Written in 60 minutes. See you tomorrow. *cackles*

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Jason rubbed the back of his neck. “Is there a reason to be worried?” he asked, closing the office door and reaching for the blinds on the window that looked out onto the warehouse floor.

“Worried?” Molly echoed. “I don’t know. Let me review the deposition before I tell you we have a problem. I’d rather think about the positives. I wondered why Mom wanted to start with Elizabeth, and now we know. I’m sure there’s a way to organize our case to turn the tables back in our favor. I’m going to go through the tape, review the answers and the questions, then I think you and I should sit down and talk—and I’m gonna need to talk to Elizabeth, too.”

There was a knock on the office door, and Jason opened it to find Elizabeth on the other side. “She’s here now.” He backed up, allowing Elizabeth room to answer. “I’m talking to Molly now.”

“Oh.” Elizabeth took a deep breath, closed the door behind her. “Good. That’s good. Right?”

“We’ll find out.” He returned his attention to the call. “Let me know when you want to set up that meeting, okay? I’ll tell Elizabeth to call you.”

“Okay. Jason, it’s my job to worry, not yours. The one thing I would do, though—I’d get Danny from my mother’s house as soon as possible. If you’re planning to live with him full-time, start now. I know why you wanted to keep him with the Qs and why you let him stay at my mom’s, but that’s one thing we can do right now.”

“I’ll talk to Danny and see what he wants to do. I don’t care what happens to my case. If he wants to stay with his sister, that’s what he’ll do.”

Jason ended the call, tossed the phone on the desk, and looked at Elizabeth. She stood near the warehouse window, staring at the dingy blinds, one arm slung across the middle, the other hand at her lips, biting her nails. “Hey.”

She let her arm drop to the other, so that she was nearly hugging herself as she turned to face him. “Molly told you. The deposition — it was bad.”

“She didn’t use those words, and I’m sure it wasn’t—” Jason came to her, nearly reached up to rub her shoulders, but at the last moment, let his hands drop back to his sides. “She didn’t sound worried—”

“Well, then she’s covering it up. Or maybe she doesn’t know enough to be worried.” Elizabeth sighed. She raised both hands to her hair, combed through roughly, then cupped her cheeks. “What did Molly tell you?”

Jason did touch her now, attempting to guide her to a car, but she shook her head. “I can’t. I can’t sit still. Just tell me. What does Molly think happened?”

He furrowed his brow. “She thinks Alexis plans to emphasize how much you’ve done for Jake, to make it seem as if you did it alone without my input, and maybe even argue my lack of interest. Is—did she misunderstand?”

“No. But I think Molly suffers from not knowing—” Elizabeth looked at him finally, her gaze meeting his. “Jason. I didn’t lie today, I didn’t. But I came pretty close. And the only reason I could do it is because Alexis doesn’t know enough to press in certain areas. But there are other people who do.”

He tilted his head, squinting. “I don’t understand—”

Now Elizabeth did move, cross the short length of the office, then pacing back towards him. “What happened before Jake, I can mostly take the blame. Because it’s true. I lied to you, there was miscommunication, and we were just trying so hard not to hurt each other, we didn’t really talk—I think we get away with that, right?”

“Probably. You were married, I was engaged—but—”

She sank down onto the rickety wooden chair in front of his desk, sitting sideways, one hand braced along the back. “Alexis doesn’t know we were together for the better part of a year. That we were engaged for—well, I guess it was for a few days, but we both know it was maybe minutes because the second you got that call about Michael—” She looked away. “She doesn’t know that we nearly changed our minds. But other people do. Other people on that list.”

Jason closed his eyes. “Carly knows. And now so does Jake.”

“Lucky knows. I don’t know if Alexis would depose him, and God help me, I’m almost grateful because apparently he’s ready to take off any day now, so maybe we get away with that. And Carly, God, she might tell Alexis thinking it’ll help your case—but—” Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Jason, what does it look like in family court if we tell that judge the reason you stepped aside, the reason you weren’t in Jake’s life until after he was kidnapped—how do we tell him we did it because of your job?”

Seeing the trap now, Jason grimaced, looked away. “Alexis has to know it was a factor.”

“I’m sure she does. She raised Sonny’s daughter, she made similar choices. She has to know. It’s why she started asking me why I lied. The thing is—your job was never the reason this started. It wasn’t. I’ve always known who you are. I’ve accepted. And if things had gone differently when the tests came back, I was ready to tell you. It’s just…” Tears shimmered in her eyes and she had to look away. “What happened to Michael, God, it was so awful, and I know how scared we both were. I thought we were scared before, but the terror of thinking Jake might end up like that just for standing next to you…” Her breath hitched. “I didn’t fight you on leaving me. Not right away. I wanted to because I loved you so much—”

“Hey…” Jason crouched down, took her hand in his, and with his other hand, he cupped her cheek so that she’d look at him. “You never, ever have to defend that choice to me. We both made those choices. We both chose to put Jake first. He was always more important than how we felt about each other.”

She nodded, even as the tears slid down slowly. She drew in a deep breath. “She didn’t know how to ask it today, but I just—she could start asking questions. And if you tell the judge you were afraid Jake would end up hurt, it gives him a reason not to give you Danny now. The warehouse shooting last summer would probably come up, and those two years you were gone—he could really push on that, couldn’t he?”

“I guess.”

“It opens all these doors—and I didn’t think about it. I didn’t think Alexis would ever—” Elizabeth closed her eyes, took another deep breath. “I want to say it would be so unfair for her to use that against you when she knew how you felt, when she felt the same way.” She pulled her hand out of his grasp, started to swipe at her face. “I don’t know how we stop that from happening. Because if we don’t come clean about the why, Alexis gets to argue that it’s because you didn’t want to be his father.”

Jason grimaced, then rose to his feet. “And she gets to add it to all the other reasons she thinks that’s true. When Sam was…when she went to prison for what happened to Shiloh, she gave custody of Scout to Monica, and I decided to let Danny stay at the mansion because I knew she wanted them together. Just…”

“Just like now.” Elizabeth also stood. “And I know…” She rubbed her shoulder, uncomfortably. “The explosion at the Floating Rib. The one that hurt Lulu, and—”

“Killed a few other people, including Dev.” The nail in the coffin to any future with Sam. “Yeah. Danny lived with Sam after that, but we’d been there. He could have ended up hurt, or—Alexis knows about that.”

“I just…” Elizabeth took a deep breath, folded her arms tightly. “That’s probably the worst part of today — realizing how Alexis could rewrite the narrative of what we went through back then, to fit it with everything that happened later. And I don’t really know how we fix that. The part about your job. If this goes to court, if Alexis puts people on the stand, if she gets me up there, and I have to start talking about any of this—” She looked away. “I got in my car after the deposition, and I just started to drive. I drove in circles, just going over and over everything in my head, trying to find a way out of this—”

“Hey, this isn’t your fight—” Jason took her by the shoulders, his thumbs stroking in small circles. “Molly and I—”

“She wants to use me to hurt you, Jason. She wants to use this horrible thing we went through—She wants to use our son to say something about who you are—” Elizabeth pressed her lips together, creating a thin white line, as she tried to regain control of her rising voice. “Don’t tell me this isn’t my fight. She’s making it about me, and I’m not going to let her do that.”

“We don’t know if she’s going to talk about any of that,” Jason reminded her. “You’re right. It’s something we need to think about, and probably something we should talk about when we meet with Molly, but—”

“It’s just where she could start. But there’s all these other things she has proof of. Things I couldn’t skirt around. She asked about child support. Like regular payments—” Elizabeth shook her head. “I tried to tell her it was never necessary. You put together Jake’s trust fund when he was kid, and you even gave one to Cameron, even though that was never your responsibility, but I—I let Steven invest them in the stock market and he lost everything—”

“You didn’t tell me that,” Jason interrupted, furrowing his brow. “Why didn’t you—I would have—”

“Because it was my fault—” Elizabeth pressed a hand against her chest. “I let my brother talk me into trying to create something for Aiden, and I was so wrong. But even if that hadn’t happened, I always knew if Jake needed anything, I could go to you. I tried to tell her that, and I told her about Spain, how you were doing so much for Jake, and didn’t even blink an eye when Jake basically threw away entire semester of tuition and probably whatever rent you paid for his flat, and she started asking questions like doesn’t it bother you Jason didn’t seem to care? Like you just throw money at Jake’s problems, and I got tongue-tied because I thought these were all good things—”

“Take a breath. Hey—” Jason cut in, reaching for her hands as she gestured wildly. He squeezed them. “It’s okay—”

“It’s not. She’s going to try and paint me like I’m this amazing, perfect mother because all three of my boys are these incredible successes, and okay, sure, some of that of is me—don’t make that face at me, okay? Don’t.” Elizabeth stabbed a finger at him. “Whatever mistakes we made, whatever our regrets, we did one thing right. Okay? Everything we did, everything you did, Jake is because of that. We have this wonderful, brilliant, perfect son who is all of these things because of our choices, good and bad, and Alexis Davis doesn’t get to walk in like a Monday morning quarterback saying we were wrong. We are his parents. Not her.”

“Okay, first—” Jason leaned against the desk, fighting the urge to smile because she wouldn’t understand where the amusement came from, not in the middle of a conversation like this. But he hated when she was down on herself, when she cried, he couldn’t stand it. But now she was glaring at him, her eyes sparkling with a mixture of anger and defiance—

“First. I appreciate that you want to give me credit for anything about the way Jake turned out. And if you honestly think any of that is because of me, then I won’t argue with you.”

“Good. You won’t win.”

He reached for her hand against, holding it between both of his. “Second, you’re right. You and I made our choices. We made our mistakes. And I know we’ve been talking about them a lot with Jake lately. But it’s not fair for someone else to come in and judge us. To judge you for anything you did. But she’s not wrong if her plan is to talk about what an amazing mother you are. Cameron and Aiden are great kids. Look at where Cameron is—on a scholarship to an Ivy League school. You did that, Elizabeth, and you did that without anyone. Look at the career you built for yourself, the dreams you gave up so you could put the boys first. Don’t tell me it wasn’t a little bittersweet knowing Jake is going to live the life you wanted for yourself. So if you want me to disagree with Alexis about what kind of mother you are, you’re in for a fight.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I didn’t give up anything that mattered. What? To be a starving artist in New York City? I had a chance to do that, and I threw it away. Long before Cameron came along. And it was a privilege to go into nursing, and I love it. I’m so proud of Jake. So proud that you and I could make that happen for him, because just getting into the school isn’t enough. Alexis wants to try and use any of this against you, she’ll have to go through me.” She took a deep breath. “And that’s why I came here. Because I have a plan for some of it.”

Jason straightened, keeping Elizabeth’s hand still in his grasp. “A plan?”

“Yes. I don’t know if Alexis is going to find out about…about what happened after Jake was born, but I think we need to do whatever we can to make her back down, to make her understand that no judge is ever going to say you can’t raise Danny, that you’re an unfit father. Because her entire argument is that you haven’t been a hands-on full-time father, so Danny will suffer being in your custody. That you can’t handle it.”

“You think you have a way to make Alexis back down?” Jason asked, lifting his brows. “It’s hard to believe that, but I’m listening.”

She licked her lips, then bit down, remaining quiet just long enough for his pulse to pick up. “Elizabeth—”

“She thinks she can use me against you, but what if we—what if I take her entire argument about me and shove it down her throat? If I’m such an amazing mother, that if I can do all that of that as a single mother one basically one income, well—” She took a deep breath. “Then, okay. Let’s make me part of the deal.”

Jason opened his mouth, then closed it, furrowing his brow. “I don’t—I don’t understand.”

“Jake and Danny are both going to talk about how much they love you and Danny will say he wants to be with you, so the most important thing we have to do is make sure the judge feels comfortable with Danny in your custody. And Alexis thinks I’m amazing? I want her to eat those words. So make me part of the deal. Part of the package.”

Her meaning started to sink in, and his heart started to beat just a little faster. “Part of the deal,” he repeated. “You mean Danny in our joint custody, is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes.” She lifted her chin. “We can’t lose.”

Wanting to be absolutely sure she meant what he thought she meant, he pressed. “And in order for there to be a joint custody, that means we’d have to…” He trailed off, wanting her to finish, not even able to put it into words himself. It seemed too fantastical, too impossible to think she might be suggesting what he was thinking.”

“We’d have to get married. Yeah. That’s the plan.” She licked her lips again. “So, what do you think? Will you marry me?”

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