Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She watched Jason for longer than she’d like to admit.

Everything about the scene was wrong; Jason curled up on a tartan rug surrounded by bales of hay. The leather jacket had gone overboard after the makeshift surgery in the safehouse and when she had helped him into the gray corduroy one she expected something - a look, a comment about how this would ruin his street cred but he didn’t say anything. Winced one shoulder into the jacket at a time and then told her where the car would be waiting for them and what exits they needed to pay attention to.

That was hours ago.

Not long enough, she thought, taking another sip of her cold coffee. Jason’s shallow breaths gave her something to focus on but it didn’t help. The too-quick inhale, the stuttered exhale. How his mouth would wrinkle if he shifted even slightly.

His cell phone buzzed and he was upright, thumb swiping, and saying, “Carly,” while his eyes hit hers and the corners of the room in one breath.

“Jesus,” she rolled her eyes, scanning the room too because his paranoia made her jumpy and how could she forget that she was in a fucking barn.

She made no effort to pretend she wasn’t eavesdropping and it looked like Carly was not sending the coast guard, or a medic, or even curly fries.

“We need to head out now.” He had one hand on a bale of hay, ready to push himself up and she was going to kill him if his wounds didn’t first. Even then, she had one hand under his armpit and hip hauling his ass up into a standing position.

“No,” she grit her teeth. “You need to stop moving.”

He was shaking his head before she finished, his words coming out clipped. “It’s nearing ten hours since we’ve been here. We need to keep moving, create more distance between us and the cops. Staying here helps no one.”

She could still feel the way his skin pulled when she extracted the bullet. “I didn’t put you back together just so you could get an infection and die, Jason.”

Now he rolled his eyes. Jason Morgan exasperated, ladies and gentlemen. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been shot and it’s not the last.”

He checked the time and slipped the phone in his pocket. Looked to her as if that was the end of that and we should be on our merry way. Fuck that.

She took a step closer, poked him in those big ol thiddies of his. If he wanted to stand, fine, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t push him down if she had to.

“You.” Poke. “Need.” Poke. “To.” Poke. “Rest.” Poke.

She was a little taller like this, with her back straight and him twelve hours out of a gunshot wound. She kinda liked it.

Jason didn’t but she wasn’t entirely sure Jason liked anything. He shook his head at her again, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. “You’ve been a fugitive before. This is what we have to do to move under the radar.”

Britt threw her head back to laugh at that. “I stayed in five-star hotels and had room service. Things like shampoo and heated bathroom floors.

“What if I can’t do this, Jason?”

His eyes softened around the edges at that. She liked to talk - to fill the space with words and distractions. Jason was exactly the opposite in that way. He had a stare that pinned you, gave you the space that words took away.

He looked at her like he was trying to figure her out as if the whole word didn’t know who she was. At General Hospital or the Floating Rib, in-between a game of pool and investigating Cyrus, she could convince herself that she could handle being on the other side of that stare.

But they were not in Port Charles.

Her arms waved, voice hysterical, and eyes wide - distract, distract, distract. “I’m not a fugitive, Jason! I’m not good at being on the run or driving all through the night or hiding out in Cassadine’s barn!” Her breaths came quick, shallower than Jason’s just moments ago and he just stood there watching her. “And I’m not a damn surgeon!”

Her right arm was raised, pointing a finger at the wound she’s been thinking about for the last twelve hours.

She saw the tremor before she felt it. Starting at her elbow through the wrist, her hand convulsing. Horrified, she tried to cover it with her left hand, latch it into a vice grip like it never happened. Like it hasn’t been happening for months.

Pain. Shame. Fear. Coursing through her lightning quick as she wrung her right hand into submission. Too long, stop, please, this should be gone by now.

“Hey,” he moved a step closer, reached for her trembling hands and held them in between his. His blue eyes bore into hers, unwavering. “It’s ok. I’m alive and I rested. I am good.”

Hands of a killer holding hers softly, the tremors shaking both of them. She still remembers the slick of blood on them hours earlier, both of them.

“You can tell me,” Jason whispered, and how fucked is it that he gets shot and he’s here comforting me. “Whatever it is you’re hiding, you can tell me.”

She shook her head, looking down at their hands. The tremor was gone but it was only temporary. It would come back and she couldn’t get used to Jason being here, holding her steady.

She knows who Britt Westbourne is. Head of GH. The Britch. Someone to fear and avoid at all costs.

Jason’s probably never been afraid in his entire life. They’ve got less than an hour before the cops tail them and days before the rate of infection is even slightly in the clear. She feels slightly sorry for him.

“If the cops don’t kill you, I probably will.” She blew out a breath, looked him in the eye. “Carly really should’ve gotten someone with a steadier hand. Let’s get out of here.”

Chapter Text

Unsurprisingly, Jason Morgan had terrible taste in music.

“No, no, no 𑁋 are you doing this on purpose?” Britt kept an eye on the speed gauge as she batted away Jason’s hand fiddling with the radio stations. She pursed her lips. “I get that we’re fugitives but I didn’t think you’d be the one doing the torturing.”

He huffed out a laugh, rolled his eyes as he checked the side mirrors. They were on their way to a bunker in Canada with coordinates only a few of Sonny’s confidants knew about.

“You call this torture?” Jason said blankly.

“It’s hard to think of Port Charles’ resident bad boy listening to NPR is all,” she chuckled. She checked her rearview mirror, a habit she was quickly developing because of her passenger.

They were leaving a ghost town and she wasn’t sure they’d be reaching the bunker without a few clinging. She hasn’t seen another soul on the highway for the last forty-five minutes but it didn’t stop Jason’s paranoia making itself comfortable in the backseat.

He settled on an oldies station, volume down low as the dark clouds finally caught up to them.

They drove in silence, soothed by the sound of the rain beating down, the methodical time of the wipers, even the swell of a cheesy saxophone underneath it all. She could pretend that this was a planned moment in her life, like she was taking a long weekend with someone that would want that with her.

“What are you thinking about?” Jason broke the silence. She’s over her fantasizing about a getaway weekend when disappearing was a big part of his life.

She gripped the steering wheel as the tires pulled under the heavy rain. Thought about lying because she wasn’t past that. “My brother, Maxie. Believe it or not, this was not the first planned heist of the week.”

“What does this have to do with Peter and Maxie?” Jason asked, stretching out his legs. Out of the corner of her eye she could see him go to cross his arms and think better of it.

Shame was always bubbling somewhere under the surface and she could feel it prickling up her neck and settling in the hollow of her jaw. It tasted acidic. “I could’ve helped Maxie escape from him.”

Jason’s legs moved, eyeing her profile. “How? What were you planning?”

She bit her lip. She wouldn’t betray Maxie like that, even if it felt like she already had. “Peter’s become obsessive and he’s getting impatient. I was going to help her and her baby be free of him.” Britt paused. “I didn’t anticipate seeing you in the hospital.”

He blew out a breath and she could see him tense, a hand going to his bandages. Jason was basically a machine but the human parts came out occasionally. Not many could say they’ve been there to witness it or even stitch it up.

“Would you have chosen differently if you had a choice?” Jason asked.

If she didn’t know him better, she’d think he was giving her a way out. She met his eyes, looked away. “I did have a choice.”

“Choices made out of fear are hardly fair.”

There it was again, prickling up into her head. “It’s kind of a family tradition to choose your own desires over others.”

“You’re not Faison or Peter,” Jason said. She could feel the cut of his eyes on her. “You help others even if it puts yourself in danger.”

“Sounds like someone else I know,” she said, avoiding the soft spot his words hit. “Are we stopping anytime soon? I could use a snack.”

Jason straightened up to motion at the convenient exit sign. “Get off here,” his voice laced with pain, clutching his side gently. “We’ll head twenty minutes west to the bunker.”

She opened her mouth but he cut her off, “And there’s food there.”

Britt couldn’t hold back the smile that wanted to come out. They drove the rest of the way in silence and for the first time since breaking out of the hospital, she didn’t mind being a fugitive.