Guinevere Ramirez was a force to be reckoned with. Her colossal metal-gray hair, even pulled back into a strict ponytail, reached the top curve of her graceful hips. Her eyebrows were pencil thin and she had a pair of full, smiling lips. It amazed him how, a woman at the brink of sixty, could look so damn hot in a pale pink suit and a string of pearls. She had one velvety-soft leg thrown over the other in a way that clearly spoke volumes. She wasn't used to being told how to do something, only to give orders. Normally, Patrick would have found her bothersome but, damn it, she could keep him on his toes. They had had a lot of fun this afternoon, their banter easy and refreshing. He, of course, found no reason to be attracted to her. Hell, she was old enough to be his grandmother, a point she had made upon entering the studio.

"Can I ask you a personal question, Mr. Drake?" It was titles like that that always managed to make him uncomfortable, knock him down to a level of innocence, of self-awareness, of cowardice. In her eyes he didn't see belittlement, so he motioned his right hand toward her, tapping a few keys on his computer to send the pictures to his publisher.

"By all means, Mrs. Ramirez." He responded teasingly, watching her almost-black cat eyes narrow at the formal address.

"Why don't I see a ring on that lovely left hand of yours?" She must have known the question startled him, because she quietly chuckled at his reaction. He hadn't realized he was quite that close to his camera until he almost knocked it over.

"I'm allergic to all types of the metal they use to make rings." He lied in a small, weak voice. If he could just get a hold of his bearings, maybe then she wouldn't find him so damn amusing.

"Is that right--?" She began.

"Yes. Was that all?" Patrick cut her off pointedly. He hadn't meant to come off as cross, but the last thing he needed was one more woman in his life demanding that he "take a wife" before he got old and unattractive. As if either of those things could happen.

"What's the matter?" She asked in a patronizing tone. What was it with the women in his life? Why was he never good enough to share the same space with him? Of course, there was Emily...but she wasn't technically human. "Girl trouble?" She guessed, resting her back against the white loveseat as she awaited his answer, her arms thrown over her lap.

"I think we should stick to professional topics. Like, for instance, what award are you winning?" Patrick would admit it: he hadn't paid the job much attention. He didn't know why she was being featured in a magazine, because the "why" rarely held any interest for him anymore.

He had to laugh at her answer. He was so awestruck he actually missed the front door opening until he heard it collide with the back wall. Glancing over at his cousin, he recognized the rage hidden beneath those burning green eyes. It was probably time for Guinevere to return home. Lucky spoke before he could even begin to voice his explanation to his client.

"You sneaky son of a bitch." Lucky hissed. He had been enraged since he left Elizabeth standing in a daze in her classroom. The feeling had only gotten stronger the longer it took to find his cousin. "You no-good, rotten, lying son of a bitch."

"Patrick, who is this devilishly handsome young man?" Guinevere wanted to know as she leaned forward to get a better look at him.

Missing her tone, Patrick responded distractedly, "My cousin, Lucky." He shot her an apologetic look. "We'll have to finish this later. Tomorrow?" She nodded and scurried toward the door, accidentally on purpose running her left hand over one of Lucky's muscled arms before letting herself out.

"You better have one hell of a reason for lying to me about this you asshole." Lucky glared at Patrick, moving towards the expensive camera equipment with a dangerous look in his eyes.

Patrick was too pissed off at Lucky's behavior toward his client to even voice a rebuttal right away. Ignoring the camera equipment for a minute, he planted his hands on his hips and pressed his lips together until the skin turned white. "What the fuck did you think you were doing? You don't get enough opportunities to be disrespectful, you have to show up here and act like an ass?"

"Don't even go there. You've been acting like an ass for weeks now you bastard." Lucky crossed his arms across his chest. "If you would answer your damn phone you could have avoided all of this."

Patrick gave a dismissive nod toward the aforementioned machine. "Had it for a year now, still can't figure out how to work it." Giving Lucky a cold look, he continued, "What crawled up your ass?"

"Same question I've been asking you forever now cousin."

Again, he avoided the directness of his cousin's answer. He could always feign confusion because, honestly, there were a hundred different reasons for Lucky to be angry with him. He hadn't gone to Lucky about his suspicions, but maybe now he wouldn't have to. Whatever had Lucky this upset clearly was going to take away the man's ability to think clearly. "Since when do you give a god damn about my life?"

"Since when did you start avoiding me?" If Patrick was going to keep on avoiding his questions, Lucky was going to keep on asking them. It was a purely juvenile move, one that would more than likely drive them both up the wall in mere seconds but for the moment it was the only thing he had.

"Let's start with what brought you by and work from there." Patrick was no stranger to this technique.

He should have known it wouldn't work. "Since you apparently suffered a lobotomy and forgot what a phone is used for if a female isn't attached to it, I had to corner you like the lying rat you are."

"What exactly have I lied about?" Patrick almost stomped his foot in frustration. He was sick to death of skirting around the issues with the man in front of him. Answer my question, he mentally informed Lucky, and I'll tell you whatever you want to know.

"Off the top of my head, been exposed to any life threatening diseases recently?" Lucky leaned against the wall, trying to project the image of being in control when truthfully he hadn't been since the second Elizabeth told him all she knew of the situation. Patrick felt like he had been punched in the stomach.

Oxygen rushed out of his lungs and he had to turn his back to his cousin, his right hand sliding over his face to make sure not a single emotion had crinkled his impenetrable mask of control. He tried to speak, to explain, but Lucky beat him to the punch again, his voice as rough as a dull blade running across a glass table.

"Where the hell do you get off deciding that if you live or die isn't my concern you asshole?"

How could she do this to him? It was the first question that entered into his mind as he tried to take in all that Lucky was saying. "Who told you that?" He half pleaded, half demanded. If Robin had told him, he was going to wring her beautiful little neck. She had no right to tell his family behind his back! This was his life, not hers. "About the exposure, I mean." He stumbled over the words.

"Why does that matter? Why didn't I hear it from you?"

Well that was the question of the century, wasn't it? Why hadn't Patrick clued his family in on something that could possibly kill him? For all he knew, it was already killing him. He had gotten his most recent tests in the mail this morning and he couldn't begin to explain how much it had cut him to not have Robin there with him when the answer had come up negative for a second time. "I wasn't ready for anyone to know."

"How long did you think you could hide this? Did you think we wouldn't be there for you?" His rage masked the hurt Lucky felt and having to find out not from Patrick, but third hand from his girlfriend who found out from Patrick's girlfriend. He had thought he had left the gossip chain behind when he graduated from high school. Or when family reunions ended. Patrick may irritate the hell out of him more times than not, but he was above all else family. He should have heard this from Patrick and no one else. He should have been the one to tell Elizabeth, not the other way around.

"Just the opposite." Patrick replied immediately. "I knew you'd be there for me every step of the way." He still wasn't ready to face Lucky, so he started to pace the length of the living room, trying to make sense of the illogical. "I don't need your judgment okay? I wanted to be sure before I told anyone, especially the family. I don't regret how I got exposed and I already told Robin I wouldn't go back and change it. Is that who told you?" Patrick could feel the rage build up bit by bit.

"No. Robin didn't tell me. And if you didn't want anyone to know until you were sure you may want to look into not talking in fucking code and actually interacting with the people you claim to love. Might make them less apt to treat you like the asshole you're acting like."

"Oh, so this is about me making life harder on all of you? You come in here, claiming to care about my well-being when it's really all about how this affects you!" Patrick shouted hotly, the heels of his sandals making an awful sound as he spun around to face his cousin.

"Oh cry me a fucking river. You wanted to wait until you were sure? Fine you ignorant ass. Suffer in silence the next time. See if I care then. But do not avoid me for days, act like a damn code breaker when you do decide I'm worth your time to talk to, and then have me find out from my girlfriend the reason why you are acting like someone peed in your cameras. You want to suffer in silence, then suffer in silence you bastard. Don't make people question what the hell is wrong with you for days and get shocked when they get mad when they find out the answers from someone other than you."

Patrick would have to depend on his pride to get him out of this one or he would come off as way more vulnerable than he ever wanted to appear to anyone, especially Lucky. "Get the hell out of my studio. You want to know what's wrong with me lately. Well, dig a little further, because it's got nothing to do with my exposure." He suggested coldly, his fingers curling into fists at his sides. "I didn't want to bring it up in case it turned out to be nothing. There was no need to hurt the family if I haven't actually been infected...which, by the way, I'm still in the clear." He knew he had no right to be hurt by Lucky's reaction to all of this, but he was and pain went far deeper than reason.

Lucky rolled his eyes attempting to keep his cool here. The anger was dissipating rapidly leaving him feeling dizzy as it left him. He could feel real relief at the news Patrick was still in the clear. He remembered that much from all the lectures his father, Ned, and Lois had given him about safe sex over the years, especially when it became clear he was determined to enter the music industry. However there was no way in hell he was going to appear vulnerable to Patrick. Spencers admitted no weakness. Losing Patrick or any member of his family was a weakness. "Congratulations," he managed just as coldly. "And since you seem so eager to tell me what your real problem is, why don't you try some of that honesty right here right now?"

"What do you want to know?" As put off as he must have sounded, he was thankful to finally have someone to talk to about this, someone with whom he wouldn't feel compelled to pussyfoot around. He hadn't wanted to drag Robin through another trial of waiting as she had done not so many years ago. He, of course, hadn't thought she would run off and tell Elizabeth his personal business. He had underestimated her, and really, he hadn't exactly informed her of his insistence to keep friends and family out of loop. He had brought this upon himself. All he had to do now was stop running. His family was here, right in front of him, so why didn't he feel the slightest bit at ease? Maybe because he had done all he could to keep them from getting involved, hadn't wanted their lives tainted by a decision he had made.

"I could possibly, given enough time and more than likely enough alcohol, begin to understand your reasons for not telling the family. I get the whole 'act like an asshole while awaiting news of test results thing' you had going. What doesn't make sense is the avoiding act you've been pulling lately."

Patrick wasn't going to reveal that reason. He'd just have to think of a believable excuse. No way
was he going to tell Lucky he had been afraid to open the results a second time. Or how many times he had picked up the phone to call his cousin and tell him everything. Each time, he had slammed the phone back down and stared at the results, feeling their sinister presence as they sat atop his kitchen counter. It wasn't until this morning that he had even been able to gather up enough strength to rip the envelope apart and discover the truth for himself. Nothing about this disease was obvious. He could be feeling fine one day and throwing up the next. The waves of nausea hadn't really bothered him, but they were common enough to remind him that he was not in fact well yet, not in the clear yet.

How was he going to convince his cousin of anything? But the truth was just as risky. He was at a loss, scrambling for some kind of explanation. "Is it so hard to believe that I may not feel up to company right now? For Christ's sake, how would you react if you were in my position? Would you be able to look at Bobbie, at Laura, and have them look back at you with pity and apprehension?"

"Mom and Aunt Bobbie have looked at us like that since we started dating. And if I didn't know you, then maybe I could buy that crap you are selling, but I do know you. You don't do solitary. It's why you landed at my house when your mom died and didn't do what your dad and brother did." Lucky shook his head. "And you haven't been avoiding the whole family, just me. I know you've talked with Aunt Bobbie, Lucas, Mom, Dad, and Lulu. It's just me you won't return calls for."

"Saying it out loud would have meant I was accepting what happened to me...what I stupidly did to myself." He corrected himself. No matter how upset he got with Robin, she had warned him and was not to blame for the exposure. "As far as the rest of the family, they don't know me like you do. I knew you'd read me like a book, just like you've always been able to do."

It wasn't the words Patrick was saying. Lucky could hear the truth in his cousin's reasoning, but there was this nagging feeling that was still with him. There was something else. Patrick wasn't being truthful about everything. In a million years he would never be able to explain it to anyone, except maybe to Patrick, but every Spencer instinct in him was telling there was something more to his cousin's disappearing act than what he was saying. "I understand everything you've been telling me and I get it. I really do." Lucky paused, unsure of how to say
exactly what he was feeling at this moment.

"I found out I'm not immortal. Death has become a reality. It's not a decision anymore. If the six-month test comes back as positive, there's not a whole lot I can do to change that." Patrick pointed at Lucky then, his voice shaking slightly, "Call me a bastard for keeping everyone in the dark, call me a son of a bitch for avoiding you when I know Elizabeth probably told you all about what happened at the anniversary party, but don't scold me for being afraid to die or how I chose to handle it."

"What the fuck does Elizabeth have to do with this?" Outside of her being the one to tell him what was going on, she was only marginally involved at best in this mess Patrick chose to create for himself. The anniversary party? What the hell was Patrick talking about?

"Oh, that's right, you didn't see what I did." Patrick recalled, fighting back the only way he knew how. "You didn't get a front row seat. Would you like to know who Cruz has been seeing behind our backs? Bet it will matter more to you than it does to me."

"Okay, are you abusing drugs now too? We've jumped from Elizabeth to Cruz's secret girlfriend? Stick to one topic at a time will you?"

"They're one in the same." Patrick countered, ducking his head as the words escaped his lips.

Lucky didn't think. His fist flew of its own according, landing on Patrick's shoulder with a resounding thud. If his cousin hadn't moved his head as quickly as he had, he would have had one hell of shiner the next day. "You're full of shit."

"You should have seen them, Lucky. Whispering to each other while you're in the other room wondering the fuck is going on. Leaning into each other. Smiling. Laughing together. Touching." Patrick insisted, shaking his head in disgust.

"And you just happened to be where when you came to this wrong conclusion?" Lucky struggled to keep his heart from leaping out of his chest. Patrick was wrong. He had to be wrong. Cruz wouldn't do this to him. Elizabeth either, not after the number Max did to her.

"In the backyard. They were in the kitchen. I watched them through the window. He put his hand over her mouth and pulled her to him as if he'd done it a hundred times before." Patrick explained. He knew Lucky would go full circle before he let himself believe anything he was saying.

"And from that you've jumped to she's his girlfriend? You're insane."

"I thought so too until I remembered where it was I first saw her." Patrick defended himself briskly.

"The last family party genius?"

Patrick didn't take the bait, just went on, "At a wine shop the night I cornered Cruz about the trick he'd pulled. She was there and I watched them. It was before I'd even met her. I knew she had looked familiar when she showed up at the hospital after Robin's accident...the night I was exposed. They were off by themselves, looking through the wine and laughing together."

Lucky had a vague recollection of Patrick telling him that story, back when he had been trying
to convince him Cruz's mystery girlfriend existed at all. "Cruz flirts with everyone you bastard. You said it yourself when you told me about that months ago. You didn't even think the
'chick from the wine shop' was the girlfriend."

"Until I saw them together again. Lucky, think about it. You said it yourself: the only time Cruz hasn't been straight with us was when he was dating another guy's girl." Patrick reasoned.

"Which he came clean about eventually." Lucky shook his head. "Cruz wouldn't do that to me. He's family just as much as you are."

"Then why's he keeping it to himself? And how well do you really know Elizabeth?"

"Better than you do." Lucky retorted hotly.

"You think sleeping with her makes it impossible for her to lie to you? He seems to really care about her. What if she started to like you against her better judgment? I mean, you did say she
was skittish in the beginning." Patrick pointed out.

"Which she explained."

"How long before she told you? And how do you know that's not a lie?" Patrick read his cousin's silence a little better than the younger man meant for him to. "So, will you at least consider the possibility--?"

"No." This wasn't happening. He wasn't going to let Patrick mess this up for him just because he was miserable without Robin.

"Lucky, do you really think I'd be telling you all of this for no reason?"

"No, but I think you're wrong."

"Then tell me why."

Because it hurt too damn much to think it could even possibly be true. Lucky knew he had been crazed when Elizabeth was mad at him after what would be forever referred to as The Incident in the Hall. It had physically hurt him to think that he had lost her. Add in even the most remote possibility that Cruz was betraying him this way. He had survived losing girls before, but Lucky wasn't so sure he would survive losing his girlfriend and one of his best friends. It just may kill him. But that revealed far too much vulnerability to be shown. If he had nothing else in this argument, he had his Spencer pride. "Because you are basing this on less evidence than one of those soap opera murder trials Lulu watches."

"Maybe I'm wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. But would you at least confront them?"

"There's nothing to confront." Lucky insisted stubbornly.

"Why won't you listen to logic?" Patrick snapped lividly.

"You start talking logic then I'll listen."

"Will you? Because I seem to remember almost getting punched when I even broached the subject not five minutes ago." Patrick reminded him.

"You are jumping to conclusions!"

"And you're defending a stranger over your family!"

"She's not a stranger you asshole."

"Oh, so now I'm an asshole? Aren't we a little old for this name-calling crap?"

"Apparently not."

"You're only going to hear what you want to hear anyway."

"What the hell do you want from me? I think you're wrong. I know Cruz and I know Elizabeth. They wouldn't do this to me. I think you are jumping to conclusions. What more do you want?"

"Trust." Patrick's answer surprised even him.

Lucky blinked in confusion. "Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I don't trust you."

"You ask me why I didn't come to you, why I didn't share the secret of my exposure with you, well this is why." Patrick stressed the last word.

Lucky fell back onto Patrick's couch. "Low blow," he spoke evenly.

"Well, there's a lot of that going around today I guess." Patrick responded, not the least bit sorry.

"What do you want?"

"To be left the hell alone. For the rest of the world to accept the fact that this is my life and I have every right to hide anything from you if I choose to do so. If I'd known Robin would tell Elizabeth, I would have gone to you straight away. I made the mistake of trusting the wrong person."

"You can have your precious right to be alone but guess what? I have the same right to ignore you like I'm planning on doing. And I have just as much right to think you are dead wrong about Elizabeth and Cruz."

"Then prove to me I'm wrong. I know for a fact that Cruz is staying in tonight. Don't ask me how I know, but he's a creature of habit."

"And what? You want to drop me to drop in on him?"

"Why not? If I'm wrong, you'll see firsthand."

Lucky smiled. "No you'll see." He stood up and walked over to his cousin, patting Patrick on the back. "If I go, you go cousin."

"I wouldn't pass up an opportunity to make you eat dirt, Spencer."

"Then let's go."