I love you guys! Thank you ever so much for your thoughts and reviews! It is fabulous seeing new readers and commenters too. Oh my muse wishes to tease…according to her, one half of the 'bad guys' should be revealed next chapter but the 'big bad'… could be awhile *cackled evil laugh* She's such a drama queen.

Chapter Thirty

It took a few days to get everything together that pertained to his past; weeding through what he thought would and wouldn't be relevant.

Having been forced to look through the past, he realized he always fell for rather unattainable women. Most of the women he fell for had a thing for someone else. Jenny was more in love with Paul, maybe even Ned, than him, Dominique…what could he say about the mother of his daughter, she was…she had more issues than he knew how to deal with, but he had loved her fiercely. Felicia was and probably always would be, in love with Frisco, which brought back his feelings of inadequacies, Kathrine…he still wasn't sure why he dallied there but her death, while crass, was probably a good thing. Alexis was neurotic and was always going after men she tried to either work for or lock up. Good thing their non-relationship didn't last long, he feared he'd become as crazy as the woman herself or worse and go off the deep end like Helena.

He often wondered if his past was why he tried so hard to save and or fix these women. Where he mostly failed in showing his worth to his own father, failed to save his brother when he first tried, he wanted to be someone's hero but the problem of trying to be a hero, he had feet of clay. It was a sobering and somewhat heartbreaking revelation.

Always feeling like he failed to meet the standards of the men he was related to, failed to do better, go further…Mac scrubbed a hand down his face, bone tired. Looking at his failures was a sobering experience but knowing that it was most likely someone from his past that had caused twenty years of abuse, was worse than anything he had felt heretofore.

"Mac?" Georgie asked softly.

"Hmmm…?" Mac queried just as softly.

"Is…are you okay? I know what mom did was wrong and I am sure she regrets it. Are you ever going to be able to forgive her?" Georgie asked.

Wondering if his mind or spirit were ready for this conversation, Mac took a deep breath, cleared his throat and tried to make this as simple as possible. "I don't know what I am at the moment, confused, overwhelmed, scared…and I am sure in some ways your mother regrets her decisions but you know what I discovered while looking back at my past, forgiving and forgetting are two very different things. In time, I am sure I will forgive her but I won't ever forget. It may be unfair but looking back, I've always allowed myself to play second fiddle to the men in the women's lives that I have loved. You are still young and probably in love with the idea of love but until recently, I didn't know the true meaning of unconditional love. It is a strange thing to learn so late in life but I think I have finally grown up, put away silly notions…Georgie, Felicia and I will not be getting back together, it isn't what she wants and it most assuredly, is not what I want. I will love you and Maxie forever but trust, once broken beyond repair, cannot be resuscitated."

Georgie was smart, she knew nothing would ever be the same, but she yearned for the normalcy that Mac brought to their little family. Unsure what she could say to change his mind, Georgie simply nodded her head before she left for school.

Before Mac was able to draw together all his papers, Maxie flounced down the stairs a perpetual sneer on her face. Because in her eyes, it was all Mac's fault. "If you bothered to try, mom wouldn't have been with that drunk, you giving up just proves she deserves better and we deserve better than a man who didn't know what unconditional love was until he discover the 'fruit of his loins'…" Maxie said harshly.

Not wanting to argue with her but knowing nothing would be solved with silence, Mac stood firm and said, "You are welcome to blame me all you want, that is your right, you love your mother and would never want to see her possible flaws but holding me accountable for an affair I didn't even know was possible, is low even for you. Your mother has always loved adventure and being the wife of a cop, obviously isn't exciting enough, I don't know how I could have prevented this but I will not be spoken to like this again young lady. For most of your life, I have been the only father figure you had, I have loved you through all your ups and downs and love you still but as you so tactlessly pointed out, the 'fruit of my loins' has taught me a thing or two. Love doesn't have to come with strings, nor demands and as sad as I am to say, ever since your heart transplant, you expect everything to be your way, or you hold your love and affection ransom. As I told Georgie I will love you forever but I will not be held responsible for other's actions, my daughter's life has been hell and not once has she blamed me, even though it may all be my fault."

Mac looked long and hard at the girl he considered a daughter before picking up the last few items he needed before leaving. Maxie was always looking for someone to blame and in this instance, Mac was a convenient scape goat.

It may not be his finest moment and he could admit freely that maybe he did love Elizabeth more than Maxie and Georgie but not because of whom they were, but because even though he missed out on doing fatherly things for her, he was allowed to be a dad to her. To Maxie and Georgie, he will forever and always be Mac, not dad. With Frisco always ping ponging into the picture, the deeper relationship was always fated to doom.

He thought back to his conversation with Elizabeth about Dominique and wondered if Sonny would be able to dig up something more. 'I don't knows' and 'I'm not sures' were not going to settle her curiosity or the hurt. Because the fact remained, he had thought Dominique dead a year or more before she supposedly was and that didn't sit well with him.

XxXxXxX

"Elizabeth, you need to eat!" Francis said in exasperation.

"I know…I know…It's just…I can't get the eyes right. I wanted to have these all done before dad got here. I feel like I'm being stretched on a rack, pulled in all directions and none, I don't know what is going on but it feels like there is a time limit on figuring this out and I don't want to be the cause of others getting hurt. I don't have a lot of people in my life that I trust or care for and those that I do, I don't want them getting hurt because of me." Elizabeth said in a small, resigned voice.

"Hey, pushing yourself past your limits isn't going to help anyone. You need to worry about your health and welfare too. Just as you care for us, we care for you. And don't think you can use this newest obsession to miss your appointment tomorrow."

Rolling her eyes, a touch of affection behind the gesture, Elizabeth simply nodded her head before resuming her work. It wasn't easy going back to that place in her mind; it was full of pain and fear, not to mention that all her memories were cloud with the innocence of childhood. What seemed wrong to her present self, didn't always seem wrong to her younger self.

Not realizing the passage of time, Elizabeth was pulled from her focus by a loud knocking. "Coming…coming…" She mumbled as she continued to sketch.

When she was a step or two away from the door, it opened, causing her to stop what she was doing and look up. "Oh…" She said while scrunching her eyebrows in confusion. "Hi…" She offered softly.

Jason and Mac hadn't looked at her, their focus intently on one another.

Clearing her throat didn't work, calling 'excuse me' didn't work…just when she had reached her threshold of annoyance, she stepped between the two men and gently took Jason's face in her hands. A quick but soft kiss was what finally worked to break the stare down that had been going on. "Yeah, hello…want to tell me what the hell that was?"

Jason remained stoic but Mac blushed.

"Sorry, Jason was just telling me about your appointment tomorrow." Mac said a little brusquely.

"Uhh huh, sure…and I should believe that line of bullshit because?" Elizabeth asked, arching her brow, almost daring them to lie to her.

Huffing under his breath, Mac said, "Fine…I was warning the little punk that he better treat you like a queen because no one should take advantage of you and your beautiful heart!"

"Sounds a little closer to the truth…hey, Mr. Avoidance, want to fill in the blanks that dear old dad left out." Elizabeth asked, almost smiling when she heard Mac huff at being called old.

Although talking wasn't one of his favorite things, nor something he was overly good at, Jason said, "That was said but there were also threats of violence, possibly from both sides and you know, there could have been some male posturing and there may or may not have been talk of castration and death if either of us hurt you."

"So…let me see if I have this right. My father threatened you with castration if you – to use his words – defiled his daughter and you threatened death if he hurt me by not being the best father he could be or something along those lines. I am pretty sure I told both of you yesterday, if I want to have sex with Jason or any other man, that is my prerogative, neither of you have a say in what I do or do not do. I appreciate that you both care for me but…Jason, until there is something firmly on the table, I am not yours and Mac, I thought we cleared this up a few days ago. I am an adult and allowed to see or do what I want; you can offer suggestions but living this life, is up to me." Elizabeth said while rubbing her temple.

These two men were going to drive her to drink. The constant posturing was not making either man look better.

Both men had hangdog looks but it didn't stop them from throwing glares at each other.

"Jeepers Creepers, boys! Elizabeth said before deciding to put some distance between the stubborn men. "Jason, sit on the couch, Mac…Dad, please take the chair. I have some of the sketches done, but not all of them. While I would love to get this over with, I think waiting until I am done, is the best bet. Jumping to conclusions is not something any of us need and until the facts are all aligned, I refuse to play the guessing game, plus, I don't want your thoughts and feelings to cloud my own. Facts are what we need to put everything behind us. Now, if you just want to visit for a bit, maybe have lunch, fine, but I am telling you both now, this attitude is not going to be put up with. Love me if you want to love me, like me if you want to like me but don't make this about you and your emotions. Dad, you don't know what Jason's job really is, so you can't hold your preconceived notions over his head, Jason, you can't continuously look down on Mac because he wasn't in my life all along, there are many reasons why he wasn't and probably a million more that we don't know about, so can you guys stop being guys and grow up. Jason isn't trying to take me away from you Mac, in fact, he is the one who has been trying to get us closer, Jason, Mac isn't trying to break us apart, or whatever, he's just trying to look out for someone he has been denied the chance to."

Elizabeth had set her sketch pad down on the kitchen table but quickly came back into the room, "Francis and I are going to get lunch, maybe while we're gone, you two can figure out how to co-exist peacefully." It was said evenly enough but both men heard the undercurrent that they better do as they were told or suffer her wrath.

Both men were lost in their thoughts, long after Elizabeth had left, it was funny how someone so young, could understand so much, especially when said woman was so sheltered.

Mac tried and failed not to see the yawning differences between Elizabeth and Maxie. While Georgie was just trying to make things right for everyone, Maxie was happy to blame him for everything. And while the maturity level was different between all three, Mac realized that his other two girls were going to need help dealing with all the changes, Maxie more so, Mac thought sadly.

Jason just felt like the warmth that had been wrapped around his heart, tightened just that little bit more. Sure Elizabeth didn't appreciate his 'I am man' tendencies but even when she was giving him shit, she didn't talk down to him or make him feel like a failure or less of a man. For that, he couldn't appreciate her more than he already did. He stood by his feelings; she was the very best woman.

XxXxXxX