For
the second time, Alexis found herself slowly coming to consciousness
like a swimmer trying to break the surface of the ocean. First,
there was the sense of floating…and a brightness just beyond
her eyelids…eyelids that were too heavy to lift. Then the sense
of something firm at her back, of laying on a mattress, of sheets
covering her body.
And there were sounds…bits and pieces of noise as if from a
dream….heard intermittently as though they were issued through
a broken microphone or through a cell phone with a weak signal.
They kept fading in and out, the beeps and whooshes and hums of
machinery around her body. And then there was also a voice…a
man’s voice. He sounded serious…concerned. She thought
she’d heard the voice before but couldn’t be sure.
“Serious condition…been touch and go all night…pressure
and swelling in this region of the brain…medication…can
be dangerous…we’ll just have to wait…will take some
time…we’ll see when she wakes up…no, Sonny, I said
when not if…get some sleep you look terrible…won’t
want to see you like this…gotta take care of yourself…if
not for you, then for her and Kristina…”
Sonny…Kristina…the names shot through Alexis’
body like a jolt of energy. They were alright. The two most important
people in her life were alright. She tried to force her eyes open.
But at the effort the pain slashed through the base of her skull
again.
She felt the warmth of a hand on top of her own and a body sliding
close to hers. The scent of cloves surrounded her. Sonny…She
breathed deeply and tried to speak. She could not. It was so frustrating
a scream started in her soul.
Moments later, she felt the precious weight of his head falling
gently to her chest and his hand lightly stroking hers where it
lay atop the bed sheet. And through the thin gown that evidently
covered her body she felt drops of liquid slipping down his face
and onto her arm…his warm tears coated her skin. Slowly she
felt him move up her body until his head nestled in the crook of
her shoulder. She felt his body shaking with the force of his emotion.
Her brave, strong Sonny was slowly collapsing under the weight of
his fears…
“Please,” she heard him say, his mouth moving now against
the skin of her neck. “Please…I can take anything except
this…You saved Kristina…Now save the woman I love. You
took Lily and two of my children before they drew breath. You took
Stone and I could do nothing to save him. You took my mother after
she suffered years of abuse. Are you going to take Alexis and finish
me off? Is that the plan? Well, the plan is unacceptable. You need
to bring her back to me, and let me be happy for the first time
in my life. She’s my peace, my honesty, my center, my moral
compass…If I don’t have her, you might as well hang up
any chance of redeeming me. I will live to destroy all my enemies.
So, if you want me to change my life, then give me back the woman
who has altered it the most…the one who taught me how to love.”
Alexis swallowed convulsively loving him all the more for his heartfelt
prayer. It was that love, the deep desperate love, in his voice
that gave her the strength to fight through the pain, to lift her
hand and place it gently atop his curly head.
“Only you,” she rasped through a throat that felt like
the desert, “would try to blackmail God into healing me.”
He stilled instantly, then slowly raised his head and met her beautiful
eyes with shock in his. His mouth fell open, and the tears came
faster down his face. “My God, you’re—you’re
awake…”
“Yeah,” she whispered, “and you’d better thank
the Big Guy since you just threatened Him over me.”
A laugh rumbled in her throat but ended in a bout of coughing that
made her close her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, she
found his eyes still glued to her face. “God, I love you,”
he vowed, and the fervent tone stopped her heart.
She stared up into his beautiful dark eyes as if seeking the truth.
She saw there his soul and knew that he meant his words. He wasn’t
holding her just out of a need to comfort…or just for Kristina…He
needed her. He loved her. And her heart swelled in her chest to
know that their time apart had not killed the feelings she saw plainly
on his face…the same feelings that had lived silently in her
for the past two years.
He meant it. She was his choice. Alexis did not see any doubt, any
residual emotion for any other lover in his face. Carly had been
wrong, so wrong. For here was all the proof that Alexis needed in
her lover’s eyes.
She brushed her thumb under his eyes gently. “No more tears;
we’re alright now.”
Sonny’s face became serious. “You’ve still got a
long road to recovery, Lex. There…there was some swelling in
your brain which made everybody nervous as hell…b-but Tony
says you’re going to be fine. You just have to rest. Promise
me you’ll rest.”
Alexis nodded gingerly as just that slight movement made her head
ache. “I promise, Sonny.”
Then she marveled as his face filled with a sudden fear. “What?
What is it?”
This time it was he who bit his lip. “I-I said I love you,
and you know, I don’t want to pressure you to make any promises
to me, not now…but it’s just that I need you in my life
and even if you don’t want to make it permanent by marrying
me I’ll accept that…but could you at least say you have
some feeling for me?”
She smiled tremulously as his nervous words went straight to her
heart. “I can’t believe it,” she whispered. “I
actually made Sonny Corinthos ramble.”
She touched his lips with her fingertips, stroked the curve of his
beloved face shadowed with a day’s growth of beard. And she
looked into his eyes and said the words she had waited two years
to say…
“I want to be with you forever…as your lover…as your
wife…as whatever you want me to be…because I love you
Sonny and for the first time in my life I am not afraid to say those
words.”
He closed his eyes in absolute relief. He chose her and she’d
chosen him right back. It seemed a lifetime ago that he’d begun
to feel connected to this woman, and now finally they were declaring
their devotion to each other.
“I swear to you this day that I will change my life for you…for
Kristina…for my boys. You mean that much to me.”
Alexis swallowed again, hardly able to believe what he was telling
her. He was going to leave the business for her? “I don’t
understand how you can do this,” she told him. “You’ve
known your life was dangerous; you’ve lost so much to it so
many times. Yet you didn’t give it up for Carly or for Brenda.
Why would you give it up for me?”
Sonny sat up a little, considering her words. He leaned forward
until his mouth was pressed against his hands which were folded
as if in prayer. “I used to crave the power like a drug…not
just for the money. I craved the power so that I could hide behind
it. I could hide that little boy in me who used to sell newspapers
to rich made guys in the old neighborhood. That little boy had been
beaten down by life, but he had a lotta pride and he was determined
never to beg from anyone anymore…never to be at the mercy of
neighborhood bullies, of arrogant school teachers, beat cops, absent
fathers and abusive stepfathers. That little boy wasn’t gonna
let anything or anyone touch his heart. He was gonna take what he
wanted and damn the consequences. He was gonna play life fast and
furious and think about it later.
“And with Brenda and Carly, I could be that little boy. They
liked the fast life, the toys I could buy, the games we would play…because
in a sense they hadn’t grown up either. But you…Alexis,
from day one, you saw straight past all that bull. You saw the hurt
and the pain and the insecurity inside me. You shared it. You made
me face it. You made me grow up. And you still stayed by my side
each time I fell back into that crap. You’re the only woman
who stood up to me like that…the only woman who fought me and
fought FOR me like a tigress. And I can’t believe I ever let
you go. I won’t be that stupid again.”
Sonny reached for her hand and drew it to his lips. “I told
you it would be okay,” he whispered. “It only took me
two years, but here we are.”
She smiled. “Here we are.”
And he leaned across her body to join his lips with hers, feeling
the surge of electricity that always accompanied their connection.
Her hands framed his face as his sank into her hair. When he had
thoroughly kissed her, he drew back slightly and smiled.
She felt the flutter in her chest and knew it was caused by his
kiss, his nearness, and the absolute love in his eyes. He had freed
Alexis from the bad guys, but she knew that her heart was his hostage
as of today and forever.
