Secrets, Lies, and Other Acts of Love
Authors Note: This story takes place about 9 years in the future. Lucky is 27 and working for Jax as a computer consultant. He is very successful financially. Emotionally, he’s been a wreck since Liz died in a car accident three years ago. When he attends Lila Quartermaine’s funeral, he runs into Emily Quartermaine who has spent the last seven years on the run and hiding out for reasons of her own. This is their story. I hope you enjoy it.
One last thing: The inspiration for this story came from a line in the show where Lucky makes the statement that there is no justification for lying. This story is my attempt to show him that there are some things worth lying for.
Chapter One: Encounters
She can think of a million reasons why she should not be here. She knows these have to be that many because they have been racing through her head nonstop since she picked up the phone and made the reservation. She almost turned around a hundred different times before she got here.
She knows she’s breaking all the rules that seven long years have taught her.
She knows that she cannot stay and wonders fleetingly if a heart can break more than once.
She pulls the beige overcoat closer to keep out of the bitter cold. She has learned to accept the color beige, along with packing light and motel rooms.
Seven long years. Seven incredibly short years.
She’s risking it all to be here.
A million reasons to stay away.
One reason to be here.
They were burying her beloved grandmother today. And Emily Quartermaine has come home to Port Charles for the first time in seven years to say goodbye.
With any luck she will be gone before anyone she knows can spot her.
With any luck it won’t turn out to be the biggest mistake of her life.
The consequences of failure are unimaginable.
He has learned to hate funerals these last few years. But there are three reasons why Lucky Spencer is here today. The first was to offer support to his mother and young sister. The second was to pay his respects to the family. And the third was because he had, quiet simply, loved the old lady.
But then so had the entire town if the size of the crowd was anything to go by.
Lucky looks around the crowd and sees people he has known his whole life- his parents, his sister, his half brother, and the rest of his friends and neighbors. The Quartermaines, at once united and forever divided by their grief, surround the casket. He cannot remember ever seeing Edward Quartermain so silent or so detached. So broken
At least Edward and Lila had a lifetime together....
He and Elizabeth had been given five short years.
The last funeral he had attended had been hers and he had hated every single second of it. In his mind, his relationship with Liz had been composed of intensely private moments that gave him a reason for existing. He had hated saying goodbye to her in public with both of their families hovering around him like vultures waiting for him to collapse.
He sighed. He knew he was being unfair but he couldn’t help it.
And he had made do with saying goodbye in public because he had been too late to say goodbye to her at the hospital. Dead on impact they called it, lost from the moment her car had slid on a patch of ice and down an embankment.
Stupid. All those years living afraid of Helena Cassadine and before her Frank Smith and the real threat to his well being had been a stupid patch of ice.
It had been so easy at first to refuse to believe that she was dead, especially those first few months. It was, after all, not unheard of in the Spencer family history to come back from the dead. His mother had been “dead” for three years before escaping the island. His father had been dead for months after faking his death when that avalanche had caught him. Even his grandmother had come back from the dead. And God knows that he had been resurrected from the dead the moment Elizabeth had told him that she loved him.
But she was dead, the real kind of dead where people were buried in heavy caskets and tons of dirt were piled on top of them.
Dead. Gone. And he had been lost without her. Now it was three years later.
He supposed on the surface that he had moved on with his life. He had never finished high school, but to avoid coming home to an empty apartment he had started taking night classes in business at the local college. He had spent lots of time with Lulu and even some with Nickels, although the formers frequent trips to Greece on Cassadine business made that difficult. And he had even learned how to be civil to his parents, although he knew that they would never share the close relationship they had once enjoyed.
And since he had promised Liz a long time ago that he would stay away from the business, he had turned down Sonny and Jason’s job offer and instead sought out Jax. He had found working with Jax intriguing, a never ending puzzle that needed solving on a daily basis. He had began by offering to test the security system protecting Jax’s computers. Jax had boasted that his computers were fool proof. It had taken Lucky half a day to hack his way past layers of passwords and interfaces to leave a private message in Jax’s confidential email folder. Jax had offered him twice as much money to design a system that was foolproof.
He had also began consulting for other business- some for the PCPD and Mac Scorpio, a few for ELQ when Edward wasn’t looking, and even a job or two for Cassadine Industries when the need arose.
Money wise, he was making more at 27 than he could possibly have dreamed possible.
It was the only part of his life that was flourishing.
He could feel Lulu begin to fidget next to him and leaned over to caution her when something caught his eye. At the edge of the crowd he could see a tall, silent, and graceful figure with long brown hair peaking out of a dark scarf. It couldn’t be, could it? After all theses years.
She looked up for just a second and their eyes met and held for what seemed to be forever.
Emily?
She had to leave. Emily Quartermaine knew the minute her eyes had locked with Lucky Spencer’s that she was suddenly out of time. Thank God that he hadn’t blurted her name outloud and no one else seemed to recognize her. She was safe for the moment.
Emily moved swiftly and determinedly through the crowd, careful not to move too fast or attract too much attention. She knew that if she could just reach the street she could blend with in the passerbys and follow the crowd to safety. If she-
“Emily.” The hand that grabbed her was stronger than she remembered. The voice deeper, quieter, and laced with a hint of steel that she had never heard before.
She kept her head focused on the ground in front of her fighting the urge to look up.
“Em.” Quietly and more firmly. “Em”
“What are you doing here?”
“What do you mean?” She decided to be angry. Anger was a good response. Besides hadn’t she heard Jason mention once that a good offense meant a good defense. Or maybe AJ had said it watching a football game. Or Justus talking about a law case. Whatever. It made sense and give her something to do other than beg and plead. “”I have more right to be here than most of the people who are here. That’s my grandmother that they are burying today Lucky Spencer.”
Lucky hesitates. What the hell was happening here? He took a deep breath. “I didn’t mean that. I know you loved Lila. Hell we both did for all the grief we sometimes gave her. I was just so surprised to see you here in Port Charles again after so many years. Noone had mentioned that you were going to be here. Truth to tell, know one by the name of Quartermaine has so much as whispered your name for almost five years now.”
“In fact,” he continued trying to mask his own pain, “I haven’t heard a word from you in almost seven years. About anything. And you didn’t even come home for Liz’s funeral. I missed you Em. I needed my best friend by me when I buried my wife.”
She looked at him, somewhat surprised that she actually had to look up at him. How do I explain? I can’t. “I’m sorry Lucky. I was out of the country. By the time I heard it was too late to attend the funeral.” Another lie.
“I would have been here if I could.” The first truth she had told.
She looked around. The service was still going on and so far noone had noticed her presence. But she saw Jason with the family and how he kept looking in her direction.
“I’m sorry Lucky, I can’t talk about this now. I have to leave. I’ll call you when I can.”
“Wait a minute.” This time it was Lucky’s turn to be angry. “You can’t just waltz back out of Port Charles without so much as a hello or an explanation.”
Emily looked at her watch, feeling the pull of the her fear pushing her around.
“I can’t talk now. I’m not ready for my parents to see me back in time. I promise I’ll tell you everything (a lie again) if you’ll meet someplace were we can talk.
“What about the catacombs? In an hour or so?”
Lucky nodded.
“Okay, I’ll meet you there,” She turned to slip away, walked a hundred feet or so, and paused to look back.
“Lucky?”
“Yeah”
“Thanks.”
And in a moment the crowd from the funeral swallowed her up and Lucky Spencer was alone again.
Five minutes after leaving Lucky, Emily turned and started in walking in the opposite direction, away from the catacombs. She had no intention of doing anything other than leave town as soon as she could.
But she had something to do first
