The Doll
by SexisFan

Part 3 -- Interlude

Sonny sat in the darkened limo, looking up at the warm glow in the windows of Alexis' apartment. A shiver crept through his body. Outside, the snow fell softly as winter returned to claim its hold on the month of February. But it wasn't the icy chill in the air that caused Sonny's shudder. No, it was the intense sense of isolation and imprisonment he felt as he sat in the black night, staring at the windows to the home where another man was welcomed into the heart of the Davis family.

It should be me Sonny thought sullenly, his anger dulled by the anguish of knowing that he had only himself to blame for his position as an outsider, looking in on the family that by all rights could have been his. If he hadn't been so damned rash. If he hadn't been so damned hell-bent on claiming what was his. If he hadn't reacted as he always reacted, heart before his head. It was the temperament of his Latin blood, and it had cost him dearly throughout his life.

The fact that he was still alive, and still in power in his business, was more a testament to his incredible luck than anything else. Too often he lacked the cool head to handle things with his smarts rather than his heart, especially when it came to his personal life. Business he could detach from to some extent. But family - that was his weakness. That was the button that Deke had been able to push. It was the button that AJ had found by accident. It was the hook by which Carly had managed to keep him on her line. And it was what had separated him from the woman and the child who might have given the first real family he'd had since before he was too young to remember.

He wanted more than anything to rush up the stairs to Alexis' apartment and burst through the door. His hands itched with the desire to pull that smug psychiatrist out of Alexis' life by the collar of his damned coat. His arms ached to embrace the mother of his child. His eyes burned with the need to see his daughter daily.

But he would be smart this time. No matter how hard it would be, no matter how long it would take. He would not let his passions cost him what might be his last chance at true happiness and completion.

***** "You are the strangest man I've ever known."

"Well," Cameron shot Alexis a quizzical look. "I'm not quit sure how to respond to that. 'Thank you' hardly seems the appropriate reply."

Alexis laughed softly. "I wasn't insulting you."

"Glad to hear it," her friend responded wryly as he continued to sort through the pile of nuts, bolts, brackets, washers and a ponderous instruction booklet. "I'd hate to think that all my toil had only gone to earn me mockery."

Alexis laughed again, the sound ringing lightly throughout the cheery apartment. "You're just very different from any other man I've known."

"Is that so?" Cameron looked up from his work, a light dancing in his eyes. "In what way?"

Alexis shrugged, dropping her eyes shyly. "It's hard to put into words."

"I didn't think you ever had trouble putting anything into words."

Alexis looked up quickly, a mock expression of shock on her face. "Are you making fun of me?" she asked in a staged gasp.

"Merely acknowledging your facility with the language, my dear," Cameron replied with a grin before returning to the task laid out before him on the dining room table.

Alexis wandered around the table, peering over his shoulder as he continued to work at unraveling the array of components.

"You don't pry," she said finally.

"Excuse me?"

"Most of the men I've known in my life have pried into my business. Except for Sonny. He never pried. And you don't. Pry, that is." Alexis took a deep breath to stop her ramble.

"If you have something to tell me, I assume you'll tell me," Cameron answered distractedly.

"That's what Sonny used to say." Alexis continued around the table, stopping opposite Cameron and slipping into the chair facing him. "Aren't you even a little bit curious?"

Cameron raised his eyes to hers, the puzzlement clear in his expression. "About what?" he asked.

Alexis leaned forward, her elbows on the table. "About how an intelligent, responsible, respected attorney ended up conceiving a child with the local crime lord?"

Cameron raised a brow and offered a half grin. "I assume it happened in the typical fashion. I did attend health class the day they showed the film, Alexis."

Alexis felt the blush rising on her cheeks, cursing her reaction as she saw Cameron notice her embarrassment and widen his smile. "I didn't think you needed a diagram," she bit back.

Cameron laughed warmly. "No, I've no interest in diagrams," he answered, focusing again on the parts he was attempting to assemble. "But if you have pictures..."

Cameron laughed and blessed his exceptional peripheral vision as he ducked the instruction booklet that whizzed past his head.

*****

Sonny sat on the bench, staring out over the darkened river. It was quiet on the docks on winter nights such as this. The chill air off the water had a bite to it that was braved only by the foolish - or those unlucky enough to have no way of escaping a night spent outdoors. Sonny wasn't one of the unlucky ones, for sure. He had a luxurious home, warm and waiting for him. No, he was one of the fools - a man who had chosen had a path in life that was increasingly hard to face.

Going home meant facing Carly. It meant a barrage of questions. It meant occasional accusations. I meant continually trying to appease her insecurity, telling her over and over - with increasingly hollow words - that she was his wife and he was committed to her.

Behind those words, though, were more doubts than ever before. Before he'd known about Kristina, it had been easier to push memories of Alexis from his mind. When he could tell himself that he'd never known Alexis - that she'd abandoned him after he'd trusted her with his friendship - it was no chore to live in anger and hurt. It has been easier in his hurt and anger to think himself better off without her, no matter how much he might have missed her presence in his life.

It was different now. She hadn't rejected him, not in the way he had too easily believed. She had done what she thought she needed to do to protect her child - their child - his child. She had put concern for the baby ahead of anything else.

This wasn't like Carly and her lies. Her first lie about Michael's paternity had been to try to hold onto Tony. Her second had been to keep Tony and AJ from taking her child from her. Alexis wasn't trying to hold onto a man. And she knew - he hoped she knew - that Sonny would never take her child from her. Hell, even if he wanted to do such a thing, they both knew that he didn't have a chance of taking the child legally with his background, or even illegally, given her Cassadine money and powerful connections. She had nothing to fear from Sonny in that regard.

Her fear was that Sonny's presence in the life of his child would put that child in danger. The knowledge that she was probably right was like a knife through his heart. As long as Sonny had enemies who saw him as a potential target, his child would be a potential target as well. Sonny could promise with all his heart to protect them, but they both knew that his promises meant very little in the end.

Sonny shifted on the bench, his bones aching from the cold. He should go home, he knew. But the thought of being in that bedroom with Carly was too much. Each night for months, even before he knew about the baby - even while he'd been so determined to will himself to want Alexis out of his life - he'd been unable to climb into bed without remembering the night that he had spent with Alexis in that room.

It's...it's

It's right. It's right

It's...sudden.

Not for me

He'd openly admitted his desire for her. He'd held her and touched her in a way he'd imagined - and dreamed - for quite some time. He'd looked into her eyes and seen her soul that night. And he'd promised her that they hadn't wrecked anything between them. He'd promised her that everything would be okay. He'd lied.

It wasn't an intentional lie. He'd meant every word he'd spoken to her that night. He truly thought that changing their dance would only bring them closer together. Where it might have led, who could say. Never in a million years, though, had he expected it to lead to losing Alexis from his life.

But that's what happened. The pregnancy, her fears, Carly's manipulations, Sonny's own guilt and insecurity, the familiarity of the devil he knew, Kristina's death...it had all played a role in creating a chasm between them. The question he now asked himself was simple. Was the distance too great to be bridged by love for the little life that they'd created on that last night when they'd been free to be completely honest with each other?

*****

"You really aren't going to ask?"

Cameron sighed heavily. "Alexis, what is it that you want me to know?"

"I don't..."

"Obviously, you do. There is something about your - interlude - with Sonny Corinthos that you want to talk about. What is it?"

"I don't know that I'd call it an interlude..."

"I don't care if you put a feather in your cap and call it macaroni. What is it about Sonny that you want to discuss with me?" he replied testily.

Alexis' widened eyes fixed on Cameron's irritated expression. "Well, I hope you show more sensitivity with your patients, doctor."

"I am not your therapist and you are not my patient. Stop dodging the very topic that you've spent all evening trying to bring up. What do you want to get from a discussion about you and Sonny Corinthos?"

Alexis lowered her eyes and sat quietly. She let Cameron's question filter through her thoughts. Why did she want Cameron to ask her about Sonny? What would be the point?

"Alexis?" Cameron's voice had softened, his tone more sympathetic than just a few moments earlier.

Alexis lifted her eyes to his. "I suppose one of the things I want to know is what you think of me for being with Sonny."

"Why would I think anything about you for being with Sonny?" he asked, truly puzzled.

Alexis slapped her hands on the table and pushed her chair back so that she had room to stand. In a flash she was pacing across the living room, toward the roaring fireplace. "Come on, Cameron. He's a criminal, for heaven's sake. You don't have some reaction to knowing that I abandoned all of my principles for a pair of dimples and puppy dog eyes?"

"Love has a way of pushing principles aside, sometimes," Cameron replied softly.

Alexis whirled to face him. "It wasn't love," she denied, her shaky fingers playing at her trembling lips as she whispered the words.

"Wasn't it?" he pressed. "I may not know everything about you yet, Alexis. But I know enough to know that you more respect for your principles, and for yourself, than to have a fling on a passing felonious fancy." Cameron grinned at his own alliteration, hoping to lighten the heaviness settling in the room, and on Alexis' mood.

The levity was lost on Alexis, though, as silent tears welled up in her eyes and spilled softly over her lashes. Alexis spun on her heel, shielding her emotion from Cameron's intense attention. For several long moments she said nothing. The silence hung heavy in the air between them, but Cameron was not about to break it. He knew the power of silence. If he let it continue, it would eventually become too much for the other person to bear. It was a technique he'd become very comfortable using in his practice.

Alexis stood in the center of her stylish living room, her arms wrapped around herself in a self-comforting hug. Love. It had been so long since she'd thought Sonny in those terms. She was so used to feeling fear and anger when she thought of him. She'd almost forgotten what it had felt like for that very brief time when she'd been falling in love with him. Her tears fell more freely as hundreds of images of their friendship and flirtation flashed through her memory. It was a time she hadn't let herself remember in months - except for that brief time on Christmas Eve when she held her daughter, their daughter, for the first time. She couldn't help but think then about how ironic and sad that it was Sonny, her former friend, who had given her this greatest gift - the gift that he, himself, was being denied.

God, this was all so complicated. Anger she could handle. Fear she could handle. Those feelings were safe. Maybe that's why she'd pushed Sonny so hard during her run for DA. She was pushing him away, and making sure that he wanted to be as far away from her as possible. For a while, she thought it had worked. But now...

"I never meant to fall in love with him," she whispered, sinking defeatedly onto her sofa.

"No one plans love, Alexis."

"I didn't even realize that it was happening. My sister..." Visions of Kristina, her smile radiant, her expression teasing, flashed in Alexis' mind, stirring up the pain of her loss once again. "My sister knew it long before I did. She kept prodding me to admit my feelings. But I wasn't hiding my feelings, not on purpose, not from other people. I was hiding them from me, hiding them so well that I thought Kristina was nuts when she kept insisting that there was something going on between me and Sonny."

Cameron settled softly on the sofa, silent, not wanting to interrupt the flow of thoughts Alexis was finally voicing.

"God, it was so stupid," she declared, her head falling back so that she was staring up at the ceiling. "There was never any chance of there really being a romantic relationship with Sonny. Too many things stood in the way."

"Such as?"

Alexis sighed. "My job. My principles. His life. His wife."

"He was married then?"

"Not legally. But legal never matters with them. Carly has a hold on him that goes beyond any court or justice of the peace." Alexis turned to face Cameron, a wry smile on her tearstained face. "You know it my idea for him to marry her in the first place." She laughed lightly at the shocked expression on Cameron's face. "Yeah. Some of my mob lawyering at its finest. It kept him out of one prison, and put him into another."

"We were talking about you and your feelings, Alexis," Cameron reminded her.

Alexis smiled wider. "I was hoping you'd forget."

"I'm sure you were."

Alexis closed her eyes and tipped her face back up toward the ceiling. "I don't know what to say, Cameron. I don't know if I was really in love with him. Maybe I was in love with who he might have been if things had been different. Maybe I was in love with a part of him - a part that can't ever be separated from the parts of him that I despise. Maybe I was just in love with the idea of being in love with someone who wasn't available, someone who would be safe because there would never be a relationship that would hurt me."

"You haven't been hurt by this?"

Alexis opened one eye and peered at her probing pal. "Shut up."

Cameron grinned. "Love hurts, Alexis. You can't avoid it. It doesn't matter when or how it ends, but when it ends it hurts."

Alexis opened her other eye and looked straight into Cameron's gaze. "You aren't shocked that I fell in love with him?"

"Apparently you are."

Alexis thought a second. "Yeah. I guess I am. I've never been one to be led by heart. The thought scares me to death."

"Why?"

Alexis shrugged. "I don't know."

"Sure you do."

She thought a moment or two. "I guess...I guess it's because I come from a very passionate family. But their passions were...deadly. Emotion is something that was frightening for me when I was growing up. The emotions that filled our home - if you can call it a home - always meant danger and pain. Passions overtook reason, and people paid dearly for it. I'm scared to death to be like that. I don't want my life like that."

"So losing control of your heart to a dangerous man..." Cameron baited the hook and let it dangle.

"Made me live my greatest fear. I lost control. Passion over reason. And when it was happening, I didn't want to stop it. That scares me even more."

"Because you might want to lose control again?"

"No!" she protested, just a bit too quickly. "I don't ever want to lose control like that again."

Cameron's heart melted at the fear he saw in her eyes. "Alexis," he soothed. "You can't lock your heart away from the possibility of passion. It would be like living in a world void of color."

"I can do that," she countered. "I don't need the color. The price is too high."

"Your heart will not allow itself to be contained. It will either break free from your overcontrol, or it will die."

Alexis looked at Cameron's kind face, watching as his features blurred through the tears that were flowing once again. "I'm scared."

"Of what?"

"Sonny."

"Why?"

"He knows. He knows about Kristina. I'm sure of it. But...but he's not reacting the way I thought. I could handle him furious and threatening. But...but I don't know if I can handle him...reasonable. I'm so scared that any steps to repairing our friendship, even for our daughter's sake, would...would..."

"Cost you control of your heart again?"

Alexis nodded. "I'm scared to love him again."

Cameron gathered her into his arms and held her as she cried. It was not the time, he knew, to tell her that she'd never stopped loving Sonny Corinthos. She would realize that truth when she was ready.

***** Sonny sat on the bed, the bedcovers pulled back to expose the black satin sheets that Carly had been determined to be rid of. She'd insisted, after her "resurrection", on removing the bed and the sheets on which Sonny had bedded his "legal whore." Sonny had cringed at the slur, but at the time had been so steeped in guilt that he didn't offer a word in Alexis' defense.

"I was a fool," Sonny rasped into the darkness. Slowly, with great determination, Sonny lifted the glass to his lips and took a deep swallow of the burning whiskey. He hadn't been here since he'd had his men move the bed, sheets and all, to this particular safehouse. He hadn't wanted to admit to himself why held found it so hard to part with the "scene of the crime." He hadn't let himself think too seriously about coming out here to torment himself with the memories. But lately, the memories of what he'd lost tormented him all the time. He may as well stop running from them.

Sonny lifted the remote control and pointed it at the stereo. After a brief pause, familiar music began to play. The melody surrounded him, carrying him back to the night he and Alexis created an angel. He thought of his tiny daughter, so beautiful and so much like her mother. His arms had ached to hold her when he saw her in the park with Alexis the week before. He smiled at the memory of Kristina's tiny smile, offered as a gift to her father when he stroked her velvety cheek. Maybe next time, he'd said to Alexis. Maybe next time he saw them, he could hold his child. Maybe next time, Alexis would say the words that they both knew were true. Maybe next time he would look into her eyes and see that he hadn't killed everything she once felt for him. Maybe next time he'd see some sign that would give him hope that some future next time he could once again hold the mother of his child.

Sonny lifted his glass to the empty room and the pulsing beat. "To next time," he toasted before draining the glass and dropping it to the floor. Rolling over onto his side, Sonny gathered a satin sheathed pillow into his arms. It was a sad stand in for the woman he wanted. "Alexis," he slurred, burying his face in the dark satin. "It's time for next time" he vowed as he drifted off to sleep.

part 4