Woohoo, finally I'm updating! Lol. Sorry it took me so long to get this chapter out. Writer's block sucks. Anyways, here's the new chapter. I hope you guys like it.

Chapter Twelve- The Truth, It's Such A Wonderful Thing

"Have you told her yet?" Vaughn asked Sydney as they drove home from the wake. Syd had wanted to stay longer with her daughter, to be there if she needed her. But Chloe had insisted that she and Paris would be alright on their own.

Sydney shook her head.

"It would kill her to know." She said, looking over at her husband, his profile illuminated by the passing streetlamps.

"She deserves to know the truth, Syd." Vaughn admonished his wife gently. Sydney ducked her head and sighed.

"I know, and I will tell her. Eventually."

>>>>>

Chloe stared down at the food on her plate. A string of endless casseroles and Jell-O salads had been filtering into the Mitchell home since Derrick's death. Chloe, however, had no appetite for the food that filled the kitchen.

Pushing the food around on her plate, Chloe sighed. Glancing across the table at Paris, she saw her daughter pushing around her own food.

"You have to eat something, Paris." Chloe said.

"I'm not hungry." Paris pushed the plate away from her and slumped in her chair. Chloe smiled weakly, she knew how Paris felt. She reached across the table and gripped her daughter's small hand in her own.

"I know this is hard," Chloe said quietly, "but we'll make it through. You'll see, things'll be okay."

"How can you say that?" Paris cried angrily, showing the first bit of emotions that she had in days. She threw Chloe's hand off her and stood hurriedly, her chair squealing against the kitchen floor. "How can you say that things will be okay? Dad died, Mom, and it's all my fault."

The young girl ran from the room, blonde hair flying out behind her, leaving Chloe alone and confused.

>>>>>

Paris lay on her bed, face buried in a mountain of pillows. There weren't tears left inside of her to cry, but that didn't stop the large, heaving sobs that racked her body. The familiar sound of her door opening barely registered to Paris and she didn't glance up as soft footsteps made their way towards her bed.

"It's all my fault, Mom," she said, voice muffled by the pillows, as Chloe gently stroked her hair. "It's my fault he's dead."

"Shh, Paris. It's not anybody's fault." She appreciated her mother's words, but Paris wished that Chloe would just listen and understand what she was saying.

Pushing herself up, Paris turned so that she looked her mother straight in the eye. This was going to be difficult to tell, but Paris had to tell the truth.

"It is my fault." She said. "I just wanted us to be a family, that's all. I didn't want him to die. I just wanted us to be a family."

Chloe looked confused, and understandably so. Paris was telling her so much, yet it made little sense to the older woman.

"But we were a family." Chloe said, trying to make sense of what her daughter was trying to tell her.

"I don't mean Derrick. I wanted you and me…and Sark, my real dad, to be a family."

"Oh." Chloe looked down at her clasped hands. Her fingers played with the silver wedding band and the matching engagement ring that rested on her ring finger. So Paris had spoken with Sark, and she had found out the truth.

Chloe bit her lip to keep back the flood of words that threatened to spill past her lips. So many things needed to be said and explained. But Chloe needed to organize her thoughts before she could say anything at all.

After what seemed like years of silence, Chloe finally spoke.

"When did he tell you." Her words were soft, but, in the quiet bedroom, Paris could hear her clearly.

"He didn't have to tell me. You did." At her mother's confused expression, Paris explained. "That night when Sark came to Grandma and Grandpa's I heard you and Dad arguing in your bedroom. I heard everything. After that night I wanted to know more about him. When I told you I was spending the night at Jade's house, I lied. I was really going to do some investigating to find out more about him. I thought that if I looked at the library, in all their old newspaper stuff, that I could find his name somewhere. But I didn't get to the library. He was in the park that day and we talked. He told me everything, Mom, about why he couldn't come and visit me and he told me…he told me he still loves you."

Chloe had stayed silent all while Paris had been confessing the truth to her, her mind reeling.

So Paris had wanted to know more about Sark. There was no harm in that. She wouldn't have found his name in any records anyway. But he had been at the park and Paris had talked to him there. She hadn't needed to go to a secondary source when she had the original right there. And what the hell was this about him telling her everything? Surely he couldn't have told her the real reason he'd been in jail all this time. The last part of what Paris said still rang clear in Chloe's mind, but she chose to ignore it. She knew Sark still loved her, hell she still loved him. But there was nothing they could do about it.

Not back then, you couldn't. That pesky voice was back again. But Derrick's dead now. There's nothing stopping you from being with Sark now.

Chloe brushed the voice aside. She couldn't stand to hear it right then.

"Paris," she paused, drew in a deep breath, and continued, "did Sark ever tell you the reason he was in jail?"

Paris shook her head. Chloe closed her eyes and prayed for the strength to tell her daughter the truth. She deserved to know who her father really was.

"Sark…your father," the word sounded strangely comforting when it was accompanied by Sark's name. Chloe had no clue as to why that was. "He was in jail because he did some really bad things."

"I'm not six, Mom," Paris interrupted her, "you can tell me the truth."

"Okay," Chloe couldn't help the small smile that flitted across her face. "The truth is, Paris-"

>>>>>

"Okay, Mr. Sark, I'm going to take your blood pressure now." The annoyingly perky nurse said. Sark rolled his eyes behind his closed lids and tried to tune out her bothersome chatter.

He had been stuck in the hospital for nearly a week now and it was driving him crazy. He had to get out of there before his sanity was lost forever.

Thankfully, Sydney had visited him on more than one occasion, offering him reprieve from the constant flow of nurses and their patronizing ways. Sark had never thought he'd be grateful to see Sydney Vaughn, but in those occasions he was ecstatic.

A knock sounded on the closed door to his room, cutting off the nurse's babbling. Sark opened his eyes slowly. The action hurt his swollen eyes and he tried to hold back a wince.

"Oh, Mr. Sark, you have a visitor. Mrs. Vaughn is here." The nurse said. "I'll just leave you two to talk, but I'll be back in another hour."

He waited until the door shut behind the nurse before he spoke.

"Sydney," his voice was husky from lack of use, "to what do I owe this pleasure?"

He winced as his three broken ribs made it difficult for him to breathe.

"I thought I'd tell you, 'fore I told Chloe this."

"Tell me what?" He bit back a whimper as his ribs protested the air he was forcing in and out of his lungs.

"The car you hit, it belonged to Derrick, Chloe's husband. He was D.O.A at the hospital. I haven't told Chloe this yet, but I'm going to. I thought you deserved to know first, though." She turned to go.

"Wait, Sydney." Sark couldn't let her leave. She couldn't tell Chloe this bit of information. It would make her hate him for sure.

Syd turned back around.

"What?"

"Please, you can't tell Chloe." He pleaded with her.

"She has the right to know who killed her husband, Sark."

"Please, if someone is to tell her, let it be me."

Sark had no clue why he offered this to Sydney. He had no desire to tell Chloe that he'd been the one to take her husband from her. But he also knew that if he didn't tell her, than Sydney would surely make it seem as if he had done this as an act of hate, which he had not. He had to tell Chloe himself and make her see that it had been purely accidental and that he hadn't intended to hit Derrick's car. If Chloe was to hate him, so be it, but he wasn't about to let someone paint him as the bad guy in all of this.

>>>>>

Alright, so, what did y'all think? It's not one of my favorite chapters, but I thought it needed to be written.I made this chapter a bit longer since you all have been waiting so long for it. Please review and tell me what you thought.

the different person: Killing off Derrick wasn't my only option, but it was the one that I wanted to go with. I think that it's gonna add a whole bunch of new problems for Chloe and Paris and Sark. Not to mention, I thrive off of drama. Lol. And as for Syd, I'm not sure what's going to all go on with her as of yet. All I know is that she's going to start being nicer, to everyone.

M.B: I, too, am anxious to see Sark reappear this season. But isn't it just aweful what they did to Vaughn?

DD2, Meaningful Exuberance, freakygirl, fieldranked, Lil Aussie AliasChick, goldenshadows, Eyghon, Marie, andAgent Pheonix:Thank you all so much for reviewing this story and for waiting so patiently for this chapter. You guysso totally rock!