Author: Regency

Title: Sixty Months of Solitude

Pairing: Laura/Stefan, infinitesimal Luke/Laura & Luke/Tracy,

Spoilers: None.

Summary: The night of the Bacchanalia Ball, two lost citizens of Port Charles return with a mission in mind.

Author’s Notes: It’s a weird story with an indistinct conclusion.

AN II: ‘The night your lips touched mine you feign not to recall though you forget, my love the gods remember all.’

--Stefan Cassadine

~~

She stepped out of the shadows and he recognized her immediately. The already dank corridors of Wyndamere seemed to shrink away in her presence and in some way, so did he. She had changed; the kindness that once lit her eyes was gone, replaced by a cold isolation that did no justice to the soul he’d loved.

Her gown was fit for a queen. The rich color of gold lapped at her skin, the envy of every of lover she’d had when he knew her--and of he himself. Tender silk draped across her shoulders and breasts, wrapping around her in an embrace near to adoration if such things did adore women. The gown loosened at her waist to give grace to the passage of time, though not enough to keep his heart from racing at the curve of her hips

In a word, she was iridescent.

The unruly noise of the Bacchanalia Ball floated out from the banquet hall and he winced, taking a step back into the dark. In his day, it would never have been so untamed, so feral. There was an order to things, a way that the attendants should behave. It was an order that he supposed no longer existed. Another indication that life had continued in his absence--and in hers.

A golden mask concealed the upper portion of her face, though it did little to stop him from knowing her on sight. Pearls, gemstones, and feathers stood in festive façade around the lagoon depths of her eyes. Those portals, still murky blue in color, seemed to peer into the void and spear him in place. The struggles and abandonments of the past became null in their capture. Unbeknownst to all but they two, he stepped away from death and chose life.

~~~

She stepped into the fray before him and was soon swept away on the current of anonymity that filled the chamber. The chandeliers dangled alight from the vaunted ceiling, quaking at the sophisticated drunkenness of society’s elite so far below. Although she heard many voices, she was able to pick out one and then another that she knew. Her mother was laughing with her former sister-in-law. She desired to step in to listen, too. Nonetheless, her mission was a different one--so she forged on, beyond the arms she ached for to comfort her.

Not long passed before she noticed him, his body folded into one of those gothic chairs he claimed to hate, whispering playfully in the ear of his masked companion. Like the rest of the guests, his eyes and nose were concealed behind a decorative disguise--his metallic red with a long pointed nose. She recalled his sense of humor and missed him anew. He smiled and she abruptly turned, afraid that even the mask would fail to hide the flame she still carried for him.

Her next targets were the children--all grown now, having continued to bloom in her absence, the way a garden bloomed wild when left unattended. They were the gifts she’d been given and in turn had been forced to surrender to the hands of something less predictable than God--themselves.

A fall of blond curls caught her eyes and she knew she’d found her little girl. The blow to the chest was when that girl turned and missed her completely in her search for something else. Had so long passed that she wasn’t familiar anymore, was she only imagining the bond that drew them together? Perhaps, she was, but she didn’t pause to nurse the fresh wound; she had a lifetime worth that hadn’t killed her and wouldn’t now.

Her boys were the final conquest and the simplest. At the center of the festivities, her firstborn sat in his grand throne chair, bedecked in his airs and finest attire. His darling fiancée perched at one side while his aunt--the breathtaking black sheep--chatted up the Australian tycoon who’d been her husband once. The second, and most ill-named, son sat with his high-born brother and whispered in conspiratorial tones, his father’s eyes shining out of a pearl white camouflage.

She kept her distance, which was easy with the crowd buzzing around, every person searching for their next brief connection, not waiting a moment to verify whether the last one they made was truly soul-deep. There was no one waiting to see her again. No, she had to amend that thought. That wasn’t right. He was waiting; she felt him on the edge of her consciousness, gripping her attention subtly as he went about undetected by the one he most wanted to notice him.

Their son was here and safe for the time being. She intended for him to stay that way. That went double for the precious infant she had spied slumbering far away from the celebration. Her grandson deserved to live the rest of his life without fear from the scourge that had dogged her entire family’s. She would willingly give her life in that pursuit.

What a sight I must be, she thought of herself. Her gown had been lovingly sewn by a woman in her debt. She’d never liked to call in markers, but for this gala she had been willing to surrender a portion of her soul to make an appearance. Anything less than splendor felt like a waste after sixty months of days and nights spent in vacuum. These faint mood lights were as nourishing as the sunlight she’d experienced everyday, except more so, because they stood overhead the very reasons she lived. Her skin reflected the precious metal tones of her skirts as if she’d become one of the treasures locked away in this castle built on the backs of fearful peasants and adversaries.

She wore the blood of ages in the slender crimson threads that ran amok in her dress and she intended to wield every ounce.

~~~

He kept close watch on her as she guarded their son. He couldn’t risk coming closer despite his longing to do just that. The disobedient curls of her hair begged to be caressed, but he clinched his fists at his side to resist. She wasn’t his to touch any longer, how she was here at all begged other questions.

He felt more than heard a hush befall the ballroom as his unclaimed son took center stage, as he was always destined to do, and proclaimed the climax of the evening. Midnight had risen and it was time for an announcement--what, his father didn’t know, but he was not encouraged by the inexplicable coldness that chose to grip him then.

He saw her twist suddenly and knew that she had experienced the same wind. Their eyes met over the shoulders of unknowing partygoers and words were unnecessary for their fear to cover the distance. The woman had arrived.

Oblivious to the tension of his parents, the young man lifted his glass. “Tonight, it is my greatest joy to announce the news of my engagement to Emily Bowen Quartermaine, for the second and final time.” Most everyone lifted their crystal respectively, except for those without glasses and those who dared to dissent from this moment. Still, their Nikolas smiled his most tender smile at the beaming would-be bride. “To making the right decision and making it forever.”

And, so they drank.

As the noise set to start again, the heavy ceremonial doors at the end of the hall began to creak. They were being opened to admit someone and he knew exactly whom he would see.

She revealed herself fully, adorned as beautifully as ever, having not aged a day since she last tormented the people of this town.

His heart was in his stomach, but he was not truly afraid of her any longer. She had ceased to be more than a braying dragon when she aided in the theft of his beloved. And his beloved was at his side now, if not in his life, as dedicated as he to the safety of their child.

The graceful if forbidding siren he called his mother approached in her reaching strides. She was coming much too close for comfort. He’d learned never to trust her intentions and saw no reason to start now.

He felt his lover--once and always-- move as his instincts took hold and they came together in the path of the succubus. She stopped short, uncommonly surprised by the gall of someone common to stand in her way. In a moment, he saw realization dawn in her eyes and in the terrible smirk that did little justice to her beguiling beauty.

Helena Cassadine had recognized him, her youngest son and greatest pawn, Stefan.

~~

Laura held tightly to her civility--not an easy task given present company. She was tempted to tear that self-satisfied smile from Helena’s face though she was aware of how little actual good it would do. This woman had never been halted by injury. No, it would take something altogether stronger than that, something as strong as Helena’s intentions were self-serving. It would take a mother’s love, a resource she had in spades.

“You will not take another step towards Nikolas,” Stefan declared. Authority rode the waves of his voice and visibly struck Helena, who took no time in erecting another placid expression. They dropped their masques and faced the villain where she stood.

She heard the commotion of the people. Her mother was close, she felt her. Luke was no longer whispering wittily to the woman she had watched him marry and love in his way. No, he was standing behind her, as were her children.

“What an unexpected turn of events, Nikolas. The night you announce your engagement, your mother and uncle return to you. What luck.” Helena made it clear that she was unafraid.

“You’re not welcomed here, Helena. Leave.” The woman she had briefly known as her mother-in-law scoffed, content it seemed at having found a more deserving prey.

“You are not the matriarch of this family and you will never be.”

Laura lifted an imperious eyebrow at the lone figure standing regally before her. Five years of her life had been spent in exile thanks to the whim of this monstrosity. For some reason, Laura no longer found her nature forbidding; perhaps she never had. Fear of the unknown was the murderer of will. Helena’s grasp surpassed the constraints of logic and fairness, surpassed the will of fate.

“And you are?” She wound up the accumulated moonless nights and made to tally the cost and pay it in rage. The welts on her heart began to burn as she circled Helena. “Tell me, have you ever felt love Helena. Tell me, tell us, if you know it. Do you sense it when Stefan stands near me.” She didn’t spare a glance to inquire about his feelings--he was strong, he had survived her coldness before. “Have you experienced the devotion of Cassadine, the soul-crushing possession?”

Helena didn’t falter. Laura thought she saw annoyance in the taller woman’s eyes, but she had learned something of strength in her imprisonment and didn’t falter either.

“I have. Twice. It is worth the coldest touch of treasure; there is no warmer burn than the passion of a man--a Cassadine man--in love. You will never know it, Helena, as I have known it. It is cruel and vicious, perfectly suited to you somehow. Isn’t it strange that you have never felt its embrace and yet you claim to rule the home of these men?” Laura laughed in feigned delight, holding out her petite hands to illustrate just how much more she held. “You sought love,” she mocked, “in Mikkos with little success and when another woman dared clasp it in her hands, you slit her throat. Congratulations, sweet Helena, you have become a figurehead. We both know where the true power lies.” Still smiling, she tapped her chest, where there was a clasp embossed with the Cassadine family crest, and mouthed, “Here.”

She had no doubt that she had made herself the target of some wrathful retribution, but she didn’t care. This wouldn’t be the end, tonight. Helena always had another plan, another curse. Laura had not laid humiliation at her doorstep, but she had most certainly gotten the last crucial word.

“Warn your mother, Nikolas, that she is speaking out of her station. If she doesn’t want to discover what it truly means to die a peasant’s death, I suggest she stick to her own kind.” Light blue eyes that would’ve lanced a much younger Laura into submission were met with only defiance.

Laura’s ire calmed when Nikolas stepped to her side and took hold of her arm. “She has. This is her home as certainly as it is not yours. You’re not welcomed here. Leave.” Laura leaned into the arm he offered, taking comfort in his safety. “Don’t force me to have you removed, Helena. There are places that will deal with you accordingly and they can all be quickly reached.”

Helena inclined her elegant face against the unveiled threat. “I simply came to wish my grandson well on his night of celebration. Shall I be persecuted for that?”

“And much more in time, mother,” Stefan answered, his already fathomless eyes darkening as he physically stepped between she and Helena. “You heard Nikolas. Leave here now. Or have you begun to defy him as well? If so, perhaps the house Cassadine should be completely dismantled,” Stefan threatened. “If his word is not law, not law according to you, then it‘s meaningless.”

Laura was moved by his passion, but concerned with his portents. The void within told her this couldn’t end well. Helena had revealed the depth of evil in her latest plot to separate Laura from her family. It was far from original, but it did no less harm. A deserted island--only there was no Stefan to guard her from the pain, only the ever-present companion she had in Time. In her place, a poor woman was doomed to eternity in a chair believing that her name was Laura and that she had left behind a love unlike any other--a victim of the worst manipulation and Helena‘s cruelest work. No, this couldn’t end well.

With a belittling glare to Stefan, Helena swung her almost adoring gaze back to Nikolas. “I have other business to attend to, but I haven’t finished congratulating you and your betrothed on the wonderful news. Expect me.” Unscathed, Helena departed the sober gala in favor of the night’s camouflage.

Laura was seized by the irony; Helena ultimately wore the masque. Sixty months of loneliness on an island inhabited by exactly one and it all came back to Helena Cassadine and the night of the Bacchanalia Ball.

~~~

Stefan flanked Laura at the terminus of his mother’s warpath. “She will be back.” She seemed not to hear him, preoccupied by the view of nothing in the distance obscured by the wall-hangings.

His Lasha lifted her eyes to his and showed him the bottom of her soul. “And we will be waiting.”

He was spurred by her certainty for he felt no such confidence. He knew firsthand how terrible Helena was and to what lengths she would go to maintain the Cassadine line. He feared for the son of his son. He feared for Lasha.

“She will kill you if you stand between her and Nikolas, or even Spencer.” He had acknowledged this from the first sight he had of her not an hour ago. So long as anyone capable of controlling the Cassadine succession lived, they would forever be in Helena’s sights.

“Maybe,” she conceded easily, baring some startling semblance of a smile, “but she will never pass me.”

In her, Stefan saw the rise of a Cassadine for want of blood, a woman who would spill as much as she deemed necessary to secure the health of her family. He searched her face for any sign of the gentle Lasha he had known only a decade ago, but found that she had taken her leave in the duration it took for his mother to turn her back. Helena had taken the cold with her, but he thought she might have left a nightmare in her wake.

He did not fear for the dowager princess, mother of Stavrosovitch, widow of Mikkos; he pitied her.

~~~