The following morning she's drinking a cup of tea when he waltzes into her office, and plants his cheeks in the seat across from her.
"Can I help you?" she asks taking a sip of the hot tea.
"I need to ask you something."
She swallows, "Ok."
"Don't hit me."
"I can't make any promises," she answers, taking another sip.
"Who is Chance?"
She spits the tea out, all over the papers on her desk, and on Marc, "What?" Without a moment of thought she throws a tissue at Marc, and begins wiping off the papers on her desk.
"You left your flashdrive in your computer."
"So you thought that it would be ok to look at the things on it?"
"I'm sorry."
"Marc..."
"I saw the pictures. Why do you have baby pictures on your computer? Did someone you know have a baby?"
She doesn't answer immediately. She walks across the room, to close, and lock the door. She walks around the desk, and reaches into her bag. She pulls a picture out and hands it to him.
He studies the baby picture carefully. He flips it over to read the scrawl on the back. In Wilhelmina's hand-writing in the top left hand corner, in blue ink it says: Chance E. Slater-5½ weeks.
"Is this Nico's baby?" he questions. "I thought that you weren't talking to Nico."
"I'm not talking to her."
"So..."
"It's not her baby," Wilhelmina answers.
"Renee's baby?"
"Do you think that I would have pictures of my sister's baby?"
"Right. The name on the picture is Slater," he points out.
"I know. I named him," she reveals.
"Why?"
"What do you mean why?"
"Why did you name him? Why didn't his mother name him?"
"She did."
"You just said that you named him."
"I did."
"Which is it? You named him or his mother named him? It can't be both ways."
"Yes it can."
"What are you saying?"
"He's my son."
"He's your what? I think that I misheard you."
"You didn't mishear me."
"Your son? You have... you had a baby? Willie that's not possible. Wait did you adopt him?"
"No I didn't adopt him."
"So you used a surrogate?"
"No Marc, I gave birth to him."
"I thought that wasn't possible."
"Apparently it is."
"You had a baby? You haven't been gone that long."
"I was pregnant before I left."
"Is that why you left?"
"No, I didn't know."
"You didn't know?"
"No, which probably contributed, at least, in part to him being born nine weeks pre-term."
"Is he ok?"
"Doing better every day."
"Wait how old is he?"
"Five and a half weeks, that picture is from last night."
"So who is his father?"
She locks eyes with him, but says nothing.
He gasps, "No." He shakes his head.
"Calm down," she demands.
"This cannot be happening. Seriously?" he starts to freak out.
"Keep your voice down please," she begs.
"I'm sorry, I'm just a little bit worked up."
"That's understandable."
"You had a baby, with him? Oh, Willie what were you thinking? Is this part of some elaborate scheme, because if it's not, it's just plain sad."
"It's not part of a scheme. It wasn't part of any plan. It was rather unplanned."
"Does Daniel know that you..."
"I don't know," she shrugs.
"You don't know?"
"I haven't told him."
"So he doesn't know?"
"He might."
"He might? How?"
"Claire knows."
"Claire knows that you have a son with her son?"
"Yes," Wilhelmina nods.
"Are you sure? She's still breathing."
"I'm sure."
"How did she take it?"
"Better than I expected."
"So has she seen him?"
"Who, Daniel?"
"No, the baby."
"Yeah."
"Why are you being so secretive about all of this?"
"I'm having a hard time dealing with all of it. It all seems like a really bad dream."
"What do you mean?"
"It just doesn't feel real. I guess I'm still in denial about the whole thing."
"That you had a baby with Daniel?"
"That I had a baby at all. He was born five and a half weeks ago. He should be with me, but when I go home, he's not there. When I wake up, he's not there. He's spent his entire existence thus far in the neonatal intensive care unit of a hospital, that's not how it's supposed to be. Babies are supposed to be born healthy, and go home with their parents..." she trails off.
"It's ok," he hugs her, and for once she doesn't resist.
"I'm his mother he should be with me. This is all my fault. I made a stupid decision, and now he has to pay for it."
"Don't blame yourself."
"Who else is there to blame? Even if he makes it out of the N.I.C.U. perfectly healthy he could still have a myriad of problems, developmental delays, lung problems, anything..."
"It's not your fault."
She pushes him away. "You don't know that. No one knows that. I didn't do everything that I could. The only person who could possibly take responsibility for this is me."
"You don't control the world, you didn't control this. This is not your fault."
"You can say that all you want, but it won't make it true," she tells him.