"It's been hours. Why isn't she waking up?"
"Please, sir. The child has just suffered a terrible trauma; please, be patient."
"Patient? She's been unconcious for four days, and you've done nothing but stand over her and stare! Make yourself useful, doctor, or I'll find a more suitable replacement. In fact, that's exactly what I'm going to do. Get out, and be grateful; were I not so distracted, I assure you, your departure would be neither this quick nor this painless."
The doctor was not a man easily shaken, but at Mikkos Cassadine's words, he quivered. Jumping at the chance to leave with his life intact - it was far more than most who entered the Cassadine employ were allowed - the elderly man fled from the room, leaving his belongings behind.
Mikkos ignored the physician, his attention focused solely on the tiny four-year-old nestled at the center of a king-size antique bed. Her eyes were firmly closed, the long lashes settled gently against disturbingly pale cheeks. She'd moved but once since they'd left Paris; he'd tried to sweep some loose strands of hair away from her face, and she stirred just long enough to push his hand away before passing out once more. It pained him to have her refuse his touch, even in her unaware state, and though he kept constant vigil over the child, he did not attempt to caress her again.
So absorbed was Mikkos in keeping watch over the child that he failed to notice his wife slip in through the door behind him. Helena crossed the room to take the doctor's bag from the nightstand beside the bed, all the while ignoring both her husband and the small girl. Turning her back to them, she placed the bag on the desk in the far corner of the room, and sat down to rummage through its contents. Without a sound, she extracted a small, clear vial of liquid, which she handed to her husband. Mikkos' dark eyes left the child for the first time, flickering from his wife to the vial and back.
"You know what that is." Helena posed the phrase as a statement, rather than a question. "Give her just enough, and she'll be... Well, very impressionable, to say the least. Give her too much..." She drew one long, tapered finger across her own throat, her mouth forming a sick smile. "Personally, I prefer the latter option, but the choice, my love, is yours. You can give her whichever dose you choose, or I will choose for you. Oh, don't look so stricken, my darling," she implored in response to his shocked expression. "You must know that this is the best thing for her. Would you really want your little bastard to spend the rest of her life with the memory of witnessing her mother's death, and the knowledge that Kristin died because of her? It would be much kinder just to put her out of her misery, don't you think?"
Frowning, Mikkos stood, towering above Helena. She looked him in the eye, unafraid, but after a moment she backed down and seated herself at the edge of the bed, as far from the child as she could get. "There will be," he announced, "For lack of a better term, several ground rules. You are never to harm my daughter. In exchange, no one, including her, will ever know that she is my child. She will be raised as a poor, orphaned relation, and treated as a member of the family." He paused to think, rubbing his temples in exhaustion. "My sister, Sophia, was exiled from the family many years ago, in part because she had taken up with a known Soviet supporter. What was his name? Something dreadfully common. Davidovitch, that's it. Alexei Davidovitch. He and Sophia both passed several months back; a car accident, or something along those lines." He described his sister's death with no emotion, as though it had been an anonymous headline in the morning paper.
"Did they have children?" Helena inquired, casually feigning interest.
"Only her," Mikkos replied sadly, nodding in the tiny girl's direction. "Alexis. Daughter of Alexei and Sophia. Tragically orphaned, but taken in by a charitable aunt and uncle. No one will ever know any differently." Without another word to his wife, Mikkos opened the vial and poured out half a capful of the liquid. Tilting his daughter's head back, he poured the serum into her mouth, then massaged her throat in order to make her swallow. With a heavy sigh, he changed places with his wife, allowing her to do what was necessary while he looked on.
"Alexis, wake up now." Her voice was a saccharine poison. "Alexis, listen to me. You are an orphan. Your parents, Sophia Cassadine and Alexei Davidovitch, were recently killed in a car crash. Your uncle Mikkos and aunt Helena have been kind enough to take you in. They've given you a home, a room on the family island in Greece. Won't you wake up and tell them how grateful you are?"
The child didn't stir. Helena left the room with a satisfied smile, motioning for Mikkos to follow. With a reluctant glance back at the little girl he could no longer call his daughter, he joined his wife in the hall.
"It is done," she told him. "She will remember nothing but what I told her."
Mikkos did not respond. Instead, he glanced forlornly through the open doorway as Natasha - Alexis - started to wake.
She was in a strange room, in a bed that was much too large for her tiny body. Nearby, she could hear a woman's high-pitched voice speaking in a language she couldn't understand. Her eyes darted around the room, searching in vain for something familiar, but there was nothing recognizable about her surroundings. Frightened, she clutched her pillow and began to cry.
"Alexis?" A tall, broad man in a black suit entered the room, quickly taking the seat next to her bed. "It's all right, Alexis, don't cry."
She was sure that she'd seen him before, though for the life of her she couldn't imagine where; suddenly, a name came to her. "Uncle Mikkos?" she sniffed through tears.
"Yes," he confirmed with a sigh; it broke his heart to be unable to claim her as his own daughter, but he knew that his wife considered her very existance a direct insult. Helena could not be trusted to let the girl live if the truth was known, and so, for Natasha's protection, he lied. "Alexis, do you know what has happened?"
Alexis should her head, and began to sob even harder. She couldn't remember anything at all aside from waking up. She knew that this place was not her home, but she had no recollection of where her home was. The child felt completely and utterly alone.
Mikkos wanted to hold her again, but kept his distance, fearing that he might break down and tell her everything. Instead he simply, uselessly repeated, "Don't cry."