Disclaimer: I am not the owner of these characters, they belong to the creators of "General Hospital" (aside from Belle).

AU

Spinelli was suddenly struck with a strange sense of foreboding that had nothing to do with the odd streak of thunderstorms which had recently plagued Port Charles. He glanced around the dimly lit office, wishing that he hadn't told Sam that she could go on to the Penthouse without him. At the time, he'd felt safe and even somewhat brave, but now, the hair on the back of his neck was standing up and he couldn't quite pinpoint what was wrong.

A shiver shook him and he glanced toward the door. It's nothing, just the storm, he assured himself and turned back to his computer. Taking a deep breath, he returned to his research for McCall and Jackal's latest client, a man searching for his birth mother. Though it wasn't their normal type of case to take on, there was something about the young man which had weighed upon both Sam's and his hearts, making it next to impossible for them to refuse the case.

He focused his mind on the task at hand, knowing that it was only a matter of time until he was able to make a breakthrough. Frustrated by his current lack of a promising lead, he leaned back and stretched, contemplating calling it a day. It was well past quitting time for those with nine to five day jobs and, pushing himself until he was beyond exhausted wouldn't help their client any. It would be better for all involved if he got some rest and renewed his efforts on the morrow.

Having decided that, he opened a word document and quickly typed up notes detailing the day's research. His fingers flew over the keys barely touching them as he typed. Lightning struck nearby and Spinelli's fingers paused above the keys as he counted the seconds between the lightning strike and the rolling thunder that followed.

One Mississippi, two mississ…the thunder boom was accompanied by another flash of lightning which lit up the interior of the office before the storm severed the power to the building, cloaking Spinelli completely in darkness, save for the soft glow of his computer screen. His face was bathed in an eerie luminescence, had anyone been looking in, at that precise moment, they'd have been struck with an incomprehensible fear.

Spinelli's heart stilled and he swallowed audibly, grateful that Sam was no longer in the office and that his mentor was nowhere nearby to witness his tangible, irrational fear. If either of them had been there, he'd have melted in abject humiliation.

Shaking himself from his dire musings, he resumed his typing, reasoning that thunderstorms and lightning were commonplace as were power outages. Thankfully his laptop had a power surge protector and it was fully charged, though he wouldn't need to use it much longer as he was almost finished typing his notes, not that there was much to record as it had not been a very successful day of research, but he did not wish to retrace his steps so he made his notes as thorough as possible. Maybe he'd be able to discover something he'd missed in the initial research when he went over his notes the following day.

Typing up his final thoughts, Spinelli smiled grimly and, after encrypting the notes, he saved them and then powered down his laptop, tucking it safely away in its carrying case. Taking another look around the now darkened office, he stood, suddenly eager to leave, and froze when he caught sight of a shadow looming outside of the door to the office, the very door he had to leave through.

Fear kept him rooted to the spot where he stood, the strap to his laptop case half slung over his shoulder even as the knob on the door began to turn. The hammering of his heart drowned out the sound of the door as it slowly swung inward, allowing the dark shadowed figure unhindered entrance as he'd forgotten to lock the door, though he'd promised Sam he would when he'd decided to work past their usual hours posted on the door. Oh fuck.

He tried to find his voice to address the shadow as it crossed the threshold of the office, but his throat and mouth had gone dry. As the figure approached him with outstretched arms, he let out a strangled cry and took a frantic step backwards. Tripping over his own feet, he ended up in a sprawled heap upon the floor.

Terror gripped him as the entity, silhouetted by the shadows even in the dark, quickened its approach. Soon it stood above him and Spinelli found it difficult to breathe past his mounting panic. He felt the eyes of the creature of the night on him and cowered in fear, fingering the cell phone in his pocket, wondering if he'd be able to hit the speed dial for Stone Cold's number without looking at the phone.

"S…" he rasped out between his chapped lips, "p…" His vision greyed as the figured suddenly lowered itself and knelt before him, reaching its ghostly hands out to touch him. He flinched back, fumbling with his cellphone, wishing to god that he had just gone home when Sam had.

A cold, clammy hand touched his face and darkness descended upon him even as lightning struck, revealing the wraithlike visage of a young, yet haggard woman, dark and graying hair billowing around her thin, wrinkled face in wispy tendrils. Sighing, the woman, gaunt from years of on and off drug and alcohol abuse, gently touched the face of the young man who'd fainted, brushing the hair out of his eyes as she did so.

This was not how it was supposed to go. It had been hard for her to work up the courage to do this, but it was important that she make things right and she had little time left to do so. Soon, she'd be dead and she could not take this particular sin silently to her grave. She'd thought of going to her mother with the truth about what had really happened twenty-two years ago, but couldn't bring herself to face her mother's harsh condemnation, no matter how much she deserved it.

She'd stood out in the corridor for hours after the boy's partner had departed, working up the nerve to enter the office and correct the horrible, selfish mistake she'd made decades prior. As the storm had grown more violent, so had her thoughts of backing away, allowing the boy to live his life blissfully unaware of how her past iniquities had changed the course of his life from the moment he'd been born.

But, there was another voice at the back of her mind, urging her to do the right thing, for once. The annoying voice that many people called a conscience had been largely silent for much of her life, but had been painfully awakened when she'd attained her first, difficult year of sobriety three years ago.

She'd barely batted an eye when her doctor had given her the news that she had scant months left to live and knew instantly what she must do before she could be allowed to die in peace. The secret she'd been carrying for the past twenty-two years seared her newly stirred conscience until all she could think about day and night was putting to rights what she'd messed up when she'd been a self-centered, wild, drugged and fucked up teenager.

Frowning in determination, brows furrowed, she reached forward and tapped the young, unconscious man on the cheek. Slightly worried at the ashen pallor of his skin, she pursed her lips in concentration, sending a prayer heavenward that the boy was okay, that he hadn't smacked his head against the desk as he fainted.

Tentatively, she fingered the back of his head, searching for any hidden injuries. She grew even more concerned when he didn't respond to her gentle ministrations. Her fingers stilled when they came upon a lump at the back of his head, covered by a thick thatch of hair it was barely discernible, but, much to her horror, growing beneath her touch.

She prodded at the quarter sized lump, letting out a breath of relief she hadn't known she'd been holding in when the touch elicited a moan from the still unconscious man. His eyes rolled beneath the lids, as though trying to regain consciousness and she held her breath. Further examination of his wound had her pulling back her fingers in alarm at the sticky substance she'd encountered.

Terrified that he would not wake up, that she'd be discovered here, in the darkened office, hovering over his comatose or, worse yet, dead, body, she began to shake him, calling out his name.

"You have to wake up Mr. Spinelli," she whispered frantically, "Mr. Spinelli," she raised her voice as his eyes moved beneath still closed eyelids and she shook him again, hoping that it would help him to regain consciousness.

It was the only thing she knew to do. Though she worried that it might not be the right thing to do, action movies afforded her the only medical training she'd ever had and in every single one of them, the hero was awakened by a brisk shake and slap to the face which she administered to Spinelli with gusto.

"Mr. Spinelli," the disembodied words seemed to be coming to him from within a long tunnel which distorted the sound and gave it an echoing quality. What felt like a sharp slap to the face stung him and he struggled to back away from whatever held him in place. His head hurt, his cheek ached and the desperate sound of a woman's voice beckoned him to wake up.

He blinked in the darkness, taking in the blurry countenance of a strange woman hovering just inches above his own. He let loose a scream, no louder than a whimper and scrambled away from her as quickly and nimbly as he was able to under the circumstances. He felt the thunder rumble through him as the sky was lit up by another round of lightning, bathing the room in supernatural luminosity which gave him a clearer view of the woman who'd entered the room.

"Mr. Spinelli, please," she pleaded. Her brown eyes, large and supplicating as she reached out to him, "I mean you no harm."

A bizarre image of ET coupled with an alien from the Sigourney Weaver classic superimposed itself on the forefront of his mind and he let out an, unfortunately, unmanly squeal as he backed himself up into the unrelenting wall behind him in an attempt to get away from the paranormal creature reaching its tentacles toward him to suck out his brain.

"No!" He cried out, throwing his hands up to protect himself.

Still, she crawled closer to him, her arms outstretched. "Mr. Spinelli, I'm sorry."

It sounded so sincere, but didn't most brain-sucking aliens sound sincere just before they got their tentacles on you and cracked your head open to eat your brains?

"Mr. Spinelli, I…" She stopped moving, holding her hands held out in a gesture of placation. "I'm sorry I frightened you. I…I didn't mean for you to get hurt. Actually, I came here to make up for something I did to you a long, long time ago."

"Oh no," Spinelli whispered, leaning his head against the wall in defeat. All of that relentless teasing he'd been subjected to when he'd been a kid growing up in Tennessee was true; he had been abducted by an alien, his DNA altered and returned to the earth as some alien/human hybrid freak.

Their taunts of Damien the alien reverberated through his mind, drowning out the words of the 'woman' who was speaking to him. Damien the alien, freakazoid humanoid, someday they'll be coming to take you back to your home planet, you freaking alien bastard. The memory ofBilly's cruel jeers brought tears to his eyes as he realized just how true the neighborhood bully had been.

"The Jackal has found a home here," he beseeched the being before him. "You, you have no right," he stated angrily.

"I know," she answered; there was a note of sad resignation in her voice. "Mr. Spinelli, I am sorrier than you'll ever realize for taking you away from your rightful family when you were a baby. It's just that I was so distraught. You see," she paused, wringing her hands and Spinelli watched in horrified fascination as she bit her lower lip. "You see." She seemed to be gathering her nerve to say whatever it was that she had to say.

Spinelli thought it odd that an alien should be apologizing to him. Whatever it wanted with him, it wasn't as though the creature would alter its course of action. Why bother to explain that it was about to rip him from an existence where he finally felt he belonged, at least somewhat? Why the fuck was it drawing this out so painfully?

"My little baby died, really before he was born; only I didn't know it. When he was born, little Damien Spinelli was so still and blue. I yelled at the doctors to make him breathe and when they shook their heads, turning away, I wrenched the little lifeless infant from the table they'd placed him on and, oh but his body was still warm, he had every single finger and toe. He was perfect, but no amount of shaking made him wake up."

Spinelli watched and listened in wide-eyed wonder as the woman bemoaned the death of her baby boy. Maybe she wasn't an alien, just a crazy, unbalanced madwoman who had an unhealthy obsession with him.

"Bu…but," Spinelli choked on the words, trying to make sense of what the nutty woman was telling him.

Clearly, he had not died during childbirth, he was very much alive and…could this demented woman be his mother? Could this fragile shell of a woman be the selfsame one who'd abandoned him on his grandmother's front porch, addicted to her alcohol-laden breast-milk twenty-one years ago?

"Please just listen, I, I don't think I can say this more than once. I know that I don't have the right to ask even this of you, but I don't have much time left, I'm dying and I know that I can't face my mother. It wouldn't be fair to her, just to return to die, but before I die I want to make this right for you. Well, as right as such a thing can be made." She sighed.

"I…don't understand," Spinelli replied.

He gathered his knees up to his chest, resting his arms on them. His head felt as though a little man were hitting it with a little hammer from the inside and his vision remained somewhat blurry. He knew that he had a concussion, at the very least, and worried that perhaps he had not actually regained consciousness and this was some bizarre, perpetual dream that he'd never wake up from.

"I know, and I'm sorry. You see, before you were born, I met your mother. At a clinic. For unwed mothers. She was full of something which I couldn't understand at the time, hope and love and this irrepressible joy. Though she was in the same sad state as I was in, she remained upbeat and unafraid of what the future held and…" The woman, presumably Miss Spinelli, smiled. She sat across from him on the floor, not drawing any nearer out of deference to his fear.

"She loved you and wanted to keep you in spite of her family's pressure to have you adopted. She vowed to find a way to keep you." Her eyes shone with unshed tears that were illuminated by silent lightning. She reached out a hand, but stilled the movement when Spinelli started at the gesture.

"Only, she never got the chance. You were born two days after my dead Damien and, I'd like to say that it was the grief which drove me to do it, but I'd be lying," she smiled wryly, her mouth twisting at the end.

"I did it out of spite for her and her perpetual joy. I was a self-serving little bitch at the time and I took you to replace my dead little baby and ran away with you. It wasn't until a year later that I came to my senses, you'd almost died and I realized that I couldn't raise a little baby. I'm so sorry, I'm sure you don't remember what happened to you in that one year of life, but it wasn't so good. I dropped you off at my mom's house with nothing more than a note and never looked back until a few years ago when I finally sobered up." She was no longer looking at him and Spinelli figured that she was seeing and reviewing the mistakes of her past.

"And the rest," she smiled slightly, returning her gaze to him as she spoke, "is history."

Spinelli couldn't speak for a moment. He blinked in confusion, trying to make sense of what he'd just heard. For all intents and purposes, he thought cynically, I might as well have been the alien spawn my childhood comrades accused me of being all of those years ago.

"I suppose you must have some questions," Miss Spinelli spoke hesitantly; "I'll try to answer them."

"What was her name?" Spinelli had spoken so quietly that she'd had to strain her ears to hear.

"Karen…" she cocked her head to the side as though in thought before continuing, "Karen…Wexler."

"And my father?" Spinelli asked hopefully.

"I'm sorry honey," Miss Spinelli shrunk in on herself as Spinelli winced at the endearment, "she never mentioned his name, it was kind of an unspoken rule among us girls, not to speak of the father's by their names. Some of them knew they were about to be fathers and just didn't care, others didn't know."

"Oh," Spinelli visibly deflated.

"She did speak of him though," Miss Spinelli hurriedly added, hoping to restore the wistful look she'd seen briefly cross his face. It reminded her so much of Karen's that it brought tears of remorse to her eyes.

"He had the most beautiful blue eyes which sparkled like sapphires and a gorgeous smile which could rival that of Tom Selleck's, without the moustache," she supplied, "he was muscular and gallant and a right spoiled prince."

She laughed a little at the memory of how Karen had spoken about the boy she'd had a brief fling with, she'd had stars in her eyes when she spoke of him, even when detailing his faults which Belle Spinelli knew not to share with the woman's son. It had been vastly different from her own experience with Dave that she was jealous, but she'd never let on to Karen that she was.

"She would have been a wonderful mother to you, Damien and I'm sorry that I stole you from her. I know that I can't fix what I've done, but I'm hoping that, with what little information I can give you, you will be able to find her and your father."

In spite of his now throbbing headache, the wheels were spinning in Spinelli's head, mapping out a plan of how to go about finding his mother and father. His grandmother had always told him that his father was a good for nothing loser who'd freaked out when his mother had told him she was pregnant. That he'd abandoned her the moment the words had left her mouth.

Maybe, just maybe, the boy whom Karen had been with would not respond in a similar manner. Maybe he'd be willing to accept him as his son. It wouldn't hurt to try, unless, of course, his father summarily dismissed him as an unwanted, unloved mistake. What if he had a family and they saw him as a threat? There were too many what ifs to explore and his head hurt as it was.

It would be easy to find his mother, he had a name and maybe she'd even be willing to tell him who the father was. But what if she wanted nothing to do with him? The woman who'd kidnapped him, that thought sent a shiver through him, had said she'd wanted him, but what if she was wrong? What if Karen had decided, in the end, to give him up and had never looked back? What if she had never learned of his kidnapping and thought that, all this time, he'd grown up with his adoptive family?

He grew dizzy as the thoughts swirled in his mind and didn't fight off his kidnapper as she wrapped her arms around him and held him. There were only two more things which he needed to know before he could begin his search and find his rightful parents.

"What's the name of the clinic?" He cleared his throat, tight with emotion, and asked.

"Safe Haven for Unwed Teenage Mothers. It was located in a small rural town in New York, about fifty miles from Port Charles, called Dashville. I'm not sure if it is there any longer, but I've heard that you are quite the computer genius, your mom would be so proud."

Belle squeezed Spinelli's shoulders knowing that it would be little consolation coming from her, but needing to say it anyway, "I'm proud of you. Though I wasn't around, I did call home and check up on you over the years. Mom was so proud of you, though I doubt she'd ever tell you that. It was never her way."

"And your name?" Spinelli interrupted, feeling slightly off-center. Pulling out of his pseudo-mother's arms, he faced the woman who had abandoned him as a baby, conflicting emotions roiling in his stomach.

"Belle," she murmured.

For some strange reason that Spinelli could not fully understand, he began to cry for the loss of the woman who was sitting next to him. It was because of her that he had grown up with Granny Spinelli in Tennessee rather than his rightful mother and possibly father.

It was her fault that he felt unlovable and unworthy of love and yet, he reached out to her, allowing her to cradle his head to her chest as he wept for lost time and opportunities, wondering what his life would have been like had Belle and his mother never met twenty-two years ago in a small town in New York. What things would have been like had Damien Spinelli not been stillborn. What things would have been like if the woman who'd taken him had been able to care for him and raise her as his own.

"She wanted to name you Edward Scott," Belle whispered against his hair as she held and rocked him in the dark.

Oblivious to the storm raging around them, they clung to each other. Belle saying goodbye to the little boy she'd lost so many years ago; Spinelli coming to terms with what had been stolen from him and letting go of the lies of which his life had been comprised.