They had hidden it for as long as they could while hoping for the best, but now Sam had to know. Blair thought about sending Todd away and giving Sam the news one-on-one, but decided against it. Sam loved Todd and she needed Todd.

Short months before, Sam had asked Todd to adopt him and the idea had not seemed all that farfetched. Their world had changed since then, and not for the better.

They sat Sam down in the kitchen. Blair could see the wheels turning behind Sam's bespectacled eyes as he noticed how very serious they were. Did he sense, like Blair had always been able to do back in foster care, that his world was about to be turned upside down?

"Were you a good boy for Starr today?" Blair began, as if small talk were the way to start this conversation.

"What did Starr say I did?" Sam asked, outraged. "I didn't do anything! I played Z-Box and I read my Spiderman book and I walked Jose and visited Tetris in the barn and I played Disney superheroes with Hope!"

Everything inside of Blair clenched even harder than it already had. She hugged Sam to her and the world spun backwards around them. "You didn't do anything wrong, sweet boy. Starr said you were perfect, like you always are. I know sometimes it's hard to play with Hope because she's younger and she can't keep up with you."

"She's okay," said Sam generously.

"You know your daddy went away for a while, but he came back and you've been able to visit him again. Isn't that nice?"

"Yeah," agreed Sam.

"Your daddy thinks it's so nice that he wants you with him all the time. He wants to take you with him when he moves back to Tahiti."

"We're moving to Tahiti?"

"You know your daddy is married to Tea, and Dani would be there."

"And you," prompted Sam.

"No, baby. Not me. You and Daddy and Tea and Dani."

"What about Starr and Jack and Hope and Sage?"

"They're staying here with your Uncle Todd and me."

"Jack always comes with me when I stay at Dad's."

"Not this time, Sam. You're a big boy and you're going to go without Jack. You always used to think it was special when you got a chance to be with Dad and not Jack, remember?" Although you might not have thought it was quite so special if Walker had ever bothered to spend time with either of you, she refrained from adding. Throughout her adult life, she had had ample opportunities to practice not badmouthing her children's fathers in front of them. This one was harder than most. As vicious and vengeful as Todd had been in their misspent youth, she had never doubted his love for Starr or his desperation to stay in her life. Walker's interest in Sam had never been more than theoretical.

"But I want to stay with you!" said Sam, and Blair hugged him again so he wouldn't notice how close she was to tears.

"I want you to stay here, too. But the judge decided that because your daddy hasn't gotten to see you much, it was his turn to be with you."

"Why does the judge get to decide?" Sam demanded.

"Judges decide things when families can't decide them for themselves. Your daddy and I couldn't agree because I wanted you to stay here and he wanted you to go with him."

"I'm telling Dad I don't want to go," Sam announced with the air of someone who had found a solution.

Blair couldn't bring herself to tell Sam to do otherwise.

"You do that, Sam," Todd encouraged. "Tell him every day."

Sam scowled and ran out of the room.

Starr had been waiting, tensely, for a sign that her parents had told Sam the news. She got it when she heard his feet pounding up the stairs. It was funny that, without even trying, she had long ago learned the difference between the way Sam pounded on the stairs because he was angry and the way Sam pounded on the stairs because he was excited.

She knew so many little things about Sam that Walker had never learned because Walker had been busy raping Marty and torturing Cole.

Every morning she felt a rush of righteous gratitude when she remembered anew that Walker had not turned out to be her real father. Todd had returned and the world made sense again.

"Poor Sam," she said.

"It's going to be tough for him to have to move all the way to Tahiti," Travis replied. He started to take Starr in his arms, then stopped and stepped back. Travis had a gift for knowing when to touch her and when she was too damn pissed to want that kind of mundane comfort.

"I meant, poor Sam because Walker turned out to be his father for real and there's no way out of it like there was for me," she elaborated.

"You loved him a lot back when I first met you. When he came to Central Park and saved you from that Laser guy, he did things most parents couldn't do."

Starr eyed Travis suspiciously out of the corners of her eyes. "That was then. There was a point where he stopped caring about all of us except Dani. Sam is better off here, and everyone other than that judge knows it."

"I'm not defending the guy," said Travis quickly.

"Good."

"He always thought I was a punk."

Starr almost smiled. "Well, Punk, have you got any idea how we're going to stop this?"

"We could lure Tea and Walker into the museum and lock them in one of the storage rooms in the basement. People don't check those for years, sometimes."

Starr considered that.

"Maybe it needs refinement," said Travis after a moment.

"The museum is huge," Starr agreed. "I thought I went all over it when I was a kid, but those places we went when I was helping you with that party… looking at the outside of the building you really wouldn't think there were so many places off-limits to the guests. That party was such a great time for those kids."

Travis pulled out his phone and brought up a calendar. "Maybe that's something we can do to help Sam," he said.

Sam stomped hard on every stair to make sure everyone in the house knew he was good and mad.

He did walk quietly past Sage's room, though, because she was practically the only one who hadn't been keeping secrets from him. Mom and Uncle Todd and Starr and Jack had all known that the big boring thing that everyone was worried about had been Sam himself, and none of them had bothered to tell him. Mom and Uncle Todd and even Starr were just doing that grown up thing where they acted like kids were stupid, but Jack was a different matter.

Sam counted on Jack to tell him things the grownups didn't want him to know, like the worst curse words and where babies came from. (That was the grossest thing Sam had ever heard, but he still didn't want to be the only one who didn't know.)

Sam walked into Jack's room and knocked his headphones off of his head.

"What do you think you're doing?" demanded Jack. "You aren't even supposed to be in here unless I say you can be in here. And I didn't say!"

"You didn't tell me they were sending me to Tahiti!"

Jack's whole face changed. It slackened and froze while Jack let the headphones fall to the floor. At any other time, being able to stun Jack this way would have been the highlight of Sam's life. Today there were more important things to discuss.

Jack closed the bedroom door—with Sam inside, almost unheard of—and then picked Sam up and put him on the bed.

"They told you?" Jack whispered.

"Yes," Sam whispered back, even though there was no reason to be whispering because everyone had known all about Sam's life before Sam.

"What do you think?"

Sam hadn't expected that. He was a kid. People didn't ask what he thought. The judge certainly hadn't. "I think it fucking sucks," said Sam, using the most grownup word he knew so Jack would keep taking him seriously.

Jack nodded. "It does fucking suck," he agreed.

"When did they tell you?" Sam persisted.

"The judge decided this afternoon. I snuck in. I'm probably in trouble when Mom and Dad remember that."

"You should've taken me."

"They would have noticed a little kid."

"I would've put glue on the judge's chair and made him sit there until he let me stay."

"I think he'd just put you in juvie if you did that."

"I'd rather be in juvie than Tahiti!"

"You wouldn't like jail."

"If you can do it, and Starr can do it, then I can do it."

"Whatever," said Jack, and Sam figured that that meant Jack knew he was right.

"I just have to get arrested. You can come visit me like Hope used to visit Cole. Do they let horses visit you in jail?"

"I'm pretty sure they don't."

Sam wrinkled his nose in distaste. That was a flaw in his plan. "How long do you think I'll have to stay in jail before they forget that I'm supposed to go to Tahiti? A week?"

"That's not how jail works."

Sam ignored Jack. "I just have to do something bad enough to get arrested."

"Or you could do something bad enough so Walker and Tea don't want to take you."

Sam forgave Jack on the spot.

That was a great idea.

Starr came into the kitchen leading Travis by the hand. "Mom? Dad? Travis had a great idea."

"It was Starr's idea," Travis demurred.

"Travis," said Starr pointedly, "works at the science museum and they have overnight parties for kids there. They're for Girl Scout troops and summer camps, usually, but sometimes parents who have a lot of money throw a private party."

"I'm a parent who has a lot of money," said Todd with false levity.

"Right. Just in case Sam does have to leave, I want him to have a chance to say goodbye. Every time you took me out of a school when I was a kid, you never gave me a chance to say goodbye. It just happened. I never got to have a real friend I went through school with until Langston. Let's invite everyone in Sam's grade to a sleepover at the museum. If he ends up leaving, it'll be a goodbye party. If he doesn't, it'll just be a party. Okay?"

"Sounds like you have it all planned out," said Blair numbly.

"We need a check and an adult chaperone for every four kids. The museum takes care of the rest. They had a cancellation this Friday," Travis said.

Todd wordlessly stood up and wrote out a check for Travis. Travis filled in the amount and Todd nodded.

"We'll end up with about forty kids, so that's ten chaperones," said Starr. "The four of us, Jack, Langston, Jessica and Brody, I'll get Schuyler to do it, and River? That works." She produced a form and filled it out. "We'll go print out the invitations and Sam can bring them into school tomorrow."

Starr and Travis went off to get started.

Todd and Blair weren't alone for long enough for Todd to prod Blair into having some kind of reaction—swearing, crying, plotting to kidnap Sam (a plot he would be happy to help with)—before Jack turned up.

Where Starr had announced her presence, Jack came in so quietly that Todd saw him before he heard him. Where Starr had had a plan and an expectation that everyone would go along, Jack mumbled a quiet "I know this is a bad time" when Todd caught his eye.

"What's going on?" Todd asked.

"I'm sorry," said Jack.

"For?" Todd honestly didn't know. Jack had snuck into the hearing without permission, but Todd was more pleased with the ingenuity Jack had shown than annoyed that Jack had broken a rule Todd would never have laid down if he'd thought Jack was capable of sitting down and shutting up. There would certainly be no punishment forthcoming for that.

"For not helping with the custody stuff more. Or at all."

"There's nothing you could have done," Blair told Jack. "It all came down to Sam not being formally adopted. It wasn't as if the judge thought Sam didn't have a happy home. You were there, Jack. You heard him."

"Yeah." Jack looked Todd in the eye and Todd almost jumped. Jack looked him in the eye like Blair looked him in the eye. "I heard you testify, too."

"And?" asked Todd cautiously.

"If they'd let me talk, I would have told the judge that I understand about you telling Mom I was dead and I forgive you."

"Thank you, Jack," said Todd before his throat closed up and he couldn't say anything.

"And I'm sorry about how I acted when Walker came back. He raised me and sometimes he was really good to me, but you're my dad."

It was the last thing Todd would have expected Jack to say.

"That was a very nice apology, Jack," said Blair, and Todd loved her for having words when he didn't. "You have grown up so much these past few years. I'm so proud of you."

"Me, too," said Todd, and that was enough.