It was after 4 a.m. by the time Nikolas had worn himself out enough to finally give into the sleep that had plagued him for hours now. He had fought the temptations to collapse into a deep slumber somewhere around 2 a.m., hoping against hope that his sister would come to her senses and finally call him. Then, he started to worry that maybe Lulu was already too far gone to realize what was happening to her. For the longest time, the family's biggest fear was that their youngest would become just like her mother. Nikolas and Lucky had spoken of it often, each wondering what they would do if that time were to ever come. Now, as he slept restlessly on his sofa in the memory-laden sitting room, he knew exactly what he would have to do. He would have to wait.

Nadine had tried to convince him to sleep more than once but mostly kept quiet as he let loose all the thoughts and fears tumbling around in his mind. She was patient as he regaled the history of his mother's fight with psychosis and pondered possible courses of action for his younger sister. She had quickly realized that Nikolas didn't really need anyone to give him advice. He needed someone to be his sounding board, to help him make sense of so many senseless things. He needed someone that could justify the way that he felt and how lost he had become in such a short time. Nadine knew that Emily had long played that part in his life, and now, he had quietly passed that torch onto her. It was a monumental moment in some ways, and she wasn't about to take that lofty responsibility too lightly.

True to his word, he had paced around the living room for quite some time, alternating between sips of warm brandy and long diatribes about anything and everything under the sun. He asked rhetorical questions that didn't have answers and paused at odd moments to stare at the dancing flames in his overly ornate fireplace. She sat cross-legged on the couch, hands clutching a sifter of her own, and simply listened. She asked questions at the appropriate time and kept silent when she could see that he was trying to work something out in his head. When he eventually came back to sit on the couch next to her, she turned to him and let him nearly talk himself to sleep. Finally, when the tears resurfaced again, she wrapped her arms around his shaking body and drew him into a peaceful embrace.

Using the same gentle and soothing affection usually reserved for the pediatric patients at General Hospital, she managed to coax him into lying down beside her. Resting her head in his lap like a little boy, Nikolas listened as Nadine talked about her childhood in the Midwest in a soft, steady tone. She stroked his hair as she spun tales of growing up with the infamous Aunt Rayleen and reminisced on times when her sister had been someone actually worth loving. It comforted Nikolas to know that a child's life could truly be surrounded by so much light. His own upbringing had been terribly dark, and his biggest fear had been brining Spencer up in the same sinister world. Hearing Nadine's stories made him hopeful for so many things, a feeling that he had not felt in a very long time. Her optimism had been infectious since she had met him and that was something he wanted to instill in his son someday.

Now, as Nikolas slept in her lap, Nadine kept running her fingers through his hair rhythmically, determined to do anything she could do to bring him peace. Wyndamere was eerily quiet at this hour, not that there was ever much activity bustling in the mausoleum. She could hear the howling wind rustling in the elm trees outside in the courtyard and the faint call of a ship coming into the nearby harbor. She thought about falling asleep but knew that it was almost time for her to get up for her shift at GH anyhow. The last thing she wanted to do was leave Nikolas in this condition but she knew that he likely wouldn't let her stay. Knowing him, he would wake up slightly embarrassed for being so vulnerable and emotionally open anyhow. Closing her eyes, she promised herself that she would only doze for a few minutes as she sunk her head back into the plush cushion.

Minutes turned into nearly an hour before a cry from above awoke Nadine with a startle. She forgot where she was for a moment before feeling the weight of a sleeping Nikolas still resting against her thighs. A second cry came again, and Nadine recognized immediately as Spencer's. She waited for Nikolas to wake up, but his restless sleep had become much more fitful since she drifted off. Maneuvering him off her lap, she pulled a blanket over his body before crawling up the stairs toward Spencer's bedroom. He was sitting on the edge of the bed when she came in, his face buried in his knees as he clung desperately to a tattered plaid blanket.

"Oh, honey, did you have a bad dream?" she asked softly, slowly prying his hands from his face so that she could gather the small boy in his arms. He nodded against her as he pressed his face into her shoulder. Spencer didn't even ask why she was at his house or where his father was. Nadine knew that the little boy had always liked her and had taken to her instantly the first time they'd played with his train set in the living room. She started to rub her hands over his back as they rocked together on his bed. "It's okay, you're safe. I'm here now."

Spencer started to slowly tell her what had happened in his nightmare. He was still visibly shaken as he recounted the scary ghosts that had chased him in his dream and how he hadn't been able to find Nikolas to save him. Tears shone in his dark eyes as he expressed his anxiety, and Nadine did her best to comfort the young boy just as she had his father. "It was really scary," he told her. "I kept trying to find Daddy, but he wasn't anywhere. I could hear him calling out to me, but I was all by myself."

"You don't have to worry," she promised as he buried his face back into her shoulder, soaking the thin cotton of her tee with his tears. "You're not alone, honey. Your daddy is right downstairs asleep on the couch, and he's not going anywhere. Everything is fine. The monsters aren't real, they can't get you."

Wiping away his chocolate brown eyes with the back of his hand, Spencer peered wearily up at Nadine. "Will you stay with me until I fall back asleep?" he pleaded as she settled him off her lap and back beneath the covers. Nadine arranged the blanket around his chin and pressed the hair away from his face. There was no way she could deny him, even if she wanted to. She easily agreed to stay with him until he fell asleep and snuggled beneath the thick comforter beside him. "Thanks for coming up to get me."

His sleepy tone brought a small smile to Nadine's face as she wrapped her arm around the small child. "I will always be here if you need me," she proclaimed confidently. Even if she was nothing more than a friend to Nikolas, she would do anything for his little boy. He had already lost so much at a young age, a trait that sadly mirrored his father all too much. "Why don't we close our eyes now and when you wake up, I will make you and your daddy chocolate chip pancakes?"

A wide grin spread across his face as he squeezed his eyes shut tightly. Nadine giggled at his over exaggerated antics and tickled his sides lightly. Spencer laughed loudly in response, his high-pitched chuckled echoing up toward the high ceilings. His laugh only made her giggle louder and harder, and before either of them knew it, they were both breathless and gasping for air.

Nikolas awoke with a startle as he heard laughter floating down the stairs. He sat up sleepily and looked around the room from Nadine, but he heard her before he could see her. Following the sounds of shared laughter up the staircase, he padded down the hallway and stopped just outside Spencer's door to listen to the two of them. "Alright, we better get some sleep now if you are ever going to get those pancakes."

"Okay," Spencer agreed reluctantly. Nikolas could see his son turn to Nadine through the slightly cracked door. Spencer threw his arms around Nadine and hugged her tightly. It wasn't loss on Nikolas how easily the little boy showed affection toward her. It was clear that he was comfortable and trusted the blonde nurse. The image sent warmth through Nikolas' body because it was the first time since Emily had died that he had seen his son seem so at ease with anyone other than him. "Good night, Nadine."

"Good night, Spencer," she retorted as she absently kissed the top of the boy's head. Nadine waited a few minutes, occasionally looking down at her bedmate to see if he was asleep. Spencer fell asleep rather quickly, his breaths light and even. She contemplated crawling out of bed to return to Nikolas but relished the feeling of the little boy in her arms. She had always wanted to be a mother, and being around kids all day at the hospital had brought out the nurturer in her even more. Just as she was about to pry herself from beneath Spencer, she caught Nikolas gazing at her from the doorway. "Hi," she mouthed to him.

"Hey," he whispered as he came into the room and knelt by the bedside to talk to her. His voice was hushed as to not wake his son, but the intimacy of his tone did something unexpected to her. "You could have woken me up, I would have taken care of him."

"He just had a bad dream," she brushed him off. "You need your sleep, and I love taking care of people. Spencer just needed a little TLC, no big deal. He's asleep now, don't worry."

"You're good with him."

"Thanks," she blushed, trying not to shake too much as he tucked a blonde tendril behind her ear. "It's pretty hard not to fall in love with him. You have an amazing kid here, Nikolas. I know you realize how blessed you are to have him in your life."

Nikolas nodded in agreement. "I do," he acknowledged. "He is the very best of both his mother and me. You didn't know Courtney, but she was a pretty incredible woman. I always thought it would have to take someone like that to make me love anyone other than Emily. I didn't really expect her, you know, but she still happened to me. Part of me regrets the time I spent away from Em, but one look at that little boy and I know that we were together for all the right reasons, even if it was only for a moment. He has her free spirit and kind generosity and big heart."

"Spencer is definitely those things, but don't sell yourself short," she implored. "You are those things, too. You've taught your son how to take those qualities and translate them into how he treats the people around him. I've watched the way he looks at you. He wants to be just like you. You are the single most important person in his life, the one person in this world he can count on."

"How is it that you always see the very best version of me?" he asked with a slight smirk. Nadine shrugged coyly and quirked an eyebrow. "You amaze me sometimes. You even made me forget about my sister for a little while. I have to remember not to lose sight of Spencer through all of this. I didn't put him first like I should have for months. It was always something – my illness or Emily's death. I was too wrapped up in myself to be the father that I needed to be."

Adjusting herself so that she could pull her arm from beneath Spencer, Nadine turned on her side to fully face Nikolas. She reached out and cupped his cheek lightly, hoping that he wouldn't recoil at her touch. "You're allowed to not be perfect, Nikolas. I know there is this image in your head that you think that you need to live up to, but I promise that is not the way that Spencer sees you. It's not the way Lucky or Lulu see you either. The people that really love you see you for who you are. You're a kind and generous man who makes mistakes but learns from them. You're not the Cassadine family. You're not a prince. You're just you."

"I wish I could believe that," he sighed wearily. The first rays of the morning sun were beginning to creep into the bright room. He noticed the way the light shone over her hair, casting an angelic halo of the crown of her blonde strands. He reached up to touch the place where her hand still rested on the side of his face. Tangling her slender fingers in his, he brought her hand up to his lips and brushed a kiss over the knuckles. "Thank you for being my friend, Nadine. I'm really glad that you refused to let me be alone when that was the only thing I thought I wanted in the world."

Nadine simply nodded before looking down at the stainless steel diver's watch hanging loosely around her wrist. "I can't believe it's already after five. I should really be getting up and back to my apartment. I'm supposed to be over at the hospital for my shift in less than an hour. Epiphany will kill me if I'm late again. She's already threatened to start docking my pay for every minute I'm late."

"I'll just have to talk to Nurse Johnson to make sure that doesn't happen."

"Nikolas," she warned all the while trying to hide her smile.

"Hey, what good is having a place on the hospital board if I can't help out the people that I care about?" he asked. "Besides, you don't have to worry about going in today. I called Elizabeth a half-hour ago to tell her that you weren't going to make your shift. She agreed to find one of the new interns to cover it."

There it is again, Nadine thought. She hated that he was always making these decisions for her. Even if he had explained to her earlier, she still needed him to understand that he couldn't run her life. "You shouldn't have done that," she replied pointedly. "I don't have that many vacation days, and I really need the money. I can't just go wasting my days off because I made the choice to stay up all night with you. I could have managed to get through a half-day shift just fine."

Nikolas resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he stared at her seriously. "First of all, I will make sure that this doesn't count against you. If Dr. Ford gives you any grief, I will just inform him that I had you fill in at the clinic, and before you argue with me, I'm gong to do it anyhow so you might as well get used to it," he informed her. "Second of all, I didn't ask Liz to find someone for you just because I thought you would be tired. I have a lot of decisions I am going to have to make about Lulu today, and I'm going to need you to help me. I can't do this without you, Nadine. I needed you to stay home for me."

"Oh," she murmured sheepishly, dropping her eyes to avoid his gaze. She was slightly shocked when Nikolas boldly tilted her chin to force her to look at him again. "I'm sorry, I just don't want you to think that you need to save me…"

"Don't you see?" he asked gravely. His voice was filled with such desperation that Nadine almost didn't recognize the man kneeling before her. He wasn't stoic or graceful or confident. He was wide open to her. "Don't you see that I need you to save me?"

That question made Nadine want to kiss Nikolas. She wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything in her life. Instead, she pulled back the blanket and managed to move Spencer to the far side of the bed next to the wall. Turning on her side, she lay like a spoon behind the little boy and wrapped her arms around him. "Get in," she ordered without looking back at him over her shoulder. She soon felt the weight of Nikolas on the small toddler bed as he slid beneath the sheets beside her. His arms wrapped easily around her and his son, embracing the three of them like a warm cocoon. Nikolas sighed happily as he rested his chin on her shoulder, his warm breath tickling the fine hairs at the nape of her neck. "Hey, Nikolas?"

"Hmm?"

"We'll save each other."