Samsonlove- I wouldn't go myself, because I hate the idea of having people tell me what to do, and being forced to shave my head, both ideas are highly unappealing, but if that is what you want, then go with it. I suppose Skye did bring out a softer side of Ned, but, like I said, I always hated the character, always, so it was pretty hard for me to step back from that 'Ned must die' mentality and embrace him. I loved Lois as well, which is why I'm using her. The friendship with Monica may well be of my own creation, but I believe that they would have a few things in common. The history with Ned is true, at the very least. Plus, they seemed to be pretty nice to one another, so… yeah.

Story-

Lansing Home-

She felt the emptiness of the bed beside her, not allowing her to stretch her arms over and feel the warm embrace of her husband. It was enough to wake her up from a rather pleasant slumber. Elizabeth opened her beautiful blue eyes slowly, letting them adjust in short spurts as she moved up the bed until her back rested against the board of the bed. Of course, the bed was still a mess. The sheets were wrapped around her body so fully that they almost cut off circulation completely to one of her legs. She did that from time to time: hogged the blankets. Ric would complain about it, especially now that they were back home in Port Charles, where the winters weren't exactly like the winters in the Bahamas or any one of the many exotic locales that they could have gone to for their honeymoon. Instead, they stayed at a quiet little bed and breakfast, not very far away from the state of New York. What Elizabeth and Ric wanted wasn't something fancy and expected of a couple in love for their honeymoon, they wanted something unique, something that spoke to them and the people that they had become, both before they remarried, and after.

Finally able to see clearly, Elizabeth looked over at the clock that was on the counter. She still had plenty of time to lag around before she had to come in for work, so did her husband, but if there was one thing she knew about Ric it was the fact that he liked to get as much sleep as possible, because his job was so demanding that there were times when he didn't get much sleep at all. Since he hadn't complained about anything that would keep him preoccupied the night before, she could only assume that either something had sprung up on him, or that there was something else that he was doing. He would have left a note or something saying that he was going to be otherwise delayed, and she couldn't see such a thing in the immediate vicinity of the room, and, she didn't hear the shower running in the bathroom. They had some fun in that shower.

Finally unwrapping herself from the binding grip that had bewitched her due to her constant motion, Elizabeth, wearing nothing more than a satin low-cut nightgown, walked out into the kitchen, looking for any hints that would give her information as to her husband's whereabouts. She didn't need to look very far. He was there, also still dressed in his own pajamas, by the stove, cooking up breakfast. He looked up at his wife and smiled, which in turn got a smile from Elizabeth as she walked over to the man that she was glad to have back in her life after everything, wrapping her arms around his waist. "You had me worried for a second."

Ric tilted his head down just enough to give her a gentle kiss on the forehead before he returned to making the breakfast that he had hoped to prepare his wife. "If there's one thing that you no longer need to worry about, Elizabeth, it's worrying about me leaving you alone again. I did that once, and I realized just how costly the mistake was, I don't intend on ever doing it again."

There was a time when Elizabeth would have heard Ric say the exact same thing and she wouldn't have believed him. In that moment, however, there was no such doubt. She heard her husband, and she believed every word that came out of his mouth. Not because of some sort of blind loyalty to Ric, but because she had learned that he truly was a different person, someone that she could trust, someone that she could love. "What are you doing?"

"I figured that, since you spend so much time serving people food all day I would surprise you and give you the same treatment that you give everyone else. I realize that the attire might be a little more casual than what we're wearing right now, but…"

"Oh, don't worry about that, I love the way you look in those sweatpants," she grinned impishly, moving her hands down his waist until she got just above the strap line of the pants, ready to dig down, but instead she kept her hands far enough away and pulled them away completely. She may have loved the way that he looked dressed in sweatpants, but she also loved the way he looked when he wasn't dressed in them, or anything else for that matter.

"You still like your eggs scrambled, right?"

"You know, you don't have to do this for me… I really don't mind the fact that I serve people food all day long. In fact, I kind of like it."

"Elizabeth… I want to do this. Please, let me do this. Now, answer the question." It wasn't an order. Far from it. Ric had learned his lesson when it came to ordering people around to do things that he wanted, he never got what he wanted and he always ended up losing something that he deeply cared about as an indirect result.

"Yes, Ric, I love scrambled eggs." Was she offended? No, because she could tell in the way that he inflicted his voice, he wasn't trying to sound domineering, he truly was doing something out of the goodness of his heart, and who was she to even think about throwing something that was so pure back in his face? That would be highly uncalled for. "Is that coffee I smell?"

"Help yourself, it's the brand that you like." He didn't particularly care for it, but it was Elizabeth's morning. Why did Ric do something so romantic, something that didn't exactly seem like something he would do? Because he felt like it. Because as much as he told Elizabeth how much he cared about her, Ric rarely showed it to her in actions aside from kisses and sex, which were good in their own way, but he understood that there were other ways for him to show his wife how much she meant to him.

Elizabeth poured herself a cup of coffee and walked over to the small table that they used in the rare instances where they didn't eat out, or didn't eat alone. Ric was usually very busy doing what he did for the city, and Elizabeth didn't hold it against him. Being the district attorney of a place like Port Charles wasn't exactly easy, she understood that. Sometimes it grated on her, knowing that he wasn't there for her all the time, but she didn't hold it against him.

Ric looked over at Elizabeth as she sat down, and he tried to smile, but he couldn't. No, there was another feeling that crept in and, if only for a brief second, overrode the feeling of joy. "You know, I might end up doing this for you a little more often…"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Ric was silent, stirring the eggs as they turned into something fluffier and easier to look at, let alone eat. "I just mean that… I don't know, should John Durant get what he wants out of his visit here… if he ends up finding a way to take me out of office."

"Honey, don't think that like," Elizabeth pleaded. Ric truly was his hardest critic, and when Ric got down on himself it usually meant that things weren't going too well. She didn't want to see that happen again. "I know who you are, I know what you can do, I know that if you don't want John Durant to take your job, you're not going to let him do it."

"He has a point, though, doesn't he?" Ric asked. "I mean… he knows that I'm not going after my brother nearly as much as I was a year ago… even less than that. Before, I made it my mission to see my brother suffer, and now I can't even do that anymore…"

"Because you're not the same person anymore, Ric. You're a better person now."

"For Sonny, maybe," Ric retorted. "But what about the people of Port Charles, Elizabeth? What about the people who I'm sworn to protect, to keep people like Sonny off the streets so that they can walk them safely at night. I know that Sonny isn't nearly as dangerous as people want to believe him to be, I know that he doesn't knowingly put innocent people at risk, but him being here, him continuing to keep up his business, it puts a black mark on my own job."

"I'm the last person to stick up for Sonny," she may not have hated Sonny as much as Ric once did, but he was still hardly her favorite person on the planet, "but we both know that you can't just toss him in jail for something that he didn't do, and he's never been found guilty of anything that the people before you have brought against him aside from some little misdemeanor… it just seems to me like if Sonny doesn't do anything, then Durant doesn't get to do anything to try and take him down."

"But what are the odds of Sonny not doing anything?" Ric wondered, the eggs now finished, the bacon having finished before it. He slid the eggs onto the plate and took one in each hand, walking them over to the table as he sat down across from his wife. "And if he does do something… what if Durant's right? What if I decide to take my loyalties towards my family and put them ahead of my loyalties towards this city? If I do something like that, doesn't it mean that I should be taken away from the office that I would no longer be fulfilling to the best of my abilities?"

Elizabeth reached over and touched his hand gently, the smile never leaving her face. "Listen to yourself, Ric. You're doing something that we both never thought you would ever do, you're trying to find a way to save your brother from facing time in prison. You're seeing a different color when you used to see only black and white. Whatever the decision might be, I'm sure you'll make the one that you feel the most comfortable with, and I know that I will back you one hundred and ten percent, regardless of that decision."

"Have I really changed that much?" Ric asked his wife.

"You always said that I was the only person who could actually see you for who you were, underneath all the layers that you placed in front of yourself, that I could be that person, Ric, the person who would show you exactly who you were. I did my part, but it would be a lie to say that I was the only person who showed you another aspect of yourself…"

Ric grinned as he poked at his eggs with the fork. "I still can't believe it. You know, sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night, afraid that everything around me is going to be different. That I'm not going to have you by my side, that I won't have some sort of strange truce with my brother… that I won't have a nephew that actually treats me like I'm important to him. I'm always afraid that there's just some random person who is giving me this perfect little dream world where everything seems to be going my way."

"This isn't a dream, Ric," Elizabeth replied, touched by his words. "And, even if it was, it wouldn't be the kind of dream that I would want to end, either."

Morgan Household-

Dillon put his cell phone in his pocket as he looked at his bag that was placed on the couch. He had tried calling Georgie, but she wasn't picking up her phone, either of them, cell or home. He wanted someone to talk with, and he hadn't called her all night long because he didn't know anything and his mind was just so preoccupied with finding a way to keep Brook Lynn from collapsing into herself, and later in helping his brother not feel so guilty, even though Dillon truly felt that Ned should have felt incredibly guilty for what he had done, since it was at least partly his own fault that his ex-wife had gotten into an accident. The only reason why Dillon even bothered to help his brother was because of the fact that Ned had helped him so many times in the past, and, it was really hard to look at someone that he still cared about and see them so torn up about their own problems.

"Dammit," Dillon muttered under his breath. He really wanted someone that he could talk to about what had happened. He was so busy asking everyone what they needed that he barely had time to focus on his own problems, the way that he felt about it. And he did want someone that he could confide in. Yes, he had his best friend, but, he also knew that his best friend had problems of his own, as well as finding a way to nurse Brook back to sanity, since Damian was the only one who Brook actually seemed to want, which wasn't very surprising, given the attraction that she had to him.

And then there was Maxie. Dillon hadn't really forgotten about the way that she looked when she walked away from the hospital in a huff, the way that she ignored him, or at least didn't hear him. It was just that in the midst of everything that was crumbling around him, Dillon couldn't spare a moment to check up on one of his oldest and only friends in Port Charles. And what about Lois? Yes, she was all right, but Dillon wasn't a fool. He was a Quartermaine, being a doctor may have coursed through his blood, although it was a calling that he never wished to embrace. Regardless, Dillon knew that there was always a chance that there was something that the doctors, even the ones at General Hospital, couldn't see, couldn't detect, and couldn't fix.

Jason came walking into the house, not expecting to see Dillon there. It was moments like that which made him wonder why he had even allowed the teenager to make the penthouse home. But, he couldn't go back on his word now, Dillon had integrated himself, at least partially, into the life around him. To force the child to find new roots again would be something that the Quartermaine's would do, and Jason never wanted to act like a Quartermaine.

Dillon looked over at Jason and thought for a second about confiding in Jason, telling him about the problems that were bothering him, but, when he looked into those cold blue eyes, he realized that it would probably be for nothing. Jason probably didn't even care about him, he merely tolerated Dillon because it was Courtney's wish. The moment he tried to open his mouth and say something, the doubt that surrounded him caused him to stop.

Jason could tell that there was something that was causing his cousin some sort of anguish, and he didn't want to make it seem like he didn't care, but it was rather hard to make it seem like he did. After all, what could Jason do to help make Dillon feel better? Jason didn't even understand half of what Dillon talked about when they tried to have small conversations. Dillon would always find some way to make it relate to a movie, one that Jason hadn't seen, since he didn't watch many movies. In fact, the infamous day that they tried to get him to watch 'Star Wars' would go down in infamy.

Despite all the favors that Jason had done for Dillon, and there were a lot of favors, Dillon knew that well, it didn't matter. He was still upset at the way that Jason so carelessly ignored the obvious facts that were in front of him. Dillon was completely aware of the fact that when Jason looked like he had something on his mind the last person that he would ever speak about his problems to was Dillon, but Dillon still cared enough to actually ask about them, even if the only answer was something akin to Jason not wanting to talk about it. Why couldn't the same thing be said for Jason?

The bitterness swelling up inside of the teenager, Dillon grabbed his jacket from the place that it rested atop the couch, erroneously forgetting about the backpack that was on the couch. It didn't really matter, the last place that he wanted to be at was school, he wouldn't even be able to concentrate on his work. Not that he ever did, but in case he needed to make it look like he did, he wouldn't be able to do it. Walking out, he shut the door and headed for the elevator, mumbling to himself, "Thanks for nothing, Jason."