She couldn't move. The tremor of his voice, rich with emotion and depth…the electric charge from his presence moving closer and closer to her…the fullness from the heart beating through her chest!

"Sam."

He was standing so close she could feel live static at her back pulling from his chest, as she struggled to find her voice, unable to move, unable to make herself turn around to find he wasn't there…even more afraid that he really was.

She felt his forehead press to the back of her head, erasing any lingering doubt. He was right there.

"How could you leave me?"

The pained whisper caressed her ears, sending a riveting shiver all up and through her. Desperate tears were streaking a trail down her face, racing to disappear into the neck of his t-shirt she wore draping her body like a blanket, and Sam knew she was in so much trouble. The feel of his labored breath fell warm upon her neck, before she turned to face the man she wanted forever. His head lifted at her movements and troubled, hurt, sad blue eyes bore into her as she took in everything about him.

Strong arms shoved uncertain hands into the front pockets of his jeans, as though he distrusted what they would do, even as she read the eyes that said he wanted so much to hold her. The beautiful sight of him thrilled…solid and chiseled, clad in his favorite blue jeans and navy t-shirt, even as the outline of the bandages beneath made Sam cringe at the physical pain she knew he was ignoring.

"Jason…you're in no condition to fly - you should be home in bed!"

He shook his head, his voice still low when he told her, "Not without you!" His eyes questioned, as his voice repeated the query, "Why did you leave?"

Sam looked down past where her arms had fallen to cross her body, to where his t-shirt landed just above her knees, on down to bare toes that balanced the weight from shifting feet as she finally answered, "For you…I told you in my letter."

"Daddy!"

Danny crossed the hall to his parents, the sound of his voice causing them both to turn and look at his sleepy approach.

"Hey, Buddy! What are you doing up?" Jason made his way to pick his son up and hug him in a warm hello, close to his chest.

"I got thirsty."

"You did? Let's get you some water."

Sam walked slowly behind them and watched father and son move towards the kitchen.

"I'm glad you're here, Daddy. We can go swimming."

"That sounds great. Are you watching out for our girls?"

"Mmhm. That's what Morgan men do."

"That's right, Buddy. We have to make sure they're happy and safe - thanks for taking care of them while I was sick. Let's get you back to bed."

Danny nodded then finished his drink and handed the glass back to Jason, who stroked his hair and placed it on the counter.

Sam watched them go, Jason swinging Danny back into this arms where his son laid his head on his shoulder and hugged his neck tightly.

"Are you all better now, Daddy?" She listened as their voices trailed.

"I'm on my way, and you know what will get me completely there?"

"What?"

"You, your mommy and Scout. You're the best medicine in the world."

Sam waited impatiently, pacing the living room with a nervous energy, and dreading the talk she knew they were about to have, but knowing that it was inevitable. She hadn't planned it this way, hadn't envisioned him finding them so soon much less commanding a face off before she was ready…but maybe she'd have better luck convincing him this was the right decision for everybody…face to face. She had to. She had to save him.

She turned at the sound of quiet footsteps leaving Danny's room and watched him pull the door closed.

"He misses you. They both do."

Jason nodded as he came to stop in front of her, tired eyes searching for something in hers. "Do you?"

When he closed the space between them, Sam hurriedly took a seat in the small armchair, drawing her legs up to wrap them beneath his oversized t-shirt that she wore like a shield. Of course she missed him! Every second of every minute he wasn't breathing the same air right next to her was torture to her soul. It was the very reason she'd swiped his tee that still held his scent, knowing she'd crave his essence the minute she left.

"That was a long flight - you were supposed to go straight home your first day out of the hospital. Please sit down. How do you feel?"

He took the opposite chair, staring deep into her, his next words completely ignoring her question. "Tell me."

"I did."

"Tell me the real reason. You have to know that my life makes no sense without you in it, so tell me why you would leave."

His unflinching gaze was making her restless and unnerved, sending her eyes to lock on imaginary lint she picked earnestly from the black cotton covering her knees.

"I keep hurting you, don't you see that? How many times have I left your life hanging by a thread, because I've made the wrong decisions for you, or for us?" The lint seemed to multiply, prompting her to pick with a furor. "I'm no good for you, Jason…I finally see that. You were just shot, because of me!"

"You're the best thing that's ever happened to me - why would you even doubt that?" The things she was saying made no connection for him.

"For a really long time, I was convinced that we were unbreakable, unstoppable together…but I see now that's not true…I've broken you again and again, Jason."

"What? Sam, you've held me together and picked up the pieces of my life more often than I can count. What's going on, why have you lost faith in us?"

"Faith. Faith hasn't exactly kept you safe from my mistakes."

"This is so unlike you! You don't believe in us anymore? Why, Sam?" These words were not coming from his fearless Phoenix!

"You're always having to save my life, at the expense of risking your own!"

His voice was soft and he sounded so confused and lost, his face contorting in confusion, "So I should've just stood there and let that bastard shoot you? I would've taken a dozen bullets for you, Sam!"

"You shouldn't have to - that's my point! Jason, there was a time when I would've had the drop on that fool long before he even knew what hit him - not run headfirst in there like a crazy person!" A troubled hand braced her chest where her heart was pounding, screaming at her breast as it shattered in pieces. "I didn't have your back…and it's because I've allowed my mind to be eaten up by fear and worry…I am no use to you like this! I'm no good for you, and definitely not what you need!"

"Please stop talking like that. You have, and will always be everything I need!" When the doubt that roared in her eyes stabbed at his heart, he sought another way to make her hear.

"You've been ill, Sam - you had our daughter in extreme conditions that many women would not have survived, much less come through strong and fighting with everything, like you did. You didn't make yourself ill…somebody else put you at the foot of that bridge and left you there."

"My illness is not to blame for me freezing up and being a liability, rather than a help to you, when you needed me."

"I'm not so sure about that, baby. You're still recovering - you started pushing yourself before you even got released from the hospital - I don't think you're completely healed yet, Sam."

"You're not listening, my love. I won't let you get hurt again…you deserve a life without the stress and the pain I continue to bring you. You've had to clean up after me, again and again…you've had to protect me, time after time…and it never seems to end. I will not allow myself to keep putting you through this. It has to stop, Jason. I have to stop it."

"By leaving me? Don't you see that's the one way to kill me, Sam? What makes you think I'd last a day without you - without our family? What reason would I have left?"

"Jake. His mother. The life you had before - the one you would have now, if not for me. You can be happy without me, we've both seen that." Her voice trailed off into quiet silence when her own words stabbed through her heart at the picture conjured of him with another.

"What we've seen was me living a life where I didn't know us!" He grabbed her hand and slapped it over his heart, knowing she could feel the resounding thumping from his chest. "Where I didn't know THIS!" He gripped her tight, and when she moved to pull her hand back from the electric shock that tingled all through her, he held fast and bent his head in search of her watery eyes. "What we've seen is how, any happiness without you could only come from me not knowing a damn thing about us and who we are to each other. Farce and lies and falsehoods, is what it took for me to be able to live without you…and we've come far, far past that now! There's no going back for me…not after you…not ever after you!"

Tears stung her eyes as his words scorched her heart. He wasn't listening to her. She was trying with everything needed to save him, to push him away from her dangerous heat, but he refused to listen. Why must he insist on being burnt?

"Jason."

Her broken sobs were breaking his heart and he needed to wade through the fog of her cloudy mind until he reached her! He would not stop until he reached her! That she could think he'd take a single step without her ever again was something he needed to clear up right and quick…because his baby was floundering in grief and withering pain. She was in trouble. She'd forgotten who they were to each other - who they were always meant to be together. He couldn't let her.

"Do you remember our wedding vows?"

It took her a minute to quiet the sniffles and regulate panting breaths that caught at the feel of his velvet touch, when he caressed the tears from her drowning cheeks. "I've never taken anything more seriously!"

"Good! Because, neither have I! We promised to be each other's stay in sickness and in health…and you've held me through that and more, Sam…with every ugly thing I've had to face in my uncertain life - even before we took those vows - you were always there!"

"Your pain was often my fault, Jason!"

His head shook with the strength of his objection. "How were any of my brain ailments your fault? Or when I got shot by other people and left for dead?"

Sniffling, she raised watery eyes to search his handsome face. "You have selective memory, my love! Remember when Reece shot you, because you tried to protect me… if it wasn't for your mother, you would've bled to death in that safehouse. That was my fault…you went up against your best friend and had to place yourself between me and their guns, because I had the bad judgment to break into his house to steal from him, and ended up getting blamed for kidnapping his daughter."

"I was right to protect you - you didn't take Kristina! Why are we talking about an overzealous, foolish woman who had no business holding a badge, much less a gun? And Sonny should've known better than to accuse you. He knew you, he should've known not to believe appearances…and while you remember me almost dying in that safehouse, I recall you risking your freedom to go get Monica to help me."

"Stop trying to make me feel better - you can't hide from the facts anymore than I can and the fact is, I keep hurting you…and it needs to stop. Everytime I don't listen to you I put you in danger. When Ric had me locked up on false charges you told me to wait - you'd get a lawyer and get me out, but did I? I broke out and ran, and of course you came after me…and of course ended up shot, trying to protect me - again! I thought you were dead when you fell from that railing into the water…and since then I've gotten you hurt time and time again! We need to face that I haven't been good for your life, Jason! I pushed you to go with Sonny to that meeting…just like I pushed you to go to Bernie that night that left you with a bullet in your back! I can't seem to leave well enough alone, and every decision I encourage you to make leaves you fighting for your life - can't you see that? I don't make anything better for you, and I can't keep this up when I know I'm going to end up getting you killed!"

Jason was starting to realize how heavy the weight was that she was lugging. She'd gone way back in their history to find things in their life to blame herself for, and he couldn't understand for the life of him, why she would, when for every instance that she was carrying around like an anchor, he could name fifty where she had saved him.

"Have you always been feeling like this?"

No, this had to be a remnant of the Toxo wreaking havoc on her system. When she hung her head and went silent again, he fought to reach her.

"Sam, everytime you encourage me to be myself and to follow my instincts, you show me that you know me better than anyone. I don't know if you've noticed, but trouble just seems to find me, and it was that way long before the best thing in my life walked into that interrogation room. The difference is baby, since then I've had somebody in my corner in ways I didn't know possible before you…holding me up, defending me, loving me like I matter!" He bent his head to capture and lock eyes with her, making sure she caught the full extent of his plea. "You see me, Sam! You see ME!" His grip tightened on her hands. "If you really believe that you haven't been good for my life, baby you haven't been paying attention! I've never known anything like the way you love me, or fight for me! You're fighting for me right now, but this is one time I need to make sure that you lose."

"Jason, please…you have to listen to me."

"No - you listen to me. I could never leave you, Sam…and I'm failing at my job of being your husband, if I've made you feel like you need to leave me." He brushed the loch of hair that was forever falling in her eyes. "I need you. I need those beautiful brown eyes that look at me like I'm superman." His eyes fell to the base of her neck, pulling his fingers to brush it lithely. "I need the pulse that beat right here, constantly in sync with my own." The same hand travelled over her collar bone and across her chest to rest over her heart. "I need every beat that pumps through your veins and breathes life into me." Her arms felt tiny as he stroked his way down each one, gliding over the pimples evoked by his touch. "These arms that hold me, surround me with a love like nothing else I've ever known. I need the way you love me, Sam…only you give me that. Only you."

When her tears threatened to incite his own, he cleared his throat and forged on, fighting for his life.

"Remember our honeymoon?" When her look said, come on - like I could ever forget, he continued, "Do you know what the best part was?"

The tiny, encouraging smirk of her lip gave him life. "Making Danny?"

The flashbacks brought a small smirk to lift a corner of Jason's mouth, despite the fact he couldn't be more serious. "Okay, the second best part?" When she shrugged, he told her, "Just you and me! You had the idea that we should go on our honeymoon and just forget to go back home, do you remember that?"

"Yah - and you wisely reminded me why we couldn't do that."

With all the sincerity in the world, he shook his head in disbelief. "Yet, now, six years, two phenomenal kids, and a life spent mostly apart - to suit other people's agendas - and I can't for anything, remember why!"

"Why what?"

"Why we didn't just do it! Why we didn't just stay! Sam, our lives took on other people's issues even before we got home. We didn't even make it to our first wedding anniversary - because of other people's bullshit! And years later, we're still dealing with other people's crap that kept getting in the way of us and what we built. We can stop, Sam. We can take our lives back from other people, right now!"

Without realizing it, she had stopped breathing, waiting with breathless anticipation for his next words, robbing her of any of her own. Given her astonishment at how much her usually quiet, soft spoken and often nonverbal husband had to say tonight, Sam found herself hanging on each blissful word.

"Let's stay right here! We have everything we need, asleep in that room over there. We don't ever need to leave, ever again!"

A soft cry from the room turned both their heads.

"She's been fussy all day. Danny got her to quiet down and fall asleep earlier but I think she really misses you."

"I miss her too. I need you guys more than you'll ever know."

Their daughter's cry sounded again and Jason moved from where he'd knelt before Sam to make his way to her room. Soon, Sam heard only the soft sounds of bonding father and daughter and she got up so she could get a peek at the sight she'd treasured for so long. Jason Morgan with a baby in his arms was still the most beautiful sight in the world, and that it was their baby, created by their love, in a life they'd chosen to forge together, was more than her scarred, jaded heart could hold within its walls. Theirs was a life that was so much more than she'd ever dreamt, but it also threatened all she'd ever wanted by endangering the man she loved like nothing she'd ever known. How could one minute be everything…then in the next threaten it all? How could she love him as completely as she did, and not give everything to protect him, even as she needed him to breathe? She was so, so confused.