So, considering that we didn't have an aftermath conversation pertaining to the explosion, but we know that Alexis is going to confront Julian, I wrote a short ONE-SHOT of something I and many others would've liked to see rather than some of things that did air.
Smokescreens
She woke up, but she did not wake up. She tried to convince herself that it was a dream... a nightmare, really... it had to be. If she kept her eyes closed for a moment longer, she was certain that she would wake up in her room, in her house, in the place in which she and her family had shared so many memories... both happy and sad. She would wake up and...
"Mom?"
She heard soft knocking on a door that was on the wrong side of the room. The sound came from the right, instead of the left. How ironic.
"Mom?" The knocking persisted. "Mom, are you awake?"
And while she wanted terribly to imagine that, like the many times her eldest daughter had come homefor the night, the woman was simply inquiring if she wanted her usual breakfast order from Kelly's, there was no use pretending any longer. She was not going to wake up from this nightmare. This was it. It was her reality. And although she so easily told her youngest daughter that their whole lives existed under the roof in which they currently stayed, the truth was that the sight of her home in rubbles, and the memories that flooded her mind, killed her.
"Mom, are you okay?" Sam asked when she finally decided to simply enter the bedroom. Her mother was an early riser; she never slept past seven in the morning. And with Danny, neither did she. "I just checked in on Molly; she's still asleep."
She felt the mattress shift slightly as Sam took a seat beside where she lied, and the gentle touch of the young woman's hand against her shoulder. She wanted to open her eyes and acknowledge her presence, but she could not. If she did, she would see him. Although, he often mentioned how much their daughter resembled her, in truth, he shared just as many similarities with her: the shapes of their faces, their noses, their slightly chubby cheeks, and the subtle dimples they had when they smiled. The things she had loved about this discovery, were the very same things that currently hurt to face.
"I really wish you'd talk to me," Sam sighed. "You know you don't have to be strong for me, right? I'm not Molly. I can handle it. And you-" she bit the inside of her cheek. "Mom, it's okay if you want to just... I don't know... let it... out."
And just like her father, this beautiful young woman they had created, had a calming effect. Before Julian had come into their lives, she had always attributed Sam's resiliency to that of a Cassadine inheritance. But in meeting him, truly getting to know him, she knew she was wrong.
"If I..." she slowly began. "If I open my eyes, honey-"
"What?" Sam pressed when her mother stopped short. Seeing the tears roll down her cheeks, she knew that the woman's pain was deeper than the idea their destroyed home. There was more to it than that. Behind those tears, there were suppressed emotions, memories, and... truth.
"If I open my eyes, it means that all of this is real," she sniffled. "And in the same breath, fake."
She understood exactly what her mother meant. The reality that had faced them as they looked on at their demolished home was that Julian had lied. This new life he had begun did not exist. "I'm so sorry," was all she could say in response. After all, what else could be said? "We're gonna get through this," she nodded. "I'm gonna help you get through this."
"You know what's funny?" Rolling onto her side, Alexis finally pulled herself from the overwhelming darkness of her thoughts so that she could find peace and solace in one of the lights in her life. "For as much as I would like to believe that your father isn't the cause of all of this, I'd be kidding myself if your sister's words hadn't resonated in my mind." She wiped her nose. "God, Sam, was I stupid to believe that he could get out of the mob so easily?"
Sam stared at her mother for a moment unsure of how to truly respond to her question. In one hand, she wanted to question the woman's sanity given that for over twenty years, this world had surrounded them; it was never that easy to get out of the business. But, on the other hand, she too believed that it could have been so simple for her father. So, maybe she too was stupid in believing it. Perhaps she was so desperate to have what was only in her dreams of her mother and father being together, that she allowed herself to become naive and gullible in the face of her father's lies.
"Don't say that," she whispered as she leaned forward to wipe a tear from her mother's grief-stricken face. "I believed him too, Mom. I wanted to believe that everything could be so simple, I did-"
"It never is, honey," Alexis sighed as she fell back onto her back. She stared at the ceiling. "Just when you think that everything is going perfectly, that the fates were allowing me some semblance of what could have been if your father and I had-" She stopped. Looking up at this beautiful life they had created, she would forever be grateful to Julian for his appearance - albeit brief - in her life for that one night brought her a daughter she did know how to live a life without. In spite of the years that they had been separated, none of that mattered. She no longer remembered how it felt to not be a mother of three beautiful girls. It could have all ended. "Life has a funny way of yanking the rug right from underneath you." She reached over and ran her hand over the younger woman's knee. "But I think I'm preaching to the choir here, hmm?"
Thinking of her happiest moments in marrying Jason, only to be - or thought to be - raped on their honeymoon, to finding out she was pregnant, only to learn that the baby was - or thought to be - Franco's, to giving birth, then losing - or thought to have lost - her baby, to then have Danny was returned to them, only to lose Jason the next day, then finally moving on from his death with Silas, only for Nina to return, she squeezed the bridge of her nose.
"You are," she finally replied. Knowing that the woman was not ready to begin her day, Sam settled herself comfortably beside her on the bed. She rested her head onto her shoulder and wrapped an arm across her waist. The past couple of years had been an emotional roller-coaster, but the most important part of it all was that they had survived. Leaning on one another, they made it through every single ounce of pain that had been injected into their lives. "I'm just... regardless of everything... I'm just... I'm so grateful that you're okay," she continued. "To think that what stood between losing all of you was just a couple of minutes-"
"And Danny's epic tantrum," Alexis jokingly commented as she ran her finger along her daughter's arm.
"Exactly," she nodded. "And to think that it could've been over so quickly, I want to just... God, I want to throttle Julian. But-" she sat up to look at the woman. "But Mom, I get it. He just wants everything that he's never really had and was desperate. I don't think he really meant to lie-"
"Sam, he told us that he left the mob, which clearly wasn't true considering that the house is completely destroyed!" Alexis countered as she slipped from the bed. "Honey, I'm dressed in one of Jason's t-shirts right now because the only clothes I now own are what I wore last night, and your sister and I are homeless. The house that I bought for you is gone. Honey, it was your home as much as it was ours."
"I know-"
"And rather than be honest and tell us that he was dragged back into it..." she stopped pacing the room. "Or maybe... maybe he never even left. I don't even know what to believe anymore." When the tears began to fill her eyes once again, she grabbed a tissue. "The mob.. business... whatever... has caused far more pain than it has any joy, and yet we just keep getting sucked into its orbit." She shook her head. The images of all that she had lost and nearly lost swirled in her mind. "When I saw the house, destroyed and ready to collapse, I was taken right back to that day almost twenty years ago when your aunt-"
"Kristina," Sam whispered from her seat. Her mother barely spoke of the young woman who had died in a similar explosion meant for Sonny; the pain of it all must have been too much to bear.
Alexis nodded. "Apart from your poor eating habits undoubtedly inherited from and aggravated by me, you two were so much alike," she sadly commented. "And she lost her life - one that was filled with so much potential - because of this crap. I mean, the only reason she was even there was because I was pregnant with your sister and she was there to tell Sonny... you know, the other mobster who managed to get me knocked up on the first try." She laughed ironically. "Then I get with said mobster's brother, and he manages to knock me up again... and now he's dead. I mean, was he even Julian's boss?" She threw her hands in the hair. "Because, if that were even remotely true, why would this happen? I mean, I thought that Ric being dead meant that Julian was free?"
Sam shrugged in response. She did not have an answer to give her mother for all of the questions that she had also posed to herself throughout her long sleepless night. Could her father have been the reason her sister was in this profound amount of pain? Could he and his lies have been the reason for all of this? Ric's death, Rafe's addictions and eventual death, and finally, the explosion that could have caused the worst tragedy she could not even have imagined experiencing? It was a lot to take in.
"What are you going to do?" She finally asked after her mother had finally retaken her seat on the bed. It had been some time since she had seen the woman looking so downtrodden. It broke her heart. "Are you going to break up with him?"
Alexis thought for a moment before responding. "Well, the first thing I'm going to do is shower, put on the clothes I wore yesterday because I'm fairly certain that nothing Jason owned would flatter me, and then take your sister shopping for a whole new wardrobe," she sarcastically replied. "Um... and then I suppose I'll wallow for a moment before going to this man that I love more than any other man I've ever been with and get the truth... or whatever version of it he'll give me. And if by some miracle he is telling me the truth, and he really had nothing to do with all of this, then I guess we'll... rebuild."
