Thanks for the replies!

Keep letting me know what you think!

And to be clear, Lucky isn't Liz's only option. My friend really wants it to be E&E. But if there's a large call for Liz to be with someone else, I'll take it into consideration g

Reading Guide:

In large portions

(Parentheses): Thoughts

Italics: Flashbacks

Bold: Writing

Chapter Two

In which Cam believes his mother is alive, Todd sets out to find information on his own mother, Jax is a spy and Lucky fails to regain control

(I'm in hell. This must be what hell is like) Jack Manning was on the bed of Carly Jacks, which had a silky red comforter to go with tan walls and a lush brown carpet. There was a vanity that looked a lot like the Victorian style his mom had and boasted about, and on the walls were little shelves with red candles on them (hell is really feminine…and it smells good too).

Jack rubbed his temple idly with his right pointer finger and middle finger, while another dress was thrown from Carly Jacks' closet and landed on the pile in front of him.

If he heard her tell him "I have to look perfect." One more time after deciding against a dress, he was going to kill her, then himself (anyone with a brain would understand).

How many clothes could one woman have? But then, he already knew that. His mother and sister were hoarders of the stuff, they could probably clothe all of Africa if they wanted. Hell, he wanted to see the tax break they got for the clothing donations to the Salvation Army. Carrying those loads had been almost as bad helping Carly get ready for a damn party. "Are you ready for this one?" She asked from inside the closet.

(No) "sure," he said with an exasperated sigh.

"I think this one says, 'you had me, you lost me, but if you play your cards right maybe I'll let you buy me a drink.' What do you think?"(Dresses apparently talk a lot, I need to keep that in mind for when I finally get a girlfriend who isn't trying to set me up with the cops) Carly came out wearing a sleeveless red dress that was shorter in the front than the back, reaching just above the knee, then stretching to her calves. She twirled, "so?"

"I think it says whoever made the dress couldn't cut a straight line."

She made a disgusted noise, "I had such high hopes for this, Morgan is always so good at helping me find clothes. You're just as snazzy a dresser as he is, where did my plan go wrong?"

"My mother buys all of my clothes."

She gave him a face full of scowl and he shrugged at her. "Of course she does."

"You don't buy Morgan's?"

"No." She shook her head, "he never needs me to." She put a hand on her hip and stared at him, "I need another set of eyes that will help with this fashion disaster. Ugh." She threw her hands up in the air and disappeared into the closet. "What I need is more female friends."

"Maybe you can call my mom."

She poked her head out of the closet, "I'm not invited to this party by your mother, remember?"

"Well tell her you're not screwing my dad and maybe she'll get you an invite and some fashion tips." He muttered, mostly to himself out of bitterness, before falling back on the bed and saying, very loudly, "this is so freaking ridiculous."

"Whatever. I'm wearing the red."

XXX

Sam McCall had gone over the details of Elizabeth Webber's death one thousand times.

Maybe she just wasn't that good of the PI, or maybe Elizabeth was just really dead. She was banking on the fact that it was the latter.

One year ago, Elizabeth Webber was found in a dark alley, wearing a red dress with a cord around her neck. She was brought in, but before they could examine the body it mysteriously disappeared. Two days later they found Tom Baker hanging from a noose in his tiny, dank apartment. The wrinkled copy of the suicide note that she had her hands was chilling.

She haunts me. She has haunted me since that night in the park. I had to have her one more time, but instead she had me. Now all I see is her face, all I smell is her skin, and I can no longer live with myself knowing that she is no longer in this world. Goodbye.

They never found Elizabeth's body, but that was the end of the case, for the police anyway.

It would have been the end of things for her too, she was going to give up the PI business so that she could be a proper mother to her son Jason Junior, or as she called him, JJ (but life rarely works out of the way that I want, I never get the happy ending that I deserve). She folded the note back up and put it in the pocket of her jeans before descending the steps of the docks.

She walked into the apartment, bag of groceries in one arm as she closed the door with her free hand. She flipped the light on, then promptly dropped her groceries on the floor at the sight of the teenage boy sitting Indian-style on her desk.

Cameron Webber wore a smirk that he inherited from his mother, a smirk that she hated above all others and that was a constant reminder of how terrible things could get with Jason Morgan. Sometimes she thought that Elizabeth would always be between them, and that feeling only intensified when she over heard Jason tell Lucky that when Cameron spoke, it was like Elizabeth was still alive. She tried not to hold that against the boy, but sometimes it was difficult.

"I came to say hello." This smirk was there, telling her that he had more to say than just a greeting. "And to ask why you would rat me out to Lucky? It's not really his business that I hired Spinelli to look for my mother, now is it?"

She had done that, but it had been out of worry for him. She had hoped that Lucky could talk some sense and Cameron, and maybe get him some help. "Your father is worried about you, and he should be. You're not letting go, you're holding onto this dream that your mother is still alive, but she isn't, Cam. No amount of wishing is going to bring her back, and you holding onto her just isn't healthy."

Cameron raised his eyebrows, but otherwise showed no emotion. He was calm, collected, his smirk faded and his eyes were a steely black. "So now you're suddenly really interested in the well-being of my mother's children? Where was this concern, Sam, when my brother was kidnapped?"

She felt the color drain from her face, and her mouth dropped slightly in surprise.

"Oh goody, you didn't realize I knew." Clasping his hands together for sarcastic effect, he gave her a dark look. "Did you realize I knew that you purposely set out to seduce Lucky while he was married to my mother?" Cameron went on nonchalantly, he hopped off the desk quietly and folded his arms over his chest. "So you'll excuse me if I don't buy your concern, and am more than a little miffed that you ratted me out."

She wasn't quite sure what to say, it had been a long time since anyone who brought up the fact that she had watched Jake get kidnapped. It had never been something that she was proud of, or that she put a lot of thought into because every time she did, she was eaten by guilt. Elizabeth had forgiven her, but it was clear from the look on her son's face that he never would. "Cam, even if you don't think I have your best interest at heart, you have to know that Spinelli does. He's a good guy and thatr is why he told your family that you hired him."

"I don't care." Cam smiled, but it didn't look anything like Elizabeth's that time, and it didn't reach his eyes which still glittered with hatred. "You will locate my mother, who is not dead, and you will do it quickly, Mrs. Jenkins, or I am going to call Mr. Jenkins," he reached into his pocket and pulled out a picture of her second to last mark, the husband whose bank accounts she had cleared those many years ago, "and tell him and the authorities working with him, that his beloved wife has been found. Then you'll go to jail for theft, fraud, identity theft, and whatever else they can throw your way."

"So…blackmail." She told him, narrowing her eyes, "your mother would be so proud."

"I don't want her pride, Sammykins. I want her presence."

She was lost in her memory, so lost that she almost tripped over Lucky, who was sitting at the edge of the docks looking out into the water with an expression so lost that it caused an ache in her own chest. He wore a pair of faded black jeans, and a white t-shirt that looked a little rumpled and worse for the wear. That was how he usually looked anymore though. She knew the reason for it, so she didn't ask. Instead she sat down next to him. The last time she had sat alone with a man on the docks, it had been John McBain. That had been a long time ago, John was long since back in Llanview. "Anything I can do to help?"

He shook his head, but didn't speak.

"I know she and I didn't always get along," Sam told him softly and sincerely, "but I'm really sorry you lost her."

"I lost her a long time ago." He told her after a long pause, "I willingly lost her. I tried to lose her. Don't feel sorry for me."

Sam wasn't quite sure what to say to that, after all he and Elizabeth hadn't been together when she died. She had been dating that shrink, Dr. Keenan. He was still around, and from what Sam knew, still paid attention to the whereabouts of Cameron and was trying to help him. But there was no help for Cam, he was already too far gone. "She was the mother of your children."

"Child." Lucky said bitterly, "just ask Cameron."

"Cameron is angry, but Lucky, maybe he'll grow out of it." They were empty words. She didn't hold much hope for Cameron, because she didn't think he held out much hope for himself. "He's young, that's all. Didn't your parents ever do anything to upset you when you were younger?"

He lifted his head a little, as if recalling something. Then he turned his head sideways to look at her and his blue eyes were filled with excruciating pain, like it hurt to even breathe. "Sure. And yeah, we made up. But Cameron isn't big on forgiveness, at least not since Elizabeth died." He folded his hands on his lap and looked up at the sky, "she was good at forgiveness, you know that."

"Yeah."

"I think he hates me even more because she forgave me for leaving. I think he hates me so much because she never hated me, no matter what I did to her. But I hated her, no, that's not true. I tried to hate her. I made her think I hated her. I called her a whore." He ran a hand through short, loose hair. "And he hates me because I wasn't here to protect her, maybe if I was she would still be alive."

"No," Sam had heard enough of that, it was misplaced guilt. "You have no way of knowing that. You could have been here and Tom still could've gotten her, he still could've killed her. That isn't your fault, and if Cam is blaming you for that, it's not fair."

"He'll never forgive me." Lucky went on as if she hadn't spoken at all, "he'll hate me in her honor forever, and he's right to. Because I let everyone believe that I left because I couldn't handle her pursuing me, that I didn't want to be with her…" She saw a tear roll down his cheek, then another and another. He made no tearful sounds, but there was a tightness to his voice that pulled on her heart. "But that wasn't true. I left because I was in love with her." The revelation was followed by a pregnant pause. She was surprised by his confession, after all, Lucky had even married another woman after his split from Elizabeth. "I left because I never stopped being in love with her, and I couldn't take the guilt involved in that, Sam. I couldn't handle that I married Siobhan to try and get over Elizabeth, that it never worked, and that my stupid obsession with drugs got my wife killed." He glanced over at her, looked up, then down and sucked in a breath. "So I ran. I ran just like my dad did."

He stopped talking, then looked down at the ground and pulled something up. Sam's heart jumped into her throat as he slowly unfolded the paper. She froze, and though she should have grabbed the paper from him, she didn't think to. Instead she watched his face as he read it, then wet her lips and searched her mind for an explanation to give when he looked up at her. "Why….do you have this?"

She opened her mouth to speak, then snapped it shut. What the hell was she supposed to say?

"Sam?" He asked, getting to his feet, "how did you even get this? Why would you want it?"

She closed her eyes, let out a pained sigh then climbed to her own feet so that she could look him in the eye. "I'm investigating Elizabeth's death."

XXX

Jasper Jacks had his own jet, unlimited resources and a charming smile that made women melt. He was completely and totally crush-worthy (if you didn't already once have a gut-wrenching crush on him that ended in unmitigated heartbreak, anyway. My dad always said that once a man broke your heart, it was time to give up, because men didn't learn new tricks, so they were bound to break your heart again).

Agent V Ardanowski was at the back of the plane with her partner, who was happy to be coming back to Port Charles and wrapping up the problem-at-hand, so she and her beloved husband and daughter could return home safely.

Dr. Robin Scorpio had been kidnapped by the WSB, her death faked, and her lab blown up before her drug findings could be grabbed by opposing forces, of which there were many. Her brilliant mind had stumbled upon a drug that made the mind malleable and more susceptible to suggestion, she had been working on it as a way to counter some of the drugs that her mother's kidnapper "Faison," had used on her. Wind of it had gotten to the wrong people, so advances had to be made for her protection, and for the sake of her family.

If any other organization got their grubby little hands on her findings, it would be end game. This would bring them one step closer to making the perfect conscienceless killing soldier. Not to mention, with the help of micro-chip technology, a step closer into kidnapping government agents and turning them rogue through brainwashing, thus creating a world where no person could be trusted. There were already leaps and bounds in this kind of technology, with Robin's drug…

(We'd all be screwed)

(It was terrible what the WSB did to Robin, but isn't it more terrible if they had used her drug for evil?)

"What are you thinking, V?" Jax asked in that Australian drawl that used to make her heart flutter, but now just kind of made her roll her eyes. "You look upset."

They pulled Jax in at her request. He was a face they could put in Port Charles with few questions asked. He had money, power and an uncanny ability to talk himself out of terrible situations. With a little training, he made a great agent. "I'm thinking that it's too dangerous to bring Robin back to Port Charles."

"My family is safe," Robin interrupted, looking up from her book. "Patrick and Emma are in a safe house. That's all that matters."

"It just feels like a set-up." V sighed, returning her gaze to the jet's window. "Or maybe I just don't want to pretend to be his fiancée."

"Who wouldn't want to be my fiancée?" He asked with a charming laugh.

V just rolled her eyes. This little brainchild had been the idea of Robert Scorpio, who V decided had a very annoying sense of humor.

She herself had been an agent for years, and had played the role of someone's fiancée more times than she could count- but this one felt like someone was poking fun at the old V Ardanowski. She trained Robin and she trained Jax.

"Be honest, V," Robin put in, "you just don't want the hassle of having Carly being shoved down your throat."

V laughed, tucking red strands of hair behind her ear and glancing at her partner and friend. "I've taken on international spies from every known enemy organization we've had, I've defused bombs that could have taken out millions of lives, and I infiltrated one of the most terrifying terrorist organizations of our time. I think I can handle Carly."

Jax snorted, "right. We'll see."

XXX

Starr arrived at her mother's home already dressed, knowing that her mother wasn't going to be.

But she was pleasantly surprised.

Morgan was on the computer, wearing a pair of faded, straight leg blue jeans with chucks, a classic 50's white tee and black jacket over it. His hair went every which way, green tuffs starkly contrasting his dark brown locks, with a piece falling down his forehead. The outfit was topped off with a pair of black, thick rimmed glasses and a silver lip ring on the bottom of his mouth. He glanced up and smiled, "You look fierce, Starr- but wait until you see your mother!"

Morgan kind of worshipped at the altar of Blair Cramer, so Starr didn't really take offense that in his eyes, she fell short of her own mother.

Starr theorized that he did because Blair as a safer version of his mother, since Michael and Carly had gotten close now that Michael was being groomed to take over the hotel business. Moreover, Morgan resented Carly and Michael's defense of Sonny and Jason, who, in his opinion, were criminals who got they wanted through murder, theft, and illegal activities that lead to more harm than good. Blair, who had once done her part to put an end to organized crime when she ran the Llanview Sun, probably seemed like a beacon of light to the kid.

Starr didn't blame him. Her mom was kind of made of awesome.

"You don't look bad yourself, Morgan."

He raised one brow, then smiled, "yes, well, I thought I'd go for casual chic. Like the jacket?" He stood up and turned around, "it's going to be out in your mom's first line of clothing."

"I recognized it." Starr responded, "it was part of the designs that Cam gave her."

His smile faded, he looked down at the sleeve of his jacket, then looked back up. "You mean…from his mother's…collection?"

"Yeah." Starr nodded, "Blair thought it would be good for him to see his mother's work get the respect it was due, and of course Jax jumped on board. I guess they were fr-"

"Ta-Da!" Blair stepped out into the room, a vision of sex appeal in a sexy black halter dress with what Starr thought were gemstones on the bottom hem. She guessed onyx? It was flowing around her thigh, giving her a free, hip look that made Starr decide it was a dress made for dancing. Her hair was pulled up into an elegant French twist, that looked fresh but still classic. "My own creation- you know me, I love gemstones."

"Mom, you're a sex-pot." Starr shook her head, "are you sure you're not trying to seduce Jax?"

"I am trying to seduce the world." She said with a laugh and then another twirl, "I want the world to look at these clothes on me and think about how gorgeous they will look in them. Speaking of, that little number is gorgeous on you." She walked over, took her daughter by the hand and gave her a little twirl. "I love the pink on you, Starr. You're absolutely stunning."

It was a pink baby doll dress with a light gray/silverfish faded floral pattern going up the bottom right of it. This was also part of the new collection, and Starr loved it. She had already promised her mother that she would be wearing only clothing from her design company for her concert tour that was coming up in the Autumn. Her recording was almost finished, and she was really excited about that.

"So we all look amazing." Morgan smiled, "so shall we go?"

"Michael is meeting us," Starr responded. "He took Sam for ice cream first though, it was the only way we could get the little guy into his suit."

XXX

"I don't know why you look so excited that your mother knew my mother." Todd said. Cameron sat on Todd's desk Indian-style, his mother's journal in his lap, and a glint in his eye that told Todd that this was good news. "My mother was a lunatic. I shot and killed her for a good reason."

"I know." Cameron responded, "my mom did all kinds of research on you before I started working here. She was pretty protective over me, especially after she lost Jake."

"And she still let you work here?"

"There was begging involved."

Todd tried to picture Cameron begging anyone for anything, but was having a hard time coming up with a visual for that. "But you didn't answer my question."

"You didn't really ask one," Cameron shrugged, "so…this mother of yours was the head of a spy organization, right?"

Todd nodded, "yeah, that held me captive for eight years to take my memories and give them to my brother, so that he could marry my wife, raise my children and run my estate." That rage within him which built quietly while he wasn't consciously thinking about it, exploded in a second and he slammed his glass down so hard against the desk that it shattered, little pieces hitting Cameron and himself.

Cam brushed some of the glass off, then gave him a wry expression. "You would think killing someone might solve the anger issues."

Todd rolled his eyes and then paced towards the door, when he came back, he just shook his head. "You would think."

Cameron chuckled, and it wasn't the most pleasant of sounds. "so you want to know why I would be happy that your psychotic mother was involved with mine, right?" He let his legs drop down dangling from the desk. "Fine, sure. Why not? I mean, who are you going to tell? Lucky? Sarah? And what will they do, ground me?" He snickered, "I'll just run."

"So?"

"So, seven months ago my Aunt made me get therapy because I had a PI or two looking into my mother's supposed death. She thought I was having problems letting go." He rolled his eyes, then paced in front of the desk, "I must be crazy to think that my mom, whose body vanished, was alive, right? I mean, it's not like there is a drug that slows the heart beat down to the point that it's beat is imperceptible or anything." He stopped, looked at Todd and threw his hands up, "except that there is. My mom took it once to help Lucky regain control of his mind from Helena." He waved a hand, "that is a really long story. I know it all," he grabbed the journal from the desk and held it up, "it's all in here. Everything is…at least, everything from the point of her deciding to come to Port Charles." He placed it back onto the desk, then turned back to Todd, "anyway, Lucky came back from the dead, so I figured, maybe he'd understand, right? No. No. Because Elizabeth didn't have the enemies that the Spencers did. There would be no motive in faking her death, like there was for his."

"And you think her having a connection to Irene is a motive." Todd realized.

Cameron nodded, "my mother, she wasn't a saint. People…they tried to put her on pedestals all the time, and she tried to let them. She tried to stay on them. But she always failed, because there was always some lie that she was telling, or secret that she was keeping." Cam wet his lips and tilted his head to the side, "most of them are out. Jake was Jason's, she left my bio-dad to die, she had an affair with Nikolas- everyone found them out. Except for…one."

Todd was interested in that, he liked knowing people's secrets. The more secrets you knew, the more powerful that you were. "And?"

"And nothing." Cam replied bitterly, "she eludes to it throughout all of the journals. How she can never really be honest with Lucky, how no one knows the real her." Cameron stopped, tracing his fingers over the leather of the cover. "She also talks about that woman, your mother, and the nightmares that she has about her. They are pretty disturbing."

"I bet." Todd muttered, his own memories of what she had done to him always present in his mind. He could still feel the mouth guard between his teeth, the restraints binding his wrists, and the sanitary smell of the hospital. He rarely found peace from these memories, but when he did it was when his lips were on Blair's, or when he held his daughter in his arms, or when he was able to satisfy the rage inside him through destruction and anger. "What do you think her secret was?"

Cameron gave a slight shake of his head, and his dark eyes were lost and clouded with sadness. "I don't know. She's had so many and I could never guess them. But I know the first place that we should look is with my great uncle Jake, the problem is that he's in a coma. He fell into it shortly after my great Grams died."

"Weird."

"Too weird."

The two men stared at each other for a moment, and it was Cam who broke the silence which was surprising because he usually didn't talk at all. "She's alive, Mr. Manning. I've known it all along, and I've also known that wherever she is, someone has her. She wouldn't leave me, she wouldn't do that. I knew it when she was around, because no matter how hard I pushed her after Lucky left, the names I called her, the trouble I caused, she never abandoned me." A tear rolled down his cheek, and he used one arm to hold himself, while he wiped a hand over his mouth. "And I came around, I was a good son to her. I was. So she wouldn't. She'd never just let me go."

Todd was more than a little uncomfortable at the emotion the usually apathetic boy was showing, and he rounded the desk to sit in his seat and look up at him with a furrowed brow. "Um- yeah. You wanna be alone now?"

Cameron sniffled and shook his head, "no. I want to figure this out. What did your mother want by having your brother take over your life?"

"Some micro-chip." Todd answered stiffly, "money, power….I don't know what else."

"Well, I guess we could start by finding answers in Boulder. That's where Uncle Jake is, and he was your mom's main squeeze- or one of them, I guess. He owns this huge pharmaceutical company there."

A knock on the door stopped Cameron from continuing. Todd rolled his eyes, realizing that his assistant was in there with him and that was why they were being bothered. When he opened the door, Lucky walked through with an angry purpose. He stopped right in front of Cameron, skin pale but blotchy and blue eyes angry. "You're blackmailing Sam McCall?" He demanded.

"Um," Cam, bit his lower lip, "are you high?"

"Stop it, Cameron. Just stop. I don't need your low blows right now, you don't need them either. What is going on with you?"

Todd looked straight into Cam's eyes. The tears for his mother were gone, and the emotions from his face vanished without a trace. He was a block right then and Todd knew that Lucky was getting nothing. "Um…this is my office-"

"And this is my son." Lucky interrupted, "who has been off the rails for quite some time."

"I'm not your son." Cameron replied easily, "nor am I off the rails. Sam McCall is a con artist bitch who watched my brother get kidnapped. I'm doing her a favor by not going to the police, a favor I don't owe her. So she, in turn, owes me. It's not blackmail. It's trade." Cameron shrugged and offered a bitter smile, "but I guess I don't owe her anything now, do I?"

"You will not be turning her in, Cameron." Lucky said crossly, "do you really think that Elizabeth would be okay with you blackmailing people?"

"Don't." His voice was equal parts ice and threat. If Todd had been in Lucky's shoes, he'd have been worried, luckily, Cameron was on his payroll, so all was well in his world (too bad for the crack-head gumshoe though). "You don't get to invoke her name with me. You don't get to tell me what she would or wouldn't want."

"You know I'm right." Lucky responded, his voice catching, "she'd hate this. She wants you to be a kid, Cam. She'd want you off fighting in your matches, or playing hockey. She loved teaching you to skate, and she was so proud when you made the team." He tried to grab for Cameron's hand, but the boy stepped back, brushing his dark curls from his eyes. "She did everything she could to protect you-"

"I know." Cam interrupted, "I know what she did, what she gave up for me. And now…I'm giving up everything I can to get her back."

"Cameron, she's not coming back."

"Because you say so?" He asked tightly, "because you're the authority on everything Elizabeth Webber? Sorry, pal, I don't think so."

"Ya know, I have a plane to catch." Todd said awkwardly, "So I'm just going to…" he trailed off, motioned to the door, then nodded. "Yeah. I'm gonna go. Have fun. Cam? Fix this paper thing. I'm going to go do what we talked about doing."

Before Cameron could say a word, Todd walked out the door and shut it. He pulled out his phone and called for his private jet.

It was time to visit Colorado.