Will looked up as the double doors to the waiting room swung open.

“Will,” Emily said softly as she and Nikolas took in the scene in front of them. Emily’s happiness, which had faltered when they returned to Llanfair and were told there was an accident, dissipated entirely when she saw the looks on Jessica’s family.

Her eyes met Will’s and what she saw there broke her heart. Without thinking, she stepped forward and he encircled her in his arms, drawing comfort from her steady warmth, the beating of her heart, and the knowledge that there was someone else who understood exactly how he felt at this moment.

“We won’t lose her,” Emily said fiercely as her grip on his hand tightened. “We won’t.”

Will nodded, beyond the ability to put thoughts into words at this moment. How had things gone so wrong so fast? Twenty four hours ago he had been filled with hope, now he stood on the verge of losing the most important person in his life.

“Sit down,” Emily said gently, moving Will away from his family and the Buchanans to give them more privacy, more breathing space. Will sank heavily into a cushioned chair. She sat next to him, enfolding his arm into hers. She looked up at Nikolas and their eyes communicated silently. Nikolas nodded.

“I’m going to go get some coffee.” He said quietly. As much as he wanted to be there for the friend who had always been there for him, he knew from experience that Emily’s quiet sympathy would help Will more. Emily had a way of helping people cope that Will needed at this moment. He also intended to make some inquiries for himself. He didn’t know Jessica Buchanan as well as Emily or Will did, but what he knew he liked. So if there was anything he could do to help, he was going to do it.

Emily wasn’t losing another best friend.

Emily nodded at Nikolas, her love for him mingled with appreciation for his understanding in her eyes. “Thanks.”

As Nikolas leaves, Emily gently puts an arm around Will’s shoulder. “It will be okay. She will be okay. She has too much to live for. “

“God I hope so,” Will’s voice is harsh with pain. “I love her you know. And today she finally told me she loved me too.”

“I know. I knew it the first time I saw the two of you together.”

“I wish I had known it the first time I saw us together.” Will says unevenly. “All this time we’ve wasted that we could have spent together. Why is it so hard for people to admit how they feel ? To be honest with themselves.”

Emily shook her head. “You are talking to the wrong person. Look at how much time I wasted trying to convince myself that I was in love with Juan when all the time it was...”

“Nik.” Will interrupted with a half-smile for the first time since Emily and Nikolas had arrived.

Emily nodded blushing. For just a moment, their eyes meet and hold as they both acknowledge silently the attraction between them, an attraction that will never ever be expressed in words or acted upon again. The kiss they shared would be a moment out of time, a moment disconnected to the lives they had chosen on this day, the loves they had chosen on this day.

“I’m glad,” Will reached over and gently placed a kiss on the top of her forehead. “Nikolas is one of the best people I know and he’s finally getting the best. “ A hint of mischief plays in his eyes despite the circumstances. “I hope you made him grovel.”

“I tried to,” Emily admitted ruefully, “but its hard to hold out when the guy you’ve been in love with since you had a clue what love is, is finally offering you everything you’ve ever dreamed of.”

“Don’t let Nik hear you talk like that. The Cassadine ego can already be difficult to deal with.”

“Don’t worry. Quartermaines are good at keeping other people off balance. Nikolas won’t know what hit him.”

Will almost laughed. If he was capable of laughing at this moment he would have. “Just make him happy.”

“I will.” Emily paused. “Just like Jess will make you happy. She will be okay.”

Will shakes his head. “You didn’t see her lying there so damned cold and still. There was so much blood and she was so pale.”

“Don’t. Do you hear me Will Rappaport? Don’t. Jessica needs our hope, not our despair. She needs to know that we are pulling for her, that we are counting on her to make it through this. She’s not dead yet and I refuse, I refuse, to let you give up on her after everything the two of you have gone through.”

“I don’t know if I can. Jess...Jess was my hope you know? She was my faith and my foundation and everything good and possible in my life. And now she’s in that operating room fighting for her life because of me.”

“Not because of you. What happened is not your fault anymore than Megan’s death was Jessica’s fault. It was an accident. Accidents happen.”

Will closed his eyes and pictured again those last few moments. The torment in Jessica’s eyes, the self-hatred. All these months she blamed herself for Megan’s death and he hadn’t noticed. She must have been dying inside. How alone she must have felt.

She’d said she loved him. After she stepped in front of a truck. Why couldn’t he rid his mind of the thought that maybe, just maybe, Jess had seen that truck coming?

“You don’t understand what happened.”

“Then explain it to me,” Emily whispered softly. “Explain it to me and make me understand.”

“I’d like to hear that explanation too,” A hard and cold voice said from a few feet away. “You did this to Jessica and I’m going to make you pay.” Christian Vega’s words echoed in the hospital corridor.

Emily’s brown eyes flashed with deep anger. “If anybody hurt Jessie it was you and your little slut’s display last night, so back off jerk.”

Christian’s eyes narrowed. “I warned you about telling Jessica. Now you don’t have your precious bodyguard to protect you.”

Emily stood up, resisting Will’s attempts to calm her. She walked right up to Christian. “You don’t have a clue who you are messing with if you think you intimidate me.”

“Leave her alone Vega,” Will began his anger growing as Christian advanced on Emily but stopped when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Reverend Andrew Carpenter’s voice was steady and calm. “This isn’t the time or place for any of this.”

Emily looked around and realized that she and Christian were the center of attention from the Buchanan family.

Joey Buchanan approached and put his arm around Emily’s shoulders. “You okay, Emily?” His eyes met Christian’s in a veiled threat.

Emily nodded and turned her back to Christian. “I’m sorry about Jessie.” Her eyes filled with tears.

“I know you are little one,” Joey Buchanan smiled. He looked at Emily and Will then back at Christian. “Why don’t the two of you come wait with us? Your mom and dad are over there Will and the Buchanans could probably use some of that Quartermaine charm, Emily.” He deliberately excluded Christian, letting Christian know without words that he had overheard the conversation between him and Emily and whose side Joey was on.

Emily looked down the corridor but didn’t see Nikolas anywhere. Holding Will’s hand, she silently accompanied him to where the rest of the family waited.

Emily was sitting off to the side, her arms hugging herself when Nikolas returned. Will was deep in conversation with a man in a clerical collar and the Buchanan brothers. Emily’s eyes were huge, sad, and unfocused as she sat in silence.

He put the coffee down and kneeled in front of her. Carefully brushing back some long strands of chestnut hair, he lifted her chin until she looked at him.

“Em?”

“I hate hospitals.” She whispered her voice small. “Ironic isn’t it, considering what my parents do for a living. But all I can think of when I’m in a hospital is the awful awful waiting. When Jason was shot...when my mother was ill...when Juan was beat up...when you were shot....” Her voice trails off. “Jessica can’t die. She can’t. There’s still too much we have to do, you know? I was going to take her to Italy and she was going to show me Texas. She was going to come to Port Charles for my high school graduation. We promised each other that we’d each be the other’s bridesmaid someday. That we’d take vacations together with our kids. She promised me..” Her voice breaks but she struggles to go on. “She promised me after Lucky died that she would never leave me. She promised to be my best friend forever. She promised....”

Gently Nikolas gathers Emily in his arms and holds her as she cries.

When her tears have silenced, Emily looks up at Nikolas. “I don’t think I could make it through this without you,” she whispered.

“You don’t have to make it through anything without me ever again.” He told her softly.

Will looked at his watch as he made his way back to where Emily and Nikolas sat quietly. Five hours. It had been five hours since Jessica’s accident. She’d been in the operating room for over four of those five hours. How much could her body take and still survive?

Emily gently moved out of Nikolas’s embrace. “I’m going to the chapel for a little bit.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Nikolas asked.

Emily shook her head. “Stay with Will okay?”

Nikolas reached out to grab her hand before she could slip completely away. “I love you.” He told her softly.

“I know.”

Nikolas watched Emily leave with a sigh. Five minutes. He’d give her five minutes to be alone before he went and checked on her. He looked at his watch. Okay maybe four minutes. Four minutes was a long time.

“You are a lucky man.” Will said as he reached over and picked up the coffee Nikolas had discarded.

“I am.” Nikolas agreed softly. He looked over his friend. “How are you holding up?”

“I hate waiting,” Will said bluntly.

“I remember.” Nikolas said. “Remember when you conned those lowerclassmen into that poker game and we were caught. I can still remember watching you pace outside the headmaster’s office because you were afraid that we were going to get expelled. I remember thinking to myself that if Dean Winter dared to expel us I would get my uncle to buy the school...”

“If I remember correctly,” Will smiled at his oldest friend. “You used that line an awful lot back then. I always wondered whether your uncle would have really bought the school or simply banished you back to Greece.”

“Let’s see...how would Stefan Cassadine have reacted to his twelve year old nephew-slash-son running a poker ring in his boarding school?”

“That one is simple. He would have blamed it all on me and not believed for a second that it was all your idea.”

Nikolas grinned. “Probably.”

The two fall silent for a moment, the only noise in the waiting room the quiet conversations of the other Buchanans and the soft footsteps of the hospital personnel going about their task.

“Thanks for being here.” Will said.

“Always. Anytime you need me. You know that.” Nikolas tightened his hand on Will’s shoulder as Will nodded.

The Chapel

Emily lit a candle .

“Please God let Jessica be okay. I know I’m being selfish because of all the people I know Jess would make the best angel, but we need her here. Her family needs her. Will needs her. And I need her. Please give her the strength to fight. Please. Please don’t take her away from us.”

“And please let her find happiness with Will. He really loves her and I know she really loves him.”

Emily kneeled in silence at the alter, letting the quiet stillness of the chapel fill her heart and calm her soul. “You gave me Nikolas today and I need to thank you for that blessing. But please, please, don’t take Jessie from me, from us, yet.”

After a few minutes, Emily turned to leave the chapel quietly, wanting, no needing, to be near Nikolas and Will as they waited.

She stopped when she saw Christian Vega at the entrance of the chapel.

She walked past him and into the hallway outside. He followed her.

“This is all your fault.” He practically spat the words at her.

Emily stopped incredulous. This guy was more brain dead than people claimed her brother was. “Adding two and two and getting five again Christian.”

“If you hadn’t told Jessica about last night we would have been together today and she wouldn’t have been anywhere near that alley.”

Change that. This guy made Jason look like Einstein. “Look Christian, I’m as sorry as anybody else that Jessica is hurt and maybe dying in that operating room. Jess is my best friend and I love her. I feel sorry for you because regardless of what happens in that OR you’ve lost her. She told Will that she loved him and he isn’t going to let her go when she gets better. But I will not let you stand there and blame me for the fact that you screwed over the best thing that ever happened to you so that you could have sex with a cheap slut.”

“I’d be careful if I were you. There’s only me and you right now.” Christian grinned.

“Wrong.” A rock hard voice, controlled and angry, said quietly behind him. “But then you are wrong about a lot of things aren’t you?” Nikolas said mockingly. “Emily, we need to return the waiting room.” He held out his hand and Emily slipped her hand into his.

“Yeah. Get the rich bitch out of my sight before I show her how I really feel about her.”

A muscle tensed in Nikolas’s jaw and he stopped.

“Go ahead Em, I’ll catch up with you.”

“Nik...” She looked into his dark eyes and winced at the barely contained fury she saw there. Oh Christian, she thought to herself, you have no idea what you have just done.

“Remember its Christmas Eve....” She kissed him softly on the cheek before turning and walking back towards the hospital waiting room.

Nikolas turned back to a waiting Christian Vega.

And grinned. Thirty minutes later

Nikolas walked back into the waiting room with an extremely self-satisfied expression on his face. His eyes met Emily’s as he walked up to her and Will. She smiled in relief and walked into his embrace.

“You okay?” She whispered as she reached up to brush back a stray lock of hair from his face.

“More than okay.”

“And Christian?”

“Considerably less than okay.”

“Good,” Emily said quietly as she and Nikolas walked up to Will.

“Any word on Jessica?” Nikolas asked.

Will was about to reply when Dr. Larry Wolek emerged from the OR, tearing his mask off as he walked. His eyes somber.

They quickly gathered around him.

“Larry? The surgery? Is Jessica going to be okay?” Vicki asked.

Larry shook his head. “I don’t know. There were a lot of internal injuries and bleeding. We had to remove her spleen and repair some major organs. It was touch and go for most of the operation. In fact, she flatlined twice on the table.”

Will paled and Nik’s arm went around him for support.

“Will she make it?” Emily had no idea who asked the question, her eyes didn’t move from the doctors face. He doesn’t think she will, Emily realized with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach even as the doctor shook his head.

“There was too much damage and she’s lost a lot of blood. I want to be hopeful, but at this point it will take a miracle to save Jessica.” He paused. “They are removing her to intensive care. I think....I think if you want to say your good-byes now would be the time.”

Somewhere a church bell struck the hour as Emily buried her face in Nikolas’s shoulder and Will felt something inside of him crumble to pieces.