Chapter Six

"Ric!"

Alexis dashed over to Ric's bedside as Ned rushed to the doorway. She reached down for his cold and still hand. The heart monitor by his bed was in a frenzy. She looked over at Ned desperately. "Get a doctor, hurry!"

Without another thought, Ned rushed out of the room to track down help. Alexis turned back to Ric. "Just hang on, help is on the way." What happened? was the only thought that clouded her otherwise empty mind. For whatever reason, she looked down at the floor and saw the chord unplugged from the wall. "Oh, my god," she breathed as she dropped down to pick it up. Just then, Ned rushed in with a nurse.

"What happened?" the nurse asked as she hurried over to Alexis, who handed her the chord.

"I don't know, this must have come unplugged!"

The nurse promptly took the chord from Alexis and quickly plugged it back in. She fussed around with the buttons on the machine, trying to get it working again.

"What's going on?" Alexis asked anxiously.

"We need to get him to ICU as soon as possible. There's no way of knowing how long this has been unplugged."

Ned held Alexis' hand reassuringly as the doctors hurried in to escort Ric out to ICU. "How could this have happened?" she whispered as she watched Ric being rushed out.

"I don't know if I should tell you this..." Ned began cautiously.

"What? What is it?"

Ned sighed. He really hoped he wasn't about to make things worse. "When I left the room to get the nurse, I saw someone at the far end of the hall. And I know he came from this room, because there's no one else in this wing that he'd be visiting."

"Who – who was it?" she stammered.

"It was Sonny."

-

"It's done," Sonny announced proudly as he entered his penthouse.

"What?" Jason demanded apprehensively.

"Ric's dead."

"Sonny –"

"He's never gonna hurt my family again." He walked over to his bar and fixed himself a drink.

"I thought we agreed that you weren't going to do that, that it was way too risky?"

"Jason, I told you, he's too much of a threat to my family. If he's going to come after my children, I'm gonna – I'm gonna take him out!" he yelled, all the while making wild gestures with his hands in the air.

"Sonny, it's too dangerous! Everyone in town knows that and Ric are at odds. You're his only enemy!"

"It's no longer an issue! It's done! Ric is dead, it's over!" He knocked back the remaining alcohol in his glass and went to fill it up again.

"So what happens now?" Jason asked, knowing that arguing with Sonny was like talking to a mumbling brick wall.

"OK, I want you to take Michael to the hospital for his doctor's appointment, right?" Jason nodded obediently. "While you're there, keep your ears open, see if there's any speculation about what happened to Ric."

"Do you think anyone saw you?" he asked worriedly.

"I don't think so, but I just want to make sure."

"All right. I'll get on it."

"Thanks, Jase."

With a nod, Jason went upstairs to get Michael for his routine check-up. He came scurrying down the stairs moments later and ran to his father with open arms.

"Bye, daddy!"

Sonny knelt down in front of his son to return the hug. "Bye, Mikey. You be good for the nice doctor, ok?"

"I will."

"All right. See ya later." He looked up at his right-hand man. "Thanks again, Jason."

"Any time. You ready to go buddy?"

"Yep!"

"Ok, let's go. I'll be in touch," he called to Sonny as he handed Michael his coat and headed for the door, with Sonny smiling after them.

-

"That low-life, self-centered, arrogant, inconsiderate son of a bitch!" she muttered pacing back and forth.

"Alexis –"

"He came after him twice!" she shouted wrathfully, holding up two fingers in Ned's face. "Twice within 24 hours! As if getting him hospitalized and in critical condition wasn't bad enough, he had to come back and finish the job!" She buried her worry and fear for Ric and let her anger and her rage take over. "Well, he's nothing if not persistent. If that bastard thinks he's going to get away with this, he has got a whole other thing coming!"

"Alexis –"

"I swear to God, I will have my foot so far up his –"

"ALEXIS!"

"WHAT?"

"You need to breathe," Ned insisted. "We don't even know that it was Sonny. There's no point in getting all worked up over it."

"Worked up? Worked up? I have every right to be angry and upset, how dare you!"

"That's not what I was saying," Ned began calmly. "Look, I know why you're doing this."

"Doing what?" she demanded stubbornly.

"You're shutting out your pain. You're making yourself livid with Sonny so that you don't have to face how you're feeling about Ric."

As a tear fell silently down her cheek, she fell silent. She knew he was right; there was no getting around that. "I don't know what to do if I lose him," she whispered.

"You don't have to worry about that. The doctors are doing everything they can for Ric."

"But what if it's not enough?"

"Alexis, you need to put some faith in the people that are trying to help. You've got to trust that they're going to do their jobs."

"And what about Sonny?" she asked, her anger starting to sneak back into her tone. "He's just going to get away with it?"

"If it was Sonny, then we'll deal with that when the time comes. Right now, it's much more important that you focus on Ric. Don't concern yourself with Sonny just yet."

"I can't help it," she whispered desperately. "Every time I look at Ric hooked up to a bunch of machines, I'm going to think about how he put him there. Every time I reach out to him and he can't reach back, I'm going to think about how he did that to him. How he's responsible. And I want the comfort of knowing that he'll pay for it if –" she stopped suddenly, unaware of where her thoughts were taking her until she spoke the words. Her voice dropped down to a whisper. "If something happens to Ric."

"Hey, listen to me. Ric's going to be ok. You have to believe that."

She nodded slowly, trying to absorb some of his hope. But all of that optimism quickly drained right back out of her when a nurse walked in somberly.

"Excuse me, are you Alexis?" she asked cautiously.

Alexis turned away from Ned and met the nurse's solemn gaze. "Yes, that's me," she confirmed, her worry starting to grow.

"Can you come with me, please?" she asked hesitantly.

"Is something wrong?" Alexis asked, fear in her voice and fear in her eyes.

"It's your friend, Mr. Lansing. You might want to hurry."

-

"Hi, Daddy!" Michael ran straight to his father waiting by the couch.

"Hey, little man. How'd your doctor's appointment go?"

"Good! They had the coolest trucks!"

"Oh yeah?" Sonny asked, amused. "Did you cry when the doctor gave you a shot?"

"Come on, Dad, crying is for babies like Morgan!" Michael exclaimed, scrunching up his nose.

"Of course," Sonny said, looking up at Jason, who smiled. "Do you have a lot of homework left?"

"Not much. I just have to finish my Spelling."

"Ok, well go upstairs and finish that up. I'll be up in a bit to check in with you."

"Ok!" Michael hugged Sonny and ran up the stairs. Sonny shook his head and smiled.

"He was very well behaved," Jason assured him.

"I knew he would be. Now, tell me what went wrong."

Jason sighed. "How'd you know?"

"I sense these things. So tell me, what's wrong? Does anyone suspect that I killed Ric?"

Jason shook his head once. "They're not, and they won't me."

Sonny paused for a moment, that lost look spreading over his face. "What do you mean?" he mumbled, running his index finger slowly across his forehead.

"I was there 20 minutes ago, and I did what you asked. I lingered around the ICU to see if I could find anything out."

"And?"

Jason inhaled bravely. "Ric's not dead."

"What?"

"There was a lot of commotion; he did run into some 'complications,' but he pulled through."

"How is that possible!" Sonny demanded, utterly outraged and coming so very close to hurling his newly poured drink across the room.

"Apparently, Alexis came back to his room just in time. She saved his life again."

"This is the second time that she's interfered," Sonny realized

"I know. She seems to be a growing complication."

Sonny stood idle for a moment, seeming to mull over Jason's words. "Well, then," he muttered in a dangerously cold voice, "we're just going to have to deal with Alexis."