Note: I didn't announce it, but yeah, yesterday was a story break for the holiday. Since there was no GH on, it kind of made sense. There's no GH on today, either, but, dammit, I will give people the fix that they want myself.

Samsonlove- Sorry about your computer, for a second I thought I was going to have three reviews, and it made me happy. Alas, it was but one. Nonetheless, it came up as three, which makes it seem like more people are reviewing my story, and this pleases me, although more people actually reviewing would please me more, but such things cannot be expected, merely hoped for. Yes, Sonny being a 'father' on the show has become an extreme rarity these days, which is horrible because Sonny is without a doubt at his most loveable when he is acting like a father. But, since I understand this about Sonny, even if the writers don't, I will choose to illuminate it. Yes, Durant is bad. Very bad.

Story-

General Hospital-

Even on the best of days it was very hard to get any sleep during the time when he wasn't directly on call. Those light hours that he would be able to rest on a cot somewhere, closing his eyes and drifting into something that wasn't really sleep, but was close enough to keep him energized so he didn't have to depend upon caffeine and other things to keep him going. That was one of the first rules of being an intern: sleep when you can. The problem was that he couldn't really sleep, at all. Even when he wanted to, the only thing he thought about was her, about the way that she hurt him, about the way that he could have possibly hurt her.

Damian had done a lot of thinking during the hours. There were patients that were coming in, some that were even admitted to the emergency room. A baby with an abnormally high fever, an old woman with chest pains that people feared was a heart attack. Those were dealt with as quickly as possible, and none of them ended up being anything big. The baby was just sick, and was given antibiotics, the woman had an extremely bad case of heartburn that proved itself to be more worrying than fatal. None of the problems were dealt with by him directly, which was good, because he wasn't sure he was going to be able to help people in the way that he would have if his mind wasn't being pulled into every possible direction.

The young man leaned against the nurses' station counter as he waited for the handout that he needed, the thing that would tell him everything that he needed to know about his patient, a woman that wasn't much older than him, pushing her mid-twenties. What was wrong with her was unknown, it was his job to find out, but in order to better equip himself for the task he needed to have the basic information that had been gathered by her previous doctors, both at the hospital and elsewhere.

He saw it on the counter of the nurses' station, something that shouldn't have been there… a pin, but not any pin. Her pin. Maxie's pin. Something that she almost always put on while she was doing her job at the hospital, a little piece of her own individuality, placed there because she didn't want to be just another part of the crowd, part of the wave of girls that did the same job that she did over and over. As always, Maxie wanted to make an impression. That was one of the things that he loved the most about her, the way that she valued her strengths more than anyone that he knew.

People accused Maxie of a lot of things, and sometimes they were legitimate accusations. After all, she did do a lot of things because she buckled under peer pressure. She almost died because of it. She was put in a horrible relationship with a boy that didn't ever truly love her because of the gain that he gave her in her popularity at school. Maxie was just like so many other girls before her: misguided. And it wasn't something that was wholly female in character, males did it as well. How many times had he seen it back home in Los Angeles? His own family members that fell in 'love' with the popular cheerleader because they had something, something that the other person sorely wanted. It was just part of life, a part of life that he didn't want to deal with. But how could he get away from it? Everyone wanted it themselves. Not necessarily popularity, but they all wanted something. Something that they would give everything that they had to obtain. For Damian, that random factor was comfort. He would give everything that he could possibly give if it meant that he was able to have some sort of comfort, the comfort that had been stripped from him when his mother died. Maxie probably wanted the same thing… and in the relationship that the two forged with one another they found it. But they no longer had what they had found. It was gone, completely gone.

Had it really been his fault? The question had been asked many times in his head, and he wasn't sure of the answer. Sometimes he would answer yes, other times it would be a no. In the end he thought that he just could never truly know. After all, he should have been honest with her… but what was there to be honest about? What was he supposed to do, call Maxie up the moment that Brook so much as touched him? While it was true that he had told her about the two of them going to eat a meal together that was something else, something that wasn't so urgent. Nobody could have anticipated what had happened to Lois, because nobody wanted anything to happen to her, not like that. For Maxie to hold him at fault for only looking to do something that any human being with a soul would do was so beyond shocking that all it did was infuriate him, and he hated being angry at her. Even now, after everything that she had done, he didn't want to be upset with her.

How could he not be upset with her, though? After all, it was she who had taken the circumstances that she didn't understand and twisted them into something that was completely different from what it truly was. Yes, they were hugging, and maybe it looked like he was giving her more attention than he should have, but they were in the hospital. Worse, they were in the chapel at the hospital, usually a place where people just didn't randomly hook up. He wished that she would have known that, but she didn't. She didn't know it because she didn't bother to pay attention. She didn't care.

Would he have reacted differently? Damian would have liked to believe that he could have, but he didn't know the answer to that question either. If Kyle had been alive, if he wouldn't have died, how would he have reacted to everything that he would have seen, even if the two of them were just sitting across the table from each other talking? Would he have thought that it was something that was completely different? Probably. That wasn't to say that Damian bunched Kyle and Brook Lynn in the same subtype, because he didn't. They were completely different people, with Brook being decent and Kyle being some sort of evil creature spawned from the depths of hell. The point was that Kyle had a connection to Maxie that Damian would have undoubtedly felt intruded upon his own relationship with his now ex-girlfriend, and he wouldn't have been very kind towards either of them if he would have seen them together.

Did that excuse the actions that Maxie had taken? Of course not, because what she did was so much worse than anything that he would have ever done. It was one thing to be with another person, just being seen with them, it was another matter altogether when they decided that they were going to have sex just to piss him off, and he knew now that the whole reason that Maxie had sex with that boy was to infuriate him. It was the only reason. Well, not the only, but still the chief reason. Even if Maxie didn't expect him to walk in on them while they were in the middle of their romp she still did it because she felt like she needed to 'get back' at him for what he had done, that implied wrongdoing that made everything they had seem like it meant absolutely nothing to her anymore.

"Doctor Corinthos?" The woman at the desk held the requested information out to him, her eyes scanning his as she tried to see if he was even looking at her, or paying attention. She spoke a little firmer, but not too loud, "Doctor Corinthos?"

It was at that moment that Monica came walking around the corner. Since it was because of her insistence and belief in his prowess as a doctor that Damian be admitted into the internship program at such an early age she also knew that if anything happened it would be on her head. She saw that he wasn't paying as much attention as she would have liked one of her interns to pay attention, so she made her way over to him and touched his shoulder as gently as possible. "You know, it's a custom to actually pick up a file when someone gives it to you… just something you should think about for the future."

The touch did more than the words, which he probably would have continued to ignore, so caught up in his thoughts, or more precisely his turmoil. But, upon feeling the soft hand of another on his body he realized that he was drifting too far away for his own good and quickly came back to the tether of reality. "I'm sorry, Dr. Quartermaine. I just…" he tried to think of something that he could say that would explain why he was doing what he was doing, but there was no legit answer. "I wasn't thinking, my head was up in the clouds. I'm sorry."

Monica gave a smile that she hoped was comforting enough. Yes, they were supposed to try and be stern, but the problem with that was if they didn't act human enough they would just end up having their charges run away and try some other career. Being a doctor was demanding, but if they scared away all the potential people who actually had the calling then they wouldn't have anyone to take care of them when they got old. Monica didn't want that. "You're an intern, you have a much more demanding schedule than the rest of us… we might be the ones that people turn to the most, but you have a bigger workload. Don't worry if sometimes you lose yourself in your thoughts, it happens."

"I shouldn't keep my patient waiting, though. If there's something really wrong with her… I just should go and make sure that there isn't." Damian grabbed the folder and gave a nod of appreciation to the woman that had handed it to him. She looked at him with a wary eye, as if she was trying to figure out what was going on in his head. The chances of her finding out just what was going on in his head were quite slim, since he didn't even know what was going on in his head, not really. "Thank you for understanding…"

"Wait, Damian, please," Monica called to him and watched as he stopped, halting his progress at her command. It was nice to know that she still had that kind of sway around people. Being the chief of staff had something to do with it, who cared if she was name dropping? If it got the job done that was all she could have hoped for. "Are you all right?" She too attempted to probe his mind, find out what was bothering him, because it was obvious that something was. Even with all his problems, which she was sure that he had because of his last name and his connections to people, dangerous people, he still managed to keep as focused as one could hope, even more than she would have hoped. Damian was one of their best, one of their most dedicated. She truly felt that he was up there, that he could make a big name for himself. "You seem to be really distracted right now."

"I've just got a lot on my mind. Personal things. I know I shouldn't bring them to the workplace, but I can't help it." It didn't help that the two somehow managed to blend together. His workplace also happened to be the place where he saw Maxie the most, especially after he started the internship. "I'll try and keep them separated, honest."

"There isn't anything that you want to tell me, is there?"

"No, Monica, nothing."

"Nothing about Michael, or Dillon, or Jason?" The last one was the one that she wanted to know the most about. Michael was her grandson, by blood, Dillon was her nephew by marriage, and Jason wasn't even her biological son, but he was probably one of the most important people in Monica's life and she wanted to know if there was something wrong with him. He may not have really considered her his mother anymore, but she would always consider him her son.

"Everyone's fine, Monica, I promise. What's bothering me… it's something that's bothering me and me alone. You don't need to worry yourself about it. Now, I need to go. If you need me for something that doesn't involve my personal life, please don't bother to ask. I'll probably be available." He walked passed her, hoping to make haste towards the room, but he was distracted once more, distracted with trying not to act that distracted and he ended up bumping into one of the other nurses. "I'm so sorry… are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about it." The nurse, the same one who had helped Maxie out the night before, watched him leave. She saw Monica looking at him, and she remarked, "For a guy who just celebrated his birthday, he didn't look too happy."

Monica found the comment to be completely out of place. "What are you talking about? His birthday's in August." She knew because she studied the files of all the interns, to get a good grasp on who they were as people, what they would be good at and what they needed to work on. It was because of that study that she knew when his birthday was. "Who told you that it was yesterday."

"Maxie did…"

"Why would she think that… she should have known…"

"All I know, Doctor. Quartermaine, is that yesterday Maxie wanted to talk with him, but he was busy and he was working so she had me call him on the system and have him go into an empty room so that she could surprise him. I know that I wasn't supposed to do it, but she was so insistent upon it that I didn't want to let her down. I'm sorry, I told her I would never do it again, and she understood."

"No, no, you didn't do anything wrong…"

"Good."

Monica tried to think about what was going on. Why was it so important that Maxie spend time with him the night before? Why did she have to do it in such a sneaky way? Was it Maxie's birthday? Wasn't that closer to Halloween? "Is Bobbie coming in today?"

"I don't think so," the same nurse replied, walking into the station and checking the schedules on the computer. "No, I'm sorry, she's actually off for the day. Why?"

"I just thought I would talk to her, but I can do it later…" Monica got a page on her pager and looked at it. "I have to take this. If Bobbie does come in, for any reason, please let her know that I want to speak with her, all right?"

"I will."

On the other side of the hospital he looked at the door. He could see inside the room, because of the small windows that were on each side that gave him a look inside, and he saw her. But he didn't want to do it. He didn't think that he could. Sucking up his doubts, Damian opened the door. "Hello, Miss Torres, I'll be your doctor today…"

"But you're so young."

"I'm an intern, not a full doctor."

"Do you know what you're doing?"

"I've been trained in medicine for years, I have a pretty good grasp at it. But, if you want a more experienced doctor I won't hold it against you."

"What do you think I should do? Do you feel confident enough in yourself to help me?"

Damian looked at her. On most days he would have said that he did, but he wasn't dealing with most days. He was dealing with something else, something that made him answer in another way. "No, Miss Torres… I don't. I'll get someone else to take this… I'm sorry."