Secrets, Lies, and Other Acts of Love
Chapter Five: Healing
Penny for your thoughts?”
Silence.
Lucky sighed in exasperation. It looked like the long flight to the West Coast
was going to be seem longer at this rate. They had been on the plane for almost an hour
and Emily hadn’t said anything yet.
He was beginning to hate her silence.
She had to be in pain, but she had refused to even consider taking one of the
painkillers Jason’s doctor had given him. Her skin was milk white and warm to the
touch.
At least they were alone. It was the one piece of luck that had come his way. Jax
had insisted that Lucky take the cooperate jet to LA and after talking it over with Jason,
Lucky had accepted. Looking around the luxuriously appointed interior of the plane, he
had to admit that it was better than trying to have Emily cope with a commercial flight.
God, he wished she would do something- anything. Yell or scream or rant and
rave. Instead she seemed to have withdrawn into her own little world, curled up in the
recliner seat, with her eyes fixated on the window to the outside. She had made no
protest when he covered her with a blanket.
He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to help her.
All his life Lucky had been the person who acted, who fixed things, who made
things better. He had been able to help Liz. He had been able to help Nikolas. He had
even in a strange way been able to help his parents pull it back together.
And until Lizzie died, the only person he had truly failed had been Emily. He had
been so caught up in his own life, first his obsession with Sarah Weber and then with
falling in love with Lizzie, that he had failed to recognize the pain in Emily’s life. He had
grown up with the Spencer mantra that loyalty and friendship were golden. Yet he had
not been Emily’s friend for the longest time, had not been there to see her drift into the
path of a hurricane named Dorman or rely on drugs to pick up her life again. In all of his
life, Lucky had never doubted, not for a minute, that he was loved. First by his parents,
then by his sister, and finally by Lizzie. It was a feeling that for all the money the
Quartermaines had they had never been able to give Emily- unconditional love. Even
with Lizzie gone, Lucky at least had his memories to give him the strength to hold on
through the darkest night.
He had the saddest feeling that Emily had nothing but herself to hold on to.
Lucky shook his head, morbid thoughts like these were not doing anyone any
good. What he needed was a distraction.
“Hey Em!,” he walked nearer to her and pulled out his wallet. He ignored her
lack of response. “I bet you’ve never seen pictures of my new baby sister. She’s about
four years old now so I guess I have to stop referring to her as my “baby” sister.
Although considering I used that term with Lesley Lu till she was ten, I guess I can be
forgiven. Her name is Ruby Angeline Spencer. I think she’s a carbon copy of my mom-
blue eyes and golden hair. She’s already got my dad wrapped around her finger. Do you
want to see her picture?” He showed her the photo of Ruby he kept in his wallet. She
ignored it for the longest second and then turned to look at it.
“She’s beautiful.”
“Yeah she is...” Lucky replied, grateful for her response. He hesitated, needed
to keep her talking so she wouldn’t retreat into her silence but unsure of what to say. “Is
there anything you want to know about your parents? Or Edward? I might even have a
photo of Michael in here someplace from Lu’s last birthday party...”
“No!” Emily yelled and knocked the wallet away. “No, No, No!” She kept
repeated the word, holding her hands over her ears, and closing her eyes.
Lucky stood for a second petrified. Then he dropped to his knee in front of her
chair and slowly reached for her hands.
“It’s okay,” he whispered soothingly, softly. “We don’t have to do anything you
don’t want to. No one is going to force you to do anything. You’re safe Emily.”
She stared at him, her brown eyes huge and enormous in her pale face and so
much older than he remembered them being. Her stare was haunted and piercing, as if
whatever horror she saw in the real world could not match the horror inside her mind.
“There is no safe. It’s just a dream. Nothing is safe.” she whispered.
“You’re wrong, Em. You are safe.”
She shook her head, then sighed. “You don’t understand Lucky. You couldn’t
understand. I want so badly to ask you about my family. I want to know if AJ’s okay or
if Monica misses me or how Edward is coping. I even want to know if Reginald still
sings when he does housework or if cook still kicks us out of the kitchen. I want to
know what Brook Lynn got for her last birthday. Oh God Lucky you have no idea how
badly I want to know...” Tears were silently escaping down her face despite her best
efforts at capturing them.
“Then why?” he whispered aching for her pain.
“Because I can’t go back. And the more I know about what my family the more
real they are to me, the more I want to see them. Need to see them. Sometimes the only
way I stay away is by convincing myself that they, that all of Port Charles, is just this
dream. Some days I can even talk myself into believing that Emily Quartermaine never
existed....never had fights with people she cared about, never had her heart broken by
one lie or another, never lost someone she loved....I don’t have a past anymore Lucky. I
left it behind when I left Port Charles. The funny thing is I don’t have a future either. I
exist in the present, day by day, surviving, holding it together because letting it fall apart
is not an option.”
She looked up at him. “Even here being with you. Seeing you. I start to feel
again. I look at you and I remember her- Emily Quartermaine. I remember that she had
friends. I remember that she had good times to go along with the bad. I remember that
she had a life. And then I remember that I had to walk away from it. That I had to leave
it all behind. And I die again inside. ...”
“There’s one truth I’ve learned the hard way Lucky..I can walk away from a
place or person but I can’t walk away from a memory. And I want to. I want to be able
to forget who I used to be. I want to forget.” She was crying in earnest now and Lucky
reached up and carefully, mindful of her injury, took her in his arms.
“You’re so wrong Emily,” he whispered to the top of her head. He reached over
and carefully lifted her chin so she would look at him. “I don’t ever want to forget Emily
Quartermaine or one second of the friendship we shared.”
She looked at for a second before lying her head back on his shoulder.
“Then remember for both of us Lucky,” she whispered softly, “remember for
both of us.”
In her seven years on the run, Emily had stayed at welfare motels and dumps on
the side of forgotten highways as well as the occasional upscale apartment, but she had
never stayed in a villa like Jax’s house in Malibu. At least not since the trip she and
Monica had made to Italy.
She and Lucky had entered this kind of unspoken truce. He didn’t ask her any
questions and she didn’t tell him any lies. So far it was working.
Most of the last week or so had been spent resting, either inside the gracious
bedroom or in the last day or two on the deck. Lucky had taken care of all the cooking,
although Emily suspected most of it came from the local deli that delivered than through
any real artistry on Lucky’s part. Still, she appreciated the attention and the solitude. It
was just her and Lucky and the big huge white elephant they shared the house with.
They didn’t talk about it, but that didn’t mean they didn’t think about it. She
knew Lucky was communicating via email with Jason. She also knew that all of the
walks he took around the perimeter of the estate were not to enjoy the scenery. And that
he hadn’t spent three days upgrading the alarm system as a favor to Jax. And even if she
had allowed herself the illusion of believing otherwise, the gun Lucky gave her last night
would shot any alternate theories down. She had refused it. Guns were dangerous,
wasn’t she like a walking billboard on the subject. He had been angry, but hadn’t pushed
the issue. The gun sat still in the top drawer of her bedside table. A compromise, Lucky
called it.
None of it mattered to Emily. Each day she focused on regaining her strength,
testing herself a little more. She figured that if she had to, she’d be strong enough to
leave in a week or so. She still had no clue where she was going, but it wouldn’t be the
first time she had taken off without a plan.
She had made Jason make Lucky promise to let her go, but she wasn’t counting
on that promise. Not that she believed Lucky would deliberately break his promise, he’d
just talk himself into believing that he was doing the best thing for her. And he’d end up
putting himself at risk and it wouldn’t make a difference in the long run. There had been
a time once when Emily had let someone help her. That person had died as a result.
Never again.
Besides, in the end it was pointless. Ever since she had been shot, Emily had
known the truth. There was no escape. Seven years of hiding and hurting, hadn’t made a
difference. She had been tracked like a rabbit. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to
hide. Just one thing she could do. And she planned on doing it.
She had made one phone call from the Villa. It had lasted a few minutes, too
short to trace but long enough to make arrangements.
She was so tired. Emily sat on the edge of the deck overlooking the ocean and
watched the sun go down. It was a beautiful sunset. She would remember it forever.
“Can I join you?” Lucky didn’t wait for her to say anything, just sat down next
to her. He had been watching her all day, watching her struggle with a feeling he
couldn’t quite name but knew he didn’t like. He watched her know, her slender (too
slender at the moment he thought) form was draped in a bright yellow dress that wasn’t
really her shade and didn’t really fit her, but which they had found in the closet and was
loose enough that it didn’t hurt her wound. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and
she wore no make up. He stared at her for a long minute. “I want to kiss her,” he
thought to himself shocked. Kiss? Em? Kiss? Anybody other than Liz? Ever?
“Tell me about Liz,” Emily’s quite voice broke into his thoughts. Get a grip
Spencer, this is Em you’re thinking about. Neither of one you needs this now.
“What do you want to know?” Lucky asked, somewhat surprised that he can talk
about her without feeling a lump in his throat.
“Did she suffer?”
“When she died? No. Married to me? Probably. You know how pigheaded and
stubborn I can be. It wasn’t easy being married to me, especially at times. I can’t say she
never complained, never threw a shoe at me when I was being a brat, but she never
stopped loving me. Not for one second.” Lucky found himself smiling when he pictured
Liz.
“I used to envy the two of you so much.” Emily admitted, then laughed quietly
when she saw his startled expression. “Envy, Lucky. Not jealousy. I saw how happy you
were together. You were my friend and you had found someone who completed you. I
was happy for you. But I’d watch you and Liz together and want that for myself. I’d go
home at night and dream about falling in love like that. Forever. Sometimes I thought I
did. I used to have the craziest crushes in high school. And each time I swore it was
love. It never was. Or” her voice went so soft he could barely hear it, “Or I’d look for
love in a pill or a needle and for a while the world was okay and then it splintered
again.”
There is complete and total silence between them. Lucky can’t remember her
ever talking about her drug addiction to him. Not like this. He doesn’t know what to
say, but then realizes that she doesn’t expect him to say anything. She only needs to talk.
His hand goes around her shoulder.
She looks up at him. There is something in the air between them, connecting
them. Before he stops to think about it, he is kissing her. Softly. Gently. For a moment,
she kisses him back. Then he stops, realizing that she is kissing him goodbye. It is dark
now and even California evenings can get cool, but this one has turned cold. She reaches
over and kisses him on the cheek, gets up, and starts to walk back inside.
“Em.” He stops her. She waits.
“What if you’re wrong? What if you tell me and the world doesn’t fall apart?
What if I can help? What if I can keep you safe? You ran last time and it kept you safe
and I’m grateful. But what if running this time is a mistake? “
She pauses a moment thinking. He doesn’t turn around but keeps his eyes
focused on the water that he knows is out there somewhere.
He doesn’t breath until he hears her footsteps turn and walk back into the house.
How will he keep his promise now?
Next: Emily’s confession....does Lucky really want to know the truth?
The next chapter will be a multiparter...I will try to post it in the next day or
