Emily took a step back as Nick ran off, trying to figure out what had just happened. She’d kissed Nick. Really kissed him. Wanted to kiss him. Had, if she was going to be brutally honest with herself, liked kissing him. She hadn’t been the one to pull back. He had.

But it was crazy. She loved Tanner. Loved him. Had loved him since she had first come to Port Charles after her real mother had died. She’d waited years for Tanner to notice her, wrote about him in her diaries in huge letters.....Tanner walked me to class today....Tanner noticed my new outfit....Tanner said he liked my smile....and finally....Tanner asked me out.

She loved Tanner Baldwin. She had never once doubted that fact, didn’t doubt it even now.

She closed her eyes briefly and remembered the look in Tanner’s eyes when she had said she would go after Nick. The love. The trust. She wasn’t going to betray him. She wasn’t going to be like Alan or Monica with their multitude of fairs they barely made the effort to disguise. She was better than that, she loved Tanner better than that.

But she had kissed Nick. She’d looked into his eyes and she wanted nothing more than to erase the pain, to show him that he was loved.

But she didn’t love him. She loved Tanner.

God, what was wrong with her? She would not be like her parents. She was committed to Tanner, to their relationship and she would not betray him or their love. Not for anything or anyone.

She froze. Tanner. He was still waiting for her at Kelly’s with McKenzie. He’d been devastated when Nick had walked out, walked away from him.

She took one last look in the direction Nick had gone in and then turned and headed back to Kelly’s.

Tanner needed her. And she needed him. Needed him. Wanted him. Loved him. She knew which she belonged with.

More importantly she knew what brother she wanted to be with.

Whatever that had just been with Nick, it would not happen again.

It couldn’t.

She wouldn’t let it.

Tanner held his sister tight in his arms, knowing by the shaking of her shoulders that she was crying and that by the muffled sound of her tears that she was doing her best to hide that fact, trying hard not to break down in front of her friends.

Tanner almost smiled. Stubborn Baldwin pride. They all had it. Himself. McKenzie. Hell even Nick no matter what he thought at the moment.

He looked over his sisters head and his eyes caught Robin Scorpio’s. After a brief exchange, she nodded and turned towards Maxie and Lucas. “Why don’t we grab that booth in the corner?” She turned to steer the two youngsters away from the two siblings to try to give them some privacy. Whatever was happening in the Baldwin household, it wasn’t good Robin realized. Having spent almost as much time in the Baldwin house as her own growing up thanks to the close bond between the two sets of parents, Robin had been amazed at Nick’s turning away from his siblings. She’d seen Nick angry before, but she had never seen him deliberately hurt his siblings. Not Tanner. And definitely not McKenzie.

Maxie hesitated, staring at her best friend anxiously. In all of the time they had been friends she had only seen McKenzie cry three times. The first time when she had been told that she couldn’t try out for Little League because she was a girl. A quick lawsuit filed by Mr. Baldwin and Lucas’s refusal to play on a team that wouldn’t let the best hitter in town play had taken care of that problem. The second time Maxie had seen her cry was after Lucas had asked Mandy Jones to the dance. The third time had been at Maxie’s mother’s funeral when McKenzie had taken her aside and had solemnly vowed that they would always be there for each other.

“Max?” She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Lucas standing next to her.

“I should say something....do something.”

“Later.” Lucas whispered softly, his own eyes dark with worry. “Whatever’s wrong she’ll need us later. Right now she needs her brother.” He hugged his stepcousin. “Come on, I’ll split an order of cheese fries with you. We still have a victory to celebrate.”

Maxie looked up startled, the joy she had felt early had disappeared. Still she tried to smile as she turned to follow Lucas.

Tanner led McKenzie over to a booth by the front door. “Come on Mac. It’s okay.”

“No it’s not.” McKenzie whispered. “Something’s wrong.” She looked up at her brother. “Why did Nick do that ?”

Tanner sighed. “Nick has a lot on his mind. He didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. He loves you, you know that.”

“He didn’t come to my game.”

“Something came up. I’m sure he wanted to be there.”

“He didn’t want to talk to me. He didn’t even congratulate me.”

“McKenzie....” Tanner flinched at the hurt in his sister’s eyes. “Nick’s going through a tough time right now. He’s just.....he’s just not really thinking right now.” Tanner paused. “Do you remember when Dad was working on that important case last winter?”

McKenzie nodded as Tanner continued. “Remember how tense he was and how busy he was.”

“He didn’t come to my school play because he and Aunt Alexis were working that night.”

“That’s right. And remember how we all kind of walked on eggshells and gave him space until it was over? We gave him space and when the case was over everything was back to normal.”

“Except that he felt so bad for missing my play that he took us to Disneyworld.”

“Yeah I guess you would remember it that way.” Tanner smiled ruefully as he remembered the trip his Dad had taken the whole family on to celebrate his victory. “Anyway the point is that Dad wasn’t angry with any of us or mad at any of us, he just had a lot of things on his mind that he needed to think about. That’s kind of what’s going on with Nick. He just needs us to give him space and it will be okay.” As Mckenzie hesitated, Tanner pulled her closer. “I promise Mac, okay? Everything is going to be fine. You, me, Nick, Mom, Dad we’re family. Always have been. Always will be.”

Tanner felt his throat tighten. He hated this. Hated the fact that a man he had never heard of before this morning had raped his mother and was hurting his entire family. Tanner silently vowed not to let that happen. Somehow he would make Nick understand that it didn’t matter, their relationship was built on love not genetics. And as for Luke Spencer, Tanner felt an unfamiliar anger began to burn in him. The man had tried to destroy his mother. He would not let him destroy his family. The Baldwin family was strong and they would make it through whatever Luke Spencer had planned. And as far as Tanner was concerned, that family included the big brother who had always been there to look after him. He tilted McKenzie’s head so that she looked up into his face. “You okay?”

McKenzie nodded slowly.

“I think you better go join Maxie and the others before Lucas eats all the cheese fries.”

With one last hug for her brother, McKenzie went to join her worried friends. Tanner watched her walk away, suddenly feeling tired beyond words.

“Tanner.”

He looked up, hoping against hope that Emily had brought Nick back and feeling a pain that was almost physical when he realized that it was only Lizzie, the cousin from hell.

“What do you want now Liz?”

Liz stood in the doorway of Kelly’s, the door swung shut behind her. She looked at Tanner. Tanner who thought he had it all. The perfect parents. The perfect siblings. The perfect upper class home. The perfect girlfriend.

She wanted nothing more than to shatter his world to pieces by telling him that his precious little Emily was making out with his brother. She wanted to throw it in his face, to knock the smug superiority from his face.

She wanted to hurt him.

Until she realized as she stared into his blue eyes that someone else already had. And that she wasn’t going to add to his pain. Not now.

God Lizzie she berated herself silently, when did you develop a conscience?

“So what did you want?”

“I...” One last time Lizzie just say it.... “I just wanted to make sure the brat was okay.”

Before Tanner could remark on this sudden surge of humanity coming from Liz, Emily came in through the door and Tanner forgot all about Liz. He turned to Emily with a look of love on his face that made Lizzie feel something she had never really felt before.

Envy. She wanted Tanner to look at her like that.

Tanner reached to pull Emily close against him.

He felt the familiar warmth of her presence as it did whenever he was around her, the world felt just a little bit better than it had a second ago.

“I couldn’t get him to stay.” Emily whispered with a soft nervousness. “I tried but he was too....angry I think.” Emily shook her head. “I’ve never seen Nick like that before.”

“I bet you haven’t.” Liz murmured with just enough spite to draw Emily’s attention.

Tanner’s hold on Emily tightened as he focused on Liz, his earlier gentler opinion of her disintegrating. “Back off Liz. This is a family affair.”

Liz hid her hurt with a smirk.Liz hid her hurt with a smirk. She was family too after all, she thought bitterly, she had right to know what was going on. Definitely more than Emily did, the two-timing goodie, goodie witch. “Right. A family affair. You would know all about affairs in the family, wouldn’t you Emily?”

“Liz!”

Liz shrugged. “Oh come on like the world doesn’t know that Monica Quartermaine is nothing but a tramp and Alan Quartermaine a junkie and you know what they say about the apple not falling far from the tree...”

“Get out.” Tanner stood up, every protective instinct in his body aroused at the sudden pallor on Emily’s face or the shocked expression in her eyes. “Get the hell out. You know I think I’m beginning to understand why your family doesn’t want you around.”

“You don’t know anything Tanner Baldwin.” Liz seethed as she fought back the urge to cry, his words hit too close to her biggest fear. Not being wanted. It seemed like nobody wanted her, hell her own family sent her way.

“I know that I want you to leave and that’s all I need to know.”

“It’s not all you need to know....” Liz hesitated. “Forget it. I’m out of here.”

Tanner watched her go with satisfaction before turning back to Emily. “Don’t. Don’t let her get to you okay. You’re not your parents. You’re not like them. Okay?”

Emily turned to Tanner and buried her head in his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“For what? You didn’t do anything wrong. Liz is a......brat and I don’t give a damn how sorry my mom feels for her I think its time she went back into the pit she crawled out of.”

Emily found herself staring at the door Liz had left through. She couldn’t know... suddenly afraid, Emily turned back to the one person who meant the most to her.

“Tanner?” Emily silenced him with a gentle hand against his mouth. “You know I love you, don’t you. Always.”

Tanner grinned as he held her fingers and kissed the tips gently. “Yeah I know.” He turned to Emily. “Come on. I’ll let you steal the whipped cream from my hot chocolate.”

“And the cherry.”

Tanner mock sighed even as he smiled. “And the cherry.”

Sometime Later That Afternoon

The Bridge In The Park

Nick stared out from over the bridge and sighed, a soft melancholy sigh. Since leaving the diner, he’d been walking, just walking not paying any attention to where he was. Somehow he had ended up here. It was almost sunset. One day. 12 hours. He’d known the truth for such a short time and already so much had changed. Too much.

So much had happened today and it was only the beginning.

How in the hell was he going to make it through this? Through any of this? He’d hurt his sister. Hurt Tanner.

There was no way he could face his father ....Scott now that he knew the truth.

And Emily. God Emily. He’d wanted for just one second, one short second, to never let her go, to use her warmth as a blanket against the cold of the truth.

Which just went to prove what a selfish bastard he could be.

Just like HIM.

He was just like HIM.

“You are nothing like Luke Spencer.” The fierce voice behind him startled Nickolas and he turned.

“Mom? What are you doing here?”

Laura Baldwin pulled her jacket tighter around her body as she approached her son, taking a moment to assure herself that he was at least physically okay.

“Are you okay Nickolas?” She hesitated and then shook her head. “I’m sorry. Stupid question. I just....never mind.” Afraid to reach out and touch her son, afraid to chase him away, Laura turned until she too was facing out from the bridge.

“I didn’t know you would be here.” She admitted. “I just needed a quiet place to think and this place has always been special to me.” She turned and smiled at Nick. “You know your father and I got married here.”

“I know,” Nick’s voice was soft.

“It was a beautiful day. Sunshine. Flowers. And your father was so handsome that he took my breath away. Still does.” Laura smiled. “We were too young. God I was younger than you are now and ..... It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Not the fact that Scotty still had law school waiting for him or that I was barely out of high school. All that mattered was that we knew, we both knew, that what we had was real. Was forever. And we wanted the world to know it.” A soft pause. “It was perfect.”

“Until he raped you. Until you found yourself stuck forever with a permanent reminder of that rape.” Nickolas scowled. “You must both hate me.”

Laura shot a look at him. “Your father and I love you Nick. As much as you want to believe otherwise at the moment, you know the truth.” Her eyes darkened. “As for you being some kind of reminder of what Luke Spencer did to me, you’re wrong. I will never forget, can never forget, what happened that day. I’ve learned to deal with it, to not let it or him hurt me anymore than he did that day. But I haven’t forgotten. I can’t forget.”

“I’ve got to go...” Nick turned to leave but his mother stopped him, grabbing his shoulder.

“You were a reminder to me Nick but not like you think, not in that way. I look at you and I don’t see Luke or violence or pain. I see love. The kind of love that can heal you when you think nothing else can. Those first few months after the rape, I didn’t think I was going to make it. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t walk out of our apartment without jumping at every sound. I couldn’t listen to music without remembering what had happened. I almost gave up so many times but do you know why I didn’t? Because of your father. Scott was....he was everything to me. He held me when I didn’t even know I needed to be held. He stood by me. He wouldn’t let me fall, wouldn’t let me forget all the good things that were still there for me. He wouldn’t let walk away from him, from us, from our dreams. And then there was you. I didn’t know when I was pregnant how I would feel. But when you were born, when I saw your father holding you, all I felt was love. It’s all I’ve ever felt for you. Scott and I had been through hell and somehow we made it out okay. And not just okay, but we had this beautiful child to love. You weren’t Luke’s child or a child of rape or anything else ugly like that. You were just a child, an innocent child who needed us to love and who we needed to love. So yeah Nick I guess you are a reminder to me, but not of hate, of love. I look at you and I see love. I see the son I love, the son I am so proud of, the son who means so much to me and to his father.”

He wasn’t going to cry. He wasn’t. He turned from his mother. “Scott is not my father.”

“Oh Nick, you’re wrong. You couldn’t be more wrong. A father isn’t someone who’s there when a child is conceived, a father is someone who is there for all the other moments. Scott was your father when he brought you home from the hospital. He was your father when he sat up with you all night when you were teething. He was your father when you fell and broke your arm when you were six and he cried in the waiting room because he couldn’t take away your pain. He was your father all the times he helped with your homework or took you camping or just listened when you needed someone to talk to.”

“It was all a lie.”

“No it wasn’t.” Laura looked up into the sky and shook her head. “I guess deserve this, kind of a cosmic payback.”

“Mom?”

Laura looked at her son. “I want to tell you a story. It’s about a young girl. She had everything you know.... a nice home, a mom and dad who cared about her, a little sister that was annoying but not that bad. She was happy. Then one day when she was about fifteen she found out a secret. She found out that none of it was real. Her mother wasn’t her mother. Her father wasn’t her father. Her sister wasn’t her sister. And this young girl was angry and confused and scared all at the same time. She felt betrayed, like she should have been told the truth. So she left what had always been her home and went to find this person who she had been told was her mother. And she found her in Port Charles. And she found that this new mother wasn’t that bad of a person. After a while she started to like her new mother. They had problems and it was a long while before they trusted each other, but it was good. And the girl grew up, she fell in love. She got married. She had a baby. And then another. And then one day she got a phone call. The woman who had been her mother, Barbara, was dead. And the girl went home and even if it wasn’t her home at the moment, she knew it would always be home in a way. With her husband at her side, the girl buried the woman who had once been her mother. She stood there at the funeral, listening to the preacher, staring at the figure in the coffin...how much older she looked than the girl remembered, how much sadder. The girl began to remember all the times she and this woman had spent together, all the things they had done together. And that was when the girl realized the truth. It didn’t matter that Barbara Vining wasn’t really her mother because she had really been her mother in every that counted for all those years.” Her eyes filled with tears Laura stared straight at her son. “Don’t do what I did and throw away a relationship with someone who loves you because of something as inconsequential as genetics. Barbara Vining was my mother all those years as much as Scott is your father.”

Nick shook his head. “I can’t.....I don’t know what to do. What to believe.”

“Come home Nick.”

“I...I can’t. I can’t face him. I can’t not right now. And Tanner and McKenzie. I can’t pretend that we’re a happy little family.”

“It’s not a pretend Nick. We are your family.”

“I can’t go home.”

Laura bit her lip to stop from crying. “Okay. Okay whatever you need. Just... promise me you’ll take care of yourself.”

“Mom you don’t have to worry about me.” Nick couldn’t keep the rueful tone out of his voice.

“I will always worry about you.” Laura told him firmly. “Just like I will always love you.”

Nick stared at his mom. “I know.”

Neither of them said anything else as the drizzle finally turned into rain.

Baldwin Home

At the same time

Scott Baldwin tried to focus on the papers in front of him, but his eyes kept going back to the clock on the mantel.

Laura had been gone for an hour, having left to take a walk after Robert and Anna went home. He’d offered to go with her, had wanted to go with her, but she had shook her head softly, kissed him gently, and told him she needed some time to herself.

He stared at the clock. 59 minutes was enough time by herself. He reached over to grab his keys and was just about to head out to the car when he heard the doorbell chime. Thinking that Laura had forgotten her keys or that maybe the kids were back or even, God please, that Nick had returned Scott raced for the door.

“Alexis.”

“Scott.” The normally unflappable lawyer appeared nervous and Scott’s curiosity factor kicked in.

“Come in.” He gestured towards his partner. “Do you want some tea or something? I think we still have some of that Chai Tea you like so much.....”

“Scott.” Alexis’s voice stopped him. “I’m not here for a social call.”

“Okay.” Scott ran a hand through his hair. “All right partner, what’s up. Did I forget to turn the lights off before I left the office again? Or is old man Quartermaine threatening to sue the hospital again? Or....”

“I’m not here as your partner either.”

“Oh.” Suddenly wary, Scott felt the smile disappear. “Why are you here then?”

“To give you this.” She handed him a folded document and took a deep breath. “It’s a court order for DNA testing so that my client, Luke Spencer, can legally establish paternity of his son Nickolas Baldwin.”