| Why I Love Emily Quartermaine |
| Emily Quartermaine has got to be the most resilient person ever to live, and that's why I admire her. Let me tell you a little about her. At about the age of eight, she was orphaned when her single mother, Paige, died of breast cancer. It was both a blessing and a curse that Paige left Emily to be adopted by Monica Quatermaine, her friend and breast cancer survivor. Emily now had at her disposal extreme wealth, but at the cost of living in a dysfunctional family where infidelity and blackmail were the norm. There were some saving graces in the family, including Emily's ever-gracious great-grandmother, Lila. Emily also became very close to her adopted brother Jason, but then essentially lost him and had to rebuild a relationship from scratch when Jason sustained a head injury and lost all memory when struck by a car driven by alcoholic older brother A.J. |
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| As a young teenager, Emily found herself involved in "the wrong crowd" and was soon hooked on hard drugs. She began rebelling and sneaking out to attend all night raves. On one such occasion she awoke the following morning to find herself naked and in bed with a dead man, who was later found to be a crooked undercover narcotics cop. Thinking that she had killed the man in a drug-induced rage, Emily's friends, "the four musketeers:" Lucky Spencer, Nikolas Cassadine , and Elizabeth Webber came to the rescue and dumped the body in the Port Charles Harbor and tried on their own to discover the real killer. This led them to teenage delinquent runaway and drug-dealer, Zander Smith. Zander then kidnapped Emily and made a run for Canada. While on the run, Emily discovered Zander to be a troubled and misunderstood, but good-hearted boy, and a relationship soon blossomed. In the face of constant disapproval of the relationship by family and friends, Emily and Zander decided to run away together. Newcomer to Port Charles, another alcoholic, Skye Chandler from Pine Valley, a woman erroneously led to believe she was Alan Quatermaine's illegitimate daughter, arrived on the scene. Seeing Emily as competition for the role of "Daddy's little girl," Skye decided to get Emily out of the picture by assisting her in running away. Skye gave Emily and Zander bus fare to escape to Canada. (Why the richest family in Port Charles could not afford a more distinguished form of travel I don't know!) In a cruel twist of fate, the bus crashed, leaving Emily a paraplegic with a spinal injury. She spent nearly the next two years away from Zander and her family in intensive physical rehabilitation learning to walk again. |
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| While in rehab, Emily discovered that she now had breast cancer. Rather than putting her body through the ravages of chemo-therapy that she witnessed her mother fruitlessly undergo, Emily decided to return to Port Charles, use natural remedies, and die graciously. She initially kept her cancer from her family and friends trying to spare herself their pity and spare them grief. Knowing Zander would be particularly devastated by her ultimate death, Emily thought it best that she sever her relationship with him so that he could move on with his life. To accomplish this, she enlisted the help of Nikolas to pretend that he was now in love with Emily. Rather than being turned away, Zander became even more devoted. In the process, Emily and Nikolas realized that they were no longer pretending, and Emily's childhood crush on Nikolas evolved into mature love. With the love of both Nikolas and Zander, Emily was convinced to obtain proper treatment, and she was able to beat the cancer. |
| Now with the expectation of a long and healthy life, Emily was forced be choose between Nikolas and Zander. She chose Nikolas, breaking Zander's heart and driving him to reckless behavior. Now it was the Cassadines who disapproved to the relationship. Emily had already been targeted for death by Nikolas' uncle Stephan. He tried to push her off a cliff on Spoon Island, but instead it was Summer who fell to her death, just because she was unfortunate enough to be wearing the same coat as Emily on that fateful foggy night. In the meantime, both the Quartermaine and Cassadine families found themselves in financial ruin when their respective fortunes were swindled by A.J. who ran off with Lydia, heiress that was formerly betrothed to Nikolas in an arranged marriage. Zander went to work for mob princess Faith Roscoe and accepted the job of blowing up Nikolas' freight ship in the harbor. Unbenownst to him, Nikolas and Emily were aboard the ship when it exploded. Thankfully, they escaped with seconds to spare. They were then able to save their families from financial ruin by commissioning scuba-diving slut Sam MacColl to salvage long lost Blackthorn's Treasure from the bottom of the harbor and auctioning it off in a gathering of the richest and most influential people of Port Charles in the Quartermaine-owned Port Charles Hotel. On the run from the cops due to his crimes commited while working for Faith, Zander found himself hiding, and later locked, in the basement of the Port Charles Hotel during the auction. A fire broke out, and Zander was mistakenly blamed. Many perished in that fire, including Zander's estranged father Cameron. Others were injured, and many lives were changed. Shards of glass from a falling chandelier severed an artery in Emily's leg, causing her to nearly bleed to death even before the fire could get her. Thankfully, with the help of a sewing kit, Monica was able to suture the wound. The only route for escape was from the roof via helicopter, and strong winds hindered that plan as well. Difficult decisions and sacrifices needed to be made, and Emily found herself in the helicopter watching as the roof exploded, consuming Nikolas in flames. Emily emerged from the fire thinking that both Nikolas, and her brother Jason had died. Jason later emerged from the building with the story that Nikolas had assisted him in escaping, but they had been separated. Emily refused to believe that Nikolas was dead, and sure enough, days later he emerged from the rubble, relatively unscathed. Even though it was ultimately discovered that Zander was not responsible for the fire, he was still on the run from the police. He took Emily "hostage" so that he could explain and proclaim his love once again. Sadly, the police did not give him the opportunity to defend his innocence, and Emily witnessed her first love gunned down to death before her very eyes. In the meantime, returning from a business trip and hearing the events unfold on the radio new program, Nikolas was rushing to the scene of the shootout. In his haste, he crashed his car, sustaining a head injury. |
| Forgetting his identity and his past, Nikolas found himself on the doorstep of Mary Bishop, a grief stricken woman widowed by George W's Iraq War. Taking advantage of Nikolas' amnesia, she convinced him he was her deceased husband Connor. She doctored the accident scene to make it look as if Nikolas had wandered away in his confusion and drowned in the river. Once again, Emily refused to believe he was dead, and persisted in looking for him. Her persistence paid off, but when she discovered what had happened to Nikolas, she was influenced by her experience with Jason's head injury. Seeing how Jason became overwhelmed and was driven away when pressured by the family to remember, Emily decided to be patient, guiding Nikolas to regain his memory in his own time. All the while, she had to witness the manipulations of Mary as Mary slept with Nikolas and even planned to become pregnant. Emily felt herself running out of time, and ultimately had to tell Nikolas the truth of his identity before he was fully ready. He became very angry and resentful toward her. But gradually, again with persistence, and repeated sessions of love-making which seemed to have amnesic-curing qualities, Nikolas regained his memory and returned to Emily. In the midst of all of this, Emily lost her great-grandmother Lila. She graciously accepted the torch and took Lila's place as the calm voice of reason in the family. Nikolas' grandmother Helena once again saw Emily as a hindrance to Nikolas becoming the Cassadine prince he was destined to be, so she had Nikolas committed to a psychiatric hospital where she drugged him and attempted to brainwash him. Emily posed as a mentally ill woman and had herself committed to be near Nikolas, and aided in his escape. They fled and hid in the Quartermaine boathouse on yet another tragic night. A lightning storm caused a power failure, while an overturned tanker blocked the road, trapping the family, as well as a number of teenage friends of Dillon Quartermaine and Brook Lynn, in the mansion. Now psychotic Mary Bishop was loose on the premises, hunting down Emily to get Nikolas back. Once again, a case of mistaken identity resulted in loss of life when Sage Alcazar was stabbed when Mary mistook her for Emily in the dark. Trent was another vicitim, and Faith Roscoe sustained nonfatal injuries. Ultimately, Emily found herself alone with Mary in a fierce struggle. She was wounded, but not killed, and Mary made for an escape. Wishing to end this for good, Nikolas took the police commissioner's gun and shot Mary. Cruelly, he was then arrested for this while Mary made two more attempts on Emily's life when Emily visited Mary who was clearly recovering fine from her gunshot wound. Emily has had a really rough year. In the face of all of this adversity, she continues to maintain a good GPA in her pre-med program at Port Charles University and still find time to volunteer at General Hospital. What tragedies will befall her next? Who knows, but you can count on it that she will overcome them with poise and grace. That's why I love Emily Quartermaine. |