Carly Benson spent Michael’s first months trying to keep A.J. Quartermaine from learning he had fathered her child.

She conceived Michael during a drunken encounter with A.J. while she was involved with Tony Jones. Tony expected to raise the baby, but Michael’s blood type ruled him out after Carly gave birth prematurely in December 1997. Carly feared that A.J. and the Quartermaines would use their money and influence to take her son, so she let Jason Morgan claim him instead.

Carly developed postpartum depression and left Port Charles for treatment while Michael still faced serious medical problems. Jason took over the bottles, diapers, hospital visits and decisions. He authorized the heart surgery Michael needed and named him Michael after Sonny Corinthos.

Tony had spent months expecting Carly’s baby to become part of his family. Already carrying the grief of losing B.J., he broke down when he learned Michael could not be his son and kidnapped the infant. Jason eventually brought Michael home, but the larger paternity secret survived until Robin Scorpio told A.J. that Carly’s baby was his son.

A.J. wanted Michael in his life. Carly married him rather than risk losing custody and moved Michael into the Quartermaine mansion with Alan, Monica, Edward and Lila. A.J. finally had his son under his roof, but Jason remained the familiar man Michael had known from infancy.

Carly soon became involved with Sonny, and Michael moved again. Sonny became part of his everyday life and eventually the man he called Dad. A.J. still had parental rights, so in 2001 Sonny had him abducted, bound and hung from a meat hook until he signed them away. Sonny later adopted Michael.

In 2005, A.J. worked with Faith Rosco to kidnap Michael, Morgan and Kristina. He separated Michael from the others, staged his death and told him Carly and Sonny had abandoned him. After Michael returned home, he later saw psychiatrist Asher Thomas smother A.J. with a pillow in a hospital room. Fear and confusion distorted Michael’s memory until he believed he had killed his own father. Port Charles also believed A.J. had died.

By ten, Michael had spent most of his childhood surrounded by adults who solved problems with threats, guns and violence. After the murders of his nanny Leticia and his aunt Emily, he got a gun because he thought he could protect his family. Instead, he accidentally shot Kate Howard.

Sonny tried to steer him toward the legitimate coffee business, but Michael still stood inside Sonny’s warehouse in April 2008 when a hit man aiming for Sonny fired a bullet into his head. The injury left him comatose for about a year.

Experimental surgery brought Michael back in 2009, with Drew Garrett taking over the role. He woke as a teenager struggling with anger, impulsiveness and missing memories while Carly, Sonny and Jason tried to control how much he learned about the shooting.

Claudia Zacchara had helped set the hit on Sonny in motion. When Sonny finally exposed her, Claudia kidnapped a heavily pregnant Carly and fled. Carly went into labor during the escape and gave birth to Josslyn in a cabin. When Claudia tried to take the newborn, Michael arrived and found Carly fighting to keep her baby. He grabbed an axe handle and struck Claudia in the head, killing her.

Carly, Sonny and Jason tried to hide Michael’s role, but testimony during Sonny’s trial exposed what happened. Michael admitted killing Claudia, and the judge sent him to Pentonville just as Chad Duell took over the role.

Jason arranged to be sent there too because he understood what could happen to Sonny Corinthos’ teenage son in prison. Inmate Carter reached Michael first and raped him.

Michael came home with nightmares, discomfort with physical contact and no easy way to talk about what Carter had done. Sam arranged for him to meet Abby Haver, hoping she could help him with his fear of intimacy. Their first encounter ended when Michael became uncomfortable, but they continued talking and gradually built a relationship.

When Abby’s abusive former boyfriend attacked her, the sight triggered Michael’s memories of Carter. Michael finally told Jason what had happened in prison and later trusted Abby with the truth. With her beside him, he finished high school and began working at ELQ after Edward Quartermaine gave both of them jobs.

For the first time, Michael could spend time with the Quartermaines without a custody battle deciding why he was there. He and Abby began building a life together, but in 2011 she traveled to Chicago for work. Michael was talking to her on the phone when a construction accident killed her.

By then, Michael had lived several different versions of family. He began life as A.J. Quartermaine’s hidden son, spent his infancy in Jason Morgan’s care and grew up calling Sonny Corinthos Dad. Through Edward and ELQ, he also began finding his own place inside the Quartermaine family.

The adults had spent Michael’s childhood deciding where he belonged. As he entered adulthood, Michael finally began making that choice for himself