Kayla- Your sympathy for Sonny would, I certainly hope, be very much felt
through the other readers as well. I feel bad for Sonny, but that won't
stop me from putting his life through hell. I'm just evil like that.
Joy- Remember that in the eyes of the (all too crooked) law of Port Charles, Damian is a convict and a prisoner. We may know what's going on, but they don't. I'm sorry that it was so painful for you. Ric's decision to not be Damian's attorney was a very wise one indeed. Sonny wouldn't tolerate it, which would only bring problems. Ric realized that, and since he's coming to the realization that he actually does give a damn about his nephew for more reasons than just because the woman that he loves happens to be Damian's good friend, he couldn't go through with it. Damian was desperate, though, and in his world family always stands by you, which explains his rationale, however flawed it may have been.
You're absolutely right about the final line, which is why I included it. It is very poignant to the entire story, not just the current 'Damian in jail' arc, but the one thing that's been apparent since chapter 24. Sonny and Damian are two different sides of the coin in just about every way. In Damian, Sonny sees what he could have been had life been different, and in Sonny, Damian sees what he could be if he went down the path that his father took. In short, Damian could be Sonny's son in more than just blood, he could be it in morality as well. Even though Sonny doesn't want that and he wants his boys to all be these morally upstanding individuals, he realizes that with those morals comes problems such as getting out of jail. They have to work out a compromise, or else Damian's going to jail and I don't think anyone, be it the people in PC, the readers, or myself as the writer, wants to see him go and end up being cell mates with some random Texan wife beater known only as 'Bubba.'
I was going for that feeling. Even with Damian's 'everything will turn out fine in the end' mentality, there's only so much that he can actually have. I've pretty much got plans for how it works out, though. So you'll just have to wait and see, on bated breath.
Story-
Port Charles Police Department-
Mac was putting it off as much as he could, making that phone call to Maxie. The news hadn't leaked out, as far as he knew, to the press so there would have been no other way for her to find out other than himself or someone else that knew what had happened calling her. Since the only other person that would even make a phone call to Maxie for any reason was Lucky and since he was already told not to call her about Damian, Mac knew that she was in the dark. How long she would stay in the dark was anyone's guess, though. Scott would work as fast as he could to bring attention to arresting the 'culprit' that had been responsible for the massacre. Odds were high that Damien's face would be plastered all over the news tomorrow. Maxie would find out sometime. It should have been from her father... but it was so hard.
The phone looked at him like it was the most evil thing on the planet. In some ways it was. He knew she would take it hard. He knew it would set her off. He knew it could break her. He knew Damian was innocent. But there was one thing that Mac knew very well: In this line of work, sometimes the innocent people didn't exactly get off. He was going to do what he could to keep Damian from taking the walk, but in the end it wasn't his choice. Scott would do everything in his power to keep Damian in trouble for the deaths, and Mac might not be able to stop it. He was the Commissioner, but that wasn't exactly enough firepower to go up against the District Attorney. Even with Ric in his corner, however unreliable by the minute that was, and Lucky as well... the odds were stacked up against them all.
Ric came up after the time he spent in the room with Damian. While it was supposed to be an interrogation room, it wasn't used for that reason in that instance. Ric wanted to let Damian know that he had Ric's support, and now that he knew that his nephew was well aware of that fact Ric could rest somewhat easily. But he knew that he'd still have a bit of unease when he thought about Damian sleeping in one of the prison beds and surrounded by people who weren't above taking advantage of someone like him. It would be even worse for Damian if he did get convicted. He could end up spending time with a cellmate named Bubba, all prisons had one of them. Ric was not a religious man, but he still prayed that nothing bad would come of the entire situation. Much like Mac, however, he wasn't blind and he knew that there were ways to skate by the law and still be entirely legal. Alexis Davis had done it with her faked alternate personality disorder for murdering Luis Alcazar. Alexis, however, had every reason to kill that man. While it was a very unmoral thing to do, given the alternative, it was her only option. She would make a good attorney, but she would never agree to take the case. There was something between her and Sonny. They shared an affair while Carly and Sonny were going through one of their periodic scuffles and it was obvious that they cared for one another. Even then, getting the two of them into the room at the same time caused some tension. Some of it was hateful, some of it was not.
"Well?" Mac asked, thankful for the momentary distraction that Ric provided him as he walked out of the room.
"Well what?" Ric questioned.
"Did you find out anything from the time that you spent with him?"
Ric shook his head, "I'm only further assured of his innocence in this entire matter."
"We all know he's innocent, Ric," Mac said. "It's the reason why we're working together and trying to make sure that he doesn't slip through the cracks. I've seen it happen too many times, I won't let it happen again, not to him."
"You must love your daughter very much to look past Damian's heritage. I don't know if I could be as lenient if I were a parent."
"I can't spend my entire life being judgmental of the people that my daughter dates, Ric. I was judgmental of Kyle because I could see that he wasn't good for her, and maybe he soured me to the fact that she could find someone that would be right for her, that would care. Whatever the reason was, I was wrong and I don't intend on making that same mistake again. That's the reason why I've stopped being so critical of Damian now, because I've told myself that I have to look past everything that I want to believe that he's capable of and actually see him for who he is. It wasn't easy, though, I can assure you of that. I didn't find it at all simple to look past the fact that he is a Corinthos, even if he doesn't have the name. He's also your nephew, which wasn't comforting in the least."
Ric brushed the last comment off. He knew that he had done some horrible things in the past. He had almost taken Morgan from Carly, only now was he beginning to see just how wrong that was. If he had gotten away with it... if he had stolen Morgan he would have had a son for him and Elizabeth to nurture. But would he have gone through with it? Could he look at his 'son' and know that it wasn't his? At the time Ric was certain that he could, but now Ric was certain that he couldn't. He wanted to see Sonny suffer in some ways for their past, for the rejection, but he wanted Sonny to suffer directly now. He didn't want to use people and watch them go through hell just so he could have his revenge. A lot of things had helped him reach that conclusion. Most of all was the fact that Elizabeth could still find it in her heart to care for him even after all the horrible things that he had done. However, Ric would be lying to himself if he denied that Damian's acceptance of him as a member of his family, even when Damian was obviously getting hell about it from every corner, wasn't another factor. If Damian could look past all the horrible things that Ric had done to his family, what was to say that Sonny couldn't do the same? Ric wouldn't expect anything like that, but it didn't stop him from wanting it. The part of his soul that wanted that outcome was much stronger than the part that wanted Sonny to suffer now. "I don't know why my brother hasn't come yet."
"Maybe he's busy gunning down another swarm of mobsters," Mac dryly commented.
"Sonny would put everything on hold to come to the aid of one of his children, Mac," Ric pointed out. "He's a lot of things, not many of them are good, but the one thing that he has been since the moment Michael came into his life is a good father. He'd fend off the world to protect his kids."
"I know the feeling," Mac mused. While they were on opposite sides of the law in almost every meaning of the word, they shared the common bond of being loving fathers. They also shared that bond in another way, because at least one of their children was not their child by blood. They both knew that the love came unconditionally. Sonny with Michael, Mac with Maxie and Georgie. It wouldn't make them swap stories, but they had a common ground in that respect.
"You know, I never thought in a million years that I would actually feel pain when it came to seeing that..."
"What?"
"A member of my family, a member of my family through my brother inside the cell," Ric turned his head over his shoulder, even though Damian wasn't in there any longer. "But now that it's happened, all I want is for him to get out."
Mac wasn't entirely sure that he bought Ric's sudden crisis of conscience, but it seemed true for the most part. Much like Lucky, Mac had a hard time deducing just how much of Ric was real and how much was fake. "I want that, too."
The two adults had never been particularly fond of one another, but in that moment they did share a kinship. It was fleeting, but it was there.
"Why am I not surprised to see you here?"
Ric knew the voice without turning, but he wanted to look Sonny in the face. "I was wondering when you were going to get here, big brother."
"Don't 'big brother' me, Lansing!" Sonny had been in the police station for less than a minute and he was already shouting and making demands that he thought should have been immediately complied to. "What did you do?"
Ric sighed, "I had nothing to do with Damian's arrest, Sonny. I'm just as convinced of his innocence as you are."
"You're not fooling me for a second, Ric. You saw me at the park today and you wanted to try and get on my good side again, but I didn't buy your crap for a second and now you're getting back at me through your own nephew!"
"I went to you earlier because I had an offer that would help us all!" Ric didn't like the accusations that were being made against him. He knew that Sonny wouldn't understand what he was going through and would ultimately place some blame on Ric for something, but this time it did hurt him. Damian had changed them all in such a short time. "You didn't take it, that's correct, but I didn't use it as ammunition to fuel some revenge scheme! Tell me something, Sonny, what do I have to gain from seeing him in prison?"
"You'll have gotten back at me for whatever reason you think I need to suffer for in that sick head of yours."
"My problems stem from something that is entirely concerned with you and you alone," Ric pointed out. "I won't act through an innocent kid."
"Which doesn't explain why you kidnapped me and tried to take my kid from us," Carly countered. She, too, wasn't going to sit through Ric's all too pathetic attempt at being a good guy when she knew that he was nothing more than a maniac.
"You don't think I regret that?"
Carly shook her head, "I don't."
"Neither do I," Sonny agreed.
"I knew this would happen," Ric's premonition was entirely on the money. "I knew that the minute we were together we would lose track of the goal to keep your son out of jail and just spend the entire time trying to pick apart at one another. That's why I didn't take him up as my client."
"I would never allow you to be my son's lawyer!"
"Well apparently your son doesn't give a damn about what you think, because he asked me if I wanted to represent him." Ric grinned. For once he had a chance to one-up Sonny at something. The grin faded when he thought about his nephew being wrongfully accused.
"I want to see him... now!"
"I wouldn't doubt that you didn't want to see him." Ric looked over at one of the officers, "Get Zuniga and put him back in the room."
"I swear to you that if there is anything wrong with my son, if any of you have mistreated him in any way, I will see to it that this department is left penniless."
"Nothing happened to Damian because of us, Sonny," Ric almost muttered. He didn't have the energy to deal with his older brother, there was a good chance that he would never be able to.
"Let me be the judge of that," Sonny stated as he started to walk towards the room.
"Sonny... before you go, you need to realize something," Ric and Sonny met eye to eye. "He's really scared right now. He needs something from you that you might not be able to provide. He needs you to be as objective as possible and not try to fix things in the way that only you can fix them. In short, he needs you to be his father, he doesn't need you to be Sonny Corinthos."
"I know what my son needs, Ric," Sonny quickly turned away, not wanting to show Ric just how much he was thinking about what Ric told him. He opened the door and walked in. As he walked in, so did Damian. Father and Son gazed at one another, neither entirely sure of what they should do.
Joy- Remember that in the eyes of the (all too crooked) law of Port Charles, Damian is a convict and a prisoner. We may know what's going on, but they don't. I'm sorry that it was so painful for you. Ric's decision to not be Damian's attorney was a very wise one indeed. Sonny wouldn't tolerate it, which would only bring problems. Ric realized that, and since he's coming to the realization that he actually does give a damn about his nephew for more reasons than just because the woman that he loves happens to be Damian's good friend, he couldn't go through with it. Damian was desperate, though, and in his world family always stands by you, which explains his rationale, however flawed it may have been.
You're absolutely right about the final line, which is why I included it. It is very poignant to the entire story, not just the current 'Damian in jail' arc, but the one thing that's been apparent since chapter 24. Sonny and Damian are two different sides of the coin in just about every way. In Damian, Sonny sees what he could have been had life been different, and in Sonny, Damian sees what he could be if he went down the path that his father took. In short, Damian could be Sonny's son in more than just blood, he could be it in morality as well. Even though Sonny doesn't want that and he wants his boys to all be these morally upstanding individuals, he realizes that with those morals comes problems such as getting out of jail. They have to work out a compromise, or else Damian's going to jail and I don't think anyone, be it the people in PC, the readers, or myself as the writer, wants to see him go and end up being cell mates with some random Texan wife beater known only as 'Bubba.'
I was going for that feeling. Even with Damian's 'everything will turn out fine in the end' mentality, there's only so much that he can actually have. I've pretty much got plans for how it works out, though. So you'll just have to wait and see, on bated breath.
Story-
Port Charles Police Department-
Mac was putting it off as much as he could, making that phone call to Maxie. The news hadn't leaked out, as far as he knew, to the press so there would have been no other way for her to find out other than himself or someone else that knew what had happened calling her. Since the only other person that would even make a phone call to Maxie for any reason was Lucky and since he was already told not to call her about Damian, Mac knew that she was in the dark. How long she would stay in the dark was anyone's guess, though. Scott would work as fast as he could to bring attention to arresting the 'culprit' that had been responsible for the massacre. Odds were high that Damien's face would be plastered all over the news tomorrow. Maxie would find out sometime. It should have been from her father... but it was so hard.
The phone looked at him like it was the most evil thing on the planet. In some ways it was. He knew she would take it hard. He knew it would set her off. He knew it could break her. He knew Damian was innocent. But there was one thing that Mac knew very well: In this line of work, sometimes the innocent people didn't exactly get off. He was going to do what he could to keep Damian from taking the walk, but in the end it wasn't his choice. Scott would do everything in his power to keep Damian in trouble for the deaths, and Mac might not be able to stop it. He was the Commissioner, but that wasn't exactly enough firepower to go up against the District Attorney. Even with Ric in his corner, however unreliable by the minute that was, and Lucky as well... the odds were stacked up against them all.
Ric came up after the time he spent in the room with Damian. While it was supposed to be an interrogation room, it wasn't used for that reason in that instance. Ric wanted to let Damian know that he had Ric's support, and now that he knew that his nephew was well aware of that fact Ric could rest somewhat easily. But he knew that he'd still have a bit of unease when he thought about Damian sleeping in one of the prison beds and surrounded by people who weren't above taking advantage of someone like him. It would be even worse for Damian if he did get convicted. He could end up spending time with a cellmate named Bubba, all prisons had one of them. Ric was not a religious man, but he still prayed that nothing bad would come of the entire situation. Much like Mac, however, he wasn't blind and he knew that there were ways to skate by the law and still be entirely legal. Alexis Davis had done it with her faked alternate personality disorder for murdering Luis Alcazar. Alexis, however, had every reason to kill that man. While it was a very unmoral thing to do, given the alternative, it was her only option. She would make a good attorney, but she would never agree to take the case. There was something between her and Sonny. They shared an affair while Carly and Sonny were going through one of their periodic scuffles and it was obvious that they cared for one another. Even then, getting the two of them into the room at the same time caused some tension. Some of it was hateful, some of it was not.
"Well?" Mac asked, thankful for the momentary distraction that Ric provided him as he walked out of the room.
"Well what?" Ric questioned.
"Did you find out anything from the time that you spent with him?"
Ric shook his head, "I'm only further assured of his innocence in this entire matter."
"We all know he's innocent, Ric," Mac said. "It's the reason why we're working together and trying to make sure that he doesn't slip through the cracks. I've seen it happen too many times, I won't let it happen again, not to him."
"You must love your daughter very much to look past Damian's heritage. I don't know if I could be as lenient if I were a parent."
"I can't spend my entire life being judgmental of the people that my daughter dates, Ric. I was judgmental of Kyle because I could see that he wasn't good for her, and maybe he soured me to the fact that she could find someone that would be right for her, that would care. Whatever the reason was, I was wrong and I don't intend on making that same mistake again. That's the reason why I've stopped being so critical of Damian now, because I've told myself that I have to look past everything that I want to believe that he's capable of and actually see him for who he is. It wasn't easy, though, I can assure you of that. I didn't find it at all simple to look past the fact that he is a Corinthos, even if he doesn't have the name. He's also your nephew, which wasn't comforting in the least."
Ric brushed the last comment off. He knew that he had done some horrible things in the past. He had almost taken Morgan from Carly, only now was he beginning to see just how wrong that was. If he had gotten away with it... if he had stolen Morgan he would have had a son for him and Elizabeth to nurture. But would he have gone through with it? Could he look at his 'son' and know that it wasn't his? At the time Ric was certain that he could, but now Ric was certain that he couldn't. He wanted to see Sonny suffer in some ways for their past, for the rejection, but he wanted Sonny to suffer directly now. He didn't want to use people and watch them go through hell just so he could have his revenge. A lot of things had helped him reach that conclusion. Most of all was the fact that Elizabeth could still find it in her heart to care for him even after all the horrible things that he had done. However, Ric would be lying to himself if he denied that Damian's acceptance of him as a member of his family, even when Damian was obviously getting hell about it from every corner, wasn't another factor. If Damian could look past all the horrible things that Ric had done to his family, what was to say that Sonny couldn't do the same? Ric wouldn't expect anything like that, but it didn't stop him from wanting it. The part of his soul that wanted that outcome was much stronger than the part that wanted Sonny to suffer now. "I don't know why my brother hasn't come yet."
"Maybe he's busy gunning down another swarm of mobsters," Mac dryly commented.
"Sonny would put everything on hold to come to the aid of one of his children, Mac," Ric pointed out. "He's a lot of things, not many of them are good, but the one thing that he has been since the moment Michael came into his life is a good father. He'd fend off the world to protect his kids."
"I know the feeling," Mac mused. While they were on opposite sides of the law in almost every meaning of the word, they shared the common bond of being loving fathers. They also shared that bond in another way, because at least one of their children was not their child by blood. They both knew that the love came unconditionally. Sonny with Michael, Mac with Maxie and Georgie. It wouldn't make them swap stories, but they had a common ground in that respect.
"You know, I never thought in a million years that I would actually feel pain when it came to seeing that..."
"What?"
"A member of my family, a member of my family through my brother inside the cell," Ric turned his head over his shoulder, even though Damian wasn't in there any longer. "But now that it's happened, all I want is for him to get out."
Mac wasn't entirely sure that he bought Ric's sudden crisis of conscience, but it seemed true for the most part. Much like Lucky, Mac had a hard time deducing just how much of Ric was real and how much was fake. "I want that, too."
The two adults had never been particularly fond of one another, but in that moment they did share a kinship. It was fleeting, but it was there.
"Why am I not surprised to see you here?"
Ric knew the voice without turning, but he wanted to look Sonny in the face. "I was wondering when you were going to get here, big brother."
"Don't 'big brother' me, Lansing!" Sonny had been in the police station for less than a minute and he was already shouting and making demands that he thought should have been immediately complied to. "What did you do?"
Ric sighed, "I had nothing to do with Damian's arrest, Sonny. I'm just as convinced of his innocence as you are."
"You're not fooling me for a second, Ric. You saw me at the park today and you wanted to try and get on my good side again, but I didn't buy your crap for a second and now you're getting back at me through your own nephew!"
"I went to you earlier because I had an offer that would help us all!" Ric didn't like the accusations that were being made against him. He knew that Sonny wouldn't understand what he was going through and would ultimately place some blame on Ric for something, but this time it did hurt him. Damian had changed them all in such a short time. "You didn't take it, that's correct, but I didn't use it as ammunition to fuel some revenge scheme! Tell me something, Sonny, what do I have to gain from seeing him in prison?"
"You'll have gotten back at me for whatever reason you think I need to suffer for in that sick head of yours."
"My problems stem from something that is entirely concerned with you and you alone," Ric pointed out. "I won't act through an innocent kid."
"Which doesn't explain why you kidnapped me and tried to take my kid from us," Carly countered. She, too, wasn't going to sit through Ric's all too pathetic attempt at being a good guy when she knew that he was nothing more than a maniac.
"You don't think I regret that?"
Carly shook her head, "I don't."
"Neither do I," Sonny agreed.
"I knew this would happen," Ric's premonition was entirely on the money. "I knew that the minute we were together we would lose track of the goal to keep your son out of jail and just spend the entire time trying to pick apart at one another. That's why I didn't take him up as my client."
"I would never allow you to be my son's lawyer!"
"Well apparently your son doesn't give a damn about what you think, because he asked me if I wanted to represent him." Ric grinned. For once he had a chance to one-up Sonny at something. The grin faded when he thought about his nephew being wrongfully accused.
"I want to see him... now!"
"I wouldn't doubt that you didn't want to see him." Ric looked over at one of the officers, "Get Zuniga and put him back in the room."
"I swear to you that if there is anything wrong with my son, if any of you have mistreated him in any way, I will see to it that this department is left penniless."
"Nothing happened to Damian because of us, Sonny," Ric almost muttered. He didn't have the energy to deal with his older brother, there was a good chance that he would never be able to.
"Let me be the judge of that," Sonny stated as he started to walk towards the room.
"Sonny... before you go, you need to realize something," Ric and Sonny met eye to eye. "He's really scared right now. He needs something from you that you might not be able to provide. He needs you to be as objective as possible and not try to fix things in the way that only you can fix them. In short, he needs you to be his father, he doesn't need you to be Sonny Corinthos."
"I know what my son needs, Ric," Sonny quickly turned away, not wanting to show Ric just how much he was thinking about what Ric told him. He opened the door and walked in. As he walked in, so did Damian. Father and Son gazed at one another, neither entirely sure of what they should do.