Safe Haven Part 2
Paco stole out of the room like a giddy little schoolgirl and almost immediately ran into George and a couple of the other men. Darting a quick glance at the room, where Jason still stood in the doorway as if transfixed, Paco led his friends to the opposite end of the second story where they could talk. They let themselves into a guest bedroom and one look at his young English friend told Paco that George already had Johnny O'Brien on the phone.
"Hit speaker," he instructed, and George did as he was told. Seth, a tall freckled guard with muddy-brown hair, flopped down on a lounge chair and tented his fingers wickedly as Johnny's voice flowed from the intercom.
"Guys."
"Hey, Obie," George grinned. "Checking in just like you told us to."
They heard him draw in a quick breath. "So? He's there?"
"That's why we're calling you, imbecile," Paco muttered, crossing his arms over his solid chest. "Señor Morgan just arrived."
"And?! Damn it, don't leave me hanging here! What happened?"
"I showed him upstairs, Sir," George informed the top guard. "I took him to Miss Webber's room."
"How was he acting? What did he do?"
Under any other circumstances, Johnny's curiosity and excitement would have been ridiculously out of character. Hell, the same held true for all the men gathered in the sunny bedroom. But that didn't seem to keep them from giggling like little girls at the lunchroom table; things like this just didn't happen every day.
"He was freaking out, Mr. O'Brien," George replied not without a touch of glee. "You should have seen him – I've never seen him that out of control. He kept barking orders for the men to dock the boat faster and then as soon as it touched the pier, he jumped off and took off for the house."
"It was great, Boss," Seth agreed with a grin. "I don't know how I kept quiet."
"Maybe because you knew he'd bust your balls if you laughed," Johnny chuckled.
"Probably. I didn't even bother trying to follow him up the shore – George was there. Besides, we had to tie up the boat. Can't lose another one like we did last year."
"What happened then? Damn it, Corinthos wants a full report here."
Paco laughed. Considering his boss' friendly relationship with Elizabeth and close bond with Jason, he had no doubt that the moblord was kicking his heels in the air over this one. "George?"
The English guard grinned at the phone. "Yeah, so he came running into the house and almost took me out in the process. It took me a good couple of minutes just to get him to calm down and let him know that, yes, Elizabeth really was upstairs."
"He hasn't seen her for, what, six months, right?" Paco asked curiously, listening for an answer.
"Something like that," Johnny agreed. "Ever since he left Port Charles."
"Wait, one thing," Seth interrupted. "Why'd he leave in the first place?"
"He went to Puerto Rico, numb nuts. You remember that."
The guard scowled at redheaded Trey Mitchell, the resident doctor on the island. "Listen, jackass, any of us could have handled the job he went down there to do, so don't tell me he had to leave because of business."
"He's right," Johnny interceded, his voice crackling slightly over the intercom. "The known story is that he left because of business – that's what everyone's supposed to think."
"Everyone with less than three brain cells," Paco smirked. "I wasn't even in Port Charles at the time and even I know what really happened."
"What?"
"Basically, the little senorita in the other room helped Senor Morgan when he first arrived," Paolo explained patiently for his less-than-three-brain-cells friends. "They spent a lot of time together during his entire stay."
Johnny was snickering. "Oh, yeah."
"And it was clear that…" he lowered his voice slightly. "Señor was developing feelings for the little senorita."
"Yeah, I heard that, too," Seth agreed. "That's what made me ask."
"Please," Trey scoffed. "We all know Jason really well; if he wanted her, he would have taken her."
The Spanish guard frowned at the cavalier tone of his friend's voice. He made everything sound so crude. "It was different with her, Trevor."
"Yeah? How?"
"Isn't she about eight years younger than him?" George tossed in, leaning back against the handsome armoire in the corner by the windows.
"She is," Johnny validated.
Paco was nodding. "There was the age difference, first of all. Elisabeta was friends with the hermanita; had been so since they were back in high school. And Jason didn't know how she felt about Emilia finding out. Also, the two of them were very good friends before and he didn't know how to make the transition from friends to-"
"More than friends," Johnny supplied smugly.
It was the Spanish guard's turn to be confused. "¿Qué?"
"More than friends," Johnny repeated, not intending to say any more than that. "Let's just say that guarding Elizabeth had its perks – I always knew what was going on between them before everyone else."
"Thanks for sharing, pissant," Paco muttered. "Anyway, he took things slowly with Elisabeta because he did not wish to scare her away."
"Didn't she stay with her boyfriend, though?" George asked.
Paco nodded, rolling his eyes. "¿El loco? Sí."
Johnny was laughing. "El loco. I like that."
"Wait – is that why Mr. Morgan left?" Seth asked, sitting up straighter in his seat. "Because of her?"
"Don't let it get out," Johnny warned. "As obvious as it may be. But yeah – he asked her to run away with him and she couldn't do it. So he felt it would be better for the both of them if he left."
Trey was having a hard time digesting this. It didn't make sense to him – out of all four bodyguards in the room, he had known Jason the longest, and he knew what kind of man he was. Jason Morgan did not get hung up over his little sister's friends, and he certainly didn't flee the country with his tail between his legs just because he was shut down.
"Did he – did he love her?"
Over the phone, Johnny scoffed. "No shit, asshole. What clued you in?"
Paco was laughing. "It seems fairly clear that he did and does, Trevor," he informed the doctor. "In fact-"
"Trey! Paco!"
The men stilled, looking at each other blankly before jumping into action. "Hang on, Mr. O'Brien," George called out in the general direction of the phone as he sprinted out of the room after Paco.
"Señor?" Paco's voice was rough as he came to a crashing halt in the hallway. Jason was in the bathroom filling a small washbasin with cold water and searching the cabinets for a handcloth. "¿Qué pasa?"
"She fainted." Fat drops of water dripped from Jason's hands as he turned off the water and hastily rushed out of the bathroom, sloshing some of the water from the basin onto the floor.
Paco and Trey looked at each other and the Spanish guard immediately followed their boss into the nearby bedroom. Seth and George hung around by the door, anxiously awaiting orders and seeing if there was anything they could possibly do. Trey pushed through them a few minutes later, carrying his doctors' briefcase just in case and cursing under his breath. Elizabeth had been drifting in and out of consciousness since she had been put on the boat, and he didn't like it. The sedative should have worn off a little while ago, but she still hadn't come out of it. And now she had fainted. Fucking great.
"Elizabeth?" Jason was sitting at her side, stroking her silky brown hair behind her ears, his fingers feathering over her petal-soft porcelain skin as he begged her to wake up. "Come on, Elizabeth, come on."
Paco wrung out the washcloth in the basin and moved closer, smoothing it out over Elizabeth's forehead. She was quite warm, and he refilled her glass of water as Trey pulled out his thermometer and stethoscope.
"A little congestion in the chest," he muttered. "Slight fever."
"Do something," Jason hissed. "Instead of pointing out the obvious."
Trey quirked a brow at his old friend. "How about you tell me what happened right before she fainted?"
A muscle in Jason's jaw ticked and Paco waited nervously for the answer. Just how much would Señor Morgan say? That is, if he would say anything at all. Paco believed that Jason loved the girl, and that was reason enough for him to keep his mouth shut. He knew enough of Jason to know that the man was fiercely protective of his privacy, and even though he wasn't superstitious by nature, he had the peculiar belief that as soon as he acknowledged that he desired something, it would be snatched away from him.
"I…I was standing there. At the door."
Trey bit his lip, fiddling absently with his stethoscope and then rearranging the cool cloth on Elizabeth's forehead. Paco had said that Jason had been in love with the girl; the wobble in the enforcer's voice certainly wasn't his best defense against that allegation. His voice when he spoke had lost its gruff tone. "She had seen you?"
Jason dipped his head once. "Yeah."
Paco couldn't keep quiet any longer. "Senor? Did she say something?"
It took the enforcer a minute to shake his head. "No. I…I stood by the door and she just looked at me. I think she tried to say something, but I spoke at the same time and she just…fainted."
Trey sighed to himself, his soft breath causing Elizabeth's silky strands to flutter. The girl seemed fine otherwise; all effects of the toxin the Cassidine prince had given her had almost disappeared, and it was clearer now that the sedative was wearing off as well. Under normal circumstances, she would have been fine by now. A little groggy and a little dizzy, perhaps, but fine otherwise. And yet, the girl had fainted. Maybe it wasn't the virulence of the foreign substances injected into her body within the span of the last few hours – maybe it was her surprise over seeing Jason that caused her to faint.
"She'll be fine," he murmured, rising from the bed and taking care not to jostle her. "She's just weak. She'll come to in a little while, and when she does I want her to eat. I'll leave directions with Betty downstairs on what to prepare for her."
"Chicken soup," Jason sighed under his breath, earning a curious glance from both Paco and the doctor.
"What?" Trey waited for a reply but when it was clear that he wasn't going to get one, he cleared his throat and motioned for the men to clear the room. "We should let her rest. Come on."
Seth and George, still stationed by the door, hastily retreated to let Jason pass. He waited as Trey gave Elizabeth a last glance before shutting her door halfway, and then spoke tersely to the men gathered around him. "Downstairs. Now."
Paco gulped as Jason turned hard on his heel and descended the wooden staircase, his gaze darting from one man to the next. Seth was shrugging uncomfortably. "Let's go."
The men sighed and followed their boss downstairs. Jason was waiting for them in the formal office that the top guard always used whenever someone of importance was placed on the island for safety. It was a conference room combined with a makeshift panic room, making it possible to view every room in the house as well as the surrounding property and piers. Jason had already moved to the far wall where all the television monitors were mounted to a sturdy oak bookshelf that stretched from floor to ceiling and was fiddling with the remote. He finally set the camera to Elizabeth's bedroom just in case she should wake up suddenly and be frightened of her new surroundings.
Paco shifted his weight slightly when the enforcer turned, his face as hard as steel. "Someone," the blonde man growled, stalking forward menacingly. "Is going to tell me exactly what the hell is going on."
