Chapter Twenty-Eight:
Twenty Questions

Carly couldn't breathe. She sat with her back against the cabin, her knees pulled up to her chin, and struggled desperately to bring some air into her lungs. Finally, she managed a sharp gasp, then keeled over onto the floor of the cockpit.

"I'm glad you find this so amusing."

She shook her head helplessly, and let her hair fall over her face. She couldn't even explain to him why she was finding this so damn funny -- even if she had been able to talk. It was just... so... FAR beyond her grasp. She had no idea people in the world thought the way Nikolas did before she'd met him. At the moment, she couldn't say for sure whether or not that was a bad thing.

Nikolas watched his wife shake with silent laughter before rolling onto her back, and finally expelling a solid sound. She had a hand laid protectively over her stomach, and tears were running down her cheeks as she shook her head helplessly in response to his comment. He'd find this far more insulting if she wasn't having such a good time.

"Are you all right?"

"My stomach hurts." She made a face. "Your answers should come with warning labels."

"So should your questions," Nikolas said dryly. Carly turned towards him, still giggling. She couldn't read his expression, especially in the obscure light of the marina, but she was pretty sure he wasn't mad. He'd been a pretty good sport about this game -- even if he was being far too kind for her when it was his turn to ask the questions. They were playing a bizarre version of Truth or Dare -- Nikolas had just given her a look when he'd heard about the dare part -- and she had to admit, she'd been having a good time. At moments, she actually relaxed.

Giving a half-groan, she forced herself to sit up. Her head complained about the lack of oxygen. She looked over at Nikolas and managed a grin. "I gotta say, this gives me a whole new respect for Liz Webber."

"It's not in current character. She used to be a little more..." He frowned. It was hard to believe he was talking about the same person. "Impulsive."

"Yeah?" Carly smirked. "Watch out for those impulsive girls. They're trouble." She let out a shaky breath. "I can't believe you dated her sister."

"It was a long time ago," he tried to keep his expression blank, recalling one of his early mistakes in reading the difference between infatuation and love. Whatever had existed between him and Sarah had disappeared so fast and so completely, it hardly seemed real. But at one point, he had been taken with her. At one point, he'd nearly slept with her. He made a face. "It probably made sense at the time."

Carly fought and nearly lost the battle against another fit of giggles. Instead she reached for her half-consumed glass of wine, and took a gulp from it -- to fortify herself, more than anything else. "All right!" She shot him a F. Lee Bailey swallowing a canary look. "I have to ask. At NO time in these proceedings, did it occur to you to say 'Hey, Sarah... about these condoms...'?"

Nikolas furrowed his brow. He felt he had to at least ACT indignant.

"That seemed forward."

She sputtered, and set her glass down to avoid spilling the drink all over herself. "You thought she was giving you condoms as an invite to sex, and you were worried about being FORWARD?"

"I'm sorry," he struggled up from his reclined position amongst Carly's pillow-nest. "What would YOU have done?"

"I would have said -- 'Hey, Sarah. What's with the condoms?'"

Nikolas grinned. "Yeah, you would have."

She smiled back, and tossed her hair over to one side. "So, Casanova. Are you going to tell me what DID happen?"

"I believe I'm required to."

She picked up the last bite of her sandwich off the bench. "I don't know if this game has hard and fast rules, but I wouldn't try to weasel out of it." She grinned at him before popping the food into her mouth.

"Wouldn't dare." There was a pause, while Nikolas debated just how to tell this story. "We went some place to be alone... and..."

"And...?" she swallowed. "I know the eventual ending of this, what went wrong?"

He shrugged. "She told me to stop. We talked, figured out that the condoms didn't originate with either of us... And that was that."

Carly stared at him. "You're kidding."

"No."

"Holy chivalry, Batman."

"Excuse me?"

Carly laughed and crawled over to him. Nikolas leaned back against the pillows as she approached, his eyes on her.

"No guy I went to high school with would have been understanding about bailing on a sex-invite like that."

Nikolas shook his head as she straddled his legs, settling into his lap. "You have a very disturbing definition of chivalry."

"Well, how do YOU define it?"

"Mythic bravery and courtesy. Rivaling the knights of the Round Table. You're talking about basic decency."

Carly made a face. "My expectations are... Nonexistent," she picked up Nikolas's wine glass and swirled the liquid in the goblet. "Besides. Mythic bravery? I think you qualify."

"How's that?"

She smiled into her glass before drinking. "You married me."

"Ohhhh," Nikolas reached over and took the glass from her hand, taking a sip himself before placing it back on the bench. "I thought that made me insane."

"That too." She placed both palms flat on his chest and looked directly into his eyes. "Your question."

Nikolas's mind went blank at her challenge. She'd been doing this all night -- -- moving away, moving back. Curling up with him, then leaping to her feet and circling their small space like a caged tiger. There was a restlessness about her -- an excess of energy -- that turned into intense focus on a dime. He was, for the time being, content to sit back and watch. Be still. She was holding his attention like a steel trap, but occasionally that made his mind stall. He shook his head out.

"What... What's your favorite color?"

She sat back. "Are you serious? That's boring!"

"Not boring -- just not humiliating."

Carly gave a dramatic sigh, and lay herself against him, resting her head on his shoulder. She could hear his heart beating steadily in his chest. "Red."

Nikolas turned his head towards her and inhaled the soft scent of her hair. "I'll remember that."

"What's your favorite color?"

He ran one hand lightly up and down her back, before answering. "Black."

She wrinkled her nose. "That's not a color."

"Azure."

Carly sat up and looked at him skeptically. "That's a big fancy way of saying 'blue'".

"I like that specific shade of it," he murmured, twining a few strands of her hair around his fingers.

"A detail man."

His eyes met hers, held them for a long moment. "You already knew that."

Carly's stomach fluttered. She was suffering from a strange condition -- something she wasn't familiar with. She'd be lying with him, feeling the rise and fall of his chest, or the steady rhythm of his pulse, and this excess of energy would grip her, and she'd have to get up. Move around. It wasn't nervousness, it wasn't even excitement -- It was just there. Something about being close to him that made it feel impossible to keep still.

"Ok!" Carly scrambled off of him, eager to shake off the feelings swirling around inside of her. "Next question!"

Nikolas watched as Carly leapt up onto the deck, and started to walk the line of the stern. Twenty-four hours earlier that would have felt like a rejection, the way she leapt away from him. Right now, he didn't care. Just watched her with soft amusement. After all, she kept coming back.

"Favorite book."

Carly paced back along the deck, then stopped, staring out at the water for a long moment. She turned suddenly, and leapt back into the cockpit. "Wuthering Heights. The characters are crazier than I am. You?"

"That's the second question you've turned back on me."

Carly sat down, her hands gripping the edge of the bench. "Would you rather I keep asking you about your sex life?"

He looked at her impassively, letting the silence stretch out. The wind was blowing just enough to push strands of her hair against her mouth. She didn't brush them away. Just held his gaze, without challenge or embarrassment.

"Where the Wild Things Are."

She blinked. "What?"

"That's my favorite book."

"Is there a Latin version I don't know about?"

"Lulu loved it." Nikolas moved his eyes to the mast. "She still loves it. She brings it with her sometimes and I read it to her. She leans her head against my arm, and turns the pages, and listens in rapt fascination like the story isn't something she can recite from memory..." Nikolas blinked, and looked back at her. He gave a half-smile. "I like that book."

Carly looked at him a long moment. She was waiting for ... something. For him to shake it off, or break the moment. To put up a wall between them. In her experience, that was just what men did. But that moment rarely came with Nikolas. She stretched out her leg, nudging his foot with her toe.

"You were so good with Michael today." She didn't look at his face as she spoke.

Nikolas sat up. "That was easy."

Carly nodded, watching the shift of the shadows that came with Nikolas's movement. "Do you think he was happy? When I told him about us?"

"I think he was confused."

"But he wasn't... upset. Do you think he was upset?" She turned to look at him, her face creased with worry. "He looked a little upset."

"I think he was confused," Nikolas repeated softly. "But if we were going to rank reactions for style and content? He wins, hands down."

Carly laughed -- sharp and genuine -- and dropped her head back. "Ohhhhh, God. Could I have handled any of this worse?"

"I think you handled Michael fine." Nikolas leaned forward and brought his legs up, resting his elbows on his knees. Carly looked down on his open face from her seat above him. "He would have been confused no matter how we did it. He's three."

"AJ's going to tell him all kinds of things, you realize that, right? By the next time I see him, he'll think you breathe fire."

"Again," Nikolas ventured a smile. "He's three. He might think that's 'cool'."

Carly rolled her eyes, but slid off the bench to sit with her husband on the floor of the boat. "You're a glass half-full kinda guy, aren't you?"

Nikolas's expression clouded. "With children, probably. Sometimes."

"And with the rest of us?"

Nikolas glanced up to see her eyes fixed on his. He felt himself warm, and reached out, his hand making what was becoming a familiar journey around the back of her neck, pulling her to him. He kissed her softly, and when he lay back in the pillows she moved with him, settling her body easily against his. She tasted of the Caesar dressing and wine. God, he was never going to get over being able to kiss her like this. Without hurry or urgency or dread... it was incredible. She was constantly inspiring new feelings in him, and this one was disturbingly close to peace.

"Ask me something personal," Carly breathed as she drew back. "Ask me something you want to know but are too damn chivalrous to ask," she smirked at him. "Mythic bravery, my ass."

Nikolas's eyes were fixed on the bend of her neck. He reached out and lightly trailed his fingers along the length of her throat. "Courtesy, courtesy."

"Come on," Carly laughed, and dropped her head back. "There's got to be something you want to know. Ask me anything -- I'll answer. Laundry carts, identity snatching, paternity Olympics -- name it." She grabbed his wandering hand in hers and held it tight. "I'm serious. What was you so afraid of finding out?"

Nikolas struggled up on one elbow and narrowed his eyes at her. "You told me all about those things on the plane last night."

"There's something else, Nikolas." She widened her eyes and gave him a spooky look. "I can read it in your face."

He shook his head. "You're making things up."

"You're avoiding getting real."

"This..." he took a breath. "Feels very real to me." Her lips were only inches away from his, and that never helped him think.

Carly cocked her head. "You don't want to get me back for making you tell that condom story?"

"Not really."

She made a face at him. "Come on. Am I that boring that all you can think to ask me is what my favorite COLOR is?"

Nikolas sighed heavily. He wasn't getting out of this one alive. "Ok, fine. You win."

Carly flashed him her one-hundred watt smile, and Nikolas let himself drop back into the pillow clutch. Talk about walking a line.

"Ok, what's my question?"

Nikolas stared up at the stars, which looked suddenly, like they were mocking him. "There is one thing I've been... speculating about."

"Speculating?" Carly felt herself flush hot and then very cold as a possible question came from her. "You want to know how many men I've slept with."

Nikolas raised his head and looked at her like she was insane.

"No... Thanks. I really don't care." At least, he thought, not about the ones I haven't actually had to MEET.

"You lie."

He dropped his head again. No point in arguing with her. "I wasn't going to ask that."

"Good." Carly forced herself to laugh. "I don't know the answer."

Nikolas closed his eyes. He could hear that edge in her voice, the challenge she was putting forth. He knew he was supposed to care. That most people would. Be if she wasn't going to roast him on his inexperience -- condom story aside -- he wasn't about to attack her for her experience. That seemed to be a perfectly acceptable bargain to him.

"You want me to ask something personal."

Carly looked down at him. She was sitting with her arms wrapped around her legs, hugging herself against the soft evening breeze. Truth was, she needed him to ask something. She needed to tell him. This honesty thing was addictive. She kept thinking she'd find something -- SOMETHING -- that would throw him. Something he'd object to. But he kept taking her bombshells with disturbing calm.

"I figure you should at LEAST know more about me than my hairdresser."

Nikolas groaned and sat up. He looked gave her a 'you-asked-for-this' look before speaking. "Ok. You seem to have such a fascination with my virgin status."

Carly grinned. "I just find it shocking that no one came along and threw you down on the nearest flat surface before me."

"You didn't throw me down on anything."

"Would you like me to?"

There was no rush, Carly decided, that quite matched making Nikolas Cassadine blush.

"Wait, hey, no." Nikolas stumbled over single syllables. "No -- my question!"

"Ok, but I'm saving that one."

Nikolas made a decidedly unmanly sound that might have been distantly related to a whimper. Carly relented, leaning in and giving him a quick kiss before pushing the conversation forward.

"You want to know when I lost my virginity?"

Nikolas shook his head. "Not so much want to know as... " He sucked his bottom lip into this mouth, trying to work out the words. "I'm wondering how much of an anomaly I am to you."

Carly narrowed her eyes. "Sure it won't bug you?"

More than seeing the way AJ looked at you? Or knowing about Jason? Oh, that would be hard. "I can handle it."

Carly shrugged, and averted her eyes. She could tell this story. She could toss the whole thing off like the nothing it was... as long as she wasn't looking directly at him.

"Not a big deal," she ran her hand through her hair. "I lost my virginity, such as it was, at a beach party." she pulled in her breath. "When I was fifteen."

She waited to hear him make some kind of sound... to respond somehow. Suck in his breath in shock or disgust. Though... Given her reputation, it was probably a shock it was so late.

"WHICH," she laughed unsteadily, "I might point out, was a whole six months after Carly gave it up. Making me, in my twisted teenaged mind, very behind the times." She let her head turn the few millimeters towards Nikolas, caught the expression on his face. He was just looking at her. His expression was implacable, but it held no hint of judgment. Carly felt that same fluttering sensation in her stomach. She let go of her legs, and stood up a little too quickly.

"Look," she spoke to the water. " You gotta understand Carly, Ok? There was something about her people wanted to be around. I mean... EVERYONE loved her." Carly felt a familiar ache in her chest. "She didn't love everyone, though. But she loved me." Carly swallowed carefully. She didn't know why she was saying this -- it was all just bubbling out of her. She closed her eyes, tried to make the words feel a little less real. "I'd never had a friend like that before. And I was so determined to hang on to her. If I thought things were changing -- If I thought that I was getting too different or something -- then I'd fix it.."

Carly's eyes rested on the light reflected off the water for a long moment, before she turned quickly, running her hand through her hair. "You're not going to believe this... But I was scared of sex. I'd hang out with guys, and I'd flirt, and I'd tease a little... but I was terrified of any of it ever going anywhere. I just..." She took a careful breath. "I didn't know what I'd feel. I kept thinking... that I'd just feel so empty. If I let someone get that close to me, and then they... " Carly blinked. "Doesn't matter. I was just... pretty young."

"Anyway. Carly was the type of girl who pretty much always had some guy hanging off her. And one day she just calls me out of the blue and tells me she'd slept with the guy she was with back then... She tells me she slept with this guy she'd been dating. She told me all -- I mean ALL -- the gory details." Carly shuddered. "After that it was just OUT THERE. She wasn't a virgin anymore. I was."

"A few months later, we had a bonfire on the beach, and she and her boyfriend went off behind the dunes, and I'm stuck with his friend who... won't stop talking. He just keeps babbling, and I keep not listening -- I remember just sitting there, drinking a beer, and staring at the water. Feeling really... depressed. Just alone and sick and awful. Eventually, he moves over to me, and he starts to tell me I'm beautiful. And that he wants to kiss me... and.. "

Carly let out a long breath and sat down on the bench again. "I don't know WHY. I don't know why it was him. I just... I didn't even LIKE him. I just... wanted to get it over with. I think maybe it was him cause I didn't think I'd care afterwards. That it'd be Ok when he never talked to me again. So we went for a walk and we started to make out in the sand... And I just never told him to stop.

"What I remember most was how much he wanted me. How completely desperate and demanding that need was... I could feel it like it was a whole other thing. And it was so amazing -- to be that important to someone. Even if it's for these totally physical reasons. That moment... You know, when you're with someone and you know that they NEED you now. They've... Passed the point of no return, and don't care what your name is, who you are, what you've done -- just that you're the person who's there. It's like you're their God, just for that little while. The most beautiful, amazing, compelling thing they've ever come across. That's what got me. That's the part that made me want to do it again. Carly never warned me about that part. She never told me how powerful it could make you feel."

Carly blinked, and her eyes watered a little. She dug her thumb and index finger into her eyes, impatiently, and let out a short laugh at herself. "Damn it," she muttered under her breath. She brushed her hand against her jean-covered thigh, concentrating on the feeling of the rough material under her fingers, as she spoke. "I was right about the empty part. I got pretty good at living with that, cause every single guy..." She smiled wryly. "Before Tony -- Mid-life crisis. That's what it took for me to hang onto one. The rest all took off, if I didn't beat them to it."

Carly pulled in a sharp breath, and shook herself out. This was becoming too much. She could have answered this question in a few sentences. Why the hell did she tell him all that?

"You know," Carly's words came out slowly, and sounded far away to her own ears. "People say I'm a slut," she ran her index finger over the gold band on her left hand. "And I really can't tell you how many men I've slept with. I can't even tell you what they thought my name was. But I had a reason. And at the time... it felt like a pretty good one."

Carly fell silent, the suddenly without anything further to say. She twisted her ring around her finger. Look up, she instructed herself. Just glance over at him. You might as well see his reaction. You told him that story for a reason, right? She pulled in her breath quickly and straightened up.

He was watching her, his body supported on his elbows, and his eyes waiting for hers. She recognized the expression on his face instantly. She'd seen it before, in the alley after their non-pool game. When she'd first told him about Carly. She smiled slightly, ignoring the tears that wanted to spring to her eyes. He shifted his weight, and held out a hand to her. She leaned forward and took it, allowed him to reel her in, pull her off the bench and down onto the floor with him.

Her movements felt fluid and easy as she sunk down onto the blanket. He lay her head down on his chest. Her whole body sighed, relaxed against him, into him. Nikolas's arm circled her waist, his hand resting on the small of her back. She closed her eyes, and listened to the sounds around her -- his heart beat in his chest, the waves that lapped against the hull of the boat. There were bells clanging on other boats and occasional sea gulls were releasing their complaints to the wind.

"Last question." Carly's words were muffled against Nikolas's chest.

"All right."

Carly let out a slow breath, and her hand closed into a fist. "Are you still happy we did this?"

Nikolas stared up at the black sky overhead. It was clearer than it had been last night. The moon was high in the sky now, stars were out. It was waning now, shrinking back to start it's cycle again. It has looked full the night on the golf course -- a week ago. God, he'd been miserable that night. Consumed by anger, pain, a world of hurt. Convinced he was going to be feeling that way for the rest of his life. Carly had washed, burned and soothed all of that out of him. Tonight, he could barely remember what it had felt like to be anything but what he was right now. The idea that any of this could change because of a story... That, he realized, was typical of Carly's sense of self-worth. Was he still happy...? He turned his head, pressed his lips to the top of her head, and whispered his answer.

"I'm delirious."

The door to the darkened apartment drifted open in response to a gentle kick from the other side. Light poured in from the hallway, and was quickly blocked by the a figure in the doorway. He bent quickly, lifting his laughing companion into his arms and silencing her with a kiss as he swept her into the apartment. A hand brought the lights up, and then pulled the door shut behind them, closing the lovers in together.

The kiss ended as he lowered his consort to the ground. Her arms stayed around his neck, and she looked up at him, with adoration that had always made his heart stop. He smiled down at her, and lightly traced his fingers down the side of her face.

"Welcome home, Robin," Jason whispered to his wife.