Journeylove- Congratulations on your longest review, I am only fortunate enough to have it be for little old me… back to the point: Sonny is misunderstood. My Sonny, the show's Sonny, Sonny in other people's stories… that's pat of what makes him who he is. But the fact is that Sonny, even when misunderstood, does bad things… sometimes not even for good reasons. It's true that people choose to focus on the danger that Sonny has around him rather than seeing what is even more important to him than his business. Said people believe that the way he acts around his children is just that, an act, when it is the totality of Sonny's pain and desire to be better as a person than he was. Still, it is not impossible to see the viewpoint of those that are against Sonny, just as much as it is not hard to see those who are for him. Lois is steadfast in her defense of Sonny, having seen the battery of his life, while Ned can see only the danger that comes around Sonny, and since within the continuity of the story Ned is still Kristina's 'father.' So pitting them against each other (and it won't be the first time) just showed the polar opposites. Brook needs anyone, and I mean a-n-y-o-n-e else but Diego. She was good with Lucas, but the idiots who write the show decide to just toss that out the window without any reasoning. You'll see Brook make mistakes that mirror other people's mistakes. And as for Carly… Carly and I have a love/hate relationship. I love her passionately all the time, but there are many times when I just hate her, even within my own story. Still, I'm happy that my Carly is a Carly that you find enjoyable.

Story-

Corinthos Household-

"No, he seemed fine when he left earlier this morning," Sonny spoke softly on the phone. His coughing fit had yet to end, if anything it appeared to be getting worse. Rare was it when Sonny Corinthos was inflicted with a virus of some sort, when one managed to get through it usually meant him being laid out in his bed for a few days. He hated being helpless.

"Well, he wasn't fine when he was here," Mike had finally gotten around to calling his son on the phone. Ever the concerned grandfather, Mike was looking for clues as to Damian's distance and actions earlier that day. If anyone had the answers that he needed, his son would.

"What do you mean?"

"Sonny… it was like he wasn't even here," Mike looked around, making sure that nobody who could hear him and use the information against anyone was around. Elizabeth wasn't even there. Mike was actually quite thankful for that. He didn't want her to worry. "I was trying to talk with him and I didn't get any sort of response."

"Maybe he was just ignoring you…"

"I don't think he would do something like that. He's not you, after all." Mike wasn't sure how he should have taken the statement. If it was said in sarcasm or if it was something that he was supposed to truly think about.

"Just tell me what happened, Mike," Sonny was going to have a talk with the boy when he got home, but first he needed to have a general idea of what he was up against.

"He came in here and sat down. I gave him some tea, but he wasn't drinking it. He was just staring into it like he was looking for answers or something. I kept on trying to get his attention, but nothing I was doing was getting anywhere. Then he knocked the tea over and it spilled on his hands and the counter, that was when he snapped out of his daze."

"What'd he say when he finally came around?"

"That he was just thinking about something…"

"He's like that, Mike," Sonny commented. "You've noticed it more than a few times. He has his own little world at times and he doesn't want to let anyone, not even his family, into that part of it." Sonny could relate. There were things that he tried to keep from the people that he loved and trusted. Things that were his demons to battle and his alone.

"Is that it?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're just going to accept that your son was acting highly irregular and go on with life?" Mike was disappointed. If he had been Damian's father he would have made sure that they had at least talked about it. Provided that he was the type of person that he was now and not the man that he was when he had a young son.

"Of course not. I'm going to talk with him when I see him, Mike, but right now there's nothing that we can do about it, is there? He's not here, I can't actually talk to him about it at this moment. Where did he go?"

"With Maxie. She came in right after he started talking again." Mike kept his promise to his grandson, not telling Sonny anything about the offer that was given to Damian. It didn't seem that important. "I don't know where they went, she just said that she was taking him somewhere."

"Maxie will keep him safe. She's helped him with things that nobody else has ever been able to help him with. Maybe she'll do that again with whatever he's going through right now."

"You're taking this a lot better than I had thought you would. I thought you would have people hunting down the boy and then you would make sure he talked."

Although his father couldn't see it, Sonny did grin at the statement. There was a time when he would do just what Mike was thinking he would do, but Sonny was no longer that person, and Damian wouldn't like the method that would have been employed. "I've learned a lot in the short time I've been his father, Mike. The first thing that I learned was that if I use my power against him it's only going to push him away even further. I can't risk that, not again."

"I'm glad that you realize that, Michael. I really am."

There was always a part of Sonny that felt different when his father called him by his birth name. He knew that he was really Michael Corinthos, plenty of people knew that, but Michael seemed like it was a part of his past that he wanted to be buried. Before Mike came back into his life the only person who called him 'Michael' was his mother. Perhaps that was a part of the reason.

At that moment, Jason walked into the penthouse. Seeing that Sonny was on the phone, he waited silently and patiently. He wasn't there for any pressing concerns.

Sonny saw his best friend and right hand man and nodded his head. "I've got to go. I'll make sure to let you know if something happens." Sonny put the phone back on the receiver and put his hand on his forehead.

"Something wrong?" Jason knew Sonny's body language better than most people. Whenever Sonny did that particular motion it usually meant that there was something that was troubling the man. In order to keep a lot of people happy, including Jason himself, he needed to make sure that Sonny didn't have too much on his shoulders. He was strong, but he wasn't as strong as people thought he was.

"Just the usual…"

"Michael?"

"What?" Sonny looked over at Jason, the wheels in his head finally clicking. "Oh, no… not really Michael right now. He's still a problem, but nothing that I can't handle."

"So what is it then?"

"That was Mike," Sonny grabbed the glass of water that he had poured right before he got the phone call and took a small drink. "He said that he was worried about Damian. Something about how Damian was there at Kelly's earlier and just seemed like he was spacing out."

"Is he hurt?"

"No. I don't even know why Mike is so worried. He didn't seem like he was dealing with that much earlier today. Have you seen him?"

"Not since yesterday evening. He seemed to be acting fine then. He was playing the piano when I left. You don't think that maybe he's having another relapse about…"

"Alcazar?" Sonny finished the statement for Jason. "We told him that what happened there wasn't his fault, that there was nothing that he could have done about it. What more does he want?"

"Sonny, it's not that simple, we both know that. How long did it take you to get over your first kill? Even though we're in the business that we're in, that we do the things that we do, it doesn't mean that it still doesn't take some sort of emotional toll on us. Some of us are just better at hiding it than others."

"Like me and you?"

"Yeah… but Damian's not like us. He's not even in the business. He just did what needed to be done."

"What can I do, Jason?" Sonny asked. "I've already told him time and time again that he did what was necessary. That he killed a man that was going to kill me, you, Courtney and him. Lorenzo needed to die. Our family would have been placed in a huge amount of danger if he had lived. I don't think he would have killed Carly or the boys… but she wouldn't have accepted him, especially if he killed so many of us. He was a psychopath."

"I think that this is one of those times when we can't do anything, Sonny." Jason's know what he was going to say next wouldn't be something that Sonny wanted to hear. "When you can't do anything."

"I hate feeling like I can't do anything…"

"I know," Jason nodded. He felt the same way. "But sometimes even we can't fix problems. We try and fool ourselves into thinking that we can and it just doesn't work out that way."

"Did you need something? Not that you ever need a reason to come into the house… but you looked like you needed to talk to me about something."

"There's a shipment coming in tonight," Jason got back to business, even though he knew that business was the farthest thing from Sonny's mind. "I just wanted to make sure that you remembered about it."

"I don't need to be there, do I?"

"No, you don't. Nobody does. It's for the coffee business."

"Good," sometimes Sonny felt that he didn't pay enough attention to the establishment that had no legal troubles at all.

"Sonny… if you want, I can try again."

"It won't work. I'm not giving up on him, Jason. I know that deep down he knows that he did the right thing, but at the same time I know how much damage it did to him. Everything changes when you take a life. Some of us are just better at dealing with it, like you said. I wish it could have been different. I wish I would have killed that bastard when I had the chance… but he knew how to distract me. He knew that if I saw my son bleeding and unconscious on a bed that I wouldn't care about anything else but him… I'll give this to Alcazar, he knows how to strike where it hurts."

"He's gone. So is Faith. Nobody else is going to come in and try and take over."

"I don't believe that any more than you do," Sonny knew that there would always be someone who thought that they could do the impossible and break the Corinthos-Morgan empire.

"We're still ready to deal with whatever problems might come up. Someone tries to come up and take us out? We won't go down easily."

"Sonny!" Carly's scream of her husband's name pierced through the house.

Sonny was there in an instance, Jason right behind him. "What is it? What's wrong?" Sonny looked at Carly, she had blood on her hands. "Why are your hands bleeding?"

Carly was crying, "They're not bleeding… Morgan…"

"What about Morgan?" Sonny looked in the crib. Morgan's mouth was stained with blood. "What happened? Carly!"

"I… I was in here…" Carly was sobbing. "And he started coughing… and I didn't think that it was a big deal until he kept on doing it… and then I looked down and he had blood all over him…"

"Mommy?" Michael had also come in. His mother's scream was more than enough to get him out of his room. He heard the story. "What's wrong with Morgan?"

"Buddy, just stay here, okay?" Jason got down on his knees. "Right now we need to keep our distance."

"Jason," Sonny picked up Morgan. He was breathing and his eyes were open, but he was crying as well. "Keep an eye on Michael and call the hospital, tell them we're on our way."

"Daddy, I want to go with you!"

"Carly, let's go!" Sonny was yelling, but it wasn't out of anger. His yelling was completely out of fear.

Jason could see that Carly was paralyzed with her own fear. "Carly… right now you need to be Morgan's mother. You need to make sure that he's okay. Go."

"Mommy… I'm scared…"

Tears streaming down Carly's face, she looked down at the little boy, "Mr. Man… you need to be brave right now. We all do." She ran out after her husband.

"Bobbie?" Jason was on his phone. "It's Jason. Sonny and Carly are bringing Morgan in. He's coughing up blood. No, we don't know what's wrong with him. Just have someone there…"

"Uncle Jason…"

Jason got on his knees. He was trying to act like nothing was wrong, but he knew that it was the farthest thing from the truth. "Buddy… just say a prayer for Morgan right now. That's all we can do."