Devil's Dozen: Part 2
Lucas forced himself to stay put on his bed instead of pacing up and down the short length of the cell as he wanted to. Pacing was a sign of nervous anxiety, and nerves were easily exploited both by the guards and his fellow prisoners. He hoped that he would never see the guards and prisoners again after today, but he couldn't be sure. There had been many false starts over the past thirteen years. But each time the team of attorneys Philip insisted were the best money could by was sure they'd arranged an appeal or a transfer or some sort of bargain, it had ended the same way: with Lucas back in prison. Philip might have had the money for a team of fine attorneys, but the EJ DiMera had the money for a surfeit of judges. Stefano had willed them to his son along with his phoenix rings and chess sets.
He tried not to be superstitious—in his experience, no good came of that—but it was hard not to curse himself for having written a "last" letter to Will the week before. He had spent every minute since writing the letter wondering if he had somehow jinxed his release.
"HORTON!" bellowed one of the guards. "Step back," he added more quietly when he saw that he had Lucas' attention.
Lucas obeyed. The guard cast a hard look at Lucas' cellmate, who was sleeping. He and Lucas had only been sharing a cell for a few weeks, so it wasn't too insulting that the man had decided not to see Lucas off.
When the guard was assured that no one intended to ruin Lucas' grand exit with an attempted prison break, he opened the cell door and took Lucas by the arm. Lucas automatically held out his hands to be cuffed.
"No need."
The bottom fell out of Lucas' stomach. There was always a need for handcuffs. The idea that today there wasn't was both intoxicating and terrifying.
The guard kept his hand on Lucas' arm as they walked toward the rooms where he had occasionally visited with Philip's lawyers. He hadn't been allowed other visitors, which was just as well. This was the last place he wanted Will, or anyone else, to visit.
As they passed through two locked doors, Lucas caught a glimpse of one of the lawyers. She smiled at him, detached and professional.
Then Lucas and the guard were standing in what looked like a waiting room and the guard was holding a duffel bag that had appeared from somewhere.
"Strip," the guard ordered. This was a normal request. Lucas was past the point of finding it disturbing or degrading. (He had never found it embarrassing, as a surprising number of the inmates did.) "I'm going to have to check you one more time, and then you can put these on."
Five minutes later, it had been established that Lucas was not in fact attempting to smuggle anything out of prison and he was clothed, for the first time since his last courtroom appeal, in something other than a bright orange jumpsuit. The jeans and sneakers felt odd. They fit perfectly, but when Lucas glanced down at himself, he was sure that they belonged to someone who was not him.
The door unlocked from the other side, and three more guards entered along with two lawyers, Philip, and—Lucas' heart constricted—Will.
Lucas hadn't needed to see Will in person to be reminded that his son was now a grown man. Looking at him was a shock nonetheless. He locked eyes with Will and wasn't able to break the hold even as he obeyed the lawyers' steady stream of commands to "sign here, and here, and here."
When the signing had been completed, Lucas was finally allowed to step out the door and into a parking lot full of slanting autumn afternoon sun.
Philip thanked the attorneys, who packed themselves into a red BMW and sped off.
For a long, irrational second, Lucas was sure that Will and Philip were going to vanish and leave him there, too. But Philip gestured in the direction of a limousine, which swung itself around in front of them. The door opened as if of its own accord, revealing leather seats, a refrigerator, and more than one television screen.
"Get in," Philip directed, and Lucas was happy to obey. The world was new to him again. He needed instructions for things like getting into cars. In prison, he hadn't made his own decisions about anything: not when he washed, not whether he exercised, not what he ate, not to whom he spoke. Clambering into a car that opened its doors before them seemed natural to Will and Philip, but it wasn't to Lucas.
"Nice car," Lucas told Philip. His words echoed inside his head. What was he going to do now that he was expected to talk to people about things other than who was going to threaten whose life? Everything had changed while Lucas was gone. Most changed was Will, Lucas decided. He was no longer a gangling, mercurial teenager but a grown man with a respectable career.
"Thanks."
"It has a great video game system," Will said happily. "Tyler kicks my ass, but maybe I could do okay playing against you."
Then again, maybe some things didn't change just because your son was a grown man with a respectable career. "You could do okay, could you? You aren't trying to scam me here, are you?"
Will did his best to look wounded and innocent. His best wasn't very good. Will never had been much of a poker player. "Ty really does kick my ass."
"Tyler kicks everybody's ass on that thing," Philip agreed. "If Ty had his way, the world would consist of baseball and those video games. Nothing else. Thank God Shawn finally got him into baseball. Before that, it was just the games. Now at least he goes outside sometimes."
"I can't wait to meet him," said Lucas, even though the thought filled him with dread. He was supposed to have a son—he did have a son—almost the same age as Tyler, but none of them knew where Johnny was, let alone whether he liked baseball and video games.
"He wanted to come tonight," Philip said. "Everyone did. Belle and Shawn and Claire. Chelsea and Nick and Max and Morgan, and Bo and Hope and Ciara and—well, all of your family and all of Sami's."
Lucas tensed at the mention of Sami's name, and felt Will react in kind beside him. "I'm surprised Sami's family still wants anything to do with me."
"Why?" Will and Philip demanded in unison. Philip deferred to Will with an eyeroll that seemed to wish his nephew luck. "Dad, Mom made her choices all on her own. It's not like she asked you, or me. It's not like she even cared what we thought."
"That isn't true, Will. She cared."
"But not as much as she cared about marrying herself off to EJ, like that was going to work." It appeared that Will hadn't left his childhood traumas behind quite as completely as Lucas had thought.
Lucas sighed. He had those thoughts on a daily basis himself. "That's not the point. The point is that even if your mother made a bad choice, my bad choice didn't help any of us either."
"What bad choice?"
Philip muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "not aiming for his head," but Lucas ignored him. "Haven't you taken an oath to do no harm?" he asked Will.
Will was unmoved. "I don't see how shooting EJ would harm anyone."
"Well, it put me in jail and I wasn't there to fight for your mother and the twins. It was a bad idea, and Sami might not be in the state that she's in if I'd been around."
"Mom was going to do what Mom was going to do, and she didn't care who was around," said Will coolly. "Mom's family gets that. Everyone thinks you're a hero for trying to protect us from EJ and then doing time for it."
Lucas doubted that everyone thought that. "All Sami was trying to do was protect us, too," he told Will.
"She was trying to make a martyr out of herself, and what do you know, she managed it. Are you going to go see her?"
"I'm not allowed to leave the country for another year." It was an easy answer, an easy excuse. Lucas had had plenty of time to think about whether he might visit Sami once he'd been released from prison, and he hadn't come to a good answer. Sami, for all her flaws, had been the great love of his life and the mother of his children. He knew that. Whether Sami felt the same way, and whether she would want him to visit if she were given a choice, he didn't know.
"We can have her moved her, if you want," Philip said quietly from his corner of the car.
Lucas shook his head. "No. We made the decision to leave her where she is. It's not like she knows the difference, and if it flushes out Allie or Johnny, it'll be worth it. I think she'd want that. They're getting old enough to pull something like that off without permission now, too."
"If they even want to see her," said Will, then choked as if he hadn't expected to say it aloud. Lucas didn't respond. There was no way to respond.
With an effort, the three of them turned the conversation to safer topics, like Will's co-workers and Philip's children. Before Lucas knew it the limo was pulling out of traffic. "We can walk from here," Philip told the driver. "Go home, you're done for the night."
"Very good, Mr. Kiriakis."
Lucas had better luck determining that he should get out of the car than he'd had determining that he should get into it. He was learning, at least.
The instant he stepped out of the car, though, he found himself nearly thrown against it by a strange but familiar figure. "I'm so glad to see you, so glad," the figure was repeating tearfully. That was Lucas' first clue that he was being hugged rather than hauled back to prison. The second clue was the perfume. Billie still wore the same scent.
"Billie, could you not attack him?" someone else was asking. It wasn't Will or Philip.
"Austin?" Lucas pulled back from Billie.
"Good to see you, Bro."
Lucas looked around. There were plenty of people on the streets, but none seemed to be paying them much attention. "Who else is coming?"
"Told you," said Philip. "Everyone you've ever met wanted to come, and some people you haven't. But for the first night, we kept it small."
"How small?" asked Lucas warily as he watched a figure speeding purposefully toward them. Victor Kiriakis had sometimes thrown "small" parties to which three hundred people were invited. Perhaps Philip was following in his father's footsteps.
"Just the people you see here. We didn't want to overwhelm you," Austin reassured with a hand on Lucas' shoulder. "Back off, Billie," he added casually.
"No," said Billie, and tightened her grip on Lucas.
Lucas closed his eyes and let himself enjoy Billie's arms around his chest and Austin's hand on his shoulder. The greeting committee he had really wanted was Sami and Allie and Johnny and Will. But since the only one he could have was Will, he was lucky to have two brothers and a sister here to round out his welcome.
"Missed you, too, Billie," he told her. She finally loosened her grip enough that he could get a proper look at her. As the handful of pictures he'd seen during his incarceration had suggested, she had hardly aged at all. Austin's hairline had a receded a bit, but he, too, still looked younger than he was. Lucas was the one who had spent their time apart in hell and he was the one who looked it.
"What is he doing?" Austin hissed, breaking the spell of the reunion.
Lucas and Billie followed Austin's gaze. The man Lucas had noticed running toward them was talking animatedly to Will and Philip. Lucas could now see that he was wearing scrubs; one of Will's friends from the hospital, presumably. But it was another arrival that had provoked Austin's ire.
"Who?"
"It's Craig Wesley. Will's boss. The one who went through all that effort to slander Carrie—she sends her love, totally crushed she can't be here—way back when."
Lucas thought it was sporting of Austin to forget that no one could have slandered his wife if she'd managed to remain faithful to him. He and Austin and Billie moved closer to the others.
Craig was stammering something about not knowing why Will had wanted time off; the stammering was presumably prompted by Philip's disapproving glare. Lucas almost pitied the man, and didn't mind returning the handshake Craig offered along with a tactful "Good to see you again, Lucas." Lucas responded in kind. "I had no idea why Will wanted tonight off. He didn't tell me. I only wanted him there to set an example for the interns because he's one of the best young doctors we have, but of course he's excused." Craig looked back at Will. "I just wish you'd told me why, or at least called in that you weren't coming."
"You're blowing off work?" Lucas asked his son. This wasn't a precedent he wanted to set. Will was supposed to be enjoying the life he'd built for himself, not looking after his wayward father.
"It's only intern training," said Will quickly, like he'd used to say "it's only social studies" when Lucas asked him why he hadn't done his homework.
"You should go," Lucas said quietly.
Will's refusal was drowned out by the synchronized buzzing of his, Craig's, and the other doctor's beepers.
"I do have to go," Will said. "Emergency. I'm really sorry."
"Go save the world," Lucas told him. Lucas and Austin exchanged a proud glance as Will took off toward the hospital at a dead run.
Billie, less in sync with Philip, slapped him hard on the arm.
Philip rubbed at the spot she had slapped. "What did you do that for?"
"Your stupid performance for Craig Wesley. Did you have to make him fear for his job?"
"I only have one seat on the Board. Two, if Belle has me vote Marlena's. I can't get him removed all by myself."
Billie rolled her eyes. "Yes, you can."
"Yes, I can," Philip agreed, and he didn't sound ashamed. "Guy was being a jerk and he needed to sweat."
"Who appointed you the person who gets to make other people sweat?"
"It's more an inherited position than an appointed one." He cut off Billie's retort by turning swiftly toward the building behind them; belatedly, Lucas realized that the car had taken them directly to the Titan building. "You don't mind the Penthouse Grille for dinner, do you?"
Lucas looked down at his strange, new jeans and sneakers. "I'm not dressed for it."
"No one's going to care. Besides, it's closed for a private party. Ours."
Billie rushed forward to catch up with Philip. "Didn't you tell me yesterday that it was already booked solid? An anniversary party or something?"
"So I cancelled the reservations. Those people will be having a much happier anniversary now that they've been reimbursed for twice the cost of the party with vouchers for a free meal here for every guest when we're actually open."
Austin took Billie by the arm as the four of them entered the elevator. "Let it go," he whispered.
"For now," she whispered back.
As they entered the restaurant, Lucas was left with the distinct impression that the battle between his sister and younger brother was far from over. Worse, he expected that he would soon be in the middle of it.