Losing Balance
by Lionel

chapter 11

Lorenzo kept his promise when they reached an empty bench by the playground. He sat down at one end of the bench as Mario helped Alexis get settled on the other. Mario then faded discreetly into the surrounding trees. Alexis rested her crutches against the bench, creating a physical barrier, however flimsy, between herself and Lorenzo.

"Tell me why I'm here again," Alexis asked. She was still recovering from the frustrating walk across the grass with her crutches, and her annoyance spilled over into her tone.

"To tell me about Helena," Lorenzo reminded patiently. He crossed his legs with a silky elegance that sent a ripple through Alexis, and he draped his left arm over the back of the bench, his left hand distractingly close. "I know her by reputation, of course, but if I'm going to send my men in there I need to know a lot more."

"I guess that's the part that I'm having trouble figuring out." She crossed her arms protectively and looked at him with a quizzical eye. "Why are you getting involved at all? This is my problem, not yours."

"Su problema es mi problema. Your problem is my problem," he jested. Alexis didn't smile. "I want to help you. You saved my life."

"You don't have to pay me back, Lorenzo. Let's just call it even and go our separate ways. You fight your fights, I'll fight mine."

"I can't just ignore what's going on with Helena. I'm a man of action, Alexis. It isn't in me to do nothing."

Alexis looked at him skeptically. "You'll have to pardon me, Lorenzo, but you don't really strike me as the sort of man who feels compelled to right all of the world's wrongs and protect all its victims."

Lorenzo breathed a frustrated sigh. He wasn't explaining himself well. "No, you're right. It's only you I want to protect. And it's not gratitude. Believe me, no one is more surprised by this than me, but it turns out that I like you, Alexis. And I would be upset if something happened to you."

Alexis absorbed his words but didn't dwell on them. "Okay. So you've provided me with some very impressive bodyguards." She gestured behind her toward where she assumed Mario was. "Why not stop at that? Why do something as risky as sending in spies?"

"We can't just sit here and wait for Helena to come after you."

"'We'?" She bristled at his choice of words.

"Okay, 'you'. You can't put your head in the sand about this, Alexis. I really think you need to be proactive."

Alexis nodded slightly. She spent so much of her time waiting, reacting, being afraid - of Helena, of Sonny, of Lorenzo. It would be nice to do something for once. "Okay. What do you want to know?"

He nodded encouragingly, pleased she was willing to engage. "Well, for a start, what sort of people does she like to hire? What kind of credentials will she be looking for?"

Alexis almost snorted. "Well, now that's a very interesting question. Let's see. Well, for skilled work - scientists and the like - Helena usually finds very talented people with a vulnerability - money, scandal, family - that keeps them in line. They all end up dead, sooner or later. And for manual labor -- you know, bodyguards, kidnappers and all that - well, how shall I put this? Helena requires certain additional . . . personal services." Lorenzo raised his eyebrows. "Her assistants are always young and handsome and very devoted. And when she tires of them, they end up dead, too." Alexis grew more serious. "Lorenzo, she is very dangerous. What you're contemplating is extremely risky."

Lorenzo brushed aside her concern. "My men are accustomed to dangerous work. They are well paid for it. They all have their reasons."

"I'm not sure any amount of money is worth . . . ugh . . . with Helena." Alexis shuddered.

"I'm sure I can find some men who will suit her needs."

Alexis glanced over her shoulder. "Mario seems like he might be well-suited to the demands of the job." She raised her eyes seductively.

Lorenzo looked taken aback. "I hadn't realized you were paying so much attention to Mario. And here I thought you only had eyes for me."

"Oh, it's hard not to notice Mario's . . . attributes." Alexis held back a smile and shrugged. "I'm a lonely woman."

His breath caught at the utter sexiness of her teasing admission. "I can help with that," he offered roughly, abandoning his elegant pose and turning his body to face her more directly. The move seemed to unleash the full force of his sexuality on her, and she squirmed uncomfortably.

Alexis focused on the playground and repeated a mantra in her head: "Babies, diapers, cheerios. Babies, diapers, cheerios." Once she could speak out loud, she tried to sound admonishing. "Let's move on, please. And stop smoldering over there."

"Okay," agreed Lorenzo, trying to adopt a more businesslike attitude. "What about this shopping spree? Any idea what Helena might be up to?"

Alexis shook her head. "No. It could be anything, given her track record."

"Like what?"

"Poison, mind control, reincarnation. You name it. You know my father tried to freeze the world?" Alexis said it as if it were only as bizarre as putting a giant reindeer in the front yard.

"Your father?"

Alexis nodded. "Mmm. Mikkos Cassadine. He had an affair with my mother."

"I didn't realize he was your father. That explains a lot." Alexis looked at him quizzically. "Like why Helena hates you," he improvised, not wanting to explain all the research he had been doing. Lorenzo reached for Alexis's hand, not certain if he was breaking the ground rules. He was relieved when she didn't pull away. "And your mother? Who is she?"

Alexis looked away, absentmindedly rubbing her neck. "I don't really like to talk about her."

"Okay. But I think it might be helpful. For this operation, that is."

Alexis couldn't begin to explain it, but somehow Lorenzo made her not want to hide. She felt bold, proud. "Her name was Kristen Bergman."

"Not the opera singer?"

Alexis nodded. "But she wasn't an opera singer when she met Mikkos. She was just a governess. But they fell in love, I like to think, and Mikkos set her up on the stage in Stockholm."

"She was good," Lorenzo said with admiration.

"Yes. But eventually Helena found out, and she killed her." Lorenzo felt Alexis's hand shaking, and he squeezed it tighter, not daring to move any closer. Buoyed by Lorenzo's touch and the compassion in his eyes, Alexis decided to tell him more. "I was there. I was five. Helena slit my mother's throat and ripped out her vocal cords."

Lorenzo had to suppress a shudder at the brutal image. He felt a rush of fury on behalf of the little girl Alexis had been. "Dios," he said softly.

"Then she took me back to Greece." Alexis's teary eyes looked toward the swings, but she was clearly seeing a distant past. "Helena didn't know that there was another child, my sister, Kristina. I tried to hide her when Helena was coming. I thought I failed. I thought she was dead all these years." Tears streamed down Alexis face. "And now she is."

Lorenzo wanted to take Alexis in his arms, but he was paralyzed by the disgust he felt over his own family's involvement in taking Alexis's sister from her again. "Why did she take you to Greece?"

Alexis shrugged. "I guess so she could show Mikkos that she had won. And they made a deal. Helena would allow me to live as long as I never found out who I really was. So they gave me a new name, and new parents, dead of course, and he never acknowledged me. Natasha Bergman was buried next to her mother, and Alexis Davidovich was born into a wretched world. I was a distant relation, orphan of some unimportant Cassadine no one remembered, taken in out of charity. And no one in that house ever let me forget it. Except for Stefan."

"You two were close?" Lorenzo had seen only enmity between the two.

"Not at the end. He was different then." Alexis rubbed at her eyes with the backs of her hands. "But for most of my life he was my only friend. He was the only one who cared if I lived or died. He taught me everything he learned, he protected me from their cruelty as well as he could, and when he had enough money and power of his own, he sent me away from that godforsaken island. He's the reason Alexis Davis exists. God, he could be so difficult, but I loved him."

"I know what it is like to love a brother like that, and then to hate what he has become," Lorenzo said carefully, terrified of stepping wrong.

Alexis shook her head, scowling. "I don't know why I'm telling you all this. I shouldn't be talking to you."

Lorenzo squeezed her hand. "I think it's helpful. And maybe you sense the same thing I did: that you and I have something in common. That maybe I can understand better than anyone."

"You know, Stefan is the reason I was at all those universities in Europe. You were right, I was being prepared for something. But by Stefan, not the Cassadines. We had our own plans. We were going to get rid of Helena and the rest of them, we were going to seize power for ourselves and usher in a new generation of Cassadines. But now he's gone. And it's just Helena and me. And another Kristina. I have to keep her safe, Lorenzo." Her voice was pleading.

"I know." He slid toward her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "How long have you known about your mother and Mikkos?"

Alexis didn't relax into his arm, but she also didn't pull away. "Just a few years. I had blocked out a lot. And once I found out, Helena told me she was going to kill me unless I did exactly what she said. For a while I did, and it was awful. I just sat there and waited - waited for her next demand, waited for her to kill me, waited for her to ask me to do something I just couldn't do. Finally a friend kicked me in the butt and told me I had to be proactive. I tried, but it didn't exactly go as planned. But since then Helena and I have been in an odd kind of equilibrium. We butt horns once in a while. She tries to kill me occasionally. Mostly I just wait."

"You don't have to wait anymore, Alexis. You can go after her. Let me help you. That dream you and your brother had. Do you still want it?"

Alexis groaned in weariness. "Sometimes. I want a lot of things, Lorenzo. But I'm old enough to know that that there are things you need to walk away from. No matter how much you want them." As if to accentuate her words, Alexis stood up, gathered her crutches and headed back toward the parking lot.

Lorenzo stood and walked next to her, his hand resting lightly on her lower back in a gesture of support. "Maybe you don't have to walk away from this." They walked in silence the rest of the way to the limousine.

chapter 12