Note- As far as this story goes, Johnny did not cause the deaths of Hope and Cole. Nor did he marry Kate/Connie or buy the Haunted Starr.
Kristina's storyline though sticks to what was shown on GH. This picks up right after she was kidnaped by Joe Scully.
I still write stories for Gh but I post them elsewhere. I thought I might share one here again and see how it goes.
Fighter
Part One
October 2012
Lied to. Beat up. Kidnapped. Tortured. Threatened. Seconds away from being murdered in cold blood.
And that was just the last week for Kristina Corinthos Davis. There were also the many times those things happened to her while she was growing up. Being the daughter of a mob boss was only glamourous in books or movies. In real life, in her life, it was a walk through hell.
When she went off to college she tried to be someone different, to leave the past behind, but everyone there found out the truth about her family. She couldn't escape the legacy of being Sonny Corinthos' kid.
She had been barely able to walk, still a toddler, the first time she got kidnaped. In kindergarten the first time she saw someone get shot. In second grade when her older sister was shot in her stomach, unceremoniously dumped by her fiancee at her hospital bedside and then told she would never have a baby because of the injury. Kristina was in middle school when her brother was shot in the head and went into a year long coma.
Violence was a constant presence in Port Charles and especially in her family.
Her mother had tried to protect Kristina from all of it but there was no way to really keep Kristina safe- or any of them. They had bullet proof cars that had anti-bomb devices on them and bodyguards but the guards couldn't always be around. Bad things still happened. And they happened often.
Next time she would be ready, instead of just some sitting duck, easy target. Next time whoever came for her would be in for a rude awakening because she would have a lot more than just her tears and pleading to use as weapons. She would be prepared to defend herself against the nasty world that was her birthright- the one her father had made her home.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
XXXXXXXX
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
"Johnny, are you in there? It's me."
He groaned, pulling himself up off the couch and walking over to the door. The last six months he'd been in a dark place. Or was it the last six years? His whole life?
He'd killed his father...err, grandfather...Anthony. And gotten away with it. Except in his own conscious, which was haunting him for the sin, the crime, the weakness of taking out his lifetime tormentor.
Johnny Zacchara had never been a happy person. For most unhappy adults they can look back in their childhood and find at least one happy moment to remind them what happiness felt like but he couldn't. His childhood had been hell- spent locked in a mansion that was more like a prison with only servants and his deranged father/grandfather. He tried hard now to call Anthony his grandfather every time he spoke of him just to remind himself and the world that Anthony pimped out Claudia and that is how Johnny came to be.
Claudia. His sister...actually his mother. She had meant the world to him but he had spent most of his life missing her. Now she was dead and gone, just like Maria (who he had been told was his mother for most of his life) and Trevor, the person who had been his caretaker and guardian when Anthony was too sick to do the job, and Anthony. Everyone was dead.
Only Johnny lived on, alone in this Penthouse. Now without even friends since Carly had dumped him, Ethan was off on some adventure, and years ago he had distanced himself from Lulu and Maxie, purposefully made such a mess of things that he lost them both in one fell swoop. Maybe he didn't want anyone close to him.
Except he did. The loneliness closed in around him more and more each day, suffocating him, dragging him closer and closer to his own grave. Pretty soon there wouldn't even be one person left around who gave a damn about him or keeping him from an early death.
But he wasn't fit for company so there wasn't much he could do...or felt he should do...to change his dark situation. Hearing Kristina's voice in the hallway was not a welcome respite from his misery. It was just a headache come calling since he knew he couldn't be of any use to her, he couldn't even be of use to himself anymore.
He had stopped trying to escape his family legacy and be someone better, someone happier, anything othe than the miserable person he had always been. Johnny Zacchara had hit bottom and given up. Kristina shouldn't waste her time coming to visit him.
Hauling open the door, holding a bottle of booze in one hand, he leaned against it and asked "What do you want?"
"Bad day?"
With a dreary chuckle, he told her "Bad year. Bad life. The usual. Look, I'm kinda busy right now..."
She breezed inside. "This won't take long. I need a favor."
"Sorry but I'm all out. Ran dry. Wish I could help but-"
If you ever need anything you know who to call first, he had told her when she came home from her first year at college but that had been before he did the gruesome deed and took out Anthony. Before he learned that he could kill and bury the monster but still never escape him.
Head cocked to the side, she gave him an appraising look before asking, in a tone full of concern, "What happened to you?"
"Just a bad run," he said, collapsing on the couch and laying his head back, closing his eyes. "If you're in trouble you should call Ethan. Maybe it would bring his sorry ass back here to know you need him."
"I don't even have a number for Ethan anymore. Do you?"
"Nah." Opening his eyes, he rubbed them and tried to clear his vision. "Ask Luke. He probably has one. Ethan can help you more than I could. He always had a soft spot for you."
"Yeah, well, he's gone to God knows where and I need help now, not some day if he gets around to it, and you're the first person I thought about because everyone else would go to my father and tell him what I'm up to. That's the last thing I need right about now. Did you hear that Joe Scully died?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Well what wasn't in the papers was that right before he died he kidnaped me. Took me to my father's warehouse, tied me to chair, put a gun to my head and told me he was going to blow my brains out so that my husband would inherit my fortune."
Fury raced through Johnny's veins and a sense of protectiveness washed over him at the same time. Kristina should be off limits to the thugs, thieves and gangsters of his world. She was just a couple years out of high school, a kid not involved in the business, a woman unable to fight back or take a punch like a man. Her first serious boyfriend used to beat her and Johnny had visited her in the hospital a couple of times, seeing her bruised and bandaged because of what some man did to her. It pissed him off then and it still pissed him off now. She was older now but underneath the exterior she was still fragile, though he could tell all that softness was slowly being beat out of her by the lifestyle of her father's choosing.
"That bastard," Johnny breathed out under his breath before saying louder "I hope Sonny put the bullet in him that took him out."
"Trey did. He showed up and they wrestled for the gun."
"Trey shot his own father?"
"For me. Not that it makes up for marrying me just for my money. He went along with his father's scheme to get back at my Dad but he never signed up for murder. I feel bad for Trey but I can't stay with him now. We're having the marriage annulled on the grounds of fraud. My parents are glad because they think it's all behind me now but-"
"It's never gonna be completely behind you, right? It's something that becomes part of you."
"Exactly and that is why I can't keep letting this kind of stuff happen to myself. I have to wake up and realize what kind of world my father inhibits and that I can't escape that world so I need to become prepared to live in it."
Slowly realization dawned on him why she was here. "And that is where I come in? You want some tips on how you can keep yourself safe...or at least safer cause you'll never really be safe as Sonny's daughter, you know that right?"
"I know that there will always be danger and one day it might take me out but I'm not going to be a sitting duck next time or a stupid idiot who walks right into a set up. I want to...need to...know how to protect myself...how to fight, how to use weapons, how to see if someone is playing me...how to be a mob princess.
God, I hate that term now. But it's what the world sees me as, thanks to my own stupidity of signing up for that show. Before I had to worry just about Port Charles but now that show is on and the whole world sees me as a mobster's daughter. Joe Scully won't be the last person that wants a piece of me but the next one won't get at me as easily. Not if I can help it."
"Kristina, look at me. I'm not the guy to help you. I can barely stay sober till noon each day."
"Then we'll work together before noon."
Persistent. Johnny knew Kristina well enough to know she did not give up on the things she wanted without one hell of a fight. So if he sent her away she'd just come back over and over till he gave in, or she'd find someone else to teach her self defense and maybe that someone else wouldn't do a good job and then she'd be out there feeling confident when really she was ill prepared. He couldn't let that happen to her.
"All right but bring coffee and donuts when you come. I need a reason to get out of bed."
Her face lit up. "You'll help me?"
"Got nothing better to do these days."
Throwing her arms around his neck, she hugged him tight for a brief moment. "Thank you! I knew I could count on you. You're one of the few people who never lets me down."
A small grin came to his lips. It felt odd. He hadn't smiled in months. Kristina Corinthos Davis had more spunk than street smarts and it would take a lot of work to make her one tenth as deadly as Claudia had been but Johnny would help Kristina try to get there because she was sweet, kind and had been thrust into this lifestyle through no fault of her own, just like him.
This was their birthright and all they could do was try to survive it for as long as possible.