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Blown
Chapter Seventeen
"Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain"

The Road
May 15, 2005
5:52AM

Gia doesn't remember the name of the town--doesn't care to remember because, as far as she's concerned, every dusty town in Nevada is Nowheresville. They are parked, two streets over from the all night gas station, not far from the Interstate on-ramp. Stefan sits on the passenger side, the bright blue package in his lap, the plastic tray pulled forward to reveal three rows of chocolate chip cookies. He doesn't pick at random between the rows. He eats down one row, one cookie after another. Every now and then, she steals one.

He's mostly through eating by the time he realizes that she is watching him by the glow of the street lamp. He looks up. "What?"

She leans her head back against the seat, wistful for a moment, although she couldn't explain why. "I think there's something I should tell you," she says. She hesitates for a second, then nods. "Before I ask you the final question, I think I should level with you."

He rubs cookie crumbs out of his beard. "Why does that sound so ominous?"

She pushes her bangs back out of her eyes, confesses, "I know I argued you up to twelve questions, but there's only ever been one question that I wanted to ask you, Stefan. Only one."

He strains for nonchalance when he asks, "Then why the pretense?"

Caught off guard, she replies, "It wasn't pretense."

He stows the package of cookies on the dashboard, dusts cookie from his suit coat as he counters, "You were using the other eleven questions to lower my defenses so that you could ask THIS one. I'm fairly certain that is the definition of pretense."

"I told you I wanted your secrets, Stefan. I haven't lied to you and I don't think you've lied to me, either. That was the point. I couldn't just ask you at the beginning. I couldn't ask you because I couldn't be sure whether or not you were lying."

"But, now you think you can be sure? You think you know me well enough? You overestimate your own perceptions, Gia. "

She crosses her arms over her chest. "You don't think I've learned anything about you in the past two days? You don't think I know you--not even in the slightest?"

He scoffs. "Just what is it you think you know about me?"

His tone irks her and so she leans over the center console, latches on to his left wrist with both hands. She looks him in the eye as she declares, "You don't like yourself." There is a pause, an extended period where all they do is stare at each other. Gia clears her throat. "I would ask you why...but I don't think that's a question you can answer."

His jaw twitches, but he says nothing.

"I know you're very intelligent. I think, sometimes, your mind is a terrible place to be--but that's just a hunch. That's MY instinct. I do know that there are things that are transparent to you--plain as day--that other people just can't see. You think that's a curse. That's why Finnegan's Wake is your favorite book. Because you don't get it. Because it's not readily apparent to you what it is or what it means. You keep reading it, hoping to figure it out and dreading the day that you do. You like the mystery. You like that it stretches you--because very few things do."

Stefan sits very, very still. It seems he has walked quite willingly into a trap. She made him think that she was conceding when, all along, she was pulling victories down left and right. Her questions, for the most part, seemed innocuous. But, in reality, she was peeling him--layer by layer--as if he were an onion. Could he really have given all this away without realizing it?

"It's the same for music. You like it complicated. You love big concertos, symphonies...lines and lines of notes strung across bars. My music seems too easy. You don't hear where it's complicated and so you dismiss it." She releases a breath, drops her eyes to the curve of his jaw line, the slope of his shoulders. The circle of her hands tighten around his wrist. "Do you want me to stop?" she asks.

He twists his wrist, pulls it from her grasp. He insists, "By all means, finish what you've started."

She raises her head to look at him. His face has drained of color and his lips have stretched to a thin white line on his face. "You are tired and you are lonely. And most of all, you are damaged. There's more pain in you than anyone else I've ever met. But you don't run from the pain, you don't try to numb it. You court the pain...because day in, day out--the pain is the only way you know you're still alive."

He steeples his fingers together underneath his chin and closes his eyes. "This is what you think of me?" he asks, his voice low and strangled.

"It's just that--every now and then, it's like you've walked out into a bright spotlight--and I can see you more clearly than I ever have. But just as quickly, the light dims and I feel like I've just imagined it...Today, though, I know this is who you are. When I look at you, this is what I see."

He shudders. "Then how can you stand to look at me?"

"How can I not?" She holds her hands out in front of her, palms to the sky. "How could I turn away when you're the most complicated, most fascinating man I've ever met? When you're so generous to everyone but yourself? When you're willing to take care of everyone but yourself?"

She's said the wrong thing, this she knows, because he recoils from her. His words emerge, clipped and strained. "Maybe it's time you just asked your question," he suggests.

"Wait a second, okay--"

"Ask me the damn question, already!" he roars. His eyes flash wide and for a moment, he's lost control, but just as quickly he reigns himself in--forces the anger and frustration back behind his icy exterior. Calm now, he repeats himself. "Ask the question."

For a long, painful moment, neither of them say anything. Then...

"Why do you insist on lying about the fact that you're Nikolas' biological father?"

There is another moment of silence before he reacts.

"How dare you?" he spits, furious. She's done this on purpose, he knows--thrusted this loaded question at him, made their entire deal contingent on a question he can't possibly answer. A panic, thick and wild courses through him. “You shouldn't have done this."

"I had to," she counters. "It was the only way."

"You didn't have to and you know it...the presuppositions you've made...the whole thing is abhorrent to me, Gia," he replies with a stern, disapproving tone--almost like a teacher lecturing a failing student. "Regardless of how I answer, you've trapped me into some sort of admission. And it's that very reason why I can't possibly answer..."

She knows what she's done and she's not foolish enough to think he'll answer directly. However, she doesn't think there's anything wrong with ruffling his feathers, with making it very clear to him what she already suspects is true. "You don't like the way I asked? I can rephrase the question, Stefan. A million different ways...I can rephrase it. I can ask you until I'm blue in the face and you'll still refuse to answer. The one question you would answer is the only question I can't ask. I can't ask you, point blank, if you're Nikolas' father because you'll say no...and we'll both know it's a lie."

"Don't you dare tell me what I know," he seethes. "Furthermore, I have never said or implied that anyone other than Stavros was Nikolas' father. So, whatever it is you *think* you know, you're wrong. All of this is just a product of your overactive imagination, of your overwhelming need to create drama as a cure for your own boredom. You'll excuse me if I don't play into your delusions."

"This isn't my overactive imagination, Stefan. I'm not delusional."

"Why is THIS the big question, Gia? You haven't seen Nikolas in years. You're no longer apart of his life. What difference does it make to you who his biological father is and whether or not he ever learns the truth? What's your stake?"

"Stake? I don't have a stake...I'm just here with maybe the only person on the planet that can definitively answer my question. Of course, I'm going to try to coax it out of you."

He sets his jaw. "You're lying."

"What? No--"

"You're lying. For whatever reason, you have a stake. And, it's not that the opportunity presented itself. You've been working up to this since yesterday. I just want to know why. Why is the answer to this question so important to you?"

She leans against the door of the car, licks her lips before responding, "It's not."

"Do you think you're the only one who has been paying attention? I think I've learned a few things about you."

"Well, this trip is about reciprocity, Stefan. Tell me about myself."

He levels her with an even gaze. "There's a part of you that's empty. That's why you consume things the way you do. You're always looking for something to fill up that void inside of you. You think you've found what you've been looking for, but in the end, it fails to live up to the expectations you've set and you're disappointed. That's why every book is your favorite until you've finished it. That's why you discard it when you're done. That's why your musical taste is so varied. When a person loves everything, it really means they love nothing, at all. Nothing satisfies you, Gia. Because of that, everything is disposable. It's why you have an expensive legal education you don't use, friends and family you don't speak to, and--I suspect--a string of lovers you've walked out on."

Her eyes sting with unshed tears. "You're saying I'm a flake?"

"I think that you've lost faith and you don't know how to reclaim it. I think you're lonely. I think you're grieving--over your mother's death, over your father's rejection, over decisions you've made. And the grief, is eating you up."

She takes a deep breath. "And?"

"You don't like yourself anymore than I like myself. You're beautiful, but you can only convince yourself of it half of the time. You see yourself through your stepmother's eyes. Sharon broke something inside of you a long time ago. You don't trust what you see with your own eyes--but if someone else tells you--you'll latch on to that, make it your truth."

"Is that it?"

"You're vindictive. You hate the idea that someone who wronged you would be able to walk away unscathed. You don't want people to think you're weak, you don't want to be seen as a victim. And that...that is the real reason you maced me. It had very little to do with your personal safety. In the heat of the moment, you wanted to punish me for even *thinking* I could intimidate you."

She bows her head.

Stefan thinks he's hurt her. He wants to reach for her, but his hands lay unmoving in his lap. He has to stand his ground. He let her have her say. The least she can do is let him have his turn. He exhales, says, "You say you can see through me...well, I can see through you, too. And I know you're lying...You have a very distinct reason for asking me THIS question. I want to know what it is."

When she looks up, her eyes glitter, dark and challenging. She raises her chin. "Answer my question...answer my question and then you can ask me one of your own. If you ask the right question, then you'll know ---you'll have your answer. And, we'll be even."

"It's not about being even. Don't you understand? This is not a game. This is my life and my life is not an open wound for you to pick at to your heart's content. Your question is cruel and your manner is heartless. I will not answer. Either ask me another question or concede that you've defaulted on the deal. Those are your choices."

She looks away, looks out the windshield into the simmering night. She contemplates these choices he's given her--rejects them both. "I know the way I worded the question, the way I set it up--pissed you off...I'm not so dense as to think I could trick a man like you with a turn of words," she explains. "When it comes to manipulation and subterfuge, I'm out of my league. I know that. But, when it comes to people--you're out of yours. You forget...I stood in a cavern thirty stories beneath General Hospital, watched the malignancy that was your family, as the whole lot of you plotted to destroy each other. I know that the only thing that kept me alive was Nikolas--was his place in the family. His role as the prince...We both know what would have happened if Stavros had come back a few years earlier--back when Nikolas and everyone else still thought you were his father. It would have been a disaster. I guess we're all just lucky that you have so many contingency plans..."

He keeps his eyes trained forward. "It had nothing to do with me or contingency plans. Alexis revealed the truth of Nikolas' paternity. I suppose we should all be grateful she did. The truth proved rather beneficial--to you especially, it seems."

Gia rolls her eyes. "Oh, my God, you're like the Wizard of Oz. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain..." she sighs, rubbing her eyes. "Maybe everyone else is satisfied with the illusion, maybe everyone else is content to let you orchestrate these twists of fate from your lofty perch...but I'm not. I mean, it's a pretty good puppet show, but I can still see the strings."

He says nothing more and she realizes they have reached an impasse. Another silence sets, and they sit, separated by more than just the center console. All around them, the night is breaking--the black lifting to a pilfering gray. Soon, the sun will rise on the new day. It will rise, but no light will be shed and nothing will be different in her world or in his.

She shakes her head, her frustration obvious. "What you said about me is true," she offers him, her voice dark and forlorn. "I am what you say. I am a lying, vindictive, self-loathing, flake. And if I could change that, I would...lord knows, I would, but I don't think it's possible. I tried once...tried to be a different kind of woman. The kind of woman I imagined was suited to a man like Nikolas. I tried to be sensible, to be even-tempered, to be honest. I tried...but it was false and when I found out I was pregnant, that new Gia fell by the wayside. I made a decision and I did what had to be done. The thing is--if I had to go back in time, had to make the decision again...It would be the same."

The conversation has veered and he struggles to understand what she's telling him--to understand why she's telling him this now. He shifts in his seat. "I was under the impression that this was one of the decisions you regretted..."

"It's not so much that I regret the act, as it is that I just can't seem to get over it. I can't forget and I can't move on and I can't do anything but wish that life had led me down a completely different path to begin with...It's maybe what my grandmother said about hell--- about having to live with the destruction we bring to our own lives. But, I can't even live with it...it's just gotten to the point where I'm sinking under the weight of it. I'm just...dying, Stefan..."

Her voice breaks and he realizes that she's crying. Slick, shimmering tears roll, unchecked, over the curve of her cheeks. "Why are you doing this to yourself?" he asks.

"You don't understand...This is it. This is why I have to know, Stefan...It's why you have to answer the question I asked you..."

Startled, he reaches for her, cups her cheek in his palm. "What does one have to do with the other?"

Her tears run over his fingers, a hot flood. Before she can stop herself, she responds, "Nikolas wasn't the father."

"What?"

"He couldn't have been because when I conceived..." she pauses to swallow, "we were broken up. At Helena's request, he dumped me for Elizabeth Webber. He said he didn't love me anymore. It was a bad time--I was in bad shape and I wasn't thinking clearly...I made a huge mistake. There was a man. He was a stranger, but he didn't feel like a stranger. He felt familiar. The same way you feel familiar..."

Realization dawns on Stefan and he feels sick to his stomach. He remembers Helena, at the height of her madness, unleashing a series of events that could have and should have buried them all. His gut twists and he hasn't been this terrified in a long time. "What are you telling me?"

She blinks back a fresh onslaught of tears. The words are barely more than a whisper when she answers, "Stavros was the father of my child, Stefan."