Don't Give Up Chapter 21, a general hospital fanfic

Sometimes it feels like, I'm gonna break
Sometimes this world, gives more than I can take
Sometimes, sunshine gets lost in the rain
And it keeps pouring down
It just keeps coming down

Barely able to breath past the tightness in his chest, Jason sits with Elizabeth's hand limp in his, tears frozen in his eyes as he stares at her laying there. According to Robin and Patrick, she'd have to improve to be considered critical at this point. Making Jason feel more pain than he's ever felt in all his life.

They're running tests, doing whatever they can think to pull Elizabeth back from the brink of death, but he couldn't help thinking that it was all pointless. That nothing they do will help her. Everything they've done so far has only proven to make her worse instead of better.

A part of him wanted nothing more than to whisk her away from the hospital, somewhere far away from there, but he knew that it wouldn't help her. Regardless of his own thoughts and feelings, he knew that the only thing he can do is sit there and wait. Good or bad, all he could do was wait for it to happen, something he happened to be terrible at.

"I can't believe that I'm really about to do this." Jason sighs, wishing more than anything that they weren't in this moment right now. "We shouldn't be here like this...you shouldn't be here like this."

Shutting his eyes tightly, he tries his best to take in a deep breath, holding it for a moment before letting it back out again. Though he didn't believe that Nikolas had any real affect on Emily recovering, that a dream could bring someone back from the brink of death, Jason would try just about anything right now.

So, without much delay, he decides to do the one thing he's even more terrible at. He decides to tell her how he feels. If there was anything he could think of that would shock Elizabeth back to life, he's pretty certain that telling her everything that he harbors in his heart will do the trick. At least, he hopes so.

"From the moment I met you, I could see something in you that I couldn't put into words, something that captivated me to no end." Jason tries to swallow past the lump in his throat. "I didn't think much past it, though, I couldn't. Forgetting the age difference, there was still the major differences...we were just too different. At least that's what I had thought back then."

Thinking back to the moment that he had met Elizabeth, the irony that it had been Lucky to introduce them was not lost on him, not in the least. For a long time he had fought himself tooth and nail, every time he saw her after that, reminding himself that Lucky was his friend and he loved Robin.

With every encounter, though, it got harder and harder to ignore the feelings that she evoked with that simple smile that would grace her lips. Then came the fire at his shop and he saw a completely different side of Elizabeth. The side that he could relate to. A side that lessened the differences between them, putting them on the same side for once.

"That night at Jake's was different than the first time I met you." Jason comments, a soft smile on his lips. "That night I saw something in you that I could put into words. Something that made me believe we weren't as different as I had thought. That made me push past the line and placed me right in the middle of your life with only one goal in mind. Taking your pain away. Right away, I could see the strength you were capable of and, more than anything, I wanted you to see it, too."

Slowly but surely, he found that she was starting to grow, to embrace the strength that laid deep within her, but he also watched it falter on more than one occasion. Like the time that they had danced in the diner. He knew why she wanted to do it, but he wouldn't deny her it. Sometimes life was a lesson you had to learn the hard way.

"Then came that winter in your studio when I was shot. Nothing stayed the same after that." Jason glances over at her vitals, still as weak as ever, forcing himself to look at her instead of the machines. "Once again, I had no words for what you made me think or how you made me feel. As much as I wanted to stay in that studio with you and never leave it, I knew that I had to give you the chance to live your life. After saving my life, it was the least that you deserved."

This life would kill me if I didn't have you
I couldn't live without you baby
I wouldn't want to
If you didn't love me so much
I'd never make it through
'Cause this life would kill me
This life would kill me if I didn't have you

"For years we both tried to push each other away while holding on at the same time." Jason takes another deep breath, the pain in his heart almost unbearable at this point. "We tested each other, pushing each other to the brink of insanity, seeing how far we could take it before either of us just cut all ties, but it never happened. No matter how hard we pushed, no matter how far we took it, we always found our way back to this friendship...back to each other. While others have come and gone, we're still here."

You are my heart, every breath I breathe
I'm safe in your arms, you rescue me.
When I'm weak, you're strong
If you were gone I don't know where I'd be
You were made for me
(You were made for me)

"I guess, in a way, I relied on it more than either of us thought I did." Jason gently strokes her hand with his thumbs. "Like in the chapel, when Emily thought she was dying and I held you close while you sat beside me. I never admitted it, but you were holding me together without even knowing it. You thought that I was just doing what I always do, helping keep you in one piece, but you were doing the same for me...you kept me sane."

"Then when Sam lost her baby and I had been so lost...there you were again." Jason shakes his head. "The short time I spent with you and Cam, as brief as it had been, it helped me more than I could ever put into words. I had thought it would hurt to hold him, but it was the exact opposite and I had been beyond grateful to you for giving me that moment. A moment to hold onto."

In spite of himself, Jason glances over at the machines, his heart weighing heavily in his chest, seeing that her vitals haven't changed. Though her vitals are stable, they're still weak, still unbearably weak. Knowing there was nothing he could do, no one he could intimidate to save Elizabeth, no one he could shoot to save her, Jason was at a complete loss. He had only one choice he could make, to continue talking to her and hope against hope that she can hear him. That it'll pull her out of this and bring her back to him.

"There was also the time that Emily and Sonny decided that they wanted to be together and nothing could stop them." Jason points out, licking his lips when they suddenly feel desert dry. "While everyone told me what I was doing was wrong, judging me for the choices I made, you didn't. You told me how it was, you explained why you felt what you felt about it, but - in the end - you understood. Something that no one else could do. You understood me."

If you didn't love me so much
(If you didn't love me so much)
This life would kill me if I didn't have you
(This life would kill me)
Couldn't live without you baby
I wouldn't want to

"The list goes on, but none more significant than the night of the blackout when you saved me once again." Jason reaches one hand to gently touch her cheek with the back of his fingers. "I wanted to drown myself in alcohol, to forget my life and the choices I made that brought me to that godforsaken day, but you wouldn't let me. You pulled me back into the present, right into the moment with you, and you let me live in it. For as long as it lasted, no one outside of those four walls mattered, not Sam sleeping with Ric or the onslaught of people that had warned me of what my choices could bring. No one but us."

If you didn't love me so much
I'd never make it through
'Cause this life would kill me
This life would kill me if I didn't have you

"You told me something that night, something I hadn't expected, but it put everything into perspective." Jason drops his hand back to hold hers again. "You told me that I never really knew just how much you fell in love with me and, in truth, I didn't. Up until the night we shared, I didn't even realize just how in love I was with you...but I know now and I need the chance to tell you...I need to be able to look you in the eyes and tell you that I'm in love with you...that I want you...that I need you. I need you to know everything you have been and always will be to me."

When her vitals don't change in the least, Jason lays his head down atop of their joint hands and closes his eyes. More and more as the minutes pass by, he feels like he's falling apart at the seams, unable to see himself making it any further if she doesn't make it past this. He can't eat, he can't sleep, he's starting to take each day one hour at a time.

"Please, don't give up." Jason begs her, tears sliding down his cheeks, feeling her weak pulse barely thumping against his touch. "Whatever you do, Elizabeth, don't give up."

***song: If I Didn't Have You by Thompson Square***