The cool October breeze whipped around Carly's face as she sat beneath the pale glow of the porch light. It had taken all of her strength to drag herself from the kitchen floor and Jason's arms to finally come home. The last thing she had wanted to do was leave the safety of his apartment where everything felt so sure to face the uncertainty of the rest of the world. However, it didn't really matter what she wanted. She was still a mother first and foremost, and Morgan was her top priority. Once she had accepted that her marriage to Jax was over, she recommitted herself fully to the most important role in her life. She promised him and herself that she would be home every single night. He was probably already in bed now, but she felt better knowing that she would be home at least if he woke up in the middle of the night.
Her bare legs prickled with goose bumps as they hugged the back of Jason's motorcycle tightly. They had been sitting quietly in her driveway for ten minutes now, neither one of them quite brave enough to make the first move. Once her feel hit the ground, she would become Morgan's mother again. As long as she was on this bike, she could pretend that they were the only two people in the world. However, as soon as her heels hit the pavement, what they wanted suddenly became second to what he needed. They were unified in that. There was nothing more important than the boys, this family.
"I need to go in," she murmured as she pressed her chin to his shoulder. Jason nodded silently before turning slightly to look back at her. Sadness was apparent in his blue eyes, somehow managing to shine brighter than all the unspoken questions resting on the tip of his tongue. "Morgan should be in bed now, but I should probably check on him. Mercedes was supposed to have tonight off. She only stayed as a favor to me."
He nodded again, this time more understandingly. With one swift movement, he was off the motorcycle, offering his hand to her. She grinned at him saucily as she swung one leg over the bike and jumped off on her own. He had always loved how independent she was. She liked to pretend to the world that she didn't need anyone. He loved knowing that she would always need him. "You have no idea how hard it was letting you walk out of the penthouse," he murmured as he walked her part way up the sidewalk He spotted one of her guards out of the corner of his eye. Even after all his years in the business, a part of him had never gotten used to never truly being alone. "I guess we have time."
Reaching up, Carly framed his chiseled face in her hands and smiled. She loved knowing that he wanted her. After they had hid it and denied it for so long, it was nice to have total honesty between the two of them. She had missed being with him like that. "We have all the time in the world together, Jase," she promised. "As long as you want to be with me, you know that I will be right there by your side. Hell, I've been there a lot of times when you didn't want me there. In case you haven't figured it out yet, you're kind of stuck with me."
"Promise?" he whispered as he leaned his forehead against hers. His fingers reached up to tangle in her blonde curls. He felt her body shiver involuntarily against his at the simple touch of his fingertips on her skin. She wrapped her arms around him and murmured back her promise that she would never leave him. For the first time in a long time, the prospect of a future with a woman didn't scare him. He wasn't worried about losing her. He just wanted to love her in that moment. The rest would come later.
Reluctantly, Jason disentangled himself from her and turned to look inside her cozy cottage. Carly followed his gaze to the living room where Mercedes sat on the couch with a sleeping Morgan in her lap. She immediately registered the pain and confusion emanating from Jason. There were still so many details she had to work out. How could she justify keeping Morgan away from Sonny but not Jason? She knew that she couldn't. She also couldn't justify exposing her son to this life. "I wish it was a year ago."
He turned to her suddenly, slightly caught off guard by her comment. She had never been one to want to live in the past or to have regrets. "Maybe it wouldn't have changed anything," he suggested. "Maybe it would have changed everything. Maybe this would have never happened, Car. You can't wish for anything other than what it is. I mean, I would have loved for this to have happened a year ago, but it didn't. It's happening now. I wish that our son was with us more than anything, but he's not. I know it sounds harsh, but I want us to live in the reality of here and now. Right now, in this moment, I get to be with you. That's almost everything I have ever wanted."
"Me too," she whispered softly, allowing him to envelope her in his arms. Part of her felt like crying. There would always be something missing, but Jason was right. All they had was this moment. "I want us to be a family, Jase. It might not be perfect but it's ours. You, Morgan, Spinelli and me, we could be happy. I know that we'll always be missing two of our boys, but we have a lot more than other people."
Laying a kiss on top of her head, Jason pulled back slightly to search her eyes. He would have given her the world if she had asked for it with a comment like that. She wanted to give him the one thing that he wanted more than anything but had never been able to fully have – a family. "We are a family, Carly," he avowed. "Stone Cold, the Valkyrie, the Jackal and the youngest spawn of Mister Sir, that is our family."
She couldn't help but laugh at his uncharacteristic attempt at Spinelli speak. Just as she was about to tease him relentlessly, his cell phone buzzed from inside the pocket of his leather coat. Rolling her eyes, she moved out of his embrace to let him tend to business. She knew him well enough to know that he had to answer it. How many times had she been the one calling on the other end, interrupting his life? She watched him pull the phone out and look at the screen. His brow furrowed as he answered it. "Hey, what do you need?"
On the other end of the line, Elizabeth took a deep breath. She had had a long day at the hospital and had come home to find Sam and Lucky playing house with her sons. As much as she pretended to be okay with their relationship now, it still hurt her to see him with that woman. She just wanted to be with Jason tonight and have him make her feel whole again. "I need to see you," she pleaded softly, her voice deep and intimate. "Can you meet me at my studio?"
"Is it Jake?" he asked as he slid his free arm around Carly's waist and pulled her to him. She leaned her head on his shoulder and tried her best not to listen in on his conversation. She had tensed up slightly when he had asked about his son, knowing full well that it was Elizabeth. However, any doubt in her mind was gone when he had drawn her into his arm. He was where he wanted to be.
"No, it's about us," Elizabeth told him over the telephone. She felt more disconnected from him tonight than she had in recent weeks. Something had definitely shifted, but she figured it had to do with business. It was always business. If he could only be a different man, they could be together. She hated that her entire life was dictated by a choice he made years before they had ever met. "Please, Jase, I want to talk about us."
"I can't," he managed, an amazing feat given the soft kisses Carly was planting on his throat. He knew that she was playing dirty, but he clearly didn't care as long as he was benefiting from her devilish tactics. "Elizabeth, there is no us. You made that pretty clear when you made your opinions known about my life. Besides, I'm with Carly."
A loud scoff filled his ear as Liz exhaled into the receiver. "You're always with Carly," she pointed out. The woman was always concocting some kind of disaster that Jason needed to fix for her. Elizabeth had flirted with the idea of creating her own catastrophe once to see if he would come rescue her, too. "Just make something up about work. I'm sure she's used to you blowing her off for your job. We can meet in ten minutes. Lucky has the boys."
Jason winced slightly when he thought about the police detective playing father to his son. Logic sometimes lost to his heart when it came to Jake. "I don't think you get it," he retorted. "I'm with Carly. We're together. I'm not leaving to meet you. I won't lie to her. I won't blow her off. I don't have to meet with her in secret, and I won't have to watch another man raise my child with her."
His words stung more than he had intended, but he wanted to be severe so that she would get it. There was no coming back from where they had been. "I can't believe you," Elizabeth hissed. He could tell by the lilt in her voice that she was starting to cry. "You made me feel like your life wasn't safe enough for months, and suddenly, it's okay to be with her? How could you pretend to love me when all this time you just wanted to be with her? I knew you were a lot of things, Jase, but I never thought you were a liar."
"Don't call me that," he demanded evenly. He saw right through her ploy. "You never call me that. She's the only one who ever uses that name. Don't try to be her, Liz, green has never been your color." Carly couldn't help but snicker at his side, loving that for once he was putting little Lizzie in her place. She felt a strange sense of satisfaction in knowing that the wholesome nurse had lost out to her. "As for the rest of it, I've never lied to you, Elizabeth. You asked me to lie to everyone else, but I didn't do that with you."
"That was for our son!"
"Exactly, our son," Jason emphasized. "I loved you, Elizabeth, but you asked me to give up my child. You asked me to lie and to walk away to keep him safe. I did that because I loved him. You made me believe that I had to do that. Maybe I did, I don't know. I just know that she would never ask me to make that choice. She believes in me enough to know that I could keep her safe. I am not Sonny. I wouldn't make the same mistakes that he made with Michael. That's what makes it okay for me to be with her. I always thought I kept you away to keep you safe but maybe it was to keep me safe from you."
After that, there really wasn't much for either of them to stay. Elizabeth didn't even attempt any more pathetic begging. She knew then that it was over. It didn't matter what crazy stunt she tried to pull or what plea she made on behalf of their love or their son, Jason would never pick her. He never would have completely chosen her. Besides, none of that was really her style. That was more Carly's method of operation, and it only worked on him when it came to her.
Back at Carly's house, Jason shut his phone and tucked it back in his pocket. He had come clean with Elizabeth once and for all. She was only the second person he had told that he loved Carly, but it felt nice to let someone else in the world know. He was proud to be with her. "You know what my favorite thing about you is?"
"My submissive demeanor?" she joked. "No, seriously, tell me."
Sliding his hand down her wrist, he wove their fingers together and pulled her the rest of the sidewalk to stand on her stoop. "Well, it changes all the time," he admitted. He was always finding things about her to love. He would have sworn that he fell in love with her all over again about a million times a day. "But right now, my favorite thing about you is that you don't need a hero. You are so strong and brave and resilient. You don't need someone white knight to come along and save you."
"I learned that from you," she revealed as she turned to look up at him. He must have liked her response because he quickly covered her mouth with his. Only when he pulled away did she get to explain further. "I can save myself. It's good to have faith in others like I have in you, but if I don't believe in myself, why should anyone else? You taught me that I can be my own hero.""
"Wanna be my hero?" he asked as he leaned back in to kiss her again. She deepened it this time, letting her tongue dance with his in an intimate waltz of intense passion and old-fashioned yearning. "I could use some saving."
"I think what you need is some sleep, Jase. You're starting to sound like me."
"I guess we really are perfect for each other then," he taunted, referring to the silly online dating profile that had started all of this.
Carly shrugged confidently. "I always told you that we were soulmates," she grinned. "But the profile said that we were almost perfect for each other. Twenty-four out of twenty-five categories – twenty-four points of perfection to be exact."
"Well, total perfection is boring…"
"And we have never been boring…"
"That we are not," he concurred. "So, we're almost perfect for each other. I think I'll take it."
"You better, Morgan," she grinned, "because I have no intention of ever letting you go."
