When Jason awoke the next morning, he wasn't surprised to find his arms empty of Carly. As he sat up on the couch, he looked immediately to where he knew she would be standing. She was poised at the window, her palms outstretched on the painted sill as she stared out onto the morning rain. There were times when Carly could be loud and demanding, but her quiet moments scared Jason more. For a man that was supposed to be so cold and uncaring, his worst fear in the world was seeing a certain blonde in pain. Nothing had ever gotten to him like her tears.

Even with her back to him and her head tucked to her chest, Jason knew that this was one of those moments. There were no words that could chase away the darkness that dwelled in Carly's mind. The only thing he could do was to be there for her like he had been so many times over the past ten years. When she got this, the best thing he knew to do was to let her talk it out. With patience and understanding, he could help her through this. His own insecurities and fears could wait; last night had been about him. This morning was about Carly, and now, she needed him to show up for her. Tossing the blanket to the floor, he slid off the couch and slipped behind her. With his arms securely wrapped around her waist, he let her know that she was there.

"I have to get a divorce," she murmured as much to herself as to Jason. He nodded silently behind her, brushing his chin against her shoulder. "It's going to be hard, you know? Disentangling my life from Jax isn't going to be easy. Besides the hotels that we own, there are the boys to think about. Michael and Morgan love him. We were going to build a family together."

Jason could hear the unspoken words that rested at the tip of Carly's tongue. Without saying it, she was telling him that she was walking away from something she thought she should want for something she knew that she did want. She was telling him that this was their last chance and that if he walked away, it would destroy her. She was giving him his family back, and the only thing he had to do was take it. "I'll call Diane and see how quickly she can get started. Just let me know what you want and she'll take care of it."

Carly knew that she should want something from this life, from her sixth marriage, but she didn't. Jax had genuinely tried to love her, but he wasn't enough. With Jason Morgan in her life, he could never be enough. That wasn't his fault. It wasn't anyone's fault really. She didn't need anything from this marriage because she was about to have everything she'd waited her entire life to have. "Jax can have the Metro Court and anything else we co-own. The only thing I want is this house," she told him. "The rest of it doesn't matter. As long as I have you and the boys, I don't need anything else."

Pressing a soft kiss to the top of her blonde head, Jason felt relieved that she wasn't in the dark place he had originally thought. Instead, her quietness was about confidence in knowing that she was making the right decision. "When we will tell the boys?"

"Don't worry," she reassured him, turning around in his arms. "Michael and Morgan love you like a father. They're both going to be thrilled that you're going to be around. I'm sure it's going to be confusing for them. Hell, forget them, it's confusing to me. I know that you'll find a way to make it okay for them, though. No matter what, you've always put our boys first. I don't think they're the ones we need to worry about."

Our boys. The words were not lost on him. "Sonny isn't going to like it," he confirmed. "I let him have my family once, but I won't let him take it away from me now. He can say whatever he wants to, get as angry and make as many threats as he deems necessary. I'm not just going to walk away this time."

"Elizabeth isn't going to be the epitome of glee either, Jase," Carly pointed out. "She's going to do everything she can to try to hold onto you. And if she can't, she is going to use Jake to hurt you. I'm sure that she loves her son, but she has treated him like a pawn in an odd emotional tug of war between you and my cousin. She couldn't make Lucky be what she wanted him to be, so she's going to try it on you."

Brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, Jason smiled at her and shook his head. "Now, when have I ever done anything that I didn't want to do?" he asked. "Elizabeth can try to play any game she wants, but I heard what she said last night. She wants to pretend that my son belongs to someone else. She is trying to make Lucky and I both act like we're something that we're not. That's not fair to either of us and it's not fair to my son. I won't take Jake away from his mother, but like I said earlier, I won't walk away either."

"We're going to have a battle on our hands," she agreed, pressing her cheek against Jason's chest. "I trust you, Jase. I want you to know that. I have complete faith that you and I are going to figure out what is right for our family and find a way to make it work. There isn't a lot that you can be certain about in this lifetime, but I've always known that it was going to be you and me in the end. When you go to talk to Elizabeth, I just want you to remember that. No matter what she says, you are going to be Jake's father."

"Carly, about last night, I meant what I said," he promised her. "I don't know how this is going to work, but I love you too much to run away from it. Jake isn't going to be just apart of my life, he is going to be apart of our lives. I want you to help me raise him. I want him to be a brother to Michael and Morgan. I want us to be a family."

"Even if we're not together, we already are a family," she retorted affectionately. "If this doesn't work out, you need to know that I will never leave you. You told me last night that you weren't going to make any promises, and I love that about you. I know that when you give me your word, you will deliver. You don't believe in giving false hope."

"We've talked more in the last twelve hours than in the twelve months before that," Jason chuckled, squeezing her tightly to him. "I've missed this."

Standing on her tip toes, Carly looked into his eyes. "I know that this is hard on you, Jase, but it's safe for you to open up to me. I'm not going to judge you. I might fight with you and try to give you advice, but you already know that about me. I even secretly think that's one of the things you love most about me. You know that's my way of trying to help and showing that I care. Even if you think my plans are crazy, I can come up with some pretty good schemes when it comes to saving us."

Jason suddenly saw an image of a very drunk Carly flailing her arms in the night air during a speedboat ride. "Life's never boring with you," he acknowledged with a wry grin. She was still at eye-level when he picked her up by the waist. Her toes grazed the floor as he danced her backward until her back was flat against the wall. The moment was uncharacteristically spontaneous and intimate for Jason, but Carly fully intended to take advantage of it. Pinning her against the living room wall, he hoisted her body so that her legs wrapped around his torso. Leaning forward hungrily, he nipped playfully at her bottom lip. Carly allowed him to tease her a couple times before taking control. Tangling her fingers in his locks, she lunged for his mouth greedily.

A groan vibrated at the back of Jason's throat as Carly pressed herself fully against his body. Her fingers danced along the back of his neck, playing with the soft hairs that resided at the nape. "Why, Mr. Morgan, I'm a married woman!" she teased when he pulled back to look at her. Her words were quickly stifled when he dipped in to devour her once again with his kiss. It lasted a few minutes, leaving them both spent. Carly felt Jason's knees starting to give out from the unexpected heat of the moment. He slid them both along the wall until they sat on the floor. Still interlocked in an embrace, she placed a soft kiss on each of his eyelids.

"It doesn't matter what some piece of paper says, Carly, you've always been mine," he whispered. "We can be on a plane this afternoon to the Dominican Republic to get your divorce. I can pay off a judge here to make sure it goes right through. Whatever it takes, that's how we've always lived."

"You've survived Tony, A.J., Sonny and Lorenzo. I've survived Robin, Courtney, Sam and Elizabeth. We're survivors. No matter what we've tried to throw at it, our love has endured. If you need me to be on that plane, I'll be on it. If you can be patient, then we can do it here. Whatever it takes, we're going to do it."

"We're going to do it," he repeated with a firm nod. "And whatever that is, I don't want to wait. I want to go talk to Elizabeth now, to try to figure all this out. You can go pick up the boys, and we'll tell them this afternoon together. I'll deal with telling Sonny, and you can take Jax. Let's do it all now, I don't want to wait. We've wasted too much time already."

Sliding Jason's cell phone from his shirt pocket, she dialed Sonny's number from memory. "Sonny, I'll be by to pick up the boys in about an hour," she told him without even waiting for an argument. "I'm going to take them by Bobbie's this afternoon for awhile. Jason and I need to talk to you. We should be at your house around three. Make sure to clear your calendar." Jason was stunned when she flipped the phone closed and handed it back to him. "Look, we are in this together, which means that we are telling Sonny together. We can define what this is later."

There was no point in arguing with Carly, and truth be told, he was glad that they were going to do it together. Presenting a united front to Sonny would show him just how serious they both were. Rather than retorting, he followed her lead and called Elizabeth. Her voice was meager when she finally answered. "Jason, I was worried about you last night. You just disappeared."

He couldn't believe the audacity of her feigned innocence. How had he not seen it before then? Carly had long said that she was playing the damsel in distress act just to play on his emotions. Only now could see just how right she had been. "You weren't worried about me when you told Lucky that he should keep being Jake's father," he reminded her. When she didn't reply, he pressed on. "I am not going to let some other man claim my son as his own. Jake is a Morgan, not a Spencer, and I will raise him as such."

"You can't take my son away," she pleaded weakly. "Be reasonable."

"I'm not going to take Jake away from you, but I'm not going to let you take him away from me either," he let her know. "I told you once that I respected your decision because you are his mother. Well, I think it's time that you respect my choice as his father. I'm coming by in an hour to see Jake. We can discuss how we're going to deal with this then. And just so you know, I wouldn't recommend making any threats. I won't let anyone, not even you, take him away from me. He is my son."