Joy- Worry not about the cuteness factor. That chapter was made to be 'cute,' well, it was meant to be more amusing than cute, but I'll settle for cute. I wanted to do something funny, just flat out making the reader smile and possibly laugh funny, because there really won't be that many times in which they (the characters) will get a chance to actually have something happen that doesn't involve… well, drama, really. Besides, Dillon's comedic gold, it'd be blasphemous to not use that.

Case in point… I gave you the 'cute' chapter, so I had to balance it with the not-so-cute one, although the chapter in question was still fun, especially the Max moments. I do love Max, he's underappreciated by the powers that be, yet loved by so many of the viewers (aka: the people who should be getting what they want…). Believe you me, Damian has a damned good reason for not being all festive and cheery, which he's about to get into right about now…

Story-

"I don't want to talk about it…"

"I just told you that you could tell me anything, Damian. I love you, I want to help you." Maxie didn't like that he was being so cold, so aloof, so distant. He wasn't acting like the person that she knew and loved, which only showed how much it was affecting him. There were things that he didn't like to talk about, things that he didn't think he could. He had avoided talking about his mother's passing in detail, but she wouldn't ask more than just what happened. She could see how much it hurt him, and his face was just like the way it was when she found out about his mom. That, to her, didn't make a good sign.

"You cut me off, Maxie," Damian said. The tone in his voice had lowered, it was now near a whisper. "I don't want to talk about it out here, in the open." He looked at Max. He liked Max, trusted him, but this was something private. Sonny may not have had a problem with Max overhearing and knowing some of the personal business that went on in his life, but Damian was not Sonny, a fact that was becoming more and more apparent, for both good and bad reasons. "I'll tell you when we get into the elevator. Come on."

Maxie walked beside him, not trying to show how worried she was. She didn't want him to think that she was judging him, she didn't want to scare him away. He had been there for her… it was time to repay the favor. She hit the button on the elevator, it opened automatically. Stepping in, she once more pressed the button that would lead them down into the bottom levels of the towers, away from some of the prying eyes and ears. "We're alone now. Please, tell me."

"I don't like Christmas…"

"Is that it?" Maxie was stunned, not because he didn't like Christmas, although that was something that she didn't really think anyone could say with a degree of certainty, but she was stunned that he thought that it was so important that it would be something that he needed to say in private.

"Please, Maxie, let me finish," she had cut into his statement before he got a chance to tell her everything again. Normally he wouldn't care, but she was the one who was begging for the revelation that was at the core of his being. "There are a lot of things that I don't like about this holiday. The way that families come together in a way that I could never have growing up, how people would forget everything and be happy for a day because they knew that they were all there with each other is one of them… but it's not the big reason why I don't like it. Even though my Christmases weren't ideal growing up, they were still special. My mom would try her hardest to get me everything that I wanted, even though I didn't want much, because the one thing that I did want was something that I could never get."

"You wanted your father, didn't you?" Maxie asked.

"Yeah, that's what I wanted. I wanted to know that I had both my parents around me. I wanted to feel what I saw all the other people around me feeling. It was hard growing up with a big family because I was the only bastard child. All my cousins… they have both their parents. They'd never tease me for not having a dad, because if our grandparents found out that they were things would get ugly, fast, but that didn't stop them from flaunting the fact that they had a nice complete family unit around them. My grandparents' were accepting of the situation that my mother was put in, the rest of the family was a little less nice about it." He shook his head, there was no reason to hide it anymore. "A lot less nice about it. They would have tossed us both out of their lives if they had the choice, but they didn't."

"So that's why you don't like Christmas?" Maxie felt horrible for the way that his family treated him. If they got married, like Maxie had dreamed of more than a few times and had even planned, she wondered how she could look at them. How she could play nice. Assuming they came. Maybe she could strike them from the guest list.

"Only a small part of the reason. It gets worse, sadly," the elevator finished its descent to the bottom level. The doors opened, the cold air from outside pushing into the small elevator. Damian walked out and stood in the snow, closing his eyes as the small specks of white frozen water brushed against his figure. "With everything that happened, mom still found some way to make me happy at Christmas. She was good at that. She was always good at making me feel better about myself, about the life that I had, telling me that even though it wasn't the life that I wanted it was the life that I had and that I shouldn't throw it away. She was all about believing in the Christmas miracle, and there was always something that she would say was the miracle of that Christmas… but the last Christmas that we had together… I was the one who thought about having a miracle happen. At that time I hadn't abandoned religion and faith, at that time I hadn't decided that I wanted to be a doctor. I was a different person then, Maxie… so naïve."

"You were just a teenager," Maxie attempted to assure him of what was good in life, but she wasn't sure that she could. She didn't know where the story was going, if it still had a place that it needed to go, but already she was holding back the tears of sorrow and grief. A part of her, a small, dark part of her, loathed Damian's mother for leaving her only son. Even though it was a reason why he was in Port Charles, a reason that he was with her, it was still the most painful time of his life and she would give up anything, even her happiness with him, to keep him from going through it. "We all did some things that we're not proud of when we're that age. I did some things that I'm not proud of up until I met you."

"My Christmas wish was simple… I just wanted to spend the day with my mom. I didn't expect her to beat cancer just because of some stupid plea that I made, all I wanted was to spend it with her, to see her smile, hear her laugh. But it didn't happen. I spent all day that Christmas at her bedside, hoping that she would wake up. She didn't. She slept the whole day. She led me to believe that there was something special that would happen on Christmas, and nothing did. I know it's stupid that I'm holding this grudge against a holiday, but ever since then… Christmas just hasn't meant anything to me. It didn't help that she was dead less than a month later. It didn't help that there were days before and days after Christmas where she would spend the whole day sleeping and never wake up, but I thought that something would be different."

"I'm sorry…" Maxie didn't have anything else that she could say. Her boyfriend was doing something that he rarely did. He was showing her a part of him that he tried to keep from getting out. As sad as it was that he had been through that pain, it was also touching because he valued her enough to show her that part. "But you're wrong… it's not stupid. I'd be disappointed too if something like that happened to me on Christmas."

"I'm trying really hard," Damian put his hand out and caught some of the snow, "I always try hard to make the most out of the season. I do my best to make everyone else have a good Christmas, to make sure that I don't ruin their holiday because of my personal pain, but it doesn't help. I'm always finding myself driven back to that point in my life. Nobody knows what happened, Maxie. Not even my Grandparents. I didn't tell them that my mom was asleep the whole time. They always figured that the way I acted around Christmas was because of her being gone, which is true, but it's not the whole reason."

"Why didn't you want to tell them?"

"I didn't want to burden them with another problem caused because of me," Damian let the snow fall onto the ground. "They worked so hard to try and give me a good life, and had to work even harder when mom died. I didn't want to let them down, I didn't want to make them think that they had to do something special for me because of what I lost on that day. I don't like being a charity case… even by the people that I love more than anything else in the world."

"How can I help?" Maxie brushed away some of the hair that was in her face, snowflakes falling harmlessly to the ground.

"By being here with me?" Damian's answer was more like a question, because he didn't know how she could make it better. If she could make it better. "Having you listen to me was helpful. I feel a little better about it now that I've finally told someone. And I'm really glad that I told you before I told anyone else. I'm sure I'll manage to keep myself happy for all of you, and I'm spending my first Christmas with my father. Just… don't hold it against me if I can't put a smile on my face for awhile, okay?"

"I could never hold anything against you," Maxie hugged him tightly. "You've gone through things that I couldn't even begin to understand, Damian, and you've made yourself a stronger person because of it, but you're never going to get over losing your mother, especially the way that you did. She would want you to be happy, though. She wanted you to be happy when she was alive, so we both know that it's what she would want even though she's gone."

"How can I do that… how can I be happy when everything that's going through my mind is my past…"

"By not thinking about it?" Maxie's answer was simple, but she knew that it would be the most difficult thing that he could do. Not thinking about something that happened that was bad was nearly impossible. People forgot the good things in life way before they forgot the bad things.

"I can't make any promises…"

"The only thing I want you to do is try, Damian," Maxie let go, a sad smile on her face, "I wouldn't expect anything more from you. Do you know how you can try?" Maxie waited for a second, getting no response, "You can try by going back upstairs and helping them decorate that tree. The people up there love you, they want you to be happy. If they knew what you were going through they would try and help you, I know they would."

"Don't tell them, please…"

"I won't," Maxie knew that he didn't want that part of himself to be so open. They knew that his mom was gone, but they didn't need to know everything. He was a different person. "But we should go back inside…"

Morgan Household-

Courtney was supervising the project. Michael was having a good time stringing up strand after strand of lights, but she feared that he would eventually get dizzy. She finally decided that there were more than enough, anything else might have caused a fire hazard. "Michael, when you finish with that last strand, please come help me with something…"

"Ow!" Dillon exclaimed, sitting on one of the chairs.

"What happened?" Georgie heard him cry out in pain. She was sitting on the leg of the chair, but her attention had been diverted. She mumbled something about how she couldn't take her eyes off of him without him finding a way to hurt himself.

"Pricked my thumb," Dillon frowned. "You know, I always hated doing this part…"

"I told you to let me do it," Georgie held his hand, "but I'm going to make your hand feel better, and you can't stop me…"

"Why would I?"

"I don't know, why would you?" Georgie knelt down and lightly kissed his thumb. When she was done she yanked the popcorn out of his hands, a few pieces flying out of the bowl onto the ground. "This is one time when I thought the way you use your hands to stylize your hair would help, Dillon, but I can see that stringing popcorn is just something that boys can't do…"

"I resent that comment!" Dillon grinned.

"You haven't done anything to prove it wrong," Georgie kissed him on the lips, "but I'll gladly string up popcorn for you, I don't mind."

Michael made a face when he saw the two of them kissing. He still didn't care for the kissing. He took a seat next to Courtney, "I finished with the lights. Do you think they look good?"

"I think they look great, sweetie," Courtney ran her hand through his hair. "But now that we're done with that part we need to start putting ornaments on the tree. First we need to put the clips on the ornaments. Do you think you can do that for me?"

"Dillon can't," Georgie said, giggling.

"You're destroying my self-esteem!" Dillon mockingly put his face into his hands, "It's not my fault that I was cursed with hands that can't do things that require tenderness! Curse my inefficiencies!" He heard the door knock, "Now there's something that I know I can do with my hands!" Dillon got up, giving Georgie a playful shove that sent her onto the chair, sprawled out. He opened the door, "Where'd you two go?"

"Just to talk…" Damian walked back inside the house. "There was something that I wanted to do with Maxie."

"Did you get it done?" Courtney had noticed the shift in moods by Damian, he had changed them too many times for her to be comfortable, even now he was acting differently than when he left the penthouse. She would have been worried, but he seemed to be doing better.

"Yeah," Maxie looked at Georgie, laughing when she saw that Dillon was eating the pieces of popcorn that she had managed to string up. She pulled at Damian's sleeve and pointed when she got his attention, silently telling him that they were acting how people should have acted around Christmas.

"Did you do the lights, Michael?" Damian took note of her message, and was trying to do the best that he could.

"I did! Do you think they look good?"

"I think they look great," Damian walked over and knelt behind the couch, "I couldn't have done a better job myself."

"Here," Courtney handed Damian a box of ornaments that she had finished while Michael was stringing up the lights. "Why don't you and Maxie put these on the tree?"

Damian waited a moment, knowing that Maxie was looking at him, begging him to take the box, to try her idea. "Sure…" he took the box and stood, walking over to the tree. It was a nice tree. Dillon had picked a good one, despite his many pleas for a tree, any tree, from the forest. As his hand went down for a gold bulb, Maxie's went for the same, their fingers touched both their respective hands and the ornament. Damian and she picked it up together and placed it on one of the branches. When they were finished, Damian gripped onto Maxie's hand even harder and kissed her forehead. "Merry Christmas, Maxie…"