Elizabeth Webber hated Halloween. In fact, she hated all holidays. As a child, she had loved them; anxiously looking forward to putting up decorations, spending time with family and friends and eating way too many treats and candy. But then, things changed. Holidays became cursed. They were no longer fun; they were no longer happy moments of celebration. They were filled with pain and hurt and misery.

It began when she was raped on Valentine's Day and went all the way to Thanksgiving when her family, gathered together for the first time in years, had died along with the Quartermaines when a faulty gas line had exploded in the house as the cook turned on the oven to cook the turkey. New Year's Day? Her apartment burned down thanks to revelers who left their bongs lit while they went out for more munchies. Labor Day? Somebody stole her car two days after her insurance lapsed for non-payment because Elizabeth's ex-boyfriend cleaned out her bank account, stealing the money she'd inherited after her parents' death.

The only holiday where something disastrous had not occurred yet was Halloween. And Elizabeth intended to keep it that way. Which was why she sat in her darkened apartment, eating a cold bowl of microwave soup. She had no car, she could barely call her cold, drafty studio a home, and she had very little money in her checking account. She would not have any contact with people. She would just sit in the corner of her couch and pray that the day ended without her life once again falling apart on her.

She had almost drifted to sleep when she heard something crash against the wall of the hallway. Her eyes popped open, the empty bowl of soup fell from her lap and the spoon clattered to the floor as she scrambled off the couch and crouched down. The person, it had to be a person despite the erratic nature of the sounds, now stumbled and fell against her door. Elizabeth was afraid she was going to hyperventilate, but she managed to crawl on her hands and knees to her artist's table and grab the knife she kept there to scrape paint off canvases. She just barely made it back to her hiding spot when she heard the tumblers in the lock give way and the door swing open.

Halloween would officially be known as the day she suffered through a home invasion. If she managed to live at all.

The intruder came inside, then turned and twisted the locks, trapping her in the room with him. He didn't turn on the lights. As Elizabeth crouched in fear on the floor, she frowned as she realized that he didn't actually seem to be acting like an intruder. She didn't hear him rummaging through her belongings, he wasn't searching for her, in fact, he came in and collapsed onto her couch, the piece of furniture sliding back on the wood floor several inches under his weight and momentum.

A groan sounded through the air and then all was silent.

Terrified, holding her breath, Elizabeth pushed up slightly, peaking over the back of the couch, holding her artist's knife at the ready to strike out. What she saw nearly made her drop the blade in fright. Jason Morgan was sitting on her couch.

She had not seen him since their families died last year. She'd gone to the older man, knowing that he'd broken ties with his family except for his grandmother and sister, and asked him if he wanted to take care of the funeral arrangements for his family. She'd interrupted some moment between him and a chesty, but mouthy, blonde who laughed at Elizabeth's misery over her family. The blonde woman, Carly, told her that Jason didn't care about his family, and she should just go away because Jason was a little busy at the moment.

Appalled and hurt, Elizabeth had left and with Bobbie Spencer's help had combined the two families' funerals. Jason never showed up. Not for his grandmother, not for his sister, and not to apologize to her for the rude and hurtful comments his little bed buddy flung at her. It was in that moment that Elizabeth saw not the tortured hero of Emily's vision, but the degenerate thug that the rest of the town scornfully talked about.

And now he was in her home.

She reached out, placing the blade against his throat and tried to infuse bravado in her voice as she asked, "Why are you in my studio?"

She was met with silence and Elizabeth leaned forward to peer at him. His eyes were closed and he didn't wake when she shook him. He was breathing, but he was unconscious, and she discovered - after turning on the lights - he was bleeding all over her couch from a hole in his side.

"Great," she huffed into the air. "Now Halloween will be the day Jason Morgan passed out in my home and bled to death unless I do something."

He woke up under a blanket, warmth coming from more than just the fever he was certain he had. Slowly he opened his eyes and saw a dingy ceiling above his head. He wasn't in a hospital. Soft humming caught his attention and he cautiously turned his head and was surprised by the sight.

A petite brunette, that he vaguely thought he should recognize, stood in front of an easel, paintbrush in hand. She was humming under her breath as she worked on a painting, her wavy chestnut hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. Hair had escaped its binding and was fluttering in her face causing her to occasionally swipe at the annoyance, and leaving paint steaks behind on her skin. She was focused intently, her eyes frowning at times, and then glowing with resolve when she apparently worked through the troubled spot.

He could have watched her for hours, but he coughed and then groaned as the action lanced fire through his side and left him sweating and cursing under his breath. Instantly the humming stopped and he opened his eyes to find the artist watching him.

"You're awake," she stated.

"Yes," he nodded. "Where...where am I?"

Her left eyebrow rose and she said, "You don't even know whose studio you broke into last night?"

He licked his lips and shook his head. "I don't remember much about last night. I'm not sure where I am or how I got here."

"Do you remember getting shot?" she asked.

He did. He also remembered going to Sonny's apartment for help and finding Carly walking down the stairs in Sonny's silk shirt. Jason had come up the back stairs and entered through the kitchen, and watched as the woman who claimed to love him walked to the man sitting on the couch, straddled his lap and undid the one button holding the shirt together between her breasts. Sonny had growled as he joined with her and asked what took her so long to which Carly replied that she was just settling Michael back down from his bad dream. He'd stood there horrified, unable to move, holding his side in pain, while his two best friends who claimed to hate each other had sex. It was only when Carly threw her head back in the throws of passion that she saw him there. He'd left, despite their pleas for him to stay, to listen to him, to let them explain, and he'd disappeared into the night. He didn't really remember anything after that.

"I don't know how you ended up in this building instead of walking off the pier," the woman tsked, "but you picked the locks to my studio and collapsed on my couch. I thought about letting you bleed to death, and then almost called 911 and figured you could deal with the cops when you woke up, but I didn't."

He felt he was missing something and he asked, "Why didn't you?"

"Because Emily was my friend, and despite you proving that she meant nothing to you when you didn't even bother showing up for her funeral, you meant something to her. It was for her sake that I put my dormant nursing skills to work and patched you up."

He closed his eyes and licked his lips, "You-you're Elizabeth."

She'd come to his room above Jake's after the Quartermaine's house blew up and wanted to talk to him about the funerals. He'd been in the middle of things with Carly and she hadn't liked when he'd paused their activities to answer the incessant knocking on the door. He'd been so stunned hearing of his family's deaths that he wasn't even aware of what Carly had been spewing at the woman until Emily's friend turned to leave. He was about to go after her, but Carly had risen from the bed, closed the door and used all her charms and persuasion to entice him back to bed. Then Sonny had, for reasons Jason could never understand, sent him out of town to handle a threat and he'd missed the funeral of his grandmother and sister. He was now wondering how long Carly and Sonny had been seeing each other, and if she had been part of getting him sent away.

"Yes," the brunette answered. "And I patched you up, called a friend of mine at the hospital and asked her to call in a script for me for an antibiotic. You can have those. Now that you're awake, you can find somewhere else to recuperate. I've done my duty in Emily's memory, but you better get out of here before I forget how much she loved you and instead focus on the fact that you completely disrespected her and your grandmother when you never even bothered to show up for their funerals."

"You're angry," he stated unnecessarily, "and you have every right to be. But you don't understand what happened. I-I wanted to be there."

"And what happened?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. "Your car wouldn't start?"

"The man I thought was my friend and the woman I thought cared about me are sleeping together, and probably have been for years," he answered bluntly. "I think they conspired to send me out of town so I would miss the funeral."

"Why would they do that?" she asked skeptically.

"Because they wanted me isolated, completely devoted to them, and all the while they were stabbing me in the back."

Her eyebrows rose at the anger that laced his words and he felt bad for possibly scaring her. But in the cold light of morning, he was now seeing things in a different manner, and he realized that he'd been willfully blind to what Carly and Sonny had been doing to him. They'd cost him his family, they'd robbed him of his dignity, and last night, they'd almost cost him his life.

"Were they the ones who shot you?" Elizabeth asked curiously.

Jason shook his head. "No, but I think they set me up. If I find out they did...nothing will be able to protect them."

"This is Sonny Corinthos and Carly Benson, right?" she questioned.

"Yeah," he confirmed. "Why?"

"Because I'll help you in any way I can," she said, her own voice hardening to flint.

"What? Why?"

"Let's just say that I've got my own motivation for wanting to see them pay," she told him, pursing her lips. "Like the fact that Carly treats her mother like crap and Bobbie's always been good to me, especially after a time when my own mother was gone and I needed a woman in my life. The fact that Sonny got the funding for my department at the hospital cut. And then there's the fact that I'm pretty sure they're responsible for the Quartermaine house blowing up and killing my family along with yours. If I hadn't stopped to help out at an accident scene on my way to your family's house, I would have been inside when the gas line blew. I take a rather grim stand against people who try to murder me and end up killing my best friend."

"Do you have proof?" he asked.

"I don't have proof, but I've got a lot of overheard conversations and things that don't add up."

Jason paused at the edge for a moment, thinking about the man who had called him brother while carrying on an affair with his girlfriend, and stepped off the precipice. Sonny Corinthos had no honor and Jason felt no loyalty towards him; not after what he saw last night. He looked at Elizabeth Webber and said, "You've got yourself a partner."

A delighted smile curled her lips and she said, "Perfect. Halloween has broken the curse; I'm rather glad you stumbled into my studio last night."

They were playing a very dangerous game. But it wasn't a game, and it went beyond dangerous straight into deadly. It was something that Jason was used to in his life and his profession, but he didn't like it when he involved innocent people. Especially since Elizabeth was the person most exposed at the moment. Because he was recuperating from his gunshot and he wasn't sure what Sonny would do to him, he was staying hidden in Elizabeth's studio. He worried about someone realizing he was here, even though there was no connection between the two of them aside from the fact that both their families had died in the same explosion.

Elizabeth was determined to help him get his revenge on Sonny and Carly, and insisted on being part of the planning. She was the person out there doing reconnaissance, she was the one making contact with people in Sonny's organization, and if Sonny or Carly figured out what she was doing, she was the person who was going to be in danger. It wasn't something he liked, but he'd learned the unemployed nurse and part time artist was stubborn and she refused to be told she couldn't do something.

Sonny had men searching the city for Jason, but the enforcer wasn't ready to reveal himself. In fact, the longer he stayed gone, the more desperate it was likely to make Sonny. Or Carly. She probably was worried that she would somehow lose him, despite the fact that she'd been sleeping with Sonny and he saw it. She had a need to be first in any person's life, and if she thought she would lose that in Jason's she would panic. She would be the weak link to break, but that wasn't where Jason intended to focus his attention first.

He'd told Elizabeth which guards could be trusted to contact and it was fairly easy, as she helped Bobbie out at Kelly's, to find a spare moment to pass along a note to the men. He didn't need many, and once he had Johnny and Francis working with him, he didn't try to contact anyone else. He trusted the two guards, knew that they help him and not betray his location or his intentions. Both men, once they heard about Sonny and Carly and Elizabeth's suspicions instantly turned their loyalty to Jason. They promised to do research into the Quartermaine explosion and a few other incidents around town.

They reported back to Jason that Sonny wasn't looking for Jason because he was worried about the shooting that happened at the meeting, but because he was anxious to do damage control. Although how the older man thought to control the situation by moving Carly and her son into the penthouse was a little baffling to Jason. It seemed that since their lie had been exposed, they were no longer going to hide or pretend, and they no doubt expected Jason to just accept it. Or maybe Sonny was afraid of exactly what the enforcer was planning. He was afraid that Jason would want revenge and come after him. It was too bad he'd never see it coming.

Sonny would expect a war. An attempt by Jason to switch all the men, or at least some of the lieutenants over to his side, and then come after Sonny to kill him. Sonny was going to die, alright, but it wouldn't be by a bullet. Elizabeth was slowly poisoning him.

It began with his take out meals. Sonny was working long and late hours at the coffee warehouse, desperate to solidify his power, desperate to make sure that none of his men turned on him, desperate to keep one step ahead of Jason. He never suspected those men closest to him; never thought that Johnny or Francis would turn on him. His arrogance would prove to be his downfall.

They brought him meals from Kelly's to keep him going as he practically barricaded himself in his office and worked at a near manic pace to prevent his undoing. Elizabeth would make sure to take that shift and would specially prepare Sonny's food. Being a nurse, she knew which drugs would cause certain reactions and especially which ones would not be detected. First she made him sick. A variety of different ailments that plagued him and weakened him. Sonny was a proud man and he didn't go to the hospital unless he had to. He wouldn't admit a weakness by going in for a check-up for a headache, or dizziness and shortness of breath, or stomach ailments. He called in his doctor who tried to help out, but unknowingly created bad interactions with the drugs Elizabeth was giving him.

It all culminated in Sonny collapsing at his desk, suffering from some unknown ailment but completely unconscious. He was rushed to General Hospital. The organization floundered for a little while until Johnny stepped in, saying that with Jason missing and Sonny still unconscious in the hospital he was the next in command. The men were grateful for a leader, and followed his orders. Johnny was now in the perfect position to act on Jason's instructions and begin the systematic dismantling of Sonny's empire. Money was drained from offshore accounts, shell corporations were sold off, and none of the men knew anything about it because Johnny handled it personally. When their accountant Benny caught on to what was happening, Jason came down to the warehouse in the middle of the night and explained the situation to him. Benny had never liked Carly, and declared that Sonny had no honor over the latest situation, and he would gladly follow Jason's orders.

With Sonny being kept in a coma, nobody thought anything of Elizabeth returning to her former place of employment and having lunch with her friends and former co-workers, Jason now moved on to his retribution against Carly. He was torn in what he wanted to do to her, undecided yet if she would die, because he was trying to consider Michael's interests and whether it would be better for the boy to grow up with no mother at all, or one he never saw; but he fully intended to make her pay. She had stormed into his life and then tried to keep him under her thumb while manipulating him with the love he had for her son. A fact she exploited again and again, even when she'd plotted to kill her son's grandparents.

As Johnny ran the organization and dealt with the men, he began to learn things. Secrets that were so insidious some men were glad to unburden themselves from. They'd never felt right that Sonny had ordered the death of the Quartermaines, and now that he was lying in a hospital bed attached to a feeding tube and Miss Benson was going around screaming orders at people like she was the Queen of Sheba, some men were downright happy to enlighten the new acting mob boss in the hopes that he'd muzzle Carly. It hadn't been Sonny's idea to kill Jason's family, it had been Carly's.

She didn't want anyone to ever find out that Michael wasn't Jason's son. And even if someone some how did, then it wouldn't matter if the real father and all his relatives were dead. Jason would be the father on the birth certificate, Jason would be his uncle and last remaining relative, and nobody would ever take her son from her. Not even Jason. And if she decided that she tired of having Jason warm her bed and married Sonny, then not even Jason would object if her new husband adopted her little boy. Carly Benson had fully intended to have her cake and eat it too. The fact that Elizabeth's family had died as a result as well didn't matter to the blonde; she had saved her son from the Quartermaines.

What hurt Jason more, after finding out the plan, was not that Carly had come up with some crazy scheme that only made sense to her, it was the fact that Sonny had gone along with it. He knew that while Jason didn't like Edward and Monica and Alan smothered him sometimes, he didn't wish the Quartermaines ill. He loved Lila and Emily and even Ned was decent to him at times. Sonny had known all that; had known that their deaths, especially his sister's and grandmother's, would hurt Jason, and he'd gone along with the plan anyways. He'd arranged for one of the men to mess with the gas line into the mansion and to the stove, and condemned Jason's entire family to death. The only feeling he showed about consigning Elizabeth's to the same fate was to try to run her out of town by hurting her department with budget cuts and forcing staff layoffs.

With Sonny not around, and Jason missing, the men in the organization did not pay Carly deference like she was used to. Johnny did not disguise the fact that he felt it was in bad taste for her to move in with Sonny while Jason was missing, very possibly hurt or even dead, and Sonny had said enough that people in the organization pieced together that Jason had caught his boss and his girlfriend in bed together. Carly could not stand that even though she was living in Sonny's penthouse, she was treated like a pariah. Guards didn't rush to do her bidding, and then came the crushing blow; Benny cut off her access to Sonny and Jason's accounts. He set up a monthly allowance for her that she didn't feel was adequate for even a week, and didn't back down when she expressed her displeasure quite forcefully.

Without the might of Jason or Sonny behind her, people in town didn't show her any respect. They talked about her, whispered behind her back, and didn't put up with her rudeness. She was mocked, she was ridiculed and Jason knew that it would eat at her. She'd once again feel like the girl in the trailer park, being laughed at by her classmates because her adoptive mother had shown up drunk at school and tried to seduce the vice principal. It slowly began to tear at her, making her desperate to somehow find power and prestige. When Bobbie didn't show her kindness or sympathy, choosing instead to remind her daughter of how she'd seduced her mother's husband, the outrage in the blonde grew.

She tried to steal money from the warehouse, she tried to pawn off items from Sonny's place, she tried to break into Jason's penthouse and raid his secret stashes of money. More than once Benny had to reprimand her for attempting to overdraw her bank account. Everyone in the organization could see she was teetering closer to the edge and Johnny and Elizabeth began to question him whether they should continue to punish her. They were worried about Michael, but Jason assured them he knew what he was doing. He knew that she would soon go over the edge, and he was going to give her just enough rope to hang herself with.

He told Benny to let her steal a check from the ledger and only discover it was missing after he'd left the penthouse. When she tried to cash it, she was arrested at the bank and taken to the police station. The organization's lawyer wouldn't help her, Bobbie refused her phone call, and Carly was left with a public defender who was taking orders from Johnny. Carly's ire, and instability grew, until she lunged at the judge in open court and tried to steal the bailiff's gun. With her history of shooting Tony Jones in court, she was taken for a psych evaluation and then committed after she was declared incompetent and unable to participate in her defense.

That was when Jason reemerged to Port Charles society. He took over the territory, installed Johnny as his enforcer, and gave custody of Michael to Bobbie while stating that the little boy wasn't his son. He hoped to spare Michael of the danger that would come from being his son, and try to protect him as his nephew. Sonny was moved to a long-term care facility where Jason ensured he'd never wake up, and Carly was moved to a mental institution she'd never be released from. Word spread through the underworld about the lengths Jason went to ensure retribution, and rivals thought twice about crossing him.

There was only one part of this whole experience that bothered him. Elizabeth Webber. She hadn't flinched once during the entire scheme. She'd supported him, had played her part, and he knew that without her, he couldn't have gained the upper hand. She'd lied to protect him while he was recovering, she'd poisoned his boss to gain their revenge, and she'd kept him informed about Carly's actions. She'd avenge her family, but she still didn't have a job, and he worried that some day her conscience would plague her for the things she'd done. She was a nurse, sworn to heal, and instead she'd harmed a man deliberately.

Yet, she wouldn't talk to him. She told him she was fine and okay with all that had happened, but still he didn't feel settled. He also worried that someone would figure out her part in the scheme and it wouldn't just be the incompetent law enforcement that would come after her; one of his enemies could see her as a means to get to Jason. He wanted to protect her, from his enemies and his life. To do that, he knew he should cut all ties with her, but he couldn't.

In the time he'd lived in her studio, she'd become his friend. Jason had started to care about her. He didn't want her to leave town like she'd thought about, he wanted her to stay. He'd found someone who understood him, who supported him and didn't flee from the things he did. He didn't have to censor himself, he could relax with her. He'd thought Elizabeth felt the same way as they'd spent hours talking, not just about Sonny and Carly, but about innumerable things. He'd learned more about her, and about himself, than he ever thought he could.

He just had to convince her that he wanted her to stay. He had to show her that Port Charles was more than the place where her family had died; it was the place that she could have a life. Hopefully a life that included him.

He just had to figure out how to do that, and he needed to figure it out soon. She was slipping away from him, he could feel it, and if he didn't come up with something quickly, she might just slip right through his grasp.

Jason Morgan had broken the holiday curse Elizabeth Webber had, but he'd also done something far more insidious in the process. He'd stolen her heart and she knew she'd never get it back. She'd also never get his, because Jason had told her more than once during their time spent in her studio that he was never going to fall in love again. His first girlfriend had fled, hurling insults and venom at him and the little boy he was raising all because she was hurt and jealous. She'd told him she loved him, that she accepted him and would always stand by him, and then she ran the moment she realized she wasn't going to get her way. Then there was Carly, and they both knew what she'd done to Jason.

So he was determined that he was never going to let anyone close to him again. He would therefore prevent being betrayed by another woman. It was sound reasoning, and she had no argument against it. Because she'd probably end up embarrassing herself by telling him not to give up on love but instead take a chance on her. As if Jason Morgan would ever view her in a romantic light. No, it was better to stay quiet.

The man could barely tolerate her presence, even though she'd saved his life. While he accepted that she had her own reasons for wanting revenge against Sonny and Carly, he didn't want her to do anything. She was just supposed to sit on the sidelines, darn socks like a good little girl and let the men take care of things. Every time she came up with a suggestion, he'd hem and haw and try to come up with something else and waste precious time arriving at the exact same thing she'd already suggested. Then he'd lecture her on safety and not taking chances; he'd call and hover from a distance until there were times she didn't feel like going back to her studio.

Apparently, Jason Morgan was one of those people who believed that being female was a chronic condition that equated stupidity. She felt belittled, and talked down to, patronized and condescended towards. She was used because there was no other choice, but she wasn't trusted. He could talk to her and tell her things, but when it really came down to it, he didn't trust her. He was easy to talk to and she found herself divulging things she hadn't shared with others, but she always felt slightly foolish for all she'd mentioned.

That was why she had to get away from Port Charles. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years had all passed without incident. Valentine's Day came and went and nothing bad happened to her. Now summer had arrived, Jason was installed as the head of the Port Charles mob, her family's killers were punished, and the burning hatred and driving force that had kept her going was gone. Revenge had been exacted; it was time to move on.

If only she was able to figure out a way how she was supposed to say good-bye to Jason without becoming bitter or making a fool of herself. He didn't seem to want her to go, but it was hard to tell sometimes. He sometimes wouldn't see her for weeks, and then would show up out of the blue. He'd tell her he was dangerous, and that anyone surrounding him would be a target and so he couldn't be her friend. Then he'd take her out on a bike ride and spend hours talking to her out on an old bridge. She couldn't make him out and for her own sanity she had to be the one to break clean of the cycle they were getting trapped in. She needed to leave Port Charles. Memorial Day seemed like a good time to break away. He'd come into her life on a holiday, she'd leave his the same way.

Just when she'd decided that today would be the day, and was ready to start taking things down to her car she'd purchased at Jason's insistence, she opened the door and came face to face with the last person she wanted to see today. Which was probably why he was there. The Universe could be truly perverse sometimes.

"Why are you here?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the door.

"I-I wanted to talk to you," he said, tugging on his ear and shifting uneasily on his feet. "Can I...can I come in?"

She needed to have her head examined; she should just say no, but instead she stepped back and let him enter. He paused in the middle of the room and looked around, then slowly met her gaze. "Were you...were you leaving?"

"I am leaving," she informed him. "I was just about to start packing my stuff in my car. Actually, if you're going to be here, you could make yourself useful and help out."

He didn't move and she lifted her brow. Apparently, today was going to be another battle of wills between them. His biggest weapon was his silence; he'd stand still and let others talk around him, and then with a few, well-placed words he could deliver felling blows. She'd found herself on the receiving end of those proclomations before and she wasn't going to do it this time. He would learn that she could be just as stubborn and silent as he could be.

As they stood there, no words passing between she sensed he was growing uneasy. She was getting to him, she knew it. Usually, she was the chatty one, and he merely listened. Today, she wasn't going to do it. She wasn't going to be struck with a case of verbal diarrhea where she rambled on and on nervously and then looked back on the conversation and cringed over how pathetic and weird it was. She was going to wait him out. She'd once held her breath for over a minute until her parents caved and gave into her demands simply so she'd start breathing again. She could show that same tenacity again.

"Where were you," he paused and cleared his throat as he hesitantly broke the silence. "Where were you planning to go?"

"I don't know," she shrugged flippantly. "I discovered that I have this amazingly large bank account I didn't remember opening."

Jason tugged on his ear again and looked down, but didn't actually confirm he was the one who opened it for her. Although they both knew he was the only person with the kind of money in her life to have done so.

"I thought about not using it, and then I decided, why not?" she asked with an arch of her brow. "Here's my chance to finally do what I want to do. I can really pursue my art this time. My family's dead, so who will care if I don't go back to being a nurse? This is my chance to travel, to study and do what I want. I could hang out on a topless beach somewhere if I felt like it. Right?"

He swallowed raggedly and then managed to croak out, "Right."

"Yeah, 'cause after all, it's not like there's anything for me in Port Charles, is there? My family and best friend are dead, I got my revenge, and you keep telling me that it's too dangerous for me to be around you. So you ignore me on the street, and then show up at my studio in the middle of the night and take me for a motorcycle ride. I go from sad to happy to furious over the way I get jostled around by you; I'm your dirty, little secret. Your mistress without the benefit of sex."

His eyes flared wide, but Elizabeth continued on. "I thought we were friends, Jason, but apparently I was just convenient. I was just someone you used when you had no one else, and then you showed how much you truly don't value me by every action that you took."

"That is not true," he insisted forcefully.

"Every time I walked out that door, all I got was lectures and stern disapproval. I was putting my butt on the line and I felt like you'd rather shoot yourself in the foot than tell me thank you."

"Because I didn't like you being involved," he growled. "I was taught to not involve women in my business, and to do everything possible to keep them safe. Do you know how worried I was every time you left? What if Sonny figured out what you were doing? Or one of the guards still loyal to him? What if Carly somehow got wind of it? She arranged the death of my family, of her son's family. What if she came after you? I couldn't protect you. Johnny and Francis had to act like they barely knew you except for the fact that you filled their orders at Kelly's. You were out there, in danger, and I was sitting on my butt eating food you wouldn't let me pay for unable to do anything more than hope you were safe and walked back through the door."

She stared at him and then drove her fingers through her hair, spinning away. "You acted that way because you were worried? Why didn't you say something, Jason?"

"Because I didn't want to make it worse," he told her. "I could see that you were nervous and I thought that if I told you how I felt it would make it worse for you. I didn't want you to be even more scared."

"I thought you held me in contempt," she said incredulously with a shake of her head. "You used me because I was convenient, but you didn't really trust me. You'd never talk to me about the plan unless you had to, you rejected my suggestions...you made me feel like nothing I said mattered."

Jason sighed heavily and ran his hand over his face. Then he sat down on the couch he'd spent so much time and shook his head. "Oh, man. That wasn't it at all, Elizabeth."

"Well how was I supposed to know?" she demanded, holding her arms out to the side. "You are confusing, Jason. You really are. We'd talk about things that I haven't shared with anyone, not even Emily, and you'd tell me things that I knew you had hardly any idea you were even saying. And then I felt like gum scraped off the bottom of your shoe. You'd tell me I was your friend, and then ignore me or try to control my life. Sometimes I couldn't even tell which way was up anymore."

He looked anguished and completely apologetic. "I never meant for it to be that way. You...you aren't like anyone I've ever met. You don't want me for my money or my power, you had me help you get revenge, and you helped plan it. But you weren't the kind of person who got off on it. I could see you struggling with it, and I felt bad that I was inadvertently putting you in that position. You trained to be a nurse, and you were using your training to hurt someone. You drugged Sonny, and you watched me push Carly over the edge."

He let out a sigh and then said, "I was sure you'd look at me one day and want nothing more to do with me. That all you would remember is the things that you'd done and I didn't want that. I never wanted that for you."

"But instead of asking me," she said softly, "you made decisions for me. I don't like that, Jason. I really don't like that. Because it reminds me of my parents agreeing to pay for my art schooling but only on the condition that if I hadn't earned a certain amount of money from the sales of my paintings by a set date, that I'd go to nursing school. I always wondered sometimes if they scared off potential buyers in an effort to make me do what they wanted."

"I'm sorry," Jason swallowed heavily. "I really am."

"Yeah," she nodded. "So am I. That's why I need to go."

"You're still planning to leave?"

She closed her eyes and hardened her heart against the lost tone of his question. "Why should I stay?"

Taking a breath, Elizabeth opened her eyes and looked directly at him. It was completely up to him. She was pathetic enough that if he said the right words she would stay. But she needed to hear them. She'd been jerked around, told different things until she wasn't sure what the real him was, and she wasn't going to stay only to have it continue. As she watched him, she could see the struggle he had, but he remained silent and she took that as her answer.

"Yeah," she said, nodding her head while shifting her eyes away from his. "Well, I should probably start packing my car so I can get out here. I need to get a start before all the holiday travelers start pouring back into the city."

She started past him so she could open the door and grab the first load of boxes, but she never made it to the heavy metal structure. He let her get almost all the way by him and then reached out and snagged her wrist. She could have broken the contact, they both knew it, and continued on, but she stopped. Her skin burned where he touched it and she took a deep breath and then looked at him with questioning eyes.

"Don't go," he whispered.

"Jason," she pleaded with him, although even she wasn't quite sure what she was asking for.

"I know I haven't given you a reason to trust me, but I'm asking you, Elizabeth," he continued. "You understand me, you don't judge me and you are the one place I can come to where I can get away from the pressures and the responsibility I never wanted and just be me. I'm not a mobster, I'm not someone with power or money or anything else. I'm just a man with you."

She closed her eyes, feeling drawn to him.

"You understand how I feel about losing my entire family, losing Emily, being betrayed and hurt. But I can forget about that when I'm with you. It's just you, and me. A man and a woman. I'm attracted to you." His words were creating a sensuous haze that wrapped around her. "So don't go. Stay. See that things can be different, that I can be different. That I can give you what you want...what you deserve."

She swallowed and nodded, unable to speak. He stepped closer to her and touched her cheek, the pressure light and feathery. It hinted at all that could be between them. She wasn't going to leave, and they both knew it. There was no way she could walk away now. Not when Memorial Day was about to take on a whole new meaning.

The End