She was going to be sick, Emily Quartermaine thought to herself as she closed her eyes. It was always like this when she saw Nik and Liz together, this war within herself. Betrayal. Happiness. Sadness. Grief. Loss. Joy. She never knew what she was supposed to feel or what she would feel. Nikolas Cassadine was head over heels in love and it wasn’t with her. It was with her best friend. It was with Lucky’s girlfriend. It was somehow unreal even in its reality. But then nothing had really been real since Lucky’s death two years ago.

Sitting in the darkened shadows of Luke’s, Emily watches as Nikolas guides Liz onto the dance floor as Stefan Cassadine and his new bride Laura Spencer-Cassadine look on. She briefly considers the possibility of leaving, of bolting, but decides that the odds of not being spotted are better if she stays where she is.

It’s not that she’s avoiding them, it’s just that she’s well....avoiding them. She doesn’t know what to say. She knows what she wants to say. Phrases like “If I was too young for you, why isn’t she?” or “isn’t this just a little too sick” or “is sleeping with your brother’s girlfriend part of the Cassadine family tradition”. But she knows those kinds of remarks are catty and bitchy and beneath her. And as often as the two of them together brings out the bitchy side of her personality, there is another real part of her that can rejoice that two friends have found a way of overcoming their terrible grief. Every time she makes up her mind to be polite and mature and accepting, she knows that she can’t be. Not yet. She can’t remember the last time she and Nikolas talked or she and Liz hung out at the mall. She shakes her head remembering the “four musketeers.” Maybe Lucky was the glue that held the four of them together. Or maybe he was just the glue that held her together as she thinks of how badly her life has gone since he died.

She takes another sip of the diet coke she has been nursing for an hour. She never expected her life to take the turn it had. She hadn’t spoken to Jason in almost two years and she had no plans to seek him out now. Jason and Carly were married now and sometimes Emily wondered if he was happy, but that was about it. It was funny really. All those years she had been Jason’s biggest supporter despite knowing how he made his living and his lies about Michael. Then one simple overheard conversation and suddenly she can’t handle being in the same room with him. She had always believed that all that Jason lost in his accident was his memory. And maybe his sense of humor. But she had been wrong. She flinched as she remembered the conversation she had overheard between him and Carly. They had plotted to get AJ drunk. Despite knowing how hard AJ had fought to get sober since the last time he slipped off the wagon at Carly’s hands, despite knowing that AJ was an addict, Jason and Carly had plotted to get him drunk. Emily shook her head. She knew how hard it was to stay clean and sober. God knows there had been times in the last two years when she had wanted something to help get her through the day. She couldn’t support anyone who would deliberately use someone’s addiction to cause them pain. It too hurt too close to her own addiction and her own struggles. So she had cut Jason out of her life and the emptiness had been overwhelming. First Lucky, then Jason, and now Nikolas. The three people in her life she had always thought she could count on gone.

Thank God for Edward. He had been her lifelong the last year or so. Helping her finish high school. Letting her spend her afternoons at ELQ. Teaching her about business. Giving her something to focus on other than the mess that she had made of her life.

Once upon a time Emily Quartermaine had friends, a family, and a future. Now she barely talked to her two closest friends. Except for her grandfather and Lila, the rest of the family barely noticed her existence. And the future...she had just graduated from high school and she didn’t have a clue what the future held. Her mother and father, when they were speaking to her and even more importantly when they were speaking to each other, made rumblings about Columbia or Oxford or even Berkeley. Her grandfather was pressing her to work full time at ELQ. While Emily liked the idea of going away to college, the thought of working at ELQ and having her own office was exciting. What more could a college teach her about business that Edward couldn’t’t?

When did the world of business become a sanctuary? She supposed it was because ledgers, mergers, portfolios, and all the rest of the things her grandfather was teaching her were not likely to lie to her or plot to hurt people she cared about or steal her boyfriend or...

“Emily?” Laura Spencer-Cassadine’s voice shook Emily out of her thoughts. “I thought that was you back there. Were here to celebrate Liz and Nikolas moving to New York next week. Would you like to join us? I’m sure Liz and Nik would love to have you.”

Emily smiles at the older woman. It’s a fake and artificial smile. She prays to God that Laura doesn’t notice.

“No, thank you. I’m supposed to meet my grandfather at the Grill to discuss some business.”

“I had heard you were interning at ELQ. I would think you would want to enjoy your last summer before going to college.”

Emily smiled again. She was getting pretty good at hiding her feelings. “I will. Now if you will excuse me..” Emily politely made her way to the front of the club while Laura made her way back to her table. Emily had just about made it out the door when she heard a large commotion from behind her. She turned in time to see Liz fly into Nik’s arms, arms that held a small black velvet box. Emily’s heart caught in her throat and her eyes filled with tears. She whirled and would have ran but she bumped into a solid muscular object that blocked her way.

She looked up and caught her breath in shock as her brown eyes met Lucky Spencer’s devastated blue ones.

“Lucky?

Lucky Spencer couldn’t breath. He couldn’t think. All he could do was stare. Two years. For two years he had fought to stay alive. To stay sane. To get free. And he had done it. He had finally made it home.

To find Liz in his brother’s arms. Willingly. Enthusiastically. Lovingly. His heart broke. Like she belonged there. Like she had always belonged there. Then he notices other things. His mother and Stefan together. His father nowhere around. He had gone to the Spencer house first and found it occupied by a family he didn’t recognize. He had gone to Audry’s house next and it wasn’t there, replaced with a row of townhouse. So he had come here to his father’s club to at least find his father and hopefully his bearings.

Only to have his life shattered by what he found.

“Lucky,” Emily’s voice was quiet. “Lucky. My god it is you. How did you? Where have you?”

Emily’s puzzled questions stop as she stares at Lucky in concern. He seems frozen. She glances across the club and realizes why. He’d seen what she just saw but he hadn’t had months to get used to it. Nobody at the table had spotted them yet.

Lucky finally noticed her and looked down. “Emily?” Her eyes looked as heartbroken as he felt. Their eyes locked and its like when they were kids again, each there for the other.

“Do you want to go in?” she asks softly as she reaches to hold his shoulder to convince herself that he’s there. That he is whole.

In there? Now? Lucky shakes his head.

“Then let’s get out of here,” Emily says softly. “You can see them all later.”

Lucky nods his eyes fastened on the image of Liz and Nik passionately kissing. His eyes narrow as he reads the body language. “They are lovers.” He says in disbelief.

Emily groans. “Come on Lucky, let’s get out of here. If they spot you....” Her voice trails off. “You’re not up to this. Trust me, living with the Quartermaines has made me an expert on when to cut out and when to confront and this is definitely a cutting out time.”

Lucky nods. She’s right. He can’t handle this right now. If he goes in there now he will say something or do something that he will regret. His heart tells him to stay near Liz. Every instinct in him is screaming for him to get out of there. From this moment on, Lucky will listen to his instinct and not his heart.

“Good,” Emily says firmly and breathes a sigh of relief as she leads him to the parking lot. “Did you bring a car?”

“No,” the cool night air has snapped Lucky out of his fog. That and the fact that Liz and Nik are shut away for the moment. “Some friends dropped me off.”

“Okay,” Emily doesn’t ask questions. “Let’s take my car.” She leads Lucky to the red corvette parked in the adjoining lot.

Lucky’s interest perks up. “Nice car Emily.”

Emily shrugs. “It’s part of my grandfather’s efforts to bribe me into taking this Division Head position at ELQ instead of going to college.”

“You at ELQ? What happened to modeling?”

“I grew up,” Emily says flatly. “I stopped believing in fantasies.”

Lucky nods. He knows how she feels. He steals a glance at her as they drive. She’s grown beautiful in the last two years he realizes. The promise of beauty the teenager had was fulfilled in the young woman. Tall, graceful, with brown hair that shone, and large brown eyes that could haunt you. She wasn’t a petite brunette with green eyes, but she was still beautiful. But with a hint of coolness that mystified him.

Emily rolled down the window and let the cool night air in.

“Where do you want to go?” She asks Lucky, still not quite believing that she is actually able to ask Lucky anything.

“Just away from here. Someplace private. Where we can talk.”

“I know just the place.”

Fifteen minutes later, Emily pulls her car into the Gatehouse driveway.

“Ned’s place?” Lucky questions as Emily shakes her head.

“Meet bribe gift number two,” Emily said with a laugh. “Ned moved into town about six months ago, so grandfather suggested after graduation that I move in here. I jumped at the chance but I don’t think I’ll stay here past this summer. I want something all of my own. If I take the position at ELQ I’ll probably buy my own place in town.”

Emily dropped her lightweight sweater on the couch and motioned to Lucky to sit down. She went into the kitchen and pulled herself a soda and Lucky a beer.

She walked back into the living room and handed the beer to Lucky. “Here you look like you could use this.” Emily sat next to Lucky. “I still can’t believe that you are alive and that you are here.” Emily reaches over and picks up his hand. “You have no idea how much I missed you these last few years.”

“I missed you too,” Lucky smiles as he looks at his best friend. “All that kept me going at times was the thought of coming back to Port Charles and to Liz and....” His voice trails off. “I guess we all know how well that plan turned out.”

“Lucky do you want to talk about it?”

“No. I want to just forget about it. Tomorrow I’ll head to Spoon Island- I assume that’s where my mother lives now?”

Emily nodded. “Stefan and Laura and Lu live on Spoon Island. Nikolas and Liz live in the cottage still.”

“They live together?”

Emily hates the pain she is inflecting. “They’ve been dating for about a year. Six months ago Audrey died suddenly and Liz moved in with Nikolas.”

A year. He should be grateful that they waited a year he supposed.

“Does she love him?”

Emily closes her heart against her own heartache. “Very much. I think it started after you “died”. Liz was grief-stricken. Nikolas was the only one who could reach her. They became inseparable. I don’t think either one of them even realized they were falling in love with the other until it happened. Sometimes I want to yell and scream at them. Sometimes I look at them and they just fit together so well that all the jealousy disappears until I only feel envy.”

“You still love him.”

Emily shakes her head. “Most of the time I don’t. Sometimes I look at him and realize that this part of me still does. But lately I’ve began to wonder if it’s the loss of Nikolas Cassadine I mourn or the loss of Emily Quartermaine.” She takes a sip of the soda and settles back against Lucky in familiar comfort. “ My life has changed so much in the last two years that I miss who I was when you were alive.”

“Hey I’m still alive.” Lucky drinks the beer.

“Where have you been?”

“I was kidnapped by this madman,” Lucky says flatly. “The fire, my death. He faked it all. I kept waiting for someone to find out the truth and rescue me. I always thought it would be my father. It turned out to be the WSB. I’ve been at one of their safehouses for the last month until their doctor said I was well enough to come home.”

“It must have been horrible.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Lucky lies. He doesn’t want to think about his captivity or his return. He wants to stay here, in this moment, enjoying the company of his best friend. Feeling her softness in his arms, the rose scent of her hair, the.... He stops himself. God he must be more overwhelmed than he thought he was. This is Emily. He doesn’t have those kind of feelings for Emily. Never has. Never will. It’s Liz he loves. Liz he mourns.

Emily sits quietly, wondering what Lucky is thinking that made him tense up suddenly. For the first time in two years, Emily feels at peace with the world and secure in it. Maybe she has a chance at finding herself again now that Lucky is back.

Lucky moves suddenly and stands up, creating a slight distance between the two of them. “Let’s go for a walk. Down to the lake.”

Emily smiles. “Okay.” She grabs her sweater. “Do you want me to throw some drinks in a bag?”

“Yeah then we can sit and talk for a while.” And the fresh air will keep my imagination under control Lucky thinks to himself.

Hand in hand, the two friends head out across the Quartermaine estate.