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Title: Just Between Friends
Author: speedy
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Expecting her second child and caught up in a mafia war, Carly Corinthos has a secret that will change the lives of everyone she knows.
Disclaimer: I'm not the Rat, so obviously the characters aren't mine. I'm just borrowing them for awhile.
Notes: Just moving this over from my now defunct website. This veers off canon right before the panic room fiasco in 2003.
Chapter 16
Courtney led Frisco and Carly into the crowded penthouse, the laptop case bouncing off Carly's hip. Guards stood around waiting for orders. Charlotte was obviously distraught, her eyes and face red and puffy. Jason was in full Borg mode, his face hardened and expressionless.
What was out of place was Ric Lansing.
"Jason, I have contacts with the WSB. I can help you find Sonny," Ric told the younger man, an urgent tone in his voice.
Courtney saved Jason from responding. "We don't need your contacts, Ric," she sneered. "We have our own."
Jason eyed Frisco and Carly suspiciously. By his expression, they weren't a welcome addition.
Ric turned around to face the blonde, surprised to see the two people behind her. "I see," he said, oddly dejected.
Courtney stared icily. Ric turned again, looking at Charlotte. "If you need anything..."
"Get out of here, Ric!" Jason shouted.
Ric nodded and left the penthouse. "Nice to see you again, Robin," he whispered to Carly as he passed her. She just looked uneasily away. The guy gave her the creeps.
As soon as the door closed, Jason started in on Frisco and Carly. "Courtney, what are they doing here?" he asked coldly.
The young woman was taken back. "I... I thought Frisco could help. You said he was supposed to be good."
"I don't want a fed in our business. I can find Sonny on my own."
"But Jason..."
"It's okay," Frisco said, shrugging and turning back towards the door. "Suit yourself, Morgan. Use a bunch of half-brained mob muscle instead of the highly trained secret agent. No skin off my nose, buddy."
"No, Frisco, please! Don't go!" Courtney pleaded, grabbing his arm to stop him. She glanced at her husband, taking a few steps closer to him. "Jason, he's willing to help. Why not let him?"
"He's a fed, Courtney. Now let us handle this."
"What's more important? Your ego or Sonny's life?"
Jason didn't answer immediately. All eyes were fixed on him, waiting tensely for his answer. "He's not going to kill Sonny. He needs Sonny alive," he said, not sounding convinced.
"Do you know that for sure? Can you tell me without a doubt this guy is not going to kill my brother?" The mob enforcer's silence was answer enough for everyone in the room. "Okay, Frisco is here. He is willing to help and you know that he can. Let. Him. Help. You."
Jason and Frisco glared at each other, but Charlotte came between them. "Courtney's right, Jason," she said, resigned. "Frisco knows what he's doing. He can help you find Sonny."
The agent could see the young man slowly relenting to the two women's wishes. "Fine," he said, raising his hands in defeat. He looked at Frisco. "But you take your orders from me."
"Whatever," Frisco snickered.
"Let's go."
The men followed obediently, but Frisco stopped him. "Go where?"
"We're going to go find Sonny," Jason replied, looking at him as if he were an idiot.
The agent eyed the other men. "Everybody?"
"Except a guard at each door."
Frisco sighed in exasperation. "Give me five minutes."
Carly recognized his tone. It wasn't a request, it was an order.
Jason was pissed, that much was obvious, but he just gestured dismissively. "Alright."
Frisco pushed Carly towards the other two women and pointed towards the kitchen. "That way."
Courtney looked at him bewilderedly. "Why?"
"The secret room."
"What about it?" Jason snapped, getting angry.
"You're going to leave three innocent women and a child here without a backup plan?" Frisco shot back incredulously.
"I think we can handle it," Carly assured him.
"That's why it's called a backup plan, sweetheart," he said, smiling in mock affection.
"Fine," Jason said, shaking his head.
"Come on," Frisco said, leading them the hallway.
The three women listened carefully as Frisco explained out the secret door worked. "Put some snacks in here, non-perishable stuff. And a cell phone. Make sure Michael knows how to work the door and the lock. If anything happens, he'll be safe in here."
Frisco walked back down the hallway to the living room, the women and Jason silently behind him. As Jason gave orders to his men, Frisco turned to Carly. He pulled out his spare 9mm cartridge, the one that fit both of their weapons, and handed them to Carly. "I want you to stay here with them. If anyone short of family gets through that door..."
She knew the routine. They'd been through it many times before, enough that Frisco had bought her a gun of her own and taught her to shoot. He'd made her practice so much, she was nearly as good as he was. At least at targets she was, she had a little more difficulty when it was real people.
"Shoot to kill," Carly finished reluctantly.
She looked up and their concerned eyes met. It was only for a few moments, but it felt much longer. Her breath stuck in her throat as his lips lightly brushed hers. This felt strangely like goodbye, not that she'd know what that felt like. He'd never left her like this before, not for another mission. There was a good chance that he wouldn't come back through that door.
Professionally, this was a big risk, one he could get in very big trouble for if he was caught. A risk he probably wouldn't have taken on his own.
"Let's get out of here," Frisco told Jason, still staring at Carly.
They left, leaving Johnny guarding the door. Courtney looked at Carly and pointed to the gun. "Do you know how to use that?" she asked, her fear seeping in her voice.
Carly smiled confidently, although she was anything but confident. "If I have to."
Not to Frisco's surprise, Jason had taken him to a safehouse, making sure that he couldn't see the way. The safehouse reminded him a little of "The Godfather", when the Corelones had 'gone to the mattresses'. It was setup as a makeshift command center, and a rather crude one at that. Little furniture, a couple laptops, a few cell phones, a lot of weapons, a lot of mob muscle sitting around waiting for further orders.
"This is probably a good time to assess the information we have," Frisco suggested, a vain attempt at helpfulness.
"This is my operation. Got it?" Jason barked.
Frisco was taken aback. He hadn't expected such coldness. "Just trying to help out. Geez."
He stood back and silently watched the men work, with interest. Clearly the younger man wasn't going to trust him with anything. That was fine. Sometimes observation was just as good as talking anyway.
Courtney was pacing around the living room, waiting anxiously for Jason's call. Charlotte was in Michael's room, keeping him occupied and in the dark about Sonny. Carly hated it, absolutely hated it, but with clueless Pollyanna around, there was no way around it.
Jason hadn't been gone long, maybe a couple hours. Certainly not long enough for an update yet.
Carly had made herself comfortable at the dining room table. She'd set up both laptop and went back to work. There wasn't much else for her to do. Except wait.
Courtney sniffed again, as she had periodically for the last several minutes. Carly sighed. "Why don't you watch TV or something?" she asked.
"I can't. Not... Not right now."
"I know you're upset, but wearing out the carpet isn't going to help."
"What else am I supposed to do?" the blonde shouted. She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead, collecting herself. "I'm sorry, I'm just worried."
Carly leaned back in the chair. "You and Sonny must really be close," she said, curiously.
"Not really."
The curiosity disappeared as Courtney continued to pace, oblivious to the annoyed glare coming from the dining room. Carly exhaled sharply in frustration. The pacing was driving her nuts.
To both relief and further annoyance, Blondie plopped down across from her. "I didn't even know I had a brother until I came to Port Charles," she blurted out, not even making eye contact.
"How so?" Carly dully asked, confused and now only mildly curious.
"My dad ran off when I was young. He did the same thing to Sonny." Courtney shrugged. "He just never mentioned his past."
"How did you end up here?"
"I followed my mother here and then I ran into my dad. He introduced me to Sonny and Carly. All of a sudden I had a family, so I decided to stick around for awhile."
"And get to know your brother."
"Not really, actually. I didn't like what he was."
That sounded a little too familiar to Carly. Pollyanna indeed, she thought deviously, suppressing a smile. She got rid of that little twit Robin, she could crush Blondie like a bug. "What changed your mind?" she asked, suddenly more interested.
Blondie smiled sadly. "I fell in love with Jason. It's part of him, part of his life. I can handle it."
Right. Pollyanna's words rang very hollow, especially the 'I can handle it' part. "So now you get along with Sonny?"
Courtney shrugged again. "I guess. He's Jason's best friend, so I kinda have to."
Jason's best friend? That was it? Carly didn't even know what to say to that.
"Sonny and I have our problems, but I do care about him. I can't help being so scared for him and Jason." The blonde sighed, glancing across the table. "And for Frisco..." she quickly added.
"They're going to come back."
Blondie got out of the chair. "How do you know that?" she fearfully asked, beginning to pace again. "How can you say that for sure?"
Carly wanted to tell her that Jason wouldn't fail, not when Sonny's life was at stake. Given the situation, Frisco would have to do. "Andy hasn't let me down yet."
Courtney stopped and looked at her. "You really believe we'll see them again, don't you?"
Carly had the same fears, but she wasn't about to admit it. "Yes, I do."
"Let's talk about something else," the blonde said, looking at Carly. "Tell me. How'd Frisco get that name?"
To Carly, it had been pretty obvious. Then again, she'd been with Tony at the time and knew a little about his family. "He's from San Francisco."
"But you call him Andy?"
Only because he calls me Robin, she snickered to herself. "It's his name."
"Where'd you meet him?"
"Europe," Carly replied, sighing. She began to repeat the same story she'd told Georgie and Dillon earlier in the evening.
Carly was alone on the first floor of the penthouse. Courtney had finally calmed down. She'd settled on the sofa and read a magazine for a while, but had finally joined Charlotte and Michael upstairs.
She stared at the data coming across the screen. Something was being transferred out, but she didn't have anything running except the network stat program. It wasn't even connected to the internet. There were processes running that she didn't recognize and couldn't seem to end. Rebooting did no good and she couldn't find where they started.
Something was definitely funky with this computer and she was sure it was a trojan horse. There was no other answer.
Frisco had a whole set of computer tools on a cd, most of which she had no idea how to use. Maybe there was something useful on that disk.
She grabbed the bag off the floor and dug through the pocket, looking for the right cd. She'd packed so many disks in there, she couldn't find anything. Program disks, WSB hacking tools, music...
Carly finally found the right disk and opened the cd drive on Frisco's laptop. A disk was already in there. She'd forgotten to take it out. Frisco had suggested she image the drive. Some hacker he knew at the WSB kept an archive of viruses and would be interested in this one.
Maybe the hacker could figure out what it was doing, since it was way beyond her limited knowledge. But she had to get the disk out of the penthouse without raising any flags.
Johnny stepped inside and looked around. He spotted Carly. "Elizabeth Webber is here," he told her.
Carly got out the chair. "Let her in," she said, smiling and walking to the door.
Liz passed Johnny with a polite smile. She carried two bags in her hands. "Hey Robin. Wasn't expecting to see you here."
"Andy's helping Jason out. I guess he thought I'd be safer here than at the loft."
"Bobbie told me about Sonny. She asked me to bring some food by for you guys," she said, putting the bags on the desk.
"I'll go get Courtney and Carly. They're just upstairs with Michael. I don't know if anyone's actually hungry, though."
"You still need to eat, especially Carly."
Carly took a few steps towards the stairs and stopped. Liz wasn't on good terms with anyone here... She turned back around. "Do you think you could do me a favor?" she asked, glancing upstairs.
"Sure."
She rushed back over the table. She grabbed the cd, the image of the laptop hard drive, and put it in an empty case. She pulled out a note that Frisco had written to his hacker buddy from inside the laptop bag and put it inside the case, the address facing up. Liz joined her at the table, watching her curiously.
"Can you FedEx this for me?" Carly asked quietly, glancing towards the door and to the stairs as she handed the case to Liz. "Send it overnight or whatever's the fastest. The place at the airport should still be open." She pulled a few bills from her pocket. "This should cover it."
"No problem." Liz crossed her arms, suspicion written on her face. "Why so secretive?"
"I know this guy that collects viruses..." Carly told her, shrugging. "Sonny and Jason would be pretty pissed if they knew I copied some files off their hard drive."
It wasn't a complete lie, but it wasn't the exact truth either.
Liz smiled and put the disk in her purse, seemingly accepting her answer. "Consider it done."
Chapter 18
Author: speedy
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Expecting her second child and caught up in a mafia war, Carly Corinthos has a secret that will change the lives of everyone she knows.
Disclaimer: I'm not the Rat, so obviously the characters aren't mine. I'm just borrowing them for awhile.
Notes: Just moving this over from my now defunct website. This veers off canon right before the panic room fiasco in 2003.
Chapter 16
Courtney led Frisco and Carly into the crowded penthouse, the laptop case bouncing off Carly's hip. Guards stood around waiting for orders. Charlotte was obviously distraught, her eyes and face red and puffy. Jason was in full Borg mode, his face hardened and expressionless.
What was out of place was Ric Lansing.
"Jason, I have contacts with the WSB. I can help you find Sonny," Ric told the younger man, an urgent tone in his voice.
Courtney saved Jason from responding. "We don't need your contacts, Ric," she sneered. "We have our own."
Jason eyed Frisco and Carly suspiciously. By his expression, they weren't a welcome addition.
Ric turned around to face the blonde, surprised to see the two people behind her. "I see," he said, oddly dejected.
Courtney stared icily. Ric turned again, looking at Charlotte. "If you need anything..."
"Get out of here, Ric!" Jason shouted.
Ric nodded and left the penthouse. "Nice to see you again, Robin," he whispered to Carly as he passed her. She just looked uneasily away. The guy gave her the creeps.
As soon as the door closed, Jason started in on Frisco and Carly. "Courtney, what are they doing here?" he asked coldly.
The young woman was taken back. "I... I thought Frisco could help. You said he was supposed to be good."
"I don't want a fed in our business. I can find Sonny on my own."
"But Jason..."
"It's okay," Frisco said, shrugging and turning back towards the door. "Suit yourself, Morgan. Use a bunch of half-brained mob muscle instead of the highly trained secret agent. No skin off my nose, buddy."
"No, Frisco, please! Don't go!" Courtney pleaded, grabbing his arm to stop him. She glanced at her husband, taking a few steps closer to him. "Jason, he's willing to help. Why not let him?"
"He's a fed, Courtney. Now let us handle this."
"What's more important? Your ego or Sonny's life?"
Jason didn't answer immediately. All eyes were fixed on him, waiting tensely for his answer. "He's not going to kill Sonny. He needs Sonny alive," he said, not sounding convinced.
"Do you know that for sure? Can you tell me without a doubt this guy is not going to kill my brother?" The mob enforcer's silence was answer enough for everyone in the room. "Okay, Frisco is here. He is willing to help and you know that he can. Let. Him. Help. You."
Jason and Frisco glared at each other, but Charlotte came between them. "Courtney's right, Jason," she said, resigned. "Frisco knows what he's doing. He can help you find Sonny."
The agent could see the young man slowly relenting to the two women's wishes. "Fine," he said, raising his hands in defeat. He looked at Frisco. "But you take your orders from me."
"Whatever," Frisco snickered.
"Let's go."
The men followed obediently, but Frisco stopped him. "Go where?"
"We're going to go find Sonny," Jason replied, looking at him as if he were an idiot.
The agent eyed the other men. "Everybody?"
"Except a guard at each door."
Frisco sighed in exasperation. "Give me five minutes."
Carly recognized his tone. It wasn't a request, it was an order.
Jason was pissed, that much was obvious, but he just gestured dismissively. "Alright."
Frisco pushed Carly towards the other two women and pointed towards the kitchen. "That way."
Courtney looked at him bewilderedly. "Why?"
"The secret room."
"What about it?" Jason snapped, getting angry.
"You're going to leave three innocent women and a child here without a backup plan?" Frisco shot back incredulously.
"I think we can handle it," Carly assured him.
"That's why it's called a backup plan, sweetheart," he said, smiling in mock affection.
"Fine," Jason said, shaking his head.
"Come on," Frisco said, leading them the hallway.
The three women listened carefully as Frisco explained out the secret door worked. "Put some snacks in here, non-perishable stuff. And a cell phone. Make sure Michael knows how to work the door and the lock. If anything happens, he'll be safe in here."
Frisco walked back down the hallway to the living room, the women and Jason silently behind him. As Jason gave orders to his men, Frisco turned to Carly. He pulled out his spare 9mm cartridge, the one that fit both of their weapons, and handed them to Carly. "I want you to stay here with them. If anyone short of family gets through that door..."
She knew the routine. They'd been through it many times before, enough that Frisco had bought her a gun of her own and taught her to shoot. He'd made her practice so much, she was nearly as good as he was. At least at targets she was, she had a little more difficulty when it was real people.
"Shoot to kill," Carly finished reluctantly.
She looked up and their concerned eyes met. It was only for a few moments, but it felt much longer. Her breath stuck in her throat as his lips lightly brushed hers. This felt strangely like goodbye, not that she'd know what that felt like. He'd never left her like this before, not for another mission. There was a good chance that he wouldn't come back through that door.
Professionally, this was a big risk, one he could get in very big trouble for if he was caught. A risk he probably wouldn't have taken on his own.
"Let's get out of here," Frisco told Jason, still staring at Carly.
They left, leaving Johnny guarding the door. Courtney looked at Carly and pointed to the gun. "Do you know how to use that?" she asked, her fear seeping in her voice.
Carly smiled confidently, although she was anything but confident. "If I have to."
Not to Frisco's surprise, Jason had taken him to a safehouse, making sure that he couldn't see the way. The safehouse reminded him a little of "The Godfather", when the Corelones had 'gone to the mattresses'. It was setup as a makeshift command center, and a rather crude one at that. Little furniture, a couple laptops, a few cell phones, a lot of weapons, a lot of mob muscle sitting around waiting for further orders.
"This is probably a good time to assess the information we have," Frisco suggested, a vain attempt at helpfulness.
"This is my operation. Got it?" Jason barked.
Frisco was taken aback. He hadn't expected such coldness. "Just trying to help out. Geez."
He stood back and silently watched the men work, with interest. Clearly the younger man wasn't going to trust him with anything. That was fine. Sometimes observation was just as good as talking anyway.
Courtney was pacing around the living room, waiting anxiously for Jason's call. Charlotte was in Michael's room, keeping him occupied and in the dark about Sonny. Carly hated it, absolutely hated it, but with clueless Pollyanna around, there was no way around it.
Jason hadn't been gone long, maybe a couple hours. Certainly not long enough for an update yet.
Carly had made herself comfortable at the dining room table. She'd set up both laptop and went back to work. There wasn't much else for her to do. Except wait.
Courtney sniffed again, as she had periodically for the last several minutes. Carly sighed. "Why don't you watch TV or something?" she asked.
"I can't. Not... Not right now."
"I know you're upset, but wearing out the carpet isn't going to help."
"What else am I supposed to do?" the blonde shouted. She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead, collecting herself. "I'm sorry, I'm just worried."
Carly leaned back in the chair. "You and Sonny must really be close," she said, curiously.
"Not really."
The curiosity disappeared as Courtney continued to pace, oblivious to the annoyed glare coming from the dining room. Carly exhaled sharply in frustration. The pacing was driving her nuts.
To both relief and further annoyance, Blondie plopped down across from her. "I didn't even know I had a brother until I came to Port Charles," she blurted out, not even making eye contact.
"How so?" Carly dully asked, confused and now only mildly curious.
"My dad ran off when I was young. He did the same thing to Sonny." Courtney shrugged. "He just never mentioned his past."
"How did you end up here?"
"I followed my mother here and then I ran into my dad. He introduced me to Sonny and Carly. All of a sudden I had a family, so I decided to stick around for awhile."
"And get to know your brother."
"Not really, actually. I didn't like what he was."
That sounded a little too familiar to Carly. Pollyanna indeed, she thought deviously, suppressing a smile. She got rid of that little twit Robin, she could crush Blondie like a bug. "What changed your mind?" she asked, suddenly more interested.
Blondie smiled sadly. "I fell in love with Jason. It's part of him, part of his life. I can handle it."
Right. Pollyanna's words rang very hollow, especially the 'I can handle it' part. "So now you get along with Sonny?"
Courtney shrugged again. "I guess. He's Jason's best friend, so I kinda have to."
Jason's best friend? That was it? Carly didn't even know what to say to that.
"Sonny and I have our problems, but I do care about him. I can't help being so scared for him and Jason." The blonde sighed, glancing across the table. "And for Frisco..." she quickly added.
"They're going to come back."
Blondie got out of the chair. "How do you know that?" she fearfully asked, beginning to pace again. "How can you say that for sure?"
Carly wanted to tell her that Jason wouldn't fail, not when Sonny's life was at stake. Given the situation, Frisco would have to do. "Andy hasn't let me down yet."
Courtney stopped and looked at her. "You really believe we'll see them again, don't you?"
Carly had the same fears, but she wasn't about to admit it. "Yes, I do."
"Let's talk about something else," the blonde said, looking at Carly. "Tell me. How'd Frisco get that name?"
To Carly, it had been pretty obvious. Then again, she'd been with Tony at the time and knew a little about his family. "He's from San Francisco."
"But you call him Andy?"
Only because he calls me Robin, she snickered to herself. "It's his name."
"Where'd you meet him?"
"Europe," Carly replied, sighing. She began to repeat the same story she'd told Georgie and Dillon earlier in the evening.
Carly was alone on the first floor of the penthouse. Courtney had finally calmed down. She'd settled on the sofa and read a magazine for a while, but had finally joined Charlotte and Michael upstairs.
She stared at the data coming across the screen. Something was being transferred out, but she didn't have anything running except the network stat program. It wasn't even connected to the internet. There were processes running that she didn't recognize and couldn't seem to end. Rebooting did no good and she couldn't find where they started.
Something was definitely funky with this computer and she was sure it was a trojan horse. There was no other answer.
Frisco had a whole set of computer tools on a cd, most of which she had no idea how to use. Maybe there was something useful on that disk.
She grabbed the bag off the floor and dug through the pocket, looking for the right cd. She'd packed so many disks in there, she couldn't find anything. Program disks, WSB hacking tools, music...
Carly finally found the right disk and opened the cd drive on Frisco's laptop. A disk was already in there. She'd forgotten to take it out. Frisco had suggested she image the drive. Some hacker he knew at the WSB kept an archive of viruses and would be interested in this one.
Maybe the hacker could figure out what it was doing, since it was way beyond her limited knowledge. But she had to get the disk out of the penthouse without raising any flags.
Johnny stepped inside and looked around. He spotted Carly. "Elizabeth Webber is here," he told her.
Carly got out the chair. "Let her in," she said, smiling and walking to the door.
Liz passed Johnny with a polite smile. She carried two bags in her hands. "Hey Robin. Wasn't expecting to see you here."
"Andy's helping Jason out. I guess he thought I'd be safer here than at the loft."
"Bobbie told me about Sonny. She asked me to bring some food by for you guys," she said, putting the bags on the desk.
"I'll go get Courtney and Carly. They're just upstairs with Michael. I don't know if anyone's actually hungry, though."
"You still need to eat, especially Carly."
Carly took a few steps towards the stairs and stopped. Liz wasn't on good terms with anyone here... She turned back around. "Do you think you could do me a favor?" she asked, glancing upstairs.
"Sure."
She rushed back over the table. She grabbed the cd, the image of the laptop hard drive, and put it in an empty case. She pulled out a note that Frisco had written to his hacker buddy from inside the laptop bag and put it inside the case, the address facing up. Liz joined her at the table, watching her curiously.
"Can you FedEx this for me?" Carly asked quietly, glancing towards the door and to the stairs as she handed the case to Liz. "Send it overnight or whatever's the fastest. The place at the airport should still be open." She pulled a few bills from her pocket. "This should cover it."
"No problem." Liz crossed her arms, suspicion written on her face. "Why so secretive?"
"I know this guy that collects viruses..." Carly told her, shrugging. "Sonny and Jason would be pretty pissed if they knew I copied some files off their hard drive."
It wasn't a complete lie, but it wasn't the exact truth either.
Liz smiled and put the disk in her purse, seemingly accepting her answer. "Consider it done."
Chapter 18
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