Chapter 4

"Jason?" she called quietly into the dark room after closing the door. He was standing at the window. "Can I turn the light on?"

"Yeah," he replied moving towards her.

"I brought you something to eat," she said holding up the bag from Kelly's. "I know you must be starving. I was going to come by this morning, but Lucky had to go to his darkroom to develop some pictures and then I had a meeting with Laura."

"Elizabeth, It's okay. I don't expect you to take care of me. It's not like the last time I was here." He looked at her. He could see she remembered as he did the time he spent here when he was shot. Elizabeth had taken care of him by bringing him food and medicine. "You're letting me stay here. That's more than enough."

"Is everything okay? The room?" She gestured around the room.

"Yeah, yeah, it's – it's quiet though."

"Well, would you like to hear about my wild and exciting day?" She smiled. She needed to keep this light. She didn't want to complain to Jason. It was only his second day back. She didn't want him thinking that all she ever did was complain about her life to him.

"Sure." He sat and began eating his meal.

"Okay, well, how should I put this? I am either going to be the next big supermodel or a complete and total failure."

"What do you mean?" He looked up from his sandwich. That wasn't what he was expecting. He thought she was going to talk about Lucky.

"Well, Laura had this crazy idea of me being the new Face of Deception," she laughed and framed her face with her hands. "Can you see this face on every bus and billboard and in every magazine?" She didn't wait for his reply. "Lucky thinks it's a great idea. He's the photographer. He sees the two of us working together and living together just like we had planned before the fire. He's so excited. He can't wait for us to get started and then we can travel around the world taking pictures and selling perfume. We'd be making so much money. I wouldn't have to worry ever again. And then I'd be able to paint anytime I want."

Jason didn't say anything. He knew she would have to come up for air soon. He could tell something was wrong. She only got this way when she didn't want people to think she wasn't okay. But he could see it. There was something wrong.

"Do you really want the job?" he asked quietly.

"Of course I want the job. Who wouldn't? The money is excellent."

"Elizabeth, money's not important to you. I know." He didn't want to bring him up but Jason knew that he was behind Elizabeth's unease. "It was Tom, right? That was his name? He was a photographer."

Her smile was frozen on to her face. She hadn't talked about him in a very long time. Not even Lucky had brought up the subject when this whole model thing began. "I guess I told you that, huh."

"Hey, it must be tough."

She was quiet for along time. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned his name, he thought. "Elizabeth – Elizabeth, are you okay?"

She couldn't keep it in any longer. She needed someone to talk to. Someone who would understand. And she knew Jason would. He always did. "Yeah, Yeah. I felt like he was watching me, too. Every time the lights flashed, I jumped. I was trying so hard to smile, but I know I looked ridiculous. These people I didn't even know were mauling all over me. Even with Lucky taking the pictures all I wanted to do was run and hide."

"If you don't like it, don't take the job."

She laughed. She knew Jason would say that. With Jason everything was simple. If you don't want to do something, don't do it. She wished she could take his advice but it wasn't that simple.

"Laura's counting on me."

"What about you? What about what you want? Are you still painting these days?" He knew the answer. He'd had all day to look around. He knew there were no new paintings either complete or in progress. It looked like she hadn't painted anything since the last time he was in Port Charles and that was six months ago.

Elizabeth didn't want to get into this discussion with him. He already knew about her issues being a model. She didn't need him to know about her problems with Lucky as well. At least not now. She didn't know if she would ever be ready to tell him that.

"Mostly, I'm just happy. My life has never been so perfect. Lucky and I were in love before the fire, but now – I didn't know it could be like this. You know, when Lucky and I went to search for Emily in Canada, we were having problems but – Oh wait, Emily. You probably don't know what's going on."

Jason could see that Elizabeth wanted to change the subject. Should he push and find out exactly what was wrong with her and Lucky or should he let it go. As much as he didn't want her to hurt, he also didn't want to here about Lucky and how much she loved him. "Have you seen her?"

"She moved into Kelly's this morning. She's working there too. She told me she just couldn't live at the Quartermaines?" She could see he was worried about her. "I know you want to see her."

"Yeah, well. I'll deal with it." His mind didn't seem to be in the room. It was off somewhere, she didn't know. Was he thinking about Emily or was he worried about whatever it was that had brought him back to Port Charles.

"You know, I can listen, too."

He looked at her. He usually kept his feelings to himself. He'd had a lot of practice working for Sonny. Even though there were a lot of things he couldn't tell Elizabeth, he wanted to. It scared him a little. With Robin and Carly he had always kept a part of himself separate from them. But with Elizabeth, he wanted her to know everything about himself. As much as he would love to tell her how he felt, he knew she wasn't ready to hear it. He didn't think she would ever be ready.

Ignoring the question he reached into his jean pocket and took out all the money he had on him. "I want you to give this to Emily." He said handing her the money.

She didn't move to take the money. "And tell her what, I robbed a bank?"

"Just say it's from Sonny." He kept his arm extended waiting for her to take the money.

She looked at him concerned. "You'd feel a lot better if you could see her."

"No," he said shaking his head, "that can't happen."

"You know she would never say anything."

"Look, Emily cannot know that I'm in town," he gave up holding the money and paced it on the table. "I wish you didn't."

Elizabeth stared at him. He looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. She wanted to take his worry away. To make everything he was dealing with go away. But she couldn't. Jason deserved to be happy and she wanted more than anything to make that happen. She just didn't know how to do it.

She was startled out of her thinking by a knock on the door. Then she heard Lucky's voice through the door, "Elizabeth."

She didn't reply. She continued to look at Jason quietly. She had forgotten about Lucky. She didn't know when in the conversation, but sometime between the modelling and Emily's situation with her family and Zander, her problems with Lucky had disappeared. Now it was standing outside her door.

"Just a minute!" She turned to grab her coat. She looked back to Jason and said quietly, "I'll be back tomorrow." She hesitated for a second then grabbed the money on the table and walked to the door. Making sure Lucky couldn't see inside, she turned out the light and closed the door.

"Hey!"

"Hey."

She started walking towards the stairwell forcing Lucky to follow. "I was just heading over to Kelly's."

"Well, I came to walk you back." He was oblivious to anything suspicious going on. Elizabeth felt a twinge of guilt. She was always lying to Lucky. She didn't know when she was going to stop. She was beginning to think she couldn't. And maybe if she was honest with herself, she was even a little afraid to. She thought back to his reaction earlier today.

"Elizabeth, I'm sorry about this afternoon." She looked up at him. "I shouldn't have gotten so upset and walked off."

"You scared me a little, Lucky," at least that was the truth.

"I know and I'm sorry," he said again. He ran his hand through his hair disturbing it. For a moment he looked like his old self. "I don't know what came over me. It just upset me so much. This is our dream, Elizabeth. We always said we would be together and now Carly is going to take that away from us."

She stopped walking. "Carly can't take our dream away. She doesn't have the power. Sure she can stop me from being the Face of Deception, but she can't stop us being together." Was that what was going on? Was Lucky afraid they wouldn't be together? "Lucky, I love you."

"I love you, too."

"Then that's all we need," she said reassuringly. She took his hand and continued walking.