation.

But that was a Spencer-Jones, for you. With a family full of lunatics and ex-hookers and vagabonds, nothing surprised them...not even their teenage niece looking ravished in the middle of a strip club.

At least a lecture would have drowned out the sound of her heart breaking. The sound of...the only person she had ever trusted enough to strip herself bare for...betraying her. But she couldn't even have that small distraction.

She choked, staring at him, miserably, as she was tugged past. "Aunt Bobbie, wait...no..."

"Hush, Honey. It's okay. Mariah must be worried sick...we'll call her as soon as we get home."

She hadn't run away from her life. She had run *to* it.

"Coleman..."

His tone was impersonal, gruff. "If you want to dance for me, Miss Texas... you come back when it's the right time." But oh...oh, his eyes were still black. He still wanted her. Maybe...maybe he would always want her...

She stumbled and Bobbie held her up, helped her keep moving.away. As far away from him as she could get.

The right time wasn't now. She just hoped that it was soon.

Before she hated him even more than she did at this moment.

And before she hated herself.

***

"BJ, I don't know what you think AJ Quartermaine can give you, but I can assure you it'll include criminal charges, the loss of your sanity, and some sort of addiction. Please ask him to leave before I throw him out."

It was Barbara Jean's cue to cut him loose, to say good-bye. Her eyes were deep sea blue with tears, with choices, and standing between him, someone she barely knew, and her father...how could she possibly choose anything but family?

They'd had a nice night. Something she could take to New York with her in a few weeks. Something he could...he could...bury deep inside, with all his grief and all his other failures. But that was it.

Another woman was not going to be caught between him and Tony Jones. A drunken rock and an anal hard place. "Y-you can't throw him out," she stammered. And then she drew a breath and he recognized that steel in her eyes. The same conviction that had preceded her vaulting the table and attacking him. "This is Mom's property, not yours. So, unless you want to call her..."

Tony shook his heard, sharply, his mouth tightening. "Fine. Fine, if you don't want to see my side of it...if you want to use your mother as your defense...let's talk about what he did to your mother's other daughter." Gone was the open, child-like kindness that AJ had thought Barbara Jean inherited. This was ice. Something that Barbara Jean didn't traffic in. "This is the man who pushed Carly down the stairs and made her lose a child."

This was probably the point in arguments where BJ caved. AJ knew he'd done the same himself...and, Hell, he was tempted to hightail it out the door...because Tony's weaponry was almost, almost as effective as his grandfather's. Every sin...every weakness...put on display.

But, all of a sudden, Barbara Jean's hand closed around his. "You'd push Carly down a set of stairs, too, if you could." And she squeezed it tight. "Didn't you kidnap Michael once, Dad?" she asked, softly. "Her and AJ's baby? What are you afraid of? That he's getting revenge by kidnapping yours?"

Oh, wow. Talk about weaponry. Little Barbara Jean was one big flame thrower.

When her father stopped stock still in the middle of his self-righteous rant, she danced past him so gracefully that AJ had no choice but to move in tandem.

Barbara Jean smiled. A strong smile. "I'm not a baby anymore. I'm not your little girl anymore. I'm not good and perfect. I'm just *me*. And I know what I want." She looked askance at him, and then leaned in and kissed his mouth. "And I'm kidnapping AJ. We're going apartment hunting, he's going to watch me do a nude 'Swan Lake', and then we'll have sex somewhere public. I'll be back next week for school." Before he knew what was happening, they were outside on the steps, with a firmly slammed door separating him from imminent death at the hands of his girlfriend's father.

His *girlfriend's* father?

AJ felt the grin heat up his face like a blaze.

And when he spun her into his arms and lowered his mouth to hers, it turned into nuclear meltdown.

***

The glass made a satisfying crash-and-splinter noise against the floor ...and he kept going...shoving tumblers and pints and bottles every which way until they all hit the floor in the key of Fuck Major.

As her aunt had tugged her out the door with sympathetic clucks and murmurs of "Don't worry, Maxie...I'll make sure you don't get in *too* much trouble," Miss Max had looked back at him...eyes full of his betrayal...and she'd been legal. Not fifteen. Not sixteen. With his mouth on her skin and one phone call, he had sent her straight to a jaded thirty-five.

The girl who'd walked into his life last night had been innocent. The woman who'd walked out had been anything but. Thanks to him.

He wanted to scream. To howl. To hit something, so he did...and the mirror behind the bar shuddered and gave way, raining reflective glass down all over him. The blood on his hands...it was nothing compared to the taste of her.

And right on cue, Lorena appeared with a broom. Probably what she'd arrived riding. "You sent her home? She'll get over it," she murmured, beginning to sweep up. Funny how she only did things like serve him drinks or clean when she was feeling smug.

"She'll get over it?" he repeated, swallowing hard, dabbing at the cuts with a bar napkin. "She'll get OVER it?" He laughed and it was an ugly sound. Not tinkling and musical like the glass breaking. "I don't think *I'll* get over it."

"Coleman." She stalled with the happy homemaker routine, lines of distress crinkling her smooth forehead. "The whole thing was a joke, all right? She was a kid and you sent her home. You did the right thing."

He never hollered at his girls. Never raised a hand to them. But Lorena Parker was a special case, right? So when he threw the pint glass, he made sure to miss. And it shattered just inches from her right foot, making her jump. "The right thing? Fuck you." He flattened his palms on the bar, leaning over it, uncaring of the fact that he was now bleeding all over the Formica. "Fuck you." And if the words were a little choked, a little wet, he didn't care. "Do you hate me so much, 'Rena? Do you hate me so much that you had to kill me this way?"

"Oh, Cole." She shook her head, letting the broom fall into the neat pile of glass she'd accumulated, and slowly came around the bar. He wanted to shrug her away as she wrapped her arms around him from behind, but instead he leaned back against her...because he wasn't sure he could keep standing without help. "Honey, I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..."

Sorry? So was he. So. Damn. Sorry.

"Hey...hey..." Lorena soothed, gently, and he could feel her sudden smile against his back. "Max isn't me, remember?"

Yeah, he thanked God he only had one psycho bitch in his life. "What...what does that have to do with anything?" he wondered, hoarsely.

She grasped his face in her fingers and forcibly turned his head so he could see the knowing blue light in her eyes. "I was smart enough to divorce you," she reminded. "She's so dumb...she'll come back."

He was still laughing when she got him to the ER.

And he didn't tell her...*couldn't*...that he believed her.

Instead, he waited.

And tried not to die a little inside every time the door to his office opened and it wasn't Mariah Maxmiliana Jones standing there with a prepared packet of lies.

***

"Dammit, Lorena, you stupid bitch! I told you, no interruptions tonight!" he growled when the office door swung open, not looking up from the profit margins he was studying.

The noticeable lack of a "Fuck off, you shithead!" was what made him finally glance up.

There was more of a sharp angle to her features, less of one at her hips. And it was patently obvious that she still didn't believe in bras. But it was her eyes... her beautiful dark, achingly familiar eyes...that made the papers slip from his hand.

The first three things out of her little rosebud mouth were the God's honest truth.

"My name's Max. I'm eighteen. And I want to strip."

She pulled a neatly folded birth certificate from the back pocket of her new, glittery, jeans. He didn't have to glance down at it to know the dates were typed clearly.

And the fourth thing out of her mouth...was more than he deserved.

"I...uh...I think I might love you."

As she began to pull off her top, he crossed the room, stalled her with a kiss he'd been holding for two years...and whispered, roughly, "'Bout damn time you learned to tell the truth, Baby Doll."

--end--

April 23, 2003.