A few days later, Lulu slept in a ball on the couch in the sitting room, her blonde hair fanned to cover her face. Snuggled beneath a steel gray chenille throw, she had snuck off from a long lunch with the family after listening to Edward go on and on about the Quartermaine obligations they had surrounding their impending reception. After much badgering from the older man, Dillon had eventually relented on the subject, agreeing that it would be good for ELQ to have some kind of semblance of family unity for such an occasion as their wedding. She had flat out refused to have a second wedding, so they had agreed on the compromise of a formal reception.

"No!" she screamed in her sleep, her voice echoing throughout the entire house. Sitting straight up, she could feel her entire body quaking with fear. She called out for Dillon and then her father, praying that someone would come to ease her mind. When someone finally did show up, she almost wished that she had kept her mouth shut.

"Are you okay?" Tracy asked with concern, sitting next to the girl on the edge of the couch. Reaching up, she pushed Lulu's soft ringlets back from her tanned forehead. "What were you dreaming about? I heard the terror in your voice; it had to be something pretty awful to bring that tone out."

Lulu looked down at her hands, which were balled into tight fists. Tracy seemed to notice as well as she carefully unfolded the girls white knuckles. Gripping Lulu's fingers loosely in her hands, Tracy brushed her thumb across her palm reassuringly. The gentle touch reminded Lulu of her mother for a moment while Tracy thought back to her own mother. Lila had done the very same gesture so many times to calm Tracy down.

"I had blocked a lot of the hostage situation out of my mind. I didn't want to think about it," she said softly. "But since the session, I've dreamt about it every single time I've closed my eyes. I'm remembering it in bits and pieces, tiny flashes and fragments of a very vivid nightmare. The first night I remembered what it was like to hold a compress over Robin's body. It seemed so real; I could even smell the blood."

"Lainey told your father that this might happen," Tracy retorted. "She said that the family session was designed to break down a dam that your mind has built up. You didn't want to remember anything, so you constructed this thing to help keep the memories at bay. Now, they are flooding to your mind, coming at you whenever and however they can. In order to fully move on, you have to relive through everything again. Maybe it would help if we talked about your latest dream."

Pulling her knees up to her chin, she rested her forehead against her forearm. "Toward the end, my father got desperate. He showed up and tried to help Lucky get us out. Then, Alan came out, and they put themselves in harm's way to save his life. Anyhow, he must have come back, and knowing him, I'm guessing that no one wanted him there. Somewhere in there, he must have gone to Skye and Alcazar."

"I don't know all the details," Tracy nodded, "but I know that he wanted to try to get the combination to the briefcase. Eventually, he did get into the hotel, as you know, to get to you. There was a lot that happened in between, including the brief period he was handcuffed to the pipe."

"Well, while my father was negotiating with Craig, he held me at gunpoint," Lulu said. "I don't know how I managed to suppress that because now that I've remembered it, I can't shake the feeling. I can still feel it, the cold metal pressed against my temple. It was so heavy, almost like the weight of the world existed on that single barrel. He'd already shot that gun once on a hostage, and I knew that he wouldn't hesitate to do it again."

Putting her arm maternally around her new daughter-in-law, Tracey pulled Lulu to her body. Swaying gently, she formed an organized pattern of breath to make her feel some sense of normalcy. "Go on," she prodded.

"It still smelled like gunpowder. I had forgotten what that smelled like. My mom always used to tell me that it smelled like crayons, but I could never quite put my finger on it. It just has this distinct odor, and there's nothing like it in the world," she remembered. "I tried not to flinch, afraid that even the smallest involuntary twitch would cause his trigger finger to react."

"What was going on inside your head?"

"I wanted to see Dillon, and I wanted to see my mother. Honestly, those were the only thoughts going through my mind at that time. Eventually, I started to think about Lucky, Nikolas and my dad. I felt angry at myself for wasting time being mad at Lucky and regretting the fact that I haven't been closer to Nikolas. I wished that I had been able to accept my father for who he was earlier. I thought about Cam and Spencer, too. The only solace I could find…" Her voice trailed off as her eyes shifted into a distant gaze. Whatever what was on her mind was going to be something very difficult for her to admit.

"Lulu, what else were you thinking about in there?" Tracy pushed, careful not to press to hard. She knew that if she could get her to the place, Lulu might be on the verge of a very significant breaking point.

Bringing her gaze back to Tracy, Lulu focused all of her attention on the antique ruby broach affixed to her stepmother's collar. "I knew that if I died, at least I would be with my baby again," Lulu admitted. "I thought that maybe this was God's way of punishing me or making me live up to my responsibilities. If I hadn't done that, maybe I wouldn't have been there."

"Lulu, can I ask you a question?"

"What?" she replied with a raised eyebrow.

"Do you blame Dillon for this?"

"Of course not!" she cried incredulously. "Dillon didn't do this. He didn't hold me hostage."

"Then you can't blame yourself either," Tracy returned. "You didn't get yourself pregnant; that situation wasn't entirely your fault. You didn't put yourself in that hostage situation; it wasn't your fault at all. I want you think about it. Dillon could blame himself for everything. He asked you to be at the hotel. He could have stayed down there with you or went down on his own. Instead, he let you go down there. You were there to meet him. And if you want to bring the abortion into it, he helped put you there. Would you want him to blame himself?"

"I'd give my life if it meant keeping this kind of pain away from him."

Tracey scoffed to herself. "Where have I heard those words before?" she muttered. "Dillon said the exact same thing that night. He would have traded places with you in an instance, and despite how much I love my son, I probably would have let him."

"You would have let him do that for me?"

She shook her head slightly. "It wouldn't have just been for you, Lulu," she explained. "It would have been for my family. For your father, for you and for my son because I know that it would have been what they wanted in varying degrees. Your father would rather he be in there than either of you kids, and Dillon would rather be in there instead of you."

"They both really love me, don't they?"

"More than you will ever know."

"They both love you, too, you know? I think it's something that we definitely have in common. The way I look at it, we're pretty damn lucky. I don't think I can name two men more willing to go the distance for the women they love. And we get to have both of them in our lives."

"You're lucky to have who?" Luke asked as he strode into the room. Coming back from his weekly visit with his comatose angel, he was more chipper than usual. All in all, his life was better than it had been in quite some time. While it was a long way from perfect, he was actually happy.

"We're both lucky to have you," Lulu smiled widely, her genuine happiness radiating from her eyes. Reaching over, she threw her arms around her father's neck without abandon, reminding them both of a time when she was a much smaller kid. "And now, I am going to go tell my husband how lucky I am to have him, especially since he has agreed to coordinate all the details with Edward so that I don't have to deal with it."

"Wow, he must really love you," Luke remarked dryly, earning a sharp jab from Tracy in the ribs. "Hey, you know it's true."

"He's still my father. I can say whatever I want to about him because he's family."

"We're all family," Lulu reminded her before bounding toward the staircase. She could still hear her father quibbling with Tracy as she stepped off the landing. Stopping, she listened to their bickering voices for a minute. They really were lucky to have found each other – all of them. "There you are."

"I'm glad that you are home. Grandfather is driving me insane with all these invitation requests. I am starting to regret it."

"You're just now starting?" she taunted as she fell onto the bed next to him, snuggling up to his body like a spoon. Serenity immediately consumed her exhausted frame as he buried his nose in the crevice of her neck. "Your mom and I just decided something."

"That could be dangerous."

"We are both lucky to have you. You'd give your life for me, and let me tell you, that's a pretty powerful thing."

"I won't pretend that you're an easy woman to love, Lu, but your father was right. Nothing in the world has ever been more worth it," he murmured into her ear. "Georgie once told me that if you kept pushing me away, eventually I was going to have to let you go. I told her that you were my lifeline, and that I was yours. One couldn't fully exist without the other."

"Have you ever thought about leaving Port Charles?" she asked out of nowhere.

"Of course, to go to Los Angeles to be a director," he answered nonchalantly. "Where did that come from? Do you want to leave?"

"I used to want to get out of here more than anything. I thought that it was the only way I could ever be happy," she recollected. "Leaving would have been the biggest mistake I ever made. Now, I don't think I'd ever want to be anywhere else. Port Charles is my home."

"It's a pretty powerful thing to have all your memories wrapped up into one place. That's one of the many things I admire about you. There's a whole lifetime for you here."

"I used to be jealous that Lucky grew up on the run with my parents and that I was the one who had the so-called stability of growing up in one house, one town. Now, I wouldn't change it for anything in the world. Despite all the drama and people set on seeing my family fail, Port Charles has my heart."

"And what about me? What do I have?"

"The best of my love," she repeated, stealing the title of her favorite Eagles song.

"Who knew you were so sentimental?"

As Lulu was about to reply, she heard the unwanted melody of her phone ringing from beneath the stack of pillows. Rolling her eyes, she pulled it out and answered it with an exasperated tone. "Hello?"

"Elizabeth is in labor, and there are complications," Nikolas rattled over the phone. "Call Lucky and meet us here. It's not looking good&