A/N: Only two more left after this chapter, folks.

~Charlynn~

Chapter Twenty One

FNF #88: "I'm not strong enough to stay away. What can I do? I would die without you. In your presence, my heart knows no shame. I'm not to blame. Cause you bring my heart to its knees." ~ "Not Strong Enough" by Apocalyptica

It was hotter than the crispy-fried insides of a Quartermaine Thanksgiving turkey, and the last place Elizabeth wanted to be was outside. To make matters worse, she was in the Port Charles park. One would think that all the stupid natury stuff surrounding her would make the heat more bearable, but it didn't. The fact that the trees weren't moving at all mocked her, because, in that moment, she should have been on the back of Jason's bike, the sparkly – hey, it wasn't her fault if her husband shined his damn motorcycle so much that it twinkled like polished silver – machine capable of creating the breeze the elms, oaks, and maples surrounding her refused to. The shrubs felt too big, too close to the sidewalks as if encroaching upon her walking space, and don't even get her started on the bugs. They made the already heavy air heavier, almost making Elizabeth wish she had worn a pair of stilettos so that the pointed toes could cut through the swampy atmosphere, making a path for her.

Almost.

But stilettos would have meant enclosing the rest of her feet, not to mention the fact that they would have made her look desperate. And that so wasn't the look she was going for that evening. Somehow, she had managed to make herself appear casually sexy – comfortable enough for Jason to believe that she wasn't up to something when they were just supposed to be meeting up for dinner but also alluring enough to be up to something without him suspecting it. Luckily, the something she was up to with the someone she was up to it with was easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy. Hell, a virginal lesbian could probably handle it with just enough skin, and Port Charles that summer was just too damn hot to wear any more clothes than necessary.

And people said global warming wasn't real. Hah! Even her right-wing, conservative-loving, gas-guzzling, boat driving old bat of a grandmother would have had to admit all those weathermen sprouting off about el nino were el-righto considering that Hades had relocated its roost to their little water-side dump of a town, may Audrey spin butter she was churning in her milky clouds so much as she observed Elizabeth in all her married-sex-is-awesome-especially-all-over-her-grandmother's-house-glory. Sweltering or not, it was worth it to let Jason heat her up all over again as soon as she managed to cool off. Besides, what else was she going to do with Audrey'stwo freezers besides stock them with ice cream, booze, and ice cubes and leave the doors open while she and Jason practiced their balance?

Snickering to herself, Elizabeth rounded another corner as she wound deeper and deeper into the Port Charles park. If it wasn't in front of the freezers, then she and Jason were having sex intheir creek. They took almost nightly rides on his bike to cool off, only for Elizabeth to warm him back up as they trekked down to the very spot where her husband had first seen her naked. Or, more accurately, he trekked, and she took a ride on his back, her legs and arms wrapped tightly around him. He worked up a sweat, and she got all hot and sticky by contact, not to mention thinking about how exactly she would reward him once they reached their destination.

Really, it was the one thing she was going to miss – that spot,their spot – if the something she was up to that evening went off without a hitch, and, really, how could it not? For the first time since Elizabeth had hatched their hair-brained scheme to swindle all of the Q's money away from them, she was really thinking out her actions. She wasn't scheming first and asking questions later; she was, instead, mapping out every contingency, really laying the groundwork this time so that nothing went wrong. If nothing else could be said about her not-so-brilliant idea to reveal to Port Charles and all the rest of the world that the Quartermaines were the proud new parents of a bouncing, buff beefcake of an adult son, then at least Elizabeth had learned to use a little caution.

Both inand out of the bedroom.

Basically, this time, she wasn't thinking with her bank account; she was thinking with her sanity. And her heart. And her libido. The Quartermaines weren't good for any of those latter three things, and Elizabeth was bound and determined to rectify her mistakes.

"Hm," she snorted, rolling her eyes. "Rectify."

Of all the words she could have used, rectify was probably the best. Everything she was doing that evening, it was all to rectify that which her pain in the ass grandmother had set in motion all those years ago by accepting the letter from Jason's mother. Ass, rectum, rectify, there really was a direct correlation that led smack dab back to Audrey. Really, everything was always that old witch's fault. For someone who was supposed to be so smart – and, really, her grandmother had tooted that horn enough so that Elizabeth had firmly believed that all nurses were geniuses well into her elementary school years, Audrey had been dumber than a stripper – a blonde stripper. Named Daisy. Everybody knew that deathbed confessions were dangerous and should either be disregarded or, in a letter's case, burnt immediately upon reception. And, if someone was stupid enough to actually hold onto such a thing, then they never should be left in the open (or hidden away in an office) for a curious, inquisitive, bitter, debt-ridden granddaughter to find upon one stupid dumbass' death.

"I mean, seriously: Audrey should have known!"

"Known what?"

Thank goodness she had on a brand new pair of flipflops – was it her fault that it was so hot out that her feet got sweaty and, after a few weeks, her sandals started to stink, so she just constantly bought new ones? If she hadn't, Elizabeth knew that she wouldn't have been able to pull off her ballerina-esque pirouette, and the very last person she ever wanted to fall on her ass in front of was the jackoff now standing before her. How he had managed to sneak up on her...?

Taking a step backwards and narrowing her gaze suspiciously, she demanded to know, "have you been following me?"

"Now, why would I do that?"

So, basically, yes, the sleezebaghad been following her. A denial would have been too obviously an admission, an admission would have been too obvious even for a drunk, but a question to answer a question – especially when uttered in such an oily, skeezy way – was exactly the tactic a Quartermaine would pull in such a situation.

Narrowing her gaze, Elizabeth fisted her hands on her jean shorts clad hips. "What do you want, AJ?"

He held out his arm, offering it to her as he also suggested, "take a walk with me, and I'll explain." Ha! Like she'd ever voluntarily touch the douchebag standing in front of her. As for taking a walk with him...? Well, she might consider that if she'd have a chance to push him into a river full of pirhanas, but Port Charles was fresh out of the flesh eating fish... which was just her luck. When she only glared further, he dropped his arm. "You know, if I wasn't such a confident guy, Elizabeth, I'd think that you didn't like me."

"Confident, huh? So is that why you try to drink your Aunt Tracy's weight every night?"

Whereas she was aiming to piss AJ off so that he would stomp away – far, far away from her – to pout somewhere, no doubt while hugging some cheap bottle of booze, all her insult managed to do was make him take several more steps towards her. "You know, if I were you, I'd be a little bit nicer to me."

"If you were me, you wouldn't be such a prick, or I would have offed you a long time ago out of world-preservation."

While he was starting to make her nervous as he continually stalked closer and closer to her, Elizabeth wouldn't back down from AJ; she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Instead, she just tilted her chin up into an even more stubborn angle and hoped that she'd eventually hit her mark and make him want to go off and cry in his vodka.

AJ chuckled. "You have a smart mouth,Liz. Frankly, I'd think my newfound brother would have taught you to keep it shut a long time ago... well, unless it was otherwise engaged."

Normally, such a misogynistic comment would have riled her up even further, and she would have fired back another insult in AJ's direction, but this wasn't just his typical, drunken, loutish behavior highlighting all his horrible Quartermaine traits; rather, there was something downright sinister about AJ that evening, something menacing, and, if she wasn't mistaken, her brother-in-law wasn't actually drunk like he usually was. Instead, he was stone-cold sober, and that's what suddenly scared her the most.

"Well, I see I've got your attention. What, cat got your tongue, Lizzie; nothing to say now? Or maybe you're intrigued? Maybe my brother just doesn't know how to treat a little whore like you. Maybe you're realizing why settle for the bastard when you can have the real thing. Hell, both. After all, once a slut, always a..."

Suddenly, she couldn't scramble away from AJ fast enough. "I think... you should go, and I'm... I, uh... Jason." She couldn't finish her thought. Her mouth was too dry, her throat too tight with fear. Elizabeth didn't care if he knew that she was scared; she didn't care if he saw how intimidated and small he was making her feel. Even if those were exactly the reactions his little performance was intended to create, there was also a sick note of sincerity to his tone. It was almost as though he had been watching her, waiting, biding his time until she was in just the right place to do the absolutely worst thing he could possibly do to her.

"Or, better yet, perhaps its just the park. What is it about this place, Lizzie, that gets you so hot and bothered, that makes you want to spread your legs for every and any man that comes up behind you?"

She whimpered. Eyes wide with fright, skin cold and clammy, Elizabeth was frozen. She couldn't call out for help, she couldn't scream, and she had scrambled as far away from AJ as she possibly could, her back up against a tree as her fingernails broke and split when she dug them into its dry bark. She wasn't fifteen any more. She wasn't some scared girl who didn't know any better. She was smarter now, always more aware of her surroundings. She'd taken self-defense classes, and she carried mace in her purse. Despite everything she had been through and survived, she didn't live her life in constant fear, but, yet, here she was again – older, wiser, and just as damn vulnerable as she had been on that cold Valentine's Day night, sitting in the snow on a cold, stone bench, wearing a red dress and the last innocent tears she'd ever shed. This was never supposed to happen to her – not again.

"Uh, Mrs. Moore," a timid voice said her name.

And, just like that, she could feel the night's heat once again, she swallowed her fear, and AJ disappeared.

"Are you... should I call someone – Mr. Moore, the police?"

"No, no, I'm alright," she said shakily, stepping away from the tree. Brushing her hands off, Elizabeth realized that they were scraped and bleeding, but she'd survive. She'd had much worse in the past, and, if it wasn't for the boy standing in front her, she would have had much worse again. Meeting his worried gaze, she tried to reassure him with a shaky grin, but she was sure the gesture was actually closer to a grimace. With tears in her eyes, she admitted, "at least, I will be. Eventually."

"Would you like to reschedule?"

"No, if nothing else, what happened here tonight... what almost happened here tonight... just makes me that much more sure about what I have to do. About what I hope you'll help me do."

"I must admit that I was quite intrigued by your message, but, frankly, I'm also extremely baffled as to how I, a lowly lab tech/computer science major, could ever be of assistance to you, especially now."

"And I don't know how the hell I'm going to get you to help me now," Elizabeth confessed, sighing loudly and shrugging her shoulders. "Before, my plan was to flash you a little boobage in exchange for your services, but you just saved my sanity and my husband's freedom. I'm already in your debt, and I haven't even asked you for anything yet."

"If what you need my assistance with has anything to do with taking down such a... well, such a..."

"Bastard," she supplied helpfully.

"... such a bastard," the someone she was hoping would soon be up to something with her repeated, "then it would be my pleasure to be at your service. And, uh, no boobage required," he added with a blush far deeper than even the most far-sighted old lady's.

"Really?" Elizabeth couldn't contain her gratitude from raising the tone of her voice.

The floppy-haired boy held out a soft, sweaty palm in her direction. "You have yourself a deal. Damien Spinelli – AKA the Jackal – is at your humble service, my fair Mrs. Moore."