Emergency Room-

How long had he been there? Sonny knew that there wasn't a clock anywhere nearby, not that it mattered. A minute, an hour, a year, he'd wait as long as it took until he was able to find out what was wrong with his son and how he could make it all better. He had barely moved, and Damian hadn't moved at all. There wasn't anything that showed his son being alive aside from the sound from the monitor that he had long since blocked out for fear of it costing him his sanity and the occasional movement of Damian's chest. It was a lot different from the times when Sonny would watch the boy sleeping in the room at the penthouse. Sonny didn't know about him for so long, but the minute he found out that he had a son he knew that he couldn't be complete until they were bonded in a way that he was bonded with Michael and Morgan. If Damian did somehow manage to die on Sonny, that bond would never fully come to be. Sonny would never truly feel that his life was perfect. Because of that, Sonny knew that he couldn't allow his son to pass away. There was too much at stake for everyone involved.

"They're worried about you, Sonny."

Sonny saw Bobbie standing in the hallway, even though she wasn't dressed in her nursing uniform there was really no reason why she wasn't allowed to walk around her workplace. "They shouldn't be worried about me. They should be worried about him."

"They're worried about Damian as well, but there's not much that we can do for him right now. We can help you."

"I don't need help, Bobbie."

"You don't?" She asked. "You think you can fight the grief that you're feeling all by yourself, Sonny? I know you're a proud man who can never really face up to the fact that you can't fight everything by yourself, but I was thinking that you could stop being selfish for one time in your life if your sons needed you."

"What are you getting at?" Sonny didn't want to fight with his mother-in- law, especially in front of his near-comatose son. Even though Damian didn't look like he was aware of what was going on, there was no way of telling that he wasn't at least feeling the animosity.

"Talk to them," She said. "You've been inside this room for hours, everyone is wondering why you haven't even come out with so much as a status report. Carly's been pacing around the room like a caged animal for the past few hours because she's so worried about how you're taking this."

"Is that it?" Sonny wondered. "Is that your whole spiel, your words of wisdom?"

"Sonny, we may never see eye to eye on a lot of things, but I still don't want to see you in pain. Right now you're trying to put everything on your shoulders, all the hurt that comes with being a parent that has a hurt child, all the anger that comes with wondering if there was something that you couldn't have done to stop it from happening. Everything that you're feeling right now isn't something that you have to feel and battle with just by yourself."

"I'm all he has left," Sonny said. "His mother's already dead and I'm his father, that leaves me and me alone to help him through this."

"You really think that you're the only one in the entire world that cares about Damian?" Bobbie asked. "What about your sister? What about your sons? What about his girlfriend? What about me?" Bobbie stopped herself from naming anymore. Sonny got the point, there were a lot of people who did care about Damian a great deal, and the way he was acting was only putting them out of his life. "Are you going to tell me that you really think that you can deal with this all by yourself?"

"I can deal with a lot."

"There's no denying that, but can you deal with this? Can you truthfully deal with everything that you're going through and just keeping it inside? Would your son want that?"

"No, he wouldn't..."

"Then maybe you should stop being the only one in here."

"I'm going to stay here all night," Sonny stated firmly. "You can't keep me from watching over my son. The person who tried to do this to him could be after him again and this would be the first place that he would look."

"We have security..."

"Your security here isn't good enough, Bobbie," Sonny said. "Not for me. Don't try and fight me on this, please."

"I won't," Bobbie said. "If you don't try and fight me on walking outside of this room and showing the people that you care about, the people that care about you, that you're not going to be the only one who can be around your son."

"I don't want to leave him alone," Sonny said.

"I can stay with him again, Sonny. I don't mind."

"Bobbie... you say that they're worried about me... but how are they when it comes to him?"

"I've told them everything that I've seen since he was brought in," Bobbie glanced at the heart rate monitor, seeing that everything seemed to be at a safe level. "But that's only caused them to be a little bit relaxed with the situation. It's not like I can tell them that everything is going to be okay when we're not entirely sure if everything will be okay. I told them that he was likely going to survive. I also know that Michael's not exactly having the easiest time dealing with this right now."

"What do you mean?"

"Jason's watching him because he's afraid that when he wakes up in the morning he'll find out that his brother is never coming home."

Hearing that bit of news only made Sonny want to find the person that did this to Damian and kill that person without second thought. He didn't voice the desire, although it was plastered on his face. "Are they still waiting around?"

"Carly, Courtney and Dillon are the only ones that are still here," Bobbie told Sonny. "Mike would have stayed, but Maxie and Georgie needed a ride home and he offered to take them."

"What about Ric?"

"He left," Bobbie's voice wasn't exactly filled with grief over the fact that Ric was gone. "Elizabeth asked to be taken home and he said that he'd do it." Bobbie checked the IV, making sure that it was secure. "I'm surprised that you let your brother stick around, Sonny."

"I only did it because Damian thinks that Ric is family. That doesn't mean that I'll ever forgive Ric for the horrible things he's done to all of us, but I couldn't shove him out knowing that my unconscious son would have wanted him to be around. That's the only reason that Ric was allowed to take a step inside the hospital."

"He's driven by a strange sensibility, isn't he?" Bobbie asked.

"He's driven by a purity that I never thought I'd find in anyone who was tainted by my blood."

"Sonny..."

"No, Bobbie, don't even try to hide the fact. We all know that I'm no saint." Sonny opened the door, "I'll be back as soon as I can be."

"I'll be right here."

"If anything happens..."

"I'll have you paged over the intercom system," Bobbie cut in. "Sonny, I'm not going to be vindictive and keep you from knowing information about your son that every parent should know."

"I'm just not used to trusting people..."

"I know, and you need to work on that."

"I don't know if I can..." Sonny walked out, closing the door behind him.

Bobbie sat down in the chair, "Neither do I."

Waiting Area-

Courtney had come out of her hiding space, trying not to look suspicious. She was the wife of Jason Morgan, she should have known how to play face.

Dillon, to his credit, didn't look as hurt as he had when he was giving his confession to Bobbie. It must have been a rare moment for the boy, she thought. He and the rest of the Quatermaine's were almost always taught to never let anyone but the family see their emotions. She understood how they worked, although she never liked the system that they lived by. Courtney walked up and reached down for her purse, "I forgot this..."

Dillon looked up before he turned his eyes down again, "I wasn't going to steal it or anything."

"I'd never think that you would try and steal something from me, Dillon." She took a step forward, "Not only because if you did my husband would hunt you down and hurt you, but because I know that you're a good kid."

"I still can't believe that Jason isn't here."

Courtney agreed, but she also understood what made her husband tick. "Jason can't stand being here. It brings back too many memories of the only things that he can remember. He always sees the doctors not knowing what was wrong with him and seeing his family looking at him, hoping that there would be something that they could cling onto and bring the old Jason back."

"I like Jason a lot more now that he's not involved with them," Dillon said. "I can't really remember him very much from when I was little, but I know that he's a lot more confident in himself now than he ever was when he was living at the mansion. It's like that place sucks up every ounce of life that it can from anyone. Jason was lucky that he got out when he did. Lucky that he got the chance to decide if he wanted to leave or not."

"Would you take it if you got the chance?" Courtney asked.

Dillon looked at her. How did she know? Did she know? Was he just being paranoid? "I've never felt accepted by them, Courtney. I don't try and find acceptance from the Quatermaine's, but it would be nice to know that I did something in my life that actually made them proud of me. I don't know why I care... the kind of pride that they value comes from being a type of person that I just don't want to be."

"Look, I'm not good at trying to be subtle, so I'll just come out and say that I heard you talking with Bobbie..."

"Great..."

"Dillon, I'm sorry that they don't accept you being the type of person that you want to be. Believe me when I say that I know what it's like to be different from the people that you care about."

"Really?"

"Well, look around my life... my brother and my husband aren't exactly running around with the best intentions in life. But I accept that they're not going to conform to what I want them to be and they're not going to expect me to do the same for them. If the Quatermaine's can't agree that you should be allowed to be your own person then it's a good thing that Tracy asked you to leave."

"Well, it would have been nice if I had been given a little bit of a warning," Dillon said. "I mean, it's not like I have a place to stay..."

"You're welcome to come home with me," Courtney said. "I don't want to think about you running around Port Charles looking for a place to stay or sleeping in a cheap motel room."

"Jason wouldn't like that," Dillon said.

"How do you know that?" Courtney asked. "Think about it, Dillon. Jason's going to be the only person on the planet who understands what you're going through. He knows what it's like to be pushed away by the Quatermaine's and their expectations."

Dillon didn't think about it very hard. Even facing off against Jason was better than living on the streets. Besides, Courtney was right, Jason would know what he was going through. Maybe they could be kindred spirits. Anything to get out of the mansion. "I'll pay you back someday..."

"You don't need to," Courtney smiled. "I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do, not because I'm looking for repayment."

Sonny turned around the corner. Courtney and Dillon both looked at him, faces blank. Sonny's face was impossible to read. Was everything okay?