A/N: Alright, I couldn't quite wait to get the last couple of chapters of Dear John posted before I started with this story - I promise, I'm still working hard on those chapters, but I'm also terribly impatient and wanted to start putting this one up too :-)
Background - this one is a little different than my first two stories, in that it is not focused on fixing the GH/Jolie mess. This is more of a "what if" story, sort of A/U in a sense, that came out of me watching too many old OLTL clips on youtube while we're all waiting for it to come back to life on Hulu in the spring. The start of this story goes all the way back to 2002, when it was first revealed that Jessica and Natalie were actually sisters. Future chapters will jump forward a number of years to examine what might have happened to the Buchanan family if Natalie had handled overhearing the news of the new DNA test just a little bit differently and hadn't confronted Viki about it.
The story will feature many of the main characters/relationships, and yes, there will be some Jolie as well, but it's more focused on the family dynamics than any one relationship. I don't want to give too much away - please give the concept a chance and leave a review to let me know what you think!
October 18, 2002
Standing in front of her bathroom mirror, Natalie Buchanan let out a shaky sigh and examined her haggard appearance. It had been hours since she'd discovered that her world was possibly about to be pulled out from underneath her once again, but she still wasn't sure the possibility had quite sunk in yet.
At twenty-one years old, she thought that she had finally figured out who she was. Natalie Balsom had never felt like who she was supposed to be, but Natalie Buchanan - the life she'd been leading for the past year felt right, and she knew it had nothing to do with the money that now sat in her bank accounts. Was it really possible that she'd been lied to yet again? That Allison Perkins had somehow manipulated her into believing she was someone she wasn't?
She'd let her guard down, and she'd let Viki and Bo and Cristian and even Jessica, to some extent, in…and now it looked like she learning exactly why Roxy had always told her she couldn't trust anyone.
"You should have known better. Nothing good ever happens to someone like you," she whispered to her reflection, her mind drifting back to the conversation she'd overheard that morning…
She'd just set her purse down in the entryway when she heard Viki's voice coming from the library. Eavesdropping was rude, she'd already been cautioned about that by her mother on more than one occasion over the past year. Still, there was something in her tone of voice that made Natalie linger outside the door.
"The thing is, I cannot go on like this," she heard her mother say. "I cannot live like this. One way or another, I have to know."
Frowning, Natalie stepped closer to the door as she heard her uncle echo her thoughts of confusion.
"Well, what do you suspect?" Bo asked.
"I think that I might be Jessica's biological mother after all."
"Viki…" Bo said cautiously.
"I know how crazy it sounds, Bo," Viki assured him. "But Roxanne never had a daughter. She isn't Jessica's mother."
"I just don't want you to get your hopes up."
"One way or the other, someone will be hurt," Viki said. "That's why you cannot let Jessica or Natalie know about this DNA test."
Natalie shook her head and turned away from the mirror. Even then, even as she'd retreated up the stairs to her bedroom to nurse the wounds of her mother's rejection, she hadn't believed that the DNA test would show anything other than what she'd known ever since that fateful call from Allison two years earlier - that she really was Clint and Viki's daughter. She belonged in this family.
It hadn't been until that evening, just an hour earlier, as she once again stood outside that library door and broke the rule against eavesdropping, that she'd even for a second questioned what that test would show…
She'd quietly followed Jessica to the doorway, hoping to confront both her mother and pseudo-sister about the ridiculous DNA test, but stepped back unseen when she realized that Bo was standing there with an envelope in his hands.
"Mom?" Jessica asked in confusion as she looked to Viki, having caught only the tail end of the conversation she'd interrupted. "Why is Uncle Bo talking about a DNA test?"
Viki sighed. "A few days ago, I learned that Roxanne is not your biological mother."
"What?"
"Roxanne's husband stole a baby from the hospital and brought her home," Viki said. "Roxanne never had a daughter."
"So who's my mother?" Jessica asked. "Wait…Uncle Bo said your DNA was being tested. Are you saying that there's a chance that I'm really your daughter after all?"
"I don't know," Viki admitted. "It's just a feeling, but I had to know for sure. Sweetheart, I didn't want to get your hopes up, not when it's still such a long shot."
Natalie noticed that Jessica was shaking almost as badly as she was when she turned to her uncle. Natalie quickly took a step backward, ducking behind the door to avoid being seen.
"Well, Uncle Bo?" Jessica asked anxiously. "What did the test results show? Is Mom really my biological mother?"
"Yes," Bo said, with a smile that Natalie didn't need to see to know was there. "Yes, Viki is your biological mother, Jessie."
"Oh my God," Jessica gasped. "So this whole year, this whole thing…I knew Natalie wasn't trustworthy, but this just beyond…how did she manage to fool us all so completely?"
Natalie hadn't bothered to stick around much past that point. She knew enough to know that the blame would come fast, and it would come hard. She didn't imagine that there was any amount of protesting that she could do to convince anyone that she hadn't known the first DNA test was wrong.
"How could I be so stupid?" she muttered to herself, stepping back into her bedroom and taking one last look around before grabbing the half-empty duffel bag off the floor and slinging it over her shoulder. Reaching into the pocket, she took out the sealed envelope and dropped it onto the bed. One more stop, one last goodbye, and she'd be on her way to putting the past year's upheaval - the good and the bad - behind her.
"Goodbye, Llanfair," she whispered to the room. "It was nice while it lasted."
