Shot in an Alley: Breath
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Thanks for the reviews, as always I really appreciate them. I left you all with a bit of a cliffhanger there didn't I?
Sonny felt his heart stop. Jason had stopped breathing. Oh god…this couldn't be happening.
Elizabeth hadn't said a word up until now. "Jason! Jason, hang on. You can't leave us, do you hear me?" she yelled at him.
Johnny heard this from his post. The guard ran into the room. He saw Sonny looking shocked, his eyes mirroring the look that had claimed them before. Elizabeth was sitting next to the motionless Jason. He looked at the man he considered a friend. He wasn't breathing anymore.
Johnny knew what he had to do and sprung into action. He rushed to the couch and moved Elizabeth away, despite her protests. Johnny knew that Jason would need her but right now he had to see if the younger man was even alive. His fingers moved to Jason's neck. The first thing he noticed was the heat Jason's skin was radiating. Then he found what he was looking for.
A pulse.
If they didn't get Jason to breathe that wouldn't matter anymore. He turned to Elizabeth. "Elizabeth! Listen to me, he is still alive. We need to get him breathing again. I need your help, okay?"
Elizabeth had been frozen until Johnny said this, her mind focusing on what he had said – Jason's alive, Jason's alive…
"I'm going to do chest compressions while you breath into his mouth okay?"
"I understand" Elizabeth said faintly. She knew it was going to be okay - Jason is too strong to die now, she told herself.
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Jason didn't know what was happening. One second he was pain-free and the next he felt the burning pain explode inside of him again. What had happened?
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Jason was breathing. That was all that mattered to Sonny now. He hadn't said anything since the moment Jason had stopped. Johnny and Elizabeth had brought him back. Even with the medicine it was too much for Jason. How could he have let all this happen? Had he really become this way? Were things this bad?
Before Jason would come to him before going off to do work - tell him what was going on, but now Jason went off to get things done, and his men followed Jason's orders almost more readily than they followed his own. He knew that he was getting to that place where he got paranoid and thought only he was right, but even when this had happened before he hadn't questioned Jason. He knew that Jason was loyal but sometimes it got covered up.
And Jason didn't come to him with other things too. Or maybe he hadn't noticed. Jason wasn't one to dump his problems on others but usually he would notice something was wrong and eventually get it out of him. Were things going good with Courtney? How was Emily doing? How was Jason handling it? Had he yet again gotten into a fight and hurt himself? Had he heard from Brenda? Sonny didn't know any of this and it was only because he hadn't bothered to find out.
Now he may never get the chance.
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Elizabeth looked down at Jason. He was breathing slowly but was breathing all the same, so she wouldn't be picky. Johnny had gotten up and left the room to see about taking Jason somewhere but she knew there was no way that they could make that work.
She had almost lost him again. This was the closest she had ever come to it. Elizabeth spared a glance at Sonny. She had never seen him look so guilty but she knew that some of this was on her too.
If she had just figured out about Ric sooner, if she had found Carly or believed Jason then he might not have been hurt. Ric wouldn't have been around to hurt him. Carly would be home.
The other side of that would be that Courtney would be too. She and Jason would be getting ready for their wedding and Elizabeth would have never found out about her feelings for Jason.
Elizabeth shook the thought from her head, that didn't matter now. Thinking of what would happen to her when Courtney came home didn't matter. Ric and their marriage didn't matter.
Keeping Jason alive did.