Night, Corinthos Household-

It was all going to change when he woke up in the morning. Everything that he knew would be different. He wouldn't wake up and just be Damian, he would be a person who people went to for answers, for help. He'd spent the better part of a decade preparing himself for the moments that were to come, but, as always, Damian second guessed himself. He wasn't confident enough in his own abilities, even if everyone else was. But he knew that he had to give it a try. Everything that he needed to know was somewhere in his brain, he just hoped that he could get it out in time.

In the meantime, he was going to make the best of his final moments in the house as a normal person. Damian sat there on the bench in front of the keys, the cover protecting them from dust and getting hit by anything, his elbow propped up against the cover, using it to support himself. His mother's picture was inches away. So much of her essence was captured in that picture. It was one of the last pictures that she took before things started to slip, before her health went down. At the end she was little more than an animated corpse. Everything that made her so vibrant was gone. Looking at that picture, Damian couldn't help but think about how it all ended. A horrible moment in his life, quite possibly his defining moment.

Sonny watched Damian from the hallway. If his son was conscious of his presence, Damian hadn't yet shown it. Sonny knew what was going to happen. He might not have been the most educated person on the planet, but he knew what happened to people when they became interns. A part of Sonny worried that he would be a target. People who wanted to hurt Sonny through his son wouldn't take any sort of thought into killing innocent people in the hospital.

"I thought I had developed some sort of immunity to your penance stare… but I guess I didn't."

"What are you talking about?"

"That thing you do," he looked at his father. "Where you just stand there and look, trying to break people down, make them confess to you anything that they did that was wrong. You're good at that… you even get to me. I have, however, managed to gain some immunity towards your dimples, but I guess I can just chalk that one up to not being one of your many lovers."

"Is there a point to this?"

"I don't know, dad. Is there a point to anything?"

"What brought this along?"

"Your stare, like I said. You wonder why people think that you're scary, dad… you are. Even I wonder what you're going to do sometimes. I can't always feel safe around my own father."

"Are you threatened by me?"

"Not threatened, no… intimidated. Everyone is… at least people who don't know you that well."

"You don't know me that well?"

"No, I don't." Damian pulled the cover off the keys, "But I'm all right with that… at least as much as I can be. Dad, you're a complex person, I could be your son for another sixty years and I would still be wondering what went on in your head."

"I don't want to be a stranger to you."

"You're not. I might not know everything about Sonny Corinthos, but I know what I need to know. I know that he cares about people, that he's willing to do anything to protect the people that he loves, and that he'll always be there for them when they need him, no matter what. Most people don't even have that many good qualities about them, and they don't have to worry about the stigma that you do."

"Did you think it would come down to this?" Sonny walked in front of the piano. "When you came here… is this how you envisioned it all?"

"No…" his eyes turned up to Sonny, "it's better than I could have ever thought."

"So now where do we go?"

"I wish I knew. But nobody knows what's going to happen tomorrow, do they?"

"You're afraid, aren't you?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"To the people who know you best, yes. And I'm lucky to be one of those people."

"You think you know me well?"

"You don't?"

Damian started to play a light song, focusing on the keys, but talking to his father at the same time. He was good at multitasking. "I don't think that anyone can know me that well, dad… because I don't even know myself that well anymore. Things were easier when she was here. I knew who I was, what I was… after she died I had to start all over, and I'm still not done finding myself."

"Why do you do this? All the second guessing that you place yourself under. Does it make you feel better about yourself?" Sonny loved his child dearly, but his self-pity act was one that Damian didn't need to go through, ever. He should have known who he was.

"There are times when I just want to jump out of my skin, dad… take a look at this person that I am, try to be objective about him. Then I might be able to find what motivates him… what makes him tick, but I can't do that."

"You're motivated by your strong sense of morality," Sonny finally took a seat next to Damian on the bench, not touching any of the keys. "I knew that right after I met you… when you left because of what happened between us."

"I found a way to accept everything that happened. I don't know how I did it, but I did. If you would have asked me a year ago that I would be here, with you, accepting what you did, I would have told you that you were insane."

"You're growing as a person."

"Or maybe I'm just giving up on my ideals. Maybe this was just the first step in making me emotionally numb."

"I think you're the strongest person that I've ever met."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really, and I'm sure that plenty of other people would agree with me. You went through so many traumatic things growing up, Damian. You grew up without a father, in a place like Los Angeles were everything could have gone wrong, where you could have become a thug just like so many other people. You lost your mother when you were still a teenager, making you basically an orphan because I wasn't there for you at the time, but you kept on following the path that you thought was right. You didn't give up when Ana died, you didn't take another road… you used your pain to make something of yourself. That's something that I could have never done."

"Grandpa said that if I failed it would be all right."

"You could never fail, not in my eyes."

"But what if I can't make it work? What if I can't be a doctor?"

"Well what about being a nurse? They don't do as much as doctors do, and they're still very important to saving people's lives. They don't make as much money, but you'll never have to worry about money anyway."

"I think if I fail at this I'll just give up medicine altogether. And then I'll have wasted almost a decade of my life."

"You wouldn't have wasted it, because everything that you learned you can still use, even if you're not a doctor. Were you a doctor when you pulled that bullet out of Jason's knee? Were you a doctor when you saved that man who was having a seizure at Kelly's? Just because you don't have some piece of paper that proves you went to medical school and completed everything doesn't mean that you can't help people."

"Can I ask you for a favor…"

"You know you can."

"Be my father."

Sonny didn't understand the question. "What?"

The keys stopped being played as Damian focused on the man that was next to him. "Be my father, dad… order me to do something, tell me what you want me to do."

"I don't think I can…"

"Please…"

"Why do you want me to do this?"

"Because I can feel like I'm doing something for you if you tell me that you want me to do it. I can work harder to make you proud of me… but that's only if you expect me to do something great with my life."

"You're doing something great already."

"Dad… please."

Sonny could see the vulnerability in Damian's eyes. He was a fine young man, but there was always going to be a part of him that was just a little boy. The part of him that needed daddy to tell him what to do. Sonny never thought that he would really get the chance to do something like that with Damian, but now that he was being asked to actually be a father as opposed to just being someone who was his father, Sonny knew what he needed to do. "I want you to go to that hospital tomorrow and I want you to do the best that you can."

"Thanks…"

"Anytime," Sonny reached over and hugged the boy. "You know what else I want you to do?"

"What?"

Sonny grabbed the book of sheet music and turned to a page that he had seen while he was alone. Sonny had no dreams of learning how to play the piano, but he had dreams of hearing songs being played. "I want you to play this for me."

"Danny's song?"

"Your grandmother used to love this song… sometimes she would sing it to me while I was trying to sleep. She still did it, right up to the time that I had to leave. It helped me when I thought that everything was crumbling around me, but she'll never sing it to me again."

"All right…" Damian knew what an important person Adella was to Sonny. He could see parts of Mike in his father, but he knew that there were parts of his grandmother, who he had never met, that also made Sonny who he was. Without her, Sonny wouldn't have had his faith, and at times that was the only thing that could get him through the day. Sometimes it was all that they had.

Outskirts of Port Charles-

John Durant drove into the Port Charles city limits, looking at the sign that showed he was entering the down. "Say goodbye to the life that you used to know, Sonny, because it will all be over by the time I get done with this town." A sadistic smile on his face, John Durant drove into the town, unaware of just how much of an impact the town would have on him, and he on the town.

Fin

End Note: Well, that's it for the story. Yes, I know, I ended on a cliffhanger, a big cliffhanger and now you all have to wait a whole summer and maybe a little more for the story to start up again. Well, sorry, but that's just how it goes. I know I had more plans for this story that I couldn't get into because of time constraints, but that's why I'm doing another sequel, to do what I couldn't do here. It will certainly be paced faster than this one was… and will have more drama to it. So much more drama. The things that I hinted to in this story, such as Brook's crush on Damian, John's attempts at destroying Sonny and Jason, and a whole lot of other things will all be covered. But, if there's things that you might want to see, go ahead and say them. I can't and won't guarantee that they'll be there, but if they fit with what I'm doing I intend on it. A few things that WILL NOT happen… Kristina won't be revealed to be Sonny's daughter, and it is highly doubtful that Sonny will realize Carly's part in Damian's hospitalization. The last one is a maybe, the first one is a sure as hell not going to happen.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed.

Until next time,

Set