Okay, so I had this plot bunny a few months about what might be the fallout of the current storylines of GH, but I hadn’t really worked out some of the details. The reason I’m workshopping this idea is that while I have a decent idea about the main structure, I’m not confident I can write the 2017 version of these characters, particularly an Elizabeth who is supposed to be in love with Franco.

So I wanted to see if I could work out some of the kinks.  I wrote this in about 45 minutes, and here is the setup.

I pick up the show from about December 22, 2017. Franco and Elizabeth are engaged. Danny has accepted Jason as his father, Jake wants nothing to do with him. Sam and Drew are together, Oscar is his son. They don’t know who the mysterious Faison traitor is, etc. This begins in February 2018.

It has not been spellchecked or reread for typos.

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Monday, February 12, 2018

Webber Home: Kitchen

Elizabeth Webber wrinkled her nose as she tossed the last container of food into a brown paper bag, setting it next to the other brown lunch bag and an Avengers lunch box. Her two oldest were too cool for lunch boxes, but at least she still had one sweet baby.

“Mom, I’m not eatin’ the carrots. You can’t pay me enough to do that,” thirteen-year-old Cameron Webber declared with a sneer that announced her eldest baby was a teenager. God help them all if Cam was anything like Elizabeth had been at his age.

God help the world.

“Did you pack the cookies we made last night?” ten-year-old Jake Webber demanded as he climbed onto the stool in front of the breakfast counter and tugged his bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios towards him. “Franco and I made oatmeal raisin ones—”

Next to him, Cameron rolled his eyes, and seven-year-old Aidan Webber crossed his eyes, stuck a finger down his throat, and gagged.

“There weren’t enough for all of you, so no,” Elizabeth murmured. “You must have eaten more than we thought—”

“Probably only made enough for himself,” Cam muttered, elbowing Aidan in the ribs. The two of them shared a look that Elizabeth didn’t quite understand, but then again—she was an icky girl, and they were boys.

They were bound to start speaking languages she couldn’t understand, and Cam and Aidan just didn’t have the same rapport Jake had developed with her fiance, Franco Baldwin. Not that Franco played favorites—he and Jake just had so much more in common with their interest in art.

Cam and Aidan were into sports and video games in a way that Jake wasn’t.

“Where is Franco, anyway?” Jake asked, shoveling cereal into his mouth, then wiping it with the back of his sleeve. “He was supposed to drive me to school.”

“He’s not, is he?” Aidan asked with a scowl. He and Jake still attended the same school where Jake was a fifth grader, and Aidan a second grader. “Because I’m supposed to sit with Timmy today, and he was bringing his new iPhone. He got it for his birthday.” Aidan batted the blue eyes he’d inherited from his wayward father and a dimpled grin. “Can I get one for my birthday?”

“We’ll talk about it in July,” Elizabeth murmured as she started to wipe up the counter. To Jake, she said, “Franco had an appointment at the hospital, so you’re both taking the bus.”

She hurried the boys through the last of their breakfast, bundled them up into parkas and jackets, though both Jake and Cameron refused her help. Aidan let her adjust his scarf.

She walked them to the bus stop, missing as always, her home on Lexington Avenue in the Queens Point neighborhood. The new house was closer to the hospital, but she’d loved that house. It had been her first real home—she’d raised her boys there. Had lived around the corner from Patrick and Robin.

She and Patrick had traded off the bus stop duties back then, but like so many other things in her life—that was part of a different life. Robin and Patrick were happily living and practicing medicine in California, while Elizabeth…

Elizabeth was planning a brand-new future.

“Mom, are you really going to wait here?” Cam said with a huff. “I’m not a baby. My bus comes last. I can make sure these idiots get on there. It’s not like I’m gonna let Jake get kidnapped. Again.”

Elizabeth grimaced at the memory. “Cam—”

“You’re just jealous because I’ve been kidnapped three times,” Jake shot back.

“Jake!” Elizabeth flicked her son’s shoulder. “That’s not something to joke about.” Where had her little boy gone? He’d been doing so well—really blossoming over the summer and into the fall.

Until Jason Morgan had come home. For real. And the man Jake had grown to love and adore had been revealed to be the missing Quartermaine twin brother.

Almost four months later, Elizabeth still couldn’t quite wrap her mind around it. Most days, she put it out of her head. Jason and Drew belonged to a different life. A different Elizabeth. Jake was all they shared, and even that was a tentative at best these days.

Jason and Drew had been preoccupied trying to find out who had kidnapped them both and tried to have Jason killed. Drew had reached out once or twice to Jake, but he spent most of his time with Oscar Nero, the son he hadn’t known about.

And Jason….

Jake was only tolerating Jason because of Danny. And it broke her heart that Jake might never get to know the kind of father she knew Jason could be. Though it was hardly her fault Jake didn’t have many memories of Jason.

Elizabeth might have started the lie, but Jason had been the one to walk away from all of them.

“Was I ever kidnapped?” Aidan asked with worried eyes. “No one is going to take me right?”

“You got kidnapped once,” Cam said with a furrowed brow. “When you were a baby, right, Mom?”

“Yeah.” Elizabeth sighed, hoping that would be the end of it.

Though she imagined one day…they’d have to find a way to explain to Aidan that Elizabeth had married the man that kidnapped him.

She grimaced at the memory, but put it away almost as quickly as it had emerged. She didn’t like to think about those days. About that Franco. He’d been a different man.

The tumor had changed him. She believed it.

She had to believe it.

Even if things had been difficult since Jason had returned and Franco had been…sensitive about him. And it was likely going to get worse before it got better because eventually Jake would open his heart to Jason, and Jason would be a more permanent fixture.

Franco was just going to have to suck it up, because Elizabeth wasn’t going to turn Jason away from his son. Not now.

“I don’t remember what happened though,” Cam continued. “I was seven, I think. But you were gone. And then you came back. It wasn’t like Jake. He was gone for years.” He sobered at that memory. “Why did he get kidnapped so much, Mom?”

Thank God, the bus arrived before Elizabeth had to go into the sordid details of Jake’s various kidnappings.

She waited while Jake and Aidan climbed onto their bus and then it left. Cam’s arrived a moment later, and she saw her eldest off. He was getting so much older.

So much harder to pretend he was a little boy that couldn’t understand what was going on around him.

God, she hoped her boys wouldn’t need therapy one day.

Pozzulo’s Restaurant: Office

Jason Morgan rolled his shoulders and set his hands at his waist as he stood in front of Sonny Corinthos’ mahogany desk and waited while his best friend and partner went over some paperwork from the Puerto Rico run.

He had taken on some of his previous duties the month before when the trail into Cesar Faison’s mysterious partner and traitor had gone cold shortly after Christmas. He would never give up trying to learn who had kidnapped him, stolen his memories, and set up his twin brother to take over his life, but…

Jason had to get back to some kind of life. He had family here, and if he didn’t try to build some sort of relationship with his sons, then he was never going to feel like himself again.

Danny had been easier, but Jason wasn’t surprised by that, and he was just so…completely in awe of the miracle that Jake was alive at all…he would put up with any attitude from the boy if it meant Jake was still breathing.

Even though Jake lived with a man who personified evil and thought he was a good guy. It still didn’t make sense to him how anyone could believe Franco could change, that he was worth a second chance.

But somehow, he was unsurprised to learn that Elizabeth had decided to give him one. She’d always found the good in people, even if she’d had to make it up her in her head.

“Looks good,” Sonny murmured. He glanced up. “Things were good at the casinos? You didn’t have any issues?”

“Nah.” Jason shook his head quickly. “A couple of weird stares, but I guess…Drew didn’t go down there much.”

“Yeah, he never took to any of this. I guess…” Sonny sighed. “I guess there were a lot of signs. I just—I wanted you to be alive so damn much, you know?” He tossed the papers aside. “You get settled in? Carly didn’t over decorate the new place much, did she?”

“No.” Jason lowered himself into the one of the wooden chairs in front of the desk. He couldn’t stay at the Metro Court forever—he’d wanted a place where, if it was ever possible, that Danny and Jake could stay.  So while he’d been in Puerto Rico, Carly had found an apartment downtown for him and had it furnished. She’d finished rooms for both the boys and surprised him with a pool table in the dining room.

He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed his own space until he’d tossed his duffel bag on the sofa and seen the table. How much he’d needed something from his old life to make him feel like he was home again.

“She said she got some things from Elizabeth and Sam to make the boys’ rooms feel like theirs,” Sonny continued. “You, ah, think they’ll be spending much time with you?”

“Danny probably,” Jason said. “But…” He shook his head. “Jake only…agrees to see me if Danny is there. And then he only talks to Danny.”

“He’ll come around. He’s been through hell, but you know that? Not only the kidnapping but the bullshit Helena Cassadine put him through last year. It sucks, but Drew was there for him. And—” Sonny grimaced. “Franco was the one who saw something was wrong. I’ll give him that. Something about art therapy and his drawings.”

“I hate it,” Jason murmured. “He lives with my son. I don’t want him near Franco, but what am I supposed to say to Elizabeth? You know she doesn’t listen to me.”

“Not about the idiots she lets in her life, no,” Sonny said with a shrug. “She’s been making self-destructive choices for the better part of her adult life, Jason.” He shook his head. “I didn’t understand it when Carly nearly married the psycho, but—I don’t know. Maybe I understand how she ended up with him. She told you that she lied about Drew’s identity, right?”

“She mentioned it the first day she came to see me. At the jail.” Jason shifted. “And someone else said—she nearly married him.”

“Yeah, Carly stopped the wedding to tell everyone.” Sonny rubbed his mouth. “It was…it wasn’t pretty. Pretty much destroyed her life. And then Nikolas Cassadine died. Patrick Drake moved out of town with Robin.” He hesitated. “Carly was like that after you went off the pier. I was….in my own head about Kate and Connie, and all of that. AJ ended up coming back from the damn dead and telling Michael every sordid detail of Carly’s life. Carly needed someone, and well…there he was. Plus, you know, he was supposed to be your twin.”

“Yeah, she said something like that.” Jason hesitated. “I don’t trust Franco. It’s only a matter of time before something happens. I just don’t want Elizabeth and the boys in the crossfire.” Like they had been when Lucky Spencer had been addicted to drugs or when Jason’s Russian enemies had driven them from their home and nearly gotten Jake killed.

Elizabeth and her boys had been through enough. Even if Franco was her choice, that didn’t mean he wanted her to find out it was a mistake the hard way.

He looked at his watch. “I’m meeting Carly for lunch, so I’d better get going.” He got to his feet. “Call me if you need anything.”

“Will do. Hey, Jase?” Sonny stopped him as he started out of the room. “I know there’s a lot still up in the air, what with not knowing who Faison was working with, and Drew not having his memories back, Sam sticking to him like glue—but don’t take on more troubles by making Franco your problem again.”

“He lives with Elizabeth and the boys. With my son,” Jason said. “As long he draws breath—he’s my problem.”

| Fool Me Twice – Part Two →