"Okay, this is the one Spencer drew this morning. He told me that it is supposed to be trees and flowers, but I still think that it looks like a tornado. A beautiful tornado, but a tornado nonetheless," Nikolas announced as he held up the single sheet of construction paper in front of Nadine. Her eyes were closed. She couldn't see the mass of blue, red and green scribbles. She couldn't hear the words that he was saying. She didn't even know that he was here. Still, Nikolas kept on talking and showing her the stack of artwork his son had created especially for her. "We worked on this one together. Spencer drew three horses, and I did the trees. It's supposed to be the three of us that day in the clearing. It was his idea."

Every single time he came into that room, no matter how hard he tried, Nikolas still hoped that this would be the time that he would find her cornflower blue eyes wide open, just waiting for him. He had spent nearly every waking hour at her bedside, patiently holding vigil over her comatose body while he prayed for a miracle. After all he had been through in his life, after all she had been through in her life, he felt like they both deserved one. And yet, every time he left General Hospital, he was a little more discouraged that she still wasn't awake. It had been almost a week, and he knew that every passing day lessened her chances for a full recovery. It was hard to hold onto hope but he had to. She had believed once when he had wanted to give up, and it was his turn to be that person for her.

Brushing his fingers over his tired face, Nikolas stood up to carefully arrange the various drawings across the window sill to the picture window that took up most of the north wall in Nadine's room. He had moved her just down the hall from her sister a day after Patrick decided to move her out of ICU. Her private room was one of the biggest in the hospital and gave him plenty of room to pace the floor while he waited for her to wake up. When he wasn't covering every inch of the cold tile, he had made up his mind to surround her with the things that she loved. He had convinced her building manager to let him into her apartment so that he could bring her favorite blanket and a few family photographs to decorate her room. He had fresh flowers sent in every morning and brought her pictures every day from Spencer. It was such a minor thing to do for her, but it was all that he could do for her right now. It made him feel at least a little better to know she would have loved it.

Turning back, he watched her chest rise and fall steadily for a moment before resuming his customary position hunched over her bed. He would hold her hand for hours as he told her stories about growing up in Europe or recount things going on with her friends or simply read to her from the book she kept on her bedside table. Reading had been such a comfort to Emily when she was fighting cancer, and he wanted it to provide that same sense of solace to Nadine. Really, it didn't matter to him what he was doing when he was in that room with her. He could spend hours completely silent, watching her sleep. He looked for every involuntarily flinch of her muscles or twitch of her eyes. His favorite was when she would let a peaceful sigh escape from her lips. Anything and everything was a small victory for him, but those sighs were the only time he really felt like she might know that he was there.

Now, as he wearily peered up at her, he would have given anything to hear her voice. Straightening up, he reached down to the paper shopping bag Alfred had sent with him. "I brought something else to show you," he told her as he lifted the envelope into his lap. "I don't know if you remember when we took these, but I finally had them developed. You look so beautiful in your dress." He held up a photograph of them together at the clinic opening and smiled. Her smile was so wide that day, her eyes enchanted by all of the attention their efforts had warranted. He had never told her that he had been equally enchanted but only by her. "Nadine, do you see it? Please, open your eyes and look at it. We were so happy that day, but as happy as I was, it doesn't even compare to how happy you've made me feel sense. Please, open your eyes for me! I need you to open your eyes."

His pleading was soft but insistent, completely useless given everything that the doctors had told him. However, Nikolas refused to fully believe that Nadine couldn't hear him. A part of him knew that she was aware that he was in that room with her and had been ever since she had been put in here. "I'm trying to be patient," he promised in a hoarse whisper as he reached for her hand. "I know that I just have to wait it out. You're in there somewhere, fighting to come back to me. I don't care what Patrick Drake says, you will come back to me. You have to come back to me, to us. Spencer misses you so much. I miss you so much. I miss us."

Nikolas rarely allowed himself to cry whenever he was with Nadine, but there were moments like these when he couldn't help it. Burying his face in the soft cotton blanket covering her body, he allowed the tears to come and consume him completely. It wasn't fair. He would have given anything to switch places with her, even though that wasn't at all what she would want. "When you wake up and are strong enough, I am going to take you as far away from Port Charles as we can get," he decided. "The three of us will go to Europe and swim in the crystal blue waters of the Aegean. We'll take my private yacht and sail over to Crete. We can just cruise through the Mediterranean. There are so many little tiny islands and the world's best beaches. You'll love it."

A knock at the door interrupted Nikolas' daydream of holding a sunkissed Nadine in his arms on the deck of his spacious ocean liner while Spencer played at their feet. Looking up, he tried to muster a smile for his brother and cousin standing in the doorway. Leaning down, he brushed a kiss over Nadine's knuckles. "I'll be back in a minute," he vowed in a hushed whisper before leaving her side. He followed Lucky and Sam into the quiet hallway and pulled the door shut behind him. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Elizabeth said that you haven't left the hospital all day," Lucky retorted. Nikolas hated the way his younger brother sounded in the moment, almost as if he was criticizing him for his devotion to Nadine. He knew that wasn't what Lucky meant, he was just concerned. "We thought we'd stop by and see if you wanted to grab a quick bite at Kelly's. You probably haven't eaten all day, and the food in this place is barely digestible."

"I appreciate the offer, but I ate a sandwich a few hours ago. Thanks for coming by," Nikolas said politely as he tried to retreat back to Nadine's side. Sam reached out and laid her hand on his shoulder to stop him. Nikolas repressed a huff as he looked down at his feet in defeat. The entire situation was wearing not only on him but also the people around him. They had been so supportive, coming by to check on him and sit with her while he spent time with his son. "I'm sorry, I just can't leave her. The only time I am not with her is when I am with Spencer. That's the only way I can justify not being here. He's sleeping over at Liz's tonight, so I am going to stay here."

Concern washed over Sam's dark eyes as she listened to her cousin. She understood where he was coming from. She had sat by Jason's side more than once when they were together, praying that he would just wake up and come back to her. She would do the same thing with Lucky if she had to. "Is there anything we can do for you?"

Nikolas shook his head before offering them a sad smile. "Just pray for her," he requested, running his fingers through his uncharacteristically unkempt hair. "I'm making sure that she gets everything that she needs, but we could use all the prayers we can get. It helps knowing that you guys come by to see her. Leyla and the other girls come by whenever they can, and Elizabeth makes sure to stop by every day. I really appreciate everything you have done for us."

Sam looked at him for a minute longer. She could sense that something was off, like he needed to talk. "I think I am going to go downstairs and call my mom. She said something about bringing the girls by tomorrow to visit you. I want to find out what time she is going to be here. Maybe all of us Cassadines can have lunch together or something." She hugged Nikolas tightly before chastely kissing Lucky on his cheek.

The two brothers watched as she disappeared around the corner, leaving them alone for the first time since the explosion. Nikolas turned away from Lucky and watched Nadine through the glass window. The two of them had been in similar situations too many times in their short lives. There had been the time when Lulu was just a baby and they had watched her fighting for her life in the pediatric ward. There were all the hours spent in oncology when Emily was struggling with breast cancer. There were the many goodbyes they had said to Laura at Shadybrook and now with Lulu. It was only fitting that they were there together while yet another person important to them laid lifelessly inside a hospital room.

Lucky shoved his hands in his pocket and moved to stand next to his brother. Neither man looked at the other as they watched her inside, the only sound between them the beeping of her heart monitor. "I love her, Lucky," Nikolas confided quietly. "I don't know if you knew that, but I do. I wanted to tell her but I kept putting it off because I wanted it to be perfect. Even now, I want to tell her but I can't. The first time I say those words to her cannot be like this. I want her to be able to say them back. I know that she would, Nadine loves me. I'm not sure I knew that before she got hurt, but spending all this time going every little memory of us together has made it abundantly clear. I don't know how I could have ever doubted our feelings for each other. That woman in there not only saved my life but she changed. She made me believe in love again."

It had taken Nikolas a long time to get past losing Emily, and in some ways, Lucky knew that he would never fully get over it. Still, he knew that Nadine's achievement was no small feat. She had restored his faith. "You don't have to do this alone," he professed confidently, unsure where those words had come from. "Nadine wouldn't want you to even try to do this on your own. We are all here for you. We love you, Nik, and by extension, we love Nadine. Anyone that you choose to love automatically gets Lu and me as part of the deal. We are a family and whatever comes our way, we will deal with it together."

"I won't lose her, Lucky. I can't go through that again. I warned Nadine that the people in my life get hurt but she didn't care. She would have risked anything, including her own life to be with me. Now I know that I would have risked mine," he confided. "I was supposed to be there that night but I got caught up at the clinic. We were going to do inventory. She was there because of me. If I hadn't asked her to work there, none of this would have happened. If I had insisted that we stop investigating the counterfeit drugs, we might not have been targeted. There are so many things I could have done differently…"

"You know as well as I do that isn't what she would have wanted," Lucky countered. "Nadine is like Sam in that way. No matter how hard I try to fight her, she insists on figuring out who is putting these drugs in our city. She cares too much about people not to try to save them. You should know that better than anyone. At least with you apart of it, it was something that you were doing together. You can't really think about what you could have done differently. You can only live in the here and now."

"I don't want to live in the here and now," Nikolas spat bitterly. How could he want this life, this day, when she wasn't here to share it with him? "Imagine waking up every day knowing that Sam can't open her eyes or say your name or hold your hand. Imagine having to see the woman you love as unreachable to you as Mom. When I lost Em, I promised myself that I would never go through that again. Now, I find myself here wondering if I've already lost her. I try not to think about that. I want more than anything to believe."

"Then believe," Lucky encouraged him as his bright azure eyes darted from Nadine to his brother. The two men moved away from the window as Epiphany arrived with Patrick to do her mid-afternoon check up. Patrick reached up to close the blinds for privacy as the duo changed out her bandages. "I've seen the way you are with Nadine. I've never seen you like that with anyone. You're happy, Nikolas, and I know that scares you. It scares you, it has to. Right now, with everything going on, it's really easy to give into that fear but you can't. If you are going to love her, really love her. Believe for her because she can't do that for herself right now."

Nikolas had an entire argument concocted in his head when Patrick came bounding out of the room. He rushed past them down the hallway, leaving the door to Nadine's room wide open. Epiphany came out breathlessly a minute later. "Nadine is awake," she grinned, her eyes sparkling with delight. She reached out and pulled on Nikolas' elbow. "She's asking for you."

Shrugging past the nurse, Nikolas sprinted into the room and to her side. Nadine's eyes fluttered open half-heartedly before shutting again. Nikolas reached down and stroked her hair before kissing the crown of her head tenderly. "Hey, you," he whispered into her ear. She turned her gaze toward him and mustered a small smile. "God, you are so beautiful."

"Charmer," she managed in a hoarse whisper, the syllables sputtering from her dry throat. Nikolas laughed at her single word as he leaned over her bed to kiss her again. He laid feathery caresses over her forehead, across her eyelids, upon each cheek and on the tip of her nose before pressing his lips to hers. She sighed contently as he pulled away, careful not to ware her out. "Happy you're here."

A moment later, Nikolas was escorted out of the room as a full medical team began to examine Nadine. He paced the hallway outside while Lucky watched him carefully, neither of them speaking. The occasional nurse or specialist would drift in or out of the room, gaining the Cassadine Prince's full attention. He tried to ask questions, but no one would address him directly. They would only glance at him awkwardly before moving on. Finally, Robin came down the hall, her pregnant belly barely hidden beneath her scrubs. Nikolas stopped his old friend with a strong hand on her shoulder. "Robin, tell me what is going on."

Robin took a deep breath. How could she explain to him that she couldn't disclose any medical information because they weren't married? She would want to know if it was Patrick. "I can't tell you much, Nikolas, but they are probably going to want to do surgery now that Nadine is awake again," she offered. "She sustained a lot of injuries and it's hard to tell the extent of her pain when she's unresponsive. Now that she can answer his questions, Patrick will have a better idea what course of action is necessary. It's going to be awhile. Why don't you head down to the waiting room? Patrick and I will come get you when we know something."

Nikolas started to argue but Lucky guided him away from Nadine's room and into the private lounge reserved for families and friends. Elizabeth was seated alone in one corner and immediately rose when she spotted her two best friends. "I saw the page come over the system," she mumbled as Lucky sat him down in the middle of the row of chairs. They sat on either side of him, flanking him as he stared listlessly at the ugly carpet. Elizabeth reached over for his hand while Lucky pressed his hand to his back. They exchanged a worried look over Nikolas' hunched back. The entire situation seemed impossible.

The three of them sat like that for nearly an hour before Patrick and Robin reappeared to give them the news. Elizabeth had tried to get details from one of the other nurses but they had been forbidden to say anything to even her. Leyla and Elizabeth neither one had been able to work on her case since Nadine was admitted. They were too close to the situation. The only nurse that Nadine worked directly with that was allowed to care for her was Epiphany and that was only because she had enough seniority and clout to dictate her own patients. The towering nurse accompanied the doctors to give the news to Nikolas now.

"Nadine has severe pain in her chest from the lung injuries that she sustained. Now that she is awake and breathing on her own, I want to try to go in and repair more of the damage that we didn't get the first time," Patrick explained. "We need to do it immediately to take advantage of the small window of time I've been given. I am going to take her down right away to start the surgery."

Another surgery, another risk, another span of time where she would be unconscious, another few hours that he wasn't with her. "Whatever is best for her," Nikolas grimaced as he looked at the two doctors. He knew that it was hard for them to have to treat one of their own, especially someone that they considered to be a friend. "I want to see her before she goes under."

"She is asking for you again," Patrick said with a curt nod. "You have just a minute before they are going to administer the anesthetic. You can walk down with her to the operating room if you want."

Nikolas followed the surgeon back to Nadine's room and tried to think of what he should say. As soon as he laid eyes on her, any plan he had fell out the window. There was nothing he could say. Tears spilled out of his eyes as he crept back to her bedside. She glanced up at him before raising her weak hand to reach for his. "None of those," she ordered softly. "Only good thoughts."

"Only good thoughts," he agreed as he squeezed her hand. "After you wake up from this surgery, you cannot leave me for a very long time, you understand? We have so much to talk about. I am tired of watching you sleep. I want to hear you laugh. I am tired of just holding your hand. I want to hold you in my arms. I am tired of not being able to kiss you. I want to kiss you until we are both senseless."

"Sounds like a plan," she agreed tiredly. "I think I have to go now, but I want you to know that I am going to come back." Nadine struggled to get out the words, but Nikolas knew that this was important to her. "I promised you, Cassadine. I will fight. I will always come back for us."

An orderly came in with Patrick to bring her down to the operating room. Nikolas clutched her hand tightly as he walked along side her bed, keeping his eyes locked on hers as they traveled down the hall. When they reached the OR, Patrick stopped and told them to say goodbye. "I'll be back soon," Nadine promised as Nikolas brushed a kiss over her forehead. "Wait for me right here."

"I'll be there when you wake up," he promised before they wheeled her through the swinging doors. Nikolas looked through the window for a minute before slinking back against the wall and sliding to the floor. Lifting his knees to his chin, he tucked his face against his legs and began the ritual of praying all over again. He would sit there however long it took Nadine to come back to him. He would stay there all night, forever if he had to. Closing his eyes, he whispered his promise to her repeatedly, over and over again. "I'm here, Nadine, I'm right here waiting for you."