Title: In the Days To Come

Author: AnyankaCEJ

Disclaimer: As I'm sure you've all guessed, neither Passions nor any of its characters belong to me. If they did, I certainly wouldn't be sitting around merely writing fanfic about them. Anyway, no profit is intended, so if you're NBC or JER, please don't sue.

Rating: PG-13, let's say

Setting/Spoilers: Branches off from the current "Rapist!Theresa And The Twins Of Uncertain Parentage" storyline, up until she's rushed to the hospital with complications. For the purposes of this fic, I'm assuming that one baby is Ethan/Gwen and the other Ethan/Theresa, which is far from certain, and that they both survive, which is also far from certain (In reality, I suspect that one is E/G and the other T/F, and hope that they'll both make it). Actual setting will be close to sixteen years in the future, though if it were to occur on the actual show, it'd probably happen in just four or five years.

A/N: I'm a Gwen fan, something that seems pretty rare on I have been almost since I started watching in December of 2000, most likely always will be, and I'm not going to apologize for it. Until relatively recently, though, I was NOT a G/E 'shipper. On the contrary, I wanted The Teary One to get her man, if only so that Gwen could escape third wheel status.

All that changed during the death of Sarah storyline, and ever since that I've been passionately and ideologically opposed to Therethan ever getting back together, since I feel that, though everyone including Gwen bears some responsibility for the tragedy, Theresa was the catalyst for Sarah's death, and Ethan would be beyond despicable if he could ever be happy with Theresa after what they'd done. And, over the past year, the amazing chemistry between Eric Martsolf and Liza Huber has convinced me, almost completely against my will, that Ethan and Gwen really do belong together.

Lest you think I'm a Theresa basher, let me just say that I adore the girl; I just think of her as a fabulous villainess who truly believes that she's a latter-day Cinderella-like heroine, but not that she's an actual heroine. That said, if you passionately hate Gwen and blindly worship Theresa, you're probably not going to enjoy this story, so proceed with caution.


The entirety of the Winthrop family had just sat down together to eat the dinner that their cook had prepared for them. Such an old-fashioned, Leave it to Beaver-style insistence on family togetherness might be unexpected these days in the fast-paced of the chief attorney for Crane Industries, and his wife, the current owner and CEO of Hotchkiss Enterprises, but Ethan and Gwen Winthrop had always been determined to provide their nearly sixteen year-old twins Abigail and Douglas with the sort of warm and stable home life that they themselves had never experienced, which also explained why the two were the first in their families for generations on both sides not to attend boarding school.

"So, how was school today?" Ethan asked, as per usual, once everyone had settled in to eat.

"Pretty good, except that that Madeleine girl thinks she should be running the paper just by virtue of being a year ahead, the Californian airhead," Abigail replied casually, before pausing. She didn't want to alarm her parents, but they'd always been very firm that she and her brother should let them know right away whenever this happened. So, she continued, but in a more subdued tone, "Oh, and the Madwoman has been bugging us again."

Gwen nearly choked on her linguini, and Ethan's glass inadvertently came crashing down onto the table at the mention of their daughter's nickname for her Aunt Theresa. "What happened?" Gwen asked simply, maintaining the calm façade she'd developed through years of practice.

"Same as the last few times, she waited for school to let out and ambushed us as we left the building," Douglas explained with a sigh, as if the occurrence had become nearly as routine as bad weather.

Gwen and Ethan shared a worried look. "Did she try to make you leave with her?" Ethan asked.

"No," said Abigail, "not this time. She just threw herself at us like always, and started calling us "her babies" and ranted about how sorry she was that we were "stolen" away from her. I swear, the woman's a total psychopath. I still don't understand why she's so obsessed with me after all these years. I mean, she's not even mybiological mother."

"And I wish to God she wasn't mine," Douglas added bitterly. As far as he was concerned, Gwen, the woman who'd raised him from infancy and treated him no differently from her own child, was his only real mother. In fact, if it hadn't been for the fact that his thick black hair and dark complexion set him apart so tellingly from his very Anglo-Saxon family and his blonde "twin," it might have been much longer before the constant, fixated attention and occasional kidnapping attempts from his Uncle Fox's wife had made him suspect anything, but, as it was, he'd found out Theresa was his biological mother and not just his mother's surrogate well before his tenth birthday. His parents had then tried to protect him from the whole story surrounding his conception, but Harmony being such a small town, and the custody case he had been the center of being something of a local legend, he inevitably found out several years ago, leaving the teenager with a passionate hatred of Theresa. Maybe he was being judgmental, but he just didn't feel like calling the woman who'd drugged and raped his father into getting pregnant because she'd needed a bargaining chip "Mother." "She thinks she's got some sort of Divine Right to interfere with our lives, just because she gave birth to us. Why won't she ever understand that Abby and I don't want her around?"

"That's just the way she is," Ethan replied wearily, no longer objecting to his children's attacks on the woman, having lost all residual feelings for his former love many years ago, when she'd implored him to leave Gwen and marry her, because it looked as though his and Gwen's second daughter might not live, while her own newborn son was thriving. At that moment, as her insensitivity shocked and appalled him, he realized, very much to his own surprise, that for a long time now he really did love Gwen and only Gwen, and was going to fight with all his might to keep his marriage alive.

His little girl managed to pull through, thank God, but when DNA tests revealed the other twin to be his with Theresa, Gwen had been ready to divorce him once and for all, understandably not believing his story. He wasn't about to give up on her, though, and had stunned Theresa, who was predictably certain that Ethan was going to marry her now, when he informed her that he intended to sue for full custody of his son. Thankfully, when the custody battle proved once and for all what she had really done, he'd been awarded full custody, and Gwen finally forgave him. Little Ethan, as agreed upon, was returned to Theresa, although Gwen and Ethan had retained generous visitation rights.

The next decade-and-a-half had been a very happy one for the couple, marred only by Theresa's refusal to ever completely leave them or the children alone. To that end, she'd trapped Fox into marrying her, no doubt hoping to use the added leverage and status to fight them, and soon after she'd moved into the mansion, they moved out, settling down in the Hotchkiss manor, where they still lived to this very day. Multiple attempts had been made on her part to take the kids away, but none had succeeded, and Fox could generally be relied upon to keep her from doing too much damage.

"Ethan, that's nineteen times in the past year, and seven just in the last two months," Gwen warned her husband after doing some mental arithmetic. "She's been getting worse ever since 'Little Ethan' left for Harvard. This just can't be good."

"I was just thinking the same thing," Ethan agreed. "You know what? I'll call Fox later tonight, let him know what's going on. He'll keep tabs and let us know if she's actively planning anything."

Once they'd settled the Theresa matter, normal conversation resumed, though Douglas noticed that his mother seemed very distant throughout their chatter, and even his father's usual cheerfulness at times felt a little forced. "Is anything wrong, Mom?" he asked, concerned and sensing that more was on her mind than just Theresa.

"What? Oh, no, nothing, honey," Gwen replied after a moment, though not convincingly. Ethan looked down at his plate, as if to avoid saying anything.

Confused, he was about to press the matter further, when Abigail swiftly kicked him in the shin. "Let it go, Doug," she hissed under her breath, "Don't you remember? Today's her birthday."

Douglas instantly understood and said no more. She wasn't often mentioned in the house, at least not around the children, but Sarah's presence was nevertheless strongly felt within the family.

Realizing that their parents should probably have some time alone, the twins each got up as soon as they had finished eating claimed they should probably get started on homework, and proceeded to make themselves scarce.

Having finished themselves, Ethan and Gwen wandered out onto the porch, and stared at the stars. "Sarah would've been seventeen today," said Gwen after a few minutes.

Ethan gently kissed her on the forehead. "I know. I kept thinking about her today, too."

"Oh, Ethan, I don't want the kids to feel like this is a house of mourning, or that they're living in the shadow of a sister they never even knew, but the pain just doesn't go away. I can live with it now, and it doesn't consume everything anymore, but in some ways it hurts more deeply now than it ever has."

"Yes, it does," her husband mused. "As the years go by, I keep thinking of the moments we should be having with her. Her first steps, the first day of school, teaching her how to drive, me buying a shotgun once all the boys started swarming around the house. This year, she'd probably be taking trig, and you might have been helping her with her homework right now."

Gwen laughed a little despite herself. "Oh, you mean like the way I got you through the subject at Choate?"

"Something like that," replied Ethan with a wink.

"I love Abigail and Douglas so much," said Gwen, her voice starting to choke up, "but I'm always so afraid that I'm going to lose them."

Trying to comfort his wife, Ethan began rubbing her shoulders. "Shhh, don't worry. Theresa can't really do anything. We've got Fox, the Crane patriarch nowadays, helping us out, and besides, the kids are just about old enough to take care of themselves. She wouldn't get away with it."

"It's not just that. Theresa might be a perpetual thorn in our sides, but she'd never hurt them. Well, not intentionally, anyway. Maybe I'm just being silly and overprotective, but every time they go out with their friends, I can't help getting a mental image of one of them getting hurt, or worse…"

"I don't think that's silly. We lost a child, Gwen, and Abby barely survived her birth. No matter how many years go by, that's changed both of us forever."

Somewhat consoled by her husband's soothing caresses, Gwen stood silently for a little while watching the stars. When she spoke again, it was to make a confession. "I know it's not healthy, but over the last few years I've started fantasizing more and more that Sarah somehow never really died, and that she might come back to us. I've always done it, but it's become so much stronger ever since Sheridan and Luis discovered that Martin was their son together three years ago. Before, it was a daydream, wishful thinking, but now it's become a recurring dream. Sometimes, I even start believing that maybe, just maybe, the same thing could happen to us."

This train of thought worried Ethan. "Gwen, you know I'd give my own life for that to be true, but we both know that's impossible. It's understandable for you to feel that there might be a chance: Sheridan's our best friend, and we each lost a baby at the same time, but our circumstances were very different. She was kidnapped, and the baby abducted, so that Alistair and Beth could make him appear to be dead; we were in a hospital, and we saw her right after the delivery." Ethan didn't want to get too graphic, but he also didn't want his wife to become obsessed with wishing something that was impossible, even in the town of Harmony, where the miraculous, the demonic, and the downright bizarre seemed to be everyday occurrences.

"I know that, really, I do. But it's a nice thought."

"It is," Ethan agreed, and kissed Gwen again. They remained out on the veranda until the cool night air got a little too chilly for their comfort, and they finally retired indoors.