Ana- Yes, poor Michael, but you can be assured that the worry over the Corinthos children will switch soon enough. What's that mean? You'll just have to wait and see.

Story-

Morgan Household-

Dillon didn't go back to sleep after getting his present. How could he? He was thoroughly immersed in understanding everything that there was about his new toy. From the zooming to the battery life, Dillon would treat his digital camcorder like it was his firstborn child. Hopefully Georgie wouldn't mind.

He was in the living room when Jason came down the stairs. The device was on, and who better to start with than his caretaker, and the man who gave him the gift. Besides, Jason loved the camera, right? "Smile, Jason!"

"Get that thing out of my face," Jason ordered. It wasn't a request, it was a simple order. "Dillon, we need to establish a rule if you're going to keep that thing here…"

"Yeah… sure…"

"You can film whatever you want… as long as it doesn't look suspicious," Jason knew that there was so much that went around in his life that anything could be used against him to put him away, to take him away from his family. "So, that pretty much limits any and all filming in the penthouses, mine or Sonny's. I'd hate to feel the urge to break your camcorder less than a day after I gave it to you."

"I always did want one of these," Dillon admitted. "I'd ask for one every year… since I was like twelve or something, it was the only thing I ever really wanted, something that would help make my visions more concrete, but my mother would never cave in and give it to me. She would always say that I needed to spend more time on making sure that I would have a future, not spending time nursing childish fantasies."

"Tracy wanted to control you," Jason put on his jacket. "She's a Quatermaine, Dillon, that's what they do for the most part. She didn't think that you having a hobby like you do, something that you can turn into a very promising career that you can be proud of, was part of the acceptable Quatermaine activity."

"But you, you're different…"

Jason nodded. He didn't like being compared to the Quatermaine's, but he couldn't deny his blood ties to them. "You're different from them, too. I wouldn't let many people live with me, Dillon, and that list is even shorter when you consider the people who we're related to. You're up there with Emily and Justus as the only members of my family that I can feel some degree of freedom around."

"Monica and Alan care about you," Dillon wasn't sure he should have been saying anything.

"I know. And I don't hate them. I know that if I needed their help they would help me in an instant, and I appreciate that they still care about me even after everything that's happened, but I can't bring myself to be their son again, at least not in the way that they want."

"Would you help them if they needed it?"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know, I'm just speaking hypothetically here," Dillon put the camera down, probably for the first time since he got it. "But, say that Alan needed a liver or something that only one of his blood relatives could give him. I know Monica adopted you like Sonny adopted Michael so it wouldn't work the same in that scenario, but what if she just needed you to be there for her? Would you?"

"Why are you asking me these questions?"

Dillon shrugged. "Just curious I guess. If you don't want to answer them, Jason, you don't need to. I know all about your code of silence, the way that you put up barriers so you don't have to open up around damn near anyone who wants to get close. I live with you, you're my cousin, but if you want to get technical about it I know more of you than just plain you."

Jason turned around and headed for the door, "I'm a private person now, Dillon. Given the things that I do it's easier on me and on everyone else if they don't get close. If I'm just some distant person that they barely know how are they going to feel when I finally end up getting killed because of something that happened while I was working? I don't want to go back to the old ways where I tried to do everything for everyone…"

"But you're already doing that," Dillon cut in. "Look at the way that we depend on you, Jason. Even after the accident you became Carly's best friend, the one person that she could always count on when she needed you. You've done the same with Courtney, Michael, Sonny… even Damian and I know that we can come to you when we need it. And even though you might not be as close to the rest of the Quatermaine's as you think you are, you're still a very important person in their lives. If something happens to you, Jason… it'll destroy a part of all of us."

"Sometimes you're too smart for your own good," Jason could see the points that Dillon was making. He cared about a lot of people and he knew that they cared about him, but he needed to feel that way. He needed to have people know that they could depend on him. It made him feel like he was doing something right, something good, when everything else about him seemed to be so dark and corrupting.

Jason opened his door, but the doorway was barred by Damian. Although Jason was silently wondering how much the boy had heard, he didn't let on with it. Instead, he just went on with life like he normally would. "Hey…"

"I just came to talk with Dillon…"

"Go ahead," Jason moved out of the way so that Damian could walk in before he took his leave.

"Feeling any better?" Dillon could see that there was the slightest amount of tension that was going on between Jason and Damian. It wasn't his place, so he wouldn't try and fix it, but he couldn't help but notice.

"About what happened last night? Maybe a little. Now I'm dealing with being a horrible big brother, but I'll find some way to cope."

"What makes you think you're a bad big brother?"

"Long story," one that he didn't want to talk about. "I think Michael's going to be fine, but I don't really know for sure. I keep letting the people I care about down. So much for the Christmas spirit."

"Talk to the camera," Dillon grabbed the camera, "it'll let you confess to everything that you think is wrong."

"Where'd you get that?"

"Christmas present from Jason and Courtney," Dillon smirked. "It's cool, isn't it?"

Damian could see his best friend having the best time of his life with that camera. It was good that Dillon got something that would let his creativity flow. They had both been presented with gifts that gave them the chance to express themselves. But that didn't mean that Damian wanted the camera in his face, especially with the zooming lense. It was more than a little alarming. "Dillon, do me a favor… get that out of my face."

"What's with you people and the not wanting me to film you? How can I make movies if I don't have actors?"

"You can make nature documentaries…"

"Right," Dillon said sarcastically, "because we all know how many famous nature documentary directors there are in the world."

"I'm sure you could name half of them."

"Actually…" Dillon's mind was mulling with the possibility of naming more than a handful of people who would fit the bill. He liked some nature movies, not a lot, but he would watch anything once. "So, what'd you come here to talk about?"

"Huh?"

"You told Jason that you wanted to speak to me," Dillon heard the conversation, he was in the same room. "We're both here, talk."

"I didn't want to talk to you about something in particular… I just needed to give Uncle Jason a reason why I was standing in front of his door. He hasn't… said anything about me, has he?"

Dillon thought back to any conversation that they had engaged in pertaining to Damian. "Not to me…"

"He's not mad at you, if that's what you're thinking," Courtney came down the stairs, finally dressed and ready to do whatever she needed to do during the day. "Disappointed, but not mad."

"So you know then?" If there was a person that Damian trusted above all else, Courtney was that person. She was his first confidant, at least within his family.

"I thought he was being a little harsh on you," Courtney finished walking down the stairs, standing next to the desk. "But I understand where he's coming from."

"So do I."

"Excuse me…" Dillon brought his hand up, "But I don't understand where Jason's coming from. Care to fill me in?"

"You were there last night, weren't you?" Courtney wondered. "Didn't you wonder why Jason even showed up at the mansion?"

"I figured Emily had called him…"

"It wasn't Emily," Courtney informed the boy. "Damian wanted to give you both a Christmas with your family."

"I was a little more direct with the approach when it came to you," Damian added. "I don't think Uncle Jason would have appreciated the blindfold very much."

Slowly the pieces were coming together for Dillon. The conversation that he had with Damian when they were together after the party. "That's why you were apologizing to me last night… because Jason wanted you to."

"No, he didn't want me to," Damian wouldn't have done it simply because Jason wanted him to, he would have done it because it was the one thing that he needed to do. "I did it because it was the right thing to do. He showed me how I was acting, and that even though it was with good intentions it wasn't the best way to act."

"You don't need to feel like you owe him anything, Damian," Courtney gave her nephew a gentle pat on the shoulder, "I spoke to him, it's already a done deal. He's still thankful that you did what you did, just not how you did it."

"Hey," Dillon began, "why don't we go do something fun? Get our minds off of everything… its Christmas, we shouldn't be moping around. You shouldn't be moping around."

Damian knew that Dillon had no idea about his past. Moping around at Christmas was essentially all the holiday meant to him. "Actually, there's something that I need to do… but I don't see why we can't do something a little later?"

"Sure," Dillon wished that they could have spent time together right away, since he was worried about Damian and that worry translated into a desire to at least make sure that Damian didn't slip further into a depression, but there was nothing that he could do. "I'll call you in a few hours?"

"Yeah, that'll be good," Damian headed for the door once more. "Don't worry about me, you two. I'll be fine, promise. See you later."

Dillon didn't buy the statement. "Doesn't he realize that whenever he tells us that he'll be fine it only makes us worry about him even more?"

"He and Jason are alike in that way," Courtney surmised. "Sometimes you'd think they were more than just related by marriage."

"Where do you think he's going?"

"I wish I knew," Courtney thought about following him, knowing that Dillon was thinking the same thing but also knowing that he had requested some space even though he didn't say it flat out. "Sometimes Jason doesn't realize how much his words hurt people. He's so flat out honest that it cuts us to the bone. I think that's what happened with Damian." Whatever he was going through was something that he needed to deal with himself.