This is my first fan fiction that I've ever made public. So please give reviews but keep them nice. I'm all for constructive criticism but be nice.

One more rose petal fell into the vase by her bed and she stared blankly into the distance. The snow blanketed the ground but now it was just one more painful memory. Every day for nearly forty days she had put a petal into the vase, signifying the number of days since her sister had left this Earth. Dark circles were beginning to form beneath her eyes because she couldn't sleep at night. It had gotten even worse since Cooper's death. She wanted so badly to believe that he was innocent of the heinous crimes he'd been accused of but she wasn't blind. The evidence was stacked against him and his apparent suicide didn't make him look any better. But she had an advantage over the police. She had Damian Spinelli on her side, helping her find the person who had killed Georgie. He believed it could have been Cooper but he also believed that it could not have been too. That's all she needed. Someone to believe that there was the possibility that the text message killer was still on the loose. Her attention moved back to her window as her eyes settled on the docks. She watched as people walked past the water and saw them stop to talk a couple of times. She used to love the docks back when Georgie was still alive. They would go to the docks and talk about their day before going off in their separate directions. As they got older that tradition stopped. Georgie had Dillon, and Maxie had whatever guy had her attention at that particular moment. They grew up and they grew apart. Georgie always had her back though and now she realized that she was just looking out for her when she suggested the possibility of Cooper being the text message killer. At that moment in time though it had felt like an attack on the man she loved. Now she regretted her reaction to her sisters concern. If she had realized then that it would be their last conversation she would have told Georgie how much she loved her, rather than accuse her of just being jealous of what she had with Coop. She would have hugged her rather than yell at her, but it was too late for all that now. For the rest of her life she was going to have to deal with the reality that the last words she said to her sister had been hateful. It made her sick every time she thought about it. After a few more minutes of staring out the window Maxie grabbed her coat off the bed and walked out the door.

Maxie walked briskly in the winter air. Somehow winter in upstate New York seemed colder this year, even though the weatherman was saying that it was warmer than it had been the year before. Everything always felt colder now. As she made her way she thought about all the people she had loved that were gone now. Her mom and dad had left her, Jesse was gone, Lucky left her, and now Georgie and Cooper were gone too. She couldn't help but feel as if somehow she'd been cursed. The people she loved were always going to either leave her or die. She felt as if love would never be hers. She stopped as she arrived at the entrance of the Port Charles Cemetary. For only being twenty one years old she had spent far too much time in this place. She had buried an uncle, two boyfriends, and a sister all in three years time. She walked among the headstones and felt at home. More at home here then she did anywhere else. This is where the people who loved her were. Where they all ended up. She was about to round the stone wall that was near Georgie's grave when she heard someone speaking. She peaked her head around the wall and saw Spinelli, a bouquet of white carnations laying on the ground in front of him, talking to Georgie. She knew that she should walk away but she wanted to hear what he was talking to her sister about. "The Jackal is working with your sister, the snarky sibling, to find out who killed you. I promise I will not let the demented evildoer that took your light from the world walk free." He took a breath and then Maxie saw him do something she had never seen him do. He stopped the Spinelli-speak and just talked to her sisters headstone. "Georgie, I feel as if the light has been taken from this planet. Not just you being gone but all the darkness that has filled this town recently. Stonecold is hard and distant. He rarely comes home and when he does it seems like he's just waiting for the opportunity to leave again. I wonder if I've done something to anger him. And then there's the blonde one. I've finally come to realize, too late, that she was never the one that I needed. I may have believed she was but I was wrong. It was you that wanted me for me. I was always just her information superhighway or her sounding board. I would love to still be friends with her but at times it seems as though she only thinks of The Jackal when I can assist her in some way. At least with the bad blonde one I know where I stand. At least I used to. Now that you're gone and the clean cut cadet is gone your snarky sister has come to depend on me. Can I tell you a secret faithful friend?" He paused as if the headstone was going to speak back and when it didn't he simply lowered his head. Maxie realized at that moment that Spinelli was indeed grieving the loss of her sister in a big way. Still she didn't come out of her hiding place. Instead she waited for him to continue speaking. "I don't mind your snarky sister leaning on me. It's nice to feel needed and it makes me feel as though I have someone to share my loss with. The blonde one never really acknowledged that I had lost you as well. I guess I don't know why I expected her to." At that moment Maxie stepped around the wall and walked up behind him. She placed a hand on his shoulder and felt him jump just a little bit. "Spinelli, it's okay. It's just me. I guess we had the same idea huh? Come visit Georgie."

"I find myself visiting my faithful friend more often than maybe I should."

"I know. I feel drawn to the cemetary. Most of my loved ones are here. Family, and friends." He looked at her as if he didn't really understand what she was saying. "Most people that I love end up here sooner than they normally would. Horrible deaths too." She took his hand and led him a few headstones away. "This is my cousin B.J. She's the reason I'm alive."

"Bad blonde…"

"Could you not call me that today. I'm not really that bad. I'm just not all sugar and spice and everything nice. Now listen up."

"I was just going to say you don't have to tell me anything."

"You said to Georgie that you don't mind me leaning on you. So let me lean." He fell silent and watched as she ran her fingertips lightly along the top of the headstone. She picked up a little snow and rubbed it between her fingers before dropping it to the ground. He thought that she was done talking and then he saw her take a step forward. "B.J. was a good girl. A good daughter. She had so much potential. All she did was get on the bus to go to school. I'm not really clear on the specifics. I was in the hospital with a heart condition. I needed a heart transplant or else I was going to die. Somehow B.J.'s bus flipped over and she was killed. My Uncle Tony and Aunt Bobbie gave me her heart. I never really learned how to deal with that. Having someone else's heart beating in my chest. It felt wrong, it felt wicked. I had taken something essential from someone I loved. People blamed Carly for breaking up Tony and Bobbie's marriage ending but it was me. If I hadn't taken her heart…"

"Someone else would have. It's not like you caused the bus accident. You couldn't have saved her. Someone else would have lived with her heart and you would be dead."

"That someone else probably would have taken care of it better. I've done ridiculous things with it. Got it broken more than once." She didn't want to continue to talk about her heart transplant so she took his hand and led him to the next grave. "This was my Uncle Tony. He died a couple years ago during a virus outbreak. You should have seen it. There was this monkey running around and we found out that's how practically the whole town got infected."

"A monkey?"

"Yeah, if you can believe that. Uncle Tony was a good guy. He convinced Aunt Bobbie to give me B.J.'s heart. I don't know that she would have made that decision without him there telling her that B.J. wasn't coming back. He went through a lot of hard times in his life but all in all he was a good guy. Flawed at times just like everyone else but a good man. I got the anecdote and he didn't. My heart had nearly failed the year before and I was about to die but I was okay with that. I'd come so close before that I was ready this time. But they gave the anecdote to me and not to him. His son lost his father and I'm still here. Just taking up space." He looked like he was about to say something but resisted the urge. It occurred to him that she wasn't really talking to him anymore. He was just there, watching her sink deeper into the darkness he had felt enveloping him earlier. She walked in front of him, not taking his hand but knowing he would follow her, to the next grave. "This is Jesse. I was in the hospital after a heart attack when I met him." He noticed that she had tears on her face but he could hardly hear them in her voice as she spoke. "He bolted in my room hiding from the police. When I woke up he said he knew that I would have the bluest eyes he'd ever seen. He told me about how he was on the run because he'd been framed for a crime he didn't commit. I don't know why I believed him but I did. I ended up on the run with him. Eventually he was cleared and he tried to push me away but I wouldn't go. I'm a little stubborn." Spinelli couldn't resist the urge to laugh at that understatement. She was so stubborn that she would ruin a perfectly good relationship just to get a little revenge. "He almost died in the virus too but we both survived. I thought that that meant something but it didn't. It was just a couple months later that he died."

"How?"

"We were at the fair. It was one of those scene from the movie type nights. He won stuffed animals and we walked hand in hand in the lights. There were bad parts. I got in a fight with Diego. Then out of nowhere there was gunfire. It's all kind of a blur but when I got to him his head was bleeding. When we got to the hospital Patrick Drake operated on his but the damage was too bad. I made the decisions this time."

"What do you mean?"

"When I was kid my Uncle Tony and Aunt Bobbie made the decision to give B.J.'s heart to me and with Jesse it came full circle. He didn't have any family. The only family he ever told me about really was his brother and he was dead. He had a sister too but I wasn't sure where to find her. So I was basically the next of kin. I gave them authorization to take him off life support and signed the forms to donate his organs. Karma sucks. I took someone else's so the universe was going to take someone I love's. And I did love him. I planned the funeral, it was a police officers funeral and all that entails. Taps and the folding of the flag. Everyone thought I should keep the flag from his casket somewhere sacred but I have it in a box in the back of my closet. It's duct taped shut because I don't ever want to see that flag again. Not the one off his casket. I went to the bar after the funeral and Nikolas Cassadine showed up. He told the bartender he should have carded me which I so didn't understand. I made all these life altering decisions. I put the man I loved in the ground but I couldn't have a drink. I just spiraled from there. The nightmares were so bad. I couldn't sleep at night so I ended up spending most of my time at after hours clubs. That's how I ended up with Lucky. I lost the person I loved and I was just in free fall. He came along and he needed the pills. He said he was in pain and I understood that. I lived with it and I hated it. So I got him what he needed. It started just as me helping a friend get through some rough spots, then I realized that I could use the pills to make him be with me. I wanted someone to love me so I used what I had. I will never pretend that what I did wasn't wrong. It was so wrong and when he didn't want me or the pills anymore I got reckless. But you know all this. Lulu's told you."

"The blonde one has told me of the bad blonde one's misdeeds. But if you want to tell me how it happened for you that's okay. The blonde one wasn't actually there so her thoughts might not be accurate."

"They're probably pretty right on. After Lucky told me I couldn't move in with him because he didn't love me I went home and took a handful of pills and called him. I never planned on taking so many that I would kill myself but he and Diego showed up and took me to Mercy Hospital. They pumped my stomach and I ended up going into cardiac arrest. You would think that would be enough. That I would be done but I wasn't. I made up a pregnancy to get him to stay with me and then I faked a miscarriage. Lucky has every right to hate me but I've apologized to him. He's forgiven me. I don't care about Lulu but it seems to me if Georgie could forgive her for what she did and Lucky could forgive me for what I did then maybe it's time for Lulu to get over it already. Since it really had nothing to do with her. But then everything in the world revolves around Lulu right? Don't answer that." For a moment Spinelli saw a flash of the bad blonde one that he knew, rather than this broken young woman he'd been seeing for the past few weeks. He had to admit that he missed the spark that he had always seen in her eyes. A glint of mischieviousness. It had gone out when Georgie died. "Is that the end of the dead people tour?"

"You knew the others. Georgie and Cooper." She ran her hands over her face and pulled a hair tie off her wrist. She pulled her short blonde hair into a small ponytail and stared at Spinelli. It was as if she was trying to figure him out. Trying to figure out who he was and how he fit into her world. For some reason she didn't see him disappearing into the background of her life. He gave her the sense that he would be there always. He was a connection to Georgie, another person who understood what it was like to lose something so pure. "Spinelli, want to come back to my house and watch a movie? Mac is at the station so we'd have the house to ourselves. I think Georgie told me your favorite food is barbeque chips and your favorite drink is orange soda. We can stop and pick those up, rent a movie and just hang out." Spinelli was taken aback at her request and wasn't sure how to respond. He liked having her lean on him but he wasn't sure that he was ready to start hanging out like they were the best of friends. "It's just a movie Spinelli. In case you hadn't noticed besides Sam you're my only friend. Sam's a little bit preoccupied, having been the victim of a hit and run, to have a girls night in with me. So that leaves you. I'm not asking you to marry me, at least not tonight. I might decide we should pull a Britney and hit Vegas and then get an annullment like a day later. Just for fun." Finally he was seeing the slightest spark in her eyes again which made the decision for him.

This chapter was kind of sad and dark so I promise the next one will be a lighter.