"Just Sam," the diminutive woman replied. "Don't call me anything else but Sam, all right?"

John snickered, "I can call you anything that I want, and you would have to do what I wanted you to do anyway. If I called you bitch, you would listen. Face it, girly, I'm basically your pimp, and you're my whore."

Samantha McCall had been many things in her life, but a whore was not one of them, and she prided herself on the fact that, no matter how low she sank in life, she would never take money for sex. Angered at the idea of someone believing that she had such low morals, Sam struck Durant across the face. But, not a slap as most woman would do. No, Sam knew how to protect herself. Her father, Cody McCall, taught his daughter how to do many things, defending herself was just one of them. She decked Durant hard in the face, so hard that he was taken back. "I should just get back on that ship and leave you here to rot, you bastard."

"You could do that, and I wouldn't be able to stop you. After all, you've done nothing wrong, have you?" John regained his composure. "But, someone close to you has… someone that you love very much. What's his name again? Danny?"

Sam stopped walking towards the ship and turned around, a horrified look on her face. "You wouldn't do that! You told me that you would find a way to make sure that he never got in trouble for that! I came to you because you were supposed to be the best, you were supposed to get him off and unhurt from his mistake!"

"I did exactly what you wanted me to do, Sam." Durant replied. "I helped your poor, helpless little brother get away with murdering your mother."

"He didn't mean to do it!" Sam quickly defended her little brother. "Danny's special, you know that. You've always known that. I told you that he was from the moment that we met. You met with Danny yourself, John. How can you even think for a moment of using someone that vulnerable?"

"I'm a lawyer. It's what I do." John walked towards her, only to stand behind her, right in front of the walkway back to her boat. "You see, Sam, one of the best things about being an attorney is changing things around. When someone has a strength, like you do with caring about your brother, we can turn it into a weakness. You care about Danny so much that you would be willing to do anything to protect him, wouldn't you?"

Sam looked into his eyes, her own filled with so much hate towards him. Why did he have to be the person that she went to? Why did she have to believe for a moment that he would want to actually help someone like her brother? Someone who was completely innocent. Yes, he killed their mother, but Danny didn't know what he was doing. Danny was special, he wasn't the same as everyone else. People like him were supposed to be protected. "There isn't a court in the world that would actually convict my brother of doing something like that. They would take one look at him, they would send him to a real doctor, and they would know that he couldn't have known…"

"You're right, people are sympathetic towards our impaired companions, but, if there's one thing that I know, Sam, it's that no matter how great their sympathies might be, people can always be bought, too. And, let's face it, I've got enough money to buy just about everyone a few times over…"

"You're a sick bastard."

"Again, I'm a lawyer, and I happen to be one of the best ones. I'm good at this game that I play, probably the best. There isn't a damned thing you can do about it, either. I thought you should know that."

"So what are my choices?"

"They're pretty simple, actually," John smiled once more, that all knowing devilish smile that he seemed to personify so well without any effort. "You can get back on that boat and sail away, and I won't tell anyone that you were ever here, but I can make one simple call and I can have that brother of yours put away for the rest of his life in a maximum security prison. Let's be honest with one another, the people in their love to take advantage of the weakest person… and Danny's just dumb enough to actually bend over to pick up the soap if someone knocked it out of his hands. Do you want that for your brother, Sam? Do you want to deal with the guilt that would come from knowingly putting your brother in a situation where he was going to be constantly objectified. You've told me time and time again how much you love Danny, how much you want to protect him, how he's your little brother and the only member of your family who ever accepted you for who you really are. Time to be the big sister, don't you think?"

Sam's body tensed with rage and pain, her hand balled up into a fist. She could do something, she could hurt him in so many ways, but it wouldn't solve anything. She couldn't kill him, she didn't have it in her, and, if she killed someone like Durant, she would eventually get caught. Slowly she realized that she didn't really have another choice, that all she could do was accept whatever it was that he needed her to do. Her hand eased up, although there was a very visible trail of blood that ran down, her nails digging into her skin enough to cut it. "What do you want me to do?"

"That a girl," Durant moved away from the boat, knowing full well that he had gotten what he wanted. Sam was his now, to do with what he wished. "I came to this town for one reason and one reason alone: I wanted to destroy Sonny Corinthos and his right hand man, Jason Morgan. Have you heard of them?"

"Of course I have, everyone's heard of them, even people like me who are out at sea most of the year." She looked at him, "Do you really think that you can take down someone like Sonny Corinthos?" It was her turn to grin at him, "John, I know that you have this ego problem that you can't seem to shake off, but, really, I think you've bitten off more than you can chew this time."

"Maybe I had, if I would have been going at it alone. I need your services, Sam. Let's face it, out of all the people that I know, you're the best at what you do."

"When it comes from you, it doesn't sound like much of a compliment."

"It shouldn't be. If I didn't need you to do things for me from time to time, I'd throw you in a jail cell so quickly that your head would spin. But, you have your uses, and they are just enough to keep you around from time to time. Let's just say that certain things about my mission here have changed since I've been in this town. Other factors that I never took into consideration have gotten my attention, and I can't have my attention diverted too much, it makes for sloppy work, and I hate it when things are sloppy."

"What about sloppy seconds?"

"Don't play coy with me, Sam. If I wanted to have you, you know I would have you before anyone else. But… I've always had a thing for redheads."

"Lucky me."

"Back to the point, my dear. You are going to stay here in Port Charles for the immediate future."

"My boat isn't really meant to be a place where I can live for very long. A few days is fine, but after awhile I need a bed to sleep on…"

"And you'll have a bed to sleep on. There's a restaurant here in town, called Kelly's, above the restaurant are rooms that are available. I've already made sure that you have one in your name that's been paid for."

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were coddling me."

"But you do know better, and you know that I don't coddle. I'm doing what is necessary. Go to Kelly's, ask about your room, and don't worry about getting in contact with me, I already know how to reach you."

"You do realize that you're going to burn in hell for doing this, don't you?"

"Hell doesn't scare me."

"That doesn't really surprise me. For all I know, the devil might be your father."

"Most people would say that I was just the devil's human form."

"Give me time, I'm sure I'll reach the same conclusion." Sam sneered. "So, am I just here to stay at a nice room above a dinner? I know I'm not going to get off that easily, no matter how hard I try."

"Quite astute of you, Miss McCall. I'm going to need you to sneak into Corinthos and Morgan's houses eventually, see if you can find something, anything, that will help me bring them down. But, for now, I want you to act like you're actually here to stay. You need to appear like you're not working for anyone. Establish a few connections, make it seem like you're a normal girl."

"I've been many things, but normal has never, ever, been one of them."

"Then it's time for you to spread your wings and expand your horizons. Sam, if you screw this up, if you fail me in any way, no matter how small, I'm going to find a way to put Danny away, and, if you try and stop me, I just might go one step further. After all, how many people are going to think it very odd if a handicap person manages to run in front of a moving vehicle going full speed?"

"You wouldn't…"

"Try me, and see what I would and wouldn't do. Now, if I were you, I think I would be going somewhere…"

Sam looked at him and tried to think of a way to get herself out of the situation, but she couldn't risk it. If it was just her own life at stake she would gladly do it, but she was thinking about her brother, her innocent little brother who had never done a thing wrong in the world except for be born with a deficiency that made him think things a little stranger than other people. Why was that something that people felt the need to punish? "You win this round…"

Durant watched her walk away and then turned towards the ocean once again, hearing the waves crash and smelling the salty scent of the sea. "This is just the first round that will go to me, and the bout will soon follow."

General Hospital-

The day had already ended, and her shift was coming to a close. She thought about leaving the shift again, but she knew that she couldn't do it. After all, it was the only time that she knew she would be able to see him, since he had to be there and, if she wanted to talk to him about something that was about his job he couldn't really deny her. And yet, every time that she tried to approach him he went the other way, or sent one of the interns her way instead of his way. What Damian didn't realize was that each time he turned the other way and made a hasty retreat it killed her on the inside. Why was he being so stubborn? Why couldn't he just listen? No matter how upset he was with her, didn't he know when she wanted to say something? Didn't he know her well enough to actually pay attention?

"Please say you'll do it!" Maxie begged one of her coworkers who was at the desk.

"Maxie, I can't. You know that we can't use the intercom system just for the hell of it. We could get in trouble."

"You won't get in trouble, and, even if you do get caught, I'll tell them that I was the one who made you do it. Besides, who is going to pay attention to a doctor being paged into a room? It happens all the time."

"But what if he's with someone else? Like Monica or one of the other doctors? What if they realize that we were just screwing around?"

"Come on! It's his birthday today! I just want to surprise my boyfriend… you care about him, don't you? He's your friend…"

"Yes, he is…"

"Then how come you don't want to do the same thing as me? I mean, I love him more than you do…" and, in realizing how stupid she was for thinking that he would have done something like that to her, Maxie only realized just how much she loved him, more than she ever thought possible. "I'll make sure to tell him that you wish him the best."

"I don't know…"

"I promise that once you do this for me I'll never ask for you to do it again. Just this once. This is our first time being together on his birthday, I just want to make it special…"

The woman thought about it for a second. She wasn't much older than either of them, but she knew how important love was. She'd been in love before, and did not wish to keep that feeling from anyone else. Looking at the schedule, the woman found the first empty room, "Here, go to this room and just wait, I'll page him in a few minutes. But remember, this is the only time I'm doing it for you."

"I know, I'll remember, I promise!" Maxie ran off towards the room that she had been told to enter and she waited, hiding far enough away so that he wouldn't see her waiting for him if he did look. Why was she doing it? Why was she waiting for him? Because she knew that she didn't want it to end like it was going to end. She wanted to try and salvage something about their relationship. It meant way too much for her to just throw it away.

A few minutes later, as promised, the woman's voice came over the system, paging him to the specific room. She felt her heart flutter when she realized that she was really going to have a shot at fixing her relationship. But how was she going to do it? That part she didn't know about.

More minutes passed before he poked his head inside the room. "Hello? Is anyone here?" Damian walked into the room, "If you're scared, it's all right, I'm just here to try and help you." He heard the door shut behind him, and he saw her. "Oh, it's just you."

"Damian… we need to talk. Please… just listen to me." Maxie looked at him and hoped that he would take her request, that he wouldn't throw it away.