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The Triumph Of AJ Quartermaine
Chapter Sixty Nine
Brothers At Arms
The ELQ building in Port Charles. AJ has moved the CEO function to this building rather than Manhattan. He'd still have to fly in there for meetings on occasion. But he knew that the rampant loyalties were to Edward and Ned in the other building while he had been working closely with these people while the docks projects were going on. After handing Ned's secretary her low 5 figure bonus for her work on the Jakarta matter, cash and under the table, he'd given her an offer she couldn't refuse. She was in the process of moving from Manhattan now. Once she had shown her hubby the cash, he'd endorsed the move whole heartedly especially once he found out how much further the money would stretch in Port Charles-- and his wife promising that the money would go for his sport fishing boat had sealed the deal. AJ leans back in his chair and considers the past weeks. He'd been right the result of his Jakarta trip had been people looking at him a lot differently. The naysayers had called his getting the CEO a quirk of fate but being on site when Jakarta fell apart had made him a miracle worker in some eyes. "Thank you, Jerry and Carly." AJ mutters to himself giving credit where credit was due.
"What are you talking to yourself about?" Edward demands walking in without knocking. AJ realizes that there will be drawbacks to moving the CEO offices to PC. Grandfather was going to be omnipresent.
"Just finished up my meeting with Irene Chang. She's going to be taking up the reins on the personnel department since Pierson is due to retire."
Edward grunts. "That Chang woman... she was in Jakarta right?"
"Yeah, I'd hate that someone in our personnel department was stupid enough to post her there just cause she had a Chinese last name." Edward blushes slightly which AJ pretends to not notice. "I gave her a message from Carly... something to get the welcome wagon rolling."
"Oh you didn't. Carly will having her swilling cheap bourbon at Luke's and shooting pool at that dive Jake's."
"I've got fond memories of Jake's..." AJ protests muttering under his breath so that his grandfather can't hear. "...now."
"What are you still doing here?" Edward wonders. "You've been out the door at five o'clock every day."
"With my bulging briefcase and a modem hook up at home." AJ clarifies so that Edward won't go on a shirking rant. "Carly called and there is a news crew at the foot of the house. I'm staying away until after the news. Hopefully they'll starve out there."
"Well lets see." Edward opens up an armoire with a TV and VCR combination that is sometimes used for presentations and flicks the remote on. "Why on earth would they be making nuisances of themselves at your house?" AJ's chair falls forward and his arms land with a thump in the top of his desk as he sees Taggart talking on the news. Reading aloud the list of charges on Evans and his staff. His face goes white with red flags of fury at his cheeks as he grinds his teeth together. Edward sags into a nearby chair. "I didn't know. I didn't know." Edward protests over and over under his breath.
"I think that you can destroy that affidavit from Evans now, Grandfather. It's worthless unless Taggart or the DA's office can find some use for it as Evidence of the man's criminal tendencies." AJ snarls. Standing up he gathers his files together in a hurried motions stuffing them carelessly in his briefcase.
"Where are you going? What about the reporters?" Edward protests.
"Home. I'm going home. Damn the reporters. Oh and Grandfather, Don't hold your breath waiting for another invitation from Carly into HER house or for her to drop the charges against you. You were teamed up with Evans-- HELL." AJ leaves without another word not looking back.
"I didn't know." Edward sags further into the chair his perfect posture a memory and suddenly he appears as he is-- a lonely old man.
The Coffee Warehouse Office shared by Morgan and Corinthos--
"...And so there was Carly standing under a tree waiting for lightening to strike yacking it up with Lorraine Miller." Jason rolls his eyes.
"Who the hell is Lorraine Miller?" Sonny asks continuing to work on his paperwork.
"Trouble with a capitol T and when she and Carly get together..." Jason shudders. "She was the one that helped Carly fake the sonogram for AJ so that he wouldn't think that the baby was his. And then Lorraine started blackmailing Carly. After Carly and Jones broke up and she moved in with me, Lorraine started sleeping with Jones."
"Oh that's disgusting." Sonny winces.
"Thankfully I can't picture it." Jason nods. "The last I saw of her was while Carly was in the hospital after having Michael. Carly was thisclose to dying after almost bleeding out on your living room floor and Michael was fighting for every breath. I wanted to put my hands around her neck and just squeeze."
"Carly almost died?" Sonny realizes that he had missed part of the story somewhere.
Jason looks at him. "Yeah, you didn't know that? I'd was on my way back from a late meeting at the No Name cleaning up the mess that Jax was trying to make of the territory. Carly had had a fight with AJ or Tony-- I don't remember which. When I found her she was on the floor of the living room with the phone just out of reach. She'd left a trail of blood from her room down the stairs. I found her in a puddle of blood. Rinaldo broke all the traffic rules to get her to the hospital. Michael had to be taken by emergency c-section. She nearly died on the table and then the doctor wanted to give her a hysterectomy to stop the bleeding 'cause she was still pumping it as fast as they were putting it in. Bobbie was losing it about then. Bobbie HATED Carly but she was having none of that. Carly was out cold for more than three days. She missed the whole swarm of Q's, Spencers and Mike was there too. She missed me having to sign for Michael's surgery. And she missed Miss Lorraine Miller who was probably there to see how she could get some money out of the situation." Jason take a breath still trying to contain his remembered fury.
"Then what happened?" Sonny is taking advantage of Jason's seldom used talent for talking.
"Luke, who was the only person besides me that knew that Carly was Bobbie's daughter, and I got rid of Lorraine. Or at least I thought we had. Carly came around finally. The first time she saw Michael, he was hooked up to machines everywhere. I knew that he was getting better but it freaked her out she couldn't touch him. She was afraid that it was all her fault that she had hurt him somehow and would continue to hurt him. I don't know how long she was back in her room after that when AJ showed up."
"That's when he figured out that he might still be the biological father, right?" Sonny confirms.
"Yeah, I guess. Carly was all over the board; didn't know which place her emotions were coming from-- PPD the shrink called it. Post Partum Depression. Definitely not up to covering with AJ. But you know it was like an early version of what happened at Stoneybrooke. She couldn't get away and Bobbie, Tony and AJ were all there yammering at her. She begged me to get her out of there."
"Please tell me you didn't, Jase! Gees she hadn't even recovered from surgery yet. She could have busted a stitch or something and bled to death all over again." Sonny is fascinated by the telling.
"It was her choice. She needed to get out of there. Sonny, I hate hospitals and those people staring as much as she did. How could I tell her no? So I put her on an airplane to Florida. And waited." Jason concludes. "It took her a month but she came back; I knew that she would be back. Everyone else thought that she'd abandoned Michael, but I knew better. Things were still not right though. She was still afraid of Michael. Robin was back which put Carly on edge. AJ was there every time she turned around. I told AJ to back off-- leave Carly alone. I should have just killed him back then."
"Too late now." Sonny commiserates. "You'd be the first one that they'd look at. So now Carly hooked up with Lorraine again?"
"Yeah, what I could piece together, she sicced Lorraine on Dr. Evans, Carly's doctor at Ferncliffe, and made sure there were pictures to send to Evan's wife."
"Whoa. You're kidding right?" Sonny starts laughing.
"Do I look like I'm kidding?" Jason stonefaces Sonny. "But this means Carly is back on the hook paying off Lorraine. Sonny, let me give you an example, if you'd been such a prick to Carly back when you were with both Lily and Brenda... Carly would have been the one to make sure that Brenda knew that Lily was pregnant and Lily know that you were ... how does Carly put it... knocking boots with Brenda. Then she would have stepped back and let the two of them rip you to shreds. Angles, Man, she works the angles. Lucky for you, she was hooked up with Dr. Jones back then."
"I'm beginning to think that you stick with Carly out of self preservation." Sonny says with a question in his voice.
"I learned a lot from you and Robin-- honor, love, family. But I've learned a lot from Carly too." Johnny comes into the room interrupting what Jason was going to say and hands Jason the afternoon edition of the PC Herald.
"Have you seen this, Boss?" Johnny asks waiting for the explosion.
Jason quickly reads the front page then slaps it down in front of Sonny. "I learned from Carly the meaning of vendetta."
Sonny starts reading and swearing in Spanish. "How much of this is true? How much of it did Carly set up-- like with Evan's wife?"
"What if only half of it is true?" Johnny offers. "Which half? It looks like it sucks all around. Guess we know now why Taggart hasn't been coming around that much lately. He's been busy."
"She never said anything." Jason mumbles. "All she said was that she was going crazy in there. I thought it was from being locked up. She never said anything."
Sonny rises from behind the desk. "Johnny, bring the car around. It's time for me and Ms. Benson to get better acquainted."