Long after Spinelli and Maxie had left to pursue their latest mystery, long after Jax had gotten up from the table after being rejected by Leyla, long after she had stopped noticing anything or anyone around her, Carly sat alone at a private table in the Metrocourt dining room clutching a piece of paper that told her everything that she had known for so long but had tried to deny to herself.

When Jason's sidekick and the police commissioner's daughter first approached her about online dating, Carly had blown it off as another one of the duo's ridiculous ideas. She had seen the two of them come up with a number of them since they started hanging, but this was the first one that had impacted her directly. Usually she was happy to sit on the sideline and enjoy the chaos they created in Jason's world. It was nice to see him have to actually live his life, something he hadn't been doing much of since Michael had been shot and he had taken over the organization from Sonny. With Spinelli, the usually stoic mobster had to let down his guard just enough to let him into his life. It was just another paternal role Jason had taken on willingly. Carly loved to watch the two of them together, reminding her so much of how her best friend had been with their little boy. There were few people that Jason let truly know him, and she knew that he had finally trusted strange hacker into one of the hardest places in this world to reach – his heart.

Carly knew firsthand how difficult that task could be. She had been the first one to penetrate through every single one of Jason's barriers and find a permanent place in his world. No one had the longevity that Carly had in Jason's life. There was no one that came before her. Even his misguided love for Elizabeth hadn't been enough to break their bond. He had come after her the night she found them together, concern shining in his icy blue eyes. She didn't even have to say something and he knew that her world had fallen apart. They had sat together for hours after the prissy nurse left, huddled together on his sofa. Carly had felt bad for interrupting his life but she also knew Jason. He didn't let anyone convince him do something that he didn't ultimately want to do. If he had wanted Elizabeth to stay, she would have stayed. He had chosen Carly. Everyone knew that he would always choose Carly.

Yet, despite knowing all these things, Carly had always said their role as soulmates was strictly as friends. Their love for each other was deeply routed in more than a decade of friendship, highs and lows, almost loves and too much heartbreak for a lifetime. She had hurt him once more than she had ever hurt anyone in her life, even Jax. However, unlike her current husband, Jason had loved her enough to forgive her. He wanted her in his life however he could have her and had pledged his life to keeping her and the boys safe. No one had ever been as consistent in her life, and she was happy that Jason could say the same about her. Through every court battle, every breakup, every trip to the hospital, Carly had been the one woman he could always count to show up for him. She would fight to the death to save him. People always thought that he was crazy for putting up with her but they didn't see what he saw. They didn't know that she was just as much there for him as he was there for her.

Now, as she scanned the sheet filled with statistics and comparisons and bar graphs, Carly wondered if all of their history didn't mean more. She loved Jason just as much as she did all those years ago when he had confessed his love for her, if not more. She loved him more than she could ever imagine loving anyone other than her children. They had shared dreams in the midst of their darkest moments, connecting via a pool fantasy while she lay unconscious in murky waters and he was sedated during surgery. It was undeniable that they had a connection, but Carly hadn't let herself believe that it was anything more than friends in so many years. She had been too afraid to even consider the thought, worried that he would reject her or that their friendship would be risked. It was the only chance she had ever been afraid to take. Somehow, nothing had ever seemed to matter more.

Running her finger down the long list of matching points, she smiled again to herself as she read the statistics. They matched in twenty-four of the twenty-five romantic indicators, a pretty amazing feat by all considerations. CarolineOnTheBeach and DangerDude were perfect for each other on paper, but she feared that it might be a little harder to translate to reality. Carly wished that she could look into the future and see how all this would turn out, but what would be the fun in that? Jason would hate that Spinelli had even done this, but she would be able to convince him that it was only because the young man cared so much about him. God knows that he had forgiven her more than once because he knew her heart was in the right place. However, she didn't want to think about that right now. She didn't want to think about anything negative when she came to this piece of paper, the one that said that there was someone out there who was perfect for her. Not every girl is fortunate enough to call the man she loves more than anyone else in the world her best friend.

"I could risk it," Carly whispered to herself as she looked at the first matching point. They were exact opposites in many of the categories, bringing a balance and symmetry to the relationship that enabled them to last such a long time. However, in the first category on the list, they were exactly alike. It made sense since it was one of the first things that had ever attracted her to him. He'd been nothing more to her than a boy on the side, a sexy guy in a leather jacket who could shoot pool with the best of them. He was still that man to her sometimes, only with so much more.

One point of perfection – the greatest addiction. For this category, Spinelli and Maxie had accurately answered that both Jason and Carly were addicted to adrenaline. It was true that both of them thrived in that little rush in the pit of their stomach that they would get before they did something daring. For him, it could mean racing his motorcycle along the bluff or sinking an eight ball with the perfect shot or exerting his power when it came to the organization. For her, it could mean pushing the pedal all the way down on her new speedboat or maneuvering two balls in their pockets with a bank shot or scheming her way through her latest drama. It didn't really matter how they got the rush, they just lived for it.

Carly had known that Jason was addicted to that rush the first night they played pool at Jake's and he had slowly danced her around that dingy bar. It was written all over his face, obvious in his every movement. From the way he possessively held onto her to the heated way he had tried to dominate her upstairs, he loved to push the envelope. And while that had subsided some over the years as he had matured, there was still a definite edge to Jason Morgan. It was the quality that scared people around him the most but not Carly. She was never afraid of the life that he led, even now. She trusted him more than she had ever trusted Sonny when it came to keeping her safe. He wouldn't let anything happen to her or Morgan. That was her secret weapon for never being scared when it came to those adrenaline situations that she loved so much. Jason would never let her fall.

Their reasons for seeking out adrenaline were different, though. For Carly, her need for the rush always came during the times when she was the most scared. She had started her misguided dance of seduction with Karpov when Jax had disappeared and she was worried that their marriage was over. Jason had tried to talk her out of it, but they both knew that she wouldn't listen. She never listened when she wanted to help him. He was the same way, but of course, that was an entirely different point of perfection.

Jason's need for adrenaline came when he was feeling restless. He would race his motorcycle when he needed to make a big decision but couldn't focus. Carly had never really ridden on the bike with him all that much; that was something more that he had done with wholesome girls like Robin and Elizabeth. He could clear his mind and think when they were around. That just wasn't possible with Carly. Whenever he was around her, she dominated everything about his life, including his every thought. Sometimes he complained about how it drove him crazy, but she saw the playful smile that would break through and knew that he secretly loved it too. The speed, the adrenaline, that was his way of quieting down the chaos around him. Only Jason would find peace at the end of a handgun, but it somehow restored order to his world. It made sense. It was the only reality he had ever known. The mob and Carly were as synonymous with his life as water and air.

"I have to see him," she whispered to herself as she looked down at the paper once again. The truth had been staring her in the eye for a long time, and she couldn't deny it any longer even if she wanted to. There was more to this. There had to be. Even if there wasn't, she had to at least try. There had to be a reason that neither of them could hold down a relationship, while their friendship grew stronger year after year. There had to be a reason that no man could even begin to hold a torch to him. There had to be a reason he always put her before the other women in his life, even when he had claimed to love the others.

Carly took the printout and folded it in half before tucking it into her oversized leather tote between a permission slip for Morgan's field trip tomorrow and the latest rendering of some rooms on the upper levels she was going to remodel. After waiting more than ten years to finally admit to herself how she felt about him, Carly suddenly couldn't bear to wait ten minutes to see him. She had to look into his eyes. If she just looked there, the place that she called home, she would know. It would all make sense again. She would be able to confess her feelings or at least babble absently about the printout while he pretended not to listen. Meanwhile, she knew that he would be hanging onto every word, a fact that would only be proven later when he yelled at Spinelli for going through with this in the first place.

As Carly headed down to the front entrance to meet her limousine to head across town to his office, she thought about the high of all highs. The greatest adrenaline rush of Carly's life just happened to be the same one as Jason's. Standing in the rain that night, begging him to be a father to her baby, it was the greatest scheme Carly would ever concoct. It would be a plan that would change both of their lives, one that actually ended up working for the better. Even if no one else ever saw it that way, the two of them would always know that he made the right choice that night. Jason would have eventually faded into the background like the many men who had come in her life. Instead, he became a permanent fixture in her world. They wouldn't have had that time as a family with Michael, a year that she knew he counted as the best of his life. If they hadn't taken that chance and leapt together into the unknown, their entire lives would have been different. Without that year of her life, there would be no Carly and Jason.