Sitting in the windowsill in his room at his dad's Morgan looked out at the bare trees that littered the landscape. It was the New York in between season; between the painted leaves of the autumn and the fresh snow that glistened in the winter. Everything looked dead.

"Morgan, open up or I'm coming in." Michael announced.

"Go away!" Morgan yelled back. He was with Grandpa Mike when his father called about the test results. The adults attempted to stay positive around him, but he didn't need to hear the results to know what they were. After Michael and Sonny left the hospital, Mike brought Morgan to the house.

"I'm coming in." Michael warned. Michael walked in and plopped himself down on Morgan's bed. Morgan continued looking out the window. He hoped that if he ignored his brother long enough he would go away.

"I know what you're thinking." Michael sympathized.

"No you don't." Morgan challenged.

"You're thinking that it's not really Thanksgiving without mom, and you're pissed that Claudia is here and fine when mom isn't."

Morgan smiled. "Maybe you do know."

Michael waved his brother over to sit next to him. He climbed out of the windowsill and jumped onto the bed. "I know because I'm thinking the same thing. Besides the year I was in the coma, I've always had thanksgiving with mom, and Christmas." He added. "I'm just as scared to lose her as you are, but we have to stick together. I'm not saying that it's not going to be hard having another woman try to play the mom role this holiday, but this isn't Claudia's fault, and we shouldn't take it out on her."

"Why can't I just go over to Grandma Bobbie's or Alexis' and spend the day with Kristina and Molly?" Morgan asked. After lunch with Molly she had invited him over to play more Kingdom Hearts only this time with the two players setting.

"Because dad and I need you here." Michael explained.

Morgan rested his head on Michaels' lap. "Michael, I want mom! We need her! She is supposed to be here. She's supposed to help us make stupid turkey decorations, and tell us how much she loves us until we want to gag, and threaten us with her cooking when we try to run away from her…"

"I know." He let his brother cry.

Sonny walked in and sat behind his little boy. He rubbed Morgan's back hoping to provide some comfort. "We are going to get through this." Sonny claimed. He and Michael shot each other an encouraging glance.

************

Upon the awake of Thanksgiving morning Jax was filling out discharge papers for his daughters' release. He had gone home the night before to the hauntingly empty house to make sure everything was in order for this daughter's homecoming. He mounted the car seat holder into the sedan; adjusting it to the proper setting, and made sure that the crib and changing table completely set. He had run out to the store to pick up diapers and creams that the nurses had suggested. He finally crashed late sitting on the gliding chair that Carly had picked out for the nursery, and holding the pink flannel quilt that had been put away after the miscarriage of their first child.

"And sign here?" Jax asked, feeling that he had signed his life away.

"Yes, and that'll do it." Nurse Epiphany Johnson responded.

Britni lay in her car seat with her eyes closed. Jax had been told by one of the on duty neonatal nurses that she was the star of the unit. She had the hearts of all the residents and nurses that crossed her path.

"Say goodbye, Britni." He said lifting her tiny hand and waving it at Epiphany. Epiphany smiled and waved back. Jax pressed the down button on the elevator as Alexis ran up to meet him. She ogled the baby for a moment and then turned her attention towards the dad.

"She gets to go home?" Alexis gathered.

"Yes, everything is set."

"That's great." She looked at her best friend who struggled to give the smallest grin. "That's not great."

"It would be." Jax said, not having to finish the sentence. Alexis knew, it would be fantastic if Carly got to go home with them.

"I actually came to see if you would want to celebrate the holiday with me and the girls. Kristina and Molly would love to spend the time with Britni."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea." Jax commented.

"Why is that?"

"Your nephew and I don't really get along." He answered. Nikolas and Jax' amicable relationship ended when Nikolas started an affair with Jax' wife at the time. When Courtney became pregnant Jax switched the DNA test results to say the child was his. After Courtney's death, Jax kept the secret. Nikolas never forgave Jax for missing the first months of his son's life.

"That's okay. Nikolas is going to the Brownstone today. He promised to come by later this weekend to see the girls, but he figured Bobbie could really use the support right now, plus Spencer was really excited about spending the day with Cam and Jake." She explained.

"Okay, sure, why not then?" He agreed. "I need to drop some stuff off at the house and let Britni settle into it for a bit, but would two o'clock be okay?"

"That's perfect."

"Would you like me to bring anything?" Jax offered.

"No, just you and Britni. Let me and the girls take care of the rest."
"Thank you." He replied, it helped knowing that there was somewhere safe that he could go to celebrate the holiday.

"Our pleasure." She replied as he stepped into the elevator.

************

The doorbell rang. Mac greeted Robin and Patrick as they stepped over the threshold. "I can't believe how time flies. How's my little niece doing?" He asked as he picked up Emma. It had only been a couple of weeks since he was over at their house for Emma's first birthday party. Emma let out a giggle as Mac reached her above his head.

"She's doing great! She is still playing with the bows from the presents." Robin confessed.

"Yeah, we're trying to tell her that she is supposed to play with the presents and not the wrapping, maybe next year." Patrick explained.

It was going to be a small gathering at the Scorpio's residence this year; just Mac, Maxie, Spinelli, Robin, Patrick and Emma. Mac was hoping to surprise Robin with at least one of her parent's but both were busy. Felicia was unavailable as per usual.

"Oh, she's wearing the dress I bought her." Maxie cooed as they came into the living room.

"One of the dresses you bought her." Robin clarified. "She's going to be the best dressed toddler in preschool when she gets to that point."

'She better be', Maxie thought, when her cousin is a junior editor at a fashion magazine. "With the combined intellect of her mother and father that will be next year." She boasted.

"Isn't Spinelli supposed to be here?" Robin asked.

"He'll be here later. Sam called yesterday about a case. He wanted to get some work done before dinner." Maxie had wanted to scream at Sam when she found out that Spinelli had to work so close to the holiday. Spinelli claimed that Sam told him that it needed not interfere with family gatherings, but after finding out the details of the case he was very interested in getting started as soon as possible.

"Does he happen to know how Jason is doing?" Robin asked. As much as she was in love with her husband, Jason held a special place in her heart. She felt bad knowing that he was hurting. No matter what she felt about Carly she would have never wished that on anybody.

"No." Maxie answered. "He's been brooding more than normal, but going in and out of the penthouse without saying so much as a word. Believe it or not Spinelli hasn't been able to get a word in edge wise."

Patrick looked somber. He and Robin had not really discussed the case at home. She knew how hard he was taking it. Besides the grief that he usually feels with a loss of a patient there was even more of a feeling of defeat as he tried to save his friend.

Mac decided to change the topic of discussion, hoping to keep this holiday on a lighter note. "Where's your brother?" He asked Patrick.

"He's working tonight." Patrick answered. "I extended your invitation but he thought the hospital could use all the willing hands that they could get."

Monica was trying to be fair with rotating holidays for all staff, but she appreciated anyone who was willing to work in order to give another employee a chance to be with their family. Monica had volunteered to work the day herself since the numbers at the Quartermaine household were dwindling down.

Mac added. "We're going through the same thing at the station, trying to be fair and taking volunteers when we can get them."

"That was nice of Matt." Maxie commented. She was momentarily distracted as Emma climbed onto her lap. She bounced her heals, allowing Emma to have her pony ride.

"Oh, now you're willing to compliment him." Patrick teased. He had noticed a shift Maxie and Matt's friendship when Matt turned his attention to Lulu.

"Well yeah, now that he's not following me around like a lost puppy asking me to throw him a bone."

"Instead you have Spinelli to do that." Patrick added.

"Spinelli does not act like a puppy." She looked at Robin and Patrick, both unconvinced. "Fine, maybe he does, but Spinelli is more like a cute spaniel all happy, and loyal, and with those big floppy ears. Matt was more like those creepy, drooling mastiffs."

They all laughed at the comparison. Mac looked on as his family smiled and laughed. He was more than thankful for what he had. However, a piece of him was lost when Georgie died. That grief had a way of creeping up on a day-to-day basis, but more so during the holidays. He snuck into the kitchen to work on dinner.

***********

Instead of the typical Thanksgiving feast Alexis had decided to provide a few plates of appetizers and keep the snack plates full. Kristina and Molly had already raided the popcorn as they slipped a movie into the DVD player.

"Popcorn for breakfast?" Sam commented as she walked through the living room.

Kristina stuck her tongue out at her sister.

"Please, don't do that." Alexis reprimanded her teen, and then turned her attention to Sam. "Would you join me in the kitchen?"

Sam followed Alexis knowing full well what she wanted to discuss. "Spinelli started working on it last night. As I mentioned before Jason already had his own investigation open. Spinelli had found a link through Devlin and Jerry's bank records, and there was evidence that Claudia ordered the hit on Jerry last April but the original copy of that was destroyed."

"Any leads on where Jerry is now? Jax says that he visited him at General Hospital on Tuesday."

"No, but I did have Spinelli sneak into Jax' house." Sam confessed. "There was a DVD in the player, unfortunately when Spinelli went to play it the DVD was somehow encrypted."

"Why would Jerry do that?" Alexis asked. "If he planned to tell Carly then he had to know she would tell Jason."

"I don't know. Didn't Jax say that he had destroyed all the copies before? Maybe when Carly lost consciousness he decided that he wanted to bury the secret with her." Sam argued.

"Or maybe he just wanted to control the release of the information. I don't know, I'm sorry to even bring this up now, let's just focus on Thanksgiving right now." Trying to figure out the motivation of a psychopath was giving her a headache. She really did hope to give Jax a stress free afternoon.

"I told Spinelli that, but he's working on the encryption now." Sam explained.

"That's good. Maybe I can use that confession to bring up charges against Jerry. If I can somehow get him in town and in custody I may be able to strike a deal if he implicates Claudia. Unfortunately Jerry's word on the DVD isn't enough to legally charge her."

"And you're going to do what? Let him go?" Sam was not sure who deserved the life sentence more, Jerry or Claudia, both were twisted.

"We will cross that bridge when we get there." Alexis answered. The main motivation for Alexis pursuing this was Kristina, who also called Sonny Corinthos dad. When Michael was shot her worst fear came to light, she prayed consistently that his business would never hurt her like it did Michael.

"Mom, we're out of popcorn." Molly said bring the bowl to the kitchen.

"I think you've had enough of that for now. Would you like a pastry? Or something with nutritional value like an apple?"

Molly grabbed for a pastry. 'Of course,' Alexis thought.

"When is Britni coming?"

Alexis looked over at the clock. "Soon."

"Is Morgan coming?" Molly asked hopeful.

"No, Morgan is spending the day with his father, but how about we all go out into the living room and watch the movie?" Molly led the way, and somehow all four of them fit on the sofa.