September, 1993
Julia Barrett wasn't normally one to poke around in her co-workers' personal affairs, but she also wasn't one to keep her mouth shut when she had an opinion. She could tell the moment she walked into the Port Charles Grill that Lucy was at it again.
"Lucy," Julia approached the six-month pregnant woman who was poking at a piece of chicken. "You don't look very happy."
"Oh, quit being so cheerful. I thought you had a meeting with the Deception buyer in Rochester today."
Julia sat down across from Lucy. "Katherine covered for me. I thought it would be best to send out our PR girl on this particular mission." She raised an eyebrow, awaiting Lucy's very predictable reaction.
Sure enough, Lucy's eyes flashed. "Katherine? Now you're letting that... that CRIMINAL take over your own duties at Deception? You know what, Julia, you and Scott are just two of a kind. Katherine lies to you blatantly about who she was and she makes up this sob story about her dead husband leaving mob debts, and what do you do? You buy it. You buy every little word. She's got such a sweet face, so you befriend her and give her a major position at MY company without consulting ME. And Scott, well, he just hands Miss Katherine a quarter of a million dollars and doesn't BLINK when she tells him them, whoops, she forgot to mention she wasn't who she said she was."
"Lucy!" Julia chopped off her run-on sentence. "You're going to give yourself a hernia or something. Calm down. First of all, Katherine is not a criminal. Secondly, she may have been using a false surname, but she had a perfect reason and she did NOT pull the wool of our eyes, not the way you're talking. And thirdly, Deception is not just your company. Remember that."
Lucy stabbed her meat. "Oh, yes, Katherine is such an angel. I bring you proof that she stole another woman's identity so that she could weasel her way into Scott's wallet, and no one cares."
"I think you're more worried about her weaselling her way into Scott's bed."
Lucy's face flushed. "Excuse me? In case you forgot, Scott lost his wife very recently. He's not going to jump into bed with Katherine because he loves Dominique and he loves this baby and he loves--"
"You?" Julia smirked. "Maybe you're the only one who can't see it, Lucy. You're only going after Katherine because you think she's going to break up your happy little family. You, Scott, and the unborn wonder. Well, guess what. Scott agreed to let you carry his baby. He didn't give you an engagement ring. Maybe what Scott needs right now is a woman he can love freely and recreationally. We all deal with grief in our own way."
"You obviously have no idea what you are talking about, Julia. Scott does love me. We are going to raise her together, me and him, and we ARE a family. Scott is not just going to cut me out of his life when this baby is born."
Julia didn't flinch. "You hope."
"I know this about Scott. He is grateful to me for carrying his child, and I WILL be a part of this child's life. Forever. And there is nothing that little Katherine can do about it."
"You know, Lucy," Julia tapped her fingernails on the table. "You sit here and talk about Scott like he's yours, like he's married to you. I thought you two were 'just friends'."
"We are, we are," Lucy back peddled. "I mean, we're best friends. That whole love thing, that never worked for us. Friends, good friends, that's what we are."
"Sounds to me like you love him. Like you want him."
Lucy took a hasty gulp of her water. "That's ridiculous. We're friends. Listen, I have to go. It was nice talking to you, Julia. Well... sort of." She grabbed her purse and headed out of the grill.
Julia watched her go. "That is a woman in love."
Chapter Two
Lucy drove around aimlessly for awhile. She couldn't get her conversation with Julia out of her head. Of course, she didn't love Scott in the way that Julia said. That was gone, old, dead, forgotten... well, maybe not forgotten. But they had both grown up. Friendship was best.
Yeah, right.
Who was she fooling? She had wanted Scott when she came back from her one-year "vacation", and he had been with Dominique. That hadn't stopped her feelings. She loved him, she loved him, she loved him. She loved being around him. She loved his smile. She loved the way he winked at her and punched her cheek. She loved his grizzly beard and twinkling eyes.
Lucy Coe was head-over-heels in love with Scott Baldwin.
She finally worked up the courage to talk to him. At this hour in the day, he would be at Deception. She strolled through the fancy doors and let herself in to the office. "Hey there, pal."
Scott looked up from his seat at the desk. "Hey, Luce. I was just finishing up some correspondance stuff. Are you all right? You look a little, you know, pale there."
"I'm okay," she sat down. "Scotty, we need to talk."
He went back to his paperwork. "Shoot."
"No, I mean, we really need to talk. Seriously."
He looked up. "Is this about the baby? Is something wrong?"
Lucy laughed nervously. "No, no, the baby's fine. She's really tap dancing in here today. No, this is about us. You and me. Us."
"Us. You and me," he repeated. "What about us?"
She stood up. "This is really hard for me, okay? I really feel strongly about this, that I'm right."
"Is this about Katherine?" His face immediately darkened. "Because if it is--"
"I love you!" She blurted out.
"What?"
She paced the length of the room. "I said, I love you. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I was talking to Julia today, and I guess she made me face some feelings that I've been putting off for awhile. I love you, okay? That's all."
He gave her a long look. "You... love me."
"I love you, and I want you."
Their eyes locked across the desk, and Scott tossed his pen aside. "Yep, this is about Katherine, isn't it?"
"What?"
Scott's voice rose. "You just can't stop digging up ways to turn me against her. The direct, nasty, Lucy-like way didn't work this time, so you start getting sneaky with this impromptu love confessions. What can't you just give it up? I care about Katherine, and there's nothing you can do to stand in my way about that."
Lucy felt like she had been slapped with her own emotions. "No," she heard herself say. "No, Scott, this has nothing to do with Katherine. I'm trying--"
Scott was reaching one of his highest anger levels. "I know what you're trying to do. You're doing anything and everything you can to keep me away from Katherine. Do you think I'm blind? Do you think I'm so, so focused on YOU that I can't see a scheme coming a mile away? Answer this for me, Lucy. Why do you always have to be the center of my attention? Why is that so important to you?"
Lucy felt the tears in her eyes. "I just told you why. I love you."
"No, Lucy, you don't love me. Not like that, not anymore. We tried that, remember? All it led to was pain and lies and I'm not ever going to go through that with you again. Maybe you're still the same little girl you were back then, but I've changed. I can see what you're doing. You're mad because your smear campaign against Katherine failed. But try another tactic, okay Lucy?"
Lucy tensed at the tone of his voice. He sounded so cold. The hard reality of her mistake hit her. She should have kept her crazy, hormonal feelings to herself. But it was too late now. Her neck was out, and she wasn't going to give up. She loved him. "Why won't you listen to me, Scott?"
He came around the desk and stood directly in front of her. "I'm going to tell you this once, Lucy. Leave Katherine alone. If you care about me in the slightest bit, you will listen when I say that she is off limits. She makes me happy, and that's what I want right now."
"Scott--"
"--and if you don't, Lucy, then you can bet that you will have nothing to do with that child when she is born, because I will cut you out of her life and I will disappear. You can count on it."
The tears spilled down Lucy's cheeks. Her one deepest fear... and he had hit it and strengthened it. With a grunt, she turn and ran as quickly as her stout body would carry her out of the Deception building.
She barely remembered darting across the parking lot. The sun had fallen, and everything was dark and still. Lucy wiped furiously at the tears that streaked her face. Scott's words echoed in her head, his threat, his anger. Did he love her at all? The chilling answer in her head didn't comfort her.
Once in her car, she headed out onto the first road she hit. She was crying openly now that she was in the solitary confines of her car. The tears didn't cease. She had to get off the road. She had to go somewhere, she had to do something...
She pulled the car into the next lane and planned to cut across into a convenience store. The headlights of other cars and the streetlights above her swirled in her teary gaze, and she twisted the wheel around to turn.
She realized her mistake two seconds too late as the oncoming semi wailed its horn in warning. She jerked the wheel desperately, but she was stuck perpendicular to the lane. Adrenaline pumped through and, in that second, things moved extraordinarily slowly. The headlights of the semi approached and Lucy screamed. Her hands clutched her bulging stomach and she said a silent prayer.
She didn't feel the imact, only the disorientating spiral as the car flew in the air like a frisbee. A spectator could have reported that the car did three complete 360's in the air, landed on it's nose and flipped again, then landed upside down on the lawn of McDonald's. Lucy only remembered the pure terror, the spinning sensation and warm darkness that overtook her when the car landed.
Chapter Three
"Hey, Scott, did you hear about that horrible accident?" Katherine said as she entered the Deception main office.
Scott, still distracted from his arguement with Lucy, barely looked up from his paperwork. "No, what accident?"
"A car got hit by a semi truck. Apparently it did quite a flip in the air," she slipped off her jacket. "I don't know, I ask someone who was standing around. It happened about a block away." He didn't answer. "Scott, are you all right?"
"Fine," he snapped. The phone rang, and he picked it up. "Deception."
Katherine watched his face closely as he spoke. "What?... Bobbie, I'll be right there." He threw down the phone and sailed out of the office. Katherine ran after him.
"Scott? What's going on?"
He didn't say anything more until they were both in his car and heading down the street at top speed. "The accident you mentioned?"
"Yeah?"
"It was Lucy."
***
Scott found Bobbie in record time. He began shooting out questions at rapid speed, and she led him into a small conference room.
Katherine watched them go and decided to stay in the waiting room. She wasn't sure she was capable of helping Scott if the news was bad.
Inside the tiny room, Bobbie's face look grim. "It was quite an accident, Scott."
"How are they?"
"Lucy is holding her own. She has a couple of broken ribs and a minor concussion, along with a few cuts and bruises."
Scott looked into her eyes. "What about the baby."
"Scotty..." For a split second, Bobbie found herself imagining him as he was when they were an item. That was a different universe, it seemed. She brought herself back to the present. "Scott, we had to perform an emergency c-section. The baby... the baby was very critically injured in the accident."
"C-section? The baby's too young for that!"
Bobbie put her hand on his shoulder. "We had to. Your daughter survived the surgery."
Scott blinked. "My daughter?"
"Yes, your daughter."
He almost smiled. "How is she?"
This was the one part of working at GH that Bobbie hated more than anything. "There's only one way to say this. The baby's injuries were mainly to the head. There is quite a bit of brain damage that we can see at this point."
"Brain damage." Scott let the news sink in. "Is she... going to live?"
"Scott, we don't know. We're all praying for her. We need you to consent to a surgical procedure on her brain. It could save her life."
He nodded numbly. Brain surgery. His child may not live. How ironic that he may lose his only daughter to a brain injury so soon after losing his wife to a brain tumor. Brain damage... that meant a lifetime living in such a limited world. Being handicapped. Perhaps not being able to walk or talk or feed herself or... anything.
He opened his eyes and realized Bobbie was hugging him. He thanked her and managed to sign the forms she had on a clipboard. "Can I see Lucy?"
"Sure," Bobbie gave him a reassuring smile, or at least the best she could manage. "They just moved her to ICU 216. And Scott?"
"Yeah?"
"Never give up faith. This baby has got more love coming to her than any child I can remember seeing. You just hold on to that, and I know everything will be all right."