Kelly's-

For all the time that he spent at the diner he might as well have been living in the room upstairs still. But it was good to be in a familiar place, and there weren't many options available to him. School was on break and he had no way of going through the rigors of class schedules and keeping up with homework assignments. For most that was a time of great celebration, for Damian the opposite was at least partially true. He liked school. He knew how important it was and he liked how it made him look like he had a life of some sort. Without school what was he? A piano player who was barely decent at the craft and very little more. His father and those around him had thought he was really good at the piano, but he knew that he wasn't. They might not have picked up on the small mistakes that he had made, but he did. His ear was still as finely tuned with the music as it had always been. Much like riding a bike, there were some things that were just hard to forget.

He wondered if Lois picked up on them. She was supposed to be some sort of big or at least semi-professional music woman of some kind. She had been touring with her group for awhile, or so that was part of the information that he had gathered during their short conversations. And then there was Brook Lynn. She was a nice girl, he knew that. She was also Dillon's niece, even though they were both somewhat avoidant of that very fact.

Dillon was doing his best to make sure that she wasn't miserable while she was in Port Charles. He was being a good uncle, something that gave the boy with the unusual hairstyle some maturity that was rarely, if ever, shown. That side of Dillon was just as interesting as the one that was always talking about movies.

If there was one thing that was obvious to everyone it was that Maxie and Brook were, at best, uneasy allies. Very much like Carly and Lois, those two were almost constantly at each others throats. Damian didn't see why, none of them did. Georgie and Brook seemed to get along just perfectly, but Maxie and Brook… oil and water. Nobody said anything, of course, they just made sure that there was something, anything, that was said to break up the considerable tension.

"You know its usual procedure to drink the tea that you order." Mike spoke softly as his grandson leaned over the counter, sitting on one of the bar stools. He did that when he wasn't expecting company. If one of his friends was coming he'd usually get them a table, bigger the size depending on how many people were in the party. "Especially when I make sure that we keep this particular flavor and brand of tea in stock because I know how much you like it…"

Mike saw the boy staring into the fast cooling liquid, his hair swooping down the sides of his face. Mike had noticed how so many people, himself included, had praised Damian for being mature, more mature than his short lifespan would often lead people to believe. But in that moment, Mike could see something that he wasn't exactly used to. He could see the boy that was inside the young man that Damian had become.

"Penny," Mike was standing a fair distance away from Damian, but he had a feeling that he could drop an anvil in front or even on top of the boy and he wouldn't budge. "I'm going to take a short break, seems I've got a family matter that needs attending."

With Penny instructed to hold down the fort, Mike was free to do his duty as a grandfather. In truth, Mike Corbin was quite jealous of Elias Zuniga. They had never met, but Mike knew that there had been a forged relationship between Damian and his maternal grandfather that would be so much stronger and deeper than any bond that Mike himself could have hoped to create or strengthen. But there was one glaring fact that couldn't be avoided: Elias was three thousand miles away, and Mike wasn't even three feet away, he had the advantage.

"For a kid who got something that made him seem so happy on Christmas, you sure look down," Mike sat on the stool next to Damian. "You want to talk about it?"

He didn't hear his grandfather. His mind was elsewhere, and he didn't even know where it was. Distracted. Every mistake he'd made since coming to Port Charles and even before that continually flashing in his mind, always going back to that moment where the gun went off from his finger pulling the trigger. And the blood. There was so much blood. Why were his hands wet? Why were they hot?

Mike couldn't stop the cup of tea from being tipped over, but he could keep the spill from getting out of control. His hand reached over the counter in a quick, fluid motion, bringing out a rag and containing the warm tea from doing more than just getting on Damian's hands.

Damian's eyes finally blinked as the haze was lifted from his mind. He could still feel the heat radiating off his fingers. It didn't burn, but it was certainly noticeable. He looked down at his hands, feeling the liquid with his index and middle fingers. It wasn't blood. "What… what happened?"

Mike was glad that he got a response from the young man at last, but his worries didn't find themselves magically going away. If anything they were only intensified. He'd known that something was wrong, but the severity of the mental distraction was something that he hadn't really picked up on.

"Do you need to get some rest?" Mike asked, finishing up with the spill. "I can drive you back to the penthouse, or you can just use the room upstairs, the bed still has bedding and everything."

It was only when he heard Mike's voice that Damian even realized that his grandfather was in fact around. But he wasn't tired. "No, I'm fine…"

"You don't really expect me to believe that, do you?"

"I'm a horrible liar…"

"You're certainly not as good as some of the people that I've encountered in this town. Hell, you're not even anywhere near as good as I used to be."

"I was just distracted, Grandpa, honest. I've got a lot on my mind right now and I came here to think in peace, I guess I didn't expect that I would end up going into some sort of mental trance." His body was completely covered down to his hands. Mike had no way of seeing the goose bumps that had formed on his arms, but Damian knew that they were there.

Mike believed the boy. Seemed he was always dealing with some sort of crisis. It probably wasn't that way when he was in Los Angeles. The problem with being a Corinthos was the high amount of drama that came with it, oftentimes drama that didn't even involve every person necessarily, but they all felt the fallout.

Thinking that he had an idea of what was troubling Damian, Mike gave some advice. "I think you should take it."

"Take what?"

"The internship, isn't that what you're thinking about?"

Damian shook his head, "No, I wasn't thinking about the internship." He paused. "How'd you find out about that, anyway? I haven't even told dad yet."

"Why not?" Mike was probably more surprised that Damian hadn't informed Sonny about the chance that he was being given than Damian was that Mike somehow knew about the offer being made in the first place.

"You answer my question, I'll answer yours."

Mike gave a brief chortle. There were times when Damian and Sonny seemed like they were indeed father and son. If it wasn't the look that they both managed to harness it was something else. Withholding information from Mike until some was given to one of them was just one of the many ways that they were alike. "You didn't think that Bobbie would hide something big like this from me, did you?"

"Bobbie told you?"

"When I went to see her on Christmas to give her the present I got for her. She said that she was sure you would have accepted the offer right away, I told her that I agreed with her. Damian, this is an offer that you really can't refuse. Do you know how rare it is that people who just barely started doing specialized medical training, especially in a new city, are given the chance to work with some of the best doctors in the state of New York?"

"She shouldn't have done that…"

"She cares about you," Mike knew that Bobbie thought of Damian as a member of her own family and he also knew that the feeling was reciprocated. She was the first one to give Damian the benefit of the doubt, probably because she knew that what he was going through was something that she could help with. She'd seen the way that Carly acted when their connection was brought to the surface, she didn't want to see it happen again. "She just wants you to make the best choices."

"I didn't say no…"

"But you didn't say yes."

"Because I'm still thinking about it."

"What's there to think about?" Mike had just seen another connection between his son and grandson: stubbornness.

"There's a lot of responsibility that comes with being a doctor."

"You've know that for years. Why are you letting it stop you right now?"

"Because they want me to start doing hands on training. I know that it's going to be a lot of pressure on my shoulders, that I'm going to be putting the lives of people in my own hands… but I don't think I'm ready for that right now, Grandpa. Besides, I don't want people to think that I'm barely an older version of that kid doctor that used to be on television a decade back…"

"If there was one person that I would trust completely with keeping me alive… it would be you."

"Thanks for the sentiment, but it doesn't work that way. You're family, even if I was a doctor there would be nothing that I could do."

"I've seen you work before, remember? I saw you act like you knew exactly what needed to be done when that man was having a seizure right there," Mike pointed at the exact spot. "Everyone else was frozen in fear, not even knowing what could have possibly happened or what they could have done to make it better, but you knew exactly what needed to happen, Damian. You knew how to save that man's life and you did it flawlessly. What more do you need to prove to yourself that you're ready for the responsibilities?"

"I'll think about it," he finally decided that giving Mike a partial victory was better than keeping the fight going for an extended period of time. He loved his grandfather, but this was a situation where nobody but Damian himself could actually do anything about finding an answer one way or the other.

"That's my boy…"

"Just do me a favor?" He looked to Mike with pleading eyes, "Don't tell dad about it, please. Or anyone else for that matter. Everyone who needs to know about it already does… actually, I'd rather it have just been me who knew, but it didn't turn out that way. Regardless… do me this one favor."

"I don't think you have to worry about your father coming to me for advice… I got that before Christmas, now that it's after I'm just waiting for the Christmas miracle to come around again."

"I wish things were better between the two of you."

"Yeah," Mike's bright blue eyes didn't hide the agony. "You're not the only one."

Maxie walked into the diner. She saw him from the window. She wasn't really expecting him to be at Kelly's, but she would often put money on the fact that he was indeed there and this was just one of the many times when she was right.

"Hey there, beautiful."

Maxie blushed. "You shouldn't be hitting on me in front of my boyfriend… especially when that boyfriend is your grandson, Mike."

"I don't think that I'm hitting on you at all, Maxie. I was only speaking the truth. Besides, I couldn't be competition for this young man right here even when I was in my prime. He's something else…"

"Yeah, he is."

Damian could only grin at the two of them, wondering if his other grandfather would have hit it off as well with Maxie as Mike had. Elias had only met the girl once before, but those were hardly under normal circumstances. "You know if the two of you want to keep on paying me compliments while not actually speaking to me… I can just go to some other diner."

"What other diner?" Maxie took a seat, effectively sandwiching Damian between his girlfriend and grandfather. "But you're right… you are going somewhere."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes," Maxie took his hand and dragged him off the stool. "Come on… it's a surprise."

Mike listened to the two chatter as they walked out of the diner, hoping that the face that Damian had on him at that moment wasn't just a mask. He was too young to have so much pain on his mind and heart.