General Hospital Rewrite Part One

June 19th 2016

5:06 p.m.
     Julian walks up and hardly even greets Jodie with more than a nod. She gets up and walks next to him. "Mr. Jerome," she says. "I wanted to thank you for the room at the Metro-Court. Its so much nicer and safer than my old room." she tells him. "Glad." he says blandly. "You still don't believe me?" she asks. "Would you?" he counters. She shakes her head. "No." she admits.
     "Why would I lie to you about this? I mean, why the dead daughter way when if I was after money I could have choose the secret kid way. That's just wrong. What kind of monster would show you your dead child only to pull them away and rip open all the scars?" she asks. "Hey!" he snaps, turning to her. "You're crossing a line kid." He tells her. "I'm sorry." she apologizes shyly.
     He softens his gaze, suddenly seeing something familiar about her big sad eyes. If this was a trick, she was the perfect Jo. He almost didn't want to know the truth and just accept her. Before Leo he would have. Before he felt the pain of losing a baby only to have them shown to you and torn away again, he would have been more trusting of her. The thought of going through the same thing now killed him inside.
     At the same time he didn't want to get too attached knowing that she may be a lie, he just wanted his little girl back. He looks back at her. She doesn't seem dangerous but looks can be deceiving. She holds the necklace around her neck. He'd seen it yesterday but it hadn't registered to him until now. It's a worn silver heart shaped locket on a chain. It looked like one he'd given Jodie, only this was much bigger.
     Before he knew it they'd walked to the lab. She seemed confident but not like she'd done something, like she was telling the truth and knew what the results would say. "Mr. Jerome." Brad greets. "Go wait outside." He tells Jodie. "Yes sir." she replies, heading back out the door. "You got the results right?" Julian asks. "Yeah, all four tests." He says. "Gimme them."
     He takes it and opens the first envelope. He reads the results and opens the second one. He keeps going until he's seen all four results. "They're all the same." He says. "Nothing was tampered with. What you're looking at is the truth." He tells him. "Okay thank you. Don't tell Lucas about any of this." he tells him. "Okay. I still don't know what any of this is about but I'm gonna assume I did the right thing."
     Julian says goodbye and walks back outside to see Jodie. "Why don't we go get dinner. What are you in the mood for, ribs, Metro-Court restaurant, dinner?" he asks. "I don't know." she says. "Metro-Court it is."

5:50 p.m.
     "First things first, how are you alive?" he asks. "My mother, she wanted me to be safe, so she faked our deaths so we could disappear. She had us give a little blood every few days so we had enough to make it look like we were dead. We went into hiding and she moved us around a lot. She told me my father was a named Patrick Miller so I wouldn't ask any questions. She started telling me the truth over her last few weeks. She died in March." she tells him.
     "What happened?" he asks. "Ovarian cancer. She got diagnosed about a year ago. She didn't want to die and leave me alone. Honestly, I couldn't really remember you. Only that I missed you. I don't wanna be alone anymore." She tells him. He doesn't respond. "If you want me to leave town I can go live with my uncle Tommy." She says. "How is he? I haven't seen him since it happened."
     "He's good. I haven't seen him in a few years but I talk to him on Facebook once and a while. He just went through a pretty bad divorce." She says. "Susie right?" he asks. "No Stephanie, Susie and him got divorced when I was six. But they did get back together a one point." She says. "He cheat on her?" he asks. "He cheated on Susie with Stephanie, then her with Susie." she tells him. "Sounds like him." He laughs.
     He stops smiling and looks at his hands. "So what's the story behind the necklace?" he asks. "Oh, my friend got it for me. Actually my best friend, Jensen. He got it for me for my fifteenth birthday." She says, clearly getting lost in memory. He watches as she holds the pendant. There's clearly more to her story but he decides not to pry. "Why don't you take as long as you need to finish your food then go and have a good night's sleep. We can talk more tomorrow." He says.
     He touches her shoulder and leaves.

7:14 p.m.
     Julian walks in and sits next to Alexis. She leans on him and wraps her arms around him. "Do you wanna walks about it?" she asks, expecting him to say no. "Do you wanna listen?" he counters. "Of course. You can talk to me about anything." She tells him. "I got the test results. They all say the same thing, she's my daughter. She's really my Jodie. I don't know if she's here for the reasons she says, or if she works for the people who've been trying to kill me." He admits.
     "Do you think we should trust her?" she asks. "We?" he questions. "We're in this together. I'm your wife, if she's here to be with her family, I am part of that family, and I'll be there for her too." She tells him. "Thank you. I'm gonna find out if she's telling the truth. I'm gonna have a PI investigate her past, see if she's telling the truth about her past." He says. "That's smart. Are you gonna call Sam?" she asks. "No, with the baby and this being her sister, I don't want her too involved. Who knows what this kids been through or is involved with."
     "That's a good idea, I don't wanna risk the baby's health." She says, touching her own stomach. Julian notices and holds her hand. "Is there something I should know?" he questions, looking down at her other hand then back up at her face. "No not like that. I'm not, not yet anyways." She says. He kisses her cheek. "You look tired." He says. "Because I am tired. I wanna hold our baby, I want you to have your little girl back and I want to be normal for once."
     "Once I find out wether or not I can trust Jodie, things will be normal. We might have another kid in the family or not. Either way, we're gonna have our baby. I promise with all that I am, things will get better. I mean, nothing can happen that we haven't already dealt with."