NOTE: IN MY DELIRIUM, I FORGOT TO ADD A SECTION IN LAST NIGHT... SO I DELETED THE CHAPTER AND ADDED IT IN. IF YOU'VE ALREADY READ THE CHAPTER, SEE THE THIRD SECTION. NOTHING ELSE HAS BEEN CHANGED.

Ok, I have spent MANY hours in the library and working on very little sleep. PLEASE take the time to review this chapter; let me know whether or not my exhaustion has affected my writing of this chapter. I'm super tired and had the shakes today because I'm totally lacking in the sleep department; per Demon, I'm a vampire. I'm working my tail off right now and still writing an update for you, so please let me know what you think.

I don't know when or how soon the next chapter will be written; I'm exhausted.

UNEDITED and short…

Chapter Thirteen

Mechanical Bulls

As Alexis was clearing the table after dinner with Mac, Diane stopped by for a visit.

--- "Hey, Di, what are you doing here?"

Diane smiled at her friend before removing her coat and throwing it over a chair. She grabbed Alexis by the arm and led her to the couch.

--- "So, how was the date?"

Alexis shook her head and pointed an accusatory finger at her best friend.

--- "SEE! I KNEW that you were in on this mess! I just knew that Sam—"

Diane interrupted.

--- "No, no, no! I DID not have anything to do with this! This was all Smurfette's doing. She simply called me and let me know what she was up to—"

--- "And you didn't try to stop her?!"

Diane pursed her lips before reaching into her purse for her flask.

--- "HELL NO! I figured that you could use a little spice in your life. I take it that the wax cleared the cobwebs?"

Alexis rolled her eyes and stood up to finish clearing the table.

--- "I'm not discussing what the wax removed with you, thank you—"

--- "Prude."

She threw a napkin on the table.

--- "I am NOT a prude!"

Diane laughed and choked on the contents of the flask.

--- "Are you kidding me? You are the definition of a prude, Alexis! You blush and turn red over everything remotely sexual."

--- "Oh, yes, and excuse me, Di, but do me a favor… and I don't care of this is being prudish, but can you NOT pick up the phone when you and Max are playing wild wild west? I don't need to hear how you like to ride his pony—"

Diane cleared her throat.

--- "As I informed Max, I do not ride ponies; I like nice strong stallions!"

She bit her lip thinking about her love of… riding. Alexis, covered her face.

--- "Whatever. I just don't need that image in my head!"

Her friend shook her head in disappointment.

--- "Unfortunately there was no riding today."

Alexis laughed.

--- "What, no saddle?"

The woman scoffed at her best friend.

--- "ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I've a closet FILLED with saddles! There is ALWAYS a saddle—"

--- "So what was the problem?"

Diane frowned.

--- "My stallion turned into a gelding."

Alexis covered her mouth so as not to laugh and walked over to the couch and sat down beside her friend.

--- "Honey, are you telling me that Max… was to the minimum?"

She sadly nodded her head.

--- "If by minimum you mean zero, nada, nothing, then yes."

Alexis had to concentrate on not laughing at her friend, although considering the way that Diane had mocked her and Mac, it was rather difficult not to.

--- "Um [ahem], what happened? When I was on the phone with you, it seemed that your stallion was about to throw you up in the air."

Diane took another swig from her flask.

--- "Well, the rodeo left town after Edward Quartermaine crashed into it."

--- "That was two months ago."

--- "You're telling me."

Alexis could no longer help herself; she began to laugh hysterically. Diane smacked her best friend on the arm.

--- "What the hell are you laughing about?! This isn't funny!"

Alexis had tears in her eyes.

--- "YES, it is! You were the one making fun of me and Mac and his inability to… you know… and you're telling me that you've had this problem for the past two months?!"

Diane took another large swig from her flask, emptying it before going to her best friend's refreshment table and pouring herself another drink.

--- "I'm hurt Lex! I've been suffering! SUFFERING, I tell you! NOTHING works on him! I think it's that damn medication he's been on since the accident."

Alexis smirked as she got up to fix her own drink.

--- "So what happened?"

Diane looked at her friend with sad little waif eyes.

--- "I bought these really cute cowgirl and boy outfits, I even had a lasso! He got really into it, but then that was the end of it! No pistols were drawn!"

She sat back on the couch looking quite pathetic and tipsy. Alexis gave her a sympathetic smile.

--- "Well, I guess you're going to have to give the stallion a break, and try out the mechanical bull."

Diane cut her eyes at her best friend and leaned back into the couch.

Mathieu decided to take a walk by the pier instead of sitting in his room all night. He found himself sitting on one of the benches overlooking Wyndemere. While he had never been to Port Charles prior to this trip, he knew right away that the castle across the water on its own little island belonged to Alexandra's family.

Flashback.

--- "So tell me about your family."

The young couple decided to be daring and escaped to a diner in "downtown" Chatham. They knew that if they were discovered to have left their respective school grounds, they would be forbidden from leaving the school itself for some time, and their parents would be called. Despite this high penalty, it was the thrill of being caught that made their secret love more intriguing.

Alexis never liked discussing her family, because outside of Stefan, she felt as though she did not have anyone.

--- "Why do you want to know about them?"

He smiled at her as he fed her a spoon of the apple pie a la mode they were sharing.

--- "I want to know everything about you. I… I love you."

He had never said the words to anyone outside of his family, and she had never heard the words from anyone, not even those in her family. She blushed and ran out of the shop.

Mathieu grabbed her jacket from the chair and ran after her.

--- "Alexandra! Where are you going?! It's chilly out here! Come back!"

She stopped halfway when she realized that it was a cold February in Maine. Mathieu quickly caught up to her and helped her put the jacket on; he noticed that she was crying.

--- "Cherie, why are you crying?"

Alexis shook her head and wiped away her tears.

--- "It's nothing. I'm just being stupid."

He put his arm around her as he led her back into the diner; just before reentering, he turned her head to face him and gave her a tender kiss on the lips.

--- "You're not stupid. There's nothing stupid about you. And even if there were, I wouldn't love you less."

Alexis stared him in the eyes for a few moments before repeating the words that she had never heard or said.

--- "I love you, too."

She began to cry again. Mathieu took her face in his hands and connected his forehead to hers.

--- "I don't know what your family has done to you, Alexandra, but know that I will never hurt you."

She continued to stare into his eyes and nodded. The two kissed once more.

They walked back into the diner where Alexis recounted to Mathieu the horrors of living in the Cassidine household.

End of Flashback.

Mathieu needed a smoke. He pulled out his kit and began stuffing and rolling the contents into the paper. As he licked the paper to keep the contents inside, he was interrupted.

--- "Drop what you're doing, and turn around slowly."

Mathieu, not knowing what was going on complied and slowly turned around to face the man who had his gun drawn toward him.

Diane hiccupped as she sat on the couch cradling her third glass of straight vodka. Alexis brought a garbage can into the living room and placed it beside her best friend.

--- "Di, if you plan on vomiting, please do so in the trashcan, rather than on my couch or rug, okay?"

The poor woman looked incredibly miserable and upset as she looked at her friend.

--- "Whatever you want Lex… tell me about your date; I'm sure it was worse than what I'm currently going through. That'll make me feel better."

Alexis rolled her eyes.

--- "Wow, that's nice! My life sucking should certainly make yours worthwhile! Thanks!"

Diane shook her heavy head.

--- "No! You know what I mean!"

--- "Actually, I don't, but I'll tell you about it anyway."

Diane attempted to stand to give her friend a grateful hug, but she stumbled back into her spot.

---"S—ss-ank you!"

Alexis laughed at how drunk her friend was.

--- "You really might want to slow down on the drinking. You'll regret it in the morning—"

Diane waved her hand at her friend.

--- "PLEASE! No men come here, Lex! I'm not going to wake up naked with anyone—"

She stared and frowned at Alexis.

--- "Just don't take advantage of me, Alexis."

Alexis rolled her eyes.

--- "The stallion, as you call it, may not come by this way very often die, but I certainly ensure that the butcher man gave me a nice cut of the sausage."

Diane pursed her lips and squinted her eyes trying to make sense of what her friend had just said.

--- "EW! You're a dirty dirty girl, Lex."

--- "Do you want to know what happened last night or not?"

--- "Yes yes I do!"

Alexis recounted the details of the night to her best friend, hoping that Diane wasn't too far gone to understand the situation; she really wanted some sound advice as to what to do about telling Sam about Mathieu.

--- "… and so now he's in the picture, and I have no idea what to do."

Diane struggled to keep her eyes open by the time Alexis finished her story.

--- "Um, so let me get this straight, you not only have the option of a police baton, but NOW you're looking at a large French soccer ball going into your goal?! My life sucks."

The woman passed out at her spot.

--- "Oh Di, it seriously astounds me that that's all you retained from my problem."

Alexis took the glass from her friend and placed it on the table. She then moved her feet onto the couch, and placed the garbage can closer to the couch.

As she went to finish clearing the table, she noticed her daughter pulling into the driveway.

--- "Okay, Lex... it's showtime."

Sam pulled up to the lake house; noticing Diane's car parked behind hers, she decided that she was not yet ready to go inside. She parked her mother's car in the driveway, in the same spot she had previously taken it, and went for a walk to the lake. It was a relatively mild evening for a November in upstate New York, so Sam decided to do something of which she knew her mother would completely disapprove. The closer she got to the lake, the more compelled she felt to go for a swim; swimming had always been a way for her to clear her mind. Sam walked to the dock, quickly stripped out of her clothes and jumped into the water.

She swam back and forth for a period of twenty minutes before she heard a familiar voice call after her.

--- "SAM!"

She stopped swimming and looked up at the dock to see her mother standing there with her arms folded and holding a towel and blanket in her hands.

--- "Hey Mom—"

Alexis shook her head.

--- "Don't 'hey Mom' me! Come out of the water right now! Are you trying to kill yourself? It's thirty degrees out here! Do you want to catch pneumonia?!"

Sam rolled her eyes and swam to the ladder and climbed up to the dock. Alexis' mouth hung open when she saw her daughter.

--- "You went skinny dipping… in NOVEMBER?"

Sam rolled her eyes as Alexis handed her the towel.

--- "Mom, relax—"

--- "Samantha, don't tell me to relax! It's bad enough that you're swimming in the freezing water in the middle of the night in November, but you decide to do it in the nude! What in the world is wrong with you?"

Sam shrugged her shoulders.

--- "I just needed to think… swimming helps me with that. You need to loosen up."

Alexis shook her head.

--- "Okay, you're not about to have this argument with me right now, Sam! I wouldn't have cared if you were fully clothed in the water—"

Sam gave her a look, causing her to roll her eyes.

--- "Fine! What if the neighbors had seen you?"

--- "Mom, the nearest house from here is two acres down and an old couple lives in it; I'm sure whatever they saw was not enough to get the electricity back into Mr. Brooks' little eel, or some moisture into his wife's dried up well."

Alexis looked in the direction of the Brooks' home, then across the lake to the Adams' house; her face reddened.

--- "And what about them over there?"

The Adams' had two teenaged boys, both of whom were outside on their balcony with binoculars staring in their direction; when they noticed that they had been caught, they ran back inside their house. Sam was mortified, but shrugged it off.

--- "Okay, well aside from those two peeping toms with nothing and no one better to do in the middle of the night, it wasn't that serious; it's just skin, Mom. I'm sure that right about now, they're running a perfectly good pair of socks with a nice amount of lotion."

Alexis grabbed Sam's clothes from the ground and handed her a pair of flip-flops to wear back to the house.

--- "Samantha—"

--- "Besides, its not that cold!"

She looked at her daughter; she was shivering. Alexis took the blanket and wrapped it around her.

--- "Honey, your teeth are chattering. Let's go inside."

--- "Thanks Mom."

She wrapped her arms around her obviously freezing daughter in the hopes of providing her with additional warmth as they made their way to the house.

--- "Honey, you could've just gone to the bar or something to think; you didn't have to swim. My goodness, I would've preferred that you go to an indoor pool as opposed to this—"

--- "Mom, you know how much I like the lake—"

Alexis nodded.

--- "I do, but this wasn't the smartest thing you've ever decided to do."

They walked into the living room, where Diane was passed out.

--- "What the hell happened to her?"

Alexis laughed.

--- "She's drunk—"

Sam frowned.

--- "That lush can get drunk? Goodness, what the hell was she drinking? That had to be some seriously strong stuff to get her in that state."

Alexis rolled her eyes as she led her daughter to her room.

--- "Don't worry about her, honey; I think you and I have other things to discuss."

Before going out to retrieve her daughter from the lake, Alexis had quickly managed to start a fire in the fireplace; the room was, as they walked in, quite toasty.

--- "Oh my God Mom, you're fantastic! I hate to admit it, but I'm freezing!"

Alexis smiled as she walked to Sam's bathroom and grabbed her a fresh pair of pajamas and a bathrobe. She gave Sam a kiss on the top of the head and handed her the clothes.

--- "Yes I am. Do you want some tea?"

Sam shook her head and handed the towel to her mother. She quickly changed into the pajamas and rapped the robe tightly around her. Alexis rolled her eyes at her stubborn daughter.

--- "Honey, just sit by the fire."

Sam nodded her head.

--- "I'm freezing."

She moved quickly to the fireplace and sat on the floor in front of it. Alexis followed suit, grabbed a towel from the closet and a pillow from Sam's bed, and sat beside her daughter on the floor.

--- "Okay, I think you and I need to talk, honey."

Alexis put the pillow on her lap and laid the towel on top of it. She patted it so Sam could lay her head on it so she could dry her wet hair for her.

--- "I don't know Mom, it's just really weird right now. I never knew what to ask about my father—"

--- "You never asked."

--- "Mom, you never told me anything about him."

Alexis dried her daughter's hair with the towel, all the while thinking about how similar she was to her father; Mathieu was adventurous. If it had not been for his coercion, Alexis would have never met him by the pond in the park or snuck out to the diner downtown; Sam was just like him.

--- "I know, honey, and I'm sorry about that. I guess I figured you didn't want to know."

--- "I thought you didn't want to tell."

Alexis passed her hand on her daughter's cheek.

--- "Um, where should we start?"

Sam stopped staring at the fire to look up at her mother.

--- "Well, I guess I want to know what happened. I know why you had to give me up, but he didn't want me either?"

Alexis looked back at her daughter; this was a question for which she had no real answer.

--- "First of all, Sam, I always wanted you—"

--- "Well, what about him?"

Alexis' cell phone began to ring; she was grateful for the interruption because she could not honestly answer that question.

--- "I'm sorry, honey… Hello? … Mac? Are you kidding me?! I'll be right there."

Sam sat up and looked at her mother.

--- "What happened?"

Alexis rolled her eyes as she stood up and threw the pillow onto the bed.

--- "Well, here's something I can tell you: if I didn't know better, I'd say your ability to get yourself arrested was inherited from Mathieu."

Sam could not help but smile.

Who's team are you rooting for? MacLexis or MatLex?

Alright, its 3a, I have to be up in 5 hours. Good night.

Oh yea, and if you're reading ONCP, please also let me know what you think about that if you haven't done so already. Thanks.

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