Written in 20 minutes. No time for edits or typos.

Elizabeth nervously played with the straw on her iced tea, then looked up with relief when Spinelli finally came in through Kelly’s door. He waved, then weaved through the tables to join her in the corner.

“Trying to be incognito?” he asked. “This must be really top secret.”

“Not top secret—” Elizabeth waited as a waitress came over and Spinelli gave her a drink order. When they were alone again, she continued, “It’s more that I just don’t want anyone to hear. I might be wrong—” She wanted to be wrong. Oh, man, so much. “It’s just…something is so weird and I can’t pretend that—”

“Back up.” Spinelli held up hand. “Whose results are we talking about?” He hesitated. “This isn’t, like, before, right? With Aiden? Or Jake? Like what level are we talking about?”

“A few months ago, Jason was talking with Tea Delgado about her son.” Elizabeth sighed. “This was, um, back in early August, I think. Before the whole water thing. And Tea mentioned that her son—you know, Victor?—he has this genetic illness. An illness that is…common in the Cassadine family.”

She saw the moment Spinelli knew what she was referring to. “Oh. Damn. You don’t mean—”

“Jason thought it was strange. And there were a few other things—namely, that Todd Manning was involved—that it all kind of happened in the same area—that Sam kind of…had a rough time—” Elizabeth sighed. “Anyway—he didn’t get a chance to do anything with his suspicions because—”

“The world went insane for a while?” Spinelli finished. “Yeah, okay. So how’d you get involved?”

“Well, he told me. In the hospital. After Ewen—” She bit her lip. “And I—I know how much he wanted it to be true. He blames himself.”

“Stone Cold does like to make everything his fault,” Spinelli said with shrug. “It’s one of his fatal flaws. You ran the test?”

“I don’t have the ability to just—” She gestured, then broke off when the waitress brought his drink. “I can’t just get a blood test run on my own. Patrick did me a favor, and it went through the system like a normal test. It wasn’t even a full DNA test — just one looking for enough markers. Those are faster.”

“Right, right. Then what?”

“Brad Cooper brought back the results,” Elizabeth said. “He gave them to me, and I gave them to Jason. Unopened—” she added. “I had nothing—I wouldn’t—”

“Elizabeth.” Spinelli shook his head. “I know you. Even if you’d thought about it, you’d never go through with it. So—Jason was the first person to see the results?”

“Yeah, he said that we were wrong, and we just—we put it away.” She bit her lip. They’d put it away and continued on the path they’d already been traveling. Back to each other.

“So why are you suspicious now? What’s been going on?”

“Brad Cooper. He’s acting weird around me—running from me, just being—really shady.” Elizabeth made a face. “I didn’t really know him before the test—but I know—you’re dating that lab tech, right? Ellie?”

“Yeah. She could run the test for you again if I can’t find anything on the main frame—” Spinelli hesitated. “Wait—Brad Cooper? Ellie said something about him.”

“It’s what made me wonder about all of this,” Elizabeth continued. “Because I know Steven was talking to the head of the department — they were going to make cuts. Layoffs. And Brad had only been hired a few months ago. He would have been first in line.”

“But ELQ made a donation after the water crisis,” Spinelli said. “Oh. You think—”

“Tracy Quartermaine,” Elizabeth finished. “Who does not like Sam.”

“No, I, uh, remember vividly how much she does not like Sam.” Spinelli scratched his nose. “You think she found out? Why would she care? It’s not like it was his kid.”

Elizabeth looked at her iced tea, pushed it across the table. She didn’t want to say it outloud, didn’t want to admit that everything she had right now was built on a foundation that was about to crumble.

Because if she was right, Jason was going to be able to give Sam back the child she’d lost—the loss he blamed himself for. And Sam would forgive him.

“Elizabeth.”

She looked up to meet Spinelli’s kind eyes. “You’re doing the right thing,” he said. “And this is how it went down, you’re going to do something really great for Sam. I wish I could do the same for you. I wish I could bring Jake back.”

“Me, too.” She sighed. “I think Tracy knew what we all knew—if Jason had been the reason Sam got her son back—”

“The divorce might not have been finalized.” Spinelli grimaced. “You don’t think that’s still on the table, do you?”

“I think,” Elizabeth said carefully, “that when this happened three months ago, that was a definite possibility. I don’t know about now. I can’t think that far ahead.”

“Okay.” And gratefully, Spinelli did not push her. “Well, I’ve got some good news for you,” he told her. “Ellie hates Brad, so I don’t even need to do anything nefarious. I can just…ask her to look up the test probably, and I can tell from there if it was messed with. Can you get me another set of samples for her to test?”

“I don’t know. That might be harder,” she admitted. “But let’s start with the original test result and see what comes up.”

—

Jason did not like shopping, and normally asked Carly to pick up something he needed. He’d give her a list and his credit card and that would be the end of it.

But he knew if he asked Carly to help him shop for Elizabeth and the boys for Christmas, he’d have to listen to her complain. Asking Michael meant he might tell his mother—

He just wasn’t in the mood.

So he stood at the jewelry counter in Wyndham’s, staring at the tray of necklaces, wondering why it was so hard to pick something out for Elizabeth after all the years they’d known each other.

“She’s not really a necklace person, is she?”

Jason turned around to find Sam standing behind him, a hesitant smile on her face.

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