Port Charles-

Why did everything have to go the exact opposite way that she wanted it? It seemed like that was the curse of her life. She was blessed with so many gifts, she knew that. She had a voice that most people who had musical careers would kill to have, and her looks weren't exactly horrible. She wasn't obese, and she had a father who was literally one of the richest people in New York, or at least belonged to a family that was. They ranked on the lower end of the Fortune 500. With all the things that were going for her, Brook Lynn Ashton should have had the world handed to her on a silver platter, but that was not the way that it was. Not really. No, Brook never got what she wanted. Not really. What she wanted was to have a father who was there for her. Not someone who just flaked out on her constantly, there only for a few seconds before he returned to his world. A world that did not involve her in any way. She wanted a mother who was a real mother, not someone who tried so hard to be both mother and best friend. Most of all, Brook wanted to feel the love that she had seen so many people have in her life. That she had heard so many songs about when she was listening to the radio, or at concerts. Love was such an overly hyped construction, it was maddening, and very disenchanting.

And what happened to her? She took a chance and came to Port Charles because she wanted to get to know the person who had really been her father only in name, who she still loved because he would always be her daddy and she would always be his princess. They weren't as close as she would have liked them to be, but Brook knew that they were closer than they were before. They shared things, things that she never would have had the chance to share otherwise, and she was happy. God had even blessed her with something of a miracle, allowing her mother to stay with her when Brook felt that there was a chance that everything could have been taken away from her. More than that, though, Brook thought she found something that she always wanted. Brook thought that she had found love… only to have it rejected. Her heart still ached from the way that he looked at her after they kissed. She felt every single spark of passion that came from her lips, but what came from Damian? Next to nothing. Absolutely nothing. All he wanted to do was talk about Maxie, talk about the love that he had lost.

Brook didn't know where she was going, all she knew was that she was putting distance between herself and the boy who she thought would be there for her when she needed it, only to find that he was like so many other people in her life: all talk and no action. Instead of supporting her feelings he spurned her, focused on his own needs. Brook would have expected something like that from the Quartermaine's, they were the most selfish people in the world that she could think of, but from someone who was so sweet and kind like Damian? Certainly not.

Finding a nearby bench, Brook sank into it and slowly allowed herself to weep like the scared and hurt little girl that she was on the inside, the part of her personality, her soul, that she didn't like anyone to see, even the people who she cared about, the people that she trusted. Brook wanted more than anything for people to help her get through the pain of her life, but nobody ever seemed able to give her something like that. Why couldn't they help her? Why did she have to do everything alone?

Lois was walking downtown, having found the place where she would make her home for the extended period in which she stayed in Port Charles. The lease was month by month, which was what she needed since she never really knew how long she was going to stay anywhere. Lois wanted to stay in Port Charles, for her daughter, because she knew how much Brook wanted to stay. In a completely unexpected turn of events, Lois found herself turning the corner and finding her daughter. "Baby?" Lois could see that there was something that was bothering Brook. She walked over and sat down next to her daughter, touching her gently on the shoulder. "Brookie, what's wrong?"

"Why does everything have to suck so much?"

"Because if everything was good then life wouldn't be worth living…"

Brook, with her tear filled eyes, glared coldly at her mother. "I don't need your twisted sense of humor right now, Ma. I need my mother… please, can you give me that? Can you stop trying to be my friend for a few minutes and just be my mother?"

"Of course I can, baby." Contrary to what her daughter may have believed, Lois was completely capable of doing the mother thing. She didn't need to always be the jokester, the one who people looked to for a laugh. She just felt that she was better at that, especially with Brook, who always had the attitude that she could take the world on if she wanted to, or needed to.

"Forget it," Brook said, not believing her mother for a second, "This whole idea is stupid…"

"What's wrong, Brookie?" Lois asked, and she got a good look at her daughter's face. There were bruises on her face, under her eye. It wouldn't be a black eye, but it certainly was noticeable, especially since the obvious amount of tears she had shed during the day had wiped away any and all of the makeup that she may have had. "What happened to your face? Come here, let me see," Lois reached over to touch her daughter, only to see Brook recoil quickly. "Brook!"

"Look, Ma, I don't want you to baby me, all right! God, I come to you looking for some sort of motherly compassion and this is what I get? No wonder my life is so horrible!"

"Hey, don't blame this on me, young lady!" Lois said firmly. "I've done a lot of things that I've regretted in my life, especially when it comes to raising you, but I haven't slacked off in being the person that you could always come to for help and support, have I? I'm your mother, dammit, and I deserve to be treated as such in times like this. Now you're going to tell me what happened and you're not going to give me any attitude, do you understand?"

Brook sighed, but she knew that her mother was right, and she knew how lucky she was to have Lois in her life. After all, had it not just been a few days before when she was worried about losing the woman forever? Had Brook not sworn on what was basically a stack of bibles that she would never take her mother for granted again? "I got into a fight…"

"Brook… what did I tell you about fighting?"

"It wasn't my fault, Ma!" Brook said, "I didn't even go in looking for a fight. I was at Kelly's, right, because I had my free period and I was hungry, I skipped lunch to go and get something that didn't taste like crap…"

"Makes sense." High school lunches hadn't really changed in the years that had passed since she was in high school. How many years was that? Lois wouldn't tell.

"So I'm sitting at one of the tables minding my own business, and then she just goes off on me, and I try to calm her down…"

"Who are you talking about?"

"Maxie Jones."

"Mac and Felicia's little girl? Damian's girlfriend?"

"Yes to the first, no to the second. Not anymore… she cheated on him, Ma. She made sure that he found her in bed with some random loser that she knew from high school." Although they hadn't talked very much in the time that she was tagging along beside him, Brook had learned a few things about what had happened, and she listened to every word. After all, she was savoring her victory.

"That doesn't sound like something she would do…"

"You just don't know her very well," Brook replied. "I know her better than you do, and trust me, it's something that she would do. She's a little bitch and she never deserved any of the happiness that he brought her."

"Brookie!"

"I'm not going to apologize for saying that, Ma! It's the truth. If I had a boyfriend that was as good to me as he was there would be no way in hell that I would even think about tossing that away for a second. No way in hell."

"So tell me what happened…"

"She blames me for breaking them up, even though it was her fault. When you were at the hospital I was really, really torn up, you know? I didn't know what was wrong with you, the doctors weren't giving me any sort of answers and I just lost it. I thought I had lost you, and I wasn't ready to deal with something like that. So, I went to the chapel and I prayed for the first time since I was a little girl… I prayed for you to be there, to be safe. But I didn't know if it was going to work, I wasn't sure if I could believe in God…"

"You should always…"

"Don't give me that, all right?" Brook quickly interjected. "Are you really going to tell me with a straight face that you think you could be all nice and calm and devout when someone that you loved so much was in trouble, when you didn't know if they were going to survive or not?"

"No, I guess I can't…"

"See?" Brook nodded. "Dillon tried to help me, but I pushed him away. I didn't want to see any of my family… and then he called Damian, right? So, we hugged when he found me, because he was just there and he was being supportive and telling me that he would help me no matter what happened. He was everything that I needed at that moment, and what I needed the most was someone to lean on. Maxie saw us, and she's always had this crazy idea that I was trying to steal him away from her…"

"You were."

"Mother!"

"Brook, don't even try and hide it from me. I've known that you've had a crush on that boy since the moment you blushed when I asked you what you thought of him after we came here and saw Sonny that one day. I know that you've never thought that Maxie was good enough for him and that you wanted to swoop in and be the person that he needed, but you don't get to play God with his life, or hers… I'm not saying that you were wrong, that what you did was wrong, but you have been trying to pry him away from his girlfriend since we got here…"

"Well it wasn't my fault that they broke up."

"Nobody is saying that it was."

"Maxie is. That's why we got into the fight at Kelly's, because of her anger over her own idiotic mistake. I tried to calm her down, I tried to avoid a fight. She hit me first, and I wasn't going to let her do that to me without fighting back. Remember, you named me Brook Lynn for a reason…"

"You didn't kill her, did you?"

"Damian came in at that moment and pulled us off of each other. He yelled at her for attacking me, and then we left…"

"You left together?"

"He wanted to show that he wasn't going to put up with her little girl games. Can you blame him?"

"No, I can't. I wouldn't be happy if something like that happened to me, either."

"I kissed him, Ma…"

"You what?" Lois was surprised that Brook had been so forward. It wasn't something she usually did.

"I kissed him, because I thought that with Maxie out of the way we could be together… but when I kissed him… he pushed me away. He said that he didn't love me, and that he never would…"

"Brook, you need to give him time…"

"But I gave him time! I gave him time to break up with her!"

"Think of how he broke up with her, though. He's still hurt, and even if he broke up with her in a better way… I saw the way he looked at her, I saw the way he talked about her… Brookie, he was in love with her big time. He's probably still in love with her. It might not ever end. You can't expect someone to get over a love so intense with just a few days." Lois knew that, because she wasn't really over Ned. She knew it wouldn't ever work, but that wasn't the same.

"So you're saying I'll never have him?"

"I'm saying that if it's meant to be between the two of you it will happen. If it isn't… then I'm sorry. But I know that you'll find someone that you can care about, too."

"He's just…"

"He's a Corinthos boy, Brookie. Believe me, I've seen his father in action. Don't you think that Sonny broke more than a few hearts when we were growing up? When he was in school his locker would be filled to the brim with cards on valentines day…"

"Really?"

"Really… now, come on, I'll take you to get something to eat. At a place other than Kelly's," Lois could have told Brook about the move, about the fact that she was not going to be at the mansion any longer, but she kept quiet. After all, it looked like her daughter had enough on her plate for one night.