1Luke came into the formal living room at the Quartermaine mansion, anticipating a mid-afternoon nap alone on the couch. He was surprised to find Lulu there, rolled into a ball in her favorite armchair in the corner. She was staring vacantly out the window, twirling a small silver band around her slender index finger. Looking at her, he felt his breath catch in his throat. She looked so much like her mother that it literally took his breath away. "Hello, Gumdrop."

"Hey, Dad," she replied without looking at him. Walking up behind her, he followed her gaze out to where she was watching Lucky and Emily chase Cameron along the lakeshore. Ruffling her blonde hair tenderly, she finally smiled up at him. "I was just watching Cam."

He nodded understandingly, waiting for her to say something more. When she didn't, he filled the empty silence with words of his own. "How are you feeling?"

"Physically, I'm fine. Mentally, I guess I'm a little tired," she admitted. "I think I can understand why Mom had to go inside herself like she did. Sometimes, it's just too hard to deal with everything that is going on. It'd be nice to be able to just fade away from the rest of the world once in awhile."

"You have gone through a lot in the last year," he retorted. "I mean, you have been through the epidemic, chasing me across the world, the Dillon fiasco, abortion, losing your mother and now the hostage situation. A lot stronger people have fallen from lesser feats. You're amazing, Lulu."

"Dillon," she repeated. "We've come so far since last summer."

"Are you happy with him?"

She smiled genuinely. "I love him, Dad. He's the one thing that is making all this easier," she spouted. "Honestly, I don't know what I would do without him. I never thought that I would be one of those pathetic girls living for some guy, but his love reminds me how much I have to live for. Not that my family isn't enough, it's just different with him."

"Now that I understand. Your mother always made me want to be a better man. It might not be exactly the same thing but I think the sentiment is kind of the same. Maybe I wouldn't have picked Dillon out for you, but who am I to talk? I seriously doubt Lesley would have ever chosen me for Laura, but I got lucky and Laura chose me. Dillon is a good man, I know that he will take care of you in a way that I never could."

"You did the best you could," she offered. "I never really understood that before, but in the last year, I've seen it. You are there for the really important stuff, the things I can't handle on my own. The rest of the time, I think you just gave me the room to grow into my own person. And even if it wasn't your intention at the time, maybe it worked."

Sitting down on the edge of the chair opposite her, he reached over and covered her hand. "Why were you watching Cameron so intently, Lu?"

"I'd be in my third trimester," she sighed, her gaze returning to the window. "I'd be big as a house, fretting over what color to paint the nursery and which clothes I wanted to bring the baby home in. Dillon would be following me around like a madman, waiting on me hand and foot. It'd drive me crazy, but maybe we would have been happy."

Luke felt instant concern for his daughter. "Honey, you made the right decision for you both at the time," he assured her. "I know that it's not fair of me to tell you to not to think about what could have been, but maybe you shouldn't."

"I know logically that I shouldn't, and I know that I made the best decision for myself. I just wish I would have known that we were going to be here, maybe the choice would have been different."

"Do you really think so, Lulu?"

She thought for a moment before finally admitting that it wouldn't have been different. The truth was, Lulu would have made the same decision every single time. Neither of them were ready to be parents, and she could have never asked him to give up his life. Even now, with them together, she didn't want to be a mother for at least five years. "I just miss it sometimes. I know that it doesn't make any sense, but I do," she confessed. "I'll wake up in the middle of the night, and the feeling is just so overwhelming that it consumes me. I can't help but wonder what if."

"You did this for the right reason."

"But I didn't just do it to me, I did it to Dillon, too. I didn't even give him a choice."

"Don't do that to yourself," Dillon said from the doorway, causing both father and daughter to turn around. He slipped into the room uninvited and sauntered to where Lulu was. Sitting down next to her, he pulled her against him and looked into her eyes. "I am in love with you, so you don't get to talk about yourself that way. You made the right decision for both of us. You were selfless when I couldn't be."

"I think I'll just leave you two alone," Luke announced before leaving the room. Neither of them paid him any attention, suddenly too wrapped up in each other's presence to acknowledge Luke.

"Why didn't you tell me that you've been feeling like this, Lu? I can tell from the look in your eyes that this isn't something new."

"Every time I see a baby, I remember the one that we're never going to have," she mused. "Elizabeth is going to give birth in a couple months, our baby would have been here in even less time. They would have been around the same age, and as it turns out, they would have been cousins either way."

Dillon tilted her chin and kissed her briefly. "We are going to have children some day," he promised. "We are going to get married, have a home of our own and raise a family. We are going to live a life that neither of us had growing up. I promise, we are going to have it all. I know that will never replace the baby we don't have, but I'm hoping that it will make our past count for something."

"Take my pain away," she pleaded. "I am so tired of hurting, I don't want to hurt anymore. I just want to be here, to be with you. I want us to be happy. I don't want to worry about anything."

"I can't do that for you, Lu. As much as I wish that I could, I can't. But I can help you find a way to be okay with everything. I can support you, I can go with you to find help. I can hold your hand, listen to you talk, wipe away your tears, kiss you until your senseless. I will do whatever I can, but you are going to have to do some of this yourself if it's going to stick."

Pressing a kiss against his forehead, she smiled affectionately up at him. "I hate that you want what's best for me rather than what's easy," she pouted. "It'd be easy if you'd just fix it, you know? You could be my knight in shining armor, you know."

"As tempting as that is, my love, I want you to be complete."

"But you complete me."

"That line was awful in the movie, and it's even worse now," he taunted with a kiss. "First thing Monday morning, we're going to go to General Hospital, and you're going to talk to Lainey."

"Will you go with me?"

"I promise you, now and always, I am going to be with you every single step of the way."

Tracey found Luke in the foyer, his ear pressed to the door. "What are you doing?" she demanded, her voice echoing into the high ceiling. "Who could you possibly be spying on?"

Luke whirled around, pressing his finger to his mouth. "Our children," he answered.

"Oh, no, not that again."

"They need each other, my little pink popsicle. Something tells me that this time is very different, and there relationship isn't going to be up for discussion. I think they just might be in love with each other."

"You know that's not a good idea."

"Who am I to judge? Maybe it is," he shrugged. "Besides, who else in the world is going to be good enough for your son? I certainly can't think of anyone good enough for my daughter."

Even Tracey had to admit that they were a good match, and unlike anyone else Dillon had ever been involved with, she actually liked Lulu. "I suppose you're right," she muttered. "Besides, I don't have to get used to anyone else this way. I just don't want either of them to go through anything like that again. It really hurt both of them."

"Things are different. They're different."

"We all are," she sighed, raking her fingers through her short red hair. Luke noticed the shift in her tone, knowing immediately that Alan was on her mind suddenly. Slipping his arms around her from behind, he rested his chin on her shoulder. "I miss him so much. What am I going to do without him?"

It was one of the rare times he had seen Tracey Quartermaine drop her defenses at all. "You're going to do what you always do. You're going to gather yourself up, raise your head high and forge ahead with that determination you're so famous for."

"I hate what I am about to say, and you have to know how much it is going to kill me," she mumbled. "But I think I need your help."

"It seems to be the theme of the evening," he whispered to himself as she turned around in his arms, burying her face in his shirt. He knew she was vulnerable, and while a part of him naturally wanted to take advantage of it, another part of him just wanted to take care of him. And that was the part of him that was in love with her.

Two miles away, alone in a small hospital room, Robin Scorpio was tying the strings on the shapeless hospital gown. The thin, blue material clung to her body as she arranged herself into the wheelchair that had been left for her. "I'm ready," she called out, waiting for the dutiful nurse to return to accompany her to the lab. In just a few minutes, she would undergo a series of tests that would give her results that could potentially impact her future. Determined not to let the numbers define her, she prayed that she would get the outcome that she and Patrick so desperately needed.

"Here I am," Patrick announced as he sauntered into the room. He had the same cocky swagger he had the very first moment she had met him. "Your true chariot awaits."

"What is this?" she giggled as she made her way over to the wheelchair he'd brought in with him. Decked out with pink and white crepe paper, there was a bunch of balloons tied to each handle. It was tacky and cheesy but completely made the situation a bit more bearable.

"There it is," he grinned.

"There what is?"

"That smile that I fell so hopelessly in love with," he responded. "I thought that if you were going to be pricked, poked and prodded, at least you can arrive in style."

"It's worth it."

"I want to thank you for doing this, Robin. I know that it's not just for you but for me."

"You've supported in every decision I've made throughout this whole ordeal. You have no idea how much I appreciate you not fighting with me about everything. It would have made it so much harder if I had known that you didn't believe in me."

"Even if I didn't think that we could do this on my own, your faith in us would make me believe," he proclaimed. "You are determined that we are going to be parents, so I know that we will. I can't wait until we see our baby for the first time, this whole little person that is a little bit of you and a little bit of me."

"We both have dark hair, can you imagine how beautiful this baby is going to be?" she grinned. "I hope he or she looks like you but acts like me. It would be the most brilliant, beautiful child in the entire world."

"Maybe we should switch that around if you want brilliance," he teased with the same easy candor they'd always shared.

"I said brilliance, not cockiness."

"Well, I definitely vote against your cynicism."

"I'm not cynical!" she protested as he pushed her around the final corner. "I'm a realist."

"You are the sarcastic, cynical love of my life," he countered, "and I wouldn't change a thing."