Chapter 1
"Alexis, what are your plans now?"
The question caught her off guard and she wasn't ready to answer it. She and Sonny were lying in bed allowing the new morning sun to filter across them, each caught up in their own thoughts. Just the previous night she had reunited what was left of her true family. In truth, she was still trying to deal with the magnitude of what the 'nobility of Cassadine' had done to her and her brother and sister. The bastard children of Kristin Bergman and Mikkos Cassadine had survived and found each other again.
"Sonny, I don't have an answer to that. I'm only now beginning to realize just how much was taken from me as a child. It is overwhelming to me that in all the years I have spent alone, craving family, craving the love that family brings, wanting to belong to someone... I had it and it was ripped from me cruelly and without conscience. In the legal cases I've represented over the years I've seen the cruelty of adults toward children. But, the kind of cruelty that was visited on Johnny and I... it's unspeakable. I'm having trouble processing it in my head. So, your question, while you have every right to it, is one I just don't have an answer to yet."
"Well, can you at least tell me if you and I will be together while you process it all?"
Alexis turned slowly within his arms to look at him. She loved this man to distraction. They met only 2 short months ago and for her it was two of the most eventful months of her life. She took on Sonny's custody case, stopped a takeover of a mob organization, adopted a brother, had a gun pulled on her, fallen in love, and shut down the abusive foster home of the man she loved. She watched two very important men in her life battle their way back from almost being murdered, learned her adopted brother was actually her real brother, and found a sister she had forgotten about. A person needed time to process those kinds of events. Her life sounded like a soap opera and she needed time to recover.
"My love, you have remained by me through all of this without forcing me to face the questions you obviously have a right to ask. You have been very patient and loving with me. You've not turned your back on me once. Even after you found out about my past, you didn't turn away. You stayed with me. You are a large part of what I have been looking for my whole life. I'm not willing to give that up. I'm not willing to give you up. I meant what I said last night. You are my life and I love you. I told you when I got off the plane yesterday that I would need you with me the next couple of days. That wasn't exactly true; while I will spend the next few days coming to terms with everything, and I will need you with me to help get me through it, I neglected to tell you that I will also need you in my life for the rest of my life."
"Alexis, how could I have turned my back on a woman who is an extension of me. It would be like ripping my lungs from me and expecting me to still be able to breathe. I cannot leave you, leaving you would mean leaving myself. You have so completely pulled me into you that I cannot exist without you. You and I are complete when we are together. Alexis, I love you."
Sonny pulled her close, in awe of the power she held over him. He kissed her and let his body come alive under her touch. It would be awhile before they spoke with words again. Their bodies needed to speak for them now with words that had no voice. They needed to once again seal their words with a passion that was so intense, so exquisite it could only be found with each other.