They Came Back
Part Four
May 2015
"Tell me the truth," Carly said to Jason, as they sat on her couch, "are you in love with her?"
"She's a good friend. I don't look at her that way."
"I know when you're in love, Jason. I know you. You don't have to hide anything-"
"I'm just trying to hold on. That's all. Just hold on, Carly. Nothing more."
She cuddled against his side. He wrapped his arm around her. They stayed like that for a long while. She was thrilled he was still alive. He was glad to be able to be here for her, for Danny, for Michael, Morgan and Joss. But he couldn't live for just them.
Where was his own life now?
Sam had ended things with Patrick but she admitted to Jason she was still in love with Patrick. The life that her and Jason were supposed to have together was wrecked into so many jagged pieces he didn't think they could find them all to put it back together again, another time.
He wanted to make it good with Sam again. He wanted his family. But the only time he felt truly at peace was when he was taking a walk with Georgie.
Carly knew him. She knew what he wouldn't admit to even himself. He was falling in love- and it was not with his wife.
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"Thank you for being here tonight," Emily told Lucky, at the opening of the AJ Quartermaine Community Clinic.
"No where else I'd rather be."
He said all the right words, but something in his eyes was different tonight.
"Are you feeling okay?"
He kissed her cheek. "Never felt better. Now shouldn't you be mingling? Time to raise that money to keep the doors open."
She smiled. "Who can say no to the formerly presumed dead girl?"
He chuckled.
It felt good to make a joke about it finally. Good to be alive again. Emily had worried she wouldn't get to this place. She knew Jason was still struggling, Leticia too and she expected to be struggling right alongside them both, but she had turned a corner somewhere around when winter gave way to spring.
She had chosen life over being one of the walking dead. And she was never looking back again.
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Georgie had taken her last final of the semester that day. She was exhausted from staying up late studying for several nights in a row. The fact that she was three months pregnant also added to her exhaustion level.
She heard that woman got a boost of renewed energy in the second trimester and she prayed it was true, because it was all she could do to drag her weary body home and into bed that day.
She never went back to working at the diner. Way too many eyes staring at her there. She couldn't handle all the questions, stares and whispers. She was living off the settlement that Nikolas gave her, even though it was depleted greatly after the secret in-vitro procedure.
Her parents were worried about her. They wanted her to go back to therapy. But she was twenty-seven years old now, not the teenager they remembered before she was kidnapped, and there was nothing they could do to compel her to follow their wishes.
She used to do things to make other people happy. Now she was living just for herself and her baby.
As she drifted off to sleep, her mind whispered to her: And Jason. You're living for Jason, too.
But she couldn't do that. He was married. She had other friends to rely on. She had her family. She had her baby.
Jason, though, he gave her what no one else could: a soft place to fall when the ground was rushing up hard and unforgiving.
He gave her peace. Only Jason and her baby did that for her these days. So she hung onto both, even if it wasn't the most prudent thing to do to become a single mother and befriend a mob boss.
She was fighting for her life- and nothing was off limits anymore.
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Lucky got out of his car, walked around and opened the door for Emily. He offered her his arm as he walked her up to her doorstep.
"Come in for a while?" she asked
"Em..."
"What is it? I knew something was bothering you tonight."
"I'm leaving town for a while- on a job."
He watched her stiffen and move back from him in one swift motion. "You're leaving?"
Me. The word hung in the air between them. You're leaving me, is what she really meant. She had come to count on him. So had Aidan.
No one should count on Lucky though. Not anymore.
"I have no choice. I made deals, before, and I have to honor them now."
"Deals? What kind of deals? When?"
"To help Ethan out, while you were gone" A lie but he couldn't tell her it was to get her back. That he had begged, borrowed, stole and promised anyone who could help him anything they wanted.
And these were not the kind of people you broke promises to.
"Is it dangerous? What am I saying? You work for the WSB, of course it's dangerous. Lucky...you have to come back."
He took her hands in his, hands he had been holding since he was a kid. "I will come back. Count on it."
She wrapped her arms around him and they held each other tight. He remembered how hard he had prayed for the chance to hold her again. And now he could anytime he wanted. And now he was walking away from that chance because of a job he had never wanted to take, didn't want to keep.
He joined the WSB to find Emily. He was still in it because they didn't let you just walk away.
Now they owned him for life. He had seen how that worked out for Frisco. He wasn't sure he had much hope he'd fare any better. But he wouldn't feel sorry for himself. She had made it home. It was a fair trade.