Sorry about the delay in getting this second part posted. I had to resume my duties as a domestic goddess, unexpectedly.
This part isn't as dark as Part I, but it is creepy. Don't fret; you made through that, this should be cake.
Some violence; very mild language.
Part II
QUARTERMAINE COMPOUND (Gatehouse)
The knock on the door was very faint; the rapping so soft Ned wasn't sure his mind wasn't playing tricks on him. He looked down at his watch in annoyance. After all, who would come by unannounced at eleven o'clock at night? The knock sounded again, a little louder. It was probably Edward still trying to control things, Ned thought to himself as he sighed and shook his head in exasperation. He was tired. He was particularly tired of Edward trying to run his, Skye's and baby Kristina's life.
He took a deep breath and looked down at Kristina as she lay sleeping in the cradle. She really was getting too big for it. He'd have to remember to give it back to Alexis when she visited the baby next week. He hoped it wouldn't start another row. She took everything so personally these days. Ned felt his temper flare as guilt tried to play upon his conscience. No, this entire situation was of Alexis' making. He had nothing to feel guilty about. She made wrong choices and he wasn't about to let baby Kristina pay for them the way Alexis' sister Kristina had.
With that full head of steam propelling him, Ned marched over to the door and yanked it open, prepared to give Edward what-for for interfering yet again where he most definitely was not wanted. Ned froze. His brain was only able to process the information his eyes were sending it in small increments. The first thing he recognized was the flash of red hair. It had grown much longer, falling past her slim shoulders to her narrow waist. Its vibrancy caught his eye, and his synapses ceased firing for a millisecond. Next he detected her smooth pale skin, made all the paler by the moonlight. Finally her eyes bewitched him, and Ned stood motionless as if he'd been bathed in liquid nitrogen.
It was the sound of her voice that shattered him into a million pieces where he stood. The sound of her melodious voice destroyed and remade him the instant she spoke his name.
"Ned?"
Ned's brain could only form one thought: This is not happening.
HELENA'S YACHT (Pier 52)
Alexis' brain kept repeating in an endless loop as she heard her sister's voice on the digital feed. This is not happening. This is not happening. This is not happening.
Helena and Lazar's snide laughter alerted her to the fact that she had voiced her thoughts again. "Yes, little mouse, it is," he chortled. "Behold, the Czarina's power to grant life where there was death."
QUARTERMAINE COMPOUND (Gatehouse)
"You were dead. You were dead. I saw you die. I watched it happen. I held you, I was there. This is not happening. You're dead. This is not happening." Ned was becoming more and more agitated and his voice was growing louder as his denials became more vehement. "No, no, no, no, no, no NO!" He shook his head frantically and backed quickly away from the door. He bumped into a chair that lay in his path and collapsed over the back of it as his legs gave way.
"Shhh, Ned. You'll wake the baby," Kristina warned as she eyed the occupant of the cradle. "She looks so peaceful. It would be a shame to disrupt her sleep." Her glance shifted as she looked around the room, taking in her surroundings as if she were a patroness of the arts at a private showing. Ned stared at her as if she were Mona Lisa come to life. "You've made some changes while I was away. I would never have put that chair there. Oh, well, it looks as though you haven't completely moved in yet so I can forgive the slip," the ghost with Kristina's soft, fluid voice admonished teasingly.
Ned cried out as his heart remembered the resonance his ears now registered. This is not happening. It's a lie, he told himself. His mind had been so focused earlier on separating the truth from lies that he'd finally slipped over the edge completely and become totally delusional. All those troubling thoughts of what Kristina would feel about the current situation with him and Alexis and him and baby Kristina had worked his guilt to such a degree that he had just conjured her up in his head.
This is not happening. That was the truth. Her voice was the lie. Her skin, her eyes, her hair. None of them were true. And then he felt her touch. She had followed him further into the cottage as he backed away from her and now stood next to him as he lay sprawled gracelessly in the chair he had stumbled over. Her fingertips grazed the skin on his forehead as she brushed a lock of his dark hair back into order. Her unique scent underneath the floral body wash she used to use...the sweetness of her breath as it cooled his nettled brow. Oh, they were clever and convincing lies, but lies nonetheless. She was gone. Gone was gone. It was a lie.
HELENA'S YACHT (Pier 52)
"It's a lie," Alexis insisted. "You sick bastards, it's a lie!" Her knees found the strength to hold her as her fury at this cruel jest catapulted her from her seat.
Lazar pushed Alexis back into her chair as Helena's voice cut off her explosive denial. "Oh, but I'm afraid it isn't a lie, Alexis. What you are seeing is true. Your sister is most definitely alive, for I have made it so." Helena tilted her head, a study in bona fide perplexity as she went on, "How can you still doubt the totality of my reach after all this time?" Helena gave her an amazed stare. "Have you really not been paying attention all these years?" She sighed in resignation. "My obdurate son would never hear me when I told him you were mentally challenged. He insisted that you were so smart, simply because you could mimic language like a monkey. But I remember that Lazar had such a difficult time teaching you even the basics, like listening!" she bit out. "Cease your squeaking, little mouse, we're getting to the good part." She shushed Alexis and gestured toward the screen.
QUARTERMAINE COMPOUND (Gatehouse)
"She's such a beautiful baby. I can hardly believe how big she is. I've seen pictures, but it just doesn't compare." Kristina had moved away from Ned when he flinched at her touch. She now stood over the cradle looking down at her namesake. "It's strange that she has my name. I remember Alexis said she would name her after me, but now that I'm here again I'm not sure it will work." She looked up at him as if expecting his agreement. "It could get pretty confusing. We'll have to come up with a nickname for her." She smiled at Ned, who had finally risen from his ignominious slump in the chair. "Maybe Krissy?" Then she shook her hands in the air in front of her as if to wipe the word away. "Nah, sounds too much like prissy, and I have a feeling she's going to be a tomboy. She comes from tough stock. Plus there's that whole dumb blonde connotation from Three's Company." She looked at Ned sheepishly as she informed, "I caught a lot of re-runs while I was recovering." She winked at him and continued, "But that's another story."
Kristina turned again and peered down at her slumbering niece and whispered, "Tina? Is that a fitting nickname, princess?" But then she shook her head again. "No, that's not it either." She raised her fist to her chin in a quirky imitation of Rodin's The Thinker. Then she quietly snapped her fingers as if an idea had struck her. "Kristy. Speaking of re-run television. Yeah, that's a good name. I always liked Kristy McNichol. She always played a tough girl. Had a lot of spirit. And our little Kristy here is going to need that." Kristina turned to face Ned, who was staring at her in bewilderment. She smiled at him. "You don't like it?" She walked over to him and raised her hands as if to caress his face, but he backed away again; a look of pure panic mapping his features. "Ned, what's the matter? We don't have to call her Kristy if you don't want to, but I do think its the best choice. Why don't we..."
"What the hell is going on?" Ned interjected, stifling her suggestion before she could make it. "Who put you up to this...this...this sick joke? Was it Alexis?" He paused, but then answered his own question. "No, no, no, it had to be Stefan." He bit out the words as he paced around the room, negotiating his way around the haphazard scattering of furniture and boxes that were remaining from the recent move. Ned's voice was a mixture of disgust and fury as he continued spouting his theory. "He's the only one cruel enough to put someone up to this kind of stunt. Then again, the whole lot of Cassadines is a twisted bunch of murdering master manipulators. That's why baby Kristina is not going anywhere near any of them again." He was getting more and more upset as he pressed on. "So you, Miss Whatever-the-hell-your-real-name-is, you march yourself right back to your boss and you tell him that he just cost Alexis her visitation next week. I will not be intimidated or manipulated by those people anymore. His whacked out sister Alexis has done quite enough of that to last me a lifetime. I am not letting her do it to my daughter!"
"Your daughter, Ned? Don't you mean Sonny Corinthos' daughter?" Kristina trapped his furious stare in her vivid green gaze. Her voice was suddenly steely cold and absent of inflection. "Kristy's no more related to you than, say, your cousin Skye, who is at this very moment upstairs asleep in your bed, now isn't she?" She paused, letting the words sink in. "But let's not get bogged down in possessive pronouns or mixed relations, familial or sexual as the case may be. This is a family reunion. I am trying to get to know my niece. And make no mistake, Ned, I am her Aunt Kristina. Back from the dead like Lazarus and my brother Stavros." A puzzled expression crossed her face.
"But you have some experience with this sort of thing, don't you, Ned? As I understand it, one of your wives came back from the dead. Catherine Bell, wasn't it? I could be wrong; you've had so many wives I get them confused. Oh, but she was special, wasn't she? After all, besides her coming back from the dead, you were married to her at the same time that you were married to Lois, right? Speaking of master manipulators. You, not Lois...although, I have it on good authority that Cathy was a close second. She'd have made as fine a Cassadine as she did a Quartermaine, if we stick to your strict definition." Kristina smirked at him. "People who live in glass houses, Ned. Or I guess I should say, People who don't live in flame-retardant homes, shouldn't throw Molotov cocktails." She chuckled mirthlessly and Ned felt a cold shiver chase up his spine.
"But again, I digress. We were discussing Kristy. And you're right, she is the reason I came back. But just so you know, neither my brother nor my sister had anything to do with my being here tonight. As a matter of fact, they have no idea that I am even alive." She snapped her fingers again, "Oh but wait, scratch that. By now Alexis knows." With that last statement, Kristina turned and looked straight into the camera that was providing the digital feed. Then she smiled.
HELENA'S YACHT (Pier 52)
Alexis felt her blood run cold as she recognized the smile that Kristina displayed. It was identical to that which now graced Helena's face. Alexis was so astounded she couldn't make her brain work properly to ask the important questions. Her mind went right to the trivial because that was all she could handle. "How are you doing this? How can you be recording what's going on inside Ned's house?"
Helena lost her smile. She looked genuinely disappointed, as if a star pupil had failed to spell a simple word correctly. " That is your first question!?" she exclaimed in exasperation. "Oh, Alexis, you're not even trying." Helena sighed in frustration. "If you don't make my little game fun I'll have to end it and have Lazar start another one," she warned. "And I think you'll like that one far less than this." She took a calming breath. "Now then, let's try again, shall we? You've just seen proof that your sister, whom you thought was dead for the better part of two years, is, in fact, alive and well because I willed it so. What have you to say, Alexis?"
Alexis just stared blankly at Helena. She didn't know whether it was the sheer terror of the situation, the dizziness resultant from Lazar's repeated slaps, or if it was simply the blow to the head she'd sustained earlier that had muddied her senses so terribly, but Alexis couldn't suppress the impertinent thought that Helena's query provoked. Maybe it was Helena's phrasing of the question. Maybe it was that Alexis really had gone insane as she'd earlier suspected, but the only response that popped into her head was a bastardization of an old advertising campaign that had somehow made it into the American popular culture lexicon to be bandied about almost incessantly until it finally died an unnatural death at the hands of the next catch-phrase to supplant it.
"I'm going to Disney World?" was all Alexis could think to say. Her voice went up on the last syllable so her response came out as if she were that star pupil Helena was so disappointed in who was unsure she had the correct answer to the question.
It was Helena's turn to just stare blankly at Alexis. Then she transferred her gaze to look at Lazar only to find that he was equally at sea. Finally her eyes narrowed to a menacing squint. "Alexis, you are trying my patience. I will have the satisfaction of seeing you suffer. If you do not grant it to me in this, I will simply find it another way. As you don't seem overly concerned about your sister and your daughter, perhaps I should try an old standard. You have always favored your brother Stefan above all things. Why don't I go ahead and eliminate the two Kristinas and move on to him? Would you prefer that?"
"No!" The sound was abrupt, like a gun being fired. Something snapped inside of Alexis as if a switch had been flicked, and the hour and more of torture at the hands of Helena and Lazar united with the flashbacks of the years of torment from them that she'd been reliving while the evening's events played out for her on a fancy digital television, and a fury erupted inside Alexis like Vesuvius reaching critical mass.
"You bloody psychopath, you leave my child out of this!" Alexis shouted as an uncontrollable wave of emotion overwhelmed her. It was the same feeling she'd had the night she'd fought Luis Alcazar for her life. And just as it had on that fateful night, her instinct to protect her daughter won out over common sense or self-preservation, and Alexis sprang at Helena; an enraged scream emitting from her throat as her fingers clenched to strangle the breath out of her lifelong nemesis. Unfortunately Lazar yanked Alexis back into her seat before she could reach Helena, but she had the immense satisfaction of seeing Helena flinch before Lazar struck Alexis again, knocking her from the chair.
From the floor, Alexis looked up at Helena, her eyes blasting the older woman with the heat of a thousand suns. Her passionate outburst had Alexis' breath coming in heaving pants, and she attempted to slow her breathing as she tried to regain control of her emotions. She realized that she wasn't going to get anywhere by continuing to make herself a punching bag for Lazar, so she took a few moments to collect herself. Once she had herself back under some semblance of restraint, Alexis pulled herself up off the floor and slowly rose to her full height, her dignity surrounding her like an ermine cloak. She took a moment to straighten her clothes, which had become disheveled from her tussles with Lazar. She gave him a pointed stare, defying him to touch her. Surprisingly, he did not. Alexis dismissed him as if he were now totally insignificant. Then she took three limping steps forward until she was once again in front of the chair into which she slowly descended with the grace, stateliness and poise of a true princess.
Alexis' gaze met Helena's once more. Fire clashed with ice. Neither woman spoke, each waiting for the other to concede an iota of power. Helena, believing herself to have the upper hand, decided to be magnanimous and broke the silence first. "Well, Alexis, now that you've had a moment to reconsider, what have you to say?" She smiled the same condescending grin she always did whenever she conducted an interview with Alexis during her childhood on the island. Alexis longed to slap it off her face, but she maintained her cool facade; the video feed of Ned's living room reminding her of exactly what was at stake if she lost it again. She took a fortifying breath before responding.
"You spoke of proof, Helena. What proof can you offer me that that woman is in fact Kristina? In the past, you've paid people to alter their appearance to look like you. I presume that's how you were able to escape from prison yet again. Though why anyone would take any amount of money to look like you escapes even my considerable powers of deductive reasoning." At this perceived insult, Helena's eyes flared and Lazar growled menacingly off to Alexis' right. Alexis squelched their objection before it could go further. "What I mean is that you're wanted for crimes in several countries, not just the venerable old burg of Port Charles. Why would anyone care to take on the life-sentence that having your face would surely incur?" Again, they objected, but Alexis just muddled on.
"Wow, did that come out wrong. Okay, let's skip ahead to the interesting part." Alexis took another breath, willing the lessons learned while working to graduate top of her class from Harvard and the years of litigation experience as one of the country's best attorneys to come to the fore so that she could get through Helena's sick game and rescue her daughter. If she could just maintain her calm demeanor, perhaps they could both get out of this alive. At the very least she'd settle for her baby's safety, whatever the cost to herself.
"What proof can you offer that Kristina is alive besides this poorly staged melodrama being enacted at the gatehouse? I can't believe I'm saying this, but I have to agree with Ned's hypothesis. It would have been far simpler and tremendously less expensive, I would hazard to guess, to pay someone to have surgery and come here to impersonate my sister. You had no love for Kristina, and you certainly have none for me, so I do not believe you would go to the enormous effort and expense of resurrecting her as you did your beloved Stavros." Alexis' tone shifted from detached inquiry to bitter contempt without her consent; her exhaustion making her grip on the reins of her galloping emotions very slippery. "Oh, no, you would relish the opportunity to see me suffer her loss far too much to want to give me the unspeakable joy of granting one of my fondest wishes by returning her to me. Glinda the Good Witch you are not, this isn't Kansas, nor even Oz for that matter, and I'm not Dorothy," she stated unequivocally, a quirky grimace crossing her features as she looked down at her feet. Far from sporting ruby slippers, one of her feet was bare; the other was still sheathed, miraculously, in her somewhat the worse for the wear Manolo Blahnik sandal.
"Even if I knew to what you were referring to with your ridiculous Americanisms, Alexis, I would not deign to dignify them." Helena's bored tone retrieved Alexis from her bemused pondering of footwear. "As for the authenticity of my offering, how can you doubt it? You know my ethic. Unlike your good friend Luke Spencer, I do not deal in forgeries." Helena's tone was scandalized at the suggestion. She paused as if in reflection. "You underestimate the pleasure it grants me to see you suffer knowing that she is my creature now. Kristina's loyalty is to me. Oh yes, little mouse, that woman is most certainly your sister and she will do my bidding because she despises you now, the same as I always have." She turned her attention toward the screen again. "Look, listen and learn."
QUARTERMAINE COMPOUND (Gatehouse)
Kristina had moved away from the camera and was now seated near the window looking out over the Quartermaine Estate. She appeared to be very relaxed. "I've answered all of your questions correctly, Ned. I've told you everything I remember. Can we please stop this interrogation long enough for me to bond with my niece? I've lost so much time already; I don't want to lose any more. Tell me you know it's true. I am Kristina."
Ned appeared to be as far from relaxed as it was possible to get without leaving his own skin. He couldn't believe it was happening, but it seemed to be true. Kristina was alive and sitting in his living room. She was alive. It was true. He believed. But there was still something that didn't sit right with Ned.
Aside from her being who she claimed to be, Kristina didn't seem to be herself. Of course it didn't make sense, but Ned found himself oddly comforted by that fact. It was paradoxical, but he acknowledged that he'd have been more disturbed if she were behaving exactly as he remembered her, given all he assumed she'd been through.
And so there he sat in the presence of the woman whose absence had caused him to lose himself. Ned could have wept for the sadness that swept over him as he accepted that Kristina had returned, but realized he now felt more lost than he had when she was gone. All he could do to stave off the emotion was ask more questions.
"All right, let's say that for the sake of argument I believe that you are who you say you are. I've still got a lot more questions to ask. For instance: How? Who? If not Stefan or Alexis, who helped you to recover? Are you okay now? I mean, fully recovered? Why didn't you let me know you were alive? Why didn't you come back sooner?" He wanted to understand the entire process of her resurrection and what it meant for her, for him; for them.
Kristina gazed at him contemplatively, as if considering the pros and cons of telling him what he wanted to know. Then she chose to answer one of his multiple questions seemingly at random. "Alexis. I didn't return because of Alexis." She hesitated, as if the cons were momentarily outweighing the pros on her mental list. "She wasn't ready."
Ned interrupted Kristina before she could clarify. "I thought you said that she had nothing to do with this? You said she and Stefan didn't know," he bit out, his tone reflecting his bitterness toward the subject of their discussion. "I knew she was up to something. She's been too passive lately. Skye thinks..." he halted abruptly, realizing what he said and to whom.
"Oh Ned, don't worry about that." She pretended to offer comfort, correctly apprehending his trepidation at his perceived faux pas. Her tone belied her intent, however, and Ned got the distinct sensation that she was not the least interested in appeasing his misery at the gaffe. She smiled mischievously, as if she were caught with her hand in the cookie jar but didn't care because she'd already eaten the evidence. Ned felt his earlier chill return, a sense of foreboding overtaking him. "I have no problem with you and Skye being affianced." Kristina winked at him and drew nearer as if about to confide a secret. "As a matter of fact, I am engaged to be married myself. My fiance has been in town for a few weeks already. As I said, we were waiting for Alexis. She wasn't quite ready."
Ned's pained groan at her words was the cause for this second interruption of Kristina's tale. "Oh Ned, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you'd be upset at the news." Again, her tone did not match the sentiment. Her face was a mask of sympathy, but her voice bespoke a quiet glee. "It's just that, since you're engaged to Skye, I assumed you'd moved on. That you were over me the same way you were over Alexis when you and I got together." She looked at him pityingly. "I guess not," she murmured with feigned compassion. "Oh well, listen, I don't want to distress you. I just wanted to come and get Kristy here all ready for her big trip." Her voice took on a new excitement, as if she were talking to the baby rather than Ned. "We're going to have such a fabulous time!"
Ned felt the stirrings of an unspeakable panic set in at her words. She's delusional, he thought to himself. She must have suffered some sort of mental break after the accident. She's afflicted by some kind of psychosis. She's more like Alexis than anyone suspected, he rambled on in his head. He snorted, realizing that he was rambling inside his head much as Alexis used to ramble verbally. I guess Alexis has rubbed off on all of us more than we care to admit, he continued his internal monologue. Yep, still doing it. Have to stop! Look at Kristina. Speak! he admonished himself.
"Okay! Whoa! Kristina, what are you talking about? You're not taking the baby anywhere. She stays right here with me. I think you may be confused about a few things because of your accident." He held up his hands in a calming manner, as if she were an animal about to attack. "I'm going to call Monica and have her come down and check you out. If you give me the name of your fiance and where he's staying, maybe I can contact him too," he offered, a hint of arrogance creeping into his voice. As he considered her and her state, he began to doubt whether said fiance even existed.
Kristina stared at Ned as he spoke to her with quiet condescension, as if she were an imbecile. It was an unconscious tactic he had used frequently with her before the explosion. It nettled her back then, and it really pissed her off now. She smiled benignly at him, as if his approach were working on her. "You don't think he exists, do you? You think I fabricated my fiance. You believe me to be deluded, suffering some type of psychosis as a result of the explosion," she continued as if she'd read his mind.
Ned felt his earlier flush of panic, which had begun to ebb as he tried to take control of the situation, surge again and flow over him like a tidal wave. Kristina continued, oblivious to or completely unmindful of his state of increasing agitation. "Well, I'm afraid you're quite wrong, Ned. I am not deluded. My fiance is definitely real. As real as I am. And we are taking the baby. She has to attend the ceremony. She has a very special role to play. Don't you, sweetheart?" She moved toward the cradle as she spoke, addressing the sleeping infant with her last words.
Ned shifted to intercept her. He was becoming increasingly alarmed by her fixation on the child. He tried to distract her focus. "Okay Kristina, I'm sorry I doubted you. Why don't you tell me more about your fiance? You say he's been in town for a few weeks. Why didn't he tell anyone that you were alive? Why not introduce himself to your family? I assume you told him about me if you told him about Alexis and the baby. Why haven't I met him? Who is this paragon?" By the time he finished he was practically shouting. He had advanced on her and was grasping her biceps with unconscious force. His chest was heaving with emotion. The baby stirred restlessly behind him, her sleep disturbed by his volume.
The adult Kristina admonished him with a glare. She shrugged his grip off her arms and sidled around him. She tiptoed to the cradle and smiled down beatifically at the child as she quieted. Ned tried futilely to regain his composure as he followed her with his eyes. The vision they created lanced at his heart like a laser. It was his earlier fantasy come to life, but now it was a nightmare. Kristina's eyes rose from the baby and captured his. The smile left her eyes as they landed on him. The warmth they held for the baby was completely absent for him. Her gaze grew colder as her smile grew broader and Ned shivered.
"Oh, but you have met him, Ned. He's even been to the main house. Skye invited him once. He's already seen the baby. He fell instantly in love with her. He told me we absolutely had to include her in the ceremony. Said the day just wouldn't be complete without our little princess."
Ned's panic became full-blown terror as he began to make the connection. He tried to ask the question, but his voice failed him the first time. He swallowed and tried again. "What's his name, Kristina? Who are you marrying?"
Kristina giggled and ducked her head, simulating shyness. For all intents and purposes, she was the very picture of the blushing bride. She looked up again and locked her green gaze with his once more, her eyes shards of emerald glass that cut into him. She said three words, and Ned felt his heart break inside his chest. "Lorenzo. Lorenzo Alcazar."
To be continued....
Hope you're all still enjoying the story. Please send feedback. I have no other way to gauge the progression of the tale. Still insecure as all get out!
This part isn't as dark as Part I, but it is creepy. Don't fret; you made through that, this should be cake.
Some violence; very mild language.
Part II
QUARTERMAINE COMPOUND (Gatehouse)
The knock on the door was very faint; the rapping so soft Ned wasn't sure his mind wasn't playing tricks on him. He looked down at his watch in annoyance. After all, who would come by unannounced at eleven o'clock at night? The knock sounded again, a little louder. It was probably Edward still trying to control things, Ned thought to himself as he sighed and shook his head in exasperation. He was tired. He was particularly tired of Edward trying to run his, Skye's and baby Kristina's life.
He took a deep breath and looked down at Kristina as she lay sleeping in the cradle. She really was getting too big for it. He'd have to remember to give it back to Alexis when she visited the baby next week. He hoped it wouldn't start another row. She took everything so personally these days. Ned felt his temper flare as guilt tried to play upon his conscience. No, this entire situation was of Alexis' making. He had nothing to feel guilty about. She made wrong choices and he wasn't about to let baby Kristina pay for them the way Alexis' sister Kristina had.
With that full head of steam propelling him, Ned marched over to the door and yanked it open, prepared to give Edward what-for for interfering yet again where he most definitely was not wanted. Ned froze. His brain was only able to process the information his eyes were sending it in small increments. The first thing he recognized was the flash of red hair. It had grown much longer, falling past her slim shoulders to her narrow waist. Its vibrancy caught his eye, and his synapses ceased firing for a millisecond. Next he detected her smooth pale skin, made all the paler by the moonlight. Finally her eyes bewitched him, and Ned stood motionless as if he'd been bathed in liquid nitrogen.
It was the sound of her voice that shattered him into a million pieces where he stood. The sound of her melodious voice destroyed and remade him the instant she spoke his name.
"Ned?"
Ned's brain could only form one thought: This is not happening.
HELENA'S YACHT (Pier 52)
Alexis' brain kept repeating in an endless loop as she heard her sister's voice on the digital feed. This is not happening. This is not happening. This is not happening.
Helena and Lazar's snide laughter alerted her to the fact that she had voiced her thoughts again. "Yes, little mouse, it is," he chortled. "Behold, the Czarina's power to grant life where there was death."
QUARTERMAINE COMPOUND (Gatehouse)
"You were dead. You were dead. I saw you die. I watched it happen. I held you, I was there. This is not happening. You're dead. This is not happening." Ned was becoming more and more agitated and his voice was growing louder as his denials became more vehement. "No, no, no, no, no, no NO!" He shook his head frantically and backed quickly away from the door. He bumped into a chair that lay in his path and collapsed over the back of it as his legs gave way.
"Shhh, Ned. You'll wake the baby," Kristina warned as she eyed the occupant of the cradle. "She looks so peaceful. It would be a shame to disrupt her sleep." Her glance shifted as she looked around the room, taking in her surroundings as if she were a patroness of the arts at a private showing. Ned stared at her as if she were Mona Lisa come to life. "You've made some changes while I was away. I would never have put that chair there. Oh, well, it looks as though you haven't completely moved in yet so I can forgive the slip," the ghost with Kristina's soft, fluid voice admonished teasingly.
Ned cried out as his heart remembered the resonance his ears now registered. This is not happening. It's a lie, he told himself. His mind had been so focused earlier on separating the truth from lies that he'd finally slipped over the edge completely and become totally delusional. All those troubling thoughts of what Kristina would feel about the current situation with him and Alexis and him and baby Kristina had worked his guilt to such a degree that he had just conjured her up in his head.
This is not happening. That was the truth. Her voice was the lie. Her skin, her eyes, her hair. None of them were true. And then he felt her touch. She had followed him further into the cottage as he backed away from her and now stood next to him as he lay sprawled gracelessly in the chair he had stumbled over. Her fingertips grazed the skin on his forehead as she brushed a lock of his dark hair back into order. Her unique scent underneath the floral body wash she used to use...the sweetness of her breath as it cooled his nettled brow. Oh, they were clever and convincing lies, but lies nonetheless. She was gone. Gone was gone. It was a lie.
HELENA'S YACHT (Pier 52)
"It's a lie," Alexis insisted. "You sick bastards, it's a lie!" Her knees found the strength to hold her as her fury at this cruel jest catapulted her from her seat.
Lazar pushed Alexis back into her chair as Helena's voice cut off her explosive denial. "Oh, but I'm afraid it isn't a lie, Alexis. What you are seeing is true. Your sister is most definitely alive, for I have made it so." Helena tilted her head, a study in bona fide perplexity as she went on, "How can you still doubt the totality of my reach after all this time?" Helena gave her an amazed stare. "Have you really not been paying attention all these years?" She sighed in resignation. "My obdurate son would never hear me when I told him you were mentally challenged. He insisted that you were so smart, simply because you could mimic language like a monkey. But I remember that Lazar had such a difficult time teaching you even the basics, like listening!" she bit out. "Cease your squeaking, little mouse, we're getting to the good part." She shushed Alexis and gestured toward the screen.
QUARTERMAINE COMPOUND (Gatehouse)
"She's such a beautiful baby. I can hardly believe how big she is. I've seen pictures, but it just doesn't compare." Kristina had moved away from Ned when he flinched at her touch. She now stood over the cradle looking down at her namesake. "It's strange that she has my name. I remember Alexis said she would name her after me, but now that I'm here again I'm not sure it will work." She looked up at him as if expecting his agreement. "It could get pretty confusing. We'll have to come up with a nickname for her." She smiled at Ned, who had finally risen from his ignominious slump in the chair. "Maybe Krissy?" Then she shook her hands in the air in front of her as if to wipe the word away. "Nah, sounds too much like prissy, and I have a feeling she's going to be a tomboy. She comes from tough stock. Plus there's that whole dumb blonde connotation from Three's Company." She looked at Ned sheepishly as she informed, "I caught a lot of re-runs while I was recovering." She winked at him and continued, "But that's another story."
Kristina turned again and peered down at her slumbering niece and whispered, "Tina? Is that a fitting nickname, princess?" But then she shook her head again. "No, that's not it either." She raised her fist to her chin in a quirky imitation of Rodin's The Thinker. Then she quietly snapped her fingers as if an idea had struck her. "Kristy. Speaking of re-run television. Yeah, that's a good name. I always liked Kristy McNichol. She always played a tough girl. Had a lot of spirit. And our little Kristy here is going to need that." Kristina turned to face Ned, who was staring at her in bewilderment. She smiled at him. "You don't like it?" She walked over to him and raised her hands as if to caress his face, but he backed away again; a look of pure panic mapping his features. "Ned, what's the matter? We don't have to call her Kristy if you don't want to, but I do think its the best choice. Why don't we..."
"What the hell is going on?" Ned interjected, stifling her suggestion before she could make it. "Who put you up to this...this...this sick joke? Was it Alexis?" He paused, but then answered his own question. "No, no, no, it had to be Stefan." He bit out the words as he paced around the room, negotiating his way around the haphazard scattering of furniture and boxes that were remaining from the recent move. Ned's voice was a mixture of disgust and fury as he continued spouting his theory. "He's the only one cruel enough to put someone up to this kind of stunt. Then again, the whole lot of Cassadines is a twisted bunch of murdering master manipulators. That's why baby Kristina is not going anywhere near any of them again." He was getting more and more upset as he pressed on. "So you, Miss Whatever-the-hell-your-real-name-is, you march yourself right back to your boss and you tell him that he just cost Alexis her visitation next week. I will not be intimidated or manipulated by those people anymore. His whacked out sister Alexis has done quite enough of that to last me a lifetime. I am not letting her do it to my daughter!"
"Your daughter, Ned? Don't you mean Sonny Corinthos' daughter?" Kristina trapped his furious stare in her vivid green gaze. Her voice was suddenly steely cold and absent of inflection. "Kristy's no more related to you than, say, your cousin Skye, who is at this very moment upstairs asleep in your bed, now isn't she?" She paused, letting the words sink in. "But let's not get bogged down in possessive pronouns or mixed relations, familial or sexual as the case may be. This is a family reunion. I am trying to get to know my niece. And make no mistake, Ned, I am her Aunt Kristina. Back from the dead like Lazarus and my brother Stavros." A puzzled expression crossed her face.
"But you have some experience with this sort of thing, don't you, Ned? As I understand it, one of your wives came back from the dead. Catherine Bell, wasn't it? I could be wrong; you've had so many wives I get them confused. Oh, but she was special, wasn't she? After all, besides her coming back from the dead, you were married to her at the same time that you were married to Lois, right? Speaking of master manipulators. You, not Lois...although, I have it on good authority that Cathy was a close second. She'd have made as fine a Cassadine as she did a Quartermaine, if we stick to your strict definition." Kristina smirked at him. "People who live in glass houses, Ned. Or I guess I should say, People who don't live in flame-retardant homes, shouldn't throw Molotov cocktails." She chuckled mirthlessly and Ned felt a cold shiver chase up his spine.
"But again, I digress. We were discussing Kristy. And you're right, she is the reason I came back. But just so you know, neither my brother nor my sister had anything to do with my being here tonight. As a matter of fact, they have no idea that I am even alive." She snapped her fingers again, "Oh but wait, scratch that. By now Alexis knows." With that last statement, Kristina turned and looked straight into the camera that was providing the digital feed. Then she smiled.
HELENA'S YACHT (Pier 52)
Alexis felt her blood run cold as she recognized the smile that Kristina displayed. It was identical to that which now graced Helena's face. Alexis was so astounded she couldn't make her brain work properly to ask the important questions. Her mind went right to the trivial because that was all she could handle. "How are you doing this? How can you be recording what's going on inside Ned's house?"
Helena lost her smile. She looked genuinely disappointed, as if a star pupil had failed to spell a simple word correctly. " That is your first question!?" she exclaimed in exasperation. "Oh, Alexis, you're not even trying." Helena sighed in frustration. "If you don't make my little game fun I'll have to end it and have Lazar start another one," she warned. "And I think you'll like that one far less than this." She took a calming breath. "Now then, let's try again, shall we? You've just seen proof that your sister, whom you thought was dead for the better part of two years, is, in fact, alive and well because I willed it so. What have you to say, Alexis?"
Alexis just stared blankly at Helena. She didn't know whether it was the sheer terror of the situation, the dizziness resultant from Lazar's repeated slaps, or if it was simply the blow to the head she'd sustained earlier that had muddied her senses so terribly, but Alexis couldn't suppress the impertinent thought that Helena's query provoked. Maybe it was Helena's phrasing of the question. Maybe it was that Alexis really had gone insane as she'd earlier suspected, but the only response that popped into her head was a bastardization of an old advertising campaign that had somehow made it into the American popular culture lexicon to be bandied about almost incessantly until it finally died an unnatural death at the hands of the next catch-phrase to supplant it.
"I'm going to Disney World?" was all Alexis could think to say. Her voice went up on the last syllable so her response came out as if she were that star pupil Helena was so disappointed in who was unsure she had the correct answer to the question.
It was Helena's turn to just stare blankly at Alexis. Then she transferred her gaze to look at Lazar only to find that he was equally at sea. Finally her eyes narrowed to a menacing squint. "Alexis, you are trying my patience. I will have the satisfaction of seeing you suffer. If you do not grant it to me in this, I will simply find it another way. As you don't seem overly concerned about your sister and your daughter, perhaps I should try an old standard. You have always favored your brother Stefan above all things. Why don't I go ahead and eliminate the two Kristinas and move on to him? Would you prefer that?"
"No!" The sound was abrupt, like a gun being fired. Something snapped inside of Alexis as if a switch had been flicked, and the hour and more of torture at the hands of Helena and Lazar united with the flashbacks of the years of torment from them that she'd been reliving while the evening's events played out for her on a fancy digital television, and a fury erupted inside Alexis like Vesuvius reaching critical mass.
"You bloody psychopath, you leave my child out of this!" Alexis shouted as an uncontrollable wave of emotion overwhelmed her. It was the same feeling she'd had the night she'd fought Luis Alcazar for her life. And just as it had on that fateful night, her instinct to protect her daughter won out over common sense or self-preservation, and Alexis sprang at Helena; an enraged scream emitting from her throat as her fingers clenched to strangle the breath out of her lifelong nemesis. Unfortunately Lazar yanked Alexis back into her seat before she could reach Helena, but she had the immense satisfaction of seeing Helena flinch before Lazar struck Alexis again, knocking her from the chair.
From the floor, Alexis looked up at Helena, her eyes blasting the older woman with the heat of a thousand suns. Her passionate outburst had Alexis' breath coming in heaving pants, and she attempted to slow her breathing as she tried to regain control of her emotions. She realized that she wasn't going to get anywhere by continuing to make herself a punching bag for Lazar, so she took a few moments to collect herself. Once she had herself back under some semblance of restraint, Alexis pulled herself up off the floor and slowly rose to her full height, her dignity surrounding her like an ermine cloak. She took a moment to straighten her clothes, which had become disheveled from her tussles with Lazar. She gave him a pointed stare, defying him to touch her. Surprisingly, he did not. Alexis dismissed him as if he were now totally insignificant. Then she took three limping steps forward until she was once again in front of the chair into which she slowly descended with the grace, stateliness and poise of a true princess.
Alexis' gaze met Helena's once more. Fire clashed with ice. Neither woman spoke, each waiting for the other to concede an iota of power. Helena, believing herself to have the upper hand, decided to be magnanimous and broke the silence first. "Well, Alexis, now that you've had a moment to reconsider, what have you to say?" She smiled the same condescending grin she always did whenever she conducted an interview with Alexis during her childhood on the island. Alexis longed to slap it off her face, but she maintained her cool facade; the video feed of Ned's living room reminding her of exactly what was at stake if she lost it again. She took a fortifying breath before responding.
"You spoke of proof, Helena. What proof can you offer me that that woman is in fact Kristina? In the past, you've paid people to alter their appearance to look like you. I presume that's how you were able to escape from prison yet again. Though why anyone would take any amount of money to look like you escapes even my considerable powers of deductive reasoning." At this perceived insult, Helena's eyes flared and Lazar growled menacingly off to Alexis' right. Alexis squelched their objection before it could go further. "What I mean is that you're wanted for crimes in several countries, not just the venerable old burg of Port Charles. Why would anyone care to take on the life-sentence that having your face would surely incur?" Again, they objected, but Alexis just muddled on.
"Wow, did that come out wrong. Okay, let's skip ahead to the interesting part." Alexis took another breath, willing the lessons learned while working to graduate top of her class from Harvard and the years of litigation experience as one of the country's best attorneys to come to the fore so that she could get through Helena's sick game and rescue her daughter. If she could just maintain her calm demeanor, perhaps they could both get out of this alive. At the very least she'd settle for her baby's safety, whatever the cost to herself.
"What proof can you offer that Kristina is alive besides this poorly staged melodrama being enacted at the gatehouse? I can't believe I'm saying this, but I have to agree with Ned's hypothesis. It would have been far simpler and tremendously less expensive, I would hazard to guess, to pay someone to have surgery and come here to impersonate my sister. You had no love for Kristina, and you certainly have none for me, so I do not believe you would go to the enormous effort and expense of resurrecting her as you did your beloved Stavros." Alexis' tone shifted from detached inquiry to bitter contempt without her consent; her exhaustion making her grip on the reins of her galloping emotions very slippery. "Oh, no, you would relish the opportunity to see me suffer her loss far too much to want to give me the unspeakable joy of granting one of my fondest wishes by returning her to me. Glinda the Good Witch you are not, this isn't Kansas, nor even Oz for that matter, and I'm not Dorothy," she stated unequivocally, a quirky grimace crossing her features as she looked down at her feet. Far from sporting ruby slippers, one of her feet was bare; the other was still sheathed, miraculously, in her somewhat the worse for the wear Manolo Blahnik sandal.
"Even if I knew to what you were referring to with your ridiculous Americanisms, Alexis, I would not deign to dignify them." Helena's bored tone retrieved Alexis from her bemused pondering of footwear. "As for the authenticity of my offering, how can you doubt it? You know my ethic. Unlike your good friend Luke Spencer, I do not deal in forgeries." Helena's tone was scandalized at the suggestion. She paused as if in reflection. "You underestimate the pleasure it grants me to see you suffer knowing that she is my creature now. Kristina's loyalty is to me. Oh yes, little mouse, that woman is most certainly your sister and she will do my bidding because she despises you now, the same as I always have." She turned her attention toward the screen again. "Look, listen and learn."
QUARTERMAINE COMPOUND (Gatehouse)
Kristina had moved away from the camera and was now seated near the window looking out over the Quartermaine Estate. She appeared to be very relaxed. "I've answered all of your questions correctly, Ned. I've told you everything I remember. Can we please stop this interrogation long enough for me to bond with my niece? I've lost so much time already; I don't want to lose any more. Tell me you know it's true. I am Kristina."
Ned appeared to be as far from relaxed as it was possible to get without leaving his own skin. He couldn't believe it was happening, but it seemed to be true. Kristina was alive and sitting in his living room. She was alive. It was true. He believed. But there was still something that didn't sit right with Ned.
Aside from her being who she claimed to be, Kristina didn't seem to be herself. Of course it didn't make sense, but Ned found himself oddly comforted by that fact. It was paradoxical, but he acknowledged that he'd have been more disturbed if she were behaving exactly as he remembered her, given all he assumed she'd been through.
And so there he sat in the presence of the woman whose absence had caused him to lose himself. Ned could have wept for the sadness that swept over him as he accepted that Kristina had returned, but realized he now felt more lost than he had when she was gone. All he could do to stave off the emotion was ask more questions.
"All right, let's say that for the sake of argument I believe that you are who you say you are. I've still got a lot more questions to ask. For instance: How? Who? If not Stefan or Alexis, who helped you to recover? Are you okay now? I mean, fully recovered? Why didn't you let me know you were alive? Why didn't you come back sooner?" He wanted to understand the entire process of her resurrection and what it meant for her, for him; for them.
Kristina gazed at him contemplatively, as if considering the pros and cons of telling him what he wanted to know. Then she chose to answer one of his multiple questions seemingly at random. "Alexis. I didn't return because of Alexis." She hesitated, as if the cons were momentarily outweighing the pros on her mental list. "She wasn't ready."
Ned interrupted Kristina before she could clarify. "I thought you said that she had nothing to do with this? You said she and Stefan didn't know," he bit out, his tone reflecting his bitterness toward the subject of their discussion. "I knew she was up to something. She's been too passive lately. Skye thinks..." he halted abruptly, realizing what he said and to whom.
"Oh Ned, don't worry about that." She pretended to offer comfort, correctly apprehending his trepidation at his perceived faux pas. Her tone belied her intent, however, and Ned got the distinct sensation that she was not the least interested in appeasing his misery at the gaffe. She smiled mischievously, as if she were caught with her hand in the cookie jar but didn't care because she'd already eaten the evidence. Ned felt his earlier chill return, a sense of foreboding overtaking him. "I have no problem with you and Skye being affianced." Kristina winked at him and drew nearer as if about to confide a secret. "As a matter of fact, I am engaged to be married myself. My fiance has been in town for a few weeks already. As I said, we were waiting for Alexis. She wasn't quite ready."
Ned's pained groan at her words was the cause for this second interruption of Kristina's tale. "Oh Ned, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you'd be upset at the news." Again, her tone did not match the sentiment. Her face was a mask of sympathy, but her voice bespoke a quiet glee. "It's just that, since you're engaged to Skye, I assumed you'd moved on. That you were over me the same way you were over Alexis when you and I got together." She looked at him pityingly. "I guess not," she murmured with feigned compassion. "Oh well, listen, I don't want to distress you. I just wanted to come and get Kristy here all ready for her big trip." Her voice took on a new excitement, as if she were talking to the baby rather than Ned. "We're going to have such a fabulous time!"
Ned felt the stirrings of an unspeakable panic set in at her words. She's delusional, he thought to himself. She must have suffered some sort of mental break after the accident. She's afflicted by some kind of psychosis. She's more like Alexis than anyone suspected, he rambled on in his head. He snorted, realizing that he was rambling inside his head much as Alexis used to ramble verbally. I guess Alexis has rubbed off on all of us more than we care to admit, he continued his internal monologue. Yep, still doing it. Have to stop! Look at Kristina. Speak! he admonished himself.
"Okay! Whoa! Kristina, what are you talking about? You're not taking the baby anywhere. She stays right here with me. I think you may be confused about a few things because of your accident." He held up his hands in a calming manner, as if she were an animal about to attack. "I'm going to call Monica and have her come down and check you out. If you give me the name of your fiance and where he's staying, maybe I can contact him too," he offered, a hint of arrogance creeping into his voice. As he considered her and her state, he began to doubt whether said fiance even existed.
Kristina stared at Ned as he spoke to her with quiet condescension, as if she were an imbecile. It was an unconscious tactic he had used frequently with her before the explosion. It nettled her back then, and it really pissed her off now. She smiled benignly at him, as if his approach were working on her. "You don't think he exists, do you? You think I fabricated my fiance. You believe me to be deluded, suffering some type of psychosis as a result of the explosion," she continued as if she'd read his mind.
Ned felt his earlier flush of panic, which had begun to ebb as he tried to take control of the situation, surge again and flow over him like a tidal wave. Kristina continued, oblivious to or completely unmindful of his state of increasing agitation. "Well, I'm afraid you're quite wrong, Ned. I am not deluded. My fiance is definitely real. As real as I am. And we are taking the baby. She has to attend the ceremony. She has a very special role to play. Don't you, sweetheart?" She moved toward the cradle as she spoke, addressing the sleeping infant with her last words.
Ned shifted to intercept her. He was becoming increasingly alarmed by her fixation on the child. He tried to distract her focus. "Okay Kristina, I'm sorry I doubted you. Why don't you tell me more about your fiance? You say he's been in town for a few weeks. Why didn't he tell anyone that you were alive? Why not introduce himself to your family? I assume you told him about me if you told him about Alexis and the baby. Why haven't I met him? Who is this paragon?" By the time he finished he was practically shouting. He had advanced on her and was grasping her biceps with unconscious force. His chest was heaving with emotion. The baby stirred restlessly behind him, her sleep disturbed by his volume.
The adult Kristina admonished him with a glare. She shrugged his grip off her arms and sidled around him. She tiptoed to the cradle and smiled down beatifically at the child as she quieted. Ned tried futilely to regain his composure as he followed her with his eyes. The vision they created lanced at his heart like a laser. It was his earlier fantasy come to life, but now it was a nightmare. Kristina's eyes rose from the baby and captured his. The smile left her eyes as they landed on him. The warmth they held for the baby was completely absent for him. Her gaze grew colder as her smile grew broader and Ned shivered.
"Oh, but you have met him, Ned. He's even been to the main house. Skye invited him once. He's already seen the baby. He fell instantly in love with her. He told me we absolutely had to include her in the ceremony. Said the day just wouldn't be complete without our little princess."
Ned's panic became full-blown terror as he began to make the connection. He tried to ask the question, but his voice failed him the first time. He swallowed and tried again. "What's his name, Kristina? Who are you marrying?"
Kristina giggled and ducked her head, simulating shyness. For all intents and purposes, she was the very picture of the blushing bride. She looked up again and locked her green gaze with his once more, her eyes shards of emerald glass that cut into him. She said three words, and Ned felt his heart break inside his chest. "Lorenzo. Lorenzo Alcazar."
To be continued....
Hope you're all still enjoying the story. Please send feedback. I have no other way to gauge the progression of the tale. Still insecure as all get out!
