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Prompt: I always fail to see the little things in front of
me.
Elizabeth Webber dug her elbows into her bare thigh, letting them roll against
her kneecaps, as she buried her face in her hands.
This was not good.
Winking fluorescent light flashed against the metal bars before her, making her
wince as she tucked her hair behind her ear. Every muscle in her body ached and
her monstrous headache could tip the Richter scale. All she wanted was to go
home, take a long, hot bath and fall asleep on top of the covers with the
windows open.
Instead, she was sitting in a holding cell at the PCPD jailing facility.
Some sort of hideous generic soft jazz floated her way, convincing the brunette
that the warden that sat with his feet up on his desk, enjoying a sub sandwich
and a Playboy magazine, was completely deaf. This music – horrid and lazy and
completely lacking any sort of coherent, euphonious rhythm – was like the result
of what would happen if a jazz musician was stabbed and instead of bleeding, he
picked up the saxophone and played. But Lothario at the desk seemed to like it,
which only made Elizabeth’s irrational hatred of the man increase.
The brunette let out a low groan and raked her fingers through her curly brown
locks, willing the memory of this disastrous night to go away. She was tired,
aching, humiliated, and she just wanted to get home. Sonny was going to have a
field day with this one – there was no way she could escape her older cousin’s
ribbing tonight. She was really in for it this time.
“This was fun!” Swinging her legs off the edge of the bench and grinning, Brenda
Barrett was the picture of youthful exuberance. The tall brunette’s long, dark
hair was open and she was playing with it, completely unaffected by the fact
that they were sitting in a jail cell. After all, the rebellious young Miss
Barrett, daughter of one of the most influential merchants in Port Charles, had
seen the inside of these walls before, and Daddy’s lawyers always made sure she
was out in time to watch reruns of Three’s Company.
Elizabeth slowly looked over her shoulder at her best friend, shooting her a
lethal glare that would have stopped even her ‘alleged’ mobster of a cousin in
his tracks. But Brenda just grinned cheekily back, wiggling her perfectly
plucked brows, and Elizabeth wanted to hit her.
“We’re in jail, you know.”
Brenda shrugged. “We’ll be out in a few.”
“This is the fifth time in two months that you’ve dragged me down into
the slammer with you,” Elizabeth ground out, rubbing her temples. “Doesn’t that
say something?”
“That we should be trying to break the Guinness World Record?”
“No!”
The brunette shrugged, unconcerned. “Don’t freak out about it, Lizzie Love – no
big deal.”
She wanted to take off one of her black leather boots and smack the woman in the
head with them. Maybe that would finally knock some sense into her. “It’s a
very big deal!”
“Hey!” Lothario at the desk was glaring at them, a bit perturbed at their
interrupting him in his perusal of Miss August. “Double Mint Twins – keep it
down!”
Elizabeth sneered at his back the minute the warden turned around, and Brenda
did her best to suppress her smirk. Every single time was the same – they’d land
in jail, Elizabeth would flip out, they’d get yelled at, Elizabeth would flip
out some more, and then Sonny and Jason would come to bail them out and all
would be good.
“Elizabeth, listen to me,” she soothed, doing her best to keep the amusement out
of her voice. “It’s going to be okay. It’s just a minor offense – Daddy will
make sure it doesn’t get anywhere near our records, okay? And you know that
Sonny and Jason are going to be here any minute.”
The younger woman hunkered down against the wall, wincing when its coldness
instantly penetrated the bare skin of her shoulder. Dressed in a skimpy black
tank top with an air-brushed image of New York City, her frayed denim miniskirt
and a pair of leather ankle boots, she was freezing. Brenda, who was similarly
attired in a ruffled black mini-dress couldn’t have looked more comfortable. And
Elizabeth hated her for it.
“Well, we know that Sonny’s going to be here, because he’s just that
whipped,” she muttered, pouting at the floor.
Brenda rolled her dark eyes. “Oh, please – wild horses can’t keep Jason away
when you’re in trouble. That neanderthal springs into total Superman mode. It’d
be funny if it wasn’t so disturbing. I keep expecting him to pull a pair of blue
tights from his closet-“
She broke off in giggles but Elizabeth didn’t crack a smile. “Yeah, and you
think I like that?”
That stopped her friend and Brenda shot her a curious look. “What do you mean?
Like what?”
“You think I like having him constantly have to run around and save me?”
she spit out, angrily swiping her hair back behind her ears. “Because I can
assure you that I do not. I’m, like…Oh, god! I’m like some stupid little
kid that he has to always keep tabs on.”
By this time, the taller brunette was staring at her as if she had lost her
mind, and she asked as much. “Are you completely crazy?”
Expecting sympathy, Elizabeth was a stunned by Brenda’s incredulous tone.
“What?”
“Are you completely nuts?” her best friend repeated, shaking her head in
disbelief. “You think Jason shows up here with Sonny every single time we get
busted because he feels obligated?”
“Hey, Sonny’s your boyfriend,” the brunette replied defensively. “And
Jason’s his best friend – and his fucking enforcer, for crying out loud!” The
last part was muttered under her breath because there was no telling if Don Juan
at the desk was eavesdropping. “-So of course Jason feels obligated to come
along and bail Sonny’s little cousin out of jail.”
Brenda could only pinch the bridge of her nose as she shook her head. “You two
just might be legally retarded.” Elizabeth opened her mouth to protest but her
best friend was quicker, instantly pressing her fingers to the young woman’s
mouth to keep her quiet. “He shows up here because he worries about you,
Elizabeth,” she informed her. “Because he cares about you.”
“Because I’m-“
“And not just as Sonny’s cousin.”
“It’s because I’m-“
“And not as his ‘friend’, either,” Brenda cut in sagely, quirking one slender
brow at the brunette. “Trust me, the way he looks at you – friends don’t look at
each other that way, Elizabeth.”
The young woman blushed despite her firm resolve not to, and Brenda knew she had
won. She and Sonny had watched Jason and Elizabeth dance around each other since
they met almost a year ago, and it had rapidly grown old. Her best friend was a
free-spirit, an aspiring artist that lived her life in a rapid burst of events,
fluttering from one to the next without stopping in between. Jason, on the other
hand, was surprisingly mellow for a man in his position; he found what he was
good at – for her sake, Brenda didn’t want to delve into the gory details – and
he stuck with it. He was loyal to Sonny and vice versa, and the two of them
walked down their path together, slowly, deliberately.
At first she had thought that Jason was scared of the frenetic energy Elizabeth
possessed, the way she darted from one passion to the next. But as time wore on
and she got to understand their connection a little better, she realized that
quite the opposite was true. Elizabeth, whose childhood had been sorely lacking
in stability, was apprehensive of the stability she found in stoic, solid,
dependable Jason. She refused to believe that he could ever see her as anything
more than a friend, and she kept herself emotionally distant at times. Jason, as
Brenda could see, was pained by this but remained true to his philosophy to let
people make their own decisions. He didn’t push anything, and Brenda just wanted
to slug him for it.
“We’re not - just stop it, Bren.” Elizabeth’s low voice signaled a cracking of
her defenses, but her best friend wouldn’t dream of letting up.
“Elizabeth…what am I gonna do with you?” The amusement returned to her voice
upon the realization that she just might be able to get through this time to her
obstinate friend. “Who showed up with a leather jacket thrown over his silk
pajama bottoms when we got into a fight at Jake’s? And by the way, that mental
image is so totally the reason that I had to burn out my retinas as soon as we
got out.”
The younger brunette smirked at that; Jason Morgan, dressed in motorcycle boots,
silk pajama bottoms and his worn leather jacket, racing into the PCPD at two
o’clock in the morning followed closely by her cousin, who had managed to
actually get dressed before running out into the night. That was fun, she had to
admit.
Brenda’s lips twitched when she noticed the faint smirk on Elizabeth’s face.
“And who threatened to litigate the pants off of that one cop that allegedly
groped you the…third time we were in here?”
Elizabeth blushed at that particular memory, remembering how angry Jason had
been that night. “That doesn’t mean-“
“Let’s see,” Brenda continued, tapping her chin thoughtfully as Romeo at the
main desk growled at the centerfold for the month. “Who was almost jailed for
assaulting a cop when Taggert wouldn’t let you out of the cell two weeks ago?”
Elizabeth’s bashful grin said it all. “He was just being Jason; you can’t
think-“
“Who camped out just outside the cell when we actually had to spend the whole
night?” Brenda asked gently. “I mean, I wasn’t too thrilled about Romeo
sleeping over, but then again, I’m not the one in love with the guy.”
The younger woman looked up sharply, ready to deny it until she saw the knowing
glimmer in her best friend’s eyes. There was no point in denying it, though she
had tried to do just that an infinite number of times in the past.
She was running out of things to say to ward off Brenda’s attack. “He knew I was
scared and he just…stayed.”
“And waited,” Brenda agreed readily. “In fact, that’s what he’s been doing for
months now. Waiting. For you.”
Elizabeth’s lips formed an ‘o’ of surprise. “Oh, Brenda, no-“
“Think about it, Lizzie Love.” Her best friend’s hair fell partially across her
eyes as she leaned forward, speaking in a soft, low voice. “Who has been here
every single time we caused trouble? Who ran straight out of a meeting, out of a
shower, hell, out of bed, just to make sure that you were okay and that you were
out as soon as possible?”
“Jason,” she murmured softly, lowering her gaze to the floor.
Brenda nodded definitively. “Yeah, Jason. Without fail. He’s always been here,
Elizabeth. And we all know that it wasn’t me he was overly concerned about.” She
reached out and squeezed her best friend’s shoulder as the soft sounds of some
sort of commotion filtered in from the main lobby of the PCPD. “So the question
is, how long are you going to keep him waiting?”
Elizabeth lifted her wide, solemn blue eyes to her friend’s dark ones, but the
words she formed died on her lips because at that instant, a seemingly irate
Sonny and Jason burst into the room. Scurrying along behind them was an
anxious-looking police officer who abruptly signaled the warden and caused him
to drop his Playboy on the floor.
Sonny and Jason stood uniform, side by side, hands deep in their pockets, as the
balding Casanova let them out of the cell. Brenda floated out, smiling gaily at
the guard and rookie cop alike as she made her way to Sonny’s waiting arms. He
enveloped her in his long wool coat and walked with her out of the holding room
to the main lobby.
“What did you do this time?” Elizabeth could hear him ask, trying to hide the
laughter in his voice.
Her best friend looked over her shoulder and flashed Elizabeth a grin. “Just
girl stuff.”
“This ‘girl stuff’ have anything to do with hotwiring Nikolas Cassidine’s car
and setting it to roll into the harbor?” Sonny chuckled, giving his girlfriend
of three years a playful little shake.
Even Jason was smirking when Brenda laughed. “Hey, that’ll teach him to cheat on
our girl Lois with that trampy Sam-McCallgirl. See, normally, I’d allow for the
fact that the V.D. she gave him was punishment enough, but…a little something
extra seemed to be in order.”
Their voices faded off into the distance as they entered the lobby, leaving
Jason to look down at Elizabeth. The young woman, dressed in a
silhouette-skimming tank top and a cut-off miniskirt, barely came up to his
shoulder and her diminutive frame only brought out a surge of protectiveness in
the man. Gently, he reached an arm around her, letting it hover at her waist
without touching her and guided her out. Elizabeth didn’t like to be touched
after her stints in jail; she wasn’t as carefree or cavalier about the ordeal as
Brenda was. The girl had a thick skin and was stronger than most, but unlike her
best friend, she felt acutely the humiliation and guilt associated with a few
hours in the slammer.
“You okay?” he asked, holding the door open for her. A rush of cold air greeted
her as she stepped into the air-conditioned lobby, and Elizabeth wrapped her
arms around herself, nodding. Stopping abruptly, Jason whipped off his own
leather jacket and gently placed it over her shoulders. Feeling bold, he took
the liberty of pulling her dark curls out from under the heavy collar, and let
his hands linger on her shoulders.
She flashed him a slow Mona-Lisa smile and walked a scant pace ahead of him,
leading them out to the main doors. The night was warm – much warmer than the
frigid office – and Sonny and Brenda could already be seen canoodling by the
limo Sonny had brought along.
Elizabeth stopped on the steps outside the door to the PCPD and inhaled a slow,
deep breath. Jason watched her distantly, knowing that there was something
different about her tonight but unable to put his finger on it.
He didn’t have to wait long for the revelation. Elizabeth, having finally opened
her eyes to the beautiful summer night, set her sights squarely on him. He
didn’t even register the fact that she was moving; the only thing that told him
she was slowly making her way toward him was the click of her leather
boots against the pavement.
The brunette came to a stop right in front of him, her tiny body just inches
from his, and Jason forgot how to breathe. Those unearthly sapphire orbs gleamed
with hesitant purpose but he could see her pause for a moment. Slowly, timidly,
she raised her hands and cupped his face in a feather-light touch that stole his
breath away. As the brunette beauty inched closer, Jason could only watch her
curly lashes flutter as her eyes closed and the next thing he knew, her warm
soft lips were coupling with his.
It was a simple kiss, lacking the fire and heat that so often consumed him when
he was around her, but to Jason’s way of thinking, it was almost better. It was
a kiss of pure affirmation and trust, and he let himself revel in the way
Elizabeth lingered there as their lips and breaths mingled.
When she pulled back, Jason’s broad hands had already settled on her waist and
prevented her from leaving him completely. Still a little hazy from her spell,
the older man just stared down at her.
“Thank you,” she got out softly, so quietly that the words were almost lost in
the soft night breeze.
“For what?”
She tilted her head to the side, a pleased sparkle dancing through her sapphire
orbs as her lips curved upwards. “For always being there. And for waiting.”
The End.
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