Quartermaine Household-

He stayed awake for a good amount of time while she rested next to him. It wasn't that he didn't think about sex, he did, but he also knew that having sex in the living room of his family's mansion wasn't exactly the way that he wanted either of them to lose their virginity. Besides, if Dillon knew his mother, which he did, she had stayed up well after they had gone to sleep, just to be sure. He kept a watchful ear out, getting, at best, half-sleep while he was inside the mansion. It was the last place that Dillon ever wanted to be, but he didn't have a choice. Brook Lynn was his niece, and she was in part his responsibility. He needed to keep her safe, and in doing so it required that he put aside his personal feelings for the people that he was related to. Brook wasn't one of them, she didn't deserve to suffer just because she lived with them. Dillon had often felt that way about himself. When he first arrived it was like that for him. He was always being profiled as just another one of the rich Quartermaine's, Port Charles elite, but he wasn't like them. He didn't want to be a doctor, or a businessman. He didn't fit any of the accepted criteria that came with the stigma, but did it matter? No. All they saw was the name, and it was more than enough to put him on plenty of blacklists, including Mac's.

But Georgie wasn't like that. He knew it from the beginning. She was kind and loving. Georgie was everything that Dillon wanted before he knew that he wanted anything, but the minute he realized the type of person that she was it was all over. The only thing that Dillon wanted from that moment on was to be with her for the rest of his life. It might have taken some time, he might have doubted just how true his love for her was, but in the end it worked out. He was with her, under a blanket on the couch of the mansion.

Brook had stayed up in her room the whole night, trying not to let her sobs be heard by anyone. Her mother and father had both tried to make an effort to break her barriers down and get her to talk, but Brook wasn't going to have any of it. She didn't want to talk with them, she didn't really want to talk with anyone… well, almost anyone. Certainly nobody that she could talk to right away.

But that was the night before. She'd never spent a New Years Eve so miserably in her life. She vowed that she wouldn't do it again. Brook was already letting her family shape the way that she acted, which was something that she never wanted. Brook Lynn Ashton was fiercely independent, or so she liked to tell herself. Maybe it was all just a ruse, a lie that she told to make her image seem better. Who knew? She wasn't sure, and if she wasn't sure how could anyone else be?

The young lady walked into the main hallway and could see the faint outline of Dillon's shoulder in the living room. She hadn't expected him to stay. She wasn't even sure it was him. Curious, Brook walked over and saw him. He looked at her and for a moment she froze. Was he mad at her? He had every reason to be. It didn't take a genius to realize that she was the reason he stuck around. When she saw him give a meek smile she returned the gesture, putting a hand up as well.

Dillon turned his head away from his niece for a moment before kissing his girlfriend on the forehead and placing her head gently on the cushions of the couch. Georgie apparently slept like a log, but at least she didn't snore. It was a good thing to know. Dillon didn't like it when people snored. His mother, try as she might to be the epitome of all that made a lady, snored quite loudly. Many a night Dillon would end up sleeping in the hotel lobby, waking up with enough time to get back into the room so his mother wouldn't be aware of her faults. At that time Dillon didn't really think she had any. How wrong he was.

Dillon followed Brook as she tried to walk away, sliding on his socks completely by accident when he stopped after picking up his pace. He ended up saving himself from the eminent crash by holding onto one of the tables. "Uncle Dillon has just proven to you, young niece, that attempting to sock skate around the Quartermaine mansion is not, I repeat, not a good idea."

"Uncle Dillon…" she scoffed. "You really don't expect me to call you that, do you?"

"You can call me whatever you like…"

"Even…"

"As long as it involves my name, be it Uncle Dillon, or Dillon, nothing else. I don't need you calling me some strange name that I won't understand. I hate nicknames…"

"Relax, Dillon, I wouldn't do that to you."

"Good." He changed the focus from his folly and the moniker that he would accept to what was really important to him, making sure that she was all right. "You didn't come back down last night…"

Brook sat on the lowest step of the grand staircase, the cold wood of the steps instantly chilling the exposed parts of her back. She didn't mind, in fact, she found it to be quite comfortable. "I didn't really want to talk with anyone…"

"Do you want to talk now?"

"No, not really…"

"Well, tough," Dillon sat next to her. He had to admit that he was quite fond of sitting on the stairs of the mansion. It was where he did his best brooding. He would look at the door and think about running away, but it never did him much good. They were just thoughts, thoughts that rarely, if ever, found any sort of further development. "I'm pulling the uncle card on you… talk."

"There isn't an uncle card."

"Yes, there is. I left it in my other wallet at Jason's apartment, but its there."

"You could have used it more often…"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means, Dillon, that I didn't even meet you until Christmas Eve," she looked at him, the pain in her eyes evident. "I didn't know any of the people in this house, not even my own grandmother…"

"Trust me, you're a better person for not knowing Tracy Quartermaine…" sometimes that he wished he could have the luxury, but it didn't work out that way.

"Look, everyone thinks that they can just welcome me with open arms, but if they wanted to care about me so much why the hell didn't they ever pick up a phone, or just come for a weekend visit? Do you know how many times that my dad actually came to see me after my parents split up? I can count them on two hands…"

"I know how you feel…"

"Sure you do."

"No, really, I do. I was like you, Brook, you know that, I told you that. I was born here, yeah, and I might have spent a little time around the mansion when I was a baby, but after my mom left New York City I never had any contact with any of these people, and as it was they didn't come around when we were just in the big city. I thought they didn't care about me… and then my mom expects me to come here and be her planted reason for returning. The only one who I ended up trusting was your dad, and Lila."

"Why would you trust him?"

"Because he was the only one who I thought I could?" Dillon shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know… Ned was there for me when I needed someone. He wasn't like Grandfather, threatening to throw me into military school every time I turned my head around. Ned's my godfather… as creepy as that might sound. He's supposed to look out for me, I guess."

"I wish I could trust him…"

"You should," Dillon stood up. "Ned's made a lot of mistakes in his life, and I'm sure he's aware of it, but the way that everything happened with you is one thing that I know he regrets above all others. He would tell me about how much he wanted to see you, Brook… he loves you, I know he does."

"Why are you sticking up for him, Dillon? You don't owe him anything. Yeah, sure, he helped you when you first got here, but you've probably made up for that."

"No child deserves to think that their father doesn't love them," Dillon closed his eyes, because he was almost certain that Paul Hornsby didn't love him. The man had never tried to make any sort of contact with him… why would it matter unless Paul didn't want Dillon in his life? "I don't want you thinking that. I wouldn't want you thinking that if you were just some random person on the street… which you could be, given the way you dress."

"I don't dress like a bum!"

"Please, I remember seeing plenty of teenagers around Europe who tried to do the whole semi-Goth look with all the jewelry and bracelets, then they would just end up trying to bum some cash off of people who walked by so that they could afford a pack of cigs. Not exactly the most original look."

"You should be one to talk… what are you trying for? The rebel who still gives in to corporate America by spending plenty of money on various hair products?"

"Low blow…"

"You called me a bum!"

"What's going on here?" Lois had been stirred by the sound of the two teenagers playfully arguing, at first she thought it was nothing but a dream, a dream where her child wasn't going through some sort of emotional turmoil. "Brookie…"

"Hey, ma."

"Morning, Lois," Dillon wondered if it was in his best interests to just walk away and leave the two of them to work out their issues. He didn't want to be a part of another family squabble, even if it was with people that he didn't necessarily consider to be Quartermaine's…

"Are you hungry, baby?" Lois asked as she came down the stairs.

"Not really…"

"Well I don't want to yell at you on an empty stomach…"

"Why are you going to yell at her?"

Brook gave him a cool glance, "She's from Brooklyn, yelling's what she does… you live around Sonny, think about it."

Dillon contemplated the statement for a moment before realizing just how true it was. Sonny did spend a lot of time yelling about something. Maybe it was a trait. He couldn't really remember that much from his time in the big city, but there were a lot of people who yelled.

"Don't take that tone with me, young lady!" Lois snapped.

"Lois, chill…"

"And you, don't tell me how to raise my daughter!"

"I'm not!" Dillon put his hands up and backed away, "I'm just saying that Brook wasn't having the best day of her life yesterday and she really shouldn't be punished for it. You swear you've never had a day like that growing up? Think about your teenage years…"

"She's trying to relive them."

"Brookie…" Lois grumbled.

"Look at your pajamas, ma!" Brook pointed. "Those look like the kinds of things that girls on the cheerleading team would wear, not a mother!"

"I've always believed that fashion shouldn't be based on age." Lois stopped focusing on the trivial, realizing that her daughter was more important than the hip clothing that she chose to wear. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'll manage…"

Lois hugged her daughter tightly, "I know how much you like to think that you can handle everything, but you can't. Nobody can. Eventually they need someone, and I want you to think that you can always come to me…"

"I know, ma."

Dillon stood there and observed. Lois and Brook, for all their differences, were still quite close, he could see it. Lois wanted the best for her daughter. It made Dillon jealous that she had such a good, strong relationship with her child when all Dillon got from his mother was the feeling that he wasn't good enough. He didn't question that Tracy loved him, he questioned if she did it because she felt like it, or simply because she carried him for nine months.