Chapter 39
Liz’s apartment

“Thank you Liz.”  Erin said stepping into the warm apartment.

“What did you think I was going to let you stand out in the rain and weight for a taxi?  I don’t think so.  If you want you can change out of your wet cloths and borrow something of mine.”  Liz offered.

“No that’s okay, the taxi will be here in a bout ten minutes.  I’ll just change when I get home.”

“Are you sure?  Because I don’t mind.”  Liz offered again.

“No, I’m sure.”  Erin protested.  “Where is your bathroom?”  Erin asked looking around.  For as long as she had known Liz this was the first time she had ever been to her home.

“Oh sorry, down the hall and to your left.”  Erin headed off in the indicated direction.  “I need to make a phone call, so I’ll be in my room if you need anything, okay?”  Liz heard a muffled okay from the bathroom, and went into her room shutting the door.

“Yah?”

“Hey Lucky.”

“Hey beautiful, I didn’t expect to hear from you this soon.  I thought you were going to be sleeping.”  Lucky said, Liz could hear the smile on his face.

“I was going to, but I took a walk instead.  By the way, are you going to be seeing your idiot of a brother anytime soon?”  Liz asked getting to the point quickly.

“Huh?  Nikolas?”  Lucky asked confused.

“How many moronic brothers do you have other then Nikolas?  Of coarse I mean Nikolas.”  Liz said good-naturedly.

“Well yah, he’s going to be coming over in a little bit.”  Lucky told her, still not sure what was going on or why she was calling Nikolas names.

“Good, I need you to beat some sense into that senseless brother of yours.”  Liz told him dryly.

“Why?”  Liz proceeded to tell him about Nikolas moving out of the cottage and how he was ending things with Erin, and how she didn’t want him to.  She felt guilty about telling him without Erin’s permission, but she had to do this.

“What was he thinking?”  Lucky asked angrily.

“I don’t know, that’s what you have to find out.”  Liz told him softly, trying to sooth his anger.

“You bet I will.”  There was a pause and Lucky spoke again.  “I think I hear him coming I’ll call you back when I get the news from that little rat.”

“Okay, but don’t be to rough on him, I think Erin over reacted and didn’t weight for him to explain things.”  Liz reminded him.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be nice.  He’s my brother for goodness sake.”

“That’s just what I’m worried about.  I’ll talk to you later, okay?”  They said goodbye and hung up.
***********

Nikolas walked in the door and Lucky just looked at him.  “What?”  Nikolas asked confused.

“You idiot, what were you thinking?”  Lucky yelled at him.

Nikolas looked at him unable to understand what was going on.  “What did I do?”

Lucky closed his eyes and sighed.  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to blow up at you.  But I can’t believe that you gave up that quickly.  What gave you the idea to do it man?”

“I still have no idea what you are talking about.  What did I do?”  Nikolas looked at him more confused then ever.  He had come to Lucky to maybe find some direction in his confusion, but he was just getting more confused by the minute.

“You dumped Erin, and from the way things look, for no reason.  So again, why did you do it?  Did you two get into a fight or something?”  Good grief do I have to spell it out for him, Lucky thought annoyed.

“What do you mean I dumped Erin?  She’s the one who wanted me to move out.  Between the both of us, she’s the one who did the dumping.”  Nikolas couldn’t believe what he was hearing, why would Lucky think that he would dump Erin, he loved her, and it was killing him to be there with her right then.

“That’s not what Erin told Liz.  She said that you told her that you wanted to move out, and didn’t even tell her why.”  Lucky sat down and weighted for his brother to explain.
**************

“Erin, your cab’s here.”  Liz told Erin through the bathroom door.

“Okay,” Erin came out of the bathroom shaking the water out of her hair.  She was mostly dry by then but some of her cloths were still damp.

“Are you sure you want to go up to the cottage, the weather looks like it’s getting really bad.  You can stay here, really, I don’t mind.”  Liz persisted.

“No I’ll be fine, I want to get home anyway.  But thank you for the offer.”  Erin smiled.

“Anytime,” Liz walked with Erin to the door.  “Call me when you get home okay, I want to be sure that you made it there is one peace.”  There was a hint of concern in Liz’s voice.

“I’ll call you, now I better get going before the cabbie leaves without me.”  Erin hugged Liz and disappeared into the rain to the awaiting cab.
************

Nikolas sat down next to his brother and told him his side of the story.  “We were on the plain coming home and we were talking.  We ended up talking about the plans we had made for me moving in, she didn’t sound to happy with the idea anymore so I told her it was okay with me that she didn’t want me to move in.  She agreed with me and that was it.  We didn’t talk the rest of the trip here.  After we had landed she asked when I was going to move out and she sounded like she wanted me to do it right away.  I really wasn’t ready to believe that I was moving out so I told her I was going to do it tomorrow.  I guess I kind of hoped she would change her mind by then, but she told me fine and that she would make sure to ‘be out of my way’ when I showed up.”  Nikolas ended with a sigh.

“Man, I think you need to talk to her because she thought you wanted to move out, she doesn’t like the idea anymore then you do.”  Lucky advised him.

“What?”  Nikolas asked shocked, a small spark of hope appeared in his eyes.  “Why would she think that?”

“I don’t know man, but my best guess is that the two of you just got your wires crossed and didn’t weight for the other to finish talking.”

“I’ve got to go.”  Nikolas got up so quick that he almost knocked over his chair.

Just before he was out the door Lucky called to him.  “Man, don’t you want to know where she is?”  Lucky could barely hold back his laughter when Nikolas skidded to s stop and turned to look at him.  “She’s over at Liz’s.”  Nikolas smiled and nodded good-bye to his brother and disappeared out the door.

Chapter 40

Erin told the cabdriver to stop at the end of the driveway, got out and paid him.  She started walking up the long path when the rain started again.  It felt good, to let the clean cold rain wash over her.  She felt like the rain could wash away her problems.  Her mother had always told her that everything was fresh and new after the spring rain, like it could wash all the imperfections of life down into the ground where it could never return.  By the time she reached the house she was soaked clear to the bone again.

She sighed, “Well as long as I’m already wet I might as well enjoy it.”  She walked around to the back deck and sat down in one of the chairs.  Memories of her mother continued to come back to her, some things she hadn’t thought about in years.  Her mother had never been like other people’s mothers she had always come up with special ways for Erin to enjoy nature even though she couldn’t see it.  Her mother had always told her the best way to experience nature was to feel it, and so no matter what the weather they had always spent at least one hour a day outside.  Erin’s favorite time had always been when it was raining.  Erin leaned back and allowed memories of her past life relieve themselves in her mind.  She had decided the life she had lived before she had moved to Port Charles was a life that she could never to back to, her life had begun anew here. This was the first time that she had really ever let herself go back to that time that felt like a lifetime ago.

Security flooded over her like the feeling of her mother’s arms holding her.
*************

Nikolas arrived outside Liz’s apartment in record timing, even with the rain and the dangerously slippery roads he didn’t want to waist any time getting to Erin to talk to her.  He ran up the steps to Liz’s door and stood there a second to catch his breath, just as he was raising his had to nock, the door opened and Liz appeared with a half hearted smile.

“I wouldn’t suppose that you came here to see me?”

“Well, I, uh.”  Nikolas stammered.

“It’s okay, Lucky just called me.  Sorry but Erin isn’t here anymore,” Liz informed him sadly, her heart went out to those two, she knew they belonged together.  “She left about twenty-five minutes ago.  You can use my phone and call her if you like.”  Liz offered.

Nikolas’ shoulders slumped.  “No that’s okay.  I don’t think she would talk to me if I did call her.  Thank you anyway, I’ll just head up to the cottage, if I show up there she can’t really tell me to leave.”  He turned away and headed back down to his car.

“Nik hold on,” Liz called to him.  He turned around at the last step and looked up at her.  She could see the pain in his eyes and his longing to get to Erin right away.  “Be careful, okay?  They’ve been saying things about a the river flooding on the news, the bridge could get washed out at anytime.”

“I’ll hurry then, I have to get to her tonight.”

The fog grew thicker as Nikolas raced along the road.  Nikolas slowed down; up ahead he could see flashing lights.  He stopped when the roadblock across the bridge came into view.  Someone came up to his window and he rolled it down to see what he wanted.

“You’re going to have to turn around, this road is closed.”  Police Commissioner Mac Scorpio said grumpily.  He did not want to be there.

“Mr. Scorpio please you’ve to let me through.  Erin is up at the cottage all by herself.  I need to get to her, please.”  Nikolas pleaded earnestly.

Mac looked at Nikolas skeptically, he was just about to tell Nikolas to go home when he cut him off.  “What would you do if that was Robin at the cottage?”  Mac thought a moment and leaned in a little closer.

“I’m only doing this because Erin is up there alone.  And so help me, if you kill yourself on this road, it won’t me on my conchess.”  Mack backed away and waved Nikolas thorough.  Nikolas nodded to him in thanks as he drove by the blockade. Once he was beyond Mac’s sight he pressed down on the accelerator.  Nikolas drove along the slick road at a dangerous speed, once or twice his wheels lost traction and he had to fight to regain control over his car.

A few minutes had passed by when Nikolas saw a car off the road in a ditch.  He slowed down and to his horror he saw that it was a taxi.  Liz had told him that Erin had taken a cab home.  He pulled over and hurried to see if everything was okay.  Nikolas got to the cab and found it empty, he didn’t know weather or not it assured him or worried him.

Back in his car Nikolas sped along even faster, hoping to get to Erin’s house that much faster.  After he had been driving for half an hour he finally turned onto the dirt road leading to the cottage.  He got to the front door and the whole house was black, non of the lights were on.  He used his key and let himself in, it felt weird to go in and know that he was going to be moving out the next day.  “Erin?”  Nikolas called into the silent house.  It wasn’t unlike her to just sit in the dark, she told him one time when he had found her sitting in the middle of the floor with all the lights off, that it was relaxing for her.  Nikolas strained his ears for any sound, but there was nothing.  Worried he began to search the house, room by room, ten minuets later he stopped in the kitchen, the last room in the cottage that he hadn’t looked, but still he hadn’t found Erin.  He grew more frantic with each passing moment, and a cold chill ran up his back.

Weight a minuet, he thought, that wasn’t a worried chill, there was a cold draft flowing through the kitchen.  He found the source of the cold air; the back door was halfway open.  He went to close it but with one last vein hope he thought to look in the back yard.  He didn’t see Erin anywhere.  Nikolas wondered what in the world gave him the idea that Erin would be out in the rain.  Nikolas was just about to go back inside but something didn’t seem right, he looked one more time around the deck. 

Then something caught his attentions as being out of place, one of the chairs was off to one side and facing into the garden.  Nikolas decided he might as well put it back where it belonged while he was out there.  Nikolas walked over to the chair and stopped and smiled softly, Erin was curled up in the chair asleep, and completely soaked.  He reached down and brushed some wet hair off of her face but stopped when his fingers touched her cheek.  Her skin was ice cold!  Nikolas pulled his hand back in shock for a moment.  He looked at her again more closely, her breathing was so shallow that he could hardly see her chest move up and down, her face was pail and worst of all her lips were slightly blue. 

Nikolas softly shook her shoulder but got no response, “Erin?  Erin can you hear me?”  He shook her shoulder gently but more earnestly.