The Legacy

<Prologue>
September, 2000

Elizabeth Webber stood in the middle of her room at Kelly’s.  This was the room she had shared with Lucky for the last two years.  This was the room where she had rebuilt her life after the rape and her sister’s was death, as well as throughout her grandmother’s illness.  Now she was leaving it behind.  She sat on the bed and picked up Boris.  “I guess it’s just you and me, pal” she said.

So much had changed for Liz in the last few months.  She, Emily, and Lucky had graduated from PCH that June, and she was scheduled to start at PCU in two weeks.  Emily and Nikolas were engaged, and would be getting married soon.  Emily was going to start school too, but she and Nikolas didn’t want to wait any longer to get married.  Liz sighed, everyone had thought it would be her and Lucky getting married right after high school.  Yeah, right Liz thought.

Audrey had passed away right after graduation.  She never fully recovered from the shock of Sarah’s death, and it was probably better that she had passed.  She had left everything to her granddaughters, and since Sarah had died that meant that Liz got the house, as well as the small estate that Audrey and Steve had spent their lives building.  At first she had wanted to sell the house, but then Lucky left and she couldn’t stay in the room they had shared together anymore.  She told Ruby she would be moving out, and both women broke down in sobs.  Ruby made her promise that if she got lonely in that big house that she would come back.

Liz wiped the tears from her face as the memories came flooding back.  Liz thought that she and Lucky were going to be together forever.  It hadn’t worked out that way.  Lucky had proposed to her right before graduation.  He got down on one knee and proposed to her in front of all of their friends and his family.  Though Liz had expected his proposal, she hadn’t known it would come so quickly or in such a public way.

Liz stood and looked out the window.  She had remembered the look in Lucky’s eyes when she had told him that she needed time.  She couldn’t give him the simple answer he wanted.  Nothing had been simple for her since the night AJ Quartermaine had changed her life.  Even though AJ was gone, the remnants of his actions were still with her and always would be.  It was those remnants that made her think twice before agreeing to marry Lucky.

About a year after AJ’s death she had gone to the doctor for a routine physical.  It was then that she learned the full extent of the damage AJ had caused her.  She could still hear the doctor say the words.  “I’m sorry Elizabeth, the chances of you conceiving and carrying a child to term are minimal.”  Liz remembered how the pain had torn her apart.  She hadn’t known how badly she wanted to someday have Lucky’s children until she knew she couldn’t.  She never told Lucky about the doctor’s news, but knew that someday she would have to.  That day should have been the day Lucky proposed, but when she said she needed time Lucky shut her out.  He had misread her intentions and thought that she didn’t love him.  She had tried to pull him aside and talk to him alone, but he wouldn’t let her, he just walked out of her life.

Three days later, he moved his stuff out of their room.  She had seen him around a few times, but he always shut her out.  She knew he was hurting, but he wouldn’t let anyone in.  In desperation Liz confided in Emily, hoping she would be able to get through to Lucky.  It failed.  Emily had told her that as soon as she brought the subject up, Lucky closed down.  Liz wiped fresh tears from her face.  Their love was supposed to last a lifetime.  What had changed that?  Elizabeth knew the answer to that.  The same thing that would always rule her life, AJ’s legacy.  She wondered to herself how a dead man could hold so much power over her life.