Watching her sleep was one of his favorite things. He'd done it for as long as they'd been together. Even after they had married, he would always be the last to fall asleep. It was in those moments he'd watch her and he'd fall more in love with her. He reached for her left hand and noticed the platinum engagement ring she still wore. Jason remembered the moment she took her wedding band off and put it in his palm. She'd given it to him as a promise she'd never give up on him. In his heart, he knew she hadn't.
Jason sat in the chair across from the bed and watched her turn in her sleep. He wondered what she was dreaming about—or if she was dreaming at all. He was dying to talk to her, but he didn't want to wake her. He wanted to tell her about all of the places he'd been, what he'd been doing for the last two years. Then he wanted for her to tell him about her life. How had she ended up in Buffalo? Why did she leave Port Charles? Thousands of questions swirled in his head, but more than anything he just wanted to talk to her.
He'd decided to come home that morning because he woke up and for the first time in two years, he was dying to talk to her. He wanted to talk to her more than anything. He wanted to apologize, he wanted to say he wasn't angry anymore. Jason needed her forgiveness. He wanted more than anything for her to excuse his absence for the last two years. In his heart he knew that it was a long shot. What kind of woman loves like that? Who hangs on for that long? Not anyone he knew. But looking at her sleeping, he knew it was true. She loved him just as much today as she did when he walked out the door.
After he talked to Elizabeth, he wanted to see Sonny. They could take a bike ride to Port Charles and make arrangements to move back. Jason hadn't spoken with him in a long time. Sonny wasn't thrilled by his decision to leave his life behind and even though they had parted amicably, he didn't know how easy it was going to be to get back into the business. Or did he even want back in the business? For two years, he'd been mulling over that question and he still didn't know the answer. The mob had robbed him of his family and he wasn't sure if he wanted to go down that road again. But at the same time, the mob was all he knew. He hadn't worked in two years, hadn't done much more than travel, but he was ready to have his life back.
Jason glanced around the bedroom and took in what she had hanging on the walls. The picture she'd done for him was hanging over the bed. He felt his heart leap and he knew it was another indication he might get his wife back. Other than the picture of The Wind her walls were blank. She was sleeping in a modest full size bed. The furniture was simple and, except for the bed, he recognized it as what they had from the house in Port Charles. He scanned the room and saw something strange sitting on the nightstand. Jason stood and crossed to where the machine was sitting.
"A baby monitor," he murmured. But that meant…a baby?
He pulled the monitor up to his ear and smiled as he heard the child breathing through the speaker. It didn't make sense, Elizabeth had a child? But how…why? When? Why didn't she tell him that she was pregnant? But wait, that baby might not be his. The thought hit him like a runaway train. Was it possible Elizabeth did move on? That she had a baby with someone else?
A cry came from the monitor and he watched as Elizabeth stirred in her sleep. He wanted to see this baby for himself. There was a pit in his stomach and he worried the baby wasn't his, but she had promised to love him forever. Elizabeth would have told him if she was pregnant, wouldn't she? He shook his head and turned the speaker on the monitor down, placing it back on the nightstand. There was no use in waking Elizabeth, he could probably find the nursery by himself. He took one last lingering look at his wife and exited her bedroom.
The baby's cries were coming from the room that was diagonal to hers. The door was painted pink and there was an elephant hanging on the outside of it. As he pushed it open, the cries became louder. The nightlight in the corner shed enough light so that he wouldn't stumble on the toys that were scattered on the floor. Jason found his way to the crib to find a beautiful baby girl smiling up at him. Immediately he reached down and picked her up, pulling her to him. The diaper soaked through his t-shirt and told him why she was crying.
Carefully he crossed to the switch and a second later the room was flooded with light. He saw a changing table tucked away in the corner and the supplies to change the baby underneath it. He'd changed Michael dozens of times, so he could do this.
Two minutes later Elizabeth's daughter was powdered and dry. She seemed a lot happier and began to coo at him.
"Hey there, pretty girl," he laughed. Jason noticed that her eyes looked familiar, but they weren't the same dark blue that Elizabeth had. He couldn't place them.
The baby had a mass of curly blonde hair and it made him wonder who her father was. Monica had showed him pictures of himself as a baby and he'd had blonde hair then. Hope surged through him. But at the same time, he knew Elizabeth would have told him if she was pregnant. None of this made sense. He decided that he was going to wake Elizabeth up and she was going to answer his questions tonight.
Jason held the baby close to him as they walked past the mirror. He happened to look up and gasped at what he saw. He recognized the little girl's eyes now. They were the same as his.
~*~
Hey there, pretty girl.
Jason's voice was coming from the baby monitor. She'd thought she heard Isabelle crying but when she finally woke up, the crying had stopped. Elizabeth reached for the baby monitor, sure that her ears were playing tricks on her. She'd been having that dream again. Jason had been in her room, watching her sleep again. But it always ended the same way. Whenever she woke up, he was never in the room with her. She sighed and realized that her ears must have been playing tricks on her too. Jason couldn't be in the nursery with Isa. Jason had left her, Jason didn't even know about Isa.
But she heard him, didn't she? The dream always seemed so real, but this time it was different. Elizabeth had never heard him before, but she definitely heard him when she woke up. Then she heard him laugh. She turned the knob for the volume all the way up on the monitor, hoping that his voice would come pouring through it again. She stared at it for a full minute, willing his voice to come through it. When it didn't, she sighed in frustration and threw the monitor onto the bed.
"Get a grip, Elizabeth," she said to herself. She pushed the covers back and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Now that she was up, she might as well check on Isabelle. She had heard her crying, she was sure. "But you were sure that you heard Jason too."
Elizabeth slipped the bedroom slippers on her feet and moved quietly for the door. In her head she knew that it was logical that Isa be up right now. She woke up this time every night, usually with a dirty diaper. The baby was nearly eighteen months old now and she absently wondered if it was too early to start potty training.
When she opened her bedroom door, she was shocked because light was flooding from underneath the door of the nursery. That wasn't possible. Elizabeth backtracked into the bedroom and went for the closet. She pushed the clothes hanging there aside and reached for the baseball bat. Sonny had offered to buy her a gun and show her how to use it, but she had refused his offer. She hadn't wanted her daughter growing up in a house with a gun, and for the first time she was beginning to regret that decision.
Bat in hand, she made her way back to the nursery. She avoided the board in the hall that always creaked because she didn't want to alert the intruder. Whoever it was had her baby and that's all she wanted. Elizabeth had to know that her daughter was safe. As quietly as possible she pushed the nursery door open. No matter how long it had been, nothing had prepared for the sight in front of her. Jason was holding their daughter.
The wooden bat fell from her hand and clattered on the hardwood floor. Like it was happening in slow motion, Jason whirled around, baby in hand, and prepared for attack. He saw the shock as it registered on her face and then watched as she fell to the floor.
~*~
"Elizabeth… Elizabeth, open those beautiful blue eyes for me." Jason said. She'd been out cold for twenty minutes and he was beginning to get worried. A quick examination of her head told him that she was going to have a knot, but they'd worry about that later. Right now, he just needed for her to wake up. He needed for her to make him understand.
Elizabeth fought against the darkness. She was hearing Jason's voice again and she wanted to wake up before it disappeared. He had been here. He was standing in the nursery, holding Isa, and she saw him. Sure, she'd seen him before. At least a million times, but this time he was really there. He was standing in the nursery, holding their daughter. She'd seen him with her own eyes. And now she was hearing him call her name. She struggled to open her eyes and immediately regretted it. As soon as she opened them, the light caused her already throbbing head to hurt ten times worse.
"Elizabeth, honey? Are you okay?" he asked again.
There it was again. Jason's voice. She opened her eyes again and tried to not look at the light. It was all around her and making her headache worse. "The lights."
"What?"
"The lights," she said again. "Turn them down, please?"
"Okay." Jason left his vigil at the bed to turn the light off. He opted to turn a lamp that was sitting on the dresser on so they would have some light. After he'd done that, he returned to his place on the bed. "Is that better?"
"Yes," she said, opening her eyes. She looked around for a minute and recognized her bedroom. She turned her head and frowned. If Jason was in here with her, who was with Isa? "Where's Isabelle?"
"Her name is Isabelle?" he asked. "You have a beautiful daughter, Elizabeth."
She turned back to the man who was sitting at her side. Involuntarily her hand reached up to touch his face. "You're really here," she whispered.
He reached up to hold the hand to his cheek and smiled. "Yeah, I am."
"Why? How? When?" Suddenly a thousand different things were racing through her head. She used to practice this moment, wonder if it would ever happen. Only in her dreams had it played out like this. "I mean, when'd you get here?"
"Tonight." He reached out to touch her face and smiled. "God, I've missed you."
"I missed you too," she whispered.
The both looked at each other for a minute, neither knowing what to say. She took in his features, waiting for him to disappear at any point in time. It's the way it always started. She was waiting to wake up and realize that she was in her empty bed and that Jason was still gone.
"Jason?" she finally asked.
"Yeah?"
She smiled at him. "Will you pinch me?"
"Pinch you?" His brow furrowed. "Why would you want me to pinch you?"
"Just so I know that I'm awake."
His grin was lopsided and he reached out for her cheek. Jason pinched the skin there and was surprised when she gave out a yelp of pain. Immediately his hand dropped and he stared at her. "Did I hurt you?"
"No… you just made all my dreams come true." Elizabeth flung her arms around his neck and laughed. "You're home. You're really home!"
His arms immediately came up to her sides and he held her close. It felt so good to hold her again. Two years. It'd been two years. How had he stayed away for that long? "I'm here, baby."
"I must be in heaven," she laughed.
"Well, if heaven is in Buffalo." His laughter joined hers and they both fell back onto the bed. For a solid minute they laughed.
Elizabeth was the first to pull away from his arms, but her hands went up to cup his face. She pulled it close and she kissed him. The kiss was soft and it was like she was still afraid that he'd disappear. After a few seconds, Jason pushed her back on the bed and lay down next to her. His kisses became more urgent and hungry. And then Elizabeth was pushing up against him, asking him to get off her. Not wanting to rush her, he moved back without a problem. He realized that she probably wanted to talk and he wanted to talk to her.
She caught her breath and sat up on the bed. "I still can't believe you're here."
Jason reached for her hand and smiled. He pulled it up to his lips and kissed the knuckles there. He remembered that she'd done the same thing for him the night he left. "Believe it, baby. I'm here and I'm staying."
"Jason, we need to talk." She had so much to tell him, starting with Isabelle.
"You mean about your daughter." Something didn't feel right and he couldn't put a name on it. But it was those feelings that had saved him so many times, so he knew not to turn his back on them.
"Yes, we need to talk about Isa." She took a breath and prepared herself for his reaction. "She's eighteen months old, Jason. She's your daughter too."
Eighteen months. He did the math in his head. He'd been gone two weeks short of two years. Which meant… "Elizabeth, were you pregnant when I left?"
The tears slipped from her eyes and she silently nodded her head.
"Did you know that you were pregnant the day that I left?" In his mind he went over that day again and again. She hadn't given him any indication that she was carrying his child, so she couldn't have known, right?
"I did."
Jason pulled away from her and stood. How was this possible? Why hadn't she told him? A million questions raced through his head and he didn't know the answer to any of them.
Her voice was weak when she spoke. She willed herself to get through this. "I found out the day you told me you were leaving. I had planned on telling you that night, but you told me that you needed to talk to me."
"Can I go first?" Jason asked.
Elizabeth silently nodded her head. She couldn't wait to tell him what the doctor had told her earlier that day. Maybe a baby was just what they needed to get back on track.
"Elizabeth, you better sit down." Jason silently took her hand and led her to the couch. He sat her down and then sat on the ottoman in front of her. He took his hands in between his and rubbed them gently. How was he going to tell her this?
"Just say it, Jason." Whatever he had to say couldn't be that important. She couldn't wait to tell him…
"Elizabeth, you know I love you right?" He watched as she nodded her head and smiled at him. "Okay, I'm leaving." He cursed under his breath. He hadn't wanted to be that blunt with her.
"L-leaving?" she asked. What did he mean? "For Sonny? You're going on a business trip, right?"
"No, honey. I'm leaving. Not for Sonny. I'm going because I have to go."
The tears flooded her eyes and she pulled her hands away from him. She wiped them before they spilled all the way down her cheeks. "I don't understand."
"We've been living apart together for almost a year now. I'm moving out, Elizabeth."
Elizabeth felt like someone had kicked her in the stomach. This wasn't possible. Immediately her hand went to her stomach and she sighed deeply. Her news would have to wait until another night. She couldn't tell him that she was pregnant now.
"You told me that you got your job back with Chloe that night. You said that was your big surprise. But really… really it was you were pregnant?"
She nodded her head again. "I didn't want you to feel obligated to stay."
"So you let me leave? You let me leave you while you knew you were pregnant?" There was anger in his voice and as much as he wanted to remove it, he couldn't. She had lied to him.
"I needed you to stay for me," she pleaded. She held her left hand up and the diamond sparkled. "I needed you stay because you wanted to be in this marriage! Not because of some responsibility to me and your daughter!"
Jason sat back on the bed and sighed. He understood what she was saying. He didn't like it one bit, but he understood. "You mean, you needed me to want you by yourself, not you with my daughter."
"Exactly. You had to stay for me." Her finger pointed to her chest and she emphasized each word. "For us. Not for Isabelle."
Jason stood and walked to where she was standing. She looked like a scared rabbit. Her arms were wrapped protectively around her body and he wanted to comfort her. Wordlessly he reached for and after a minute her body melted into his. He kissed her hair and took in her scent. She still smelled like wildflowers. The same scent she always had. The smell that had haunted him for months now.
Finally, he pulled back from the hug, but kept hold of her arms. He waited until she looked up at him before he spoke. "I promise you, Elizabeth, that I'm home and I'm here to stay."