He thought living without Elizabeth was painful enough but he knew now that nothing could compare to the feeling of watching her through the glass as she lay lifeless on a hospital bed, monitors beeping around her, a breathing tube through her nose and a large square bandage covering the left side of her forehead.
He felt as if someone was reaching inside his chest and squeezing his heart with the same rhythm of those damn machines.
She looked so fragile lying there and her skin was so pale, nearly matching the color of those stiff sheets. Her hands were strapped down on either side of her, cushioned wrist bands holding her in place as her chest rose and fell slowly along with the machines.
The near sight of it was driving him almost as mad as Elizabeth had been when she had woken up on the ride over. She was screaming for her kids, screaming for Carly and Michael, screaming for him and screaming for Sonny. Her entrance into the hospital was chaotic and an unknown doctor appeared and administered a sedative.
Johnny and Francis had to physically restrain him when the man simply drew the needle back and thrust it into Elizabeth's side. When the bodyguards released him and Elizabeth disappeared behind the emergency room doors he headed over to find a men's room where two of the three mirrors were successfully broken by his fists.
He hated himself for doing this to her.
It was funny how he used to say that you couldn't change things, they were the way they were and there was no use trying to figure out how to fix something that was already done. You had to move on, go from there, not live in the past but after walking back into Elizabeth's life, after seeing his child for the first time, his world started evolving into what if's.
What if Elizabeth never started the goodbyes? What if he didn't walk out the next day? What if Sonny hadn't been around to take care of her? What if someone had picked up the phone to call him and let him know? What if he didn't fight Johnny on the phone tonight? What if he didn't go on his date with Sam?
The what if's were suddenly making his head dizzy and he pressed his fingers against his temples, fighting the urge to scream.
"Jason," Monica said quietly behind him.
Jason turned around and faced his mother, who smiled sympathetically at him.
"How is she? The test results?" Jason asked as he sighed and look back at Elizabeth's room.
"She's fine. She just has a slight concussion and we're going to keep her overnight for observation," Monica said, "She hasn't been eating very well apparently as she has lost weight since her last check up but other than that she's normal," Monica followed Jason's eyes and nodded, "She's under a lot of stress, trying to keep everything together, and the grief that she is suffering. Well, it's simply understandable that she might have a ner…"
"She's fine," Jason said looking at Monica, "There's nothing wrong with Elizabeth."
"Jason," Monica said as she took a step towards him, "I'm just suggesting she might want to talk to someone."
"Okay," Jason said crossing his arms across his chest and taking a step back from his mother, "She might want to talk to someone but she's not crazy and there's no reason for her to be strapped down to the bed."
"The sedative is going to wear off very soon," Monica said, "The doctor ordered hourly check ups."
"I'm not leaving," Jason said, "I'll be in the room with her when the doctor comes in to make sure he doesn't put his hands on her again. Either you remove the straps or I will."
Monica sighed and looked at her son, wanting to reach out and touch him, to somehow make him feel better. He never really let himself fall in love, not after Robin Scorpio, and it seemed the woman he was falling for was not so stable and still deeply in love with another man.
Still, Jason was her son and if he wanted the straps removed she would do that for him.
"Oh second thought," Jason said as Monica moved around him to enter the room, "I want to do it. I'll take care of it."
"Are you sure?" Monica asked.
"I don't want Elizabeth waking up with someone leaning over her undoing those damn things," he said, "And if she does I want to be the one to explain the situation." He looked back once again at the petite woman in the bed, "She doesn't want pity."
"Jason…"
"Thank you," Jason nodded, "For everything that you've looked into and done, I appreciate it."
That was it, her dismissal. That was all she was going to receive from him this evening. With another sigh Doctor Quartermaine turned back down the hall and continued on with her rounds.
Jason pressed his hands against the glass of the window. He wanted to be in there next to her, holding her hand, telling her that it would be alright but he couldn't bring himself to do it. This situation was too similar to another all those years ago, except this time he couldn't talk her out of this life.
Elizabeth was fully immersed and there was no turning back.
He smelled the coffee before it appeared in front of his face.
"I thought you could use some," Johnny said as Jason took the cup and nodded in agreement.
"And?" Jason asked quietly as his eyes moved back to Elizabeth.
Johnny shrugged, "I'm envious of job security."
"I haven't fired you," Jason said as he looked at Johnny, "Tonight…"
"I don't know what the hell was going on with you tonight," Johnny said, "I don't know what the hell has been going on with you since you've been back Jason but I have never, never seen you act like this before. It makes me fear for your life."
"What the hell is that suppose to mean?" Jason asked, his grip on the cup becoming tighter.
"It means that your heads all fucked up," Johnny said motioning to his own with his finger, "And I'm not saying that you didn't come back to some crazy things Jason because you did, some of them I wouldn't wish on anyone but you're here and your staying and I think that you need to realize where your priorities lie."
"I don't need this right now," Jason said sipping the hot liquid and moving away from Johnny.
"I'm sorry but you are going to get it," Johnny said, "A lot of people are depending on you right now, you are the one who stepped into this role and when we ask you for help you can't tell us that you're busy with some bimbo…"
"Do not go there, Johnny," Jason said as his eyes narrowed.
Johnny let out a small laugh and took a step towards his boss, "I don't care what the hell you're doing with Sam, if that's what you need, go right ahead but don't try and tell me that the woman lying in there doesn't mean a damn thing to you. I called you tonight because she was in trouble."
"She's always in trouble," Jason growled, "I can't take that."
"You live off of it," Johnny said, "I've seen you, I've seen you all those years ago when you were trying to concentrate on those damn books Benny dropped off and your eyes would wander to the phone, waiting for it to ring and you would drop everything just to go help her or ride with her or just talk to her. That was part of who you were Jason."
"Were," Jason said as he tossed his cup in the metal trashcan, "I'm not that person anymore, I can't go back there. I don't…"
"I know," Johnny said nodding his head, "I know you're going to tell me that you don't know who Elizabeth is and you don't know who you are and you don't know what became of Sonny and Carly. I know what's going to come out of your mouth and I know that some of it may be true but you need to also know something."
Jason turned away from him, moving towards the door of Elizabeth's room, not wanting to deal with this, any of it, anymore.
"She might be your friend, she might be the love of your life," Johnny said as he watched Jason's fingers wrap around the metal door handle, "She might be nothing to you personally, but…"
Jason's blue eyes met Johnny's dark ones.
"She's the mother of your son," Johnny said. "And that alone should be the reason you come running when Elizabeth needs help."
It was right back on his shoulders, the weight that he had been trying to remove for the past week. It centered between the blades and lay heavily upon him until he felt like he couldn't breathe anymore.
His life at one time revolved around the fact that he had to find Elizabeth, protect her, love her.
When he walked out on that four years ago he knew that he would never have to feel that way again, would never torture himself by loving someone he could never have.
But it was back, the wanting to find Elizabeth, wanting to protect Elizabeth, wanting to love Elizabeth.
He wanted to fire Johnny simply for pointing it out.
Instead he ignored the guard and pushed open the door to Elizabeth's room, stepping inside and then letting it close shut behind him.
He stood there for a while, as he did outside her room, just staring at her, wanting her to be awake, not yet ready to face those incredible blue eyes. Then he found himself leaning over her, quickly undoing the straps attached to the bed.
When the process was done, he took each one of her wrists to his mouth and pressed a soft kiss on them before rubbing them softly and laying them back down on the bed. He nearly collapsed in the chair beside her, his head in his hands, wondering what to do, how to fix it all, how to move on, how to make it better.
What did he do with the war going on in his head? One side screaming to let her go, to move on, to try and make something happen with Sam McCall, the other was fighting just as viciously, demanding that he put his family together, yelling that he had always loved Elizabeth, demanding that he step up and do what he had always done, protect his family.
Then there was the voice of Sonny Corinthos, apologizing, telling him that everything in front of him was now his own and the decision was up to him.
Elizabeth Webber wasn't going crazy, he was.
He thought for sure he was hallucinating when he felt four soft fingers skim across his forehead but when he looked up she was smiling tiredly at him.
"Can you tell me why I'm in this bed and why you look like hell?"
"You don't…" he stood up and pressed the back of his hand against her forehead, pulling back immediately as she winced, "You don't remember?"
She shook her head no and reached up to pull the clear plastic tubes out of her nose. She sniffled and then made a gagging reflex before she let it drop down around her chest.
"Maybe you should leave that on."
"Jason, what happened?" she asked as she tried to sit up, "Is JJ ok? Where is he?"
"JJ's fine," Jason said, "You…you were out somewhere, Elizabeth. Some place I should have taken you and you fell."
Her forehead wrinkled and her eyes drew together as she tried to recall the evening's events. Jason could see the recognition in her eyes and winced when they flashed dangerously for a minute before softening again.
Obviously she was remembering being told of his date.
"The warehouse," she said quietly, "Francis took me to the warehouse."
Jason nodded as he watched her draw her hands together and press them against her heart.
"I needed that," she said as she leaned her head against the pillow, "I wanted to go to find some…nothing was there though, it was empty."
Jason nodded again, watched as the pain appeared briefly in her eyes before it was masked by something he didn't recognize.
"I started to leave..."
"Elizabeth…"
It all came back like a tidal wave to her, remembering the fall and the looming body hovering over her, screaming for her life, for her child's life, for the lives of the people around her. She remembered being in the penthouse, screaming at the guards, screaming at Jason.
"Is JJ safe? Just at least…tell me our son is safe," she whispered as her hands started to shake slightly.
"I sent Max over to the Brownstone," Jason said, "He's going to stay there until I tell him otherwise," a small smile appeared on his face, "I even sent Francis to go check on Carly after you were checked in."
"I need someone to release my anger on," Elizabeth said with her own small smile before it faded slowly, "Sonny loved her, you love her, she's Michael's mother. I don't want anything to happen to her for those reasons."
Jason nodded and looked away from those eyes, the ones that were trying to search inside of his soul, trying to figure out why he was sitting in here with her instead of fixing the pieces of his broken date.
He just wished for once that she would think about herself instead of others but then that wished vanished when he realized that she must have been doing that when she decided to love Sonny Corinthos.
"What are we going to do?" she asked, pulling Jason's attention back to her.
"What?" he asked licking his lips as he watched her hands settle in her lap, still trembling slightly.
"What are we going to do?" Elizabeth asked, "About Alcazar. Something has to be done, Jason."
"Elizabeth," he said softly as he reached out and took her hand in his, "Alcazar, he's dead. Sonny killed him. Sonny's dead."
She pulled her hands back so fast Jason felt as if he had been slapped in the face and he should have. He had just gotten done telling Monica that Elizabeth wasn't crazy and now he was acting as if she were. He had to hear her out, had to find out what was going inside that beautiful mind of hers.
"I know what happened to Alcazar," she snapped, "The trial was too long and messy and since you weren't around to deal with it," direct hit that he felt right in the gut, "Sonny killed Luis himself. I was there the night he came home. I saw it in his eyes and then he explained it to me. He let me in," she bit out, "He told me I was no longer in any danger."
"If that is all true," Jason said standing up and moving away from her. He could feel it coming back, the anger, boiling at the surface until they were ready to claw at each other, "Then what the hell did you see?"
She sighed and reached up to run her fingers through her hair, wincing and hissing loudly when she came in contact with the bandage on her forehead. Jason was beside her, running his smooth fingers over it, murmuring something incoherently before asking if she was alright.
She nodded and tried to go on, "I know what I said, what I did the other night at the penthouse," she said quietly, "I scared the shit out of Max and myself but I know that…" she tried to blink away the tears in her eyes, "Jason tonight was real, I felt it, as psychotic as this sounds, I felt the evil surround me and that was no ghost. Either Alcazar isn't really dead or there is someone out there that looks a hell of a lot like him."
Elizabeth reached up with her fingers and brushed away the tears that were in her eyes, "You make think that I'm crazy…"
"You're not crazy," Jason said, hands on his hips.
"Okay," she said with a small laugh, "I'm glad someone thinks I'm sane."
"No one thinks your crazy, Elizabeth."
"Damn doctor did," she muttered as she folded her arms across her chest, "We have to take care of this. We have to find out what is going on and we have to stop it. Jason, this could be the…"
"We aren't doing anything," Jason said, "You have a concussion and you are staying overnight at the hospital. I'll see how early I can check you out and then we can pick up JJ at Bobbie's, maybe take him to the park together in the morning. Then I'll start working on this."
"Don't do that," she said with a bitter laugh, "Don't come into town and pretend that like I have no idea what's going on and what you're going to do, don't treat me like an idiot. That's worse than being called crazy."
"Elizabeth you are not getting involved with Alcazar, he's a dangerous man."
"He shot at me," Elizabeth said, "I'm aware of how dangerous he can be."
"You see where you are now?" he asked, "You remember what happened last time?"
"Yes, you were nowhere to be found during the aftermath," she said, "And I helped Sonny clean it up."
He laughed and looked away from her, shaking his head, wondering if there was anyway they would ever be able to move past Sonny Corinthos and the wedge that he had solidly placed between them.
"Jason, I didn't mean that," she said, "You know I get so damn frustrated when I feel so helpless."
"I did it," Jason said looking back at her with narrowed eyes, "I walked away and you kept my son away from me for three years. One day we're going to have to face this Elizabeth, one day we're going to have to come to terms with what we did to each other, what we're doing to each other."
"There's no coming to terms with it, Jason," she said as she met his eyes, "We destroyed each other and now we're picking at the scabs, wanting more. I don't want to do that, I know you don't want to do that, I just don't know how to…"
"You want to tell me what the hell she's done now?" Carly asked as she stepped into the hospital room, "Or do I have to find out for myself that once again Elizabeth Webber has put my family in jeopardy."