Although Carly was not aware of it, her stepson and his girlfriend had only barely left the area. She would have been happy to see him smiling and not tormented by the demons of his past. It seemed to be a trait with the Corinthos males, something that couldn't be avoided. She could help Sonny with his problems, but she wasn't sure she could help Damian with his. Carly wasn't even sure that Damian would let her, and that was in part due to the distance that she had foolishly created from the moment that he walked into their lives.

However, Carly had more important things on her mind. It tore at her to leave Morgan, to not be with her baby in case something did go wrong. It wasn't that she didn't trust Sonny, Jason and Courtney with the child while Leticia was away, Carly did trust them all fully to keep her children, both of them, safe, but she wanted to be with Morgan. Sadly, priorities made it so that she had to leave the baby. She could have used Morgan for leverage, but Carly was aware of the risk that the baby was in for catching another cold at least for the next forty-eight hours. As much as she wanted everything to turn out in her favor, there were some risks that even Carly Corinthos, with her vaunted psychopathic plans, found herself unwilling to make. Morgan's health was just one of them.

She waited under the archway, looking at her mother. Carly was slow to approach the woman because she didn't want Bobbie to be angry with her and Carly in turn did not want to be angry with her mother. She loved Bobbie and she always would, but just because a person loved another person it did not mean that they would always agree with one another.

"You can come out of your hiding spot…"

A small shiver went down Carly's spine. She knew that Bobbie was talking to her. "How'd you know that I was there?"

"Mother's instinct…"

Carly continued walking towards her mother. "Funny that you should mention that, mom. Because I have a mother's instinct, too. And it's telling me that the information that I'm looking for is something that I need to keep my children safe."

"Carly…"

"Please, mama," Carly begged. "I don't want to have to make you remember these things, but I don't have a choice."

"You do have a choice!" Bobbie retorted fiercely. "You have a choice to let the past stay in the past. You don't need to know anything about your father. What kind of father would you expect to come from a man who would just randomly have sex with a teenage hooker? Honestly, Carly…"

"You became a better person, didn't you?" Carly could see the pain in her mother's body. It radiated off of Bobbie. Knowing that she was the one who caused her mom even more pain than she had when she first arrived in Port Charles did not make Carly happy. If she could do it any other way she would. Not having the luxury of choices did not make her happy. "Who is to say that the same couldn't be said of the man who is my father? You were a teenager… he was probably a teenager, too."

"Not likely," Bobbie shook her head. "Most of the men who I… serviced…" she struggled with the word, struggled with the world that she had once been completely engrossed in. She cared about Ruby, but sometimes she hated the woman for letting her do what she did. "They were quite a few years older than me…"

"Well the person is older now regardless, right? When people get older they get wiser, just like you."

"You're being entirely optimistic, you know that, don't you?"

"Sometimes I have to be the optimist in order to make sure that my family survives, mom. I'm not going to keep on asking you for your help. If you won't give it to me then I'm going to stop, but you know what's going to end up happening?"

"What's that?"

"You're going to lose something that's very important to both of us. You're going to lose my respect for you, mom. Something that took us both a long time to come to terms with. Everything that we've hoped to accomplish since we finally stopped trying to tear each other apart. It will never be the same again… not if you deny me the information that could keep my children from suffering."

"Why can't you understand that I can't help you?"

"Because I know that you can." She grabbed her mother's hand, hoping that the touch would do something to spark the connection that they had. "Mom, I know that you probably don't know exactly who the person was that impregnated you, but you have to have some sort of idea. Something in my face, maybe before you gave me away… maybe now. Something that reminds you of him, the man who is my father."

"You're not being fair to me…"

"Well then maybe I'll just go and ask Luke."

"Don't you dare bring him in to this," Bobbie warned her daughter. "Luke feels horrible about what I did with my past, he might be the only person who feels worse about it than I do. He's always going through so many of his own problems that adding mine to his wouldn't be fair."

"I probably couldn't even find him if I wanted to," Carly muttered. Her uncle, although she rarely, if ever, had addressed him as such, had a habit of finding a way to avoid people for months at a time. It was a skill that Carly didn't exactly find herself inheriting. She couldn't stay away from people even when she tried.

"This is how it's going to be, then?" Bobbie could feel the connection that she and her daughter had established after years of hurt slipping away and there wasn't anything that she could do about it. Well, there was, but if Carly knew what it could bring to her family she would regret everything in the end.

"Only if you can't help me…"

"You don't realize just how much I am helping you by not telling you anything."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That you could be setting yourself up for a big disappointment, one that could crush you both physically and emotionally. What happens if you meet this man and he doesn't accept you?"

"We've been through this before, mom," Carly rolled her eyes. "I don't give a damn if the man accepts me as his daughter, if he starts wanting me to understand a part of my history… all I want is for him to know that I'm alive and that he has two grandsons who he can help with in case they need something from a family member. That's it. I'm not looking for a relationship. I'm just looking for assurance."

"None of the people who could be your father…"

"So you admit that you have people in mind?"

"Don't change the subject. None of them are what I could consider father material."

"You weren't mother material when you gave me away…"

"Carly…"

"I didn't mean it like that, mom, and you know it. All I'm saying is that you're a different person now. You're a better person. Look at how well you managed to raise Lucas, even with your problems. That boy is a good kid deep down, even though you have him at some private school."

"He needs a good education to get a successful future in life."

"Damian got public schooling… Georgie and Dillon seem to be doing fine with it."

"That's true," Bobbie wondered where the conversation managed to get sidetracked, but if it kept her daughter off of the need to find out anything about her father, then Bobbie was all for it. "But a diploma from the school where Lucas is attending is a lot better looking on a college application than a diploma, even one where the person is the highest ranked student in the class, from Port Charles High."

"You wouldn't have made those choices with me if you would have kept me. That shows how good you've become as a mother. You're a great grandmother, too. And an Aunt. Mom, you care about your family. You would do anything for them."

"Yes, I would. I love every single member of my family and a whole lot of people who aren't… and if I could help you then you should be the first person to know that I would do it. But I can't…"

A short distance away, Damian and Maxie came walking back up from their short venture towards the docks. "Are you sure you left your phone on the counter?" Maxie wondered.

"The only place I was aside from the house was inside of Kelly's. Where else could it be?"

"You shouldn't be dropping things, you know how much trouble it can get you in."

"Believe me… I know that better than most people will ever know." The wallet. The stupid wallet incident that managed to get him incarcerated for over a week, that had him thinking that everything that he had worked for, both on a personal and professional level, was going to vanish into thin air like it was nothing. He didn't want to make such stupid mistakes again, but apparently he couldn't help it. "Besides, I'm sure my grandpa would just keep the phone if I did leave it there."

"And what if you didn't?"

"Then I'll just buy a new one…"

"Can I help…"

Damian saw Bobbie and Carly talking with one another in front of Kelly's. He put his arm out, halting Maxie in the process. "Maxie, be quiet please." Normally he would have thought nothing of the fact that the mother and daughter were speaking with one another, but the way that they looked at each other, Damian knew that something was wrong.

"What is it?" Maxie didn't appreciate being told to shut up, even though it was in a much nicer tone of voice. She silently demanded that she know what was going on, and she got her answer when she peered over Damian's shoulders.

"There's nothing that I can do to make you change your mind, is there?" Carly knew that it was a last ditch effort, that she was grasping at straws, but what other choices did she have?

"I'm sorry…"

"No, you're not," Carly shook her head as she adjusted her purse. "But if something happens to Michael or Morgan and we can't find any answers and we need something from my father and one of them ends up dead because you never told me the simple piece of information that I have every right to know… I'll hate you again, mom. And I will hate you more than I ever hated you when I first came to Port Charles. I don't want that, I know you don't, but you made the choice with your silence."

"Carly!"

"No, I'm done. You don't want to help, fine. We have nothing else to speak to each other about."

"Can I still see the boys?"

"You mean while they're healthy?" She was channeling the rage, and she knew it. A part of Carly's soul was telling her that she didn't need to be so venomous towards her mother, but it was a small part, the bigger part of Carly, the part that made her the loving mother of her sons, was telling her that her own mother was wrong. Telling her that Bobbie Spencer was making a choice that could put Michael and Morgan in jeopardy, and that was not something that Carly would ever be able to accept.

"What do you think that was all about?" Maxie whispered as softly as she could.

"I wish I knew… and I'm going to find out."

"I'm coming, too…"

"No," the young man said firmly. "I need to do this alone."

"Bobbie's my Aunt!"

"But she's having a problem with Carly. Who do you think Bobbie is going to think would understand her more?" Damian understood what it meant to have a problem with Carly better than Maxie could ever hope. Nobody should have even wanted to have a problem with Carly, because it usually involved lots of unpleasant yelling. "Please… let me try this alone."

"I don't like being pushed to the side. Not even by you."

"Five minutes?" Damian compromised. "Give me five minutes with Bobbie, Maxie. I want to help her."

"Fine…"

Damian silently gave his thanks to his girlfriend before making his way slowly from behind the hedges that gave him the cover that he needed. Bobbie was shaking, it was obvious that she was on the verge of crying. Damian had never see Bobbie like that before. It scared him.