Written by MichaelNovember 20, 2020November 24, 2020

Episode 1050

Previously…
– Alex got Jason to reconsider the way he’d frozen Sabrina out after learning that she’d secretly helped Helen run the DNA test on Peter.
– Isaac appealed to Diane to help him find Tempest, but Diane was wary of overstepping her bounds or involving herself in the Banks family’s drama again.
– Claire was confused when Caleb made a comment to her that no one holds her responsible for Molly’s pregnancy complication any longer.
– Tori started her new job at Objection Designs, in spite of Zane’s opposition.

The neighborhood is dark and still as Sabrina Gage steers her silver Nissan Versa up to the curb and puts the car in park. Its headlights continue to throw beams of light outward, illuminating the back of the obnoxiously large pickup truck parked on the opposite side of the driveway; Sabrina takes advantage of the light to scan the area before exiting the car. For as long as she has been in King’s Bay, the Midwesterner in her still considers it a big city, with potential danger at every turn.

With her keys clutched in her hand and her purse over her shoulder, she gets out of the car and hurries toward the small building that houses her apartment. She breathes a little easier when she makes it to the staircase, illuminated by a light up above, that leads to the second floor — but when she gets to the top of the stairs, the unexpected sight of a figure standing there causes her to let out a shriek.

“It’s me,” a man says, and a millisecond later, she realizes that it is Jason Fisher, waiting on the landing outside her apartment.

“Jason.” She attempts to catch her breath. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you. I remembered that you had your class at KBAY tonight.”

“Yeah. I did.” Sabrina touches a shaky hand to her dark hair, smoothing it even though she probably doesn’t need to do so. As silly as she feels for being startled, and as much as she wishes her adrenaline would dissipate, she is still confused to find him here.

“I’m sorry if I scared you,” he says. “I thought it would be better to wait up here so I didn’t miss you going in.”

“It’s okay,” she says reflexively, realizing that he is holding an arm behind his back. “What’s– what’s going on?”

Jason brings his hand over from behind his back, revealing a single red rose.

“I wanted to give you this,” he says, “along with an apology.”

“An apology?”

“It wasn’t fair of me to cut you out after I found out about the DNA test.”

“I understand,” Sabrina says between heavy breaths that are slowly easing. “I’m sorry for keeping the truth from you for all that time. I never wanted you to get hurt.”

“I know that.” He holds out the rose to her. “So what do you say?”

“To what?”

“To another chance,” Jason says.

Sabrina knits her fingers together nervously.

“Would you be willing to give things another chance?” Jason asks.

She looks up and swallows hard before telling him, “I’m sorry, Jason. But I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Brent Taylor steps off the elevator and turns into the hospital’s lobby. Up ahead, the dark night sky is visible through the wall of windows at the front of the hospital. He sighs to himself, feeling once again the absolute bone-weariness that has been haunting him for weeks on end.

That feeling only intensifies when he sees a familiar face up ahead. Both Brent and Claire Fisher stop in their tracks, an awkward uncertainty humming between them.

“Hi, Brent,” Claire finally says, taking a few more steps toward him. She wears her usual baby-blue scrubs and has her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail; she looks the way that she did on so many evenings when she’d come right to his house after work. The dissonance between those memories and the reality of where they stand now makes Brent’s head throb.

He sticks his hands into his navy KBPD windbreaker. “Claire. Hi.”

“I’m, um, I’m really sorry for your loss,” she says. “Please know that. You — you and Molly — you have my condolences.”

“Thank you. That’s really big of you.”

“I never wished ill for either of you. Do I hate what happened? Yes. Do I hate how it happened? Yes. But what’s done is done.” She shakes her head gravely. “No one deserves to go through the kind of loss you and Molly are dealing with.”

“Thanks.”

“Take care, Brent.”

She starts to move past him, but Brent turns with her and says, “Claire. Wait.”

She rotates back toward him, her head moving and her body following suit.

“There’s something you should know,” Brent says.

Claire narrows her eyes but still doesn’t say anything.

He scratches the back of his neck before telling her, “It’s about the night Molly collapsed.”

“Brent–“

“We all know you didn’t leave her lying there. Caleb admitted that he came in and argued with Molly after you left. He heard the two of you talking and came in and — he lost it on his mom.”

“That explains it,” Claire says slowly, nodding her head as she takes this in. “I didn’t understand what he meant.”

“What who meant?”

“Caleb. I saw him here, the night Molly– the night she delivered. He made some weird comment about how everyone knew I didn’t leave Molly. I thought he was just trying to make me feel better.”

“That doesn’t sound much like Caleb,” Brent says.

“No. I guess not. But he must’ve felt guilty–“

“Molly’s water broke after she remembered their fight. So I think he blames himself for what happened.”

“Oh, god.” She covers her mouth with her hand for a moment. “I appreciate you telling me, Brent. And I hope you’re able to heal. All of you.”

“Thanks, Claire,” he says.

With a final dip of her head, her lips pulled in tightly, Claire again turns to walk toward the information desk. Brent exhales, wondering if this mess that he and Molly set in motion with their thoughtless actions can ever fully be cleaned up.

—–

The first thing Tori Gray notices when she pushes open the door to her apartment is how dim the lights are. This is unusual for her and Zane Tanaka; unless it is late at night and they are watching TV, the lights in the kitchen or living area are normally turned on, since the apartment barely gets any good sunlight even in the middle of a bright day. But then she sees the single candle burning, and she follows its glow to see a picnic blanket with two places settings resting on the living room floor.

“Surprise,” Zane says as he emerges from the narrow galley kitchen, with two full wine glasses in hand.

“What is this?” Tori asks as she sets her purse on the floor and kicks off her high heels.

“I wanted to do something special for you, since you’ve been working so hard.”

“That’s so sweet. Thank you.” She moves toward him and accepts the glass of wine that he holds out to her.

“To you killing it at your new job,” Zane says as they clink glasses and then each take a sip of the wine.

“Thank you, Zane.”

She stretches up on her tiptoes to kiss him. The peck turns into a more passionate kiss, and she feels Zane’s arm snake around her back, pulling her closer.

“I’m going to need more of that later,” he tells her with a sly wink.

Tori grins back at him and then admires the picnic setup.

“I can’t believe you went to all this trouble,” she says.

“As you’ll be able to tell from dinner, I had a little help from Whole Foods.”

“Still. I didn’t expect to walk into something like this. It’s such a cute surprise.” She takes another quick drink of her wine. “How was your day?”

“Pretty good. Work was chill,” Zane begins, but before he can say anything further, an electronic alert noise cuts into the conversation. Zane opens his mouth to continue, but it sounds again.

“Sorry,” Tori says as she stoops down to retrieve her iPhone from her purse.

Zane eyes her as she reads whatever has appeared on the screen.

“Oh no,” she says with despair.

—–

Jason stands frozen, holding out the rose in disbelief.

“You don’t?” he asks, sounding hollowed-out.

Sabrina looks up at him, bathed in the yellow light of the rusty fixture hanging outside her apartment’s door. He suddenly seems like a shell of himself.

“We haven’t been able to get this going,” she says. “Whatever this is. Maybe that’s a sign.”

“Or maybe it’s bad luck. Bad timing. Whatever.”

Sabrina doesn’t know how to respond.

“If you can honestly tell me that, all things being equal, you don’t want to do this, then I’ll go,” he says. “But if you’re holding back because you think it’s smarter, or because you’re scared of getting hurt–“

“Or of hurting you,” she cuts in.

“There’s always that risk. But I want this. Sabrina, you’re– you’re so different from the people I know. There’s an innocence to you, this way that you refuse to see the world as fundamentally bad. You always want to believe the best, and you hold yourself and other people to that standard. It’s… it inspires me.”

His face lights up, his expression turning hopeful in a way that makes her heart flutter a little.

“Really?” she asks.

“Really. Yes. And I know we’ve gotten off to some false starts, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile.”

He pauses, waiting for her to tell him otherwise. She doesn’t.

Again he holds out the rose. “Will you take this?”

Sabrina feels a torrent of fear swirling within her. She knows the feeling well; she has felt it during so many of the milestones in her life, especially ones since she got out of her coma. And she reminds herself what can be on the other side of that fear, if only she pushes past it.

“Yeah,” she says, reaching out to accept the rose carefully, avoiding the thorns on its stem.

“Sorry that was a little weird and Bachelor-y,” he says. “I wanted to– I don’t know. Do something a little romantic. I know it’s dorky.”

“It’s not dorky. No one has ever brought me roses.”

“Well, it’s only a rose, but I can promise more in the future. If you’re agreeing to give things another shot. Which it sounds like you are.”

“I am,” she says, as a big smile erupts on her face.

Jason throws back his head with relief. “You have no idea how happy that makes me. I know I was a jerk for freaking out on you.”

“You weren’t a jerk. It’s a totally understandable reaction.”

“It was an overreaction. I just– I have a really hard time trusting people, especially new people, after what happened with Natalie.”

“I promise to be honest with you,” Sabrina says.

“Same. So what do you say to a first date sometime soon?”

“First date? We’ve had a few already.”

“Yeah, but like you said, we’ve tried to get this off the ground, and we haven’t gotten it right yet. So let’s start fresh and do it right.” He offers an impish grin. “Come on. Full do-over?”

“Let’s do it.”

Jason leans in and plants a kiss on her lips. It is quick, really just a peck, but it sets her heart racing in a completely different way.

“This time, we will get it right,” he says as he moves for the stairs. “I’ll call you, okay?”

“You’re going?”

“I don’t want to jinx our first date.”

Sabrina laughs. “You’re taking this very seriously.”

“I am. Because I’m not going to screw it up this time. I swear.”

“Me, too. Honesty from here on out.”

“Good.” He flashes her that smile, flanked by his boyish dimples, one last time. “Goodnight, Sabrina.”

“Goodnight, Jason.”

She lingers by her door, watching his head disappear from view and his footsteps trail off when he reaches the bottom of the stairs. She clutches the rose with both hands, feeling as if she might burst from the absolute elation of what just happened.

—–

“Thanks, Belinda,” Claire says as she organizes the paperwork spread over the information desk and tucks it back inside a folder. “You’re a life-saver.”

“Any time,” the nurse behind the desk tells her.

Claire tucks the folder beneath one arm and heads back toward the elevators.

A few moments later, Belinda answers the ringing phone. She is pressing the buttons needed to forward the call to the proper department when she sees a tall Black man in a brown leather jacket approaching the desk. He waits patiently for her to finish forwarding the call and hang up.

“I’m hoping you can help me,” he says. “I’m trying to track down the file of a patient who passed away here a few years ago. Her name was Yvette Banks.”

Belinda blinks back at him before saying, “I’m sorry, but we can’t give out patient files–“

“I’m a doctor,” the man replies, “and I’m also her son. Dr. Isaac Banks. Now could you please help me find my mother’s file?”

—–

Zane watches Tori’s demeanor change as she takes in the information on her phone.

“‘Oh no’ what?” he asks after an extended moment of silence.

Tori hesitates before explaining, “It’s work. Crap.”

“What’s wrong?”

“A bunch of files didn’t upload properly.”

“You should be able to fix it pretty easily tomorrow morning, right?”

She bites her lower lip. “Actually… I need to go back to the office.”

“Now? Are they crazy?”

“No, but it needs to get done,” she says as she scoops up her purse.

“No one’s still working right now. It’s late.”

“But people need to review the files before the meeting in the morning. I’d need to get in at, like, 3 a.m. to make sure people on the east coast got them in time.”

“Tori.” He gestures at the picnic set up on the floor. “We’re about to have dinner.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” She touches a hand to his arm, hoping to calm him. “I won’t be that long.”

“I bet I can hack into your work computer so you don’t have to go back.”

“I bet I can hack into your work computer so you don’t have to go back.”

“I’m not letting you hack into Objection’s system.”

“Maybe ‘hack’ wasn’t the best choice of word,” Zane says. “How about… I can get you remote access?”

“Even if that were a good idea, it’ll take me just as long to go to the office, take care of it, and get back here as it would for you to… get me remote access.”

“I’m fast.”

“Zane. I’ll go, I’ll do what needs to be done, and I’ll come back so we can enjoy this amazing romantic dinner together. Okay?” She grabs both of his hands. “Deal?”

“Deal,” he says, more than a little reluctantly.

“I’ll move as fast as I can,” Tori says as she opens the door. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

The next thing he hears is the closing of the door. He grits his teeth as he watches light from the candle flickering against the door. He has tried to be patient, to make room for Tori to explore this new career, but if it’s going to cut into their life together…

He chugs the rest of his wine and flings the glass against the door. He watches it shatter into a hundred pieces, a dribble of red marking the worn white paint as he fumes silently.

END OF EPISODE 1050

What will Zane do next to maintain control of Tori?
Can Jason and Sabrina finally make a go of things?
Did Claire do the right thing by making peace with Brent?
Discuss all this and more in the comments below!

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