The Spencers: (cont.)

Laura: "Hi."
Luke: "Hi."
Laura: "When'd you get back?"
Luke: "This morning."
Laura: "Well, Lulu's not here. I'm sorry. If I had known, I would've--"
Luke: "No, no, that's ok. It's probably better."
Laura: "You know, it's Georgie's birthday today, and Lulu's over at the party, and then afterwards they're going to go to a movie and out for ice cream afterwards. I just talked to Bobbie a little bit ago, and I think it's going to--"
Luke: "Laura, there's something I need to tell you. I've been sitting on it for a while because I wanted to be sure. Now I'm sure."
Laura: "Oh, god, I don't think I'm ready for this--"
Luke: "Laura--Laura?"
Laura: "What?"
Luke: "Lucky's alive."
Laura: "What did you--"
Luke: "Baby, our son is alive. He didn't die in that fire."
Laura: "Are you sure?"
Luke: "It was a hoax. I saw him."
Laura: "Oh, my god!"
Luke: "Not in a vision, in flesh and blood. I saw our boy. He's alive."
Laura: "Oh, my god!"
Luke: "He's alive, baby."
Laura: "Oh, my god!"
Luke: "He's sound and strong."
Laura: "Oh, Luke--oh--oh, god. Oh, my god."

Luke almost smiled as Laura babbled on, and when he tells her, her face changed completely. She screamed, cried, and hugged him. And there for a minute at the end, the old Spencer music from 1993 played over them.

Joan: "One of the truly lovely things about this scene between Luke and Laura when he arrives at her door with news is that she doesn't want to hear what (she believes) he is bursting to tell her. Laura has been spending the last few weeks getting in touch with her real feelings about Luke being with another woman. She believes he has come to her to lay his love for Felicia at her feet, like a family cat bringing its mistress a sleek mouse as evidence of its prowess as a hunter. She wants to stop the words from leaving his mouth, desperately, but realizes he must be heard. The expression of dread and regret on her face is priceless, making the actual dialog that follows all the more extraordinary. While across town, Felicia is using 'Lucky's alive' as a substitute for dealing with her husband's accusations of infidelity, Luke's information is not only miraculous for Laura, it is balm on her sore heart."

Amy "I'm reminded of two things here: 1) Mr. Knightley trying his best to propose to Emma, when she thinks that he's going to tell her that he wants to marry somebody else. 2) Luke's encouragement to her, his support and gentleness, when she wanted to tell him that she wanted a divorce. No wonder she thought he wasn't conflicted!"

Terry: "Genie Francis was incomparable in her reaction to Luke's news. The gal can act. I do wish they hadn't put her hair up on her head that way, and hadn't put her in that red jacket, but she was magnificent."

On the next day:

Luke: "Angel, I need you to brace yourself."
Laura: "Where is he, Luke? Where?"
Luke: "Our boy is alive."
Laura: "Yeah?"
Luke: "But Stefan's got him."
Laura: "What?"

Luke: "It was the night that his boat exploded. He was going to tell me more, but then Mac showed up and started shooting."
Laura: "That's--that's the night that I saw you, right? I was with Stefan on the dock, and--I knew something happened. I knew it."

Laura: "Why would Stefan do that? I mean, he knew--he knew that Lucky was alive. But you knew, right? And you didn't tell me."
Luke: "No, I couldn't tell you. Not until I was sure. It was too crazy. I had to see him with my own eyes."
Laura: "No, but if there was a chance that our son was alive, then why didn't you tell me?"
Luke: "Laura, I wouldn't be telling you now if I weren't sure. There's no way that I would ask you to hope for this miracle and set you up to have your heart broken again. Not unless I was absolutely sure."

Laura: "Are you sure that it was Stefan?"
Luke: "I'm sure."
Laura: "But why would Stefan take Lucky"
Luke: "Come on. This is the guy who kept your mother a prisoner for years and made you think she was dead. He's had plenty of practice at this."
Laura: "Right, but that was because he was trying to protect my mother from Helena."
Luke: "Do you really believe that? He's a Cassadine. He'd do anything to hurt us. You used to know that."

Luke and Laura hugged again at the end of one of these scenes. It would be interesting to watch how all the old mannerisms and endearments would come flooding back, along with the larger stuff.

Amy: "I hesitated to ask this in our earlier discussion of whether Stefan (or Luke) should have told Laura, because the question I have is whether those of us who are mothers would want to know if their child was alive. I wondered if it was me not being a mother, but I still think that if a family member of mine were alive under such circumstances, I would want to know and be pissed that somebody didn't tell me."

Arda: "I'm a mother, and I'll just quickly say that I'm with Amy and Joan on this issue. I'd definitely want to know about my kid(s). I do think Stefan is sincere in wanting the best for Laura, but Lucky is her kid. I can understand Stefan not going to Luke with the news, but he should have gone to Laura. He is trying to control information, which betrays a desire for power as opposed to serving the truth. It's tragic for Stefan, though I like him tragic. And I loved your citing of hubris to explain him, Joan."

Joan: "Yeah, I like him tragic, too. When I was lambasting him before I neglected to say that I agree with Guza in that Stefan happy is always a thing of a moment for me. The guy is just wired for pain and loss."

Terry: "Oddly, at one point, I contemplated whether our different response to what Stefan was doing was due to life experience, but dismissed that angle and didn't even bring it up. Obviously, since Arda, fellow mom, says she'd want to know, it's not a mom-thing. And hypotheticals are tricky--I know it's only hypothetical and can't be sure that the knowledge that it is and that I suffer no real consequences colors my response. But, honestly, while of course in one way I would want to know about my child, I still think in other ways I would not. It's rather like John McCain and the 'your daughter and abortion' question. It's a no-win situation. But if I had spent a year adjusting to the death of my child, and was finally learning to accept it, I would not deal well with learning that never mind, time to start over--he's not dead, but has been taken from me because someone hates me, not because something that could happen to anyone happened to him. I think of Stefan's idea that Lucky could still die, so he wants to spare Laura that."

"Would I want to know that my son wasn't dead after all, but then find out he was dead again? Start the grief all over, with the added burden of knowing he suffered because of me? Because apparently the only scenario in which Stefan would not have told Laura at all (and he doesn't know there's anyone else who would tell her) is if Lucky died. That is what he wanted to spare her, and yes, I'd rather be spared that."

"Would I want to know for a few days that he really was alive, if I would still lose him all over again? Oh, gracious, what a Sophie's choice that is. If all goes well, and I get him back, yep, I'm gonna be pissed at everyone who kept me out of the process of getting him back. But at what point do you decide it's time to tell this emotionally fragile mother? Stefan has one idea and Luke another, and I think they are both basing their decisions on their assessments of Laura's emotional state."

"I guess why I'm stubborn on this point is that I honestly don't see why, if Stefan is wrong in his timing, Luke is right in his? For me, either they both have shortchanged Laura or neither man has. I am willing to entertain the notion that both should have told her sooner and involved her. I am still in need of further persuasion (oh, dear, what am I doing encouraging you guys like that *G*) that Luke was in the right and Stefan was not. I like the idea of Stefan's bad timing--he's going to tell Laura but will arrive too late, he's already alerted Nik to meet him at Laura's. Oh, and in an aside, I like the idea that he thinks to include Nik in the good news. I do NOT like the idea, which may be jumping to conclusions, that everyone, esp. Laura, will condemn Stefan's attempts to spare Laura while congratulating Luke for telling her.

"Luke waited until he saw Lucky with his own eyes. Makes sense. But why not include Laura all along, once he had suspicions, if they share this stake in finding Lucky as his parents? See, I buy his statements to others that Laura should not be given false hope, but I don't see it as so different from Stefan's logic. Stefan thinks telling Laura she will get Lucky back, without freeing the boy from the murderous Helena, is equally dispensing false hope. Once Luke heard Stefan and Andreas talking about where Helena was keeping the Spencer boy, on Helena's yacht in Port Charles, why not drop Felicia off at home and drag Laura along to the cabin by the lake? He DID know at that point that Lucky was alive; he simply had not seen him yet. So if he didn't take Laura then because he didn't know what shape the boy would be in, how they might find him, how is he a lot different than Stefan?

Joan: "Fair enough. But for me, not telling her in this case is different to me than Luke's not telling Laura until he was sure because of the management issue, and also the fact that Stefan is not her husband, not the father of the lost and possibly found child. It's a question of purity of intention, and strangely, Luke comes up purer. He has wanted to tell Laura, but has been afraid of precisely the kind of hurt we're discussing. Still, he really can't wait to tell her, minus a little kiss and cuddle in the office, and he doesn't need to stage manage the time, place and setting. He isn't gift-wrapping the news."

"I keep thinking of when Luke learned that Carly was Bobbie's daughter. He came home to tell her, but ran smack into the aftermath of the Great Cabin Discovery. He lied to her then, creating the fiction of another dead child. I think Luke has been thinking of that, too. And today Laura asked him the question we would, and his answer was satisfactory. The line between his delay and Stefan's is really not all that fine, at least to me. One is untainted by deception and the other, sadly, isn't. Stefan didn't mean to deceive, but he did mean to manage. Big error in judgment."

Amy: "You know, leave it to Joan to put so clearly why I find Stefan at more fault than Luke. I have said already that right and wrong isn't at issue with the timing, and I stand by that. But Stefan still feels at fault to me. And it's the issue of management, Joan. You win my prize, though I have no idea what that is. Of course, management is very true to character for Stefan, while impulse is very true to Luke (though they aren't that black and white)."

"What I like about the above is that Luke has often spun a lie in the spur of the moment--or at least withheld the truth. He didn't tell about Carly because of the affair, he didn't tell about Laura's staged death because of Stefan, and he didn't tell Laura anything more than 'Faison's Dead,' I think because Stefan was standing there. I've often wondered if she were standing alone that night if he would have told her. He paused, as if to add something (and that it was on the docks where he told her Lucky was dead would have been something), but then thought better of it, partly because of Stefan. He then had a line to Felicia about 'Yes, not telling Laura was the right thing to do,' as if he hadn't thought through it completely in the beginning, just gone on instinct. Perhaps it's that instinctual timing that I'm choosing over the methodical planning?"

Terry: "Back to your hypothetical, Amy. I think it's unanswerable. Would I want to know my son were alive? Depends on how it turns out, but I wouldn't know at the point I would be told, would I? If he wound up dead anyway and all that was altered was how and when he died, not whether I got to see him, say goodbye, hold him again, whatever, no, I would not be better off knowing, even if I would doubtless say 'I want to know' if an angel dropped from the sky and posed the question out of the blue as I sat a year after a son's demise. I would have to depend on the people who loved me to do what they felt was best for me. And I think, if I had to try to guess, that Andrew would go get my son and give him to me before he ever let me know that things had changed, that he knew of a hope I did not suspect. In that, he'd be different from (than?) either Luke OR Stefan. Not better, just different. But it's a good question, and it does make me think."

Amy: "And real life hypotheticals only go so far, with a soap. Because, of course, it's a soap, and Laura would eventually find out that Lucky had been alive and died again--in the soap world, they couldn't simply not tell her, and if he died, she'd never know. Either way it went, she would find out. That's just the rule: no secret ever stays a secret."

"I do think that Luke's assessment of her emotional state is slightly better here, because he very clearly is measuring it against his, while I think Stefan--and not wrongly--is measuring it against the sight of her on the train tracks. And I do think that there's the difference. Luke can tell Laura that he has seen Lucky because he is Lucky's parent, and gages her reaction by his own. But though he visited her in the hospital, he was shocked to hear she'd had a breakdown. He knew her to be stronger. He saw the room and the breakdown after the fact; Stefan was there. And I would like to think that's part of his motivation in not telling her even though he knows it for a fact, even though I think she's progressed enough that she's not going to collapse in front of a large, moving vehicle again any time soon."

"The difference in timing for me--and I don't mean to say that one is right and one is wrong--is in the above. They both want to spare her until they are sure. Stefan until he is sure that Lucky is safe, so there is no chance of any more grief. Luke until he is sure that there is hope--that Lucky is alive and that there is a chance. (And isn't that kind of them in a nutshell? Luke works on chances and odds, and Stefan on control?) It's different timing because of different relationships to Laura and Lucky, I think. As Lucky's parent, Luke knows that the hope he's been given is an amazing thing, even if it comes to naught, and he knows Laura should get to have that too--or imagines that she should, at least. And I still think the key here--for me, from what I know of Laura--is that Laura should have the chance to be involved in saving her son, so that no matter how it turns out, she will know she did something."

"I think, if it plays out the way it should (big if), it will be more like the message in Romeo and Juliet. Nobody was righter or wronger, but the timing was everything. However, if Stefan told Laura first, and then Luke told her that Stefan had had Lucky before and didn't tell her, or even if Stefan did? I think she'd still be mad. The bottom line is her realizing that she doesn't trust Stefan, despite the circumstances of who told her the truth and when. That, for me, isn't the issue, though I think it's interesting to see how much their logic is the same and yet still different."

"So neither is more right or more wrong. I just agree with one--or understand one--more than the other about the timing of the telling. And if I were Laura, I'd still be pissed that Felicia (and Alexis, Stefan, and Luke) knew before me, even if I understood it was for my own protection."

Terry: "Here's a funky hypothetical of my own, since I attempted to answer yours. If the rescue mission Stefan pulled had failed, and Luke had watched in horror as Helena's henchmen had shot and killed Lucky, would Luke have gone back to PC and told Laura what happened? Well, given his current feelings about Stefan, perhaps I should also ask, if Luke found out during his investigation that Helena had staged Lucky's death but that he had later died in her care, maybe that Faison had killed him or something, would he have told Laura about that? Should he have? We are working on 'what ifs' knowing that Laura will get Lucky back in the end. What if information came up that changed the specifics of his death but did not lead to a happy ending? Should Laura have been told? I will admit that Stefan would never have told her about Lucky living on if he found out about what Helena had done but also found out Lucky were already dead. I don't think that anyone else involved would have told her either--Alexis, Luke, Felicia."

Amy: "Finally, in a created world of narrative, of course, the writer gets to pick the outcome. Luke can tell her this earlier than Stefan, look better (for some), and be rewarded because she does see Lucky again, and because it does work out. Everything stacked on his side. It could, of course, go the other way. Luke tells her, and Lucky is dead when they get to him. Then maybe it's the wrong choice. Etc. But I still think it's a soap, and somewhere, somehow, Laura would have found out that Lucky didn't die when she thought he did."

"Would I want to know? Yes. Would I choose to tell her? Yes. If all those other people know, she deserves to know too. And how could Luke hide it from her, really? Wouldn't she read something on his face? And I wouldn't want her to hear it months later from somebody else. And she should know the danger from Helena. Finally, I still come down firmly on the side that Laura should get to know. Period. Doesn't matter whether she sees Lucky again or not; the point is that she gets to know the truth about her son."

Terry: "I have a different question: Why did Faison tell Luke Lucky was alive? I know, plot device. But is it believable from a character standpoint? I think so, but I'm torn about why he would have done it. To screw Helena? To torture Luke? To acknowledge Luke as a worthy adversary deserving of a reward? All of the above? And whatever happened to that 'And....' he was supposed to utter. Guza claimed he said it; Geary claimed he said it; spoilers included it. He was supposed to have said, 'Lucky is alive. And....' before Mac started shooting and his boat blew up. But I saw that scene more than once. He just said. 'Lucky is alive.' No 'and.' Yep, nitpicking, but I just wonder why they didn't make sure the "and" got in there somehow."

Amy: "If he thought that he was actually going to get away in that boat, then yes, it was a way to throw a wrench in Hel's plans after she'd helped him get out of jail and out of the murder charge threats from Mac (for Kat's death). A way to continue the game. Because if he'd survived, I'd bet he would have taken Lucky back from Hel, etc."

"But I seem to remember that Luke projected the 'and' on there. He was thinking about what Faison might have said, had Mac not shown up. Maybe I'm wrong."

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