Chapter Eighteen: The Harder You Fall
Morgan PH
"Oh my God," Carly whispered, her eyes wide beyond all belief, the color draining from her cheeks. She jerked her cheek away from his touch, clenching her fingers into fists. "You're my father."
He couldn't catch his breath. Literally, for a moment, Jerry could not get air to actually enter his lungs. How had he not figured she would be this quick on the uptake? She was his kid, for crying out loud! How could he respond, except with, "Yes." Jerry squeezed his hands tightly to his sides to keep himself from reaching out to her. "I didn't know, Carly. Your mother and I -- you know what her life was." Carly's face grew shuttered, and she looked away. "It was one night. And, I didn't see her again until we were both grown far past recognizing the foolish children we had been." He swallowed, hard, his voice coming out low and cracked. "Once I knew, Carly, once I knew, I tried so damn hard to find you."
Carly lifted her head sharply. "You should have tried harder." The words were raw and ripped from her throat. They hung in the air for a long moment; neither Carly nor Jerry moved.
Then, she closed her eyes painfully, one hand drifting down to her stomach. As she touched the curve of her stomach, it was as if someone had thrown ice water on her face. The baby, Carly forced her thoughts to the life inside of her, have to take care of the baby. She shook her head once, then opened her eyes, and extended a hand, as if to ward him off. "No." She wasn't denying the truth of what he had said; Carly knew, had known in some indefinable way since he'd approached her at the docks, that what he was saying was so. Jerry Jacks was her father. "I can't -- do this. I can't deal with this right now."
"Carly, please let me -- let me make this right. I've found you, after so long," Jerry reached out towards her, beseechingly. "You can't know how long I've waited to tell my child that I--"
"Don't!" She looked up at him, scornfully, drawing her self up to her full height. "You've been in Port Charles how long? Weeks? Months? I've been right here, Jerry. Where the hell were you?" Carly demanded. She felt the tears starting to pool in the back of her throat, and bit down hard on the inside of her cheek, both hands pressing against her stomach. She forced the words out through the knives in her throat. "No, don't bother. Don't answer that; I don't wanna hear it. I just want you to leave, Jerry."
"Carly--"
"No!" Carly cried out sharply, and he took a step back. "Jerry, what the hell do you expect from me? You come in here, dump this, this thing in my lap and want me to what? Call you Daddy?" She almost choked on the word, and squeezed her eyes shut, painfully. Her voice was a harsh whisper. "I'm five months pregnant, and this baby matters a hell of a lot more to me than you do. Get out of my house."
Jerry's fingers clenched tightly; he pressed them hard by his sides to keep from reaching out and grabbing her and never letting go. It was okay, he told himself, he had found her. Everything else could wait. He drew a small card out of his wallet, writing briefly on the back and placed it on the coffee table. "Here's the number where I'm staying, Carly. Anytime you want to talk to me, or if you want to see me, or -- for any reason, call me. Please. I just want," he looked down at her, his own eyes bright, "I just want to be in your life. In any way, shape or form. You call all the shots, luv."
Carly spoke, her voice flat, her eyes still closed tightly. "If you're not out of here in ten fucking seconds, I swear to god I'll start screaming, and my guards will throw you out." She opened her eyes and met his. Jerry stared into her eyes a long moment, then nodded once, made a small futile gesture with his hand, then turned and left, shutting the door soundlessly behind him.
As it closed, Carly's face fell, and she finally allowed the tears to start coursing down her face. Picking up the first random object that came to hand, she threw a vase, hard, wincing as it shattered against the back wall of an empty fireplace. "Why now?" she cried out, pressing clenched fists to her nerveless cheeks. "Oh god, why is this happening now?"
Carly could feel herself starting to fall apart, and by pure will, forced herself to stop, to breathe, to relax. Insofar as that were possible. Reaching out with trembling fingers, she picked up the phone. Staring at it as if it were a foreign object, Carly finally shook her head, and started to dial a number. "No," she murmured, and hung it up again. After a moment, she picked the phone back up, her face hardening, and dialed a second number, this time holding it up to her ear.
"This is Carly; is he there?" she asked, when the person on the other end picked up. She waited a moment, listening, before speaking again. "Then, get him. And, fast."
the Firehouse
The problem, V Ardanowski thought, not very coherently, with Scott Baldwin's lips caressing the curve of her shoulder was that she had two shoulders. And, the one not the recipient of a line of sweet kisses was feeling quite neglected. V made a small noise, halfway between a gasp and a cry and a laugh, and tilted her head, nudging Scott's neck with her fingers until his lips found their way back to hers again. Which meant both shoulders got neglected but, she thought as her lips yielded under the gentle pressure of his, she supposed she could live with that.
Timeless moments later, she let out what was most definitely a small giggle, and Scott lifted his head to look at her, slightly puzzled. V lifted a finger to his forehead, smoothing out the frown-wrinkled with a gentle finger and laughed again. "Did you know," she murmured, with a smile that, Scott suddenly realized, could put the sun to shame, "that you have apple-breath?"
Scott grinned, and ran his hand down her spine, pausing as he reached the small of her back and letting his palm rest in that sweet, curved haven. He lifted his other hand from her shoulder to twist a loose strand of her hair between his fingers. "Is that a problem?" he asked, his blue eyes twinkling beneath rumpled hair. "'Cause we could stop while I could go chew some gum."
V shook her head, trying to look serious but failing utterly as her eyes danced back at him. One hand drifted to his shoulder, playing absently with his shirt collar. "No, it could be worse," she tilted her chin, slightly distracted by the proximity of his apple-tainted lips to hers. "You could have coffee-breath. Or smoker's breath. Or onion-breath. Or--"
With a stifled groan, Scott ended V's litany of oral hygiene sins as he drew her chin back in alignment with his with one finger, honing in on her lips like an arrow flying gently home. V yielded beneath him, taking one stumbling step backwards, bringing him with her as her hands flexed at his collar. He reached behind her, lifting her gently up on the edge of the table she had walked herself into, moving forward so that he stood between her legs twining gently around his. Scott reached down, fumbling at the last few buttons on her half opened shirt. He lifted his head slightly, as his fingers splayed gently against the smooth flesh of her stomach. "Do you know," he whispered, "how good you are for me, V Ardanowski? You make me forget everything else, everything wrong in my life."
V pulled away abruptly, placing a hand on Scott's chest. "Whoa," she said quietly, one hand lifting to pull her shirt closed across her body. "Is that why we're doing this?" V pursed her kiss-swollen lips, her eyes wide as she looked at Scott. "So that you can forget Lucy?"
It took a moment for Scott's brain to catch up with his mouth. Later, when he went back over the afternoon's events in his mind, it was the only excuse he could come up with. "Yes. No." Scott took a step back, running his fingers through his hair and trying to switch his brain to on. "It's not the only reason."
V looked down, her fingers flying across the buttons on her shirt. When she looked up again, her face was set, her shirt was buttoned, her eyes were opaque. "You know what? I've been here before. Down this road," she made a walking motion with two of her fingers. "With another blue-eyed, blonde haired boss of mine, actually."
Scott's fingers made his hair look more rumpled than it had when he'd rolled out of bed in the morning. He brought one of his hands down in a sharp gesture, the other reaching out to grab V's shoulder. "V, what're you--" He broke off, looking at her, trying to read the situation that had so rapidly changed right in front of him. "I don't know what you're talking about."
She looked at him, dead in the eyes. "I don't want to be the thing you use to forget the woman you're in love with, Scott," V said, with characteristic bluntness. "I've been there, and I don't like how it ends." She slid off the table in one quick, light motion, dislodging his hand from her shoulder. "Thank you, but -- no thanks." Brushing her self off, she gave her clothes one final tug back into place, and turned away.
Scott grabbed her arm, then released, quickly when V shot him a look he'd never seen before from her eyes. " That's not fair, V! I don't want Lucy," he insisted. "I want you; I want you. Don't walk away from this."
For a moment, he thought she was moving towards him, and Scott let out a long sigh of relief. Then, V shook her head. "I can be your friend," she said softly. "I can be your daughter's bodyguard or babysitter. I can even be the shoulder you lean on. But, I can't be a way for you to forget what you've lost. It hurts too much," she said simply. There was a small silence. "I'll be here tomorrow at nine. Serena has a ballet lesson," V added quietly, and then walked away, just as quietly.
Luke's office
Alexis pushed her glasses back and rubbed the bridge of her nose with a small sigh of relief. That was done, thank god. When she'd volunteered to take on a couple of pro bono cases, she had never assumed that they'd come with this much paperwork. It had taken her six hours just to weed through the file of a relatively simple B&E -- the dubious joys of working with the PCPD.
She turned her head slightly, listening to the blues music coming from the next room and a slow smile crept across her face as her fingers began to drum lightly across her desk. Her desk -- Alexis still wasn't entirely sure how that had happened. She and Luke had taken their relationship public, and as he'd predicted, no one seemed to care very much. In fact, the comment they'd received most often, from those who knew them best, was something along the lines of 'what took you so long'? Alexis had, so far, refrained from telling anyone but Luke how annoying that particular comment was.
Soon as they'd 'come out', so to speak, Alexis had taken to bringing her work to Luke's in the afternoons when he was in the club, since there was no longer any reason for her not to stop by. They would finish up their day's tasks together, and then head out to the club proper, and let the evening take them where it would. One day, an extra desk had appeared in one corner of Luke's office; Luke hadn't said much, just shrugged and said that it had been in storage, and someone might as well get some use out of it. Then, he'd taken her in his arms and added in the low whisper that made her spine tingle 'besides, I'm kinda used to havin' you around'. After that, it had seemed -- pointless, somehow, not to spend as much time here, together, as possible.
Alexis looked up, startled, as a penny fell on her desk. She turned to find Luke watching her, hands folded behind his head, a slow grin on his lips. "Thinkin' about me again, Lex?" he arched an eyebrow, and Alexis marveled again at his ability to make the simplest statement sound full of innuendo.
Alexis tried to keep herself from grinning back, reminding herself what had happened the last time she'd let him distract her in here. She still wasn't sure she'd ever be able to look Claude in the eyes again. "Not unless your name is," she tapped the file, "Matthew Wooten, and you're currently sitting in a cell at the PC jail awaiting trial."
"Oh, yeah?" Luke unfolded himself from his desk chair, standing and walking slowly over to her. "Should I be jealous?" he asked, standing behind her.
Alexis turned away, pretending to busy herself with the paperwork she'd just spent the afternoon digesting. Her eyes drooped closed, and her breath caught in her throat as his hand slid down from behind her chair to caress the pulse throbbing in her throat. "Luke..." she murmured, leaning into his hand.
"'Course, Matthew Woo-whatever is stuck in a cell; he can't do this," his hand slipped lower, unbuttoning her suit jacket as he moved around the chair towards her. Luke bent down, as Alexis' eyes opened, and her hand reached for his neck to pull him towards her. Luke murmured, his lips a mere breath away from hers, "Poor bastard can't even do--" They both straightened as the phone on Luke's desk rang. "Damn, I told Claude to take messages," he muttered, then looked back at Alexis. "Gimmee one second, Princess. Luke strode over, picking up the phone. "What, Claude? Can't you take a damn message?" he demanded into the phone. His forehead creased. "Who?...Yeah, yeah, put her on," he sighed; this was not gonna be a one second call, after all.
"Sweet Caroline, this is not--" Luke broke off, and listened a moment, his expression darkening. "Slow down a minute, baby, I can't understand you...no, Bobbie's out of town...Did I know? Did I know what?" Alexis watched as Luke's knuckles suddenly whitened on the phone, his eyes going almost black. "Jerry Jacks is your -- the hell he is!...yeah...yeah, listen-- no, listen to me, Caroline." He paused, breathing hard, but trying his damnedest not to let the craziness going through his brain get across the phone lines. "You gotta calm down, baby. Take a breath...another one...good. Now, where's your husband?...Uh-huh...Okay, look, I'm gonna call him, then him and me are gonna come over there, and we're gonna figure this thing out, okay? Sit tight; Uncle Luke's on his way." He hung up the phone and stood there frozen, his blue eyes cold and very far-away.
"Luke?" Alexis had risen and lay a hand on his back. "What is it? Is it Carly? Is she in trouble?"
Luke didn't answer for a long space. Suddenly, he turned, banging his hands on his desk so hard she jumped. "Carly didn't do a damn thing, but yeah, she's in somethin'. Jerry Jacks somehow got the girl convinced that he's her father, probably tryin' to pull some scam or another. Caroline's terrified; she doesn't know what the hell to think," he growled. "And, Lucy had me tryin' to help the bastard!"
Alexis' face drained, and her eyes closed. "Oh my god," she breathed, a conversation with Lucy suddenly taking on a totally different shade. "Jerry knew that coming back here wouldn't be easy, and that he'd be getting himself into another huge mess but seeing his dau--" "His daughter," Alexis whispered, completing Lucy's thought. "Luke," she opened her eyes, and looked at her lover, "it's true."
"What?" he stared at her, his eyes wild. Luke reached out and grabbed both of her shoulders. "What the hell are you saying, Alexis? Are you tellin' me you knew about this?"
"No," she shook her head. "But Lucy did."
the PC hotel
"One second!" Lucy called, unfolding herself from the couch and grabbing the robe on the back of the chair. She drew it on, walking quickly to the door. "You know, normally when I say one second, I mean I'm on my way. You don't have to pound the door down just to deliver room--" Lucy broke off as she opened the door, coming face to face with Jerry Jacks. He attempted a grin, but Lucy could see something was terribly off. "You're not room service," she said, unnecessarily.
"No," he shook his head, "no, I'm not." Jerry was quiet, his hands pressing hard against the doorframe. He looked up at Lucy with his mouth twisted into a half-smile, half-grimace. "Bet you want to slam the door in my face right about now."
Lucy stared back at him, expressionlessly. "You win," she said, reaching over for the door to push it closed.
"No, wait," Jerry stepped forward, his hand stopping the door before it slammed. "Lucy, please, I -- I need you," he said, stepping into the threshold of her room, reaching out towards her.
Lucy turned, regarding him suspiciously. Her face reformed in softer lines as she saw the pleading look in his eyes. She sighed, and pulled the belt of her robe tight. "Do you know how very, very mad I am at you?" she said, hands on hips. "You left, Jerry. You -- kissed me, and left and didn't come back! I didn't know where you were or how you were or if you'd run like a big fat chicken or if you'd just given up like a big fat coward!" She drew in a long breath, and let it out again, more slowly. Lucy studied his face. "Jerry, did you -- do something?"
"I told her," he burst out, pushing his hair out of his face. "My daughter, Carly. I just--" Jerry laughed, sharply. "It's my bloody brother's fault. He called me a coward, accused me of running. Couldn't let him do that." Almost involuntarily, Lucy went to him, touched his arm tentatively. Jerry grasped onto her hand tightly with both of his. "So I stopped running. I went to my daughter, told her who I was." He looked into her face, bringing her hand to his cheek and holding it there. "I'm so tired of running, Lucy."
Lucy gently caressed his cheek with her fingers, unable to help herself. She knew she was supposed to be furious with him; she was furious. But -- she could put that on hold, for just a little while. He needed her more than he needed her to be angry with him. "And?" Lucy prompted, gently. "What did she say when you told her?"
Jerry made a small, dismissive motion. "Well, I'm still standing -- that's something. She didn't throw anything or shoot anybody. That's got to count for something, right? Ordering me out of her house, out of her life -- small potatoes. I can handle that." He smiled, and it wasn't a smile at all. It was his way of bleeding.
Lucy cupped his face in both her hands, making the same kind of small soothing noises she made when Christina was hurting. "Give her time, Jerry. I'm sure that all she needs is time." His head dropped to her shoulder, and her arms lifted to hold him as his body began to shake with deep, racking sobs. "It's all going to come out okay," she whispered, holding him fiercely. "I promise you, Jerry Jacks, it's going to be just fine."
It wasn't the first time and it wouldn't be the last that Lucy Coe made a promise she didn't know how in this world she was going to keep.
