The ending is a little wonky because I ran out of time. Written in 23 minutes.

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Stefanie Webber was going to see her father whether he—or her mother—liked it or not. For her entire life, they’d waited for him. Waited for him to call, waited for him to visit, waited for him to leave, to go back to the city where they were, for some reason, never allowed to visit. Oh sure, her mother had always told her that one day Stef would understand. Love was complicated.

But she was fourteen now and really tired of hearing she’d understand when she was the older. As her oldest brother had always told her, that was just some shit adults told you to get you off their back. Well, Stef was done waiting for answers from her mother, and since her father wasn’t expected to come back to San Diego until her birthday in July, showing up on his doorstep in April might shock him enough to explain why the hell he lived somewhere else if he loved her mother so damn much.

Her mother didn’t often let Stefanie out of her sight overnight—her brothers told her that was mostly their fault—Jake had apparently been kidnapped twice as a kid and Cameron had never met a curfew in high school he hadn’t broken. But every once in a while, she could convince her mom to let her sleep over Trisha’s house, and this time—she’d managed to convince Trish to cover for her at least until Saturday morning.

Because by then she’d be in Port Charles and would have confronted her father about never being around and she wouldn’t need a cover story anymore.

Of course all of that had seemed like a great idea until her layover in Chicago had screwed everything else. Her connecting flight had been cancelled and they couldn’t get her on a new one until the next morning. Which meant she’d be in the air right about the time she was supposed to be home from Trisha’s house.

It couldn’t be helped, Stef told herself, as she got into the taxi that would take her from the airport to her father’s penthouse — his address had been ridiculous easy to find. She’d found it on his driver’s license three years ago.

She turned on her phone…just to see if she’d gotten away with it so far and found that she had four missed calls and three texts—as well as a text from her oldest brother, Cameron. She wrinkled her nose, weighed her bets, and called Cameron.

“Stef, Mom is flipping out. You turned off your location on your phone—”

“Hello to you, too, Cam,” Stef said with a roll of her eyes as the taxi turned towards the downtown area with its taller buildings. “So she doesn’t know where I am yet?”

“She doesn’t, but only because I didn’t tell her you’ve been asking questions about Dad again.” Cameron waited a moment. “What the hell, Stef—are you just going to show up on his doorstep?”

“That’s the general idea. Don’t you think it’s strange we’ve never been allowed to come to see him? He has family here. I know he does. Why don’t we get to know him?”

“This isn’t the way to figure it out—”

“Sorry, Cam. The taxi is dropping me at his apartment building now. You can tell Mom all you want. It’s not going to stop me.”

Fifteen flights above, Jason Morgan was having a terrible morning. It hadn’t started that way, but the people in his life always knew how to screw things up. He leaned back against his pool table and listened to his third visitor of the day throw the second tantrum she’d had that week. His first two visitors were still there, listening and throwing in their advice. Like always.

The knock on his door made him grimace. He could only imagine who was here this time. He walked away from the trio in his living room and pulled the door open.

“Dad?” His daughter blinked up at him with her mother’s blue eyes, and shoved her dark hair out of her eyes. “Um. Hi.”

“Dad?” one of the women behind him demanded. “What the hell—”

Jason scowled and turned back. “Sam—”

“Wait, a second—” the other woman said. She strode forward to get a better look at Stefanie who shrunk back from both of them. “Who the hell—”

“Dad?” Stefanie repeated, more hesitantly now, taking a step back. “What’s going on?”

“Stefanie—” He sighed, dipped his head, then took her by the elbow and led her into the penthouse living room. “Stefanie, this is Sonny and Carly Corinthos. And that’s Sam.”

“Sam,” Stefanie repeated, flicking a glance at her father, as if questioning why Sam didn’t have a last name.

“Sam Morgan, his wife,” Sam snapped. Stefanie paled as Jason shot her a dark look.

“Ex-wife,” Jason growled. “For sixteen years. Don’t start, Sam.” He looked back at Stefanie with her wide eyes, then sighed. “This is Stefanie Webber. My daughter.”

“Webber?” Carly screeched as Sonny smirked and Sam scowled.

“You wanted to know the reason I never came to live in San Diego?” Jason asked with a sigh. “Because they would have followed me.”

A continuation of Part 1, a flash fiction from April. It was written in 20 minutes.  No edits for typos.

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The drive between Port Charles and the Canadian border was not a long one, but tonight, it felt like the longest ride of Cameron Webber’s life. In the backseat, his younger brothers were eerily silent.

They’d been woken from their sleep by screams and thuds and then hustled out of the door in their pajamas, with no other explanation beyond “Let’s go. Now!”

Aiden had cried for the first ten minutes, wanting to see his mother, but Jake—

Jake was quiet, his eyes assessing. He’d seen more than Cameron had wanted—the blood stains he’d tried to scrub out from his nails at a gas station near Buffalo, the scratches on his arms, the bruises on his face. He hadn’t asked any questions. Had simply followed Cameron back out of the bathroom and into the car, helping Aiden get bucked up again.

Drive, his mother had said, handing him the keys to the car she’d only recently let him back out of the driveway for the first time and the emergency envelope of cash she’d hidden away. Drive into Canada and keep driving until she contacted him. Cameron had argued—he’d wanted to stay—wanted to take care of her—but she had only shaken her head.

Jake and Aiden had to be safe. Had to be kept away. What if they were wrong—what if he wasn’t dead? What if he came back?

He always came back.

Neither of them voiced the obvious wrinkle in her plan to just keep driving until she contacted him. If Drew and Franco were as dead as they looked—

She might not be able to contact him.

But Cameron couldn’t think of those things right now. He had to get the boys over the border. He could figure everything else out just as soon as they were all out of the country.

His cell phone rang, and out of habit, he looked at the screen on the dashboard—his phone had connected automatically to his mother’s bluetooth connection, like it was any other day and he was just going to drive her crazy with his music as she dragged him somewhere.

Jason Morgan.

The sight of his brother’s father’s name flashing across the screen was a strange one and yet—he felt his lungs expand slightly. He remembered Jason. Jason took care of things. Or he used to. He used to be his mother’s go-to in almost every emergency.

Had his mother reached out now?

“That’s my dad,” Jake said, leaning forward as the phone continued to ring. “Are you going to answer it?”

“Sit back,” Cameron said. He took the next exit and steered the car towards the first gas station as the phone went silently, having reached the amount of rings before voicemail switched on. “Keep your seat belt on.”

“Cameron—”

He pulled the car into a parking spot alongside the building, then reached for his phone, switching off the bluetooth. He didn’t want his brothers overhearing anything Jason might say to him.

He dialed the number, and Jason answered on the first ring.

“Where are you?”

Cameron swallowed. He didn’t know Jason anymore. He thought he had—he thought the man who had lived with them for almost a year and had offered to adopt him was Jason—but that wasn’t Jason, and all the other memories were faded ones of a child who loved motorcycles and any adult who would play with him.

“How did you get my number?”

“Cameron.” There was a pause. “I was just at the PCPD. I talked to your mother.”

His chest squeezed again as tears burned in his eyes. He closed his eyes. “What did she tell you?”

“Nothing. Except that it was all her fault and that I needed to find you and your brothers. I convinced her to stop talking to the police and let Diane help her. Let me keep my promise to her. Where are you?”

“I—I just took an exit off the 190. Just before the bridge to Grand Island. I don’t—I don’t remember which number.”

“Exit 15,” Jake said quietly in the back.

“We’re at a gas station,” Cameron continued. “Mom—she’s okay?”

“No,” Jason said. “But we’ll take care of that next. Stay where you are as long as you can. That’s not too far away. I’ll come to you.”

“Okay. Okay.” He closed his phone and set it in the cupholder next to the driver’s seat. He was oddly comforted by the fact that Jason hadn’t pretended everything was okay or that his mother was just fine. He hadn’t lied to Cameron.

It was a small thing, but Cameron needed it right now. It was something to cling to, something that let him believe it was safe to trust Jason Morgan.

“Is my dad coming?” Jake asked. He climbed over the seats and settled into the passenger’s seat. A moment later, Aiden followed even though it was now a tight squeeze with Aiden and Jake sharing the seat. “Are we going to wait for him?”

“Yeah. He was worried about you—” Cameron’s throat tightened. Because that’s why Jason was involved, of course. Worry over his own son. He didn’t care about Cameron or Aiden. Or his mother. But he hadn’t lied to him.

And if that was the only thing Cameron could believe in right now, he’d take it.

It was almost an hour before a dark SUV pulled int the spot next to them. Cameron waited until he saw Jason step around the front of the car and lean against the hood.

“Stay in the car,” Cameron told his brothers.

“But that’s my dad,” Jake began but he closed his mouth when Cameron glared at him. “Okay.”

Cameron pushed open the sedan’s door and closed it. “What next?”

“That depends on you,” Jason told him. His light blue eyes seemed to penetrate right into Cameron’s still sour gut. “Do I need to get you out of the country?” He tilted his head, nodding towards the injuries that were still visible. “Somewhere you can’t be extradited?”

“I think—” Cameron swallowed hard and spoke carefully. “I think it might have been self-defense. But I don’t know. I—you’d do that?”

“Yeah.” Jason stepped towards him. “I promised your mother a long time ago I would always take care of you. I didn’t—” He looked away for a long moment before meeting his eyes again. “I didn’t keep that promise then. Let me keep my promise to her,” he repeated softly. “For once.”

“I had to do it,” he offered. His voice trembled slighlty, but Cameron bit down hard on his lip. “I had to do it. He was going to hurt her. And I couldn’t let her get hurt again.” He closed his eyes. “I killed Franco, and I’m not sorry.”

“I should have killed him years ago,” Jason said, bluntly. Cameron’s eyes flew open. “I thought I had. It’s my fault any of this is happening. Let’s get your brothers and head back. I brought someone to drive your mother’s car back to Port Charles.” He hesitated. “I don’t know if we can fix it, Cameron. But we’re going to try.”