Saturday, December 23rd 1995

Damian Smith, mobster backer, marginally successful con-man and mah-jong enthusiast, rode up in the elevator to his lonely, but luxurious, hotel suite. He heaved a sigh as he put the key in the lock. What was with these people in Port Charles anyway? No matter how often he hung around in their more popular restaurants they just wouldn't accept him. Perhaps he would change his tactics and try falling in love/lust with a 'respectable' citizen.

As he opened his door the numbers on it seemed to be replaced by the wavering face of his not-so-beloved-deceased father. He shrugged and went into the room. It wasn't like dear old dad hadn't returned to taunt him about his manliness on a number of occasions.

An hour later Damian sipped the aperitif that room service had brought up. He could only pick at the strawberries. They brought back some rather nasty memories of his former paramour. The lights in the room seemed to flicker and he promised himself that he'd complain to the management about it in the morning. A clanking noise interrupted his pleasant fantasy of Ned Ashton personally taking care of a maintenance problem. The lights went out completely and then the chair by the window was brightly illuminated.

Damian was off the couch and on the other side of the bed more quickly than was good for his bad back. He tried to blink away the sight as Frank Smith, wearing a white suit and bedecked in chains, appeared in the flaring chair. "Hello, Damian," Frank intoned.

Damian stared at the drink that was still in his hand. He just had to stop having drinks every place he went, or start ordering seltzers. "No, it's not the booze, kid." Frank said, answering his thoughts. "This is a real bona fide visitation from the beyond. I'm here to launch a fun- filled night of moral persuasion."

Damian was sceptikal. "As if you'd know a moral if you saw one. What's really going on here?"

"Well, in theory I'm supposed to tell you that if you don't end your evil ways, you'll end up dead and unloved, just like me," Frank said wearily.

"And in practice," Damian asked.

"My advice is to blow away all of these goody-goody types as fast as you can reload. Don't let anyone stand in your way," Frank snarled. His pale, chained image began to fade. "Hey, wait, I was getting around to the 'doomed to walk the earth as a tortured soul' part. Give me a chance to..." He disappeared and the spotlight on the chair winked out.

Damian shuddered and stayed clinging to the bedpost for quite some time as he tried to process the experience. The most palatable explanation was still the liquor. Maybe Mike had slipped something into his brandy at Luke's. He calmed himself and got ready for bed. Wearing the dark green silk pajamas Kath had given him, (well, not really given him, since she'd charged it on his Visa card,) he slipped under the bedcovers.

It wasn't much later that he began to doze off. He was pulled back from the edge of sleep by an odd smell. Without opening his eyes, he sniffed. Eggrolls?... Lobster? and... A MacDonald's Happy Meal? "Kath!" his eyes popped open. Sure enough, she was standing next to his bed, and she was dressed very strangely. Her long and unusually modest dress had a hoop skirt. She was wearing a short cloak trimmed with fur and had her hands in a muff. The image was completed with a fetching bonnet.

Damian was confused and irritated. "Nice ensemble, Kath. Not exactly your usual style. What the hell are you doing in my room?" Surreptitiously, he reached over to the bedside table to feel around for anything heavy to throw, in case this was the murder attempt he'd been anticipating.

"I'm not Katherine," the woman denied. "I am the ghost of Christmas Past."

Damian eyed her warily. "Sure you are. What are you up to? Isn't it bad enough you've betrayed me and probably ruined my life?"

The spirit scowled. "It's your own fault. If you hadn't threatened me... I mean Katherine."

Damian got out of the bed. "If you had just kept your big mouth shut, there wouldn't be any need for any threats to be carried out. Do you get a kick out of watching me squirm or are you just sucking up to your new boyfriend. Amazing how you reform just enough for whomever you want to sleep with at the time."

"Considering what lengths you went to to sleep with Lucy Coe, I wouldn't..." The spirit trailed off. "Of course, that doesn't concern me. I'm here to show you how you've become such an awful person, without any Christmas spirit."

Damian came close enough to invade her personal space. "Well, right now, it seems I have one Christmas spirit too many." He reached for her arm, but his hand passed through it. "What the...?!"

"You see. You can't hurt me. This time things are under my control." said Katherine.

Damian backed away from her. "They usually are, whatever you'd like people to think."

The spirit waved her arms and she and Damian were instantly transported to a steamy overgrown jungle. Damian stumbled over the edge of a small ditch, which proved to be, on closer examination, a large clawprint. He gulped, imagining the size of the creature that must have made it.

Katherine scowled. "This can't be right."

A tinny voice, that sounded suspiciously like Mac Scorpio, issued from her handbag. "Too far. You went back too far. Readjust your temporal inversion influx."

"Do what to my what?" she muttered.

"Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow," the voice insisted.

"Oh, right." She waved her arms again and the jungle shimmered out of existence. Now the Swiss Alps loomed above and a cluster of white buildings nestled among the green of the foothills.

"It's my old boarding school," Damian identified. "The one Ned and I went to." He smiled fondly. "Good old Weasel Prep."

Katherine frowned. "Not close enough. I'm certainly not going to walk that far." With a flick of her wrist they appeared in a quaint little apartment.

"My old dorm room!" Damian exclaimed. The door to the room was flung open and a dark haired young man with a guitar entered. Damian took a step towards him. "Ned?" There was no response.

Damian turned to the spirit. "He can't see you or hear you," she told him.

"So what's new?" he muttered sarcastically.

Another young man entered the room carrying an armful of packages. He was skinny, had acne and bad hair. Damian winced at the sight of his younger self. The fact that he would blossom into a ladies' man a year or two later had not made that period any less painful.

Young Ned set his guitar on the floor and motioned towards the bed. "You can set them down here."

Young Damian let the packages tumble onto the bed. "If you've got so much family sending you presents why don't they have you home for Christmas."

Ned shrugged. "I'm better off not swimming in a shark- infested pool. Holidays for the Quartermaine's are a free- for-all."

Ned ripped open one of the packages. "Humph, Grandfather's sent me a gold-plated calculator, again." He tossed it aside.

"Well, at least they're sending you something," said young Damian.

"You got a card from your father, didn't you?" Ned asked casually.

"Yes," young Damian said grudgingly.

"Big deal," said the older version. "It said Merry Christmas, Danny. He got my name wrong for twenty years."

Ned picked up his guitar again. "Well, I'll open the rest of them when I get back." He headed for the door. "I'm off to serenade some Swiss babes. Why don't you stick around here and practice." He swaggered out the door.

Young Damian went to the corner and picked up the electric bass. Forlornly he sat on his bed and fingered the strings.

Katherine shuddered. "That's about enough of this memory." She waved her arms once again. They were at General Hospital.

"Well," Damian commented, "That was really pathetic. Why did I need to see that again."

Katherine tried to think about it. "Maybe it means that if you had concentrated on your creative skills you'd have been a better person."

"I have news for you. A musician I am not. The best I could ever manage was only passable if we had a loud drummer. Why are we at the hospital?"

"Fast forward to last Christmas Eve," she told him. "I'm sure there's another very important lesson here."

Damian watched as Steve Hardy read the Christmas story, and Tony Jones came in dressed as Santa with a bag full of toys. Moments later he saw himself enter with Katherine dangling from his arm. He winced at his own smarmy presentation of a donation to the hospital. Steve Hardy reluctantly accepted it while Tony glared daggers at him.

He looked over at the spirit of Christmas Past. "I think I'm missing the lesson here, too. Could it be 'don't throw good money after bad' or 'don't throw money at it at all' or 'the people of Port Charles are a bunch of ingrates'".

"Well, really," Katherine said indignantly. "You don't expect people to like you, just because you give them money."

"Why not? They hate me just because I'm Frank Smith's son," Damian pointed out. "I thought shallow was the general operating system around here."

Katherine sighed. "You're not very good at these lessons."

"Perhaps I need a teacher with some credibility," Damian said sarcastically.

Katherine pouted. "I don't have to stand here and be insulted." She whirled both her arms and Damian abrubtly found himself back in his bed, prone, but awake.

He sat bolt upright. "A nightmare," he said to himself. "It was only a nightmare." He laid back down.

He was just drifting off to sleep again when a nasty little laugh awoke him. Blearily, he switched on the lamp and surveyed the room. He nearly fell out of bed. Bobbie Jones was reclining on the couch, among what seemed to be the entire contents of Victoria's Secrets lingerie catalog. She herself was wearing a skimpy green number that showed a generous amount of her abundant cleavage.

"Hello, Damian," she oozed. He nearly fainted when the thought occurred to him that she might be here looking for some sort of permanent committment.

She laughed again, "A future with you? I hardly think so. I've had Doctors, Lawyer's and millionaires drooling over me. Why would I want a crime boss wannabe? I'm not your future Damian, I'm your present. The ghost of Christmas Present, to be more specific."

"Sure," Damian sneered, "And I'm Cinderella. Tell me when the clock strikes midnight." He pulled the sheets over his head, hoping that this would change to a friendlier kind of nightmare; maybe an alligator infested swamp or something.

There was a bright flash of light and the covers were whipped off the bed. The scantily clad Bobbie was hovering in the air above him. "What the hell is this?" he shrieked, "Days of Our Lives?!"

"This," Bobbie said, with a sweet insincere smile. "Is midnight, Cinderella and you're about to get taken for a ride." She twitched her nose.

Again Damian found himself rudely deposited in new surroundings. It took him a moment to recognize the place; the lighthouse. Finally in the dim light, he made out the figures of Lucy and Kevin... "*Quack*,".... and Sigmund seated among the plethora of globes.

Lucy's head was resting on Kevin's shoulder. "This is great, Doc. Just you and me and our Duck."

"Our Duck," Kevin said happily. "I like the sound of that."

Lucy frowned. "You know everything would be perfect if it weren't for..."

"For what?" Kevin asked.

"I hate to say his name... Damian." Lucy shuddered.

Kevin put both arms around her. "I wish you didn't have to worry about him."

"Well, I do. What if he gets really angry that I pulled out of our deal, and does some unspeakable MOB thing like cutting off Sigmund's head and putting it on my pillow."

"Ewwww," Damian said. Kevin echoed the sentiment and added, "I really don't think Damian is going to go after your duck, Lucy. I'd like to strangle him anyway for making our Christmas less than perfect."

Damian whirled around to face Bobbie. "The nerve. They sit around worrying about things I've never thought of doing and blame me for their overactive imaginations. I hope it does spoil the rest of their evening."

The spirit of Christmas Past had a venomous look on her face as she gazed at Lucy. "Well, I sure hope something ruins her evening; she's ruined enough of mine." The spirit looked embarrassed at having dropped out of persona. Lucy and Kevin were now involved in some serious necking.

"Can we leave?" Damian said, uncomfortable at the sight.

"Sure, we've got another stop to do." There was a wicked gleam in her eye. She twitched her nose and the scene around them changed to the charming Spencer home. A large Christmas tree with an angel on top dominated the living room. A fire was blazing in the fireplace and the Spencer's skillet-faced dog lay in front of it.

"Hi, honey, we're home," Luke Spencer's voice resounded from the front porch. Foster left his place by the fire and went to the front door. Luke entered. He was wearing a ragged, patched jacket and his hair was more frazzled than usual.

There was another voice. "Hey, Dad! wait up." Little Lucky Spencer came into the house. He looked thin and pale and was leaning on a crutch made from a tree branch.

Luke was contrite. "I'm sorry, Little Lucky, sometimes I forget that your spinal cord was injured, because of that evil son of a mobster, Damian Smith.'

"What?!" Damian howled. "Foul. This is a complete and total fiction. Lucky Spencer is perfectly fine, and I've never done anything to him."

Spirit Bobbie was unruffled. "It's a parable, watch and learn."

"Yeah, that Damian sure is a rotten slimy snake," Luke was saying. "Imagine him coming into town and buying into ELQ with the dirty money his Daddy gave him."

"Gave?!" Damian sneered. "It was a loan; one Daddy Dearest demanded back, while I was lying in a hospital bed, possibly paralyzed. And I'll bet Luke didn't worry about how dirty my Father's money was when he used it to buy that club of his."

"Shh," said Bobbie. "Luke is beyond criticism. When you've saved the city from a giant weather machine THEN you can get away with murder."

Laura entered the room, wearing a power suit and looking incredibly tired. "Are you all right, honey?" Luke asked her.

She tossed her briefcase and books down on the couch. "I would be if it wasn't for Damian Smith. His CS emporium is causing no end of trouble for the Charles Street Foundaton. He is making my life a living hell."

"For Heaven's sake," Damian sputtered. "It's just a Wal-Mart. You'd think it was worse than a toxic incinerator."

"Have you ever been to a Wal-Mart, on a Sunday afternoon... before Christmas? It IS worse than a toxic incinerator," Bobbie opined.

"Maybe we can wish that next year, there will be no Damian Smith around to bother us on Christmas," Little Lucky said wistfully.

"Keep a good thought," said Luke. The three of them eyes shining, gazed up at the angel.

"Where's Lulu," Luke asked.

Laura stared at him. "I thought you had her."

Bobbie twitched her nose disdainfully and Damian found himself back in bed, tangled in the sheets. He took a deep breath and waited for his heart to stop beating wildly, but now he was having trouble keeping faith in the nightmare theory. He closed his eyes again.

Damian sensed, in his not very profound sleep, that there was a presence looming over him. Very reluctantly he oepened one eye to see a dark hooded figure lurking near the bed.

Damian sat up. His usually flawless hair was now irretrievably mussed. "Go away," he ordered the apparition. "I'm tired of your little game and I'm not playing anymore. Go try your scare tactics on Edward Quartermaine. At least I don't screw over members of my own family."

The ghost remained silent, pointing at him accusingly from the foot of the bed. Damian closed his eyes for a second and then opened them again. "Okay, third time's the charm right? You're supposed to be the ghost of Christmas Future, and if I remember my English Literature course and the Muppet film correctly, you'll be showing what a ghastly end I, and most of the people I know, are coming to because I've been naughty. Does that about sum it up."

The figure merely turned and pointed out the window. Damian sighed, rose and went to look out.

It seemed to be broad daylight. Coming down the street was a garish procession of floats in the shape of cartoon animals and various cultural icons. Bad high school bands were merrily tootling, "Happy Days are Here Again". Luke Spencer in the tuba-shaped float, was merrily waving like a manic beauty queen, while walking along beside were, Bobbie Jones, Mac Scorpio, Katherine Bell and Justus Ward, all twirling batons in perfect synch.

Above the parade a plane flew, trailing a banner that read. "Yeah! Damian Smith is Dead. Rejoice!"

Damian looked back at the ghost. "Oh, come on. You don't expect me to buy this blatant exaggeration."

The mysterious figure tossed back it's concealing hood. "Who me? Exaggerate? I wouldn't dream of it," said Lucy Coe.

"Lucy... of course. I should have guessed, but I was hoping our future would be a little more amicable." He leered at her.

"Oh, brother, give it a rest. As if I'd give into you in the middle of a morality play." Lucy regarded him with undisguised disgust.

Damian shrugged. "Sorry. Reflex. Okay, let's play it out. What's next.'

Lucy smiled brightly. "You get a choice. A peek at your murder investigation or a look at how your former lovers and business associates are making out without your malignant presence."

"Can I choose door number three?" he asked wistfully.

"No," she said firmly.

"Well, I don't have to look to know that the PCPD is completely botching the investigation, and isn't really very interested in finding the real murderer. Mac Scorpio is probably coming up with some harebrained theory based on aboriginal instinct and woolly thinking. I'd say a peek at that would be a complete waste of time so, let's go with option number two, shall we?" he suggested.

"Suit yourself," she said. She crossed her arms, nodded her head and blinked. Damian found himself in Katherine's marblelized apartment. She and Mac were reclining on the couch, half-naked and scarfing down and anchovy pizza. "You know," Mac said with his mouth full. "Not many people like anchovy pizza. We just have so much in common."

"Yes," Katherine agreed. "Damian hated anchovy pizza. He always made me order pineapple and canadian bacon. The swine." Damian scowled. Katherine had never voiced any preference for anchovies to him. In fact, at the speed she ate pizza, it amazed him she could taste the toppings.

Mac nodded. "Well, no sense talking about him, it's been nearly a year since..." he made a cutting motion across his throat.

"Yes," Katherine smiled like the cat who swallowed the whole chicken. "We're well rid of him, and now you and I can spend the rest of our lives eating together."

Damian felt distinctly nauseated.

"Humph," Lucy commented. "Maybe you could have held on to Miz Bell if you had tried buying a chain of restaurants instead of discount houses."

"A certain road to bankruptcy," Damian said dryly.

The Lucy spirit hid a smile at that comment and blinked. The scene changed again and showed Bobbie and Tony Jones on the steps of the brownstone. They were arguing, but trying to keep their voices down. "How much do you expect me to forgive, Bobbie? Does accepting you as you are have to include your affairs?"

"I've said I'm sorry, and I think I've finally got this cheating problem licked," Bobbie whined. "What more do you want."

"Adherence to our marriage vows, would be a good start. My God, Bobbie you just had an affair with the mailman. This is not a good sign."

"I know, but it isn't really my fault," she sniveled.

"No? Then whose is it? Don't tell me it's mine, because I never refused to..." his voice dropped to a whisper, "...wear that leather costume you insisted would spice up our relationship."

"No, not your fault. Of course not; you're always perfect. YOU never do anything wrong. It really all comes back to Damian. If it wasn't for him reawakening my yen for variety none of my subsequent affairs would have happened."

"Well, of course, Damian was slime and it's a blessing that someone took care of him permanently, but it's been two and half years since you slept with him, shouldn't you get over it."

Bobbie's voice took on a spiteful edge. "You won't ever LET me forget it."

Damian glared at Bobbie. "Reawakened her yen for variety? Where does she get this stuff?"

Lucy was shaking her head reproachfully. "It looks like you've created a monster."

"I didn't create it," Damian snapped. "I just reminded her of who she really is. Despite her airs and her false middle class values, she wasn't any different than me. She wasn't any better." He stopped, realizing that he'd allowed a little more emotion to show than he liked. The Jones were stomping back into the brownstone.

"And you," Damian asked Lucy. "Are you really happy with that dull Doctor of yours."

"You mean after your so-called stimulating presence has been missing for a year?" responded Lucy. "Ecstatically happy. Kevin and I are about to become the parents of twins. I now own Deception again and get invited to the parties of all the respectable people in town. And Sigmund can count up to fifty."

"Hurrah, for Sigmund. It all sounds very tedious." said Damian.

"Not as tedious as your afterlife is going to be," she shot back. Damian was silent and thoughtful. Lucy crossed her arms and blinked, bringing them back to the hotel room.

"All right," Damian said carefully. "You've convinced me. I'm in mortal danger, everyone will be dancing jigs at the news of my demise, and all I really want is to love and be loved. I've learned my lesson."

Lucy looked surprised. "Really? I didn't think you'd catch on that fast. I mean, of course, that was the whole point of this whole presentation, but still, you make Scrooge look reasonable, so I thought it would take a little longer than this. After all, Kevin says you can't teach an amoral person a lesson. And if anyone fits that description it's definitely..." She broke off as it became apparent that he was paying no attention to her.

He had gone over to the desk and slipped out a pad of hotel stationery. While she talked he had been furiously scribbling on the paper.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

"Well," he said as he continued to write. "You can't exactly expect me to head over to the Spencer's with a fat goose and an armful of presents. Luke would put a bullet between my eyes before I got to the front porch. So I'm taking a different tact."

"Which is?" Lucy pressed.

"I'm writing down a new storyline, in which I have flashbacks to my pitiful excuse for a childhood; show the traumatizing effects of my mother's horrible fate; develop a dazzling chemistry between me and Faith Ward; heroically rescue Emily from a deadly bacon-fire; establish a warm and fuzzy friendship with Lucky Spencer; change my last name to Horowitz and cultivate fluffier hair."

"You don't think they're going to accept that, do you?" Lucy asked.

"New writers; new ideas. They'll be getting here just in time to save my sorry excuse for a life," Damian declared.

Lucy shrugged. "They'll have their own agendas, and they probably won't include has-been minor villains."

Damian smirked. "I thought of that. He opened a small drawer on the desk, and withdrew a checkbook. "I think the sum of one million dollars should be sufficient motivation for them." He made out the check with a flourish and inserted it in the envelope. On the outside he wrote:

New Head Writers
c/o General Hospital/ABC
4151 Prospect Ave.
Hollywood CA 90027
URGENT - OPEN BY JANUARY 1st

He licked the envelope and pressed it shut. "That should do it. I'll be safe. A year from now I'll be the one viewers shower with mushy sentimental wishes for my happiness and reformation."

Lucy pouted. "That had better not be at the expense of my storyline."

Damian ignored that as he pulled on his burgundy robe and matching slippers. He held the envelope in his teeth. "Mumble, mumph, ars, mumble."

Lucy grimaced. "What?!"

He spit the envelope into his hand and said, "I'm going downstairs to put this in the mailbox." He flung open the door. Right outside a mail carrier was standing, blue bag over his shoulder, eagle logo on his chest pocket. "How convenient!" Damian exclaimed. "Take this to the Post Office right away, my good man."

The frizzy haired postal worker nodded cheerfully. "Ja, I do that for you. Si senor." Damian handed him the letter and grinning from ear to ear closed the door again.

When Damian looked around the suite, the Lucy spirit was gone. He heaved a sigh of relief. It was over. His future was ensured. He kicked off his slippers and tossed the robe on the foot of the bed. He got in under the covers and curled up, smiling contentedly. He had handled matters effectively and efficiently, without stooping to his father's methods. Everything would be all right now, wouldn't it?

Outside the room the frizzy-haired postal worker went over to the elevator where he let the letter drop into the fancy Port Charles Hotel trash can. The elevator doors opened and Little Lucky came out, cheerfully swinging his crutch. The mail carrier held out his hand. "Got a match, kid?"

Little Lucky dug into his jeans pocket. "Sure, Dad." Luke struck the match and flicked it into the waste basket. They both watched as the letter went up in flames. "Doesn't look like Junior Smith will get his Christmas wish," Luke smirked.

They grinned at each other and got on the elevator. As the doors shut, Little Lucky exclaimed, "God Bless Us, Everyone!" The hotel echoed with the sound of Luke Spencer's evil laughter.