"I can't believe you are here." Dillon must have said those words to her a thousand times since the first moment he held Lulu in his arms again, but no others could explain how he felt to see her. In the midst of the chaos of the airport staff busily moving the plane away from the terminal, they stood together completely unmoved. His forehead pressed against hers, he didn't want to break the connection even for a second. He didn't want to let her go because if he did, she could slip through his fingertips all over again.

Lulu smiled at him shyly as she carefully pried herself away from him. Rather than letting go of his hands, she slowly slid her fingers down his tanned arm until they rested securely in his palm. Dillon felt his heart racing a million miles a minute beneath the soft fabric of his olive tee. The past five weeks had been building up to this moment. For most people, that wouldn't be a long time, Dillon realized that. However, a month without Lulu was a like a lifetime for him. That was how important she was to him.

"I'm nervous," Lulu admitted as he began to guide her toward the busy airport gate. Travelers passed by them in a hurry, desperate to get wherever they were going. Dillon tried to move his attention elsewhere, afraid that her next words would break his heart. "It's just that this all happened so fast. I was waiting to hear from you for so long, and then when I finally did, I was immediately put on a plane. Now that I'm here, I guess I'm just starting to realize everything."

"Everything?" he asked, winding his arm around her waist. "What does everything entail, Lu? I'm not asking for anything except the spend time with you. This doesn't have to mean anything more than you want it to mean. I'm done playing games, I'm done forcing people to feel things they don't want to feel. I am in love with you, Lulu. You have to know that by now. I don't expect you to return the feelings. You don't even have to say anything else…"

Lulu reached up and pressed her index finger to his lips. Leaning forward, she held his gaze with hers before her lips came crashing to his. He moaned involuntarily against her mouth, surprised at her sudden burst of confidence. As his hands found their way into the tangle of her long blonde ringlets, not a moment had passed since last summer. The abortion, the lies, the anger – none of it mattered. This was how it was meant to be.

"I love you, Dillon," she confessed, her voice barely above a whisper. "You already knew that. You knew that before you asked me to come here. You knew that before you left Port Charles. You knew that last summer, standing in front of the boathouse when I lied to you. You knew it the next morning when I woke up in your arms. You have known it every single moment since then."

Now, it was Dillon's word to remain silent. He finally understood what she meant when she said that everything had happened so quickly. For months, the only thing he could think about was how much he wanted to be with Lulu. Even as she had fought like hell to push him away, Dillon knew that she was in love with him. She was right about that. It was a scary thing to get everything you wanted, and a part of him wanted to push her away before he was forced to let it go.

"No," she insisted confidently, meeting his hesitation head on. "I know how you would be reacting if this is me. I am not going to let you push me away here, Dillon. I traveled for hours to get here. I lived through the last month waiting to see you. Stop doubting the fact that we love each other. I know you want to be with me. Just give into it."

"I never could fight with you for very long," he relented before allowing her to capture his mouth once again. This time, it was she who moaned against his mouth. Her tone was full of an urgency and yearning many months in the making. "Speaking of travel, you haven't even asked where we are."

"I didn't care anymore when I saw you," she retorted. Dillon fell into a stunned silence, a theme that was quickly emerging between them. "Okay, okay, where are we?"

"We are in California," he answered. "I know you're probably not surprised. I ended up coming out here after all. When I got to the airport, I had every intention of going somewhere else. I thought I could just disappear without as much as a call. Then, while I was waiting for the plane to taxi out of the gate, my cell phone rang. It was a number that hadn't appeared on my screen for quite some time, so I knew I had to answer it. It was your father."

"My father?" she asked. She was shocked that her father would call Dillon of all people when his own children hadn't heard from in weeks. Even Tracey hadn't heard from her husband, and she was locked up in a mental hospital. "Why did my dad call you?"

"He was checking on you," Dillon revealed truthfully. "He had been worried about you and your brothers, but he didn't want to risk having to tell you where he has been. We talked for a long time, mostly about you. I think he knew that I was running away from being with you because I was afraid that I would get hurt again. He knew that I was scared to hurt you."

"Did he tell you where he is? Did he talk about my mother?"

Dillon nodded hesitantly, unsure of how to broach the subject of Laura. "He told me a lot about how she was doing. She has seen a few doctors, and they're looking into trial medications. There hasn't been any kind of change, and I think your father is starting to accept that he might have really lost her. He also asked about my mom, which kind of surprised me."

"Dillon, what are you not telling me?" she asked. "Do you know where my mother is?"

He didn't want to have to lie to her. Then again, he didn't want to have to tell her the truth. Still, if his grandmother had taught him anything, it was that honesty was always the best policy. "Yes, I know where your mother is. Your father told me."

"Where is she?"

"I'm not supposed to tell you."

"Dillon, please, this is my mother," she protested. "You can't keep this from me. I have the right to know. I trust you more than anyone. Don't prove me wrong."

Her words shook him to the very core. "Your mother is here, Lu. Your father put her into a facility where he can visit her every day a few miles from here. I've stopped by to see her a few times myself. All I do is talk about you. Sometimes, I swear that she knows that I'm there and smiles when she hears stories about you. Most of the time, however, I know that she probably has no clue what is going on."

Lulu started to argue with him immediately, but Dillon stopped her short. "I know that I probably should have told you, but I promised your father," he explained. "Your mother is part of the reason I brought you out here. I realized that it's not up to me – or even him – to decide who should be in her life. It is up to the people she loved most. That would be you and your brothers. I'm sorry that I kept this secret from you, Lu, but I just wanted to make sure I was doing what I thought was best for you."

"I don't care," she declared bravely, actually meaning. "It doesn't matter what you did. I just want to see my mother and my father."

"You can't today, but I promise I will take you to see them first thing tomorrow," Dillon said. "There is a 24-hour clearance period. I called this morning to have you put on the list. That is the most I can do."

Tears streamed freely down her face as she reached for him and pulled her close to him. Burying her face into his shirt, she easily found her way back into the crook of his body. There was something so familiar, so complete about that moment. "Will you take me home?"

"Where is home?"

"Where is the nearest place we can be alone?"

Dillon laughed softly as he threaded his arm around her waist and guided her toward his car. The breeze coming off the ocean was unseasonably cool, giving off an air of perfection that only California could achieve. Sliding his sunglasses down his nose with his free hand, he wondered what she was going on inside her mind. Sometimes, he would give anything to be able to read her like a book. Other times, he was glad that there was still a part of her that was a mystery to him. It made it all that much more special when she told him what she was thinking about or feeling. It was like she was giving him a part of herself or sharing a secret she only knew. It reassured him of his place in her life.

A half-hour they arrived in front of the hotel. It was nothing special, certainly the exact opposite of the palatial estates he had grown up on. Traveling across Europe with his mother had given him the chance to stay in some of the best hotels the world had to offer. Very little actually impressed him about those places. They were expansive and unfeeling, lacking the personal coziness of smaller hotels. He'd chosen a little place just off the beach, a perfect summer hideaway. As he handed off his keys to the single valet that was employed by the hotel, he watched Lulu from a distance for a few moments. She turned her face skyward, allowing the hot sun to flood her beautiful skin.

"So, this is home?" she asked, turning toward the hotel. He expected to see at least a small moment of disappointment, but it never came. She smiled up at the Spanish villa, nodding appreciatively. "This is exactly what I pictured. I kept thinking about you holed up in some room with your laptop, feverishly writing the great American screenplay. Then, in the afternoons, you'd grab your camera and walk along the ocean. Taking the occasional dip when you got hot, it was exactly what California should be."

"I haven't written a word since I've been here," he confessed quietly. He glanced at her and then across the street toward the ocean. "Last year, after the abortion, everything was different. I thought that I had to make my life count for something by being successful in business. I believed I had a duty to my family to be something I wasn't. You helped me see that it was okay to be me – that my dream was still a way of being successful. No matter what I choose, my life will count for something."

"What does that have to do with not writing, Dillon?" she asked. "If anything, I would think that would inspire you to write. Avoiding that isn't making your life count. It's just time being wasted."

"It's not that," he shook his head. "The thing I realized is that I didn't feel like I deserved to have the dream. My child – our child – would never get that opportunity. Before you even think it, I don't blame you. Honestly, I blame myself. Until you made me see it, I didn't think I should get to be a director or do something I love. I saw working at ELQ as my punishment."

"And that's why you pushed me away for so long," she realized suddenly. "You didn't think that you deserved me. You ran away because you knew you were close to having everything you wanted, the job and the girl. You knew that coming out here would kill both birds with one stone."

"Exactly," he acknowledged. "Maybe it doesn't make sense, but it's honestly how I felt. I didn't think I deserved to be happy because of what I put you through."

"You put me through?" she cried. "Dillon, I destroyed your life."

"No, Lu, don't you see?" he insisted. "You made my life."