Chapter 16: Dangerous Liaisons

Alexis was overwhelmed by irony as she tried to regain some composure. She had kept her daughter from her father for over three years because she was afraid of the danger that existed in his orbit. Yet, if she didn't think too much, she felt safer in his arms than she had in months. It was more than a little ironic.

She was sure her nephew, Nikolas, would have some cynical take on the whole situation. He was a Cassadine after all. Or perhaps Nikolas's cynicism came from losing the woman he loved to someone else. Of course, in a way, Nikolas truly hadn't. Alexis did believe that Emily had decided she and Nikolas wouldn't work long term before she started dating Dr. Patrick Drake. Alexis supposed Emily had done almost exactly the opposite of what Sonny had done. Sonny had chosen Ally over her. Plain and simple that was exactly what he had done.

Sonny felt responsible for Ally's suicide attempt because Ally had told him she did it because she was so distraught that she had lost him. She had seen them in bed together and gone across the hall to Jason's penthouse where she swallowed a bunch of pills and passed out on his couch. Jason had been out with his girlfriend Robin, who had come home for the weekend; but his fifteen-year-old cousin, Emily, had let herself into his apartment to retrieve a sweater she had left behind and found Ally passed out on his couch surrounded by empty pill bottles. She had called for an ambulance. Or at least that was the version of events that Mark had explained to her sister Kristina.

Kristina had also argued that Sonny had actually chosen his guilt over either of them. Perhaps he had. In a way Sonny had almost told her as much at the time he returned to Ally. But Alexis wasn't sure if that really changed anything. It wasn't like Ally wasn't going to continue to have multitudinous crises in her life. Sonny would probably marry her for a fourth time at some point Alexis decided with a shudder.

Alexis felt Sonny pull her closer to him. "You're shivering we should go inside," he said.

XXXXXXXX

As she followed Sonny into his penthouse, Alexis looked up and saw Brenda Barrett, and Max. She supposed Sonny had mentioned Carly had some emergency, so Brenda was going to put Kristina and Molly to bed and stay until he got home. He hadn't mentioned Max, maybe he hadn't known about that part. He didn't seem incredibly comfortable with that addition either.

However, poor Max looked the most uncomfortable. "Thank you for the coffee, but I really should be going. Goodnight!" he said before he quickly showed himself to the door of Sonny's penthouse.

"Is everything ok? Did something happen?" Sonny asked.

"Not really, but I guess that isn't anything you didn't know before. Max and I were just talking. I should go, I hope you feel better, Alexis," Brenda said as she stood up quickly.

"You told her?" Alexis asked after the door had closed behind Brenda.

"I just told her you were in the ER. I didn't give her details," Sonny said.

You don't know details and I'd like it to stay that way, Alexis thought as the room started to waver again and she sunk down onto Sonny's couch.

"You should probably eat something. I bet you aren't supposed to take all of that medicine on an empty stomach."

"It was only two prescriptions. I also picked up some hygiene products. I'm going to go check on the girls and then I'll sleep in Leticia's room," Alexis said. Yet, the actual act of getting up off the couch seemed to require strength she wasn't sure she had.

"You can sleep in my bed; I'll sleep on the couch. Dr. Scanlon said someone should check on you throughout the night."

"I'm not sleeping on sheets you had sex with Lois on."

"I've never had sex with Lois. Anyway, Marcella changed all the bed linens this morning."

Alexis raised an eyebrow. "Marcella?"

"My housekeeper. I hired her five years ago when Graciela went back to Puerto Rico."

"I thought she was from Cuba."

"She was born in Cuba but was raised mostly outside of San Juan. I guess near where Cruz is from."

"Be careful about that first name basis with Port Charles' finest. I might have to reinvestigate the fraternization rumors," Alexis said. She wasn't sure why she had said that. If she looked at things rationally, she could see that the PCPD was much more biased against Sonny than anything else.

Alexis also knew that Lieutenant Cruz Rodriguez was one of the last cops she would expect to be on the take. In fact, she suspected that had probably been an option for him towards the end of Ric's reign of terror. She was sure Ric would have met any price required for Cruz to look the other way about everything that happened in the warehouse the night Diego Alcazar died. Instead, Cruz had testified before the grand jury that that Mr. Morgan had been cooperating with the police and had dropped his weapon before Ric had opened fire.

In New York, defendants were allowed to testify before the grand jury and could even introduce their own witnesses. Alexis supposed that had been Ric's less than eloquent Swan Song as he attempted to spin a tale of police corruption. In the end it became an exercise in futility as the grand jury returned with an indictment. While awaiting trial, Ric had been released against all of their better judgment. He had quickly fled to Canada where John Quartermaine now believed that he had probably truly faked his death.

"He will be Brenda's husband in another week," Sonny protested.

"Yes, and, at least with Jax, that only gave you more reason to hate him," Alexis pointed out.

"Jax never made it to actual husband status. Small miracle from my perspective."

"Well, maybe Cruz won't either. Has Brenda actually had a wedding that ended with marriage?" Alexis asked.

"Don't say that! Things are going to be different this time, for all of us," Sonny said.

Alexis wondered what he meant by the last few words but was afraid to ask.

"You really should eat something. I know you can't have had dinner and I bet you didn't have lunch either if we don't count microwave popcorn," Sonny said.

Alexis honestly couldn't remember if she had eaten lunch. She probably did need to do better about that, Dr. Quartermaine had informed her she was anemic again. Maybe that was why she had no energy. It wasn't as bad as it was after Kristina had been born. Dr. Quartermaine had said that since her hemoglobin was over nine it could be worked up as an outpatient but that it was something that needed to be followed up. After Kristina's birth she had required several blood transfusions and almost two months in the hospital. It hadn't just been the anemia though and Alexis knew that even if there was a lot of that time she still didn't remember.

When she had been in the hospital, she had insisted she had to go home because her daughter needed her. Yet, once she was finally released, she had realized that home, or near her daughter, was the last place she really could be. So, then she had insisted she had to go back to work. Their office was in flux and transition and temporary ADA Ric Lansing was attempting to prosecute Luis Alcazar. Mark had tried to convince her that it was too soon but, in the end, he had given in. Maybe he could see that she had needed to have an excuse to not be around their daughter, who technically wasn't really Mark's daughter.

Alexis had told Mark as much but then what kind of a mother did that make her when she had let Mark basically raise Kristina by himself the first year of her life. Mark was charitable and blamed her health for her absence from Kristina's life. He never complained, he got up in the middle of the night when Kristina cried. He sung to her and took her to the park. He probably did a lot of other things that Alexis just didn't recall. Honestly, she didn't remember much about that time. Maybe that was protective. Maybe she didn't like to think about that time because it hurt to think about how she sacrificed her sister for her daughter and then she couldn't even be a mother. But she hadn't been able to. Not when Kristina was first born, not when they were both finally home from the hospital. Not when she hid at work.

Hiding at work had only been a temporary solution anyway. Eventually she had collapsed into Johnny O'Brien's arms on the courthouse steps. Supposedly he had just been coming out of the building behind her, like he had every day since she returned to work. Alexis knew better but she didn't argue. Johnny wasn't stupid he took her to the Emergency Department and traded places with Max before her concerned husband showed up.

May 24, 2000

"Alexis, honey, what happened?" Mark asked as he burst through the curtains into her cubicle in the PCGH Emergency Department.

"I just felt woozy, Max helped make sure I got to the hospital," Alexis said with a quick glance in Max's direction. He had helped. He had driven Johnny's SUV.

Mark extended his hand to Max. "Thank you. I appreciate this, I'm glad you were there for Alexis."

Max shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably. "It isn't a problem. I just happened to be nearby. Now that you are here, I think I'll go."

"Thank you, Max!" Mark repeated and Max nodded as he left the room.

Mark ran a hand through his hair the way he always did when he was uncertain about what he was about to say. He pulled the chair Max had been sitting in closer to the stretcher and sat down. "Dr. Lambert tells me she would like to admit you. I think you should do that."

"I just got a little overheated, Mark. It was a hot day."

"She also says that your hemoglobin is trending back down. Popcorn, coffee, and fumes are not a balanced diet. You should be eating all that red meat Monica is trying to convince Uncle Edward to remove from his diet. How about we compromise he skips red meat at least three meals per week and you add it in?" Mark suggested.

"Mark, you're being ridiculous."

"Yes, I am a little, but this schedule you're trying to keep is even more ridiculous. I understand that you're dedicated to your work. Honey, I can even respect and admire that but you're trying to work more hours than Alan and Monica worked as residents and they were residents before the Bell Commission got involved with physician training in New York."

"I guess that just proves Quartermaines are strong stock like your grandfather always says."

"They can be, but, honey, that doesn't mean it was right. I'm worried about you, Alexis. You're exhausted and you're dangerously anemic again. You need to take some time and rest and take care of yourself. The DA's Office will still be there when you come back. Let Dr. Lambert admit you and transfuse and then we'll go away for a little while with Kristina. The family has a house in the Napa Valley that is really peaceful this time of year and I bet Kristina would love all of the vineyards. There is also a doctor who Ryan recommended who isn't far from there."

"A doctor?" Alexis asked with trepidation.

"Someone who was a few years ahead of Ryan during residency. He is kind of an expert with this kind of thing. I guess Tracy would have seen him if she had any problems after Dylan or Shannon were born."

"But she didn't?"

"No, not really. I obviously wasn't really aware of what she was going through when I was a child, I was grieving father, and I guess there were other things going on as well."

"Like walking in on her husband having sex with his secretary on his desk?" Alexis asked. She saw the expression on Mark's face and realized that apparently those details had also not been shared with him at age four, or any time after that. Perhaps Tracy Quartermaine-Grabler should have considered that when she started talking to her shrink husband about her concerns that her goddaughter in law had postpartum depression. Or perhaps she should have considered that goddaughter in law might have been listening to her conversation.

"I'm sure that was also very distressing to her and I guess that was kind of the point that she had a lot of reasons to be overwhelmed and frustrated with life in general, as unfortunately do you. Ned was born in 1968, depression in any form was probably quite under diagnosed then and postpartum depression was even more complicated. Maybe that was what it was or maybe it was just everything at once. I guess really the same could be true for you. My godmother was reaching out to you because she cares and is concerned. I realize that it would have probably gone better if you hadn't overheard her discussing everything with Ryan first.

"I don't have postpartum depression!"

"No one is insisting you do. It was just a thought and this doctor that Ryan recommended is really an expert so it might be helpful to get his input. Or not, I guess, but, Alexis, I know you're struggling, and I'd be pretty inhumane if I just stood back and let that happen. We can still go to the house in Napa Valley and you can just relax you don't even have to see Dr. Horner."

She had acquiesced and spent the night in the hospital for the transfusion. They had gone to California where, unable to escape into work, she escaped into sleep. Mark accepted that, maybe because he thought she was resting. So, he let her sleep while he entertained Kristina, caught up on CME from the patio, and cooked anything he had ever remembered her liking before.

Unfortunately, Mark was a physician and he had weeks on service, and call schedules to comply with. Apparently, Mark had originally optimistically believed they would be home by then. Apparently, he had overestimated her prognosis. So, he had turned to his godmother. That had kind of been a disaster. At least Alexis had considered it that. Ironically, after a week with Tracy, she had had inherited Chloe Morgan as her next babysitter. Chloe was supposed to be her friend but her perpetually perky personality was hard to take when Alexis was living her best life. She certainly hadn't been living her best life then.

Eventually, after they had returned to Port Charles, she had agreed to see Dr. Susannah Hannen. Dr. Hannen had wanted her to take Paxil. She had refused until Mark threatened her with involuntary commitment to Rose Lawn. So, she took the Paxil and she supposed things did get better. So maybe she had needed the Paxil. After she had Molly, Dr. Meadows had practically required her to take a different antidepressant for six months and maybe that allowed her to face Molly or maybe she knew that Ric wasn't going to get up in the middle of the night when she cried.

Alexis dropped her head into her hands as more thoughts of Ric came back to the forefront of her mind. She took a deep breath and slowly lifted her head to realize Sonny had left her alone in his living room. Apparently, he hadn't felt the need to wait for her to agree that she wanted him to fix her something. Typical, Alexis thought as she dropped her head back into her hands.

*Yes, I know I'm twisting more canon although I'm trying to keep the overall emotional themes consistent. Even on canon Alexis really wasn't involved in the first year of Kristina's life much (because she was too busy faking DID and then framing Ned for rape) and that is a reality that Alexis being Alexis would probably still anguish over if the writers kept her in character and didn't selectively forget anything and everything that happened in the year after her sister died. However, perhaps that is their only recourse since I think the character got written past redemption. (In reality she should have been disbarred and in prison (or maybe a facility for the criminally insane because perhaps she really was) and have very little chance of having anything beyond supervised visitation with Kristina for years. All of that history would have probably made even Sonny having custody look like in the "best interests of the child") I think that is why the GH writers often forget everything that happened because they did sort of write the character into a corner. So, this honors canon that Alexis was unavailable to her daughter for roughly a year, but the reasons were slightly different (grieving for her sister, overcome with guilt for the choices she made, maybe struggling with PPD). I think my reasons actually fit with earlier canon but also allow the character to theoretically recover. She is still highly flawed of course, but in reality, I think pretty much everyone is (just in different ways).*