Chapter Eight
Wyndemere
"I'd have thought you'd be in bed by now." Nikolas was unsettled to find Colleen in the nursery watching his son sleep. "Did he wake you?"
Colleen straightened stepping away from the bed as she heard Nikolas's voice behind her. "No, sir, he's sleeping like an angel. I just came to check on him."
Watching her watch at his son it took everything Nikolas had not to grab her then and there and haul her away from him, but fearing her reaction and that she might be a danger to Spencer he knew that he had to get Colleen out of the nursery before confronting her. "I appreciate your devotion to my son's welfare," he said forcing sincerity into his voice despite the irony of his words. "It's good that you're still awake, I needed to speak with you. Please come to the study with me."
"Of course, sir," Colleen agreed, turning back towards Spencer she reached down to tuck him in more securely.
When he saw her reaching towards his son Nikolas panicked, fighting the urge to grab her and jerk her away from Spencer he quickly stepped past her and bent down himself. He pulled the covers up over Spencer's shoulders and ran a gentle hand over the boy's hair.
By the time he had turned back towards Colleen Nikolas had regained his composure. "I haven't gotten to spend much time with him lately. Tucking him in is a rare privilege. Now, if you will come with me."
"Yes, sir," Colleen smiled serenely and following his gesture preceded Nikolas out of the room and down the hall.
No sooner had the study door closed behind her than Colleen found herself pinned to the wall Nikolas's hand around her throat.
"How long have you been working for my grandmother?"
"I'm not! It's not true! I'm not!" Colleen frantically clawed at the hand holding her to the wall as she denied the accusation. "I've had nothing to do with Mrs. Cassadine."
"Don't lie to me." Nikolas gave her throat a warning squeeze before relaxing his grip again so that she could speak.
Colleen struggled for breath as tears of fear slid down her cheeks. "I swear," she whispered. "I swear I'm not working for her."
"Don't lie to me again," he repeated, his tone conversational even as he tightened his hold until her hands fell to her side and she ceased her struggles. "I'm told that this is how my father killed Chloe Morgan. Now I don't have much experience with murder, I don't know how tight I can make my hold before I crush your trachea, or how long I can deprive you of oxygen before your brain is irreversibly damaged. So unless you want be the one who teaches me these things, I suggest you answer honestly. I already know the truth, now I want to hear it from you."
"I – I'm sorry," she gasped at last trying to press her self further back into the wall. "Spencer was never in danger, I swear. I just, she's his grandmother I didn't see any harm in letting her visit him. That's all it was."
"Was it?"
"Yes," Colleen answered desperately. "I let her see him, that's all, and she never tried to take him, he was never in danger."
His grip never wavering Nikolas leaned closer, speaking directly into her ear. "So you never took my son to visit his mother?"
"His mother?" Colleen cringed away from Nikolas as she repeated his words wondering how he could have learned about Courtney.
"Courtney Matthews, Spencer's mother, a woman I believed was dead. You took Spencer to visit her in France and you told her you had come on my behalf. Do you not remember this?"
Colleen was crying again and she had to force out the words, "I remember."
"And was it on my behalf?"
"No."
"You were working for my grandmother?"
"Yes."
"So, when you said that all you did for Helena was allow her to visit my son, that was another lie?"
"Yes."
"I would strongly suggest that that be the last lie you tell," Nikolas's voice grew even more menacing as he delivered that his final warning. "Now, is there anything else I need to know?"
There was a long tense moment before Colleen hesitantly spoke again. "Your uncle Stefan was there too, in France. Madame is keeping him there," she offered the only information of value that she had, unsure of whether he knew that too, but very sure of the consequences if he did know and she lied again.
Hearing her answer, Nikolas released her abruptly, wiping his hand on his pants as though touching her had contaminated him in some way. "Very good," he acknowledged her confession.
Colleen collapsed as soon as Nikolas let go and knelt there at his feet as she gasped for breath.
"Anything else?"
Colleen's mind raced frantically but she couldn't think of anything else, Helena wasn't inclined to share information with her pawns. "No," she whispered looking up at him at last. "I don't know anything else. You have to believe me."
"How do you contact Helena? Where is she now?"
"I don't – I don't know," she denied desperately. "I've never – all I know is that Madame, she contacts me when she's here and she wishes to see Spencer."
"And you immediately make him available."
"Yes, yes, I'm sorry. I just, I was afraid of her, I did what she told me to do."
"And now you're going to do what I tell you to."
Colleen swallowed nervously at the threat implicit in his words and one hand reached up to brush against the bruises that were already forming around her neck. Finally, she found the courage to ask, "What are you going to do with me?"
Nikolas looked at the woman kneeling in front of him and couldn't think past her betrayal – he had brought her into his home, entrusted her with his son, and every day that she had been there his son had been in danger. "There's a guard waiting outside, you're going to go with him."
Nikolas's tone and the cold look in his eyes terrified Colleen. "Please don't do this," she begged him. "Please, I'm sorry, have mercy."
"You're still breathing; I've shown you enough mercy. Were I my father, my grandmother, or even my uncle you would be dead already, you know that don't you?"
Colleen had seen enough of Helena to know that was true, but Nikolas's words did little to reassure her regarding his intentions. "I'm sorry," she whispered again, "I'm sorry, please don't kill me."
"I'm not going to kill you," Nikolas turned away from Colleen in disgust and froze when his eyes landed on the half empty glass of brandy that was still sitting on the edge of his desk. "Not yet anyway," he muttered before turning back towards her.
"There is a guard waiting to escort you off the island," he said again. "You'll go where he takes you and stay there until I am certain you cause any further damage. At that point I will allow you to be released and you will leave Port Charles." He took a deep breath before continuing, "Listen closely because I only intend to say this once. You will leave Port Charles. If I ever set eyes on you again, you will regret it; if I ever see you near my son, I won't be responsible for what I do to you."
Ignoring Colleen's continued apologies and pleas Nikolas called out to the guard and stood watching impassively as she was dragged from the room.
Haunted Star
Waiting until all was quiet Stefan stepped onto the deck of the Haunted Star and made his way through the dark lobby and toward the aft stateroom.
"She's sleeping." Luke's voice echoing out of a dark corner of the room caught Stefan halfway across. "It was kind of a long night for her."
Stefan pivoted around to face Luke, his eyes searching the darkness for his host's form and finally locating him, a slightly less black shape in the dark room. "Anything I need to know?" he asked stifling a flash of concern.
"My niece stopped by for a visit," Luke answered his face briefly illuminated by a flaring match as he lit his cigar. "Courtney asked me to call her," he continued before Stefan could object, "They're friends, you know."
"I was aware, and I expected that Courtney would want to contact her family privately before her resurrection became public knowledge, though I had hoped that she would wait until she was stronger." Leaving the lights off Stefan moved nearer to Luke's table, but made no move to join him. "I hope that Caroline can be trusted to keep quiet." The last came out as both comment and question.
"Sometimes she can; she lies like a champion when she wants to."
"I recall; a talent she comes by honestly, no doubt."
"That a jab at my sister?" Luke asked stubbing out his cigar in the ash tray as he gave Stefan a half-hearted glare.
Stefan rolled his eyes at Luke's accusation. "I was referring to you, though I suppose the inference could as accurately be applied to Barbara."
Acknowledging the truth of that statement Luke shrugged it off and moved on. "Caroline probably won't say anything," he said, then hesitated, "at least not anything that will get back to Helena."
"So listen," Luke sighed pouring a drink and pushing it across the table in Stefan's direction. "About the girl, any idea why she doesn't want to see her brother?"
Stefan left the drink untouched, but took a moment to consider Luke's question. "She has said nothing to me. Perhaps she simply did not feel strong enough for more than one visitor tonight."
"Don't think that's it," Luke disagreed. "I offered to call him before we even mentioned Caroline. She very specifically didn't want to see him."
When Stefan didn't offer anything more Luke spoke up again, "It occurs to me that you and Corinthos never really got along."
"I can't imagine what you're implying," Stefan responded mildly.
"I'm just wondering what you might have said to Courtney about her brother."
Stefan acknowledged the unspoken accusation with a resigned sigh. "I am not to blame for everything Spencer, nor have I attempted to influence Courtney's feelings for her brother. In truth, we have not discussed Mr. Corinthos recently, but I know that she has missed him deeply and that she regrets the distance between them that preceded her 'death.'"
"I know nothing about Courtney's motivation in refusing to see her brother," he repeated, "but if you wish me to speculate . . ." When Luke gestured for him to go on, he continued. "I would say that Courtney loves her brother and she does want to see him again, but she is also angry and hurt. He had no reason to suspect she was still alive, she knows that. But knowing that here," Stefan gestured to his head and then his heart, "and knowing it here are two very different things. There is something uniquely painful about being alive and having to watch as the people you love continue their lives as though you'd never existed. Courtney needs to forgive her brother for that and she doesn't want to see him before she has because she fears saying something which she will later regret."
"Doesn't seem to have bothered you much," Luke commented. "You went to see Nikolas."
Stefan thought over his meeting with Nikolas, the hurt in Nikolas's eyes when he'd lashed out at him. When he died, did you mourn for me, or were you simply glad to be rid of the monster you believed me to be? "My visit also might have been premature, I hurt Nikolas tonight. There are things I should have said but didn't and things that I did say that I cannot now take back."
Wyndemere
Resting his hand on the nursery door Nikolas hesitated, part of him sober enough to know that he really shouldn't go in. He'd collapsed in the study after Colleen . . . left, and helped himself to a drink or ten needing to block out the memory of her cries, forget the feel of her throat in his hands. It had worked, when he closed his eyes now he couldn't even see the look in her eyes as he strangled her or feel the frantic beat of her pulse under his thumb. But not even the better part of a bottle had been enough to erase Stefan's words, while I waited for one of you to search for me, you buried him under my name, and forgot me. Nikolas remembered the shadows of doubt and disappointment in his uncle's eyes and knew that he had lost something precious, Stefan's faith.
Pushing the door open Nikolas stumbled into the nursery dropping to his knees beside the bed and took what solace he could find watching his son sleep.
"I'm sorry," he whispered to Spencer, the alcohol making him more sentimental than usual. "You deserve better than this, you deserve everything in the world and I wanted you to have everything that I didn't. I didn't want this. I would never have kept your mother from you, you need her; the way I needed Laura and I wouldn't have denied you that; I wouldn't have done that. Not for Emily, not for anything."
"Helena, what she's done . . . I don't know what's going to happen now, what Courtney's going to do," he trailed off. "I just don't know.
Haunted Star
"Aren't you supposed to be sleeping?" Stefan chided gently when he found Courtney waiting up for him.
"I'm supposed to be resting, which I've been doing, all day. Besides, there was no way I was going to be able to sleep until you got back and I found out how your meeting with Nikolas went." Courtney tried to pretend a calm that she could not make herself feel but the moment Stefan lowered himself onto the bed beside her, she buried her face in his chest, her arms wrapping around him.
"Hey," Stefan returned her embrace brushing one hand over her hair, "what's all this about?"
"I was – God, I was scared, Stefan. What if she caught you? What if Nikolas called Helena? What if . . ." Courtney took a deep breath forcing herself to relax, "You know, at first I was fine, but the longer you were gone . . ."
"It's okay," he reassured her quietly, rubbing her back to help her calm down. "I'm alright. I didn't see any sign of Helena and no one but Nikolas saw me. I went in through the tunnels; the route is supposed to be impassible so there was no surveillance."
"Nikolas," Courtney began, but Stefan hushed her gently.
"Nikolas was shocked to find out that I was alive. He had no hand in what Helena did to me and he certainly wasn't going to turn me back over to her."
"I know you want to believe that," she couldn't hide her bitterness, "but I can't trust him." Squeezed her eyes shut and breathed deeply trying to clear her head. "I know," she whispered at last, "he didn't know about you. He wouldn't have done that to you," just me.
"I told him about you," Stefan told her as he leaned back against the headboard, settling in beside her but keeping hold of her hand, "that you were alive. His shock seemed real. He was . . . distressed to learn what had happened to you."
"He was distressed to learn that you knew what had happened to me," Courtney countered stubbornly. "I was supposed to be his dirty little secret, he's afraid you'll tell someone I'm alive."
"He asked to see you; he wanted to know that you were alright. I think that he's genuinely concerned about you."
"He wanted to know if he could get rid of me before anyone else found out."
"You're deliberately being difficult," Stefan chided her. "I know that you're afraid, but you're safe now, nothing is going to happen to you."
Wyndemere
Coming home late from her shift at the hospital Emily's first stop was Nikolas's study. Despite his promise to wait up for her she was unsurprised to find the room empty; she was surprised however to find a nearly empty bottle of brandy tipped over on the desk. Nikolas frequently had a glass or two at night when he finished his business, but Alfred kept the decanter filled and it would have taken considerably more drinking than that to do this much damage. It was unlike Nikolas to drink so much alone.
Emily's concern was answered a moment later when she spied two glasses, one of them unfinished. "Well," she murmured righting the bottle as she thought of her husband, "it looks like you earned the headache you'll have tomorrow morning." Leaving the glasses for someone else to clean up later Emily headed for bed, assuming Nikolas would be sleeping his way to a hangover.
"Good night, Miss Emily," Alfred's greeting stopped Emily on the stairs.
"Good night, Alfred," she returned with a tired smile for the elderly butler. "I assume Nikolas has already retired, and I'm on my way to bed, don't you think you should do the same?"
"Master Nikolas is in the nursery, madam" Alfred corrected quietly.
"In the nursery?" Emily asked with growing concern, "At this hour? Did something happen to Spencer?"
"Not to my knowledge madam." Alfred hesitated for a moment, unsure of whether or not he should tell Emily about her husband's surprise visitor or the other events of the evening which had so unsettled the household. In the end he decided to say nothing, it was not his place to share his employer's concerns, even with his employer's wife.
"If that is all madam?" he asked prompting her dismissal and leaving Emily to make her way to the nursery.
Nikolas wasn't playing with his son or even holding him in the rocking chair as Emily expected. Instead she found him sitting on the nursery floor one arm flung across the bed his hand on the sleeping child's chest. His head rested against the side of the mattress as he watched Spencer sleep.
"Nikolas?" Emily called his name hesitantly. "Has something happened? Is Spencer alright?"
"Everything's wrong," Nikolas answered without looking away from his son. "His whole life is going to be turned upside down and there's nothing I can do about it."
He looked up at Emily with haunted eyes, "I didn't know; I never . . . and now I don't know what to do. He's my son, how do I make this right?"
