Samsonlove- Yes, it is easy to assume that Bobbie was quite stunned when Carly came out of the blue to confront Durant, but that is exactly what I wanted, which is why I had the chapter break right there. Brook doesn't know that Ned truly caused the accident, and they want to keep it from her because, at least right now, she'd probably get pretty upset at her father. Understandably though it might be, Lois isn't the type of person who wants to relish in the fact that her daughter would hate Ned. All class, that Lois. Yes, Durant really is a one-sided character, but that's all right, because we love him the way that he is. Maxie got upset because of the way that he told her that nothing was happening, and then when she saw them together right after he said that there was nothing between them, hugging, the way that they were hugging, she thought the worst. Ned's a bastard, I really don't like Ned, but he's important to the story this time around, so he has to at least be focused a bit.

Corinthos Household, Morning-

He walked out of his room, throat parched and in dire need of something to drink. There was only a small amount of sunlight that managed to make its way through the balcony door on the top of the penthouse suites, but it was still bright enough for putting his hand in front of his eyes to be a necessity. Damian turned his head away and walked towards the kitchen, his vision no longer blurred a moment later. He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water. Since he had moved in there was a little bit more food that was in the fridge at all times, just in case he got a bad case of the munchies during one of his many study sessions. So far it hadn't happened, but it was nice to know that the family was taking the time to adjust to him being around them, much in the same way that he had to adjust being around them. Although they had been together for what seemed to be a lot longer, they were still barely wading through the shallow end of their relationships. Sonny and Damian had a connection with one another, and it was a strong connection but it could still get stronger, and they both wanted it to get stronger. While it was impossible for Sonny and Damian to have a connection with one another that was akin to the one that Sonny had with his other sons, it was not impossible for them to both wish for something that was like the bond that he shared with Michael and Morgan, yet tailored to the more age specific needs between father and son.

The boy hated being up as early as he was up, but, as much as he tried to get back to sleep, he found that he couldn't, that there was simply too much that was going on in his mind and that he really needed to find a way to get rid of the cottonmouth that had vexed him. Sadly, none of the doctor training that he had dealt with the ways to solve a problem so simple as cottonmouth, it was rather simple, find something to drink and it would help the problem go away. Cold bottle of water in hand, Damian slowly made his way back towards the room, breaking the seal that kept it connected to the cap as he walked and pulling the cap off.

He stopped from taking a drink when he looked over to his side as he walked through the hallway of the house. He didn't want to look that way, but he found himself unable to keep his gaze away from it. Damian turned his eyes towards the picture of his mother that was placed on the wall, right below the piano that Sonny had gotten him for Christmas. Damian didn't look at the picture every day, though that was not something that meant that his mother was not frequently on his mind. Far from it, aside from Maxie and his family and friends, Ana-Maria was often one of the last things that he thought about when he went to bed. Even when he was a teenager, she would still come in from time to time and gently press her hand to his forehead, and, even though he was passed the age where he was supposed to enjoy things like that, he did. Sometimes he dreamed of it, the same thing happening, her beautiful figure, no longer suffering through the pain that the cancer caused her, just coming in and looking at him, waking him up with her presence. She was radiant, both in her beauty and in her spirit, and, she would whisper the same thing each and every time, "I'm proud of you."

Given the situation that had happened barely twelve hours before, there was no wonder why Ana-Maria had found herself implanted into Damian's immediate memory. The things that he spoke to Brook Lynn about weren't things that he really liked to talk about. He had told Maxie and his father, and that was about it. Some of it was used to console Dillon when Lila had died, but he kept a lot of the feelings that pertained to his experiences dealing with his losing his mother to himself, until the night before. He knew that it would help Brook deal with the things that she was going through, and that was the only reason why he told her. He didn't want to see her so sad, he wanted to help her realize that, even if the worst did happen, it didn't mean that she was gone forever. Luckily for Brook, Lois made it out all right. It was a bittersweet moment. How many other people had gotten that lucky? How many other children had found their prayers being answered? And, more pressingly, why couldn't one of those children have been Damian himself?

"I miss you, mom," he whispered, trying to keep himself from saying it too loud. Not only because he didn't want to wake anyone up, but because he didn't want to wake anyone up and let them know that he was busy going through one of the most private and painful moments that he could go through: coping with his otherwise crippling loss.

With the moments that he spent in front of the picture over, Damian made his way back to the room, no longer fearful of the rays of sunlight that had previously blinded him. But, as soon as he got towards his room he saw a figure standing out on the balcony. Even though he was a good few stories above the ground, his first inclination was to call someone. Max, Jason, someone, just in case it was a person who meant him and his family ill harm. Damian may well have been able to deal with the problem himself, but, since the last time that he took matters into his own hands resulted in a murder that would forever haunt him, he was more than content to let other people do the work that, sadly, Damian himself was born into.

The fears became unfounded when he realized who was standing out there. Not someone who would ever purposefully harm him and his family. Far from it, the person that was standing on the balcony was the man who would do anything and everything in his power to protect Damian and the rest of his family, the man who had done everything he could to keep them safe, even when it bordered on the insane. As soon as he opened up the sliding door he felt the bitter air strike his partly unprotected body. Socks, sweats and a short-sleeved t-shirt didn't exactly provide the best protection against the will of Mother Nature. And what was Sonny wearing? A suit, of course. "Dad? What are you doing out here? It's barely after six in the morning…"

Sonny had often found himself looking out at the city of Port Charles from high atop his balcony. As a young boy, Sonny found that the image in his head was something that was very much like the sight that he was seeing at that moment. But, even though he knew that, in some ways, he lorded over Port Charles, mightier than basically all others, he also knew that victory that was brought upon him by power was a hallow victory, one that didn't mean nearly as much as it could have, or even should have. No, the true victories that Sonny won were those that were fought in the home. The spoils of his war were his children, his family.

The crime lord slowly turned his body to look over at his youthful child. How it pained Sonny at times to even look at Damian and know that there was so much that Sonny had missed out on. The baby book that he had been given was a wonderful present, but those were just pictures, they were nothing else. Sonny didn't have any tangible experiences that connected him to his own child aside from the ones that he had earned through the time that Damian had been in Port Charles, and, while he wouldn't give any of them up for any price in the world, not all of them were exactly what a person would consider pleasant.

"I didn't wake you, did I?" Funny the way that he avoided the question. Sonny was good at that, bringing any and all conversation back to the person or people who were around him, because when Sonny talked about himself he felt that he made himself far too vulnerable, and Sonny Corinthos hated to be vulnerable.

"No, you didn't wake me up, I couldn't really sleep, tough night and all." Damian walked over, the dew and other perspiration that had come from the night soaking into his socks, doing little to help regulate his temperature. Luckily, he had a pretty good immune system, and, a rather decent health program at hand. The boy had never been up early enough to see Port Charles in the early hours of the morning, but now that he was he could see that it was beautiful. As beautiful as the sunset was from the perch high above the city, the sunrise was just as beautiful, because it seemed all the more special. He longed to share such a time with Maxie, and, perhaps, eventually, a family of his own, though plans for such an endeavor would certainly wait. Much as he loved the girl, he wasn't ready to take that plunge. He needed to be more stable, and he wasn't nearly as stable as people wanted to believe him to be.

"This is so serene," he said softly, basking in the rays that had once caused him a slight amount of discomfort, feeling the warmth of the sun as it crashed upon his body, lighting up his face and his eyes. "But, as beautiful as it might be, I'm willing to bet that you're not out here to take in the sights, are you, dad?" Damian turned his head over to Sonny, who himself had returned to looking over the edge of the balcony. "You're thinking about Lois, aren't you?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"Only to people who know that you're not nearly as bad as the media wants to paint you. The people who know that you care more about people than most other people who claim to care about humanity can even hope to understand. Luckily for me, I happen to be one of them, one of the rare few. There are times when you confuse the hell out of me, dad, but I never forget how much you care."

"I could have lost her last night, son," Sonny thought of her, ignoring the picturesque view that he had paid an arm and a leg for while he focused on something that was even more important to him, his best friend. "I never thought about what I would do without Lois. Back when we were kids she was always the one who would worry about me, because I would get into fights with kids who were twice my side and she thought that they would beat me into a pulp."

"Did they?"

"Come on now," Sonny snickered, "your old man might not be the biggest person on the block, but I'm more than capable of taking care of myself and the people that I care about." It stemmed in part from growing up with Deke as his stepfather, the man who would take potshots at both Sonny and his mother, the man who Sonny would throw himself in front of, just to protect the woman who was, at the time, the most important person in his life. "I don't know, I guess I always thought that I would be the one to leave Lois, because of my life, the choices that I make, the danger that I put myself in… I never thought that there was even the slightest chance that it could be the other way around."

"Nobody knows what's going to happen from one day to the next, dad. You and I… we know that better than most people."

"Yeah… we do. And, even if we weren't connected as much as we are, we would always be connected because of what we ended up losing."

"I wish we didn't have to worry about being connected through something so painful…"

"So do I…"

"Even though you know that Lois is going to be fine, that there's nothing wrong with her aside from that nasty bump she has on her head… why did it keep you awake at night? Why couldn't you get some sleep? You know she's fine, dad, why wasn't that enough?"

"Because I'm upset… and when I'm upset I can't sleep." Sonny sighed, "I can't believe that he would do something like that to her…"

"Who?"

"Ned," Sonny replied, somewhat shocked that his own child didn't know what had happened. Then he remembered what Lois had said about not wanting Brook to hate her own father. In theory, Sonny believed the same thing, in practice, he realized that not hating a parent wasn't nearly as easy as it seemed on paper. "Look, what I'm about to tell you… keep it away from Brook Lynn, all right?"

"Sure, I promise I won't tell her anything."

"Last night, Ned and Lois were at the restaurant where I took Carly out to eat. I didn't think anything about it, I know that they still care about each other, or I thought they did anyway. Ned made Lois pretty upset at the place, and she walked off in tears. I didn't think anything of it… and then when we were leaving Courtney called the phone and told me that my best friend was in the hospital. I knew what had happened, and when I saw Lois last night she told me the same thing. She was so upset at Ned that she wasn't thinking clearly, it's his fault that she got into the wreck."

"I'm sure he didn't mean to…"

"I don't care if he meant it or not, all I know is that someone that I care about very much was almost killed because her ex-husband is a selfish bastard who doesn't care about her feelings. I don't even see why Lois bothers to hang around him. He hurt her so much, and he's obviously going to just keep on doing it. It doesn't make any sense to me, son. Honestly, I can't comprehend it."

"Maybe that's because it isn't something that you need to deal with," Damian replied. "Dad, Ned and Lois are connected forever through their daughter, the same way that you and Carly are through Michael and Morgan. Even though you might be upset with each other, there's still going to be that connection. You and Carly have separated before, you told me that much, but you came back together because of that. Ned and Lois are always going to love one another, just like you and Carly."

"I wish I could believe that," Sonny said sadly. "And I know that you want to think that… but you know that your mother and I have a very different relationship than most people…"

"I know that you don't love my mother."

"Excuse me?"

"Dad, don't worry about it, you're not going to hurt my feelings or anything."

"No, but you can hurt mine," Sonny wasn't offended, but he was at least a little dismayed. "Son, I do love Ana. I might not have been in love with her when… when you were conceived, but as soon as I realized who you were, as soon as I grew to love you as my own child I also grew to love your mother for giving me the chance to even know you, to feel such a strong tie with you. When you say that I don't love your mother… you're wrong."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. How could I not love a person who gave me you?" Sonny reached over and placed his arm around the boy, "When I look at you, Damian, I see so much potential, all the things that I feared I would never see in a child of mine. You embody everything that can beat back my fears. You're more important to me than you can ever know."

"I…" he stumbled, not sure what to say, not sure if he could say anything… or at least anything that didn't sound completely inane. Still, he needed to say something. "Thanks… that means a lot."