Alexis walked into the Floating Rib to meet up with her friends. Okay, maybe they weren't exactly friends more likely allies when life got tough. After all, who else was there to turn to when life in PC took an unfortunate turn?
She slid up to the bar and ordered pomegranate juice from Mac who didn't even question her on her choice of beverages. Alexis was thankful about Mac's lack of curiosity and sipped her drink thoughtfully as she watched Lucy enter the establishment…alone of course. She didn't feel like hassling Lucy knowing what she faced. Kevin had issued her divorce papers and this time he meant it.
The night of the Nurse's Ball…Alexis dimly remembered Lucy on stage in her underwear in lip lock with of all people, Scotty the DA. She hadn't been focused on that emerging scandal, she'd been focused on Julian, her date. Alexis drank the juice that Mac handed to her and rubbed her stomach which was still upset from that spicy burrito she bought from a courthouse kiosk.
It just all seemed so long ago.
Everything had changed and there was no going back….
"Hey Alexis what brings you here?"
She looked up and saw Felicia smiling at her. Vibrant. Her hands on her hips, her hair in a loose pony tail and wearing a tie died dress. Alexis just smiled up at her.
"Hi…Felicia…"
The other woman frowned.
"Alexis what are you doing here," she said, "I thought you'd be celebrating your court victory in that case…you know the one involving Lulu's embryo."
Alexis sighed, sipping her juice. After all that had been one of her rare victories over Dianne inside the courtroom.
"I just needed to relax. I didn't want all the attention. That's more up Dianne's alley," she said, "I have a lot of thinking to do."
"About what?"
Alexis hadn't expected that interest from Felicia. She had to cut this one to a quick.
"Oh nothing…nothing that I can't get past…"
Felicia just nodded.
"Okay….well the ground rules we established still apply," she said, "No judging each other on our transgressions…"
Alexis raised her hand.
"I'd be in the last position to judge Felicia," she said, "but I heard about Mac…"
Felicia sighed, running her hand through her pony tail. Not looking much different than she had as the Aztec princess of old, her face just lined with wrinkles.
"Oh that…he's just worried about Maxie since she took up with that…that…"
Felicia couldn't finish her words. Alexis knew partly why from the half-truths she'd picked up all around town. Maxie had left town to bury her pain over her lost child in some kind of spiritual journey. She'd returned three months later with a new boyfriend, Levi his name was, with a penchant for yoga.
She moved behind the bar, to pour herself some Scotch. After filling a shot glass, she gestured to Alexis.
"Want me to pour you a shot? It's on me. Mac keeps the tab but he's not here."
Alexis shook her head.
"I…I can't…Mac concocts himself some mean pomegranate juice…"
Felicia nodded.
"Yes he does…so you here all by yourself? I heard that…"
Alexis raised her hand.
"I don't want to talk about it…or him. It's water under the bridge…"
Felicia frowned, sipping her own Scotch.
"I see….but really is it that easy?"
Alexis shook her head.
"Not easy…but after what happened," she said, "how could I forget that, let alone forgive?"
Felicia sighed, sitting with her drink. Alexis knew she'd faced her own trials, including with her Peter Pan style man who sired her two children….she'd been a wandering soul until she found her peace finally with Mac.
"Yeah I know…I hear the gossip at Kelly's and the MC and…"
Alexis held up her hand.
"I heard it too. I hear the whispers about why I doubted Ric and how could I do that to him and Molly…because he was such a changed man? But throughout all of this, no one ever listened to my side of the story…"
Felicia sighed.
"I know…no one cared about all those times behind closed doors when someone who's supposedly changed can revert back to old form."
Alexis arched her brows.
"Ah, well at least you understand. They're blaming Ric remaining in jail as long as he did on me. HE's blaming it on me and for once again allowing my hormones to get the better of me, not that he valued my brains that much…"
Felicia shrugged.
"I'll always know Ric is an ass to women and that'll never change. It's like with Frisco and me. Everyone in PC expected us to be married together and forever and when it didn't happen…oh Alexis I was ostracized as if it were MY fault…I'm not the one who implanted my ex with his Peter Pan complex…"
Alexis arched a brow.
"He is cute…and he gave you two wonderful girls."
Felicia smiled, but her eyes glimmered with unshed tears. The kind that always lay in wait for times when memories threatened.
"Yeah…Maxie and my Georgie, god rest her soul. I'll always love him for that but there was too much pain for both of us too. Frisco's response was to keep his distance…though his whole life…our time together he was always looking for the next adventure. That was great when I was too…but at some point I just wanted to become more settled…"
Felicia's eyes had that distant look then she inhaled deeply and exhaled, reaching for the Scotch bottle to pour herself another glass. She sipped from it thoughtfully, her brow knit.
"Mac's lived a life filled with adventure, the thirst for it the life blood of being a Scorpio," she said, "but he's happy enough to tend bar and leave the policing to others."
Alexis pursed her lips. The PCPD hadn't been left in good hands. Its bumbling of several key investigations and its ties with Sonny's "business" made it the town's favorite whipping post, except during the odd weeks when Alexis took its place.
She sipped her juice.
"Molly still hates me for not believing her dad," Alexis said, "She thinks the sun rises and sets on him, even though well…he spent more time being a father to Cameron than to her."
Felicia nodded.
"I know what that's like. I think that in part, she's hungry for her father's attention. Plus I imagine she's not privy to his back story."
Alexis shook her head firmly.
"She isn't and I wouldn't ever share it with her. It might destroy her even more…well she's not going to know about it."
Felicia tilted her head.
"How can you stop that? I mean isn't it all over the internet? Well part of it…when he was DA."
Alexis swallowed over the lump that arose when she remembered those days. No, they were in the past. Her husband had sat for days in the same cell that had housed her when she'd been so ill when he tossed her in there. He'd been moved to more cushy digs when the FBI took favor with him. At the arraignment, she'd watched Scotty ask for harsh treatment much like Ric…no she wouldn't remember how he'd framed Sam, how she'd been shot in the back by a overzealous cop working under Ric, while visiting her deceased daughter's grave.
The town's collective memory was brief when it came to the sins of its men. Not so, when it came to the transgressions of its women for not standing by their men. Maybe having someone like Felicia as mayor would change that.
Maybe…but until then, Alexis would be judged because while Ric's sins had been erased clean by the town's own historians of past events, she could still be held in judgment.
Julian sat in his penthouse suite, across the hall from where his daughter raised his grandson. She spent most of her time investigating cases, her PI business picking up in recent months and with Danny. She also met at least twice weekly at the MC to dine with her mother, and he'd stood there watching them, both leaning across the table, as if they were conspiring.
He'd been near the door and heard the footsteps of an adult and the giggles of a child, before the key slid into the lock and opened the door across from him.
Sam had been apart from Silas while he sorted out things with his not so dead wife Nina. Julian worried about the obviously crazy as a loon woman who though she appeared to live in the past, schemed very much in the present. Julian knew all about that, and didn't trust the woman, which was a major reason why he'd stopped living in his office at the art gallery and bought the place across from his daughter.
She smiled at him, in passing but still hadn't invited him back in her life. The fallout of his lies had hit her hard but at least she didn't shun him.
Alexis was still furious of course. He'd expected that, knew it was the inevitable outcome of the choices he'd made to save them all.
It tore at his heart when their eyes met across the room, or the street and she shot him a look before quickly glancing away.
A look that said so much, one that had grown too familiar. His phone rang and sighing he picked it off the coffee table.
"Hello…"
"Julian?"
He paused, thinking.
"Why are you calling me? I'm not the one who reports to you…"
The other voice sighed.
"We both know that the one who does has become very dangerous."
Julian didn't need to be reminded of that. He had become increasingly unstable…more so after Ric had been released from jail.
"Then you know what you have to do…"