Disclaimer: I claim the right to abuse. In fact I have Jason handcuffed to my bed at the moment, it's a pity I'm at work.

Thanks: My sincere thanks to all who are reading this, and especially to those who take the time to reply, I love hearing from you and what you think.

Question: I have a general question for readers and author's alike. This board will be undergoing a change on 10/12/02 in the types of stories they allow here. Granted a love scene hasn't been an issue in this fic, and who knows if it will become one. But I do have other stories on this board that ruling does effect and am unsure what to do as a response.

I hate to edit my stories, removing or altering the chapters I've previously written or develop them in a different way, because that can change the story I'm creating. I only include love scenes if they move the story along, I don't include them just to have them.

So I guess I'm wanting your opinion, other writer's and readers alike over what you think should happen. Whether pulling stories entirely or editing the content to fit the board, e-mailing certain chapters. Neither option is overly appealing, but it's about all I can see to do. Granted this ruling doesn't effect this story yet, and it may not ever who knows? But my other stories like What If…, Bikes, Cars, and Submarines, and Dance With Me do apply.

So if you have a minute let me know your opinions. Thanks

Stephanie

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

One of Those Days

Part VI

~Snake Pit~

"Don't move Jason. Don't even breathe." Elizabeth hissed the words the same time the rattlesnake hissed behind him.

"I think I know that Elizabeth." Jason kept his voice calm. "How far away is the snake?"

"Uh," god she was horrible at gauging distances. "Probably a little over two arm lengths."

"Mine or yours?"

"What?" She cried in confusion.

"My arms or yours?" He kept his voice calm, hoping she would pick up on that.

"Yours." Elizabeth tore her eyes away from him and searched the area around her, desperately searching for something, anything that she could use to get him out of the pit.

But there was nothing.

Jason turned his head slowly, very slowly, and tilted it downwards searching for the snake. The rattle gave its position away even though its coppery skin helped it blend into the dirt and leaves surrounding it. It was coiled slightly, its head raised a little higher then the rest of it's body, almost as if it was poising itself getting ready to strike.

He swallowed hard and turned away. The snake definitely hadn't been in the pit with him this whole time. He would have noticed it. So it must have come out of one of the many holes that were in the side of the walls. He was uneasy because where there was one snake there were usually more. And there were a lot of holes in the dirt walls that they could come out of.

A lot.

Elizabeth had found another vine, this one still attached to a tree, and was tugging on it hoping it would reach the pit and Jason. She yanked hard to test its strength and fell back on her butt with a slam when it snapped. The impact stole her breath, but she quickly got up to try again.

Her eyes darted back to the pit to check on Jason. Was it her imagination or was the snake closer than it had been a few minutes before? She had to get him out of there. Her eye fell on a large flat rock a few feet away. Maybe she could throw the rock and flatten the snake. "And maybe when you miss the snake will be so pissed that it will take a hunk out of Jason in retaliation."

"What?"

"Nothing." Why couldn't they have crashed in the middle of a jungle? There they had thick strong vines that would support people. All you had to do was look at Tarzan or George of the Jungle and you could see that. "Wonderful Jason may die and you're thinking about B-movies."

"Elizabeth can you come to the edge? I want to see you." Jason called out softly.

She immediately dropped to her knees beside the opening. "What?"

"Don't cry please." He requested when he saw the tears on her face.

Elizabeth touched her face in surprise. She hadn't even been aware that she was crying. "Do you have a plan to get out?"

"No." He heard the rattle behind him. "I have a knife. I think I'll have to use that."

"A knife against a snake? Are you nuts?" Elizabeth demanded.

"We don't have a choice." His voice was quiet but that didn't lessen the firmness of it. "But first I need you to go back to the clearing for awhile."

Her eyes widened in disbelief and for a second all she could do was sputter. "Y-you want me to leave you here, alone, with a snake?"

"It's for the best." He knew he would more than likely get bit and he didn't want her to see that. He didn't want her to watch him die.

"Unbelievable." She surged to her feet, her voice rising in anger. "What? Do you think that I'm too delicate? That I won't be able to handle what happens when you foolishly attack a snake with a knife?"

"Elizabeth." Jason tried to interrupt.

"How many times have I told you that I'm not some precious little doll that needs to be wrapped in cotton and protected?" She looked at the tree beside her, the first glimmer of an idea coming to her. "I'm strong Jason. A lot stronger then you seem to give me credit for. Heck stronger then I give myself credit for." She gripped the tree with one arm and squatted beside it. "Jason I want you to move slowly, very slowly, towards this wall."

"What are you doing?" He didn't like the way she was talking. Nerves entered his system. Nerves that had nothing to do with the snake.

"I'm going to get you out of there. You are not allowed to die on me." She looked down at him, her eyes filled with determination. "So move."

"Don't do anything stupid."

"Jason in the last 2 days I've taken a drug that could have killed me. I've chased kidnappers, I've fired a gun, I have even fought with a man. I've jumped out of a plane with no parachute, and I landed hard enough in water that I swear I knocked some fillings loose. I hurt in places I didn't even know I had and I am not about to let all of my work fall apart because of some damn snake." She sucked in a breath and looped her other arm around the tree until her hands clasped. "So…move…your…ass."

Jason filed her words away for future reference. The words themselves were easy to ignore at the moment, because her actions were beginning to scare the hell out of him. "What are you up too?" Forgetting himself for a minute he inched forward and the rattle sounded again, longer and closer, than ever before.

"It's simple Jason and really quite logical." She tightened her hands and took a breath to prepare herself. "I'm going to swing my legs over the edge and hold on to this tree. Then you will grab a hold of me and climb up and out of the pit."

"No." Fear for her made him move and he heard the snake slither closer behind him.

"Yes." Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly in prayer. "Relax Jason you'll be the second person to use my body as a ladder in a day, only this time I won't kick."

"Don't."

But it was too late, he saw her legs swing clear of the ground and she slid down the wall, until the only thing keeping her from the ground of the pit were her arms that were wrapped around the base of the small tree. "Pull yourself up. Now."

Elizabeth muscles were already taut, because of her exertions of the day before and perspiration formed on her brow. "I can't," she managed to say finally. "At the moment I'm not strong enough. You'll have to pull me up after you get up there."

Jason risked a glance back at the snake that had indeed moved closer. It was on a long branch now, it's head moving from him to Elizabeth.

"Go now Jason while I still have the strength or we'll both be stuck down here." Elizabeth warned him.

As soon as she spoke the snake locked on Elizabeth and Jason moved. The toe of his boot caught the edge of the branch and he flipped it kicking both it and the snake backward into the wall. He didn't wait to see where the snake landed, he was at her back instantly, his hands reaching up to her.

Elizabeth swallowed a groan when she felt his hands on her waist. She couldn't stop the next one when his hands moved up, found her shoulders, and took his full weight on her tired arms, when his feet left the ground. Her arms seemed to stretch and her hands wanted to fly apart but she held on, knowing if she let go they would both die. She could feel his breath on her neck as he continued to scramble up her body and she couldn't hold back the scream of pain any longer. Her hands and arms were slick with sweat from the exertion and she began to shake, but still she held on.

It felt like hours, and the strain was getting to her. She thought she would die if she had to hold on any longer, and then the weight was gone. She forced an eye open and blinked the sting away when sweat got in her eyes, and focused on Jason who was on the ground above her.

He was safe.

Her smile was weak and she heard the angry hiss of the snake at the same time her strength finally fled, her hands slipped free and she began to fall.

~Puddle Jumper~

"You ready to tell me more about these ghosts? I think I have a right to know. After all we are taking the word of one of them and flying in this rattletrap."

Francis glanced at his watch a little amazed that Manny had waited this long before questioning him. He glanced to the pilot, but with the headphones the man had on, he knew he couldn't hear them. "What do you want to know?"

"For starters how did you know where to find her? And what the hell is a ghost?"

"Ghosts are extreme Meth junkies. They are hooked that much is obvious, but they make no attempt to exist in society. They've dropped off of the human life radar, and exist in their own subculture. Ghosts rarely come out during the day. They wear dark clothing, paint their face and hands white, no color at all. They always have shades on, anything bright bothers their eyes. They live only for the drugs." Francis kept his eye on the blue skyline visible out the window.

"Okay." Manny could see that, but there had to be more to it than that. "But how did you know to find them at the airport?"

Francis sighed knowing Manny wouldn't let it go until he knew it all. "I told you that they hide during the day. They don't like sunlight, but that doesn't mean their not awake, and watching. They love to watch. They like cool, dark places to sleep, and live in. That old airport was used as a military base for a while in WWII. There are a series of tunnels below ground. A whole city lives under there. A city with a lot of eyes."

Manny was, to put it bluntly, fascinated. "How come I've never seen them then?"

"You have," Francis focused on him. "At night when you get off a plane, how many times do you get stopped by beggars before you hit the car?"

"A lot."

"Right and normally, because of who we are, and why were here, I bet you just stuff some money at them, without even looking and hurry on. You don't want draw attention to yourself so you pay and move."

Manny couldn't even begin to count how many times he had done just that. One of Sonny Corinthos' rules was never, ever draw attention to yourself. Since he had cut his teeth as a courier, on these milk runs he had learned very early on that if you gave the beggars money they got out of your way quicker.

"Their smart enough to know which people to hit and which to ignore. They know who will pay and who will try to find a cop. They get the money for drugs, and then they disappear, until the next night. But they're always around."

Manny eyed the bandage on his arm with new eyes. "Damn man, besides the Tetanus shot I'm going to need to be tested for things aren't I?"

Francis nodded. "Sorry I should have warned you. They don't like to be cornered, especially that close to daylight. If we had the time we could have waited for night and questioned one another way, but we were pressed for time. I knew are only hope was to snag one before they disappeared into their hide below ground. You don't want to hunt for a ghost below ground if you can help it."

"How do you know so much about these ghosts?"

Francis popped his knuckles in a nervous habit that he had been trying to break. He'd known that question was coming, he just didn't know if he wanted Manny to know what only 4 other people knew. He had boxed himself in on this one.

"Francis?"

"I know because I was a ghost once. A ghost on that island."

Manny couldn't have been any more surprised if Francis had suddenly announced he was dating Julia Roberts. "You were a Meth head?" He shook his head in denial even as he asked the question.

"I was 10 and alone. It's easy to fall when your 10." Francis kept his tone bland like telling Manny this didn't bother him, but he couldn't look at him. "I never knew my dad. Hell I don't think my mother knew who my dad was. She O'D when I was 8. I found her, I found her stash and hit the streets. When no one gives a rat's ass about you, you don't care yourself. I was hooked by age 9. All I cared about was the next score, the next high. I stole, panhandled, ran numbers for bookies, anything to get more. If you want something bad enough, you'll find a way to get it."

He ran a rigid hand through his hair. "Soon you wake up only for the next high. You get high, and you want to be higher. And then you crash and you want to die, but instead you start all over again. You become something else, something less then a person, and you don't even care." He rubbed his hands on his jeans. Talking about it always made him feel dirty, and he knew that feeling would be with him for weeks. "You know why they call us ghosts?"

Manny didn't even try to answer, he didn't think Francis would have heard him, if he did.

"Because people, the good people of the world, they don't see you. They walk around you, by you, sometimes even through you, but they never see you. To them you're not even human anymore. You're a ghost." Francis focused on the younger man and saw the shock reflected on his face and turned away with a sigh.

Manny studied the sandy haired man next to him with new eyes. Francis had always seemed so smart. In fact of all the guards, and most of the people in the organization he was the smartest of them all. Not only street smart, but book smart, rumor had it he had even been a cop once. It was hard for him to believe that the man beside him used to be a 10-year-old drug addict.

It was hard but he could see it. Francis' eyes had, at times, seemed so much older then they should be. The intensely private man had more secrets then most and they were secrets he should have been allowed to keep. He saw the proud line of Francis' shoulders as he looked out the window and made a promise to himself that Francis would never regret trusting him with his secret.

"How did you get out?" Manny asked when he could.

"One person looked past the clothes, the drugs, the paint, and saw the boy. And he was stubborn enough, mean enough, and dumb enough that he kept coming back and trying with me," he shook his head in wonder. "It took a long time, but eventually I began to change."

"Is that why you helped me?"

"Maybe," Francis shrugged. "Maybe I saw parts of myself in you when I caught you trying to steal my wallet. But you were never really like me Manny. You had love in your life. Your sister loved you then, loves you now, you would have never gotten lost like I did because of that love."

The pilot turned around and pulled the headphones from his ears. "We're heading in for landing."

Francis nodded and tightened his seatbelt. He knew things would be different between him and Manny from now on. Manny's hero worship of him had felt good, but now he knew that would be gone, and maybe that was for the best. He definitely wasn't someone to be looked up too. But he still felt the loss. He hoped Manny wouldn't say anything to the others, but he wouldn't ask him not too.

If there had been any other way to find out the information they needed without tracking a ghost he would have done it. But Elizabeth and Jason were more important then his shameful memories of the past. Hell he would take out a front-page ad in the Port Charles Herald, if it meant finding them alive.

"Francis I have one more question."

Manny's statement drew him from his thoughts and he braced himself. "What?"

"Did you call out another woman's name during sex with Bad Betty? Is that why she is so pissed?"

Francis looked over at him in surprise, searching his friend's face for disgust or disappointment. But he found none.

Manny grinned wickedly. "I know you called out a man's name during sex."

Francis laughed in relief. Maybe it would be okay.

~Snake Pit~

"No!" Jason yelled and grabbed for her, catching her wrist before she could slip out of reach.

Elizabeth cried out as her momentum jerked to a stop. Her head was focused on the ground, on the snake that was just a few feet below where she was hanging.

"I'm going to swing you. Kick with your legs and reach for the ledge." Jason ordered as he began to move her.

She saved her breath and just tried to obey.

Jason felt like everything was moving in slow motion, and that was taking far too long. He saw the snake hike its body up to strike, at the same time Elizabeth kicked with her leg seeking the edge. The next few seconds he knew would never leave him. He yanked hard on her arm, the same time the snake jumped for her. Elizabeth's body stiffened and she screamed the same time he pulled her free of the pit and they began to roll away from it.

They rolled to a stop several feet away. Elizabeth was pinned underneath him and for a second all he could do was rest on her in relief. But then he remembered her scream, he remembered the snake striking out at her, but most of all he remembered the way her body had snapped to alert.

He sat up his hands pulling on her clothes, his eyes searching her skin trying to find where the snake had bit her. He knew he was speaking but he didn't know what he was saying. He pulled on her pants near her ankles looking for the telling holes of fangs.

"Jason." Elizabeth sat up and touched his face.

"Where?" Knowledge crashed into him and driven by fear he shook her shoulders. "Where did it get you?"

"It didn't Jason, it just hit my foot." Elizabeth cried tears spilling from her eyes.

He drew back. "Which foot?"

"My right," she fell back slightly when he pulled it up searching for damage. "Jason it didn't bite me, it just hit my foot the same time you pulled me up."

He focused on her and she could see the fear in his eyes. "You screamed."

"It scared me." She dashed at the tears on her cheeks. "But you got me out."

"Are you sure?"

"It didn't get me Jason" She clutched his hand as the reaction tremors of relief set in.

"Jesus Elizabeth," he enveloped her in his arms. Her shaking was catchy. Soon he felt it too. He buried his face in the crook of her neck. The fear and tension drained away leaving only adrenaline and anger.

Her arms hurt, but she wrapped them around him anyway, trying to get closer. If she could she'd crawl inside of him. Nothing or no one had ever felt more solid and alive to her at that moment. She tried to burrow closer and suddenly he was gone.

"Don't you ever do that to me again." He ordered shaking her again, this time in anger. "What the hell were you thinking?"

Anger was as catchy as nerves and she quickly fired back. "I was saving your life."

"Don't you ever risk your life to save mine. I'm not worth that. So don't ever do that again." Now that he knew she was safe anger over her actions had him by the throat.

"Why not? You'd do it for me." Elizabeth jerked back so his hands fell from her shoulders and shoved at his chest. "Get off me."

Jason refused to move, and remained half-sitting on her legs. "That's different."

"Why?" She hissed. "Because you're a man?" She demanded scornfully. "I told you once that I wouldn't walk away from you if you were in danger. I meant that." She pushed on his chest again, but she may as well have been pushing concrete. "Though right now I don't know why I felt like I had to save you. You are such an…a…a…an idiot." She finished finally shaking again but in anger instead of relief.

He caught her hands and pinned them behind her back, bringing her chest into contact with his own. She tried to pull away but couldn't, her eyes were shooting sparks at him but he ignored that. "We're fine." He whispered in her hair when she twisted her face away from him.

The tears spilled from her lashes and he felt them on his throat. He shouldn't have yelled at her. Not right then, it was too soon. She stopped struggling to get away, he let go of her hands and she immediately wrapped her arms around him. He tightened his hold on her. "It's okay Elizabeth."

He pulled on the back of her head forcing her to look at him and brushed the tears from her cheeks. "I'm sorry I yelled." He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I'm sorry," he trailed his lips over her still damp cheeks.

His mouth seemed to have a mind of it's own and brushed over hers. The first pass, the touch was so light he could barely feel it. The second pass over her lips was a little longer, and he could feel the slight quiver of her lips under his. He shifted and settled more fully on her and on the third pass of her lips his mouth stayed there to claim.

He didn't give her the opportunity to refuse the kiss, in that instant he just conquered. The fear of the last few minutes rolled out of him and for the moment his restraint was gone, and he finally allowed himself to take what he wanted.

And he wanted Elizabeth.

The kiss was raw and wild, and just a little bit mean, but she didn't withdraw. In fact she gave, and that made his body hum in want and anticipation. His hands slid over her, learning her body, soon he pressed her back to the ground his mouth never leaving hers. For once he wasn't thinking, he wasn't doing the right thing, he was doing the selfish thing. This time he wanted to be selfish and he lost himself in her soft wet mouth.

A part of him knew that he must have been crushing her. A part of him realized that he could even be scaring her, but he couldn't make himself stop. He couldn't stop anymore then he had been able to stop wanting her all these months they had been separated.

And now that he had finally tasted her, he wanted so much more from her.

He heard her moan, a weak accepting sound that purred out of her throat and it drove him to take more. But the more he took the more she offered. His mouth nipped at her chin, before roving over her throat and she arched her neck to give him better access. Her seemingly helpless surrender both excited him and worried him. It was the worry that got through and he pulled away while he still could.

Jason looked down at her. Her eyes were still closed, her cheeks flushed, her breath was coming erratically through lips that had been rendered swollen by his. Her eyes opened slowly and he could see the desire and offer in them and he got to his feet backing away from her tempting expression. His eyes dropped from her face and fell on the exposed flat, pale skin of her stomach. His hands no doubt had shoved her sweater up, exposing the skin and the edge of her bra.

He had done that to her, he clenched his hands trying to regain control, because at that moment he wanted nothing more than to finish what he had started with her, in a moment of anger. He wanted to take and take from her, until the need he had for her was finally sated.

But he wouldn't.

He walked away from her and stared down into the snake pit. A part of him felt like he was still trapped in a pit, this one of Elizabeth's making, and he didn't like the feeling.

"Jason?"

At the breathy sound of his name coming from behind him, he turned and looked at her, his expression blank. "That shouldn't have happened. It was a mistake. One I won't make again."