Elizabeth shaded her eyes from the bright ceiling light as she tried to clear the confusion from her brain. Where was she? Slowly the memory of what she had attempted flooded her. Had she succeeded? Was she in heaven? Where was Rocco? Elizabeth scanned the room almost as though she was searching for those she had loved and lost as her mind played tricks on her. It wasn't until the monotone beeps from the various monitors encircling her and the blaring voices from the overhead hospital paging system fully registered in Elizabeth's mind exactly where she was. Suddenly her heart sank as the realization that she indeed wasn't in heaven fully set in. Elizabeth pulled her knees tight against her body as the tears began silently falling. Rocco was dead and she was alive. Why was she still alive? An angry voice from within her head demanded. All the guilt and pain of living her life without Rocco should have been over by now. But that wasn't the case at all. She was still breathing. "WHY!?!?" Elizabeth nearly shouted.

"Miss?" a voice from beside the bed startled her. She turned her head to see a sturdy looking nurse in her late fifties looking back at her.

"Huh?" Elizabeth grunted.

"Are you all right?"

How was Elizabeth supposed to answer that question? She wasn't all right. She hadn't been all right in so many years she had lost count. However that wasn't entirely true. The soft voice radiating from her heart spoke of the great love it still harbored for Jason Morgan. "NO!" she said as she tried to silence the ever-present voice.

"Does something hurt you? Do you need me to get you something?" the nurse asked. She assumed that Elizabeth's statement was an answer to her question.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!!" Elizabeth ordered.

The outburst stunned the older woman quiet. Elizabeth turned her face away from her as she focused all her energy on starring at the blank surface of the wall. Her heart and head wrestled with one another as thoughts and images of Jason engulfed her to the point Elizabeth thought she was drowning. She didn't deserve Jason. She didn't deserve the happiness that he had given her. She was the reason Rocco was no longer on this earth. Why hadn't she just settled for her life of unhappiness – settled for her loveless marriage to Anthony? If she just hadn't been so selfish Rocco would still have been alive. Elizabeth choked on a sob as she closed her eyes only to be bombarded by the image of Rocco lying prone on the floor with his hand inches away from his pill bottle. "It's all my fault!" she gasped pulling the stiff white blanket closer to her neck.

"Miss?" the nurse tentatively touched Elizabeth's shoulder. With great force Elizabeth used her own hand and threw the older woman's away from her body. The tears rolled down her face uncontrollably. No matter how much she wished for that small voice in her heart to vanish it wouldn't. She loved Jason Morgan with everything her heart had to give. Yet, right at that moment it wasn't the comfort it once had been. All Elizabeth could think about was how that love had cost her another. All she could think of was how her loving Jason had forced Rocco to forfeit his life.

'You do love Jason. You do love Jason. You do love Jason,' the soft voice spoke repeatedly from Elizabeth's heart.

Suddenly Elizabeth's eyes shot up only to see Jason standing in the door before her. It was like her body had known he was there without needing to even see him. Her natural response was to immediately smile. Which was all Jason needed to rush forward and claim her. Easily his strong arms consumed her. Tears sprang forth from his eyes before he could stop them. She was alive. Elizabeth was alive. His heart sang with joy. Jason motioned for the older woman who had been keeping watch over Elizabeth that she was no longer needed. Jason had every intention of never letting Elizabeth out of his sight again. "Thank god you are all right," he sighed as he buried his nose deep within her curls.

For a moment Elizabeth let down her defenses and reveled in Jason's embrace. She rested her ear against his chest as she had done so many times before and listened to his heart beating rhythmically. This was where she belonged. She belonged in Jason's arms. As she closed her eyes again, she was blasted with her own horrible memories of what being in this very position had cost her. Instantly she pushed Jason's body away from hers with great force.

Jason was openly stunned by her actions. Yet when he looked deep into her cerulean colored eyes he saw a great rage. "Elizabeth?" he questioned her softly as he tried again to hold her in his arms.

"DON'T!!" she ordered putting her hands out to stop him from coming any closer.

"What?" Jason's confusion was abundant. "Baby, I love you," he whispered.

"STOP IT!!" Elizabeth forced as she placed her hands over her ears as if the action would have made Jason's declaration null and void.

"Baby, what's going on?"

"WHY COULDN'T YOU JUST LET ME DIE!?! WHY COULDN'T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE AND LET ME ESCAPE THIS HELL ON EARTH I AM LIVING!?!?" Elizabeth seethed. Jason's face contorted in the pain that radiated from the woman he loved more than his own life. All he wanted to do was make it all disappear for her. His only desire was to hold her yet she wouldn't let him get near her. "DAMN YOU!!" she yelled. "THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN ALL OVER BY NOW. I WOULDN'T HAVE TO SEE ROCCO'S FACE EVERY TIME I CLOSE MY EYES IF YOU WOULD HAVE JUST LET ME DIE!!"

"I couldn't," Jason cried. "I love you."

There again were the words Elizabeth couldn't let herself hear. She couldn't let them get mixed up inside of her again. She turned her face away from Jason's. Looking at him only made things that much harder.

'You do love him... You do love him... You do love him,' her heart spoke again.

Elizabeth focused her attention on the tubes and leads attached to her body. She didn't know if any of them were technically keeping her alive. If they were they wouldn't be for long. Frantically she began tugging and ripping at each IV. Much to Jason's horror. "What are you doing?!?!" he yelled as he reached for her flailing hands.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!! JUST LEAVE ME TO DIE!!"

"NO!" Jason shouted back. He pulled her hand and arms together in his own. Elizabeth continued to struggle beneath his grasp. It was a struggled fueled by anger, frustration and guilt yet somewhere through it all it dissolved into waves of tears.

Jason felt his cheeks grow damp as he held Elizabeth's sobbing body. He felt every ounce of her agony. While he hadn't lived her life or knew all of its intricacies, he loved her. That meant that what pained her pained him as well. He was doing his best to calm her. He ran his hands in a circular motion along her back until her breathing returned to a normal pace. "Are you all right?" he finally asked as he pulled back and looked at her tear stained face. She only nodded. She didn't trust her voice. She was still running high on emotions. Gently Jason kissed her forehead as his arms engulfed her again. "Elizabeth," he began softly. "It's over. All of it, it's all over." She pulled back and shot him a questioning glance. "The hell you have been living – it's no more. Everyone and everything that's hurt you in the past can't hurt you anymore!" Jason stated with a half smile.

"What?" she asked.

"You are free. We are free!" Jason delight dripped from his voice. "We are finally free to be together the way we should have been in the first place."

Elizabeth's eyes grew wide with his explanation. Rather than the words making sense and permeating her brain there were bouncing around in an abstract fashion. She was free? They were free? What exactly did that mean? She'd never be free of the demons that plagued her conscious. "What?" she repeated.

"NO one can hurt you anymore, baby. NO ONE!" Jason stressed.

"How?? How can that be?" Elizabeth stammered. She knew the answer to her own question. For as long as she had been Anthony's wife, Elizabeth knew how 'la familia' worked, but right now she needed to hear it aloud.

"It doesn't matter how. All that matters is that it's finally over."

"It matters Jason. Tell me. What did you do?"

Suddenly Elizabeth sounded like Elizabeth to Jason again. She was pushing him, prodding him for answers. While the last thing he wanted to do was tell her what had transpired that afternoon, it was all music to his ears. "I," Jason stressed, "didn't do anything."

"Who then?" Elizabeth pressed.

"Why does it matter?" Jason heard the agitation creep into his voice.

"Because it does. What happened? Tell me everything!" Elizabeth said as though it was an order.

"Baby, I will but not right now. You need to rest," Jason offered as he tried to get her to lay back against the bed.

Elizabeth made her body rigid. "What happened Jason?" He let out an exhausted sigh. He knew arguing with her had always been a fruitless effort. He paced before her bed as she anxiously waited for him to begin. He was trying to find a way to take the edge off of all that happened. "Jason?!?!" There was urgency to her tone.

He perched himself on the edge of her hospital bed and struggled with his words as he reconstructed the events of the day. Elizabeth sat silent in awe of everything she was hearing. Anthony was dead. Her father was on his way to jail. Those two things just weren't computing in her brain at the moment. Anthony – dead, there was a part of Elizabeth that was jumping for joy. All those times she had wished that very fate on him, to now know that it was a reality – it was beyond belief. He father on the other hand elicited a mixed reaction from her. Yes, Jeff Webber deserved every horrible thing that was sure to happen to him at Marion, but there was a part of Elizabeth that was dying inside at the thought of losing another parent, even if that parent had been a horrible one.

"... ... ...so you see you are free now. No one can hurt you anymore, baby." Jason's voice interrupted her private train of thought.

"You really think its that simple don't you?" Elizabeth questioned.

"Yes. I love you and I know you love me. It is simple," Jason stated plainly.

"It's never been simple Jason. You've always told me that."

"Now it can be."

"How? How do you expect me to just forget what our love has cost us? You want me to pretend that our being together wasn't the thing that cost Rocco his life?" Elizabeth cried.

"What? What do you mean cost Rocco his life? For heaven sakes Elizabeth the man was sick. We didn't cause his death. His illness did."

"No – not the illness. Anthony caused Rocco's death and that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been sleeping with you!"

"I think now you are the one making this too simple." Jason couldn't hide the hurt her statement had caused him. "Our relationship was only one part of the bigger picture. A very minimal part. I love you, Elizabeth."

Elizabeth searched Jason's sullen face in the hope that she would find the right way to explain what she was feeling. She closed her eyes, but not having to look at him while she spoke didn't make what she had to say any easier. "I'm sorry Jason... ..."

"Sorry?" he stopped her mid sentence. He didn't want to hear what was coming next. He didn't want to hear that she didn't love him back.

"I don't want to have to say this but I don't know what else to do."

"What – so you suddenly don't love me anymore?" Jason asked beating her to the punch.

"No!" she gasped. "Jason, I love you. I love you so much that it hurts. But I just have to stop thinking with my heart, Jason. Our hearts are what got us into this mess... ..."

"Mess? Mess – that's what you are calling what we feel for one another?"

"Jason, don't ... ..."

"Don't what? Don't love you? You know what Elizabeth? I didn't know I got a choice in that. The second I laid my eyes on you I loved you. I knew it was wrong. I knew that it couldn't be but it didn't matter. I loved you anyway. I want my life to be with you."

"I don't know what I want right now. I need time Jason. I need time to figure out who the hell I am anymore. I have done so many things, seen too much to even know who Elizabeth is."

Jason couldn't believe what he was hearing. Elizabeth was basically letting him go. After all that they had been through for one another, she was walking away. He left as though he had just been kicked in the stomach.

"Jason?" Elizabeth softly touched his hand.

He forced his eyes to meet hers, which were quickly filling with tears. Jason's chest rose and fell as he desperately tried to stop his own tears from falling. He knew there was nothing he could ever deny her. If he had been able to before they wouldn't have been where they now were. As Jason began to speak his heart was breaking into thousands of pieces yet he couldn't not give Elizabeth the time she asked for, nor could he imagine what she must have been feeling. The small amount she had expressed to him showed how much responsibility she felt for everything that had happened. Deep down Jason knew she needed the time to heal, maybe the both did.

"I love you, Elizabeth. No amount of time is going to change that. You take all the time you need." He kissed her gently on the cheek. "You will forever be a part of me. You know that don't you?"

"Yes. And you me." She held onto his hand as he walked from the room until their fingers barely touched. "I love you, Jason," she whispered as the nurse again took her position on the chair in the corner of the room.

Joseph heard a car door. He quickly made his way to the foyer. He had been waiting for Jason with news of Elizabeth's condition. "Jason," he said as he opened the door. "Oh," he sighed at the sight of his eldest son.

"Glad to see you too Papa," AJ countered.

"No – no I was hoping you were Jason."

AJ felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Why was it always Jason his father was concerned with? "Well, wait no more." AJ pointed toward Jason's black Porsche speeding up the drive.

Jason caught sight of his father and brother standing at the entrance of the house. He shook his head. The last thing he wanted was a confrontation with his brother.

"How is she?" Joseph asked before Jason even had the chance to vacate his car.

"She's alive."

"Who's alive?" AJ questioned anxiously.

"Elizabeth," Joseph stated. "I know she's alive, Jason," he continued. "But, really how is she?"

"How do you think she is?" Jason shot back. The anger that he wasn't able to show Elizabeth was now spewing forth.

"Didn't you explain to her that she has nothing to fear any longer? Did you tell her that you can be together now?"

"Yes... ..." Jason began but was interrupted by the sound of AJ's enraged voice.

"This is about Malucci's wife isn't it?!? Papa, fixed it so you could have something that didn't belong to you – didn't he?" AJ bellowed in disbelief.

"AJ, you don't have any idea what is involved in all of this," Joseph stated. He could see the storm brewing between the brothers and attempted to put a stop to it. A battle wasn't something any of them needed right now.

"The hell I don't!" AJ yelled back. "I know that his," he pointed his finger directly at Jason, "fucking another man's wife left me without a child and with a wife who hasn't so much as left our house much less the nursery since it happened!" AJ choked on his words. He had been watching Courtney for weeks on end now rocking back and forth in the rocker in the corner of the room that was to be their baby's nursery.

"I'm sorry for your loss AJ but I've lost things too!" Jason spat with his own hurt and angry voice.

"What you lost was never yours to begin with!!" AJ talked over his father's question.

"ENOUGH!! Both of you that's enough!" Joseph stepped between the two warring factions. "We all have lost things. I can't let that destroy this family. I lost a dear friend. AJ, you and Courtney lost a child. It's painful. It feels like you will never survive it but you will. You and Courtney are strong. You love one another. You will weather this tragedy."

"I wish I believed that," AJ said softly.

"You will son." Joseph rested his arm gently around AJ's shoulder.

"Jason, what happened with Elizabeth at the clinic?"

Jason poured himself a stiff drink. He knew he was going to need it if he was to relive what had transpired between him and Elizabeth. Both AJ and Joseph sat quietly listening to all that Jason had to say. AJ was taken aback by what he heard. For the first time he was finally seeing things with a new clarity into what he thought was his brother's 'sainted' existence. Yes, he and Courtney right now were stuck in a black hole of despair, but they still had one another. They still had their love to hold onto. Looking at Jason's eyes filling with tears, AJ finally saw what a heavy price his brother had paid for the life he was tied to.

"Jason, you did the right thing, giving Elizabeth the time she needs," Joseph said searching for a way to ease his son's broken spirit.

"What if after all of this, what if I still end up without the person I love?" Jason said more to himself than the others in the room.

Joseph and AJ were left to ponder that thought as Jason made a hasty exit.