Chapter Twenty-Three:
Engarde

Nikolas wanted to hit something. Hard. It wasn't something he usually resorted to, but he had a strong feeling he'd find it satisfying, and in this instance, he was probably justified.

Making a dramatic exit was really difficult to do on an island. There was something distinctly unsatisfying about storming off and then... waiting for fifteen minutes for the launch to show up, another ten for it to ferry you back to the mainland, and then walking up the boardwalk to your car... It always left him feeling tense -- strained. Left him, in fact, feeling like he was dangerously close to snapping.

Next time he was just going to swim.

It wasn't like he'd expected that to go well. In fact, he'd entered into that with no expectations at all. You didn't try to second guess his father -- that was just a waste of time. Anything he thought he could count on where Stefan was concerned, he'd thrown out when he found out he was the man's son. You had to have something in you to keep a secret like that for nineteen years. Oh, sure -- people kept things from loved ones all the time -- but were they living with them? Were they building a life for that person based entirely on the maintenance of that secret?

Ok. Maybe they were. Nikolas didn't know -- he didn't watch enough talk shows. He just knew that he wouldn't be able to do it. And he wasn't certain he'd ever really understand how his father had.

Nikolas reached his car, and wrenched the car door open, angrily. Any time he started cataloging his father's sins, starting with the whole "I'm your Uncle" thing... Well, nothing good ever came from it.

Nikolas slid into the driver's seat of his jag. He let out a long and shaky breath was the door was shut, and the sounds of the outside world were silenced. He loved the feeling of solitude he could get in this car. Maybe that's what he'd always loved about things that moved fast: They got you away from everyone else. And right now, he wanted nothing like he wanted to be alone.

Nikolas closed his eyes, and leaned his head back on the headrest. God, he felt like hell. Fact of the matter was... None of that had surprised him at all. And maybe that was why it hurt so much. There was never any faith... Any trust that Nikolas could make his own decisions. Not make himself vulnerable. Which was hysterical, when you considered that no one had ever made him more vulnerable than his father.

Nikolas lifted his head, and reached out to grip the steering wheel. His hands were still shaking, just a little, from all the pent-up emotion he hadn't let himself release. He gritted his teeth, and reached into his pocket for his keys. Enough of this. It didn't matter -- Things on Spoon Island remained as they were and ever shall be, no matter what kind of decision he'd made. It didn't matter.

What mattered was Carly.

Nikolas jams the keys into the ignition and twists, the car springing to life. He had to get out of here. He had to find his wife.

"Nikolas Cassadine?"

Luke ignored his sister and moved toward his prey. "Car-leeeee...." Luke sang to his niece, as he swooped down on her from across the room, "You got some es-plainin' to doooooo..."

"What..." Bobbie lost her grip on the sentence. God, the last thing Carly needed right now was to get into another brawl with Luke. "I know I called you, but --"

"You called him?" Carly's voice sounded a little distant, her eyes fixed on Luke, but her words directed at her mother.

"Carly, I told you --"

She nodded quickly. "Yeah, yeah. You were scared. I got that." Ok, she told herself. Just breathe. Figure out what he knows. Then... Get rid of him. Quickly.

"Luke," Bobbie stared at her brother's back, her forehead creased, and her tone a little edgy. "Really. Everything is under control --"

"CONTROL--" Luke looked at his sister with wide eyes. "Did I just hear the magic word?" he turned his attention back to Carly. "Carly, can you say 'control'? Can we talk about that word?"

Carly gave her uncle and his psychotic Mr. Rogers shtick a cold stare. "I have to talk to my mother, Ok?"

"Well, hey!" Luke threw out his arms in a grand gesture, "Whatever you gotta say to her, I'm sure I'm just gonna find it riveting."

"Your name's not on the guest list," Carly spat back.

"Yeah, that's a bitch." Luke smiled a smile that didn't arrive at his eyes. "But when life hands you lemons --"

"You come in and give me paper cuts."

All hint of humor disappeared from her uncle's face. He cocked his head to one side, his blue eyes drilling into hers. "A little bird's singing songs about you, Caroline, and I gotta tell you -- the tune's giving me a headache. You wanna put my mind at ease and tell me exactly what's going on here?"

"Carly?"

Carly shook her head at the sound of her mother's voice. Right. Ok. She could do this. "Um...." She turned to her mother, tucking her hair behind her ears. "I really need to tell you something."

Luke took in his sister quickly, then looked back at Carly. "She doesn't know?" He looked at his niece with mock disappointment. "Aw, Caroline."

So much for spin control, Carly thought. This could not be going worse, if she'd been trying to break the news in a snowstorm at the PC Grille.

"If you have something to ask me, Uncle Luke, why don't you just spare us the theatrics and spit it out?"

Luke straightened up. "That's just the thing, Caroline. I'm still tryin' to figure out where to start."

Bobbie cleared her throat, loudly. "And I'm still trying to figure out what the two of you are going on about."

Carly's eyes stayed fixed on her uncle. Fine. If he wasn't going to give an inch, then she sure as hell wasn't going to start granting him more ground.

"Nikolas." She spoke the name as if that was all the answer Bobbie needed. Her mother shook her head in response.

"I've absorbed that part," She noted that Luke's eyes were too cold for this to be a joke. He might come on like the Music Man, but whatever he was here about, he was serious. "Maybe you'd like to help me figure out why that's important."

"That," Carly clipped her words, "was who I was with last night."

Bobbie felt an overwhelming wave of relief hit her. Nikolas! Carly had been with Nikolas. Sweet, charming, utterly harmless Nikolas "Oh, thank GOD," she murmured. "Wait." Bobbie's forehead creased again. "What were you doing with Nikolas?"

"You know," Luke drawled, "I was just about to ask the same thing."

Carly folded her arms across her chest. "Come on. Not even you are paranoid enough to bust in here and attack me because I went sailing with a Cassadine."

"Sailing!" Luke popped his eyes. "How romantic."

"Romantic?" Bobbie's sense of relief was abating.

"Yeah, well," Carly tossed her hair back. "Nikolas is allllllllll over that romantic thing."

"ROMANTIC?" Bobbie repeated, with some degree of alarm.

"So what'd he do, Caroline?" Luke took a step forward. Every molecule in Carly's body wanted to jump back a foot, but she held her ground. "Slip something in your drink? Or was it the other way around?"

"What do you mean 'romantic'?"

"Apparently," Luke cut Carly off as she was about to answer, "Something's been brewing behind all our backs."

"Brewing?" Bobbie turned to her daughter. She asked a question she was beginning to suspect the answer to. "What's brewing?"

"They've been screwing around."

Bobbie's chance of a verbal reaction was cut off by Carly's sharp and caustic laugh. Which wasn't a tragedy, since it wasn't going to consist of much more than various pronunciations of the letter W.

"Thanks, Uncle Luke. Count on you to put the real soul of poetry into it."

Luke shot her a look. "Excuse the pedestrian language, but this whole thing's set me a bit off my game, Caroline."

"Well, I'm thrilled to know I garner a blip on the radar screen."

Luke pointed a warning finger at her. "Don't you start in on that with me again, little girl --"

"WHY are you here?" Carly leaned forward, getting right in his face. "Why can't you just let me talk to my mother in peace?"

"Peace? We had peace. At the very least, we had a detente, but you and Nikky-boy have just set off the sirens. This is not the time to start playing games with me."

"Believe it or not," Carly hissed, "I make entire decisions in my life that have nothing to do with you OR your psychotic concept of family --"

"Yeah, and maybe that's part of your problem --"

"WHAT," Bobbie stamped her foot, trying to garner some attention, "ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!"

Carly tore her eyes away from her uncle and tried to focus on her mother again. "Nothing, Mama. He doesn't know what he's what's going on."

"I just introduced you to Nikolas YESTERDAY!" Bobbie threw out the one solid fact she'd managed to grab onto. "You just met him!"

"Yesterday?" Luke blinked, incredulously. "You gotta be kidding. You move faster than I thought."

"LOOK!" Carly shouted in her uncle's face. "It wasn't MY idea!"

"Oh, that's good!" Luke shot back. "When marrying a Cassadine, I hear it's good to let them make all the decisions. You wouldn't want to catch them off guard."

It took them both a moment to realize the magnitude of what had come out of Luke's mouth. Suddenly fighting with each other was secondary to Bobbie, and both turned in unison to face her.

"Barbara--"

"Mama?"

They both stopped dead the moment they absorbed the look on Bobbie's face. She stared at both of them, pale and unmoving, for what felt like an eternity, until her whole body jerked back into the moment.

"You..." it was the only word Bobbie could come up with, so she said it again. "You..."

"Mama, I was trying to tell you --"

"You weren't trying very HARD!" Bobbie sputtered. "You... Married? You... You got MARRIED?"

Carly struggled to find something to say. God, please let me get through this if only so that I can rip out my uncle's vocal cords. "I... I... I..."

"You got married to..." Bobbie started to shake her head. "No. No, I have to... I missed something. I... You married who?"

Carly swallowed. Her throat felt like sandpaper. "Nikolas."

His name came out of her mouth almost like an apology. Oh, God, she hadn't thought about how hard this was going to be to explain. To SAY, sure -- she'd been all over that. But to actually come up with an explanation? It wasn't possible.

"So it's true."

Carly looked back at her uncle in disgust. "Yes, it's true, and THANK YOU for relating that fact to my mother with so much sensitivity."

"Don't you go blaming this on me --"

"Will you both just SHUT UP!" Bobbie's voice was ringing up in the hysterical regions. "Just... I have to THINK." Bobbie dropped her head into her hands. Sense. There had to be some way for this to make sense. Either that, or this was a very late and EXTREMELY unfunny April Fools gag. She raised her head and took a second look at her family members, trying that theory on for size. Nope. They both looked disturbingly grim. Oh... No. "Nikolas CASSADINE?"

Carly bit her lip and nodded. "If... I... Mama, I'd met him before yesterday afternoon --"

Bobbie let out a sharp laugh. "Oh, good. That's a relief," a giggle bubbled up from her stomach. "That's good. So you were just pretending, then?"

Carly cringed, and out of some sort of... she didn't know what... looked over at her uncle for help. He started to give her a shrug, before they remembered they were warring factions on the opposite side of the issue. Then both expressions hardened.

"Like I said, Carly -- this isn't a story you're gonna get away without telling."

Luke's voice was soft, deceptively soothing. She knew that voice too well -- it was her least favorite. Something about the way Luke Spencer did calm always made her feel like the doors to hell were ajar.

"I'm not trying to get away with anything," Carly's hands tightened into fists. She was becoming convinced that the only way she was getting out of this room alive was to fight her way out. Well -- if that was the case, then so be it. There'd be time for remorse and guilt later. There always was. "It's my story, and I don't have to share it with anyone."

"Fine," Luke moved in on his niece, his hand coming up lightening fast and grabbing her arm. "Then let me tell you a couple of stories."

"Luke..." Bobbie's head was spinning. The only solid thing she could grab onto at the moment was that getting into a big Spencer/Cassadine debate wasn't going to do anyone a lot of good. God, she needed to sit down.

"Do you have any idea what kind of family you've just married into?"

"Dark clothes, spooky house, questionable social skills?"

Bobbie groaned. Oh, that's it. She sunk onto the couch and buried her face in her hands.

"Don't even try to make light of this," Luke leaned into Carly. "Whether you like it or not, Caroline -- you're one of us. To your core. You might try to run from it, fight it, push it away --"

Carly's eyes widened in shock at Luke's words. "You think I try to --"

"They aren't going to let you forget what you are. And even if the Fallen Prince is smitten with you, don't expect that to mean you're safe. No matter how beguiled he might be by your feminine wiles, his family isn't going to accept you. And when Cassadines try to solve problems, things get bloody."

Carly met her uncle's stare with a mutinous expression. "Most reports have that blood on your hands, Luke."

"You don't want to underestimate these people, Caroline," It might have been her imagination, but Carly was almost convinced she heard a hint of desperation in her uncle's voice. "You think Stefan is the only shark you're gonna have to swim with, you're kidding yourself."

"I got out in one piece," Bobbie spoke, lifting her head, to stare into the space in front of her.

"Barely," Luke didn't take his eyes from Carly. "You're gonna have to watch your back every second."

"Nikolas wouldn't let anything happen to me," Carly forced her voice to be strong. Fact was, the stuff Luke was saying hadn't even flirting with venturing across her mind. She knew the Cassadine thing was a problem. She didn't expect her uncle to suggest it was going to be a life THREATENING problem.

"Nikolas might not have any choice." Luke tightened his grip on her arm. "At the end of the day, you're still a Spencer."

"Not anymore," Carly lifted her chin. "I'm a Cassadine now."

Luke's expression blackened, and he moved forward just as Carly wrenched her arm out of his grip. She stumbled back from him and grabbed a nearby Chippendale-styled chair that was set by the couch. She dragged it in front her of her, like a shield, keeping it between her and Luke. Bobbie was on her feet again, her hand grabbing her brother's shoulder and stopping him from lunging at his niece.

"Luke, for God's sake --"

"They're gonna crucify her, Barbara! You've been through it, you know what happens when they close ranks."

"She didn't marry STEFAN, Luke --"

"Small mercies are still small," Luke turned his attention back to Carly. She lifted the chair and held it between them, as if she was a trainer warding off a lion. Luke put his hands up. "Whoa, there, darlin'. I'm just putting you on notice."

"Notice of what?" Carly gave Luke a smile that was full of teeth. "You don't know Nikolas."

Luke shook his head. "I don't think you do either, Darlin'."

"Do you think there's any way you could step away from my wife?"

The room's attention turned immediately to the source of the voice. Nikolas was standing in the doorway, looking halfway between disturbed, and ready to join in at the slightest provocation. Carly felt a hard wave of fatigue hit her -- adrenaline rushing out of her system, just at the sight of him. Like the fact that he was here suddenly meant things were Ok. She gave her head a hard shake. No -- what this meant was that things were either going to get resolved NOW, or it was going to get much, much worse.

Luke spun around on his heel. "NIKKY!"

Worse. Absolutely.

"How nice of you to join us!"

Nikolas took a step into the room, his eyes flicking from his wife, to his mother's husband, like he was scared to take his gaze off of either of them. He finally chose Luke as the more in need of careful watching, but his next words weren't directed at him.

"Are you Ok, Carly?"

Carly let out her breath and put the chair back on the ground. Yep. Ok. Just another day at the races.

"I'm fine."

Luke clapped his hands together. "You know, Nikolas --"

"Luke," Bobbie stepped in front of her brother and pushed him bodily back from Nikolas. "Don't start."

"It's a good thing you're here," Luke continued, undeterred, as his sister guided him back from the boy. "I don't suppose you've stopped by to talk to your mother about any of these recent events."

Nikolas's didn't so much as blink, just looked at the man with long practiced coolness. Internally, though, he felt his stomach tighten. Right. His mother. What was he supposed to say to that? Every answer he could think of would come out as obnoxious. And the truth was worse. He hadn't even thought about telling Laura.

"Not yet."

"Any plans to?"

"It's unlikely I'll get to it before you do."

Luke nodded. "Well, she'll be real touched."

"Oh, THAT'S it!" Carly pushed the chair out of her way. "You have no right to --"

Bobbie, desperate to keep this scene from unraveling any further, managed to leap away from Luke and head Carly off. "Carly!" She grabbed her daughter and pushed her back from Luke. "Carly, just calm down."

Carly's eyes didn't meet her mothers, as they were fixed on her uncle. "Look, if he wants a fight, he's already got a pretty good one going with me, he can just leave Nikolas alone!"

Luke threw a glance over his shoulder. "I think you and me are finished here, Caroline."

Carly shook herself out of her mother's grip. "Not if you're going after Nikolas, we're not."

"Carly," Nikolas wasn't sure whether to be touched or unnerved, "It's Ok."

"It's not Ok!" Carly put her hands on her hips, still glaring at Luke. "He's a bully. And he's always sticking his nose into my life when I don't want him to, and he's no where to be found when I actually need --"

"HEY!" Luke pivoted back to his niece. "Don't you start down THAT road again!"

"You keep doing this, we'll be going down all kinds of roads."

Bobbie threw up her hands. "OK! That's it! Carly, Luke -- separate corners." She dropped her arms. "I need to talk to someone at normal volume before my head explodes."

"That's my cue, Darlin'," Luke saluted his niece. There was no point in continuing this now that Cassadine was here. "We'll talk."

"Like hell."

Luke slid his hands into the pockets of his overcoat, and turned back to Nikolas. He looked the boy up and down, then met his gaze coolly.

"You got any clue what you just got yourself into?"

Nikolas didn't say anything. Didn't care to. He really had hit the wall on all this family feud stuff. He wanted to hold his wife, Damn it. He wanted to get her out of here and be alone with her again. Baiting Luke Spencer was never a good idea. He just returned the invasive gaze with what he hoped was apathy. The man laughed, as if Nikolas had just struck him as momentarily amusing, and started towards the door of the Brownstone.

"I'll be in touch, Barbara," he called out, before stopping just as he passed Nikolas. "Well," Luke paused by his stepson's shoulder, and leaned in, letting his words brush against Nikolas's ear. "You finally made it into the family fold, didn't you? I should have known you'd find a back door."

"GET AWAY FROM HIM!" Carly launched herself at Luke, instantly furious.

"Carly!" Bobbie started after her, managing to grab her wrist, in an attempt to pull her back. Luke looked unfazed. He clapped his hand onto Nikolas's shoulder -- hard -- and nodded.

"Welcome to the circus."

Nikolas shrugged Luke's hand off his shoulder, ignoring him, and started towards Carly. God, that had to be the worst of it, right? Carly was pulling free of Bobbie and moving quickly across the room, still incensed. Nikolas caught her by the shoulders as she tried to pass him.

"Carly. It's Ok."

"He has NO right to talk to you like that!" Carly's words were answered by a not-so-subtle chuckle from the hallway just before the door to the house slammed.

"Carly."

"He doesn't get to do that!" Carly was still trying to follow her uncle. Nikolas bowed his head, trying to catch her eye.

"Carly, I said it's Ok," the words finally seemed to reach his wife's ears and she looked at him, her forehead creased. Nikolas smiled slightly "It doesn't matter. He can't hurt me, it's Ok."

Carly forced her focus to return to the man in front of her, to actually take him in. His eyes were dark and warm, and she felt herself soften under their influence.

"Hi," the word came out quick and breathless, like a hiccup. Nikolas couldn't help it -- he broke into a grin.

"Hi."

Carly searched for words, then found a smile tugging at her mouth. She shook her hair out, pulling away from Nikolas's hands and laughed, "Oh my GOD!" She looked up at him, an entirely unnatural look in her eyes. "That was awful."

"Yeah," Nikolas didn't understand why he was finding this funny. "I relate."

Suddenly her body was pressing against him, her arms moving around his neck. Nikolas closed his eyes the moment he registered the feeling of her against him, and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer. He lowered his head to hers, breathing in the scent of her skin, her hair. For the first time since he'd left her, he let himself relax -- just for a moment.

Right. There was a reason he was subjecting himself to all of this. She was warm and soft against him, and he held on to that tightly. God, he'd never known it could feel this good to just hold someone.

Nikolas opened his eyes to be confronted with the sight of Bobbie, staring at them like they were a couple of unicorns she'd just stumbled upon while doing some light cleaning. He cleared his throat, and pulled back from his wife. Carly turned in his arms, looking back at her mother. Nikolas heard her breath catch.

"Mama?"

Bobbie shook her head and move over to the kitchen counter. Her drink was still there, where she'd abandoned it when Carly came home. She slammed the rest of the Scotch down her throat, then looked up, her eyes bright.

"Ok. Which one of you wants to explain this to me?"