Her Present
Disclaimer: I do not own General Hospital. Carly and Jason are the property of ABC and Disney.
Summary: A night with Jerry Jacks brings up Carly's horrible past. Implied Carjax, Jarly.
"I have to go home. Jax and the boys must be worried sick. I didn't come home last night, and I skipped work today. I need to tell him what happened," Carly told him finally as she picked herself up off his couch. They had talked the night away, Jason trying to steer the conversation back to happier times whenever it went off track.
"Let me drive you home," Jason offers his best friend. Or at least he makes it seem like an offer; there is an edge of steel in his tone, and Carly knows he won't take "no" for an answer.
"Alright," she agrees. "Jason…can I ask you for a favor?"
"Anything," he promises her. He really means it. Jason would do anything right now just to see her smile.
"Do you think you can take Michael and Morgan for the night? Sonny is out with Kate, and I don't want to bother him. And Jax and I need to talk, but I don't want the boys to hear what happened. Morgan won't understand, but Michael will; he's a smart boy. And he's just been so angry lately, what with Leticia and Emily, and everything that's…" Carly began to babble. Jason could tell she was just nervous about talking to Jax, so he cut her off gently.
"I'll take the boys tonight," Jason tells her softly. "We'll do something fun. Grab a bite to eat, rent some movies. Maybe I'll ask Lulu and Spinelli to spend the night with us too."
"That would be great," Carly replies. Jason finally sees a smile from his best friend. Even though it's small and tentative, he knows it's the beginning of her recovery.
"Jase…?" Carly trails off. Jason knows that it means she wants something else but is afraid to ask.
"Yes, Carly?" he prompts her gently.
"Just, don't say anything about what I told you before, alright?" Carly asks him, a vulnerable look in her eye.
"You don't even have to ask," Jason swears to her. He does not know whether she is referring to Tom, the baby, Jerry, or anything else that has happened in her past, but Jason knows that he'd keep any secret she asked of him.
Jason would do anything to keep her safe and happy. Even if he had to lie, cheat, or kill to protect her.
"Thanks. You're the best," Carly tells him. She doesn't know where she would be without Jason.
She goes to the bathroom to fix herself up. Her makeup is a mess from crying, and she doesn't want the boys to get even more worried when they see her. As Carly straightens out her clothes and splashed water on her face, she looks in the mirror.
She no longer sees the beautiful image of a happily married and successful businesswoman that stared back at her yesterday morning. That image disappeared with Jerry's actions and her confessions to Jason. Instead, she sees the scared sixteen-year old that had to admit her actions to the woman she thought was her mother. Carly really hopes that the conversation with her husband goes a lot better than the one that led to the revelation of her adoption.
When Carly comes out of the bathroom, Jason is on the phone.
"Yes, I want it taken care of immediately," he orders whoever is on the other side. "Just do it." He disconnects and closes his cell phone as he turns to Carly.
"Ready?" Jason asks her. She doesn't know if he's asking if she's ready to leave or if she's ready to talk to Jax. Either way, the answer is "no."
"Sure," she tells him. He gives her a look telling her that he knows she's lying, but he won't press her. Jason has always been great like that. Unless it was really important, like life-threatening, Carly knew Jason would always give her the space she needed.
"Milo is driving us," Jason tells her as he opens the door and ushers her into the hallway.
"Okay," Carly asks. She's noticed that more guards have been around lately, but she doesn't ask why. She trusts Jason to keep her safe.
'Like he did last night?' a part of her mocks. She squashes the thought down, knowing that Jason can't be everywhere. He had no idea that Jerry presented a threat to her in that way.
The ride to the house is tense, with neither of them speaking. Jason can tell that Carly is anxious about telling Jax, and Carly is busy thinking about how she is going to break it to her husband.
She knows he's worried about her. She didn't come home the night before, and she slipped into the house only after she knew he had already left for work. When she didn't show up for work, but only left a message on his voicemail, Jax must have gone crazy.
The car stops. Neither Carly nor Jason move until Milo gets uncomfortable and reminds them that they've arrived at Carly's house.
"Come in with me?" Carly asks him softly. She's shaking, and he can see how scared she is.
"I would follow you anywhere if you let me," he tells her. Carly has had a lot of men say things like that to her. Jason is probably the only one who ever meant it.
She smiles at him awkwardly and leaves the car. As the two best friends slowly walk towards the house, the door bursts open. Jax is standing in the doorway like a parent waiting on a wayward child who stayed out after curfew.
"Where have you been, Carly?" he questions her immediately. "You've been gone since last night, and you haven't been home all day. Mercedes said you stopped in to get a change of clothes this morning, but you didn't even tell the boys that everything was alright. You had me worried sick." Jax's accent increases with his agitation as he scolds her.
"Hello to you too," Carly mutters under her breathe. She counts to ten before she says something that she will regret.
"Jax, we really need to talk," Carly manages to get out. She thinks it's a good start.
"Good," her husband replies. "Because I wasn't about to let you get out of it. What scheme are you working on this time?"
Carly is hurt that her husband immediately expects that she's been doing something wrong. She takes comfort in Jason's strong presence behind her and the knowledge that her best friend trusts her to only act in the best interests of herself and her family.
"I'm taking the boys for the night," Jason speaks up when Carly remains silent for too long. He can tell that she is upset by Jax's accusations, so he places a comforting hand on her back.
Jax turns away from the scene of Carly and Jason standing in the doorway of the house he shares with his wife. A stranger would think that Carly and Jason are the married couple, and Jax was the one who messed up. The two had always presented a united front to the outside world; Jax was disgusted every time he realized that he would always be considered part of the "outside world" in Jason's eyes, even though he was Carly's husband.
Not Jason.
Carly gives Jason a look of helplessness when Jax turns his back to them. As they walk into the house together, he softly whispers that everything will be okay. She believes him, because Carly knows that Jason will do anything he can to make that the truth.
"Michael! Morgan!" Carly calls to her boys upstairs. They thunder down the stairs when they realize that their mother is home.
"Mom!" Morgan calls to her as he gives her a hug. She picks him up and holds him close.
"How's my baby?" Carly asks as she chokes back her tears. She needed to keep it together for her boys.
"He's fine, Mom," Michael is the one who replies. "I helped Mercedes take good care of him."
"Thanks, Mr. Man," Carly tells her eldest. "You're a great big brother."
Michael nods to acknowledge his mother, and he takes in her appearance. Carly can tell that he's studying her, trying to find out what's wrong. She smiles when she realizes that his blue gaze is so much like his Uncle Jason's.
"Michael, how would you and Morgan feel about spending the night with me at the penthouse?" Jason asks the boy he once called his son. The boy he honestly still considered his son, if only in his heart.
Michael looked as if he wanted to protest, until he realized that his mother probably needed some alone time with Jax. He knows that something bad happened, but Michael is also smart enough to realize that his mom will never tell him what's wrong. She still treats him like a baby.
"I'd be cool with it," Michael simply responded. Jason could almost see the gears turning in the boy's head.
'Uh oh,' Jason thought. 'He must have a plan. Just like his mom.'
Jax turns around to face Carly, Jason, and the boys. If he didn't know better, he would think that they were one big happy family. Sometimes he resented Jason's presence in Carly's life. It hurt that she trusted and depended on another man before him, her husband. But whenever he brought up the topic, she looked at him like he was crazy and reminded him that he knew about her relationship with Jason before he married her.
"Why don't you boys go pack your pajamas and a change of clothes for tomorrow morning?" Jax manages as smile as he reminds Michael and Morgan that they need to get overnight bags together.
"Don't forget your toothbrushes!" Carly calls up to her boys as the run back up the stairs.
"What happened?" Jax questions again once he believes the boys are outside hearing range.
"We'll talk about it once Michael and Morgan leave with Jason," Carly promises her husband. She doesn't want Michael eavesdropping on their conversation.
"Fine," Jax agrees. He doesn't want to have a serious conversation with his wife while Jason is in the room anyway. He knows that Jason will "protect" her against any perceived threat, even if it is just constructive criticism coming from her husband.
"Thank you again for taking the boys," Carly tells Jason.
She has another reason for asking Jason to keep the boys overnight. She knows that her best friend is going to go after Jerry the first chance he gets, but Carly wants to tell her husband about what his brother did first. The boys will keep Jason preoccupied, if only for a night. It will give Carly enough time to have a serious conversation with Jax.
"It's no problem," Jason reminds her. "Besides, Spinelli and Lulu will help."
"Just don't let 'The Jackal' teach Michael how to hack into any restricted sites, okay?" Carly asks, half serious. "I don't want my son being arrested for breaking into any confidential government files, got it?"
"Got it," Jason agrees. "Besides, Spinelli would teach Michael how to not get caught. That's the most important part."
Carly was about to respond to that comment when Michael and Morgan came back downstairs.
"Alright, boys," she started, "You be good for your Uncle Jason, okay?"
"We'll be good, Mom," Michael promises.
"I'll be as good as Michael," Morgan agrees. Carly has to smile at how much her baby looked up to his older brother. She knew that being Morgan's role model definitely kept Michael from making a lot of bad decisions.
Or a lot more bad decisions, anyway.
"Put on your jackets, gloves, and scarves," Carly reminds them before they leave. "It's really cold outside."
"But Mom…" Michael whines. "Uncle Jason isn't wearing any gloves or scarves!"
"Well, Uncle Jason doesn't always listen to your Mom when he should," Carly teased her best friend. He just shrugged as he helped Morgan into his winter layers. He purposefully grabbed a pair of gloves for himself; when Michael saw that his "cool" Uncle Jason was actually listening, he sighed and complied with his mother's wishes.
"I'll see you tomorrow," Carly promised Michael and Morgan as she kissed them goodbye on the forehead. "We'll have a nice Sunday family dinner."
"You're not cooking, are you Mom?" Michael asked, horrified.
She just huffed and told him she was going to invite Mike, and he could cook. But not before giving her eldest son a look that said she didn't appreciate his comment.
"Can't blame the kid," Jason teased. "He's smart. He wants to live to be a teenager."
"Very funny, Jase," Carly said sarcastically. "You just don't appreciate my cooking skills."
"Burning frozen pizza in the oven is considered cooking now?" Jason mocked her lightly.
"I didn't know you had a sense of humor, Jason," Jax cut off their light banter. "Goodnight boys. I will see you in the morning." He showed Jason and the boys the door.
Jax closed and locked the door behind them after he saw Milo safely pull the car out of the driveway.
"Mind telling me where you were last night and all today?" Jax questioned his wife as he turned to face her.
Carly closed her eyes and braced herself for the coming conversation.
"One, two, three…ten," she muttered to herself softly, following her best friend's advice.
She opened her eyes to face Jax. The man she loved and married because he was supposed to make her happy and put her first. He was her present; her husband and her boys should be all she needed to pull her away from her past.
But Jason was a part of her past in a way that Jax and her sons could never be. And sometimes she just needed to be in the presence of her best friend to feel safe.
As she opened her mouth to tell Jax what Jerry had done and why she didn't come home the previous night, the room began to spin. The last thing Carly saw before everything went black was her husband diving to catch her from hitting the floor.
She thinks he was probably too late.
Jason wouldn't have been.