Chapter 5

"Jason?"

Jason turned around slowly, beer midair, to see a hotblooded man's living, breathing wet dream. Sam was standing in the kitchen doorway with one hand on the light switch and the other holding a nine millimeter pointed straight at his chest and for a minute his surprise at her being there was enormously outweighed by the picture she presented. All he could see was one hot, raven haired beauty in black yoga pants and grey tank, gun aimed, cocked to the ready, looking like she just stepped out of a dual photo shoot for Sports Illustrated and Guns & Ammo. Damn, his wife was hot.

"Jason, what are you doing?"

Not my wife, not my wife, he made his brain chant the sad reminder. He finally recalled his motor skills again and lowered the bottle, and with his mouth no longer agape was able to swallow, hard. "I'm, huh, having a beer." He lifted the bottle as evidence and was starting to wonder if she'd forgotten that she still had the gun pointed at him, when she finally lowered it to her side, a puzzled expression still evident on her face.

"How lovely for you, but why are you having it here?" Sam wasn't in the mood to be the least bit welcoming and she knew he picked up on it when he sounded a little bit hurt in his reply, "I thought the penthouse was empty."

"Well, it isn't!" She turned away from him and walked back into the living room, placing the gun on the coffee table before plopping down on the couch. "Next time try going to see Coleman, or even your best friend - the MetroCourt does have a bar, remember you used to work there?"

Jason followed her to the living room and sat in the chair opposite her, not daring to go too close having sensed that she'd thought about pulling the trigger earlier. "I'm sorry, I should have realized that you'd move back in here but for some reason I thought you and Danny would be staying with your mom for awhile."

"Yeah, well, that was ideal when I needed a minute to regroup. Let's just say that I'm me again so, minute over." She readjusted her position on the couch to pull her legs beneath her, running her hand through her long dark hair. "But I'm more interested in this new development at the moment. Why is Port Charles' latest newlywed slumming at his old pad, guzzling ale…trouble in paradise already?" Sam wouldn't hide the snide dripping from each word.

Jason's anger ignited again, thinking of all the months he spent being lied to, defending the person he trusted the most who he thought was his personal guardian angel. A picture of Elizabeth's face came to his mind, the always innocent smile that she used to cover the hateful lies that she lived, mocking him.

He rose from the chair and swallowed off the rest of the beer, moving towards the kitchen as he said, "mind if I grab another, you want one?"

Sam didn't answer. She noted how crushed and sad he looked and deep inside she knew instantly that he now knew the truth too, and just for a second, just for one minuscule, negligible second, the part of her that lived to nurture and protect him started to emerge, right before her new anger stomped it on its way out. It had always been her first instinct…if Jason was hurt, she'd make it better. If Jason called, she'd come running. Whatever Jason needed, she would be that for him and then some - but that was before. That was before he hurt her heart, yet again. However unintentionally, once again he had left her in tears, feeling like second best to his sainted, could-do-no-wrong, halo-wearing Elizabeth. No, she had no more tears to shed for that trainwreck. She had no more sympathy to give at that graveyard. He'd made his whiny bed, he could lie in it.

She watched as he came back into view, two beers in hand this time, holding one out to her as he came to stand in front of the couch. When she didn't take it from him, but just sat there looking him in the eye, the seething anger in hers told him to start talking.

Jason laid the beer down in front of Sam on the coffee table and sighed. She wasn't going to make this easy and he'd suspected as much. He sat back down in his previously vacated chair and looked her in the eye again. "Go ahead, you can say it."

He'd barely gotten the words out when he heard "I told you so!"

He was a little taken aback, didn't think she would really say it, but the defiance in her eyes told him that she had more that she intended to say. "I suppose I deserve that," his voice droned as he looked down at the beer in his hands and he realized that shame was what he was most prominently feeling in that moment. He felt shame for allowing himself to be duped so completely, and felt immense shame for the miserable way he'd unintentionally treated his wife and child because of that duplicity. He was ashamed that he hadn't fought harder to know more about his past and his family, literally running away from himself, and he knew that the fallout was far from over.

"When did she find out?" Sam needed to know.

"At the Nurses Ball." His shame was compounding by the minute.

Sam couldn't sit still anymore. A bound of energy lifted her from the couch to send her pacing the dining room floor. "That was seven months ago." She stormed over to him, "she's known who you were for seven months?"

Jason could only nod his head, watching the fire burn in her brown eyes as the fury came to a boil.

"That sanctimonious, conniving, deceitful, little bitch!" Sam took a stunned step back as she studied the man sitting before her, her head about to explode, an anger so intense working its way through her veins. "She knew you were alive, living right here among us, interacting with your family, your children, and she said nothing?"

Jason didn't know how to best handle the situation. He could see the anger rising in her and without meaning to, his gaze drifted to the gun still on the coffee table, wondering for a second if he should make a move to unload it. Shaking off the thought he turned his gaze back to Sam, who had started pacing again. She came back to stop in front of him.

"Why, Jason? Why would she do this?"

Jason rose and took Sam by both arms, trying to calm her down. Sam flashed him off and stepped away from him, as much because of her raging anger as the acute discomfort his closeness brought her. "Don't. Don't you dare defend her actions to me or I swear I will shoot you again."

"I'm not, Sam. I would never defend what she d…" His eyebrows lifted in query just before he glanced at the gun, then back at Sam. "What do you mean again - you've shot me before?"

"Yes, and I'll shoot you again right now if you don't tell me that this is a damn joke!"

…I can't believe you shot me!

you told me to take the shot.

But I didn't think you'd actually do it.

…It's not my fault that I shot you.

Jason looked at Sam now, incredulity mired in admiration and desire coursing through him, "you shot me!"

Something in his tone told her that he was remembering the incident at the lockdown of the hospital, but Sam was beyond Jason's memories in that moment. She had bigger fish to fry and he wasn't providing the fat, but she knew where to get it. She stormed past Jason and grabbed her leather jacket from the back of the chair and her keys off the desk. "Don't leave my baby alone, I'll be back in a minute."

She was almost out the door before Jason pulled himself from his memory infused stupor and realized what she was doing. "Sam, where are you going? Sam…" but it was no use, she was out the door, and he knew exactly where she was headed. He almost felt sorry for Elizabeth, but opted instead to call Diane and tell her to get ready to drop by the police station sometime tonight to post bail for his wife. "Not my wife, not my wife." The words played in his mind for the second time that night, but his beating heart told him that she had never really stopped being just that…his wife, Samantha Morgan. Fiercely protective, independently head strong, unwaveringly loyal spitfire, Samantha Morgan. Elizabeth was in for a world of hurt.