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Nikolas was in agony.
He was convinced that if Daniel ever had
trouble taking out the people he
was hired to kill, he could just talk
to them for a few hours and they
would die from boredom. Discretely
looking down at his wrist, Nikolas
checked his watch for the millionth
time that night. It was 9:30.
They had been here for an hour. He
hoped Lucky and Luke had finished
searching the yacht. Most of them
were already done with dinner.
Nikolas was still picking at his
dessert, trying to stall.
Half an hour more was probably the longest he
and Stefan and Alexis could keep
Helena and Daniel there.
Laura brought
in a tray of three hot chocolates and cookies. It
screamed motherly solution, but
she needed something to do, and as silly
as it seemed, it put her at ease
to do this. Emily and Liz smiled at
her as they each took a cup and
a cookie.
"So, tell me I'm not the only one
worried here." Laura said.
"No, I think both of us are going
crazy here too, Laura." Liz said.
Laura smiled at the girls.
"You both care a lot about my sons, don't
you?"
The both nodded. "Yeah, they've
both been great friends to us." Emily
said. "Lucky helped me when
my mom died, and even though we've been
distant for a while, we talked
the other day, and we're like we used to
be. And Nikolas really helped
me through my, my drug problem when I
didn't have many other friends."
Laura smiled. "I'm glad they were
there for you, but I know you've
helped them just as much. The same
goes for you, Liz. Lucky
didn't just help you after..." Laura dropped
off, remembering Emily was there.
"It's okay, Laura." Liz said.
"Emily and I have done a little
bonding lately, and she knows about my
rape. And you're right.
Lucky and I helped each other through so much.
And Nikolas was great about not
telling anyone I was raped when he found
out." Emily spoke up a little
timidly now. "Laura, Liz and I would
like to help you and Luke and Lucky
and the Cassadines. I know neither
of us have as much training in
things like this that you do, but I Liz
and I have learned a lot from Lucky."
Laura frowned slightly. "I
don't know, girls. Taking down Helena and
this Daniel could get very dangerous."
Liz spoke up, feeling bold.
"Laura, we realize that, but this is
something we both have to do.
Nikolas and Lucky have been there several
times when we needed them, and
pretty much saved our lives. Now we'd
like to do the same."
Laura saw the determination in
both girls' eyes. "Okay. I think I'd
have a hard time fighting you two
on this, so I won't even try. You
know, I'm not only proud of my
sons, but also the wonderful girlfriends
they have."
Emily and Liz exchanged rather
shocked and embarrassed looks. "Uh,
Laura, I think maybe you have the
wrong impression…" Emily started to
say, but was cut off by Laura.
"No, I've seen the way Nikolas
looks at you Emily. And Liz, you and
Lucky seem to have become each
other's life. I know this is way in the
future, but I can't wait to have
you two as daughters'-in-law."
Liz and Emily blushed, but giggled
along with Laura.
On the yacht, Luke rummaged through
the last drawer of the last file
cabinet. Helena kept stuff
well hidden. They had found Daniel's
computer, but no disks anywhere.
"Find anything, Cowboy?" Luke called
to Lucky, who was crouched down
on the floor under the desk. "Not yet,
Dad." Despite the stress
of the situation, Luke smiled to himself. It
was great having his son back with
him.
Lucky slid his hand along the underneath
side of the middle desk drawer.
Suddenly a compartment flew open
on his right side. Inside were several
disks. "Dad, get over here!"
he shouted. Luke ran over and grinned at
his son. "Jackpot."
He reached over and thumbed through the disks.
Lucky and Luke exchanged a look
of triumph when they saw the one labeled
Helena. Luke checked his
watch. "Great going kiddo, but we gotta get
out of here now. They've
been gone for an hour and a half." Lucky
nodded. "All right dad, you
go check to see if anyone's out there yet,
and I close this back up."
After Luke got up, Lucky paused before he
shut the compartment. Another
disk had caught his eye. He stared at it
as he picked it up. Hearing
Luke call for him, he quickly pocketed it
and shut the compartment, and then
ran out to the docks after his
father. They just made it
out of sight when the Cassadines and Daniel
arrived.
"Well, Helena, Daniel, I hope you
had nice time tonight. I hope we can
do it again." Stefan said.
Helena just nodded. "I know
this evening was about something, Stefan,
and I will find out." Stefan
just nodded as she and Daniel disappeared
on the yacht. He put an arm
on Alexis and Nikolas, and steered them to
their waiting limo. Before
they went home, they intended on checking on
the Spencers. None of them
were too surprised when they got in and
found Luke and Lucky already inside.
"I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't
smoke in my car, Spencer."
Stefan said as he pulled the cigar from
Luke's mouth. "Aww, relax,
Stefan, I'm just celebrating." Alexis and
Stefan looked at him curiously,
but it was all they could get out of him
until they got to the Spencer house.
Laura jumped up as the door opened,
and practically knocked Luke and
Lucky down as she threw herself
on them. "Hey now, darling," Luke said,
"you weren't worried about us,
were you? Sneaking onto Helena's yacht
was a piece of cake." Laura
batted playfully at him as they all went
inside. "Well, what you do,
decide to have a party while we out?" Luke
asked. "Hello girls."
Emily and Liz smiled at him. "Well, I guess we
all just decided to worry together."
Laura said. Luke laughed when he
saw Jason enter from the kitchen.
"Don't tell me you got all anxious
about us, too." Luke teased.
Jason smiled, and slapped Luke on the
back. "No, I just got here.
I wanted to see if you found anything out
tonight." Jason replied.
Luke turned as Lucky came down
the stairs with his laptop. "Well, we're
about to find out." He said,
as he pulled the disk marked 'Helena' out.
He handed it to Lucky, who inserted
it into the computer. Everyone
huddled around the screen, on which
flashed information about how much
Helena was paying Daniel when she
hired him, and other details like
that. Scrolling down, Lucky
finally found something useful. "It says
here Daniel was hired to kidnap
me and take me to Polk, Colorado by
Helena and Luis. He had to
keep me for so long in the mansion because
they were waiting for someone else
to join them. Luis and Daniel were
told by Helena that whoever they
were waiting for would meet them there.
Then Daniel realized someone had
double-crossed him on the bombing job,
but it was before he knew the bomb
was in the mansion. He accused Luis,
and even though he denied it, he
killed him." Lucky swallowed hard at
the memory of witnessing that event.
Luke put his hand on his shoulder.
"Any clue as to who they were going
to meet?" He asked. Lucky shook
his head. "No, but from the
way things were written, the other person
was about as willing to come with
them as I was."
Nikolas then pointed at the screen.
"What's that poem about?" He asked
as he read it out loud. "Enemies
great, though we may be, Our sons
together hold the key. In
a steel box, locked away, A precious stone
does gently lay. Though we
all might try best we can, The children
hold the key in their hand."
"I don't know, but it appears to
be written by Stavros about the Ice
Princess." Stefan said.
"Alexis and I will research this some more,
and see if can find out who they
were waiting for. Luke nodded at them,
and everyone but Jason went home
for the night.
"You got guard on the girls, right?"
Luke asked Jason. "Yeah, even a
few on the Cassadines." Luke
grunted but didn't say anything. "You
going to hang around here for the
night?" Jason nodded. "Yeah, I'd
think it would be best if I stayed
close. I'll just crash on the couch,
okay?" Luke nodded, and threw
some blankets and a pillow at him before
he went upstairs.
Jason had just settled in, when
he heard footsteps on the stairs.
Adjusting himself slightly and
quietly, he saw Lucky walk down and sit
at the computer. Jason realized
he must not know that he was staying
there tonight. He got up
and walked over to Lucky, who had inserted
another disk in the computer and
was staring intently at the screen.
"Uh, hey, what's up?" Jason
asked. He didn't want Lucky to think he
was spying on him, but knew he
should make his presence known. Lucky
jumped as he spoke, and pushed
the screen down. "Hey, what are you
doing here?" He asked.
"I thought it would be a good idea if I stuck
around. I didn't mean to
scare you." Jason replied. "Is it all right
if I ask what you're doing?"
Lucky was silent for a moment, then
pulled the screen up again. On
it was a picture of a fair-headed
man about 35. "I found this other
disk on the yacht tonight."
Lucky said in a sullen voice. "I didn't
tell dad about it. It was
marked 'Employees'. You see, Daniel kept
track of everyone that worked for
him. This is the guy that I, that
Daniel killed with me there."
Jason sat down beside him and took
the disk out of the computer, leaving
the screen blank. "Don't
do this to yourself, Lucky." He said, staring
straight at him. "You have
no reason to feel guilty for anything that
happened back then."
Lucky nodded, but didn't look up.
Jason reached out and turned Lucky's
head towards him. "You didn't
do anything wrong."
Jason leaned back a little.
It looked like Lucky was starting to
believe him. "Jason, can
I ask you something?" Lucky asked. Jason
nodded. Taking a deep breath,
Lucky rested his elbows on the table.
"What, uh, what was it like when
you first woke up in the hospital?"
"Well, it was very confusing.
I couldn't remember anything. All I
wanted was one thing that looked
familiar to me, to reassure me." Jason
said.
Lucky nodded. "Were you scared?"
He asked.
"Yeah." Jason replied.
"It was one of the scariest things in my life.
I felt so helpless, like I couldn't
do anything." Understanding why
Lucky was asking all this, he placed
a hand on his shoulder. "Is that
how you felt when you woke up in
the hospital after the bombing?"
Lucky nodded, a few tears coming
to his eyes. "It seemed like I woke up
from a bad dream that I couldn't
remember, and for the first time, my
parents weren't there to make it
better. It was different because I
didn't forget everything, but it
was still horrible. I didn't know
where I was, why I was in the hospital,
or where my parents were. All I
knew was that whatever had happened,
it was bad. When mom and dad
finally found me, I told them I
got lost and found Luis, and we somehow
got caught in a house that had
been bombed. I just didn't want them to
know that I couldn't remember.
Cause even though I didn't, I still felt
guilt when I woke up. I just
wanted to go back to my life before all
that, when I was happy. I
thought if I pretended it wasn't there, it
would go away." Lucky leaned
back in his chair and sighed. "Sometimes
I still just want to go back.
To those times on the run. When all it
took for me to be happy was to
be with my parents. We were all each
other's lives, back then, and all
that mattered in life was that we
stayed together."
"Can I ask you something now?"
Jason said. Lucky nodded. "Sure,
anything."
"What was it like to remember everything"
"It was scary. It would all
come to me in dreams for awhile. I didn't
think it was real. Then I
started having flashbacks when I was awake.
They would really shake me up.
It was like someone else's life had
gotten into my mind. I still
couldn't believe I had lived all those
things. But when I saw Daniel,
everything kinda clicked, and I could
finally piece it all in as it happened.
It was real. Of course, then I
freaked out about all of it."
Lucky said as he gave a short laugh.
Jason smiled at him for a moment,
then let it fade. "Sometimes I worry
about remembering my past.
I'm afraid it could wreck the life I've
struggled to have since the accident.
What if it meant that I'd have to
go back to being Jason Quartermaine?
Or what if things I remembered
were horrible."
"I don't think it would be like
that." Lucky said. "It would take time
to get used to it all. And
there would be moments when you couldn't
believe it was really your past.
But it wouldn't change you. You'd
still have control. It's
hard, but I didn't let all this turn me back
into the scared uncertain boy I
was when I got kidnapped. And I knew
Jason Quartermaine. You wouldn't
remember anything too awful, except
for living with the Q's."
Jason chuckled. "Thank you
Lucky." He said seriously. "There aren't a
lot of people I feel too comfortable
talking about all of this with."
Lucky shrugged. "Hey, I brought
it all up. It helped me a lot to talk
all of this out."
Reaching out and picking the disk
up again, Jason held it up. "It okay
if I hold on to this now?" He asked.
Lucky nodded. "Yeah, I don't
think I'll need it anymore."
"All right, it's getting late now,
why don't you go get some sleep?"
Lucky smiled mischievously as he
spoke. "Yes, mother."
"Very funny, you little rat." Jason
replied as he playfully wrestled
with Lucky. "Seriously, though,
I'm beat myself. I'll see you in the
morning, okay?"
"Yeah. Good night Jason."
"Night Lucky."
Lucky walked up the stairs to his
room then, and Jason laid back down on
the couch. He was feeling
a lot more at ease now about something he
never even realized had been bothering
him.
A little nervously, Nikolas
knocked on the Spencers' front door.
Luke had told him he was welcome
now, but it didn't make him feel all
that much better about being there.
Just his luck, too, Nikolas
thought, as Luke answered the door.
For a few seconds both of them just
stood there awkwardly. "Well,
come on in." Luke said as he stepped
aside. Closing the door after
Nikolas, he turned around and continued,
"Laura took Lulu to the park, but
they should be back any minute.
Lucky's in his room. You
can go on up if you want."
"Um, thanks." Nikolas said.
This felt too strange to him, Luke Spencer
welcoming him into his home.
"I guess I'll go upstairs, then." Nikolas
turned towards the stairs when
Luke spoke up. "Hey, uh, I just wanted
to let you know, that, uh.."
Luke trailed off, finding this extremely
difficult. Nikolas stood
still, wondering what Luke was trying to say.
Luke finally just forced the words
to come out. "I wanted to let you
know that I meant it when I said
you could come by whenever you want.
You're part of my wife, so you're
part of my family." Luke turned
around and walked into the kitchen
as he finished, but Nikolas still
heard him. "I'm sorry it
took me so long to figure that out and accept
you."
>From his spot on the top of the
stairs where he had been listening,
Lucky smiled. Nikolas looked
up and smiled back at him. They both
realized for the first time just
how much they had been wanting this.
For their families to stop fighting
and become one. It was doubtful
that Stefan and Luke would ever
be close, but that wasn't important. It
was enough that each of them could
be close to their mom and sister, and
become the brothers they should
have been all along.
Lucky had just finished walking
down the rest of the steps when the
doorbell rang. Opening it,
he grinned as he saw Emily and Liz standing
on the steps. "So are you
to just joined at the hip now?" He joked.
"Seems everytime I see one of you,
the other isn't far behind anymore."
"Well, I guess we realized we had
a lot in common." Liz said.
"What would that be?" Nikolas
asked coming up behind Lucky.
"Stuff you will never know about,
because it would be breaking our girl
code if we told you." Emily
said.
"Well, come on in." Lucky said.
"Our house seems to be the meeting
place for all of Port Charles anymore.
With you three over all the
time, and Jason and all his bodyguards,
we might as well just turn the
house into a hotel."
Before Lucky could shut the door,
though, Lulu came bounding in, with a
very exhausted Laura behind her.
Nikolas swept her up, laughing at all
the ice cream smeared across her
face. "Did you think the ice cream
would be better on you than in
you?" Lulu just smiled back at him and
giggled.
Liz looked at how tired Laura looked,
and took pity on her. "Laura,
would you like it if Emily and
I cleaned Lulu up? I think you could use
a break."
Laura managed the best smile she
could. "Thank you girls. I think I'll
go take a nap." Luke came
out of the kitchen grinning at Laura. "You
know, darling, it's the children
that are supposed to take naps." Laura
frowned at him. "Yes, but
children also seem to run on sugar, while I
require rest." "Well, I'll
come up and rub your shoulders, okay?" Luke
asked as he chuckled. "That
would be wonderful." Laura replied. "Nice
to see you here Nikolas."
She said as she quickly gave both of her sons
a quick peck on the cheek before
following Luke upstairs.
Emily and Liz, each taking one
of Lulu's hands, took her into the
kitchen to clean her up.
Nikolas gave Lucky a teasing look. "So, when
are you going to ask Liz out?"
"What?" Lucky asked, blushing
a little. "Well," Nikolas continued,
"she seems to be pretty much over
everything, and you can't tell me you
don't like her."
"Okay, then, I guess I'll ask her
right after you ask Emily out." Lucky
said, turning the table on him.
Nikolas looked down, a little
embarrassed. "Okay, I guess
I deserved that. But really, Liz would go
out with you. Emily on the
other hand.." Lucky cut him off. "Oh, come
on, Niky, Emily likes you back
just as much as you like her."
Nikolas smiled. "All right,
you ask Liz, and then I'll ask Emily."
"No, no, I said I'd ask after you,
remember?" Both brothers looked at
each other for a moment, then burst
up laughing. "We're pretty
pathetic, huh?" Lucky asked.
Nikolas agreed, and then Lulu ran into
the room, her face spotless now.
"I have a message for both of you."
Lulu said shyly. "Really?"
Nikolas asked. "Well, what
is it?"
"Lizzie and Emily said neither
one of you have to ask first, and they'll
both be waiting for you to pick
them up at Emily's house at seven
tonight."
Lucky and Nikolas started laughing
again, blushing uncontrollably. "Are
they still in the kitchen?"
Lucky asked. "No." Lulu said. "They said
they had to go home to get ready."
"I guess I'll go home to do the
same, then." Nikolas said. "I'll be
back here for you at about 6:30,
okay?" Lucky nodded. Nikolas left
then, and Lucky grabbed Lulu up
in his arms, tickling her as he walked
up the stairs.
Penthouse
Jason walked over to Alexis and
Stefan, who were seated at the table
staring at a computer screen.
They had decided combine their resources
to find out more about Daniel and
Helena. "You two find anything out,
yet?" he asked. "No," Stefan
said frowning, "we don't have a clue as to
who.." "Wait, look at this!"
Alexis cut in excitedly. "Stefan, you
kept a record of when Helena tried
to see Nikolas. Well, one week after
Lucky was taken at the airport,
she contacted you asking to see Nikolas.
You said no, of course, but she
was very persistent. She asked again
and again, every week, for nearly
four months." Stefan looked at the
screen worriedly. "You're
right." He said. "And look here. She
invited both of me and Nikolas
to Colorado, saying it was urgent. It
must have been to Polk. I
didn't remember it, because I just tore up
the invitation without looking
at it closely. But that would have been
nearly the exact time as the bombing
that Lucky and Daniel were in."
"Which could only mean one thing."
Jason said. "The other person
Helena was after is Nikolas."