Awakening
Chapter: 2
Pairing: Robert and Holly
Rating: PG
When Robert entered the Haunted Star Luke was sitting at the bar nursing a glass of scotch. He was disheveled and sloppy and Robert wondered what he had wondered into. "So what's the urgency?" he asked, slapping Luke on the back. "Has to be something huge at this time of night."
"Oh it's urgent alright." Luke said, pouring Robert a glass of scotch and sliding it to me. "There are some things that have been brought to my attention as of late and I thought you could help me sort them out."
"I don't have that kind of money, Spencer."
"This doesn't have anything to do with money, Robert." he replied. "But it doesn't have everything to do with a certain English Rose."
"Holly." he said. "What about her?"
"Was Holly pregnant in 1987?" he asked. "You know before her accident?"
Robert was completely silent. It was a question that he had pondered many times over the years, but even when he found Holly in 1992 he was too scared to ask. And again in 2006 it was something that crossed his mind, but something he was too afraid to bring up. And he thought that if they did have a child that she would be honest enough to tell him.
He took a long drink of his scotch. "I don't know." he answered as honestly as he could. "Holly and I were having a rough patch, but it could have been a possibility. Why are you asking?"
"Well you see." Luke started. "I met a rather curious, rather strapping, young man who was asking a ton of questions about Holly and he seems to have some rather valid points about his parentage. I thought you would be more apt to help him out than I would be."
"This young man claims to be Holly's son?" Robert asked. "How would he possibly know that?"
"He put pieces together here and there and what he's come up with actually makes sense." he told him. "Time line wise it seems feasible. He's the right age, he seems to have meshed qualities of the two of you, and he carries around Holly's picture in his wallet that he found in a box after his adoptive parents died."
Robert tried his best to absorb everything. "With Holly's scuzzy family this entire thing is not only possible but it's plausible." he admitted. "So where is this strapping young lad?"
"Hiding out in my cabin." he replied. "Seems as though someone has given Ethan the wrong impression about you. That's why he came to me for help with Holly and not you."
"Is Holly in trouble."
And this was the part that Luke feared. The one that he had pushed to the back of his mind hoping that he wouldn't have to answer knowing all along that he did. "Yeah, I have some difficult news." he started. "It seems as though Holly contracted the virus that swept through here a few years ago and it's put her into another coma."
Robert's heart sank. "When I was battling colon cancer you couldn't find her." he concluded. "That's why. I knew that something had to be wrong. How long has she been..."
"Over a year now." he replied. "I don't have all the details but Ethan said that she caught it sometime in 2007. Apparently Barry Durban is playing gate keeper and I'm willing to bet that he knows a lot more than he was willing to let Ethan in on."
"This is like one big nightmare." he sighed. "Where is Holly? I want to see her and more importantly I want to talk to Barry. When I'm done with him Ethan will have all the answers he wants."
"He didn't say." Luke told him. "He's determined to get answers though and I'm willing to bet that he'd even put aside his unfounded grudge against you if you could lead the way for him. You might want to set him straight on a few things though. He thinks that you were chasing after another woman when Holly had her accident."
"I was trying to save Anna and I ended up wrecking my marriage."
"You think you would have learnt your lesson the first time with her." Luke sighed, taking a long drink. "Seems to me like Ethan is a little justified in the way he feels about you. I wonder if Holly actually told him anything about you or if it's just an impression he got from good ole cousin Barry. I guess you'll have to ask him yourself."
"Ethan actually met Holly?" he asked. "When?"
"I'm guessing sometime before she fell into her coma." he replied. "I think that's when he was first figuring things out. But like I said it's something the two of you can discuss together. He has a lot of questions that need to be answered. Isn't that right, Ethan? You can come on out, I know that you've been listening."
Ethan ever so slowly made his way out from around the corner, somewhat hiding behind his hair, he did his best of avoid eye contact with Robert. He wasn't quite sure he was entirely ready to look him in the eye just yet. Either that or he was absolutely terrified of what he was going to see in Robert: himself.
"Ethan this is Robert Scorpio." Luke said. "And this is Ethan Lovett. I think the two of you have a lot of sort out and catch up on. It seems as though the two of you may be father and son after all. But Ethan, a word of advice, try to keep the scheming on the down low Scorpio here is on the up and up."
Luke returned Robert's early slap on the back. "Good luck, mate." he said, heading toward his cabin. "Give English a kiss for me."
"Wait!" Ethan called out. "You're not going with us?"
"No." he replied. "I think this is something that the two of you have to do together and without me. I'm sure the two of you will figure it out."
And so they just stood there for the longest time. Looking each other over. Trying to determine if there was any resemblance. Robert looking for any traces of Holly in the young man that stood before him. Looking for any trace of himself. And then finally he couldn't take it anymore. The silence had to be broken. But before he could speak Ethan beat him to it.
"So Luke tells me that if Holly's really my mother, which she appears to be, then you're the only man that could be my father." he said. "Is that true?"
"Yes." he replied, still a little shaken. "When were you born?"
"January 6th 1988." Ethan replied. "I just celebrated my twenty first birthday. You're older than Holly or maybe she just aged better."
"By twelve years." Robert told him. "And she did age better. She always was a strikingly beautiful woman and that hadn't changed the last time I saw her."
"I met her." he said, smiling slightly. "She was lounging by the pool in this big floppy hat, but she was under the shade of this gigantic umbrella. She said that she didn't want to burn and I asked her why come out at all and she said because she liked the sunshine. That it reminded her of a Mexican adventure she had once. An adventure with you and with Luke."
"That's right." he smiled, reflecting. "We had a wonderful time."
"Too bad it was fleeting." Ethan said. "You went chasing after your ex-wife."
"Yeah, I convinced myself that Anna needed saving." he replied. "I made a mistake and it's something that I have regretted everyday of my life. Especially when I thought that Holly was dead. What I went through you'll never know."
"Are you going to help me out or not?" Ethan asked, suddenly angry for his mother over this Anna woman. "I want all of my questions answered and I can't get anywhere."
"We'll get you all the answers you want." Robert promised. "Where would you like to start?"
"With Barry." he replied. "He won't let me anywhere near Holly."
"Barry it is then."
tbc...