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Chapter 4
"What's wrong?" Elizabeth had come over as soon as she was called. The fact that her grandmother was asking her to come to the mansion was surprising.
Audrey didn't mince words but handed Elizabeth the photograph.
"Okay." Elizabeth said before looking at her grandmother, and Jason's parents.
"Doesn't that look like someone you know?" Audrey was wondering why Elizabeth didn't see it.
"She kind of looks like Jason." Elizabeth said looking down at the picture. "Who is she?"
"Susan Moore." Monica said taking the picture. Perception really was everything. Yes there were parts of Susan in her son, and that was what Elizabeth immediately picked up on. "You don't see Cameron in her."
"Well they have the same facial structure, but I have that too. Lots of people do. As someone with artistic training I can tell you that if you look at any picture in the right way you will find a resemblance to someone you know. There are only so many facial structures and features so it makes sense that combinations are repeated often. Does Cameron bare a resemblance to Jason, in the right light yes. But from certain angles I do too. Science tells us that we often look for similarities to ourselves in those we partner with." Elizabeth looked at the three adults. "Jason isn't Cameron's father. I know that you would love that." She said looking at Monica and Alan. "But that isn't the case."
"How can you be sure?" Monica wanted to know.
"Well because I was there when Cameron was conceived." Elizabeth said smiling. "Don't you remember Gram?" It was another decision her grandmother had been against.
"Well yes." Audrey said feeling uncertain now. "That totally slipped my mind."
"Mine too." Alan said thinking back.
Elizabeth smiled at the members of her family. "Biologically Cameron is the child of Jasper Jacks and me. I was hired as a surrogate for him and Courtney." She and Lucky were drowning in debt and this was a way to pay off the bills. Courtney had no viable eggs so in addition to being a surrogate Elizabeth donated one of her eggs. Only things didn't go as planned and Jasper and Courtney were killed in a plane crash, along with Jax's parents. Lucky had wanted to contest the estate saying Cameron was a legal heir, but Elizabeth didn't feel right doing so, but she did keep her son. Her ex-husband had been angry saying Liz was denying them a huge payday. That should have been a wakeup call right there.
Monica looked at the picture. "I'd like to run a DNA test. Just to be sure." She still saw the resemblance.
"You need to get Jason's permission." Elizabeth was worried that they were setting Jason up for heartbreak. When Monica reached for her phone Liz stopped her. "Let me call him." She said stepping out onto the terrace. Ten minutes later she was back. "He is on his way over. When he gets here let me talk to him first."
"Alright." Monica said unable to do anything but hope that Audrey had figured out something everyone else had overlooked.
"Open wide." Alan told his grandson. No matter what that wasn't going to change.
"How come Granddad put a q-tip in my mouth?" Cameron wanted to know. They were at the hospital in granddad's office. "It tasted funny." He said scrunching his nose.
"He wants to run a test on you and daddy." Elizabeth explained. Her son wasn't going to understand DNA, but hopefully she would find the right words if they were needed.
Jason hadn't said much, he just kept looking at Cameron. He had no memories of Susan, and since he couldn't see pictures there was no point in him trying to make a comparison. He did know that when he looked in the mirror he didn't see any resemblance to the little boy on Elizabeth's lap. He also knew that he wanted more than anything for this to be true. Despite the pain that would come from knowing he missed so many years, he wanted Cameron to be his. Because from this point on Jason wasn't planning on missing anything else. "How long?"
"Preliminary results in the morning. Results you can take to court in three days. Full DNA breakdown in about six weeks." Alan told Jason the different timelines.
"There is a way to get a faster answer." Audrey pointed out. "We can just pull Elizabeth's file. She was inseminated so the sample would have been numbered. We can just see who the system listed the sample as belonging too."
"That's only going to prove my point." Elizabeth should have thought of that too. "Since Jason doesn't have a sample in the system you'll see that I'm right."
"Actually I do." Which was why Jason had agreed to the test in the first place. Because he had given sperm when he was married to Courtney.
"You do?" Elizabeth asked surprised.
"I did. The sample should have been destroyed. I signed papers for that a few years ago. Right after Courtney and I divorced." He had been worried about the sample falling into the wrong hands. At the time he was worried about Carly trying to use it, although he never admitted that, more recently he would have been worried about Sam. "When Dr. Meadows said Courtney would have trouble conceiving ever again we tried in vitro. It was a long shot, but we tried. The sample should have been destroyed before you agreed to be a donor and surrogate." Still here they were.
"I'll pull up the file." Monica said going over to Alan's computer. The boys were playing on the floor, not paying attention to the adult conversation. "Okay according to the system sample number 1113864 was used for the insemination, and its still here in the hospital." The Jacks family never signed for it to be destroyed. They should probably be notified.
"I'll call down and have it brought up. We can run it at the same time." Alan said lifting the receiver. Not ten minutes later a tech brought up the vial and Alan signed for it. Turning it to verify the number he looked at the tech. "This is the wrong vial."
"It was in the slot you requested. All I did was pull it. You can go down and check the system." The tech told him. The samples were kept well below freezing so a mechanical arm was used to retrieve it. The tech typed in the number and the system did the rest.
Alan typed in the code on the vial, because they weren't labeled by patient name. "Thank you." He told the tech, who nodded and left.
"Whose vial was in Jax's slot?" Jason wanted to know.
"Yours." Alan told his son.
"So what you're saying." Elizabeth started after a moment of shocked silence. "Is that if they hadn't been killed Courtney and Jax would have been raising mine and Jason's son?"
"According the computer system yes." Alan said looking at the results again. "We need to verify that this is indeed Jason's deposit. The label could be wrong." Which wasn't really any better. "We also need to go through the entire storage facility to make sure nothing else is out of place."
Monica looked at her husband. "We already did. When Steve was still running the hospital Dr. Meadows was accused of misconduct. You wouldn't have remembered because you were away in rehab. She was accused of deliberately switching paternity test results. Joyce also admitted to changing samples. This would have been right after Elizabeth was inseminated. Joyce didn't list Elizabeth as one of the patients she had switched results for."
"I was never tested because Dr. Meadows didn't do the insemination. Her resident did, but I remember the resident was given the vial by the lab tech who pulled it." Elizabeth explained. "Joyce wasn't even in the building the day I came in."
"So why is Jason's sample out of place?" Alan asked his wife.
"Human error." Monica guessed, which meant that starting tomorrow her husband would be doing a very tedious manual check of deposit vault. The good thing was that they never housed more than one thousand vials at a time, and normally samples were destroyed after five years.
Alan turned the computer and started typing again. He cross referenced the date of Elizabeth's insemination with the dates the expired or approved deposits were destroyed. "On the day you were inseminated fifteen samples were destroyed. The morning of your appointment. According to this list Jason's was one of them. Or I should more correctly say that what was supposed to be Jason's was destroyed."
"Could this have been deliberate on Courtney's part?" Monica wanted to know. "She did at one point want to have your baby." She looked at her son.
"By the time we broke up the last person she would have wanted to have a baby with was me. So unless she thought she was doing Elizabeth a favor then I would say no." Jason explained looking over at Cameron and smiling.
"I think she could have done this." Elizabeth said also looking at Cameron and smiling. "She was not my biggest fan. In fact she didn't want me to be the surrogate at all. I was just the only one who offered. She even tried to call it off because I was involved. I'm willing to bet after I got pregnant she would have demanded a DNA test. When it didn't come back to Jax, she could reject the child." Elizabeth looked over at Jason before continuing. "I'm betting she didn't want me having a baby with her husband because of our shared history with Jason. You may have another son."
"I really hope so." Jason was going to take this for the blessing it was. Cameron was his and that felt amazing. "Run all the test you need to. I want answers as soon as possible."
"I'll get everything started now." Alan said hoping they got a positive result.
"Can I take you guys home?" Jason didn't want to let them out of his sight.
"We drove over, but you can follow us back." Elizabeth told him. They needed to talk about what this meant. "I'm sure the boys would love for you to do bath time."
"I would love that too." Jason said walking over and picking up Cameron.
"I'll call as soon as we have the first set of results." Alan said smiling. Monica was wiping away tears. Audrey hadn't said a word since the vial came up. "Tomorrow is Sunday, and we are all off. Maybe you could bring the boys to the mansion?" He requested.
For the first time Jason stopped smiling. "We are going to have to tell Edward. If he starts in about ELQ I'm leaving and taking my sons with me."
"I'll make sure Edward behaves." Monica said laughing. She kissed both boys and watched while Audrey did as well. "Are you going to be okay with this?" Monica wanted to know. She knew Jake's paternity was still hard for Audrey to swallow.
"I love both boys." Audrey said nodding. She would simply not think too much on who their father was. There was a part of her that really wished Liz had tried harder with Lucky. Audrey felt that their marriage could have been saved. Of course if they were still together the possibility of Cameron being Jason's might have ended it.
After Audrey left Monica looked at her husband. "What are the odds?"
"I don't know, nor do I care. I already love him." Alan said the only thing that mattered.
"Me too." Monica said walking with her husband down to the lab.
Jason gave Cameron a bath, while Elizabeth took Jake. The boys snuggled under the blankets in Cam's room and listened to Jason read Harry Potter. When they were sleeping he just took a moment to look at them. There was a slight resemblance which Jason chalked up to Elizabeth, but it was the genetic variation of both their DNAs that caused it.
Jason was smiling when he walked into the kitchen just as Elizabeth wiped her eyes. She was looking out the window so he walked over and wrapped his arms around her. She turned and snuggled close.
"Happy tears." She told him.
"I know." Jason said holding her tight.
"I have no idea how to explain this to Cameron, or if we should even try right now." Elizabeth said looking up at the man she loved.
"We can ask Dr. Collins." Which showed how far Jason had come if he was willingly seeking medical help. "I'm not sure we would do anything but confuse Cameron right now."
"Me either. Tell Diane to hold off on filing that paperwork." Elizabeth said smiling.
"I love you, and both our sons." Jason said softly. "He's always been mine. Even when I thought we were just friends, he was always in my heart."
"I know." Elizabeth never had to doubt that. "The school year is almost over, I'd like to have him finish as Webber. Next year when he starts second grade I'd like for him to be registered as Morgan. Jake will be starting preschool as Morgan."
By the time school started in September Jason wanted them all to be Morgans. He needed to get on that. While he was in New York he would look at rings.
"Would you like to stay?" Elizabeth wanted him here. She wanted them all under the same roof tonight.
"I'd like that." Jason told her giving her another kiss. He would leave early tomorrow morning to get clean clothes. "Let me lock up."
"Okay." Elizabeth said walking off to her bedroom wondering how much longer they would live here.
Jason stood in the kitchen and smiled. Two sons, and a wonderful woman. It was more than he deserved, but he was grateful for them.
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