Carly really didn't understand what was happening.
Kurt had somehow hijacked her evening with his mysterious gay ninja powers and, before she knew it, she had called the nanny to ask her to stay with Josslyn for the night. Sonny had Morgan for the weekend, and Michael was off doing...whatever it was he did.
Ever since her son had confessed about his rape, Michael had become more and more withdrawn. Maybe she had been wrong to push therapy so hard, but she really didn't think so. He needed to talk to someone about it and, as much as she loved him, that person was not her. Not about this. She couldn't relate, and he would need that. He deserved that. She could sympathize, certainly, but empathy was a different animal. At least a counselor would have training to guide him through his recovery, which was too precious to entrust in her less than capable hands.
She knew he had skipped his appointments, that the idea of opening up to a complete stranger terrified him, that it was, in a way, another violation. It hurt her that she was asking him to relive the most traumatic event of his young life, even worse than the shooting, but he had to face it and she knew he wasn't doing that. She understood things had to be done on his schedule and not hers, but the more he avoided it, the more worried she became.
If only she knew someone...
Elizabeth.
Why the hell hadn't she thought of that sooner?!
She would have to swallow all of her pride and eat a lot of crow, but she would do it, and do so with relish if it would help her son. She'd stop by the hospital tomorrow. Maybe go with Kurt.
Kurt, who was sitting on the balcony in boxer briefs and an old football jersey, drinking coffee and waiting for her.
She couldn't even remember the last time anyone had waited for her, had wanted to spend time with her. Hell, her own children avoided her as much as possible lately. Sonny and Jax wanted nothing to do with her, and Jason was still in his coma. Her mother was...well, her mother loved her, sincerely loved her, but she doubted Bobbie liked her that much. She really couldn't blame the woman. After all, she'd completely torpedoed her mother's life, and on more than one occasion.
She didn't really know how she could ever adequately apologize for that, so she had never tried, which was probably the worst thing she could have done.
So many regrets. So many bad decisions.
She sighed.
"They'll keep for tonight."
She turned and found Kurt standing in the doorway of the French windows, looking at her.
"Whatever is bothering you will keep for one night, Carly," he said. "As cliché as it sounds, you can think about it tomorrow." He smiled. "After all, tomorrow is another day."
She smiled and joined him on the balcony, murmuring her thanks when he handed her an Irish coffee.
"Tell me about your children," he said.
She became very animated and did just that, detailing why each of her children was amazing and the world, especially her, was lucky to have them. Before she knew it, she was telling him about Michael.
He listened patiently, letting her speak until her voice was hoarse and there were no words left, and she felt unburdened in a way she never had before.
"It won't help just him to talk about it," Kurt said quietly. "You need to talk about it, too, Carly. Your son was violated in the most obscene way possible, and, in a way, so were you. You weren't able to protect him and you can't fix this for him."
She nodded, ignoring the tears slipping down her cheeks.
"But this wasn't your fault," he continued, "any more than it was Michael's. You can't be everything for him. He has to stand on his own two feet, and I believe you've given him the tools to do that."
She blew out a breath, having not realized until that moment just how badly she had needed to hear those words.
"Bad things happen in this world," he said, "and all too often they happen to good people."
He turned away and looked at the night skyline, appreciating it's majesty and grandeur. Port Charles really was a beautiful city.
"Michael will be all right, Carly. Eventually. It will take time and you need to give him that. He instinctively knows what he needs to do to, the work he'll have to complete to get himself through this, and he'll do it because he has no other choice. He will emerge a stronger person for it and come to understand that. though he may have been victimized, he's no one's victim."
She stared at him. "You must have had one hell of a psych rotation."
He smiled, but it was sad and lost in the haze of memory.
"I got through it," he said quietly. "Michael can, too."
And that made her want to kill, kill all of those who preyed on people like Michael and Kurt and even Elizabeth. Good people who had been made to suffer for no good reason. But she couldn't kill anyone right now and the words on her tongue died before she could give them voice, so she just held his hand and sipped her coffee and enjoyed the view with her new friend.
"So what about your family?" she asked as they were burrowed beneath the covers of his mammoth bed.
He was silent for a moment. "My mother died when I was four, and my father died at the start of my junior year of high school. I went to live with my grandmother in Paris and immersed myself in school. I took every class applicable to my major. I took courses during the summer breaks and winter intercessions. I felt like I was racing toward something I didn't understand, some finish line I just couldn't see, but the truth was that I was running."
"Are you still running?" she whispered.
He closed his eyes. "In some ways. I've known for a while now that I will never get over my mother's death. I just won't. So I acknowledge the grief, recognize that it will always be with me, but refuse to be ruled by it. Still, that grief was and always will be a terrible, raw thing.
"I grieved for my father for almost ten years, but I finally learned to let that grief go. I had to, because it was interfering with the good memories, and there are a lot of them."
He opened his eyes and smiled. "I had the best father in the world. He loved me when I thought myself unlovable. He defended me to all those who sought to tear me down. He was...he was my knight in shining armor, and I think part of the reason I missed him so much was that I knew I'd never have anyone like that in my corner again."
He sighed. "It's hard to be an orphan, and that is what I consider myself to be. I had parents, wonderful parents, but I had them for so brief amount of time that I feel like an orphan." He fell silent for a moment. "There's no one to be proud of me anymore, you know? There's no one there when I rush home and want to tell someone about the great day I've had.
"I have friends, lovely friends who I think of as family, but it's not the same. They share my spirit, but not my blood, and despite sentiment and feeling, that makes a difference." He shifted restlessly and stared up at the ceiling. "I have a stepmother, Carole, and a stepbrother, Finn. I love them, but I don't really know them that well, not well enough to consider family. Carole and Dad were married on his deathbed. We never got the chance to be a real family, and I left for Paris soon after the funeral."
"Do you keep in touch with them?" she asked.
He nodded. "Yes, but not as often or as well as I should. I think some of that has to do with the fact that they were there at the end, that they saw what I did, his death, and I can't help but associate them with that. They share my grief, but it's not the same, and frankly, I resent their pain."
"I think that's normal."
"You don't think it's selfish?" he asked.
"I think you do what you can, when you can," she replied, "and I don't think being selfish is always a bad thing." She chuckled darkly. "Granted, I'm probably the most selfish person I know, so you shouldn't go by me, but I don't see the appeal in being a martyr, either. I don't think it makes anyone feel any better. Your pain is your own. He was your father."
"Thank you," he said, voice warbling slightly.
She decided this was the perfect opening. "What are you really doing in Port Charles?"
His eyes widened.
She rolled hers. "Oh, please. You're rich, gorgeous, nobility, and have been educated at some of the best schools in the world. You pick some dinky mid-sized city in upstate New York in which to live? You just happen to own stock in the biggest corporation in town? You just happen to know the resident prince and his evil Disney queen of a grandmother? You just happened to know the slain daughter of your new boss?"
"I barely knew Emily!" he protested. "I never told Monica I knew her daughter."
She stuck her nose in the air. "Really? That's what you're leading with?"
His eyes narrowed. "Just what are you implying?"
"I'm not implying anything. I'm stating straight out that you have some agenda for being here."
He said nothing for several seconds before a smirk began slowly spreading across his face. "Well done. Kudos, you."
She rolled her eyes again and elbowed him. "Spill it, Ivory!"
"Ivory?" he demanded.
She shrugged. "Your skin."
He groaned and placed a hand over his eyes. "First Porcelain, then Alabaster, now Ivory? Someone call Susan Powter to stop the insanity."
Carly snickered.
He rolled on his side to face her. "There might be...something."
She gave him a sardonic look. "Uh huh."
He opened his mouth and then just as abruptly closed it.
"I'm not prying," she said. "You'll tell me what you want and I'll let it be enough. I just want to help if I can."
"Two months ago I learned I have a brother," he blurted out, looking honestly surprised he had done so.
"Whoa," she whispered. "Instant sibling." She exhaled. "I have a little bit of experience with that, but I knew Bobbie had Lucas before I came to town." She pursed her lips. "Lucas, on the other hand, was totally floored and not happy about me." She shrugged. "I suppose I can't blame him."
She bit her lip. She did wish she was closer to her brother, her only other family outside of Bobbie and whatever the hell Luke and his kids were. Her three kids barely even knew they had an Uncle Lucas. He and Michael probably met once or twice, and Josslyn was too young to the know the difference, but she wasn't even sure Morgan knew his mother had a brother.
Suddenly she felt ashamed and didn't understand why.
She didn't understand a lot of things lately, like why her attitude toward Elizabeth had softened, why she was missing Robin, and why Kurt had been so instantly important to her.
"What if he wants nothing to do with me?" Kurt murmured. "He probably doesn't even know I exist."
Carly scooted toward him and took his hand. "How did you find out about him?"
He grunted. "Through a letter, one which took a ridiculously insane amount of time to reach me. His grandmother had read about my father's death and decided to contact me almost ten years after the fact."
"Is she after money?" she asked baldly.
"I don't know," Kurt said. "Dad wasn't wealthy; the money was my mother's and grandmother's, but he was comfortable. He owned a chain of auto repair shops and our house had no mortgage." He shifted. "I wouldn't mind giving my brother his part of Dad's estate, but only after a DNA test."
Carly nodded. "Smart."
Kurt peeked at her "Not selfish?"
"Hell no! You don't know this woman from a hole in the wall! She writes to you years after your father died and announces her grandson is your brother?" She shook her head. "How convenient. You better believe she researched you prior to sending that letter. I'm sure she knows you have money.
"I'm not saying he's not your brother," she continued, "but I would certainly want more than some granny's word."
He nodded absently. "It's so strange, Carly. I want him to be my brother. I really would like a brother. Finn is my stepbrother, but we've never been that close. Still, I know I can count on him when it truly matters, and he knows the same. I guess I just thought it would be nice if I could start over with someone new. Wipe the slate clean, so to speak."
"I get that," she said. She paused for a moment. "Did your dad know?"
"No!" Kurt said vehemently. "I think if he'd even had an inkling, he would have told me before he died. He would've wanted me to have that connection. The woman said in her letter that her daughter never informed my father she was pregnant. They were together a year or so after my mother died, and apparently it was a very brief affair.
"My father was a good man, an honest one. If he had known he'd had another child somewhere out in the world, he would've moved heaven and earth to find him, that I promise you."
She laid her hand over his. "He sounds like he was amazing."
He closed his eyes. "He really was," he ground out, voice cracking.
She decided to change topics slightly. "So this guy lives here in Port Charles? That's why you applied at General Hospital?"
"Yes," Kurt admitted, embarrassment coloring his voice. "I really didn't think things through very well at all, which is so unlike me. I plan everything down to the last detail. I'm not really an impetuous person, but I threw caution to the wind and uprooted my entire life on the word of a woman I've never met, all on the chance I might have a brother."
"Is that really such a bad thing?" she asked. "Were you happy in Paris?"
He was silent for a long moment. "Not really," he finally confessed. "I had isolated myself. I have very dear friends I haven't seen in years. I immersed myself in my studies and then my work, to the point where everything else was excluded."
He blushed all the way to his hairline. "I don't even remember the last time I had sex."
"And that is entirely unacceptable," said a staunch Carly. "You're too hot to go without. You like making plans? Then let's make one. Tomorrow we go to General Hospital and you talk with Monica. I have a...friend...who works there from whom I need to beg - and I mean that literally - a favor. Then we'll work on getting you a house and reuniting you with your brother. After that, we're getting you laid."
He groaned and covered his face with his hands. "My acceptance of this plan isn't necessary, is it?"
"Nope!" she said cheerfully.
He heaved a sigh, but she took note it wasn't one fueled by fear or anger, but perhaps exasperation. She was used to it and could work with it.
"You said you know Nikolas," she said. She made a mental note to start addressing the man as Nikki just to see what he would do. "Do you know anyone else in town?"
"One or two people," he said. "Honestly, though, I'm not even sure they still live here."
He was tetchy about the subject and she knew it was best to let it go.
For now.
"Nikolas is single," she said in an offhand manner which fooled no one. He also basically owned the hospital. She wondered if Kurt knew that Nikolas was his boss in everything but name. She also wondered if he had an agenda where Nikolas was concerned.
She hoped that he did and that it required nudity.
Kurt soured. "He's also straight."
Like that was going to get in her way. No one was that straight.
"How long has it been since you've seen him?" she asked, ignoring his comment.
"Almost ten years," Kurt said, eyes lost in memory. "After he and Emily broke up the first time, but before he was with Courtney."
"Did you know Courtney?" she asked, a tremor in her voice.
"No," he said, "but I know Nikolas loved her. He called me after she died." He paused. "He really scared me, Carly. I think, if not for Spencer, he would have done something...unhealthy."
She felt sick to her stomach, remembering how she had conspired to pass off Spencer as Jax's son. She had known at the time that it was wrong, that she was a horrible person, and she truly hadn't given real consideration to Nikolas' pain. In that moment, more of her anger toward Robin slipped away and she rued that she had been unable to get past it while the woman was alive. It would have made Jason happy, if nothing else.
"He was worse after Emily died," Carly said softly. "Emily and I weren't friends, but everyone knew how much they loved each other. Whether you were their friend or family or just a stranger on the street, you couldn't help but be touched by it."
Kurt sighed. "I hope I find that kind of love one day."
I do, too, she thought silently. Sonny was her passion, but their love had caused more pain than joy. She and Jax started off as good friends before beginning something more. She knew their romantic relationship was over, but she really did miss their friendship. As for Lorenzo...she had loved him. If she hadn't been so obsessed with Sonny, maybe...
"You will," she vowed. "I can't manage my own love life worth a crap, but I'm awesome at telling other people what to do."
He rolled his eyes. "Bask in my joy."
"So what's your brother's name? Where does he live?"
Kurt frowned. "Harborview Towers, I believe it's called."
She nodded. "It's a huge apartment and condo complex about five miles from here. My best friend Jason lives in one of the penthouses."
He looked at her with hopeful eyes. "Do you think he might know my brother? Maybe he could introduce us. Just to calm the waters, so to speak."
"Sure, Jason's good at that kind of thing, but he's in a coma right now." She ignored his startled blink. "I might know your brother. I'm at the Towers all the time and I lived there for years. What's your brother's name?"
"Damien," Kurt said. "Damien Spinelli."
Carly shot straight up and stared down at him, her eyes like pinwheels. "You are shitting me!"