Title: Identity

Author: Girlfearless AKA Christy

Don't own it. Never will.

"We should hold out on this. Really, what does it matter if he sees you today or if he sees you in a week? And do you really want to deal with him yelling about how your mother betrayed him and how your father was evil and—?"

"Claudia!" Alyssa whipped around and stared at her cousin who had been trying to convince her since they woke up that morning that she shouldn't be visiting Anthony. She'd harped on it over breakfast, after they got dressed, during lunch, in the car, and now that they were outside of his room she still wouldn't let it go. "We're doing this today otherwise Trevor will probably tell him I'm in town and we'll have to deal with him yelling about that being a betrayal. No matter how we cut it he's going to say it's a betrayal so let's get this over with."

"She's right," Johnny piped up from behind them.

"Oh, who asked you?" Claudia turned around to make an annoyed face at her brother and Alyssa smiled and stuck her tongue behind her cousins back causing Johnny to laugh and Claudia to become more annoyed. "What is it with you two? You are acting like children."

"Oh yeah," Alyssa smiled and leaned against the wall, "this coming from the psycho who wanted to have a pillow fight last night. Come on."

"I was drunk!"

"Yes, because that's an acceptable excuse. I can hear you in your therapy sessions now, 'No Doctor I only revert to acting like a five-year-old when I'm drunk.' Come on."

Johnny just smiled and allowed the two of them to continue on. As stressful as everything had been for the three of them in the past few days, and even weeks before Alyssa had come back into the picture, they always made him laugh and feel like everything was going to be okay.

"Oh just suck it up and come on. Look at it this way, for once he won't be yelling about how you're a disappointment. All his anger and insanity will be focused on me and only me." Alyssa threw a cocky smiled over her shoulder and pushed her way into the lion's den.

"Well, well, well," Anthony Zacharra tisked from the corner of the hospital room. "Look who's here, my darling niece. Did you come to twist the knife in my back?"

"Uncle Anthony," Alyssa grinned as she walked around to the back of his wheelchair. "I don't see a knife in your back. Are you imagining things again? Do I need to call a doctor?"

"You know what I mean young lady. Your sister."

"Ah, that."

"Yes. That. Did you think I wouldn't find out?"

"Well, I hoped," she answered under her breath before turning to her cousins, eyebrows raised. She'd sort of hoped that he wouldn't remember seeing Emily Quartermaine the night he broke into Nikolas Cassadine's home, especially since he hadn't mentioned it to anyone else.

"I heard that," Anthony said before wheeling over to his niece and tapping his cheek with his finger.

Alyssa smiled and bent down to give her uncle a kiss on his cheek before standing back up and saying, "Honestly, I didn't know she was here or even if she was still alive. Daddy told me not to tell you about her." She had no problem whatsoever throwing her dearly departed father under the bus for this particular betrayal.

"Hmm. A likely story and you two," Anthony turned to his children, "what do you have to say for yourselves?"

"They didn't—"

"Let them speak for themselves," he interrupted. They both knew she was covering and, apparently, he wasn't going to let her get away with it.

"Johnny didn't know about Alyssa having a twin," Claudia stepped between her brother and her father, "and I agreed with uncle Rudy that there was no reason to tell you. Aunt Gabriella was already dead, Alyssa was safe, and we couldn't find her twin so there was no reason to worry you."

"Oh, of course not. Why would I want to know that I had a niece out there in the world, a niece who was being raised by one of my enemies?"

This time it was Alyssa who stepped between Claudia and Anthony, "She wasn't being raised by your enemy Uncle. She was raised by the Quartermaines and you had no problem with Jason Morgan until shortly before Emily died and that was a result of Trevor using your condition to his advantage so he could make Sonny Corinthos pay for something that happened years ago, when Corinthos was still a child. If you want to be angry at anyone it should be Trevor. Maybe if he hadn't distracted Morgan and Corinthos they would have been able to protect Emily and there would still be time for you to know her." Alyssa wasn't sure if that was the truth or not. There was a strong possibility that Diego Alcazar would have gotten to Emily anyway, but she'd gone over the scenario in her head over and over and the one person she could blame, the one person who was still alive for her to take some of her anger out on, was Trevor Lansing and she had no trouble at all trying to convince her uncle of the same.

"Interesting story," Trevor shook his head as he entered the room. "It's my fault that your father lied about having twin girls and it's my fault that the one he sent away died. I'm always intrigued at the stories you and your cousin come up with when you get together."

"Oh cut the crap," Alyssa turned to look at Trevor. "We both know that you've known I had a twin sister all this time, at least I really did have the excuse of being a child when I found out. And you also know that my father did tell me to keep it a secret."

"That doesn't explain the two meetings you've had with Morgan and Corinthos since you've been in town."

"No, it doesn't. So I will. The first was to shock them, by allowing them to see someone who looked like Emily Quartermaine, into letting Johnny free and the second was to be sure that you and your ego hadn't caused so much damage that we had to go to war with them before we were ready." Alyssa turned back around and kneeled in front of her uncle. "Why don't you ask him, Uncle, when he knew I was meeting Jason and Sonny that first time? Did he find out before my car was blown up or after? Because if it was before then he and I and Claudia were the only ones who I knew who I was…which of the three of us do you think it was mostly likely that planted that bomb?"

"She's right dad," Johnny said as he sat down in the chair in the corner. "I really don't think that Claude or Ally would put a bomb in their own car and the fact of the matter is that Morgan and Corinthos didn't have time to do it. Who else is there?"

"Ian Devlin or—" Trevor could feel them digging the hole he was in deeper and deeper. Why did Alyssa have to come to Port Charles now, when he was so close to finally getting the power he wanted?

"Oh shut up, all of you!" Anthony shook his head in disgust. "None of you can be trusted as far as I can throw you and right now," he motioned to his wheelchair, "that is not very far at all. Johnny, Claudia, and Trevor you can all leave, I want to speak with my niece alone."

"But daddy—"

"Leave!" Anthony yelled at Claudia.

Alyssa turned her head to her cousin and nodded to let her know it was okay as the three of them left the room, "What do you need Uncle?"

"Tell me about your sister."

Alyssa nodded, she knew this was coming so she sat down in the chair Johnny vacated, "Daddy's sister, Paige, adopted her after she was born. Apparently she'd been pregnant and had a miscarriage and so they decided that she would take one of us. After the adoption they moved to Arizona and Daddy told you that she died in child birth. When Emily was young, a preteen, Paige died of cancer. I guess that Paige's husband died a couple of years before she did, but I don't know how. Since Emily didn't have either of her parents left to take care of her the Quartermaines adopted her. That's really all I know right now."

Anthony nodded, "And why did my best friend and my sister lie to me?"

"They were worried you would be upset with them. You knew momma, she only wanted to please you."

"And why did you lie to me?"

"I wanted to find her on my own," Alyssa lied. What she really wanted was to keep her sister away from the insanity of her uncle for as long as possible. "I thought it would be my proof to my father that the way he raised me and the way he tried to train me to take care of the family really did stick. I wanted to be a good daughter."

Anthony nodded. He knew that she was not being completely truthful and she knew that he wasn't really buying what she was saying, but they both also knew that there was nothing they could call each other on.

"Tell your cousins to come back in here."

Alyssa stood up and walked toward the door, "And Trevor?"

"I'll speak to him after, you two can wait together."

"Okay," Alyssa opened the door and motioned for Claudia and Johnny to meet with their father as she stepped out of the room.

"Well, you are a lot like your mother aren't you?"

Alyssa scoffed at Trevor and leaned against the wall.

"You are just as good as she was at lying to Anthony."

"You should know. I mean you've been lying to the man for, what, over twenty years now. Did you really think that you would be allowed to control him forever?"

"You really believe what Claudia has said about me, don't you? Really, Ally, if there is anyone in this family that you should be wary of it's your cousin, she will do whatever it takes to take over and I am just trying to protect all of you."

"Trevor?" She slanted a look at him.

"Yes."

"You do realize that you aren't part of this family, don't you? I mean you say that if there is anyone in this family I shouldn't trust it's Claudia, like you are really a member of this family. You aren't."

"This coming from the woman who didn't even take their last name until after her father died."

"He was my father you ass. Of course I didn't have the Zacharra's last name. Does your son have your last name, do you have your father's last name, why wouldn't I have my father's last name especially considering that for years no one knew I was even Uncle Anthony's niece. I mean really is that all you've got?"

"And what about Morgan?"

"What about him?"

"You're making a mistake trusting that man so quickly. He's dangerous Ally, he could hurt you and your uncle without ever feeling a thing. Do you really want to align yourself with a man like that?"

"Oh I don't know, my uncle has aligned himself with you for years, maybe it's time I find someone who can do a little damage to the family too. How about that?"

"You don't know what you're getting into here, little girl."

She slid up next to him and batted her eyelashes at him, "What am I getting into, big boy?"

He stared down at her, "Jason Morgan will kill you just as soon as look at you and if you keep playing these games with him and your cousin, you will be the one who gets hurt. And really Alyssa, considering all you have to live for and the people who need you, do you really want to take that risk? You know there are people in your life who need you, do you want to leave them alone with no one to defend them…?"

"Get away from her," Claudia stepped out of her father's hospital room and in between her cousin and Trevor Lansing. "Daddy wants to talk to you and Johnny together, so get the hell away from my cousin and go explain yourself to the real head of this family."

Trevor walked away from the two of them and into Anthony's room as Alyssa rolled her eyes at his back and rubbed her forehead.

"What the hell was that about," Claudia asked.

"Nothing," Alyssa shook her head. "He was just trying to get to me, it didn't work. What happened in there," she waived her hand to the hospital room.

"Oh God," Claudia rubbed her forehead and groaned. "He wanted to know what we know about Emily Quartermaine and he wanted to know if you were spending too much time with Morgan and how long we knew about you having a twin sister. And then he started on his ranting about how I was trying to turn Johnny against him and that's when he sent me out and told me to send in Trevor."

"Okay. So he's making some sort of connection between me and Morgan. That could work for us or against us," she reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone, but Claudia grabbed it out of her hand.

"What are you doing?"

"I was going to call Morgan."

"What," Claudia looked down at the phone in her hand and started searching through the address book, "do you have his number programmed into your phone or something?"

"Yes," Alyssa snatched the phone back. "I put it in there in case I needed it for something, I didn't want to have to go through your people to get to his people to get to him. I like being able to handle things on my own. Is that okay with you?"

"I bet you wanted to handle things," Claudia laughed.

"Seriously, Claude, do you really want to be cute when we are dealing with all of this crap? Is that smart?"

"Sorry, I just…You like him."

"I'm careful around him so you don't have to worry, but if you must know, yes, I like him. In the same way that that I would like any guy who took me to a doctor after I had my head bashed against a wall, instead of leaving me on the floor to bleed as too many men I know would."

"Okay. But what are you going to say when you call him? Are you planning on asking him to play up your connection through your sister or play it down? What is the goal here Ally?"

"I don't know. I guess play it up, if we can convince your father that Corinthos and Morgan aren't threats, for now, then maybe we can buy ourselves some more time to convince him that Trevor is the real threat here, cause Claudia that man is on edge. If we don't handle him soon then I don't know what he'll do to keep his power, but I know it'll probably be bloody."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing," she shook her head and played with the pockets of her jeans. "He just said that I had people who needed me and that I should be careful, you know stuff like that."

"Ally, did he threaten—"

"Don't," Alyssa cut her cousin off and looked around the hallway. "Just leave that alone for now. I'm here. Let's handle one thing at a time."

"Okay. Alright. So what, we try to convince Morgan to spend more time with you so that, what…?"

"So that it makes Trevor a little more uncomfortable with his position in life. If he thinks that we are working with Morgan and not trying to kill him then he may screw up."

"Okay and what do they get out of this?"

"That's the problem," Alyssa kicked at the floor. "I'm hoping they want Trevor gone as badly as we do. If not, I don't know. I guess I could use the fact that I gave him a heads up about Ian to our advantage, but we both know that the only reason I did that was to get him wary of Devlin before the man ratted you out. Maybe this is when we play the kid card."

"The kid card? Alyssa, is that really safe? Do you really want to…" Claudia trailed off as she noticed the determination on her cousin's face. "Okay. Do what you think you have to."

Alyssa shook her head and leaned back against the wall as Johnny came out of Anthony's room.

"Hey," he looked between the two women. "What's up?"

"Nothing—"

"We're thinking about using the kids to get Morgan on our side," Alyssa interrupted. "What do you think?"

"You might have to."

"What happened in there with your dad and Trevor?"

Johnny blew out a breath, "I don't think dad trusts us, but I don't think he trust Trevor either. The problem is that he knows that Trevor has years of information on the business in his head and in his records and we don't, so if it comes down to picking a side he may screw us over to save himself."

"So we need something on Trevor that's bigger than whatever he has on dad?"

"I'm going to call Morgan, see if I can get him to meet with me again. Johnny, are you cool with that?"

"You're taking a gun this time," Claudia said before her brother could answer. "And no bars."

"Whatever. Johnny is this okay with you?"

"Yeah, yeah. What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to see what I have to do get him on our side," Alyssa shrugged. "And you two are going to put your heads together and see what we can use on Trevor." Alyssa shot Claudia a look and both women realized that if it came down to it the older woman would have to step up and play her part, just as Alyssa would, if there was no other way to bring Trevor down.

"Plotting again I see," Trevor said as he walked out of Anthony's room. "Your father is resting, so now would be a great time to try and smother him in his sleep. If you're interested."

"That really seems like more of your thing, don't you think Trevor," Claudia retorted.

"Well," Alyssa shot both of her cousins knowing looks and started to leave. "As much as I'd love to stay around for this family reunion, I've got somewhere I need to be. Johnny, I'm stealing your car, you can ride back with Claude, is that okay?"

"Fine," Johnny shook his head and watched his cousin walk off as his sister started arguing with Trevor again. For years his sister and cousin had protected him and now, he knew, it was soon going to be his turn to protect them and stand by them.

Alyssa leaned back against the door of Johnny's car as she waited for Jason Morgan to join her. She'd called him as she left the hospital and told him that she had more information for him and while she knew he wasn't particularly interested in hearing it he told her he'd meet her in fifteen minutes at a place called Vista Point. From the mess of beer bottles and condom wrappers she saw she figured that, during the weekends and probably after nightfall, Vista Point was the place where high school boys took high school girls to get lucky in the back seats of their beat up cars. Oh, the memories.

Alyssa grinned inwardly as Jason rolled up on his motorcycle, "Do you have something against meeting in sanitary places? First a seedy bar and now a place where teenagers come to get their rocks off. Seriously, does this work for you?"

Jason got off the bike and looked around nonchalantly. "Yes. You wanted quick and quiet."

Alyssa ignored the possible implications of his words and said, "I really am going to have to start adding sanitary to the list."

When Jason said nothing she shook her head and pushed off of the car and walked over to him, "Trevor is getting dangerous. He knows that my uncle is starting to trust him less and less and pretty soon he's going to get desperate and that isn't good for either of us, unless we can control how it happens."

"What do you mean?"

She blew out a breath, "We need to make him think that taking a shot at your boss or my family isn't in his best interests right now and the best way I can think to do that is for him to believe that we trust each other and will stand by each other of something goes wrong. So I'm suggesting more than just a truce, I'm suggesting that you and I start becoming more friendly and play up our connection through our sister." She could see his response on his face before he even said anything and so she pushed forward, "Listen, this is not the way I wanted this to work out either. Okay? I figured that I would find my sister alive and well and I'd have time to get to know her and for her to get to know me and then maybe we would be able to look at each other as family one day, but that's not the way it worked out. I have to deal with that, so do you. I'm not trying to hurt you or screw you or anyone else over, I am just trying to protect my family and I am offering you a way to do the same. That's all."

"And if I say no?"

Alyssa groaned and answered, "If you say no then Trevor will continue playing on my uncle's weaknesses until he believes that he has to get rid of all of us. Maybe, if you're lucky, though it's doubtful, he'll decide to take us out first. Do you really want to take that ris—?" Before she could finish her rant he was reaching out and pulling her down to the ground in front of the car.

"What the hell are you…?" The first shot rang out and hit the tire of Johnny's car and the second one shatter the window above their heads. When she started to look up to see who was shooting at them Jason shoved her head back down and glared at her.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to see who is shooting at us."

"Don't."

"Why?"

"Because," he pushed her back against the car door. "If you can see them well enough to get a good look at them then they can see you well enough to shoot you."

"Oh." She shook her head and wanted to kick herself. She knew that, it wasn't like she'd never been shot at before. Hell, she was a Zacharra, even if she hadn't been claimed as one her whole life, that meant she'd pretty much been brought into the world knowing that she was going to be shot at more often than not. "Right. What do we do? We're not going to be going anywhere in my car…"

"Do you have a cell phone?"

"Ummm," she bit her lip and shot him a distressed look. "It's in my purse, in the trunk of the car. Claudia kept calling me on the way here so I stopped and threw it back there. Do you have yours?"

He nodded toward the broken cell phone on the ground in front of them.

"Do you want me to try and get in the trunk and get mine?" Even as she said it five more rounds were fired into the back of the car, including the trunk. "Okay, well that might not work now. What do we do? We can't drive Johnny's car and on your bike we'll pretty much be sitting ducks."

"Do you have a gun on you at least?"

She reached behind her, "Yes."

"Okay, here's what we're gonna do. I want you to run for those trees over there," he pointed to the left of them about fifteen feet away, "and I'll cover you and then when you get over there I want you to cover me. There is a cabin back in those woods and we are going to make our way there. Okay?"

She nodded and when he started firing over the hood of the car she made a beeline for the cover of the trees without looking back. Once she got to the edge of the woods she turned back around and fired a warning shot into the air to tell him he could follow and then she started firing in the general direction she thought the shooting was coming from. As he ran over to her she tried to see exactly where the shots were coming from, but she could only tell that there were no more than two or three shooters on the hill above them shooting from behind their own cover of trees.

"Alright." Jason moved her so that they were about five feet further into the woods and ten feet to the right from where the shooters were aiming at. "Do you see this trail?" He pointed to a barely visible trail behind them. "I want you to follow it as far as you can, after about a half a mile it will break off and go right, then you'll need to…"

"Wait," she interrupted when she realized he wanted her to go alone into the woods. "No. I'm not leaving you here."

"Those guys are going to know where we came into the woods at. It won't be hard for them find us. If you go ahead back then I can take them out."

"And if you can't. What then? You're, at the very least, shot and possibly dead and I am stuck in a place I don't know with only five bullets and no way of calling for help. No. We go together. With any luck they won't realize we don't have a phone and they won't follow and if they do at least we'll be together."

Jason shook his head and put his hand on the small of her back to lead her down the trail, "Okay, just stay ahead of me."

"Good. Great," she stepped in front of him and started following the trail. "Do you know exactly where we're going? I'd rather not get lost in the woods and have to eat you, but make no mistake, if it comes down to it I will chop you up into little pieces and cook you over a fire."

Jason shot a bemused look at the back of her head and continued to guide her down the trail. "Don't worry. I know where the cabin is."

"You've been there lately."

"Sort of, but I pay for the upkeep anyway. It's mine."

"You don't seem like the cabin in the woods type of guy."

"I like the quiet," he responded and the put his hand on her shoulder to turn her around. When she looked at him he brought a finger to her lips and said, "So shut up."

"Fine," she said under her breathe and went in the direction he guided her. When they got to the end of the trail she was happy she'd made him come with her because there was no way she would have been able to find her way from there without him. They went left and right and passed bunches of trees that looked exactly like each other until they finally came to an opening in the woods. She was shocked when she looked out from the trees and saw the cabin; she'd expected some rickety old shack that consisted of one door and not much else. She was certainly surprised.

"Wow," she stepped out of the woods, "I would never have guessed this was back here."

The cabin, to her, looked damn near comfortable. There was a closed in porch that she could easily picture an old couple and their dog spending the night gazing at the stars together on. On both sides of the solid front door were windows, but she could not see in through the thick curtains covering them. The wood was neither old nor brand new looking and she figured that the cabin must have been there for at least twenty years. "How did you find this place?"

"Bike accident," he answered and picked the lock. He didn't carry the keys with him at all times.

"What about the windows?"

He banged on the window in the front door and said, "They're all bullet proof. Just in case. Don't worry it's sturdier than it looks. It just doesn't have electricity."

"So…no phone."

"No phone," he took her hand and pulled her through the door and she heaved it shut behind them.

Again, she was shocked. The place was actually sort of cozy looking, with its couch and fireplace, and kitchen area with table. She could almost imagine spending a couple of days out here to get some peace of mind herself. If people weren't trying to kill her. She pointed to a hallway to the right of them and asked, "Bedroom?"

"Yeah, and bathroom."

"So what do we do now? Start a fire?"

"No. They'll be able to see the smoke if we do that. There are some blankets that we'll have to use to keep warm and we need to stay in here after I get them. The windows are safe, but stay away from them anyway and I am going to block off all of the doors, so that anyone coming in will have to come through the front. Wait here."

She nodded and started looking around.

Jason walked back into the bedroom and scrubbed his hands down his face. He was not expecting to get trapped, alone, with Alyssa Zacharra and he definitely didn't want to bring her with him to the cabin, but he realized it was his only choice. He had been honest with her when he told her he found the place after a bike accident. What he didn't tell here was that no one else knew he'd bought it. When he left town after catching Sonny and Carly sleeping together, he'd had a small accident and found the cabin in the woods and when he made the decision to come back to Port Charles and stay he' had it fixed up in case he ever needed to get away. He'd only used it a few times since he'd bought it, but those few times it had been a valuable asset, especially right after Emily died and he needed time alone somewhere that held no memories of her to haunt him. And now Alyssa Zacharra was wandering around the other room.

"Do you need help with something?" He whipped around to see her standing in the doorway and he had to do his best to concentrate on the length of her hair and the scar above her eye so that he wasn't fooled into believing that his sister was haunting him.

"Yeah," he handed her the blankets. "Take these into the other room."

"Okay…" she started to walk away and then turned back around. "You don't have any clothes here do you?" She gestured between them and he realized that while it hadn't been raining they were still both wet front sweat and the dew that had covered the trees from the rain the day before.

"No, but the blankets should help and…we'll figure it out."

"Okay," she turned away from him and when back into the other room. She could hear him moving around the furniture from the bedroom to block the doors and though she wanted to help she knew, from the look he'd given her when she asked a few minutes ago, that it would not be welcome so she sat down on the couch, wrapped herself in one of the blankets and imagined that the fire in front of her was burning and giving off heat to warm her.

"Are you okay," she looked up as he walked into the room and nodded her head at him. "Good. We're as secure as we can be right now."

"Do you think they followed us?"

"No, but we'll stay the night to be sure and I'll go back out at first light to get my bike."

"We'll go back out. We're in this together now."

"Fine."

"So what do we do now?"