Written in 58 minutes.

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Wednesday, October 2, 2024

General Hospital: Waiting Room

There were too many choices.

Jake stared blankly at the line of vending machines, flicking back and forth from sandwiches, coffee, junk food, soda, then back again. Why was he even bothering to bring anything? No one would eat. No one would drink.

They were waiting for information. From the crash site where they were still looking for Danny’s mother, from the hospital team working on Kristina who had been taken up to surgery almost an hour ago, and they knew nothing more than “everything is going fine” or “it’s going as expected.” Why did they even bother updating the family when there was nothing to learn?

“You’ve been here a while.”

Jake heard his mother, turned to look at her. She’d tied back her damp hair into a tail that had started to dry, curling up into half waves. Her eyes looked puffy, tired, with purple shadows blooming beneath them. He turned his attention back to the lined row of vending machines. “Did Dad call yet?”

“No, not yet. The rain stopped, so maybe soon.” She came up beside him, rubbed his back. “Why don’t you come back and sit down?”

“Can’t.” Jake shook his head swiftly. “I’ll go crazy if there’s nothing. Or Danny will and I don’t know if I can stop him. And I should be able to stop him because his grandmother shouldn’t have to worry. Neither should his aunt.”

“Jake—”

“I can’t stop him,” Jake repeated, looking at her again. “Because I keep thinking maybe his mom is dead and that’s the worst thing that could happen. I know she was a terrible person, I know she hated me and I mostly hated her, but that’s his mom—” His voice cracked and he shook his head, stared at the vending machine again. “That’s his mom. How do you come back from that? How do you breathe? I thought I knew—I mean, we lost Dad didn’t we? We both did. But I got up and I got over it.”

“Did you?” Elizabeth asked softly. She stroked his back lightly. “Because I noticed you spent more time with Danny after. You’d always been close, but you really started to see yourself as his older brother. Responsible for him.”

“I had to. His mom was building the new life, moving in with Dante and Rocco, and Drew was back with Scout — no one was looking out for him.” Jake curled his hand in a first, rested it against the machine. “I know Dad and I are — I know it was weird and bad, but it’s better now. We’re better now, and maybe Danny’s mom was going to be better. She didn’t send that email, right? So maybe it’s supposed to be better now.”

“Jake.”

“But it’s not because no one’s saying it, but she’s missing, and she sounded scared, so maybe the water got to her, and she couldn’t get out. She couldn’t—” Jake pressed his lips together. “I listened to her on that call. I heard her, Mom. I don’t think she’s coming back. I always thought—I always thought if she were gone, things would be better—I didn’t want—”

“Of course not. Hey, of course not—look at me baby—” Elizabeth touched his cheek, turning his face gently until he was looking at her again. “You think I didn’t have my moments with her, too? How much easier my life would be if she were gone? You’re human, honey. And she was a difficult person to know. Wanting her to be out of your life? That does not mean you wanted your brother’s mother to die. For him to lose her this way. Or any other.”

“I just—I don’t know what to do. How to help him. How do I help him?” Jake wanted to know. “What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to take it one step at a time,” Elizabeth said. She rubbed his arm. “We’ll sit with him until we know something. And then when we do—we’ll handle it. Okay? There’s no manual, no instructions. Just one step at a time.”

Belle Forest Drive

The rain had stopped. For the first time in a days, the sky was quiet. The normally quiet, two lane road that connected the Belle Forest development to the rest of Port Charles was awashed in emergency lights, flashes of red and blue from fire engines, from police cars.

Jason stood by the SUV, watching Dante with some of the other first responders, grimacing when Anna moved away from him, from whatever tense conversation they were having, then approached Jason.

“I would have thought you’d be on your way by now,” Anna said, folding her arms as she came to a stop. “Don’t you think you’d do more good at the hospital with your son?”

“My son would want to know what we’re doing to find his mother,” Jason bit out. “That’s why you and Dante are arguing, isn’t it? You’re calling off the search.”

“Until daylight, yes—it’s dark and the terrain isn’t stable,” Anna replied. “It’s also not my call, Jason. That’s on search and rescue, and they’re not putting their men in danger to find someone who is likely already dead.” She paused. “You understand that, don’t you? If she was trapped in the car, she likely drowned before the creek swept the vehicle—”

Jason shook his head, left her in midsentence, then went to find Dante who’d gone over to the side of the road. Spinelli stood a few feet away, both of them staring down the hillside where the creek could be heard, but barely seen.

“I should have been faster,” Spinelli said, and Jason shook his head. “If I had been faster, we might have had the trace on that email sooner, and—” His voice shook just a little. “We believed it was her. I know we had reasons, but to know, in the final moments, that I failed her so utterly—”

“Spinelli.” Dante’s voice broke into the younger man’s ruminations. “You weren’t the only one. We all thought—we all thought it.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “I knew weeks ago Kristina was a suspect. I should have known it was her. She’d framed Elizabeth once—”

“You knew she was a suspect?” Jason said. “Did everyone know except Elizabeth and me?”

Dante exhaled on a low breath. “I didn’t really believe it. We couldn’t eliminate her from the list. Her or Alexis. That didn’t mean we thought—I still couldn’t—” He looked at Jason. “Molly and I recused ourselves. We let the investigation play out. That’s what you’re supposed to do. That’s the rule.”

“The rules—” Jason bit out. The rules that had kept him on the sideline for weeks, the rules that had let Kristina walk free, committing more harm. “You should have told me. What did you think I was going to do? Let her go?”

“Did I think you might protect Sonny or one of his children instead of taking care of your own responsibilities?” Dante demanded. “Yeah. I did. You had Jake, didn’t you? You still confessed and went to jail for Michael. You had Jake and Danny, and you still sacrificed your life for Carly’s freedom. Don’t pretend we didn’t have a damn good reason to keep this to ourselves.”

He wanted to argue. He wanted to deny the truth. But he’d left his sons to take of Sonny and Carly and their children. He’d sacrificed over and over for them —

“Once she put that gun in Elizabeth’s trunk,” Jason said roughly, “she stopped being someone I was interested in protecting. Elizabeth spent a week in jail, away from her kids because of Kristina. If she’d framed me, put the gun in my room — it’d be different. I don’t know.” He stopped, looked at Dante. “Sam knew. Somehow she knew. Because the last question she ever asked her sister was if she put the gun in her trunk. Kristina found out Sam had the phone, that she’d called someone — and she tried to grab the phone. She caused the accident, Dante.”

“Jesus Christ.” Dante paced a few steps away, then came back. “You’re telling me that Kristina—that Kristina did this? That she put her sister in that creek? That—I can’t believe it. I don’t—she loves Sam—”

“She loves herself more. We raised her to believe someone would always protect her. Clean up after her. It stops. It stops now.”

General Hospital: Waiting Room

When the phone call ended, Chase slowly slipped the phone into his pocket, then looked at Michael and Brooke who had come to the hospital to wait with him. His wife saw his expression first, touched her cousins’s arm.

“What is it?” Michael asked. “Did they—did they find her?”

“They’re calling off the search. It’s too dark, too dangerous. The creek — it’s not expected to subside for several more hours.” Chase grimaced, looked over at the family clustered by the sofas and chairs. “Anna said the search and rescue — that they didn’t expect to find her alive at this point.”

“Oh, man.” Michael made a face. “I should have said something to my uncle. Dante wanted me to wait, to give him time, before I told him Kristina knew about the whole Aiden and Elizabeth connection.”

“We thought we could – we wanted to force her to make another mistake,” Chase said. The medication Willow had given him when he’d gone to get stitches were beginning to wear off, and his head felt like it was on fire. “Dante wanted to push to talk to Sonny, but she went to her mother instead. And now we might never be able to prove Elizabeth’s innocence—”

“No one thought there’d be this kind of accident, come on,” Brooke said. She wound an arm through Chase. “Do you really think anyone’s going to blame you for this? It sounds like Sam knew her sister was the bad guy, too, and what did she do? Confronted her. She didn’t have to do that — I’m not blaming her,” she added when Michael grimaced. “I’m just — it sounds like a lot of people thought Kristina knew something or was part of it. And you all did exactly what she expected. You played hands off and talked around it, hoping for a smoking gun that was never gonna come. Because her kind? They never admit to anything. Not if there’s someone else they can point a finger at.”

Across the room, a doctor in scrubs had emerged from the double doors leading back to the surgical rooms. Alexis was on her feet immediately, Molly following a bit less eagerly.

“Is she okay? Will she be okay?”

“We were able to stop the bleed in her brain,” the doctor told Alexis. “But we won’t know what we’re dealing with until she wakes up. There could be some memory loss—”

“Of course. She’ll pretend she doesn’t remember anything, and you’ll both believe her,” Molly said, almost disgustedly. She stalked away a few paces, staring blankly at the wall.

“Molly—” Alexis started, but Sonny touched her arm, shook his head lightly, before looking back at the doctor.

“When can we see her?” Sonny wanted to know. “When do you expect her to wake up?”

“Sometime tomorrow morning, maybe six to twelve hours for now. Best case scenario,” the doctor added. “This is good news—”

“Speak for yourself,” Molly retorted. “The wrong sister made it out—the wrong—” She pressed her hands to her mouth as Alexis went white. “The wrong sister. If Sam were alive, they’d have found her by now—”

“That’s not true—” Alexis began.

“Molly, we can’t talk like this,” Sonny said at the same time with meaningful looks towards Danny who was on his feet, his cheeks tear-stained. “We have to believe Sam found a way—”

“I’ll talk anyway I want, damn it—no!” Molly shook off TJ’s arm. “No! The only reason I want Kristina to survive is to find out what the hell did she to Sam. After that, she can rot in hell for all I care.”

“Mols,” TJ said, reaching for her, but she’d already stalked off, storming out of the waiting room, the door swinging closed behind her.

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