Show: General Hospital

Title: Las Vidas de los Corinthos' II: Chapter 21

Disclaimer: See Chapter 1

A/N: Thank you for last chapter's comments; at the end of the chapter, if you can
put two and two together, you might not be so grateful though….

*~*~*~*~*~*

**There was a pip in his step… a damn *pip* in his step.** Francis observed with
amusement from his stance, five feet behind the reunited couple.

It was true. Walking through the warmth of the late PC morning, Jason's heart
couldn't have felt lighter. Even with the constant danger that was part of his
everyday life, walking the short distance to Kelly's with Elizabeth's hand in his, he
was happier than he'd been a very long time.

As they passed the diner, he paused. "I'm going to get some coffee. You want
anything?"

Liz shook her head. "No thanks. I'm just going to wait out here, ok?"

He nodded in satisfaction and turned to enter the diner.

At the tinkle of the little bell above the door, Tammy looked up to see Jason
Morgan heading towards the counter. "You came after all," she said to him with
an amused smile.

Jason was confused. Apparently his face told Tammy all she needed to know.

"For the soup," she clarified, going behind the counter and setting a large
Styrofoam cup on top. "For Courtney…" she trailed off, somehow knowing Jason
had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

Jason tried to save face and robotically picked up the container. "I just got back
into town," he struggled with the lie, not sure why he was even telling one in the
first place. "Is she sick?"

Tammy seemed to accept his answer at face value. "Sure," she said matter-of-
factly. "She's got the flu… hasn't been to work since the day after she came back
from New York City," she explained. "Anything else?"

Inwardly he blanched. Tammy had basically said that Courtney hadn't been to
work since their fight. He mechanically nodded in reaction to her answer.
"Coffee."

Tammy turned away with a smile but, with her back to the Enforcer, it dropped
from her face. Why did she have this feeling that she'd just done something she
shouldn't have?

Jason accepted the coffee from Tammy, paid and left, gripping the container of
soup tightly in his hand. Outside he paused on the threshold, staring at Elizabeth
in quiet conversation with her guard. He looked down at the container of soup. It
represented some strings that still needed to be tied up.

"Hey," he called out.

Elizabeth turned to him with a questioning smile, immediately noting he didn't
seem as lighthearted as before.

"Something came up," he continued vaguely knowing that, even if she wanted to,
she wouldn't push him for an answer as to what. "I have to go take care of
something."

The light dampened only slightly in Elizabeth's eyes but she crossed over to
Jason and kissed him lingeringly. "Can we meet in the park after you're through?"
she asked hopefully, looking up into his eyes. She immediately knew something
had happened – the walls were up and she couldn't read anything in his gaze.

"Sure," his heart clenching. Unlike him, Elizabeth couldn't hide anything in her
eyes from him. He turned and walked away before he could make an excuse to
stay.

From inside Kelly's Tammy watched this scene with an air of astonishment and
knew for sure that she had set Jason on a path he would have rather not treaded
on.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Lyle roamed the docks, hoping he would run into Yates at some point in time.
Sure enough, he soon spotted the brawny ex-Marine leaning against the
weathered frame of the boardwalk smoking a cigarette.

He eyed Lyle with an air of detachment, but pitched the cigarette into the river
and pushed off the frame to meet the slight-figured man halfway. On their last
meeting, Lyle had told him he'd be looking for him when the next part of Delano's
plan was to be executed in about seven or eight days, but he honestly hadn't
expected Lyle to come looking for him so soon after the last one. "You're about
five days early," he said grimly, fishing another cigarette from the battered pack
of Marlboros in his back pocket.

Lyle shrugged. He could've mentioned that fact to Delano but it was just his job
to tell Yates what to do. "Something pissed off Delano," he paused and dug into
his pocket for a matchbox and handed it to Yates who, despite being a smoking
man for over thirty years, chain-smoked every cigarette.

Yates graciously accepted the matchbox and lit his cigarette. He pulled long on it
as though he hadn't had nicotine in years instead of less than two minutes ago.
"Yeah?" that struck him as odd. For as long as he'd known Delano, he never got
pissed off… well not since childhood and his temper had usually landed him in a
shitload of trouble then… which was why he got hightailed out of PC before he
was fourteen.

Lyle nodded. "Rhys Samuels has been marked."

Yates pursed his lips in acceptance. He knew Rhys was an integral part of what
he liked to refer as Corinthos' Off-Squad. Like Yates, Rhys Samuels was a cold-blooded
killer when he needed to be; he would have absolutely no qualms of ending this
man's life. "When?"

"By tomorrow."

Yates's eyes widened. "Is he crazy?"

Lyle shrugged. "I don't want to get too far into the psyche of that man. Just make
it quick and easy so this whole fucking nightmare can be over."

Yates shrugged too. He wouldn't want to get too far into the psyche of Delano
Taggliatti either – that whole family was a bunch of psychos. He just worked for
them. "Alright." He pocketed the matchbox, knowing that Lyle wouldn't want it
back anyways. "I'll call you when everything is in place."

"Remember, by tomorrow."

Yates rolled his eyes. "I hear you, Lyle. Rhys is a dead man by sundown."

*~*~*~*~*~*

When Courtney awoke from her nap, she sure as hell hadn't expected to look up
to see Jason Morgan standing above her. With an unreadable look in his eyes,
he held out the Styrofoam container to her. She knew it was soup and her heart
sank – Bobby or someone at the diner must have told him she was 'sick'.

Her eyes were starved for the sight of him she realized, her heart sinking even
further into her feet. He continued to stare at her with this unreadable look in his
eyes. He'd never looked at her like that before. It was unnerving.

Still, neither said a word.

Jason took a step back as he looked at this woman he had convinced himself he
was in love with for two years. She looked terrible – her golden hair was dark
with grease, her face was pale and drawn with exhaustion.

"What are you doing here?" she immediately lashed out like a wounded animal.

He had been expecting that. He had been expecting the anger – he knew he
deserved it. "Are you alright?" he asked softly.

Courtney's eyes narrowed. "Like you give a damn!" she hissed, rising up from the
couch and standing militantly before him.

He did, maybe too much. "I do."

Courtney barked out a laugh. "Don't patronize me, Jason Morgan."

"I'm not." he dragged a frustrated hand through his already spiky blonde hair.

"Nothing is wrong with me, Jason," she lied. "Unless you count having my heart
ripped out…."

Jason didn't flinch, although inside he felt the brunt of her words.

"You're cold. You don't even care."

"Of course I do, Courtney!"

"If you gave a damn, Jason, you wouldn't have left! You wouldn't be standing
here in some halfhearted attempt to make yourself feel better!"

"I didn't come here to make myself feel better, Courtney, I came because I was
worried!"

"Well, now you see there's absolutely nothing for you to be worried about," try as
she might, she could feel tears pricking at the back of her eyes "so please leave,
Jason."

"No. I'm not leaving."

"Fine, then I am," she moved to push past him, but Jason caught her arm.

"Get your hands off me!" she exclaimed, wrenching away from his grip.

"You want to hate me, Courtney? Fine! Go ahead! But I'd rather you hate me
now than me ending up marrying you and having you come to hate me when
we've got too much baggage to let go!"

"I could never have hated you, Jason," she sobbed. "Never…. Why couldn't you
have loved me like you loved her? You call her name in your sleep…did you
know that?"

Jason blanched. No, he hadn't known.

"Leave me in peace, Jason. Just go back and restart everything you had before I
fucked things up between you."

He knelt before her. "You didn't fuck things –"

She pressed a hand square on his chest and pushed him away before he could
continue.

That motion said it all. She had pushed him away physically, but the action was
much more powerful psychologically.

"Fine," he replied, closing the mental door on her. "I'll always be here if you need
me…" he added as an afterthought.

She listened from beneath her curtain of hair as he quietly closed the door
behind him as he exited the loft.

**Why now?**

*~*~*~*~*~*

The moment she caught sight of him at the park, she knew something was
wrong. He didn't say anything, simply grabbed her hand and started dragging her
away. Francis hurried to keep up behind them as Jason dragged her towards her
studio and the door was sliding shut before he caught his breath.

Elizabeth struggled to swallow all the desperation in his body as he practically
tossed her on her backside in the bed and proceeded to make every inch of her
body scream for him.

They had spent the entire afternoon in bed and Jason did something she'd never
seen him do – turn off his cellphone. That had been almost eight hours ago.
She'd woken up to find him gone, but he'd actually left a note stating that he
would meet her at her parents' for dinner.

Sonny and Alexis had been pleasantly surprised to find their elder daughter
grinning outside their door at dinnertime. Sonny had been especially surprised
when she pushed inside and gave him a kiss on the cheek and asked what was
for dinner. They'd both gotten over their initial shock and Sonny had replied,
"Chicken-portabella mushroom Lasagna," much to her delight.

She tried to maintain her cheery outlook as she entertained her baby sister and
Ric who'd arrived armed with his briefcase and a stack of paper four inches thick
for her mother to read, about a half-hour later. But as eight o'clock approached
and dinnertime, her trepidation grew.

Elizabeth was perched on the couch talking to Ric, who had Kristina in his lap
and a glass of Merlot in his hand, when the door opened.

Jason paused on the threshold as every eye turned to him, even Kristina, who
was holding her chubby arms out for her uncle Jason. But he had eyes only for
Elizabeth. He closed the door.

In hindsight, what happened next was pretty funny. He moved as if to greet his
friends, but instead knelt before Elizabeth and tugged her face towards his and
fused his lips to her. Alexis's jaw unhinged, Sonny watched in astonishment and
Ric almost choked on his wine as the couple kissed.

When he pulled away, her face was flushed and she was dazed. If they hadn't
guessed by the way he kissed her, they certainly knew when he whispered, "I
love you… don't ever forget it."

*~*~*~*~*~*

Rhys Samuels was foxed.

He knew it and Yates certainly knew it as well.

He stumbled out of the bar and weaved drunkenly to the end of thealley to take a
leak.

Yates waited until he saw the arched stream of the man's urine before slipping
the blade from his pocket. Stealthily, he crept up on the guard.

Rhys was belatedly aware that he wasn't alone as he zipped up his pants. But
before he could turn around to set blurry eyes on the newcomer, he was trapped
in an ironclad grip and his eyes widened in fear as the blade of the knife caught
in the harsh neon light of the bar's sign.

Yates pressed a knee in his back and slashed the knife savagely across the
man's throat.

Rhys's breath whistled from him and his knees buckled. He was dead by the time
his head hit the brick wall and he fell to the urine-strewn ground.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Andy hummed to the music blaring in his headphones as he carted the garbage
bags to the Dumpster in the alley. Just as he lifted the bag, he noticed a body
prone in the corner. He rolled his eyes and dumped the garbage before heading
over to the body.

"Stupid drunks," he muttered. It was his job, if he found any, to cart them back
inside the bar, call the cops and have them cart them away to sleep off their
stupor in a holding cell. He didn't relish the extra responsibility – more than one
drunken fool had ruined a perfectly good pair of trainers.

As he stopped by the body, he stepped in a fetid puddle of urine. He wrinkled his
nose at the acrid scent but knelt to the task. As he lifted the man's arms, his head
lolled to a side and the huge gash across his throat could be clearly seen across
his pale skin.

Andy started hollering for blue murder. The back door of the bar opened and Sal,
the night manager spilled out. "Andy, what the fuck!" he cursed, wondering what
the kid was so worked up over a stupid drunk for.

Andy stepped back and, still hollering, pointed at Rhys's body.

"Holy shit! Call the cops, kid!"

Andy rushed past his boss and the crush of people that had rushed at his
screaming. As he grabbed for the telephone on Sal's desk he looked down.

Forget vomit… his latest pair of Nikes were full of blood.

TBC…

A/N: I hope you enjoyed. R&R and tell me what you think. BTW, if you can't
remember and you're wondering what's so important about Rhys – in part 1, he
was part of the crew who helped rescue Kristina.

Cara