Sonny has every door and window on the first floor open. Music blasts from his little boombox, and Sonny works to the beat as she spreads the first coat of varnish on the just sanded floor in the smoking room.

Everything is sore. Every muscle and bone and fibre of his body sings their own song alongside the one coming from the boombox. He'd thought the physical strain that came with sanding the floor would've at released some of the pent up anger. Now he's hoping the focus and strain required when varnishing will do the trick.

The beautiful sunrise wasn't a prelude to a glorious morning at all.

The man knows how to get under his skin, he thinks, and worse, he knows it. One night he's all over him in bed, and the next Sonny's lucky to get a 2 minute phone call.

Blows up at him in one instant, and the next flirtatious teasing. Already trying to spin their perfect night into a well dressed up bang and leave.

Screw that.

"Aw come on, Sonny, what're you getting so upset about?" Sonny mutters under his breath. "You haven't even come close to seeing me upset, pal. But you will, long before I'm finished here."

"You look like you're seconds away from spiraling."

Sonny spins around, messing up the varnish. Then nearly collapses to his knees in relief when he sees Marlena smiling at him in the doorway.

"Didn't hear you come in."

"That doesn't surprise me." Showing her age privilege, she leans down and turns the volume down on his boombox as the track changes, to one lamenting about a lost love. "I like this music myself, but not at ear splitting volume. Brought you by a loaf of coffee cake I made myself this morning. Don't let me keep you from what you're doing. I'll just put it in the kitchen for you."

"I'll just be a minute."

"Don't stop on my account."

"No, I'm serious. Just five minutes. There's...something, but I don't remember what, you can drink in the fridge. Help yourself."

"I think I will. It's close out already, and it's March. Take your time."

When Sonny's finished enough to join her, Marlena's standing in front of his cabinet display in the kitchen, looking at the contents.

"I had a waffle iron just like that one growing up. I still have a cherry pitter like that one too. What are those dishes called again? I don't remember."

"Melamine."

"That's it. Did you pay money for those Mason jars?"

"Sadly, yes."

Marlena clicks her tongue in wonder. "Guess you can't judge on taste alone. But they are beautiful. You should look at mine sometime, see if anything calls out to you." Now she turns, nodding at the room. "This is spectacular, Sonny. You did a wonderful job."

"It'll look a lot better once I get the counters in and finish the panels for the appliances."

"It's fine." Marlena says again. "And the smoking room you're working on, it's as splendid as it can possibly be."

"Already have some furniture coming for it. Got a little carried away. Do you wanna take a seat, Marlena?"

"Just for a minute. I brought something from the house I think you should have, maybe put it on the mantel in the smoking room or another room."

She takes a seat at the table Sonny had put in here, pulling an old picture frame from a ag. "It's an old photograph, portrait style, of Alice Grayson."

Sonny takes it, looking at the the face of the woman that continuously haunts his dreams.

She might've been Will, Sonny thinks, but her face is too soft, too much that hasn't formed in her face. Her cheeks are more round, her eyes too naive, and shy.

God, she was so young, Sonny muses. So innocent despite the frock she's wearing, the dark dress with its small collar.

She was a girl, Sonny notes, while Will is a man.

"She was beautiful." Sonny says. "Beautiful and young. It's heartbreaking."

"It's thought she was around 18 when this was taken. There's no way it could've been more, because she lived to see her 19th birthday."

As Marlena speaks, a door slams upstairs, almost in anger. Marlena just looks up at the ceiling. "Sounds like your ghost is spiraling too."

"That only started happening today. The plumber's kid took off like a bat out of hell a few hours ago."

"You don't look like you're about to do the same."

"I'm not." Sonny sits across from her as another door slams, looking down at Alice Grayson Horton's shy, hopeful smile. "I'm not going anywhere."