When his mother had called to tell him that Lulu Spencer was missing, it had taken Dillon Quartermaine exactly ten minutes to pack a suitcase and grab his cell phone before he was on his way to the airport in Toronto. Although he was far from surprised, worry had consumed him immediately. Lulu's latest emails were full of dark tales about Johnny Zacharra, complete with the gaping holes that indicated how she felt about the mobster's only son. Whenever she started to fall for anyone, Lulu found a way to look past all the warning signs to the truest part of them – their heart. Her mother, Laura, had been very much the same with Luke, and Dillon knew more than anyone how closely the young blonde had followed in her mother's footsteps. If she was missing, danger couldn't be too far behind, and the last thing he wanted to do right now was say goodbye to yet another woman he loved.
The last two months had been hell on him. Not only had he lost his ex-wife, he had lost the only Quartermaine who had ever accepted him so freely. The night that Emily died, he knew that the heart and soul of his family had left with her. They had lost more people than they could bear in the past few years – Lila, A.J., Justus, Alan and now Emily. Edward's days seemed to be numbered sometimes, and every day brought new dangers to Jason's life. It was inevitable that they would lose another of their own at some point. It wasn't a danger that he would have equated to his former love, the late Georgie Jones. Honest, loyal and kind-hearted, he still couldn't believe that she was gone most days. He would see an old movie on television and think about calling her before realizing that she would never pick up the phone again. Being in Port Charles without either of them had been too hard and as soon as Luke had become stable after the surgery, Dillon had found himself on the next plane out of town.
Just before he had left, he had fought with Lulu. She saw it as yet another male trying to tell her what to do with her life, but for Dillon, it had been about protecting the fragility that was her heart. At this point, she was just going through the motions with Logan, pretending to care about him when she really wanted to be with Johnny. He knew the ruse better than anyone as he himself had perfected it with Georgie during those last months of their relationship. He had feigned love for his ex-wife when the only person he really wanted to be with was his blonde best friend. Most days, that was still the only thing he wanted. However, time and circumstances seemed to make that increasingly impossible, and the only thing he could still do for her was try to protect her in the best way that he knew.
"Lu, you're not your mother, and we're not talking about Luke Spencer," Dillon shouted angrily as he paced the length of the boathouse. Lulu recoiled at his harsh tone, surprised that he would make such a bold statement considering that they had exchanged little more than emails since he had left to make his movie. "Johnny Zacharra is the type of man that will get you killed. You can pretend that you love Logan all you want to, but I see how you look when you talk about Johnny. It's the same sparkle you used to get when you talked about me."
Lulu had bolted from her seat just inside the door, rushing across the room until she was standing toe-to-toe with Dillon. "Don't pretend to know how I feel, Dillon," she spat. "You didn't know how I felt then, and you certainly don't know how I feel now. Johnny is just my friend, and I'm with Logan. Why don't you just go back to Toronto and worry about your own damn life? I'm doing just fine without you here."
"You're doing a lot of things, Lu, but one of them isn't fine," he retorted softly, daring himself to rest his hand on her bare shoulder. Lulu didn't react for a moment before sinking involuntarily into his touch. It lasted just a second, but Dillon felt the shift.
She recoiled away from him, turning around so that she didn't have to meet his gaze. "You have a plane to catch," she informed him coldly. "Why don't you go back to the only thing you've ever really loved and just leave me the hell alone?"
Looking back now, Dillon knew that he should have stayed and fought for her. However, he had been a coward and stomped out of the boathouse (their boathouse) sheepishly. Since then, they had exchanged only a few emails and even those had been fairly abbreviated. Each message only brought news that she was growing closer to the man that they both knew would never been right for her, never be enough for her. For the past two years, Lulu had only been trying to fill the vast abyss left by their child. Dillon was responsible for that emptiness, a void that had driven her out of his life and into the arms of someone that could end up getting her killed. If anything happened to Lulu, Dillon would never be able to forgive himself. He didn't know how to save her yet, but he knew how to start.
There was only one man he could trust to help bring Lulu home, and that was his cousin. Jason Morgan hadn't really had much use for Dillon, the youngest Quartermaine of his own generation, but he respected him for standing up to the family. Dillon had always stepped up for the things that he wanted, whether it was a life in the film industry or a marriage to Georgie. Dillon hated that he had to go to his cousin for help, but he knew that Jason would find a way to get her back. Not only was she Spinelli's friend and Carly's cousin, it was clear that he had his own affections for the blonde who had once lived with him. Picking up his cell phone as he jetted out of the taxi, he dialed the number and prayed that the mobster would pick up on the other end.
After Tracy had dialed her youngest son in Toronto, her next phone call had been to Lulu's own brother, Lucky. She hated that she had taken so long to notice that her stepdaughter was missing, but she had been so wrapped up in Luke's recovery that she hadn't been around the mansion all that much. When Alice informed her that her bed hadn't been slept in for days, she had just assumed that she was staying with that loser, Logan. However, it took only conversation with the Baldwin offspring before she figured out that something wasn't right with the situation. Once Dillon had assured her that he had no idea of her location, she had called Lucky. He hadn't given her much time before slamming the receiver down. There was a mystery to be solved about his little sister's whereabouts, and Detective Spencer was on the case.
He had been at sitting alone on the docks when the call had come, contemplating just exactly where his life was going now that everything else seemed to be falling apart. A year ago, he thought he knew exactly what he was doing. Elizabeth was slowly learning to forgive him, and in just a few short weeks, they would be married again. It was before the hostage crisis at the Metro Court, before his life fell apart again without his knowledge. At the time, Lucky had believed that Liz was pregnant with his son, the perfect addition to their family with Cameron and his one true reason for staying sober. It would be months before the truth would come out and his perfect little world would be shattered beyond repair. It would only coming tumbling out after a night of danger once again, this time at Wyndamere. He hated that night more than any other in the entire course of his life. Not only did he lose his child but he also lost his best friend. How much could one man lose before he broke? If it hadn't been for his bond with Cameron and undeniable connection to Jake, he would have downed an entire bottle of pills when he saw Emily's lifeless body on the cold tile floor.
Sam had been the one to try to get him through the days (and the nights) during those next few weeks, and slowly, Lucky had started to believe in the relationship he had built with the petite brunette. He knew that there were bold, glaring warning signs telling him that he needed to be cautious of her motives, but like a true Spencer, he dove head first without thinking about the repercussions. Now, he understood that their entire relationship had been built on a web of lies carefully constructed by Sam. He wanted to hate her for the things that she had done, but he couldn't. Given the chance, he wasn't sure that he wouldn't have pulled similar stunts. He would have done anything to keep Elizabeth and the boys safe, even if it meant scaring her away from a life with Jason. Although he never would have hired men to threaten Elizabeth and her sons, he was equally desperate to hold onto the life he still thought of as his own. Sam had just wanted to exact revenge on the woman who had taken hers. However, it was the fact that she had watched another woman steal Jake that he had deemed unforgivable.
Sitting alone on the docks, he could still feel the same angry adrenaline pumping through his veins that had been present when Elizabeth had finally told him the truth about the company he had chosen to keep. He hadn't wanted to believe her, but the look in her eyes promised him that every single word was true. She had only told him when he had revealed his plan to move in with Sam. Elizabeth was determined to keep her away from Cameron and Jake, and now that Lucky knew the facts, he couldn't blame her. He had agreed to stay in the house and immediately ended things with Sam. It didn't matter how he had started to feel about her because his first priority was, and had to be, the boys. He had promised to be their father, and no woman was worth messing that up. Maybe they could have been something good if things had been different, but life was what it was. Anger has a way of pushing people past limits they never knew they had, and for Sam, it had proved to be too tempting. As much as he cared about her, he couldn't be with someone so far over the edge that she would risk a child's life. Even so, it still hurt like hell.
Lucky pulled his phone from the inside of hooded leather jacket and thought about calling his older brother but stopped short of actually dialing the numbers. Nikolas was still going through so much in the aftermath of Emily's death, and with the tumor, he was apprehensive of bringing too much stress into the prince's life. They still weren't sure what triggered his violent episodes, and the last thing Lucky needed was to have to worry about who his brother would go after this time. Instead, his fingertips slid over the keypad to connect to the only other person in the world who cared about the same people that he did almost just as much. It only took a few seconds before the familiar voice filled his ear, immediately bringing him some much-needed solace. "Elizabeth, can we meet? I need to talk."
When Nikolas Cassadine had pictured his last days on earth, he had always imagined that he would be old. He hadn't thought that he would be haunted by the ghost of his fiancée, clinging desperately to an image his mind had concocted to help him get through the pain and the grief. He didn't think that he would be separated from his only son, the miracle child that his other fiancée had left behind when she had inexplicably died two years before. He hadn't considered the thought of dying alone in a sterile room at General Hospital, waiting for doctors to figure out what was wrong with his mind at the young, ripe age of twenty-eight. He hadn't wanted to believe that his life could be over before it ever really got the chance to begin. However, cruel and unrelenting, life hadn't asked him what he wanted. It had simply left him alone with the hand he had been dealt.
His grandmother, Lesley, had brought Spencer by a visit, a rarity these days as Nikolas preferred to stay as far from his son as possible if only for the toddler's own safety. He never knew when the next episode would come along, and Nikolas didn't want his son to know a moment of fear at his hands. It was also still hard to be in the same room as Spencer because it brought a million memories with Emily all flooding back at one time. Walks in the park, snowmen built at Wyndamere, Saturday mornings in bed – their entire life had revolved around Emily until she was suddenly gone. Nikolas still wasn't sure if had killed Emily, but the one thing he knew for certain was that if he didn't have this tumor, she would still be alive.
Her visits had become more frequent in the weeks since his diagnosis, constantly there to reassure him that when he lost this battle, she would be on the other side waiting with open arms. He didn't have to worry about his son as he knew that Lesley, Bobbie, Lucky and Lulu would make sure that Spencer was so unbelievably loved. He was sad that he would miss out on his child's life, but there was nothing he could do to change that. His death was inevitable, unpreventable and uncontrollable. Given the chance, Nikolas wanted to believe that he would choose to live for his son, but honestly, he couldn't imagine a life without Emily. Before Spencer, she had been his reason for living. After Courtney had died, she had been the one to convince him to fight for his son. So many things had been made possible with her love, and now that she wasn't here, he knew that no one could love him enough to make him well again.
Nikolas padded across the room with a sleeping Spencer in his arms, headed for the rocking chair in the corner of his private quite at General Hospital. Patrick Drake had arranged for him to stay here for his own good so that they could continue to test and monitor him. Robin had promised him that this was his best hope for getting better, but it was Emily who had convinced him to admit himself into the neurology unit. Other than the pair of doctors, he had few visitors. Patrick had wanted to get some since of routine and normalcy for him, so Nikolas had the same two nurses assigned to him. An older woman, Lois, checked in on him during the day. It was the other nurse, the young blonde Nadine, that he looked forward to seeing. Most of the time, she seemed to have a soothing effect on him. She had seen him at his worst but didn't seem afraid of him. The only other person who had been like that was Emily. Nadine also knew that he still spoke to Emily and had even encouraged it if it meant he could make it through. With her, he didn't have to pretend, and in some small way, he knew that Emily was responsible for that. Even in death, she was still taking care of him and finding inexplicable ways to give him exactly what he needed to find his way home again.
Author's Note: One question. Lucky – Sam or Elizabeth?