Once the medical examiner tells us that Blake was indeed raped, Carisi and I then get into his car and drive across town to the Fruity Saloon. It was an insult, I saw that now, the name of that accursed club that Blake found himself working at. The exterior seemed normal—well-worn bricks and neon lights—but the interior seriously needed a renovation of some kind or other. Old bits of gum were stuck intermittently on various parts of the flooring, and all the proprietors were drunk and in other varying states of complete disarray. As we stepped fully inside, the door squeaked closed behind us, and I nearly gasped and almost immediately made a grab onto Carisi for support.

"It's all okay," he assures me, patting my shoulder briefly as we stepped further and further into the club.

"Bartender or D.J.?" I ask him, letting him go.

"You take the bartender—you look like you can knock his teeth in if he so much as crosses the line," Carisi replies, a wry smile overtaking his lips.

"Have fun with Mr. Muzak," I say sarcastically, making my way over to the bar and sitting on one of the stools, managing to keep a good grip upon the counter so as I didn't go flying. "Hey there," I say to the bartender.

The bartender grins, looking me over without an ounce of shame. "Wow," he says breathlessly to me, before catching himself a bit and immediately readying a glass for me with an attractive smile that would make any straight girl swoon. "Let me guess—pinot noir."

I shake my head. "Wrong."

"Sorry—lemon drop martini?" he asks. "A white wine? I always try to air on the sophisticated side of things, and you definitely seem sophisticated."

I laugh a little, leaning forward and lowering my voice, forcing it into that husky tone that always seemed to work completely on the opposite sex. "Let me tell you a little something—I just so happen to be seven years sober," I say, and flash him a coy smile.

The bartender checks himself then, having the decency to look more than a little uncomfortable at his faux pas. "Fruit juice? Water?" he asks. "Iced water with lemon?" he wants to know.

"Anything sparkling? Like non-alcoholic cider?" I ask him, reaching into my pocket and showing my badge. "You don't want to mess with me."

He immediately nods, and pours me some sparkling cider. "What can I help you with today, officer?"

"Detective Beckett," I say, taking the cider and sipping it. "Leia Beckett."

"Leia? Cool... Nate Barwick," he replies. "And no, that's actually my birth name—you don't need to ask."

I chuckle at that. "Don't worry—I believe you," I reply. "I'm actually here to ask you your opinion on Marlowe Fairbanks?" I ask him.

"My boss? That's classic," he says, wetting a cloth and proceeding to wipe down the bar himself.

I take another sip of my cider, not wanting to appear rude. "So, when were you hired here, Nate?"

"It's been about six years or so," Nate replies. "The former bartender was Gregory Pitts, and he trained me himself and everything—every trick, every ingredient, every back—I know from him." Nate manages to get a rather sticky part of the bar cleaned up. "Gregory worked here at the Saloon for a good fifteen years or so, back when Marlowe's old man owned the place."

"Marlowe's dad owned the Fruity Saloon before him?" I ask.

"Yeah—Martin Fairbanks, swell guy," Nate tells me. "Owned this place for a good twenty-five years before Marlowe got his business license and credentials from Columbia Business School. It was his graduation present, and they turned this whole thing into a family affair."

I take another sip of the cider. "You mean with Poppy Fairbanks doing all the marketing and accounting?" I ask him.

"Yeah, that's right," Nate replies. "I shouldn't have to ask how or why you know all that—you're a cop." He gives me a smile, leaning down ever so slightly on the bar and proceeding to size me up. "Cops know this sort of thing, huh? I mean—the whole getting information part."

I nod. "You'd be right." I turn and look at the dancer on stage. "Who's that over there, dancing right now?" I ask, nodding towards the stage.

"Gracie Glitter," Nate replies, beginning to clean again and barely looking up to where I'm indicating. "Mainly does those glitzy pop numbers from the 80's. She favors Diana Ross and Cher."

I nod, turning back and taking another sip of my drink. "Was she here when all that stuff went down the other night?"

"What stuff?" Nate asks.

I give Nate a smile. "You know—the stuff." I lean forward again; my blazer is partially unzipped and just gives Nate enough of the goods for him to potentially answer my line of questioning—hey, I needed to make a living here. "Tell me, Nate—do you like your boss?"

"Marlowe? Sure, I guess. He pays the bills—literally."

I nod. "Uh-huh... Tell me, what are the rules about say, the bouncers, the D.J., or you fraternizing with the dancers or performers?" "It's against the rules—in the club," Nate replies. "Like say if we're outside of work or something and it won't affect anything in here, Marlowe doesn't give a damn about any of it."

"You specified in the club," I say, giving Nate another smile. "What about in the VIP room?" I ask.

"How do you know about that?" Nate asks. "It's a loyal customer secret... We're not supposed to even talk to civilians about that..."

"Nate, do you remember who you're talking to?" I ask him.

"Detective Leia Beckett," he replies, picking up a tumbler glass and beginning to clean it methodically. "I never forget..."

I nod at him. "Good," I reply. "Now, do you know of any illegal activity being done in the VIP room?"

"We're not supposed to—" he begins.

"Nate, I need you to listen to me," I say, firmly this time. "If you didn't do anything in that back room at any time, then you've got nothing to worry about. If you just tell me what's gone on in there that was wrong, then you do have an obligation to tell me."

Nate looks around and leans towards me. "I'm going to kiss you on the cheek like we're old friends," he whispers to me, and does so, before leaning back, and presents a badge of his own before shoving it back in his pants. "So you're Special Victims?" he asks.

I nod. "Yeah—we got a report," I reply, not enjoying having my toes stepped on during an interrogation. "What's Narcotics have to do with this?"

"We heard some of the dancers are using," he replied.

"Did the name Gwennie Glimmer come up?" I ask, using Blake's stage name and hoping that he wasn't involved.

Nate shakes his head. "No, Gwennie's one of the good ones; like Candy Cane and Bella Berry—they're all involved in this sisterhood. They're one of the rare ones that actually follow the rules—unless the bouncers are dared... Or willing to pay double for a dance," Nate explains.

"Does Marlowe have an opinion about that?" I ask.

Nate shrugs, continuing to polish various glasses beneath the counter. "Whatever he doesn't know won't hurt him."

"And what he does know?" I want to know, hoping that Nate will catch my meaning behind my hushed tone. "What about what Marlowe does know? What about what Marlowe does? Does he spend a lot of time here?"

Nate raises his eyes to mine, curiosity behind them. "I think you're not telling me something deliberately," he states.

"So what if I am?" I ask, taking another sip of the cider.

"We're both detectives," Nate whispers, his voice not audible to anyone except for me, due to our closeness. "Tell me what you're looking for."

"And why would I do that?" I demand, my tone equally soft. "I could potentially jeopardize everything. You do know that, don't you?"

Nate sighs. "Hey, throw Narcotics a bone here," he literally begs. "We've been working this place for months—well, I have for years, but I've got some other guys lurking around here, too."

I blink, looking around the place and attempting to spot them. "Please tell me one of these schmucks isn't..."

"One in the same—they play their parts well," Nate confirms. "The D.J. is one, too—the one talking to your little friend. And two of the bouncers are our guys. In all, we've got four detectives and a lieutenant from Narcotics working this joint. So either you tell me what you're investigating, Detective Beckett, or you can get the hell out of here."

"With all due respect, Nate, my mother is the commander and chief of Special Victim's Unit—or didn't you pick up on that?" I ask, speaking to him as if he were a child. "Let me tell you a little something, Nate... You do not, ever, under any circumstances whatsoever, threaten a fellow officer who is trying to break a case of their own. I'll stay out of your way, you stay out of mine. At the end of the day, we still get our men. Deal?"

"Fine," Nate says, obviously upset.

"Good," I say. "Now, tell me what happened here the other night with our little friend Gwennie," I ask him patiently.

"What do you want with Gwennie?"

"Gwennie's a friend of mine," I reply. "I worry for her safety—or, rather, Blake's safety—working in a joint like this. He says it pays the bills, but," I say, shrugging my shoulders, "I'm still skeptical."

Nate looks uncomfortable then and lowers his voice. "Okay, I'll tell you, but you can't tell anyone..."

"Tell anyone what?" I ask.

Nate looks around and sighs, shoulders deflating in defeat. "I knew the secrecy couldn't last forever, but—"

"What? Just spit it out, it'll be better for everyone," I tell him.

"Blake and I are a thing, okay?!" Nate says, obviously exasperated.

I raise my eyebrows. "No offense, but you were sizing me up the minute I came over here," I reply, "and you expect me to believe that you're...?"

"I'm not gay, or anything like that," Nate says quickly, almost as if someone's threatened him with a guy. "I don't know what it is about Blake—all I know is, I'm crazy about him. I've never done anything like this before—I always dated women from the time I was a teenager, but one night Blake made a pass at me and I said, 'Sure, why not?' and it was the single most beautiful night of my life. I can't explain it at all, but, it just...happened."

I smile at Nate in a moment of clear-cut understanding. "I know how you feel," I reply, the cliché rolling easily off my tongue.

"How could you?" Nate demands, scrubbing down the inside of the bar. "How could you possibly...?"

"I'm gay," I reply, and Nate looks me over again. "I know, I know. I didn't know myself—I had two boyfriends in high school, and I married the second one. We had three kids—I told Blake all this."

"How'd you figure it out?" Nate asks.

I shift a little on my barstool. "After I had my oldest daughter—it was an unplanned pregnancy soon after I began college—and married my first husband, things were okay for a while," I tell him quietly. "And then I got depressed; my mother and I weren't speaking because my husband's twin sister—who they had adopted and who still lived with them—had blackmailed me to keep my relationship with my ex-husband a secret."

"Wow," Nate says.

I nod. "Yeah. Wow," I reply. "So, I couldn't deal, you know? I turned to the booze and was drinking myself into oblivion as often as I could. My daughter suffered, my marriage suffered, and my husband had had enough. He told me to get help and I did—go get help, I mean."

"Well, you said you were sober..."

"And proud of it," I say with a smile. "I actually met my fiancée in rehab, and that dynamic was pretty funny..."

"Was she in there for the same issues?" Nate asks.

I shake my head. "No, actually—she was my shrink," I say with a laugh. "We later became friends and things were looking up and up after I got out of rehab. I had a better relationship with my husband and my daughter, and I even had a circle of friends who were understanding about me not drinking..."

"What happened?" Nate wants to know.

I bite my lip, swirling the last of my cider in my glass, contemplation setting in. "I was getting along so well with my husband that I got pregnant," I reply. "When I told my now-fiancée, Kassandra, about it, she pretty much blew a gasket. She told me that she was in love with me... I'd had romantic inclinations towards her in therapy, but initially I'd just thought I was attracted to the notion that she was going to help me out of this..."

"...but it turned into more?" Nate guessed.

I nodded, finishing off the last of my cider. "You bet it did," I reply. "Once I found out my ex-husband was gay, everything sort of fell into place. My ex and I got separated, I called up Kassandra, and it all happened so fast. Now we're getting married and my ex and I have joint custody." I look up and Nate and smile at him in a comforting manner. "The point is, it doesn't matter."

"What doesn't matter?"

"Who you love, as long as you know for yourself, and they know," I explain in what I hope is a careful manner.

Nate sighs. "Blake came to you, didn't he?"

"What makes you say that?"

Nate looks around again. "Blake told me about Marlowe raping him in the back alley," he explains. "I would've helped if I could, but my dad's been ill—he lives in Jersey. You can check—I flew into Newark Airport at six p.m. that night, and I spent the night there. When Blake called me distraught after the rape kit, my dad told me he was all right... My family doesn't know, at least, I haven't said anything but..."

"Your dad knows," I say, smiling at Nate.

He sighs. "I think so—based on how I was talking about Blake," he replies. "He seemed okay with me ditching him and going to make sure Blake was okay. His sister left town for an event or something—I don't know. I spent the night with Blake, just holding him when he cried..." Nate stares off into space, visualizing his lover in his arms, crying out in pain. "I wouldn't, of course, but is it wrong of me to want to kill him?" he whispers, the glass he is cleaning smashing into pieces in his hand beneath his grip.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Carisi says, immediately running forward at the sound. "What's going on here?"

"Sonny, we're fine," I say, placing a hand on his arm. "We're fine, really," I tell him as Nate looks at his hand. The cut is superficial, and there is no sign of glass as he wraps a towel around it. "It's all good," I assure him, as he slips back to his post of talking to the D.J.

"What is he, your father or something?" Nate demands.

I blink then, shocked. "What?" I ask.

Nate raises his eyes to mine. "Come on, I wasn't born yesterday," he says, making his hand into a fist in an effort to stop the bleeding. "You look like you get half your genes from him."

I shake my head, turning around to peek at Carisi before turning back to Nate and shaking my head. "That's impossible and off-topic," I reply. "Now, tell me more about your job so we can get to the bottom of all this."

. . .

I need to get out of my head for a while, which is good because Kassandra has a department meeting and Owen and Marcus have the kids that night. I consider going to my home in Long Island—for my parents always tell me that it is truly my home—but I instead opt to stay in Manhattan. I go to the apartment that I spent so many hours and up the elevator, before knocking on the door. I smile at the familiar face that answers, and appreciate being pulled in for the customary hug that I know so well.

"Come in, Leia, come in," Olivia says brightly, nodding into her living room as she shuts the door behind her. "Can I get you something to eat?"

"Thanks, Olivia, but I had a bite an hour ago," I reply.

Olivia smiles and follows me into the living room, sitting in her favorite chair with a smile as she looks me over. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

I bite my lip, rolling my shoulders in a moment of anticipation. "Listen, I don't expect you to know or anything, but I just thought I'd ask..." As I hesitate, Olivia merely waits for me to ask my question. "...about my father."

"Lincoln? What's he done now?" Olivia jokes.

I shake my head. "No, no, my biological father," I reply.

Olivia immediately looks away and stares down at her coffee table. "What makes you think Lincoln isn't?"

"Olivia," I say slowly, and she raises her eyes to mine. "I don't want to go full detective mode on you here, but come on. I'm thirty-years-old here, and I have a right to know, with or without my mother's permission."

Olivia sighs, knowing that I'm stubborn enough not to let it go. "Fine, but under no circumstances are you to tell your mother I told you the truth."

"Promise," I reply.

"Carisi donated the sperm, and your mother donated the egg that was then implanted in Henrietta Beckett, and thus began your conception," she replies. "I swore I'd never tell anyone, but..." She spreads her hands.

I freeze then in my seat, hardly understanding. "What...?"

"Dominick Carisi, Jr. is your biological father," Olivia replies simply. "Like I said, I wasn't at liberty to discuss it, but..."

"No," I say shakily, getting to my feet. "No, it's not true..."

"Leia, don't act this way, please..."

"Don't act this way?" I said sarcastically to myself as I began pacing around the room, shaking my head. "No, no, no. You don't get to tell me how to act right now, Olivia—I'm sorry, but you don't."

"Leia..."

"No..." I say, turning around and walking out of there without a word.

I don't even wait for the elevator; I open the staircase door, hoping that the drumming sound of my heartbeat in my ears will distract me from all of this. My feet slam down on each incoming step as I try not to think about the condemning words that Olivia told me.

How was I even supposed to know that it hadn't happened naturally? My mother had a child with Carisi after me, so who's to say he wasn't cheating on Amanda Rollins with my mother the whole time? And, if Olivia had access to this information, who was to know what else she was hiding...?

. . .

EDYTHE'S POV

I was sitting in my office doing some paperwork when my phone rang. I picked it up immediately and placed it to my ear. "Beckett," I said.

"You're there late," Olivia observed.

I laugh into the receiver. "Someone has to pay the bills," I joked.

"Listen, Edythe, we need to talk..."

I am immediately ridged in my seat. "What do you mean?" I ask her. "Olivia, what's going on?"

"Leia just came to see me..."

"She's been working so hard, poor thing," I reply, allowing my thoughts to drift to my oldest daughter for a moment. "She wasn't a bother to you or anything, was she?" I ask.

"No, of course not," Olivia replies. "Listen, the thing is, she came and asked me if I knew about her biological father..."

I feel myself going ridged again. "Liv..."

"I know I shouldn't have," Olivia tells me, "but Leia seemed so desperate to know and she's thirty-years-old..."

"You promised me," I reply, my voice suddenly raspy. "You promised me that you would never tell..."

"I didn't tell her about all the circumstances," Olivia says quickly. "She thinks that Henrietta merely was the incubator, so to speak. She thinks that you and Carisi donated the eggs to be helpful..."

"I am in love with Lincoln," I say into the phone, ignoring the tears that are falling down my cheeks. "Whatever I did with Sonny is dead in the water. Sure we had a relapse and I got pregnant a second time with Fin, but it's all over now. I am in love Lincoln," I say again.

Olivia sighs. "I see."

"I am," I tell her, wanting her to get that through her thick head. "I love my husband, I always have, and I always will."

"Edythe?"

"What?" I ask, growing exasperated.

"Who are you trying to convince?" she asks.

I blink. "Excuse me?" I demand.

"Who are you trying to convince?" Olivia asks a second time, deliberately slowing her speech to get her point across. "Who are you really trying to convince here, Edythe? Me? Or you?" she wants to know.

Without even saying goodbye, I hang up the phone. Looking back at the phone again, I pick it up, press a button, and wait.

"Yeah, Edythe?"

"Sonny, can you come in here, please?" I ask.

"No problem."

"Thanks," I reply. I look up as he enters my office, and I find myself twisting my fingers around themselves in my lap. I have all of these nervous ticks that Sonny knows about, and this is why I do my best to hide them from him completely. "I just got a call from Olivia," I tell him, forcing my voice not to rise an octave at the notion that he is standing so close.

"Is she doing okay?" Sonny asks.

I nod. "Yeah. Fine."

"Okay," Sonny replies, unsure of why he was summoned to me in the first place. "I need to write down the D.J.'s statement from The Fruity Saloon today," he explains to me in the politest voice possible. "He wasn't much help, but he did fill in a few blanks—"

"Olivia had a visit from Leia," I burst out, unable to keep it in any longer. I look over his impossibly handsome face then, and he, to his credit, looks shocked. "It was a complete surprise..."

"Did Olivia say that something was wrong with Leia? I mean, is she okay?!" he asks, immediately leaning over my desk, fear in his voice.

"She... She told her, Sonny," I reply, fighting to get the words out, my condition to keep silent on the subject suddenly broken.

Sonny's mouth falls open. "Olivia told Leia that...?"

"That you are her biological father," I reply.

"All the details?" Sonny asks, immediately uncomfortable.

"Not all the details," I reply, knowing that the discomfort is mutual at this point. "I mean, she said she didn't..."

"You mean, Leia doesn't know that she was conceived the old-fashioned way in between the time you and Lincoln broke off your engagement the first time?" he asks me. "And that you concealed the pregnancy, and then passed it off to Henrietta as her child?"

I nod. "Yes—Olivia didn't tell Leia that part."

Sonny shakes his head. "Wow..."

"Is that all you can say?" I demand, getting to my feet and forcing myself to stand head to head with him. "We've deceived everyone here, Sonny—everyone we've ever possibly known has been deceived."

"Everyone?" Sonny asks, looking me over.

I deliberately look away from him. "What are you talking about?"

Sonny reaches out then, guiding his hand to mine. "You know this isn't just some light switch, right?" he asks me. "Not just some high school, in the broom closet, romance? Not one that merely blows out with the sands of time?"

"I know that," I reply, looking up at him through my tears. "Don't you think I know that by now?"

"Do you?" Sonny asks.

"Yes," I reply. "God help me..." I whisper.

"Even God can't help us," Sonny replies, yanking me into his arms with full force and kissing me.

. . .

LEIA'S POV

I find myself driving aimlessly along the road, hardly knowing which direction I'm going, or even want to go at this point. Rain starts to splatter against my windshield and I do my best to see around the various droplets. I've turned my phone off, for inevitably words of comfort or concern will issue through it, and I really don't want or need to hear that right now. It would be a constant reminder that the foundation my life had been built on was a total and complete lie, and I seriously didn't need to be reminded of that.

I couldn't go to Long Island—my mother would inevitably be there with Lincoln glued to her hip, ready and waiting with an explanation. Lincoln wasn't even my biological father. Lincoln, the man who had raised me full-time since I was five, the man who I'd called "Daddy", the man whose name I had and was born with. I thought I'd belonged to him and to my mother, and everything had felt right. Now what was I, really? Was I, technically speaking, Leia Gabrielle Carisi? It certainly didn't feel right...

And Carisi had known this entire time; it was a bitter pill to swallow. Once my mother had come clean about Fin's paternity, Carisi always made time for him and, once the time came, they even told him the truth. No such luck for me, painting me as the permanent black sheep in the family portrait. It instantly led me to believe that Carisi was ashamed of me and didn't want me, which was the bitterest pill of all to attempt to swallow. How could a father not want anything to do with his own daughter? Of course, he'd had everything to do with me, as my mother's co-worker, but that was hardly the same...

I pull off the highway then, finding myself inexplicably in Long Island, and recall that my father was away for the week on a case in Chicago, where he had some excellent pull after years in the field. I pulled down the various streets then, hardly finding them rain-slicked at all, and finally found myself outside the gate of the family home. I keyed in the code, driving inside the gates and hearing them shut behind me. I parked in the curved parking area, sitting in my car on my own as the rain continued to fall upon the roof. Leaning back against my seat, I could faintly spy the guest bedroom through the mist and the rain, remembering so many things that had happened there...

. . .

"I love you, Leia Gabrielle Beckett, I am so in love with you, it hurts! I'm not going to trade you in for an upgraded, college model within a few weeks..."

"Months, then," I mutter.

He tightens his grip. "No, not months, or years."

I manage to turn to face him. "Days?"

Owen growls, leaning down and kissing me, hard, on the mouth. "No days, or weeks, or months, or years—or minutes, or seconds—or any format of time could ever, under any circumstances, change my feelings for you."

I sigh, kissing him again before managing to untangle myself. "Fine," I mutter. "I need you to get back into that monkey suit so that we can get back to the party. I know the whole double birthday thing has gotten old but what can you do when your parents who are really your aunt and uncle are dead set upon making an example of the first adopted kid?"

Owen makes a face. "They're one step away from being my parents, too, with that tone of voice, Leia."

"Point taken," I say, pulling on the tea-length dress and having him zip up the back once he's gotten his outfit on. I am just about to leave when suddenly, the telltale sign of shoes stops me.

The telltale sound of the main door squeaking erupts in my ears seconds later, and I hear footsteps on the hardwood floor, going soft as they hit the expensive carpet my parents had bought specifically for the front room. "Lincoln?" Sonny calls out, and my heart leaps with anticipation. "You here?"

"Shit!" I whisper to Owen, shutting the bedroom door quickly and making sure not to trip over my shoes. "What are we going to do?!"

Next, I hear what can only be my mother step out of the bedroom and down the hall, her expensive heels clicking on the floor as she makes her way out and into the front room. "Sonny..."

"Why is she going to see him by herself?" Owen whispers to me.

I shrug. "No clue..."

We hear Sonny sigh. "What is this, an ambush?" he demands. "Look, if you want to talk about the whole, 'Who's going to be the next captain of Manhattan SVU' then don't bother!" he says, annoyed, and I find I am shocked that my mother even has a shot at the gig, being third-in-command and all. "Clearly, we know who the best one is for the job here, Edythe," he tells my mother, speaking harshly, almost as if he was speaking to someone who had barely left diapers.

"Sonny, it's not that, I promise," my mother says, almost as if she is trying to keep her cool. "It's personal."

Sonny sighs. "Sorry," he says. "But I was talking about you, by the way. It would be an honor to serve under you."

"You won't think so in about five seconds..." My mother tells him, trailing off and waiting for him to ask her why.

As if on cue, he asks, "What do you mean?"

"Look, I know it's not a good time—well, it'll never be a good time—to tell you this, but, you and I need to have a conversation about Dallas."

"Dallas?" Owen whispers to me.

Mutely, I shrug at him.

"What do you want to discuss?" Sonny asks. "Other than the fact that you and I decided not to discuss that night ever again..."

That night?! I think to myself. What the hell?!

"That's the thing about one-night-stands," my mother replies. "They always come back to haunt you...especially if things don't work."

Nailed it, I think to myself. But still... What the hell?!

"Wait... What?" Sonny demands.

"I took the morning after pill," Mom tells him quietly. "But apparently, your boys are stronger than that."

"What are you saying?" Sonny asks, and I immediately feel sick to my stomach at where this conversation is going.

"I'm saying that I was pregnant," my mom replies as my knees buckle and as Owen catches me. "I was pregnant, and I had a miscarriage a few months after that. Pre-eclampsia," she says.

"Obviously, that was your choice, but I would've wanted to be there for you..." I hear his footsteps as he presumably crosses the room to her, to offer comfort of some kind or other. "I'm really sorry..."

"No, you don't get it," she assures him. "I was pregnant—with twins," she says, desperation creeping into her tone.

"Twins?" Sonny demands, shocked. "Where is it? Tell me, Edythe—where's the other baby? Did you put it up for adoption...?"

"Him," she replies. "It's a boy."

"So, you had him?" Sonny asks. "Where is he? Is he all right?"

"Yes, he's fine," Mom replies. "It's Fin," she tells him softly. "Didn't you ever wonder why his middle name was 'Dominick'?"

"Wait a minute... Our one-night-stand in Dallas was in December..."

"That's right."

"But you told everyone... You and Lincoln announced Fin's birth in November... I mean, it's his birthday right now..."

"We forged the paperwork," Mom replies without missing a beat. "Fin was born in September, nine months after what happened in Dallas. I've been feeling guilty about this for years—I've carried the weight of the shame of this lie. And ever since Amanda called me into her office and demanded to know if we were having an affair, I knew I needed to come clean." She hesitates, almost as if she is willing for him to mentally catch up with this whole anecdote. "Look, if you want to fire me, I wouldn't blame you. I am a liar and I deceived so many people. I can't live that way anymore, Sonny... I'm sorry I kept Fin away from you, and you can see him as much as you want, but I'm sure you know that he thinks of Lincoln as his father, and tearing him away from this environment would only hurt him, and I know you wouldn't want to do that, now would you?" she asks, essentially pleading for mercy.

"No, no I get it, Edythe, I do." He sighs, and I can almost see the expression he is giving her in my mind's eye. "Maybe we'll tell him when he's older..."

"Yeah, we can tell him when he thinks he's seventeen, but we'll know that he's eighteen," she muses.

Sonny sighs. "Okay," he replies, and we hear the sound of the door opening.

. . .

I sigh, knowing that Kassandra will kill me if I'm not on hand for moral support for after her meeting, so I hastily turn my phone back on. No messages come through immediately, and I begin to think that it has something to do with this accursed rainstorm. However, when an unknown number calls my phone, I am immediately suspicious. Comes with the whole cop territory thing, and yet, just to be safe, I consider letting it go to voicemail. However, having had enough surprises just for one day, I decide to confront the caller and press the green phone icon with trepidation.

"Leia Beckett," I say into the phone.

"So, this is still your numbers?" asks the familiar voice.

It was almost as if someone or something was back from the dead and back from the land of the living. It couldn't be, could it? It was impossible, but we'd never actually seen the physical evidence to prove it...

"It's not..." I say into the phone.

"I see you parked outside," the voice replies. "Come into the house—it must be cold and wet in the car."

"I—" I say, but the invitation to confirm my suspicions is too strong as I pull my keys from the ignition and open my car door and slam it behind me. Running briefly through the rain, I reach the front porch and wipe my feet automatically on the welcome mat as the door opens behind me. Looking up to face the caller, I hang up my phone; just a few years old, it is inexplicably still who I knew them to be, yet I still cannot believe it myself.

"It's me," she tells me, her smile large, and she opens her arms.

"Grandma Maggie!" I cry out, and throw myself into her arms. "Please... This isn't some kind of sick dream is it?"

She laughs then, pulling me back and looks at me. "No, of course not. I'm really here, but I'm sure you want some answers."

I nod—finally, someone who understood. "Yes, please," I reply.

"Well, I was always alive," she tells me, shutting the door behind me. "It's just that I had to get away for awhile."

"Why?" I ask.

She grins down at me. "Come and sit," she tells me, "and all will be revealed in a momentary manner."