Previously…
– Tori agreed to move back home after confiding in her parents about her pregnancy.
– After impulsively kidnapping Peter, Spencer called Elly for legal help. She devised a plan.
– Natalie summoned Jason to the motel where Spencer had holed up with Peter. To the shock of everyone, Natalie claimed that Spencer hadn’t kidnapped Peter — but rather that she and Spencer were about to get married!

The parking lot outside the King’s Bay District Courthouse is practically a ghost town when Jason Fisher pulls his car into it. Only a handful of cars are scattered throughout the lot.

“Maybe they’ll be closed after all,” he mutters.

“That would be one way to end this farce,” Paula Fisher says from the passenger seat.

Jason steers into a spot near the front of the building and puts the car into park. “I can’t believe this is happening. Natalie marrying Spencer? Spencer marrying Natalie?!”

“It’s all very strange,” his mother says. “That story about Spencer taking Peter to bring him to Natalie…”

“Because they made it up.” Jason shakes his head in disbelief. “I don’t know how this all came together, but the two of them made some kind of deal.”

“There’s still time to talk sense into Spencer.”

Jason unbuckles his seatbelt. “We’ll see about that.”

“Your brother and Claire are here,” Paula says, pointing through the windshield. Tim and his ex-wife walk through the bright morning toward the courthouse.

“Maybe this will be what it takes to show Tim who Spencer really is,” Jason says.

Paula seals her lips into a tight line as they exit the car and approach the courthouse. Jason’s car gives a shrill beep as he uses the remote control to lock it.

“What is going on?” Tim calls out to them when he sees them coming.

“Your guess is as good as any,” Paula says.

Claire folds her arms in front of her long, burgundy-colored wool coat. “This has to be a joke. Why would Spencer marry Natalie?”

“Because he’s out of control,” Jason snaps. “First he kidnaps my son on a whim, and then he decides to marry Natalie because… well, I don’t even know. But they went from hating each other to planning a shotgun wedding in, like, twelve hours.”

“I’ll try and talk some sense into him,” Tim says.

Jason rolls his eyes. “Good luck.”

Tim ignores the statement as best he can. “There has to be a better way to deal with all this.”

“The better way would’ve been for Natalie to tell the damn truth from the get-go,” Jason says, and without wasting another moment, he moves for the entrance.

—–

On the second floor of the courthouse, Natalie Bishop waits on a bench in the broad, chilly corridor, bouncing her young son on her knee. The sounds of a civil employee’s shoes clacking against the dated flooring, with its flecks of emerald green, reverberate all around. 

“Okay, here’s the certificate,” Elly Vanderbilt announces as she appears from one of the many offices lining the hallway. Spencer Ragan follows closely behind her.

“They did that fast,” Natalie says as she sets Peter on the ground and stands up.

“You’re lucky this is a day that almost everyone thinks is a federal holiday,” Elly says.

“Yeah, everyone’s too busy getting trampled at Costco to bother with the courthouse,” Spencer says.

A laugh slips out of Natalie’s mouth, but she quickly catches it and points her index finger sharply at Spencer.

“Don’t you dare make me laugh,” she says.

“What? Why?”

“Because I hate you for making me do this.”

“Natalie, I’m not making you do this. This is a mutually beneficial deal.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like being married to you,” Natalie says with a sneer. “Frankly, I could walk out right now. I only came to that dump of a motel because you said Peter was there.”

“Do you want me to tell the court about how you lied and schemed and switched a paternity test?” Spencer asks. “Or tell them that my memory has become clearer and I remember you pushing me down those stairs to kill me? Because I can–”

“And I’ll turn around and tell the police that you–” Natalie glances down and lowers her voice. “–kidnapped Peter. How’s that going to go for you?”

“We talked this all out at the motel. We made a deal,” Elly interjects. “This serves you both.”

“Yeah,” Spencer says in a heavy whisper, casting nervous eyes around the empty building. “Think of this marriage as the job you’d need to get otherwise. You do know what a job is, don’t you?”

Natalie groans in annoyance.

“I guess the house and the money aren’t entirely terrible perks,” she says.

“And so is getting to keep your son. Let’s get this show on the road,” Elly says, “so the two of you can start this beautiful journey of trying not to kill one another.”

“I’ve never faced a greater challenge,” Spencer says as they head down the corridor.

—–

Tori Gray steps off the creaky elevator into the familiar, dingy hallway of the apartment building. Having not been here for months now, she takes a look around with a critical eye. She considered this place charming for so long; as grungy as it is, there was something exciting about it, like it was a private place away from the world, the start of an adventure. Now, however, she sees it for what it is: the flickering light overhead, the cracked paint on the walls and doorframes.

With every muscle in her body tight and tense, Tori forces her legs to walk down the hall toward her destination. The door, the one that she stepped up to so breezily so many times, is now imposing, even terrifying. She has no idea what awaits her on the other side.

She lifts her hand but cannot knock. Her head is racing, and it doesn’t even seem real that she is here, after all this time. She hadn’t planned on it. But with all the hysteria over Peter going missing, sleep was an impossibility, and her conversation with Spencer from last night has been playing on a loop in her mind.

“I’m not going down without a fight. I didn’t know who my real parents were until I was an adult, and that was only because my mother wanted to make Claire suffer. I’m never going to get that time back.

“No one gave me a choice in this. Natalie decided to shut me out of my own child’s life because it was convenient for her. That isn’t fair. I had every right to know Peter was mine, whether it suited her or not.”

The parallels felt so clear, so obvious, that it was all Tori could do not to jump off the sofa in that moment. She might not like this situation, she might hate what Zane did to her and her family, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is this child’s father. And she isn’t going to do what Natalie did — there is no way to control the future the way Natalie tried to, no way to make sure that the truth doesn’t come out at the worst possible time.

She has to do this.

With a sinking feeling in her already uncomfortable stomach, Tori lifts her hand and knocks.

She waits. It is still early, she realizes, and Zane might not even be awake. But if she had tried to plan ahead and set up a meeting with him, she wouldn’t have done it. This is pure adrenaline driving her.

Fortunately — or perhaps unfortunately — the lock gets flipped from the inside, and the door opens. Zane stands there in just a pair of sweatpants, his strong, defined torso on full display. Tori tries to look away.

“Tori,” he says with confusion. His voice is still craggy from sleeping. “What are you–”

“We need to talk,” she declares. “This is big.”

“It sounds serious.”

She can tell how off-kilter he feels. He shifts his way from one to the other, and his eyes blink rapidly. She hadn’t expected him to be nervous about this, too.

“It is,” she says. “Very serious.” And then, unable to find the words, she simply opens her coat, revealing her rounded belly.

—–

Brent Taylor hurries off the elevator onto the second floor of the courthouse. He looks both ways and sees Claire standing with Tim.

“Has it happened yet?” he asks them.

“No,” Claire says as Brent takes her in his arms. “They just got the certificate processed.”

“Brent, what happened at that motel?” Tim asks.

“I…” Brent’s attempts at an explanation melt into a shrug. “Natalie called us there. She said she had Peter and it was all a big misunderstanding. Apparently she and Spencer made some kind of deal.”

“This is nuts,” Claire says.

“On the plus side,” Tim offers, “Peter is safe. We were terrified about that even a few hours ago. Everything else, we can work on.”

The office door opens, and Elly steps out.

“We’re just about ready for the ceremony,” she says.

Tim, Claire, and Brent file toward the office. All three regard Elly with confusion as they go.

“El,” Brent whispers, stopping to pull his niece aside. “How’d you get mixed up in this?”

Her face flattens into something inscrutable. “Spencer and Natalie called me to retain my services as an attorney.”

“At what point? Can you help us make sense of this?”

“I’m sorry, Uncle Brent, but I’m bound by attorney-client privilege. You know that.”

Brent sighs in frustration.

“That boy has a right to grow up knowing his parents,” Elly says. “A messy custody fight doesn’t benefit anyone — least of all Peter. I’m going to make sure that gets avoided.”

“What about Jason?” Brent asks.

“No one is saying that he can’t see Peter or be a part of his life. But Spencer lost two years with his son already. That isn’t fair. If this is what works for him and Natalie, it’s not my place to stand in the way. And it isn’t yours, either.”

Inside the office, Jason and Paula stand stiffly to one side. Jason’s eyes fire daggers at Spencer, who is waiting with the justice of the peace. Tim and Claire rush toward their son.

“What is this all about?” Tim asks.

“If you’re in trouble,” Claire says to Spencer, “we can work on that. You don’t have to do this–”

“No one’s forcing me to do this,” Spencer says firmly.

Tim looks around. “Where’s Natalie?”

“She went to freshen up,” Spencer explains.

“You hate her,” Tim says, clasping a hand on his son’s shoulder. “After what she’s done to you… how can you marry her?”

Spencer struggles over his response for a moment and chews on his lower lip.

“I don’t hate her. And it makes sense,” he says. “Natalie and I worked out a… an arrangement.”

Claire furrows her brow with concern. “Is this because of… what you did with Peter last night? You’re signing your life away because of one bad decision?”

Spencer regards her with a stony glare before saying, “I’m doing this because it makes sense. Natalie and I have a son together. End of story.”

“Spencer,” Tim says pleadingly.

“If you’re going to support me, you can stay. If not, no one is forcing you to stay here. I’m certainly not.”

He stares his parents down, as if issuing a challenge.

“We’re staying,” Tim tells him. Claire nods in agreement.

“Great,” Spencer says. “And no objecting when he gets to that part. Understand?”

Both Tim and Claire exhale loudly in defeat.

The door to the office flies open, and as heads turn, a series of gasps flies up.

“Oh, what the hell is this?” Jason says as they all stare in shock.

—–

Zane’s eyes flit from Tori’s stomach to her face and back down again.

“You’re… what? How?” he manages to ask.

“You know how,” she says in a tight voice, as she forces herself to put up a wall. The emotion in his face is so genuine that it nearly knocks her off-balance.

“We’re having a baby?”

She gulps. “I don’t know about that. Zane, I… I almost went through with ending the pregnancy. But I couldn’t do it.”

“You almost…” The gears in his mind work overtime to play catch-up. “How long have you known about this?”

“A while,” she admits. “I’m over halfway through my pregnancy now.”

“And you just– you were never going to tell me?”

“I hate you for what you did to me and to my family. I don’t want to have a child with you. But when I went to the appointment, all I could think was that I couldn’t make that decision alone.”

“Because that’s my baby, too!” he says. “I deserve to know.”

“And now you do. But I want to make one thing clear.” She gives him a long, silent stare to drive home her point. “I’m telling you because I think you have the right to know that I’m carrying your child. This doesn’t mean I’m giving you any control over what I choose to do–”

“You aren’t still going to get rid of it.”

She grimaces at his choice of words.

“That’s for me to decide. But I need a clear conscience to figure out what my next move is,” she tells him, “and now my conscience is clear.”

“What does that even mean? You drop this bomb on me and then I’m supposed to, what? Forget about it?”

“I…” The response doesn’t come as easily as she thought it might; in fact, she doesn’t really have one worked out.

“We need to talk about this,” he cuts in. “Really talk about it.”

“We will. I’m not going to make any firm decisions without letting you know. But I’m also not giving you control of this, okay?”

She can see the fight in his face, in his tightened jaw and pursed lips. But when he speaks, it drops away.

“I can’t believe we’re having a baby,” he says.

Recognizing that old gentleness in him, the purity and excitement that she saw so many times while they were dating, hits her hard. And then she reminds herself that he might as well have been faking it all along.

“I’ll be in touch soon,” she says. “Take some time and think about this.”

“Think about it? We need to talk–”

“And we will. This is as much as you’re getting out of me right now, Zane.”

“Tori. Come on.”

“We’ll talk soon,” she says, turning to go. She looks back at him. “And don’t get any crazy ideas. My mom has already shown that she’ll sacrifice herself to save me. Can you imagine what she’d do for her own grandchild?”

“Tori…”

But she doesn’t listen to him, and she doesn’t hear him following her. She hurries back to the elevator, desperate to be out of here. Her conscience is clear, as she’d hoped, but now there are a host of new worries swirling inside her.

—–

“I couldn’t let this thing go to waste,” Natalie declares as she walks into the office, Peter holding onto her hand and toddling beside her. She wears a familiar outfit: the beautifully tailored white dress with its sleeveless, intricately beaded bodice and long, sheath-like skirt. 

“Where did you even get that?” Jason asks.

Claire leans over to Tim. “Is that…?”

“I made a stop on the way here from the motel,” she says. “Look at what a great job the dry cleaner did getting out those grass stains. Good as new!”

“You are truly out of your mind,” Jason tells her.

Natalie shrugs one shoulder. “I didn’t see a point in letting this gorgeous dress go to waste. If you wouldn’t marry me in it…” She walks toward Spencer and grabs his hand. “…then someone will.”

Spencer wriggles out of her grip with annoyance.

“Let’s just get this over with,” he says.

The justice of the peace, a man on the high side of middle age with a shock of very white hair, regards the bride and groom with a perplexed stare.

“A wedding is a wonderful occasion, full of dreams for the future,” he begins. “Today we’ve gathered to celebrate Natalie and Spencer, and the love that they share for one another and their son, Peter.”

“I’m going to puke,” Jason says, not at all under his breath.

Natalie’s head snaps in his direction to fire a glare at him. Paula places a hand on Jason’s shoulder.

“May your love create a safe haven, a refuge for you both, on the challenging but rewarding journey lies ahead,” the justice of the peace continues.

“Can we skip to the vows?” Spencer blurts out.

Natalie looks over at him. “Don’t you want to savor this?”

The groom grits his teeth.

At the back of the room, Brent leans in toward Elly and whispers, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“It’s out of my hands now,” she says, though her expression betrays some concern.

The flustered officiant takes a moment to get his bearings.

“I suppose we can,” he says. “Natalie, please take Spencer’s hands and repeat after me… I, Natalie, take you, Spencer…”

She turns and faces Spencer as she grasps both of his hands. He recoils slightly but does not break the hold.

“I, Natalie, take you, Spencer…”

“As my partner for life, to love, help, and encourage in all you do…”

Peter stands beside his mother, staring up at her with wonder.

“Come here, bud,” Jason says quietly, bringing the boy nearer to him.

Natalie’s head swivels in their direction. “Don’t you get any ideas.”

“Why don’t you focus on actually making it through a wedding?” Jason shoots back.

The justice of the peace looks around, desperate to see if anyone else finds this as abnormal as he does. He catches gazes briefly with Tim, who is wide-eyed with horror.

“As my partner for life, to love, help, and encourage in all you do,” the officiant repeats.

Natalie fixes a broad smile over her face. “As my partner for life, to love, help, and encourage in all you do…”

“Natalie,” the justice of the peace says. “Do you take Spencer as your lawfully wedded husband, for now and forevermore?”

“I do,” she says with relish. “For now and forevermore.”

“God help us all,” Paula says to no one in particular.

Now the justice of the peace turns his attention toward Spencer. “Spencer, if you would repeat after me…”

“I, Spencer, take this woman and promise to support her or whatever,” he says hastily. “Is that it?”

“I… suppose that will do,” the man responds. “Spencer, do you take Natalie as your lawfully–”

“I do,” Spencer says. “We good here?”

The officiant draws a deep breath, clearly frazzled. “Yes, I guess we are. You may now share your first kiss as spouses.”

“Pucker up, honey,” Natalie says before planting a long, loud kiss on Spencer’s lips.

“Ew!” Peter cries out with a giggle.

“You summed that up perfectly,” Jason says.

“Ladies and gentleman, I give you Mr. and Mrs. Spencer Ragan,” the justice of the peace announces, as horrified looks fly around the small room.

END OF EPISODE 954

What lies ahead for Natalie and Spencer?
Is Jason out of moves in this custody fight?
Did Tori make a mistake by telling Zane?
Talk about it all in the comments below!

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