My Valentine

Note- This chapter is for talk2much13 and Hazeleyes 18 who both mentioned they would like to see this couple added to the story.

This story mentions Three's real name. If it was said on GH, I missed it. But thanks to talk2much13 I was able to find it out.

THREE AND MAXIE- 2008

I have no business being anyone's mother.

Maxie Jones had always thought that. There were plenty of reasons, starting with the fact she was sure she would die young- it was a feeling she always lived with since her heart surgery- and ending with the fact she had faked a pregnancy. That was just bad karma, any way you looked at it.

But, in only a few more minutes or maybe seconds, she would become just that. Someone's mother.

"AHHHHH!" the scream escaped her and she threw her head back, closed her eyes, and remembered the day she chose this road, this man, this future for herself.

May 2007

She hadn't smiled, really smiled, in months. If Maxie was honest with herself the last time she was happy was when she was trapped in the vault with Three.

You're twisted, girl, she told herself.

But it was true.

When the cops stormed the place, in all the smoke and destruction and screaming, there was one last moment when he gripped her hand and then kissed her cheek.

After that, Three was gone. He was the only one in Craig's crew to not either die or get arrested.

She liked to think he missed her like she missed him.

But, if she was honest with herself- and not living in some fantasy world where she got a happy ending- Maxie doubted Three put as much effort into dreaming about her as she did him.

Then her cell phone rang one afternoon, as she stood outside Kelly's sipping her vanilla latte.

She set the drink on a nearby table and answered it.

"Don't say my name," his words were low and demanding.

Her heart started to do crazy things, slow down then race, flip flop, and none of it had anything to do with her heart condition. It was him that affected her, just as deeply and intense as when they were trapped together.

"I don't know your name."

She could tell he was smiling when he said, "But you do know who this is, right?"

"Yes." she paused, butterflies fluttered through her stomach. For one moment she just wanted to feel this feeling that usually eluded her : hope. "Where are you?"

"On a train. Headed to Boston."

She had told him that one of her favorite songs last year was by the band Augustana, because she loved the part that went

I think I'll go to Boston, I think I'll start a new life, I think I'll start it over, where no one knows my name...

So many times she thought about ditching Port Charles and going somewhere else, to be someone else, to be better or happier or maybe just be as bad as she wanted without anyone judging her anymore.

Three added, "And I was thinking... if you still want that new life..."

"Oh you were, were you?"

"That is if you haven't gone and forgotten about me," he told her.

In that moment, Maxie knew she was no longer in this game called life alone. And it changed every single thing she thought and felt, it changed her.

Three said, "The train will be pulling into Port Charles in a couple of hours. Get on... that is if you have the guts to walk away from Mommy and Daddy, little sister and your big career at that boutique..."

"That boutique is a pile of rubble now."

"Oh, yeah. I guess it is. But I'm sure there must be another retail job you could spend your life unhappy at in that town. Unless you think you might like to spend it with me instead."

"Are you daring me?"

"Double dog daring you, Maxie."

"Well, I have never backed down from a dare."

And so she was on that train that afternoon, leaving behind a note that read:

I'm starting a new life. Be happy for me. Part of my heart will always stay here with you both, Mac and Georgie. And it goes without saying, but I will anyway, I love you.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Valentine's Day 2008

Cooper was sweating nearly as bad as his girlfriend as she huffed and moaned, trying to push their son into the world.

He grabbed her hand but she smacked him away.

"Ugh, you caused this, Coop!"

He smiled. "I know that, babe."

"You... you... you...ahhhh... you ...man." she insulted him.

"You're doing great," he told her.

Maxie snapped at him, "I am telling you right now if you think you are ever getting me knocked up again you can forget about it because I plan on getting my figure back and looking damn good in my wedding dress. And once is more than enough for me when it comes to gaining forty pounds and getting bloated and swollen and..."

She tended to rant on like this when she was nervous. He found it adorable.

"All right, I got it." Cooper told her

She met his eyes.

The doctor said, "One more big push now..."

Maxie grabbed his hand and they were linked together the moment their son was born.

XXXXXXXXXX

He held the baby in his arms. Maxie was sleeping in the hospital bed.

He thought back to how he had gotten himself here, how he got himself what he never had before that botched robbery at The Metro Court : a life that was worth a damn, love, and, sweetest of all, hope.

May 2007

Maxie walked down the aisle of the train, scanning faces for him. Cooper spotted her, and for a second he could not move. Just couldn't move. She was here, she was real, and she had come here to be with him.

Then he stood and her gaze moved toward him. When her eyes met his, a smile broke out on her face.

He didn't know what the hell he was thinking asking her to move to Boston with him. All he knew was he had dreamt of her so many times over the last few months that he had to see her again or he would surely go crazy.

Maxie passed him her suitcase, "Do something with this, will you?"

Same snarky tone and bossy voice he remembered. He had missed that, too.

He put the luggage in the overhead bin and then motioned for her to take the seat near the window. She slid past him, and his body reacted to the brief brush of her body against his.

The first thing she asked was, "Name?"

"Don't you think you should have worried about that before you agreed to this?" he joked with her.

"Don't you think you ought to tell me now before I get upset and start thinking of ways to make you pay for holding out on me?" Maxie joked back

"Cooper."

"Hmmm. I like it."

"Good because I don't know how I would have survived if you didn't," he meant it to sound like a joke but it wasn't and it didn't.

He swallowed as the smiles fell away from their faces.

Maxie let out a breath and looked away for a moment.

He prayed she wasn't already regretting doing this. Because for him it felt like his life stopped the moment he ran from The Metro Court, leaving her safe and only steps from cops but behind all the same. And it felt like it started again when he saw her step into the train car a few minutes ago.

She was smiling when she turned and ordered, "Tell me you aren't broke. Because I so am."

"I'm not broke."

"This might just work out then." Her eyes were moving from his eyes to his mouth and back again. She sucked in a breath.

Cooper brought one hand up and ran it into her blonde hair. Maxie bit her lip.

He smiled at the sight of this brave, bold, sometimes angry, secretly sensitive and wonderfully unique woman who was looking at him like he was making her life worthwhile.

Then his lips were on hers, and though he had been fantasizing this moment for months, what happened when their lips touched was beyond where a fantasy could go.

It was shocking, it was hot, it was the start of a wild thing that neither of them would ever want to walk away from again.

Valentine's Day 2008

Maxie woke up to see Cooper holding their baby. The image brought tears to her eyes. It was more than she ever thought she would be lucky enough to get in her lifetime.

(All of my life
I have been waiting for
all you give to me.


You've opened my eyes
and showed me how to love unselfishly)

"How is he doing?" she asked

"Perfect and beautiful, just like his mama."He stood and moved over to her bed. "But he does need a name."

"I thought we decided," Maxie pouted "He'll be named after his daddy."

"You can not name a child Three. It's cruel."

Maxie laughed, "No, it's cute."

He shook his head, no.

"Fine. Man, you never let me win an arguement."

"I always let you win!" he laughed

"Then let me win this time." Maxie took her child into her arms. "You want to be named Three, don't you?"

"How about a compromise? We name our boy Cooper James. C. J.

for short."

Her eyes washed over the man she loved, standing there by her side looking as gorgeous as ever, and thought of how they started and where they were. It made no sense. And yet, it made perfect sense. Because it was them, and they were... silly as it sounded to a cynic...meant to be.

"C. J. it is then," she agreed. "Cooper James. I like it."

He sat on the edge of the bed and stroked the baby's head. He kissed their child. "Happy Valentine's Day, son."

Then he stroked Maxie's hair and kissed her lips, soft and tender, a change from the crazy way they devoured each other in bed. "Happy Valentine's Day, new mama."

"Happy Valentine's Day, Three."

I will give you my heart until

the end of time...


You're all I need, my love,

my Valentine