Dream a Little Dream

Chapter 5

The time had come, Alan and Monica had decided. Jason and AJ had to see each other.

They told each of their sons bravely, although both AJ and Jason saw the fear in their eyes. Neither son backed down. AJ had missed Jason – he hadn't been to the hospital since Jason had started waking up. He wanted to try to help Jason, to make amends, and to find peace for himself.

Jason was more ready than his parents realized. In recent weeks, catching up with Karen and Robin, he brooded more and more over everything he'd missed. He never got to say goodbye to either of his grandparents. He'd missed Emily's young adulthood. Family like Skye, Dillon, Michael, Morgan and Brooke Lynn were strangers to him. He never got to go to med school, and never would, now. He had lost Keesha through no fault of either of them. He'd lost his youth, his dreams and nine years of his life. He had to make a new life for himself, and he didn't know how.

He would make AJ pay for all of that, starting today.

* * *

Maxie Jones was in the WiFi area of the student center at Port Charles University. Summer sessions had begun, and she was taking a few liberal arts courses to free up her schedule in the fall to make her demanding forensic science classes easier to handle.

It wasn't her schoolwork that was making her grin like a kid with a new bike.

“Hey, Maxie, what's got you so happy?” Diego Alcazar asked, flopping onto a chair across from her.

Maxie beamed.

“Great news, Diego!” she said. “Tommy Hardy is transferring to PCU! He's Elizabeth Webber's cousin and Mrs. Hardy's grandson. We were buddies when we were little and his parents lived at the Brownstone. It'll be so good to see him again!”

Diego smiled at Maxie's giddy bounce on the cushy couch. The smile hid his jealousy. He'd promised his father that he wouldn't get too involved with girls while in school, because pre-med is so demanding. But Diego was nuts about Maxie.

Maxie liked Diego more than she cared to admit. She knew he was dedicated to his studies, and had little time for dating. She also was scared of getting too close to him, because she knew she could fall for him. That vulnerability is where people get hurt, she thought. You open yourself up to someone, count on them, and they bail on you or betray you. Like her father Frisco did to his family. Like her mother, Felicia, did to Mac. Like Kyle did to her, broadcasting their tryst over the Internet.

She was determined to stay free of such vulnerability. Thus, she kept a facade of being just a buddy around Diego.

“He'll be living with Mrs. Hardy,” Maxie went on. “She's been lonely since Liz moved out. You'll like him, Diego. He's in pre-med, too. Please be nice to him, and help him find his way around.”

Diego promised. After all, he could always introduce this Tommy to some of the prettier pre-med students and keep the path to Maxie clear.

* * *

Lucky Spencer and his father, Luke, were sitting at a large table in Vagabond, going over the summer menu.

“You're sure about this fish guy, Dad?” Lucky said. “You read that story the other day in the Herald about the latest trick of blowing carbon dioxide on tuna to make it bright red.”

“Naw, he's good, Cowboy,” Luke replied. “He's old school. He believes a reputation for having the best is something to live up to, not live off of.”

Lucky nodded. His dad had a knack of finding people like this fish vendor. He collected people like that the way others collected baseball cards. Luke also kept his suppliers close to his vest, not wanting to share.

They decided on adding a tuna carpaccio, scallops and field greens in a citrus vinaigrette, cedar plank salmon, and crab cakes with a red pepper sauce to the summer menu, along with daily grilled fish specials. Prince Edward Island mussels would be tossed with pasta and a chopped plum tomato sauce.

“Well, that's that,” Lucky said. “We should be pretty well set, with the Asian/Caribbean fusion stuff that we have going, and the summer salads. The Bangkok jerk chicken should be a big seller. Heather went nuts over it ... if you'll pardon the pun.”

Luke laughed wickedly and lit up a cigar. Lucky objected, reminding him of New York's strict no-smoking laws.

“Hey, we're not open yet,” he said, answering Lucky's dirty look. “That expensive ductwork can easily handle a morning stogie.”

Luke contentedly puffed away. Lucky signed order forms, checked payroll and looked over the recent produce order. He was such a combination of Laura and Luke. He had Laura's work ethic, compassion, and sense of community. But he also had Luke's loyalty, passion, and love of adventure and travel. He liked the excitement of running a place where things happened. But even that wouldn't be enough to keep Lucky around, so he got his adventure kicks in volunteering with the county rescue squad, and helping Luke and Felicia in their investigations.

After Helena had been stopped once and for all, Lucky was restless and rootless for a while. His relationship with his parents had been easily rebuilt, but the old “permanent lock” with Elizabeth had been broken. They were still friends, and talked about almost everything – except each other's romantic lives. Neither of them had dated much, especially after Elizabeth decided to go into nursing.

In 2002, his father decided to spend part of the summer in New York with Laura and Lulu, and also do some research on the waterfront restaurant project, as well as network to gain political support for his floating casino plans for the Haunted Star. He was going to ask Lucy Coe to run Luke's while he was gone, but Lucky surprised everyone by asking for the chance. He needed something to do that would anchor him while he figured out where to go from here.

Lucky flourished at running Luke's. He had Luke's charm and ability to handle a crisis, along with Laura's warmth. He also discovered he liked running something. It gave him a sense of being in control that he'd lost when he'd been kidnapped and later brainwashed by Helena.

When Luke came back and saw – and heard about – Lucky's acumen, he decided to let Lucky run the waterfront project. They collaborated and came up with Vagabond. Its theme of wanderlust gave them the ability to change the menu and vibe of the place to suit their whims.

Luke and Laura were just about bursting with pride over Lucky and his sister, Lulu. Lulu, now 15, was getting to be as adventure-loving as her father. She was perfectly capable of finding her way around New York by herself, and loved nothing more than a day of roaming with her parents, Lucky, or grandmother Lesley. Laura and Lulu would come back to Port Charles for long stays, and always spent Christmas there in the warm, inviting home that Laura and Luke bought from Mary Mae Ward all those years ago.

Laura and Luke had an unconventional marriage. It had been hard for Laura when Luke decided to keep his businesses in Port Charles and suggested a commuter marriage. For so long, she'd thought she wanted a conventional life after all those years on the run. And doing something so untraditional made her question their relationship. But Luke – never one for convention – was so devoted, and so ardent when they were together, that any doubts were soon dispelled. Since Lucky had taken over at Vagabond and could also handle Luke's, and Lucy didn't mind stepping up to run the Haunted Star, Luke started to spend the whole summer in New York, and also stayed longer during other times.

Laura also found that, like Lucky, she liked having a business to run. Deception was flourishing. She missed having Gia Campbell as her Face of Deception, and would have loved to have had her as a daughter-in-law, but she was proud of Gia for going on to become a lawyer after the breakup with Nikolas. Laura was sad to see Nikolas become so brooding and Cassadine-like again. She'd hoped he would bury that with Stavros and Helena. Stefan didn't like it either, but he knew that Nikolas had to find his own way.

“So what's going on in your life, Cowboy?” Luke asked. “You know your mother is going to be pumping me for details.”

Lucky rolled his eyes in mock despair.

“She'll just be bored, Dad,” he said. “Basically, I work. But with Hutch keeping an eye on things at Luke's and Coleman stepping up here, it's been a lot easier. I'll be helping Felicia wrap up the report for Faith Rosco after you go. And I do three shifts a week on the rescue squad. Sly and I are talking about going camping sometime in August – maybe up around Saranac or Keene Valley. We're trying to talk Nikolas into going, but Mom's prince doesn't do without indoor plumbing.”

Luke let out a froggy laugh from behind the stogie smoke. He and Nikolas had mended the last of their fences after Helena was killed. While he'd grown to respect Nikolas and Stefan since then, he also thought Nikolas' princely brooding of late tiresome, and saw how it worried Laura, Stefan, Lesley and Lucky.

“What about women?” Luke said. “Your mother's worried about you. She wonders if you're working so hard and so much to avoid having a relationship. She still has hopes for you and Elizabeth, you know.”

Lucky looked down at the ledger, then out the window.

“I don't know,” he said. “Sometimes, when Elizabeth and I are hanging out or something, I can feel the old feeling so close. I know it's almost there. But then it goes away just as fast. Damn that Helena! She's been dead almost four years, and she's still doing damage!”

Luke nodded, looking at Lucky with pain and regret.

“So many times, I wish I'd just killed her when she was sick,” he said. “If I had, a lot of people would have been spared a lot of unhappiness.”

Lucky turned his head to face his father.

“You're not a cold-blooded murderer, Dad,” he said. “It's just not in you. Even when you've had to kill someone, it was never something you could coldly do and just walk away from with no feeling, no matter how many wisecracks you made.”

“So getting back to you,” Luke said. “What are you going to do about it? Are you worried that Elizabeth is waiting for you to make a move, and putting off her own life?”

Lucky looked thoughtful.

“I'm staying away from her for a while,” he said. “See what happens. Either there's something there ... or there isn't.”

The front door of Vagabond opened. Luke turned to see who it was.

“You're either way late for last night's shift or way early for tonight's,” Luke said to Mitchell Coleman, bartender and Lucky's assistant manager at Vagabond. Once the owner of a seedy bar and a strip joint on the old waterfront, Coleman, as everyone called him, was hired by Luke to be a bartender at Luke's when the waterfront development led to Coleman's businesses being bought out. Coleman moved over to Vagabond when it opened.

“Got to get the liquor order ready,” Coleman said. “Hutch is putting in the orders for us, Luke's and the Haunted Star tomorrow morning. By the way, Lucky, that guy from the Finger Lakes wineries group called again. He's still hoping we'll expand our wine list for New York State wines.”

Lucky stood up and stretched.

“I'm going to go make some phone calls,” he said. “And then I'll catch a nap before my rescue squad shift. You leave for New York next week, right, Dad? We'll have to have another meeting or two before then. So give me a call.”

With that, Lucky retreated to his office. Luke looked after him with pride and joy softening his often sardonic face. He plopped on a barstool.

“How about something for the brains behind all this, Coleman?” he said. “Barbancour, on the rocks.”

Coleman silently served up the drink. Luke looked at him sharply.

“What's your problem?” Luke said. “Or should I say, who?”

Coleman grimaced.

“No comment,” he grunted, and went back into the stockroom.

Poor Coleman, Luke though. Mess with a dragon, you're going to get burned.

* * *

A.J. had already thrown up once this morning. He went light on breakfast, just tea and toast. He was silent, absorbed in seeing Jason again. Joy, fear, guilt, love were racing through his blood.

Carly had given the boys an early breakfast, and sent them with Leticia, the nanny, to the park. They were always active and chatty in the morning, and she wanted things as calm as possible for A.J.

He left for the hospital with Alan and Monica, forcing a smile for their sake.

“It's going to be okay, no matter what,” Carly whispered in his ear as he hugged her. And it will be, she thought, even if I have to put Jason back in a coma myself.

* * *

Elizabeth Webber had the day off from her nursing job at General Hospital. While she loved nursing, it was sometimes hard to have a personal life with shifts that often changed.

Having a weekday off had its advantages. She'd gotten in for a hair appointment and pedicure with ease. She'd also already dropped off the DVDs she'd borrowed from the library, picked up her dry cleaning, and was meeting Gia for lunch at Kelly's. After lunch, she was going to do a quick run to the grocery store, then spend the rest of the day on her porch doing sketching exercises.

She was a few minutes early, so she grabbed a table and opened the copy of The Scene, the arts and alternative weekly in Port Charles. She was looking over the art openings when Ric Lansing walked in.

Ric always lost his breath for a second when he saw Elizabeth. The self-assured district attorney was reduced to a blushing schoolboy. Fortunately for Ric, Elizabeth was absorbed in reading and didn't see him.

“Hello there,” he said. Elizabeth looked up and smiled, making his knees quiver a bit.

“Ric, hi,” she said, with a soft flush on her cheeks. “What brings you out this way?”

“I had to pick up some paperwork, so I figured I'd swing by here instead of the usual lunch at my desk,” he said. “And you?”

“I'm off today, so I'm meeting Gia Campbell for lunch.”

Ric nodded. Then inspiration hit.

“Do you mind if I talk to you for a second, Elizabeth?” he said.

“Not at all, pull up a chair.”

He did so, and also managed to knock over a tumbler of sugar packets on the adjacent table. Just then, Gia walked in. She was almost tempted to leave Elizabeth alone with Ric. She knew both Elizabeth and Lucky needed a nudge to either fish or cut bait. But Elizabeth saw Gia and waved her over.

“Hi, Gia,” Ric said. “How've you been? Good work on that slumlord suit with Justus. With the convictions we got, and now the civil case, that guy's going to have a hard time letting senior citizens and disabled veterans live in squalor again.”

Gia beamed.

“Thanks, Ric,” she said. “It was so good to do something like that, something that made an immediate difference. Days like that are few and far between in law, you know, but it makes all the dry research reading worth it.”

“I'm glad I saw you two today.” Ric said. “I'm a little worried about Mary Bishop. It's coming up on two years since Connor's death, and she looks like she's having a hard time. She's got dark circles under her eyes, and she's gotten really quiet. She only talks in the office to answer the phones or give a message. I'm worried about her.”

Elizabeth and Gia felt guilty. They'd first met Mary a few months after she'd lost her husband, Connor, in the war in Iraq. Nikolas Cassadine had met her after his car slid off the road in a rainstorm near the cottage where Mary lived. He introduced her to his friends, including Elizabeth and Gia, hoping she'd get out a little. But Elizabeth and Gia had been caught up in their own lives of late, and hadn't seen Mary, who got a job as an administrative assistant in Ric's office, in weeks.

“We'll do something with her this week, even if it's just a night of movies,” Elizabeth promised.

Ric smiled.

“Thanks,” he said. “Can I call you? To see how things went?”

He blushed. But Elizabeth was so embarrassed about herself blushing that she didn't notice.

“Sure,” she said.

Praise the Lord and pass the Trojans, Gia thought wickedly.

* * *

A.J.'s feet felt like cement as he walked toward Jason's room. He'd asked Monica and Alan to let him go alone. Monica had opened her mouth to object, but glances from both Alan and Kevin Collins stopped her.

The hallway felt eternal, but he was finally at the door. He looked in. Jason was looking out the window.

A.J. walked in.

“Hey,” he said. It wasn't much, but it was all he could get past his suddenly dry mouth.

Jason looked at him. Despite A.J.'s boyish good looks, he'd lost his youth, too. But Jason also so clear, sober eyes and a steady gaze. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen that.

“Hey,” Jason said.

Tears rushed to A.J.'s eyes. He made no move to check them or wipe them away.

“Oh, God, Jase,” he said. “This is so great ... seeing you. I'm so sorry...” His voice trailed off into a sob.

Jason didn't move. He was torn between anger and pity, which made him angrier. So he decided to do nothing, yet.

“I know,” Jason said. “We'll get through this.”

After an awkward few minutes where A.J. wiped his eyes and the two brothers sat down, they began talking.

“So...” A.J. said.

“So...” Jason said.

“How are you?” A.J. Said. “I mean, there must be some weird changes since you ... since I put you in here.”

Jason blinked, nodded and blinked again.

“Let's start with you,” Jason said. “Carly? What happened there?”

A.J. raised an eyebrow, then grinned.

“I still don't know,” he said. “Our first night together was a blackout, right before my sentencing. The last night I drank. Guess I did something right, because Michael's here.”

“Where'd you get the name Michael?” Jason, remembering how in his dream, he'd named Michael for Sonny.

A.J. told of how Robin Scorpio helped him through the hard time after the accident, and how she was supportive of Carly during her pregnancy while he was serving his sentence. So they named their son after Stone, and made Robin his godmother. Morgan was for Lila's maiden name. Michael's full name was Michael Spencer Quartermaine. Morgan's was Morgan Durant Quartermaine. Lila had been thrilled by Morgan's name, and doted on both her great-grandsons until the night she went upstairs and closed her eyes for the last time.

Both A.J. and Jason had tears in their eyes remembering Lila.

“She was my rock so many times,” A.J. said. “There were times when I was close to falling off the wagon, and all it took was a talk with her to pull me back from the edge. We didn't even have to mention drinking, but she always said and did the right thing to keep me going. She knew when to sympathize, and went to speak straight. She had the most amazing intuition about people. She could tell the difference between someone like Luke Spencer and scum like Sonny Corinthos, even though they both came from the same place. God, the time she ran over Sonny's feet with her wheelchair – the look on her face! I thought Sonny was going to have a stroke – no one ever treated him like that, with such complete dismissal. Ned , Jax and I still laugh about that. Even before anyone besides me knew of Carly's real background, she accepted Carly without question. She told me she saw in Carly what she saw in Mom – the strength to become a Quartermaine and be a good wife to one.”

Jason nodded, hiding his grief over not having Lila here, and losing her last years. He added another point to his score to settle against A.J.

“Grandfather was Grandfather right up until Grandmother died,” A.J. continued. “He was the last one to forgive me for what I did to you. So many times, I thought he'd never love me again. But he told me, a few weeks before he died, of seeing me with Michael in the nursery when Michael was about 18 months old. We weren't doing anything special – just playing with blocks. But something about the way Michael and I were together changed everything for him. He said he found that he'd already forgiven me, he just had to admit it.”

Another silence followed. Jason broke it.

“What about Emily?” he asked.

“She also had a hard time forgiving me,” A.J. said. “She became pretty wild, and angry. Most of it was at me. Some, I think, was the anger she never really admitted over losing her mother, Paige. Mom and Dad told you about the drugs. One night, Ned and I had to talk her off the roof when she was high. That was when Ned and I started forgiving each other, too.”

A.J. told of how Ned tried to bully him into keeping quiet about what really happened in the crash. Ned tried to do damage control by saying he was driving. He insisted it was for the family, but he also enjoyed twisting the knife into A.J. by trying to take away A.J.'s chance to take responsibility for things. But A.J. refused to be silent, went to the police with Alan and Monica, and accepted the legal penalties. Monica and Alan were furious at Ned for a long time, and only began reconciling after the night on the roof with Emily.

“We got her into the hospital,” A.J. continued. “She had to withdraw, and do a lot of therapy. A lot of hurt and anger flared up. It got ugly again for a while. Michael was born by then, and I was seriously considering taking him and Carly and just leaving. If it came down to the family or my family and my sobriety, it was no contest. Staying sober and taking care of Michael and Carly came first. It still does.”

Jason didn't want to admit it, but he was touched and impressed by this new A.J.

“Emily's been kind of weird lately,” A.J. began. Jason looked up sharply.

“Do you think it's drugs?” he asked bluntly.

“No, it's something else. She's distracted, walking around in a daze, sometimes with this smile on her face, like she knows a secret. She hardly talks about Zander anymore, or anything else. School is 'fine, just busy.' I worry that med school may be too much for her. I don't know. Maybe you'll see something, maybe not. Maybe I just worry too much.”

Jason asked about Skye.

“That was quite the mess,” A.J. said. “Grandfather was really in hot water for a while after it was revealed that he'd arranged for her to be adopted by Adam Chandler when she was born, without telling Dad she even existed and tricking her mother into signing the adoption papers. And Mom was none too pleased about Dad's old flame, Rae Cummings, showing up. But things have gotten better. Dad laid down the law with Skye about throwing her mother in Mom's face, and Mom learned to accept Skye. She's an alcoholic, too, in recovery like me. We've helped each other through a lot, and we really bonded. You'll like her.”

A.J. told about Dillon, how he was this breath of fresh air in the Quartermaine household, with his exuberance and artistic bent. He and Brooke Lynn were more like brother and sister than uncle and niece. Brooke Lynn had an amazing voice, and hoped to lead the next generation of artists on L&B.

A.J. looked at Jason.

“It's so good to be talking with you like this again, Jase,” he said. “I came here just about every day, but knowing you're here, really here, is the best thing ever next to my sons being born. I'm going to do everything I can for you. I know it's hard, and you probably hate me. But I'm not going to give up on you, or us being a family again.”

Jason blinked, nodded and blinked again. He felt the anger in him, but it didn't boil. Give things time, he thought. A.J. still needed to pay, but that would come.