Something More by JJBKJBJC (Seq to TEOES)

[JRK Archiver]

This is the sequel to The End of Everything Simple. Please read that story before reading this one.

Prologue - Easy Street


“Well halle-freakin’-luia!” Dillon proclaimed loudly. “The adult thing is finally official!”

Dillon smiled as he looked around the crowded living room of his new home. There were about 25 people present to wish him a happy 21st birthday, and among those 25 (most of whom were calling for a speech from the birthday boy) were Georgie, Hannah, Tracy, Ned and Brook. And so, all was well. It didn’t hurt that most of the rest of his family and friends had also shown up.

“You know, there’s something really twisted about a society that says I can start raising a kid in my teens but I can’t dare pick up a beer until I’m 21,” Dillon pointed out with a chuckle. “Of course, there’s also something really twisted about a man who thinks I can handle a kid but not my own finances until I’m 21.”

Edward scoffed and Dillon grinned and held up his drink.

“Here’s to you, Grandfather! And here’s to Georgie and Hannah Banana for putting up with the broke version of Dillon Quartermaine for three years. But those days are mercifully over. Look around you, people, check out our new digs! And no, my superstar niece isn’t paying the rent!”

Brook smacked Dillon in the shoulder and laughed.

“So when are you gonna pay back all those other loans, Buddy?” Brook teased, and Dillon gave her a mock warning glare.
“Okay, in all seriousness,” Dillon said, changing his tone, “I wanna thank each and every one of you. For coming here tonight, yeah, but also for your support, encouragement… babysitting… and, yes, the occasional loan… We couldn’t have gotten this far alone. Georgie, Hannah Banana… last, never least… you make it all worth while... Cheesy or not, that’s what it comes down to.”

Dillon flashed an appreciative smile at the group and then bypassed them all to approach Georgie, leaving Felicia and Maxie cutting and passing out birthday cake. Georgie was standing in the corner of the room with Hannah in her arms, and Dillon placed a gentle kiss on Hannah’s forehead before kissing Georgie as intensely as he dared in a room full of people.

“Hey,” Dillon said quietly, his face only an inch or two away from Georgie’s.
“Hey,” Georgie returned.

Dillon turned and looked around the room again.

“So we did good,” he said with a smile. “My girls and I are finally on easy street.”
“I stay up!” Hannah told her father proudly, grinning his grin, and he gave her the same look back.
“You did stay up! It’s so late for little girls to still be up, though.”
“I stay up more,” Hannah said simply, and Dillon couldn’t say no to her.
“Just this once,” Georgie agreed.
“Yeah, ‘cause it’s 25-o-clock,” Dillon teased, and Georgie laughed.
“So this is it,” Georgie said after a moment. “We have arrived.”
“Looks that way,” Dillon agreed. “Life’s only gonna get easier from here on in.”

[JRK Archiver]

Chapter One - Before


“Fizzy drink!” the whiney, barely awake toddler insisted.
“Fizzy drinks aren’t for breakfast.” her mother said calmly.
“Fizzy drink!”
“Not for breakfast.”
“Fiz-zy drink!”
“Dillon, a little help here?”
“Not for breakfast,” he reaffirmed.

Hannah pouted at her Cheerios. Georgie buttered six slices of bread. Dillon followed along behind her with peanut butter. Georgie came around behind him with strawberry jam.

Their new kitchen had a long counter perfect for that type of assembly-line lunch making.

The phone rang. The toaster popped up. The kettle whistled. The kid covered her ears and knocked over her Cheerios in the process. Her father dove for her plastic bowl and dropped his own glass mug.

“Oh, damn it!” Dillon yelled.
“Daddy!”
“Dillon!”
“Darn it! I meant… I meant darn it…”
“I help-”
“Hannah, don’t touch that!” Georgie yelled, more harshly than she’d intended.

Hannah looked up suddenly, startled, and a moment later her bottom lip stuck out and her eyes filled with tears.

“Hold a sec!” Georgie nearly yelled into the phone, before dropping it loudly onto the counter and wrapping her arms around Hannah. “Baby, I didn’t mean to yell…”
“I sorry…”
“No, Baby, I just didn’t want you to cut yourself… Mommy’s sorry…”
“Can I have a fizzy drink?” Hannah asked hopefully, and Georgie and Dillon exchanged an amused look despite the chaos of the phone on hold and the kettle that was still whistling.
“Nice try. Not for breakfast,” Georgie answered her, and Dillon finally lifted the screaming kettle off the stovetop. “For the record, Dillon, you can deal with her when she’s acting on Quartermaine genes.”
“Oh, like you never played the guilt card with your mom.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about!” Georgie said lightly, playing dumb. She gestured towards the mess of broken glass and Cheerios on the floor. “Can you-”
“Yeah. It’s covered.”

Dillon poured Hannah another bowl of Cheerios while Georgie went back to her phone call.

“A broom and dustpan calls. You don’t move a muscle ‘til I get back, you little Quartermaine,” Dillon told his daughter.

Hannah nodded emphatically and Dillon turned and left the room briefly. When he came back Georgie caught his eye with a familiar look that told him their carefully laid out plan for the day had changed.

“What?” Dillon asked knowingly, and Georgie sighed.
“Mrs. Emery’s sick.”
“Again?!”
“She’s old, Dillon.”
“Then why don’t we get a young babysitter?”
“’Cause she’s cheap.”
“We have money now!”
“Hannah likes her!”
“And the rest of our babysitters are in high school. Ugh…”

Dillon let out a slow breath through clenched teeth.

“Maxie?” he asked hopefully.
“She’s got class today too.”
“Brook?”
“Same deal, Dillon.”
“The rest of my family’s probably working.”
“Yeah. Mine too.”
“Shi-”
“Dillon!”

Dillon sighed and finished cleaning up the floor.

“Okay… okay, um… I don’t absolutely have to have any contact with talent or clients until this afternoon… I’ve got a meeting at the Grille…” Dillon mumbled, as much to himself as to Georgie.
“You can take her with you?” Georgie asked, tossing Hannah’s breakfast bowl into the sink and lifting Hannah down off of her chair.
“If I really have to I can take her for the morning… but first I’m going to call everyone I know and try to find an alternative… I’m not going to get anything done if she’s there… and Ned doesn’t like it. He’s been good about it before, but-”
“I help, Daddy.”
“I know,” Dillon said quietly, wracking his brain for a solution. “Georgie, what about the afternoon?”
“My last class ends at four. I have a break between noon and two but I told Brook we’d have lunch at Kelly’s-”
“Okay… okay, um, I’ll meet you at… what, the PCU student center?... at noon and hopefully between now and then I’ll have found someone to come get her from you before two. Will that work?” Dillon asked, scrubbing down the counter.
“Only if you can actually find someone.” Georgie threw all three sandwiches in plastic sandwich containers and tossed one at Dillon. “I can miss my last class if I have to, but I don’t want to have to.”
“Are we late yet?” Dillon asked.

Georgie glanced at her watch as they headed for the door.

“Shit!”
“Mommy!”
“Georgie!”
“Shoot! I meant shoot…”

***

At few minutes before noon Georgie found her eyelids drooping and the world fading away into a peaceful slumber… despite the fact that she was sitting on a hard bench in the middle of Port Charles University’s student center.

No one ever said convincing a three-year-old there were no monsters under her bed was easy. But no one ever said it would cut into her sleep this badly, either.

“Oh, thank God!” a familiar voice said happily, breaking into Georgie’s impromptu nap. Georgie opened her eyes lazily.
“Hey, Brook,” Georgie greeted her friend with a smile. “What’s up?”
“I needed a familiar face today. I swear twenty-seven people snapped a picture of me in the thirty seconds it took me walk across the field to get here. I’m really not getting the hang of this blending in thing.”
“My three-year-old is going to show up in about two minutes. I know the feeling.”

Three years of living lives completely different from their peers had served to create a strong friendship between Georgie and Brook. Their lives were completely different from each other, as well, with Georgie living the life of a teenage mother and Brook living the life of a teenage rock star, but somehow commiserating about what they were both missing out on in normal teenage experiences had brought them closer.

Of course, some days it didn’t seem fair to Georgie. Some days she wanted to scream at Brook for missing out on high school dances to go to Europe while she was stuck missing out on high school dances to stay home with a sick child. But Georgie rarely said as much out loud. The old Georgie would have. But that Georgie had been gone for a long time. Mommy Georgie had gotten used to being complained to, rather than doing the complaining. And in the past several months she’d come to understand some of the stress Brook was under in her own life.

“Hannah’s coming here?” Brook asked curiously, and Georgie nodded.
“You mind one more coming along on our little lunch date?”
“My favorite cousin? Never. Hey, don’t tell Emily or AJ I said that,” Brook said with a grin, referring to the favorite cousin comment, and Georgie nodded.
“It was totally last minute. Mrs. Emery is sick again.”
“You guys really need to find a younger sitter, you know? Don’t you have a class this afternoon?”
“Yep. Dillon took Hannah with him this morning, which hopefully didn’t get him fired-”
“By my dad? Not likely.”
“Yeah, well it’s hardly the first time. Anyway he was supposed to make some calls and try to find someone for the afternoon.”
“How’s Hannah doing with the whole monsters-under-the-”
“Mommy!!!”

Suddenly Hannah was running up to them and happily launching herself into her mother’s arms. Dillon was a few steps behind her. By this point in their lives Georgie was able to ignore the curious eyes that fell on them.

“Hey you. Did you get your daddy fired this morning?” Georgie teased, and Hannah just ignored her and waved at Brook.
“You were at the store!” Hannah said quite seriously.
“Brook was on a magazine at the store,” Dillon filled in, and Brook looked at him worriedly.
“Please tell me by magazine you don’t mean sleazy tabloid rag?”
“Nope. People. Some list or other. Old picture. Composite cover. No worries.”
“So did you find somebody?” Georgie asked hopefully, and Dillon gave her an apologetic look. Georgie sighed. “Okay… if you can take her during a morning at work I can handle missing one more class…”
“I want a fizzy drink!” Hannah suddenly piped up, eyeing a student at the next table drinking from a can.
“We’re going to Kelly’s, Uncle Lucas will get you whatever you want,” Georgie told her, but Hannah gave her the evil eye and climbed down off of her lap.

As they started to walk away Hannah looked up at Brook, pouting like only a three-year-old can pout.

“Pick me up!” Hannah demanded.

Brook scooped Hannah up and they both giggled as Brook tickled her sides.

Suddenly one camera flashed, and then another, and Brook forced a practiced smile.

“Smile, Hannah,” Brook told her, speaking more for Georgie and Dillon’s benefit, “We’ll be all over the Internet by tonight.”

A few feet away, Georgie looked up at Dillon in mock annoyance.

“Parents just don’t rank against a superstar cousin, huh?” Georgie asked.
“Nope. We’re just the ones who wouldn’t give her a soda,” Dillon replied with a chuckle.

***

“So what can I get you, Kiddo?” Lucas asked, kneeling down in front of Hannah. “Frog legs? Duck?”
“No!” Hannah giggled. “A fizzy drink.”

Lucas looked up at Georgie, who nodded.

“Anything lemon lime, for her,” Georgie told him. “And chicken nuggets. I’ll just have a burger and fries.”

Lucas took an order from Dillon, then turned to Brook with a tender smile.

“Didn’t think I’d see you ‘til tonight. How were classes?”
“I’m getting used to it. You have time to join us?” Brook asked her boyfriend, smiling a hopeful little smile.
“I’m on break in a little while.”
“M’kay.”

Lucas went into the kitchen to place the order, and it occurred to Brook that he’d forgotten to take an order from her.

“I’ll be back in a sec,” she told Georgie and Dillon, leaving them at the table with Hannah.
“I’m glad they’re back,” Georgie said thoughtfully. “I hate when she goes on tour and it’s a thousand times worse when she takes Lucas with her.”
“Yeah,” Dillon said distractedly.
“What’s wrong?” Georgie asked.
“Uh… my mind’s kinda on something else right now… There’s actually something I need to talk to you about. I’ve been thinking about it for a while… er, well… since this morning, kind of, but it occurred to me about a million times over the past three years. I know it’ll probably seem a little crazy at first but if you-”

Dillon was cut off by the ringing of a cell phone.

“Sorry, hang on a sec,” Georgie told him, and he sighed. Dillon waited while Georgie chatted animatedly with the caller on the other end of the line. Lucas brought their drinks and returned to the counter, where Brook was waiting for him.

“So how’re you really doing?” Lucas inquired gently.
“Today’s actually not bad. I almost feel normal.”
“You done now?” Lucas asked her.
“Not until three. I have an hour-long class at two.”
“I’m working ‘til five. Can I talk you into dinner at that new place on Greene?”
“You know, let’s stay in tonight,” Brook said, doing her best to sound casual. “Let’s just take it easy tonight, okay?”

Lucas looked at her, thought for a minute, then nodded in somewhat reluctant agreement.

“You got it.”

Back at the table, Georgie hung up her phone.

“Okay, what’s up?” she asked Dillon.
“Daddy?”
“What, Hannah?”
“I want cake.”
“Maybe after lunch. Georgie-”
“Where’s lunch?” Hannah demanded.
“Go ask Uncle Lucas, okay?” Dillon told her, forgetting for the moment that he hated that she referred to Lucas as her uncle, and helping her down off of her chair. He watched as Hannah scampered over to Brook and Lucas, then turned back to Georgie.
“Dillon, we’re kinda on a clock here,” Georgie reminded him, taking a sip of her drink. “Brook has to get back to class and you have to get back to work. Spit it out.”
“This, uh… this isn’t exactly the kind of thing you spit out… maybe I should have waited-”
“Should I be worried?”
“No, nothing’s, like, wrong… I just…”

Brook and Hannah returned to the table, giggling about something or other, and Lucas brought their food, and Dillon looked at Georgie apologetically.

“Later, okay?”

***

Georgie walked briskly across one grassy field and then another, making her way across campus.

Half way back to PCU it had occurred to her that she could still come to the second half of her class if Brook agreed to watch Hannah for an hour when she was finished. And since Georgie missed too many classes as it was and some days she would much rather be taking notes like a regular student than trying to convince Hannah to take a nap, she was happy when Brook agreed.

When she entered the building and reached the lecture room, which was too small to accurately be called a hall, she opened the door as slowly and noiselessly as possible and slipped into a seat in the back. She thought she had made it unnoticed until the professor stopped talking and stared at her.

“This class starts at two,” the professor said loudly, walking a few steps up the aisle.

Georgie looked at him, then glanced around, a little bit surprised that he was singling her out.

“I realize that,” Georgie finally said. He said nothing, and so she continued after a moment. “I apologize for interrupting.”
“What’s your name?” he asked, and Georgie made a mental note to tell Brook what an ass he was later.
“Georgie Jones,” Georgie told him clearly, meeting his eyes. She had to hold her tongue to keep from asking him testily ‘What’s your’s?’
“You’re more than an hour late. Should I be insulted? Everyone else thought this class was worth coming to on time.”
“Everyone else doesn’t have a three-year-old.”

There was a long moment of silence, and several people turned to look at her. Georgie ignored them and waited for the professor to get back to his lecture.

“All right…” the prof finally said, walking back to the front of the room. “Where were we?”

Georgie breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

“Who can tell me what the main thrust of the third chapter of the text was?”

He turned, smiled, and fixed his eyes on her.

“Georgie! Or do you prefer Mrs. Jones?”
“Miss Jones,” Georgie told him icily. “And I didn’t read it.”

***

“No, Dillon, you don’t understand, I was, like, totally defiant.”
“Well, good for you, you know, the guy sounds like an ass,” Dillon told her, clearing the last of the dinner dishes and joining her in loading the dishwasher.
“Dillon, I was proud to be defiant. What is that?”
“Self preservation?”
“I think you’re turning me into a Quartermaine!” she mused, and he shook his head.
“You keep saying that sort of thing like it’s such a bad thing. To be honest now that I don’t see them daily I find my family kind of entertaining. Hey, can we take it down a notch? You’re gonna wake up Hannah.”

Georgie wiped down the counter with a cloth and then hopped up on top of it.

“You know I gotta admit, I kinda like it here on easy street,” she said with a playful little smile. “Dishwashers rock.”
“I don’t know,” he began in a teasing tone, hopping up on the counter next to her and leaning in close. “They leave us with all this extra time on our hands… and I mean, have you ever stopped to marvel at the size of our bedroom? It’s like… we’ve got time… and space… time… space…” His voice dropped to a whisper, and he brushed his lips against her ear. “What ever will we do?”

Georgie turned her head slowly, letting his lips play against the curve of her jaw, and then stopped with her lips a mere fraction of an inch from his.

“I don’t have any ideas…” she teased in a whisper, with the tiniest hint of a smile. “You?”
“Not a one.”

He kissed her suddenly, and harder than she was expecting, but she returned the kiss. He tried to pull her closer and was surprised when she resisted.

“You’re right. Upstairs…” he said quickly, “The counter’s not really…” He kissed her once more quickly and pulled back to look her in the eye. “And the windows…” he said with a little laugh.

He jumped down onto the floor and held out both hands for hers to help her down, but she stayed where she was.

“No, wait, Dillon-” she said, taking a deep breath.
“No, no, not wait! Not wait! No reason for ‘wait’, Hannah’s asleep-”
“But I meant to ask you earlier… In Kelly’s, you were scaring me, whatever you wanted to say was important…”
“No, not important, just… not time sensitive, anyway, we can just-”
“Seriously, Dillon, I wanna know if something’s wrong!”
“It’s not that something’s wrong, it’s just that you’re not going to like it-”

Dillon broke off suddenly. He realized immediately that that was the wrong thing to say.

“Okay, let me clarify…” Dillon sighed and ran his right hand through his unruly hair. He walked a few feet away and leaned against the sink. “Quite the mood killer, by the way,” he told her, and she just looked at him expectantly.

“Okay…” he started, “It’s just… you know, this morning was crazy, and around the sixtieth time that Hannah said she was bored it occurred to me… why am I even working anymore? It’s not like we need the money anymore. And so then I just started dreaming… Georgie, what are we even doing here? I mean, why not go after our dreams, you know?”
“I thought these were our dreams. You working at a job you like, me getting through school, a nice place of our own, easy street and all that, Hannah happy…”
“I know, I know, but I’ve had these other dreams buried forever and now it’s possible… I want to be a director, Georgie! You know that! You’ve always known that! And there’s no market for it in Port Charles.”

Georgie’s eyes darkened accusingly.

“What are you saying?” she asked him harshly.
“I’m saying let’s move to New York!”

[JRK Archiver]

Chapter Two - It's All About Time

“New York?” Georgie questioned loudly and incredulously. “Now?!”
“Soon.”
“Dillon, that’s… I… what about, like… I mean how could we…”

Georgie searched for the words that would let her question him without her becoming the thing that held him back in life. She didn’t want to be the old ball and chain. She’d spent three years building a home life that was – more often than not – a joy for them both to come home to at the end of the day. She didn’t want to be the thing that kept Dillon trapped, kept him from realizing his dreams. The last thing she wanted was for him to resent her.

But…

“What about our families?” Georgie finally said. “And my classes?”
“You could transfer to-”
“What about Hannah? She’s happy here! She loves that she can see her grandparents and Maxie and Lucas and Brook and the rest of your family and everyone else in our lives whenever she wants! And she’s not used to a big city! She loves this house! I thought we all did!”
“We do, I do, but I’ve dreamed about being a director since I was, like, practically Hannah’s age, and-”
“Dillon, this was your dream! Don’t you remember all those times that you insisted you wanted to build the family you never had? Well this is it! We did that! Everything is finally settling down! Why change things now?”

Dillon leaned against the counter and sighed. He had expected Georgie to have reservations, but he had hoped she would be a little more open to the idea.

“Look,” Dillon said quietly, “I’m not saying I want to give up our lives, Georgie. It’s not that far away. We can still visit. Every weekend if you want. And hey, Brook has a place in Manhattan! She’ll be around now and then, with Lucas, probably. And it’s not like I’m asking you to live in a hole. With my trust fund we have the money to get a great place. And Hannah would love Central Park. And I’m not asking you to give up your education, either. You could transfer to, like, NYU, or… or somewhere else, we’d have to look into it and find out. But that’s all I’m asking here, Georgie. Just to think about it, look into it, give it a chance. It could be a total adventure, a chance to live every dream we ever had! All three of us!”

Georgie looked up at him sceptically, calmer but not convinced.

“It’s just… why now, Dillon? Why not wait a few years?”
“Until when? When’s the cut off? When you’re through school, Hannah will be in school. And then there will be a new excuse. She’ll have more roots, stuff to leave behind.”
“Dillon, she already has stuff to leave behind! We all do!”
“But it’s like I said, Georgie, we don’t have to leave it behind! Not really. Not if we visit enough. Look, I’m not saying I don’t love our life, okay? I’m not rejecting anything about what we have now… I don’t want you thinking I’m not happy with what we have… All I’m saying is that we could have even more.”

Dillon reached out to touch Georgie’s face, but something in her eyes hardened and she took a step back.

“Then what you’re really saying is that we’re not enough for you,” Georgie told him quietly, feeling tears spring to her eyes.
“No! Uh uh! I never said that! Don’t do that, Georgie, don’t put words in my mouth!” Dillon yelled, frustrated. They’d been down this road before.
“That’s what you’re really doing here, Dillon! You’re looking for something else because our life just isn’t good enough for you!”
“God, Georgie, this wasn’t supposed to-”
“Wasn’t supposed to what? Piss me off? Make me feel like I’m just not good enough at the homemaker thing to-”
“I love our home! You know that! You know that!”
“Then why the hell do you want to leave?”
“What’s so wrong with me wanting a career?”
“Nothing! Don’t make this about me taking something away from you-”
“Then don’t make it about me insulting you or your ability to-”
“Do you ever think that maybe I want more, Dillon?” Georgie yelled. “Huh? Did it ever occur to you that maybe I’d like to go after fame and fortune and try to do something other than take care of a whiny kid?!”
“Yeah! Georgie that’s why you’re in school! You…”

Dillon’s voice trailed off as he noticed a change in Georgie’s expression. Her anger was replaced with a mixture of regret and surprise as her eyes fell on something behind him. He turned to see what she was looking at.

Hannah was standing in the doorway. Her pajamas were wrinkled. One of her socks was falling off. Her hair was more messed up than Dillon’s on a bad hair day.

And her little chin quiverred as she stared at them.

It wasn’t that she understood. She couldn’t. Not at three years old. She didn’t know what they were saying, and she certainly didn’t know enough to be hurt by Georgie’s words.

Mommy and Daddy were yelling at each other. That was all she knew.

It was that simple. And that scary.

Scarier than the monsters under her bed.

“Mommy…”
“Shhh…”

Georgie went to her and wrapped her arms around her tightly, and Hannah clung to her mother.

“Everything’s okay, I promise… Everything’s okay now…” Georgie promised.
“No more yelling…” a crying Hannah pleaded, and Georgie rubbed her back gently.
“No more yelling,” she agreed, looking up at Dillon.
“Daddy said something silly,” Dillon told Hannah quietly. “But it’s okay now.”

Dillon met Georgie’s eyes again with a meaningful look.

“No more yelling.”

*****

It was nearly an hour later that Hannah got back to sleep and Dillon and Georgie themselves went to bed.

They lay side by side but not touching. Close but divided.

They stared into the darkness.

“You awake?” Dillon asked after a few minutes had passed in silence.
“Uh huh.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” Georgie said after a beat.
“For what?” Dillon asked, and Georgie took a breath and thought for a moment before answering.
“Mostly for waking up Hannah. For scaring her. ‘Cause we swore we wouldn’t do that. But also for the guilt trip.”
“I should have found a better way to approach this… You gotta know that I never wanted to make you feel… like… inadequate, or… like you’re not enough for me…”
“I shouldn’t have said that. I know you have every right to want to follow this dream. It’s just that you’re putting me in this situation where I have to choose… I can either give up all these things that I love and pack up our lives and move to New York… or I can be, like, this shrew of a wife - not even a wife - who won’t let you be free to pursue your dreams.”
“I didn’t think of it like that. I never thought, like, ‘rock’ ‘hard place’, ‘Georgie’.”

Georgie could feel Dillon move next to her and she knew he was gesturing with his hands. But in the darkness she couldn’t see much of anything, until a few moments later when Dillon turned on the lamp next to their bed.

Georgie squinted up at him in the sudden light.

“I just need you to look at me,” Dillon said. “I want you to listen and really hear this. Nothing is more important to me than you and Hannah. And nothing makes me happier. Nothing ever will. The directing is a dream, and it’s one I can’t let go of, but it’s not bigger or more important. It’s just… potential icing on the cake. Rather significant icing, but… not the important stuff.”
“But you want it.”
“Yeah,” Dillon nearly whispered, hoping he wasn’t feeding any lingering insecurities. “I want it.”

Dillon turned off the light and moved over closer to Georgie.

“But it doesn’t have to be right this minute. We can table it for now. Sleep on it tonight. Maybe for a lot of nights.”
“I’m not against the idea of it someday,” Georgie offered almost apologetically, and Dillon nodded in the dark. He leaned in for a quick kiss, relieved when she kissed him back and curled up against him the way she liked to do.

He wanted to ask her how distant her idea of ‘someday’ was.

But it could wait.

*****

“Eh… what’s up, Doc?”

Hannah giggled wildly and clapped her hands.

“Goofy!” she called out excitedly.
“B’gosh!” Dillon mimicked another of Hannah’s favorite characters, and she ran the length of the couch and launched herself into his arms.
“Elmer!”
“Hannah Banana, no running on the-”
“Daddy, Elmer!”
“No running on the couch!”
“Elmer!”
“Oooh I hate dat wabbit!”

Hannah squealed with delight, and Dillon laughed right along with her and sat down on the couch. She plopped herself down in his lap and looked over at the TV. He sighed a contented sigh.

Saturday mornings rocked. On Saturday mornings he was her hero.

Sleeping in just couldn’t compete with that.

It was almost always a ritual for two, these Saturday morning cartoon marathons. It was the one day Georgie got to sleep in. She had more alone time with Hannah throughout the week than Dillon did, and he cherished his chance for some one-on-one ‘quality time’ on the weekends.

It had started before Hannah was old enough to really watch. In the earliest days of their little tradition he had been keeping himself awake with the TV on while feeding her a bottle.

These days she munched on Cheerios and he sipped his coffee and took requests for impressions of her favorite characters during commercials.

Something told him these were ‘the good old days’.

Presently, the credits rolled and the theme music played to signal the end of a show, and Dillon stood up and turned off the TV.

“You think Mommy’s sleeping like Garfield?” he hinted to Hannah as seriously as he could manage, and she took off out of the room and down the hall.

It was her favorite activity. Dillon was sure of it. Hannah loved to run into her parents’ bedroom late on Saturday mornings and try to wake Georgie. It had become a game over the last several months. Georgie would play along, feigning sleep until she finally let Hannah ‘win’ and wake her up.

Hannah loved it. She’d ‘named’ the little game herself, however unintentionally. When Georgie wouldn’t wake up, she was “sleeping like Garfield”.

In Dillon’s mind that alone made his daughter a creative genius.

Not that he was biased or anything.

Dillon heard giggles and pillows rustling as he wandered lazily down the hall towards the bedroom. He stood in the doorway and watched Georgie try to hide a smile as Hannah shook her and whispered in her ear, and finally jumped nearly right on top of her. Georgie grabbed Hannah and pulled her down on the bed with her.

“You’re stuck now,” Georgie teased sleepily. When Hannah tried to wriggle away Georgie tickled her, and they both laughed, and Dillon watched all of this from the doorway with a little smile.

For now – just for now – New York could wait.

*****

Mondays sucked. There was no way around it. The weekend was just entirely too far away.

And Georgie liked school. She liked going to class. But she also loved the relative laziness of the weekend.

She was sitting on a bench outside the student center between classes on Monday morning, trying not to let her mind wander too far. She didn’t want to think about the fight she and Dillon had had, or the fact that they were both acting like it had never happened.

But thinking about it was one thing. Thinking just depressed her. Talking, on the other hand, was potentially productive.

“Brook!” Georgie yelled at the top of her lungs when she spotted her friend walking across the grassy field.

Brook jumped, startled, and turned to look around warily. Georgie waved her over, and Brook spotted her and came over quickly.

“You scared me,” Brook said with a short laugh, and Georgie gave her an apologetic smile.
“Sorry. I just wanted to get your attention.”
“Mission accomplished. What’s up? You between classes?”
“Yeah. Aren’t you? Were you heading to your car?”
“Yeah… I’m done, actually, for the day. My afternoon class was cancelled today. I was just going to call Lucas.”
“No, don’t, ‘cause… actually, if you have some time… which apparently you do if you were supposed to be in class… do you?”
“What, have time? Yeah. I think I can fit you into my schedule,” Brook teased. “Talk away. What’s wrong?”
“It’s Dillon… did he talk to you at all about wanting to move to New York?”
“New York?” Brook asked in surprise, and Georgie nodded.
“He wants to move to New York,” Georgie filled in.
“Now?”
“He’d like to.”

Brook shook her head.

“I had no idea. I mean, I always thought he’d end up somewhere other than Port Charles if he wants to direct, but… I kind of figured that was down the road.”
“Yeah. Me too,” Georgie muttered, and Brook nodded in understanding.
“Ah. So that’s it. Therein lies the problem.”
“Am I being a complete witch?” Georgie asked, but she gave Brook no time to respond before diving into other questions. “Am I, like, the worst person in the world to not support him 100% in this? I mean, it’s not like I don’t want him to be a director! I just don’t see why it has to be right now and it has to mean moving to New York! Our lives are just finally getting really settled and comfortable now…”
“But you haven’t been miserable for the past three years, G. You guys always seemed to have things pretty together.”
“No, no, it’s not that it was miserable… not always, anyway… it was just harder. And now… I don’t know, it’s mostly that we have money now, I guess, but also Hannah’s older and we’ve… you know, adjusted, and our families have adjusted and everything just makes sense now. We’re settled into a routine that works for us. It just wouldn’t be the same if we left… You know that it’s not that I want to deny Dillon his chance at fame and fortune. You do know that, right?”
“Yeah… I know…

Brook looked down and twisted the rings on her left hand with the fingers of her right.

“Fame and fortune has its ups and downs,” Brook said quietly, and Georgie nodded.
“I know, and you’re sort of our expert on the topic, but that’s not really what I’m worried about right now. I just don’t think the timing is right, you know?”
“So did you tell Dillon you want to put it off?”
“Yeah. And he says he’s okay with that.”
“Then what’s the problem?”

Georgie sighed and turned to gaze across the field.

“I don’t want him to resent me. I just hate the idea that I’m confining him or restraining him in some way.”
“You’re not, Georgie. It’s just reality. You, Hannah, that’s his reality. And then he’s got these, like, huger than life dreams, and… they can’t mesh with reality right now. Look, he’s reality-challenged occasionally, but I think he gets it when he has to.”
“I know all that.”
“I know you do.”
“I just get stuck on the feeling that we’re not enough for him,” Georgie confided quietly, turning back to look Brook in the eye. “I know it’s only human that he wants more, but… for some reason it’s still hard not to be hurt by that.”

*****

“Hi Baby,” Georgie said to the silence on the other end of the phone line. “I need to talk to Daddy.”

Georgie strained to hear over the sounds of students filing out of the lecture room. She barely heard Hannah’s simple, one-word explanation, “Mommy”, and she knew Hannah was handing the phone to Dillon.

Hannah had mastered the art of picking up and listening to the telephone. Speaking into it was another story. She never said ‘hello’ or anything else. She simply lifted the receiver to her ear and listened, then handed the phone over to one of her parents.

“Hey!” Dillon’s voice came through loud and clear a moment later. “You barely got me. Mrs. Emery just left. Are you just getting out of class?”
“I should be. I have to stay and talk to the professor.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know. I came in late again but the idea of him keeping me to talk about that seems kind of silly. Anyway, I’ll be a little late.”
“Actually, I’m glad you called. You need to stop and get some groceries, ‘kay? We need milk and apple juice and-”
“Can it wait until tomorrow?”
“Well, the milk can’t, really. And as long as you’re getting one thing…”
“Yeah,” Georgie said resignedly. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll see you at home.”

Georgie hung up her cell phone and tossed it into her bag.

“Not like I’m tired or anything,” she muttered to herself.
“I’ll keep this brief, I promise.”

Georgie looked up to find her professor standing next to her desk. Everyone referred to him as Kent, but whether that was his first or last name she wasn’t sure.

She didn’t like him towering over her. She stood up and faced him head-on.

“Look, if this is a lateness thing I-”
“No. Not a lecture. I assure you,” he said with a disarming smile.
“Okay. Then…?” Georgie left the question open.
“It’s actually more of an offer. You seem enthusastic about the material, if not about the lectures.”

Georgie opened her mouth to protest, and Kent smiled and shook his head, holding up his hand to silence her.

“Sorry. That wasn’t a dig. Anyway there’s a study group that meets twice a week to discuss the books and the… well, the discussions. I drop in now and then and keep them on topic. You should come. It’s pretty social. Bring a snack. Bring your friends.”
“Why?”
“Well, only if they’re interested too, of course-”
“No, I mean, why do you want me to come?”
“I don’t want you to do anything. I just thought you seemed like the type of student to be interested.”

Georgie stood up and slung her heavy backpack over her shoulder wearily.

“Interested, yes. But being interested and having time for it are two different things,” Georgie told him.

It seemed to Georgie that the smile he forced was a cover for disappointment, which confused and unnerved her.

“Maybe I’ll drop in on one sometime,” Georgie conceded, though she didn’t imagine she ever would. It was just a way to end the conversation.

Walking out of the building, Georgie thought it over. It was a literature class. Typical for an English major such as herself. She liked the readings, and would have enjoyed a discussion group. She was a bit of a geek that way.

But she really didn’t have the time. Even if she’d wanted to, she just didn’t have the time.

And besides, Kent would be there at times. And she could do without that.

Kent creeped her out.

[JRK Archiver]

Chapter Three – Just A Feeling


Georgie was determined to get an ‘A’ in Modern Literature.

She wasn’t sure where her need to ace the course came from. It might have been her usual concern for her grade point average. It could have had something to do with her need to prove to herself that her professor didn’t have any power over her. Maybe it was her fear that a bad grade would mean another uncomfortable after-class meeting.

But whatever the reason, she needed that ‘A’.

The problem was that she hated doing any work for him.

The other problem was her busy life.

It was late Saturday night. She had an essay worth nearly half her final grade due on Monday. Not only was it due Monday, but Professor Kent had insisted that it was due in his mailbox first thing Monday morning, rather than in their regular Modern Literature class that afternoon.

It gave Georgie one more reason to hate him.

Not that she needed more. His ice blue, constantly staring eyes were enough.

Not that he’d done anything he shouldn’t.

The plan had been to work on the essay all day. When she went to bed the night before she was confident that this day would be as free as her days ever were. But by the time she got up in the morning Hannah had made Dillon promise that all three of them would spend most of the day at the nearest zoo.

Georgie had tried to convince them to go without her, but their matching pouts made it impossible for her to say no.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t say ‘no’ to Hannah when she needed to. She knew she couldn’t give her everything she wanted and she had no intention of raising a brat. It wasn’t that she was bad at laying down the law… she just wasn’t particularly good at it, either.

Especially when what Hannah wanted tempted her, too. A family trip to the zoo was far more appealing than writing an essay. Particularly this essay.

But the day had gotten away from her.

Lounging on the bed she shared with Dillon, Georgie mulled all of this over while skimming the assignment sheet for her essay. It was supposed to be easy. It was modern literature, after all. The source material was one of Brook’s favorite books – high praise coming from her since she didn’t read much - and Georgie had read it a year before when Brook recommended it.

It was supposed to be easy.

“She’s finally asleep,” Dillon announced, coming into the room. “I figured she’d be out a long time ago after trekking around the zoo all day.”

Dillon threw himself down on his side of the bed, and Georgie looked up from what she was reading.

She knew she shouldn’t be grateful for yet another distraction, but she was.

“What trekking was she doing? She spent the whole day riding around on your shoulders. You’re the one who should be tired,” she pointed out.
“What about you? You… ready for bed?” Dillon asked with a suggestive little smile, reaching out to try to take the sheet of paper away.
“Dillon, I really have to work… you know I can’t tomorrow and I got behind…”
“Monday morning is, like, a year from now…”

Dillon succeeded in getting the paper away from her and he let it drift to the floor. She gave him a displeased look, then sighed and leaned back against the pillows, next to him.

“I don’t know why this assignment is bugging me so much.”
“I’ll help you finish the essay later,” Dillon offered distractedly, sliding over closer to her.
“I… It’s not anywhere near finished…”
“You’re good at this stuff… it’ll work out…” Dillon nearly whispered, leaning over to kiss her. He played with the bottom of her shirt for a moment, then brushed his fingers along her side underneath the shirt.
“You’re so bad for my GPA…” Georgie protested weakly, but she found herself kissing him back, found her hands drifting to his shoulders and then his chest...
“Tell me to stop,” Dillon whispered, daring her. He started a trail of kisses along her throat and let the hand that was tracing circles on her stomach begin to wander higher.

Georgie opened her mouth intending to tell him – and herself – one more time that she shouldn’t be doing this right now, but thanks to Dillon’s roaming hands all she managed was a soft sigh.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she promised herself she’d work through most of the night.

It was her last coherent thought for a while.

***

Georgie pulled her robe tightly around her and tiptoed down the hallway to check on Hannah. She found her fast asleep and took a moment to rearrange her covers and kiss her forehead before returning to her own bedroom.

“She’s still asleep,” Georgie told Dillon quietly, slipping into bed next to him. He wrapped his arms around her tightly from behind.
“Good. I was worried,” Dillon said, his tone light, and Georgie turned to look up at him questioningly.
“Why?”
“’Cause you’re not usually quite so vocal,” Dillon said with a laugh, and Georgie feigned annoyance and slapped his chest lightly.
“When you’re done patting yourself on the back you can start thinking about that essay,” Georgie told him teasingly.
“You’re going to hold me to that?”
“Maybe.”

But they both knew she wouldn’t. She’d do the work herself. She always did.

They fell into a pleasant silence for several minutes. Georgie looked over at her books and papers on the floor a few feet from the bed. Even the threat of an ‘F’ couldn’t make her get out of bed and work. Not tonight. Not in this near-perfect moment.

Not when she’d finally put it all out of her mind.

“You know I’m not going to have much time tomorrow,” Georgie finally said thoughtfully, breaking the silence.
“You can get up early… set the alarm…” Dillon murmured, and she could tell he was beginning to fall asleep.
“It’s still not much time. We have to be at your family’s house by mid-afternoon.”
“No one will care if we’re a little late.”
“Dillon, you can’t be late to your brother’s wedding.”
“It’s his seventh wedding.”
“Dillon…”
“We’ll be on time, we’ll leave soon after they cut the cake, you can work tomorrow night… go to sleep…”
“You’re going to have to get Hannah’s breakfast and-”
“I’ll make breakfast,” Dillon whispered. He kissed her bare shoulder lightly. “Go to sleep.”

***

“Pink! No, no, purple!” Hannah shouted.

Georgie turned around in the walk-in closet and looked Hannah in the eye.

“You don’t have a purple dress,” Georgie told her gently but quickly. “And no jumping on the bed. How about your blue-”
“Yellow!”
“Baby, the yellow dress is for summer.”
“Um, blue!”

Georgie grabbed the little blue dress out of the back of the closet and sent up a silent prayer that it still fit Hannah. It had only been a few months and she thought she remembered it being a bit big on her before.

“Hannah, I want you to listen for a minute, okay?” Georgie began, kneeling down to help her undress while they talked. “Weddings are really special, okay? And Grandma and Grandpa and Grandma Tracy and Uncle Ned and a whole lot of other people are going to be there today, so you need to be on your best behavior. Arms up, Baby.”

Hannah lifted her arms and Georgie pulled her pajama top over her head.

“It’s going to be a little bit long but Reggie’s going to take you and Leah upstairs to play during the boring churchy part.”
“For long time?”
“About two Winnie the Poohs. Then we’ll have a party and you can have cake. Push your arms in there.”

Hannah did as she was told and Georgie helped her pull her arms through the long sleeves.

It was beyond her why Ned and Alexis had decided to have an outdoor wedding in the cool fall weather. But she wrote it off as a Quartermaine quirk.

It took her another minute to finish dressing Hannah.

“Very pretty!” Georgie told her daughter with a smile, and Hannah smiled right back at her.
“Pretty as Belle?”
“Prettier. Now go get Daddy to brush your hair. He’s making breakfast-”
“No!!”
“Daddy tries hard-”
“No!! He’s not good!”

Georgie sighed and grabbed the brush off of Hannah’s dresser. This was always a struggle. Hannah didn’t like to have her hair brushed to begin with, but she disliked it more when someone other than Georgie tried to do it.

Georgie glanced at her watch. She had worked earlier in the morning and had four rough paragraphs written. She wanted to have four more before they left for the wedding.

But at the rate things were going, it didn’t look good.

***

“Brookee!! Uncle Lucas!!!”

Dillon held his tongue as he watched his daughter gleefully approach his niece and her boyfriend.

“Explain to me again why there’s no need for her to call Brook ‘aunt’ but she keeps calling Lucas ‘uncle’?” Dillon muttered when Hannah was out of earshot.
“Don’t start,” Georgie told him shortly.

Georgie liked Ned and Alexis well enough, and under different circumstances she would even enjoy this, but today her mind was elsewhere. She’d only managed to finish two more paragraphs before they left the house.

Hannah squealed happily when she spotted Maxie and Felicia and Mac across the garden and nearly wiggled out of Lucas’ arms. Lucas put her down and Georgie watched as she ran to Mac and he scooped her up. Maxie and Felicia laughed at something Mac said, but Georgie couldn’t hear it from where she was.

At least someone was having a good time.

Dillon and Georgie wandered over towards her parents. Felicia embraced Georgie warmly.

“Georgie, Honey, don’t you look nice,” Felicia said.
“You too.”

Mac put Hannah down and reached out to shake Dillon’s hand. The two men nodded at each other.

“How goes the music business?” Mac asked conversationally.
“Not bad. How goes the… criminal catching?”
“Not so good, actually.”
“That’s such a pretty dress you have on,” Maxie told Hannah, kneeling down to speak to her at her level, and Hannah beamed up at her.
“Mommy says prettier than Belle!”
“Beauty and the Beast?” Maxie questioned, and Georgie nodded. “Hannah, just wait until you see the pretty dress Alexis is wearing when she comes out-”
“Actually,” Georgie cut in, “Hannah can see her later. She’s going to go play in the house with Leah during the ceremony.”
“I have cake later,” Hannah explained, and Mac snatched her up with a silly grin.
“Hey, can I get in on that?” he teased, and she giggled. “Skipping the ceremony and coming back for the cake… That’s my kind of wedding!”

Across the garden, Lois approached Brook with outstretched arms.

“Brookie! Honey!”
“Ma?”

Brook was startled to see Lois, and it took her a moment to return her mother’s hug.

“What are you doing here?” Brook asked. “Isn’t it kind of weird for you?”
“Your dad said I could come if I wanted to and I haven’t seen nearly enough of you since… oh, gosh, since you started at PCU! How are you doing? How does it feel to be a student rather than a singer?”
“Ma…”
“Baby, I’m not starting anything, I’m just asking.”
“It’s fine. I’m getting used to it.”
“And otherwise?”
“I’m fine, Ma.”
“And how are you, Lucas? Taking good care of my Brookie?”
“Ma…” Brook admonished.
“What? You’re still my Brookie, even if half the continent thinks of you as their very own!”
“Have you seen Dad?” Brook asked, changing the subject, and Lois shook her head in the negative. “They really oughta get this thing started.”
“I concur,” Georgie said, coming to stand next to them, glancing at her watch. “They need to get this thing started.”

***

Georgie hadn’t felt this out of place since the day Lucky Spencer found her in his living room wearing his wife’s bathrobe.

How to explain to Edward Quartermaine why she was hiding out in one of his guest rooms writing furiously in a notebook rather than downstairs congratulating his grandson on his new marriage?

“Edward! Or, Mr- Mr-”
“Oh, Edward’s just fine, you know that. What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry, I… I just needed to get something down.”
“Now?” Edward questioned, confusedly rather than accusingly.
“Well, you know…” Georgie paused and thought for a moment, choosing her words carefully. “I’m a writer like my mother!” she finally said with a short laugh.

Edward smiled softly, and Georgie relaxed a bit.

“Of course. You know Lila loved your mother for writing her memoirs. I just wish she’d had a chance to finish them.”
“Me too. I wish Hannah had gotten to know her great-grandmother better. She’s not creating chaos out there, is she?”
“Hannah? No. She’s the joy of the party. Every time I see her she’s in someone else’s arms. Dillon, though, now there’s your problem.”

Georgie’s eyes narrowed.

“Dillon?”
“He and Lucas Jones nearly destroyed the wedding cake a few minutes ago. I don’t know what gets into these kids these days, tussling at a wedding of all things…”

Georgie closed her eyes briefly.

Today of all days.

***

“Brook!”
“Hmmm? What? G, what?”
“What happened? Edward said Dillon and Lucas were fighting?”
“No, no, no, no, barely, just, like… they were going to, but Reggie brought Hannah back down and they both backed off. Relax, it’s cool.”
“It’s not ‘cool’! Nothing about today is ‘cool’! When are those two going to just grow the hell up?!”

Georgie glanced at her watch, then turned to look at the guests milling around the garden. A band was playing on a makeshift stage, and guests were joining Ned and Alexis on a makeshift dance floor.

“Georgie… what’s up with you?” Brook asked after a moment. “Dillon and Lucas… this is hardly unusual. You know how things are. They’re not going to get over it any time soon. And I mean, this a wedding, not a funeral. My dad’s wedding, in fact. What are you freaking out about?”
“Nothing… nothing… I’ve just been busy, and… procrastinating… and I have that essay I told you about due tomorrow and I just can’t concentrate on anything. This time tomorrow I’ll be destressed… probably sleep-deprived, but destressed…”

Brook looked over at Georgie for a minute, then shook her head with a little chuckle.

“God, you’re such a student! If I cared half as much as you do about this school stuff I’d… well, I’d have your grades.”

Georgie forced a smile briefly, then looked at Brook more seriously.

“It’s actually not just my usual good student obsession… It’s not like I haven’t backburnered a hundred assignments since Hannah was born… I mean, I want to do well, especially in that class, but… You remember that jerk I told you about who teaches my modern lit class?”
“Yeah. I remember… but ‘jerk’ seems a bit extreme. Did he do something else?”
“No, but… I don’t know, he just creeps me out… he’s been coming up with stupid excuses to talk to me after class, trying to get me to join this little discussion group he has and I swear half the time he’s talking directly to me when he’s lecturing…” Georgie searched for the words to explain how she felt and couldn’t find them. It was too much of an instinct at this point for her to explain it rationally. “He’s just weird. That’s all. And I don’t want to give him any other reasons to meet with me after class.”
“Like an F on a major essay?”
“Exactly,” Georgie said with a nod.

Brook gave her a sympathetic little smile and turned to look out at the crowd of dancers.

“Oh, now there’s a Kodak moment,” Brook said with a laugh, gesturing with a nod of her head. Georgie followed her gaze. Dillon was slow dancing with Hannah in his arms.
“She couldn’t look happier if she tried,” Georgie noted quietly, almost to herself, touched by the sight.
“He looks pretty content himself… Look, forget about the almost-fight with Lucas. It’s not worth it. Why don’t you go cut in? I’ll grab Hannah from Dillon.”

Georgie smiled a genuine smile.

“I guess… as long as I’m here… might as well enjoy it, right?”
“That’s what I’m saying. Go!”

Georgie made her way over to Dillon and Hannah and tapped on Dillon’s shoulder. Dillon looked over at her and laughed.

“Someone’s trying to steal your date,” he told Hannah softly.
“I’ve got a replacement dance partner all lined up for her,” Georgie said, gesturing at Brook waiting a few feet away. Dillon put Hannah down on the ground.
“Brook needs someone to dance with,” he told her, and she looked up at both of her parents for a moment before running to Brook. They watched her go and Dillon cracked an amused smile. “You know, one of these days she’s going to actually walk somewhere instead of running and we’ll just pass out from shock or something. Hey… have I told you how beautiful you look today?”

Georgie blushed slightly, looking down at her hands.

He loved that it still made her blush when he said that.

“Thanks.”

He reached for both of her hands, taking a moment to admire her. No one would guess she’d ever had a baby.

“So may I have this dance?”
“Just this one.”

Dillon nodded, fully aware that she needed to get home and work.

“Just this one, then.”

They danced slowly, closely, cheek-to-cheek. Her parents were dancing together a few feet away. The bride and groom were off in a corner by themselves. Several other relatives and friends were in close quarters.

But they could have been alone, for all they noticed or cared.

Lucas stood with Carly and Jason, making small talk. His eyes were on Brook. Standing off to the side of the dance floor, she swayed to the music mindlessly. Hannah’s little arms were wrapped tightly around her neck.

Brook looked over at Georgie and Dillon, then down at Hannah in her arms.

It was all so real.

So very, very real.

Georgie didn’t know what she had.

She couldn’t possibly understand what she had.

***

Cake was full of sugar. Sugar made Hannah hyper. A hyper Hannah meant a struggle to get her to bed. And Dillon struggling to get Hannah to go to bed meant a loud house at a time when quiet was of the essence.

Georgie would have been tempted to give up if it had been any other assignment. Any other class.

Any other prof.

It was past ten when Dillon finally had Hannah settled. He went to bed himself around midnight.

It was a few minutes shy of three a.m. when Georgie nodded off at the kitchen table, her head resting on her half-finished essay.

It was past six when Georgie woke, and nearly eight when she flew out of the house near tears.

At nine she dropped her barely finished and unedited essay into Professor Kent’s office drop box.

Mere seconds later he left his office and got into the elevator with her.

“Morning,” Kent said brightly.
“Morning,” Georgie managed through clenched teeth.

She had no real reason to be freaked out by him. He’d never said or done anything wrong.

But he stood too close. He watched her too much. He singled her out too exclusively.

And the elevator was too damn small for her not to be nervous.

He said nothing as the elevator made its way to the lobby.

When they got there he smiled his too-interested smile and touched her arm gently.

“See you later.”

Georgie’s skin crawled. Her mind reeled.

It still didn’t make sense to her.

He hadn’t really done anything.

[JRK Archiver]

Chapter Four – Crossing The Line


“How many fingers? How many fingers, Hannah Banana?”

Dillon watched Hannah grin on the little box of the viewfinder on his video camera and smiled broadly as she held up four fingers.

“That’s right! Genius, this kid! The birthday girl’s brilliant!”

Georgie sat down next to Hannah on her bed and entered the frame of the video.

“She gets that from me,” Georgie tossed out, and Dillon ran over and joined them. Hannah was bundled up under her blankets, wearing brand new pajamas, hugging a brand new doll, and Dillon and Georgie were on either side of her. Dillon held the video camera out as far as he could, hoping he had all three of them in the shot.

“Say cheese whiz!” Dillon called out, which left Hannah giggling and Georgie trying not to.
“I say it’s bedtime,” Georgie said.
“Mommy!” Hannah whined.
“Mommy!” Dillon mimicked, then smiled at Hannah. “Mommy’s right. Past bedtime.”

Hannah looked less than thrilled to hear that, but the new doll to sleep with made bedtime somewhat more acceptable tonight.

Dillon tucked Hannah’s blankets more tightly around her and Georgie turned off the ceiling light and turned on the night light. She sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Hugs,” Georgie prompted, and Hannah sat up and wrapped her arms tightly around her mother’s neck. “You give the best hugs in the world, Baby Girl,” Georgie whispered into Hannah’s ear. Hannah let go and lay back against her pillows, and Georgie kissed her forehead and stood up. Dillon bent down and gave Hannah another kiss on the forehead.

“’Night, you four-year-old genius,” Dillon murmured, and Hannah smiled up at him.

Making their way downstairs a moment later, Dillon and Georgie were quiet, not for the sake of Hannah falling asleep, but rather because they were both lost in thought.

Four years.

“It’s unreal,” Dillon said quietly as they entered the living room. He sat down on the couch and crumpled up a piece of wrapping paper lying on the floor. “She’s four now… Man, she’s practically our age,” he quipped, and Georgie smiled.
“Not quite. You know, it’s weird… I can’t believe how much time has passed but at the same time… the day she was born and everything that came before it, that seems like another lifetime.”

They were both silent for a moment, and then Georgie began picking up pieces of wrapping paper that littered the floor. Dillon got up and joined her.

“I say for her fifth birthday we recommend gift bags,” Dillon said.
“Maybe for her fifth birthday we don’t invite half the town,” Georgie suggested, half serious.

The original plan had been to only invite their families to Hannah’s fourth birthday party. A room full of Quartermaines, as well as Mac and Felicia and Maxie, was more than enough. But Hannah had wanted Leah Spencer and Morgan Corinthos at her party, and so Liz and Lucky and Sonny and Carly had also been in attendance. Bobbie and Tony had found out about the party through Lucas, and Georgie had felt compelled to extend an invitation.

They’d had a full house all afternoon. But Hannah had been on cloud nine, and Georgie didn’t regret it, regardless of the preparation and cleanup time.

It wasn’t just that Hannah was happy. It had been an effective distraction. She hadn’t thought about school, Kent or New York City all day.

But the peace wasn’t meant to last.

“So it’s been a while,” Dillon said tentatively, collecting plastic forks and paper plates from the coffee table. “We said we’d give it a little bit of time…”

He didn’t have to explain himself. He knew Georgie knew what he meant. She turned and looked at him guardedly for several seconds.

When Hannah went to bed all topics of discussion were fair game. The ease they had with each other could turn back into tension with just a word.

She hated that.

“Nothing’s changed,” she finally said.
“I guess not.”
“You feel the same way about it?”
“Yeah. Pretty much. You?”
“Pretty much.”

Dillon nodded.

“So then what now?” he asked.

Georgie sighed and sat down on the couch.

“Why can’t you make movies in Port Charles, Dillon? I mean, Brook got a music career started here and she’s, like, the most successful person I know.”
“Brook had a label here, and she’s one of the lucky ones… I mean, as far as wanting her career to go far, she’s one of the lucky ones. Usually, with small labels, they don’t take off like that… Lois was just so determined and- Look, Georgie, it doesn’t matter, okay, because it’s not the same thing! When it comes to the movie business, Port Charles doesn’t even have small opportunities that could become big opportunities. There’s almost no market for it at all!”
“You could write movies from here,” Georgie suggested. “You could write a screenplay and maybe by the time you’re ready to produce it… I don’t know, I’ll be, like, almost done school and Hannah will… be more ready, or-”
“But I’m not a writer! I’m a director! I mean, I could write… I could definitely write, but… New York is just such a dream, Georgie! Let me tell you what it would be like, okay? Seriously, just- here,” Dillon said, sitting down next to her. “Close your eyes. Close your eyes and listen, okay? Picture this: We’ve got this beautiful place just a short walk from Central Park, and not too far from Brook’s place, either, okay, and on the weekend we can just hang out in the park – except for the weekends that we come back to Port Charles, of course, and we can get you enrolled in whatever classes you want, you’ve got the grades to get in anywhere, and I’m sure you can transfer credits, and I’ll be living my dream and we-”
“Dillon-”
“No, just listen-”
“Dillon, I don’t want to move! I don’t want to start all over in a place I where I know no one and-”
“Brook-”
“Dillon, Brook’s there, what, like three times a year? You keep saying that like it matters but she’s almost never there and she’s just one person! I don’t want to leave my family! I don’t even want to leave your family!”

Dillon took a deep breath, trying to keep it together. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand where she was coming from.

But this was his dream.

“Then what am I supposed to do, Georgie?” he asked after a moment, sounding harsher than he’d intended. “Huh? Am I supposed to be the bigger person and give up the directing thing because you don’t want to leave Port Charles?”
“Am I supposed to give up my life here so you can direct?” Georgie turned the question around on him and they sat in a tense silence, stuck.

“I’m going to say something,” Georgie said cautiously, “And I’m not saying it because I want it to happen. Not at all. I’m just saying it because sooner or later it’s going to come up and we might as well get it over with.”
“What?”
“Some people work in one city and live in another,” Georgie said shortly, hating the very idea. “Some people get an apartment in the city and live there during the week and come home on weekends-”
“No! No, no, no, I couldn’t do that. I’m not going anywhere without you and Hannah. That’s not an option. Forget that.”

Dillon spoke simply and certainly, if frustratedly, and Georgie swallowed a lump in her throat.

She’d needed to hear that.

“Good,” she said. She wasn’t entirely sure what did it, but she felt tears spring to her eyes. “The thing is that this isn’t going to go away. If you’re never going to be happy in Port Charles… somewhere along the line I’m going to have to get used to the idea of moving somewhere else…”
“I am happy here, Georgie, I am… you’ve got that wrong. I just…”
“Want more.”
“God, Georgie, we’re going around in circles!” Dillon got up off the couch and paced back and forth a few times, then looked over at her, completely exasperated. “We’re saying the same things we’ve been saying since I first brought this up! I am not trying to tell you that you’re not enough for-”
“You wanted to discuss it again! I would have been perfectly happy to leave it buried! You think I don’t have enough to deal with right now without you bringing this up again? You can’t get on my case for saying the same things when nothing’s changed! You still want to leave and I still don’t!”

A brief moment of silence passed as they looked at each other tensely across the room.

“What do you mean?” Dillon asked. “About having enough to deal with?”
“Just school…” Georgie mumbled. “It’s nothing.”

Georgie hadn’t said a word to Dillon about how Kent made her feel. Dillon knew nothing about his staring eyes or his supposedly innocent touches and gestures. It wasn’t something Georgie could put into words. She didn’t understand it herself. Explaining it to Dillon would be difficult at any time, let alone when they were distant and fighting about another issue.

“That essay?” Dillon asked, and Georgie bit her lip nervously.
“Partly.”
“You get your grade on that?”
“Not yet.”
“But you’re worried about it?”

Georgie nodded, her eyes on the floor.

“Why didn’t you just hand it in late and take the penalty?”

Georgie thought about it for a minute. It was a good question. She wasn’t sure she had an answer.

She thought it had something to do with standing up to Kent. Handing in an assignment late was like saying she couldn’t handle his class. It was like saying he had some kind of power over her. And it gave him a reason to keep her after class.

But she couldn’t explain that to Dillon.

Not that it made sense even to her.

“I would have gotten further behind, Dillon… I had to get it overwith, I had so much else to do…” Georgie stumbled through a possible explanation.
“I could have picked up the slack for a while at home-”
“Oh, right! You don’t even want to be here!”

It was an effective change of subject, but anger and hurt flashed in his eyes, and Georgie immediately wished she hadn’t brought them back to that discussion.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? When have I ever been anything less than helpful at home or even implied-”
“Look, Dillon, I didn’t… I just-”
“No! No! What the hell is this, Georgie?” Dillon yelled. He thought of Hannah and lowered his voice, but his tone didn’t change. “Why is it so wrong for me to want this? Why do you keep acting like I’m trying to take something away from you?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… I just meant-”
“It sucks Georgie! It sucks! I’m not forcing anything on you! I’ve been trying so ridiculously hard to be fair about this!”
“I know… I’m trying too… I know it doesn’t seem like it… it’s just that I really do have a lot on my plate right now…”
“So tell me about it! Talk to me! When was the last time we had a real discussion that wasn’t about Hannah or didn’t involve us yelling at each other? What’s going on?”

Georgie sniffled and shook her head slightly.

“Nothing major… It’s just school, like I said… just this one class, I… it’s been a problem lately… ever since that day I told you about, the prof is just so difficult…”
“Isn’t that par for the course, though? I mean Maxie never shuts up about her idiot profs. And Brook nearly punched one of her-”
“It’s different.”
“Why? Did he do something?”
“No…”
“Okay… okay, then… then why… I mean…” Dillon fumbled for the question he was trying to ask, sitting back down on the couch with her again. “Then everything’s cool, right?”

Georgie said nothing for a moment.

“Yeah,” she finally said, her voice uneven. “It’s fine.”

They stared at each other for a moment, and then her eyes dropped to the floor again.

“It’s just this whole New York thing…”

Dillon sighed and closed his eyes, leaning back against the couch. The way things were going it just might be his bed for the night.

Neither one of them wanted to fight any more, and so they sat in silence, both of them confused and angry and worn out.

Seconds turned to minutes, and Georgie finally got up and went upstairs.

Alone.

***

“It’s a D paper at best. Maybe an F.”

Georgie barely felt the impact of the words, and that was weird. Normally those were words she dreaded.

“Why didn’t you just hand in the essay late?” Kent asked.

Georgie took a minute to process the question. She could barely think straight.

He’d asked her to stay after class. Again. He’d done nothing wrong. Again. And yet she felt like running for her life. Again.

He was leaning in far too close for comfort.

“Georgie?”
“What?”
“You could have handed it in late. Why not?”
“I… don’t know.”

Kent reached out and covered her hand with his own. His touch was gentle. She yanked her hand away.

“Look, Georgie, I like you,” Kent confided quietly, and Georgie tensed. “That’s why I wanted to warn you ahead of time. I haven’t graded most of the other papers yet and I won’t be returning them for at least a few days. I can give you a chance to-”
“No, it’s fine! It’s fine! I- I have a kid, and I never have enough time to work, and I’m… I’m used to… I’m used to having a bad assignment now and… and then…”

Georgie stood up and started gathering her things, and Kent reached out and touched her back.

“You don’t sound ‘fine’,” he said softly.
“Look, I don’t- I don’t want you to-”
“I know you don’t, and that why I’m going to take care of this for you.”
“That’s not what-”
“Everything will be okay. I’ll take care of it,” he promised. His eyes looked right through her and he smiled the smile that always made her want to run, and when tears came to her eyes and she tried to step away from him he pulled her into a tight embrace.
“Prof- Professor Kent- Look I don’t-”

She tried to push him away, but he didn’t even seem to notice.

“I can really help you out,” he said, his tone one she would have identified as soothing if he’d been anyone else.
“Let go of me!”

Georgie forced herself to speak clearly and as calmly as she could manage, but Kent was oblivious. If anything the arm around her back and the hand behind her head held her tighter.

“Does your boyfriend appreciate you, Georgie?” Kent whispered, and Georgie felt her tears escape her eyes.

His face was in her hair.

She wondered if he was going to try something right then and there.

Was there anyone in the hallway? Were there evening classes in this classroom?

She couldn’t remember.

“My boyfriend appreciates me… he’s coming to pick me up…” she lied.

Kent sighed what Georgie hoped was a disappointed sigh and loosened his grip slightly. She pulled away from him as much as she could, but he took the opportunity to lean down and brush his lips against hers.

Georgie froze. She wanted to push him away. She wanted to hit him and run. She wanted to vomit.

But her mind wouldn’t process any of it for a few shocked seconds.

When she jerked her head back away from his he smiled, and she had the muddled and sinking feeling that he thought she’d been willing for those first few seconds.

“I’ll take care of everything,” he said tenderly.

Suddenly he was gone, and Georgie found her legs were like rubber. She sat down heavily at one of the desks.

He’d certainly done something now.

***

“Where the hell have you been?” Dillon yelled when he heard the front door open and close.

His voice carried from the kitchen to the hallway clearly. Georgie leaned against the wall and willed herself not to cry again. She’d been sitting in the driveway for over an hour trying to collect herself enough to face Hannah without scaring her.

“I tried to call you seven times! Why is your cell phone off?!” Dillon called out angrily from the kitchen. “That was two burned dinners and five time-outs ago!”

Hannah sat at the kitchen table, her chin resting on its surface and her eyes worried.

Daddy was mad.

Dillon abandoned dinner on the stove and went out into the hall. Georgie was nowhere to be seen, and he was confused until he heard water running and saw the light on under the bathroom door.

“What happened to common decency, huh? Phone calls when you’re running late?” he demanded through the door.

Georgie said nothing, and for a moment Dillon felt guilty. She’d probably had a bad day.

But so had he.

He went back into the kitchen and stirred the soup he had heating on the stove.

***

Dillon knew something was wrong. He knew that the second Georgie entered the kitchen. She’d been crying. She was avoiding his eyes. She clung to Hannah when Hannah ran up and hugged her.

He could have sworn he saw her hands shaking slightly once or twice when she lifted her spoon at dinner.

But she was clearly trying hard to keep it together, presumably for Hannah’s sake, and so Dillon only gave her a concerned look and mouthed a silent apology.

He felt like a world class jerk for yelling at her without giving her a chance to explain.

He went through Hannah’s bedtime routine alone that night. It took longer than usual. Hannah knew something was wrong and had questions that Dillon couldn’t answer.

Dillon finally got her to bed and went into his and Georgie’s bedroom long past Hannah’s bedtime. He found Georgie lying on the bed, her eyes closed.

He suspected she was awake and avoiding him.

He mentally cursed himself again for yelling at her.

“Georgie,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.”

Georgie’s eyes opened slowly and she looked up at him. He moved closer and put his head on the pillow next to hers.

“It’s still me,” Dillon said quietly. “I know we’ve been fighting but you can still talk to me.”

Georgie only looked at him.

She had come home earlier with every intention of telling Dillon exactly what had happened. His anger at her being late and Hannah’s presence had given her a chance to think it over, and now she wasn’t as sure.

His eyes were full of concern. He’d be furious with Kent if he found out. He’d go straight to PCU and make noise. Probably try to get Kent fired or charged with something. There would be accusations. Scandal. Rumors. Judgements.

Maybe Dillon didn’t have to know. Maybe no one did. Maybe she could deal with this without letting it blow up her life.

“I got an ‘F’ on that essay,” Georgie finally said.

Dillon didn’t believe for a minute that that was the whole story.

But Georgie turned over on her side and faced away from him, and he decided to let it go.

Just for now.

***

Georgie managed to avoid getting into any kind of serious discussion with Dillon during the usual morning chaos. Hannah’s presence helped with that. She had forgotten the bizarre silent dinner the night before and expected business as usual.

Georgie had an early class. She wasn’t sure if she was going to go or not, but she grabbed her keys and headed for the door at her usual time. As she went out the front door Dillon called out to her distractedly that they would have a long talk later. Hannah was yelling something about hating peanut butter and jelly, and Georgie was more than happy to let Dillon deal with it.

She drove aimlessly for a few minutes, then decided to go ahead and go to class.

It wasn’t Kent’s class, after all. And it was in a building across campus from his office. She wouldn’t even have to see him.

Besides, she didn’t want him to have that kind of power over her. She wouldn’t let him keep her from living her life.

She wouldn’t let him have any effect on her at all, if she could help it.

***

By the time she was finished classes for the day, Georgie was feeling more optomistic. She’d been on campus all day without running into Kent. She had a plan that worked for her. She would just stop attending Kent’s classes. She’d get the notes from someone else and do the readings on her own and write the final when it came up, and it could all just go away. There wouldn’t have to be accusations and scandal. She would never have to be near him. She wouldn’t have to face any of it.

Maybe it could all just disappear.

Georgie fumbled in her purse as she walked to her car. She didn’t notice the papers shoved under the windshield wipers until she’d found her car keys. She recognized her essay immediately.

There was a bright red A+ on the front.

He’d taken care of it. Just like he promised.

That barely registered with Georgie.

Her only thought was that he knew her car.

[JRK Archiver]

Chapter Five – In The Shadows


“I know you’re in there!”

Dillon banged loudly on the Penthouse apartment door with one fist, then the other.

“Brook, come on! I saw your light on through the window! I need to talk to you about something, can you please-”
“Daddy-”
“Just a sec!” Dillon told Hannah, looking down at her briefly. She was standing next to him in the otherwise empty hallway.
“Daddy maybe it’s bathtime,” Hannah pointed out, and Dillon shook his head.
“Probably not. It’s still the afternoon. Maybe she went out to get something and left her lights on-”

Dillon broke off as the door opened, and scowled at the sight.

Lucas.

Lucas was answering his niece’s door.

In nothing but a pair of shorts.

And Brook appeared behind him in what appeared to be nothing but a hastily-tied bathrobe.

“Oh, God!” Dillon groaned, reaching down to cover Hannah’s eyes.
“Your hair’s messy,” Hannah told Brook, peering out from between two of Dillon’s fingers, and Brook blushed and looked up at Dillon.
“It’s the middle of the afternoon!” Dillon mumbled, more to himself than to anyone else in the room.
“What’s the emergency?” Brook asked. “Why are you pounding like that?”
“I…” Dillon avoided looking at them both. “I wanted to talk to you about something…”
“That’s it?” Lucas asked incredulously. “You wanted to talk about something?”
“It’s an important something,” Dillon said through clenched teeth.
“Did you not get the hint in the five minutes you were pounding out here that maybe we were busy?” Lucas asked. “I know it takes a while for things to sink into that thick head of yours-”
“Lucas, not in front of Hannah,” Brook chided.
“Who the hell are you to say anything to me about-” Dillon came back, but Brook stepped in between them.
“We’re not doing this today!” Brook said loudly, giving them both a look. Everyone quieted and she turned to look at Dillon.
“Look, give me a few minutes to have a quick shower and change and then we can go somewhere to talk, okay? Is this about Georgie?” Brook asked.
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Five minutes. Ten tops. Play nice, Boys,” Brook teased, sounding less serious than she was.

Brook disappeared into the bathroom and Dillon and Hannah and Lucas stood awkwardly in the doorway. As soon as Lucas turned and walked into the room Hannah followed him, and Dillon wandered in a moment later.

Lucas went into the kitchen and Dillon sat down on Brook’s couch with Hannah, trying not to think about what they had interrupted.

Right.

No kids. No responsibilities. No limitations.

Hell, if it wasn’t for Hannah he and Georgie would probably have sex before dinner occasionally too.

But this was his niece.

And Lucas.

Lucas who had-

“You coming to New York?” Lucas broke into Dillon’s thoughts as he came back into the room. He had a shirt on now and had three soda cans in his hands.
“Not for me,” Dillon said about the soda, and quickly snatched away the can Lucas tried to give to Hannah. “Not for her either!”
“Daddy!”
“Not right now,” Dillon told her, and she pouted and moved closer to Lucas. Dillon looked over at Lucas distractedly. “What did you say about New York? Georgie told you about that?”
“About what? I told her. Actually, Brook did. Did she not mention it to you?”
“What?”
“What?”

They looked at each other in confusion for a moment, and then Lucas spoke up.

“Brook wants you and Georgie and Hannah to come along with us to New York next weekend.”
“Why?” Dillon asked, somewhat relieved that Lucas hadn’t been referring to his recent fights with Georgie.
“One more reporter wants to do one more story on Brook Lynn in Brooklyn,” Lucas said with a sigh. “Brook told her no, tried to say she’s a student now and not singing and all of that, but the woman wanted to do it anyway and apparently she’s an old friend of Lois’ so Brook couldn’t say no.”
“Why does she want us there?”
“She likes you. Not that I’ve ever figured out why.”
“You really want to get into that game?” Dillon asked testily, and Lucas backed off.

Not in front of Hannah.

They sat in silence for a few moments until Hannah grew bored and started pressing random buttons on the TV remote. That occupied her and left the men to their glaring until Brook returned.

“Ready?” she asked, and Dillon stood up. He looked down at Hannah, then up at Lucas. He would rather hit Lucas than speak to him most days, but… as long as he was there…

“You mind watching her for a few minutes?” Dillon asked, nodding his head toward Hannah, and Lucas nodded and grinned at Hannah brightly.
“Hey Kiddo, how about ice cream?” Lucas asked, and Dillon smacked his shoulder.
“She hasn’t had any dinner yet, Man! Use your head!”
“Okay… so we’ll find something healthy. Eat that. And then have ice cream. Take it easy, ‘Dad’,” Lucas told Dillon, and Brook shoved Dillon towards the door.
“That is not the man you want fathering your kids some day!” Dillon told Brook, and Brook shook her head in exasperation.
“Go! You wanna talk to me or not? Go!”

The door slammed and Lucas and Hannah both looked at it for a moment. He looked down at her, and she looked up at him, and they both smiled.

“Ice cream?” she asked hopefully.
“Oh yeah!” he agreed. “Just don’t tell your dad, ‘kay?”

***

“So what’s the deal?” Brook asked when she and Dillon stepped out of the apartment building and onto the street. “Did something happen to Georgie? She okay?”

Dillon’s eyes narrowed at the concerned tone to Brook’s voice.

“What do you know?” he asked.
“What?”
“Why do you sound so worried?”
“Because you look worried.”

Dillon gave Brook a look, and she relented.

“Look, Dillon, this may have nothing to do with anything, okay? But Georgie… she’s had some issues with this prof lately.”
“The modern lit guy, right?” Dillon’s face took on a hint of anger and he stopped walking. “Did he do something?”
“Not that I know of.”

Dillon grabbed Brook’s arm gently to stop her as she tried to start walking again.

“Brook, Georgie’s not okay, all right? She’s… she’s quiet and distracted and, like… she just… I don’t know, you know, she came home late a few times and once she had been crying and she said she just flunked an essay or something, but she called me like a half hour ago to say she’d be late again and she sounded shaky, and I just…”

Dillon sighed and looked Brook in the eye.

“I don’t know what’s up. I just know something is and she’s not talking about it.”
“You think something’s seriously wrong?”

They stopped and looked at each other worriedly for a moment in the middle of the sidewalk, letting passersby go around them.

“What exactly has she said, Brook? I don’t care anymore about breaking a confidence, okay? I gotta know what I’m dealing with here. What do you know?”
“Not much. I thought it was no big deal. She just said that this prof creeps her out and that he’s asked her to stay after class a few times, and… something about him staring-”
“Staring?”

Brook nodded, and Dillon shook his head slightly with his jaw clenched.

“What if it’s not just staring?” Dillon finally said quietly. Something awful was brewing behind his worried eyes, and Brook saw it and touched his arm gently.
“You just gotta talk to her, Dillon. I can’t tell you anything else because I don’t know anything else, okay? You gotta make her open up to you.”
“I’ve tried that. She’s not interested.”
“You think she’d talk to me?”
“I don’t know. She won’t even admit something’s bothering her, but since she apparently already told you more than she told me-”
“Hey, it isn’t about trust, all right? She trusts you. Completely and totally. I know that. You know that.”
“Then why am I in the dark?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll try to find out. Let’s just go back and you can pick up Hannah and I’ll grab some dinner with Lucas and I’ll call Georgie later and try to set up lunch tomorrow or something, all right?”

Dillon kicked a stone into the street, then turned to look at Brook and nodded slightly.

“Yeah. If I can’t help Georgie I can at least get my kid away from Lucas before she goes into sugar shock.”

***

Hannah was in heaven.

There had been ice cream. With chocolate sauce. And whipped cream. And chocolate chip cookies.

All for her. (Sugar made Uncle Lucas sick.)

She got to push as many buttons on the TV remote as she wanted. She loved buttons.

And Lucas let her jump on Brook’s couch.

Daddy never let her jump on the couch.

“You should be somebody’s dad,” Hannah said quite seriously as Lucas returned from taking dirty dishes into the kitchen.
“You think so, do you?” Lucas asked with a soft smile, sitting down on the couch next to her.
“Yep.”
“Why, because I give you ice cream?”
“Yep.”

Hannah turned back to the TV, and Lucas chuckled to himself. A moment later the door opened and Brook and Dillon walked in.

“Everything okay?” Lucas asked. Brook opened her mouth to answer him, but Dillon cut her off.
“Everything’s fine,” Dillon told her. “Hannah, let’s go Honey,” he said wearily, and Hannah looked up at him but didn’t move to get up off the couch. “I mean it, Hannah, no fighting tonight. We have to go.”

Dillon scooped her up before she could argue and carried her out of the apartment, mumbling a quiet “Thanks” in Brook and Lucas’ direction.

“What’s up with him?” Lucas asked Brook after the door slammed shut. “If Georgie’s not okay I wanna know about it.”
“She’s going through something right now. Dillon isn’t sure what. Neither am I.”
“Something big?”
“I hope not. Did you have fun with Hannah?” Brook asked, intentionally changing the subject.
“Always do.”
“How much sugar has she got in her?” Brook asked with a knowing smile.

Lucas looked down and tried to keep a straight face, remembering the delight in Hannah’s eyes at the size of her chocolate sundae.

“Uh… well, I cut out the chocolate sprinkles this time…”
“Dillon’s really going to kill you one of these days,” Brook told him, but her tone was light.
“What can I say? I’m the uncle with the good food.”
“Hey, her ‘aunt’ bought the ice cream!”
“Speaking of food, I’m hungry. I’m not cooking. You cooking?”
“I don’t cook.”
“Kelly’s?”
“Yeah. Good call.”

***

Georgie sank gratefully into one of the hard wooden chairs outside Kelly’s, glad that the patio area was empty. She’d been driving aimlessly for nearly an hour. She’d been doing a lot of that lately. But as her thoughts grew more muddled she knew she shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car.

And going home wasn’t appealing at the moment.

Her re-graded essay was lying in pieces on the floor of her car. Somewhere in the back of her mind it occurred to her that that might have been a bad idea. It might have served as some kind of evidence at some point.

Georgie told herself it wouldn’t matter. No one was going to know anything, and so evidence didn’t matter.

She wrapped her jacket more tightly around herself in the cool November air, and jumped when she heard a familiar voice.

“Georgie, hey!” Lucas called brightly, and Georgie looked up to see him and Brook approaching.
“Hey guys!” Georgie returned, as enthusiastically as she could manage.
“Everything cool?” Lucas asked, and Georgie met Brook’s worried eyes.
“Everything’s great!” Georgie lied. “You here for dinner?”
“That’s the plan. You want to join us?” Lucas offered.
“No, I’m actually not hungry.”
“Then why…?”

Lucas let his voice trail off, wondering why she came to a diner if she wasn’t hungry. Brook touched his arm and gave him a pointed look.

“Why don’t you go order and I’ll stay-”
“Brookie!”

Brook nearly cringed as Lois’ voice cut her off and she appeared next to them. Brook loved her mother, but that voice broke into conversations at the damnest times.

“Hey, Lois.”
“Hi Lois.”
“Ma. Hey.”
“What are you three up to? Where’s that adorable little cutie pie of yours, Georgie?” Lois asked conversationally.
“She’s home with Dillon. I just… came for some food.”

Lucas and Georgie exchanged a brief look, and then Georgie tore her eyes away and fixed her gaze on the ground.

“Brookie, we need to talk,” Lois continued, unfazed by the awkwardness between the other three.
“Ma, Lucas and I were just going to-”
“No, you know what, it’s good,” Lucas cut in. “It’s fine, ‘cause I need to have a talk with Georgie.”

Lois smiled and took a reluctant Brook by the arm, and they disappeared inside. Lucas sat down across from Georgie.

“So what’s up?” he asked.
“Dinner, right?” She figured avoidance was worth a try.
“Come on, Georgie. Don’t give me that. You’ve known me forever. You know you can trust me.”
“Yeah, I do,” Georgie told him, growing flustered. “But I’m fine.”
“Not according to Dillon. Or Brook.”
“What did they tell you?” Georgie asked quickly, alarmed and annoyed.
“Nothing. Just that something’s wrong. And you won’t say what.”
“Dillon’s got a wild imagination.”
“Brook’s realistic as hell.”
“Dillon probably convinced her something was up.”
“Forget them. Look at me. You look like you haven’t slept for days.”
“Lucas, I’m fine!”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s up!”

Georgie sighed and rested her chin in her hand, her arm propped up by the table. Lucas was stubborn. She knew that only too well.

“It’s just that Dillon and I have been fighting,” she finally said, which was true enough.
“About what?”
“He wants to move away. To go somewhere with a big market for film production.”
“And you don’t.”

Georgie nodded. It actually felt good to open up about this issue a little bit. Even with everything else that was going on, this problem lingered.

“It’s not just that I don’t want to go, though. It’s like I hate how it makes me feel. You wouldn’t understand, it’s just like I’m this domestic little woman who will just take care of the kid and follow him around the globe and he gets to go off and live his dreams and I’m just stuck in his shadow, holding him back.”

Lucas laughed a short laugh.

“What? What? I open up and you laugh at me?”
“I’m not laughing at you, Georgie. But do you realize what you just said? I wouldn’t know? I wouldn’t know about what it’s like to live in someone else’s shadow? It’s not like I’m an adult male working the profession of a sixteen-year-old girl who spent the last few months of his life following his famous girlfriend about the world, or anything.”

Georgie nodded in acknowledgement.

“Okay. So you know something about it,” she agreed.
“Yeah, I know something about it.”
“But you don’t have a kid to worry about.”

Lucas shook his head in the negative.

“And you got together with Brook after her career had already taken off,” Georgie continued.
“Yeah. So?”
“So it’s not like you spent four years building a life with someone and then found out it wasn’t enough for him or her! And it’s not like you have some other person coming into your life and… and just…”

Georgie caught herself and stopped talking, trying to keep her emotions in check.

She wasn’t going to go there. Lucas couldn’t possibly understand.

“Is there someone else, Georgie? Is that what this is?”
“No!”
“The way you’re talking-”
“No, Lucas, I love Dillon! I love only Dillon, okay? That’s not what this is!”
“Okay, but-”
“No buts!”
“Just listen to me for a minute, okay? It doesn’t have to mean anything. It doesn’t have to mean you need to hear this. But I gotta say it. You have to be really careful not to let that feeling of living in Dillon’s shadow – or potentially living in Dillon’s shadow, whatever – make you do something you’d regret!”
“I won’t!”
“It’s so easy to forget what’s really important, Georgie. I’m not just talking about cheating, okay? If you get wrapped up in your own issues… sometimes you do things…” Lucas said softly.
“I know that! Lucas, I know, but I’m not going to screw up, okay? You have no idea what you’re talking about!”
“I would if you’d tell me!”
“Just leave it alone,” Georgie half demanded and half begged. “Let it go.”

***

“So how are the other students treatin’ ya?” Lois asked Brook when they had finalized plans for Brook’s interview with Lois’ old friend. “Things going okay?
“Yeah. So far so good. I did okay on my midterms.”
“’Cause you’re a genius!”
“You’re kinda biased, Ma.”
“Biased but honest! So school’s good… How are things otherwise?”
“Okay.”
“Things with Lucas?”
“Fine.”
“He’s treating you right?”
“He’s treating me great,” Brook said monotonously, sick of answering the same questions.
“He’d better.”
“Ma, he’s one of the good ones.”
“We both know from experience that the good ones can let you down.”

Brook said nothing, and Lois reached out and touched her hand.

“If you ever need me I’m still here,” Lois offered. “That hasn’t changed and it won’t.”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Ma.”

Brook went silent again for several seconds, and Lois decided a change of topic was in order.

“So what’s up with Georgie? Did I detect a little awkwardness outside?”
“Uh, yeah,” Brook said, remembering her promise to Dillon. “Listen, Ma, I actually need to talk to her about something. If I send Lucas in here, will you promise not to grill him about anything?”
“When do I ever grill anybody about anything?”
“Ma…”
“Okay, all right, I promise. Go!”

With a sigh, Brook stood up and went outside. Lucas and Georgie both looked up as she approached.

“Hey. Our order ready?” Lucas asked.
“Not yet. Can you go in and wait for it? I need to talk to Georgie alone.”

Georgie looked unnerved at that, but said nothing. Lucas nodded and stood up.

“Yeah,” he said, “Good luck.”

Brook took the seat Lucas had vacated and looked Georgie in the eye.

“Just you and me now,” Brook said quietly, inviting her to speak.

Georgie sniffled a bit, feeling her determination start to break down. Brook looked her in the eye and smiled softly.

“If it helps we can talk about something else for a while. We can grab a bag of chips and pretend we’re sixteen again and in our pajamas and whispering so we won’t wake up the baby. We can spend a half hour complaining about how unfair life is.”
“How good old days-ish,” Georgie said, feeling herself begin to tear up.
“You never thought so at the time.”
“It was easier than this,” Georgie said, her voice breaking.
“Easier than what?”

Georgie took a deep breath. For some reason she could say it to Brook. Maybe it was as simple as gender. Maybe Brook could understand.

“He kissed me,” Georgie finally said.
“Kent?”
“He grabbed me and he held onto me and I told him to let go and he didn’t and I pushed him away and he held on tighter and he bruised my arm and held onto my head and forced me to kiss him…” Georgie’s words all blurred together as she spit them out fast, and Brook moved her chair around to the side of the table, moving closer.
“Shhhh…”

Brook put a gentle hand on Georgie’s back, not knowing what to say or how to help.

“I thought he was going to do something worse…” Georgie cried. “I thought… I just kept trying to remember if there were any classes after mine and if people would be coming in…”
“This was in the classroom?”
“He kept me late… that damn essay… I told him Dillon was coming to pick me up… I guess he believed me, I don’t know what he would have done…”
“Listen to me for a sec,” Brook said soothingly. “Look at me. Are you hurt? You said he bruised your arm. Is there anything worse?”
“No. I mean, it’s not like he… I mean he didn’t do anything else, he just… he just wouldn’t let me go for… I guess just for a matter of seconds, I don’t know…”
“That’s not nothing, okay? Are you hearing me? It’s not nothing! We need to tell Dillon, and then we need to tell your dad, and then we need to go to the dean of the university. This isn’t nothing!”

Georgie dropped her head into her hands and said nothing for a minute.

“I don’t want to get involved in a scandal,” she finally said. “I don’t want to have to have, like, hearings and accusations and… Kent changed my grade… Did I say that?”

Brook shook her head.

[JRK Archiver]

“He kept telling me he’d fix the essay for me and he did. He gave me an ‘A’.”
“So… what, you’re afraid it’s going to look like you did something voluntarily to get that ‘A’?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t want this to blow up in my face. I want it to just go away and then-”
“G, I think it’s gone to far to just go away.”
“No, no, it hasn’t!” Georgie insisted, trying to convince herself as much as Brook. “Look, I was thinking about it… I couldn’t think about anything else for so long, and I finally realized that no one has to know! No one has to know if I just stay away from him!”
“How are you going to do that?”
“I’m not going to go to class. I’ll get the notes from people. I’ll just get notes and write the final and I’ll never let him get me alone again.”
“And what if he doesn’t give you a choice?”

Georgie didn’t have an answer for that one. The possibility had occurred to her. Repeatedly. It terrified her.

“G, I’ll come with you, okay? To tell someone at the university, or tell your dad, or even to tell Dillon, if you want me there. You can’t just let this go.”
“I can’t tell Dillon.”
“Why?”
“He’ll freak out. You know he will. He’ll probably go straight to the school and make noise and, like, try to hit Kent-”
“Good. I’ll hold him down for him.”
“This isn’t a cartoon, Brook! This isn’t a game!”
“Georgie, I know, okay? I know, I wasn’t making light of it.”
“You have to just let it go, okay? I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t want to do anything. I’m going to forget about it. And you are too.”

Brook thought it over for a moment.

“Okay. I’ll leave it in your hands. On one condition.”
“What’s that?” A weary Georgie asked.
“If he comes to see you, or stops you at school, or contacts you in any way, you’ll tell me, and you’ll let me tell someone who can stop it.”
“Fine.”

Brook sighed.

“I don’t like it, Georgie. The guy shouldn’t get to get away with this.”
“It’s better this way,” Georgie said quietly.

Lois emerged from Kelly’s, noticed that all was not well with Georgie and had the sense to only wave a quick goodbye before walking away. Lucas came out a moment later carrying a large paper bag, and Brook stood up. Lucas looked at Georgie and opened his mouth to ask a question, but Brook shook her head slightly to silence him.

“Call me, okay?” Brook said, and Georgie nodded. “I mean it, Georgie.”
“Okay. I will.”
“You need a ride some place?” Lucas asked, and Georgie shook her head.
“I’ve got my car.”
“Walk to the parking lot with us,” Lucas suggested, and Georgie nodded and stood up to follow them.

Brook and Lucas reached their car first, and they exchanged quick goodbyes and drove off. Georgie fumbled in her purse for her keys. She could never find them anymore. She was always carrying too much junk in her purse. It seemed like the older Hannah got the more Georgie felt compelled to have everything from band aids to crayons in her purse.

Georgie’s fingers had just closed around her key ring when she saw him. He was in the shadows of the building, but she recognized him immediately. No one else stared like that. No one else would be waiting in the dark for her like that.

Kent took a step forward and Georgie dropped her keys. Her heart pounded in her throat as she bent to pick them up.

She couldn’t outrun him, and she knew it. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around.

With a courage she didn’t know she had, Georgie stepped forward and stared him down.

“You have the wrong idea,” she started, her voice shaking.
“Do I really?” Kent asked, dead serious, and Georgie nodded.
“Yes. You do. I love Dillon. I want to be with Dillon and only Dillon.”
“Dillon’s an interfering prick.”

Georgie gaped at him, confused.

“You’ve never even met him!”
“He doesn’t deserve you.”
“What, and you do?”

Kent’s eyes focused on her even more tightly at that, menacingly, and Georgie immediately regretted her decision to try to stand up to him. She tried to take a few steps backwards as inconspicuously as possible, but Kent suddenly lunged forward and grabbed her tightly by her already-bruised arm. Georgie started to cry out, as much from panic as from pain, but Kent quickly covered her mouth. He shoved her backwards and tears sprang to her eyes as she hit the brick wall.

“What’s it gonna take, huh?” Kent demanded in a loud whisper. “Threatening to fail you, is that enough to make you listen? Threatening to ruin you, maybe? The dean already got a lengthy phone call. It seems I have this problem student who can’t get enough of me and just won’t take no for an answer… Now, I offered to handle it. I wouldn’t want some poor, confused student getting her education ruined over this…”

He leaned in closer, one hand still tightly covering Georgie’s mouth, and her face crumbled. She leaned limply against the side of the building, about ready to give up.

“That enough?” Kent whispered. “You going to be good now? Or is it going to take a little more?”

He pushed hard with the hand that was over her mouth, knocking her head against the brick. His hand muffled her cry.

“You think this is all about you, huh?” Kent taunted. “Self-centered little bitch.”

Georgie’s cloudy mind tried to process that.

It wasn’t about her?

“Your little boyfriend needs to learn a few lessons, you know that?” Kent went on.

He ran his finger down her side and moved his other hand away from her mouth, but only long enough to replace it with his own mouth. He kissed her roughly, pushing her head back against the brick yet again, though not as roughly this time.

Georgie couldn’t take it. She swung out blindly with both arms, which he quickly caught, then kicked hard with her right leg.

She wasn’t sure where she hit him, but it was enough to throw him off balance long enough for her to run.

She didn’t go for her car. It didn’t even occur to her. She just ran. Not running anywhere in particular. Just running from him.

Kent watched her go.

His plans were going to have to change.

But it was no matter. No matter at all.

There were other ways. Other options.

Plan ‘C’ was ready and waiting.

[JRK Archiver]

chapter Six – The Whole Truth

Dillon heard Georgie before he saw her. He heard her keys jingling, heard her uneven steps coming down the hall, heard her ragged breathing. He could have sworn he even heard her heart pounding.

When she appeared in the doorway Dillon’s eyes clouded with tears just at the sight of her, and he forced himself to think of Hannah, whose eyes were locked on the TV set against the wall opposite the door.

“Close your eyes, Hannah.” Dillon’s quiet voice trembled ever-so-slightly. “We’re gonna play a little game, okay? Close your eyes.”

Hannah did as she was told, a little smile crossing her face.

The look was in sharp contrast with the horror on Dillon’s face.

Georgie was home, finally. But she wasn’t okay. She wasn’t even close to okay.

And this time it was bad enough that it hadn’t occurred to her to hide her tear-stained face from Hannah.

That scared Dillon. More than anything.

Dillon crossed the living room quickly but stopped short of embracing Georgie, instead reaching out to gently wipe her tears with his thumb.

Something hurt. Physically. He could see it in her eyes.

“Hang in a sec, okay?” he whispered to Georgie in a tone so gentle it was usually reserved for comforting Hannah.

He quickly walked the path from Hannah to the doorway to the steps leading upstairs, kicking toys and other obstacles out of the way.

“Daddy?”
“Hannah, Honey, I want to tell you the rules, okay?” Dillon said quickly. “If you can walk all the way from here to your bedroom with your eyes closed and then get into your pajamas all by yourself and wait up there… Aunt Maxie or Brook or Lucas will come read you your story.”
“Uncle Lucas?”
“I’ll call Uncle Lucas first, okay? I promise. Be careful, okay? Come here- keep your eyes closed! Come here…”

Dillon guided a smiling Hannah to the staircase and watched her make her way upstairs.

“Close the door, Hannah. Close the door so it’s a surprise, okay?” Dillon called out distractedly, already heading back to the living room. Georgie had sat down on the floor in the middle of the doorway.

“Dillon?”
“What happened?” Dillon asked immediately but tenderly, kneeling down in front of her.
“I hit my head…”
“Where?”

Georgie leaned forward and reached back to hesitantly touch the back of her head, and Dillon followed her fingers with his own and visibly winced when he felt the growing bump.

“You’ve got a goose egg on the back of your head,” Dillon told her, and he looked around for their portable home phone. “I’m gonna take you to the ER, okay? I’m just going to call someone for Hannah… I told her I’d call Lucas…”

Dillon got up and paced the room, searching out the phone. He found it just as his words broke through the muddled fog in Georgie’s mind.

“I don’t want to go to the ER.”

Dillon stopped mid-dial and stared at her.

“Listen to me, you’re not thinking clearly, okay?” he told her, coming to kneel down beside her in the doorway again. “You probably have a concussion.”

Dillon turned his attention back to the phone and dialed Lucas’ number, thinking distractedly how lucky they were that Georgie had even managed to get home safely.

Georgie’s disoriented mind wandered.

“Your little boyfriend needs to learn a few lessons, you know that?”

Was that a threat? Would Kent hurt Dillon?

“Yeah, Brook, is Lucas with you?” Dillon’s tense voice broke into Georgie’s worried thoughts. “I need you guys to watch Hannah… Yeah, now. It’s- it’s an emergency, I have to take Georgie to the hospital… No, I- I don’t know, exactly. I’m gonna find out, but I want to get her checked out by a doctor first. I think she has a concussion or something. Can you just get over here?”

Dillon hung up without thanking her, too distracted to care, and returned his full attention to Georgie.

“Brook and Lucas are going to come watch Hannah. Hey, you hear me? Can you even see me clearly? How many fingers?” Dillon held up three fingers, and Georgie focused on them with some effort.
“Three.”

Dillon sighed.

“What happened, Baby?A mugging?” He eyed her keys and her purse on the floor behind her, then looked her in the eye again. “You need to tell me everything, okay? I know something’s been going on, Georgie. I know, okay? I don’t care if we’ve been fighting! It doesn’t matter! Nothing matters right now, okay? You just gotta tell me, Georgie. Tell me everything, Baby. Tell me what’s happening…” Dillon said, half comforting her and half pleading with her, looking deep into her eyes.
“I don’t know what to do, Dillon…” Georgie cried, and then she leaned forward and rested her forehead against his shoulder. “I don’t know what to do…”
“I know you don’t…” Dillon soothed. “That’s why we have to deal with it together, okay? Georgie, we’ve always dealt better when we deal together. You know that. What are you so afraid of?”
“I don’t want you to get hurt… I don’t want to get hurt any more… I don’t want everyone to know what’s been going on… I don’t want to be in some kind of crazy scandal… God, Dillon, our lives were just finally starting to settle down and make sense and now it’s like I can’t keep everything from being knocked off balance and I…”
“Let me in, Georgie,” Dillon said quietly, pulling away from her slightly to look her in the eye. “Just let me help you with this.”

Georgie took a deep breath and met Dillon’s eyes, and he could see her giving in.

“It’s this prof… Kent…” Georgie started.
“The one you told Brook was staring at you?”
“That’s how it started. And I thought it was nothing. I thought I was making a big deal out of nothing. Even when he started keeping me after class. But after that essay he kept me late and he… he kind of grabbed me, you know, and he kissed me and I didn’t kiss him back, Dillon! I swear I tried to push him away right away…”
“I know you did,” he whispered, forcing a tiny reassuring smile. “I know you did.” A thought occurred to him – or rather refused to be pushed away any longer – and tears filled his eyes. “How far did it go?” He nearly choked on the words, reaching out to brush a few tears from her cheeks. “What happened tonight?”
“He was waiting by my car…”

Georgie took in a shaky breath, and Dillon clenched his jaw, looking away.

“He’s a professor, Dillon,” Georgie mumbled, her tone confused. “Why is he acting like a thug off the street? I mean, kissing me in the classroom, that’s… that’s one thing but he was, like, lurking in a parking lot…”
“I don’t know. You gotta tell me what happened. Did he… I mean, was… what did he…”
“He shoved me. Hard. I hit my head against the wall… more than once…”
“The brick?”

Georgie nodded and Dillon winced.

“And then?” he asked.
“He kissed me again and I just freaked out and started fighting and I… I don’t even know where I hit him, but I got away…” Dillon breathed a sigh of relief, pulling her closer to him. “He didn’t even try to chase me…” Georgie continued. “I don’t get it, Dillon… I really don’t, I don’t get what he’s doing anymore… he said something about you, about ‘my little boyfriend’ needing to learn a few lessons…”

Dillon’s brow furrowed as he took that in.

“What’s his name? Kent?”
“Ryan Kent.”
“He’s a prof?”
“He just came to PCU earlier this semester.”

Dillon thought for a moment, but came up with nothing.

“I don’t know the name.” He stopped, sighed, made up his mind. “You’re safe now,” he said determinedly. “I promise. I’m going to do something about this.”

Georgie opened her mouth to say something, but the door bell rang and Dillon got up to answer it. He moved slowly. He felt like the past several minutes had aged him.

He opened the door and peered out with red-rimmed eyes.

“God, you look like hell,” Brook said bluntly. “Are you okay? Is Georgie?”
“Later,” Dillon said simply. He ushered them in and gestured to the stairs. “Hannah’s in her room. Read to her.”
“What are you going to do?” Lucas asked.
“I have a phone call to make.”

***

Half an hour later Georgie felt like a little girl again. Being cradled in her mother’s arms had that effect on her.

Dillon had called Mac and Felicia. Initially Georgie had hated the idea, but now, with Mac taking charge and Felicia rubbing her back the way she’d done for so many years in the past, everything felt a little bit safer. A little bit more manageable.

“Listen, Mac,” a weary Dillon started after Georgie had finished telling her parents the bare bones of what had been going on, “Georgie wants to keep this quiet. That’s part of why I called you rather than just going down to the station or something. She doesn’t want to deal with a scandal at school. That’s also why she doesn’t want to go to the hospital.”
“She needs a doctor, Dillon! There’s a swelling on the back of her head!” Mac insisted, a little bit more harshly than he’d meant to given the distress written all over Dillon’s face.
“I know that!” Dillon said back just as harshly, and for a brief moment he felt like he was seventeen again and he had something to prove. “Look, I called Monica. She’s on her way.”

Mac nodded, shooting a vaguely apologetic look Dillon’s way. Dillon nodded almost imperceptibly in acknowledgement.

“Your fingers are trembling,” Felicia said quietly to Georgie, both of them still huddled together against the large, soft couch. “You’re safe now, Sweetie, you know that, don’t you?”

Georgie nodded slowly, her eyes closing briefly.

“I just don’t know what’s going to happen now,” Georgie confided. “I’ve been telling myself for so long now that this could just go away and now it won’t…”
“Mac’s going to do everything he can to simplify the legal side to this. Maybe it will work out better than you think. If Mac can stop this horrible man, it’s worth however difficult things get at school, right?”

Georgie nodded again.

“It’s worth it as long as this can end. But I’m not sure it will. Kent… there’s something really crazy about him, Mom… I don’t even know what he wants anymore…”

Before Felicia could question what Georgie meant Brook and Lucas came downstairs, and at nearly the same moment the doorbell rang. Dillon let Monica in as Brook and Lucas joined the others in the living room.

“Hannah’s asleep,” Lucas filled them in, eyeing Georgie with worried eyes.

Georgie managed the smallest of appreciative smiles. Lucas sat down in an end chair as Monica entered the room.

Dillon left Georgie in Monica and Felicia’s capable hands and gestured for Brook to follow him out of the room.

“You know the PCU website, right?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Can you find me a picture of this guy?” Dillon questioned in an intense whisper, and Brook nodded.
“Probably.”
“Do it.”

***

Ten minutes later Dillon was staring at Kent’s image on a computer screen.

He needed a face for the hate coursing through him. The relatively young man in the photo didn’t even look like a professor. Not that that was foremost in Dillon’s mind. All he could think about was how big the man was, how strong he looked.

How he’d be no match for Georgie in an empty, darkened parking lot.

And yet she’d managed to get away.

Sometimes she amazed him.

“Georgie said he said something about me…” Dillon mumbled after a moment, as much to himself as to Brook. “But I’ve never seen this guy. Maybe she was just confused? I mean, she got hit in the head. Maybe whatever Kent said was just him messing with her.”
“Maybe,” Brook agreed.
“Dillon!” Mac’s voice carried in from the hallway.
“In here, Mac,” Dillon called out. “How’s Georgie?”
“Monica seems to think she has a mild concussion and nothing else, thankfully. Felicia and Lucas are with her.” Mac took a deep breath and Dillon could see clearly how hard he was trying to keep it together and focus his energy on doing something productive. “For her sake I want to handle this myself for as long as possible. I need to use your computer…” Mac’s voice trailed off as he eyed the computer screen. “Looks like you’re one step ahead of me. All I need is a full name and a contact number for the university. Is Kent his first or last name?”
“Last. Ryan Kent,” Dillon filled him in, and then he clicked with the mouse a few times and brought up a university phone number. “I think that’s some kind of general number-”

Before Dillon could finish speaking, Mac was scribbling down the number and heading for the door.

“What are you going to do?” Dillon called after him, and Mac stopped just long enough to answer him.
“It’s like I said. I’m going to handle this myself.”

Mac wasn’t sure how. He didn’t have a plan.

But he wasn’t sure he cared anymore about upholding the law.

***

By the time Monica and Felicia and Lucas and Brook had gone it was the wee hours of the morning.

As soon as they were gone Georgie headed upstairs for a shower. Dillon was afraid that she could collapse, and it was true that she was dizzy, but she desperately wanted to wash all traces of Kent from her arms, hands, face… lips…

And so Dillon sat on the bathroom counter and kept an ear trained for any sound of distress while Georgie showered in water so hot it burned.

She’d been in there nearly ten minutes when the muffled but distinct sound of sobs broke through the hum of running water.

Dillon didn’t hesitate. He grabbed a towel with one hand and pulled back the shower curtain with the other. He shut off the water and wrapped Georgie up tightly in the fluffy towel. He pulled her close to him, her wet face and hair soaking his shirt.

“I swear my lips are burning…” Georgie whispered. “All he did was kiss me and I feel so gross…”

Dillon held her tighter.

“It’s over.”
“It isn’t over, Dillon, you didn’t see him. Something’s driving him…”

Georgie pulled out of the embrace and looked Dillon in the eye.

“He’s not going to let this be over.”

***

Mommies were supposed to comfort children. Georgie knew this. She had lived it. She’d been on both sides of the relationship.

But tonight Hannah’s presence comforted her.

Georgie lied down next to Hannah on the huge bed they’d bought for the new house. She looked into her peaceful face.

At least she was safe. At least her world still made sense. She knew nothing of pain or fear.

For Georgie there was comfort in knowing that, in having her close and seeing her sleeping so soundly.

The tiny crack of light coming through the nearly-closed doorway widened, and Dillon wandered into the room. He looked down at Georgie with eyes full of concern and a tiny bit of curiosity, trying to see if either of his girls was awake.

They looked at each other in silence for several seconds, neither of them sure what to do or say, and then Dillon approached the bed and lied down on the other side of Hannah, facing Georgie. He reached out and tangled his fingers with hers.

“I love you,” he whispered after a while, for lack of anything else worth saying, and tears filled Georgie’s eyes.

There was comfort in knowing that, too.

***

Mac had no idea what he was doing or what he was going to do.

For the first time in years he wasn’t playing the game by the book. He hadn’t gone through official channels. He hadn’t talked to anyone at the station.

He wasn’t sure what that meant. He told himself he was helping Georgie minimize the teacher-student scandal she so desperately wanted to avoid. But in the back of his mind he wondered if he was helping himself to some more personal revenge.

Whatever the reason, his lack of a game plan didn’t stop him from searching Kent out. It took longer than it should have on account of it being the middle of the night. It had taken some time to get someone on a phone line at the university, but he had gotten the address for Kent that they had on file.

Even as he parked his car by the curb and approached the house, Mac wasn’t sure what he was doing.

He knocked on the door. Thirty seconds passed without a response, and he knocked again, louder this time.

He started to identify himself as the police commissioner, then changed his mind and shut his mouth.

He stepped down off the front step and crept over to the window and peered inside, using his hands to outline an area of the window to block the glare of the street lights behind him.

He stared for a full minute. It didn’t make sense.

The house was empty.

No furniture. No signs of life at all.

The place was abandoned.

[JRK Archiver]

Chapter Seven – Back to New York


Kent was running scared.

Or so Mac would have Georgie believe.

After the discovery of Kent’s empty house, Mac had looked into the situation further. As it turned out Kent’s records and qualifications were all false – created by a clever and knowledgeable man with a specific agenda.

Unfortunately, no one knew what that agenda was or how Georgie fit into it.

The good news was that Kent had disappeared. Perhaps he had somehow learned that he was under suspicion and his fraud had been discovered. Perhaps he simply realized that Georgie would have called the police after what happened in the Kelly’s parking lot. No one knew. Whatever the reason, he hadn’t shown up at his house or at PCU in days.

The other piece of good news was that the rumors and press coverage surrounding the case of the fraudulent and missing professor hadn’t been connected to Georgie. Mac had managed to keep her involvement confidential so far, and Brook had made a promise to try to trade an exclusive interview (a rarity for her these days) for the censoring of Georgie’s role in any story run by any magazine or television station who somehow learned the truth. It wasn’t any kind of guarantee, but it helped.

Georgie wanted to believe it was over. Dillon and Mac told her continually that Kent had taken off to avoid fraud and assault charges. But a nagging voice in the back of her head told her this wasn’t an end, just a temporary reprieve. And she was pretty sure Dillon felt the same way, for all his big words about her being safe now.

At the present moment all of this was as far from Georgie’s mind as it ever got.

“Look! Birdie, Mommy!” Hannah called out happily.
“That’s a pigeon,” Georgie told her, gently pulling her down into a sitting position again.
“Squirrel!”
“We have squirrels in Port Charles,” Dillon told Hannah with a smile, but Hannah ignored him and continued her wide-eyed staring.

To a four-year-old who had never seen a park bigger than a small patch of grass with a few swings, New York’s Central Park was a wonderland.

Being bundled up in a warm coat and mittens and riding around Central Park in a horse-drawn carriage in between her parents was like a dream.

Hannah’s smile grew as she spotted an older man walking a large assortment of dogs, and Dillon exchanged an amused look with Georgie.

“We’ve got dogs in Port Charles, too,” he said with a chuckle, speaking more to Georgie this time than Hannah.
“You’re the one who sees such a magic in this city,” Georgie told him, and her voice dropped in volume. “Maybe she does too.”
“Yeah… Maybe.”

Dillon stopped short of asking whether that would be so bad. He didn’t want to open a can of worms when Georgie was finally starting to act like herself again.

It was a trip. A weekend vacation. Nothing more or less. They had accompanied Brook and Lucas to New York City for the interview Brook had set up with one of Lois’ old friends. They were all staying in Brook’s luxurious apartment overlooking the park, but Lucas had gone with a nervous Brook to her interview, giving Georgie and Dillon and Hannah a chance to have some time alone in a city they had once thought they would never visit as a family.

“Excuse me, um, Sir? My good man?” Dillon called to the driver, and Georgie grinned at his awkward wording. The driver turned to look at them and Dillon pointed up the road. “Can you let us off just up here?” Dillon asked, and Georgie followed his gaze and smiled.

The boat pond. Or, more accurately, the grassy area behind the boat pond.

It had been four years since they’d sat in that spot and dreamed that it all might one day be okay.

“Are we going swimming?” Hannah asked hopefully, and Dillon shook his head.
“It’s almost winter, Hannah Banana,” he told her in a goofy voice. “And this isn’t a pool anyway.”

Dillon stepped down out of the carriage and paid the driver, then turned to help Georgie and Hannah down.

“You remember where we sat last time?” Dillon asked, and Georgie gave him a look as they walked, each of them holding one of Hannah’s hands.
“It’s kind of cold to put down a blanket and sleep in the grass,” she told him.
“We’re not going to sleep. We’re just going to people watch for the thirty seconds or so it takes Hannah to get bored. And then we’ll check out the pond a little. And then I’m going to take her to climb all over that statue I told you about.”

Hannah looked pleased to hear that, and when the three of them sat down on a bench and looked around, Port Charles and Ryan Kent seemed a million miles away.

“You want to drive one of those little boats?” Dillon asked Hannah.
“Yeah! A red one!” the excited child yelled, and Dillon scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder.
“You want one?” Dillon teased Georgie, and she just smiled and shook her head. He could be such a goofball sometimes, but she loved it.

Dillon and Hannah scampered away to rent one of the remote-control boats. Georgie could hear them bickering happily like the Quartermaines they were about who got to drive first, and an amused smile crossed her face.

Hannah and Dillon got the boat into the water and Dillon made a feeble attempt to direct it across the pond. The sound of their laughter carried to the bench Georgie was sitting on, and she closed her eyes and leaned her head back, enjoying the moment.

“Mommy! Come try!” Hannah called a moment later.
“Get over here, Georgie! Show Hannah who the better driver is in this family!”

Georgie got up slowly, tired from lack of sleep but happy to join them, and crouched down next to them at the edge of the pond. When her legs grew sore she sat down and leaned back against Dillon, and a moment later Hannah leaned against her.

That felt right.

Dillon leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Georgie tightly from behind.

“Looks like we made it,” Dillon murmured quietly into her ear. “We made this moment real, Georgie. We got through so much. We can get through anything else.”

Georgie sighed and closed her eyes again.

She could never quite forget, and clearly Dillon couldn’t either. Her wrists were still bruised from her struggle with Kent in the parking lot the other night, and the whole ordeal was never quite out of her mind.

But this moment was about as good as it got.

***

“I want to tell you a story, Baby Girl,” Georgie told Hannah loudly, because she had to speak over the wind. “Look out there at all the lights. You see that?”

Hannah nodded, gazing out at the skyline from the top of the Empire State Building, grasped tightly in her mother’s arms.

“You’ve been here before,” Georgie continued. “The last time I saw all those lights, the last time Daddy and I were here, you were just a tiny, tiny, tiny little baby still in my tummy.”
“I don’t remember,” Hannah said seriously, and Dillon and Georgie broke into laughter.
“I do,” Dillon said quietly when his laughter died down. “I remember it really, really well.”

They were all silent for several seconds, huddled together against the biting wind, staring out into the well lit night, and it seemed to Dillon that Hannah somehow understood how special it was for them to be here together.

His kid was just smart like that.

“Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“Can we watch a movie when we get back to Brook’s?”

Dillon beamed and took her from Georgie’s arms and hugged her so tightly she groaned in protest.

“That’s my girl,” Dillon said quietly, meeting Georgie’s eyes meaningfully. “That’s my girl, Hannah.”

***

It was nearly midnight.

Brook’s Manhattan apartment was spacious but homey, and as contemporary as Brook herself. There was a guest room, but Hannah was dozing in a comfortable slumber on the pull-out couch that faced the big screen television. She had fallen asleep half way through the latest Disney flick, and Dillon was content to leave her there for the night. He covered her with a blanket that was draped over the back of the couch and joined Brook and Lucas and Georgie at the kitchen table.

“Hungry? Thirsty?” Brook asked, and Dillon shook his head.
“Nope. How’d the interview go?”
“Typical. Not bad. Georgie says you guys had a good day.”
“Yeah,” Dillon said, a hint of a smile crossing his tired face. “Definitely. You’ve heard about the trip we took here before Hannah was born-”
“About a hundred times,” Lucas cut him off.
“Yeah. Well, it was nice,” Dillon finished, not interested in exchanging words with Lucas or explaining to him why the day had meant so much.
“Not to change the subject… or venture into upsetting territory… but has your dad made any progress in the search?” Lucas asked, and Georgie looked up from the mug of hot chocolate she’d been sipping.
“Not really.”
“But you haven’t heard anything from Kent, right?” Brook asked, and Georgie nodded.
“He seems to have fallen off the face of the earth. Which is just fine by me.” Georgie said.
“Not by me,” Dillon said with a bit of anger, and three surprised pairs of eyes focused on him. “Well call me a cave man but I want to hurt the guy. Too many sub-human scum creeps like him get away with stuff like this.”

A brief moment passed in silence, and Dillon reached out absentmindedly to trace the bruises he knew were under Georgie’s sleeve.

“You want him in jail,” Brook clarified, and Dillon met her eyes.
“For starters.”
“Dillon…” Georgie said warningly. “Don’t. Don’t do something stupid. I’m okay.”
“Yeah, and you’re going to stay that way. But Kent? Not so much.”
“Dillon, what are you thinking? Are you planning something?” Georgie asked, growing worried. “Think about Hannah! The last thing she needs is some vigilante father!”
“Relax,” Dillon said soothingly, “Just relax. I don’t even know how to find the guy, and you know I fight like an old woman, and I’d be more freaked to hold a gun than he would be to have one held on him. I’m not planning anything. I’d just like to.”

Dillon reached out and covered Georgie’s hand with his own, and Brook stood up, yawning.

“I gotta sleep,” Brook said.
“And you’re not the one with a four-year-old,” Georgie pointed out. “Hannah will be up with the sun.”
“You can sleep in,” Dillon told Georgie, hoping she couldn’t hear the conspiratorial tone he heard in his own voice. “I’ll get up with Hannah. We’ll do cartoons and stuff. Just be prepared for the ‘sleeping like Garfield’ routine.”
“Yeah?” Georgie asked, and Dillon nodded.
“Yeah.”

Georgie smiled and gave him a quick kiss.

“You think we should move Hannah into the bedroom with us?” Georgie asked, and Dillon shook his head.
“I think she’s out for the night. She knows her way around the apartment. She’ll come get up when she wakes up in the morning.”
“’Night.” Lucas told the others, heading for Brook’s bedroom, and Brook cleared the few dishes from the table while Dillon and Georgie each crossed into the living room area briefly to kiss Hannah’s forehead.

Georgie disappeared down the hallway to the guest room, and Dillon hung back for a moment.

“What?” Brook asked when she turned and saw that he was still standing there.
“I have something to take care of tomorrow morning,” Dillon whispered. “And I don’t want Georgie to know about it. Can I talk you into getting up to watch Hannah for an hour or so?”

***

A bleary-eyed Brook stumbled out of her bedroom at nine-o-clock the next morning and into the living room where Dillon and Hannah were watching cartoons.

“Hannah, Brook’s going to watch with you for a little while, okay?” Dillon said quickly when he spotted Brook.
“And you?” Hannah asked hopefully, and Dillon shook his head and stood up.
“I have to go somewhere for a little while, but I’ll be back before Bugs comes on.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“And then we can wake up Mommy?”
“Then we can wake up Mommy.”

Hannah seemed to be satisfied by that, and Dillon went into the front hallway to get his coat and boots. Brook followed him.

“Hannah’s probably going to tell Georgie that you went out this morning,” Brook pointed out.
“I know. But if she asks, just tell her I went shopping or something.”
“Without her and Hannah?”
“It’ll work out.”

Brook turned to go back to the living room, then stopped.

“Are you sure about how you’re going about this?” Brook asked, and Dillon nodded.
“I’m sure. I don’t want Georgie to hear anything about this yet. Got it?”
“Yeah…Got it.”

***

It wasn’t until the airplane ride back to Port Charles that night that Hannah finally mentioned to Georgie that Dillon had gone out that morning. They were waiting in line to use the tiny airplane bathroom – one of the drawbacks of flying commercial – when it occurred to Hannah to tell her mother that Brook just didn’t get cartoons the way Daddy did, and that she wished Daddy hadn’t left.

When Hannah had used the washroom and they returned to their seats, Georgie looked over at Dillon suspiciously.

She had a feeling he was looking into making a more permanent trip to New York. What else would he keep from her?

But she didn’t ask.

She didn’t want to deal with it.

[JRK Archiver]

Chapter Eight – Sleep Well, Little Children


“Bigger!”
“Hannah, Honey-”
“A bigger one, Daddy!”
“Hannah-” Georgie tried to interject.
“With long leaves!” Hannah screamed, and Georgie and Dillon looked at each other.
“She means needles,” Dillon pointed out.
“You think?” Georgie said with a sarcastic but amused grin.
“Shopping for a Christmas tree should not be this complicated!” Dillon said with a groan.

They were in the middle of a Christmas tree lot. They had been there for nearly an hour. Dillon was convinced the only reason Hannah was rejecting every tree in sight was because she wanted to continue riding around on his shoulders.

She was getting far too big for that, but he had trouble saying no to her on a regular day. He couldn’t possibly say no to her two days before Christmas.

Georgie was loving it almost as much as Hannah. There had been no contact from Kent for a few weeks now, and the whole mess was seeming further and further away.

And it was Christmas. No one could help getting wrapped up in Hannah’s joy, least of all her parents.

“I think we should get the biggest one they have,” Georgie tossed out suddenly, and Dillon turned to look at her in surprise.
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah! Mommy!” Hannah called out, and Georgie gave Dillon a ‘beat that’ smile.
“Where exactly are we going to put a huge tree?” Dillon asked, and Georgie shrugged.
“In the living room. We’ve got pretty high ceilings in the new house.”
“And how are we going to get it home?”
“Tie it to the roof like we were going to.”
“And what happens when we don’t have enough decorations?”
“We buy new ones. Better yet, we make new ones.”

Dillon mulled that over for a minute, then lifted Hannah down from his shoulders to look her in the eye.

“You wanna put popcorn on the tree?” he asked, and Hannah lit up like he’d told her she could jump on the couch.
“And chips?” Hannah asked hopefully.

Dillon looked at Georgie. Georgie looked at Dillon. They both shrugged.

“Popcorn and chips it is!” Dillon agreed.

***

It was a weird tree, Georgie decided, gazing at the nearly finished product as they added a few final decorations.

It wasn’t that it wasn’t a nice tree. It was actually beautiful. Tall and full and round, and a beautiful shade of green. It barely fit in their spacious living room.

But the popcorn mention had given Hannah a lot of ideas. They’d ended up with popcorn, berries, crackers and chips strung in various patterns across the tree, and a few cookies had somehow made their way on to stronger branches, as well.

“It’s definitely unique,” Dillon commented as if he could read Georgie’s thoughts, and she gave him a little smile.
“So are we,” she pointed out.

Hannah reached out to put a more traditional ornament on the tree and Georgie reached out to help her secure it. Immediately upon finishing with the ornament Hannah grabbed one of the few cookies and took a bite.

“Maybe we didn’t think this through,” Dillon said, trying not to laugh, and Georgie poked him in the chest playfully.
“You’re the one who told her she could put it all on the tree!”
“I just thought ‘Hey, we don’t have a dog, why not?’” Dillon said sheepishly, and Hannah’s excited eyes fixed on his face.
“I want a puppy!” she screamed.

Dillon groaned quietly and turned to Georgie for help.

“Look what you did,” Georgie said with a laugh.
“A puppy like Odie!” Hannah continued.
“Odie’s a cartoon,” Georgie told her, grabbing a candy cane off the tree and unwrapping it, watching Dillon collect his thoughts, amused by the whole thing.
“Hannah… Puppies are… Puppies make messes…”
“Me too,” Hannah said, and Dillon couldn’t deny that she had a point.
“Okay. Okay…” Dillon said, thinking fast. He looked to Georgie for help again, and she mouthed the word ‘No’ quite emphatically.

Dillon hemmed and hawwed for another moment, then made a decision.

“You know, puppies only get made in the spring,” he finally said, and Georgie smirked while a satisfied Hannah turned her attention back to the tree, and Dillon breathed a sigh of relief.

“No star,” Hannah pointed out.
“The tree’s not quite ready yet,” Dillon told her, and then he smiled and turned and grabbed a small gift-wrapped present from a small end table next to the couch. He pressed it into Georgie’s hand gently. “Open it,” he said softly, and Georgie gave him a curious but appreciative look.
“It’s not Christmas yet,” she told him, and he shook his head.
“It’s okay. It’s for now.”
“I want a present!” Hannah complained, and Georgie knelt down to let her help rip the wrapping.
“Careful, it’s breakable,” Dillon told them, and Georgie gave him another quizzical look.

It took Georgie and Hannah only a moment to rip the wrapping off and open the box. Georgie smiled a little smile at what was inside and looked up at Dillon.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, lifting the precious ornament out of the box. It was a small house, done all in gold, with the words ‘First Christmas in Our New Home’ scripted on the front in beautiful lettering.
“I tried to find ‘First Christmas on Easy Street’,” Dillon joked, “But no cigar. I was thinking we could put it near ‘Baby’s First Christmas’.”

He’d given her that one the year Hannah was born, when she was just a few weeks old.

“Perfect,” Georgie said quietly, and she stood and kissed him. The kiss wasn’t particularly intense. Not in front of Hannah. But it was full of emotion, and they both felt it.
“Kind of feels like easy street again, huh?” Dillon whispered, and Georgie nodded.
“Feels like easy street. Feels safe again. Feels like Christmas,” she agreed.
“Feels like home,” Dillon said quietly, leaning in for another kiss.

***

“It’s pipers piping!”
“No it’s not! It’s drummers!”
“I don’t care if it’s turkeys flying! I can’t handle that crazy song, dangnabbit!”
“Put a sock in it, Grandfather, it’s a good one.”
“I still say it’s maids milking!”
“I still say we should all shut up and let Brookie sing!”
“Ma!”
“What?”
“Why don’t we all just shut up period?”
“That will be quite enough!” Emily called out as was typical of her in the years since Lila had passed away, and the family took a few seconds to quiet down, as was also typical.

It was Christmas Eve. Having already been to the Scorpios for an enjoyable but uneventful Christmas celebration, Georgie and Dillon and Hannah were seated closely together on one end of the couch in the Quartermaine living room for his family’s gathering. Ned was next to them, and the other Quartermaines were scattered around the room. They were all to go to the hospital for the Bible reading later on.

“I have an announcement to make,” Emily said, beaming, and all eyes turned to look at her. “Nikolas and I are expecting a baby!”

Suddenly the room exploded in a mixture of excited congratulating and typical Quartermaine confusion, and Dillon got up briefly to take his turn offering Emily a hug and good wishes.

When he returned the rest of the family was still huddled around Emily and Nikolas talking animatedly, and he curled up with his family again, happy for his cousin but happier to be out of the craziness.

“How about that, huh?” he said, and Georgie looked down at Hannah in her lap and stroked her hair gently.
“It went somewhat differently when we made that announcement,” she said softly, remembering.
“We didn’t exactly get the chance to announce it ourselves, remember? Next time we will.”
“Next time?” Georgie gave him an incredulous smile. “Are you serious?”
“I didn’t say now! Not now! But… down the road… maybe a next time, yeah.”

He smiled a smile Georgie could never resist – the one that said to her ‘I love my kid and you know you love that about me’ – and she sighed and looked down at Hannah again.

“Yeah. I kind of like the idea of a next time. Down the road!” she emphasized.
“Down the road.”
“Definitely.”
“Right.”
“A long road.”
“What road?” Hannah finally asked, and Georgie and Dillon broke into laughter.

***

“Brook?”

Brook looked up, and Georgie approached her slowly. She was sitting on the couch in the waiting area by the nurses’ station, rather than accompanying the rest of the group to the Christmas party.

“What are you doing?” Georgie asked.
“Ah… I don’t feel so Christmasy tonight.”
“Talk about bad timing.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?” Georgie asked, sitting down next to her.
“Nothing. I’m just… ‘unpredictable’, right?” Brook tossed out with a forced smile, making a little joke. ‘Unpredictable’ was the title of one of her best-selling singles.
“Something wrong?” Georgie pressed, and Brook shook her head.
“You’ve got more than enough to deal with these days, Georgie. Me and my complaints are minor compared to what you’ve got going on.”
“Come on, Brook.You know you’re going to tell me. Get it over with so we can go celebrate with everyone else. Talk it out. This is us. It’s what we do.”

Brook smirked at that. It was true.

“I’m just in bitter rock star mode tonight,” Brook admitted.
“Does this have anything to do with Emily’s announcement?”
“It just… sometimes it feels like everyone else has something real, you know? Like I’m out there dealing with all these people I’ve never met who swear they love me but half the time they’re just really scarily obsessed, and then people like Emily and Nikolas and… and you and Dillon… you guys have what matters. You don’t freak out over whacked out fan mail and drive your boyfriend into someone else’s arms and-”
“Hey, that wasn’t your fault! You know that, Brook! Come on! Lucas felt so guilty about that and he had every reason to!”
“It was so much more than that, though, Georgie… you weren’t there, you don’t know… it was such a mess, and it’s like it changed everything and if Dillon hadn’t been there…” Brook sighed and quieted for a moment. “I’m just jealous all the time now and I hate that,” she continued.
“Jealous of me?”

Georgie was near speechless. She’d envied Brook’s freedom for four years.

“Jealous of everyone who has anonymity and a permanent home and a kid and a life with-”
“A kid?” Georgie cut Brook off, surprised. “You’re barely twenty.”
“That’s a laugh, coming from you.”
“I just meant… you know I love Hannah and I don’t regret a thing, but… given the choice at the time I never would have wanted to be pregnant at sixteen. It was hell for months. And difficult for years. Still is sometimes.”
“I know. And I know I probably sound like every spoiled star that ever existed to complain about my life, right?”
“I didn’t say that.”

Brook looked away briefly, holding back tears. She hated to cry.

“I just need to find something real, you know? I thought I had it for, like, a little while there, and then everything changed and I just… everything’s so superficial, G… I just need more…”

Still a little bit shocked at all that was coming to light, Georgie reached out and put her hand on Brook’s arm gently.

She’d known Brook’s career had been a problem for her in recent months. It was the whole reason she was trying to be a student and put her career on hold.

But she didn’t realize it was bothering her this much. Something didn’t fit.

“I don’t know the whole story, do I?” Georgie asked after a moment, and Brook turned watery eyes away from her.
“You’ve really got it great, you know that?” Brook told her quietly, ignoring the question. “Kent aside… and I know that was horrible, but… Kent aside…”

Brook sniffled and met Georgie’s eyes.

“You’ve got it all, Georgie.”
“I always thought you did.”

***

After a festive Christmas celebration at the hospital, Dillon and Georgie and Hannah arrived home long after Hannah’s usual bedtime, and so Hannah was allowed to stay up only long enough to leave a plate of cookies for Santa Claus before her parents tucked her safely into bed.

Dillon and Georgie went back downstairs and played Santa Claus. Georgie stuffed the stockings and arranged the presents under the tree.

Dillon ate the cookies left for ‘Santa’.

After a kiss under the mistletoe Georgie went up to go to bed, leaving Dillon to put the finishing touches on the first sight Hannah would see in the morning.

Dillon struggled to put together the doll house they had bought for Hannah. His eyes were blurring by 1:00 am, but when he finally finished and stood back to look at his masterpiece around 1:30, he was satisfied.

He couldn’t wait to see Hannah’s face in the morning.

He checked to be sure he had cleared his digital camera’s memory card so he could snap photos to his heart’s content when Hannah laid eyes on her presents, then he checked the locks and set the security system and went upstairs.

When Dillon finally fell into bed beside a soundly sleeping Georgie it was just before two.

A few minutes after three the security system was disabled. A few minutes after that the lock on the back door was quickly and efficiently picked.

A few minutes after that, Hannah was gone.