Alexis blinked her eyes. She looked down at her vodka on the rocks. An alcoholic beverage suited to both her heritage and her mood.

Actually she wanted to forgo the rocks and drink it straight down like a truly exiled Russian but she had to stay sober enough to drive back to her new house, built on the ashes of her old one. Completely refurnished and restocked with everything she needed.

And nothing that she didn't…including a replica of that orange rug. She chose a Native American style rug to contrast with the new hardwood floor.

"Alexis…"

She looked up and saw Coleman wiping down the bar. It hadn't been a busy night. No one had tried to hit on her or buy her a drink. No bar fights, no pool cues broken over heads, no corny music playing on the jukebox.

An unusually slow night in PC.

Reaching for her glass, she gulped the rest of the vodka down, the ice melding into the liquor bringing both chill and warmth to her throat. The numbness which hit the core of her chest, the sensations of overly taut muscles relaxing.

"I'll have another…."

Coleman knit his brows.

"Really…first you go for the Vodka when you usually drink chardonnay that Mac keeps hidden in the cellar just for you…"

She wagged her finger.

"No not true…I also hit the Scotch and if I was really feeling like my world fell apart I'd be chugging the vodka out of the bottle."

He frowned, while he refreshed her drink.

"Your world falling apart. You keep your shit straight and in its proper place better than any other lady I know."

Alexis grimaced.

"Do you have to call me a lady? It sounds so…"

He leaned against the counter towards her.

"Sounds like what?"

She sighed, taking another swig of her drink.

"Like…like I'm nothing…like that. I'm a murderess for Christ sake…oh I probably shouldn't have said that but…you get my meaning?"

He eyed her carefully and she knew something she'd not meant to say had slipped enough to cause wariness to show on his face.

"Alexis…what's going on here? Your legal skills are slipping because you confessed to murder. I think you're okay though because the confidentiality between a bar tender and his customer is as sacred as that in the confessional."

She shook her head slightly.

"Coleman there's a few things wrong with that analogy. Legally speaking…"

He looked crestfallen then burst waggled his eyes.

"I guess I'll have to marry you then. I still got the Grateful Dead tee-shirt somewhere and enough gas on the motorcycle to get us halfway to Vegas…."

Alexis sighed wistfully.

"Almost sounds tempting. I would love to get away for a while. Get in a car and keep on driving until I reached an ocean…get on a boat and sail to Greece take a train or an oxen wagon over the mountains back to Russia where we came from…"

Coleman eyed the half empty Vodka glass and then back at her face. "

"I'll take your word on it. Now on this marriage thing, I'm partly serious…."

She chuckled despite herself.

"You know I only marry for business, never for love. Besides I'm focusing on my career right now."

He arched his eyes.

"Now I know there's a story behind that."

She picked up her glass again.

"Pour your poison of the week and then we'll talk."

He shook his head.

"Bartender can't sample the merchandise. House rule."

Her mouth almost curved into a smile.

"I won't tell if you don't tell…now pour a glass…"

He hesitated then shrugged.

"Oh what the hell? Besides I know where the boss keeps his best stash."

She watched him walk away in his khaki pants and plaid shirt. Coleman had his own rules for mixing and matching his outfits but she'd grown used to it. She shifted on her barstool relieved that she'd opted for her black denim jeans and matching woolen sweater. At least the winter chill hadn't followed her in the bar. Coleman returned with an exotic looking bottle with Cyrillic writing on it.

"What is that?"

Coleman shrugged.

"Have no idea? Can't read Cyrillic. Just hope that it's not going to kill me going down."

He poured a glass and she watched him carefully as he sipped slowly then slugged it down. Slapping his glass on the counter with a satisfied sigh. She tilted her face.

"So how did it…go down?"

He grinned.

"Smooth as the ice on Spoon Lake…just before the sun rises."

She pursed her lips and then rested her chin on her hand, watching him pour himself another glass.

He put the glass back down, wiped his mouth and looked back at her.

"So back to what we were talking about," he said, "So why do want to cut out of PC? Isn't this town wild enough for you?"

She bit her lip, whether to stifle a giggle or a sob she couldn't guess. She had been holding it all together for so long, with no one to talk to or even to notice that she had been thinking anything at all. It's not like anyone ever asked how she was feeling about anything and if they had…what would she answer.

She didn't honestly know. Right now she didn't care. Coleman tried again.

"Alexis…seriously you'd leave us. You'd leave me after you worked so tirelessly to free me from that hell hole they put me in at Pentonville. I mean I haven't really had a chance to thank you properly yet."

She smiled fingering the rim of her glass.

"Your check cleared. That's thanks enough. It'll help buy an oak desk I've been eying for my new office."

Coleman smirked.

"Just a desk… So Alexis why do you feel like splitting? I mean you don't usually run away from anything…well except at one of your weddings."

She sighed.

"Ned still hasn't forgiven me for that and it's been over 10 years. Get over it already. Just this morning…I ran into him with Olivia at the MC and he brought it up and chided me for being petrified of becoming a member of his family. The thought…I'm a Cassadine, the Qs are what our ancestors would round up, slice up and serve as an appetizer with the caviar."

He grinned again.

"I love it when you talk culinary…especially since you can't cook."

She shrugged, and felt herself tensing again so she reached for her Vodka.

"Good one…you're witty tonight…and cute…"

He grew serious.

"What's going on here Alexis? Why are you hanging out here cheering me up with your presence instead of home with your family?"

She shrugged.

"My family…You do know Molly hasn't spoken to me in three months since she moved in with her father. You know the one parent who truly loves and understands her. I've barely even seen her."

Sadness filled her heart where it'd felt empty without it. She brushed a tendril of hair off her face.

"What about Sam?"

Alexis smiled slightly.

"She's working a large caseload, trying to get over losing Jason, all over again. Now that his killer is locked up preparing to be shipped off to Super Max in Colorado. It doesn't help that…her father was working for or with him."

"You mean Julian Jerome."

Alexis made a face.

"Who else? I don't want to talk about him...or her. I want to talk about something else…"

Coleman watched as she slid the glass towards him for a refill. He stopped it.

"No Alexis…I'm cutting you off and I'm getting you something to eat. Some of Mac's famous tapas. Just need to heat them up…"

She shook her head.

"I'm not hungry, but I am thirsty."

He sighed.

"What's going on here? You dumped that mobster and it's probably for the best. Sounds like trouble and anyone who would drop you…for a…"

"Younger model? She's pretty too…and apparently she was fertile…."

"Alexis…if the guy was too drunk or too stupid to slap on a glove…well he's going to pay the piper for at least 18 years."

She winced.

"Did I say she was younger and pretty? She cooks really, really well. She cleans, I'm sure she does the laundry too."

She raised an index finger in the air.

"I can't do any of that and it's my fault. Hell everything's my fault in this town. Let's see…"

She waggled the fingers on one hand and started touching them with an index finger doing a countdown.

"Ric blames me for thinking with my…parts and subjecting to a hellish existence in witness protection, Molly blames me for not siding with her daddy not so dearest…Sometimes I'm tempted to tell her a little bit more about her daddy…but I can't hurt her even though she's shunned me….Sam isn't happy with anyone right now because of Faison…Lucy called me crazy…Olivia I can't remember what she's blaming me for… but she shrieked at me anyway….Ned…for not being perfect…like a Stepford wife 10 years ago….Sonny…Liz…this list is getting really really long."

Coleman smiled.

"You can't be responsible for all of that. I mean people do their own shit, they gotta own it. Take your mobster boyfriend. He almost got you killed when his stunt got your house blown up. You give him some shade for lying…he goes off on some pity party, gets trashed and knocks up some low class mobster apologist."

Alexis looked down at her glass.

"Olivia's…nice. She's what you'd call…a ride and die chick? She certainly was with Sonny. She didn't turn on him until he cheated on her. Maybe that's what he's wanted all along. I wouldn't accept his lifestyle and his half-truths…and you know what they say? Be careful what you wish for sure…when he finally did tell me the truth."

"The truth hurts doesn't it?"

She blew air out of her mouth.

"Well, what can I say? He framed Ric who's the scum of the earth but still Molly's father and he worked with Jerry Jacks who poisoned my daughters and the rest of the town during that water toxin scheme. Then we have Helena…that link hasn't been proven yet but she's tight with both Faison and Jerry so…did I tell you she threatened my daughters in front of him? Then there's…who's the other one…it's like a whole legion of villains has descended on PC in the past few months."

Coleman sipped his drink listening. His thick brows furrowed.

"Okay you got rid of him. If he wants to knock up some bimbo that's on him. Look Alexis, you're a smart, sexy, beautiful woman. Yeah you're complicated and a bit darker than most women out there but that just makes you more…intriguing."

She shook her head.

"No man in my life has ever been able to handle that part of me. I'm fine as long as I do what they want whether it's to be the perfect Q spouse or the ride and die chick of a mobster…Olivia she can give Julian what I can't…she'll never question his choices….he'll never resent her like he does me because I wouldn't take him back."

"You are…complicated but look where you came from. A murderous bunch of cutthroat exiled members of some Russian family. They killed your mother…hid you in the house…how were you ever going to be normal in that kind of place? Survival comes first then luxuries like feelings…desires and love."

She considered thinking that the mysterious liquor Coleman was drinking had branded him with some kind of special wisdom. That and she'd spilled most of her life story when she'd been trading shots with him back when the dive had been called Jakes. Even the parts of it which read like a fractured fairy tale.

"I didn't even remember I had a sister…and when Jax, you know my favorite ex-husband brought her to me, I…..but I lost her…"

The reality of that hit her again, and she stopped talking while Coleman drunk from his own glass.

"I don't want to lose my children. Kristina is off living her own life trying to forget she's a mobster's daughter…Molly hates me and wants to drop my last name from her own legally and her father's drafting up the papers…and Sam…"

"It's going to be okay Alexis…you're the strongest woman I ever met."

She sighed, her shoulders drooping.

"I don't feel that way right now…but thanks for trying to cheer me up."

He reached out to stroke her face gently.

"I mean it Alexis…you got cut a raw deal being surrounded by a bunch of ingrates who are so self-centered they can't even remember how hard you fought to keep them alive…hell weren't you cut nearly in half with a knife and sown back together with fishing line while having Molly?"

She knit her brow suddenly remembering that day in the tunnel after the train crash. Ric suddenly forgot he'd been throwing his mistress in her face and how she wasn't cold and frigid in the sack like his wife…at least his mistress he borrowed from Sonny's collection had been slowly dying at the time…was it mean to say that?

"Yeah well Ric rewarded me for taking his miserable ass back by…I'm not going to go there that's water under the bridge…."

He touched his hand and she felt some degree of calmness spread through her.

"Alexis…Ric is a lowlife sociopath whose obsession with his half-brother borders on psychosis…it has nothing to do with you. He's insisting he's reformed when in reality selective memory of some prominent architects on this canvas have simply white washed him."

She sighed.

"I feel like I can't even tell anyone or even remember what he did to me and my children. It's all about him being the victim and I being the evil woman who thought with her vay-jay and wasn't loyal enough to him…even after all he did to me…why am I talking so much and why are you listening to me?"

He paused and she felt genuinely puzzled. Her concerns, her needs and wants had become bad words to her most of her life.

"Because you're more interesting than most people and in this town that's saying a lot…"

She smiled at him for that.

"That's nice of you to say…now where are those tapas?"

Moly sat on the sofa feeling sorry for herself. Next to her was a bucket of chocolate mint ice cream just starting to melt, weakening the carton. The spoon started to sink into what would soon be a soppy mess of gooey artificial ingredients and tons of sugar.

She'd just been staring at the TV watching Pine Valley Housewives while waiting for Carson, coolest girl in high school to text her back. She wanted to jet from the suite of the MC where she'd been living with her father since he'd returned from the dead.

Actually he'd not been dead just locked up in the bowels of something called the witness protection program and the way her daddy explained it, it sounded hideously awful bordering on the inhuman treatment and torture she read about it in her monthly emails from Amnesty International.

She fumed, also waiting for her daddy to return home from his date with Liz. Since his return to town, she'd spent barely any time with her father and he with her…but that wasn't his fault…it was all her mother's fault. That evil unreasonable harpy who had kept a daughter apart from her loving father, with only a letter to read over and over again while the pages became worn from incessant folding and unfolding the once crisp paper. Not to mention the ink starting to blur from the tears that had fallen from her face onto the page.

She searched for her daddy's watch that had been part of his effects sealed up in an envelope and given to her after her father died…oh wait when he became undead he'd retrieved the watch with an apologetic grin so he could give it to Liz.

Her future step monster, if her daddy had his way. Damn her mother, because that had to be her fault as well. Daddy would be more attentive to her if it wasn't for her mother.

Then she'd stumbled upon some legal papers…adoption papers with Cameron Webber's name on them.

She felt like eating 10 cartons of ice cream but was left with one with melted ice cream and congealing chocolate chips in it.

Damn that mother of hers. But her daddy would fix it and make it all better…as soon as he was back from his date with Liz.

Suddenly a knock at the door rudely interrupted her reverie. She pushed the ice cream carton aside and walked up the door.

She looked through the peephole but couldn't see anything but what looked like a body in a dark trench coat.

"Who is it?"

A pause and then a female's voice, a bit raspy responded in return.

"It's a member of your family…who came a long way to visit…"

Molly pursed her lips. Who might that be? It sounded like an older woman. She reached her hand to open the door…

Carlos Rivera drove his car into the parking lot of the Floating Rib. He had spent the last hour with his boss Julian and just had to get away. The guy was such a pain in the….well nothing a few shots of tequila and a game of pool wouldn't cure.

Maybe he could score some money if he could find an easy mark. He fancied himself quite the pool shark.

Sabrina had gone wacko again and was shipped in a strait jacket to Fern Cliff. He still visited her but she stared vacantly at him while absently and methodically stroking a stuffed pumpkin on her lap.

Love had eluded him. Once he found his princess again, she was supposed to fall back into his arms. Instead she'd been engaged to some gringo doctor with a dead wife who turned out not to be so dead. The dead wife returned, Sabrina fell apart, got pregnant, fell apart, baby died, fell apart and…and…she'd been too fragile for the harsh realities off of the family farm back in Puerto Rico.

He'd cooled his heels in jail, feeling abandoned after Ava put him there but had been released and gone back to work for Julian. Julian spent most of his time battling with some guy named Ned over something he didn't talk much about but it had to do with Sonny's washed up moll of all people.

Carlos didn't interfere in his boss' domestic life. Anyway he had ultimately been freed from his hell hole at Pentonville by Alexis who sprung him after representing him at Michael's request.

Not Michael Corinthos but Michael Quartermaine. Carlos knew there had to be a story there that had happened while he languished in his cell but he hadn't heard it yet.

He had wanted to thank Alexis by taking her out to dinner but she begged off, saying she'd done it for Michael not for him and certainly not his boss. Carlos knew there must be a story there as well as obviously he'd missed a lot of action while locked up.

Though he knew that Sonny had been sent to Pentonville wearing orange and glaring up at every other inmate on the cell block. Carly his favorite moll visited him on a daily basis and he'd been spending a lot of time with Johnny Z.

Carlos had watched both from a discreet distance.

Anyway that was in the past and he was a free man again working for a surly mobster boss and trying to believe in true love again. But his heart had been scorched in the past year so the forecast looked doubtful.

He shook his head as he got out of his Firebird and headed to the Floating Rib looking for those shots and a pool partner.