Emily has her eyes closed feeling the warmth of the sun caress her
skin. She can hear Jonathan laugh as he plays in the sand next to her and she
smiles. She feels a trickle of sand land on her bare stomach and opens her
eyes.
“Lucky,” she protests, “What exactly are you up to?”
“Me?” He grins that sly grin that drives her crazy. “Absolutely
nothing.” The sand continues to fall on her. Lucky merely smiles. “Hey Jonathan,
Lucky calls out. “You want to help me bury your mom in the sand?”
Jonathan giggles. “Sure thing Dad.”
“Hey, No fair.” Emily complains, “The two of you are ganging up on
me.” The sand is coming down heavier and heavier. It hurts to breath. “Stop it.
This isn’t fair.”
“And who said life was fair Emily dear,” Helena Cassadine smiles
from above her. “It wasn’t fair of you to take my flesh and blood.”
“No!” Emily begins to struggle. “Where are Jonathan and
Lucky?”
“Why don’t you remember?” Helena says with a laugh. “I killed
them.”
Emily wakes with a start. The room is thick with dust and large
sections of the wall and ceiling crowd the floor. It takes her a second to remember
where she is. They had been running, the building had collapsed, and
Jason.... “Jason!” she calls out but there is no answer. Carefully,
gingerly, very much afraid that the whole building will fall down again on her,
Emily slides out from under the bed that was partially protecting her. She checks
her self. She has bruises and abrasions and some cuts that are bleeding, but other
than that she is okay. Her back hurts from Helena’s whippings and the nausea is
back again, but for the most part she is in one piece.
The power is out and the room is dark so Emily has to feel her way.
She has no idea where in Helena’s complex they are. Are there ten floors of
rubble above them or two?
First things first Em, she tells herself as she reaches out with her hands
to find her way around. First find Jason and then the two of you will get out of
here. She refuses to let herself think about Lucky. Or Luke for that matter. She
assumes they are someplace in this mess too, but she knows that it would be
pointless to look for them.
That doesn’t mean she doesn’t want too. That dream
has her really unnerved. It’s not the first time she’s ever dreamed about Helena.
God knows she can’t keep track of the different ways Helena Cassadine has killed
her in her dreams. Of course once or twice she returned the favor.
Dreams of Helena Cassadine scared her but they didn’t unnerve her
like this. He had called Lucky “Dad.” Was that what she wanted
deep down where she wasn’t acknowledging it or thinking about it? Did she want
the three of them to be a family?
Yeah she kind of thought she did.
No point going there, Em she tells herself as she manages to make her
way across a couple more feet of floor even if Lucky is over Liz enough to move
on to someone else, something I highly doubt, can you see Lucky raising
Jonathan and not telling Nikolas the truth? Do you want Nikolas to know the
truth? Is Helena really the only reason you haven’t told Nikolas he has a son?
Emily shakes her head. If she is honest with herself, Helena is not the only reason
she hasn’t told Nikolas. She’s the biggest reason. And if there wasn’t a Helena or
a Cassadine threat, she would probably bite the bullet and tell Nikolas.
But there was also her fear of losing Jonathan. She and Jonathan had
moved from apartment to apartment, hotel room to hotel room, shelter to shelter.
All the possessions he owned he carried in his backpack. What would Jonathan
say the first time he saw Wyndemere? The stables at Spoon Island? There was no
way Emily was returning to the Quartermaine Estate. What would he say when he
realized all that she had denied him all of these years? Would he understand that
she had done it to save him? Would Jonathan hate her if he realized how she had
kept him from his father?
Emily stops her train of thought. It’s pointless to worry about things
that will never happen when there are enough things to worry about that will
happen. Like finding Jason. Getting out of here. “Jason,” she calls softly,
not wanting to attract the attention of any of Helena’s men who are still
around. “Here.” She hears his voice and moves in that direction. “Are you
okay?” She whispers as she crawls next to him.
“I think my arm’s broken,” he answers her, a pain threaded through
his voice. How about you?”
“Shaken and stirred, but nothing broken,” She answers him. “Wait
here,” She tells him. Carefully she crawls back along the floor the bed, tears off a
section of the sheet and returns to Jason. Quietly she tears the sheet into a
makeshift splint and ties it around Jason’s arm. “Here. I hope this helps.”
“I’ll be fine,” he tells her.
“What do we do next?”
“I think our best bet is still the stairs at the end of the corridor,” Jason
replies. “Where’s the gun I dropped.” Emily feels around them for the
weapon.
“Do you think any of Helena’s men are still alive?”
“We made it didn’t we? Chances are if we are still alive, then other
people are still around,” Jason lifts her to her feet. The dust has started to settle
and visibility, while difficult, is not impossible. “Let’s get out of here.”
Without saying a word, Emily follows him .
Lucky is kissing Emily, her long legs wrapped around him as he
presses his lips deeper into her. Here eyes are shining when she pulls back a
minute later and whispers, “I......”
“Lucky.” There is a gentle shaking. “Lucky wake up.”
Reluctantly, Lucky wakes up. “Aren’t I just a little too old for you to
wake up and send to school?”
Luke smiles. “Far be it from me to wake the sleeping beauty, but I think
we need to take advantage of whatever the hell just happened to make good our
escape.”
Lucky forces himself to drive all thoughts of huge brown eyes and silken
hair out of his head. “What happened,” he asked his father.
“My guess is Jason. Total collapse. Dead bodies. Building in rubble.
Definitely screams Jason Morgan to me,” Luke smiles. “How’re you feeling?”
Luke tears a section of his shirt off and ties it around Lucky’s head, creating a
bandage wherel the bullet gazed Lucky.
“I’m okay,” Lucky replies trying to stand up among the rubble.
“Where’s Helena?”
Luke motions to the pile of rubble in one corner.
“Do you think she’s dead?”
“I don’t think I’m too inclined to sit here and figure it out. I think
we’re lucky, pardon the pun, that Helena’s private quarters are on the top floor
and that we’re not looking at being buried under two or three floors of debris.
“Yeah,” Lucky looks at his father. “Do you think Emily and Jason are
okay?”
“I don’t know cowboy,” his father said. “I just don’t know.”
Jason/Emily
They have been pulling away chunks of debris for thirty minutes now
and they’ve had very little luck actually cleaning the hallway. Every time Jason
picked up a piece its place was taken by two or three pieces. It was hard work
and she was exhausted.
Jason looked at his little sister. She wasn’t in any shape for this, he
thought. And the last thing he needed or wanted was for her to collapse on him.
“Emily why don’t you sit and rest.” he suggested pointing to a slab of
concrete.
Emily shook her head. “You need all the help you can get.”
“I need you to take a break. Talk to me. Keep my mind off how much
my muscles hurt.”
Emily smiled ruefully. “In other words, bug you just like a little sister
should.”
Jason returned her smile. “Can I help it if I missed my little sister all
these years?”
“Okay,” Emily leans back. “What do you want me to talk about?”
“Tell me a little bit more about Jonathan? He seems a little too quiet
to be related to you?”
Emily giggles. Jonathan quiet? She shakes her head. “I think Jonathan
could be all of the little rascals rolled into one sometimes. He gets into trouble
without even thinking about it and is so smart he barely has to think about it to
get out of trouble.” Her voice drops. “He’s more than I deserve, but I love him”
Jason pauses. “That’s how I felt about Michael.”
Emily hesitates, knowing that she’s treading on dangerous ground.
“I’d love to hear some more about Michael.”
Jason shrugs. “There isn’t much to tell. He’s doing well in school. AJ
is a good father, even keeps Edward from spoiling the kid. Michael misses his
mother, it’s hard to explain to a little boy why his mother left when you don’t
quite understand it yourself. But other than that, Michael’s doing fine.”
“Then what’s wrong,” Emily asks.
“Nothing” Jason shrugs again. “I’m just worried about you and this
mess with Helena.”
“I don’t believe you,” Emily challenges him.
There is silence for a moment as Jason continues to dig and Emily
continues to wait.
“Robin is dead.” Jason says flatly.
“What? Oh God Jason I’m so sorry,” Emily whispers in shock.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” Jason’s voice is filled with self-loathing. “I
killed her.”
Luke/Lucky
Luke and Lucky make their way down the hallway. This section of
the compound does not seem as badly damaged, but the massive pieces of rubble
everywhere and the threat of more rubble falling make the going short. That and
the fact that they are trying to steer clear of Helena’s men. Although the few
guards they have spotted seemed too confused and dazed about the collapse of
the building to be concerned about two soon to be escaped prisoners.
Luke stops as he turns the hallway. The exit is blocked by large
pieces of debris and rubble.
“Do we turn around and head in the other direction.”
Luke shakes his head. “The only other way out is right through the
heart of Helena’s security system, something I’d rather avoid.”
“Assuming its working.”
“Not a chance I want to take.”
“You have a better plan?”
“Yeah,” Luke reaches into his pocket and pulls out one of the
grenades Jason gave him. “I say we show Jason that he’s not only one that can
blow a building.”
“We can’t blow up a building when we’re in it.” Lucky protested.
“Spencer Rule Number 12: Expect the unexpected. The explosive in
this grenade isn’t enough to cause that much structural damage but it should be
enough to blow a hole through that pile of rubbish right there,”
“I hope you kow what you are doing.”
“Trust me,” Luke says as he pulls the pin off the grenade.
“Dad.”
“Yeah Cowboy.”
“There is no Spencer Rule Number 12.”
“I know” says Luke as he throws the grenade.
“I don’t get it.” Emily says to Jason, still reeling from his
announcement that Robin was dead. “You would never have hurt Robin.”
“But I did. I hurt her a thousand times over Michael. Over Carly.”
Jason closes his eyes. “When she told AJ the truth, I was furious. I felt betrayed. I
swore I never wanted to see her again. I meant it too. And she knew I meant it.
So she left. And she stayed away.”
“And I let her stay away. Even when I realized for myself, that AJ had
a right to know, I still punished Robin for being the one to tell him. I put her on
this pedestal and when she fell off I let her smash into thousand pieces.”
“Jason what happened.”
Jason stops what he is doing and looks at his sister. “About a year ago I
got a phone call from Robin. She was still living in Paris and she needed to see
me. She begged me. I made her beg me before I said yes. When I got to Paris, I
went to the address she had given me.” He closes his eyes as he remembers. “It
was an AIDS Hospice.”
“Oh Jason.”
“Yeah, her HIV had turned into AIDS. She was dying. Mac was
there. Felecia. The girls. They were all there. Nobody had told me. I never knew.
The woman I loved, still love, was going through unimaginable horrors and
enduring unimaginable pain and I never knew.”
“Jason, it wasn’t your fault.”
“It was all my fault,” Jason replied. “If I hadn’t sent her away, if she
had stayed in Port Charles, if I hadn’t been so blinded by what was happening
with Michael, maybe I could have helped her. Found her a new protocol.
Discovered a new treatment. Bought her some time. Instead I killed her.”
“Jason you didn’t kill her. AIDS killed her.”
“No,” Jason shakes his head. “I killed her. That day in Paris, she
asked to see me alone. She was in so much pain. She asked me to help her end
her pain. She asked me to kill her. She knew that her Uncle Mac could never do
it. She knew that I could get the drugs easily enough. And in the end she knew I
would do anything to stop her pain.”
Emily walked up and put her hands on his shoulder. He continued.
“She wanted one afternoon with her family. I spent the day walking
around Paris. That night we spent a lot of time talking. Or at least I talked. She
was too tired and too filled with pain to do anything other than listen. In the
morning, while she was watching the sun rise, I helped her take the pills, and then
I held her while she fell asleep. They never did an autopsy. No one knows how
she really died.”
Emily is crying. “She must have loved you very much to have trusted
you to do that for her.”
Jason is crying too. “She told me that she loved me that night. She
forgave me. All I can think of is all of the years we could have been together if it
wasn’t for my stupidity. I loved her but I thought I could live my life without her
so I let her go. And now I can never have her back. I can never tell her how much
I need her. I can never hold her again.”
For the first time that she can remember, Emily is the one that holds
and comforts her brother while he cries.
After a few minutes, Jason pulls away and begins to tackle the hallway
with renewed vigor.
“Come on, we’re going to get out of here.”
Luke/Lucky
The grenade does its job and blows a hole in the debris covering their
exit. They can even see the merest glimmer of daylight.
“Come on,” Luke calls to Lucky. “I told you it would work. Let’s
go.”
“Dad wait,” Luke stops. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
“This isn’t exactly the best time for true confessions,” Luke says.
“If I’ve learned anything in the last 12 hours its that you sometimes don’t
get a second chance to say what you want to say.” Lucky thinks of Emily and his
failure like an idiot to respond to her confession of love. “You have to take your
moments when they come.”
“Okay,” Luke says impatiently. “Confess so we can get out of here.”
“I love you,” Lucky says simply. Luke halts disbelievingly. He hasn’t
heard his son say those words in 12 years. Lucky has, at least in small ways, let
Luke back into his life again, but he hadn’t used those words.
“I don’t know if it makes a difference” Lucky begins but Luke cuts
him off.
“It makes a world of difference,” Luke says. With renewed energy he
turns to Lucky, let’s see if we can get out of here and go rescue your girl.”
Lucky grins and follows his dad over the pile of debris and to the
hole in the wall.
