Jake's
Beeping. Must. Stop. Beeping. Gia groaned, cracking her eyes open with a murderous glare. Whatever that damn beeping noise was, it was gonna stop even if she had to commit murder. She reached for the end table, realizing only as she reached for it that it wasn't there. Because she wasn't in her bed. Or Nikolas'. Or anyone's that she recognized.
Gia sat up, way too sharply. She groaned again, louder, her hand flying to her forehead. "Shit," she murmured, wincing. Okay, so apparently she had a hangover. In addition to being in some stranger's bed. Oh, this was just getting better and better by the second. She drew her knees up to her chest, massaging her temples with one hand. "Think, girl, think," Gia told herself, "you can fix this. You just gotta figure out where the hell you are." She looked around; this was not her kind of room. Spare, clean but dingy, no frills, no -- nothing. A bed, a dresser, a window. There was nothing to give her one single clue as to who slept here when she wasn't in this bed. "Damn," she cursed out loud. "What is that goddamned beeping??"
"Your phone." An arm extended in Gia's face, and she bit back a muffled squeal. She turned sharply, coming face to face with Jason Morgan, wearing a pair of jeans and nothing else, standing at her shoulder obviously just having come from the bathroom behind her. "Been beeping all morning." He continued holding the phone out to her. "That usually means you should answer it," Jason said, patiently.
Gia snatched the phone out of his hand, realizing in that moment exactly how little she was wearing underneath the sheet that she now realized was Jason's. She flipped the phone to ‘off' and continued staring at him. "What am I doing here?" she demanded, suspiciously. Gia held up a hand. "Wait, back up. Where is here?"
Unbelievably, Jason grinned. "Here is Jake's. My room." He lifted an eyebrow. "You were sleeping."
"And before that?"
His grin deepened. "You don't remember?"
"Refresh my memory," Gia bit out through gritted teeth.
Jason shrugged. "You said you didn't want to go home; I offered my room. We came upstairs," he looked at her evenly. "We had sex. Then you slept."
Gia's eyes closed briefly as he said the words she had been dreading, that she had really already known before she asked the question. After a moment, her eyes shot open, and she grabbed the pillow beside her, tossing it at him, hard. "Jerk," she snapped. He didn't respond, just stared at her impassively. "You didn't have to just -- say it like that."
"You asked, I answered. How else did you want me to say it?" he asked, bluntly.
She shook her head; truth was, she didn't have an answer. Gia frowned, fragmented memories starting to come back to her. "We played pool, right?" She grimaced suddenly. "Oh God. Tell me this part is a dream," Gia looked up at him. "Did I -- sing?"
"And danced." Jason's grin reappeared, and he sat down on the edge of the bed. "Thousands cheered." He ducked as another pillow came flying at his head. He reached out and grabbed Gia's hands, holding them firmly in both of his. Despite the insanity of the situation, she could feel her heart start to beat slightly faster at his proximity and his skin against hers. "Hey, Gia, it was a good night."
She snatched her hands away. "Yeah, well, I don't remember it."
Jason looked at her, self-assuredly and reached out to twist one of her braids lightly between his fingers. "You will," he promised.
Gia turned her head away from him, clutching the sheet tighter across her body. "All I want right now is a shower," she said, not meeting his eyes. "And, a couple of aspirin."
He sat still a moment, watching her, then stood up, jerking his head at the door on the same wall as the bed. "Go ahead. There's a towel on the rack." Jason made no effort to hide the fact that he was watching her as she hesitated a moment, then gave a fatalistic shrug and slid out of bed, not bothering to take the sheet with her.
Gia padded into the bathroom, shutting and locking the door after her. She immediately turned on the water, then slid down to sit on the edge of the tub as she waited for it to warm up. Her head fell to her hands with a muffled string of curses, most of them directed at herself, a few at Jason, and one or two at Nikolas, just for good measure. As steam started to gust out from the shower, Gia stood up with a sigh, pulling open the shower curtain with a hard yank. The ancient rod chose just that moment to collapse, and the rod and attached curtain fell with a loud clank at her feet. "Oh my GOD!" Gia shouted, halfway between a curse and a prayer. "I hate my life."
Nikolas' cottage
Emily's eyes snapped open, and she fumbled quickly for her purse, managing to pull out her phone and snap it open in under five seconds. Glancing worriedly at the figure draped across the couch, she pulled herself up to a sitting position in the armchair. "Hello," she whispered into the phone, hoping against hope that it wasn't either of her parents.
"Em?" AJ's voice was hesitant. "Are you -- okay?"
She stood up, blinking the sleep out of her eyes, and walked as quietly and quickly as possible out of the living room past a still sleeping Nikolas and into the kitchen. "Yeah, AJ, I'm fine. Just lazy. You woke me up. But, I'll forgive you just ‘cause you're my brother." She paused, hearing a funny tone in his voice. "Is something up?
Her brother laughed. "You could say that. You could most definitely say that." There was a short pause. "Could you come over to the Gatehouse this morning? I'll feed you breakfast to make up for waking you up."
Emily hesitated; she had planned to spend the day with Nikolas, trying to cheer him out of what was sure to be a heck of a mood. "I don't know, AJ; I kind of had other plans--"
"Em," AJ broke in, cutting off her words, "please. I really need you."
"Then I'm on my way," she said, without hesitation. Need was a word that she and her brother didn't abuse. If AJ said he needed her, he meant it. "Give me twenty minutes."
"Thanks, hon." The relief was clear in his tone. "I promise, you'll understand when you get here."
She broke the connection a moment later and stood staring at the phone in her hand with trepidation. AJ had sounded nervous and excited and terrified all at once. Emily wasn't sure she wanted to know the whys of that one. She dismissed that thought a moment later as an uncharitable one and slipped out of the kitchen and into the bathroom.
She took a few minutes to pull her hair back into a braid, splash some water on her face and put on a light coat of lipstick -- just enough ‘fixing up' to make it look as if she hadn't spent all night fitfully sleeping in an armchair. Emily scrutinized her reflection in the mirror and made a face. It would have to do; hopefully, AJ would be so into whatever his thing was that he wouldn't ask any questions.
Emily tiptoed back into the living room proper; she and Nikolas had talked waaay past any normal hour of the night. Emotions had run high, and if the way she felt was any indication -- and she wasn't the one who'd just been left by her significant other -- Nikolas needed his sleep. She silently folded the afghan she'd snuggled under and left it neatly sitting in the middle of the chair with the quick note she'd scribbled in the bathroom resting on top of it. Grabbing her shoes in one hand, Emily headed quietly for the door, pausing only to lay one barely-there hand against Nikolas' shoulder before heading off to her brother. From one crisis to the next, Emily thought wearily. Just another day in the life of a Quartermaine.
Jake's
Gia opened the door to the bathroom warily. After she'd finally rigged the shower curtain back up, there had been just barely enough hot water for her shower, and when she'd emerged, she'd found that the ‘towel' Jason had offered was little more than a terry-cloth handkerchief. She had draped it as artfully as she could about her body but there was only so much she could do.
She breathed a sigh of relief as she scanned the room and found it empty. Last thing she wanted to face was Jason Morgan right now; last thing she wanted to face was what the two of them had done. Gia tossed her head; there was time enough to think about that later. First things first -- where were her clothes? She looked about the room, finally finding her jeans halfway under the bed, her t-shirt in the corner of the room and her boots discarded in a heap near the entrance. "Real classy, Gia," she murmured, regarding the rip in her t-shirt and the missing button on her jeans. She held it up with a grimace; it reeked of smoke. Considering a moment, she shrugged, then moved towards the closet door. Way she looked at it, Jason Morgan owed her.
A moment later, Gia Campbell regarded herself in the mirror. She had borrowed a white men's shirt from Jason's closet and knotted it at her waist, unbuttoning the first couple of buttons and rolling the sleeves up to her elbows. Her hip-slung jeans were fastened with a leather motorcycle belt she'd purloined, and she'd tugged her boots back on. After a moment of searching, she found a pair of large hoop earrings in her purse, and she slipped them in, pulling the sides of her hair back and fastening it loosely with a black rubber band. A slash of dark red lipstick and ... not perfect, but not too bad. Much better than half an hour ago.
She looked over the room, trying to see if there was anything she'd forgotten before she made her escape when her eyes fell on the phone. Gia scooped it up, opening it quickly; how had she forgotten that Jason had said it'd been beeping all morning? Of course, the hangover that was only slightly fading was somewhat of an excuse, but for a girl who's phone was practically just an extension of her hand, not enough of one. She dialed the access code for her voice mailbox quickly, waiting impatiently for it to be processed.
"You have ten new messages in your voice mailbox," the automated voice announced, and Gia's eyebrows rose. It was, according to the same automated voice, only nine in the morning. What was going on? She pressed ‘one', waiting for the first message.
"I don't know where you are or what the hell you think you're doing, but you better call me or come into Deception as soon as you get this message, Gia. CALL. ME. NOW!" Carly's voice was particularly strident and more than a little strained; Gia's mind raced frantically. She hadn't missed a photo shoot this morning; her next shoot wasn't scheduled until day after tomorrow. What was Carly's problem? Gia raised her eyebrows, chalking that one up to her boss being awake before ten and hit the ‘next' button.
"Gia Marie Campbell, this is the last straw." Her mother's voice held that note of disapproval she liked least, the one that had almost disappeared these last few months. "If you have an explanation for what I'm seeing, it would be nice if you could call your mother and give her one. I may just be your mother, but I would still like to know what is going on in your LIFE. Call me."
Seeing? Gia paged desperately through the rest of the messages; one from her brother, two more from Carly, one from Elton on behalf of Carly, and the rest were from reporters all asking for her comments on Jason Morgan. She sat down heavily on the edge of the still rumpled bed. "Shit," she swore, then collapsed backwards full-length on the bed. "Shit!" Gia screamed at the ceiling. There had to have been a photographer in Jake's last night while she was playing pool, dancing and apparently, her eyes closed with a loud groan, singing with Jason Morgan. She could just imagine the headlines -- "Face of Deception Meets Face of the Mob" or "Deception Girl -- From Prince to Mobster".
Nikolas! Gia sat up straight, ignoring the head-rush. If this was in the papers, he was gonna see it. She stood up, grabbing her purse; she had to explain, she had to fix--. No. Gia froze with her hand on the door. When she'd walked out of the cottage last night, she hadn't planned on going back. She didn't owe him any explanations, and if he hadn't called her, then he obviously wasn't interested in any. Gia pulled her shoulders back and her chin up. No, she wasn't headed over to the cottage; the best thing she could do was go straight to Carly's office and figure out a way with the PR people to fix this mess. That was -- the smart thing to do. And, considering the night she'd just had, thinking smart was about the only thing that could possibly pull her out of this hell-hole of a mess. Gia closed the door firmly behind her and headed down the stairs to her car without a backwards glance.
the Gatehouse
Emily pulled her Jeep into the driveway of the Gatehouse, and cut across the lawn towards the front door, ignoring the sidewalk as per usual. She stopped still in front of the steps, then slid down to sit beside her silent brother who was perched on the porch with his chin resting in his hands, the door cracked open behind him. After a moment of silent companionship, she nudged him with her shoulder. "Hey," Emily said softly. "Wanna tell me what's going on?"
AJ turned his head to contemplate his baby sister for a moment, then shrugged and nodded towards the large picture window. "They say a picture's worth a thousand words; take a look for yourself," he jerked his chin towards the house.
His sister stared at him, puzzled, for a long moment, then stood up fluidly and moved to the window. She looked in the house, not seeing anything unusual at first, other than a half-unpacked duffel bag in the middle of the floor. And, then she saw her -- a young, beautiful sleeping child in the middle of the couch, one of Lila's heirloom quilts tucked gently around her, her thumb in her mouth. Emily's gaze went back and forth from the little girl to her brother, and she sank back down beside AJ. "AJ, I don't -- who is she?" she asked, slowly, noting the sleepless circles beneath AJ's eyes, the rumpled clothing he was wearing.
"My daughter," AJ said briefly and bluntly. Emily gasped and her eyes widened; AJ reached into his jacket pocket and drew out a folded letter and handed it to her. "Here, Em. The whole sordid story -- read it and weep."
Emily slowly unfolded the pages, automatically flipping to the last one to find the signature, Keisha Ward. She gasped again, dropping the papers in her lap, and turned her head to stare through the window at the sleeping child. "AJ--"
"Read it, Em," her brother stood up and walked a few paces across the lawn. He spoke without looking over his shoulder at her. "Keisha's bombshell from across the grave."
Emily stared at his back, wanting to ask a hundred questions and not knowing how to form any of them. Finally, she dropped her eyes back to the letter in her lap and smoothed it out on her knees.
Dear AJ,
There is no easy or even right way to begin this; in my heart, I know this letter shouldn't have to be written at all. But we all make choices, in our lives, and there comes a time when every choice we make, we have to pay the consequences. This is mine.
When I left Port Charles, I fully intended to come back. I would stay with my father until he was better, then I would come back, take up the strands of my life again. But, the things we intend -- they don't always come to pass. A month after I left Port Charles, I found out I was pregnant. And, a month after that, my father, as you probably know, died. Things like loss have a way of changing your plans, making you re-prioritize. And, my father -- you know what he was to me. He was all I had for a very long time. I decided to stay here, in Pennsylvania, near where my father had lived. And, I decided one other thing -- not to tell you about this baby. There were a thousand reasons why: I didn't want you to be with be because you were beholden to me. I didn't want my child to turn into what I'd seen Justus become in your family. I wanted, no, I needed to stay near where I'd grown up, and I didn't think that you'd be able to accept that. What it boiled down to, I guess, is that I didn't trust you. I'm sorry.
It just seemed -- easier to forget the past, to concentrate on the future. To have my child and raise her on my own without tearing open old wounds, of how you and I hurt each other, of Jason, of Carly. My cousin Faith and her husband helped me out before they went back to California; they got me a job and a nice apartment in the same neighborhood where I grew up, and Alyssa Jane was born healthy and strong seven months after my father died. I know that you're thinking I could have picked up the phone and called you then; I could have picked up the phone and called you anytime in the next three years. But, AJ, I built an entirely new life for myself and my daughter; you were the past. There was no going back. I'd made my choices. And, so it seemed, had you. I read about your marriage to Carly; I heard that you'd found out that Michael was, after all, your son. It all seemed to have come around for the best. We both had our lives; we both had our children.
But, lately, I've been having these dreams. You, with our daughter. You, holding her and laughing with her. Behaving as a father should. As he has the right to. And, it's been haunting me. That I took away that right, from you. I know what kind of a hypocrite it makes me, in light of all the things that happened when Carly's son was born. So this is my solution -- I wrote a letter. Not a very good solution, not a very good letter. I don't know if I'll mail this; I don't know if I have the strength. But, I hope I do. For our daughter's sake.
Keisha
Emily read the letter over again, then picked up a smaller, folded piece of paper that had been in the same envelope. It was a note from Keisha's lawyer, telling AJ that two days before being in a fatal car accident, Keisha had written this letter and drawn up custody papers naming him, AJ Quartermaine, Alyssa's legal guardian. "Wow," she whispered, her eyes damp. She lifted her head to look at her brother. "AJ, I can't -- I can't believe this. Keisha's dead? You have a daughter?" She shook her head slowly. "Even for our family this is insane."
AJ turned to face his little sister. "Yeah, that just about covers it," he said, bitterly. "Why is it, Em, that women just can't seem to tell me that I'm a father?"
Emily rose and slipped her arms around her brother. She hugged him hard for a minute. "You know what?" she pulled away enough to look him in the eyes, one arm still linked through his. "I'd really like to meet my niece."
AJ's eyes closed briefly, and his arm tightened around his sister. "Yeah," he said softly, opening his eyes to look at her. "Sounds like a plan." They walked into the house together, closing the door softly behind them.
