Written in 21 minutes. No time for edits.

Brad Cooper was not having the best of days even before Tracy Quartermaine ambushed him at the Metro Court. He’d just wanted to get a little bit drunk to forget the crime he’d committed earlier that day, but of course—the motivation for said crime just had to check in.

She sat next to him at the bar and ordered a glass of white wine, waiting for the bartender to wait on another customer at the other end of the bar before she spoke. “Well?”

“It’s done,” Brad muttered.

“And my results?”

“I was going to mail them to you,” Brad said. He sipped his whiskey, trying to look casual. He knew he actually just looked like someone trying to act normal. He’d always been a terrible actor. He dug the envelope out of his back pocket and laid it on the bar.

Tracy set her purse down—over the envelope and sipped her wine. “Was I right?”

With a shuddering sigh, Brad nodded. “Yeah. The kid is definitely hers.”

“And what about the other test?”

“Right again. He’s not the father.” Brad paused. “And he’s no relation to the actual father.”

Tracy pursed her lips. “Interesting. I’d hoped for that, but that does make me curious.”

Of course it did — Tracy had paid him to deliver a set of results of to Elizabeth Webber the declared Victor Lord, Jr. Was not a match for the DNA of either Sam McCall or Jason Morgan. The actual test had matched Sam, but not Jason.

Tracy had also wanted to know if Jason Morgan was related to Franco in any way—and since he wasn’t, Brad knew that it meant there was probably still a mysterious twin brother floating around out there but he didn’t care.

“If he’s not related to you,” Brad said as Tracy looked at him, sharply, “Why do you care if the mom gets him back?”

Tracy raised her brow. “That’s an interesting question. I shouldn’t. But I know this gold digger. She gets him back now, that idiot will probably stop the divorce.” She frowned at him. “Don’t get cold feet now.”

“I just—”

“Because the deed is done. There’s no turning back. I protected my family and that child from a vicious con artist who only cares about money. You protected your job. Everyone wins here.” She finished her wine, picked up the purse from the bottom so she could deftly slide the envelope inside.

“Ms. Quartermaine—”

“And if you think you can turn on me, remember who I am, who you are, and why you’ll only lose.”

And with that, she sauntered out of the room, confident in her privilege and position while Brad just ordered another whiskey. Maybe if he drank more, he’d be able to forget what he’d done.

——

“I am not ready for this,” Elizabeth declared the night before school was scheduled to start. This was the first year that Aiden would be attending—he was going to the two-year-old program for a few hours.

“You said the same thing when Cameron started kindergarten,” Jason told her as he handed her the last form. “This is for field trips—”

Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. “I thought about homeschooling him, to be honest,” she told him. She scribbled her name at the bottom of the form. “Why is there so much paperwork? Ever year, the school mails like eight extra forms.”

She caught a glance at a picture across the room—a photograph of all three of her boys the day she’d brought Aiden home from the hospital—the only photo she had of the three of them. She swallowed hard. “Jake would be in first grade this year.”

Jason met her eyes, then looked at the photo, before turning back to the paperwork. “Yeah, I know.”

“I wonder what kind of student he’d be,” Elizabeth said. “Cameron still likes school, you know, but he’s in third this year, and I think he’s going to start hating it soon. But I think Jake would have loved it.”

“Elizabeth…”

“I’m sorry.” She tossed her pen down and pressed her hands to her face. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t do that.”

“It’s okay.” He squeezed her hand. “Hey, it’s okay,” Jason repeated when she looked at him. “Why do you think Jake would have loved school?”

“Oh.” She smiled even as a tear slid down her cheek. “He was good at focusing. Even as a baby, you know? He could play with one toy for twenty minutes. He was like you. A-and I think maybe he would have just—he would have been good at sitting, and reading. And maybe he would like math like you do.”

“Numbers make sense,” Jason told her as he slid closer and enveloped her in a one arm hug. “You can rearrange words to do a thousand things, but numbers never change. I liked that after the accident.”

“Cameron hates sitting still. He loves running and jumping and hiding, and just—he’ll be the class clown. He loves attention. Jake didn’t—” On a shuddering sigh, she forced herself to take a deep breath. “I’m okay. It’s just—it hits so hard in these moments, and I think—I don’t know. Maybe it always will.”

“Because there will always be something the boys are doing and Jake isn’t,” Jason said softly. “It’s okay—”

“You don’t have to say that. It’s not—it’s why I fell apart last year, you know. Why I ended up in Shady Brooke. I kept seeing Jake everywhere, I was making all those mistakes—I’m pretty sure I killed Siobhan—” Elizabeth sighed. “I thought about—when we were talking about Sam and her baby—I thought about not helping.”

She looked at him but his expression didn’t change, so she continued. “Because I didn’t want—I thought you were right, and why did she get to have her baby back? And then Brad gave me those results, and I wanted to throw them away—I wanted to hurt her because she was going to get what I couldn’t—”

“Why didn’t you?” Jason said when she didn’t say anything else. “Why’d you give them to me? Why didn’t you open them?”

“Because—because I wanted you to be okay,” she admitted. “I knew you wanted it to be true, and I—I’m the reason Jake is gone. I messed up, and I let our baby die.”

“Elizabeth—”

“And I know—I knew if you brought Danny home, you could get back together with Sam, and then you’d get to have him—and I—” She bit her lip. “That sounds insane, doesn’t it?”

“No, it doesn’t.” He pulled her close again, tightening his arm around her shoulders. “We’re going to be okay. You didn’t let Jake die, Elizabeth. You loved him. And it’s okay if we think about how he would have grown up. I want to do that.” His voice faltered. “It’s the closest I’ll ever get to being his father again.”

She closed her eyes, leaned her head against his shoulder. “He would have loved your motorcycle.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Cameron loves it, too. He wants to drive it.”

Jason laughed, his voice a bit rusty. “Just like his mother”

+11