"Stefan, you can’t honestly believe that V Ardanowski is a Cassadine. She’s just a child first of all, she can’t be much older then Nikolas," Bobbie said, automatically ready to dismiss the claims of Jerry and V. "And she has absolutely no class, or taste if who she is hanging out with these days is any indication."

"I honestly don’t know Barbara, I wish I could say for sure." He said, rubbing his thumb over the medallion the young woman had come in with distractedly. "She could be a distant cousin, but if she was, my mother wouldn’t have taken such an interest in her. She must be of some importance, I just wish I knew to what extent."

Bobbie shivered, hearing Helena’s name. The woman was not one of her favorite people anyway, but that V might have something to do with her, made the old bag worse. She didn’t much care one way or another for V, but no one deserved to have to deal with Helena. Stefan had finally broken her hold on him, and now she was worming her way back into the family. "You think that Helena is setting this up, and is manipulating the situation?"

"Mother is always working behind the scenes to try and bring down the family. She must think that Ms. Ardanowski will bring us to our knees. But she didn’t count on Jerry’s involvement. He hates us all enough to prevent her from getting involved with us. But if she’s one of us, we’ll have to see what we can do about that friendship or whatever it is." He added distastefully.

"You can’t run her life Stefan, she’s an adult and Cassadine or not, she isn’t going to like you telling her who and who she can’t associate with."

"If she is who this says she is," He indicated the medallion in his hand, "Then she has an obligation to the family before anything else. She will come to realize that, and that Jerry Jacks can’t be a factor in her new life. Alexis learned and so will Ms. Ardanowski."

~~*~~

Jerry’s sobs had become soft gasps, but the tears were still streaming down his chiseled cheeks. "Thanks for the shoulder V. I don’t do that often, but being around Stefan brings it all back like it was yesterday. It still shouldn’t hurt so bad."

"How long has it been?" V asked quietly, not even sure if he heard her when he didn’t answer. "It won’t get better if you keep it bottled up Jer, and that’s what you’ve apparently done." She was wiping the tears from his face as fast as they were falling.

"We were just kids, who thought that love was enough to keep us safe." He shook his head, trying to get a grasp on his emotions, to focus on the now and not the past. "Young and idealistic, we would have had to have been to think that our love would keep her family from doing anything. And for a while it did. We just didn’t know that they were planning to completely destroy us in the end. It would have been one thing to go after one of us, but they didn’t, they wanted to rid the world of not only me, but also the children that I had dared to create with a Cassadine. I don’t care what he says, they had always planned that it be the three of us."

She had assisted enough crime victims to know when one was reliving the event, and he wasn’t with her on the bench, but back in the car the night he had lost his children. She could read the pain and terror in his eyes, and gently squeezed his thigh in a small offer of support, while Jerry continued to tell his story.

"She wasn’t supposed to come with us that night, I was going to see my parents. They never knew that I had married, they thought I’d just been living abroad, and had come to find me and bring me home they had said. But we decided at the last minute to come clean, and we were taking the children to meet their grandparents. Kristin was two, Andrey was only 6 weeks old. My only peace is that they never knew that anything happened, they were just to little to survive the impact."

Things were becoming clear to V, who couldn’t understand why Jax hadn’t known of an apparent connection between his brother, and the Cassadine family. He had never known, and he wasn’t going to like that. He felt enough had been hidden from him, where even though it was something as painful as this, he was going to blow a gasket. She would worry about him later, right now she had Jerry falling apart right in front of her.

"Do you and Alexis talk of it any? I never would have known by looking at the two of you that you knew each other before now, let alone were close."

"When we went our separate ways, we agreed to never talk of it again. She completely shut down, and it took her almost a year to get back to where she could function on a minimal basis." He hated thinking of those days, when his strong beautiful wife had been reduced to nothing but tears. She had dropped out of school, dropped out of life, and only fought back when he attacked her. It had almost been worth losing her to see the fire in her eyes again. "Now after all these years, we can be in the same room without giving to much away. But sometimes, we look at each other and it’s all right there, and we’re in the car again."

"That far away look she gets sometimes." Yet another mystery solved today, she wondered what else would come crawling out of the woodwork, and if she’d be able to handle whatever it was. "That’s so horrible Jerry, how do you two manage to get through the day or even to wake up in the morning."

"You do what you have to, and get through the day. It’s not easy, but eventually you hit a routine, one that doesn’t bring up the pain, one where you do things that keep you distracted enough to forget even for just a little while the things you’ve lost." He gave a small self-depreciating smile, "You don’t actually think that all the things I’ve done were because I was a bad person do you? I just needed to keep pushing line, to try and make the memories go away. I needed to show what an awful person I was, because I let those sweet babies die for no good reason. I couldn’t protect them or Alexis, and this is my punishment."

"That isn’t true and I hope you know it. You couldn’t have done anything differently Jerry. You did the best by your Kristen and Andrey, and by Alexis. You can’t continue to beat yourself up, to travel down a path of self destruction to atone for a past you had no control over." She couldn’t believe that this was the same arrogant Jerry Jacks, who tended to infuriate her with just a look. He didn’t even look like the same man right now, eyes rimmed red and blood shot, the look of complete defeat on his face. Where was the ego, and the smile that she was quickly growing to appreciate.

"Alexis," He whispered, not even thinking about her before now. "I need to call her. She’s the only reason why I haven’t gone after the family before now, and I don’t want her to think that I’m forgetting our unspoken truce. Do you have your cell phone on you V?" She watched his whole demeanor change from tangible grief to wholehearted concern for Alexis. She handed him her phone silently, but kept a hand on him, just so he knew that she was there and would be his support during all of this.

~~~*~~~

Alexis Davis was walking into the Port Charles hotel, already having a rough day when it wasn’t even half over. A case she was trying to negotiate had taken a nasty turn and she was about ready to wash her hands of it completely, if only she could. But when it came to the family, she would never turn her back on them, not after the only other time she had tried. While never completely towing the family line, she did try her best not to rock the boat. She was almost to the elevator, when she saw two of her favorite people sitting at the bar. She made a small detour, and went to join them.

"Hello boys," she said, coming up between them, kissing first Ned and then Jax on the cheek. "What are you drinking and can I get a double."

"Double seltzer for the lady," Jax called out with the same goofy grin he’d been wearing since he sat down.

"With a grin like that Jax, you’re not going to convince me that all you’re drinking is seltzer. She pulled up a barstool on the other side of Ned, looking to him for an explanation. "Well, which one of you are going to tell me what the party is about?"

"No party, and I haven’t been drinking, I’m high on life, and if you don’t believe me Ned will back me up. He’s been sitting with me for the past half hour." Jax said, indignantly, as if he couldn’t imagine why she would be accusing him of over indulging.

"He’s right, he’s in love, not drunk." Ned added dryly, wondering how he had gotten in the middle of this. The things he did to abate the guilt of things that had happened in the past.

"In love? Not with Chloe I hope." The flighty blonde had been ok in the beginning, but there was only so much fluff she could deal with. She was like cotton candy, the first bite was wonderful, but by the end of the bag, you just wanted to throw up. "Please tell me he’s got better taste then that."

"Oh no, he surprised even me with who he has fallen for." Ned said, not wanting to ruin it for Jax. It was his story to tell.

"Not only fallen for, but kissed. I kissed her and all of the angels sang a song of rejoice. Why I never saw it before, I’ll never know." Jax said, not catching the eye rolling going on between Alexis and Ned. "She’s perfect for me, why didn’t you two point it out before now."

"Jax, I still don’t’ know who she is. If I knew, I might have." Alexis added softly, not wanting to chastise him, not that he’d probably realize it for what it was in his mood.

"V of course, who else could I possibly be talking about?" Jax asked, but moved on before Alexis could list off who else he could be talking about. "I kissed her, and I’m telling you, she’s my one true love, she showed me what life was supposed to be like again. I will make her mine before all is said and done."

"He found her in Jerry’s apartment this morning, and now he’s decided to save her from his brother and herself by falling in love with her." Ned couldn’t’ help but laugh, this was to damn amusing for words.

Alexis stopped cold, forcing herself to smile. V and Jerry, that was an odd combination if she’d ever heard one. She was hardly his type. "Well, I hope you win in the end Jax." The bartender set down her drink and she took a sip, setting the glass down with a sigh when she heard her cell phone ring. "They always track me down. I don’t even want to know what it is this time." She opened her phone, and answered curtly "Alexis Davis."

On the other end of town, Jerry couldn’t speak for a minute. When he heard her repeat her name he finally managed to force his voice to work. "Lexie, we need to talk. All bets are off. The Cassadines are open game right now, and I wanted to do you the courtesy of telling you before I opened a can of worms that you’re not ready for."