Chapter Sixteen

He stood with his shoulder jammed against the door as Elizabeth stared at him, her brows furrowed suspiciously. Jason wasn't sure how long he stood there, but his heart began to thunder painfully in his chest when those blazing sapphire eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Please-" His voice was thick and slurred with tears, and Jason barely recognized it himself. "Please don't make me leave."

Those full, pink lips pursed into a thin red line as she continued to regard him stonily. "Why would you want to stay?"

He shifted, barely feeling when his shoulder began to ache, and crossed his legs at the ankle. "Because I don't want you to be alone. I don't want you to be…nowhere."

Jason could have sworn he saw a flicker of sadness race through those expressive blue eyes he knew so well, but then the stony mask dropped back in place. "It's a bit late for that." Still eyeing him suspiciously, Elizabeth allowed herself to ease back down onto the white hospital pillows piled judiciously at the head of the bed. "You can stay. Just don't talk to me."

Had he not been so overwhelmed by the situation, Jason would have smirked at that. But as it was, he just didn't have any humor left to spare. Somehow managing to ease forward, he closed the door softly before him and sank into another one of the grossly uncomfortable hospital chairs that he had occupied since he had learned about Emily.

"I'll stay as long as you let me."

She slid him a wary glance out of the corner of her eyes and shrugged indifferently. Jason could only sit and watch silently as her fingers fiddled with the edge of her blankets. Needles poked into the smooth alabaster skin, bruising it, but Elizabeth's hands still moved with graceful fortitude. She didn't pay any heed to the beeping monitors around her, nor the tubes and needles that poked into her flawless skin. She was lost in a myriad of thoughts, the oppressive haze of a new consciousness, and he had never felt so helpless than he did at that very moment. Sitting by silently, unable to help her. A motorcycle ride wouldn't fix this; neither would a boxing lesson on the bridge or a secret rendezvous at Vista Point. Tears pricked his eyes once more as Elizabeth began to slip off into a fitful slumber. Those things were the only things he had ever been able to offer her.

AJ's throat burned as he pressed his fingers to his throbbing temples. Somehow, everything had spiraled out of control, and there didn't seem to be any safe way out. He had gone into this impulsively – he had seen Courtney in an incriminating situation and immediately jumped at the tempting blackmail prospect. He had gone into this thinking he could be a winner, for once.

But he should have known better. The curse of the Black Sheep was far from over – and he would be far from a winner when the whole damn thing blew open.

Courtney had plowed straight into Elizabeth Webber in her car. Elizabeth had been in a coma and had recently awoken without any memories of her previous life. The irony was hardly lost on him.

First, the black sheep had done it to the golden boy. Now, the mobster's sister had done it to Port Charles' resident sweetheart.

Jason was going to kill him. If he had thought the whole meathook situation was bad, he didn't even know what the word meant. Jason would no doubt be inhuman when he finally sought his revenge.

There was nowhere left to run. Courtney was useless. She was a simpering fool with the ability to see three minutes into the future – and that was being charitable.

The Quartermaines wouldn't be able to protect him from this – he wasn't even sure if they would want to. Not after how close they were to Elizabeth and how they had faced the same thing with Jason years ago.

Alcazar had the car. It had been recovered from the warehouse he had hidden it in and now the rival kingpin had it at his disposal. There was no way to trace it – he hadn't thought to bug the car and for all intents and purposes, it was gone.

If only it were gone for good.

But he knew that as soon as it was convenient for the mob lord, the car would surface. It would be a visible testimony to the plight of Elizabeth Webber, and there would be nowhere he could hide.

Courtney didn't matter anymore – she was an afterthought at best. The focus had rapidly shifted from getting his son back to saving his own skin. He wasn't delusional enough to believe that he'd make it out of this alive.

There was no telling what Lorenzo Alcazar had in store for all of them. He wanted the Quartermaine property, and if not, AJ didn't even want to think of what he would do. The Quartermaines were experts at blackmail, but he had a nagging feeling that the Alcazars weren't newborn babes in the woods, either.

AJ clenched his eyes shut and rubbed his hands over his face. There was only one person left, only one thing to do. As terrifying as it was, he had to tell Jason.

"He's still in there," Lucky growled as he paced up and down the hallway outside of Elizabeth's room, all consideration for the mobster he had recently almost befriended gone. "What's he doing in there?"

"The Macarena," Luke drawled humorlessly. He approached his son slowly, wearily, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Let it be, Cowboy."

The young man spun around, his pale blue eyes blazing with disbelief and frustration. "Let it be? Are you kidding me, Dad? Let it be – so that she can fall under his thumb again? As if it wasn't bad enough the first time?"

"Luck-"

"No!" He pulled out of his father's grasp and glared darkly at him. He could see Nikolas scrub a hand over his jaw over the older Spencer's shoulder. "Sit back and do nothing so that Morgan can blind her with his lies again? Tell me this, Dad – how long before Corinthos moves in? They'll take her away from us completely and you want me to just let it be!"

Luke stepped up to his son, who was trembling with rage, and placed his hands softly on the boy's shoulder. "Cowboy, I'm asking you to let her have her space. She wouldn't have let Jason stay without having a good reason – a feeling."

Lucky swallowed roughly, glaring daggers through the closed blinds of Elizabeth's hospital room. She had thrown all of them – him, Nikolas, Luke, Monica, and Alan – out of her room earlier, but she let Morgan stay. His father was right – there had to be a good reason for it, a sense or intuition on her part. And that was what really scared him.

"I'm glad you're doing better, Emmy." Lulu Spencer sat perched at the foot of the youngest Quartermaine's hospital bed and was tossing her pink superball up in the air and catching it.

Emily, who sat propped up against a pile of pillows, smiled warmly at her best friend's little sister. Lulu had been a real blessing; she had been unable to think of anything but Elizabeth since the news came out, and the little girl had been keeping her mind occupied with endless chatter. "Thanks, sweetie."

"Hey, Emmy?"

"Yeah?"

Lulu's sober brown eyes met the older woman's. "Lucky and Nik said that…Elizabeth has what your big brother had."

Emily grimaced slightly, not appreciating the fact that her friends made what Jason and Elizabeth both 'had' sound more like an illness or contagious virus than anything else, but perhaps that was the only way they could get the little girl to understand. "Yeah. Yeah, sweetie, she does."

The little girl's chocolate orbs were trained on her pink superball. "Did your brother ever get better?"

The young woman smiled sadly, not missing the irony of the question. "It depends on what you mean by getting better."

"Huh?"

She shifted underneath the blankets, crossing her legs so that she could sit Indian-style, motioning the little girl to scoot closer. After being reassured that it wouldn't hurt her older friend, Lulu complied. "Jason…Jason wasn't too good after the accident."

"What kinda accident was it?"

Tears pricked her eyes but Emily kept them back. "The car he was in hit a tree."

"Oh."

She could see the comprehension in the little girl's eyes; she watched as Lulu pieced it together, that being hit by a car and hit by a tree could cause the same damage. "He woke up just like…just like Elizabeth, and he didn't know who he was."

Lulu lifted her timid gaze to hers. "What did you say to him?"

"When he woke up?" Her voice was thick and slurred as she remembered that frightening time. "I didn't know what to say."

The little girl sniffled, rolling her super ball between her hands. "I don't know what I'll say to Lizabeth, either."

Emily's lips twisted downward. "I wish I had some advice for you, sweetie, but I don't."

"I know." Lulu nodded with understanding beyond her years. "But…what happened with Jason?"

"He didn't remember us," Emily replied slowly. "He didn't remember…being Jason Quartermaine. He didn't remember going to medical school, he didn't remember working to be a doctor, he didn't remember his girlfriend. He didn't know any of us. And he was very angry with us."

"Why?"

Her shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug. "Because we wanted him to remember," Emily whispered. "We wanted him to remember so badly, and he couldn't. And he got mad at us for trying to force it on him."

Lulu's lower lip trembled. "I don't want Lizabeth to be angry at me."

Emily gently chucked the little girl under the chin. "I don't think you have to worry about that, sweetheart. But, when you see her…try not to talk about all the things she used to do, or what you two did together. She may still look like Elizabeth, but, honey, you've got to remember, she's not. She's another person, and she's scared, and even though it may sound like she's angry, she really needs a friend."

"Emmy?"

"What?"

"I'm scared. For Lizabeth."

"We all are," the young woman nodded slowly.

"You think she'll get better?"

"Well, it goes back to what I was telling you about Jason." She ran a trembling hand through her hair and tucked her bangs behind her ears. "He never became Jason Quartermaine again. He didn't finish medical school, he didn't become a doctor." Her eyes shined with tears as she watched Lulu's bottom lip quiver. "But he became Jason Morgan. He's healthy. He's happy. He has friends and a job and he likes what he does. He's alive and he's healthy, and even though he's not Jason Quartermaine, he's still my brother and he always will be."

Her throat ached with unshed tears but she refused to break down in front of the scared little girl. "Does that make any sense, sweetie?"

"What you're saying…" Lulu squeezed her little fingers around the super ball. "Is that even if she doesn't remember who she was…Lizabeth can still be happy."

"Oh, yes," Emily nodded emphatically. "Oh, definitely, Lulu. Nothing will ever stop her from being able to be happy."

"Good," the little girl got out quietly in a cracked voice. "Because that's what I want – I want her to be happy again."

"You're still here."

Jason blinked at the sound of her voice. "I told you I would stay."

"There's no need. You don't have to watch over me – I'm not glass, you know."

The enforcer dropped his head at those words. No, she wasn't glass – glass cracked. Glass broke. Glass wasn't nearly as strong as the young woman before him. "No, you're not."

She huffed under her breath and continued looking up at the ceiling. "Why are you really here?" The unspoken question she dared not ask: why haven't I been able to tell you to leave?

Jason let out a slow, controlled breath. "Because we're friends."

That got her attention. Elizabeth's eyes snapped to meet his, now blazing with suspicion. "We were?"

He nodded slowly, having been corrected. "Yeah – we were."

Elizabeth's blue eyes traveled over him, from the tips of his spiky hair to the toes of his scuffed motorcycle boots and he was almost certain he heard her scoff. "I bet."

His sandy brows furrowed. "What?"

"Just friends?"

"Huh?"

"We were just friends?"

He didn't know what to make of that question. No, they weren't friends – they were more than friends. But he couldn't very well tell her that. "Yeah."

The little brunette shrugged limply and continued staring at the ceiling. "Were we good friends?"

Jason swallowed roughly. "Yeah."

Her icy eyes lifted back to his and for the first time, Jason wondered if that was what an enforcer stare looked like to the receiver. "This must be hard for you."

There was an almost sarcastic accusation in her voice, as if she realized that she had been right all along – he had only come so that he could try to get her to remember just like everyone else.

"I've been through it before."

"Yeah?" She was quirking a slender brow at him, and he could see her internally debating over whether she could believe him or not. "With who?"

The corner of his mouth hooked up but there was no humor to be found in his smirk. "Me."

Her eyes widened for a moment but the surprise was quickly covered with a mask of detachment. "You woke up without a fucking clue who you were?"

Jason could hear the skepticism in her voice. "Yeah," he replied simply. "I had my head rammed into a tree and woke up from a coma. I didn't remember my family or my life, and-"

"Hey, I didn't ask for your life story," she replied crossly, unable to bear hearing about the experience she was still unable to wrap her own head around. The idea that she had been someone – that she had a life, a family, friends, dreams, goals – before this point in time was inconceivable. A cruel joke. A painful riddle.

Jason clamped his mouth shut, understanding her need to keep everything at a distance. He had felt the same thing – the frantic, desperate urge to stay as far away from everything as humanly possible. No people. No conversations. No memories. Just him, alone in the void that was his mind, the abyss that had suddenly become his life.

Elizabeth remained staring at the ceiling for a long time, and the brunette didn't even acknowledge his presence. A nurse would come in periodically and Elizabeth wouldn't even look at her. Her eyes were half closed and would occasionally flutter open with a start, as if expecting to find different surroundings. Then reality would sink in and her fingers would fiddle with the blankets as she burrowed back into the bed.

Jason fidgeted in the chair, wondering if he should get something to occupy her mind. This was the most dangerous time – being alone with one's thoughts. The human mind was a powerful thing, but it was also the most dangerous enemy of one's sanity. If he let her sink into this state, she would only sink farther and farther away from them all.

Her eyes were darting from place to place on the ceiling when he leaned forward. "Eliza-"

She held up two fingers, silencing him, and resumed her intent study of the ceiling. He waited a minute before trying again. "Elizabeth?"

"What?"

"Can I get you something?" He leaned forward uncertainly. "If you want a-"

"I'm fine," she snapped irritably, pouting at the ceiling. "I'm counting dots on the ceiling."

The answer surprised him and Jason was sure for a moment that he had heard wrong. "What?"

"I'm counting dots."

Well, that was unexpected. "How many are there?"

"Uh, hold on…twelve thousand, nine hundred and thirty four – no, thirty six. Twelve thousand, nine hundred and thirty six."

His eyes damn near bugged out of his head. "You counted thirteen thousand dots?"

She scoffed at his question. "Don't be stupid. There are eighty-four dots on one tile, and this room is eleven by fourteen. Simple math."

Jason's eyebrows shot up, but he knew better than to say anything. Another long moment passed and every so often, Elizabeth would sigh fitfully and squirm in the bed. He understood her discomfort – the hospital was the last place he wanted to be, too. The silence stretched between them for so long that he was certain she was asleep – her chest was rising and falling in a slow and even rhythm, her features were relaxed, and her eyes were lightly closed.

But then the door quietly clicked open and he saw those blue orbs snap open immediately, coming to rest on his mother. Elizabeth blinked away the last remnants of sleep and watched the two doctors step into the room with a stoic look on her face.

"What?"

Alan and Monica smiled tightly despite her tense voice. "We came to speak to you, Elizabeth, about your-" Monica's blue eyes flickered in her son's direction and she immediately regretted the words that came out of her mouth next. "Jason, do you think you could step out?"

He nodded slowly with a pained look on his face. It took an almost Herculean effort but he made it to his feet, his intense eyes locked with Elizabeth's icy ones. With one last look at the brunette, Jason quietly slipped out of the room.

No sooner had he stepped into the brightly lit hallway than he was bombarded with questions. Nikolas, Lucky and Luke seemed to appear out of nowhere and practically assaulted him.

"How's she doing?" Lucky wanted to know, his eyes glittering with thinly-veiled irritation. "What did she say to you?"

Nikolas squared his jaw and rubbed his chin. "Lucky, I don't think-"

"Shut up," his brother tossed back before looking Jason in the eye firmly again. "What happened in there?"

Returning the lethal glare, Jason pushed past the younger man without another word. He didn't owe the Spencer clan any answers – especially not when he didn't have a fucking clue what was going on himself.

Courtney pulled her feet up onto the couch underneath her, watching her older brother fix her a drink. Carly sat on the couch next to her, idly playing with the hem of her dress. "Thank you," she nodded to her brother as he extended the liquor.

He nodded in reply and quietly shuffled to the armchair on her right, easing down onto it. "You doing okay, Courtney?"

She nodded in what she hoped was a convincing manner. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, really." Well, that was a lie – she hadn't touched her pills since the accident and she was really feeling the effects.

"You want to spend the night here again, hon?" Carly asked gently, toying with a lock of her sister-in-law's hair.

The blonde nodded slowly. "Yeah, if that's okay with you guys."

"Sure, it is," Sonny replied immediately. "You can always stay with us."

"Thanks," she replied gratefully, feeling the liquor burn a slow path down to her stomach. "I just…I don't want to spend another night alone in the penthouse. Jason…"

"We know," Carly replied soothingly, tucking the younger woman's hair behind her ear. "We know."

Tears crept into her eyes and Courtney sniffled, rubbing her running nose with the cuff of her sleeve. "He-He's been at the hospital since…since Emily, and he only comes home to shower and change. He doesn't even eat with me anymore – he just grabs something at the hospital. I haven't seen him in-in…"

"I know," Carly sighed, wrapping her arms around the crying woman's shoulders and pulling her into a hug, meeting Sonny's gaze over Courtney's head.

"I just really need him," the blonde sniffled against Carly's shoulder. "I just…I need him."

"He's worried about his sister and…Elizabeth," Sonny tried to remind her gently, unable to see his sister so upset. "He has a lot going on right now, and I know he wouldn't leave you alone on purpose. He's not thinking straight – he's just really worried."

"I know," Courtney sniffled, rubbing at her eyes. "It just feels like I'm his last priority."

Carly stroked her back gently, soothingly, and met Sonny's gaze once more. The message in her eyes was clear: Bring Jason back home.

"You're back." Her eyes were less guarded this time, almost as if she was kind of relieved to see his face again.

"I'm back," he nodded, doing his best not to let on how tired he was. He had slept in the chapel again – if it could be called sleep – despite his mother's efforts to fix him up a spare bed next to her office.

"What's that?" she asked, motioning to a book he held partly behind his back.

"This?" Jason brought the book out and absently tapped the spine with his fingers. "It's a book. Since you already counted the dots on the ceiling and everything."

She didn't smile at his reply but she didn't scoff either, and Jason took that as a good sign. "Is it for me?"

He shrugged. "Sure. You can read it now if you want."

Elizabeth's eyes turned cold. "I can't read – damn headaches. Can't concentrate on anything for too long."

Jason nodded with understanding, his grip tight on the book he held. "I…I could read it to you if you want."

She quirked a brow at him as if it was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. "No, thanks."

He nodded and gently set the book in his lap, averting his gaze so she wouldn't see the quick flash of hurt that ran through his eyes. "Okay."

They sat in silence for a long moment until Elizabeth spoke up. "They want to keep me here for a week more, at least."

Jason swallowed carefully, almost unable to believe the words that came out of his mouth next. "Maybe that's for the best – they want to make sure you're okay."

She wasn't looking at him but he noticed her nod her head absently. Elizabeth pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a controlled breath, trying to drown out the sound of the beeping machines and succeeding. It wasn't about staying here in the hospital that scared her – it was the fact that she had absolutely nowhere to go afterwards.

"Don't you have things you need to be doing?"

His blue eyes snapped to her face. "What?"

"You can't just have all the free time in the world to sit here and stare at me," she huffed. "Don't you have things to do?"

Jason shrugged slowly. "Nothing that can't wait. Nothing that's not as important."

"As important as what?"

He didn't even blink. "As important as you."

Elizabeth's breath caught sharply in her throat and she didn't know what to make of that. They were friends, this much he had told her, but it still didn't feel right. He was a stranger, a complete and total stranger – she had only recently learned that his name was Jason Morgan and knew almost nothing else – and yet there was something about him that…didn't make her want to throw things. He didn't ask anything of her; he didn't pester her about her health or how she was feeling or what she was thinking; he didn't bother her with memories and anecdotes and the ever popular 'I remember the time we…'. None of that. He just let her be. And she'd be lying if she said that part of her didn't respect him for that. But there were some times when the way he would look at her, the way he would speak to her, would tug at something deep inside her, something long forgotten. She didn't know what it was and she wasn't sure she was ready to find out. It was all too confusing, and she figured that if she managed to keep him at a distance until things at least made a little more sense, they'd all be the better for it.

"That nurse didn't take the fifth reading."

Jason blinked at her, confused by the abrupt change in subject. "Huh?"

"That one nurse. She took only four readings – I heard her pen."

"Which nurse?"

"Uh, chestnut hair, gray eyes, five foot six, one hundred and twenty-five pounds, approximately."

Jason's sandy brows shot up. Elizabeth noticed him staring at her and bristled under his gaze. "What?"

"Nothing," he assured her. "It's just that…you seem to have an eye for these things."

"It's called an observation," she replied blandly. "I see things. I remember them. I don't see how that's anything special."

"You've got a good eye," he told her easily. "And a good memory." And he didn't know what exactly to call her little math trick from the other day. "You pay attention to the details – lots of people don't."

"I have a feeling you do."

He actually smirked. "Well, yeah, but I do a lot of other things, too. I think differently. I speak differently. And there are a lot of things I don't do – I don't dream. I don't imagine. I don't pretend. I don't lie. I'm just…different. I'm wired that way, I guess."

The corner of Elizabeth's mouth hooked up in a sardonic, humorless smirk as she met his eyes directly and without flinching. "So am I."