Here - Chapter 34


"Michael!!!" Carly scoops up her son and holds him as if she will never let him go. She is standing in the foyer, where AJ and Michael have answered the door.

AJ gives Carly a sheepish grin and ushers her inside.

Carly steps inside and says into Michael's soft skin, "I missed you so much!" Then she pulls her head back a bit and asks, "Do you know how much I missed you?"

Michael smiles and puts his hands out to both sides of him, "This much?"

"Oh, more than that much!" Carly tells him, snuggling him again. "I can't even tell you how much I missed you!"

"Well," AJ crosses his arms over his chest, "Michael missed you too. He talked about you every day we were in Philadelphia."

Carly widens her eyes at Michael, "You did?? Every day??"

Michael simply giggles and throws his arms around Carly's neck again.

The three of them enter the library, where Carly takes a seat on the sofa, settling her son on her lap. AJ perches himself on the desk comfortably, relaxed, his hands clasped together.

She slides her eyes to AJ, "Are you going stay here and watch us or something?"

AJ frowns and shakes his head, "No. I just thought we could have a little time together. Like a family?"

She rolls her eyes and mutters scornfully, "Oh yeah, we're just like the Waltons, AJ."

He shifts on the desk a bit, perturbed by her response. He says evenly, "It won't hurt to at least try and be civil, Carly."

She sighs.

"So," he claps his hands, "what are you two going to do today?"

Carly clears her throat and says more to Michael than to AJ, "Well, I thought we'd go to the zoo!"

Michael's eyes light up and he claps happily.

"Do you have a car seat?" AJ asks seriously.

She looks at AJ and deadpans, "No. I thought I'd just tie Michael to the roof of the car."

He shakes his head, "Carly, I was just asking if you needed to borrow one of ours."

"No you weren't," she snaps, "you asked me if I had one. Don't worry, I do." She does not tell him that she'd found it at a consignment shop.

He shrugs, "Fine. No need to be so defensive, Carly. I'm not attacking you."

She ignores AJ and changes her tone to speak to Michael, "You ready to go to the zoo??"

Michael nods excitedly.

AJ says, "Aren't you going to ask how the trip went?"

"No," she replies. As long as AJ has brought her son back to her safely, she could not care less what they did in Philadelphia. And she has no desire to hear about how well Keesha is doing, or how fabulously her son gets along with the self-righteous witch.

"Well," AJ provides anyway, "it was wonderful. We had a really good time." He steps over to Carly and Michael and tweaks his son's cheek, "Didn't we have a great time in Philadelphia, little guy?"

Michael nods in agreement.

AJ tells Carly, via their son, "Keesha took us to the zoo in Philadelphia, didn't she, buddy?"

Michael nods again.

Carly sets her jaw, angrily assuming that AJ is just trying to ruin her visit with her son by letting her know that Keesha has already given Michael a trip to the zoo. No doubt a bigger, better, fancier trip to a bigger, better, fancier zoo than Carly can possibly provide.

"C'mon, Michael," Carly says quietly, standing up and balancing Michael on her hip.

AJ follows them to the door, "You sure you have everything you need?"

Carly rolls her eyes in disdain, "Yes, AJ."

AJ honestly has no intention to annoy Carly, even though he sees that he is. It is just that he is nervous about sending his son out of the door and into a car with Carly. This is the first time she has had their child in her vehicle and he wants to be absolutely certain that Carly has not forgotten some safety measure.

He walks with them to Carly's car and he takes a peek inside. He sees that the car seat is correctly installed in the back seat. He watches her as she places Michael in the seat and straps him in. He reaches in after she steps away and tightens the straps a bit, pulling on them to test their tautness.

His behavior is infuriating to Carly. She waits for him to kiss Michael goodbye and step back, then she hisses into his ear, "Why don't you just come with us if you don't trust me to take care of our son??"

AJ tries to defend his actions, "It's not that I don't trust you, Carly."

"Then what is it, AJ??"

He has no answer.

She shakes her head, "It wasn't a trick question..." Then she climbs into her car, fastens her own seat belt, and heads slowly down the long driveway. She sees AJ still watching behind them when she looks in the rear view mirror.

She says to Michael, "Hold on, sweetie!" Then she purposely revs the engine and peels away, leaving black tire marks in her wake. When she gets out of AJ's sight, she slows down again, getting a tiny taste of sour glee at the look she saw on AJ's face when she sped away.

"Ready for the zoo???" she chirps.

Michael claps and laughs, enjoying the ride.

*****

Sonny stews in his penthouse, thinking about what Mike said to him the day before.

It is true that Sonny knows all too well the pain of a loved one slipping through his fingers, the sense of opportunities lost and thrown away. He is intimate with the reality that humans are alive one instant and dead the next.

Cessation of breathing is as effortless as breathing itself.

He knows that he wants Carly, that he wants to be with Carly, that he wants to spend his time with her. But something is keeping him stuck in a state of inertia. He knows what it is, but absolutely hates to admit it to himself.

It is fear.

Fear of rejection.

Fear of acceptance.

Fear of the unknown.

His mind spins in a circle of questions without answers.

What if she is not interested?

What if she is?

What if...?

What if...?

What if we get together...?

He closes his eyes and tells himself to breathe.

What if we get together...

...and something happens to her?

He asks himself if he can risk his sanity, his soul, to let himself feel that deeply and that much again.

I already feel deeply...under my skin, past my flesh, through my bones.

He asks himself if he could survive another catastrophic loss, if he could survive having his essence, his hope, his present, his future wiped out. Again.

Pulling his insides out and looking at them, cold and hard, he knows he can.

He has.

He will.

Finally, it occurs to Sonny's ego that none of this self-examination will mean a damn thing if Carly is already gone.

*****

The zoo was the best time Carly can remember having with Michael.

The sight of his eyes sparkling while he watched the monkeys play, the squeal of his laughter when an elephant coolled itself with a spray of water, those will stay with Carly forever. She knows this.

A perfect day, she thinks, her mood tempered by the knowledge that it has to end. Soon.

It is dusk when she drives up the Quartermaine driveway at a maximum speed of - she determines - about 30 inches/hour. She is being overly careful, avoiding pebbles in the concrete, swerving to miss shadows.

She keeps imagining the day when AJ announces that he is going to marry Keesha and move to Philadelphia. Despite his fervent denials, Carly knows that things happen that can demolish a promise.

Especially a promise made to me.

When she finally arrives at the front door, she puts the car into park and just sits there. She bites her lip, tempted to speed away for parts unknown, taking her son with her. She figures she has nothing to tie her to Port Charles anyway.

Except Bobbie, she thinks with a sigh. Then she figures she could just send her mother a postcard.

Suddenly, the option of running away does not feel farfetched at all.

She could take Michael somewhere and just start a new life. She could change her name, get a job, find a place to live...

Then she realizes that she's already been there, done that, shoplifted the T-shirt.

You can't get away from your life, Carly. Nothing to do but live it, she tells herself with resignation.

She gets out of the car then and retrieves Michael from his restraint.

She ambles to the front door, kissing him and making him giggle the entire way. It only takes a few seconds for AJ to answer the doorbell and retrieve his son.

He hands Michael to Latecia, then steps outside and closes the door behind him. He says angrily, "Don't ever do that again, Carly! That stunt was stupid and dangerous!"

Knowing that he is referring to how she drove off earlier, Carly retorts, "Come on, AJ! Your driveway is practically a straight shot! I wouldn't do anything to endanger my little boy!"

He smirks at her, "Right." Then he looks at her seriously and warns, pointing a finger at her, "Just don't do it again, Carly."

Then he steps back inside and slams the door in her face.

Carly blinks, disgusted by AJ's haughty, bossy, condescending manner, and irate that AJ barely let her say goodbye to her own child. She stands at the door for a moment, calming herself, her hands on her hips.

Then, determined, she jogs down the front steps and into her car. She speeds away from the Quartermaines and stops in a 7-11 a mile away.

After digging some change out of her pocket, she goes to the pay phone in front of the convenience store and dials her lawyer. She looks at her watch and wonders if he is even still in the office.

Aubrey answers with a hacking cough, then manages, "Harris."

Carly looks around her, as if fearful someone is watching. She says, "Hi. It's Caroline Benson?"

He responds, "Yes! What can I do for you?"

She clears her throat and scratches the side of her forehead, "I have a couple of questions for you? I was wondering if you had a few minutes free this afternoon?" She wants to know if she can prevent AJ from leaving the vicinity with Michael without her permission.

"Sure," he rasps into the phone, "I have time right now if you want to stop by."

"I'll be right over," she informs him. Then she hangs up the phone.

*****

Sonny walks into Luke's and somewhat nervously glances around the nearly empty bar. He nods to Claude, who nods back without expression.

Sonny approaches the bar and taps it lightly with his fist. He asks Claude, "Carly working tonight?"

Claude starts to answer when Luke slams out of the back with two full bottles of Absolut in his hands.

Luke sees Sonny and shakes his head. He says, "I thought I smelled something rotten out here."

Sonny gives him a dead look. He utters, "Luke."

Luke steps behind the bar and puts the bottles on a shelf. Then he turns around, places his hands on the top of the bar, and looks at his ex-partner, studying him curiously. Then a smile slowly creeps across Luke's face, "I guess I owe you a drink."

Confused, Sonny stares at Luke blankly.

Luke shakes his head, still smiling, "I gotta hand it to you, ex-partner, when you dump somebody, you really dump them!"

Sonny's face remains impassive.

"You leave Brenda waiting at the altar, and Lord knows what you did to that nutty Fed!"

Sonny narrows his eyes, impatient, "What are you talking about?"

Luke meets Sonny's stare, his smile fading as he sees the puzzlement on Sonny's face.

Luke waves his hand, "Carly. I'm talking about how you dumped Caroline." Luke continues, thinking that Sonny simply needs a reminder, "The other woman? The brunette? Caroline saw you with that other Brenda clone!" Luke finishes in quiet awe, "That was beautiful, man..."

Suddenly, to Sonny, everything is crystal clear. Carly had not shown up at his meeting for no reason, she'd shown up because she thought he was with someone else.

The way she had looked at him outside the penthouse, such disappointment, such hurt, such anger. How impossible she was at the brownstone, how unwilling and scared she seemed.

Sonny closes his eyes. Now it all makes sense. Damn it...

Luke can tell by Sonny's expression that he - and Carly and Bobbie - had jumped to the wrong conclusion.

Aw hell...

Luke, thinking this may be a way to get back on Carly's good side, leans on the bar and says to Sonny reluctantly, "She's working tonight, but she's not due in for another half hour."

Then he walks to the other side of the bar.

Sonny looks at his watch and decides to wait. He can not believe he almost let her go over something as stupid as a misunderstanding.

******

Carly swallows as she parks her car in front of Aubrey's building.

It is dark already and the street, normally deserted in the daytime, looks like a scene from a badly lit horror film in the evening. She thinks twice about getting out of her car. Maybe I should wait until tomorrow...

Then she looks up and down the street. She sees nothing. No life. No movement. Not even a homeless person on the sidewalk.

She figures she can dash over to Aubrey's door and buzz him in a matter of seconds. Come on, Carly. Stop being stupid, she tells herself.

She shakes her head at her baseless anxiety, then opens her door and starts to grab her keys from the ignition.

That is when she feels the strange, cold hand come out of nowhere and coil, snake-like, around her arm. Then she feels the sharp tug as she is dragged from the car and hurled violently to the street, barely putting her hands down in time to break her fall. She grunts, her insides hollow, as her face scrapes the scrabbled cement.

She manages to look up in time to see two skinny, shadowy figures climbing into her car. They are whispering tensely to each other, but she can not distinguish words.

As one of them gets into the driver's seat, he sees her start to get up.

He jumps out of the car and stomps on her chest with a heavy, booted foot, knocking her breathlessly back onto the hard cement.

Nonsensically, her only thought is I haven't even paid for the damn thing...

She finds it odd that, while she can not hear the car start up again, she can hear the dull thunk of the back of her head as it roughly kisses the road.