"I'm glad that we made time to have dinner together," Sasha said as she and Willow approached the door to Charlie's Pub, a restaurant owned and managed by Julian Jerome following his exit from the mob.
"Me too," Willow replied, smiling at her best friend. "We have a lot to talk about."
"Oh? Is an engagement between you and Chase going to be one of those things to talk about?" Sasha teased, a wide smile of her own covering her face when a red blush painted Willow's cheeks.
"Maybe…just as long as we can talk about yours and Michael's," Willow countered, watching in satisfaction as Sasha's own face darkened with a blush just as red as hers.
"Let's just eat," Sasha huffed, playfully shoving a laughing Willow's shoulder.
Her laughter was cut short when she opened the door and saw Nelle sitting there on her phone, a plate of half-eaten food positioned before her. Nelle looked up to see Willow and Sasha in the doorway and her face changed; it appeared annoyed and even exasperated.
'As if she has anything to be exasperated about,' Rational Willow scoffed. 'We're the ones being forced to see this bitch walking free around town instead of rotting behind bars like she should be after everything she's done.'
Staring at Nelle, Willow felt that familiar rage simmering beneath her skin. This woman was responsible for using her child in a twisted scheme and allowing him to be buried under a name that wasn't his, for nearly destroying the man she loved and his career because of her lies, and for nearly murdering her friend and the father of Nelle's own child in a car accident that Nelle herself rigged all so she could take everything in his will that he'd left to her in their marriage, a marriage that didn't even occur because Michael was smart and used the same disappearing ink on their marriage certificate that Nelle used in a fake letter from Michael's dead brother Morgan in her quest to make his mother go insane, thus making their marriage null and void and proving Nelle's malicious intentions.
This woman had a laundry list of crimes attached to her name and yet she was a free woman because all of them were dismissed either without sufficient evidence or because Nelle "wasn't in her right mind" at the time, so she couldn't be fairly prosecuted.
It made Willow furious and all she wanted was to just leap right across that room and beat that bitch's face in to the point where no one could recognize it.
'That's my girl!' Rational Willow cheered in her head.
'You know that she can't do that, though,' Sad Willow scolded, but her plaintive tone made it difficult to take her seriously. 'She'd be the one looking like the crazy villain.'
'I know,' Rational Willow replied, annoyed that her melancholic counterpart was telling her something that she already knew. 'That doesn't mean that I can't appreciate her backbone and wanting to teach Nelle a lesson for everything she's done since she darkened on the Corinthos family's doorstep.'
Neither Sad Willow nor Maternal Willow disagreed with her statement.
'No disagreements? Good. Now quit ruining my buzz!'
'You don't have to be so rude about it…' Sad Willow mumbled before she slinked off back to her corner.
'That was mean. You know she's sensitive,' Maternal Willow's reproach was more effective, but Rational Willow was still undaunted.
Willow wished that her personalities would shut up. Sometimes it was hard to think with those three constantly arguing and offering up their unwanted opinions. They did have one good part, though, and that was their hatred of Nelle.
Willow looked over at Sasha, who held the same expression on her face as she also returned Nelle's gaze. Her best friend turned to her and asked, "should we go somewhere else?"
Willow looked back at Nelle, contemplating that question. They could go somewhere else and have a peaceful time without seeing the blonde troublemaker's face, but she wanted to be better than that. She didn't want to give Nelle any more power over her than what she already had.
"No," Willow answered with confidence. "We won't let Nelle chase us out of here. We won't give her that much power."
"You're right," Sasha agreed in the same tone. "We won't give her that satisfaction."
With that, Sasha closed the door to Charlie's Pub and the two women walked over to an empty table, where they sat and made themselves comfortable.
"I'm glad that we could get together," Sasha commented, sharing a smile with Willow as they took off their coats and hung them over the backs of their chairs. "How are you doing?"
"I'm coping," Willow said. "It helps that I'm meeting with a therapist that I like and having the support system that I do."
Sasha nodded in understanding. "How are you and Nina?" She asked. Willow had informed her a little while ago that Nina was her biological mother and Sasha was thrilled for them both; the guilt of tricking Nina the way that she did still weighed heavily on her, even if Nina had forgiven and rekindled a friendship with her.
Willow's smile was brighter now. "It's been amazing," she said happily. "It's been an adjustment, of course. I never even knew that I was adopted, let alone that Nina was my biological mother, but we get along well and at this point, I'm very lucky to have her."
"She feels the same way about you," the lighter brunette replied, sliding forward so her elbows were on the table and her hands were resting beneath her chin.
It felt nice finally having good things to say about Nina. Although Sasha was always very neutral and supportive on both sides, Willow knew that it was tiring for her friend to constantly hear insults and criticisms being thrown whenever either woman spoke to her about each other. She was glad that Nina's change of heart and their family connection could bring about more pleasant conversations.
"So," Willow spoke after they put in their drink orders to the waitress who had just come and gone from their table. "Give me some juicy gossip. Or, if you'd prefer, tell me about Deception." She'd been in her bubble of grief for so long that she missed the outside world and desperately wanted to know what was happening, especially if such news helped keep her distracted.
Sasha suddenly got this blush on her face. "Well," she said rather bashfully, completely unlike the spunky girl Willow had come to love since she moved to Port Charles. "I do have a couple of pieces of juicy gossip for you."
"Oh?" Willow's eyebrows rose and she leaned forward in eager interest. "Tell me."
"The first piece that I have for you is that Michael and I have been talking about marriage."
Willow's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open before she could stop it. "I…wow," she stuttered after a few moments of stunned silence. "I mean, I know I commented earlier about an engagement between you and Michael, but I was kidding…how did this come about?"
The blush faded a bit from Sasha's cheeks and she gave a long sigh. "Well," she began as she took a sip of her glass of water that the waitress had just set down in front of her. "You may already know this, but family courts tend to be pretty traditional. It may be hard to convince a judge to bar Nelle from Aaron's life, but if Michael has a wife and a mother figure to Aaron…" She trailed off nervously.
"You could end up being Aaron's mom," Willow finished for her. Her hands shook a bit as she took a long gulp of the glass of red wine on her side of the table. Thoughts of the past two years, of loving Aaron as her own, of thinking that she was his mother assaulted her mind and for a few seconds her vision went white. She couldn't believe that this was happening; it felt like her baby was being taken away from her again…
Rational Willow suddenly shouted so loudly into her ear that it was like a wave of cold water splashing over her face: 'AARON IS NOT YOUR BABY! I KNOW THAT YOU FEEL LIKE HE IS BECAUSE YOU WERE LIED TO, BUT HE'S NOT YOURS! IF SASHA BECOMES HIS MOM, BE HAPPY FOR BOTH OF THEM, NOT POSSESSIVE LIKE YOU OWN HIM!'
The words were harsh, but they did the trick. She snapped out of her haze just in time to hear Sasha continue, her voice shaky and nervous, "It's freaking me out a bit. Michael and I are in love, but we only moved in together because of Nelle and raising a child wasn't even on my radar a month ago. It's all happening so fast."
"I thought that things were going well between you and Michael."
"They are. We're so compatible and I…I love him so much and I know that he loves me. It's wonderful knowing that I'll see him every day."
"Then it's…Aaron you're having problems with?"
"No. Oh, God, no! I love that little guy and seeing him lights up my entire day. I just have a hard time thinking of myself as a mom, although…I think I'm going to have to reconcile those feelings very soon…"
Willow's eyebrows furrowed. "What do you mean?"
"That's the other bit of juicy gossip," Sasha told her with a tentative smile. "I think I'm pregnant."
Willow's eyes widened and for a few long minutes she was rendered speechless. "You're pregnant?" She whisper-yelled, looking around to ensure that no one heard her before her eyes met Sasha's again.
"I think I am," Sasha corrected her. "I'm a month late and I've been feeling really sick lately."
"Does Michael know? Have you taken a test?"
"No to both. I don't want to tell Michael yet until I'm sure. I have a test hidden in my purse, but I haven't taken it yet."
"Why? This is huge!"
"I know and that's why I haven't taken it," she sighed and took another sip of her water. "Like I said…I have a hard time thinking of myself as a mom and it's one thing to be a stepmother to a child that's not mine but to have one of my own? Somehow that's scarier."
"Do you want me to pass along a piece of advice from myself to you?"
"Yes, please."
"You're going to be scared and you're going to think that being a mother is the most difficult thing in the world, and it is," Willow began. "You're lucky in the sense that the father of your child is a good, kind man who will do anything and everything for the people he loves. He will never walk away and he will never let anyone hurt you. Michael will love you and that baby if it exists, but that's not my advice, that's just something that we already know about him. My advice…find out as soon as possible. I didn't find out until I was almost at the end of my first trimester, which didn't leave me much time to get my things together and plan for my son before I started showing; I only just managed to escape Dawn of Day before I started growing a bump. But you…you and Michael can figure things out for your baby and get things going so you can be as ready and as comfortable as possible. And…"
Her throat tightened a bit and for a minute she didn't continue. But she owed it to herself, to her son, to Sasha, and now to the possible child that Sasha could or could not be carrying right now, so she took in a deep breath and blew it out softly to calm her nerves. Then, she finished: "Don't do what I did, Sasha. Don't give up on your child because you're scared of what could happen if you kept him or her."
Instantly, Sasha's face softened as sympathy filled her eyes and she reached out, taking Willow's hand in her own and gently squeezing it in comfort. "You didn't give up on Wiley, Willow," she said. "You did the best thing you could for him given your situation. It wasn't safe being in Dawn of Day and you weren't in the right place mentally to raise a child."
Willow shook her head softly, using her free hand to wipe away the tears that fell. "It doesn't feel like it," she murmured. "It feels like I failed him."
"You did not fail him," Sasha said fiercely. "You saved him. Shiloh and Harmony and Dawn of Day were poison. They would have caused so much damage to Wiley, but you got out and you got him out. You refused to let him be born or raised into that house of horrors and you gave him up for adoption because you didn't want anyone to know where he was. You. Saved. Him."
Willow looked up from the table to meet Sasha's impassioned gaze. The other woman was determined for Willow to hear her, and she could see that she believed in every word she just said in her need to comfort and reassure her friend. She didn't want Willow to believe for one second that she gave up on her child, and from the looks of it, she wasn't taking no for an answer.
'And she has doubts about being a mother,' she thought affectionately, a small smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.
Before she could say or do anything, however, Nelle's voice broke into their little bubble:
"I'm definitely going to have to change his name. I don't know what Michael was thinking, naming him Aaron. I mean, it's nice, but not that nice, and Jonah is a bit morbid now. What I do like, though, is the name William."
A red haze suddenly fell over Willow's eyes and pure fury radiated from her. 'That bitch,' she thought as she rose from her seat and stormed over to where Nelle sat at the bar, speaking with Julian Jerome. She could hear Sasha also get up and follow her, her concerned and curious eyes burning holes in the back of Willow's head.
"I'm sorry, what?" Willow asked, gaining Nelle's attention.
"William is much classier than Aaron," Nelle laughed.
"But Aaron is the name that he knows now," Willow protested, incredulous that Nelle could be so selfish. "Michael gave it to him."
"He'll adjust. After all, he adjusted to it from Wiley." The flippant way she disregarded the topic and the taunting tone of her voice when she said her deceased son's name made Willow's blood boil.
"Aaron is a person," Willow snapped, that fiery protective side of her rearing once again for a child that wasn't hers. "You can't just take away his name—"
"Oh my God," Nelle groaned. "I am so sick of you and your self-righteousness. I will raise him however the hell I please, he's my son, and no matter what you believe in all of your delusions, please remember that your son is dead and to stay the hell away from mine." With that, the blonde turned back to face the bar.
Her breathing shortening from rage and grief and her eyes pricking with tears at the reminder that her baby was gone, Willow grabbed Nelle's shoulder and turned her around to deliver a harsh, stinging slap to her cheek, a slap that rang sharply throughout the busy bar. It even caught a few of the patrons' attention as well as made Sasha gasp in surprise and Julian gape in shock.
Nelle gasped and she touched her burning cheek with her fingers, wincing slightly at the now tender flesh. She leveled a glare at Willow, but upon seeing the devastated look in the brunette's eyes, she couldn't find it in herself to retaliate. For some reason, she found herself almost…regretting…what she just said. It was a ridiculous thought, having remorse for anything that she said to this perfect Snow White figure constantly interfering in hers and her son's lives, but she did. Maybe it was because she was the cause of her pain by coming up with the plan to switch Willow's dead newborn with her living boy, but the blonde acknowledged that throwing the child back in her face wasn't the best move….
She quickly squashed that feeling as she stood up and growled, "You're going to pay for that. I'm going to have you arrested for assault."
"Go ahead," Willow growled. "At least now you'll know what'll happen when you throw the dead baby you used in your evil scheme in my face!"
"You did have that coming," Julian commented.
"Shut up!" Nelle whipped around to glare at Julian. "And I'm not paying a dime for that dinner!"
Nelle then stormed over to retrieve her coat and purse when she spotted Sasha standing there, smiling proudly as she watched the spectacle. Furious, she directed her thunderous footsteps towards her.
"Do you have something you need to say?" Nelle demanded with a growl, leveling a glare towards Sasha that was quite possibly even nastier than the glare she gave Willow.
Sasha shrugged her shoulders. "Encore?" She said simply. "You deserve more than just a slap in the face."
"Oh, I do?" Nelle challenged. "Well, listen to this: you are nothing more than a tramp hopping around the mansion until Michael's sick of you." She knew that her emotions were getting the better of her, letting these women know that they got to her, but at this point she couldn't help herself. She hated both of them for what they took from her.
Sasha scoffed. "Well, at least I'm welcome in the house. I don't see anyone there packing me up to go live with the boats."
"Shouldn't you be leaving?" Willow asked icily, coming up to stand beside Sasha, her arms folded.
"Oh, did I say I was leaving? Actually, I'm not going anywhere, so get used to it!" With that, she returned to her seat, trying to regain her composure while the two friends reoccupied their table.
"I'm totally jealous," Sasha said gleefully as they both settled into their seats. "How did it feel to slap Nelle in the face?"
"Extremely satisfying, especially when she brought up my son."
Sasha nodded. "I feel so bad for Michael," she said. "Having that woman as the mother of your child is a nightmare, and now he has this brutal custody battle looming…I just wish that there was something I could do." The thought of her boyfriend and his innocent little boy having to deal with Nelle distressed her more than she thought, she could even feel herself becoming a bit queasy from it. Although…that could also be possible morning sickness…
"It kinda seems that there is," Willow claimed with a smile.
Sasha instantly knew what she was referring to. "You mean marrying Michael?" She asked, a coy smile lifting her own lips. "Really?"
"I mean, I wouldn't want you to jump into something you're not ready for, but what if you were and you just didn't know it? You love him, he loves you, you might be having a baby…it could end up being perfect timing after all."
Before Sasha could reply, Julian came up to their table.
"Evening, ladies," he said.
"Evening," they chorused, curiosity (and a little bit of disdain on Willow's part, she had to admit, for the way that he treated her back when they thought that Michael's son was hers; she knew that he was just trying to protect his son and son-in-law from Shiloh and the possibility that she could take him back, but he could have been more civil to her) lacing their voices. Why was Julian Jerome coming up to them?
"I just wanted to offer my condolences to you, Willow, as well as my congratulations. Nelle is a nuisance and I know I shouldn't be saying this as a business owner, but watching you slap her made my night, so…" He handed them two menus. "Order whatever you'd like. Dinner's on me tonight as a thank you for giving Nelle what she deserved."
"Oh," Willow was blindsided. Of all things she could have expected from Julian, praise was certainly not it. "Uh, thank you."
The man just nodded and walked away.
Willow and Sasha faced each other again. "That was unexpected," the brunette commented.
Sasha's smile was so wide Willow thought her face would crack. "I guess it just goes to show you just how much Nelle's disliked in this town and that you're a godsend for putting her in her place," she said.
Willow laughed and couldn't help but agree before the two women opened their menus. The rest of their dinner passed by without a hitch; it was just a pair of best friends enjoying one another's company and after the hell she'd been through, it was the best thing—save for her growing relationship with Nina and her romance with Chase—that could have ever come her way.