A/N: Just a little what if to deal with the dropped storyline of Elizabeth not hearing that Claudia was supposedly out on a date with Jason. Nurses love to gossip, everyone loves to stick their noses into everyone else's business and the wrong people can see or overhear a conversation. Dun dun dun dun.
Elizabeth knew when she walked into work today that she was going to get looks and comments. Anyone who had heard about her testimony last summer during Jason's trial would know that she had slept with the mob enforcer at least once. And yesterday, in another court proceeding, Claudia Zacharra announced in open court that she had been out on a date with Jason Morgan when people shot at them. It was at him, it had nothing to do with her father. She was certain of it. Just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The first person she saw after exiting the locker room was Epiphany standing at the nurses' hub. The older woman no doubt suspected that something was going on with Jason and Elizabeth, after all she'd snapped at her boss and then made a comment that her life had just gotten a whole lot smaller. Epiphany wasn't a dumb woman. She had probably but two and two together and come up with four.
Thankfully, though, the older nurse claimed she didn't like to get involved in her underlings' lives. So while the look she gave Elizabeth spoke volumes of sympathy, lambasting and 'see, honey, this is why you're better off', she never actually verbalized it. Instead, she just handed Elizabeth a chart and told her that Mr. Cranston needed his medication and a sponge bath.
Elizabeth took the chart, grateful for no actual words regarding Jason, and escaped down the hall. Or nearly did. Robin wasn't nearly as kind and unobtrusive as Epiphany.
"Hey," the doctor asked, her round eyes full with pity. "I...I just wanted to see if you're alright?"
"I'm fine," she said, firming her shoulders. "I need to get to my patient before Epiphany gets on my case."
"I...I'm sure there's more to the story than what the news reported," Robin offered, but didn't sound very convinced by her words. Elizabeth suspected she believed Jason was out on a date with Claudia Zacharra. "If you want to talk..."
"Maybe," Elizabeth hedged, even though she knew she wouldn't.
How could she explain to anyone that she was certain Jason hadn't been out on a date with anyone? Just before Michael was shot he had proposed to her. If he broke up with her to protect her and her children from ever experiencing the pain and anguish of the Corinthos family, he was not going to go out with someone else. He would be out seeking Michael's shooter, and if he was anywhere near the cheap mafia woman, it was because he was seeking answers.
But she wasn't supposed to know anything about his life, so she couldn't say any of that to Robin. Because nobody was supposed to know Jake was Jason's son, and nobody was supposed to know they'd been seeing each other, or been thisclose to becoming a family.
So Elizabeth planned to keep busy and avoid Robin so she didn't have to sit through some well-meant condolences.
She should have gone anywhere besides Kelly's. When she was nearing her lunch break, Robin finally cornered her on her way to consult with a patient and asked if Elizabeth wanted to meet down in the cafeteria for lunch. She begged off, claiming to be sick of institutional food, and needed a little fresh air. Robin had nodded in sympathetic understanding, accepted that she wasn't ready to talk yet, and offered to be there should Elizabeth ever need her.
She'd just wanted to get away from it, and so she slipped out of the hospital in search of peace. By sheer force of habit she found herself walking up towards Kelly's. She stopped a few feet away from the door and told herself to leave. Who knew who would be inside that knew her and just wanted to talk to her; not even necessarily about Jason or Claudia, but just about life. She wasn't sure she was up for any superfluous conversation today.
But the smell of chili reminded her that she hadn't eaten this morning in her depressed and tired state, and so she grabbed the worn brass handle and pulled the door open. She immediately wished she'd gone with her first instinct and turned around and left. Sam and Lucky were sitting at a table sharing lunch, and they both saw her open the door. She wasn't going to turn around and hide; she was tired of running away from everything.
She could feel their eyes on her as she walked to the counter and waited for Mike to take her order. Sam's triumphant smirk was expected, as was Lucky's self-satisfied look. Once her order was placed, she sat down at the counter and pointedly ignored them. Kelly's was crowded with the lunch rush, so hopefully they'd just stick to their table, let her get her take-out and triumph over her fall from Jason's grace in private.
Elizabeth knew, though, that nothing with Sam and Lucky ever happened the way she wanted or hoped, and so she prepared herself for the inevitable. Especially since watching them out of the corner of her eye revealed that they were done eating, and just seemed to be waiting. No doubt she was the intended target.
"Here you go, Elizabeth," Mike smiled as he handed her a bag filled with chili, crackers, sour cream and a drink.
She handed over her money, hoisted her purse on her shoulder and stood. Her gaze was firmly on the door and she never wavered from her goal. Even as she heard chairs scrape as she walked past the tables. Once outside, she turned immediately for the street, intent on walking back to General Hospital and eating in the staff room.
"Elizabeth."
She sighed, and turned as Lucky's voice called after her. Sam was trailing behind him, hands tucked in her pockets and a vicious look on her face.
"What is it, Lucky? I need to get back to work."
"I just...I just wanted to see how you were doing."
"I'm fine," she told him, knowing he would believe the lie. He only saw what he wanted to when it came to her. So why bother giving anything more than the standard answer?
"I just...I don't know if you caught the news."
"I did," she replied evenly. She would let him know he couldn't have the triumph of breaking the news to her.
"How does it feel?" Sam asked on a sneer, stepping forward into the conversation. "To know that Jason's moved on to his next conquest? That you and your son just weren't enough for him? That you never were."
"It probably is for the best," Lucky said, in his annoying brand of smug sympathy. "Considering what happened to Michael, it's good that he's decided to move on to something else. Who cares if she gets shot?"
"Yeah, okay," she nodded in forced blandness. "Are we done? Like I said, I need to get back to work."
"Hey," he said gently. "I didn't mean-"
"Yeah, you did, Lucky," she shook her head. "You believe whatever you want to about Jason. I don't really care. Your opinion doesn't matter to me."
"It should," Sam said, trying to wrest control of the situation again since she apparently realized she couldn't goad Elizabeth over Jason. "Considering what Lucky's doing for you."
"That's right," Elizabeth said pointedly. "This is between me and Lucky. You don't have a say in this, you don't have a part in this, you certainly won't be involved in my children's lives, so stay out of things that don't concern you."
Looking at Lucky, she said, "And you don't have a leg to stand on considering who you're keeping company with. So I'm leaving now."
And then she walked away. She was tired of everyone's looks, everyone's comments, everyone's thoughts that they could somehow dictate her life. It was her life and if people didn't like the way she did things, or said things, then they could just stay out of her way. She was done taking everyone's abuse.
"Elizabeth? Could I...could I talk to you?"
Looking up from Mr. Cranston's chart, she was surprised to see Sonny Corinthos standing by the nurses' station looking at her. She hadn't spoken to him in months, and she had stayed clear of the whole mess after Michael's shooting, merely trying to do her job unobtrusively and stay out of the grieving - and fighting - family's way. She couldn't imagine why Sonny would come to her instead of Patrick, unless like Jax he thought she would give him a different perspective on Michael's condition.
"Sure," she said, trying to force a comforting smile onto her face. "What do you need?"
The older man looked around the open hub area and then asked, "Is there some place else we could go to talk?"
"Um...sure," Elizabeth answered slightly uneasily. "Nadine, I'm going to take my break."
The younger nurse nodded mutely, watching her walk off with Port Charles' mafia don. Once they were around the corner and down a quiet hallway, she stopped and asked, "What's going on, Sonny?"
"I...I wanted to talk to you," he said, shifting on his feet. "About Jason."
She sucked in a breath and crossed her arms over her stomach. "What about him?"
"I...I know that you think it's too dangerous for him to be around you and your boys, but..." He looked around to make sure they were alone and then looked back at her. His voice dipped and she had to lean forward to hear. "I think you're being really selfish, Elizabeth."
Her eyes widened and she rocked back on her heels.
"Jake is Jason's son and you're keeping him away from his boy. He needs his son right now. Maybe if he had his son in his life, then he wouldn't be out making foolish decisions."
She studied him for a minute, and then lifted her brow. "Are you talking about Claudia Zacharra?"
His own eyes widened slightly. "How...you've heard?"
"Have you forgotten the legacy left behind by Amy Vining?" she asked him. "Nurses are notorious for gossip. If I hadn't watched it on the news last night, I would have heard it first thing this morning that Claudia Zacharra testified in court that she was supposedly on a date with Jason and just caught in the crossfire instead of it being like how it probably went down. Her father shot at her and Jason got caught up in her mixed-up family drama and now she's lied to the whole town about it."
"You...you don't believe her?" Sonny asked. He sounded completely stunned by her pronouncement.
"Sonny," she sighed with all the patience of dealing with a recalcitrant two-year-old. Especially after today, she just wasn't up for it. "I was at the Black and White Ball. I know that Anthony stabbed Ric and left him pinned to the wall. He terrorized everyone there. He dragged off Maxie. He took me and was about to force me to jump from the ledge of the parapet until Jason came and took him out."
He looked at her in surprise. "He...he had you on the parapet and...and was threatening to make you jump?"
"Yes, Sonny," she told him, the thread on her temper shortening. "While you were off who knows where...the rest of us were dealing with a madman on the loose. I know that he shot Leyla because she looked like his dead wife that he supposedly killed, so why wouldn't he put a hit out on his own daughter? I also know that Jason would never get involved with someone he considers his enemy."
"You have a lot of faith in him," the older man said, a hint of mocking entering his tone. "And yet you won't let him see his child."
Barely biting down her irritation and anger, Elizabeth said, "I would let him see Jake if he wanted to. In fact...we were planning to be a family."
Sonny eyed her curiously and she looked away as tears burned her eyes and a lump of regret and pain formed in her throat, pushing away the anger. It still hurt to talk about it. He cleared his throat awkwardly and asked, "Elizabeth?"
"Jason and I...we were seeing each other. And...and we decided we were tired of sneaking around. He...he asked me to marry him and the words 'yes' were barely out of my mouth when we got the call about Michael. The next day he showed up at my house and said that he couldn't see me anymore. He couldn't take a chance of one of my boys ending up like Michael, of watching me go through what Carly was. He...he broke up with me and he walked out on me and he never even said goodbye to his son."
Wiping her eyes she looked up at Sonny firmly. "So now that you know the score, don't ever show up at my work again and presume to chew me out and call me selfish or think that I'm some horrible woman keeping Jason away from his child. Jason is the one who chose to walk away...again. I'm just trying to put my life back together after having it ripped apart because of the actions of others."
She turned and then looked back at him, "So think about that, Sonny. And then think about how much you trust Jason if you could honestly believe he would ever get involved with a woman like Claudia Zacharra. But don't think that you can come here and tell me that I need to stop hurting Jason and give him something else to focus on like I'm the only one whose actions caused Jason to walk away from his family."
Then she spun on her heel and stalked back to the nurses' hub. While she knew that Michael's shooting was a terrible tragedy, and of course she never wanted something like that to happen to Cameron or Jake, she also knew that Sonny and Carly had made a lot of foolish choices in regards to their children. She liked to think that she and Jason would have been different, but she would never know. Jason had chosen to give them up to keep them safe, and all Elizabeth could do was hope she could find a way to put her life back together.
The one thing she was not going to do was let herself be blamed by Jason's friends when they didn't know the situation and were a part of the problem in the first place. If that made her a horrible person, for insinuating that a grieving father was responsible for his son getting shot, then that's the way it went. She wasn't going to take parenting tips from Sonny Corinthos or Carly Jacks and have them tell her that the decisions she'd made for her children were the wrongs one. Because while she had originally kept Jason away from his son, it was Jason lately who was making the decision to stay away. He wasn't banging on her door asking to see Jake and she was sending him away.
Life just wasn't black and white, despite what Sonny, and Jason, wanted to believe. But she was done letting people judge her from their ill-conceived perceptions. Grabbing Mr. Cranston's chart, she got back to work and was determined to push all thoughts of Sonny's arrogant presumption out of her mind.
Claudia Zacharra stood in the shadows of the corridor and watched as Sonny Corinthos watched a mousy little nurse storm away from him. Was this someone working on his son's case? Except this wasn't the ICU floor. Or was this someone else involved with Sonny?
Sonny didn't look happy as he shot the nurse one last look and then walked away. Turning her attention to the nurse, Claudia could see that whoever she was, she wasn't happy. Interesting. Didn't seem like an ordinary medical conversation. Whoever this person was, she upset Sonny Corinthos, and based on that alone, Claudia Zacharra decided she needed to find out who this brunette nurse was.
"Excuse me," she said, stopping a passing orderly. "I was wondering if you could help me."
"Uh, sure," the man said, his teeth flashing brightly against his dark skin.
"I was wondering who that nurse over there was," she said with a smile. "I was talking to her earlier and can't remember her name."
The man looked over his shoulder and then said, "That's Elizabeth Webber."
"Webber?" she frowned in feigned confusion. "I thought she had a different name. I saw her talking to Sonny Corinthos earlier...and I guess I just thought they were connected somehow."
"What?" the man shook his head. "No, she ain't connected to Sonny Corinthos. She does know his enforcer Jason Morgan, though."
Claudia's brow went up. "Oh?"
"Oh yeah," he nodded. "She was called to testify at his murder trial last year. Big ol' mess that. Admitted on the stand she'd had an affair with him the summer before that. D.A. Lansing even asked if he could be the father of her little baby boy. Turns out he wasn't...but it was a big ol' mess. I think it led to her divorce from her husband. Since he's a cop and all."
She just nodded, letting the man speak. Apparently she didn't even have to try to pump him for information. He was just a fount of knowledge.
"Yeah, he also jumped bail and tracked down her little boy when he was kidnapped, he rescued her from some madman who kidnapped her and took her out of the hospital. She and Jason Morgan go back a long way, so I guess she's connected to Sonny Corinthos through him. But beyond that?" The man shrugged. "I don't think they're that close."
"I see," she nodded. "I guess it was my mistake. Thank you for clearing it up. I wouldn't have wanted to say the wrong thing."
The man nodded and then went back to his duties. Claudia turned her shrewd gaze on Elizabeth Webber and decided that she needed to do a little fact-finding on the nurse. If she was connected to Jason Morgan, and the guy was once suspected of being her kid's father...then she might just be useful after all.
The End
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