CHAPTER 2

Chapter 2: Decisions

"I'm gonna going to put the baby down for a nap," Laura said before she passed in front of Luke with the newest Cassadine, a Cassadine that she had forgotten to mention to him.

"In which bed?" Luke asked bitterly.

"There's only one bed in this cabin, Luke! And you know it. Now stop acting like you've found your wife's lover, and realized you have competition for her love and come help me make it so that Nikolas won't fall if he rolls over." Laura answered sharply. The perfect little afternoon they were suppose to have, filled of with love making, and fruit basket eating in bed was now filled with hostility and resentment. She knew that Luke had a right to be angry. She knew that he had a right to be hurt, and to feel betrayed. After all, she was guilty. She didn't tell him about Nikolas, and Stefan had decided to come to her with the baby in the presence of Luke. This would not go well, but now that Nikolas was actually off of the God forsaken Island he had been born on, there was no way that she would let anyone take him away from her. She wouldn't give up her child for the second time for anyone. Not even Luke.

Luke couldn't help but look at how she was affectionate with the baby as he stubbornly leaned against the doorway and refused to budge to help her make a barrier of pillows around the little boy. He watched her as she bent down and kissed the boy's cheek, and the baby made a series of weird noise, as if he was rolling something inside of him and it was echoing in his mouth. But Luke knew that it was happy feelings the baby was having, to have been reunited with his mother. Laura was also beaming. He had never seen her more beautiful, more happy, than she was at that very moment, playing with her child. She sat on the bed with him and he rolled on his side to do the same, and pretty soon he was playing with his mother's hand, trying to take off her wedding band, but his little face frowned and he cooed when he didn't understand why it wouldn't come when he pulled on it. Nikolas lifted his eyes and met Luke's, in the corner of the room, and he smiled through his pacifier. Laura held her breath, to see what would Luke do. This was probably the moment that would decide wether she would ask him to raise Nikolas with her, or ask him to leave. Luke smiled back at the baby, a cold but uncruel smile, and then he turned around. Soon after, Laura heard the front door closed behind her husband.

Nikolas looked at his mother then at the door. "Go bye?" He asked with his pacifier still in his mouth, his chin full of his saliva.

"Yes, sweetie, I think Luke's gone," Laura answered, taking her son on her knees and kissing his little head. "I don't know if he'll come back or not. But in the mean time, you need a nap, your little eyes are purple from missing sleep. Come on," she said and she laid him down in the middle of the bed, before she tucked him in real tight and arranged the pillow around him once again. "Mama go?" Nikolas asked her with his brown eyes and Laura's heart broke as she remembered that she did this once. She had put him to bed and wasn't there when he woke up. "Mama will be just outside this door, Nikolas, I promise. Now go to sleep"

She saw her son throw his pacifier away and put his thumb in his mouth, rolling on his side and closing his eyes. It was amazing how he was already an aristocrat, so calm and so intelligent. He had celebrated his first birthday a couple of days before, she remembered, and tears came to her eyes once again, thinking about how much she had missed in his life. She didn't hear his first word, she wondered what it had been? Dada? Mama? Uncle? And what about the first steps, did he do them yet, or still needed people to hold his little hands to be able to stand on his two feet?

Laura walked outside and saw the swing on the porch. She looked around for any signs on Luke, but he was nowhere to be seen. "Oh, Luke," she whispered to herself. "Please come home so that I can explain. Don't leave like that, not after everything we have been through. Not when I finally feel my life complete for the first time in my life!"

Laura didn't know how long she had been day dreaming on the porch, going inside every now and then to check on Nikolas, but he was sleeping peacefully. He had thrown away the covers and she tenderly put them back up to his little shoulders again, and kissed his sweaty head. He groaned and shook his head, his little hand going up to take off whatever bug that had appear on his head and Laura smiled. He was such a normal child.

She heard a car outside parking on the side of the cabin, and she ran to the kitchen to see who it was. She was surprised to see the Pink Cadillac, with bags in the back seat. Luke got out and walked to the side of the car, before slowly taking the bags out. Laura couldn't make out what was in the bags, but she felt her eyes filling with tears again. Luke was back. He hadn't left her and her son. She should've known that he would never just walk out on her, not after everything they had gone through together. She ran outside to greet him, but he passed right by her without a word. But it was clear that the packages he was carrying were heavy, as his red face looked up at her and he wiped sweat from his face. "After his nap I want him out of my bed!" He told her gruffly and went back outside to take stuff out of his trunk.

While he was out, Laura couldn't help but look inside the bags he had left inside and she let out a surprised gasp. Luke had bought diapers, bibs, bottles, some clothes, and even toys!

"Out of my way, Laura," he said, walking in with a big box and pulling another one behind him.

"Luke, what is all of this?" She couldn't help but ask

"This," Luke answered, slapping a box, "is a high chair, and this," he added, slapping the other box, "is a play pen. There is no way I'm leaving my bed to a drooling ankle biter. You wanna keep him? You put him to sleep in his play pen."

"Oh Luke," Laura started but was cut off soon enough by Luke's sharp voice.

"Let's get something straight first. It's clear that you forgot to mention you had given birth to another Cassadine psycho, and now we are stuck with him,"

Laura once again started talking but he lifted his hand to silence her. "Let me finish!" He snapped. "Now, you won't change my mind, that's how I feel. I'm stuck with raising the enemy in my own house, but that is all I will do! He is your son and I won't make you choose between him and me, but you won't turn me all smooth over him. You want to raise him with us, fine. But you keep him away from me! I'm not, under any circumstances, tied to him for anything. I won't baby sit him, feed him, change his diaper, give him his bath, or even keep an eye on him in the living room while you are in the kitchen. Is that clear?"

"No, it isn't clear. I understand that you are angry with me for not telling you, but I would've. I swear to God I would have. Later. I didn't tell you right away for one and one reason only. It was what they wanted me to do! They wanted me to run to you and tell you that Stavros had forced himself on me one night and the result of that was Nikolas!" Laura said bitterly. "They wanted you to tell me that you would go and get my son back for me, and then they would've killed you! But does that mean that now that I have my son I will let you treat him like a parasite, like he should be ashamed for being born? No, I won't! He is a member of MY family, Luke. He is with me now, and with me he will stay. Now either you accept to be a part of that family, my son included, or you walk out this door and never look back."

Luke let out a sarcastic chuckle and looked at her in disbelief. "You mean to tell me that you would rather choose a Cassadine over me?"

"I will choose my SON over you at any time, Luke. I chose you once but now I hope that I won't have to choose between you and Nikolas again. Because I will warn you that you will not be the winner of this draw. Oh, Luke, he is just a baby! Can you stop looking at him as him being a Cassadine and look at him as him being my son?" Laura asked her husband desperately. "Come with me, Luke" she said as she took his hand and led him to their room.

Laura opened the door to the room and led Luke in slowly. She stopped at the bed and looked down, knowing that Luke would do the same. And he did. "Luke," she whispered not to wake the baby up, "please tell me that you won't burden him with what happened with the ice princess, and me being kidnapped. He didn't ask to be born, and all he is asking now is to be loved"

Luke had to admit that the boy wasn't looking like Satan. He was looking more like an angel, with A wet flock of hair glued to his neck and forehead, his little thumb going in and out of his mouth as he sucked his little heart out.

He turned around, before he heart softened for the boy even more. He didn't want to admit to Laura that she would win with him, because he still had to make sure that he would never love the Cassadine child. Besides, because of him, his own first born was forever denied of the chance to be Laura's first born.

"My sentiments remain the same," Luke said before he walked out of the room. "I never said that I would make him feel unwelcome, I said that I wasn't the one who would be taking care of him. But I have a condition that I won't budge from. Either you change his last name to Spencer, or I'm out of here! If you want me to raise him as my own, then that is the price for not losing you, I'll do it, as long as he doesn't wear the name Cassadine. Knowing he is one is already hard enough as it is!"

Luke left the room and went on the porch, sitting down on the steps to look straight into the little forest. He needed time to adjust. There wasn't anything that he wouldn't do out of love for Laura, but he never thought that she would actually ask him to raise a Cassadine bastard as a Spencer. There was something obscene about all of this, but he wasn't able to walk away. She said she had chose him once, when she left Nikolas on the island to be with him, but now, Vlad had tracked her down. This was only a plot to tie her down to his family. They probably never thought that she would be able to leave her child to be with Luke, and Luke never thought he was that important to her, but it was clear that he was. Now, to honor that love, he had to raise her son with her. "What's next?" Luke asked the sky, "Stefan will show up with the family mutt, too?"

"Luke," he heard and saw Laura coming to sit down with him on the porch. "I know how hard this is for you, but you need to know that leaving him is something I can't do twice. It'll be too hard for me to just walk away again. But walking away from you isn't something that will be easy, either. No one has to know that he's a Cassadine. He's gonna be Nikolas Spencer, period. Don't punish him for his parents' mistakes. Be a father to him, Luke, please. When Helena comes after us, he will need you to be his father, his protector. He needs you, period."

"I'll think about it. I need time, Laura. Alone, if you don't mind," Luke said, in a softer voice than he first wanted to.

"I'll be inside, with our son," Laura said before walking back in.

*****End Flashback*****

"Luke? Are you coming down with Lucky, or did you run off with him again?" Laura yelled from the kitchen, and Luke smiled at her attempt to lighten Nikolas' inquietude a little, by reminding all of them of the time that they were playing a family game, Luke and Lucky against Nikolas and Laura, and when the men saw that they were losing, they ran away while the other two weren't looking. Laura and Nikolas found them in a little restaurant a couple of blocks away from their house, eating ice cream.

"No, I'm coming!" Luke yelled back, climbing the stairs two by two to go get his son. How would he start the conversation on how they were gonna just destroy the world as they knew it?