The next week passed with hardly any incident, save the obligatory acknowledgement of the Fourth of July. Nikolas worked; Carly attended therapy sessions that she rated as both an irritant and a source of boredom.  She spent an hour and fifteen minutes every other day avoiding his questions and ducking subjects she was sure he'd feast on.  Instead she ended up babbling about Nikolas's aversion to air conditioning (what?) and her mother's barely contained glee at having a full house again.  

Kevin, for his part, let her talk and nodded and took no notes whatsoever, generally leading Carly to believe that he was a complete hack.  The question she wrestled with was whether or not it was in her best interests to let that slide, or actually start to insist he DO something.  As ridiculously simple as the relocation to her mother's house had been, there had been a constant nagging anxiety feeding on her insides ever since the blow up with Stefan, and she was becoming desperate whenever she thought about the promises she'd made, the things she was going to have to live up to. It'd be nice to feel like she was making some actual headway. The frustration was so hot and pointed that she barely noticed that she was, outside of that, having a pretty good time.

Not that she was really thrilled about living with her mother again.  And not that her apartment was really built for two people -- particularly not a people as used to space as Nikolas was.  But they were managing. She could tell Nikolas wasn't entirely used to being quite so contained - more by the outside than the inside of the house -- But things were actually flowing between the two of them. There were fewer misunderstandings, dramatic conversations. They were studiously avoiding topics like his father, her uncle and all the surrounding issues... but they still seemed to have things to talk about, and if they didn't, the silences were peaceful instead of loaded.

No, the thing driving Carly nuts, at the moment, was the proximity of her family.  Sure, Bobbie didn't hover quite the way she used to, but she was always smiling at them in a way that made Carly feel queasy. She was always inviting them to dinner and the line between Carly's place and the Spencer/Jones residence at large was a little blurry.  That, Nikolas had no problem with.  That, he reveled in.  Bobbie thought Nikolas was delightful.  Bobbie thought Nikolas was brilliant.  Bobbie thought Nikolas could do absolutely no wrong and Carly was barely competent to tie her own shoes.  Which was another thing she found herself bitching to Kevin about on Monday morning.

"I mean, God, why doesn't she just canonize him and be done with it."

"You don't want your husband and mother to get along?"

Obtuse questions.  Another Kevin Collins specialty.

"No, you don't get it," she shifted in her chair, irritably.  "It's what she used to do with Jason.  And Robin.  And everyone who isn't me.   Everything she says is so pointed.  Like if he passes her the salt, it's not like 'Thank you, Nikolas', it's 'Thank you, Nikolas, you are so clearly superior to everyone else at this table."

"How does your brother like that?"

"Lucas?  He doesn't care."

"Why's that?"

"Basically?  Because he totally hero-worships him, apparently, and his biggest concern right now is just trying to make sure no one notices and thinks he's not cool."

"You know, Carly," Kevin leaned back in his chair.  "It's not entirely common for a family to be so accepting of their in-laws.  The fact that they are so enthusiastic about your choice of husband..."

"Yeah, it's fabulous," she sneered.  "Because God knows, his family has been doing back flips about me.  His aunt thinks I'm an idiot, his father thinks I'm the antichrist and I haven't even met the ones that want to kill me yet.

"It's a bitch to marry someone everyone likes better than you, really, is what you're saying."

* ding! *

"That's our time," Kevin smiled and Carly stared back sure she could feel the tightening of the snare around her ankle.  "I'll see you Wednesday.  I'm sure we'll have a lot to talk about, then."

It was something of a gift that Carly spent most of that afternoon and evening feeling extremely irritated about Kevin, because it gave her something to worry about instead of the other minefield she'd stumbled into.

Carly's first shift at Luke's fell exactly a week after the events that had landed Carly and Nikolas at the Brownstone.  The topic is well and truly ignored by all parties until the call came from Lucky Friday regarding the next week's schedule.  Even then, Carly jotted down the details and had done her best to think about anything else.  Nikolas hadn't asked, and in the midst of custody wrangling, resettling and therapy appointments, she really couldn't blame him.  The only thing that was keeping her afloat was outsourcing the more mundane details of her life to Cece.

This, however, she was stuck with.  And with all the chips having fallen where they may, it was hard to really remember why she was doing this in the first place.  The short answer was "to look sane" and every time that didn't feel good enough, she remembered the custody review hanging over her head and let the lurch in her stomach provide a forward motion.

She was starting on a Tuesday afternoon, a few evening hours on the Thursday and then 'we'll see' regarding the next week.  Tuesday looked like 'idiot' hours.  The meager lunch 'crowd' and the early part of dinner.  Thursday was a matter of necessity.  The University Pub Night, standing room only and impossible to keep staffed.  It worked, she had to admit.  Her off-therapy days, not enough hours to really make her suffer, now that she'd gotten herself into this mess.  She wasn't nuts about the Thursday night.  She didn't want to work when Nikolas was home -- but when she'd brought it up to him, he'd just shrugged and said he should be working more, anyway.  

Ok. Fine. Good point, even. She felt sick.

He was equally disinterested that morning when he left her standing in the hallway after a perfunctory good-bye kiss, nodding distractedly when she reminded him that she wouldn't be there when he got home.

She'd grabbed his hand, pulling him back to her. "Hey. Wish me luck?"

He'd smiled in a way that blew every single theory she had about him faking his lack of reaction, and leaned in to kiss her again.

"Don't get shot."

"Nice."

"Yeah, I'm completely serious."

And he was gone.

She'd tried to do a thousand and one things that morning, starting with making a list of possible errands, and moving quickly through reading a trashy paperback, starting a word jumble and flipping through real estate listings. The Brownstone really was a big place when you were the only one in it, no matter how small your corner of it. And it was proof enough that she was losing her mind, that she couldn't seem to concentrate on anything for ten minutes, she was very nearly joyful when it was finally time to go. Anything to put an end to the agonizing wait.

She walked into the bar just in time to witness her cousin flirting shamelessly with his long-term girlfriend.  There was giggling, and hand-holding and meaningful eye contact. She averted her eyes while clearing her throat, pointedly. It still took a beat for Lucky to acknowledge her.

"Carly," he called out. "Incoming." She looked back at him just in time for a black t-shirt to land on her shoulder. "Uniform," he explained. Liz stepped off the bar and smoothed down her little pencil skirt.

"I'll see you tonight, 'kay?" Lucky grinned, pulled himself up and halfway across the polished wood to give her a long-enough kiss.

"'Kay."

"Hi, Carly!" she chirped, swinging her purse as she headed towards the door.  "Have fun!"

Carly decided, at that moment, to hate Liz Webber.  It seemed as good a choice as any.

"You can change in the back," Lucky told her, as he turned towards the cash register, suddenly friendly as a frozen cactus. It set a tone.

Training was hell.  

She hadn't thought about it much. She'd figured she'd just be tossed into the path of some random waitress -- but there were only two people on in the afternoon, besides kitchen staff, and they were busy serving and vanished right after lunch. Lucky showed her the system himself, between being hauled off to deal with drink orders and phone calls. It was the most time they had ever spent in each other's company in the whole time they'd known of each other, and it was hard to guess who was more tense about the situation. He barely deigned to look at her, and she kept trying to stand as far away from him as the process would allow, lest he think she was any happier about this than he was. She couldn't figure out why the hell he was insisting on doing this himself -- besides a perverse masochism -- but it was just one of the many reasons the first few hours at the place dragged.

The other reason was the place itself. It was like a tomb in the afternoon. No light, hardly any people and the constant threat of Luke Spencer. They didn't let her serves until after two, and one of the first ones she served included a girl she went to nursing school with. One who had apparently noticed the whole 'marrying a billionaire' thing, and found great mirth in the idea that she was her waitress.

That was when things really started to unravel. There had been a lot of stuff about this job that she hadn't wanted to investigate too closely. Once she was actually on the floor, it got kind of hard to pretend there wasn't something basically humiliating about the whole experience. The people, the job itself, the fact that she was only barely competent at it -- no matter how many dives she'd worked at in Florida. If she'd ever had the knack, she'd lost it, and there was nothing natural about what she was doing at this moment. Add in the fact that every time she looked up, she saw Lucky watching her, grimly, from behind the bar. She felt alone and depressed and stupid and sad, sad, sad... To her bones, sad. There was something so wrong about this. By the time dinner started, she honestly didn't know how she was going to get through this day, let alone the near future. She'd have to start carrying a picture of Michael with her, she decided as she heaved a platter of cheese fries and chicken wings up onto her shoulder to deliver it to a table of particularly irritating college students. It was the only way. Visceral reminder of why this horrifically bad plan had actually come to have a point.

She'd turned, heading out of the kitchen, and caught the whiff of cigar smoke just as she

Oh, crap.

"What?" she turned, tray balanced precariously.

Luke smirked at her, chewing lightly on the end of his cigar, before dropping it and letting the smoke drift over her. "Just observing, sweetheart."

"Yeah, well. Your spawn kinda has that one covered, so if you'll excuse me --"

"Looks like you're spreading yourself a little thin. Wouldn't advise you try to push this arrangement any further than you have to, Caroline."

She shook her head. "What are you talking about?"

He raised his brow. "My daughter?"

Oh, you have got to be kidding. Carly snorted. "What about her?"

"Don't start thinking you have a position of influence where she's concerned."

"God, shut UP," Carly cut him off. "She's his sister. It's been five years -- don't think you think it's time you got a grip?"

Her uncle's expression darkened. "Just don't get any ideas."

"Talk to your sister," Carly turned away from him with disgust. "And leave the rest of us the hell alone, will you?"

He chuckled as she walked away. She didn't have to guess why -- she was thinking the same thing he was. You got your own damn self into this, sweetheart... Another bolt of fury thrust through her and she turned back to him.

"You know what?" she marched right into a plume of cigar smoke. "Nikolas isn't going to be any place in this whole town where he's not wanted. What you have to get through your thick skull is that he IS wanted. And you have no control over that. It's out of your hands."

She felt a little better walking away from him. Managed to deliver the food, return with a pitcher of beer, and take another two food orders without any major incident over the next few minutes. She still felt disgusting, but at least she'd gained a little ground. For the moment.

"Table five," another waitress hissed as she nudged past her. "Get a drink order for the boss, will you?"

"The boss?" she asked the woman's back. She was already halfway to the kitchen, leaving Carly standing stupidly in the middle of the room, trying to remember which table was labeled "five", anyway. She looked up, scanning for new faces, and only realized what the woman met when she went cold at the sight of a familiar figure in the back corner. Jason. Sitting, back to the wall and eyes on her. Oh, God.

"Hey."

She jumped as a hand came down on her shoulder, and spun around, eyes wide, mouth open. She must have looked completely panic-stricken, but her cousin's expression was nothing but business.

"I'll handle it," Lucky told her. "You've got a food order up. After that, you can call it a night, alright? Krista will take over your tables."

She just stared at him.

"Do you want to stay?" He prodded.

"Hell no," she breathed, and pushed past him, heading towards the kitchen.

 

 

 

Nikolas returned from his run at seven o'clock on the nose, walking into the house, already checking his cell phone for messages. He was already halfway down the hall, heading towards the apartment, when he heard his mother-in-law call from the living room, "She called the service!"

He pivoted and detoured to the living room where Bobbie was curled up in an arm chair, reading J.D. Robb.  

"What?" he panted, appearing in the doorway.

"Carly.  She called the car service.  She'll be home in about half an hour."

"She called?"

"Lucky did," Bobbie let her book drop into her lap.  "He seems to be keeping an eye on her."

Nikolas nodded a few beats longer than necessary.  "Ok," he said, finally.  "I'm going to grab a shower --"

"Does she know this is still driving you crazy?"

"It's not," his words were flat, but his blood rushed towards his head.   

"I know why you run, Nikolas." Her look challenged him.

He smiled. Held it. "You know why my father says I run."

"One thing to keep in mind about my daughter, Nikolas -- When she does something stupid in your name, it's a term of endearment."  She gave a wry smile.  "When she ruins your life, it means she loves you.

"Something to look forward to."  He murmured, leaning his head against the door jamb for half a second.  Huh.  Really shouldn't have said that.  Now Bobbie was frowning at him.  "I need to take that shower..."

"Her heart is in the right place.  It's just that sometimes, it has bad aim."

"I know," he nodded, stepping back. "I'm fine."

"No," Bobbie picked up her book again. "you're not. But we can talk about that, later."

Nikolas hesitated a moment, but then decided to take the offered silence as an invitation to escape, and continued towards the back of the house in swift order. When he got to the apartment, he pulled the door shut a little too roughly, and immediately leaned back against it, eyes closed, still trying to catch his breath.  

This was killing him.  

The effort was exhausting.  Just trying not to think about it, not to acknowledge it any more than he absolutely had to -- it was going to kill him.  No question in his mind.  The only solution he'd found was to just keep moving.

He pushed himself off the door with effort and headed back towards the bedroom. No. No, didn't want to go into the bedroom. The bedroom had been what had pushed him out of the apartment in the first place. But he wasn't going to let that thing influence his life -- he'd decided that, he'd made the plan. There had to be a way. There just had to be a way to not care. Failing that, there had to be a way to ignore it.

This had been a rough day, made all that much worse for his attempts to turn it into something -- anything -- else. He'd left that morning convinced that he'd conquered something. This thing with Luke? It wasn't going to affect him. He wasn't going to let it. It was just another day.

Thing was... Carly was the reason he was able to do that. She had been, over the past week, his salvation. Not in anything overt -- because, as always, she was doing some pretty strange things and she was doing a LOT of them -- but in smaller moments, the details. Waking up, going to bed, coming home. This house. He loved those moments. He loved short conversations with Lucas in the hall, and he loved Bobbie's familiar -- distantly familiar -- teasing and overt mothering. But mostly, there was Carly... with that look of relief in her eyes when he came through the front door and interrupted her fighting with her mother over green beans in the kitchen. Those light touches and casual affection she consistently threw his way. The moment at the end of the early evening when they escaped her family and went behind closed doors -- she would turn and wrap her arms around him, burying her face in his chest and everything would be perfect, just for a moment.

He was happy. He was happily married. That idea, that realization, had pulled him through a lot of hideous stuff in the past week.

He and his father were civil. They were working together. They spoke or saw each other on a nearly daily basis. but it was cold and restricted solely to work. Neither of them even tried to broach other topics. They didn't even have subtext. Every conversation they had was dry as melba toast and about as interesting. And every one got just that little bit harder. Cece had hit a brick wall with AJ Quartermaine and the social worker -- nothing could be gotten on film or tape or any other medium. All contact appeared to have been cut off, and she was breathing fire over this inconvenient occurrence. He was trying to ignore it. Unfortunately, the only thing providing much in the way of distraction was his actual job -- a job which he found, fundamentally, empty and meaningless, even as it proved itself to be consistently financially rewarding.

Today was particularly ugly. Phone calls from Alexis about the custody suit and the difficulty innate in living in a different home for the third time is nearly as many weeks. The lack of any strong hold over AJ -- when he knew there was one to be had... And then, to top things off, a business deal that was disintegrating before his eyes. The last half hour at the office had been spent with Stefan and two bankers on a conference call that had dealt for an unreasonable amount of time on the health -- or lack there of -- of the Japanese economy. At the end of it, they'd hung up from their separate offices without any word exchanged and Nikolas's mood had plummeted into something he didn't want to give a name.

Of course, the first thing that occurred to him as she made his escape from the offices was that Carly wouldn't be there when he got home. Bobbie might. Lucas might. But Carly would be with Luke and that wasn't something he could make peace with at that exact second.

Bobbie hadn't been wrong about why he decided to go running. He'd made the decision before he'd even gotten to the car, and once home he'd fallen victim to the sheer volume of time that Carly generally had on her hands when he found that she'd completely rearranged the bedroom again, and nothing was in any drawer or shelf that he expected it to be in. Obsessive reorganization was just one of a dozen strange behaviors he was trying to ignore.  

He'd been looking for his t-shirts -- she'd moved them, God knows why, and that was, really and truly, all he'd been looking for.

What he'd found, however, was a shoe box. Pushed far back in the very bottom drawer of the dresser. Inside the shoe box, Jason. Pictures, clippings. He didn't examine it very closely. He'd shut it, half a second after opening it, shoved it to the back of the drawer and left the room.

Jason. Jason.

Why? No. He knew the answer to that. Because she was in love with him, had been for years, probably always would be, and that was just fine.

Just. FINE.

She'd never love him that way, but it was fine. There was no reason for it not to be -- not when he was the one she was with.

The question that appeared while he was running was simple -- had the box been left behind when they'd moved? Or had it been moved from the cottage? Had that been in their room? Did it travel with her? Couldn't. he decided that. No way it would come back with her. She'd left it behind. That had to be it. Of course, it was the choice he could live with. That was convenient. Having neatly wrapped that up for himself, he returned to the house, exorcising all other options out of his head with a nearly surgical precision.

Now, standing in their apartment, he realized there was still something missing. She had to get home. He wouldn't care about this if she was in the room with him. It was being alone with the shoe box he couldn't stomach.

He stopped in the hallway outside the door, put a hand on the doorknob, and waited. Waited for whatever he needed to let himself open that door and just not care.

When he didn't come, he turned and headed for the shower, determined to scald it out of himself.

 

 

"What are you doing here?"

Carly leaned against the side wall outside Luke's, moaning the words into the light summer breeze, rather than turning to face him. She didn't have to look. She knew, old-school Western style. Like the hinges on the alley door had whistled his name.

"I come here."

No. He did not. She had not been out of his life long enough for that kind of talk. Jason had never been a Luke's regular in the time she knew him, co-owner or not.

"Come on, Jase," she hunched her shoulders. "You don't even do the books now that Lucky's working here."

"You think I'm here about you."

She kept staring at the parking lot. yeah, she wanted to say. I think you're here about me. I think you're checking up on me. I think you wanted to see if I was still moving. Or maybe you just wanted to survey the damage, but you gotta want something.

"Lovely night," she clipped her words like it was Morse code.

"Too hot."

"It's never too hot in Port Charles. Only too humid."

"What are you up to?"

He was standing closer now, moving up behind her.

"Waiting for my ride."

"I meant the waitressing."

"Oh, that," she shrugged. "Filling out my resume, expanding my horizons." Humiliating my husband. Whatever.

"Carly."

He made her name heavy. For the first time, she really hated the way it came out of his mouth.

"It's not your concern anymore, Jason," she laughed ruefully around the words. "I'm fine, that's all you need to know."

Silence. Damnit. She couldn't even fail to read his face, standing with her back to him. She shut her eyes, tight. "Just tell me," she said, flatly. "Just tell me what you're here about."

"You didn't return my calls."

Calls?

"What?" she spun around to face him without even thinking about it and was surprised to find him standing further back than she'd expected. "You haven't called me."

"I left messages."

It still took her a second. Two weeks ago, it felt like a century -- his voice on her voice mail. She hadn't even considered calling him back. The idea had seemed funny.

"I didn't feel much like talking."

"I wanted to know how you were."

She smiled, cocking her head. "How do you think I was?" She raised her brow. "You told her."

"What?"

"Robin.  You told her what happened.  When --"  She sighed, thrown by how hard it was to say out loud.  "The engagement."

"No."

Carly laughed, bitterly.  "Well, she knew!"  

"Yeah.  And she asked."  

"And you always tell the truth," she exhaled. There was something nice about predictability, even in areas that made you sick to your stomach. "She didn't leave you."  

"No."

Carly thought about that.  She had never thought Robin would, which, maybe was the reason she hadn't told her in a moment of desperation.  Sure there had been loyalty and there had been her unrequested promise not to... But maybe if she'd really though it would end, then that wouldn't have mattered.  

She tried to imagine Nikolas's reaction, and instantly felt her head throb.  Couldn't be better than this last upheaval.  Had to be worse.  Had to be ugly and devastating.  He'd be hurt.  Even though they hadn't even touched each other yet.  He'd be disgusted. And he'd try not to be.

But she didn't think he would leave her, either.  It was unfamiliar and strange, that sudden certainty.  The first time she ever, really, FELT Nikolas's commitment when he wasn't standing right in front of her.  

She realized Jason was staring at her, questioningly.  she shook her head.

"How -- How's the baby?"

She blurted it out as small talk, and that scrambled her brain, too.  Because the baby wasn't supposed to be a distraction, it was supposed to be the thing.  

"She's getting stronger," was all Jason said.  Then, again, catching Carly off guard, "How's Michael?"

"Michael?"  Carly voice edged up.  "Michael's ok.  He lives with a bunch of maniacs and he's upset that he can't come see where I live, but he's ok."  Talking too fast. She frowned.  "He's learning how to do a handstand."  

"Really?"

"Well.  Yeah.  Nikolas told him to master the somersault, first, but Michael's pretty impatient with it now.  I didn't think he'd be strong enough, really, to do anything that fancy, but... He's determined.  And he's pretty agile, you know?  For a three year old.  I think, maybe, better than most kids.  Of course, he's mine, so I might be biased."  

"No," Jason was firm in his agreement.  "He was always strong."

"You might be biased, too."

He smiled.  It was nice.  And for a minute, she felt a rush, an intimacy.  God.  Jason. Carly and Jason. She hadn't just imagined that. It existed.

"Whoa," she breathed, stepping back from him.

"You alright?" he was suddenly in front of her, hands on her shoulders, eyes trying to catch hers. She shook him off.

"Yeah, no. I'm fine. Just... Wait. Just..." she pressed a hand to her forehead. this whole conversation was like an out of body experience. They were talking about their kids. And for just half a second there, it was nice. And she had no idea what that was, but suddenly her stomach was in a knot. "Nikolas."

"What about him?"

She exhaled. "Nothing. Just... Nikolas." This would make his head explode. It really would. She could feel that -- it was what he hadn't said, during that whole horrible marathon battle they'd had, but it was there. As intense as he'd gotten about the idea of her throwing in with Luke... "He would not be into this."

"Into what?"

"Us. Talking."

Jason shook his head. "We're just talking."

Uh, no. Maybe he was, but she never just talked to Jason. "No. I promised him things. And we're married, and --"

"You're not a possession, Carly."

His voice was sharp and it surprised her. She looked back at him to see his jaw set hard, face reddened.

It's a bitch to be married to someone everyone likes better than you. Jason, she realized, didn't like Nikolas better than her. Right at that moment, she suspected Jason didn't like Nikolas at all.

And that really, really bugged her.

"It's not like that. He just... He need to..." What? What the hell was she trying to say? Jason was looking at her, expectantly and it pissed her off.

"He's good," she said, suddenly. What kind of lame line was that? He's a good guy. He helps old ladies across the street, he's kind to animals, he clears his place after every meal. Ok, maybe that wasn't true, she wasn't totally sure about any but the last one. But it suggested something weak and pathetic.

"You don't know him!"

Equally lame, equally true.

"He's complicated."

And now it sounded like she was justifying something.

"He loves me."

She felt her face heat. Oh my GOD, she was blushing. She turned away from him. "Wild, huh?"

"Not really."

"He really does. Like nothing polite or good or bad or anything about it. He just loves me."

God. It felt so weird to say that to someone and mean it.

"Good."

She nodded. Yeah. Guess so...

"He done a lot for me," she crossed her arms over her stomach. The distance came back in a rush. Jason had no idea, the stuff. He didn't know what she'd put him through, she didn't know what he'd been willing to do -- for just the littlest damn thing from her. She didn't know how to begin to explain that to him. "I just... "

"You owe him something."

She did. Probably. But she shook her head. "No, he's never said that."

Jason just stared at her. She knew what he was thinking, and it made her furious. He was thinking she was with a guy who was bad for her and she just didn't get it. He was thinking she was blind and stupid and he'd just have to wait around for it to all fall apart so that he could make sure to catch all the pieces. Just like Tony. Just like always.

Except for when it mattered the most.

She pursed her lips, looking at him, looking at that familiar arrogance and assurance. She got it. She really got it. He was the one missing something.

"You know," she laughed, leaning towards him. "I used to think that having someone love you -- That was everything. But then I found out that love doesn't topple mountains and it doesn't part seas. It's fragile and fickle and unpredictable -- and the worst thing you can do, the WORST thing you can ever let yourself do is believe in it. Like it's going to change your life or be some kind of salvation. Because usually, it's not going to do anything but crush you."

He hadn't looked away, so she stepped closer to him, lowering her voice.

"The thing is, Jase... You know. when it's there? When it's got a hold on you, you can't see that. All you can see if the potential. Like when you're drunk or on something -- it's the same thing. It's all colors and angles that you think are new and special -- but it's nothing. It's just a mirage. And I look at him, sometimes," She shook her head, her throat tightening, "And that's what I see. I don't know how it happened, but he's caught in the net. And I know I can't do anything about it. I can't help him. I can't cut him out. But I can respect it. That I got. I can just... Know what it's like to love someone and what them rip your heart out. And I can try not to do that to him." Her lips curled into a bitter smile. "Guess where I learned that lesson?"

He reached out and grabbed her hand. She hadn't been expecting it and immediately pulled back, like he would burn her. But he spoke softly, tinged with something like desperation or urgency. She couldn't tell; she'd been listening to him for too long.

"Carly," he was right in her face now. "I just want to know you're ok."

"I'm ok." Her lips felt numb.

"Good," he sounded sincere. "Stay that way."

He didn't move. Neither did she. She didn't know how to -- how to look away, or take her hand back.

"You can't come back here," she spit out, finally. "I have to WORK here, you can't do this!"

"Ok," he agreed so fast her head spun. "I won't. I won't need to."

Well. Alright then. She still stared at him like he was growing a second head. And then it happened -- all at once. The car pulling into the parking lot, startling her, making her turn -- his hand tightening on hers and the side door swinging open again. She turned back, caught in the lights of the car, and the light from the kitchen. Even in the dusk, it felt like she'd just been caught in a spot, illuminating like the guilty party in a sting operation.

Lucky looked at her. Cold and knowing, like he'd expected this, like he knew something and now was basking in the glow of the justified. Then he stepped down heavily off the step onto the pavement.

"Evening," he drawled, pointedly, "Looks like your ride's here."

Then tossed a bag into the dumpster and turned back into the restaurant.

Carly closed her eyes. "Shit."

 

 

God damn stupid fucking LUCKY.

Carly was furious, riding home in the back of the damn town car from the Cassadine's car service. Every time she looked out the window, every time she closed her eyes, she saw that look on Lucky's face -- that cold, disaffected *look* -- and every time, it got more damning.

he didn't know what had happened. He didn't know what was going on, he didn't know what had and hadn't been said. It was just a conversation, for God's sake! It wasn't their first, it would no doubt not be their last -- They had a history. That wasn't going anywhere, and...

And she was married to someone else. And she had no idea what her feelings for Jason were. God, she was in hell.

She didn't want to tell him. It was going to make everything worse, she knew that. It was already so bad. She knew he was torn up and she knew she wasn't helping a whole lot. How was this going to do anything but hurt him. So why should she say anything?

Because of God damned stupid fucking Lucky.

She shouldn't have even talked to him. She should have just run as far as she could, the second she saw him. She should have thought about how this could come back to bite her. But foresight had never been one of her strengths.

God, now what?

She didn't even know how to open up a conversation. What the hell was she expecting from him? "How was your day, honey?"

"Sadistic! Yours?"

"I took over Rumania. Did you make any good tips?"

She barely noticed when they pulled up to the Brownstone and she was so preoccupied that it didn't really occur to her that she was home until she was already inside the door and kicking off her shoes.

"How was it?" Bobbie called from the living room, a little too brightly.

"Later," she dumped her purse in the hall and a wave of nausea hit her. What if Lucky had called? "Where's Nikolas?"

"In your place. Carly? Are you ok?"

"Peachy!" she broke into a run and flew down the hall at top speed. Came to a halt only by hitting the door as she wretched it open.

Nikolas was on the couch, half dressed and wearing a towel around his neck. He looked like he'd been studying the ceiling. She knew, immediately, that Lucky hadn't gotten in touch. She exhaled and nearly vaulted herself across the room and into his lap.

"Hi," he laughed, startled, as she straddled him. "You're back."

"Yeah," she leaned in and kissed him. Hard, and deep, until she needed air. "I missed you," she panted as she pulled back.

That was true. She'd been about desperate for him a good thirty times that afternoon.

He sighed and leaned back into the couch. His hands ran up and down her thighs. "How was it?"

"Ok. Bad. Hard," she blew her hair out of her face. "It could have been worse."

"That's a start."

She nodded, starring out the window behind him. "Nikolas?"

"Yeah?"

You are not, you are not, you are not going to do this. Every single fiber of her being screamed out against it, even while she sat, perfectly still, on his lap. Lucky didn't call. You are off the hook.

So far.

"Jason was there," she exhaled.

His hands stopped moving. She waited.

"I figured," he finally spoke, softly, "that it was a distinct possibility that he would be."

Huh. She pulled back, taking his face in her hands and directing his gaze towards her. It was... empty. Not in that awful, hollow way he got sometimes. Just... empty.

"That makes one of us."

"You talk?"

She nodded. Then she leaned down and kissed him again. Slowly, this time. Made it gentle and loving and soft. Because it was just incredible how quickly he was the only person in her world.

"Anytime," she whispered, pulling back.

"What?"

"Anytime.  Anytime you want,"  her fingers brushed his bottom lip. "I'll leave."

She watched his eyes while he processed this and landed right where she wanted him to.

"I know."

"Ok."  

"One thing, though."

"What?"

He slid his hands up her back and pulled on the back of her uniform. "Could you please get rid of that t-shirt?"