The End

Disclaimer: I do not own General Hospital. Carly and Jason are the property of ABC and Disney.

Summary: The end of Carly and Jason is not what one would expect. Carjax. Implied Jarly.

There was a sharp knock on the door. Jason looked up, wondering who it could be now.

"Come in," he called to whoever it was. He knew that if they were at all threatening Max wouldn't have even let them get that far. When Carly entered, he was shocked.

"Since when do you knock?" he asked ironically.

Carly looked at him sadly, then sighed.

"Jax, the boys, and I are going to Australia," Carly said.

Jason just shook his head. That was his best friend, making a drama of everything.

"When are you coming back from vacation?" he asked her, dutifully. She sometimes got annoyed if he didn't pay enough attention to her problems.

"We're not," she replied quietly. She might as well have dropped a bomb. Jason was speechless for a moment.

"…W-what?" was all he managed to get out.

"Jase, it's dangerous here. There's a war starting with the Zacchara's, the text message killer is going around killing people, and Jax and I want to make a family. We want to have a baby, but Port Charles has put a bit of a strain on our relationship lately. We're moving to Australia. Jax is homesick, and I figure it is as good of a place as any to make a home. Besides, I've always been a sunshine and beach gal myself," Carly explains to her best friend.

Jason was not expecting this. Carly had her entire life here in Port Charles. She and Bobbie were finally getting along; she was close with Lulu. Jax and Carly owned the MetroCourt. He could not think of a single other reason for Carly to stay, other than her relationship with Jason himself and the boys' relationship with Sonny.

Sonny.

"What about Sonny?" Jason asks, grasping at straws. He doesn't like telling other people what to do, but he doesn't want Carly to leave. Australia…god, it was on the opposite side of the world.

"Sonny and I have discussed it. He thinks it will be best for the boys to be away from Port Charles. It's been tough on them lately, with Emily and Leticia's murders," Carly points out to him.

"…you discussed it with Sonny already?" Jason asks. '…before you discussed it with me?' is his true question, best left unspoken. Carly gets an idea, a plan, she always goes to Jason first. That's the way their relationship worked.

"Last week," Carly affirms. "Jax and I just got all our affairs settled in Port Charles this past week. We picked out a manager for the MetroCourt, and a new school for Michael in Australia. Mercedes is coming with us; she's a great nanny. All that's left is to say our good-byes."

Jason doesn't say it, but he is hurt that she has not brought the topic up to him before this. She had everything planned out with Jax and never once mentioned moving to him.

"When are you leaving?" Jason questions, managing to keep the pain out of his voice. He hopes it takes the rest of his life for Carly to say her goodbyes.

Once upon a time, Jason had told Bobbie that he couldn't imagine his life without Carly in it. That still held true. He couldn't imagine her being so far away. She wouldn't barge into his office unexpectedly anymore, upsetting the monotony and making him happy to have her craziness nearby. No more headaches. No more plans. No more calls at 4 a.m. just to talk. If she had problems, she'd run to Jax. Jax, her husband. Jax, the man that she is leaving her home for; leaving him for.

"Tomorrow," Carly responded. She fell silent, still, allowing him to think about what this meant. What this meant for "Jason and Carly." Because pretty soon it would be "Jax and Carly," with supposed best friend Jason Morgan half way around the world.

Jason knew that he was thinking crazy. Carly must have rubbed off on him. But there was always a certain amount of possessiveness between them. Jason had always come first in her life. She put him before her mother, before her husbands, before her friends. Carly loved Jason as selflessly and selfishly as she loved Michael and Morgan.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Carly," Jason responds. Tomorrow was too soon. Too soon to think about what this really meant.

Jason had a special place in his heart that was reserved for Carly, and he tried to contain his love for her to just that part. But she always had a thing about boundaries. Carly found her way into every part of his heart, just as she found her way into every part of his life. It made it hard to find room for other women, for the Sams and Elizabeths of the world. And Jason knew that Carly held him in the same regard. She depended on him, needed him. And that would soon become past tense.

"Say you'll miss me, but you're happy for me. Tell me you're happy that Jax and I are going to put each other first, for once," Carly almost pleads with him. She doesn't need his approval, but she wants it desperately. She wants it so desperately that she's convinced herself that she needs it.

Jason has heard that "absence makes the heart grow fonder." But Jason knew Carly, and he knew what distance did to them. She may miss him, but she'd start standing on her own two feet. She'd become independent of him, and she wouldn't need him any more. It had happened before, when he had left town. But he had always been the one to leave, and she had always remained in Port Charles. And Jason knew that she'd always be there to return to.

"I'll miss you, but I'm happy for you. I'm happy that you and Jax are going to put each other first, for once," Jason parrots, changing only the pronouns in an attempt to make her happy, even if he was breaking inside.

"Jason…," Carly chokes out, unsure what else to say. She's going to miss him, but she needs to do this for herself. Her dependency on Jason, her absolute need to see him happy but still be his first priority, it was driving her crazy and driving Jax away. And she loved Jax; she wanted him to be her forever. She wanted a beautiful blonde-haired blue-eyed daughter to teach how to shop, and dress up, and wrap her daddy around her little finger.

Jason knew this was going to be the end of her almost unhealthy obsession with his life. He didn't have the heart to let her know that he cared about her happiness and her priorities just as much. A part of him, the most selfish part, needed to know that she would always put him before the Jaxs and Sonnys in her life, just as she would always come before the Elizabeths and Sams for him. But she was leaving this time. And if Carly learned anything from her craziness of a relationship with Sonny, it was to never go back.

"I love you," he tells her honestly, meaning it in every way. She was his best friend, the most important person in his life, and the almost soulmate. Time and circumsance had always worked against them.

"I love you too," she replies, just as honestly. But they only acknowledge the friendship. The chance for anything more had died so many times since November 1999 that it was impossible to acknowledge anything more.

She comes behind his desk to where he is now standing. Sometimes he doesn't trust his legs enough to stand in her presence, but now is not one of those times. They hug, and both feel the finality of the goodbye. She pulls back slightly, wanting to kiss him just one last time. Carly gives in enough to plant a chaste kiss on his cheek.

"We'll come back every once in a while. We're starting a chain of hotels in Australia, but we'll be delegating a lot of the work. Jax wants to try to have a baby right away; he was so happy when I told him I was off the birth control. Dr. Lee says to keep up hope that the fertilization treatments will work, and she recommended a good doctor in Australia," Carly tells him.

Jason hangs on her every word. He knows it is going to be the last time that she tells him her plans in such complete detail. She has always included him in every part of her life, and he has just realized how much he has taken her love and loyalty for granted.

Carly pauses for a moment before she leaves the office.

"It would have been amazing," she informs him softly.

"Like two colliding shooting stars," Jason confirms. "Just as short, just as beautiful…"

"…And just as devastating," Carly finishes. "But it would have been wonderful before the end."

And so goes the end of "Jason and Carly." They'll still be friends, of course, but time and distance will wear away the bonds that make them best. And although Carly knows that she can still go to Jason for anything, she won't. And even though Jason wants to tell Carly to stop and count to ten first, he'll take his own advice and hold his tongue.

And the end of the greatest "should have been" in history comes with a door softly closing, not a shooting star in sight.