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Here, at last, is the next part of "Reclaiming Forever." I decided to take a slightly different tack and split the big, emotional Lucas/Lorna scenes into two parts, so here's the first part of their conversation. I hope you enjoy it.

Amy

"Reclaiming Forever," Part 7

"Flight 1017 from O'Hare Airport, now arriving at Gate 14," the airport loudspeaker exclaimed. Lucas pitched his empty paper cup of coffee in a nearby trash can and headed closer to the gate.

Lorna Devon Carlino, sunglasses hiding her eyes from both the bright summer sun of Bay City and the expression of the jet lag she was feeling, was walking beside her husband of 10 days, Joe Carlino. Her arm was around his waist, and his arm was around her shoulders. But as soon as they reached the terminal she began looking for her father. When she spotted Lucas, she pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and called, "Daddy!" Lucas turned his head in the direction of Lorna's voice and smiled when he saw her waving at him. He started walking towards her, and she quickened her steps until they met in a big hug.

"Welcome home, newlyweds!" Lucas exclaimed as he and Lorna hugged. He then stepped back from Lorna and extended his hand to Joe for a handshake. "How was Paris?"

"Very romantic," Lorna replied.

"We had a wonderful time," Joe said. The trio headed for the baggage claim, Lorna walking between Lucas and Joe, one arm linked through her father's arm, holding her husband's hand with her other hand. "And does my wife know how to shop!"

"Well, we had to get souvenirs for everybody!" Lorna exclaimed.

"Just so you didn't get me a beret," Lucas said.

"Of course not, Daddy," Lorna said. "Mom gets the beret. And the feather boa."

Lucas laughed appreciatively. "Smart girl," he replied.

They had reached the baggage claim by now, and Joe started pulling his and Lorna's suitcases off the carousel as they came around. "Daddy, about Mom, and about setting the two of you up to meet at my apartment--" she began.

"Your heart was in the right place, and I appreciate the effort," Lucas said. "I can't say the same for your mother right now, though."

"Believe me, I know," Lorna said. "We already had words about it. But she has to realize, and so do Jenna and Dean for that matter, that not seeing you isn't going to resolve anything!"

"Actually, speaking of your mother, and Jenna and Dean, I know that you're just back from your honeymoon, and if you're too tired to do it today, I completely understand, but I'd really like to talk to you about the family, Lorna," Lucas said.

Joe heard this. "Actually, I need to go to the station house for a few hours, so if you'd like to catch up with your dad, sweetheart, now would be a good time," he said.

"Ryan wants you to come in to work the day you get back from your honeymoon?" Lucas asked, frowning. That wasn't the Ryan Harrison he remembered.

"No, sir...I mean, Lucas. I have some new developments in a case that I need to check on. Ryan...that is, Commissioner Harrison...doesn't even know we're back yet," Joe replied.

"You're sure?" Lorna asked Joe.

"I'm sure," Joe replied. "I'll catch a cab to the apartment, drop off the luggage, and pick up my car, and you can go with your dad. If you don't go back to our place, he can drop you there later, or I'll pick you up on my way home from the station house. Sound like a plan?"

"Okay," Lorna agreed. She and Joe shared a lingering kiss. Lucas averted his eyes, smiling all the while. Joe flagged down a skycap, who helped him with all the luggage, and after he had left, Lorna smiled at Lucas. Lucas was struck again by how much she looked like Fanny. "Well, where to?" she asked.

"I found a place while you and Joe were on your honeymoon," Lucas replied. "Would you like to see it?"

"I would love to," Lorna said, putting her arm through Lucas's again. "Lead the way."
**************************************************************************************************** ***

"This is really in-your-face," Lorna observed as Lucas unlocked the front door of his suite. "I like it."

"This is where I lived before Fanny and I got married," Lucas replied, opening the door and ushering her in ahead of him. "The furniture's different, but that's about the only thing that's changed."

"Wow, you lived one floor down from Mom for, like, a year before you two got together?" Lorna asked. "I didn't know that."

"It was a little over a year," Lucas replied as he removed his jacket and draped it over the back of the chair. "But when I found it was available again, I had to take it."

"I think it's brilliant," Lorna replied. "You'll see Mom in the halls, on the elevator, and of course TOPS is right upstairs. I know you guys got married there. I saw the pictures. That's why Joe and I got married there. And so did Dean and Jenna. We wanted to get married in the same place that you and Mom did." She seated herself on the couch. Lucas sat down next to her.

"Would you like some iced tea or lemonade or bottled water or anything?" Lucas asked.

"I'm fine," Lorna said. "Now, what was it you wanted to talk to me about regarding the family? Have any of them cut you a break since I've been on my honeymoon?"

"No, not really," Lucas replied.

Lorna shook her head. "Well, I'm not really surprised by that. We're a stubborn group of people. But I'm back now, Daddy, and you don't have to face off against Mom or Jenna and Dean or anybody alone."

"I know, sweetheart, and I appreciate that," Lucas said. He took Lorna's hands in his and held them. "The thing is, I..." He trailed off.

"What?" Lorna asked. She looked at Lucas so earnestly, he thought his heart would crack wide open.

"I have some questions," he said.

"I have some questions too," Lorna said. "You flatlined when I was holding you. I climbed into the hospital bed with you because you were cold, and I was telling you how I was going to make things right with Jenna, and for Dean, and I wouldn't fight with Mom anymore, and I'd knit you a whole wardrobe, and put on a whole Christmas shabang, and...Obviously, and thank God, you didn't die, but how did that happen? How did you survive?"

"Before you came in to see me, Fanny and Jenna were in the chapel," Lucas told Lorna. "Do you remember Dr. Beckett?"

Lorna frowned. "Dr. Beckett..." she said. "No. I remember Jamie Frame rushing into the ER cubicle and seeing you'd been shot. I remember wanting to throttle Kelsey Harrison because she wouldn't tell me anything other than you were in surgery. And John Hudson came in when Mom and Jenna and I were just standing there after you...after we thought you...well, you know." She paused. "Wait a minute! Beckett...Was he the young guy that was with Jamie Frame? I remember this young doctor came out of your cubicle and said that they needed to find your family fast because you needed surgery, and I told him I'd sign whatever he wanted me to sign, just do whatever they had to do to save you, and he asked if I was family, and I told him I was your daughter. Was that him?"

"Yes, that was Dr. Beckett," Lucas replied. "He was on the government's payroll. Sally wasn't supposed to shoot me. That's not how I was supposed to...disappear. Anyway, Beckett came in after Fanny and Jenna had left, and before you got there. He put something in my IV that would make it look like I died, and he told me I had one hour left to say my final goodbyes. After that, they'd be transporting me to a first-class cardiac hospital under an assumed name. So that last hour, I was with you."

"That's why you kept telling me not to go," Lorna said, releasing one of her father's hands and putting her hand to her mouth.

"I didn't know when I'd see you again," Lucas replied. "I was determined to cram as much into that one hour as I could."

"Then your heart--" Lorna said.

"Jamie Frame didn't lie to Fanny and Jenna. The damage was severe. But they saved my life at the cardiac hospital. I went through rigorous physical therapy and rehabilitation. The docs all said it was sheer force of will and stubbornness that kept me alive and kept me going," Lucas said.

"But Jamie said there was irreparable damage to your heart," Lorna said.

"There was," Lucas said. "But it's okay." He paused. "I had a heart transplant four years ago, after another close call. One of the agents guarding me took a bullet in the head that was meant for me. He was an organ donor, and we matched. So I can honestly say I have the heart of a 30-year-old man." Lucas rested his palm over his chest. "But even if I didn't have a new heart, I'd still be here, because I knew that I would do whatever it took, no matter how long it took, to get back to you and your mother and your sister."

Lorna leaned back against the couch. "Wow," she said. "You being here really IS a miracle, Daddy, on so many levels!"

"And I'm never going away again," Lucas vowed. "Not to where I don't come back, I mean."

Lorna smiled. "You're really here, and you're really okay," she said. Impulsively, she hugged Lucas again. "And we're going to be a whole family again, Daddy, I promise you. Mom and Jenna and Dean can't stay mad at you forever. Especially Mom, especially after she finds out what you went through, with the cardiac hospital, and the heart transplant."

"Don't say anything to your mother or Jenna and Dean for now," Lucas said as he drew back from Lorna. "I want to tell them myself, when the time is right. You can tell Joe, of course. But don't tell anyone else, all right?"

"If that's what you want, that's what I'll do," Lorna replied. She brushed her hair behind her ear. "Well, I had my most immediate, burning questions answered, so I guess it's your turn. What do you want to know?"

Lucas took a deep breath and then looked Lorna squarely in the eye. "Fanny and Dean have both said something to the effect of Dean being there for my family when I wasn't, and being there for the hell that all of you went through. What hell? What happened to you and Fanny and Jenna after I left, Lorna?"

Lorna suddenly looked very uncomfortable. "I can tell you what happened to me," she said. "It won't be easy, but I can tell you what happened to me, Daddy. But Mom, and Jenna and Dean...You really should hear it from them."

"Lorna, they won't talk to me," Lucas replied. "And I'm desperate and very worried. Bad things happened, didn't they?"

Lorna looked down at her lap. "Yes," she murmured.

"To all of you?" Lucas asked.

"Yes," Lorna replied, still looking at her lap.

Lucas ran his hand around his mouth, his old nervous habit resurfacing again. "What happened, Lorna?" he asked. Lorna looked at him. "Please," he said, "I need to know. You can tell me. Whatever it is, you can tell me."

Now it was Lorna who took a deep breath. "We all survived, Daddy," she said. "You have to remember that and hold onto that, all right? We all survived."

Lucas was scared now. "This is really serious, isn't it?" he asked.

Lorna dipped her chin once in a nod. "Very serious," she replied.

"Tell me," Lucas implored. "Please. I have to know."

Lorna looked at her father for a long moment without saying anything, and then opened her mouth to speak.

TO BE CONTINUED
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Made by Dean_FrankieCass_addict

I like it. It is so good.

Fantastic!! Why couldn't TPTB at AW bring Lucas back like that instead of casting JA as Alexander Nikos!!! And making Dr. Beckett a part of that ~ until you posted the latest *Lucas gets shot* I didn't remember Dr. Beckett at all but making him the G-man is perfect!!!

Quote:

Lucas ran his hand around his mouth, his old nervous habit resurfacing again.

He used to do this all the time ~ I always thought that JA was trying to remember his lines!!!

Part 8 ~ time for Lucas to learn the truth!!!

A Cool

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"It has been a magnificent journey..." ~ Linda Dano, 1999 Daytime Emmys

https://twitter.com/AWFans

Quote:

And making Dr. Beckett a part of that ~ until you posted the latest *Lucas gets shot* I didn't remember Dr. Beckett at all but making him the G-man is perfect!!!

That actually came to me while I was writing. It was already established by Ryan in part 2 (I think it was part 2) that no one who was on the Bay City PD at the time knew anything about Lucas going into the
Witness Protection Program, and at Lorna and Joe's reception, John Hudson said to Lucas, "I told them to take you away (after you died)," and Lucas replied that he heard John, and Felicia realized that Luke heard everything she said to him after they thought he'd died and that was when she smacked him one.

But Luke needed somebody to help get him out of Bay City, and when I saw the scenes with Dr. Beckett (Lucas'll be explaining this to Felicia too; remember the scene where Beckett tells Felicia that Lucas has slipped into a light coma, and "that's what usually happens"? Technically, Beckett wasn't lying: the drug he put in Lucas's IV made it look like he flatlined, and Lucas was, indeed, in a drug-induced coma during the transport from Bay City General to the hush-hush cardiac hospital, where he was checked in under an assumed name), I thought, "Perfect! He has no major ties on the canvas to Bay City, and he's one of Lucas's attending physicians," and then the "light coma" scene with Felicia was just too perfect for me NOT to use in my story. So that's how Lucas got out of Bay City: with Beckett's help.

Quote:

Quote:
Lucas ran his hand around his mouth, his old nervous habit resurfacing again.

He used to do this all the time ~ I always thought that JA was trying to remember his lines!!!

That could be. But I picked up on it, and tagged it as a nervous habit for the sake of this story.

Quote:

Part 8 ~ time for Lucas to learn the truth!!!

Yes! And it's not easy for him or for Lorna, although she does try to put the best possible spin on at least Jenna and Dean's situation (losing the baby). I'm hoping to have part 8 finished by next week.

Thank you, Nettie, Michelle, I'm so glad you're enjoying the story! Laughing

Amy
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Made by Dean_FrankieCass_addict

Quote:

when I saw the scenes with Dr. Beckett (Lucas'll be explaining this to Felicia too; remember the scene where Beckett tells Felicia that Lucas has slipped into a light coma, and "that's what usually happens"? Technically, Beckett wasn't lying: the drug he put in Lucas's IV made it look like he flatlined,

When you put it this way, I wonder if that was Head Writer Donna Swajeski's plan when she wrote the scenes. Why add Dr. Beckett when you had three characters that were already doctors? John, Jamie or Kelsey could have delivered that dialogue, but instead Swajeski chose to add a sort of rogue doctor to tell Felicia that Luke had slipped into a "light coma" etc, etc. Maybe Swajeski was hoping that somewhere down the line it would have been possible to bring Lucas "back" by doing a flashback to Dr. Bennett's involvement. Of course, by the time JA did return to AW, the show had gone thru many head writers (including Round Two of DeBeast) and JFP and I'm sure that all continuity was lost. I often wondered if soaps employed a "historian" of sorts ~ someone who kept a record of each character and his/her history (like Eddie does in his character analysis). That would have been an awesome job!!

A Cool

_________________
"It has been a magnificent journey..." ~ Linda Dano, 1999 Daytime Emmys

https://twitter.com/AWFans

One could have only hoped so Annette.

Amy, I can't wait to read your next part. This is a great story that you have written.

Janie

I'm not sure if it was what Donna Swajeski had in mind, but after seeing Lucas's death scenes, and Dr. Beckett's part in them, and knowing that I needed a plausible explanation for how Lucas got out of Bay City without any of the established characters who were doctors or involved in law enforcement in any way, I added Beckett to the story because that grounded it in the canon of the show and made it make even more sense.

From where I was sitting as a writer, when they had the chance to really talk, Lorna's first question to Lucas would of course be, "How did you get out of the hospital with me, Mom, Jenna and everyone thinking you were dead?" My scenario all along was going to be that there was a doctor working for the Feds that helped get Lucas out of there, but once I saw Beckett's part in the story--and especially his "light coma" remark/explanation to Felicia--I wanted to use it, so I did, and also used more of what actually happened on the show: Yes, Lucas was shot by Sally Madison. But that wasn't supposed to be how he disappeared. (Again, he will explain this in greater detail to Felicia at a later point in the story.) The plan for his disappearance was already in place when the Feds learned via the police scanner of his shooting, which meant they had to change their plan and get Lucas out of there ASAP. Instead of some anonymous doctor as the Feds' plant at Bay City General, I made Beckett their plant; he was part of Jamie's mentor program, but his main reason for being there was to help Lucas escape later in the summer after a staged car accident that was supposed to leave his body burned beyond recognition, which was my original scenario for his disappearance with Dr. Anonymous.
(I grew up on As the World Turns, where James Stenbeck survived being shot in the back four times, stabbed in the stomach and left to bleed to death in a hotel room in Hong Kong, burned up in the Ruxton Hills fire, and my personal favorite, fell out of a plane at 30,000 feet--all at different times--and he came back from all of those, because we never saw his body, which is why I call the old soap axiom "If you don't see a body, they're not really dead" by my own name: The James Stenbeck Rule. Of course, we saw Lucas's body, but there are ways to get around that and have it make sense, which is what I'm trying to do here.)

It also makes it more poignant, I think. It will also be later revealed that when Lucas asks Felicia, "I'm not gonna make it, Fanny, am I?" that at that moment, he really did think he was dying. The way I set up the timeline is that Beckett came in after Jenna left Lucas's side and Felicia took her to the chapel to tell her the truth about Lorna, and before Lorna got to Lucas's room. In that time, Beckett injected Lucas's IV with the drug that would simulate death by slowing his heartbeat down to an almost undetectable level (which explains the flatline) and also put him in a light coma. The drug would take effect one hour from the time of injection--which gave Lucas just enough time to make as much peace with Lorna as he could before he went into the coma. Beckett also told Lucas of the plans for his further cardiac rehabilitation at the other hospital, and that they believed they could save him there, so Lucas knew he still had a chance to make it through the shooting and someday come back to Felicia and their daughters, as he'd planned all along. (The heart transplant part popped into my head while I was writing, because I didn't want to take too many medical liberties--even talking about blood and guts make me squeamish--and because of the established damage to Lucas's heart, I felt that a heart transplant would give him even more time to spend with his family, even though they'll never get those five years back.) And this scenario also allows me to use more of what happened on the actual show, and give certain exchanges/pieces of dialogue a whole new meaning. One of them has been explained already: Lucas didn't want Lorna to go because he knew that that hour was the only time he would have with her until who knew when. The other exchanges/pieces of dialogue, all of which are either exchanges between Felicia and Lucas, or things Felicia said after she thought Lucas had died, will be explained in later parts of the story, when Felicia and Lucas finally actually talk.

I'm glad you're all enjoying the story, and I hope you continue to do so. Thanks for reading and giving me feedback! Laughing

Amy
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Made by Dean_FrankieCass_addict

On another note, I am glad that Jamie had that mentor program without him being romatically involved with Kelsey and that whole mess at the hospital in your version of things. I am glad that he still took care of Lucas, too.

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