The Best Thing

But remember the time I told you the way that I felt
That I’d be lost without you and never find myself
Let’s hold onto each other above everything else

Inspiration

This story has changed so much since I originally envisioned it in 2004. Lila Quartermaine had just died, and I found myself wondering how Port Charles would handle Audrey’s death. So I began writing based on that idea, and had six or seven chapters written before a computer crash killed them all. Almost ten years later, I returned to it, and changed it around so that there are very few aspects of that old story that remained: really just the title and the way I deal with Jason changing Sam’s paternity results.

Timeline

For the most part, the major backstory will be explained in the first few chapters. I’ve changed only a few things. I pick up the show about May 2004 (or whenever Jason changed the paternity results), and go from there. So from that period on, only what’s in my story is what happened. Basically — just how Sonny and Jason deal with his changing the results. Elizabeth does not come home in June 2004 and enroll the nursing program. Emily and Nikolas are together, after he comes back from the dead. None of the Mary Bishop going insane stuff happens. Not that it’s important, but I liked Mary so…pfft.

Steven Webber is played by Shaun Benson, rather than Scott Reeves, simply because I never really watched Scott as Steven, but I really liked Shaun’s portrayal back then. A note about Steven as a character: John Durant is not a factor in this story, so he’s just a normal doctor at General Hospital, having moved to Port Charles over the summer.

Carly is played by Tamara Braun because she was playing her in 2004 and her characterization drives Carly’s motives, rather than LW or SBr.

Thanks to Cora for her incredible help during the outlining stage, and then for her skills as a beta 🙂

Author’s Note

Sonny is going to struggle with mental illness in this story, particularly a type of bipolar disorder with mixed episodes. This basically means his mood swings occur much more rapidly, and even occasionally simultaneously. I don’t know anyone personally with this disorder–everything I know comes from hours of research. People who have this disorder are not innately violent, so I want to make that disclaimer. I just tried to adapt the disorder to someone with Sonny’s specific characteristics. I hope I do this illness justice and make Sonny less of a caricature and feel more like a living, breathing man struggling with a difficult illness.

If you have any experience with this, please contact me to let me know if I’m making this work or if I’m messing it up. I don’t want this to be a soap opera disease where I make it up as I go along.