Sweet Sacrifice

Chapter: 2

Pairing: Robert & Holly

Rating: PG-13

Holly slammed the bathroom door behind her. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. Robert was so preoccupied with absolutely everything that didn't involve her. And she was the one running about planning and hosting functions and sitting on the board of every organization in Port Charles. And when she wasn't doing that she was standing to her husbands right as he gave speeches on family and integrity. They were showcased to be the most perfect couple in the entire universe all the while their marriage had crashed down around them leaving them in the midst of smoldering ruins.

The chocolate colored evening gown pooled around Holly's ankles. She stepped out of it and left it laying in the middle of the floor. Eight thousand dollars was pocket change to Robert now that he was Mayor of Port Charles. And like he even really gave a damn anyway. He never looked at her long enough to see what she looked like anymore much less what she had on.

After running a hot bubble bath Holly grabbed the bottle of vodka out from underneath the sink and her favorite toy out of the vanity drawer and headed over to the tub. It was her intention to wash away all of the anger and the hurt and the frustration even if it was just for a little while. It was a welcomed escape, especially at two am.

She relaxed against the back of the porcelain tub, the hot water soothing her. The cap off the vodka bottle hit the marble floor, bouncing a few times before rolling to the opposite side of the room. Not that it mattered the bottle wouldn't even need a cap by the time she got out of the tub anyway. It would be empty. The burn of the alcohol as it slid smoothly down her throat, felt like heaven. Another welcomed escape

She hit the on switch on her little toy and lowered it into the bath water. She closed her eyes as she focused solely on the task at hand. Only this time she didn't view it as an escape, she welcomed it as a rather pleasureful distraction, the only pleasure she ever seemed to receive anymore. She was too often left in a cold bed because Robert was too busy to come home until the early morning hours or when he did come home he was far to tired, falling asleep before his head hit the pillow.

Thirty seconds into her distraction, Holly's mind began to travel to other things. Unpleasant things. Things she didn't want to think about. She tried to force herself to concentrate on what she was doing but she couldn't. She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes and the every last thing she wanted to do was cry. Especially with Robert close enough that he could actually hear her if he was awake, which she highly doubted. The toy hit the marble floor with a thud. And Holly was in tears. So much for willing herself not to cry.

They were happy once. So happy. Weren't they? She wasn't sure anymore if that's the way it really was, the earlier years of their marriage, or if that was just the way she chose to remember it. Because from where they were now being happy didn't seem like a word she would ever use to describe them. Their marriage was beyond on the rocks, it was so far away from any water that she was more than sure that there would never be smooth sailing ever again. Especially now with their children grown.

Holly began to rack her brain for a happy memory and the only ones she could seem to find did, in fact, included their children. Perhaps the only reason they were together. Perhaps the only reason they had stayed together was for the children and now that they were both away from home they didn't have to be together anymore. She sure as hell wasn't happy like this. And she knew he wasn't either, how could he be?

Some days the only thing that kept her sane was her children, knowing that she and Robert had produced two really good things, their sons, throughout their fucked up rise and fall of what some people viewed as the perfect marriage. If they only knew. And that's what politics was creating the grand illusion that everything was storybook perfect when in reality everything laid in complete devastation.

Hot tears stung her cheeks as they streamed down her face uncontrollably. It wasn't suppose to be like this. This was never what she wanted. She wanted a happy and devoted, loving husband not a stressed out, overworked politician. Over the past few months she kept coming back to one conclusion on how to put a stop to it all. She wanted out. It was the only way.

Holly had tried to figure the one thing that had went wrong in their marriage, at least where everything started to fall apart, but she always ended up with nothing. There was nothing to pinpoint. There wasn't one defining moment where everything went wrong. There was a series of things that added up over the years that had led them to this place in their marriage, a place she sure as hell didn't want to be in.

Robert and Holly had shared a lot of incredible things together. The birth of their firstborn, Andrew, just sixteen months after they married. And a little brother, William, following just thirteen months later. Robert had been Police Commissioner for eighteen years. And then in 2001 he was elected as Mayor of Port Charles, making Holly the 'first lady'.

Both Robert and Holly were ready for a change when he was elected mayor and they thought that they were going to get to live a more relaxed, hassle free live from when he was police commissioner. It couldn't have been farther from the truth. Things were more complicated than they had ever been in the past, leaving Robert exhausted and stressed out. And Holly frustrated.

The strain of the being under the microscope, of living that picture perfect life was taking its toll. Perhaps the worst thing about their troubled marriage was pretending to be happy and content in the public eye. Knowing that when they walked through the front door of their home together that the facades fell away and that they were left with they themselves had created: misery.

Once Holly finally pulled herself together she exited the tub and slipped on her robe. She walked over to the vanity the vodka bottle in her hand, almost empty, and opened the medicine cabinet. She searched the array of medications before her until she found the Valium. She washed down two pills with the remaining vodka and then placed the bottle back under the sink and then headed to back to the bedroom.

Holly dropped her robe and slipped on her nightie that she left laying on the dresser and headed to bed, climbing in next to Robert. Instinctively, in his sleep, he wrapped his arm securely around her waist murmuring an 'I love you' into the darkened room. Unfortunately Holly wasn't awake to hear it, she had passed out the moment she laid down.

tbc...