Author: Regency

Title: Blood Ties

Characters: Michael, Jason, Monica

Summary: After the recent death of his grandfather, Michael Corinthos III starts to wonder who he really is. He begins a journey to find out and it begins with a man on similar path, his Uncle Jason. Together, they find their way to somewhere safe.

Author's Notes: Dedicated to the late and lamented Alan Quartermaine, Sr.

Disclaimer: I none of the characters depicted below. They are the sole property of ABC Daytime Television. If only they treated them that way…jackasses.

"What was he like," Michael Corinthos III asked his mother last night. He was asking about his grandfather Alan, a man he never really knew and honestly couldn't bring himself to miss. Maybe it was the weak part of him, but he was desperate to feel something for the man that had brought so many to tears. It didn't seem right that he should be indifferent and in the dark about the person who he thought might have given him his mind for science.

Carly had shifted uncomfortably on the couch, tell-tale guilt on her face as she struggled to answer a question she'd never wanted him to ask. She'd stumbled through something unintelligible and vague, leaving him with no impression and a little suspicious.

"Your grandfather Alan was an incredible surgeon and so smart. He's saved countless lives and he loved you more than you can ever know. Things kept you two apart, but I don't want you to ever doubt his love."

Michael had looked at her, trying to see past the tense lines on her face to the truth. He couldn't; there wasn't anything else. He'd nodded and told her good night. It was too early to sleep, but it was too late to sit with her when she couldn't tell him something so elementary as the honest-to-God truth. He felt something shifting under his skin and he thought it might be his blood running backwards.

He ran up the stairs to his room and locked the door behind him. He looked around the place he'd called home for as many years as he could remember. It all felt so small now, like a tiny white lie run amok.

Suddenly angry for the one thing he'd ever been denied, he slammed his fist into his headboard. It creaked, but didn't break. He was as insignificant to it as the truth was to his parents. They had given him their love, he thought, but they'd deprived him of something, something that felt so crucial now. He wanted it back, he wanted his grandfather and that unconditional love he didn't understand.

Tears pricked at his dark brown eyes and he jammed his fists into them to stop the weakness. He wasn't weak! He was a Corinthos--they were never weak. At least, he didn't think they were. Were Quartermaines weak, he asked himself, wearily.

All he'd thought of since Alan's funeral was what it meant to be in that family. He'd heard them talk about each other and call each other names, then he'd seen Jason with his grandmother, a doctor named Monica, holding her when she cried. A part of him had wanted to go to her, though she was a stranger to him, and hold her, too. If a woman who seemed so strong would fall apart when faced with his loss, how could Alan Quartermaine be bad? Michael didn't understand that, he couldn't. Nothing added up.

Now that he was old enough to put it together, it was all a joke to him. Why didn't he know his grandfather, or his biological father's cousins? They didn't seem all that different from his mom and dad. He knew they loved him…Wasn't that enough? He had questions his mother looked terrified he'd ask and he didn't want to ask his dad; it would only hurt him and Michael didn't want that. No, he wasn't ready to turn everything upside down yet. Nonetheless, he wanted to know the truth and there was only one person he could ask.

He went to the phone on his bedside and dialed an old familiar number. His uncle picked up on the second ring. "Jason Morgan."

"Jason, it's Michael." He licked his lips and took a deep breath. "Can I ask you a question?"

He heard Jason move to that old couch and sit down. His uncle had always made time for him. Honestly, this was the first time it had occurred to him that Jason was actually his father's brother--Alan had been his father, too.

"You know you can ask me anything. What's up?"

Michael looked guiltily at his bedroom door, outside of which his parents thought everything was still the same when nothing was. "What was my grandfather like?"

He heard the uncomfortable motions of a cornered man and he was frustrated that another person was thinking of a way not to answer him honestly. For once, Jason surprised him.

Michael (Quartermaine) Corinthos III laid back on his bed and listened to his true uncle tell him all the half-truths he remembered about a man who wasn't perfect, who wasn't without prejudice, but that loved his family so fiercely that not protecting them enough was the one thing he would always regret. He took that regret to the grave and there was nothing to be done about it.

Michael disagreed. He spoke without thinking, not about Carly and Sonny, or about Morgan, or about anyone's feelings but those of someone who was more of a stranger than his mother's bodyguards.

"I want to see Monica,…my grandmother. She looked really sad and I don't want her to think I didn't care."

"You don't have to," Jason soothed. Michael knew he thought useless platitudes were worthless at times likes this.

"Yeah, I do. I want to. Don't tell mom and dad, but I need to know where I came from. I don't know who I'm supposed to be now. I'm not a Corinthos, even if that is my name. I need to know what I have to live up to. I wanna feel normal again. Maybe if I find out about my grandfather, and my father, I can."

Michael held his breath as Jason seemed to pace. Finally, he heard his closest friend stop moving.

"Okay. How do you plan to find that stuff out?"

"I'm going to the Quartermaine Mansion, if you'll take me." The question hung between them, with a plea trailing behind it.

This was the most insane thing Michael had ever asked of him. "Okay. Thanks, Uncle Jason." Wow, he hadn't called him that in years.

"Yeah. Now, go."

They both hung up. Michael sat in stunned silence for a long while not quite sure what he'd just started. Whatever it was, it felt right. At least, that's what he told himself. He hopped off the bed and dug through his closet for a bag. He stuffed some clothes inside and a notebook, so he could write it all down. He might never get another chance like this. He planned to make the most of it.

He put his ear to the door for the sound of his mother coming. He heard Jax's voice. They'd be occupied for most of the night, he thought, making up or breaking up. Whichever it was this time. He wrote a short note on a piece of paper from the tablet and left it under his baseball mitt on his pillows.

I haven't gone far away. I promise I'll be back soon. There's something I have to do. I love you. Don't be worried.

Michael