Alan & Monica Quartermaine
A 30 Year Retrospective
 

Part I - A History of Monica

 

March 1976 introduced a new family to Port Charles. Terri Arnett (Bobbi Jordan) was the widow of a Vietnam doctor and the daughter of Chief of Staff of General Hospital Steve Hardy’s (John Beradino) best friend, the late Dr. Lars Webber. Terri was introduced as the main character, a former professional singer who had given up the stage when her parents were killed to help raise her two younger brothers, Jeff and Rick.

 

When Terri moved to town, she opened a supper club where she also sang. Rick was a promising young intern who had volunteered for a six month stint in Africa and been reported as dead. Younger brother, Jeff (Richard Dean Anderson) and his wife, Monica, had graduated med school that year. Steve Hardy had pegged the two for a new intern program at General Hospital for married couples: a very bold and shocking innovation at that time.

 

Monica (Patsy Rahn 1976 - Lesley Charleson 1977- present) had been engaged to Rick, but after his death had married little brother, Jeff. Steve had chosen them to spearhead the new experimental program for married couples thinking that they were a happily married couple, but their new marriage was a wreck. Jeff had a serious chip on his shoulder trying to follow in his over achiever big brother's footstep, both in the residency program at General Hospital and in his relationship with Monica. Jeff’s insecurities were a major issue for the couple and affected his work at General Hospital. While Jeff loved and missed his brother terribly, he felt guilty for harboring a secret love for Monica when she was engaged to Rick and he knew that Monica would never have chosen him over Rick if Rick had lived.

 

Monica soon found herself fending off passes from supervising resident, Rex Pearson. When Monica rebuffed his advances, he retaliated by going after Jeff. He goaded him privately, playing on Jeff’s feelings of inadequacy about Rick concerning Monica and General Hospital. Jeff started to unravel and make small mistakes that caused Steve Hardy and the young residents great alarm. Jeff’s already shaky self esteem was about to take a direct hit. Rick Webber was alive and being held captive by rebel forces in civil war torn Lomonda, suspected of being CIA. Shortly before his scheduled execution, he was freed when the prison was hit in a raid.

 

“Terri’s Place” opened to great fanfare on April 30, 1976 and among the telegrams was one from the American consulate in Lomonda City with the remarkable message: Rick Webber was alive! Thrilled to hear the news that his brother was not dead, Jeff also harbored deep trepidations. He and Monica were both understandably upset, but Monica had a secret that Rick’s return could expose. Rick (played by Michael Gregory) had not asked her to marry him; he had broken up with her! Monica had told Terri and Jeff the lie about his proposal out of desperation. She had been raised in an orphanage in St. Louis, Missouri and could not face loosing the family that her love for Rick represented. When Rick wrote to her to end their relationship, she had panicked and lied to his siblings hoping that when Rick returned she could change his mind. His impending return threatened to topple her house of cards and yet she was passionately in love with him still. Monica was in a panic!

 

In the meantime, during Rick's ten month incarceration, he had reconsidered his feelings for Monica and decided he was going to go home and get her back, not knowing that she had married his little brother. Rick found out that shocking news before his flight left Africa. Monica was relieved that Rick had not busted her out for her engagement lie but secretly flew to New York to meet his flight and beg him not to tell that secret to Jeff. He did not, but it didn’t take long for Jeff to find out that Monica had met Rick behind his back in New York. The Webber/Webber/Webber triangle went from sizzle to flame when that summer, Rick and Monica bonded over the death of one of her patients, Joey Galvin. They shared a passionate kiss and declared to each other that they had never stopped loving the other but then reluctantly agreed to set aside their feelings: for Jeff’s sake.

 

Rick’s friend and confidant, Dr Mark Dante, advised Rick that he needed to find a new woman and Rick agreed, but Monica secretly vowed to stay close to Rick. This proved difficult when Dr. Lesley Faulkner (Denise Alexander 1973- present) found Rick an apartment in her building. Lesley, recently widowed, swore that she and Rick were only friends, but Monica was jealous of the widow none-the-less. Monica decided that she had to divorce Jeff, but thought that in order not to alienate Rick, it had to be Jeff’s decision. So, to help Jeff come to that conclusion, Monica determined that she would not sleep with Jeff anymore.

 

Monica was about to have some help with the death of her marriage. Dr. Peter Taylor and his nurse wife, Diana, had hired a new nanny for their daughter Martha. Scheming Heather Grant (Georganne Lapiere, 1976 - Mary O’Brien 1977 & Robin Matson 1980 - 1983) had gotten the job with faked references with the intent of using the Taylors as entry in to a world of “more important people” like the sexy hunk of a doctor she met in the halls of General Hospital: Jeff Webber.

 

After months of chasing her married prey, Heather convinced her ex-husband, Larry Joe, to steal Monica’s purse. When he did, she found the letter that Monica had received from Rick breaking up with her and arranged for Jeff to receive it. Jeff kept the letter to himself, but was eaten up with jealousy. He began abusing drugs, taking sleeping pills at night and amphetamines in the morning to wake up and between times he stalked his wife. In an anger and drug induced rage, Jeff finally confronted Monica with the letter and his accusations that she was still in love with his brother. In a fit, he grabbed Monica and attempted roughly to initiate sex with her. She ran out and straight to Rick’s front door where she tore her clothes and threw herself in Rick’s arms, sobbing and the two gave in to their long held passions and made love. It was not the long awaited reunion that brought them back together once and for all though.

 

Terri had become friends with Lesley and saw that Rick and Lesley were beginning to have deep feelings for each other even though neither of them saw it. Lesley confided to Terri that she had become pregnant with her dead husband's child on the last night of his life when he had raped her and that she could not face having the child. Lesley decided to have an abortion and asked Terri not to tell Rick, but Terri did so and Rick raced after Lesley who he found in New York. She had decided to keep the baby but was deeply touched by Rick's rushing to her side.

 

Jeff began an affair with Heather who promised a no-strings affair and plotted to get pregnant with his child, a feat that Monica had refused to consider. Monica had not only refused to consider having a baby but had told Jeff he didn’t turn her on and that he should find a woman who did. Monica confronted Lesley and told her that she and Rick were having an affair even though the affair was quickly cooling off and clearly due to end. Heather made sure that Jeff found out about Rick and Monica’s secret assignations but regretted it when Jeff tried to kill himself by shooting himself in the head with a small caliber hand gun before Heather could tell him that she was pregnant with his child.

 

As Jeff lay near death at General Hospital, Rick broke it off with Monica and Terri confided to her father’s best friend, Steve Hardy, that Jeff was his son. Upon Jeff’s miraculous recovery, Monica asked him to take her back and he vowed to be the man she needed. Monica agreed to try to get pregnant, but secretly continued to take her birth control. The reconciliation between Jeff and Monica was Monica’s way of staying close to Rick as she schemed to get him back.

 

Heather was crushed when her announcement that she was carrying Jeff’s child met with Jeff’s asking her to give the baby to him and Monica to raise. After a faked suicide attempt failed to bring Jeff to her side, Heather hatched a plan to tell Jeff she had aborted the child, then to have it in secret and sell it to Peter and Diana Taylor for $10,000.00. Monica finally asked Jeff for a divorce when she found out that Rick and Lesley were engaged.

 

Desperate, Monica confronted Lesley and threatened to use secrets she knew about Rick to ruin his career if Lesley married him, causing a distraught Lesley to plunge down the stairs. Lesley lost the baby and fled to Venice, but returned to marry Rick. With his personal life temporarily stable, Rick turned to his long term goal of a new cardiac wing for General Hospital and contacted The Hardwick Foundation. Dr. Alan Quartermaine came to Port Charles to determine if he and his foundation would foot the bill for the new wing. Monica Bard Webber landed the plum assignment of assisting the handsome and wealthy ex-surgeon and was immediately smitten with the handsome, wealthy financier son of Lila and Edward Quartermaine.

 

 

Part II - Alan & Monica: The Early Years 

Alan Quartermaine’s stay in Port Charles was to be temporary. When his evaluation of the cardiac wing concluded, he made plans to wind up his affairs and return to his affluent family in Southampton, but his tumultuous relationship with Monica Webber had blossomed in to a romance and he was reluctant to go. He admitted to Monica that he had strong feelings for her and she confided that she returned those feelings. Alan moved to Port Charles and his rich, influential family soon followed. 

Alan’s insecurities concerning Rick and Monica were a problem from the very beginning of his relationship with Monica. Monica fought her attraction to Rick, trying to negate it by sheer force of will while assuring Alan that she was over Rick. Alan tried to keep his exceedingly jealous nature a secret but was not always able to do so. In the winter of 1979, Monica was quarantined in the hospital with Alan, Rick and many others during an outbreak of Lassa fever. Confined in close quarters as the epidemic raged, Monica and Rick struggled to maintain a professional relationship but as the death toll rose and more of the staff fell ill, Monica turned not to Alan for support but to Rick. Distressed, Monica quickly transferred away from Rick, confiding to her best friend Gail (an older woman whom she had known growing up in the foundling home) that she loved Alan and was determined to stay away from Rick Webber. 

When Rick found out the stunning news that his brother was Steve Hardy’s son, he was jolted so profoundly that he began to struggle personally and professionally. As soon as the quarantine was lifted, Rick left town. Concerned with Rick’s behavior, Monica followed him. Alone together, Rick and Monica kissed but made the mature decision not to make love and left to return home where Rick moved out of Lesley’s bedroom and into the guest room. Rick informed Lesley that he had been with Monica, although not Biblically, however Monica made the poor decision to lie to Alan and say that she had stayed the night at the hospital.  Alan’s jealousy raged. 

Rick continued to spiral out of control and Monica continued to try to help him until they finally gave in to their passion and made love. Monica declared herself to Rick and wanted to tell Lesley and Alan at once but Rick convinced her that they should take the time before extricating themselves from their respective marriages to be certain that was what they both wanted to do. Almost immediately, Laura was in a car accident and Rick rushed to Lesley’s side, the emergency helping him to put his life into perspective, and decide to stay with Lesley. Monica, who had separated from Alan, refused his attempts at reconciliation but she was torn and turned to her mother-in-law, Lila, for advice. Lila told her about Edward’s infidelity that had resulted in an illegitimate son and told Monica that despite Edward’s straying, Lila had never regretted keeping her family together. Reconciled to her “fate,” Monica went back to Alan and promptly discovered that she was pregnant! 

Tracy, being ever insecure about her own place in the Quartermaine family, was furious that Alan and Monica had gotten back together and even angrier to find out that Monica was expecting a child. Knowing her brother, Tracy knew exactly what buttons to push to fan the flames of jealous rage she knew he struggled to keep in check. Monica fought to keep her affair and her child’s suspected parentage from Tracy and Alan. Rick and Monica were forced to give a deposition in a malpractice suit where they had to admit to their affair. The papers were sealed but Tracy (bitter from her failed marriage to the corrupt Mitch Williams) determined to get her hands on them and out Monica to the family; reasoning that it would seal her son Ned’s inheritance if she discredited Alan’s heir. 

In the late stages of her pregnancy Monica is ordered on bed rest and trapped alone in her new house as a blizzard shuts down Port Charles. As luck would have it though, Lesley Webber has let her good friend Gail talk her in to visiting Monica and they were there together when Monica went into labor and delivered her son prematurely. A difficult breach home birth left Monica on the verge of death and in her delirium, she told Lesley that the baby was Rick’s! Monica languished near death in a state of hopelessness that revolved around her fear of living her life hiding the secret of Alan Junior's parentage. She feared Alan’s jealousy and being blackmailed. She lost the will to survive. 

Lesley and Rick decided that Monica needed encouragement to live and Rick told Monica that he loved her. It worked: Monica survived. Nobly, Monica told Rick that  she was staying with Alan, not remembering what she blurted out to Lesley after the difficult delivery. Lesley and Rick both suspected that Monica was still in love with Rick, but Monica vows to stay with Alan. Tracy, on the other hand, was more determined than ever to prove that Alan was not the baby’s father. 

Monica began to believe that Alan’s love for her was secure and was feeling that she had made the right decision to stay with him when Alan got his hands on the deposition in which Rick had had to give details about their sordid affair. Seething with rage, Alan began quietly terrorizing Monica. She was in a constant state of panic as Alan began building a nursery on the top floor of the Georgian mansion he gave to Monica. The tensions continued to climb at AJ developed a heart problem and in a race against time, Rick skillfully corrected the problem in emergency surgery but AJ needed a transfusion. Franticly, the staff paged Alan who was in the lab staring in shock at a test that showed AJ and Rick shared the same blood type, one that precluded Alan from being his father. Alan left the hospital and left Rick to give blood for AJ. Still, Alan pretended not to know and made elaborate plans for AJ’s christening when he planned the collapse of the new nursery’s roof with Monica and Rick inside.  

On the day of the christening, Alan was ready to collapse the roof on an unsuspecting Rick and Monica when he realized that Lee Baldwin had figured out that he was up to something. Alan “saved” Rick and Monica from the collapse and was hailed as a hero even as his unquenched determination to kill them solidified. Frustrated with her suspicions, Tracy filed a paternity suit against Monica, infuriating Edward and prompting him to disinherit Tracy. Rick wanted to claim AJ as his son and Lesley filed for divorce to clear the way for Rick to marry Monica and raise his son as a family. 

Rick told Alan about the affair and that AJ was his son and Alan pretended shock and begged Rick for time to come to grips with the news all the while plotting to kill his wife and her lover. He devised a plot to “catch” them making love and kill them planning to claim temporary insanity. Alan pretended not to know the truth as a cover while stalking Rick and Monica all over town as they began to hope and plan a life together. Alan followed them, sneaking up the stairs to their second floor wharf love nest with gun in hand, determined to carry out his plan. Fate intervened. A gas explosion ripped the building apart. 

It was clear to Monica that Alan had intended to kill them. Rick went to Alan and told him that Monica and he were going to go to Tracy and tell her the truth about AJ. Alan promised them that he would keep AJ if they did that because legally AJ was his son. With the battle lines drawn, Monica was surprised to find that AJ had an identical birth mark to Alan’s. Lila confirmed that the odd shaped mark was a Quartermaine trait. Shocked, Monica arranged to have blood tests taken and learned to her dismay that AJ was Alan’s biological son. A rare medical phenomenon known as Bombay Phenotype Syndrome explained AJ’s abhorrent blood type. Desperate, Monica kept the paternity a secret and manipulated Alan into confessing his attempted murder on tape then forced Alan to agree to a divorce. 

The victory was short lived. Even though she paid off the hematologist and arranged for him to have a job offer across the country, the doctor informed Alan of the test before he left town. Alan plotted how best to use the knowledge to destroy Rick and Monica. He arranged to be the keynote speaker at a fund raiser being held the day before their divorce was final and announced to all of Port Charles that AJ was his son. Stunned, Rick rejected Monica and left town while Alan refused to go through with the divorce. Defeated, Monica moved back in to the mansion with Alan and their son. The Battling Quartermaines had come to a temporary impasse, but they were just getting started.

 

Part III - Let the Games Begin

In 1981, Monica devised a new plan to rid herself of her marriage while keeping her son and the vast Quartermaine fortune. She conspired to put Alan in the path of sexy entrepreneur Susan Moore (Heather’s cousin). Alan agreed to finance the purchase of The Campus Disco from newly incarcerated Frank Smith for Susan. Monica, still plotting to get Rick Webber back, saw Alan and Susan’s partnership as the perfect opportunity. In no time, the lonely and rejected Doctor Alan began an affair with Susan and moved her into a waterside cottage across the lake from his family home. Before you could say “birth control,” Susan was pregnant with Alan’s child. 

“Divorce is out of the question.” Alan informed Susan. He refused to give up custody of AJ. AJ suffered a relapse of his heart problem and Rick again saved his life. The emergency brought the Quartermaines closer together. Susan moved to New York and gave birth to Jason. Our couple might have reconciled in spirit as well as in fact except that Alan discovered that Monica had hired a private detective to dig up proof of his affair to use in a divorce against him (which happened before AJ’s relapse which didn’t seem to matter to the volatile doctor.) In response, Alan went to New York and talked Susan in to coming back to Port Charles with his son. 

When Monica's investigator provided her with proof of Alan’s affair and illegitimate child, Monica reacted in exactly the way Alan feared: she demanded sole custody of AJ and an immediate divorce. Alan moved in with Susan and for a short time it looked as if he had found happiness with his new family, but Susan was a Grant and she was angling for a wedding vow to secure her piece of the family fortune “for her son”. Alan returned to the mansion and the fighting commenced escalating until Monica tried to sell the mansion out from under the family for spite.  

Unable to make up his mind, Alan moved back in with Susan but developed impotence and was quite a disappointment to his hot-to-trot mistress. Alan sought out a shrink and through counseling and physical tests was able to discover that he didn’t have a physical problem. His problem was that he was turned on by his wife, not his mistress. The situation was exacerbated by Monica coming home from a vacation to Europe with a handsome Frenchman in tow. In response Alan suddenly decided that he stood a better chance of winning custody of AJ in the divorce if he was not shacked up with his mistress and moved back in to the mansion. 

The sale of the estate was supposed to put a stop to that, but Monica discovered that a codicil to the agreement gifting the home to her was that it could not be sold until after Alan passed away. Alan sent Susan on a world cruise as a gift to her for having his son and he and Monica literally sectioned off the house half and half. Monica moved her studly Frenchman in and proceeded to use him to taunt Alan into believing that she was sleeping with him. Edward managed to scare the potential boy friend away convincing him that Alan could and probably would kill him if he stayed. Alan sabotaged any chance of a reunion with Monica by trying to sneak off to meet Susan on St. Thomas while Monica’s hired man got pictures of Susan and her husband.  

Furious that the damning pictures would no doubt lose him custody, Alan looked to Edward for advice and Edward had the solution to his problems. Get Monica back in the sack. This proved to be an upstanding idea as Alan’s little impotence problem proved to be no problem at all for the couple. Alan admitted to Monica in post coital after glow that he still loved her and wanted to get back together for real. His wife told him that would never happen while Susan was in the picture. Alan promptly ended the affair and with Monica at his side, they weathered a paternity suit over Jason in which Susan won one million dollars in for her child. 

Susan, now a rich woman, was prey to Scott Baldwin’s machinations. Scott and Heather conspired to get Susan’s money away from her and did so by encouraging the heartbroken Susan to drink herself into oblivion. Alan attempted to take custody of Jason as soon as it became obvious that Susan was an alcoholic, but Monica gave him an ultimatum: her or his son. A judge ordered Susan to pick a trustee to administer Jason’s wealth and care for the child. Heather and Scott vied for the position which Scott won by marrying Susan. This was not as successful as Scott hoped due to the fact that he was having a torrid affair with her cousin Heather. Of course when Susan found out, she bounced her husband and her cousin to the curb and made friends with an elderly newcomer to town, Crane Tolliver, who, it turned out, was Lila Quartermaines legal husband. The two began a blackmail scheme to ruin the Quartermaine family once and for all.  

Gleefully, Susan summoned the entire Quartermaine family to her home and announced to them that none of them were the legitimate issue of a legal marriage and as such could not inherit the family’s vast fortune. This set the stage for Susan’s murder. She blackmailed Edward and Lila for 2 million dollars in exchange for the unsigned divorce papers and marriage certificate to Tolliver and secretly arranged for a reporter to be witness to the exchange in order to make public the shocking news and keep the money, but on that night she was shot dead.  

Robert and Holly Scorpio investigated the murder and found that Alan, Monica, Scott, Tolliver, Heather and her mother Alice had all been in the house that night. All had motive and opportunity. They suspected Tolliver and set up a sting to catch him by letting him “find out” that Heather had witnessed the murder and then setting a trap to catch him trying to kill her. It worked. Crane was shot, but escaped and slipped the marriage and divorce papers to a stunned and hither-to-fore uninvolved Jimmie Lee Holt who realized the importance of what he had in his possession. Jimmie Lee, Edward’s son by another woman, held the papers that could secure him a piece of the Quartermaine fortune. The problem was Jimmie Lee had never wanted any money; he had wanted a family. Lila and Edward married. 

In 1983, Monica saved her ex-lover, Rick Webber’s life by removing a tumor from his heart. At home, the otherwise happy couple fought over Alan’s son Jason. Alan beseeched Monica to open her heart to the delightful child and Monica resisted vehemently. When Jason’s guardian, Alice Grant, died her last request was that Alan give Jason to Heather. Alan was miserable and cried to Monica that Heather could not raise Jason. Monica finally agreed. In the months that followed, she came to love Jason as much as she did AJ. The family was embroiled in a blackmail and murder investigation concerning Monica’s distant cousin and Jimmie Lee’s mother but again, the Scorpios managed to prove them innocent. 

Things were not all sunshine and roses for Alan and Monica. In 1985, Alan’s jealousy was aroused when Monica developed a crush on a new doctor at General Hospital, Buzz Stryker. There was no affair, but in true dysfunctional form, the suspicion of Monica enabled Alan to start an affair with a nurse. Monica caught him and warned him to stop but was distracted by Sean Donely. The con-man was pulling a con, faking a heart attack, but could not fool Monica. Attracted to the devilish Irishman, Monica agreed not to tell on Sean. The Quartermaines, ever on the look out for an advantage, encouraged Monica to romance business secrets out of Sean. Monica began an affair with Sean and fell in love with him. Monica teamed up with Sean and bankrupted the Quartermaines. She kicked them out of “her house” and started divorce proceedings. 

Ever resourceful, Lila got the family reestablished by marketing a family recipe for relish called Pickle-Lila, but Alan was not content to allow Sean to get away with his fortune and his woman. He and Edward faked Alan’s death and Alan dropped out of sight. Pretending amnesia, Alan began a new life in Pautuck working for a country woman named Charity where he began to think about keeping his identity as Simon and not returning to his former life. Edward hired Tiffany Hill to break up Sean and Monica, but it didn’t come cheap. Tiffany wanted the local TV affiliate WLPC and 40% of the recovered Quartermaine fortune. 

Sean was arrested for the “murder” of Alan and turned to Tiffany, infuriating Monica, but it was exactly what Edward had plotted. He offered to give Sean proof that exonerated him if Sean returned their fortune. Sean agreed and Edward announced on the stand that Alan was alive. Ironically, Alan had suffered a blow to the head and now thought that he was Simon. Monica was determined to prove that Alan was faking, but instead the couple managed to fall back in love.  

The Quartermaine family was featured over the next few years in storylines that didn’t revolve around Alan and Monica. They introduced new Quartermaines, schemed to keep their fortunes and gain more wealth and were involved in yet another murder mystery from which Robert Scorpio exonerated them. The warring lovers were on a back burner holiday that allowed their fans to imagine they were happily settled into their marriage.


Part IV - Alan & Monica, Into the Breach

The year 1988 pitted Monica and Alan against each other in competition for Assistant Chief of Staff of General Hospital. Monica won the position and Alan publicly congratulated her, but his tender male ego was bruised. He devised a plan to sabotage Monica and set out to make it look as if she could not handle her administrative, surgical and family obligations. Alan encouraged AJ, who felt neglected in the shadow of his bright, over achiever brother Jason, to run away from home which was the last straw for over extended Monica who nearly suffered a nervous breakdown. Monica quit her new job and left town for a relaxing spa vacation where Monica relaxed with the help of stud muffin tennis pro, Ward. 

Realizing that she was in danger of falling into old habits and sleeping with the beautiful boy who was making a play for her attentions, Monica started for home but found out that Alan had left to search for his nephew; Tracy’s son Ned. Against her better judgment, she stayed one last night and sure enough could not resist the advances of the hunky younger man. She returned home to find that Alan had found his nephew and was bringing him back to Port Charles. Alan’s homecoming proved to be quite a shock to Monica’s system when Ned turned out to be her stud tennis pro, Ward. At first, Monica accused Ned of knowing who she was but he denied that and set out to seduce her again. 

Ned’s father and stepmother showed up and Monica noticed that Ned had a crush on his father’s wife. She tried to use that to her benefit in avoiding Ned’s continuous advances, but she was at a distinct disadvantage.  Her libido was on high. Monica doubted that she could hold off Ned’s heated advances, but proved to herself that she could after being stranded all night alone with him. The Ashtons became enmeshed in the quest for an elusive artifact called "The Dragon’s Bone" that involved the WSB and Tracy tried to get Ned to spy on the Q’s for her, but Ned was embroiled in a romance with student nurse, Dawn Winthrop.  

Alan was jealous of Ned, which made Monica push him toward Dawn. Ned needed no encouragement because he was falling for the feisty student, but Dawn was hiding a secret. Her adoptive mother had recently died and Dawn was in town to meet her biological mother: Monica. Monica was thrilled and so was Ned who bought Dawn an island off the coast of Port Charles, Spoon Island, which came complete with a spooky mansion that fascinated Ned and Dawn. Tracy returned and she and Alan immediately picked up where they had left off, in a perpetual whirlwind of bickering. Edward devised a plan to fake his death and with Ned’s help, he changed his will, leaving everything to Ned and took off on a trip from which he disappeared and was presumed dead. 

The quarreling Q’s devised a contest to see whether Ned or Alan would win control over ELQ. Each was to invest 2 million and the one who made the most return for their money would be the CEO of the company. The rift that lay just below the surface of Monica and Alan’s relationship bubbled up again when Monica took Ned’s side. Things took a turn for the bazaar when Lila began to talk to Edward and he appeared to be haunting the mansion. 

Perpetually uneasy with his own place in the family and in his relationship with Monica, Alan was fair game for newly single Lucy Coe who set her sites on Monica’s man. The Quartermaine boathouse made its first debut in 1989 when Lucy thought she was meeting Alan there for a secret assignation but was met by escaped convict Victor Jerome instead. When Lucy rejected his appeal to go on the run with her, Jerome impulsively swallowed a locket he had made for her and choked to death giving Lucy the excuse she needed to pull Alan closer. Lucy convinced Alan to hide the body, but he couldn’t live with a dead man in the freezer (the freezer’s first appearance on our screen) and told her he was calling the police. Lucy diverted him by seducing him and they dumped Jerome’s body in the lake. 

Suspicious of Alan’s bizarre behavior, Monica guessed he was having an affair with Lucy and Scott was accusing Lucy of the same thing. Robin and a friend found Jerome’s body washed up on shore of Spoon Island during a Halloween costume party the same night Monica nearly caught her husband and Ms. Coe in the act. The affair burned red hot even though Scott tried to end it by blackmailing Lucy with the swallowed locket that had killed Jerome, but Lucy and Alan were on fire. Although Alan refused to divorce Monica, Lucy still set her sites on becoming the next Mrs. Alan Quartermaine. 

Meantime, Monica and Ned were busy with Dawn who suddenly came to the realization that they had shared more than a Aunt/nephew relationship. Of course, Monica denied, denied, denied! Alan tried to show Monica that he loved her, but she continued to reject him and he continued to turn to Lucy, setting her up as his mistress in their very own love nest. Lucy was not about to accept second seat to Alan’s wife. Meanwhile, Lila continued to converse with the ghost of Edward. Tracy was forced out of ELQ and Dawn moved in to the mansion. Pretending to accept Dawn, Tracy set out to break up her son’s romance with Monica’s unacceptable daughter. 

Tracy managed to get her hands on a tape of Ned & Monica by having Decker Moss pose as Ward and seduce it from an attendant named Wendy from the spa. Lucy decided if Alan wouldn’t divorce Monica, she would get Monica to divorce Alan and hired a private eye to take pictures of Alan and her. It worked. They were divorced and Alan married a fire engine red clad Lucy, but typically neither he nor Monica was happy. Wendy showed up following “Ward” and decided to blackmail Monica. Monica had reason to believe that Lucy was the blackmailer and allowed the newlywed couple to move into the mansion. Monica moved to the Port Charles Hotel with Dawn, hoping that giving Lucy the house (in theory) would prevent Lucy from revealing her secret affair with Ned to her daughter. Lucy magnanimously gave Dawn the use of the mansion for her wedding to Ned, anticipating the social event of the season would cement her as the new social scion of Port Charles. 

Wendy took a job at the health club Body Heat and continued to turn the screws on Ned & Monica. Ned tried to neutralize the threat by having an affair with Wendy and even convinced Monica it was a necessary evil when Monica discovered them. On Dawn & Ned’s wedding day, Wendy turned up dead and Dawn found out about her mother and her groom, running off with Decker, the prime suspect in Wendy’s murder. Tracy & Monica worried about their kids and Monica and Alan grew closer again when AJ got in trouble at boarding school. Lucy faked a pregnancy when she felt she was loosing Alan. 

Desperate to make her lie true, Lucy got knocked up by Scott Baldwin and reigned triumphant when the tests proved to Alan there was a baby on the way. Scott wanted Lucy to leave Alan and come back to him. When she would not, he used Jerome’s locket to be appointed ELQ’s Chief Legal Counsel. Alan capitulated, but then legally withdrew from ELQ to prevent Scott from further manipulating him. Alan was sick of Lucy and her greed, but trapped in the marriage by the impending birth of his child. The Quartermaines were about to hit on hard times again as ELQ began to fail under Ned’s leadership. Dawn was murdered and Monica moved back in to her mansion.  

Paul Hornsby was hired to try to salvage ELQ, but things were grim. Tracy and Scott teamed up to break up Lucy and Alan and ended up in bed together, literally. Lucy convinced Alan to set up a generous trust fund for the baby and promised Scott that he could loot it liberally as long as he kept his mouth shut about being the real baby daddy. Tracy was not happy with Scott and Lucy’s closeness and proved to Scott that Lucy was double crossing him. In retaliation, Scott told Alan the truth and Alan forcibly threw Lucy out of the mansion. Lucy went into premature labor and the baby did not survive. Lila sent Lucy on a world cruise to help her recover from losing everything all at once: Scott, Alan, her marriage, her baby and her home.  Upon her return, she was divorced from Alan and given 25% share in ELQ in the dissolution.

Hornsby, as it turned out, was not the savior of ELQ but had hired a man named Harlan Barrett and Robert Scorpio’s brother Mac to help him sabotage the company so that they could buy up the ELQ stock at bargain prices.  

Our favorite divorced couple had a guilt trip laid on them when high school aged AJ ran off again after getting into trouble at boarding school. The couple bonded trying to help their alcoholic son AJ and was quietly remarried at City Hall. Another era was over but the intrepid lovers were far a far cry from done. 
 

Part V - “Once More With Feeling”

 

Between 1991 and 1995, it was the dawn of a new generation, but the Q’s were not relegated to perpetual back burner. Far from it, the Q’s took on more diverse storylines and were a part of a diversified canvas.  Tracy and Monica teamed up with Lucy to neutralize a threat to ELQ by Harlan Barrett when they each apparently seduced him and then collectively plastered him in to a full body cast. The quarreling Quartermaines stepped out of the spotlight as AJ and Jason were SORAS'd and came back to the show as front burner teenagers.

 

AJ returned first and promptly started a loan sharking business at Port Charles University, had a rival for a nurse named Sheila’s hand framed and fell into an affair with older woman Nancy Eckert, all the while trying to win a contest Lila sat up that would have given AJ or Ned their inheritance immediately if they could stay out of trouble for six months. When his behind the scenes machinations were found out, his parents banded together to try to force him to straighten up and persuaded Lila to cut off his inheritance and force AJ to get a job as an orderly at General Hospital.

 

Jason came back to town and entered Port Charles High School and proceeded to charm everyone he came in contact with, causing AJ to act out with even more outrageous behavior. They were pitted against each other as light against dark. Alan even refused to bail AJ out of jail for drunk driving hoping that “tough” love would help him to see the light.

 

Meanwhile, Monica recognized an emergency patient as her first love, David Langton. He had been the father of her daughter, Dawn, although he did not know that fact because Monica had not told him before he shipped off to Vietnam. To him, she had been “Nikki” although no one else had ever called her that before or since. Instead of Monica removing herself from treating her former lover, she and Bobbie decided to keep her conflict of interest under wraps. Monica confided to psychiatrist Tom Hardy about David and was advised to sort her thoughts and feelings out in a journal while Alan predictably became jealous of Monica’s attention to this patient. As David recovered, he and Monica talked about their past and she met his daughter, Nikki, who David had named after Monica, unbeknownst to his daughter. Nikki was not what could be called a "daddy’s girl" and carried a huge chip on her shoulder.

 

Tracy and Ned went head to head over “the virgin” Jenny Eckert who was in love with Tracy’s husband Pau,l but marrying Ned. Dillon’s impending birth assured Paul was staying with Tracy. AJ and Nikki connected over their seeming unloved status in their families. Nikki realized that her father and Monica were more than a doctor/patient and was unhappy about it. She had a screaming fight with David that resulted in his suffering a fatal heart attack. His death unsettled Monica, but she had confided in David that she loved Alan and they would never be anymore than friends now that they had met again.

 

Feeling bad after David’s death, Monica invited the orphaned Nikki to live at the mansion. Nikki was actually spying on Monica, looking for proof that David and Monica had a past together. Nikki began to date AJ even though she wanted Eric Simpson. Monica caught Nikki searching her bedroom and threw Nikki out, but Nikki had ripped a page out of Monica’s private journal. During a huge birthday party at the Quartermaines Nikki had Monica served with papers suing her and Bobbie for malpractice. With the unlikely help of Scott Baldwin, it was proven that David had a prior heart condition which absolved Monica, Bobbie and the hospital from liability. Nikki left town when she lost, but she had been dating AJ and he followed her and brought her back to Port Charles, much to Alan’s dismay. Alan blew his top and uttered the words that AJ had always known lay right below the surface: “Why can’t you be more like your brother, Jason?” When AJ wrecked his car drunk driving later that night, almost killing him self and Nikki, she lied and covered for him, saying she had been driving. His parents suspected the truth.

 

Jason went to the front burner in a high school romance featuring Karen, Jagger, Robin and eventually AJ & Ned’s business partner Julia’s little sister, trust fund baby Brenda. Almost to spite his parents and despite his red hot affair with Julia, AJ and Nikki moved closer and began living together. Petty disagreements were put aside when Jason was lost at sea. AJ would not allow them to call of the search and convinced Alan to go back out looking for his brother, finally earning his father's respect when they found Jason and his friends. Nikki decided to marry AJ for his fortune and set out to help him get it together, including making up with Alan & Monica, and the young couple ended up moving back in to the mansion. Alan was not responsive. He and Monica knew that Nikki had an ulterior motive, but as AJ began to show signs of emotional growth and improvement, they kept quiet.

 

AJ was happy until his wedding day when Alan bribed Nikki with a big fat check to leave AJ at the alter after informing her that AJ would be disinherited if they married. AJ paid a private detective to find Nikki, but Alan paid him more not to find her. AJ went back to drinking and Monica was furious with Alan for betraying their son. When AJ passed out in the garage with the motor running, Alan & Monica feared it had been a suicide attempt. AJ went to rehab, but his parents continued to argue over what Alan had done. When AJ came home from rehab he continued searching for the answers as to why Nikki had left him. Even when AJ found out about the bribe, they continued to fight over it!

 

Alan befriended Jason’s girlfriend Karen’s mother, Rhonda Wexler. It was not a sexual relationship, but Monica didn’t like it. Monica wondered to Bobbie if she was losing Alan to Rhonda and Bobbie advised Monica to make him jealous to get him back. She made up a suitor and got Alan’s attention and ultimately, Alan told Rhonda that they could not be friends. Later, Jason told Alan that Rhonda’s ex husband, Ray, had sexually assaulted Karen. Alan called Rhonda and just happened to interrupt Ray beating her senseless. Alan rushed to Rhonda’s and fought Ray, who struck his head and died. Not wanting Monica to know that he had been at Rhonda’s, he anonymously called an ambulance for the unconscious Rhonda and dragged Ray’s body away. AJ later discovered the body behind the petrol plant, saw his father’s monogrammed tie clip and confronted Alan, who confessed.  Trying to clear his dad, AJ framed Jagger for the crime ,but Alan & Monica talked him in to clearing the innocent man. He did so.

 

AJ also protected Alan from being blackmailed by Damian Smith by having Luke steal the evidence which was summarily stolen by Katherine Bell who used it to blackmail Ned in to marrying her. Later, when Katherine was killed, all of the Quartermaines were suspects, but the butler did it. Reginald had killed Katherine to protect his beloved Lila. AJ and Jason were pitted against each other on opposite sides of an incinerator project, causing their parents to worry over their fervor for their respective sides of the project.

 

Monica found a lump on her breast, but avoided having tests taken for a long time. By the time she was diagnosed with breast cancer, it had progressed to the stage where she needed an operation and faced a mastectomy.  Alan was a rock for her and their tender love making the night before the surgery is etched into the hearts of their fans even to this day. When Monica woke up, she was bereft and refused to fight to recover, but Alan and Bobbie forced her to begin chemotherapy. Monica began to feel better when she and Sean Donely shared a flirtatious interaction as Sean investigated Bradley Ward’s murder. At Monica’s last check up after chemo, they found another lump and Monica reeled from the thought of more treatments.

 

Alan was at a loss to comfort Monica because she had been very impatient with him and his attentions over the course of her treatments had seemed to do nothing but irritate her. Alan and Bobbie’s friendship began to deepen as they consoled each other. Monica decided to go to a treatment center in Arizona for her next round of treatments and gave Alan the cold shoulder right up to her departure. His friendship with Bobbie helped him through.

 

Monica bonded with her group who were all fighting cancer and formed a special bond with a woman named Paige Bowen. After Monica rebuffed Paige’s help, Paige asked her why she would not let anyone help her and thinking about that called Alan. Alan flew to her side immediately. She was very self conscious when alone with Alan and avoided any alone time with him, including Paige and her 11 year old daughter in everything, until Alan talked to her about needing to be near her. They came together in frustration and made love but they were both saddened and felt very alone even in the same bed. When Monica received a good prognosis and returned to Port Charles, she brought Paige and Emily home with her. Paige was not going to recover from her cancer and said that Emily had no other living family. Alan and Monica offered to adopt Emily.

 

After Paige’s death, AJ and Jason both rallied to help make their adopted sister feel loved and welcome even as they were at odds over AJ’s interest in Jason’s girl friend Keisha Ward. Monica was jealous that Emily seemed closer to Alan than to her but was pleased that Emily felt comfortable. Monica threw herself in to creating a wellness group at General Hospital but held Alan at arm’s length. Meantime Bobbie began to think of Alan as more than a friend.

 

Part VI - From Here to Eternity

Monica struggled to get more than her strength back. She had no libido either until she began a flirtation with Dr. Pierce Dorman. The subsequent affair with the young doctor was just what the doctor ordered and seemed to help Monica get back to some semblance of normalcy. When Monica stopped the affair, wanting to put her marriage back together, Pierce used his status as drug pusher to get Emily hooked on heroin and also filed sexual harassment charges against Monica, which very nearly cost her her career.

Jason had been in the car with AJ while AJ was driving drunk and they wrecked. Jason suffered irreparable brain damage and had no memory of his life or his parents! Alan, Monica. Edward and Lila were crushed by Jason’s inability to remember them or anything about his life but were even more unsettled when Jason spurned any contact with them. He didn’t want to know them and their feelings for him were confusing. Subsequently, he formed an attachment to Sonny Corinthos who had no emotional attachment to him and was not upset that he had no memories.

When Monica snapped and kidnapped Pierce, holding him in a sleazy motel on the edge of town she intended to force him to admit on tape that he was selling drugs to children, but he would not and she found herself holding a hostage and not knowing what to do with him. Jason came to her rescue and used his mob affiliation to make charges against her go away. Monica began to try to get close to Alan again but Alan was the one who was out of touch. He had become addicted to pain killers. The family tried to help Alan but his addiction had reached junkie status and they could not reach him. Monica took over as Chief of Staff and kicked Alan out of the house. Even in the depths of his addiction, Alan stepped in and saved Mac Scorpio’s life. That seemed to be a turning point for Alan, who was finally able to get professional help and kick his addiction.

The Quartermaines became back drop for their children’s adventures. Jason claimed Carly Benson’s son as his own and the family struggled to understand him and his life, wishing nothing more than to be a part of their grandson’s life. Jason had decided he hated all of them and was barely civil to his mother and grandmother and didn’t bother to fake civility to anyone else. Alan and Monica were thrilled to find out that AJ was Michael’s biological father and although they mistrusted Carly, tried to welcome her in to the family when she married AJ and betrayed Jason, framing Jason for kidnapping Michael. During this crisis, Monica and Alan solidified their relationship and seemed to be more in love than ever and were thrilled when Monica suspected she was pregnant. They thought they might have another chance to be the kind of parents they had always wanted to be, having been too self centered to be the first time around. They dreamed of being parents to another child like they were for Emily and regretted how they had parented their sons.

The crushing news that Monica was experiencing menopause and was not pregnant really took the wind out of their sails. Their relationship continued to be a rocky one.  Skye Chandler showed up and showed them proof that she was Alan’s daughter with one time college flame Rae Cummings, which put Monica in a very foul mood. Her trademark “Get out of MY HOUSE” really go a work out as she demanded that Rae and Skye, Alan and Skye or all three get out of her house regularly. Although Monica finally managed to be rid of Rae, she couldn’t shake Skye as Skye and Alan grew closer together. Things didn’t go any better between Alan’s two girls when Skye informed them that AJ showed signs of drinking again. Monica would not see it because that would make Skye correct. The constant strain on their marriage was quickly becoming the norm. Perhaps it was his unsatisfied longing for true love to be real that allowed Alan to believe that AJ was really in love with Courtney. He helped them escape from Sonny  then later found out that AJ was using Courtney to get near Michael, who had been stolen from him and was responsible for his return to drinking. When AJ moved in to the mansion with his new bride, Courtney, his father were sickened to see how he was playing the wide eyed innocent who was raised in a casino by a hootchie-momma mother. Monica tried to believe in AJ.

It all became too much for Monica (again) when Rae Cummings returned to town to talk with Alan, so Monica served Alan with divorce papers. The divorce was stopped when Monica was convinced by Jason of AJ’s motives vis-à-vis Courtney. She and Alan had been fighting over her support of AJ’s getting Michael back. When she told AJ he had to stop manipulating Courtney or move it saved their shaky marriage. Their reconciliation was brief. Rick Webber came back to town and Monica reveled in his attention and in the jealousy it aroused in Alan. With Rick’s murder, they might have had some peace except that Tracy returned to town with the news that Skye was not really Alan’s biological child. Alan was distraught, but Monica was elated. This may have strained their marriage to its limits, especially when Alan promised Skye that she would always be his daughter and that biology could be damned.

Emily returned to Port Charles with secret breast cancer and Alan and Monica rallied behind their daughter, seeing that she got the best treatments available. They were besides themselves with anguish when, no matter what medical science offered, Emily slipped closer and closer to death. They were thrilled when a magic love dream saved Emily, even though she ended up breaking Zander’s heart and causing his death. The entire family was shocked when AJ, fresh from losing his wife to Jason, after having paid Coleman to stalk her so that he could be her savior, cleaned out their bank accounts and left town leaving them broke.

Buried treasure would save them, though and Emily’s new husband Nikolas Cassidine (also recently bankrupted) knew where a Quartermaine ship had sunk in the harbor hundreds of years ago. They planned to salvage the treasure and refill their coffers. Things did not go smoothly as the treasure was stolen twice before the families could auction it off and the Port Charles Hotel burned down on the night of the auction. Those trapped on the roof drew lots to see who would be helicoptered out first and Monica persuaded Alan to go. They eventually all escaped. Lila died soon after, leaving the family devastated, and further divided by a “contest” to see who would be the most “virtuous” to earn her money. Justus won. Alan and Monica were both disqualified on the first day for conspiring to make one of the others look bad.

The Q’s had to band together against Heather Webber, who swooped in and married Edward in an effort to get close to Luke, who would end up married to Tracy. Alan started drinking heavily after Justus told him that AJ had been killed in an altercation after having kidnapped Michael. When A.J. showed up with Michael, Alan gave him sanctuary. Alan finally turned his back on A.J., causing his son to shoot him in the back. That night, as both father and son (A.J. fell over the banister) recuperated in the hospital, someone murdered AJ.  Alan blamed Jason for AJ’s death and was very angry in his grief. Monica was determined to divorce Alan as AJ’s death drove them farther apart than they had ever been. Alan teamed up with Michael’s psychiatrist to try to wrest his grandson away from Sonny and return AJ’s son to his real family, but as always Sonny won. The shrink was found to be the murderer.  

Monica was further disgusted by Alan when she found out that Alan had stopped AJ from killing Jason back right after his brain injury. She felt that Alan should have had AJ put away for that attempted murder and that every subsequent bad thing that ever happened to AJ and Jason since then was Alan’s fault. When Jason suffered an aneurism and had to have brain surgery that left him once again with no memories, Alan saw it as a chance to get his son back. He wanted to make Jason believe that things had been very different for them all, but Monica told Jason the truth, that he hated them. It crushed Alan. 

In the final years before Alan’s death, the Quartermaines stayed together, helping Edward through Justus’ death. They banded together against Luke once he was Mr. Tracy Quartermaine and they shared some hot times when Alan discovered Viagra. Jason brought Michael over several times to allow him to visit with his grandparents.  Monica glorified Jason, setting him up on a pedestal after AJ’s death while Alan was hopeful that he could once again have a relationship with his remaining son. Monica and Skye continued to butt heads, but Monica was not as resentful of Skye as she once was. The intrepid doctors weathered the virus outbreak that took the life of their good friend, Tony Jones, and lived through the inappropriate romance of Emily and Sonny Corinthos, although it almost killed them. 

Alan was killed February 26, 2007 while being held captive at the Metro Court Hotel by James Craig. The murder was particularly gruesome because it played out on television. As a horrified and hysterical Monica looked on Alan was forced to walk through a hail of bullets while suffering massive coronary.  He survived long enough to make it to General Hospital and hold one last conversation with Monica. The couple admitted their love for each other and finally as Alan’s last breath left him, the war between the quarrelling Quartermaine’s ended. He died waiting to talk to Jason to tell him that he loved him. 

Monica has struggled with Alan’s death and is involved in a fight for the Chief of Staff’s position with a pencil pusher named Ford. The family has turned their back on Skye because of her involvement with the terrorist who murdered Alan. Tracy is being haunted by Alan for stealing the fortune he left to Jason’s children and Monica can sometimes feel Alan’s ghostly presence as she mourns for her lost love.