Betty, I’m here on your doorstep
And I planned it out for weeks now, but
It’s finally sinkin’ in
Betty, right now is the last time
I can dream about what happens when
You see my face again

---

July 2004

She’d thought about this day for more than a month, since the moment they’d placed her perfectly healthy baby boy in her arms on the day of his birth. A little scrap of life that had no business owning a set of developed lungs when he’d been born well before his due date.

“I don’t understand,” she’d told the doctor. “The doctor said the baby was measuring bigger than expected, but—”

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Miss Webber. But that’s not a seven-month preemie you’re holding in your arms. He’s a full-term baby. Count yourself lucky. No trip to the NICU for him. You can both be released tomorrow.”

“Oh, boy,” Elizabeth murmured. She looked down at her son, all the possibilities and improbable thoughts swirling in her head. How could it be true?

But how could it be wrong?

She’d wanted to have all the answers, to be sure, before she went home and complicated everything. Especially with the stories Emily was telling her during their weekly calls. Elizabeth listened as Emily described the grief of losing Nikolas, and the bewildering twists and turns her brother’s life was taking.

“It’s like he’s someone else, Liz. I don’t get it.”

Neither did Elizabeth, but the truth was the truth, so she’d asked her OB to get her records from Port Charles, and he’d been curious, too, reading over the prenatal files she’d brought with her.

“I agree with you, your doctor in New York doesn’t appear to have questioned the information you gave him about your last menstrual cycle, but you said you’d had some health issues that year?”

“Oh. So many,” Elizabeth said with a grimace. “Why?”

“Well, you know, stress and illness can cause problems with that. But you told me there was a car accident.”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, it should have been found then. Was it serious?”

“Sort of. I had a head injury—” But nothing else. Barely a bruise on the rest of her body. She bit her lip. “Can you find out? Can’t we ask them what tests they ran? You could get those files.”

And so he had, and Elizabeth sat in her little rented apartment in Napa, staring at the results. Negative test. Well, that was that, of course.  She hadn’t been pregnant the night of the accident.

“Well, that doesn’t mean anything,” her doctor had said when Elizabeth had reported that. “Looking over the file, it makes sense that you wouldn’t have miscarried. And you said the only possible conception date was a few days prior to this?”

“Yes—”

“It takes ten days for your body to register the pregnancy. I’m sorry, Miss Webber. I know you were looking for some definitive proof before you, ah, informed the interested party, but the only thing that can resolve this is a paternity test.”

That had been the last thing Elizabeth wanted to hear — to go home, to step into the middle of that mess with a maybe you’re already a father, whoops! — was the height of insanity.

But then her son took care of it for her, at least in her own mind. Cameron had been born with clear blue eyes, but so were all babies, she’d told herself. As the weeks passed, and Cam lost some of that newborn look—

One morning, she strapped him into the safety seat on her kitchen counter, and tickled him under his chin— Cameron had opened his eyes, looked at her, and she’d known. Those were his eyes. The color. The shape. And once she’d seen that, there wasn’t much else to argue with herself about.

But still, Elizabeth hesitated, because the situation at home was only more dicey. Nikolas was alive with amnesia, and Emily was in the middle of scheming to get him back. And her baby’s father—well, his situation had gotten more fraught. He’d divorced, nearly married another woman who was also pregnant with his child (though Emily had her doubts, she’d confided during a call), and an ex-boyfriend had come after her—it was all crazy. Elizabeth was lucky she was far away from it all.

To go home and tell him that maybe but almost certainly, he’d made another baby while he’d been engaged to the same woman he’d apparently (maybe) cheated on again after they were married to make a second kid—

Maybe Elizabeth should just live in California forever and no one would ask questions.

But then Cameron turned eight weeks old, and he looked so much like his father that it wasn’t a maybe, almost certainly anymore but a definitely, for sure, holy crap.

And then she got the call that Lila Quartermaine had passed in her sleep.

Elizabeth gave notice to her landlord, apologizing and promising to pay the fee for breaking her lease. She’d packed her baby up, and boarded a plane.

The day was here—she’d plotted and rehearsed the speech a thousand times. Hi, remember me?  No, that was stupid. Hey. One time we had sex which wasn’t a good idea, but now here’s the result—

No, that wasn’t right either. Wanna play guess who’s the daddy?

She rewrote and rewrote the script a dozen times, trying to think of every variation of the truth and every possible reaction he’d have—

And yet, the moment arrived, and she was still blank. What would she say? How would he react? Oh, God, how would everyone else react?

He’d never taken her off the list of visitors allowed unannounced access to the penthouse floor, and Elizabeth appreciated that small reminder that they were friends, and that whatever happened, it would somehow be okay. Eventually.

The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. Elizabeth cuddled her son more closely, took a deep breath. Here it was. No more imagining what would happen. This was it. The last moment to turn back.

But someone downstairs must have called up anyway because the door to the penthouse opened, and Jason stepped out, smiling at her. “Hey. Wally said you were coming up. I didn’t know you were back.” He looked at the baby in her arms, then back at her. “How was the flight?”

“Long. Babies don’t like to fly,” Elizabeth said almost breathlessly. “Um—”

“Yeah, there’s something about the air pressure. I remember that with Michael.” Jason’s smiled faded slightly, and he looked at her. “Is Ric bothering you? Is that what you came by for? Because I’ll take care of it—”

“N-no. No one knows I’m back yet. I’m—” She took a deep breath. “I came to see you.”

Jason tilted his head slightly, opened his mouth, but then another woman stepped out behind him, with dark hair, and a bulging belly. “What are you doing out here?” the woman demanded. Sam. This was Sam. The mother of Jason’s other maybe child. She looked at Elizabeth, at the baby —

And saw what Elizabeth had seen that day in the kitchen. Her dark eyes widened. “Oh. Damn. That’s going to complicate things.”

“What?” Jason asked.

Sam had seen so the truth so quickly that it gave Elizabeth a little bit of courage. “I don’t want to complicate anything,” she told the other woman. “It’s just—I can’t do anything to change what is.”

“What’s going on?”

“I’m going to go inside,” Sam said. She pursed her lips, looked at Jason for a long moment, then back at the baby, then at Elizabeth. “Oh, hey, by the way, Jason didn’t knock me up in case that helps—”

“Sam—” Jason started, but the other woman had already headed for the penthouse, tossing a half-hearted wave over her shoulder. “Elizabeth—”

“He was born the first week of May,” Elizabeth said in a rush. “And the doctors were worried because I was only seven months pregnant—but then he was born, and he wasn’t—” She swallowed hard, and now she saw Jason looking at her, the realization creeping into his eyes. “He wasn’t premature. I—I didn’t know that. I would have said something, but I didn’t know.”

Jason stepped closer to her, a hand raising up, hovering just a few inches in front of Cameron, the baby’s eyes following his fingers, then reaching for them. His hand wrapped around Jason’s thumb.

“I know this the last thing you expected, and I wanted you to know that I’m not asking for anything you don’t want to give because I know I can do this on my own, but you needed to know—”

“You still haven’t told me,” Jason said, his voice almost inaudible. He raised his eyes to hers. “Can you—I need to hear you say it.”

“He’s yours,” Elizabeth said, and Jason closed his eyes, took a deep breath. When he opened them, she saw the flood of emotion, the hope— She held him out. “You’re his father, Jason.”

Jason took the baby from her, gently tucking him into the crook of his arm. “I’m his father,” he repeated, then he looked at her and grinned. “He’s mine?”

“Yes.” Her voice trembled. “I’m sorry. I should have come sooner, but—”

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” Jason reached for her arm. “You’re here now. And I can explain what’s going on with Sam. Come inside. I want to know everything.”

← 13 – epiphany | 15 – peace →