Chapter Two Hundred Twenty:
Psychology II: Nikolas

Amori Onsen, Japan, late afternoon. Context. It was all about context. The Western World was a High Context Culture. The Far East was a Low Context Culture. The actual term itself, Nikolas had a sneaking suspicion, was Western. It didn't sound very low-context to come up with a Context Index. But whatever the theory was, it had served his purposes. He'd been living in the lowest context possible for the last four months. You couldn't get much more "off the radar" than a Buddhist Monastery in Tibet. Now he was taking his first tentative steps back into the real world and... Well. Fools rush in and all that jazz.

Yep. No hidden agendas here. Nothing more than addressing his context situation. It was like swimming... You didn't leap into water of unknown temperature all at once -- you moved in slowly. You let yourself adjust.

Nikolas stifles a groan, leaning back in his chair. He's sitting out on the deck above the spring. The air is moist with the mist created by the Hot water hitting the cool air. He closes his eyes, trying to still his mind. It really is incredible here. Calm and almost mystical. And he still can't stop his mind from racing. There is a limit to how much you can work logic to your advantage. He knows himself too well to really believe his own lies. He's not here because of some need for cultural adjustment. He's here because he doesn't want to go home. That's the real context.

When he'd called his father to inform him that he had left the monastery, but was not coming directly home, Stefan hadn't objected. Nikolas had an uneasy feeling that he actually WANTED him to stay as far away from Wyndemere as possible. Since he could barely read the man in person, Nikolas hadn't been able to ascertain over the phone whether Stefan was being protective or secretive. Probably a little of both.

He'd put off calling Lucky for a few days. Tried to talk himself into believing that he was just avoiding the inevitable thrashing he was going to get for deciding to change plans once again. He was anticipating more than a little bit of a guilt trip -- for not being around, for putting off his sister again. For abandoning his mother...

Abandoning his mother. Who would have thought he'd ever be accused of that? Even if it was only in his own head.

It had taken four separate phone calls to locate Lucky. This wasn't unusual. Even before he'd left Port Charles, finding Lucky was similar to well witching. A large portion of it involved having a keen sense for these things -- something he still wasn't certain he possessed -- and being in the right place. He was certain that Lucky's cell phone only existed in theory -- the damn thing was never on. He'd finally located him at the club. The conversation was disturbingly straightforward.

"So you'll be home when?"

"Monday."

"Cutting it close."

"I know."

Long pause.

"Lucky?"

"Yeah?"

"Just checking."

"So what time are you arriving?"

That was it. THAT was IT. It had probably been the most subtext-free conversation he'd ever had in his life. He'd hung up convinced that Lucky was trying to drive him crazy. Where, exactly, did he get off being so calm? When did he stop freaking out about every decision Nikolas made? Where was that Spencer Disdain? It was hard to tell over the phone, but he was pretty sure he hadn't rated an eye-roll -- not even a smirk.

It took a few days for Nikolas to really admit why that bothered him so much. He'd wanted Lucky to give him a hard time -- give him a reason to dread the return to Port Charles besides the obvious. But Lucky seemed to have resigned his post as Nikolas's chief critic. Fact of the matter was, no one knew more than Lucky why he'd left Port Charles. In fact, he never would have done it without Lucky's tacit approval. He'd needed his brother's reassurance that he could leave Lulu and not scar her for life. Without that, he would have stayed in PC no matter how much it was killing him -- And God knows where he'd be right now.

He'd tried -- really tried -- to reclaim his life in Port Charles. There was no point in dwelling on the past, he'd told himself. No point in spending any more time agonizing over what had and had not happened. The facts were all pretty clear. His grandmother was gone. His mother was never going to be the same. And Hannah... Hannah was dead. End of story.

Not quite.

The minute he'd returned to Port Charles, Nikolas had been hit by one blow after another -- starting with the police trying to arrest HIM for aiding and abetting in his own girlfriend's murder -- apparently Taggert really hated Alexis's brick-by-brick dismantlement of his case against Lucky, and was using everything he had to keep the investigation alive before the death spasms ended. That hadn't lasted... But it was amazing how much press incarcerating a Prince can get -- particularly one who's Grandmother's yacht had just been found adrift in the Aegean like a ghost ship. Add in the information that was surfacing while he and his father went through the affairs of his dead grandmother, and things had shaped up to look very strange indeed.

Helena, it turned out, had been fostering mob ties. The best anyone could ascertain, it had actually been a long and methodical plan to punish Jason Morgan for allowing a stray bullet to nearly kill a Cassadine. Helena had invested years in this -- had appeared to have some large and convoluted plan to eventually destroy Jason for his 'carelessness'. The purpose was entirely revenge -- that threw Nikolas. There didn't appear to be anything monetary to be gained -- in fact, the whole enterprise was costing her money. As best anyone could tell, she'd simply been incensed that someone had dared to nearly take yet another one of her men from her -- even if it was one who refused to speak to her.

It was Lucky who had made the link between Helena's mob ties and Hannah. Nikolas had told him only because Lucky was the only person he knew who could tell him about the mob -- explain to him what it all meant. But with Lucky, nothing ever stopped with a casual conversation. Lucky had a sixth sense or SOMETHING when it came to underhanded activity, and within a few weeks, he'd started to come up with information that filled in a few of the holes.

Helena's involved with the Mafia was all done through emissaries, but it appeared that the seed of finding Corrine Gibbons started there. Nikolas had no idea how Lucky -- who had run from the mob for the first ten years of his life -- could turn out to be so slick with made men all over. He'd actually talked to people who'd been doing business with the Cassadine Matriarch, and reported back that she had approached several families with offers of favors -- often delivering old enemies into their laps. She seemed to specialize in people who'd gone into Witness Relocation -- made a lot of friends that way. One thing everyone had to give Helena -- she understood that revenge was always sweetest when you were settling a personal score. It must have been her attempts to ingratiate herself to the Taggliattis that first brought Corrine Gibbons to her attention.

It was hard to piece it together. Lucky had actually tracked Oliver Taggliatti down, but he hadn't been particularly generous with details. He'd only said that he understood why the guy could drive someone to put an Ocean between them. The Taggliattis had traced her history... but it looked like Helena was the one who figured out how she connected to Port Charles.

It must have been like striking gold, Lucky had said. She had found a person who was linked not only to the mob -- but to the Spencers and the Quartermaines. Two families she was not overly fond of. She must have salivated at the thought of what kind of havoc she could wreck with this person under her thumb. It must have taken her years to track the woman down. Years of scouring the earth for this missing piece of the puzzle. But Helena had finally found her... and when she had, she'd played the woman for all she was worth. By this time, there were four people in Jason's organization who were getting paid on the side by Helena. She'd known all about Lucky's involvement with the mob, and though she had no idea that he was already having family trouble, she knew that she could stir some up with that information. She'd also known about Stefan's lies to Nikolas after Katherine died. And Emily's long-passed attempts to find her mother's only sister. From there, she simply played everything she had to set everyone up for a fall -- leaving Nikolas for her.

Initially, Lucky guessed, Hannah was supposed to ingratiate herself with the Spencers. Then Helena would use Emily as a means of blackmail to get her into helping the family destroy themselves. Having the woman fall in love with Nikolas, it seemed, wasn't part of the plan, nor was Lucky figuring out who she was. Once that was revealed, though, Helena was going to THAT to her advantage too. And then, when it became clear that Hannah was going to be more hindrance than help -- Helena had executed her.

Nikolas had never asked Lucky not to find out about Hannah -- but he'd always shrugged the information off. Made a big deal about it being important for Emily -- to know as much of the history of her aunt as possible. Inside, though... it was killing him.

One thing he hadn't been able to deal with right after she died... was how intangible she'd suddenly felt. Like it was all something he'd come up with in his head. There was so little proof that she existed anywhere. This woman who hadn't kept the same name two years running, who'd reinvented herself for most of her adult life. What did he really know about her?

He'd loved her. He could remember that -- remember her -- Standing in her kitchen, soaked with water, and threatening him with a glass of water -- or looking at him with frustration and amusement before pelting him with the pillows off his couch. He'd have dreams where he swore he could FEEL her underneath him, would wake up feeling her lips on his. He still heard her laugh, sometimes. Or her voice, saying something depreciating over his shoulder, when he was in a particularly ridiculous circumstance. It wasn't like he thought she was REALLY there -- he wasn't losing his mind. Not in that way, at least. But the questions were hounding him -- Had he made it all up? Had he invented something that wasn't there? Who had she been? Had she really loved him? God... It would be hell if she was still here to talk to. With her ashes in a box on his dresser, it was impossible.

Emily seemed unmoved by all of this. She was resigned that the little bit she'd known of her aunt was all she was ever going to know, and that was enough for her. In some part of her, she told Nikolas, she felt like she knew who Corrine had been. She could feel a little of it in herself. And some things reminded her of her mother. Nikolas had wanted to be able to do that so badly -- to just let go and see it how Emily did. But what was allowing her to do that was blood -- actual physical relation. Nikolas didn't have that. Nikolas wasn't sure he had anything.

One thing he did know, though -- for absolute certain -- was that Hannah, Corrine, Sophie, Emma... all of her -- had died because of him. Helena had been investigating the mob because he'd gotten shot. She'd flagged this woman because Nikolas's brother was dating her niece. she'd brought her into his life to exploit his inability to relate to his family. Hannah had told him over and over again, that she couldn't be with him. That she had secrets. And he'd ignored it. He'd been the one who really killed her. He was more responsible for her death than he was for Helena's, in the end. He'd pulled the trigger on both of them in the end.

Nikolas didn't say a word about this to anyone. He just kept it to himself. Tried harder to be a good brother -- a good son. To make sure nothing like this was ever going to happen again. He'd atone, somehow. He'd find a way to make up for it.

He really thought he was pulling it off.

One day, near the beginning of fall, he'd pulled on a light weather jacket and found a key in the pocket. It had confused him at first -- he'd stared at it, having no idea what it meant... And then it'd come back to him. The last time he'd worn this jacket... he'd had it on the last time he'd hugged Hannah good-bye. The last time he seen her alive.

She'd given him her key...

It knocked the air right out of his lungs. He'd stood there in the foyer of Wyndemere, turning the key over and over in his hand. He was caught in the moment like a record hitting a scratch, not moving until he realized that he couldn't see the room he was standing in anymore. Everything was going dark, and he'd sat down on the stairs until his head stopped spinning.

He'd made a few quiet arrangements before he'd left for Rome last spring. Had her cremated, for starters, so that she didn't languish in the morgue as an unclaimed corpse. And he's paid off the management of her apartment building to hold onto the apartment -- not to touch it once the police were through with it -- not until he let it go. It had been a practical decision -- after all, Hannah's stuff was there. It all belonged to Emily now -- and one day they'd have to go through it. So it had stood empty, for months -- long after Lucky had been exonerated, and the police had relinquished their hold on it. He hadn't gone near the place though, until that day.

Her blood was still on the carpet.

Nikolas had sat down on the floor, his back against the door, and stared at the dark stain that covered so much of the floor in front of him. Suddenly, she felt tangible again. He'd stayed there until long after dark, ignoring his cell phone, ignoring everything. Just relived those moments over and over again. Hannah, limp in Lucky's arms. Lucky's face losing all color as Bobbie told him that they'd lost her in surgery. The way the rain had felt as he'd stood outside the hospital, looking up at the sky and trying to feel something. It all started to crash together -- images flying in front of his eyes -- Hannah's blood, Katherine's broken body on the path to Wyndemere. Helena's gulping as she'd choked in front of him, Laura's body lying slack in that hospital bed in Greece. The way the fire had risen when he'd fed it the letter Hannah had written him, the way Lucky had looked at him when he'd showed up in the middle of a rainstorm that night, holding Lulu in his arms. It was a mess, it was chaos -- Everything he touched just turned to ash.

He still didn't know how Lucky had found him that night. It was almost morning, by the time the knock had come on the door. Of all the places in the world he could have been, Lucky had figured it out. Sixth sense -- really, it was creepy. Nikolas still didn't remember opening the door or agreeing to leave the apartment. He could remember, vaguely, that Lucky had called Emily and asked her to go to Spoon Island and stop Stefan from having a complete melt down.

Lucky had led Nikolas from the apartment, and dragged him... to a ravine in the middle of the park. He'd pilfered a bottle of Jack Daniel's from the club, and he and Nikolas sat down on a fallen tree. Nikolas had been shaking so badly at that point, that he hadn't been able to even take a sip of the hard liquor until after Lucky was well into his story.

The ravine held a lot of memories for Lucky, apparently. Years ago, after a school dance that Nikolas remembered as the first and last he'd ever attended, Lucky had come here to sulk -- to avoid everyone, to drown in how miserable and misunderstood he was, to hate without interruption. However, he'd had a visitor. Emily had trekked down to see him, in a broken heel in the rain, and forced him to talk to her. At some point that night, they'd managed to talk out a lot of their differences, and Emily had long insisted that this clearing by the fallen tree and the gurgling stream, was where she'd first figured out that she was in love with him.

When they'd broken up, Lucky had come here a LOT. Constantly. He'd sat on the fallen tree, stared at the water, and relived every moment he'd spent with Emily -- not when they were in love and happy -- but when she'd hated his guts. When she'd been telling him to get out of her life. When she wanted him to get as far away from her as possible.

"I was trying to drive myself over the edge, Nik. I was trying to gather the strength, to pull together enough misery and pain and anger to just... "

He'd let his voice trail off.

Nikolas's hand had steadied enough to take the bottle from his brother, and he took a tentative sip. It burned all the way down, but that wasn't an unpleasant sensation. He had put the cap back on the bottle methodically, and set it down on a tree stump. He knew what Lucky was doing. Lucky shared personal stories of angst and agony about as often as he was to sing Show Tunes.

"I'm fine, Lucky."

Lucky had paced the distance of the clearing and turned back to look at him. In the dark, Nikolas couldn't make out his face.

"Survey says! Bullshit."

"Am I supposed to --"

"Look. You've done a lot since we came back to this place. I know that. You helped Emily a lot. You didn't have to do that --"

"She's my friend."

"Yeah, and she's Hannah's Niece. And three months ago, her problems looked bigger than the rest of ours. But she's... Getting better. And hey -- You've seen me at MY worst, Nik. You know that too. So... it's your turn, man. You're up to bat."

Nikolas had shook his head. "I'll be fine, I just have to --"

"What?" Lucky had crossed the clearing in three long steps, his eyes zeroing on Nikolas's, giving him no chance to duck and cover. "What do you need to do? What's going to make this better? Cause you're slipping, Nik. You're losing your grip. And if no one else is seeing it, I sure as hell am."

Nikolas had stood up, suddenly angry.

"What do you think you're seeing? Huh? Can you tell me that?"

Lucky had shook his head, giving a low laugh. He's stepped -- almost hopped -- out of Nikolas's path, and grabbed the bottle off the stump. He seemed, suddenly, to find this all far too amusing.

"Look. Since the moment Hannah died --"

Nikolas had turned his back on him. "I'm not talking to you about --"

"Then LISTEN, Ok? Just shut up and listen to me for ten God Damn minutes. Yeah... sure... You're fine, Cassadine." Lucky uncapped the Daniel's. "You're the picture of sanity, huh? I've been waiting for you to crack from the moment she died, and you still --"

"I don't deal with things the way you do, Lucky."

"Amen to that," Lucky paused to swig from the bottle. "So maybe I've finally picked up on that. You don't grieve in front of people. Not even the people who are going through the same thing you are."

"No one is going through the same thing I am." Even to Nikolas's own ears the words sounded cold and incredibly self-pitying.

"What ARE you going through, then?"

Nikolas had shook his head, pushing the topic away. "What's this about, Lucky?"

Lucky let out a long breath. "This is about you. And what's happening to you. What you're doing right now."

"And what is that?"

"You're putting the 'eek' in Control Freak, Nik. I don't just mean tonight. And with a lifestyle like ours, that's more than dysfunctional -- it's dangerous."

Nikolas's heart had started to pound hard against his rib cage. "Everyone's fine, Lucky"

"I beg to differ."

Nikolas had turned around quickly. Lucky had chosen this place well -- there were only two exits -- one was straight up, and he was blocking the other.

"You don't know what's going on --"

"I know you still think it's your fault that Hannah died."

Nikolas had bristled. He was beginning to resent this.

"You..." the word shook as it came out of his mouth. "You... You're the one person..."

Who shouldn't be preaching at me. Who can't call me on this. Who should know I want to be left alone.

"You're the one person who should understand this." Nikolas had clenched his fists to make his hands stop shaking. "Don't get high and mighty on me, Lucky. I've seen you go to pieces, so don't stand here and act like what I'm doing is so different."

"It's not different at all, Nik -- that's just the point."

Nikolas was having trouble catching his breath. Damn him. DAMN him -- why had he come out here? Why was he letting Lucky do this? He'd shook his head hard, determined not to listen.

"I can handle this."

"You didn't handle things today," Lucky was pulling no punches. You missed three appointments, scared the hell out of your father -- Who is just CHARMING when he's freaked out, by the way. You scared Emily, you scared Bobbie, and... And Lulu --"

Nikolas's stomach seized. "What about Lulu?"

"She's fine. But she wanted to know where you were. You know what she's like, Nik. She's not like most kids, you can't just pat her on the head and send her to bed."

Nikolas sat down heavily on the log. Oh, God....

"Are you going to listen to me now?"

Nikolas just shook his head. "It won't happen again."

"That's not the point, Nik."

"It won't. I'm fine. I just... I - I - I'm fine."

"Knock it off, I'm not buying."

"Don't do this, Lucky --"

"Someone's got to push, Nik. You're not talking, someone's gotta push. Because you're getting this close to going over the edge."

Something about the way he said it, just made Nikolas snap. Like he was so together. Like he had any clue what he was talking about.

"YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN HANNAH AND I!" God it had felt good to yell at someone. And Lucky, never one to disappoint, had fired right back.

"I know a HELL of a lot more than most people! Your whole Dark Prince bit isn't as mysterious as you think it is, man. You're looking at one of the few people who know you're true identity, so don't give me this garbage."

"Is that a threat?"

Lucky had flat out laughed. "Not even a little bit. You know that."

Nikolas shook his head hard. His voice was jagged when he spoke. "I will... get through this... if you... want --"

Lucky had just looked at him. Nikolas looked up, desperate for him to cut him off. No such luck.

"I..." words Nikolas didn't chose started to come out of his mouth. "She begged me, Lucky. She told me to go away, and she told me this was going to get her killed. I didn't listen."

Lucky nodded slowly. "You were in love with her."

"I should know better!" Nikolas's voice shook. "Cassadines kill. If not your body, they go for your heart. So it is and so it ever shall be."

"Snap out of it, Nik. This is helping no one."

"Come on, Lucky. Can you name one person in this world who's life has been ENRICHED by us? One person who we helped instead of devastated."

"Yeah," Lucky had sounded almost vicious. "One."

Nikolas had lifted his head to say something cutting in return, when he saw the look on Lucky's face. Suddenly, he'd lost his voice.

"I never wanted anything the way I wanted to match my sister's test and give her that transplant -- but I didn't. So don't forget that. Whatever else your family might have done, you saved her when no one else could."

There were always going to be a few topics that Nikolas and Lucky would never really embrace. On that list, Lulu's transplant was at the top. They didn't talk about it. They just didn't. Nikolas had been struck dumb.

"I know what you're doing, Nik. I've done it too. You're in so much pain, you can't see the whole picture. You don't hurt EVERYONE. You didn't want Hannah to die. And look -- she knew what her situation was better than anyone. She chose you. She knew it was going to cost her, she chose you anyway. She had free will."

Nikolas's head was just spinning at that point. He'd bowed his head and stared hard at the dirt floor of the forest. He had felt too tired to argue anymore.

"You can't stop everyone else in the world from getting hurt... And even if you do, you can't bring her back, Nik. You said that to me right after your grandmother..." Lucky shook his head. "She's not coming back. You know that."

Nikolas had blinked and large tears had fallen. He was grateful for the dark.

"You can't go down for the count, Ok? You have a sister who... you're going to have to help raise. You have a family who's entire future is on your shoulders. You have a lot of people who need you to stick around. So... Go do what you have to do, Nik. Find a way to get better, because... I've been watching you, man. You're not going to get better this way. You're not going to get over her by visiting the place she was shot, or by going to work at the place she died, or sitting around and waiting for this to kill you. Facing up to it is one thing. Letting it eat you alive is another."

There had been a long, long pause, while Nikolas's brain sorted through what Lucky was saying -- the irony of his self-destructive, King-of-Pain brother giving him advice. Finally, he'd looked up at him.

"Do you need me?"

Lucky had sworn violently, and turns away, taking a swig from the bottle.

"You never make things easy for me, do you?"

"Lucky." Nikolas's voice had sounded rough to his own ears. Like his throat had been shredded with glass.

"Yeah, Nikolas. Yeah, I need you."

The was the one and only time Nikolas had ever TRULY broken down in front of Lucky. He'd cried once or twice -- right after Hannah had died. He'd lost his temper MORE than a few times. But that... That had felt like being nearly ripped in half. So MUCH stuff was going on. He was carrying so much. Lucky had somehow become the only person who really got it. Who knew what it was like to have a sister who's whole life was being torn up, to have a mother who was barely there in body, let alone mind, to be constantly tormented with the fallout of what had happened to him in the last year. He didn't particularly want to know how long he cried. But when he was finally finished, he'd looked up to see Lucky crouched a few feet away, watching him. He said nothing, just held out the bottle like there was nothing out of the ordinary going on. Nikolas had taken it from him, his hands shaking again.

"Promise me you're gonna get help, Nik."

It had struck Nik hard, then... how far they'd come. How MUCH things had changed between them since that night in Athens when they'd agreed to little more than a truce. He got it, finally -- more than he had when Lucky had stumbled through his brief explanation of his feelings -- This was how Lucky loved people. He took care of them. Nikolas had watched him do it with Emily, with Lulu, with their mother. He'd never realized until now that he'd actually made it onto that list. That it hadn't just been a fluke -- that he was now subject to Lucky's brand of protection for life. No one on earth had more reason to hate him. No one Nikolas knew understood this kind of guilt the way Lucky did. And... maybe that was why it was so easy to listen to him. Or maybe he was just too tired to keep pretending that everything was Ok. Whatever, it was that conversation that had brought him to the East. And, in a way, it was that conversation that made him tentative to go home. That night, he'd felt like he really honestly did have a brother. That was an easier fantasy to maintain from a distance.

Nikolas lets out a long breath and opens his eyes. Mostly... he just doesn't want to find out that all this time has been for nothing. He doesn't want to discover that Port Charles is just as painful as it was when he left. There's really only one way to find out, though. No matter what... It was time for him to go home.