Discoveries

Part One

Gwen Winthrop walked the docks of Harmony Maine with an uneasy feeling. She thought that she would feel happy now that she had beaten her enemy Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald once and for all by taking away both of her children, but she didn't. The look in Theresa's eyes as she had left the courtroom earlier today was haunting her. A look that chilled Gwen to the bone. Theresa had lost all hope, Gwen saw and she hated that Theresa felt like that. For the first time in a long time, she was actually scared about what Theresa might do to herself.

At one time, she and Theresa had been friends. And that was only up until Ethan broke their engagement to pursue Theresa. Oh my god! Gwen thought. If only I had handled things differently back then, none of this would have happened. Theresa and I could've remained friends if I wouldn't have listened to my mother.

Gwen's realizations continued about her mother. Rebecca had convinced her to do things to get Ethan back, when she had been willing to let him go. I should've gone with what my heart was telling me to do, rather than listening to mom. If I had, I could've gotten on with my life, found my true soulmate. But now there is nothing I can do.

She reached the railing of the nearby wharf a moment later and could see the moon shining on the ocean. She contemplated what she should do now.

A moment later a sound came to her ears that shook her. The cries of an injured person. Gwen turned and followed the sound until she came to a little girl holding her arm. Her tears began to fall at the sight of the girl. She could be no more than five years old. "What happened to you? Who are you?"

"My name is Anna and my daddy threw me out of our window. I hit my arm and it hurts," the little girl said.

Gwen looked at the little girl in shock. She quickly scooped her up and ran for the hospital.

Ethan Winthrop was worried about his wife. She had left the house earlier that evening and she hadn't returned. Gwen was usually not like this. She usually did not leave the house at night. But he had seen something in her eyes as she had left. A look that he believed could be a change in her outlook.

He walked down the halls of the mansion and peered into the room of his baby daughter. He had convinced Gwen to allow her name to remain as Jane Maria, because that is what she was used to being called and Gwen finally agreed. She didn't want to confuse the little girl. She was beautiful. Jane was already beginning to look like her mother, with dark black hair already gracing her head. Her eyes somehow were his though, deep blue and very clear.

He continued down the hall to look in on Little Ethan. His godson and adoptive son had cried himself to sleep once again. He missed his mother more than anything and there was nothing he or Gwen could do about that. He wanted to be with Theresa.

Gwen ran in the emergency doors of Harmony Hospital, carrying Anna in her arms still. Eve ran up to them within a minute. "Gwen, who is this?"

"Her name is Anna and she said her father threw her out of their window and she hurt herself. I found her in the alley between the wharf and Miller Street," Gwen explained.

"Hi Anna! Where does it hurt?"

"All over, but my arms hurts the worstest," Anna cried.

"Well, we'll make you feel better," Eve said. She motioned for Gwen to follow her and they walked down the hall to a cubicle and Eve sent for one of her colleagues. She walked down the hall after Gwen and Anna were settled.

Gwen turned to Anna and introduced herself. "I didn't tell you my name. I'm Gwen Winthrop."

"I see you in the paper!" Anna exclaimed.

"You probably have. Can you tell me your full name? Eve and the doctors may want to know that," Gwen said to her.

"Anna Jean Martin. Jean was mommy's name, but she's in heaven now," Anna said.

"So you live with your father?"

"My daddy and my big brother Mikey. Mikey is six and he cried and daddy was hitting him before he…"

Gwen embraced the little girl at that moment as she began to sob in earnest. "It's ok, Anna, get it all out!"

"Anna?" the young doctor asked as she came into the cubicle.

"Aunt Meri!" Anna exclaimed as she recognized her aunt. "Daddy hurted me again!"

"Damn him! I warned him what would happen if he did this again! And he knows he has you and Mike until we find your mommy's final resting place! And he still won't stop this! I guess he wants to go to jail for more than what he did to her," Dr. Meredith Andrews, sister of Anna's late mother, said.

"Aunt Meri, you said a bad word!" Anna scolded.

"Sorry, Anna. Your daddy just makes me so mad! He has to learn his lesson," Meredith said as she approached her niece. She quickly checked her niece out and saw nothing wrong other than her niece's arm. "Anna, I'm going to send you to x-ray and we'll find out exactly how badly hurt your arm is. You remember my friend Tim that works down there, right?"

"Yeah! He gave me a lollipop and a candy bar last time I was here!"

"Good. He'll be with you so don't be scared. I'll stay up here and have a talk with your rescuer here," Meredith said.

"OK," Anna said as Tim came and took Anna to x-ray while Meredith turned to Gwen.

"Thank you for bringing her in. My brother-in-law wouldn't have cared about her and would have left her outside to die."

"It's no problem. I couldn't just leave her there. I have one question for you. What did you mean when you said Anna's mom's final resting place? What did your brother-in-law do?"

"He murdered my sister Jeannetta two years ago. But we can't prove it because we've never found where he put her. He's getting away with it and I hate it with a passion, especially the way he's hurting Anna and Michael," Meredith explained to Gwen.

"I wish there was something I could do to help," Gwen said.

"Well, there is one thing you can do. Support me with social services. I want my niece and nephew removed from that bastard immediately before he does more harm to them," Meredith said.

"You have my support. Don't you worry. We'll get the both of them away from him," Gwen said.

Hours later, Gwen sat in the waiting room, waiting for social services to report in on Anna's older brother. Anna sat beside her, a cast on her broken arm. Anna had fallen asleep beside her savior and Gwen didn't want to wake her.

Ethan walked into the hospital waiting room at that moment and saw his wife and Anna on one side of the room and quietly approached them. "Eve told me what happened. Any news on her brother?"

"None yet. They went to their apartment just off the wharf to arrest Anna's father and remove Michael from the house," Gwen said as Ethan said down beside her.

"These poor kids. They deserve better than this jerk that they have for a father," Ethan said.

"Apparently, he's had them for two years, since he apparently killed their mother, who had custody of them. Anna was three when he killed their mother Jeannetta…" Gwen's voice trailed off as Meredith entered the room, tears streaming down her face.

Ethan turned and saw her at the same time and rose to embrace the woman. "Did something happen?"

"Michael is dead. So is James. Anna was lucky she was thrown out the window or she would be dead too," Meredith said in between sobs. "God, Michael was only six! He didn't deserve this!"

Gwen's tears began to flow at the news. Meredith was right. Anna didn't deserve to lose her brother like this, her brother didn't deserve to be killed by their father. But there was nothing they could do about it now.

"Does social services have a plan for Anna?" Gwen asked.

"She'll be placed in a group home for the night. Tomorrow they'll find her a foster home," Meredith said.

"What about you? Can't you take her?" Ethan asked.

"I wish I could, but a small studio apartment is no place for a little girl. Plus, right now with everything I'm paying for, I can barely support myself, much less a five-year-old girl. My hands are tied," Meredith said.

Gwen nodded. "I understand. I wish there was something we could do about it."

"There may be something," Ethan said.

Gwen turned and looked at her husband. "What are you thinking of?"

"We can offer to be her foster parents. She can stay with us and she can have contact with Meredith here and she would be happy with us," Ethan said.

Gwen smiled. "That sounds fine. But only on one condition," she said.

"What kind of condition?" Ethan asked.

"Ethan, I realized earlier that rather than listening to my heart, all I've been doing is listening to my mother about the entire situation with Theresa. And I should've listened to my heart. All along, I felt that I was wrong to take away Ethan Martin and then Jane. But mother said I had to and convinced you to do it. Anna can be our new start, a new life for us. We don't need EM and Jane with us, although I'd at least get visitation rights from Theresa for Jane. After all, you are her father. But she needs her children. And she needs so much more," Gwen explained.

Ethan nodded. "You know that I never wanted to take them away from her. I think that if we hadn't, she would've been able to get on with her life."

"Yes, she would've, if we would have left her alone and allowed her to keep both of them. We need to give both children back to her. They need their mother," Gwen said.

"Yes, they do. I'll go in front of the judge tomorrow morning about getting made foster parents for Anna and see what we will have to do to give EM and Jane back to Theresa. We have to do this legally so that everything works out," Ethan said before turning back to Meredith. "Is this alright with you?"

"Yes. But I want you for more than her foster parents. I want you to adopt her, make her your daughter. I can still visit, but I want her to have a stable home," Meredith said.

Gwen nodded and smiled at her new friend. "Thank you, Meredith. I would love to have her as my daughter. It's just a tragedy that it didn't end up being the both of them."

Meredith nodded and left the room. She still had work to do.

Ethan turned to Gwen and sighed. "What are we going to tell your mother tomorrow? You know she will not be very happy with us."

"I don't care. She has run our lives for far too long and we have to put a stop to it. Any revenge she thought she could get on my behalf is one thing that she did not deserve. I realize now that Sarah's death wasn't anyone's fault. It was a horrible accident of my making. If I had just stayed in the hospital, we would have our little girl."

"I'd actually put part of the blame for that on your mother. She constantly created stress all during your pregnancy. And if you hadn't been so stressed, we wouldn't have had to travel out to LA at all," Ethan said.

Gwen nodded. "You're right. Mother stressed me out over Theresa constantly. She said all she wanted was to get you back, when in fact she was trying to get on with her life. She was trying to be a good mother to little Ethan and mother took that away from her."

They continued to talk for a while until social services came and got Anna and took her to a group home for the night

The next morning, Ethan and Gwen were up bright and early. Ethan was ready to go to court and find out what it would take for them to become foster parents for Anna as well as what it would take to give Theresa her children back.

Gwen was ready to tell off her mother and ready to go to court as well, wanting the truth to come out. She had told Ethan the truth the night before about the tabloid situation. He had been angry with her, but put most of the blame for it on Rebecca.

Gwen dressed for her ultimate confrontation and had called both Theresa and Ivy and told them to bring their family units as Gwen was ready to reveal just the kind of woman her mother was, the kind of person that Gwen no longer wanted to be.

Theresa and the rest of the Lopez-Fitzgerald clan, including Martin, arrived about an hour after she had called them, with Ivy following behind them about five minutes later.

Gwen came down the stairs just as Ivy and Theresa began to argue. "Theresa, Ivy, please be quiet! This is not the time to get into an argument. This is the time for justice that both of you will receive today!"

"In more ways than one," came a voice that Gwen didn't expect.

"Daddy!" Gwen exclaimed as she noticed her father Jonathan Hotchkiss standing right next to Martin. With him was a familiar young man. "JJ! What are the two of you doing here?" she asked her younger brother Jonathan Jr. as she went over and hugged the both of them.

"I just recently found something out, Gwendolyn, that you need to know. Something else that your mother did," Jonathan told her.

"OK, anything more we can hold against mom will be good. Why don't we go into the den and we can begin with the truth about everything," she said, leading them all into the den of the mansion.