Chapter 2- Carly is Always Right

James slurped his chicken noodle soup while Wiley stirred his spoon around in circles. The hospital cafeteria wasn't exactly Metro Court-style, but Nina didn't want to leave the boys with an empty stomach and it beat sitting in the waiting room.

After many protests from Willow, she finally agreed that Nina could text Michael to tell him she was taken to the hospital and that Wiley was with Nina. Nina kept checking her phone, but figured Michael either turned the ringtone off or didn't have his phone on him during the ceremony. Either that or he was ignoring Nina.

"Aren't you hungry, buddy?" Nina asked, stroking Wiley's light blond hair.

Wiley shook his head and gazed up at Nina with sad eyes. "Is Mommy okay?"

Nina gave him a small smile. "She will be. The doctors are going to help her."

Wiley reached over and hugged her. "I'm glad you're here, Grandma Nina."

Click. Click. Click.

Nina whipped around to find Carly prancing in, her stiletto heals clicking along the floor. She wore a fancy, red cocktail dress and her blond hair twisted into a tight knot.

She shot Nina a death glare and knelt beside Wiley, who let go of Nina. "Hi sweetheart. Grandma's here now. I'm going to take you home."

"No, I wanna wait for Mommy," Wiley said.

"Daddy is with Mommy now," Carly explained. "It's past your nap time."

"I don't nap anymore. I'm a big boy."

Nina frowned. "It's okay, Wiley. Go with Grandma Carly. Your daddy will make sure Mommy is okay."

"Did you find Wile—" Josslyn walked in and scowled at Nina. "What is she still doing here?"

Nina groaned. "I wasn't just going to leave my grandson alone. All the Quartermaines and all of you were at the wedding."

"My grandson," Carly corrected. "Wiley, why don't you go with Auntie Josslyn so Grandma can talk to Nina?"

Nina rolled her eyes.

"Okay." Wiley hugged Nina. "Bye Grandma Nina."

"Bye Wiley." Nina kissed his cheek. "I love you so much. Always remember that." She waved and watched Wiley leave with Josslyn.

Carly crossed her arms and stared at Nina.

"All right," Nina said. "Well, as long as Willow and Wiley are okay, I better get James ho—"

"Why did Willow faint?" Carly asked her. "Did you upset her?"

Nina scoffed. "No! We ran into each other at the park and the boys wanted to play together. Willow didn't seem well. I just asked questions like about Wiley starting school. She got up off the bench and fainted. I called Aunt Liesl and she said she needed to see a doctor."

"You're always badgering Willow about Wiley. No wonder you upset her."

"I'm not even allowed to ask how my grandson is doing?"

"No," Carly said. "The courts decided that you are a danger to Wiley. You need to stay away from him."

Nina's chest tightened. "I've been trying to."

"Good. Then keep trying. Stay away from my whole family."

"Come on, James."

Carly smirked as she watched Nina leave with James. "And you can never know that Willow is your daughter," she mumbled under her breath.

GHGHGH

"Leukemia?" Michael hung his head and sat beside Willow. He looked up at Terry in disbelief. "Are you sure?"

"I'm so sorry," Terry said. "She is in stage 2 right now."

Willow stared ahead at the wall, unable to process what she was hearing. She rubbed her numb hands against her jeans.

"Okay." Michael exhaled deeply. "So, what's our first step?"

"Normally our first step is chemotherapy treatments."

"What about the baby?" Willow finally spoke up. "Will it hurt our baby?"

Terry frowned. "Chemo can have significant risks to the baby until the third semester. But if we delay treatment it could be fatal for you, Willow."

Willow placed her hands over her belly—her baby. "It's not that far off. We need to wait."

"Willow," Michael sighed. "We need to talk about this."

She shook her head and her eyes welled up. "There's nothing to discuss. I can't lose another baby."

GHGHGH

"How was the wedding?" Nina asked when Sonny walked into her apartment.

"Dante was so happy." He removed his tie and plopped down beside her. "But it would've been better if you came."

"You know how your family feels about me."

"Forget about Carly. And I'm not impressed with Michael and Josslyn's behaviour towards you."

"I don't really blame Michael and Josslyn. Carly, she's another story."

"Dante is fine with you," Sonny reminded her. "It was his day, not theirs. He would've liked you there, same with Kristina."

"Willow wasn't there either. I find that strange…."

"I know she doesn't like leaving Wiley with Quartermaine staff," Sonny said. "Most of the family, on all sides, were at the wedding. Plus, I heard that she's having a rough pregnancy."

"That's an understatement." Nina frowned. "I was at the park with James today. We ran into Willow and Wiley."

"Oh? How did that go?"

"Kind of 50/50. Oh, Sonny…" She pulled her feet onto the couch and leaned closer to him. "It was wonderful. She let James and Wiley play together. I never thought I'd see the day."

He grinned, showing off his dimples. "That's great."

"That part, yes. But I'm a little concerned about Willow."

"Is her pregnancy really going bad?"

She nodded. "It seems that way. She fainted."

"At the park? Is she okay?"

"She came to, but I called Aunt Liesl. She told me Willow needed to see a doctor. So, I took her to the hospital."

"What did the doctor say?" Sonny asked.

She shrugged. "I don't know. Michael, Carly, and Josslyn arrived before I could find out." She exhaled deeply and looked into Sonny's eyes. "Sonny, I know Michael is your son. Please don't take offense to this… but you think he could ever be violent toward women?"

His eyes grew wide. "Of course not! How can you even suggest such a thing?"

"Okay, okay." Nina squeezed his hand. "I'm sorry. I will take your word for it. It's just… I noticed Willow had a lot of bruises."

He scrunched his face. "You don't think there's more going on than just a rough pregnancy, do you?"

Nina felt the colour drain from her face. "What—what could it be?"

"It just all reminds me of Kristina when she was little."

"What was wrong with Kristina?"

"I don't want to say it out loud…. Willow's going to be fine. The baby's going to be fine. Everything's going to be fine."

"Sonny, what was wrong with Kristina?" Nina repeated.

Sonny stroked her hair. "Hey, hey. I'm concerned about Willow too. But why are you so upset about this? You and Willow don't get along."

Nina stared at her lap. "I—I don't know. Probably just worried about how this will affect Wiley. Willow is the only mother he knows. I don't want him to lose another mother."

Sonny nodded but eyed her suspiciously. "Whatever is going on with Willow, she will get through this. Wiley will not lose another mother."

"Please tell me, Sonny. What happened to Kristina? I want to know."

Sonny sighed. "She had leukemia."

GHGHGH

Willow sat on the couch flipping through the photo album she made for Wiley. She skimmed through photos of Wiley with Lucas, with Sonny, with Josslyn, with Carly and Bobbie, with Monica and the other Quartermaines. There were plenty of Michael, Willow, and Wiley together. It never occurred to her that she never took any of Wiley with Harmony. It was all of Michael's family throughout the album.

Harmony. She had forgiven her for handing her over to Shiloh. Or did she really? She exhaled deeply. To be honest, she wanted to, she really did, but she really couldn't fully forgive her. She just wanted her mother. But then Harmony told Carly on her death bed that she wasn't her real mother. She wouldn't tell Carly who Willow's biological parents were and after the turmoil of the hearings with Nina, Willow didn't want to know.

Except hearing the words that she has leukemia, she never felt so alone.

She loved Michael, Wiley, and the baby more than anything in the entire world (alongside the baby that she lost). But it was a different kind of loneliness. She felt like she needed to be strong for Michael and the children. She longed for her own family to gather around and support her through this. But even beyond the cancer, she wanted someone to go to for advice on parenting and just the everyday things in life.

Sure, she had Carly who was always there. She'd step in and remind them when it's past Wiley's bedtime and arranged for the school he'd be attending. Even though Michael and Willow were planning to send him to a different school, Carly urged them to enroll him in the school just down the street from her house: "Then you can bring him by anytime after school and visit me and Donna," Carly said. "And Donna will be attending there in a couple years too." It did make sense after Carly explained it. Everything she explains always sounds right, doesn't it? Even though the school Michael and Willow had in mind was closer to the Quartermaine mansion, it did sound nice to send him closer to Carly to keep good relations.

And of course, Carly had been protecting them from Nina all along. Right from Nina's first visit with Wiley, Carly hovered. Hovered for good reasons of course. Willow did think it was a little odd at first, considering how much Wiley loved having Nina around, and admittedly Willow liked her there too, but as time rolled on, Nina's true colours came out and she proved Carly right.

Maybe Carly would be a good person for Willow to talk to about her longing to find her biological family. She would understand, both because she didn't find Bobbie until she was an adult, and because Wiley was kept from his birth father for almost two years. If anyone would want to help Willow in this situation it would most definitely be Carly.

Willow turned the page again and froze. A picture of Nina with Wiley in the Quartermaine swimming pool stared back at her. Both Nina and Wiley were just beaming. Wiley loved Carly, of course, but his face never lights up the way it did with Nina. She lifted the photo from the album and stared at.

She broke from her trance when the door burst open and Carly walked in.

"Hey, I was just in the neighbourhood and wanted to stop by to say goodnight to my grandson," Carly said. "And also, to see how you're feeling."

Willow smiled slightly. "Michael's just reading Wiley a bedtime story."

"Michael told me about the leukemia. Willow, I'm so sorry."

Willow frowned. "Did he also tell you that I've chosen to delay treatment?"

She nodded. "Are you sure that's what you want to do?"

"That's why I didn't want to tell too many people. I don't want anyone talking me out of it."

"Well, I—" Carly's face went rigid when she noticed Willow holding the photo of Nina and Wiley. "You're looking at pictures…."

"Oh, yeah. Happier times. I forgot we had this photo."

Carly sat down beside her and took the picture. "You're removing this, right? You don't want to confuse Wiley when he goes through the album."

Willow shrugged. "He still asks for her all the time. I know you were right about her. But I don't know if we should completely erase her like we did Nelle."

"Nina is just as toxic as Nelle was. We don't need that poison going into Wiley's head. If you ask me, you should get rid of any pictures of her."

Willow paused a moment in thought. "Maybe you're right." She took the photo back and tucked it in her pocket. "Carly… can I talk to you about something?"

"Anything."

"Okay, I haven't mentioned this to Michael yet. But I've been thinking a lot about my birth family."

"Oh."

"I know after Harmony died, I said I didn't want to know the truth. But I've changed my mind. I can't stop thinking about it. I want some family around while I battle leukemia. Plus, since I'm delaying treatment the doctors think I should start looking for a potential bone marrow donor in case it comes down to that. But even outside of that, I just want to see if I can have a relationship with them."

Carly swallowed hard. "But the bone marrow, you don't know for sure that you'll need one, right?"

"Well, no. We don't know for sure."

"Do you really think it's worth it to look into this? What if it doesn't work out the way you hope it will? I don't want you to be disappointed. You could hit a dead end."

Willow's eyes welled up. "I just… I want some family."

Carly reached for her hand and squeezed it. "You do have family, Willow. I think of you as my own daughter. We are here for you. You don't need anyone else."

"Maybe you're right."

Carly nodded. "You're going to beat this. GH has many wonderful doctors, and you have me, Michael, and Josslyn. Never forget that."

Willow smiled a little, feeling unsure.