10

Elizabeth was still asleep on the couch with Michael when Jason stumbled out of Penthouse IV. She was there when Sonny and Spinelli returned, and she didn't come back to his place after that. Instead, Brenda asked Sonny to carry her up to one of their guest bedrooms and that was where she spent the night. As for Jason, he spent the night in his master bedroom, alone with a bottle of whiskey while Spinelli nervously paced up and down the hallway right outside.

Jason slept in the next morning as a direct and singular result of the alcohol he had consumed. Elizabeth slept in, too, and when Robin came over and examined her, she realized it was a direct result of exhaustion and mild dehydration. She immediately prescribed a sleep aide, instructed Sonny and Brenda to monitor Elizabeth's fluid intake, and returned to the hospital.

And that was why Elizabeth spent the next three days in Penthouse II, safely across the hall from her husband. Michael was thrilled to have his aunt in the next room and made a habit of running up right before school so that he could wake her up and tell her about what they were going to do today in Miss Clarke's kindergarten class. And when he returned, she was the first person after his mother that he ran to see. So it was that the three days she spent dozing in the guest bedroom at her brother and sister-in-law's penthouse weren't entirely miserable and dreary.

Jason, on the other hand, didn't have the reprieve of sleep and his nephew. Sonny had insisted that he take the week off and made sure to distribute all of his work among the higher-level guards, all of whom actively worked to make sure there wasn't a single damn thing for Jason to do as far as the business was concerned. This inactivity, unfortunately, afforded Jason plenty of time to think of what Elizabeth and Brenda had said.

And when he couldn't stand it any longer, he finally returned to his wet bar and pulled out an unopened bottle of scotch almost as old as Spinelli and Elizabeth were, and that was how he spent the rest of his day.

Scotch was tricky; it sometimes made him sick to his stomach with just one drink. But Jason held his own against it this time. Sitting alone against the headboard in his dark master bedroom, he sloshed the liquid into his glass and gulped it down. At the rate he was going, it wasn't long at all before his thoughts swirled into images, feelings, memories, and he was powerless against the onslaught.

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Flashback…

Finished with his ring bearer duties now that his uncle and new aunt had completed their wedding vows, Michael stole away from his mother's side as she poured Elizabeth a glass of champagne and tugged on Jason's pants.

"Uncle Jason?"

He looked down in surprise and stooped to the little boy's level. "What's up, buddy?"

Michael brushed his dark hair out of his eyes – it was always a touch too long – and regarded him curiously. "Are you and Lizabeth gonna go on a honeymoon now, or what?"

Jason stared at him for a moment, trying to formulate the best possible response, and finally settled for a half-truth. "Not right away, bud. Your dad and I have a lot of stuff to take care of right now, so we'll be busy. Besides," he added, dropping a kiss on Michael's crown, "there's no way I'm letting you out of my sight."

The boy giggled when his uncle tickled his tummy and seemed to accept the answer. "Okay, but when you do go, I know the perfect spot."

"Yeah?" How Michael could possibly know Elizabeth's desired honeymoon location – the one she'd probably visit with her second husband – was beyond him. "What?"

"Italy," he replied without hesitation. "Her Gram Audrey and Grampa Steve in Colorado went to Italy and had a great old time. Lizabeth's gonna study abroad there because she likes art and Italy has all these cool museums, but I think she'd be so happy if you took her there first."

For a moment, Jason didn't quite know what to say. He was rarely speechless around other adults, but his nephew had the most peculiar way of catching him entirely by surprise. "How'd you know all that?"

"She told me," Michael shrugged, barely looking up when his mother took Elizabeth across the hall for a little tour of her new home. "When we were in Manny's hideout."

Jason didn't particularly want to dwell on that – much less let Michael dwell on it any more than he already had – and adroitly changed the subject, hoping as he did so that it wasn't too obvious. "Well, you sure learned a lot. You're a good listener."

"Mom says I learned that from you. And I know tons about Lizabeth. She likes to talk."

That gave Jason reason to pause. It was funny, because Elizabeth had barely said ten words since he'd met her, and two of those were "I do."

"Yeah?"

He nodded eagerly. "Oh, yeah. She has funny stories. Like, about her parents and stuff. I think she likes them even less than you like the Quartermaines."

The little imp grinned as he said that, and Jason had to smile back. "Okay, now I know you're making things up."

"Nuh-uh!" Michael protested, only momentarily offended. "I'm not making anything up. She told me all of it. Her parents live in Colorado and they have this biiiiiig house, even bigger than the Greystone, and Lizabeth lived there her whole life. She even had a pony, but it died. She has a brother named Steven who's a doctor somewhere, and a snooty sister named Sarah."

"A snooty sister, huh?" Jason repeated. "Guess we're lucky that your mom's her new sister now, huh?"

Michael laughed at that. "Ask Lizabeth in a week."

God, the kid amazed him. Twenty-four hours ago, he had been at the center of a showdown between his father's men and Manny Ruiz, and now he was cracking jokes at his mother's expense, a favorite past-time among the men in Sonny's employ.

Unable to speak for a moment, Jason tugged the boy a little closer and finally scooped him up in his arms and stood. Michael was a little short for his age, built more like his father than his lanky mother, and still fit neatly in his arms.

"What else did you find out about Elizabeth, bud?"

"She ran away from home when she graduated high school," Michael began. "And she moved to Boston because it was as far as she could get while still staying in the US. She speaks to her parents on Christmas and her birthday, sometimes, and she likes it better that way. Told you she didn't like them."

"I believe you," Jason assured him. "What else?"

"She has friends that are in a band, and she used to listen to them practice all the time. She made their picture for them, too, and painted it on their drums. She loves to draw and paint and – oh, she said she'd make me a picture for my room! Isn't that cool?"

"Very cool," he agreed, patting the boy on the back. "Very cool, buddy."

"And she drinks hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles, and she loves pineapple and jalapeno pizza with ranch dressing, and if she could have any kind of pet she'd have a talking parrot and teach it bad things to say."

Jason stifled a laugh. "Really?"

"Well, I was the one that said she should teach it bad things to say," Michael confessed, "but she said she liked that idea. She said she'd teach it bad things to say and then invite her parents over, and that would be funny. Are you gonna get her a parrot like that?"

"We'll see," he hedged. "We'll talk about it."

That answer satisfied the boy. Either that, or he was already thinking of something else. It was very hard to tell with children. "She can whistle real good. She tried to teach me how, but I couldn't do it."

"Whistling takes practice."

"We had lots of time," Michael shrugged, resting his head on Jason's shoulder. He tried to stifle a yawn and continued. "She made up games for us to play. One game was Guess the Cartoon Character. I always won, but only because she picked easy ones."

His eyes softened and Jason rested his chin on Michael's head. He, Brenda, and Sonny had a lot to be grateful for. It was probably due to Elizabeth's calming presence and distraction techniques that Michael came out of this relatively unscathed.

"She was real nice, too," the little boy yawned. "She held me in her lap when I went to sleep, and she sang me a song and she gave me her food if I was hungry. And she always pushed me behind her whenever one of Manny's guys came to check on us."

He scratched his nose on his uncle's t-shirt and let out a slow sigh as his eyes began to close. "I knew since I met her that you'd love her."

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Flashback…

He was in his office finishing up his perusal of a file that Spinelli had compiled, and Jason was fairly sure that he'd heard a knock on the door downstairs a minute ago. He slipped all the loose pages back into the folder, tied it shut, and dropped it securely in his desk drawer. No sense in Elizabeth wandering into his office for some reason (even though she had no business there) and finding out who he planned to kill next. That was the part of his life he was careful now to keep behind closed doors.

He left the room and trotted down the stairs, hearing his best friend's voice in the main room.

"Hey, Elizabeth, is Jason around?"

He was on the landing now and could hear her soft voice clearly. Usually, Elizabeth tried to get by with saying as few words as possible to him and the other men. "I think he's at the warehouse."

Jason snorted. Fine thing, his own wife couldn't even tell if he was home or not. But he didn't have time to dwell on that because he heard footsteps and when he looked down into the lower level, he saw the two of them heading toward the kitchen.

"Well, okay, I'll give him a call and see if I can get a hold of him," Sonny was saying.

"I hope it wasn't something really important."

"Nah. It's fine. Besides, this gives me a chance to talk to you."

"Me?" he could hear his wife squeak.

"Sure," Sonny replied in that practiced tone that was meant to put his audience at ease. Jason had to envy how his best friend could do that. "How've you been? Everything all right? We haven't seen much of you this past week."

"Yeah, I've been…kind of settling in," she hedged. Jason trotted down the remaining steps just as they disappeared into the kitchen. "Things have been a little crazy."

"Michael's been wondering about you. He wanted to come over yesterday – and today – but Brenda and I distracted him. He'd spend every day here with you if he could."

To his surprise, Jason could hear Elizabeth let out a little laugh. "Well, he's more than welcome to. I'd enjoy the company, that's for sure."

He couldn't tell if that was a slight toward him or not. It probably was.

"Next time he asks, feel free to send him over. I'm never doing much, anyway."

"Yeah? What do you normally do?"

"Well, in the mornings when the light is good I sketch," he could hear her say. "Sometimes I just sketch the view from the balcony, sometimes I do people. I've got one of Michael done that I think Brenda has her eye on. I'm just waiting to find a good frame before I give it to her. Sometimes I sketch clothes."

"Clothes?"

"Yeah. My Gram taught me how to sew when I was in high school and I occasionally sketch out a dress or a skirt or something and put it together. It's something to do. Occasionally I knit. The winters in Boston are horrible, so I made myself a hat, scarf, and mittens during my first fall semester."

"Brenda's always wanted to learn how to knit," Jason heard Sonny say. Now that was something: he knew for a fact that Sonny didn't give a damn about art or clothes any more than he personally did, but to listen to him right now, you'd have thought it was the most fascinating subject in the world. And Jason had to envy that skill as well. "She tried once on her own, but didn't get very far. I think it's the kind of thing you have to be taught – that you have to learn by sitting with another person and watching them and having them show you how to do it again and again."

"That's how it was like with me and Gram," Elizabeth responded. "My parents were always at the hospital, my brother Steven was away getting his medical degree, and my sister and I never got along or spent time together, so I think she saw that I was a bit lonely and she took it upon herself to teach me. She made me that yellow blanket on the couch."

"I saw that," the mobster replied warmly. "First time I came here after you unpacked, I remember seeing that. It's very nice. You working on anything now?"

"Not really. I'll pick something up and work on it for a little while, but I get antsy now, so I put it away. Plus, by that time it's lunch time anyway, and Jason usually comes home to eat. And after lunch I usually read. And there's usually a good movie on after dinner, so…that's how my day goes. I could use Michael around to make things interesting."

"Trust me, that's his strong suit," Sonny laughed. "After you spend an afternoon with him here, you'll need a week to recover…and clean up."

Elizabeth was laughing along, and the sound was beautifully foreign to Jason's ears. "I'll take my chances. How's Brenda doing?"

"She's good. She wanted me to ask if you had any plans for dinner tomorrow."

"Uh, not that I know of. I mean, outside of just eating here with Jason…"

"Actually, she asked because she wants you to have dinner with her and Lois Cerullo. She's an old friend of ours, and Brenda wanted you to meet her."

"Oh, uh, sure, I guess that sounds all right. I'll stop by later and let her know."

"Good, she'd like that. What are you doing now?"

"Now?" Jason heard plastic crinkle. "I think I'm just going to boil some water for lunch."

There was a long, tense pause before Sonny spoke again.

"What the hell is that?"

"…Ramen Noodles?"

Another interminable pause.

"Pasta should never come in cube form."

"Well, it's just noodles. They're quick and easy and cheap, and trust me, a staple for us poor college kids. I used to eat these for dinner every night for a while there."

Another crinkle, and then a thud. Sonny had clearly thrown the offending Euclidian noodles into the garbage.

"Hey, I was going to eat that!"

"You're eating lunch with us," he interrupted firmly. "There's no way I'm letting you sit alone in this penthouse and eat freeze-dried noodles."

"They're not freeze-dried."

"They're abominable on a molecular level," Sonny informed her crossly. "Come on, I've got chicken parmesan in the oven and a fresh salad to go with it. It'll all be done in fifteen minutes. It's just me and Brenda, anyway, so there will be plenty to go around."

"Sonny, really, you don't have to, it's no trouble-"

Jason watched idly as the two of them emerged from the kitchen with his best friend fairly dragging her along with him.

"Elizabeth, from now on, you eat freshly made food, no more Tart-Pops or Ramen Noodles or cereal bars or things that were packaged during the Korean war. You're going to have hot, freshly prepared meals three times a day, and I'll see to that myself. And I don't want to hear a big thing about it. Oh, hey, Jason."

Jason stood back as Sonny came marching past with Elizabeth in tow. His wife gave him a bewildered look, which he replied to with a shrug and a smile. "Get used to it. And say goodbye to soda, too."