General Hospital, Rooftops-

"You know, if people knew that we were meeting up here, they would talk."

Bobbie, who was looking out at the quickly dying light, did not turn around to face him. The light seemed to be something of a metaphor for her, as if the light of hope that she had for her secret being kept was slowly dying out, and it was all her fault. She could have just been honest with Carly from the beginning, told her who her father was when she asked. She could have just let the curiosity die, instead of sending Damian and Maxie to New York to go and see if they would find her. The snowball effect that happened was entirely her fault, and there was no way that she could ever deny that.

"Bobbie?"

"He knows…"

"What do you mean, he knows?" It wasn't like Bobbie to speak cryptically about anything. That was why he liked her as much as he did, because, when other people were trying to give him the runaround, Bobbie remained honest and straightforward, certainly not a quality that her daughter had acquired.

"John… he knows the truth, about Carly…"

"What?" There was shock in his voice, impossible not to detect. It may have been Bobbie who was feeling the worst of the pain that came with John Durant's realization, but he felt it as well. After all, now that Durant knew, there was no telling what would happen. "How did he find out?"

"Carly seems to bear a striking resemblance to a relative of his," Bobbie couldn't hold the tears back any longer. She had tried to be strong, tried not to let her pain show itself to anyone, but now that he was here, someone who she trusted, someone who knew, Bobbie felt that she could let the anguish that she was feeling out, and she did. She walked over to him and hugged him, sobbing gently into his shoulder. "Everything is going to change now, isn't it?"

"You didn't tell him for sure, did you?"

Bobbie looked up, her eyes already red from the tears, "Of course I didn't, but he knows, Damian. John knows in his heart that Carly is his daughter… I should just tell her the truth, I should tell her that he is her father, that I've always known. But I'm afraid…"

"Afraid of what?"

"Afraid of losing her again." Bobbie pulled herself away and wrapped her arms around herself for comfort and protection. "I know you weren't here when it happened, but you must have heard it from someone: when Carly first came to Port Charles it was because she wanted to hurt me for giving her up like I did, and I won't say that I didn't deserve it, but we finally got through that. We managed to make the relationship that we have now, and I'm not saying that it is all good, but, for the most part, it is. If I let her know that I kept something like this from her the whole time she was asking, she might not forgive me. I might lose my relationship with my daughter again."

"No, you won't," Damian told her sympathetically while he placed a hand on her shoulder. "Carly… Carly will act like she always does, but she'll understand eventually. You did this to protect her, Bobbie. We both know you did. If she knew that John Durant was her father, then she would do everything that she could to find him, and that would have only wrecked her family, because of everything that is going to happen if he does talk to her."

"She won't see it like that. Carly never sees the things in front of her that are so obvious, especially when she's hurt."

"Then we'll make her see it the way that it really happened, you and me. I'm not entirely innocent in this, you know."

Bobbie shook her head, "I can't ask you to do something like that for me, Damian, it would be wrong."

"Who said you were asking?" He replied lightly. "I'm telling you that if Carly wants to try and take you down for what you did, then she's going to need to take me down, too. We were trying to protect her and everyone around her. You knew that if she realized that John was her father and she confronted him that he wouldn't rest until he found a way to bring down her family, our family. If there's one thing that Carly understands it's that we do things to protect ourselves, even though they might not seem all that wise at the time."

"Do you really think that it will work?"

"We'll just have to wait and see, won't we? In the meantime, don't tell her anything, Bobbie. If he doesn't approach her, if he doesn't tell her what he thinks he knows, then she won't know either, and right now we need to play it as safely as possible. The longer we wait, the easier it will be because you'll have time to breathe and prepare yourself for what you're going to say."

"You're right…"

"I should talk to Maxie about it. She'll need to know, too. Just in case. Is she volunteering today?" Given everything that had happened during the day, with Lois, with Dillon, and now with Bobbie, Maxie's working schedule just didn't seem like a priority. She would have to understand. Hopefully.

"No… and yesterday she seemed like she was upset about something. She left before her shift ended. I told her that she could go, because she was a volunteer and she wasn't required to be here… but she wouldn't tell me why. You haven't talked to her today?"

"No, I haven't," he thought about why she would be in a hurry to leave the hospital mid-shift, that was highly unlike her. She liked to wait around, she liked to know that something she was doing was finally doing some good for people instead of hurting herself, like she used to do. "I'll call her in a little while, make sure that she knows what's going on."

"I'm scared…"

"Don't be, everything will find a way to make itself all right. We've been through worse than this before, haven't we? And when I say 'we' I mean all of us, myself included. Bobbie, Carly loves you, she knows that you would never do something that would intentionally hurt her, and she knows how important you are to Michael and Morgan. She's not going to abandon that just because of one thing that you did. I know that."

"Thank you for coming so quickly…"

"You're like a surrogate grandmother to me, Bobbie, and I've always been a grandmother's boy. It's a weakness, a sickness, an addiction, I know, but I don't mind it one bit."

She looked over her shoulder to see his smiling face, the way that his eyes seemed to welcome her with warmth and security. For a brief moment in time, Bobbie truly did believe that everything would be all right, that they would find a way to make everything work. The hard part was going to be believing that feeling, and making sure that it would stick.

Outside Kelly's-

Dillon waited at one of the tables outside of Kelly's. Usually, the two of them met inside, but, in this case it was something that he did not want to talk about inside, where people could hear him. Elizabeth was there, and she smiled at him and waved. Dillon waved back, thankful for the conversation that he had with both Elizabeth and Damian earlier in the day. It made him feel like there were people around him who he could depend on, and that was something that he needed, especially given who he was. People didn't understand what it meant to be a Quartermaine, especially an outcast Quartermaine like himself, one that didn't fit the mold that everyone swore by. He cared about his family, even loved them, despite his constant refusal to admit it both to himself and to others, but they were hardly ever there for him. Ned was there a lot of the time, as was Lila when she was alive, but everyone else just seemed to fall off the wayside, especially his mother. It was because of his upbringing that Dillon always felt like he needed to tackle things alone, like there wasn't going to be a person around him who would be there to give him a hand, and it was only recently, since arriving in Port Charles and meeting Georgie, that he realized he could depend on the people around him, that there were people who truly cared about him. The fact that there were such people made him very, very happy, but the happiness that he felt was not enough to overpower the unhappiness that he felt.

"There you are…" Georgie turned around the corner and saw her boyfriend at the table. She was glad to see him, and to know that he was all right. Dillon often joked about missing school, because he hated it so much, but he rarely ever did miss it, because it was one of the only times where he didn't have to worry about Mac coming around and ruining whatever it was that they were going to do. "Dillon, are you all right?" Georgie asked as she sat down across the table from him, looking as he averted his eyes away from her, something that he only did when he was troubled. She reached over and touched his hand gently with hers, "Whatever it is, you can tell me…"

"I'm sorry."

Georgie was taken back by the sudden apology, something that she wasn't expecting him to say. "What do you mean? You're sorry? What do you have to be sorry about?"

"When you called me earlier today, when you left that voice message on my phone, I knew that you were calling, I saw your name on the phone, but I didn't pick it up. I ignored your call, and for that, I really am sorry."

She frowned, "Why did you not pick it up if you were right there?"

"Because I knew that you would ask me why I wasn't at school today, and I knew that if you asked I would have to lie, or tell you the truth, and I didn't really want to do either."

"Dillon…"

"But I realize now that I shouldn't keep things from you, because I love you too much to even risk losing you, Georgie. I'm sorry that I didn't trust the bond that we have enough to get passed the feeling that I have inside of me that tells me that I shouldn't try and burden the people that I care about with my problems."

"You're never a burden to me, Dillon, and if you have a problem then that is something that I want to help you get through. You've helped me so many times before. You've helped me come out of my shell, you've helped me be the person who I really wanted to be but I thought that people wouldn't accept me for. You taught me to be an individual instead of following the typecast that people had put on me. If anything, I'll always owe you for that."

"You don't owe me anything."

"And you don't have to worry about me thinking that you have too many things on your plate for me to handle. I'll always be there to help you, always."

Dillon smiled softly. The words were filled with so much emotion and truth that it really struck him, too bad he couldn't believe all of it. But he did believe that she would understand him at that moment. "Lois was in a car accident last night, Georgie. That's why I didn't go to school today, my mind was too focused on what had happened last night that I knew I wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything else."

"Is she…"

"No, she's fine. She's already out of the hospital, but… I don't know, I just got really, really scared."

"You care about Lois, and you care about Brook." Georgie then realized that she was not asking about something that was relatively important, "How is Brook?"

"I haven't seen her today. Some kind of Uncle I am…"

"Dillon, were you there for her last night?"

"I tried to be, but she didn't want anything to do with me. The only people that she wanted to see were her mother, her father and Damian." There was the smallest tinge of jealousy in his voice. After all, he was family, Damian wasn't, but Brook wanted to be with Damian more than she wanted to be with her own flesh and blood. He understood why, he just didn't particularly like it.

"You tried to be there for her, and that's all that matters. She wasn't at school either, and I was wondering why the two of you had missed school at the same time. I almost thought that something had happened… and I guess I was right."

"I just wanted to apologize for shutting you out of my life like that. I should have realized that you would have only wanted to help me, but I was an idiot and I didn't, because… just because that's the way I am, I guess. Sometimes I don't think that I can trust the people that I love. It's just a part of who I am, how I was raised."

"Just tell me that the next time something like this happens, and I hope it never does, but just in case it does… you'll know that I won't even try and run away from you. These people are important to you, Dillon, and that makes them important to me."

Dillon nodded, saying nothing, only watching as Georgie walked over to him and gently kissed his lips, resting her hands around his neck. The connection that he felt with his girlfriend was so strong and passionate, how could he have been so foolish to deny it? Dillon understood that there were parts of himself that he did not completely comprehend, parts of himself that were so dark that they scared him.