Secrets, Lies, and Other Acts of Love:
Chapter 6- Revelations
The Villa in Malibu:
Lucky lay alone in bed unable to sleep. He could vaguely
hear the pounding of the surf outside his window.
The last week had been hell. Oh, on the surface everything
was fine and polite. He spent his days watching over Emily,
monitoring her progress, making sure she was okay. He spent his
nights praying to God that she would still be there in the morning.
They had not exchanged any real conversation since that
night on the deck. They discussed the weather or the news but
didn’t talk about anything else.
She was planning on leaving. She hadn’t said a word, but
he knew she was. She was going to walk right out of his life and
back into whatever hell awaited her. And he couldn’t stop her.
He didn’t know if he could handle losing somebody else that
he loved. He stopped suddenly. Loved? Love her? I can’t love her.
She’s my best friend. This whole thing, seeing her again after so
many years, the shooting, her nearly dying at my doorstep, the
overwhelming fear he felt...all of these things were confusing him.
Messing up his head. Liz is the only one I will ever love. Ever.
Liz has been gone three years.
I will love her forever.
You’re only 27.
I will love her forever.
Then what are you feeling for Emily?
There was no answer as he lay alone in the silent night.
Lucky could only be glad that his conversation with himself
couldn’t be heard next door.
Emily is having a nightmare. She knows its a nightmare
because she has been here before, over and over again. But
knowing its a nightmare doesn’t make it any less scary.
In her dreams she’s walking alone through a forest. She is
18 again and the world waits somewhere out there for her to
explore it. She is happy and feels like she can fly.
But with each step the sky gets darker, the storm clouds
gather together, and the wind turns cold until she is sure that she
will freeze. She can hear a woman’s laughter mingled with the wind
and it makes her want to move faster. But the cold has numbed her
feet and legs and she is slowing down. She is scared. She wants to
run but the cold stops her. She knows that she will be too late, but
she can’t convince herself to hurry.
She comes to a clearing. It is covered with bodies. They
have no faces but she recognizes them anyway.
Alan...Monica...AJ...Edward...Lila...Jason...everyone she has ever
cared about lies dead around her. The only living thing besides
herself is that laugh.
At the far edge of the clearing she spots a small child and her
heart stops. She runs to him. His body is stiff and cold. He has a
face, but the face is cold and hard, like its carved from marble. He is
dead. They are all dead. And its her fault. She failed them. She
couldn’t keep them safe. They paid for her mistake. The laughter is
back, increasing. Holding the child’s hand, Emily begins to scream
over and over and over again.
“Em. Emily. Wake Up.” Lucky’s voice penetrated her
dream state as he shook her gently. Her eyes flew open, dazed and
confused.
“Lucky?”
“You were having a nightmare. Judging from the screams it
must have been horrible.”
She nods. Even awake she can’t stop shivering. “It was”
Without a word, he climbs into bed next to her and pulls her
close. They lean against the headboard in silence.
“Who is Jonathan?” Lucky’s voice shatters the silence.
“Jonathan?” Emily stutters.
“You were calling his name in your nightmare. Who is he?”
Afterwards, Emily would wonder what made her answer
him- whether it was the residual fear from her nightmare or the
warmth of being held that made her fears seem not as bad or just
the last step in a journey that began the day she picked up the
newspaper and read that her grandmother was dead. Whatever the
reason, Emily’s secret world was collapsing around her like a house
of cards. First Jason. Now Lucky.
She drew a deep breath. “He’s my son.”
The living room, a little while later
He was going to need a lot of coffee for this Lucky thought
as he watched Emily pace the living room. She pulled her robe
tighter around her.
“I....I don’t know where to begin.”
“At the beginning.”
“There is more than one beginning.”
“Pick one.”
Emily sighed. “I don’t suppose we can forget I said
anything?” she asked wistfully.
“Nope.”
“Okay,” she turned to him for a moment. “You can’t tell
anyone what I’m about to tell you. You have to swear to that
Lucky. No one. Not your mother. Not my family. No one.”
“I promise.”
She looked at him for a moment. She doesn’t believe him,
not really. She knows how Lucky feels about lying. For him to keep
her secret means that he will have to spend the rest of his life telling
a lie. She knows that he can’t do it. She only hopes that he can
maintain the lie long enough for her and her son to disappear again.
And this time, she quietly vows, this time I won’t ever make the
mistake of looking back.
He is waiting for her to begin but she finds that she is
nervous. She isn’t ashamed of what she did, well okay maybe a
little ashamed, but she can’t help thinking that it was one of the
stupider things she had done in her life. She looks at the young man
on the couch, surprised by how much his good opinion still matters
to her.
“It started the summer Liz and I graduated from high
school. The summer the two of you got engaged. Do you
remember”
Lucky nods. “I remember feeling so guilty for being so
happy when so many people around me were not.”
“Like Nik.”
“Yeah, like Nik.” Lucky is silent for a moment
remembering.
‘That’s part of my story. We all remember how heavy
Nikolas was drinking that year. Alcohol was the only thing he had
that helped him cope after Stefan, after his father, died. He couldn’t
cope. We all tried to help him that year- you, me, Liz, your mother,
even Luke. But no one could reach him. He locked himself up at
Wyndemare with only liquor to keep him company. It was like
some stranger had come and taken over the Nik we knew and the
Nik we knew died when his father died.”
“It didn’t even help him to know that Stefan died a hero,
that he died saving Laura and Lesley Lu from that fire. There was
no way to reach Nik after that.” Emily finished softly.
Lucky nodded, remembering. It happened in the middle of
winter. His parents had still been separated, were in fact well on
their way to a divorce. One night a fire broke out in his house while
was his mother and Lu were sleeping. It had been Stefan, driving by
for some unknown reason, who had spotted the fire and called for
help. Stefan who had not hesitated to go into the burning building.
Stefan who had found Laura sleeping on the couch and got her out.
Stefan who had turned around and then gone back in to get get
Lu-Lu. He had gotten her out. But the smoke inhalation and burns
he received doing so cost him his life. He had lingered for three
painful days before dying with Laura and Nik by his side.
Whatever kind of life Stefan Cassadine had lived, he had
died a hero and the whole town, including Luke Spencer, had
mourned him as one.
A few days later Luke had moved back home. Nikolas had
turned down Laura’s offer to live with her and chosen instead to
live at Wyndemere alone. Lucky often wondered if they had been
wrong to let Nikolas be alone after the tragedy.
“But what does all this have to do with you?” Lucky asked.
“I’m coming to that. I told you it was a complicated story.
I’m telling it the best I can.” Emily paused, wanting to run or flee or
to do anything other than be here in this moment. “It really all
began a few weeks after graduation. Mike Corbin called me one
night. Nikolas was at the recovery room, drunk. He couldn’t get
ahold of your parents or of you. It was either me or the police. So
I came and got him. Nikolas had a standing suite at the Port Charles
Hotel and I decided it was easier to get him there rather than try to
get him to the docks and to the launch and back to Wyndemere. I
helped him to the suite, and put him to bed, clothes and all. I
started to leave.” She hesitated.
“And,” prompted Lucky very much afraid he knew what
was coming.
“He grabbed me and kissed me.” She closes her eyes.” He
kissed me. And he started touching me. I had spent half my high
school existence head over heals with this guy who never saw me as
anything other than a friend. And here he was kissing me. I kissed
him back. The fact that he was completely drunk didn’t stop me. I
saw my big chance and grabbed it. It was stupid and selfish and
every other word that you are thinking but all I could think was that
this was Nikolas and he was kissing me.”
“So you made love,” Lucky was surprised at the hardness in
his tone.
Emily looks up at him surprised. “Love? There was nothing
remotely connected to love about that night. I figured that out real
fast. It was so far removed from what my dreams had told me it
would be like. It was my first time. There was no romance. No
promises. No gentleness. Just sex. And the really crazy thing was
that even afterwards, when I felt sick to my stomach about what
had happened and Nikolas was passed out besides me, I was still
able to convince myself that it meant something. How could he do
that” she puts a lot of emphasis on the word, “that with me and not
have it mean something. I was such a fool.” Her voice breaks on
the last word.
Lucky aches for her. He remembers the first time he and Liz
had made love and the pure magic of that night.
“The next morning I woke up, put my clothes back on, and
left. Nikolas was still passed out. I spent that day and the next day
and the next by the phone waiting for him to call me. But he never
did. And I realized why when I ran into him the next week. He
didn’t remember. He didn’t remember anything about that night.
About what we had done.”
“What?”
“I know,” Emily laughed bitterly. “It did a lot of good for
my ego to realize that the first guy I slept with didn’t even
remember the event. I was so devastated. I even picked up the
phone and called this guy I know who was dealing. I arranged to
meet him the next day. I wanted so badly to score.”
“But you didn’t?”
“I couldn’t. I couldn’t throw away years of being clean
because of Nikolas. I spent that summer piecing myself back
together bit by bit. It helped when Alexis took Nikolas back to
Greece for the summer.”
‘By the end of August when classes at PCU started, I was
actually beginning to feel normal and happy again. But then I
realized that I was going to have to pay a big price for my mistake
after all. I was pregnant. I was pregnant and the father didn’t even
remember that night. I didn’t tell my parents or anybody. Just kept
my secret to myself until Nikolas came home.”
“You have to understand something,” Emily whispered. “I
didn’t set out to keep the pregnancy a secret- not from Nikolas at
least. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I did know that I
owed Nik the truth. I wasn’t sure how I was going to tell him-
somehow the words ‘you don’t remember but we slept together and
now I’m pregnant’ sounded like something you’d hear said in a
soap opera.” There was silence in the room for a moment.
“But then Nik came home,” Emily continued.
“And he wasn’t alone” Lucky stated.
“No, he wasn’t alone. He came back with Kimberly, who he
had met and fallen in love with in Athens. Kimberly was bright,
beautiful, graceful, and you could tell when they were in the same
room how much he loved her. He stopped drinking for her. They
were a perfect match. I even liked her myself. ”
Lucky had had enough. He got up to walk behind her as
she stood and looked out at the ocean. “You don’t have to tell me
anymore.”
“Yes, Yes I do,” she turned and looked in his eyes.
“Because you have to understand that this isn’t about pettiness or
wounded pride or jealousy or anything like that. Even with
Kimberly in the picture, I would have told him. I wasn’t in love
with him, I had known that since that morning. I liked him. I
thought we could work things out. After all , AJ and Carly could
barely speak to each other and they were raising Micheal. And I
knew I was going to keep the baby. I would have my family’s
support. And Nikolas could be a part of his child’s life. I really
believed that if I just told him that we could work out.”
“What stopped you?”
“At first, I was a coward. I was trying to work up my nerve.
And then..” here she hesitates and moves away from him. “ and
then I something happened that made me decide that Nikolas must
never know about my child. Never. And no one else could ever
know either.”
“You see, it took me a while to realize it, maybe I was being
incredibly naive but I didn’t connect the dots at first. But when I
did, I was more scared than I had ever been in my life. I realized
that my child was a Cassadine heir. Possibly even the eldest son of
the eldest son.” her voice trailed off.
“But Nikolas wasn’t the eldest son of the eldest son. He was
Stefan’s.”
“I know and that made it worse. I didn’t know much about
the Cassadine empire, had never really cared about it, but I started
doing some checking. There was this real power struggle going on.
Ever since the revelation that Nik wasn’t the Cassadine, all of them,
every single Cassadine out there had been fighting for power. While
Stefan was alive, he had been able to keep things aligned behind
Nik. But Stefan was dead and the empire was in chaos.”
“I realized that there was someone out there, someone
totally and completely evil, who could use my child as the newest
pawn in a centuries old game. I had done something stupid and
now my child was going to pay the price. I couldn’t let that happen.
I couldn’t let her win.”
“Who win?” Lucky asked although he had a sinking feeling
he knew the
answer.
“Helena Cassadine. I couldn’t let her take my child.”
End of Part One- Chapter Six
To be continued in the replies.
“I don’t know how Helena discovered I was pregnant. Or
that the child was Nikolas. I hadn’t told anyone. Maybe she was
watching Nikolas all that time. I don’t know. All I know is that I
was scared and pregnant. I couldn’t tell Nikolas and destroy his
happiness with Kimberly. I couldn’t bare my parent’s shame or
Edward’s anger. I was already a nervous wreck. I was losing
weight that I should have been gaining. And suddenly Helena was
everywhere I went. The docks. Kelly’s. PCU. Every time I turned
around, there she was watching me. I think she even had me
followed.” Emily shivers remembering Helena’s campaign of terror,
“the more I ran into her the more scared I became. I started
remembering all of the evil things I had ever heard about Helena
Cassadine- from you, from my grandfather, from Nikolas himself. I
knew that she was ruthless. I knew that she was capable of
anything. And I knew that she was taking advantage of the lack of
leadership in the Cassadine empire following Stefan’s death to try
to regain control. Nikolas was not popular among the Cassadine’s
when the truth about his parentage came out. All Helena needed
was a new Cassadine heir, someone she could manipulate and mold
until they grew as twisted and evil as Stavros had been. This time
there would be no Stefan to intervene and save this child. With a
new Cassadine male child under her control, Helena would have the
living symbol she needed to regain the Cassadine empire.”
“Of course I didn’t learn this all at once. Most if it I pieced
together from Luke. But I’m getting ahead of myself.” Emily took
a deep breath and continued.
“Helena started to send me cards- they were all unsigned
but I knew they were from her. Each one congratulated me on my
pregnancy. I became a wreck. I stopped going to school or
anywhere because I was afraid of running into her. I thought about
going to Nikolas but he couldn’t and still can’t stop his
grandmother. I couldn’t sleep or eat or do anything. My parents
were sure I was on drugs again. I remember thinking that it was
better that they thought that than that they knew the truth.”
Then one night I got this phone call on my private line. It
was her. All she said was “Take care of my great grandson.” and
then hung up. I freaked. I couldn’t let her have my child. So I ran to
the one person who knew more about Helena Cassadine than
anyone else. The one person I trusted to help me figure out what to
do next.”
“My father?” whispered Lucky.
Emily nodded. “I showed up at Luke’s just as he was
closing down. He didn’t say a word, just led me to his back office. I
remember looking at him and thinking that she can’t be so scary if
Luke could fight her all these years. And then I remembered what
the fight with the Cassadines cost Luke. Had cost you and Laura
and even Lesley Lu. And I realized that no one, no one, escapes
from a trap set by Helena Cassadine. I just collapsed. I broke down
there in his office and told your father the truth.”
She looks at Lucky. “Your father saved my life that night.
He didn’t judge me or say I was stupid or tell me I was
overreacting or anything like that. He listened. And he believed me.
And then he told me some stuff about Helena that I didn’t know.
That I needed to know in order to understand the kind of danger I
was in. Still am in,”she corrected herself.
“What did he say,” Lucky asked, not sure that he wanted to
know.
“Helena killed Stefan.” Emily said flatly.
“What?” Lucky asked incredulously.
“I know. That’s how I reacted. But it’s true. And its worse
than you can imagine. That fire at your house that night wasn’t an
accident. Helena arranged it. She wanted to kill your mother and
she didn’t care who else was in the house too. It didn’t bother her a
bit that a child was in that house, an innocent child who would be
another victim of Helena’s manipulations.”
“But Stefan rescued them?”
“That was the part of her plan that went wrong, not that she
cared about what happened to Stefan. She had the fire set and then
planned to call Stefan so that he would arrive in time to watch the
house containing his beloved Lasha burn to the ground. She meant
to torture him. But she miscalculated. Stefan was in town that
night, not at Wyndemere. He didn’t arrive too late. He got there in
time to save both Laura and LuLu, but he didn’t make it.”
“How did my father know all this?” Lucky asked unable to
believe what he was hearing. The idea that Helena Cassadine had
tried to cold bloodedly murder his mother and sister left him white
hot with anger.
“Stefan told him. Before he died, he and Luke had a talk.
Stefan was afraid that Helena would try again, so he wanted to
warn Luke. At first Luke didn’t believe it, but when he asked the
WSB to look into the cause of the fire they discovered it was arson.
He didn’t tell Laura because she was grieving so hard for Stefan.
She already felt guilty enough, Luke didn’t want to add to that
burden. So instead, he moved back in with them because he wanted
to protect them. Oh, he loved them both too but I’m not sure he
would have woken up to that realization if he hadn’t faced almost
losing both of them.”
“What about me?” Lucky demanded, “ why couldn’t my
father talk to me?”
Emily looked at him, unwilling to hurt him anymore than
she already had. “You weren’t in any danger as long as Helena
thought you were estranged from your parents. If she thought that
she was hurting Luke more by letting you live hating him, than you
were safe.”
“I never hated my parents.”
“Lucky..”
“Okay, maybe I did, for a while. But I was just a kid...”
“I know,” she said. “We all were just kids.... Anyway when
I told Luke about being pregnant with Nikolas’s child, he knew
right away why Helena wanted my child. He saw the danger I was
in. And he kept saying it over and over again until I saw it for
myself. Helena wanted my child, especially if turned out to be a
boy. It would be like she had Stavros back again. She would, will,
hurt anyone who stops her from getting her “prize”. Nikolas. My
family. You. Helena would kill anyone who got in her way and she
had, has, the power and resources to win this game. And that’s all
it is to her- is a game. A contest.”
“I wanted to go to Jason. I thought he could help me. Or
even Nikolas. But I knew after listening to Luke that no one could
protect me. There was no place in Port Charles that would be safe.
And if I tried to move away, she would follow. Luke and I spent
the whole night talking and somewhere along the way it became
clear that the only way I could keep myself and my child, and those
I cared about most, safe was to disappear. Emily Quartermaine
would cease to exist. She had to.”
Emily moves to sit next to Lucky on the couch. “The
strange thing is, that I don’t think your father was helping me just
for me. I mean, I know that he cares about me and that I can rely
on him, but I don’t think his helping me was about me or even
beating Helena. Or even protecting his wife’s grandson. I think it
was about Stefan. I think he thought that by helping me, even if it
meant lying to his wife and not letting her know that she had a
grandchild, I think he thought that by helping me he was paying
back Stefan. The person he had once thought his greatest enemy
had sacrificed himself to save Luke’s child. By helping me, by
saving Stefan’s grandchild, I think Luke was trying to balance the
scales a bit, to repay Stefan in some strange way. I don’t know. I
just know that we talked and planned all night long. He made some
calls and I had a new identity. We had it worked out. I returned to
the Quartermaine mansion early in the morning. I didn’t pack
anything or take anything with me because it was too dangerous. I
ate breakfast with my family, went to the bank to withdraw some
money and transfer other funds to an account Luke had set up for
me, stopped at the diner to say hi to Liz, and left. No goodbyes.
Nothing. Luke helped me leave town. I caught a ride in the back of
a truck belonging to one of his suppliers that was headed for
Florida. It was that simple. That complicated. That hard. Each day
for the first month all I wanted was too come home. Especially
when Monica and Alan started to make those appearances on
television looking for me. They thought I had slipped into drugs
again and runaway. It hurt to have them think those kinds of things
about me. But overtime I would pick up the phone to call home and
tell them I was alright, I would remember Helena. And I would
think better to have them disappointed in me than to have them
dead.”
“So I stayed away. I took what your father taught me and I
kept myself hidden. City after city. Identity after identity.
Sometimes I had to write my name on a piece of paper that I kept
in my pocket so I would remember what to answer to. I had money,
but I was afraid to use it. Afraid it could be traced. So I worked at
whatever job I could get. I didn’t talk to anyone. I lived alone and it
was awful and terrible and I hated it. But I lived.”
“I was in Kansas City when I had my child. It was so hard
to have a child alone. I had a son. At first I almost hated him
because I couldn’t help thinking that if he had been a daughter I
might have been able to go home. But I knew that Helena would
never stop coming after a male Cassadine heir. I named him
Christopher after the patron saint of travelers. It fit somehow.”
Emily looks at Lucky again. “Chris is all I have and I will do
whatever it takes to keep him safe.”
“Where is he now?”
She hesitates. This she can’t tell him. “A year or so ago I
ran into a friend I knew from grade school. Someone that noone,
not Helena no one, can connect to Emily Quartermaine. She lives in
Southwest. Chris and I stayed with her and her husband last winter.
When I heard about Lila, I took Chris to her and came to Port
Charles alone.”
She looks down at the floor. “Chris will be safe with her.”
He nods, not liking the sound of that but unsure after the
revelations of this night what to say next? What to do? He had
wanted to know the truth. Had begged her to tell him. Now what
did he do with it? He had no answers at the moment.
He looked at her. She looks incredibly beautiful to him. but
she also looks broken and defeated. He finds himself learning to
hate Helena Cassadine all over again.
“Emily”
She looks up. He opens his arms. Without a word she is in
his arms and he is holding her tight as she collapses and cries.
They spend the night together, but all they do is sleep,
neither ready to let the other go but neither ready to take the next
step either. Emily wakes alone, feeling nervous. She has told him
the truth and while in the warmth of the night he was sympathetic,
she can’t help but wonder what the cold light of day will bring. She
is also nervous about their growing intimacy. Since that one night
with Nikolas, she has lived a life of solititude except for her child.
She wants to stay in bed, but can’t help feeling that is taking
the coward’s way out. And she is not a coward.
She puts on her her slippers and tightens her robe. She
makes her way into the living room looking forward to a cup of
hot coffee. She knows they have more to talk about.
She stops at the entrance to the living room, her heart
freezing inside her. Lucky is sitting on the couch, but he is not
alone. A man and a woman are in the room with them. She doesn’t
recognize the man but he is dressed in black and the gun he is
holding to Lucky’s head is not a toy.
The woman she knows, from real life and from her
nightmares.
“Good morning, Helena,” Emily says casually, ignoring the
fear in her throat. “What took you so long?”
