A/N: So I was watching some old GH clips that I had and I stumbled upon the fabulous "When a Man Loves a Woman" montage from 2005 and I instantly thought that the song was a Regan/Jake song… hence, it's the title of this chapter :) But again, I can't thank you guys enough for your wonderful comments… you guys are the absolute greatest!!!

When a Man Loves a Woman

Lulu sat in their living room, watching Johnny pace back and forth. At this rate, he was going to wear a hole into their newly redone hardwood floors. She would've been tired since it was two-thirty in the morning but she was just as anxious and worried as Johnny was.

"Maybe we should've called the police… Lucky is the police commissioner after all…" Johnny muttered as he fiddled with his cell phone but Lulu just shook her head.

"She's going to come home, Johnny…" Lulu insisted.

"I'm going to go back out and look…" he said, picking up his jacket and his car keys.

Lulu stood up to stop him but was stopped by the front door opening. Regan walked into the living room, still dressed in her dark purple prom dress, and froze when she met the disapproving glare of her parents. Johnny's attention snapped to the window as he heard the familiar roar of a motorcycle as it pulled away from the house.

"Mom… Dad…" Regan started but Johnny shook his head and held up his hand to silence her.

"Do you have any idea of what you've put me and your mother through tonight?" he asked.

"I'm sorry… I can explain… I really can…" Regan said, calmly trying to rationalize with her parents.

"From the beginning…" he growled, enunciating every syllable.

Lulu put her hand on Johnny's arm, silently telling him to take his anger down a notch. Of course he had a right to be upset but yelling at Regan wasn't going to make the situation any easier. They had received a phone call about what had occurred at the prom but even Johnny had to admit that it probably wasn't the whole story. Regan looked down at her hands and nodded.

"I was at the prom with Dominic Lansing… and we were dancing… and I was feeling uncomfortable because it was clear that he had had been drinking before hand and he was starting to get a little too physical for me…" Regan started to explain and Lulu saw Johnny's nostrils flare in anger.

"Johnny… let her finish…" Lulu warned.

"So I asked him if we could stop and go sit back down at our table but he said no… so I tried to stop dancing with him but he wouldn't let me go and I swear—I swear that I didn't know that Jake was there…" Regan said.

"Don't lie to us, Regan…" Johnny warned.

"I didn't know! I swear to god that I didn't know that he was there… but he saw what was happening and he pulled Dominic off me… and then that's when Dominic threw the first punch…" Regan explained.

"Which explains the phone call about the fight…" Lulu said, putting her hand on Johnny's shoulder, as if to reassure him.

That phone call about the fight that had broken out at the prom had been a shock to say the least. Johnny had just about lost his mind when the principal said the words "Regan"," fight", and "boys" all in one sentence. Johnny pressed his fingers to his temple and sighed heavily. He was just now wrapping his head around the seriousness of Gavin and Ava's relationship and now this business with Regan's dating habits would surely give him a coronary.

"What happened next?" Johnny asked.

"A few of the chaperones broke up the fight and of course they kicked both Dominic and Jake out of the prom for getting into the fight… and Dominic took off after that, basically leaving me completely stranded at the MetroCourt because Gavin and Ava had already left for the after party…" Regan said.

"Why didn't you call us or find Carly or Jax? Surely they had to have been there since it was their hotel…" Lulu asked.

"I was just about to but that's when Jake pulled up and offered to give me a ride… but he was hurt pretty badly from the fight and I didn't want to have him driving across town to drop me off back here so… we—we went back to his apartment…" Regan said with hesitation clear in her voice when she told the truth about being in Jake's apartment.

"You were in Jake Morgan's apartment… by yourself?" Johnny seethed.

"So you just sat around his apartment for two and a half hours?" Lulu asked, shooting Johnny a look in order to make him stop fuming.

The expression on Regan's face suddenly changed at her mother's question. She immediately averted her mother's questioning gaze and looked down at the floor. Lulu looked closer at Regan and saw that her daughter's face had turned bright red.

And it immediately dawned on her that her daughter had not spent two and a half hours simply talking with Jake Morgan.

Lulu couldn't help but to gasp slightly upon her realization and she looked over at Johnny and a look of absolute horror washed over his face as the reality of the situation dawned on him as well. The shock of the realization that his little girl was now a "woman" quickly subsided and anger took over. He immediately jumped off the couch but Lulu grabbed his arm, preventing him from racing out the front door.

"Johnny, where are you going?" Lulu asked.

"Where am I going? I'm about to go kick the crap out of that Jake Morgan for touching my daughter!" Johnny roared.

Lulu groaned as he removed his arm from her grasp and headed towards the door but he was stopped by Regan, who was blocking the door by pressing her back against it. She met her father's angry glare with one of her own. If anything, Regan was never shy about making her feelings known to others, a trait that she had inherited from both of them, especially Johnny. She planted her feet firmly in front of the door and shook her head.

"No, you're not…" Regan said.

"Regan… don't argue with me on this…" Johnny said.

"Daddy… I—I love him…" Regan blurted out.

Lulu saw something in Johnny's eyes change as Regan divulged her true feelings. Her arms were clasped together beseechingly in front of her chest, almost if she had believed that Johnny would go out and hurt Jake Morgan for so much as looking at her. Johnny's firm stance waivered and he sighed heavily, wordlessly obliging to listen to her.

"I love him, daddy… and believe me, I've tried to stay away from him and to forget about him… we both tried… but tonight, he told me that loved me and that seeing me with someone else made him realize that he didn't want to fight what we had… because it wasn't going to go away…" Regan said and Johnny shook his head.

"Regan, he's twenty one years old…" he said.

"Would that have stopped you and mom?" Regan asked.

"Your dad and I were different…" Lulu interjected.

"But did you listen to everyone who told you that dad was bad for you, mom? What about you, dad? Did you listen to Uncle Lucky, Uncle Nik, or Aunt Claudia when they told you to stay away from mom?" Regan asked her parents.

Lulu pressed her fingertips to her temple. Sometimes she regretted telling their kids the details about how they came together because they could easily throw it in their faces when they wanted free reign over who they wanted to date.

"We'll talk more about this in the morning but it's well past three o'clock… but right now, you need to go upstairs and go to sleep…" Lulu said.

Regan gently wiped her eyes with her fingertips and then picked up the bottom of her dress and started towards the stairs. She stopped at the foot of the stairs and turned back around to face her parents. Her dark brown hair that had been pinned up in a bun when she had left the house with Dominic was now down in loose curls that hung on her shoulders and the traces of mascara that she had applied earlier were slightly running down her face. The pang of guilt that was already sitting in the pit of Lulu's stomach flared as she took in her daughter's melancholic demeanor.

"You know, it's funny really… because you guys were the ones who taught me that you can't help who you fall in love with…" Regan said softly.

With that, she turned back around and headed upstairs to bed. As soon as she was out of sight, Lulu turned around back to Johnny and she was met with an equally concerned look.

"I feel like such a hypocrite… I mean, we romanticize how we got together and then in the moment when things start to look like how we were years ago, we both flip out…" Lulu said as she sat back down on their couch.

"Things are different when you have kids of your own…" Johnny muttered, sitting down beside her.

"But, Johnny… it's not like we can stop them anyway… she and Ava will be eighteen soon and they'll be off at college… and the harder that we try to hold her back, the harder she's going to fight us… and I don't want her to push us away…" she said, putting her head on his shoulder.

He put his arm around her and sighed. She placed her arm across his chest and exhaled deeply. She could feel his tension and apprehension to the idea of letting Regan and Jake date and she shared some of his worry as well but he did tend to get wrapped up in the dating situation with the girls a little bit more than she did.

"Do you really think that he loves her?" he asked.

She recalled every single moment that she had seen the two of them together. When Regan was in a room, Jake could not take his eyes off her even though he was the one who told her that they couldn't be together. Lulu couldn't help but to chuckle to herself as she thought of that old saying that girls end up with men like their fathers because she remembered Johnny looking at her in the same way years ago.

"I do…" she whispered.

"Come on…" he sighed, pulling her off the couch.

Lulu gave him a strange look as he led her upstairs. Regan was in the bathroom, already changed into her pajamas, and brushing her teeth. She turned around to face her parents, arms folded across her chest and an unhappy scowl on her lips.

"Why don't you invite Jake over for dinner next weekend?" Johnny asked.

Regan's face lit up at her father's suggestion and she practically launched herself into his arms in excitement, repeatedly thanking both of them for being understanding. Regan practically skipped back into her bedroom, anxiously awaiting the following weekend to arrive.

"That was very understanding of you…" Lulu said as Johnny climbed into their bed and he groaned.

"Yeah… I've just about run out of understanding…" he muttered.

"You know… you really can't help who you fall in love with… but for me, I'm glad that it was you, Zacchara…" she whispered as she wrapped her arms around him and closed her eyes.

"I'm glad it was you too, Spencer…" he sighed.