Chapter 7

Sam walked off the elevator onto the fourth floor of General Hospital after walking away from Jason on the docks.

She had left him before he could respond to her declaration because the truth was that whatever he had to say, she wasn't interested in hearing. His take on the reason behind her tumor's formation was meaningless. She was angry at herself for even talking to him in the first place.

But it seemed that the fates hated her even more than she gave them credit for as she looked up to see Jason at the nurses' station talking to Elizabeth Spencer.

How the hell had he gotten there so fast?

"When do you need me to pick him up?" Jason finished asking.

Elizabeth glanced over at the clock and returned her gaze to him. "Three would be great. Lucky and I will be leaving by 4 so we can drop Cam and Steve off at my grandmother's."

Sam rolled her eyes at the joy on the woman's face as she continued to talk about the romantic getaway that she and Lucky had planned.

"I really appreciate you doing this," Elizabeth added.

"He's my son, Liz, I'm more than happy to take him off your hands for an extra night," he told her.

Sam walked up to them and looked at the nurse only. "Is Robin ready to see me yet?" she asked.

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at her as she glanced at a chart in front of her. "No, she's still with a patient right now. You'll have to wait," she replied.

Sam sighed in annoyance. "Do you know how long it will take?"

"No, I don't, Sam. You'll just have to be patient," Elizabeth snapped as she once again glared at her. "Maybe work on not being so selfish while you wait."

Sam stared at her in disbelief. She wondered what the hell Elizabeth's problem was. She knew she wasn't fond of her, the feeling was more than mutual, but it seemed every time she opened her mouth, Elizabeth was even more hostile than the last time.

Did she even know what the word professional meant? Sam wondered as she shook her head and walked away from Elizabeth.

"I'm sorry you had to see that, she just bugs me," Elizabeth apologized to Jason.

Jason understood her hatred of Sam. As Jake's mother, she had every right to feel the way she did. But Elizabeth was also a nurse and Sam was a patient. It was her job to keep patients calm, not to irritate them.

"Don't you think you were a little harsh?" Jason asked carefully.

Elizabeth's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Me being too harsh to the woman that watched my baby get kidnapped?" she asked and let that hang in the air for a minute. "Not possible."

"Elizabeth, I understand why you hate Sam and I'm not saying that you shouldn't feel that way, but Sam was just asking a question," Jason replied.

"It's not my problem if she's so selfish she can't wait a few minutes for her appointment with Robin. It's not like her life depends on it or anything," she said.

"Actually, it might," Jason answered without thinking.

"What do you mean?" Elizabeth asked, looking at him curiously.

"Sam has the same condition Nikolas does," Jason replied.

"Oh," she said softly, her eyes cast downward in fake shame. "I didn't know." She continued to fight the urge to smile at the news.

"Yeah, Big Bad Sam finally got hers," Sam remarked from behind them.

Jason turned to see that Sam was now standing a few feet away from them, resting against a pillar instead of sitting down in a chair.

"Eavesdropping now?" Elizabeth shook her head in disgust.

Sam rolled her eyes. "It's not as if you were being discreet, Miss Holier than Thou, when you were discussing my illness in front of the entire hospital with me three feet away."

Elizabeth was silent. Satisfied that she had actually rendered the bitch speechless, Sam returned to her chair in the waiting room that she had been sitting in before she got up to stretch her legs.

Jason left Elizabeth and followed Sam. He sat down beside her.

"What are you doing?" Sam demanded.

"You're wrong," Jason told her, ignoring her question.

"About what?" she asked.

"You didn't get this tumor because of what you did," Jason said.

"Why not?"

"A tumor doesn't form in a brain to punish people. If that were true, only people like murderers and thieves would suffer from them," Jason said.

"Don't forget kidnappers," Sam said boldly.

Jason's gaze hardened at the mention of her actions against his son. "You didn't kidnap Jake."

"I watched it happen and didn't do or say anything; that makes me just as guilty as Maureen," Sam disagreed.

Jason studied her as she spoke, surprised that he never noticed the regret in her eyes as she spoke about what she had done. It was as plain as day.

"That," he started to say but she raised a hand to him.

"Why do you even care?" Sam demanded to know.

He stared at her in confusion.

"You couldn't be bothered to give a damn two years ago. In fact, you were ready and willing to kill me yourself so why does anything about my life suddenly matter to you now?"

Jason stared at her.

"Sam," Robin called to her before he could answer. "Come on."

Sam glanced at Jason as she rose to her feet but shook her head at him and followed Robin out.

"What does that mean?" Sam asked Patrick Drake after he finished telling her where her tumor was in her brain in medical jargon, which in her opinion might as well be gibberish.

"Your tumor is putting pressure right here," Robin intercepted the question as she pointed to a random spot on the MRI that was now hanging on an illuminated board. "The behavioural part of your brain."

"You mean it's not the same as Nik's?" Sam asked.

"Nikolas' tumor affects his behaviour in different ways than your tumor does," Patrick replied.

"And the tumor in my brain affects me how exactly?" Sam asked.

"Well, it might make it harder for you to analyze things," Patrick explained.

Robin elaborated, saying that she might have trouble thinking rationally, causing her to do some uncharacteristic things.

"It could explain what happened with Jake's kidnapping, for instance," she added.

Sam stared at her in disbelief. "That's ridiculous," Sam dismissed the notion instantly. "That's like saying I watched Jake get kidnapped because I didn't know it was wrong."

"Exactly," Patrick said.

"But I did know it was wrong," Sam said.

"Maybe you did afterwards but not when it actually happened," Robin said.

"That's wishful thinking," Sam shook her head. "I might loathe myself for what I did but I don't believe that the tumor could affect me so terribly that I wouldn't know that it was wrong."

"We're the doctors, Sam," Patrick told her. "We do know that a tumor can affect you like that. Just look at all the things that Nikolas has done in his fits of rage."

"But they happened while he was in a rage," Sam said.

"You could have watched Jake get kidnapped while you were having a similar episode," Robin tried to explain. "Instead of a rage blackout, your tumor causes you to lose complete ability to distinguish between right and wrong."

"That is bull," Sam spat as she jumped off the table and bolted.

Robin and Patrick caught up to her near the nurses' station. "You feel guilty because at the time you didn't know you had a tumor but it wasn't your fault."

Sam stopped dead in her tracks and stared Robin and Patrick down. "And what about the days afterwards that I stayed silent? Could it cause that too? Do I get to blame every bad thing that I have ever done on my tumor?" She exploded.

"I don't understand why you won't accept this," Robin said. "Is it really easier for you to believe that you're a horrible person than it is to believe that you weren't in control of your actions because you didn't have the ability to make a choice?"

"I did make a choice!" Sam exclaimed. "It was the wrong one, but it was a choice and I made it!"

Patrick's eyes widened with realization. "You're afraid of not being in control, is that it?"

Sam shook her head. "I am in control."

"Because if you could do that, you're afraid of what else could happen because you weren't in control," Patrick said.

Tears were streaming down her face as she shook her head at him in denial. "That can't happen," she told him insistently.

Robin's face creased with sympathy as she stepped forward and put an arm on Sam's shoulder in an attempt to comfort her.

Sam stiffened at the contact but continued to shake her head.

"It's okay," Robin soothed her as she now hugged Sam who had responded by hugging her back. After a few minutes, they were able to lead Sam back to the examination room to talk more about her condition.

Jason finally walked around the corner and stared at Sam's retreating form having heard the entire conversation.