Alexis' eyes shot open at the first utterance out of her daughter's
mouth. Kristina was standing in front of her, and she, Alexis Davis,
was lying on her side on the couch -- with Sonny Corinthos lying
behind her, his warmth pressed up against the length of her backside
and his large arm wrapped snugly around her waist.
"Hi honey!" Alexis said in a whisper, but with a very
bright smile, hoping against hope she could get through the next
five minutes in a way that wouldn't be traumatic to Kristina. "Okay,
mommy's going to get your juice. Can you be a good girl and go back
to the bedroom and wait for me?"
Kristina blinked twice. "But I not sleepy."
Just then, a deep groan came from somewhere behind Kristina's mother,
and the little girl gasped. Then a head appeared behind her mommy's
head -- it was the Big Man they'd been with for a while, now. He
looked like he didn't know where he was. He looked down at her mommy
and then he looked at her and then he looked down at her mommy again,
then he just blinked and blinked and blinked.
Kristina giggled. "Big Man's sleepy!" she squealed, pointing.
Alexis smiled back at her wanly and craned her neck around to look
at Sonny. He gave her a grin that stopped her beating heart. "I
have to go get Kristina her juice," Alexis said.
As she moved his hand away and extracted herself from the couch,
Sonny said, "Leaving the scene of the crime?" Alexis shot
back a look of death at him for trying that line on her a second
time.
*****
They had only planned on stopping briefly at the Woodsons to say
goodbye and pay them a full month's rent, but Alexis decided to
check her messages one last time before they started their long
drive west.
The first two mailboxes she called were empty. The third one had
an abbreviated message from Jax: "Alexis, wherever you are,
you've got to leave there now. Helena knows --" His voice cut
off abruptly, and that was the end of the message.
Alexis felt her stomach clench up as she checked the fourth number.
She knew even before the message started whose voice it would be.
"Hello Alexis." Helena, thought Alexis, as she
began a slow panic. "I've found your little hiding place. Your
friends did their best to distract me, but I've caught onto your
trail. Mr. Jax and I had a small...discussion, and my staff members
managed to extract the list of telephone numbers he's been using
to communicate with you. So I've decided to give you some advance
notice. After all, it's the polite thing to do. I'm coming for you,
Alexis. Oh, but don't worry. I'm not going to do away with you --
at least, that's not my first choice. Instead, I propose a deal.
If you give me your daughter, the last Cassadine heir, then I will
allow you to live. Those are my terms. Let me raise Mikkos' only
grandchild, and you won't have to die. I'll meet you in your charming
rustic cabin at seven o'clock tonight. Your good protector, Mr.
Corinthos, had better be gone by then. And make sure he doesn't
take Kristina when he goes. My staff will be watching you."
Alexis was shaking by the time she hung up.
****
"Are you sure about this?" Sonny asked as they drove to
the small grocery store.
"It'll work," Alexis said with hundred times more confidence
than she felt. "It has to."
It was a stroke of luck that Helena had left the message in the
early hours of the morning and Alexis had retrieved it so early.
It gave them enough time to put together a plan to get Kristina
out of New Hampshire and back to Port Charles safely. Alexis checked
her watch; it was nearly five o'clock. Nearly time to put the plan
into action.
"Are they behind us?" she asked Sonny.
He checked the rearview mirror. Four men in two cars had been watching
them all day, and sure enough, they were trailing them on the road
now. "Yup," he answered.
"You know, you could have left earlier," Alexis said.
"Kristina and I could have done this on our own."
"I know that," Sonny said, just as irritated as he'd been
earlier, when she'd tried to get him to leave right after she heard
Helena's message. "I'm not leaving until Kristina's safe."
He let out an exasperated breath and looked at Alexis' profile in
the dark car. "I don't want to leave you at all."
"Well, you're going to have to," Alexis said firmly, not
looking at him.
A few minutes later, they arrived at the store. Helena's four goons
stepped out of their cars and stood outside the store windows as
Sonny and Alexis, carrying Kristina wrapped up in a warm blanket,
went in.
There were only a few other customers there: another couple, and
two girls from the boarding school in their green and grey uniforms,
one of them carrying large bags full of Christmas presents and the
other one holding a large teddy bear in a red-and-green blanket.
Sonny picked up a handbasket and went to the snack food aisle, picking
some road trip items off the shelves. Alexis went to the baby food
aisle, on the other side of the store. Suddenly, there was a loud
crash as Sonny toppled a small display at the edge of the aisle.
The store clerk rushed over to help Sonny restore the display.
Alexis peeked out of the window and saw that Helena's men were focused
on watching Sonny and the clerk. Quickly, she carried Kristina to
the back of the store, where the two schoolgirls were waiting behind
tall stacks of boxes.
Alexis smiled as she approached them. "Hi Maxie. Hi Georgie.
Thanks for coming on such short notice."
"No problem, Ms. Davis," said Maxie. "It's cool when
we get to go on the secret missions instead of our mom."
Quickly, Alexis unwrapped Kristina from her blanket and gave her
to Maxie. Georgie handed Alexis the giant teddy bear she'd been
carrying. Alexis swaddled the stuffed toy in Kristina's blue blanket,
while the girls wrapped up Kristina in the teddy bear's Christmas
blanket, making sure that no part of her would be visible outside
the corners of the red and green cloth.
Alexis' eyes watered as she touched Kristina's face in a goodbye
gesture. "Mommy will see you soon, sweetie. Felicia will take
good care of you." Turning to the girls, she said, "Please
tell your mother thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Make sure
you get back to Port Charles safely."
"Oh we will," Georgie said. "Elizabeth drove us in
the van Kelly's uses for deliveries. She's parked a couple of blocks
away. We'll hide with Kristina in the back -- no one'll see us."
"Well then, thank Elizabeth for me, too. Take care, girls."
With that, Maxie and Georgie left the store, gossiping and laughing
like any schoolgirls, Maxie toting her bag of gifts and Georgie
holding Alexis' whole life wrapped up in a festive blanket, as if
she were a teddy bear.
Alexis, carrying the fake Kristina-bear, walked up to Sonny, who
was just about done re-stacking the cans he'd so clumsily knocked
over. "All done?" she asked.
"Sure thing," he said. They paid for the few items in
Sonny's basket and left.
****
"I don't want to leave!" Sonny said, nearly shouting.
They were back at the cabin, and it was past six o'clock. Less than
an hour until Helena showed up.
"Look, Helena won't make any deals with me if you're still
here at seven. She'll just kill me outright, and you too, probably.
I know that's not what you want," Alexis said.
"Of course that's not--" Sonny was so frustrated, he didn't
know what to do with his hands. He put them on his head, then on
his hips, then finally, on Alexis' shoulders. "Okay. I'll go.
If I had any other choice, I wouldn't do it."
"But you don't have a choice. And you trust me to take care
of myself," Alexis said, hoping she could stay strong enough
to force him to go.
"Once Helena realizes that teddy bear isn't Kristina, she will
try to murder you, Alexis. She'll be armed for sure." He cradled
her face in his palm. He tried to push down any thoughts that this
might be the last time he saw her, but the thoughts kept breaking
the surface.
"I'll be alright," Alexis said, though she was trembling
slightly.
"You have to promise me," Sonny said intently, staring
into her eyes.
"I promise. I'll get through this night alive. For Kristina's
sake."
"And mine?" he asked, sounding like a small boy afraid
of a nightmare.
Alexis hesitated, terrified even now to admit to the feelings between
them, but then nodded. "And yours, too. Who knows, if I get
through this intact, you may just get me back as a lawyer,"
she tried to joke.
"When you get through this, I'm gonna get you as a lot
more than that," Sonny said. He brought her face close to his
and kissed her with the force of a passion he'd suppressed for many
years, and with a terrible, aching fear that it would be the last
time their lips met. "I'll see you soon," he breathed
against her mouth. Then he forced himself to let her go.
When Sonny drove away, the two cars with Helena's henchmen followed
him. Alexis stared into the fire and took long, deep breaths. It
was time to get ready to face the greatest terror she'd ever known:
Helena Cassadine.
****
At a quarter-hour before seven, when he was sixty miles out of town,
Sonny finally got service on his cell phone. He dialed Johnny's
cell number. "I need you to do something right now," he
said. He'd actually told his men six days before to look for Helena
lurking around Port Charles, and if they saw her, to kill her on
the spot. But Helena had been clever at concealing her movements;
she was seen only when she wanted to be seen, and always in the
presence of several armed guards. Now, though, with Helena on her
way to New Hampshire, Sonny could at least have his guys get rid
of her goons. If Johnny could find some guys to meet up with Sonny
in time and help him dispose of Helena's men, he would be able to
go back to the Woodson's farm to help Alexis in the fight of her
life.
****
Helena entered the small cabin without knocking. It was dark except
for the low flames in the fireplace.
Alexis stood on the opposite side of the room. Between them, on
the couch, was Kristina's car seat. Helena could see that the child
was inside.
"It's the right decision, Alexis," Helena said silkily,
approaching the car seat. "I promise I'll take good care of
her. Just as good as the care I took of you, when you were a little
girl."
"That's exactly what I'm afraid of," Alexis replied. Helena
reached in to pick up the child from the seat -- and found a large
stuffed bear instead. Angrily, she threw the bear onto the fire.
The flames sputtered and grew, consuming the stuffed animal.
"That was a mistake," said Helena, eyes flashing. "In
a long line of your mistakes. The first ones were being born to
your whore of a mother and being fathered by my husband!"
"And my greatest mistake after that, Helena, was not running
away from you as far as I could, not convincing Stefan to come with
me and go anywhere that was away from you," Alexis answered
in a voice just as cold. "You terrorized me all my life. You
abused me in all the ways you could except physically -- that
Mikkos would never have tolerated. You were a horror to your own
children, and you were a thousand times worse to me."
"You're such a weakling," Helena said, walking closer
to Alexis. "Just like Stefan. Weak and cowardly. He had some
intelligence, but no backbone. And in a world like ours, the weak
don't deserve to survive."
"You made sure he didn't survive," Alexis said,
squaring her shoulders as Helena approached. "You killed him
in cold blood. Just like my mother. I might have suspected you wouldn't
hesitate at killing Stefan, but Nikolas? I knew you'd lost the last
vestiges of your soul when I realized you set the fire that killed
him."
"Nikolas took Stefan's side against me. After all the love
I gave him. How dare he oppose me," Helena said righteously,
but her voice shook with emotion.
"You killed them, just as you killed my mother. You're a monster
and a witch. But your time is over, Helena. You're still mortal,
and your sun has set. You won't live much longer. And when you're
dead, I'll host a feast on top of your grave."
"Bastard," Helena spat at her, then pulled out a handgun.
She walked around Alexis and came to a stop right behind her. "Get
down on your knees."
Alexis knelt down on the ground. She put her hands behind her head,
just under the nozzle that she could feel brushing against her hair.
"You're going to do this execution style. I would have expected
something more morbid."
"Oh, it'll be morbid enough when it's done, my dear,"
Helena said. "Do you have any last words before you go?"
Alexis braced herself. This was her chance. If she could wrestle
the gun away from Helena now, she'd have a shot at survival.
Just then, the door to the cabin crashed open. "Alexis!"
Sonny shouted as he burst through.
Helena, surprised, raised her gun and fired at Sonny. The shot went
wide, missing Sonny's head by a few inches. Alexis turned and in
the same motion, drew Luke's knife out from her sleeve, and plunged
it into Helena's heart. Helena fell backwards, dropping the gun
as she collapsed to the ground.
Alexis crouched over Helena's gasping, bleeding body and withdrew
the knife. It was clear the old woman would die, but Alexis, filled
with bloodlust, wanted to send her off in a special way. "That
was for Stefan and Nikolas," Alexis seethed, burning with her
hate and rage. "I want you to know, before I finish you off,
Helena, that this knife belongs to Luke Spencer. Fitting, don't
you think?" Helena's blue eyes went wide with fear as Alexis
raised the sharp blade once again. "Now this is for my mother.
Goodbye, Helena." Alexis slit Helena's throat in one clean
stroke.
