Carly Ashton tried, and mostly failed, to summon some compassion for her husband. It wasn't that she wanted Ned to suffer, but she barely knew him and, from what she did know, she doubted he wanted her feigned sympathy. She could respect that. So, she had decided to just find a guest room in the house and settle in there for the night. She had been about to explore the rest of the upstairs when she remembered that the movers had moved all her possessions into the master bedroom while she and Ned had been on their honeymoon. That had led her to creep back towards the master bedroom suite and cautiously open the door.

The room was dark except for a faint glow from the bathroom of the master suite and the light coming from behind her in the hall. Carly took a cautious step across the threshold and debated whether she could turn on the light.

"You may turn the light on," Ned said as he pulled the pillow over his head.

"How is your head?" Carly asked.

"A little better. I'll be ok, I just need to lie still and sleep," Ned said.

"I won't disturb you then. I just need to get some things and then I'll find one of the guestrooms," Carly offered.

"You don't need to. This is a California King, we should be able to share it. We should probably get used to that since it is the closest room to the nursery."

Carly stood silently for a moment and reflected on Ned's words. He made it sound like they were an actual family. She remembered how she had longed to believe that she and Tony could become that. That had all been a pipe dream and she was wary to believe it could be anything more than that with Ned. She took a deep breath and exhaled with more trepidation.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. The guest room across the hall has fresh sheets if you prefer," Ned said.

Carly took another deep breath and exhaled. "No, it's ok, I'll just get ready and join you shortly."

XXXXXXXX

Dr. Monica Quartermaine heard the soft whoosh of the door to their master bedroom suite opening. "Alan, please turn on the light rather than attempting any stumbling in the dark heroics. It's been a long enough night we don't need to spend the early morning hours in the emergency room getting you x-rayed. Plus, I doubt the current intern class will find that any less amusing than we did when Dr. Hardy did the same thing my intern year and broke his hip," she said.

Monica heard her husband chuckle and then light illuminated the room. She sat up in bed and turned to face him. "Is Ned alright?" she asked.

Alan sat down in one of the wing chairs on the opposite side of the room and started to remove his shoes. "Honestly, I think he's still grieving the loss of his daughter and his wife. Perhaps that just makes him even more conflicted in this marriage to Carly which raises the question of exactly why he married her. I'm smart enough to not go there with my sister. She will somehow twist that into some new variation on self-depreciation. I just told her Ned was safely home and sleeping away his latest migraine attack," he said.

"That was probably a good plan. I doubt the spontaneity of this latest marriage is doing much to assure Tracy of the substance of her relationship with her oldest son. I suppose I can understand now in ways I just couldn't before when AJ was younger. Back when, at least AJ believed, we had all the answers."

"Am I missing something? Do you think our son is planning to propose soon?" Alan asked.

"No, I wasn't saying that. I meant I understood in more of a global sense. AJ is growing up and becoming his own person with his own hopes, dreams, fears, and priorities. I have to take a few steps back and trust that we've given him the tools and helped him find the strength to address all of those head on in his own way."

Alan got up from the chair shoes in hand and started towards their walk-in closet that often functioned as a dressing room when one of them had a particularly late night or early morning. "AJ turned twenty last May. Ned was only thirteen when Tracy sent him off to Ethan Alan Academy," he offered before he crossed the closet threshold

Monica remembered. Or, at least she remembered her sister in law's anguish over the decision. She and Alan had been living outside Philadelphia while she had done her Cardiology fellowship at Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania when the decision had been made. "That wasn't a decision she made lightly, Alan. You know she didn't think that there was another safe option for Ned and I don't think we get to second guess that, especially not fifteen years after the fact."

"I'm not faulting Tracy's decision. I'm just pointing out that the situations are, and were, very different. Tracy loves him, but their relationship has always been challenging and Ned has always been stoic and silent. He shuts down which just seems to magnify the distance in their relationship," Alan's voice floated out from the closet.

"That distance may have much more to do with the absence of Ned's father in his life than anything your sister did or didn't do. I'd love to take all the credit for AJ making it through high school relatively intact. Like all working moms, I have my own striving to be supermom hang-ups; but I know that parenting is a partnership and it's so much easier when there really is a partnership. I thank you for being my partner in all senses of that word. In contrast, your sister, Tracy, never had that luxury when Ned was growing up. So, perhaps, for that reason alone, she would be very supportive of Ned and Carly raising their child in that context."

Alan emerged from the closet pajama clad. "I know it isn't our place to weigh in on Ned's decisions and perhaps it is pretty hypocritical to question why he would want to raise his child in wedlock since we've certainly never tried anything else with our children. I suppose I just don't trust Carly any more than I trusted Jennifer Eckert or Katherine Bell. Neither of those women did my nephew any favors so I have a hard time believing this relationship will be different," he said.

"I presume, from Ned's standpoint, it isn't about him. Perhaps we can understand that because I'm pretty sure a lot of your patience with me over the past few years was as much for our children as anything else."

Alan sat down on the edge of the bed and reached for her hand. "I've always loved you, Monica, even during the period where you were determined to shut me out of anything important, I loved you," he said.

"I wasn't determined to shut you out of everything. I just knew too much about the medical realities of everything. It wasn't easy to face my own potential mortality; especially with a newborn daughter depending on me. It was overwhelming and, as horrible as this is to say, your concern just made me more overwhelmed. I detached, and I realize that wasn't fair to you, but it was what I could do at the time. Perhaps this is what Carly and Ned can do at this time. I know you don't have general positive regard for Carly, but she is your nephew's wife so perhaps we just do what we can to give her a chance."

"Are you insinuating that you do have general positive regard for Carly? Come on, Monica, Bobbie is one of your best friends."

"I'm not saying Carly hasn't made decisions I want to think I would never make; but Tony and Bobbie made some poor decisions in all of that as well. At the end of the day they are all human. We should strive to be as well and I think that involves treating Carly with kindness and compassion."

Alan sighed. "I can try. She did seem concerned earlier, but she also seemed clueless. Lois might have been terrified at times by his migraines but at least she understood what they were."

"Carly isn't Lois and if she is expected to live in that shadow, she may just run screaming. Ask my mother how much she enjoyed being compared to the late Meg Bentley Baldwin," Monica said.

"I'm not really comparing Carly to Lois. Ok, maybe I am. I'm just worried about Ned. I'm not sure he can handle a third divorce."

"You say that like it's a foregone conclusion. Good grief your nephew hasn't even been married for quite a week and you're already worried about the divorce. I can't believe I'm voluntarily quoting your father but perhaps you could try channeling a little of that long line of love speech he delivers and try to have a little faith. Why don't you also try to get a little sleep? You're going to need to make efficient rounds so you can sign out before noon if we want to make it to Emily's cross-country meet."

"You know I love you," Alan said. He pulled her into his arms.

As they embraced Monica remembered how much she had missed her husband and how glad she was that they had been able to reconnect. "I know. I love you too," she whispered.

XXXXXXXX

As he lay in bed with his wife, Dr. Ryan Grabler could feel the tension in her neck and shoulders. Gently he began to massage her shoulders. "You're a good mother and all three of your children love you so, please, stop beating yourself up about this."

Tracy exhaled deeply. "I'm not beating myself up! I have no more idea how to reach him now than I did when he was thirteen and I sent him away to boarding school because it was the only way I thought he might survive adolescence. I think he is even closer to drowning now and I just have no idea how to help him."

Ryan moved his hands upward and started to work out the knots in her neck. He knew his wife's words were not purely rhetorical, but he also wasn't sure how to respond. His stepson would turn thirty in February. Many people would suggest that at twenty-nine Ned Ashton should be more than capable of ordering his own life. In general, he would agree. The ironic thing was that, in general, he suspected even his wife would agree. The problem was that beyond the general everything got more than a bit murky. "What concerns you specifically?" he finally asked.

"I'm afraid he is having blackouts again. I have been for a while and Alan sort of suggested that when he called tonight as well."

"In conjunction with his migraines?" Ryan asked.

"That was what Alan was suggesting but I'm afraid there is more to it than that. He doesn't look well."

Ryan supposed Ned had looked tired, but he had also just returned from a week in Utah working on patent applications with his cousin Celia Quartermaine. Travel could be exhausting. Travel for work could be particularly exhausting. "Perhaps he is just tired," he suggested.

"Or perhaps he is still grieving for the child he and Lois buried last year."

Ryan could believe that too even if he couldn't relate directly. He prayed he never would be able to relate directly. He and Tracy had been blessed with a son, Dylan Albert, and a daughter, Shannon Lila. Fatherhood remained one of his biggest challenges; but also, one of his greatest blessings and he couldn't imagine life without his children.

"This will sound horrible but I'm afraid that Ned and Carly might have conceived their child during one of those blackouts. No matter what Lois may think, I raised Ned better than to grow up and turn into his father."

Ned's father was Lord Lawrence Ashton, a low-level British monarch far removed from likely ascension to any throne. He had married Tracy Quartermaine when she had been only eighteen. Their son's birth and their divorce had both happened before her twentieth birthday. After the divorce, Tracy had returned to her parents' home in Port Charles, NY and Lord Ashton had married his adultery accomplice, Celeste Mouton.

"Some may believe once an adulterer always an adulterer. I suppose my first husband's actions certainly showed that. But the sins of the father don't always become the sins of the son," Tracy said.

Ryan remained silent. He was a psychiatrist and he knew that sometimes his best approach was to just shut up and listen. Sometimes that advice was also well applied to his marriage. This was especially true when he didn't have a helpful response and, in the moment, he certainly didn't. He knew that his wife's first husband was a serial adulterer with a particular passion for one-night stands and illegitimate children. He knew that his wife wanted, and expected, something very different for her son. He remembered how hurt she had been when Ned had admitted to an extra-marital tryst with Katherine Bell. That relationship had ended his marriage to his second wife, Lois Cerullo.

"I know you thought that I was trying to rationalize Ned's behavior last summer. I wasn't. I was trying to understand it. I have no illusions that Lawrence Ashton ever loved me, but Ned did love Lois, in fact, I believe he still does. He also loved their babies and he would have never consciously done anything to threaten their home."

Ryan didn't disagree about her assertions. He just wasn't sure that Ned's dalliance with Katherine hadn't been the result of a moment where he wasn't thinking. Perhaps that had deeper psychiatric meaning or perhaps the sole explanation was that his stepson was human and therefore made mistakes. "Tracy, I love you, and I love that you care about all three of your children and you want them to have happy, healthy, and productive lives. I just think perhaps you need to accept that the answers aren't always out there and maybe all you can do right now is trust that Ned knows you love him and you support him."

"The problem is that I don't trust that. Ned isn't Dylan. He grew up without a father and truly my mother raised him while I finished my bachelor's and then law school. Sometimes I feel that his Quartermaine connection comes more from being Edward's grandson than my son."

Ryan recalled the party that celebrated his stepson's 1993 Magna Cum Laude graduation from Harvard Law School. Ned had been newly married to Jennifer Eckert and had just taken a job as ELQ Enterprises Pro-Counsel. He had seemed to have the brightest of bright futures ahead of him, but Ryan recalled his wife's unease.

June 11, 1993

Dr. Ryan Grabler stood amongst the crowd in the Versailles Ballroom of the Port Charles Hotel. The evening's festivities were in honor of his stepson's recent graduation from Harvard Law and his installation as ELQ Enterprises' newest professional counsel. Around him rumors swirled that CEO and majority shareholder, Edward Louis Quartermaine had cleaned house to ensure a place for his grandson. Ryan knew that wasn't the case. He wasn't absolutely certain that his father in law was truly above such a thing in all circumstances, but he did know that Paul Hornsby had been fired because Edward had learned he had bribed a zoning official in an effort to advance their expansion project at the ELQ Quarry in Kemp Falls, a rural community nearly an hour outside of Port Charles.

"They have cheesecake!" his six-year-old son, Dylan, informed him when he joined him with a plate and his five-year-old cousin, Kirk Quartermaine, who held his own plate trailing half a step behind. Kirk was his wife's older younger brother, Dr. Alan Quartermaine's younger son. Although Kirk and Dylan were ten months apart, they had been almost inseparable once they progressed past the parallel play stage of development. In contrast, Ned and Alan's oldest son, AJ were a little more than nine years apart and had seemingly always been at very disparate developmental stages. That was unlikely to change for another ten years or so.

"I think that is one of the things you and your brother have in common. Your mom says it has always been one of Ned's favorite desserts," Ryan said. Dylan had been born right after Ned started his freshman year of college at Duke University. The boys had never had a real shared childhood or even lived in the same house for a significant period of time, yet, Ryan knew that Ned loved his little brother. He just struggled to relate to him at times. Ryan often wondered how much of that was due to the boys' eighteen-year age gap and how much that was due to the fact that, from his wife's stories, he wasn't sure his stepson had ever really thought like a child. He knew better than to raise that issue with his wife because she blamed herself for her son's sensible stoicism. He understood she had regrets about many situations, but he wondered how much of his stepson's personality was just innate and had nothing to do with being raised by a single mother who spent most of his younger years in college or law school.

"When do I get to give Ned his present?" Dylan asked.

"How about tomorrow when he and Jenny join us for lunch?" Ryan suggested. His wife had bought her son a nice briefcase and intended it to be from his younger siblings. Dylan had been unimpressed with the gift, sure that Ned would think it was boring, and had selected one of those NY Yankee Bobblehead Figures for Ned to display on his desk. He been convinced that his gift was perfect and couldn't wait to give it to his brother. Ryan had to admire his son's independent spirit and confidence.

Dylan seemed to contemplate the suggestion as he took another bite of his cheesecake. "Ok," he finally agreed. "Oh look, Kirk, Cooper is here! Remember at the wedding he had all those magnifying glasses. Maybe his mother let him bring those again. We're going to go see ok, dad?"

"Ok but remember no reckless running. Your grandfather will threaten to have another coronary if you knock over one of his wait staff," Ryan said.

Cooper referred to Cooper Barrett, the six-year-old son of Jenny's brother Bill's fiancée, Julia Barrett. He had been one of the ring bearers, along with Bill's twelve-year-old son, Sylvester, in Ned and Jenny's wedding the month before. After the wedding his wife had remarked that Cooper seemed to have the same earnest old soul expression she remembered in Ned's eyes at a similar age. Somehow, perhaps because Julia Barrett was also a single mother, she had taken that as more evidence that it had to do with her own shortcomings as a mother. Six weeks later Ryan still wasn't sure how to change her mind.

Ryan had been still contemplating all of that when his wife rejoined him. "So is Priscilla faring alright with our smart and stubborn little daughter?" he asked as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to him.

Tracy turned in his embrace and tilted her head slightly to meet his eyes. "Dinner and bath have been accomplished and she promised she would go to bed if she could just say goodnight to me," she said.

Ryan smiled at his wife's account. Their two-year-old daughter also had a sense of integrity rare in a child so young so, having said that, she probably would actually go to bed without protestations or tantrums. "It sounds like an all-around successful evening," he said.

"Don't say that too hastily," Tracy cautioned, and Ryan followed her eyes across the room to where her son Ned stood with his grandparents. "In case you haven't noticed, Jenny still hasn't returned from her shopping excursion in the city yet. Fashionably late is rarely fashionable when your husband is the guest of honor."

Ryan actually hadn't noticed of the absence of his daughter in law. Over the entire course of her relationship and then marriage to his stepson she had extended less than ten words in his direction, so he hadn't expected her to strike up a conversation with him or even greet him. His wife considered that rude, but his stepson assured them that his bride was just shy and felt intimidated by his wealthy and overly educated family. Ryan hated to admit that he tended to believe his wife was more likely accurate in his assessment. "Perhaps she got caught up in traffic. The trip should only take a little over three hours but on a Friday night in June there is probably a lot of traffic trying to get out of the city and onto the Taconic State Parkway," he suggested.

"That is exactly why I suggested that she postpone her trip until next week. We could have even arranged for her to stay in one of the suites the family has at the PC Hotel-Manhattan," Tracy said.

Ryan suspected if Jenny was truly intimidated by the family's wealth staying at a five-star luxury hotel on Manhattan's Upper East side would hardly help her feel grounded. "If the ostentatious opulence of our wealth truly makes her uncomfortable then perhaps that was exactly why she did plan the trip hastily. Or perhaps she wanted an excuse out of this formal party. We'll probably never know unless Jenny becomes comfortable enough with us that she decides to share," Ryan said.

"Jennifer isn't much older now than I was when I married Lawrence. I remember feeling so alone and so on the outside of his family. I don't want Jenny to feel that way. It just seems that she rebuffs any kindness and acceptance I try to extend."

"Perhaps that is her issue then. I truly believe that you did the best you could, with, and for, Ned. I believe he knows that and he loves you. If his wife has her own insecurities, or poor social graces, that isn't an indictment of your mother and son relationship."

Tracy just squeezed his hand silently as her father made his way over to the dais erected at the front of the room.

Edward Quartermaine climbed onto the dais, made his way to the podium, and reached for the microphone attached. After a moment the crowd stilled silently, and he began to speak. "Good evening, I am Edward Louis Quartermaine, the current CEO of ELQ Enterprises. Our country's former president John F. Kennedy defined happiness as the full use of your powers along lines of excellence. It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to a man who I trust will seek, and find, true happiness as our next professional counsel here at ELQ. Allow me to introduce my eldest grandson, Harvard Law Magna Cum Laude, Edward Lawrence Ashton."

Ned joined his grandfather on the dais as they shook hands and then hugged. Then he stepped forward and took his place at the podium. "Thank you for the warm words and confidence, Grandfather. They will not be misplaced I assure you. You always raised me to believe in value of integrity and honest hard work. Both will serve me well as we work together to guide ELQ Enterprises into the twenty first century and beyond."

Ryan joined in the applause of the crowd and then wrapped an arm around his wife and pulled her close for a moment. He didn't believe that either her father or son had intended their words to hurt her, but he could see that they probably had. In time he hoped Tracy would truly be able to believe that the relationship her son had with his grandparents was special but not evidence of some deficiency in his relationship with her.

Ryan took his wife into his arms. "I think that Ned's relationship with your parents is a blessing, but you need to trust that it hasn't evolved out of something that was lacking in your own relationship with him. I can't make you trust that, honey, but I'm afraid if you can't let yourself trust that it may just take away from the relationship you and Ned do have," he said.

"It isn't that easy," Tracy protested.

"It may not be, but I do believe it is important and I think you have to try. I love you, and I'm behind you all the way but you are your own harshest critic," Ryan said before he pulled her closer to him as they settled under the sheets together.