Chapter 1

Later that morning Maxie walked into the lobby to see Cooper talking to Jax. Once Jax walked away Maxie walked over to where he was standing.

"What was that about?"

"Jax just wanted to know if I was going to take a leave of absence right away," Cooper explained.

Maxie nodded.

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him I would work as long as I could,"

Cooper quickly noticed the concern in Maxie's voice.

"Come here," He said pulling her out of the lobby into a quiet hallway.

"Look, I get that you're scared---We both are but unless or until I can't I'm going to continue working,"

Maxie nodded.

"I'm sorry, It's just when I'm scared I do one of three things, I either talk a lot, act out or I get clingy, and I'm getting clingy,"

Cooper sighed.

"I've seen you talk a lot when you're scared and I think it's cute, as for you being clingy, you aren't being clingy. I'm fine right now though, okay?" Cooper said taking Maxie's hand that he was holding and resting it on his chest.

Maxie gave a small smile and leaned into a kiss.

With her hand still rested on his chest as they kissed and she could feel his strong and steady heartbeat. She knew Cooper was right he was all right right then so for the moment things were okay.

Chasity absent mindedly tapped the keys on the keyboard in front of her as she listened to Miss Meiners, her third period computer teacher ramble on about auto-something she wasn't totally listening so all she knew was it had something to do with Microsoft excel. She had only been going to PC high for half a day and she already knew which classes she just hated---Computers being very high on the list. Chasity looked at the smart board the teacher was teaching on and then back at her own computer screen and decided that since she was bored to tears she'd get on the internet. Almost as soon as she logged on she got and instant message from Spencer.

Spencer08: Are you okay??

Chasity smiled slightly and quickly replied.

Snowprincess15: Yeah, I'm fine.

Spencer08: I swear, you use that word so much it shouldn't be considered a word anymore.

Snowprincess15: well let me rephrase that…besides the fact I came to Port Charles to track down my brother who hadn't contacted me in 3 years and then that brother gets shot and from there we find out he needs a heart transplant? Besides that my life is sunshine and roses.

Spencer didn't type anything in the chat window he just turned his head to look at Chasity. Spencer started to whisper something in Chasity's ear but got interrupted when he heard Miss Meiners say something about a quiz.

"On Friday we're going to have a quiz over the features of Microsoft excel that we have learned about so far," Miss Meiners explained.

Groan could be heard throughout the classroom.

Spencer and Chasity exchanged glances with Kristina who had momentarily taken a break from arguing with the guy sitting next to her to make a gagging motion only to be seen by the teacher.

"Is there a problem Kristina?"

"Uh…no there isn't a problem," Kristina said hoping she sounded convincing.

The teacher just nodded and continued talking, thankfully not noticing Kristina step on the foot of the guy sitting next to her, seeing as he was laughing at the fact she got in trouble. After a few minutes the bell rang and everyone fought their way out of the classroom not hearing the last few word the teacher had said.