Journeylove- Funny that you should think that… considering that the proposed couple in question has had all but… two scenes together? I mean, more power to you, and if there is going to be a Damian/Brook relationship, I'll be building it up. But, really now, do you think that he would betray his first love? Okay, fine, Dillon did (not in this story, since Sage never came around… but he did in real continuity), but they're hardly the same person. What I have in mind will likely be filled with plenty of possibilities, and maybe, just maybe, something will happen. No promises. Other than it should be fun to watch.

Story-

Corinthos Household-

"Sometimes I wonder…"

Jason, who was sitting on the couch trying to relax after getting the news that Morgan was going to be all right turned his distinctive blue eyes onto his wife. "About what?"

"About how Carly and Sonny can handle everything that happens to their children," she was including Damian in the mix because he was Sonny's child and even though she tried to hide it Carly did worry about him, too. "I mean, look at me. I'm pacing around the room completely nervous even though I know that he's going to be all right, and I'm not even his parent."

"You love Morgan just as much as they do," Jason pointed out. "The same goes for Michael and for Damian as well. The fact that you're so nervous shows just how much you care about that boy. You're a good influence on him, on all of them." Jason knew that she was a much better influence on the boys than he could ever be, even though he loved them just as much, Jason would much rather they be like Courtney as opposed to anybody else.

"But I just can't help but wonder about what Sonny and Carly must be going through. They almost lost Morgan when he was a baby, or they though they might have. How many times did we worry that Carly was gone when Ric had her?"

"We shouldn't worry about that anymore," Jason didn't want to remember, but he could never forget. He believed Michael when Michael told him that Ric had his mother, but he didn't do enough. None of them did. "It's the past, let's leave it there."

"I don't know how I would be able to handle something like this." Courtney said softly. "You know, if it happened to one of our children. If I was even able to have children."

"Come here," Jason knew that it was having a very hard toll on Courtney, one that only added to the anguish that she would never let go. She still blamed herself for losing their unborn child, despite it not being her fault. It was Alcazar's fault. The only regret that Jason had was that he didn't get to kill Alcazar. It would have made him feel like his vengeance had been served, and Damian wouldn't be haunted by the fact that he killed a man.

"I shouldn't be thinking about things like this right now, I know that," Courtney sat next to Jason, resting her head on his shoulder, feeling the comfort that came when he wrapped his arm around her. "But how can I not? I'm around these boys all the time… maybe it's a curse or something. You think we would have had a boy?"

"I would have been happy with whatever we had," Jason didn't want to think about it, although he did have his heart set on having a little girl.

"I just wanted the baby to have your eyes… that's all I wanted."

"It's funny," he looked down at her, two fingers running through her silky blond hair, "all I wanted was our child to have your eyes as well."

"Just tell me that everything is going to be okay, Jason," Courtney begged. "Tell me that I can still be happy…"

"You'll find other ways to be happy, Courtney. We both will. Even if we never have children ourselves we'll still be involved in their lives. We'll watch them grow up and have children of their own and we'll help them be parents just like we help Sonny and Carly. Just because we can't nurture our own children doesn't mean we have to stop completely."

Courtney was thankful to have Jason in her life. She couldn't imagine living life with anyone else. Her past relationships, it was all leading up to the true love of her life. "You're right…"

"Besides, we make out better in the end. We're just the Aunt and Uncle, we don't have to clean up the messes…"

Courtney gave a peculiar stare at her husband, "Did I just hear Jason Morgan make a joke?"

"That boy must be rubbing off on me," Jason gave his soft smile while he thought of Dillon. To think that he was so against the idea of the teenager living with them initially, and now he was almost grateful for it. Almost.

"Just don't try and imitate his hair."

"I don't think I'd let him influence me that much…"

The door opened as Damian walked in. He'd taken longer than he would have normally taken getting from the hospital to the penthouse, presumably because he was still thinking about everything that had happened to him. Two pairs of blue eyes were staring directly at him, which only made him feel uncomfortable. "Did I… interrupt something?"

"No," Courtney got off the couch and hugged her nephew. "You have no idea how glad I am that you're with us…"

"I'm glad that I'm here, too. I just wish that I wasn't needed for something that could have been… well… we all know how it could have turned out." Thinking it was bad enough, he didn't want to say it. Saying it only made it seem all the more likely.

"Are you okay?" Jason asked.

"Yeah…" he couldn't help but still feel uncomfortable around Jason, especially after what happened at Christmas. Jason was impossible to read more often than not, how was Damian to know that Jason really wasn't angry at him, even if Courtney said he wasn't. "I'm fine… dad asked me to come home because he wanted one of us here in case Michael had questions."

"He had plenty of them," Jason remarked. "I didn't have the answers… for once he came to me and I couldn't tell him something that would make the problem go away or make him feel better about himself." In some small way, Jason looked at himself as a failure to Michael.

"He knows," Damian sat down in the chair across from Jason. "Michael's a smart kid, he's certainly smart enough to realize that there are times when people don't have the answers that he wants. He doesn't think that you specifically don't know about them… he just knows that we can't always give him answers."

"I don't think that this is something that we should be talking to Michael about anyway," Courtney didn't want him to understand things that were too emotionally scarring for a boy his age. "I don't even want to think about it, and I'm just a little older than Michael."

"He has a right to know what happened. Morgan's as much a part of him as he is everyone else in this family. I agree that getting into the technicalities of the situation isn't going to be very smart, but I don't think we should keep him in the dark. I'll just tell him that Morgan was sick and he needed something that I had to give him and it made him better. It answers all the questions that he probably has and answers them in most simple way possible." Was he cutting his little brother a little short? Yes, but Damian knew that Courtney was right, just like he was right. Michael needed to deal with concepts that he could understand, not be bogged down with a bunch of details that he couldn't comprehend.

Courtney listened and, while having her reservations, could see that Damian was trying to keep Michael informed, but not overly informed to the point that it would only hurt the boy. "That seems like a good idea."

"Where is he?" Damian asked. "I'm not going to tell him right now… I'll wait for him to come to me, but… how is he doing otherwise?"

"He finally knocked himself out about an hour ago," Courtney said as she poured a glass of water. "I think everything just eventually drained him. Here," she handed the glass over to Damian, "you need to keep on drinking fluids right now."

"Thanks," he took the glass and took a drink. He was parched, and tired. He could use a nap himself. "I don't even know if he wants to talk to me again… he might still be mad."

"He's not," Jason shook his head.

"You didn't talk to him, did you?"

"No. He came to the conclusion that being angry at you and Sonny for doing something so small wasn't worth it. He talked to Sonny on the phone when he called. I think seeing what kind of danger Morgan was in made Michael realize how important his family was…"

"I see," Damian put the glass on the floor. "I wish it didn't take something so dire to make him realize that… but I shouldn't be picky. I just want him to be the old Michael again. I remember a few times when I was mad at my mom, or my grandparents, and I would do the same thing to them that Michael was doing to me and dad… I guess I never knew how much it hurt them until now."

"We were all like that as kids," Courtney said sympathetically. "It's part of what we do. We hold grudges for the stupidest reasons. I remember I didn't talk to my mom for days after she threw out one of my stuffed animals, even though it was already ripped apart and was probably more of a health hazard than anything else. I loved that thing, I couldn't believe she would do something like that."

He laughed at Courtney's story, picturing a little girl protesting. It was an amusing vision. "I'm going to catch a quick nap… unless the two of you want to leave?"

"You get your rest, you deserve it," Courtney knew how much he had been through. It was a miracle that he had managed to stay sane.

"Wake me up if something happens," he knew that they would. If Morgan had a relapse he was the only one who could give him the blood that he needed. "Even if it's something simple like Morgan started laughing… I don't care."

"We will," Jason watched as the boy walked over to his room, shutting the door.

Inside his room, Damian tossed his jacket off, throwing it on the floor. He sat on his bed as he untied his shoes, just the soft padding of the bed was more than enough to make him want to rest even more. With his shoes off his feet, he placed his head on the pillow, the picture of his mother, the one that he had kept since she died, directly in his eyesight.

Reaching over, he grabbed the picture and ran his fingers over her face. He'd never be able to feel her face again, or feel her hand on his cheek the way that she used to do it when she was alive. "I saved someone, mom. I couldn't do anything for you, but I could do something for Morgan… and I did. You're proud of me, right?" He put the picture back before resting his eyes, knowing intuitively that she was proud of him.

Outside, Courtney stared at the closed door, as if it held the answers to all the secrets of the universe. Maybe it did. Damian had a lot of books in his room that talked about things she couldn't even begin to understand. "We need to watch him…"

"I know," Jason agreed. "I didn't hear him lock the door. I'll check up on him in a little while."

"He's still uneasy about talking with you, you know."

"I can't help that," Jason said blankly. "I told him that I wasn't angry at him for doing what he did on Christmas Eve, but I was disappointed and I still am. He's a smart kid, and I know that his heart was in the right place… he'll see that he doesn't need to feel guilty about it soon."

"Maybe there was something else…"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't really know for sure," Courtney couldn't put her finger on it. "It was like there was something else that was bugging him. Something that didn't have to do with Morgan or Michael or you. Do you think he and Maxie are going through a tough time?"

"I think that we should let him come to us if he thinks that he needs to," Jason's advice was often that which was followed. Hopefully it would be again. "Besides, you're probably looking into it too much. I didn't see anything. He's been through a lot and giving blood, especially the amount that he did, can drain a person fast."

"You're right, I'm just being overprotective. That's me… the overprotective aunt."

"It's good that you're so protective of them, Courtney. It shows how much you care."

"I just can't help but be a little amazed at the fact that, if things had been different… if he had been here from the beginning. If Sonny had known about him."

"Don't dwell on things that can't be changed. You have to believe that these things happened for a reason. If he would have had Sonny in his life then he wouldn't have grown up to be as strong and secure as he is. Maybe he would have had a better childhood, but he might not have become a better person."

"I'm going to check up on Michael," she said as she started walking up the stairs as softly as she could so she didn't wake him up.

Peering through the door into the child's room, she saw Michael, his blanket partly thrown off of his body. She smiled lightly as she walked into the room, nearly tiptoeing and making sure she didn't stop on a toy. When she got to his bedside she pulled the blanket up to him and stood there for a moment. Jason was right, even if she never got to be a mother on her own she could help Sonny and Carly, and it would be enough.