The magic of being as physically close to Blair as humanly possible didn't extend to making Todd capable of a good night's sleep. Instead, he was restless, rousing himself every ten minutes to make sure that Blair was still beside him. When woke up shaking and thrashing, a heartbeat away from screaming as Baker muscled him into the chair, he decided that he was done trying and extricated himself from the tangled, sweaty sheets.

Blair, for her part, was still sleeping like a rock with a shit-eating grin on her face. He liked to think that she was dreaming of the previous afternoon. It was a shame he couldn't join her.

He wandered onto the balcony with the intention of playing with Blair's phone (he still hadn't quite mastered the new technology) until the sun came up. If the sunrise was particularly spectacular, he would wake Blair to share it with him.

As he settled in, he looked hard for threats. If someone was planning to hurt them, where would he be hiding? Could he hear the click of a trigger or a whispered order? Was the scent of gasoline or dynamite on the air?

His heart began to race before he even knew why. There was movement below him. The waves were higher than usual; that wasn't saying much, since Key West waters were about as calm as waters could be. Additionally, some idiot was dragging a surfboard through the darkness toward the still none-too-large waves.

Ross Rayburn.
Why would he be here? Todd knew from personal experience that the man's loyalty was for sale. If he planned to kidnap Todd's children, well, it wouldn't be the first time. He scrambled to the spare key to the kids' suite.

On second thought, no. Ross Rayburn was dead; Tea had spat that at him during one of her rants about Danielle. He squinted harder into the darkness. The figure was too female to be Ross, and too young.

It was Danielle.

It figured that she had Ross' particular swagger. Ross had raised her, and that could mean more than DNA. Sometimes, when Jack pushed Todd to the edge, Todd could feel Peter Manning's voice threatening to leap out of his throat. Hell, Peter was with him now, asking whether Danielle wanted to get herself killed by going down to the ocean alone in the middle of the night or whether she was just stupid.

Tea would make sure Todd would never have a moment's peace if anything happened to Danielle.

It wasn't like it had been Todd's idea to bring Danielle down to Key West, anyway, but Tea wouldn't care. Tea wouldn't care that if Danielle was fine with remembering Ross as her beloved adoptive father and Victor as her beloved stepfather, that was fine with Todd, too.

He sighed.

He would have to leave the honeymoon suite where his beautiful wife lay sleeping wrapped in silk sheets to go make sure Tea Delgado's idiot daughter didn't get herself killed.


Ten minutes later, Todd was parked on the beach close enough to drag Danielle out of the water if she ran into trouble. As time wore on, he allowed himself to be impressed with her skill on the surfboard. The waves weren't much, but she always managed to catch the biggest one and stay upright for longer than she really should have.

She didn't notice him until she'd been up and down a dozen times and gray light was beginning to coat the beach.

I could've been anyone, you stupid girl. I could have been a kidnapper or a child molester... or a rapist.

Danielle at least had the brains to startle hard and wasted no time dragging her board from the water. He stood up and walked to the water's edge; it was then that she recognized him.

"Would your mother like it if she knew that you were out in the ocean by yourself in the middle of the night?" he asked her without bothering with pleasantries.

"There's a hurricane passing by a hundred miles away," she protested. "This was the only time the waves were going to get big enough to even pretend to surf."

"I'll take that as a 'no, Counsellor Delgado would be going for the maximum penalty of grounding for a month, Your Honor.'"

Danielle made a face and set down her surfboard. "She's so worried about Victor. She spends every minute with him and he doesn't get better. She doesn't need to worry about this, too," Danielle wheedled. "Besides, I'm fine. No harm, no foul."

Todd made an effort not to roll his eyes. All teenagers were the same. "Sit down," he told her. She dropped to the sand beside him. "I'm not going to upset your mother, but I want to know why you thought this," and he gestured at the ocean, "was a good idea."

"I didn't," Danielle said bluntly. "But I miss the water so much." She sighed heavily. "Llanview's nice and all, but Pennsylvania's a landlocked state. You can hardly go anywhere in Tahiti and not see the ocean." Her wistfulness was palpable, and Todd started to feel sorry for her even though she had taken him away from his naked wife in the early hours of the morning.

"You miss it?" he asked unnecessarily.

"So much. I mean," she added hastily, "I love Starr and Sam and mostly I love Jack. Destiny is, like, the best friend anyone ever had. But every day I wish I could talk Mom into taking Dad- Victor- to a rehab hospital there. There is one, you know. I think being away from all of the stress of Llanview would help him. I know it would help me. We knew everyone there. We had this huge support system. I belonged like I know I'm never going to belong anywhere else. I feel closer to Dad- my first D- I mean, Ross, there. Next year will be my senior year of highschool and I feel like I miss the school I started with, you know?"

"You're a junior?" Todd demanded. Jack was a sophomore; he was sure of that. Danielle had been conceived after Jack; he was sure of that, too.

"I started young and then I skipped a grade." Danielle gave him a what-can-you-do shrug. "When I was little, Mom was always pushing me to be the best, to be the smartest. I think she would have had me in college by the time I was nine years old if Ross hadn't stepped in. It was the worst fight I ever heard them have right up until she said I wasn't his. He said there was so much more to life than what I could learn from a book and that if she wasn't careful she would steal that from me. He threw my math book on the floor, picked me up over his shoulder, and carried me out onto a speedboat."

"I can picture it," said Todd. He could.

"I was worried about Mom the whole time, but it felt so good out there on the water. I miss it," she repeated. "These last couple of years have been a roller coaster, and they've been great, but I'm ready to get off." She looked up from the sand and nailed Todd with a gaze that was very like Tea's. "I don't mean anything personal. I'm not ready to go through father number three with anyone. You could be the President of the United States and Ghandi rolled into one. But I think you said in jail back in Llanview that you weren't all that interested in having a kid whose mother isn't Blair, either."

"That's not what I meant," Todd said, even though that was basically what he'd meant. The kid wasn't as big a fool as he'd feared she might be.

"You said you had to leave Mom and me and Ross on that island because you had to get back to your family. That implies that I'm not your family," she said with the air of a girl who had been listening to closing arguments before she learned to talk.

"I'm never going to be your father the way Ross was or even the way Victor was. But if there is ever anything in this world that you want- whether it's money or a door opened or a safe place to stay or answers to questions- I want you to come see me. I swear that to you. I will move heaven and earth to get you what you need. And since right now, that's a move to Tahiti, I won't stand in your way. I'll help you convince your mother if you want."

"Don't. She doesn't trust you."

"So I'll tell her I want you to stay in Llanview so we can get to know each other. She'll be hauling you off to Tahiti in no time."

Danielle laughed humorlessly. "Aunt Viki said you were funny."

"You get along with your Aunt Viki?" he asked needlessly. Everyone loved Queen Victoria, except for Dorian, and Dorian's dislike was the best endorsement of all.

"Yeah. She's doing great. The bullet really didn't do any damage, she's home already-"

"WHAT?" Todd exploded. Danielle cringed away from him, but he didn't care. "What bullet? What the hell did Blair not bother to tell me when she was asking me to marry her?"

It was both endearing and aggravating that Danielle's first instinct was to protect Blair. "She probably didn't know," Danielle tried. "She took off after you right in the middle of the prison break. It probably hadn't even happened yet when she left, and then it was hard to get through to Llanview by phone- she was barely even in touch with Starr-"

Todd was already thumbing through the list of contacts on Blair's phone for Viki's number. "You said she's home already?" he snarled.

"Yeah," said Danielle. She inched further away, and Todd waved his hand at the ocean. "Go back to what you were doing," he ordered, and Danielle and her surfboard obeyed.


"Blair?" Viki's voice was full of sleep, but Todd didn't care. It served Viki right for getting shot and letting him sit down here on a beach without knowing. "Is everything all right? Starr said that you said that Todd was better, but we were so worried."

"This is Todd," he growled.

"Todd!" The phone almost shook with delight. Viki either hadn't noticed or didn't care that he sounded like he was ready to rip out the jugular of the next person who pissed him off. "How are you?"

"I'm not the one who got shot," he said with naked accusation. "I'm not even the one who got told his sister got shot until five minutes ago. You know what, why don't you hold on while I go kill Blair? I could put you on speakerphone while I do it."

"Todd!" This time, Viki switched over to her appalled, lecturing tone. Todd found that infinitely more soothing than the happy tone. If Viki was lecturing, Viki was in good form. "Does it occur to you that Blair might have been trying to do what was best for you? That Blair may not have even known what was happening in Llanview while she was down there in Florida taking care of you?"

"What is best for me is never going to be not knowing when someone I love is in trouble. I don't love that many people. It shouldn't be hard to keep track."

"I love you, too, Todd," said Viki. "And I'm very glad to know that you're feeling well enough to be completely pigheaded and ungrateful."

"And here I was just thinking that I was glad to hear that you were well enough to be superior and condescending. Who shot you, anyway?"

Viki sighed with irritation. "Allison Perkins. She shot me while announcing that it's practically impossible for a woman to give birth to twins fathered by two different men."

Todd shrugged. "Well, yeah. We always knew that. It's not like it was your fault."

"It may have been my fault in a way I never considered."

Todd jumped to his feet with such fury that Danielle, watching him from a distance, nearly tumbled off her surfboard. "What Mitch Laurence did to you was in no way, shape, or form-"

"That's not what I meant, Todd! If you want to know what's been happening in Llanview, be quiet and let me tell you."

"I'll stop yelling if you'll stop being stupid," Todd suggested. "How come everyone but me is stupid lately?"

"I've been more stupid than you know."

"Don't call yourself stupid. That's the stupidest thing you can do." This was met with silence. "I mean, please, Viki, go on with your story while I sit here quietly and listen."

"Thank you, Todd. That's very generous of you."

She paused for long enough that Todd wondered if this was some kind of trick to get him to talk so she could tell him to shut up again.

"Allison told us that Mitch wanted to be Jessica's father and she didn't want to tell him otherwise. So over the years, she tricked everyone- including Mitch- into believing that that was the case."

Todd's heart sped up with hope for Jessica. "You mean it wasn't?"

"Jessica is Clint's and my daughter. Natalie and Jessica are both our daughters. Our beautiful twins."

"Have they stopped pulling each other's hair out long enough to celebrate?" Todd asked, because he didn't want to say something sappy about how happy he was for all of them even though he knew that biology had never made any difference to the people who loved Jessica.

"They're thrilled. Jessie is so relieved, and Natalie is so happy for Jessie."

"Big of her to be happy for the sister whose fiance she stole."

"When we were sorting out the girls' DNA, we had a closer look taken at Liam and Ryder's as well. Liam is John's son just like her should have been and Ryder is Brody's son just like he should have been. This was very confusing for Brody in particular, and he and Natalie did have the good sense to call off the wedding. Tina, however, determined that a good wedding shouldn't go to waste and she and Cord were married the other day. Todd, I hope you won't be angry at Tina again because things haven't gone as smoothly as you would have liked for you and Blair."

Todd rolled his eyes at the irony. "That won't be a problem."

"Make sure that it isn't."

"Do you have more secrets to tell me or is it my turn?"

"There is something else we should discuss," said Viki imperiously. "But tell me what you need to tell me first."

"That sounds ominous," Todd complained. "I don't like ominous. Well, I do when I'm the one creating it, but-"

"The sun isn't even up yet. Can we save the rambling for another time?"

"The sun's up in Key West," said Todd petulantly. "Did you know that the first time Blair and I got married, it was in Key West?"

"Yes, I believe you told me that."

"Yesterday we did that again." He rushed over her expressions of congratulations and delight. "Blair didn't tell me that she was bringing the kids down here or why. If I had been the one who planned the wedding, I never would have had it without you. Besides the kids, you're the only one I'd care about having here."

"It sounds like the time and place was right, and I couldn't have come down there under the circumstances, as much as I would have wanted to. I'll just have to hug you when you get back to Llanview, now that you've decided you like hugs."

"Yeah," said Todd softly.

"About that night," Viki continued, and Todd knew that she was talking about the night Irene had confirmed that he, not Victor, was Todd Manning. "Irene's story was bizarre to say the least."

"People get long-lost twins they never knew about all the time. Just ask Natalie and Jessica."

"That was different. According to the information the police have managed to decode from that computer chip Starr brought in, that was very, very different."

Todd felt his knees go weak and was glad he was already sitting down. He fought to keep himself from curling into a ball right there on the beach in front of badly-dressed tourists out for a morning walk.

"That computer chip Starr brought in."

It.

"What does it say?" he heard his own voice ask. His hand dug into the sand. He needed Blair. Anything could be happening to her and Starr and Jack and he couldn't quite remember where they were.

"That's not something I can tell you on the phone."

"Yes, you can!" Todd snapped. "I was tortured for eight years over that information. I have a right to know what it is right now!"

"I agree with you. I do, Todd, but this isn't public knowledge and this phone isn't secure. We may be in the publishing business but our family is about to become the story." She sighed heavily. "Again."

"So everyone there already knows?" He felt a rush of hatred for Bo Buchanan. "What about Kevin? Does he know? Did you decide that his phone was secure enough?"

"I've asked Kevin and Joey to come to Llanview to discuss this in person. CJ and Sarah as well," she added ingratiatingly. "You'll be happy to see them all grown up, won't you?"

"Don't change the subject."

"I'm not. Anyone with the dubious distinction of being a descendant of Victor Lord is going to be in the spotlight whether they want it or not. We need to discuss a united front and we need to give everyone a chance to start to digest this information before they start getting questions from the lower forms of the press, not to mention everyone they've ever met."

"So we're going to market ourselves like we're the damn Kennedys."

"If you have a better suggestion, I'm listening."

"My suggestion is that you just tell me what's going on now, and screw everyone else. I was the one who got tortured over that chip. I'm the one this is about."

"That suggestion does not work for me. Everyone has a right not to be blindsided." She sighed. "You're all going to be blindsided. But not in public."

"Really? You don't want to bring a film crew to this thing? We'll sell our own one-episode reality show. We'll put it behind a paywall on the Banner and Sun websites. We're media moguls, aren't we? I'm sure the old man would appreciate us making a buck off this if it has to happen anyway."

"That's not a terrible idea," said Viki thoughtfully. "We do need to use the Banner and the Sun to control the narrative. I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but we do have the ability to put the correct facts out there first, in our own words. We may have everyone in the family write a column. And I do think there should be a still photographer, at least. If we're getting the whole family together, we will at least get a complete family portrait out of it."

"Yay," said Todd flatly. "God, I hope the wine cellar at Llanfair is full."