The feel of Jason's arm snaking her back did little to calm Sam, who's attention centered on the doctor, who it appeared had lost her damn mind! "Your soldier showed up a bit late, didn't he? Patrick and I have been completely over for months, in case you missed it…so what's the point now?"
The sound of his name dropping disdainfully from the lips of the woman who'd spent way too long hanging all over him, while she'd been forced to endure a living hell - praying every day for someone to figure things out and spare a minute of their precious happiness to come looking for her, spiked Robin's already burning anger. "You've moved on, but he hasn't! He's still holding out hope that you'll change that fickle, feeble mind!" Ignoring the cautioning look from Jason, she narrowed the gaze on Sam, "Here I am, waiting and waiting for him to get over you, and he's still pining like some wounded puppy for you to take him back. Over my dead body will that happen."
Shrugging Jason off, Sam took a menacing step in response to the dark red running through her, "Your dead body, I can deliver!"
"Do it, Sam - beat her ass!" Carly was restlessly itching to get closer but damn Sonny wouldn't let her, gripping onto her arm everytime she made a move.
"Everybody - easy!" Closing very tired eyes for a split second, Sonny raised a cautioning palm to his friend. "You have things all wrong, Robin…Jason and Sam are back together and happy - you can see that, can't you? Nobody here had ill intentions towards you, or your family." He gestured to the man on the bed, who still laid dazed and disengaged. "None of this was called for. Stop it from going any further."
"Further?" Sam addressed Sonny, openly annoyed at the kid gloves he and Jason chose to use in face of the blatant attack on their lives she was far from ready to as easily forgive. "What can she and her toy soldier do to us?" Her eyes moved from the lookalike to the doctor bitingly, "You should've just asked…I would've saved you the trouble!"
"That's right, I forgot…nobody else's feelings matter when Jason's in the picture!" The doctor was growing even angrier with the disregard for the man she loved making her more so. "He was good enough to warm your bed after you'd worked your way through every other specimen, but now he's trash because Jason finally looked at you again? Who the hell do you think you are?"
"Someone you fear a great deal, apparently…to go to these lengths over some d…!"
"Sam, will you please just kick her ass already?" Carly was bristling to do it herself but nobody would let her through, and she was sick to death of the airiness from the superior minded little bitch who's always deserved a good knock down. Yanking her arm from Sonny's hold, she paced to the back wall and back, her heels clicking angrily at the tile as she moved her arms from chucking the long blond hair behind her ears to fist at her hips.
"Carly, stop." Jason had heard enough. With one arm still at Sam's back and his body on alert to react, knowing her, he tried again to diffuse the situation that had started to give him a headache. "Robin, I'm sorry that you got hurt. The injury to my head wiped out any memories of escaping Helena together…I had no idea she was holding you. There's no way I would've left you there if I knew." Despite the step she took back when he left Sam's side to cautiously approach, he edged close enough to look her in the eyes, trying ardently to connect, "I will always be your friend! I'm sorry for all of it…I really am…but you've got it all wrong."
"Jason, don't apologize - she's a looney bitch!" Everybody being sorry when they clearly weren't in the wrong was making Carly crazy. Pointing to where the doctor spared her only a brief look, she spouted angrily, "She did this and was about to do some real damage - on purpose - why are you forgiving her so easily?"
With his gaze still fixed on Robin's distrusting eyes stabbing his way, Jason answered with what he truly believed, "Because she did it out of hurt. She felt betrayed and alone, and that's partly my fault. She would never deliberately hurt anyone…especially not her friends."
Elizabeth, who had been silent in one corner of the crowded room, watching and listening, still awed at there being two of the man she loved and floored by the situation unfolding before them, suddenly saw the chance to claim the seat she held on the inside, a seat nobody in that room could deny her, no matter how much they tore her down trying to. Grabbing hold with baring teeth, she set to reprise her once central role…to remind them all of where she belonged. "Jason's right, Robin…the three of us have been friends since we were kids…we love each other so much. They have no idea how close we three are - how could they? The bond we share…"
"Didn't I tell you to shut up?" The brazen attempt at forced camaraderie proved to irk Robin's already increasing annoyance as she turned to fully face the staggering desperation. "Nobody cares about your lifelong itch for Jason…if he wanted you, you would've had him by now - why is that so hard to see?"
Falling back in shock at the cruelty of her friend's words, Elizabeth gasped out loud, "Robin!"
"Don't Robin me! You damn well heard what I said before…his entire time in and out of consciousness, all he talked about was this bitch," her arm flayed towards Sam, "His sole motivation for breaking out of that hell was to get back to her, and all the way back to town, he couldn't speak, but I talked to him about Danny being his son. Hearing about them was all he cared about…and from what I've seen recently, even his latest detour to your bed did nothing to keep him there, once he started to remember her…despite the fact she was busy screwing my husband at the time! Even when he couldn't remember her, you couldn't keep him interested…so just what the hell are you still pining over?"
"This isn't you, Robin! You would never say these hurtful things to me, ever!"
"No? Maybe that's the problem - nobody ever tells you the truth! Maybe if people spent less time coddling and babying your sickening entitlement and poorly disguised bitchitude, you wouldn't be so damn desperate and nauseating!"
Tears she hadn't summoned this time sprang forward when humiliation stabbed her chest. "That's not fair!"
"Life's not fair, sweetheart! If it were, I wouldn't have been kidnapped - twice - and forcibly kept from my husband and daughter, while you all went about living your pathetic lives like nobody else mattered. I wouldn't have had to watch from the sidelines, while my husband fell in love with another undeserving trainwreck, who walked all over his heart the minute her precious soulmate acknowledged her existence! I wouldn't have fallen short of getting my revenge watching her fall for a plant and pushing away the one man everybody knows her life revolves around, finally getting to see her lose everything when Brent walks off with all he owns, leaving her with nothing and no Jason - because the real one would've gotten sick of her turning to one more man that wasn't him! Nobody said shit about life being fair!"
"W-o-w!" Sam clapped her hands slowly together and shook her head in feigned amazement. "You had my life all mapped out, did you? Only problem with your little experiment is you're just as delusional as that," she gestured to the corner Elizabeth had slinked back into, scathed by the doctor's scalding words, "thinking you know Jason and I, better than we know ourselves, expecting us to fall for stupid ploys - like mindless guinea pigs! We're not your puppets! We don't fall in line and obey orders or manipulations," that time she answered the anger running through her to chuck the doctor at the shoulders using both hands, full force, watching her crash backwards into the bed, startling everybody in the room who either gasped, took a step forward, or jerked their head up at attention, "from nobody!"
Quick to pull her into his arms, Jason held Sam to him and spun her to place his body between her and Robin, who hadn't moved from where she'd crashed to the bed.
"Get off me, Jason!" Her anger was seething at being restrained, the thought of the confusion and irreparable damage the fallout from the scheme could've caused if her son had lain eyes on his father's lookalike, fueling that anger to extreme heights. There were photos all over the penthouse that Sam had always kept close for Danny, making sure he knew who his father was from before he could even understand. That someone who supposedly loved Jason, who left town under the context of giving Danny his father back, could try to do something so underhandedly destructive and painful - no care or thought to the consequences for the innocent…in the name of what…jealousy? "Get off me!"
"No!" He squeezed her closer then stood them still. "She's confused, Sam - that's all."
"She sounded pretty sure of her motives to me, and I'm getting damn sick of backing down from your crazy exes, having to understand and forgive everything, while you excuse their horrid behavior and let them get away with murder!" When he still wouldn't let go, she squeezed her hands to wriggle between them and push hard at him. "Let go of me, Jason - don't make me slug you too!"
Refusing to let her go, knowing Robin was no match for her and afraid she'd end the day in jail, or on the run from a murder charge, Jason moved his legs to walk her still tightly in his arms to the far corner and away from the melee.
"You're right…I take up for them. They get in over their heads, so I help where I can…but never again at the expense of you. All I care about is that this stops here and doesn't touch you and Danny! I'm not going to let you end up behind bars, when we can put a simple end to it all right now." He rested his head to the side of hers, trying desperately to soothe her. "Please just calm down."
Against her will, Sam could feel herself starting to calm, the presence of his arms surrounding her always effective in that respect, despite the anger she wanted to unleash to her heart's content…which made her suddenly angrier, pushing harder this time to break from his hold. Storming away from him, she fired in the direction of the doctor, ignoring the other occupants in the room that had grown increasingly smaller.
"Funny you're so pissed off at the rest of us when the man who swore he loved you more than anyone in this world and was equally clueless to your predicament, gets a pass! Jason, should've come for you? Where was your gallant surgeon? Where's your outrage that the so called love of your life didn't go scouring the globe, searching for you, long before I entered the picture? Your own mother, the superspy, bought some cockamamy story about you needing space, away from your daughter and your home, so soon after your first abduction - and you want to lay everything at our feet? Just what does it say that nobody went looking, huh?"
"Sam - stop!" She was flashing off his repeated attempts at holding her back and he could sense she was at her limit, even with him, but this wouldn't help.
"Stop what, Jason? Defending myself against this crazy bitch? Asking the tough questions? Telling her the truth? Why? Because she loved you once, so you'll defend her for life?" When her nostrils flared with the force of the anger in the throws of explosion, Sam willed herself down some. "You get one from me…" right index finger jerking hotly, she emphasized her words, "…ONE! Come near me or my family with your madness again and I'll rip your throat out, I swear it!" Without waiting to hear a response, she cut from hateful, biting eyes, flashing off Jason once more, in an abrupt exit from the stifling room.
Carly scoffed as she watched Sam storm out, then smacked Jason on the arm, "She's right - you keep standing up for these two, and I've never known what you see in either of them."
"What he sees in us?" Robin flared and straightened up fully, her longstanding dislike for the blond in full effect at the hypocrisy she remembered well. "What's he ever seen in you? Lying cheat who use the men you were calculating enough to latch onto to climb their backs, while lying on yours to get what they had! You used your mother's husband then tossed him out like yesterday's bathwater when you were done…you used AJ and his child to get his own brother to hate him…Jax was only good for as long as it took you to get his hotel and make Sonny jealous…and to this day you're using Jason and Sonny to make yourself seem important…so tell me, bitch…what do they see in you?"
"Someone who stuck around when the going got tough and put her ass where her mouth is…not run off to Paris or wherever, 'cause she couldn't take the heat she started in the kitchen!" This time Sonny couldn't stop her, as the incited anger pushed Carly forcibly past him to face the doctor, who wasn't backing down either. "Still perched on your high horse, dishing out judgements and punishments - only you still aren't shit! You weren't shit then, and you sure aren't shit now! You thought you owned Jason…'til you showed him your true colors and got bitched out about shit that had nothing to do with you! Even now - you're pissed because he didn't hunt your scent through memory loss to rescue you from your own damn trap. Who the hell told you to go anywhere with a crazy Cassadine by yourself anyway, huh? Mad, Jason didn't show the proper servitude for you going off to rescue him by your lonesome - like, who the hell asked you to?"
"My conscience, that's what! Ever heard of one? Because I'm pretty sure you've never met yours!"
"Robin, that's enough! Don't take it out on Carly because you're mad at me - focus on me…we can fix this."
"Really? Just how do you propose we do that?"
"Yes, Jason…" Carly couldn't wait to hear. "Pray tell how you plan to dial down crazy that's hellbent on destroying everything you love?"
"She's not going to do that! Right, Robin…this is over, right?" When she pursed her lips and stared him down, Jason shook his head at her stubbornness, "This isn't you - we both know that! You made your point - you made me see how I hurt you - maybe even took our friendship for granted a little bit…but this is over now. You'll send him back to where you found him and Sam and Danny will be left alone, you understand?" He knew his voice took on a hard line and as much as he didn't want to be that way with someone he owed so much to, if there was the slightest chance she would consider going after Sam again…
"I don't take orders from you, Jason." She knew it was all but over…they'd been found out and she would need to come up with a new plan to get what she wanted…but nobody would tell her to end it before she was damn well ready.
"No?" Getting annoyed now at how rigid she was being, Jason could feel the calm turning deadly when his voice fell to a whisper, "I will protect my family, same as you feel you need to protect yours. Do not make me have to!"
"Or what?" Feeling reckless and angry, she was goading what she knew was dangerous, but not caring enough to heed the inner caution egging at her insides. "What will you do - make me disappear again? Funny how that seems to have lost its edge with me. I guess you're left in captivity enough, it starts to become second nature! Do your worse, Jason - you don't begin to scare me!"
"Then you've gotten even more stupid in your absence!" Carly was right at Jason's shoulder, sneering at the woman she never could stand for more than a minute. "You threaten anyone in his family and he'll make you wish you'd stayed a prisoner - your dumb ass used to know enough to know that!"
Jason didn't relish threatening her, but he would protect his loved ones at all cost…just as he was certain she would too. "Your little girl still needs you, Robin! Emma doesn't deserve for you to be away from her any longer, while you're harboring a grudge and exacting vengeance against your friends. Don't do it for me, or for anyone here…do it for Emma! Think about your little girl!"
"Don't talk about her!"
When she spun her back to him and walked to the opposite end of the room to cross her arms across her body, he knew he'd hit possibly the only nerve left. "She's your reason for living, remember? I know better than anybody how much that little girl means to you, Robin…how long you prayed for her. Go home. Give this up and go home to Emma." He neared where she stood, then hesitated before adding a last, subtle warning, "We're all going to leave this here, and go home. If you don't…" he let his voice trail to make his point unmissable. "Go home, Robin." Then he too left the room to follow his own advise, needing to find his wife, who was right then somewhere angry and hurting.
Carly watched Jason leave then faced Sonny with a quizzical look, her hand raising in question. "He just left! Just like that - he's not going to do anything? He just left them!"
Sonny had been rubbing his jaw in thought, his head bent, one hand in a front pocket, while he'd listened and agreed with Jason.
"Why wouldn't he? He's right…it's over. Robin made a mistake…and now she's going to go be a mother to that sweet little girl waiting at home for her." He stared pointedly at the cold one returned his way, then finished addressing Carly. "We need to do the same. Come on, let's go."
"Sonny, we can't just leave! They should pay for…"
"For what, Carly? Nothing happened."
"How can you say that?"
"Because it's true. What happened? Some guy showed up, confused about who he was for awhile, saved my life, and as it turns out, he's been looking out for my little sister when I didn't even know she needed looking after." He gave her a look that weakened her rising objection, reaching an hand out to prod her gently towards the door, "Leave it alone. Let's go."
Knowing she was outnumbered had never meant to Carly she had to give in…now was no different. Following his lead, she huffed towards the door, warning the doctor as she left, "This is far from over!"
Stopping at the doorway, Sonny left parting words first to Robin, "It's done," both a promise and a warning to let sleeping dogs lie…though deep in the pit of his stomach he had a feeling they wouldn't. His eyes travelled to the bed's occupant, who was laying fully back against the pillows watching him warily. "You did good…by my little sister, and by me. When you're up to it, come see me. We need to talk about your longterm plans." Robin's scoff went unheeded as he left without looking at her again, praying that she would use the smarts he knew she possessed to leave things where they were, but feeling in his gut that they hadn't danced the last tango on that card. With a sigh, he pulled Carly with him from the room reeking of hatred.
