Chapter 6

"You desperate, stupid bitch!" Elizabeth heard the words right before she felt the blazing sting. As soon as she'd opened the door, Sam was on her, slapping her face so hard her ear started ringing. She grabbed her cheek and fell back in shock, staggering from the sudden blow. Realizing what had happened, she flared up and returned the slap, catching Sam almost off guard, but only almost. Before she knew what was happening Sam had backhanded the other side of her face. Startled and stinging from the power packed blows, Elizabeth looked up to see Sam advancing on her again, murder in her eyes. Frightened, fight or flight kicked in, propelling her to put the couch between them.

"Are you crazy?" she yelled, "you can't just barge into my home and attack me! Get out, before I call the police!"

Sam was storming around the couch towards her, angry energy jumping off her in waves, but the wary bitch would not stand still, running the opposite direction to get away from Sam. "Crazy is what you are, thinking that you were going to get away with keeping my husband away from me, keeping Danny's father out of his life." Sam stopped moving, looking at her now in puzzled anger, "you really thought you were going to get away with this, didn't you?"

Elizabeth was defiant, she felt justified in everything that she did for love. "Why shouldn't I have Jason, huh? You, Carly, everybody had moved on, you had somebody and you all were happy and living your lives just fine without him. I had no-one! He loved me. After everything that you all have done, why did you get to be happy and I didn't? I deserved to have him!" They didn't deserve to have Jason, he was too good for all of them.

Sam couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Moved on? Living fine without him? You have no idea what Jason and I shared! You have no idea what I went through when I thought he was dead, what his mother, his family, what we all went through having to go on without him! You think you deserved to have him - listen to how pathetic you sound, you fucking lunatic!" She moved toward her again but Elizabeth scurried to the far end of the couch. "Jason is a man, Elizabeth! He's not a toy for the taking, not a mindless object to be passed around for who thinks they deserved him."

Why couldn't they just move on and leave her and Jason alone? He married her and they were so happy in their little sanctuary, away from all the hyenas. "You never loved Jason. He was nothing but your biggest score and a trophy to lord over me, admit it! You just can't stand that he lost his memory and me and my son were the only people he thought of. It killed you that it was me that he chose, me that he remembered, you know now that it's me that he really loves, and you just can't take it!" She wasn't about to let Sam get the upper hand, she would fight for her husband, she'd never let him go again.

Sam stopped moving again and leant back at her words, her head dropping to the side as if to ask, was she serious? "They never should've let your luny ass out of Ferncliff! Loves you, chose you? If you were so confident in his love for you, why not tell him the truth, like a real woman would have? Why not tell him who he was, tell him all about the great and wondrous love that you've shared for years, and watch him choose you? You had his ear at the time, you could have spun any tale you wanted about your great past and he wouldn't have known any different." Sam was getting livid again. "You know why you didn't do any of that? Because you have never been woman enough to keep him, and you know it! You have never been able to make him stay, and look, Elizabeth, where is he now? You lied, you schemed, you sold your soul to the devil to get my husband in your bed and he upped and left your ridiculous ass the minute he wised up to you. You knew from the start that the moment he knew who he was, knew the first thing about his life, who he loved, you would lose…again, and that's why you kept the truth from him!"

As usual, she didn't know what she was talking about, Jason loved her and he would remember that really soon. "Jason will be back. He just needs a little time to calm down and then he'll see that what I did was because I love him so much. Jason always forgives me, he always comes back." She didn't resist the ultimate knife twister, "when he found out who he was he divorced your whoring butt and married me! Me!" She pointed at her non-existent chest for emphasis.

Sam shook her head in disbelief and pity, putting her hands on her hips as if to address a child. "You'd had seven months to convince him that he was a completely different person, seven months in which you isolated him from his family so you could mold him into the version of Jason that suits your perfect, pristine, little world. Problem is sweetie, it takes a real woman to handle Jason Morgan, and you're finding out once again, that you fall miserably short of that very tall order."

"Jason wants to be with me and my son, he always wanted to be a family with us, until you trapped him with your spawn."

The jab at her son ignited Sam's fury to an inferno, and in a second she was jumping on the couching and leaping over the back to grab a startled Elizabeth by the hair as she tried to flee. Sending her crashing into the wall behind them, Sam spat out, "you intended for Jason never to know that Danny was his son, you deliberately kept my son and his father apart, you needy bitch!" She should've stayed up against wall, because the minute she stepped away from it Sam's fist connected with her eye, sending her head crashing back into the wall, instant pain and blurred vision her reward. Elizabeth flailed her arms, connecting a wild slap against Sam's head, and in the next instant Sam had her on the floor, slapping her silly.

"Sam, oh my God, what are you doing?" Sam felt strong arms lift her off Elizabeth, but still she clung to a fistful of the woman's hair, pulling her with her as she was being lifted, kicking to get loose. When strength that outweighed hers pulled them apart Sam sent one final kick in her direction, catching the bitch right in the kneecap. "Let go of me, get off me!" Her fury was raging still.

"Sam, stop this!" She felt herself being dragged to the other corner of the room, and only then did she realize that it was Dante Falconari who had pulled her off, his shock at seeing them fighting evident as he turned her to face him, asking her to calm down. "What are you doing, what's all this about?"

"Arrest her, Dante! She broke into my home and assaulted me, I want her arrested!" Elizabeth held the back of her head as she pointed at Sam with the other hand, shakily leaning against her couch, yelling for bloody murder.

Dante looked from the obviously battered woman to a seething Sam, and shaking his head, he said, "Sam, I have to place you under arrest, you know that right?"

"You better lock me up, Dante, because if you don't I'll kill this bitch with my bare hands."

"Ookay, too much information. Samantha Morgan, you are under arrest for the assault of Elizabeth Webber, you have…". He was interrupted as Elizabeth shouted, "Elizabeth Morgan!"

Sam scoffed audibly and Dante looked at Elizabeth questioningly as she continued, "it's, Elizabeth Morgan, and that's why this insane woman broke into my husband and my home and attacked me, because she's jealous and bitter!"

"What's the point of throwing out the name when you can't keep the man? Learn to make him stay with you, make him want to stay with you, then you can talk to me. And just so we're clear, this beatdown right here and each time I kick your ass after this, is about my son and the fact that you tried to keep his father from him. You and I are far from done, BITCH."

"Sam, please, you can't say things like that in front of a police officer," Dante said quietly.

"You heard her Dante, she just threatened me, you're my witness!"

Dante shook his head as he led Sam from the house by her arm, wondering why he had to be the one to answer this noise disturbance call tonight. As they exited, Sam yelled a parting barb, "what the hell kind of woman doesn't want a man to freely choose her? If you have to trick a man to keep him, Elizabeth, you're no kind of woman!"

"Sam, please, let's just get to the station so you can call someone to bail you out." Dante found himself marveling once again at the pull of Jason Morgan. For some reason, otherwise sane and rational women in this town seemed to lose their minds when it came on to the former enforcer. How he had all these beautiful women constantly at each others throats all the time had always been a mystery. The detective shook his head as he helped Sam into the back of the unmarked police car, guiding her so she wouldn't bump her head against the top of the door.

Sam got in the back of the car and sat silently on the entire ride to the PCPD. She had gotten out a fraction of the anger that she was feeling but the rapid shaking of her leg proved there was so much more to be released. As much as she wasn't looking forward to having to explain the night's events to her mother, she was quite anxious to get her phone call so her mom could bail her out, as she had one more battle to wage, albeit an emotional one.

***The next morning***

Elizabeth came home from the market to what she thought was a most pleasant surprise, until she was met with the coldness that had taken root between them. Jason was sitting on the stairs, watching the door as she came through. She rushed toward him, excitement taking her over, only to halt in her tracks when his icy blue eyes scanned her coldly. He was in no mood to face the woman but he needed to be there.

"Jason, you're home." Her heart skipped a beat and she sent up a prayer of thanks in her glee. Jason had returned and he was obviously waiting for her. Finally, they could talk things through and she'd get her chance to make him understand her actions. She knew without a doubt that he would be back and he would let her explain, as he always had. Everything she'd done was to protect their love.

Jason didn't so much as acknowledge her assumptions. "Pickup the phone, call the PCPD and drop the charges against Sam!"

The true purpose for his presence there smacked her like a wet hand. "Why would you ask me to do that? She broke into our home. Look what she did to me!" She removed her shades and pointed to the new shiner she was sporting, going on to tell him why her head and knee were still throbbing and why she was achy all over. "She deserves to be locked up!"

"And what do you deserve? What do you deserve for playing with our lives for months, for taking what you wanted at our expense, for keeping me from my son? Tell me, what do you deserve to happen to you?"

He didn't seem to care in the least that she had been hurt by that vapid woman. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously and a cold chill ran down her spine as his icy words rained over her heart. Would he actually hurt her, she wondered? He repeated his demand.

"Pickup that phone and drop the charges against my wife, now!"

"I'm your wife! We made commitments to each other, Jason. We exchanged vows before God and our family, you can't just act like that never happened."

He approached her slowly, like a predator sizing up its prey, daunting in his quiet fury. "Your plots and your schemes got you my name, Elizabeth. Every promise I ever made you was based on a lie and a farce, you saw to that. The love that I thought I felt for you was as real as the person that you've presented to me for months now." He would make damn sure she heard him this time. "It's becoming more and more obvious that my heart and soul have belonged to Samantha Morgan since the day she told me she loved me too, and she's the only woman I'll ever consider to be my wife. The way I feel about her is evident in every memory I've had of her, what I felt for the you that I built in my head didn't even skim the surface of what I feel for Sam." He was through with the games, "now I'm not going to ask you again."

"You've been remembering?" Instead of answering he stepped toward her and she knew he was serious. The way he looked at her chilled through to her soul, and she realized in that moment that Sam probably felt the same way when he'd threatened her life. She picked up the phone from the sofa table and made the call, telling the desk Sargent that she needed to speak to the Commissioner urgently, and in minutes she had Mac Scorpio on the phone. She relayed to Mac that she would not pursue any charges against Sam. She told him that she had been mistaken in her claim, that she got her bruises from clumsily falling down the stairs, had hit her head and blocked out and didn't realize when she came to that Sam was just trying to help her. She added that Sam was in her home by her invitation, something else that she had forgotten until now.

After lecturing her on the severity and the consequences for filing false claims to the police, Mac assured her that all charges would be dropped.

She turned to Jason to see he was looking at her with disgust. "I guess I shouldn't be the least bit surprised by how well you lie, but I am simply floored. How did I not know this side of you?"

"Everybody lies, Jason, your precious Sam is a pro at it, even made a living doing it."

"Yes, after Hayden was shot Sam told me all about her cons, I know all about that time in her life, but you, Elizabeth, you had me believing that you didn't even know how to tell a little white lie. Have I always been this gullible when it comes to you?"

Her head shot up at his insults. "You've always loved and supported me, Jason. We've been friends for almost twenty years and you've never treated me this way. This is all Sam's fault, she somehow convinced you to turn against the woman you love, you've never been this hateful, this cruel to me. This is not like you."

He laughed at her then, but there was no mirth in the sound. "Then I've always been a damn fool for you, haven't I? If I've never seen any indication of this side of you, hurt Sam and let you get between us with this bullshit, then my brain damage has affected me worse than I knew." He turned for the door, done with her, done with her silly games and her ulterior motives, done for good.

"Oh, and Elizabeth…" he paused effectively, one hand on the door, not even turning to look at her again, "Sam, has always been the woman that I love." He walked out the door without another glance in her direction, not noticing how she crumbled to the floor in distress, heavy sobs wracking her body.