Quatermaine Mansion, Interior-

Tracy had yet to see her son in the doorway. She was too busy thinking about the way that Dillon avoided making any contact with her during the entire Christmas Party at the hospital than to worry about anything that was happening inside of her house. Looking at the picture of Lila that was on the counter, Tracy gently ran her index finger down the glass, wishing that she could do the same thing to her mother's real face, just one last time.

"Oh, mommy," she placed the picture back on the counter, still fixated entirely on it, "now I know how you felt when I would take myself away from the mansion. I've always known how you felt having a child that was almost nothing like you, but this was something that I thought I could avoid. I always wanted my sons to know that I loved them, even when I didn't know how to show it in ways that you would approve of, I didn't want to shove them out of my life… but that's exactly what I did with Dillon, isn't it? Why couldn't I just be a little more like you? Why couldn't I have inherited just the smallest bit of your grace and your charm… not to mention your heart. I did some of the most horrible things I could have ever done to anyone, sometimes to you, sometimes to this family, and you always found a way to forgive me, to still love me. You were something else, mommy… and the world seems just a little bleaker without you."

"Come, mother," Ned saw the tail end of the conversation that Tracy was having with the picture. His mother and he may have never seen eye to eye, they might have only rarely gotten along, but he still didn't like ever seeing her in pain. "It's Christmas Eve, now isn't a time for mourning. It's a time for celebration, for family."

"How can I celebrate family when one of the only members of my family that I actually care about isn't here with us?" Tracy leaned against Ned. "At least you're here, my darling. At least I have one son who loves me enough to be around me… even if it's only for a little while."

"Mother, please, you're bringing down the mood of the party. Do this for Grandmother's sake, much like I did when I dressed up like Santa. I did it because she would have wanted me to do it." Gently clasping her hand in his, Ned kissed his mother on the forehead, "I know that this is hard for you, but you're only making it harder by moping around the whole time. Look at me… my children aren't even here for Christmas, either. It tears at me to know that Brooke Lynn and Kristina aren't here, but I manage to go on, to put a smile on my face, because I'm a Quatermaine, and I don't let people know when something gets to me."

Tracy looked up at her oldest son, "If there was ever one lesson that I wanted you to learn from me, Ned, it was that one that you just repeated to me right now. It makes me very proud of you to know that you took it to heart." She sighed a moment later, "I just wish that I could practice what I was preached to you, being without Dillon… it really hurts me. What's worse is that I know now that I owe every single visit that he's ever made to me since he moved in with Alan's favorite little Mafioso to that kingpin in training that he calls a best friend."

"Excuse me?" Ned wasn't following. He and Damian had barely met. Ned was busy doing things for ELQ most of the time, and that called him away on several detours. It was only through sheer determination that he was able to get enough time off for Christmas. That and the fact that he knew he wanted to be around his family just as much as they wanted him to be around them. The wound of Lila's passing would always be there, but it was still very fresh.

"Damian and I had a little chat at the hospital party. He bumped into me. At first I thought he was going to try and mug me for my money or for my jewelry, but he didn't, nor did he pull a gun on me. I'll give him the smallest bit of credit, at least he doesn't try and do stupid things in the middle of a party, with a large crowd. Jason and Sonny must have trained him well."

"Mother, the point," Ned couldn't really care less about her opinion of Damian. He'd made his own, although it wasn't much better than Tracy's. His distaste for Sonny ran deep, and by default his distaste for the children that Sonny had was also quite dark. Was it a little unfair? Well, more than a little, yes, but it was how the Quatermaine's handled themselves.

"The point is that he said that the only reason Dillon's even still talking to me is because he convinced my son to pay attention to me, his own mother. I destroyed my relationship with Dillon… I know that now, but I always thought that he had come back to me based on the love that he had for me in his heart, but now I find out that it was because someone else kept on telling him that he needed to come see me? How do you think that makes me feel, Ned? Never mind, let me tell you how it makes me feel, it makes me feel very upset. Worse," Tracy put her glass of brandy down, "it makes me feel hurt."

"How do you know he wasn't lying, mother?" Ned asked. "You can't take the word of a Corinthos very seriously, even one who has only recently been christened as such."

"I think I know a thing or two about when people are lying to me, Ned," Tracy, momentarily, went back into the natural form for her, that devilish grin appearing on her face. "I can read people better than they want to think I can, and I know that he was telling the truth."

On the other end of the room, Emily Quatermaine sat next to her parents. She loved being around them, but she could only rarely find the time. Her life with Nikolas, who was spending time with Lulu and Lucky at the Spencer House, took priority for her, but on Christmas, on Christmas, she wanted to be with the people who had taken her in. She was watching Tracy and Ned speak to one another, and she had seen the way that Dillon gave her the cold shoulder while they were both at the party. Pity swelled in Emily's heart. "You know, I never thought I would say this, ever, in my entire life, but I feel bad for Tracy right now. She can't hide the pain that she's going through as well as she thinks she can. Usually her face is just so blank, lifeless, if anything its evil, but right now, with Ned… you can see the pain."

"I've questioned many things about Tracy in my life, Emily," Monica began, "but the one thing that I have never, ever found myself questioning when it comes to her is how much she loves her children, Dillon especially. She might be an evil viper who I should have kicked out of this house, my house, long ago, but when you're a parent there really isn't anything that you can do about loving your children, and hurting when they finally stop needing you."

"If she were smart she would come over here and seek some advice from us," Alan mused. "Monica and I have turned being without our children around the holiday's into something that we can deal with."

"I've only found myself on the verge of tears once today," Monica smiled, "it's a record." She looked around at the pictures of the family, pictures of all of the Quatermaine's, past and present. Jason and AJ were next to one another, in pictures, they wouldn't dare be caught next to one another in reality. Her sons, both of them were gone. AJ would have been murdered on the spot if he had arrived at the mansion, even on Christmas Eve. The way that he left was so horrible. How could he have done that to his family?

"I thought about calling Jase, inviting him over," Emily gave her mother her sympathy.

"It was a nice thought, sweetie," Monica returned the gesture with an ever warming grin.

"But we know that Jason would have just turned you down," Alan was proud of his daughter for thinking of her parents first. "Anyone who wants Jason to come to the mansion really has a fight ahead of them, unless it's absolutely necessary."

Finally, after what seemed to be a long moment, Dillon slowly turned the knob of the door, opening it. He noticed how it made more noise than he wanted it to. It was always that way, wasn't it? When you tried to be discrete about something, the last thing that ever ended up happening was the person actually being secretive. He may have been living with Jason Morgan, but that didn't mean that he knew how to act like him.

As Dillon stood there, back against the exit, he had to fight the urge to just run back out. All the eyes were looking at him, every single set of eyes in the vicinity, focused on him. The reason he wanted to be a director and not an actor was because he wasn't in front of the camera. Dillon hated being the center of attention. But what if his ride already left? "Umm… hi, everyone," Dillon started to laugh uneasily, "surprise?"

"Glad you could join us, little brother," Ned was the first to speak, seeing as how uncomfortable Dillon was, it was his job to at least do something to ease the tension. "Merry Christmas, Dillon."

"You, too, Ned," Dillon finally remembered how to walk, but as he took a few steps he found his movement being halted entirely by the weight of someone on his shoulders. It didn't take a genius to realize who that person was. "Mom… you know, I still need to breathe."

"You came," Tracy whispered. "I didn't know how I was going to survive tonight without both my children… but I don't have to, because you came."

"I… I don't have any presents or anything," Dillon admitted, "this was really the last place that I thought I would be on Christmas Eve. I mean, I do have presents, for everyone, but they're back at the Penthouse. I was just going to drop them off tomorrow morning and then run away, at least that was the plan."

"Dillon…"

"Yeah, mom?"

"Just shut up and let me hold you for a minute, would you?" Tracy's request was simple and to the point. She didn't want the moment to end. Her baby was back in her arms, that was all that she wanted. It was the best present that he could have ever given her.

"Oh, what I would give for a video camera right now," Alan whispered to Monica. "I could label the tape 'Tracy… being human' and show it around. It would be a smash hit."

"I'll give you a smash hit," Monica elbow Alan in the gut softly, but firmly. "Give her a moment, Alan. Don't take this away from her, none of us should be so cruel, even to Tracy."

"Should we leave them alone?" Emily asked, looking at her parents, only to look back at Dillon and Tracy, Dillon having overhead the suggestion was only shaking his head rapidly, making pleading eyes that they stay.

Quatermaine Mansion, Exterior-

How long had he been waiting? A few minutes? He was willing to give Dillon up to half an hour to chicken out and run back to the car with his tail tucked between his legs. Besides, he still had the other part of his plan to follow up on. He wasn't sure if it was going to work, but he had a feeling that he would find out.

"I thought you got cold real easily…"

"You did come," Damian spun around, having been leaning against the hood of Bobbie's car, to see Jason. "I'm glad…"

"You know, normally I hate it when people try to manipulate me like you did. In fact, I do hate it, and I'm not very happy with you right now. I would have just told you that on the phone, but you were kind of busy manipulating someone else, so I thought I would do this in person."

"Uncle Jason…"

"Don't," Jason interrupted him. "I know you have good intentions, Damian, you always have good intentions, but that doesn't give you the right to try and turn things around, make them the way that you feel they should be. Even if they turn out better that way, you have to give people the choice to make their own decisions, and mistakes if necessary. I thought that maybe you understood that. I really did think that you knew that people had to make up their own mind about things. Why do you think that I didn't try and push you into making a decision about Sonny when you still weren't sure if you should embrace your father or just push him out of his life? I would have accepted your choice either way, and I'm really happy that you made the choice that you did, but at least I gave you that space."

"I didn't mean…"

"No, you did mean to. You knew exactly what you were doing, Damian, don't try and hide it, because you can't. Maybe there are a few people who you can fool, but I'm not one of them. This isn't like the Christmas tree thing, which I know you didn't have anything to do with, but that was a decision that was made and it didn't involve twisting my arm, not like this. You call on the phone while you're giving Dillon this speech about family and togetherness and everything else, including using Lila, a woman that you never even got the chance to know. You can't even respect a dead woman…"

"I thought I was," Damian was shocked and hurt that his good natured idea was exploding in his face like it was. "I thought she would have wanted…"

"You can't think about what someone else wants, especially someone who you don't know! You've really been hanging around Carly too much if you start coming up with schemes like this, Damian. If you would have just told me what you told Dillon, to my face, then maybe it would have been different, but it wasn't. The fact that you were right about it doesn't matter, you can be right about something and still approach it the wrong way, you just proved that." Jason walked over to Damian and leaned against the hood next to him, "I'm sorry that I'm harsh on you right now, truly, I am, but the one thing that's always pissed me off since my accident was the way that people tried to shape me. I don't want to be shaped by anyone but myself, even the people that I care about a lot, and that includes you."

"I don't know why I didn't see it as manipulating people… I just wanted to help…"

"Which is why you didn't see it for what it was. Help people by pushing them in the right direction, not by dragging them with a chain around their necks."

"Do you think Dillon thinks the same thing about me? I don't know if I could stand both of you being mad at me at the same time…"

"Don't take disappointment for being mad. I just thought you knew better. Maybe it's my own fault for giving you as much credit as I do. Sometimes you act like you're a lot older than you are… you might be 21, but you're still a kid."

"I take it you're not going in there, then…"

"No, I am," Jason got up. "Like I said, you were right, but that doesn't mean that you went about it in the best way you could have. I should at least help the Quatermaine's through this adjustment period. I don't think I'll be making yearly visits or anything, but, at least for this Christmas, I'll stick around. I'll bring Dillon back with me… not that you were going to wait much longer after I showed up. Just go spend some time with your own family, would you?" Jason pushed himself off the car and started walking towards the house, the cool Jason Morgan demeanor holding up against the nervous feeling that swelled up inside.