CH 30

~6 months later~

Gia and Nik walked up to the Core’s home hand in hand. Nik was coming for another session with Drew and like always, Gia came with him. Isabel opened the door with Liv in tow, both with smiles on their faces. Izzy shook her head as she looked at Gia, not very many women could keep their figure while they were pregnant. Gia’s perfectly round stomach was the only indication that she was pregnant, other than that she had hardly gained any weight. She wore a pair of denim overalls with white shirt underneath. “Hi Nikolas, hi Gia!!” Liv exclaimed as the door was opened and her friends appeared. “Hi Livy!” Gia said as she kissed her cheek. “Hi Olivia.” Nik said as he came over to give her a hug and a kiss. It was quite a big deal that her friend, whom she had quite a little crush on, called her by her full name. “Hello Nikolas.” She said as she leaned in and accepted his kiss. “Gia, you’re going to take my picture today right?” Liv asked. “Yep!” Gia said pointing out her camera bag. “Yay!” Liv exclaimed. Izzy stepped aside to let her friends in. Drew came out of his office to great them as well. He and Nikolas went into Drew’s office and Gia fallowed the girls into the living room.

“Here Liv, why don’t you smell this rose?” Gia said handing her the pretty pink rose. They were sitting in Isabel’s garden. Olivia was in a white dress and had a pair of angel wings on her shoulders. Gia snapped away at her as she shot on black and white film. Izzy brought baby Ian out in nothing but his cloth diaper and sat him down. Gia snapped away once again, her eyes lightly misting when Olivia kissed his cheek.

Nikolas and Drew sat in the comfortable office and “had a session” although what they really did was talk. They would mostly talk about Gia’s pregnancy. Nik was sick with worry that he wouldn’t be a good father to this baby. After Drew had basically determined that Nik’s dreams mostly had to do with stress and the fear of turning into his father. They spent several intense sessions helping Nikolas come over the fear of becoming Stovros. He was still working on it but with his workload decreased greatly and having Gia and the baby to focus on, Nik was no longer having the nightmares. So now they got more into discussing day-to-day stuff. “Nikolas, how many times do I have told you that Gia’s edginess is from the pregnancy.” Drew said for the third time that day. “Yeah but I mean I just asked her if she wanted to go out. You know, dress up and stuff. How did she get that I was calling her fat out of that?!” Nik exclaimed. Drew had to keep from laughing in Nik’s face. “It’s normal.” He said plainly. Nik shook his head desperately. “Well I’m just glad the baby’s almost here.” Nik said. “Did you talk her into finding out the sex of the baby yet?” Drew said. “Nope, she wants it to be a surprise.” Nik said sighing. “I tell you sometimes I feel like I don’t have any say in this pregnancy!” Nik said as he threw his hands up. “You don’t.” Drew said. Nik laughed as he shook his head.

~Later that night at the baby shower~

“Sorry Luke but I’m not going to name the baby after you! And that’s assuming it’s a boy. What if it’s a girl?” Gia asked. “Well you could call her Hot Stuff?” Luke suggested. Everyone laughed, and Flo just about to choked on her soda. Luke had closed down the bar for the night and everyone was pilled in to celebrate the upcoming birth.

“Hey Nik come on and have a cigar.” Lucky said as some of the men sat around in the back room of Luke's. They were all playing poker and having a good time. Lucky and Nikolas were getting along great, Lucky even joined Nikolas in a session with Drew and they worked on some of their problems. Nikolas decided to stay in therapy for a while longer. He even got Laura to agree to coming with him some time. He had never been so happy in all his life. Nik was able to move past his jealousy of Lucky and in the end, he truly appreciated that his brother was there for Gia when she needed somebody. They hadn’t heard from Casey since that day in his office when Nik threatened him. But they knew that he went back to Boston and he now had no ties to Cassadine Enterprise.

Nikolas, Drew, Lucky, Marcus and occasionally Luke were all sitting in the back room hanging out. Luke kept going back and forth between hanging out with the guys and flirting with the women.

Gia sat in the piddle of the room in a chair as Liv helped her unwrap all the gifts her friends and family were kind enough to give them. After the third outfit, she let Nik escape to the back with his friends. They had received so many nice things from everyone. Gia said a tearful thank you to everyone who came, truly grateful for all the wonderful people in her life.

Gia had a job lined up with Deception waiting for her after the baby was born. Laura offered to hire her not as a model, but as a photographer. She was thrilled that she would be doing something she loved, she also would be able to work with her best friend at the same time. She and Lucky were to be the company’s photographers. All the women gushed over the pictures of Izzy’s kids that Gia had taken. Lucky had developed them for her, insisting that developing would be bad for the baby. The pictures had come out beautiful and Gia was proud of them.

The fun eventually ended and Nik and Gia collected all their new things, thanked everyone and went home.