Forget Me Not

Finally finished this with substantial help from suerum. Ugh, a bit AU, but no overly so. Just pretend Franco wasn't around and you'll be fine. Characters aren't mine. Enjoy!

Chapter 2:

Jason woke the next morning to a strangely eerie silence in the penthouse. He knew it meant that Spinelli, the annoying whiz kid, had left, but somehow this knowledge did not make him more comfortable or content. He dragged himself through his typical morning routine of shower, dress, breakfast, and went downstairs only to find that the pills he'd trashed the day before had been rescued from the garbage can. Beside them, on the counter, sat a key – inscribed with 'Casa de Stone Cold & Jackal' and a note that had the information for where Spinelli would be staying. At the end was a hastily scrawled addendum.

'P.S. Please, if your headaches persist or intensify, consult Doctor Robin. Or take a dose of the prescribed medications, if you will. Your Jackal implores this simple request of you, Stone Cold.'

He shook his head at the audacity of such an insistence. Leaving the key, and the note, and the pills, he stormed out of the kitchen and decided he needed some time spent with familiar company.

***

Mike had been surprised by his request for a room above Kelly's, but after he had explained the exigent circumstances of his departure from Casa de Stone Cold, he had agreed easily enough. Upon getting settled in the small room, he headed down for breakfast.

It was then that he realized that his choice in hopefully temporary lodging was not a wise one. Nearly everybody he knew in Port Charles came to Kelly's. As it stood, now, at close to eight in the morning, Lulu was there, no doubt for purposes of visiting with Dominic, Elizabeth had Cameron and Jake with her, picking up breakfast, and Ethan was there, as well, also chatting with Dominic and Lulu.

There would be questions. Ones that he really didn't want to answer.

But it was none of Kelly's current occupants who first moved to interrogate him. It was Carly, with baby Josslyn in her arms. "Spinelli?" She said, approaching him before he could somehow move to evade her presence. "I heard Jason was in the ER last night. What's going on?"

He sighed, and stared into his scrambled egg breakfast. "Ah, Valkyrie Carly, Stone Cold received quite the bump to the head. He's fine, for the most part." He assured her, as he watched her jump to the most extreme conclusion. "He recalls Sonny, and Doctors Patrick and Robin, and likely young Josslyn, as well. The only thing he doesn't seem to remember is his history with the Jackal."

Carly frowned. "What do you mean?"

"From what Doctor Patrick told me, Jason remembers recent events, even events that the Ace of Cyberspace was involved in, such as the fire at General Hospital, but he does not remember my presence there, at all."

"And you're here, why? Shouldn't you be at home, trying to get him to remember you?"

Spinelli was frowning then, as well. "The Medically Inclined Ones advised me against doing anything that could result in stressing Stone Cold out, which includes attempting to pressure him into recalling any events." He shrugs. "He asked me to leave and I could not object. He's probably back at Sonny's as we speak."

Mike called her over for her order, but Carly returned to him to add, "If I run into him, I'll put in a good word for you."

Spinelli nodded in silent thanks – even though he knew full well that she was up to something – and watched her go.

***

Jason liked the normalcy, the routine, the distraction, that getting back to work provided him. Despite his raging headache, he'd headed out to the warehouses to check on their inventory, as per Sonny's orders. Max and Milo accompanied him – Jason suspected that this was under suggestion from Spinelli – but he didn't protest.

"Boss, you really don't remember him?" Max pressed, as he drove them out to the piers.

"Nope. Not at all." He replied, in his well-known stone cold manner. Sonny's words about the hacker filtered through his mind again and he added, "what's he like?"

"Ugh, well," Max paused, trying to work out how to best explain the complexities of Spinelli's personality in such a way as to not bore his Boss to death. "He's loyal to you. And he puts up with the fact that Sonny hates him for no reason at all. Before you got hurt, you relied on him-"

"A lot," Milo tossed in.

Max glared at his brother. "And you stood up for him on occasion, especially over the whole break-up with Maxie issue."

Jason frowned, utterly floored by that statement. "Maxie Jones? How'd he end up with her?"

"They bonded over Georgie's death, mostly, I think. He was the one to find her body, in the park, where he found you, too, I'm pretty sure." The body guard explained. "You were the best man at Spinelli and Maxie's almost-wedding."

He's even more shocked by this information. Sonny had made it seem as if he and Spinelli were mortal enemies or something equally un-personal. He'd been figuring that he kept Spinelli around for business and nothing else, but if what Max was claiming was true then there had to have been more to it. "Almost-wedding?" He questioned.

"They ended up deciding that they weren't ready to do that. Mac was overjoyed, in fact, he fainted."

They were almost at the warehouse, then, so Jason let the topic drop, silence falling between them. What he didn't tell them was that there's a flash of an image in his mind, of himself standing beside Spinelli and Maxie and Lulu at some church. Inexplicably, he was wearing a pink tie.

Johnny was set to meet them at the location and he was already there when the SUV pulled up. "Hey," He greeted, leading the way across Pier 52. "I just got started checking things out, but the area's cleared. Wasn't Spinelli supposed to come, too?"

"He's not coming." Jason informed Zacchara with a shrug. He expected question, but Johnny just nodded in response.

"Can't say I blame him. I'm not particularly fond of this place, either." Johnny glanced around, as if having cleared it himself hadn't put him at ease.

"I try to protect my family, not put them in the line of fire!" Jason heard the line echo in his head without explanation. Was he remembering something that had taken place here? Based on Johnny's cryptic statement he can figure that something did. Who was he trying to protect? Sonny? Michael or Morgan?

"Jason?"

He shook his head, forcing the confusing thoughts away from him for the time being. He had work to do. "I'm coming."

***

Spinelli headed over to the offices of McCall and Jackal in hopes of having something to take his mind off of the situation with Jason. Alas, as it turned out, his active caseload was all of zero which provided him no distraction at all.

Sam met him there anyway, though and she was talking to him before he even made it in the door. "I closed out the Douglas case this morning - I tried to call you about it, but you didn't answer at the Penthouse. Your cell went straight to voicemail."

"Ah, my most humble apologies then, it seems as though I forgot to charge my phone." He frowned, realizing he'd left the cable meant to do so back at Casa de Stone Cold. "How did the case go? I assume our client was happy to learn that his wife was not, in fact, being unfaithful?"

"Yup, he's taking her on a trip to Europe to make up for his suspicions, though I would suspect she doesn't know that part." She explained to him, handing him the check they'd received for their efforts. "We don't have anything to handle until that stakeout tomorrow night. How's Jason doing?"

"You heard?" He asked, surprised. While a good few people had heard of Jason's accident, he didn't know who she would have found out from.

However, his supposition was incorrect. "Heard what?"

Spinelli went on to explain the string of events that led up to Jason's isolated amnesia. "As a result of the unfortunate accident," He concluded, at the end of the explanation, "I'm currently residing above Kelly's."

Sam seemed just as startled by his words as everybody else had. "You're the only one?" She pressed him, looking confused and contemplative at the same time. "No one else?"

"So far as the Jackal has been informed, yes, I am the only one."

"You're sure it was an accident? Did… did he fall or something?"

It was then that Spinelli realized that he had no idea of how Jason had ended up unconscious in the rain on those damned concrete steps. "I… don't know." How had he not come to this same inquiry? It was basic, and the likelihood of his Stone Cold mentor simply falling and bashing his head open seemed a little too convenient for all that was going on. Jason had not simply been out for a stroll in the downpour, he had been on his way to a meeting over what to do about the Irish mob presence building in Port Charles. Someone in town had to have motive for wishing Stone Cold harm. "I will look into alternative possibilities post haste."

She nodded and headed for the door. "I'm supposed to go meet Kristina and Molly in a little while, but I'll look into it, too."

Spinelli hummed in acknowledgement, his fingers already flying over the keyboard at top speeds. "Perchance you are going to visit with Stone Cold as well?" He questioned, hoping that perhaps she could aid him in avoiding another anxiety-ridden encounter with his once-mentor over the locale of his phone charger.

"Nope." Sam answered surprisingly. "Jason and I split up, about two weeks ago, if he didn't tell you. If he remembers that, he won't want to see me, and if he doesn't remember that, I don't think I want to see him." With that, she ducked out of their offices and headed out, leaving a very confused and surprised Spinelli behind.

Perhaps the break-up had been the explanation behind Jason's odd and distant behavior prior to his head injury…

***

By nightfall, when Jason finally made his return to the penthouse, he was wishing that he'd never left that morning. His head was pounding – enough to force him into searching out one of the pills Spinelli had left him.

He downed the pill and a bottle of water along with it and made for the stairs with the intention of crashing for the night. He'd had meaningless bits and pieces of images and words flashing through his mind all day – bits of memories – and none of it made any sense to him. It had only succeeded in making his headache worse.

Jason had made it halfway up the steps when an impatient knock came at the door. Ignoring it seemed tempting, especially since he knew full well that the medicine he'd taken would knock him out pretty quickly, but with a sigh, he turned and crossed to the door.

"Maxie?"

"Relax." She glared at him. "I'm well aware that you hate my guts. I'm only here to thank Spinelli for helping me out at work yesterday. I brought him a restock of orange soda. I won't even come in if you don't want me to, but here." She forcefully offered him a case of Sunkist Orange and took a step back, as if waiting for the door to slam shut in her face.

"He's not here. He's staying at Kelly's." Jason informed her, even though he couldn't explain the sick feeling that took up root in his chest as he said it. "Take it to him there."

She just stared at him, though, making no move to reclaim the orange soda and do as he instructed. "Ugh, I'm sorry, I think I misheard you. Spinelli isn't living here?"

"No, I asked him to leave."

"You are kidding me, right? This is a joke because you're still mad at me over cheating on Spinelli again."

Jason sighed, leaned against the door frame, and then went on to explain yet again of his reasoning behind kicking his ex-roommate out of the penthouse. "It's not a joke. I don't remember anything about what went on with you and Spinelli."

Maxie looked more put off by this than anything else he'd said thus far. "How… how could you do that? If you've been in a room with Spinelli for more than thirty seconds, you have to have seen how much he cares about you. Hell, half of the arguments we had were about living here and working for you and how you were not the heartless mob boss that I thought you were."

He shook his head, once again pushing the invading thoughts concerning the hacker away. His head was swimming enough as it was with the pain meds taking their effect on him. "You should go." He declared, and urged her away from the door before pushing it shut a little more violently than was strictly necessary.

Too many thoughts, too many memories, too many conflicting opinions. He needed time to sort this out, but everyone seemed intent upon putting their two cents in on the issue. He needed sleep.

But even that didn't provide him with much of an escape. He dreamed of Spinelli, sick and delirious and rambling on with a terrifying amount of insight into the dynamics of his Stone Cold mentor's affiliation with Mr. Sir. Dreamed of confrontations between Spinelli and Sonny where Spinelli just stood by and took whatever harsh words Sonny had thrown at him, all while Jason watched on without so much as a word of protest. Dreamed of a phone call from Maxie telling him that Spinelli had been intentionally struck down by a car, seeing Spinelli in a hospital bed, hooked up to wires and machines, and then seeing himself violently attacking the thugs who had been responsible for the hit and run.

What Jason didn't know, however, was that these were not dreams, but memories.

***

Spinelli couldn't sleep. He tried, honestly, he tried for a long while, but he just couldn't. There was nothing familiar, or comforting about the room above Kelly's. So, with his insomnia taking charge, he booted up his laptop and returned to work on his hunt for the truth behind Stone Cold's head injury.

He'd already tried searching the scant few security cameras that had been installed following the untimely demise of Wise Georgie, but the storm had knocked them all out. Because of the weather, there were not any witnesses out and about, either, which provided Spinelli with little to go on.

It was sometime around four in the morning that he had an epiphany. Several of the storefronts just across from the park had partial views of the concrete steps that he so despised. Perchance, if they had not been similarly powered down, one of them had caught a glimpse of either the potential attack or the potential accident.

The first couple of storefronts he hacked into showed nothing but blackness and static from their power outages and downed wires, but there was a bar down one of the side-streets with a camera pointed toward the park. A very, very small portion of the frame showed the area in question, and he easily spotted Jason's leather jacket as it passed through that very small range. A second later, another figure crossed into it as well.

It was not an accident, then. There was no way the presence of a second person in such inclement conditions was a coincidence.

Spinelli froze the frames, which were time and dated stamped, and printed the two shots as his evidence. He saved a copy of the file on a zip drive as further proof, as well. Not that any of it mattered – proving how Jason had lost his memory would not suddenly bring Jason's memories of him back.

Even with such convincing verification of his theory firmly in hand, though, he found that sleep was still not coming to him. A glance at the clock told him it was much later, now, nearly seven, which meant that he could go and present his case.

Mike was already at work downstairs, and after polite greetings and a quickly answered request for coffee, Spinelli was out the door and on his way.

Upon Spinelli's arrival at Casa de Stone Cold, he found that no one was home, or at least no one was answering the door. And, since he no longer possessed the engraved key that Jason had returned to him after his escape to L.A., he had no other option but to try another potential locale. He'd have to go to Mr. Sir's…

***

Jason had only just managed to drag himself out of bed sometime just after seven. Under typical circumstances he would have been up, showered, and dressed by now. And well on his way to do whatever he had to for the day in regards to the business. But, today, he had no real intention of even leaving the penthouse.

While his skull was no longer attempting to pound and pulse its way out of his head, it still assailed him with a rather obnoxious dull throbbing that made him desire nothing more than to go back to bed.

As he stepped into the shower, he considered what he had learned of the one missing piece of his memory. Sonny had assured him, several times now, that Spinelli had been useless, a mere insignificant speck that they tolerated solely because he was good with computers. He was, however, the only person claiming this. Everyone else who he had spoken to on the matter seemed to disagree. They seemed utterly bewildered by Jason's actions toward the hacker. According to the claims he had heard they had been friends, close friends. He'd trusted Spinelli and relied on him. Jason's own slowly returning bits of memory corroborated this line of thinking rather than Sonny's.

He was still considering all of this when he finished his shower, when he got dressed, when he headed downstairs, and when he headed out the door with the determination that he'd come back with answers.

***

Sonny, as Spinelli had easily predicted, was not particularly thrilled to see him. While it wasn't as if the hacker had woken the mobster up, it was clearly not in Sonny's plans for the day to have to deal with any cyber ramblings at such an early hour.

"Mr. Sir, the Jackal apologizes profusely for daring to disturb you, but he comes bearing unflappable evidence of an attack against Stone Cold predicated in the not-so-picturesque park." He offered up the two photos he'd printed off from the security camera.

Sonny looked them over quickly, offering a hum of a dismissive nature as he tossed them back at Spinelli. "Whatever."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Sir, but if the assailant responsible is of the organization of the up and coming Irish, should something not be done to prevent further possible acts of violence?" Spinelli was decidedly confused. While he didn't necessarily want anyone to be harmed, he'd figured that Sonny would demand revenge on the one's who had attacked Jason. And yet he didn't seem to care at all.

The elder crossed to his desk and leaned back against it, with an icy glare aimed at Spinelli. "I know what you're trying to do, freak boy."

Spinelli faltered in the argument he'd been preparing to continue, his eyes falling to the floor. It was survival instinct, really, that made him take any insults that Sonny dished out. It had worked all through school – though bullies were far less intimidating than Mr. Sir. "The Jackal… doesn't understand Mr. Sir's meaning…"

Sonny was pacing now. Not a good thing. It was approximately the equivalent of a caged animal. "You're trying to convince Jason that you're actually good for something. So that he'll let you stay, so you can corrupt him against me again."

"The Jackal assures you that he is attempting nothing so vindictive as what Mr. Sir suggests. He is merely trying to ensure that Stone Cold is not at risk by any unforeseen enemies." The younger protested, voice wavering under the intense glower from Sonny.

"Yeah, right." He scoffed, advancing on the hacker. "Look," Sonny started, a finger pointing harshly at Spinelli, as if scolding a misbehaving puppy. "I still have no idea why Jason put up with you before, but now he doesn't either. You're not wanted here anymore, so why don't you just go back to whatever planet you came from. Stay there."

Spinelli shrunk into himself, making himself seem as small as possible – yet another defense mechanism that had proved effective in the Oakfield school systems. "I simply ask that you-"

He found himself cut off though, as Sonny shoved at him, forcing him into a wall. "You don't know when to shut up, do you? You didn't learn this lesson the last time? Just shut up." Sonny said, spinning him around, not the least bit concerned by his own actions nor by the fact that the front of Spinelli's head had bounced rather forcefully against the wall, his vision swimming. Just like last time, at Crimson. "Now, I'm not going to go after whoever attacked Jason. In fact, I'm not even going to tell him about it. You know why, freak boy? Because they did me the biggest favor ever. They got rid of you for me, and I didn't have to piss Jason off to do it. This couldn't have been more perfect." For good measure, he pulled Spinelli off the wall and shoved him back again, allowing his head to hit again, but nowhere near as hard as it had before. "You're worthless and nobody here wants you around."

***

Jason heard every word.

He had arrived at Sonny's just barely a moment after Spinelli had, he figured, and he'd paused just outside of the room to observe how Sonny acted towards the hacker. It hadn't been good. Sonny was dismissive and outright hostile towards him when all Spinelli was trying to do was help.

And then there had been the hard 'thunk' of Sonny's attack, coupled with comments that made it sound as if this kind of abuse was not unprecedented between the two of them. Sonny had pinned Spinelli just on the other side of the wall Jason had been leaning against, and so he heard every word that came out of his own mentor's mouth. He fought to stay hidden for just a moment longer, hoping to hear something that would prove that not everything he had told Jason of Spinelli had been an out and out lie, but the evidence never came. Just lies and threats and more abuse.

After the second loud 'thunk', Jason had had enough.

Upon stepping into the room, his first action was to pull Sonny off of Spinelli, which proved harder than he had anticipated. His second was, inexplicably, to put himself between them, the younger safely out of the elder's range.

Sonny, to his credit, had the decency to realize that he had been caught in a lie. But, it only lasted for a moment. "Jason," He said, still glaring at Spinelli, who was swaying on his feet. "The freak came over and started harassing me about you not remembering him. I was trying to knock some sense into his head."

Jason knew that this wasn't true – he'd heard all of their conversation and never once had Spinelli said anything that was remotely self-serving. "You were trying to knock something into his head, alright." He growled out, an arm wrapped around the hacker to keep him upright. "I'm taking Spinelli to the ER, and I don't want to hear from you again."

Sonny rolled his eyes. "Oh, don't be dramatic. You're not actually siding with the freak, are you?"

It took every ounce of self-control Jason possessed not to reach out and shove Sonny into a wall or two for his comments, as if there was some driving force compelling him to avenge the gross indecencies enacted against Spinelli. It was only the knowledge that Sonny might miss his own response that kept him from acting.

"We're done, Sonny. I trusted you to tell me what I needed to know when I came to you. I didn't remember Spinelli and instead of telling me the truth, you fed me a bunch of lies? You saw it as, what? A way to get a chance at a Spinelli-free future?" Jason shook his head. "I was the only one to forget – you still had all of Port Charles contradicting what you told me about him. You lied, and you're still lying about it now – I can't trust you anymore, and our business can't work if I don't trust you, so I'm out."

Leaving Sonny behind them – still seething and attempting to form a protest after this ultimate betrayal from his once-loyal enforcer – Jason led Spinelli out of the house to the SUV that he'd driven over in. "Come on, let's get your head checked out. Then, we'll head home."

"You mean Kelly's?" Spinelli mumbled out, still leaning against Jason as they walked.

"No, I mean home."