General Hospital Fan Fiction Message Board

Thurs– travel day to The City game at the garden
Fri– fitting and script for L&O SVU
Sat– game in philly/have to fly. Mouse?
Sun– study, study study– early night
Mon– report to work
Tues– report to work
Wed– just in case day/brighton with Baba?
Thurs travel day
Fri– game in Boston weekend with Twink
Monday– fly back to LA out of Logan

Sat– game in philly/have to fly. Mouse?

Mouse had come through with the best tickets for the trip to Philly. He’d also reminded them that Philly does not have a CSMC presence. There is no backup there if anything happens so enjoy the game but keep their eyes open to any signs of trouble. He has a car service meet them at the airport. The driver had stopped at a local Best Eats kind of place to pick up enough food for not only them but also the two people they are meeting. Lincoln Upton’s father, Abe, and brother, Isaac, are taking them to the game. They spend the time from picking up the two getting acquainted and chowing down on junk food that would get Fancy in trouble with Baba if she knew. It’s a Saturday night game and the place is packed to the rafters and noisy.

The seats are great but Frankie isn’t too happy with them. They are within the range of Fancy getting crushed by a player trying to get a ball before it goes out of bounds. He sets things up so that Isaac is on the other side of Fancy, if worst comes down to it hopefully they’d be able to block some of it. Isaac is much better than Frankie about explaining things while the game was going on. Frankie would wait for a whistle before explaining anything, if then. Lincoln Upton doesn’t give any sign that his dad and brother are in the house. Philly might be the city of Brotherly love but it is also a city that is very hostile to opposing teams whether it was football, baseball, hockey or basketball. He wanted his family to enjoy the game not get doused with beer.

This is a much more competitive game than the Knicks had put up, or Toronto either. When the Fox Sports West camera man pans to Fancy and the others, her truer personality comes out watching the game. It isn’t rah rah and cheerleaderish it’s narrow eyed focus on the game and the players. The camera catches her leaning toward Isaac with his arm around the back of her chair and nodding at what he is telling her while not taking her eyes off the floor.

At half time the announcer makes his way down to the floor to get a quick bit with Fancy before heading back to the locker room to catch a bit with the coach before they start the second half.

“So Faith Monroe, what do you think of tonight’s game?”

“It’s a tough game isn’t it?” Fancy nods. “This is going to be a long one and challenging on every turn of the court. This Sixers team is the best conditioned team I’ve seen the Lakers play on this road trip.”

“You think it’s going to come down to legs.”

Fancy looks over at Isaac, not familiar with the phrase.

“He means it’ll come down to the team who isn’t falling down exhausted at the end.”

“That’s what I said.” Fancy shakes her head. “This is Isaac Upton and his father Abe. They were kind enough to bring us to the game.”

“Linc Upton?” The announcer realizes the connection. “He’s stepped up in the sixth man spot 8 points in the first half.”

“He’s getting it done.” Abe nods proud of his son but keeping it lowkey.

“Well thank you and enjoy the second half.” The sports announcer nods as he gets the word in his ear that they are in commercial and then back to the studio as he gets in place for the next bit. “I have to get back there and see if I can get something from the coach before the second half.”

It turned into a game of last possession in the double overtime. Fancy and Frankie miss their plane back to the city. When it looked like it was going to happen, Frankie had gotten on the phone to Mouse and let him know the score. Mouse had been doing the research quickly. If they make amtrak by midnight they’d be able to take the train back to the city. If it’s later than midnight then their driver is going to be getting a hell of a tip. Mouse doesn’t want them spending the night in Philly. The trip is 100 miles. It’s going to be a hell of a tip.

Sun– study, study study– early night
Mon– report to work
Tues– report to work

Everyone on the set of the shoot have been wonderful. Of course they are treating her like a pro and because of Uncle Stefan’s training that is exactly what they are getting. She knows her lines, nails her mark and takes direction precisely and with alacrity. Many of the actors-- this is their punch a time clock gig. What they do until they can go home to their families. When cut is called, they are gone. They do their work social stuff during work hours: breaks, lunch, downtime. One of the actors had broken into the business as a second career. His first career had been as a rap star back in LA. He’d had his share of label fights over content and seen the stuff that had gone down west coast/east coast back in the day. She’d been on his radar because of the scandal of course, porn always did catch people’s notice... for or against-- it would be noticed. But it was more her appearance in the Michaelsons’ video and her ties to CSMC. He knows all about the fight between CSMC and the Michaelsons’ old label.

“Your mother is just lucky she wasn’t going up against Shug.” One of the original gangsta rappers informs her. “Poaching the label that way.”

Frankie is smirking over in a corner and not saying a word.

Fancy looks over at Frankie. “How straight can I be with this guy, Frankie?”

Frankie shakes his head. “You don’t know jack, Fancy, and your mother likes it that way. Lets just say... nobody has seen the guy who did Fancy’s straight to video since Baby found out about it. Nobody.”

“Frankie, you were out on the east coast when all that happened taking care of Baba. You don’t know anything either.” Fancy covers for Frankie. Course the rapper knows what they are doing. It’s all hearsay. All true but still hearsay. “The Michaelsons like being on the CSMC label. I saw the contract they signed with their old label. They had to be drunk or have a gun to their heads to sign it.”

“You actually saw the original contract?!”

“Oh yeah. All those acts that CSMC poaches,” Fancy makes little quote marks in the air. “Alecia, the head of the label, keeps a copy of their original contract as a training tool. She even makes sure the name of the label is all over it. It’s the only incentive she needs to have the groups sign with CSMC. Try the rest then come to the best.” Fancy polishes the back of her hands against her shirt.

“CSMC is too up in their acts’ business. Professionalism clause? Please.” The rapper rolls his eyes and purses his lips. He still does some performing and his act is known to be a bit on the raunchy side. The mild form of trash talking is called to a halt when they are called back to the set for filming. It’s Fancy’s last scene and then she’s released. She would spend one more day in the city for the just in case but that included a trip to Brighton to see Baby and Josef and pick up Baba.

After she is done shooting and has packed up her stuff and about to head out she is hailed by a guy who has been hanging on the set but that she hadn’t been introduced to. “Ms Monroe...”

Fancy is already looking for an exit. She doesn’t like strange men coming up on her and calling her by name. Especially when it seems a little isolated.

The guy recognizes the look and holds up both hands and comes to a halt. “Sorry, my name is Bruce Winger, I’m a senior writer here. Bic Levens talked with Mr Wolf about maybe getting some background....”

Frankie comes out of the trailers with the hair and make up gal who had been working with Fancy. “Who is this guy?”

The hair and makeup girl vouches for him. “That’s Bruce Winger. He’s on set to make sure that dialogue runs smoothly, do last minute changes if legal starts having a conniption.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to freak on you.” Fancy takes the responsibility even though she hadn’t freaked the way she could have. “I have seen you around the set.”

The hair and make up gal goes back in the trailer. Bruce breathes a little easier. “I was really hoping to talk to you get some background. Names and details would be changed of course.”

“Which story? Thirteen year old runaway does porno movie? Shock jock attempts to extort/harass sixteen year old who did porn movie? Daughter of record label owner receives death threats from guy who claims mother has been poaching artists?”

“Have you been receiving death threats?”

“Two truths and a lie. At least as far as I know. I don’t read my mail and haven’t since the Corey Cummings show.”

“I know someone over at Vanity Fair. The piece Anna Holtz did on you, I did get to read an advance copy. I would really like to talk to you.”

Fancy looks at Frankie who shrugs. “Okay. If you don’t mind... we have to go to the grocery store. If you wanted you could come with us ask your questions.”

“Grocery shopping.” The guy have snorts. “Yeah, maybe I’ll pick up a few things too.”

Bruce had started to wonder what he had gotten himself into when he’d climbed into the car and the driver headed out of town. Frankie took the front passenger seat leaving the writer and Fancy in the back.

Fancy decides to go for the distraction. “What do you want to know?”

“You said you did the movie when you were 13.”

“Thirteen, fourteen. I had been on my own for awhile. Moved out to LA from upstate New York. Lot warmer to be on the streets in LA. Met the guy, he set me up in an apartment. We had some good times. He told me that he could make me a star. As a friend of mine reminded me, and that is the reason why 13 year olds should not be making business decisions.”

“Where exactly are we going?”

“M&I, it’s a grocery store that has everything.”

“And it’s what-- located down in Virginia?”

“Brighton Beach actually. Have you ever been?”

“No. Isn’t it called Little Odessa?”

Fancy nods. “Maybe you can get some ideas for another story too.”

“How did you get out of that situation?”

Fancy sees Frankie’s very small shake of his head. Frankie is really not liking this. Even if he had called Mouse to check the guy’s credentials back to the womb. He is not a cop, never been a cop. But there are more than a few on Wolf’s crew who had been. “One day when I was sleeping in, a man busted down the door, dragged me out of bed and threw some clothes at me. I threatened to call the cops and he dared me too cause he knew I couldn’t– runaway, I would have been screwed and we both knew it. He dragged me out of the apartment to a waiting car and drove me to a facility out of town.”

“Kidnapping, assault, home invasion.” The writer is shaking his head in disbelief.

“I believe I mentioned all of those at the top of my lungs including while we were at the facility. They wanted to do an exam. I told them they weren’t putting their filthy hands in or on me. For all I knew they got those white coats from goodwill. I did let them take blood. Nothing in just some vials out. Figured that was safe enough. I must have really ticked them off because they just left me in a padded very boring room for what seemed like hours.”

“Blood work.”

“STDs, pregnancy, drugs. Whatever they could test by blood I think they did. Finally this woman comes in and asks me when I was a little kid what did I want to be when I grew up– an astronaut, a ballerina, a fireman. She figured she owed me. The guy had worked for her. She didn’t know what he was doing but he worked for her and so she’d help me fix what he had done.”

“She didn’t call the cops.”

“Not on me, she did on him. She kept my name out of it. Gave them a copy of the movie, a copy of the books, names and addresses of possible contacts for him. She was going to press charges for embezzling on him, right Frankie?”

“That’s what I heard. There is probably a police report somewhere only been a couple of years. Baby was more interested in firing him and anyone else that was involved with it.”

“Baby, that’s your mother, Kristina Ashton, the owner of Courtland Street Management Company.”

“Right.”

“She should have called the cops.”

“And how would that have been better for me?” Fancy shakes her head. “If she would have called the cops I would have been in a group home or foster care until someone found my bio- mother back in New York. And Angela never did stick around one place too long. I could probably be in a LA group home now and they’d still be looking for her. And one of the things I figured out in the last two years– I’m easily bored. It would have been very, very bad. Baby brought me back to New York, my home state, hooked me up with two different therapists, an in home tutor, a lawyer and a child protective services agent.”

“CPS was on board? How?”

“After the fact. You figure that CPS has to do an investigation before the adoption. Baby handed them the investigation already done: my bio-mother, the tape, the therapist reports. The CPS worker verified everything and saw I was being more closely supervised where I was than she could do. She’s just holding onto all the information until I turn 18 so she can go after my bio-mother.”

“Angela? Why?”

“No police report on my runaway. I don’t particularly care. She signed the papers so that Baby could adopt me.”

“Difference between owing someone and adopting them.”

“Not where Baby is concerned. She figured it was a sound way of making sure that I’m covered until I legally am an adult.”

“And the guy you were living with?”

“He must have known he was so busted. He made a run for it. Abandoned his wife and kids. He packed up and disappeared the same day. Him and his boat. Probably doing the new identity thing down in South America somewhere. I think he still owes Baby money– he’s not going to come back to The States. You couldn’t write something as bizarre as that.” Fancy laughs. “What? Have the cop break into the apartment when he hears about it... what do they call that, Frankie?”

“Exigent circumstances.” Frankie calls out from the front passenger seat.

“And Corey Cummings?”

“When Baby asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I told her an actress. She got real about that time and told me that I had just put a big black mark on my career with that video and it would take me until I was an adult to clean it up.”

“You’re ahead of schedule.”

“We’ll see. I’m not in this for a splash. I want a career.” Fancy counters. “The video was always a factor. We knew it would come back to bite. There was no way of getting all the copies back. So I started taking a higher profile. Uncle Dillon helped with that. Started going to some red carpet stuff. Did some stuff with Baby’s music label.”

“You lured him out.” The writer realizes.

“I didn’t know it would be Cummings. But I figured that one of them, one of the shock jocks or tabloids or whatever would go there. Either try to make a buck off of Baby through black mail or if I was high enough profile go public. I discussed it with Uncle Stefan and Baby both. I believe it was better to have it come out before I was 18 so there was no doubt of exactly what it was.”

“I heard the show that day. You called him out. Threw a big old bomb into the guy’s life and then went to a Laker’s game.”

“Are you expecting me to be sympathetic to a guy who promotes kiddy porn?” Fancy asks the writer.

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“I would have thought a writer would choose his words more carefully.” Fancy says flatly. She looks out the window. They are over the river and into Brooklyn. Soon they’d be in Brighton. “CSMC uses Jensen, Campbell and Winthrop up in Port Charles. Dara Jensen handled my adoption. Gia Campbell has connections to both the LAPD and the FBI. She’s Dillon Quartermaine’s front line attorney.” Fancy half turns so she’s looking at the writer again. “ Before I ever came out to LA again from Port Charles, I’d had a sit down with her contacts. They thought it was a golden opportunity, if it worked, to catch a whole bunch of perverts at one time. It wasn’t entrapment or anything like that. They didn’t put the video out there, it was already there and had been for two years– way underground or Baby’s people would have found it. In order for Cummings to have a show, he or someone on that show had to go looking for it. They had a link to it on their website.”

“How many people have been arrested?”

“There were a half dozen at the radio station within days of the interview. Frankie?”

“They’re still doing the sweep. Multi jourisdiction and it’s spidering out from each one they catch. Up over 200 world wide. Including some places where somebody is going to lose their nuts over having that on their computer.”

“You’re dealing with this very well, too well maybe?” The writer inquires.

“Therapy. Lots of therapy. I still have a therapist on speeddial. He was expecting my call, heck he called me, the day of the interview.”

“You have a therapist on speeddial.”

“Sure. I call him Doctor Cam. He’s Baby’s step grandfather. This isn’t news to me so yeah, I guess I’m a little detached. I have been prepping for this happening for the last two years. The trauma to me wasn’t the video. It was getting that call from Cummings telling me he was going to be talking about it on his show whether I was there or not and wondering if I was going to lose my first real acting gig.”

“What happens now?”

Fancy shrugs. “Not my problem. I doubt I’ll even have to testify. Or if I do it will only be once. They’ll be able to carry my testimony from one case to another. Just have to prove once that I was under age when I made the video. Another reason why it was important to do it now rather than waiting until after I’m 18.”

“Collateral estoppel.” Bruce nods. “It may not be entrapment but that was a sweet set up. You didn’t bait the trap, you didn’t wave it in front of them. They had to go looking for it.”

“And already know where to look.” Fancy nods. “Baby did a lot to get that vid back. They were running searches on my name. She had people cruising the online porn sites looking for anything that linked to it. Two years later? It had to be in someone’s collection.” Fancy sees the sign for Brighton and leans forward to tell the driver in Russian she wants to go to M&I first.

“I didn’t know you were Russian.”

“I’m not. Baby, Uncle Stefan, Baby’s mother, Tasha– they all speak Russian even though the family left the Motherland back in 1917. Baby doesn’t boss me around. She’s only ten years older than I am. She leaves it to Mrs Koslov. Baba’s first language was Russian, her second french and a far, far, far third is english. I hear it all the time.”

“Fancy’s got an ear for languages. I’ve been listening to Baba six years longer than she has and I still don’t know anything beyond what I want for dinner.” Frankie comments from up front.

“Welcome to Brighton Beach. Immigrants trying to get away from soviet russia settled here back in the seventies– mostly jewish.” Fancy starts doing her travelogue spiel. “When the wall fell there was more of an influx until the government stabilized. Right around 2000 when things were getting better in Russia things were on hold here, Brighton started looking old school like Little Havana down in Miami. Come, Come take a trip to the land time forgot... When Mrs Koslov’s grandson moved to Brighton, he started investing in the community bringing it up to standard. You can still get all the goodies that people come to Little Odessa by the Sea for but it’s been updated too.”

They arrive at M&I. Frankie tells the driver to stay with the car. He comes around and opens up Fancy’s door and gives her a hand out. The writer follows her out of the car. He’s in the business he is in because he has a good imagination and he can pound it out. This is going to be worth a lot. Don’t know if it will be Law and Order but he can feel the atmosphere already.