"Please state your relationship to MS Davis?"
"She's my friend. Oh and my ex-wife." Jax added quickly, almost with a smile. As long as he lived he would never forget the look on Alexis' face when he had announced that it was they who were getting married in Las Vegas. She had been terrified, shocked and utterly beautiful. No matter how things changed when he thought of Alexis he always thought of that first. She had been such a good friend to him in the years since their marriage. Again he was struck by how little he had given her in return.
He would never be able to forgive himself for what he had done or rather not done. He had seen what Ned did to her and he had looked the other way, left her there with that monster. Of course he hadn't known at the time that it was Ned who caused her injuries, but he had seen the marks.
It was two days after Ned had learnt of her plan to flee with Kristina. Jax had come over to discuss Brenda with Ned. Alexis had been on her way upstairs to check on Kristina when he arrived.
"Hello there, what happened?" He asked when he saw he arm and obvious bruises.
"It's nothing, I was, I was mugged the other night. I'm fine," she assured him.
"Mugged? Did you report it?" He asked with concern.
"Um, yeah. You know how it is though, I doubt anything will come of it." She dismissed. Of course she and Ned had never actually gone to the police station to report the supposed mugging.
"Are you sure you're all right?" He asked again noticing her nervous behavior, the way she kept glancing toward the stairs as though she wanted nothing more than to escape his questioning gaze.
"I'm fine." She repeated, this time with an edge to her voice that signified the subject was closed.
"Well then how's Kristina?"
"She's the most precious baby in the world." Ned said as he entered the hall causing Alexis to flinch slightly. Jax didn't notice. He had already begun filling Ned in on the latest Brenda crisis, Alexis and her strange behavior forgotten.
Alexis was upstairs feeding Kristina when Ned came into the room an hour later.
I'm going out to dinner with Jax and Brenda tonight, do you want to come?" He asked as though they were just a normal couple. It amazed her how he could still do that. One minute he would be the old Ned, her friend, and the next he could be unimaginably cruel.
"Actually I'm kind of tired, I thought Kristina and I would just spend a quiet evening in."
"You coddle her too much." He told her with disdain.
"What does that mean?"
"You don't leave her alone for more than five minutes, you never go out anywhere without her. You don't work at all anymore..."
Alexis listened unbelieving to Ned's list of complaints. After Skye's trial she had decided to take a one-year leave of absence from her practice so that she could be with Kristina full time, at the time Ned had thought it a great idea. The reason she never went out without Kristina was because she was afraid that when she got back both Ned and Kristina would be gone. He had hinted more than once that he was hoping to make a new start once he had finished with his plan for Sonny. Suddenly Alexis realized she had missed the last part of whatever Ned had been saying.
"What?"
"Never mind, I need to go." Walking over to where Alexis was sitting, he leant down to kiss Kristina on the forehead before walking out of the room. Alexis looked down at her precious daughter. She could do this for her. She just needed more time to figure things out, to find a way out.
Jax hadn't been surprised when Alexis didn't come with Ned. Besides her devotion to Kristina things between the two of them had been stained lately. He decided he would pop by for lunch sometime next week and see how she was doing. Of course by the time next week came he was busy trying to figure out why Brenda was still refusing to divorce Jason. Oh well, perhaps he would call Alexis the following week.
He had walked slowly into the hospital room, knowing what he would see. She was hooked up to several machines, her face still swollen. She looked even worse than she had at the Quartermains. Silently he sat down in the chair by her bed.
"Alexis? I am so sorry Alexis, I never imagined... I'm so sorry. Why didn't you tell me? I would have stopped him. I would have protected you. I would have..." suddenly he stopped. She didn't need his guilt, his regret along with everything else. He had failed her; it was something he would have to live with. All he could offer her now was the support he should have given her long ago.
"Hi there, beautiful." He greeted forcing himself to smile at her.
She winced at his choice of words lifting her hand as if to cover her face.
"Alexis you are still the most beautiful attorney in the country, nothing that bastard did will ever change that." When he saw her tears he cursed himself silently. He shouldn't have mentioned Ned. "It's okay Alexis, everything's going to be okay, I promise." He took her hand in his and squeezed it gently. Looking down Alexis noticed his bruised knuckles and gave him a questioning look.
"It's nothing, I just banged it against something."
"Ned?"
"Yeah, though Sonny got in quite a few good shots too."
"Sonny?"
"Yeah he was there too when we... when we found you."
"Is he, here?"
"Right outside the door." He confirmed.
"Can you get, I need... please?" She was having difficulty with her words but her meaning was obvious and after all she had been through Jax could not deny her anything, not even Sonny.
Jax walked into the waiting room and saw the crowd who had gathered. So many of them cared for her, so many loved her. Yet not one of them had known. He thought about all the signs that had been there, that he had ignored. He thought about all the times she had rescued him from problems both legal and otherwise. She liked to tease him about his white knight complex; his need to save damsels in distress but it was she who always seemed to be helping people. Every person in the room owed her in some way or another. He thought about the marks on her body, images of fear and pain consuming him until he couldn't stand it any longer. He walked past the crowd, out the door and into the cold air. There just outside the hospital in the dark of night Jax cried because even if she had asked him for help he wasn't sure he would have heard.