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Story-
Upstairs, Kelly's-
The door to his room was wide open, and he was thankful it was. Michael had seen Ric, Damian wasn't sure how often that happened, but it appeared to him that every time it did the boy went through some sort of trauma. It wasn't hard to understand why. Michael was young, he was very impressionable, and he knew that Ric had hurt his mother. If the door had been closed, Damian might have had to spend hours trying to coax him into opening the door again. Michael was sitting on the bed, staring at his lap. "I'm sorry you had to see him, Michael."
"I don't like him," Michael muttered.
"I know that, and there's no reason why you should. He hurt you a lot, but I do think he feels really bad about putting you through what he did."
"Daddy said the bad man never felt anything," Michael replied. "He said that the bad man has no heart, no soul, and that the world could end around him and he'd smile."
Damian sat next to Michael, "Dad likes to carry grudges, Michael. But just because he feels something doesn't mean you have to feel it too."
"What do you mean?"
"You're your own person, Michael. Despite being Michael Corinthos III, you are who you are and no one can decide who you are but yourself. You like video games, don't you?"
Michael nodded, "I like playing my game boy."
"Does dad like video games?"
"No, he thinks they make too much noise and that they're a waste of my time."
"See?" Damian asked. "You like video games and dad doesn't. You like them because that's who you are, it's what makes you unique."
"What's 'unique?'" Michael wondered.
"It's being your own person, doing things that you want to do not because other people are, but because it's what you want to do."
"Are you unique?" Michael asked.
Damian smiled as he got up and looked out the window, "I'd like to think that I am." As he gazed out the window he saw Jason standing there. Damian smiled, "Way to be discrete." But he knew that Jason wasn't trying to hide, and he had a feeling when they left the penthouse that he would find Jason following them. Besides, Damian was looking for him, and Michael wouldn't be. It was more important that Michael think that he was protecting his big brother for a confidence boost, even if they both had Uncle Jason watching over them.
"Why are you unique? Do you like video games, too?"
Damian laughed softly, "No, I can't stand them." Damian had to think about the question, which wasn't intended when he made the statement to Michael. He should have known to expect something like this from a small child Michael's age. They were always asking questions. Of course, when Damian was Michael's age he was guilty of the same thing, so he could hardly put his little brother at fault. "I guess my love for the piano made me unique when I was much younger, but now I think it's my drive to keep people from suffering in the same way that I did when my mom died. A lot of people would just give up on everything if they were faced with the same situation, but I couldn't do that. She would want me to do something with my life that would help people, I know that. I won't give up on her. I won't fail."
"You don't think that the bad man meant to hurt my mommy?" Michael asked, focusing on the original discussion.
"I think he did when he did it, Michael," Damian said as he grabbed some clothes from the dresser. "But people do a lot of things that they end up regretting later. We're not perfect, and that's what makes us human. We have the ability to make mistakes and then atone for them somehow. I can't make your mind up for you, though. If you still feel that hatred in your heart for him, then I won't stop you from feeling it. Just remember that you don't have to feel like that simply because dad does."
"He's not the only one," Michael said. "Mommy, Aunt Courtney, Uncle Jason, they all hate him. They can't all be wrong, can they?"
"They can have their own opinions on the man, but they can't force you into believing that they're right if you don't think that they are."
"Do you think they are?"
Damian put the clothes in a small bag, "I think that they're holding onto the past too much, and that they have good reason to do it. What Uncle Ric did to Carly was horrible, we all know it, but so does he. Maybe I'm choosing to blind myself to his ways because he's partly responsible for me still being alive, but I don't think that's the only reason. I know that he feels bad for what he did. I can see it when anyone mentions what he did. But at least he feels something, and it isn't pride. He doesn't gloat about what he did."
"I'm confused," Michael admitted.
Damian zipped the bag up and put it over his shoulder, "So am I. Don't worry, Michael. Us adults get just as confused as you do sometimes. Just because we're older than you doesn't mean that we know everything. Come on, let's go back to the penthouse."
When they walked down the stairs, Ric was still there. They walked past him silently, Michael gazed at Ric, but instead of leering at him with hate in his eyes, there was something else. Michael wasn't sure how to feel, not anymore. He could never forgive Ric for doing something that bad to his mommy, but did Ric feel bad for it, too? Damian seemed to think so, even though the others didn't.
Scorpio Household-
There was a knock at Maxie's door. "Go away!" She knew it wasn't Georgie by the knock. Georgie had her own unique way of knocking on the door in the instances where Maxie was mad at Mac and not her, so that Maxie would know that it was Georgie and she would open the door. Since it wasn't Georgie, though, she wanted no part of Mac, not at that moment.
Mac, however, was not going to stand by and let his oldest daughter continue to despise him for what he saw as doing nothing more than securing her safety. He wanted Maxie to let him in, rather than use force to open the door, although he was plenty ready to do the latter in case it actually came to that. "Maxie, please let me in so we can talk."
"I have nothing to say to you!" Maxie screamed from her bed. "You just don't understand anything!"
"I understand that you were kidnapped, and held at gunpoint by a known criminal because of your involvement with Damian, Maxie," Mac tried to sound calm, although his temper was flaring. Not at Maxie, of course, she was an innocent in this. No, Mac's anger was instead focused on the Corinthos family. Sonny and his son had placed his daughter in danger, even though they didn't mean to. Their intentions didn't matter, not to him. They should have known that they couldn't go around being with people. They were too dangerous. When they were putting themselves at risk it was fine. Mac could care less if he had to zip up the body bad of Sonny Corinthos, it would mean that a big part of Port Charles's crime problems would be erased from the city at last. But if he had to zip up the body bag of one of his daughters, caught in the crossfire that she had no part in, he didn't want to have to deal with that. Ever. "Could you please open the door so I can talk with you?"
"No!" Maxie shot back.
"Maxie, I'm going to come into that room one way or another. You can let me in, or you can pay for a new door when I break it down. Whatever you choose is fine with me."
Maxie got up and opened the door, looking straight at Mac, her eyes bloodshot with the tears that were still running down her cheeks. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"
"Because I love you too much to leave you alone when I know that you were almost killed within the last twenty-four hours!" Mac said. "Don't you realize how scared I was when you didn't come home last night? When no one knew where you were and you weren't answering you cell phone? Maxie, for all we knew you could have been dead. I was close to calling your mother."
"She wouldn't care," Maxie mumbled.
"What?"
"Mom," Maxie reiterated. "She wouldn't care if I was missing. She never cares."
Mac shook his head, "Your mother loves you more than you'll ever know, Maxie. She just has a very unique way of showing it."
"By being halfway across the country," Maxie scoffed. "She's really good at showing how much she cares, dad."
"Is that what this is about?" Mac asked. "Are you acting this way because you want your mother to finally notice you?"
Maxie sat on her bed again, "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You go and engage in a relationship with, first, an abusive drug-addict, and then with the son of an established crime lord. Are you just trying to find a way to get your mother to come back home?"
Maxie glared at him, "I never want that woman to come back into my life! I want her to stay away so that I don't have to worry about caring about her again only to have her leave on some stupid little quest of hers without thinking about any of our feelings. When we were little it was okay, but we're a lot older now. When mom says that she'll be back before we know it now, we know that she's lying. I'm through having my heart stomped on by anyone, my mother or my boyfriends, it doesn't matter anymore! Kyle was a mistake, dad, a big mistake that I will never be able to purge from my mind. He told me lies that I believed, made me think that I was special to him in a way that was more than just so he could get me into bed with him. When I found out that I was nothing more than what I was for him, it crushed me. I thought I was in love, and then I realized that I didn't know the first thing about love."
"You're too young to know what love is," Mac said.
She shook her head, "No, I'm not. I know that I love Damian and he loves me."
"What makes you think that he loves you, Maxie?" Mac asked. "I'm not entirely sure that people like that are capable of knowing what love is."
Maxie wanted to scream at Mac and tell him that he was wrong. She also wanted to slap him for thinking that Damian was anything like Sonny, because they weren't. They shared blood, but very little more. Instead, she managed to keep her composure, "Why can't you ever give anyone a chance? You didn't like it when Georgie started dating Dillon, and you still haven't accepted that they're together. How long has it been, dad? It's been over a year, and you're still fighting it. You didn't think Dillon loved Georgie, but you know he does. You think that just because he's a Quatermaine that he's going to end up corrupting your daughter like his mother or his cousins, or his grandfather, but you know he isn't. You may have been right about Kyle, but you're not right about Damian. He's lost so much and he could have easily gone into the life that his family has, but he hasn't yet, and I don't think he ever will. I know that I can see it, and I know that anyone else who actually takes the time to get to know him can see that he won't be anything like Sonny. But you're never going to be like that, are you, dad? You're going to choose to remain blind for your whole life, because it makes you feel better about yourself. He would have died to protect me, do you know that? Faith threatened to take him out if he didn't comply and she tried to use me. Damian wasn't worried about his own life, he was worried about mine and his grandparent's. You say that he can't feel love for anyone, but what would you call what he did earlier today? Even though you weren't there to see it, and you might as well deny that it happened for your entire life, I know what did happen. And I know that no matter what you do to try and keep me away from him, it won't work. I want you to be supportive of my relationships, dad, but if you can't be then I'm sorry, but I won't live my life by your decrees."
Mac, stunned by his daughter's outburst, turned around without saying a word and left the room. She wouldn't stop seeing him, he truly believed that. But how was he going to make sure that they never saw each other again?
Story-
Upstairs, Kelly's-
The door to his room was wide open, and he was thankful it was. Michael had seen Ric, Damian wasn't sure how often that happened, but it appeared to him that every time it did the boy went through some sort of trauma. It wasn't hard to understand why. Michael was young, he was very impressionable, and he knew that Ric had hurt his mother. If the door had been closed, Damian might have had to spend hours trying to coax him into opening the door again. Michael was sitting on the bed, staring at his lap. "I'm sorry you had to see him, Michael."
"I don't like him," Michael muttered.
"I know that, and there's no reason why you should. He hurt you a lot, but I do think he feels really bad about putting you through what he did."
"Daddy said the bad man never felt anything," Michael replied. "He said that the bad man has no heart, no soul, and that the world could end around him and he'd smile."
Damian sat next to Michael, "Dad likes to carry grudges, Michael. But just because he feels something doesn't mean you have to feel it too."
"What do you mean?"
"You're your own person, Michael. Despite being Michael Corinthos III, you are who you are and no one can decide who you are but yourself. You like video games, don't you?"
Michael nodded, "I like playing my game boy."
"Does dad like video games?"
"No, he thinks they make too much noise and that they're a waste of my time."
"See?" Damian asked. "You like video games and dad doesn't. You like them because that's who you are, it's what makes you unique."
"What's 'unique?'" Michael wondered.
"It's being your own person, doing things that you want to do not because other people are, but because it's what you want to do."
"Are you unique?" Michael asked.
Damian smiled as he got up and looked out the window, "I'd like to think that I am." As he gazed out the window he saw Jason standing there. Damian smiled, "Way to be discrete." But he knew that Jason wasn't trying to hide, and he had a feeling when they left the penthouse that he would find Jason following them. Besides, Damian was looking for him, and Michael wouldn't be. It was more important that Michael think that he was protecting his big brother for a confidence boost, even if they both had Uncle Jason watching over them.
"Why are you unique? Do you like video games, too?"
Damian laughed softly, "No, I can't stand them." Damian had to think about the question, which wasn't intended when he made the statement to Michael. He should have known to expect something like this from a small child Michael's age. They were always asking questions. Of course, when Damian was Michael's age he was guilty of the same thing, so he could hardly put his little brother at fault. "I guess my love for the piano made me unique when I was much younger, but now I think it's my drive to keep people from suffering in the same way that I did when my mom died. A lot of people would just give up on everything if they were faced with the same situation, but I couldn't do that. She would want me to do something with my life that would help people, I know that. I won't give up on her. I won't fail."
"You don't think that the bad man meant to hurt my mommy?" Michael asked, focusing on the original discussion.
"I think he did when he did it, Michael," Damian said as he grabbed some clothes from the dresser. "But people do a lot of things that they end up regretting later. We're not perfect, and that's what makes us human. We have the ability to make mistakes and then atone for them somehow. I can't make your mind up for you, though. If you still feel that hatred in your heart for him, then I won't stop you from feeling it. Just remember that you don't have to feel like that simply because dad does."
"He's not the only one," Michael said. "Mommy, Aunt Courtney, Uncle Jason, they all hate him. They can't all be wrong, can they?"
"They can have their own opinions on the man, but they can't force you into believing that they're right if you don't think that they are."
"Do you think they are?"
Damian put the clothes in a small bag, "I think that they're holding onto the past too much, and that they have good reason to do it. What Uncle Ric did to Carly was horrible, we all know it, but so does he. Maybe I'm choosing to blind myself to his ways because he's partly responsible for me still being alive, but I don't think that's the only reason. I know that he feels bad for what he did. I can see it when anyone mentions what he did. But at least he feels something, and it isn't pride. He doesn't gloat about what he did."
"I'm confused," Michael admitted.
Damian zipped the bag up and put it over his shoulder, "So am I. Don't worry, Michael. Us adults get just as confused as you do sometimes. Just because we're older than you doesn't mean that we know everything. Come on, let's go back to the penthouse."
When they walked down the stairs, Ric was still there. They walked past him silently, Michael gazed at Ric, but instead of leering at him with hate in his eyes, there was something else. Michael wasn't sure how to feel, not anymore. He could never forgive Ric for doing something that bad to his mommy, but did Ric feel bad for it, too? Damian seemed to think so, even though the others didn't.
Scorpio Household-
There was a knock at Maxie's door. "Go away!" She knew it wasn't Georgie by the knock. Georgie had her own unique way of knocking on the door in the instances where Maxie was mad at Mac and not her, so that Maxie would know that it was Georgie and she would open the door. Since it wasn't Georgie, though, she wanted no part of Mac, not at that moment.
Mac, however, was not going to stand by and let his oldest daughter continue to despise him for what he saw as doing nothing more than securing her safety. He wanted Maxie to let him in, rather than use force to open the door, although he was plenty ready to do the latter in case it actually came to that. "Maxie, please let me in so we can talk."
"I have nothing to say to you!" Maxie screamed from her bed. "You just don't understand anything!"
"I understand that you were kidnapped, and held at gunpoint by a known criminal because of your involvement with Damian, Maxie," Mac tried to sound calm, although his temper was flaring. Not at Maxie, of course, she was an innocent in this. No, Mac's anger was instead focused on the Corinthos family. Sonny and his son had placed his daughter in danger, even though they didn't mean to. Their intentions didn't matter, not to him. They should have known that they couldn't go around being with people. They were too dangerous. When they were putting themselves at risk it was fine. Mac could care less if he had to zip up the body bad of Sonny Corinthos, it would mean that a big part of Port Charles's crime problems would be erased from the city at last. But if he had to zip up the body bag of one of his daughters, caught in the crossfire that she had no part in, he didn't want to have to deal with that. Ever. "Could you please open the door so I can talk with you?"
"No!" Maxie shot back.
"Maxie, I'm going to come into that room one way or another. You can let me in, or you can pay for a new door when I break it down. Whatever you choose is fine with me."
Maxie got up and opened the door, looking straight at Mac, her eyes bloodshot with the tears that were still running down her cheeks. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"
"Because I love you too much to leave you alone when I know that you were almost killed within the last twenty-four hours!" Mac said. "Don't you realize how scared I was when you didn't come home last night? When no one knew where you were and you weren't answering you cell phone? Maxie, for all we knew you could have been dead. I was close to calling your mother."
"She wouldn't care," Maxie mumbled.
"What?"
"Mom," Maxie reiterated. "She wouldn't care if I was missing. She never cares."
Mac shook his head, "Your mother loves you more than you'll ever know, Maxie. She just has a very unique way of showing it."
"By being halfway across the country," Maxie scoffed. "She's really good at showing how much she cares, dad."
"Is that what this is about?" Mac asked. "Are you acting this way because you want your mother to finally notice you?"
Maxie sat on her bed again, "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You go and engage in a relationship with, first, an abusive drug-addict, and then with the son of an established crime lord. Are you just trying to find a way to get your mother to come back home?"
Maxie glared at him, "I never want that woman to come back into my life! I want her to stay away so that I don't have to worry about caring about her again only to have her leave on some stupid little quest of hers without thinking about any of our feelings. When we were little it was okay, but we're a lot older now. When mom says that she'll be back before we know it now, we know that she's lying. I'm through having my heart stomped on by anyone, my mother or my boyfriends, it doesn't matter anymore! Kyle was a mistake, dad, a big mistake that I will never be able to purge from my mind. He told me lies that I believed, made me think that I was special to him in a way that was more than just so he could get me into bed with him. When I found out that I was nothing more than what I was for him, it crushed me. I thought I was in love, and then I realized that I didn't know the first thing about love."
"You're too young to know what love is," Mac said.
She shook her head, "No, I'm not. I know that I love Damian and he loves me."
"What makes you think that he loves you, Maxie?" Mac asked. "I'm not entirely sure that people like that are capable of knowing what love is."
Maxie wanted to scream at Mac and tell him that he was wrong. She also wanted to slap him for thinking that Damian was anything like Sonny, because they weren't. They shared blood, but very little more. Instead, she managed to keep her composure, "Why can't you ever give anyone a chance? You didn't like it when Georgie started dating Dillon, and you still haven't accepted that they're together. How long has it been, dad? It's been over a year, and you're still fighting it. You didn't think Dillon loved Georgie, but you know he does. You think that just because he's a Quatermaine that he's going to end up corrupting your daughter like his mother or his cousins, or his grandfather, but you know he isn't. You may have been right about Kyle, but you're not right about Damian. He's lost so much and he could have easily gone into the life that his family has, but he hasn't yet, and I don't think he ever will. I know that I can see it, and I know that anyone else who actually takes the time to get to know him can see that he won't be anything like Sonny. But you're never going to be like that, are you, dad? You're going to choose to remain blind for your whole life, because it makes you feel better about yourself. He would have died to protect me, do you know that? Faith threatened to take him out if he didn't comply and she tried to use me. Damian wasn't worried about his own life, he was worried about mine and his grandparent's. You say that he can't feel love for anyone, but what would you call what he did earlier today? Even though you weren't there to see it, and you might as well deny that it happened for your entire life, I know what did happen. And I know that no matter what you do to try and keep me away from him, it won't work. I want you to be supportive of my relationships, dad, but if you can't be then I'm sorry, but I won't live my life by your decrees."
Mac, stunned by his daughter's outburst, turned around without saying a word and left the room. She wouldn't stop seeing him, he truly believed that. But how was he going to make sure that they never saw each other again?