Disclaimer: The characters of GH, as well as General Hospital itself don't belong to me.

Author's Note: Well, good news and bad news. I have this story all mapped out until the end and there are only 5 more chapters planned, including this one. I'd like to have this story done by the end of the year, but we'll see. Now, as for this chapter, you're going to either love it or hate it, but it's the only way I could see to push the story forward in the way I wanted it to go. The next few chapters are going to be pretty angst-y; you've been warned. I'll try to throw in some fluff where I can, just please bare with me and stay along for the ride. You've made it this far you know you want to see how it ends!!

The song is Stillness of Heart by Lenny Kravitz.

All that I want is stillness of heart

So I can start to find my way

Out of the dark

And into your heart…

The shrill ringing of the phone startled Jason awake and he sat up in bed, momentarily confused. A glance at the clock next to the bed showed it to be a few hours past midnight. He fumbled for the phone on the nightstand, knocking over several things in the process. "Morgan," he answered finally. He glanced over at Courtney and was amused to see she hadn't even stirred with all the commotion. He had forgotten how sound a sleeper she was.

"What? Damn it, when?" He started to shake Courtney awake as he became more alert. She sat up in bed and looked at him strangely.

What's wrong? She mouthed at him but he only shook his head as he listened intently to the voice on the other end of the phone. "All right, thanks for calling."

"What? What is it?" Courtney asked as he put the phone down.

Across town at the penthouse Sonny had just woken Carly up as well.

"I can't believe it," Carly said softly, taking the coffee mug Sonny handed her.

"I know," Sonny said, sitting down heavily next to her. "Elizabeth said she went quickly and peacefully. In her sleep."

"Sam's dead," Carly murmured, her tone of voice conveying that she really didn't believe the words. She rested her head on Sonny's shoulder. "Her poor baby."

"Well, Lila has Jax now," Sonny said. "Elizabeth said he's her father."

"Jax?" Carly arched one eyebrow. "I guess I'm really not that surprised." She put her coffee mug down on the table. "Sonny, I'm sorry," she said, placing a hand over his. "I know you cared about Sam and I know you still care about Lila."

Sonny shrugged and raised his own coffee mug to his mouth. Carly frowned as she realized it filled more with whiskey than with coffee. "I'm not Lila's father so it doesn't matter much now," he said.

"Well, do you want to go to the hospital?"

"Nothing to do there," Sonny said, standing up. "There's nothing we can do now Carly, you may as well go back to bed."

"What about you?"

"I'm not tired, I'll be in my office going over some paperwork."

"Sonny—" Carly began to protest but Sonny held up his hand.

"I'm fine Carly, I'll come to bed soon." He pressed a kiss against the side of her head before guiding her to the stairs. She watched unsurely as he shut the door to his office before reluctantly heading back to the bedroom.

"I'm going to go talk to the doctor," Jason said as he and Courtney stepped off of the elevator and onto the Maternity floor of GH.

She nodded. "I'm going to go see how Jax is," she said. She squeezed his hand before they took off in separate directions.

The ride over had been a quiet one. Actually, they had pretty much been quiet since Jason had told her about Sam. They had both wanted to come to the hospital, him to see what he could do in making arrangements and her to see how Jax was.

"Hey," she said softly, pausing in the doorway of the nursery. Jax was sitting by the window holding Lila.

He looked up. "Hey," he said back, the surprise evident in his voice. "What are you doing here?"

"Jason wanted to talk to Sam's doctors and I came with him." She smiled down at the sleeping baby. "She's going to be blonde like you," she said.

"Do you want to hold her?" Jax asked, standing up. "Why am I asking, of course you do. Here." He handed her the baby, who only stirred slightly before settling comfortably in Courtney's arms.

"She's so beautiful," Courtney whispered, holding her a little closer. A frown settled on her slight features. "Did Sam even get to see her?"

Jax nodded. "Sam woke up for a little bit and I talked to her. She had no idea I was Lila's father, I believed her when she said it." His voice turned softer. "She got to hold Lila, she was so in awe of her."

"I can see why, this little girl is absolutely perfect." Courtney looked down at her again. "What happened?" she asked softly. "How did it happen?"

"There was internal bleeding that the doctors didn't catch," Jax explained. "By the time they realized it, it was too late and there was nothing they could do. It all happened so quickly."

Courtney nodded. "At least she got to see Lila," she said.

"Courtney what am I going to do?" Jax asked suddenly. "This was the last thing I expected to happen today. All of a sudden I have a daughter, and I'm the one that has to take care of her and I don't know how to do that Courtney. I can't do this. I don't know how to be a father. I don't think I can do this myself."

"Jax, you'll be a great father," Courtney said kindly. "You're a wonderful person, you've got a warm, loving heart, and while you may not know what to do, you'll learn. You'll see. You and Lila will be just fine. I promise."

"Maybe," Jax said, a trace of doubt in his voice. "Will you help me?"

Courtney looked up, startled. "Jax, I—"

"Think about it Courtney," he said. "Courtney, we could do this together. We could raise Lila. This is your chance to be a mother."

She set Lila down in the crib, arranging the blanket around her. "Jax, you're tired, you're stressed, you don't even know what you're saying right now."

"Yes I do. Courtney, will you marry me?"

Courtney looked up in shock. Jax's face was serious. "I—" she didn't know what to say.

"Just think about it, okay?" Jax asked. "You know how I feel about you Courtney, I think this could be the beginning of something really good. For both of us."

Again, she didn't know what to say. So she decided to bail. "I need to go," she said. She turned and rushed out of the room, nearly colliding with Jason.

"You okay?" Jason asked, steadying her with one hand so she didn't fall.

"Yeah, fine," she said hastily. "I was just coming to find you."

"Oh. You ready to go?"

"Are you all done with the doctors?"

He nodded. "Yeah. They're going to release Sam to me, I figure Sonny won't want to arrange her funeral so I'm going to do it. Service is set for Friday." Jason's voice was void of emotion and he wasn't looking directly at Courtney. "There's really nothing else to do here, so I guess we can go."

"Okay." She nodded and reached for his hand but he moved it away before she could. They left the hospital and Jason's pace was so fast that Courtney almost had to run to keep up.

"Are you okay?" she asked when they got back to his penthouse.

"Yeah."

She sighed. "Then why won't you look at me?" she asked.

"I'm just tired, okay?" he snapped. He sighed and dropped down on the couch.

"I know," Courtney said, trying to soothe him. "Come on, let's just go to bed, the sun's just starting to come up so we can get a few hours of sleep and then start making the arrangements, okay?"

Jason shook his head. "You go on, I'm going to make a few phone calls. Someone has to tell Danny about Sam. I have to make sure he's taken care of."

"You don't have to do that right now. Please, just get some sleep and then I'll help you."

"No. Court, just—" he sighed. "I need to be alone right now," he said.

"Alright." Courtney tried not to feel hurt but she couldn't help it. "I'll be in the bedroom if you change your mind," she said. She waited a second to see if he'd answer her but he didn't. He just picked up the phone and started dialing.

She emerged from the bedroom several hours later, only because Carly had called her and asked her to come over. She was surprised to see Jason had fallen asleep on the couch and decided to leave him there without waking him.

"Hey," she said, entering Carly's living room. "How are you guys doing?"

Carly shook her head as she handed Courtney a cup of coffee. "I'm okay. Sonny's locked himself in his office with a bottle of whiskey. He won't talk to me. That's why I asked you to come over, I thought maybe he'd talk to you."

"Yeah well, maybe you can talk to Jason then. He wouldn't talk to me last night," Courtney said.

"God this is crazy Court," Carly said, running a hand through her hair. "I never imagined things would turn out like this."

"None of us did," Courtney commiserated. "Here, I'll see if I can get Sonny to talk to me. I'll take him some coffee."

"Good luck," Carly said. "While you're in there, I'm going to jump in the shower really quick."

Courtney knocked on the office door. "Sonny?" she called. "It's me, Courtney." She paused. "I brought you some coffee." No answer. "I've got some bagels too. The ones with sesame seeds that you like." Still no answer. "Carly's not with me, she's in the shower." She grinned to herself as she heard his footsteps and the lock being turned.

She stepped into the room and noticed the shades were all drawn and a half-empty bottle of whiskey sitting on the desk. "If you're going for dramatics here, you've definitely got it down, but this Rhett Butler bit Sonny? It's a little over the top."

"What do you want Courtney?" he asked.

"I wanted to see how you were," she said. "I know yesterday was really hard and I was worried about you."

"I'm fine." He laughed shortly. "It couldn't be much better, could it? It definitely can't be much worse."

Courtney sat down next to him. "I'm sorry Sonny," she said. "I don't know what else I can say."

He shook his head. "There really isn't a lot you can say," he said. "The next few days will be rough, but we'll all get through." He took a drink of the coffee. "How's Carly? I kind of shut her out last night."

"She's okay. She's worried about you, that's all."

"I'll talk to her in a little bit. How's Jason?"

She shook her head. "Shutting me out like you did Carly. Sonny, I think he's still blaming himself for what happened."

"It's not his fault, it just happened."

"I tried telling him that." She paused. "He was really close to Sam. I don't know how to help him through this," she admitted.

Sonny squeezed her hand. "You guys will be okay," he said. "We'll all get through this. Together."

She rolled her eyes. "I never knew you were so cheesy," she chided. "But I like the sentiment," she added.

"Good." He finished off his coffee. "Well, let's get out of this room," he said. "I'm starving and I don't want Carly anywhere near that kitchen."

"Hey," Carly said, coming down the stairs. She smiled at Sonny. He smiled back.

"I'm going to go make breakfast," he said, kissing her on the cheek. He disappeared into the kitchen.

"He'll be okay," Courtney said. She sighed. "But there's something I need to talk to you about."

"What is it?"

Before Courtney could answer Jason opened the door and came in. "I thought you'd be here," he said, half-smiling at her. "Morning Carly."

"Morning Jase." Carly offered him a smile. "Sonny's in the kitchen making breakfast," she said. She waited until he went into the other room before turning back to Courtney. "So what were you saying?"

She hesitated, looking towards the closed kitchen door. "Jason and I went to the hospital after we heard about Sam and I was talking to Jax and he asked me to marry him," she said quietly.

"What!" Carly covered her mouth. "Courtney, how the hell did that happen?"

"He freaked out about raising Lila. He said he wanted me to help him with her. Be her mother, that kind of thing. I thought he was joking, but he wasn't Carly. He was completely serious."

"Oh my God. What did you say? You told him no, right?"

"I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say. I just left."

"Courtney, you need to say no. What about Jason?"

"Well of course I'm going to say no, but Carly, I don't want to hurt Jax any more than I have to."

"I can't believe he put you in that situation," Carly fumed. "What did Jason say when you told him."

Courtney hesitated. "I haven't brought it up to Jason," she confessed.

Carly narrowed her eyes. "Don't you think that's something you should tell him?"

"Not at the time, no. Carly, he's got enough going on right now, if I told him this he'd just get angry and lash out at Jax." Courtney sighed and closed her eyes. "How is it possible that in 3 days our lives have been completely turned upside down?"

"I don't know," Carly said. "We'll get it all sorted out soon enough though."

"You sound like Sonny now," Courtney noted. Her head swiveled back to the kitchen doors. "Think they'll let us in there yet?" she asked.

"Only one way to find out," Carly said. As they came closer they could hear muffled voices through the thick oak doors, and it sounded as though the two were arguing.

"You don't get it Sonny!" They opened the door as Jason was speaking. "Maybe I could have prevented this from happening. Maybe if Courtney hadn't been over I would have paid more attention to what Sam had said about the baby kicking and would have checked on her to make sure she was okay."

"Ahem." Carly cleared her throat, causing both men to turn towards them.

"Courtney." Jason sighed at the look on her face. "I didn't mean—"

She shook her head. "It's okay, don't explain," she said softly. "I'm going to go," she said, with a look towards Carly.

"Courtney, don't," Jason protested, striding towards her, but she was already backing out of the kitchen.

She was gathering her things in the living room when Carly found her. "Court, come on, don't leave," she said.

"I'm fine Carly. I just need some time, okay?" she asked. "I need to clear my head. He does too."

"All right, but don't go and do anything foolish like accepting Jax's proposal," Carly warned.

This time it was Jason's turn to eavesdrop. "What proposal?"

Wow, that was a long chapter. Longer than I thought it would be at least. Let me know what you guys think!