When Bridget came home from the hospital she sat on the sofa, and she cried.

Any connection she had to her old life, to who she had been, to who other people had been to her — they were all gone.

She should not have gone to see Siobhan. She knew she would have regretted if she hadn't, but now that she knew what it was going to be like, she felt sick.

It had been looking into a funhouse mirror. At least, the kind of funhouse mirror they had on those horror shows on the CW.

Andrew came home and immediately joined her on the sofa. He put his arms around her, and his breath tickled her forehead. He held her as she cried, and he did not say, "I told you so."

"I just keep wondering if there was something I could have —"

"There isn't," he said. "None of us could have."

Bridget kept rubbing her hand on Andrew's chest, reassuring herself he was there. "When we were in high school, I did the worst thing to her. I stole her boyfriend. She really liked him and I took him away from her."

"Bridget. That isn't —"

"I did a lot of terrible things to her like that."

Andrew tilted Bridget's face toward him. "Stop it. Stop doing this to yourself. If we should be punished for the things we did to our siblings when we were younger, not a one of us would be left alive. Please. You didn't make Siobhan into the person she is today."

The silence lasted a long time.

"Where do we go from here?" Bridget asked.

"My divorce is final in two weeks."

Bridget patted his chest and then rested her cheek against him. "Good."

Andrew rubbed the back of her scalp with his fingertips. "I'm not making idle conversation, Bridget."

She leaned back and looked up at him. "I know. It's just…awkward, sometimes."

"What is?"

"This. You're divorcing someone who looks exactly like me to come home to…me."

"If I had ever known that Siobhan had a twin sister, I would not have spent one minute confused about who I was with at any time. The two of you are like…night and day isn't even strong enough." He sat there a moment, staring through the window at the Manhattan skyline. "The two of you are like the destruction of everything I've ever held dear and the blossoming of a thousand possibilities, and if you don't know which one you are, lady, I'm going to be very, very cross."

The look on his face was so impish and yet so vulnerable at the same time. She leaned forward and kissed him, marveling again that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. "I love you, Andrew," she said.

He shifted against her so roughly for a second she wondered if he was turned on and wanted to make love right then. But then she saw he was reaching into the pocket of his suit jacket, draped over the back of the sofa.

"I was going to wait until dinner tonight for this," he said.

His hand pulled out a small velvet covered box stamped Harry Winston.

"But now seems good," he added. "Bridget Marie Kelly, will you marry me? Once I'm finally single, that is."

Every single objection and dismissal and deflection that came to Bridget's mind — and there were a lot of them — ran into the sound of Gemma's voice saying, Whenever you find yourself saying, I can't, just start saying I can. And damn if that doesn't change everything.

"Yes," Bridget said.

When their kiss ended, Andrew said, "Fair warning. I'm a two-time loser in the marriage department."

"That's okay. This is my first real relationship and I have no idea what I'm doing."

Andrew shrugged. "We'll muddle through this somehow." He pushed her back onto the couch and started kissing his way down the line of her neck. "Ah. I have another question for you."

"Trust me, the answer is yes," she said.

"How do you feel about living in San Francisco?"

Bridget's head popped up. "What?"

"This morning the broker called me. We have a buyer for the co-op. I've been discussing what to do with the firm with Olivia. She would stay here, and I'd like to open a West Coast office to deal with the Asia Pacific region. I can do investment banking from anywhere." He stroked the inside of her thigh. "And frankly, I'd like us to have a fresh start in a place where you won't continuously hear people calling you Siobhan."

"Are you sure about this?"

"Would you prefer Los Angeles? It's not my favorite, but —"

"No. San Francisco's totally great."

Andrew smiled.

~oOo~

The call came on Thursday morning.

Andrew was in his office, yelling at someone named Tucker — first or last name, Bridget wasn't sure — and Juliet was in the kitchen, babbling about where she'd like them to hold the marriage ceremony. Bridget didn't think Tibet or Mount Denali sounded practical, but she was up for either Fiji or even Kauai.

Juliet was all over this marriage. "I am so happy you and Daddy are together," she said. "Honestly. I mean, I know that sounds wacky, but I have so many friends whose parents are just freaks, you know? I mean, they hate one another." She took another spoonful of yogurt before adding: "It's kind of sick how you two go at it like bonobo monkeys, but I'll take that over hating one another, you know? And…"

Bridget covered her mouth, blushing. "Yeah?"

"You're so much nicer than Siobhan was. I can't even believe you two are related."

Bridget poured herself another cup of coffee and giggled to herself. "Bonobo monkeys," she repeated.

The phone rang and Juliet picked it up. "Yellow!" she sang. Then her smile disappeared and she was instantly serious. "Yes, this is… Just a second." She held the phone out to Bridget. "It's the lab."

Bridget took the handset from her. "Hello?" She snapped her fingers in front of Juliet's face and then pointed toward Andrew's office. Juliet took off on a run.

A nasally voice said, "This is Robertson Laboratories. I need to talk to Andrew Martin or Bridget Kelly."

"This is Bridget Kelly."

"Hi, this is in regards to the DNA testing on Siobhan —"

Andrew walked into the kitchen with Juliet.

"Yes, I know," Bridget said. "Just a second, I need to put you on speaker."

Her fingers fumbled on the docking station. Juliet reached out and pushed the Speaker button.

"Okay, this is just to let you know that we've done the tests with a couple of confirmation tests, so the margin for error is less than two-tenths of one percent."

Andrew started wheeling his hand in the air. Get on with it.

"The baby's father is Andrew Martin," said the lab guy.

The lab representative said some other stuff after that, but for all Bridget cared the phone call was over. She felt a huge weight drop down in her gut, and she closed her eyes. When Andrew's hand covered hers and he pulled her back toward him. She sank against his chest and just stood there for a moment.

Andrew had a son.

He had a baby with Siobhan.

Until that moment, Bridget hadn't really known how she was going to feel. Even having seen Siobhan in the hospital, Bridget hadn't really understood that there was another human being involved. Because everyone was so sure it was Henry? Because she didn't want to believe Andrew had ever been with Siobhan?

This changed everything. The baby had to take priority in Andrew's life. It wasn't the baby's fault it had been born into such a fucked-up, stupid relationship like Andrew and Siobhan's.

When Bridget opened her eyes, Juliet was sitting there looking exceptionally pleased. "So I have a little brother, huh?"

"Juliet," Andrew said. "Don't do this. Not now."

The phone rang again moments later. Juliet picked it up again. "Hey, Gemma," she said. She raised her eyebrows at her father and waggled the phone. Andrew shook his head. "Yeah, we heard. It's pretty crazy, right? Well, I think they're kinda processing it right now, so I'll tell them to call when it's processed." She hung up. "She's crying."

Andrew kissed the top of Bridget's head. "This doesn't change anything."

"It changes everything," she said. And then she started crying.

"Well, think of it this way," Juliet said. "He's kind of like your kid. Shares half your genes, right?"

Juliet's enthusiastic naïveté made Bridget smile, even through the tears that were slipping down her cheeks.

Andrew's thumb wiped the teardrops off of Bridget's skin. "Bridget. It's okay. We are going to find a way to make this work, okay?" He smiled. "And you know, the big kid over here is actually right."

Bridget stared into Andrew's eyes, and she had to decide: Was she going to go through with this? She knew less about mothering than she did about relationships or marriage.

That wasn't the baby's fault, though.

"I guess this is the only baby we're going to have together, huh?" she said.

"We can have lots. This will be the only one that shares our genes, however. Making him both of ours is just a little more paperwork."

Bridget reached up and pulled Andrew's head down to her, giving him the biggest, most trusting kiss she could.

"It's not paperwork, it's a baby," she said. "Now let's go get your son."

~oOo~

"Daddy, you need to give the kid a normal name," Juliet said.

Andrew rechecked the paperwork he was filling out. "Hugh is a perfectly normal name."

"Can I give you some of the nicknames he's going to get on the playground? 'Huge' is just the tip of the iceberg."

"Hugh worked perfectly fine for your grandfather."

Juliet folded her arms. "I guess it's better than Dakota or Jayden."

Bridget had baby Hugh in her arms, rocking him back and forth. "I had an uncle Hugh. He was my favorite relative. I like the name a lot."

Andrew pointed the pen at Bridget and nodded. "See?"

"Do they just sleep all the time?" Bridget asked.

"Wait until he stops sleeping and starts yelling," Andrew said. "Then you'll see."

"You'll need to get a nanny," Juliet said. "I'm not babysitting. Well, not until he's three or four and I can tell him scary stories and keep him up all night feeding him chocolate."

Bridget kissed the top of Hugh's head, where he still had the "angel's kiss" mark. "Don't listen to her, Hugh."

Andrew sat down next to Bridget and took the baby from her. "They look so innocent, and then they grow up to be teenagers."

"Are we taking on too much?" Bridget asked. "The baby. Moving to San Francisco. Your divorce."

Andrew shook his head. "The only way to find out is to go ahead and do it. Do you want to slow anything down?"

Bridget looked into Andrew's eyes. Yes, everything could go crazy-stupid-wrong. God knew it had in her life, both from her own stupid mistakes and from enough maliciousness from other people. Past performance no guarantee of future results, as the advertisement said. But that was true any time, anywhere, for anyone. And there was no way she was giving up what she had now. This family, this life, this man.

"Never," she said, and she rested her forehead against his. "I love you, Andrew Martin."

"I love you, Bridget Kelly."

Juliet pumped her fists in the air. "Fiji it is!" she yelled.

~ Fin ~

I just want to say THANK YOU so much to all the readers who left such beautiful comments and who subscribed to find out what happened in this story! I really appreciate the support!

— DH