what should have happened after Sonny's arrest for shooting Lorenzo...



Sonny completed lap 104 of his cell and sank back down on the cot. His wound was hurting, but he hadn't given into that pain... he'd simply stopped getting comfort from the rhythmic pacing of the cement floor. No doubt in a few minutes, sitting still would make him feel like he couldn't breathe and he'd be up again, but until then, he would try and relax and pool his energy.

His life on the lamb with Carly had ended quickly. Baldwin wasn't going to give in when he was so close to finally locking Sonny up and throwing away the key. They'd barely been out of the country 36 hours before Interpol agents surrounded them and cuffed them both. Sonny had lied, of course, and said he'd forced Carly onto the plane. Scott needed Carly's testimony to put him away, and so he had let her go for now, but Sonny didn't trust him for a second. If there was a way to use Carly to cause him more pain, Baldwin would find it.

Sighing, Sonny leaned his head back, closing his eyes. The quiet was forcing him to finally rethink the last several months of his life, and never before had he had such reason to marvel at his own stupidity. Irrational choice after irrational choice... they were piled upon each other now like playing cards, and the whole thing threatened to crash down around him. He had handed himself to Scott Baldwin on a silver platter. Perhaps the only good part was that Taggart wasn't here to enjoy it.

A tightening in his chest broke Sonny's thoughts, and he eased himself up and walked to the bars. His head rested against them, his face jutting out just a bit as if it would somehow grant him more space, more air. Ever since the PCPD denizens had found out about his claustrophobia, they were working overtime to make things as difficult as possible for him. The guards were often late for mealtime and for bathroom escorts, but Sonny knew they were simply waiting him out, hoping that the extra minutes ticking by would add to his growing sense of panic. He was trying to put up a brave face, but it was working. He wasn't sure how much more he could take.

Footsteps thundered down the hallway, and Sonny knew the overweight jailer Henry was on his way in. The man weighed 350 pounds if he weighed an ounce... but Sonny could see that beneath the layer of blubber, there was that recognizable layer of heavy muscle that enforcers in the organization were legendary for. No doubt many prisoners had taken the gamble that Henry was too fat and out of shape to be a real danger to them only to end up in the infirmary.

"Corinthos," Henry yelled, as he opened the door. "You got a visitor."

Sonny felt his throat tighten. He wasn't sure who he hoped or dreaded it might be... everyone he loved could be bringing him good or bad news. But the last person he'd expected was her... and she looked so different from the last time she'd walked into this space and shared it with him. No all-business suit and briefcase, no perfectly done hair. Instead, she was wearing faded jeans, winter boots, and a soft looking white sweater with a heavy coat over it. Her hair was pulled back... obviously done quickly and for the purpose of getting it out of her eyes. A smell also reached his senses, and Sonny felt himself smile despite his shock at seeing her. Baby powder... she smelled like baby powder.

"Hello, Sonny." She cleared her throat and waited for him to respond. Sonny stood straighter, his arms looping through the bars as he looked directly into her eyes.

"Alexis."

*****

She knew why she was here--all the reasons why she was here. There were the ones that would sound good and logical and right on paper, and there were the ones that would remain known only to her. They all mattered... and they had all prompted her to leave her cozy apartment while Kristina napped under Alice's watchful eye.

When she'd first arrived, Alexis felt shaky. The PCPD, which had once been a battleground for her many victories, had become a place filled with darkness and insecurity for her. The law had failed her because it had been corrupted. The one and only person she trusted who occupied these hallways now was Mac Scorpio, and it was him she sought out upon her arrival.

[I]"Mac, I was wondering if I could have a minute with Sonny."

She saw him fight the urge to scold her. Mac instead shook his head.

"Please tell me you're not involved with this mess."

"I'm not involved with this mess, I swear," she assured him. "It's... it's about something that's come up from when I used to represent him, and I just... I need to talk to him."[/I]

Despite his better judgment, Mac had agreed. And now here she stood, sweating hands clasped into tight fists in the pockets of her coat as she tried not to look away under the weight of Sonny's intense study of her.

"Hello, Sonny."

She nearly choked saying his name, and Alexis cleared her throat, hoping that perhaps that would make him do or say something. She needed that, needed some action from him to jumpstart her brain, because it was at present failing her.

"Alexis."

It sounded the same, the way he said her name. Not the same as it had been the last few times, but the same as it had been all those months ago when she wasn't someone he hated and he wasn't someone she needed to keep out of her life for the sake of their child. The warmth of the tone washed over her, and Alexis took one step closer to the cell, her fingers unclenching inside the warm coat pockets.

"I, um, I needed to speak with you for a minute if you don't mind."

He glanced away from her toward Henry and nodded. "It's fine."

The jailer turned and made a quick exit, not at all interested in what was, to Alexis, a monumental moment. She was now alone with Sonny; the two neighboring cells in this section both sitting empty. Alexis shuddered as she remembered her own short incarceration in one of these metal-barred boxes.

"Taking pity on the peasants today."

He delivered the remark without rancor, and yet Alexis and Sonny both picked up on the significance of the word choice he had made. She dropped her eyes a moment, reminding herself of the "why" of her visit, and then she returned her gaze to him.

"I wanted to talk to you... about Justus."

"You talked to him?" Sonny asked, curious. Alexis nodded.

"He, um, he asked me to help defend you. I... I told him no, Sonny, but I... I wanted you to know, to understand, that it wasn't... "

Her voice faltered. The explanation had been so simple in her car as she'd rehearsed it driving over here, but now, staring at the eyes of the man whose smile she saw on Kristina's face every day, the words did not want to come. Instead, she wanted to say, yes, damn it, I will help you... I'll help you because I've been where you are, and even if I think what you did is ridiculous, I understand. But she didn't. She couldn't.

"You think I'm where I belong."

Sadness filled Sonny's words, and Alexis couldn't stop herself from moving closer, her hands finally pulling free of the wool overcoat in order to reach out toward the bars. She stopped short of touching him, and instead let her hands fall to her sides.

"No, that's not it. That's what I came to tell you. This isn't about my being vengeful, Sonny, or thinking you're getting what you deserve. I... I don't begin to understand what made you think this was the best solution to what's been happening in your life, but I swear, I am not judging you. It's just... Judge Farmer hates me, Sonny. She hates me. If I give her a glimpse of a reason to reopen Kristina's custody as an issue, she's going to do it, and I just..." Tears burned at Alexis' eyes as even the idea of having to fight yet again for her child overwhelmed her. "I've lost so much time with my daughter. I just cannot risk even another day."

He was quiet for a long moment, and Alexis began to think that no explanation she could give would make him see that she truly didn't want to see him here, that she was not seeking some payback against him by refusing to help keep him out of prison. Then he nodded and drew back from the bars.

"I understand. Family is what matters."

Alexis watched as he wandered back toward his cot and sat down on it. He looked so tired, and she noticed the wince of pain as he finally relaxed down on the bed. This time, when she reached for the bars, she didn't stop herself... and her fingers wrapped around the metal his had so recently touched.

"She's my whole life. I want you to be with your family, Sonny. I've always wanted that for you. But I can't risk mine to get you back to yours."

"Yeah," he agreed, his hands running over his hair, "you're right, you can't. You gotta take care of your daughter. Don't worry about it. I'll find a way around this."

That should have been the end of it. Alexis had made her choice for their daughter's sake, and she had come here to deliver her message for both Kristina and for herself. She should leave now... but she didn't. She didn't because his voice stopped her as it had once before on a day when he had looked just as tired and just as beaten as he did now.

"She's happy, I bet, now that she's home."

Alexis smiled. "I hope so. She seems content."

"That's good," he said. "I'm, uh... I am glad that finally worked out for you."

Nerve endings throughout her body were screaming for her to say a quick thank you and leave, but her heart... damn her traitorous heart, because it wouldn't let her, not when she knew what being in that cell did to him... not when she knew firsthand how torturous it was to sit there and imagine all the evil Scott Baldwin was out there weaving together to keep you behind those bars forever.

"I ran into Bobbie at the hospital," Alexis told him. "She said Morgan is beautiful. Congratulations, by the way."

His dimples barely appeared, but just the flash of them seemed a victory right now. "Yeah, he's, uh... he's wonderful."

Guilt and regret tried to swirl up in Alexis, but she fought them back. She would always hate that she'd felt she had to keep the truth about Kristina from Sonny, and she would always wish that she'd been wrong. But didn't this current drama in his life only prove that she'd been right? Even if she understood what drove Sonny to the point where he'd made the choices he'd made, Alexis couldn't help but be grateful that her daughter wasn't going to have to live through Sonny's ordeal.

Still, there was so much she would have wanted to see--the look on Sonny's face when he held her for the first time, the day Kristina called him "daddy," that inevitable moment when the master manipulator found himself outplayed by his beautiful child. But it didn't seem life was going to grant her those wishes, and Alexis was resolved to it. Yet acceptance did not change the fact that he was and would always be Kristina's father, and as much as Alexis had thought that bond might be broken, the truth had dawned on her over and over again since their daughter's birth. She united them forever... and what happened to him would always matter for that one singular reason.

"Are you, uh, are you okay in... you know, in here?" she asked, unable or unwilling to discuss the state of their children any longer. Memories flashed through her mind at the near panic Sonny had endured here in the lockup that day she'd been with him.

[I]"I would have remembered you."

"I would have remembered you, too."[/I]

And, yes, she remembered.

"You know me, counselor. I'll get through it."

Alexis nodded. Again she thought, 'go, leave right now.' Again she stayed.

"You know, when, uh, when Stefan set me up for that thing with Ned and Scott had me locked up, um... "

She saw recognition in his eyes. Sonny hadn't forgotten that shared sense of powerlessness they both endured when it came to feeling threatened or out of control.

"How'd you handle it?"

Alexis gave him an honest answer. "I thought about Kristina... about her being with me. Always somewhere beautiful and open... my favorite beach in Greece... this stunning botanical garden I went to once in California... my favorite picnic spot in New Hampshire... it wasn't foolproof, but it helped."

"And now you have her back," Sonny said, his voice low and wistful. "Now you have her and your freedom and you can take her any of those places."

The smile came unbidden... so strong, so powerful that Alexis could feel it, literally, tugging at her heart. "Yes, I do... and yes, I can. Maybe if you focus on that... on Carly and your boys and some place special you want to be with them... maybe before you know it, you'll be there."

The brown of Sonny's eyes had seemed faded to Alexis when she'd first come in, but she could swear that light ignited behind them at her suggestion. Maybe she had helped; she didn't know. But it was time to go. This time, her heart agreed with her mind and her instincts.

"Well, Kristina's going to wake up from her nap soon, so I should..."

"Yeah," Sonny said, standing and walking toward her. When he stopped, their faces were barely a few inches apart, the bars really all that stood between them. "You, uh, you should get back to her. But thank you for coming. I... I believe what you said, and it means something to me, even after... you know."

She chuckled slightly and nodded. "Yeah, I know. Good luck."

He smiled at her--his "Teflon Don" smile--and Alexis saw through it as clearly as she had the million other times he'd tried to use it on her. He was scared to death... and she had to walk away and leave him there to face it. She had to do it for their daughter.

Henry had been listening for her knock, and after Alexis rapped on the door, he opened it and let her out. She walked quickly down the hall and out to the elevator that would take her back up to the main level. When the doors opened, she saw Justus talking to Mac across the room.

Reaching into her pocket, Alexis let the fingers of her right hand trace the shape of the key that lay inside. After a beat of consideration, she palmed it and walked over, apologizing for the interruption, but asking for a moment alone with Justus. The two attorneys wandered into the outer hall together.

"So you came to see Sonny," Justus began, "does that mean that..."

"I can't, Justus, and I explained to you why. I just wanted Sonny to know why, too."

He eyed her suspiciously, and for a moment, Alexis wondered if Justus knew more about her than she wanted him to. When he shook his head and sighed, she dismissed the thought as paranoia.

"Alexis, you know what Baldwin is like. He almost destroyed your life."

"I almost destroyed my life by making a lot of bad choices," she corrected, "but, yes, Baldwin set out to take as much advantage of that as he could."

"And he'll do the same thing to Sonny. You know that."

"Yes. Yes, I do." Alexis held her hand out to Justus, the small silver key laying in her palm. "And that's why I think you should take this."

The lawyer stared at her offering a moment before finally picking it up. He looked it over, then sent a questioning glance her direction.

"You seem to know a great deal about what happened with me and Scott Baldwin during your absence," Alexis stated. "How much do you know about what happened with Laura Spencer and her father?"

"I followed the whole thing. Another Baldwin special," Justus said with a disgusted edge in his voice.

"Exactly. And if you take that key to the cold storage warehouse at Sixth and Tyler, I think you're going to find that Baldwin's involvement in that case was even shadier and more repugnant than you've imagined. Good luck."

She turned, heading for the doorway. Alexis was tempted not to stop when Justus called her name, but curiosity won out.

"If you had dirt on Baldwin," he asked, moving closer, "why the hell didn't you use it to help yourself?"

Alexis laughed, a bitter edge to what should have been a joyous sound. "I spent a lifetime holding to my faith in the justice system, and Scott Baldwin destroyed that in under a year. By the time I realized just how corrupt he was, how far he was willing to go for Quartermaine dollars and the sheer pleasure of destroying lives, I'd made too many mistakes for any leverage on him to help me. In fact, it probably only aided me that by then he'd proven to be such an ineffective buffoon."

She stopped and looked around, making certain that no one was nearby them. "But, Justus, Scott hates Sonny... HATES him. He will stop at nothing to bring him down... and so you have to stop at nothing to save him."

"So you're willing to give me this, but you won't defend him?" Justus shook his head, clearly knowing there was more to the story, but finding himself unable to put his finger on it. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Does it have to?" Alexis asked. "You have a client to save. Save him."

She could feel Justus' eyes on her as she headed out of the PCPD and toward her car and a hot bath and a night of snuggling with her baby girl. She had done all she could to help Sonny... and now she had to leave him in the care of others.

*****

"Henry, open the door. I wanna check on claustrophobia boy."

Nearly everyone who wore a uniform at the PCPD, be it jailers or cops, hated Scott Baldwin. He was tarnishing all of them with his backroom tactics, and Henry especially despised him because Marcus Taggart had been a good friend of his before Baldwin had single handedly run him out of town. Henry knew only his hatred of Baldwin was making him feel sorry for Sonny Corinthos given all he knew about the man... but sorry he felt.

"He's asleep," Henry said flatly, though he almost laughed when he saw the stunned look on Baldwin's face.

"Asleep? I thought he was freaking out about being in the cell?"

"Guess not."

Henry motioned toward the security screen and sure enough, there it showed a picture of Sonny sleeping peacefully on the cot in his cell. Frustrated, the D.A. stormed off, and Henry rolled his eyes and turned back to his latest issue of "Sports Illustrated."

Meanwhile Sonny Corinthos was dreaming. He had tried Alexis' suggestion when his weakened state had made him finally lay down, but it just hadn't worked. He could see himself with his boys in Puerto Rico, but every time his mind pulled Carly into the picture, it would jerk him out of the partial state of sleep he'd reached. But then he'd started thinking... not about anything specific, just about times when he'd felt panicked... when his demons had threatened to override him in the past. And before long, he'd imagined himself not with his kids or with his wife, but on a yellow-gold couch in the penthouse across from the one he called home. He was covered with a purple chenille blanket, and he felt safe and relaxed and his mind was clear.

When she walked by him in the dream, Sonny did not awaken. Instead, he noted the scent of her perfume and the soft tread of her steps as Alexis walked toward the stairs and up to her own room.

Roses... her fragrance had been roses before it had become baby powder.

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