Journeylove- Yes, I enjoyed throwing that wrench in the finely oiled machine, it was something that I knew I was going to do when I started the story, and it will become one of the more impacting plotlines by the end of this story, believe me the things that will happen because of that will change status quos for a lot of characters. Damian is almost assuredly going to find out about the delayed consequences of his actions, although it hasn't been written yet, so I can't say when it will happen. Durant is supposed to be an ass, and that is what makes his character so great. He's not a sympathetic villain, like GH tends to do, he's not like Lorenzo who can 'reform' or at least be seen in a somewhat positive light.

Story-

Port Charles High-

Dillon knew what hell was, he went to it nearly every single weekday of the past four years. Eventually, though, it would be over, and he could celebrate. By the time it was over, if things went the way that he wanted them to, he would be a director, doing indy films that would eventually build up his credibility until he was finally able to strike it out on his own and do a motion picture with people in it who were actually well known. If all went well, and he knew it would, the razzie's would be far away from his movie, and only the Oscars would embrace it, and maybe the Golden Globes, but they had been sullied ever since Madonna won one for her role in Evita. Nonetheless, he had to get a start somewhere.

The teenager with the unique hairstyle opened up his locker, his heart heavy with the burden of teenage angst. A horrid thing, one that he wanted to be rid of eventually. Dillon smiled as he saw the things that were in his locker: the things that he enjoyed. Pictures of himself and Georgie at various parts of their relationship. They had both grown so much during the time they spent. While they looked marginally like the same people that they were in the pictures, Dillon knew that they were both different people internally, they had both changed, they had both matured. Georgie was already more mature than she should have been, but there was a lot of things that she was still a child at when Dillon arrived. She still thought that she would never become anything more than the smart girl who people came to for tutoring and never for a date, or even just to talk. Another thing that Dillon saw was also important, but in a different way: his video camera. The present that Jason and Courtney had given him for Christmas. He'd spent hours with the device, mastering the many settings that it had, and he had made a few movies. Nothing too extravagant, and mostly they were just documentaries, because, as Dillon had sadly found out, his friends weren't exactly the best actors in the world. Competent… maybe… but hardly the stuff that he desired to have be in his first actual written and directed piece. Dillon had even taken the camera to the mansion during one of his sporadic visits, unbeknownst to the others. He hid it in an area where he knew they wouldn't look, with Alice's help, under the assumption that Alice would get a copy of whatever the end result was. What followed was… quite simply… the Quartermaine's being who they were. Proving why they put the 'fun' in dysfunction. Without even realizing it, Dillon got into the same state of mind that his family was in, and only when he went to edit it did he realize just how he sounded. Not the way that he thought he did. There were two sides to Dillon, if not more… and one of them was the side that he showed his family. That was why he needed to get out of the Quartermaine house, that was why he was so thankful for the help that his new family had given him, because they didn't expect him to be anything or anyone that he wasn't. That was why Jason had left, and why Jason had embraced Dillon, or at least did whatever it was that counted for embracing by Jason's standards, probably something akin to not throwing the boy out on the streets with nothing more than his clothes and a bottle of hairspray.

"What are you doing?" Georgie asked, sneaking up on her boyfriend before she wrapped her hands around his neck and hung over his back, giving him the slightest peck on the cheek. She knew where to find Dillon. A small school, and Dillon did stand out in the crowd. He always had, even when she didn't know that she cared about him, when she thought the person that she cared for was someone else entirely.

"Just marking away another day that I've spent in this eternal pit of hell," Dillon replied bluntly, pulling back no punches. He hated high school. If it wasn't for Georgie, if it wasn't because there was a time when it was essentially the only time that he had where he could be with his girlfriend and have something that was akin to privacy, Dillon would have taken his equivalency test the moment that he was able and he would have been far away from the school. But, what kind of boyfriend would he be if he let the poor girl that was the love of his life rot away in such a horrible oppressive prison? Not a very good one.

"I thought I got rid of that calendar…"

"Who said it was a calendar?" Dillon asked with a smirk, "I have it stored in my head… unless you managed to do something to my memory and erase it."

"I would never do something like that, even if I had the chance," Georgie pulled away from him and looked at one of the pictures. It was taken shortly before Damian arrived, before everything changed. "After all, there could be a chance that you would forget me… and that I'd lose you."

"I would never forget you."

"I'm sure Jason felt the same thing about all the people that he forgot after the accident," Georgie lowered her eyes. She didn't particularly care for Jason. Not because she didn't think that he was a nice person, but because he always looked at her with eyes that were nothing but probing, like he was trying to figure her out. He did the same thing to Maxie, but her big sister somehow managed to find a way to not let it get to her so much. Georgie had asked Maxie how to do it, and Maxie had given her only the vaguest piece of advice, telling her that she would have to figure it out by herself. It was at that moment in which Georgie swore to not help Maxie with her homework at college until Maxie gave up the goods. "But he did forget the people that he cared about, Dillon. He became a different person… in some ways better, but not in all of them. I wouldn't want you to do that… I wouldn't be able to deal with something happening to you."

"Jason's different, Georgie. He was in an accident, one that wasn't his fault." Dillon wasn't around during the fabled accident, being away with his mother journeying around Europe. Maybe that was why it was so easy for him to accept Jason for who he was, because Dillon had no memories about Jason Quartermaine, the great hope of the Quartermaine family, the boy who was going to become a doctor, just like his parents. For Dillon, Jason was, and always had been, Jason Morgan. "And you don't need to worry about something happening to me, I'm going to be fine."

Georgie nodded as she rested her body against his shoulder. She truly wished that she could believe him, but she knew that she couldn't. Dillon wasn't the same person that he was a year before, he was in a situation that was so much more dangerous than before. He was a Quartermaine, which meant that he was already a target, but now he was with Jason and Sonny, which made him even more open to something happening. Georgie knew that she was thinking about the worst possible outcomes, but she couldn't help it. Seeing him with Jason, seeing the way that Dillon looked up to Jason, because he did, it scared her.

"Hey… what's up?" Brook approached her uncle and his girlfriend. There were people who knew that Dillon was, in actuality, her uncle, and those that did wasted no time exploiting the odd fact of life. Brook just let it wash over her after awhile. After all, there was no point in getting upset over something that didn't matter. And nearly everyone around her in the school didn't matter. They were all just a bunch of mindless puppets listening to their prepackaged pop stars with no voice and no soul. Brook couldn't respect that.

"Georgie's trying to tell me that if I ever get into an accident because my drunk half brother is on a bender and it makes me forget who I am, she'll kill me." Dillon, trying to lighten the mood, found himself on the receiving end of Georgie's cautionary look. He backed away, "What, it's true."

Brook snickered, "I don't think you have to worry about that, Georgie. My dad doesn't really do much drinking. Sometimes he does, but he never had a problem with it… not like AJ did." Brook had been fully informed of that little piece of family history as well. It seemed like most of the time she spent in the mansion was basically just one big history lesson, which may have been one of the reasons why she tried to avoid the house as much as possible. That, and the fact that her family was there.

"Well," Dillon began, "how shall the trio of social outcasts spend their lunch period today? Wandering around the halls without any sort of goal? Taking a table at the cafeteria and watching as people look at us, thinking that we don't know that they're looking… or shall we just stay here and pray that the day ends soon, that way we can get away from this horrid place for a few blissful hours?"

"Must you be so overly dramatic?" Brook asked.

"This is high school, Brook, what were you expecting from me?"

Unable to argue with her uncle, because he had a completely valid point, Brook looked for something to keep them entertained. It was like that all the time. Yeah, they had people who they considered their actual friends, but, on the whole, the three of them were alone, hanging together because they needed one another to survive. Before, it was just Georgie and Dillon, and now Brook was around. Sometimes she felt like she was the third wheel, something that did not sit well with her, but she knew that Dillon and Georgie did care about her, and that was why she stuck around.

Eventually, something caught her attention. A flier, the letters in some print that managed to shine under the light of the hallway. Brook walked over and grabbed it, reading it as she made her way back to the couple. "Hey, what's this?"

Dillon grabbed the flier and looked, Georgie peering at it by his side. One word for Dillon stuck out like a sore thumb: formal. He made a low moan and attempted to pull the flier away before Georgie managed to get a good look at it, but she swiped it out of his hand before he could. Lowering his head, Dillon mumbled, "And we're off…"

Georgie smiled, huge and bright, "Brook, this is the announcement for the winter formal. I wasn't even thinking about it…"

"Which meant that the wish that I made on Christmas actually came true… at least for a little while," Dillon took a few steps back, knowing full well that nearly anything he said was not going to be heard by Georgie unless she wanted to hear it.

"Dillon…"

He turned his head up, dreading what was to come, "Yes, Georgie?"

"Aren't you going to ask me something?"

"Did we have homework in our Modern History class?" It was the only class that did not have an advanced section, thus being the only class that Dillon could take with Georgie. It was his least favorite class, and the fact that they were separated on opposite sides of the room only made it worse.

Georgie, like a woman possessed with visions of dancing around with a tuxedo clad boyfriend, strutted over. "I think you have something else to ask me. Something that involves this flier…"

Groaning, Dillon knew that he was trapped, and that it was better for him to get it over with. "Georgie, would you like to be my date for our last winter formal of our high school career?"

Georgie kissed him on the lips before she pulled away and hugged him tightly, "I would love to."

Brook could only watch the two of them and laugh, but her laughter was not entirely genuine. Indeed, there was a small part of Brook Lynn Ashton that was jealous of the two of them, and what they had. Brook also had visions of someone that she cared for dancing around with her while she was in a nice gown and he was in a beautiful suit… but the person wasn't anyone that she could hope to get, or was that really true?

Port Charles University-

Port Charles may have been a small place, but it had a very commendable university, with good programs in many fields, least of all being the medical field. Many aspiring doctors flocked to the halls of PCU looking to find a future in medicine, and there were plenty who didn't find one, plenty who ended up finding nothing more than a cold glimpse of failure at the end of their road. Damian hoped that he wasn't one of those people. He'd managed to survive his first semester, and pulled decent marks, but he noticed that there were people who he thought were going to make it who ended up giving up, and there were others who remained, despite the struggle. He respected those people, even felt like he was among their number in some small way.

One good thing about going to school in a place like Port Charles as opposed to going to school in Los Angeles was that he didn't need any means of transportation other than his two feet. Yes, on some days he would take one of the many vehicles that he had at his disposal, but, for the most part, Damian enjoyed walking to and from the campus, it gave him time to think about things, time to go over his notes in his head, or go over the classes that he had. If only all his thoughts were focused solely on academia. Life would be much easier.

Maxie appeared from behind him, knowing his class schedule almost completely, occasionally there was a small mix up, but she knew where he was at that point in time. She carried in her hands a nice cup of tea that she had gotten from Kelly's, completely unaware of the drama that had gone on inside of the restaurant only a few hours before. "I figure that the person who just took one of those big bad doctor tests should have something to calm his nerves."

Damian stopped, partly happy that he didn't have to worry about being alone, but at the same time partly upset that he couldn't have a few moments to himself. Still, if there was a distraction that he would welcome with open arms, Maxie was it. Any negative feelings that he had towards her impromptu meeting were erased from his face, "If you want to help me calm my nerves, you don't need to give me tea, a simple kiss would do."

"Just a simple one?" Maxie said coyly. Yes, she and Damian had yet to do something more than kiss… well, there was the shower, but he was so afraid and hurt that she would never have taken advantage of his state of mind. That would have made her no better than Kyle, and she was determined to be better than the man that had ruined a part of her life, taken away a lot of her innocence. "You wouldn't rather have a kiss that meant something a little more?"

"Why don't you surprise me?"

"Close your eyes."

Damian did as he was instructed, feeling her moist and warm lips press upon his, her arms wrapped around him, joined together, and any feelings that he may have had that questioned how much he cared about Maxie were erased. She made him happy, even when she did things that he didn't necessarily condone or want, he still loved her. That love wasn't going to go away.