The Devil You Know: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The gun went of and he heard his voice say, “You take my life Victor, I take yours.”

Todd Manning’s eyes flew open and shifted from one side to another.  Then, feeling warmth next to him, he remembered exactly where he was.  He moved his head  for confirmation, to look at the form of Blair Cramer nestled alongside him, her hand resting on his chest, her breath strong and steady.  She was sleeping peacefully, as she had tended to all the years they had been together.

He, on the other hand, was wide awake.  Which was what he usually was, even with the love of his life next to him.  Slowly, he was able to maneuver his way out of her grasp and get off the bed.  As he looked out the window at the fall night sky, he threw on some clothes and made his way into the study, balancing himself on a crutch he still found to be in need of.  He was in his home in Port Charles, New York, where he had come to late this past spring to get his daughter out of legal troubles.  Unfortunately, after immediately extracting Starr from hers, he found himself in a crisis of his own, which led to an unending stream of troubles and yet, strange triumphs.  Now, he stood in front of the fireplace mantle, looking at a collection of pictures.

He picked up one, of a young blonde and even younger red-head and carried it over to the bar.  Putting it down momentarily to fix himself a scotch, he downed the drink in one shot then picked up the picture again, sitting on the couch.  Looking at Viki and Merrie Lord in their younger days, he briefly wondered what it really would have been like if he and his sister Tina and twin brother Victor had been raised by their father, Victor Lord Senior.  Then he tossed the thought away, remembering the haunted look on Viki’s face when she had admitted to him the crimes their father had perpetrated on her from childhood. 

“Got screwed both ways,” he said to himself, a flash of Peter Manning’s childrearing skills coming to mind.  Looking back at the picture, he spoke to it again.  “Really wish I could have met you in life, sis.  Something tells me we would have had a lot more in common they anyone would have thought.”

“Hey,” a voice called out from the darkened foyer.  Todd looked up and saw Blair standing there in her silken robe.  “Couldn’t sleep?”

“You know me, Blair.  I can only sleep when heavily medicated,” he tried to joke, a subtle mention of his latest hospital stays that were the products of gunshots and surgeries.

Blair came over to him and saw the picture in his hand.  “Thinking of Merrie, I guess,” she said.  “What do you think she would have thought of me?”

“Why do you care what anyone thinks of you?  Really, you’ve been like that since, well, I knew you.  Max, Cord, the Llanview elites,” he sighed, exasperated.  Then he half-smiled at the picture again.  “She would have loved you, probably right off the bat.  She basically told me that after the shooting, even defended you when I thought you were being a fool for sticking by me. She seemed to admire that in you.”

Something about the look in his eyes told Blair it wasn’t his long-dead sister that had woken him up.  “What’s on your mind, Todd?”

“I had the flashback again,” he admitted to her.  “The one from the night of Victor’s shooting.”

Blair took a deep breath.  She knew he still had the memory of firing the gun at his brother and believing to have killed him.  Hell, it was that memory that had nearly gotten him convicted of the murder of Victor Lord, Jr.  Yet it was a false one, implanted as some part of a nefarious scheme that she still didn’t completely understand.  Blair was growing concerned.  “Was there anything more to it?”

“No, just what my mother’s ghost pushed me to remember,” he said as he balanced himself as he stood and returned the picture to its place.  He turned to face another picture on the mantle, this one of him, Victor and their sisters.  “I still can’t believe it.”

“Believe what?” Blair asked, coming to stand beside him.

“I can’t believe he’s…alive,” came Todd’s response.  He remembered Ireland, the crypt, his shooting.  Hell, he was even remembering the stories of Tina going over a water, or Viki in the car crash with Dorian.  “But, then again, we do seem to be a hard family to kill.”

Blair merely smiled at him, her concern growing.  She took his hand and let him back to the couch.  “Look, I know what your usual response to something like this is, but maybe you should talk to a professional, if you’re still having this memory.”

“I thought that was who I was talking to, but apparently, he’s some super spy,” Todd said, referring to Dr. Ewen Keenen, who had disappeared shortly after the authorities had caught up to Helena Cassadine.  “But, you’re right.  It’s probably a good idea if I do talk to someone.  I don’t want to crack up totally.”  He took her hand and kissed it.  “I’ll make a few calls first thing in the morning.”

She leaned in close to him and caught his mouth in hers.  “Then you’ll meet me for lunch, right?” she asked.

Todd winced as he remembered his promise.  Blair’s cousin Cassie and her ex-husband Andrew were stopping through town on their way to Llanview for an extended visit before his sister’s wedding to Clint Buchanan.  Though he generally had a low threshold of tolerance for the Crazy Cramer Coven, Cassie was the best of the lot.  She had usually treated him with some measure of humanity and also had supported Blair being with Todd.  Mostly, though, Cassie was the one to give him the least amount of grief.  “Yeah, I’ll be there for lunch,” he acquiesced.

“Good, because maybe we can talk to Andrew about our own wedding while he’s here,” she said to him.  Todd had been making phenomenal strides in his recovery and that had led to at least led to some preliminary mentions about the wedding.  But for once, Todd wasn’t rushing her down an aisle, as was his usual style.

“Yeah, maybe we can.  But let’s make sure Viki gets hitched first.  She’s been engaged since what, January?” he asked.  When Blair nodded, Todd added, “Let my sister marry her cowboy again then we’ll go full steam ahead with our plans, after we all take a little trip.”

Now Blair was perplexed.  “What trip?” she asked, getting curious and excited at the same time.

Todd took a deep breath.  “I told you when I was still in the hospital that if you or the kids had any questions about me and my past, I’d answer them, right?”  When she nodded, he continued, “Well, I want to take them to Chicago and I want to go to my mother’s grave.  I haven’t been there is a long time and with everything that’s happened lately…” His voice faded off, as if lost in his mind.  Then he began again.  “I want to see if her last husband is still alive. I just…I just need to do this stuff, okay?”

Blair smiled at him, and they embraced.  “This will do you and all of us a lot of good, I think,” she said.  “So then, it’s off to Llanview then to Chicago.  We’ll tell the kids in the morning, I guess.” 

Just then, the grandfather clock in the foyer struck one in the morning and both Todd and Blair let out yawns.  He smiled at her and took her hand, leading her back to their bedroom.  It was a short time afterwards that both Todd and Blair fell into a deep sleep.


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