I have finally updated! Hoo-rah. And for any of you who are wondering, or confused, this universe picks up before Carly got pregnant. Or Alexis killed Alcazar. So Alexis's reputation is still fairly intact and Sonny only has one living biological child.

Enjoy.


Sonny's eyes shot open in the darkness.

He froze for a second, his breath caught in his throat. He couldn't move. Couldn't think, couldn't feel.

Then, suddenly, he exhaled, and everything returned to normal.

Nightmare.

He knew the scenario like the back of his hand, every detail, from the color of the interrogation room walls to the sound of Alexis's shoes as she walked along the floor. It felt as if this dream had haunted him his entire lifetime. Truth was, it only began last week. It still scared the shit out of him every time he had it, though, and for a split second after, his conscious and unconscious mind would meet and the dream would become a reality. That was always the worst.

"Sir?"

He looked up, squinting in the darkness, and saw a young stewardess staring down at him.

"The plane will be landing soon. Could you please put your seat in an upright position?"

He nodded and adjusted his seat.

"Thank you."

She disappeared down the aisle.

The plane was just about heading over the city, and as he looked out the window, he could see the lights glittering like fallen stars. They'd be landing soon.

Alexis and his daughter were somewhere, down there, living their lives. He'd seen the photos in the file Jason had found for him. Alexis had tried hard to keep her new life a secret, but thankfully for Sonny, it wasn't enough. He, with Jason's help, managed to find them. Where they'd lived for the past four years. Where Alexis had worked, where Kristina had gone to school. The life he'd missed while he was barely living his own.

Barely living was the only way he could describe the life he and Carly's relationship had left him.

He had always loved Carly. Beneath everything, despite everything, he had loved her. But as quickly as day turns into night, love can turn into hate. It was breeding, festering, just below the surface, an uncontrollable emotion that threatened to overpower them.

Michael was shot in a mob-related accident. Came within inches of death, but survived. AJ, the two years sober at the time, steady job, biological father with a new fiancee swooped in. Perfect timing combined with his family's money got him custody. Sonny retreated inside himself. Carly resented Sonny. Hated him for what she believed he'd caused. Using every weapon she had, she fought tooth and nail to bring him down…all while sleeping in the same bed. And a sick part of him enjoyed it.

Sonny began to hate himself.

He spent every day in darkness because that was all he deserved. Closed curtains. No lights. No visitors. Just the woman who lied with every breath she took. Just the woman who promised to love him as she plotted to destroy him.

Unlike so many others during that time, he remembered that morning as if it were a filmstrip, hidden in the vault of his mind, taken out and viewed when need be.

[[He could feel the smooth contours of the bottle of liquor in his hands, the perfect amber-yellow tint of scotch. He was lying on the couch in his pajama pants and robe. It was morning; maybe, mid morning…there were shades of sunlight sneaking past his barriers of thick black curtains, reflecting on the shards of broken glass from the night before. Or the week before. He smelled strongly of alcohol, and with each hollow breath he took, the stench seemed to increase. The smell was sweet to him. It smelled of emptiness. Of numbness. Of the lack of feeling he craved so much.

Breaking the silence, then, he heard her high-heeled footsteps coming from behind him. He knew they were hers so he did not move. Staring straight off ahead, he waited. She came near to him, ran a bony finger down the side of his face, smiled that icy smile. "Hey, Hun."

He grabbed her roughly by the wrist and twisted her hand away without blinking his eyes.

"Dammit!" She cursed, grabbing her wrist. "What the fuck, Sonny?" She exhaled dramatically and plopped down next to him. "Look I know that you wanna hurt me. That's good, because you know I love to hurt you." She smiled the same cold smile and leaned in to kiss him. He didn't respond. Didn't even blink his eyes. She pulled away, making a face at him. "Sonny? Are you even listening?"

He was. He could hear her, see her, feel her. Everything. He just chose to ignore her.

"God." She stood up, her hands on her hips. "I was just going to say I didn't feel like playing tonight, all right? I'm having dinner with someone. They actually think I'm stable." She laughed despite herself, pulled a hair away from her face. "They don't know about us." She stood and was silent for a moment. He remembered looking into her eyes. Deep, brown, almond eyes.

He wondered where she'd hidden the razors.

Then he remembered the broken glass.

"Maybe later I'll be back, ok? Sonny?" She rolled her eyes. "Forget it." She looked him up and down one more time, shaking her head.

Her high heels again. Clicking against the floor. They were slow. Incomprehensibly slow. He felt a shifting deep inside him, long and slow, on the verge, like teetering over a cliff but having the time to count every grain of rock beneath you.

It broke with the sound of her voice. "What the hell is this?"

He turned his head and saw her pick up a manila file folder off the ground. She looked at it curiously. She began to open it.

"No." he said, his voice rough. She was surprised to hear him speak, and in her surprise, obeyed his wishes. Carly walked over to Sonny and handed him the file.

"Well? Are you gonna open it, or what?"

He did. Slowly and carefully, his fingers trembling. The first thing he saw was a picture. Lying on top of a thin pile of pages filled with small, printed words. The words meant nothing to him, yet. The picture was a Polaroid. At first, he couldn't quite make out the shapes, the faces. He picked it up out of the folder and brought it closer to his face, squinted his eyes.

"What, Sonny? Who is it?"

It was a little girl with brown wavy hair and dark, chocolate eyes.

His heart caught.

"Sonny?"

She was standing with whom he immediately identified as her mother: Alexis. He flipped the picture over, read the inscription.

Alexis and Kristina, May '06

As he went through the motions he felt the underlying sense of shock, coursing through him, unnoticed, until he looked up and saw the world around him. He became confused. "What…" he murmured.

"Sonny, what is going on?"

The file. He placed the picture aside and began to read. There were scientific terms, data, complicated expressions he didn't quite grasp in his state. He read on. Rushed. The urgency within him rose and he flipped through the pages. And then, there it was. Like a beacon of light calling to him through the darkness, highlighted in electric green.

…Conclusively show Michael Corinthos, Jr. as father…]]


It was Jason who had found the papers. Jason knew the only way Sonny would get better was if he had something to get better for. Someone. Jason wasn't enough, Courtney wasn't enough, but his daughter was, and Jason knew that. The honest truth had been weaved into an intricate tapestry of lies and he did everything he could to uncover it, laboring just under the suspicion, the small chance that Alexis's daughter was Sonny's.

Jason found the truth, and it saved Sonny.

Sonny reached in his suitcase, pulled out the picture. Alexis and Kristina, smiling softly, standing on the porch of a house he'd never seen. There were trees and flowers, the sun was shining, Alexis had her arms around Kristina. They both looked happy. Happier than he could have ever made them.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Their happiness was a factor he, of course, took in to account, but in the end selfishness ran out. He couldn't continue to live his life with the knowledge that they were out there and not go looking for them. He had to; it was an impulse, a current, drawing him to them. He had to go to his family.

What happened then, Sonny thought, remained questionable.
It was seven thirty a.m. and the Davis household was in complete anarchy.

Mornings were never a good time. Kristina had trouble waking up, Alexis had trouble making breakfast, the only meal of the day incapable of being ordered out, and all around, nothing ever really seemed to go right. That statement was never truer then on that particular morning.

Alexis's nightmares made any real sleep incomprehensible, and she was left up until all hours of the night, ordering useless products off mind-numbing infomercials. She woke up to the sound of Jake knocking on the door. He was set to pick her up for work. He felt guilty over the break down of the car he pressured her to buy.

Alexis woke up Kristina, got her dressed, plopped her at the kitchen table, and set off to get ready. Kristina sat there, her feet swinging, an empty bowl in front of her and a pink plastic spoon in her hand. Both the cereal and milk were just out of her reach.

"Mommy!"

"Kristina, Sweetheart," Alexis called from somewhere in the house, "do you think it would be possible for you to hold that thought for a moment, please? Mommy is late, late, late, and Mommy's boss finds lateness 'utterly reprehensible' and will proceed to lower Mommy's caseload, which means no deluxe edition cappuccino maker for me and no Crayola Paint Set for you."

Kristina turned toward Jake who was sitting on the counter.

"What does rep, rep…rehesble mean?"

He hopped down, smiled at Kristina and reached for the box of Lucky Charms. "Well," he said as he began to pour, "Reprehensible means it's worth punishment. But that's only because Mommy's boss is an asshole."

"Asshole?"

Jake nodded and got the milk. "And when I become an FBI agent, Kris, you and me are gonna arrest him. We'll see how concerned with lateness he is when he's in federal custody." Kristina smiled, satisfied with Jake's explanation and happy to have her cereal. Jake ruffled her hair. "Be right back, Kiddo."

He walked down the hall after Alexis, whistling, a bounce in his step. "Alexis?" He looked in the living room and saw the bottom half of Alexis sticking out from underneath the couch. "I thought I fed that couch this morning." Jake deadpanned.

"Ha, ha." Came her muffled reply. She scrambled out, a high heel in her hand, her hair sticking in every direction.

"Whoa."

"Shut. Up."

She wandered off to the bathroom.

"Well, somebody's running low on their witty comebacks this morning."

"I had to proportion the comeback's amount of wit in relation to its insult."

"C'mon, the tone on that whoa captured more than anything witty I could have said."

He dodged as a rubber ducky came flying at his head.

Alexis stepped out a few moments later, hair and makeup done, looking as cool and professional as always. She smiled at Jake as she picked the ducky off the floor and tossed it in the bathroom. She walked into the kitchen with Jake on her heels. "Kris, Sweetie, you all set to go?"

"Mommy," Kristina was perched up on the counter, sitting on her legs, looking out the window.

"C'mon, get down. Time to go." Alexis reached for Kristina. Kristina swatted Alexis's hands away.

"Mommy, there's a man outside."

Alexis peaked out the window quickly. She could only see the back of his head. "Huh," she said, "must be a delivery guy. Infomercials really are quite persuasive. Only after extreme sleep deprivation, of course."

She walked over to the door. Unlocked it, swung it open.

And standing in front of her was Sonny Corinthos.