Carly: "Ok. You see this place, Michael? This is Virginia's place. Mommy used to live here too."
(Jason lays Michaels stuff on the floor and his seat on the table)
Jason: "You want me to take him?"
Carly: "Yeah."
Jason: "Yeah?"
Carly: "I think he's tired."
Jason: "Ok, come here buddy."
Carly: "Yeah."
Jason: "Ok." (Jason lays Michael down)
Carly: "Mama would have hated it like this. She always used to say we should open up the shades and let in some of that good old Florida sunshine." (She opens the shades.) "There we go, just the way she liked it." (Carly sighs and walks to the couch. Jason grabs a box and follows her) "Coupons." (Carly picks up a coupon from Virginia's table) "Give her 19 cents off the economy size and she was the happiest woman on earth." (Carly smiles at Jason. Jason picks up a picture and smiles)
Jason: "Is this you?." (Jason laughs)
Carly: "Yes, that's me when I was eight years old. That was the first time my mom let me swim in the ocean by myself. She got so excited she made us go home to get the camera." (Carly giggles)
Jason: "She sounds nice."
Carly: "Yeah, she is." (pauses) "She was. What's that saying, 'You don't know what you got until it's gone?'"
Jason: "I guess we both just learned that didn't we?"
Carly: "Yeah. I'm sorry. You probably want to get this over with." (Carly grabs the box from him)
Jason: "No, no I don't actually."
Carly: "Are you sure?"
Jason: "Yeah if I was home all I would be doing is catching heat for the strike or the hit on Jax. Besides, I've never been to Florida. Maybe after we finish here we can.....we can take Michael to go see the ocean."
Carly: "Yeah!" (Carly perks up) "Get his picture taken his first time."
Jason: "Why not?"
Carly: "Ok. So let's get to work."
Jason: "Let's." (Jason scratches his chin and just watches Carly for a mintue)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
(Jason walks around from behind the counter over to Carly who is sitting on the couch still packing stuff and looking through a book)
Jason: "I'm coming over to check on you. How's it going?"
Carly: "It's ok I guess. You know what's sad, though? There's almost none of this stuff that I want."
Jason: "Maybe that's because the only thing you want is already gone."
Carly: "You mean my mom?"
Jason: "Yeah."
Carly: "You know there was something else." (Carly clutches a picture in her hands) "I mean there was someone else. I had a father believe it or not."
Jason: "You never said anything about him."
Carly: "I don't really think about him much. It's just now you know that mom died....."
Jason: "You know where he is?"
Carly: "No." (Carly looks at Michael) "He left when I was just little bit bigger than Michael. I haven't seen him since. It's funny, you know, because I was supposed to be the miracle that saved their marriage. Oops. Wrong again. Ended up being just me and mom. God, she loved me so much, Jason. Why couldn't I see that? I mean, she adopted me, she gave me a home and she treated me like I was her flesh and blood. And all I ever did was give her a hard time. Lie to her all the time, sneak out in the middle of the night, curse her to her face. It was like our whole relationship was like I was begging her to throw me out to prove that she made a mistake by adopting me, but she never saw it that way. She just, she'd love me no matter what. And when she came to Port Charles she had just the best of intentions.....to surprise her good pal Bobbie Spencer and what did she find out? The news that I had already been there for two years, had wrecked Bobbie's marriage, had lied to everybody in town, had lied to her, just like always. And she tried to find some way to deal with it, cope with it, make sense of it. And I just got into a fight with her again. Like nothing had changed except this time.....it was too much. She couldn't take it. I killed my mother." (Carly tilts her head to stop the on coming tears) "And I just.....I don't know any way that I can make that right."
(Jason stares at her)
Jason: "Now, is this like when you thought you gave Michael the heart defect? You didn't Carly, anymore than you gave your mother a stroke, you had an arguement sure but you didn't kill your mother."
Carly: "When she had her first stroke, I came down here. And I helped her out. I stayed with her for a few days. And then I went home and sent her a little out of my paycheck every month. And she was grateful. But it's not what she wanted, you know, I could tell. She wanted a daughter. That's what she wanted her whole life and I never came through for her. I never told her about Michael." (Gestures to Michael) "I never brought him to her. The last words I said to her were 'Go away.' And I yelled them."
(Jason shakes his head)
Jason: "Yeah, but she probably knew you didn't mean it."
Carly: "Oh...."
Jason: "She loved you, right? She was used to you. I know you don't mean half the stuff you say, especially when you're yelling." (Carly gives him a thank you look but then turns her head away) "Besides mothers and daughters fight all the time. Emily tells me about all the fights she has with Monica."
Carly: "Yeah but mothers and daughters also make up, Jason. I never learned how to do that. You know what scares me? I mean, what scares me the most, is that one day Michael and I will start fighting. And we will never stop."
Jason: "But why would you with Michael? You love him."
Carly: "Yeah now. Look, we pick him up, we put him where we want him, we feed him, he smiles. Everything's great. Right now. But what's going to happen when he gets a mind of his own? And starts saying things like 'No. I don't like you anymore Mommy.' I mean am I going to have the patience to keep smiling? Or am I going to just start screaming at him and never stop?"
Jason: "Carly, you don't want to do something, you won't."
Carly: "No, sorry, wait a mintue, you have me confused with somebody else."(Carly laughs)
Jason: "Who?"
Carly: "You! You won't fight with Michael because that's not the way you operate. You will show him things by example, and he will be proud to follow you. He's going to look up to you, Jason. When he's fifteen, when he's twenty, the rest of his life." (Carly looks at Jason who looks surprised) "I'm sorry I know what you're thinking right now.....that in fifteen or twenty years you won't know me or Michael."
Jason: "No."(He looks at Carly as she walked over to Michael) "I wasn't thinking that at all. I was trying to remember fighting with people I love.....why I did it and if I could ever fight with Michael that way." (Jason stands up and walks to the window) "I never want to tell him what to do, but I don't want him to get hurt, either." (He looks out the window) "Unless that's.....unless that's his choice but I don't know when a kid's old enough to decide that." (Carly gives him an understanding look and Jason starts walking towards her. He stops at the couch and shoves his hands in his pockets) "You see, Carly, when I started working for Sonny people said I didn't understand things." (Jason sounds like he's going to cry) "They were right. Not that I'm sorry. Sonny warned me up front, but he was the first person who believed me enough to take me on my word and let me choose what I wanted. I have to do that for Michael. I have to. But what if he chooses something that hurts him or puts him in danger? How am I supposed to stand back and let that happen?" (Pauses) "I guess we'll figure that out when it happens."
Carly: "Michael.....Michael won't choose anything that hurts him, Jason. You'll advise against it and he will trust you so much he will know. Whatever his father says is the right thing, and he will love you so much that he'll listen." (Carly uses her hands while she talks to Jason.) "And he'll let you protect him and keep him safe."
Jason: "Someday, he'll have to make his own choices."
Carly: "Yeah but you'll teach him how. And when the time comes, he'll trust himself. You know, the whole time that I was pregnant, I was running around trying to find out the best thing to do for me and my baby.....and it turned out to be you. Thank you."
Jason: "I wouldn't have known Michael if you hadn't shown up that night. So I got as much as you did and maybe more."
(Carly smiles)
Carly: "I guess that means I can make a good decision every now and again, huh?" (Carly messes with her necklace a little) "Maybe I'm not so hopeless as a parent after all?" (Jason is looking at a book as Carly comes around the side of the couch with a box in her hands) "Isn't it strange?
Jason: "Hmm?"
Carly: "You spend half of your life accumulating things that seem so important to you like knick knacks, pictures, and letters from special friends. And then you die and people get rid of it in a day."
Jason: "Maybe we should take a break."
Carly: "Ok. Yeah." (Carly smiles) "Oh. Wow. She would have been a good grandmother for him. Now he's never even gonna see her."
Jason: "Well, you can tell him when he's older all about her. And I can teach him about packing boxes."
(Carly giggles)
Carly: "That's something for him to look forward to."
(Carly and Jason smile at each other)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
(Jason and Carly are now at he cemetary and Jason walks over to Virginia's headstone)
Jason: "Carly, I found it."
(Carly walks over to where he is)
Carly: "It's kind of plain, don't you think?" (Carly looks at the headstone)
Jason: "You can change it. I didn't know what to put--a date, a prayer, or something else."
Carly: "Definitely not a date. My mom used to say that a woman who would tell her age would tell anything. I don't remember her having a favorite prayer unless you count, 'My God, Caroline. What have you done?' Maybe we could just put that, you know, that she was my mom and Michael's grandma." (Carly and Jason look down at the headstone again.)
Jason: "Sure."
Carly: "Will it cost a lot, to change the headstone?"
(Jason looks at her)
Jason: "Doesn't matter."
(Carly turns her attention to him)
Carly: "You always do that."
Jason: "What?"
Carly: "Just give me whatever I need. Doesn't matter how difficult."
Jason: "Your mother's headstone should be the way you want."
Carly: "Everything else is perfect. I love that she's near the ocean. (Carly points towards the ocean and walks past Jason.) "She loved the ocean. Did I ever tell you that my mom used to say that a day at the beach took her troubles away?"
(He smiles)
Jason: "That's why I chose it."
Carly: "That's another thing you do. You listen to me. Even when I don't listen to myself."
Jason: "Do you want to be alone with her?"
Carly: "I don't know." (Carly walks back towards the headstone) "Do you think she's here? I mean, do you think that when people die they can hear it when you talk to them?"
Jason: "Nobody knows what happens after you die." (He shrugs) "But I think that.....the part of you that loves.....your soul I guess.....that part never ends it just goes somewhere. When people need you, you can hear them, and maybe even help somehow."
Carly: "Can you tell that to Michael someday?"
Jason: "That's why I take him to church."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jason: "Hey." (Carly turns to him.) "It's getting late. If we want to fly back tonight we should leave pretty soon."
Carly: (points to Michael) "Is he still asleep?"
Jason: "Asleep again. I changed and fed him."
(Carly points to Jason)
Carly: "You're a good father Jason. When I found out I was adopted all I could think about was that I had this real mother out there somewhere, but Virginia Bensen was my real mother just like your Michael's real father. Biology doesn't make a real family. Love does. Remember that ok?"
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