"All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair." – Mitch Albom

A downpour of torrential rain overwhelmed the Hampton's coastline, as Sophia desperately fled toward the Porter beach-house. The only person she could seek solace in was her boyfriend, even if it meant his world would be shattered, too. Her eyes momentarily drifted back toward Grayson Manor, as her black curls started to stick to her damp cheek. Inside her childhood home, Charlotte sensitive winced, as she wiped the blood from her mother's upper lip. "Are you okay?"

"Your sister packs one hell of punch," Emily attempted to inject humour into the conversation. Not just with her fist.

"I'm sorry for what she said to you," Charlotte couldn't even look her mother in the eye.

"Sophia's always been a hot-head, it's the Grayson way." Her mother masterfully dismissed the problem and noted Daniel's hurried return, as he darted back down the stairs with the ice-pack in his hand. Her forehead crinkled into a frown, in assumption, "She wouldn't let you in?"

"She's not in her room, and the window's wide open," he reported, his expression panicked. Daniel's hand snuck into his pocket and he dialled Sophia's number. The phone call went straight to answerphone and he clenched his spare fist. "Sophia, it's dad. Please call me, I need to know you're okay."

The family resolved that Sophia would have sought to confide in Chris, and their only option was to warn Jack and Amanda of their own impending doom. Once Emily had updated Jack, and addressed the multitude of missed calls from a frantic Nolan, she returned to the living room with a small mechanism Nolan had gifted to her. "I think the two of you should watch this," Emily requested, "It will explain everything better than I ever could."

On the screen, Amanda's crushed childhood had been written upon her face.

"Please, I need to talk to my daddy. Find the lady with the dark hair. She was there the night they took him away. He loved her and she loved him. They kissed on the lips, all the time. Just find her. I know she'll help us."

"Do you know the name of this woman?"

"Victoria. Please, I have to see him again."

Suddenly, the screen blinked out and David Clarke appeared on the screen. His wrists were cuffed to the metal table, as if he were a wild animal to be confined. Opposite him, Mason Treadwell sat smug, as he embarked on his journey to stardom, even if he hadn't realised it quite yet.

"I'm telling you, Victoria and I were in love. She was going to leave Conrad, and we were going to become a family."

"But Victoria's denying all of it."

"Okay, well… they must have gotten to her somehow."

"It doesn't mean anything without proof."

"What about the letter she wrote me?"

"It was unsigned. It could have been sent by anybody."

"Six months ago, Victoria gave birth to a baby girl. Her name is Charlotte. You want proof that I'm telling the truth. Ask her who the father is."

The same interview continued to play on, and David became more confident in his accusation as time went on.

"Do you know the name of my favourite aunt? The one who raised me. Well, Victoria does. On the day that she was supposed to testify, she fell ill. Weeks later, she gave birth to a baby girl. She named her Charlotte, same as my aunt. I think that she did it to send me a message; that the little girl she was raising with Conrad is mine."

Charlotte's body stiffened, as she listened to the pleas of an innocent man, painfully unaware that it was far from a mistake. Her eyes were torn between the horror in her father's eyes and the tears in her mother's. The mention of her aunt Charlotte, too, a name that had belonged to three generations of Clarke pricked at her heart.

"Victoria only came to the courtroom twice. Once, for the day of her testimony, and then on the day that I was sentenced. On that day, she brought the baby, Charlotte. So beautiful… her eyes were so familiar. I barely heard the judge when he told me I would never leave this prison alive. Losing Amanda was hard enough, the thought of losing two daughters at once... it was unbearable."

Daniel's eyes flickered to Emily from the screen and the shudder in his breath became audible. Instead of the usual love-filled butterflies in his stomach, he felt a cold chill rise from inside of him when he looked toward the mother of his children.

"Things aren't what they seem. I can promise you, Victoria Grayson had nothing to do with my arrest. If anything, she's another victim. The father of her child is in prison and she's being forced to raise our baby with the man, I believe, put me here."

There was a dead-like silence in the air and Emily switched off the television. "There are plenty more interview tapes like that. Nolan had them all encrypted," she removed the mechanism and her eyes narrowed at Daniel. "My father never lost faith in your mother, Daniel. He loved her, always, and he accepted her betrayal but I couldn't. She may have convinced you that she lied to protect you but, ultimately, the choice was between the love my father had for her and the life your father could provide her. She made her choice, I made mine."

"My mother made a mistake." Daniel battled the sickness that threatened within him, "She didn't deserve to pay with her life."

"Mistake after mistake, after mistake..." The hatred increased in her words, as she sarcastically mimicked his defence of Victoria's actions. "I am not proud of the things I did, Daniel, nor the pain I caused you, Jack, Charlotte and our children but, at least, I own them."

The telephone started to ring and the three Grayson's stood quietly, in the moment. "Leave it!" Daniel ordered, when Charlotte prepared to answer it, if only not to be caught between her parents' argument. "If you had so much hatred for my mother, how can I be certain you weren't the one who ordered her death?"

"And ruin the chance of my father being proven innocent?" Emily scoffed, "Oh, Daniel -"

"Emily." Jack's voice called on the answerphone, when the phone stopped ringing. "It's Jack Porter. I'm at Southampton Hospital. Sophia's been involved in an accident."

Daniel belted toward the phone, only to be beaten by Emily. "Jack, what happened? Is she okay?" Every possible, impossible, drastic scenario entered her mind and Emily clutched the phone so hard that it almost snapped in two. "Jack, please! Where's my baby?"