A/N: Hey hey! New chapter!
Chapter 27
Jordan Richards...that name sounded so familiar, where had she heard it before? Something in Sam's mind clicked suddenly. She had seen it on the news, he had taken a little girl out of the hospital and had attempted to leave the state with her. Charlotte...Lilly had found in a car with a man trying to leave the state. The man had been arrested for kidnapping. "CARLY!" She screeched suddenly, making everyone jump.
"Whats wrong?" Carly and Freddie said at the same time. Sam was stuck, she couldn't tell Carly anything without Freddie hearing. Freddie couldn't know about this all yet. Could she trust Carly enough to tell her?
"I need to talk to you. Alone." Sam said, struggling to stand. Freddie noticed this, and moved to help her. "Don't touch me! I got it." She said, batting his hands away. Once she was standing, she grabbed Carly's wrist and dragged her out of the room.
"Sam! What are you doing?" Carly cried, rubbing her wrist. Sam shushed her, and made sure Freddie was out of ear shot.
"Listen to me." She hissed, "Did you say that Emma's father's name is Jordan Richards?"Carly nodded with a confused look on her face.
"Yeah, so?" She couldn't understand what Sam was trying to tell her. Sam sighed loudly.
"OK, this is going to sound stupid," She began. "Do you remember Charlotte?" She asked. Carly nodded.
"Wasn't that the name of the last baby you-" Sam cut her off quickly.
"Yes. Now, do you know the name of the child Jordan was arrested for kidnapping?" Carly nodded again.
"Her name's-" Sam cut her off again.
"Lilly Dirshlit." Sam said. Carly scrunched her face in confusion. Then her mind registered.
"Dirshlit. That's Nora's last name." She gasped, "But why would Jordan have anything to do with Nora's kid?" Sam shook her head slowly.
"She's not Nora's kid." Carly didn't understand any of this. She wasn't Nora's kid, Jordan was involved some how. How did Nora even get out of jail? She opened her mouth to speak, but Sam stopped her.
"Her name is supposed to be Charlotte. Charlotte Marie Benson. The daughter of me and Freddie."
"Let me get this straight. You want me to believe that Charlotte was stolen from the hospital while everyone thought she was dead, raised by a psycho for five years, kidnapped AGAIN by someone that never had any connection to us until Emma was born, and is now waiting for someone to bring her to you?" She finished talking and took a breath. "Get real." Before she could react, Sam snapped. Before she could think, her fist connected with Carly's face.
"Alright, this is going to sting a bit." The doctor said gently. Lilly winced a bit when the needle went into her small arm. "Are you alright?" he asked, glancing at her. Lilly nodded slowly, turning her head away from the needle.
She had only been in her new home for a few hours when Gibby had called asking to take her out for a bit. She wasn't told why until she was buckled tightly into the back seat. "Where are we going?" She asked, hoping this time someone would answer her. There were two people in the car, Gibby and the detective lady from earlier. Gibby sighed and glanced at the women, who shrugged.
"I don't think she can get out, so go ahead and tell her." This made Lilly a bit nervous. What could they be keeping from her?
"We're going to the doctors Lilly. They're going to run some tests on you." He said carefully. He tried to ignore the fear that grew in her eyes.
"But-I'm not sick!" She cried, terror in her voice. She didn't like doctors.
"I know your not sick, but we need to get this done OK?" He didn't normally get frustrated, but it had been a long day full of endless tiptoeing around the girl's fears. He just wanted to go home, eat his dinner and be with his family. But, he knew that he had to do this for his Friends.
"OK, all done." The doctor said, placing a band-aid on Lilly's arm. She immediately jumped off of her chair and moved towards Gibby.
"OK Lilly, I've got to talk to the doctor for a second. Can you go out with detective Nancy?" Gibby said gently. She nodded and walked out of the room, finding the lady almost instantly. After she left, he turned towards the Doctor, Drew. "You've got enough for a DNA test?" He asked. Drew, who was also an old Friend, sighed.
"Yeah, I'm sure its enough." He paused for a minute. "Why are you doing this?" He asked. Gibby's face crumpled in sadness.
"I just don't want them to go through the same thing Tasha and I did. It really killed her when Joshua died.
Joshua had only been two months old when they were told that he died. They had been at a friends party, celebrating their 30th birthday. He had tried to convince Tasha to leave him home with a baby-sitter, that he was too young to be taken out for so long. She had insisted though, saying that her friends wanted to see him, that is would be better than leaving him with a stranger.
At around midnight, after Joshua had been passed around to all of their friends, Tasha had put him in his car seat where he went to sleep almost immediately. Gibby had fallen asleep on the couch next to his son, only to be woken hours later by the smell of smoke and the sound of people screaming. "FIRE!" someone shouted. Instantly, he jumped up and grabbed the car seat next to him but found it empty. He thought Tasha or someone must have grabbed him, and had him safe with them. He didn't look back as he ran towards the exit along with a mob of people. In the rush, nobody saw the sly figure race towards the back doors. The opposite way that everyone else was headed. Nobody heard the baby cries that faded away as the person got farther and farther away. He found Tasha weeping hysterically outside the burning house, with no sign of the baby anywhere. "TASHA!" He called, running towards her. She turned quickly, her face falling when she realized that he was empty handed. He grabbed her in to a hug, sweeping her off of the ground. "Are you OK?" He asked, concern in his voice. Suddenly it hit him, she didn't have Joshua. "Where's the baby?" They said at the same time.
After the fire was out and everyone had gone home, Gibby and Tasha stayed behind praying that their baby boy would turn up safe. They searched through the burned house for hours, until Tasha found the baby's car seat, squashed and burned, covered in eerie dark-red patches that made them both sick to their stomachs.
"Tasha, we have to go home." He said, realizing that is was almost six in the morning. With tears in her eyes, she follow Gibby outside and slid into their car with out a word.
They had spent six years believing that their son had died in the fire. Or at least that's what Gibby had excepted. Tasha on the other hand, had been less willing to believe it, she insisted that he couldn't have died in that fire because they never found his body. The entire lot was searched, every piece of burned house was dug up and inspected thoroughly. There were no remains, no evidence at all.
"When they found him, we were so happy. I couldn't believe she was right! Then, they told us that he wasn't going to live. It was even worse than the night he was taken, watching him slowly die in front of us. I always tell myself, if I could have convinced her to leave him home, or if I hadn't fallen asleep, maybe he would still be with us. Maybe we wouldn't have spent years grieving, then having to go threw it again." The tears were streaming as his mind replayed those horrid memories.
"But, how many other families wouldn't have been reunited? How many switched-at-birth-babies would have grown up thinking that they're someone else? Sam and Freddie wouldn't be getting their daughter back." Drew said comfortingly, his voice soft.
"Why did they have to put a needle in my arm?" Lilly complained, poking the band-aid on her arm with a wince. "Ouch." She said quietly. The lady with her, Nancy, smiled.
"Don't poke it and it'll stop hurting." She said with a laugh. "They had to put the needle in your arm to take some blood." Lilly's head snapped up and a look of panic crossed her face.
"THEY DID WHAT?" She cried. She didn't know what they had done, she didn't look after they put the needle in. Nancy stifled a laugh and placed a hand on Lilly's small arm.
"Calm down, its OK!" She said quietly, "They needed it to run some tests." Lilly calmed a bit, her face scrunching in confusion.
"What kind of tests?" She asked. The older women started to answer, unsure what to say. She was saved when Gibby came into the room.
"Alright, time to go." He said, clapping his hands together. The two stood up from their seats, she noticed something seemed off with the man.
"Are you OK?" She asked quietly as they walked away from the waiting room, Lilly trailing behind them. He looked at her startled for a second, as if realizing that she was there.
"Yeah, I'm fine just thinking." He replied, throwing her a fake smile.
After dropping Lilly off and taking Nancy back to the police station, Gibby returned home with relief. The house was dark when he pulled into his driveway, telling him that he had missed dinner and Tasha had put the kids to bed alone. "Not good." He thought, knowing how the kids were about going to sleep. It usually took a few tries to get all five of them in bed and asleep for the night, with at least one of them ending up wedged into the bed with their parents.
He walked through the door, noticing that the only light that was on was in the kitchen. Cautiously, he approached the room and found his wife asleep at the table. He knew that it would be a bad idea to wake her, and instead gently lifted her up and carried her upstairs. Pushing open his bedroom door, he found that the bed was surprisingly void of kids. He set his sleeping wife gently on the bed and sighed in relief.
The morning after Sam had punched Carly, an awkwardness had settled in the small apartment. The incident had lead a chain reaction that rapidly tore through the apartment. Freddie became overly concerned about Sam's stress levels, causing her to become more frustrated. Carly now had a black eye and walked cautiously around, trying not to set Sam off. Emma was afraid of Sam and refused to leave the nursery. On top of it all, Sam was still waiting for information on Charlotte. She had gone the day before to get her blood test done and was waiting for the doctors office to call her back.
"Sam, are you OK?" Freddie asked for the millionth time. He had come on from work to find Sam asleep on the couch with the TV blaring in front of her. She glared at him, angry that he had woken her.
"I'm fine. I just fell asleep." She said with a yawn.
"Are you sure that your OK? You've been tired a lot more lately." He said, sitting next to Sam. She was growing impatient with his constant worrying.
"Freddie, I'm fine." She hissed. "He's getting bigger. It takes a lot more energy to stay awake." She said tiredly. Freddie knew there was something she was hiding, but he didn't say anything. The last thing he needed to do was stress her out.
"Alright just-" He was interupted by the blaring ring of the phone. Sam jumped up quickly, her tiredness quickly fading.
"I'll get it." She said quickly, only to be stopped by Freddie.
"No, you need your rest. I'll get it." He said calmly. Sam was determined though, and plowed through him. This could be the phone call that brought their baby back. She wasn't going to let Freddie mess it up. She picked up the phone, her heart racing.
"H-hello?" She asked nervously, knowing that this simple phone call may very well change their lives forever.
A/N: MUWAHAHAHAHA! EPIC CLIFFHANGER! Sorry, gotta leave it at that ;)
Alright, gotta clear something up one thing real quick: I may have exagerated a bit about the whole "Your going to hate me at the end" thing. It's not like, going to suck or anything, but the end isn't exactly "Fairy tale happy" like most stories are...
BUT THAT'S ALL I'M SAYING FOR NOW...
(imagine a fading creepy chuckle here)
;)