1980

Alexis sat down to write them both letters inside a journal that she'd been given when she asked for one at the chalet where she stayed hidden away. She'd written letters to her deceased parents when she'd been a child in similar journals and once put them into separate bottles to seal up and toss into the Mediterranean Sea. After she watched them bob out to sea with tides, she'd leave with Stefan to go back to the hated compound.

Since her parents never responded to them, she stopped writing them but years later at the chalet, she started writing them again. She wrote Stefan back on Cassadine Island and then later in Athens where he had spent time working in an office for Cassadine Industries as an intern. He'd finished high school early and was taking off a year before attending college.

Sometimes she sent them to him in envelopes that she had someone mail for her in the town, though she never received one in return. Maybe he was just too busy with his workload.

She also wrote the young man who'd gotten her pregnant though she'd start writing them and then tear them up into tiny pieces and burn them in the fireplace. No, she couldn't even know where to send them or even that she would do that. He'd existed in her life one night and then disappeared, back to is own life.

His name, no she'd forgotten it but it was much better that way. If she couldn't remember it, she couldn't repeat it her uncle Mikkos or anyone who asked about him. If her uncle knew or worse Helena, then Mikkos' brothers would try to find him.

She knew they were dangerous and knew they had done horrible things to other people. The servants had whispered about them in passing forgetting that Alexis was part of the background. He'd made her feel good for a while and left her without a backward glance but she didn't want anything bad to happen to him.

It was getting more difficult to move and more so to try and sleep. It all felt so strange, foreign to her to have her body change so much. But what she hadn't expected was how much her baby growing inside would impact her in other ways.

Feeling him kick inside her, move as if impatient to be born, she marveled in her child. She'd lay awake at night with her hands on her abdomen feeling him or her and she'd tell her baby she'd find a way for them to stay together.

Mikkos had told her that she had to give her baby up when she had it and it'd go to a nice family to raise…she'd go back to the Island to continue her studies so she'd eventually be sent to study at one of the Ivy League schools.

She dreaded going back without her child. No, she couldn't ever let that happen. But how could she stop her uncle from his plans? She thought if they could run away, but where would they go? How would she take care of and support a child at 16?

If only Mikkos would understand that it was a part of her. He seemed more interested for a while in pressing her about the man who'd done this to her. He didn't understand that it had been the first time any boy or young man had ever been so nice to her.

The doctor examined her one day when it was snowing outside and she settled down to read her book while she spoke with the woman who took care of her.

"How much longer?"

She sighed.

"Two months maybe less…maybe longer. Hard to tell in a first pregnancy and she's pretty young."

"Healthy though isn't she?"

He paused.

"Yes. No sign of any risk factors you sometimes see in young girls," the doctor shook her head, "Her uncle will receive a copy of my report with an estimate of the due date so he can line up the parents."

The other woman nodded.

"It's for the best. She's young. She'll get over it maybe even forget about it."

The doctor shook her head.

"You don't ever forget these things," she said, "Alexis might need some help with that. I can recommend a therapist."

The woman shook her head.

"That won't be necessary. Mikkos wants her back on the Island. He'll take care of everything."

The doctor sighed.

"Alexis is very attached to her child. She's not acting like someone who's going to give her baby up when it's born. Has anyone sat and talked to her about it?"

The woman shook her head.

"What does it matter? It won't change anything. When the baby's born, she's not even to see it. You will make sure of that."

The doctor hesitated, then nodded.

"If that's your wishes…and those of Mikkos."

But inwardly she didn't know if she could keep that promise.

New York, 1995

Alexis walked with the file in her hand. She'd been working with another lawyer doing some research on the holdings of one Victor Jerome who'd died years earlier. There'd been an estate left behind to one of the distant cousin's who'd done quite well given that it appeared most of Victor's closest relatives were all deceased.

He'd had several sons, all dead and a daughter, who had apparently been shot to death by one of her brothers. If she didn't know better she'd think she was looking at a chapter straight out of the Cassadine history book.

The cousin, Emma had just wanted to go through probate on some newly discovered will regarding property left behind owned by Victor that had been discovered. The woman seemed pretty but a bit flighty. She was an artist who had an exhibit in Tribeca and was engaged to a banker.

She had to file it away soon because she had to meet Stefan for lunch. He was conducting a business seminar on a new company acquired by Cassadine Industries.

He'd been morose lately because he'd broken up with one of Alexis' classmates at Yale Law School, Sheila Barnes who'd tired of his controlling ways. She'd come to Alexis for counsel but what could she tell her? He was a Cassadine, and Cassadines by nature were controlling particularly the men. She should thank god it wasn't Stavros.

God, talk about evil. He'd abused Alexis most of her time growing up in the Island along with his pack of friends and if it hadn't been for Stefan it'd been worse. But her cousin had been obsessed with a young woman named Laura who'd wound up on the Island somehow and he'd married her and had a young son named Nikolas.

Laura had escaped and gone back home to PC to her husband, a man named Luke Spencer. She remembered hearing his name a lot tied in with one revenge plot or another for killing Mikkos and Tony for starters.

She'd seen Nikolas when she'd been on the Island being raised by Stefan who'd been like his father. She'd loved her second cousin from the start spending as much time with him and Stefan as possible. She noticed that Helena even treated Nikolas differently.

But Stefan missed Nikolas she could tell and he was getting over his breakup with Sheila so she planned to take him out to lunch.

Damn she looked at her watch and she had just enough time to get to the restaurant if she hurried.

Stefan had to leave the seminar to go to meet Alexis for lunch across Manhattan. She'd convinced him to meet her because she'd been worried about him falling into a depression. Not that it would happen because though he cared for Sheila, he'd already put that relationship behind him and moved on.

A man came up to him just as he was leaving. Tall, dark haired, a serious expression on his face.

"Stefan Cassadine?"

He nodded.

"I'm just about to end the seminar for lunch," he said, "It'll resume at 2 p.m."

The man nodded.

"I'd like to sit in. I work at one of the newspapers and we're interested in covering it."

Stefan smiled.

"Okay then, make sure you get a front row seat."

"Will do…"

Stefan narrowed his eyes.

"What's your name by the way?"

The man smiled.

"Derek. Derek Wells…"