Chapter Thirty-Five:
How Soon is Now?

The doors to the elevator opened, and Cece stepped on first -- she always exited and entered rooms first, as her boss seemed to be incapable of not holding doors for women. Initially, that had been annoying. Now it just was.

"Sometimes I really regret telling you I was looking for a challenge."

He just smiled and hit the button for the top floor. Cece looked down at the notes she'd been taking and scowled. This week was off to a hell of a start. Not that she wasn't aware of what a score this job was. The Cassadines did not, generally, hire off the street. Certainly not Americans -- not for anything above basic secretarial work. And as pathetic as being personal assistant to the CEO's son might look on paper, if you were going to languish in a degrading job, this was the way to do it. Nikolas was educated enough to justify his position, smart enough to generally be on the ball, and incompetent enough to require her constant assistance. They fit together as neatly as any two people who have absolutely no personal interest in each other could.

With one tiny little exception.

That God damned mother of shit prince thing! Oh, he'd lost the title, sure. But no one seemed to actually CARE about that. If anything, it kept everyone all the more fascinated. Most of the people who walked through the door to his office treated him like Marlon Brando in the Godfather. And he didn't seem to think that there was anything weird about that. What's more, he would lay things on Cece with the most casual attitude, like he had absolutely no idea where the line between banal and deranged lay.

"What..." she paused as if searching for a word. She wasn't. "Priority would you put on this."

"A standard priority."

"Ah ha," Cece made a note. "That would be the standard needle-in-a-haystack, wild-goose-chase variety priority."

"Yes."

She looked up sharply. Did he just make a joke? Nikolas didn't, as a rule, make jokes. She huffed and put a hand on her hip, glaring at him openly.

"Time frame?"

"Most of it I'd expect to see on my desk tomorrow. The other item... I'd like settled as soon as possible."

Cece sneered and Nikolas fought against an urge to laugh. To be fair, he'd been trying not to laugh for most of the morning. Everything just kept striking him as innately absurd, and he had to keep reminding himself that people were already suspecting him crazy without any additional help.

"Fine," Cece tucked her pen behind her ear. "Anything else you want from me? Would you like me to pull a rabbit out of my ass for your amusement, perhaps?"

He turned his face towards the wall as the doors chimed, indicating the arrival at their floor.

"Are you LAUGHING?" Cece was incensed.

Nikolas shook his head, and put a hand out, holding the door on the elevator open. "I'm not allowed to find your sense of humor amusing? Isn't that the point?"

"Who says I was being funny?" Cece snapped, exiting the elevator. This was just getting too weird. The man had been grinning like an idiot all day. No one gets that entertained by cost projections -- she was beginning to suspect the guy had never been laid in his life, the way he was...

Do men glow?

Well, he was doing something. And she was really beginning to wish he'd knock it off. Happy people, like most varieties of people, really got on her nerves.

"I hope you realize," Cece spoke crisply as they turned towards the office, "that if I have to make some preteen girl cry of behalf of your strange idea of romance, I'm going to be very cranky."

"You'll be cranky unless she's a brat with too much access to her father's money." Nikolas pulled open the glass doors Cassadine Inc's reception and Cece walked through. "Then you'll enjoy it."

Cece snorted and flipped down the top of her note pad. "Your aunt --"

"Mr. Cassadine!" the receptionist -- new to the job and in possession of some off-the-wall name Nikolas didn't recall -- piped up from her desk. "Your aunt is waiting in your office!"

Cece shot daggers at the receptionist, and Nikolas sighed. This was why he had stopped learning their names. They usually lasted about five minutes before they pissed Cece off. She had a pack mentality about office politics, and those that did not serve her found themselves ousted. Or eaten. To be honest, he wasn't quite sure.

"Remarkable observation, Tullulah. Maybe next time you'll wait until I've finished my sentence."

"Oh," the receptionist flushed. "Sorry."

"Cece," Nikolas found it less painful to just keep out of her domination games. "I'm going home after this. If you need to get ahold of me --"

"I'll count to ten and wait for the urge to pass."

"That will be fine," Nikolas said, turning away from her and walking towards the heavy oak door that separated his and Cece's offices from the outside world. This day was dragging. He'd gotten through with his meeting in record time, though it had felt like hours. Once that was done, Cece had informed him the the PC Herald had gotten it's information about his marriage from none other than AJ Quartermaine.

First shot. That hadn't taken long.

Didn't matter. The article was idiotic and gossipy -- but not damaging. And admittedly, it was the only clear cut move the Quartermaines had. They couldn't do anything else, not until he and Carly made a countermove, and that wasn't going to happen until Nikolas had considerably more information. There would be no rash decisions with this. There would be no mistakes.

The first step in his plans was waiting for him in the chair in front of his desk when he reached his office. She turned as he opened the door, and raised her brow at him.

"You rang?"

Nikolas tried to dim his smile. He hadn't spoken to his aunt since just before breaking the news of his marriage to his father. That she knew about Carly was a foregone conclusion. What she thought of it... Well. That was another matter altogether.

"Thank-you for coming, Alexis," she stood as he crossed the room to her. They exchanged a quick embrace, kissing on cheeks. Nikolas stepped back, taking in his aunt's demeanor. "I suppose you've heard by now."

Alexis smiled ironically. "Oh, yes."

Nikolas moved around the desk to his own chair. "I would have told you myself if I'd had... the chance."

"I think I get it," Alexis settled into her chair again. "Once the word started to spread --"

"It was like trying to catch a fish with your hands," Nikolas said, ruefully. "Constantly slipping out of my grasp."

"You saw the paper this morning?" Alexis put her own copy down on his desk. Nikolas glanced at it quickly, just enough to catch the pictures that accompanied it. One of him, alone -- a corporate photograph that the newspaper had one file. The other of Carly, hand in hand with Jason Morgan at some social function. Very nice touch.

"I didn't intend to keep this a secret, so that's not of much matter." He sat back in his chair. "So should we get down to business, or do you have some words to say as my aunt, first?"

Alexis peered at her nephew over her glasses. The words might have sounded bitter in different circumstances, but Nikolas seemed unnaturally relaxed. More at ease than she could remember seeing him in... well, in his whole life, very probably. No wonder Stefan was so wound up.

"You're in a good mood," she surmised.

"Huh," Nikolas's face cracked into a grin and he leaned back in his chair. "So that's what this is."

His aunt winced as she opened her briefcase. "I don't know what to tell you, Nikolas. Some Cassadines have experimented with that -- I did myself. You know. In college," she shook her head. "It can be dangerous. You might get used to it."

"I'll be careful."

Alexis pulled a file out of her case and picked up the paper, throwing it back in. She'd noticed just the tiniest flicker of something when he'd looked at it, and decided to remove it from sight. She enjoyed the fact that Nikolas trusted her enough not to be on the defensive the instant she entered the room. it was something she'd worked at building with him, and she wasn't about to threaten it now.

"I know you will," she pulled out a sheet of notes. "It looks good on you," she said, without looking at him.

"What does?"

"The smile."

She glanced up and thought that she might have just caught the hint of a blush. Oh boy. The part of her that found this wonderful and cute and sweet was making itself known. She assigned that to the Aunt part of their relationship, and took a deep breath, slipping into lawyer mode.

"There's a lot for us to talk about here, Nikolas."

Nikolas shrugged in acquiesce. He'd known this was coming. Truth was, he was anxious to get things moving. To start stabilizing Carly's position in his life. To start moving forward. "We only have to address the fundamentals today."

Alexis lowered her papers and looked across at him. "Is Michael Quartermaine going to be one of those fundamentals?"

And so it starts. Nikolas was putting a lot of faith into Alexis with this. More than he felt capable of expressing. He needed her to take what he was about to tell her to heart. Needed her to understand and not question it or try to change his mind.

"Michael is going to be a very..." he turned his chair to the desk and met his aunt's gaze. "Fundamental."

She nodded, carefully. "I didn't mention that to your father when I spoke to him," she said, finally. "But it was the first thing that occurred to me. That you and Carly... Well, that you would want to try to take Michael back."

Nikolas shook his head. "One thing at a time, Alexis."

"You've been giving this thought, then."

"Oh, yes," Nikolas picked up a pen and studied it as he spoke. "Carly needs her son back. I want to make that happen. And to do that, I need to know everything there is to know about the original case. I need someone to go through it with a fine tooth comb and --"

"Find the holes? Nikolas, I can go through it with a rake and find out what went wrong. That trial was a mess."

Nikolas nodded. Carly hadn't told him much, but that much he remembered just from having lived in town at the time. "I want to know exactly what the mistakes were and how they're going to serve us now. I want to be able to tell my wife that this is going forward."

"I see," Alexis had expected this. It was why Ned had called her. He was the only member of the Quartermaine family -- apart from, she suspected, Lila -- who was ambivalent about Michael's custody arrangement. For reasons Alexis had never completely been privy to, the trial had really angered Ned. It seemed to be part the attention the family lauded on AJ, the way it effected control of ELQ. but mostly it seemed that Ned just detested the railroading. That he actually felt for the woman on the other side of it. On principle, she supposed. Their divorce had been finalized about a week before the trial started, so she hadn't been on the inside. But she knew Ned. And she knew the Quartermaines. Carly might have a questionable past and present, but no one deserved that.

"I'll have my clerk pull everything he can," Alexis pushed out her breath. "Do you want me to take this a step at a time, or are you asking me to represent your wife in this matter?"

Nikolas tapped the pen lightly against the edge of his glass desktop. "For the moment, if you'd consent to do that much, I'd appreciate it."

Alexis smiled slightly. So careful. He'd been this way for so long now. When she'd first walked in here she'd seen a glimpse of the old Nikolas. But the longer they talked about this, the more he retreated into his protective shell.

"Nikolas," Alexis closed her briefcase with a snap. "I need to say something as your aunt."

"All right," his eyes did not leave the pen. Alexis frowned and leaned towards him.

"Is this... Is Michael the reason you got married?"

"Partly." His eyes darted back to hers, quickly. Checking her reaction. "It was a factor. But she's his mother, Michael's always a factor."

Alexis's stomach twisted. What Stefan had said to her about a gold-digger being easier to get rid of came back to her. Definitely something to keep in mind. If things got bad, Carly did have a weakness. In the meantime, she was just going to hope to hell that it wasn't going to come to that. She cleared her throat.

"Lawyer now."

Nikolas cringed. "I'd rather you didn't just yet."

"I'd be remiss..."

"I'd handle it."

"Have you considered asking Carly to sign any sort of post-nuptial agreement?"

The immediately tension that leapt into Nikolas's body was the reason Alexis couldn't allow the Aunt-version of herself to bring that up. She knew it was a land mine. She knew it would hurt him to hear it. But it was common sense. It had to be said.

"There isn't going to be any post-nuptial," his voice was very controlled, very tight.

"Things happen, Nikolas."

He shook his head stubbornly. "Cassadine marriages do not end in divorce."

Alexis flinched. That might have been the first time she'd ever heard Nikolas dust off an old family axiom like that. "Your father and I have both proven that one wrong."

"Then my marriages don't end in divorce," Nikolas looked up at her, resolved. "This is for life. And if it isn't, then the last thing I'll care about is whether or not she's going to take my money."

"All right," Alexis forced a small laugh, trying to cut the tension a little. "You can't talk to people about this at the beginning of a relationship. But it's in a lawyer's nature to keep trying, anyway." She leaned forward, taking another tack. "Nikolas if the contract would never come to mean anything, then what is the harm in having one? For both you and Carly? Just so that you know that your interests are taken care of."

"My interests lie in making my wife happy. Not in asking her to consider what happens if we dissolve our marriage," He sat back in his chair. "That isn't going to help her feel secure. It will make her feel defensive and abandoned. I am not going to do that to her."

Alexis couldn't help but smile, just a little. Nikolas had never acted like a typical child, but at the moment, looking at him... The determination and the protective assertions... There it was. That glimmer of the Nikolas of Old. Her job was clear. This was their chance. To pull Nikolas back from the brink. To bring him back to himself. For so long, he'd been pushing everyone away, sinking in a sea of confusion without his identity, without any of the things he'd defined himself with. Now... Now he had a new title and he was wearing it the same way he'd always worn Prince. If nothing else, this was a start.

"All right," she said, quietly, "Then tell me what you want to do. How do we go towards making this work?"

Carly was in trouble.

Yeah. Stop the presses.

But this was new trouble. The kind that didn't start with her telling a lie or screwing someone over. No, this was different. As she sat on the roof of the cabin, staring out at the marina, she just knew. She was in over her head and there was no clear direction in which to swim.

He'd been gone for hours now, and she was going out of her skin. It started when she'd watched him walk away from the boat. Leaving for a meeting. For his job. For his life. While she stayed on the boat and...

What the hell was it she did all day, anyway?

A big black ball of doom -- old familiar friend at this point -- had landed in her stomach and refused to budge. She'd tried reasoning with it. She'd tried ignoring it. She'd tried telling it to go to hell. None of it worked. It just sat there and let her know that she was an infamous fuck-up, she always had been, and nothing had changed.

Oh, yippee.

Reason spoke in a firm voice, telling her to just wait it out. Nikolas would be home eventually, and things would feel ok again. They always did when he was around. When they were alone. The ball of doom would fade, and she'd begin to feel like she might be able to do this.

For a little while. And then...

UGH. Did everyone on the planet have to deal with this kind of emotional pollution or was she just special? And if she wasn't, then why wasn't everyone else as crazy as she was? There was nothing she hated like this free-floating anxiety that attacked her every time things started to go her way. Had she had a moment in the last five years of her life where she wasn't on guard? Wasn't waiting for the roof to cave in? Yeah, one of two. But most of those came while she was already under the rubble.

See, it was thoughts like that. Little tiny realizations that zapped into her brain and took up housekeeping. making her want to pull out her hair. To scream. To generally act like she was crazy.

Well, she couldn't very well be crazy now, could she? She had to give that up. Like smoking. I mean, how hard is it to shake off clinical depression? Drop the clinical part, first of all. Then it was just... depression! A bad mood. Feeling a little down. Eat a chocolate bar, read a book, go for a walk. Remember your freaking spirit and all that other Oprah stuff.

Maybe she'd have to start watching that show without throwing things at the TV.

Carly's thoughts were interrupted by an unsteady wolf-whistle. She turned her head, shooting a glare over her shoulder, only to see the perpetrator grinning at her.

"Nice boat."

"LUCAS!" Carly scrambled to her feet, leaping over riggings and ducking around the boom as she hurried towards him. Lucas! Brother Lucas! Oh, thank GOD, someone was here to shut up the voices in her head. She reached over and grabbed her brother's hands, practically hauling him off the dock and onto the deck. She realized she was laughing wildly, with relief -- hell, with flat out joy -- as he made it over the railing. He looked up at her, and she immediately threw her arms around him, giving him a bone crushing hug. "Oh, I am so glad to see you!"

"Yeah," Lucas choked out. "I get the idea."

"What are you doing here?" she pulled back. "How did you know where to find me?"

"Mom said you were living on a boat, I just came here and asked where they kept the really big ones."

Carly let out a squeal and hugged him again. "You're so great. Have I told you that lately? You are just so great!"

"Whoa, ok!" Lucas extricated himself from his sister's grip. He wasn't much on physical affection and this was going overboard. "You start licking my face, and I'm out of here, ok?"

His sister's expression turned immediately dangerous. "Did you just compare me to a dog?"

Lucas rolled his eyes and turned away from her. "And suddenly I'm scum of the earth. Man, are you moody." He hopped down onto the bench that ran the length of the cockpit, and looked around at the boat. "So these are the new digs."

Carly decided to let the dog comment pass. "These are they," she sighed, following him down the steps. "Do you want the tour?"

"I think I get it..." he said slowly. "Yeah... deck..." he nodded to the other side of the boat. "More deck..." he pointed upwards. "Hey, look! A mast!"

"Oh, you're soooo funny."

"It's a gift," he shot a quick look at her, then turned his eyes back to the mast. "So how long 'til you totally move out of Mom's?"

"Why?" Carly hunched her shoulders protectively, on guard. "Did Bobbie say anything?"

Lucas shook his head. "Nope. Just... You know. Wondering." He flopped down on the bench and opened his knapsack. "You're in the paper today."

"I'm what?"

Lucas pulled out the PC Herald he'd stolen off the table this morning, and handed it to his sister. "Right there. See?"

Carly felt herself go cold as she saw her own face beaming up at her from the society pages. Christ. She remembered that dress. That thing at the docks. Jason had given her the necklace she was wearing and she'd tried so hard to look good for him. To be the perfect little mobster moll. She looked pretty good in the picture. You'd never know how badly she'd screwed that night up, causing a strike and some other general mayhem. Jason had been so pissed.

"That didn't take long..." She smiled slightly at the accompanying picture of Nikolas. He was wearing a suit, and looking very seriously at the camera. Captain of Industry. She touched the inked image of him lightly with her finger tips, then shook her head. "Do I want to read this?"

Lucas just looked at her. She sighed.

"Ok, how bad can it be, right?" She looked down at the print and started to read aloud. "...Port Charles's Most Eligible Bachelor has given up his title. International Playboy Nikolas Cassadine, 21, reportedly eloped over the weekend, marrying Caroline Benson, 26, daughter of his former step-mother, Barbara Spencer. The couple is said to have married early Saturday after what has been described by friends as a whirlwind courtship."

"What friends?" Carly glanced up accusingly. "We don't have any friends!"

Lucas shrugged. "Don't look at me."

"Nikolas Cassadine is the only son of Stefan Cassadine and the primary heir of the Cassadine fortune. Miss Benson is the ex-girlfriend of notorious racketeer Jason Morgan, and has a son by ELQ Chief Executive Officer, AJ Quartermaine. This is the first marriage for both."

"Well," Carly muttered, sitting down on the bench across from her brother. "I guess that's better than 'Miss Benson is a great big slut'."

Lucas ignored the comment. "Why did they call Nikolas a playboy?"

Carly folded up the paper. "Because they take cheap drugs down there."

"Ok," Lucas looked kind of concerned. "Playboy is, like... Isn't it a magazine or something?"

Carly swallowed a laugh. Like Lucas didn't know damn well what Playboy was. "That's right."

"Uh huh. So Nikolas..."

"A playboy's, like... A guy with lots of money who doesn't do anything except go to parties, pick up lots of women, and act all James Bond without the license to kill."

"Uh..." Lucas looked uncertain.

"Cheap Drugs, kiddo," Carly sighed. "Nikolas is about as far from a Playboy as you can get. Any women he picks up, it's an accident."

Lucas let out his breath. "Good."

Carly looked at her brother, wondering for the first time if he had an agenda in coming here today. "Why?" she leaned forward, giving him a quizzical look. "Are you worried or something?"

He shrugged, fiddling with the straps on his backpack. "I dunno. I don't want you married to someone like that."

Carly straightened up. Wow. That was serious talk for Lucas. She didn't know whether to be touched or terrified.

"You like Nikolas, right?"

"Yeah," Lucas bobbed his head, his hair flopping down into his eyes. "Yeah, he was a cool... step-brother..." Lucas looked up at her, through a veil of hair. "Do you like him?"

Carly held up her left hand, showing off the wedding band. "Yeah, I think he's swell."

"You just... " he pushed his hair back. "You're never that happy to see me."

"You're my brother! Of course I'm gonna be happy to see you." Carly deflated at the skeptical look on Lucas's face. "Ok, so I'm going stir crazy. But that doesn't mean I don't like Nikolas."

"He makes you happy, right?"

Carly blinked. "Happy?"

"You and Mom always act like I'm too stupid to know that something's wrong." Lucas dropped his pack to the floor, and nudged it with his toe while he spoke. "I know Jason hurt you. I know he made you really sad for a really long time. I just... I hope Nikolas makes you happy."

Carly stared at him. The ball of doom in her stomach stirred. Complained. She sucked in her breath quickly. "He does." She said it like it was an epiphany.

"Good. That's important." Lucas raised his head again, and made a face when he saw the tears gathering in his sisters eyes. "Oh, c'mon, Carly!"

"I'm sorry!" Carly dug into her jeans pocket for a Kleenex. "I just... everyone's acting like this is some kind of national emergency. You know? Like it's the dumbest thing I ever did."

"No," Lucas spoke like this was taking infinite amounts of patience. "The dumbest thing you ever did was not tell Mom who you were when you came to town."

Carly gave a weak laugh, unfolding a tissue. "You think so."

"I know so."

"Well," she shot him a look. "Aren't you smart."

"I spent a lot of time hating your guts and then I had to stop again when it turned out you were my sister."

"Sorry for the inconvenience."

"It's ok," Lucas ignored the edge in her voice. "I got used to it."

"So that's why you don't hate me? Cause I'm your sister?" It was dumb, she told herself, as the words came out of her mouth. She had over a decade on him, and she still acted like an insecure kid sometimes.

"Don't be stupid," Lucas shut her down. "I'm just saying you wasted a lot of time, you know?"

Carly let out a shaky breath. "I know." She blew her nose. "It's just... It'd be nice for someone not to think Nikolas was just some big dumb mistake I made, you know?"

"I don't think he was a mistake," Lucas said simply. "Not if you love him."

Carly gulped. Damn it. Everything seems so straightforward when you're twelve. She pulled in a deep breath. "Let's just leave it at... He makes me happy." Her voice wavered on the word. "That's a pretty good deal for right now."

They fell into a simple silence. Lucas watched his sister, and his sister watched the water. Finally, he spoke again.

"Has Nikolas met Michael?"

Carly looked back at him in surprise. Lucas Jones, able to leap topics in a single bound. "Yeah..." she said slowly. She felt her heart swell just a little bit. It kept doing that. "Yeah, he has."

"Did Michael like him?"

She felt herself light up inside at the memory and nodded. "They got along so well, Lucas, you wouldn't believe it." Carly felt a smile take her over. She started to gush. "Michael had this superball, and the Quartermaines didn't want him bouncing it, but Nikolas..." She grinned, remembering the look on her son's face when the ball had soared up over his head. "He was just so good with him. He was showing him how to skip rocks and Michael just thought that was amazing. He wanted Nikolas to come back and show him again."

"I miss Michael."

"I know. So do I." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, feeling the tears spring back. "If I tell you something, do you promise, swear to God and cross your heart and all that stuff, that you won't tell anyone?"

Lucas straightened up. His eyes took on that gleam that Carly always saw in her family. She got that gleam herself sometimes.

"You say anything, and you have to give me all your Nintendo games. I mean it, Lucas. This isn't something you can tell Mom or Uncle Luke about."

"I won't!" He looked a little put out. "Come on, Carly. You know I can keep a secret."

She did. Lucas had kept his mouth shut on a lot of things over the years. He was pretty good at being careful with information. She leaned forward and dropped her voice down to a whisper.

"Nikolas is going to help me with Michael. He's going to help me get him back from the Quartermaines."

Her brother's eyes popped. "For real?"

"Shhhh!" Carly sat up. "Don't jinx it, ok? You can't say anything until I tell you it's ok."

Lucas shook his head. "No way." He drew a cross over his heart with his index finger. "No WAY."

Carly grinned. Oh, God, it felt good to talk to someone about this. To have them get excited about it. What the hell was she so worried about? Life was GOOD, Damn it! Why was she moping so much?

"You are so cool," she cooed to him. He shot her a 'knock it off' look, but she just laughed. "You are! I'm so glad you came here today."

His expression clouded a moment. "You are?"

Carly nodded enthusiastically. Man, he had no idea how glad. "Totally."

"It's gonna be weird at home without you," Lucas resumed pushing at his bag with his feet. "Mom poured you a glass of Orange Juice this morning before she remembered she didn't have to go and wake you up."

"Oh." Carly felt her throat tighten and she sat back against the bench. "Did she ask you to come here?"

"No," Lucas scoffed. "She wanted me to go to Felicia's after school. Cause Uncle Luke's a bad influence."

Carly made a face. "Oh right. Like Georgie's so normal."

"She told me she's made a Zombie Barbie Army of the Damned." He wagged his head back and forth. "Which is kinda cool, but I thought I'd come find you instead."

"I'm flattered."

He shrugged again. Lucas was becoming a champion shrugger. "Do you think you'll still be coming around the house sometimes?"

Carly let out her breath. "Maybe. I don't know."

"Cause you were never around before."

She looked up again. He was being really fidgety. She felt herself warm with the knowledge of how much she loved this kid. As crazy as that sounded, she really did adore him. "I'll be around," she kicked out her leg and hit his knee. "You're not getting rid of me that easy, Jones."

He looked up at her and grinned. At that moment, in the spring sunshine with her brother, on the boat where she lived with her husband, Carly honestly believed that she was going to be ok.

Relatively speaking, of course.