No Regrets (Formerly Liason 2007)

Elizabeth Webber sat on the sofa in her tiny artist loft
and looked out the window at the rain that had been falling for three
days.  She wasn't a huge fan of rain but it fit her mood, of late,
perfectly.  There were no lightning flashes or loud claps of
thunder, just the steady light rain that painted the glass with droplets
and washed out the colors of the streetlights that shown outside.

As much as she didn't want to go, it was time for
her shift at the hospital. With a sigh she stood up and walked over to the
small sink and rinsed out her empty mug. Her blue mood was
not good for her in her condition and she really wished she could shake it.
None of the things she used to do to cheer herself up worked anymore.

Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Wind, the painting she had done for Jason so long
ago.  The colors that swirled on the canvas resembled the raindrops on
her windowpane and she was suddenly hit with the urge to go for a ride on
Jason's bike.  She never felt as free as she did when he took her
out onto the highway and really let the bike go.  It had been years since
she had ridden with Jason but she knew that if she picked up the phone and asked
he would be there in a matter of minutes.

Or he would have six months ago. Before the
shooting. She had never seen Jason in so much pain. There had been a
foreshadowing of this kind of grief when they all thought Emily was going to die
of breast cancer but that had passed. This would never be over for him.

Sam McCall’s death would have been hard enough on Jason but when you added
the fact that the bullet that claimed her life had been meant for him what
resulted was a Jason Morgan who was convinced that he had been right all along
about forcing Sam out of his life for her own safety. Now not only did Jason
have pain, but that pain was wrapped in guilt and topped off with a strong dose
of self-loathing.

Jason had always believed that anyone he cared about was doomed because of
his lifestyle. Now it seemed a self fulfilling prophecy.

Liz reached for her phone and dialed Jason's cell
phone number. His voice mail picked up without ever letting it ring.

"It's Jason. Leave a message."

(beep)

"Jason, hi, it's Elizabeth. Listen, I really need to see
you. It's about eight o'clock on Monday night. Call me as soon as you get
this. It's important," she said, speaking into her receiver solemnly.

Hanging up, Liz put her hand on her swollen belly and spoke aloud to her
unborn child.

"I’m really worried about your daddy little one."

Maybe if he knew about her it would give him a reason to heal she heard from her conscience.

She decided that if he didn’t call her soon, she would make a point to go and
find him. He probably needed a friend right now and it was the least she could
do considering how often he had been there for her over the years.

As if in answer to her thoughts, the phone rang. She snatched it up
and answered before it had a chance to sound a second time.

"Jason?"

"No it’s me."

She heard the all too familiar voice of Lucky on the other end of the line.
The hurt in his voice at hearing her assume it was Jason calling made her wince.
She did not like to hurt Lucky but lately that was all she seemed able to
do.

"Oh, hi. I was…"

"Expecting a call from Morgan apparently," Lucky interrupted.

Liz could hear the bitterness in his tone and it set her on edge. She had
been perfectly honest with Lucky about her inability to trust him enough to ever
be in a relationship with him again. It was not her fault if he couldn’t move on
with his life.

"Elizabeth I really want to talk to you about counseling. I think with the
baby on the way that we should consider trying to find a way to be together.
Children deserve to have both of their parents if possible. Would you think
about it?" he inquired, trying to restrain the desperation that his voice held
whenever he spoke to Liz.

"Lucky that isn’t going to happen. We can’t be together without trust and I just don’t
trust you anymore. I tried. I really did. I just can’t get past the thought that
any small problem could send you back to the pills and right back into Maxie’s
bed. I can’t live like that. I won’t make my children live like that," she
told him for what felt like the millionth time.

She heard him sigh and hoped that she had finally gotten through to him.
Lucky needed to move on with his life and work his program on his own and for
himself. He shouldn’t try to get clean or stay clean for anyone else. That was
one of the fundamentals of recovery.

"You can’t keep my baby from me Elizabeth. I won’t let you. I deserve to be
in her life. Just because I made a mistake…"

"A mistake? A mistake? Lucky, I don’t even know how to respond to that
and I'm not going to try. This is not about mistakes or forgiveness. This is
about trust. I don't trust you and I honestly don't know if I ever will," Liz
felt the baby kick and rubbed her belly tenderly.

"Just don't think that I'll stand by and let you
pursue Morgan and expose our kids to the violence that surrounds him," Lucky
said.  He loved Liz but he was not about to watch her move on to a relationship with Jason Morgan if
he could prevent it. Not at the expense of his children. Lucky
thought of Cam as his own despite the fact that they shared no DNA.

"I don't want to argue with you Lucky. I don't have the energy for it. Did
you need something else?" Liz was tired of fighting and she was not about to let
Lucky bait her into an argument that could be an excuse for him taking pills
again.

"Yes. I need you," he replied softly.

"Goodbye Lucky," she said and hung
up the phone.  Pulling on her coat and scarf, Liz headed off to the hospital for her shift.

**********************

"You knew that we wouldn't be able to let things go on this way
forever, Alcazar.  This is just business," Jason  said as he held his
chrome-plated .9mm to Lorenzo Alcazar's temple. The other man sneered; arrogant
even now.

Jason was unaware that two floors above the ground he stood on, a sniper
was taking aim at him.  He never saw the red dot of the scope light on his
own temple as he prepared to end the life of Sonny's chief rival.

"Jason! Look out!"

Those were the last words he remembered hearing before all hell
broke loose. Suddenly someone barreled into him at full speed and all at once he
was lying on his side with a heavy weight on top of him. His head hit the
pavement when he fell, so it took a few moments for Jason to clear his thoughts
enough to sit up and take stock of the situation. That was the moment that his
world ended.

The first thing he noticed
was that Alcazar was long gone. Then, looking down, he immediately recognized
Sam McCall lying limply on top of him. Sam was his lover and
the woman he hoped would be his wife and the mother of his children
soon.

"Sam?" he said, nudging the beautiful woman laying on him.

"Sam? Wake up."

As he lifted her head up he felt
the stickiness on his hands. Reality came crashing in as he realized why there
was so much warmth where her head had been resting. He knew that his
shirt was saturated with her lifeblood and the truth chilled him to the core.

"Sam? SAM! Oh God no. SAM!!" Jason felt the beginnings of panic as he
groped for his cell phone.

He quickly dialed 9-1-1 and requested an ambulance but as he felt for
a pulse he knew she was already gone...

Squeezing his eyes closed and pinching the bridge of his nose did nothing to
dim the memories that played over and over in Jason's mind. It was like a bad
movie that was on a perpetual loop. He couldn't make it stop.

"Coleman? Hit me again," he told the smarmy proprietor of Jake's.

"Sure thing. Hey man, are you sure you're ok? You don't look so great,"
Coleman asked. 

The dark circles under Jason's eyes spoke of very little
sleep and the whiskers on his face were completely out of character for the
usually clean shaven blonde. There was dried blood on the knuckles of both hands and he just looked worse for wear
in general.

"Tequila. Beer." Jason said pointing to the two emptys in front of him,
respectively.

"You got it chief," Coleman said, then added, "You
finished that last bottle of Tequila, man. I've got another in the back. Be
right back," Coleman said. He twisted the cap off of a domestic beer and
sat it in front of Jason. Morgan was the last person he wanted to piss off, especially given his temper
tonight.

********************

Liz's car began to make an awful sound just as
she arrived in what was arguably the worst part of town. Though she loved to
shoot pool at Jake's she was not in the habit of driving through that part of town
at night, alone.  There had been an accident on 3rd that had diverted traffic
and it was the quickest way to the hospital or she wouldn't have been there at all.

"Oh come on. Not tonight. Not now," she pleaded with the automobile but it
didn't seem to want to listen.  As she got it pulled over to the curb in
front of Jake's it died with a sputter and final wheeze.

She only lived a few blocks from the hospital but Dr. Lee had insisted that she start taking it as easy as she could, due to the fact that she was on her feet at work for so many hours. It was either take a leave of absence or drive that short way to work. The leave of absence was starting to sound better all the time.

"Great. Well I can't sit here and freeze," she said aloud, and with that
she got out of the car and went into the bar intending to call the hospital and
a tow-truck.

When she opened the door she immediately spotted Jason
sitting at the bar.  She could see by the slump of his shoulders that
he was hurting. Seeing him this way, Liz forgot all about making her phone calls
and focused on her friend. She wanted to do for him what he’d always done
for her: make it all go away.

She walked the short distance from the front door to
the bar and took the stool beside Jason.

Jason looked over and tried to focus, but those last two shots and eighth beer
were making it a really hard task.

She took in his ragged appearance and knew that things had gotten to the breaking point for him. She didn't say a word, just
looked at him with compassion in her eyes.

"Elizabeth?" he finally asked. Clearly he was not sure if he was seeing things or not.
"Are you ok?"

"I’m not the one you should be worried about, Jason. What are you doing to
yourself?" Liz asked, the concern on her face creasing her brow.

"I’m fine," he told her coldly. "What are you doing
here? Is something wrong?" he asked, his voice softening. Even in his current state of mind he couldn't intentionally be mean to Elizabeth. 

His concern for her was no surprise. Jason was the one person in her life that
she could always count on, no matter what, and he had seen her through some
of her darkest days.

"You are not fine. When was the last time you went home or even checked
your voicemail? I must’ve called you a thousand times. I’ve been to the
penthouse and either you aren’t there or you won’t answer the door. I know you
miss S…"

"Don’t. Don’t talk about her. She’s gone. It’s done," he interrupted. He
took a long pull off his beer and set the empty bottle on the bar. Pointing at it, he
signaled Coleman for another.

"She is gone but it’s not your fault," Liz said softly, placing her
hand on his arm and squeezing it reassuringly.

Jason barked a harsh laugh at how ludicrous that sounded. 

"She took a bullet meant for me. The only way it could
be more my fault is if I’d put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger myself. In a way I guess I did," he said.

His bitterness made Elizabeth want to take him in her arms and hold
him until all the pain ebbed away. She couldn’t bear to see him like this. He
was always so strong and logical. It was unnerving to see him succumb to such basic
emotions.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" he asked again, clearly not liking the fact that
Elizabeth was a witness to his destructive behavior.

For the first time he really looked at her. He hadn’t seen
Elizabeth since before Sam was shot so he was not prepared for the fact that she was in
the full bloom of her pregnancy. He was amazed to realize that she was more
beautiful than ever.

Even in the last month of her pregnancy there was a glow to her
that he hadn’t seen since she was carrying Cameron. The fact that he noticed how
beautiful Elizabeth was only served to deepen his guilt.

"My car broke down outside and this was the only place I’m familiar with in
this neighborhood. I didn’t want to sit outside and freeze to death so I decided
to come in and call from here. Now that I’ve found you, I’m glad I did," she
told him sincerely.

"Where’s the car?" he inquired and tried to stand. He immediately sat back
down on the stool and used his arm on the bar to steady himself.

"Whoa there. You aren’t going to play hero for anyone tonight. Let me take
you home, Jason," she said.

He looked into her blue eyes and saw the steadfast loyalty that he hoped
would always be there, then felt guilty for wanting it. What right did he have
to want or feel entitled to anyone’s loyalty?

"How are you going to take me anywhere? Didn’t you say your car broke down?"
he asked, trying to clear his head.

"Yes, but I can still take you to the penthouse. We can call a cab," she told
him, taking charge of the situation. "Just give me a minute. I’ll call a wrecker
and a cab. I need to let the hospital know that I won’t be in tonight too."

She took out her cell phone and dialed the hospital first. She spoke to
Epiphany and told her that she wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be in. The head
nurse told her to take it easy and Liz felt bad for lying to her.

"You shouldn’t be working this late in your pregnancy anyway. What the hell is
Lucky thinking?" he mumbled quietly, assuming that she wouldn’t hear because she was
on the phone.

Liz was shocked at his remark. Jason knew that she and Lucky were not
together and that she was a single mother. She didn’t let on that she heard him.
She knew he was just lashing out because he was in pain and her heart went out
to him.

She remembered how she’d felt when they thought Lucky died in the fire all
those years ago. She had, in fact, come to Jake’s and gotten drunk. It was her
intention to destroy herself because, what else was left? Who would care,
anyway?

Jason had been the one to stop her then. He had cared enough to keep her from
shattering completely and now it was her turn.

"Damn. My battery just died," she said, closing her cell
phone. "Coleman? Can you call a taxi for us, please?" she asked the bartender. He
nodded and picked up the bar phone to make the call for her.

"Where are your keys?" she asked him.

"No," he said defiantly.

She knew from experience that Jason could be stubborn when he wanted to.

"I’m taking you home, Jason. Now where are your keys?" she demanded, holding her hand out palm up. She could be equally hardheaded.

When he didn’t immediately produce the keys, she extended her hand further towards him, arched an eyebrow and began tapping her foot testily.

“Still bossy,” he mumbled under his breath.

“Excuse me?” she asked in an impatient tone.

“Nothing,” he replied. He knew it was no use trying to argue.

He stood up, more slowly this time, and retrieved his keys from his
front pocket. Handing them to Liz, he sat back down and waited with her for the cab
to get there. It was blessedly quick in arriving.

They rode in silence to the high-rise that Jason lived in. Once inside the building, she led him over
to the private elevator that would carry them some 30 floors above the ground
and pushed the button to call the car.

As they stood waiting, Liz could tell that Jason was as tense as a bowstring
on the verge of breaking. He visibly trembled as the doors opened and they
started to enter the car.

"No, I can’t. I can't go to the penthouse... I just can’t go back there," he said. His breathing was ragged and Liz
realized that he was desperately trying to hold back tears. He was clearly
in agony.

"Ok. Jason, it’s ok. Really. I understand," she told him. She really did
empathize with him. It had been months after Lucky 'died' before she could be
comfortable in her old room at her Gram’s house or even the loft.

She sighed, frustrated that they had let the cab go. As if reading her
thoughts Jason walked over to the front desk and asked the night clerk to call
another one.

"You don’t have to do this, Elizabeth. I’ll be fine," he told her when she walked up beside him.

He was anything but fine. The man was dying on the inside. The guilt
was eating away at his heart and soul.

"Oh!" she exclaimed and put a hand to her belly.

"What is it? Is it the baby? Is it time?"

The questions came at her rapid-fire but she only smiled at him, took his
hand and laid it where her own had just been.

At first he didn’t feel anything, but then a tiny smile pulled at the corners
of his mouth. Elizabeth’s baby was kicking.

He was transported back in time to a day at the Port
Charles courthouse when she had done the same thing and shared the joy of Cameron kicking with him. Fate seemed to allow them these
rare and precious moments, if little else.

"Wow," he said with another rare smile.

"Apparently she doesn’t like Mommy doing all this walking," she told him with
a conspiratorial grin.

Suddenly Jason was stone sober.

"Here, sit down," he told her, taking her hand and leading her over to one of the
luxurious overstuffed chairs in the lobby of his building.

Elizabeth sat down with relief and watched
as Jason mood changed from self-destruction to fascination with the child moving in her womb.

"Maybe we should go upstairs," he
offered. 

She knew that being in that apartment would only cause
him deeper hurts and she was not about to allow that to happen.

"No. The cab will be here in a few minutes. We'll be
fine. Really," she replied with another soft smile.

********************

 

This Web Page Created with PageBreeze href="http://www.pagebreeze.com" target="_blank">Free HTML
Editor