She had to hand it to Diane Miller. The woman lived up to her reputation as a pit bull in the courtroom. Dara resisted the urge to walk up to her and smack the superior smirk off her opponent's face. So this was the way it was going to go then. Diane was going to ruthlessly attack every aspect of every witness's life and bring up Tony Grimes' unfounded belief that Jess had been murdered. Well, for once, Lucky's paranoia seemed to pay off. He had been convinced Tony would try to put blame for Jess's death on him almost from their first conversation about this case. She had called him crazy. Dara guessed she owed her client one huge apology when this was over. But not before she made sure the judge was aware of certain points.

Crossing over towards the witness stand, she tried to give Elizabeth a reassuring smile. "Miss Webber, have you talked about Jessalyn Grimes' death with Mr. Spencer since you found out about it?"

"I have. Several times actually."

"And in those discussions, what were your impressions of the relationship?"

"Objection your honor!" Diane Miller rose to her feet immediately. "Calls for conjecture."

"Your Honor, Ms. Miller opened the door to this when she brought up how Ms. Webber found out about Ms. Grimes' death."

Judge Hicks nodded serenely. "Ms. Jensen has a point Counselor. If you are going to explore this as part of your case, then Ms. Jensen is welcome to explore it as well. Overruled."

It was a battle to keep from sticking her tongue out as Diane sat down, clearly irked that she had lost, but Dara battled it willingly. Taking a breath, she turned towards Elizabeth once again. "Ms. Webber, if you could answer the question please."

Chewing on her bottom lip, Elizabeth tried to keep her eyes from locking on Tony Grimes. "I always had the impression they were young and loved each other in a way and had realized they were better apart than together. It always sounded like they were trying their best to go forward with their lives, but making sure that Cameron was always taken care of."

"Did you ever get the impression that there was bad blood between Mr. Spencer and Ms. Grimes?"

"No. I know they argued, but I never heard they were bitter and hated each other."

"In fact Ms. Webber, have you ever heard anyone connected to Mr. Spencer speak ill of Ms. Grimes?"

"No I can't say that I have."

Nodding her head, Dara moved back to the table and pretended to look over her notes. "Ms. Webber, when you discussed this with Mr. Spencer, did he explain to you why he had not told you about Cameron's mother or the way she died?"

"Yes. He said he was going to tell me, but it wasn't the easiest subject to bring up over dinner."

"Could the same be said for why you didn't want your unfortunate experience with your previous boyfriend to be well known?"

"Yes. I was trying to move on with my life and put the whole thing behind me."

Nodding her head, Dara placed her fingers under her chin, the picture of contemplation. "Ms. Webber would you say Mr. Spencer is close to his family?"

"I'd say extremely close. One of his best friends is his cousin. He lives just a few blocks from his parents. He has a close relationship with his sister. There is almost always a member of the Spencer family nearby."

"So you've met Logan Drake on several occasions then."

"No. Just once."

"Just once?" Dara exclaimed in surprise. "But I thought Mr. Spencer is close to his family."

"He is. Logan isn't close to the Spencers. No one ever seemed to know where he was before the kidnappings. As far as anyone knows, he only sporadically calls his own brother. He doesn't show up for family parties or dinners. When he showed up after Cameron's accident, it was a complete surprise to everyone. He got into an argument with his brother and ex-wife and hasn't been seen since."

"In your opinion, does anyone in the family feel warmly towards Logan?"

"When I first met his brother, Patrick, he did but I couldn't say the same for everyone else. Right now I think they only want him found so justice can be done. I don't know of anyone who thinks he's being unfairly accused."

"Thank you Ms. Webber. Your Honor, I have no further questions for the witness at this time, however I will recall her at a later time."

"So noted counselor." Judge Hicks said nodding. "Ms. Webber you are excused for the time being."

*****

"Yeah? And if I don't? Are you going to go up to the Dean and tell him that I'm being unfair and won't finish your paper?" Lulu scoffed into the phone, taking in the awful appearance of her nails. She didn't know when she had started letting them look like this, but she reminded herself she had bigger problems to deal with, such as how she was going to live and meet Vermin's ridiculous prices. There had been a time when she had convinced herself she didn't need the drugs. After all, they just made her feel worse. It had been a short period of denial; she hadn't made it the week she recalled.

The worst part was that she couldn't concentrate. Her grades were suffering and she knew if they kept dropping she would lose her money for tuition. The Government wasn't willing to help out slackers. How hard had she worked to get to where she was? How many nights of fun had she given up to pursue her goal of entering and leaving college without loans hovering above her head?

At first, it had just been a once-in-a-while kind of addiction, or so she had told herself. She just needed a little then, just needed to get through her classes without randomly attacking a classmate who favored her psychotic cousin in appearance. Then, the insomnia hit. Now her dreams were even more disturbing and the slumber so deep there was no escape save the blistering light of morning. She had lost with any friends she had managed to make at the beginning of the semester. She had started sleeping through the alarm and missing exams, serious exams. Her clients were leaving her, but of course they were. She had lost her credibility.

Lulu ended the call without making a sound and glared up at the calendar as it mocked her. She knew what today was and she knew where she should have been. The early days of a custody trial that had been four years in the making. Five if you counted the months Jess had been pregnant with him. Tony had hated Lucky on sight, but then she supposed he was every person's worst nightmare what with his if-they-don't-like-it-they-can-eat-me persona and ability to be whatever he wanted, no matter the cost. Maybe she was being selfish, but then she felt totally justified in her condition. It had been months since the kidnapping. Alexis and Robin had considered counseling for their children but discarded it once they realized that neither child remembered anything from the time they had been taken to the moment they were returned home.

Only Lulu knew. Only she remembered. Only she could feel Logan's labored breathing on the back of her neck when he dragged her down the stairs and out the door. She was the one who had cried herself to sleep for the first four weeks she had been safely back at home. Had anyone come to check on her, see how she was doing? It was only the arrival of a habit she had kicked years ago that roused Lucas' suspicion, but she hadn't wanted to burden him. His kid was sick. He was chasing his tail, trying to figure out the best way to help everyone, neglecting himself. It was a Spencer trait to take care of everyone but themselves. She wondered how Lucky was holding up, wondered what lies the Grimes were telling the judge.

When cars backfired in the parking lot, did every person in the world assume it was a gunshot? Had they all seen the immediate damage two bullets at close range could do? Dragged out by her hair, the only sound she had been able to make out was Cameron's whimpering. She still heard him at night. Even though she knew he was fine. Even though she knew he was safe. She didn't know he was fine and she didn't think he was safe. How hard would it be to overpower the Grimes and go through with the plan to take Cameron? Logan and Courtney and the mystery partner were still at large. Why, it wouldn't be any work at all.

*****

The last thing she would have expected to be able to describe the first day after the custody trial was quiet. But it was. It was quiet in the courtroom when Diane started her attack. Quiet after she had finally been dismissed from the witness stand. Quiet as friend after friend of Jess' took the stand to talk about how much Jess was missed and how much they saw of Jess in Cameron. Quiet on the drive home to pick up the twins from Dillon and Lucas. And now as she sat in the chair in the corner of their room, with her feet curled up under her, Elizabeth had to admit, it was quiet in their house.

From the second Diane had thrown out the fact she had taken out a restraining order against Max, Elizabeth had been expecting something from Lucky. Questions, expletives, a demand for any sort of explanation, but nothing had come. His eyes had glazed over initially, in anger or hurt she couldn't tell, and from then on he had barely glanced at her. When they came home, he had taken over getting the twins settled. She could hear him murmuring to them through the scratch of the baby monitor.

It was just as well he hadn't demanded an explanation immediately. She needed the time to focus on what she had to tell him. Max had been a cheating bastard, but that had apparently just been the tip of the iceberg. It wasn't the original plan to heavily edit the story of her move to Port Charles, but Lucky's immediate decision to run Max over with his car the next time he was in Boulder made her hold her tongue. The same instinct that told her not to call her brother that night spoke up again and compelled her to not finish the rest of the story. Call it protecting them, call it being chicken, it was more than likely a combination of both, but Elizabeth had heeded it.

And now she was going to have to face the consequences of stalling. Lucky knew and it would only be a matter of time now before Steven found out. If Diane was going to throw it in her face, she had no doubt the lawyer was going to lob it at her brother as proof he wasn't a good judge of character.

Spying Lucky entering the room, out of the corner of her eye, Elizabeth squared her shoulder. Steven could wait for now; first she had to tell Lucky the whole nasty sordid truth.

"How are the twins?" Okay, she told herself, apparently she was still going to stall a little bit.

"They're fine. I think they actually feel asleep at the same time. A first."

Three whole sentences. It was an improvement over the rough "fine" he had been shoving off on her every question since her testimony, Lucky realized. It had taken every ounce of self control not to stand up and pound on the table when Diane had started in on her questions. They had known Diane was going to attack her, try to paint it as if her parent's bonehead decision to back the Grimes meant anything, but even in the most remote corner of his mind, he hadn't imagined Max would be brought up, much less in the spectacular fashion he had.

"Good." Elizabeth allowed herself a small smile. "We have to talk."

"Oh yeah, we need to talk now. Instead of, oh I don't know, when you first told me about Max?"

She winced. It was deserved but it still hurt. "I should have told you but I can explain..."

"Oh well if you can explain why I had to hear about it in court from the lawyer out to take my son away from me instead from you, then I'm all ears." He drew out an angry breath and stalked over towards the window. Diane Miller deserved this anger, but she wasn't here right now.

"I should have been the one to tell you. I know I should have told you. And I should have guessed that Sarah wouldn't miss the chance to look like a hero by telling that story. The last time I try to give her a chance to be human. And if I knew it was going to come up I would have told you. You know I would never do anything to risk you losing Cameron."

He shook his head in disbelief. "If you knew it was going to come out, you would have told me? So if this whole thing didn't happen you never would have said anything? Right?"

"No. That's not...." Elizabeth closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I don't know. Maybe."

"Maybe. I rate a maybe."

"I haven't thought about Max in almost a year. He had already screwed me up so much and I didn't want him to mess with us anymore than he already had. God you know what a basket case I was when we met?"

He did. The random freak outs over nothing. The flying leaps of logic she would and could make at a drop of the hat. The elaborate revenge schemes she could plan had only rivaled an act of Helena. But it still didn't excuse the fact she hadn't said word one about it. Not even a hint that their break up was anything more than a slightly more dramatic tale of a cheating boyfriend getting caught. Bruises around her neck? What had that bastard done to her? And why hadn't she told him?

"I know it sounds stupid, but the only person who knows is my sister and the Boulder police. Grams doesn't know. Steven doesn't know. Robin. You. I just wanted to escape from everything and forget it ever happened." Shaking her head to keep the tears from welling up in her eyes, she chewed on her lower lip. "I just wanted to forget."

Escape. A feeling he was familiar with intimately. Along with the long sad realization that escape from your past was apparently impossible. Whenever he expected it and often when he didn't, his would stop him in his tracks. "Aren't you the one who always tells me I can't forget my past?"

"I have a bad track record of taking my own advice remember? And if you doubt that, I'm calling Robin right now and she's backing me up."

"Just tell me what happened. If Diane and your family are going to throw it out there, I need to know."

Closing her eyes, Elizabeth could see the scenes she had tried to repress so many times. "After I found him with Melissa and threw things at him, obviously we were over. He tried a couple of times to talk to me, to get me to "see reason" as he put it and I basically told him to go to hell. And I thought that would be the end of it."

"Obviously that was wrong."

"Yeah just a slight miscalculation. I don't know if I mentioned it but Max was, is, a total control freak. And when I repeatedly ignored him, he started showing up everywhere. My job. Where I hung out with the few friends who didn't know he and Melissa were being all nasty cheating couple on me. My apartment. Everywhere. He left messages. Told me I didn't have the right to say when it was over. It was his call. I tried to ignore it but it didn't stop. A friend of mine worked with a lawyer and he got the restraining order taken out."

"Then what?" He kept his voice calm trying to mask the rage he could feel building.

"Max found out about it. And he didn't…didn't take it well. I came home one night after ditching an obvious blind date attempt and decided a night in front of the TV with pizza was going to be a better option than making small talk with a guy someone's brother knew from the gym. And you know how you get sucked into shows and you forget to pay attention to what you were doing? Well that happened, and when there was a knock on the door, I didn't check. I always checked the door and I didn't."

"Max."

"It sure wasn't pizza." She wiped furiously at the tears as the started to fall from her eyes in earnest. "I tried to shut the door and he pushed past me. And I know he shoved me against the wall and I don't really remember much after that. I remember waking up and the ambulance being there. I don't if its irony or someone's sick idea of a joke, but the pizza guy apparently came by just after he left. I'm sure it annoys Max to no end that he's in jail because of a college freshman making minimum wage."

"Why Sarah? If she's the only one you told, I assume you had to call her."

"It wasn't exactly the first choice. Surprise, surprise my parents were out of the country. And I thought about calling Steven, but then I would probably have to bail him when he was arrested for murder. I didn't want to call any of my friends because I thought I would hear how stupid I was for not checking the door when you have a restraining order against someone. I mean hello stupid soap heroine. I didn't want anyone to know and at the time I thought there was no way Sarah would be able to profit from telling anyone. I mean even my parents would have to fake sympathy for the daughter beat up by the cheating bastard right? The press coverage alone would guarantee that much. So I called Sarah. In retrospect, even bailing Steven out of jail would have been a better choice."

Somewhere in the middle of her recitation, Lucky had found himself sitting down slowly on their bed. He had merely wanted to hurt Max before but now he wanted to kill him. "He's still in jail?"

Elizabeth nodded. "Yeah. Last I heard. It won't be forever obviously but long enough."

"Not long enough for me."

"I'm so sorry I didn't tell you. Half the things I tell Sarah she takes credit for or she thinks it was said by TV character. I should have been the one to tell you, not Diane, not my sister, me. And I should have told you a long time ago."

"Just answer me one more question. Are you ok?"

"I am now. Thanks to you. God you have no idea how much you've helped me with this, even if I didn't tell you were helping me." She offered up a small smile. "Are we ok?"

"We will be."

Previews:

"My upbringing says bribery."

"If it comes to that. Let's try my family's approach: guilt and obligation."

"Oh sure if you want to play nice."