General Hospital: "The Firebird"
by AnxietyGrrl (2014)

Author's Note: I've been kicking around this idea for a year now, but only recently began to write it. It is a WIP, but I was afraid if I waited until it was finished, the show would get too far ahead of me. It's set now-ish, or in the not-too-distant future. For the most part, it incorporates canon only through Robin's departure in 2014 (with a few exceptions). Anything significantly different will hopefully be apparent. Feel free to message me with any questions! The focus will be on a core group of characters with the whole canvas as a backdrop-imagine I'm fast-forwarding through the other storylines. The inspiration for the story was part fix-it, part wish fulfillment, part exploration of some new ideas that intrigued me, and part '90s nostalgia. Oh, and fun. I hope it's fun.

With regards to all legal, scientific, medical, and geographic matters, I promise to hold myself to only the highest standards of soap opera accuracy.


CASSADINE ISLAND

A long time ago...

"Do you like it?" the smiling man asked the young prince.

"Yes. Thank you, Great Uncle Victor." Nikolas held the glittering egg carefully, just as Victor had. It was pretty. He didn't care about pretty things, really, but he could tell its prettiness made it important.

"It's very special to our family. Just like you." From the corner of his eye, Nikolas saw his Uncle Stefan take a step toward him. Victor stood straight but at ease before the fireplace, still smiling.

The light of the fire danced over the jeweled enamel shell, and Nikolas thought of the stories Uncle used to read him from the red book of Russian folk tales, stories of captive princesses and evil sorcerers. "Is it... magic?"

Victor laughed. "No, I'm afraid not. Perhaps it's lucky, though. Yes, a good luck charm! It escaped Russia with our ancestors. Traveled the world, passed from one generation of Cassadines to the next. And now, it comes to you... Prince Nikolas." Victor bowed grandly and deeply.

Uncle Stefan said, "The good luck skipped a generation, I suppose."

"Well," said Victor, as he straightened again. "Luck isn't for everyone."

"What about me, dear uncle? No gift from your travels? Perhaps a souvenir from Steinmauer?"

"Oh, I think we all met Victor's little souvenir from Steinmauer." Grandmother swept into the room, trailed by a maid bearing a goblet on a silver tray. Grandmother took the wine, barely inclined her head, and the maid scurried away. "Where has little Liesl run off to, Victor? I haven't seen her since dinner."

"Retired to her room. The journey here simply exhausted her, I'm afraid. She sends her regrets for the evening."

Nikolas was relieved that he wouldn't see her again. The dark haired woman who had unexpectedly accompanied Great Uncle Victor on his long awaited homecoming was beautiful, but there was something about her eyes that scared him. He'd been afraid he might have to kiss her goodnight. He remembered how she'd circled the room earlier, gliding along like a shark in a small pool. She'd curtsied elegantly before Grandmother and declared herself "a great admirer." Grandmother had watched her, silently, like... like something that eats sharks.

"Hm. If she doesn't take care she may regret the entire visit."

"Now, now, Helena, that's not very nice. Think of what I've brought you. Liesl is a talented physician and a brilliant scientist, with a most unique mind. She could be of great service."

"We'll see," Grandmother said.

"Wonderful," said Uncle Stefan. "Put her to work immediately. Mad science has always worked out so well for us in the past." This succeeded in exasperating Grandmother.

"Must you always speak that way in front of Nikolas? I don't know why I continue to tolerate such disrespect!"

"I wasn't aware you did tolerate it."

"If your brother was here-"

Victor clapped his hands and said with a laugh, "Ah, it's good to be home." He turned to Nikolas once again. "Your uncle is a cynic, my boy," he said. "But you must always remember: there's nothing like family."


Uncle Stefan waited while Nikolas used a footstool to set the egg on its gilded stand on the center of the mantel in his room. "I want to be able to see it from anywhere," he explained.

"Are you afraid something might hatch?"

He grinned at his uncle's joke, and then glanced at the egg again as he climbed into bed. "What's it for?" he asked. He hadn't wanted to ask Great Uncle Victor earlier; it had seemed impolite.

"It's for showing off one's wealth."

"Oh. Is that all?"

"That's all. That can be useful sometimes, though."

"Oh." He absorbed this.

His uncle sat in his usual chair and removed his glasses from his pocket. "Shall we have a story tonight? Would you like to read, or shall I?"

"You can. I mean... I'm getting too old for stories, I think. But you may read to me. If you want to."

Uncle nodded. "It's a privilege, your highness." Nikolas wondered how the words could sound so warm, so different from the cold way he'd spoken to Victor and Grandmother earlier.

"You shouldn't tease me." He tried to be very serious. "I don't know why I tolerate such disrespect."

That made Uncle Stefan laugh for a quite a while, and Nikolas liked that better than a hundred mysterious gifts from a hundred mysterious relatives. When he was settled under the covers, he remembered something he'd wanted to ask earlier. "What's Steinmauer? Is it a castle?"

Stefan paused before answering. "It's a sort of castle, yes. In Switzerland."

"And that's where Great Uncle Victor was? He's been there since before I was born?"

"For most of that time, yes."

"Why hasn't he ever come to visit?"

"He... couldn't get away."

"What was he doing?"

"That I do not know. You ought to ask him, I'm sure the answer would be... interesting."

Nikolas thought about this, and about something he'd almost asked Victor earlier that night. "Is Great Uncle Victor a magician?"

"A magician?" The question seemed to come as a surprise. "No. Why do you ask that?"

"I didn't really think the egg was magic," Nikolas assured him. "It's just that when I was coming back from my riding lesson this afternoon, I saw Great Uncle Victor, down in that long hallway by the kitchens, you know-"

"I hope you weren't tracking your riding boots through the kitchens."

"-And I heard something. You know how it echoes down there? So I stopped, and then I saw him come around the corner, sort of, at the end of the hall. Only the place he came out of... Well, there's no door there. It's just a dead end. I even went and checked afterward. So where did he come from? He couldn't have walked out of the wall. So... I thought it was a trick, maybe. Like a magic trick."

The story drew his uncle's interest, but not in the way he had hoped. Instead of an explanation or a discussion, he was asked, "Did he see you?"

"I don't think so." Uncle Stefan nodded, and looked toward the door. "Do you believe me?"

"Yes. I'll speak to him."

"Was it a trick, though?"

"Yes, but not magic."

Before he could ask another question, his uncle picked up a book and opened it. "Not the Herodotus," Nikolas pleaded.

"All right," Stefan agreed. "Not the Herodotus. How about Homer? Where did we leave Odysseus?"

"I don't feel like Greek tonight," he said, and even though he was far too old for fairy stories, his eyes went to the red book, and he pointed. "What about that one?"

His uncle opened the book, riffled the pages until he came to an illustration, presented it to Nikolas for approval, and then began to read in Russian.

Nikolas watched the egg on the mantel while he listened.

Later, in the middle of the night, he thought he heard his uncle's voice outside his door. He sat up in the dark and strained to hear, but there was only the usual heavy quiet of the great house sleeping all around him. Then, Great Uncle Victor spoke, and Nikolas heard him very clearly. He could tell he was no longer smiling. He said, "Your warning is appreciated. What Helena doesn't know needn't hurt...any of us. You'll do well to remember that. After all, we all have our secrets...don't we, my dear nephew?"

Nikolas pulled the brocaded covers over his head. When he finally fell back to sleep, he dreamed of riding a wolf across and endless field of snow, and a sorcerer's castle with a thousand hidden chambers and no doors.


Somewhere close by, but far below, a red light burned inside a black box. Dimly, steadily, like an ember, it shone for a year, and then another; a decade, and then another...

By then, the island was mostly deserted. After a flurry of unfortunate activity, the prince had shuttered the estate. retaining only the minimal staff and security required for maintaining it and keeping out interlopers. The empty shell of the once great house stood atop the wave beaten cliffs. No Cassadine now lived there.

Deep beneath, the red light blinked, and began to pulse.