It's a Bit Sudden

Part 1

It's been awhile since I've written a GH fic. I stopped watching a few years ago, but will drop in every once in a while to watch Alexis scenes or any scenes with Alexis and Sonny on YouTube. That being said, at times I think that this alcoholism storyline isn't quite in character with the Alexis I adored from the golden years. So, I thought she needed a little bit of a deeper reason to turn to drinking, and that she definitely needed her best friend. I do not own these characters. I have also taken some liberties with places people have lived, time frame, or outcome of Sonny being in PA. I haven't proofread this either … expect an updated first chapter. I hope you like it. - AOH

"Friends til the end."

Alexis said, her voice catching as she lifted a glass of clear liquid into the air. She squeezed the blue poker chip in her hand and swallowed. Savoring the burn in her throat. Alexis leaned forward as the room began to spin a bit. She knew it was less the two glasses of vodka she'd downed in the last few hours - she was certainly past being a teetotaller these days - and more how sick she felt over the loss. The glass was empty. The room was empty. It was Sunday night, and he wasn't here with her for the first time in … in years. She dropped the crystal glass onto the table a little harder than she meant to, her hands shaking, and pushed herself back slightly from the table. She could see him everywhere - them everywhere.

The penthouse had not changed much over the years. She could see them seated across from one another when Sonny told her what happened between him and Deke. See herself handing Carly a bouquet of roses after she had insisted they marry to keep Sonny out of jail. Her own wedding shower that had taken place a few steps away from where she was seated. At the table, the table where she and Sonny had eaten dinner together … where they'd shared breakfast … where he'd teased her about how sexy she was eating a strawberry. The bar across the room that had actually changed. It was now stocked with spring and seltzer water, lined up next to a bucket of ice - which is why she had brought her own vodka with when she'd left her house.

She needed to be near him. Closer to the time when they'd built their friendship - the golden years before another car crash. One that on most days she wasn't one hundred percent sure had sent Carly Corinthos over the edge, but it had definitely sent her and Sonny over a cliff. It baptized them in a lake filled with the sins that everyone else had pushed onto them. Alexis' gaze was fixed on the stairs as she remembered their first kiss and the night they were finally completely vulnerable with one another. The night they gave into how they felt for one another, and they took the things they entrusted to each other to another level. The night Kristina was conceived. Alexis squeezed her eyes shut unsure of whether she should embrace the memory or push it away.

After all, she was hurting, he was gone, and everything else in her life was crumbling as if an explosion had gone off. Only this time, she set the bomb and walked into its path. Alexis closed her hand around the two small keys hanging on the delicate chain around her neck. They were engraved simply - PH4 and PH2. Sonny had given her the necklace on her first day of chemo. She had fought so hard against the treatment out of fear and he had fought so hard to get her to agree out of fear of losing her. The day she'd arrived for her first treatment he was standing outside of the door to her hospital room with a hug and a small box - a gift to remind her of all they had meant to one another as friends, all she'd been through, and to remind her that they were still connected though that connection had definitely changed over the years.

Alexis smiled slightly as tears trailed her cheeks. It was as if she could almost audibly hear the words he'd spoken to her the night they'd lay upstairs on those black satin sheets.

"Well, it sure as hell wasn't alright." She said fiercely to herself.

After all, he was gone now - this time it would be forever.

Sonny stepped off the elevator on the 17th floor of Harborview Towers. Sonny. Mike. Sonny. His memories had come back a week ago. At first it had begun with a woman, blonde hair, white dress. He'd run to embrace her only to pull back to see she had no face. About to give into the shock he heard someone call out behind him, "Sonny." Just above a whisper, yet steady and solid … it grounded him. He didn't even need to turn to see her. For weeks he had remembered nothing about himself and with one word from her, he'd remembered everything. Once again, she had named him.

This place. The fine print. If he hadn't been so angry at himself for pushing her way, for her running from their friendship, and so lonely with Carly upstairs gloating while his best friend packed her life into boxes across the hall; Sonny doubted he would have taken the time to read the entirety of her resignation letter. The one she had delivered in person - from her hand to his. Hands that had held each other days before were passing a paper that would begin the unraveling of their friendship. The second to last paragraph, final two sentences … The price he had quoted her was less than it was worth, but it was the very least he could do. PH2 was in her name from 2002 forward. The contract had been sealed per her request.

It wasn't until after her divorce from his brother, when she was healing from lung cancer, and their relationship began to heal a bit that they'd made a decision together. He made the coffee and she drew up the papers. The penthouse where they're friendship had started to grow, where they had fought, where he'd thrown glasses, shot out mirrors, where they'd made love, and shared the secrets they'd never told another living soul was put into both of their names. Along with the deed to PH2 the papers were placed were sealed and put into a trust for Kristina which she would inherit on her 35th birthday. PH4. If Kristina couldn't grow up with her parents together, at least they could gift her the place where they built their relationship over the years and someday the memories of why you should never let fear and guilt keep you from the one you love the most. So, they met here over the years, in secret, almost every Sunday. Because they're friendship had always been so important to both of them and if the other people they loved kept them from it … they would protect it in their own way. They came here to talk, to scream, to play cards, to drink coffee, to fight, to watch movies, to just be away from the world - the mobster and the woman who "tolerated" him. They met less while she was with Julian. A lot less. And yet -

It had been the first place he'd wanted to when he finally decided to leave the safety net of the Tan-O. Lenny and Phyllis had given him a safe place to land after the accident, but it was time to come back to Port Charles. Once he remembered who he was, who he had been - Well, he knew that she needed him somehow. Sonny approached the door to the penthouse slowly. Why would she even be here? He'd been gone for almost two months. Did she think he was gone forever this time? Did she know about the accident? She couldn't be in there, but it was Sunday … He pressed his ear against the door. The last thing he wanted to do was come back from the dead "again." If she was here, he needed to see her … Then, he heard her. The sound was muffled through the wood of the door, but the raw anguish he heard made him feel like someone had hit him in the stomach, his palms began to sweat, as he slid his hands into his pockets, and frantically patted the pocket in his shirt.

"Alexis," he said more calmly than he felt his mouth close to the breath of a crack between the door and the frame. "Alexis, I'm here," he raised his voice slightly. "I'm here." He said as he heard the sound of her sobs swell in the quiet of the 17th floor. "Dammit, dammit, dammit," of course he didn't have his keys. Of course. "Shit." And then he began feeling for the key they'd put behind the light fixture closest to the door. It had been years since he'd reached for it … It was still there. He slipped it into the lock and turned sharply, having enough control not to bust into the door like the ghost of lovers past. He was so concerned about preparing Alexis for seeing him again, he never would have imagined how completely unprepared he was to see her.

"Lex?"