Written in 69 minutes. Went over, but I had a lot I wanted to get through in this part 😛

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They could hear the voices even before Jason shoved open the double doors to the squad room. Mac Scorpio stood in the middle of the room, going to toe to toe with Drew, who held an ice pack to his cheek with one hand, and was wagging a finger at the chief of detectives.

Molly was standing next to Alexis, trying to break into the furious confrontation between Anna and her mother. Chase was at his desk, not participating in the circus, but clearly keeping track of the players. He saw Jason before the rest of them did, but before he could reach Jason and Elizabeth by the front desk, Anna abandoned Alexis and made a beeline for him.

“We have a problem,” she told him, throwing a glare at Drew. “Drew is insisting we press charges—”

“Charges—” Elizabeth broke in, coming around Jason’s side, her mouth set grimly as the man in question noticed them and started to stride forward. “I don’t understand—Danny’s only fourteen!”

“Old enough to know better,” Drew bit out. “But if this is the result of your influence on him—”

“I want to see my son,” Jason interrupted, ignoring Drew which was really the only way to avoid shoving the man’s teeth down his throat. “Now. Molly—have you talked to him?” he asked when his lawyer joined them.

“Not yet, I just got here, a little before you. I don’t even know what happened—and I don’t care to hear it from you,” she snapped at Drew who opened his mouth. “Get away from me. Right now.”

“Maybe you’d better come over here,” Chase said, taking Drew by the arm, steering him away. “Away from the, ah, angry people.”

“I want to see Danny,” Jason told Anna. “Right now. Where is he?”

“If you put my nephew in lock-up,” Molly began, but Anna scowled.

“Of course not. What do you take me for—”

“One of your officers slapped handcuffs on my fourteen-year-old grandson,” Alexis broke in, drawing Anna’s attention back to her. “After watching that lunatic manhandle a little girl, he arrested the child trying to protect his sister. So spare us the excuses—where is Danny?”

“He’s in the interrogation room,” Anna said. “I want to help, Alexis, but even you said Danny threw the first punch—”

“I can’t listen to you anymore. I’m calling the mayor.”

“You can see Danny now,” Anna told Jason, gesturing towards the interrogation room. When Elizabeth started to follow, Anna snaked out her hand. “Family only.” Elizabeth stopped, not wanting to argue, but Jason had no patience for this.

He brushed Anna’s hand from Elizabeth’s arm, then raised it so that the ring was visible. “She’s family. Now let me see my son.”

—

Jake tossed his jacket over the hook by the door, then headed into the kitchen where he could smell the tray of brownies his brother was pulling from the oven. “Mom’s recipe?”

“No, I made these from scratch.” Aiden dropped the tray on the warming rack. “I needed a distraction.” He made a face, looked at his brother. “My dad came by today. He’s leaving again.”

Jake took down two glasses and retrieved the carton of milk from the fridge. “Seriously? Just like that? I thought you said things were fine at Thanksgiving.”

“They were.” Aiden jerked a shoulder, waved a hand over the brownies as if that would cool them faster. “He didn’t want to talk about it. At least not to me. Now if you’d come—”

“I told you, it’s not about me,” Jake interrupted, and Aiden made a face. “It’s not. Lucky doesn’t give a crap about me. He just knows he can use me to hurt Mom, and piss my dad off. He doesn’t like me more than you.”

“I know.” But Aiden was staring down at the uncut brownies. “But maybe he sort of does. I mean, he raised you longer—”

“And he raised Cameron the longest. Cam actually remembers him which is more than you and I can say, right? And he doesn’t give a shit about him either. Aiden—” Jake waited for his brother to look up. “I’m sorry. I never should have said anything to you. I knew your history with Lucky was rough, and I know I made it worse—”

“I would have kept poking at you,” Aiden muttered, turning away to look for a knife to cut through the dessert. “Bugging you until you said something. It’s fine. My dad’s never been a factor in my life, why should now be different?”

“Because it should be.” Jake watched Aiden carefully slice through the brownies, measuring to create even slices. “But I’m sorry anyway.”

“How’d…” Aiden paused, considering what he wanted to say. “How’d you get past it? Your dad being gone?”

Jake picked up one of the brownies, wincing at the heat. He blew on it, tossing it from one hand to the other. “I don’t know if I’m really past it. Like, I still—it sucks. Knowing he chose to leave. I believe he thinks he had a good reason, but—” He made a face. “This is gonna be so mean, but I gotta tell you, part of the reason I think I can live with what my dad did is because…I see what your dad is doing.”

“Because my dad clearly doesn’t want to be here, can’t really explain why, and hasn’t been around at any point in my life?” Aiden asked, almost with a smirk. “And wasn’t exactly pounding down my door for forgiveness. Your dad at least looks sincere when he says he’s sorry.”

“Yeah. I guess that helps. And I was an asshole to him when I got home from Spain. He kind of took every hit, which he really didn’t.” Jake popped a piece of brownie in his mouth. “Really could have taken it personally. But he just kind of kept moving forward, like accepting that I wasn’t gonna get over it right away. The only time he ever got pissed at me was when I mouthed off to Mom. Which…fair. I…I was a real dick to her.”

“You didn’t mean to be—”

“I did. I’m just sorry I did. All of that—” Jake shook his head. “It’s still weird. Knowing everything I know. And all the things they’ll probably never tell me. But then I see what Danny’s going through, and I just— you know? It doesn’t seem that big anymore.” He frowned, looked around. “Hey. Where is Mom? I thought she was supposed to be home for dinner.”

“I don’t know, maybe she got called into a surgery or something—” Aiden picked up his phone, tapped a few screens. “She didn’t text, but she doesn’t always remember—oh.” He lifted his gaze to his brothers. “She’s at the PCPD.”

“The—” Jake sighed, wiped his hands on a towel. “All right. Give me a second to find the bus schedule.”

“Really? You want us to just show up at the police station? That feels like a bad idea,” Aiden said, even as he followed Jake into the living room. Jake was downloading the app onto his phone, and only half listening.

“If we wait for her to come home, we’ll never find out why she was there. We show up, we got a chance to find out what’s going on.”

—

He had already been struggling to keep his temper in check in the squad room, focusing on getting to see Danny, his irritation rising at every obstacle thrown in their way.

But now he realized Anna might have been stalling for a good reason — Danny was sitting at the table, his face red and swollen from crying — and a bright, puffy black eye forming, the bruise blooming down his right cheek.

Jason stopped still in the doorway, then whipped around to find Drew on the other side of the room, still talking to Drew. Before he could back over the threshold and act on the impulse to do similar damage, Elizabeth reached past him, and closed the door — shutting the squad room away.

“Oh my God,” Molly cried, rushing around the table and pulling Danny into a rough hug, before pulling back to frame his face. “I’m going to kill him—” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, stepped back. “We need pictures. Right now.”

Elizabeth picked up Molly’s bad from where she’d dropped it on the floor. “I’m going to get a first aid kit,” she told Jason, squeezing his arm. “I’ll be right back.”

Jason exhaled his first easy breath, turned his attention back to his son and went around the table to hug him. Danny had held up with Molly’s tearful hug, but he crumpled when Jason embraced him, his shoulders shaking. “I don’t know where he took her, I tried to stop him, but she was crying, and he wouldn’t let her go—”

“It’s okay.” Jason rubbed his back, met Molly’s eyes. “We’re going to take this one step at a time. First, Molly’s going to take some pictures, okay? We need to make sure we document this.”

Danny sniffled, then turned to his aunt, who’d found her phone and opened the camera app. “I know I hit him first, so I guess I’m guilty—”

“You’re a fourteen year old kid, Danny. He’s a former Navy SEAL and he’s three times your age,” Molly interrupted. She finished taking the photos, gripped it tightly in her grasp. “And he has my niece. Jason—”

Elizabeth returned then with a first aid kit. She gestured for Danny to take a seat back at the table and began to clean his cut. “Drew’s still out there demanding charges,” she told them. “Molly—tell me he can’t do this.”

Molly hesitated, grimaced. “If he’s insisting, and Danny…threw the first punch, the PCPD won’t have much choice. At least until we get in front of a court.” She pressed a first to her chest. “They might have to keep you overnight, Danny. You might be transferred to juvenile detention.”

—

“I don’t know why every meal in this house has to turn into a circus,” Tracy muttered, following behind Monica’s mechanized wheelchair. “I blame you.”

“I blame you—”

“Do they ever stop arguing?” Willow asked, joining Michael in the foyer with a smile. She held out a tumbler with a dark liquid. “I thought you’d need that after the third round between your aunt and grandmother.”

“Thanks,” Michael said, absently accepting the glass. He lifted it to his lips, but then looked over at opening of the door.

Scout ran through, her face flushed, breathing hard with pitched sobs. The nanny Drew had hired for her came after her, calling her name, but Scout kept running until she hit someone familiar—Brooklyn who crouched down and swept her into a tight hug.

“Hey, sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Brooklyn asked. She looked over at the door, maybe expecting to see Drew. “Where’s your dad?”

“Where’s Drew?” Michael asked the nanny. He hesitated, knowing that Danny had been with Scout, too. “Where’s Danny?”

“Oh—” The nanny’s mouth trembled. “It was so awful, Mr. Corinthos. Mr. Quartermaine came to get Scout, but she didn’t want to go—”

“He-he m-made me,” Scout wailed. “And he hit Danny!”

“He—” Michael set the tumbler down with a thud, whipping around to look at the nanny. “Where’s Danny?”

“He’s been arrested. Mr. Quartermaine insisted.”

—

“Alexis—”

At the familiar sound of her ex-husband’s voice, Alexis whirled around, then stabbed a finger at Ric’s chest. “You,” she hissed with deep, utter loathing. “You tell that cretin paying your bills that he is going to release my grandson. Right now. Or I will make his life a living hell—”

“I see the mayor wasn’t returning phone calls,” Drew said, snidely, arriving at his lawyer’s side. “Ric, I think I have some paperwork for you to file on my daughter’s behalf.”

Ric looked back and forth between them. “I remind you both that we’re on the same side—”

“That remains to be seen. Ric, I need you to file an order preventing Danny from going back to the Quartermaines.” Drew gestured at his cheek. “Obviously I’m not safe there, and if he can do this to me, what could he do to his daughter?”

Alexis fisted her hands at her side. “Ric—”

“Drew, I think perhaps you’re a little shaken. Why don’t we all go home,” Ric said, “sleep on it, and if you want to press charges tomorrow, we can probably talk to the DA’s office, maybe some counseling for Danny—” He met Alexis’s eyes, lifted his brow. “He’s been through a lot, and a judge would make that—”

“It’s not the first time he’s threatened me, or put hands on my daughter. I expect you to do as I ask, Ric. Or I’ll find a lawyer who will.”

—

Molly paced the length of the interrogation room, trying to order all her thoughts, but every time she so much as looked away from Danny, she could see his face, the bruise, the black eye, the cut—”

“We’ll get you a real ice pack,” Elizabeth told Danny handing him the cold pack from the first aid kit. Danny winced when the chilled side hit his skin, then relaxed. He looked at his dad, standing by the door, as silent and still as stone.

“Dad? Can you find out how Scout is? She was scared and crying and—”

“I’ll make calls,” Elizabeth said, getting to her feet. She started to look through her purse. “Odds are the nanny took her to the Qs, and I can ask Michael what’s going on.”

“Molly, they won’t really let him press charges, will they?” Jason asked. He gestured at Danny who was still sniffling. “He’s a kid—”

“The cop filed a report,” Molly said almost apologetically, looking at her nephew. “You threw the first punch. And Drew, as much as we hate it, had the right to take his daughter from the house. By force,” she added when Danny opened his mouth. “When we get in front of a judge, I know he’ll understand, but the PCPD doesn’t have a lot of choices here. If Drew insists—and—the DA—” She looked at Jason, and he closed his eyes.

Danny was his son, so a DA wouldn’t care about much else. “Molly—”

“I’ll make all the calls I can, call in every favor,” Molly promised. “We’ll get a court date as soon as possible, but—” She bit her lip. “The judge might not release him back to the Qs. He doesn’t have a guardian there—and I don’t think my mother is the right place. I don’t—” Her face was pale. “She’ll use it against you in the custody battle. I don’t know if she’s ready to back down. Even now.”

“Jason has the house now,” Elizabeth said, tuning back into the conversation. “Michael’s not answering,” she added. “I’ll call again in a minute. But Jason has the house—” she looked at him. “That should be good enough.”

“No furniture. I can get that done tomorrow—” Jason said, looking at Molly. “But it’s not my legal address. Not yet. I don’t want to take any chances the judge will refuse.”

“I’m gonna stay in jail?” Danny asked, his voice teetering into panic. “I don’t want to be in jail—”

“We won’t let that happen—” Molly folded her arms tightly. She looked at Elizabeth. “I don’t have the space in my place, and you’re not related—”

“What about—” Jason grimaced, looked at Elizabeth. “I’m sorry. This isn’t—”

“What about a future stepmother,” Elizabeth asked, and Molly widened her eyes.

“A future what?” Danny demanded. “What does that mean?”

“It means we’re going to get you out of here tomorrow,” Molly told him firmly, and Danny closed his mouth. “That’s what matters, isn’t it? Elizabeth is Jake’s mother, which might be enough, but if you’re…if you’re engaged or planning—” She looked at Elizabeth’s hand. “It might be enough—”

“I’m sorry, Danny, this isn’t how we were going to tell you—” Jason began, but they heard more shouting and something fell — a voice that had both Jason and Elizabeth scrambling for the door, Molly and Danny hot on their heels.

When they had it open, they found Mac holding Jake back, a chair tipped over between him, and Ric with a hand on Drew’s chest, as if keeping the other man from striding forward.

“You son of a bitch! You had my brother arrested! What kind of man does that?” Jake demanded, struggling against Mac’s hold.

Drew shot Jason a smug look. “Like father, like sons.” He looked at Anna. “Lock this one up, too.”

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