~I want to feel, sunlight on my face
See that dust cloud disappear without a trace
I want to take shelter from the poison rain
Where the streets have no name~

the Grille

He started, driven out of his reverie by the hand sliding through his arm. Turning, with a particular smile on his face, he started again when he saw the woman sitting beside him. The smile shifted, became wider and looser, less designed to seduce, more intended to greet. The man leaned over and pecked the woman beside him on the cheek. "Hello ex-wife," he greeted her, covering her hand and squeezing it lightly in greeting.

"Hello ex-husband," Alexis returned Jax's greeting, with an answering grin. "Somehow, I'm guessing I'm not the woman you were waiting for," she said wryly. "Am I right?"

"You know that I'd wait for you anywhere, anytime," Jax teased, albeit gallantly. "But, you're right, as usual. This time, I was waiting for my wife. Who is, as usual," he sighed as he looked at his watch, "delayed."

"Oh," Alexis responded, withdrawing her arm quietly. She was aware that that particular response was less than either diplomatic or witty, but she didn't much care. Jax had known, pretty much from the start, exactly what she thought about his marriage. "Well, I guess I'll leave you then; the two of you are still practically newlyweds, and I'm sure you have a quiet dinner planned so--" She started to slide off the bar stool beside Jax and stopped as he caught her arm.

"Hey, Alexis," Jax twisted his fingers through his, keeping her firmly in place, "come on. You know better than that. There's never a place or a time in my life when you won't be welcome. Besides," he signaled the bartender over, "you can at least keep me company until she gets here."

Alexis hesitated, then slid back beside him. "I can do that," she said, smiling back. She turned to the bartender. "Vodka, chilled. Russian, if you have it."

Jax lifted an eyebrow. "Feeling your roots tonight, Lady Cassadine?" he asked.

Alexis wrinkled her nose, and sighed loudly. "Something like that." She lifted her eyes heavenward. "Why oh why did I ever agree to be trustee to my nephew's estate?" She quickly pointed a finger at Jax. "And, that was a rhetorical question; you don't actually get to answer that."

Jax laughed and lifted his hands innocently. "I would never rub in how right I was when I told you you'd be insane to take over the Cassadine guard dog position. You know me, the last thing I'd ever say was I told you so. Though," he grinned innocently, "you have to admit, I did tell--"

Alexis lifted her hand and clapped it over Jax's mouth before the rest of his damning statement could emerge. "Don't even start with me, Jasper. I have Lady Jane's number, and if you force me, I'll have to use it," she hissed, laughter hiding in her eyes.

"Oh no, please!" Jax clasped his hands together in mock horror. "Not that! Anything but that!"

Alexis threw her head back, laughing fully for what felt like the first time in days. Weeks. Months? Had it really been that long? She looked into her ex's dancing blue eyes and realized that yes, yes it really had. It was a sobering thought. Alexis quieted and lay her hand on Jax's arm. "You're good for me, Jax," she said, softly. "You really are."

Whatever Jax's response would have been was drowned out by the man who approached Alexis from behind. He tapped her on the shoulder. "Ms. Davis?" She turned to face a dour-faced man in a dark suit and suppressed a sigh, her merriment quickly doused. "If you are ready?" The accountant who was about to give her a deadly dull and, if she were lucky, merely three hour long presentation on the state of Nikolas' European holdings gestured towards their table.

"I suppose I am, Monsieur Laurens," Alexis plastered on her best professional smile. She turned to Jax, the expression fading into something remarkably like taking a bite from a lemon. "Duty calls," she murmured. "Tell your wife I said hello," she added, aware she was mouthing pleantries as a way to lengthen the contact with Jax and avoid this meeting she was dreading. Finally, with a sigh, she pushed away from the bar, and walked determinedly over to the table where Yves Laurens was already setting out stacks and stacks and stacks of file folders. Alexis threw one last glance of despair over her shoulder at Jax, then sat down, resignedly.

Jax chuckled to himself, then turned away from Alexis and back to his drink. He glanced at his watch again, not aware that he hadn't done that once in the time he'd spent with Alexis, not aware that when he'd laughed with his ex-wife, his current wife had been the furthest thing from his mind. However, now Alexis was gone, and Mrs. Jacks was, once again, late. He contemplated calling her cell phone again, but decided not to bother. If work had piled up at the station, there was nothing she could do to get here sooner, and she'd only admonish him with her 'independent' spiel if he tried to talk her into it. Drumming his fingers impatiently against the bar, he glanced at his watch again. "Damnit, Hannah," he swore under his breath, "where are you?"

~The cities a flood
And our love turns to rust
We're beaten and blown by the wind
Trampled into dust
I'll show you a place
High on the desert plain
Where the streets have no name~

PC hotel

Warm. And dark. Like sinking into the jungle at night. Or drowning in black velvet. That's how it felt every time he kissed her. No matter how wrong it was, no matter how many times she swore it would never happen again, every damn time he touched her cheek, said her name just so, it started again. And, she was drowning. Again. "No," Hannah murmured, thickly, her hands sliding down from the nape of his neck to push against his chest. "AJ, no." This time she managed to tear herself away from him, and she lifted her eyes to his, aware that his were as heavy-lidded, as drugged with her as hers were with him. "We can't do this, not anymore. We can't."

AJ brushed aside her words impatiently, and caught her about her waist, drawing her back against him, her tangled hair brushing his face. "We are doing this," he whispered, bending his head so that his lips grazed her neck right above her pulse, and she moaned, throwing her head back without volition. "We can't stop doing this."

She moaned again, hating herself for the way her kiss-swollen lips longed for his touch, the way her hands tightened at his collar no matter how much she told herself to push him away, the way her thighs felt heavy and warm against his as his leg slid between hers, supporting her as she leaned further into him. "No," Hannah whispered, aware that her voice was so soft that she could well have not voiced the protest. Why? Why was it that this man who she didn't want to want made her feel like no one ever had, not even her-- "Jax," she whispered, her voice stronger this time, and voicing the name of her sweet, blue-eyed husband finally gave her the strength to pull away, hard. "No, AJ," she said again, pressing trembling fingers against her hot cheeks. "We have to stop doing this. I'm married."

"I don't care," he retorted, swiftly, his voice dark with passion. He looked at her with burning eyes. "You know you married Jax on the rebound from Taggert; you know he doesn't make you feel," his voice lowered and thickened, "the way I make you feel. He doesn't even come close."

Hannah turned away from him, ruthlessly dragging her fingers through her hair, welcoming the pain as penance as she tried to make herself start to look less like the hungry, wanton woman she felt. She rebuttoned the first two buttons on her blouse that AJ had loosened. "Jax has been so good to me," she said, closing her eyes painfully. "I love him, AJ. He's given me the kind of life I used to only dream about."

"Then why are you here?" AJ's words were harsh, and his fingers were tight as he grabbed her shoulder, spinning her around to face him. "If Jax fulfills your every dream, why did you come to me? Why aren't you with him, now?"

"I was on my way to my husband, if you recall," Hannah shot back, jerking away from him. "When you grabbed me in the corridor and pulled me in here!"

"And, I didn't feel you pulling away." He reached out, traced the line of her cheekbone with one forefinger. It was everything Hannah could do not to shudder at his touch. "You're with Jax because he's safe, Hannah," AJ whispered, and this time, as he said her name, she couldn't help it. She shivered in response, in desire. Closing her eyes shut, she willed him to stop, not to notice, not to want her. He went on, relentless. "But, you don't want safe. No, you want fire, Hannah, life on the edge. You want to dance with darkness, you want to burn." His palm fitted itself to her cheek like they were made to fit together for all eternity, and her eyes opened, meeting his. "Can Jax make you burn, Hannah? I can. Can't I?" AJ's voice, his eyes, his touch demanded an answer, demanded the answer she knew she'd give.

Instead, she broke away, and it was like a physical pain. "Jax is what I want. He's who I want. He's who I chose. You have to accept that," Hannah said, her hand on the door, her back to him. "Before you tear all our lives apart." With that, she opened the door and hurried out, not looking back. She had made a choice, and she was going to stick to it. Come hell or high water. Or AJ Quartermaine's dark, darker, darkest eyes.

~ Where the streets have no name
Where the streets have no name
Still building
Then burning down love
Burning down love
And when I go there
I go there with you
It's all I can do~

the hospital

"Go home," Chris Ramsey looked at her in good-tempered exasperation, his voice pitched low so as not to disturb the sleeping occupant of the bed. "You know, you make those of us who actually get paid to do this for a living look bad."

"Yeah, well, that's my mission in life," Carly teased him back, not lifting her head from the child in the bed whose hand was latched onto hers in a death grip. "To show you up, Chris Ramsey." She lifted her head to stick out her tongue at him, then bent back down over the little girl, whose five year old body was riddled with tubes and needles and more paraphernalia than a druggie in paradise would dream of needing. "Besides, I promised Missy I'd stay with her. She's scared of the dark, and doesn't want to be alone, and I promised."

"Carly," his voice was patient, and tender, and would probably be unrecognizable to most people who thought they knew him, "heard of night lights?" When she shook her head stubbornly, he drew up a stool beside her. "Hey," he tilted her face up towards him with two fingers, "you've got a baby yourself at home who needs you just as much as Missy, okay?" He slid his right hand, with some difficulty, between Carly's and the young girl's. "Go home, I'll stay with her." He held up two fingers of his other hand. "Scouts' honor."

"If you were ever a Boy Scout, I'm as virginal as Mother Teresa," Carly muttered. Chris snorted, and waved her away, pointing towards the door again as Missy stirred, turning over once, then stilling again. Carly studied him a moment, then stood up reluctantly, pushing her hair back wearily from her forehead. Leaning down, Carly dropped a kiss on the top of her friend's head. "Thank you," she whispered. "I'll see you Tuesday."

Heading out into the corridor, Carly made a beeline for the nurse's desk. "Excuse me," she asked the nearest woman, "can you check on Florence Campbell's whereabouts for me?"

The nurse returned after making a quick phone call. "She's not in her office. Do you want me to page her, Mrs. Corinthos?"

"No thanks, Lisa, I just wanted to ask her a quick question. I'll catch her another time. Thanks; have a good weekend." Carly headed out of the Corinthos AIDS Wing, pausing, as always, to run her fingers briefly over the plaque with his name, and continued towards the elevators, pulling out the photo again. She studied it, leaning against the back wall, her eyes narrowing as the woman in the red dress hanging on a laughing, twenty-five year old Mike Corbin's arm caught her eye again. "Can't be," Carly muttered, shaking her head.

She had asked Mike for any old photos he had a few weeks ago, when she'd had the idea to make a scrap-book for Ana. When her daughter was old enough, she wanted to be able to tell her all about her father, and old pictures, stories, anything Carly could think of that she had saved she was collecting into a big book. Mike had only had a handful of photos, and most of them had been much creased and worn snapshots of Sonny as a young boy, smiling. Most of them killed her to look at them; she sealed them safely behind cellophane and closed the book away. But this one -- this one was of Mike and this woman. This woman who was clinging to Mike's arm and looking up at him like he was the world, her world. Love burned out of her eyes so bright she could have lit the world on fire. And, unless Carly was wrong, and she was pretty damn sure she wasn't, this woman was Florence Campbell. Gia's mother.

~And when I go there
I go there with you
It's all I can do~

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