What Happened to Forever?

Chapters 85-86

~*~Chapter 85~*~

Elizabeth hears a familiar sound and turns around, grinning. She goes over to the window and opens it. "Old habits die hard, huh?"

Lucky laughs. "Yeah, well, for old time's sake and all that. Anyway, I won't be able to do this for much longer. Are you busy today?"

She shakes her head. "I'm all yours. What did you have in mind?"

"Well, it's a surprise, but first I want to ask you something."

"Okay, shoot." She smiles, wondering what he's up to this time.

"Would you marry me again? I know we were already married at the hospital, but I still want to give you a real wedding. Since I'm not dying anymore, I want us to do this right. What do you say? And before you answer, keep in mind that Emily already booked the church for this Saturday, Nikolas has the reception all organized, and my parents are inviting the guests as we speak." He looks at her expectantly as she bursts out laughing.

"I guess you were pretty sure I'd say yes. Of course I'll marry you again. I'd marry you every day if I could, Lucky. Thank you." She smiles and reaches up to kiss him. "Oh my gosh! What about a dress? I have less than a week to find the dresses!"

Lucky laughs at her sudden outburst. "It's okay, Elizabeth. Emily is taking care of it. She's even taking you shopping later. Everything will be done in plenty of time. Now, can we go so I can show you that surprise?"

"You mean there's more?" she asks.

He grins and nods. "Yep, so meet me downstairs when you're done getting ready." He gives her a quick kiss and climbs back out the window.

She closes the window behind him, shaking her head in wonder. Life with Lucky is definitely never boring.

~*~

"All right, what's the surprise?" Liz asks, locking the house behind her.

"Do you trust me?"

"With my life, why?'

"Because I need to blindfold you for a little while." He holds up a dark bandanna and smiles.

"Lucky...what are you up to?"

He shakes his head. "You'll find out soon enough, just let me do this, okay?"

She nods. "Fine, but don't let this become a habit now!" He laughs as she turns around. He puts the bandanna over her eyes and ties it.

"Can you see? Is it too tight?" he asks. She shakes her head. "It's fine."

He leads her to the car and fastens her seat belt, then goes around to the driver's side and gets in.

"Okay, where are you taking me?" She can't stand not knowing where they're going.

"Home," he answers simply.

"What do you mean, home?" Now he was really confusing her. She just left her home. Were they going to the Spencers? If so, why did she have to be blindfolded for that?

"That's all I'm saying. No more questions, we're almost there."

She sighs and leans back in the seat. When he is determined to surprise her with something, he never backs down. She thinks back to the last time he did this, on Valentine's Day, when he brought her to their church.

"Okay, why are you smiling like a goof?" he asks, seeing the huge grin on her face.

"Huh? Oh, I was just remembering the last time you did this."

He smiles, remembering it as well. "See, you liked that surprise, so trust me on this one, too. Okay, we're here. Stay there, I'll come around." He parks the car and goes around to let her out. He leads her to the beginning of the front walkway and turns her to face the house. "Ready?" She nods enthusiastically and he unties the blindfold. She gasps and turns to look at him.

"Lucky? What is this?"

He's grinning like a fool by now. "I told you, home."

"Home? As in our home?" she asks hesitantly, afraid to get her hopes up.

Lucky nods quickly. "Yep. If you can furnish it in time, we can move in after the wedding."

She screams and hugs him tightly. "I don't believe this! How did you do this? How can we afford it?"

He laughs and leads her up to the front door. "Well, I'll admit, I had a little help. Nikolas gave me enough for the down payment, but I promised him we'd find a way to pay him back. The mortgage isn't that bad, and we shouldn't have a problem covering it." He opens the door and pulls her inside. "Well, what do you think?"

She gasps and runs inside, looking in all of the rooms like a little kid. She sees the garden in the back and looks at Lucky, tears in her eyes. "You remembered..."

He gathers her in his arms and kisses her tenderly. "Of course I remembered. I remember everything you tell me, especially when it's important to you."

"I can't believe you did this," she sighed, looking around the room.

"Do you like it?"

"Like it? It's perfect. It's the most perfect, most wonderful house I've ever seen!" She throws her arms around him and kisses him passionately.

When they part, he grins at her. "If that's the response I get, maybe I should buy you a new house every day!"

She laughs and wanders out the back door, into the garden, and sits down on a bench. "Lucky, this is amazing. This place is even better than anything I could have imagined." He sits down next to her and she leans back against him. "I could sit out here forever!"

He wraps his arms around her and kisses the top of her head. "Me, too, but we have to get going soon. I promised Emily that I'd have you at the Q's by one so she can take you dress-shopping."

Liz sighs. "Okay, we'll go. Is this place ours now, or are they still doing paperwork and stuff?"

"No, it's all taken care of, why?"

She grins mischievously. "Can we stay here tonight?"

"I guess, but there's no furniture or anything. We'd have to sleep on the floor."

"That's okay. I don't plan on sleeping much, anyway."

Lucky looks at her in shock as she giggles and walks back into the house.

~*~Chapter 86~*~

"Okay, what horrible color are you going to make me wear?" Emily jokes as she accompanies Liz into the bridal boutique.

"Don't worry, I'll make sure your dress is tasteful. How about blue, to match Lucky's eyes?" Liz says dreamily.

Emily laughs. "Unless he's wearing the dress, I don't think they need to match!"

She smiles and shrugs. "I still think blue would look nice. Here's one," she says, pointing to an ice blue dress.

"Wow, that's gorgeous!" Emily exclaims, taking it off the rack to get a closer look. "I wish Chloe could have designed them, but with the short notice, she wouldn't have had time. If only Lucky wasn't in such a hurry!"

Liz smiles. "I know, but he has the best of intentions. Did Nikolas tell you about the house?"

She nods and smiles. "Yeah, I couldn't believe he went out and did that so fast! Do you like it?"

"It's perfect, Em! I told him back when we were at the country house that I always wanted a place like that, out of the way, with a big garden and everything, and he found it! This house is exactly what I was talking about. I couldn't believe it when he brought me there today, I feel like I'm in a dream," she sighs as she looks at the bridal gowns.

"Well, I'm going to go try this on. I'll be right back." Emily rushes off to the fitting rooms with the blue dress as Liz continues to look through the gowns.

~*~

Luke bursts into the PCPD and marches up to Mac, who is talking to Taggert about a case.

"Hey, Bubba. I need a favor!" he says, interrupting their discussion.

Mac sighs and glares at Luke. "What is so important, Luke, that you couldn't wait for us to finish?"

"I need to see Stefan Cassidine. Right Now!"

Slightly taken aback by his fury. "Luke, you know we aren't allowing him any visitors until after the trial. What do you plan to accomplish by seeing him?"

"Look, Mac, he tried to kill my son, and he almost succeeded. The least you could do is let me confront him about it. I won't touch him. I just want to talk to him."

Mac and Taggert look at each other. They know that Luke is too angry to just talk, but at the same time, they're just as furious over what happened, and can't help thinking that Stefan deserves anything Luke has to throw at him. Mac sighs in resignation. "Fine. You have 5 minutes with him, but an officer will be in the room at all times, and if you make even one move towards him, we'll take him back to his cell. Got it?"

Luke smiles in relief. "Yeah, thanks. Oh, by the way, you and Felicia should be getting an invitation soon for Lucky's wedding. It's this Saturday at Mount Hebron Church."

"Isn't that where his memorial service was held?" Mac asks, surprised that they would pick the same place.

Luke shrugs. "What can I say? It has a lot of memories for them. It's where they wanted to get married. It sure beats a hospital room, though!"

"Yeah, I heard about that. Your son is quite the romantic, isn't he?"

Luke chuckles. "He's a regular chip off the old block."

Mac rolls his eyes. "Well, you can count us in for Saturday. We wouldn't miss it. Now, you better get into the room before they bring him out here."

"Thanks again, Bubba," Luke says as he heads over to the interrogation room. He sits in one of chairs and waits. A few minutes later the door opens and Stefan is led in. The look on his face shows that he did not expect to see Luke waiting for him.

"Didn't expect me, did you?" Luke asks sarcastically, as Stefan sits down. "Well, I just thought you'd want to hear the good news. My son is getting married this weekend. Well, actually, they're just renewing their vows, since they were already married in the hospital a couple of days ago. See, we all thought Lucky was going to die, so they had a quick wedding in his room. It was quite touching, really, and very tragic. Here's two young people, madly in love with each other, thinking they have their whole lives ahead of them, when bam! He gets stuck with a needle by some goon and is told he'll be dead in 24 hours. Well, I'm sure you can imagine the chaos that resulted from that news. The only thing he ever wanted was to marry his true love, so his brother made all of the arrangements and they were married right there in the hospital. I even got them out for a quick honeymoon."

Luke takes a breath and studies Stefan's face, which shows no emotion. He leans across the table slightly, making sure not to get close enough to alarm the guard. "My wife and I almost lost our son again, Nikolas nearly lost his only brother, and Elizabeth thought she was going to be a widow the day after her wedding. How do you live with yourself? How do you go to sleep at night knowing how much pain you caused. I know you could care less about me, but what about Nikolas? What about Laura? You claim to care for them, so how could you put them through such torment? Why Lucky? If you hate me so much, then come after me! Leave my children alone!"

Stefan smiles slightly. "What makes you so certain that I am to blame? I've been here ever since your son was recovered from Wyndemere. It's funny, you killed two people that day, yet I'm the one in prison."

Luke's face turns red. "I did this world a great service by taking care of those two. As for you, you're here for your part in my son's kidnapping, and you will remain here even longer, due to your involvement in his attempted murder!" Stefan begins to speak, but Luke starts ranting again. "Don't try to deny this, because everyone knows that you instructed Ari to poison Lucky. You should have known better than to use one of Helena's cabin boys. He may have been loyal to her, but he didn't give a flying rat's a$$ what happened to you. He sang like a bird as soon as the police slapped those handcuffs on."

A faint look of surprise passes over Stefan's face, so faint that most people wouldn't notice it, but Luke has years of experience reading Cassidine facial expressions. "Getting scared yet? You should be, because I'm going to make sure that you are put away for a long time. You better get used to those blue shirts again, cause this time there won't be no fancy lawyer to get you out of this." He stands up and leans in closer, so that his face is only inches from Stefan's, not caring about the guard anymore.

"You lost, Stefan. My wife is back with me where she belongs, your mother is dead, your sister is prosecuting you at your trial, Nikolas is a Spencer now, and your plan to kill my other son backfired. I win." He stares into Stefan's eyes for a moment, noting the fear and anger in them, then smiles and leaves the room.

Once he's outside the room, he takes a deep breath and lightly beats his chest. "Now that's what I call closure!"