Jason stood with his back towards the closed door of Elizabeth's hospital room. He was afraid to move forward and afraid to move back. The monitors that surrounded her pale body let off a distinctive beep as an oxygen tank breathed life into her through a plastic mask that was secured over her face.

He knew that it was all over and yet he had a feeling that some things had only just begun.

The police had swarmed the scene and an ambulance arrived not a minute later, technicians running through the park with a backboard and their kits, trying to figure out the status of the young woman lying on the grass by their feet. Mac was yelling questions in his ear, Sly was holding Elizabeth's hand telling her that it was going to be okay and Francis and Johnny were busy just trying to hold him upright.

In one moment he had gone from questioning his feelings for her to knowing that there was no other woman, or girl, for him.

As her blood soaked into the ground beneath her, as she faded from this earth he realized how stupid he had been. All he had to do was sit down and listen, all he had to do was let her explain but he wasn't man enough to do that, he had to push her away before he was hurt any further, he had to push her out of his life and let her deal with her own chaotic one.

He was afraid to help her, he was afraid to care for her, he was afraid to love her because she was only seventeen.

Now, she was knocking on death's door, waiting to see if it was the Lord or the Devil answering on the other end. She was so close to giving up on the precious thing called life and Jason couldn't say that he blamed her. What other choice did she feel that she had? Her parent were murdered, the one true friend she thought she had betrayed her for a husband she never wanted and the one person that she carelessly fell in love with was ready to turn her over to keep this city safe.

He should've been keeping her safe, he should've been protecting her, he should've made sure she was on that island with the people he considered his family because that's what she was to him, she was his family and damn she was so much more.

She was the reason he was getting up in the morning with a smile on his face, she was the reason that he was taking Francis' and Johnny's playfully teasing with a laugh, she was the reason he now had a running tab at Kelly's diner and she was the reason he kept on breathing.

He was more careful at work, he took extra precautions so he could make it home to her and find out what menu item she ordered for dinner. He gave up more shots in pool so she could think that she beat him only to find out that he let her win. He bought gallons of chocolate milk just so he could lick the mustache off of her face and there was nothing as enjoyable as doing the accounting bills when she was curled up in his lap, pointing out any numbers he might have missed.

She watched the games with him, she drank beer with him, she even involved him a few pillow fights that he would never admit to. Showers had never been more fun and hell; Elizabeth even made something out of cleaning up the apartment. The tiny being lying lifeless on the bed before him had wormed her way into his heart and buried herself there until it was impossible for him to dig her out.

None of it mattered anymore, her past, her life style, the danger that she brought upon them, the lies that tore them apart. She was no longer a mob moll, she was no longer a stripper, she wasn't a woman, she wasn't a girl, she was Elizabeth, just Elizabeth, the woman he loved more than he cared to admit.

Taking a small step towards her and then another and then another, Jason reached out for a small stool a few feet away and pulled it beside her bed, sitting down on it and reaching for her hand. He picked her cold fingers up in his warm hand and stared at them, looking so weak, looking so pale. He curled them around his own hand and pulled it up against his cheek, closing his eyes and sighing softly.

For the first time ever, Jason Morgan prayed.

"Were you ever going to tell me that you were back in town?"

Sly looked up from where his head was resting in his hands and gave his Aunt Bobbie a small smile, "I wasn't planning on staying and I knew that if I dropped by Kelly's you'd keep me there until I fattened up."

"Something like that," Bobbie smiled softly as placed a hand on his shoulder and motioned to the chair next to him, "Do you mind if I sit?" She watched as Sly shook his head and then made herself as comfortable as she could in the hospital chair next to him, "Is she a very good friend of yours?"

Sly laughed, a bitter hollow laugh, "Don't ask Lizzie that." he sighed as he ran his hands up and down his wet face, "I went through a shitty time in my life. I was so fucked up…" he looked over at her with an apologetic grin, "I'm not use to being in the midst of real ladies, I'm sorry for my language."

"Sly, I've heard worse, I've said worse," Bobbie smiled as she took his hand and squeezed it, "Go on."

"Lizzie kinda just showed up in my life when I needed a friend," Sly smiled softly, "She was this little thing that was weighed down by a bunch of books and she just dropped them right by my locker. I took one look at her; one look into those blue eyes," he laughed, "A man was lost instantly. And she knew, she got it, she…she experienced the same things that I did and it was like, it was like she understood and she was more than just another girl, she became one of my best friends," he laughed bitterly again, "And I fucked it up, I threw away what she gave me and I watched her down spiral into something, someone that I didn't know and I let her, I let her Aunt Bobbie," he blinked away the tears in his eyes, not bothering to wipe them away as they slipped down his cheeks, "Now she's dying and she'll never know what she's done for me, how much she means to me."

"She's not dying," Bobbie whispered as she pulled him into a hug, "Sly she's hanging on, I don't know how but this girl has got such a grip on life. She's not going anywhere anytime soon. You have to believe that, you have to be strong for her."

"I will," Sly said pulling away from his Aunt, "I will because when she wakes up I'm going to make up for whatever I did to her, I'm going to show her just how sorry I am. Lizzie changed my life and that's what I'm going to do for her. I'm going to make it better. I'm going to show her just how much she means to me."

"I knew that you will," she said as she stood up and pulled him to his feet, "I think that it's time you get something to eat or at least, get some coffee. You haven't moved since she was brought in here late last night, Sly."

"I'll go," Sly said as he stood up and stretched, "But it's my treat and because I know you won't quite bothering me until I'm well fed."

"It's black."

Jason raised his eyes to the voice above him and saw Sly Eckert standing there in the hallway, coffee cup held out in his hand. Jason blinked and watched him shrug.

"I drink it black so…" he cleared his throat, "Lizzie on the other hand drinks everything chocolate."

Jason took the cup in Sly's hand and sighed, closing his eyes as he thought about the young woman in the hospital room all alone having not yet woken up from her unconscious state. He still wasn't made aware of her condition but he knew enough to know that if she didn't wake up soon, that was not a good sign.

Sly had settled down beside him quietly, sipping the hot murky liquid from his own cup, watching the enforcer across from him. It had been hours since they had come rushing in here and yet to him it felt like days, days since the police interrogated them with the events of that evening, days since Luis Alcazar's corpse was rolled down to the morgue, days since Elizabeth's tiny form disappeared into the emergency room doors. Days had really only been five hours, thirty nine minutes and forty five seconds.

"She actually put that in her soda once."

Sly looked over startled, surprised that those words came from Jason's mouth.

"I remember sitting there, our usual number from Kelly's in front of us and she grabs this bottle of Hershey's chocolate syrup from the fridge," Jason shook his head with a laugh, "She must have gone shopping with the kids and Lily, I don't know where she got it and she just picked it up and turned it upside and just squeezed it right in there in her Pepsi. I thought it was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen but Elizabeth…she loved it, drank it all up." He closed his eyes, remembering how the rest of the chocolate syrup was put to use later that night.

"The one thing she always demanded was her chocolate milk and hot cocoa," Sly chuckled, "There was always a gallon in the fridge and a box in the cupboard, always for Lizzie and no one else and man, if someone touched her chocolate milk…there was an incident with a shoe over that one time."

Jason took a sip of the coffee that Sly handed him, wincing when he realized it tasted nothing like his Columbia brew and nodded slightly to the younger man, letting him know that he was listening to whatever story he had to offer about Elizabeth, the woman he really knew very little about.

"One of the girls, back at the um," Sly cleared his throat and took his own sip of his drink; "She went into the kitchen fridge and assumed that the milk was up for grabs. Turns out she took the last of it and left the empty container. Lizzie launched a full investigation and when she found out who did it, she picked up the strippers' favorite pair of shoes, threw one at her head and broke the other one right in two. The girl had a fit but Lizzie stood her ground and told the girl that she owed her a gallon chocolate milk and if she had a problem with that they could take it outside right in the parking lot. Needless to say, Lizzie got her milk the next day, despite the woman having at least ten years and twenty pounds on Lizzie."

"That sounds like Elizabeth," Jason said quietly as he stared at the coffee in his hands, "Fighting until the end."

"That's what my Aunt said," Sly stated as he leaned up on his knees, placing the cup on a table next to him, "She said that Lizzie was hanging on tight and that she wasn't going to give up. I believe it." When Jason didn't offer anything else Sly decided it was time to let the man in front of him know a little bit about himself, "Bill Eckert was my father, he was killed about a decade ago in the catacombs," Sly's eyes glazed over, "Mob related," he shrugged and sat back in the chair, throwing his leg across the other one, "My Dad was a first cousin to Luke and Bobbie, I call them Aunt and Uncle out of respect, Lucky and I were real close for a couple of years but then I was shipped off to California to live with my Aunt Jenny. I met Lizzie a few years after that."

Jason was quiet for a moment before his icy blue eyes met Sly's dark ones, "I know," he hesitated, "But thank you for telling me. I would never bring the Spencer's in on something that involves us."

Sly nodded slowly, "I know that. Just as you know that I would never use Em as a bargaining chip between you and me," Sly couldn't help the slow smile that spread across his face, "I take it you didn't know that I was friends with your sister. You were Jason Quartermaine then."

Jason felt his hand grip tighter around the paper cup, "If you're insinuating…"

"I'm not," Sly said quietly, "I've done enough damage to one young woman to last me a lifetime. I would never bring Emily into this. Allowing Lizzie to linger in the mob world was bad enough."

"Why would you do that?" Jason couldn't help but ask, "How could you be around her day in and day out and just allow her to sink further and further into…"

"How could you?" Sly asked with raised eyebrows, "We both know that you weren't made aware of her background until you found out that information, Morgan," Sly smirked, "And you stayed with Lizzie until you had to force her out of your life. How did you do it? How did you let her into your life, knowing that it was dangerous, knowing that she could be a target at anytime?" Sly snorted when Jason looked away, his cold eyes growing darker, "Because you couldn't stop it, because she gets under your skin, because there's something about her that you just can't let go of. And you can try to walk away from it, hell I did, but it just keeps on pulling you back."

"You sound like you're in love with her," Jason said, his voice hollow, before he took another long sip of his now lukewarm coffee.

Sly was silent for a moment, thinking, contemplating, "I might have been," he shrugged, "But that seems like a lifetime ago, a place I was before all the mistakes started getting made. Lizzie's a special girl, whether you're in love with her or not, not many people would have made it as far as she did. Her father practically sold her to the devil himself, she was forced to strip for strangers, bed them…" Sly watched as Jason stood up from his seat and angrily strode towards a trash can where he disposed of his empty cup, "It happened, its something that she's going to have to deal with for the rest of her life. If you're going to be around her, you're going to have to deal with it to."

"I don't plan on putting her through that kind of hell, Eckert," Jason said as he crossed his arms across his muscular chest, "I plan on making sure that things are smooth sailing as soon as she opens her eyes. I already know where she's going to live and she's going to go back to school, making something of herself."

Sly chuckled, "You run any of this by Lizzie? She doesn't like it when people make decisions for her."

"What the hell do you think you've been doing for the past three years?" Jason snarled.

"Exactly," Sly said quietly, "I've been making decisions for her, so has he father, so has her husband. When she wakes up she might curse you for saving her life. She's been through hell and if you can only imagine the times that she's talked about…"

"I won't," Jason cut off, "If she needs some time, some space to decide what she wants to do with her life that's fine. I'm going to make sure that she's taken care of."

"You don't need to do that," Sly said, "Alcazar was a stupid man. He thought he was invincible and he never made a will, therefore everything reverts to his wife and little Lizzie Webber is now a multimillionaire."

"Taking care of someone doesn't necessarily involve money," Jason said and presented Sly with his back. He never took into consideration that Elizabeth would be the sole heir of her husband's fortune. Elizabeth could now do anything, go anywhere, be anything that she wanted. He should be happy for her, be glad that she would finally be able to fulfill some dreams but for some reason he couldn't muster up any enthusiasm and his heart began to ache.

"I don't know what your intentions are," Sly said as he stood up from the chair and walked towards Jason, "But you better not be thinking about stringing Lizzie along so you can get your hands into Alcazar's prime…"

Jason whipped around, a fire blazing in his eyes, "Watch your mouth, Eckert. People have been known to disappear in hospitals before."

"Lizzie has been hurt enough," Sly growled stepping closer to him, "She doesn't need you to come swooping in like some knight in fucking armor, trying to sweep her off her feet only to have you leave her standing there crying because you couldn't…"

"You are the one that dragged her into this," Jason said as he took another step towards Sly, "You are the one that introduced her to Alcazar," he smirked when he saw Sly's eyes grow wide, "Yeah, I know it all, turns out Elizabeth trusts one of us and it doesn't seem to be you."

"You take some kind of perverse pleasure in that?" Sly asked as he clenched his fists, "I brought her into this world, Morgan, you were her chance to escape and what did you do? You threw her right back to the pack of wolves, wonderful fucking man that you are."

Jason felt his fists curl, felt the fury build inside of him and he never wanted to kill a man more in his life. He wasn't sure if it was because Sly Eckert was such a prick or because he was true in what he was saying. Either way, the remaining distance was closed between the two men and Jason had his fist raised before he heard a Spanish shout from across the room.

"Dios mio," Lily said running over to him and pulling him away from Sly Eckert, "I cannot even leave the city without you trying to get into some form of trouble. Would you leave poor Sly alone?"

Jason's eyebrows rose but he threw his hands up in the air and turned around, walking a few paces away from Sly and Lily. He knew that Sonny's wife would probably befriend the devil himself because she would believe there was some good in him.

"Have you heard anything else on Elizabeth?" Lily asked as she touched Jason's shoulder, "Sonny wants me to call him immediately with an update."

Jason turned around and looked down at her, "I could've called you at the island."

"The threat is gone," Lily said crossing her arms across her chest, "Mi familia is back where we belong. Sonny is very sorry that he couldn't be here."

Jason sighed as he ran his hands over his face, "I'm not going to argue with you Lily, I don't have the energy to fight with you right now."

Lily frowned as she slipped an arm around Jason's waist, "I'm sorry, Jason. Does that mean that you haven't…?"

"Excuse me."

Jason looked over to see his mother, Monica Quartermaine, standing off to the side, gripping a chart in her hand and looking very uncomfortable. He moved away from Lily and towards her.

"Is there news on Elizabeth?" Jason was curious as to how she had gotten the information.

"I'd like to speak with you in private for a minute, Jason," Monica said and turned around, walking a little further down the hallway, a little further away from Elizabeth's room.

"We'll be waiting here," Lily said as she let go of Jason.

He didn't mind if she waited, he wished the other asshole hovering over Elizabeth's room would disappear, preferably to the same place Luis Alcazar was. His motorcycle boots squeaked against the tile floor as he came to stand before his mother, watching as she nervously opened the chart in front of her.

"I wasn't there when you friend, Elizabeth Webber, was brought in," Monica said quietly, "Bobbie was in the ER and she called me, asked me to come in and see if there was anything that I could do," she cleared her throat, "You know Jason that it's not a very good sign that Elizabeth has still not woken up yet since the shooting however she's still hanging on and she's breathing on her own, the machine is just helping add extra air to her lungs."

Jason wanted to tell his mother to sped it up, to just get to the part where she would tell him whether or not Elizabeth was going to live or die but he knew that he needed to hear all of this, Lily would want to know and that bastard that called himself Elizabeth's friend would want to know too.

"The bullet was a clear through and through but there was a lot of bleeding," Monica closed her eyes and sighed before she was able to look at her son again, "A lot of bleeding Jason and we just weren't sure if she…" she looked down at the chair again, "We did everything we could, I'm so sorry Jason."

Jason blinked, "What? Elizabeth is…"

"If Elizabeth continues to hang on she will survive, she will make a full recovery."

"Then…"

"But we were unable to save the baby."