The missing warmth at her side wakes Emily up and her eyes open, adjusting to the darkness of her flat as she takes in the time glaring on the alarm clock. Three AM. She closes her eyes even as she falls into that familiar dichotomy, a body that wants nothing more than to cuddle back into the down comforter while her mind is wide awake again.

At least she didn’t wake up screaming from another nightmare about Faison. She shivered despite the warmth. Lying here in her own bed again, there were times when she could almost convince herself that the darkness of that cell had been some kind of twisted dream. Except for the half cast on her arm, the newly healed ribs, that just walking down the flight of stairs from her flat tired her out. And the fact that seemed to haunt her most of all.

Lulu Spencer was still missing, still held hostage by a madman. In the three weeks since she had woken up in the hospital, Emily hadn’t stopped praying for Lulu not once. She remembered her promise to Lulu in the darkened cell. A promise that she would be rescued. She still believed that. Still believed with all of her heart that they would find Lulu.

She just hoped it was in time.

Giving up the fight to fall back asleep, Emily grabbed the silk robe from the peg on the door and walked into the living room, a half smile crossing her face as she saw what she had expected to see. In the weeks since she had awakened in the hospital, Lucky had been pushing himself harder and harder to track Faison and Lulu down. In the days since they had been back in Port Charles, he hadn’t really left her side but he had spent most of his time on his computer scouring the world for information on his baby sister, dying inside a little each time he failed to turn something up. She knew that he was worried about Lulu, she knew that he was under a lot of pressure, but she couldn’t help but feel like there was something else. Something more was bothering him.

Lucky looked from his place in front of his lap top at her dining room table. He frowned. “You should be sleeping.”

“I could say the same for you,” Emily’s soft words hung in the quiet room as she walked up to Lucky from behind and wrapped her hands around his neck. “Are you okay?”

Lucky drank in the scent of her and the feel of her warm flesh against his and sighed. “I’ve been better.” He admitted. “Everything is so screwed up. Lulu is still missing, Faison hasn’t even made his usual “let’s see how badly we can torment Lucky” phone calls. No one has heard from Nikolas or Luke in the last three weeks. My mom is about ready to breakdown. Frisco walks around like one of the living dead 90% of the time.” He pauses. “I don’t know if I can keep it together myself much longer.”

“Then we’ll keep it together for each other.” Emily pulls a chair up so she can sit beside him. “You keep me sane through all of this and I’ll keep you sane. Just the way you kept me alive when Faison was holding me. Every time I felt like giving up I would remember that you loved me and that you needed me to be strong. It was like you were this light that I could keep inside me and no matter how dark it got I wasn’t in the dark because I had you.”

She waits for him to say something, anything and when he doesn’t she pulls away slightly. He grabs her hand with one hand and with the other turns off the lap top. “Don’t leave, okay? Don’t leave me. I couldn’t.....I couldn’t handle it if I lost you.”

She guides him to the couch and they sit down on the floor in front of it.

“You won’t lose me. You can’t.”

He shakes his head. “I could have. God Emily when I realized that you had been kidnapped that day in New York and it was all my fault....”

“No! Lucky it wasn’t your fault. Nothing that happened to me was your fault. Nothing that happens to Lulu is your fault.”

“I shouldn’t have left you that day.”

“You were doing your job Lucky.”

A glimmer of buried anguish burns in his eyes and he touches her cheek with a shaking finger. “The most important job I have is taking care of you.”

“Lucky I...” Emily begins but he cuts her off.

“Let me finish.” He takes a deep breath while his mind races for the words to say what he needs to say. “When I first came back...I hurt you. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to.” He exhales slowly. “But I did. I used you. I used your body to help me forget.”

“I could have said no. I didn’t. You didn’t use me. We used each other.”

Lucky continues as if he hadn’t heard her. “When I came back the second time, I didn’t want the assignment. God knows I fought it. If it hadn’t meant putting my partnership with Robin and Frisco at risk, I would have asked for a transfer. Walked away. Anything to avoid coming back to this town. But the crazy thing is that the minute I knew the assignment was to keep you safe, when I knew the threat was against you, I knew I couldn’t stay away. You hated me and I probably deserved that hatred. But I knew that I would do what I needed to do to keep you alive.”

“You did save me. Over and over you saved me.” She bit back her tears.

Lucky shakes his head. “No. You saved me. You made me believe that there was a future where I could be happy again. You made me see that I was more, so much more, than the Lucky I had been or the Lucky I was at that moment. I was the Lucky that could love you and be loved by you. I don’t know if you know and I don’t know if I can ever put into words how important you are to me. When you were missing, when I didn’t know if I would ever see your smile or look into your eyes again, I have never been so scared in my life Emily. Never. Not on the most dangerous WSB assignment...not even when Faison held me captive. I couldn’t begin to imagine my life without you.”

Emily says nothing, just shifts so she is in his arms completely, wrapped tight and held firm against his chest. She can hear his heart beat, strong and steady. After a moment, she pulls back so she can look into his eyes. “I can’t imagine my life without you either Lucky. I love my job. I’m good at it you know. I like the challenge. The intrigue. But I’d walk away from it in a heartbeat if you asked me to. You are more than the man I love Lucky Spencer, you are my soul. When I lost my grandfather, when Jason killed him, I couldn’t have made it through that pain without you.”

“You’re stronger than you think you are.” Lucky says softly. “You always have been. Even when we were kids.”

“No.” Emily contradicts him softly. “You’re my strength. You always have been.” She gently kisses him on the lips. “Now you need to let me be your strength. Let me help you get through this. I know your hurting for so many reasons right now. And I want you to know that I am here if you want to talk. Or if you don’t.”

“You’re not supposed to be taking care of me Quartermaine,” Lucky’s voice is rough and raspy with emotion. “You’re the one just out of the hospital. You’re the one that almost died.” He closes his eyes against the image of her in that hospital bed. “You’re the reason there are agents outside our door. You’re the one in danger.”

“Lucky. I trust you. I love you. Whatever it is. You can tell me.”

“I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I know.” She watches the play of emotions across his face. She remembers the hints that Faison dropped about Lucky’s captivity. God give me the strength to be there for him, no matter what. “Just tell me. Whatever it is that’s eating you, please tell me. I love you.” She repeats the statement softly. “Let me help.”

“When Faison had you...it was like I stopped breathing. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. All I could do was imagine. Imagine you in Faison’s hold. Imagine him doing to you what he did....” He stops. “I worked so hard to find you.”

“I know. Just like I worked so hard to come back to you.”

He winces as a sharp pang of guilt stabs him. “I don’t want to lie to you. I never want to lie to you.”

“Lucky?” For the first time since she woke up, Emily feels afraid.

He looks her straight in the eye and prays that she will understand. Prays that he won’t lose her like he’s lost so much in his life. “I love you.” He says the words like they are a vow and she nods. “ And you love me. Nothing is ever going to change that. Ever. Promise me that you’ll never stop loving me.” Even as he says the words he knows he’s not being fair, but he can’t help it. The fear of losing her cuts too deep for him to play by the rules.

“I promise.” She says the words softly but she means them. Even as the fear builds in her, she knows that she will keep her promise. She’s loved him in one form or another since she was 11. She can’t imagine not loving him.

He takes a deep breath. “While you were being held hostage, God while you were fighting to escape, while you were almost dying in the cold I was.....” He’d give anything to not have to say the words he was about to say. “I kissed Liz.”

Somewhere in the back of her mind she registers the fact that he said Liz, not Elizabeth even as she fights to move away from him. Even as she feels the blinding pain run through her.

“Emily, talk to me. Say something.”

Emily Quartermaine, who has never been at a loss for words in the speeches she has made in front of heads of state or in front of the media or in the midst of the most tense union negotiations, turns to the man she loves and says simply. “I don’t know what to say.”

When I recall what I've been through
There's some things
That I wish I didn't do
Now I do the things I do
Because you love me

Port Charles
An all night coffee shop

Her long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, she sat quietly in a corner booth, sipping her coffee black and trying to lose herself in the paper in front of her.

It wasn’t working. Nothing was working. She’d screwed things up so badly in so many areas that she didn’t know where to begin, how to fix things.

“A penny for your thoughts.” She smiled as she looked up. “Uncle Mac.” She motioned for him to sit down across from her. “What are you doing here?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing but something tells me that this has something to do with my wife’s ex-husband.”

“My fiancée.” Robin says pointedly than sighs. “Or at least I think he’s still my fiancée. Considering that we haven’t really exchanged anything more than an occasional hello since we got back from Canada, sometimes I’m not sure where we stand.”

“You still love the jerk.” He doesn’t even ask it as a question. The answer is written clearly across her face.

“I hurt him Uncle Mac. I hurt him badly when I went after Faison on my own.”

“Robin you scared him. Trust me, I know how he feels. When I found out what you did I was ready to strangle you and I knew you were fine. I can’t even begin to imagine how Frisco felt, knowing that you went after a sick bastard like Faison on your own. And then to hear about the explosion and not know if you were safe or blown to bits.”

Robin winced. “Can we go back to you hating Frisco and defending me no matter how stupidly I act?” she asked wistfully. “I think I liked that better.”

Mac smiled. “Robin, I will always defend you. Just like I will always love you and I will always be proud of you. That doesn’t mean that I’m always going to agree with you. Regardless of the personal relationship between you and Frisco, he’s your partner. Whether your in the PCPD or the WSB, that partnership is sacred. What you did, acting on information you received on your own without checking with either of your partners, that violated your partnership. I understand why you did it, but it doesn’t make what you did right.”

For Robin, the look in her uncle’s eyes hit her as hard as the long lectures she had already received from Lucky, from Sean, and the words she wasn’t hearing from Frisco. “How do I make it right?”

“Give him time. Give yourself time.” Mac allowed himself a small smile at the irony that he was giving his niece advice in a relationship he had been adamantly opposed to from the beginning. “I’m not Jones’ biggest fan or any kind of fan really, but it doesn’t take an idiot to know that he loves you as much as you love him. It will work out.”

“I hope so.” Robin looks down and absently swirls her coffee. “I don’t know what I would do if I lost him.”

“You won’t.” Mac says softly and hesitates for a minute. “How are you handling everything else?”

“You mean the fact that mom might be alive?” Robin’s voice shook. Even after three weeks of living with the idea that her mom might still be alive, she still couldn’t believe it. Still couldn’t manage to make it seem real. “I don’t know. I thought going to Faison’s place in Canada would give me some answers but all I seem to have are questions. Is my mom alive? If she is, where is she? Why didn’t she come home? Where is my dad? Is Faison holding them prisoner?” She shakes her head. “That house wasn’t a prison Uncle Mac. Mom could have escaped. The pictures of her that I found, if they were her to begin with, they didn’t show somebody with a gun pointed to their head. They showed somebody happy. Somebody who wanted to be where they were. Somebody who wasn’t even thinking about the daughter they left behind...” Her voice trailed off as she tried to blink the sudden fury of tears away.

“Robin.” Mac grabbed her hand. “If there is one thing I know, one thing that I am sure of, it is that Robert and Anna loved you more than anything. If either of them is alive and if there was a way for them to be here with you, than they would be. You have to know that nothing would stop them from being with you.”

“Something already has. I just wish I knew what it was.”

“I take it that the WSB hasn’t come up with anything on Faison yet?”

Robin shakes her head. “It’s like Faison dropped off the surface of the earth and took Lulu Spencer with him. The WSB. The CIA. The FBI. Hell even the DVX haven’t heard anything. All of the places his known hideouts and known acquaintances have been checked and nothing. God Uncle Mac Lulu Spencer must be terrified.”

“I don’t know. In my experience anyone with the last name of Spencer is more than capable of taking care of themselves. Just like anyone with the last name of Scorpio.”

Robin smiled reluctantly. “I’m here because Frisco is New York meeting with Sean about the case and I can’t sleep without him. You didn’t tell me what you are doing here.”

“I had a case that needed my attention.”

“I thought that was what Taggert was for.”

Mac shuddered. “I’ve learned not to disturb Taggert in the morning. Especially this early in the morning. Besides, I’m handling this one personally as a favor for Laura Cassadine.”

“Laura? Did she hear anything about Nik or Luke?” “No. She called me about her daughter-in-law. Elizabeth Webber Cassadine. Actually I was just about to call you when I spotted you in here.”

“What’s wrong with Liz?” Robin asked cautiously. She didn’t know Liz as well as she knew Emily and the looks Liz was directing Lucky’s way these last few weeks didn’t make her want to get to know Liz any better.

“Liz has received a death threat and the Cassadine’s think it could be Faison.”

“You don’t?”

“It doesn’t add up. Faison went after Emily to get to Lucky. He went after Lulu for the same reason.”

“Liz and Lucky were quite an item.”

“That was years ago. From what you tell me and what I’ve seen, Lucky is totally devoted to Emily.”

“So who else could be making threats to Liz?”

“I don’t know but....”

“You want me to look into it?” Robin smiled at her Uncle’s grateful nod. “No problem. Until something breaks with Faison, I’m pretty much useless at the moment anyway. Lucky is deep in research and Alex is overseeing all of the lab reports.”

“Alex?”

“Alex Masters. He’s ex-WSB but he’s been helping on this case.” She didn’t explain the why’s behind Alex’s efforts. “I have to pick Frisco up at the airport in a little while, but I’ll stop by Wyndemere tomorrow.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. I think its about time Liz and I had a little talk anyway.” Robin smiles at her uncle. “And thanks for the advice about Frisco. I know how much it pained you to give it.”

“Nothing pains me as much as seeing you hurting.”

Robin hugs her uncle and then heads out, determined to make Frisco understand that what they have is too important to lose now. Or ever.