The Hardest Thing

Chapter 1

~*~*~*~*~

Six months earlier

Jax stood by the window that looked out on the front lawn of the cottage.  He didn’t know why he was here.  He was done with her.  She was out of his life for good.  There had been one too many betrayals and he couldn’t trust her anymore.  So, then why was he standing in her cottage wishing she was next to him again?

A week earlier, he had tried to give his ex-fiancée a million dollars to leave town and never return.  She had, of course, refused to take it as he had been almost certain she would.  She had seen the gesture for what it was and called him on it.  He was trying to make her look cheap, that he could buy her out of town.  It had been the only way he could justify it to himself.  If he hurt her enough to hate him, he might just be able to bear the pain of losing her.  So, after falsely wishing her luck and happiness for the rest of her life, he had walked out of that penthouse apartment and left her for the last time.  All the while it had been killing him inside to do it.

Jax had no idea where Brenda had gone after that.  He assumed she was on the first plane back to Europe.  He’d walked the Elm street pier a few times, hoping not to run into anyone.  When the winter light had finally faded enough for the street lights to come on, he headed for the Port Charles Hotel where he had taken a suite for the next few weeks. 

It was odd, he thought as he walked through the double doors into the hotel lobby, just two days earlier, he had walked through the same doors, holding his fiancée’s hand and talking excitedly about their Valentine’s Day wedding.  It was supposed to have finally been the happiest day of their lives.  The day they would finally be married, after trying three other times.  They were going to make the lifelong commitment to each other and live the rest of their lives together.

That was before she had gone off to kiss Sonny Corinthos, he thought savagely as he punched the elevator button for the seventeenth floor.  It had been the final straw in their relationship.  Bracing his hand on the wall of the elevator, he closed his eyes, trying to forget the tears streaming down Carly Corinthos’s cheeks when she’d told him what she’d seen on the docks.  Brenda and Sonny kissing passionately and as if there was no one else in the world but them, she’d said.  It was obvious what was happening, Carly cried.  They couldn’t stay away from each other and now they had obviously decided they weren’t going to.  He should get out while he had the chance, she said right before she left.

But he had refused to believe her.  He wanted to think she hadn’t seen what she thought she saw.  It hadn’t been Sonny and Brenda, or if it had been Sonny, it wasn’t Brenda.  The argument held strong in his head for the first hour or so while he waited to hear from his fiancée.  Surely, she would call right before she went to bed or she would ignore the tradition of spending the night before the wedding apart and she would be here soon.  She never came and she never called.  Sometime around three in the morning, he knew Carly was right.

The elevator doors opened at the end of the hall and Jax exited to the left for his suite.  He had waited all the way up until the ceremony for Brenda to come to him and tell him what had happened.  He had even given her the perfect opportunity in her dressing room.  Instead, she said nothing, choosing once again to keep secrets from him.  She could have said anything and he would have believed her, as long as she told him.  He would have accepted even the tired excuse that she was saying goodbye to Sonny for the last time. 

He’d wanted their marriage to based on trust and honesty with each other since he’d already lost one marriage when he couldn’t trust the woman he was with.  Ever since Brenda had some back, there had been the underlying current of lies and dishonesty, though.  He was kidding himself if he thought otherwise.  She hadn’t even let him know she was alive for the last four years.  She didn’t tell him what had really happened with Alcazar.  And yet, she had told Sonny and Jason everything.  Jax was done accepting that as just another fact of life.

As he turned the corner of the hall, he saw someone standing near his doorway and as he walked closer, he realized it was Brenda.  It stopped him in the middle of the hall as he realized just how much he had wanted to see her again.  Unconsciously, ever since he had left Jason’s penthouse, he hadn’t wanted to leave things the way they did.  He didn’t want her to think he never loved her in the first place.  It hadn’t been true when he said it.

Clearing his throat, he walked further towards his door and said, “Brenda?  What are you doing here?”  Trying not to show any reaction to her presence was one of the hardest things he was ever going to have to do, he decided, as he struggled to keep his expression and voice cold.  Their relationship was over, but turning off his feelings for her was as hard as stopping Niagara Falls.  He would always love her.

Brenda started at the soft sound of his voice.  She spun around in surprise and saw him approaching, key in hand to enter the suite.  “I couldn’t leave things the way we did,” she said. 

“Why not, at least we said goodbye this time,” Jax responded coolly as he inserted the key in the lock and went inside.  Brenda followed him before he could shut the door.  He pretended not to see the flash of hurt in her eyes at his comment.

“That’s not fair, Jax, and you know it.”  Crossing her arms in front of her, she stood against the door.

“No, I don’t know it!  Who is it not fair to?” he exclaimed loudly.  He threw his coat over the arm of the sofa and ran his fingers through his short blond hair.  “Did you come here to fight, Brenda?,” he said after taking a few deep breaths.  “Because we already did that .  I don’t think there’s anything left to say.”

“Yes, there is,” Brenda replied.  “There are things you don’t understand, Jax.”

Jax couldn’t stop the sardonic smile that came to him.  Laughing sadly, he said, “You’re damn right, there are!  Like I don’t understand exactly how many times you have to say goodbye to Corinthos before you’re finally done with him.  And I don’t understand how you can run so easily to Jason every time you and I have a problem, but you couldn’t tell me the simple truth of where you were two nights ago, the night before our wedding, before I dragged it out of you.  And most of all, I don’t understand why you couldn’t just tell me you didn’t want to get married and instead, chose to have Jason block the annulment against his own wishes.  I don’t understand why you didn’t trust me enough to tell me any of that.”  He mirrored her stance and crossed his arms, staring down at her. 

Brenda sighed loudly.  Hidden beneath his words, she could hear the pain and suffering she knew he was feeling.  He was determined not to show her how much he hurt, though.  She had known this wasn’t going to be an easy conversation from the moment she left the airport and came back here.  She should have just let it go and let Jax be angry with her, but she loved him too much for that.  “Will you just listen to me, please?” she asked, trying not too sound upset at his words and at the same time, trying not sound like she was begging either.  She knew he was hurt and that she had done it.  But what mattered now was that he knew the full truth.  This might be her only chance to tell him, but she quickly pushed that thought to the back of her mind.

Jax didn’t want to listen to her try to explain the kiss one more time.  He didn’t want to hear that she was finished with Sonny for good, and he definitely didn’t want to fight about the way they’d left things at the wedding ceremony or the penthouse apartment.  Shaking his head, he said, “No, Brenda, you’re not going to say anything I haven’t already heard.  The truth of the matter is that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me what you were thinking.  You’ve been wanting to postpone this wedding ever since I asked you to marry me, but you never told me why.  Well, congratulations, it’s been postponed.”  He turned away before she could see the tears gathering in his eyes.  Brushing them away quickly, he walked away to the other side of the room.

She hated this.  Everything in her was telling her to fight what he was saying, that he didn’t mean what he said.  She had known from the start that he was just trying to get her to hate him enough to leave town.  He was only reacting out of pain and she had been the one to cause it.  It had certainly hurt her for him to tell her in front of most of Port Charles and she had wanted to just leave him after that, but when she was sitting in the airport lounge, she thought about everything she had done to be with him and everything he had gone through to be with her.  They couldn’t just give that up. 

Crossing the room to where he stood, Brenda put her hand on his shoulder, but felt him immediately pull away.  He sidestepped away from her a few feet.  Looking down at her hands, she conceded she wasn’t going to win this one.  He needed more time before they got into it.  Knowing what she had to do, she said, “Look, Jax, I’ll leave, but I want you to know one thing before I do.  I can’t explain everything that has happened, but someday I’ll be able to.  You just need to know that the four years while I was gone and the last six months I’ve been in Port Charles have not been what you think they were.  There are things you don’t know.”

With that, she lightly kissed her fingertips and touched them to his shoulder.  “But you do have to know that I do love you, and only you, with all my heart,” she whispered before she turned and left the room.

Now, as Jax stood in the living room of the cottage, he couldn’t get her words out of his head.  Obviously, there was something she wanted him to know.  Something she couldn’t tell him herself right now.  So, it was possible she wanted him to figure it out on his own, if he cared enough about her.  The problem he was having was getting past the anger and pain he felt towards her.

~*~*~*~*~

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” she announced as she walked into the office the next day, her purposeful stride giving away her frustration.

A tall man with graying hair stood up from his desk, startled by her entrance.  When he recognized her, he ushered her to sit down on the couch across the room.  “Brenda, you know you don’t mean that,” he said sternly. 

Standing again and beginning to pace back and forth in front of him, Brenda Barrett nodded her head in agreement with the argument in her head.  “Yes, I do, Sean,” she insisted.  “I’ve had enough of this.  I’ve already hurt too many people and I hate lying to the people I love.”

Sean Donnelly was her boss and a very good friend when she needed it.  He’d been by her side through most of her agent training and had been the one to assign her to go home to Port Charles again.  There had been many times like this one in the past four years that had her sitting on his couch, crying, laughing, or screaming, at the injustices and circumstances surrounding her new life.  But he needed her to keep her focus and to stay on her job.  “How many times do I have to tell you this will all be over soon?”

“How can you say that, Sean?!  Soon was four years ago when you promised me this wouldn’t take more than a year.  I think you passed the ‘soon’ deadline a long time ago!” she exclaimed loudly.  “Alcazar is dead.  We don’t know who killed him and we don’t know why.  I’d say it pretty much stops our plans right there.  Not to mention the fact that I can’t go back to Port Charles now!”

“And who’s fault is that, Brenda?  I’m the one who told you not to get married,” he replied calmly, ignoring her extreme look of anger.  Sean walked over to his mahogany desk and picked up a thick file.  He handed it to Brenda and watched as she flipped it open angrily to look at the contents.  “What you’re looking at is the latest information we have.  It doesn’t tell us much, but our source is getting much closer to something real, I’m assured.”

Brenda skimmed the material quickly looking for any sign of something useful.  Puzzled, she looked up from the file when he mentioned his other source.  “I don’t understand, Sean.  You’ve got someone close to Sonny and I didn’t even know it?  I thought I was the only one in Port Charles.”

“I couldn’t tell you, Brenda.  I needed you to concentrate on Alcazar and I knew your past relationship with Corinthos would prevent you from wanting to investigate him.  So, I brought someone else in and that agent is still in the field.”

“Who is it?  Davidson or Pierce?”

He shook his head.  “Neither one, it’s someone you’ve never met.  I knew you would have the opportunity to meet the agent, so I had to place someone you didn’t know.”

“Well, how long has this agent been around?  It would take someone with a lot of experience to get this close to Sonny.  He doesn’t trust anyone.”  She was gesturing with the file and its extensive information on Sonny’s organization.

“Trust me, I know.  It has been quite difficult to get even this much on him.”

Sighing, Brenda walked back over to the couch and sat down again.  She was conflicted now.  Sean seemed convinced the case was almost over and if it was, she’d be able to go back to Jax as soon as it ended.  She would be able to explain all the things she couldn’t tell him before.  And he’ll probably laugh at you, she admonished herself.  There was no way Jax was going to believe she was now a World Security Bureau agent and that her assignment for the last year and a half had been to get close and stay close to Luis Alcazar using any means possible.  She had done exactly what she was ordered to do and it had cost her her relationship with Jax, possibly forever.

She turned to look at Sean, still going over the facts in the file in her hands.  “There is no one I can think of that even seemed like they were an agent.  Are you telling me the person you have on Sonny is so good I couldn’t even see him, Sean?”  It was a well known fact that her partner had taught her how to spot a WSB agent a mile away.  Her partner was the only person who had passed every similar test with a perfect score.  His skills had rubbed off on her shortly after their partnering.

Sean nodded his head, laughing slightly.  “Brenda, your partner had a hard time with him during the test.  It’s the only time I’ve ever seen him doubt his choice.”

“But he still spotted him, right?”

Sean nodded again.  “Yes, he did, but like I said, with a lot of doubt that his choice was right.  This guy is good, Brenda.  Corinthos won’t know he’s there until we want him to.”

Brenda tucked her leg up under her and leaned forward, putting the file on the coffee table in front of her.  She looked up at her boss expectantly.  “Well?  Are you going to tell me who it is or do I have to guess?”

“I shouldn’t tell you, Brenda, you know that,” he responded, hedging her question.

She pretended to pout for a second.  “Come on, Sean,” she teased after she was unable to feign her disappointment well enough.  “I’m not going back to Port Charles anytime soon, I told you that.  I couldn’t even if I wanted to.  This agent is the only person placed there now, so what does it matter if I know who it is?”

“All right, all right,” Sean relented, holding his hands in front of him defensively.  “You are better at this than even Robin is, aren’t you?

“Who do you think she learned from?” Brenda laughed.

Sean sat down in the chair next to the couch Brenda was sitting on.  He tapped the file on the table for a moment before looking at his agent.  “I know you met him, Brenda,” he started.  “In fact, you saw him when you weren’t supposed to.  It was just a good thing you never saw what he was actually doing.”

“What are you talking about, Sean?”

“Ric Lansing is the agent in Port Charles assigned to Corinthos, Brenda.”

Surprise was an inadequate word for what she now felt.  “Ric?” she repeated, puzzled.  “Wait a minute, you’re telling me that Ric, the guy who has done nothing but try to weasel his way into Sonny’s organization is actually an agent working with us?  No way!”

Sean sat back in the chair, tenting his fingers in front of his face with his elbows resting on either armrest.  “I swear he is.  I wouldn’t lie to you, Brenda,” he said quietly.

“But he’s a slimeball, Sean!” Brenda exclaimed loudly.  “You’d have to see him to know what I’m talking about, but he is one hundred percent, grade-A slime!”

He chuckled at her reaction, knowing exactly what she was talking about.  Ric had, after all, been following his orders.  “That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?”

“No!  He’s using Carly to get to Sonny and all he’s done so far is make Sonny mad.  Sonny doesn’t go for that type, Sean.  He won’t let anyone use his family to get to him.”

“Brenda, you’re forgetting one thing,” Sean said.

“What?”

He met her eyes steadily.  “It’s working.”

Brenda shook her head, her mouth opening into a slight sardonic smile.  “For now, maybe,” she responded.  “But you and I both know Sonny won’t go for it.  He’ll never tell Ric everything.”

“He won’t have to.  Ric is going to be Sonny’s lawyer, for all Corinthos knows.  Once he gets Corinthos to put him on retainer and give him a more permanent job, he’ll have access to more information.  And not only that, but the more successful he is at handling Corinthos’s and Morgan’s legal affairs, the more Corinthos and Morgan will start to trust him.  And we’ll make sure he has plenty of opportunity to prove himself,” Sean said, alluding to the rest of the plans.

She balked for a moment.  “You’re not going to hurt Sonny, are you?  That was part of the deal, Sean, you know that,” she said, nervous for the first time.

“I know, Brenda.  I told you we weren’t going to put Corinthos away this time and I meant it.  There’s no proof he had anything to do with Alcazar anyway.  We’re just trying to get what information we can so we can finish this case, okay?”

Brenda nodded her agreement reluctantly.  “Okay, I guess.”  She got up from the couch and crossed the room to the three side-by-side windows looking out over Washington D.C.  She could see the top of the Washington Monument from where she stood.  “So what’s next?”

Sean stood up and went back to his desk, picking up another file folder.  “We’ve got a lead for you to follow in South America.  We think it might give us a lead on who ordered Alcazar’s hit.”

“Am I going alone again?”

“No, your partner will meet you there.  I’ve heard he’s actually pretty anxious to see you again.  Seems he’s missed you for the last few months.”

“Yeah, well, he’s the one who made sure he couldn’t go back to Port Charles now, isn’t he?  That’ll teach him for the next time,” Brenda said, laughing.  She took the file folder from Sean and grabbed her purse from the chair where she had flung it when she walked in.  She had two hours to get to her apartment and pack for her flight to South America.

 

Chapter 2