Stefan felt the wind whip around him as he looked at his home across the water. It all seemed so pointless. If Nikolas weren’t in danger… But he was. And Stefan didn’t have the luxury of giving up. He had to keep fighting for him, with no love or gratitude as his reward.
He had neglected to appreciate what little he had gotten, while trying for more. Nikolas’s love had slipped away from him. He had been angry. He had forgotten how fragile those warm feelings were. When they were for him.
He was born a pessimist so how had he wandered so far from himself? How had he gotten trapped in hope? It was her. She brought these wild thoughts into his mind. But now they were banished forever. There was no hope. Only the fight.
It all came and went with her. He still found himself beseeching her, imploring her, threatening her.
But she was deaf to all of it. He had fallen from grace. In her eyes he was a liar. He had been unable to convince her of his love, of his loyalty. Now he couldn’t convince her of the danger. It all looked like a ploy.
Sometimes such blind anger would overtake him. What would he have to do? What was left to sacrifice for them?
There was no peace for him, no rest. Only one thankless, Herculean task after another. Toil without end.
The cold wind had numbed his skin where it blew. It pushed against him ceaselessly. But he stood. He wouldn’t move for it, or for anyone.
It was better this way. All the superfluous things stripped away. And he knew they were superfluous because he lived. He didn’t need love to survive. His survival was indisputable proof. He had a duty. He would live for that.

There were bright colors, overpowering scents. Laura was in constant motion. At a meeting or on her way to one. She made decisions. She smiled charmingly or she frowned threateningly. It was heady and exhilarating. It was proof. She could do this.
Then things would stop. She would be in the quite, comforting dark of her house. Tired. Thoughts and images flitting in and out. She couldn’t follow them for long. She would fall asleep without meaning to. Her mind shutting down before she could think.
But sometimes, in the midst of the chaos, she would pull back. Part of her listened to her employees as they excitedly talked over each other, trying to convince her of something. The perfect shape, or a color maybe. But that part of her mind that pulled her away asked what it was all for? Why was she here? What was she really trying to prove? What was she hiding from?

It took so much of her energy. He could be so convincing. But she had learned. She never let a word he said enter her mind without labeling it a lie. He would never get to her again. He would never again make a fool of her. She had believed him and defended him. And he had taken her trust for weakness. He now came to her office trying all the same old tricks, using Nikolas.
But it was different this time. She had the upper hand. She had everything, including Nikolas. And she wasn’t planning to be so generous with her son again. As she listened to Stefan’s threats, she vowed to herself to keep them as far apart as possible. She would unmake everything Cassadine that had been put into her son. It was all poison.

L: “He doesn’t need you! He doesn’t need your protection! And he doesn’t need your lies!”
Laura tried to sum up her position coldly, but she found herself shouting instead. She wanted it to be over. She wanted him to go.
S: “Unfortunately the only way I can prove that I am right is to allow my bitch of a mother to draw the life out of your son until there is nothing left but a puppet to do her bidding!”
Now Stefan was shouting. Laura stood back a little. There was no point in getting into a shouting match with him.
L: “Such melodrama. You Cassadines are really something.”
S: “And once again, I find myself having to remind you that your son is a Cassadine.” Stefan said at once pointedly and wearily.
Laura resented how he dragged out that tired argument. Even more she resented how he tried to use it to pull Nikolas away from her. As if he was less hers. But he wasn’t. He was her son.
L: “I’ve decided that he isn’t.”
S: “Are the fumes getting to you? Has running a company gone to your head? You don’t have that power.”
L: “But Nikolas does. He has decided not to be a Cassadine and I support him in that.”
S: “Support him all you want. Bury your head in the sand along with him. It’s no different than it’s always been. Not to worry. I will defend him while he turns away from me. But no one escapes our family, least of all those born into it.”
L: “I let you have your way with him for too long.”
S: “Let me?”
Stefan was incredulous.
L: “Make up your mind, Stefan. I either had a choice and chose to abandon my son or I was helpless while you held him and everyone else I cared about hostage? But no, you want to have it both ways.”
S: “No, that’s you.”

Whatever gloom Stefan had brought with him was still there. The fear he tried to instill in her still hung in the air. She wouldn’t have it. This was her space. She would reclaim it. She would reclaim her son. Everything that had been tainted would be made new. Reconstructed as she wanted it. It was her world. She would define it. She wouldn’t be pulled into Cassadine intrigue. They were irrelevant to her. And she would make them irrelevant to her son.

Nikolas was so happy and Laura smiled watching him. Gia was a beautiful girl. She had been her second choice, but then she saw in her a way to Nikolas’s salvation. Did the Face of Deception really matter when her son’s happiness was at stake. Liz had been disappointed. Lucky had been unhappy. He had looked at her accusingly, as if he knew that her motives weren’t pure. But they were.
Gia was in Laura’s world. And she brought Nikolas with her. Tied him to his mother more closely.
L: “You are here so much, why don’t you make it official? I need someone I can trust. If you work with me, I can have more time to spend with Lulu.”
Nikolas had laughed at the obvious ploy. Then he had agreed. His eyes strayed to Gia so often there was no doubt that she had been the reason.

Yet another inappropriate job. Stefan scolded Nikolas without much fire. It was pointless. But it was also expected.
Laura had taken an unusually proactive role in her son’s life. She was doing what she had promised. Nothing Stefan could say would convince her that it was useless. And dangerous.

Laura wasn’t the only one that saw that the path to Nikolas led straight through Gia. The attempts Helena made to befriend the girl had been rebuffed. Helena had been negligent while waiting for Stefan to get rid of the girl for her. Gia had turned from a temporary problem to a fixture in Nikolas’ life. Having missed her chance to make an indelibly good impression, Helena decided it was unfortunate, but unavoidable. And it saved her the trouble of kissing up to the little twit. But there were always other ways..

Gia: “What did you give me?” Gia asked one of the assistants as she felt her legs give out under her.
She had woken up in her own bed with no memory of what had happened. A discreet visit to the doctor showed no signs of assault and no drugs in her system. But later that day she had doubled over in pain. Through the darkness that threatened to overwhelm her vision, Gia saw a hand holding something in front of her face.
Woman: “Take this.”
The woman held out a small pill.
Gia: “No.”
Gia managed to whisper through gritted teeth as she felt her knees hit the pavement.
Woman: “It’s the only thing that will make it stop.”
The woman spoke in a cool tone.
Gia was determined not to. It would stop. She would get help. The hospital. The pain was getting worse. Gia felt it intensifying with each second. Even though she couldn’t believe that it could get any worse, it did. She wanted to die. She wanted to make it stop.
The woman didn’t wait for her consent. She shoved the pill into her mouth. Gia felt it melt. It and the pain dissolved.
Woman: “You little idiot. You’re going to have to earn the next one. Don’t do anything stupid until then.”
The woman walked away before Gia had recovered completely. And it was complete. Gia felt perfectly fine. She stood on unsteady feet. The pain still a vivid, almost tactile, memory.
The doctors could find nothing wrong. Test after test showed nothing in her system. Gia lived in fear of the pain and whoever had done this to her. She said nothing to anyone about the woman or the pill..

Woman: “We are in control. You will feel fine as long as we want you to. You will be in agony when we decide it is necessary. We will take away the pain when you cooperate.”
Gia: “You work for the Casssadines, don’t you?”
Woman: “Asking questions is not cooperating. As far as you are concerned, I worked for your new god.”

Gia felt paralyzed. The memory of the pain was always with her. The fear that it would come back never left her. Nikolas noticed the difference, but he attributed it to the new job.

S: “What did you think?! That you could bring her into the fold, Nikolas too. That you could shield them when you couldn’t shield any of your other children?!”

Laura only looked through the hospital window as Gia writhed in agony even under heavy sedation. Stefan was yelling but it didn’t matter. Nikolas was missing. He had disappeared from his house. Gia had been found on the floor screaming in excruciating pain. The doctors still didn’t know what was wrong.
Laura could still hear her as she had been when first brought in. She had seemed insane with agony. No coherent word could be gotten out of her.
Gia’s mother was consulting with the doctors shooting withering glances in the direction of her and Stefan. The ones she held responsible. The ones who were there.
Laura didn’t blame her.
F: “You seemed so benign. The good one. The harmless one. Not like them. Look what you’ve done!”
Florence had accused her bitterly as her daughter’s screams subsided under the influence of medication that kept her quiet in her agony.
Stefan had arrived soon after. He blamed her, too.
Stefan had stopped shouting, but he was still there. Laura kept him in her field of vision. Just at the edge. Not meeting his eyes, but wanting to make sure that he was still there. That she wasn’t alone.
Stefan looked at the young woman that was their only link to Nikolas.
Laura had been wide eyed and speechless when he arrived and while he shouted at her. Stefan had seen that it was pointless. He had been the one who made it possible for Nikolas to be taken.
S: “Helena will send someone. We have to allow them to get to Gia, but not to take her away. Nikolas will cooperate with my Mother only as long as she delivers the drug.”
Stefan now spoke in a sad, calm voice.
L: “Wouldn’t …”
Laura found that her voice was thick, and strange sounding. She tried again.
L: “Wouldn’t she want them in the same place?”
S: “Not necessarily. She wants them apart. And having Nikolas see Gia’s suffering might be detrimental to her plan.”
L: “She won.”
Laura said in a defeated voice.
S: “She wins only until I can find a way to reverse her victories. It’s a pattern. We exchange volleys. There is never a decisive victory.”
L: “It’s insane.”
S: “It is the reason you tried to take Nikolas out of the battlefield.”
Laura listened for reproach in his tone, but didn’t find it.
L: “You told me it couldn’t be done.”
Laura finally looked at him. She seemed to be asking him to assign her the blame she deserved.
S: “It can’t. He is the prize. The battlefield moves with him. Wherever he goes, it follows.”
There was no blame, only an explanation that she had heard before but wouldn’t let herself believe.
L: “So there is no way out. That’s what you’re saying. We are all trapped.”
A hopeless look filled her face as she looked past Stefan. But then she saw him.
L: “You have a plan? You can make this stop. Get Nikolas back?”
She looked at him and she saw that he was her hope.
S: “Yes.”
L: “I am not on the sidelines, you know. I am in the battlefield with you. I can’t take myself out of it either.”
Laura looked determined. She wanted to prove herself. Then she looked at Gia again. She was still in pain. Laura kept waiting for it to end. But it didn’t. It was the price of her arrogance. She had chosen the wrong weapons to fight with. She couldn’t remake the world. Her flimsy structure had come crushing down around her.
Laura looked away from Gia. Stefan had been trying to tell her. But this was what it took to break through to her. It was too much. But guilt was useless now.
L: “As long as I am in this war, whether I like it or not, I want to do my part. I’m done hiding. There’s no shelter for me or anyone I care about.”
S: “You don’t have to put yourself in the line of fire…”
L: “That’s your job?”
S: “Yes.”
L: “Only because I deserted you. It’s our job really. I can help you.”
S: “You are trying to make amends for something we both allowed to happen.”
L: “Are you saying that you don’t want my help? That you don’t need it?”
She asked afraid that he meant just that.
S: “I know what you’re capable of. I know you can be a valuable ally.”
L: “I make mistakes. And so do you. I need to be involved in this. I need to look over your shoulder. You’re not infallible. Maybe our mistakes will cancel each other out. Maybe we can finally end this.”
Stefan only looked at her as she turned back to Gia. Laura couldn’t take her eyes off of her for long. As if she was willing her to stop hurting.
Stefan knew Nikolas was cooperating. Helena would send someone soon. And when all the pieces were in place, Stefan would make her pay.
L: “We’ll make her pay for this.”
Stefan heard Laura echo his thoughts and he stepped closer to her. He felt stronger already.

The End