(Well, okay. I lied last time. I'll just post this now. I figure it's not really a good idea to make people wait for it, considering a third chapter might never come. Not that I expect many people to read this. Anyway, this chapter is a bit longer than the last, and centers around Courtney and Sam. Heh.)

Chapter 2: A House Divided

Samantha sat on her bed, a book in her hand and a pad of yellow paper in her lap. She had a pen in her mouth, chewing on it mindlessly as she read the small print of the thick textbook. Courtney was sitting near, on the floor, her back against the side of the bed Samantha was working on. A basket of food was sitting next to her, and a textbook identical to the one in her friend's hand was resting in her lap. They were working in silence, but it was comfortable.

"Cours?"

Courtney looked up from her work, her head almost straight back against the bed, "Hmm?"

"Can you toss me some apple juice?"

"Mhm." Courtney reached into the basket and took out a small, green and red juice box. She tossed it without aiming over her shoulder. Sam caught it almost mindlessly, taking the small red straw from the back and poking it through the easy-to-open hole in one smooth motion. She went back to reading, sipping at the children's juice box lazily. Silence settled again, but only for a short time.

"Sam?'

Not looking up from her notepad as she scribbled some thoughts down, "Hmmm?"

"You know this is silly, right?"

Courtney Matthews was young, blonde and beautiful. Her long hair framed her face in layers and highlighted her defiant blue eyes. She was not dainty in figure, with muscular arms, a flat, sculpted stomach, and strong legs. Since she was 'off-duty' she wore a T-shirt and a man's flannel shirt she had bought for warmth when money had been short, but kept because it fit her in more ways than one. Plain, form fitting khaki pants and bare feet completed the casual look.

Samantha McCall was Courtney's perfect counterpart. She sported thick black hair and dark brown eyes. Her body was less refined than her roommates, since she just couldn't find enough time in the day, between working full-time for Bobbie Spencer and keeping AJ in line, to go to the gym regularly like Courtney somehow managed to do. It was a secret that belonged to Courtney alone: Sam gave up trying to figure out how she milked more hours out of the day a long time ago. Sam was much shorter than her friend, and a little less graceful. She was wearing an off-the-shoulder navy sweater that was three or four sizes too big for her and plain black sweat pants, her bare feet crossed at the knee as she used her lap as a desk.

The sweater was given to her by Courtney's father, Mike Corbin, during the first winter of Sam's stay in Port Charles, and no matter how many times she washed it the comfortable smell of an old style kitchen stove's smoke never came out. Mike owned a diner called Kelly's in the city, which the two girls frequented when they had the time. The thing that made Mike as good as a father to Sam was the fact that he didn't judge them. He knew. Of course he knew: Courtney was his Princess, his beloved daughter.

Mike hadn't known this until only a few years ago, however. Before that Courtney grew up on her own for the most part, her adoptive family falling apart when she was a teen. She had gotten into her dealings with AJ long before she knew her father existed.

He took care of her now, but somehow understood what she was doing in a place like the House. He asked her to leave, a parental obligation, but he never tried to force her. And he was the same with Sam, as if he had adopted her a long time ago. Never really having a family, it was a tumultuous experience for her.

She was still learning how to love a family.

"Yeah… I know," she said after thoughtfully chewing on the straw, "but that's what makes us wonderful. You know. The effort."

Laughing at herself more than anything else, Courtney nodded, "This is the same kind of stuff Georgie is doing at the high school, you know?"

Georgie Jones was the youngest tenant of the building, a baby at seventeen. When the pretty young woman had arrived at AJ's doorstep earlier that year looking for a place to stay and earn some money Bobbie, the landlord of the apartments and owner of the top six of eight floors of the building, had instantly switched into maternal mode. She let the girl room with Courtney and Sam, and gave her the safe job of tenant maid. She cleaned and supplied the apartments, but was never given reason to venture down to the first floor or the basement. It was silently agreed between the three older women that Georgie would be kept as far away from AJ and the House as possible.

Being seventeen, of course, didn't make her completely naïve. She was aware of what happened on the floors she couldn't visit. She didn't want to go there, even if she was allowed to. She couldn't understand why anyone in their right mind would.

Sam and Courtney rarely spoke to Georgie about their private lives. Georgie didn't ask. She didn't like to assume, but it was hard not to when one or both of them stayed out all night. She didn't know anything about them, really, and that was okay by them. As long as she knew they would take care of her, there wasn't much more to say.

"Yeah, well. It was your idea, if I remember correctly. 'Hey, Sammy! Let's go to community college and get ourselves out of this place, huh?' And me, because I'm so damn impressionable, I agreed. Don't complain at me now because it's not challenging enough for you."

"That's not it. It's hard. I don't know, I just think… sometimes I think no matter what we do, AJ will keep us here forever," Courtney put the book down and stood. She stretched out across Sam's bed, just at her feet. Sam sighed and flipped herself over completely, resting her chin on Courtney's stomach.

Irrefutably the most hated man on either side of the Port Charles demographic, AJ Quartermaine was the owner of the strip club called the House: the bar that took up the first floor and the dance hall in the basement below. He was a man of many seedy contacts and had more than enough handholds in the workings of the back alleys to keep the girls of his strip club and prostitution ring on a short leash. Most of the girls had money problems he was more than happy to exploit, including drug dependencies and loan shark woes. They needed him to keep them with clients, to keep the money coming in to make payments. Little did they realize, and little good it did them if they did discover, that AJ knew most of the dealers in the area and worked deals with them for his benefit.

He had an attraction to Courtney that he didn't bother hiding. He used her like a drug, and thrived on his hold over her. By an ugly twist of fate she owed him money directly, and he never failed to remind her of that. She had come to him for help. She needed him then, and she'd need him forever. Sam, meanwhile, owed a substantial sum to a loan shark under his thumb, for a reason she kept to herself. Only Courtney and Bobbie knew the reality of her situation. The rest, the girls and AJ and every client that bothered to ask, simply thought she liked her job and for that she had a very loose reputation. It didn't bother Sam at all, considering it made her an instant favorite among the men.

"That bastard can't keep us down for long. You'll see, once you're paid up you'll have nothing to worry about. Bobbie's already seeing to that. AJ won't even see it coming. He thinks he still has years on you." She grinned wickedly. Just imagining AJ's face when Courtney escapes his grubby little claws was enough to lift even the worst of moods.

"But you…"

"Cours, I'll follow you. No worries." Sam rolled off the bed, landing in an easy crouch. She took her juice box with her as she crossed the room and began pacing, "I don't want to talk about that, though. Anyway, don't we have homework to finish?"

"Yeah… I'm sorry. I know it's hard…"

"You're not very good at the whole 'not talking about it' thing, but I'm sure you'll get better."

The door to the room creaked open behind Sam, and she turned to greet the intruder. Knocking was a vital skill to master in this building, and most of the tenants knew this. It wasn't surprising, then, when Georgie entered timidly.

"Hey, Jones," Courtney said with a smile. Georgie blushed and waved. She still wasn't quite used to living with two other women. She tried not to make eye contact, so she let her gaze sweep the room. She noticed the textbooks and papers and smiled.

"Hi."

"You okay?" Asked Sam, catching a strange vibe in the air. Georgie nodded, her blond curls falling over her eyes. Courtney joined them, pushing Georgie inside and shutting the door.

"What's the matter?" She asked the younger girl, placing a friendly hand on her arm and leading her to her bed, which sat closest to the door.

"Nothing. I just…" She sat in silence for a long moment, her eyes shifting from Courtney to Sam, taking in all she could about them for the first time. They looked so different physically, but there was something about them, their eyes or the way they carried themselves, that was exactly the same. Georgie couldn't find a name for it, nor words to describe it. They did what they had to. They survived. She could never dream about being as strong as their lives undoubtedly made them. "How long have you two been friends?"

The two older girls exchanged a look, then Sam ventured, "Two years?"

"You're like sisters…" There was something inexplicably sad in her tone, and it irked them. They wanted to make her smile.

Sam grinned, "Don't you know?"

Courtney mirrored Sam's expression flawlessly, "We are sisters."

"Twins, actually."

"Can't you see the resemblance?"

Georgie couldn't help but smile. She loved the way they worked off each other seamlessly. The young, sheltered girl longed for companionship of that caliber, but knew she couldn't hope to get it from either of her roommates. They were devoted to each other, after all.

"Am I interrupting anything?"

"Nah. Just some homework for economics… thanks, Courtney, for making me take this stupid course that, no doubt, I'll fail miserably while you pass with points and credits to spare." Sam threw the empty juice box at Courtney and it glanced off her side, landing eerily close to the basket it had come from.

"Do you need the room or something?"

"No. I thought you might."

Sam shot a puzzled look in Courtney's direction and watched as her best friend that shared everything with her colored suspiciously.

"Why? We're already using it," Sam intoned pointedly, leading Georgie into an explanation. It was Courtney's turn to shoot a look, but this one was more wary than confused.

"Well, Courtney has been getting calls all morning and since she brought him up here last time, I thought she might know him personally or something, and… want to…" Her sentence withered like a flower in flame under the blazing eyes of Courtney Matthews.

"Wait, what? Calls? Him? Here? Who, Cours? And where the hell was I?"

"You were busy that night, Sam," Georgie began cautiously. Busy doing what was hardly a question any one in the room needed to ask, despite what the older woman pretended to believe. Courtney waved a hand and, in one bound, led their young ward by the elbow to the door.

"Tell him the usual, and then field all his calls. Now I need to talk to Sam…" There was no mistaking the anger in her voice.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what I--"

"It's fine." With that Courtney pushed Georgie out of the room and shut the door with a bang. She turned and found her dark haired counterpart staring at her intently from her cross-legged perch on her bed, much like an unblinking barn owl over a field mouse.

Exasperated, Courtney waved her hand nonchalantly and said in a tone to match, "His name is Jasper Jacks. He thinks I'm his next charity case." Sam rolled her shoulders back and blinked very slowly, shaking her head as if action might make her understand a bit better.

"You mean Jax? The biggest nice guy since Jesus!" Courtney shrugged, "What does he want? No, save that: why was he here?"

"It's complicated?" She laughed when Sam didn't point out the irony in that statement. What about their lives wasn't complicated? They lived by a thousand rules and were in constant danger on multiple levels. Every client had to be treated in the strictest confidence and utmost respect. They, on top of the commandments of AJ and the House, each came with an individual ser of codes that, if broken, could be disastrous to every party involved. Them. Him. The rarely mentioned but constantly looming Her. Everyone.

Nothing in the life of a prostitute was ever easy.

"Try again," Sam remained interested, unmoving. Courtney sighed and collapsed onto her own bed, the furthest from the door, and clasped her hands behind her head, her eyes unseeing as she considered where to begin.

"Okay. Yes, it's that Jax. He came round to the House looking to make a deal with AJ, I guess. Since then he's been talking to Bobbie instead. He must have figured out that AJ is a dick."

"Not surprising."

"No. Anyway. The first night he was here you were out, I think with that guy with the guy with the crying problem?"

"Last week. Hey, I got paid and all I had to do was sit there and give him a shoulder. Easiest night I've had on the job yet, I think."

"Right. So AJ sends me over to him. He wanted me to make sure Jax had a good time. A good enough time to leave AJ alone, and for me to learn what he was up to. He blew me off completely. He has a plan for this place, I just know it. I've met him a couple times since; just recently in here while you were at Kelly's to keep AJ from spying on us. He's trying to recruit me to his cause and, I guess, trying to help me out of here. I'm trying to avoid him."

"Why?" Sam tilted her head, "He sounds like he likes you. And maybe it's a good idea to shut this place down with his help, you know? Stop kids like Georgie from growing up like we did." Sam colored, shifting her eyes away from Courtney as if they were suddenly on dangerously treasonous ground.

"You know that was my plan. Bobbie trusts us enough to include us in this little power usurpation bid she's been working on behind AJ's back… but I don't want us to look like another one of Jax's triumphs. He's notorious for his charity work. I don't want him to use this place and the rest of the girls as stepping stones to godliness… I don't want to be sweet talked into the palm of his hand. I mean, what if he has ulterior motives?"

Bobbie Spencer was the owner and superintendent of the floors above the House. Before AJ had come into the picture, the ground level floor and basement had belonged to a business owner, and it had been nothing more than a smoky bar. Bobbie had even been in negotiations to sell her part of the building to the bar owner, since she had no use for them. They had been acquired after a divorce settlement. Then AJ, with his noble dreams of becoming an infamous figure in the underground society of Port Charles, akin to the mightiest of mobsters, bought the place out and formed his House. It was easy enough for him to find the fodder for his sleazy establishment. Bobbie put her foot down and refused to sell him her part of the building, despite his more than generous offers and less than legal threats. She enlisted Courtney and Sam, two women who had their own personal reasons for loathing AJ, to help her create a coup. It was slow, laborious work, but every day they made slight progress. With Jax entering the picture their dreams of cleaning the place up and giving the girls of the House better lives came into focus, but at what price?

"So you like him, but you don't want to trust him on reputation alone." An uncomfortable silence settled between them as Courtney batted Sam's words around. Sam took it as a cue to continue, "You're attracted to him, right?"

"He's attracted to me, more like. I'm too professional now to… be capable of a normal relationship. That's been beaten out of me by now."

Sam laughed inappropriately, "I hope I'm not as dehumanized as you are."

"No, you're not. You're still perfect, Sammy."

"Right." She brushed it off with a curt response, but the tone in Courtney's voice resonated within Sam. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair, brushing her bangs out of her eyes and tucking them back behind her ear.

An unfamiliar awkwardness blossomed between them. Courtney stood and crossed the room, passing Sam's bed without looking up, going to the door. Sam didn't move.

There were only two times in the history of their friendship when they found they could not speak to each other. Both had involved Courtney and a rule of the House being broken for a man. One had been on Sam's behalf and had saved her life; the other was very much like this current situation in its beginnings. This rendezvous of Courtney's jumped to the front of Sam's mind instantly and she frowned as her friend left the room with only a half smile and a wave instead of the customary parting hug. She didn't doubt that Courtney was in the same state of mind, but in a lot more pain. This could be as bad as it got is Courtney wasn't smart. Jax was a philanthropist, true enough, but his reputation also stretched as far south as philanderer.

"Cours… be careful, love," Sam sighed at the closed door. Courtney did not reappear to assure her best friend that everything would be fine. She was left feeling desperately hollow, worried and, worst of all, lonely.

(Alrighty, let me know what you think! Reviews are wonderful. - Thank you, the two of you the reviewed the last chapter. -)