Todd slept fitfully, but he did sleep. He slept more than Blair had ever known him to sleep, but since he seemed to be lucid and even happy when he was awake, she took it as a good sign. His body was healing and giving her a chance to sneak out onto the balcony and call Jack.

Jack—for once— answered on the first ring.

"Everything okay?" Jack asked. Blair hated that that was a perfectly reasonable greeting.

"Your father's doing better," Blair assured him, and tried to sense through the phone exactly what Jack's feelings for Todd were.

"When are you coming home?"

Blair longed for the times when she could have teased Jack about missing her like she missed him. At least she could remember those times. Todd had missed them entirely. "I was wondering if maybe you'd like to come down here and join us for a few days before we came home."

"To Key West?"

"You always wanted to run away and live on a tropical island." It was one of the few things Jack and Starr had in common anymore. They had both inherited their father's longstanding desire to be a beach bum.

"What's the catch?"

Blair would have been insulted, but Jack had a point. There was a catch of sorts. "You don't have to give us your blessing, but—"

"You're going to marry him?" Jack shouted.

Blair winced and held the phone away from her ear. She glanced through the window at Todd, but he did not seem to have heard anything.

"It's been, like, three months since he got back," Jack continued. "That's even faster than you married Eli. Not that's it's unusual. Remember how when Langston used to tell people about our family, she'd say 'Starr's parents can go out for pizza and come back married?'"

"Langston always had a way with words," Blair muttered. She was glad that her little cousin was too busy with school to continue on with her popular blog about life as a teenage girl. She didn't want to read the entry about Dorian's reaction to this.

"You don't even know this guy. You don't know what he's like now, after eight years."

"He said that to me, too."

Jack grunted in response.

"I know that he loves you and me and Starr and Sam. I know he'll do anything for us. And I know I love him back. That's enough."

"And my job is to be okay with that if I get a free island vacation out of the deal?"

Blair drew in a breath. They'd reached the moment of truth. "No. You have a choice about whether you come down here with Starr and Sam and Hope. And if you do come down here, all I'm asking you to do is be polite. You don't have to give us your blessing, but you can't interrupt the wedding to take potshots at your father or kick sand in the minister's eyes or pretend you saw a shark."

"Well, the tenth wedding to the same guy is supposed to be the shark wedding," said Jack sarcastically.

"We've been married fewer than ten times," Blair groused.

"I said wedding, not marriage."

"We've had fewer than ten weddings, too," said Blair, as she tried her best to count and make sure it was true. The three weddings to Victor definitely didn't count- especially not the one where he'd been calling himself Walker- so she was safe. "Anyway, our first wedding was on the beach here."

"Oh, the time you married him for his money."

Blair had been waiting for that and didn't acknowledge it. "It was just the two of us. No putting on a show for anyone else."

"Because you didn't want anyone to know you knew he was Victor Lord's son."

"It was like we were the only people who mattered. Now we have our kids, but I don't want to put on a show for anyone else. I don't need it. I don't want anyone there but our kids and Hope. It's no one's business but our family's."

"Does that include Sam?"

"Of course it does!"

"What about Dani?"

Blair sighed. That was more difficult. "I asked Starr to see if she could get Dani down here without Tea finding out why. If she can, she can. But Tea is very busy with Victor and I wouldn't want to add any stress onto that."

"They won't let us see Victor," Jack complained. "Only Starr because she's over 18. Not me. Not Sam, even though he's Victor's real son. Not even Dani, even though she's the one he cares about."

"He cares about all of you. In his way," Blair said, even though she had her doubts. She had spent the past eight years away from Todd and seeing Victor day in and day out. Ironically, Victor, not Todd, was the one she felt like she didn't know. "We'll find a way to get you in to see him once things settle down."

"So Starr already knows about this wedding," Jack said resentfully, letting the matter of Victor drop for the moment.

"I needed Starr to start making plans to get down here."

"Sure."

"I'm telling you the truth, Jack. I sent your father off to buy flowers and bought myself about three minutes to talk to her. You spent more than that just going over my past romantic history. I needed to wait until your father was asleep to talk to you."

"He's threatened by you talking to me? Maybe he's afraid I'll find out his secret like I did Eli's."

"I'm pretty sure you know his worst secrets. What he did to you when you were a baby was his worst secret."

"So he's just depressed because I won't throw myself at his feet and call him 'Daddy?'"

"No, but it was very nice of you to call him 'Dad' when you spoke to him yesterday. It meant a lot to both of us, especially under the circumstances."

Jack was reduced to grunting incoherently again. "Whatever."

"He doesn't know we're getting married while we're down here. He used to throw me surprise weddings. I think it's about time he saw that from the other side."

"So I could call the hotel and ask to speak to him and ruin the surprise."

"I think that if you felt like you had to do that after everything we've been through as a family in the past few months, we'd have bigger problems than whether I kept your father in the dark about a visit from his kids and a wedding. Don't you?"

"Whatever."

"Do you want to come?"

"Only because it's on a beach," Jack said. In the background, Hope shrieked, and Jack ended the call to see to her.

Blair really hoped that Jack hadn't provoked his niece so he wouldn't have to continue talking about the wedding. But even if he had, the conversation had gone as well as she could have hoped.

Starr trudged toward Victor's room in the long-term care facility with the weight of the world on her shoulders. She wasn't sure that she was ready to see Victor. She wasn't sure that she was ready to trick Tea into letting Dani go to Key West.

Hope had watched Hannah shoot Cole and was terrified. Cole was back in prison. James wanted nothing to do with her. She had no close friends in Llanview. The bulletin board outside the biology lab at school was covered with applications to take part in an expedition to the rainforest, but she couldn't go because she had a baby to raise. She had enough problems of her own.

Still, it wasn't as if Starr had ever considered refusing Blair's request. She had fought for her family since she'd been old enough to understand what a family was. Stopping now would have been unnatural.

Blair deserved this.

Todd deserved this.

"Estrella!"

Starr didn't have a chance to respond before Tea had enveloped her in a wet, sniffly hug. "I know Victor will be so happy to see you!" Tea continued.

"He's conscious?" Starr had gathered from Dani that Victor was more or less comatose. Starr's insides sank and she hated herself for it. If Victor was well, he would be back to setting Jack against their parents in no time. Starr didn't think she had the energy for another round of that. On the other hand, she couldn't very well wish for Victor to stay sick.

"No, not conscious. But he can hear what we're saying, I know he can. I've gotten Daniela to make some recordings so he can hear her voice even though the doctors don't want her in here. Do you think Jack and Sam could do the same?"

"Yeah, of course. We'll email you something this afternoon."

"Great. I know I can always count on you, Estrella."

And with that, Tea ushered Starr to the side of Victor's bed.

Starr stared at his pale form, smaller than it had ever seemed before, dwarfed by machines. "Hi, Uncle Victor. It's Starr," she began. "I know you're going to pull out of this just like you always have before." This was nothing new. She'd seen Victor near death many times. It was her real father who was invincible. It was her real father she wanted to talk to.

Play this right and you'll have a present for Dad no one else can give him, she reminded herself. "Jack is over the moon that you're alive. Sam never really believed you were dead. I guess we have to give him more credit, right? The both send their love. We're going on a trip soon, but we'll think of you the whole time and we'll be back next week. I just wish Dani could come with us, but she'll take care of Tea for you."

"Where are you going, Estrella?"

"A family vacation," said Starr nonchalantly. "Not a real vacation. Just a few days on the beach in Florida with Mom before we all bring Dad home. Dani's been telling Jack she'd teach him to surf practically since she met him, and Hope's been such a mess since everything happened with Cole..." It wasn't hard to make tears come to her eyes. Hope had spent most of the last week either crying or screaming, and there was nothing Starr could do about it but wait for Hope to realize that no amount of yelling would bring Cole back.

"Oh, Estrella!" Tea hugged her again. Starr tried not to cringe as her tears mixed with Tea's own. She resolved herself to recommit to her mission. "Dani's so good with Hope. She'd be such a big help. You know Jack isn't."

"Of course he's not," Tea agreed darkly.

"But Dani has to stay here and look out for you," Starr said, pulling back and nodding her head. "I'm not even going to invite her. It's selfish of me to even think about it when I know you couldn't spare her."

Tea didn't say anything. Damn it. Starr had thought that Tea would have been ordering Dani to join them on the plane to Florida by now.

She was going to have to play her riskiest card.

"My Mom, she could always handle things on her own or with the Cramer women," Starr tried. "So she was really great about letting me go on trips and everything. But I know you don't have that kind of support system, so Dani being here is more important."

Starr turned to leave. She had laid it on too thick with the last one. Tea, defense attorney that she was, was a master at mind games; undoubtedly she had seen through Starr's ploy. She would have to be completely blinded by her latent rivalry with Blair to-

"Wait."

Starr turned around.

"You're only going for a few days?"

"Yes," Starr agreed even though she and Blair hadn't finalized the schedule. "Back for school on Tuesday."

"I'm spending most of my time in here with Victor and Daniela isn't old enough to join us. Maybe the best thing would be for her to spend some time with her brothers and sister and go surfing."

"Really?"

"Really. I'll call her right now and tell her to go. You go find her in case I can't talk her into it myself."

Starr plastered a watery smile onto her face. "I'll do that."

"Thank you, Estrella."

"My pleasure," Starr muttered under her breath.

The most difficult part of the wedding plan was complete.