"There is something you should know, Nina.." broke the silence between Nina and her mother, Nina looking up and raising a brow as she asked, "Here to kill me to get my money?" and rolled her eyes. Nina's mother stepped into the office of Crimson and then, she sat down, sighing, looking at her hands. She'd sat back and watched the pain her daughter was in at not being able to concieve, at having lost her only shot at being a mother and now the woman knew it was time to let the truth out, time to tell Nina what really happened to the child Nina thought she lost..
"Well?" Nina asked, grumbling as she went back to her paperwork and then said "If you haven't started to talk in 3 seconds, mother, I'll have you thrown out."
"Your daughter is alive. The baby we told you that you lost? She lived.. I just, she looked so much like Silas and you didn't wake up and…" Madison spoke quietly, Nina stopping in mid pen stroke to look at her mother and pointing to the door, an angry glaze in her hazel eyes as she said as calmly as possible, "You need to leave, Mother. You need to leave now. I don't have time for your sick jokes." as Madison dug around in her bag, pulling out the manila folder, letting it hit the hard wooden surface of the desk with a thud as she said quietly, "Just look at that and see how much of a sick joke it is, Nina." before making her way out of the offices of Crimson and onto the elevator.
Nina reached for the folder, every intention of throwing it into the garbage bin beside her desk, instead, she found herself cutting the tape on the side and opening it, eyes darting over the pages in front of her as she watched a young girl - young woman now, she'd be 21 if memory served, - growing up right before her eyes.
By the time Maxie came in to work, Nina had made up her mind.. She'd get Maxie to get Spinelli to look into her mother's claims, see if there were any real truth to it. That was all she could really do.. That and not get her hopes up, obviously. Because it couldn't be that simple, the key to her happiness, could it? In any case, Nina Clay was not pinning every hope she had that her daughter was out there, that she could be a mother again... Because if there was one thing she was learning since awakening from the coma, it was that nothing was ever quite that easy..
As she looked through the folder again, while discussing everything with Maxie over lunch, a photo fluttered out and onto the floor, a newer one and Maxie nearly choked on Sprite as she picked up the photo of the 21 year old girl with long and flowing black hair and a little 4 year old girl in a tiara in her arms. "I know her!" Maxie exclaimed.
"How?"
"She got in touch with Spinelli... To find her birth parents... The agency finally released her adoption records, but for some reason, portions of them were blacked out or just missing, she was hiring him in the hopes that he'd find out why and maybe who her birth parents were.. Nina, your mother could very well be telling the truth because if she did this to you, chances are, she did it illegally.." Maxie mused as she sipped on an iced coffee and looked at her co worker. Nina shook her head and said quietly, "Nothing is ever that simple, Maxie."
"But maybe this time, Nina.. It is."
"It'd be strange... go from wanting a child and not having one, thinking it's impossible, to having not only a daughter to reconnect with but apparently, a four year old granddaughter. And she never got to meet Silas..." Nina muttered quietly, pursing her lips as once again, the realization of Silas being dead hit her hard.
"I'll go make a copy of all this and take it by Spinelli's apartment tonight when I go to pick up Georgie.. If anyone can get to the bottom of this, it's Spin." Maxie replied confidently, taking the folder, going to the copier to make copies of all the documents inside. Nina sat at her desk, torn between being hopeful for the first time in months, hell a year almost since she'd awakened from the coma and being reluctant to dare hoping for anything good to happen to her.
;-; CONTINUED;-;
Meanwhile, across town, 21 year old Karlee Milton was racing into work at her day job, a server at The Floating Rib, swearing the entire way about her sitter being late and her car being a piece of crap and somewhere in the midst of all of that, she managed to collide with and fall on top of Morgan Corinthos, former 8th grade boyfriend and the one guy she still thought about from time to time...
"Are you okay?" Morgan asked, raising to a sitting position, looking at the petite and curvy female with long jet black hair as he managed a friendly smile. She looked kind of familiar, he found himself thinking in the few seconds it took her to actually tell him that yes, she was alright.
"You look kinda familiar." Morgan mused, holding the female's gaze. "I definitely know you from somewhere.." he studied her intently, getting lost in soft and golden brown eyes, also distracted by the way her hair tumbled down to her elbows and the way she was giving her lower lip hell at the moment..
"You're Morgan Corinthos.. We umm, we had English together in 8th grade.. We were kinda boyfriend and girlfriend ….Then you left town." Karlee admitted, mentally kicking herself. Girls probably literally threw their panties at his feet and here she was, babbling like an idiot, telling him things that he probably long ago forgot.
The smirk brightened his eyes to this high definition blue and he said with a laugh, "Karlee? Wow, you look amazing.. I mean you always have just… Wow."
"Yeah, it's actually Karina.. People just started calling me Karlee… I probably never got to tell you that though…" Karlee bit her full lower lip as she raked her hair out of her eyes and then said quietly, "We should maybe get up?"
She squeaked when Morgan stood, pulling her up in his arms, standing her on her own feet in front of him as he said quietly, "You wrote me letters.."
"Yeah, welll.. When you didn't write me back, kinda figured you got up there, met some high society southern belle and you were done with trash like me." Karlee admitted, preparing to go and clock in, leave him alone, but his hand closed gently around her wrist and he said quietly, "I wrote you back."
"Yeah, well.. I never got any of them." Karlee insisted, sighing as she said quietly, "It's okay, though, look.. Times change, people change.. We grow up, we grow apart.. It's not like we were going to get married one day, Morgan.. I'm not hurt or anything." and gave him a friendly smile.
She turned; she walked away, and for a few minutes, Morgan watched her walking away, clocking in and starting to wait tables. From behind him, Molly asked, "Seeing her again had an effect, didn't it?"
"It did, Molly."
"You two should have been together.. Her life got really, really bad after you left.. And it's not any better right now, actually.. Me and TJ are godparents to her daughter Elena.. Maybe this is your sign, Morgan, the one you were telling me you were looking for, which direction to take now that you and Kiki are divorced and finished with one another…"
"Maybe it is.."
"Her mother probably kept the letters you wrote back." Molly mused as Morgan nodded and then said quietly, "She was wrong about one thing… back then I honestly did plan to come back, to make her mine.. Just everything went wrong and when I tried looking for her for a while there, she was living in Detroit."
"Yeah, she just moved back here.. She's looking for her birth parents.. Spinelli is helping her."
Molly and TJ left and Morgan was alone with his thoughts. He found a booth near the wall and just sort of quietly observed Karlee as she worked and waited tables, the effortless way she moved, the smile as she talked to people, the way that smile seemed to light up an entire room.
She'd been pretty back then, now she was just drop dead gorgeous.. It was approaching 9 pm when the door opened and an older woman walked in, a little girl wearing a red ski parka and a red beret on long dark hair similar to Karlee's walked in, the little girl taking off at a run, grabbing onto Karlee's legs as she exclaimed loudly, "Mommy! I got to watch real ballerinas on the tv!"
"You did, sweetheart?"
"I did.. Why'd you stop dancin? You were good too." Elena asked her mother as Karlee laughed and then said quietly, "Because I had to stop, angel baby." as she picked up her 4 year old and hugged her against herself tightly. "You didn't give Ms. Harrison trouble tonight, right?"
"She was a sweet baby, like always." the older woman stated as she exchanged conversation with Karlee for a few minutes and then left, leaving Karlee and Elena to sit down and eat the food Karlee managed to stick back for their meal before going home for the night.
Morgan wasn't going to but he found himself walking over, sitting down. Karlee smiled, nodding at her daughter who was perched in her lap and coloring in a Frozen coloring book quietly, "My daughter Elena.." as Morgan smiled and then said quietly, "She's a pretty little girl."
"Thank you." Elena responded politely without looking up from her coloring books, adding quickly, "I'm four."
"And she thinks she's going on my age." Karlee joked, finishing off the half rack of ribs she'd put back for herself earlier and focusing on Morgan, asking quietly, "So… how have you been since I saw you last?"
"Not going to lie, it's been a pretty rough few years for me.." Morgan started, falling silent as he just sat there, thinking about what Molly insisted on reminding him of earlier. She made a very good point… seeing Karlee again had affected him.. It'd been like a sucker punch to the gut, he'd honestly been breathless for a few minutes there.
Maybe that meant something?
He decided then… He'd take it slow, work his way back into her life, being her friend, getting reconnected.. And he'd see if maybe this time he might get it right. No more rushing into things like he had with Kiki and with Ava.
The little girl looked up and over at the man sitting across from her mommy and saw him sort of staring at her mommy. She smiled and said aloud, "Mommy has a picture of ya."
Karlee groaned inwardly, but she blushed and said quietly, "The 8th grade cotillion picture. When we were moving into our little house here, she found the box with all my photos in it. It was stuck in there with a bunch of other photos."
Morgan smiled and then said quietly, "A really long time ago, Elena, your mom and I were really close."
"Like best friends?"
"Mhmm. But better." Morgan answered, giving Karlee one of those knee weakening grins she'd seen him flash a time or two before. Karlee gave a soft laugh and then answered, "We're still friends.. I mean if you want to be.. You can't ever have too many friends."
"I'd like that a lot." Morgan told her as he smiled and stood then said aloud, "It's getting late. I probably need to head back to the place I'm staying." and started to walk out the door. Karlee sat there, watching him walk out the door of the bar and grill, and she smiled a little to herself and shook her head.
Morgan was only being nice just now. That had to be it.
NOTES:
Completely ignoring a lot of the present bullshit on the show because I hate what they've taken Morgan and turned him into and I have a big thing for him. Also, giving Nina Clay the child she got stolen from her because those kinds of stories seem to fare well and there are hardly any out there about a daughter being Nina's. So... No kiki / morgan angst here. They broke up amicably, they're still kind of friends but not very close. Morgan and my original character dated in 8th grade, right before they 'sent him away/soarsed him up', and she's the best friend of Molly and TJ. Morgan will not be giving anyone an STI in this either because frankly, they're just doing everything they can to make him look like the black sheep at this point and that pisses me off.
I hope that took care of any questions anyone might have, if not, hit me up, I'll gladly answer any questions you have.