Stefan and Katherine
Milestones

Stefan and Katherine, one of daytime's hottest, most romantic couples were two very different people completely in love. Their bond was complex but genuine .

Following is:
(1) Loving Stefan and Katherine, My Review: What I love about them
(2) Backgrounds: History of the characters before they met, and what they were/are about as individuals. (Part A: Katherine Before Stefan, Part B: Stefan Before Katherine).
(3) Stefan and Katherine: The love story recounted.

For Transcripts of The Stefan and Katherine storyline, go to:
Stefan and Katherine Transcripts

Loving Stefan and Katherine

From the moment Stefan arrived in Port Charles, two things were obvious: this was going to be one incredibly complex character, and the actor who was playing him, Stephen Nichols, was immensely talented. Nichols played every complicated scene to perfection- making Stefan's words roll off his tongue so easily and each scene come alive.

The Stefan against the Spencers storyline was thrilling and complex, but it wasn't until Katherine came into his life that we were allowed to see Stefan's romantic side, his vulnerability and his humanity. Fighting the Spencers, Stefan was an enigma: exciting to watch because he was unpredictable, powerful, threatening. Stefan is still all those things, or at least he can be when a situation or story calls for it. But what draws an audience and an individual to watch and care about a character or a story, is the human side of a character, the vulnerability of a character.

We were finally able to see that side of Stefan once Katherine entered his life. We were able to see how living in the Cassidine world alienated and isolated Stefan. We were allowed to see how much Stefan truly loved his son/nephew Nikolas. And we could at last see that he was capable of truly falling in love with someone- of believing in love at all.

Katherine's history was well known to us. We watched her try to climb up the social ladder in Port Charles. She was ruthless often, and calculated- much like Stefan.
But that ruthlessness and need for money and power came from her own feeling of isolation and rejection by her father. She felt that the world owed her something, and she was going to make sure she was paid in full.

When Stefan entered her life, Katherine had already been through a relationship with Mac...finally been "given" her fortune (when Damian died). She had reformed, but she still felt unconnected and isolated in Port Charles. Stefan offers her, for the first time, something real and passionate. Mary Beth Evans plays both the ruthless woman and the vulnerable, lonely one exquisitely. Someone on the internet described her appeal as "soulshine" and thats exactly how to desribe her!

These two characters come from the same place emotionally, and they need each other. Stefan without Katherine is nothing more than a man stuck in the past and obsessed with revenge. Katherine without Stefan is a lonely woman in need of a true friend and people to love. They enrich each other's lives, add to the complexity of their respective storylines. And to top it off, they have explosive chemistry!

The most beautiful thing about this love story is the irony of it: at the precise moment Stefan could have been destroyed by someone (Katherine) teling hte truth, at his weakest moment- someone decided to forgive him and to love him despite his mistakes. Thats something he least expected- and one of the most precious gifts he had ever been given. Katherine too, learned that she was capable of more than her past self-centerdness ...that she was ready and willing to let love into her life and to trust her own feelings as much as she trusted Stefan's.

Katherine Before Stefan

Katherine arrived in Port Charles in 1993 as a woman of mystery. At the time, she went by the name of Katherine Crawford and claimed to be Dominique Baldwin's old friend. Scott Baldwin had just lost his wife, who died after an illness, and found comfort with Katherine, who also claimed to have lost her husband recently. He shared with her his pain over losing Dominiqiue only to find out later, thanks to a jealous Lucy's investigations, that Katherine wasn't who she said she was. Katherine had really come to town because she found out that Dominique was her half sister, and with her gone, Katherine felt entitled to the family inheritance she was always denied.

Katherine had been raised at the Stanton estate (Dominique's family home), as the daughter of the cook. She never knew, until her mother's deathbed confession, that she in fact was the product of an affair between her mother (the cook) and Dominique's wealthy and esteemed father.

While she ws conning Scotty, Katherine was sleeping with Damian Smith, the son of Frank Smith. the nefarious villain who had made life a living hell for Luke and Laura.

What Katherine didn't count on when she began conning Scotty- falling in love with him. But it happened, and just as she was about to marry him, Lucy came in with the news of who Katherine really was. Katherine admitted all to Scotty, but tried to tell him she was truly in love with him now.
Scotty wasn't having it, and not long after, he and his newborn baby (Lucy was surrogate mother for Scotty and Dominique) Serena, left Port Charles.

Katherine got over it quickly, survivor that she was, and moved on to other men and other ways of getting the only thing she thought would truly make her happy: money. She had never had any, and felt like she was denied the kind of life she always wanted. And even more so, she wanted the status- to have the acceptance of the town's upper crust, and to be admired by Port Charles most respected circles. Every thing she did was motivated by that need and that misguided attempt to belong.

Katherine's next scheme: blackmailing wealthy Ned Ashton, of the Quartermaine family, into marrying her. What she didn't know was that Ned was living a double life as "Eddie Maine", a rock and roller who wsa madly in love with his manager, Lois Cerillo.

Ned secretly eloped with Lois right before marrying Katherine (in order to make the marriage to Katherine null and void- but he didnt tell either "wife" about the other). Katherine did not impress the Quartermaines- her extravagant shopping trips (a brand new red convertible she bought on a whim) and schemes to get noticed, overwhelmed them and took them aback. Only Edward and Ned found her amusing. But Katherine had her fun: Edward managed to get her "Deception", Lucy's cosmetics company (briefly- Lucy got it back- this time).

But Katherine's fun ended when she threw herself a birthday party. Lois popped out of a cake and surprised all; she had just found out the truth and decided to make a special entry to the party, where she told Ned off.

Soon after, Katherine was poisoned at the Quartermaine mansion, and fell down the flight of stairs. No one but the Quartermaines found out the truth: the butler, Reginald, did it. Katherine lay in the hospital for days, and there were some poignant scenes of her being ill and feeling all alone when she was a little girl, often having no one to comfort her.
Damian was at her bedside throughout, and Katherine was grateful.

Damian and Katherine continued their affair, but once Damian started working with Sonny Corinthos (after inheriting his father, Frank Smith's money and ties to the mob), Katherine felt neglected. Katherine started visiting The Outback restaurant more and more often, flirting with Mac Scorpio to make Damian jealous. At the Nurse's ball, Katherine was annoyed at the attention Damian was giving to Lucy Coe- so she turned to Mac for comfort and he reciprocated.
Mac and Katherine grew closer, and she leaked information to him about Damian's dealings with the mob.

In Mac, Katherine felt like at long last, she found somthing real with someone who would not play games with her. Mac was true blue, and Katherine was not going to play games with him. Damian's jealousy got the better of him though; he faked his own death and set Katherine up to look like the murderer. mac and Felicia uncovered the truth, and cleared her. Damian asked Kat to return to him, but he refused and was*really* killed not long after.
In his will, Damian left Katherine all of his money.
At long last, she had all the money she had always wanted- and Mac.

Katherine's old rivalry with Lucy continued throughout. With her new found wealth, Katherine went on shopping sprees- buying Mac a whole new wardrobe, Robin some new dresses, and for herself: a new penthouse at the Port Charles Hotel AND Lucy's company, Deception (for the second time; she owns it to this day). Lucy was made head of Jax cosmetics, and the enemies fought over the supermodel, Brenda Barrett. Slowly, but surely, the differences between Mac and Katherine started to make them grow apart; he got a job as Police Commissioner, but was unhappy as "just" an office worker. Katherine relished in the status.

While Katherine was scouting for a location for a P.R. shoot, she happened upon Spoon Island, where she met Nikolas Cassidine. Nikolas had a crush on Katherine, unbeknost to her, and on one of his visits to her, he kissed her! Katherine told him that she didn't feel the way he did, and straightened him out; but mac,who was suspicious of the Cassidines, warned her to stay away from them.

An embarrassed Nikolas had run out of the penthouse, and Katherine felt obligated to run after him. Little did she know, her life was about to change. She arrived on Spoon Island, and was shot!

(Continued Below in: "Stefan and Katherine a Love Story")

Stefan Before Katherine

Stefan arrived in Port Charles in 1996, mysterious, dark stranger who was a part of the infamous Cassidine family. The Cassidines had a long history of terrorizing Luke and Laura; but when Stefan came to town he came to the rescue. His "nephew", Nikolas, was the bone marrow donor that saved the life of Laura's daughter, LeslieLu.

But of course, Stefan had other motives for being in Port Charles. He had long been obsessed with Laura, and the fact that she betrayed his family to spend her life with Luke Spencer, (a man who had killed so many of his relatives), angered him. He made no secret of wanting revenge. The secret that Nikolas was Laura's son by Stavros, whom Laura left behind when Helena threatened to kill her family, was revealed. Leslie's *death* (Laura's mother), at Helena's request, had made Laura absolutely certain she could never reclaim her firstborn son.

Stefan made his place in Port Charles; he took over the hospital when it was financially unstable after Steve Hardy's death. He bought Spoon Island and called his new mansion Wyndemere.
But whatever his actions, foremost in his mind, heart, and soul was the well being of his "nephew" Nikolas...and his obsession with making sure Luke and Laura felt the pain and anguish they had caused him and his family: especially Nikolas. "Timoria" he vowed, "Timoria" would be his.

Stefan and Laura shared a secret: while on the island they had become friends, and comforted each other by sleeping together one night. This night may or may not have produced Nikolas; but Stefan believed Nikolas was his son, a secret he kept from everyone.
Stefan could not tell his family, because he would be disowned, and more importantly Nikolas would inherit nothing unless he was son of the firstborn- Stavros. Furthermore, Stavros had always been Helena's favorite, and this kind of deception by Stefan would not go unpunished.

As part of Timoria, Stefan wooed Bobbie Spencer, Luke's sister, while she was at a weak moment after a divorce. She fell for his charms and married him quickly.

He attemtpted to teach the Spencers a lesson by engaging their son in an interactive computer game; the game failed- perhaps on purpose. The game led Laura and Luke to believe that Stefan had Leslie, Laura's mother and that she was alive and well.
Laura did find her mother- and faked her own death in order to protect her from Stefan and the Cassidines.

Stefan truly believed that Laura was dead. He was shaken by the news, and burned the portrait he had kept of her.

One fateful night, as an act of desperation, and a last attempt to seek justice against Luke,
Stefan attempted to make it look like Spencer had tried to kill him on the island. Stefan shot at a tree with Luke's gun- but someone got in his way....

(Continued in Stefan and Katherine: A Love Story)

Stefan and Kat: The Love Story
(Click Above to Continue)