It was hard to tell just which thing terrified young Michael Quartermaine more: the constant nightmares of the ordeal he had just been through one week earlier, or the overwhelming attention of the house full of strangers who insisted to the little boy that they were his family.

There was no misunderstanding Michael's joy when a familiar face appeared in the doorway of the Quartermaine living room. “Grandma Bobbie!” Michael raced across the carpeted floor and threw himself into the outstretched arms of nurse Barbara Jean Spencer.

“Mister Man!” Bobbie's voice caught as she used her daughter's fond nickname for the little boy. She quickly composed herself for her grandson's sake. The entire drive over to the Quartermaine mansion, Bobbie silently repeated her determination to present a hopeful face for Michael to see. But seeing the little boy had shattered all her resolutions to pieces. “Oh, Mister Man, I have missed you so much!”

Michael clung as tightly to Bobbie as his small arms would allow. “I want to go home with you,” he wailed pitifully.

“You are home. Remember?” A.J.'s response overrode anything Bobbie had prepared to say. “This is where you will be staying from now on.”

Bobbie stiffened. A.J.'s declaration was at direct odds with her intentions for Michael. Bobbie's sole purpose for showing up at the Quartermaine mansion was to take Michael back home with her to the brownstone. For the past week she had been unable to do anything but grieve the loss of a daughter she had never really known. Young Michael was Bobbie's chance – in a way – to correct that.

“Michael will be coming home to the brownstone with me,” Bobbie countered softly. There was an edge of steel of her voice. “He knows it there and you can come visit and get to know him there.”

“You aren't calling the shots here, Bobbie.” A.J. walked over and calmly but firmly wrestled his son from her grasp. “I've got orders, signed by a judge, that place Michael permanently in my custody.” A.J. continued to converse with Bobbie as though he did not hold a struggling, screaming child in his arms. “I learned a lot from what Jason and Carly did to me- what you helped them do to me.” He turned and headed for the door.

“Maybe,” he paused and raised his voice to be heard over the din of Michael's cries, “maybe I will be kinder to you than you ever were to me, Bobbie. Maybe I will let you see my son sometime before he becomes a man.”

“But I wouldn't count on it.”

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