A/N – Thanks for the comments! * chicki'62 – wink wink. Lol. * Guest – Very true re: Parenting in diff places. * Christica2 – They could easily but they won't.

Chapter 18 – Painful Truths

Patrick was sitting on a bench in the locker room. The talk with Robin hadn't gone well. He was angry with her. He felt like she abandoned Emma for Jason and that was just wrong to him. It wasn't that he didn't understand Robin's dilemma, but he just felt like Emma should have come first. He also understood that moving would take Emma away from her, but with Robin coming in and out of Emma's life the last few years, he just wanted her to have some stability.

His phone vibrated. "Hello?"

"Hey, it's Jason."

Patrick was surprised. "What's going on?"

"I wanted to talk you about you leaving town."

"Jason, I don't see how you get a say."

"I get a say if you're taking Sam with you. I want to be a part of my son's life. I've already missed so much time with him."

"Then maybe you need to talk to Sam about that."

"Are you going to forgive her?"

"That's between me and Sam."

Jason sighed. "Patrick, I know that you're mad a Robin, but I don't see how leaving town is the best thing for Emma."

"Robin abandoned her child to go save you."

"If it was her mother or father she left to save, would you be this upset? I think your anger stems from the fact it was me."

Patrick growled. "I do have a problem that she would throw away her life for you."

"She didn't really have a choice at the time. She was being threatened. Yet that doesn't seem to matter to you."

"I'm not discussing my relationship with Robin with you and I can't tell you what to do about Danny. Your decisions regarding him are on you. I will say that he's a great little boy and he's excited that you're back. Don't screw it up like you did with Jake."

The line clicked and Jason closed his eyes for a minute. He really didn't want to make the next call but, he had too.

Sam grabbed her phone off the table. "Yeah."

"It's me."

She closed her eyes. "Hi."

"I heard about Patrick's job offer."

Sam sat down. "You're wondering if I'm going to go with him right? Well, I haven't decided."

"Sam, I really do want you to consider the fact that I want to be in Danny's life. He deserves to have a father who loves him."

"I know that."

"When you get back from the trip, can we all sit down and talk about it?"

Patrick had told her about his job offer earlier than he had planned to because word was getting out.

"Fine. I'll call you when we get back."

"Thank you."

There was no way in hell Jason was going to let her take Danny from him. He just didn't want to piss her off before the divorce went through.

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The next day, Sam filed the paperwork. In two days, she would be divorced. It killed her that after everything that they had gone through, it had ended like this. Her choices and her actions had led to all of this and now she would have to live with it. Then there was Patrick. He had come out of nowhere to be a good friend and it had turned into something beautiful. She was happy with him. Jason coming back threw both of them for a loop, and the truth coming out about Jake had set them back. She wasn't sure that they would make it. Patrick considering the new job threw in another curve ball because she wasn't sure that she could take Danny away from Jason. God it was a mess. She went back to the hotel. Patrick had taken Emma and Danny to the pool so she put on a bathing suit and a cover up and went downstairs.

Emma screamed as Patrick tossed her into the pool. The floaties brought her back up to the surface and she laughed and swam to the side so Patrick could throw her in again. Danny was sitting next to him grinning.

Sam smiled and sat down next to Danny.

"Sam, come in with me," Emma said as Patrick put her on his lap.

"Alright, last one in..."

Emma squealed as Patrick tossed her and Sam slipped into the water. She held out her arms to Danny and he moved towards her and she pulled him into the pool.

Patrick slipped in and Danny swam over to him and then rested and went back to Sam.

"Can daddy go swimming?" Danny asked Sam.

She looked over at Patrick and then back at her son. "Maybe when we get back, you can ask him."

Danny smiled.

They continued to play and then went back upstairs. While Emma and Danny watched cartoons, Sam and Patrick went out onto the balcony.

"Jason called me yesterday."

Sam was surprised. "What did he want?"

"He's concerned about being separated from Danny and Robin being separated from Emma."

"I know. He wants us all to meet when he gets back. What about us?" she asked.

"I don't know. I loved where our relationship was going. Finding out what you did, let's just say that it's hard for me to understand."

"I don't even understand it. I get why you're hesitant. I did some horrible things. But it doesn't define who I am. I've changed and grown up. When the Russian's took Jake, I think I finally understood the enormity of what I had done and said."

"It shouldn't have taken you that long to realize that."

Sam wiped a tear away. "You're probably right. Hatred has a crazy way of skewing how you view life. After I lost my baby the first time, it wrecked me. Then, I get shot and was told I couldn't have kids and something broke in me. To make matters worse, Jason leaves me because of the danger. I wish I could have handled all of that differently. I can't go back and fix that. I can only be a better person now. I'm sure you've done things in your life you deeply regret. I don't judge you for your past but I feel like you can't see beyond mine. You need to decide sooner rather than later."

"I'm probably not that great with forgiveness."

"Robin forgave you for sleeping with Lisa."

Patrick looked away. "She did."

"You know Patrick, I'm not perfect. I'm going to make mistakes. So if that is what you're looking for…."

"No, I don't expect you to be perfect Sam, but you've got to see that fundamentally what you did regarding Jake was so beyond just making a mistake. You didn't just forget to buy milk or throw some red socks in with the white clothes. And I get you were emotionally distraught but the level you took it to is just hard for me to justify."

"Well, I'm not going to beg you Patrick. I'm done doing that with any man and I'm not sure there is anything I can do right now except to tell you that the person you fell for is still right here. The crazy person who did that Jake is not." She stood up. "I'm going to go lay down."

She disappeared back into the room and Patrick closed his eyes. He was so sick of his relationships falling apart.

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Kevin finished setting up the Skype session with Jason. "Alright, I don't want to waste time here. You both need to confront your mistakes. So, we'll go back and forth in our sessions between you."

Liz shifted in her chair.

"The way you two forgive people who hurt you is not healthy because it's not honest. You're not doing it for the right reasons. I'm going to start with you Jason. Why aren't you mad at Elizabeth for asking you to give up Jake or taking Ric back for example?"

"I don't let myself go there. I don't want to hate her."

"Do you understand that stuffing down your feelings can cause you to make decisions that you wouldn't normally make? Were you scared to get mad at her?"

"Partly. I didn't want her to hate me and I didn't want to feel the pain."

"And who else do you do that with?"

Jason looked down. "Probably everybody."

"If you can't be honest with her and tell her how you felt, then you both won't have a chance. It's okay to be mad at someone you love. She expressed that she was mad about Sam to you and you took it and listened. I think you need to do the same thing."

Jason nodded.

"Jason do you think that you are damaged?"

"Yes."

"Explain."

"I just—I'm brain damaged. The accident caused me to have to learn everything all over again and sometimes I didn't have the greatest examples. My life was raw. I process everything differently. I was told I wasn't capable of love, but they were wrong. I am. I just think I don't have the best concept of what that is. My job is dark and people look down on me for it. I get it, but they do. It's like I'm never good enough and that I'm not worthy to have things like a family. For the longest time, I felt so stuck in my choices that I couldn't see beyond them. It was like a weight or a punishment I had to bear. It was hard for me to ask someone else to want to deal with that."

"When you said Sam accepted all of you, does that seem right or healthy to you?"

"I thought it did at the time."

"Could you see that maybe she was molding herself to be what she thought you needed?"

"No. I take people for their word or actions. I'm very literal."

Kevin slightly smiled. "So you thought it was fine that she was okay with your lifestyle, even after she was shot because of it?"

He shrugged. "Sort of. It was her choice. She's the one giving things up or taking on the burden of it."

Liz closed her eyes. How many times did Jason ask her to make the decision because she had everything to lose? "That's such a cop out."

He looked at the computer screen. "It's the truth. You have to make sacrifices to be in my world."

"I understand that, but you used that rationale to avoid totally committing or admitting how you felt."

"What do you mean?"

"When you would ask me to make the choice because I was the one giving up my normal crappy life, I would ask you what you wanted and you said it didn't matter."

"It didn't."

"Yes it did Jason. It mattered if you wanted to be with me or not. It mattered because you have feelings and I needed to hear that you wanted it as badly as I did. A relationship isn't one sided."

"Elizabeth, if you hadn't mattered to me and I didn't want to be with you, we wouldn't have had the conversation in the first place. You ran away from me because of the danger and used it as an excuse too."

"I know my part in this but was I suppose to do, read your mind?"

Jason sighed.

"Believe it or not, we're getting somewhere. Jason how does it make you feel to hear her say that?"

"I don't understand how she didn't know how I felt. I spoke to her differently. I looked at her differently. There were times I told her that I loved her. I wasn't always good with words, so I tried to show her how I felt. I was so scared to rock the boat. It was like having someone dangle something you love right in front of you but you could never reach it. I loved her so damn much but I always felt like she deserved more than what I could give her not to mention that the kids would be exposed to danger. I wanted her to go live the life I couldn't have but wanted so desperately. And it hurt every time we separated. She said I shouldn't be around her kids, that being with me was selfish of her. That she wasn't a good mom because she put her need to be with me first instead of putting her kids first. She went back and forth and so did I. God, I've spent most of my adult life in constant angst. It's exhausting."

"So you put her on a pedestal and no matter what she did, you never gave up on her or judged her for it."

"Pretty much."

"And I'm telling you that didn't help Elizabeth grow up or become a better person. In fact, you put more pressure on her by doing that."

Jason looked confused. "How is believing in someone or wanting them to be happy wrong?"

"It's not in and of itself. But you weren't just believing in her. You were letting her get away with doing things that were hurting herself. Instead of calling her on it, you gave in. How else do you explain agreeing to let go of Jake? Even after she asked you that and it made you feel so badly, you still didn't get mad at her. Do you think if you had asked her to give up Jake because Lucky was on drugs that she wouldn't have ripped you a new one?"

"I know she would have."

"But she expected you to just do what she asked and take the insult like what she was asking for was something mundane."

"Stop." Jason yelled. "I can't do this."

He got up and walked out of camera view and Liz started to cry. "I hurt him so much that day. I treated our relationship like it was nothing and mine with Lucky was everything. It was my false belief that I owed Lucky something; that I had hurt him and needed to fix it. I didn't want to be the bad guy. I knew everyone would hate me. I don't even understand why Jason doesn't hate me for it."

"I could never hate you Elizabeth. You are my heart." Jason sat back down. "I might hate that you asked me that to begin with, but I don't hate you. God, we were both so screwed up. It's not all your fault. Yes, I was crushed, but if I had just believed in myself, something you can't control, I would have fought for my son."

"Jason, why would you believe in yourself when no one else did? You were practically manipulated on a daily basis. I get what you are saying but I don't think you understand how most of the time when your self-worth is screwed up, it's also directly related to who is around you; especially in your case. I get that now. Maybe in a way I wanted you to fight but when I think about it, I took all the wind out of your sails with that one request. I was the one person who you trusted not to hurt you in that way and I crushed your heart without even considering what it would do to you."

"When Carly took Michael away from me. It broke me. I know he wasn't mine, but I loved him like he was. Unfortunately, she would rather have AJ or Sonny around her son than me. God, what she did to me was so messed up. When Courtney was pregnant and miscarried because she had to stick her nose into something she shouldn't have, I was so upset because I lost my chance to be a dad again. By the time I made a baby with you…. When you told me Jake was mine, I was so shocked that you had lied about it. I was going to be a dad and I thought finally, this is the one person who would never do anything like what Carly did to me. You would never keep me away from my child, but then you turned around and asked me to give him up and I just shut down. I couldn't deal with the pain, so I agreed, because I figured if you didn't even want me to be around our child, then maybe I shouldn't be a father; maybe I was that bad and selfish for wanting it." Jason didn't even realize that tears were falling down his face. He knew that what Carly and Liz did wasn't exactly the same, but they brought up the same issues and he had never thought about the parallel between them before.

"I'm so sorry. What I asked you was unforgiveable."

"You're wrong. I can't help but forgive you Elizabeth. That is how badly I want you in my life. You have forgiven me too. If I had made different choices in the past, maybe you would have believed in me more."

Liz started to sob and Kevin handed her a tissue.

"That's enough for today. I know this is painful but you need to work through this and be honest about your feelings. Trust each other that you can do that and still be committed to each other."

Liz nodded.

"I love you Elizabeth."

She looked up. "I love you too."