So Long, It Was So Long Ago

It’s a pity you don’t remember me.
It’s a pity you do not love me.
Give or take 500 years.

(We haven’t met for 5 centuries,)
We will not meet again, for five more long centuries.

You will recall it five times, you will forget it five times –
The dog rose in bloom by your window.
(Russian song by Yuri Lores)

I know it was a purpose they all (Lane Davies, Nancy Lee Grahn, Bob Guza, Chuck Pratt, Jill Farren Phelps) shared: not to make Cameron and Alexis a replica of Mason and Julia. I understand it, I respect it and I think it is right. This said, I still ‘got the blues for’ what might have been… So, inspired by the mysterious song by Yuri Lores (I’ve loved it since early childhood), I am writing this story.
(It is in conformity with the GH script: for a happier version please watch the clip - follow the link below ;) ).

*
Cameron’s days in Port Charles were monotonous and dull. It did not look like life at all, actually. The hospital, the homeless shelter. No one to care about, and no one caring about him. He felt he was a silhouette, a foil, rather than a man.
Until one night.
She entered the shelter, and as she was walking, not too confident in these strange surroundings, she ran into him.
“Uh—excuse--“ she started.
“Excuse you,” he beat her to it and smiled. He held her just for the shortest moment as he gently moved her aside and passed her by.
Something stirred in his heart: the feeling was not unfamiliar. It felt like an electrical discharge.
She must have felt something, too, for a shadow of recognition crossed her face. She turned and raised her index finger. “Oh – wait,” she said. “Maybe you could help me.”
Cameron gave her the once-over. What was that feeling again? “You look like you got a ways to go before you hit bottom. All the beds are taken tonight anyway,” he said and scratched his beard. He was well aware what he looked like and what she must have thought; it amused him.
“No, I''m not –“ – she did not spell out the word. Just like her.
JUST LIKE HER?
“I''m looking for someone,” she said.
Cameron screwed up his eyes. Oh well, he realized what the feeling was: he knew her. He had known her before – he’d known her for a long, long time. Perhaps longer than his whole life. Yes: definitely longer.
“You are or you''re not?” he specified.
“I am,” she said. “Are,” she corrected herself. “Am,” she reconsidered, --
and Cameron realized that not only had he known her – he loved her, and he had loved her for as long as he’d known her. Sakes alive!
He was feeling like his fuddled brain was sobering up every minute. The world around was gradually getting colorful. Life was acquiring sense.
She was heading to the door. He would not let her go.
“You’re cold,” he said.
“You don''t really know me well enough to say that,” she retorted.
“No, as in heading away from what you''re looking for,” he said.
She looked at him strangely. And he – well, Mason was looking at his Julia, wondering.

*
“I''m him,” Mason said.
But he could not go on. Whatever kind of spell that was, it would not allow him to call her ‘Julia’ or to remind her he was Mason, nor would it allow to mention Santa Barbara or Samantha.
Where was Samantha, by the way? Julia looked very pregnant. If this was a case of reincarnation – and this very well might have been – Mason could not come up with a more plausible explanation yet, so he had to accept it as the operational hypothesis… well, then the baby might be Samantha.
How did their happy life in Santa Barbara come to an end? How long ago was it? Mason could not tell. It had just dissolved like a dream, and it seemed like centuries ago; he had no way of knowing.
Well, it did not matter: he had to concentrate on breaking the spell now.
They sat down. Julia was telling him about a Luke. Mason leant back, scrutinizing her with an amused twinkle in his eye. He was quite happy. Who cared about Luke? Was there even such a person? His own Julia was right in front of him. He could touch her if he reached out. The world was now complete with sounds, smells, colors, bursting with life to live together. Happily ever after.
She was rambling on in her Wainwrightean fashion, “…why I''m sitting here in a homeless shelter at this hour of the night with -- I''m sorry -- a bizarre, slightly -- you got to forgive me again -- unkempt "psychiatrist"…” she gestured quotation marks.
Mason smiled broadly. Correct: he was no psychiatrist. It did not matter, though. Maybe she needed one. Why did she not recognize him? Must be a part of the spell. – What a curse.
But it was okay: Julia was here, and Mason was not going to let her go now. Not for the world.
“A man is in trouble and we have until midnight to help,” Julia said. She was so anxious to convince him to go: silly, he thought tenderly and smiled to himself; did she not know he would go to the back of beyond for her?
“And how would you define "we"?” Mason said, only to render her speechless, and wondered if it was a good idea to kiss her there and then. He had read it in ancient fairy tales a kiss was usually enough to break spells of the kind.

*
Well, a kiss was NOT enough…

Mason saved Julia when a villain left her in the park to die in labor. At hospital, he was standing by her side as she was groaning and wriggling in pain, and ached to hold her like he used to…
Julia gave birth to a girl, she called the new Samantha ‘Kristina’, and he had to put up with this. He had to drag Julia out of the N.I.C.U. to feed her: she would have starved herself. Always a self-abandoning mother.
He rushed to help Julia – aw, hell, she insisted her name was Alexis now, Davis being the second name. The second name sounded strangely familiar, too, only Mason felt there was a spelling mistake… Well, anyway, he rushed to help her out when she was accused of murder. He should know a thing or two about split personalities! – and she tricked him, her dissociative identity disorder was but a fake. It was odd; all the more unexpected, as he could swear Julia would never have done such a thing!
Of course it was all for the baby’s sake, Mason kept telling himself. He spent so much time with Sa… I mean Kristina, he held her tight, he lulled her to sleep, he loved her so – hoping all the time the picture of him with the tiny girl in his arms would wake some memories in Julia. Vain hopes.
Desperate, he started pushing Julia’s buttons. He was so glad when she splashed her drink into his face, it felt so much like his Julia, - but then she just turned on her heel and walked away.
He tried kissing her, but the unrecognizing, startled look in her eyes was too much for him to bear. It was his turn to walk away – a man can only take this much.

Every minute Mason was losing hope now. He felt his time was coming to an end, and still he did not manage to wake her. He tried kissing Julia even when she was disguised as Dobson (another name that rang some bell to him; funny, he could not remember who that was in his past life, he believed it was not one person, though)… Well that kiss only made his son consider him gay.
Yeah, in this life he had a son. He had had two, but had lost one. And this one – the relationship so painfully reminded Mason of what he had gone through with C.C.! It really was too much for him to bear.
The sand in the hour-glass was almost up when he attempted to move in with A-l-e-x-i-s. If the kiss did not help maybe sex would, he thought, eyeing her with the longing of a doomed man.
It was not meant to happen.
Not this time.
The dream dissolved.

"He sacrificed everything for me – everything, and I don''t even -- I don''t even know if I thanked him," Alexis said.
Thank!!
The word clanked and dispersed like mist, like the picture of the man with the mortally wounded eyes and the fixed sardonic smirk on his lips.
“At first, I didn''t understand his obsession with helping me with my daughter, but I know that it''s because he didn''t want me to be without my daughter any more than he ever wanted to be without his son,” Alexis said.
“You''re kidding yourself. He tried to help you because he was in love with you,” a friend countered.
She gaped.
Love – the word had never transpired between them.

Oh ‘love.’ That. Maybe THIS was Mason’s mistake.
Ok, when another eternity is over, he can try this.

/Olga Lissenkova/

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