Author's Note: I am so sorry this took so long. I had every intention of posting this chapter the Monday I said I would, but wouldn't you know on Sunday night the pop-up ads got to the computer, completely frying its system and everything I had written in here (I am so sick of losing this story, lol, this was the second time and better be the last). We reformatted the computer, and that wiped out everything. It's finally functioning again, and has been for a week or so, but I just couldn't get inspired to rewrite anything in this fic. Now I'm on what I hope is a role. Writing's coming to me easily, anyway, and that's an improvement.

Samara: LOL, you must be dead by now, dying to read the next chapter Monday and then getting it three weeks later. Hopefully that's the last time that happens...but thanks for reading!

starbright: Yeppers, the next couple chapters are gonna be much longer though not to the point of bordering on epic :p Glad you like the Liz/Courtney. Writing Liz like a bitch irritates me because it makes me relive that time on the show, but it must be done to keep things true to how they were back then. Anyway, thanks for reviewing!

light*hope: Look, I've taken almost as long as you to update! Hahaha! Maybe I should see if you have updated before I say that so fast...oh well, I don't mind making an idiot out of myself. I've done it so much already I'm immune to embarrassment, lol. Anyway, yes, Elizabeth is very bitter at the moment, be very thankful you weren't watching when she was in this stage, you would have wanted to jump through the TV set and strangle her. But she's finally gotten over it, and I am so happy about that. So funny you mentioned the sugar and the hourglass. I mentioned that to my best friend, saying I thought it was beyond lame. But you liked, so I guess it wasn't that lame! Thanks for reading!

ghjourneybabe: Thanks!

tydavislover: Every girl needs some girlfriends! Okay, maybe not, but it sure is a lot of fun. Who else would give for Christmas a plastic Aragorn doll from Lord of the Rings for you to lust after? That's right, no one :p Thanks!

Ana: Thanks so much for your compliments on my relationship displaying, and thanks so much for reading too!

abc: LOL, yep, I get my Journey fix from my own writing now, too. That is so bad. But I have faith that Journey will survive! I was gonna have Jason/Courtney sparks fly this chapter, but I'm putting it off one for the sake of semi-cliffhanger ending...and updating sooner, need a transcript search for next chapter and really not in mood for it. Anyway, thanks for reading!

theblondeone07: Does this count as very soon? LOL, no way! It feels a whole year ended since I updated...wait, it did. Thanks for reading and putting up with my lame attempts at humor :p

Dawndrina: Thanks for checking in with me :D Glad you were happy then...no doubt none of you are incredibly thrilled with the wait, lol. Anyway, thanks a lot and here it is! Chapter 10.

Disclaimer: Some dialogue in this chapter is directly excepted from General Hospital transcripts provided by the TV Megasite. It belongs to General Hospital, ABC, and whoever was writing for the show before Guza and Pratt. Unfortunately (wait, it is fortunate) freeze-dried Stavros is a distant memory.

Chapter Ten

Conversations

Jason had no idea why he'd let Carly drag him along to the park, but somehow he'd ended up here, and she was talking his ear off—as usual—while Michael swung on the swings. It started off having something to do with Brenda, but somewhere along the line she may have changed topics. He didn't know. He'd stopped listening about ten minutes into her rant. He just started thinking, and his thoughts went straight where they almost always seemed to these days.

To Courtney.

Something about her drew him to her. It had nothing to do with how she looked, even though she was beautiful. It had to do with how she was strong but shy, and the way she laughed, the way her eyes sparkled in spite of everything she'd been through and was still living through. He kept thinking about the little things, like her smile and how it lit up a room, and how good it felt to comfort her, hold her in his arms last night. He couldn't figure out what it was he felt for her, but it got him thinking about doing things he'd never normally do. Like stopping by Kelly's for a cup of coffee just to see her.

Carly had noticed Jason wasn't really listening but kept talking anyway. Why not? She had to vent to someone, and if that someone happened to not be listening, then he couldn't tell her not to do anything crazy and to just let it go.

She was not just letting Brenda go.

"Did you see that, Mommy?" Michael came racing over.

Her little boy had just landed a high jump, something Sonny definitely wouldn't have approved of. Oh well. What Sonny didn't know couldn'y hurt him. Or Carly's ears, when he started to tell her it wasn't safe and she shouldn't let Michael do that. "You bet I did, Mr. Man! Uncle Jason and I are so proud of you, aren't we, Uncle Jason?"

Uncle Jason didn't answer.

Carly scowled. It was one thing for Jason not to listen to her, but to Michael… "Jason! Are you listening? Hel-lo."

Carly's hand waving barely a millimeter from his nose caught his attention and jerked him abruptly from his planning. He had a vague enough idea of what was going on around him to bend down and give Michael a high-five. "Great job, buddy!"

"I'm gonna try to do it again!"

"Oh, yeah? Then go for it! Just don't get hurt because Daddy wouldn't be very happy!" Carly laughed as Michael raced off. "I don't know where he gets the energy."

Jason did. Carly, the schemer whose enthusiasm had no bounds when she was plotting something crazy that was bound to blow up in her face. Jason wisely didn't tell her as much.

"So, where you been?"

"What--what do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. You can't fool me Jason. I saw you, staring at nothing with this huge smile on your face."

Jason frowned. "I wasn't--I wasn't smiling." Was he?

Carly thought back on the little, tiny, barely noticeable turning up of the lips and decided that that small a smile couldn't really be called a smile. "Okay, maybe you weren't. But that's not the point. The point is you weren't listening to me. You better have a good reason for not listening to me!"

Jason sighed ran a hand over his face. "Carly..."

Carly's whole face suddenly lit up, her eyes brightening a hundred watts, and Jason knew he was in trouble. "You met someone, didn't you?"

He stared at her blankly.

"Who is she? Come on, tell me who it is!"

"Carly," he tried. He knew repeating her name would get nowhere. It never did. But he couldn't help hoping that just this once she'd take the hint and shut up.

"Who is it? It better not be that whiny goody-goody Elizabeth Webber." Carly said that name with almost as much disgust as she reserved for Brenda's.

"It's not Elizabeth," Jason said firmly, wanting that chapter of his life to be closed, if for no other reason than to never hear how much Carly didn't like Elizabeth again.

He hadn't thought Carly could light up anymore. But she did, the grin growing so wide he thought her face might crack open. "So there is someone."

Damn. Leave it to Carly to find a way to make you admit something when you weren't really admitting something.

"Who is it? Come on, tell me!" Carly pulled on his arm insistantly. He let her. Suddenly a new kind of light dawned across Carly's face. It was the light of revalation. "It's Courtney, isn't it?"

It almost scared him how fast she'd been able to figure it out. "Where'd you get that idea?"

"Come on, Jase. I was there. I saw the way she defended you and I heard the way you talked to her."

Jason massaged his temples. "Can't you just let this go?"

"This is perfect! She's Sonny sister, and your Sonny's best friend, and you're the only guy he'd allow touch her with a ten-foot pole..."

"Carly!" Jason was practically screaming at this point. "Let it go!"

Carly looked away, wrapping her arms around herself and giving him a high-pitched, "Okay." Her face turned from him, a huge grin spread across her face. The wheels were already turning.

Jason knew this wasn't the end. Carly would never let something like this go so easy. When she did, it meant she had a plan. Whenever she had a plan, he needed to be afraid. Very afraid. And he was.

~*~

The uncomfortable silence stretched way longer than it should have. For a minute they just looked at each other. It was weird. This was a person Courtney should have known from the moment she was born, and Sonny should have watched her grow up. And until last night they hadn't known each other existed. There was a lot of lost time to make up for, and Sonny knew it. He'd missed out on twenty years of her life and had no idea what she'd lived through. And he could tell it was more than some people, because of that look in her eye last night. She'd looked so lost, betrayed, and hurt. But it couldn't all have been bad. When he'd walked in now, he'd seen her with Emily, and she actually looking

Question was, would she give him a chance to do just that? Courtney picked at the bottom of her apron, laughing nervously. "This is kind of awkward."

Sonny smiled at her. "Yeah, a little. So, uh, you work here?" He asked a questiong he already knew the answer to. Jason had told him where she was staying and where she was working last night. He'd been desperate to learn something about her, anything about her, and seeing as though she wasn't willing or ready to talk, he'd gone to another source.

Safe subject. Okay, Courtney, take a deep breath. He's sticking to safe subjects. You can handle safe subjects. "Yeah, Bobbie gave me a job," she said, trying to sound smooth and collected.

"Yeah, Jason told me. That was nice of her."

Courtney raised her eyebrows. Jason had told him? When exactly was that?

As her mind raced, Emily passed by. "Hi, Sonny," she said, flashing a smile.

"Hey, Emily. Good to see you."

"You, too." The thought crossed Courtney's mind that it was good to see not everyone looked at her brother like they did at Jason. Emily turned to Courtney. "I have to head out, but call me later, okay?" She pressed a piece of paper into Courtney's hand.

Courtney looked down and saw a number scribbled across the note. "Okay, I will. Bye, Em."

Emily waved as she left.

It suddenly occurred to Courtney that since Bobbie had hired her, she was a waitress, and she should be doing her job. "Can I get you anything?" she asked hastily.

"No," he said quickly, and took a little longer to get the point. He was scared of scaring her off. He had a tendency of doing that to people. "I'm actually here to see you." There he'd said it.

Courtney couldn't mask her surprise. Hadn't he heard a word she'd said last night? About needing time and space to sort through this on her own? Or didn't he care? "Why? You don't even know me."

"One reason. You're family now. And the thing is, you're my sister, and I don't know a thing about you, and I'd like to change that." He looked at her, examining her reaction as he want on. "But I know what you said last night, about needing some time and I understand that, so if you're not ready, you just have to say so."

Courtney took a deep breath and thought about it. What was the harm? He wanted to know more about her, she wanted to know more about him, and thier dad wasn't here so she wouldn't have to deal with this big jumble of emotions inside of her. "No, no. It's okay. This is good. I think I could spare a few minutes with the big brother I never knew about." And always wanted.

The moment was ruined by a disgruntled customer's shouts. "Hey! What I gotta do to get some service around here, huh? Or do you just stand around yackin' all day?"

Courtney rolled her eyes toward the man. "That is, after the morning rush is over. If you're busy or whatever, you could just come back later..."

Sonny was shaking his head before she even finished the sentence. "I'll wait."

"Okay. See you in a minute..." A large group came through the doors, and Courtney was forced to correct herself. "Or ten."

~*~

It turned out to be twenty before Courtney got everyone settled down with their breakfasts. Slowly the restaurant emptied out, and finally Courtney found a moment to drop into the chair across from her brother. She'd never been happier to go on break.

"God, I am so glad to sit down," she said, reaching under the table a rubbing one of her sore ankles.

"It gets busy here," Sonny said, stating the obvious for lack of being able to come up with any other topic.

"Yeah, it does," Courtney agreed swiftly, trying to move it along to ask something she'd been wondering and worrying about the whole time she ran around. "Um, anyway...last night--"

Sonny cut her off. "We don't have to talk about last night if you don't want to."

"Things don't get any easier when you put them off, and I have a feeling this would only get worse if I did. Besides, I was just wondering...how much Jason told you."

"Not much."

She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't. Obviously Sonny wasn't much of a talker. "That's not very helpful," she offered, hoping it's prod him to say more.

It worked. "He told me where you were staying and where you were working, and you've only been in town a couple days, and that you were looking for Mike."

"You don't like him much, do you?" She said it carefully, but Sonny still bristled.

"How are you settling in here? You like the place? People nice to you?"

She knew a topic change when she saw one. "Sonny, come on." It felt weird saying his name like that, and calling him on such an obvious switch.

"I have no use for Mike after what he did to you, but I had no use for him anyway, so it doesn't really matter."

She could tell that was the end of that conversation. Not that she wanted it to continue after that forceful a statement, anyway. Was her dad really that bad a person and she'd just been blind as a little girl looking for her daddy in the audience? "That's all Jason told you?"

"Yeah, that's just about it. I mean, other than that anything I wanted to know I should ask you."

"So what do you want to know?" She posed the question a bit hesitatingly, not sure what she wanted to tell.

Everything would be nice, but that was an awful lot to ask for. "Tell me about yourself."

Courtney laughed, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. "There's really not much to tell."

Maybe she needed somewhere to start. "How about school? Are you in college?"

Memories flooded her. Memories of the day her dream had been shattered, along with her life as she knew it. Memories of the day her mom had died.

***flashback***

Courtney stepped back, preparing for the leap...

And she fell. The music kept playing but she knew it was all over. She had failed; she was never getting into Julliard now.

She had no idea it was only beginning.

***end flashback***

The pain that suddenly overwhelmed her made her cut her sentence short. "Nope."

"You ever thought of applying?"

"I did."

"What happened?"

"I didn't get in."

"Why not?"

"Look, I really don't want to talk about school right now." She wasn't up for a Q&A on this just yet. She probably never would be.

Sonny immediately backed off. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, you know."

She was quick to correct him. He couldn't blame himself for being curious. "No, don't be sorry. You had no way of knowing, you know?" She took a deep breath. A change of pace, even if it was a slight one, would probably do them a lot of good right now. "So...what about you?"

"What about me?"

She grinned as she quoted him. "Tell me about yourself."

Sonny gave her a nervous kind of smile. "I thought we were talking about you."

"Yeah, but I know about me. I want to know about you."

He sat back and looked at her. "What could you possibly want to know about me?"

Everything and she had no clue where to start. "I don't know. Did you ever go to college?"

The was obviously not the opening question Sonny was expecting. "Uh, no." He didn't answer it the same way she had. The answer was short, but not abrupt and unwelcoming.

"Why not?"

"I dropped out of high school."

"Oh." She wondered why, but she had the feeling school wasn't going to be a good topic for them. "Okay. Then what do you do for fun?"

He looked at her as if she had just said the world was flat. "Fun?"

She could have burst out laughing. "You know, like a hobby or something."

"A hobby."

Come on, it couldn't be that foreign an idea! "Do you collect baseball cards?"

He looked completely lost. "No…"

Courtney laughed. Obviously her train of thought had eluded him and left him wondering why in the world she'd ask such a bizarrely random question. "It was just an example."

"Oh."

"Come on, you must have some kind of hobby, something you do in your spare time."

Sonny thought about it. What'd he do? He ran a coffee warehouse and a more or less illegal business, and spent the rest of his time with Carly and Michael. What else was there? "I don't really have a lot of spare time."

"Right, you're too busy pretending to be dead."

A beat pasted before Sonny acknowledged the speaker. "Elizabeth." Oh, boy. Courtney knew this was going to be trouble before Elizabeth even began speaking again.

"Are you happy with the turnout at your funeral? Is that why you pretended to be dead? To see how many people would mourn for you? What was it, some kind of practical joke?"

Courtney blew out a silent breath, wanting to interrupt but not sure how to go about it. Sonny was looking anywhere but at Elizabeth, and she knew enough about people to tell this was making him really uncomfortable. Was it just because Courtney was there? Or was it the accusation in itself? For some reason, Courtney didn't see Sonny as the practical joke type. Whatever reason he had for playing dead, it was good and it was serious.

Elizabeth plowed on. "You know what the funny thing is? I believed every word that Jason and Carly said. I actually worried about Jason's safety. He wasn't even in danger."

"Uh, actually he was," Sonny said, but obviously not loud enough, because Elizabeth kept on talking over him. But Courtney heard him, and she believed it.

"And Carly?" Elizabeth let out a bitter laugh. "She is a very convincing liar. I actually thought she was grieving for you. I mean, sure, I was wondering why she wasn't more upset, but I assumed she was in shock, after all, she just loves you so much. I fell for it. Aren't you proud?"

Sonny looked like he wanted to disappear into the cracks in the floor, just become invisible. Courtney leapt up. "Okay, you know what, Elizabeth? You can say whatever you want about me, but leave my brother and his family--my family--alone."

Elizabeth eyes widened in disbelief. "Your brother?" she spat incredulously.

"That's right. Sonny's my brother." Courtney spoke the words as if it were the thing she was most proud of in the world. Maybe she wasn't sure where this sibling thing was going to go, but she was sure she wasn't going to let Elizabeth walk all over Sonny like she did Jason. Because she knew Elizabeth was wrong about Jason. She was probably wrong about Sonny, too.

"Well, isn't that sweet." Elizabeth's smile was anything but. "I'm going to give you a bit of advice, okay? All Sonny cares about is himself."

"Yeah, I kind of figured that out when he let me come down to the police station to try to help Jason before he even knew who I was," Courtney fired back sarcastically.

"Oh, but don't you know? That was all about Sonny, too. You see, Jason is Sonny's right arm. Sonny needs Jason to keep his hands clean, and the best part? Jason will do anything for him. He'll kill people, lie to people, maim people. And neither of them care who gets hurt along the way!"

"You know what, Elizabeth? It's too bad that you got hurt. But that does not give you the right to take it out on me, or badmouth Jason or Sonny. Why don't you go find something better to do?"

Elizabeth backward glance was murderous as she retreated behind the counter.

"You know what? I appreciate everything you just said, but it's not necessary to defend me."

Courtney dropped back into her chair. "It didn't look like you were going to defend yourself."

"Elizabeth's hurt, and that's partly because of me."

"That does not excuse her behavior towards you, towards Jason, and towards me. What is with this whole faked death thing, anyway?"

"It's a long story," Sonny offered lamely, hoping she would recognize the no trespassing sign.

"I read about it."

"Don't believe everything you read."

Courtney thought about the article, and thought about Jason. "I don't. I like making up my own mind about people."

The bells on the doors of Kelly's rang, and Courtney looked up. Instantly, she felt as if she had been hit in the stomach. Her dad had just walked through the door. He was looking right at her.

Sonny turned around, seeing the deer-in-the-headlights look on her face, and saw him, too.

All hell was about to break lose.

~*~

P.S. All right, once again, I'm open to suggestions about what you want to see. The plot is more stable now, but still, I work in any new ideas I really like. No pressure though. A simple review works fine, as does a simple non-review, because I have faith in my lurkers. That they're there, that is. LOL. Anyway. I've made enough of a rambling idiot out of myself for one chapter. Thanks for reading. By the way, I think Milky Way bars unclog writer's block...they should do a study on that ;)