Late that night, Clint paused as he walked down the stairs, pulling the collar of his bathrobe in slightly as a chill hit him, before making his way into the library at Llanfair, surprised to find Jessica sitting in a chair, staring silently at a framed photograph in her hands as tears ran down her face.
"Jessica?"
Jumping slightly, Jessica quickly put the photograph down and wiped furiously at her cheeks as she stood up. "Sorry, Dad, did I wake you up? I, uh, didn't realize anyone was still up when I came in."
Clint shrugged, walking into the room and picking up the photograph to see what she was looking at. "I couldn't sleep," he said, looking down at the image of the three women smiling back up at him. "I've always liked this one."
"Feels like a million years ago," Jessica said, taking the picture out of his hands and putting it back on the mantle, taking a moment to look again at her mother's image, her two daughters smiling with their arms around her. "Hard to believe it was just last Christmas."
"It's been a hard year," Clint agreed.
"Turns out it didn't have to be that hard," Jessica said, sinking down onto the couch.
"What do you mean?" Clint asked, taking a seat next to her.
"I went to see Brody tonight," Jessica said, not missing the way her father bristled slightly at his name. "I thought he should hear the news about Liam from someone in person, not just with a phone call."
"What did he do?" Clint asked, barely holding back his anger as Jessica started to cry again.
"He already knew, Dad," Jessica said.
"Did your mother call him?"
Jessica shook her head. "No," she said. "I don't mean someone already told him. I mean, he's known for months. He's known since before he and Natalie even got together. He's been lying to all of us for months."
Clint felt himself fuming as he wrapped his arms around Jessica. "That little son of a…"
"Dad," Jessica said, a warning in her voice. "Don't do anything stupid."
Clint shook his head. "Couldn't even if I wanted to, remember?" He asked, lifting his pant leg to reveal his ankle tracker.
"Right, sorry," Jessica said, blushing slightly. "I forgot."
"Doesn't mean I don't want to wring his neck," Clint said. "When I think about what he put you girls through…he really knew this whole time?"
Jessica nodded. "I really thought he loved me," she said. "It's stupid, I know, if he did he wouldn't have been with Natalie, but I think I had convinced myself that he loved me, and he was just doing what he thought was best for his son. As if it were some sort of obligation, not what he wanted to do. And then to find out he knew this whole time Liam wasn't even his son?"
"Hey, you're going to be okay," Clint said, pulling her close again. "You will get through this, Jessica. You are better than that lying scumbag, and I will not let him bring this family down. You and your sister will get through this."
Jessica hesitated, pulling back as she looked at her father. "Can I ask you a favor, Dad?"
"Anything."
"Can I leave the kids with you for a few days?" Jessica asked. "Lois will be here during the day, so it would just be making sure they're okay at night. I don't know how long it'll be, probably a few days, maybe a week."
"Where are you going?" Clint asked curiously.
"London."
The next night, an ocean away, Kelly smiled as she walked into the living room at Mayfair to find John sitting in one of the armchairs, gently rocking Liam.
"It looks good on you," she said, stepping down into the room and taking a seat across from him.
"What does?"
"Fatherhood."
"It still doesn't feel real," he said, looking down at the little boy asleep with his head on his shoulder. "How could the first test have been wrong? How do we know this one isn't the one that's wrong?"
Kelly rolled her eyes. "You want to run a third one?"
"No," John said. "But I need to find out what happened. I need to know how that test ended up with the wrong results. Things would have been a lot different if that test had been right to start with."
"You and Natalie would probably be married by now," Kelly said. "She certainly wouldn't be in a hospital bed, and she and Jessica wouldn't be at each others's throats."
"We should be planning his first holidays," John said. "We should be a family. And as soon as we get back to Llanview, I intend to find out exactly how that got so messed up."
"I think I can answer that."
John and Kelly looked up in surprise at the sound of Jessica's voice.
"Jessica, you're here," Kelly said, smiling as she stood up and hugged her former sister-in-law. "Did you just get in?"
Jessica nodded. "I figured I'd go straight to the hospital, I thought that was the best bet for finding Mom," she said. "But I got in the taxi and I realized I didn't think that through. I don't even know what hospital Natalie's in, so I came here instead. Is everyone else out?"
"Your mom and the boys are still at the hospital," Kelly said. "They'll be home a bit later."
"Is everything okay?" Jessica asked. "Any news? Is she any better?"
"She still hasn't opened her eyes," Kelly said. "But she's following some commands and moving her arms and legs sometimes, so that's progress."
"I should probably go over there," Jessica said.
"Jessica, you said you could answer the question," John interrupted. "What did you mean by that?"
Jessica sighed and nodded. "It's going to come out eventually anyway," she said. "I know how Liam's DNA test results got switched."
"Wait, they were switched?" Kelly asked. "It wasn't just a mistake?"
"Yeah, they were switched," Jessica said. "Marty Saybrooke somehow found out that Natalie wasn't sure who Liam's father was. She broke into the lab and saw that the test showed you were the father, so she switched the results to indicate that Brody was actually Liam's father."
"How do you know that?" John asked.
"It was on the tapes that you guys found after Marty stabbed Kelly and pushed Natalie off the roof," Jessica said.
"How could you know that?" Kelly asked. "Those tapes were blank."
Jessica shook her head. "They weren't," she said. "They got erased."
"By who?" John asked.
"Brody," Jessica admitted. "I went to see him to tell him the news about the new DNA test. He was upset, but I know him well enough to know something was off. Eventually he admitted it, and told me how he'd listened to the tapes of her therapy sessions and heard all about how she swapped the results."
"Why would she do that?" Kelly asked.
"Because she thought she'd get me back," John said knowingly as Jessica nodded in agreement. "She really lost it there those last couple of months. I mean, she stabbed you and pushed Natalie off a roof, remember? I guess she was with it enough to know how I would react to that news."
"She just didn't count on you running into Kelly's arms instead of hers," Jessica said as Kelly's face turned a bright shade of red. "Oh, don't act like it didn't happen. You've slept with most of the men associated with this family, at this point it's kind of expected."
"Hey!"
"What? I just call it like I see it."
"You know, I used to think you were the nice twin," Kelly said, a hint of teasing in her voice.
"Okay, I'm not getting in the middle of this," John said, standing up slowly so as not to disturb Liam. "I'm going to put Liam to bed before one of you starts yelling."
Kelly and Jessica waited until John was well up the stairs before they exchanged a look and both started laughing.
"Thank you," Jessica said, wiping a tear from her cheek as the laughter died down.
"What for?" Kelly asked.
"I haven't laughed in ages," Jessica said. "Definitely not in the last few weeks."
"You've been through a lot," Kelly acknowledged.
Jessica shook her head. "Not as much as Natalie, apparently," she said. "I didn't get tricked into a relationship that destroyed my family."
"No, but you were one of the many people who got hurt by that act," Kelly pointed out. "It's okay to be upset."
"I guess," Jessica said. "I wish this weren't happening."
"Which part?" Kelly asked.
"All of it," Jessica admitted. "I mean, I'm glad the truth is out, and I know it probably wouldn't have come out if Natalie hadn't gotten hurt, but at the same time, even knowing that she was lied to, I'm still angry. I don't want to be, but I am. I'm angry and hurt and I still feel betrayed. And every time I feel that, I feel guilty, because she's lying in a hospital bed right now, and I've been through enough to know what the boys aren't saying, that we still don't actually know that she's going to be okay."
"Jessica, I think anyone would be surprised if you didn't feel conflicted right now," Kelly said. "You and Natalie have always had a difficult relationship. Just because she's sick doesn't take away what happened or your right to feel hurt by it."
"It kind of feels like it does, though," she said. "I mean, we were fighting over a guy who turned out to have been lying to both of us for months. What kind of a person can't put that aside while her sister is fighting for her life?"
"I think what you're feeling is normal," Kelly said. "Well, as normal as it could be in a very abnormal situation."
"I just wish I understood how we got here," Jessica said. "How did this even happen?"
"Which part?"
"All of it," Jessica said. "But especially the last part. What really happened to Natalie, Kelly? I know she fell down the stairs, but I know my sister. Natalie's not clumsy, no even when she's drunk. So how did she fall down the stairs?"
"It was an accident," Kelly said, a slight hesitation in her voice that didn't go unnoticed.
"What aren't you saying?"
Kelly shook her head. "It's not really my place," she said.
"Please, Kelly, she's my sister," Jessica said. "I just need to understand what happened."
Kelly hesitated for a few moments before nodding slowly. "Alright," she agreed. "I suppose it'll all come out soon. But you're not going to like what you hear."