“We came to get Lorna’s things,” Jamie informed Carl and Rachel tersely as all four of them stood in the Cory foyer. “She’s moving in with me and the girls.”

“Moving in…” Rachel’s head swiveled Lorna’s way. “Does that mean....

“I’m pregnant, Dennis,” Olivia informed her ex – right after he’d informed her of his newly rekindled relationship with Marley.

“Come on....

“Tell me I’m not dreaming,” Jamie begged, unable to stop himself from laughing with both joy and incredulity as he lay in bed, curled up against Lorna.

“You’re not dreaming....

“I’m sorry, you’re....

Dennis waited until after Iris had gone flying out of his apartment upon hearing that Sarah and Grant were ostensibly back together to turn towards Marley, still sitting naked in his bed, wrapped in only a sheet to observe, “So that’s why you came to me. Because Grant went back to Sarah.”

“Not at all,” she swore. “I don’t know anything about....

“What can I do for you, Mr. Winthrop?” Chase barely looked up from the stacks of paperwork on his desk, briefly making eye contact with Cass before diving back in.

“Actually....

“Marley….” Dennis’ mouth opened and closed not unlike a goldfish’s at the sight of her standing on his doorstep, looking positively ready to burst. He hadn’t seen or so much as spoken to her since the… slip-up… with Olivia, and Dennis had been hoping for....

“Hello, darling,” Iris brushed Dennis’ cheek with her lips, already on the way into his apartment. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by to see how….”

“Your baby boy is....

“Anna is an idiot,” Donna fumed to Matt, hovering over his hospital bed, stroking his forehead at the same time as her other hand smacked the blanket for emphasis. “To say that you were dead – “

“She said she thought....

“What’s wrong? What happened?” Kirkland asked as soon as he walked through Sarah’s door and realized she’d been crying.

““Grant....

Donna told herself that she had made an infinitely reasonable decision.....

“How was your lunch?” Iris inquired idly, stepping into Amanda’s office after she’d said good-by to Kevin.

“Undisturbed....

Amanda looked at Jamie. Who was looking at Lorna. Who was kissing Morgan.

Who heard them come in. And so he....

“How was your lunch?” Iris inquired idly, stepping into Amanda’s office after she’d said good-by to Kevin.

“Undisturbed....

“What are you going to do?” Amanda demanded of Olivia – after the latter had walked in on Sam’s ex-wife and Lorna’s ex-husband in a most… picturesque position on the floor of his apartment.

Granted....

“What’s the matter with you....

“And to what do I owe this magnanimous offer to spare me The Wrath of Carl,” Chase inquired politely. “As long as I do what you say, of course?”

“You are nothing....

“I came to warn you,” Rachel informed Russ, ignoring the look of distaste on his face when he recognized who was standing on his doorstep. She invited herself in, figuring he wouldn’t. Not now. Not for a long time.

“If this is about....

“Yes,” Lucas said, before Alice had even finished asking him about Dennis and Marley’s accusation. “They’re telling the truth.”

“I thought so....

“What in the world could they possibly be discussing for all this time....

“It was never about me,” Marley told Dennis, her eyes dry, her voice hollow, her entire, stoic visage suggesting she’d be a fool to expect anything different. “Even when a man tries to kill me, I’m not the one he’s after.”

“Is that what Lucas....

“Isn’t this thrilling?” Donna trilled to Matt as they followed a suitcase-laden bellboy into their hotel room in Switzerland.  Donna thrust open the curtains and gazed rapturously upon the city of Zurich.  “Cass and Frankie believe they have the market cornered on romantic sleuthing expeditions.  And look at us now!  We’ll give them a run for their money!”

Though thrilled to see Donna so happy....

“Call him off,” Lorna ordered Carl upon finally catching him alone for the first time in days. Always before, Rachel or one of the kids had been hovering on the periphery, making Lorna feel like the ultimate outsider within their reunited family unit. So what else was new?

“You know there is nothing I wouldn’t do for you, my dear....

“Welcome back, Carl,” Frankie attempted to summon up as genuine of a smile as possible. “To the land of the living, I mean.”

“As one who has been through the experience....

“What the hell, Morgan?” Amanda demanded after Lorna had taken off, eager to avoid any further discussion of her marriage to Jamie or any other details of this alleged past she couldn’t remember. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see....

“It’s good to see you, Felicia,” Rachel told her friend gently, realizing the effort it must have taken her to set foot once again inside the Cory Mansion.

“I came to....

“Why did you tell your guests that you’d known all along about my plan to rescue Lorna, Elizabeth and Cory?” Carl wondered, “Why did you lie for me, Rachel?”

“Because....

“So I guess there’s someone you remember, after all,” Amanda observed dryly, walking in on Morgan and Lorna – Lorna! – sharing a laugh in the Cory foyer, neither seemingly harboring a care in the world.

Lorna turned....

“I know because…” Rachel took a deep breath, bracing herself for their inevitable shock and horror. “Because I was in on Carl’s plan from the start. I understood why he had to take off with Cory, Elizabeth and Lorna. And I gave him my blessing to do it.”

No one moved. No one breathed. Certainly no one spoke....

“Kirkland!” Grant eagerly stepped forward to envelop his son in a hug, pretending not to notice that the boy barely responded in kind.

“Hey, Grant....

“I’m sorry,” Jamie’s wife asked, politely if somewhat distractedly.  “Do I know you?”

“Hello, Rachel,” Carl’s voice boomed from the doorway. With Elizabeth by his side, he studied the assembled crew: Rachel, Felicia, Lucas, Jamie, Alice, Eduardo… along with Cory and Lorna. “Everyone…”

TWO YEARS LATER....

“Hi, Mom,” Rachel’s son said. Rachel’s son who’d been gone for three years. Rachel’s son who was supposed to be dead. Along with his sister. And his father.

“Cory....

She’d asked Cass for the truth. And Frankie had gotten it.

Her husband stood in front of her, looking as if he wished he were anyplace else at the moment, and telling Frankie, “I can’t think of anything more....

Olivia on his lap, her hands on his shoulders, her mouth on his, Jamie allowed her to kiss him. He even kissed her back. But, only for a moment.

As soon as Jamie’s brain caught up....

“Hold up,” Cass ordered as, soon as they brought her home from the hospital, Charlie made a mad dash for the stairs without so much as a word to either him or Frankie.

She paused, hand still on the railing, and half turned to ask....

“Aren’t you violating your own restraining order?” Olivia wondered when Donna showed up at the Matthews home.

“It’s been rescinded.”

“Jamie,” Rachel said, facing her son for the first time since Chase Hamilton broke the news that Rachel had gotten a phone call from Cory about Lorna… and kept it a secret.

Jamie only nodded in return, swallowing hard....

Cass didn’t say anything. There was nothing for Cass to say. He simply sat with Frankie in the hospital waiting room, both of them waiting....

“Don’t let me interrupt,” Amanda drawled, after her entrance to the prison’s visitor area effectively quenched the laugh Kevin and Lila were sharing.

“Amanda.” Kevin stood....

Cass didn’t say anything. There was nothing for Cass to say. He simply sat with Frankie in the hospital waiting room, both of them waiting....

“Oh, come on,” Olivia blurted out, looking over her shoulder at Jamie as if this might be some kind of a practical joke. But, judging from the concern on his face in response to Olivia being charged with attempted murder, if this was, in fact, a joke, then Jamie definitely wasn’t in on it.

“I was kidding....

“Don’t just stand there,” Frankie ordered her daughter. “Call 911, tell them to send the fire department. I’ve got to....

“Doug Rivera is your… son?” Felicia choked out, wondering if maybe she’d slipped and been drinking after all.

“Eduardo Rivera,” the man....

“Thanks for coming.” John looked from Charlie to Frankie to Cass, each sitting in his office, neither looking particularly pleased to be there.

“Is there a problem....

Dennis was waiting for Donna in front of C-Squared’s building. He’d called and told her there was an emergency. She needed to get down here right away.

Donna did....

“You’re such an amateur,” Iris drawled to Marley, treating the art gallery now as her own private domain, from which Iris was free to come and go as she wished apparently. “Did you really think you’d be able to get away with it?”

Marley sighed....

“Do all your parties end this way?” Olivia asked Jamie as they were cleaning up following Kirkland’s birthday celebration.

“With somebody dropping....

From the looks of things, Rachel made it back just in time. Felicia was doing her best to both entice Accord closer and keep him at arm’s length simultaneously, a rather difficult skill, even for the irrepressible Felicia Gallant. Rachel was grateful her friend was taking one for the team, and relieved that wouldn’t be necessary much longer.

“What the hell do you think you’re up to....

“I’m not as bad as Donna or Iris… am I?” Frankie pleaded with Cass after filling him in regarding her conversation with Zeno and what he’d accused her of.

Cass didn’t answer, he merely continued sitting where he was, staring at his wife as if she were a stranger.

“Cass....

“Where is she?” Grant demanded, barging into Russ’ house and confronting Iris, looking around desperately as if Sarah might have taken shelter behind a piece of furniture.

“What are you....

“Didn’t this seem easier when we were twelve?” Jamie put down the hammer and sat back on his heels, surveying the tenuous, wooden skeleton of the tree-house he and Dennis were attempting to erect on an unseasonably cold spring afternoon, where every gust of frigid wind shook the entire structure and threatened to send it careening to the ground.

“I think,” Dennis nodded his head thoughtfully. “We....

“I know you didn’t kill Johnson,” Lila told Kevin, even while visiting him in prison for doing precisely that. “And I know that Steven did.”

To his credit, Kevin’s facial expression didn’t flicker. He merely inquired politely, “What makes you say that?”

“We need to talk,” Russ gamely attempted to interrupt Iris mid-tirade about Daisy, Sarah, Marley, Dennis, Grant… Russ was having trouble keeping all the players straight as she leapt from name to name, subject to subject, perceived insult to perceived insult.

“It’s ghastly, isn’t it....

“You wanted to see me?” Dennis caught up with Marley at the gallery, this time on her request.

“I wanted to....

“Let it go, Mom,” Dennis stressed when Iris returned to him yet again, swearing that Marley was out to destroy Sarah’s self-confidence so that she might eventually steal Daisy for herself. “You don’t know Marley, okay? She isn’t like that.”

“Can you think of another explanation for her actions....

“I understand that you declined the chance to press kidnapping charges against Carl,” Rachel saw no point in beating around the bush with her son.

Jamie nodded stiffly, his mouth set into a grim line....

“Feeling any better?” Lucas asked Felicia sympathetically after she’d shown up on his doorstep, still so upset from her confrontation with Rachel that she could barely get the words out regarding Chase Hamilton and his request that Felicia file charges against Carl in order to help find Lorna.

“She’s out of her mind.” Felicia shook with fury. “Rachel. It’s as if....

“Hello, Kirkland.” Grant stood on the Frame doorstep looking both ill-at-ease and bursting with pride. He indicated the baby he was holding and said, “I wanted to stop by, introduce you to your new sister.”

Kirkland studied the infant, then shrugged....

“So did you bring your balls to lunch today?” Lila asked Grant politely as they both took their seats at Tops. “Or are they still in Marley’s purse, where you left them?”

The Scotch Grant had been attempting to swallow all but went out his nose and he needed to snatch up a cloth napkin to cover his mouth while he coughed, “Excuse me....

Rachel waited until after Felicia had stormed out of the Cory Mansion before....

“There she is!” Marley flung open the door to her and Grant’s home and welcomed Daisy, currently rocking in a car-seat held by Sarah, the latter of whom looked like she might turn and bolt at any second.

“Hi....

The line went dead....

“I am fighting to keep Charlie being Charlie,” Frankie had said in John’s office. “Damn it, Cass....

“I can’t,” Jamie told Chase. “I can’t do this to Mom.”

“Carl....

“I saw her, darling,” Iris flew into Sarah’s hospital room without bothering to lower herself to anything as plebian as knocking… or being invited. “Our baby. She is absolutely magnificent.”

“For a baby....

“Allie’s going home?” Frankie asked wistfully upon catching sight of Amanda waiting for her daughter to finish filling out some papers at the Admissions Desk.

“Yes....

“I heard about Kevin,” Jamie caught up to Alice at the hospital. “Amanda said he confessed to Horace Johnson’s murder?”

Alice nodded, continuing to walk down the corridor in the direction of Jamie’s office. “He wanted to....

“There he is! The hero I’ve heard so much about!” Marley smiled and embraced her nephew, having stopped by Jamie’s house specifically to check up on Kirkland.

“Thanks,” he blushed and awkwardly detangled himself, still getting used to....

“Oh.” Rachel couldn’t think of much else to say when ringing Jamie’s doorbell brought out Felicia, instead.

Her friend explained, “I....

“I talked to Zeno,” Frankie filled in Cass, who’d kept vigil by Charlie’s bedside while Frankie ran her errand. Now they both sat in the cafeteria, Cass exhausted by the ordeal going on now – and....

“Charlie?” Frankie gasped at the sight of her daughter lying in a Bay City Hospital bed, completely unresponsive, exactly like John had said; then quickly tried to collect herself. She forced herself to sound chipper as she moved closer and repeated, “Charlie!” as if they were merely running into each other after a long absence.

Behind her....

“How is she?” Cass and Frankie moved on from hounding Kirkland to How’s Allie feeling?” Though still badly shaken up by the sight of Charlie in her bed, utterly unresponsive, Frankie instinctively reached out to Amanda when the two mothers ran into each other in the hospital waiting area.

“She’s going to be....

Kirkland had just come from having his injured shoulder looked at and being assured by the doctor on duty that it was merely a bad muscle sprain, not a tear and that he should alternate ice and heat to keep it from stiffening up and hurting even more, when Frankie and Cass descended upon him in the Emergency Room waiting area, each talking over the other, but both wanting to know the same thing: Where was Charlie?

“They took her....

“How is she?” Cass and Frankie moved on from hounding Kirkland to interrogating John, who came into the waiting area to announce he’d been the one taking care of Charlie since she was first brought in.

“She’s....

Parking their own car next to Allie and Charlie’s abandoned and snowbound vehicles, GQ and Kirkland followed the footsteps that led off the road....

Grant stood on the early morning sidewalk, his heart in his throat, watching Sarah through the furniture store window as she picked out a bedroom set for her baby. For their baby.

When she caught sight of him, Grant....

“Kevin,” Rachel offered a satisfied smile at the sight of her son-in-law’s return to the Cory mansion. “I trust you’ve come to your senses?”

“Actually,” he took a seat opposite her. “I was kind of hoping....

“Let’s get one thing straight.” Figuring turnabout was fair play, Marley barged in on Dennis at Russ’ house the same way Iris had done earlier with her at the art gallery. “If you or anyone else in your family wants to....

By the time Russ and Iris yanked their robes on, both avoiding the other’s eye as if....

“Happy New Year!” Felicia showed up on Jamie’s doorstep first thing in the morning, handing out party hats to the girls, blowing a noise-maker in his surprised and somewhat sleepy face, and delivering a bottle of non-alcoholic champagne.

“What’s this for....

“Merry Christmas! Oh, it’s so good to see you both!” Standing in her foyer, Rachel bent from the waist so she could be at Devon and Mackenzie’s eye-level. She yearned to....

It took a moment before those assembled at Rachel’s house for Christmas Day could collect themselves enough to react to Frankie and Cass’ unexpected arrival.

It was Lori Ann who....

The message to Rachel Hutchins from Chase Hamilton consisted of a single word: Ditto.

It was.....

“I’m sorry,” Felicia fervently swore to Jamie after she guiltily bolted from the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, only to have him follow her out into the hall.

“It’s....

“Taking your luggage out for a spin?” Russ inquired dryly at the sight of Iris on his front porch, a dozen monogrammed suitcases in tow.

“Rachel has.....

“Grant is the father of Sarah’s baby?” Jamie attempted to feign sufficient surprise at Marley’s revelation after she’d dropped by the house to fill him in. “Not Steven?”

“Well, those are the top two....

“I… didn’t,” Steven began.

But, Kevin was in no mood for game playing. “You did.....

“I love you, Amanda....

“To Steven,” Iris crowed under the pretense of toasting her granddaughter, the granddaughter’s unborn child… and its heretofore secret father.

For a moment, nobody moved....

Considering the sort of Thanksgiving evening Rachel had, Alice waited until nearly noon of the following day before ringing Rachel’s doorbell. Alice inquired about Steven, only to learn that he’d gone into hibernation and wasn’t answering either calls or texts. She then filled Rachel in regarding Sarah deciding to spend the night at Russ’ place rather than face any more inquisitions, and passed on Amanda’s regards to her mother. Both women made a point of avoiding Iris’ name.

It was only after all that was out of the way that....

“Do you remember me?” Iris stretched her hand forward coyly. “You were still such a little boy when I left Bay City years ago.”

“I remember you,” Steven said, somewhat startled to see the woman he’d mostly heard about through family legend and innuendo, standing in the middle of BCU’s computer lab. “A little. You’re....

As expected, the promise of a Thanksgiving feast co-hosted by Rachel Hutchins and Iris Wheeler prompted....

“You should have seen her face,” Donna crowed to Matt. “Iris! With her mouth hanging open! Shocked! Stunned! She never saw it coming!”

“You told her about.... “

“It’s funny,” Iris observed upon entering the Harrison home at Alice’s invitation. “I never dreamed I should see this house again. When he left town for the last time, Spencer made it rather clear he had no intention of ever returning to Bay City.”

“His son was here,” Alice reminded. “And....

“Right there… Ahhh…. Perfect….” Cass purred in a combination of agony and ecstasy as Frankie applied aloe vera lotion to the sunburned patches on the back of his neck, acquired during their....

“Didn’t you get the memo?” Rachel inquired upon finding Russ waiting for her when she got home from her less than productive conversation with Chase.

“There was a memo?” Russ kissed his ex-wife on the cheek, took Rachel’s coat, hung it up solicitously, and escorted her into the library.

“The one that....

“You have some nerve,” Grant advanced on Rachel in her office, eschewing pleasantries or even salutations in favor of what he’d specifically come over to say.

Rachel looked up, one eyebrow raised, her tone clipped as she observed, “I hardly think....

“I’m sorry, you’re going to do what?” Marley repeated, staring daggers at her mother while making it clear Sarah wouldn’t be getting away Scott-free, either.

“I – I told your mother that....

“I understand now,” Marley told Grant as they drove home from KBAY following his announcement, Michele and Bridget having been sent on ahead before they were forced to hear what Rachel and Lila had recorded. “I finally understand why....

“Rachel isn’t home,” Lila told Grant dully as he stood expectantly in the Cory foyer. “I don’t know when she’ll be back, either.”

“Oh. Okay. I’ll stop by later, I guess....

Kevin blew into Jamie’s office at the hospital, already in the middle of at least three different conversations, one on his phone, one on his BlackBerry, another with his wife, telling the waiting Amanda, “I got your message.”

“I....

“Hello, Rachel,” a returning from work Iris greeted her stepmother cautiously, certain that Amanda must have come running to Mommy by now with details about her and Iris’ earlier conversation. Iris wasn’t sure how Rachel might react to it. As a result, she was determined not to....

Kevin blew into Jamie’s office at the hospital, already in the middle of at least three different conversations, one on his phone, one on his BlackBerry, another with his wife, telling the waiting Amanda, “I got your message.”

“I....

“Hello, Rachel,” a returning from work Iris greeted her stepmother cautiously, certain that Amanda must have come running to Mommy by now with details about her and Iris’ earlier conversation. Iris wasn’t sure how Rachel might react to it. As a result, she was determined not to....

“Is Steven the father of Sarah’s baby?” Donna repeated, since Allie had obviously demonstrated herself incapable of following a single train of thought upon first try.

“W-Why – What....

“Not a good time, Grant,” Marley had to laugh while trying to look firm as, five minutes before she was supposed to leave the house to pick up Michele and Bridget from fencing class, Grant decided to....

“No I told you so?” GQ mumbled as he and Steven left the hospital, having both grown convinced that Horace had let Jen down yet again – possibly for good, this time.

Steven shrugged. “You tell me how....

“So it’s true then,” Donna observed upon inviting herself into Marley’s house and spotting Sarah there. Donna grabbed Marley by the arm and practically dragged her into the study, shutting the door behind them and hissing in a voice part whisper, part shout. “You really have....

“Is the coast clear?” Marley made a big show of checking behind drapes and under the rug for a potentially lurking Iris in an attempt to make Sarah laugh.

“She’s gone,” Sarah reassured, though....

“Thank you for taking the time to meet with us,” Cass gushed effusively to Le Rosey’s rather intimidating headmaster, noting the resemblance the current office occupant bore to the portraits of predecessors lining the wall directly behind him. Cass wondered if this was a job that required submitting a headshot prior to interview.

“We are always interested in....

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Alice told Rachel. “But, I’d expected to hear back from you by now regarding the money you needed for Cory Publishing.”

Rachel nodded, having....

“Hello, Iris,” Sarah used her grandmother’s preferred form of address as Iris stormed into Grant and Marley’s guest-room, shooing Bridget and Michele out with a dismissive wave of the hand and a look that had terrified peons twice their age for multiple decades.

“My poor, poor girl....

“I’m glad you stopped by, darling.” Rachel swept down the stairs to envelope Jamie in a hug, then crouched to study Devon and Mackenzie in their double stroller, Jamie’s younger daughter asleep, his elder scowling silently. “And it’s been much too long since I’ve seen these beauties.”

“Well, we were taking a walk....

“We’re all set,” Marley announced upon her return to Sarah’s hospital room, wheelchair in hand, only to find the younger woman looking distinctively paler than when Marley left.

“What’s wrong?

“So was Iris telling the truth?” Rachel wondered as Amanda poured over the documents of her half-sister’s newly acquired majority share in Cory Publishing.

“Is the answer to that question ever....

“I am going to be frank with you, Mrs. Cory,” Dr. Raya Ng folded her hands in front of her as she gazed across her desk at Donna and Matt. “I don’t believe false hope does anyone any good in the long run. After reviewing your test results, as well as those of your husband, my professional opinion is....

“Excuse me, do you speak English?” Frankie’s voice sounded appropriately frazzled as she rushed up to Chloe Lax, even grabbing her arm for good measure, the better to convey Frankie’s sincere desperation.

“I do....

“Well?” Rachel all but hovered over Amanda as, back at the Cory mansion, her daughter was instantly on the phone with their business manager, explaining that it looked like they’d secured the funds necessary to keep Brava and the rest of their publications afloat at least long enough for them to regroup and....

“I don’t care if the next election is two years off....

“How did your meeting with Jeanne fare, darling?” Donna took great pains to make it sound as if she were merely making conversation.

Matt shrugged....

“This is really happening, isn’t it?” Frankie glanced in excitement around the First Class Delta Airlines cabin where she and Cass now sat ensconced in a pair of plush seats, their tray-tables in an upright and locked position, their carry-on bags safely stored overhead, waiting for the Fasten Seatbelts sign to go off so that they might freely move about the cabin. “We’re really doing it.”

“We’re really....

“Thank you,” Rachel cleared her throat, looking from Jamie, to Amanda with Kevin, and then Matt with Donna and Jasmine, as all seven of them stood in the South Garden prior to the start of Carl, Elizabeth and Cory’s memorial service. “Thank you all for....

“Hello, Jamie,” Marley began, before the rest of her words were wiped out of her head by....

Rachel, my dear!” Iris walked into the Cory Mansion as if she’d last left only a couple of hours ago, and proceeded to address her onetime stepmother as if they were already in the middle of a conversation. Not to mention on speaking terms. “How dreadful! How absolutely dreadful for you! You must be....

“There are more important things right now than who’s right and who’s wrong,” Rachel pleaded. “You need me, Jamie. I need you. To hell with everything else – at least ....

“Mom?” Amanda’s voice barely rose above a whisper as she stood at the entrance to the library, no idea how to reach out to her mother, or even whether Rachel might welcome it.

“Amanda....

“Oh, what now, Your Eminence?” Lila drawled into the phone upon seeing Chase’s name there – again.

Much to her surprise....

I’m sorry,” Felicia was already apologizing as she burst through Cass and Frankie’s front door the next morning. “I’m sorry to get you both up so early.”

“That’s okay,” Cass reassured, tightening his robe around him. “How is....

The voice on the phone stammered, “Mrs. Hutchins, I’m afraid we have some disturbing news. Your husband’s plane....

“I’m very sorry, Mrs. Hutchins.” The words came at Rachel as if from far away. “It is the official belief of this office, that your husband, as well as your children, and all other passengers, were....

“You are out of your mind,” Lorna said, realizing, with a sinking, hollow feeling that all the previous times she’d leveled the charge at Carl she was being sarcastic. And that now she was absolutely right....

“Dr. Frame?” The phone call came just as Jamie was packing up his office, getting ready to leave for the day. He’d texted Lorna that he was on his way home, and was surprised....

“How did Rachel do this year after year?” Frankie wondered as....

“Working on the holiday, are you?” Lila asked when she caught sight of Chase’s number in her cell-phone’s display.

“I’m calling to tell you....

“Might you spare me a moment of your time, Jamie?” Carl waited respectfully at the door of his stepson’s office, looking as close to submissive as Carl Hutchins was capable of.

Jamie looked up in surprise....

“Morning,” Marley greeted Grant as he entered the kitchen. She was sitting at the table, Bridget on one side, Michele on the other. Everything looked perfectly normal. Except for the fact that....

“So, do you think my mother and I will ever manage to be in the same room again without it turning into....

“What was so secret that you and Mom had to sequester yourselves in the car last night?” Elizabeth wondered, despite her father looking as if the last thing he wanted to do was rehash the encounter.

“You have a new niece....

“Heard from Zeno yet?” Cass asked Frankie as they rolled up the drive to Donna’s house for the second time in as many days.

She shook her head....

“You’re sure you’re up to a welcoming committee?” Jamie double-checked with Lorna as they stood on the doorstep of their home, Jamie holding their newborn infant in her car-seat with one hand while sticking his key in the lock with the other. “It’s just that....

“Chase,” Lila attempted to start her sentence again, hoping this time she might actually get her thought out without choking – either metaphorically or literally. “He…”

“What....

“You’re not mad at me?” Lila double-checked with Chase after breaking it to him that she’d given Rachel a head’s up regarding Carl’s upcoming arrest.

“No....

“Is something wrong with Matt?” was Rachel’s first thought and only concern when she found Donna on her doorstep.

“No. No....

“Elizabeth calls it her Mea Culpa tour,” Rachel sighed to Felicia when her friend dropped by the Cory mansion that evening. “And I realize she owes you one, as well. I feel pretty certain the police arriving to....

“I told you not to wait up for me,” Jamie murmured, squatting by the living room couch where Lorna lay curled up, asleep, when he finally got home the next morning.

“Clearly....

“You going to beat me up with oranges?” Elizabeth asked Lorna after the latter led her into Lorna’s study for a private conversation. “So the bruises don’t show?”

“You’ve been watching too many movies.” Lorna closed the door behind them. “And....

Looking proud enough to burst, Donna told Matt, “I am signing over all of my assets, absolutely every penny I can presently lay claim to, to Lori Ann – with Dean as trustee.”

Matt blinked. It wasn’t so much due....

“May we come in?” Rachel, one hand firmly dug into Elizabeth’s shoulder as they stood on the doorstep to the Harrison mansion, felt compelled to add, “Please, Amanda.”

Coming up behind....

“I don’t know,” Jamie told his son honestly. “I don’t know why Jake did what he did to Marley. And I don’t know how Vicky was able to forgive him, or why Marley thought she could still be in love with him after that. I wish I had an answer for you, but I don’t.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me this before?” Kirkland went for the one question his father couldn’t claim ignorance of.

“Because....

“You gave me quite a scare, darling,” Donna purred as she waltzed into Matt’s hospital room, wrinkling her nose at the banal décor and thinking about what she could do to spruce up the place, even if it was only for a few days.

“Donna....

“When will they tell us anything?” Jeanne demanded as she and Rachel bid their time at the BCU emergency-room waiting area, following Jamie’s calls to them both about Matt being brought in.

“It always takes forever....

“I’m Matthew’s wife,” Donna coolly informed Rachel, attempting to turn her back on Matt’s mother and make the call that would free him from this veterinary hospital (her former position on the board be damned) and enlist a trained cardiologist to take over.

“Give it a rest....

“You’re awake!” Steven cheered, even as Jen sighed.

“Yeah....

“Last chance,” Jamie warned Kirkland prior to answering the ringing doorbell. “You’re absolutely sure you don’t want to have a big, 18th birthday bash instead of just this small, family thing?”

“I’m sure....

They’re in Treatment Room #4B, Dr. Frame,” a nurse looked up to direct Jamie as he flew through the door in response to Alice’s page, pulling on his white lab coat with one arm while reaching for Jen’s chart with the other.

Kevin’s daughter was....

“You handled that wonderfully,” Grant did his best to reassure Marley after Bridget and Michele had departed for school, and the two of them were alone, Marley looking as if she’d been to Hell and back – and....

“Kevin did what?” Rachel, Carl, and Amanda descended on Elizabeth en masse in light of her water-logged accusation, ignoring the suddenly hushed crowd of Felicia’s guests gathered around them.

“He attacked me....

“You two cannot be serious,” Amanda barged in on Carl and Rachel the next morning, both of them tiredly sipping coffee after having been up all night. “You are actually pressing charges....

“Everything looks fantastic!” Frankie kissed Cass and Felicia’s cheeks in turn as they surveyed the Bay City Country Club, completely taken over from ballroom to adjoining open air pool and patio deck, all decked out on the occasion of Felicia Gallant’s e-book release gala and fundraiser.

“This is going to be the party of the year,” Cass predicted. “People will be talking about what happened here for years to come. ”

“You’re not going to win,” Jeanne burst in on Donna, promising, “I’m not going to let you. ”

Donna, for her part, appeared....

“You’ve got a problem,” Lorna informed Matt over the phone after finally reaching him via his private number. The C-Squared designated cell had been full of messages by the time Lorna knew enough to dial, and he wasn’t answering his office line.

“And you’ve got a great grasp of....

“Thank you so much for bringing them,” Marley smiled at Sarah over Bridget and Michele’s heads, hugging her nieces, telling them, “I’ve missed you guys so much!”

“Which one of us....

Rachel sputtered, “You want Mr. Hamilton to…

“Save it,” Lila suggested to Grant as soon as she caught sight of him waiting in her office at City Hall. Having punched her way through a wall of reporters on the way in, Lila felt highly inclined to keep on swinging. “I know it was you who ratted Chase and me out to Amanda.”

“Did Amanda say....

Amanda supposed it could be taken as an indicator of precisely where her true priorities lay that her first thought, upon walking in on Lila in bed with the mayor of Bay City was, “Damn it, Grant was right,” rather than something more in the shock and awe family.

But, the fact was....

This isn’t weird for you?” Steven asked Sarah.

“What....

“You didn’t say anything to Marley,” Grant observed, still in a semi-state of shock, as he and Sarah waited downstairs at the Love house for Marley to finish helping Michele and Bridget pack for an overnight at Grant and Marley’s place.

“No....

“Jamie!” Toni called as he was preparing to leave the station, Kirkland’s lie detector test finally completed. She caught up to him, asking, “Kirk still around?”

“No....

“What do you want from me?” Jen beseeched following Steven’s refusal to heed either her subtle prompt, or her outright demand that he leave her office.

“To know....

“Did you have a good time, Midget?” Sarah asked Michele and Bridget as she stopped by Grant’s house to pick them up from their visit with Marley.

“Pretty good....

“Well?” Marley smiled encouragingly at Sarah. “Tell me. What have you been up to since I’ve been gone? You look wonderful!”

Sarah glanced past Marley’s cheerful countenance, over her....

“I understand congratulations are in order,” Chase caught up with Grant inside the latter’s City Hall office.

“Thank you....

“Happy Valentine’s Day!” Lorna greeted Jamie as he walked through the door after work, stopping him in his tracks with the instantly provocative question, “Notice anything different?”

He tread carefully, looking around, ruminating, weighing, listening, finally....

“You’re home,” Jeanne struggled to keep the surprise from her voice. Ever since they’d moved out of the Cory mansion, Matt had made a point of keeping his distance from her as frequently as possible.

“Yeah....

Grant had to admit, despite everything that lead up to it, most crushingly the scene with Sarah earlier, he was, without a doubt, enjoying bringing Donna up to speed regarding Grant and Marley’s whirlwind nuptials.

“You’re…” Donna appeared unable to complete the sentence, swallowing hard as if struck by a sudden bout of nausea. Followed by aphasia. Followed by....

“She is absolutely beautiful....

“You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” Jen protested as Steven all but marched her through the doors of Bay City University Hospital, and into the elevator.

“I know....

“Thank you....

“Leave?” Carl managed to make the otherwise neutral word sound like the most terrifying possibility in all creation. “This house? The children? You?”

“Not for good,” Rachel reassured quickly, desperately. “Only for....

“The pair of you certainly wasted no time moving on, now did you?” Felicia looked from Lucas to Alice as she noted, “At least Mrs. Harrison here waited until Spencer was neatly tucked away in his grave, albeit the body still warm. You, Luke, you haven’t even gotten a corpus to habeas, and yet here you two are, how cozy.”

“Fanny....

“Because,” Sarah told Grant as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I....

“Kirkland....

For a long, charged moment, Rachel and Jamie did nothing more than eye each other warily, both braced for a fight, neither one wanting it.

Finally....

“Dad....

“Is this the parent or guardian of Kirkland Frame? There’s been an accident….” The BCPD officer informed Grant without inflection, making it impossible to discern what precisely they were dealing with here.

“What....

With one final, frigid look Felicia’s way, Lorna called, “Jamie! Wait!” Rushing down the drive and slipping into the passenger seat a split-second before he pulled out.

Jamie looked at her in surprise. “What about –

“No plans for New Year’s Eve, my dear?” Carl asked Lila after Jasmine, Elizabeth and Cory had cleared the dinner table, and only the adults were left.

“Carl’s tone, and the look he exchanged....

“So much for warm and tropical....

Christmas in Bay City 2011….

“Are you and Victoria taking annual turns....

“Matthew!” Rachel exclaimed in delighted surprise when she opened the front door Christmas morning to find her middle son standing there. “You came,” she said softly, as if afraid anything louder would break the spell.

“I came to get Jasmine....

“Zeno!” Frankie called out in alarm as she stepped out of the car and, gesturing for Charlie and Lori Ann to keep back (not that they listened), ran towards the field directly adjacent to the farmhouse, where Zeno currently stood, fending off a dozen or so men and women holding up signs – with a presumably loaded shotgun aimed straight at the center of their demonstration.

“Too late....

“I beg your pardon....

“Morning,” Kevin opened the door to his office at nine AM sharp, surprised to find Lorna standing on the other side, shaking her wet umbrella dry, and looking like she might have been camped out since midnight prior to knocking.

“I need the unvarnished truth....

“What are you doing in here....

“My granddaughter is being baptized today.” Rachel informed Carl without looking up from the clay she’d spent the past few hours since dawn futilely attempting to beat into something vaguely recognizable.

“It grieves me to observe you so distraught....

“Go to Hell, Donna,” Lorna ordered, turning her back on the woman, heading back to Jamie and Devon… when the look on her husband’s face, not to mention Morgan and Felicia’s, forced Lorna to waver just a little. “What....

“Don’t get too comfortable....

“A squash?” Cass double-checked with Frankie. “We’re carving a squash instead of a turkey?”

“It’s a tradition around here....

“So is Mr. Moneybags, here, footing the bill for today?” Steven asked jokingly as he, Jamie and Kirkland stepped onto the racquetball court.

“What’s that supposed to mean....

“Yes?” Alice asked politely, having come down the stairs to find – as notified; except that she felt sure she must have heard wrong – Carl Hutchins standing in her foyer.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Harrison....

“What’s this?” Matt grunted....

“How did you manage to get yourself put in charge of my father’s will....

“Is there something you would like to say to me, son?”

Cory remained stubbornly....

“Well....

“I’m going to Mr. Harrison’s funeral,” Cory stood by the door, wearing his suit, his tie, and his most determined expression.

“Preposterous....

“What’s all this for?” Cass purred upon being woken up by Frankie nuzzling the back of his neck and playfully rolling a sleepy Cass over to curl up against her.

“To....

“You are taking this very well....

“Huh,” was all Charlie said after Frankie got through explaining exactly who Zeno was, complete with key details about reincarnation and souls being connected throughout eternity, the only part during which Charlie, Zeno and even Cass all managed to roll their eyes simultaneously.

“I know....

“Perfect!....

“Ms. Cory – I mean, Mrs… Fowler?” GQ stammered at the sight of Amanda standing outside his apartment door at close to midnight, looking for all the world like this was not a casual social call.

“May I come in, GQ?”

“What did you just say?” Cass couldn’t quite bring himself to repeat Zeno’s claim yet. All he did manage to do was sneak a quick peek at Felicia to make sure he’d just heard what he thought he’d heard. Judging by the shocked look on her face, indeed Cass had.

“You know her as....

“Welcome home,” Frankie threw herself into Cass’ arms the minute he walked through the door, kissing him as she professed, “I was starting to get worried. You weren’t answering your phone, and....

“Are you two out of your minds?” Grant took one look at the barely conscious Spencer and turned on Alice and Jamie with a vengeance. “What kind of doctors are you? Why isn’t he in a hospital? What have you been doing....

“Hey,” Kirkland said, meeting Grant outside Spencer’s door, having agreed as soon as Jamie proposed it to drive over and see his grandfather immediately. Now Jamie stood quietly behind his son, letting Kirk take the lead. “How – how is he?”

Though the door remained closed – Alice was in with Spencer now – Grant couldn’t help instinctively looking over his shoulder before sighing and answering honestly, “He’s....

"What should we do?" Cory repeated his sister's inane question to their father, more frustrated than mocking. “We should call for emergency assistance, that’s what we should do. Someone may be hurt.”

"And I told you....

“Would you put your mother in peril, son? Your sister? Me?....

“Are you kidding me?” Morgan...

“Zeno Tantalus,” Felicia repeated the unusual name, rolling it languidly around on her tongue. “You think this Zeno Tantalus is the key to Frankie’s missing years?”

Spencer was right. The spot they’d been ordered to for the exchange was optimal for those holding Kirkland.

Jamie and Grant pulled their cars....

Alice said, “When Spencer left the house this morning, he didn’t take his wallet or his passport. At first, I thought he’d decided to go on the run under another name. ”

“Spencer would never....

“Who has Kirkland....

“Try to get some sleep, Jamie, please....

“Okay,” Kirkland said, having driven out to meet Charlie where she said, in the bleachers of Bay City Latin’s currently deserted and dark football field, making sure they couldn’t be overheard or spied on. “I’m here.”

“Thanks....

“I know Jamie told you what went down between me and Kirkland,” Charlie filled in a stunned Cass and Frankie. “I just got back from seeing Kirk, he gave me the 411.”

“And everything is....

John looked from Allie, Donna, Sharlene, Steven, Sarah, Jen, GQ and Alice standing in a semi-circle around his son’s grave, then down at the grave itself. Gregory John Hudson 1991-2010. Sleep on now, and take your rest. Matthew 26:45.

He cleared his throat....

“I’m so glad you were able to find the time to see me,” Rachel thanked Jeanne, having shown up at Matt’s fiancée’s office without warning.

“Well, I....

"So what do you think she meant by that?" Grant asked Lila, "Saying I was the most awesome person she knew?"

"Ain't it bad enough....

"Hard to believe it's been a year since he died," Donna told John, dropping by the house to wish him luck on the day ahead.

John nodded....

"You're forbidding me, Mary Frances?"

"Yes....

"Am I interrupting?" Sarah asked Grant, looking over his shoulder and into the house, as if she expected to catch him in the middle of something much more important.

"No....

"It was a complicated, bold, yet ultimately, unsuccessful plan, conceived and heartlessly implemented by none other than Bay City's own... Spencer Harrison," Jeanne informed her viewers.

Watching at home, Lucas breathed a sigh of relief, while....

"Jazz around?" Matt asked Lila after tracking his ex-wife down to the Cory gym, but failing to find his daughter anywhere on the premises.

Lila shook her head, huffing and puffing in between power walks on the treadmill, "Sarah came to....

"You're looking well, Marley," Morgan drawled, walking slowly around her as if truly and professionally assessing the situation. "Beating an attempted murder rap....

"So how was tea and crumpets with Winthrop and Wife?" Grant asked Lila after she'd stopped by his home to make sure — in Lila's words — that Grant hadn't slipped back into any bad habits.

"What....

"Check up done already?" Jamie looked up in surprise at the sight of Lorna standing in his office doorway, holding a sleeping Devon against her shoulder, a good hour earlier than Jamie might have expected them.

"We actually haven't exactly....

"Why all the cloak and dagger, Sugar?" Lila asked Charlie once her former stepdaughter had slipped into the passenger seat of Lila's car, looking nervously over her shoulder as if she expected to be watched.

"I wanted....

"What are you doing here?" Donna strode into John's office at BCH without benefit of knocking or even a perfunctory greeting.

"It's a hospital....

"I need your help," Felicia said to Cass, looping her arm through his and taking him for a turn around the Cory pool.

"Done," Cass answered....

"You look tired," Grant observed to Kirkland, Sarah having silently backed out of the living room and into the adjacent study, softly closing the door behind her.

"Yeah, you look like crap....

"Two days old," Lorna looked down at Devon, making sure not to squeeze too tightly this time, no matter how badly she may have wanted to. "And you've already heard how your mom can pick a fight."

"Devon had....

"So," Matt couldn't help asking as he buttoned up his shirt. "Now that we have a basis for comparison, which would you say you prefer: KBAY Screening Room or news van?"

Slipping back into her own dress....

"You... and Kevin?" Morgan repeated, certain he couldn't possibly have understood her meaning.

"Got married....

"Senator Harrison!" A surprised Sarah exclaimed as she approached Clareview Sanitarium's main entrance with Michele and Bridget in tow, both girls studying Grant warily, unsure of where precisely he fit in among the adults who'd recently been whipping in and out of their lives at disturbing speed. "What are you doing here?"

"Just because I backed off on taking Bridget and Michele to see Marley myself doesn't mean I can't pop up here independently, does it?" Grant offered....

"What is that smell?" Rachel winced as she entered the kitchen, waving a hand back and forth in front of her face.

From near the microwave, Allie gasped, breaking....

"Alright," Rachel told Carl calmly. "I've had a chance to sleep on it, and I am ready now to hear everything."

"I'm sorry, my dear, I'm afraid....

"Got a minute?"....

"You'd give up Kirkland?" Jamie spoke slowly, hearing the words as they came out of his mouth, but convinced he couldn't possibly have understood correctly.

"Yes," Grant said firmly, refusing to offer....

Jamie knocked briskly on the door to Kirkland's room in the Cory house, waiting until he'd received a sleepy, "What?....

With Lorna in the passenger seat, Jamie pulled his car into the driveway of their house. He cut the engine and was already halfway turning to open the door so he could climb out and help Lorna do the same, when his cell-phone's chirp, indicating an incoming text, stopped him.

Jamie checked the message, hesitating....

"I think this is absolutely wonderful," Donna trilled to a somewhat befuddled Matt and Jeanne. "The two of you are perfectly suited to each other. I'm just amazed it took you both so long to realize it!"

"You're... okay with this?" Matt double-checked.

"The next time I'm in an accident," an exhausted Frankie leaned back in her chair after several hours of scouring the photos, records and data Cass downloaded onto his Flash drive from the auto body shop's computer. "I want these guys working on my car. They didn't leave so much as a stray hair."

"Nope," Cass agreed, rubbing his eyes with the palms of both hands. "This is one case you and I aren't going to crack simply by following up on leads the BCPD missed."

"I think this is absolutely wonderful," Donna trilled to a somewhat befuddled Matt and Jeanne. "The two of you are perfectly suited to each other. I'm just amazed it took you both so long to realize it!"

"You're... okay with this?" Matt double-checked.

Not needing Jamie to confirm, Lorna painfully shifted in the bed, craning her neck to hiss at Morgan, "Why the hell did you have to tell him?"

Morgan stepped forward tentatively....

Ignoring both Felicia and Jamie's attempts to silence him, Lucas sternly advised Lorna, "I have a strong feeling Jamie didn't tell you everything that went on here over the past few months."

"I told her everything....

"What's this?" Alice wondered as she descended the stairs into the dining area to find a table set with freshly cut roses, sparkling crystal, gleaming china, crisp linen, and a baked crepe and red caviar breakfast waiting for her.

"You had to work Valentine's Day....

"On April 29, 2010, Ms. Fowler, did you, as the biological mother, sign papers giving up parental rights to the newborn now known as Hudson Lewis Bauer?" Mel asked Allie, reminding her that she was in a court of law and under oath.

"Yes," Allie said, nodding her head for good measure.

"Nice monkey suit," Cass smirked at Matt when they encountered each other at the Annual Bay City Latin School Father/Daughter Valentine's Day Dance.

"Same to you....

"The pet store is down at the other end of the mall," Lila huffed at Grant when he fell into step next to her. "So you can take that hangdog expression and go find yourself a nice big ol' doghouse to sulk in."

"Could I hire you as my decorator?" Grant tried with a hopeful grin.

"You were right," Grant told his father. "Carl wants this war. He's just using Lorna's accident as an excuse."

"You talked to Carl....

"I want the truth," Felicia fired at Cass before he'd even crossed the threshold of her home. "Did you know Lucas was alive months before he finally came to me?"

"Yes....

"Did you know that Donna has proclaimed herself your Guardian Angel?"....

"Am I going to require a drink for this conversation?"....

Lucas and Felicia left the courtroom on the heels of the rest, ignoring the curious looks shot their way, moving stiffly, unable to meet each other's eyes until they were out of the hallway, squirreled away in a quiet corner. And, even then, there was so much to be said that neither could somehow summon up the strength to begin.

Finally, Felicia stammered out, "Three years, Luke..."

"How could you?" Felicia tried to keep it together following Lucas' confession of having inadvertently isolated Lorna from her mother and sister by forcing Lorna to keep the secret of his being alive. "How could you do that to her? To us?"

"I was selfish....

"Hey," Morgan said softly, pulling a chair up to the side of Lorna's bed and straddling it backwards, resting his chin on his wrists. "Sorry I haven't been by to see you for a couple of days. It's been....

"Whatever you're selling," Sharlene refused to open the farmhouse door all the way and let Donna in. "We don't want any."

"Please ....

"Is it true," Kirkland wanted to know. "That sometimes people in a coma can hear what's going on around them?"

"It's a theory," Jamie admitted. "A little hard to prove....

"Objection, Your Honor!" This time, Stacey didn't settle merely for rising out of her chair. Instead, she....

"Well, since you put it that way, Chief Burrell," Donna looked over her shoulder, "Jeanne, would you be so kind as to run off a copy of the Harrison election tape for — "

"We'd prefer the original, Ms. Love."

"Mr. Fowler?" She got up from the defense table and approached Kevin across the aisle. This early in the morning, they were the only ones inside the courtroom, both setting out their materials in preparation. "I'm Stacey Winthrop. Dr. Winthrop's attorney...

"C-Cass?" A part of Frankie sincerely believed that merely saying his name would somehow prompt the apparition before her to disappear in a puff of smoke.

She said it anyway.

"I told you, Donna, I'm fine. Leave me alone," Marley stubbornly shoved away her mother's ministrations, despite Donna having walked in on Marley, moist-eyed and raw-nosed, in the Bay City University Hospital Ladies' Room.

"I will not....

"Victoria..." Donna exhaled in wonder. And a great deal of fear. "How..."

"Merry Christmas, Mom!" Charlie, with a squealing Lori Ann perched on her hip, the baby dressed in a red and green plaid party dress with matching hair ribbon, greeted Frankie, still in her bathrobe and more than a little bit groggy, as she descended the stairs. "Surprise!"

Charlie stepped aside to reveal....

"Wait." Jamie thrust out his arm to stop Abel, shoving aside the marriage license he'd been holding so that it fluttered back into Morgan's hands. "Just wait one second. Before....

Sharlene said, "If I had any answers for you, Frankie, don't you think I'd have used some of that good advice on myself, by now?"

"Sometimes....

"The baby isn't yours," Morgan said. "It's mine."

Jamie raised his fist....

"You and Lorna have been married for six years..." Felicia could only repeat in numb shock as she snuck her umpteenth peak at the marriage license Morgan held in his lap, before turning back towards the road.

"Yeah....

"Too late," Charlie snapped....

"Cass?" Frankie stared at her uncharacteristically silent husband through the prison glass. "Did you hear what I said?"

"Yeah....

"Damaged?" Grant repeated with a deliberate combination of surprise and innocence for Lila's benefit. "One of the rental cars? How? Who....

"What?" Felicia gasped, eyes blinking rapidly up at Morgan. "You and Lorna? When? Where? Why didn't either of you tell me?"

"Years ago....

"I want to fight this," Alice finally said, following a pause that felt interminable to both Spencer and Kevin. "But, I do not want it to be at the expense of Jen, Steven and the rest. If my defending myself makes it more difficult for them, I won't do it."

"It's not a question of ....

"Congratulations," Grant magnanimously stretched forward his hand to shake Chase's. "I'm sure you'll do a wonderful job as our new mayor."

"Thank you," Chase ushered Grant and a jittery Sarah into his office. "I must say....

"Think this'll be like with the president in 2000?" Kirkland kept asking anyone within earshot, his eyes darting from one 60-inch flat screen television to the next, despite the fact that every local station was reporting Grant and Chase Hamilton in a dead heat.

"Still too early to tell,"....

"I never really thought about what would happen when it was all over,"....

"This is preposterous,"....

Waking up first, Sarah curled up against Steven's back, sleepily reaching her arm around, stroking his chest and moving her hand downward, only to have a suddenly alert Steven recoil from her touch and spring out of bed.

"What's the matter?"....

"So, I'll see you at the wedding, then?" Amanda flashed a brilliant smile Lila's way as they crossed in the second floor Cory hall the morning of Alice and Spencer's nuptials. "You are going with Kevin, right? Him being your man, and all?"

"Actually," Lila's smile was no less brilliant....

Among the over 150 people in attendance at Spencer and Alice's wedding, were both her siblings, Russ and Pat, assorted....

Donna's stomach lurched at the sight of Spencer, Lucas and Carl waiting for her in the shadows outside of John's house. So naturally, she did the only thing one could under the circumstances....

"Fine," Marley held out her hand, gritting her teeth and hating herself as she did so. "I'll take your money. But, only for GQ's sake."

"And Perry's," he prompted....

"Smile, Donna," Marley instructed her mother, sliding a linen napkin over her skirt and picking up a TOPS menu. "The public is watching, and we wouldn't want them to get the wrong idea now, would we?"

"Perhaps if I'd been given....

"May I presume that all went well with Kirkland earlier?" Donna asked Grant once he'd finally arrived to join her and Marley at Tops.

"Other than the fact....

"He isn't home, Jamie," Lorna indicated the rental car they'd parked down the street from the run-down Bakersfield bungalow with Frame scribbled in pencil over the mail-slot. "Let's just go back. I told you last night; this is pointless."

"He's here." Jamie pointed to the nearest window. "I saw the shades shut as soon as we started up the walk."

"Please," GQ reached out to lightly nudge the Bauers' front door open an inch further. "I just want to see Hudson, and to talk to you and Dr. Bauer. I don't blame you for anything that's happened. I know it was all Allie's doing. You're just as much... I'm not here to... Honestly, I don't know what I'm going to do yet. I just want to see... my son."

Mindy hesitated. But she was no longer blocking the entrance. "Rick's at work," she said. "I — Come in. I'm sorry. I just wasn't sure how..."

"Because Gregory wasn't Hudson's real father," Allie said, and although, a second earlier it had seemed as if all the assembled mourners waiting for their cars on the sidewalk were busily engaged in their own individual conversations, as soon as the words were out of Allie's mouth, it were as if an off switch had been flipped, and she made her confession into total silence.

"You can turn around now," Lorna instructed Jamie as he stood on the balcony of their San Diego hotel suite, already wearing his own tuxedo for the evening ahead, but under strict orders not to peek until Lorna pronounced herself officially ready.

"Wow,....

"I don't mean to rush you," Donna hovered outside John's ajar bedroom door, reluctant to intrude as he sat on the bed, staring into space as though utterly lost regarding what he should be doing next. "But....

"My condolences to you, Dr. Hudson," Carl stretched forth a hand to shake John's, who took it perfunctorily, the same way he'd accepted every other generic commiseration as he sat beside Sharlene on either side of their son's casket. "I regret to say....

"Save your breath, Donna," Marley informed her mother coldly. "It doesn't matter what your arrangement might be, I know I don't want it."

"Did you or did you not....

"Are the two of you done huffing and puffing and threatening to blow my house down?"....

"Sarah?" Marley pulled into the parking lot adjacent to Bay City U's dormitories, and softly tapped the slumbering girl on the shoulder. "We're here."

"Oh, wow," Sarah laughed self-consciously, stirring from her repose in the passenger seat of Marley's car. "Sorry for....

"Why won't Allie let me help her?"....

"Come on, Amanda." Kevin held out his hand to her. "Let me take you home. There's nothing more either of us can do here tonight."

She was sitting on a metal chair in the police station's waiting area, furiously texting back and forth with....

"Let the record show,"....

"Mr. Harrison..."

Chase Hamilton did not stand up when Grant entered his office. It was an old power-play gambit Grant was familiar with. As was Grant's response ....

"What happened in there?" Amanda leapt on Kevin the moment he stepped out of the interrogation room with the kids and Hamilton. Jamie may have been less forward, but he was just as curious.

Kevin beckoned them both over into a corner....

Sarah glanced briefly from GQ as he was urging the rest of them to hightail it out of there, over to Allie, planted stubbornly on the bed, arms crossed, quietly but intractably insisting that she wasn't going to abandon Gregory, not even now, she'd given him her word — and made up her mind on the spot.

Sarah....

The Bay City Police officer on the other end of the phone was still waiting patiently for John's answer. Sharlene was still behind him, hammering on John's back with her fists now, demanding that he tell her everything.

John turned around..."

"I didn't mean to upset you with what I said," Lucas came up quietly behind Felicia, who'd been sitting for the past several hours, staring blankly out the window, not moving, not speaking.

"And I never mean to ....

The last time Gregory managed to open his eyes, he smiled when he saw that Allie was still there, as promised, lying next to him on the bed, stroking his arm so that he could feel her even while barely conscious.

He looked at her silently for a long moment, and then he told her, "Today..."

"I'll scream," Donna warned Carl as they stood outside the Hudson house, his hand clamped firmly over her wrist. "John is right inside, he'll— "

"Scream, then." Carl suggested....

Grant said, "If you don't want me running for Mayor, just say the word. As much as I've come to realize I want back in that game, as much as I'd like to leave some kind of legacy that Kirkland can be proud of, I won't sacrifice the people I love to do it. Not this time."

"Wow. I didn't realize that hope and change had....

"Lorna wants to take Lori Ann away from me?" Frankie struggled over the words as if each were a block with sharp corners that didn't quite fit the contours of her mouth.

"She has this ridiculous notion that....

"See what happens when we skip the rib joint for something more swanky," Lila lectured Grant the morning after their less than successful double-date dinner out. "You nearly drown drooling over Amanda's humping your leg — "

"I didn't...

"I'll take care of Donna," Carl swore to Felicia over the phone. And then, after a pause, almost solicitously, he asked, "What did she say to you?"

"She never....

Felicia looked at her daughter oddly. "Lori Ann already has a father. Two of them, as a matter of fact. Dean and Cass."

"One of whom hasn't seen her since....

Frankie wasn't precisely sure what she expected the 4^th of July at Bay City's maximum-security prison to be like. All she knew was she wasn't prepared for how simultaneously normal and bizarre it turned out to be.

On the one hand, there was the green lawn, the families with picnic baskets, the flags, the balloons, the music. On the other hand....

"I thought we were past all of this," Grant thundered, his outrage rising to new levels, or, at the very least, decibels.

"Past what?" Marley disappeared....

"So it really doesn't bother you?" Amanda followed Jamie around as he set up a series of folding beach chairs adjacent the Cory pool in preparation for their 4^th of July celebration.

"I married twin sisters. It would be a bit....

"We don't know anything about where Allie and Gregory might be," Sarah repeated to Jamie, though a little less emphatic now that he'd explained to her and Steven just what sort of legal and medical trouble the two might be facing.

"What about you?"....

"How long?" Charlie asked Frankie the moment her mother stepped through the front door.

Frankie hesitated, unsure....

"What are you doing here, sweetie?" Despite having come over expressly to speak with Felicia, the moment Lorna caught sight of Lori Ann sitting on the floor in the middle of ....

This time around, Lorna made sure to call and double-check for herself exactly what time Cass' allocution — and Lucas' release — were scheduled for.

She arrived a half-hour late deliberately....

"It's a committee!" Gregory exclaimed, not sure whether to be touched or horrified when Allie lead the entire group into his hospital room and calmly explained that not just Sarah and Steven, but GQ and Jen, too, would be helping....

"I am really getting sick of you people," Chase Hamilton looked over Cass' head to also address....

"No," Carl told Rachel.

"Why not?" She shot back. "You wanted revenge so badly you were willing to break your word to me. Now I'm giving you permission, I am asking you....

Cass admitted to Felicia, "I thought you'd be furious with me. Lucas is sitting in jail right now because of something I did."

"Lucas is sitting in jail because....

Felicia didn't call Cass as promised until the next morning, and, once she did, her tone was surprisingly....

"So exactly how long are you and the boys planning to be partying in Cooperstown?" Lorna perched on the lid of Jamie's suitcase as it sat atop the bed, ostensibly helping him to close it, then somehow forgetting to move from the comfortable spot between his arms....

"You said you would do anything you had to," Frankie reminded Cass, "To make sure you'd never lose me again."

"I know what I said." He snarled, "And I don't appreciate....

"You're not helping," Jamie told Lorna mock-sternly as he struggled to fit his key into the guesthouse lock.

"Really....

"The girls were on their best behavior, " Felicia reported to Frankie and Cass as soon as they arrived home. "Charlie must have watched ....

"Is it cool for you to have girls in your room," Lorna joked as Jamie unlocked the door to his balcony. "Or will you get in trouble with your Mommy?"

"I'll risk it." He pulled her inside with a quick glance down the three-story, seemingly smooth wall. "How the hell did you get up here?"

Cass sent Felicia on ahead to the church so she could help Frankie get everything ready for Lori Ann's christening, promising to catch up as soon as he crossed all the T's and dotted the I's of Lucas' paperwork.

By the time he arrived ....

"Don't. Please, Dad, don't," Lorna begged Lucas. But whether he couldn't hear her plea over the general din of the courtroom, or had simply chosen to ignore it, either way, Lucas ....

With the tornado that was Jamie's jubilant family finally gone, that left only Felicia and Lorna still holding vigil inside the police station's waiting area.

"It's been hours," Felicia lamented. "We know ....

Mike Bauer was long out the door, but Cass and Frankie's argument continued, sotto voice, so as not to wake up either Charlie or Lori Ann.

"Jamie doesn't deserve your loyalty," Cass insisted. "The first thing he did after...

"I suppose I should get used to this," Jamie sounded like he was trying to convince himself along with Alice as they sat across the table in the prison's visiting area. "Something happening...

Without a word, barely looking at each other, really, Lorna and Lucas walked out of the courthouse and into the park across the street. They both instinctively...

Felicia picked up her phone. The voice on the other end sighed and said, "I'm afraid I could really use a drink, right now."

She promised Spencer...

Cass shifted his gaze slowly from the laptop to Frankie and asked, "Are you accusing me of something, Mary Frances?"

"No," she said quickly. Too quickly....

Lucas asked Jamie, "Are you going to tell the police about my involvement with Cecile's death?"

"You said it yourself, I don't have any proof. Carl would never...

"Not now, Lorna," Carl hissed upon spying her visage over the black and white security monitor.

On any other occasion, he'd be delighted to have his former protegee drop by for a visit to Carl Hutchins' secluded home away from home. It had been much too long. He believed....

"What got Matt running out of here in such a hurry?"

Donna looked up from where she was sitting on her bed to encounter ....

"I realize this is a most inopportune time," Carl began, prompting a mirthless laugh from Rachel.

"That's one way of putting it."

"But I'm afraid it's simply essential ....

"Happy birthday, sweetheart!" Her father's voice over the phone brought Lorna up short, forcing her to face just how far she'd veered off course in the past 24 hours, from driving back to Bay City alone, to ....

Mike Bauer assessed Jamie, currently sitting across from him in a hotel-room chair, with a practiced eye. He waited for an explanation.

When none proved forthcoming, Mike decided to lead his witness a bit by prompting, "Have you suddenly realized yourself to be guilty?"

"Here," Jamie all but flung in Kevin's face the document agreeing to Kirkland's moving in with Marley in exchange for Grant dropping his custody suit. "I'd recommend ...."

Marley wondered if she were dead.

Because all the alleged symptoms were there....

Sleep when the baby sleeps.

It's what the parenting books told Frankie. It's what other moms told Frankie. It's what Cass told Frankie.

What no one told her....

"What do you think?" Grant proudly showed Kirkland around his new room, complete with loft bed, state-of-the-art home entertainment center, extreme sports silhouettes stenciled in black on the walls and a retro-style vending machine packed with enough soda and snacks to feed a small army ....

The idea of her son being thought capable of murder was so ridiculous to Rachel that she was tempted to laugh, literally laugh; that's how absurd, how preposterous it sounded to her.

But one glimpse of Jamie's face when he was brought in for his bail hearing was enough to....

"She wasn't even acting like herself," Matt told Marley as they walked through the Love house, checking whether the contractors had made it livable enough for her and ....

Grant glanced at the name that flashed through his cell phone's caller ID and blinked in surprise. "Burrell must be making good time."

He readied his eardrums for yet more threats from....

Chase Hamilton may not have actually licked his lips in anticipation at Detective Chiang's news. But that was about the only thing he didn't do, between the leaping...

"Well, good," Kevin shook hands first with Allie and Gregory, then with Rick and Mindy. "I'm very, very glad this looks...

Donna looked from Marley to Matt to the third figure hovering in the background and, summoning as much dignity as possible ....

Deciding that Amanda might feel less threatened if....

"Fanny?" Lucas took one look at Felicia's ashen face as she stumbled through the door, and broke out into a cold sweat. "Where have you been?" He looked down at her shoes. The rounded toes of Felicia's $1000 violet Gucci boots were both stained with....

"So is this how it's going to be from now on?" Jamie mused. "You're just going to glare and give me the cold shoulder every time you see me?"

Lorna studied the ceiling with such incredible concentration one would have thought the meaning of life was inscribed upon it.

"And now....

"What the hell do you want?" Matt shot at a wary Jamie from the doorway of Donna's house.

"Hello to you, too,"....

"I can't believe our luck," Grant told Spencer over breakfast at the Harbor Club. "Jamie's ex-wife getting murdered right before the judge is set to make her decision about Kirkland. If that doesn't say — "

Carl looked Rachel in the eye and, voice steely, informed her, "I did not ....

"Don't those reporters have anything better to do than to camp out in front of my house like vultures?"....

"The police are here to see you, Donna," Marley told her mother, looking as confused as Donna felt, in light of the startling request.

"Me?" Donna peered....

Marley sat rigidly on her chair in the waiting area of the Bay City Police Station, eyes nervously darting around the bullpen in anticipation of....

Grant's first instinct upon finding Cecile's strangled body....

"Here to welcome me to the neighborhood?"....

"Dude, she could have been our sister,"....

"Congratulations." Jamie looked around Alice's new office at Bay City Hospital. "I guess this means you've decided....

Something is definitely not right...

"I am so sorry, Alice." Jamie realized that a language hadn't yet been invented that would convey precisely how very sorry he was. "You are the last person I would....

"Luke," he repeated. Then admitted, "Nobody has called me Luke for a very long time."

"Jamie told me everything," Marley informed Cecile coolly. She pulled out her...."

Jamie lifted his hand to reveal a small vial. He placed it on his desk with a firm thud....

"Ready to concede?"...."

"You've been a bad boy ....

""You want me to drug Frankie?" Jamie asked ...."

Judge Ellen Landregan was starting to get a headache, not to mention some nasty eyestrain, from watching ....

"You..." Felicia looked from Cass to Frankie, overwhelmed. "You two would be willing to adopt Lori Ann..."

"That was cool," Cory told Rachel, Carl and the others as they returned home from their medically themed Thanksgiving.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it,"....

"I brought you some turkey," Lorna offered Lucas a foil container. "Want me to pop it in the microwave?"

Her father's face suggested....

Bay City Thanksgiving 1991....

Bay City Thanksgiving 2009....

"What's all this?"....

Looking back, there had been faint warning bells going off in Lorna's head as soon as Jamie lifted her up and ....

"Aren't you two cute," Cecile cooed at Frankie and Cass. "The Bonnie and Clyde of suburbia. As if either of you could so much as issue a convincing death threat, much less....

"What the hell is this?" Jamie slapped away the sheet of paper Kevin was attempting to hand him.

Kevin didn't budge....

Alice watched with mix of satisfaction and relief as Jamie finished his cup of coffee and placed it next to the empty plate on her table. It had been a bittersweet reunion....

Carl told Rachel, "I went to see Jenna's child at the hospital, earlier."

"Did you?"....

Cecile," Frankie said.

"Of course," Cass replied with a sigh. Because even though Tony the Tuna may have threatened him, Christy Carson may have poisoned him, and Rex Allingham once actually took over Cass' life for a period of months, the only person who ....

Carl took a long moment to compose himself. And then an even longer moment to accept that he was doing so.

Finally, every muscle in his body stretched to the breaking point...

Donna asked Rachel, "Are you going to let Carl come after me?"

"Carl made it very clear that he isn't .....

Rachel said, "I don't see how making Donna's life miserable will ultimately do anybody any earthly good." "It will keep me entertained,".....

Cass' body remained in the doorway to his home. His soul, however .....

The noise didn't all die down immediately. First one machine slowly ground to a halt, then another let out a regretful last wheeze. The doctor with the defibrillator shuffled back. A nurse moved aside .....

Dean may not have known the meaning of OR emergency medical terms like "vent setting pressure," "erythromycin" and "endo-tracheal," but "no heartbeat" .....

"You're Jenna's mother," Matt repeated, theoretically comprehending the meaning of every word in the sentence, yet unable to make them fit together. "I don't understand."

Dean told Jenna, "You aren't being fair."

He leaned over his wife's hospital bed and.....

Walking swiftly, so as to get as far away from Cass' house as possible and avoid the risk of being overheard, Frankie hissed into her cell-phone .....

After an hour of waiting and still getting no answer about Jenna's condition, Felicia looked ready to explode. She'd given up .....

It wasn't until after he'd caught up to them that Dean Frame even realized he'd flagged down Carl and Rachel's car.

Dean was breathing heavily ....

"Frankie?" Cass still clutched Lila's wrist. Charlie was standing just a few feet away, wiping the tears off her face with both hands. But Cass only had eyes for a single person. "Frankie?" .....

It wasn't until the next morning, when the three of them were sitting on a plane bound for Chicago, jetting off to prove Lucas' true identity, that Rachel thought to ask him....

"Lucas?" Rachel's identification turned into a question by the last syllable. 

Next to her, Carl had a different guess.  He snarled .... 

The entire time that she was bullying Steven into getting her Carl's e-mail, the entire time that she was sifting through it note by note, searching for clues to his intentions, Rachel had never stopped to consider...

"Did you get rid of them?" Matt asked Donna as soon as she returned to the bedroom after shooing Cass and Lila out the door.  

"Well .....

Kirkland had spent twenty minutes cooling his heels in Jamie's office while simultaneously stoking the fire of his righteous indignation. He'd come intending ....

"You've got a visitor," Allie followed Kirkland through the institutionally white doors of the Bay City University Computer Lab. As expected, Steven was on site....

"Kirkland...."

Prior to his return, Grant had hired a small army of private detectives to prepare dossiers on everyone he expected to deal with in Bay City. He'd also ....

Amanda hesitated for only a moment. And then she informed Mr. Kevin Fowler, Esquire, that James Frame wasn't currently available. But, she added.....

Jamie smiled. And took a broad step to the side. The better to let Donna see exactly who was heading down the dimly lit street and towards her front porch.

Bay City, Illinois, Easter 2009

The man in the doorway had been presumed dead for exactly a decade.