Author's note: This story follows canon up until Nikolas faking his death, then takes a hard right into A/U territory. Nikolas never faked his death and never died for real. The Cassadine Island storyline never happened. And the Lulu Embryo Child business isn't going to happen either. If Lulu happens to get pregnant in this story it will be with her and Dante's embryo that magically would have survived the explosion at Creighton-Clark. Because of Helena. Reasons. And a commercial break :o)
If there is anything else you need to know that I've forgotten that's important I'll let you know in the next author's note. Until then, I hope you enjoy my first foray into KevLaur ;)
Laura Spencer sighed as she came home to Wyndemere and saw all the books and papers of Spencer's afternoon with his tutors sprawled out across the formal dining room table. She'd had a long and not entirely productive day and cleaning up after her precocious grandson wasn't exactly high on her to-do list. Calling for Spencer to come back here and straighten up the table didn't do much good, and of course Nikolas wasn't anywhere to be found, either. A couple of weeks ago she'd gone to Nikolas privately and talked to him about the fact that Spencer was getting older and needed to stop counting on the servants to clean up after him and attend to his every need. Nikolas, maybe finally feeling guilty about putting his mother in a horrible position for the last year when it came to Hayden and the Jason lie, told the help at Wyndemere to back off cleaning up after Spencer. Laura knew it defeated the purpose of what she was trying to teach him when she organized his papers for him, but she couldn't stand it for another minute to see it scattered all over the table.
She sighed again as she set the small pile of books and papers on the far end of the table where Spencer would see them tomorrow and thought about adding a post-it note that the next time the table wasn't clean after his tutoring hours, it would be coming out of his obnoxiously-large allowance. Laura thought she was done raising children but she swore sometimes she felt more like Spencer's mother than his grandmother. Nikolas did the best he could as a single parent but he'd been so focused on Elizabeth, Hayden and protecting the Jason secret for the last year and a half that he'd practically left Spencer to raise himself.
Not that he couldn't do it, Spencer Cassadine was the most resourceful ten year old she'd ever met, but he still needed his father.
And maybe Nikolas still needed his mother. She'd gone along with keeping the secret because Nikolas was her son and she loved him and Elizabeth had been her daughter-in-law for awhile and was the mother of three of her grandsons but she had to admit to herself that she was horrified to hear it from his own mouth how far her son would go to make sure the secret of Jason Morgan's identity stayed a secret. Even though leaving her firstborn baby on that island to be raised by Cassadines almost certainly shaped him into the kind of man that would put a contract hit out on the woman he was dating so she wouldn't spill the secret to Jason and Sam. In a twisted sort of way it made sense that Laura had overheard by accident the truth and got swept away into keeping the secret because of misplaced guilt over Nikolas or whatever the psychiatrist had said it was, because it was her fault he'd been raised by the Cassadines. Helena Cassadine was nothing if not twisted and she loved nothing more than hurting Spencers.
Laura was tidying up the rest of the table and heading back to the living room when she heard the faint buzzing of her phone. Good thing too, because she had forgotten where she left it and needed the sound to track it. A few minutes later she found it in the pocket of one of Spencer's school folders - how it ended up there she hadn't a clue - and saw two notifications, a voicemail and an email from Kevin Collins that she'd look through later before she called him back (no doubt it was about Helena and her codes and mind games) and a text message from her daughter Lulu.
Dante and I have our appointment at the doctor's today. With any luck, you'll have a new grandchild by this time next year! Call you tonight, I love you!
Laura had to shake her head at Lulu's unflinching cascade of excitement over all things pregnancy and baby that came through even over text, but she nevertheless smiled as she typed a small message back wishing her luck. It wasn't a secret that Lulu desperately wanted to experience pregnancy and have her own biological child (Laura had gently reminded Lulu about Rocco the first time her daughter had come at her with the 'biological child' claim) and this embryo that Dante and Lulu had in storage was their last chance.
Lulu and Dante had come a long way in the last year, after his one-night stand and mini-affair with her cousin and her misguided attempts at revenge had gotten Valerie caught in a cabin that caught fire and almost killed, but after soul searching and counseling and lots of nights when Lulu had fled to Wyndamiere in tears to commiserate with her mother, they seemed to be getting their marriage back on track. Laura assumed so, at least. She'd told Lulu to talk to Dante more and her less. At least someone in the Spencer/Cassadine family seemed to have their love life going on the right track.
Or had any attempt at a love life at all, to be honest. The only man Laura had spent any significant amount of time with since her divorce was Kevin Collins and he wasn't anything to her except a very good friend that chose to spend his little free time helping her figure out what Helena meant by this latest way to taunt her from beyond the grave. He was kind and good and had become a good friend to her these last few months (and, if she had to be honest, he was attractive) but she didn't think about him that way. She hadn't thought about any man that way since she and Luke split up for good.
Laura checked the time clock on her phone before typing out a quick response to Kevin's email. Dr. Collins was nothing if not predictable and she was relatively sure this was when he took his lunch break, so at least if he had his phone on and heard the ping she wouldn't be interrupting him in front of his patients. If she'd learned anything important about Kevin these last few months, his professional standards at work were very important to him.
Before she knew what she was doing she had pulled up his name in her text message contacts and sent him a basic text for him to call her at the end of his day or whenever he had a free minute. There was something about Helena's latest code she needed to ask him.
The little moving dots told her that he must not be with a patient because he was answering her right away and she didn't want to think about how and why that made her smile. She didn't think about Kevin Collins that way. She didn't.
Maybe if she kept telling herself that, she'd start to believe it.
Kevin Collins had seen the email from Laura seconds before the text notification popped up and decided to answer the text because that was faster. He had back-to-back patients all afternoon and had to cut his usual lunch hour in half due to a few mini-emergencies his secretary left him with when she went on vacation which meant, unfortunately, he didn't have time to talk to Laura now. He probably wouldn't have time until after he left the office; he was looking at taking at least an hour's worth of work home with him today. Seemed like everyone in Port Charles had chosen this week to have appointments with a psychiatrist.
Which was something he didn't mind, he loved his work and for the past three years it had been the only thing keeping him distracted from the dull ache that cropped up even still at the thought of Lucy and what transpired to lead to their divorce, but he had been asked by Laura Spencer to help her crack Helena Cassadine's codes and he wanted to be available to Laura at a time that was convenient to her. He knew she had a lot on her plate lately, with Nikolas and Lulu, and Spencer, and her other grandchildren, and he didn't want this business with the Cassadines to hurt Laura anymore than it already had in her life.
Laura had slowly, reluctantly, started to talk to him about her past and what she and her family had gone through at the hands of Helena and the Cassidines - he wasn't a psychiatrist for nothing, he had learned that she was moderately more willing to talk if he framed the questions in a way that it would help them in their search if he knew more than the basics, but the first time he'd tried to ask her those same questions in a personal way she shut him down - and the more she told him the more he found himself enchanted and overwhelmed by everything that had happened to her.
If he could help her in any way to feel safe for the first time from Helena and the other Cassadines, he was going to move heaven and earth to do that for her. And then, if he could help her any way as a friend, hopefully he could do that too.
Kevin sent Laura a message saying that he had a busy day of patients and wouldn't have free time to talk until the end of the day but he'd call her after he got home and had dinner if that worked for her. Then he turned the ringer off his phone so he wouldn't be tempted to answer back when she responded.
He checked his watch. Fifteen more minutes until his next appointment, perfect. He did need to go down to the ER to get the most recent medical file of a patient but Elizabeth Webber worked as a nurse in the ER and he was hoping to talk to her for a few minutes if he could. Laura had spoken of Elizabeth enough time in conversation that he knew they were close and he was hoping Elizabeth would have the heart to give him what he needed to know, if he asked nicely enough. He didn't want her to feel like she was going behind Laura's back.
Kevin turned the sound on for his phone and set a reminder alarm for ten minutes. He locked the door to his office and headed for the elevators for the floor to the emergency room and as luck would have it, Nurse Webber was at the desk. Fantastic. That would save him the one or two minutes to try and find her. He went to the desk and waited for Elizabeth to look up from the main computer. "Nurse Webber, do you have a few minutes?"
Elizabeth lifted her head to acknowledge him but her fingers continued to type patient information into the computer. "Yes, Dr. Collins, what can I do for you? With Dr. Maddox out of commission I'm surprised you have time to talk to me."
"I don't, I downsized my lunch hour and I have an emergency session in fifteen minutes, which is partly why I'm here," he admitted. Probably closer to eleven minutes now, if he was being honest. "I haven't had time to send someone down here much less come down myself, but Sofia's on vacation and I need the most recent files for a patient. Female in her mid-twenties is what they told me, she was brought in last night…"
"Got that one right here," Elizabeth finished for him, pulling a chart from its appropriate location and handing it to Dr. Collins. "Tough one, she tried to overdose on whatever pills she could find in the house. We're calling her Jane Doe for now. I didn't treat her, but Epiphany did. I can page her for you if you need to know anything else about her."
"Just the chart is fine, Elizabeth, thanks," Kevin said, reaching for the chart that she was handing him, glancing at the clock that hung on the far wall. Eight more minutes. Damn. He didn't know Elizabeth Webber well enough personally to call her on her off hours so if he didn't get out with it now he'd have to wait until tomorrow. "Can I ask you something else, though?"
"Something about the patient? I just told you I didn't treat her, Dr. Collins," she responded, her fingers again flying on the keyboard. "I don't know much more than what I told you, I'm sorry."
"No, no - not about the patient. And for the next few minutes you can call me Kevin and not Dr. Collins, if that's okay with you." That made Elizabeth finally stop typing and look at him. "It's a - personal matter. About Laura. Laura Spencer."
"When you say Laura I'm pretty sure I know who you're talking about, considering you've made it a point to come down here to and ask about her five times in the last two weeks." Elizabeth pushed some buttons in quick succession on the computer screen and turned to the man in front of her, resting her elbows on the desk. "Kevin. What are you getting at, exactly?"
"What's her favorite color?"
If Kevin had been looking he would have seen the momentary look of disappointment flash across Elizabeth Webber's face. She and Laura had history together, from her relationship with and marriage to Lucky to even her affair with Nikolas and she liked to think that she knew Laura pretty well, but more than that and even on a more basic level than that Elizabeth would have liked to think she knew how to figure out when a man liked a woman. 'Really? That's the personal question you wanted to ask me about Laura? The most non-emotional, non-in depth question you could think of that would still remotely qualify as a personal question? At least last week you asked what her favorite hobby was, though why you can't ask her these questions I don't understand...oh!" Elizabeth abruptly stopped herself with a triumphant smile on her face. Now she understood, or at least she thought she did. Her romance radar couldn't be completely broken.
Kevin was having enough trouble keeping up with Elizabeth's barrage of questions and now she stopped and was looking at him incredibly strangely. "I just thought that it might be nice if I -" Elizabeth came across the desk, tugged on his wrist and the sleeve of his coat, and pulled him to a quieter section of the emergency room. "Excuse me?"
"You like Laura, don't you? God, I can't believe I didn't see it before now, and it's so obvious. Well, as obvious as you ever allow yourself to be, you know, you're a private and closed-off sort of person, Dr. Collins."
Kevin held up his hand and thankfully, Elizabeth stopped talking. He wasn't comfortable being gossiped about and had a feeling that's exactly where this was headed if he didn't stop it right now. His and Lucy's divorce had been all anyone had talked about at General Hospital for months, especially considering the specific circumstances behind their divorce, and he didn't want that again. For him or for Laura. Not that there was anything to talk about. "Laura is my friend, Elizabeth, or at least I'd like to think that she is. I simply thought she would appreciate it if I did something nice for her this weekend that didn't have to do with Helena Cassadine or her past. I just wanted to ask you her preferences, that's all."
Elizabeth went on as if she hadn't heard a word he said. "Everything is making sense now," she murmured. "Laura seems like she's been in such a good mood lately, and - I never thought I'd see the day when anything having to do with that evil bitch Helena Cassadine made Laura smile. For whatever it's worth to you."
Now Elizabeth was sure of her initial opinion and sure she was doing the right thing. The hesitation and barely perceptible look of hopefulness in Kevin Collins' eyes when he looked at her told her everything he and Laura both didn't want to admit to themselves or anyone else. "Excuse me?" he said again.
Kevin watched as Elizabeth Webber put her hand on his arm. "She's opened up to you more than she's opened up to anyone in a long time, Kevin, but you don't even know the half of what she's been through at the hands of the Cassadines. Laura is tough and she's strong and she's brave and she's nobody's fool. She had to make herself strong to survive all of these years. And - and she's smart, Kevin, she's so smart. Not just book smart but smart about what to do when you come face-to-face with a Cassadine. She could have started to work through those clues Helena left in her will on her own, especially after you started helping her and focusing her in a direction, don't you think?" Kevin only nodded, probably because he figured that was his safest option at the moment. "But she didn't. She kept coming back to you because she likes spending time with you." Elizabeth pulled her hand away from his sleeve and patted his hand. "Think about it. Now I have to get back to work and you have exactly ninety seconds to get back to your office for your patient."
Elizabeth shook her head and half-smiled to herself as she pulled another chart from the stack and headed in the direction of trauma room four. Laura, I hope I did the right thing and you aren't too angry at me, but you are so lucky and you don't even know it, she thought as she scanned the first page of the chart. Doc Collins has got it so bad for you.