Chapter Eighty-Four:
Drugs Are Quick

She was going to throw up.

Carly held on to the sign post with one hand, while her other pressed tentatively against her abdomen. Her whole body heaved and she wondered the how long it had been since she had done something this stupid for a boy.

It had happened so innocently. In the three weeks they’d lived with her mother, Nikolas had been polite to her mother, goofy with her brother, generally adorable, and occasionally charming. When they were alone, he was funny and sweet and sexy, in turn, and they still weren’t fighting. It was damn near perfect.

Except for the brooding.

Left to his own devices for more than a minute, she’d walk back in to see him staring moodily into the middle distance, morose and untouchable. Then he’d notice her and shake it off and everything would be back to “perfect” again.

She’d like to say she cottoned on to the reason all by herself, but honestly it was too much in her nature to decide that anything that might be wrong with her husband was actually an indication that something was wrong with her. So it took her mother’s occasional prodding questions to point her in the right direction: Stefan Cassadine, the father-in-law from hell.

Nikolas didn’t have much to say on the matter. She’d managed to extract a few facts from him. They saw each other with increasing infrequency at Cassadine Inc. These encounters were always curt, business-oriented and brief. In the last week, Stefan had conducted all business he was required to be present for via speaker phone.

She’d pressed for more the night of the Non-Catastrophe of the G.S.E. deal that had fumbled rather than dropped. Nikolas had been profoundly uninterested in talking about it, but whatever had happened, his sleeping patterns – already disturbed – had become pretty much nonexistent. He was gutted. And Carly had no idea what to do about it.

Well, that wasn’t true. She had ideas. One or two of them were pretty creative. But her “ideas” were at least 50% at cause in this mess, so she was feeling uncharacteristically gun shy. Besides, between fighting with Lucky, fighting against Kevin and fighting for her better instincts, her energy was a little low.

That’s the cue she really should have taken. So much turmoil, so much psychic tension, what she really needed to do was stay in bed. What she didn’t need to do was decide to join her husband for his morning jog.

Yeah. It was supposed to be supportive or something. The logic, at that moment, had completely abandoned her, along with her lung capacity. She straightened up, cast her eyes down the block and waited for them to focus. Ah ha. Brownstone. She wasn’t going to die here on this street corner after all. She could go and die on her own front stoop. That was comforting.

Rubbing the stitch in her side and struggling to move in the thick, soupy air, she stumbled down the half block to the house and collapsed onto the front steps. Hands to her head, knees pulled up, she leaned back against the stairs for several minutes, listening to the sounds of sprinklers on neighboring lawns, cars in the street, god damn mourning doves, and her own breath. Which did, against all her expectations, keep coming.

She was finally beginning to feel somewhat normal when she heard another sound in the distance. She barely noted it at first, but then it drew close and she realized what she was hearing.

Whistling.

Carly sat bolt upright, eyes wide and terrified like a PTSD victim and found herself staring into the open and welcoming face of the mail man.

“Beautiful morning,” he chirped, handing her the bundle of Brownstone mail.

“Gorgeous,” Carly muttered, taking the letters from him. She pulled off the elastic as he walked away, resuming his jaunty tune, such as it was. There were – including herself – four tenants in the Brownstone, and it was automatic for her, at this point, to sort the any mail that found its way into her hands. She tossed them into piles on the lawn, them, us, them, and then she saw felt something familiar – felt it before she saw it, knew with a cold dread what it was before she even let herself look to see her name printed dot-matrix style under the plastic window in the envelope.

Her field of vision went blank.

Nikolas walked the last two blocks, cooling down from the three mile run he’d reinstated shortly after moving into the Brownstone. His mind felt clear and blissfully empty. It wouldn’t last, but it was a reprieve he valued enough to keep this up in the suffocating humidity of the New York summer.

The air quality was going to be ugly today. It wasn’t, he probably should have warned Carly, the best day to take up running. He’d been touched when she’d announced she was coming with him – encouraged, even. Exercise was probably good for her mental health, probably something she should do more of -- but he hadn’t been surprised or even particularly disappointed when she’d dropped out after about half a mile. He also wasn’t concerned. Not until he hit their block and caught site of Carly sitting on the bottom step of the brownstone, staring at something in her hands. Even then, the foreboding sensation didn’t really hit him until he got closer and realized she wasn’t moving. In the oppressive heat, he found himself jogging towards her.

“Hey,” he called out as he reached her. She looked up at him and before he could say anything else, she was on her feet.

“Open this,” she thrust the envelope at him.

He kept his eyes on hers as he took the letter from her, though the look on her face gave a strong suggestion of what she was handing over. Sure enough, when he glanced down, he saw the expected return address.

“Are you sure—”

“I think I’ve forgotten how to read.” Carly dropped back down onto the steps, sinking her fingers into her hair. “Open it. Before I have an aneurism, ok?”

He did.

“Ms. Benson,” he read as he unfolded it, taking a seat next to her. “It has come to our attention that a year has past since your case…” he let his voice trail off. He didn’t like the wording, the sterile tone in a letter that held such important information. Carly was looking at him, so he nodded, and handed it back to her. “Good.”

“Good.” She didn’t sound at all convinced of his decree on the letter’s contents. “It’s the review date, isn’t it?” She turned the letter face down on her lap. He noticed her hands were shaking, so he reached out and grabbed one, squeezing it.

“It’s ok. We knew this was coming.”

“How long are they giving me?” She choked on a laugh.

“It’s August tenth.” He let her digest that a moment. “They apologize for the delay.”

She snorted, then turned her body towards him, burying her face against his bare shoulder. He let go of her hand, sliding his arm around her and rubbing her back.

“We’re ready for this, Caroline.”

She sat a moment, then pulled back and looked at him. Pulled in her breath in a sudden spasm, like she meant to speak, and then shook her head instead. She got to her feet and turned towards the house.

“We better be.”

Two hours later, Carly sat in Kevin’s office and stared at the wall over his right shoulder. She couldn’t get her mind to engage. The whole morning had felt like it had gone past her while she stood still on a platform. Stupid thoughts kept occurring to her – like she needed to find a hairdresser, a good one. She had to stop looking like she didn’t particularly care about her appearance. And she should have better shoes. And she wasn’t ready. She just wasn’t. She’d walk into that room, they’d see right through her, and then what? Nikolas had never said what came after this, if this was a total disaster. Even with his assurances that he could ‘do things other people couldn’t’, she couldn’t see what choice they had besides waiting until the next review. The next review, which – alright – was actually due in February. Only a few months, only a few lifetimes.

Jesus Christ. Why the hell couldn’t she cry? Or laugh? Or just scream? Why the hell was she so damned numb?

“I need to know something,” she found herself speaking without realizing she’d even formed thoughts to translate into words. She blinked and her eyes opened to focus on Kevin Collins. Watching her with an interested patience. He gave a slight nod.

“Go ahead.”

“I need to know what you’re going to say,” she swallowed, thickly. “If it’s going to be a blow out, just tell me now.”

Kevin considered the question, regarding her like a man who was looking for the right part of the puzzle to attach his tiny piece of sky.

“I won’t be called to speak at this review,” he allowed, finally. “But I’ll submit a report.”

“And?”

“And I'll tell them that you're committed, that you've attended all your sessions, you've been on time. I'll tell them that your son is a central motivation and consideration in your life. There are subjects you're recalcitrant about, but that your home life is stable and you've been making healthy choices for yourself and Michael."

“Recalcitrant,” she rolled the word around her mouth, zeroing in directly on the only possible criticism in what was, for her, a pretty glowing report. She couldn’t help it. That was the only part she could hear.

Kevin regarded her a long moment. Then he leaned forward and rested her arms on his knees. "You've been resisting this, Caroline."

It was becoming a progressively more common experience, during these appointments, for Carly to be left without any ready response on the heels of Kevin's comments. She pretended to find it annoying, but the truth was, it stirred something far darker and unnerving in her than that. Right now, she felt her stomach turn over in perpetual motion as he spoke. She couldn't give a word to what she was feeling, staring at his set face. This wasn't fear. She knew fear. This was something deeper, darker, primal. This felt like survival slipping through her fingers. It felt like losing her grip on the cliff face and falling.

“What,” she sneered, “am I resisting?”

"You've made it very clear that you don't want to talk about your parents."

This. Again. Jesus.

“I’ve said what I need to say.”

“No,” Kevin’s voice was soft, even sad. But it was also convinced of its position. “You haven’t. You’re hiding something, you’ve hidden it from Gail, and from me, and I’d imagine from your husband and your mother, too. You don’t talk about it. Most of the time you don’t even think about it. But it’s there. And until you get it out, it’s just going to keep getting in your way.”

She was shaking. She hated that she was shaking. And she hated that he wouldn’t look away.

"And how do you know that?"

"Because I've been doing this for a long time."

She shook her head. "And you don’t think there’s any way that losing my son would be enough to screw me up this badly all on it’s own."

"No," Kevin admitted. "I don't."

"Fuck you." Carly's face burned. It was ill-advised, Alexis would tell her, to swear at her therapist this close to the review. But her head was spinning, and she didn’t want to think about what he was saying, what it might mean.

“I don’t care if you get mad at me, Caroline,” Kevin said, evenly. “I don’t care if you call me names. I’m on your side. And I’m telling you right now, that if you want to be a good mother to Michael – if you want to give him every chance in life that you didn’t get yourself, you are going to have to figure this out. As impossible as you think it is – you have to look at it. You have to admit it exists.”

“It doesn’t,” she hissed at him. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about!”

“Then we keep sitting here, and talking, and dancing around it, and we wait, until you do know what I’m talking about.”

“And in the meantime I’m a terrible mother?”

Kevin sat back at that, finally releasing the snake-like grip he’d had on her gaze. “In the meantime, you have something you need to resolve. And you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think it will effect him in the long run.”

“You can’t …” Her head spun, her face burned. “You can’t talk to me like – What the hell is that supposed to be? Help? Guidance? Wisdom? Is that it?”

“It’s the truth.” Kevin said, simply. “As long as I watch you put more effort into putting walls up instead of tearing them down, Caroline, I will say what I have to in order to get through to you. We’ve been at this a month, and from what you tell me, you want to get past this. That means you need to start telling me what happened. You need to deal with it.”

“So this is what? Tough love?”

Kevin gazed at her. His eyes betrayed fatigue, the closest thing to an emotional reaction she’d ever gotten from him. “No,” he murmured. “This is what didn’t kill you. Making you stronger.”

She did throw up when she got home. Suddenly, and in the midst of drinking a glass of water, she doubled over and vomited – water and bile into the kitchen sink.

Nikolas came home with a mild headache. He'd met with Alexis at ten, while Carly was with Kevin. She'd been preternaturally calm, insisting that this was what they wanted, and they were lucky it hadn't taken place when it was supposed to – that past February. They could make a big deal of the delay, cite Carly's full sixteen months of nearly perfect adherence to the court's instructions, and provide a report of the ground she’d claimed. It looked good on paper, he had to admit.

There were two things she wanted addressed – She wanted Kevin to provide an initial diagnosis of Carly, which she hoped would not include the word 'bi-polar', thus undercutting the original diagnosis further; and she wanted to formally question the four month delay in the process. This was going to work in their favor, she insisted. The worst case scenario was that things would stay as they were. They were not going to lose any ground.

For Nikolas, the worst case scenario was unacceptable, and the tension he'd felt at even hearing it acknowledged had followed him around for the rest of the day. The office was a tense place to be at the moment without entertaining the idea of defaulting on the central promise of his life. He'd finally bowed out early, picking up flowers on the way home. He'd lost track of just what Carly's real feeling on that gesture was. Probably, he was coming to realize, it would depend entirely on her mood.

Finding no one in the front of the house, Nikolas walked through to the apartment and entered to find their living room was dark, bright light visible only through the seam on the drawn curtains. With a sigh, he tossed his keys and briefcase onto the nearest chair and turned towards their bedroom. Expecting that Carly was probably taking a nap, he kicked off his shoes and walked silently across the room. He pulled back one curtain and checked the backyard – green grass and bright flowers. A hot day was starting to fade into a cooler evening. Maybe he'd try to talk Carly into heading down the marina. They could spend the night on the boat. His gut instinct was to get her out of this building, away from her well-meaning family. Or maybe his gut instinct was just to get her somewhere where he could have her all to himself. Where they could talk about the things they'd both been avoiding. Where they were going to live, when they were going to move. What she wanted from him in the next two weeks.

He found her in the armchair in the corner of their bedroom, legs tucked up under her, staring blankly out the window. She didn't look up until he knocked on the door, even then looking at him like she was trying to focus through water.

"Oh," she said, finally. "What time is it?"

"After four," he entered the room, holding out the bouquet that now felt ridiculous and inadequate. "I thought I'd come home early."

"Lilies," she took them from him, vaguely. Frowned, then offered a bland "Thanks."

Nikolas hesitated before sitting down on the foot of the bed. She looked... ok. Not great, but not terrible, not like he'd seen at her worst. Still, he was unnerved. He watched while she peeled the cellophane back from the calla lilies, eyes still not meeting his.

"What happened today?" He prodded.

"Nothing."

"Carly."

"Nothing, nothing, just…" she shrugged. "I'm tired."

She looked tired. Still, he didn't believe her.

"How did it go with Kevin?"

She stopped playing with the flowers and stared blankly at the floor. Just when he thought she'd forgotten he'd asked her a question, she spoke.

"Fine."

"Fine," the tension he'd been holding back found its way into his voice. "That's it?"

Carly shrugged, then shifted in her chair, suddenly pushing herself up and thrusting the flowers at him.

"Can you put these in water?" she moved past him towards the head of the bed. "I'm going to take a nap."

The flowers found their way into a bucket discovered under the sink, and lay splayed and mocking on the counter in front of him. He hadn't really thought this was going to be easy, had he? He didn't really think she was going to trust him to solve this, right? Because what had happened now that hadn't happened the last time? What had he done to convince her that things were going to be different?

He thought he'd managed to do something, create some kind of sea change -- but thinking back on it, all he'd done was tell her he loved her. A nice gesture for someone who cared about those sorts of thing, but not terribly far from perfunctory lilies, when you got right down to it. They were just feelings -- his feelings, his tortured and agonized feelings -- but not of any particular importance to anyone else. And really – that wasn’t the problem here. The rage that was building in his at the moment wasn't borne of hurt feelings or self-importance.

It was impotence. Plain and simple.

And that was more than enough to make him pick up the phone and order someone else around.

Carly wasn't particularly surprised that she couldn't sleep. It wasn't the first time. But there was a difference between the kind of insomnia that showed up when she was angry or frustrated about something – the kind where she couldn't stop thinking, couldn't turn off the voices in her head without applying generous doses of alcohol and self-destruction – and this heavy flat fatigue that showed up when all hope abandoned her.

This was worse. At least when she was angry she had the will to try to feel better. Right now… it felt like any attempt to shake this off, to wake herself up, would just bring her in touch with deep and impenetrable despair. Boredom was comparatively toothless.

She pushed out a long breath as she unfurled herself from her adopted fetal position. A slight change of light caught her eye and she sat up to find Nikolas standing in the doorway, watching her. She was going to have to talk to him again, she could feel it.

"I spoke to Kevin."

That probably should have surprised her – angered her, even – but once she took the words in, she realized there was a certain level of inevitability to them. Letting out a sigh, she dragged her body over to the side of the bed, letting her feet hid the floor with a thud.

"Why?"

Nikolas really seemed to weigh the question. “It was the only thing I could think of.”

Funny how they didn’t even have to fight about it or pretend this time. The slight and sad signs of progress.

"He wants to talk to you," Nikolas pressed.

She shook her head. "That won't help."

"Just try."

A small, mirthless laugh. "I'm not being stubborn. I'm not. It just won't help."

Nikolas nodded and cast his eyes downward. Then, quick and determined, he entered the room fully, pulling the door closed behind him. He crossed to the bed, and before reason had a chance to start mounting an attack on either of them, he was on his knees in front of her. Both hands reached out to cup her face, force her to look at him, to meet his eyes. She went rigid, then relented and bowed her head.

"Nikolas --" She let her forehead rest on his. "I can't."

"Please."

"Don't."

"Please,” his voice was barely above a whisper. “Just please talk to him."

She felt her throat tighten -- honestly, a positive sign in her numb and distant state. She had no idea how he’d managed to find a way to reach her when she was like this, but one hand floated up and gripped his wrist. Her voice cracked when she tried to speak again.

"It won't work!"

"You don't know that."

"I do,” she gasped for breath, pulling back from him. “I do, because I tried and... There is nothing there.” She desperately searched his eyes for some sign of recognition as the full weight of it hit here. “There isn’t! There’s nothing to fix, there’s nothing that happened to me.”

“Carly, that’s not true.”

She shook her head vehemently. “I just got it today. This is just something I am!” God, the tears were coming now, the dam close to breaking. “There's no deep dark truth to get to, there's no child abuse horror story -- there's nothing there! I'm just like this!"

She didn’t notice her hands were shaking until he took them both in his.

"Did you tell him that?"

It was useless. He didn’t believe her. "No."

"Alright," he pressed his lips to the palm of her hand. "Then tell him now."

She pulled a hand away and brushed at her tears impatiently. "I'm not going back to the hospital."

"No," he sat back on his heels before pulling himself to his feet. “No, he's coming here."

Carly didn't bother to fight with Nikolas this time. Something in her had given up on that one when she wasn't looking. Nikolas would do what he was going to do, and there was fuck all she could do to talk him out of it. If he had to see this mind game unwind in front of him to hear what she was trying to tell him, then so be it. She didn’t care.

Ok. She cared enough to want him beside her on the couch instead of off in some other part of the room, but that was it.

She expected to feel something when Kevin turned up though -- anger, resentment, whatever -- but the only thing that really struck her as he came through the door was just how tired she was.

He looked grim, if unsurprised to be there. There were some cursory greetings,

“How are you doing, Caroline?”

God, still with the name garbage. She closed her eyes, steeling herself.

“Still here.”

Something about that made him smile – fondly, she’s say, if she hadn’t known better. “You’ve been thinking about our conversation this morning.”

Typical Dr. Psycho mind-melding-disguised-as-casual-conversation gambit. She was getting tired of that one, too.

“A bit.”

“Anything you’d like to say about it?”

“Not really.”

Nikolas took his seat behind her and even she was surprised at the speed with which her hand snaked out and grabbed his. He rubbed his thumb gently across her knuckles.

“When you left the office this afternoon, you were mad at me,” Kevin prodded. "What happened to that?”

“I’m still mad at you.”

“Not nearly enough.”

“I know you think there’s some mystery that you need to solve, or that I should just be able to give you the answer to, and then presto-chango – your work here is done –“

“I don’t believe I ever said that.”

“I’m not –“ Tears already. Damnit! “I’m not pretending. Don’t you think I wish there was some simple explanation for why I’m like this? I’d LIKE it to be a chemical imbalance, ok? I’d like to take a pill to solve the problem. Or tell you about some dirty old uncle, or some bad night with a varsity football player – But NOTHING happened. I was lucky. A lot luckier than a lot of other girls.”

“But you didn’t feel that way.”

“No. But I was stupid, I guess. Teenagers are like that.”

“Traumas come in all shapes and sizes, Carly.” He cleared his throat and leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Look, I had the capital B bad childhood. I had the certifiable mother, I had the abuse, I had all of it. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only way to do damage.”

She shook her head, hard. “There’s no damage. No one did anything to me.”

“Your father left,” Nikolas spoke softly, and Carly batted the idea away.

“So what? A lot of people’s parents are… Disappointing. They don’t end up…”

“End up what, Caroline?”

She gestured at the length of her body. “Like this,” quick shrug. “Unfit.”

He nodded. “I know. Not terribly fair, is it?”

“Stop it,” she closed her eyes. “God, will you just stop it?”

“The thing about overt trauma – the thing about the kind of abuse that leaves bruises… There are laws against it. There’s a way out. If someone finds out, then there can be another chance, things can change. And you can get help. You can go and say ‘someone hurt me’ and show them the mark, and they will have a phone number to call, people who will support you. And none of that makes it better, none of that solves the problem or takes away what the person went through… but there will be a lot more people around to tell them that it was real and it mattered and it wasn’t their fault.”

“Ah. Have we reached the Good Will Hunting portion of tonight’s festivities.”

He smiled again, more broadly. “You’re always in there somewhere, aren’t you?”

She shrugged. “I thought sarcasm was a defense mechanism or something.”

“Sure. But it’s also a sign of life.”

Carly let herself really look at him a moment. He looked kind, he looked interested – he always seemed to find her so … amusing… she’d taken it for the familiar, sneering sort of mocking she encountered so many times in her life… but right now, just for a moment, she wondered if he liked her.

She leaned forward then, touching her forehead to her knees and letting out a groan. “This is exhausting.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

She lifted her head and glared at him. “You keep saying that.”

He nodded as she straightened up. “I guess I’ve been looking for the right button to push – I’ve wanted this to go a certain way, for you to tell me in your own time, your own way.” He was pensive. “That might not have been the best tactic, Caroline, I really don’t know. A lot of this is guess work – educated guesswork.” He cut her off before she even had a chance to mount an attack. “I don’t have a crystal ball. I don’t have a magic pill. I just have my best laid plans.”

“And this one backfired.”

“Oh, I have more faith in us than that.” He took a breath. “Caroline, it’s time. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t truly believe that.”

She shook her head. “Do what?”

He gave her a long, measured look. “Why don’t you want to take any medication?”

She felt a chill creep up her spine. Licked her lips before giving him her careful response. “I don’t like them.”

“And how do you know that?”

“They gave me pills at Ferncliff, I don’t like them.”

Kevin shook his head. “You didn’t take the pills at Ferncliff. I’d bet my license on it.” He leaned forward. “Why won’t you take the pills, Caroline. What is it? What is it that you’re afraid of?” She stared him down and his eyes flicked briefly towards Nikolas before he went in for the kill. “What did Virginia take?”

There was a rushing in her ears and she felt her spine straighten as she pushed out her answer. She had to answer. If she didn’t, he’d know.

“Nothing.” Her voice sounded like it was coming from miles away. Kevin smiled. It was sad.

“No?”

She felt the panic, felt it grip her insides. He could tell she was lying, he could tell all along, and it was just then she could see how completely he’d always seen right through her. “There’s NOTHING,” she insisted, fruitlessly. “I keep telling you.”

“Sedatives, maybe?”

Her stomach lurched violently. “That doesn’t have anything to do with …”

“Yes. It does. I wish it didn’t, I wish it hadn’t touched you – but Caroline, this has everything to do with everything. This is it, isn’t it? This is what you don't want to talk about."

She shook her head. “No. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t."

"If it didn't matter, Caroline, I'd already have heard the story. If it didn’t matter, all the color wouldn’t have drained from your face.”

Carly didn’t know where to look. She could feel Nikolas’s hand on hers, feel the warm skin pressed against her palm. She shouldn’t have let him stay – made him stay. Because she knew she was going to say this, she couldn’t seem to stop it, and this meant that he was going to hear it. He was going to hear all of it.

“Valium.” She stared at the far wall. She wasn’t going to look at them, at either of them.

“Alright.”

“Wine,” she blinked, hard. It was involuntary, and her eyes focused back on Kevin. She shook her head. “Not a lot, just – she needed it to relax.”

He looked grim. “Was that what she told you?”

In for a penny. She took a deep breath. “I was too much for her. She couldn’t handle it. Not on her own. I was too much for my father, so he left, and then…” she swallowed, hard. “I was too much for her. So she had to…”

“Numb herself.”

Carly felt her heart swell in her chest. Felt it twist and pull apart. She clapped a hand over her mouth but the sob ripped out of her anyway. She didn’t want to think about this, she didn’t want to be like this, but mostly she didn’t want anyone to know. She had never wanted anyone to know.

“I tried –" she finally gasped. “I tried so hard. And then…” Her throat was painfully tight. She tried to clear it, but she could barely breathe. “I wasn’t even hers. It’s like those stories, like changelings, she just wanted a baby and she got… Too much. She got something that wasn’t normal.”

That appeared to be too much for Nikolas, because he pulled his hand away and Carly felt her entire body nearly scream in protest before his arm moved around her shoulder, his head bowing, lips pressed into her hair. She swiped at the tears that were streaming down her cheeks and her heart pounded out a rhythm – Thank. God. Thank. God. Thank. God.

“See, the thing is, Caroline,” Kevin spoke softly, his own eyes fixed on the ground. “You really believe that. That’s what you’ve carried around. And you thought you had to keep it a secret, because she was right.” He lifted his eyes, catching her gaze. “Caroline, she wasn’t right. She was sick. She had a problem, and that’s what was too much for her. It wasn’t you. You were just a little girl.”

She took a few shuddering breaths before pointing out the obvious. “You don’t know that, you weren’t there.”

“No, but I’m here. And I know you. Better than you think I do. I promise you, you didn’t cause that. And you didn’t deserve it.”

Carly shook her head, violently, “No, but she wasn’t bad—she wasn’t a bad mother –“

“She tried. You saw her try, didn’t you?” Carly nodded her head, lips pressed together, desperate to keep something – anything – inside. “But she didn’t give you want you needed,” Kevin continued, gently. “She wasn’t there for you. And no, that’s not your fault. And now that you’re willing to talk about it, you’re going to get to a point where you actually believe that.” He reached out and grabbed her hand from her lap. “I promise.”

He’d said a lot more than that. She hadn’t really heard it. Eventually she stopped crying, and the fatigue showed up to take its inevitable shift. Kevin had left. She’d see him the next morning. Whatever, she didn’t care, it seemed incredible to think that there was any such thing as tomorrow.

Nikolas had brought her brandy. She laughed, remembering ridiculously her conversation with Elizabeth, her breakdown, what had she called it?

“I’m having a bad day,” she choked, and the tears had immediately come back. She had crawled into Nikolas’s lap when he pulled her towards him, and clung to his neck and cried. Cried torrents, rivers, oceans, more than she had ever imagined she’d had in her, and when it finally subsided it was impossible for her to conceive of a circumstance in which she would ever cry again.

He’d carried her to the bedroom, and she’d let him. In the darkness, she let herself start to talk to him. “So. Now you know what you got into.”

He shook his head. “I already knew,” he said, mostly to himself it seemed. “Not the details, but just… I knew we were the same.”

“Except you’re perfect and I’m –“

“Stop it,” he murmured softly. “You know what I mean.”

She thought about it – and that would be the moment, really, that she’d later be able to name as the first crack in the complicated belief system that had led her through her life thus far. Nikolas – perfect, sane, adored Nikolas, saying they were the same… She couldn’t take it in, not then. But later it would sink through all the voices in her head that screamed the contrary, and she’d have that one thing to hang on to: Nikolas thinks he was too much.

She knew how far from the truth that was. He was wrong. And it was that tiny little glimpse of light that allowed her to consider – even start to consider – that she was wrong, too.

In many ways, it was the best gift he ever gave her. Which is why it was always so hard to remember what happened next.

He’d lay spooned up against her on the bed, arm tight around her wait, and they’d talked. She’d stared at the window, dark glass in a dark room, and talked about her childhood, about her mother, about the scenes – not the worst of them, she didn’t have it in her that night – but enough, enough for him to truly understand her sins, understand what she’d done to this poor woman, what she’d driven her too.

He steadfastly refused to condemn her.

Finally, she’d leaned back against his body, and breathed out her final confession of the night. "For a long time, I had Carly to make it ok,” she twined her fingers in his. “She was the only person who really got me, the only person who loved me. And then she died. And I didn't have that, anymore. I was just alone. And it was like… No one was ever going to know me like that again, no one was ever going to understand and just… be able to deal with it, to even love me, and even if they did, then eventually, they’d find out --"

She broke off, Jason leaping up in front of her so vividly she shut her eyes to keep him out. “I’d be too much for them, too.”

"That’s over,” he murmured, his lips grazing the back of her neck. “You’re not there anymore. And your mother loves you. Your son. Your brother.” He gathered her closer and whispered right against her ear. “I love you. I love everything about you. Even the obnoxious parts."

She rolled over in his arms. “You’re lying.”

His hands combed her hair back from her face, and he lowered his head to kiss her. It was long and soft and full of adoration. She felt her heart start to beat again.

“I’m not.”

She’d pulled him back towards her, and they’d stopped talking. His touch was slow and gentle, and she let herself fall into it. And that was what it felt like – it really did feel like falling, like dropping of the edge of something, and by the time she realized it, it was too late. Her heart was pounding, her body tender and pressed tight to him. Her open eyes locked on his in the dark and she nearly let out a gasp as the full truth of it gripped her.

He wasn’t lying. He wasn’t confused. He loved her. He really did.

And she loved him, too.