Harbor View Towers, Morning-

Courtney may have had her run disrupted the day before, but it was for the most pleasant of reasons. She and Jason spent the entire night together, ending with a passionate and beautiful evening where they just held each other and did something that they rarely did: they talked. Even though she knew that there was a dark cloud looming over her and that it had instigated the reasons why Jason decided that he needed to spend so much time with his wife she remained undaunted. The best thing about Courtney, to many people, was not her beauty, or her spunk. It was the way that she continued to look at the world in a manner that was as positive as possible. Even when things threatened to break her, she always found a way to come back and make them work again. She had lost a child, lost just about any chance that she had of having a child naturally, but she still remained steadfast in her determination to be with her husband, to be the woman that she always wanted to be, the one that people knew she could be. Maybe that didn't include mother, but it certainly included wife.

Try as she might to put up a brave front, Courtney's mind was not nearly as kind as her appearance made her seem. Instead, she had a dream about him being taken away from her forever. The way that he looked at her, his eyes speaking untold pain as he gripped the sides of the cold metal bars and then watching as he seemed to tell her goodbye as he was driven away, looking smaller and smaller in the distance. Courtney woke up with a gasp, but her husband was already gone. Not gone in the way that the dream entailed, but gone to do something, whatever it was that he was going to do. She was hardly ever sure. Although she did not sob, Courtney felt the tears that rolled down her cheeks, as the emotions that were stirred up from that dream brought out the worst in her, the part that she didn't like to admit existed: the weakness in her that she tried to deny.

That was probably the biggest reason why she made it a point to actually get up and do some running early in the morning. The way that the cold bitter New York wind from the ocean pushed against her face made her numb, but when she warmed up again she felt more alive than she had felt in a long time. It was odd the way that it worked out, but nobody could deny that it did work out.

The elevator opened up and she walked towards her house, a casual glance given over to her brother's side of the penthouse. Little did Courtney know that he was waiting by the door, about to knock. "Sonny?"

Sonny turned around to face his little sister, "What are you doing up so early?"

"I could ask the same of you…"

"Believe me, Courtney, this isn't early for me," Sonny gave a tired look that showed just how much he had been juggling. A crisis of his own, a crisis of his wife's, and now a crisis that belonged entirely to his eldest child. With three very differently yet oddly similar problems, Sonny had to focus on one of them, and he had always told himself that he would be the kind of dad who put everything on hold to make sure that his child's life was fixed. Sonny hadn't been there for Damian, but now the boy needed someone more than he had in a long time, and Sonny was not going to stand by and let someone else take the moment that he had been waiting for.

Courtney should have hated her brother, on some base level at least. After all, it was because of Sonny that Jason was involved with the things that he was involved with. Because of Sonny that Jason was in the business, because of Sonny that he had a chance of getting arrested and taken away from her forever. That kind of raw pain should have let her hate someone that she was supposed to love with all her heart, but she couldn't do it. Courtney knew that it wasn't Sonny's fault. Sonny gave Jason a choice. Jason made that choice. Sonny would have respected Jason's choice if he had decided not to take the path that Sonny had taken, he probably would have respected it more. No, Sonny may have given Jason the means, but Jason took them. Besides, it was hard to hate someone that she loved so much, and she knew now that Sonny was going through everything that she was going through, and more. He had three children that he had to think about never seeing again. That kind of pain was worse, it had to be worse.

"So, you managed to do an early morning run?" Sonny noticed the attire that she was wearing, and he hated the way that she leered at him. It wasn't that he felt that she was judging him, it was just that when she looked at him like that he wasn't smiling, and his little sister had one of the best smiles in the world. "I remember when I was your age… used to think that I could do something like that every morning, and then I realized that if I did I would find myself running from bullets. Not the most pleasant way to run…"

"But I'm sure it got you to run a lot faster than you would have otherwise…"

"You could say that."

Courtney knew that he would avoid talking about the subject that was obviously at the top of his mind unless someone else brought it up first. Maybe he would still decide that he didn't want to talk about it after, but she couldn't just stand there knowing that something was wrong and ignore it. Courtney wasn't built that way, she couldn't look the other way. When things happened that she should have stayed out of and she saw them happen she found a way to get involved. She was just that kind of person. "Sonny, are you doing all right? I mean, I know you have a lot on your mind…"

"Jason told you, didn't he?"

"Yeah…"

Sonny sighed, "I would have loved it if you could have stayed in the dark about what was going on, Courtney. I know how much you worry about everything that happens in our lives, and I've always wanted to keep you away from it."

"You're my big brother, but you don't need to protect me anymore. I'm a grown up woman now…"

"I'm just trying to make up for what I failed to do because I didn't know about you when you were growing up. That happens a lot in my life, doesn't it?"

"Sonny, you did everything that I expected you to do as a big brother, you do it on nearly a daily basis. Nobody is going to tell me that you're not the best brother that I could hope for, not even you…"

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry that something might happen that you can't control, something that doesn't involve you, but will have an impact on you…"

"I knew what I was getting into when I decided to get involved in your life, and with Jason, too. Don't try and tell me that I'm just an innocent in all of this. You always told me that there would be a time when maybe, just maybe, I would have to lose everything I held dear… I just never thought it would happen."

"Neither did I," Sonny walked over and hugged his sister. Although his relationship with his brother was extremely strained, Sonny and Courtney had a relationship that made him feel like he had a family that he could truly love, a sibling who was everything he ever wanted and more. "Promise me something, would you? Promise me that you're going to help them if something happens. They're going to need you… Carly and the boys will depend on you so much if Jason and I… just…" he couldn't say it, couldn't bring himself to talk about something that could have happened, something that was so depressing, "just don't abandon them."

"They're my family, Sonny, they're always going to be in my life, I'm never going to forget them."

"Good…"

"Did you want to come in? You were standing right by the door…"

"Actually, yeah, I need to take care of something."

"I don't know if Jason's home right now, Sonny. When I woke up he was already gone." Courtney found it odd that Sonny wouldn't know where Jason was, he seemed to know more about where her husband was at all times than she did. It bothered her on some level, but on another she understood it.

"I needed to speak with Dillon… not Jason."

"Dillon?" Courtney's eyebrow went up at the mention of the name. "Why do you need to see Dillon?"

"I need to ask him a favor…"

"Sonny, is everything all right?" There were red flags that went up in her mind the moment she realized her big brother was looking to talk with someone that he never really talked with before. The connection was obvious, it involved Damian, "What's wrong with him, Sonny? Did something happen?"

"Courtney…"

Courtney stood in the way of Sonny, barring him from the upper level of the penthouse, where Dillon's room was. "I'm not going to let you pass until you tell me what's going on, Sonny. I'm sorry, but if Dillon's going to be involved in something I want to know about it…"

"He's not going to be involved in anything bad, I promise!"

"If it's so harmless, why don't you tell me?"

Sonny waited for a moment and looked at the intensity in her eyes. Courtney wasn't going to back down. He loved that about her. The fire that was in her eyes, and he would never deny that it was good that she had such fire, especially given what she would need to go through even if the worst didn't happen. If someone decided to make a victim out of Courtney, Sonny knew that they at least had a fight on their hands. "It isn't my place to tell you…"

"But you can tell Dillon?"

"Dillon's his best friend, Courtney. You know that! If something happened to me, I would want my best friend to know…"

"So you're admitting that something happened to him?"

Sonny groaned, "All right, you win. But you need to make sure that it doesn't get out, all right? I don't know how many people know about this, but I'm sure he doesn't want the world to know, he's a lot like me when it comes to things like that. Courtney, Maxie cheated on him…"

Courtney gasped, immediately feeling sorrow in her heart, but not just for Damian. No, she felt it for Maxie as well, although the anger was more apparent for the girl. "Why?"

"That's the complicated part… and I really don't have time to get into it right now. Let's just say that I've got a plan up my sleeve that will deal with the issue, but I need someone to help me, and Dillon's my best bet. Is that what you needed to hear?"

"Yeah…"

"Can I go and see him now?"

Courtney moved out of the way, "Go right ahead." With Sonny walking up the stairs, Courtney turned around, a look of sheer agony on her face. That was his first love, and to have it end in such a horrible way… he must have been broken in so many ways. She closed her eyes and wished that there was a way to make it all better.

Sonny knew the layout of the penthouse very well. It was almost the same as his own, and when he had bought it he made sure he knew his way around both of them, just in case. Courtney and Jason's room was the only room that had an open door. Sonny had never been in Dillon's room before, never had a reason for doing it, and he never thought he would… but, as fate would have it, it tuned out that he had a reason for doing it.

The man opened the door cautiously, unaware of what would happen when he pushed it open. He liked Dillon, he appreciated him and what he did for his son, but Sonny wouldn't deny that the boy had a lot of things about him that made him more than a little odd, and none of those things had anything to do with his last name. Sonny never wanted to judge a person based on their last name, not after the mistakes that he had made in the past.

The room wasn't as clean as Sonny would have expected from a child of his own, but Courtney and Jason didn't seem like the type of people who had a strict cleanliness policy. Sonny had to dodge the various scattered items that littered the ground, almost tripping over a stack of movies that were just lying in the center. There had to be some sort of organized chaos to the room. What that method was… that was up to someone else to decide.

Dillon was sleeping and dreaming of the things that most boys his age dreamt of, although his face did not show anything that was going on in his head. While the dream was getting good he felt a fitting amount of motion, but it stirred him out of his dream and forced him to open his eyes. When Dillon saw the face of Sonny Corinthos standing in front of him he reacted in the only way he knew how: he panicked. "I didn't do anything! I swear! Nobody's asked me anything about you! I wouldn't talk if they did! Just don't kill me! Please don't kill me!"

Sonny had yet another oddity to add on the ever growing list of things that he had on Dillon. The longer the list got, the more Sonny wondered about the boy. "I'm not going to kill you… you should know that."

"Why are you here? Is something wrong? Did something happen?"

"I need your help…"

"Did Lorenzo come back from the dead and take your son again? Do I have to drive you to his safe house?"

"Dillon!" Sonny yelled at him, if he was trying to be amusing the comedy was completely lost on Sonny, but that was to be expected. Sonny wasn't exactly big on the laughs. "I need you to do something for me, and I need you to listen. It's very important, all right? You're the only one that I can trust to do this…"