Chapter 7

“What?” Nikolas asked, laughing at his brother’s words.

“Sorry, it’s an American expression. Don’t worry about it. Point is, I’m sorry I’m running late again. Let’s go. Emily probably isn’t ready yet, anyway.”

“You’ve got a point there. Come on, the Jag’s out front.” They left the house and got into Nikolas’s car, then headed over to the Quartermaine estate. Just as they expected, Emily wasn’t ready. The waited uncomfortably in the foyer, tensing up every time they heard a sound, afraid that any minute, her family would come storming through the house, screaming at each other. Finally, Emily hurried down the stairs, apologizing the entire way. They rushed out to the car and sped off.

“Thanks for doing this guys,” Emily said as they walked into the Port Charles Grille. “I really needed to get out of that house!”

“Hey, you’re our friend! It’s our duty to rescue you from them!” Lucky joked, giving her a quick hug as they waited for the hostess to find their reservation.

They were seated, and looked over their menus for a few minutes. Lucky knew right away what he was getting, so he looked around the room to see if anyone he knew was there. His eyes fell on Alexis Davis, and he smiled slightly, remembering his encounter with Elizabeth the night before.

“Lucky?” Nikolas was calling his name, and he looked distractedly at him.

“Huh?”

Nikolas laughed and shook his head. “Where did you just go?”

“Nowhere, I’ve been right here.”

“No, I meant, oh nevermind. Here comes the waitress, let’s order.”

After they ordered their food, he glanced up at Alexis again, just as her lunch companion was sitting down. The girl had her back to him, so he couldn’t see her well enough to tell who it was.

“Lucky, who are you staring at?” Emily asked. He had been staring off over her shoulder ever since they sat down, totally ignoring their conversation. She turned around to see where he was looking. “Why are you looking at Alexis?”

“Alexis?” Nikolas asked, turning to see what was so interesting about his aunt. She looked up just then and waved at him. He smiled and waved back. The girl she was eating with also turned to look at them. She got a strange expression on her face, then turned around again.

Lucky felt like the wind had been knocked out of him as soon as Elizabeth turned around. Why was she there? And why was she sitting with Alexis? Did this have something to do with her grilling him about the Cassidines last night? He was so confused. He looked down at the plate in front of him and rubbed his head.

“Lucky, what’s wrong with you today? Does this have anything to do with that girl over there?” Emily asked, never one to beat around the bush.

“Girl? Uh, no, I just have a headache all of a sudden, that’s all,” he said, knowing they wouldn’t believe his lame excuse for a second.

Nikolas looked at him. Give me a break, Lucky. What’s up with you?

Lucky sighed. I met her last night. She was asking a lot about your family, but I didn’t think anything of it until now.

What was she asking? Nikolas asked, curious. Emily just looked at them, wondering why they were just staring at each other. They did that every now and then, and she wondered if it was just some weird brother thing.

Nothing specific. She was looking at Wyndemere, and I said something about Cassidines being evil, so she asked me why, and if I hate all of them, stuff like that.

“Okay guys, you’re creeping me out here. Stop staring at each other. People are going to think you’re weird or something,” Emily said, causing them to snap out of their trances and laugh.

“Sorry, Em,” Lucky said. “Guess we spaced out a bit.” I’ll tell you about it later.

“We’re back now, so don’t worry,” Nikolas added, nodding at Lucky in response to his last comment.

~*~

Elizabeth came back from the restroom and sat across from Alexis. They had spent their meal catching up on each other, and talking a little about magick, although they agreed to wait until they were alone before getting into it too deeply.

“Okay, I’m back,” she said, putting her napkin back in her lap. “So, you said you’d tell me about what happened when you tried to kill Helena before, so come on, spill it!”

Alexis laughed. She couldn’t believe she was actually telling someone else about that. She hadn’t even told Ned! “Well, Luke Spencer got this idea that the only way we’d be able to live in peace was to do away with her...” she began.

“Did you say Luke Spencer?” Elizabeth asked, interrupting her.

“Yeah, why? Have you heard of him or something?”

“Um, yeah, I met his son last night, remember, the one who told me how evil the Cassidines were?”

“Right, I almost forgot about that. Yeah, well, Luke is a character. He came up with the whole plan to lure Helena up to the parapet of Wyndemere during the Bacchanalia..”

“What’s a Bacchanalia?” Liz asked.

“Oh, right, I forget sometimes that normal people don’t know that kind of thing,” she chuckled, explaining that it was an engagement ball, and filling her in on Stefan and Katherine at the time. “Anyway, somehow he managed to convince me that this was a good idea. He can be very persuasive you know, claims it’s the ‘Spencer charm’ or something like that. Unfortunately, the plan backfired, and instead of luring Helena up there, Stefan and Katherine ended up arguing near the railing Luke had loosened, and she leaned against it, and well...”

Liz gasped. She couldn’t believe the wrong person had fallen. Just then, Alexis looked up and waved happily at someone behind them. She turned around to see who it was, and didn’t recognize the guy that was waving, but as her eyes scanned the table, she gasped. Was that Lucky? She couldn’t help herself, but her next thought was ‘Who is that girl he’s with?’ She chastised herself for being so silly and turned around again.

Noticing the look on Liz’s face, Alexis smiled. “I take it you noticed Lucky sitting there.”

Liz nodded. “Yeah, but who..”

“Emily Quartermaine, she’s just a friend. And the other guy is my nephew, Nikolas, Lucky’s half-brother.”

“How did you know that’s what I was going to ask?”

She laughed. “I don’t have to be your mother to know what that look on your face meant. I know jealousy when I see it!”

“I am not jealous! I hardly even know him, and once he finds out I’m a Cassidine, he won’t want anything to do with me,” she mumbled.

“Hey, don’t say that. If he felt that way, do you think he’d be having lunch with Nikolas? No, this war is between their fathers, not them. Lucky seems like a very open-minded guy to me, and I’m sure he wouldn’t care who you were.”

Liz smiled. “You think so? I guess I’ll keep that in mind, then.” She looked over her shoulder again. Lucky was looking at Nikolas very intently, and she wondered if they were having a staring contest or something.

“Well, I guess that was my first time giving motherly advice,” Alexis chuckled. “How did I do?”

“Good, you did good. Hey, watch this!” She looked around for a moment to make sure no one was looking, then bent over and blew on the candle in the center of the table. Since it was lunchtime, they weren’t lit, but as she blew on it, a flame slowly formed. Alexis grinned as Liz sat back proudly. She had never been able to share her powers with anyone before. If felt good.

“Wow, I can’t even do that! I heard that all witches have different powers, so I guess it was right. What else can you do so far?”

She shrugged. “Not much. Move things around. I’ve been able to make some other things materialize, but flames seem to be my specialty. Oh, and sometimes, when I’m really mad, I can cause lightning to strike.” They both laughed, then quickly clamed up as the waiter approached their table with the bill. He looked at the candle for a moment, wondering why it was lit, then walked away. Once he was gone, they burst into a fit of giggling again.

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