Lucky Spencer stared out at the docks, not seeing anything in the ink black darkness and not really caring.

How the hell had he lost her? How had it happened? He’d spent the last hours since she had walked away from him, walked away without looking back, replaying that moment. Only in his dreams she hadn’t walked. He’d been able to stop her. He’d said the words that he couldn’t say in real life. The words that despite burning through him had refused to come.

Don’t go. Please don’t go. I need you.

And yes he had been forced to admit to himself even I love you.

God what an idiot he had been. What a stupid bloody idiot.

All these months since his “return” spent trying to hold onto something that had disappeared a long time ago and letting something that had been right in front of him walk away.

He swore softly as he picked up a rock and threw it at the water.

Maybe she was better off without him. Better off with Nikolas. He closed his eyes feeling a familiar hatred for his brother rise up in him even as he tried to clamp it down. Once again Nikolas was going to steal something from him. First his role as Lulu’s savior. Then his role as the oldest son. And now.....

Who he was kidding? Nikolas hadn’t stolen anything. He’d thrown it away.

Why hadn’t he stopped Liz the other night? Or at least said something. Anything. Instead he’d stood there like an idiot. And why? Because he’d been too afraid that maybe, just maybe, Liz was right.

And the thought that he could loose Emily to drugs had terrified him.

So instead he had lost Emily to his own stupidity.

Smart move Spencer.

Damn he couldn’t believe how badly he had screwed this up.

And he had no clue how to fix it. None at all.

Except that he knew where he needed to begin. He had to see Elizabeth. Had to tell her how he was feeling, what he was thinking. Funny how he could see so clearly that what he felt for her wasn’t love anymore.

How could it be? The Lucky who had fallen in love with Elizabeth didn’t exist anymore. That Lucky had been lost during the long year that he had been gone, lost to the darkness that Faison had thrown him into. The Lucky that emerged from that cell was different. He had to be.

Funny thing was that he knew now that Elizabeth had changed to. Not that he had seen it at first. Or if he had he had made excuse after excuse for the changes he saw. The same kind of excuses he had made for the changes in himself. Only he couldn’t lie anymore.

Maybe if the......fire hadn’t happened and they had spent the last year together, they would have grown together, grown closer. Instead they had grown apart. And since his return they had been strangers, two actors playing parts they didn’t even recognize anymore.

Lucky exhaled a deep breath. He didn’t love Elizabeth. Not anymore. Not the way she deserved to be loved. Not.....he hesitated here and then closed his eyes, opening them after a brief second, not like he he loved Emily.

Only it was too late. He couldn’t even convince Emily that he was her friend, how could he prove to her that he was feeling was real.

She wouldn’t give him a chance.

He couldn’t blame her.

For a moment, staring into the water he could see the warmth of her brown eyes and as he watched they turned cold.

Emily hated him.

He loved her.

He had a choice. He could honor her request and stay out of her life. Let her go.

Or he could fight. Fight to make her see what he now understood. Fight to make her believe him.

Fight for her. Fight for them.

He shrugged as he got up and left the docks.

He had been wrong. There was no choice. None at all.

Nikolas Cassadine woke alone, staggering to his feet despite the blinding pain in his head. He’d barely made it to a standing position when a wave of dizziness drove him back to his knees.

Closing his eyes against the hammering pain, he opened them again a moment later as pain of another sort lanced through him.

Emily. Oh God what had happened to Emily?

For that matter what had happened period?

They’d been on a date. A wonderful date. Nothing out of the ordinary really, just dinner and conversation. No what had made it wonderful had been being with Emily. Emily who understood him in ways that no one, not Katherine, not Liz, not Gia had. Maybe because she had been there for him so many times over the last few years. He’d always thought of her as his little sister....He smiled ruefully despite the pain. He’d been an idiot. Plain and simple. There was nothing sisterly about his feelings for Emily, feelings that had been growing steadily now for weeks. Feelings that he wanted to continue, to let them build, and then to see where they led.

Emily. He stood then as memory flooded over him. Emily kissing him. The softness of her lips. And then that....man, his face hidden by the cloak. The knife against Emily’s throat. The fear in her eyes.

Her cousins had been there too only they hadn’t looked anything like he had ever seen them below. One had been dressed in black leather, the other had.....wings? Nikolas found himself clutching on to a tree stump for support. Emily’s cousin had wings. And then the other man who had appeared out of nowhere...although come to think of it he hadn’t heard her two cousins approach at all. But the third man....the one with the sword in his hand.....Nikolas recognized that image.

It had been in the picture. The one that he had looked up at the cottage when Lucky had appeared at his door frantic with some story about Emily disappearing into a flash of light.

Of course Emily hadn’t really disappeared, she’d showed up at Kelly’s after all so both he and Lucky had shrugged off the apparition Lucky saw as left over from too much Twilight Zone Marathon.

Only HE hadn’t been watching the Twilight Zone. Had never seen the Twilight Zone in fact.

And despite coming from a family where delusions of one kind or another were quite common, Nikolas himself had never suffered from delusions of any kind, unless one counted his relationship with Sarah Webber....or maybe Katherine....or Gia....or definitely Liz.... He stopped himself.

The bottom line was that the last time he had seen Emily a madman had held her at knifepoint. And if he wasn’t mistaken, a trio of ancient Greek gods had come to her rescue.

But it wasn’t that realization that left Nikolas feeling a fear that seemed to be eating away at the pit of his stomach.

It was the realization that, looking desperately around him, there was no Emily, no Gods, no nothing, and no clue as to where she was.

Which meant that he had no idea where to find her.

Or how to save her.

Nikolas tried to quell the rising panic inside him.

He wasn’t going to give up. Cassadines don’t give up. They lie, they cheat, they steal, they blackmail, they try to freeze civilization.....

But they don’t give up.

And Nikolas was nothing if not a Cassadine through and through.

Somewhere

Emily wrapped her arms around her knees, trying to assess the situation with the right side of her brain while the left side simply refused to acknowledge where she was.

Okay. She was alive. That was better than she had expected when everything had started to disappear on her.

The sorcerer was no longer there, the knife pressed into her neck. Those had to be counted as pluses too.

Of course the fact that she was sitting in a cage was a minus. And that said cage was suspended over a pool of what she was sure was something really nasty had to be a big minus.

Hadn’t she seen this on a soap opera? She had, hadn’t she. Not Passions. No that was it Days. She remembered the scene clearly. Hope in the cage. Bo watching. Some madman of the month controlling the cage.

She’d only been a kid but she could remember how much she had cried during that scene. Reggie had cried too.

She’d been sure that Bo would save Hope. Bo had to save Hope. They were the good guys, weren’t they?

Only Bo hadn’t saved Hope. Instead Hope had fallen to her death, she’d been dissolved into the acid like she had never existed.

Of course it was only a soap and Hope had come back to live a few years later when the actress returned.

Emily’s life wasn’t a soap, even though at times it seemed like it was. Emily would die if she fell into the pool below her. And there would be no coming back. Not ever.

No big farewell scene either. No one to say goodbye too. She wondered what she would have said if he was here. Maybe it was better that he wasn’t here. How, after all, could she have said goodbye to him?

Emily felt the cold hard metal of the cage below her. She thought again of what she knew was going to happen when the sorcerer returned.

He would use her. Use her to destroy Olympus. No Ares. No Cupid. No Strife. No Zeus. None of it. It would all be lost, all of it because of her.

She remembered her plea to Ares and she realized she had been right.

He couldn’t destroy the Gods if he didn’t have her to use as a shield to travel through time with.

If she was dead.

Or dissolved into a pool of acid.

Had it hurt Hope to die that way? Stupid question. Hope was just a character on a soap opera. Not real.

Closing her eyes, Emily began to concentrate on the iron links that held the cage suspended in the air until she could feel them stop working.....

Olympus

Cupid’s Temple

Ares paced impatiently across the marble floor, stopping every so often to glare at his nephew who sat perched on on a chaise lounge.

“What in Hades are we doing here?” Ares demanded as his hand automatically went to the hilt of the sword at his side. “We should be out there doing something!”

“Out where doing what?” Strife looked up at his uncle, his own fear visible in the dark eyes. “We don’t know where he took. We don’t even know if they’re in this dimension or this time period or what. Judging from the fact that we are still here I think it’s safe to say that whatever’s he’s planning hasn’t happened yet. But I think that’s all that safe to say.” Strife finished glumly. “I hate this.”

Ares breathed deeply as he felt the anger began to dissipate. “Me too.” He admitted softly. “I still don’t understand why we are here though. Why did Cupid insist we come to his temple? What was he in such a rush for?”

Strife gave Ares a look that plainly said “You’re asking me to explain your son to you?” and was about to make some smart remark to that effect when Cupid came back through the temple doors.

“I found it.”

“Congralutions.” Strife murmured without looking up. “Found what exactly?”

“A way to find Emily.”

Both Strife and Ares were on him before he finished the sentence.

“If there’s nothing I can do to find Emily,” Ares bitterness at his own helpless state turned his words almost into a growl. “What makes you think you can do better?”

Cupid grinned and despite the circumstances allowed himself to preen just a little. “It’s like I always told you Pops- Love is stronger than War.”

Even Strife knew enough to take a step back at the look on Ares face and the smug expression on Cupid’s face faltered.

“I mean....it’s just that...look what’s important is finding Emily right?” Cupid felt relief flood him when Ares nodded. “All right. I think I can do it but I need help.” Cupid looked around him. “Mom! Mom!”

In a blink of an eye and a shower of rose petals, Aphrodite made her appearance, dressed not in a silk but in a leather mini-skirt, animal print blouse, and sunglasses.

“Whatever it is, it better be good,” Dite complained with a pout even as she blew her son a kiss. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for Tom to break up with Nicole?” A feline like smiled crossed her lips. “Now that my chance is here.....”

“Right,” Strife murmured with a wicked grin. “Like you’ll have any chance there unless you do a quick sex change....”

“You shouldn’t believe everything you read in those tabloids Strifey dear,” Dite lowered the sunglasses long enough to glare at her nephew.

“Don’t have too...” Strife met his aunt’s stare with equal coolness.... “Not when I have first hand knowledge....”

Before Dite could turn Strife into a newt (not that he was opposed to the idea just that he had a feeling they would need all the resources they could muster before this thing was through) Cupid caught his mother’s attention. “Mom, I need your help.”

“Oh dear.” Dite rubbed at a tear in her eye. “Do you know how long it has been since you’ve said that? I think it was back when you were still in diapers and you managed to get your wings caught on....”

“Mom.” Cupid interrupted her before she could give Strife anymore blackmail material than his cousin already had. “I need your help to find Emily.”

“Oh....” Dite had been keeping tabs on the whole blinking out of existence thing through the Olympus Online website and did a quick calculation.....blinking out of existence meant no Tom, no Russell, and she still hadn’t given up on breaking up Jennifer and Brad...... “Okay what can I do to help.”

“Emily’s missing and we need to find her.” Cupid explained. “Only none of us have a strong enough link with her to track her to wherever Kyn’an took her.”

Aphrodite nodded. “The only way to find her is....” She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a really good idea. You know how I feel about messing in the love lives of mortals.”

Strife choked on the grape he was about to swallow as even Cupid raised an eye.

Aphrodite blushed. “You know I learned my lesson on that one. I mean I really thought Diana and Charles were meant to be and....”

“Dite.” Ares stopped. “Sis. You have to help us.”

“Look Ares I know that its the only way to save our lives.....”

“Forget our lives.” Ares roar filled the temple. “I don’t give a damn about the Gods or our own lives. All I want is Emily to be safe. I want my daughter safe.”

Dite stared at Ares for a moment.

“Come on Mom. You have to do this. This is Emily we’re talking about and you know despite everything, despite having a million reasons to not believe in love, Emily’s always believed in you.”

After a long moment, Dite nodded.

“All right.” Ares reached for his sword. “How do we find her?”

Dite shook her head. “We don’t.”

“What do you mean? I thought you were going to help?”

“I am.” Dite stared at her big brother. “The only way I can. The only way any of us can. We can’t find Emily because our souls aren’t linked to hers.... but there is one person whose soul is linked to hers, who can find her no matter where she is because they are connected at a fundamental level in a way that no one can break.”

“Her soulmate.” Strife murmured.

Dite looked at Strife in surprise, she didn’t think the God of Mischief got the idea of love at all. “That’s right. Emily’s soulmate will be able to find her.”

“Then get him.”

“It’s not that easy.” Dite shook her head. “And it could be a her.” Dite threw Ares a look. “ We don’t know who her soulmate is and that’s the way its suppose to be until they realize it themselves. Just knowing who her soulmate is, doesn’t mean he’d be willing to fight for her. Or that he can fight for her. Maybe her soulmate is still a child. Or maybe he’s already gone from the mortal realm. And just because they are connected in that way doesn’t mean that he’ll be willing to risk himself to save her.”

“He doesn’t have to. All he has to do is tell me where to find her.”

“It doesn’t work that way. If the sorcerer has taken Emily into the void, then only the soulmate will be able to go to her. No one else. And if he dies, Emily won’t be able to find her way back alone. Nor will she want to.”

Ares wanted to smash something, anything, most of all a certain sorcerer to smithereens. He stared at his sister. “We don’t have much of a choice do we? Slim to none is better than no chance at all.”

Aphrodite nodded and with a wave of her hand, a pink mist filled the room and when the mist cleared, all four Gods stared at the mortal who stood in front of them.