Shortly after Jason left, Carly learned she was pregnant. She didn’t know what to do, and she kept it a secret from everyone--including the baby’s father, Sonny. In late February, Carly finally saw a doctor about her pregnancy. But AJ followed her to the appointment, and angrily confronted her when she left the clinic. In the car, on the way home, Carly and AJ had a huge argument. Among other things, he assumed Jason was the baby’s father, and she didn’t correct him.

Before they could get home, they were in a dreadful accident. AJ was trapped in the car, and suffered serious injuries. Carly was also badly hurt, and almost drowned when she was thrown from the car and landed face-down in a ditch full of water. Fortunately for her, Sonny Corinthos and his bodyguard, Johnny, arrived at the accident scene just seconds after the wreck. Sonny pulled Carly out of the water, saving her life, and got an ambulance sent to the scene to take Carly and AJ to the hospital.

AJ lapsed into a coma, from which he still has not emerged. Carly recovered from her injuries, but lost her baby. After she was released from the hospital, Carly went to live with Bobbie at the brownstone, while Michael stayed part of the time with Carly and the rest of the time at the Quartermaine mansion. Carly learned from Bobbie that a number of people knew she had miscarried--including Bobbie, Alan, and Monica. (It happened in the hospital, so it was in her medical records.) When Carly realized they all assumed, as AJ had, that Jason was the father, she didn’t correct them.

While all this was happening in Port Charles, Jason was on an odyssey that eventually brought him to the Midwest. Trying to avoid being an easy target for enemy mobster Joseph Sorel to track down, Jason stashed his motorcycle in Buffalo and made his way to Miami by bus. There, with the help of an old acquaintance named Nico Kelly (who looks a lot like Sonny), Jason bought a pick-up truck, which he’s been driving ever since.

On the night that Jason arranged for Carly and Emily (who would be bringing Michael with her) to meet him at the Harbor View Towers to talk about the gatehouse plan, Carly arrived first. While waiting for Jason in his penthouse, she heard a noise in the hall--and opened the door to find Johnny shot, with Sorel and two of his goons standing over him. They kidnapped Carly.

At the warehouse, Jason learned that the mastermind behind the kidnapping and shooting was none other than former mob boss Anthony Moreno. Jason and Sonny had both believed Jason killed Moreno the previous December, when Moreno and Sorel ambushed Jason and two of Sonny’s other men at a meeting. Moreno had actually survived the shooting, but he was now paralyzed--and out for revenge.

The first rays of morning sun are just peeking through the windows of the Quartermaine gatehouse on a beautiful day in early October. But Carly isn’t seeing the sun yet. She hasn’t opened her eyes. In fact, she’s not really sure she’s awake yet.

Maybe it’s because so much of the last few weeks has seemed like a dream. A very beautiful dream.

Carly and Michael moved into the gatehouse just about a month earlier. Jason arranged the whole thing, and it’s worked out wonderfully. Michael loves it here, and the Quartermaines are happy to have him so close by. And both Carly and Jason are happy to have a place where they can get a little privacy when they want it.

Lately, it seems that they want and need a lot of privacy. Almost every night.

Her eyes still closed, Carly smiles as she remembers last night’s lovemaking. How is it possible that each time seems to be better than the last? she wonders.

Still smiling, she reaches out a hand to Jason’s side of the bed--expecting to touch an arm or a leg, or anything warm and solid. But nothing touches back.

A little confused, she finally opens her eyes. The other side of the bed is empty, and cold.

Carly rolls out of bed and puts on her robe, padding into the bathroom. There is no sign of Jason there, either.

She finally spies a note sitting on the dresser. It’s short and to the point.

Relieved, Carly heads for the other bedroom to see if Michael is awake yet. “Time for breakfast, honey,” she tells her son.

As she fixes Michael’s oatmeal, Carly thinks once again how much this house has become a symbol of the new life she and Jason have found together. It is a place they’ve made their own.

Jason is not officially living here. He still has his penthouse at the Harbor View Towers, across the hall from Sonny. But much of the time they spend together as a family, and all of their intimate moments as a couple, are here.

Carly has a key to Jason’s penthouse, and she and Michael occasionally have dinner over there. But when it’s time to end the evening, they always return here to the gatehouse.

Neither Carly nor Jason has yet reached the point where they feel completely comfortable being intimate in a place where unpleasant memories still linger for each of them. Though, actually, most of the bad experiences took place in Sonny’s penthouse.

Without warning, flashes of memory pass through her mind. The times she reached out for Jason, and he rejected her. The nights she knows he spent there with Robin. That one night of angry passion she shared with Sonny--and the look on Jason’s face when he walked in on them.

Carly shakes her head, trying to clear away the ghosts. She knows neither of them will forget, but they’ve gotten past it enough to start over. And she’s thankful every day for the second chance.

Looking across the table at her red-haired son, Carly wonders once again what she ever did to deserve all this happiness.

Elsewhere on the Quartermaine estate, Emily is getting ready for school. She’s in college now at Port Charles University, and if she doesn’t hurry she’ll be late for Biology lab.

Emily is very happy right now, too. Things are going well for just about everyone she knows--including Juan, whose recording career is starting to take off. Besides the little gigs he’s been doing here in Port Charles, Juan has been making occasional appearances in other cities--Syracuse, Buffalo, even Cleveland, where he sent her a post card from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Emily frowns slightly, wondering why Juan didn’t call last night, or the night before. It’s not like him.

Stop worrying, she orders herself. Get ready to dissect that frog!

Ned Ashton settles back into his chair behind the big desk in the CEO’s office at ELQ. He likes to arrive early for work. He can take a little time to drink his coffee, read the newspaper, and catch up on a seemingly endless string of voicemail messages.

The final message today is from his cousin and business partner. Ned decides to pass Jason’s message along to Nikolas Cassadine immediately.

Not surprisingly, he hears yet another voicemail message when he dials the number for L&B. Without waiting for the L&B promotional announcement that greets all callers, Ned punches in the code for Nikolas’s direct line.

He’s pretty sure Nikolas won’t mind the news. “Nikolas, it’s Ned,” he tells the voicemail recorder. “Jason wanted me to let you know he won’t be in the office for a few days....”

It’s almost 10:00 in the morning now, and Alexis Davis is awaiting the arrival of her next client. She got the call yesterday from Carly Quartermaine. Carly has never used her legal services before--but with Jason as a client, Alexis figures Carly may now be part of the package.

Alexis is rather surprised that these two are together. She knows it’s been a rocky path for both of them--including the custody fight over Michael, in which Alexis represented Jason against Carly and AJ. It was one of her more successful efforts, when the judge awarded joint custody.

Isn’t it amazing how much things can change in a little over a year? Alexis thinks.

But Port Charles’ top attorney has no more time for reflection, because Carly enters the office at this moment.

“Thank you for seeing me so quickly, Alexis,” she begins.

“You’re welcome. Now, why don’t you sit down and tell me what this is all about?”

Carly pauses a moment, gathering her thoughts. Then she plunges ahead. “Can you tell me what I need to do to divorce AJ?”

In a long-term care facility just outside Port Charles, nurse Dorothy Kyle is watching her patient. Nurse Kyle has been assigned to AJ Quartermaine’s case ever since he was brought to the facility last winter, after the devastating car wreck that left him in a coma.

There’s been little or no change in AJ’s condition in all these months. But his parents, Dr. Alan Quartermaine and Dr. Monica Quartermaine, never give up hope. One or the other visits him every day. Sometimes both come to visit their son together, sitting on either side of the bed and talking to him in the hope that he hears their plea to wake up.

AJ is Dorothy Kyle’s only responsibility, and she’s paid well to watch over him.

Today, all that watching finally pays off. As nurse Kyle reads to AJ from the Port Charles newspaper, she looks up to see her patient make a slight movement of one hand.

She runs out into the hallway. “Get the doctor in here right now!” she orders a stunned nurse’s aide.

The doctor arrives quickly. He checks AJ thoroughly for any more signs of movement, but there is nothing.

“Should we call the Quartermaines?” nurse Kyle asks.

“Not yet,” the doctor answers. “Let’s just keep monitoring him for now.”

Dorothy Kyle wonders if the doctor believes she was just seeing things.

Two days later, Carly is once again waking up alone in her bed at the gatehouse. She has not heard a word from Jason, and her phone calls to his voicemail have gone unanswered. She’s beginning to feel panicky.

She tries to calm herself. He said, “I’ll call you as soon as I can,” she remembers silently, quoting from that brief note she found on the dresser.

He just hasn’t had a chance, she tells herself, trying to be reasonable.

It’s not working.

Carly gets dressed quickly. Calling Leticia at the Quartermaine mansion, she asks Michael’s nanny if she can come over to the gatehouse to take care of Michael for the day.

As she waits for Leticia to arrive, Carly gives Ned a call at ELQ.

“Carly, glad to hear from you,” Ned greets her warmly. “Is Jason feeling any better?”

Carly’s panic button is pushed a little deeper. “Uh, no--no, I don’t think so,” she says, trying to cover the fact that she has no idea what Ned is talking about.

“Well, chicken pox is a pretty nasty thing to get as an adult,” Ned is saying. “I know he wants to stay in until he’s sure he doesn’t pass it along to anybody else--especially Michael. If you talk to him, tell him Nikolas says it’s fine for him to keep working from home.”

Carly is incredulous. “Jason is working from home?”

“Yes. He’s using his home computer to dial into the L&B system and take care of work that can’t wait till he gets back to the office.” Ned is a little surprised that Carly doesn’t know this, but he doesn’t show it in his voice.

She tries to cover again. “Oh, that’s right--he did mention it to me--I’m glad it’s working out,” she finishes lamely.

“Tell him to take as much time as he needs,” Ned says.

“I will,” she promises, before saying goodbye and hanging up the phone.

Carly makes one more phone call. “Monica,” she says, hearing Jason’s mother’s voice at the other end of the phone. “I have a question, and I’m wondering if you can answer it.”

“Sure,” Monica replies, a little surprised to be getting a call from Carly.

“It’s about chicken pox,” Carly begins. “Is it going around right now?”

“Not that I know of,” Monica answers. “And hasn’t Michael already had the vaccine?”

“Yes, he has,” Carly answers. “But if he was exposed to someone else who has chicken pox, is there any chance he could get it anyway?”

“Very little. This vaccine is pretty effective,” Monica answers. “I wish we’d had it when AJ and Jason were kids! They both got chicken pox, one right after the other.”

“So, Jason had chicken pox when he was a child?” Carly asks. “Could he ever get it again?”

“The virus could reappear as shingles for an adult, especially if his immune system is stressed out,” Monica replies. “Why do you ask?”

“I was just curious,” Carly says. “I--uh--I just wanted to make sure Michael won’t get it.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much,” Monica says.

Carly wishes she could take that advice.

Once Leticia is at the gatehouse to take care of Michael, Carly takes a taxi to the Harbor View Towers. Getting off the elevator on the penthouse level, she sees Johnny in his familiar spot outside Sonny’s door.

“Hi, Johnny!” she says warmly, giving him her biggest smile. “I just came by to see if I can help take care of Jason.”

“Uh, Carly, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Johnny says, looking embarrassed.

“Why not?” she asks, looking him straight in the eye. “I’ve already had chicken pox, and Michael has had the vaccine.”

“Carly, I think it would be best if you went home and waited to hear from Jason,” Johnny says, his voice almost pleading.

“I don’t think so, Johnny,” she says firmly, pulling out her key to the penthouse.

Johnny makes one last try. “Carly, don’t go in there!”

But she’s already opening the door.

She hears Johnny knocking on Sonny’s door, saying in a low voice, “You better get out here! We have a problem.”

Funny, she thinks, Johnny usually doesn’t talk to Sonny that way.

But Johnny and Sonny are suddenly the farthest thing from Carly’s mind. As she enters Jason’s penthouse, she sees a man working diligently at the computer on Jason’s desk.

He’s about the most handsome man she’s ever seen. A real hunk.

But he’s not Jason.

“Who are you!” Carly demands. “What have you done to Jason?”

Before the good-looking stranger can answer, Sonny and Johnny come rushing into Jason’s living room.

And Carly does a double-take. Because the guy with Johnny is not Sonny.

He looks a lot like Sonny, but Carly knows Jason’s former partner and best friend well enough to see that the man now standing in front of her is somebody else.

“Will you people please tell me what the hell is going on?” she demands.

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