viscosity
chapter one
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, so on and so forth.
Author's Note: Liason fic. Pure and simple. Liason, Liason, Liason. Carly/Liz friendship, Sonny/Liz friendship. Will get angsty. This part is primarily intro. Speculation fic, takes place in about three months.
Feedback: Yes, please! Let me know what you think. :D
Night faded into a gentle morning, brisk and cold and full of smoky promise for the future, but she wasn't the only one who had to pursue those promises. She had slept, dreamlessly, curled up on her couch in the fetal position, trying too hard to forget, trying too hard to hold the memories at bay as long as she could. When the first rays of the lonely morning hit her face, she shut her eyes to the angry light, ignoring the soft rainfall outside.
Day one without Jason. She counted it that way; she shouldn't have. It would make the days so much longer, but she couldn't stop thinking about him, about his warmth, about how it had felt to feel him close to her last night.
She dragged herself out of the bed, the odor of the oil-based paint permeating her skin, forever staining her cells. Everything smelled like it, but it was a comforting smell. It reminded her that she could do something-and do something well-without Jason. She only wondered what she would be able to produce with Jason.
She had plans to have brunch with Carly. It was a warming feeling-for the first time in her life, it seemed, she had friends. Real, true friends. Friends who would defend her, friends who would protect her. Friends who supported her. Once upon a time, there had been Lucky and Emily and Nikolas, but those relationships had grown fuzzy, and loyalties had faded. She couldn't even remember the last time she had spoken to Nikolas.
She got dressed slowly, sliding a red blouse over her slender shoulders, savoring the silkiness of it against her skin, and then she pulled on a pair of slim-cut jeans, knowing that she didn't need to impress anyone, not any more. These people in her life accepted her. She didn't need to pretend to be anyone else.
If only he hadn't lied . . .
The whispers came like that, ugly voices against the silence of the air. They were the what-ifs that had taken up residence inside her ears, calling to her all the time. One side started in on her, and then the other side would counter with the other argument.
If only you had accepted the fact that he lied . . .
And what if she had accepted it and just let it go and moved on? she always snapped back. Then what? Would that set the pattern for their relationship? He would lie to her, she would hurt because of what she thought to be the truth, and then she would find out the real truth from someone else-and then she would forgive him and they would move on until the next time he lied?
She could handle his life. That wasn't the problem. She had gotten kidnapped, and she was fine. She had told him in the hospital that she had held on in that tomb because of him, and that had been the truth. She knew that if she was with him, if he let himself be with her, then he wouldn't let anyone get to her-and even if someone did manage to defeat Jason and hurt her, she knew that that man would not be alive.
It seemed worth it.
He just couldn't lie to her. She couldn't take that. Carly wouldn't have gotten lied to like that.
She finished dressing and ran a hand back through her hair, ready to face day one. Day one without Jason Morgan.
*
Carly was already seated at a table in Kelly's, a cup of coffee in front of her. She stared down at a newspaper, and when Elizabeth walked through the front door, she smiled at her. A flash of blond hair distracted Elizabeth, blond hair she knew too well, blond hair she had grown to hate, and she took her seat across from Carly.
"You look . . . peaked," Carly said to her, and Elizabeth ducked her head behind her hand.
"Courtney. She's working."
"Well, she works here."
"I know, I just didn't want to see her."
Carly turned her torso and looked over the back of the chair to Courtney, busily and conspicuously cleaning the counter. Then she turned back to look at Elizabeth and smiled her thin smile. "Don't worry about her," Carly said. "Frankly, I think she's gone a little nutso since Jase dumped her. I can't say I blame her."
"Neither can I," Elizabeth murmured back.
"Hey," Carly said softly. "What's up?"
"I saw Jason last night."
Carly's brown eyes widened at her, begging her to tell more. Elizabeth tried to shrug nonchalantly, but she knew that Carly knew better. "What happened?" Carly asked-demanded.
"Nothing," Elizabeth replied simply. She kept her eyes glued on Courtney as she rounded the counter to serve the new customer who had come in, but the girl froze when she laid eyes on her. She seemed to collect herself, and she came over with the coffee pot.
"How can I help you today?" Courtney chirped at her, and Carly leaned back in her chair like a rattlesnake, preparing to strike. "Coffee?"
"Coffee would be fine," Elizabeth replied. She was trying to be sensitive, for Courtney's sake, for her own sake. Nobody had won this game; both women had lost. Elizabeth knew what it was to love and lose. She couldn't begrudge Courtney for any of it-well, for most of it, she amended.
The girl reached out a shaking hand to fill the empty coffee cup in front of Elizabeth, and both Carly and Elizabeth watched her with silent pity.
It's just Jason Morgan, Elizabeth wanted to say. But she knew what that meant.
When Courtney was finished, they both watched her go, and Carly breathed a sigh of relief at her absence. "Weren't you friends with her once?" Elizabeth asked with a smile.
"I was supportive of her because I thought Jase needed her to be happy. But I changed my mind."
Elizabeth fell silent, thinking about what Jason needed in order to be happy. He needed someone to love him, to encourage him. He needed to have someone who had dreams, because he needed to believe in something. He needed someone to nurse his wounds when he was hurt, and he needed someone who wasn't going to simply sit there and do what he told her to do. He needed a friend and a lover all in one.
"Just two more days," Carly told her, smiling softly. "And then he'll be back."
"Yeah," Elizabeth replied. "But what then?"
*
The day crawled into evening, which disappeared into night, and then night erupted into morning again. The next day was taken up entirely with preparations for the gallery opening-hanging pictures and talking to caterers on cellphones, hanging lights and sweeping floors. When night came again, Elizabeth could feel her hands shaking with anticipation for the next day-not just for the opening, but also for Jason.
She fell into a restless sleep, dreams never coming, but when she awoke in the morning, she felt relaxed, refreshed, and excited for the day ahead of her. Carly came over in the afternoon and instructed her on what to wear: a backless red shirt and a tight denim skirt. Carly helped her with her hair and makeup, because her hands were shaking too bad for her to be able to concentrate.
"Sweetie," Carly had said to her, brushing her hair back from her face, "you look beautiful. And if I know my best friend like I know my best friend, he'll think so, too."
They went to the gallery opening together, arms linked like there had never been any bad blood between them at all. The bad blood only made their friendship stronger.
There were a great many people at the opening, from Bobbie Spencer to Scott Baldwin, from Marcus Taggert to Jasper Jax; it was the place to be, even for people who were Sonny Corinthos' sworn enemies. Elizabeth stood next to Carly, who held her arm, providing her with warmth and support; she wore her fake smile, the one reserved for those who didn't know better at all, and she just kept looking for the one face she was longing to see. She watched mutely as Sonny approached them and Carly pulled him away and demanded to know where Jason was. Sonny shrugged and told her that he was running an errand and that he said he would be back.
The night crept on without cessation, and she found herself standing in front of one of her paintings, her eyes beginning to burn from the constant staring. It was a painting she had done right after the accident, of a girl staring out a window as the snow fell. It was simplistic in its technique, the color scheme too basic, but she could feel what the girl was feeling. The girl had been herself, the girl's tears her own, the girl's sadness one that stretched on in Elizabeth's heart. As she stared at it, she wondered if there was such a thing as soulmates, as true love. Maybe her true love had been Lucky; maybe Jason's had been Robin. Something in her heart was telling her differently.
She felt angry, bitter tears in her eyes, and she tried to ignore them, tried to keep the mask on her face for all of her friends who kept telling her she was so talented, who kept telling her that she had done such a good job, who kept telling her that she should leave Port Charles and do something with her talent.
"It's nice," she heard in that familiar husky voice, and she didn't need to turn to see who it was. She could smell him, feel his warmth.
The smile spread across her face like molasses, and the tears went forgotten. "You know, that's the kiss of death-to say it's nice."
"You shouldn't go by me," he responded, echoes of a conversation had long, long ago. Four years ago, she thought, that's when she had painted The Wind for him.
She turned to look at him then, and she could breathe once she saw him, once she saw that his face was unbruised, his limbs unwounded. He was intact, and he was standing in front of her in the dimly-lit studio. Over his shoulder, she could see Carly and Sonny, and Carly's smile was reassuring. What was more reassuring, though, was the smile on Jason's face.
He was smiling for her, at her, with her.
"Hi," she murmured, still smiling.
"Hi," he said back.
She just looked at him, incapable of moving, of breathing, of doing anything else but stand there and look at him. She wanted to run to him, to have him fold her into his arms, to breathe him in, to cut open her chest and let him slide inside so that she could keep him there, safe forever and ever.
"You came back," she said.
"I said I would."
He was looking at her like it hurt to do so, and she thought she could understand that. Had she had the words, she would have told him how much the last forty-eight hours had hurt so bad without him, how she had gone crazy when he was in the hospital, how she didn't want to live her life without him, how he made her life better.
Then they were interrupted by a mack truck. At least, that's what it felt like to Elizabeth. Out of nowhere, there was a flash of blond, a blue dress, a wide smile.
Courtney had been for Jason what Zander had been for her. Jason had just let it get too far, and Courtney had fallen too hard. Elizabeth hadn't even known that Courtney was at the opening.
"Jason," Courtney said in that sugary voice of hers, almost husky and yet still high-pitched. "Can I talk to you?" she asked.
Jason looked at her, and then he looked back at Elizabeth, who felt like she had been punched in the stomach, shoved to the ground, and then kicked several times. There had been times, times before the accident, when Elizabeth wasn't afraid to say what she wanted to Courtney Matthews- Quartermaine. There was something different about this time.
She thought she was going to cry.
Courtney would beg and she would cry and she would shiver and need to be protected, and Jason, because he was that protector-type of person, would feel sorry for her and cradle her in his arms, arms that should have been around Elizabeth, and soon enough, she would find out that Courtney and Jason were back together.
She had forgotten about her friends, the ones who were protecting her, the ones who were looking out for her.
"Courtney-" Jason started to say to the girl, but before he could even tell her that he was still madly in love with her, making Elizabeth's heart jump out of her throat and plunge to the hardwood floor and break into a hundred thousand pieces for Courtney to look at and then smile with her sad, pitying smile, before he could do that, Carly had swooped in on the conversation.
"What makes you think you're welcome here?" Carly demanded of Courtney, grabbing the girl by her arm.
Thank you, Elizabeth silently said to Carly.
"Carly, I-" Courtney started, but she stopped when she saw Carly's cold, venomous eyes. Elizabeth knew that look. It was the look that had accompanied the 'I got rid of one little angel' line. How things had changed.
"Carly, calm down," Jason said to her.
"I'm not going to calm down, Jason. She has done everything she can to ruin your happiness."
"No, she hasn't, Carly," Jason said, and Elizabeth felt her heart plummet. She understood all of the clichés suddenly, and she realized that the clichés were clichés for a reason.
"Yes, she has, Jase-"
"No, she hasn't," Jason said again, more definitively.
"Jase-"
"She wasn't responsible. I was," he said, in a tone uncharacteristically Jason.
She immediately took that characterization back. It was uncharacteristically Jason-the Jason she knew now. But it was more like the Jason she had known a year ago, two years ago, four years ago. It was like the Jason she had painted The Wind for, the Jason who had told her that The Wind was his.
Elizabeth couldn't help herself any longer; even Courtney's unwelcome presence couldn't keep her from responding to the look in Jason's eyes, to how he was looking at her. She felt her feet taking her quickly to him, and his arms opened immediately to welcome her into the safety therein. She felt him bury his face into her shoulder, his breath hot against her skin.
It wasn't a reunion, not quite, not yet. She knew that. They had a long journey to go on. But every journey began with the first step.
chapter one
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, so on and so forth.
Author's Note: Liason fic. Pure and simple. Liason, Liason, Liason. Carly/Liz friendship, Sonny/Liz friendship. Will get angsty. This part is primarily intro. Speculation fic, takes place in about three months.
Feedback: Yes, please! Let me know what you think. :D
Night faded into a gentle morning, brisk and cold and full of smoky promise for the future, but she wasn't the only one who had to pursue those promises. She had slept, dreamlessly, curled up on her couch in the fetal position, trying too hard to forget, trying too hard to hold the memories at bay as long as she could. When the first rays of the lonely morning hit her face, she shut her eyes to the angry light, ignoring the soft rainfall outside.
Day one without Jason. She counted it that way; she shouldn't have. It would make the days so much longer, but she couldn't stop thinking about him, about his warmth, about how it had felt to feel him close to her last night.
She dragged herself out of the bed, the odor of the oil-based paint permeating her skin, forever staining her cells. Everything smelled like it, but it was a comforting smell. It reminded her that she could do something-and do something well-without Jason. She only wondered what she would be able to produce with Jason.
She had plans to have brunch with Carly. It was a warming feeling-for the first time in her life, it seemed, she had friends. Real, true friends. Friends who would defend her, friends who would protect her. Friends who supported her. Once upon a time, there had been Lucky and Emily and Nikolas, but those relationships had grown fuzzy, and loyalties had faded. She couldn't even remember the last time she had spoken to Nikolas.
She got dressed slowly, sliding a red blouse over her slender shoulders, savoring the silkiness of it against her skin, and then she pulled on a pair of slim-cut jeans, knowing that she didn't need to impress anyone, not any more. These people in her life accepted her. She didn't need to pretend to be anyone else.
If only he hadn't lied . . .
The whispers came like that, ugly voices against the silence of the air. They were the what-ifs that had taken up residence inside her ears, calling to her all the time. One side started in on her, and then the other side would counter with the other argument.
If only you had accepted the fact that he lied . . .
And what if she had accepted it and just let it go and moved on? she always snapped back. Then what? Would that set the pattern for their relationship? He would lie to her, she would hurt because of what she thought to be the truth, and then she would find out the real truth from someone else-and then she would forgive him and they would move on until the next time he lied?
She could handle his life. That wasn't the problem. She had gotten kidnapped, and she was fine. She had told him in the hospital that she had held on in that tomb because of him, and that had been the truth. She knew that if she was with him, if he let himself be with her, then he wouldn't let anyone get to her-and even if someone did manage to defeat Jason and hurt her, she knew that that man would not be alive.
It seemed worth it.
He just couldn't lie to her. She couldn't take that. Carly wouldn't have gotten lied to like that.
She finished dressing and ran a hand back through her hair, ready to face day one. Day one without Jason Morgan.
*
Carly was already seated at a table in Kelly's, a cup of coffee in front of her. She stared down at a newspaper, and when Elizabeth walked through the front door, she smiled at her. A flash of blond hair distracted Elizabeth, blond hair she knew too well, blond hair she had grown to hate, and she took her seat across from Carly.
"You look . . . peaked," Carly said to her, and Elizabeth ducked her head behind her hand.
"Courtney. She's working."
"Well, she works here."
"I know, I just didn't want to see her."
Carly turned her torso and looked over the back of the chair to Courtney, busily and conspicuously cleaning the counter. Then she turned back to look at Elizabeth and smiled her thin smile. "Don't worry about her," Carly said. "Frankly, I think she's gone a little nutso since Jase dumped her. I can't say I blame her."
"Neither can I," Elizabeth murmured back.
"Hey," Carly said softly. "What's up?"
"I saw Jason last night."
Carly's brown eyes widened at her, begging her to tell more. Elizabeth tried to shrug nonchalantly, but she knew that Carly knew better. "What happened?" Carly asked-demanded.
"Nothing," Elizabeth replied simply. She kept her eyes glued on Courtney as she rounded the counter to serve the new customer who had come in, but the girl froze when she laid eyes on her. She seemed to collect herself, and she came over with the coffee pot.
"How can I help you today?" Courtney chirped at her, and Carly leaned back in her chair like a rattlesnake, preparing to strike. "Coffee?"
"Coffee would be fine," Elizabeth replied. She was trying to be sensitive, for Courtney's sake, for her own sake. Nobody had won this game; both women had lost. Elizabeth knew what it was to love and lose. She couldn't begrudge Courtney for any of it-well, for most of it, she amended.
The girl reached out a shaking hand to fill the empty coffee cup in front of Elizabeth, and both Carly and Elizabeth watched her with silent pity.
It's just Jason Morgan, Elizabeth wanted to say. But she knew what that meant.
When Courtney was finished, they both watched her go, and Carly breathed a sigh of relief at her absence. "Weren't you friends with her once?" Elizabeth asked with a smile.
"I was supportive of her because I thought Jase needed her to be happy. But I changed my mind."
Elizabeth fell silent, thinking about what Jason needed in order to be happy. He needed someone to love him, to encourage him. He needed to have someone who had dreams, because he needed to believe in something. He needed someone to nurse his wounds when he was hurt, and he needed someone who wasn't going to simply sit there and do what he told her to do. He needed a friend and a lover all in one.
"Just two more days," Carly told her, smiling softly. "And then he'll be back."
"Yeah," Elizabeth replied. "But what then?"
*
The day crawled into evening, which disappeared into night, and then night erupted into morning again. The next day was taken up entirely with preparations for the gallery opening-hanging pictures and talking to caterers on cellphones, hanging lights and sweeping floors. When night came again, Elizabeth could feel her hands shaking with anticipation for the next day-not just for the opening, but also for Jason.
She fell into a restless sleep, dreams never coming, but when she awoke in the morning, she felt relaxed, refreshed, and excited for the day ahead of her. Carly came over in the afternoon and instructed her on what to wear: a backless red shirt and a tight denim skirt. Carly helped her with her hair and makeup, because her hands were shaking too bad for her to be able to concentrate.
"Sweetie," Carly had said to her, brushing her hair back from her face, "you look beautiful. And if I know my best friend like I know my best friend, he'll think so, too."
They went to the gallery opening together, arms linked like there had never been any bad blood between them at all. The bad blood only made their friendship stronger.
There were a great many people at the opening, from Bobbie Spencer to Scott Baldwin, from Marcus Taggert to Jasper Jax; it was the place to be, even for people who were Sonny Corinthos' sworn enemies. Elizabeth stood next to Carly, who held her arm, providing her with warmth and support; she wore her fake smile, the one reserved for those who didn't know better at all, and she just kept looking for the one face she was longing to see. She watched mutely as Sonny approached them and Carly pulled him away and demanded to know where Jason was. Sonny shrugged and told her that he was running an errand and that he said he would be back.
The night crept on without cessation, and she found herself standing in front of one of her paintings, her eyes beginning to burn from the constant staring. It was a painting she had done right after the accident, of a girl staring out a window as the snow fell. It was simplistic in its technique, the color scheme too basic, but she could feel what the girl was feeling. The girl had been herself, the girl's tears her own, the girl's sadness one that stretched on in Elizabeth's heart. As she stared at it, she wondered if there was such a thing as soulmates, as true love. Maybe her true love had been Lucky; maybe Jason's had been Robin. Something in her heart was telling her differently.
She felt angry, bitter tears in her eyes, and she tried to ignore them, tried to keep the mask on her face for all of her friends who kept telling her she was so talented, who kept telling her that she had done such a good job, who kept telling her that she should leave Port Charles and do something with her talent.
"It's nice," she heard in that familiar husky voice, and she didn't need to turn to see who it was. She could smell him, feel his warmth.
The smile spread across her face like molasses, and the tears went forgotten. "You know, that's the kiss of death-to say it's nice."
"You shouldn't go by me," he responded, echoes of a conversation had long, long ago. Four years ago, she thought, that's when she had painted The Wind for him.
She turned to look at him then, and she could breathe once she saw him, once she saw that his face was unbruised, his limbs unwounded. He was intact, and he was standing in front of her in the dimly-lit studio. Over his shoulder, she could see Carly and Sonny, and Carly's smile was reassuring. What was more reassuring, though, was the smile on Jason's face.
He was smiling for her, at her, with her.
"Hi," she murmured, still smiling.
"Hi," he said back.
She just looked at him, incapable of moving, of breathing, of doing anything else but stand there and look at him. She wanted to run to him, to have him fold her into his arms, to breathe him in, to cut open her chest and let him slide inside so that she could keep him there, safe forever and ever.
"You came back," she said.
"I said I would."
He was looking at her like it hurt to do so, and she thought she could understand that. Had she had the words, she would have told him how much the last forty-eight hours had hurt so bad without him, how she had gone crazy when he was in the hospital, how she didn't want to live her life without him, how he made her life better.
Then they were interrupted by a mack truck. At least, that's what it felt like to Elizabeth. Out of nowhere, there was a flash of blond, a blue dress, a wide smile.
Courtney had been for Jason what Zander had been for her. Jason had just let it get too far, and Courtney had fallen too hard. Elizabeth hadn't even known that Courtney was at the opening.
"Jason," Courtney said in that sugary voice of hers, almost husky and yet still high-pitched. "Can I talk to you?" she asked.
Jason looked at her, and then he looked back at Elizabeth, who felt like she had been punched in the stomach, shoved to the ground, and then kicked several times. There had been times, times before the accident, when Elizabeth wasn't afraid to say what she wanted to Courtney Matthews- Quartermaine. There was something different about this time.
She thought she was going to cry.
Courtney would beg and she would cry and she would shiver and need to be protected, and Jason, because he was that protector-type of person, would feel sorry for her and cradle her in his arms, arms that should have been around Elizabeth, and soon enough, she would find out that Courtney and Jason were back together.
She had forgotten about her friends, the ones who were protecting her, the ones who were looking out for her.
"Courtney-" Jason started to say to the girl, but before he could even tell her that he was still madly in love with her, making Elizabeth's heart jump out of her throat and plunge to the hardwood floor and break into a hundred thousand pieces for Courtney to look at and then smile with her sad, pitying smile, before he could do that, Carly had swooped in on the conversation.
"What makes you think you're welcome here?" Carly demanded of Courtney, grabbing the girl by her arm.
Thank you, Elizabeth silently said to Carly.
"Carly, I-" Courtney started, but she stopped when she saw Carly's cold, venomous eyes. Elizabeth knew that look. It was the look that had accompanied the 'I got rid of one little angel' line. How things had changed.
"Carly, calm down," Jason said to her.
"I'm not going to calm down, Jason. She has done everything she can to ruin your happiness."
"No, she hasn't, Carly," Jason said, and Elizabeth felt her heart plummet. She understood all of the clichés suddenly, and she realized that the clichés were clichés for a reason.
"Yes, she has, Jase-"
"No, she hasn't," Jason said again, more definitively.
"Jase-"
"She wasn't responsible. I was," he said, in a tone uncharacteristically Jason.
She immediately took that characterization back. It was uncharacteristically Jason-the Jason she knew now. But it was more like the Jason she had known a year ago, two years ago, four years ago. It was like the Jason she had painted The Wind for, the Jason who had told her that The Wind was his.
Elizabeth couldn't help herself any longer; even Courtney's unwelcome presence couldn't keep her from responding to the look in Jason's eyes, to how he was looking at her. She felt her feet taking her quickly to him, and his arms opened immediately to welcome her into the safety therein. She felt him bury his face into her shoulder, his breath hot against her skin.
It wasn't a reunion, not quite, not yet. She knew that. They had a long journey to go on. But every journey began with the first step.