Title: Last Call
Author: Steffie
Rating: T
Category: General Hospital
Summary: Last call isn't only for bartenders.
Notes: This takes place after the Season finale shoot out of Season 6.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

For fuck's sake, can time go any slower tonight? I am seriously getting annoyed here. Its only 2 a.m. and last call isn't until around 4. Geez, its like time is stuck in some fucking loop and I am the only idiot aware of it.

I really shouldn't be complaining though. Last Call used to be at sunrise every goddamn day. Thankfully Joe changed that. I'm not really sure why the fat bastard changed it. Maybe because his wife was threatening to leave her if she didn't close shop up earlier, or maybe it was because Trish threatened to quit.

I don't know. Quite frankly I don't give a shit.

"She left with the kids. Can you believe the bitch left with my kids?" I give the guy a sympathetic look and then refill his tumbler glass. I must admit, he is the first drunk I have seen in a long time that had taste. Single Malt Scotch. He had expensive taste to boot, made me interested just a teeny tiny bit more to listen to his bullshit. But he looked the part too. Expensive suit, expensive cologne, most probably an expensive mistress/secretary as well. He had begun to tell me the story, but the Scotch soon kicked in when he was getting to the juicy part. For my experience with the other business men, I am going to assume that he worked too much and the wife got fed up, or she found out about the dirty mistress when he was being sloppy.

My assumptions are usually right.

It was a slow night. I only heard 3 gut wrenching stories tonight. Usually I hear roughly 9 or 10. In my peak I had about 20 a night. But that was back when I did 16 hour shifts. Now I only do 12 hour shifts.

"She can't keep my kids from me!" he cries. Check! The crying is a sign that they are about done. I'll process his credit card a little later. Bennett and Jericho, our lovely bouncers for the night do a walk around, making sure that things weren't getting out of control. We haven't had those lately. Thankfully. I like it when my bar furniture stays in tact, as well as my face.

Last week, I heard a cool story. Well cool wouldn't be the appropriate word, but you get where I am going. A woman was so drunk that she didn't realize that her new born baby almost drowned in the tub. If her husband didn't come back in time, the baby would have died. Not sure what he did with his wife after. He was pretty vague after that. Kinda reminds me of my mother, just with less bruises. And I wasn't exactly a new born. Yeah.

But of course, nobody knows that. But that's the point. I am the therapist, you are my patient, and alcohol is my medicine and remedy to your problems. You come and sit at my bar, and lay out all the bullshit that is wrong in your life and I prescribe medicine to you, usually to your liking. Its not like I actually wanted to play therapist. It just comes with the job, you know. Well, I like to see it more as a game. Every night I play this game. It's pointless and it annoys me, and yet I am compelled to play on. But I am not playing with the crowd, just with the ones that actively look to participate in my game.

I just wish I could be the patient sometimes.

Sadly, I can't. I am glued in my position. I have to play God in my field. God of course has nothing to do with this, but I am a God in my field. I can show no weakness or flaws. I have to be perfect. I have no the answer, if not, I have to give you the illusion of perfected perfection. Sadly, everybody is too flawed in their own problems to see my flaws.

I want to be flawed enough to be given perfection in a shot glass.

One more Scotch shot and the guy left. Usually I am happy when he is too drunk to realize that he left a tip 5 times bigger then the check, but I say nothing. I see that as my pay for the therapy. I don't just pour the drink. I listen, I help, or I give you the illusion that I solved your problem. I get paid for playing God in your eyes, and it has made me rich.

But never happy. Ever.

I see him come towards me. He looks upset, and I take out a rocks glass. He takes a seat, and I automatically pour him some Johnny Walker. I am in a good mood. I pour him Black Label instead of Red Label. I do it more for me then for him. "I think you are a psychic." He says before he downs the shot. I smile. I see it all the time. By their facial expression, I can tell what they needed. Troubles in love life usually call for scotch or whiskey. Pathetic people need Vodka. I drank lots of Vodka tonight. Top Shelf Vodka. Grey Goose was on my side tonight.

He doesn't say much, he just looks at the glass, occasionally at me. He seemed intriguingly unstable. It was attractive. "You look like got fucked over," I said. I usually don't use such language, but he looked like the type of guy that needed it. But for some reason he seemed taken back by my words. "I am thinking about rephrasing it," I said. He laughed a little, it sounded very sexy. "Yeah, I think I would be more comfortable if you did," he replies.

Nice, we are gonna get conversation rolling.

"Rough night?" I am sick of using that phrase, because I used to say it almost 50 damn times a day. But if he wanted simple, I'll give him simple.

"More like rough couple of years," he replies.

It's so sad to see someone that sexy look so sad. Sadly, I know that alcohol wouldn't make him look any cuter.

"Lay it on me," I tell him before downing my own shot of Belvedere Vodka. Like I said, the Vodka is for the pathetic people. He looks at me and gives me a sad smile. That's a sign that he is gonna loosen up and spill his beans. I know that look. And I am ready to listen, but I need another shot of Belvedere Vodka. Pathetic, I know.

And then he spills it to me. The girlfriend he left because he had to. They were perfect until her the hospital shoot out that killed her colleagues got her into drinking. And she drank too much. Drank her innocent beauty away, and when the innocence was gone, drank her niceness away too. He said she had become a bitch, and lost her friends in the process. Became an aggressive drunk and pushed the wrong buttons, lost her medical license. And then she finally drank the baby away. With that, she pushed him away, enough to push him out a 2 story building, it is amazing that he is still alive.

"Sounds like one hell of a woman," I tell him. He shrugged, and then gave me that look.

Shit, I was hoping he wouldn't give me that look.

"Don't be her, don't ever be her…..again." There, he said it. Now I was pissed.

"Mark, don't do this to me," I tell him. But it was too late. He was already under my skin and I was starting to lose my therapeutic cool.

"You said you gave up drinking," he tells me, pointing at the numerous sobriety medals around my neck that I hid in my shirt. Yes, as God I was good at putting up illusions. Like the illusion that I was sober. Having a confrontation with my ex-husband was not something I was expecting. If I knew it was coming I would have had Jagermeister or Tequila. Those are for the desperate and lost beyond hope.

"Do you think I gain pleasure in this?" I say, pointing to the bottle in hand.

"Do you think I gain pleasure in playing hotshot bartender that can magically fix you? I was a brilliant doctor, that's when I fixed people."

My eyes are getting hazy, but I don't know if it was because of the liquor or because I was at the point of tears. "But when I pulled the plug on Mrs. Clark, I killed them all. I killed Alex, Reed, Percy, Derek, Meredith's baby and all those other people. I killed all of them!"

I could tell my mascara was running, and in the back of my mind I was cursing at it. I was a goddess to my customers, I couldn't mess up my perfect face. I quickly try to put up my "I don't give a shit, I am holier then thou" look. I've perfected it over the years.

"I don't care about life anymore Mark," I added. I didn't want to admit that to him, but it was too late.

He sighed. I could tell he was disappointed by my answer. "People who don't care about anything will never understand the people who do," he softly says.

I was not going to cry. The love of my life was not going to make me cry. The therapist doesn't give into emotion. She is the one in charge, and she says what goes.

"Last Call," is all I could say.

He drops some money on the table.

"Your last call was 3 years ago Lexie."

I never saw him again after that. Probably because I slit my throat when I went home.