CHAPTER 21

"I mean Mr. Spencer called the desk and asked for us to stop any visitors that tried to go in his room." The nurse replied without even looking up from the papers she had been reading

Lucky slowly passed a hand through his hair. His nervousness was at its worst, and he felt like an elastic that was about to snap from the strain. "Look," he tried to talk patiently. The nurse was new, and surely she didn't know who he was, "I'm sure that my father did call you and ask you to stop whatever visitor he might have, but surely he mentioned that it didn't include me!"

"I'm sorry," he lady finally looked up from the file that had been holding her attention, "all I know is that Mr. Spencer, your father as you so repeatedly pointed out, called here earlier, said that he was in a meeting with his lawyer and that he would really appreciate it if we didn't let anyone disturb them. He didn't mentioned exceptions. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have patients to attend to"

The dismissal could not have been clearer. Lucky was not wanted here. Well, he didn't care. He knew what the meeting his father was having with Alexis was, and, dammit, he needed his father more than Luke needed sex!

Slowly, Lucky made his way to Luke's door. He knocked shyly and waited for some kind of response. When he got none, he took a deep breath, waited before he expelled it, and knocked again louder. This time he heard a curse through the wooden door and heard his father bellow "Whoever it is, GO AWAY!"

"It's me, dad," Lucky announced, his cheek on the door to hear his father's answer. "It's Lucky."

"Hold on a minute, will you, Cowboy?" Luke asked immediately. Whatever it was that he had been doing with Alexis wasn't as important as his son's visit. A couple of minutes passed by before Lucky heard a chair being dragged and he understood that Alexis had just unlocked the door. " Come in"

Taking another deep breath and slowly releasing it, Lucky pushed the door open and saw Alexis by the window, her back to him, while his father's flushed face welcomed him with a grin. "Hey," Lucky said awkwardly, "Sorry to interrupt."

"Don't worry, it's no problem," Alexis said as she refused to meet his eyes. "We'll continue our meeting another time." She picked her stuff and moved to Luke, before she kissed his cheek. "I'll be back tomorrow and we'll get to the bottom of this. Bye, Lucky."

"See you tomorrow, Natasha," Luke grinned as he watched his little feisty lawyer flee the room like a guilty teenager caught by her parents doing something she wasn't allowed to do.

"I'm sorry, dad," Lucky said sheepishly, still waiting by the door. "I didn't mean to chase her away"

"It's ok, Cowboy, really. We were finished anyway," Luke lied. "Don't just stand there, come here and sit down"

Lucky slowly made his way to the chair, as if he wasn't sure if he should sit down, or turn around and flee. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. Luke could read him like an open book, and Lucky tried his best to avoid being alone with him so Luke would not end up knowing what Lucky was so desperately trying to hide.

Silence filled the room as Lucky sat down. Both men were waiting for the other to start talking. Lucky missed the comfortable silence he had shared with Luke while he was growing up. Sometimes, they had stayed silent for hours and then, at the same time, both of them had bursted out laughing. Still chuckling, they started teasing and hitting each other, before it turned into a full fledge wrestling match in the middle of the living room floor. Their fooling around usually ended with Laura's surprised gasp at the mess they created in the living room when she came home or simply came in from another room in the house.

"Cleaning up that mess sure was a drag, wasn't it?" Luke asked softly, letting his son know he, too, was recalling their passed closeness.

"Yeah," Lucky smiled at the memory. "Especially since I always ended up cleaning the mess alone because you always found a reason to follow mom into one of the other rooms!" Lucky's voice held no trace of bitterness or resentment, only a big sense of loss with a pang of nostalgia. "I miss those times," he finally admitted to the man he loved more than life itself.

"I do, too, Cowboy," Luke said as he gazed into his son's haunted eyes, "but nothing can take them away from us. They will always stay in our memories, warming our hearts. As I told you before, love is strong and thicker than blood"

"I know!" Lucky let out a desperate sigh. "I know all that, dad! But, you always hated everything Cassadine! Always. You hated Nikolas because you thought he was a Cassadine, what if you come to hate me?"

Finally, we are getting somewhere, Luke couldn't help but think. Ever since Lucky's paternity had come out, the young man had acted like it didn't change anything between he and Luke, but things were tense, as if Lucky wanted to say something, ask something, get something off of his chest, but didn't have the guts to do it. Luke was about to start talking when he saw tears falling down Lucky's cheeks. "Lucky..." Luke started but Lucky lifted his head and met his father's eyes.

"Dad," Lucky said, his voice breaking, "I can't do it on my own, I need your help!" The last part of his sentence came out as a broken whisper.

"With what, Cowboy?" Luke asked gently.

"With everything! It seemed so easy for you to accept that I am not your son. I am still trying to cope with it, to find a way not to be torn inside into millions of pieces when I think about it, and here you are, talking as if it was nothing, living your life, being happy as if the ground hadn't been taken from under your feet for what? The third time?"

"If you think learning that you weren't my son was easy for me, Lucky, then you are gravely mistaking!" Luke said, his arm circling his son's shoulders before he brought him close in a tight embrace. "I think there wasn't a part in my life, nothing that happened that could've been worse, except when I heard that you were dead!"

Luke felt his son's tears wetting his shirt, but he didn't care. Lucky's shoulders were wracked with sobs, but this had to be done. Afterwards, they would be able to work together to bring down the black widow. "I love you, Lucky. When I held you in my arms for the first time, all I could think about was how I would change for you, how my world would be around you. Don't ask me to change because your mother is a lying...." Luke took a deep breath before he continued. "What I'm saying is that I don't care about your blood. I told you that before. I know I hate everything Cassadine, but you aren't a Cassadine! You are my son. Lucas Lorenzo Spencer Junior! You wear my name, you were raised by me!"

Lucky sat down and looked at his father. "How can you say that? I'm the son of the man you hate more than anything!"

"I'm your father's enemy, Lucky! Do you hate me?" Luke shot back. "Can you look me in the eye and tell me you hate me because I'm a Spencer and you're a Cassadine?"

Lucky looked at Luke like he just went crazy. If the man had grown wings and started flying, the young man wouldn't have been more surprised. "It's the most ridiculous thing you've ever said!" Lucky said, insulted. "How can you think that I could consider him my father! How can you even fathom the idea that I would think of myself as a Cassadine?"

"Then how can you even imagine the fact that I would see you as a Cassadine, as something other than my son?"

"I guess I got a little insecure," Lucky admitted in a little boy's voice. "You, Nikolas and Lulu are my only family, dad! The only one I have. I don't want to lose you!"

"That will never happen. Someone would have to rip my beating heart from my chest for me to ever turn my back on you"

As Lucky wiped his tears, Luke slowly inhaled a breath. "Lucky," he said as he exhaled, "there is something you should know, though"

"What's that?" Lucky asked, slowly starting to feel as if everything was going to be all right. Luke loved him, would always love him. He was back home, his sister was safe, he was away from Faison. Nothing bad could happen now that he was home.

"I'm not accepting your version of where you were the last year while we all thought you were dead. I'm not stopping until I get to the bottom of it, and nothing, not even you, will stop me from finding out the truth, no matter what it cost!"