Jason stood in the corner of the hospital room, his arms folded against his chest, muscles bulging against the tight black tee shirt that he wore. He hadn't moved in the past twenty minutes, his breathing quiet, his face set in stone and his eyes locked with another pair of dark blue ones.
Elizabeth was awake and she was going to live.
She was nodding to whatever his mother and Bobbie were saying but she never broke the intense gaze she held with the man who she found hovering over her bed when her lashes had fluttered and her eyes opened. She couldn't begin to describe the immense relief she felt when she realized that Jason was alive and he was unharmed.
She didn't care what the doctors had to say. Of course she had no intention of moving. She could still feel the dull ache in her stomach through the haze of the painkillers. She knew that she was severely wounded but she didn't give a damn, she would've done it all over again, just to be able to wake up and stare at Jason Morgan.
She wanted the doctors gone, she wanted to scream at them to get the hell out of her room because she had so many questions that she needed answers to. She wanted to hear the words from Jason's mouth that he was okay, she wanted an update on Sonny and Lily and the children, she wanted to know what happened to Sly, she needed to know what happened to her husband but most importantly she wanted to know if what she was seeing was truly real.
If the hate had disappeared from Jason's eyes to be replaced with something so intense it shook her to the core.
Monica looked from Elizabeth to Jason and realized that she was getting nowhere with her patient or her son. She nodded to the rest of the nurses and her and Bobbie led the way out of the room, leaving the two people alone, to start a new path down a long road ahead.
The time had come. There was no one left in the room but he and Elizabeth and Jason couldn't get his legs to move. He wanted to run to her, to touch her, to make sure that she was truly breathing, that the color had returned to her skin, that her lips held that vibrant pink shade again, that her eyes were open and staring at him but he couldn't do it, he couldn't get his feet to move, one in front of the other, not when he knew that when the celebration was over the devastation would begin once again.
Elizabeth felt his hesitation. She wasn't surprised. She deserved it. She knew that it would be too damn easy to forgive her for the mistakes that she had made. She had only hoped that they would be able to push past it but with the way he was standing firm in the corner Elizabeth felt that there was no moving forward, that her and Jason would forever be stuck in neutral, struggling with what they felt and never being able to do anything about it.
Staring at him had become unbearable. Her eyes had drifted from his face, down to where his arms were unfolding from his chest, towards his hands which were wrapped in crisp white bandages, dark red stains seeping through.
"Jason, what happened?" she asked, "That wasn't…"
Her voice moved him, broke him out of the trance that he was in and with two large steps he was looming over her again, one damaged hand in her hair, the other picking up her tiny weak one, cradling it with his.
"I thought I lost you."
The words were choked out, amidst anguish and tears as his body started to tremble and his legs shook. He moved his hand from her hair and gripped the side of the bed, her free hand coming up and running over his gel slicked spikes. He fought the emotions that assaulted him, the ones that had been plaguing him since he watched her collapse to the ground at his feet, taking his bullet, risking her own life.
When his eyes met hers again he saw the tears reflected their, the pain, the sorrow, the grief. He leaned forward, wanting so bad to touch her, wanting to take her quaking lips with his own but he fought the urge, he resisted the desired that curled up inside of him. She was just a child, a child who had been through too much already and he refused to cause her more hurt and pain. He vowed to take care of this child before him, he vowed to love her and protect her and make sure that no further harm come upon her.
Especially from him.
Pulling away, physically, emotionally, he reached for the tiny stool behind him and sat down on it, taking her hand again and giving her a forced smile. She knew it was fake, they both did, and they both pretended it was real.
"What you did…" he said quietly, "There are no words."
"I owed you," she said quietly, "It was the least I could do after what…"
"That's in the past and something that I think we shouldn't discuss," he said, his voice broking no argument, "A lot of things died that night in the park, your husband being one of them, my hatred being another."
"Luis," she whispered.
Jason nodded, trying to gauge her reaction and for the first time since he had known Elizabeth he couldn't tell how she was feeling. She had curled up inside of herself when it came to the news that the man who had held her as a virtual slave was dead.
"I murdered him."
Those blue eyes of hers sparked again and sadly, what could only be described as a small smile, appeared on her face. She was glad that he had a hand in the murdering of the leader of the largest organization in Chicago. Elizabeth Webber was truly a part of the mafia world.
"I'm finally able to close that chapter of my life," she said. "And I don't know where to go from here."
Questions, they were lingering between them, the answers, so far out of reach.
"You won't be able to leave the hospital for a few days," Jason said, "You were very seriously injured and your body is going to need to recuperate."
"I hate hospitals," she said looking away from him again.
"No more than I do," he said, "But I have to agree with my mother on this. You need to be here to get better and that's what needs to be done, you need to get better."
"Your mother?" she asked curiously, "That was the doctor. I could feel her eyes on you."
Jason cleared his throat, "We don't get…"
"I know," she said softly, "I remember, from the night when I learned how to play pool." She closed her eyes, fighting back the images of Jason leaning behind her, then hovering over her, thrusting inside of her while she was pressed against the green felt.
"If we didn't get carried away," he whispered as he brought her hand to his mouth, his words mumbled against her soft skin, "If only the conversation had continued you wouldn't be lying in this hospital bed."
"No," she said feeling the tears hit her eyes again, "No, Jason, don't take this on yourself. I decided to keep this; I decided to carry this burden around as my own. This is my fault and I deserved that shot more than anyone else."
"It was my shot," he said pulling her hand away, "It was my bullet."
"It was my husband," Elizabeth said, "It was my life. I drug you into it, you had no choice. I should've been the one who ended Luis' life, not you. That weight shouldn't have been placed upon your shoulders."
Silence stretched between them, Elizabeth's breaths coming in tiny gasps as she tried to calm her racing heart. Jason was now turning into Lily, making her problems his own and she didn't want that, not when she was at fault. She wanted to take on the responsibility of what she had done and what was to come of her life. She had to deal with the consequences because she was beginning to realize that when you reached the end of the road you always seemed to be standing on your own.
"Sly took Alcazar down."
"What?" she asked, her face confused. She couldn't have heard that right, "What?"
Jason nodded, "I didn't think about it, it didn't even cross my mind when I was standing over Alcazar's dying body and I put the bullet between his eyes," he looked at Elizabeth who was seemingly unfazed by that remark, "But I remember the shots."
"I remember the shots," Elizabeth said, "It was one of the last things that I remember."
"Johnny and Francis didn't show up until a few minutes later, they were taking care of any friends of Alcazar's," Jason said, "I didn't pull my gun until after he was on the ground, the only other person there was Sly. The bullets, they echoed in my head, he must've emptied his gun on him."
"Sly," Elizabeth said quietly, "He told me to trust him."
"No one would blame you for not doing so," he said.
"Why should I?" she asked bitterly, "Every person in my life that I ever trusted turned their back on me. Sly would take the last chance to be a hero, to prove himself and now what? Am I supposed to open my arms and just expect everything to be okay?"
She was crying and she hated it. She hated even more that she didn't know what she was crying for. She just felt so empty inside, that everything was falling to pieces around her and that things made more sense when they were fucked up than they did now when she would be able to pick up her shattered world and move on.
"I was asking the same question outside of your hospital room," he said as he released her hand and ran his bruises palms over his face, "I don't…there's just so much that…" he got up frustrated and moved away from the bed, wishing there was something in the room that he could hit.
"I want it fixed to," she said, "I want to snap my fingers and make it all better but I know that it's not going to. I have to face some harsh realities. I have everything right now Jason and I have nothing, nothing," she stressed, "The whole city of Chicago is lying at my feet and I don't know what to do with it, I don't know if I want to do anything with it and I'm not even concerned. I don't care about the fortune that I know is mine, I don't care about the girls that are going to be left wandering around in the club, I don't care about Sly the enforcer and I don't care about the territorial wars that are probably starting as we speak. Right now all I care about is you and me and how I get back to the point where it was just Jason and Elizabeth and nothing else."
"Don't you think that I want you too, Elizabeth?" he asked quietly, "Don't you think that I want to push everything else aside and just take you in my arms and tell you that we're going to be okay? I can't do that, you know that."
"Why?" she asked, her shaking hand curling up into a fist, "Why can't we just throw away the bullshit and get back to where we started, where nothing else existed but…"
"Our frenzy sex crazed world," he said walking back towards the bed, "You can't expect me to go back there, Elizabeth. You're…"
"Just a child," she whispered, "I will forever be just a child to you, Jason Morgan."
"To me you will be a girl who has lost every ounce of innocence she had before she even got the chance to enjoy it," he said, "I don't want to be one of those people who helped take it away."
"You helped give it back to me don't you get that?" she asked, "You pulled me off that stage, you allowed me to practically burn down your kitchen, you taught me how to play pool…"
"I let you seduce me," he said quietly, "I took you in the back of a limo, I took you on the floor in my penthouse, I let you strip for me in my own leather jacket."
"I was a willing participant."
"You shouldn't have been!" he practically shouted, "Elizabeth, you should have been out at the mall shopping with your friends, you should've been picking out a winter formal dress and giggling about your latest crush over some cheese fries. You should be worrying about finals and learning how to drive a car not struggling to survive in this crazy fucked up universe I live in. Sly was right, you lied your way into my world but I allowed you to stay here and I should have never done that."
"You wished we never happened," she whispered as a tear slid from her eye to the pillow that rested beneath her head.
"I wish that I wasn't added to the growing list of people who stole your childhood from you," Jason said quietly as he moved back to the stool, sitting down gently, "And I think that I might have been the worst offender."
"I don't want to discuss this with you," she said looking away from him, "I don't want to hear about how the times we had together amount to nothing but my loss of normal teenage moments."
"You lost a baby."
Elizabeth's face whipped back to his, her eyes growing wide, her body letting her know that the emptiness she felt wasn't just the sorrow and pain she was carrying with her.
"No," she whispered, "No, I was on the pill. That is not…"
"It is," Jason said as he reached for her hand, his face showing no emotion when she pulled away from him, "Nothing is one hundred percent effective and that one night," he closed his eyes, his body visibly shuddering, "That one night I took you against the door, a little more than a week ago, Elizabeth."
"No," she said as she reached up, reached towards him, trying to grasp his shirt, "No, Jason, I don't want to hear it. That is not true. That cannot happen with one time. All these years I've been…"
"The baby had hardly anytime to develop," he whispered quietly as he curled his fists up and pressed them against his quivering mouth, trying to get his emotions back under control, "Lily explained it to me. A pregnancy is always considered two weeks no matter when the child is conceived, our baby was just forming."
"Stop it," Elizabeth said pressing her palms against her ears, "I don't want to hear these lies."
"Elizabeth, please," he sighed as he closed his eyes. He hated what he was seeing. She was literally turning into herself, her eyes were darkening, her skin was paling, a coldness started to surround her as she brought her hands back down to her sides.
"I would have known."
"There was barely any time," he whispered as he tried to reach for her again, this time she slapped his hand away, "We couldn't have…"
"I would've felt my baby," she said, her voice emotionless, "I would've felt the loss of my baby."
He shook his head. He was beginning to think that maybe Monica or Bobbie or even Lily was the one who should have broken the news to her. He didn't seem to be getting through. She didn't seem to be responding to him.
"The bullet," he said after he cleared his throat, "There was so much blood, Lily said that they thought it was from the bullet at first but after…after a thorough exam they realized that you were…that…"
"That your bullet killed my child."
Jason felt as if she had reached it and tore his heart from his chest. He also realized that in that moment he was no longer looking at the Elizabeth Webber he knew and loved, he was looking at a mother who had lost a child she wasn't even aware that she was carrying.
Still, the tears slipped from his eyes, down his cheeks, the same path hers were taking.
"Elizabeth…"
"Get out," she said in a clipped voice. One that sounded so much like his own when he was barking an order.
Normally he would do what she would say, normally he would think that she needed her space, needed time to think, time to let this settle in, normally he would do what he did best, he would walk away but this time things were different, and things would never be normal between he and Elizabeth.
He stood up beside her and took both of her failing wrists in his hand, carefully trying to pull her into a sitting position. She was struggling against him, fighting as he sat down next to her on the bed and he did his best not to jostle her, to hold her tight against his chest, cradling her in his arms.
"No," she cried as she hit his chest with her tiny fists, "No, Jason, no, not our baby, no."
He could feel her hot tears soaking through his tee shirt, dampening his warm skin. He buried his wet face in her hair, his own tears still falling, the sounds of the hospital monitors being drowned out by Elizabeth's heart wrenching sobs for their unborn baby.