Requiem   Chapter One - Prologue   Under the exile's moon tremble the first wings. His was a new face and that alone had value. That alone held weight. More weight than those credentials he'd shown when he stepped through the courtyard gate. Hell, the cut of his suit (Savile Row), that tie (a seven-fold silk), and those shoes (Italian leather), were enough to mark him worthy of an hour of her time. Or two. Or three. He could have the night if he liked, and all the conversation he could handle. She was desperate for him before he'd even told her his name. Before he'd even arrived. When he was just the ache of a need. And now that she had him sharing the shade of her equatorial exile - speaking in those cultured Continental tones, evincing his breeding with every breath - she knew it was time to get to work. If she could just hold his eye for more than a moment. If she could just steer his mind away from the tropical splendor that surrounded him. If she could simply manage to mute the magnificence of Nature itself, she might find the trick of this yet. She might find a way to coerce him into asking her, begging her, pleading with her please-baby-please could you find it in your heart to leave this exquisite Eden behind? Paradise. It was what people strived for, bled for, lived and died for. A pristine beach. Sand so white it blinded. An ocean green and clear as glass. Four steps down each morning and your foot pressed the first mark made, it seemed, into the shore of God's creation. They were Adam and Eve to start. Returned to a garden empty and still. Quiet save the breeze that lifted off the sea, a bird in a tree, the gentle creak of the house as it settled further into place. Sometimes rain, soft and hard. Grey days. Safe days. Days they embraced for a season or two as they sought their balance and crafted something that passed for love. Summer, fall, winter, spring, they'd built their lives from scratch. A calm labor concertedly absent of an aim, a direction, a dream. It never occurred to them that they were done. It never occurred to either one of them that this was, in fact, the end of the road. Until, of course, it did. Adam had a stool at the cantina now. You could find him there in the afternoons, forgoing his siesta for the finest cerveza the Dominguez brothers kept on tap. (Tequila he saved for sundown and the loss of yet another day.) Eve? Eve had nothing for the longest time until, at last, Fate brought her a face. This face. This fabulously foreign face. She was more intent on her appearance than the questions he was asking. That he brought up a past too painful by half mattered less to her than the feverish need to recollect the rules of civilized behavior. She gave up her memories of the first man, the worst man, while wishing she'd thought to stock some tea. They liked tea. They preferred it to café or the thick, black spike of an espresso. A brandy or port with the coming of night, their dark, fermented blood. The second man he mentioned she'd barely known and could only attach as a relation to the third while her fretful fingers combed through hair too long and the wrong shade of cerise. Damn these island bitches and their ancient copies of Vogue! By the time he arrived at the last name the air was beginning to chill, the courtyard shadows stretching to caress the crook of his pin-striped sleeve. Still she refused to surrender hope, to relinquish this slim chance of escape, and slowed the telling to a crawl of words while she fired the spark in her eye and puffed her petulant lips to ponder every detail she could think to relate. A sad boy with a stubborn heart. True to the point of stupidity. She'd tried to tell him so, tried to set him straight, but you know how it is with love. Or do you? This last offered in a sultry tone so ripe with invitation it would have shifted the most jaded island gigolo's motor into gear. Not him. His eyes were ice, polar blue and laced with a frost that was somehow vaguely familiar. Before she could place it he had risen from his seat and was striding down the path. "I'm sure I could remember more," she cried, chasing after him in alarm. "You could come back tomorrow, after I've had some time to think." "I'm afraid my flight is waiting," he informed her, slipping through the gate and hitching the iron latch back into place. "Thank you for your assistance. You've been more than helpful, Mrs. Quartermaine." "Lydia," she implored earnestly, her optimism fading. The curt bow he gave her told her everything he'd left unsaid. She would not be seeing him again. "Ici." He gives in to her demand, depositing a kiss to the spot on her neck just above the lacquered fingernail. "So I figure what have I got to lose? Sure, yeah, I'll see him. If I can, that is. 'Cuz you know it's the middle of the day. Big old Polynesian sun'll fry the undead up. Sizzle pop poof!" "Poof," she murmurs, pointing to the curve of a burnished shoulder. "Ici." His lips descend obediently. "Besides, I'm thinkin' maybe he's got something on Spencer. He could be Dracula, Frankenstein and the goo from The Blob all rolled into one - if he's got something on Spencer I'm there. Deal me in, boys. I got scores to settle and money to burn." "Money," she echoes with a smile, turning to lift her hair and present him with the elegant line of her back. He hesitates and she pouts, jiggling her shoulders from side to side. "Ici. Ici." "Anybody ever tell you greed ain't attractive?" He presses his lips to the softest skin just beneath her ear and sweeps a trail of audible kisses to the center of her spine. "So like I was sayin'…I go. But Spencer's not on the menu. Still, they're all old cases of mine, back from when I was D.A. Somehow he's got 'em all hooked together, like they have something in common, which cranks the ol' radar up, let me tell ya. 'Course he's not admitting they're connected, but I don't care how long you're out of the game, you keep the nose. Know what I mean?" Her tiny foot stomps on the tile floor, furious with his lack of concentration. He likes the way it makes her attributes bounce and closes in tight from behind, his attention focused on the halter tie of her thin cotton blouse. His fingers pull the knot apart and toss the strings forward. She leans back against his chest, providing him a view of what he's just uncovered and daring him to ignore this. He doesn't. Who would? "All I'm sayin' is it got my juices flowing. Made me think about pickin' up a phone. Callin' in a few favors. Keepin' my hand in, so to speak." "No speak no more," she insists, spinning inside the embrace until her indigo eyes meet his and refuse to let them go. He can feel her working the buckle of his belt and sliding that zipper down. He can feel that hand, that criminal hand, sink inside the cloth. "Scot-tee," she teases as his eyes close and his head falls forward. "Again," he groans, because he loves the way she says it. "M'appelle, Claudette. Encore." "Scot-tee," she complies with a seductive lilt, pushing the slacks just far enough apart to let gravity do the rest. "Ici," he growls as he grabs her by the waist and falls back on the bed. He'll think about the man later. If she gives him the chance. She didn't have time for this. Not the trip across town or the lobby wait or the drinks that turned into a late lunch, even though he was paying. She certainly didn't have the money for it. And, if she were to be honest with herself, it was even more than that. In the end she realized she simply didn't have the heart. It's the Plaza, after all. New York City's Plaza Hotel with its circle drive and its flags and its brass and its upper crust ambiance. It's the doorman and the bellman and the concierge, the sumptuous décor, the exclusive clientele. It's the muted elegance of the Palm Court; the linen and the crystal, the manners and the dress - the entire Upper East Side texture of the exquisite life she'd left; the way it smells and tastes and breathes of the road not taken. It's the downside of a right decision and she'd feel a whole lot better about this if she weren't a token away from the ride right back to Alphabet City. August. Who did New York in August? With the poor? Well, she did. And she knew there was a reason for that but it was awfully hard to find at the moment. Maybe beneath the icing of this last rich bite of chocolate torte? Nope. Not there either. He'd left her alone with her dessert, somehow discerning her reluctant desire to linger in the comfortable arms of her past. Whatever she wanted, he assured her, the staff had been directed to provide. She might have taken offense. She might have bristled at this largess as an insult to her dignity, to her obvious independence, to the furious fire of her liberated, NOW card-carrying, E.R.A.-sanctified, fully-emancipated self were it not for the look in his eye and the tone in the voice that extended the invitation. Her answers had beaten him down, she could tell; thrown him in a way he hadn't expected; driven him deep inside himself where all the open wounds lay. It had gotten to the point where he'd stopped asking for anything, repulsing every effort she made at elaboration or elucidation; cringing as she took the breath to speak, to tell the story so few could afford to tell without a stiff drink and an anger strong enough to battle past the blame. She didn't know when she stopped caring why he came or what he wanted with this information - when exactly it was that her curiosity shifted into gratitude, her suspicion into relief. Anything…anything to get it out, to eject the guilt, the remorse, the shame; to expel it like some poisoned seed from the womb of her pain. She found freedom in speaking of that history to someone who didn't automatically think her a fool for the part she'd played. To someone who seemed, on a profoundly internal level, sympathetic to her suffering; who understood the choices she'd made and the price she would never stop paying. It was the cost of having a conscience, she supposed. And even if he didn't see it that way, he offered a silence blessedly absent of judgment; a quiet compassion she felt to be completely and authentically unfeigned. It could have been the memories, though she thought it was more likely the room - the hue of the lilies in the centerpiece; the extravagance of the art, the space, the chair; the scent of wealth wafting through the carefully conditioned air, that caused her to signal to the steward to request paper and a pen. A line scrawled, the note folded, she pressed her missive into his hand with directions for delivery to the guest upstairs; to the man who possessed the wherewithal to make this gesture possible. And as the steward turned his back she took one last look at this temptation of a life, collected her purse and her satchel of files, and forced herself to leave in advance of the first pang of regret; before she could fault her sentimental soul for calling to a heart that had hardened against her so very long ago. It was just a line, just a tumble of words scattered to the winds of the karmic void. He could follow it up or not. She didn't care. She really didn't care. Which is why she spent the duration of a sweltering subway ride and the lengthy hours of her evening shift at the E Street Legal Aid gauging the odds of receiving a response from a lover she had every reason to believe might not even remember her name. If you see him, and I know you will, tell him Sparky said hello. He refolded the note and fished through his pockets for a bill to tip the bellman. "Gia Campbell, I presume." "An educated guess?" he countered as he palmed the gratuity, closed the door and slipped back into her disfavor. "Better if it were Helena. We could end this before it's begun." She relinquished the role of guardian angel with a smooth turn, vacating his shadow to prowl the room like a sleek Egyptian cat. "Are you that eager to be rid of me?" "Dead is dead," she pronounced as if the verdict were already in, as if she were a mourner moving apart from a freshly-turned grave. It was a measure of her anguish, this swift ascent into apathy. Her heart was trying, mightily, to distance itself from the pain. "I hear the French Riviera is entrancing in the fall." The hand she was gliding across the desk came to rest on the small wooden crate. A thumb traced the dimpled edge of the antiquated Customs seal. "Russia has such a lovely sense of its past," she offered idly. "There is no need for you to be here." "Nor you," she shot back harshly, too harshly even for her. Those dark eyes closed as she took a carefully calibrated breath. "And who will warm your bed at night without expecting a single satisfaction? Who will brew your tea? Wrap you tight in your sweaters? Who will save your life again and again and again?" "Djinn…" "Zimi, I love you, you know that. I won't have you be alone." So many defeats with her, it wasn't worth the battle. Not that he could have mounted much of one at this moment in time. The Campbell woman burned, her words like flames licking at his soul; racing like wildfire across his conscience, converting his denial to ash. Would that it had done the same with his guilt. He sank into the club chair at the corner of the suite, his legs no longer willing to support him. Silent behind the lids of those eyes, he could sense her stalking to the back of that chair, and was not surprised when the pads of her felicitously-feline fingers came to knead the tension from his neck. Claws retracted. For now. "She was the first," she murmured. "The third," he corrected. "The first," she insisted. "The first to graze your pain. There will be more." Oh, yes. There would be many, many more. His head descended as her hands journeyed up the curve of his scalp, weaving through his hair, moving to press soft, concentric circles into the temples of his brow. He could almost forget beneath that liquid touch. He could almost admit he was human; far too human for this. Her voice, still at such a distance from his ear, sang its clever question. "So are you Cain or are you Abel?" "Seth," he responded through the sedative haze of her massage. "I am Seth, the son they never talk about." Requiem (2)   Someone just climbed to the top of the cliffs and began to curse the sea… She stares at the wooden crate, though she knows she shouldn't. She stares at the small wooden crate from the moment it's placed into her hands - its Cyrillic brand an itch against her skin; an itch inside her mind that the woman scratches, this woman scratches with her words. Moya pochteniye, Mariska Stanislovna. U menya est' padarak. And she takes this gift, she accepts this crate because suddenly it is nothing. Nothing next to the name; that name her mother called her as a child; the name no one knew to use anymore or had spoken in so many years she'd thought it lost and long forgotten. The name sinks, it has that power, sinks into her heart like a blade and she is shocked to be pierced like this, punctured, penetrated by her past. It is a trauma in its way; a trauma strong enough to pull her apart from the woman and the crate and the door, for how many minutes she is unsure. She knows only awakening to absence - her head lifting, her eyes rising to a bright, bewildering vacancy. The stranger has gone, perhaps was never there, perhaps had never come, though the crate she holds stands as proof of it. And so she backs away from the threshold, closing the door and clutching this crate, staring at this crate in an attempt to determine what's just come to pass. This is how the girl finds her, stalled in her progress from the entryway, adrift in the past with a present in her grasp that she was certain foretold a future. The girl's hands reach, greedy little hands, to take this treasure from her. And the child she was, the Mariska she is in this moment, affects a mild resistance. An instant only, a second on the clock, before she recalls her role and relinquishes the crate to the care of the mansion's mistress. "Do you think it's a wedding gift? I think it is," the girl nattered like a youngster on Christmas morn. "Look! It's come all the way from Russia! Can you read that? Can you tell who it's from?" Mrs. Landsbury, now in full possession of herself, assured the girl she could not. She didn't think it her place to add that this package bore no relation to the wedding or that it wasn't, in the end, meant to be considered a gift at all. This was an announcement, and she was more than certain it fell to Master Nikolas to provide an explanation of that. Solomon was given his way through the first circuit of the island, his reins tugged tight simply when necessary to keep him on the trail, the heels of his rider digging deep only to spur the momentum required to jump the odd bit of fence or fissured vale. Once he grew easy with the weight and accustomed to the woodland course, his tentative trot evolved to a canter, then a loping gallop as he found his speed. A second circuit followed the first, then a third as he lathered, his ears going flat, his mane snapping back as he stretched his stride to meet this master's expectation. Harder, faster, farther and gone, the ground blurred beneath them as they thundered through the trees, the fields, the glens, the plains both grassed and fallow; the harbor beyond them a kaleidoscope of the sun's refracted light. Horse and rider, strangers still, grew to think as one, move as one, building the bond that would serve them through the many years to come. Hearts fused to the fluid rhythm of a five-furlong breakneck run, forging a force fit to conquer every challenge set before them - greeds exerting, hungers melting into motion, vices into velocity, until neither could sense where steed began and man came to ending. The earth itself fell away, the universe opening wide for these four ironed hooves pounding their path, these four narrowed eyes seeking their star, this unified, bestial instinct racing Time and Space to hound its inevitable destiny down. So attuned were these captured souls, so blended in purpose, so tangled in intent, that when they rounded the oak to drive the bluff, certain Hell could be felt nipping at their heels, the dark figure standing at its crest seemed a demon gone beyond. Hearts seized, breathing caught to the fear of this stygian apparition, gamboled legs folding in an effort to stop, to turn, to escape. Their bond shattered in an instant, woefully, painfully, as Solomon reared with eyes rolled wild, his rider pitching forward, throwing his weight to the stirrups in a desperate bid to hold his berth. "Whoa, boy. Whoa," he commanded as the forelegs fell and bounced on the dirt. "There, boy. That's a boy." The animal circled awkwardly as he patted the slick surface of its neck, soothing against the panic, focusing every attention on his mount until the stallion stilled, shifting its stance but standing nonetheless, its manic whinny subdued to a more manageably nervous nicker. Only then did he lift his head to examine this intruder. She was a study in black. Slender. Sylphic as a naiad, a nymph in mourning - her long, dark dress tailored to console the subtle curve of her form; an all-consuming grief of intransigent silk she'd enhanced, he thought, to excess with the cowl of a scarf and glasses so large he was lost to discover her face. An arresting sight at the side of that cliff, amid the stones, the clouds, the winds that came to wicker and willow between them. Out of place, almost out of time, yet still a stranger minus rights. He let his rage release. "Who are you and what are you doing on my island?" "Is it your island, then? I thought she only bought you the house." Reality shifted, tipping on its axis and scrambling to right itself. Between the knowing words and the alien dress, he half-suspected he'd ridden himself into a dream. "You may leave on your own or I can call the guards and have you escorted to the launch." "If you have a guard left I'll eat that horse from nose to tail," she declared. He thought he could detect a spark of malice in the tone, but it may have been a trick of the breeze. "He's a beast of bloodline, though. Shame to waste him on a plate." "The police, then," he amended. She made a clicking noise with her tongue and her hand extended slowly. Much to his consternation, Solomon began to venture forth. He couldn't call a halt without confusing the horse and chancing another round of distress. When had he lost control? More to the point, how was he now to find it? "There, there," she clucked, whether to him or to his mount he couldn't quite be sure. "You would have those fine, upstanding men go to all the trouble of speeding to the docks, ferrying across the harbor and trudging up this slope just to rid your eye of a woman to whom you haven't even bothered introducing yourself? You forget, we are equally ignorant in this regard." Two slim fingers glided down the length of Solomon's nose and produced a snort of pleasure. She cooed an unintelligible phrase softly in response. Having made her friend, she stepped back once more and lifted her head, observing him with no small amount of speculation. He thought he could hear her sigh. "Very well. I can see you will have your way. I will leave you now and await the day we can dispense with each and every one of your precious formalities. Until then, da svidanya, Nikolai." Of all he regarded troublesome about this exceedingly bizarre encounter, the most irksome, perhaps, was the energy he found himself forced to expend to prevent the horse from trailing after her. She loitered at the door of the storeroom, working up the nerve to enter while at the same time trying to blend into the traffic of the hospital hall. The volunteer tunic helped, its ugly blue certifying hers as a body that belonged but was too low on the totem pole to merit any notice. That would only fly for so long, though. It was only a matter of time until that body became a face - just a matter of time until another volunteer, or her immediate supervisor, or Audrey Hardy herself would come along and ask her what she thought she was doing. Then she'd have to act surprised, blink her eyes and play the dumb sister again; a part that purely pissed her off and, truth be told, didn't get you very far around here. Still, there were questions she had to ask. Answers she had to have. Explanations she wasn't so sure she wanted but knew, down deep, she needed to get. She'd never move past this if she didn't try. She'd never push beyond it if she failed to make the most of every opportunity presented to lift the stone that had settled on her heart. Their heart. This heart she could never claim as her own but beat like a sweet friend's fist inside her, pounding her into her life. Sometimes it felt like a mountain had come to rest on that heart; a dark, miserable pile of rocks weighing down its spirit, crushing out its spark. Sometimes it just felt grey, like mist or smoke. Moody. Cold. Bleak. Their heart ached. There was no denying it, and no one around who could understand why. Except…maybe… She pulled a breath, opened the door and poked her head inside. "Can I help?" A kind offer, a sunny tone, but her timing sucked as usual. The carton he was trying to stack on the dolly pitched forward at the sound of her voice, crashing to the carpet and spilling its files in a fan across the floor. "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry!" she cried, rushing to sink to her knees and assist him with the mess. "Not a problem. It was heavier than I thought. And this would be the reason." He held up a shard of lavender quartz carved into the shape of a castle. "What would a psychiatrist be doing with a castle? Is it symbolic, do you think?" "It was probably a gift," she replied, still too ashamed of her clumsy introduction to look him in the face. "Doctors get a lot of weird stuff from their patients. Dr. Clayton got frogs once. He's a throat specialist. Frogs, throat, get it?" Great. She was babbling now. Files. Just focus on the files. He tucked the castle back into the box and braced it to the side to make space for the rest. "I'm assuming Mrs. Hardy sent you?" He was looking at her now, she could feel it. She could feel his eyes boring a hole straight through the top of her skull. "Um, no. No, she didn't. I…" She fell back on her heels and surrendered a sigh, her gaze fixing on the ground before her. "I heard you were here for Dr. Lewis' things and I wanted to know…I just wanted to ask…" she stammered, losing the end of the sentence in a sudden spill of shyness. "What's your name?" Oh, this blew. This totally blew. He was going to report her now. "Maxie. Maxie Jones," she confessed, resigning herself to yet another round of Mrs. Hardy's depressingly benevolent lectures. It was the laugh that succeeded, finally, in lifting her head. The brief, warm rumble of his laugh gave her courage for a solid six seconds. Six entire seconds until her eyes met his and everything inside her melted into a puddle of awe. He was…gorgeous. So hard to believe that he was just…this…beautiful. Not like a normal person but like art, like one of those figures she'd seen in a painting; a tormented angel or impassioned god. He had that same luminous quality. Pale. Fragile. Intense. What old Mrs. Bergen used to call sensual before all the kids in class hooted her out of the use of the word. Breathe, her body demanded but her mind wasn't listening, too busy now with the texture of his hair…a thick, liquid sienna rippling in waves above his brow…a smooth brow, the sheerest skin; skin so thin over the bone it rendered the flesh translucent. His eyes seemed older than his face, older than anything she knew and blue, the blue of empty skies, abandoned seas, and that mouth…that mouth was amazing, that mouth was incredible, that mouth was, omigosh, that mouth was…moving! Dammit, Maxie, get ahold of yourself! "Well, that makes two of us," he said, and she was so far out of it she smiled, simply glad to find herself included in any comparison he'd make. His hand extended to cross the distance between them. "From one Max to another." She took that hand and thrilled at the way his fingers closed over her own, the gentle shake, the press of her palm. "Your name is Max?" she echoed, charged by the symmetry. "It is," he confirmed, his eyes alight and patently amused. "I'm going to need that back, you know." She released her grip in an anxious rush, her cheeks fired by embarrassment. "Sorry." "So ask me, Max," he invited with a smile. "What is it you'd like to know? I'll tell you if I can." Her fascination wavered, shifting, slipping into curiosity. "Are you related? To Dr. Lewis, I mean. Are you a member of the family? Did you know Zander Smith?" "Well, that's a plate full of questions, isn't it?" He saw the chagrin in her face and shook his head dismissively. "No, it's fine. It's fine. I suspect the most important was the last, though. Am I right?" "Did you?" She couldn't keep the need from her voice. She didn't even bother to try. "Did you know Zander?" "No," he responded carefully, as if sensing the power this word possessed to injure her. "I never met Zander Smith. I wish I had." A moment's silence was given to allow her to accept this truth before he went on. "I'd gone to Florida looking for some answers of my own. While I was there I met with the conservators of his mother's trust. When I told them I intended to travel to Port Charles, they asked if I might act as their representative here, shipping back whatever belongings remained and settling any debt the Lewis family had left outstanding. I agreed." "So you didn't know Zander?" A second chance. She'd give him a second chance at yes. "No." "But you're here to pick up his things?" "I am." "Well, you can't have them. They're mine." "I don't care, Lucky. And neither should you." How many rounds was he going to have to go with this kid? See? There. Right there. That's half the problem. The longer he thought of Lucky Spencer as a kid - a solemn, solitary, dragged-around-the-world-by-the-scruff-of-the-neck, fugitively-parented kid - the longer he'd continue to construct this state of sympathetic grace around him. Just a bubble of by-your-leave; a generous allowance for mitigating factors, extenuating circumstance, excuses galore. It was habitual at this point; a custom not only for himself but for the town of Port Charles as a whole. And the kid…the man…played on that. Maybe not consciously. Maybe not with intent or an eye to profit - but then again maybe so. Who knows? The truth of it, though, was that this perpetual pass he got, this behavioral carte blanche, wasn't doing him any favors. Counting up the corners this kid cut in a single day, on a single shift, would take more fingers than he had on both hands. Hell, he'd be pulling off his shoes to count the toes. And that wasn't fair. Not to his fellow officers, not to the job, and not to Lucky himself. He'd known for years, years, that someone was going to get stuck with the task of picking up Luke's parental slack. He just hadn't, in his wildest dreams, imagined it would be him. "Commissioner," barked his trainee-of-the-month, barging into the room. "This just came by messenger." He'd already dropped the letter on the desk before he bothered to look up, to see he'd interrupted, then floundered there bouncing his weight from one hot foot to another. He'd do this for an hour, maybe two, until someone had the presence of mind to tap his needle back into its groove. "Knocking is good, Fellocetti. A good knock can save your life. I think you should practice knocking. Now." He watched the rookie cross the room, then remembered the level of intelligence involved. "Oh, and Fellocetti?" "Yeah, boss?" "Not on my door." "Yeah, boss. Yeah. I knew that, boss, I did," the kid insisted, retreating into the hall. Lucky's snicker snapped in half with the cold glare it got. "He's on the right track," offered Mac, nodding toward the door. "That's more than I can say for you." His thumb slipped beneath the flap of the long legal envelope, his eye registering the return address of an attorney he didn't know. The document unfolded in his hands, the headache it contained - and this would definitely qualify as a migraine - spilling straight into his lap. His shoulders slumped as he released his frustration with a world-weary sigh. "What?" pressed Lucky, sniffing out the substance of a major event with his all-too-sensitive Spencer nose. Mac looked up at the kid, down at the paper, and up at the kid again - knowing any chance he had of bringing this boy to heel had just gone out the window. He vacillated for a microsecond, wanting to hold the news to himself, but quickly decided against it. Secrets, being what they were in this town, were better left unkept. "It's an Order of Exhumation. Someone's decided it's time to dig Stefan Cassadine up." Russian Translation: Moya pochteniye, Mariska Stanislovna. U menya est' padarak. "Greetings, Mariska Stanislovna. I have a gift."     Requiem (3)   Give him the darkest inch your shelf allows, Hide him in lonely garrets, if you will - But his hard, human pulse is throbbing still With the sure strength that fearless truth endows. Nikolas angled the canister high above his head, examining the way the light infused the amber liquid it contained. A single comb drifted in its viscid thickness, fat and waxy white, its hexagonal cascade clearly visible through the thinly-tempered glass. His wife sidled closer to his side and exclaimed in a voice tinged with breathy awe, "What is it?" "Myot. Russian honey. Kievan, if I'm not mistaken. It's a very old Cassadine custom. Honey to remind us of chernozem, the black earth from which we sprang. That it comes from Kiev is to recall for us the root of our power. It's said we're descended from Vladimir, the Grand Prince of Kiev, likely the first true prince of Rus. Mrs. Landsbury!" he called abruptly. "Mrs. Landsbury." "What's wrong?" snapped Emily, alarmed by his sudden lurch into motion. She watched with concern as he set down the honey and grabbed up the crate to inspect the wood. His fingers found the laminate pouch and plucked apart its edge, digging for the missive it contained. A small envelope emerged and he tossed the crate aside. The flap ripped open to reveal a calling card, nothing more. His eye turned toward the door. "Mrs. Lands…" he roared, cutting the summons at the sight of her entrance from the hall. "There you are. Who delivered this?" "The crate was delivered by a woman. She didn't leave a name." "Black. Was she wearing black? A long black dress and a scarf wrapped…" he mimed a circle around his face. "Yes. Yes, she was." "Damn it," he swore, turning away. "Thank you, Mrs. Landsbury. You may go." Emily waited for the servant to leave before launching into her questions. "What woman? Who is she? Why are you upset? Nikolas, what's going on?" He thrust the card into her hand and began to pace the hearth. "Maximillian Cassadine," she read aloud, flipping the slip to find nothing on the back. "Who is he? Do you know him?" "Not a clue," he conceded, revolving at the armoire to stride the length of the fireplace again. "I have no idea who he is, but that honey? That crate? That's his way of telling me he's here. In town. In Port Charles." He stopped short to face her, his expression sourly smug. "That's how a Cassadine announces himself. He can't just say hello. No. He's got to have his little ritual. I'm so sick of this. I can't begin to tell you. I can't…" The phone interrupted him, its strident ring causing her to jump. He stalked to the desk and yanked the receiver from its cradle. "Nikolas Cassadine…Yes, Mac…Well, who? What? What?" His words grew clipped, his features grim, and Emily began to worry. "Can they do that? How do I…? Never mind. No…no…thanks for the warning. Thank you, Mac. Good-bye." He set down the phone but kept his hand upon it, his fingers flexing to encompass its base. "Who is he?" he grumbled feverishly, his thoughts clearly racing. "Who the hell is he?" "Someone must know," Emily offered, thinking to address his immediate concern. "He's a Cassadine, after all. He's family. It shouldn't be hard. We've got his name, so we'll start with that. We'll make some inquiries." Nikolas looked at her bleakly. "That's the problem, Em. Don't you see? There's no one left to ask." His eyes closed, his fury building, begging for release. And in a single, savage motion, as graceful as it was destructive, he swept the phone off the desk, ripped it from the wall and spun not once but twice in place, mounting a momentum powerful enough to sail this device across the room, through the threshold and out into the hall where it exploded, with a thundering crack, against the old oak molding of the great front door. The distant crash triggers the memory, prompts it, nudges it along. Bang. That's what he hears and that's all it takes to set his mind adrift, twisting back through a complicated chasm of intervening years, to the moment everything ended. To the moment it all began. You're dead. Am not. Are too. You've got to tell him. Father. The resemblance is so plain it shocks him, even as the wave of narcotic oozes through his system, tainting his perceptions and turning each sensory truth on its head. Those are his eyes in different sockets, his ears glued tight to a different skull. The texture of his skin, the cant of his neck, the cursory sniff as he sucks back a tear. Mine. Those are mine. It's a wonder for a minute, then a theft as the paranoia sinks in and he suspects these things were stolen. He tries to raise a hand to check his face, to confirm himself, but the intravenous tube restricts it. Fear crests like a swimmer to the surface, bursting, gasping for air. I could drown in this. I could drown. And he doesn't need the monitor's accelerating beep to signal his distress. He needs only this weathered version of his face pitching over him, weeping over him, pleading with him to be still. Mr. Cassadine, they said - he remembers this clearly, can hear it even now - Mr. Cassadine, they said, please sit down. If you don't we'll have to ask you to leave. They didn't have his eye, so they didn't see it. The vow. The oath. The unspoken pledge. If they had they would have recognized their threats were useless and nothing they could possibly hope to enforce. He would never leave. He would never leave. Never. Never again. And he could swear, in that one incontestable instant of awakening, the both of them believed this was true. If she hadn't gifted him the short, soft cough he wouldn't have known she was there. Now that he did, and she knew he did, she permitted herself to speak. "You came." "You sound surprised." The whispered click of the closing door echoed somewhere behind him. To her credit, she didn't bother with the light and allowed the twilight's dusk to continue to shelter him in shadow. However curious she was, she could wait. She'd always been able to wait. "Did he suffer?" "Yes," she said simply. "It was all pain. Every inch of it was pain." That was to be expected - both the quality of his passing and her refusal to mince the words. He ran a hand down the embroidered span of the coverlet at his side, fighting the urge to lift it to his face, to sniff for a trace of his substance, his sweat; some remnant of the scent of that pain. "We'd planned to meet in Geneva. He wanted to sail the lake." "Among other things." He chuffed a laugh and nodded in the gloom. "True enough. I often thought he resented the coinage of the phrase multi-tasking. As if, after so many years of concealment, his secret had finally been betrayed." A small agony erupted inside him and he knew better than to think he could push it away. One foot forward. Then a step, then a step, then another infinitesimal step at a time. "How much do I risk with this?" "No one comes to his rooms anymore. They've cleaned them out. They're through." "And you?" He turned to seek her face, knowing its expression was all the answer he'd get. But he couldn't discern her in the darkness. Night had overtaken day. He turned back restively. "I hate him." "I know." "Not to worry. I have no intention of killing him." "No," she allowed, her steady hand falling to his shoulder. "No, Maxim, I suspect you'll do a good deal worse than that." He covered her hand with his own, rubbed it, pressed a kiss to its skin. "Ah, Mariska, I've missed you." The last glass put to shelf, she closed the cabinet and hung the dishrag on its hook to dry. A sponge took the water from the countertop, the crumbs from the cutting board, the soap suds down the sink. Foil tore and tucked around the edges of the plate of leftover chicken; a plate she needed to jockey for a space inside their produce-packed refrigerator. When the door shut with a suctioned thump she wondered if she was through. Had she come to the end of her list of chores, or was there something she'd forgotten? Had the floor been swept? Had the stove been wiped? Was the dishwasher full enough to run? It was hard to keep track of where it finished, of when these things were done. Sometimes she'd quit only to be called to complete the job she missed. Sometimes she'd do something extra and was hunted down by her mother with thanks. The trick was to get it just right, to get it to the point where no one would be coming after her. For anything. Anything at all. It was tougher these days to slip beneath the surface of the Jones family radar; to dive to the bottom of the household aquarium and sit like a snail, snug in your shell, untouched by the tempest above. Her mother's return from Texas, while good and needful and the right thing to do, had the drawback of adding another set of eyes - a roving field of parental attention she found she hadn't missed all that much. Whatcha doin', Maxie? Where ya goin', Maxie. Hold your horses, young lady, I want to talk to you. Solitude skipped away every time she turned a corner. And the rules had multiplied exponentially. Fine, she remembered thinking at the time. If you want to be the one to sit at Daddy's bedside and talk to the doctors and dress his burns, then go for it, Mom, fine. If everyone suddenly thinks you're in charge, that you're on your game, that you have a freaking clue what you're doing, hey, no skin off my nose. It's fine. I'll just take my life back, 'kay? I'll finally get to be me again, and not you-and-me shoved together like a damn peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich. Just leave me alone. Just let me be. But no, she had to have everything. She had to be everything. Even her daughter's very best friend. You might have missed it, Mom, and I know it's a shock, but I pick my own friends now, thanks. She didn't know how she'd gotten to the garage but she wasn't surprised to be there. Like a siren in a myth or a beacon to a ship, this stack of boxes called to her - sung to her promises of peace and silence and meaning in a world that had grown so small, too small to admit any of those things. These cartons were her sanctuary; her safe and only haven, filled with the ingredients of a life that had included her, needed her, perceived her as a person and not as a problem to be solved or worse, a duty to avoid. He didn't harp on all her old mistakes. They didn't matter. It was done. And he didn't press about the future either. Who knew if tomorrow would even come? What they had…what he gave her…was the Now. And she missed the Now. Oh God, how she missed the Now. Her hand drifted to the back of her jeans, sunk into a pocket and withdrew the card. Maximillian Cassadine. She traced the script with the pad of her finger, as if the name were written in braille. As if she could divine its magic by touch; as if its mystery were hidden. He was a Cassadine, after all. All their sorcery was hidden - stashed behind their money and their power and the pride in their blindingly beautiful faces. They were an awful lot like this card in the end. A name and nothing else you could detect with the naked eye. Didn't mean there wasn't anything there, all it meant was that you couldn't see it. Which put you at a loss from the start. Except…well…except that for her he'd provided a little bit more. She flipped the card and found the number she'd memorized hours ago. She wasn't sure why this elegant line of figures demanded that, compelled her to know them by heart. A feeling, she supposed. Just the vaguest sense of a connection looming in the dark. What had he said? Anytime, Max. Anytime. Even if it's only to talk. Even if it's just about frogs. And that's when she knew he'd heard her, that he'd been listening all along. And she could tell herself this minute, and every minute thereafter, that it was all some kind of trick, some scheme to take control of her boxes, yet she knew this wasn't true. Didn't know how. Didn't know why. But she knew it the same way she knew at one point in their short conversation, kneeling on the floor of that storeroom, fleeting…flickering inside her, was a feeling coming back to life. For a second or two, in the time she spent staring into those extraordinary eyes, she'd felt that familiar tug, that desperately longed-for sensation. She'd felt the subtle pull of the Now. Top box first, as always. She took it to the floor and shimmied the lid, setting it to the side. Out came the brace, its laces hatched tight, each string trim and ordered. He'd hurt his arm in a fight. Not the first, not the last, just the kind of man he was. And here was the tie he'd bought for Faith, the shoes he'd run in, the watch he wore. Each possession pulled her down, deeper into his existence, until at last she came to a place where the story could begin. A hole in the fabric of an old pair of pants, ragged at the edge, stiff with blood. She closed her eyes, centered herself, and waited on the words… I'm in trouble. I need your help. If you don't help me I'm going to die. "Dad?" "Officer." "We've got a problem." "I'm listening." "There's an Order of Exhumation for the body of Stefan Cassadine." Ella sang through the wire as his father absorbed the news. He could hear a shotglass drag itself halfway across the bar. "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Memorial Glen?" "Yeah." "Not a problem." The line went dead. Poetry Attributions (the introductory lines): Chapter 1 - from "Elegy for the Time at Hand" by the poet Adonis Chapter 2 - from "Man Cursing The Sea" by the poet Miroslav Holub Chapter 3 - from "George Crabbe" by the poet Edwin Arlington Robinson.