Banshee Song Book One

Chapter Twenty-Six

"So if we leave Friday afternoon, around two, then that should get us there early Saturday morning. That will give us all day to play around in New York, and still leave you plenty of time to prepare for your audition on Sunday. Any ideas of what you'd like to do in New York?"

"Hmmmm. The Met, obviously. We have to check it out. Oooh, we gotta go to the Museum of Modern Art. And, I don't know, just spending the day walking around with you on my arm sounds good enough."

The two young lovers were reclined on the leather sofa in Brady's apartment. They had moved it so it sat facing out the large loft windows. They watched the steady rain drizzle and run down the windowpanes, painting the world outside a dreary gray. It was actually rather cozy, as they sat closely, snuggled under a warm blanket drinking hot cocoa. It was just what they needed after that morning.

Brady had buried his little brother that morning. He was still trying to figure out how he should be feeling. J.T. had always been his young cousin, someone he had barely taken notice of. Now he was his baby brother, and he was dead.

Chloe laid her head on Brady's shoulder, sympathizing with him. The town of Salem was still reeling from the loss of that sweet, innocent little boy. You didn't have to be physically connected to him to feel grief; he had been a part of everyone. His brave struggle through life had touched many, taught them valuable lessons about the beauty of life. And now his struggle was ended. He was at rest.

Chloe briefly thought about Shawn, how was he handling his little brother's death. She remembered his pale, stricken face at the funeral. She had heard his soft, strangled cry as the dirt was poured on the coffin. She wondered how he had even found the strength to endure the ceremony and the gathering afterwards.

Snippets of their previous conversations echoed in her head. Shawn was always talking about his little brother, how important he was to him, how excited he was about the kid's future.

Her heart went out to her friend, and even as she sat thinking about him a vague memory danced at the corners of her mind. She saw strange dreams and half-remembered visions, all relating to Shawn. She still didn't know why she and Shawn had passed out in the hospital, but so many bizarre things had happened to her lately that this was just the tip of the iceberg.

With a deep sigh, she pushed away the sadness of the present and instead focused hopeful eyes on the future. This weekend, to be exact. This weekend would decide her future, whether she goes to Julliard, or somewhere else.

She also hoped this weekend would pull her and Brady closer together. She was still concerned about their relationship, about their future. On top of all her previous worries, lately she had come to wonder why they hadn't yet made love. Brady hadn't even made a move in that direction. Chloe knew that they had been taking things slow because of her ordeal with Dr. Moore, but surely now, months later, he would at least have made a move. At least hinted that he was interested in her that way. But every time the two began to get close, began to express themselves physically, Brady pulled back, pulled away.

{Maybe this weekend, we can move to the next level.} She thought, excitedly making plans for their trip together. Both of them, alone, in a nice hotel room. Her full lips curled into a sly smile and her cheeks blushed as she imagined being close to Brady; touching him, loving him.

Brady observed her rosy cheeks. "Chloe, what are you thinking about?" Her blush deepened as she broke out of her daydream.

"Nothing."



They waited somberly in his office at the hospital. Not a word was uttered by the four friends as they sat anxiously awaiting his arrival. Finally, his office door opened and Craig entered carrying a file under one arm. He sat down slowly at his cherry oak desk and gazed at each of the four in front of him. His eyes finally rested on Hope's.

"First of all, I want to again express my deepest condolences on the loss of John Thomas. I am so sorry for the pain that you have experienced." Craig paused slightly. "And I am sorry that I must bring even more pain to you and your family."

Their heartbeats quickened at his ominous statement while Hope felt suffocated by the now familiar sense of doom that surrounded her. They waited silently and with stone faces for Craig to continue.

He opened the manila folder on his desk and took out several papers. "As you know, there had been some question regarding J.T.'s paternity. Whenever this occurs, it is our policy to again test the paternity to ensure that the results are accurate. We have run the test five times using different samples and each time we get the same answer." Craig again paused as he tried form his next sentence. "I don't know how to tell you this, so I'm just going to say it."

John looked at Craig with confusion clearly written on his face. "It's okay Craig. We already know that I am J.T.'s father."

"That's just it, John. According to my tests, you aren't."

"Then your tests are wrong." John replied angrily. "Both Bo and I had tests done, and they both say that I am his father."

Craig calmly looked at John. "I can't explain those earlier tests. But I can tell you that I ran these tests myself; here, look for yourself." He handed the tests over to John and Bo who studied them intently.

"This doesn't make sense." Bo said softly, struggling uselessly to comprehend this recent turn of events. "I just had a test done. It was a 99% match."

"That right there tells me that something was off with the test. Rarely does a test result in that high of a percentage match. It's very possible that someone tampered with the results. It has been known to happen. Anyone with access into the computer systems could conceivably change the results."

"Anyone like.Lexie?" John surmised. "But why? Why would she want us to believe that J.T. was mine?" he questioned softly, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Because they don't want us to know who his real father was." Bo answered with a scratch of his bearded chin.

"Stefano. Has to be. He's the only other possibility." John stated quietly.

Hope paled visibly and shuddered at the thought of making love, no, having sex with that man. Bo lightly grasped her shoulder and massaged the tense muscles.

Craig looked at John, momentary confusion settling over his features. "Before you get into who the father is, there is something else you need to know. When our first test resulted in a negative match, we ran a test between Hope and J.T. in order to establish a baseline reading. Here are the results of those tests. As you can see, they also came up negative." Craig paused slightly, inhaling a deep breath. "I don't know who that little boy was, but he was not your son."

Hope sat in her chair, frozen in shock. Her hot blood roared in her ears as she struggled to comprehend the words she had just heard. J.T. wasn't her son? How was that possible? And yet.

Bo erupted from his chair, barely controlling his heated temper. "Not her son?! That proves that your tests are wrong! Hope gave birth to him, I was there. I watched him being born, saw his little parts as one by one they came into view. And now you're telling me that that didn't happen?"

Craig put his arms up in peace and tried to calm the angry man in front of him. "Hope did give birth to a little boy, no one is questioning that." He took another deep breath and prepared to reveal even more shocking news. "It has since come to my attention that there was a security breach in the nursery on the night that J.T. was born. It appears that two babies born that night may have been switched."

"Switched? What do you mean?" John asked, his mind a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions. Was it possible that his son was actually alive, living with someone else?

Bo stood still, his back completely straight. Vague memories played in his mind. There had been talk of a switch, he had even investigated it, but had come up with nothing.

Craig continued. "Hope gave birth to a little boy, and that boy was taken to the nursery to be cleaned and tagged. That boy was somehow confused or mixed with another boy who was then brought back to you as your son. It is, unfortunately, a common occurrence. We hear of cases where people need family donors due to medical emergencies, only to find that they aren't even related to their own family."

Hope's mind continued to swirl. This is what she had feared. The approaching storm had finally broken on her. She was beyond shock, beyond surprise. Somehow she had always known that the sweet little boy that she had raised wasn't hers. She spoke up, her voice a soft whisper.

"Do you remember, Bo? When they first brought J.T. in from the nursery and placed him in my arms? Do you remember what I said?" Hope asked, her eyes glossy from memories.

"They placed this little, red-faced boy in my arms. I looked down on his sweet face and I said, 'This isn't my son.' Do you remember? Even then I knew he wasn't mine, but I wanted to keep him. He felt so right in my arms. He was sick and weak, and I wanted to take care of him. So I ignored what my maternal instincts were telling me, and I took that boy home with me." Hope continued as small tears trickled out of her eyes.

Bo looked down on his silently weeping wife. All the pieces were coming together. J.T. had had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, a disease caused by drinking during pregnancy. Yet Hope had spent most of that time trapped in a castle in Europe. He remembered the security breach that night, and remembered Hope's upset insistence that this boy was not her son. But the question remained. "If J.T. wasn't her son, then who is, and where is he now?" he asked aloud in the quiet room.

"Well, the first step is to pull the records of the other births that night." Craig answered.

"No need." John interrupted, a dark cast to his face. He stared intensely into the air before him, his mind running through the clues. "We already know who her son is, and where." He stated simply.

He looked around at his friends and wife. He spoke his thoughts aloud but quietly. "We're forgetting that Stefano and Lexie have been behind everything, from the very beginning. They orchestrated the conception of Hope's child, altered the tests to prove that J.T. was ours. Think about it, who else but Lexie would have the means and the motive to switch two babies here in the hospital department where she worked? And don't forget the Reibers, who once took J.T. believing him to be Glen and Marlo's child, the child that Lexie adopted, the child that was born the same night as J.T."

"Isaac." Hope breathed. She recognized the truth that she had always known. "Isaac is my son." Finally, it all made sense. Her dreams, the longing she felt when ever she held him in her arms, Lexie. "That was the secret she was hiding." She exclaimed softly.

John nodded simply. "Yes."

"But why?" Marlena asked. "Why go through all of this effort, what was behind her actions?"

John turned to his wife to answer, systematically running through the facts in his head. "In a word, Stefano. He arranged for Hope to conceive a child, so he could raise it as his own. I don't yet know why. It doesn't make sense unless the child was in fact his. In any case, he wants to raise the child as a Dimera. Enter Lexie and her desire to have a child. He convinces her to adopt Marlo's child. She agrees, but she also knows that Marlo is an alcoholic and that there is a good chance that the child would have FAS. She has waited so long to have a child that she can't bear the thought of losing him to the disease. So he convinces her to switch the babies the night of their birth. He would then have control of Hope's child. While we bury J.T. believing him to be ours, never knowing the truth." John finished quietly as the enormity of Stefano's cruelty sunk in.

Hope sank into her chair, despair washing over her. "He stole my baby." she cried with maternal anguish. "I just lost J.T., I can't lose another son."

Bo looked down at his silently weeping wife. "You won't." He stated firmly. "We will get him back."