Stacey- Thank you for being the first person to review (the people don't love me anymore sniff, sniff). I am glad that you enjoyed part one of this saga and hope to make part two something that is as, if not more, enjoyable. As to your question, look no further than the very chapter that you are reading this message on, Maxie makes her return. Too bad they can't do the same on the show. I miss Maxie.

Kelly's-

Mike Corbin Corinthos was a man of many skills, as well as many vices. One of them involved gambling, something that lead him to believe that it was best to leave his own children in the care of more responsible people, namely, their mothers. It pained a part of Mike to do what he had done to both Sonny and Courtney, but a part of being a father, a part of being a good father, was giving children what was best for them and not being so fixated on what the parent wanted. It was better for them that he was gone, that he wasn't such an influence on them when they were growing up. Courtney may have not grown into the beautiful, strong woman that she was, and Sonny… Sonny might have been worse. He could have been better as well, but Mike didn't see how his habits would have steered Sonny towards the path that he had taken. He loved Sonny dearly, he always would, but they wouldn't see eye to eye on so many things. It was a trend in Corinthos men that the father and the first born son would always have some wall that refused to be broken down, or at least it appeared to be one. Damian may not have broken the trend between him and Sonny, but maybe, just maybe, when he became a father, his own son wouldn't try and do things differently.

While gambling may have been one of his vices, cooking was something that he was at least somewhat decent at. Sonny got his skills somewhere, but Sonny perfected them to an art. If Sonny was the cook at Kelly's, Mike had no doubt in his mind that it would be a booming business. It would be easy to do, too, since his wife's recently re-acquired business was downstairs. A legit way of making money. Not that Sonny didn't make money by the law. His coffee importing business was entirely legal, but it wasn't how he made his fortune. He could find ways to make his family happy and do it the right way, but Sonny was already too old and too fixated on his lifestyle for it to change. He had tried to change it and it didn't work as well as they had all hoped. He had ruined a relationship with his son simply because he couldn't be honest about what type of person that he was. While that relationship may have mended itself there was no doubt that it would be something that neither party would ever forget.

"Mike, snap out of it!" Elizabeth Webber said as she sat on the stool next to Mike. Since Bobbie had taken it upon herself to give Mike something of a purpose, not because she felt that he was worthless, but because she saw the potential in him, Elizabeth had found a sort of surrogate boss in Mike, but there were times when he just seemed to not be there. It was understandable, he had a family that he always needed to worry about, a family that Elizabeth always worried about, too. Even when she didn't know Damian there was always that feeling of what was going to happen to Sonny's family, at least since she started going out with Jason. Even after they broke it off she wondered. Jason was a part of that family, it was why he was so involved with all of them. Elizabeth could see the love that radiated from Jason's eyes whenever he was around Michael. She wished that, at least on some level, Jason could have the type of love from Michael that he had when Michael was a baby, but Jason wasn't Michael's dad anymore, Sonny was. Mike had yet to heed her order, so she was forced to take drastic measures. "Earth to Mike," Elizabeth waved her hand in front of his face, hoping that maybe that would get his attention. When it didn't, she clapped her hands in front of his face, remaining scant few centimeters away from his nose.

The smacking of flesh around his face did jerk Mike back into the land of the living, it was a painful reminder of how he was treated when he couldn't pay up the loan sharks that he had pilfered money from. That was a part of his life that he hoped to never get back in to, but that didn't mean that he wouldn't. It was a powerful obsession, sometimes it overpowered even his strongest will, which was why he had given it up so many times in the past only to return yet again. Mike was about to put his hands up to defend his face, but he realized that he was in the warm atmosphere of Kelly's, hardly the dark alley's where he was beaten into inches of his life. "What, Elizabeth? I'm so sorry, I zoned out a bit."

"A bit?" Elizabeth said in a condescending tone, "I nearly had to get a bucket of cold water and dump it over your head to get your attention." She smiled, but it faded a moment later. Like clockwork, Elizabeth slowly went to work doing something that she felt she had a knack for, fixing problems that didn't involve her. Some times she was successful, others she was not. It didn't stop her from trying each time, though. "What's on your mind, Mike?" Elizabeth asked. "There are no customers that haven't ordered and gotten their food already, so unless they need a refill on their drinks, I'm all yours until we get a new customer."

Mike was also a good liar. He hoped that he was good enough to lie to Elizabeth. The best way to find out was to try it. "I was wondering about what I gave up when I decided to leave the kids with their mothers. Especially right now, you know? Around Christmastime. There were times when I would think about paying them a visit, but I knew that it would just hurt them all in the end, since I didn't have any intentions of staying around for the long run. I would have stayed, been convinced to stick around and right when things started to get good again I would worry about screwing everything up and I would run away again. Sonny and Courtney deserved better than that." Mike lowered his head, resting his chin on the palm of his hand, "That doesn't mean that they got better, though. Sonny had to deal with that bastard of a step-father who made my boy hate life… and Courtney, she just wanted her dad. That was her big Christmas wish each year, for me to come around and stay. She never got it."

"She has it now, Mike," Elizabeth said, holding back the tears that were forming in her eyes from the sob story. She had seen the true grief of a man who didn't deserve to feel that much. While it was horrible that Mike made the choices that he made, the fact that he felt so bad about them showed that he deserved to be forgiven, if not by himself then by his own children. She knew that Courtney was forgiving, but Sonny was something different. There would be no forgiveness from Sonny, at least not anytime soon. He carried grudges. "You've been here for how long? You've been here for both of your children, and your grandchildren, and anyone else who needs you for something for how long? Bobbie asked you to help run this place, and you were here in a second."

"Well it's not like I have a busy social calendar, Elizabeth. The next time I've got something planned is Michael's birthday, and that's not for a bit…"

"That's beside the point and you know it!" Elizabeth gave him a playful shrug. "You would have done it even if you had something that you were doing, because you care about Bobbie and when you care about someone you help them."

"Yeah… now I help them… but I wasn't always like that."

"People change, Mike, in a lot of ways. Look at me. I went from dating Lucky to Jason and then to Ric, with some people in between, and there was something that I loved about each of them, because I grew as a person. Lucky was my first love, the type that every teenage girl cares about, but now we're just good friends, and we're both happy with that, Jason and Ric are people that I would have never seen myself with when I was with Lucky, but it happened, and I don't regret it."

"Relationships are a bit different from abandoning your children, Elizabeth," Mike remarked. "But thanks for trying to cheer me up."

"Did it help?"

"Only a little, but every little bit does help, right?" Mike glanced out the window and saw his grandson walking into Kelly's. Even though he was dealing with a personal problem, Mike did his best to make it seem like everything was fine. "Damian! Did you come because you wanted a slice of pie?"

"Maybe later, Grandpa," Damian walked up to the both of them and smiled at Elizabeth. "Uncle Ric said that you were working with the people at the hospital for the Christmas party."

"We got out a little early, since we're ahead of schedule, something that hasn't happened since before either of us were breathing." Elizabeth couldn't wait for the party. The way all the children finally got out of their drab hospital rooms and smiled for just a little while. It wasn't a permanent solution, but if they were to feel good about themselves one day out of the year, why wouldn't it be Christmas? "So I decided to come back here and get some extra work in. Tips help a lot this time of year, especially when I've got one extra person to get a Christmas present for."

"I hope you don't mean me…" Damian didn't want Elizabeth wasting her money on him. It didn't seem like it was something that she had to do. Her friendship was a present that he had enjoyed since the day he arrived in Port Charles, it was the best present that he could have gotten from her or from anyone else. "Elizabeth, I just want you to focus on the people who are really important to you."

"And that doesn't include you?" She asked. "Damian, it's Christmas, you get presents for the people that you care about, for your friends and for your family. You're someone that I care about deeply, and I want to get a present for you, so don't try and talk me out of it!"

"Okay, okay, I concede victory to you, in the spirit of Christmas," Damian knew that fighting Elizabeth when she wanted to do something that badly was a futile experiment. Maybe she would just get him some random knickknack from the dollar store. He wouldn't mind, the less money she spent on him, the more she had for herself. He pushed himself off the counter and looked at the stairs, "I've got something to take care of upstairs…"

"You don't have time to talk your grandfather out of buying you a Christmas present? I wouldn't mind a few extra bucks myself…"

"You're so bad!" Elizabeth again hit Mike, this time it was more of an enclosed fist, but it was all in good humor.

"Hey, my bones don't take impact like they used to!" Mike said, rubbing his arm. He might have a bruise. It wouldn't be the first time. Mike watched his grandson walk up the stairs, not even giving him a moment of his time. When Damian was out of sight, Mike once more sighed, "I guess he didn't…"

"What do you think he's doing upstairs?" Elizabeth asked. The last time she had seen him go upstairs was when he was living in the apartment. Her jaw opened, "You don't think he's going to move back into Kelly's, do you?"

"I'd hope not. It would crush Michael if his brother left again, and especially right now…"

Damian walked down the small hall of Kelly's. It had been a long time since he had been upstairs, although Kelly's was a frequented establishment by most people, including him. It wasn't simply because his grandfather, one of his dearest friends, and a woman that he considered to be a surrogate grandmother to him all had something to do with the place, Kelly's also had some damned good food.

He opened the door with the key that he thought he wouldn't need to use again. There was really no reason that he needed to be back at the apartment. He had taken everything with him the second time he moved back into the penthouse. It was funny, he wasn't even in the apartment for a week before he moved into the penthouse the first time, at the insistence of his father. Damian believed that he would never come back then, but he was wrong. He wasn't so sure that everything would work out while under his father's roof, but he was willing to give Sonny much more in the way of slack with his lifestyle than he had the first time, because Sonny was more honest about it.

Damian sat on the bed, the only thing that hadn't changed. It wasn't as comfortable as the bed in his room, but he would always think of it as a fond bed, because it was the first time he had actually struck out on his own. It was a short attempt at independence, at least in the housing sense.

"Got some time for me?"

He knew who the voice belonged to, and he looked over from the bed to the doorway. Maxie stood there, a wide smile on her beautiful face. It was quickly reciprocated. "I always have time for the girl of my dreams…"

"I didn't expect you to be at Kelly's, I just came for a cup of coffee, but Mike said that you were up here, so I thought I would keep you company." She walked over and sat down next to him, kissing him on the cheek and resting her head on his shoulder. "What's up, Damian? This is the last place that I ever thought I would find you again. Are you thinking about leaving Sonny?"

"I don't know what I'm thinking right now, Maxie. It's scary. I just wish that my life made sense… but it doesn't."

"Yes it does," Maxie corrected him. "Your life makes perfect sense, at least to me. You're this great person who cares about so many people and they care about you. You're going to be a wonderful doctor, and you're going to help so many people because that's what you want to do. How could that not make any sense?"

"That part does… but that's not all I am. I don't know," Damian got up and looked out the window, "maybe it's this time of year, bringing back all my insecurities and fears that were running around when I was a kid and when I thought I was an orphan."

"It'll get better, Damian," Maxie said, not moving from her seat. She wanted to support him so much, and the best way that she could do that was by helping him when he needed it. "I promise you."

"When you say it, Maxie, I believe it," Damian watched the snow fall again. He and Maxie had their first snowball fight when the snow was high enough. It was one of the best times of his life. It was good to have those types of memories, ones that were devoid of pain.

"This place is special to us, you know that?" Maxie said, looking around the room. "It was the first place that we ever kissed." She smiled, "Not that it meant anything at the time."

"It meant something to me, Maxie. It may not have been the best time for a kiss, but that didn't mean that it didn't mean something to me. I wasn't sure how I felt about you when you did it, but I knew that you were something special."

"I remember coming out of this room that night, thinking that I had blown the only chance I had with you. I didn't know that we would fall in love either, but I'm glad that we did."

"So am I," Damian returned to the bed and was about to sweep Maxie down onto the bed with a kiss, but his plan was put to a screeching halt when Elizabeth came into the room.

"Damian, we need your help… someone's having a seizure downstairs!"