Author's Note: This chapter should (well, technically I have till the 25th to meet my self-imposed deadline) have been up on Sunday. I had all the dialogue written and only had to add thoughts and descriptions and stuff. Then I cut and pasted some transcripts from when Courtney first came to town into the document for later reference. I saved my document and next time I went to enter it, it locked up the second it was open. I tried a few more times, same thing happened. I tried restarting, shutting down my computer, cut and pasting before I got the "illegal operation box" and I tried opening it about 50 times (and that's not an exaggeration). I couldn't recover ANYTHING from that document...all the dialogue, the chapter-by-chapter plot I'd worked out, some of the scenes I wrote ahead of time, some song lyrics, and the stupid transcripts. I think the problem was/is there was a photo in the transcripts that Microsoft Word couldn't open so it keeps locking up. Long story short, I had to rewrite everything I had written and I don't like it nearly as much as I had but I tried and I hope you can see that though the less-than-perfect writing :p

light*hope: Not at the ball but possibly somewhere ;) I like ramblings, it's good, and you beat me with Golden Child! Great job! You won't have if the above happened...you send me a virus or something to buy yourself more time? [face_suspicious] LOL, just kidding and thanks for reading :D

starbright: Glad you like ZEm's together, I did that mostly for you, and glad you love the Journey. :)

Tamara: LOL, hey, you won't get yourself in trouble with me when it comes to Liz. Love that movie too. Thanks for dropping a line! And yep, I got both your reviews ;) I hate those proxy errors...

abc: Thanks! It'll be a while before the Journey dance and now I have to rewrite the scene *is pissed* but hopefully it'll turn out okay...Courtney is either 19 or 20...whichever works for you :p

theblondeone07: I tried to hurry. It didn't work. Life is so unfair. And I'll stop whining because it changes absolutely nothing!

luvssts: No, thank you for reading this story :D It is my pleasure to write it!

Samarakystal :p : Glad you liked the outfits at the ball and thanks for reading!

Fun fact: This was before Luke burning down the police station. You guys remember that happening, right? LOL this is hard. Everything was so different a year ago!

Reflection

Chapter Six ~ The Police Station

"Jason, stop!" Courtney continued to yell. He had the guy on the floor, was holding him down, punching him, making sure he stayed down.

The man was away from her, and the last thing Jason wanted to do was frighten her, but he wanted to be sure this guy got the message: to never come near her and threaten her or any other woman again. He reached down and pulled the mask off, and stepped back. Luis Alcazar lay on the floor.

And then Scott Baldwin and Marcus Taggert were upon them.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" the acting district attorney asked a little too cheerfully.

"Anger Boy attacking a man in a room full of witnesses. Not very smart, Morgan." Taggert shook his head as if he was disappointed, when Jason knew he couldn't be more thrilled.

Scotty turned to his counterpart. "What do you say, Taggert? We got enough for an on-the-spot-arrest?"

"That depends on Mr. Alcazar."

Alcazar...that name sounded familiar to Courtney but she couldn't place it yet...

Luis smiled, nodded. "I'll press charges."

Taggert turned around, producing a pair of handcuffs. "Jason Morgan, you are under arrest for the assault of Luis Alcazar. You have the right to remain silent..."

Courtney couldn't believe this, how these two supposed police officers were talking back and forth about arresting Jason without even asking anyone what had happened. Seeing that no one else was going to step forward, she did. "Okay, you can't do this. This man grabbed me! Jason was defending me!"

Baldwin tipped in her direction, widening his eyes as he exclaimed, "Watch me!"

No, this was completely wrong. She looked into Jason's sincere eyes and hissed, "They can't do this!"

"It's okay," he said softly. "I get arrested a lot."

She didn't care if it happened everyday, this was wrong. She turned to the crowd that had gathered around them, desperate to get someone to voice support. "They can't do this!"

"You have the right to an attorney..." Taggert droned on, drowning out her voice.

Someone caught hold of her elbow. It was the same man he had almost let slip by her at the door when she was lost in thought. "Okay, you know what? It's better for everybody if you just stay quiet," he told her, just loud enough for her and no one else to hear.

"So what, are you just going to stand around and let them arrest Jason for defending me?" she spat between clenched teeth. "Maybe you can do that, but I can't." She turned around to argue with the two cops some more, but another person grabbed her arm, this time Carly.

"You need to listen to us, okay?" Carly said, her eyes pleading with Courtney to listen and understand. "Arguing with them is only going make things worse for Jason."

"You're just going to let them get away with this?" Jason was being dragged away. She watched him go, feeling something in her heart breaking and unsure of what that something was. She wasn't ready to explore that yet.

Sonny shook his head. "Scott Baldwin's an idiot."

Courtney would have laughed aloud at the obviousness of that if she wasn't so angry. "Yeah. I can see that."

"He doesn't have anything to hold Jason on," he said by way of explanation.

Not much of an explanation. "Hello! Are you blind?" Courtney waved a hand in front of his face. "Jason attacked him in front of a room full of witnesses. Yeah, it was to protect me, but this Alcazar is pressing charges."

"You know, she has a point..." Carly agreed.

"Even Baldwin isn't—"

Emily came over at that exact moment, dragging Zander behind her and looking very concerned. "Hey, what's going on? Why'd they arrest Jason?"

Sonny sighed and began to explain. He didn't get past the first sentence.

"This is all your fault, Sonny!"

"Jason was never involved in criminal activity until he met you!"

The first was Ned Ashton, the second Alan Quartermaine. Courtney blinked at their sudden interruption. Who were all these people? How did everyone know Jason? Why wasn't anyone telling them to shut up? They were all rolling their eyes and keeping their mouths shut.

"Oh, come on," Emily tried.

"Must you defend all criminals?" an old man barked.

"I'm sure Jason had a reason to do what he did!" Monica objected.

A.J. rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. "Oh, sure. Stick by the Golden Boy no matter what. You saw him attack someone in public, and you're still defending him!"

"A.J., that is not fair!" Monica and Alan exclaimed.

And then shouting erupted from an interminable number of people. Courtney couldn't follow. There was a lot of yelling, something about a house and who owned it. But then they all started shouting at once, not even bothering to take turns or listen to each other. She was completely bewildered. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sonny and Carly discretely making an exit now that the attention of the Quartermaines was redirected at each other and their shouting match.

Courtney threw once last glance at the Quartermaines before lifting her skirt off the floor and running after them. "Hey, wait!" she called. Thank goodness, they heard her and did. "You guys know Jason, right?"

"Right," Sonny replied, in a way that trailed off and invited her to explain why she was asking.

"And you're going down to the police station to make sure he's okay, right?"

"Right."

"Okay, can I come with you? I know, it sounds weird, but I need to make sure he's all right."

"How do you know Jason?" Carly cut in, sounding both curious and nosy.

"We've seen each other on the docks and at Kelly's a few times." Courtney rubbed her forehead. She was starting to get a headache. "It doesn't matter. What matters is that he's been arrested, and I cannot let him go to jail for something he did for me. Please, let me come with you." By the end she was actually begging.

"Well, if she feels like she has to...." Carly trailed off after a moment of thinking about it.

"Yeah, all right."

Courtney raised her eyebrows, hoping he meant it. "Really?"

"Yeah, come on. Let's go."

Courtney let out a sigh of relief as she went with them outside.

~*~

The police station was somewhat organized chaos, flooded with paperwork and lots of people sitting around doing nothing. Courtney saw Jason handcuffed to a chair and went over to him immediately.

"Are you okay?"

Jason looked around in confusion before asking lowly, "What are you doing here?"

"I'm not letting you go to jail for something you did for me, okay? I'm helping you whether you want me to or not."

Before Jason could object, Courtney turned to Baldwin. "Luis Alcazar is lying. He grabbed me and started to threaten me and Jason saw it!"

"Tell it to someone who cares," Scotty said, looking smugly satisfied.

Sonny tapped her on the shoulder. "Maybe you could just, you know, let me talk to him."

Courtney threw her hands up in defeat. Baldwin wasn't going to listen to her no matter what she said. "Yeah, sure."

"It'd be a pleasure, Corinthos!" Scotty said with a Cheshire grin.

Courtney put a hand over her heart, sure she might drop dead from shock. Corinthos. Michael "Sonny" Corinthos. Jason's boss. The guy her father was associating with. And she hadn't had a clue. It just proved what her mom had told her over again; you never could tell who someone really was. But she'd found a link to her dad, finally. Question was, did she want to be asking mobsters about his whereabouts? He might be in some kind of trouble. Maybe the mob was after him. Oh, God. Maybe Jason was after him!

Once she'd recovered a bit, she went over to Carly. "Hey, what is your, uh, your husband doing?" she asked nervously. Her heart wanted Jason to go free, but her mind was spinning with all the possibilities.

"He's talking to Scott Baldwin."

Yeah, Courtney had figured that much. "He thinks that's going to help? He said himself this guy is a complete idiot."

"I don't know. Scotty's an idiot, but he's smart enough to know how much public opinion counts."

"You lost me."

Carly turned to her, giving her all her attention. "Don't you know? He's running for district attorney, and he just lost a big case against Luis Alcazar. He pulled in a deal from the government at the last minute, so the whole trial was a waste of the taxpayer's money and let a crook out on the streets. Everyone knows he belongs in jail, and no one is going to care that Jason beat him up. Vigilante thing, you know? The law has failed, it does all the time, someone steps up and takes it into his own hands, why should he pay for it?"

"So, um, he, um, he thinks Baldwin's going to let Jason go?"

"Sonny," Carly supplied. "Yeah, he does. At least he hopes so."

Did he hope so because Jason was supposed to track down her father and deal with him in that way the mob did? They way that had something to do with burying people six feet under? A brief silence stretched before Courtney decided to break it. "So what exactly did this Luis Alcazar do?"

Carly laughed. "Okay, where do I start? Hmm, let's see, he hired someone to kill my husband, he blew up a warehouse which killed a girl, he held a woman captive for four years or at least that's what she claims, and he shot a guy. Oh, yeah, he's an international arms dealer, too."

Courtney's eyes widened and her eyebrows rose nearly to her hairline. She recognized the name now. It was from the paper. "Some model or something was the woman, right?"

"You know Brenda?" There was no mistaking the disdain in Carly's voice.

Courtney laughed nervously. "Well, no. I just read about it in the paper."

"Oh," Carly said, and seemed read to say more when Sonny came back over. "What's going on?"

"You're free to go, Morgan!" Baldwin snapped as someone unlocked the handcuffs, looking as if he wished her could do anything else but release him.

Courtney didn't even have time to figure out whether she should be worried or relieved before a man was escorted into the PCPD. She was vaguely aware of the voices around her. "Isn't this sweet? A family affair," was Scotty's comment.

"And what are we bringing him on for?" Taggert inquired.

"Drunk and disorderly disturbing the peace," the officer informed him.

"Perfect timing, Mike. Your son here can bail you out."

"I don't have a son," he slurred.

Carly made a face. "Oh, Mike. You don't mean that."

"You know what? Don't bother," Sonny advised her.

Courtney felt herself getting choked up. Suddenly she couldn't breathe. It was all she could do to get out the word. "Daddy?"

~*~

P.S. Hope you liked. And hey, feel free to tell me everything you'd like to see happen in this fic. I've gotten plenty of great ideas from people who've done that, and since this fic doesn't have a fixed plot...well, all ideas would be good :D