Previously…
– A mysterious man interrupted Jason and Natalie’s wedding with a special delivery from Loretta: a card congratulating Spencer on the arrival of a baby boy, with instructions to have Sonja read a document that had been sent to her phone.
– Backed into a corner, Sonja read the document, which was a DNA test claiming that Spencer, not Jason, is Peter’s father. Sonja later lied to Tim that Loretta had asked her to send her reports on Spencer but Sonja had refused.
– Natalie admitted to Jason that she and Spencer had slept together before she and Jason were official and convinced him that the DNA results were false. As they resumed the wedding, Helen leapt to her feet to interrupt it.

 

On the back lawn of Wandering Soul Winery, Jason Fisher and Natalie Bishop hold hands before a flower-covered archway, ready to resume the wedding ceremony that was interrupted by an intruder with a strange delivery earlier today.

The judge who has come to marry them looks out over the assembled crowd, draws a deep breath, and then states, “As I was saying, we’ve come here today to celebrate the union of Jason and Natalie, and to celebrate the family they’ve built together.”

He barely finishes the sentence before a voice yells out: “This can’t happen!”

Everyone assembled turns in shock to see Helen Chase, now standing at her seat, her expression frantic.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “but I can’t in good conscience let this marriage happen.”

“Helen!” Natalie says.

Don Chase reaches for his wife’s arm. “What are you doing?”

“It’s true!” Helen proclaims. “Spencer is Peter’s father!”

A fresh wave of gasps and whispers surges over the audience. Natalie’s eyes shoot daggers at Helen.

“Stay out of things you don’t understand, Helen,” Natalie says. “Jason and I already discussed this.”

Helen squares her jaw. “Did you feed him the same pile of lies that you fed me?”

Jason’s head swivels toward Natalie. “What’s she talking about?”

“As many of you know, I was mugged last night outside Windmills,” Helen explains. “My purse was stolen, and inside it were DNA results — the same DNA results that Sonja read earlier!”

Paula Fisher, turned around in her seat, looks up at Helen. “Why would you have that?”

“Because she’s been out to get me for years,” Natalie says. “She’s never wanted me to be Sophie’s stepmother, and she’ll do anything to keep it from happening. Even lie!”

Spencer sits uncomfortably between his half-sister and Sonja Kahele, taking this all in. He squeezes his eyes closed, attempting to jog some bit of his memory; he recalls his long-ago tryst with Natalie, and he remembers their conversation after he came out of his coma, during which she assured him that they’d had tests run to confirm that Jason is Peter’s father. But he still has no recollection of what came between, and thus far, he has taken Natalie’s word for it rather than rock the boat.

Samantha nervously looks him over and then whispers, “Did you and my aunt really…?”

Spencer swallows hard. “Once. Before she and Jason were really together. But I don’t think…” He trails off, too overwhelmed to try and make sense of any of this.

“I’m not lying,” Helen says boldly. “I had my suspicions, so I had a paternity test run.”

“You what?” Jason asks. But before going on, he turns to Bree Halston, who has been standing tensely at her mother’s side.

“Why don’t you take Sophie and Peter inside?” he says.

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Bree says, sounding more like a little girl than the young woman she is. Jason’s heart aches seeing what pain she is in.

“That’s what we’re trying to sort out. Just take them inside, please.”

“She shouldn’t be hearing this,” Conrad Halston says to his date, Molly Taylor, as he watches his daughter attempting to be strong. He rises, but Bree nods dutifully at Jason and moves to the aisle. Peter, who seems completely unaware of what is going on, sits beside his maternal grandparents, playing with a small toy. Henry Bishop nudges him out of his chair.

“Thank you,” Henry says to Bree, watching as his granddaughter takes her toddler brother by the hand.

“She’ll be okay,” Molly says to Conrad. “It’s good that she’s getting out of here.”

Bree waves to Jason’s daughter. “Come on, Soph.”

Still planted to her seat, Sophie folds her arms across her pale pink flower girl dress. “I want to watch!”

“Sophie, go inside with Bree while we get this worked out,” Jason says gently.

Sophie wags her head vigorously from side to side. “No way!”

Bree holds out her hand, but Sophie does not budge. Suddenly Christian Taylor pops out of his chair and weaves his way over to them.

“Come with us, Soph,” the dark-haired teen says. “Please?”

Meanwhile, Molly leans over to Christian’s twin. “You should go inside, too. You don’t need to see all this.”

Caleb shrugs and slides out of his seat. “Whatever.”

“Come hang out with us,” Christian encourages Sophie. Finally, without a word, Sophie stands up.

Everyone waits in suspended animation as the troop of youngsters process back down the aisle. Conrad uneasily takes his seat again.

Molly places a hand over his. “Bree is going to be okay,” she tells him softly.

“Natalie looked like she wanted to kick Grandma Helen’s butt,” Sophie can be heard saying before the five of them disappear inside the winery.

“That was a good idea, getting them out of here,” Natalie says quietly to Jason. “I don’t want any of them seeing this.”

She feels his hand drop from hers. Her stomach turns over in agony, and she decides that it’s time to be proactive.

“Helen, let’s be honest here,” she declares. “You cornered me last night and tried to blackmail me with some dummied-up test results saying Peter isn’t Jason’s son. You were willing to play as dirty as you needed to to get me to call off this wedding.”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” Jason asks.

“Because–” Natalie feels flustered but does her best to maintain her composure. That is the key right now. “I handled it. I didn’t want to cast this dark cloud over our wedding day–”

“You handled it by telling me that I was right!” Helen says, her index finger jutting out to point at Natalie. “You admitted to me that Spencer is really Peter’s father!”

Jason regards Natalie with a sharp, icy look that succeeds in sending a chill through her. It suddenly occurs to Natalie that Helen might have recorded their conversation. If she did, it’s all over.

“Why would I do that if it isn’t true?” Natalie spits back.

She can see in Helen’s face that there is no proof, no recording. Natalie does everything she can to keep her sigh of relief invisible. She has to put all of her cards on the table now; she has to go for broke. There is no other choice.

“I already explained this to Jason privately,” she says, “but since you decided you had to make a scene, here’s the truth for everyone to hear: yes, Spencer and I– we, well, we had a very brief fling a few years ago.”

Tim Fisher, who has been standing by Jason’s side the entire time as best man, immediately looks toward his son — as do most of the others gathered. Spencer’s face says it all: it’s true.

“Oh my god,” Tim mutters. He finds himself studying Jason, as well, but his brother’s expression is inscrutable.

“I told you, didn’t I, Jason?” Natalie says.

He nods, but it is a forced, tight movement.

“Whatever you’re trying to do here, Helen,” Natalie continues, “it isn’t going to work. Maybe I should’ve been honest with Jason a long time ago, but the fact of the matter is, he and I weren’t together when it happened, and Spencer and I didn’t realize the connection until much later. We never saw a need to hurt anyone when it didn’t matter.”

Helen shakes her head in disgust. “It matters because Jason is not that boy’s father, and you’ve let him think that he is!”

“Cram it, you battle-axe,” Natalie says with a roll of her eyes.

Don stands up to join Helen. “Watch how you speak to my wife, young lady.” He places a hand on Helen’s shoulder. “Honey, why would you even think to run such a test in the first place?”

“Because I kept seeing Natalie and Spencer having these secretive conversations,” she says, “and then, I was given reason to believe that Natalie was the one who pushed him down the stairs and put him in that coma!”

A renewed sense of shock overtakes the crowd. Helen basks in having the upper hand for a moment, but as she does, she notices Sabrina Gage watching her intently. Sabrina’s large, dark eyes are brimming with surprise and betrayal.

“Now she’s just talking crazy!” Natalie interjects. “I did not push Spencer down the stairs. Why would I do that?”

In the back row, Diane Bishop sits beside Sarah, Matt, Tori, and Travis, who have joined her there because of their late arrival.

“Some performance my sister is putting on, isn’t it?” Diane remarks under her breath.

Sarah looks at her friend. “You think she’s lying?”

“She’s Natalie. It’s second nature to her. But even if she isn’t, she’s really going for the Oscar, huh?”

Up front, Helen blusters for a moment before responding: “To keep him from revealing the truth! That’s how desperate you’ve been — you tried to kill Spencer to keep your secret.”

Natalie huffs and turns to Jason. “How long are we going to let this craziness go on? Let’s just get married.”

She watches the way his mouth pauses, half-open and uncertain.

“Where was this outburst earlier, then?” Natalie asks Helen. “If you’re so sure about what you’re alleging–”

“You convinced me to be quiet. You told me that you and Spencer had decided together that it was best if no one ever knew the truth — and that I’d be hurting so many people if I exposed it. But now I know that was just damage control, like you’re doing right now!”

Natalie opens her mouth to speak, but Jason talks over her.

“Helen, you said you had DNA results,” he says. “How did you get them?”

“As I was saying before,” Helen explains, “I had reason to be suspicious, but I knew you’d all call me crazy–”

Natalie throws up her hands. “Imagine that.”

Helen glares at her before going on: “I knew no one would take me seriously without proof. So I gathered my proof, and I confronted Natalie.”

“Wait a second,” Natalie says. “You stole DNA samples from our toddler son–” She looks to Jason for affirmation. “–and from Spencer. Spencer, doesn’t that make you angry? She somehow got a DNA sample and ran a test behind your back.”

But Spencer, still in his seat, is glazed over, his mind moving too quickly for him to respond.

“Where’s Brent?” Natalie asks. “This woman should be arrested for invasion of privacy, or– I don’t know.”

“Oh, stop it with the grandstanding!” Helen barks. “I know the truth, you know the truth, and everyone here is about to know the truth, too.”

Natalie clenches her jaw and once again glances at Jason, but his expression gives away nothing about what he is thinking or feeling.

“Don, just get your wife out of here,” she says. “She’s finally cracked. It’s so sad, after everything you’ve been through with Courtney–”

“Don’t you dare say her name!” Helen shouts.

“I feel like I need popcorn for this,” Diane says to Sarah in the back row.

With her fists balled, Natalie stamps her foot. “What do you want from me, Helen?!”

Helen says something in return, but Spencer doesn’t hear it, because Natalie’s voice echoes in his head. He remembers the same thing happening months ago — a voice so distant and yet so familiar.

“What do you want from me, Spencer?”

And then he sees it. It isn’t clear at first, isn’t linear, but it all makes sense in one furious rush. He can hear Natalie’s desperate voice, see her face, feel them struggling over a piece of paper–

He jumps to his feet.

“You were there,” he says. “I remember. You were there when I fell down the stairs.” Heads turn in shock and panic as he declares, “I remember everything.”

—–

Inside the winery, Caleb and Christian accompany Bree, Sophie, and Peter back to the bridal room. Christian follows them in, but Caleb lingers at the door when he sees their father — who is near the gift table — wrapping up his phone call.

“I’ll be in in a sec,” Caleb tells his twin. He walks back toward Brent, who sticks his phone back into his pocket.

“What’s going on out there?” Brent asks. “The wedding’s back on?”

“It was. Then it wasn’t.”

“What now?”

“Mrs. Chase jumped up and said that she had proof that it’s true,” Caleb says. “That Peter is really Spencer’s.”

Brent lifts his hand to his brow. “God.”

“Yep.”

“Did your mom send you in here?”

“Jason wanted Bree to bring the kids inside,” Caleb explains. “Christian and I thought we should go with her.”

“Probably for the best.” Brent casts his gaze toward the back door, through which the would-be wedding can be seen. “What a disaster.”

“What’s going on with that guy?” Caleb asks.

“We’ve been questioning him,” Brent says. “Sounds like Loretta sent him to deliver that envelope and do whatever she wanted to happen here. But he isn’t armed, and he didn’t break any laws, so we can’t really hold him much longer.”

Caleb tugs at his tie to loosen it. “The way things are going out there, it sounds like that lady is gonna get exactly what she wanted out of this wedding.”

—–

Down the short hallway, in the bridal room, Bree and Christian get Peter settled with the iPad that Natalie packed in his bag for the day. He sits on the floor, riveted to an episode of Paw Patrol. It occurs to Bree that her mother has just left this bag sitting around, and her purse, too, and there might be something in either of them that could answer the debate going on outside for good. But she doesn’t have it in her to search, either because she knows it is wrong or because she doesn’t want to know.

“It seems like he has no idea what’s going on,” Christian says, yanking Bree from her thoughts.

She lets out a sigh as she attempts to gather herself. “Probably for the best.”

“What was Grandma Helen talking about out there?” Sophie asks loudly. “Peter is both of our brother, isn’t he, Bree?”

“Of course he is,” Bree responds, not sure where she would even begin.

“Then how can Spencer be his dad?”

Bree pauses. She has always known her mom to be impulsive or unreliable, to get them into strange situations. But she really thought that had changed since she and Jason fell in love. Bree thought that things were going to be different now. But the idea that her mom has been lying to everyone, and that she and Spencer…

She shakes her head to cast out the idea.

“We should let the grown-ups explain it all to us once they work it out,” Christian says.

Bree crosses to the window and pulls back the curtain, allowing her to see the tense standoff still taking place outside.

“Mom, please be telling the truth,” she says quietly to the window. “Please.”

—–

Spencer’s declaration quiets everyone assembled for the wedding.

Samantha, who has been sitting next to her half-brother as the entire spectacle has played out, looks up at him. “You really remember?”

He nods, his whole body vibrating with a wild energy now.

“I remember everything,” he says again.

On his other side, Sonja holds her hands tightly in her lap. After all this time, after all the months of feeding him messages in his sleep, he remembers. She feels a stab of terror that Loretta will somehow find a way to make her pay for this — after all, it was her job to make sure that his memory didn’t return. And yet… Loretta is the one who sent that note and set all of this in motion today. Why would she do that? Something isn’t adding up.

She looks to Tim and sees him leaving his post at the front to move toward their row.

“Are you okay?” he is asking Spencer.

“I’m fine,” Spencer says, even as he steadies himself on the chair in front of him. “It’s all true.”

Natalie stares at him. His eyes are different than they’ve been since he came out of the coma; they remind her of how he used to be, something fiery and animal-like about them, like he could do anything at any moment. She has no doubt, seeing that, that his memory really is back.

“Can a doctor come take a look at him?” she calls out. “He could be–”

“I said I’m fine!” Spencer growls. He closes his eyes again, summoning the memories, trying to pull them apart so that he can set them in order. But it all makes sense now. He steps through them like they are a path in a dark forest that he knows he has walked before and is able to travel solely by instinct.

“We ran a test,” he says. “We ran two. You switched the first one. You made it say that Peter wasn’t mine. And then I ran one, and…” His words catch in his throat as the full significance of all this strikes him. “You wanted me to keep quiet. We were fighting over the test results when–”

“I did not push you!” Natalie exclaims.

“But you were there,” Jason says, almost mechanically.

Their eyes meet. Natalie can see that he believes them all, believes them over her. The gears in her head, which have been cranking and churning at a furious pace for so long, finally grind to a halt, stuck and worn-down. Her shoulders sag.

“Just tell me the truth,” Jason says through heaving breaths. “Who is Peter’s father?”

The entire wedding feels like one deep inhale.

“Fine!” she says. “It’s Spencer. But I didn’t push him! I–”

“You’ve been lying to me for how long?” Jason demands. “Years?”

“I was telling the truth about Spencer and me,” she pleads. “We didn’t know who the other was when we…” Her hands flail through the air, trying to grab Jason’s, but he pulls them away.

“So you lied,” he seethes, his voice vibrating at an eerie level of quiet. “You lied, and you went behind my back, and you, what, left my nephew to die because it would make your life easier?”

“I didn’t–” But instead of being able to continue, she sinks to her knees, feeling the grass through the fabric of her white skirt. “Please, Jason. Think about our lives. Our family. We can still have all that–”

“We can’t!” he roars suddenly. “Because none of it is real.”

“That isn’t true.”

“You let me think Peter was mine. You let me think he was my child! My baby! My child!”

The devastation in his words and in his face is so clear that it pains Natalie. She never wanted to do this to him. That’s why she has done everything she has.

A sob overtakes her body as she grasps his leg.

“Please,” she begs. “We can still do this. I’m so sorry. Marry me. I love you, Jason. I love you!”

“Get up,” he says, attempting to shake her loose. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”

She doesn’t care. She cries louder, and it might as well just be the two of them. Then she feels hands on her, prying her off him.

“There isn’t going to be a wedding today,” Jason says, “or ever.” He starts down the aisle, quick steps carrying him over the grass toward the winery.

Natalie lets out a howl as she throws her body down on the grass. She sees them all staring at her with their outsized reactions: Helen smug, Paula aghast, Spencer furious. Others have pity and derision on their faces. But she doesn’t care what any of them think. Only one thing matters: Jason’s figure disappearing into the distance.

“No!” she shrieks, slamming her fists onto the lawn.

END OF EPISODE 936

How will Jason process his grief over what’s happened?
Does Natalie have any other tricks up her sleeve?
How will Spencer react now that his memory is back?
Talk about it all in the comments below!

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