One thing to know: I changed Lucky and Elizabeth's ages at the time of the rape. Elizabeth was 16, not 15.
This is for LadyPuck; she knows why.
Warning: if you've seen a lot of old clips – like original LL2v.JJ or especially the scene where Robin tells Luke about her HIV status – then this one will be a tearjerker. It certainly was for me. Definitely the hardest thing I've ever had to write.
The Battle Of Who Could Care Less – 14
"Luke…what did he mean?" Robert exchanged glances with Sonny and Jason, who sat on the cot opposite him, and frowned when both men avoided his gaze. Next to him, his best friend appeared to only have eyes for his single-malt scotch. "What did Lucky mean about being sixteen all over again?"
Luke rolled his almost empty glass of scotch between his palms, his pale blue eyes hazy and soft. He remained silent, and after a long moment passed and Robert assumed that he wasn't going to get an answer anytime this century, Luke finally spoke up.
"Cowboy was there the first time this happened."
Robert wasn't following. "The first time? You mean she's been hurt like this before?"
His old friend shook his head, his wispy hair falling across his forehead. Luke's hands were closed tightly around his glass, so much so that his knuckles turned alabaster from a lack of circulation. "She's been raped once before."
Something twisted deep in his gut and Jason closed his eyes, resting his forehead against his clasped and fisted hands. With Luke still staring at the amber fluid in the bottom of his glass, Sonny was the only one that caught the look of shock and disbelief that raced across Robert's trained features.
"No, Luke, that's not…"
The older Spencer grabbed his bottle of single-malt scotch from its place by his feet and sloshed another serving into his glass, shaking his head at the disbelief in Robert's face. "She was sixteen when it happened."
Robert was speechless. He fell back slightly, gaping at his best friend, and his hands rested limp on his knees. Sixteen. It was almost the same age that Robin had been when… "Sixteen."
Luke nodded jerkily, holding his glass near his lips. "It was winter. Sometime in the winter…in-in the park. Cowboy was the one that found her."
He didn't notice how Robert's eyes flew to the bathroom door behind which Lucky had disappeared a short while ago, nor did he see the sadness etched into his old partner in crime's face.
A small smile pulled at the corner of his mouth – ironic and wistful at the same time. "That was when they first got together. Lucky…God bless him, he did everything he could think of to help her. She was scared – too scared – to see anyone about it. That was why…a case couldn't be built and nothing could be done."
Robert's fingers tightened around his knees but the ex-commissioner said nothing.
"He helped her get past it – the fear, the anger, the guilt. And, somehow, somewhere along the way…" Jason looked up to see a dim light twinkling in Luke's hazy and distant blue eyes. "Those two kids fell in love. No one understood it, but no one could deny it."
Robert's somber eyes watched his old friend as Luke took a big, harsh gulp of the liquid, wincing as it burned its way down.
"And I feel like…such a low-down, damned son of a bitch," Luke struggled to get out, "every time I think that it was the best thing that could have ever happened to my son."
The detective looked away when the other man covered his eyes and let out a slow, breath. As if of their own volition, Robert's fingers began to travel toward his wallet, to the slip of paper that had broken his own heart so many years ago.
"I can never forget the look in his eyes," Luke continued softly, the tears evident in his voice, "when he came to me with the fear that being a rapist was genetic. I see his face at that moment in my nightmares, and it's never going to go away."
Jason swallowed hard, finding Robert a worthy distraction from Luke's heart-breaking reverie. The detective sat on the cot next to his best friend with his shoulders slumped and a worn brown leather wallet resting in his hands. Slowly, Robert undid the snap and let it fall open.
"And I'll never forget the look on her face," Luke added in a gruff voice, staring down at his drink once more, "when she came to the bar after Lucky was gone. She brought…God, what did she bring?…brownies. She brought me brownies. And she gave me a hug. And I remember feeling…so goddamn blessed that my son had a woman in his life that was everything that Laura was to me."
"She went through so much shit in her life, Robert," the older man mumbled, "and all before she was even old enough to drive. I promised myself when Lucky disappeared that I would take care of Elizabeth no matter what happened – it was what he would have wanted. And I did what I could, but sometimes I think that…Elizabeth was the one taking care of me. She was great with Lulu, she helped out Lesley, she was always dropping by to see me and Laura. I never really knew how to thank her – repay her – for everything, but she just told me that it was what family did. And that was the same thing I told her when she found out that…she didn't have to be afraid of that son of a bitch anymore."
Robert had pulled a folded square of paper out of his wallet and was staring at it, but looked up sharply at that remark. "You mean they got him, then? Locked him up?"
"Tom Baker died in prison three years ago," Jason spoke up softly, sharing a brief look with Luke. That was all that needed to be said; Robert didn't need to know about their man on the inside that had pulled a knife on the convict and thanked him for everything he did to Emily and Elizabeth before slitting his throat.
"Two days before his parole hearing," Luke smiled to himself, clinking his ice and raising his glass in a mock salute to the deceased. "But that doesn't mean he's gone. He was here tonight – I saw him in that look in her eyes when she walked in. He's still here, and sometimes I wonder if he'll ever leave her the fuck alone."
He was sorely tempted to throw his glass, just for the satisfaction of hearing it shatter into a million tiny pieces, but resisted because he needed another drink. "Just when you think enough time has passed…you're right back where you started. And you still don't know what the fuck to do."
"Or how the hell you're supposed to make it stop hurting," Robert agreed quietly, tapping the folded square of paper against his palm. Luke looked over at the sound, curious, and he realized what the document was before his best friend even finished unfolding it.
"Robert…"
"So many years since my source gave me this," the detective murmured, staring down at the faded font and chicken-scratch writing in the margin. Sonny leaned forward, craning his neck in order to see, then quickly drew back. Jason knew from the tears in his best friend's eyes that the document Robert held so gingerly in his aged hands was none other than Robin's blood test confirming her HIV status.
"I don't know what to do with it," he admitted quietly, his pale blue eyes scanning the writing he had long since memorized. "I can't throw it away. I can't stow it away with-with her birth certificate or my marriage license." He looked up, blinking away his tears. "And so I keep it with me – carry it like a goddamn millstone. All these years later, and I still can't explain why."
The sound of a blow dryer in the bathroom made Luke sit up and glance in the direction where his kids had disappeared, and Robert licked his lips. The first thing that he had noticed about Elizabeth Webber when she stomped into the bar complaining about chickens was that she resembled his daughter – she had the same dark hair, the same petite frame, the same pale skin, and even the same mischievous twinkle in her eyes when she thought she was being clever. But after seeing her face when she walked in through the tunnel, holding her torn clothes up around her, he could do nothing but imagine the look on his own daughter's face when she received her life sentence in the form of a blood test.
"You think you can be there," Robert continued softly, and Jason was surprised to see that for the first time since his 'resurrection', the commissioner appeared a tired, defeated old man. "You watch them sleep when they're little and you promise them that you'll always save them."
"You make yourself think that there's nothing you won't be able to do when it comes to them," Luke added.
"But you never let yourself think about what would happen if that's just not enough." Robert pinched the bridge of his nose, his head bent and his chin tucked into his chest. When he spoke again, his voice was ragged and hoarse. "I was in a dirty, damp flat in Tehran with Frisco when I got the wire. The Ayatollah had put out another fatwa that day on a novelist and the agency was called in to help the poor bloke escape with his head still attached."
Two tears had slipped past his pale lashes and coursed twin paths across his rough cheeks, following the traces of countless tears before them over the years. "I knew even without opening the envelope that it was about Robin. It was worse than I could have imagined. And I never wanted anything more at that moment than to be able to be with her, to tell her…to tell her that I would save her like I always did."
It was the most emotion he had ever seen from Robert Scorpio – not that it was saying much – and Jason found it less difficult at that moment to put aside his personal grievances with the man. At that moment, they were all just men in anguish over the women in their lives. There was no love lost between him and Robert, but in their own way, they would always share Robin. And it was slowly becoming clear to him that there was a chance that they might share Elizabeth, too, just as he and Luke clearly did.
"But I couldn't save her," Robert lamented quietly, his fingers twined and tucked under his chin. "I couldn't even be with her."
"You were there, Robert." Luke's gruff voice jarred the detective from his trance and the other man stared at the Spencer, nonplussed. But Luke remained just as firm as before. "You were with us."
He rubbed a hand over his mouth, studiously avoiding the paper in Robert's hands. "It was Christmas, and I was at Sonny's penthouse. She was there with Stone…I remember standing by the tree waiting for her, and then there she was. She was wearing a long dress, and she had one of those things in her hair – those headbands girls sometimes wear. Neither of us knew that you were still alive…" Pursing his lips, Luke turned and looked directly at the man next to him – the man that he had defeated the Cassidines with, hunted down the Prometheus Disk with, his friend, his partner, a fellow father – and nodded once. "But Robert, you were there. You were there with both of us."
He wouldn't say it aloud, but there was nothing Luke had ever said to him that meant as much to Robert as those few words.
"She was very lucky to have you there with her," he replied honestly. "Just like…Elizabeth is lucky to have your son with her."
For reasons that he couldn't begin to articulate, Jason didn't like the sound of that. He knew that Lucky had helped Elizabeth before and that he obviously could get her through it again, but that still didn't prevent him from frowning at the mention of it. Maybe it was his own guilt – his own feelings that he should have been the one to run to her, to take care of her, just as she had once taken care of him. He didn't like sitting idly by any more than he did feeling like the one on the outside looking in, and at the moment he was forced to do both of those things. Lucky was the one that Elizabeth had turned to, and Jason didn't for a minute blame her for that. But he still wished there was some way he could help as well.
Luke nodded his head once, rolling his glass between his palms once more. His eyes were still hazy from the scotch, and his voice was beginning to slur when he spoke. "They were supposed to get married, you know."
Robert's brows rose in surprise at that, but he recognized an old man's wistful rambling when he heard it. Sharing an acknowledging glance with Sonny and a somewhat sympathetic one with Jason, the detective balanced his elbows on his knees and tented his fingers. "Were they?"
It was meant to be a statement, but Luke nodded anyway. The liquor was taking him to a place that he seldom went to himself except in his hazy, nostalgic daydreams on the rare occasions that he indulged them. "They were gonna leave Port Charles and move to New York City. Laura would have hated that they'd be so far away, but she'd know that it was what they needed and she'd tell herself to let them go, to let them grow."
He laughed to himself as the visions played out in front of him. "They'd have this tiny, cramped little apartment with dirty windows and peeling paint, but they'd like it because they'd get a good view of the park. Lucky would write and sing – and Elizabeth, Elizabeth would paint. She's an artist, you know."
"I didn't know that," Robert replied, knowing that this was something his old friend had to get out. The two of them were strange ducks; they had lived all of their lives for the moment, concentrating only on making it through the day alive and not bothering themselves with worries of the future. For a man who seized the moment and didn't think ahead, Luke Spencer sure had the future all planned out once upon a time.
"They'd have lots of little plants, even though Elizabeth would never remember to water them and Cowboy would tease her when they all died one after another." A rare smile lit up Luke's face, joyful and melancholy at the same time. "They'd eat Ramen Noodles and greasy pizza from the shop down the street. They'd never have enough money, but Lucky would rather die than ask me or his mom for help – that's not the kind of kid he is. They'd barely be able to make ends meet, but God damn, they'd be happy."
Luke sighed softly, not realizing the effect of his rambling on Jason and too drunk to stop if he tried. "They were gonna be so happy. Free as birds, the two of them. Just Cowboy and Lizzie against the world. Eventually, they'd get a little something saved up and move to a nicer apartment – with lots of big windows so that Elizabeth would get all the light through the day."
He turned to his friend, as serious as he could have ever been, and Robert just stared back. "They were gonna have kids, you know."
Again, his old friend had surprised him. Robert never realized that Luke had thought about his grandchildren – Lucky's children with Elizabeth – but it was clear that once upon a time, Luke had been eagerly anticipating them. "Really."
Luke nodded emphatically. "Oh, yeah. A little girl with Elizabeth's curly hair and eyes named Lacey Imogene. And a boy – Lucas Lorenzo Spencer III."
A soft sigh of surprise and sympathy broke the deathly silence in the bunker, and all three men besides Luke looked up abruptly. Jason swallowed hard when he saw Lucky and Elizabeth standing in the doorway of the washroom, their figures outlined by the bright golden light from behind them.
Robert gave her a quick once-over, as if to convince himself that she was really there and that she was all right. The brunette was dressed in Lucky's green pajama bottoms, which she had to roll up at the cuff, along with his t-shirt and her skin was flushed pink from the long, hot shower. Her hair was dry and straight, and she tucked it behind her ears as she watched Luke with empathy shining clearly in her expressive sapphire orbs. Lucky, too, was watching his father sadly, and it was clear that the two of them had heard all of Luke's grand plans for their intended once-upon-a-time future.
Jason's heart thundered slowly and rhythmically in his chest as Elizabeth patted her ex-boyfriend's arm once and then hesitantly made her way across the cold floor in her bare feet. Sonny sucked in a breath and even Robert went rigidly still as the brunette approached and finally slid down onto the cot next to Luke.
The older Spencer seemed to finally sense her presence and looked up at her with wide, lost eyes. Biting her lip, Elizabeth pried his glass out of his hands and set it on the floor, then slipped her smaller hand into his and squeezed tightly.
Luke looked down at their joined hands and lifted it to his lips, kissing it before covering it with his other hand. "I'm sorry, darlin'."
"Oh, Luke." Her eyes shimmered as she placed a finger under his chin and forced him to look at her. "This wasn't your fault. It was mine."
"I told you when I brought you down here that you'd be safe," he explained quietly. "And I couldn't deliver. I sent you right in where Helena was just waiting for you."
"You didn't know," she reminded him, cocking her head to find Robert's troubled gaze. "Neither of you knew. And this didn't happen because of Helena – from what I know, the librarian doesn't have a clue that I'm not really from Calvillo. This happened because…he was drunk and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
But it was as if Luke hadn't even heard her. "It was bad enough when you agreed to drink to the poison to help Nikolas prove his loyalty," he lamented. "I couldn't get to you in time, but when Barbara told me the plan, I was against it. I didn't want you to be up against that bat from Hell. And she's been watching you this whole time."
"Luke, she was watching out for the artifact, not me. Marco doesn't know-"
"This has to stop," Luke muttered, seizing her hands more fiercely. "It's fine when she comes after me or Robert – but targeting you and Robin…we can't let that happen." His best friend was nodding firmly. "I'm going to promise you one thing right now, Elizabeth, and I hope I die before I go back on my word: I will not let Helena Cassidine hurt you."
"She didn't." A single tear slipped past her lush lashes, and Elizabeth quirked a brave smile for the man that was more of a father to her than her own dad. "Because I'm fine, Luke. I'm fine."
He opened his mouth to say something, then appeared to change his mind. Instead, he freed his hands from hers and pulled her gently against him, hugging her tightly when he saw that she didn't flinch. Elizabeth clung to him, not caring that Robert was watching or that Sonny and Jason were there, and Luke tangled one hand in her dark hair and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
"Nothing's more important to me than you and Cowboy," he murmured, resting his chin on top of her silky hair. "The trinket can wait. I just want you to be all right."
"I am," came her muffled voice, but it didn't take a genius – or a superspy – to figure out that she was putting up a brave front.
"Hey." Lucky's voice was quiet and hesitant as he sat down next to the brunette and his father. "It's pretty late – we should get to bed. Try to get some sleep. What do you think, huh, Elizabeth?"
She peeked out from under the protective shield of Luke's arms and yawned as if on cue, making Sonny smile softly. "Yeah, maybe…"
Reluctantly, Luke let her go and watched as she sat up, pulling her knees into her chest. With a sigh, he pushed himself to his feet – no easy task – and glanced at Robert. "I should wash up. I'll be right back, darlin'. You holler if you need me."
She smirked at that, watching as he ambled off, but the smile faded when Robert's shadow fell across her. Looking up, she could tell the detective wasn't quite sure of what to say. She knew that they had a lot to talk about – Helena, to be sure, but more specifically, the fact that she had neglected to mention the little detail to him. But when Robert dropped to one knee in front of her and awkwardly patted her hand, she knew he wasn't about to launch into a stern lecture.
"If you need me to do anything, you let me know, doll," was all the commissioner said before he nodded once to himself and stood, following his friend to the washroom.
Rubbing the back of her neck, Elizabeth slowly let go of her knees and stood up. Careful to avoid Sonny's concerned gaze – partly due to embarrassment and partly due to guilt over the fact that she had gone out of her way to make him feel like slime – she slipped past Jason and headed to her own cot not too far away.
But this time, the enforcer was not about to let her get away that easy. He had learned his lesson from that morning and was determined to talk to her. The brunette had managed to plop down on her makeshift bed and was holding her knees close to her chest when Jason stood and ambled over. He hovered a few feet away for a minute, then hesitantly crept forward until he was in front of her.
Elizabeth looked up, surprised, and visibly retreated just a little at his advance. But Jason didn't let that deter him. Moving slowly so as not to needlessly alarm her, he perched himself at the other end of her cot and waited until she met his gaze.
Jason's eyes were soft when she finally dared to peek timidly up at him, and Elizabeth could tell he wanted to touch her but forcefully held himself back. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but she could tell when he hesitated. Finally, he just blurted it out. "I wish there was something I could do instead of just ask you if you were okay. Because I know you're not…but you feel like you have to pretend you are."
She tucked her chin into her chest, letting her bangs fall across her eyes like a curtain. If she was honest with herself, she'd admit that there wasn't a single man in the bunker that would buy her act. Luke and Lucky knew her too well and for too long; Sonny could easily pick up on it, and Jason was a no-brainer. And Robert, even though he was new, seemed to have pretty sharp instincts and realized fairly quickly that she was acting.
But she couldn't break down in front of them; it was out of the question for her. Because the truth of the matter was that this was different than what had happened six years ago. She wasn't a scared little girl dealing with the trauma of being raped. She was twenty-two years old, and she had been groped roughly by a drunk. It was just that it brought back all those horrible memories that she fought so hard to force back. It was just fear and shock; nothing else. She'd get over it soon enough, she told herself.
"Actually, there is something you can do," she replied softly, knowing that she had surprised him when she felt the cot jerk as he straightened.
"Tell me," Jason urged, his arresting blue eyes boring into hers.
She bit her lip and hugged her knees tighter to her chest. "You can stop looking like you're going to kill Luke and Robbie."
He sighed, drawing back slightly, but her eyes held him in place. "Elizabeth, they sent you in-"
"It wasn't their fault," the brunette responded firmly. "No one imagined that it was this big. Luke brought me down here thinking that I'd go in, get out, and be back home in a week." She shook her head, still worrying her bottom lip. "No one could have predicted this, Jason. And it's my fault more than anything."
Not knowing what to say, Jason finally gave in and let his actions take over. Without stopping to think and talk himself out of it, he reached out and swept her rich hair away from her face, tucking it behind the delicate shell of her ear and letting his fingers linger there.
The tender gesture shocked her, but to her credit, Elizabeth didn't pull away, though her body did tense up slightly. Their eyes locked, blue on blue, and a silent message passed there as Jason gently skimmed this thumb down the petal-soft skin of her jaw before acquiescing in a nod so slight that it would have been imperceptible had she not been seeking it. Letting out a sigh, Elizabeth lowered her head, resting her chin on her knees, and allowed herself a moment to draw in the security and comfort that Jason's presence offered.
He wanted to kiss her – to pull her close and press a kiss to where her hairline met her forehead – but Jason resisted. He allowed himself to take her hand once, to sweep his rough, calloused thumb over her pale, silky skin, before reluctantly standing and moving to his own cot a few feet away.
Luke and Robert emerged from the bathroom and surveyed the room. Actually, Robert surveyed – Luke teetered. The commissioner sought his old friend's shoulder and guided him over to his mattress, slinging the older Spencer down onto it like a bag of bricks. He noticed that the guards were pacing in the corner and that Sonny and Jason were both seated on their respective cots, weary from the ordeal. Lucky, too, was fluffing his pillow nearby, occasionally shooting a concerned glance Elizabeth's way. Robert peered at the young woman, noticing her rigid posture and how she hugged her knees to her chest, and called out gently.
"I'm going to turn off the lights – that okay with everyone?"
A chorus of murmurs answered him, but of course, Robert was only waiting to hear a certain one. Having received the affirmation, he shut off the lights and plunged the bunker into darkness. Moving quickly to his own cot, he reached inside his duffel bag and felt around until he found the item he was looking for. Giving it a quick shake to make sure it was operational, Robert switched the flashlight on and arranged it to stand vertically near his bed, casting a white circle of light on the ceiling.
Looking over at Elizabeth, he could see from the faint glow that her features had relaxed a bit thanks to his impromptu nightlight. He sat on his cot, waiting for her to finally let go of her knees and lay down on her bed. After what seemed like an eternity, the brunette slowly stretched out and slipped under her sheet, curling into a ball once more. Robert sighed and lay down as well, at a loss for what else to do to calm her nerves.
Lucky, apparently, had an idea. The men looked up as he stood up and grabbed his sheet and his pillow before stalking over to where Elizabeth lay. He spread the sheet out on the floor next to her, and set his pillow down before lying down on top of it and pulling the other half over him.
The brunette pushed herself up on her elbow, surprised but inwardly relieved that her ex was now on the floor right next to her bed. Even in the dim light, Lucky could see her small smile.
"Now go to sleep before I start singing the Elizabeth song in front of everyone."
She huffed, secretly amused, and flopped down on her cot once more to try to get some sleep.