Chapter 14: Collateral Damage

Sonny closed the door to his SUV with a sense of dread. They had sat in silence for over an hour while Dr. Scanlon figured out what good head injury instructions were or something like that. Well, actually the nicer nurse had come back and apologized that Dr. Scanlon was tied up with a critically ill patient.

When he had stepped out to make sure Bruno had delivered the inhaler, he had seen Stone's little sister standing in the hallway. Almost twelve years had passed since her brother had died. She had grown up and become a doctor, but Sonny had noted that she still bit her lip the same way when she was scared or nervous as she had when she was fifteen. She had met his eyes and he had thought she was going to say something but then a portable X-ray machine wheeled out of one of the resuscitation rooms and she had gone running back inside. Sonny had supposed duty called but the whole event still left him with an uneasy sensation which had only intensified when he had returned to sit in silence with Alexis.

Eventually Dr. Scanlon had returned, and the orderly, who had been flirting with the nicer nurse in the hallway, had wheeled Alexis out to his SUV. The whole thing was just way too surreal Sonny decided as he opened his own door and climbed up inside. "I'll take you back to the penthouse. I bet you want to see the girls," he suggested.

"That will be confusing to Kristina," Alexis spoke for the first time.

"I'm sure she is asleep by now. She's your daughter she will probably sleep until noon if we let her. I can figure something out though if you want us to go back to your place. I just thought you might want to see them," Sonny said. He thought he would if he thought he was dying, well, if his anger didn't get the better of him. That seemed to be better with the lamictal though.

"So, you really aren't seeing Lois?" Alexis asked.

Sonny sighed. Back to that? Did that mean he could ask how close she and Baldwin really were? He shook his head and decided he didn't want to know. Denial could be good sometimes. "Lois is my friend, my sister, and she's living in a town she hates to make sacrifices for her daughters and husband. I'm living in a town that hates me, so we have that common ground."

Alexis rolled her eyes but then her shoulders drooped. "You're right I do want to see them. I won't wake them up and I'll just leave in the morning before they get up," she said.

She looked so broken in that moment that Sonny wanted to say something but there weren't really words so he just kept driving towards Sunset Towers. She still hadn't told him what was wrong, but he had imagined multiple scenarios in his mind, and they all seemed so final and so wrong.

"If you need to fill those prescriptions tonight the CVS over on Sunset is open twenty-four hours now," Sonny offered after a few more minutes of silence.

Alexis didn't look away from the window when she spoke. "Thank you," she said softly.

He pulled into the mostly empty parking lot in front of the CVS Pharmacy. As he pulled into a space by the entrance he turned to Alexis and for just a moment she met his eyes before she turned back to stare out into the darkness. "I want to help you."

Alexis shook her head. "You can't, Sonny. I guess I should have known this would come back to haunt me. Mark always used to claim he wasn't fooled by my false sense of confidence. I guess he had a point, my ancestors may have been evil but they aren't exactly surviving in droves. Of course, Mark and I could never talk about that because we would have to discuss how my brother killed two of his favorite cousins. Kristina's middle name was once Alexandria, a tribute to Alexandria Quartermaine. At one point she was heir apparent to ELQ. I guess that proves Edward Quartermaine may be many things, but he isn't a male chauvinist. She might have had a bright future but then my brother blew up the Quartermaine's diamond mine and Alexandria died in the explosion. Maybe you knew about this all along, maybe Luke told you how he set up the whole thing as part of his plan to finally avenge poor Laura's capture. Alexandria was just collateral damage. Sort of like Katherine, when Laura botched his plan to kill Helena seventeen years later," Alexis ranted.

Sonny hadn't known about Alexandria, not really. He thought Brenda had mentioned the tragedy once, back when Lois had been pregnant with Brooke and vetoing almost every baby name that was a tribute to some dead Quartermaine. He had watched Alexis figure out what Luke had tried and failed to do and then watched Alexis give Luke the choice of facing trial or framing Helena for his crime. Luke chose the latter which Sonny felt was probably his best option. Sonny smiled a little at the amount of incriminating information in his memory. Of course, Alexis had been his attorney then, so he supposed it fell under attorney client privilege. That went both ways, right?

"Collateral damage is an interesting thing, Sonny. It is tolerable until it becomes personal. You ask Luke Spencer about that. Alexandria Quartermaine was acceptable collateral damage when he wanted to avenge the capture of his wife, who was actually Scott Baldwin's wife when she was kidnapped. She wasn't his daughter, sister, niece or cousin she didn't matter to him. Katherine Bell was acceptable collateral damage when he tried to kill Helena at Stefan and Katherine's Bacchanalia. Ok, Katherine really didn't have much of a fan club, but Stefan thought he loved her before he got to know her, and Mac Scorpio seemed to care about her for reasons I just can't think about right now. But then in 1999 when Luke thought his son died when Moreno firebombed Jason's bike shop somehow that was not acceptable collateral damage. Lucky was his son it was personal," Alexis said.

Lucky hadn't been his son, but it had been personal for Sonny too. It also hadn't been the work of Sonny's enemy Moreno. It had been the work of Luke's enemy Helena Cassadine who used the fire as a distraction for her kidnapping. She and Cesar Faison had some elaborate brain washing scheme planned where they would use Lucky to kill his own father. Their plan never really came together and Lucky escaped and returned to Port Charles in March 2000 to appear at Emily Quartermaine's Sweet Sixteen Party. All was well that ended well Sonny had tried to tell himself.

Yet, things had only gotten worse for the Spencer family after their son returned from the dead. Laura was in some catatonic state in Shady Brook. Luke was somewhere, exactly where Sonny didn't know. Spinelli had been looking since Lesley Webber kicked his sixteen-year-old daughter out of her house the prior April. Sonny could almost see Luke laughing at the idea he couldn't hide where some hapless computer nerd couldn't find him. Sonny could almost laugh along with Luke, except only almost because he had his own daughters. A lot of things had opened his eyes to the fact that they needed him in their lives including watching Luke's sixteen-year-old daughter essentially navigate life on her own while she lived with his mob enforcer.

Sonny took a deep breath as he recalled a conversation with Jason from the previous spring. It had been during that awkward period while Brenda had been sick. She had sent them to Kelly's to eat lunch and repair their friendship. Except their friendship had actually been more intact than Brenda had realized. Or Sonny thought it had been, other things had just been hard; they still were.

April 26, 2007

"So, what's up?" Sonny asked after their food had arrived.

"I got a call from Sam last night," Jason said bluntly.

"I thought she was out of your life," Sonny said.

"I want her to be out of my life, notice I didn't call her, Sonny," Jason protested.

"What did Sam want?" Sonny asked before he took a bite of his salad.

"I don't know I didn't really give her a chance to explain but I have Stan following up on some things," Jason said.

"Have him make sure she isn't involved with Ric because I still think this was all a setup," Sonny said.

"I know you did but Stan could never find a link between Ric and Sam before," Jason offered.

"You mean other than sex on the living room floor? By the way, do not let Anthony listen to that song. It just sets Ally off and then we're back to fighting over the boys again," Sonny said.

Jason blinked three times in rapid succession. "What?" he asked.

"You know that Shaggy song, you let Anthony listen to it in the car he was singing it at home, and Ally thought it was a reflection on my relationship, her relationship, someone's relationship. I don't even know anymore…when did we make things so difficult?"

"I don't listen to music in the car, I have no idea who Shaggy is," Jason said. He threw up his hands in frustration but then took a deep breath and another bite of his burger.

"He's one of those gangster rap guys I'd rather Anthony not listen to anyway, but if it wasn't you, I'll talk to Max and Milo. Anyway, back to the Sam situation, Stan needs to find the link between her and Ric because then that will lead us to Ric and we can end this whole stupid cycle and maybe we can all move on with our lives before we destroy everyone we care about in the process," Sonny said.

"Well Stan's working on it, I thought about having Spinelli do some digging, but he definitely doesn't see Sam as a threat, so I'm worried about him getting hurt," Jason admitted.

"I think the further Spinelli stays out of this the better, but I think that about most things regarding Spinelli," Sonny admitted as the door to Kelly's opened and Spinelli came through the door with Lulu Spencer.

"Godfather! Stone Cold!" Spinelli greeted them.

"I told you not to call me that," Sonny said. He smiled through gritted teeth as Spinelli pulled an extra chair to their table and then motioned Lulu to sit.

Jason turned to Lulu. "Aren't you supposed to be in school?" he asked.

"You aren't my…" Lulu began.

Jason cut her off mid-sentence. "Yes, I know, I'm not your father, but if you're going to move in then you will be going to school, is that clear?" he asked.

Lulu smiled. "Wait, so I can move in?" she asked.

"Only until we can find something more permanent," Jason said.

Spinelli extended a hand to Lulu for high fives only to miss when she allowed him to slap her back. Sonny politely deflected his eyes to the remains of his lunch and stifled a chuckle.

"Stone cold really has proud patriarch potential, you'll see Lulu," Spinelli said.

That was too much for Sonny and he allowed the laughter to escape as his father Michael Corinthos Sr. who owned the diner came over to take Lulu and Spinelli's order.

"So, what can I get you?" Mike asked with a smile.

"Something to go because someone is very late for school," Jason suggested.

"Can't I just go tomorrow? Seriously it's after one, by the time I got there I wouldn't even have an entire class left to go to," Lulu protested.

"Fine you're going tomorrow and you're going on time and you're going to be in at a reasonable hour as well, and no drinking!" Jason fumed.

"Whoa! Dial back a little bit there, proud pseudo patriarch," Lulu said and then realized what she had said. "Oh my gosh I'm turning into Spinelli," she wailed.

"I like that, I'll have to remember that one," Spinelli said but then he must have caught the look Jason was flashing and changed his mind. "Or not, Stone cold works quite well for me," he said nervously.

"Jason works well for me, but then, as I was telling Kristina this morning, I'm not really a man of big words," Sonny quipped.

"Hmmm and Stone Cold isn't a man of many words, maybe that is why you make a such good aces of the underworld as a pair," Spinelli suggested.

"If you order in the next fifteen seconds, I'll buy you lunch," Sonny offered.

"I'll have the Reuben sandwich with a diet coke," Lulu said quickly.

"The cheese steak with some nectar of the gods," Spinelli ordered.

Mike chuckled as he departed with their orders. Sonny looked at both kids uncomfortably. The scary thing was that one-day Anthony, and Kristina would be their ages and he really hoped that he would be keeping things together better than Luke Spencer was.

Six months later, Lulu was still living with Spinelli and Jason. She had turned seventeen in August and theoretically should graduate from Port Charles High in 2008. Sonny had to admit that he was sure he wouldn't be comfortable with Kristina living with her boyfriend at seventeen. He wasn't even sure Kristina would be allowed to have a boyfriend at seventeen. He had been seventeen once he knew what boys could be like.

"Kristina and Molly will never be acceptable collateral damage," Alexis said.

"Of course not," Sonny said. He had to agree, but he wondered where the conversation was really going. Was she about to go back through all the reasons why she had kept Kristina away from him in the first place? The scary thing was that as mad as Sonny had been at the time, and he really had been, he had to admit that some of the reasons were valid. On some level then he had known he needed to find a way out of the mob that he couldn't keep raising children on the edge of it. Yet, he hadn't known how. Or maybe he just really hadn't accepted that he truly needed to find his way out.

Maybe his whole sense of morality had been messed up by his own childhood. His stepfather was a cop who beat him, Carmine Cerullo was a made, but gentle, man who had always looked out for him. He had never called Carmine Cerullo dad, that probably would have broken his mother's heart. After her death, Pops seemed to sneak out at times and Dante, Mark, Patrick, Vince, Brooke, and even Baby Lila, all called him Uncle Sonny. For years Sonny had rationalized that all he had done was take his place in the family business. How was that wrong?

But there was the other side, there was Vinny's death, there was Lily's death, there was the accident Brenda wasn't supposed to survive, there was the memory of his children being kidnapped, the many weeks he and Ally thought Anthony was dead, there was Kristina being named Kristina in memory of her Aunt who had died in his warehouse, there was Kristina watching Sam shoot Diego Alcazar and there was knowing that Brooke was in danger. Then there was Michael, his once gentle son who now thought he had the coolest job on the planet and wanted to grow up to be just like him. Sonny thought maybe that was the worst part. He didn't want his son to take his own place in the family business and maybe the only way for him to prevent that was to get out himself. But that was hard.

Dr. Baldwin told him that sometimes you had to do hard things. She was right but it had been much easier to navigate through a few medication trials and adjustments than to figure out how to leave a life of organized crime. He had seen the impending doom for years. On some level he probably saw it when he called off the hit on the Sandovals. He just had never seen a way out. Then, the DA, who Sonny doubted had ever really wanted to be his brother and who would probably always hate him, was on Alcazar's payroll. The Police Commissioner, who had probably long since forgotten the year that they had all loved and lost Stone and just wanted him and Jason far away from his niece, was apparently old friends with Faith Roscoe. That had left Sonny without many options.

Or maybe it had. Maybe it was true that you regretted the choices you didn't make more than the ones you did. He had never let himself trust John Durant, and he did regret that. At several points the man had been his father in law. During the period that they had all believed Anthony was dead, John had promised that he would end the insanity that had taken Anthony from them. He had spoken of ridding crime from Port Charles as his grandson's legacy. In private he had offered Sonny one final chance to work with him. But Sonny hadn't been able to take it. He had been too afraid that John was underneath it all, working with Ric.

It was ironic how things worked out. Anthony had been alive and was growing into a little boy who was hardly living up to a legacy of removing crime from Port Charles. Ric had arranged for John Durant's murder, there hadn't been a covert alliance anywhere other than in Sonny's mind. Maybe if Michael's other grandfather was alive to guide him things would be different. Or maybe everything had fallen apart when Anthony watched Manny Ruiz shoot his grandfather at the family dinner table.

Maybe Alexis understood that more than he ever would. At eight she had watched Helena Cassadine murder her mother. The incident had apparently been so traumatic that Alexis had repressed it for many years. So Mikkos Cassadine had brought his illegitimate daughter into the house of the woman who had murdered her mother and raised her as if she was a poor cousin taken in during a rare charitable Cassadine moment. His oldest son, Stavros, had tormented Alexis mercilessly and Mikkos' nonintervention at least implied acceptance. She had told him all that once. There had been a time when she had trusted him. Perhaps she had never realized he trusted her completely, perhaps in the past he hadn't truly let himself, perhaps that had been the problem. He had stood at John Durant's grave with regrets. He didn't want to stand at Alexis's grave.

"You know I trust you. I never stopped," Sonny said.

"You trust me with what, Sonny?"

"Well, let's start with our daughters because maybe the most important thing is that we do whatever we can, so they are safe and secure. But I trust you completely, Alexis, and I'm sorry you couldn't believe that before and you can't believe it now."

"I should get these filled," Alexis said. Clutching several prescriptions, she got out of his SUV and started into the pharmacy.