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The Quintessential Q
Chapter Seventy Three
Routine
Stefan raps on the back door to the house Nikolas is rehabbing. The construction masks the knock so he knocks again. The back door is opened abruptly. Stefan looks at the young black woman before him. Her hair is tied back in a bandana and she wears an oversized Tulane University sweat shirt with the collar ripped out over black leggings. "Can I help you?" Maddy asks politely.
"Please tell Nikolas, Stefan Cassadine is here." Stefan steps into the kitchen which is in remarkably good shape considering. He hands Maddy his coat and gloves automatically.
Maddy takes a long look at the guy wondering if he is for real. "Shore 'nuff Massa Stefan. Maddy'll just shuffle 'long." Maddy lets her hand go limp dropping Stefan's gloves and coat to the floor. "I don't work here, guy. I live here." Maddy goes to the kitchen door and swings it open. "Yo 'Candy, You have company!"
"Damn it, Maddy! How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that..." Nikolas is interrupted in mid rant when he realizes Stefan is there.
"You owe me another one." Maddy slams on the swinging kitchen door pushing it out of her way as she leaves Nikolas and Stefan to talk.
Nikolas looks from the swinging door to Stefan. "What did you say to her?"
"I asked her to tell you I was here." Stefan says bewildered. "And then she started giving me... attitude? Yes, Attitude. And what did she call you? Candy? Isn't that a girl's name?"
"Wait. Just wait." Nikolas goes chasing after Maddy. "Whatever he did was unintentional I'm sure. Let me introduce you two properly. And please, please, please! Call me Nikolas. Give him a break, Maddy, he isn't from this country." Nikolas brings the reluctant Maddy back into the kitchen. "Maddy Reynolds, this is my uncle, Stefan Cassadine. He raised me from the time I was a baby."
"You don't know how much that explains." Maddy mutters under her breath. She puts on a polite smile. "Madeline Reynolds. How do you do?" Maddy extends a hand.
Stefan takes her hand shaking it. "Quite confused, thank you. What are you doing living with Nikolas?"
Maddy drops Stefan's hand abruptly. "Paving hell with good intentions. I'm going to go for a run." Maddy tells Nikolas. She brushes by Stefan and goes out the back door. Fall had hit with a cold spell. But an icy breeze was just what she needed right now to cool off.
"Nikolas?" Stefan turns the question to the Cassadine Heir. "Last time we spoke you told me you were interested in Miss Quartermaine. Have your plans changed or is this Maddy... a pleasant distraction." Stefan uses the polite euphemism for mistress.
"Oh boy." Nik covers his eyes with his hand and then holds the same hand out in a halting motion. "Stop. Please don't say anything more. You are digging yourself a hole of misunderstanding."
"Then explain." Stefan picks up his gloves and coat from the floor and looking around decides to toss them over the back of a chair. He then takes another chair and waves Nikolas to the seat across from him.
"Maddy helped when Emily was missing. She is a conduit of information from diverse sources. But the information she offers is not free. Maddy is looking for a new place to live because I screwed up where she was living before. So she is staying here just until she finds another place. I'm still staying at the cottage. I have to make other arrangements for Sheba. And I want the construction guys done before I start moving. Maddy is a friend of Emily's from school."
"I thought the construction was a secret from Miss Quartermaine."
"I don't know for how much longer." Nik admits. "Lucky and Elizabeth are living down in the carriage house. Maddy is here. She says she's fine living in a construction zone. Maddy has agreed to hold off telling Emily anything until the house warming."
"Which will be?"
"Halloween."
"Nikolas!" Stefan protests sternly.
Nikolas shrugs. "We aren't going to live down our reputation might as well play it. Emily should be out of her cast by then."
"You have yet to explain why that young woman calls you Candy." Stefan quirks a brow.
Nikolas winces. "Maddy has a twisted wit. She calls me that when she is trying to embarrass me. You never did say why you stopped by." Nikolas tries to change the subject.
"While I realize it will never be your game, I wanted to give you this for your new house." Stefan does his own shrug. "I do not believe a house is complete without one."
Nik wonders if he is getting another pair of horrible bookend/mantle pieces as he opens the package but within is an antique set of chess pieces with matching board. "Thank you. They are impressive. And I know exactly where they will go once the construction is complete." Nikolas has a place already picked out in what will be the study. To get the whole effect Nik sets up the board. But before he can even offer Stefan a game as a peace offering he can hear Larry calling him from upstairs. "I have to check on that." He apologizes.
"Go. I will wait here." Stefan starts playing chess against himself knowing it might be awhile before Nikolas returns. This house had become an obsession to Nikolas. Obsession was something he knew well.
Maddy returns from her run having burned off her ire. Walking into the Kitchen she goes first to the cooler and pulls out a bottle water. She takes a quick swig then wipes the sweat from her brow on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. She sees the chess board with game in progress on the kitchen table and studies it intently. Taking the side opposing Stefan, she reaches out and swiftly moves a piece. Stefan takes his time and answers the move. Maddy again makes a decision within seconds. Stefan ponders the board. Maddy rolls her eyes. "Well I'm going to go get out of these." She plucks at the pitted out sweatshirt. "I'll probably be back before you make your move." It isn't quite that bad. Stefan has made his move and is waiting. Maddy stands over the table, glancing over the board. Maddy slides a piece taking one of Stefan's, tapping it on the side of the board. Going over to the kitchen counter, Maddy prepares two coffee drinks. She brings them over to the table sliding one over to Stefan.
He looks at the drink. He'd watched her build it: espresso, steamed frothy milk, whipped cream. "What is this?" He holds up a brown nugget that had been resting in the whipped cream between two fingers.
"You really aren't from around here, are you?" Maddy shakes her head. "Chocolate covered espresso bean. It's not just decorative, they are edible." Maddy models the proper espresso bean eating technique in slow motion popping it in her mouth. After Stefan tries the bean. "Have you moved yet?"
Stefan indicates where he had moved. Maddy gaze glides over the board and she slides a piece in the next instant. "Why are you in such a hurry?"
"Why are you so slow?" Maddy counters. "I learned this game in the park across from my house when I was a child from the old men, and some of the not so old ones. Only those boards had an accessory that this one doesn't. A timer."
"Rushing causes errors." Stefan replies.
"I'd rather make my mistakes now and get over it than drag them out over the next twenty years." Stefan's flinch goes unnoticed as Maddy continues. "You read the articles on the Mars Lander? How long were they working on that one and didn't realize that half the crew were working in inches and the others in centimeters?" Maddy checks her watch and then stands up. "I have someplace I have to be."
"But the match..." Stefan protests; he'd finally found someone in Port Charles who even pretended to comprehend the game.
"You started without me; you can finish without me." Maddy shrugs into her parka. Everyone else in this burg might be going with a sweater but her thinned Louisiana blood feels the cold. This is her first upstate New York winter and all the locals were still calling it fall. Maddy walks over to the dry erase board that Nik had been tracking projects on within the house. Grabbing a mark she writes on the bottom. On the cell. Snatching up her keys, she departs without another word.
When Nikolas comes back into the kitchen, Stefan is staring at the back door. Nik is unsurprised to see a game in progress on the board. "Sorry, Things are actually going smoothly for the house to be finished by the end of the month but Larry is more pessimistic. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong is his motto. And having crews going around the clock, means he is spending more time checking work already completed rather than work in progress which makes him uncomfortable."
"And how does Ms. Reynolds feel about living in a construction zone?"
"She just moved in. I warned her, but she told me she would hardly be here anyway." Nikolas notices the beverage by Stefan. "Maddy is back?"
"Back and left again. She is uniquely... abrasive."
Lucky walks in the back door without knocking. "So where is she? I want to meet the gal who could blackmail you into being roommates."
"Blackmail? You said nothing of blackmail." Stefan's brows go up again.
"Damn it, Lucky!" Nikolas protests. "It wasn't blackmail." Lucky smells the coffee in the room but there is none in the pot. He sees the abandoned cup that Maddy had left behind and reaching for it takes a sip. "Yes, I am in Maddy's debt but I knew going in that she'd collect."
Stefan pulls out his checkbook. "How much?"
"Uncle, if it were money there would be no debt." Nikolas explains. "It is as I told you before. Maddy did me a favor; it got her in trouble, because of the trouble she has no place to stay temporarily. I have two houses; she has none. It's a simple repayment of a favor."
Maddy calls ahead to let Emily know she is on her way. Johnny meets her by the back door of the restaurant letting her in. Together they go up in the elevator to the apartment. "Hey! How is it going? Are you ready to face your family?"
"Sure." Emily replies. no, not really. I wish I could stay here a little longer but I really don't have an excuse to and Johnny hasn't said anything about me staying and I'm starting to wonder if this was just a fling and this is his way of letting me down easy.
"And I bet you'll be glad to get your place back. The couch has got to be killing your back." Maddy tells Johnny.
"Right." Johnny nods. it's for the best. if Emily stays much longer I won't be able to let her go. all the same problems exist. I'm too old for her. she is the boss' sister.
Maddy reads the subtext between the two of them. The way Johnny and Emily can't met each other's eyes. "Johnny, why don't you take Em's stuff down to the van. I'll do a last minute check through to make sure nothing is left back." Johnny nods and takes Emily's stuff. Between the stuff that Carly had brought and the stuff Monica had brought there is actually enough for a small suitcase even though Emily had been there less than a week.
"So did you find a place to stay?" Emily tries cheerfully.
"Yeah, finally got hold of the guy who owes me. I spent a couple of nights in the van but it was better than staying at Aunt Dara's. I moved in last night. Sorry, I'm late I know you expected me earlier but I had that Saturday School thing to do." Maddy goes through Emily's purse without her okay grabbing Emily's favorite lipstick, leaves it in the bathroom as well as a quick spritz of Emily's perfume in the bathroom and then in the bedroom. For good measure she adds one to the pillow on the bed.
"What are you doing?" Emily tries to angle herself on her crutches to watch Maddy at work.
"Being totally juvenile." Maddy admits talking fast before Johnny gets back. "Which CD should I leave in the player?"
Emily hesitates then answers. "Dido, No Angel."
"Right." Maddy makes the change. Maddy had heard all about Emily's submarining of Katherine. "There is overt submarining and then there is covert. Sometimes less is more. Now I'm going to leave. Tell Johnny I'm going to get the van warmed up and you are not going to get in the van until you have a commitment to see Johnny again."
"I'm sure I'll see Johnny all the time." Emily protests weakly.
"Don't be stupid." Maddy makes a brushing motion with her hands like pushing Emily along. Maddy passes Johnny coming up the stairs. "I'm just going to warm the van up."
Johnny meets Emily outside the apartment, standing by the elevator. "So."
"Yeah, So." Emily hesitantly smiles. "I suppose it would be best to get things back to normal. Back to the routine."
"Right, routine." Johnny nods.
"So I'll see you tomorrow then."
"Tomorrow?" Johnny repeats blankly.
"For brunch after church. With Michael, Jason and Sonny." Emily pushes the down button on the elevator. The trip down to the main floor in silence. Johnny opens the door for Emily, to the elevator, to the backdoor, the sliding side door of the van. Emily stands momentarily by the side of the van. "So I'll see you tomorrow."
"Yes." Emily starts to climb in the van. "Em." She turns around at Johnny's voice. He reaches out to her cupping her jaw between his hands running them up along her face and then leaning in kisses her. Not long enough but too long. Johnny steps back and waits until Emily is in one of the back captain's chairs shuts the sliding door. He slaps the top of the van and steps back again.
"Yep, Van's all warm now." Maddy starts fanning herself.
"Knock it off." Em warns.
"What's a girlfriend for if not to dish, and to take your back?!"
"That being so, head to my brother AJ's place. If I'm going to have my social life ripped to shreds I'd just as soon only do it once."
"Oh?"
"Time you were formally introduced to my sister-in-law, Carly."
Maddy looks in the rearview. "Really? You know I did see her and not just on the news. While you were missing, I took your Gramps to the police station so he could raise a little hell on them. Carly was there with some old guy with the dreamiest accent."
"Jerry. Her stepfather. He's cool. I want to know why it took Carly so long to beat the crap out of Victoria Porter. I mean it's been coming since before the wedding, Johnny's parents wedding. The reason Rita and I left the show early was because I thought there was going to be blood shed then."
Maddy takes a hand off the wheel to raise it. "I know the answer to this one. I was covering the kiosk late one night taking in the nightly news on the Watchman. Viki Porter was the feature story pleading for her sister's release. The subliminal she was sending out was let my sister free you can keep the rich chick. Marcus was hot too. He didn't approve any releases to the press." Maddy nods. "Yeah, the timing is dead on. The next day I took your Gramps to the copshop."
"Lucas Jones, I'm going to kick your ass!" Carly hollers up the stairs of the Happy Family house. "Don't think I don't know what you did."
"I didn't do it, you can't prove it, nobody saw me!" Lucas singsongs from the above floor.
"And quit stealing my lines!" Carly's eyes narrow. What would be the quickest way to get to the little brat. "I have worked so hard to not swear in front of Michael. I have bitten my tongue from his first coo so that he wouldn't swear. And you... YOU! You stay with me for less than a week and Michael is answering the phone which he knows he is not suppose to do and telling the person on the other end of the line to f' off." Lucas' giggles just make Carly more furious. "It's not funny. Soap. I'm going to wash your mouth out with soap and not that nice IVORY stuff we're going for the Lava. Every time you swear, every time my baby swears. I am going to get you for this!"
Lucas tries to sneak by Carly but she spins fast catching him at the base of the stairs and puts him in a headlock. "Uncle Luke, save me; save me! Child Abuse!"
"What are you doing here?!" Carly snarls. She head noogies Lucas to get him to stop squirming.
Luke takes off his sunglasses and hat. "Well I tried to call first but whoever answered the phone swore at me and then hung up. I just wanted to know if anyone has heard from your Mother."
Lucas makes kissy face noises followed by gagging. "Knock if off, punk." Carly snaps at her brother. "No, nobody has heard from Bobbie. She's probably run away forever to get away from her demon spawn."
"I hate when you talk about yourself that way, sweetie." Luke says in irony laced tones.
"Oh kiss my aunt fanny, Uncle Luke. I meant him." Carly throws Lucas free in the direction of Luke. "You used to be such a sweet child." Carly points a finger at Lucas. "And then Jerry started spoiling you rotten. But don't think I won't tell. You are so busted when Mama gets home."
"Nobody likes a snitch, Caroline." Luke reminds her.
"Oh take his side. I've had it up to here!" Carly touches her nose with the side of her hand. "Next stop Auntie Laura's house. You can pass your foul mouth onto cousin Lulu."
"Did we come at a bad time?" Emily laughs from the entryway leaning on her crutches. Maddy is biting her lip to keep from doing the same.
"Nah, your timing is impeccable as always, Bowen." Luke looks his son's friend over from brown hair to her pink painted toes peeking out from her casted foot. "See if you can calm the little mama down."
"Calm me down!" Carly starts sputtering.
"Yep, I'm going to borrow your kitchen, niece. I'll handle the sailors in training."
"What are you going to do?" Carly asks suspiciously.
"Ancient Spencer secret. Where is Michael?" Luke asks.
"The study." Luke goes into the study and gets Michael and then taking Lucas goes into the kitchen. Carly looks at the door closing behind her son, brother and uncle. "I really don't think I like this."
"Lucky turned out alright." Emily reassures her. "Come on, I really need to sit down."
"Lets go into the study." It's still Carly's favorite room in the house. Carly leads the way. Once everyone is seated Carly studies Maddy. "I know you; I've seen you before."
"We weren't introduced at the police station."
"You were with Edward." Carly remembers.
"I gave him a lift to the station. I'm Maddy Reynolds, a friend of Emily's from school."
"She's giving me a lift home to the mansion."
"Are you sure you're ready for that?" Carly asks concerned. "You can stay here."
"No, it's time." Emily admits. "Carly, what is Michael doing here? I thought Jason had him every weekend."
"Oh that was my brilliant idea." Carly says disgustedly. "I asked AJ to use one of his weekends so that Lucas and Michael could spend time together. Huge mistake. Oh they've been spending time together alright. Lucas is corrupting my baby."
"How old is your son?" Maddy asks.
"He'll be three in December. AJ is going to flip when he hears this." Carly mutters.
"Nah, he'll probably think it's funny. Especially since Luke was the one on the other end of the phone line."
Carly starts laughing. She tries to stop but it bubbles out anyway. "Oh Lord, the times I've dreamed of telling Uncle Luke off but bit my tongue. I wish I could have seen the look on his face."
"And that's why our schemes never work exactly right." Emily shakes her head. "We always want to see the look on their faces. So tell me-- what did Viki Porter look like? Not only the day of the show but also the day you beat the snot out of her."
"Really Em, what is your friend going to think of me, of us?" Carly says coyly ready to be talked into dishing.
"That you're my kind of people?" Maddy suggests settling back on the comfortable couch.