This was supposed to be wrapped up in this chapter. Then it grew and grew and grew. Next part is the last part I swear.

Um sorry to anyone that thought they were getting an update when I organized the other day. Stories are again in order and there is a story summary on page one. So if you ever feel like rereading one you don't have to hunt for it.

If you're wondering which fic is this, it's the one where the past decade and a half on the show was the life AJ saw if Jason was hurt in that accident. So AJ gave his life to keep Jason safe. Which leads me to as always go, "I love AJ." AJ fic is totally needed soon. :-P

In the Blink of an Eye

Part Four

-x-X-Brazen's House: Christmas Eve '98-X-x-

Veronica spun with her granddaughter in her arms.

"Veronica," Jason quickly approached the older woman, newly appeared in their life, "give me the baby."

"We're just playing."

"She's only 9 months," Jason said snatching away the infant. It was suspicious enough that the woman had only made a miraculous return from the dead on the heels of Brenda's return to modeling and the worldwide blitz Lucy had set up.

"Brenda loved doing this when she was little. She would giggle and giggle. You're just like Harlan, always trying to stop our fun."

"Maybe Harlan was just trying to keep Brenda safe." Jason snapped, he didn't quite know what was wrong with Veronica, but he knew it was something. There were moments when she seemed fine, but others when…

"Jason," Brenda scolded her husband as she walked into the room.

"Don't worry dear," Veronica rushed to her daughter, "I won't ever let another man scare me away from you."

-x-X-Mid-January '99-X-x-

"No," Brenda crumpled into Jason's arms as Veronica was carried off, sedated and restrained. "I can't…please I can't lose her again."

"Brenda, she needs to be hospitalized, she's a danger to more than just herself."

"No," she shook her head, "we can get a nurse. We can watch her."

"We can't leave her in the house with Amanda," he held on firmly to her.

"She's just having a bad day."

"Brenda, this is Huntington's. This isn't a bad day, it's only going to get worse."

"So if I get sick. You're just going to lock me up, get rid of me, just like my dad. Are you going to tell Mandy I died too?"

"You're not going to get sick," he promised her. "I'm not going to let that happen."

"You don't get a say in the matter."

"Bren-"

"You're just like him Jason," she walked away.

-x-X-PCH: A few days later-X-x-

"What are you doing here?" Brenda asked icily as she opened the hotel door to Julia. The hotel suite she had moved into when her husband refused to support her efforts to get her mother released from Ferncliff.

"Oh sweetie," Julia stretched out a hand to touch one of Brenda's sunken cheeks.

Brenda flinched and pulled back, "I know you're the one that told him."

"You needed to know the truth about her."

"I needed my mother. I needed her for over twenty years and you had no right to take her from me."

"Sweetie, we're just trying to keep you safe."

"You had my mother committed." Brenda's head cocked, "You're just waiting to have me committed too, aren't you?"

"Brenda, you're being paranoid. When was the last time you slept?"

Brenda stepped away again as Julia moved towards her.

"Brenda," Julia looked around the hotel room, "where's the baby?"

Brenda studied her sister in disgust, "You have no idea what it means to be a mother. I would never hurt Amanda, just like Veronica would never hurt me. Shame the same can't be said about sisters."

"Brenda, where is Amanda."

"Get out!"

"Not until you tell me where the baby is," Julia started flinging open doors, looking in the bedrooms, and bathroom for the baby.

"Get out," she repeated firmly.

"Where is the baby," Julia's hands went to Brenda's shoulders and she shook her.

Two quick raps on the door sent Brenda wrenching herself free from Julia's grasp.

"Things look a lot more sinister when you're looking for them to be," she opened the door to reveal Jason carrying Amanda.

"Hi munchkin," Brenda smiled as she took her daughter.

"Br-" Jason began.

"Get out and take her with you," Brenda ordered. "Put your hands on me again, I'll call the cops," she icily informed her sister.

-x-X-Brenda's House: End of January '99-X-x-

"Good morning," Sonny smiled down at Brenda and Lucy having a breakfast meeting at the hotel's restaurant.

"Oh no, you mister, get away."

Brenda ignored Lucy, "Good morning Sonny."

"Good morning Amanda," Sonny smiled down at the little girl who was still a clone of her father.

She gave him a still gummy smile with only four front teeth showing.

"Is that banana good?"

She held out a slimy handful of banana to him.

"Thank you."

Brenda laughed and handed him her napkin.

"Thank you," he laughed over at her. "I can't believe how big she's getting."

"Okay seriously, you need to leave because I have a meeting in twenty minutes," Lucy informed the charmer.

"What did I ever do to you Lucy?" Sonny questioned.

"You nearly got my top model flattened."

"Lucy," Brenda tried to hush her up.

"You are married," Lucy's eyes were wide.

"Yes, I-"

"He is married."

"He's saying hi," Brenda defended.

Lucy harrumphed.

"Go to your meeting," Brenda ordered.

"Be careful," Lucy commanded sweeping up from her seat to give the baby a kiss and Sonny a dirty look.

"Didn't mean to cause you any trouble."

"Actually," Brenda looked up with a smile, "you were just the person I was hoping to see."

"Really?" Sonny smiled back, "Any why exactly is that?"

"Let's go for a walk," she nodded.

-x-Early February '99-x-

"My mother is fine Jason," Brenda tried to storm away from her husband, but he pulled her back as they argued in her rental house because Brenda had refused to live in the house they had purchased together.

"She is not okay Brenda, she is sick and you cannot be alone with her."

"I'm not alone with her. She has a nurse. I'm not as stupid as Julia thinks I am."

"Julia doesn't think you're stupid, she's wor-"

"Oh please you both think I'm an idiot, but she is my mother Jason."

"I know she's your mother-"

"Then trust me to make decisions regarding her."

"I just think you're thinking with your heart and not your head."

Brenda crossed her arms.

"The doctors said-"

"Dr. Horton released her," Brenda shut her husband up. Sure Dr. Horton might have been enticed by Sonny to do so, but the end effect was just the same.

"Okay, just come home, you can bring Veron-"

"What Jason? Are you going to pad her room? Put up bars on the window? Guards outside her door?"

"Brenda can you seriously blame me for being worried about you and Amanda?"

"I can take care of my daughter and my mother Jason."

"What about me? Your husband."

"When you start treating me with respect and as your equal we can talk about that."

-x-X-Late February '99-X-x-

"Where's Brenda?" Jason asked Lucia, the nanny, who had been with Amanda since soon after her birth, she seemed nervous today as he was picking up the baby at the house Brenda had rented.

"She's out running errands."

"Well while I'm here. I'm going to go up and see Veronica, talk to her nurse."

"Uh you can't do that…They uh went out."

"Really, where did they go?" Jason probed.

"Doctor's appointment."

"Without Brenda?"

"She's meeting them."

"What happened?" Jason demanded answers, Lucia's nerves paired with the clipped answers left no doubt in his mind that something had happened.

"Veronica slipped out while the nurse was going to the bathroom."

"Did you call the police?"

"Brenda wanted to try to find her first. Veronica's been complaining about being cooped up."

"I want you to get out of the house in case Veronica comes back."

"But-" Lucia looked her employer nervously, unsure of Brenda's reaction.

"Anywhere, but our house in case she tries to go back there. Go to a movie, check into the PCH, anywhere just keep your phone on."

"I told Brenda that woman wasn't right. My mother had dementia, but that woman."

"She's sick, very sick," Jason nodded at her. "Come on," he nodded again, "grab your bag. I'll put Amanda in her car seat."

-x-X-x-

"Is something wrong with Amanda?" Brenda answered her phone as she was driving.

"Where are you?"

"Out."

"Did you find her yet?"

Brenda grimaced. "No, but I think I know where she was going."

"Where?"

She breathed a sigh of relief, "I see her. She's fine."

"Where are you?"

"The Point," she had taken her mother up to the vista to talk when she had first returned.

"You're right by Shadybrook, just stay in the car and I'll call-"

"Jason, I'm just going to talk to her. We'll be back before you know it," Brenda hung up the phone and went to open her door.

Jason cursed and started his car.

-x-X-x-

It was a clear day so he could see their blue Volvo coming down the cliff side road as the Jeep climbed up it. He breathed a sigh of relief and tried to remember if there was another place for him to turn around besides the top or if he had passed them all already.

Their cars passed each other and she smiled at him in relief and started to lower her window, he was smiling back until he saw the look on Veronica's face. Brenda turned just as her mother grabbed the wheel and the next thing Jason knew the car was hurtling over the cliff.

He acted on instinct as he pulled the car into a hairpin turn that send him flying back down the road, he could hear the impact the car made with the lake down below and see it submerging once he was on the opposite side of the road. He called 911 in the seconds it took him to race down Old Bluff Lane and was soon on the lake himself racing towards the half submerged car, across the thin cracked ice that the car had easily broken through. He fell through the already fragile ice well before he intended to and fought with the sheets of ice and frozen water as he tried to reach her.

Brenda was unconscious against the steering wheel and deflated airbag, her face already in the water and didn't respond to his screams. His frozen hands battered against the window to no avail, he slid and he fell as he tried to push himself up on the car so he could get his arm through the window's opening, but quickly gave up as the opening proved too small. His fingers too clumsy from the cold dropped the keys he pulled out of his pocket to shatter the window, so he pulled himself up on the car and kicked at the back window. It finally shattered allowing him to unlock Brenda's door and pull her out.

"Come on Bren," he pulled her head out of the water and sought a pulse. He prayed his frozen fingertips were misleading him as he felt none. Veronica's eyes opened and Jason unlocked her belt, "You need to swim out. I've got to get Brenda to land."

He didn't know if she understood or would follow, he couldn't find it within him to care as Brenda was lifeless in his arms.

It was a long struggle to get her to the shore as the ice kept cracking beneath them and he kept trying to breathe for her. He quickly sprung into action and began CPR and soon Brenda was on her side coughing out water. His heart was pounding in his ears along with the emergency sirens so he didn't hear the drenched Veronica approaching him from behind, a rock raised above her head. Brenda's eyes went wide and she jerked, so Jason twisted back, his hands going straight for the rock, prying it out of her grasp, but she continued to fight against him. Tearing at him and scratching at him until the police pried her off of him.

Brenda was still coughing and gasping for breath as Jason returned to her, supporting her back, "Just try to relax, try to breathe normally. The paramedics will be here soon." He refused to pay any attention to Veronica's screams in the background.

"She," it was the first word Brenda managed to get out.

"You're safe," he promised.

"She-"

"It's going to be okay," he swore, "she's going to get the help she needs."

"I-" Brenda shook her head.

He shifted their positions so he could see her, "You were trying to help her Brenda."

"I'm pregnant," she confessed in fear and self-loathing, realizing her actions hadn't just put Amanda and Jason at risk, but might have cost her baby its life.

He pulled her into his arms and held her. He didn't know what else to do so he prayed.

-x-The Hospital-x-

"So far she looks good," the ER doctor told him.

"What about the baby?"

"Dr. Bell's on call today, he's on his way down now to take a look. There are no signs of a miscarriage yet."

"But there still could be."

Jason's colleague didn't answer him back because he knew it wasn't a question, "We'll keep her overnight and go from there."

He nodded and turned to walk back to Brenda's exam room.

Karen had stayed with Brenda during her exam and was still there, only now she had an ultra sound machine. Karen looked anxiously over, as if expecting to see Dr. Bell or an ultrasound technician scolding her for using the machine.

He shut the curtains behind him, "What do you see?"

"We just started," Karen turned back to the screen.

Brenda's head was back and her eyes were closed.

"Okay there's the amniotic sac, I don't see any issues. Jason?"

He moved in closer and took the wand, "The sac, the placenta, look fine to me." In the middle of it all was a large headed baby, just over an inch long. "Heart's beating. What are you? 9 weeks? 10?"

"10," Brenda still didn't look at him.

Her waist was already thickening, noticeable changes were occurring with her body and she had never stopped to mention it to her husband. Now wasn't the time for that though.

"I'm going to go see about getting you moved to a private room," Karen smiled as Jason was cleaning off Brenda's stomach.

"Thank you," Brenda still wasn't making eye contact.

"No problem, page me if you need me."

Jason nodded.

"Is the baby actually okay?"

"For right now," he was honest. He always was with her.

"I couldn't deal with fighting with you about anything else," she explained the large omission.

"We don't have to talk about it. You need to stay relaxed. More stress is the last thing you need."

She let out an ironic laugh, "My mother, just drove me off a cliff," she half sobbed, "relax?"

"Try," he ordered.

-x-X-x-

"Hey," Carly smiled at him carrying a brown bag, "figured you could probably use something more comforting than hospital food."

"Thank you," he nodded and accepted the bag.

"There's mac and cheese, French fries, and a bacon cheeseburger."

He laughed, "Heart attack in a bag?"

"And a cup," she lifted the milk shake in her other hand.

He laughed again.

"Comfort food Jase," she nodded knowingly at him. "How's Brenda doing?"

"Fine," he nodded, "she just fell asleep."

"That's good. Do you want me to keep you company while you eat?"

"Sounds good," he nodded in the direction of the break room. Emily was currently in Brenda's room reading, so he wasn't worried about leaving her alone. Oddly enough Carly had been comforting these past few weeks. Once away from the pressures of his family and left alone with only their children, Carly had relaxed. He often found himself thinking of AJ in her company, he was pretty sure they would have been friends and pretty sure Carly wouldn't have ended up with his father.

-x-A few days later at Brenda and Jason's house-x-

"Did you sleep with Sonny?" Jason asked when the lights were off and they were in bed. He'd always known eventually he was going to have to ask, but the most pressing step after Brenda's accident had been getting her and Mandy home. They could deal with everything else later. He wanted to avoid it, he wanted to sweep it under the rug and whether she lied to him now or told him an awful truth, he at least wouldn't see it in her eyes. It could be said and erased all in one fell swoop because he couldn't lose her.

"I kissed him." She lied to Jason about a lot of things, taking her vitamins, not minding when he worked so many hours she almost forgot what he looked like, enjoying Indian food, but the one thing about Jason, the one thing about them that had made this all work was they didn't lie about things that mattered.

"You just kissed him?"

Technically, he had kissed her, but she hadn't stopped him. He had kissed her and he erased it all. Years apart. The fact that she had been a failure at being a mother even before her daughter was born, the fact that she was pregnant again and separated, the fact that the happy little life she had envisioned with Jason had turned into a crumpling mess. She was the charity case Keesha had accused her of being. "Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I'm the screw-up. I'm the person that believes that ignoring Huntington's can make it go away. That a medical opinion is a personal attack. That going to a mobster is fine as long as it means I get what I want."

"Why'd you only kiss him?" He knew all that other stuff. He knew life with Brenda was frequently dramatic, he had never expected them to be perfect, but that never made him want her any less. Easier never meant better.

"Just because I hated you Jason didn't mean I didn't still love you."

That word cut him just as it had when she had decided to move out in the middle of a screaming match. She had viewed his committal of her mother as a personal attack against her. He knew that they still needed time to recover from that, that the wounds from her childhood had only been hidden and had never healed.

"I trusted you to never hurt me," she whispered, "and it hurt more than anything ever has. It was like if I didn't get angry, if I didn't close myself off, I would have fallen apart and I…I can't go through that again."

The postpartum depression.

"I was just trying to protect you."

"I know Jason, but she's my mother and I don't have a medical degree. What I had was finally a mother and you were trying to take her from me."

"I'm sorry."

Thanks for reading! (Btw I'm totally aware that this story isn't interesting, but man it's kind of comfortable. Brenda and Jason seem to like it here, they don't want to leave. :-P )