Requiem (19)   I am a parcel of vain strivings tied By chance bond together, Dangling this way and that, their links Were made so loose and wide, Methinks, For milder weather… Should've been a clear path. Should've been a straight shot. Should've been clean sailing right through to the kitchen door; right through to the room she'd set aside so obstinately, so ambitiously, for the woman she planned to become. Someday. Someday soon. Someday later. Someday…and he could get that. He could get the someday place where you kept all the things you meant to do. Like wresting a leg up on your brother. Crushing him. Constraining him. Containing him just long enough to have him turn his bored brown eye to the side and notice you were there. Half dream, half eventual intention. We all had them. We did. So her Someday Kitchen made sense to him, empty as it was. This was where everything waited to happen. This was where the future waited to come. What's a future without a hurdle, though? This is what he thinks once he hits the floor, once his toe tags the open carton he couldn't see through the grocery bags - her open carton that wasn't here this morning but over there between the coffee table and her chunky junk TV. A whim to a pratfall, a hushed string of curses and he's picking up frozen pot pies to the pulse of his blood as it swells to bruise the cap of his throbbing right knee. Nothing was a straight shot in the end. Every path had its peril just itching to be seen. He can't count them on a glance anymore, these tapes that filled her migrating carton, these tapes of her brother bound to a chair, boiling to blow, blasting last chances like bottle rockets through the airwaves of Port Charles. Every day she had a couple more. Every day her target field got wider. And it didn't matter how many times he warned her that buying up all this inventory would only increase the demand, would only serve as incentive to re-stock those same neighborhood video store shelves. She'd gotten to the point where she couldn't bear knowing there existed a tape left to purchase. That someone else, some stranger, could obtain a ringside seat to the penultimate Spencer-Cassadine grudge match and watch her brother go down. Again. And again. And again. Stop circling, Alexis, and just file suit. They were lawyers, he wanted to remind her, until he remembered they were siblings, too. Until he remembered that, yes, this was another one of those minor, mildly-obsessive behaviors Ric Lansing could actually get. He hears her on the phone in the bedroom and checks his watch. Thirty minutes to dinner and a movie. Thirty minutes, if she wanted, to a night on the town. Thirty minutes of the thirty hours they'd spend filling the void of a mandated visitation; that bare-blank stretch of an eternity her daughter left behind every time she went to visit her father. Well, there'd be no watching the clock tonight. There'd be no standing vigil. One nudge now, another in ten, and another and another and another until he managed to nudge her right out the door. Armed in firm determination, and with hardly the hint of a limp, he made his way back. "…I went to Stefan for help. All my life he's been my…friend. He's been my ally. He paid for my law school. And, at best, I would say that Stefan is calculating and, at worse, I would say that he's a very bad man that does very bad things. But really, I mean, what was I supposed to do? Because the justice system failed me…" Her thumb triggers the stop of the recorder at his appearance in the doorway. Just enough of a pause for their eyes to meet before she tugs a tattered Lamby even tighter to her chest, prods the floor with her stockinged feet and sets the rocking chair in motion again. "…which is ironic in that I've spent my life justifying and defending it. And then when I needed it to protect me, it protected the perpetrator instead. So where is the justice in taking away my daughter when all I did was try to defend her? And then this judge who's being paid off by the Quartermaines puts her in a house filled with these lunatics, in the custody of a blatant liar and a chronic alcoholic. So I turned to Stefan. I hate his methods, but in this case I truly believe the ends justify the means…" "I thought you were on the phone," he offers as her thumb halts the tape once more. "I did hate his methods," she submitted in a disembodied monotone, her gaze focused somewhere to the left of the dusky middle distance between them. "They were rarely legal and entirely too well thought out. He had a criminal mind. He did criminal things. But he wasn't a criminal at all. I could never reconcile the distinction, yet that's what he asked me to do every day. Every single day." "What are we doing here, Alexis?" he inquired, leaning a shoulder to rest on the door frame. "It's not like I haven't committed a few criminal acts of my own…" "As have we all," he supplied, tying himself like a ragged tail to the gusted kite of her thoughts, looking for another way around. "…but I could never quite master the follow-through. I mean, Katherine Bell was not my victim of choice, you know. I was aiming for Helena. And how does a faked case of D.I.D. turn into a two-month stint as the Quartermaine butler? Bad planning? Poor choice of conspirators? I just…I break under pressure. He had to know. Of course he knew. That's why he papered me in." He crossed the room and took a knee at her side, his hand staking the chair to a stop. "Sweetheart," he soothed. "I'm not following." Her fingers came to trace the knuckles of that hand, then rose up his suit sleeve to his collar and tripped lightly down his tie. "I went to my brother for help. He didn't come to me. I begged him to get my daughter back in full knowledge of what he was capable of. And he kept saying are you sure? Are you sure, Alexis? Are you sure? He warned me over and over again how bad it was going to get. I don't want any breast-beating or eleventh hour regrets. Do you know how many times he offered me an out? Three. Three times, and there might have been a fourth if he hadn't been arrested for Summer's murder. If it hadn't come to the point where he needed me just as much as I needed him." "He put you in jail, Alexis. He laid the conspiracy against Ned directly at your feet." "It was a choice," she allowed diffidently. "He made a choice. You've been cornered. You know what it's like. You've put people in jail to buy yourself another hour, another day." Her gaze came finally to focus on the worried concern in his eyes. "I broke with him, Ric. I broke with my brother in the interrogation room of the Port Charles Police Department, when he was chained to a table and couldn't get away…when he couldn't come running after me. I'm such a coward. He knew it. Did he know I loved him? Did he know that, too? In the midst of my accusations, in the middle of my disgust, did he know I loved him? Could he hear it riding somewhere, anywhere, beneath all of that moral indignation?" "I don't know, baby. I don't know," he murmured, pulling her from the chair to the floor, then into the soft seat of his lap. "Shh. Shh, now. Shh." He tucked her head underneath his chin and began to rock her gently, stroking her face, hushing her fears and giving those tears a chance to fall. "We should ask him for lunch." "Don't you mean them? Don't you mean: We should ask them for lunch?" He couldn't help it. She was touching the damned tattoo again; two fingers lifting from beneath the sheet to sweep the sweat off the skin of that lie. As if she couldn't find enough romance in being married to the Prince of the Cassadine, enough danger in their adventures, enough reward in this house, in this life, in this love. As if somewhere at the center of her blustered little soul there existed a space he had yet to fill; a place she stuffed with this pirate. He knows she doesn't like Lady Cardiff, it's a feral kind of jealousy they share, but he inserts her here anyway. Inserts her to suggest, in a manner far too subtle to induce an accusation, that there might be a place, some space inside him, she had yet to fill as well. "She doesn't matter. She told me so herself," Emily avowed artlessly, the tips of all four fingers and a thumb arriving to caress his bicep. "She's not the one they sent for answers." "Still…it would be impolite, don't you think, to leave her out if you're going to be there too?" "So you're saying you can't have one without the other? You can't have me without her?" "It's the way things are done, Em, you know that. If we ask him for lunch," he conjectured, flicking a hand back and forth between them, "then we're entertaining and her absence is an exclusion. If I meet him on my own we don't have that problem. Besides," he added philosophically, "the subject matter would bore you to tears. A Hundred and One Reasons Why You Can't Dig Up My Uncle's Grave." "Beyond 'Because I Said So', you mean?" Her soft eyes twinkled, a small smile cresting on the tease. "And here I thought a prince's word was law." "It is," he chafed, annoyed by the insinuation it was not; that he had somehow lost his footing in this game, with this distinctly perverse and aggravating stuffed shirt of a Cassadine. He rolled away to the edge of the bed, a long arm stretching to snag the boxers he'd abandoned on the floor. "We didn't discuss the exhumation. I haven't had that conversation yet." "So what did you talk about?" she asked as he wrangled himself into his shorts and dropped his feet to the floor. "I don't know. How he died. The whys and wherefores. You," he submitted, knowing this would provoke a reaction and give him the upper-hand. "Me? Me?" She was crawling across the mattress now, her knees at his hips, her arms curling to enclose him in an enthusiastic embrace. "What did he say?" she squeaked in his ear. "What did you say? Tell, tell!" "It wasn't like that," he allowed, pausing a moment for emphasis before turning his head to catch her eye. "He considers you one of the primary components of Stefan's death. Integral, in fact. Suggests, even, that if it weren't for you my uncle might still be walking these halls. The implication being, of course, that he could have been saved. That there was something left in him to save." His gaze hardened, fixing on her face, scrutinizing her response to this. He wanted to talk, needed to talk, to sound this indeterminate challenge out - to analyze the issues raised, to mark the threat as it presented - and, given the choice, he'd choose to talk to her. But would she listen? Could she move past that conflictive instinct she had to color every crisis as Us vs. Them? Could she lay her emotions to the side? Did she own an objective eye? He required a mind cold to the stakes, equipped with the skill to calculate, to consider every angle, each potential risk. He needed something uncommon here. Something useful. Something not so very far from the sly, strategic expertise he'd been raised to expect would always be at hand, always within reach; like an ancient well whose interpretive waters he could draw on at will. And as his need went looking for this he saw her expression change, converting from a lively interest to surprise, then shock, then disdain. "That's just ridiculous," she declared, drawing back from his hungry stare, missing the harrowed flash of futility that lanced through his features; the bankruptcy of hope that closed him up, tied him down. "Stefan tried to kill me. You told him that, right?" She retreated in a temper to the headboard, collapsing fretfully into the pillows. "He's not as smart as I thought. You know, that's what happens when you live your life with your nose stuck in a book. You learn everything there is to learn except what's most important. Stefan was like that, too. Filled with over-educated arrogance and completely blind to everything that was going on around him. Lydia? Please. He would never have arranged that marriage if he knew who you were. But he couldn't see you. He couldn't see your heart. He couldn't understand that love can't be traded or sold off to the highest bidder. You were a tool to him. A bargaining chip. Something he could use to buy back his precious Cassadine Estate. Well, it couldn't go on forever," she sustained with a disparaging frown. "That kind of ignorance always comes around to bite you in the end. And it will bite Maximillian, too. I can't believe he thinks I'm responsible for Stefan's death. What about Luke? Luke was the one who pushed him. I wasn't even there." "He fell," Nikolas interjected, uncertain why it mattered. "What?" she snapped, peckish with the interruption of her thought. "He wasn't pushed. He fell," Nikolas maintained, rising to reach for the puddle of pants he'd tossed to the bottom of the bed. He grabbed them, shook them, pulled them on. "He might even have jumped if you accept the contention that Count Stefan Darius Mikkosovich Cassadine was the type of man to leave a suicide note taped to the bottom of a household decoration. I have a hard enough time believing my uncle used tape, unless it was to stop the endlessly incessant carping of his mother's mouth." "But don't you see?" Emily insisted. "None of that has anything to do with me." He wanted this mind. He envied this mind. He felt an honest longing for a cognizance that could hold so fast to the surface and never know the urge to peek underneath. Or locate a reason to try. But he didn't have it and he wouldn't complain. He'd just concentrate, at this juncture, on hunting down his shirt. "Can I help you, Lucky?" Busted. He kept his head down as the light switched on, illuminating the contents of Mac's desk drawer and making the mag-lite he clutched in his teeth completely superfluous. He expanded his jaw and caught the mini-flashlight neatly in the palm of his hand. Time to dance. "And here I thought tonight was the night you guys reserved for the Scorpio-Jones family dinner." "I'm sorry my family's schedule failed to accommodate your criminal enterprise. What are we doing here, Lucky?" he queried, stepping in from the hall. "Besides begging to ride a desk for the rest of your law enforcement career. If you have one left. And from where I stand, that's a pretty big if." "I know it looks bad…" "Looks bad?" Mac exclaimed, his eyes widening in disgruntled disbelief. "You think that desk is mine, don't you? I have news for you, Lucky. That desk is on loan from the department. Everything in it, on it and attached to it - barring that picture and the paperweight rock - belongs to the PCPD. I don't get to press charges on this. You'll be up against IAD." "Wait a minute…now, wait a minute, Mac," Lucky pleaded, pushing the desk drawer shut and attempting to straighten up the mess. "We don't have to bring the Rat Squad into this, do we? It's not like I got away with anything. Heck, I didn't even get what I came for!" "A small piece of advice here, Spencer. Incompetence is not a mitigating defense. Get away from my desk!" he thundered, striding forward to grab Georgie's rock from his hand. The kid retreated obediently and, as Mac busied himself with setting this treasure back into place, side-stepped to the wall in an effort to ease out the door. "Uh-uh, no. Sit!" Mac ordered, launching a furious finger in the direction of an empty chair. "Unless you'd rather take a trip down to the interrogation room and make a formal statement?" "I'm sitting! I'm sitting!" cried Lucky, resigning himself to the narrow scope of his desperately dwindling options. "Then start talking. And don't waste my time with one of those standard Spencer evasions. If I'd caught your father with his hand in that drawer he'd be spending the night in jail, no matter how fast he danced." Mac circled the desk with slow deliberation, removing his jacket to hang it on the chair. He adjusted the shoulders once, then twice, torturing the silence to give the kid a taste of how much trouble he was in. "Straight and to the point," he advised, finally deigning to take his seat. "Go." Lucky, slumped and slumming for a better excuse than the one he had, raked a hand through his hair and lifted his most pitifully pained expression to the scrutinizing face of his boss. "I don't know how to say this. It's just…I…it's Maxie, Mac. I'm really worried about her." His eyes rose to quest for a reaction, to test the temperature of this approach while he still had time to change it. "She's been up to that Cassadine's cottage a lot. It's becoming a regular thing. I tried to talk to her about it but she won't tell me why she goes or what she does inside. And I don't like it. Big surprise, right?" He shrugged here for effect, stringing this heartfelt rationalization on. "I mean, Spencer? Cassadine? The history's there. Maybe you're okay with this, I don't know. But I heard you had his papers on file. Freshmeat, um, Fellocetti said he copied them up for you and I thought if I could just take a look, get some background on the guy, you know? Then maybe I could figure out whether I should put a stop to this or not." Mac's gaze narrowed - the only alteration in evidence on his otherwise cold and stony countenance. "I won't bother to ask where you find the time to keep such a close watch on that cottage. We both know you make the time, and I doubt it's for my daughter. I gotta hand it to you, Spencer. It's a ballsy move to throw Maxie in the mix. Stupid, but ballsy." "Then you know she's up there? Good," Lucky sighed, pumping up the fiction with a feigned relief. "If you're on top of this then I've got nothing to worry about. I mean, first those boxes and then all the hours she spends inside doing who-knows-what? Well, you know, of course. Man, that's a load off! Total over-reaction on my part. If you want to write me up I completely understand." "All what hours?" Mac inquired through a jaw so tight the teeth had started to grind. "And before you decide to get creative with this lame-ass story of yours, let me remind you this is my daughter you're talking about. Lie and I don't care how far or fast you run, I'll find you. I'll hunt you down like a dog. That's not a promise, Lucky, that's a threat. So be very careful about what comes out of that clever mouth next." He didn't know how it happened, which shift in the shuffle had suckered him south, but he was on the hook for it now. Surrendering a sourly-contentious grunt, Lucky dropped his gaze to the carpet and began to spill what truth he had. When she finally entered the bathroom she didn't bother with the light, just closed the door behind her and stretched a tired arm through the dark to twist the faucet on. Tossing the cloth now drenched in his sweat to the basin underneath, she rinsed her hands above it and reached for a towel, then drifted back against the wall. It's an odd thing, she thinks, the way these hands stay busy with their drying while her legs give way beneath her and she sinks to the floor. An odd thing to find them so calmly turning, so precisely wiping, as her breath turns ragged and her shoulders shake - the last of her anger draining from the face of an old, familiar fear. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the nightmares had returned. It didn't surprise her. What else to expect when you come fishing for them in a town so filled with death? Bad enough at Cambridge, those early years with the trauma fresh. Three in the morning and his bedclothes soaked, legs twitching, arms flailing, clinging to the collar of the beast as he screamed: "No! God, no!" That haggard lurch to the phone, the urgent supplications and insistences to a father who sat helpless a million miles away. Hours of soothing it took. Hours of soothing through the wires; Stefan patiently folding the facts, packing the logic back into his mind. And slowly, too slowly for all of them she thought, his miseries had receded. But now, today, who was there to soothe? Who was there to call? Who could help her fit these bits of eggshell back in place? All the king's horses, all the king's men… Djinn covered her mouth with the towel and released a muffled roar, then planted a palm to the tile and thrust herself to her feet once more. Requiem (20)   If everything is so hard. If everything hurts so much. If one man. And another man. And again another. And another. Destroy the spaces where love is kept. If it weren't hard. Hard and tremendous. If it weren't impossible to forget this rage… "Maximillian. Over here." Maxim made his way through the trellised arch and across the flagstone to the table, sensing himself suddenly overdressed in a suit. Kelly's he'd imagined would be a place more along the lines of a Jake's or a Luke's or the countless other, similar establishments that offered up a single name as if to claim an infamy of sorts and somehow dispute the truth of what they were - just another local bar with a stool and a jar for tips at the end of the counter. Instead he'd arrived at what appeared to be the Port Charles equivalent of an outdoor café; a milieu that, on this chilly afternoon, begged more for a blazer than a jacket and tie, more for leather boots than loafers. This prince's cinnamon suede and sweater cast him in the mode of the leisured bon vivant, his own grim grey beside it turning to what the casual observer was certain to perceive as the eager uniform of his lackey - a false but irritatingly apparent impression there was nothing he could do about now. "Coffee?" asked the waitress as he unbuttoned his coat and drew out a chair. "Not at the moment, thank you." Nikolas, he saw by the level of his cup and its clear need of a refill, had been sitting here for some time. "Am I late? I thought you said four-thirty." "Oh, I did. Thank you, Penny." The conversation paused as the girl poured, then retreated to slip away. "I came to take a look at the harbor. I had an idea I wanted to discuss with you. But first, about this exhumation. I'd prefer it if the matter were dropped." "I'm sure you would," Maxim remarked, leaning back to cross his legs and lace ten patient fingers atop the bend of a knee. "I can see how that might serve your needs, though you must admit it does nothing in regard to the needs of others. The council is asking a question here. You may be silent, that is your right. It does not, however, discharge me of the duty to bring them an answer." Nikolas gifted him a tolerant nod and the smug half-curl of a smile. "Let's not kid ourselves, all right? We both know if I tell you he's dead you won't believe me. If I say he's alive you'll ask for proof. It's not an answer you're looking for. You need the truth." His gaze dropped to his coffee, his thumb grazing the fat cup's rim. "I've spent the bulk of my life in a similar pursuit." "Then you know…" "What I know," Nikolas interjected in a flatly determined tone, "is that, as with so many other things, the Cassadines have their way with the truth. They make it, break it and discard it on a whim. Go looking for a foothold and I can guarantee you're not going to find one." Maxim's brow arched in amusement, his mouth mocking a comparable grin. "And where would we be without our petty ordeals? If you have a truth then tell it and leave my feet to me." The prince's posture stiffened, the muscles in his face compacting to a mask as he took stock of his tormenter. His gaze more of a glare now, he spat his words with a terse precision designed to brook no dispute. "You're aware of my grandmother's penchant for reviving the dead? Katherine Bell may not have made it to the pages of the European press, but news of my father's…reanimation? You must have been apprised of that?" "Stavros, yes," Maxim accorded with an almost imperceptible bow of his head. "The carbonic chamber. A fantastic assertion. Appropriate though, in a way. Your father was, by all accounts, an authentic force of nature. And I suspect," he offered on a softer, more sympathetic note, "a largely misunderstood and misinterpreted man." "My father was a rapist and a killer," charged this son, his fury cold and crisp. "He was a selfish, egotistical tyrant whose crimes ruined the lives of everyone who knew him. Every day he walked this earth was a day of misery and pain. He viewed people as playthings; toys he could destroy the instant they ceased to entertain. The agony of others meant nothing to him, as long as he was getting what he wanted. He let his hungers drive him; his desires, his greed. He committed more than his share of atrocities and never felt a moment's remorse. Never felt sorrow. Never felt shame. Stavros Cassadine wouldn't know a legitimate regret if it walked up and tapped him on the shoulder." Maxim watched this prince's rancor crest and dissipate, silent as a parish priest through his penitent's wildly-misdirected rage. Only when calm had been recovered did he venture to speak. "On the contrary, Nikolai Stavrosovich," he refuted on a quiet sigh. "I can promise you wherever your father rests tonight it is within arm's reach of his regret." "You didn't know my father," Nikolas contended restively. Nor you mine, at the end. "And Helena's hobby, what does this have to do with Stefan?" "I didn't want another zombie on the loose," his cousin stated starkly, pushing himself away from the table as if to distance himself from the thought. "What she can't find she can't bring back to life. Thanks to you, though, I'm sure she's aware the body's gone missing by now. And you should know my grandmother has very little patience when it comes to other people's secrets. She won't bother with an Order of Exhumation. She'll dig him up herself." Maxim sensed the truth in these words and the justification behind them. Nikolas was presenting his honest perception of events. It would be laughable if it weren't so thoroughly and tragically sad. "And that's the reason for all of this subterfuge? The risk of revivification?" "You sound like you don't believe me," he snorted, stretching for his cup as he shook his head. "I don't, no. I don't believe you, not that it matters in the least. I'm sure you believe what you're saying. In fact, I'm convinced you think it's the truth. Helena has always been incredibly convenient. She serves you so well I'm genuinely surprised you tried to kill her. Who would we cite for our choices then?" The coffee had almost reached his lips when it halted and was sent back to the table with markedly deliberate care. "What do you mean?" "What can you afford to hear?" Maxim countered, his expression advancing an inquisitive concern. "I imagine it takes a monumental effort to keep that fortress in place. I'd hate to be the one to find its weakness and bring it crashing down. As you yourself have noted, the footing here is treacherous. What if, for example, I were to offer up the observation that it was not the zombie you feared to face but your own reflection in your uncle's eye? What if I were to speculate that you blame yourself so completely in this matter you've been forced to eliminate every scrap of evidence to your crime? What if I were to suggest that before you closed the lid on his coffin you secretly slipped your soul inside? What if I were to theorize you've been empty ever since? Would you validate any of this? Could you even hear the words I've said?" Had those arrows hit the mark? He was given only seconds to judge before a crowd of people entered the courtyard, forgiving the prince a response. Their laughter was loud, their gestures broad, their number enough to clog the door as they took their turns to enter, chattering non-stop. Nikolas snatched at the interruption like floating wreckage on a stormy sea and rose from his seat, pulling the wallet from his coat. Flashing a bill through the window of the diner to the waitress working inside, he tossed it down to the table and motioned for them to leave. They walked to the pier in silence, each man alone with his thoughts, Maxim still optimistic a reply was in the offing. It wasn't until they'd reached the railing and turned to face the water - scanning the harbor as the breeze stilled and the early evening sun strained to touch the rim of the horizon - that he discovered how wrong he'd been. "Speaking of resurrections," the prince announced, proceeding with a conversation they had never actually begun. "There's a business plan I put in motion once that I've been thinking of employing again. The spine of the Cassadine fortune was built on its shipping line. Most of that infrastructure is still in place - the European exporters, the Greek and Italian docking facilities, the warehouses, the supply routes. It was my thought to return us to the industry we know, to rebuild our fortunes in the field we are most famous for and in which our reputation, as dusty as it is, remains intact. Unfortunately the last attempt met with an unforeseen complication that cost me the majority of my capital…" "You're talking about the freighter." "Yes." "The freighter Faith Roscoe sank." "Zander set the bomb, but Faith gave the order, yes." His eyes narrowed with the memory and he turned from the water to regard Maxim with a slyly sardonic smile. "My aunt tells me you've been making good on the Lewis family debt. I suppose I could task you for that, although I doubt their account would cover it." "You'd have difficulty proving malfeasance at this stage of the game. As I understand it, he was never charged. And what of Mrs. Roscoe's part? Or Alcazar, who so cavalierly placed your debt in her hands? Will you be tasking them as well?" "Faith is on the run. She won't be coming back. As for Lorenzo Alcazar, he's winnowed the illegal elements from his empire in a late-day play for legitimacy. In fact, the only potential obstacle remaining to free access of these docks is Corinthos-Morgan Enterprises - the Morgan in that equation being my wife's brother; a brother who would walk through fire for her. I've got a clear field now and I intend to take advantage. What I require is an investor, or a group of them if you like. My first invitation extends to your Cassadines. It would please me to keep the business in the family." Maxim's neck arched at the boldness of the tactic, his head cocking in astonishment. "You'd take the council on as partners? That's an interesting idea." And a frightening one, too. Maxim could picture the panic in their eyes when they caught wind of this. The cost of their answers had skyrocketed. He wouldn't be at all surprised to find them taking a giant step back from this prince, scurrying to the darkest shadow and mopping the sweat from their collective brow. A win-win situation for the man who stood before him now, waiting on a response. "Provide me with a prospectus and I will present your invitation at the earliest opportunity." Nikolas seemed satisfied with this and nodded in acceptance, pushing himself from the rail to depart. "I'll be in touch," he said, extending his hand for the perfunctory deal-sealing shake. Maxim complied with the courtesy, startled to discover the strength of the grip that came to squeeze his palm and the length of time the prince chose to keep it imprisoned between them. He lifted a curious glance, puzzled by the sudden fire that infused this closing moment. "It doesn't matter what you believe," Nikolas seethed beneath his breath. "You're nothing here. No one. And you'll never know the truth." The grinding grip released and he shook his wrist to quicken the flow of blood to his fingers. By the time he looked up from his throbbing hand, his cousin was gone. "Counselor, what can I get you?" "The master," she announced as she crossed through the casino, coming to a halt at the Haunted Star's bar. "You're lookin' at him," Luke trumpeted, hooking a thumb to the lapel of his tuxedo and puffing his chest to strike a pose. "The master of the margarita, the Manhattan, and the bridge-and-tunnel baby's Long Island Iced Tea. The master of the cut, a little Blind-And-Straddle, the knock, the stock, Mexican stud and your plain ol' Seven-Toed Pete. The master of the contraband Cuban leaf, the soulful sin of vintage jazz, the sundry stretch of a Cincinnati stick as it pricks a lonely eight-ball to the pocket. They know me in the Old South as a master of mendacity, in the Near East as a master of escape. Hell, darlin', I'm known all over the world as the master of something or other. Which master did you want to stake?" "I want the master of Stefan's tape," she resolved with a determined eye, unimpressed by his list of questionable achievements and the tongue-in-cheek tone he took with her here. His peacock chest deflated, his arm swinging 'round to tag a glass. "Natasha, you wound me to the quick." A bottle lifted in offering but failed to soften her steel. He shrugged away the invitation and poured a drink for himself. "I want that master and all of the remaining inventory. I'm this close," she revealed, curling a finger and thumb within an inch of her face, "to issuing a restraining order. Not that I expect you to stop production on the threat of a piece of paper, but you might want to think about how that order will open the door for the police. It's all the excuse they'll need to come around investigating whatever they please, whenever they please and taking however long they like. There's a phrase for that. What's the expression? Rousting the undesirables? Yes. Yes, that's it." Luke knocked a fist to his breast and dropped his head in sorrow. "It hurts that you've turned against me, darlin'. We used to be so tight," he proclaimed, snapping the word like a towel to a lasciviously-fantasized derriere. She would not be swayed. "You've had more than a year to milk that farce and if you're lucky I'll let you keep the profits. But don't push me, Luke. Hand over that tape or I'll throw you in jail, and we both know I can do it." "Leave it to the Cassadines. A day late and multi-million dollars short. Cut the cord, Natasha," he advised over the rim of his glass. "That ship's going down. Stick around and you'll start to resemble one of those nasty, whiskered rats." He watched her arm stretch out across the bar, her hand extended flat, her fingers clawing to insist on his surrender of the tape. He chuffed a dispirited grunt. "I don't have it anymore, okay? Do you have any idea how many hours it takes to run those suckers off? This Spencer soul was being ground to dust beneath the merciless heel of supply and demand; slaving in indentured servitude to the crusted consumptive masses. What a bunch of whiners. And those mail orders?" His tongue unrolled through his teeth with a grimace of disgust. "How much could it cost to flavor a stamp?" He made another grab for the whiskey to dispel that imaginary taste. "I sold it all, kit and kitschy caboodle, to the first chump who came along." "A name," she demanded. "Don't have one," he replied, his head thrown back to gargle the shot of liquor down. "What's it matter anyway?" he asked on the rasp of a ripened belch. "Vlad is yesterday's news, just lining a cage for parrot poop. Which makes him useful at last." Alexis withdrew her arm from the bar, her glare sharpened to scrutinize his face for the hint of the lie she didn't see. She released a sigh, chased it with a growl, and stepped back from the bar to leave. "Speaking of the bat," he drawled, catching her as she turned. "I hear we're missing a body." She started on the statement, then pulled herself together and dropped a knowing smile into place. "Does that worry you, Luke? I can see how it might. Very few of the Cassadines you kill actually manage to stay dead." "Oh, he's dead," she was promised with a confident, contemptuous grin. "I made sure of that. So what's little Nikkie doin' now? Stripping him for parts?" She grimaced on the image, her tolerance finally reaching its end. "Just stay out of it, Luke. I'm warning you. I'm not in a forgiving mood these days so just…just…" She couldn't find the rest of the words and had to satisfy herself with a gesture, raising a cautionary finger as she met his unrepentant eye. "Stay out of it," she repeated sternly, turning on her heel to go. The master's gaze trailed after her, then fell to the bottle he was clutching in his hand. He pushed it further away on the bar, had a second thought and pulled it back, then quickly pushed it away once more, cursing all this covert Cassadine crap. He was going to need a clear head for the next hour or two. It was time to come up with a plan. Felicia kneaded the back of her neck and tipped her head to the side, grateful for the whispered crack of a bone that broke the pressure he'd been building for hours. A single, small, salvational snap and warmth flooded her muscles again, blood flowing free as it eased its way through the knot his fractious mood had inspired. A furtive glance from beneath her bangs found him still pacing that same stretch of floor, still stalking those same ten feet from the window to the door, like an animal in a cage. He was going to wear a hole in the carpet any minute now. And she liked the bedroom carpet, recalling the trouble it had taken to find this perfect shade of maize. She sometimes wished she could rewind the clock, reverse these miserable days away, just seize Life by its scrawny old throat and force it back the way it came. Back to Texas and the ranch and the range; to Maria's weak smile and wise-wizened eyes; to the point when they'd discussed the most convenient time for her to quit her beloved hacienda and take her family in hand again. She shouldn't have needed Bobbie's call, it shouldn't have taken the news of his pain; those burns, that fire. But it did. It had. If only she could've gotten off the plane with the knowledge she carried now, things would have been so different. She understood she'd be stepping to the center of a crisis-in-progress; that was a given. What she hadn't counted on, though, were all the secrets they'd been keeping from each other; all the lies they'd been telling to disguise the dangerous choices they'd made. The whimsically irresponsible Dillon Quartermaine and his shark of a mother Tracy had somehow become the primary focus of her little Georgie's world - and while little Georgie was not necessarily so "little" anymore, Felicia doubted she'd developed the grit to meet a hardened Quartermaine head-on. And Maxie. Oh, Maxie. Her heart broke in half on the name; eliciting a sympathy so overwhelming it knocked her off her feet again and again. Kyle. She wanted to kill that child - and did in several surprisingly gratifying night-time dreams. Then, as if that weren't enough, here comes Zander. Zander on the run, Zander self-destructing, Zander skating the razor's edge. The lamentable way his tangle of a life met her daughter's tangle of a need. Wrong places, wrong times - and even now, a year later, she was still searching for some sad little shard of his fractured soul to save. It was difficult enough to tackle these problems as they lay, as they stood. Add the frustrating, fulminating fire of a father who simply wouldn't let go and she found herself, more often than not, half a breath from screaming and ready to rip all the hair from her skull. "Mac. Mac, sit down," she instructed, launching a finger in the direction of the bed. He spun on her with a scowl, fists clenched, shoulders braced, fighting off what he had to know was an inevitable defeat. "Felicia, you don't understand. You weren't here, okay? You didn't see how she got sucked into this. He had her running his errands, covering his tracks, trailing after him all over town. Now he's gone and she's still obsessing. Tell me you don't have a problem with that." Her arm, still fixed in position, denied him an answer until he sat. He lumbered to the bed resentfully, dropping to the mattress with a growl. She pushed from the wall to join him there and set a hand to rest in reassurance on his mindlessly bouncing thigh. "Maxie's the one with the problem, Mac. You know it and she knows it, too. We've got to let her work through this. In her own way. In her own time." "She's had a year, Felicia. I've given this a year!" "You don't get to set a limit on grief. It would be nice if you could, but you can't. Zander died, and for awhile she thought she was responsible for that. For that and for putting her father in the hospital with second-degree burns. Then she turns around to discover the man she was trying to save survived that fire just to be killed in a stand-off with the police. It's a lot to carry, Mac. That's a whole lot of pain to put to rest. You're not going to like it but I have to say I'm glad she found someone she can talk to. She's finally letting somebody in." His weight shifted and he started to rise but she pushed him down again. "I know you don't approve of him. I know you wish it was you. But we didn't listen to her, Mac. Not the way she needed us to. Somebody's doing that now and, I'm sorry, but I think that's a very good thing." "If she wants to talk she should talk to a therapist. I can set up an appointment at GH." "If she wanted to talk about herself I might agree with you on that. But she doesn't, Mac. Don't you understand? She wants to talk about Zander. She needs to honor his life in a way she feels Port Charles never did. And here's a man who's come to town representing his family - a man you've checked out, by the way. He's offering her the unique opportunity to share her memories of the relative they lost. He's giving her a chance to process that pain, and I really think we should let her try." "She was supposed to drop off the boxes," he grumbled, raking a thwarted hand through his hair. "That's it. That's all. The end." "I can't blame him for wanting to know what it is he's taking back. Think of that family, Mac. Think of how much this will mean to them." "I don't care about the family," he charged, his fury mounting a last, ragged stand. "And I don't care about him. I don't trust him either, Felicia. Forget that he's a Cassadine. There's something fishy going on. I can feel it." "Nobody's asking you to trust him," she declared, her expression darkening to offer a glower that gently mocked his own. "You go right ahead and keep an eye on the mysterious Maximillian Cassadine. He needs watching and I wouldn't have it any other way. But he's not the one we have to trust here, Mac. The only one who's asking for that is Maxie. It's hard, I know. And scary to boot. But I'm going to trust our daughter and I'm hoping you can find a way to do that, too." She watched his broad shoulders slump, his features collapse in an endearing despair, and pecked an impetuous kiss to his cheek. "It's going to be okay," she soothed, taking his hand in her own. "We'll get through this. We will." "Should I have trusted her with Kyle?" he accused, his voice so soft, so bitter. "And Zander. Should I have trusted her with Zander, too?" She pulled his hopeless arm around her and sank into his chest with a sigh. "It's the hard truth of parenthood, Mac, whether you're a dad or a mom or a baby girl. When it comes to doing what's right, we're all on a learning curve." Requiem (21)   …But why is desire suffering? Because want leaves a world in tatters? How else but in tatters should a world be? "Ganz meine Meinung…Aber das ist offensichtlich eine Phantasie…Wie bitte? In English then, very well. My apologies, Herr Kruger. I did not realize this was a conference call…No, I do not believe he expects you to invest, although I'm sure he would not find that outcome displeasing…Mr. Langston is correct. If we continue to pursue this matter legally there will be publicity to contend with…Viscount, I can assure you the family's concerns mean nothing to him…Then I will tell him that…No, I will not mention you by name, Fyodor…Please, if you would, simply wait until he provides us his prospectus. No decision needs to be made until that time…Thank you. Danke, danke. Good-bye." She watched him fold the cell phone shut still in awe of his ease with that foreign language - German, she thought. What must it be like to be able to slip so effortlessly into the tongue of another country? She bets he's been there, too. To Germany, and lots of other countries besides. Russia, for sure. And Switzerland as well because that's where Geneva was. She looks at him sometimes, lately, recently, her gaze lingering longer than it should, pressing a tiny ounce harder than it should, as she imagines that boat and that squall and that day. And sometimes, when she forgets to look away, he'll catch her eye - his brow lifting, his face turning into one giant, quiet question. She never answers him, won't answer him now, just drops her chin to the floor again, a little bit embarrassed but not too much. She understands why he did it, you see. Why he sailed to the center of that lake and stayed…stayed until his heart gave out. That's how it is, exactly how it is, and this is how she knows he knows exactly what she's been going through. "Where were we then?" he announced, returning to sit atop the three small stairs leading down into the living room, careful not to step on any of the treasures she'd strewn across the hardwood floor. Maxie leaned forward from her cross-legged perch at the eye of this possessional hurricane to pass him a pair of white dress gloves. "The Halloween Charity Ball," she said as he reached for the offering, the supple brush of the starched white cotton sliding through her fingers to his. "It was a masquerade they held in the Versailles Room of the Port Charles Hotel. He came as a Confederate solider, an officer I think. Those are the gloves he wore. It's funny though, you know?" she remarked, pulling back to her seat. "It wasn't him. The costume, I mean. All those polished buttons and the cord and the trim. Everything so crisp and formal, so clean. It was like he was trying to make a point, to show he was just as important, just as impressive as everyone else in the room." "As Nikolas, you mean," mused Maxim, splitting the gloves apart in his hands to examine their stitching. "I'm assuming Emily was there?" "She was. She came with Lucky. Which just, you know, amped up the competition by like a zillion degrees. You could tell by the way they were circling each other. All that glaring and facing off? It wasn't fair. It looked really painful, if you want to know the truth. I just…I thought she should pick one and get it over with. Put them out of their misery. Honestly?" she confessed, her voice hitching to a whisper as her eyes fell to the floor. "I thought she should pick Nikolas so Zander could dance with me." She spied the newspaper clipping tucked beneath her knee and plucked it up to pass it over. "Here's the picture the society page ran. The future Mr. and Mrs. Cassadine, although no one knew it at the time." He traded the gloves for the clipping, patiently waiting as she returned her prizes to their nest of tissue paper and gently folded them up. When he finally glanced down at the photograph he nodded in recognition, then squinted to take a closer look. "You know, I've seen this before and I still don't…who is he supposed to be? I want to say Rasputin," he conjectured, spinning the image around with a smile. "But Rastafarian comes so much closer to the mark." Maxie started to giggle, she couldn't help herself. "I know! It was so bizarre. I mean, Nikolas Cassadine. Nikolas Cassadine coming as a character from a movie! You'd think he'd choose something from a piece of literature, or history, or a play even. But no, he's pirate captain Jack. I shouldn't laugh, though. I've got no room to talk. Dillon said my Josephine was a dead ringer for a Bond girl. I guess the dress was too tight." "I'm sure you looked absolutely beautiful," he declared, passing the picture back. "So did you get your dance with Zander?" "Not that night, no," she admitted, pulling the empty carton around to pack the gloves away. "That came later, when he was on the run." Geez, Maxie, volunteer the memory why don't you? She'd sworn a solemn oath never to discuss that night or that dance; saving this one cherished encounter solely for herself. While it wasn't the very first time she'd thought of Zander Smith in a romantic sense, it was for sure the first time she'd thought there might be hope in that direction. Who was going to understand what it meant for him to recreate the scene of the Winter Formal - an event she'd missed in an effort to help him hide from the police? Who was going to appreciate the candles he lit and the music he played? Who was going to get the thread of her daisy through his lapel? Her hand in his hand, her cheek to his chest; the languid sway of the circle they'd made in the center of her bedroom floor? Nobody, that's who. They'd tell her she was just deluding herself and that he'd been insane; that all it amounted to was one more reckless act she'd committed with a man who should have been in prison; shuffling off the Pentonville bus in a tangle of iron chains. She didn't want the memory touched or crushed or ruined in any way. So she didn't talk about it, refused to even think about it, hoarding it like a miser would gold in a world too poor to pay. Now she'd gone and blurted it out! All she could think to do at this stage was keep herself busy repacking the box and pray - pray that the words would go away or that he hadn't really been listening. "You've been such a surprise, Max. It's a wonder you're not aware of that." The remark caused her face to flush and her hands to flutter even faster with their work. "No one knows about you. His family had no idea you helped to hide him at the end. After we met I went back through the newspaper accounts of the time, but your name never appeared. The people I've talked to, and there have been several, never mentioned your involvement. Yet there you were, assisting Zander Smith at every turn. How is it possible you've kept all this a secret?" "That's my dad," she disclosed simply. "Not that he kept it a secret or anything, just that people respect him too much to drag his family through the mud. By the time the press found out about me he was lying in the burn ward of the hospital. You don't kick a man when he's down. Or at least they weren't going to kick him. Besides, the hotel was still on fire. It wasn't like there weren't dozens of other stories to tell." "You missed one," he observed, pointing to a small swatch of gauze lying lonely to the left of the floor. She twisted around and sighted the cloth, picked it up and sat back on her heels with a sigh. "Does that have a story as well? It must." "Not his. It's not Zander's or…well, it wasn't supposed to be," she amended, fingering the net listlessly. "This was part of my dad's dressing. The bandage they wrapped around his face? Only it wasn't his face. He wasn't even in General Hospital then. He was all the way over at Mercy." "Can I see it?" he inquired. She extended her arm to pass the padding over and he caught her by the wrist, his head tilting to suggest she take a seat at his side. She complied, rising from the floor and crossing to the stairs in dejection. Once she was settled he accepted the bandage and began to turn it over in his hands. "This makes you angry," he submitted, his eyes still fixed on the cloth. "I don't…well, yeah," she revealed in a voice that couldn't quite hide her discontent. "It was wrong, what he did, and dangerous too." She paused here, waiting for a question or a cue, but the man at her side remained silent and in that silence allowed her the choice of a place to begin. She bit her lip and shook her head. "Everyone thought he was dead…Zander, I mean. They thought he died in the fire. They found a body and everything. I thought he was dead, I really did. And here's my dad, his face completely burned, lying in a hospital bed. And I knew, I knew if it hadn't been for me he would never have been burned in the first place. If I'd just told him I was helping Zander…but I didn't. Instead he had to get a tip from someone else and go rushing into that fire…it was my fault. It was all my fault." She felt the weight of his palm on her shoulder, the pressure of its reassuring squeeze, and took a single, steadying breath. "So I went to apologize to Mac. I didn't even know if he could hear me, but there I was babbling my excuses and sobbing at the side of his bed. When I'm done he reaches out his hand like this," she displayed, extending her wrist on a knee, "and I think, thank God he forgives me. Only guess what? That's not Mac in the bed. Turns out it was Zander pretending to be Mac. Somehow, I don't know how, he got my dad transferred to Mercy Hospital and admitted as a John Doe. Mac, who's like in so much pain and could have died any minute. So, yeah, that makes me kind of angry." "As it should," Maxim affirmed, casting his arm around her. "I'd be furious, too." She could feel her tears simmering and cursed the weakness she felt. "How could he do that? He just sat there and watched me cry my eyes out. And he stole Mac's apology, too. I mean, I only said it once…I could never…I just couldn't find the courage to repeat it all over again. I felt like such an idiot. Such a fantastic fool." "Did you tell that to Zander? You confronted him, I hope?" "No," she admitted. "I didn't find out it was Zander until after he made his escape. I never saw him again." "So let me get this straight," he said, struck by a dawning, conflicted surprise. "The last time you saw Zander he lied to you?" "Well, he didn't really lie to me…" "I'm sorry, but yes he did," Maxim pronounced remorselessly. "He let you believe he was your father. He could have spoken up at any time. He didn't choose to do that. This counts as a lie." "You don't understand," she insisted, looking up at him from beneath his arm. "He was running for his life. He didn't have a lot of choices then. It's not like he could sit back and say, 'What's the best thing for Maxie?' People were trying to kill him." "He trusted you once. He could have trusted you again." "But maybe not. You don't know. Or I don't know, anyway," she revised, lowering her eyes to escape his blunt, unforgiving gaze. She was still defending Zander, she realized that, but what else could she do? There was so much about that day in the hospital she hadn't managed to figure out, and until she did she felt compelled to give him the benefit of the doubt. "I think he might have been trying to protect me - like he'd put me through enough already and knew it was only going to get worse. Which it did. Two weeks later he was dead. I could have been there, you know. I would have been with him if he'd just given me the chance." She leaned into his chest, her brow rising on his restive sigh, her eyes closing to find solace in the sound of his heart beating beneath her ear. "Oh Max," he lamented, pressing his lips to the top of her head. "You take it all on, don't you?" He set the bandage down and put his other arm around her, enclosing her in a sad embrace. "You might be right. It's possible Zander was trying to protect you from where his life was headed, but I still don't think it was fair of him to accept an apology you meant to give your father. From everything you've told me about him, that doesn't seem like something he would do." "Normally he wouldn't," she whispered. He bent forward, a small smile playing on his lips. "You sound so sure about that." "I am," she declared confidently, peeking up from his shirt. "If he were here today…" "If he were here today," he echoed, encouraging the elaboration of that thought. "Go on." Maxie pulled back from his embrace and released a sour little laugh. "If he were here today he'd go straight to Mac and tell him it was all his fault. I can picture it now. If you're going to blame anyone, Mac, blame me. Like my dad needs another reason. Then I'd be stuck running interference between the two most stubborn men I know." Her head shook on the image. "Zander had this talent for making life a lot harder than it had to be. His own and everyone else's." "So he'd see there was a problem here?" "With my dad? Yeah, he'd see it." "And he'd try to address it, yes?" "Well, yeah," she allowed frowning, puzzled at his meaning. "Then since he's not here to do it himself, perhaps you should think about doing it for him." "What? Apologize to my dad?" "Yes," he contended, lifting a finger to brush the hair from her bewildered eyes. "Grant him the atonement he never had the chance to make. You know Zander's reasoning better than anyone else. Share that with your father. Tell him what you think Zander would have needed to say." She resisted this idea for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that it meant engaging in another confrontation with her dad. "He doesn't want to hear about Zander anymore. He says it all the time." "Would that have stopped Zander from doing what he felt he had to do?" "No," she acknowledged reluctantly. "Then you shouldn't let it stop you. Ah, Max," he crooned, pulling her back beneath his arm and rocking her slowly, side-to-side. "Life is such a short thing. Snap your fingers and it's gone. And what do we leave behind us? An army of hearts breaking, a choir of castrated souls. If there were someone who survived us, who loved us enough to take up the single act we'd left undone, how much might that mean?" The rocking gentled and stilled. "Shall I tell you a secret?" "Sure," she agreed, diving to the depth of that ancient gaze and sighting the quiet determination there. "I am my father's voice today. It's why I've come to this town, this place - to speak about him and with him and for him; to take care of those things he would have needed done. There are other reasons too, important reasons, but this is the most crucial one. Now you can talk to your father or not, that's your decision. But I have to believe Zander would not have wanted to leave this rift behind. Heal it if you can. If not for your sake, then for his." She could feel her resistance crumble in the wake of that idea and the empathetic spark it roused in her soul. The purity of the gesture sang to her in a way so few of the other memorial acts she'd been performing ever had or did. But Mac…facing Mac again? Her shoulders sank and she chuffed a breath to blow the bangs from her eyes. Why were the right things, the best things, always the hardest ones to do? Jab-jab cut. Jab-jab cut. Jab-jab cut…and around he danced, his footwork falling to a rhythm as the bag swung back on its creaking chain from the force of the last, compacted blow. He bobbed and weaved, his shoulders bent - glaring at the pendulous, swaying canvas over the bridge of one gloved knuckle to a nose. His wrist twisted to test the tightness of the tape he'd wrapped around it, his fingers flexing just to fist again and throw another punch. The bare bulb dangling from the center of the garage's skeletal ceiling frame cast a stark light over the scene, shining a defined circle on the floor and consigning all the household junk his family had stacked against the walls to a thick black swath of shadow. A darker shadow in the rear there, since she'd taken those cartons away. Didn't miss the cartons at all, that's true. Admitted to himself, too, that he didn't miss the way she guarded them. Clung to them. Worshipped before them like a shrine. Jab-jab cut. Jab-jab cut. Couldn't box with her grief bleeding in the corner, her bright blue eyes clouded with pain, mourning a dozen desperate memories of a man she refused to let go. Was she letting him go now, he wondered? Didn't know. It was hard to care. He couldn't surface through the worry of having her unburden herself to a stranger - this man with a plan; some Cassadine agenda they would all find cause to regret in the end. Jab-jab cut. Jab-cut. A thousand things he could have done differently. A fistful of facts he couldn't change. He bounced back from the bag again, resisting the need to chart that past, to sort his acts to an order. No answers there. Just ghosts. Old ghosts. One ghost that, like his daughter, he could never quite manage to lay to rest. Turn and he'd be standing in the door once more, hangdog expression at the ready. Lost like always, screwed up as ever, hunting down a favor to recover his life. Or end it. Finally. Effectively. "What do you want, Zander?" The kid just stood there staring at his feet, startled into silence by discovery. The hunch of his shoulders broke the line of his coat and made him seem a small child in grown men's clothes. That designer suit didn't fare any better, creasing like a skin he needed to shed. Mac turned back to the bag and continued with his work-out. "Shouldn't you be on the Haunted Star? I hear it's Faith's Grand Opening." "Luke's. Well, Luke and Faith. And Skye," he revised, stumbling through meaningless clarifications in an effort to find his way. He peered up at the man he addressed, then dropped his head quickly when he saw the disapproval in those eyes. "They won't even miss me, you can count on that." "Can't count on anything where you're concerned," Mac spat as he slammed a fist into the bag. "How many chances did you get, Zander? How many did I give you? And look at you now. Nice suit," he remarked, rabbiting the canvas when it swung back into range. "I gotta get out of this, Mac," the kid confessed, breaking to the point under the strain. A foot fell into the garage, then pulled straight out again, his energy restless as his arms clenched to curse the position he found himself in. "Do you think you can help me get out of this?" "Forget it, Smith, you had your shot." A short, sharp strike to the bag's kidney region followed by two quick taps to the head. "You're on your own now." "But that's just it, I'm not on my own. Not anymore." Zander moved forward, into the light, committing to the conversation at last. His wounded eyes implored with an urgency even Mac found hard to ignore. "I'm going to be a father. Elizabeth is pregnant. The baby's mine." The punching stopped abruptly and he stilled the bag with his gloves. "Elizabeth's…what?" "Yeah. I just found out tonight. An hour ago, I don't know. What time is it? Feels like years." An expectant silence descended as he raked his hands through his hair and Mac waited for the words he'd need to fill the empty spaces in. Zander began to pace. "She wants to have it. She wants Ric to raise it. They both came to ask me to sign my rights away. I can't…Mac, I can't do that. It's my kid. That's my child. I won't give him up, which means…well, it means I have to give this up," he conceded, his agitated hands sweeping down the stretch of expensive clothes he wore. "You can't just quit the life, though, can you?" he added on a sad, satiric laugh, his head shaking in jaded amusement at the sound of that ridiculously obvious truth. "As I see it, there are only two ways this can go. Either I'm carried out in a body bag or I become an undercover informant." "Sorry, no," Mac interjected, attempting to nip that scheme in the bud. "You don't have the skills or the training to become an operative for the PCPD. Nobody's going to put you on the payroll, Zander, so just get that idea out of your head." "But Mac, I'm already in!" he insisted, striding toward the bag and the man behind it, his arms outstretched to beg. "You won't even have to set things up. I'm Faith's right-hand man. I deal with Sonny and Jason every day. You want Alcazar? I can get him for you. I'll take down any target you can name. Moreno? Sandoval? I know what you're going to say," he claimed, interrupting the protest he could see was on its way. "It's dangerous work. Any one of those guys could kill me without batting an eye. But you've gotta understand. That's okay. At least someone can tell my kid his dad died a hero. He died trying to make the world a better place. That's all I'm asking for, Mac. The chance to do right by my kid." "You've been drinking, haven't you?" Mac observed, stepping apart from the bag and stripping the gloves from his hands. "Don't lie to me, Zander. I can tell." Zander reeled in frustration, his half-motive stance betraying the manic urge for flight. Mac watched him closely, certain he was on the verge of walking out - of succumbing to that reckless temper of his and rushing full-speed into the night to find some trouble, worse trouble, the most destructive kind of trouble available to drown himself in. He was more than surprised, shocked in a way, to witness the heavy breath expending from his chest and the calm turn that body took to face him head-on. "Yes, I've had a couple of drinks. Then I went to Kelly's and sobered up. A conversation with your ex-wife on the subject of your unborn child will bring you to your senses like that," he disclosed; a fierce snap of fingers rising in the dark. "Emily votes for Ric, by the way. She has no faith in me either." The tiny, tin song of his cell phone sounded and Mac broke away, reaching for his gym bag to dig it from the fold. A quick report from the sergeant-on-duty and the cell phone closed. "There's been a robbery on the Haunted Star," he informed the figure looming in the corner. He took a long look at that desperate man, shrugged his shoulders and sighed. "The only upside of this visit, Zander, is that I know it wasn't you." He couldn't find a reason to regret any of the initial decisions he'd made. Didn't mean they were right. Just that, given the time and place, he'd probably make the same ones all over again. There were forces in life you couldn't control and could never in a million years predict. Those forces came into play with a vengeance in the subsequent weeks and months; he'd had no way to stop them. And he began to suspect, well after the fact, that all the savagely-sentient terrors of a bitterly-vindictive Fate, when roused to a fury, were irresistibly attracted to the man who called himself Zander Smith. That, or the kid just fell into a miserable streak of rotten luck. Wasn't just him, either. The curse fell on everyone's head in the end. Invisible, long-healed burns began to itch beneath his skin as he set to work on the bag again. Jab-jab cut. Jab-jab cut. Punches echoed through the night. German Translation: Ganz meine Meinung…Aber das ist offensichtlich eine Phantasie…Wie bitte? "I agree completely…Yet that is clearly a fantasy…Pardon?" Poetic Attributions (The Introductory Lines): Chapter 19 - from the poem Sic Vita, by the poet Henry David Thoreau Chapter 20 - from the poem Love Song for Difficult Times, by the poet Maria Elena Cruz Varela Chapter 21 - from the poem Why I Am Not a Buddhist, by the poet Molly Peacock