Nina Reeves sighed as she sat in her chair in her Crimson office, thinking once again about her missing children.

Children.

The nurse that had cared for her while she was in her coma, Phyllis, informed her the last time that they interacted that she had given birth to two babies, twin girls, instead of just the one she originally thought to be carrying. She had two daughters, but thanks to her mother, she didn't even know where they were. She thought that Sasha had been one of her missing children, but later learned that it had been a ruse, fabricated by Valentin Cassadine in one of his misguided attempts to win her back.

Thinking about it still made her furious, but all that fury was now directed at her ex, not Sasha. Sure, she had been hurt at first, absolutely destroyed, to learn that the young woman she called her daughter wasn't truly her daughter. Now, she understood why she did it. Sasha agreed to the idea not out of malice, but out of love, for the grandmother desperately in need of medicine and Nina herself, who Sasha had begun to love as a mother during the almost year that they had bonded. But, even with the love that was returning for her faux daughter….

Nina reached over to the top drawer of her desk, opening and reaching into it for the special little box that contained the only lead to her missing children.

Nina took out the box, closed the drawer, and opened it to reveal one-third of a golden heart necklace. She had received this from her mother, Madeline, when the older woman died in prison from a heart attack, and was told that it would help her find her daughters. Her part was one of three: the other two had been given to the babies that Madeline had cruelly ripped from her before she could even hold them.

Nina lifted the necklace and gently pressed her lips to it, closing her eyes as she did so. 'I'll find you, my babies,' she vowed. 'I swear I'll find you.'

"Nina!"

Nina jumped at the sudden call of her name, nearly dropping her necklace. Clutching it carefully in her fist, she placed it down on her desk, watching as Maxie Jones, her brother's widow and the mother of her nephew, rushed into the room.

"Maxie, what is going on? Is James okay?" Nina asked, her protective instincts instantly flaring at the thought of something happening to her nephew.

Maxie took a minute to catch her breath. "He's fine. Just as healthy and happy as always," she answered, reassuring her former boss.

"What's the problem?"

"It's not really a problem. It's...well…just look at this!"

Maxie practically shoved her cell phone, glowing with the front page of the newest article from The Invader, into Nina's face. Taking a second for her eyes to adjust, Nina carefully inspected the article.

'BABY SWITCH IN PORT CHARLES - HEIR TO THE ELQ FORTUNE ALIVE WHILE GRIEVING MOTHER BURIES HER CHILD'

Below the large, bold, printed words was a picture of the memorial given for Wiley Cooper-Jones, the real Wiley Cooper-Jones, and a picture of a devastated Willow Tait as she led the procession with her boyfriend, Detective Harrison Chase, walking loyally beside her.

Nina's heart panged in sympathy for the woman she had previously scorned. It was no secret to anyone in Port Charles how much she disliked Charlotte's teacher. The two of them had gotten off on the wrong foot when Willow had called her, Valentin, and Charlotte's mother Lulu in for a conference about Charlotte bullying Aiden Spencer. Looking back, Nina admitted that she had been the instigator in the majority of their confrontations, had shamed and belittled Willow's teaching ability when she only tried to help. Looking at the face pinched with grief and the blue eyes shining with tears of a woman who just discovered that the baby she spent over a year protecting wasn't even hers, Nina felt empathy for her. She knew exactly what the brunette was going through. Her twins may not be dead, but they were apart, and she understood the ache that Willow was undoubtedly experiencing at this very moment.

"What is there to look at, Maxie, other than a woman grieving her child?" Nina asked.

"That isn't important!" Maxie replied.

Nina's eyes snapped up, staring at Maxie in shocked outrage. How could she say something like that? How could Willow's grief not be important? The blonde felt a protectiveness for the young brunette stirring within her, a protectiveness that puzzled her given their negative history, but she wrote it off as commiseration for her tragedy.

Realizing how her statement could be misconstrued, Maxie backtracked, "I mean, of course it's important. Willow losing her child is awful, but look!" Maxie pulled her phone from Nina's eyesight, enlarged the picture, then gave it back to her friend.

Nina felt her heart drop into her stomach once she finally understood just what it was that Maxie was trying to show her.

Right there, peeking out from the neckline of Willow's black dress, settled snugly against the base of her throat, was one-third of the heart necklace Nina owned.

"Oh my god," Nina whispered, placing a hand on her mouth as tears came to her eyes.

Willow Tait had one of the pieces to her necklace. Willow Tait was one half of the twins that were stolen from her. Willow Tait was her daughter.

"Nina? Are you okay? Did I break you?" Maxie nervously questioned, staring at the woman sitting prone in her chair.

"She's my daughter," Nina breathed, her throat tightening as some of the tears fell. "She's one of my babies. My little girl, and I never knew. Oh, God, Maxie! Do you know what this means?"

"Yeah. It means that you know who one of your daughters is," Maxie replied, giving Nina a wary stare.

"No!" Nina shouted. "It means that I tried to ruin my own child's life!"

"What?" Maxie asked. "What do you mean?"

But Nina didn't answer. Instead, she brought her portion of the necklace up to her lips and kissed it as if she were kissing her daughter's head, as if she were comforting the baby girl that should have been hers from the beginning, as if this action could erase the months of hateful words and accusations she had hurled towards Willow.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," Nina murmured. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I didn't know."

She kept muttering those words to herself, repeating them even as Maxie talked to her, trying to get some answers for her reaction. Maxie didn't matter to her in that moment. Crimson didn't matter to her in that moment. Her budding relationship with Jax didn't matter to her in that moment. What mattered to her was her little girl, her Willow.

Nina had to make amends with her daughter. She had to be a better mother to her than what she has been. She had to do right by the child she now knew was hers.

'I'll make it up to you, baby girl. I promise.