Devolution TOC

Chapter Sixty-Five

Kevin walked into Lucky's room and was surprised to see Lucky in the midst of a full-blown panic attack. The reading on Lucky's cardiac monitor was going a mile a minute, and his face was drenched with sweat. His movements were frenetic and nervous.

"Lucky, what's wrong?" asked Kevin quietly. "The nurse said you were upset and asked to see me."

Lucky turned his contorted face toward Kevin and made a high-pitched, eerie laugh. "I'm trying, I'm trying," he said hysterically. "I can't do it."

"What can't you do, Lucky?" asked Kevin.

"I'm staying HERE," yelled Lucky. He tried to sit up, but fell back exhausted onto his pillows. "The voices, I need to scream, I need to run and hide. I can't stay here."

Kevin's face grew concerned. "Do you need a sedative, Lucky?" he asked.

"I NEED to STOP this!" cried Lucky, holding his shaking hands to his cheeks. "I'm afraid; I can't take this. LET me OUT!" He balled up his right fist and slammed his temple.

Kevin murmured an order to the nurse, and she returned quickly with a syringe full of medication that she injected into Lucky's IV.

Kevin pulled a chair close to Lucky. "I need you to try to focus and answer my questions, okay?" He looked Lucky in the eyes.

"I'm TRYING!" gritted Lucky angrily between his teeth. "I want to scream!" he shouted as he held the back of his hand to his mouth in horror.

"Okay, Lucky, when did you start feeling upset?" probed Kevin.

Lucky was crying in earnest and shaking. "About…half an hour ago…um, no, all day," he said.

"What made you upset? Can you remember?"

"The whispers," Lucky said in a haunted voice. He gripped his head as his eyes widened at the memory. "NO!" he shouted as he turned away from Kevin and wrapped his arms around his head, as if he were warding off blows.

"Where did you hear the whispers?" asked Kevin gently. "Here in the room or inside your head?"

"I don't know," Lucky cried with a voice muffled by his arm. "My head…I think."

"Did you hear any words?"

"Oh, God, no!" Lucky whimpered. "No!"

"Lucky, what did they say?"

Lucky curled up in a fetal position and ignored Kevin.

Kevin sat back for a minute, watching Lucky closely and waiting for the sedative to take effect. He was concerned about Lucky's behavior since he'd been off of his neuroleptic for only one day, and seemed to be experiencing another psychotic episode so soon.

"Lucky, will you please turn toward me so we can hold a conversation?" requested Kevin calmly. "I need to see your face." Kevin looked at the cardiac monitor and noted that the reading was finally normalizing. "Lucky? Speak to me."

Lucky gave a great sigh and turned toward Kevin slowly while his eyes stared intently.

Kevin smiled and tried a different line of conversation. "Lucky, how long have you heard these voices? A short time like this afternoon only, or a few months or years?"

Lucky panted and his eyelids flickered as he frowned, trying to drown out the confusion in his mind and direct his energy toward answering Kevin. "Um…uh," he said repeatedly as he tried to process information. "Long…time," he finally answered.

"Weeks, months or years?" assisted Kevin.

Lucky's face went blank, and his eyes searched around the room. "I forgot about them," he said breathlessly and distantly. "Long time, years," he answered flatly, without emotion as his eyes sought Kevin's.

"Is it always the same voices or different ones?" asked Kevin.

"Um…I don't know," answered Lucky tensely, hitting his knee with his cast. The room filled with silence while Kevin waited for Lucky to collect his thoughts. "Different," he decided. "But the same sometimes."

"Lucky, what do these voices say? Do they ask you things or do they just talk to you?"

Lucky placed his hand on his forehead. "Both," he said.

"Can you tell me what they say?" prodded Kevin.

Lucky started trembling again. "NO!" he yelled. "I can't tell. NO!" He brought his hands to his eyes and covered them briefly with his shaking fingers. "They said they'd kill me," he admitted, then looked terrified that he told this much. "I've got to go now," Lucky said in a quiet, emotionless voice. "I'm going," he said as he swung his bare legs off of the side of the bed.

"Lucky, please stay in your bed. You're ill and your body needs to rest," stated Kevin firmly.

Lucky remained in the same position, but stared blankly at the floor. Suddenly, his body lost muscle tone and started to tip forward. Kevin rushed to catch him, and lowered him back into bed, moving his legs and placing the blanket over him. Lucky's eyes were open, but he stared with parted lips and a distant look on his face.

Damn, thought Kevin. He couldn't take anymore and dissociated. Something is very wrong here. He's not talking about Faison or the near past. What is going on with him?

~*~*~*~

"Tony, Bobbie." Kevin greeted the couple warmly as they entered his office. "Thank you for meeting with me this afternoon." He motioned to the two chairs in front of his desk. "I'd like to meet with as many of Lucky's adult family members as possible. I'm on a search and find mission of a sort."

"Well, there aren't too many of us left," said Bobbie sadly. My aunt Ruby died several years ago, and Lucky has no grandparents on either side of the family. There's me, Luke, Tony, and oh, Amy I guess. She's his other aunt, but hasn't been very involved with Lucky." Bobbie sighed loudly. "And, of course, there's Laura, but she's indisposed," she said with disdain.

"Could you arrange for a telephone conversation between me and Luke?" asked Kevin.

"I can try," offered Bobbie.

Kevin settled into his chair and leaned it way back. "Lucky has been very upset today because he keeps hearing voices in his head. He is very secretive about what they are saying. I'm starting to suspect that they are past memories. He said he's heard these voices for years, but forgot about them after awhile. Does any of this sound familiar to you?"

Both Tony and Bobbie shook their heads and looked puzzled and concerned. Bobbie shifted in her seat uncomfortably and answered, "No, but you have to remember, Kevin, that we've only known Lucky since he came to Port Charles with Luke and Laura about eight or nine years ago. Before that, he was on the run with them. He spent the first ten years of his life moving around from place to place. I think the longest period of time they settled was when they were in Canada running a diner. Lucky has had a very scattered upbringing, and his father frequently went away on business for periods of time."

"What were your opinions of Lucky when he first showed up in town? What did you notice about him or his behavior?" asked Kevin.

Bobbie folded her hands in her lap and said, "He was like a mini-Luke, all bluster and attitude." She laughed. "He was so cute, but there was also a sadness about him, and he seemed like he'd grown up way too fast. Our son Lucas seems much more like a child than Lucky ever did."

Tony reached over and squeezed Bobbie's hand. "I'll probably get in trouble for saying this, but these Spencers seem to have a code of honor or bravado, whatever you want to call it. Luke seemed to enforce it at times, but Lucky bought it hook line and sinker. He was close to his father, but almost too clingy in the sense that his own identity suffered I think."

"Was he fearful?" asked Kevin. Bobbie laughed and shook her head. "No, that's the problem. He was a total daredevil. Hell on wheels. He definitely acted like he thought he was immortal."

"What do you know about these trips that Luke made?"

"Oh, we tried to look the other way," said Tony grimly. "He was involved in criminal activities."

Bobbie lightly punched Tony on the arm. "We don't know that for a fact," she stated.

"No, it's more like we don't have proof," Tony replied. "Luke was involved with the mob for awhile, and that's when Lucky was shot on the docks. He was only ten years old and temporarily paralyzed."

"And, then when he was older, he learned that my brother had raped Laura at the start of their relationship," Bobbie added with a soft voice. "That was the first time he became homeless. He refused to live with anyone and preferred to wander around by himself. His friend, later his girlfriend, had been raped shortly before he found out, and we think that's why he took it so hard."

"It sounds like he felt like he was the only one carrying the code of honor," stated Kevin with interest.

"Oh, you could say that," said Bobbie bitterly. "During this same time period, he learned that his mother had given birth to his older brother and later abandoned him. She hid that fact from the family until Nikolas practically showed up on their doorstep."

"What can you tell me about Lucky's mother and his relationship with her?" asked Kevin.

"Well, first I have to say that there's always been some bad blood between Laura and me," explained Bobbie. "When she first moved to town she was a wild child, a teenager into anything and everything. She's always been a liar," Bobbie said with a frown. "Let's see…she was a teenaged bride when she first hooked up with Luke. They had a volatile marriage, lots of fights and lots of making up. Now with Lucky…I'd say they had a love/hate type relationship. He seemed very sensitive and attentive to her needs, but she was so grabby and needy. She would actually look to Lucky for comfort and reassurance sometimes instead of the other way around. I think Lucky resented that somewhat even if he didn't admit it."

"She kind of passed herself off as this great earth mother," interjected Tony. "But she totally rejected Lucky when he came back from the dead so to speak."

Bobbie nodded. "I'll never forget her telling Lucky that he was no good, like all of the Spencers. She acted like she hated him. My opinion is that she used people for whatever she wanted at the minute, then tossed them out when it suited her. Still, she did stay married to Luke for almost twenty years, so who knows."

~*~*~*~

Luke sat nervously in his prison cell. Every minute or so, he'd rise from his thin bunk mattress and pace the length of the cell and then sit back down on the bunk. He ran his hand over his gray crewcut hair repeatedly to soothe himself.

Barbara Jean had called him a few hours ago. Kevin Collins wanted to talk to him about Lucky and his early years before they arrived in Port Charles. "What the hell is going on with my son?" he asked out loud. Bobbie said Kevin mentioned that Lucky was hearing voices in his head? Cowboy? Luke shook his head angrily. He slammed his clenched fist into the metal skeleton of the bunk. I'm supposed to think about any potential traumatic events that could have happened to the kid. Damn, our whole lives were traumatic when we were on the run from Frank Smith. But we were happy…weren't we? Luke relaxed his posture, and his face took on a softer, almost dreamy look as he remembered his baby Cowboy.

*** Luke's heart melted when he first held his son, his first born and namesake, Lucas Lorenzo Spencer, Junior. His eyes were blue, all babies' eyes were, but he knew instinctively that Lucky would have the brilliant Spencer blue eyes. His son looked curiously at his dad's face and then let out an unnaturally loud squall with tiny red fists clenched.

"Good lungs," Luke laughed appreciatively, looking over at his wife with love.

"I love you, son," he said softly to the newborn, running a gentle hand over the thick blond hair scattered across his son's small head before handing him back to his mother's waiting arms.
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Luke threw down his bags in the diner, and yelled loudly, "Where's my Cowboy?" Six-year old Lucky dashed out from the kitchen and jettisoned himself into his dad's arms. He clung to Luke like a life preserver, crying loudly and refusing to let go when Luke tried to pry him from his body. "Whoa, there, partner," said Luke. "What's all this? Are you sad to see me?"

Lucky lifted his head, and his blue eyes continued to pool with fresh tears. "Daddy, I thought you weren't coming home," he blubbered. "You were gone so long. Don't leave me again, Daddy, don't leave me!"
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"Laura," said Luke as they were lying in bed together, snuggled under the covers. "Why is Lucky acting so skittish and nervous lately? He's been that way since I came home from Istanbul."

"Oh, Luke," scoffed Laura with a waved hand. "He's going through a phase. Kids are like that. One day they're happy, the next they're terrified about something. He'll grow out of it."

Luke pensively looked down at his hands. He still felt like something was wrong, but Laura's cheerfulness and her everyday knowledge of and experiences with Lucky silenced him. Maybe he was reading something into nothing.
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The terrified shrieks tore Luke out of his bed. He hopped up and down, trying to fit his legs into his trousers and zip them up. Laura was a heavier sleeper and just started rising from the bed when Luke dashed out of the master bedroom. He ran into Lucky's room, where the shrieks of his son echoed off of the walls. He stumbled over books and stubbed his toe on one of Lucky's toys. Luke caught himself just before he let out a long string of expletives.

Luke turned on the light next to Lucky's bed and was horrified to see Lucky sitting straight up in bed, his eyes open and screaming and crying at the top of his lungs. Luke gently grasped Lucky's arms and shook him slightly. "Cowboy! What's the matter? Are you having a bad dream?" Lucky didn't respond, and his eyes stared blankly beyond Luke. Luke waved his hand over Lucky's eyes, but no reaction. Luke drew his son into his arms and hugged him tightly. "Daddy's here," he crooned. "Nothing's going to hurt you. You're having a bad dream, it's not real." Lucky's small body trembled in Luke's arms, and when he laid Lucky back down on the bed, the boy blinked several times, then said, "Daddy? Why are you here? I'm so tired, I want to sleep." Lucky then turned over on his side, sighed and closed his eyes. Luke sat on the edge of the bed, dumbfounded. Didn't Lucky want to talk about his nightmare? And why didn't it seem to affect him now? He shook his head, covered Lucky with his blanket, and headed back to bed. Kids. ***

Luke sat on his bunk with tear-filled eyes. Fear and shame snaked around his insides, looking to seize his heart. What did I miss? he wondered. I should have been there more often, asked more questions. Why was I out of town when Lucky was the most important thing to me in the world? Luke's face fell miserably as he bent over with his head in his hands. I let my son down. Something happened to him, and I didn't protect him. How can I live with that? What am I going to do?

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