General Hospital Rumor: Nikolas Is Alive And Well In Witness Protection?

General Hospital spoilers tease that Nikolas Cassadine (Tyler Christopher, Nick Stabile) may have gone into witness protection with the WSB, possibly assisted by Valentin Cassadine (James Patrick Stuart).

Nikolas had tried to fake his death when still living at Wyndemere, only to be found by Ava Jerome (Maura West) on an airplane, He was traveling under the pseudonym “Niles Carradine” but recognized by Ava. Meanwhile, Ava was traveling with a small piece of art called “The Weeping Nyad” which led Nikolas and Ava to be chased down by a peculiar Englishman named Huxley Lynch (Trent Dawson). He accused Ava of stealing his family heirloom. They escaped and fled to Cassadine Island.

General Hospital viewers have debated why Nikolas would have faked his own death and left Port Charles without his only son Spencer Cassadine (Nicolas Bechtel) ever since. Helena Cassadine (Constance Towers), in her diary, implicated Nikolas of murdering her by poisoning her tea, but who would have even cared if he offed his evil grandmother?

General Hospital Spoilers – Married To Hayden Barnes  At Time Of Faked Death

That didn’t seem like a good reason to have to fake his death and leave his son behind, thinking his father had perished! However, Nikolas did know some other secrets, which at the time, could have caused him to fear for his life, if they had gotten into the wrong hands.

General Hospital viewers will recall that Rachel Berlin, aka Hayden Barnes (Rebecca Budig) had been married to Nikolas at the time of his first faked death. He had broken up with her when he discovered her unsavory past and that she had some diamonds which should have been turned over to the authorities when her father, Raymond Berlin (Robert Curtis Brown) was put in prison for his Ponzi schemes.

They came from a necklace of her mother’s, Naomi Dreyfus (Robin Riker). Nik was afraid that Hayden was out for his money, when she was exposed as Rachel Berlin by Tracy Quartermaine (Jane Eliot). But could her father have had some mob or other dangerous connections and the diamond necklace of her mother’s have been constructed from diamonds stolen from someone else? General Hospital viewers will recall that Nikolas took some of the diamonds when he went on the run as Niles Carradine.

General Hospital Spoilers – Nikolas Cassadine Death Similar To Ric Lansing’s?

A couple of years previous to Nikolas’ “death” Anna Devane (Finola Hughes) had arranged for Ric Lansing (Rick Hearst) to go into Witness Protection with the WSB’s assistance. This left his and Alexis Davis’ (Nancy Lee Grahn) daughter Molly Davis-Lansing (Haley Pullos) a wreck, thinking her father was dead and that she’d never see him again.

Given that Tyler Christopher suddenly took one of his frequent leaves of absence from the show and it was so sudden that Tyler was in the plane with Ava as Nikolas one day and Nick Stabile the next, writers may have had to come up with a workable exit storyline in a hurry!

Once Ava and Nik got to Cassadine Island, followed closely by “Jason Morgan” (Billy Miller) and Sam McCall (Kelly Monaco), along with Laura Webber (Genie Francis). Then Kevin Collins (Jon Lindstrom) and Theo Hart (James Patrick Stuart) came into the picture, later being revealed as Valentin Cassadine and the true heir to the Cassadine fortune, being older than Nikolas.

General Hospital Spoilers – Valentine Cassadine Enters The Picture

However, it was later revealed that Valentin and Anna knew each other long ago, both having attended WSB spy school at the time. General Hospital viewers will remember a scene shortly after Valentin first came to Port Charles and moved into Wyndemere, with Nikolas presumed dead, when he was stopped by Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard) from taking Spencer with him.

General Hospital viewers know that for all of Spencer’s “Spencerisms” in mourning his father, there have never been any real tears or grief displayed; just a lot of over the top threats and posturing between Spencer and Uncle Valentin.

It seems reasonable that with Victor Cassadine (Thaao Penghlis) having been the head of the WSB not that many years earlier, that Valentin could have still had WSB contacts he kept in touch with. Did he help  Nikolas fake his death successfully the next time and go into WSB witness protection?

General Hospital Spoilers – Writers Getting Ready To Come Full Circle?

Nikolas was married to Hayden. Hayden bailed out on her marriage to Dr. Hamilton Finn (Michael Easton) and disappeared. Finn was lured to Canada to rescue Anna, who had been kidnapped, by parties wishing to bring Cassandra Pierce (Jessica Tuck) out of a coma caused by Nina Reeves (Cynthia Watros) injecting her with her own deadly drug.

Cassandra was a former girlfriend and associate of Valentin when he was a mercenary; she was kidnapped from a WSB medical facility to the Canadian clinic; the last time she was seen was when she was intercepted by someone with a Cassadine ring on his hand. Fast forward to now. Hayden has shown up in town, being hired by Jasper Jacks (Ingo Rademacher) who has an agenda against Valentin and a file on Cassandra. Sibley Gamble (Veronica Cartwright) couldn’t channel Nikolas for Ava.

And if Nikolas is still alive somewhere and Jax and Hayden knew, she wouldn’t have wanted to add bigamy to her criminal resume by marrying Fin. Could that mysterious Cassadine hand belong to Nikolas after all, having taken Cassandra to a different WSB facility than the medical facility? We know from the WSB getting ready to move Dante Falconeri (Dominic Zamprogna) to a different facility after Peter August (Wes Ramsey) and Maxie Jones (Kirsten Storms) found out where he was, that seems to be the way the WSB rolls with people being in their facilities.

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