Oooh, look at what the cat dragged in! Yes, I've been MIA (I work a lot), but I got this special request from my dear Batel - perhaps the only person who could pull me out of hiding for a GH fic. Although I'm in the midst of moving 600 miles from home in 4 days, I couldn't not write this for her. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!
LSC readers, I have 2 chapters written. I actually would like to finish writing the story entirely before I post for not only your sanity to avoid long waits between updates, and my sanity and desire to work on a fic knowing that I've spent forever writing in spite of my work schedule and not having many people review. So...
TWO-SHOT. Not edited.
1
Breakfast at Carly's
"I can't believe you're making me pick this breakfast up, Carly," Alexis jokingly reproached the woman who had miraculously agreed to have her hotel's kitchen open early so as to accommodate the unorthodox request that had been made. "I mean, one would think that given the amount of family we share, you'd do me this one favor and deliver."
Rolling her eyes as she pointed to a seat for the attorney to take, the blonde smiled. "And one would think that as a mother of three and a grandmother crazy enough to venture out of the house in Mrs. Claus pajamas, that you'd know how to cook by now."
"Should we discuss your cooking skills?" Alexis pointedly replied.
"Alright, truce," Carly responded with her hand extended for the brunette to shake. She laughed when her former nemesis smacked it instead. "You never could go without having the last word, could you?"
Shrugging her shoulders, Alexis gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "But seriously, Carly, I do appreciate you doing this for me. I just couldn't bring myself to go to Kelly's this morning." She sighed. "I thought that this year might have been the first in a long time that I would have somebody to share the holiday with apart from my girls. Instead, the only man I'm looking to make happy is blond, blue-eyed, and not yet potty trained."
The blonde smirked. "Jerry back in the picture?" She laughed aloud when the attorney threw a cocktail napkin at her. "Oh relax, I'm joking. If Jerry were anywhere near you, I'd kidnap you myself to knock some sense into you that he's obviously homicidal," she replied. "Besides, but for the fact that Michael's with Kiki, Morgan's decided that he wants nothing to do with his father and me, and Josslyn's with Jax in Australia, I'd have told you to suck it up - no pun intended, of course - and get your Kelly's breakfast seeing as it would benefit my family either way since we own the joint."
"You're so thoughtful," Alexis commented under her breath.
However, ignoring her comment, the woman continued. "But, I happen to love two of your three daughters-"
It was Alexis' turn to roll her eyes. "Somewhere deep down, you care about Sam," she said. "And I'm pretty sure the same is true for her as well. You can't go through all these years hating each other without developing some kind of care or concern. I mean, look at us! I can barely stand you, yet here you are getting your staff to make me breakfast to bring home to my girls."
Carly grabbed a couple of glasses and poured some egg nog into them before sliding one to her guest. "Just call it a Christmas miracle."
The two women raised their glasses to one another. It had taken years for them to establish such a relationship with one another whereby they could spend even a moment in one another's presence without the likelihood of an attempt to their lives being made. Perhaps it was maturity over the years, or simply an understanding that they had to coexist for their children's sake. Nevertheless, while neither would call the other a friend, they certainly had a mutual respect and tolerance for the other's existence.
"Normally I'd question how much of a good idea this is, having egg nog this early in the morning, but," she smiled when Carly gave her a knowing look. "Well, it is Christmas after all. I suppose I can make an exception."
"My, my, if it isn't the First Wives' Club," a snide voice was heard from behind them. "Well, I suppose it's more like the Second Wife and the Mistress Club." She looked the woman up and down. "Nice pajamas, Alexis. How... festive."
Turning to face the sound, Alexis rolled her eyes at the petite blonde with the overly blown out bob haircut. It was barely eight in the morning, and yet the woman wore a form fitting sheath dress as though she was prepared serve Christmas dinner and cocktails. "Don't you have a cradle to rob, Ava?" And remembering that the cradle of which she spoke belonged to none other than the woman on the other side of the bar, Alexis quickly turned and mouthed an apology to her.
Never at a loss for words herself, Carly walked around the bar to face the woman who had caused a rift between her and her son. "What are you doing here, Ava?" She asked prepared to have her promptly removed from her hotel. "The restaurant isn't opened yet, and you're definitely not a guest in this hotel."
"No, I'm not," she replied. "However, my brother-" she leaned to side so that she might make eye contact with Alexis, "he's a guest here. And seeing as it is Christmas, I thought it best to see if I could get reservations for this evening."
"We're booked," Carly promptly responded without a moment's thought.
"Oh?" Ava's lips formed into her notoriously devious smile. "And here I thought that you might want to put aside your dislike-"
"Hate-" she corrected.
"Whatever," the other blonde countered before continuing. "As I was saying, I was hoping that seeing as my brother is a guest in your hotel, along with the owner of a newspaper run from this hotel, and since my beau, your son, Morgan will clearly be spending the holiday with me, you might be willing to put aside your differences and actually check to see if there might be any reservation openings for Christmas dinner tonight. I'd hate to spend our first holiday together stuck in my apartment." She paused to watch the look of contempt on Carly's face transform into one mixed with disbelief, discontent, and disapproval. "It was just a thought. Although, I'm certain we could find another fine establishment-"
"You're such a bitch," Carly sneered.
"Oh, so does that mean that a reservation just opened up?" Ava sarcastically replied as she turned on her heels to exit. However, just prior to reaching the door, she called over her shoulder, "I'm hoping that it's for approximately 8pm."
Cursing under her breath, Carly returned to the bar just as her concierge brought the prepared breakfast to Alexis. Promptly grabbing the bags from the man before he could hand them to the woman, she narrowed her eyes at her. "You want to repay me for this act of kindness shown not only to you, but also to your daughters this morning?" She rhetorically asked. "You are all having Christmas dinner here tonight. If I have to suffer watching Ava fondle my son, you get to sit here and have Christmas dinner with the father of your eldest child."
Alexis shook her head. "Um, no." She replied. "We're having dinner at Wyndemere-"
"You don't even like Wyndemere, Alexis!"
She could not deny the veracity of her statement. "True, but I do love my nephew," she commented. "And he invited us over there for dinner."
Unhappy with the response, with the bags still in hand, Carly turned toward the kitchen. "Well, you had better wake your girls up and drag them to Wyndemere right now because unless you bring your self-righteous Davis asses here tonight, your only two options for breakfast at the moment are either going to Kelly's for Shawn's sausage and eggs you love so much or food poisoning because there's no way in hell you're having anything my staff prepared for you."
Rolling over to look at the clock, Sam realized that like every Christmas Day, and despite having a son who managed to wake her up at six each morning, she had managed to sleep in. It was seven-thirty. "You had better still be in that bed, Mom," she mumbled to herself as she dragged herself out of her bed and toward her bathroom.
It was a Christmas tradition in the Davis household. Since their very first Christmas together - a time most turbulent to say the very least - when Alexis was constantly sick due to her chemo treatments, Sam was tasked with ensuring that her mother was awake in order to see the girls open the gifts under the tree. Of course, at the time, the young woman barely out of her teens was barely on speaking terms with her newly discovered mother, but for the sake of her already traumatized then five year old sister Kristina, she went into the woman's room, dragged her into the bathroom to get cleaned up, returned her to her bed in a fresh pair of Head Elf Christmas pajamas, and handed her a marijuana baked cookie to quickly munch while she changed into her own elf pajamas so that her sister would think that she had spent the night. After all of that was taken care of, as Sam moved to exit the room, she then prompted her mother to pretend that she was fast asleep so that bring the girls in to her. And while Alexis had been in remission for the last fifteen years, the tradition - minus the laced cookies, of course - stuck. With the exception of the previous year where they spent the night at the Penthouse, all three girls were always together at the lakehouse, dressed in matching pajamas on Christmas morning waking up their mother and opening presents. This year would be no different.
"Krissy," Sam stuck her head into her sister's room. "Babe, it's time to get up."
Not wanting to move from the comfort of her very warm bed, the younger woman curled herself in a ball under the covers. "Come back later, Sam," she grumbled. "Go get Molly first. She's probably the only one who still believes that Mom, of all people, is still asleep at whatever hour we crawl into her bed."
"Not the point, Krissy!" Sam called. "It's a tradition. It's what we do. And it's something Mom loves for us to do."
"Yea well, she wasn't delayed at the airport until 2 in the morning," Kristina replied as she turned over in her place.
"No one told you to fly home so late. You should've anticipated that flying in December to Upstate New York would have a possibility of delays," Sam replied with a large smile at her little boy who giggled in her arms. "Go to Auntie Krissy, Danny." She cooed as she let the boy down to run to his aunt with a diaper in hand. "Make yourself useful babe; your nephew needs a new diaper."
She slipped out of the room and walked toward the next one before her sister could protest. As was her habit with her baby sister, rather than poke her head into the room so as to avoid the wrath of the morning grinch that was the middle Davis girl, Sam tiptoed inside, slid under the covers and pulled the soundly sleeping girl into her arms.
"Good morning Sleepyhead," she said with a kiss on her sister's cheek. Running her fingers through the youngest Davis Girls hair, she smiled when she felt Molly's arms wrap around her waist. "It's time to wake up."
"You do know that Mom is faking every year, right?" Molly yawned as she rested her head onto her sister's chest. "Her hair and teeth are freshly brushed, and I'm pretty sure last year she wore concealer so that she wouldn't look like she'd just woken up in the picture... unlike us."
"Well, let's just pretend for Danny's sake, okay?" Sam whispered. "He'll like waking up his Gaga."
"Fine," the teen replied rolling off the bed. "Come on, then. I think we gave Mom enough time to glam herself up already."
Shaking her head, she ran to catch up with her sister and wrapped her arm around her. "And Merry Christmas to you too, my favorite little Grinch," Sam blew a raspberry into her cheek.
"Sorry," Molly blushed before turning to give her sister a hug. "Merry Christmas, Sam. I'm glad this year is a little easier than last. I know how much you miss Jason around this time."
The older woman sighed at the reminder of her husband's glaring absence. "I'm fine," she lied, but truthfully rephrased. "Or at least I will be. With the best little sisters, most amazing mom, and cutest little boy in the whole wide world, I can deal with what I don't necessarily have by my side. Some people don't even have that much."
"You two always have to be the most sappy, don't you? It's too early in the morning for this." Kristina smirked at her sisters' appearance in the hallway. "Danny was just telling me how the sooner we get this over with, the sooner he can get that cup of coffee he's been wanting."
"Yea, I'm sure he did." Rolling her eyes, Sam sharply smacked her sister's bottom before running down the hall toward their mother's room. "Merry Christmas, babe," she yelled over her shoulder just as she crashed into the woman's empty room. "Mom?" She frowned. Walking toward the on-suite bathroom. "Mom, you in there?" She knocked on the door once before slowly opening it. "You do know that you're supposed to be in bed, don't-" she stopped speaking when she realized that the room was also empty. "What the hell?!"
"Gaga?" Danny toddled into the room and toward his grandmother's bed. "Gaga?"
Sam shrugged in annoyance at her mother's absence and break from tradition. "Yea, so it looks like she isn't here, buddy," she lifted her son into her arms. "Let's hope that Grandma didn't get run over by a reindeer."
Kristina chuckled inappropriately at her sister's comment. "Well, if you ask a few people, they'd probably say that Mom would be the one running over-" she stopped speaking when both girls glared in her direction. "Okay, so maybe that wasn't funny."
"Maybe?" Molly poked her sister in the side. "I think that's a bit of an understatement especially since it was your idiot boyfriend she ran over."
Noticing that the young woman paled at Kiefer's reminder, Sam cleared her throat in a fashion both girls had always said was reminiscent of their mother's way of getting their attention. "Alright, let's not rehash the past, please," she replied. "I think it's safe to say that Mom would not have appreciated being reminded of what happened that night... and the weeks that followed." She then looked over to her affronted sister. "And since you're the one who started it, just for that really S-T-U-P-I-D comment, Auntie Krissy, you're making breakfast while we wait for Mrs. Claus to get home."
Kristina smiled realizing that her sister wanted only to get her mind off the difficult past. "Am I making breakfast because of the S-T-U-P-I-D comment, or because I'm the only one who has any form of proficiency in the kitchen?" She retorted.
"Whatever makes you get to the kitchen faster," the eldest Davis girl smiled. "I think I just heard Danny ask for that cup of coffee again."
An hour later, the girls were laughing and joking as they set the table and put the final fixings on the breakfast Kristina had prepared when their mother struggled through the door with the bags of breakfast she had just picked up.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, babies," she smiled apologetically. Placing a kiss onto the tops of all their heads, she dropped the bags onto the floor. "I didn't want you to worry about doing that! I wanted to surprise you with breakfast."
"And how does one do that when one was supposed to be asleep in bed awaiting three and a half elves to wake her, Mrs. Claus?" Sam asked before noticing that her mother had gone out in her pajamas. "Seriously, Mom?"
Alexis waved her hand in response. "Please, I've lived in this town long enough for people to know how very little concerned I am about what they think about my morning attire," she said as she grabbed her grandson from her daughter's arms. She tickled his tummy. "What do you think, buddy? Grandma Claus is the bravest lady you know, right? She walks to the beat of her own drum, right?" She turned her attention back to her eldest. "And as to breakfast being on the table before I was supposed to have awoken? Well, the same way that presents end up under the tree in the middle of the night. Santa and the elves did it."
"Those aren't Kelly's bags," Molly observed knowing that her mother had not stepped foot in her once favorite breakfast spot since learning that Julian Jerome was Sam's father. The woman did not want to be put in the middle of the war brewing between the father of her eldest child and that of her second child. For once, the youngest Davis girl was grateful that her father lived 3,000 miles away. "Where'd you go? The MetroCourt?"
"Sadly," Alexis shook her head. When the girls gave her a puzzled look, she continued. "Well, I had the misfortune of running into your aunt, honey." She looked at Sam. "And because your former stepmother," she then looked over to Kristina, "did me a favor in allowing me to use her kitchen staff to make breakfast for her favorite -" she made air quotes, "'nieces' and 'nephew' she's now requiring that we go to the Metro Court for dinner."
"But aren't we going to Wyndemere?" Molly asked. "Why does she want us to go to the Metro Court so badly?"
"Well, because your aforementioned aunt, Sam, wormed her way into having reservations in an otherwise booked hotel restaurant by mentioning that that would be the only way Carly - who is currently suffering from empty nest syndrome - would be able to see Morgan today," she sighed. "So-"
"So, we're stuck having dinner with Ava and Julia, Mom?!" Sam screamed. "If that's the case, take the food back! Otherwise, neither I nor Danny are going. I already told you that I'm not having anything to do with him or his life," she slammed her coffee cup onto the table as she stood to leave. "I made a vow on Jason's memory that I would not raise my son in the world that caused his father his life. I almost lost Danny once, I will not take the chance in going back into the life just so I could have a relationship with a man I've spent thirty-five years of my life ignorant of. It's not worth it."
Quickly handing Danny to her middle child, Alexis grabbed Sam's arm to stop her from leaving the room. "Honey, you didn't let me finish," she said.
"Mom, you just said that Carly told you that if she gave your breakfast from her hotel kitchen, that we'd have dinner at the Metro Court," she countered. "Those are Metro Court platters, aren't they?"
"Yes, but you doubt your mother's prowess in arguments, my little doubter," Alexis replied with a kiss to her daughter's temple. "I told the sister of your brother that if she gave me breakfast to feed my beautiful girl and grandson that we would come to the Metro Court during dinner." She smiled widely. "I've already called Nikolas to let him know that we need to have dinner at five, so that we could make it to the MetroCourt at eight-"
Although slightly appeased that she would not have to have dinner with her father, Sam nevertheless groaned. "But you do realize that this doesn't eliminate the problem that we'll need to still see Julian AND his obnoxious sister, Ava, who, might I add, doesn't like me very much, for the holiday?"
"It's called a compromise, honey," Alexis sighed. "It was either that, or we would have starved this morning."
Kristina scoffed at her comment. "Excuse me, but I do believe we have breakfast right here, Mom," she waved her hand over the scrambled eggs and toast she had managed to whip up from the few items in her mother's otherwise empty refrigerator. "We wouldn't have starved."
However, Alexis promptly shook her head as she grabbed the plate of eggs from the table.
"Oh sweetheart, you haven't been away that long. You should've already known better than to cook anything in that fridge without first checking the expiration date on the items in there." She then wagged a disapproving finger at her two other daughters. "And you two should've known better seeing as you live here," she pointed to Molly, "And you spend a lot of time, here, Sam. Without Shawn around, this is a take-out delivery home only." She handed her grandson back to her daughter. "Now, please get the food out of the bags while I dispose of this delicious, albeit health hazardous, food you've prepared, and let's have Christmas breakfast."