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Zander Smith
Played by Chad Brannon
Written by Sarah

Zander was always known as the bad boy with a sensitive side that few saw. He was very passionate about things and always trying to get out of trouble.

When Zander first appeared on the scene, he worked at a local rave and sold drugs to kids for the mobster Joseph Sorel. It was believed that he was responsible for the death of undercover cop Ted, who was found lying dead next to Emily Quartermaine. It was later revealed that Zander had, in fact, saved Emily’s life, but when a plan to dump the body went wrong, Zander got scared, grabbed Emily at gunpoint and drove away. While on the run, Zander and Emily fell in love. Jason tracked them down, so Emily begged him not to kill Zander. She told her brother that Zander didn't kill the cop and that Sorel was behind it. Jason let him go but told him not to come back. However, Zander did come back to Port Charles to see Emily because he couldn't stay away from her. He wanted her to run away with him, but she persuaded him to turn himself in. He agreed to it, but Nikolas and Lucky saw them talking in the park and attacked Zander. Despite Emily's protests, they called the cops and Zander went to jail. Emily was able to get Alexis Davis to be Zander's lawyer and she got him a deal, so he was released. When Sorel tried to kill him, Emily persuaded Sonny Corinthos to protect Zander until he could testify against Sorel. During that time, Sorel made many attempts on Zander’s life but he survived.

Emily's family hated Zander and tried to separate the couple. They shipped her off to boarding school, but Zander followed and brought her back to Port Charles. When they returned, Edward faked an assault on himself and claimed that Zander was responsible. Zander was arrested, and Emily broke up with him as part of a deal with Edward to get the charges against Zander dropped. Everyone eventually found out what Edward had done, and Zander was released. She moved in with Zander, above Kelly's, against her family's wishes.

Zander and Emily had good times together and even went to her prom. The two made love that night for the first time but that happiness would be short-lived; Sorel would not leave the two alone. He had some of his men try to kill them, so they decided they had to leave town. At the same time, Skye Quartermaine became jealous of the attention Emily got from their father, so she offered to help Zander and Emily get out of town. She gave them some money to catch a bus and leave Port Charles, but when they got to the station, one of Sorel's men was waiting for them. The bus crashed into a train and Emily was temporarily paralyzed. After another attempt was made by Sorel to kill them, Zander begged Emily's parents to send her away to rehab and not tell him where they were sending her, in order to keep her safe.

After Emily left, Zander became involved in Sonny Corinthos' life. During this time, he rescued Carly and Alexis from Sorel and went to work for Sonny at his warehouse, doing some side jobs for him. When Sonny had AJ kidnapped and held at his warehouse, he persuaded Zander to go in and have AJ sign off his rights to Michael. When AJ got free, he called and told Emily that Zander had held him down and poured alcohol down his throat for Sonny. Emily believed AJ and dumped Zander. Estranged from Carly, Sonny asked Zander to watch over Carly without telling her he was doing so. The two became good friends. When Emily told Zander that she had started dating someone else, Zander took it very hard and became self-destructive. He kissed Carly in revenge, but she reminded him that they were just friends. She was mad when she found out that Sonny told Zander to watch out for her, but Zander made her believe that he truly liked spending time with her, and she eventually warmed to the idea. She didn't realize that he had begun to have real feelings for her. They almost slept together, but Zander realized that she was only interested in making Sonny jealous, so he pushed Carly away.

Sonny fired Zander when he accused Jason of putting the moves on Carly. Zander decided he was through with the Corinthos family and sold the information he had on Sonny as revenge. When Sonny found out, he had Jason beat him up. Elizabeth found Zander and took care of him. They began to grow close and an attraction between them developed. When Elizabeth was kidnapped by another mobster, Rosco, and put in a crypt, Zander attempted to rescue her but got thrown in with her. In their attempt to escape, they broke a gas line and passed out. When Jason came to rescue them, the crypt blew up and Zander suffered some injuries. Zander and Elizabeth eventually became lovers, but she was torn between him and Jason. Although she picked Zander, Zander continued to fight and go after Jason.

While working for Roy DiLucca against Sonny, Zander got involved with the new mobster in town: Luiz Alcazar. Zander snuck onto Alcazar's yacht to try and figure out the identity of the mystery woman on board. He was caught, beaten, and tossed overboard to drown. He survived, but he had amnesia and couldn't remember much of anything. Elizabeth took care of him while Jason protected both of them from Alcazar's men. When Zander regained his memory, he hid it from Elizabeth at first and began making an attempt to turn his life around. He gave a statement to the cops about what happened on the boat and went to work for Ned at ELQ.

Zander soon went back to his old habits by agreeing to help Ned go after Sonny. His past also caught up with him when he discovered his estranged father had come to Port Charles. He had flashbacks of his brother's death and immediately went back to using drugs to ease his pain. When Zander wound up in jail for trashing Jake's bar, he had to agree to see a therapist in order to stay out of prison. The therapist turned out to be his father, Cameron Lewis. They traded insults regarding old wounds before Cameron stormed off. Zander told his new friend Gia that several years earlier his older brother had been killed in a hunting accident, and Cameron blamed Zander.

When Zander nearly died of a drug overdose, Gia rushed to his side and tried to get his father to see the damage he had done to Zander. Cameron began to realize the consequences of his judgment and hostility; however, it would be some time before father and son would work out their problems. Gia continued to help Zander get his life back on track, even though her fiancé, Nikolas, did not want this to happen. Desperate to hang on to Gia, Nikolas tried to bribe Zander to get out of town. Zander refused. He grew closer to Gia after she broke up with Nikolas.

Soon after, Emily returned to Port Charles and to Zander's arms. When Zander caught Emily injecting herself with something, he begged her to get help; he didn't realize that she was taking alternative medication for breast cancer. He promised to help her through "rehab.", but Emily persuaded Zander to give her some space, during which time Zander got beat up by a drug dealer. Gia found him and even covered for him when drugs were found in his jacket. Emily picked a fight with him and called Gia to make sure that Zander didn't do anything stupid in anger. Later they made up and spent time together.

When a drug dealer that Zander had harassed for selling to kids confronted Zander with a gun, a struggle ensued and Zander got shot. Later, the guy turned up dead and Scott tried to pin the murder on Zander. However, Emily had Nikolas bail Zander out.

Suddenly, Emily dumped Zander and claimed to be in love with Nikolas. Zander was blindsided and found comfort in Gia's arms. Gia knew the truth about Emily, but Emily pushed her to develop a relationship with Zander. When Zander found out Emily had breast cancer and had lied to him due to her need to "protect" him from watching her die, he rushed to her side. Zander and Nikolas were both in love with her by this point, but aside from their fighting, they managed to remain civil as she fought for her life. Certain she was going to die, Emily married Zander at her hospital bedside. Then she recovered and they moved into Nikolas's old cottage. They tried hard to be happy and even watched over baby Kristina for Zander's father. Zander did not want to face that Emily was truly in love with Nikolas and had only married him out of guilt.

However, Zander did come face to face with this fact when Nikolas's new wife, Lydia, showed him pictures of Nikolas and Emily making out in the cottage. Enraged, Zander attacked Nikolas, who was already in the hospital. Afterwards, Zander demanded that Emily make a choice: Nikolas or Zander. Although she chose Zander at first, Emily could not ignore her feelings for Nikolas. Zander realized this and broke off the relationship before she could leave him. After some encouragement from Gia, Zander decided to try to fight for Emily. On Halloween night, Zander found Emily in the arms of Nikolas, making love at the cottage. Devastated, Zander met up with Elizabeth, who’d had a fight with her husband Ric. They fell into bed together for one night of passion. Zander didn't have any regrets the next morning, but Elizabeth did.

Zander then started working for Faith Rosco, which ultimately led to his demise. He tried killing Jason. Elizabeth tried to convince Zander to give up his career as a criminal but Zander refused. Zander finalized his divorce from Emily with few words but later shed tears over the loss of Emily. Elizabeth repeatedly tried to tell Zander about their baby, but each time, Zander cut her off before she could get the words out. Seeing his attitude, Elizabeth was reluctant to tell Zander that he was going to be a father.

Ric convinced Elizabeth that Zander had the right to know. They told Zander together aboard the Haunted Star, and Ric did his best to persuade Zander to sign over his parental rights to him. Zander agreed at first but later changed his mind. He used the paternal rights issue to blackmail Ric into framing Nikolas for the murder of Cody McCall.

Zander planned to send Nikolas to prison so that he could reunite with Emily. Ric complied until it became obvious to too many people what was going on. When Zander attacked Nikolas during a visit and then demanded that Nikolas be charged with assault, Ric had Zander arrested instead. Ric then convinced Zander that he could make a jury believe that Zander had killed Cody to frame Nikolas. Zander signed away his paternal rights to keep Ric from convicting him.

No longer caring about what happened to him or anyone else, Zander told Faith he would kill Jason during the delivery of a shipment. However, the cops showed up as well and a shoot-out ensued. One of the cops was shot in the back. When D.A. Ric pressed Faith about it, she named Zander as the shooter in exchange for Ric's protection against Sonny and Jason.

Unable to prove his innocence when the cop named him as the shooter, Zander went on the run. He urged Maxie to hide him at her house, and she reluctantly agreed. They shared a tender moment while talking about lost love. He confronted Emily and tried to convince her that he still loved her. Nikolas came on the scene, so Zander threatened to kill Nikolas in front of her. In a scuffle over the gun, Zander got shot in the leg. Maxie snuck Zander into a room in the basement of the Port Charles Hotel and then went to the hospital to get Zander pain medicine for his wound. Cameron caught Maxie stealing the medicine and pressed her to let him help Zander. Zander reluctantly allowed his father to remove the bullet but made him leave afterwards by pretending to hold Maxie hostage. Nikolas discovered that Zander was hiding in the basement of the hotel and confronted him. He knocked Zander out and locked the door. Then he notified Ric of Zander's location. When the police came to arrest him, a fire broke out in the room he was in. The fire spread through the entire hotel, and a body pulled out of the basement was believed to be Zander's. Distraught over his son's death, Cameron walked into the burning hotel. He encountered Luke and Lucky in the building and saved Lucky from being crushed by a falling beam before being crushed himself.

Emily felt guilty and distraught over Zander's death as well. (She later learned that the body was not Zander’s. However, no one knew where Zander was.)

A few days later Ric, Elizabeth, Emily, and Nikolas all received letters from Zander, courtesy of a lawyer. Each letter accused the person's significant other of killing Zander. The two couples spent the next few weeks trying to figure out who killed Zander. First Nikolas was arrested, since he was the last person to see Zander alive and had locked him in the room, leaving Zander no way out of the fire. The charges were later dropped. Elizabeth finally admitted to confronting Zander before the fire and knocking him out. Unwilling to let Elizabeth pay for Zander's death, they persuaded Jason to say that another cop, Capelli, had admitted to killing Zander before dying following a confrontation with Jason. The mystery was finally solved. Or was it?

After Elizabeth confessed, evidence began to surface that Zander might still be alive. Emily saw him everywhere she went, but she thought that she was hallucinating. She went to the cottage she had shared with Zander in order to finally say goodbye. Instead, she found Zander, in the flesh. He had knocked out the maintenance guy in the basement of the hotel and accidentally killed him, then started the fire to burn up the remains. Then, he hid out at the guy's apartment. Zander told Emily that he loved her and they should be together. Emily realized that Zander was mentally unstable. He took her hostage and demanded that she make love to him; if she didn't, he would kill Nikolas. When Emily agreed, Zander couldn't go through with it. When the cops arrived outside after being tipped off by Elizabeth, Emily tried to soothe Zander and coax him into giving himself up. She refused to leave without Zander and he finally agreed to walk outside with her. Emily had already informed the cops that Zander was unarmed. Once outside, Zander pushed Emily away and made a move as if he was reaching for a gun. The cops then opened fire, and Zander died in Emily's arms.

Proofread by Laura on 1/25/11

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Page updated 4/24/12