He climbed out of bed, and paced restlessly by the window. I want to get out of here, he thought. He was so tired of looking out at the same patch of sky every day. At least when he was growing up in the lighthouse, there was a nicer view of the water and the horizon.
Sly's thoughts drifted to his father for the thousandth time that day. A memory slowly came to mind. Bill often liked to look out the lighthouse's big picture windows. Sly remembered talking to his father about it.
*Author's note: This is an actual GH scene*
Sly had returned to the lighthouse after taking a walk late one night. His father had left him alone, again. He was trying to figure things out, and he felt it was easier to process things on the move. When Bill had returned to find Sly missing, he panicked until his son came home. Sly had learned to ignore his father's bluster, so he decided to cut to the chase, and ask Bill something that was weighing heavily on his mind.
"Do you think that, the older I get, the more like you I'll be?" Sly asked hesitantly, tilting his head to the side a little.
Bill stared at his son. "God, I hope not," he said tiredly. "Why do you ask?"
Sly looked over to the window for a moment. "Sometimes when I can't fall asleep at night, I'll go over to that window and look at the water, like you do," he said softly.
Bill looked perplexed, as if he hadn't expected his son to do something so similar to him. "Do you?" he asked.
Sly nodded. "Yes, but I can never really tell what you're looking for."
Bill's face took on a sad, almost desperate look. "I'm looking for a way out, son," he sighed, his eyes a million miles away.
"Oh?" Sly drew in a breath, afraid of what his father might say next. What if Bill planned on leaving him again, maybe forever this time?
Bill looked to his son once more. "Always keep your eye on the horizon, Sly," he said seriously, as if he were imparting a great wisdom.
"Why's that?" Sly said, noting his father's tone. This had to be important.
"Because that's where the answers are," Bill whispered.
*-*-*-*-*-*
Sly kept his eyes focused out the window, but he couldn't find the horizon. I need those answers now, he thought.
"I guess we're more alike than either of us realized, Dad," Sly said, speaking out loud just to hear his own voice again. "We were both looking for a way out too many times in our lives." He stared down at his injured hand. "It would have been easier to be dead at certain points." He shook his head. "But I know it's never been easy for me with you being gone. I can't just think about myself anymore. I have a wife, and a child," he said softly. "And I know that baby needs both a mother and a father, even one as unprepared as me. Instead of looking for an escape route, now I have to find a reason to stay."
Sly squinted. In the past, he was always to come up with a vision of his father, a figment of his imagination to tell him what he wanted to hear, but he could not conjure him up lately. Some of the memories were clear, but others felt like fuzzy old Super 8 movies, silent scenes where the colors all ran together. Come on, Dad. Where are you when I need you?
"So, have you decided to join us in the land of the living, Sylvester?"
Sly felt a shiver radiate through his whole body. Never let it be said that you don't have a sense of humor, God, he thought derisively, and then turned towards the familiar voice.
Luke smiled at the young man who reminded him so much of his son, but whose problems were so much like his own. Lucky had filled Luke in on Sly's situation, so he decided to pay him a visit, even though Luke knew that he probably wouldn't be able to help Sly much. This was a road one must walk alone.
"Hello, Luke," Sly said shyly. It still felt a little strange to talk to another person again.
"You know, it must be the dementia setting in, but I swear I just heard another voice in the room," Luke grinned. Sly was talking again, an excellent sign.
"You're never going to get old, Luke," Sly said with a little shrug. "But yes, I've broken my vow of silence." Sly took a seat on his bed, tucking one leg underneath him. "I assume Lucky let you know what was up."
Luke sighed. "The Cowboy filled me in on a lot of things." He moved closer to Sly. "How are you feeling?"
Sly sighed. "I don't know. It's a strange combination of numbness and pain."
"Seems like a contradiction, don't it?" Luke asked. Sly didn't say anything. Instead, he sat with his shoulders slumped, as if the weight he was carrying was so heavy, he couldn't bear to lift himself up.
Luke looked with empathy to the young man. "When Lucky explained some things, he surprised me quite a bit. There's a lot you never told me, Sly."
Sly looked at Luke skeptically. "What reason did I have to tell you anything, Luke? We haven't had a serious conversation since 1995."
"Yeah, why is that?" Luke took a seat beside the bed.
Sly turned a bit to face him. He spoke slowly. "I don't know, things change, people drift apart. Personally, it took me forever to forgive you guys for faking Laura's death."
Luke winced slightly. "Well, everyone hated us for it, so you were in good company there. We did what we thought was necessary at the time, but it certainly wasn't one of my finer moments."
Sly just looked down quietly for a moment. "That's when Lucky and I had a falling out."
"And after that you decided to go live with your grandfather in Oregon," Luke said slowly. He didn't want to pressure Sly into talking about that time, but it was something they should have clear between them.
Sly looked up at Luke. "So you really do know everything, then," he said coolly. "I have no secrets anymore." He held out his left arm in a sweeping gesture. "Sly Eckert, open book, at your service. Ask me anything."
Luke shook his head. "Sly, Lucky didn't tell me what happened to you to break your confidentiality. He told me because I needed to know what happened in the past to understand the present."
Sly nodded. "Ah, I see. You had to know the whole story to understand my journey from pathetic abused grandson to pathetic abusive husband," he said bitterly.
"Don't say that about yourself, Sly," Luke said firmly. "It's not true."
"Yes it is, Luke, or why else would I have tried to hit my pregnant wife?" Sly said.
"From what Lucky told me, you and Emily had an argument that got out of hand. It happens to the best of us. Do you think that maybe you just pulled your hand back without thinking?" Luke said, pulling his own arm back a little to demonstrate.
Sly shook his head, tousling his blonde hair. "I remember wanting to hurt her. I thought she hurt me, so I should hurt her back. That's when I raised my hand to her. God, I promised myself I'd never do that to anyone, ever." Sly hung his head, unwilling to look Luke in the eye.
Luke's heart ached for Sly, and he was angry, too. Angry at the bastard that did this to him, wounding Sly so profoundly that he would never fully recover. "I know, Sly," he said quietly. "I made myself the same promise. I only wish I could have kept it."
Sly could hear the pain in Luke's voice as he spoke. He knew that this had to be hard for him. "So you understand where I'm coming from, Luke," Sly said softly, looking up.
Luke looked Sly hard in the eyes. "What happened between you and Emily is a totally different situation than what I'm talking about."
Sly thought about what he was going to say for a moment. "Luke, Lucky told me that you raped Laura," he said finally. "He wasn't violating your privacy, I just had to know about the past to understand the present," he said, using Luke's own explanation.
Luke swallowed for a moment. He knew that Lucky wouldn't have told Sly without reason. "You got me there," he said finally, collecting his thoughts. "But what you almost did to Emily was not the same thing as what I did to Laura," Luke said with a catch in his voice.
"Maybe not the actions, Luke, but we both swore to ourselves that we wouldn't hurt the people we love, but we did it anyway," Sly said, dropping his left hand to the bed.
"Everybody doesn't want to hurt the people they love, Sly, but we do anyway. It's inevitable, I guess," Luke commented.
Sly bit his lower lip to keep it from trembling, then spoke slowly. "Maybe I can accept that I'll hurt Emily's feelings from time to time, but why this? Why did I even think about hitting her?" He shook his head in disgust.
Luke looked at the young man who was trying to so valiantly not to cry, and he chose his words carefully. "I don't really know, Sly. Now, I'm no shrink, but I think people like you and me have to be careful. It's warped and twisted and crazy, but the way we grew up, we got used to the idea of being smacked around. It almost became normal," he said, his tone a mixture of bitterness and melancholy. "And when you're in a stressful situation, you're going to turn to what's familiar to you, even if it's screwed up and dysfunctional."
Sly took Luke's words in and thought about them carefully. "It's still no excuse…" he started.
"It's certainly not an excuse," Luke said, running a hand over his short gray-white hair. "But we're human, Sly. We're all going to make mistakes." Luke looked into Sly's brown eyes. "However, you're literally torturing yourself over this. Do you think it's doing you any good? Are you somehow cleansing your soul, atoning for your sins? Do you feel any better?" Luke challenged.
Sly looked down as he thought about what he said. He had to admit Luke was right. Bashing his hand through that window felt appropriate for a few seconds, and then he felt the searing pain of his self-inflicted injury. When he awoke after surgery and decided to keep silent, he missed communicating with his family and friends. He thought back to the sacrament of anointing of the sick. God wanted to give him His love and mercy. If God in His infinite wisdom was merciful to him, then why couldn't he be merciful towards himself?
Luke continued on in the face of Sly's silence. "I'm not saying you don't own up to what you did. Hell, you may never forgive yourself on some levels," Luke said, speaking from experience. "Sly, look at me," he requested.
Sly lifted his head to look into the intense gaze of Luke's brilliant blue eyes.
"I, for one, think that you are a good person. I loved you from the moment I met you. You took a lot of risks to protect Lucky like that, and I'll always be grateful that you did your best to take care of him," Luke said, emotion clouding his voice. He put a hand on Sly's shoulder. "I know that no matter what happened, Lucky always considered you his brother. And you've always been like a son to me," he said firmly.
"Thanks," Sly said softly. When he was younger, he would sometimes wish Luke was his father, but as soon as the feeling came, an intense wave of guilt would follow. Wishing for something like that felt like he was betraying Bill, so he tried not to focus on it for too long.
Luke nodded, because he sincerely meant what he said, then continued on. "When you do this to yourself, Sly, you're letting him win."
Sly looked curiously at Luke. "What are you talking about?"
Luke's tone was firm. "I'm talking about your grandfather. Every time you punish yourself like this, every time you think you're worthless, you're just proving him right. You're buying into the garbage he sold you, when you and I both know that you're a good person."
Sly tried to swallow the lump that was quickly forming in his throat. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. That's what happens when you're out of practice, Sly thought ruefully.
"You're worth fighting for," Luke said, his blue eyes boring into Sly's very soul. "So don't let him win, Sly. Don't let him win."
*-*-*-*-*-*
Emily's head was mashed into a small throw pillow on one of the hospital couches. She slowly woke up when she heard murmuring voices in the distance. She glanced at her watch and realized it had been hours since she had been talking to her mother. She had only meant to take a short nap, but now it was evening. Before she sat up, the voices became more distinct.
"Can you believe her? She's not even out of high school, and she's already almost nine months pregnant," the first woman whispered.
"What do you expect? She's a Quartermaine. Honestly, I've never met such immoral people in my life," a second woman said back.
Even though they were standing quite a distance away, Emily was careful to lie very still so they would think she was still asleep. She wanted to hear the rest, even as the words were stabbing her heart.
"Her husband's a head case, too. I heard from Rita that he's been listed as a hand injury, but she thinks it was really a suicide attempt. They're just keeping it hush-hush," the first woman said in a smug, conspiratorial tone.
"That poor baby. It's going to be awful having teenaged parents. A crazy father, a drug addict mother. The grandparents won't be much help either," the other woman sighed.
"Hey, as long as Alan keeps signing our checks, they can do whatever they want," the first woman laughed, and her friend joined her as they walked down the hall.
Emily lay very still until the women were gone. She slowly sat up and ran a hand through her messy hair. She very tightly squeezed her eyes shut. I'm not going to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing me cry. Emily felt dazed by their comments. What right did they have to judge her, to judge anyone?
When she had sufficiently suppressed her tears, she walked down the hall to Sly's room, the desire to see her husband overwhelming. She looked in the window, and the room lights were dim. Sly was asleep on the bed.
Emily entered the room quietly, and sat down by Sly's bed. He looked so peaceful when he was asleep. "How could anyone say those horrible things about you?" Emily asked in a whisper. "They don't know you. They don't know how you always take good care of me when I'm sick. They don't know how your eyes light up when you talk to our baby. They don't know how happy you make me," she said, finally losing the battle against her emotions. She started to cry softly. "How can anyone judge us? We're doing the best we can!" Emily said, a little louder. She leaned her head against the side rail of Sly's bed while she sobbed.
A few seconds later, she felt a hand stroking her hair. She looked up to see Sly sleepily reaching out to her. His eyes were half open, and his hair was a mess, but he looked wonderful to Emily. "I didn't mean to wake you up," she said, sitting up straight and sniffling.
Then came the surprise. "Don't cry, Emily," he said, his voice barely a whisper. His eyelids fluttered as he fought off his drowsiness. "I love you." He squeezed her hand, then he drifted off again.
Emily sat in awed silence. Sly just spoke! It had to be a miracle. This time, she didn't fight the happy tears racing down her face. "I love you, too, Sly," she whispered. "I love you, too."