Journeylove- Thank you very much for the compliment. When I look to write these things, especially the chapters that I want to be impacting, I do the best that I can. I'm glad to see that the emotion hit you like I wanted it to. As for my favorite couple… while I love Jason and Sam together a lot, I'm a Journey fan at heart. I hate Courtney with Jax, mostly because I hate Jax. Sonny and Reese are good together, but Carson is what I know, it's what I do. GQ, as rare as they are on, still make me laugh, which is a good thing. But my favorite couple at the moment is Rexis. I know I have this story with LiRic, and I won't change that, but Ric and Alexis are great together. Oh, they make me laugh.

Story-

Corinthos Household, Morning-

Damian was glad that his father was there. Even though they didn't say much to one another the whole time that they were together at the church just having his father there was something different. He'd never had his father in his life before August. He'd never been able to even look for that smallest degree of comfort that came from a parent's welcome and loving arms since his mother died. His grandparents were of great help, but they weren't his mother or his father. Sonny was. Damian didn't realize how much it meant having his father hold him while he silently shed tears like he was a small child again until it happened.

Best of all was the fact that Sonny didn't ask questions. Sonny didn't go in with any sort of expectations for some sort of confession by his eldest child. Sonny understood that the pain and the happiness that came from being Ana-Maria's son was something that only he could lay claim on and that if Damian wanted to talk about it he would. Truly, the young man couldn't ask for a better father than that.

Stepping out of his room, slovenly dressed from a still restless night of sleep, he couldn't help but snicker when he saw his father standing in front of the fireplace already in a suit, looking like he had come back from a photo shoot of some kind.

"You're really going to need to teach me how you do that…"

Sonny had heard the door open, but it was surprising to him that the boy took the time to speak. He'd been silent the entire night before, something that Sonny understood and respected. "Do what?"

"Never let anyone see you looking anything but chic…"

"You're making jokes already? Fast recovery…"

"I allot myself six days a year to be miserable, dad. I almost never use them up… but December 29th is a day that I give to myself… completely to myself."

"You didn't have to do that alone."

"I realize that now," he said softly. "I should have told you what was going on, but there's something about it… I don't really talk about what happened, what I felt on that day with anyone."

"Why?"

"Here I was giving you props for not trying to push yourself too far into my own personal demons. Guess I jumped the gun a little too soon…"

"You're my son," Sonny pointed out the obvious fact. "I care about you and when you're in pain, like you were yesterday, I think I have a right to know why."

"It's obvious why I was in pain yesterday, dad. I lost the woman who was everything that I had to something that nobody could fight because people were too stupid to realize that there was something wrong with her until it was too late. I know that the chances of people surviving from cancer are slim, but if it's caught in time it can be prevented. How many people have been saved? How many families didn't have to go through what my family did? How many children didn't have to see their mother wither away like some dying flower? Why did they get to be so lucky?" He paused for a moment, realizing that the frustrations were strong and they weren't going away. "Why couldn't I be one of the lucky ones?"

"We always ask ourselves those questions after we lose someone that we care about, Damian. When Lily and my baby were killed in that car bomb I kept on asking myself why I didn't make sure I was the one who started the car. The bomb was meant for me, it wasn't meant for her or the baby that was inside of her. But she was gone, and there was nothing I could do about it. You don't have a monopoly on feeling guilt and grief over what happens when someone dies."

"That was a little harsh…"

"You want honesty, don't you?" Sonny asked, knowing that the answer was yes. "When I didn't tell you what I did with my life, when I lied to you because I thought that it was going to be something that you couldn't handle you said that you could and that I should have told you the truth. I agreed with you then, and I'm doing just what I should have done at that point right now. Everyone grieves in their own way, Damian. Sometimes I do it by taking it out on the people that I care about, just ask my father… but you don't have to do what so many other people do. You don't have to let it eat you up, even if it's only for a little while around the time that your mom died, because eventually you're going to lose it and nobody is going to be able to save you from what you would have become."

"You don't understand…"

"I understand perfectly…"

"You didn't lose your mother the same way I did…"

"You're right. I never heard my mother tell me that she loved me one last time. I never got the chance to say goodbye. My mother always loved me, just like yours did, but my mother didn't want me around at the end. She pushed me away because of the stupid choices that I made and the stupid choices that she made that she was too proud to admit were mistakes. So, you want to think that you're some special case because of the way that you lost Ana? I agree, what happened was horrible. But you got the chance to say goodbye. Do you know how many people didn't even get that?"

"I'm sorry." He realized that he was being selfish. But he couldn't help it. The wound was reopened, it was still as fresh as it was when she died in front of him. But that wasn't all that he had to feel guilty about. He had spit on the memory of his grandmother, however unintentional it may have been. He was careless and disrespectful towards the relationship that she had with her son, his father. Damian realized that it was something that he shouldn't have done.

"You don't have to apologize. You just need to realize that I'm going to be here for you, and even when I'm not there will be people who are going to be. You still have your friends, your family… we all care about you. We all want to help you. You just need to give us the chance."

"How… how'd you find out about your mother?"

"Some random person who I didn't even know came up to me. I don't know how he got the information, but he did. I called around, found out it was true. I wasn't even there for the funeral."

"What happened that made the two of you so distant?"

"My stepfather was an abusive bastard, you know that. I finally got old enough to stick up to him and I did… but my mother didn't see it as a way of standing up for myself and for her. All she saw was that I was asserting my authority over a man that I should have been submissive to. It didn't matter to her that there were days when I would have to miss school because he would beat me so hard that there were obvious bruises that I couldn't say I got because I slipped while I was playing kickball. She just saw what had happened and told me 'Michael, you need to go.' And then it was done. I was gone by the end of the day."

"But you said she still loved you…"

"Because she did," Sonny knew it in his heart. "You never stop loving your children, Damian. No matter what they do to you, no matter how much they hurt you, you're never going to stop loving them on some level. You might need to place some distance between yourself and your child, you might even fool yourself into thinking that you're a better person because they're not in your life anymore, but it doesn't make it true."

"Look at me… I get on you for trying to pry into my life and I just turn it around and start trying to get into yours."

"I don't want to keep secrets from you anymore… I shouldn't have in the beginning. I learn from my mistakes."

"So do I," Damian agreed. "Until you told me about your mom, dad, I didn't think about it like that. I didn't think that people had some sort of pain that related to mine. Plenty of people before me have lost their mother's. Maybe not in the same way, but the feeling is the same. It helps a lot… I'm not so blinded by my suffering anymore. I have you to thank for that."

"Always glad to help out."

"I still don't get how you found out…"

"Your girlfriend called me."

"Maxie?" He was surprised by the revelation. Maxie knew about the day his mother died? How did she manage that one?

"She said that she called your grandparents over in Los Angeles. Did you even talk to them yesterday?"

"No." The guilt built up inside of him almost instantly. "I'm such a horrible person. They raised me. Even when she was alive they were as much a part of my life as she was… dammit, I've always been so quiet about everything. I didn't even try and think about how much pain they were going through. How my stoic approach towards it could hurt them."

"I don't think they hold it against you."

"I would…"

"You're a harsh critic, especially on yourself."

"You should have seen how hard I was when I would have to enter macaroni art for my elementary school art fairs…"

"Back to the jokes?"

"Sorry. If I don't use humor as a defense then I just use complete silence. You should be happy that you're getting the one that involves hearing my voice."

"You might not think that you show your pain, Damian. But you do. I saw you yesterday. I saw your heart and your soul shattered into a million pieces. Everyone feels like that at some point in their life, and if it's already happened to them they can relate. You would do the same thing if someone was feeling pain, wouldn't you? You've done it plenty of times for the people who have needed you. When Lila died… who was there for Dillon and Jason? You…"

"A lot of other people were there for them, too…"

"Yeah, but you always made sure that they had someone to talk with. You were there for them when they needed it, and even if they didn't need your help they knew that it was going to be there."

"And you're saying that even though what happened to me was almost a decade ago, people would still be there for me?"

"People say that things get easier with time…"

Damian's sneered, "I hate that saying. So much."

"It gives a lot of false hope. They don't say how much time it will take for things to get easier. But that doesn't mean that they're wrong. It will get easier eventually. Maybe not right away. I still have plenty of times when I feel like I lost my mother, my wife, my children, just like it was yesterday."

"I'm surprised that you didn't give me this speech yesterday… after we got out of the church."

"You wouldn't have listened yesterday."

The boy agreed wholeheartedly with that. The night prior he was pretty much shut off from the world, barely able to even feel the touch that he found so comforting. Numb to the point of nearly being unresponsive. "But today… it's a new day."

"She would have wanted you to be happy."

"I am happy. Sometimes."

"If you need to go see her grave… I can ask them to get the jet ready. I could go with you, if you want."

"No, thanks," he appreciated the offer, but it wasn't what he wanted or needed. "Seeing her grave isn't something I'm ready to do right now. If I change my mind I'll tell you. Maybe you should come. You can tell her embarrassing stories about our time together…"

"Or just thank her for keeping you and telling you who I was." Sonny believed that he would do his idea before his son's. Ana-Maria may have never expected him to be such a blessing in Sonny's life, in fact, she may have wished that the boy brought him nothing but pain. Much to his delight, and hopefully hers as well, such things were as far from the truth as possible.