A/N: Wow, I'm completely floored by the comments that I received for the last chapter. Thank you guys SO much for your support and for your comments! I know that this chapter is late but I've been a bit distracted with my new internship and family stuff but this chapter is finally done! So with that being said, happy reading and don't forget to leave some love :)

Chapter 6 – Death and All His Friends

Johnny had never feared death. When he was young, brash and cocky, he taunted death, daring it to take him. He had already known hell on earth and whatever came next couldn't even measure up to the life that he had lived. If anything, death would be a welcome sanctuary for his endless suffering. If there was some sort of heaven, where nothing bad could ever happen to him again, where he didn't have to feel the intense longing for his mother who was so cruelly taken from him or to endure the relentless abuse from his father's lips and sometimes hands, he wanted to get there fast.

He never feared death…

… until the day he fell in love.

However, he didn't fear death for himself but for her because the thought of possibly losing her downright terrified him. So, he hired an army of bodyguards to escort her wherever she went, to protect her from the lifestyle that they lived in. He thought that if he could block out the world, he would have her forever.

He was such a fool.

"Johnny? Johnny, are you in there?"

It had been two weeks.

Two unbearably miserable weeks.

Johnny slowly looked up at the door, not even bothering to wipe the tears from his face. He didn't feel like seeing anyone, especially today. He saw the doorknob turn and the door slowly opened, revealing Maxie and Spinelli, both dressed in black. Johnny watched as Spinelli took Maxie's hand as they approached him and he quickly looked away, trying to compose himself.

"Laura asked us to come and get you… the limo is here to take us to—to the service…" Maxie said softly.

His throat tightened at the word. This was real. This was actually happening. Lulu was actually dead and the memorial service was today. Johnny's hand flew to his mouth as he tried to hold in a hard sob but it was no use. The pain was too profound to be silenced. Warm tears rushed to his eyes as he came apart and Maxie put her arms around Johnny, a feeble attempt to soothe him.

"Johnny, The Blonde One would not want for you to wallow in grief like this…" Spinelli said.

"I killed her…" Johnny wailed.

The statement shocked his two friends into silence.

"It's my fault… she was on that road because of me…" Johnny lamented.

"Lulu's accident was not your fault…" Spinelli said quietly.

"Even if I believed that, I would've killed her anyway… the pregnancy would've probably killed her or my enemies would've killed her or—or maybe I would've turned out like my father and—" Johnny started.

He was stopped by Maxie, who grabbed his face and turned it towards her. He didn't want to look at her because all he could see when he looked at Maxie was Lulu. In Maxie, he saw the tears in Lulu's eyes when she found out that her best friend was pregnant and he saw the joy in Lulu's face as Maxie made her maid of honor speech at their wedding. He saw everything that he didn't want to see.

"Don't you dare even say it! You could've never hurt Lulu!" Maxie hissed, angry that he would even allow his mind to wander there.

"But I did! I did hurt her! It was why she was on the road, Maxie!" Johnny sobbed.

"Lulu loved you… she loved you until—until the very end…" Maxie said.

Her voice broke but she recovered. He knew that she was trying to be strong for Johnny's sake. She probably thought that she owed it to Lulu to be there for Johnny and Maxie was nothing if not loyal to her friends.

"She knew how much you loved her… and she still does…" she assured him.

He felt his shoulder cave in again as tearful sobs took over his body again. How could she still love him? He had acted so horribly the last time that he saw her. He had walked out on her and for all that she knew, he could've been out of her life forever. If he had just stayed that night and talked things out, he wouldn't be a widower right now. He felt Spinelli's hand come to his shoulder and Johnny shook his head.

"I don't know how to do this… I don't—I don't know how to live a life without her! How am I supposed to do this?" Johnny asked.

"By honoring Lulu and the love that you two shared… and you can start by coming downstairs with us to go to the service…" Spinelli said.

He could do this. He had to do this. He had to do this for her. He loved her and he hoped that love would help him carry himself through this day, despite how incredibly difficult he knew it would be. Johnny nodded and rose to his feet. Maxie straightened out his shirt and fixed his tie while Spinelli retrieved his blazer and when Johnny looked in the mirror, the emotional wreck that he was on the inside was camouflaged by a seemingly pristine exterior.

"Are you ready?" Maxie asked, holding her visibly pregnant stomach.

"No… but I have to be." Johnny quietly replied.

Johnny stayed silent as the car moved at an unbearably slow pace along the deserted road to the church, the very same church that they had been married in close to three years ago. Before departing, he had overheard Maxie telling Lulu's family that he was in a really bad way and they probably thought it best to just leave him be. Even if they hadn't, he wouldn't know what to say.

What could he possibly say when he was the one responsible?

Johnny felt the car pull to a stop and he felt the lump in his throat become heavier. He wished that it would just grow, robbing him of his breath so that he could join his wife in death. Surely death couldn't be any worse than this. Death couldn't have been as worse as the hell on earth that he had been living. Suddenly, he felt a hand come to his shoulder.

"Johnny… come on… the service is about to start…" Maxie said softly but he shook his head.

He slowly slid out of the limo and followed Maxie and Spinelli inside. His eyes fell to their intertwined fingertips and he could feel his own limbs start to shake. He was all alone in this world now. There wasn't going to be anyone's hand for him to hold when the weight of life started to get too heavy for him.

"Johnny?"

He looked up and saw Luke and Laura standing before him. They had gone in a separate car, with Lucky and Nikolas, to the service and hadn't spoken to him at the house either. He felt Laura's arms encircle him and heard her start to sniffle, on the verge of more tears. He shook Luke's hand and took his seat with the rest of the family in the front pew of the church. He could feel the eyes of everyone inside on him, burning into the back on his neck, wondering if he was going to crack. He was wondering if he was going to crack. He clenched his fist tightly as the minister started the service. The words about life and death did nothing to soothe Johnny's mind. No words, no matter how pretty they sounded strung together in a sentence, would make this right.

His wife was gone.

And no metaphor would make it easier for him to swallow that hard fact.

"I'd now like to ask for friends and family who would like to speak to come forward…" the minister said.

Maxie was first. She went up and spoke about how she and Lulu had gone from rivals to best friends. Her speech was heartfelt but bright, stating that Lulu would've been upset with her if she had delivered a somber eulogy. Nikolas followed and he spoke about regretting not patching up his relationship with his sister before she died. He lost his composure for a minute but recovered and moved quickly back to his seat.

Regret.

There hadn't been a lot of things that he regretted in his life. He never made apologies for the way that he lived but his heart was plagued with regrets. He had done so many things to Lulu that he had regretted. He regretted walking away, he regretted every single argument that they had, but most of all, he regretted never reciprocating all that she had been to him. She had given him so much and how did he repay her?

By killing her.

For reasons that he couldn't fathom, he rose to his feet and walked towards the podium. He stopped when and looked at the photo of Lulu that Maxie had picked out because he was too devastated to pick out a picture to display at his wife's funeral. It was a picture of her at Maxie and Spinelli's wedding. Her golden curls hung beautifully at her shoulders, grazing the top of her lavender maid of honor dress, and her smile was dazzling. Even a photograph of her still entranced Johnny to the point where he was just lost in her beauty. He slowly reached out and touched the side of her cheek, a gesture that he often did when she was here, and he shook his head.

He would never get used to talking about her in the past tense.

He turned around and stared out into the pews. He knew every single face in each row. The Quartermaines were sitting in the same row as Maxie and Spinelli. Behind them were Patrick and Robin Drake and Alexis and her two daughters. Carly and Jax had flown in with Morgan and Michael from Australia and were sitting with Bobbie behind Luke and Laura. Everyone was there and he had nothing to say. He hadn't even planned on saying anything but he needed her to know that he was sorry and that he missed her. He had never really believed in god or anything like that but if there was a way that she could hear him, he needed to speak.

"I'd—I'd like to thank you all for coming today. I know that Lulu would've appreciated it…" he said.

He exhaled shakily and gripped the sides of the podium. He could feel himself coming apart. He could feel that perfectly constructed exterior start to crack. He could feel the thudding of his heartbeat ring in his ears and he could feel his throat start to close up, making each breath he took harder than the last.

"I'm sorry… I know that I'm supposed to come up here and tell everyone how much I loved Lulu and how she made my life better and she did… she was the best thing that ever happened to me but it's just that—" he started.

His voice broke and he quickly covered his mouth with his hand. He couldn't do this. How could he say goodbye to the love of his life? How could he stand in the same place where he had married her and say goodbye to her forever? He couldn't do it.

"Lulu and I were married in this very church… we stood right here, making vows to spend a lifetime together, and three years later, we're—we're—" he sobbed.

And that's when he lost it.

Lulu had always said that when it came to the people that he loved, he wore his emotions on his sleeve. Once past the rough exterior, he was just as sensitive and vulnerable as the rest of the world, perhaps more so. He had only reserved his deepest emotions for the people closest to him. He could count the amount of people who had seen him cry on one hand. However, everyone in that church would now see the real Johnny Zacchara.

A broken man.

He cried harder and wailed louder than anyone probably ever expected him to. He didn't have to look to see the shock on everyone's face to see him, the Johnny Zacchara, the man who had come to reign over Port Charles, falling to pieces at his wife's memorial service. However, they didn't understand. They didn't understand that the pain of losing Lulu just ran so deep that he knew that he would never get over it.

"Come here, sweetie…"

Laura was beside him, hand on his back, and she helped him to his feet, ushering him out of the church. No one would ever mean to him what Lulu had been. No one would even understand him or love him the way that she did. And most of all, no one would make him want to live like she did.

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

The quote from Socrates had sat in the back of Lulu's mind like a forgotten knick-knack in the attic. She had always detested philosophy when she was at PCU, thinking that it was just a waste of her time and not to mention trees in which the books were printed on.

How could death be a blessing?

It was a sentiment that didn't resonate with her until now. She always thought that the people who embraced death were either stupid or had nothing to live for and she was neither stupid nor desperate. Lulu Spencer-Zacchara had everything that she could ever want. She had amazing friends and family who supported her, complete financial security and a husband who worshiped the ground that she walked on.

But there was a flipside to that coin.

With her loving friends and family came the guilt of not living up to their expectations. She was tired of lying to them about when she and Johnny were going to start a family. She had grown weary of hearing Lucky and Nikolas gripe about nights with no sleep, potty training and chicken pox. If only they knew how much she craved to be up all night, rocking her child to sleep, singing songs until she saw her child's droopy eyelids close or how she wanted to be the one to kiss scrapes and cuts to make them better. She was tired of hearing her brothers complain about things that she wanted so badly. She was tired of going along with Maxie to the various baby boutiques and picking out things for her baby, knowing that she would never have one of her own. She was tired of being a constant disappointment to her husband, who desperately wanted and deserved to be a father. She was tired of fighting for a dream that Johnny had given up on a long time ago.

She was just tired.

So now death, her death, was a blessing because she could finally rest. Everyone could rest. She could finally be free from being a failure as a daughter, a friend and a wife. And everyone could be free from her. It was a morbid thought but it was better this way. She loved all of them enough to let them go and move on with their lives.

Without her.

"Doctor! Doctor Singer! I think she's coming to!"

She never expected to actually witness a white light when she died. She thought that was just some tired cliché that people perpetuated in order to solidify the idea of a higher power but there was a bright white light that burned her eyes.

"Miss? Miss, can you hear me?"

Lulu blinked slowly, letting her eyes focus on her surroundings. She hadn't thought about what heaven would be like, if she was even in heaven, but it was nothing like what she expected. In fact, her surroundings resembled a hospital room. The walls were a pasty pale yellow and the hospital gown that was wrapped around her body was scratchy against her skin. She could hear the shuffling of feet in the faint distance.

"Am I dead?" Lulu rasped.

Her eyes fell to the smiling face of an older woman dressed in light green scrubs, a nurse most likely. She looked slightly older than her mother but still had a sense of youth in her face and in her toothy grin.

"Hardly!" the woman cried.

Another woman came in and Lulu assumed that it was this Dr. Singer that the nurse was talking about. Lulu was just so incredibly tired and she knew that she probably looked like hell. If she were dead, she was pretty sure that her hair wouldn't be a complete mess and she wouldn't have been dressed in a hospital gown.

"What's your name, honey?" Dr. Singer asked.

"Lesley… Lesley Lu Spencer-Zacchara…" Lulu exhaled.

"Well that is quite a mouthful, Lesley Lu Spencer-Zacchara…" Dr. Singer chuckled.

"Everyone calls me Lulu…" Lulu explained and the nurse beside Dr. Singer clasped Lulu's hand.

"Well my name is Grace Talley… Nurse Grace Talley." Grace said with a chipper smile on her face.

"I'll be back in a few hours to check on you. In the meantime, is there anything that you need?" Dr. Singer asked.

"My baby… please tell me… am I still pregnant?" Lulu asked and Dr. Singer smiled.

"Someone up there is really looking out there for you because you and your baby are fine…" Dr. Singer said.

The sense of relief that she and her baby were fine washed over Lulu and let her relax a little bit more into the hospital bed. She put her hand on her stomach as joyous tears came to her eyes. This little one knew how much Lulu wanted him or her and wasn't going to go anywhere. Socrates definitely had it wrong.

Life was the greatest human blessing.

"Anything other questions I can answer for you?" Dr. Singer asked.

"Can I use a phone to call my family?" Lulu asked.

"Of course you can, honey!" Grace exclaimed.

You can't have that baby…

Johnny's voice came back to her and made her shudder. He was so angry with her that night and she knew that it was because he was scared. He was scared to lose her but he took the same life and death risks for his job. In the back of her mind, she was always prepared for that late night phone call from the police but she loved Johnny so much that she came to terms with it and accepted that fact as a part of her life.

Why couldn't he do the same for her?

Lulu heard the clicking of the door as it opened and jolted out of her thoughts. It was Grace, cordless phone in hand.

"Here you go…" Grace said before giving her some privacy.

She wanted to call him, to hear his voice. She wanted to have him burst into his room and to hold him tightly until she couldn't breathe. But this wasn't just about her anymore. Lulu put her hand on her stomach and sighed heavily, punching numbers into the phone.

"Hello?"

"Dad?" Lulu whispered.

Everyone was going to hate her for doing this.

"Lulu? Is—Is that you?" Luke stammered.

"Yes, it's me… listen…" she started.

"Oh my god, Lulu… that accident… we all thought that you were—" he rambled on.

"I'm fine, dad… me and the baby are fine…" she said.

"Oh thank god… Johnny is going to be so relieved…" he said.

Hearing her husband's name made her start to cry. She missed him so much and she hated putting him through this but she didn't have a choice. If she went back, he could make her give up the baby and she couldn't let that happen. She loved her husband but he would have her family to help him. She was all that this baby had. If she didn't fight for him, then who would?

"Dad, you can't tell Johnny that I'm fine… you can't tell anyone…" she sobbed.

"What? Lulu, everyone thinks that you're dead!" her father cried.

"And it needs to stay that way… at least for now… please, dad… you need to help me disappear so I can have my baby…" she begged.

"My deepest condolences to you and your family…"

Johnny shook what seemed like the hundredth hand as another person's sympathies washed over him. What did these people know about what Lulu had meant to him? Absolutely nothing. They had only caught a glimpse of it during his momentary breakdown at Lulu's service but that was only a fraction of the pain that was in his heart.

Just a mere drop in a large pail.

Laura had managed to talk him down but he didn't return to the service. He couldn't bring himself to listen to another person say what Lulu had meant to them because all he could think about was what she had meant to him. She was his guiding star, the brightest element in his dark sky. If he was lost, he could always just look at her and find his way back home.

Now there was only darkness.

Forgetting his manners, he shoved past the annoying gossipy Port Charles citizens who pointed at him and whispered about how he was probably going to go insane like his father and took a deep breath when the cool outdoor air hit his face. His feet seemed to take on a mind of their own and began walking, without a set destination in mind.

Anywhere would've been better than being locked up in that house.

The road to Laura's house was deserted and quiet. The silence was comforting to Johnny as it was distracting to hear the thoughts in his head being jumbled with the mindless chatter of the funeral goers. Dusk was starting to set in on the town, turning the sky a rich dark blue and he remembered how Lulu had always loved watching the sun go down on their terrace. He winced, reacting to how quickly the memory came to him. Was this how his life would be like? Constantly being bombarded with memories of the wife that would never come home to him?

He walked for what seemed like hours, shuffling his feet along that long road, until they moved no more. His eyes rose and he took in the sight of his house. It looked eerily still, as if no one had lived there for years. Sighing heavily, he pushed open the gate and walked up the driveway. With each step, his feet got a little bit heavier until he reached the steps to his front door, unable to move any farther.

This wasn't his home.

Home was always where Lulu was and she was dead. He had no guiding star and he had no home. He blinked slowly and he saw two teardrops that he didn't even know that he had shed splash onto the stairs and he felt his knees hit the hard pavement. He was probably going to ruin his Versace suit but he didn't care. Lulu was never going to come home. She was never going to burn spaghetti in their kitchen, she was never going to yell at him when he worked too late, she was never going to surprise him with pizza and beer at the office and she was never was going to whisper his name breathlessly in his ear when they made love. She was gone.

And the darkness was all that he had left.