Thanks for taking the time to read this story.- Sara

Kind and Generous

Part Three

September 2005

Fearless. She will not back down. She will not run from him. That's what Jason learned about Carly as soon as he kissed her. She didn't take even one second to decide if she was up for his challenge or not. She simply turned to that asshole of a bartender, nodded and he passed her some keys.

"The room upstairs is all yours, darlin. Got your name on it."

Jason, not feeling quite like himself because of his brain tumor and the fact that he just learned he was a disgusting mob hitman who murdered dozens of people, reacted really quickly to the fact that this Coleman fool was making it out like Carly went up to that room all the time. He reached behind the bar and grabbed him with both hands, lifting him right off his feet. "Apologize to her NOW!"

"Sorry. Sorry. I meant no harm, man."

Carly smoothed her hand over Jason's back. "Let it go."

Jason dropped Coleman.

What in the hell did I just do? he thought. Is that how I handle shit? This can't be me. I can't be this guy.

He didn't know what part of his personality was the brain tumor affecting him and what part was who he was. All he knew was he hated himself and the world would be better off without him. He couldn't imagine getting that surgery...for what? So he could go back to being a one-man murdering rampage. Fuck that.

Carly slid her hand into his and tugged him toward the stairs. With his jaw clenched tight, he followed her up to a room and they went inside. She said "This is our place."

"We got a place, huh? Samantha know that?"

"Its not like that."

"What is it like then? And the truth this time. Or just leave. Leave and don't come back around me ever again."

"You don't mean that."

"I don't need another liar to fill my head with bullshit about the wonderful person Jason Morgan is. I can get that from everyone out there. I need the truth from you...I need only what you can give me...or I need nothing at all from you."

He expected her to start crying again and braced himself for that but instead she slid close to him. "Don't you feel anything for me? How can you look at me and not remember?"

"I can't control that. I didn't choose to forget you."

She placed her hand over his heart and he felt his whole body just sway toward her on its own volition."I'm in you, Jase. I'm in here and you know that."

His heart thumped hard underneath her fingers as emotions he couldn't hold back flooded through him- a desperate ache that only she could soothe.

Quickly he brought his hands up to cup her face and leaned his forehand against hers. His tone stayed hard when he demanded "I want answers."

She whispered "About what?"

"What I do to make my money."

"You...you work for Sonny."

"Carly!"

"You're his enforcer."

"I kill people for cash. Say it."

"You kill people to protect our family!"

He let go and her and took a few step back, breathing raggedly. "Tell me about this family."

She pointed at him. "Don't say it like that. DON'T."

His eyes warred with hers. "You are the only one I even halfway believe in...tell me now. If you hold out on me...even one word...there will be no reason for me to stay in this town, no reason for me to get the surgery, no reason for me to live. Because who I think I am...that man is worthless to this world."

He watched as she started to shake in fear. He wanted to take two large steps over to her, close the distance between them and hug her until she stopped. Kiss her until she moaned. Fucked her until she screamed.

"Talk to me, Carly."

"You never had a problem with what you have to do to protect us. You knew you had to...for everyone you love. If you don't take out the threats to us...then your enemies will kill us...its that simple. Kill or be killed. You kill for love."

"For love," he spat back at her.

"That's the truth!"

He turned away from her. She wrapped her arms around him from behind, and laid her head against his back, then whispered "I know you are so terrified right now. Its scary to wake up not knowing anyone and find out you're so sick and you need a surgery that's really risky. Its okay to freak out. Yell. Curse. Tear this whole room up. But don't leave me and don't shut me out. You want the truth? I'm the woman who loves you most, understands you best, I know why you have to kill people...you want to blame someone? Blame me. You kill people for me. You could have gotten out but I trapped you...I begged you to take care of me and my unborn son and to be his father...and from that day on you couldn't ever really get out because even after we weren't together I was with Sonny and I needed you to keep us safe. Even when you tried to leave it behind...you couldn't...because of me and our boy."

Jason turned his head, sharply, and his eyes met hers. Both were tear filled. "Michael."

"Did you just remember that?"

"No...I don't know." In the hospital, no one really told him much about his past, just how great he was and how he would get better soon and be fucking great again. They said it so much...he knew they were lying to him or themselves.

"Michael...he's my firstborn...and he's how we became a family. You and me and him, Jase. You promised to protect him for life and that is what you are doing."

"There has got to be another way. There has to."

She walked away from him. He turned to see her digging in her purse that was thrown on the bed. She pulled out a bill. "How about this? You get the surgery and I'll bet you twenty bucks that once you get well, get your memories back, that I can find a way to make your life something you love again. What do you say?"

He shook his head, as a very small smile curved his lips. "Yeah. How you planning on pulling that off?"

"Jase...you've been doing this job for me. And you never complained. But there is a way you can leave it behind if that is what you still want once you're recovered. Me and you and the boys...we'll just ditch Port Charles. We'll go to South America and change our names. We'll be free. I can give you that. I will give you that." She pushed the twenty dollar bill out toward him. "All you got to do is take it."

He took the twenty bucks and shoved it in his pocket. He still wasn't sure that what she said would really work out but he had nothing else...no one else...he could believe in. He looked at them and all he saw was liars. He looked at her and he tried to see that...but most of him wanted to believe she was the only one who would tell him the truth.

"Why are you taking this all on yourself? Giving up your life for mine?" Jason asked her.

"That's what you would do for me."

"And that's why you care about me?"

"I don't just care...I love you, Jason."

"Because I'm good to you...even if I'm a murdering psycho to the rest of the world."

"You are not that."

"Yeah, I am...and it makes me sick."

"You're thinking of it just as a cold transaction. Like you kill only so you can get rich. I told you its not that simple." She reached in her purse again and pulled out her wallet. She opened it and passed it to him. "Look at our boys. Look at Michael...look at Morgan...you killed to keep them safe. They are worth it. You tell me different and I'll drag you to the hospital right now myself because the man I love knows those boys are worth any pain he has to inflict or suffer through."

He stared down at the photos, his thumb brushing over their faces. Without warning, his body was flooded with the most tender rush of uncomplicated love he had experienced since he woke up without his memories. It was as human as he had felt yet.

Carly could make him feel alive...desperate...hungry for her touch...confused...angry...weak...and protective, but it was only when he saw her children that the full scope of all she must mean to him started to sink in. It was this woman. She was the key to who he was. She had to be, if she could make him feel all this.

Maybe he did kill for her. Maybe she did make him crazy and dangerous and deadly. Maybe she made his hands bloody or maybe he did that all on his own because he just was that cold and callous. Maybe it was simply the only way to keep them all safe...maybe not. But suddenly what had seemed so clear- I am evil and I should be wiped off this planet- turned from black and white, to shades of grey. To die meant to leave Carly and the boys behind.

He gripped the photos tighter, as Carly moved close to him. He thought to himself This is my family. My family. My family. I will do anything for this family.

She whispered "Jase, I didn't lie to you when you woke up. You are the best man I know. You are not perfect in the world's eyes...you are perfect in mine. So if you hate yourself, you look into my eyes and you'll see nothing but love reflected there. I can make you love yourself again...if you want me to."

He lifted his free hand and drove it into her long, blond curls, holding her head steady and bringing them eye-to-eye. "Yeah...I want that."

She whispered "You can have that, Jase. You can...believe in me."

He had nothing else in the whole world left to believe in.

Jason closed the small gap between them and kissed her with a furiousness that nearly knocked her off her feet. He drug her right against his body, dropping her wallet to the ground as he did. Each kiss was like an electric shock straight to his cerebral cortex and images, in mixed up too vivid colors, started to flash through his head of kissing her in this room before, holding her while she cried, standing next to the elevator at his Penthouse with her...slipping rings on her fingers... looking up at her while she stood at the top of a long flight of stairs, opening his door and she's there, soaking wet and teary...and then they just ended, as quickly as they began, leaving him with no explanations of what each image meant only with the knowledge that Carly had meant everything to him for a very long time.

How did I let her go? What the hell is wrong with me? he asked himself, as he jerked his mouth off hers. He had Sam at home. Who did Carly have waiting on her?

He asked "Are you married?"

"Yeah but it doesn't matter."

"Fuck."