General Hospital, Nurses Station-

Normally he would be there looking for Maxie, waiting for her to get off of a shift so that the two of them could have some alone time, but he wasn't there for that. He needed to tell Bobbie about Durant. He wasn't ready when he got back into town, but he had the time that he needed to prepare himself. Damian wasn't sure how she would take it. Would she be happy? Would she be sad? There was only one way to find out.

"Maxie's not here right now…"

He knew the voice belong to Alan Quartermaine. They hadn't really talked all that much, but it was hard not to know who Alan was, especially if one wanted to be a doctor in Port Charles. "I'm actually not here for Maxie today, Dr. Quartermaine, but thank you anyway…"

"Are you getting nervous?"

"Yes, actually…"

Alan smiled and laughed. "We all did when we started out, Damian, and most of us were a few years older than you. You should be very happy about the chances that you are being given. I had to wait until I was much older to even become an intern. You're barely old enough to drink."

"Believe me, I know just how lucky I am with everything that has happened to me and around me. I'm so thankful to both you and your wife for taking a chance on me, I know that there are probably reasons why you wouldn't want to do it…"

"Just because your father and I don't get along doesn't mean I necessarily place the same stigma on you. Believe me, I know just how far a son can be from his father." Alan had experience in that field both as a son and as a father. He was a lot different from Edward and he didn't even want to think about how different his own sons were from him, realizing those things made his heart hurt too much.

"It's more than that… like you said, I'm young, I don't have the extra years of medical school that the other interns are going to have, but you're doing this for me…"

"Not many of the interns who have all the training that I do would do what you did. Damian, you don't understand just how impressive you are to people like me. Not only because of your grades, which as you know are very commendable, but because of what you did at the diner."

"Sometimes I wish I didn't do that…"

"You don't really mean that, do you? A man lived because of your actions. That's what we're supposed to do as doctors. But you didn't freeze, and that is why you're being given the chance that we're giving you. Most people would actually stand there like time was standing still and just look. You didn't. You acted."

"How can you say that I won't freeze when I'm in a uniform? When I'm actually expected to know what is going on, when I'm supposed to know how to fix a person… what if I can't?"

"Then you'll learn the first lesson of being a doctor: sometimes we can't help everyone." Alan knew how much they all hated that lesion. He was one of the many that wished beyond all possible reason that they could just blink their eyes and have all the answers, all the medicine, all the cures.

"You might be able to do something that I can't. That's what I'm afraid of."

"I can't do much anymore," Alan remarked. "I'm just the chief of staff. Monica will be the one who you will usually end up taking orders from. Sometimes she can be a little temperamental, but she's one of the smartest and best doctors in the country. People would love to have her as a mentor."

"I know that, and I'm thankful…"

"You just need to stop worrying about everything that might happen, Damian, because you'll just end up worrying yourself to death with the possibilities and that will take your effectiveness as a doctor down. Nobody deserves to have their career taken apart before it can even start."

"I'll remember that." The truth was that worrying about what could happen to him when he started being an intern was the farthest thing from his mind. He wasn't worried about his abilities, although they would always be called into question in the dark corner of his mind.

"You might want to rest up while you still have the chance… you start in just a few days, and when that happens… well… I'm sure you know what you're expected to do as an intern."

"72 hour shifts?"

"Amongst other things…"

"I'll take your advice into consideration." There was almost no way that he could ever actually get some rest. In his life? Those things were little more than dreams that he wished would be true. There was almost always something keeping him up.

"That's all I can ever ask, isn't it?"

"I'm sure anybody who got advice from you would actually try and take it."

"You obviously don't know Jason as well as you might think…"

"He does take your advice into consideration. Both you and Monica. Uncle Jason…"

"I still can't believe you call him that."

"It took us both a little longer than usual to get used to it. But he's family, and that means more to me than almost anything else in the world. Anyway, he just doesn't show it, but that doesn't mean that he just ignores your advice…"

"I told him to stop being with Sonny…"

"Yeah, you told him," Damian noted. "And, believe me, I learned the hard way that when it comes to Jason Morgan… telling him to do something is not the way to go."

"He was just so different…"

"I'm sorry that you lost him. I wish I could do something to help…" it wasn't an empty wish, but would he make the sacrifice? If he could help Jason, which he knew was impossible, but hypothetically speaking if he could, would he? Bringing back Jason Quartermaine could possibly mean ending the relationships that Jason had established with everyone in his own family, most specifically Courtney and Michael. The Quartmaine's deserved the chance to have Jason back, but did his family deserve to have him taken away?

"We all wish that there was a way to make everything better," Alan hid his sorrow as well as he could. Sometimes he was good at it, when it came to Jason it was always a little harder. "I should get back to my office. Remember what I said…"

"I will, and thank you again for everything."

Bobbie was working, just as Damian had guessed. She needed to get her mind off of everything that was going on around her, which included sending her niece and step-grandson into New York to do her job for her. When she walked up to the nurses' station she saw him standing there. "Damian…"

"Just the woman I was looking for…"

Bobbie bit her lip, "You found him, didn't you?"

"I found him…"

"And?"

"Can you take a break?"

"I don't need a break."

"Well can we at least go sit on the couches?" He didn't want to tell her the news standing up. He wasn't sure how she was going to take it. Bobbie wanted Carly's father to be a good man, but he really wasn't.

"You can just tell me right here."

Reluctantly he realized that there was no way he was going to get Bobbie to take a load off of her feet while he gave her the news, "John Durant is a district attorney in New York City now, Bobbie…"

"The man that once went and had sex in whore houses… well, I guess they don't have very many requirements for people to be district attorneys these days." Bobbie shouldn't have thrown stones, she was in a position of power despite her past. But it was true. Ric, Scott, and now Durant… all district attorneys.

"I don't know if he has a family or not…"

"You didn't tell him about Carly, did you?"

"Of course not… but, Bobbie, I think you were right. I'm almost certain that he is her father. I can see bits and pieces of her in his face. It was eerie…"

"You're not going to tell her, are you?"

"He knows who I am, Bobbie. I didn't want to even have him see me, but he did. And when he did… well, he started saying that he was going to throw me in jail because I was trying to do the work of my father and get rid of him…"

"He always was a hothead…"

"The point is that if Carly finds out who her father is she's still going to want to make contact with him, and then he'll know that she's my dad's wife. He wants to bring my father down, Bobbie… not that it's not very different from a bunch of other people around the world, but still…"

"He didn't threaten you, did he?"

"Everyone threatens me, it comes with being a Corinthos."

"Be serious for a second, would you?"

"He couldn't throw me in jail, Bobbie," Damian leaned against the desk. "I didn't do anything wrong. But… I don't know… I just feel worried about it. Like I said, he knows who I am… but why would he?"

"Because of your father."

"Exactly… so maybe he has plans that are going to bring him here. He said something about how my dad made the first move…"

"Do you really think he's coming here?"

"I don't know."

"He can't!" Bobbie replied in a panic. "If John comes to Port Charles he'll find Carly and he'll find out everything. We can't let that happen!"

"Calm down, Bobbie," Damian reached over and put his hand over hers, "We don't know anything for certain yet, everything I'm saying is just a possibility. And we can keep him away from Carly even if he does come…"

"How?"

"I don't know, we'll think of something. We don't have much of a choice in the matter, do we?"

"I wish I didn't send you… I wish I never found out about him."

"Bobbie, you did the right thing. You were looking out for the interests of your family, and now that we're almost sure of who her father is we can find a way to get him to give us blood or something else in case she needs it or one of the kids does. He doesn't ever have to know about Carly, but since we know about him we have the upper hand."

"You could have gotten into trouble just for doing this for me… thank you."

"You took a chance on me when nobody else wanted to believe that I was actually here just because I wanted to connect with my father. I have a debt to you that I'm never going to be able to repay, but I can at least take small steps at it. Don't worry, Bobbie, we'll find a way to make it work."

Bobbie gave him her best smile, but deep down she knew that there were still too many things that could have gone wrong. She wasn't at ease. She probably wouldn't be able to sleep at night.