A/N: Sorry for the long wait on this one. I've been a little distracted lately, but I haven't abandoned the story it just got put on hold for a while.

Chapter Six

"It's my partner," Lucky said after he checked the caller id on his ringing cell phone. "He might have some news." He turned aside letting Sonny and Max continue alone towards Courtney's room. He spared a moment to hope that Nikolas wouldn't be there, or if he was that he and Sonny wouldn't get into it while he wasn't there to mediate. They both loved Courtney but Sonny might well blame Nikolas for this, and Nikolas was already doing enough of that himself.

"Tell me you've got something. Tell me you've found something that points to who did this," Lucky asked Jesse hopefully as he answered the phone. And tell me it wasn't Helena, he begged silently. Tell me I don't have to explain to my brother that his psycho grandmother kidnapped and tortured his girlfriend.

Lucky listened in silence as Jesse explained what the CSU team had uncovered in the house: plenty of fingerprints but it would be awhile before they got any results from those, a well stocked kitchen – all gourmet, a nearly empty bottle of prenatal vitamins. There was no computer, no notes, no obvious clues about the identity of the perpetrators. But there was one very significant discovery.

"Are you sure?" Lucky asked again, the news wasn't surprising but he still wasn't ready to believe it.

"Alright," he said after a moment. "Thanks. Keep me posted if – when you . . . I'll have my phone, just call me if there's anything else I need to know." Hanging up the phone with a decisive click Lucky jogged into the hospital. He was surprised to find that he was in time to find Sonny still waiting for the elevator – surely his conversation with Jesse had taken more time than that, he mused.

Lucky and Sonny arrived just in time to see Nikolas leaving Courtney's room. He walked past them without a word, too preoccupied by his own thought to notice either man. Sonny restrained himself to no more than a dirty look at Nikolas before continuing on to his sister's room. Lucky meanwhile turned to follow Nikolas, calling out his brother's name and then chasing after him when he was ignored.

"Nikolas," Lucky caught up to him at the elevator.

"I don't have time to talk about it, Lucky." Nikolas cut him off jabbing the elevator button again in the vain hope that his impatient movement would make the elevator arrive faster. When that didn't work he turned towards the stairs – maybe they wouldn't get him there any sooner, but at least if he took the stairs he'd be moving. He wouldn't have to stand there and wait with nothing more to do than 'talk about it.'

"You have time for this," Lucky disagreed grabbing Nikolas's arm to halt his flight just as the elevator door opened at last.

"Fine," Nikolas conceded as twisting away from Lucky. "We can talk on the way out. I'm in something of a hurry."

"Where are you going?" Lucky stalled, now faced with the moment of truth, he'd seize any opportunity to delay the inevitable.

Nikolas didn't even bother to acknowledge the question. "What's so important?" he asked as he pressed the button for the parking deck.

Lucky sighed but didn't press the issue yet. "I got a call from Jesse, he's still at the scene, and . . ." Lucky hesitated but plunged on – Nikolas needed what they'd found. "There's something you should probably know. There was – they found a body in the basement of the house where Courtney was held."

That was unexpected. Nikolas had to force himself to breathe. A body, alright, there was a body that didn't mean . . . "The baby?" an anguished whisper as Nikolas tensed preparing himself for the worst, he was barely able to articulate the question as he prayed that the answer was no. After all that had happened it couldn't be in vain. God wouldn't be cruel enough to make Courtney endure her child's death after everything that she had gone through to bring him into the world.

"What? No, it wasn't the baby," Lucky denied immediately, watching Nikolas's shoulders sag in relief he cursed himself for not realizing that would be his brother's first thought. "It was an adult male, blonde hair approximately and he had clearly been down there some time. We don't have a positive id yet, but credit card and driver's license found with the body suggest -"

"Cut the cop talk Lucky," Nikolas interrupted him impatiently pulling Lucky off the elevator with him leaving the two men standing alone in the semi-darkness of the underground parking deck. He knew where this was going but he needed to hear it for certain. "Just tell me."

"It's Jax," Lucky admitted. "Looks like he's been dead a couple of months at least. Whoever kidnapped Courtney probably took him at the same time, figured if it looked like she left with him no one would look for her." And she was right – the thought was unspoken between them.

Any trace of doubt that Nikolas might have been holding onto disappeared at Lucky's announcement. He realized that part of him had been hoping that against all odds Jax was responsible – that the Australian had lost his mind when he'd lost Courtney, that he'd been desperate to keep his child and so he'd taken them. Nikolas had known that it was a futile hope, this type of atrocity just wasn't in Jax's nature – but it had been better than the alternative that they were left with.

"Whoever kidnapped Courtney," Nikolas repeated bitterly. "Just say it Lucky, 'Helena.' We both know she was behind this. She took Courtney, she killed Jax, and now she has my child. She has the heir she's always wanted and this one she can raise all by herself. There won't be any Stephan to teach him how to care, to make him 'weak.' She's going to raise my child in my father's image. Unless I stop her."

"We don't know that it was Helena," Lucky protested weakly.

"No?" Nikolas laughed harshly. "Of course it was Helena, no one else is this depraved." He closed his eyes, gathering his strength for the final confirmation. "Courtney's fever is high, she's delirious."

Lucky frowned at the seeming non sequitur but waited for Nikolas to continue. "I was sitting there by her bed and she called out my grandmother's name. 'Please Helena,' even unconscious she was crying, begging, 'Please let me hold my baby.' It was Helena, Lucky, and she's not going to get away with it this time. I won't let that happen." Nikolas turned and walked away.

"Wait. What are you going to do, Nikolas?" Lucky called after him, hoping that he didn't already know the answer.

"What someone should have done a long time ago," Nikolas replied. He stopped but didn't turn around, "What I should have done along time ago."

"You can't go after her alone," Lucky protested. "I'll come with you. Just wait a few days and I'll come with you."

"I can't wait." Nikolas said. "And I don't plan on going alone, but it can't be you, Lucky." Whatever else might come of this, Nikolas refused to involve his brother in his plans.

Nikolas hesitated. "If," he took a deep breath, "When Courtney wakes up tell her that I will be back and I'll have our child with me."