The moment the door to the family room closed in their faces, Erin started to sob, and it was second nature to him to reach out and take her in his arms, holding her close as he struggled to keep from crying himself. This was not how he imagined this day going, he had thought that there would be the opportunity to tell them that he was going to have the surgery on Friday, and that that meant Helena should start getting better as soon as the piece of his liver that was extracted was placed in her body. They stood like that for a few minutes, but then Erin was pulling away from him and staring up into his face.

"They were finally starting to forgive me for all the hell my drinking problem put them through. And then this happened. Why did I ever think that having an affair with you was a good idea? Now I've lost everything in my life that I hold dear."

"Erin…"

"No. I can't. Not here, not now." Before he could say another word, Erin kissed his cheek and then turned quickly, running away from him as he stood rooted to the spot, watching her go.

Feeling a pair of eyes watching him, he turned his head to see Alex next to him now, disappointment spread across her features. "Go after her, please. She doesn't want me right now, and I can't have her be alone. Not when Friday is the day."

Alex nodded as she reached out to pat his shoulder. "This is one Gordian knot that I don't think you're going to be able to untie very easily. Even the transplant won't rewrite everything that's happened in the last week."

"Don't I know that," he replied, letting out a deep sigh. "All right, I should probably head in there and do some sort of damage control. Who knows what Alan has told them."

"Nothing good. They didn't really want to see either of you today, even though they know that Helena's life rests in your hands. Tread carefully."

He nodded, a sharp motion that made his head swim as she took a few steps in the direction Erin had taken. Knowing that the longer he allowed the anger to grow between their children and himself, the more likely it was they would never speak to them, he steeled his nerve and went into the family room, taking a look at the quartet of people huddled together on the sofa. Pulling a chair over to them from the table, Dave took a seat in front of them, taking a seat and watching them closely.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" Greg bit out, and he drew in a deep lungful of air to compose himself as he thought about how to answer.

"We were willful, and it was good between us. Your father…"

"He's not our father though, is he?" Bruce interjected, and Dave turned his face to look at his son, seeing a familiar sneer on his face. It struck him then, that he should have seen himself in his son, because there was such a great likeness between them. "No, he's just the man who raised us while our father decided to go fuck around."

"I didn't know that you were mine, and if I had, I would never have allowed your mother to suffer in that marriage. I would have rescued her."

A bitter laugh slipped out of Harriet's mouth as she shook her head, her mouth screwed up tight, as if she was physically trying to hold in the words she wanted to say to him. "Rescue her from what?" Karen asked, her voice icy and low.

"From the hell that was marriage to Alan. I knew that there was a reason that she sought me out, even though she loved your father deeply. Bruce, you saw that ire firsthand when we both came down to the hospital last week."

"He's angry because he's been cuckolded for all these years, and you keep trying to act like it's natural for that to have happened. It wasn't, you and Mom cheated him out of God knows what."

Dave bent his head, knowing that Bruce was right, and not knowing how to respond. "All I want to know, David, is if you're going to go through with the transplant. My daughter doesn't deserve to suffer because I don't really care for the person who is her perfect match donor."

Glancing up at Harriet, he nodded, feeling the first tears start to slip down his cheeks, only to catch on his goatee. She gave him a pained look, and in that moment, he knew that her anger was a mask to cover the terror and sorrow she felt at the situation she had been thrust into. "I couldn't live with myself if I had allowed my first granddaughter to suffer because of selfishness. I loved that little girl from the moment she came into this world, and knowing that she is my blood just makes that bond all the stronger. Look, I know you can't forgive us for not telling you the truth before Alan did, but it is difficult to wrap your mind around the fact that everything you thought you knew for so long was a lie. I have three children, a son in law, and all of them hate me, with good reason. I can only hope that at some point we can come together as a family. I know that your mother is going to need us all to rally around her, because her house has come tumbling down around her feet, and this bitterness and rancor between us all, at a time like this, will only make it that much easier for her to decide that one small drink won't really hurt things. I don't want to be the cause of her slipping off the wagon, but I fear that I might be. So, if for no reason other than to keep your mother mentally healthy, please forgive her and throw all your anger on me. I can handle it. And I'll have a lot of time to work through everything as I recover from the surgery."

There was nothing more to say, and he didn't really expect any of her children to reply to his desperate plea, so Dave stood up and made his way over to the door. He paused with his hand on the door, just in case he would be proven wrong, but there was only stony silence to greet his back as he opened the door and left the room. Slowly, he walked to the elevators and pressed the down button, waiting for it to arrive and take him away from his newfound family.

"Dave! Wait!"

Turning, he saw Harriet running up to him, tears shining on her cheeks. He let out a low oof when she threw her arms around his waist, holding him tightly as she rubbed her face against his chest. "What is it, Harriet?"

"I don't understand why you two did it, but I know that you love each other now, and the fact that you're willing to have the transplant tells me so much about you. When you see Mom, tell her that I love her, and that I expect to see her here tomorrow. We don't have time to talk about this right now, and won't until I know that Helena is on her way to wellness, but…you're my father, too, and that matters." Leaning up on her tiptoes, she kissed his cheek quickly before rushing away from him, as if she couldn't bear to spend another moment in his presence. Still, that one small gesture meant the world to him, and he hoped this was the first step towards mending fences between all of them.