Samsonlove- In some very, very indirect way, Ned caused the accident, because it was his words that caused Lois to become so irrational and crash her car. He is not directly responsible, nor should he really shoulder the blame, but, in some way, it is kind of his fault. As for Maxie… yes, she's acting a little stupid, but that's the point. Most people would think about that, and, especially since she doesn't know that Lois is in the hospital, she wouldn't think about it any other way. As for the mob territory stuff, I'm making it all up, going by what I've seen on the show and hoping that it is accurate. If it isn't, well, then that would be bad.

Story

Quartermaine Mansion, Interior-

Ned finally walked into the house, wondering if Lois had returned from her little outburst, or even if she would return. It wouldn't have been surprising to Ned if Lois decided that she didn't want to have anything to do with the Quartermaine house. He just hoped that it didn't mean that she would take Brook back. Could Ned let that happen? Could he even fight for his daughter? He didn't know. After all, they hadn't talked about the legality of the situation. Ned was just happy to have his princess there by his side when he needed her. But where was she? "Brook?"

"Darling," Tracy walked in, carrying a nice cup of some liquor in her hand, "you should know better than to call out for your daughter like some uncivilized brute."

"Mother, I don't have time for you…"

"Now, now, Ned, can you really say that to me? Your mother? The woman who carried you inside of her stomach for almost a year?"

"The woman who threw me aside the minute I became inconvenient to you and your desires for sexual conquests and control of ELQ?" He really didn't want to deal with his mother, and, if he was able to push her away, he would do it. Ned hadn't forgotten everything that Lois had told her. Did he really rely on his mother too much? Did he let her shape him in ways that he thought he didn't? It was certainly a possibility. "I just want to speak with my daughter, is that so much to ask?"

"She's not here…"

"Where is she?"

"Hopefully at the mall getting some clothes that don't make her look like a rag doll…"

"You know, some people tend to be rather supportive of their grandchildren. Lila never once insulted any of us for the choices that we made, even when you did. She never mocked Dillon for doing what he did, for being who he was… don't you think you can be half the mother, half the grandmother, that your own mother was?"

"Nobody can be like my mother, Ned," Tracy said, obviously hurt that she was once more compared to her own mother, a comparison that should have honored her, and on some levels it did, but at the same time the comparison made it all too obvious that Tracy could never be another Lila Quartermaine. The closest person who could was Emily, and Tracy hated admitting that, because Emily wasn't even a true Quartermaine. She was some little castoff that was adopted, but no, she had Lila's heart and soul, two things that people tended to think Tracy didn't even have at all. "And I can't help it if I actually have standards…"

"If you can call what you have standards." Ned ignored his mother at last, and screamed against, to get someone's attention and also just to piss Tracy off. "Alice!"

If there was one person that Tracy wished she could get rid of, it was Alice, their maid. Every day she wore the same outfit, adorned with the gift that Lila had given Alice in the will, her beautiful brooch that Tracy had also always wanted. It was on her person the moment she walked inside. "Ignore my son, oaf, I can handle this."

Alice paid Tracy little attention, not popping her head like a grape only out of respect for Lila and for Edward. Dillon and Ned would probably thank her, especially Dillon. Alice missed the teenager and his quirks, the way that he wouldn't mind if she borrowed a movie or two here and there. Dillon actually treated her like an equal, even though she clearly wasn't. "Ned, what is it?"

"Have you seen my daughter?"

"She came home from school a few hours ago, and then she ran off again. I don't know where she went. Have you tried her cell phone?"

Ned shook his head, "My phone died, I was on the phone for too long with one of the business partners who couldn't make it to the meeting earlier today. Every time I tried to use it, I ended up having it die on me." Ned pulled his phone out and turned it on, hoping for more success, or just to prove his point. Then, he noticed all the missed calls that he had. "What in the world?" He looked as quickly as he could, and saw one name over and over again: Dillon.

"What's wrong?" Tracy asked.

"Dillon called my phone almost a dozen times in the span of half an hour…" Ned placed the phone down and walked into the living room, picking up the house phone.

"Why would Dillon only call you?" Tracy wondered. "I'm his mother, if he has something that he needs to talk about why wouldn't he try and talk about it with me?"

"Maybe because you're his mother, and you don't ever listen to him. I'm sure the fact that you tend to make him feel like he's barely worthy of breathing the same air as you has something to do with the reason that he doesn't trust you as much as he would trust a complete stranger on the street," Alice didn't mind giving a less than casual rib towards Tracy when the opportunity arose. In fact, she relished in the occasion. Tracy only gave her a dirty look, and Alice could only smile.

"Would you both stop squabbling, please?" Ned asked as he finished dialing Dillon's cell phone number. "Something could be wrong…"

Dillon heard his phone ring and he picked it up. The number flashed on the screen before he answered it, and he hesitated, if only for a moment. It wasn't Ned's cell, it was the main house, which meant that it could have been his mother. But… even then… she deserved to know. Hoping that it wasn't her, Dillon answered, "Hello?"

"Sorry I missed all your calls…"

"What the hell happened?"

Ned was taken back by Dillon's approach, it was rare that he even seemed to lose his temper. He'd rarely seen his little brother angry. "My phone was dead, Dillon, I couldn't pick it up even if I wanted. Why did you call so much, is everything all right?"

"Lois was in a car accident, Ned."

Ned stopped breathing for a second, and almost dropped the phone, but he kept himself aloft with all the strength that he could muster. Finally, he found his voice again, "Is she…" he couldn't finish the sentence.

"I don't know, nobody does. Sonny's here waiting for any information."

"Why would Sonny be there?"

"Because he cares about Lois, Ned," Dillon defended Sonny and his ties to Lois, "because Lois is his best friend, and maybe because Sonny isn't the one who caused Lois to get into the car accident, that honor belongs entirely to you."

"What are you talking about?"

"Sonny told me about the dinner that you and Lois had, Ned. He told me that you got her so upset that she left without even a word, and that was what made her so irrational that she ended up driving her car into a ditch. How does that make you feel?"

"Does Brook know?"

"Yes, Brook knows, she's here. The people that are apparently important to Lois are here waiting to hear about her. But you're at the house. Did you even think about what you said, and how she reacted to it? Did you even care?"

"Listen to me, Dillon, do not even attempt to understand what I'm feeling right now. I'm coming to the hospital, if you want to get pissed off at me while I'm there then I suggest that you stay away from me, because I can't guarantee that I won't knock you out. Don't ever say something like that to me again…" Ned hung up the phone in anger. But it wasn't so much anger at Dillon, it was anger at himself. He did realize now what he had caused, what had happened to Lois, and how it ended up being partly because of him.

"Is Dillon all right?" Tracy inquired, feeling her own pangs of doubt and worry. She loved her youngest son, she truly did. She just had a hard time showing it.

"Yes, mother, he's fine. I need to go," unable and unwilling to answer any more of her questions, Ned walked out of the room and out the door, slamming it as hard as he could.

General Hospital-

Sonny paced around the hospital, looking for someone, anyone who could help him. Most of the people were afraid of him, afraid of what he could do to them if they didn't give him the answers that he wanted. Sonny had been through such motions before, when his son was in the hospital. He hated hospitals. The chances of losing people that he cared about were so high, and he couldn't deal with losing someone as important to him as Lois.

"Looking to see if your latest conquest went through?" John asked, seeing Sonny from behind. He could make out Sonny's figure in a crowd of millions. John targeted Sonny for the prestige of being the one man who could take him out.

Sonny turned around. He'd heard John Durant's voice before, but only on the television. It sounded the same, but he just needed to make sure. When he saw the man he thought it would be a lot worse on him, but Sonny had more important things to deal with than John. "I was wondering when you would show up."

"And I bet you were praying to any sort of God that you may believe in that it never came," John walked over to Sonny, standing tall over him, "sorry to disappoint you."

"My best friend is in the hospital right now, you sick bastard, why don't you save your petty little feud against me for a time when we're in a less populated area?"

"Because then you might be able to get away with killing me the same way that you've gotten away with killing so many other people…"

"None of those have been proven."

"I may uphold the law, Corinthos, but I'm fully aware of the fact that it isn't perfect. I know just how many times you've managed to skate away from something that would have taken just about anyone else down."

"I tend to only pay attention to people who aren't a complete waste of my time, so, I'm going to save myself your babble and just get on with my life…"

John snickered, "Why can't you just admit that you're afraid of what I could do to you, Sonny? Why can't you admit that you've met your match in me, someone who you can't hope to bribe or scare off? I've fought people who are way better at this game than you are, and guess what, I always win."

"Careful now, someone might come in and break that ego bubble of yours. We're on the fourth floor, I would hate to see the three floors below us end up getting flooded out because of something that big being burst."

"I've been watching you, Sonny. I've been in Port Charles for weeks, and how long has it been since you actually noticed that I was here? Since your little mobster son ended up telling me? Or maybe it was when your half-brother came to you with information, looking for some sort of handout in a vain attempt to get the love that you've always denied him."

"Leave my family out of this!"

"I can't do that, Sonny," John said, "because your family means so much to you, but you only value them as possessions, you don't care about them as anything more than that. They help keep you afloat, they tell you the things that you want to hear, they make you seem like you're not some cold hearted monster when you really are. If they stood up to you, even for a second, if they forced you to see yourself for what you really are what do you think would happen? Do you think you would just be all right with them saying those things to you? Don't be stupid, I know that you would just toss them aside like they were nothing…"

"You don't know a damned thing about me…"

"That's where you're wrong, Corinthos. I know everything about you, and your family. I know that you're using your influence to get by in life, I know that your family depends on you for everything. You've got an adult son who doesn't even know how to live by himself because he knows that he can just go straight to daddy and daddy will take care of everything."

"If you truly think that Damian isn't capable of getting by in life without me, then you're a bigger idiot than I thought."

"Keep on telling yourself that when I put all the people around you in jail for everything that they've done for you. Your precious children will be behind bars, or placed so far away from you that you'll never see them again."

"Don't come after the people that I care about, Durant." Sonny warned him, not a threat, merely a warning, for now. "Because, if you do… who knows what will happen. I'm never going to let you or anyone else use my family as a weapon against me, regardless of what I do."

"This is just the pre-game, Sonny," John turned around and began to walk away, "kickoff hasn't even started yet." He had made contact with the enemy, and the enemy was just as he expected, easy enough to get under the skin of. John didn't expect the job to have any sort of difficulty. And, while he was in the hospital, he decided to drop in on someone else… see just how much of a name she claimed to make for herself.