Chapter 17 - "The Four Musketeers"

"Who's fine?" Emily asked, startling Nikolas so that he practically jumped out of his skin.

"Good Lord, Emily," he exclaimed. "You scared me. What are you doing here?"

"I followed you," Emily told him matter-of-factly. "Who's fine?" she repeated.

"I'm not sure what you mean," Nikolas delayed.

Emily raised her eyebrows. "You were talking to Bobbie Spencer, both at the hospital and here and then you called your mother and said, 'he's fine'. Who's he?" Her voice was growing more and more desperate, that irrational hope in her heart just about ready to explode with anticipation.

Nikolas looked her hard in the eyes for a few seconds. He knew she deserved to know about Lucky, knew that she'd loved him as much as anyone, but he was wary of including anyone else in their already crowded and dangerous cat and mouse game. But he also knew Emily wasn't going to give up. She knew there was something important going on and she would press everyone, him, Bobbie, Laura, even Sonny for information until she discovered the truth. Finally, after much internal debate, he relented. He gently pulled Emily closer and in a whisper, without mentioning his name, assured her what she had hoped was true.

"I want to see him," she demanded. Nikolas started to protest but she cut him off. "No, Nikolas, I want to see him with my own eyes. You got to, Bobbie did...I want to see him."

Nikolas surrendered. He explained that he would have to arrange for one of Sonny's drivers to take them to the safe house.

"Sonny knows?" Emily asked, taken aback.

"Yes, he knows. He's been hiding Lucky and Elizabeth in his safe house since they got back."

"Well, that's no problem then," she said. She pulled out her phone and quickly dialed a number. "This is Emily Quartermaine," she started. "I need to talk to Sonny...no, I need to talk to him now, it's urgent...Sonny? Yes you can. You can take me to Lucky." Nikolas gave her a warning look when she said the name out loud, but she ignored him. "Now," she continued. "I know where he is, I just need you to take me to him...Pier 12...thank you, Sonny." She hung up and turned back to Nikolas. "Someone is coming to get me," she explained, somewhat unnecessarily.

"That was quick," Nikolas joked.

Emily was all seriousness. "I'm not moving from this spot unless it's to go see him." After some beats of silence she asked, "I don't suppose you could explain any of this, could you?"

He shook his head. "Not here, not now."

"I figured as much."

Sonny's car finally arrived, and they were surprised to find that Sonny had arrived as well. "You didn't need to come, too," Emily assured him. "Nikolas was here."

"When Jason left I promised I'd look after you when I could," Sonny said.

"Thank you."

Once inside Sonny's car, Nikolas tried to explain what he knew. He recounted the course of events from Lucky's appearance at Elizabeth's window to his trip to the safe house to reunite with his brother.

"How did he get off Helena's yacht?" Emily asked, thoroughly engrossed with the story. "He must have had guards?"

"I don't know, Emily," Nikolas told her. "I don't think Lucky really wanted to talk about it...he didn't say anything about it to me and no one else offered me any details."

Emily continued to barrage Nikolas with questions until the car pulled through the woods up to the safe house. When the house came into view she became cautiously silent. Sonny opened the door for her, but she couldn't move. "It's okay, Em," Nikolas said gently. "It's gonna be fine."

Emily nodded, as if trying to psyche herself into being prepared. Nikolas walked her to the door, gave her a squeeze of the shoulders and, after a quick knock, used the key Sonny had given him and opened the door.

When she actually saw his face and looked into his eyes, Emily was stunned. She wanted to scream, cry and laugh all at the same time. She was so still that Lucky had to come to her. He enveloped her in his arms and for a moment no one said anything. Both Nicholas and Elizabeth stood back, knowing that Lucky and Emily's friendship stretched back farther than either of them.

When she finally emerged from Lucky's hug, Emily, wiping the tears from her eyes, smacked him across the chest. "If you ever, I mean ever, Spencer, scare me like that again, I'll kill you myself. Not that it would do any good. Apparently you lot have nine lives or something."

"Well, this was hardly my fault," Lucky argued, automatically adopting the jokingly combative mode he and Emily had always shared. "How are you?" he asked, getting serious.

"Who cares?" Emily scoffed. "I'm fine. I've been fine. Are you okay?"

"Loaded question, Em," he answered.

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The four of them sat on the bed and if one looked at the snapshot of the group out of context they would think it was another average day for the friends. If only for a moment they were happy and appeared carefree.

For the next hour, Lucky, Nikolas and Elizabeth attempted to bring Emily up to speed while still keeping the major dangerous details off the table. They tried to avoid any mention of their piecemeal plans, but Emily was shrewd and, knowing Lucky as long as well as she did, she knew there was something she wasn't being told.

"Spill it, Spencer," she ordered. "For better or worse, I'm in this now – you are not going to leave me out of this."

"Emily," Nikolas started to caution, "this isn't like the Four Musketeer days. This is real stuff and it's going to be very dangerous."

"I don't care," she protested. "My life has not exactly been a poster example of domestic tranquility. I can handle myself and I can help. I know it."

Nikolas shook his head. "You don't know how vicious..."

"As far as I'm concerned," Lucky cut him off, "you're in."

Both Emily and Nikolas turned from their mini-argument and looked at him, surprised. He had spoken so suddenly, but he was calm and appeared perfectly serious.

Nikolas opened his mouth as if to protest, but Lucky cut him off by raising his hand. "I think Emily has a pretty good idea what she's up against," he said. "She's not blind and Helena's not exactly subtle. She has just as much right to be involved as Elizabeth does and I know I have about as much hope of talking her out of it as I do of talking Elizabeth out of it." The girls smiled at each other and nodded. "And I may know better than anyone what Emily is capable of. So...if my word mean's anything, she's in."

"That's good enough for me," Elizabeth agreed.

Nikolas grumbled under his breath, but agreed.

Emily gave a little cheer. "Okay, now really fill me in. What's the plan?"

Quickly, Lucky told her everything that they knew and everything that was on the table. Unfortunately it wasn't much. "Whenever we decide anything else, we'll let you know, either through Nikolas of Sonny."

As Emily was pulling on her coat, ready to leave Lucky gave her one last warning. "Obviously, you can't tell anyone about me," he said. "Try not to talk to Aunt Bobbie too much – or at all really – so no one will think the two of you know something everyone else doesn't. Just keep going with your life as normally as possible. If you can, make mention of Elizabeth being in Texas with Audrey. Anything to make everything look normal."

"I will," Emily promised.

He gave her one last hug and, making sure Nikolas wasn't listening, whispered, "Hug Lila for me."

A sly smile crossed Emily's lips and she winked.