~*~Chapter 75~*~

Lucky stares at her in shock. “What are you talking about? You can’t stay here!”

Liz shakes her head, realizing he had taken that the wrong way. “No, I meant I can’t leave yet. I have to go back inside for something first.”

He closes the distance between them, forgetting his anger, and takes her by the shoulders. “Elizabeth, you can’t go back there, there’s nothing in there that important. Whatever it is, we can get back in Port Charles.”

Liz meets his eyes defiantly. “Even my wedding ring?”

The question throws him off for a moment, and he lets go of her, his eyes clouding over again. “I thought that was your wedding ring,” he says bitterly, pointing to her hand.

She quickly pulls the ring off of her finger and holds it up. “This ring? As far as I’m concerned, this was just Helena’s way of branding me!” She turns around and launches it out over the water, waiting until she sees the tiny splash it makes, then turns back to Lucky. “My wedding ring is in the house, and I’m not leaving without it.”

He sighs, knowing that when she gets this way, there’s no arguing with her. “Fine, I’ll get it, then. There’s no way I’m letting you go back in there.”

She sighs in frustration and steps closer to him. “I’m touched that you care, but you don’t know that house. It will be much faster if I do it. Besides, the baby needs some stuff, too. It’s a long trip back to Port Charles, and I doubt you thought to bring along diapers and baby formula.”

Lucky thinks for a moment, seeing her point, but also dead-set against watching her go back into that house. After mulling over the situation he turns and shouts after Laura. “Mom! Can you come here a sec?”

She stops walking and looks back at him, surprised to see that they are so far behind. “What’s wrong?”

“Just come here!” They wait for her to make her way back to them, then Lucky explains what happened. “She left her wedding ring in the house, and we need stuff for the baby. Since you used to live here, I figured you’d know the place better than I do. I don’t want Elizabeth going back in there, it might not be safe for her.”

Laura nods, agreeing with his reasoning. “Sure, I’ll go with you. Liz, where is the ring?”

“Helena said I was in the same room you were, do you remember where that is?”

“Too well. Let me guess, it’s under the loose floorboard?” she asks with a smile.

Liz grins and nods. “Yes! It was there back then, too?”

“Oh yes. In fact, I used to write letters to Luke and hide them under there, sort of as a diary.”

“You did? So did I! I mean, I wrote them to Lucky, not Luke, of course.” She smiles at the coincidence, then looks at Lucky, who seems surprised. “What’s wrong?”

“You wrote letters to me all this time?” he asks quietly.

Liz nods, growing serious again. “Yeah, it was the only thing I could do to stay sane sometimes. Laura, could you get those, too? I’d like to have them. Oh, and my Robert Foster CD, I’d like to have that as well.” She blushes slightly as Lucky looks at her in confusion.

“Why? I have tons of them back home!”

“I know, but it’s not the same. This is the whole reason you’re here right now. If it wasn’t for Sergei giving me that CD, I would still think you were dead, and you wouldn’t know I was here. It’s a sentimental thing. You’ll get it, won’t you, Laura? It’s under the desk.”

“Of course I will, honey. Now, where’s the baby stuff?”

“Two doors down from my room. You’ll know it when you see it.” She smiles slightly at the image of the two of them walking into the nursery and seeing Port Charles on the walls. “Please hurry, though, I really want to get off of this island!”

Laura smiles and squeezes her shoulder. “I know you do. We’ll be right back. Come on, Lucky. Do you have a gun, just in case?”

“Oh, no. Should I call Dad over and get his?”

She shakes her head and reaches into her purse, pulling out a revolver. “Take this one.” She checks the clip, then tosses it to him. Lucky catches it and grins.

“You really do have everything in that purse, don’t you?”

Laughing, she rests her hand on his back and starts walking toward the house. “It’s a Mom thing.”

Lucky laughs along with her, then looks over his shoulder to see if Liz is still standing there. She smiles and waves at them, determined to stay put until they return with her things. Knowing that he cared enough to stop her from going back into the house had raised her spirits slightly. He was obviously still angry about Sergei, but things were looking up, and maybe sometime soon, he’d be able to forgive her. For all she knew, he might even be able to accept Sergei as his brother some day.

“Hey, Liz.”

Startled from her thoughts, Liz whirls around to facet he voice, then smiles. “V, it’s good to see you!” The two women hug briefly, then pull apart. “Since when have you been here?”

“Oh, Jax and I were on the boat, making sure it didn’t go anywhere. I heard there was quite a rescue out here today. And what’s with the Nikolas look-alike?”

Liz chuckles at her bluntness. “That’s Sergei. He’s his twin brother that no one knew about, not even Laura. Helena forced me to marry him when she first brought me here, and tried to get me to have his baby. I did have a baby, but it’s actually Lucky’s, not his.”

“So that adorable little baby he was carrying is yours?” V asks, surprised. Liz nods proudly. “What’s his name?”

“Um, well, for now it’s Mikkos, but I plan on changing it as soon as possible. I’d like to name him Lucas Lorenzo Specner III if Lucky agrees. Then again, there are so many Lucas’s in this family, I think they’re running out of nicknames!”

V laughs, nodding in agreement. “That’s true. Well, I’m sure you’ll think of something. He’s a cute little baby, from what I saw. Hey, did they tell you about your namesake?”

Liz looks at her in confusion. “Namesake? No, I don’t think so.”

“Emily and Nikolas just had a baby girl last month. They named her Elizabeth Paige Spencer, after you and Emily’s mother.”

“Really? Oh, that’s so sweet. I was wondering why they didn’t come along. I guess they had to stay home, didn’t they?”

“From what I heard, they really wanted to come, but just couldn’t leave the baby yet, not even with a sitter. They’re probably pacing the house right now, waiting for news from Luke.”

“Probably.” Liz chews on her bottom lip for a moment, thinking. “V? Has Lucky been okay? I mean, he didn’t do anything crazy when I disappeared, did he?”

“Not really. He drank a lot, but then again, Luke always does that too. Like father like son, tight? Anyway, I think living in your house got to be too much for him, so he’s been staying with Sonny for the past few months. He was really depressed at the beginning, but once he started recording, and moved out, he started to get better. It was obvious that he was always thinking about you, though. Oh, there was one time, outside the studio, where he sort of broke down. He started talking to you like you were really there. It was kind of creepy to watch, it was like being able to hear one side of a telephone conversation, but not the other. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was really talking to you.”

Liz is quiet for a moment, remembering the day the same thing had happened to her. She smiles, realizing it wasn’t a dream after all, and looks up at V. “He was, and I was talking to him, too.”

~*~Chapter 76~*~

Once they’re in the house, Laura shivers, haunted by the memories she has of the place. “Okay, let’s do this quickly, I don’t want to be in here any longer than I have to. The room is at the top of the stairs.” They both climb the staircase quickly and turn right down the hallway. When they reach her door, Laura grabs his shoulder to stop him. “Here.”

He pushes open the door, gazing around at the room where Elizabeth had pretty much lived the past year. “It smells like her,” he mutters, walking inside. He gazes around the room while Laura hurries over to the floorboard. She lifts it up and pulls out everything inside, marveling at the number of letters there. Once she has collected everything, she goes over to the desk to look for Liz’s CD. It’s on the top of the stack, so she quickly grabs it and heads for the door.

“Okay, Lucky, I’m done in here. Let’s go find the nursery.

“Sure,” he mumbles, still distracted by the room, but follows her out anyway. Once they’re in the hallway, he snaps out of his earlier state and looks around. “Which way?”

Laura looks to the left, then the right. “Um, I think left. If I remember correctly, the second door to the right is just a closet.” They go over to the door she pointed out and push it open, then stand there in shock at the scene in front of them.

“I can’t believe this,” Lucky whispers, stepping into the room. Laura enters after him, looking around in awe.

“My God, this is amazing! Did Liz do all of this?” she asks.

“Well, I doubt Helena did it,” he answers jokingly. “It’s Port Charles...”

Laura nods, pointing at one of the walls. “That’s Kelly’s, and that’s Mount Hebron...”

“...and the boxcar, and our garden at home,” Lucky finishes, walking into the center of the room. “I’m surprised Helena let her do this.”

“So am I, but I’m glad she did. By the looks of this, she was really homesick.”

“Then why do this here? Why not paint this in her own room?” he asks, turning to face his mother.

Laura smiles gently. “I have a feeling this was her way of making sure your child could see the place she considered her home. I felt the same way when Nikolas was born.” She falls silent suddenly, thinking about how all these years she had another son that she never knew about.

Lucky senses the change in her and steps closer. “Mom, are you okay?”

She sniffs, trying to keep back her tears, and nods. “I’ll be fine. I was just thinking.”

“About Sergei? It must feel weird to find out you had another kid all this time,” he says softly. “I mean, I just found out I had a son, and it feels weird, even though he’s only a few months old! I feel like I missed so much of his life already, I can’t imagine what it must feel like for you.”

Laura nods again, wiping at her eyes. “I’m just so mad that Helena did that. How could she keep my own child away from me like this? I can’t imagine what kind of lies she’s put in his head by now about us.”

Lucky reaches up to hug her, and she embraces him gratefully. “You got through it with Nikolas, you’ll get through this one, too. Just don’t expect me to be calling him ‘brother’ any time soon. It’s going to take a while for me to get the image of him and Elizabeth out of my mind.”

She steps back and looks at him, seeing the pain and confusion in his eyes. “Just remember that she loves you, and she always will. Being kept here is a very troubling situation, trust me, I know. You think you’ll never get out, that the people you left behind are forgetting about you and moving on. At first, you’ll do anything she asks, hoping that maybe if you please her enough, she’ll let you go. Then, after a while, you start to accept things the way they are, and try to find ways to make life here more bearable. It’s all just a matter of survival, and Liz did whatever she felt necessary for her to survive, that’s all. It doesn’t mean she wanted to do it, or that she doesn’t regret it, just that at the time, it’s what she thought she had to do.”

Lucky nods, seeing her point. “I’ll remember that. Anyway, let’s find this baby stuff and get out of here. I want to get her away from this place as soon as possible.”

“Right, the baby stuff.” Laura sighs and starts over to the crib, looking for a bag she can use to put everything in, while Lucky goes through the small dresser and grabs the baby clothes. After a few minutes, they’ve gathered as much as they can fit in the bag Laura found, and head for the door.

Laura steps out into the hallway and turns around, expecting Lucky to be right behind her. Instead, he’s standing in the middle of the nursery, staring at the mural of the church. Deciding to give him some time alone, she moves out of the doorway and waits at the top of the stairs.

Lucky can’t take his eyes off the mural. She had captured the church so perfectly, down to the tiniest detail. Obviously, it had been done from memory, which just impressed him even more. He was still floored by the room, that all of the walls had a scene that mean something to them. Kelly’s, where they met and spent most of their time together; the boxcar, where they started to fall in love that summer; their church, where they had spent their first Valentine’s Day together, and where they had been married; and their garden, where they spent so many hours together during their first year of marriage, before Helena took her away and nearly ruined their lives.

He sighs and wipes a tear off of his cheek, finally managing to look away from the mural, and heads for the door, surprised to see that his mother wasn’t there. He steps into the hallway, worried, but smiles in relief when he spots her waiting by the stairs.

“Hey, you okay?” she asks softly as he approaches.

Lucky nods, reaching out to put his arm around her as they make their way down the long staircase. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Let’s go home.”

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