A/N: Just to address what some of your comments said... Peter is still going to be dead this whole fic. I'm not resurrecting that. He will be mentioned, but very much dead. No twists on that. I hope you can read with ease now. ;)

The scent of bergamot entwined with vanilla filled Valentin's nose as he inhaled the scent of Anna's brewed tea that was meant to soothe his jumbled soul. The dainty pink floral teacup looked ridiculous wrapped in his large hands. They were reddening from the heat, but he could scarcely feel the burning over his emotional pain.

"You're sure the test can be trusted?" Anna's gentle voice finally wove through the silence in the room.

Valentin nodded. "Absolutely."

"You've had an enormous shock. This is a lot of information to absorb." Anna said quietly. "We can talk about it... Or not. We can unpack it, you can vent, I can find you a glass to break... I'm here for you, whatever you want to do."

"I thought the world was yanked out from me when I found out that Mikkos wasn't my father and that Helena was my mother." Valentin finally spoke, then took a sip of the tea. Anna had made it just the way she knew he liked it. "That doesn't even compare to how I'm feeling right now."

Anna wrapped a comforting hand around his forearm, listening.

"They're dead. Gone. It hardly matters anymore. Who I was changed so many times when I was a younger man that the whole Mikkos and Helena ordeal was just par for the course, but this..." Valentin shook his head. "Being a father is something I hold very dear to me, and it turns out, I'm not a father to two little girls. I'm a father to a young lady and a grandfather to a baby girl... And also apparently the father of a sociopathic murderer who is on the loose somewhere."

"We're going to find him." Anna assured him. "We will bring him to justice."

Valentin stared into his tea. "The strange thing is that I always felt a connection to Peter. Like that there was something stronger between us than my being his 'mentor'... I'm almost not surprised that he is my son. But my God. Anna, I gave my own son to Faison."

Anna felt a twisting in her stomach, but she didn't have a response for Valentin's realization. Though she and Valentin were on friendly terms, she hadn't fully forgiven him for what he'd done with Peter. Not when she thought he was her own son, nor when she found out he was actually her nephew.

"I could have... I could have raised him. If I'd known."

"You were a different person back then." Anna finally said after considering how to respond. "What you did with Peter was extremely wrong. I'm never going to pretend it wasn't. But as we've discussed before, Peter is an adult now. He's been an adult for a long time, and there's no justification for his behavior."

"But he would have had a chance if I hadn't handed him over to a criminal mastermind." Valentin took a deep, stuttering breath. "I gave my son to a monster."

"You can't change the past. You can only go forward from here."

"What's the point? I let down my child. Worse, I doomed him to an upbringing with Faison."

"You didn't know he was your son."

"It was wrong either way."

Anna nodded slowly. "Yes."

They were quiet for a moment as Valentin wrestled inwardly with the repercussions of his misguided actions.

"Do you think Maxie knows that Bailey is actually Louise?" Anna asked. It was a change in subject, but important to her search.

"She's been visiting the baby at the mansion. I think there's a possibility that this is some sort of arrangement between her and Brook Lynn."

"So, she's letting Mac and Felicia look for a baby who she knows is safe."

"It would appear that way, yes."

"Wow..." Anna shook his head. "So many people are involved in this and stand to be hurt by it."

"I suppose the deception by Brook Lynn is karma biting me in the ass for what I did to Nina with Sasha." Valentin took a long drink of his tea, considering. "But she hasn't only been deceiving me."

Anna squeezed his arm. "I'm not sure how much comfort this is right now, but at least you are still related to that baby. I'm sure you'll be a wonderful and doting Grandpapa."

Valentin thought of Bailey - no, Louise. That sweet bundle was the only pure and innocent person in his universe. While he was crushed to find out he wasn't her father, she was still part his; he would still be in her life. A new life stage for him had started without him even realizing it - grandparent.

"At the end of the day, yes... I still have a granddaughter in that beautiful baby. But the Quartermaines have nothing... Except a few unwanted houseguests." Valentin said wryly.

"Oh, Ned and Olivia are going to be crushed, too..." Anna realized. "And Monica, Tracy, Lois... This just gets worse and worse."

"We have to find Peter." Valentin said suddenly, setting his teacup down. "That's the first thing we need to do. Louise can't be truly safe until we have Peter in custody. We have to protect my granddaughter."

"Well, I do have something I believe is a lead." Anna said. "Liz acted very strangely when I was on the roof of GH. There's a laboratory that was last used by Olivia Jerome, and she said it's sealed off... But it felt like she was hiding something."

Valentin raised his eyes to meet Anna's. "Then that's our next step. We need to figure out how to get into that lab."