Corinthos Household-

Another sandwich was made. This time by Damian himself. It wasn't going to be nearly as hazardous as the sandwich that he had bought at the hospital. Sonny Corinthos only used the finest meat, like Black Forest ham, glazed over in honey. Sonny could some wonderful things with honey. If there was one aspect of Sonny's persona that Damian wished he could emulate, aside from Sonny's intense love for his family and everyone he held dear, it was Sonny's ability to cook. But Damian knew better than to even hope to try. He'd attempted to make food before. It usually went quite badly. He was more competent it at than Carly, but so were most monkeys. That wasn't an insult to Carly as a person, merely an insult to her ability to cook, which was well worth insulting. Carly herself would not deny that her culinary skills were completely lacking in just about every possible way.

The sandwich was placed on the plate as he grabbed a soda from the large refrigerator. It was important that he got something in his stomach before he started studying. Brain food was what helped him get the grades that he got. That and a severe desire to never fail, to never have to worry about being considered a failure. Damian knew that it was all too easy for him to fail, and he did everything that he could to make sure that it never happened.

The doctor in training was ready to go into his room and relax while he ate for a few minutes before he began to study when he saw her standing there on the stairs. Carly was looking at him. Before it would have made him incredibly uncomfortable to be glared at by his step-mother, but now the discomfort was only marginal. They had patched things up as much as they could, but nobody would deny that there would always be something that was unspoken between them. A lot of it had to do with her involvement with Lorenzo, with the accident. Damian didn't blame her, not completely, but he was still hurt that she was so desperate to get rid of him that she did something like that, something that went so terribly wrong. Carly may not have wanted him dead, but she set the plan into motion.

Carly was never sure how to approach Damian. She cared about him, in her own way she could probably even say to people, so long as he wasn't around, that she loved him like she loved a close friend. Damian wasn't a close friend though, but Carly still felt a connection with him, like, if she needed him for something, anything, he would be right there for her the moment she asked.

"Hi, Carly," Damian finally said, leaving the snack on the nearby table before walking closer to her.

"You're off shift?"

He nodded, "Your seventy-two hour vacation from me has ended for a little while… sorry, those are the rules."

"Don't say it like that," she replied, turning away. "You make it seem like I don't want you here, Damian, and I do. I do now, at least."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"That's what it was," she smiled lightly. "Sonny's not here right now. I don't know where he is, he didn't tell me."

"I'm sure he'll come back, Carly, he always does."

Carly didn't let it show, but it was a fear of hers that the statement that Damian had made wouldn't be true. That, eventually, Sonny wouldn't be coming home. She knew that it was a possibility, that she would have to explain to Michael that his father was dead, and, if it happened in a few years, which she hoped it did, she would have to do the same thing with Morgan. Rather than dwell on the negative thoughts that were swirling in her mind, Carly attempted to focus on something positive, "You know, I have so much respect for you and for what you're doing. I tried to be a nurse once, it ended badly."

"I'm sure that if you gave it everything that you had you would have done it, Carly," Damian said genuinely. "If there's one thing that I've always known about you, it's that you're stubborn, you don't give up, ever. The reason that you failed at being a nurse was because, in the end, it wasn't something that you wanted badly enough. I do want this badly enough, though. At least, I think I do."

"What makes you doubt yourself?"

He shrugged his shoulders, "I'm always second guessing myself, you know that. I'm my own worst enemy, one of the many things that I got from dad was the way that I beat myself up needlessly. I try and tell dad about it, try and get him to stop, and yet I do the exact same thing. Hypocritical of me, I know, but there isn't much that I can do about it. We are who we are… nothing can change that."

"You don't think that I've changed?"

"I think that you've allowed yourself to be more open with me, with yourself, and with the people around us. I don't think that you've changed so much as you've shown a different side of yourself that was always there, but that you just chose not to show."

"Damian!"

The adult conversation that step-mother and step-son were having was completely interrupted by the sound of the child running down the stairs. Michael, energetic as always, was ecstatic to see his older brother. Damian, likewise, was thrilled to see Michael. The boy brought so much to his life, him and Morgan. He'd even managed to get rid of his phobia of holding his infant brother… somewhat. "Hey, kid." Damian looked down to see the boy latched onto his leg. Michael liked to do that.

"Did you miss me?"

He lowered himself to the ground, "What are you talking about? Of course I missed you. What kind of big brother wouldn't miss someone so cool as you? Whenever I was bored I wished that I was back home so that I could spend some time with you, watch you play with your trucks or your new video game…"

"I can still beat you, you know."

"I'm getting better!" He defended his honor in the realm of video games. Not that there was much honor to defend. Damian was never big on the video games, even in the days when the Nintendo was all the rage. Sure, he requested one, even got it for a birthday, but after he got it the thing fell into misuse. It was fun to have for a little while, but he lost interest. He'd still progressed a long way from the boy who played Mario Brothers and died when he hit the first goomba.

"Not good enough…"

"You know what, I'm going to make sure that you take those words back," he scooped the boy up in his arms, "come on, we're going to go play any game that you want and I'm going to get at least half the points you get!"

"No you're not!"

"Good luck!" Carly called out to Damian as she watched them turn around the corner. He would need it. Michael was so good at those games that it scared Carly, not because he was so good, but because it probably meant that he spent more time playing them than he should have. Michael's grades didn't suffer, he was still near the top of his class, but Michael didn't do much in the way of socializing with people. Damian would take him out, or she and Sonny, or Jason and Courtney, or Max, or anyone else in the family, but Michael didn't really spend much time with people his own age. At times that scared her. Was she denying her child the chance at being truly happy?

Scorpio Household-

Mac walked in from his day at the office, the encounter with John Durant still ringing in his mind. He wouldn't be able to forget it any time soon, Durant had played him like a fiddle, and Mac wasn't even aware of it until it was too late. But the damage had been done, Mac was questioning Damian's intent, and the exact happenings that went down when his daughter and Damian went to New York City. He yelled out her name, "Maxie?"

Georgie and Maxie were upstairs in her room, spending time together. Now that they both had boyfriends, ones who just happened to be best friends, they had connected on levels that they never thought possible. They were already intensely close, but when Maxie got together with Damian and when he forged that strong bond with Dillon it was like another part of their own relationship had been created. They stopped talking about any plans that they were plotting for something that would be akin to a double date when they heard their father calling to them. Maxie called out to Mac as she got up from her bed and headed towards the door, "Coming!"

Maxie loved Mac, even though Mac wasn't their blood father that didn't matter. Mac was a better dad than Frisco, he was a better parent than Felicia. He was the best thing that had ever happened to them before they fell in love with their boyfriends, but everything wasn't all nice and happy… Mac could be more than a handful. Overly protective, harsh and judgmental. True, he was just being a dad, but he was being a dad who moonlighted as a tyrant. Neither Maxie nor Georgie appreciated that much. She made her way down the stairs, followed closely by her little sister. It was easy to see by the look on Mac's face that he was upset about something. Maxie couldn't think about anything that she had done that would merit such a stern face, it scared her in a way. 19 years old or not, Maxie was still incredibly afraid of Mac. Not that he would hurt her physically, but when it came to his punishments. She did still live under his roof.

"You and I need to have a talk, young lady…"

"Dad… what happened? Why are you so upset?"

"Because you lied to me, Maxie! You know how much I hate it when you lie to me. Each time I think that I can trust you again you do something that makes me wonder if I'll ever be able to really trust you!"

"What happened? Just tell me! The only way I'm going to know is if you actually tell me what I did wrong." She was still drawing a blank.

"You went to New York with him…"

"I told you that. I called you all the time like you wanted, I even made sure that you knew that we were getting a hotel room. Why do you think that I lied to you about that?"

"Because you didn't tell me what really happened when you were in New York, Maxie. You neglected to inform me of the fact that you and John Durant had a visit…"

"How…"

"Yeah, see? You lied to me about that… and now you can't cover it up. I can't believe I let you do that. I should have known that it would be for something stupid, instead of just a date, like you said it was."

"Dad, you're not being fair…"

"Stay out of this, Georgie," Mac said harshly to his other daughter, making her take a step back.

"Don't talk to her like that!" Maxie grumbled at her father. "Just because you're mad at me doesn't mean that you have any right to take it out on Georgie. You're always doing that, dad, making it seem like we're two sides of the same person. We're different, Georgie's who she is and I'm who I am, we make our own mistakes, different mistakes. I make a lot more than she does."

"You're telling me that she didn't know about you meeting with John Durant?"

"I'm telling you exactly that, because she didn't." The reason they went to see John Durant was because of Carly, and Damian had made Maxie promise not to tell a single person about the reasons. "I don't see why you're so upset. We ran into John Durant. I know New York is a big place, but he was there, the odds that we would have seen him were also there…"

"Damian's working for his father."

"What are you talking about? That's insane!" Maxie couldn't believe that Mac would do something so mean as make it seem like Damian was working for Sonny, and he called her the liar. "Damian hates what his father does… just like I hate what you do…"

"I protect people, Sonny doesn't…"

"I mean when you act like this, when you try and find a way to make sure that I can't see the person that I love, or that Georgie can't see Dillon again… I suppose that this whole ordeal is going to put both of them on suspension from seeing either of us… for the millionth time."

"Keep talking to me like that and I'll make sure that something like that does happen…"

"Maxie, knock it off!" Georgie ordered, pulling at her sister, "I don't want to lose Dillon again, just drop it. Give dad some time to cool down and then we'll talk about it again… please, Maxie, don't screw this up."

"I'm watching him…"

"You're always watching him," Georgie's advice, while sound, would not be followed, not while her father was consumed with the desire to destroy her boyfriend. "So what else is new…" she shook her head and threw her arms up in the air, "You know what, when you get like this I can't even talk to you… I'm going back to my room, call me when you calm down!"

Mac watched as her daughter predictably stormed up the stairs, hearing the door slam. Maxie never appreciated exactly what Mac did for her. He protected her as much as he could, why couldn't she understand that?