A Gentle Summer Rain


Sonny Corinthos was half asleep when the phone rang. Grumbling reluctantly, he reached his hand out of the warm blankets to pick up the cell phone he kept by his bed.

“Corinthos,” His voice still had a husky sleep induced quality to it. “This better be good.” He looked outside the penthouse window. “Damn sun isn’t up yet .”

“Just following orders, “ The voice on the other end of the line is one of his most trusted me. “You wanted to know the second she came back to Port Charles.”

Sonny bolted upright. His voice was suddenly filled with tension. “She’s back?”

“As of 4:30 this morning. Flight came in from Rio this morning. She went to the old place almost immediately.”

“You’ve still got the guards on her?”

“24/7 just like we’ve had for the last year and a half. You had to ask?” The guard’s voice is indignant and hurt.

“Sorry man,” Sonny said soothingly. After more time in this business than he cared to think about, it still amazed him how “untough” some of his toughest men could be. “This one’s important to me.”


“No problem. Do you want us to back up the guard? It won’t be as easy to watch her without her knowing in Port Charles as it was in Rio.

Sonny swore softly. “No. I’ll handle it from here. Tell the boys to see Jason for their new assignment.”

He had both been counting the days till this day came and dreading this day. Whatever happened, Sonny knew that his life was about to change forever.



He found her later that day at the cometary. It had been the first place he looked. He knew she would come here. He had been here almost every day himself. Visiting old friends.

She looked incredibly beautiful, strong and serene from her time working in Brazil. His men had filled him in almost daily on how she had thrown herself into working with the charity organizations helping the city’s poor. The schools she had helped to set up, the food she dispensed, the medical aid she arranged, the hope she had tried to bring.

He just wished she hadn’t been motivated to do so much good out of a sense of guilt. Not that he was free from guilt himself. He would never tell her, hoped she never found out, but it had been his financial contributions behind the scenes that had made her charity work possible. He had called himself an idiot each time he wrote the check out. If he wanted her home in Port Charles so badly, why was he making it possible for her to stay away. He knew the answer to that. Had always known it. He had vowed that day to do whatever it took to make her happy. At whatever cost. That had never changed.

She looked up at him as he approached. Her eyes were huge and haunted with sadness. She didn’t seem surprised to see him. She wasn’t particularly excited to see him either. He supposed he should be grateful that she wasn’t running away.

“It’s good to see you,” he kept his voice surprisingly calm and rational. He considered it a miracle that he could speak at this point. “I’ve missed you.”

She makes no response beyond turning back to the tombstones.

“We have to talk.” His voice sounds too loud to his own ears.

Her voice when it comes is flat. Emotionless. Rehearsed. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“How about we begin with my son?”




Laura Weber Spencer drew a deep breath and turned to face the man she had left town to avoid.”I told you that you can see him anytime you want.”

Sonny’s voice is incredulous. “Is that what you think I want? To be a part time father to my part time son. I know what its like to grow up without a father. I won’t let that happen to my son.”

Laura’s voice is filled with anger. “But’s its okay for my daughter to grow up without a father or a brother? Where were your vaunted family values when my son and my husband died.”

Sonny forces himself to remain calm. “We’ve been over this and over this. I’m sorry about Lucky. If I could go back and change places with him I would in an instant. Do you think I enjoy it when innocent kids like him get caught in the crossfire? Do you really think I enjoyed watching you suffer, watching Luke suffer? I loved that boy like he was family.”

“Somehow being a member of your family doesn’t guarantee one’s safety,” Laura shot back. “People get hurt around you Sonny. I don’t want my son to be hurt.”

“Our son,” Sonny reminded her. “And this from the person who left her husband to date a Cassadine.”

“Luke left me.” Laura’s eyes flash. “And we were working it out. Lucky’s death brought us back together. We had a second chance until you took it away from us.”

“Luke threw that second chance away, not me.” Sonny countered. “I told him not to go after Moreno to revenge Lucky. I told him to leave that to me and Jason. Hell, I argued with him for hours. He had responsibilities to you and Lulu that he chose to ignore in his pain and rage. You want to blame anybody for Luke’s death you blame Luke.”

Laura is silent for a moment and when she answers her voice is shaky. “Do you know how much easier it is to blame you than to admit that Luke chose revenge over myself or his daughter? It wasn’t right. We needed him. Lulu couldn’t go through the night without crying for her brother. I grieved for my son every minute. And Luke put us second. Second to his need to make someone pay.”

Sonny moves forward. “He loved you despite everything. You have to know that.”

Laura found herself folded into his embrace. She remembered the warmth of his arms and let herself relax if only for a moment. She’ll remember in a few minutes how wrong this is. Right now she just wants to focus on how right it feels. “The entire time we were in Brazil, I kept telling myself I was getting stronger. I was moving on. I’m back in Port Charles one day and I feel like I’m falling apart all over again.”

“Laura Weber Spencer,” Sonny said her name gently. “You are absolutely one of the strongest woman I have ever had the fortune or privilege of knowing. You are nowhere near falling apart.”

“Which is why you had your guards tailing us everywhere we went in Brazil,” Laura pulled back long enough to look in Sonny’s eyes. “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice them?”

“I was hoping,” Sonny had the grace to look a little abashed. “Okay, maybe I was praying you wouldn’t notice. It took all I had to let you take Lu and the baby to a foreign country. There was no way I was going to let you go alone.”

Laura lowered her eyes, uncomfortable with the blazing warmth of affection in his.

She turned back to Luke’s tombstone. July 1999. In a few months she had lost both her son and the man she had expected to spend her entire life loving. She had been devastated by the double loss. There had been no one who could reach her. She had turned from Stefan, finally realizing that her lingering confusion over her feelings for Stefan had cost her too much, including her self respect. How could she have thought for even a second that she was in love with Stefan after all that had happened? Stefan would always be the father of her child. But that was it. She wished she could say the same about Sonny.

Sonny can read the play of emotions across her face like other people can read a book. In the months following Luke’s death, they had become inseperable. At first it had been out of a feeling of guilt and remorse and a promise to a dead friend to make sure that his wife and his child were okay. But gradually he had realized that there were things about Laura that drew him to her because he wanted to be around her. Her smile. Her sense of humor. Her inner peace. Her love of family. She had become the one spot of serenity in a crazy world....the fiasco with Hannah, the conflict with Jason and Carly, the repairing of his relationship with Robin. Laura had been the one constant that summer and fall.

She had quite simply become the best friend that he hadn’t had since Lois had left his life. He considered Jason his friend, but there were things that he couldn’t tell Jason that Laura understand without explanation. Without question.

He could never pinpoint the exact moment when he realized that he was in love with her. He had never expected it to happen. He had long ago resigned himself to never falling in love again after losing Brenda. Maybe it was the fact that Brenda and Laura were so different. Brenda had been a hurricane, blowing through his life with strength and fury. Laura was a gentle summer rain, bringing comfort and warmth. They were both incredibly strong woman.

Still, he knew that he would never have been anything other than a friend to Laura if fate hadn’t intervened. If they hadn’t been at her house during a power outage. If he hadn’t volunteered to stay the night. If she hadn’t been missing Luke. If neither of them had needed to be held, to be touched, to be made love to. An affirmation that they were alive. An affirmation that life was still worth living. He had wanted to comfort her. That night he had.That night had changed everything.

And with all that had happened as a result, he wasn’t sorry. He could never be sorry. Holding her like this he knew that he would not stop until they were lovers again. This time not out of need or loneliness. But out of desire and love.

He could feel her shiver. Was it wrong to hope that he was affecting her as badly as she was affecting him? How could he stand here at his oldest friend’s grave side wanting nothing more than to make desperate love to his friend’s widow? What kind of man was he? He watched as a curtain of spun gold fell in front of her face. Only human.

“Let me take you home.” The words were more of a request than a plea.

Laura nodded and Sonny gently guided her out of the cometary.



Laura uneasily opened the door and let Sonny in behind her. He had been in this home countless times before. In the months after Luke died, Sonny had practically moved in. She literally didn’t know what she would have done without him. Her mother was still ill in Switzerland. Nikolas had tried to help, but he had been too caught up with his disastrous relationship with Katherine to do much. Lulu had needed her only remaining brother more than Laura had needed her son. And Stefan... Stefan had never forgiven her for going back to Luke after Lucky’s death. She couldn’t blame him. She had hurt so many people with her indecision, including herself.

She had been alone following her husband’s death. She had few female friends. She had been too caught up in family problems and school to make them over the last decade. Bobbie had been distant. No surprise there. The real surprise had been Sonny. He had been her strength. He came by every day to make sure she was eating. That she spent time outside in the sunshine. Some days he even had to drag her out of bed. He had helped with Lu. He had taken care of the finances. He had in a few months become somebody she considered a friend of her husband’s to someone she considered her best friend and indispensable in her own life. Someone who she found herself missing.

And then there had been that night. They had made love. Not just once but repeatedly. She hadn’t questioned it. She hadn’t thought about it. She had just allowed herself to feel. To enjoy. To be alive again.

The guilt and the recriminations had come the next day. And six weeks later when she realized she was pregnant.

She wasn’t sorry though. Not for that night. Not for the infant sleeping in his crib upstairs. She felt like she was given a gift. In some strange way she felt like Luke and Lucky were giving her a gift. Someone to love to not replace but to make up for what she had lost.

Of course it hadn’t felt like a gift at first. She had panicked. She had pushed Sonny away. She had pushed everyone away. She had been sick. Sick with guilt. Sick with morning sickness. Just plain sick.

So when the job offer came in Brazil she had taken it. Nikolas had protested, but she had been insistent. She and Lu had needed to escape from a city where every street corner held a memory, more of them bad it seemed than good.

Brazil had been a blessing. A place to get to know herself as a person outside of her role as mother or wife. She had worked hard. She had helped people. She had rediscovered a connection to humanity that she thought she lost the night the fire claimed Lucky’s life.

And six months ago she had given birth. Sonny had flown down to be there. He hadn’t stayed. She hadn’t told him to leave but neither had she told him to stay.

Her son. Sonny’s son. Her blue eyes. Sonny’s dark hair. How could he fit in both their worlds?

Andrew Stone Corinthos. Drew.

It had been easy to forget who his father was when they were in Brazil. When that father was thousands of miles away. Okay maybe not easy but possible.

Somehow forgetting about Sonny Corinthos was not something she found easy.

And if she was honest with herself, it was not something that she wanted to do.


Sonny watched her come down the stairs holding their son carefully in her arms. He wanted to freeze this moment. The woman he loved and their son. Almost a family. He almost had it all. The fantasies that he had lived on in the dark days of his childhood had taken flesh and were standing in front of him.

He was almost too scared to move.

“Do you want to hold him?”

He nodded, unable to speak. Laura gently put the sleeping infant in his arms. Sonny took a deep shuddering breath. His son. He was holding his son. The feeling was undefinable yet totally defined him. He was a father.

Laura’s eyes were anxious as she looked at him. She had forgotten really. In the almost two years since Luke had died she had almost forgotten how important a father was to a child. The bond between Luke and Lucky. The bond between Luke and Lulu. Nikolas and Stefan. Now Drew and Sonny. Sonny looked so natural.

“I’m sorry I kept you away from him,” Laura finds herself unexpectedly apologizing.

“It doesn’t matter. We’re together now. All of us. And Lu.” Sonny’s voice is firm.

“You make it almost sound as if we are family.” Laura’s voice has a wistful note in it that Sonny latches on to.

“Aren’t we? Weren’t we well before this little guy made his appearance?”

“Sonny,” Laura shakes her head. “This morning I was mourning my husband and my son. This afternoon you want me to say that you and I are a family. I can’t do that.”

This time Sonny shook his head. “I don’t expect it to be that easy. We both know that nothing in this life is that easy. You’ve been through hell. I’ve been through hell. But what we have together. What we could have together. That’s worth fighting for. This little guy is worth fighting for.”

Laura fights the temptation to give in. She thought of him as often while she was in Brazil that she thought of Luke. Or of Lucky. She was so confused. She knew she wanted her friend back. Did she want something more? She watches the way his fingers caress Drew’s cheek, remembering the way those same fingers had touched her, burned into her.

“Luke would understand,” Sonny saw the weakening in her and it filled him with hope. “He would not want you to mourn him forever.”

“But would he understand this? You and I? For so long all I wanted was a normal family life.”

Sonny smiled. “I hate to tell you this but you were never cut out to be Harriet Nelson. “

“Maybe not.” Laura acknowledged wryly. “But there are still so many reasons why this can’t work out. Won’t work out. Could never work out.”

“And one big reason why it needs to,” Sonny gestured to the sleeping Drew. “One reason to at least try.”

“I won’t put any of my children in danger.”

Sonny nods. “We’ll work it out. Jason’s been wanting to take over anyway.”

Laura looks at him startled. She didn’t expect that response this fast. Sonny catches her look and grins.

“I’ve had months to think about this. Each day you were gone in Brazil, I’d make it okay by thinking about what I would do when you came back. I made a lot of stupid mistakes with Brenda. I don’t want to make those mistakes with you. I know how much violence there has been in your life. I will do nothing to put you or Lulu or our son at risk. Hell I’ll even be polite to Cassadine occasionally.”

“Don’t make any sacrifices for me.” Laura says mockingly, but Sonny’s reply is dead serious.

“I would make any sacrifice for you. For our son. For your daughter. Without doubt. No hesitation.”

Laura looks at him steadily. “You can’t build a relationship around a child. I would have thought you learned that lesson with Jason and Carly.”

Sonny’s eyes darken. “This is about so much more than our son. I miss you. I miss talking to you. Laughing with you. I miss reading to Lulu and helping her with homework. Teaching her Spanish. I miss sneaking away to a movie on a rainy afternoon with you. I don’t know how it happened Laura Weber Spencer, but you’ve become a very important part of my life. I think you could become even more important to me with time.”


Laura leans into him almost unconsciously. “I guess you are not asking for much.” She looks into his eyes and feels a strange thrill of something run through her.

“No not much at all,” his whisper is low as he brushes his lips against hers, when she returns his kiss and deepens it, Sonny feels a surge of relief run though him.

A chance. He has a chance. It’s all he can ask for.


The End