Chapter Five

BRENDA SILENTLY CURSED herself for making another slip. Great, Brenda, if you want Sonny not to remember his past, calling him by Sonny is really the way to do it. "You don't like the name Michael" She told him. "You're named after your father, and he abandoned you and your mother as a child, so you prefer everyone to call you Sonny."

He stared up at the ceiling. "I just did it again, didn't I?"

"It's all right." She assured him, then got back to the business at hand. She molded her body against his. "Now where were we."

He pulled away from her and climbed out of the shower stall. "This isn't right."

She turned off the shower and followed him. "What do you mean this isn't right?"

"I don't know." He told her. "Whenever you come near me and I want you, I hear this voice in the back of my head telling me it's wrong. I guess it's because you're a virtual stranger to me. If you go by my memory, I've only known you for a few days."

"Well, we're not going to be able to change that." She countered. "Unless we try recapturing the intimacy we once shared. Sonny, we're very sexual people. We knew each other's bodies better then we knew our own and we were totally at ease with each other without our clothes on." She added. "We need to recapture that."

"What if we can't." He asked her.

"We won't know unless we try." She insisted.

"Just how do you suggest we do that?" He asked.

She took him by the hand. "Come back into the shower with me." She lead him back into the shower and turned the shower head back on.

He stood there staring at her feeling completely uncomfortable. "Now what?"

"Now." She took the bar and began to run it over his body while staring deeply into his eyes. "We learn each other's body all over again."

* * * * *

JAX PULLED THE door open when he could stand her pounding at his door and screeching no longer. "What do you want, Carly?" He sneered when she stormed into his room. Then he turned his attention to Jason. "Can't you control this banshee, Morgan?"

"Where is my husband?" She got right into Jax's face. "I know you know where he is?"

"Why would I know." He returned. "If you can't keep an eye on him, don't blame me."

"I know he's with your bitch." Carly spat. "And I know you know exactly where she is."

"I don't know what you're talking about." So they know Brenda's alive, Jax realized. So much for keeping a lid on it.

"We know about Brenda." Jason told him. "And we know she's with Sonny."

"How could you not tell me she was alive." Carly began poking Jax in the chest with her index finger. "We were partners. You should have warned me she was out there and that she wanted my husband."

"I thought I had the situation under control." He told them. "I had Brenda safely confined in a sanitarium in Switzerland, but she managed to escape somehow."

"Sanitarium?" Carly leaped on that. "Are you saying she's nuts."

"It isn't Brenda's fault." Jax defended her. "She inherited her mother's mental illness. It's causing her to fixate on Sonny. She can't see he's no good for her."

"If she's crazy." Carly asked in a panic. "Could she hurt Sonny."

"I don't know." Jax replied. "Brenda's mother was fixated on Brenda and she ended up trying to kill her." He looked at Jason. "That's why we have to work together, Morgan. You want to find Corinthos and I want to find Brenda, we should work together."

"Like hell." Jason spat. "And I'm not so sure I buy your story about Brenda being mentally ill. I wouldn't be surprised if you locked up a perfectly well woman for the sin of loving Sonny instead of you." Jason walked out of the hotel room expecting Carly to follow him.

She looked over her shoulder to make sure Jason couldn't hear her. "I'll work with you, Jax." Carly told him. "Jason is keeping me informed on all he knows about the search for Sonny, and I'll share that information with you, if you do likewise with any information you find out about Brenda." She added. "We both want the same thing. Sonny and Brenda kept far far apart."

Jason came back to stand in the doorway. "Are you coming?"

"Right with you." She followed Jason out the door.

"What was that about?" He asked as he waited for the elevator to arrive.

"I was just telling Jax what I thought of him." She smiled at him. "That's all."

* * * * *

SONNY STARED UP at the ceiling as he and Brenda were laying in bed unable to fall asleep. They were both laying nude under the thin sheet. Brenda claimed that was how they always slept when they slept together. But he couldn't help feeling that everything he had done with her in the shower was wrong somehow. That he had no right to be doing those things with her. Which made no sense, considering the woman was his wife.

He felt he hand reach across the space between them and take his hand in hers. "I think we made a good start, tonight." She told him. "And if we continue to build on that, we'll have back what we once shared."

"You're probably right." He agreed, then he looked at her. "Do you know how I got all those faints scars all over my back?"

"You were abused by your stepfather as a child." She told him.

"I figured it was something like that." He told her, but didn't ask for any further details. He was silent for a long time when he suddenly said. "I'm beginning to think there are a lot of reasons that I don't want to remember my past."

"Maybe this is your minds way of giving you a fresh start." She suggested.

"Maybe it is." He sighed, before he finally fell asleep.