Second Chances: The Fire
The fierce heat assaulted Jason the second the door to his office swung open. The warehouse foreman stood before him coughing as a thick black haze filtered into the small room.
"What the hell's going on?" Jason questioned quickly covering his mouth and nose before the smoke had time to attack him.
"The warehouse – it's on fire," the older gentleman eked out a raspy breath.
Jason looked passed the man's slumped shoulder and saw the workers scrambling and shouting at one another. The expansive warehouse floor was already consumed by a noxious cloud and nearly everywhere Jason looked was filled with flames – bright orange and red flames. "Damn!" He ran his hand over his face realizing he needed a course of action. It was already clear to him that panic was taking hold of the men in his and Sonny's employ. He pulled on his leather jacket knowing it would offer him a little protection from the flames. "Come on!" he shouted at the foreman.
Jason literally drug the man to the nearest exit only to find it engulfed in flames. He felt his way along the wall reaching for where he knew the next exit would be. Jason focused his energy on moving forward. The dense smoke stung his eyes and left him feeling as if he were being strangled. Finally they reached another exit only to find it too ablaze.
"Jason....Jason!" A voice called to him through the thick black smoke. "Jason!" Jason squinted and then saw Francis' image through the murky fog. "The exits," Francis gasped, "all of them of blocked by the fire." The guard rested his hand on the enforcer's shoulder trying to catch his breath.
Through watery eyes Jason made his best attempt to pick out the exits stationed around the warehouse. He felt his chest constrict with every smoke filled breath he took. Just as Francis said each and every one of them was inundated by flames. "Where's Sonny?" Jason yelled as the roar of the fire thundered around them.
"I thought he was with you," Francis answered.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The smoke continued billowing high into the sky as Elizabeth and Carly stood fixed in place any words that they might have wanted to say swallowed by their fear. Both women looked wide eyed at the surreal situation taking place before them.
"Holy shit!" Max announced when his eyes too laid on the sight that held the women captive. "Johnny!" he shouted. "Call 911!"
Carly reached out and took Elizabeth by the arm forcing the younger woman to break her concentrated stare and look at her. Elizabeth's bright blue eyes gazed back at Carly in terror. It was as if they had been thrown back in time to the Valentine's day fire at that very same warehouse.
"Fireman and paramedics are on their way," Johnny said as he joined them.
The word paramedics echoed in Elizabeth's ears as she returned her own tight grip on Carly's arm as if that would somehow make what was going on around them disappear. However the trails of smoke reaching high into the sky and the distant sounds of the fire trucks told a different tale.
She watched as one by one the gleaming red trucks rolled to a stop on the docks in front of Sonny and Jason's warehouse. That was the first time she had allowed herself to even think about Jason. Every muscle in her body tightened and all of the sudden she found it hard to breathe. Jason – Jason was inside that building. She could feel it. Wildly her eyes darted to the commotion just beyond where she stood. It was so surreal for her to be standing there watching yet another fire. How many times did she have to live through this? First Lucky and the fire at Jason's bike shop. There was Jason's name again bantering in her brain. She shook her head trying to not let herself think about him being trapped somewhere in the building now fully engulf by flames. Elizabeth pressed her lips together and swallowed the sob that was about to escape yet somehow the tears found their way to her cheeks just the same.
If it hadn't been for Jason she would have never survived the year after Lucky's presumed death. Jason had been her life line. He had allowed her to just be – something that no one else seemed to know how to do. She dropped her hand from Carly's arm and wrapped her arms around her chest eyes fixated on the fire. Even if she closed them she couldn't escape the sounds that the raging inferno made or the distance shouts of the firemen as they went to work at putting out the blaze. But on the dark canvas of her closed eyes she saw another fire. She had watched Jason run into the burning building on Valentine's Day to save his best friend. She could see Carly crying hysterically on the docks when the fire chief told her the building was too unstable for the search for Sonny and Jason to continue. Elizabeth remembered how she couldn't leave until she knew that they had made it out of the building. No matter how much Lucky pushed her to go she just couldn't. She should have known then how much she loved Jason. To have had such a strong reaction to the event, but still when he emerged from the building she hadn't gone to him like her heart had been screaming for her to do. Even as Jason tumbled to his knees and their matching blue eyes locked Elizabeth let Lucky lead her away. What if this time she didn't get the run into his arms like she should have done then?
Elizabeth's shoulders began to shake as she could no longer hold back her cries. They had wasted so much time. They had danced around one another for so long worrying about other people and outside forces that neither had any control over. She couldn't lose him now – not when they had just gotten what they both had so desperately wanted. They hadn't had enough time. "We haven't had enough time," Elizabeth whispered. Just then there was a loud crash as part of the warehouse's roof collapsed. "NO!!" Elizabeth screamed and bolted towards the burning building.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"SONNY...SONNY!" Jason yelled as he literally crawled through the flaming debris around him. "SONNY!" He kept his mind focused on where he was going and what needed to be done. That's how Jason Morgan got through some of the most difficult times in his life. He didn't think – he just reacted. However now that wasn't an easy task. He found himself indeed thinking – thinking about Elizabeth and what it would do to her if he didn't make it out of that building. He could deal with his own demise. Jason wasn't afraid of dying. He couldn't be and do the work that he did for Sonny but he knew what his dying would do to Elizabeth. He couldn't handle that thought so he pushed on in his search for Sonny.
Finally Jason made his way up the stairs to the second floor where Sonny's office was. He had hoped that his boss had gone there to cool off from their latest argument – which for Jason had been long forgotten now. No matter what his feelings were for how Sonny was handling the whole Ric/Faith mess he wasn't about to let him burn to death. The idea of Michael and the baby Carly was carrying growing up without a father wasn't acceptable to Jason – especially not after everything they had been through already.
Jason found the door to Sonny's office anxious to find him he turned the knob without thinking. The hot metal seared his hand. "Damn!" He pulled his hand up into the sleeve of his leather jacket ignoring the pain and again reached for the knob. The room was empty. "SONNY!" Jason's voice even though he was screaming sounded like a whisper against the roar of the fire. "SONNY!" He continued down the corridor to where there were several more cubicles. "Sonny," he said relieved when he finally saw a figure through the smoke he knew to be his friend.
"Jason," Sonny coughed.
"We have to get the hell out of here," Jason said stating the obvious. It was then that he noticed the young woman crouched in the corner. Her dirty face was tear stained yet her eyes were fixated straight ahead. She didn't even blink. He found it funny that he didn't even know this woman's name only that she was the foreman's secretary.
"She's been like this since I found her," Sonny said. "I can't get her to move."
"We can't stay here, Sonny," Jason said anxiously looking around as the black smoke grew thicker. He looked up as the beams above them began to creak and crack. "Look out!" he screamed as he leapt toward Sonny and the woman.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Elizabeth was on a full tilt run toward the warehouse. The air was filled with flying debris but she didn't care. She had only a single thought on her mind. She had to get to Jason. She had to find him even she died trying. It would be better than living without him.
"Elizabeth," Max said grabbing her by the waist before she had even made it a quarter of the way to her destination. "Elizabeth!" he yelled again as she struggled beneath his grasp.
"Max... Max," she gasped fully consumed by sobs now. "I have to find him. I have to find Jason!" Her tone was high pitched and frenzied. "He can't die. I can't let him die. He'd want me to find him. Let me go – LET ME GO MAX! Jason would want me to find him," she said again through her strangled cries.
"He'd want you to be safe," Carly said from behind them.
"I don't want to be safe! I don't want to live my life without him! We've already lost so much time, Carly." Elizabeth sobbed.
"I know." Carly nodded to Max and he dropped his grip on the tiny brunette. "But you know that your safety has always been what Jason has wanted. He couldn't live with himself if anything were to happen to you because of him." Carly rested her arm around Elizabeth's slender shoulders.
"What if he doesn't live at all?" Elizabeth said her voice barely a whisper as her eyes were again fixed on the burning structure in front of them.
Carly tightened her grip on Elizabeth as her own fears began getting the better of her as well. She knew that Sonny had gone to the warehouse to see Jason that day and just like Elizabeth the man she loved was trapped in that building. However Carly knew she couldn't fall apart. She knew that for once in her life she needed to be strong for someone else. It amazed her that that someone was Elizabeth Webber but looking at the younger woman crying in her arms she couldn't imagine not doing it.
Johnny and Max had moved their charges to the outskirts of the fire. They too were worried about their boss and friend. The men stood protectively behind Elizabeth and Carly as they held one another silent tears making their way down both of their faces.
"We can't get up to the second floor where the roof fell in sir," one of the fire fighters said to the chief. "It looks like that floor is about to give way any minute."
"NO!" Elizabeth shouted as the men continued to talk. "NO! They're still in there. Sonny and Jason are still in there!" She turned to Max eyes imploring him to do something. "Jason and Sonny are still in there!"
Max and Johnny looked at one another not knowing what to do. Part of them wanted to run into the building themselves and search for them but all of their training told them that they couldn't leave Elizabeth and Carly standing alone on the docks.
"Max...please!" Elizabeth pleaded.
Before Max could offer an answer Carly spoke, "Elizabeth look!" She glanced back at the burning building as Jason emerged with Sonny and another person cradled under each arm.
Without a moments hesitation she broke away from Carly's arms and flew through the crowd to where he was being attended to by the paramedics. All she could see were his ice blue orbs encased in a thick black film that covered his face but it was his beautiful eyes that told her all she needed to know.
Quickly he removed the oxygen mask that was covering his nose and mouth and his lips found their way to hers. He wrapped his tired arms around her as tight as he could. He felt her relax into his embrace. "I love you," she whispered into his ear as she began to cry all over again.
"I love you too baby. I love you too."
Elizabeth watched as the paramedics continued to attend to both Sonny and Jason. She couldn't bring herself to move away from him and Jason made it perfectly clear to all those around that he didn't want her to. She stood alongside of him as a young man bandaged Jason's burned hand. He had refused to go to the hospital not that she expected any different. Hospitals and Jason Morgan didn't quite mesh.
After checking on Jason, Sonny and Carly headed toward his waiting limo that Francis and Johnny had gone to retrieve. Carly and Elizabeth hugged one another tightly thankful that both the men in their lives were safe and sound.
"Would you like me to get the car?" Max asked Jason who was still holding Elizabeth against his chest.
Jason looked down and at Elizabeth before answering. He read her expression and like him the last place he wanted to be was grand central known as the penthouse. "We'll be fine."
Max watched as Jason and Elizabeth got up and climbed the stairs heading for the building -- to the room where it all began.
The fierce heat assaulted Jason the second the door to his office swung open. The warehouse foreman stood before him coughing as a thick black haze filtered into the small room.
"What the hell's going on?" Jason questioned quickly covering his mouth and nose before the smoke had time to attack him.
"The warehouse – it's on fire," the older gentleman eked out a raspy breath.
Jason looked passed the man's slumped shoulder and saw the workers scrambling and shouting at one another. The expansive warehouse floor was already consumed by a noxious cloud and nearly everywhere Jason looked was filled with flames – bright orange and red flames. "Damn!" He ran his hand over his face realizing he needed a course of action. It was already clear to him that panic was taking hold of the men in his and Sonny's employ. He pulled on his leather jacket knowing it would offer him a little protection from the flames. "Come on!" he shouted at the foreman.
Jason literally drug the man to the nearest exit only to find it engulfed in flames. He felt his way along the wall reaching for where he knew the next exit would be. Jason focused his energy on moving forward. The dense smoke stung his eyes and left him feeling as if he were being strangled. Finally they reached another exit only to find it too ablaze.
"Jason....Jason!" A voice called to him through the thick black smoke. "Jason!" Jason squinted and then saw Francis' image through the murky fog. "The exits," Francis gasped, "all of them of blocked by the fire." The guard rested his hand on the enforcer's shoulder trying to catch his breath.
Through watery eyes Jason made his best attempt to pick out the exits stationed around the warehouse. He felt his chest constrict with every smoke filled breath he took. Just as Francis said each and every one of them was inundated by flames. "Where's Sonny?" Jason yelled as the roar of the fire thundered around them.
"I thought he was with you," Francis answered.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The smoke continued billowing high into the sky as Elizabeth and Carly stood fixed in place any words that they might have wanted to say swallowed by their fear. Both women looked wide eyed at the surreal situation taking place before them.
"Holy shit!" Max announced when his eyes too laid on the sight that held the women captive. "Johnny!" he shouted. "Call 911!"
Carly reached out and took Elizabeth by the arm forcing the younger woman to break her concentrated stare and look at her. Elizabeth's bright blue eyes gazed back at Carly in terror. It was as if they had been thrown back in time to the Valentine's day fire at that very same warehouse.
"Fireman and paramedics are on their way," Johnny said as he joined them.
The word paramedics echoed in Elizabeth's ears as she returned her own tight grip on Carly's arm as if that would somehow make what was going on around them disappear. However the trails of smoke reaching high into the sky and the distant sounds of the fire trucks told a different tale.
She watched as one by one the gleaming red trucks rolled to a stop on the docks in front of Sonny and Jason's warehouse. That was the first time she had allowed herself to even think about Jason. Every muscle in her body tightened and all of the sudden she found it hard to breathe. Jason – Jason was inside that building. She could feel it. Wildly her eyes darted to the commotion just beyond where she stood. It was so surreal for her to be standing there watching yet another fire. How many times did she have to live through this? First Lucky and the fire at Jason's bike shop. There was Jason's name again bantering in her brain. She shook her head trying to not let herself think about him being trapped somewhere in the building now fully engulf by flames. Elizabeth pressed her lips together and swallowed the sob that was about to escape yet somehow the tears found their way to her cheeks just the same.
If it hadn't been for Jason she would have never survived the year after Lucky's presumed death. Jason had been her life line. He had allowed her to just be – something that no one else seemed to know how to do. She dropped her hand from Carly's arm and wrapped her arms around her chest eyes fixated on the fire. Even if she closed them she couldn't escape the sounds that the raging inferno made or the distance shouts of the firemen as they went to work at putting out the blaze. But on the dark canvas of her closed eyes she saw another fire. She had watched Jason run into the burning building on Valentine's Day to save his best friend. She could see Carly crying hysterically on the docks when the fire chief told her the building was too unstable for the search for Sonny and Jason to continue. Elizabeth remembered how she couldn't leave until she knew that they had made it out of the building. No matter how much Lucky pushed her to go she just couldn't. She should have known then how much she loved Jason. To have had such a strong reaction to the event, but still when he emerged from the building she hadn't gone to him like her heart had been screaming for her to do. Even as Jason tumbled to his knees and their matching blue eyes locked Elizabeth let Lucky lead her away. What if this time she didn't get the run into his arms like she should have done then?
Elizabeth's shoulders began to shake as she could no longer hold back her cries. They had wasted so much time. They had danced around one another for so long worrying about other people and outside forces that neither had any control over. She couldn't lose him now – not when they had just gotten what they both had so desperately wanted. They hadn't had enough time. "We haven't had enough time," Elizabeth whispered. Just then there was a loud crash as part of the warehouse's roof collapsed. "NO!!" Elizabeth screamed and bolted towards the burning building.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"SONNY...SONNY!" Jason yelled as he literally crawled through the flaming debris around him. "SONNY!" He kept his mind focused on where he was going and what needed to be done. That's how Jason Morgan got through some of the most difficult times in his life. He didn't think – he just reacted. However now that wasn't an easy task. He found himself indeed thinking – thinking about Elizabeth and what it would do to her if he didn't make it out of that building. He could deal with his own demise. Jason wasn't afraid of dying. He couldn't be and do the work that he did for Sonny but he knew what his dying would do to Elizabeth. He couldn't handle that thought so he pushed on in his search for Sonny.
Finally Jason made his way up the stairs to the second floor where Sonny's office was. He had hoped that his boss had gone there to cool off from their latest argument – which for Jason had been long forgotten now. No matter what his feelings were for how Sonny was handling the whole Ric/Faith mess he wasn't about to let him burn to death. The idea of Michael and the baby Carly was carrying growing up without a father wasn't acceptable to Jason – especially not after everything they had been through already.
Jason found the door to Sonny's office anxious to find him he turned the knob without thinking. The hot metal seared his hand. "Damn!" He pulled his hand up into the sleeve of his leather jacket ignoring the pain and again reached for the knob. The room was empty. "SONNY!" Jason's voice even though he was screaming sounded like a whisper against the roar of the fire. "SONNY!" He continued down the corridor to where there were several more cubicles. "Sonny," he said relieved when he finally saw a figure through the smoke he knew to be his friend.
"Jason," Sonny coughed.
"We have to get the hell out of here," Jason said stating the obvious. It was then that he noticed the young woman crouched in the corner. Her dirty face was tear stained yet her eyes were fixated straight ahead. She didn't even blink. He found it funny that he didn't even know this woman's name only that she was the foreman's secretary.
"She's been like this since I found her," Sonny said. "I can't get her to move."
"We can't stay here, Sonny," Jason said anxiously looking around as the black smoke grew thicker. He looked up as the beams above them began to creak and crack. "Look out!" he screamed as he leapt toward Sonny and the woman.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Elizabeth was on a full tilt run toward the warehouse. The air was filled with flying debris but she didn't care. She had only a single thought on her mind. She had to get to Jason. She had to find him even she died trying. It would be better than living without him.
"Elizabeth," Max said grabbing her by the waist before she had even made it a quarter of the way to her destination. "Elizabeth!" he yelled again as she struggled beneath his grasp.
"Max... Max," she gasped fully consumed by sobs now. "I have to find him. I have to find Jason!" Her tone was high pitched and frenzied. "He can't die. I can't let him die. He'd want me to find him. Let me go – LET ME GO MAX! Jason would want me to find him," she said again through her strangled cries.
"He'd want you to be safe," Carly said from behind them.
"I don't want to be safe! I don't want to live my life without him! We've already lost so much time, Carly." Elizabeth sobbed.
"I know." Carly nodded to Max and he dropped his grip on the tiny brunette. "But you know that your safety has always been what Jason has wanted. He couldn't live with himself if anything were to happen to you because of him." Carly rested her arm around Elizabeth's slender shoulders.
"What if he doesn't live at all?" Elizabeth said her voice barely a whisper as her eyes were again fixed on the burning structure in front of them.
Carly tightened her grip on Elizabeth as her own fears began getting the better of her as well. She knew that Sonny had gone to the warehouse to see Jason that day and just like Elizabeth the man she loved was trapped in that building. However Carly knew she couldn't fall apart. She knew that for once in her life she needed to be strong for someone else. It amazed her that that someone was Elizabeth Webber but looking at the younger woman crying in her arms she couldn't imagine not doing it.
Johnny and Max had moved their charges to the outskirts of the fire. They too were worried about their boss and friend. The men stood protectively behind Elizabeth and Carly as they held one another silent tears making their way down both of their faces.
"We can't get up to the second floor where the roof fell in sir," one of the fire fighters said to the chief. "It looks like that floor is about to give way any minute."
"NO!" Elizabeth shouted as the men continued to talk. "NO! They're still in there. Sonny and Jason are still in there!" She turned to Max eyes imploring him to do something. "Jason and Sonny are still in there!"
Max and Johnny looked at one another not knowing what to do. Part of them wanted to run into the building themselves and search for them but all of their training told them that they couldn't leave Elizabeth and Carly standing alone on the docks.
"Max...please!" Elizabeth pleaded.
Before Max could offer an answer Carly spoke, "Elizabeth look!" She glanced back at the burning building as Jason emerged with Sonny and another person cradled under each arm.
Without a moments hesitation she broke away from Carly's arms and flew through the crowd to where he was being attended to by the paramedics. All she could see were his ice blue orbs encased in a thick black film that covered his face but it was his beautiful eyes that told her all she needed to know.
Quickly he removed the oxygen mask that was covering his nose and mouth and his lips found their way to hers. He wrapped his tired arms around her as tight as he could. He felt her relax into his embrace. "I love you," she whispered into his ear as she began to cry all over again.
"I love you too baby. I love you too."
Elizabeth watched as the paramedics continued to attend to both Sonny and Jason. She couldn't bring herself to move away from him and Jason made it perfectly clear to all those around that he didn't want her to. She stood alongside of him as a young man bandaged Jason's burned hand. He had refused to go to the hospital not that she expected any different. Hospitals and Jason Morgan didn't quite mesh.
After checking on Jason, Sonny and Carly headed toward his waiting limo that Francis and Johnny had gone to retrieve. Carly and Elizabeth hugged one another tightly thankful that both the men in their lives were safe and sound.
"Would you like me to get the car?" Max asked Jason who was still holding Elizabeth against his chest.
Jason looked down and at Elizabeth before answering. He read her expression and like him the last place he wanted to be was grand central known as the penthouse. "We'll be fine."
Max watched as Jason and Elizabeth got up and climbed the stairs heading for the building -- to the room where it all began.