The Sigh Of Things (7)   This trick, to catch him softly… The silver service was new, which was to say it had been crafted in the nineteenth century by a clever European smith adept at the grandiose patterns of the age. Roses crept the rim of the serving tray and spiraled the handles of the sugar bowl, the creamer and the fat-bellied pot. What had caught her eye at auction, however, were not these lover's blooms but the smartly-fashioned thorns that so exquisitely embraced them. Only an artist would have recognized the briar patch within which the heart made its home. Only the object of a woman's scorn would have rendered it. Amusement alone had engendered the bid and won the war for its ownership. A trinket to tickle her more passionate perversities. Helena poured the tea herself, reluctant of a witness to this latest bit of intrigue. Never underestimate a Cassadine whelp - her father's first words upon meeting Mikkos those many, many years ago. Centuries past, it seemed. And what held true for their sire had its own applications for his temperamental progeny. Stefan, alone and apart, could be contained with a certain amount of cunning. Stavros, on the other hand, had always been a wild card. The two together asked for special care, cloaked in the kind of complicated subterfuge she had long since spun into an art form. My thorns are, all of them, concealed. The thought produced a cold satisfaction, and a smile for her partner at the table. "Tea was brought to Russia by caravan," she announced, dispensing her brew in fine china cups. "The passage was torturous and fraught with danger. Many men died to establish the route. Let us hope your journey has been less, shall we say, eventful?" "I am here." Flat and unambiguous. Helena pinched a cube with her sterling silver tongs and arched her eyebrow in inquiry. The woman ignored her, lifting the fragile porcelain teacup to her lips. "Your news then," she prompted, dropping the sweet back into its bowl. Shifting slightly in her chair, the woman's dark shoe toed a small black bag across the floor between them. "These are useless to me now," she announced. "Stavros has taken up her treatment. The time of lacing her medication has passed." "That is not what I wanted to hear." Helena's silver spoon clanked jarringly against the side of her cup. She removed it. "The last thing we need is Laura coming back to insert herself into our plans! Stavros is chained in his cell, this is what you've said. Surely that pharmacy remains accessible?" Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. "This is no time to display reluctance." The woman shrugged her shoulders with no small amount of insolence. "He hides the chemistry from his own brother. He prepares the solution in a moment and delivers it himself as need requires. That window of opportunity has closed." Helena fell back into her chair, her mind racing with the sour implications of this report. Laura Spencer must remain neutralized! Should she recover her senses, as pedestrian as they were, she would still present a threat to the success of this scheme. Even now she could imagine her grand design falling to the wayside as both sons battled for this simpleton's affections; caring more about the conquest of a heart than the world that should rightly lay at their feet. That woman, wielding her absurd romantic witcheries, had too long obscured the focus of the Cassadine men, blinding them to their better destinies. They would not be her hostages again! "Stavros suspects." Helena was startled back into the moment, and an uncomfortable moment it was. "What do you mean, he suspects? Suspects what?" "This," said her confederate, offering a nod to encompass the bag on the floor, Helena in the chair and every precious item on the table. "How could he not," she added simply. "He was given the elements of his brother's formula. He knew what it contained and what it did not. The scent of us is in the wind, this is all I'm saying." And quite the fetid mouthful, at that. With great effort she attempted to brush off her concern. "He knows of someone, then. Nothing more. Has he shared his suspicions with his brother?" "Unlikely." The woman drank down the last of her tea and returned the cup to its saucer. "Stefan does desire to analyze the remnants left in his brother's syringes. Sadly, his chemist has taken ill. He's been forced to send his samples to Paris. I've left the company's name in the bag." "I fail to see the need for that," Helena retorted, impatience setting an edge to her words. "Better to keep the secret to one, I thought. But perhaps having both capable of waking her fulfills some measure of your plan?" The woman took her napkin from her lap and touched it to the corners of her mouth, then deposited it gently on the table. The chair pushed back. "I am overdue," she declared, rising from her seat. Helena caught her wrist as she turned to go. She found the flesh surprisingly warm, the pulse slow and steadily deliberate. Was this puppet not afraid of her at all? She might have taken umbrage but there wasn't any time. Her pieces must remain on the board if the game were to be won. And it would be won. Her grip tightened and she pulled the woman closer. "I will have her in the end,' she said, her voice soaked with menace. "And so you shall." The Sigh Of Things (8)   …so sure were you of who was meant to do the saving… Stefan clipped his cell-phone shut and tossed it on the table. He wouldn't speak now. Only think. Only factor. Only press his mind against the world. As if the universe itself would bend to his wishes when given a firm but silent nudge. He would abandon all distractions to accomplish this goal. He would isolate himself. He would become, once again, the lone man; the only man capable of grappling with the hitch, with the foul complication, with the loathsome obstacle an enemy had placed directly at the center of the path. Here he would see a malevolence. Here he would advance, unsheathe the lethal sword of his intellect and set himself to parry with this predatory beast. Alone. Always alone. She wanted to draw him close, to take this concentrated turmoil in like a scent she could tease from the back of his neck, or heat from his skin, or the breath he held apart and saved beneath a single, indolent kiss. If it could be done, she would extract every drop of it. She wanted not to share this trouble but to bear it for him - turn camel, packhorse or mule - any beast of his burden provisioned with the power to assist in the journey from one place to the next. Because despite what he imagined to be certain in this life, the road need not be traveled single-file. There could be someone bound to your purpose. There could be someone watching your back. There could be a companion. She tried to break away from this emotional morass and focus on the matter at hand. His sample of Stavros' mysterious formula, sent to Paris for examination, appeared to have been lost or deliberately misplaced. And now he was done with the French. More samples to gather, another firm to find for their analysis. All of this atop the sudden disappearance of the sick chemist, whom he suspected at this point had never truly fallen ill. Cages within cages to trap his ever-calculating brain. Someone stood against him, it was clear. Yet someone stood beside him as well. She knew which one would receive every ounce of his attention. Even his eye, given the choice in this garden here today, has failed to fix its rest upon me. "She seems better." Stefan pulled his gaze from the woman in the wheelchair, brought to bask in the heat of this fine morning sun. "I had wished for a little more…animation." It was a word, but by this he meant Life. He meant energy, emotion, expression. He meant that lush infusion of impetuous fire they had all called Laura. "But her eyes have opened," he reluctantly allowed. "What she sees with them I cannot even begin to imagine." Birds of Paradise, marked Regret with chagrin. The thoughtless nurse had turned the chair to face a flower drenched with unintentional irony. As pleasant as this estate might seem, it would still be a far cry from paradise for Laura. Nikolas. Lucky. Lesley Lou. Therein lay her portion of heaven. And freedom? That boundless bliss would be wrapped around the image of her well-loved Luke. If she shared nothing with this legendary figure, she did share the knowledge that paradise lay not in any one location, but in every place a heart held you true. In all of those travels, in every single adventure save one, Laura had a heart to hold her. That other? She sighed and stretched her hand across the table between them. Stefan played with its fingers absently, his attention drawn back to the woman from his past. Yes, thought Regret, one heart here and another in a cell less than fifty yards away - neither had she chosen. Yet neither would stop beating its insistent refrain. Laura. Laura. "My love," she said softly, capturing his fingers. "She should go back. You should return her to the hospital." Stefan's head twisted in surprise, his expression betraying uncertainty. "I'm sorry. I wasn't listening. What did you say?" "I said you should return her to the hospital. You have your brother. Keep him. Give her back to a place that will devote itself to her recovery. A place where her children may visit. They have their own power. They may quicken the process. You should do this one right thing. You must." His hand pulled away and disappeared beneath the table. "You are insinuating it wasn't right to take her in the first place." His voice had grown sharply cold, his words clipped with fury. "I should have left her there, with his arm draped around her, his madness a constant whisper in her ear. She was better off, you think. Better off with Stavros than with me." Her voice matched his for coldness. "It is not one or the other, Stefan. I do believe she's made that clear." This was the cut upon which he'd bleed, and she knew it. Her brutal thrust was the only way to tear through his defenses and attack the problem at its source. Too often did those who knew him well retreat - Alexis, Nikolas, Laura herself. Through ignorance, agenda or sometimes for the laziest reason of all, because this is who Stefan was, they would simply abandon him to his flawed perceptions. Yes, he made the island on which he resided and yes, he labored hard to keep its beach deserted, but was this reason enough to stop hunting him altogether? She thought not. Love him, find him. Deal with him. Stefan, for his own part, had chosen quite consciously to misunderstand her. "You can't be jealous of Laura," he reasoned. "I've done what I've done on principle alone. Call me the family apologist, if you will. Laura Spencer has suffered because of the Cassadines. All of this," he announced, spreading his arms wide to encompass the grounds, "along with all the work I've done on her behalf, could not begin to address the smallest of the wounds she has taken by our hand." "And what of the wounds she has delivered, Stefan? Who will see to those?" Another cut, and from the expression on his face she could see it had finally come. At last, his epiphany - the sudden recognition that between them both, she knew him better. She watched his flight into shadow and missed him immediately, with all her heart. "I love you," she whispered, rising from her chair. "Though I know it makes no difference." She left the estate that afternoon. The island was his once more. The Sigh Of Things (9)   What is not known by name has now been detected. She stood in silence as he threw his reading glasses to the center of the desk. His face disappeared into his hands; a thousand years of fatigue behind that wall of flesh and bone. It was no secret they'd quarreled. No secret this heavy pause between them, pressing his patience, stretching his days and lengthening his nights. Every hour held him hostage now. Every second was a second tinged with absence. Yet he fought, all the while thinking he could battle back the need of her. Thinking it was a thing that could be contended. Thinking there could be victory in this, when all the evidence revealed was defeat. Glasses or no, the man was blind. "You would bother me for what, Sancia? What good reason at two in the morning?" He spoke into the hollow of his hands and so she waited. Soon he would check to see if she still stood in the room. Sure enough, those fingers fell and she had his eyes. "Laura is not missing." And now she had his attention as well. "I've kept watch on the Interpol listings, the international fugitive posts and even the releases from Scotland Yard, all as you requested. No kidnapping has been reported. Nor has a runaway notice been issued. There was no mention of a crime, not even a common incident report. I found this curious so I began an investigation. Laura Spencer is still listed as a patient at that hospital and continues to be treated for severe psychological dysfunction. According to their records, and her day nurse, Laura is still in London." Stefan dismissed the information out-of-hand. "Impossible. Simply impossible. How incompetent could they be?" "From what I've gathered, they are absolutely correct." Sancia walked forward to pass him the file she held in her hands. "Here is a sampling of her private records for the last four weeks. You will see no interruption in her treatment. You will also find a second source document at the end. I've had all of this corroborated." The glasses were plucked from the desk and his concentration engaged as he scoured every page of her report. Shifting back and forth between the papers, his frown became deeper and more pronounced. "I can't…I simply can't believe this." He looked to her again for confirmation, as if it were a kind of practical joke. Sancia cut to the heart of the matter. "Someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to slip in behind us. Obtaining the look-alike alone indicates an astonishing amount of advance planning. Then there is the timing of her insertion. The degree of inside information required to accomplish such a feat can lead to only one conclusion. We have an operative among us." After a moment she added, "Who has been among us for quite awhile." "My brother believes it is you." She watched him lean back in his chair, his eyes blue ice over those gold wire rims. She would not dispute his words. She had reported this herself. It was a fact. Yet when was a fact just a fact in his world? How often was the truth a mere launching pad for a more elaborately crafted deception? Cassadine cunning ran deep, and she stood before one of its reigning masters. Her best response was the only response he would accept. "What would you have me do?" "More Sancia," he countered with contempt. "So very, very much more." She met his ceaseless stare with a confidence she could barely hold. "Is there a specific course of action you would have me take?" "Before we jump to eating, let's just take a look at what we have on the plate, shall we? One. For whatever ill-conceived reason, you did not come to me with this problem when it first became evident. What was that…two weeks ago? Three? Her disappearance from that hospital would have been reported immediately. You knew it was not, yet you decided to pursue your own course of inquiry. Without my knowledge. I will refrain here from pointing out the many opportunities you had to share your concern. Now I am left in the ridiculous position of having to ask what you might have been thinking." Sancia worked to keep her voice even. "Either the family, the hospital or both may have decided to keep the incident private. There was no way to know this without launching an investigation. Had the culprit of the crime…," and here she stumbled, thinking he might take offense to that particular characterization, "…had Stavros been the suspect there is ample reason to believe they would not wish to make this public. Why sound the horn as a warning to the fox? I can assure you, Stefan, it never once occurred to me that Laura had been replaced by a double." "And here we come to Two. How can you be sure we have Laura at all? Perhaps the woman who lies in our bed is, in fact, the imposter." The true weight of the error fell to her then like the world to the mighty shoulder of Atlas. What could she sight in her defense? Her unexpected assignment to guard the brother? That had taken a sturdy chunk from her day. His own failure to keep abreast of the situation? Yes, let's call attention to his misplaced trust. That would be a fine idea. In the end they had to deal with the challenge as it stood. "I will have a DNA sample taken in the morning." "No, you won't." His reply was curt and cutting to her spirit, as if he'd found the very idea incredibly presumptuous. "I have Laura's medical records, as well as a comparative sample taken at the time she was examined as a candidate for her daughter's transplant procedure. The doctor and I will deal with this matter ourselves." She found the edge of his suspicion disquieting, even more so when he asked, "Is there anything you'd like to tell me, Sancia? If so, now would be the time." The room fell to silence for what seemed an eternity. "Then if there is nothing else?" His lips hardly moved. Disquieting indeed! "Only this," she offered boldly. "If we do hold the true Laura, we might give serious thought to her relocation." For that she received the most imperceptible arch of an eyebrow. Deductions were being made and conclusions would follow. Whatever the outcome of this night's revelations, Sancia knew their relationship had undergone a change. The list of those he trusted had become decidedly shorter. Whether her name remained upon it had yet to be seen. She backed out of the office as he reached for the phone, his fingertips stabbing at the buttons. Just as the door came slowly closed, she could hear his voice and its clipped, authoritative tone. "Regret? This is Stefan. You must come home."