Monica's eyes travelled across the harbour from the terrace of Jeff's penthouse suite at the Metro Court Hotel. She shuddered when he placed one hand on the small of her back and offered forward a Brandy with the other; they had danced around whatever this was for weeks. She listened to him recall their days as newlyweds and their arrival in Port Charles with the promise of youth and a lifetime of love, and suddenly Monica found herself at a crossroads.
"Jeff, I - -"
"Monica, you are as beautiful today as the day I first met you." Jeff overrode her sense of doubt with a tender proclamation and one that he truly believed. She possessed a timeless inner beauty that radiated from within her soul. "I don't want to push you," he murmured softly, one hand in her hair as he delicately kissed her neck. "You can leave anytime."
She wasn't sure she wanted to. "I haven't - - - since Alan," Monica stumbled over the words but the memory of her deceased husband paralysed her both physically and emotionally.
"We'll move slow," he promised, as his lips finally met hers for the first time in decades.
While she had married him once upon a time in a desperate attempt to remain close to Rick, who she had once believed to be the love of her life, she couldn't deny her attraction to him remained and was possibly more intense than before. Monica consumed the Brandy in one before she placed her newly free hands into his and allowed Jeff to lead her back into his suite.
Elizabeth blew out the candle on her mantelpiece, relieved to be home for the first time in weeks. She and the boys had been cooped up in her father's suite at the Metro Court and it was a chore to bump into Carly every other day.
A shadow lurked in the window and Elizabeth hurried to welcome the familiar frame. "Jason, I'm so happy you're here." She worried that in his desperation to protect her and Jake, he would refuse to cross the threshold of her home and there was a deep hesitance in his eyes before he did exactly that. "I don't think I'd be able to sleep without you by my side."
A wave of nausea overcame Monica when she woke. She wasn't sure whether the sickness was alcohol-induced or stemmed from the intimacy she had shared with a man who was not her husband. Silently, she freed herself from a heavy arm draped across her waist and fled to the en-suite where she hurled the contents of her stomach.
Under the harsh luminescent light, her appearance threatened a second wave and Monica shut her eyes in resistance to the bile that rose within her body. She quickly threw her blouse and pantsuit back on, collected her purse and exited the suite in prayer that Jeff wouldn't wake. By the time she returned to Harbourview Road, her journey slow and steady in an effort not to swerve or draw attention, the sky had been coloured a pinkish haze as if to announce the imminent sunrise over Port Charles. Monica wearily pulled into the mile-long drive of the Quartermaine estate and retreated to the safety of her home where Alice restlessly awaited her arrival, "Dr. Q.," she failed to downplay her relief at Monica's safe return home and enveloped the smaller woman in her arms.
"Alice," Monica spluttered between breaths as her housekeeper squeezed hard. "What is it? What - - what happened?" The trauma of the last twelve months reared its head and Monica presumed the worst. "Is it Edward?" If her father-in-law was safe and well, Monica feared it must have been Lulu harmed, likely as a consequence of her reckless dalliance with Johnny Zacchara.
"Mr. Q.'s fine. I was worried about you," Alice unashamedly admitted. She had been a first-hand witness to the implosion of the Quartermaine family in recent years and the devastation to her employers' psyche as a result. "I called the hospital, they said you weren't there."
"Oh," Monica bowed her head, determined to avoid the pitiful look in Alice's eyes. "Well - - I was there, I - - was in my office. I asked that I not be disturbed, I wanted to read over the malpractice suit."
Alice furiously clenched her jaw. Tracy's characteristic insensitivity had bullied Monica into defence mode and worsened the bout of depression she had spiralled into since Emily's death. "Okay," she replied, entirely unconvinced by the lie. "Do you feel like breakfast?" The housekeeper proposed hopefully as the woman who was no more than skin and bone spiritlessly ascended the staircase. "I can have Cook whip you up an omelet."
"No, thank you, Alice. All I need now is a shower and some sleep."