A/N: Ok, I finally finished this chapter! Between finals and then my travel plans being messed up with the huge snowstorm on the east coast, I've just been so busy but this chapter is really long and really good… at least, I hope that it's good :) I might not be able to update until after the holidays (i.e. after New Year's) since I'll be busy with family stuff during the days leading up to Christmas and then I'm headed to Vegas for my birthday afterwards and I won't be back until after new year's. But I think you'll like this chapter so much that it should tie you over until after the holidays! Happy reading, Happy Holidays and don't forget to leave a comment!!

Chapter 7 – When the Lights Go Out

"Good evening, Miss Lulu… Master Dillon…"

Lulu smiled at Alfred as he greeted her and her fiancé at the door to Wyndamere. Claudia and Nikolas had just returned from their three week honeymoon in Greece and, much to Lulu's surprise, Claudia had called to invite the two of them over for dinner. Alfred ushered the two of them into the main dining room where Nikolas and Claudia were standing by the bar. Lulu smiled as she watched Nikolas completely engrossed in his new wife. His hand was resting on the small of her back and his gaze was focused intently on her as she spoke to him in a hushed voice.

"Oh! I'm so sorry! We didn't even notice that you two were here!" Nikolas said as he walked over to embrace his younger sister.

"Oh that's alright…" Lulu said.

Claudia sauntered over to the three of them and Lulu couldn't help but to notice the scrutinizing and almost accusatory look that was pouring out from her eyes. The change in Claudia's attitude towards her bothered Lulu a bit because they had been on good terms ever since Nikolas made it clear that he and Claudia were going to be together and she should accept it regardless of what had happened between the two of them prior.

"Lulu, may I speak to you for a moment?" Claudia asked.

"S—Sure…" Lulu stammered.

They left Dillon and Nikolas, who were busily chatting away over a few glasses of brandy after they had eaten dinner, and went onto the patio that overlooked the grounds. She immediately went to the railing of the balcony and stared out into the night sky. Lulu's heart began to race as she heard Claudia's footsteps draw closer to her.

"You really messed up…" Claudia hissed.

"W—What?" Lulu gasped, whirling around to face her sister-in-law.

Claudia's face was pressed into a dark scowl and Lulu could feel her limbs start to shake. What could she have possibly done to earn Claudia's wrath? She couldn't think of a single thing that she did within the three weeks since she had last seen her that would warrant this type of response.

"You are killing my brother… do you know that?" Claudia growled.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Claudia… I haven't even seen Johnny since—" Lulu started.

"Since the night of my wedding when the two of you almost had sex?" Claudia screeched.

Lulu immediately shushed Claudia and looked back inside to see if Dillon had heard Claudia's outburst. When she noticed that he and Nikolas were still talking by the bar, Lulu looked down at her feet, too ashamed to look Claudia in the eye but admitting that what she had heard was true.

"You're loving this, aren't you? Sending John mixed messages and punishing him for leaving you at the altar." Claudia said but Lulu shook her head.

"I'm—I'm not trying to hurt him…" Lulu cried, tearfully trying to explain her actions.

"But you are! You are hurting him in the worst way possible… god, Lulu… are you that blind? Johnny is still in love with you… head-over-heels in love… and he's completely tortured by it… and the fact that you threw yourself at him is not helping!" Claudia cried.

Johnny is still in love with you.

Hearing those words come from Claudia's mouth immediately made Lulu's stomach go into a freefall. How could that be true? He was the one who had left her. He was the one who didn't want her anymore. But even if that were true, and he was still in love with her after all this time, why hadn't he come back to Port Charles to get her back? Why didn't he fight to get her back?

"What do you want me to do then, Claudia?" Lulu shrieked.

"You have to choose! You either break things off completely with Johnny and leave him alone or you fess up to your fiancé that you want to be with my brother instead of him! It's not that hard!" Claudia fired back.

If only Claudia knew how untrue her words were.

Either way, someone was bond to get hurt. She couldn't bear the thought of hurting Dillon. He had been nothing but kind and loving to her ever since he came back into her life last year. He was a great distraction from the pain of being abandoned and she loved him for that and she couldn't bear to break his heart when he had done so much for her. And then there was Johnny. Lulu swallowed hard as his face popped into her mind. She knew that she was hurting him with her behavior and her inability to control herself. But she knew Johnny too well and she knew that he would be devastated if she told him that even after they had reconnected, she was still choosing another man over him.

"I—I can't… I can't do that to either of them…" Lulu sobbed and Claudia let out an exasperated sigh.

"You may be one of the most selfish people I have ever met, Lulu… this isn't about Dillon or my brother… this is all about you and how you don't want to let either of them go!" Claudia cried.

"Hey! That's enough!"

Both Claudia and Lulu turned around to find Nikolas at the door. Her emotions were rising into her throat, suffocating her from the inside. Lulu's hands flew to cover her mouth but she couldn't stop herself from bursting into hysterical tears. She felt her brother's arms wrap around her shoulders as her entire body shook violently. Her limbs felt heavy, almost as heavy as they did as she collapsed to the floor, clutching Johnny's letter to her chest, on her wedding day and she never wanted to resurface.

"Claudia, come on… you're not being fair…" Nikolas said.

"Nikolas, just as you feel the need to protect your sister, I have to protect my brother and she's not oblivious! She knows what she's doing to him is wrong…" Claudia said.

"But it doesn't give you the right to scream at her!" Nikolas cried.

"Well, maybe it will finally resonate with her!" Claudia yelled.

"Stop it!" Lulu screamed.

The newlywed couple went silent at Lulu's demand and she shrugged her brother's arms off her and made her way back inside the house. This was too much for her to handle. She needed to get as far away from everyone as possible in order to clear her head. Her eyes were watery as she stumbled towards the front door, making everything swirl and blur around her, but she felt a hand grab her arm.

"Let me go!" she yelled.

"Not until you calm down, Lulu…" Dillon firmly said.

"I need to get out of here! You can either let me go or I will fight you… either way, I'm getting out of this house!" she cried.

Dillon, wide-eyed in shock, gently released Lulu's arm from his grasp and she managed to make it out of the house. She wiped her eyes as she walked down towards the parked launch. The driver of the launch smiled warmly at Lulu and extended the ramp out so that she could climb aboard.

"I received a call from Mr. Cassadine about arranging a car to take you home or wherever you would like to go. Where should I tell the driver to take you?" the launch driver asked.

She could hear Claudia's accusations ringing like bells in her head and as much as she hated to admit it, Claudia was right. She couldn't have both Dillon and Johnny in her life. She had to make a choice. Lulu shivered at the idea of a confrontation but it was unavoidable.

She had to cut Johnny out of her life for good.

She hated how out of control he made her feel when he was near her and she hated how she immediately was drawn to him even after he had left her in a state of complete emotional devastation. What gave him the right to come back after two years and to conjure up all of these feelings that she thought that she had buried deep inside of her?

No, this had to end.

Tonight.

"Tell the driver that I need to go to the Zacchara mansion… I have some business that I need to settle with John Zacchara… once and for all…" she said.

"Is there anything else that you need from me, Mr. Zacchara?"

Johnny looked up at the guard and shook his head, giving the man a dismissing motion. The guard nodded politely and made a discrete exit from the study. He always felt bad about making the house staff do things for him but he was too drained to pack up his things to return to Italy himself. He sat in his father's chair and sighed heavily. He knew that he shouldn't have come back to Port Charles and cursed Claudia's effective persuasion skills. He had made things so much worse for himself by allowing himself to be so close to Lulu because either way, she had the power to hurt him. It hurt him to see her move on, even though he knew that it was for the best because he was no good for her but it hurt him just the same to have her still want him because he knew that he could never have her.

"You're leaving?"

The familiar voice made his heart freeze inside of his chest and he reluctantly looked up to see Lulu standing in the doorway to the study. Surely this was karmic justice for all of the wretched things that he had done to her because now there was no escaping her. He heard the sound of her heels draw closer to him and he sighed and lifted his gaze to her. Her eyes were red and watery, as if she had been crying before she arrived here, but her lips were pressed together to form a thin line, trying to feign indifference.

"Yeah, I'm flying back to Milan in the morning…" he sighed.

"Good." Lulu said and Johnny scoffed.

"Well, I'm glad that my departure from Port Charles pleases you…" he said softly, trying his best not to show that her obvious disdain hurt him.

"That's—That's why I'm here… this thing that's going on between us… it ends tonight…" she said, folding her arms across her chest.

"And what exactly is going on between us, Lulu? I don't think you even know…" he said, matter-of-factly.

"And I don't want you at my wedding either…" she quickly added.

The pain that seared through his heart when he heard her request shocked him. He never intended to go to her wedding anyway but the fact that she had said that she didn't want him there stung him. She didn't want him at her wedding and she didn't want him in any aspect of her life anymore. He pulled the drawer of his father's mahogany desk and took out the envelope that held the save-the-date that she had sent weeks earlier. He watched her eyes widen and her mouth tighten as he proceeded to rip up the envelope and its contents and drop the shards into the trashcan near her feet.

"I hope that made you feel better…" she snarled.

"You know what? It did… it made me feel so much better that I think I could do a cartwheel right now…" he said as he slid his chair backwards.

He made his way over to the liquor cart and he could feel her following closely behind him. He could feel her rage emanating off her and he knew that he had struck a nerve. The woman was an enigma, pushing him away with one hand but grasping onto him for dear life with the other and he couldn't take the back and forth thing for much longer. Being tempted with the prospect of being with her was almost too much to bear and if she kept coming to him, he was sure that he wasn't going to have the willpower to push her away for her own good anymore.

"God, I hate you so much! I wish I never met you because then you wouldn't have this stupid pull over me to make me upset!" she cried.

"Why should you care? You have Dillon… your prince charming… if you love Dillon like you say you do, then you wouldn't even be here arguing with me!" he fired back.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked as he poured himself a glass of scotch.

"You know exactly what I mean… shy don't you stop kidding yourself, Lulu, and just admit it…" he said.

"And what's that?" she hissed and he slammed down his glass of scotch.

"You don't love him because you're still in love with me!" he cried.

He immediately regretted his outburst and felt his stomach turn as all of the color vanished from Lulu's face, as if someone had just discovered her deepest and darkest secret, and he watched, with horrified eyes, as she burst into a hysterical fit of tears right before him. He had never seen her cry so hard for as long as he had known her but he knew that she must've cried like that for days, maybe even weeks, after her abandoned her.

"You don't get to do this to me… you—you left me, Johnny! You were the one who left me… and I loved you so much that when you left, a part of me died inside…" she sobbed.

"Lulu…" he said, reaching out for her but she backed away from his arms.

"And you can't just waltz back into my life two years later right as I'm starting to put myself back together and tell me this! You had your chance and you ruined it all on your own!" she cried.

"I know! I know… and I'm going to regret it for the rest of my life…" he explained.

"Did you even think about me? Lying on that floor, clutching that stupid letter that you wrote? Did that even cross your mind?" she asked, wiping her eyes.

"Of course it did! I thought about you every single second while I was gone! I remember waking up that morning so excited because I know by the end of the day that you were going to be my wife… I didn't—I never wanted to leave you…" he cried.

He had carried her with him for those long two years that he was without her. He thought about the nights that he would reach for her, wanting to wrap his arms around her waist and hold her so close that he could smell the sweet scent of strawberry shampoo in her hair, but he would wake up and remember why she wasn't sleeping beside him and the feeling of his silent tears rolling down his face as he realized that he would never have that again.

"What?" she asked in a voice so small that it could've been a whisper.

"I—I was the reason why Michael got shot…" he stammered.

"No… Claudia admitted to that…" she said but he shook his head.

"I was the one who ordered the hit out on Sonny and it went wrong and I thought—I knew that you would never forgive me if the truth came out and I could live with the idea of you hating me for leaving you but I couldn't stand the idea of you thinking that you were married to a monster…" he said.

As he finished, he turned away from her and pressed his fingertips to his temple. All of these feelings and thoughts had been bottled up for so long but she deserved to know. He walked back over towards his desk and laid his palms flat on the surface and sighed heavily. She had thought that he left because he didn't care or love her enough but it was because he loved her so much. His life was like a thin piece of string, wrapped around her delicate finger and with one sudden shift, he would be severed and lost to this world.

"Johnny…" she whispered.

He gritted his teeth, knowing that she was crying again. He hated himself for making her cry so much. There were so many times that he honestly thought that he was only capable of bringing misery to the people he knew. He had wrecked her life starting with that night that she climbed into his yellow Mustang. He dropped his head and squeezed his eyelids shut, trying to fight back the onslaught of emotions that were threatening to surface.

"And maybe I did it to punish myself too… I didn't think that I deserved you and I probably still don't… but I thought that I didn't deserve to be happy for what I had done…" he said.

"That's—That's why you left me? Because of Michael's shooting?" she asked and he turned around to face her.

"Yes… it wasn't because I didn't love you or didn't want to marry you… if anything, it was because I loved you so much that I left… I didn't want you—I didn't want you to look at me like…" he started.

However, he couldn't stop his voice from breaking. Her close proximity to him and the resurgence of all of these repressed feelings was a lethal combination and his composure was no match for it. He felt his shoulders cave inward as a fit of sobs came over him. He didn't even feel one ounce of shame in crying in front of Lulu because she would finally see something that he had known probably since the day that they met.

He couldn't live without her.

He felt her hands cup his face and her thumbs gently brush away the wetness from his cheeks. His eyes opened and were met with her watery gaze. Her bottom lip was trembling, clearly affected by his overture. As they stared into each other's eye, without saying a word, Johnny knew that they had reached a crossroads. If she walked away now, he could go on with his life without her. He would be miserable but he could do it because it would be what she wanted. But if she didn't leave at that exact moment, he wouldn't be able to let go. He would have no more strength left to muster up to carry on without her. As his forehead pressed against hers, Johnny's hands slid upwards and tilted her face towards him.

She had to choose.

He was bracing himself to be pushed away. He anticipated the feeling of her face turning away from his but it didn't come. As her lips came to his, more tears came to his eyes because it told him everything that he had wanted to hear since the day that he left: she still loved him. Succumbing to his fate of being bound to her forever, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close.

And he was never letting go.

Lulu felt herself being lifted off her feet and sliding into Johnny's strong arms, all the while never releasing his lips from hers. The feeling of being carried by him was something so foreign but familiar and comfortable at the same time. She had thought that a sign that they were meant to be together was how easily she fit in his arms. As he climbed up the stairs, her hand came to the top of his navy shirt and she began to unbutton it and as she placed her hand on the patch of exposed bare skin, she could feel that his heart was beating as fast as hers.

Completely in-sync.

Her eyes opened as he carried her into his bedroom. The lights were off, only letting the moonlight from the bay windows bathe the room in silvery light. She felt herself being set down on the edge of his four post bed, atop of the same crimson bed spread that they had lay underneath so many times, but she kept holding onto his shoulders, never wanting to break contact with him. He kissed his way down her jaw until he began layering kisses along her neck, making her shudder. Every single kiss that he laid on her skin sent a jolt through her entire body. The intensity that was behind every kiss, touch and embrace was something that she had never experienced before and hadn't felt since he had vanished from her life. He moved swiftly, divesting himself of his jeans and tossing the unwanted article of clothing aside. She reached for the zipper on the side of her dress but his fingers enveloped her hand to stop her.

"No… let me…" he whispered.

She nodded meekly and he slowly undid the zipper, pressing soft kisses down the side of her torso as he went down. As he reached the bottom of the zipper, he pulled the dress down, having it slide down her waist and over her legs before he tossed it aside, making it land on top of his jeans. He took one of her legs in his hands and made his way back up towards her, caressing and kissing it on the way back up. The degree to which she craved him was mildly frightening but he was going at a slow and torturous pace.

She had waited and had been denied this for too long.

She took him by the lapels of his shirt and pulled him back so that he was hovering over her. His eyes were dark and intense, wordlessly telling her what he wanted to do to her, as she peeled off the remaining pieces that she was wearing. She watched him drink in the sigh of her completely bare and vulnerable beneath him. He then wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her back so that he was sitting and she was straddling his lap. He let out a sharp breath against her skin and his grip on her waist slightly tightened as she kissed his earlobe and his neck. Her fingers moved nimbly as they unfastened the rest of the buttons on his shirt and she quickly tossed it aside. She didn't know how much longer she could wait for him. Her hands tugged at the elastic waistband of his boxers, urging him to take her before she lost her mind out of sheer need. A faint trace of a smirk quickly passed over his lips, acknowledging her silent request and he agilely shifted and removed the offending garment quickly.

"Please…" she whispered, pressing her forehead to his.

Every ounce of her body was crying for him and he obliged her and slid into her quickly. She gasped, clutching his shoulders, as he held her there for what seemed like an eternity without moving, but she felt him lift her chin up to look at him. His eyes were soft and warm and she could feel the adoration that he felt for her radiating from them.

"I love you…" he whispered.

She wanted to say something but as she opened her mouth, he pressed a finger to her lips to silence her and he kissed her softly. She quickly forgot how to even form a coherent thought, let alone a sentence, as he began moving her on top of him. Their rhythm was slow and hypnotic at first, either to drive them both to the brink of insanity or to savor every possible moment that they had together that night. She could feel the buildup of her release pooling together in her core and she buried her face into the crook of Johnny's neck, letting a small whimper pass over her lips. She held him closer as if to hold herself steady as she slowly began to lose control of her body as she neared that edge. He quickly turned her over so that she was lying beneath him and he hitched one of her legs around his waist.

"Johnny…" she exhaled.

He turned her face so that she was staring straight up at him. He leaned in and kissed her, letting his tongue hungrily dart in and out of her mouth and she was certain that she was going to lose it. She couldn't remember the last time that someone had made her feel like this. Her nails bore into his skin but he showed no discomfort. If anything, he was completely lost in this moment like she was to think about anything else but her.

"Stay with me…" he breathed.

She held onto him for dear life, listening to the sound of his breath grow more labored with each stroke, each one stronger and more passionate that the last, until she couldn't hold out anymore. She cried out his name one last time as her entire body tensed and she threw her head back, coming apart in his arms. His grip on her leg tightened and he buried his face into her neck, letting a low groan from his own release escape from his lips. As they slowly began their descent from their euphoria, she allowed him to pull her in close, laying her head on his chest.

"Johnny?" she whispered.

She looked up and saw that he had drifted off to sleep. She reached over to stroke his face but was startled when her engagement ring caught the moonlight and shone brightly, as if to remind her of the huge betrayal that she had just committed. She looked to the ring and then back to Johnny, her eyes now beginning to water again like they had hours before. She carefully bent over to give Johnny a small kiss on the corner of his mouth and wiped the tears that had fallen from her eyes from his cheek.

"I love you too…" she whispered.