Part 7

If she didn't know better, Elizabeth would have sworn that Jason Morgan was avoiding her.

He'd been cooped up in his office all day, and occasionally she'd hear murmurings that indicated he was on the phone. Trey had been around at breakfast but had left a short while later, and Paco had kept her company for a little while before running off to take care of his own affairs. So Elizabeth spent the next couple of hours in the kitchen with Betty learning how to make the éclairs that Trey was so crazy about.

But Betty left the house in the afternoon, leaving Elizabeth alone with her thoughts. She had been trying to keep them at bay since her conversation with Emily, but now they rushed to meet her. And with Jason locked up in his office like Rapunzel in her tower, she had no choice but to entertain them.

After a long time of listening to Jason's incoherent murmuring, Elizabeth finally went up to her bedroom and changed into her white bikini from that morning, intent on going out and enjoying the afternoon sun. Armed with a white towel, a tube of sunscreen, and a bottle of water, Elizabeth slipped out of the house and ambled down to the beach.


Sonny Corinthos leaned back in his black leather desk chair, squaring his shoulders and trying in vain to relieve the tension that had gathered there. Sighing with frustration, he switched the telephone to his other ear and frowned with concentration, carefully listening to Jason as he accounted events on the island. But there was nothing much to account for, and neither men were ones for idle chit-chat.

As Jason was preparing to hang up, Sonny's voice abruptly cut through the receiver. "Jason?"

The younger man frowned. "Yeah?"

"How's…how's Elizabeth doing? I mean, really?"

He'd been a fool to think that he could escape without this brand of inquisition. "She's…good."

"I know she's good – you already told me that she's almost fully recovered. I mean, how is she really?"

Jason's jaw ticked. "What do you want me to say, Sonny?"

He could almost see the Cuban sigh and grasp his neck, a behavioral quirk he had developed long ago. "Just be honest, Jason."

There was a first – no one had ever told him to be honest before. And the fact that Sonny just had made Jason frown to himself. "She's…she's going to be fine. Once she's back in Port Charles, she'll…be fine."

"Jason-"

"Sonny, just drop it, okay?" His nose had found itself between his thumb and his forefinger, and Jason let out a long sigh through his teeth and twisted around in his chair to face the windows overlooking the beach. "She's just here until it's safe for her to go back, right?"

Sonny hesitated at the almost-bitter tone of Jason's voice. "Jason, I don't know how much you two have talked about this, but..."

He could hear his friend still talking, but Jason's mind was no longer tuned in to what he was saying. Instead, as he stared out of the enormous bay window, all he could see was Elizabeth and Paco on the beach. She was wearing a...woah. His throat went dry and Jason swallowed painfully. It was the same barely-there bikini from before – just a few skinny little strings holding it correctly over her nymph-like body. Her skin glowed from a combination of warm sunlight and freshly-applied sunscreen, and her hair cascaded down her back and fluttered lightly in the wind. Paco must have been teasing her, because her cheeks were tinted pink and she was threatening to hit him with one of her small fists.

Sonny droned on unintelligibly, not knowing that instead of paying attention, his best friend was dreaming up a thousand different ways to put Paco six feet under, each one more creative than the one before. Especially when the bodyguard wrapped his strong arms around Elizabeth's tiny waist and threw her over his shoulder, kicking and screaming, and marched toward the surf, determined to throw her in.

"Jason..." Sonny's voice cut through his angered musing. "Look, I'm not trying to meddle, but Elizabeth...she's important. She's important to both of us. Her safety and happiness, Jason, they're paramount. But that doesn't mean that yours aren't."

The words rolled around in Jason's head as he watched Paco dangle Elizabeth precariously close to the waist-deep water he stood in, jostling her slight frame in his arms. She was yelping and clawing at his back to maintain her hold, kicking all the while.

"I want her happy, but I want you to be happy, too. For once, Jason – do what it takes to make that happen. For her sake and yours."

His boss fell silent, knowing he wouldn't get a reply from his best friend. Jason, however, was still watching Elizabeth and the bodyguard on the beach, taking in the way she laughed and squealed and the way his hands held her firmly aloft of the cold waves.

That settled it – Paco Beltran Valencia would soon find himself swimming with the fishes.


Elizabeth idly brushed the wet sand from where it clung to her feet and calves, her eyes lingering on the brilliant blue ocean. The sun was low in the sky, making the waters sparkle. It would be setting soon.

Paco had gone inside a while ago, reluctantly admitting that he had work to do. It was nice to spend time with the bodyguard – she hadn't been lying when she told him that he reminded her of Francis Corelli. Both men looked at her the same way, spoke to her the same way, even teased her the same way – as if she was a little sister that they had grown up with instead of a friend of their employer.

She lay slowly back on her fluffy white towel, closing her eyes and letting the warmth of the late sun sweep over her body. The island was so beautiful at all times of the day. It was pristine and pure in the early mornings, when the sun was just beginning to chase away the dew that had formed on Trey's windowsill plants; it was alive and vibrant in the afternoons, when the sunlight fell like a blanket over the lush land; it was peaceful in the evenings, when there was hardly a sound but the crashing of the waves against the sand; and it was so...breathtaking at night. Warm and dewy and dark – the perfect time to cuddle up on the porch swing or on the beach and just...be.

Her mind drifted back to her conversation with Emily. As crazy as her best friend was, she made a lot of sense sometimes. Her relationship with Jason had been cloaked with misunderstanding ever since he came back to Port Charles and hid in her studio. Things hadn't been going right for a while, and with his arrival, everything had spiraled out of control.

She hadn't wanted to see what was right in front of her; she had just kept writing it off and chalking it up to their unique "friendship". Or was that "more-than-friendship"? It didn't matter. Emily was right: Jason was the one that had gotten hurt the most. He had been made to see time and time again that his feelings just didn't matter, and the part that hurt the most was that she had promised herself a long, long time ago that she would never subject him to that.

His proximity, his significance in her life had scared her. Had scared her so bad that she bolted at every opportunity. She had told him that one day – when she found him sitting alone on that bench in the park – that he was different, that he wasn't just Emily's brother anymore. That realization hadn't been scary; neither had accepting it. But what completely turned her world upside-down was the realization that he wasn't just her friend anymore.

She wouldn't have lied to her boyfriend for just a friend. She wouldn't have sought comfort at each and every turn in the road from just a friend. She wouldn't have been asked to run away to Italy by just a friend.

Somehow, Jason had risen above all the roadblocks she had tried to set up. Elizabeth had seen the flicker of pain in his eyes every time she told him that she loved Lucky – but that still hadn't made him back off. He made himself a constant, solid presence in her life and she knew she loved it and relied on it even when she told herself it was wrong.

It had been a confusing time for her, a fork in the road that would eventually lead her away from the 16 year-old Elizabeth that Lucky found in the bushes to the older Elizabeth that screamed into the wind and practiced her right hook on the bridge at night. And despite the fact that she hadn't known up from down, right from wrong at that tumultuous point in her life, there was no excuse for what she had done to Jason.

She had always seen him as this invincible man, a pillar of wisdom, strength, and courage. He had an answer for everything, and if he didn't, well, he just didn't give a fuck. Nothing was too hard for him; nothing too uncomfortable. Nothing tested the limits of his capability. He had been strong, solid, steadfast.

And she had single-handedly turned him into a confused, angry, and torn man.

The sun kissed the blue waves on the horizon, its golden brilliance merging with the sparkling of the water, and Elizabeth looked away. Her fingers had been idly tracing the same pattern over and over in the sand, and she wiped it away with the palm of her hand without a second glance.

At times, she thought that it was too late to fix everything that had broken between them. But at other times, she thought that there was no other way. There were two roads diverging in the white sands of the remote island: one was the road back to Jason, back to their friendship, back to a place where everything was right and good and made sense. The other was the road to perdition, covered in thorns.

Emily had told her to do away with all the misunderstandings, to make Jason understand where she stood. Even if he understood, there would be no guarantee that he'd believe her. She'd let him down too many times to hope for that.

A soft blush tinted her cheeks as she remembered what her best friend had also told her: I still say that the best way to tell him is to tie him down to a chair and just spill it. True to her sometimes flighty, romantic self, Emily had warbled on about seduction and womanly wiles, knowing that she was making her best friend very uncomfortable but as usual, not giving a damn.

Elizabeth had to admit that the plan had initially appealed to her. She had sent Jason mixed signals in the past – now was the time to send him entirely overt signals. But the more she reflected on their unique...situation and the state of their current relationship, the more she thought that seduction and insinuation definitely were not the way to go about it. She felt that it would be making light of the situation, and Jason didn't deserve that.

No, the best way to do this, the best way to mend the rift would be to sit him down and just talk. She was still scared to death about the entire ordeal, but certain things just had to be done.

The thought made her laugh. Ingesting poison at the hand of Helena Cassidine hadn't scared her – but telling Jason Morgan how she really felt did. She just had to get her priorities straightened out, it seemed.

Still chuckling to herself, Elizabeth barely heard the soft sound of bare feet treading across the hot sand. So when Jason knelt down beside her, his shadow falling over across her cheeks and chest, her surprise was immediate and apparent.

"Jason!"

"Sorry," he answered simply, sitting down on the sand. "I didn't mean to scare you."

She watched him numbly as he held out a glass of iced tea to her, accepting it slowly. Trey had finally okay'ed the caffeine, and she had been guzzling it down like crazy all day. The ice cubes in Jason's own glass clinked as he situated himself more comfortably on the sand. When he looked up, he was mildly surprised to see her staring back with a look of total bewilderment written on her face.

The corner of his mouth hooked up as he lifted his glass and quirked one sandy brow at her. "Hey."

Elizabeth relaxed almost immediately, her own lips spreading in a shy and relieved smile. "Hey yourself."