We’re having a baby
My baby and me
You’ll read it in Fortune
That we’re adding a limb to our family tree

Jax walked into the room where Brenda was speaking to a young doctor, who was reminding her to get prenatal vitamins from her obstetrician.

“I will - trust me, Dr. Wylie, I know the baby drill,” she laughed.

Dr. Wylie, a young, single, male doctor doing his residency at GH, gazed at Brenda Jacks; at her slender, curvaceous body; the smooth, golden flesh of her midriff, exposed by the chic style of outfit she was wearing.

“You’ve had a baby?” he asked incredulously.

She nodded. “I have a son, who just turned four,” Brenda elaborated. “By the way, do you know a Dr. Spader? That’s the obstetrician my friend Lois had, and she raved about her.”

“Oh, yes, Dr. Spader is one of our finest obstetricians on staff. All of the young, expectant mothers seem to love her. You’ll be very comfortable with her. She’s also got a great sense of humor.”

“Do you have any idea when she’ll be in?”

“Dr. Spader usually has rounds starting at 9:30 today, I believe,” he said. “Now, is there anything I can do for you before I go, Mrs. Jacks?”

“No. Thank you, though. I think I’m just going to find my husband now and fill him in,” Brenda said with a quick smile.

“He’s right here,” Jax said, walking inside and grinning at her. Her eyes lit up at the sight of him, and she was instantly grinning back at him.

Dr. Wylie smiled at them and then left to give them privacy.

“So,” Jax said, walking over to her and crouching down in front of the chair she sat in. “I hear a rumor that it’s my turn,” he said.

Brenda’s dimples deepened, as did her smile. “Your turn?”

“To go through labor with you,” Jax elaborated, his blue eyes lit up with happiness.

Brenda laughed. “And how’d you hear this rumor, huh? Of course - Amy and her big mouth, right?”

Jax laughed, too. “Right.” He brushed his hand gently across her cheek. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s true,” she said softly. “Are you happy?”

“God, yes. How can you even ask me that?”

“Well, you may be happy now,” Brenda said, her eyes sparkling, “but just wait until you really do have to go through labor with me, Jax. You’ll be sorry!” she teased him.

“I will be no such thing. I don’t care if you end up giving me a black eye, I’m going to love every second of it!” he said with a happy laugh, pulling her tightly into his arms. “A baby,” Jax whispered in wonder. “And I’m going to be here for the whole thing this time.”

“Yes, you will,” she said, hugging him closer. “And you’ll be sorry,” she repeated with a laugh.

“Will you stop saying that?” he tickled her.

She giggled and grabbed his hands. “Well, you will.”

He tickled her again and then just held her close. “Brenda, I know we didn’t plan this, but I am so over the moon about this baby, baby,” he confessed.

“Me, too,” she said, hugging him even tighter. “You know, Jax, you’re a very… ummm… potent male. I mean your… uh…swimmers… they must be like Olympic champions.”

Jax laughed out loud and cradled her beautiful face. “My God, there is no one else like you, sweetheart. Not in the whole wide world.”

She smiled. “You mean that in a good way, right?”

“The best way,” he whispered, kissing the slender arch of her eyebrow.

“If we had been together all these years, we might have had four kids by now,” she said.

He grinned. “One a year?”

She laughed and nodded. So did he. “But two is good,” Jax said.

“Two is perfect,” Brenda agreed.

“Of course, this has to be a girl,” Jax added. “Because, Brenda, if it isn’t a girl, our son is going to be very disappointed in you. He did specifically request a baby sister.”

She laughed. “Oh, no. Well, he’s just going to have to wait like the rest of us.” She slid her hands into his. “I don’t want to know beforehand, Jax. I want to be surprised. Okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed, raising her hands to his lips and kissing them.

“I can’t believe I didn’t know,” she murmured, perplexed. “But, you know, in my somewhat lame defense, I never got morning sickness or any of this dizziness and fainting stuff when I was pregnant with your son.”

“Hmmm. Maybe that means this is not a son?” Jax guessed, spreading his hand over her flat stomach and raising his eyebrows.

“Well, you’ll have to wait nine months to know,” Brenda said. “Promise me, Jasper Jacks, you won’t go behind my back and ask the doctor to tell you what sex the baby is.”

Jax laughed. “I won’t. All right? I won’t. I want to be surprised, just like you, okay?” He kissed her soft lips. “I love you so much. You are my life. You and our rugrats. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Her confident smile made his heart swell with pride. Her knowing how loved she was by him meant he was doing it right this time. She was not going to ever doubt his love for her again - like she had that summer. That damned summer. He’d like to obliterate it from all existence.

“And you’re my life, too, Jax. You are,” she was saying to him. She brushed her lips against his. “We’re going to be happy and have a family and have a wonderful life together.”

“That we are,” her husband agreed with a nod.

“But first we have to figure out some things and set them right,” Brenda said, rising as Jax helped her to her feet, sliding her into his arms.

“Yes,” he agreed again. “Like, who set us up that summer, and who tried to kidnap our son tonight. Speaking of that son, we should get back to him now. He wanted to come with me to see you, but I promised him I’d bring you right back to him, so let’s go.”

With one more happy kiss over the news of their second child on the way, Jax and Brenda left the room and entered the hall on the way back to the room, where Justin was with Jerry.

“Hmm, what’s she doing here at this hour?” Brenda murmured curiously, just before slipping into their son’s room.

Jax paused, his hand holding the door open, as he gazed in the direction Brenda had been looking when she’d made her comment. He saw Helena Cassadine by the nurses’ station.

Staring at him.

He locked eyes with her, and she slowly looked away, pretending to rummage through her purse for something.

Slowly, Jax entered his son’s room and watched as an excited Justin was grilling his mommy with questions about his new sibling. Mac and Jerry were off to the side talking, and Jax motioned them over to him.

“Hey, Mac, could you give us minute?” Jax asked.

“Sure. I’m sure your family wants to celebrate the news. Congratulations, by the way, Jax, on both the marriage and the new baby. I do need to ask your son some more questions, but it can wait until later. The little guy’s running on fumes as it is - he’s probably going to conk out at any moment.”

“I know,” Jax nodded in agreement. Justin had had quite a traumatic night, and a peaceful sleep had been an elusive thing for the young child. Yet he was incredibly resilient and already the trauma of his near-abduction was fading, as his excitement and joy over his parents’ marriage and his baby brother or sister on the way had his full attention now.

“Thanks, Mac.”

“Sure. Where can I get in touch with you? Are you taking your family back to your penthouse? Or will you be staying with them at the Q’s?”

“We’re not going back to the Q’s,” Jax said. “Your best bet would be to call me on my cell phone,” he added, giving Mac that number.

Once Mac left, Jerry folded his arms. “I know that look. What’s going on?”

“Jerry, Justin doesn’t lie,” Jax said.

“You talking about this alien mumbo jumbo?”

“Justin thinks they are aliens because, #1, he is a child, and #2, when he was by Mum and Dad’s suite, he saw a woman literally pull our father’s face off to reveal another face beneath it.”

“What?”

“Jerry, the woman he saw do this was Helena Cassadine. And she is here. Now. Right in the bloody hallway! You think that’s just a coincidence that she’d be here at GH at 4 in the bloody morning, after my son witnesses her ripping a mask off the man we’ve been calling our father and my son is subsequently nearly kidnapped?”

“All right, all right. Calm down. Jesus Christ, Jax, are you sure it was Helena Cassadine?”

“Justin said she was an old blonde lady and she said her name to our parents - or whoever the hell they really are - and Justin thought her name was Eleanor Cast-the-Wine. He’s just a kid - he was sounding it out. Now what does Eleanor Cast-the-Wine sound like to you, Jerry?”

Jerry nodded. “I’ll be damned, you’re right. Helena Cassadine. What the hell was she doing with our parents?”

“They’re not our parents,” Jax said quietly.

“Bloody hell,” Jerry shoved a hand through his dark hair. “If our father isn’t our father, then where is he? Our real father?”

“I don’t know,” Jax said, feeling sick.

“And is that really Mum with him or does that woman have a face that comes off, as well?”

“No, it can’t be Mum,” Jax said. “We might have been fooled because we don’t see them every day. But Mum lives with Dad, day-in and day-out. She would never be fooled by an imposter of Dad wearing a damned latex mask, so it can’t be her.”

“Which means our parents…”

“We don’t know that,” Jax said, interrupting Jerry’s grim thoughts. “They… they could be being held somewhere, they could be…”

“Dead, Jax. They could be dead!”

“No,” Jax said, shaking his head, remaining admirably calm in the face of this discovery. In the face of the events of this entire day. “Don’t you see, Jerry, they’re alive! These people, they’re keeping them somewhere; otherwise, how else could they get information that allows them to fool us to the degree they have? They have to be getting the information from the source - our parents.”

“Good God, you’re right, Jax.”

“I know I’m right. And that whole ridiculous story you said he told you at lunch about you fathering a child with Ashley Brent. Jerry, that means that Dad deliberately fed these people misinformation to… to make us doubt them, to get us onto the fact that something was wrong. Oh, my God, we have got to find them, Jer. These people know we’re onto them now. They know Mum and Dad set them up. Mum and Dad are completely expendable to them at this point.”

Jerry was nodding in vehement agreement, but then stopped. “Wait. We have to do this logically, Jax. I know you believe Justin. And I believe you. But we need that proof. All the evidence your ingenious little kid gathered, we need to get it before someone else does.”

“Like Helena Cassadine.”

“Or whoever tried to snatch Justin tonight.”

“Why? Why the hell do they want my son? Are these people, who were impersonating our parents, working with Helena? Why would she want my son? Why is she here now, Jerry? At this time of night, lurking around the nurses station on the floor where my son’s room is?”

“We don’t know a damn thing, Jax. It’s just a big puzzle right now, but we’re gonna put all the pieces together. We are going to protect your son, and we’re going to find our parents, damn it. And we’re going to find out what the hell is going on here. But we have no bloody clue where to even begin to search for Mum and Dad. We need the imposters, Jax. We need to find them and force them to tell us. First things first. We get the proof that they aren’t our parents, try to pin down their true identities, and take it from there.”

“It’s at the Quartermaine’s,” Jax said. Then he and Jerry both turned toward Brenda and Justin, who were gazing at them.

“What’s wrong?” Brenda asked, concerned by the expressions on their faces and the quiet intensity of the whispered conversation they’d just ended.

Jax didn’t say anything right away. Instead, he walked over to the bed and knelt down in front of his son. “JC, where did you put the evidence you got on the aliens?”

“Jax,” Brenda interrupted.

“Honey, shhh,” Jax requested softly, brushing his thumb over her lips. Then he turned back to their son, looking at the little mirror image of himself expectantly.

“It’s in the drawer under my bed, Daddy.”

“Which drawer?”

“The one on the bottom on this side,” he said, indicating his right. He could tell time really well and could read and write already, but he still had trouble with directions and all that right and left stuff. “What are you gonna do, Daddy? You’re not gonna throw it away, are you?” he asked, a little frown furrowing his brow. “I thought you believed me?”

“I do,” Jax said, chucking him under the chin. “We’re going to get your evidence, so that your Uncle Jerry and I can see what this man looks like.”

“He’s an alien,” Justin insisted.

“No, kiddo, I think he’s just a man.”

“But his face came off,” Justin said.

“Jax?” Brenda tugged at shirt. “What man? What did I miss?”

Jax’s stunning blue eyes slid over to his wife. “You have to develop the film, sweetheart. I don’t trust anyone else.”

Justin beamed with pride at how smart his daddy was. “Me neither, Daddy. I didn’t trust nobody neither, so that’s why I didn’t make Uncle Jerry take the film to the store to get made into pictures. ‘Cause aliens could be at the store and take the pictures, right? That’s why I was waiting for you and Mommy to get home.”

Jax winked at his brilliant, brave - a little too brave - little child.

“What pictures?” Brenda asked. “Oh, the ones Justin said he took of your parents when we were gone? And, why are we whispering?”

“Because Eleanor Cast-the-Wine is hanging around in the hallway,” Jax muttered.

“Who?” Brenda said, baffled.

“Justin, tell your mommy everything you told me about what you saw,” Jax said. “I need to call Ned.” Then he turned to Jerry. “Jer, can you try to catch Mac Scorpio? If Justin got those prints on the little sub, I want Mac to test them. Also, we need to get in touch with your friend, Hanson, at the INS and get a copy of Dad’s fingerprints faxed over to the PCPD, so we can compare and have definitive proof. Justin’s pictures may not be enough. Or they may not have come out - you never know, he is only four.”

“They came out. I know how to take pictures, Daddy,” Justin insisted. “Right, Mom?”

Brenda was nodding. “He does, Jax.”

“Okay, JC, but this is just in case, okay? Daddy just doesn’t want these aliens to get away.”

Justin nodded in understanding. “Me neither. They’re bad. They tried to get me.”

“Nobody’s going to get you,” Jax promised him, kissing his forehead. “Hey, Jerry…”

But Jerry was already out the door looking for Mac, and so Jax got onto the phone to call Ned.

Twenty minutes later Ned arrived at General Hospital, carrying a plastic Tower Records shopping bag containing Justin’s “evidence” sealed in individual brown paper bags, as Jax had instructed.

As he walked down the hall towards Justin’s room, he noticed Helena Cassadine lingering by the nurses’ station.

“Well, well, Helena. What has risen you out of your coffin at this hour?” Ned inquired. “Is something wrong with Nikolas?”

“No, my manservant, Andreas. We think he may have food poisoning,” she lied smoothly. “What brings you here at this hour, Mr. Ashton? And without Natasha and her insecure self draped all over you like an ill-fitting coat?”

He ignored her jibes at Alexis. “CD’s for my friend’s son,” Ned lied just as smoothly as the Cassadine matriarch had.

“Friend?” She folded her hands together. “Would that be Jasper Jacks?”

“Would that be any of your business?” Ned responded and then walked past her towards Justin’s room. The security men at the door ascertained his identity and allowed him in.

“Get everything?” Jax asked, upon seeing Ned.

“Yep,” Ned said, handing the bag over to Jax, who, in turn, handed it to Mac.

Mac took out the brown paper bag containing the yellow submarine toy. “All right, I’ll get this over to the crime lab and check those prints for you, Jax. At this hour, I won’t have an answer for you until daylight.”

“I understand,” Jax said.

“My contact at the INS will have a copy of my father’s prints to you by 6 a.m.,” Jerry said to the departing Mac.

Mac nodded. “I’ll phone you guys as soon as I get the results.” And then he was gone.

Ned had just finished giving Brenda a hug and a kiss over her happy news of both the wedding and her expectant motherhood. Her four-year old-son was fast asleep in her arms, so he whispered his happiness for her and then went back to the other side of the room, where Jax and Jerry were retrieving Justin’s little spy camera from the Tower Records bag. Jax rewound the film, took it out of the camera and slid it into his pocket.

“I tried to fish around for some information from Helena as I was coming in here,” Ned said to the brothers. “She claims she’s here due to her boy toy servant having food poisoning.

“Easy enough to check up on,” Jax murmured.

“Oh, she was lying,” Ned said with certainty. “She was curious about you, Jax.”

“Me?”

“Well, she asked me why I was here, and I told her I had some CD’s to bring to a friend’s son. She then started to grill me whether or not that friend was you. She specifically said you. I told her it was none of her business and came in here.”

Jax leaned against the windowsill, as his eyes momentarily drifted over to his family; his son fast asleep; his wife holding their precious little cargo in her arms and nodding off herself.

“Remember, Alexis mentioned at the barbecue the other day that Helena was asking her lots of question about you, too, Jax,” Ned reminded him. “She seems to have developed an inordinate amount of interest in you recently.”

“Yeah,” Jerry agreed. “And we gotta figure out why.”

When morning finally broke, Dimitrius Cassadine was in agonizing pain from Cooper’s savage bites. His wife had attended to him, but the pain was still throbbing, especially in his leg.

Kevita placed a mug of hot black coffee in front of him, along with a plate of runny eggs and cold, buttered toast.

Dimitrius looked at the unappetizing fare with disgust, just as a fat cockroach scurried by and ran over the food, not even bothering to stop for a taste.

“Damn it, woman, when are you going to learn how to cook a decent meal?” he roared. “That pig slop is not fit for the roaches!” He grabbed for the coffee mug and spilled some on his hand, cursing vilely as the hot coffee scalded his skin.

His wife ignored his loud ranting and offensive cursing. All she could think about was getting the prize. The little boy that her fool husband had let slip from their grasp because he had forgotten about the presence of the dog.

“We can try to get the boy from the hospital,” she said, taking a seat opposite her husband. “It should be easy to dress like we work there and gain access to his room. We must do it today. I do not want to delay this any longer, and we must get to him before Helena does.”

“Helena will do nothing until her suspicions are confirmed. And they won’t be until she finds Maximus. And he is nowhere to be found,” Dimitrius said, making a face as he sipped the tasteless coffee.

“I don’t give a damn about Maximus!” his wife screeched. “I am tired of living in this filth!” she said, gesturing to the sleazy hotel room. “I am tired of this face!” she added. “I want my own face back. I want to be living in luxury, which is what this plan was supposed to accomplish for us, until YOU screwed it all up!”

“Shut your mouth, witch,” he muttered. “You would be nothing without me. It is my family that bears the Cassadine name. You are nothing. And don’t you forget that.”

“It was my idea to find Maximus’ son, after he confessed the truth to you in a state of inebriation,” she reminded him sharply. “It is my brain and my plans that have gotten us thus far. Had I been the one doing the abducting, rest assured that dog would have been poisoned and out of the way and the child would be ours!”

“I curse that dog!” Dimitrius yelled loudly in Russian, causing the guests in the adjoining room to bang on the wall. “We have worked too hard and invested too much in claiming the heir of the true Cassadine prince. How much easier this all would have been had Jax stopped pining away for that girl Brenda and had quickly wed Miranda and then gotten her with child. Then we could have taken the newborn, as was our original plan. A newborn does not struggle, nor bite you, nor have the presence of mind to hold his breath when you place a chloroform rag over his little face! And a newborn does not have wild beasts for pets!”

“Had Jax married Miranda and we taken their firstborn son, as planned, we would have been foiled,” Kevita reminded him. “For we would not have had the true heir because he was an ocean away, being born in London.”

Dimitrius nodded. “That Brenda Barrett has ruined our plans in many ways.”

“Nothing would be ruined were it not for that idiot cousin of yours, Mikkos, changing the doctrine to allow illegitimate children, recognized by the Prince, to be in line for the title. Had he not done that, Justin would not even qualify.”

“He did it to protect Stavros,” Dimitrius murmured.

“Yes, dear illegitimate Stavros. The entire reason that old hag Helena ended up becoming a Cassadine was because she got herself pregnant with the heir. And Mikkos had to marry her, instead of her sister, the countess, whom he was betrothed to, and thus he also had to change the doctrine to validate his bastard child, only to have the both of them die anyway!”

“Yes, but his having changed the doctrine now protects the son of the bastard child… Nikolas - or so they think,” he added with a sly smile. “The truth will rock this family off its axis and shift the control of power right into my hands,” he salivated.

“Our hands,” his wife sharply reminded him. Then she went back to their conversation about what-ifs. “Had we gone through with our original plans, the joke would have been on us. For we would have had the second son, not the first. And we all know the second son inherits nothing, unless the first son is dead and has no heirs. On top of that, we’d have had to wait until Miranda bore a son, since only the males inherit.”

“True,” Dimitrius conceded.

“For all we know, she could have borne nothing but daughters. What would we have done then? What would have become of our grand ‘plan’ in the face of that possibility? So, don’t you see? Justin is truly a blessing in disguise. He has saved us time and the risk of Miranda Jameson bearing nothing but useless girls. Yes, the downside is that he is four years old and will be much harder to control and obviously to abduct, but, as you said, we have invested entirely too much in this to abandon it at any cost. That boy will be ours.”

Dimitrius nodded. “Tend to my injuries, woman. If I am to get him from the hospital, I must be able to move around with a fair amount of agility.”

The sun filtered through the blinds in the hospital room, setting off the brilliant shades of gold in Jax’s hair. He turned to open the blinds slightly, but not too much. His eyes had returned to watching his sleeping wife and child, when his brother came into the room, carrying some coffee and pastries from the cafeteria.

“Still awake?” Jerry asked incredulously. Jax had not slept at all.

“I can’t sleep,” Jax said. “I told you that.”

“Well, your body likely begs to differ, mate. You’re going to fall asleep on your feet, Jax.”

“No, I’m okay,” he said, running his hands through his blonde waves.

“He’s safe now,” Jerry said quietly. “Security is by the door. Plus, Mac assigned Taggert and Garcia to the case. You don’t have to do it all yourself.”

“They’re my family, Jerry. The only person I really trust them with, besides myself, is you.”

Jerry gave up. He’d talk to Brenda about getting Jax to take a rest as soon as she was up, he decided. Brenda could convince Jax to do anything.

“I got a coffee for you,” Jerry said, handing Jax the beverage. “And some donuts. Bobbie’s on the way in to the hospital. She’s going to bring some food from the IHOP. I asked her to because you told me your son loves the IHOP spread.”

Jax grinned. “Thanks, Jerry. You know, you’re a pretty fantastic uncle, so far.”

Jerry chuckled. “The kid makes it easy. Hey, at least come on and stretch your legs,” Jerry said, placing the plate of donuts on a nearby table in the room. “Let’s take our coffee and just take a stroll down to the nurses’ station and then back to the room. Two minutes.”

Jax hesitated, but then nodded. “Okay.” He rose to his feet, checked his watch: 7 a.m.

“We should be hearing from Mac within a couple of hours, I’d imagine,” Jerry said.

Jax nodded, as they slipped out into the hallway and walked down to the nurses’ station.

“What the hell,” Jerry murmured quietly.

“What?” Jax asked.

“She’s back,” Jerry said, his eyes shifting in the direction of the elevator bank, where Helena Cassadine had just come off and was lingering. “And look over there by the men’s room,” Jerry whispered.

Jax did so and saw Stefan Cassadine there. Stefan immediately put his cell phone to his ear and pretended to be engaged in conversation.

“Jax, whatever is going down - whatever is happening here with Justin, with you, with Mum and Dad missing, if it all ties in… whatever it is, it’s got the Cassadines mobilizing their forces.”

Yes, Jax could see that. “I don’t think they’re on the same side though,” Jax mentioned.

Jerry nodded in agreement. “Yeah, Bobbie told me how Stefan hates his mother and vice-versa. So, they may not be mobilizing together, but they are mobilizing. I’ll bet you your second born that whoever was impersonating Mum and Dad are connected to the Cassadines, too. So, in league or not, they are mobilizing, Jax. And their mobilization seems to be centered on you.”

Jax shook his head. “On my son.”

“Damn it, I don’t like this. I have an edgy feeling here, Jax. What is this all about?” Jerry whispered in frustrated anger. “I’ve a bloody mind to grab mother and son by their collective throats and ask them what the hell they’re doing here and if they had anything to do with what happened to Mum and Dad.”

Jax shook his head. “We can’t. She’ll just say she’s here for her manservant; Stefan runs the hospital, and he’ll use that as his excuse. Jerry, we can’t do anything to them or confront them with anything until we have some kind of idea what is going on here. I don't want to tip them off that we suspect anything.”

“All right,” Jerry said. “But look, Jax, until we can figure out what they want with Justin, we have to keep him safe. Jax, I think you and Brenda and Justin ought to disappear for a while.”

“Leave town?”

“Leave the country. Get your family to somewhere safe. Somewhere where we can concentrate on getting the answers and not have to worry about making sure no one’s going to jump out of the shadows and try to grab your kid.”

Jax was shaking his head. “I can’t leave. Jerry, I can’t.”

“Bloody hell, Jax, Ned can run ELQ in your absence.”

“It’s not that,” Jax dismissed, a tad impatiently. “I want to help you look for Mum and Dad.”

“No,” Jerry said quietly, his eyes watching Helena, while Jax watched Stefan. “I don’t need you to do that, Jax. I can do it myself, you know that. What you have to do is protect your son now. Protect your family from… we don’t even know what. You get Brenda to develop those pictures Justin took, then you take your family away from here, Jax. I will find Mum and Dad.”

Jax’s cell phone rang.

“This is Jax,” Jax said, as he walked back to Justin’s room, Jerry right behind him.

“Jax, it’s Mac. I just had the lab compare those prints. The man whose prints are on that toy submarine is definitely not your father.”

“I knew it,” Jax said.

“So, you’re convinced your parents have been kidnapped, then?” Mac asked.

“Yes,” Jax said. “My God, I don’t even know how long. Brenda said they started acting strangely right after I left to go to South America that summer. She never gave me details on how they acted, but I don’t even need them. My parents adored her; she adored them. And now she hates them, so I can only imagine what they must have done to her to make her feel that way. My parents would never have done anything to her to make her feel that way, Mac.”

“My God, Jax, you’re saying you think they were taken four years ago? Four years?”

“I don’t know, yes… I think… maybe…”

Jerry took the phone from Jax. “Brenda’s waking up,” he said quietly. “You should let her know you’re going to be leaving the country.” Then Jerry began to talk to Mac. “Listen, Mac, I need your help. Our parents were kept alive for one reason only: to feed information to these people so they could pull off this ruse. If I don’t find my parents first, those people are going to kill them.”

“Jerry, we have nothing to go on,” Mac pointed out. “Not a damn thing.”

“Not true,” Jerry said. “Jax and I have basically figured out that the Cassadine family is at the heart of this. Two members of said family are skulking about in the hallway, as we speak.”

“The Cassadines? What the hell do they have to do with your family? I mean, what would they want from you?”

“That’s the part we’ve yet to figure out. We also believe the people impersonating our parents are connected to the Cassadines, as well. Now, going on that, the first place we have to look is where the Cassadines live.”

“Wyndamere? Helena’s yacht?” Mac asked.

“No,” Jerry said. “Believe me, I know my Dad. If they were being held somewhere that close by, my father would have found a way to contact Jax or me by now. No, I was thinking more of the Cassadine homelands. Russia and Greece. I’m going to need you to call in some favors from some of your contacts from our more reckless, not so admirable mercenary days, Mac.”

“I’ll do it,” Mac agreed.

Jax had just finished filling Brenda in on the situation with his parents and the apparent Cassadine connection to all these troubles.

Brenda was worried sick about John and Jane, fearing the worst, but not wanting to voice her thoughts to Jax.

“It was them then, wasn’t it?” Brenda realized. “They were the ones who sent you away from me; they arranged those phone calls…”

“I believe so,” Jax agreed. “I believe these people are the ones responsible for everything that happened that summer, Brenda.”

“They wanted me away from you.”

“Yes. I don’t know why…”

“And yet now they seem to maybe want our son?”

They were both speaking softly, as Justin was still asleep; Brenda curled up on the bed, sitting Indian-style; and Jax, laying on his stomach on the bed in front of her. “I know it makes no sense,” Jax agreed. “First they orchestrate your leaving me, and yet now it looks like our son is what they were really after, yet if that were the case, why would they ever have sent you away in the first place? They would have wanted you here.”

“Well, I never did tell them I was pregnant,” she pointed out. “I didn’t tell anybody but Carly before I left Port Charles. I didn’t even tell Lois until I got to London.”

“So, they didn’t know… that could explain it, I suppose,” Jax said, “although, I have to be honest, Brenda, I’m not sure what that explains. None of this makes any damned sense to me. None of it.”

“Not to me either. Why would anybody in the Cassadine family care whether or not you and I got married? What could it possibly matter to them what we do? And why would they care about our child to the point of possibly trying to kidnap him in the dead of night? They’re rich aren’t they? They don’t need money…”

Jax had no answers. He rested a hand on her thigh. “We have to leave, Brenda,” he told her.

“Leave?”

“Port Charles. The Unites States. Just for a little while. I have no idea what is going on here, but we are clearly at the center of it, and I can’t even bloody concentrate on anything here, not knowing what the hell to expect next. I couldn’t even sleep, Brenda - I can’t close my eyes, because I don’t know if you or Justin will still be there when I open them. I can’t do anything constructive this way, and I don’t think I can keep you guys safe here. Do you understand?”

Brenda nodded. “Where will we go?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. I think I have the perfect place. It’s remote, yet close enough to the mainland so as not to be completely isolated. It’s peaceful, it’s beautiful, the people there are wonderful…”

“Where is it?”

“The Ha’apai Islands on the Kingdom Tonga. It’s in the South Pacific.”

“I remember,” she said, gazing up at him. “That summer you asked me to marry you - you were going to take me there for our honeymoon. I remember the way you described it to me, it sounded so amazing.”

Jax nodded. “It is. I was going to take you there because I wanted you all to myself in a peaceful, private place, away from corporate raiding and modeling shoots. Now I need for all of us to be in such a place, Brenda.”

“I understand, Jax. You know I would go anywhere with you, baby; you don’t have to explain. When do we leave?”

“As soon as possible,” he said, flipping over on his back and laying his head down in her lap.

“Tonight?” she said, stroking his hair.

“If we can. I have to arrange things with Jerry. Oh, and you need to develop JC’s film.”

“We can stop at the Q’s, and I can do that there. I have a darkroom set up there.”

“Sweetie, you can’t tell anybody where we’re going,” he said, closing his eyes, feeling so good as her fingers stroked his hair.

“Not even Lois?”

“Not even Lois.”

“Not even Carly?”

“Especially not Carly,” he muttered.

Brenda tugged gently on his ear. “She is your sister-in-law now.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“All right, I won’t tell her. But if we just up and leave, people are going to think something happened to us, Jax. They’ll be worried.”

“No, we’ll tell them something. We’ll say we’re going on a Jacks family adventure. They know how crazy you and I are - they’ll believe that.”

Brenda laughed softly and bent her head to kiss his lips tenderly. “What about ELQ?”

He pulled her face back down for another kiss before answering. “Ned will be acting CEO while I’m on my Jacks family adventure. What about you? Can Lois and Theo handle ‘Picture This’ without you there?”

“I think so. Well, the bottom line is they’ll have to, right? Because I’m going with you,” she said, stroking his face. “You are my whole life, Jasper Jacks, and wherever you go, I go. And Justin goes, and baby Jacks goes. Got that?”

He didn’t answer her, and Brenda peeked down to find her gorgeous husband fast asleep.

“About bloody time,” Jerry said quietly, approaching and giving Brenda smile.

“Hi, Jerry.”

“Hi, there. He’s not had a lick of sleep, you know. I was going to ask you to talk to him and get him to take a nap. Looks like you’ve already accomplished that.”

“Yeah,” she said, gazing down at Jax’s head, cradled in her lap, and continuing to stroke the golden locks of hair. Next to her, her son flipped over onto his tummy and stuck his little rear end up in the air.

Jerry grinned. “Damned kid’s adorable. Hell of a way to sleep, though.”

“Oh, that’s nothing. Justin is basically in constant motion when he’s sleeping. I pity the woman he marries when he grows up; he’s going to literally be kicking the poor girl out of the bed - inadvertently, of course,” she added with a dimpled smile. “He’s even fallen asleep standing up a few times.”

Jerry grinned some more. “Yeah? Jax used to manage that amazing feat, too. Used to scare the hell out of my mum.”

“Jerry, I’m so sorry about John and Lady Jane,” Brenda said. “I’m just sick over this. I want them to be all right so badly. I wish there were something I could do… I wish…”

“It’s all right. I’m going to find them,” Jerry vowed. “Jax believes they are alive, and I believe he is right. I’m going to find them and bring them home.”

Brenda just nodded.

“Jax told you that he’s taking you and Justin out of the country?” Jerry inquired, getting a kick out of how angelic his devious, corporate shark, baby brother looked, fast asleep like that, with his head cradled in his wife’s lap.

“Yes,” Brenda said. “I think we’re going to try to leave tonight, if Jax can make all the arrangements.”

“Scared?” Jerry asked.

Brenda shook her head. “Nope. I know that Jax would never let anything happen to us, and Jax knows we’d never let anything happen to him.”

“Nice how it works that way,” Jerry said with a smile. A gentle rap on the door announced Bobbie, who brought in the IHOP breakfast.

“Hi, Brenda,” she whispered. “I see your guys both conked out on you,” she smiled. “Oh, congratulations on your marriage. Jerry told me all about it and the baby, too. I’m so happy for you and Jax.”

“Thank you, Bobbie,” Brenda whispered back.

Then Bobbie turned to Jerry. “Come here, you,” Bobbie said, pulling Jerry into her arms. “Any news about your parents?”

“Well, Mac confirmed that the prints don’t match,” he sighed, holding her close. “I have to find them, Bobbie. I have to do this because my kid brother has enough on his plate and he can’t take this, too.”

“You’ll find them,” Bobbie said. “You will, Jerry.”

“Will I?” he whispered for her ears only. “Jax is the one we could always count on, not me.”

“Hey, if Jax were awake, he’d slap your head for saying that nonsense,” Bobbie said. “And I won’t hear it either. You will find them. Now, come with me. I’m sure Brenda could use some time alone with her family.” Bobbie turned to Brenda then. “Brenda, Dr. Huxtable is in, so as soon as Justin wakes up, he can take a look at him and we can get you guys outta here and home.”

“Thank you, Bobbie. Thanks for breakfast, too.”

“Sure,” Bobbie said, smiling.

“See you in a bit,” Jerry said, as he and Bobbie left the room.

Brenda glanced over at her comically sleeping son and then rested her head down on top of Jax’s, sighing because, even despite the madness they found themselves somehow in the center of, she was so happy. Still stroking Jax’s hair with one hand, she gazed out at the sunshine streaming in through the blinds and wondered what tomorrow would bring.

Helena Cassadine did not like all the activity of family members and close friends going in and out of Justin Barrett Jacks’ hospital room. Nor the fact that guards were at the door of the boy’s room. Nor the fact that she had spotted her useless son Stefan walking by the room an inordinate number of times. A storm was brewing, Helena realized. And that little boy was the center of the storm. It would only make sense that his father would try to protect him - to take him away.

Well, that would never do. For, suddenly, Helena was on a mission to get the child herself. What she would do with him once she had him in her possession, she did not yet know.

She flipped open her phone and walked to a corner of the hospital for privacy. “Yes, it’s me. I suspect that Jasper Jacks will take his son into hiding for one reason or another until he can find out some details of this attempted kidnapping. I want you to mobilize everyone and ensure that young Jasper and his little family cannot get out of the country.”