“ You heard me right Jax. The evidence is right here. Nikolas is not Stefan’s son. He isn’t even Stavros’ son. He isn’t even a Cassadine. He’s Luke’s...”

“You’re lying!” Nikolas Cassadine stands in the doorway of his Aunt’s law office and can’t believe what he’s hearing.

Alexis paled as she looked at Nikolas. “I’ll talk to you later Jax.” She lowers the phone and returns it to it’s cradle.

“You were lying weren’t you?”

“Nikolas I never wanted you to find out this way. I was going to wait until after the holidays to tell you and your father, Stefan, what I discovered...”

“Just tell me you were lying.”

“I...Nikolas I can’t. Jax and I located the doctor who did the DNA test on you. His files confirm that your father is Luke Spencer..”

“But how? Does Laura know? Does Stefan?”

“I don’t thinks so. We were all told by the doctor that you were born premature, but you weren’t. It was just another one of Helena’s lies.”

“But this...this makes no sense. If I was Luke’s, why raise me as a Cassadine? Why the lies? Why make me the heir?”

“Revenge,” Alexis said softly. “She blamed Luke Spencer for a lot of things. Mikko’s death and the whole Ice Princess debacle. Then later, when Luke caused Stavros’ death, I guess she thought it was fate that she stole Luke’s son away from him when he stole hers away from her.”

“I can’t handle this. Not right now. I just, I just stopped to see if you wanted to help me go Christmas shopping over lunch since Liz is working. I ....”

“Nikolas you’ve had a shock. A big shock.” Alexis could feel the tears streaming down her face at her nephew’s pain. “But this doesn’t have to change anything. Stefan is still your father in all the ways that count. You’re still my nephew. We’re still family.”

“Of course this changes things. This changes everything. I’m not ...I’m not Nikolas. I should never have been Nikolas. I should have been....I guess I should have been Lucas Lorenzo Spencer Jr. Maybe I should thank Helena for saving me from that name at least,” Nikolas laughs bitterly.

“Nikolas let me call someone for you. Liz.” Alexis names the young girl that Nikolas has been seeing for the last few months.

“No I....I need to be alone. I’ve got to get out of here. Just promise me you won’t say anything to my father..to Stefan yet.”

“I won’t.” Alexis vows. “I won’t say anything to anyone until I hear from you.”

“Thank you,” Nikolas says simply.

Emily Bowen Quartermaine couldn’t sleep. She lay back on her bed, trying to figure out why her life was suddenly so unsatisfying. Her modeling career was still blooming, she was doing well in school, there was no major family crisises at the moment, and above everything else she was in love. His name was Juan. They had been through a lot in the last six months and emerged triumphant despite all the obstacles. Sometimes it had felt like she was living some twisted version of Romeo and Juliet, but then again most of her life since she had arrived in Port Charles had been like a soap opera, so why should her relationship with Juan be any different.

So the question of the night Emily Bowen-Quartermaine, is if you are so happy why are you so unhappy?

Before she could begin her periodic argument with herself, Emily heard a tapping at her window. Slipping on a silk robe, she quickly went to open the door, expecting it to be Juan , she is totally surprised to find Nikolas Cassadine standing on her balcony.

“Nikolas!?” She pulls him in and closes the window. “It’s freezing out there and you don’t have a jacket or anything on.”

“I didn’t notice,” Nikolas says hesitantly. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

“Sit.” Emily pulls the quilt from the bottom of her bed. “Here. Take this.”

Nikolas wraps the blanket around his shoulders and sits on the edge of the bed, flashing her a grateful smile.

“What’s wrong?”

“I...I didn’t know where else to go.”

Emily hesitated. She and Nikolas haven’t had a real conversation in the last few months. “Did you and Liz have a fight?” Emily can’t help it, as much as she wants to support her friends, the idea of Liz and Nik together as a couple is still abhorrent to her.

“No...It’s not about Liz. I haven’t even seen her today. I’ve just been walking around and thinking or maybe trying not to think is a better term. I don’t know what to do or how I’m supposed to feel or how to get through this or.....”

“Nikolas?” Emily moved closer until their bodies touched and she could feel him shaking even though the quilt. “Nikolas you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”

Emily put her hand in his tentatively and Nikolas caught it, holding it tight like a lifeline. “I knew...I just knew somehow that if I came here..If I saw you...that everything would stop spinning around me and I would find my solid ground again. That’s what you are for me you know. That’s what you’ve always been. Solid ground.” Nikolas took a deep breath. “Stefan isn’t my father after all.”

“What? Oh my god. I’m so sorry. I know how you feel about Stavros but”

“You don’t get it,” Nikolas interrupts her harshly. “Stavros isn’t my father either. Luke Spencer is.”

Emily’s mouth drops in shock. “Luke? But that’s impossible....”

“Apparently not. And the worst thing is that Helena knew. She knew I was Luke Spencer’s son.” Nikolas expels a ragged breath. “I’m a Spencer. Not A Cassadine. Lucky and I weren’t just half brothers. We were full brothers. God Em, do you know how much I missed out on because of Helena. I missed out on growing up with a brother and a sister. Not to mention a mother and a father. A family. A real family. Now what do I have. A father who I love but who isn’t my father. A father who hates me who I don’t even really know and what I do know I don’t really like but he is my father. I have a brother but he’s dead and buried without ever knowing that I was his brother completely.”

Emily leans herself against Nikolas and his arm automatically goes around her, pulling her close. She lets him, not thinking about anything at the moment other than his pain..

“You’re wrong. At least you are wrong about Lucky. You were his brother. As completely as anyone can be. I know the two of you had a rocky road, but in the end he saw you as his brother just like you saw him. No conditions. No halves. He loved you. Lulu loves you as her brother. None of this changes any of that. As for Luke.... I don’t know. I don’t know what to tell you. The two of you will have to figure out what your relationship is going to be.”

“As for Stefan.....He still is your father because he raised you and loved you and cared for you all these years. Just because your DNA no longer matches, it doesn’t take away from the relationship you have.” Emily smiles. “Trust me. I’m an expert on this. As crazy as the Quartermaines drive me, they are as much my family as my real mother was. If the only family we were allowed to have in this world were those whose genetics matches our own, this world would be even more mixed up and crazy than it is.”

Nikolas smiles at her. “See,” he says in a rough voice as his fingers lightly caress her cheek, “I told you you were my solid ground. Just being here with you, listening to your voice, helps me. You’ve always been there for me when I needed you. You were my first friend in Port Charles, you were there when I lost my voice, you were there when I lost my brother.........What would I do without you Emily Quartermaine?”

Emily feels herself drowning in his eyes. She can almost touch the tension in the room. She tries to remember Juan, the boy she loved all summer, but all she can see in front of her is the young man she has loved almost all of her life.

She lowers her eyes. “I guess that’s what friends are for?”

He lifts her chin and forces her to look at him. She’s caught in his gaze as he lowers his head to hers and gently kisses her.

At least it’s gentle for the first minute or so, until he deepens it, pulling her closer as he delves further into her, his hands touch her frantically, fed by this need that he’s always had and just never given in to until this moment.

Emily loses herself in his kiss and feels herself melt in his arms for a few minutes before reality intrudes and that part of her that Nikolas has hurt time and time again comes screaming to the surface in protest.

Emily pushes Nikolas away and stands up.

Nikolas looks dazed, but this time the cause is passion not grief.

“Emily..I..”

“Forget it,” Emily crosses her hands in front of her, trying to hold herself together.

“No, I don’t want to forget it. I care about you. I’ve always cared about you.”

“I know....like a little sister. I’ve heard this speech. Spare us both a repeat.”

“That’s not what I was going to say. Emily,” Nikolas runs his hands through his hair. “I think I love you.”

Emily looks at Nikolas in disbelief. “Right. Which explains why you are dating Liz and why you had that affair with Katherine. I’m not doing this again Nikolas. I’m not going to let you hurt me again.”

“Emily I would never hurt you...”

“Of course you would. It’s all you ever do it seems. You hurt me. My birthday party and your screwing Katherine. I was crazy about you and all I wanted was the hope that maybe some day you’d be crazy about me too. But you destroyed that hope and you almost destroyed me.”

“Emily..You never told me, you seemed okay about Katherine....”

“What was I suppose to say? I do have some pride Nikolas. Sometimes around you I don’t have enough. Then when Lucky died, all I wanted was to help you. You’d lost a brother. I’d lost a best friend. But you turned to Liz. Suddenly Liz was more important to you than anyone else.”

“You can’t do this to me again. I won’t let you. This whole last year with you it’s been one rejection after another. I’m tired of not being enough for you...I’m not old enough, or glamorous enough, or sophisticated enough, or pretty enough. I finally found someone who loves me for me. And I love him. So I won’t, I won’t let you come waltzing back in and suddenly decide that you love me after all. I don’t want to be loved AFTER ALL. I want to be loved FIRST, dammit.” She can’t stop the tears from streaming down her face.

“Emily, I....” Nikolas stands by helplessly, unsure of how to convince her.

“Just leave Nikolas. You’ve had a lot of shocks today. We’ll chalk up what happened here to stress. We’ll forget about it.”

“What if I don’t want to forget?” Nikolas says softly as he stands at the window.

“Then remember this,” Emily says bitterly “Go to hell Nikolas Cassadine.”

Emily holds it together until after he leaves and then breaks down and cries.

The next morning, Emily is jogging in the park. She does it every day, following the same route through the early morning air.

She rounds the corner of the jogging trail and stops.

“What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.” Nikolas replies easily. Emily looks him over, he doesn’t look like he got much sleep but he seems more together.

“I wanted to apologize.” He begins.

Emily flinches inwardly. “For what?”

“For lying to you.”

Emily closes her eyes briefly. “It’s okay. Forget it.”

“I lied when I said I think I love you.” Nikolas smiles. “I know I love you. I always have. Since that first day we met in the park.”

“Remind me not to skip breakfast before jogging. It causes me to hallucinate.” Emily shakes her head. “I could have sworn you just said you loved me since we the day we met. Which only goes to prove that I am as mentally unstable as everyone thinks I am.”

Nikolas grabs her hand and leads her to a bench. “You heard right.”

“I don’t get it...” Emily shakes her head.

Nikolas sighs. “This isn’t easy for me to talk about. I never had a lot of friends growing up, okay I never had any friends growing up. My life on Greece was filled with tutors and lessons, but not much else. Then I came here and met my mother and you know everything that happened after that.”

At Emily’s nod, Nikolas continues. “Then I met you. You were enchanting. You were the first person who has ever made me laugh. I knew from the beginning that you were special but you were so young and I didn’t want to hurt you, so I convinced myself that you were just a friend.”

Emily swallows, unsure of what to say if anything. She still expects to be woken any moment by Monica.

“When I did first realize that I was falling in love with you, I got scared.”

“Of me?”

“No, of me. Of my family. Of my family’s history. Cassadine men....they tend to destroy the women they love. They always have. We don’t mean to. We tell ourselves that we are only protecting them. It makes it easier to look in the mirror. Look at Stefan. He loved Laura, yet he let Stavros abuse her in the worst possible ways. Then he kept her son away from her. Locked her mother away. At least Laura knew I was alive. How many years did she think her mother was dead? But if you ask Stefan, he’ll tell you that he loves her and he means it. Even my grandmother, Helena, was the victim of a Cassadine man, my grandfather Mikkos. My grandmother wasn’t born the evil and vindictive person she is now. The Helena you see now was created by my grandfather.”

“I don’t get it. What does this have to do with me and you? With us?”

“Everything, don’t you see? I was afraid. Afraid that if I was honest with myself about how I felt about you, that I would end up hurting you. I never want to hurt you.”

“Then why.....” Emily hesitates.

“Why Katherine?” Nikolas shrugs. “I don’t know if you will understand this. I’m not sure I understand it myself. But Katherine was safe. I knew that I didn’t love her. I knew that she didn’t love me. Although we both pretended, to ourselves and to each other, that it was something more than just sex, it wasn’t. I didn’t have to worry about hurting Katherine. I could just, enjoy her company without the ramifications. If I was with her, it kept me from thinking about you as other than a friend. I used her.”

“For sex.”

“No. Well at least not just sex. As long as I was Katherine’s lover, you and I could only be friends. I know it sounds crazy, but it let me have what I wanted most- a chance to be there for you when you needed me without being afraid that I was going to destroy what I valued most- you. As long as you weren’t IN love with me and I wasn’t IN love with you, I was free to love you.” Nikolas stood up. “God, I must sound like a raving lunatic.”

Emily sat quietly.

“Liz?”

“She doesn’t love me. She will never love me. Her heart still belongs to Lucky. Until she finds some way to let him go, all she will ever have are pretend relationships like ours. I told her so earlier this morning.”

Emily looked up. “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing.” Nikolas met her eyes. “Everything. But I’ll settle for being your friend.”

“Why tell me this now? I’m in love with..”

“Juan. Yeah. I know. You made that really clear last night. I don’t expect this conversation to change anything. I just never realized until last night how badly I’ve hurt you. All I’ve ever wanted was to not hurt you and it seems without meaning to all I’ve ever done is hurt you over and over again. You see, what I said is true. The Cassadine men do hurt the woman who mean the most to them. These last few years I’ve been telling myself that I was protecting you, keeping you safe from my family and what we’re capable of. But through it all I was hurting you. I just...” A long pause. “I just wanted you to know that as far as I’m concerned you are more than enough. I’m sorry I ever made you think otherwise for even a moment.” He walks over to where she is sitting and crouches in front of her. “One more thing and then we don’t ever have to talk about this conversation or last night again. I want you to be happy Emily and if Juan makes you happy than he’s what I want for you.” Nikolas brushes a long strand of hair out of her face. “But I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t tell you that you were loved first. First, foremost, forever.” He gives her a gentle kiss on the lip. “Goodbye.”

Emily sits there in stunned silence and watches him walk away.
One week later

Emily stands outside Nikolas’s cottage, debating for the thousandth time the wisdom of what she is about to do. If she was smart, she would turn around and run right back to Juan, tell him she was crazy to break up with him, and beg him to take her as far away from Port Charles as they could get.

If she was smart she would do anything other than what she is about to do.

The funny thing is that a week of sleepless nights and endless days have left her feeling that this is the only thing she can do.

She knocks on the door and after a moment he answers.

“I didn’t expect to see you today,” he smiles cautiously at her. “Is Juan with you?”

“We broke up.”

A look of hope crosses his face before it shuts down.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Do you want to come in?”

She nods and he lets her in.

“You’re packing?” She looks around at the suitcases in dismay.

“I needed to get away.”

“Did you tell your mother and Stefan?”

“Yeah.” Nikolas slowly comes to stand close to her. “Stefan is devastated, but I took your advice and told him that no matter what he would always be my father. Laura was shocked.”

“:Luke?”

“No one’s seen him. When he comes back to town, we’ll talk.”

“That’s good.” She shuffles nervously.

“Emily? Why are you here?”

“I....” Emily takes a deep breath. “You forgot something the other morning in the park.”

“What? Did I forget to apologize enough?” Nikolas shook his head ruefully.

“No, you forgot to ask me how I felt.”

Nikolas looks up. “Em?”

“You went on and on about how Cassadine’s destroy the people they love and you didn’t give one thought to Quartermaine’s. Cassadine’s don’t have a lock on bad behavior. Did you know that Alan tried to kill Monica once? And then there’s AJ’s history with Carly- yet they are still together and working things out? The stories I’ve heard about my Aunt Tracy....I think she and your grandmother could have some interesting conversations. Even Ned who is probably the sanest Quartermaine, choose the company over his family. Plus, you’re not even a Cassadine after all. You’re a Spencer. That makes you almost normal in comparison to the Quartermaines.”

“Emily I don’t think..”

“Let me finish. I was so angry with you that morning. How could you justify hurting me by telling me that you did it out of love?”

“I can’t.”

“You’re right. There is no justification for how you’ve treated me. I should turn my back on you right now.”

“So, why don’t you?” He asks softly coming to stand behind her.

“Because I loved you first and foremost and forever too. You called me your solid ground, but you’re mine too. Somewhere in these last seven days I realized I had a choice, I could hold onto my anger and my hurt and my pride or I could hold onto you.” She turns in his arms. “I choose you.”

He closes his eyes as relief washes over him. This whole last week he has been struggling to accept the fact that he screwed up this, the one relationship that he wants to last forever.

“I won’t hurt you again.” He vows as he pulls her closer.

“Don’t. Because as hard as it would be to walk away from you after this, I will if you hurt me.” She looked up at him.

“I know,” he leaned in and gave her a kiss that was sweet and softly undemanding.

When he pulled away, he pulled her closer until her head rested on his shoulder quietly.

“So where do we go from here?”

“I don’t know,” Emily smiled against his solid bulk. “But I can’t wait until we get there.”