"Things will be better soon." Alexis perched on the bed, lightly stroking Ric's hair, doing her best to ignore the grunts and groans of annoyance coming from Tracy. "You'll be out of this room. We won't have to be anywhere near her. It'll be a good thing."

Ric looked up at her and grinned, albeit weakly. He reached up towards her face, fingers wiggling in the air before his arm dropped back. "You look better."

"I'm a Cassadine. We've got amazing immune systems." In truth, she felt like hell. Her body ached, her eyes burned, her chest was sore. But, they told her that her fever was going down. Her fever was reducing enough that she could get out of the bed and walk around. She could convince Stefan to let her go see her husband. She just had to go with supervision, which accounted for the aggravated girl standing in the doorway. "How are you doing?"

"Well, I won't be dancing any time soon, but I've been worse." Ric coughed hard enough to bring his body up off the bed. Alexis weakly grabbed his shoulders and eased him back to the bed. "Okay, so I haven't been worse, but I'm still alive. That counts for something, right?"

"Yeah," she whispered, stroking his hair again, "that counts for something."

Considering that people were already starting to die, being alive counted for a lot. Alexis had heard the screaming all the way down the hallway. She hadn't been able to tell who was so frantic, but she found out when Emily made it back to the room. Sam's brother had gone into cardiac arrest, but he'd been one of the lucky ones. Patrick Drake had the magic paddles, and he managed to get him back. He also shot him full of a serum that would hopefully cure him. Danny was one of the lucky ones.

Various others had already succumbed to the epidemic. Most of them were people that she'd passed on the street once or twice, but others were people that she'd actually come into contact with. They were people she knew, and the people left behind were those that she would have to see their grief. Somewhere in the hospital, Maxie Jones was a mess. The sickness had come upon Jesse Bowdry quickly and without warning. Without time to accurately gauge his illness, he died within a couple of hours.

Courtney Matthews. Lucky Spencer. Justus Ward. These were people she was actually connected to, and people she would eventually have to tell Ric about. Courtney was her daughter's neice. Lucky was one of her best friends's son. He was her nephew's brother, and he still didn't know. Justus was a colleague, though they often ended up on opposite sides of the law. They would be mourned, and if Jason and Carly didn't return soon with the antidote, many more would follow in their wakes.

"What's wrong, huh?" Ric's fingers tapped her cheek and Alexis blinked. "Alexis…"

"Nothing." She shook her head. "I, um, I'm just tired. And poor Emily, she's been running around, ya know? Between Nikolas and AJ, and looking out for Sam and so many others. And now, she's out there because you know Stefan. He's not going to let me out of his sight without someone to give him up to date reports."

"I know you, Alexis. There's something else. What is it?"

She didn't want to tell him. He wasn't strong enough to take the news. It didn't look like Sonny was going to make it. He was growing weaker by the second, and the serum was running out. Again, it was a matter of Jason and Carly returning in time, and Sonny being close enough to the top of the list to actually get the antidote. Amazing, as often as Alexis had wished that she could get Sonny Corinthos out of her life, this wasn't the way she wanted to do it. She didn't want to have to sit beside her daughter at her father's funeral. She didn't want to sit by her husband at his brother's funeral.

"Alexis—"

"I'm just tired, Ric. There's so much sickness, and Nikolas is getting worse. There's no telling when I'll get worse. There's so much about this thing that the doctors don't know, Ric. Some of us get better only to get worse. And there's the screaming—You can hear Luis Alcazar all the way down the hall. I despise the man, but I don't want to hear anyone in that much pain."

"Then stay here with me." Ric ran his hand up and down Alexis's arm slowly. "Lay here with me, and you won't hear it. We're not even on the same floor."

"And be stuck in the same room with Tracy? Not hardly."

"I heard that," Tracy said from across the room, "and I would appreciate it if you kept your saccharine moments of morose insanity to a level just slightly above a whisper. My son doesn't need to hear what you have to say."

"Tracy, I'll let you say just about anything because Dillon's sick. But, please, for the love of all your Quartermaine money, I beg you to keep your comments to yourself." Alexis groaned. "As much as you don't want to hear us, we don't want to hear you, either."

"You can leave."

"And you can shut up." Alexis groaned and turned back to Ric. "I'm sorry you're stuck here with her." She sighed. "If we could get another bed in our room, I'm sure I could talk Stefan into letting you in. He'd do anything to keep me in the bed."

"It's fine." Ric laughed lightly. "I sleep so much that I barely even hear her half the time. And the other half, I'm so delusional that I actually think I can shut her up."

"You and your sense of humor." Alexis smiled softly. "I should probably get back to bed, though. But, I'm getting better, so I'll be back."

"You better."

This entire time in the hospital, this was her first time actually seeing Ric. She'd been unconscious in the beginning, then delusional. When she was lucid, she was too weak to do much of anything. Alexis had been filled with excitement when she was strong enough to get out of the bed and actually use the bathroom. Now, she was just glad that she could walk enough to get on the elevator and up to Ric's floor. The idea of leaving him when she'd just gotten to him was hard, but she knew it would be worse if she stayed. If she had to tear Stefan away from Nikolas to come and drag her away, he would probably have her strapped to the bed.

Behind them, Emily cleared her throat and Alexis turned to her. She really should have been going. Emily needed some rest, and it was probably killing her to be away from Nikolas for so long. She could have sent her back, but she didn't want her to incur the wrath of Stefan were she to come back to the room alone. Sighing, Alexis turned back to Ric and gave him a kiss. His lips were as hot as the rest of him, and she worried.

"I'll be back," she told him. "So, you hang on, because I'd really hate to drag myself back up here and find you gone."

"You think I'd go anywhere without you?" He gave her a lazy grin. "You don't win that easily, counselor."

"If that happened, counselor, neither of us would win." She kissed him again, then got up from the bed. Alexis walked slowly to Emily, and taking a good look at her, realized that there was something else going on besides her need to return to Nikolas's side. Her forehead was wrinkled with concern. Her eyes were dark with despair and sadness. "What happened, Emily?"

They were in the hallway, and Emily looked around. She took Alexis a little farther down the hall before she said, "I didn't want to say anything in front of Ric. I know you didn't tell him about Sonny, so I didn't want to say anything. He looks so bad, ya know? And I mean, we still haven't told Nikolas about Lucky."

"Emily—" Alexis stopped, her head shaking. "Don't tell me…"

"Bobbie just came and told me. I don't—I don't even know why she said anything, ya know? She's barely able to think with Lucky and I feel so bad that I wasn't there. I've only been to see Lucky a few times, ya know? And it's so messed up, because we were so close, but I've been spread so thin with everything going on, and he said he understood. And the last time I saw Lucky, he was fine. I just—I don't know how even managed to not tell Nikolas, but I did, so I knew I could find a way to not say anything to Ric. And I don't even like Sonny."

"Emily, you're babbling. Just—Just say. I know what it is, but.. You have to say it."

"Alexis, I…" She sighed. "I'm sorry, but Sonny…" Emily took in a deep breath. Her body sagged with her exhale. "I don't even like him. I mean, yeah, I put up with him because of Jason, and God, I don't even know how I'm gonna tell Jason about this. It'll be really hard. But, I spent so much time yelling at him. The last time I was in there, I was so mad because he actually told Michael that AJ wasn't his father with us standing right there, and I screamed at him. I said such mean things, Alexis."

"Emily! Please, just… just say it."

"Sonny…" Emily shook her head. "Alexis, Sonny died about five minutes ago."