Chapter Twenty-Six:
Uninhibited

Nikolas was shaking.

Shaking.

It was the least objectionable phrase for what his body was doing to him. Shuddering, quivering, trembling... Those were bad words. They smacked of weakness. That wasn't what was happening here -- It wasn't. She just... Overwhelmed him. Completely. Made control a foreign concept. A fact that was manifesting itself in all sorts of interesting new ways.

At the moment, Carly's body was pressed flush against his, as their chests both heaved with the effort of bringing air into spent bodies. Her arms were draped over his shoulders, and her legs were wrapped around his waist. Her cheek pressed against his temple, breath rushed down his spine, doing nothing to help him get a grip on himself. His hand rested on the small of her back and against him, Carly moaned, a quivering sigh. She arched her back just a little, and the soft curve of her stomach pressed against Nikolas's. It was such a small movement, but his whole body shook at the intimacy of the touch. He turned his head towards her, and caught her lips in his. He had to do something -- and this was all he felt capable of. His kiss was sloppy, wet, and unrestrained. Carly felt warm, she felt solid, and he just had to hold onto that. Had to bring it inside of him, make this stop. It felt like he was going to break apart and she was what was holding him together. His arms moved around her waist and pulled her as close to him as he could manage. Without realizing it, he lifted her from the counter top and she clung to him. Unsteady legs were begging for a rest and he sunk to the floor, her body still wrapped around his, and one hand reaching out to grab the lip of the counter for support. Carly's head hit against the door of the cabinet as they sank to the floor, and Nikolas managed to pull away from her long enough to gasp his apology.

"Sorry --"

"Mmm," Carly barely seemed to notice, kept kissing him deeply, moving closer to him on his lap. His body stubbornly refused to still for him, and he felt the tremor grow stronger as her hands slipped from around his neck, trailed down his chest and started to ascend again at the sides of his rib cage. His throat started to close up on him, without warning, and he ended the kiss abruptly, filling his lungs with air with the panic of a drowning man. Carly's hands reached up and held his face, pulling his mouth back to hers. He turned their bodies away from the counter to avoid any further collisions and started to lower her to the floor. She sucked her breath in quickly and arched against him as her shoulders pressed against the floor of the galley. Nikolas supported himself on one arm and managed to pull back, his head spinning and barely aware of his surroundings. Again.

Her eyes were fixed on his when he opened them. They held soft focus, and she licked her lips purposely before working the single syllable word out of her throat.

"Cold."

Cold? Nikolas shook his head reflexively before realizing she wasn't asking him a question, but stating a fact. He nodded, trying to catch his breath. "The tile... "

Carly nodded and pressed a kiss against Nikolas's neck. His body jerked at her touch. "Small price to pay," she murmured against his skin. Nikolas lowered his head to rest against her shoulder. The less he said, the better. Carly's lips were trailing up his neck. Her teeth nipped at the lobe of his ear before she whispered to him. "Feel better?"

He swallowed hard. He wasn't sure WHAT he was feeling. Not in terms of 'happy, sad, grumpy, bashful' -- At the moment the only thing he was aware of was just what he'd been so heart-stoppingly conscious of when they'd started this game.

He was in love. Oh, GOD, he was in aching, mind-numbing, breathless love with her. She made him feel things he hadn't even known were possible -- and she made him feel them all at ONCE. He didn't have words for it. He wasn't even sure he had monosyllabic sounds for it. The words stuck in his throat. Lodged there, threatening to choke him. I love you, I love you, I love you.

"Nikolas...?"

He let out a verbal sigh in response. Kissed her shoulder. His body was finally beginning to still, somehow soothed just by allowing himself to think the words he wasn't able to say. He didn't want to enter the world of conversation right now. He was just beginning to get a grip on himself.

"It's late," he murmured.

She shifted her body against him. "Not that late."

He closed his eyes. "Hmm." He felt tired. And somewhere, far back in his mind... A thought he didn't like the shape of was forming. Had been, all along. From the moment he'd realized that he wasn't capable of keeping his hands off her long enough to move from this room, to even think about anything except how she was making him feel. He didn't want to invite the thought any further into his consciousness.

"Did you enjoy that?"

Nikolas trailed his fingers along her arm, focusing on sensation of how different her skin felt from his. "Yes."

It was easy to say if he refused to think about what he was admitting to.

"So we're all right, then."

His hand reached hers, and he slipped his fingers between hers, lacing their fingers together. "We are, if you are."

Nikolas could feel the tension filling Carly's body as he lay against her. Uh oh. "Why wouldn't I be?"

The thought Nikolas had been avoiding started to come together in his head at an alarming speed, pieces jumping out from nowhere and assembling themselves for him in a nice neat picture. With captioning. He pushed himself up on his arm and looked down at her. Her brow was furrowed. He was becoming familiar with this look. He seemed to incite it a lot.

"I..." He lost his breath a moment. "I wasn't much of a gentleman."

Carly laughed, and turned her face away from him. Her free hand fisted and came up to press against her mouth. Her eyes fixed on the cupboards.

"I don't inspire a lot of that."

"All the more reason."

Carly's hand pulled free of his. She was trying to sit up. Nikolas's first reaction -- a primal one -- was to push her down again, keep her close. Instead, he backed off and Carly slid away from him. The rush of air as her body moved away from his was sharp and cold.

"Do you regret what we just did?" Her voice was thin.

Nikolas's eyes searched hers. "Do you?"

Carly shook her head. "That is so not the question I asked you."

He turned his attention to a spot on the far wall. "I --"

"Are you saying you think less of me now, or something?"

Nikolas looked up at her sharply. "No. Never."

"Cause we were both involved in this."

"I don't regret anything." He was surprised by how steady his voice sounded. How incontestable the words were.

"Then why do you look like that?" her eyes were demanding an answer. Nikolas wasn't exactly sure what she meant -- what look he held that was making her so suspicious of him. The only thing he could come up with wasn't something he'd ever say out loud. -- That this, he was certain, was something Jason would do. And... He wanted her to know this was different.

"I... think" Nikolas spoke very carefully. "I'd better make it clear that it's possible that I don't know what I'm doing."

Carly frowned. "Generally? Or at this moment?"

He shook his head "I've... Never been a husband. I've never..." He pushed out his breath, "had a lover. It's... Very new. And..." he cleared his throat. What was he supposed to say? He closed his eyes and let the words just come out. "You make me feel things no one else ever has, and I just don't want to hurt you."

"Hurt me? What --" Carly's voice cut off just as Nikolas eyes opened to meet hers. She started to say something, then stopped. A slow smile spread across her face. "Nikolas..." she sighed his name. "Have you noticed you're bleeding?"

Nikolas stared at her. "I'm what?" Carly lightly brushed her fingertips over the curve of Nikolas's upper arm. He glanced down and saw what she was talking about. There were three marks -- superficial scratches, just deep enough to draw blood, cutting across his bicep. "Oh."

"Getting a little hurt isn't necessarily a bad thing," Her voice softened, bringing Nikolas's attention back to her. She moved closer to him, and brushed her lips against his. Apparently she wasn't ticked off at him anymore.

"No," he whispered the word. He let his eyes trail along her body, at her white, smooth skin. It was still a little flushed, but there were no flesh wounds, no... abrasions, no... Uh oh.

"Oh, God..." Nikolas looked stricken as he noticed something. "I'm... Oh, I'm sorry."

Carly looked at him like he was insane. "What?"

"You... " he gestured to his own neck, and she put her hand over her collar bone.

"What?"

"I... I'm sorry."

She laughed outright. "Did you give me a hickey?"

Nikolas flushed. "I really really didn't mean to. I..."

"Lost control."

"I think we established that."

Her nose wrinkled. "You're a bit adorable."

"Carly --"

"What?" Carly let out a gasp, and covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh NO!" She leaned forward and spoke to him in a hushed tone. "People might think we're having sex!"

"Very funny."

"It's a hickey, Nikolas. I'll survive. Won't really help that bloodsucker rep of yours --"

He cringed. "I'm sorry --"

"Nikolas..." Carly sounded exasperated. "It's called passion. It's something that people look for. they read trashy magazines and watch talk shows to figure out how to get it." She touched her index finger to his lips. "We have it. Enjoy it."

Nikolas shook his head, backing away from her a little. "I know... You probably think my views on this are antiquated --"

"If you mean old-fashioned? They are, a bit."

"It's how I was raised."

Carly nodded, and gave him another gentle kiss. Nikolas's eyes closed at her touch and he had to take a breath before opening them again. She was watching him, a smile on her lips and her head cocked to one side. "I think I can break you of the habit."

"Of what?" Nikolas asked incredulously. "Of respecting you?"

She blinked, looked at him like he was speaking another language, and Nikolas felt the sharp bite of self-loathing. No matter what she was saying to him, there was something here that showed him how right he was. The concept, the very idea of someone respecting her seemed so foreign to her -- he didn't like that. Didn't like the idea of doing anything to perpetuate that idea. He started to lean in to her, to say something else, but Carly put a hand to his chest, holding him back.

"I'm going to warn you right now --" She looked him dead in the eye. "If you think you're supposed to put me up on some of pedestal or something, it's not going to work. I'm not untouchable, I'm not fragile and I don't break easy." her eyes examined his. "You're gonna have to deal with this. With me. Right here on the floor, with you. If you can't handle that, we have a problem."

Nikolas didn't say anything. He wanted to argue with her, but he'd been accused of putting women on pedestals before. As she spoke, he finally started to see what she was saying.

"You need to know why this happened --" he started to argue.

"I assumed it happened because I didn't want to stop touching you for the five seconds it would take for us to find the bed." She moved her hand down his chest. "Is that what was going on with you?"

Nikolas's blood heated and he nodded his response. "God, yes." His voice was thick with residual desire. Carly gave a light laugh.

"Good." She slid closer to him, so that he was leaning over her again. "Maybe you just need practice with this."

He looked down at her -- her eyes were bright, playful, and there were no words for what her smile did to him. He shook his head. "I don't think I can stop thinking about you like you're extraordinary." Her eyes widened a little, then she turned her face away from him. He wasn't sure, but it looked like she was blushing. He ran a knuckle along her jaw line. "I'm willing to practice if you're willing to teach."

"Flirt," she muttered, letting out her breath. Nikolas didn't say anything, just watched her intently. She was staring down at the floor, with a familiar expression of melancholy. It was a look he recognized, and that, more than anything else, made him feel more himself. He got to her too, he reminded himself. Maybe he was the one who had fallen in love too fast, but she was also on the downward trajectory. It was, sometimes, too fantastic an idea for him to really understand. But other times, he swore he was written all over her. The same way she had to be written all over him.

Carly lifted his head and smiled at him. It was a warm smile and he was compelled to respond in kind. "I've never really done the wife thing before either."

"I've..." Nikolas let his finger curl around a strand of her hair. "Never had a relationship that was anything but a disaster."

Carly her head towards his hand, her lip grazing his knuckle almost by accident. "Well, it's a good thing that, when you went out and got yourself a mate you picked up the easy starter kit. Nothing complicated or hard to figure out about me."

Nikolas leaned in, automatically, to kiss her. He stopped himself and she looked back at him. He smiled, knowing he'd been caught -- he DID look apprehensive. "Old habits die hard," he murmured. He moved in slowly, his hand fingers threading through her hair, and brought his lips to hers in a soft, loving kiss. Her body pressed into his again, and brought warmth with it. He didn't open his eyes when the kiss broke, didn't move away. Just stayed close to her, and murmured the words he had to say. "I am sorry."

Carly gave a contented sigh. "I can let you make it up to me." He opened his eyes to see she was smiling at him -- flirting. Her eyes were playful as she pushed her hands against his shoulder. He followed her direction, leaning back from her and delighting in the way her body moved with his as they shifted their position-- close and intimate. "You can take care of me tonight. Starting... With dinner."

"I can do that."

"Yeah?" Carly inquired as Nikolas put a hand back to catch himself from free-falling to the floor. "Cause all I've eaten today was a pomegranate, and that was HOURS ago."

"All you've eaten today was some pomegranate SEEDS."

"Well," She pushed him further backwards. "Who's fault was that?"

"Leave it to me," Nikolas spoke against her lips as she moved to kiss him, and he allowed her to press him down onto the floor.

Damn. The tile WAS cold.

Emily wasn't exactly itching to get home. Problem was, she'd run out of options. Port Charles wasn't the most exciting place after dark if you were under the age of twenty-one -- after leaving Lizzie and Lucky, she'd sat in a coffee shop for awhile... then gone to a movie. That was about all the city would afford her in her present mood. Which meant, really, that there was only one thing left to do: Go home and find out what extreme measures were being taken. Do the groundwork. Prepare for battle.

She'd probably be feeling a little more up to the challenge if she hadn't been feeling so guilty. She really shouldn't have gone to Luke's. If she'd been thinking clearly, she probably would have let Lucky find out in the due course of events. She probably could have been less bitchy about the whole thing. Nikolas would probably be -- OH who CARES what Nikolas would be. Nikolas was yesterday's news. Not worth the consideration. Right. That's the ticket.

God, she needed... something. She was trying hard not to think about what that might be. She just knew that something in her felt like it was trapped -- that she was holding onto it so hard, that it was going to break. She hated feeling this way -- HATED it. And at that moment, she hated Nikolas Cassadine for reminding her that she had stuff like this in her.

Emily reached the front door of the mansion, and forced herself to stop. She wanted to just yank open the door and dart up to her room -- but she was anticipating a scene, and those had to be played carefully -- even if she was the only person who ever tried to avoid the invitation to hysteria. Yeah, gotta love crisis at the Q's.

Figuring she might as well get it over with, Emily pulled open the door to her House of Pain, and immediately encountered... Dead silence.

She stopped in the doorway, frozen. There was no screaming. There was no sounds of crashing china. There were no servants cowering in corners.

Oh my God, she thought. Someone got killed.

Well -- Either that, or this was so big, so astronomically unmanageable, that the family had spontaneously combusted. Figures, she thought, dryly. I already don't have the energy for this drama, and the family decides to change the rules on me.

"You in or out?"

Emily jumped, letting out a scream and spinning around to face her brother, who had managed to sneak up on her with stealth-like finesse.

"What are you DOING?" she accused, stepping into the house. "God, AJ!"

"Nice to see you, too," her brother smirked, sauntering past her, into the foyer, with an air of calm that he couldn't honestly be feeling. Oh... great. She knew this mood. This was the AJ-gets-kicked-in-the-teeth-again-and-why-not-he's-a-huge-fuck-up-anyway mood. It usually led to alcohol... car crashes... general mayhem.

"AJ..." Emily pushed the door shut behind them. "Where were you?"

"AA Meeting," AJ murmured, looking around. "Quiet."

"I know," she pushed her hair out of her face. "I was... I was just thinking that -- You went to an AA meeting?"

"Yeah... Well," AJ was examining the foyer as he spoke like it was new information. "First I went to see my lawyers. Or -- You know. One of the team." He looked over at Emily, giving her a surprisingly amused smile. "And nothing makes me want to drink like lawyers."

With that, he turned and wandered off into the living room. Emily's forehead creased with worry. The D-word. So much for things being different this time around. She shook herself, and followed after AJ, only to find him standing in front of the drink cart, near the doors to the patio.

"AJ..." she knew it came out as a whine. It always did, in these situations. This time it was just worse, because AJ hadn't drank in years. She'd been a KID the last time he drank. She'd been allowed to whine. She'd been able to do puppy eyes, and cry and look devastated. She wasn't sure that would work this time around.

"Did you tell them?" He didn't look at her.

"Mom and Dad?" Emily shook her head. "No."

"You know," AJ spoke with his eyes trained on the cart. "I've been an alcoholic since my teens, really."

"AJ," Emily took a tentative step towards him. "Michael's going to --"

"And I've fallen off the wagon how many times?"

She looked down at the floor. No, no, no. She couldn't deal with this right now.

"I don't know."

"Yeah. See, neither do I. And that's something you'd think I'd be able to keep track of. I mean, how far gone are you when you don't even know how many times you've desecrated the twelve steps?"

"AJ, you're not far gone. You haven't been for a really long time."

Her brother chuckled to himself. "No, Em. See, I'm always far gone. That's the problem." He looked over at her, his smile lopsided. "Alcoholism doesn't go away."

"AJ, please --" Emily was about ready to just get down on her knees and beg.

"You know what else doesn't go away?" He wasn't smiling anymore.

"I'm --"

"Psychotic one-night-stands who should be bouncing off padded walls someplace -- but instead get to come to your house every Saturday and play with your son." AJ dropped his face into his hands, and spoke through them. "God, I want a drink so bad I can already taste it."

Emily stared at him. She didn't know what to do. They always said you couldn't stop an alcoholic from drinking... but she was taller than AJ. She might be able to take him. She was trying to figure out the logistics and best plan of attack, when AJ's hand reached out towards a decanter of whiskey.

"No! AJ!" she reached out and grabbed his arm. "You don't want to do this!"

AJ looked at her as if she were the one acting oddly. "No, Em. I really do."

"AJ!" she just flat out screamed at him. "You can't. You just CAN'T. Those are the rules."

AJ grinned -- a maniacal, excited, mad-scientist variety grin. "I'm breaking the rules."

There was something in his voice, in his eyes, or maybe in his whole manner, that made Emily drop his arm. She knew AJ -- she just did. And... And this wasn't the way AJ acted when he was going to take a drink.

"What?"

AJ hooked his fingers under the bar on the wheeled cart, and started to pull it over to the French doors. "Come on," he invited. "Come with me."

Emily followed, feeling completely lost. "What are you doing?"

"I told you," he hit the doors with his elbow, sending them drifting open. "The unexpected. The unpredictable," he flung a hand out dramatically, as he pulled the cart out of the room, "the completely insane!"

"I'm with you on the insane part," Emily muttered, following him. Her fear was abating. Whatever was going on here, she was pretty sure it involved AJ staying sober -- though she was using that word loosely. "Why?"

"Because!" AJ picked up a small rounded bottle off the cart -- rum. "I gotta do something!"

Emily let out her breath. "Tell me about it."

"Got to you too, didn't they?"

Emily gave AJ a dark look that said it all. AJ shook his head, and threw out his arm, holding the bottle out over the edge of the barrier. He turned the cap with his thumb, demonstrating long practiced experience with opening alcohol, then flipped it off, sending it bouncing across the patio.

"To the ultimate Gruesome Twosome! May they rot in hell!"

Emily took a step forward, her heart moving into her throat. "AJ!"

She was too late. AJ turned the bottle in his hand, and let the contents pour down onto the grass. Emily stared at him, dumbfounded. AJ closed his eyes, and took in a deep breath, as the last of the rum poured from the bottle. "Music to my ears."

"You're..." Emily let out a sharp laugh. "What--" she broken down into a fit of giggles. "I'd have PAID to see Ned watch you do that!"

"Sorry, Emily." AJ tossed the bottle over his shoulder. "Private showing."

"You're deranged!"

"If you can't beat 'em..." AJ examined the top of the cart. "Make up your own game." He reached out with two hands, looking like a kid in a candy store, and grabbed two new pieces of alcohol paraphernalia. "Come on, Em," he handed her a large crystal decanter. "Break things."

"I'm not going to --" She was cut off as AJ turned his back on her and sent the bottle in his other hand hurtling through the air. It was an impressive throw, making beautiful spinning arc, before it crashed into a tree and exploded. "That was some fifty year old scotch."

"Tragedy," AJ laughed, and looked down at Emily. "I should know. Though, let's face it, in the right circumstance, I'll drink paint-thinner."

"That's not funny."

"It wasn't meant to be." He picked up a bottle of vermouth, and pulled the cork out with his teeth, spitting it out viciously. "You know, the whole time I've been in AA, they've always just had this cart out in the open. And it has ALWAYS just pissed me off." he made a large sweeping gesture with his arm, sending the liquid flying away from him in an arch. Emily was watching him with a mixture of amazement, and jealousy. "I mean -- Just a LITTLE support here, guys. Bad day, I come in, and there's that cart --" He tossed the bottle into some bushes. "I can SMELL this stuff at a distance. You know? It's like it calls my name. Knows some secret language that know one else can decipher -- got the key to my soul in it's wet... spicy... throat burning, mind-melting, inhibition annihilating... little hands... " He looked down at the cart again. Lust for the vice warring with the incredible intoxication of tricking the trickster. He moved his eyes to his sister's. She was looking up at him, biting her lip. He laughed. "Come on, Em. I know you get it. I know you wanna scream til your lungs burst. DO it! Swallowing it makes us all sick!"

"He's such a bastard!" Emily spit suddenly. The words were coming from deep in her gut. AJ's face lit up.

"There you go!"

"You know, he's a stupid, THICK bastard!" She wrenched the top off the decanter and gripped it in her hand. "And I've been in LOVE with him since I was fourteen years old!" She wound up and threw the stopper like a baseball, sending it hurtling into the night.

"Impressive topspin," her brother observed.

Emily moved over to the barrier. "And he's never EVER seen it!"

"He's an idiot."

Emily brought the decanter, still half full of a brown liquid, up over her hand. She held it with two hands and then chucked it over the barrier. "I hate him!" It landed on the grass with a loud thud, and cracked up the side.

"Go Em!" AJ reached down to her. "Hand me the ice bucket".

Emily obliged. "And you know what else?"

"Nope!" AJ sent the lid of the bucket flying like a Frisbee.

"The only reason people get so freaked out about the Cassadines is cause they tried to freeze the world, like... what? Twenty years ago?"

"More." AJ dumped the bucket over the side.

"So they're rich. We're rich!"

"Yep."

Emily handed AJ a bottle of vodka without being asked. "And we don't kill people."

AJ did a Cocktail-style flip with the bottle. "Not directly."

"He's not even a prince anymore!"

"That's true," AJ twisted the top off, and tossed it aside.

"They're not so tough."

"Excellent point," he launched the bottle towards the rose garden. It hit the ground prematurely, and made a wonderful 'glugging' noise as the contents spilled from the neck and soaked into the ground.

"They're crazy!" Emily screamed.

AJ leapt down from the barrier, landing right in front of his sister. "Demented!" He grabbed the cart with both hands and pulled it between them. Emily's hands gripped the other side of the cart. She was laughing wildly -- tears in her eyes, her sides aching. She and her brother exchanged looks usually reserved for one lunatic recognizing another across a crowded room.

"I HATE THE CASSADINES!" Emily screamed, as she helped AJ lift the drink cart and toss it over the wall.

The crash it made was glorious. Loud, grand and long. The cart, the glasses, the remaining bottles, all collided with the ground then rolled down the small embankment next to the patio, making all kinds of little residual noises. It was art. Deconstructionalism at it's best.

"Ahhh..." AJ sighed, as the cart came to rest at the bottom of the hill. "I feel better."

Emily just shook her head. God, she shouldn't find this fun. It was psychotic behavior, and she should be very very ashamed of herself. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Is this how adults handle their problems?"

AJ threw his head back. "WHO CARES?" he howled. "It's how I handle them -- and you gotta admit, it's a step up." He looked back at his sister, looking euphoric -- exhilarated. "Now. If you'll excuse me? I'm going to go upstairs and watch my son sleep."

Bobbie stared at the flickering black and white image on the TV screen. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were twirling across the room together, their eyes fixed on each other. They came to a rest and Ginger flattened her back against a pillar, turning her eyes away from her paramour in a sudden attack of shyness.

"Night and daaaaaay," Fred's voice soared. Ginger looked lovesick. "You are the one for me... "

Bobbie clicked the mute button. This movie was making her queasy. She was retreating into this world in an attempt to forget about the day she'd had, but it wasn't working. The plot was absurd. Fred Astaire's character was a famous song and dance man who obsessively pursues Ginger Rogers after he rips her dress. These days Fred Astaire's character would be considered a stalker. Ginger would take out a restraining order on him. It all would have ended up on Hard Copy. Ginger would have gotten a book deal. Fred's attorneys would have settled out of court.

Maybe that was how it all happened... Nikolas and Carly. It sounded that way -- some thirties movie plot. It might not be that flowery and it probably contained less music, but... the general idea was there. Meeting someone, falling instantly in love, and sailing off into the sunset. It was entirely possible that Bobbie was just being too stubbornly sensible about all of this. That she had given up her appreciation of romance in favor of all things tangible and earthbound.

Of course, it was also possible that the scotch was getting to her and she really shouldn't let herself watch old movies in her current condition.

Bobbie's muddled thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. "Damn it," she hissed through closed teeth. The chances of someone stopping by and wanting to talk about something non-Carly-related were slim, at best. And after this evening, she'd really had more than enough talk. Nonetheless, she untangled herself from the Afghan she'd been wrapped in, and started out of the room just as she heard the sound of the door opening. Lucas, expending some of his preteen energy, had beaten her to the door.

"Mom?" he was calling as she moved into the living room. From her vantage point she could see her son holding the door open -- but not the figure on the front stoop.

"Who is it?" she knew her voice sounded impatient, as she crossed the room.

Lucas looked over at her and screwed his face up. "There's someone here to see you," he told her as the figure of Stefan Cassadine stepped into the foyer.

Oh, of course there is. Bobbie stared at her ex-husband from across the room and willed herself not to surrender to the fatigue inspired by the idea of a conversation with him.

"Stefan."

"Barbara."

Lucas coughed. "Well, I'll leave you two crazy kids alone." He gave his mother a look that clearly stated he wasn't going to go far. "Try not to get married while I'm gone."

Bobbie caught the look her son shot Stefan on the way out of the room. She was really going to have to scale back on how much time Lucas spent 'helping out' at Luke's club. Whether the influence was Lucky or her big brother, she couldn't help but feel a major sense of deja vu.

"Your son's not here, if that's what you've come for," Bobbie spoke without taking her eyes off Lucas's retreating back. Stefan, she noted, didn't respond until Lucas had taken off up the stairs. Then he moved smoothly into the dimly lit living room.

"I suspect Nikolas is seeking other company tonight."

Bobbie started to ask just what the hell that was supposed to mean, but caught herself. Best to save her energy. She sighed, sinking down into the nearest arm chair. "No games, Stefan. So help me God --"

"Games are exactly what I'm trying to avoid."

"I just bet," Bobbie couldn't keep the bitterness out of her voice. "Let's get this over with. What do you think I'm going to be able to do for you?"

***FYI*** Bobbie was watching The Gay Divorcee, which is a pretty good movie, if you're into that sort of thing.