Chapter Seven:
A Different World

"I met a gin soaked barroom queen in Memphis
She tried to take me upstairs for a riiiiiiide
She had to heave me right across her shoulder
Cause I just can't seem to drink you off my mind"

The man leaned against the bar, his face flushed and sweaty, and paused from his boisterous song to take a swig of his beer. He swayed slightly, belching before launching into the chorus.

"It's a Hoooooooooonky Tonk Woman"

Nikolas winced, staring harder at the green felt on the pool table as the drunk at the bar hit a bad note. Drunk. At a quarter to four in the afternoon.

"Gimmie, Gimmie, Gimmie the Honky Tonk Blues."

He lowered his head, trying to cut the rest of the bar out of his reality, concentrating on the sound of the balls clicking as they collided. He felt incredibly queasy, though he wasn't sure if it was the singing, the company, or the cigarette smoke that permeated every square inch of the place. His eyes were stinging, and he blinked back the tears he was producing in self defence.

"You alright?"

Nikolas glanced up. Carly was standing across from him, holding the pool cue like a staff. She had her hand on her hip and her head cocked to one side, a slightly playful look on her face. She was enjoying this -- He was more than aware of what she was trying to do. This was some sort of test. And he was failing miserably.

"I'm fine," he told her, barely moving from his rigid stance on the opposite side of the table. She shrugged and took swig of her beer, which she then balanced on the edge of the table.

"Well, you're never going to figure this game out if you don't watch what I'm doing," she said, jerking the cue up in a quick gesture and closing her hand around the circumference, before leaning back over the table.

"I'm watching," Nikolas said, his voice purposely flat. He hadn't bothered to correct Carly's assumption that he knew nothing about pool -- or billiards as the case might be. Part of this was the fact that the only way he could hope to impress her was by feigning ignorance, and part of it was, admittedly, annoyance. What, exactly, did people think he did all those years on the island? While other kids played back lot soft ball and strolled malls, he found other ways to occupy his time.

He was watching carefully, however. Just not necessarily what she expected him to. Even if he had never laid eyes on a pool table before, she was much more interesting than watching the game. She was acting like she was possessed. By what, he wasn't sure. It was in the way she looked at the table, the way she took everything in, she seemed to be stalking something... Inanimate coloured balls scattered across a table. He wasn't going to come to understand the relationship she had to this game, he realized. That was as enigmatic to him as everything else about her.

He watched her line up her next shot. It was ritualistic. The way she spun the cue ball slightly before placing it where she wanted it, the pause she took, stepping back from the table. She'd toss her hair over to one side, lean over, on line with the table, and slowly slide the cue between her fingers, then shoot fast and without warning. If he was to use it as a metaphor, which he couldn't help doing, it was not going to help him feel anymore centered.

"You're crying," Carly stated, straightening up. Nikolas blinked.

"It's the smoke."

"I know."

Nikolas decided there was no point in pretending it wasn't getting to him. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, squeezing them shut. That didn't help at all, they just began to water more profusely. He dropped his hand in frustration and looked back at her.

"How is it not driving you crazy?"

Carly shrugged, making another shot. "Mind over mascara." She smiled to herself as the ball banked off the far side and rolled into the center pocket. "Besides. I used to work at a Bingo Parlor when I was a teenager. Selling cards?" She glanced up at him. Nikolas was just staring at her blankly. Carly frowned. He'd probably never heard of bingo. She didn't know if that was something to pity or feel jealous of. She set the end of the cue down on the floor again, wrapping her hands around the narrow end. "The place was an old roller rink, and these people would come and buy eighteen cards at once, and just dab and smoke, dab and smoke. The air was so thick you had to push it out of your way. I think I developed an immunity."

Nikolas nodding, tears finally falling, insistently, down his face. "I haven't had that opportunity."

Carly felt a twinge of regret in her stomach. He was really trying. Why, she couldn't figure out for the life of her, but there he was, eyes red, tears running down his face, cringing at the behaviour of the other men in the bar and yet -- still trying.

She was well aware that men would go to great lengths to get a woman into bed, but usually, after a certain amount of torturing, they were start to get frustrated. Apart from the fact that he was less than impressed with the setting she'd dragged him to, he hadn't been anything short of a perfect gentleman. That made her nervous. It made her question just what it was he wanted. This was what she got for messing around with younger guys. Was she going to have to put up with him following her around like a lost puppy now? The horror. She shook herself violently and made a sharp turn, pacing the length of the table.

"Ok," she announced. "You're running out of time here, Nikolas. Is this beginning to make any sense to you?"

Nikolas sighed and looked back at the table. "It's physics," he told her, simply.

Carly looked at him like he was speaking Latin. "What?"

Nikolas gestured at the table. "Applied physics, laws of motion... You just ascertain the angle and force required to send the balls in the trajectory towards the pockets, right?"

Carly looked down at the table, and the same scattered balls Nikolas was looking at, missing the smile he was fighting to suppress.

"Wow," she marvelled. "You can take the fun out of anything, can't you?"

Nikolas sucked on his bottom lip lightly, and turned away from her, disguising the fact that the remark had stung a little, even if he had set himself up for it.

'You can't step in the same place in a stream twice... '

The words, those of a tutor he'd had back in Greece, floated back to him. They hit him with a weight he wasn't prepared for. What was this? What was he looking for? Whatever it was, this wasn't it. He shook his head, stepping back from the table.

"Why are we doing this?"

Carly stared across the room at the dust filled beams of sunlight that had fought their way through the dirty windows to stream in through the slats in the shutters. She had, of course, brought him here as a bit of a challenge. Just curious to see what he'd do. And, inevitably, to point out to him that they were, essentially, from different planets. However, she thought, that isn't the answer he's looking for.

"I'll tell you why," Carly looked back at him, giving him a bitter smile. "You said you want to be friends? Well, I have never had a lasting friendship that wasn't based on pool."

Nikolas raised his eyebrows. "Never?"

Carly leaned over, lining up her final shot of the demonstration game. "Never. I need a break from conversation. If I don't get it, I get obnoxious REAL fast."

Nikolas gave a slight smile. He was the same way. He always had a desire to interrupt long discussions with some sort of activity. It was something he had, no doubt, inherited from his father. While Stefan was perhaps the stillest man on earth, he could only be that way because he was always occupied, in some way. Nikolas suspected that he made it through tedious meetings my playing chess in his head. When he was younger, his great act of rebellion had been to refuse to learn that game.

"I never really thought of it that way," he mused, mostly to himself.

Carly shook her head, dropping the cue on the table momentarily. "I'm a woman of action."

Which, she thinks, he's probably already noticed.

Nikolas smiled at the curious expression on Carly's face. His eyes fell back on the table, and realized Carly had sunk the eight ball.

"It's better than living your life in a state of inertia," he murmured.

Carly looked across at Nikolas. He was back lit from the high widows over his head. She squinted against the light, trying to read his face, but couldn't make it out. She bowed her head and studied the table. "This is done," she announced, and started around the table, emptying the pockets. "Are you ready to play?"

Nikolas nodded slowly. "I suppose I've run out of excuses."

"Do you know how to shoot?" Carly asked, moving to his side of the table and pulling another cue down off the wall. Nikolas was unsure of how to answer the question.

"I don't know," he said as she thrust the cue at him, keeping him firmly at arm's reach.

"Then try," she told him, determined not to play out that oh-so-nauseating 'I'll teach you to shoot' game she'd used herself too many times in too many bars. In fact, she was beginning to think that she'd be able to get through this whole thing without so much as brushing hands with him. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. It was disconcerting for him not to try just a little harder.

Nikolas took the cue from her and studied it. Carly turned away and rounded the table, her hand placed protectively on her abdomen. It was bad enough having to look at him -- she sure as hell wasn't going to touch him.

Nikolas tested the cue in his hand, then reached up and pulled down the block of chalk on top of the cue rack. He chalked the cue absently, watching Carly carefully out of the corner of his eye. She was taking a long swig of beer. He wondered idly, just how regularly she drank... Was it a habit, or just something she needed to do to tolerate his company? He decided to test the waters, and start a real conversation.

"How did you learn to play?" he asked, clearing his voice slightly after the sentence.

Carly, who had just reached out to retrieve the cue ball, stopped a moment, then pulled back, slowly. Nikolas set down the chalk and watched her, noticing the marked difference in her demeanour. At the question her shoulders tensed, hunched slightly, and her movements became rigid -- Almost nervous. She looked, just for a second, almost traumatised, shell shocked. He couldn't understand it. How someone who was so cold and impenetrable once moment, and look like the wind was blowing right through her the next? Whatever it was, it made his heart stop.

"Did someone teach you?" he asked, quietly. Carly let out a long breath and picked up her beer again.

"No. I'm self taught. Kinda." She arched her neck back, drinking down the cold liquid, desperately. She straightened up and put it back down on the table firmly. "Carly had a pool table in her basement. Her Dad played,"

Carly exhaled heavily and picked up the rack. She spun it around her wrist, before beginning to heard the balls into the center of the table. Nikolas looked up from his study of the cue, and watched her.

"Carly?"

His voice was so soft Carly felt the tiny hairs on the back of her neck rise. She blinked back tears that immediately came to her eyes.

"She was a friend of mine in high school," she said, shrugging dismissively. "We used to hide out in the Rec room of her family's house when it got really hot and we couldn't get a ride to the ocean. We played pool for hours." She straightened up, smiling ruefully. "I had a natural talent for it."

Nikolas took a step towards her, knowing he'd stumbled into something.

"Carly's not your real name," he stated, at a loss for how else to pursue this. She was talking about this girl as if the connection wasn't obvious.

Carly laughed. "Ok! You CAN'T tell me you didn't know that."

"No, I did," Nikolas met her eyes with his, and Carly reluctantly found herself holding the look. "I just didn't know where it came from. Your friend?"

"Hey, she's dead," Carly forced her voice to remain light. "She's not using it." She exhaled shakily, diverting her eyes to the ceiling. How on earth had they ended up on this topic? She'd never talked to anyone in Port Charles about this. No one ever asked. As far as she could tell, no one really cared. She snuck a quick peak at Nikolas. He was standing there, holding the pool cue across his body, and looking at her intently. She shivered involuntarily and turned her attention back to the game, removing the rack from the table.

"I guess I should break," she frowned, spinning the cue ball on the table.

"How did she die?"

Carly wrinkled her nose. "How 'bout this. I break, I'll give you the first two shots to warm up, ok?"

"It you don't want to talk about it, all you have to do it is tell me."

Carly dropped the rack back onto the table with a clatter and turned to Nikolas, her eyes flashing. "Why do YOU want to talk about it?"

Nikolas forced himself not to flinch at her tone. He stood his ground, forcing himself not to look away from her. "Because she must have been important to you."

Carly stared at him a long moment. She opened her mouth to respond, to ask him why he'd care about something being important to her, but the words wouldn't come out. Carly looked away, focusing her eyes on the half drunk beverage still resting on the lip of the table. The room swayed on her, and she felt the sounds around her drown out, falling away to distant echoes. Her face felt hot. She swallowed hard, as she realized he was standing closer. She turned her head towards him, still bowed, trying to imagine what she was going to say, how she was going to turn this around, when she felt his hand brush her arm. She looked up at him quickly, her hair falling into her eyes.

He was looking down at her with an expression she was entirely certain she'd never seen in any man's eyes, ever. Not like that. Not at this proximity. She wasn't even sure she could find a name for it, but she felt the ground drop out from underneath her. She jerked away from him quickly, and pushed the hair out of her eyes, forcing herself back to reality. The expression on Nikolas's face changed from whatever it had been to one of great apprehension.

"Carly." He froze, stopping himself from stepping towards her. She was giving off some sort of... vibe, for lack of a better word. Like she wasn't quite with him anymore. He wasn't sure what to do.

Carly stood back from Nikolas, shaking her head slowly. She couldn't do this. It was that simple. She just couldn't be in this place anymore, she couldn't play this game. Carly's eyes found the door, and she started towards it, pushing past Nikolas. Nikolas, surprised, stepped aside and turned, watching as she reached the door. She pulled it open, not looking back.

"Carly!" Nikolas started after her, then recalled the cue in his hand. He tossed it down on the pool table, and started to the door, hearing a rumble of laughter behind him. He stopped, turning to see the drunken balladeer grinning at him, highly amused by the scene he'd apparently just witnessed.

"Lady trouble, Hotshot?" He sneered at him. Nikolas stared at man as if he was from another galaxy. He was not at all accustomed to seeing someone take this kind of pleasure in the idea of a complete stranger having a problem. He shook his head in disgust and headed for the door determinedly, ignoring the man calling after him.

"She'll give ya nothin' but trouble, I promise you!"

Carly curled her fingers around the chain link fence, as she leaned her head against it. She felt sick. She felt hot, and dizzy and shattered. A small part of her brain was trying to coax her back, gently prodding her to straighten up, take a deep breath, and not go down this road.

She couldn't describe what she was feeling at that moment except to say she was completely empty. Alone and abandoned, without anyone. It was why she never allowed herself to think too much about Carly. In taking on her friend's name, it had been a way to keep her with her. People liked Carly. More than that -- they loved her. She'd been outgoing and fun and she had ALWAYS had an answer to everything. They had fit with each other. She had fit with her like no one else. And then one day, with no warning, she was gone.

Carly bowed her head, pressing her forehead against the fence, and gritting her teeth in agony. She hated feeling like this. She hated that she still had to carry this with her, even after all these years. She hated that every time it came up on her, it felt worse. She hated all of it. And the fact that she'd let it grab her like this, in front of Nikolas... or because of Nikolas -- that only made it feel worse.

"Carly!"

Carly nearly jumped out of her skin, losing her grip on the fence. She turned around to see Nikolas standing at the end of the alley. She stared at him, her eyes bleary, still struggling to get a grip on this. She couldn't believe he was here. Here immediate reaction was to wonder what he wanted. She frowned, and took a shaky step towards him. She locked eyes with him, trying to read what he wanted, why he was there. Her breath caught in her throat as Nikolas started down the alley towards her. His eyes held that same look he'd given her in the bar. What was that look? She couldn't come up with a name for it, but she felt like he was looking right through her. Carly stumbled back against the fence and gripped it with her hands again, to prevent herself from moving towards him. Instead she just watched as he made his way through the garbage and mysterious coloured puddles, towards her.

Nikolas stopped in front of her, feeling his heart beating hard against his rib cage. He wasn't sure what to say to her. She looked so incredibly vulnerable, looking up at him, clearly upset, not trying to hide it behind some biting remark, or a sneer. He forced himself not to reach out to her again.

"I'm sorry," he said simply. "Whatever happened to her, I'm sorry."

Carly felt herself pulling away from the fence, not aware of having decided to move forward, or find her equilibrium again. She hung, suspending from the fence, a moment, then realized she was not looking for equilibrium as she loosened her fingers from the links and fell into Nikolas, burying her head against his chest.

Nikolas felt as if she had been coming towards him in slow motion, the movements had been so small, before she was suddenly there, against him, in his arms. He felt her shake, breaking, crying on him. He closed his eyes, letting his arms close around her, and held her as tightly as her could. Her arms wound their way around his neck, and clasped on for dear life, clinging to him, standing up on her toes in an effort to get closer to him. Nikolas cupped the back of her head with his hands, slowly threading his fingers through her hair, and lowered his head, whispering softly to her.

"I'm sorry, Carly. I'm sorry."

Carly felt as if she might very well be loosing her mind right there and then. Everything felt different. She was shaking, she felt her head pounding, her sides ached as she released the sobs onto him.

But she also felt safe. Protected. She felt like he cared. That was the look on his face, the one that had hit her with such force. Empathy. Understanding. Worry. Carly hiccuped, and pulled back from him, wanting to look in his eyes again. Trying to see if she could still see that look. Nikolas's hands moved around the back of her neck as she pulled away, just slightly, and he tilted her face up to his, his eyes searching hers, desperate for some kind of clue.

Carly allowed herself, for the first time, to really look into him. To let herself just see what was there, without censor, without trying to pull away. She was struck again by how dark his eyes were. And how troubled. They were searching her's, trying to read her the same way she was trying to read him. Carly felt a smile slowly find it's way to her lips and she beamed at him, allowing the tears to run freely down her face.

At her smile, Nikolas breathed an internal sigh of relief. He smiled in return, laughing softly.

"You're crying," he said, wiping a tear from her cheek with his thumb. Carly nodded, her eyes welling up again. She still didn't understand this. What he was doing here, why he was putting up with this. But he was. She felt her heart begin to quicken again, and she moved in, slowly, sliding her hand up and around the back of his neck. She stared up at him for a long moment, at the look on his face, and then fixed her gaze on his lips, parted slightly, soft and warm... she could still remember what they felt like. She closed her eyes, and stood back up on her toes.

Nikolas held his breath as he felt, just for a second, that he must be misreading this action. Her hand gripped the back of his neck, and he lowered his face to hers, their lips meeting in a soft kiss.

(Song Reference: Honky Tonk Woman. It's the Rolling Stones, of course. I know nothing else, but the inspiration came from a Pogues cover off (wait for it) The Essential Pogues. Did you know Pogues were essential? Some of them are. Anyway, had I not heard that song tonight, I don't know WHEN I would have finished this sucker.)