Goose pimples pricked on Laura's skin when she entered the fourth floor today. Anonymous glares were no longer the source of her unease. There was a well-turned out woman seated with a clipboard in the farthest corner of the room who'd also raised a brow at Laura's entrance. She was dressed in inconspicuous garb like the rest of the women present: flats, slacks, and an oddly sleek blouse; a padded blue blazer to offset the fall's brisk temperature. Laura had played nursemaid and barmaid and housekeeper to twenty of her like if she'd met one and not one of them would be seen in search of day labor. Call it intuition, call it bald prejudice, but Laura knew this woman was a hair too refined for a woman going without. She shouldn't be here.

Laura made quick work of collecting her team's street assignments for the day, lingering much less than she might have at newly familiar faces. They'd have to get together at lunch.

The day sped by at ludicrous speed after Laura's jarring morning encounter. If there was one thing to be said for the drudgery of census-taking, it was that making friends was easy when you spent long hours trawling the streets with the same two strangers. Being with them was a comfort against the itching sensation that she was being watched. She couldn't beat the feeling, no matter where she turned. It was only at the close of day that the peculiar feeling abated. The relief of it made everything brighter and the worst of census work the best part.

Laura and Donna were falling over laughing at Evan's latest census horror tale on the trek back to City Hall. A mother of three had offered him a 'personal tour' of the family's new breakfast nook while her kids made like hobgoblins in the den. They had noshed on a course of Cheerios and juice boxes.

"Not exactly champagne and caviar, huh, Van," Donna prodded with an enormous grin.

"Believe it or not, it's the best offer I've gotten in a while."

The ladies shared a scandalized look.

"That settles it, Evan, we're going to have to set you up on a date. You're not the pool boy, you deserve better than this."

"I've got two kids under ten, Kay; trust me, this is about all I can manage."

"Oh, honey," Laura and Donna intoned in wry synchrony.

And I thought my track record was poor. Evan had the benefit of not marrying a psychopath, though, which had to count for something. He had been widowed, too, and he was quick running short of ways to mitigate the loss.

"Same time tomorrow, ladies?"

Laura pulled a face. "Afraid not. I'm about ready to dessert this little city for good."

"Aww, not already. I was just getting used to those coke-bottle glasses of yours." Donna was by far the chicest of the trio.

"I'm a rolling stone and it's time for me to roll. But who knows where we might run into each other? It's such a small world."

Donna dragged Laura into a viciously sweet hug. "Damn it, Bold & Bespectacled, I miss you already."

Evan mimicked Donna's embrace with a lighter touch and a kiss on both cheeks. "Try not to fall asleep on any strangers at your next stop. They probably won't be as keen on you as us."

"Or they might be too keen," Donna murmured sotto voce.

"Hush, you. Try to stay out of trouble. Van, it might be up to you, I think this one's hopeless."

"Rude, B&B. You're too rude." Donna gave Laura's hands a last squeeze. "I hope you find what you're looking for, sugar, because you're looking damned hard."

"You can tell around the squinting?" Evan muttered more than loud enough for Laura to catch.

Laura whacked him one good time. "Get out of here, both of you. I'm sure you've got to spend your ill-gotten gains before tomorrow."

Donna blew her a kiss. "You better believe it. Liquor and ladies of the night, that's how we do it."

Evan whistled. "I'll have what she's having."

Laura waved at them both as they departed in the direction of the bus stop. She wished she could be sure she'd see them again. A world made small in hiding becomes infinitely larger when trying to find old friends. I don't even know their last names. For all she knew, they were already lost to her.

Laura was all set to head out for the afternoon when the mayor's motorcade arrived outside City Hall, led by officers on motorcycles making way for the limousine and its flag-bearing antennae, boasting the seal of the City of Port Charles. It was only shock that kept Laura in place. Good sense would have made her run. She'd been in town for days and hadn't run into him, but this was City Hall—this was his office; of course, she'd see him here. The odds were against her all along.

The limousine halted to deliver the city's foremost authority and his entourage of essentials and auxiliary staff. The end-of-day bustle parted like an obedient sea and Laura with them. She averted her eyes from the lanky man at the center of the pack of press and political hangers-on passing her on the way to the front steps of City Hall. There was another ELQ Industries scandal breaking, according to what Laura had read in the paper. Never a dull moment for the Quartermaines. She would have liked to visit Lila Quartermaine were her situation not so dreary. Some other year perhaps.

Laura's thoughts didn't linger with Lila for long, reality had caught up with her. It was one thing to hear tale; it's another thing entirely to see the truth with her own two eyes.

Lucas Lorenzo Spencer was mayor of Port Charles. Her husband, her man the philosopher had become a servant of the people in her absence and was heading into his final year in office.

He poured on the charm for the assembled full-court press, his smile all a-gleam. Like some big movie star. Her lost boy had become a phenomenal man without her.

"Listen up, you bunch of jackals. I have news. The best of news. I don't know if you've been informed, but I'm in love. I'm in love, love, love with the woman of my dreams. Come on out, English!"

A beautiful woman with dark curly hair and arresting eyes stepped out of shadows to take Luke's proffered hand, positively beaming at him.

"As you all know, this fantastic woman has been by my side through life and through death, for political doldrums and electoral victory, and she hasn't run away yet! Now, I'm not gonna let her. Port Charles, this woman, Miss Holly Sutton Scorpio, has consented be my wife—again!"

The press broke out in raucous applause for the couple who commemorated their announcement with a tender kiss.

"You're making me the happiest man there is, English."

"I serve at the pleasure of the mayor, Mr. Mayor."

"I like the sound of that." They rested their brows together wearing matching grins that nearly split their faces in two.

They make for a striking couple, Laura acknowledged, slumping under the revelation that Luke had once shined at her alone with such devotion. She twisted her purse in her hands, fighting the gut instinct shouting at her to go because she wanted to look at this man, her man, one more time. I won't come back, I can't, not with nothing left waiting. This was their curtain call and the end of what they'd had, the legend of them. This is how Port Charles forgets. And so Laura would let them be forgotten. Like all love stories, that die with those who lived them.

Laura's eyes wandered from the happy couple to their assembled associates, among them one Robert Scorpio. That chestnut hair of his was going distinctly, roguishly grey at the temples, nonetheless his eyes remained stubbornly keen and they'd set sights on her. Laura fingered her specs, unnerved. Running away from the scene now that she'd been spotted would have drawn Robert's attention right off, so she stayed and ignored the distressed churning of tuna salad sandwich in her stomach which worsened as the press conference continued. I can do this. I've lived through hell. This won't kill me. She persevered.

Her fingers were a bloodless shade of pale when all was said and done. Her knees were locked in place to keep from melting out from under her and depositing her, heartsick and all, on the cracked pavement. She thought she might be ill. No, she knew she would be, but not here.

Luke's presser adjourned twenty minutes after it began and Laura was free to depart with the rest of the viewing public, difficult as it was to do. Bullheaded determination turned her body and worked her legs where reluctance set in. This was right, going was right; that didn't make it easy.

"Excuse me, Miss, I think you dropped this."

Laura flinched back from the hand that rose to catch her elbow, rounding quickly on the culprit to put an arm's length between his body and hers.

It was none other than the gentleman of the hour. He had donned a pair of reflective shades to combat the harsh sun of approaching winter, but he took them off on the spot, raising his hands in an effort to placate her. His actions had the opposite effect. Laura pulse skyrocketed in terror at the possibility of being recognized.

"Sorry about that, I didn't mean to startle you. I just wanted to give this back to you." He waved a bit of plastic about that Laura was at a loss to identify in her panic and poor spectacles. Luke smiled that particular smile at her helpless squinting. "It's your driver's license. You must have dropped it out of your bag a minute ago. I didn't want you leaving without it. They're a hassle to replace."

Laura twisted her mouth as pleasantly as mortification permitted, taking the blasted thing and proceeding to lose hold of it immediately after. She groaned a nasally, horror-stricken groan and bent to retrieve it as Luke did the same. Laura gave up the gambit first, coming just shy of the brush of his hand. She knew now what she could survive; horror, torture, and the deep blue sea, but losing him having had the casual intimacy of his touch restored could be her downfall. I can't, I can't. But how she longed to try.

Luke graciously offered her card a second time and Laura took great pain in zipping it securely inside her purse.

She breathed deep and spoke through her nose, "Thanks a lot." She sounded horrific to her own ears.

Luke doffed his invisible cowboy hat and gave a courtly bow. "All in a day's work, ma'am. You have a good one." He was all sideshow, her—no, Holly's fiancé, Holly's Luke from here on out.

"You, too. You have the very best one."

Laura permitted herself a last gander at those electric blues. She felt she deserved that much if she wouldn't see them for a lifetime more. God, how I love you.

Brimming with all the strength of that love, she nudged her unsightly eyeglasses up the bridge of her nose and turned away. Goodbye, Luke Spencer.

Laura used to believe that time had healed over the deepest of her hurts, that new cruelties had left her skin immune to the sting of wounds made scars. She realized now she had been wrong. She couldn't have been any more wrong if she'd meant to tell herself a lie. She hugged her purse to her chest and left City Hall once and for all. There wasn't anything for her there anymore.

Goodbye, us.