Hidden Within

Chapter 8
Back to Fanfiction Main Page...
Author’s Note: This is for entertainment purposes only. The characters in this story belong to ABC TV and “General Hospital”.

*********************************************************************************************************

All eyes were glued onto Jax’s face, as he concentrated on remembering the details of the night he’d been hit.

“Well, what do you remember?” an impatient Taggert prompted Jax.

“Don’t push him,” Skye snapped automatically, then relaxed a bit when Jax raised her hand to his lips.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to be okay,” he reassured her quietly, his gaze steady and comforting.  Then, he turned back to Taggert.  “It was getting late.  I left Skye alone with AJ and told her I’d be back in a half-hour.  Well, I lost track of time, and 45 minutes went by before I knew it.  It started to rain just as I picked up my pace and headed home.”

“How do you know that 45 minutes had passed?” Taggert inquired. 

“I looked at my watch,” Jax answered matter-of-factly.  “It was kind of late, I believe the time was 10:30 PM, and I had told Skye I’d be back at 10:15 PM.”

“What side of the road were you walking on?” Taggert wanted to know.

Jax thought for a moment.  “Well, I was returning to the lake house from the west, with the lake on my left side, so I was on the north side of the road, facing oncoming traffic.”

“And did any cars pass by you before the one that struck you?”  Taggert was becoming excited as more pieces of the puzzle came together.

Jax winced slightly at the word ‘struck’ – he briefly remembered the car’s headlights coming straight at him, but he couldn’t remember anything after that.  “No, just that car,” Jax told him grimly. 

Taggert flipped his notebook shut and stood up.  “Okay, thank you, Mr. Jacks.”  He turned to examine Skye.  “Ms. Chandler-Quartermaine, mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“I mind!” Jax protested, trying to sit up further than he could and then grimacing from the pain.  “She didn’t have anything to do with this!”

“I’m not saying she did,” Taggert told Jax, trying to appease him.  “I just have a few things I need to ask her in private.”

Jax continued to scowl but didn’t voice any more objections as Skye followed Taggert out the door.  He tried to keep an eye on her from the window in the doorway, but his mother came and stood in his way.  “Mum, move!” he grumbled. 

“Hey, is that any way to talk to your mother who thought she was going to lose you?” Jane told him, blinking back more tears.

Jax’s attention immediately went to his mother and father – he had been so focused on Skye that he hadn’t given thought to what they had gone through.  They were probably feeling the same emotions that Skye had already released.  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, his voice overcome with emotion.

“Oh, now – it wasn’t your fault,” his mother assured him, sitting and taking one of his large hands in her own smaller one.  “I’m just glad to have my baby boy back.”

Jax rolled his eyes but couldn’t hide his grin as he silently counted his blessings.

******************************************************************************************************

“So, Ms. Quartermaine,” Taggert started out smoothly, taking a moment to admire the way the light blue dress fit Skye, “my first question for you is…”

“I thought we agreed that you’d call me Skye,” she interrupted, looking at him pointedly and resisting the urge to smile.  She’d caught his flirtatious glance and was flattered.

“Oh, yeah – right.”  Taggert rubbed his bald head for a second, giving Skye even more reason to smile, which she finally did.  “Okay, so…” Taggert flipped open his notebook again, obviously a bit rattled, “I need to know if you agree with Jax’s time frame.  When do you remember him leaving your house?”

“Well, it’s not my house, per se,” Skye told him, unable to resist flirting with the handsome detective.  “But back to your question – I remember Jax leaving right around 9:45 PM, because we’d been outside before that, and then AJ was waiting for us when we went back inside.  He scared me half to death!”

Taggert frowned as he made notes while listening.  “You mean, you didn’t know AJ was in your… oh, the house?”

Skye shook her head, feeling slightly guilty for tattling on her brother.  “No, he pretty much broke in somehow,” she affirmed, biting her lip after she’d told of AJ’s crime. 

“What time did AJ leave?” Taggert asked suddenly, a strange gleam in his eye.

“Uh, I don’t know… we were arguing…” her voice trailed off as she tried to recall that evening.  Tears threatened to fall as she remembered AJ’s hateful words to her that night.  “I remember that it had just started to rain when AJ left, but I’m afraid I didn’t look at the clock until it was at least an hour after Jax had left – I fell asleep.”  She blushed as she thought of herself sleeping while Jax had been lying on the road somewhere, near death’s door. 

“Well, your story corroborates with Jax’s,” Taggert muttered, more to himself than to Skye.  He continued studying his notes, his brow knit in concentration.

“So what do you think, that Carly didn’t hit AJ?” Skye asked.

Taggert held up one hand in protest.  “Now, now, Ms. Quar… Skye – let’s not jump the gun.  First thing I need to do is to ask Carly some questions now.”

Skye snickered.  “Well, that won’t be easy, considering that the ever-so-wonderful Sonny Corinthos has hidden Carly and Michael away with him.”

Taggert just stared at Skye as he comprehended what she was saying, then suddenly threw his notebook down onto the floor.  “Damn!”  Taking a deep breath, he was horrified to see the look of alarm in Skye’s eyes.  “Oh, I’m sorry, Skye… it’s just that Sonny always seems to win.”

Skye’s eyes flashed with recognition.  “Exactly,” she agreed quietly.  She hadn’t realized how deep the detective’s hatred for Sonny ran.  “Well, what now?” she asked, trying to lighten the mood.

“Now, you go and take care of your… uh, Jax, and I’ll keep doing my job and solve this case,” Taggert told her, his face serious except for the twinkle in his eyes.

“Sounds like a plan,” Skye agreed, giving Taggert a small smile before heading back into Jax’s room.

********************************************************************************************************

“Well, I think I’m going to go back to the hotel,” Rae told Ned and Alexis.  “I have a feeling that Skye will want to be here as much as possible for awhile, but I’d like some down time.”

Ned gave Alexis a questioning look.  Seeing her smile and slightly nod in response, he turned back toward Rae.  “You know, we’re heading in that direction.  We can give you a lift.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful!”  Rae asked Alan to give the message to Skye that she was leaving, then followed Ned and Alexis to the elevators.  “So, when did you two get back together?” she asked with a smile.

Taken aback, Ned and Alexis both just looked at each other in astonishment, then back at Rae.  “Uh, we didn’t,” Ned answered for both of them.

“Really?!?”  Now it was Rae’s turn to be surprised. 

“Yes, really,” Alexis told her, giving a sideways glance at Ned.

“Okay, if you say so.”  Rae smiled knowingly at them both, then continued to watch them all the way to the Port Charles Hotel.  By the time they dropped her off, she was more convinced than ever that the spark was back for those two… or maybe it had never left.

*********************************************************************************************************

AJ felt a bit like a stalker – he had waited outside of the doors to the ICU, partially hidden behind a large planter, in hopes of being able to figure out if Jax knew that he was the one who hit Jax.  But after seeing Taggert leave the ICU with a scowl on his face, and then overhearing Taggert place a call to Mac about not having any definite suspect, he began to relax.  Now, he was simply waiting for his sister to come back to the waiting room – he wanted to make sure that Skye was okay, after everything that she’d been through.  It was selfish of him, actually – by making certain that Skye was okay, he also made himself feel just a bit less guilty about starting the entire chain of events that led up to this moment.

“Damn!” AJ muttered upon seeing Skye’s back as she walked down the hospital corridor.  He must have missed seeing her exit the ICU.  Taking care to casually catch up to her, AJ waited a moment before softly calling out her name.

Skye turned at the sound of her name and was surprised to see her brother standing there, a smile on his face.  Taggert’s questions about her and A.J.’s fight, coupled with a gut feeling that she’d had ever since the accident, were making her feel some apprehension where A.J. was concerned.  She didn’t want to believe that he was capable of a hit-and-run, especially when the victim was the man that she loved, but unfortunately she knew her brother all too well.

“Hi,” Skye said, her tone clipped, her facial expression stony.

Immediately, A.J.’s defense went up – something about his sister’s attitude toward him had changed.  “Something I said?” he tried to joke.

Skye groaned as she stopped suddenly and rubbed her forehead with one hand.  “A.J., you have no idea what it’s like to suddenly know that Jax is going to be alright, but then to still see him in pain,” she agonized.  “I feel so incredibly happy one minute, and then mad at the world the next.  I… I just needed to get some air.”

“Mind if I join you?” A.J. asked nonchalantly.  Sensing Skye’s hesitation, he laid on the charm.  “Hey, I just wanna take care of my sister, that’s all.”

“Okay,” Skye told him, albeit somewhat grudgingly. 

*********************************************************************************************************

Sonny Corinthos nodded as he listened intently to the caller.  “Yeah, okay.”  He hung up the phone, then turned to Carly, who was playing a card game with Michael. 

“What is it?” she asked worriedly, seeing the tense expression on his face.

Sonny chose his words carefully in Michael’s presence.  “Good news for you, bad news for someone else.”

Carly nodded as relief flooded through her, understanding Sonny’s cryptic sentence.  She reached over and pulled Michael to her.  “Mr. Man, it’s time to go home.”

*********************************************************************************************************

A.J. sat in a companionable silence as they each sipped their bottled waters and enjoyed the fresh summer air outside the hospital’s main entrance.  Each had no way of knowing what the other was thinking, but their thoughts were very similar. 

“Skye, I…”

“AJ, I have to…”

Both siblings chuckled as they suddenly spoke at the same time.  A.J. nodded to Skye.  “Please, go ahead.”

“Okay,” Skye agreed, telling herself that she had no reason to be nervous.  “I have to ask you something, and I’m not really sure how to do it.”

Suddenly feeling his heartbeat increase, A.J. tried to steady his breathing.  “Just ask,” he told her solemnly.

Skye stood up and began to pace in front of the bench they were sitting on.  “Lieutenant Taggert was asking a lot of questions about the night Jax was hit, and it just made me remember our fight.  And then details were brought up about the timing of the accident, and it just doesn’t seem to fit with Carly’s story,” she rambled.

A.J. stood up and gently grabbed onto Skye’s arm, pulling her so that she was facing him.  “Skye,” he chided her softly to stop her rambling.  “Just ask me.”

Skye took a deep breath, afraid suddenly that she already knew the answer to her question.  “Did you hit Jax?”  Her eyes never left A.J.’s, as the question hung in the air.

Looking into his sister’s eyes, A.J. knew that he couldn’t keep up with this charade.  Skye could see right through him, and A.J. owed her at least the truth.

“Yes, Skye – it was me who hit Jax,” he admitted.
On to Chapter 9...