Disclaimer: Still nothing.
Chapter 13: "Right by Me, Remembering"
They rolled into Port Charles under cover of night. They set up camp in Sonny's safe house. Sonny was there to meet him and was so shocked to see Lucky he was speechless for several moments. He had taken Lucky's death so hard because the fire had been on his property, and even after the inspector's report had come back, he blamed himself for a long time afterward. Though he never told anyone, he was convinced that the fire had been staged as a warning to him. When he had finally recovered his voice he pulled Lucky into a hug and said, "It's good to see you."
"Thank you for helping us," Lucky said, not sure how to respond to Sonny's emotional reaction.
"No problem," Sonny answered. "And if there's anything else I can do, come to me and I'll do whatever I can. My men are here to help you if you need them. As drivers, protection, anything."
"Thanks, Sonny," Luke said, actively willing himself to forget all the animosity he had felt and directed towards his former partner over the past year. Sonny brushed him off easily, letting him know it was all forgotten.
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Lucky stood at the window in the bedroom, staring out at the utter blackness of the night. Though he was fairly sure that no one knew he was back, he was still worried. Word had circulated through town (thanks to Sonny and his organization) that Elizabeth had gone to Texas to join her grandmother, so she was hiding out in the safe house with him. Her presence had an incredible calming effect on him.
"Do you remember when we went to check out the art school?" Elizabeth's question drew him away from the window with the suddenness of it.
"Of course," he answered. "I remember every moment I spent with you. What made you think of it?"
Elizabeth crinkled her nose. "I was just thinking about Eli's ribs, which made me think about those awful ribs we had delivered to the hotel."
Lucky's stomach gave an involuntary lurch at the remembrance of those affronts to barbeque ribs. He smiled. "Yeah, they were pretty bad." He sat down on the bed next to Elizabeth and leaned back into the pillows.
"For the longest time," Elizabeth began slowly, "I regretted that night." Lucky stiffened at her words, but he let her continue. "I thought about it every day and I regretted it so much."
"Why?" Lucky managed to choke out.
"I thought you were dead," she tried to explain. "I thought you were gone forever and I regretted...not being ready." Lucky exhaled, finally understanding. "I thought I'd missed my chance and knowing that I'd never got to be with you...it ate away at me."
Lucky let his eyes drift away, as if focusing on some distant spot. "I thought about that night nearly every day, too," he said. "And I'm sorry to hear you regret it so much because that memory was a kind of safe place for me. I always thought of when we went to bed, and I was sleeping on the floor. After a while you came down to sleep on the floor next to me. You put your arm around my waist and I could feel your breath on my neck. It was the single most peaceful, complete moment of my life. I spent so many nights just thinking that if I could feel that breath again, maybe the whole nightmare would have proved to be just that...a nightmare and nothing else."
"I guess that's what grief can do to you," Elizabeth wondered aloud. "Make you doubt everything that you did, regret all the things you didn't do. Make you second guess your entire life together until you're not sure you ever did anything right."
"If it's any consolation for your year of doubt," Lucky started to say, "with me you never did anything wrong."
"Oh yeah?" Elizabeth was starting to smile. "What about all the insults I managed to throw at you and nearly every member of your family the day we met?"
Lucky laughed at the memory. "Well, that's different," he insisted. "You didn't know me then."
"What about the time I..."
"Don't be so smart," Lucky cut her off with a little gentle shove. "You know what I mean."
"I know what you mean," she assured him. "But I still have the right to give you a hard time about it."
"Yes," he admitted. "Yes you do. And I still have the right to do this." He fell on her with tickling fingers and Elizabeth laughed, a clear, lively laugh that neither one of them had heard in a very long time.
