a fanfic by SonnyandAlexisGal
Chapter Seven
And who will be hurt next.
He has a swig of his drink and shakes off the thought. Everything that can be done is being done. There are guards on Mike, Carly, Michael, and Alexis – everyone that Sonny loves. He even has a guard on Courtney, although he knows that - some way, some how - her husband AJ will use the fact against him in some way when he finds out – to paint him as some kind of a monster in his sister’s eyes. Still, keeping her safe is the most important thing. She can hate him as much as she likes.
As long as she’s safe.
Besides his people are getting closer and closer to shutting Lundine down once and for all. Sonny has no intention of living like any more of a prisoner than he already is. Lundine started this war. Sonny intends to end it.
Sonny gulps down what’s left of the drink in his hand and walks over to the bar for a refill. He picks up the bottle, uncorks it, and pours until his glass is full. He sits the bottle back down on the bar, has a gulp of his drink, and returns to stare out the window.
The violence in this business has always been hard for Sonny. He remembers when he first stepped into the void created when Luke killed Frank Smith back in Puerto Rico those years ago. He remembers explaining to his loyal mentor Harry Silver afterward about how he intended to do business differently from those who came before him. He remembers talking about how The Organization could be run as a numbers game – simple dollars and cents. He remembers telling Harry how the rampant violence was a thing of the past, how he’d do it all his way - the new way.
Sonny laughs to himself at how naďve he must have sounded to an old pro like Harry. Slowly but surely – through the death of Frank Smith, through the entire confrontation with Joe Scully over control at Luke’s Place and having to kill him in order to keep him from killing Mike, through the retaliatory gunshots fired at Brenda as she showered in their old apartment over the Paradise Lounge and the simultaneous attack on the Spencer home and Stone getting shot, right up to the moment that his car exploded into the heavens taking Lily and their unborn child with it – Sonny learned a valuable and incredibly costly lesson. He may have wanted to do it all differently but the others in charge would never allow him to. Sonny learned that violence went hand in hand with the kind of money, power, and influence that this life had given him.
And if he wanted to keep everything that he’d gained and keep the people around him safe and sound, he would sometimes have to use violence to do it.
Sonny chafes at the thought and has another healthy swig of the drink in his hand. He forces himself to remember that each and every time that he has tried to side-step actually killing an enemy by banishing them or having them transported out of the region, that person has always come back to haunt him. He didn’t kill Harry Silver after finding out that it was because of Harry’s betrayal that Lily’s father found out about Sonny’s plans to run off with Brenda and had that bomb planted under Sonny’s car – the bomb that ended up killing his own daughter. He spared Harry’s life and what was the result? Harry came back to town and hooked up with Pierce Dorman to sell drugs in Port Charles, resulting in the deaths of countless young people. Sonny was lured to General Hospital with some tale about Brenda being injured in an accident and, once he was there, someone stuck a needle in his neck, transported him back to his apartment, shot him full of heroin, and left him there to die in disgrace. Brenda saved his life that night but then later Harry abducted her. He blamed both Sonny and Brenda for Lily’s death and made up his mind to make them both pay. Harry told Sonny that if he didn’t come to where he was holding Brenda captive, she would die. Sonny did as he was told and Harry died trying to bury them both alive. If Sonny had handled Harry Silver as one of his competitors would have, a lot of pain and suffering and death could have been avoided. And what of Roscoe? If Roscoe had been dealt with once and for all on the docks that day, Alexis would never have been kidnapped and shot. She wouldn’t have nearly bled to death.
Sonny shakes his head, has another swig of his drink, and resigns himself to what must be done this time. The threat of Phil Lundine must be eliminated as neatly and as completely as possible. One young man’s life has already been snuffed out.
Sonny promises himself that it will not happen to anyone else.
___________________________________________________________________
Alexis looks up from the brief that she’s writing, her eyes tired from hours of staring at the small print, her hand needing a break after so much writing. She takes off her glasses, stands up from the table, and wanders over to the window.
Alexis watches the blue horizon in the distance take on an orange hue as the sun sets over Port Charles. She takes a deep breath and reassures herself that it has been a relatively uneventful day – except for the intermittent fluttering inside of her. Whenever she would become too engrossed in her work, the baby inside of her would decide to move around, rather effectively distracting her from any other thoughts.
She places a hand on her expanding belly and gently rubs. It becomes more and more real every day – the idea that she has this brand new life inside of her. She’s approaching the all-important end of the second trimester of this pregnancy. That means that it is nearly time to sail into the homestretch, so to speak. In a few short months, this little Corinthos-Cassadine princess will make her appearance. Alexis finds herself excited at the prospect. Before long, she will be able to hold her little girl in her arms.
She’d spent last night in bed next to Sonny – as she does almost every night these days. She has been too afraid to be apart from him. After all, she was apart from him one day when his car exploded. The idea that he could have been in that car has terrified her ever since.
Of course Alexis has spent a great deal of time worrying about Sonny over the years – even before their relationship changed. She has always known the dangers in Sonny’s life. If she didn’t, she certainly became personally acquainted with those dangers the day that he and Zander were shot in front of the Port Charles Police Department.
Memories of that day have been plaguing Alexis with renewed strength ever since the night that Sonny’s car was blown up – how Sonny pushed her aside to safety as soon as he realized what was happening, how before she knew what was happening, she was watching as bullet after bullet tore into Sonny’s body, how she saw him fall and how the blood seemed to gush from his chest as he lay there on the ground next to her.
A chill goes through Alexis as the sight of Sonny lying there replays in her head – him struggling to speak, struggling to get her to tell Carly that he loved her before losing consciousness. Alexis remembers walking behind the ambulance attendants as they wheeled the gurney that carried Sonny to the waiting ambulance, yelling at him that he would be alright and trying so desperately to believe it herself.
Mike has told her how Sonny did the same thing for her when she was shot – how he never left her side until he was forced to, how he sat in the waiting room, ignoring the things that Kristina and Ned had surely said to him, just waiting until the doctors told him that she had survived the surgery. She remembers being in that nether-world throughout it all but feeling the connection between them even then.
Over the years, over so many legal battles and shared confidences and tears and disappointments, the one constant that began to develop was Alexis’ relationship with Sonny. Somewhere in the middle of it all, they began to genuinely care for each other. Alexis found herself leaning on him more and more. She found herself telling him things that she would never have even considered sharing with anyone before. And then one day, she realized that she loved him. She figured that it was an impossible situation though because he was still very much in love with Carly. But then he followed her to Puerto Rico when she ran away. And her life hasn’t been the same since.
But one carefully planted bomb could have taken it all away – the same way that several carefully aimed bullets almost took him away a couple of years before. And what about his late wife Lily and their baby? The violence around him erupted and suddenly they were gone. What about what Sonny had told her about Brenda Barrett being shot at and kidnapped, and nearly killed when she was with him? Alexis can feel the baby – their baby – moving around inside of her at that very moment.
A tear falls from her eye as she considers what it all means - how no matter how she tries to reconcile it all and put all the pieces together, they just won't fit.
Just then, Alexis hears the door open behind her.
“Boy,” Kristina begins as she walks in, “what a day…” She closes the door and drops her keys down on the desk. “If I never have another conference call, it will suit me just fine…”
“Busy?” Alexis manages as she tries to compose herself.
Kristina shrugs.
“Yes but the worst of it is over,” she says as she goes over to where Alexis is standing. “Terms have been agreed on and…” She stops when she looks into Alexis’ teary eyes. “Alexis, what is it?”
Alexis wipes her tears away.
“We have to move…”
Kristina is thrilled at the prospect of getting Alexis away from the penthouse apartment that shares a hall with Sonny’s. Then she realizes what this decision must be costing Alexis.
“Alexis,” Kristina begins, “I’m…sorry. I mean I know how hard this must be for you…”
“This isn’t how I want to raise my child,” Alexis says quietly.
“I understand. Does…Sonny know?”
Alexis shakes her head no and takes a deep breath.
“No,” she answers. “Not yet…”
She turns and walks to the front door and pulls it open. She forces herself to walk across the hall, where she comes face to face with Max.
“Good evening, Max,” she says in as steady a voice as she can manage. “Is he in?”
“Of course, Miss Davis,” Max says.
He knocks at the door.
“Yeah?” comes the voice from inside.
Max opens the door.
“Miss Davis,” he announces.
Alexis steps into the apartment and sees Sonny standing at the desk, reading something in his hand as Max closes the door behind her.
He glances up at her and smiles. She notices the quick flash of his dimples even as she sees the weariness in his eyes.
“Hey,” he says, absently. “You okay?”
“I’m…fine. You?”
Sonny shrugs.
“What’s up?”
Alexis takes a deep breath.
“We…have to talk,” Alexis manages.