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Alexis awakened with a gasp and shot up straight in bed. She pushed her hair back away from her face and felt her sweat covered forehead. "It was just a dream," she whispered to herself quietly trying to catch her breath. "Just a dream."

Once her breathing became steady again, she pushed back the thin blanket she was covered with and headed for the kitchen in search of a drink of water. She fought back the shiver that went down her spine as she walked out into the semi darkened hallway. She stopped in front of Kristina's room and saw that the door was open and her bed was empty.

Alexis padded out into the living room where she found her daughter laying atop of Ric's chest. A large smile spread across Alexis' face, she could no longer count how many times she had caught the two of them in the same exact position. They loved each other, anyone could see it. As if on cue, Kristina's small head lifted from its resting spot and she smiled at her mother.

"Unca Wic sleep," she told her in a loud whisper. She giggled quietly and laid her head back down on his chest.

A small tear went down Alexis' cheek as she recalled her earlier nightmare.

Ric's hand moved down Kristina's back and tickled her slightly. "I thought you were asleep," he told the toddler.

"You sleep," she told him.

Ric laughed and Kristina giggled as she felt the vibration rumble through his chest. "Mama wake," she told him.

Ric's head shot up and finally noticed Alexis watching them with a smile on her face. "Hey," he called softly.

"Hey," she smiled.

Ric sat up on the couch and readjusted Kristina in a sitting position on his lap. "It's past your bedtime, sweets," he told Kristina.

She shook her head no and the curls on her head bounced prettily across her face. He bit his bottom lip as he watched her and a sudden image of a teen Kristina popped into his mind. He was going to have to buy a shotgun to keep the boys away, he was sure of it.

"Yes, it is, sweetie," he told her patiently.

Again, she simply shook her head. Alexis watched the two of them amused. Kristina was an angel, but she could be a stubborn little thing when she chose to be. She reminded her of Ric in that way.

"Story first," Kristina bartered.

Ric laughed at his daughter. She was most definitely affected by having two parents as lawyers, as she was already pleading her case. Again a teen Kristina negotiating for an extended curfew time came to mind.

"You already had your stories, Kristina," he told her softly. "It's bedtime."

Kristina jutted out her lower lip into a pout. "Peas, Unca Wic?" she asked him blinking her long eyelashes at him.

Ric groaned and Alexis couldn't help but stifle a laugh. Kristina had been saying 'please' for a good month now, but she knew if she wanted something badly enough she could simply say 'peas' to Ric and he'd crumble. The little girl had him wrapped around her little finger.

"Ok, one story and then you go to sleep."

"Kay," she grinned and jumped off his lap and into her mother's arms.

"Goodnight, baby," Alexis told her kissing her forehead.

"Night, mama," she squirmed out of her arms and began to run to her room. "Unca Wic, faster."

Kristina disappeared and Ric walked over to Alexis. "Sucker," she smiled at him.

"It was the 'peas'," he grinned.

"I know," she laughed in return.

~~~~~~~~~

After a few minutes, Ric appeared from around the corner.

"Kristina fall asleep again?" Alexis asked with a smile from his previous position on the couch.

"Yeah," he sighed. "She didn’t even make all the way through the story." He sat next to her and Alexis smiled at him in return. "I thought you would sleep longer," he told her.

"I had a nightmare," she admitted.

It wasn't uncommon for Alexis to have one, but he was always there to comfort her after she awoke. Ric watched her sadly, the same thought running through both of their minds.

"Was it about Sonny?" he asked her quietly.

"No," she finally answered. "It was about you," she confessed.

Ric's eyes darted to her face. He hadn't meant for their talk to cause her worry and he certainly didn't want to cause her unneeded stress. Regret fell across his face and Alexis quickly saw that he had misunderstood her.

"It wasn't because of what we talked about, Ric," she tried to reassure him.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked her after a moment. "The nightmare, I mean."

God, his arms were aching, he wanted to hold her so badly.

"I dreamt you were gone," she replied softly. "That you were gone because of me. I finally pushed you away."

She took in a deep breath. That was harder to admit than she thought it would be. The mere thought of having to need someone scared the hell out of her.

Ric reached out for her hand and their fingers intertwined. "You could never push me away, Alexis. I'm here for the long haul."

Alexis' eyes danced across his face. Did she really want to give him her heart? It would mean putting herself out there for all to see and know. To open herself up to unseen despair. To love was to be undone. She shook her head sadly, love shouldn't be like this. She had been hurt so profoundly in the past that her internal instinct was to run from Ric's love instead of embracing it.

She rose from the couch and poured herself a glass of water. She could feel Ric's eyes on her as she debated with herself. She remembered the scene she walked in on earlier. Ric and Kristina. Her baby girl had fallen in love with him as much as she had. She wasn't fooling anyone, least of all herself, Ric already had her heart. She just needed to tell him.

Ric watched his wife as she got lost in her own thoughts. "Alexis?"

"Hmm?"

"You ok?"

"I was just thinking."

He rose from the couch and joined her at the small bar. "What about?" he asked her softly, rubbing his hands down her arms. Maybe her walls were beginning to crumble after all.

"About you. About us," she confessed.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she sighed softly.

"I know that we need to talk about a lot of things," he began. "Namely Sonny, but if we can get past this first hurdle, we can get there together."

"What hurdle?" she asked him quietly.

"You have to trust me with your heart, Alexis, and that scares you. But just because you need someone, just because you love someone, it doesn't make you weak," he whispered in her ear.

It always seemed like Ric could read her mind. She made her way back to the couch continuing to deliberate with herself internally. Ric joined her and cupped her cheek with his right hand.

"Talk to me, sweetie," he pleaded with her.

"Have you seen that movie 'Jerry Maguire'?" she asked him curiously after a few moments.

He nodded curiously. "Yeah."

"I hated it," she told him with a small laugh. "The concept of needing someone to complete you - it was just . . . ridiculous."

Ric ran a hand down her hair with a smile on his face. "Why doesn't that surprise me?" he teased.

"I mean, seriously, Ric," she began turning her body to face him. "What kind of message does that send to people? If you don’t have a significant other in your life, you’re not whole?"

He shrugged thoughtfully. "But isn't that the same idea as someone finding their soul mate?"

She tilted her head to the side. "Yeah, maybe."

He continued to play with her hair and tugged gently at a few strands. "Where's this all coming from, Alexis?"

"It's just that . . .," she trailed off and noticed one of Kristina's toys on the coffee table. She reached across and grabbed the wooden peg puzzle that lay there. She rearranged the pieces on the board and stared at the shapes for a few moments. A square, a triangle, a circle, and a star. She pulled each puzzle piece out and laid them out on the couch cushions between her and Ric.

Ric watched her silently, his head tilted to the side as he watched her face in fascination. Her mind was working overtime. Alexis looked over at Ric and smiled at him as she settled further back into the cushions.

"My life is sort of like this puzzle," she began.

"How do you mean?" Ric asked her curiously, studying the puzzle pieces.

"I've always felt that people tried to force my pieces into slots that didn't match," she told him as she tried to place the circle puzzle piece into the square slot. "See it doesn't fit. No matter how much I try to force it in there, in the back of my mind I know it doesn't belong." She stopped trying to force the puzzle piece into the slot and turned her gaze to Ric. "I think, there was always a need for me to be 'complete' and it wasn't until I was older that I realized that all of my pieces fit together except one. Have you ever felt like that, Ric? You think you have everything you ever wanted and yet there's this little voice inside of you screaming that there's something missing?"

Ric licked his bottom lip quickly. "Yeah," he confessed. "I felt that way my entire life."

She didn't need to ask what the missing piece was. It was evident in his eyes and she kissed him softly on the lips. She needed to explain herself to him before she did anything else.

"For whatever reason, it seems like all of the past men in my life have tried to be that missing piece."

Ric raised an eyebrow at her statement. "Really?"

"Yeah," she nodded thoughtfully. She put the pieces of the puzzle together except for the star. "Stefan was the first," she told him sadly. "The piece he offered was too tight to fit though. I felt constricted and suffocated most of the time. I loved Stefan dearly and in some respects he was my first love." She frowned faintly at that realization. "Leave it to us Cassadines to be so twisted." She laughed and Ric grinned at her, rubbing her arm softly. "Stefan was my only friend growing up. He was my protector, my confidante, but as much as I loved him, I felt that he was always trying to mold me into something that I wasn't. And when I protested, he took it to heart and thought that I didn't love him."

If only he knew. Her heart ached for him still.

"You still miss him a lot, don’t you?"

"Yeah," she smiled sadly. "I don't think I'll ever stop missing him. He was my brother no matter how he was at the end. I'll always remember him as the one who fought to protect me and loved me."

Ric kissed her temple and she grabbed his hand.

"I understand your need to have Sonny in your life, Ric, because I was the same way. It meant the world to me when Stefan told me he was proud of me. But when I stopped living for him and I started living for myself, that's when my life truly began."

Alexis took in a deep breath and Ric watched her enthralled. She turned back to the puzzle on her lap.

"Then there was Ned," she continued. Ned who at first seemed to fill that void that she needed filled. "I thought he would take away the pain and the misery, but it seemed like he caused more in my life. The piece he offered me was like a square trying to fit into the space of a circle. He tried to accept me the way that I was, but he couldn't. He never saw or seemed to care why I felt such a connection to my family and at that time in my life, Stefan and Zander were my family. He tried to sand off the edges, but it just wouldn't fit. I'll always regret the way that I hurt him, but he hurt me just as much."

Alexis shook her head slowly. What was done was done. She sighed softly and looked at Ric. "And then there was Sonny."

Ric sucked in a breath. He knew it was inevitable. Sonny. It would always bother him knowing that Alexis was such a huge part of his brother's life at one point. It was an irrational jealously, he knew that, but it would always burn just the same.

"I think looking back, I was attracted to Sonny because he was . . . wrong, for the lack of a better word. That and because he could relate to my horrible childhood. He was the guy that shouldn't have gone as far as it did. The piece he offered me was just too small to fit." She smirked at herself at the double meaning and Ric chuckled softly. "I thought I loved him . . . maybe I did. I loved him for the man that I thought he could become, but I had to learn the hard way that Sonny was wasn't going to change and never for me." She turned her focus onto her husband. She knew that this wasn’t easy for him to hear, but she needed to voice her feelings to him. "The man that we both know now, he isn’t the same man I was friends with. He was . . . different. Better."

She sighed sadly and readjusted the puzzle pieces again. She had seen the brief glimpses in Sonny. The connection they shared was real, that much was certain. But if he had cared at all, he wouldn't be so cruel and callous as he had become with her.

"The small piece Sonny offered me couldn't fill the space that I needed filled. That being said, the biggest regret in my life has in turn given me one of my greatest joys. Kristina. If I could take it all back if it meant keeping Kristina, I would."

"I'm sorry that he hurt you," he offered quietly.

"I could say the same to you," she told him in the same tone. "But everything that's happened has brought me here to this moment, and I wouldn't change that for anything."

"Do you mean that?"

"Yeah," she grinned. "I never saw myself as being a mother. Not until Kristina came into my life and in a way - Zander. I loved him like a son and I was crushed when he was killed."

Ric brushed away her bangs so he could look directly into her eyes. "It was only natural that Zander held that type of spot in your life," Ric told her softly.

He wished he could offer her more comfort, but his own trials with Zander were never good. But he also knew that if Alexis had seen good in him, it existed. It saddened him that he was gone from Alexis' life. He drew in a deep breath. Everyone she had mentioned with the exception of Kristina were now out of her life, either gone permanently or gone due to their actions. It continued to reinforce his theory that the walls she had around herself were there for a reason.

"Anyway," she started again, clearing her throat. "Kristina is the light of my life, you know that. I thought she had filled that void that I felt. I thought that I would never feel lonely again. And I hadn't, not really. Not until this man named Ric Lansing came along."

Ric laughed softly along with Alexis. She ran her hand down the nape of his neck, brushing the soft hairs there lovingly.

"I think deep down I knew that as much as Kristina had filled in the pieces, there was still something missing. I could feel it . . . it's hard to explain really," she told him with a sigh.

"I know what it’s like," he offered, his fingers tracing the outline of her face. "It's like waking up from a dream that you've already forgotten, but you're fighting your conscious mind to remember. But the more you try to remember, the quicker it disappears. You try to pinpoint what it is exactly that you need to become whole, but you can't quite put your finger on it, so it kind of just flutters away until you dream again. And then the process starts all over again."

She smiled at him. Of course he would know. "Yeah, that's it exactly." She placed her hand on his cheek. "You filled in that missing piece perfectly, Ric. No squeezing in or loose or sharp edges. You just fit. It was unexpected. Your love was unexpected. And my--" she trailed off softly. She took his hand and squeezed it tightly. "And my love for you was unexpected."

Ric kissed the palm of her hand and brought it to his face. "I feel the same way," he whispered.

"I don’t know when it actually happened," she continued. "I woke up one morning, your arms were wrapped around my waist and the smile on my face was just there and I was . . . whole."

Ric’s eyes shined in happiness as she leaned over and kissed him. "The day I realized that I was in love with you, everything clicked into place for me too, Alexis. That little missing piece, you were it for me."

Ric Lansing. The man that snuck into her life unnoticed and with ulterior motives. The man that was without a doubt her greatest love. He made her feel things that she had never felt before. She felt safe, loved and cared for when she was with him. He was her equal on every level. Intellectually, soulfully, spiritually. And he loved her. She knew he did. Before he told her all that he had. She just needed to look into his eyes to know it. He was her rock, her anchor, her soul mate.

Her husband, she scoffed internally. Never in a million years would she have thought that she would be married. Never in a million years would she have thought that she liked being married. Correction, she loved being married. She loved coming home to her husband and her daughter and she couldn’t wait for the day for their new baby to be born.

She placed the completed puzzle back on the coffee table and turned back to Ric. The tears began to trickle down her face as her thoughts finally impacted her. He pushed them away for a moment and kissed her forehead. "Come here," he told her softly.

He reclined back against the couch and held open his arms. She paused just for a moment before lying next to him, her back to his chest. He engulfed her in a hug and instinctively placed his hands over her stomach.

"I love you, Alexis," he told her as he kissed the side of her neck. She laid her hands on top of his and bit her bottom lip. Ric noticed her silence and kissed her temple. "What else is going on in that gorgeous head of yours?"

She tilted her head back to look at him. "I feel safe when I’m in your arms like this. I feel loved."

"You are."

She smiled back at him. "I love you," she told him softly.

Alexis lifted an eyebrow; it was easier to say than she imagined it would be. It was almost as if she could see the words leave her mouth and hang in the air. It reminded her of the first true cold Fall morning of the year when you step outside and are surprised to see the small puff of smoke that escaped your mouth. It was beautiful and scary at the same time.

"I'm in love with you, Ric Lansing," she told him again. The second time saying it was even easier.

Ric tried to fight back the tears that wanted to fall. Aside from 'Ric, we’re having a baby' said to him a few weeks ago by Alexis, these words were the most important things ever uttered to him. He wanted to remember this moment forever.

"I love you too, Alexis," he finally answered happily. "I'll love you for the rest of my life. And I want you to know . . . nothing or no one will come ahead of our family. Ever."

She reached her hand back to bring his face closer to hers. "I know," she whispered against his mouth before capturing his lips with a kiss.

And she did know. The only thing that mattered in that moment was their family -- all four of them.

She had never felt so whole in her life.

Maybe she’d have to give that Jerry Maguire movie a second chance after all.

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