Into the Abyss

Alexis pushed her glasses down on her nose and sighed. She'd reread the notes in her hand for the fourth time in ten minutes and still couldn't remember a single word she'd read. Something wouldn't let her concentrate. A prickle of unease kept dancing along her spine, and try as she might, she couldn't shake it. It had been a long evening, and one she'd spent alone, with nothing but contracts and notes to keep her company. But her concentration had been off all evening and she just didn't know why.

You're overthinking, Alexis thought to herself with a rueful smile She stood, stretching, then wandered over to the living room window, opening the balcony windows. Sonny would be smiling at her now, telling her to just breathe.

And probably handing her a small brown paper bag.

Smiling, Alexis took a deep breath of the fresh air. It felt good, after being cooped up with papers and folders all evening. But her sense of unease suddenly returned, stronger than ever. The air felt heavy, oppresive somwhow, even though the night skies above were clear. She'd felt the same in the Greek islands where she'd grown up, just before one of the heavy summer storms had swept down across the mountains and the mansion where she'd endured for so many years. Her Cassidine genes were raising havoc again. Alexis tried to smile again, but it died on her lips. With no real reason as to why, she couldn't shake a feeling that a storm was brewing.

Unable to get her uneasy feelings out of her mind, Alexis left the balcony, driven inexplicably to the door. She told herself that she wasn't checking on Sonny - she needed the break from the work he'd piled on her at the last minute. But why he'd insisted that these contracts be done tonight of all nights, to be messengered out first thing in the morning was beyond her. There had been nothing in them that she could see that needed to be done with such urgency. But Sonny had insisted on her going over all these agreements with a fine toothed comb. Tonight.

And the reason why jelled for her as she opened the door and stepped into the hallway.

"Hello, Benny." Her voice was cool and collected, surprising Sonny's aide and Max, the bodyguard on call tonight, and most of all, surprising herself. "If you'll excuse me, I have something I need to go over with Sonny."

Benny had the grace to have a problem meeting her eyes. "He's very busy right now. There's some -- something involving the casinos. Nothing that need concern you."

Her eyes dropped to the briefcase in his hand and certain facts darted through her minds, sorted themselves out and fitted themselves neatly into place. Her voice compelled him to look up and face her. "I'm aware that you and I handle vastly different aspects of Sonny's business," and here her voice became interlaced with a skein of steel that said it would accept no interference.. "... but today mine takes precedence." He fell silent. Neither man made any attempt to stop her as she strode across the hall to knock on Sonny's door.

Sonny opened the door. "Did you get any rest?"

Alexis walked past him, "No I didn't. I was too busy going over those coffee contracts that you insisted on being finished by morning. I've had a busy evening - just as you intended. And now I know why - especially after seeing Benny. You had it all worked out. And you gave the order to have AJ killed."

Sonny walked away from her. The phone rang and he moved to answer it. Alexis didn't hear the exchange. She couldn't. For all that she'd known about Sonny, what his life consisted of, this was the first time it had touched her directly. It was surreal, as though she were standing out side of herself, watching everything like it was a scene in a movie. But she couldn't turn the channel as much as she wanted to. It was as though she were sudenlly watching a stranger.

"... all right. Bye." He hung up the phone and turned back to her. "I thought that you'd be getting some rest."

"Is this your polite way of asking me to leave?" To her own ears, her voice seemed to be coming from far away, and her heart seemed suddenly sheathed in ice. It made it easier to talk to him somehow, made it easier to get the words past the sudden painful lump of dread that had lodged itself in her throat. In an age-old response, her analytical self took over, quashing any emotional response. "Believe me, Sonny, I'll be gone if I don't get some answers. What was in the briefcase that you handed to Benny?"

"Money."

"For services rendered? Did you order a hit on A.J. Quartermaine?" She had to know. She'd never intruded into his "business" before; it was an unspoken agreement between them that there were certain lines that she didn't cross, and certain matters he didn't involve her in. But this was different. She had to know. She had to know - was this the same man that she had danced with under a tropical moonlit night? The same man that had held her in his arms while she cried out her fear after Helena had kidnapped her, her lethal step-mother? Or the man she'd laughed with over coffee and biscotti? Was this the same man that she had come to regard as her best friend and was he truly capable of this level of cold-blooded murder? This wasn't about 'business'. And the ramifications of this act were anathema to her.

He didn't answer her question. "You like working for me, Alexis. It's a challenge, it pays well, and I'm a lot more interesting than a bunch of stuffy executives. I wanted the best legal representative, and you agreed to do that, with certain conditions. One was that you wouldn't defend me against any kind of violent crime, and the other one was that you wouldn't be party to anything illegal. If I were you, I would stop asking questions you don't want the answer to."

This was the first time Sonny had not been straight with her. The stab of pain that went through her as she made that realization took her breath away, but only for a moment. A flare of anger at that betrayal quickly took its place. "Do you think a smug, arrogant answer like that will make me behave like the rest of your minions? Unlike your minions, I have a bottom line, and what you say right now could be a deal breaker. It's your choice. Answer the question" She paused, not wanting to hear the answer, but knowing the question had to be asked. "Did you order a hit on A.J. Quartermaine?"

She wanted to be angrier at him, knew that she should be, but somehow, she couldn't muster it. There was more than anger at him in her heart - it was despair. She'd seen Sonny grown in the last few months..and all of his gains seemed to be melting away with every word. "I'd like to think that I know you, Sonny. That I know your faults and your limits. I know you're ambitious. I know you're calculating, and I know that you have a self-indulgent temper. But until now, I never thought that you were capable of taking human life."

"Then you're wrong. I've killed before. I shot Joe Scully, the man who got rid of my stepfather for me."

Alexis recognized his words for the fake-out and the attempt at diversionary tactics that it was. "That was self-defense." Oh, so he wanted to dance? Fine, they would dance, then. "I pulled your police file when I agreed to represent you the first time."

"Then you know Luke was the only witness. We were partners then, and he hates cops. He lies to them as a matter of principle."

So now he was trying to push her away. Why? Was it to protect her, or to protect himself? Alexis couldn't be sure. She wanted to believe that Sonny's first concern was to protect her. But the truth was there staring her in the face. Sonny was a self-centered, selfish egotistical man. He'd told her - warned her - more than a dozen times himself. But if that were the case, if his motives were to protect her, then why wouldn't she let him? That was a question that made her feel torn between what was and what ought to be. Their friendship and everything they had come to mean to one another was being tested here.

Alexis had known all along that the life that Sonny led was full of danger. A part of her had known someday that this moment would come. Choices had to be made. By the both of them. But neither one of them was willing to be the first to draw the line that could irrevocably change their lives. "So you're saying that you are a murderer?"

"What I'm saying is I used to sell papers on the street corner, and now I own ten casinos in three different countries. Nobody gave me anything. I took it all. And what's mine, I keep, and that includes my family."

He wasn't fooling her. Not at all. Words and more words. "Forget about your family and your self-serving excuses. There is no justification for murder."

"But self-defense is all right, though, if you're trying to save your own life -- "

"Courtney's life isn't at stake." she answered sharply.

"But you've got to admit Courtney would be so much better off if A.J. disappeared."

"Is that some sort of a euphemism? Murder by any name is unacceptable." Even now, in spite of all his evasions, she could be nothing less than truthtful with him. "I'm not going to sit in judgment about what you've done because there are things in my past that I really wouldn't want examined too closely. But if A.J. Quartermaine dies, I'm done. I'm not your lawyer," she paused, then taking a deep breath, went on. "... and I'm sure as hell not your friend."

She was his friend, more than a friend, in all - no -every- sense of the word. And he was hers - and she had thought they were at the verge of finding something new and wonderful for the two of them - and damn-it.. she was not going to let him throw his life away - suddenly, Alexis found herself coming to the decision that she would do everything to protect him - even from himself. Somehow she had to make him see the un-mendable, irrevocable damage that he would do to himself..to the very essence of who he was. It didn't matter how ruthless and cold the world viewed him - or even maybe how he viewed himself. But murdering AJ - or more significant in Sonny's eyes -murdering Michael's father - would scar him far more than he could realize. She knew that he was capable of such cold-hearted decisions and had in the past.

But this was different - this would wound him more than he knew. And she could not stand by and let him do this to himself. So even though it killed a part of her heart to say the words, knowing what they would do to him pained her more than he would ever know - she forced them out, not knowing if they would make any difference, but praying somehow that they would.. "I will see you the way the rest of the world sees you -- as a cold-hearted, conscienceless killer. Call off the hit, Sonny. Are you no better than your stepfather?"

Alexis watched, her heart plummeting to the floor as the look in his eyes shuttered, shut her out. She'd seen Sonny freeze others out - but never her - never before this.

"I gave Benny a briefcase of money." he was saying. "It could have been for a bank deposit. It could have been to buy Courtney a wedding present."

"Her husband's death." How could he speak of death and dying so calmly? How had she allowed herself to become so close to a man who was so diamterically opposite to everything that she valued?

"Well, everybody dies eventually. If A.J. gets in an accident or takes off to parts unknown, how is that my fault?"

"Look, you're not going to answer me, are you?"

Was that a sigh she heard in his voice? Alexis wished desperately - with every fiber of her being - that somehow she was reaching the man that she knew,, the real Michael Corinthos that so very few people realized actually existed. She prayed that she could reach him, not just for herself - but for his own soul's sake.

"I told you what I could. Alexis, I'm sorry if it's not what you want to hear, but there are -- there are certain things I don't discuss for my protection and yours" Sonny said.

"That's worked very well for us -- no self-incrimination, every remark left open to interpretation, pithy conversations about friendship and trust that never go any further." Alexis' decision firmed and resolved itself. She could not - would not - allow him to destroy himself. Alexis paused - gathering her courage in her hands and then plunging ahead. He coudln't see it - but she could. He was destroying himself - all in the name of protecting his new-found baby sister. And his devotion to her Courtney was such that incredibly - he couldn't even see what he was willing to do to himself in order to protect her. It was all mixed up with the part of him that thought himself unworthy of love... She couldn't let him do it. If she could - she'd stop him at all costs. And so she pulled out the last piece of the arsenal that she had assembled in his defense that she had.
"What do I mean to you, Sonny?" she asked, turning to face him where before she hadn't dared.. "What does it mean that I'm asking you to stop this and that I will be out of your life forever if you don't?"

Did she matter to him half as much as he had come to matter to her?Alexis wondered. Could she have been so mistaken? So deluded in her own fantasies? All of Alexis' life-long insecurites came flooding to the surface.... all that she had suffered at the hands of her bastard kin came flooding to the surface. If she meant so little to him - then she needed to know. Right here, right now.
"Everybody..." she said to him. "-- everybody has warned me about you, that you are not who you pretend to be, that you use friendship and you use compassion as tricks to manipulate people. Are you manipulating me?"

Alexis let the pain of that thought fill her voice- she wanted him to hear it - to feel the heart crushing pain the same as she did. The answering flash in his eyes, no matter how quickly he hid it, told her that he did. He felt this widening gulf between them every bit that she did "....Because I find it so hard to believe that I could be so wrong about you. That when you told me all the ways that you've been hurt and got me to tell you all the things that I've never said to another living soul -- I'm just the best attorney that a lot of money and a few lies can buy."

"I value you, Alexis." And at last she thought she saw a hint of pain and yes- the nakedness of true emotion - in his eyes as he spoke .. as he faced her.. the first crack in the facade of matter-of-factness he'd put up in response to her words - but she couldn't be sure. But nonetheless, in spite of every warning that her soul screamed to her his following words kindled a response her deepest soul.
"I've told you how much. But there are things you don't get to know, choices I make that have nothing to do with you."

"If A.J. dies, you've made me a party to murder."

Murder. Alexis didn't want to - but she had to put that word between them, and make it clear to Sonny what he was choosing to do. Sonny had to hear it - no matter how many times he may have ordered the deed done before - this time- it was different. This act would push his soul beyond redemption.....even unto himself - and she could not let that happen without a fight. If he thought this was about her opinion of him and if that damaged their friendhsip beyond repair then so be it.. but it was so much more than that. Alexis knew that she knew Sonny. And blind himself to the facts all he might in the heat of the moment, the fact of killing Michael's birth father would destroy him in the end. And Alexis would risk all -even if that meant everything he'd come to mean to her - to prevent that from happening.

Death was a finality that could not be undone. It was a wound that Sonny would never recover from.

Alexis looked into his eyes. It was his soul that would be irrevocably undone. If he went through with this, he'd go into that dark corner of his soul, and this time, there was a part of him that would more than likely never return. Her soul cried out in wordless agony at the thought.

That's how much he had come to mean to her. He was worth everything to her - and why he couldn't see this, she couldn't understand. Or accept.

It was these thoughts that formed her next words. "I heard you. I know that you have intent. I know I should have gone straight to the police, but instead I tried to stop you myself because I trusted our friendship.." And now her voice was ragged with her pain. Pushed to the limits of her soul's senses, Alexis could no longer worry about his pain,,the agony he was inflicting on her overwhelmed her sensibility and the rationality she exercised and valued so much.The agony he caused her was in every syllable she spoke. "I have put everything that I am on the line for you, and you cannot do this to me!"

A long and heavy silence sprung up between them. Amazingly, Sonny was the one to break it.

"I said nothing that could be used against me in court. If you see me as a threat to A.J., then that's in your head, and I can't be held responsible."

He could not- no- chose not to - see what he was choosing to do. Alexis' heart plunged into depair. She knew all too well how stubborn he could be when pushed to the wall. There was no reaching him, a part of her realized. And yet she had to try. There was no other choice open to her. First it was evasiveness, now he tried to challenge her love of logic, the core of who she was. But she wouldn't let it slide without a challenge of her own. "That's very, very impressive. Very good, Sonny. If I didn't know that you had never graduated high school, I'd think you were a lawyer. Is that all I am to you? A lawyer?"

The tiniest crack appeared in his armor. For a moment, she'd thought she'd gotten to him. Alexis thought she heard it in his voice and a spark of hope flamed within her.

"You defend me, Alexis. You keep my secrets. You understand the things that I can't say. I started out admiring you, and then I liked you." Sonny paused. What he said next startled the both of them, the words as well as the honesty behind them.."....And now I need you. It's plain and simple. I hate needing anything or anyone, but I need you."

"Then stop this. For yourself. For me."

"You got to understand I've been disrespected. If I don't remedy that, then I'll be seen as vulnerable, open for attack. I won't show weakness, Alexis." He paused for a nanosecond. "Not even for you."

"And I won't stand by a murderer."

And now, the silence that yawned before them seemed to encompass a chasm as deep and as wide as the Grand Canyon. And there they were standing on opposite sides of the abyss, the lines unmistakably drawn between them.