Twisting and turning, which way will I go? Several reviewers have mentioned that they want to know when one of them will wake up and who will remember what. Well, this chapter will answer the second question. Keep sending me ideas! This story is by no means complete, and if your idea can work with where I'm going, I will use it! I know I keep saying it, but thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your wonderful support of my story! Ta-ta for now!

Chapter Five

The voices were getting louder and clearer, they were strangely familiar. "I think she's finally decided to join us." "Yes, she had to come in her own time." "How do you think she's going to take it?" "She's strong; she'll be fine, dear. Have faith."

Elizabeth opened her eyes to the bright sunshine, her vision quite blurry. Where's Jason? She knew she was in a coma. Was this some kind of comatose dream? Blinking furiously, she discovers she's not in her hospital room, but in what appears to be a beautiful rose garden. The smell of so many roses blooming is amazing and calming. Turning her head this way and that way, she doesn't see who the voices belonged to. Sitting up, she realizes that she was lying on a wooden bench. "Hello? Is anyone there?"

"Ah, my dear, it's so nice to see you again", a gentle voice calls out to her.

Startled, Elizabeth whips her head around to see Lila Quartermaine pruning one of the many rosebushes surrounding her. She was kneeling by the rosebush, no wheelchair in sight. It was so lovely to see her not in need of it. "Mrs…..ah, Mrs. Quartermaine? Uh, um, ah, am I ….. dead?"

Gracing her with her gentle smile, Lila shakes her head. "Yes, dear, you are."

"Oh. Is this heaven? Did I go to heaven? Where's my Grandpa Steve? I always assumed that when I died, I would get to see him again."

"Come here Elizabeth, I have a few things that we should talk about."

Getting up from the bench, she makes her way over to the rosebush that Jason's grandmother is tending. "Are these your roses, Mrs. Quartermaine?"

"In a sense, yes. I tend this garden and help my family when they arrive here."

"Oh. So, you've seen Emily and Alan, then?"

"Oh, yes, and I was so very sad to see them get here so soon. But, we'll get to them later, dear. Right now, you and I need to speak together."

"About Jake."

"Well, no, about Jason."

"Oh, I just assumed that since you said family, you wanted to ask me about your great-grandson."

"He is a beautiful child, so much like his father. But then, you already know that."

"Yes, he is very much like Jason. He looks just like him, I can't believe no one put it together. And for not being raised by Jason", she states, looking very guiltily at the older woman, "he acts very much like him, too. He's very quiet, a deep thinker. And he's absolutely fearless, too!" She stopped and looked around again. "Wait, you said you wait here for your family. I'm only your great-grandson's mother, I'm not family."

"Yes you are, darling. You would have been, if only you and my grandson had made the right choices." Lila explains.

Tears filling her eyes, Elizabeth hangs her head and looks at the ground. Wringing her hands together, she whispers, "Yes, I really made some big mistakes in my life."

Lila takes Elizabeth's hands and leads her over to the bench she was sitting on earlier. Sitting together on the bench, Lila rubs her hands over her charges' comfortingly. "It's alright, my dear. You made the best decisions you could at the time, with the knowledge you had. You also had a lot of people telling you what was best for you and your children. Unfortunately, most of those people only had their own selfish agendas in mind. I can, at least, say that my grandson was not one of them. He truly thought he was telling you what you wanted to hear. However, if he would have taken a much closer look, he would have seen that what you were saying was not really what you wanted, isn't that right?"

Gasping, Elizabeth looks up from their joined hands into Lila's eyes, which are identical to Jason's and their son's. Shaking her head sadly, "I was so confused back then. I had Jason's friends telling me that he wasn't ready and it was too 'dangerous', that I wouldn't have to worry about my children being in danger because of being in his life. Then, there was my grandmother, continuously lecturing me on Lucky's virtues and telling me to overlook everything he'd done and forgive him."

"Yes, well, I'm going to have a little chat with Audrey one day about that," Lila chuckled.

"And….."

"And you had me, Nicholas and all of the Spencer's telling you that it was your job to put your life on hold and fix Lucky," came a voice from behind.

Jumping up, Elizabeth ran into a crushing embrace with Emily, her best friend. "Oh my God, Em! I've missed you so very, very much!"

Tears pouring down both of the women's faces, Emily responded, "And I've missed you, too. All of you. I'm sorry for saying all of those things to you, about forgiving Lucky. I wasn't a very good friend to you, at all."

"No, Em, you've always been my best friend, and you always will be! I understand that you were just trying to help Lucky, he's one of your oldest and dearest friends."

"Be that as it may, I still should have seen how miserable you were. I should have known your heart wasn't with Lucky anymore; I should have listened to you. YOU are my best friend!"

"Ladies," a deeper, gentle voice said.

Looking up, Elizabeth's eyes went wide, "Dr. Quartermaine."

"Alan, sweetheart. I'm not Dr. Quartermaine anymore, not here. Besides, the mother of my two grandsons should not have to call me by my professional name," Alan stated, chuckling.

"Grandsons?"

"Cameron and Jake. Cameron is your oldest boys' name, right?"

Tears springing into her eyes, yet again, and Elizabeth could only nod mutely.

Walking back over to the bench she had been sitting on a few minutes ago, Elizabeth was overcome with emotion. Emily sat down beside her while Alan sat on the other side of his mother. Emily was rubbing Elizabeth's back soothingly.

"Elizabeth, I hope it's alright that I think of Cameron as my grandson," he says, questioningly.

Nodding her head 'yes', she looks up and smiles at the Quartermaine family. Wiping the tears from her face, "I wish I had done things differently, then Cam would have known you as his grandfather."

"Well, there's time to fix all that."

Eyes wide, "What?"

"That's why we are here, my dear," Lila tells her.

"Wha….what do you….what are you trying to say?"

"Darling, you have a decision to make," Lila pauses. "You can choose to go back and do things differently, make the choices that you didn't make before. Change your life, your outcome and live your destiny with the man that you love."

Stunned, Elizabeth doesn't know what to say to any of this. Still reeling from everything that's happened since she woke up in the garden, she's not sure she understands what Lila is telling her. "I don't get it. I mean, we only get one life, one chance to live it, right? Why would I get the chance for a do over?"

"Because you deserve it, my dear."

Jumping up from the bench, Elizabeth started pacing back and forth. "I…..I deserve it?" she questions the older woman. "How could I possibly deserve it? I've kept Jason from his only child. A child that is now dead because I was too busy to pay attention and he walked out of my front door and got hit by a car! I begged Jason to let my drug addict ex-husband be his child's father so that I could, once again, choose Lucky over him. What about that makes me deserve to live my life over? Emily was murdered! Shouldn't she get to live her life over? She was robbed of her life. I wasn't robbed of mine! I just royally screwed up, and after that, I kept screwing it up!"

"Elizabeth, you didn't do it on purpose. You were trying to keep Lucky clean. You were trying to do the right thing for everyone involved. You thought Jason didn't want to be a father at first. You sacrificed your own happiness because you thought Jason loved Sam. You listened to everyone around you tell you how bad it would be for him to be Jake's father. You didn't keep Jake from Jason out of any desire to be mean to him!" Emily told her, grabbing her hands.

"Emily, Elizabeth, come here, please sit down, both of you. Now, Elizabeth, you do deserve this chance," Lila stated, holding up her hand as Elizabeth started to protest again. "You are a good, kind-hearted, loving person. You have a light inside of you that not many people have. Have you made some poor choices? Yes. Did you intentionally set out to lie and hurt anyone? No."

"But…."

"And," Lila continues, "you also did a lot of soul searching lying in your hospital bed. That is why you were chosen." Lila picks up Elizabeth's hands again. "You do not have to go back, if you don't want to. We are not going to force you to relive your life, if that's your choice. You can move on to the other side and be with the family that has passed before you. But, you do have a choice. All of those questions that you had, you can go back and make different decisions."

"Would I remember everything from my life before I went back? Or will I be stuck in the same life making the same choices again?"

"Yes, well, you could make the same choices again. And, while you won't truly remember your old life, your sub-conscience will recognize the right times to make different choices, those times will seem like a dream, some memory or knowledge just out of reach. Ultimately, it will be up to you to follow your heart or not, to truly be happy with your life. Jason, however, will remember this lifetime. Because it is he who needs to remember and move past the fear that has been holding the two of you back."