Chapter 19
Laura silently cursed her fair skin as she felt herself flush with embarrassment, but she met her unwelcome guest's eyes with a steady gaze. Luke's friend, Mr.Stuart, accompanied by her mother, walked down the pathway, a quizzical expression on his face. It was so like her mom, she thought distractedly, to take the extra time necessary to make a guest welcome.
"It sounds like you have some questions," Stu prompted. His gentle blue eyes met hers.
She took the bull by the horns and plunged into her concerns. "I didn't want to spoil this holiday for anyone in my family, or for you, but I'm concerned about your intentions, sir."
"Laura!" Lesley moved toward her daughter impetuously, but was restrained by a sudden motion from the man at her side.
"Let her explain herself," he said quietly.
"I'm very sorry about the death of your wife, but I assure you that no one in my family was responsible." Laura spoke firmly. "Luke delights in finding potential wrongdoing on my husband's part. If he's egged you on in any way, and I'm sure he has...." She paused and glanced at Luke's still face. "Are you trying to hurt us, because of Luke's accusations or," she went on more hesitantly, "Are you allied with Helena Cassadine?"
Stu crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. "I'm well aware that my wife died of natural causes, regardless of Luke's opinions. I told him that his suspicions on that score were groundless."
He glanced at Lesley before continuing. "To answer your second question, I met Mrs. Cassadine only once, at Luke's bar. That was the weekend I met Luke and Lulu as well. Meeting them was pure chance."
Lesley's dark, haunted eyes were fixed on her daughter's face. "How on earth could you accuse him of being tied to Helena?" she asked, in a high-pitched, unusually sharp tone.
Laura reacted as if she'd been struck. "Because she told me to stay away from him, that he didn't need anything from me. She's involved with him somehow.
"Luke was there." She pivoted and looked a plea, but he remained motionless on the bench, eyes fixed on the horizon. He might have been stone himself. She turned back toward her mother.
"That's why I was so provoked with him for bringing Mr. Stuart here. Mom, we have so much to lose. We can't risk it all. Not again."
The two women's eyes locked.
If fear had a smell, Stu thought. A texture. A color.... A cold flame sprang to life within him.
Lesley held out her arms and drew her daughter into them. "Oh, sweetheart, she's so wrong. He does need something from you. And so do I." She tenderly pushed a flying strand of blonde hair into place.
Luke leaned forward, and watched the scene unfold. The autumn sun's weakened rays struck the top of the older man's head and glinted in his light hair. Light reflected and seemed to glow from Laura's pale hair and skin, which contrasted oddly with her mother's darker skin and eyes. Lesley's fading locks were burnished to an almost copper hue by the sunlight which crowned her daughter's fair head in glory. In a moment of deja vu, Luke realized again that he would go to his grave grateful that Lady Luck had once brought Laura into his arms. Even after the bitter ending of their marriage, it still pleased him merely to look at her: her hair, her skin, her expressive eyes.
Her eyes. He looked from her to Stu, and muttered an expletive under his breath.
"I need for you to listen," Lesley's eyes brimmed. "And try to understand. This man is your father, Gordon Stuart Grey. He didn't die. I lied to you."
Luke's audible intake of air distracted Laura. She looked at his face in polite puzzlement.
"I was so afraid that I would lose you. You remember how crazy I made you? Sort of overdoing the mom business? I was so scared of losing you... Gordon's wife had been my patient too. There was that to consider..."
Laura stared at Lesley. This is what it must be like to be deaf, she thought. Adrift in sound without meaning. Struggling to catch and understand the occasional familiar sound pattern rushing past like a bit of debris caught in a fierce tide. Struggling to comprehend it before the whole wave washed over your head, crashed and died on the shore. And always another wave following. Over and over. No rest. She struggled to focus on her mother's anguished face and moving lips, trying to hold onto some small meaning in the confusion. Her mother was upset about something, but what? The roaring of the breakers grew unbearable. It overwhelmed her. She put her hands up to her ears.
"Lesley, stop!" Luke sprang from the bench with his arms extended, but he was too late. Laura fell hard, striking her head on the stone urn near the bench.
"Baby," Lesley stooped next to Laura. "Can you hear me?"
Luke and Stu joined her. Laura's eyes were closed. A crimson spray sparkled on her hair, and the paving stones beneath her head were darkly wet.
"I'm going to turn her over, Les, so you can get a better look," Luke reached for Laura, but the frantic mother shoved his hands away.
"Better to call an air ambulance from the hospital. It's not safe to move her without a back board. We don't know if she's injured her back or neck. Her airway is not obstructed. She's breathing okay. That's something."
Luke nodded grimly, pulled a cell phone from his pocket, and dialed the emergency number Lesley recited while she took her daughter's pulse.
"We need help from the house," Lesley said. "She needs to be covered. We don't want her to go into shock."
Stu, on the ground by Lesley, shrugged out of his jacket, and covered her gently. He touched his daughter's bright hair tentatively. "It wasn't supposed to be like this, Laura," he whispered. Then he stood up jerkily and ran toward the house to find Stefan.
Lesley sat on the cold ground watching her unconscious daughter, and listening while Luke talked on the phone. With a sudden jerk, Laura's body moved beneath her mother's hands.
"No, God, no! Laura!" Lesley eyes widened as Laura's body jerked over onto its back. Her eyes opened, then rolled back in her head, while her whole body thrashed about like an antic marionette. She produced a sustained gurgling noise, and her feet drummed the ground.
"They're coming. What's wrong?" Luke sank to the ground, his dilated eyes fixed on Laura. Someone at the dispatcher's office called his name desperately, but he didn't hear.
"She's having a seizure. Lesley wedged something between Laura's teeth. "Tell them to hurry."
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Stefan paced back and forth across the waiting room. Lesley, Amy, and Nikolas sat morosely in chairs. Too tense to talk or read, each of them was lost in his or her own thoughts.
Stefan pulled out his cell phone, called Wyndemere, and asked for Alexis.
"How is Sergei?" he asked.
"He's doing fine," she answered. "Mrs. Landsbury and I fed him dinner, and we've been playing. Mrs. Landsbury suggested that I give him a bottle before bedtime to help him nod off."
"Yes, thank you." Stefan stopped, then cleared his throat. "His mother usually nurses him before bedtime, but he will take a bottle."
"The nursing I can't manage just yet, but the rocking and the bottle I can. How's Laura?"
"They won't let me see her. Dr. Jones says that she is stable, not showing signs of any further seizure activity, but she remains unconscious. He does not seem to know why yet."
Alexis responded to the unspoken panic in her brother's voice. "She's in good hands. I'm sure that they're doing everything possible. Is Luke there? she added.
"No, no. He left to get Lesley Lu, and to tell Lucky and Liz."
"When you see him," Alexis asked, "remind him that I'm at Wyndemere for the night. I gave Wenders and Mrs. Landsbury the key to the penthouse, and they're picking up some things for me."
"Thank you, Alexis. This means a great deal to me."
"I won't leave him alone for a moment. I'll sleep in his room. I promise you that your son will be fine."
Stefan sighed. "Thank you again. I cannot imagine how I can repay you."
"I'm your sister. Repayment isn't required. Call as soon as you know something, okay?"
"Very well. I will. Goodbye."
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Gordon Stuart Grey walked outside the hospital to use his cell phone. It was imperative that he speak to his brother. He wanted Laura to have only the best doctors. Once he reached him, David himself seemed unimpressed with the little information which Stu possessed.
David's response had been typically blunt. "Oh, please. Her mother's a physician herself. She's had seizures twice before? From emotional strain? This hospital sounds like it's full of absolute quacks. People faint. People get mad and scream, or become silent and withdrawn, but have a full-blown seizure from emotional strain? Unlikely. Something else is wrong."
"The shock of finding out, David..."
"Nonsense. It's not your fault. Hang on, old fellow. I'll be there as soon as I can."
Gordon drew a handkerchief from the inner pocket of his coat and wiped his face. The he reentered the hospital, stepped onto the elevator, and absentmindedly pushed a button to close its door. He leaned against the wall, so preoccupied that he was only half-aware that someone had joined him. As the elevator jolted to life, he inhaled a subtle, yet heady perfume and heard a voice from the other side of the elevator.
"I believe that we were never properly introduced. I am, as you might remember, Helena Cassadine. We were unfortunately interrupted the night we met just as you started to tell me your name."
Gordon leaned against the elevator wall casually and smiled into her chilly blue eyes.
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The policy on visitation at General Hospital was quite clear. Children under the age of fourteen were unwelcome in the Emergency Room and in the Intensive Care Waiting Rooms. Knowing this Stefan had suggested that Luke send Lucky and Liz to the hospital, but keep Lesley Lu with him.
Luke had broken the news about Laura as gently as he knew how to Lucky, Liz and Lulu. It was Liz who had suggested that Luke take Lulu on to the town square to see the great Christmas tree lit for the first time that year, instead of simply waiting by the phone for news. Armed with Luke's cell phone number, Lucky and Liz had raced off for the hospital, promising to call as soon as there was any word.
Luke supposed that their expedition had been as much of a success as it could be under the circumstances. Around them a merry crowd of families, small children aloft on their father's shoulders or snuggled in their mother's arms waited expectantly for the moment the mayor would throw the switch. At the moment the great tree flamed with light and the street decorations glowed to life, Lulu's big eyes had momentarily lit up, but she didn't say a word.
Now they walked down the street hand in hand. Lulu had taken the news about her mother too stoically. Whatever she felt was hidden behind the curious reserve that she seemed able to throw up like a wall whenever she felt threatened. He hated this aspect of her personality, because he knew that she emulated Stefan in this regard.
He surreptitiously flicked a glance sideways. The unnaturally guarded look on her face now was pure Cassadine. No Spencer child had ever shown her talent for dissembling. At her age, Lucky's face and heart had been an open book. Luke felt rather than saw her great eyes on his tense profile. His anger had tightened his grip on her hand and quickened his pace. She was struggling to keep up with his furious pace, struggling to hold back her tears.
He paled. At her age - the thought could no longer be suppressed - Lucky had trusted his father completely. Lulu didn't and in truth, had no reason to do so.
Tears pricked behind his eyelids. He slowed his pace, stopped, turned around and picked the child up.
"We'll go by Kelly's and get you some hot chocolate for the ride home, Cupcake."
"Okay, Daddy." Her taut body realxed against him and her face rested on his right shoulder.
Better, he thought.
After a quick stop at Kelly's, he walked her to the docks. Wenders waited there to take her home to Wyndemere. Luke bent down to kiss her cold cheek.
"Aunt Alexis should be there to tuck you in. Keep your chin up. Your mom is resting comfortably they said."
Lulu hugged him. "Thank you for taking me to see the Christmas tree and also for the hot chocolate," she added politely.
"You're welcome. Good night then," Luke said awkwardly.
Lulu climbed on board the launch with Wenders' help.
Luke shivered a little in the night air. He wanted a drink. He wanted to go back to the bar, and sit in his office alone. He wanted someone to cross his path. A someone in the mood for a quick, dirty fight. More dangerously still, he wanted to slip in a back entrance of the hospital, sneak upstairs, and find Laura. He wanted to sit beside her in the dark, his fears lulled by the steady rhythm of her breathing. He had never been a man who expected much of tomorrow, but it was his tomorrow he didn't trust. His tomorrow he didn't expect to see. Not hers. He needed to trace the contours of her face one more time. To whisper the things his pride had held prisoner so long.
"Good night, Daddy." A small hand lifted once more as the launch's engine sputtered, coughed, then purred steadily.
Luke knew what he didn't want. He didn't want to return to Spook Island tonight, or any other night. The island squatted malevolently, just where the inky blackness of the water merged with its mate, the night sky. Tendrils of mist felt their way across the face of the water, creeping toward land.
The launch began to back carefully away from the dock. Lulu's solemn face gleamed in the dark as she raised her hand in a last farewell.
"Stop!" Luke bellowed, and jumped aboard.
Where Will All Come Home?
Chapter 20
"Stefan," Tony Jones stood in the doorway of the waiting room. His jacket was rumpled, there were bags under his eyes, and his nose was a peculiar shade of red.
Stefan nodded a terse greeting andfolded his arms over his chest. He looked at Dr. Jones appraisingly. Was this man competent to make any medical decisions? He looked like hell.
Tony nodded to the other family members and began to speak in low tones as they clustered around him. The denasal quality of his voice was reassuring, as was the handkerchief he pulled from his pocket. The neurosurgeon was suffering from a nasty cold, not under the influence of unknown drugs.
Stefan found himself unreasonably annoyed by the man's whiny droning voice.
"Laura is not ready for visitors yet, but she has regained consciousness. She's drifted off into a deep sleep, and that's typical of people who've had seizures."
"The blow to her head, Tony? " Lesley asked.
"It doesn't seem to have done any major damage. We can be thankful for that. She may be concussed . She almost certainly is, but we're checking her continuously for any danger signs."
Lesley nodded.
"What precipitated this incident? Can anyone explain what happened?"
Stefan spoke quickly. "I wasn't there. She fainted, but there was not any particular precipitating cause."
Lesley opened her mouth, but a single glance from Stefan silenced her.
"A friend who was visiting today has offered us the services of a surgeon from Massachusetts. He are hopeful that he will arrive late tonight. Perhaps very late."
Tony's eyes narrowed. "If you lack confidence in my ability to handle this case...."
"No, Dr. Jones, I don't doubt your ability, but we are discussing my wife - and your friend for many years standing. I think that both you and I would benefit from the advice of someone more objective than either of us are capable of being at this time."
Stefan pivoted toward Amy. "Are you comfortable with this plan?"
Amy considered his question. In a professional matter she was all business. "That depends on who's coming."
"I believe that Dr. David Gray will fly in from Cambridge tonight. He may bring someone with him. I am not totally clear on the details."
Amy's eyes widened. "I took notes for Monica at one of his lectures last year. I didn't know he saw private patients."
Tony sneezed. "I met David Gray once at a conference. He is brilliant. I can't object. I love Laura too much. I would be honored to have his opinion."
He blew his nose again. "We're doing an EKG while she sleeps. Those results, the first x-rays and the basic blood work should be finished before he gets here." He nodded wearily, patted Nikolas and Lucky on the shoulder absentmindedly and plodded off down the hall to give orders to the nursing staff.
Lucky glanced at the other occupants of the waiting room. One snored raggedly, a newspaper over his face shook slightly with each exhalation. An exhausted-looking couple waited for news of their son , also in intensive care following a holiday accident. They sat in a corner, holding hands, alternately crying, and talking quietly. Lucky spared them a compassionate look, before he leaned toward Stefan, and said in softly menacing tones, "Now that we've done the usual Cassadine two-step around the truth, why don't you just explain what actually happened to Mom today?"
"I don't know," Stefan responded. "But Lesley does. I simply refuse to share the knowledge of what precipitated the accident before the family discusses it privately. May I suggest that we move to my office before we proceed to further discussion?"
He opened the door and motioned them out. They followed in rag tag fashion down the hall and re-settled themselves in Stefan's office.
Once there, Stefan stepped over to a window and drew the curtains open, so that he could look out. The sun was drowning itself in the river. Day was dying, and perhaps his life, her life, their life was drowning with it. How could he stand here a moment longer and not throw something through a window, satisfy himself by punching holes into the godforsaken ugly walls of this building? He breathed deeply for a few minutes, willing himself to calm.
His struggle for control was not lost on the room's other occupants. Eyes transfixed by his rigid figure outlined by the setting sun's rays, they waited for him to speak again.
Stefan pivoted. His words were curt, unsparing. "Lesley, your tardy discovery of a need for absolute truth is the preciptating factor here. You enlisted my aid in your search. There were several factors, however, that we did not take into account. Lesley Lu was already aware of your secret. She in fact told Luke, who apparently did not believe her. I told Nikolas enough that he put the pieces together himself when Lesley Lu told him what she suspected on the week she ran away from Luke's."
"What search?" Lucky lost his temper. "I'm sick of this already. Just spit it out for once. Can't anyone in this family ever just be straight?"
Liz laid one hand on his arm, and grasped his other hand with hers.
Stefan arched his eyebrows, and smiled mirthlessly. "Lesley, feel free to explain yourself."
"Leave Grandma alone, Stefan." Lucky shot up, and Nikolas grabbed him from behind.
"Enough!" Lesley ordered. "Lucky, I lied to everyone, especially your mom. Her biological father is alive. I was afraid that he would take her away from me. His wife was mentally ill and became my patient before I ever found your mother. They moved away, and when I found Laura alive, I behaved despicably. I never told him. I never told her."
Lucky's face froze. "Guess Mom got her habit of convenient lies honestly," he spat out. Why did you decided to tell at this late date?"
Lesley stared at the floor. "Lulu started asking questions about her grandfather. Where he lived. What he died from. The child is a question machine. I think that I would have broken down years ago and looked for him if I had only known either you or Nikolas as small children."
"The next part I understand," Nikolas took over with a sympathetic glance toward his shaken grandmother.
"Lulu suspected that Grandma was lying. Her thinking was that Grandma never lies, so she said it was easy to tell when she started. Lulu asked Luke to help her find her mother's father. Lulu's theory was that if Luke helped her find Mother's father, that she would be distracted, and that maybe Lulu and Luke would be able to get out of visitation with each other."
"Where have I been?" Lucky marvelled. "I had no idea things were that bad between Dad and Lulu."
"I wouldn't say that their relationship was bad," Stefan took up the story. "Simply nonexistant. Your father was disinterested, and if Laura and Sonny had not intervened, he would have relinquished parental rights at some time in the near future. Of that, I am certain." He realigned his wedding ring to his satisfaction, before continuing.
"In the meantime, Lesley told her story to me. We decided to find out if Laura's father were alive or not. The status of his health and that of his wife. Ironically, Lesley was afraid of damaging their health with this enormous shock."
He paced across the room, sat down behind his desk, and fingered his favorite paper weight. "It took me only a day to locate Dr. Gray. He taught literature when he was younger. A form of rebellion, I suppose. When his father died, he returned home to Cambridge, Massachussetts and has lived there for many years. He took over his father's company, diversified it and made the members of his family even wealthier than they were before."
Stefan looked at Lucky directly for the first time. "His wife was unable to bear children. The knowledge that he fell in love with a student, who bore his child, sparked his wife's descent into mental illness. He paid for that brief love affair with forty years of his life. He mourned the death of his only child for almost that long. He is a remarkable man." Stefan fell silent.
Nikolas held Lesley's hand, and filled in the awkward silence. "Father asked me to get to know this family socially. I did, but the man's wife died the night the very night I made contact. She literally died before my eyes. Since I had no knowledge of what his reasons were for asking me to meet the family, I panicked. I thought that somehow we might have caused her death. I was completely spooked. Later, some of the things Lulu told me seemed to point to one solution."
"I was home that weekend," Lucky said. "Why did she run away? I never got a straight story about what happened then either."
Nikolas hedged. "Luke let Lulu think that he was helping her look for our grandfather. Really, he wasn't. He was just trying to make her to spend more time with him. He must have realized just how far apart the two of them had grown and tried to fix it in his own way."
"By running a scam on her?" Lucky asked ruefully. "Yeah, I guess that would appeal to the old man."
"Yeah, I think," Nikolas grinned. "Anyway it kind of worked, because he eventually got through to Lulu The day she ran away he told her that he didn't intend to help with her scheme. She ran away before he got a chance to why he'd pretended to go along with her. He managed to make her believe him that night when he and Laura found her."
Nikolas heaved an internal sigh of relief. It looked like Lucky wasn't going to ask what happened to make Lulu run away. He didn't need to know that Lulu had given up any hope of being important enough to Luke to ever compete with Lucky. That was the mistake that Luke was still trying to fix. Lucky didn't need to know. It wasn't his fault.
Stefan began again. "Luke overheard a phone conversation between Nikolas and me the night, Florence Gray died. He became convinced that I had planned a murder, possibly with Nikolas's aid. This distracted him from the obvious: that Lesley and I were looking for Dr. Gray. That Lulu's suspicions were correct."
"What none of us counted on was Dr. Gray himself. He came to Port Charles to disperse his wife's ashes after her death. He met Lesley Lu, Luke and me accidentally. I was, of course, thrilled to see him. My original plan had been to gradually lure him toward Port Charles. To try and make him understand the truth slowly. I was not willing to introduce him into the family without knowing if he were willing to become a part of your lives."
Stefan pushed his chair back and stared at the sky again. " He had a right to know about his child, to claim his child. But if he did not care to do so, I wanted to know ahead of time so that I could prepare Laura. Before I could proceed with my plan, he returned to town with a private investigator."
"That part I don't understand, Father," Nikolas interjected. "Did Luke make him suspicious ? Is that why he returned?"
"No, son, he was not suspicious."Stefan smiled. "Dr. Gray thought that Luke was a bit eccentric to put it kindly." He smoothed his moustache with some satisfaction, and smiled grimly.
"Dr. Gray left Port Charles and went immediately to visit his child's grave. His family had asked him to stop going there many years ago, and he had reluctantly complied." He stopped and took a breath. " The next part is very difficult."
He stood up as if he could disguise his agitation with movement. "Dr. Gray was haunted by the lonely grave he visited many years previously. He had long promised himself that in the event of his wife's death that would move the child's body so that she could rest with his family." Stefan cleared his throat, and gave up trying to hide his tears. "The grave was gone, so he hired a detective to find where her body had been moved. He wanted to assure himself that she had been buried with Lesley's family at last. Was no longer alone."
Lesley finally spoke again. "The information he received helped him put the pieces together. He came to see me in Memphis. We decided to tell Laura the truth today. I did tell her. And then, oh God, she just looked at me like she didn't understand a word I'd said, and dropped to the ground."
Amy, stunned to silence, could not push away the love she had borne for Lesley for many years. She put her arm around Lesley, and hugged her, but uncontrolled tears found their way down her face.
Stefan found himself unable to tolerate another moment in his office with Lesley. Over and over, the thought, both unbidden and unwelcome, returned. Perhaps Dr. Gray had come too late. A child reborn only to die again. It was still very possible that he would never hear his daughter call him 'father.' Perhaps Sergei, like Nikolas before him, would know his mother's face only from aging photographs. Perhaps he, Stefan Cassadine, was never meant by fate to attain and live the only dream which had ever been his to dream.
Chapters 17-18
Chapters 21-22