Previously…
– Tim and Claire continued to reconnect as they supported one another through their family’s troubles.
– Rosie and Travis agreed to submit Gabrielle to a DNA test to determine whether she is actually the baby Molly and Brent were told died at birth. 
– Loretta told Finn that she has a way of ensuring that Molly and Brent will not get what they want out of the DNA test. 

On the second floor of King’s Bay Memorial Hospital, Molly Taylor stares at her reflection in the mirror as she rinses her hands. She opted not to wear much makeup today — it simply did not seem important, in light of the very serious reason for her coming to the hospital — but now all she can see is her age and her weariness in that reflection. She wishes that she had paused to put on some foundation and concealer, at the least, but all she wanted to do was get here and receive the DNA test results.

Of course, she now knows she will not even have those for a full day or two. The idea of waiting any longer to know for certain whether Gabrielle is her daughter seems torturous.

You’ve waited this long, she tells herself as she pulls a paper towel from the dispenser to dry her hands. You can wait another day.

After discarding the paper towel, she exits the restroom and returns to the waiting area, where she finds her ex-husband sitting in a plastic-framed chair, his non-prosthetic leg bouncing up and down nervously. 

“All done?” Brent asks when he spots her.

Molly nods as she crosses the waiting area to join him. 

“They’re taking a sample from Gabrielle now,” she tells him. “And then… we wait.”

“Yeah. We wait.” Brent emits a heavy sigh. “I don’t even know what I’m hoping for here.”

“The truth! She’s our child. I’m sure of it.”

Brent visibly hesitates. “I don’t want to get our hopes up…”

“Neither do I. But how many newborn girls were floating around King’s Bay, ready to be left anonymously at the police station that week? That month?”

“I know. It does all add up. But if she is ours, Jimenez and Travis are going to get their hearts broken. And…” He trails off ominously.

“What?” Molly presses. “Brent, what is it?”

“There’s no guaranteeing they won’t challenge us for custody,” he says. “They’ve raised her for close to two years. They’re the only parents she’s ever known.”

“And I’ll be grateful to them for taking such good care of her,” she says. “I really will. But if this test proves that Gabrielle is our daughter, there is no way I’m spending another night without her under my roof.”

—–

Down the hall, in Room 23, a nurse in blue scrubs finishes swabbing the inside of Gabrielle’s mouth, as the toddler wriggles around on the butcher-paper-covered table.

“Just one more turn… that’s it,” Nurse Jenkins says as she withdraws the swab and efficiently places it into a collection tube.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Travis Fisher asks Gabrielle, whose eyes gape wide at the realization that the intrusive procedure is over.

“She was very, very good,” the nurse says, smiling lightly as she seals the tube in a plastic bag with the samples that she took from Molly and Brent earlier. “I wish we kept lollipops here so I could give her one.”

“I think we’re going to stop for ice cream on the way home,” Rosie Jimenez, who has been holding onto the child, says in a bright, bold voice. 

Gabrielle turns her head excitedly and lets out a noise — “Ah quee!” — that her adoptive parents know means “ice cream.”

“Yeah! Ice cream!” Travis says enthusiastically. 

“I’m going to bring this to the lab right now,” Nurse Jenkins tells them as she moves to the door. “Take as much time as you need in here.”

The nurse exits, bag in hand, leaving the door ajar. 

“Should we go get that ice cream?” Rosie asks as she lifts Gabrielle into her arms, balancing the little girl against one hip.

“Ice cream sounds good,” Travis says. “But if you don’t mind, there’s one thing I’d like to do before we go.”

—–

Meanwhile, Nurse Jenkins makes her way down the hall and rounds a corner. As soon as she does, a burly man in a navy blue police uniform, a badge affixed to his chest, steps out of an alcove.

“Are you Nurse Jenkins?” he asks.

She looks up at his face, the dominant feature of which is a heavy, dark brown mustache. 

“I am,” she responds somewhat tentatively.

“Perfect.” He gestures toward the bag in her hand. “And that’s the sample from Gabrielle Fisher?”

“It is.”

“I’ve been given orders to make sure that sample makes it to the lab without interference,” he says.

The nurse narrows her eyes. “…and you are?”

“Officer Carmean with the KBPD.”

She looks at his badge. It is gold and very clean, free of scratches and nicks, but it certainly looks legitimate. 

“Nurse?” he prompts, holding out his hand.

—–

Down in the hospital’s cafeteria, Tim Fisher uses a plastic knife to spread cream cheese from a tube onto a sliced bagel. The knife bends precariously as Tim attempts to cover both halves of the bagel.

“Regretting your choice not to eat before you came here?” Claire Fisher asks from across the table with a laugh.

“I should know better by now,” Tim says as he places the knife down on a napkin. He takes a bite of the chewy bagel and swallows before adding, “Not that I have much of an appetite as it is.”

“We’re all on-edge. But you do need to eat.”

“You’re right, you’re right.” He takes another bite and chews pensively. 

“I hope Gabrielle’s doing okay having her sample taken,” Claire says. 

“I’m sure she is. She’s such a good kid, isn’t she?”

Claire nods and picks up her paper cup of coffee. “All I can think about is how horrible it felt when I realized that Travis wasn’t our biological son. It was like my heart had been ripped out. The idea that the boy we’d raised wasn’t ours…”

“But he is ours. We’re here with him and Rosie today.”

“I know.” She takes a sip of the coffee. “I still have so much regret over how I handled that. I should have told you the minute I found out.”

Tim offers a compassionate smile across the table. “I forgave you for that a long time ago, Claire.”

“And that was really gracious of you. I just couldn’t face the fact that Travis’s life had been a lie, or that we could somehow lose him — plus I didn’t exactly think we’d be able to pry Spencer away from Loretta.”

“And look how that turned out,” Tim says. “Talk about a miracle.”

“I still can’t believe Loretta is living in that house with him and Peter.”

“Not for long, maybe. If this test does prove that Longo stole Molly and Brent’s baby, and if we can connect Loretta to that–“

“–then we’ll be able to put her behind bars again.” She drops her head sadly. “And all it will take is for our son and his wife to have their hearts broken. How is any of this fair?”

Instinctively Tim reaches across the table and takes her hand. “I don’t know. It isn’t. I guess that’s something we’ve both learned about life.”

“You’re telling me.” She squeezes his hand and looks up. 

“Remember when we were young and naive and thought getting married and having a kid was the end of all the struggling?”

“You mean a thousand years ago?” she asks with a chuckle.

Tim glances down at the table, at their still-connected hands. The contact feels so natural, so right, and his mind immediately leaps back to that moment on the balcony the other day, when it seemed for a brief, surprising moment that they might actually kiss.

Unable to read her expression, he draws back his own hand.

“I should probably gulp the rest of this down so we can go back upstairs,” he says awkwardly.

“Oh. Yeah. You’re right.” Claire picks up her coffee, and there is a nervousness to her tone and her movement that makes Tim wonder if she was entertaining the same thoughts that he was.

—–

In the hospital corridor, Officer Carmean continues to proffer his palm, waiting for Nurse Jenkins to hand over Gabrielle’s sample.

She nervously licks her lips. Something about the situation still strikes her as strange.

“I wasn’t briefed on this earlier,” she says. “I’m going to go check with the desk to make sure this is how they want to do things.”

“Of course it’s how they want to do things.”

“You can come with me while I check.”

“I’ll wait here.” The officer folds his arms. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

Still clutching the bag in one hand, she backtracks around the corner and heads toward the nurses’ station for confirmation. Molly and Brent, who are still in the waiting area, see her appear and meet her at the desk.

“Are those the samples?” Molly asks, eyeing the bag intently.

“Yes,” the nurse says. “But I needed to clarify something: an officer from the King’s Bay PD just told me that I should give it to him so that he could deliver it to the lab. I wasn’t told of any such plan before.”

Brent raises one eyebrow. “An officer? Did you get his name?”

“Um, Carmean, I think he said,” Nurse Jenkins replies. 

“Carmean? I don’t know of any officer with that name,” Brent says.

Molly gasps and grabs Brent’s arm. “You don’t think…?”

“I do think,” he says. “Nurse, bring that to the lab yourself. And bring me to this so-called officer on your way.”

—–

After Nurse Jenkins goes out to the nurses’ station, the man calling himself Officer Carmean ducks into a stairwell. He strips off the fake police uniform shirt, balls it up in one hand, and hurries down the stairs in his navy slacks and a plain white t-shirt. Keeping his head down, he strides quickly through the lobby, holding his breath as he goes, and he only exhales once he is back in the parking garage. 

Once he is safely inside his pickup truck, he takes out his phone and places a call. 

“Ms. Ragan,” he says into the phone, “there’s a problem with the plan. A big problem.”

—–

“Sleep?” Gabrielle asks loudly.

“You want to go to sleep?” Travis replies as he holds the little girl’s hand. 

“No! Sleep!” the child repeats more fervently. This time, she points to the hospital bed, where Samantha Fisher lies motionless and silent, in a coma as she has been for months now. Gabrielle, Travis, and Rosie have moved up to the Intensive Care Unit to visit Samantha. 

“Your Aunt Samantha is asleep, yeah,” Travis says, emotion catching in his throat a bit as he speaks. The sight of his intelligent, lively sister in this bed has not become easier after all this time, and he hates to think that this could be the last he ever knows of her. 

Rosie slides closer to Travis and places a hand around his back. He feels an iota of instant comfort from his wife’s touch, though he still finds it difficult to process how Samantha could’ve wound up like this in the first place. 

“We can’t wait until she wakes up, Gabrielle,” Rosie says softly. 

Gabrielle thinks about that for a moment, then looks up at her parents.

“I have to poop!” she says loudly.

Travis and Rosie look at one another, and Travis snickers first. 

“Good girl, telling us like that,” Rosie says. 

“Major score for potty training,” Travis adds. “I can take her.”

“You stay with Sam. I’ll go,” Rosie counters. 

“It’s okay. Really.” 

Rosie can see in his gaze that he could use a moment away from the heaviness of visiting his sister.

“I’ll be here,” she says. “Good luck.”

“Thanks. We’ll both need it,” Travis chuckles as he leads Gabrielle out of the room.

With her husband and child gone, Rosie stands by Samantha’s bedside, looking down at her sister-in-law sadly. 

“We’re all rooting for you to get better,” Rosie says quietly. She feels a little silly speaking to a comatose woman this way, but she knows that they are supposed to let Samantha keep hearing their voices, that the stimuli could be good for her. 

“You’re missing a real mess out here, by the way,” Rosie continues. “Your aunt and Brent have this crazy idea that Gabrielle could be their kid. That doctor who told them their baby died — well, he killed himself, and he had his lawyer send them a letter that said their baby was actually a girl and survived. Insane, right?”

She looks up at the steadily beeping monitors, with their reliable colored lines and blinking lights. 

“So they asked us to do a DNA test on Gabrielle,” she says. “I didn’t want to, but… we sorta have to. And Travis is right — it’s the easiest way to get this over with. But I swear, I am not giving up my daughter. Because that’s what Gabrielle is: my daughter. And if anyone so much as tries to take her away from me… they’ve got another thing coming.”

Suddenly she feels her phone begin to vibrate in the pocket of her jeans. She pulls it out and sees that it’s the police station.

“Dammit. It’s my day off,” she says, but she nevertheless steps out of the room to answer the call.

When Rosie exits to the hallway, she fails to notice Samantha’s index finger twitching… and then her eyelids begin to flutter.

END OF EPISODE 1141

Is Samantha about to awaken from her coma?
Has Loretta’s plan been foiled for good?
Will the DNA test reveal the truth about Gabrielle?
Talk about all this and more in the comments below!

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