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The Triumph Of AJ Quartermaine
Chapter Ninety Four
All Grown Up
The Quartermaine Mansion.
The car pulls up and Johnny steps from the car and takes Emily by the arm half dragging her up to the stairs. He raps firmly on the door and walks by Reginald still dragging Emily after him. He walks into the study were Alan and Edward are talking in low tones. He pushes Emily toward Alan. "Keep a closer eye on her or you'll be a grandfather again before she gets a diploma."
"You BASTARD!" Emily snarls going to strike Johnny again. He stops her with a look. Em glares at Johnny and then at Alan and Edward. She stalks from the room and stomps up the stairs.
"Now if you'll excuse me, I have to check in with my boss."
"Johnny." Edward winces at the nickname. "Cook, just thought that I'd inform you that since that rapscallion Porter stole a member of my staff that I stole a member of yours."
"MY CHEF?! You head hunted my french chef?"Johnny's jaw drops. "You people are unbelievable. I'm out preserving your granddaughter's virtue, over her protests I might add, and you spend the time stealing my personnel? That's it. I'm not stepping foot in this looney bin again. And thank GOD that JD got my mother out of here finally." Johnny stalks off.
"Well good riddance don't let the door hit ya on the way out. And don't think I don't know exactly why you were sniffing after my granddaughter, you hoodlum!" Edward blusters. After the door slams Edward turns to Alan. "I'm thinking one of those ankle bracelets they make the drunks wear when they are on house arrest. I think we have a company that makes them."
"Father, you can't treat Emily like a criminal. She is just a little girl."
"Are you BLIND? HIGH? Did you see the way those young bucks were sniffing around her? A chastity belt-- I'll hold the key."
"Father, NO!"
"A convent school in Tibet." Edward muses.
"Tibet is under the control of the communists."
"I don't hear you coming up with anything!" Edward protests.
"I'm going to go talk to my daughter and find out what she wants." Alan says calmly and walks from the room.
Happy Family house. A quiet had fallen over the house. AJ takes a deep breath and allows the peace to roll over him. He switches off lights as he makes his way upstairs. First he checks on Michael who sleeps like and angel. He softly raps on Rita's door. "You okay in here?"
"Yeah, I'm just getting to the good part." Rita looks up from her book.
"Don't stay up all night Carly's got plans for you two tomorrow. Something about a horse auction." Rita grins and reaches over turns off the bedside light.
"Night AJ."
"Night Rita. See you in the morning."
"Can't come soon enough."
AJ stops finally at the master bedroom door and opens it. Carly had heard him approaching and poses on the bed in a seductive manner. AJ grins. "Hey."
"Hey yourself. What took you so long?"
"Just locking up. Where were we?"
"Hmm." Carly kneels on the bed and waits for AJ to approach. "I think that we were right about here." With a sudden movement Carly rips AJ's shirt from him. "Mine all mine." She mutters as she pulls him onto the bed beside her and straddles him.
"I don't remember this part." AJ teases.
"You snooze, you lose." Carly starts devouring AJ greedily. He kicks off his shoes and reaches for his belt buckle but has his hands brushed aside. Carly easily unbuckles his belt and starts in on his slacks when the phone rings. "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME? I SWEAR IT'S A CONSPIRACY!"
AJ takes a deep breath. "It might be about Emily."
"I know; I know." Carly reaches over AJ and picks up the phone.
"I'm going to KILL HIM." Emily shrieks from the other end of the line. Carly holds the phone away from her ear and mouths to AJ that it is Emily. Carly listens on the phone while AJ rises and slides out of the rest of his clothes and settles in next to her.
"Kill who... or is it whom?"
"Johnny, that's who. I FINALLY get Nik to notice me and Johnny comes bursting through the front door and ruins everything."
Carly's eyes narrow. "Define Everything. What exactly were you and Nik doing?" Emily explains in detail and Carly's eyes go wide again. She uses her free hand to fan herself. "Oh my... and then what happened?"
"And then Johnny burst in the door, ordered me out of the house and threatened to blow off pieces of Nikolas' anatomy. Carly, he pulled a gun on NIKOLAS CASSADINE! Now Nik will never talk to me again. I can't believe this. I am SO humiliated."
Carly covers the mouthpiece of the phone and whispers to AJ--"We left the wedding too early. Emily caught the bouquet AGAIN and all hell is breaking loose." Carly starts talking to Emily again. "Johnny was on a roll. He was here first looking for you, interrupted me right when I had your brother where I wanted him. "
Emily groans, "that might not even be the worst part."
"THERE is more?" Carly brushes AJ's hand away as she focuses on the call. "What happened?"
"I was so mad at Johnny that I hit him."
"YOU HIT HIM?! What did he do? GEES Emily, did you TOTALLY forget that a) he works for Jason and Sonny and b) That he is related to COOK?" AJ goes to pull the phone away from Carly and she slaps at his hand.
"He kissed me."
"HE DID WHAT?" Carly is speechless for a minute. "Okay. Okay that actually makes sense. It's not like he could hit you back." Carly nods. "Yeah, that was a totally guy thing to do."
"What did he do?" AJ insists from beside Carly trying to hear the conversation. "She hit him and then what happened?" Carly pulls the phone away from her ear and plants a big kiss on him.
"Hush. I'll tell you later. I just need to get her calmed down now." Carly starts talking to Emily again. "So what now?"
"I don't know. I'm so confused. I've wanted Nikolas for so long but..."
"OH please don't tell me that you're going there." Carly protests.
"I don't know where I'm going." Emily laughs and cries.
"You're going to bed, and you're going to sleep on the whole thing. Tomorrow we're going to get together and figure this one out. But you aren't going to do anything right now." Carly insists.
The penthouse.
Johnny strides into Jason's penthouse without bothering to knock. "I quit-- you can fire me or kill me right now I just don't care."
Jason looks up from the coffee warehouse books. "I told you to not go to the wedding it would just drive you nuts. Why do you think I left that house? Was Carly there?"
"Oh yeah, everyone was there; Ms Benson looked great, picked a fight with the daughter of the groom and had to be hauled out of there by her husband. Unfortunately, your sister has been hanging out with her."
Jason winces but reminds Johnny. "It's Ms Quartermaine now."
"Yeah, well Ms Quartermaine has been giving Miss Bowen-Quartermaine lessons."
Jason closes his eyes and rubs his forehead. "Lessons in what?"
"Ditching her security detail, getting men hotter than a 3 dollar pistol and driving me nuts." Johnny paces the room. And then while I'm figuring out where your sister is and getting her back in her clothes, the old man is stealing my chef!"
"What man?" Jason says flatly.
"Nikolas Cassadine. I saw him at the wedding putting his hands on her. I knew what he was thinking."
Jason gets a flash and nods. "Cause you were thinking the same thing."
Johnny stops his pacing and turns to Jason. "She's just a little girl. I can't do this, Boss. I need to take care of my restaurant. This is a good time to get out before anything else happens."
"Else?" Jason questions rising to his feet.
"Miss Emily wasn't too happy with me threatening her Casanova and she hit me."
Sonny comes out of the kitchen where he had just been putting the finishing touches on a late supper. "And then you kissed her."
"How did you know?" Johnny asks bewildered.
"Cause it is the age old male tradition to settle fights and win arguments. Fighting is great foreplay."
Johnny blanches. "I got to get out of here. Sorry boss, I know it's short notice. Francis can cover my shifts. Moreno's people haven't been a problem since he disappeared months ago. Dinner is on me whenever you come into the restaurant." Johnny practically races out of the room.
"He's got it bad." Sonny muses. "I wonder when that happened."
"For my sister." Jason reminds.
Spoon Island--
Nikolas strides up the dock steps to Wyndemere. He makes his way to Stefan's study. As Nik knew he would be, Stefan is up reading.
"Nikolas." Stefan looks at his watch. "Is something wrong?"
"I guess that is all in how you define wrong."
"What's happened?"
"Do you still have my mother's ring?"
"NIKOLAS!" Stefan stands abruptly. "I want an explanation."
"I've found the woman I'm going to wed. But there will be some roadblocks."
Stefan's jaw drops. He pulls himself together abruptly. "Who? Not..."
"No, Father, not Katherine Bell. That's been over for months. Emily Quartermaine."
"But... but... she is just a child."
"That's one of the roadblocks. And I'll need a house. It is a Quartermaine tradition for the groom to give the bride a house. She's under constant guard. Emily is good at ditching her guards; she proved that tonight. I have to move swifly. Emily won't be the problem but her family and her... " Nik sneers pacing in front of the desk, "bodyguard."
"Nikolas, stop! Slow down." Stefan tries to catch his breath. "Ms Quartermaine, has been very kind to you over the years, when you first came to town and again when you were robbed of speech by one of those miscreants out to kill Jason Morgan. But you've always thought of her as a little sister --when did everything change?"
"It changed when she masterminded the takeover of Deception and terminated my postion with the company. I just didn't realize it until tonight. That was when I realized that she wasn't a little girl anymore-- and she definitely isn't my sister. The bodyguard will be a problem. Even if I didn't believe that he would shot off portions of my extremities, Emily did."
"I thought that was Ashton working with your aunt? And what do you mean shoot off portions of your anatomy?"
"No, Emily was the one that took the information to Ned. She has despised Katherine Bell for years. And saw an opportunity."
"Of which she took advantage. Clever girl." Stefan's eyes narrow. "And now you will explain the anatomy lesson."
Happy Family house.
Carly turns to AJ and says softly. "AJ, honey, are you awake?" When there is no response Carly silently leaves the bed and slides into some casual clothes. She holds her shoes in her hand and goes down to the kitchen. She writes a quick note and leaves it on the table. "Gone to Luke's to talk to Jason about Emily. Will hopefully be back before you can even read this." Sliding on her shoes she gathers the keys to the car and makes her way out of the house and to Luke's. She gets a glass of bubbley water and asks Claude for the house phone. She dials the number to Jason.
"Morgan."
"It's Carly. I thought that we should talk about what happened tonight. Compare notes before I talk to Emily in the morning."
"Where are you?"
"I'm at Luke's."
"I'll be there in ten minutes." Jason hangs up without saying goodbye and leaves the penthouse. Less than ten minutes later he strides through the door at Luke's. He sees Carly sitting in the corner. Ordering a beer from Claude, he carries it with him to the table.
"Did you talk to Johnny tonight?" Carly asks curiously.
"He quit." Jason says flatly.
"Well HELL. That puts a spin on things doesn't it?" Carly muses. "Johnny must have been just as thrown by that kiss as Emily was."
"Johnny didn't say much about the kiss; he had alot to say about what a lousy influence you've been on my sister and that you got into a fight with his sister at the wedding."
"OH PLEASE! The bitch deserved it. She was sticking her hands in AJ's pockets and then started in on me, my mother and Johnny's mother. How is this my fault? How is it my fault that Emily caught the bouquet and Edward would go neanderthal?"
"It's Edward. Of course he would go neanderthal. What concerns me is Nikolas Cassadine. I've had run ins with the family before. Stefan Cassadine has been a problem and that means that Nikolas could be too. Ever since my sister started hanging out with you she has been getting into one scrap after another. You have her hanging out in bars, playing dress up in public, taking over companies."
"She's not drinking or using drugs. She's going to church every sunday. Emily goes to school and is aceing her courses. If you are going to give me the heat then I'm taking the credit too." Carly protests. "I'm sorry that you're not the one that she runs to anymore but isn't it better for Emily to have all of us?"
Jason looks down. "Yes. And she is going to need it more than ever. Cassadines don't play by the rules, Carly. You can ask Bobbie or Luke. I really don't want my sister messed up with one."
"Even if it's her choice?" Carly presses Jason's control button.
Jason grimaces. "Even if it's her choice. I don't think that she has all the facts. I don't think she knows what she is getting into. I'd no more allow this then I would allow Michael to play in traffic."
Carly winces. "I really hate that analogy. What about the guards increasing their presence to give her a safety net?"
"She ditched the guards tonight thanks to the driving training course that AJ gave her and the motorcycle that you did. I know that sometime, someday those gifts might come in handy but now when she is acting so impulsively that she is putting herself in danger."
"Impulsive-- I guess that's my fault too!"
"No. You just honed an already existing trait."
"I'll talk to Emily tomorrow." Carly sighs. Jason rises from the table.
The words that he had been stuffing come out of their own volition. "I just want to know-- are you happy, Caroline? Does he make you happy? More than you were with me? Do you love him?"
"Jason, I wasn't happy when I was with you. I was insane, all over the map. I never knew from one day to the next what was going happen. If that was the day when you'd kick me out of the house. And I'd deserve it because I had let you down somehow. You didn't want me, you wanted her and I'd do anything to get your attention. And anything always seemed to backfire on me. I was afraid constantly: afraid of Michael, afraid of you, afraid of Robin and Sonny and that somehow they'd convince you to kick me out. I was afraid before I ever went to Ferncliffe, hell before I ever shot Tony and it just got worse after I got out because I was afraid of being sent back too. And that's MY problem. I love you. I always will. You'll always be Michael's Daddy. We'll always be family. But I can't live with you. And I was fooling myself to to think that I could."
"You didn't answer the question. Are you happy with AJ? Can he make you happy? Do you love him?"
"Yeah, Jason." Carly takes Jason's hand. "I'm happy. I have things that are mine; I'm not afraid anymore. AJ did that for me. AJ didn't make me happy. I make me happy and that's the difference. And yeah, I love AJ. I didn't when he bought me the house. I don't think I could have loved anyone. But by the time I married him-- yeah, I loved AJ and it's gotten better everyday since then."
"Carly?"
Carly turns around abruptly. "You must have found my note. Did Jordan get back from the wedding? Well duh he must have since you're here."
"Yeah,.It's time to go home, honey." AJ reaches a hand out to Carly and she takes it. He strings an arm around her waist and together they walk from the bar.
THE END