Journeylove- I suppose Sonny and Dillon have quite a few similarities, I never really thought of it like that. I just wrote scene because throughout both stories Dillon's placed himself at a distance from Sonny, and while it wasn't really expressed it was still there. As for Brook, she'll show up in a few chapters again. Two in a row, in fact.

Story-

General Hospital-

Carly had always hated the elevators in the hospital. She felt that they were too slow for her when she needed to be in a rush, which was quite frequently. Now wasn't a time for her to just wait around in the elevator as the stupid blinking light went from floor to floor. Her resolution was to find her father, but she knew deep down she couldn't do it without her mother's help. She was going to keep on bugging Bobbie until her mother gave her the information that was needed. If that took a whole year, then so be it. Bobbie was stubborn, but Carly was the queen of being stubborn. People thought that she was a mule, sometimes she wasn't going to disagree with them.

"Finally!" She exclaimed as the doors opened with their familiar sound. She was looking down at the floor, ready to take on the world, but instead she found herself halted by bumping into someone else. "Why don't you watch where you're going…"

"Sorry…"

She recognized that voice. Her eyes looked up and saw him standing there. Her stepson, "Damian…" Carly quickly realized that she sounded like a huge bitch, which was something that she was good for, well known for. It was also something that she had done to Damian more times than he deserved. She wanted to stop doing that. She wanted to welcome him into her life. It took a lot for a person to become worthy of her attentions, but Damian had earned that right.

"Carly."

"I'm sorry," she walked away from him. "I'm just in a hurry…"

"Is something wrong? Did Morgan get sick again?" Did Bobbie know? If she knew, why didn't she tell him?

"No, Morgan's fine. He's with Courtney and Jason right now." She had once more dumped her child on her best friends, but she couldn't trust anyone with her children more than she trusted the two of them.

"Are you hurt? Do you want me to look at you… see if you're all right?"

"You can't look at me when you become a doctor. You're family."

"I'm not a doctor yet, am I?"

"You were a doctor in my eyes the moment you helped Jason take that bullet out of his knee." She remembered how much of a hassle she gave him. He didn't deserve that. He didn't deserve anything that she had done to him, yet he was willing to forgive her. Carly knew that she wouldn't be able to do something like that. Carly wasn't that mature. She would never be.

"I did what was needed."

"And you helped get the bullet out, right? You kept on doing what you could do to make sure that he was fine, that he would recover. Damian, if that isn't something that a doctor does then I don't know what is."

"A real doctor would have been able to do so much more."

"Everyone starts somewhere, right?" One thing that Carly didn't like about the boy was the way that he would always put himself down. He wanted to make it seem like he wasn't worthy of everything that he had been given, when Carly knew that nobody deserved it more.

"I guess."

"You know… you're not my son, Damian, and I know that I'll never be able to replace your mother, nor would I even want to try, but even now I can say with a great amount of pride to people that you're a member of my family."

He was touched by the statement, completely touched. Carly was saying that she was proud of him, he knew how much that took from her. If he was a more emotional person he probably would have started crying and hugging her, but he wasn't. The only time he really cried was when he missed his mother, and he tried to do that as infrequently as possible.

"Ever so humble, aren't you…"

"Or just stunned. You're giving me a compliment. Four months ago we would have been screaming at each other and you would have been trying to get me out of your life."

"That was four months ago, and you would have been yelling at me, too."

"We can do it again, for old times sake…"

"Maybe not in public."

"Your call."

Carly laughed. "You know, if you weren't my step-son, if you just came into our lives as some random person, I would have liked you from the start."

"I guess everything happened for a reason, right?" He replied. "I mean, if I came into your lives under false pretenses, if I didn't tell my father who I was right when I got the chance… what would have happened? You would have resented me when I came out with that secret, wouldn't you have?"

"Yes… and you know how I know that?"

"How?"

"Because Ric did the same thing. He got my trust and the whole time he kept it a secret that he and Sonny were brothers. Ric's a sick, twisted bastard and I've never been more certain of that in my life…"

"You really don't think he can change, do you?"

"I know you care about him," she tried to sound sympathetic. It wasn't her place to tell him who he could and couldn't involve himself with. Damian was a grown adult. He earned the freedom of choice. "But that doesn't mean that I'm going to forgive everything that he's done. This isn't a Disney movie, Damian. The bad people don't just atone for their sins and then start dancing around with talking animals."

"Wouldn't it be great if they did?"

"It would get annoying really quickly." She could only watch those movies so many times before they got on her nerves.

"You never answered the question, Carly… why are you here?"

"I'm looking for my mother, have you seen her?"

He froze, trying to think of a good excuse to tell her. He had seen Bobbie, of course, but he didn't want her to know that and he knew for a fact that Bobbie didn't want her to know that. "I tried to talk with her, but she was swamped with paperwork…"

"I'm sure she can take a break."

"Carly… she really was busy. It was hard for her to even carry all of the files that she needed to work on."

"I'll get her one of those push carts so she can pay attention."

"You're going to ask her about your father, aren't you?" Anyone who knew what the current train of thought in Carly's mind was could put two and two together.

"I hear it from everyone else in the family, Damian… please, I don't need to hear it from you."

"Hear what?"

"About how stupid I'm being. About how I don't need my father in my life because I've gone this long without him. Everyone's thinking that I'm doing it because I just want to have a father, and I won't lie, that's part of the reason, but if I weren't a mother I wouldn't care. The big reason is because of my children."

"I respect that."

"You, of all people, should understand what I'm going through, Damian. How many times did you think about your father when you were growing up? It must have been so hard for you when your mother died…"

"It was."

"I've been through this before, Damian. I came here to find my mother because I knew who she was… I'm not saying my intentions were great, because they weren't, they were horrible reasons that I'll never be able to forgive myself for, even if my mother has. Don't you think I know what's at risk…"

"Carly…"

"Don't give me those eyes!" She snapped. "I hate it when people look at me with eyes of pity. I'm not a little girl, I don't need my hand held…"

"You don't understand what's at risk…"

"What do you mean?"

"Think about our family, Carly. Think about who your husband is. Say that you find your father, that you bring him into your life… what happens when someone finds out and they bribe your dad into finding something out about my dad so that they can send him away from us?"

"He wouldn't do that…"

"How can you know that?"

"Because I wouldn't let him!"

"You can't stop people from thinking what they want to think, Carly. You might be a powerful person, you might have the ability to change minds… but what if your father is some poor farmer?" Damian knew that Carly's father had more than enough money, but he was giving her the likely scenario. His father wasn't stupid, Sonny wouldn't let Durant into his life, but Durant would keep on trying.

"You're against me too, aren't you?"

"I want to do everything that I can to keep my little brothers safe, you know that."

"You can't save Michael! You're not blood!"

"Carly, stop it!"

Carly looked behind Damian and saw Bobbie standing there. Bobbie wasn't pleased, neither was Carly. "Momma…"

"What do you think you're doing?" Bobbie asked. "You're attacking your stepson, your innocent stepson, because he's trying to tell you that what you're doing could be a disaster waiting to happen."

"I just want answers…"

"I'll give you an answer," Bobbie said firmly. "You're never going to get one from me. No matter what questions you ask, I won't tell you because I do not remember. There's your answer. Everything that you think of is not going to be answered. Stop while you're ahead…"

"If my children suffer because of you I will never forgive you…" Carly stormed off, taking the stairs because she knew that if she had to stand still in the elevator she was going to scream.

Bobbie sighed, "Now I'm even more regretful for bringing you into this…"

"You don't need to be, I told you I would do it."

"But I should have known…"

"I feel horribly for lying to her like this. Each time she looks at me, each time she mentions her father… I don't know if I can handle it."

"You have to!" Bobbie grabbed his hands. "You promised me that you wouldn't tell her what was going on. You can't tell anyone. Just you and Maxie can know."

"Bobbie… what if she's telling the truth? What if Carly will never be able to forgive you for holding this from her? I don't want to see you lose your relationship with your daughter, I don't want her to lose you, and I don't want Michael and Morgan to lose you either… you mean too much to all of us."

Bobbie closed her eyes, she knew what was at risk. "I have to take these chances. If I don't then it could be worse than anything that could possibly happen if I told her."