Chapter Seventy-Five:
Reconciliation

It took roughly thirty seconds to get Alexis out of the cottage. Carly had to give her this much -- the woman knew when to leave a room. The second the door closed she'd nearly crushed her baby brother in a welcoming bear hug. She couldn't believe how happy she was to see him. Beyond words. She felt lightheaded with relief. She hadn't even realized how much she missed him until she'd seen him standing all shaggy hair and sloppy clothes on her doorstep. She wasn't sure she'd ever been quite so aware of how much she adored him.

Lucas, on the other hand, looked like he's just eaten something sour.

"Geeze," he complained, as he extricated himself from his sister. "Do you have to keep doing that?"

"Yes," Carly grinned at him. "Now shut up, or I'll throw you off a cliff or something."

"Uh huh," Lucas was looking around critically. "You live here?"

"Yeah," Carly frowned, seeing the room through Lucas's eyes for a moment. Seriously scary. "Come on. It's got... style."

"There's no TV," he started down the stairs. "You got anything to eat?"

"It's always about food with you."

"It's lunchtime," he pointed out, sorely. Carly groaned.

"I just ate. Come on," she grabbed his hand and dragged him towards the back part of the house. "Maybe there's something in the kitchen."

Maybe. Opening the fridge, Carly nearly let out a yelp. There was food. There was definitely food. Mostly staples, but it was impressive. It also made her realize that, in all the time she'd lived here, she had never opened her own fridge.

"Wow," her brother observed from behind her. "Cool."

"Yeah..." she said, stepping back and throwing up her hands. "Go for it."

She turned away, walking around the island in the center of the kitchen with her eyes cast down. Behind her, Lucas foraged. She leaned against the far side of the counter, surrendering, for a minute, to a wave of bone-deep sadness. She felt suddenly out of place and tired and just wrong. She didn't belong here. This didn't feel like her kitchen. She was just here on a pass until someone woke up and dragged her back to where she came from.

She buried her face in her hands, elbows resting on the counter and stayed that way until she heard the clink of a plate being placed on the marble counter top. She glanced up to see what he'd come up with. A bowl of hulled strawberries. Another bowl of fresh cut pineapple. A plate of sliced ham. Not cold cuts. Sliced. Ham.

"Unreal," she mumbled into her fist. Lucas grinned at her and produced two glass bottles from behind his back.

"Check it out."

Carly frowned as he set one down in front of her. Some obscure sugar-free gourmet fruity soda thing. She frowned. "What?"

"This?" He twisted off the bottle cap. "Is great. Try it."

Carly sighed, picking the can up. "I've never heard of it.

"Used to have it all the time when I lived here. It was my favorite."

She smiled slightly. "Mrs. Landsbury thinks of everything."

"She rocks."

Carly stifled a giggle at her brother's sincerity and concentrated on opening her own bottle. She took a quick swig -- and nearly choked at the taste sensation. She looked at her brother in awe.

"Oh my God!"

He was grinning. "I know."

"Why have I never heard of this stuff?" She turned the bottle again to take a look at the label.

"Dunno. Rich people food."

"I've been rich people before," Carly complained. "At least, I've lived with one." She set down the bottle and looked around at the kitchen again. All dark gleaming counter tops and stainless steel. Copper pots hung on a rack overhead. Eight burner stove top. She could feed Cambodia, with all this stuff. "Ok. Maybe not this kind of rich people."

"You like it here?" Lucas prompted before popping a strawberry in his mouth. Carly exhaled.

"Sometimes."

"What's wrong with it?"

"Me. Mostly." She shook her head. "Forget it -- I'm so glad you're here! I have to show you the island."

"I've seen the island. I. Lived. Here."

"So? That was a long time ago --"

"You said you'd come to the house."

And... There it was. She'd known it had been coming from the second she'd see him at the door. She reached over and plucked up a strawberry. "I've been busy."

"It's been, like, three weeks."

"No it hasn't," Carly was defensive. "It's like... Two and a half."

"You're mad at Mom."

Carly took a bite of the berry and didn't answer until she'd swallowed it. "I have stuff to do here."

"You're mad at Mom cause of the whole baby thing, right?"

"Could we not talk about that?"

"It wasn't her fault, you know."

"Lucas!" She snapped at him and he rolled his eyes in defense and hunched down over his makeshift lunch. Carly took a long draw from her bottle of soda while the snapping-at-little-brother guilt made friends with the bad-wife-guilt already sitting in her stomach. Great. Just great.

"Look," she said, finally, slamming her bottle down on the counter. "We weren't even in town last week. And I had to get things organized here, ok? You should see the wedding gifts, it's insane --"

"We could help."

"You really want to come all the way out here and help me write thank-you notes to the Viscount of Lower Distopia?"

"Who's that?" he asked with his mouth full.

"Nevermind," she muttered dropping her head. This wasn't going to work. Her brother wasn't known for letting things drop without compelling reason. "She knew, Lucas. She knew for a week and she totally let me get..." Blind sided. Carly felt herself go cold, two distinct moments in the last twenty-four hours collided in flash and flame. Nikolas repeating that word last night before he'd stormed out. You're dropping major bombshells on him at dinner parties...

"Damnit," Carly breathed. Now her head hurt. Lucas looked up in curiosity.

"What?"

"Karma," she murmured under her breath. "Oh, God," her hands gripped the edge of the counter and her knees felt unstable. She gave in to the impulse and let herself sink down to the floor. Hands still holding the counter, her head leaning against the cabinet door. "I don't know what to do!" she moaned.

"About what?"

She snorted. "I don't know. How stupid I am?"

"Yeah," Lucas sighed. "I don't know what to do about that either."

She growled. He kept eating.

"Mom might," he allowed, finally. Carly straightened out of her crouch at lightening speed, rising from behind the counter like some demonic creature of the night. Lucas nearly choked on a piece of bread. "Don't do that!"

Carly's eyes were narrowed. "You're not going to let that go, are you?"

Lucas shrugged and swallowed. "Kinda why I'm here."

"To make me go talk to Mom?"

"Well, what -- are you just going to not talk to her forever? That's dumb."

"It's not dumb!"

Lucas scowled at her. Dangerous look -- he didn't pull it out very often. Whenever he did, she always felt momentarily transported back to the days when he was still six years old. And she was still his step-mom-in-training.

"Don't look at me like that," she warned.

"It's not Mom's fault that Jason's a jerk!"

Carly flinched at the mention of his name. "Lucas."

"No," her brother spat. "He's the one who got married and didn't even tell you about the baby! And he sucks anyway. He always makes you cry. Every time you used to see him, you'd just get all weird again. Besides. You're married to Nikolas now, he doesn't even matter."

Carly stared hard at the counter top and willed the ghost of Jason Morgan to vanish. She had barely thought of him since Nikolas had told her the baby was born. It had been a survival tactic, probably. Think about him, and she was going to be going over details she couldn't stand to think about. Michael when he was born. Tiny and sick -- not perfect, not healthy. Born too soon and all wrong with a broken heart. Carly had looked at him and saw nothing but everything she'd done wrong. And Jason had stepped in and taken care of him. That had been the only thing she felt good about. Maybe she was already a bad mother before her child was even out the womb -- but at least she'd provided something. She'd provided someone who could take care of him when she couldn't.

White hot pain. To even let her mind flit back to all of that -- To what she and Jason had shared, raising that baby together. To that backwards and twisted take on family life -- To think of him doing that all with Robin. Robin holding some perfect little child in her arms, without doubt or fear or guilt... Robin being crowned mother of the year before the child was a week old, while her son...

God, it was Tuesday. She felt like she hadn't seen Michael in this lifetime.

"Carly?"

Carly started and looked up to see her brother. She was crying. Shit.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, squirming uncomfortably. She shook her head and forced a laugh.

"Nikolas's father doesn't like me."

"He doesn't like anybody."

Carly nodded. Her head was starting to throb. She had to do something. She had to get out of this house. She had to fix all this stupid stuff that had gone wrong and... She couldn't do it. She felt that realization land in her stomach with a thud. There was no way out. She'd hurt her husband. Stefan wanted to get rid of her, Alexis was making demands on her, and now the STUPID job at Luke's...

She was so sick of this. All of it. She was sick of being on the outside and sick of doing everything wrong and trying to figure out how to solve all of this on her own. She just wanted it all to go away. There had to be a way to make all of it stop.

"Where is Bobbie today?" she asked tentatively. Lucas shrugged.

"She's off from the hospital."

Tiny little gift. Maybe. If she was lucky. And she asked just right...

"You know what?" Carly wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand. "I'm getting really sick of this place. You wanna go do something else?"

Her brother gave her a long look, carefully evaluating -- what was WITH that, anyway? -- before cracking a smile.

"Got a new video game at home."

"Violent?"

"Totally."

She broke into a grin, laughing over top of a sob. "Then let's get out of here."

"Is it me?"

"Cece."

"Am I losing my edge? Am I not being sufficiently threatening? Or do you just not care anymore?"

"Something came up," Nikolas threw out the platitude as he headed through the oak doors into the secondary office. "I don't need to be scolded."

"Then just explain this to me," his assistant persisted, trailing after him. "Explain why you won't answer my calls, and I'm doing a daily crap shoot over whether or not you're going to turn up for work at all? What am I supposed to do? Contrary to popular opinion, you aren't ENTIRELY disposable around here."

Nikolas stopped at the door to his own office. There was no getting out of this. Which was the reason he hadn't been answering his cell phone in the first place. And while, on any other day, he might have conceded that she had a point, he was running low on tolerance for all things today. No, he didn't want to be here. And yes, it was her. It was his father. It was Carly. It was the color of the walls.

"I don't feel like talking to anyone," he said, with as much patience as he could muster. "Tell them I have malaria, I don't care."

"What am I? Your mother?" Cece's righteous indignation faded on the sharp look he tossed her and she started nodding in sudden and uncharacteristic compliance. "Right. Gotcha. This too shall pass." She leaned over and snatched a note pad off her desk. "Any new orders?"

"And new information?"

"Not since yesterday, no."

"Then everything stands," he said heavily, trying to recall what any of that might be. "Now, if you'll excuse me," He turned towards his office and had his hand on the door knob before Cece spoke up again.

"Your aunt is in there."

Nikolas leaned immediately forward and rested his head against the door.

"Please tell me you're kidding."

"I called you when she arrived," she said mildly while scribbling a note to herself. "But you didn't answer the phone."

Nikolas tightened his grip on the handle. He was not going to think about this. He was not going to start trying to figure out what Alexis wanted. He was just going to go into that room and get this over with as fast as humanly possible.

Alexis was sitting in a rarely-used-or-acknowledged arm chair in the far corner. She had her briefcase open and was sipping on a glass of mineral water. She appeared to be pouring over some legal brief but when he entered she looked up and granted him a heavy-hearted smile.

"Surprise," she said, wryly, raising her glass to him. Nikolas didn't bother to hide his grimace.

"You look as if you're in for the long haul."

"I wasn't sure you'd make it in today."

"That makes two of us," he dropped his own briefcase down on the desktop. "But I ran out of places to go." He turned back to her, leaning against the edge of his desk. "How long do I have to wait to ask you what you're doing here without being rude?"

Alexis shrugged, and she removed her glasses. "I think you can probably get away with a few pleasantries, and then just plow right in."

"All right. Then how has the day been treating you, Aunt?"

"The jury is still out," she admitted, leaning back in her chair. "How are you holding up?"

Nikolas averted his eyes. Good question. He'd already had two incredibly unsuccessful -- by his personal standards -- conversations with relatives today. He wasn't interested in going for three.

"I'm still in one piece."

"Good start." His aunt regarded him a moment. "Did you speak to your father this morning?"

"Among others." He gestured dismissively and turned his attention to his briefcase, spinning it around with one hand so that the clasps faced him. "So. What are you doing here?"

"I needed to tell you something before you heard it some place else."

And the hits just keep on coming. "What's that?"

There was a long silence while Alexis closed the folder she was sorting through and put it aside. Finally, she spoke. "I went to see Carly this morning."

It was right then that Nikolas realized how tired he was. The fatigue was coiled around him like a constricting snake, ever tightening. It wasn't until he reached for the energy to react and found the well dry that realized the anger had been squeezed right out of him.

"Oh," he offered by way of response.

"I didn't want you to think I was going behind your back."

"Well. You were, weren't you?"

"That's certainly one way to look at it."

"What did you say to her?" He rubbed his temple with his thumb as he spoke.

"Nothing earth-shattering."

He lifted his eyes "Then why are you here?"

"Because. What happened last night had a lot of aftereffects. And we need to discuss them."

"Now."

"I think it would be a good idea if we talked about what this means before you see Carly again."

"Because that's what you talked to her about," he stated matter-of-factly.

"Partly," Alexis leaned forward, rubbing her hands together lightly. A nervous or pensive gesture. "I need to ask you a question."

Nikolas laughed slightly. Sure. Why not?

"Which is?"

His aunt looked up. Locked eyes with him, and then asked, in a slow and measured voice, "Is there any way you can see accepting Carly working for Luke?"

Nikolas stared at her. Such a good question. He wished he had an answer.

"I've already accepted it," he said, flatly. Alexis didn't bother to hide her surprise.

"Really."

"Yes," Nikolas broke away, turning to round his desk. "Does that make this conversation moot?"

"It makes it... confusing."

"Why?" He dropped down into his chair. "Accepting Luke as an inevitable part of my life isn't something new."

Alexis was looking at him with concern. He'd definitely let a little too much of his real feelings shine through.

"By accepting, I mean -- is there a way this can happen that won't actively eat a hole in you on a daily basis?"

"That's asking a lot."

"Nikolas."

"She's going to do this," he snapped. "We discussed it. It's over. I don't need to talk about it further."

There was nothing on his desk top. Nothing, save his briefcase, so he grabbed the handle and hauled it towards him. There had to be something distracting in there. He had barely managed to pop it open, however, before his aunt spoke again.

"I think her taking this job might be a good idea."

"Good to know."

"Hear me out, Nikolas."

He slammed the top of the case down again in a sudden rush of frustration. "I just told you! I've come to grips with this. I don't need to rehash the details all over again!"

Alexis frowned at him. "You don't look like you're a man at peace."

"Do I ever?" He pushed out his breath, regretting the words the second they were past his lips. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to take this out on you."

"By all means. Go ahead, I can take it," she smiled at him and he turned away. He didn't feel like being understood at the moment. Alexis got to her feet and strolled across the room while Nikolas occupied himself with the contents of the briefcase. Tried to ignore her. Ignore the way she was looking at him, the sympathetic look in he eyes. "I thought it might help to know why parts of this make sense."

"I know why," he dropped a stack of files onto the desk. "It makes sense because she has nothing to do all day. It makes sense because this is a job she can keep. It makes sense because, apparently, I control every aspect of her life and --" he stopped short. He couldn't keep talking about this. It was an impossibility.

"It makes sense," Alexis said, softly, "because it could help get her son back."

Nikolas stared.

"How," he said, finally. "Does working at a mob-owned blues club make that easier?"

Alexis winced. "You noticed that too, huh?"

He just cast a dark look in her direction.

"It's a sticking point," she admitted. "But it'll be a sticking point if she stays home all day doing needle point. I don't think we can downplay Carly's connections. Not to Luke -- and not to Jason Morgan."

"She doesn't have a connection to Jason Morgan anymore."

"She was a bridesmaid at his wedding." Alexis paused while that fact stuck out it's tongue at them. "The Quartermaines are going to exploit that for whatever they can. Running from it isn't going to do us any good -- Carly will always be Jason's ex-girlfriend, and God knows she'll always be Luke Spencer's niece."

"So you think she should embrace it?" The derision in Nikolas's voice was obvious.

"I think that's better than trying to sweep it under the rug. We can play it off like she's doing him a favor. It's a family thing -- Family is good. We can make it look transitory, something she's just doing to help out. That way, if it doesn't work out," she smirked slightly "And considering Luke's involved, there's a good chance of that -- It won't make her look flighty."

Nikolas closed his head. This all made sense. He'd always been aware, on some level, that this made sense. He just really didn't need to have it all spelled out for him.

"You think she might quit."

"I think Luke gets on everyone's nerves, eventually."

"Not my mother's," Nikolas murmured, mostly to himself. Then jerked himself, forcing his eyes open. "I'm not going to hold out hope."

Alexis nodded in agreement. "There's one more thing."

"Oh, good."

"It will go a long way to taking the wind out of any argument that the feud between the Spencers and the Cassadines would put Michael in physical danger."

Nikolas glanced up at her. "You think that's going to be a problem?"

"You nearly died at the foot of their stairs, once."

"Five years ago."

"They'll bring it up."

Nikolas smiled bitterly. Years and years of that never-ending hatred being tossed his way on a semi-regular basis, he never thought he'd have the chance to be glad it was steadily ignored.

"You've thought of everything," he allowed.

"It's what I'm here for," she leaned forward, putting both hand flat on his desk. "Look. What we want here is a very carefully constructed image. We want to walk into that review with Carly looking like someone who has pulled her life together. Someone who is taking her therapy seriously -- and making progress. Someone who has strong family ties. Someone who can hold down a job, handle a responsibility. And someone who is in a stable, loving marriage. Someone who can, unquestionably, be trusted to be alone with her son. Given the emotional distance between the borderline psychopathic and that picture..."

"They'd reopen the case."

"In a heartbeat," she agreed. "And then you don't have to worry about Carly filling her days because, between therapy and her son -- Her interest in waitressing is probably going to wane."

That was the first thing she'd said that he actually found any comfort in.

"You have a point."

She raised her brow. "If you can find a way to live with it, even for a few weeks -- It could make a dramatic difference. If not..." she nodded her head in the door. "We can reevaluate."

Nikolas sat back in his chair. That was the key... To this and so many other things. Get Michael back. It would only been a few weeks -- maybe a few months. He was with Carly for life. He'd find a way to do this -- that he'd already decided. It couldn't be harder with a light at the end of the tunnel.

"I can live with it," he answered in a monotone. "That won't be a question."

Bobbie kicked the front door to the brownstone open, and tried to finagle the keys out of the lock with the two fingers she had available. She was carrying four heavy plastic grocery bags, and holding the mail in her teeth. She'd spent her morning, post-brother-ambush, running errands. Running errands like a mad woman. The grocery store had been her last bastion of distraction and now that she was home, she figured she had a whole fifteen minutes of frenzied unpacking before she was entirely out of tasks to perform, and she'd have to resume obsessing about Carly.

She was starting to accept the inevitable. There was no way she was going to get through this day without inflicting herself upon someone of the Cassadine persuasion. Be it Stefan, Nikolas or her daughter.

Historically, making up with Carly was not this difficult. And maybe if she'd been pressing the issue a little more firmly, this would all be over. But that depended greatly on Carly's state of mind. When she had last seen her daughter, there had been nowhere for her to go. Carly was shut down, she was not trading in emotions of any variety that day. There was no reasoning with her in that state. So she'd gone to Nikolas and...

Well. She had no damn idea how that had gone. Her only significant hint was that they'd left town just after that and hadn't come back until a few days ago. She'd thought maybe Carly would come to her. Maybe it was best to let her. Let go of the leash, just a little bit. And... Maybe she was just worn out. It gutted her, to see her daughter in that carved out emotionless state. At least, when Carly lived at the Brownstone, familiarity bred some sort of tolerance. Expectation, even. She'd been expecting to see Carly go down that road from the eve of the wedding, on. But it had still felt like a punch to the gut to see the front door open on that. And maybe she'd let this go on longer than usual because she didn't want to face it again. Feel that sick sense of responsibility.

However -- since her conversation with Laura that morning, Bobbie had been fighting an inner battle. On one hand, she was horrified and furious. This had disaster written all over it, and all her brother had done was give Carly another piece of paper to scribble on. On the other hand...

Carly hadn't done anything this stupid in a long time. Over the past year, there hadn't been any wacky schemes. There hadn't been any misguided plots to justify. There hadn't been much of anything. Whatever was going on, whatever her daughter was going through... She was fighting for something again. That realization kept threatening to bring her to her knees with relief and gratitude.

Well. Maybe once she got these groceries taken care of.

Bobbie managed to jiggle the key out of the lock and into her hand, and nudged the door closed with her hip. This was ridiculous.

"Lucas?" she called out, seeking extra hands. "Lucas, come down here a minute!"

She heard a muffled sound come from behind the glass living room doors. She turned and yelled directly at them. "Lucas?"

Nothing. Lowered voices, that was all. He must have a friend over. Well -- fine! But that didn't spare him grocery duty. She let the bags drop onto the tile floor of the foyer and spit out her mail.

"LUCAS!" she adopted ticked-off mother-tone, and started to slide open the doors to the living room. "What are you --"

She stopped short. Mind went blank, mouth hung open, while her brain struggled to catch up to the information in front of it.

"Carly," she blurted out, finally.

Her daughter, sitting nervously on the edge of the couch got to her feet. She waved her finger tips and granted an unsteady smile.

"Hi, Mama."