Posting early today as I'm off to the cinema... I should add JR alert!

...

JR really didn't want to play the doctor's game, but he picked up the magazine and turned to read the article. Well he tried to read the words but he was so distracted by the pictures. They all looked so happy… AJ looked so happy without him. That was the last thing he wanted to see.

In the first series of pictures where they were playing up to the cameras one picture in particular caught his eye… Bianca was bending forward saying something to AJ and his son had his head tipped back with laughter. Even as JR was glaring at the images Dr Stanhope's game of consequences come back to him. He found himself remembering Bianca fifteen years ago, when they were teenagers together; she could make him laugh like that back then. And then another memory drifted unwanted to the front of his mind, there was a picture just like that in his mom's family album at home, only then it was Tad leaning forward and JR bursting with laughter as they tried to take a family picture on the couch.

JR roughly turned the page, trying to push down his memories, he didn't want to feel sympathetic, he wanted to feel angry, only it would seem his new medication was severely affecting his ability to get mad. Now he found himself faced with an image of Marissa embracing Bianca in a full length photograph. Marissa looked happy and confident. The way she wore her hair short these days reminded him of how she had looked when they first met; the timid, slightly insecure woman who he'd swept off her feet… He'd loved all she represented back them? A woman who was so kind and gentle… Babe's sister… Someone who he knew would be a good mother to AJ. He was trying to remember when it all changed between them ; when she stopped being the sweet caring Marissa he knew and loved. Then he remembered, Annie; that was when she changed - when he changed! He found himself drawn to another woman… because good and kind had quickly gotten dull. It was after the divorce that Marissa seemed to develop a tougher skin, and started to give back as good as she got… She developed a little sass which is ultimately what drew JR back to her. JR had to stop himself laughing at the irony; she was the one to betray him with another woman this time!

Then JR shook his head, he should be angrier than this, he shouldn't be laughing.

He turned to the next page. The picture at the top featured the family lined up on a staircase, this time Marissa was hugging Gabby and AJ was standing in front of Bianca proudly holding Miranda by the hand. Birthday twins, that is what they called themselves, born and torn apart on the same day. JR's eyes fixed on Miranda. For nine months she had been his baby. For nine months he had sung to her and fed her and held her, while Bianca grieved for her lost child and his real son was being raised by strangers. He fought so hard to keep Miranda when he thought his own child was dead… and he swore so hard that he would never lose his son again when his own child was found.

The familiar rage finally returned when his eyes strayed to Marissa's smiling face. She was not going to take his son from him!

"Are you thinking of AJ?" Dr Stanhope asked, the question cutting through his dark thoughts.

"I am." JR muttered.

"And are you actually reading the article?"

JR didn't answer, he just turned to the next page.

It was full of pictures of the kids. Miranda smiling with a photo of her horse; Gabby holding up a book and on the next page all AJ… AJ with Marissa; with Gabby and Miranda; with Bianca… AJ looking very happy.

JR saw AJ's name in a box beside the article and found himself reading the words.

…

"My most favourite thing is my family. I love them and they love me and we always laugh and play.

I love my mom… she's the best mom in the world! She makes everything better. When she couldn't remember me she still loved me and was still my mom and now she remembers more and more. Binks is my other mom now. My mom really really likes her… and I do too. She was hurt real bad and was sick a long time but it didn't stop her smiling… I like it when she smiles… and she's really brave and kind! And Miranda; she is my Birthday twin and best friend and she is really smart. And Gabby is like my little sister, she looks up to me and I teach her things like how to draw a sail boat to go with her fishes…

Is it okay to choose my whole family as my favourite thing? I love all of them because they always make me happy even when so many other things make me sad."

…

JR wanted so hard to find something to hate in that short quote; find something there that he could take as proof that Marissa and Bianca were manipulating his son. But, in truth, he could hear AJ's voice in his head as he read the words.

The last line in the article mentioning happy and sad drew JR's thoughts back to Dr Stanhope's little game of consequences.

"Adam, shot your mother in the head…"

"For a second there you were in your son's shoes. If you had the old titles, love and hate, there instead of happy and sad where would you have written your name?"

For the first time JR saw the past year from his son's point of view… in the boy's eyes he must have seemed a monster… He had systematically set out to destroy Bianca and Marissa's happiness, all because he was jealous, and at no point had he seen AJ as anything but a bargaining chip; a possession that was his and his alone. At no point did he consider how it affected his son.

But even as JR's sympathy for AJ grew, he couldn't help the jealousy that was also building.

Why did it have to be Marissa and Bianca who were making his son so happy?!

Unable to control his feelings of resentment JR turned back to the start of the article and began to read. He wanted to know exactly what they had been getting up to with his child!

…