I'm just trying to retire, but a few twitter friends made this request of me and I had to oblige. This is Davis Girls, but SamLexis heavy. There were two points of view that were not fully shown on the show that I hope to have rectified by writing this. Enjoy.
The Poor Little Rich Girl:
Vanishing Children
"Are you ready to see yourself?" Sam asked her mother in a sing-song manner as she zipped up the back of the woman's dress.
The Davis Girls had covered all of the mirrors in the dressing room of All Saints Chapel so that their mother would be surprised by the work they had done to prepare her for this very day. Kristina had done her hair, while Molly had done her nails and Sam had touched up her make up. In truth, it did not take much to turn her into a beautiful bride, but they certainly wanted to ensure she liked her very best. After helping her dress, the girls smiled at one another for the work that they had accomplished; their mother was radiant. Sam nodded to both of her sisters as she swelled with pride.
"You look amazing, Mom," she beamed. "Truly, amazing."
Alexis tried not to bite her painted lip, but it was the only thing she could do to stop herself from crying again. This day, and this very moment with her three beautiful babies before her helping her ready to walk down the aisle toward the love of her life was something she would not have ever dreamed about; it was in fact a dream come true.
"Thank you," she whispered as a single tear rolled down her cheek. She rolled her eyes at the realization that the tears would probably remain incessant for some time. "Geez, girls! Maybe we should consider not speaking again until after the ceremony, huh?"
"I think that might be the best idea you've had yet," Sam smirked.
"At the rate you're going, I think we're going to have to wait to do your make-up until right before you walk down the aisle," Molly added. "Technically, we still have to take the bridal party pictures, but since you're a-"
"Mess?" Kristina quipped as she finished her youngest sister's sentence.
"Krissy!"
"Kristina, God!"
Knowing that she was skating on thin ice with the teen and perhaps as well with her older sister, she quickly grabbed a tissue to dab away her mother's fallen tears.
"I'm joking! Relax, guys!" she waved her hand at the girls before turning to the bride. "Mom, you are the most beautiful mess that ever walked this earth."
"Laying it on a bit thick there, huh, Krissy," Sam nudged the girl in the shoulder before moving to the large mirror in the corner. "Have a look, Mom."
Inhaling deeply, Alexis nodded as she approached her eldest. It truly took everything in her not to break down in sobs for the third time that day. She was happy, perhaps the happiest she had been since they had discovered that her beautiful grandson was in remission from cancer. It should be noted that this day was not the happiest day of her life. That day (rather, days), was reserved for when she had brought her children into the world.
"I sure am glad we were smart enough to go with waterproof make-up today," she noted. "At least doing and redoing my make-up thousand of times isn't like repainting the Sistine Chapel."
She stopped just before the mirror; she met the gaze of her eldest. Unlike her sentiments in regard to the births of her other two children, however, the day of Sam's birth was actually the worst day of her life; it was one from which she had never thought she would recover. Until they were reunited again.
Even still, that reunion was not one of an undying declaration of love between them. Both women had, of course, loved one another for they had each longed for what the other stood for - the child once lost, for Alexis, and the longed-for mother, for Sam - but liking the person on the other end of those desires came some time later. And when it did, there was no turning back. They were a family. They were together. And no one would ever keep them apart again. But until Julian had walked into her life, it became clear that there had been a piece missing.
Alexis Davis had always been an independent women. She had no other choice, really. Her mother had raised her sister and her alone, until she didn't... Then, when she lived in the Cassadine home as a ward rather than the child of Mikkos Cassadine, she fended for herself. Of course, she had the help of her beloved Stefan, but he was certainly a benefit to an already strong will she had to never be at the mercy of another human being ever again. As she grew older and left the trauma of her teen pregnancy tucked neatly on a high shelf in the back of her mind, she studied hard, learned the law, and made a name for herself. She had her other two beautiful girls with men whose memories in her life at the time she had been with them now left her with a sense of heartburn.
She was happy.
And when that dusty shelf in the back of her mind came tumbling down, she was reunited with that baby she had long ago loved and later believed to be dead. While it had been a rocky start, her relationship with her eldest child grew stronger as her two younger children aged; it was the devotion her daughters had to one another that had helped to mend the pain that had remained between the two of them for so long.
She was beyond happy.
She saw this child who had been ripped from her life be married to a man she had once despised, but now tolerated given the devotion she now saw he had for her baby. In spite of the initial pain that surrounded the birth of her grandson, she had him in her life and was able to do for him all that she had wanted to do for his mother. And she, this once thought to believe orphan girl, had this ever expanding family she loved more than her own life and who loved her just as deeply.
She was in love.
But then he walked into her life. Him. The man she had long forgotten. The teen whose name she barely knew, and whose face she would have never recognized had she passed him in the street. There he was saving the day when a piece of her heart was nearly destroyed and taken from her forever. These vanishing infants... she had cried each night as she thought about the faces she had seen and not seen but nevertheless had a profound impact on her life. She could not lose another - not her beautiful Danny. But this man, miraculously, and by no less due to some act of Providence, came into her life and changed it forever. She, this strong, independent, happy, and complete woman suddenly felt as though this heart of hers that had already been so full, might break if he did not come to fill in the glue that kept the pieces together.
She was blessed.
"Mom, are you okay," she heard the voices ask her. She felt the gentle touches of her daughters' hand on her arms and against her back. "Mom?"
She was frozen in her spot. With tears streaming down her face, she found herself still unable to move her gaze from her eldest child.
"I'm fine," she managed to say in a somewhat garbled voice choked up with the emotions of the day. "I just... I've been ready for this moment longer than I ever even imagined," she admitted. "I thought I knew happiness until right now."
The girls gathered around their mother and wrapped her into their warm embrace. They remained that way for several minutes allowing themselves to succumb to the emotions that filled them at being able to bear witness to such a moment few children experience in their parents' lives.
"I'm sorry," she finally whispered when she pulled away from the hug. "I just keep messing up this make-up! Sweetheart," she looked at Sam, "I'm really putting you through it today!"
Sam waved her hand at the comment. "I think that after everything you've gone through, you deserve to shed as many happy tears as you like, Mom. And I will be right here ready to touch up that make-up each and every time."
Realizing just how true Sam's statement was, Alexis tearfully nodded. "I'm just so happy to have you three here!" she sobbed. She then reached forward to take Sam's face into her hands, "Especially you," she stressed, "beside me."
Neither Kristina nor Molly took their mother's comment to their sister personally. Even if neither woman had realized it after all of these years, they understood how similar they were. Long ago, when they were at odds - a time Kristina remembered more than a toddler Molly ever could - she had understood enough about her mother and sister's pasts to know that in spite of the differences, they had both been lonely children and adults. This wedding bonded the two and their conflicting paths in more ways than just a casual coincidence.
"I am too," Sam whispered. Never one to verbally express her feelings, she bit the inside of her cheek, as she blushed slightly. "Dad's going to be swept away. I know you haven't had a chance to look at yourself just yet, but we weren't lying when we said you were beautiful."
"Yeah, those handcuffs Diane gave you might actually be used tonight," Molly laughed.
"Here's to hoping he'll be able to keep it in his pants-" Kristina began but stopped when her mother glared in her direction. "What?" she rolled her eyes. "Mom, Sam told us how traumatized she was when she and Patrick walked in on you straddling Julian like a race horse-"
"Oh my gosh," Sam groaned. Her face burned at the memory. "Krissy, stop! I couldn't look Mom in the eye for at least a week after that! That is not how I wanted to see my parents. And poor Patrick-"
"Did you ever get that mole checked out, Mom?" Kristina chuckled.
It was Alexis' turn to blush. While she had decided to accept that Jason would be in Sam's life, she had loved Patrick; he was the type of man she had imagined the younger woman marrying and raising her son. She had looked forward to doing what was being done for her in that moment of helping Sam get dressed on her wedding day and walking with Julian as they escorted her down the aisle (let's be serious, after seventeen years, she was not going to sit on the sidelines and watch someone else - albeit her daughter's father - give her baby away). Of course, after that night, she had resigned herself to wearing a burlap sack around the man, so Sam would have had to figure out the best color choices and scheme given her attire.
"Okay, okay! Let's move on from this, please," she sighed. "That was not the way I ever wanted Patrick to see me-"
"Yea, go figure," Sam muttered. "That was an image that I could've been spared from as well, you know." The blood rushed to her cheeks. "Although, one could say we're a bit even on that exposure front," she whispered lowly enough for only the woman to hear as she walked past her to uncover the other mirrors in the room.
While her sisters might have thought she meant the time Alexis had walked in on Jason and her at Sonny's office, she knew her mother knew the night she actually meant. When she felt a gentle squeeze of her hand as she passed, she locked eyes with the woman. The mutual understanding and forgiveness for the mistakes of the past existed between them.
"I promise you three, that something like that will never happen again! I'm sorry!" When the girls all laughed, she pointed a finger at each of them. "You three are brats, you know that?"
"Brats you love, Mommy," Molly smiled in a way that reminded Alexis of when the girl was her baby. She wrapped her arm around her mother's waist. "Now, are you ready to see yourself?" Without waiting for her response, the teen ushered her toward the mirror. Watching her mother's face transform from laughter to awe, she stuck her thumb up at her sisters. "It looks as though someone has been rendered speechless."
"That's a first," Kristina joked as she moved to join them in their spot. "Mom, you really are a beautiful bride. It really is no question why we Davis girls are as stunning as we are."
"I think your fathers may have helped just a little bit, but I will gladly take the credit for both your beauty and your smarts," she turned to Sam who had stood apart from them. "Get over here, you!" she called out to her.
There were moments when she noticed her eldest standing on the outside looking in at her with Molly and Kristina; it was as though in spite of the time that had passed and the bonds that had been forged in all of those years, she still doubted slightly her place in their family. It broke her heart for the years of solitude mixed with the first few years of embattlement that was their relationship continued to have an effect.
"I want my babies beside me right now," she said as she extended her hand out to her eldest. "Listen," she continued when Sam joined them. "I want you three to know that what I said earlier was no lie. You girls are my world. You are my life partners. I may love Julian, and he may be my soulmate and the love of my life, but despite the profound love I feel for him, that love is greatly outweighed by the love I feel for you four. You girls and Danny areTHE loves of my life. I love you more than anything or anyone else in this world."
"We love you too, Mom," Kristina spoke for her sisters. "And we're so happy that you're finally getting your happy ending-"
"Hey, not an ending," Sam quipped. "This is just the beginning."
"Okay," Molly clapped her hands. Looking at her wall clock, she jumped from her seat with enthusiasm. "We have ten minutes until show time!"
"Exciting!" Kristina sang. She rose from her seat and toward the door. "Mol, let's go check on the... you know..." she said with a wink. Not only did they have a surprise for their mother, but Sam had asked them to give her a few moment alone with the woman. "Ten minutes, guys! Don't be late."
Knowing her sister well, the young woman obliged the request for she was certain Sam wanted to express her own thoughts without audience. It was no secret to anyone in their family that she was emotionally guarded to a fault that often drove their overly emotional mother crazy. However, to her credit, Sam had improved greatly over the last few years.
"Oh come on, Krissy!" Sam scoffed with a roll of her eyes. "Mom is notoriously timely... when she isn't late."
"But will they start without me?" Alexis rebuffed the insinuation that she was rarely on time. "I don't think so-"
"Well, now you have nine minutes," Molly noted as she pulled Kristina out of the room. "So, chop chop!"
Sam shook her head as the door closed behind her baby sister. "She's become a bit more bossy ever since losing her virginity, hasn't she?"
"Oh, don't remind me!"
Alexis inhaled sharply at the reminder. The fact that her baby girl was now a woman had shaken her to her core; she was now not only a grandmother, but also a mother to three adult children. Where did the time go? When did her children - her babies - become the beautiful women who stood beside her throughout the day helping her to get ready?
She turned to look at Sam. They had lost so much time. She had missed her first words, steps, her first day at school, boyfriend and heartbreak. Their time together had been stolen from them. Her ability to teach her daughter at a young age the value of self-worth. She was unable to help steer this beautiful younger woman through the difficulties of adolescence and to help her to avoid the things that she would later attempt to teach her young sisters in the hopes that she would not make the same mistakes that she had. They were mistakes that could have been avoided had Mikkos allowed her to keep her baby. She resented him.
But in that moment as she sat watching her daughter fidget slightly and move about the room in search of something, Alexis knew that the paths that had caused them - Sam, Julian, and herself - to vanish from one another's lives were the paths that shaped who they were and brought them together again. Her sister Kristina, the first baby who had vanished from her life only to reappear years later for just a moment in time, had attempted to instill in her the belief that everything in the universe happened for a reason. Given the way in which her sister was once again taken from her, at that time, Alexis could not fathom how such a thing could be possible. But that beautiful soul had prepared her for this moment, she knew.
And here they were over twenty years later. That young woman whose path continued to cross and intertwine with hers - and mostly in the most difficult and damaging of ways - was revealed to be that second baby who had vanished from her life. Alexis recalled that sense of deja vu as she sat beside Sam's bedside that day praying that she would not yet again lose a life she had treasured so dearly. She remembered talking to her sister's spirit, whose presence was felt so strongly in that room, and begging her to give her the strength to yet again cope with the sudden reappearance and disappearance of that baby she had inexplicably loved despite knowing her for a mere moment. She knew she could not survive another blow to her heart.
Survive she did with her daughter beside her now waiting to watch her walk down the aisle. The little family Alexis had not known she had created and wanted (apart from that child) was to be united in a few short minutes. As she thought about the events that led to that moment in her life - moments in her life - she smiled; her sister had been right.
"Are you okay, Mom?" Sam questioned the woman when she noticed that she had been staring at her. "Do you need a glass of water... or a paper bag?"
Alexis smirked. "I'm fine honey," she nodded assuringly. "Just thinking, that's all."
Sam raised an eyebrow, but did not inquire about what her mother was thinking. Instead, she handed her the rectangular, but flat box, she had been searching for in their belongings. "Here," she said. "This is for you."
"Another gift?" She rhetorically asked.
"Well, this one is a bit outside of the traditional ones we gave you earlier," Sam explained. "It's from me to you and dad."
Alexis moved to untie the ribbon that held the box closed in her lap, but she hesitated. "Will it make me cry?" she asked as she looked up at her daughter. "Because I really don't think we have time to redo my make-up again for the firth time. I know they won't start without me, but I definitely don't want them to leave-"
"You're rambling, Mom," Sam stopped her.
"I am."
Sam laughed at the curt way her mother admitted the appearance of her greatest character flaw.
"Look, you don't have to open it right now, you know," she assured her. "I mean, it's for you and Dad. So, you can open it together. I just... I know that Krissy, Molly, and I got you something together, but I really... I wanted to get you guys something from me. Because..." she stopped when she saw a single tear roll down her mother's cheek. She caught it and wiped it away with her thumb while leaving her hand to linger for a moment against the woman's skin. "I'm happy for you, Mom."
Resting her hand on top of Sam's Alexis pressed a kiss against the palm of the younger woman. "I'm happy for us, sweetheart," she said. "Here we are, two women who grew up in horrific circumstances-"
"The con artist and the poor little rich girl," Sam laughed softly. Her own emotions threatened to get the best of her for she knew exactly where her mother was headed.
"I hated when you called me that," Alexis jokingly scolded her, "But it was true. We both grew up so differently, and yet the same. We had no family, except for-"
"Our brothers," she whispered.
Alexis nodded regretfully, "And we both lost them," she sniffled. "We had no mothers, and our fathers who didn't seem to much care for anything outside of themselves. But we are fighters, Sam," she stressed. "We are strong and we are conquerors because in spite of everything life has thrown at us, we crawled our way to-"
"Each other," Sam finished the woman's sentence.
"Exactly," Alexis smiled. "I love you, Samantha McCall Davis Morgan."
"I like the ring of that," Sam nodded approvingly.
"I do too," she muttered.
"And I love you too, Mom," Sam continued. "More than you know," she added. "I know I'm not always the most expressive about these things, but I've gotta tell you, I am so happy for you and I am so proud to be your daughter. Things weren't always that great between us in the beginning, and a lot of that was my fault-"
"Well, I certainly had my share of-" Alexis attempted to add, but was quickly cut off by the younger woman.
"No, let me finish," Sam spoke over her. "Regardless of it and the difficulties we had trying to navigate through it all, you didn't give up on me, Mom. You could've dropped me out of your life, especially after the whole Ric thing," she whispered that last part. "But you didn't. You gave me another chance. And you helped me realize my worth when I wasn't sure of it. Watching you all these years be a strong independent woman doing it on your own, you helped me learn about who I am outside of the relationships I was in. And you taught me that I didn't have to be with a man to be happy - I could be fulfilled by myself. Watching you with Molly and Kristina, you taught me how to be a great mother to Danny. I thank you for that, Mom. After everything you've been through in your life, you deserve this moment. You deserve to be loved the way I know Dad loves you. You deserve to be happy. And maybe I'm selfish, but I can't help but to be even happier that it's with my father that you've found this joy."
"I can't help be happy about that either, honey," Alexis sniffled. "After everything that's happened to the three of us, it's as though it's come full circle-"
"It has come full circle," Sam corrected her. "I think the universe gave us our win, huh? We seemed to be fighting a losing battle for a while there, right? But somehow... somehow... we made it through. And here we are-"
"Here we are," Alexis repeated as she rose to her feet to envelope her daughter into her warm embrace. "I love you, sweetheart," she whispered into her ear. "I don't remember if I told you that yet."
"Regardless of how many times you say it in an hour or a span of ten minutes, it's always good to hear because I love you too, Mom," Sam whispered back.
Gently dabbing her eyes and wiping her nose, Alexis walked around her daughter and back to the gift she had been handed. She could not wait for Julian. Something prompted her to open it right then and there.
"Well, we're already five minutes over our nine minutes," she said as she untied its neatly tied bow. "And if I cry, we can just pretend its from seeing Julian as I walk down the-" she stopped as she lifted the lid and immediately saw the contents inside. "Oh my... Sam-"
Inside was a picture frame which housed three separate pictures that had been expertly photoshopped courtesy of Spinelli's amazing computer skills. The first picture featured a young Alexis and Julian beside a toddler Sam.
"How?" Was all Alexis could manage to croak out without falling once again into a full fledged sob.
Sam shrugged nonchalantly. "I was going through my storage when I was moving back into the Penthouse and I saw that you had left your box of CDs with the discs of our scanned pictures throughout the years. One of them was of you as a teen-"
"And your father's picture?"
"Believe it or not, Ava actually helped me out with that one!" Sam revealed.
Alexis nodded tearfully as she passed her finger along the picture. The two teens were at the park and Sam was seated between them on a swing smiling widely into the camera. "This was how it should have been," she spoke softly. "We should've been a family."
She then looked toward the second picture. This one was not manipulated. It was the picture they had taken together just before she was admitted to the hospital to remove a piece of her lung.
"All of my girls," she smiled. "Look at us, we look so young!"
Sam laughed at the statement. "Yeah, especially Krissy and Molly!" she joked. At the time that picture had been taken, Molly was approximately a year old while Kristina was six. "We were young!"
"We were just learning how to be a family," Alexis replied ruefully. "At that time, I really didn't think we were going to make it-"
"But, we did," Sam countered. "And we're better than ever."
"That we are," she agreed. She then looked to the third slot where a picture should have been. "It's empty," she frowned.
"Not for long," Sam said with a shake of her head. "That is for the picture we're going to take today - you, me and Dad. And then we're going to get another frame like this, and fill that up with more pictures of us all. Soon, you're going to have a house filled with pictures of your family on the walls and over the mantle-"
Alexis laughed aloud at the mention of the mantle. "Well, it's good thing you burned that last picture that was on there," she quipped as her attention returned to the first picture. "It looks like we'll have a bit more space now for all of these beautiful pictures." She could not help but to stare at it in amazement. "I just can't believe you did this, honey."
Taking advantage of her mother's distraction, Sam moved toward the door and slowly opened it. "Well, the only problem with that empty slot is that even with a picture of You, Dad, and me, it'll still be a bit empty," she said.
Alexis clicked her tongue. "I know," she sighed. "Danny would make it perfect."
"It's a shame he couldn't be here," Sam said as she put a finger to her lips, and then pointed to the woman. "But I think we can figure out a way to make it work-"
"Surprise Grandma!" Danny screamed with a wide smile.
His sudden presence and sweet little voice initially startled her, but as he ran to her fully dressed in his little tuxedo, the tears she had fought to wipe way flowed once again. Alexis was enamored.
"Oh my God!" she shrieked. "You look so handsome!"
Sam had told her that Danny would be spending time with Jason in Philadelphia since it would've been a busy week. While Alexis had initially wanted her first grandbaby to be there to bear witness to the union that would not have occurred but for his existence, given the situation with Jake, along with Jason's desire to bond with this son who had been kept for him for several months longer than necessary, she thought it best to not put up too much of a fight on the matter. After all, Danny was three; he did not know about weddings. And as she thought about it further, if he was anything like his father, he probably would not have wanted to be dressed up in a suit, let along a tuxedo, either. This was a surprise that she gladly welcomed. Scooping him into her arms, she was over the moon.
"Did you and your mommy trick me?!" she cried through her laughter before proceeding to cover his face in kisses. The sound of his giggles filled her with joy. "Oh, you've made Grandma Lexie so happy, you know that?"
"Yeah," he giggled. "I'm gonna be a bear," he revealed as he held his arm up to show her that underneath his cuff was a watch in the shape of the animal... on a motorcycle. "See?"
Alexis laughed aloud before turning to look in her daughter's direction.
"A bear?" she asked.
"The ring bearer," Sam replied. "We thought he could probably handle the task better than Lucas. He certainly is far cuter, right Danny?"
"Yeah," the boy nodded.
"Well, I have to be honest with you, Dan," Alexis whispered as she connected her forehead to her grandson's. "Lucas is a very handsome man, just like your Grandpa, but I do agree with your Mommy. You are really the cutest bear I've ever seen."
"Alright, now, I think that's enough surprises for the moment, Mom," Sam noted as she eyed the clock on the wall. "I think we've taken more time than we were allotted. I've gotta touch up your make-up again!"
They actually were not late. In fact, unbeknownst to the bride, Sam, Molly, and Kristina (with Julian's help and approval, of course, given this last minute welcomed change to the wedding party) had actually planned to have the ceremony be at six-thirty, rather than six o'clock as Alexis had anticipated. While they had waited for their mother to arrive after speaking with Sonny, they had ensured to change the clocks in the room and hide her cellphone to keep up the fiction they had created. Thankfully, it appeared that one of the girls or Lucas had done the same to Danny's watch.
"Come on, buddy," she called out to him. "Grandma has to finish getting ready. Why don't you go to Uncle Lucas? He's going to give you that very special pillow we talked about."
Nodding, Danny pressed a kiss to his grandmother's cheek before running toward the open door. "I'll see you later, Grandma!" he squealed. He stopped before exiting. "Oh! Grandpa told me to tell you you look very pretty!"
When the door closed behind her grandson, Alexis immediately moved to her feet and approached her daughter. She wagged a finger in her direction, but melted into her arms.
"You," she sobbed. "This was..." she gulped. "is... everything."