Stroke of Luck

It wasn't the darkness that was scaring him, Steven decided. It was the silence. The longer Mac Scorpio stayed silent, the greater the chance his father-in-law had to load his gun and figure out the best way to shoot him without destroying his grandmother's couch. Was there a conspiracy afoot that every chance he had to make any sort of good impression on this man, the worst possible thing had to happen?

For years he had teased Elizabeth about her tendency to babble when she felt nervous. And now he was feeling the same urge. If his sister ever found out about this, well there would be another thing she would never let him live down. If he kept quiet, then there was a chance Mac wouldn't be able to locate him in the dark to get a shot off. After all, it wasn't as if the man had brought night vision goggles with him. Or had he? Would Mac have caused a citywide blackout for the sole purpose of torturing him? Well he probably deserved it, but it still seemed a bit extreme.

"Mr. Scorpio, don't you need to help your officers with some emergency plan or something?"

Mac looked Steven in the eye for the first time since meeting him. "I'll thank you to do your job and let me do mine."

"Not enough light to do my job." Steven joked lamely.

"I assume you've guessed why I'm here."

"It's not to sing songs and bake cookies is it?"

"Well it'd be awfully hard to accomplish either of those without electricity, wouldn't it?" Mac wasn't sure what inspired the joke.

"You want to talk about Georgie."

"She is the only common link between us." Mac reminded him. He thanked God Georgie hadn't been pregnant. There was only so much a father could take.

It was on the tip of Steven's lip to say "for now," but his common sense talked him out of it. He and Georgie hadn't even discussed children yet and no way was he giving this man more reasons to hate him. "I want you to know I love your daughter Sir."

"Well I should hope you care for her since you made it a point to marry her. Why did you do that?" Mac held up his hand. "And don't say because you love her."

"Because I realized I didn't want to imagine my life without her." Yes, the thought of her being pregnant had sped up that revelation, but sooner or later he would have known. He hadn't been lying when he told her he didn't want it to be a simple fling. It had always been something more between them.

"So you weren't just covering your bases? While I believe a man should take responsibility for the things he has created, I'm having a little trouble understanding why you still thought marriage was the best idea. And after such a short time of knowing my daughter."

"I know it seems like I only proposed because we thought she was pregnant. But she ignored me, told me it was too much to think about. And while I was sitting there waiting for the test results, all I kept coming back to was marring her wasn't the wrong decision. And if she didn't say yes, then I was going to keep asking until she did."

Mac walked into the kitchen only long enough to pick up one of Audrey's high-back chairs and carry it into the living room. He finally sat down. "Why was dating no longer an option?"

"It wasn't enough."

"You're a young man. She's a young woman. What was the rush?"

"Paris."

"What about it?"

"Have you ever been?"

"Can't say that I have."

"Being in love, in Paris, it's magical. I found myself living in one of the movies I normally just film. Time seems irrelevant, until you feel it running out. Then you want to do everything, savor every last second."

Mac stared hard at Steven, but knew it was lost on the young man. "So you used my daughter to play out one of your fantasies."

"No. No." Steven shook his head. "Just the opposite. She made my every dream come true."

"What dream could you possibly share with my daughter?"

"I want to see Georgie write that novel she keeps talking about. I want to travel the world with her. When the time is right, children. Every time we talk about our families, it's clear how much she loves you. I want that kind of family and I want Georgie to teach me how to get it. I obviously can't look for mine as role models, what with trying to separate a boy they've never met from his father."

"I don't have to tell you that, if you plan on having children, you also know how much it would break my daughter to be separated from them."

"I'd never follow my parents' example. I never have. You can ask my grandmother and sister if you want."

"Two unbiased sources for sure. I want you to consider what would happen if the two of you separated. Bringing a child into that kind of situation seems cruel."

"Georgie and I won't separate."

"Oh to be so naïve." Mac replied condescendingly. "You can't predict the future."

"No offense Sir, but neither can you. Did you consider what would happen if you separated from Alexis?"

"Excuse me, but who the hell do you think you are?" Mac challenged hotly.

"Georgie's told me what's going on with Alexis and I'm sorry about that. But you can't sit there and tell me that I should consider what would happen to children we don't have if we separate when you obviously considered the same thing and decided to risk it anyways. I know it's not the same, but we are taking the same risk."

"With one big difference. Time. I have loved Alexis for over three years."

"But if you knew sooner, would you have waited?"

"She didn't give me any choice. Thanks to the last asshole in her life, she was extremely cautious. And I don't blame her being so. It was her rash decision to create a child with a man who had no scruples and do you know who ended up being hurt the most by it?"

"Kristina and Alexis. But I'm not Sonny Corinthos. I know you don't know me, but I'm willing to prove that to you."

"I don't consider my daughter an idiot, so I'll give her the benefit of the doubt when she tells me she loves you. That said, I don't trust you and the only way you're ever going to get my approval is to treat her the way she should be treated. I don't joke when it comes to my little girl's heart. It's been broken twice before, once by another boy who said he loved her and then by the abandonment of her mother."

"Georgie deserves nothing less than the best. I haven't really talked with her about this yet, but I'm planning on moving back here to Port Charles so she can finish school. Once she's done, we'll decide together what is best for us."

"Then let the games begin."

*****

"I can't believe this is happening to me." Sam banged her fists into the steel elevator doors in exasperation.

Harper closed his phone and tried to hide his smirk. For once he had a legitimate reason to avoid a mandatory work order from the Commissioner. "It's a citywide blackout. I highly doubt it was aimed at ruining your night."

"You would say that." She angrily replied, hiding her eyes behind her hands. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you made this happen."

"I'm glad you think I'm that talented."

"Why are you here anyway?" Sam hadn't realized until now that he had never given her a reason.

Reaching behind his back, Harper pulled the envelope out of his back pocket as he leaned against the wall he had sat down against. Tapping it against his chin, he smiled at her. Sure he had every intention of giving her this information, hell she was the only person who would find this interesting, but she didn't know that. "I thought you weren't interested in anything I have to say."

"I'm not." Sam lifted her head and met his eyes. "But you might as well tell me."

"Here." He offered the envelope to her.

Sam read the heading several times before opening the top flap and having a look inside. It seemed routine. David obviously had some sort of new assignment he wanted help on. It was like two images in one picture. At first she saw the overall facts with little glamour. Then certain pieces started to form in her mind. Dates jumped out at her. "What is this?" She barely noticed she had spoken at all.

"Some research I did." Harper shrugged his shoulders. "I thought you might find it useful."

"That I would find use..." Sam's voice drifted off and she didn't say anything for a long time. Aurora High School. Graduated 1972. "Who is Natasha Davidovich?"

"No idea. After this she seems to have disappeared off the map. I'm still digging but she's covered her tracks well."

"Does she have something to do with one of your cases? And what does she have to do with me?"

"Keep reading Samantha. Just keep reading."

Natasha Davidovich had transferred to Aurora High School mid-Sophomore year, but there didn't seem to be much mentioning of her other high school or a definitive reason for her to have been moved. Her address was listed as well as that of both high schools. Both in the same city. She would be willing to bet they were relatively close together, but that was just based on her knowledge of Victory, Vermont. The time between leaving one school and transferring to another was exactly five months. "She had a baby."

"Bingo. And around the time you were born, around the city you were born in."

"Are you saying this Natasha Davidovich is my mother?" Sam didn't let her gaze waiver.

"No. I'm saying it's possible." Harper caught her gaze and held it with his own. "I have no proof but the dates fit."

"Do we know where she is now?"

"No. She seems to have vanished into thin air since she left high school. But I'm looking."

"I...I don't know what to say. Why did you look into this?" It seemed far too good to be true. Finding her mother had been at the front of her mind ever since her father had admitted to her existence. For the first eighteen years of his daughter's life, he had told her that her mother had died at childbirth, that Sam had killed her and that was why he hadn't make any considerable effort to treat her better than he had. It was only on his dying bed that he had told her. At first, she hadn't believed him. Clues, she remembered. The perfume in the top drawer of his dresser, pictures with her mother's face cut out. Not the work of a love-stricken widower, not by a long shot. Any minute now David was going to tell her this was all a joke and laugh at her.

He should have been surprised but deep down he wasn't. Samantha trusted him with her body, but not her heart and mind. She had shown him that time and time again. Why would now be any different? To admit he had done the research in an attempt to continue to be close to her in some manner would admit far too much vulnerability for either of them to be comfortable with. "When you finally told me the real reason you were in town, I told you I would help you with this Samantha. And I've always kept my word to you."

"Thank you." It sounded so trite, but Sam honestly didn't know what else she could say. "Whether or not this turns out to be her, thank you."

"You're welcome. And when I find out more, I find you wherever you are."

"You say that like I'm going somewhere."

Harper shrugged. "Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. You're your own woman as you keep reminding me. It may take awhile to find where Ms. Davidovich is hiding not to mention why. It's not like you have anything keeping you here in town. Our jobs dry up, what's to say you won't leave?"

Preview - This was absolutely the last time she tried to plan anything. There was apparently some law written in the stars that if she planned something then the gods would conspire against her to make it impossible.