Corinthos Household-

Courtney walked into the house and instantly noticed that it seemed like it was a little less complete. Not only was her brother not there, which wasn't that unexpected since Sonny would almost always be out on business if he was gone or with his family out on the island, but her nephew was gone... again. He'd left so many times since he had arrived in Port Charles, and only once had it been an optional occurrence. Now, Damian was in the hospital and Sonny was keeping a constant vigil. Sonny wouldn't leave, no matter what. It was both an endearing quality that Sonny had and one that made Courtney worry about him. Sonny would let his own health dwindle if it came down to it. There was no sacrifice that was too great for him when it came to his children. Would she have been as dedicated? She'd never get the chance to find out.

"Carly?" Courtney called out, hoping that her best friend wasn't sleeping. She had barely gotten a few winks over the night and had held out on the foolish hope that her best friend would be equally worried, if not for her step-son, then most certainly for her husband.

Carly came out from the kitchen area with a somber look plastered on her face, she meekly responded, "Hey."

"What were you doing in there?" Courtney asked, knowing full well that Carly should not have been allowed anywhere near the kitchen for the sake of the family and quite possibly the ecosystem.

"I figured that I would get Michael's breakfast ready. The poor boy, I know he won't want to eat, but he's going to have to eat something."

"You didn't try and cook, did you?" Courtney was nervous. Sonny was already in a state of panic, if Carly had messed with his kitchen... things could have gone much worse.

"No, I was going to get the cereal out," Carly smirked. If there was something that she could do with a certain level of efficiency, cereal was that meal. But, they weren't there to discuss Carly's choice of eatery options. "You want to go back to the hospital, don't you?"

"I'll be there all day, if I need to be," Courtney replied. "Sonny's not the only one who cares about Damian, no matter how much he wants to tell himself otherwise."

"You know that Sonny is just using that selfish attitude of his as a defense mechanism, Courtney. He's more afraid than anything else."

"I might know that, but that doesn't mean that I have to like it," Courtney stated. "I can't believe that he wanted us to all just leave him alone like that."

"Trying to make sense of Sonny's decisions is a foolish path to take in life, you should know that as well as anyone."

"You're right," Courtney brushed her thoughts off, focusing less on her brother's, at times, petty behavior and instead concentrating on the family and how things were being handled. "Did Michael manage to contain himself last night?"

"Jason had to help him," Carly replied. "I know that Michael wasn't feeling like everything was going to be okay. I know that Leticia couldn't have contained him. I know that he's even more scared than Sonny is."

"Mommy? Aunt Courtney?" Michael came down the stairs in his pajamas, the aftereffects of sleep still apparent as he rubbed his eyes.

"Hey, Mr. Man," Carly smiled as best she could as she walked over. "You feeling any better?"

"No," Michael replied. "I want to go to the hospital!"

"Honey... you shouldn't... not until he's feeling better," Carly tried to appeal to Michael's sense of logic. She chose to blind herself to the fact that the boy was so young that he likely didn't have a very strong sense of logic.

Her blindness should have been followed, "He won't get any better unless we're all over there with him!" Michael sat on the steps of the stairs, "He was there for me, why won't you let me help him like he helped me?"

"Michael," Courtney decided to try her luck, "we all know that you want nothing more than to help Damian, but the best way you can do that is by staying here and not putting yourself in any danger. The people that wanted to hurt you could still be after you, and we can't have that."

"You'll protect me," Michael stated somewhat matter-of-factly. "You always keep me safe. You, daddy, mommy, Uncle Jason..." He struggled with the final member of that list, since he knew that the entire situation was created because of the fact that Damian did protect him.

Both women knew that he was having a hard time accepting what had passed. He wasn't alone, they were with him in that respect. Whoever wanted to hurt Michael wasn't going to make it out alive... Sonny would find a way to end that threat.

Carly touched Michael's hand gently, "Come on, sweetie, I've got some cereal ready for you."

"I'm not hungry," Michael responded.

"Michael, please," Carly begged, "you need to eat in order to stay healthy. I don't want you getting sick and going to the hospital as well."

"At least then I could be with him..." Michael muttered before he walked into the kitchen, utterly dejected.

Carly moved her hair back with her hand and sighed heavily, "What am I going to do with him?"

"You know... there might not be any reason that we can't take him to the hospital," Courtney said. "It's not like we can't protect him from the people that did this to Damian if he's only a few feet away."

"I don't want Michael seeing his brother in the condition that Damian is in."

"Carly... he was there when it happened," Courtney stated. "He's not going to go in thinking that everything is fine when he saw what was going on."

"What if Ric's there?" Carly asked. "You know how much Michael hates him."

"Ric will stay away," Courtney was confident that he would stay away from Michael. "He's not trying to be a burden to anyone right now. I don't know how long that's going to last, and I sure as hell don't believe his pathetic good guy routine, but that's the truth of the situation."

"I don't know..."

"Carly, if you leave him here he's only going to think about the problem even more. Taking him along will at least help him get some closure on the situation. We might not even be able to see Damian in the hospital, but I know for a fact that it would help him."

Courtney's reasoning seemed like it wasn't going to get any less correct. Carly couldn't deny that Michael needed to have something to do in order to occupy himself. She couldn't even think about making him clean his room, because the mess that was made by his outburst was entirely justified. "Fine, you win. I just hope that this doesn't hurt my little boy anymore than he's already been hurt."

"I can't make any promises, but I don't think that he'll have anything negative happen to him."

"Could you stay here in case the phone rings or something?" Carly asked. "I'd like to tell him by myself."

Courtney gave a slight nod of her head, "Sure."

Carly, summoning resolve that she didn't even know that she had, took the first few slow steps into the kitchen. Michael was sitting at the table, looking at the cereal. His spoon was in the bowl, but he wasn't even making an effort to eat. "Honey..."

"I'm not hungry..."

"Michael..."

"I want to go see him," Michael reaffirmed his point. "I need to go see him."

Carly sat on the chair next to her son, "How about we strike a deal? If you eat your breakfast and then go take a bath and get ready, you, me and Aunt Courtney will all go to the hospital together?"

"You promise?" Michael asked.

"I promise," Carly replied. "But... Michael... you have to understand something, you might not even be able to see him if you go to the hospital. The only one who has even seen your brother aside from Grandma is daddy."

"How come I can't see him?" Michael asked.

"Because he's really hurt, Michael. He needs to have people do tests on him to see if... he'll ever be able to do the things that he used to do before the accident." Carly was struggling, but she was finding a way to explain what was going on better than she thought she could. "Do you really want to be there for a long time without being able to do anything else? Just waiting in the hospital?"

"I think he'll know that I'm there," Michael retorted. "I think it will help him if he can feel me being around him."

"Okay. If that's what you want to do, then you can come with us. But, if you think that you can't handle everything that's going on around you, I don't want you to think that it's a bad thing that you can't handle it. You're just a little boy, Michael, and these are things that are scaring all of us. Nobody is going to think less of you if you get afraid."

"I won't be afraid, I have to be strong." Michael put the spoon in his mouth, filled with the cereal that Carly had put in the bowl for him. He was eating not because he wanted to, but because he knew that his mother wouldn't go back on her word. After a few spoons were finished, he asked Carly another question, "Would you be sad if he did die?"

"Of course I would," Carly said. "I'd be very sad if your brother died."

"But would you be sad because of how much it would hurt me and daddy, or would you actually be sad because he was dead?"

"Michael, we're not enemies anymore," Carly said. "We might not be very close, but I don't hate your brother now. If I did I wouldn't even be concerned over what happened. Now, hurry and eat up so we can leave, I'm sure daddy wants some support." Carly got up and left Michael in the kitchen.

Courtney was on the couch when she heard Carly's steps walking towards her. "Nobody called..."

"I know, I didn't hear the phone ring," Carly sat down next to Courtney. "That was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life, Courtney."

"But you know that you did the right thing..."

"I know that, but I still think I'm going to be putting my baby through something that he shouldn't have to worry about..." Carly leaned against the couch, letting the severity of the situation wash over her.