The Green Goblin—Prologue

"Blair."

He heard his own tired voice calling her name before he was able to open his eyes. "Blair, are you okay?"

She didn't answer, and his skin crawled with fear. She'd answered before, when Margaret had given them the walkie talkies.

"I'm locked in the trunk of her car in a garage somewhere. Todd, it's cold. It's so, so cold. I don't know if I'm ever gonna get out of here."

"Close your eyes and listen to my voice. Okay, I'll keep you warm... Your voice kept me alive. You kept me alive, and I'm gonna do the same for you. I'm okay. We're gonna get through this together. We're gonna keep each other alive. Margaret's no match for us. I've been talking to you every day."

"I felt you reach out to me. That's why I stole Kevin's airtime."

"I begged you not to give up on me. I'm so glad you didn't believe that note I left you on our wedding day. I thought you were gonna hate me for sure..."

She'd had him tied to a bed for months on end. Then the car crusher. He could feel the grease and metal against his overgrown beard. There was no sound but his own sobs.

He forced his eyes open. He couldn't look at the crusher in his head any longer.

Had Margaret taken him back to the cabin?

No, this place was too clean and too bright. Someone had tried hard to make it less sterile- there were flowers and balloons and photographs his tired eyes couldn't quite bring into focus.

He couldn't move his arms, but they weren't tied down. He couldn't move his legs, but he didn't feel gunshot wounds or infection. This wasn't the clinic, and Margaret wasn't here.

So where had she dumped him?

He couldn't think of an answer, and he didn't have the strength to do much but wait for someone to give him one.

He did not expect that person to be Tea Delgado.

"Walker!" she shouted as soon as their eyes met. She threw herself almost on top of him, laughing and sobbing. "You're awake! You would wake up when I wasn't here. Dani and I have been here every day, as much of the day as we can. She sits here and does homework. I sit here and write briefs."

"Delgado," he muttered hoarsely. "Where are we?"

"Oh." She wiped her tears away hastily. "Tahiti. We thought it might be easier for you to recover if you were away from everything. Dani needed a change of scene. I guess I did, too."

"Where's Blair?"

Tea looked at him as if he'd grown a second head. "In Llanview, I guess."

"She's okay? Don't lie to me, Delgado!"

"The last time I talked to her, she was fine." Tea looked baffled, and more than a little hurt. He couldn't bring himself to care.

He groaned with exasperation. As if Blair's fate mattered to Delgado. She'd probably thrown Blair out another window if Blair had somehow miraculously gotten out of the trunk of Margaret's car. "What about Starr? You at least care about Starr!"

"Of course I love Starr!" Tea protested angrily, but he couldn't hear her. He could only hear Starr.

"Mom. She tried looking for you so hard. She knew that you didn't run out on her. She didn't believe any of the things anyone said. Why isn't Mom here? She's okay, isn't she?"

"No. No, Honey, she's not okay. Sweetie, Mom's not gonna come back. She died."

"You're lying to me. Mom's not dead! Why are you lying to me?"

"I tried to save her."

"No, you didn't! She wouldn't be dead! It's all your fault! People don't just die! You killed her!"

"Don't say that to me, please, Starr."

"We were going to be a family again. You were getting married until you made that crazy lady mad at you. You ruin everything. I believed in you. I had faith in you when everybody said you ran away from us. I knew you would never do that. I never gave up. And now you're back and you ruin everything. Mom's not here, and I am never going to see her again, and it is all your fault. I hate you and I never want to see you again!"

"Starr was here. I saw Starr!"

"Starr hasn't been here," said Tea cooly. "She's been in Paraguay. Now, Dani- she's been here."

"Why would I give a damn about-" A horrible thought occurred to him. "You're working with her, aren't you? You went crazy enough to work with her?"

"Working with who?" Tea was crying again.

"The crazy bitch who tied me to a bed for months on end! Who do you think?"

"Irene is dead. Allison is in prison. Neither one of them is working with anyone."

"Who the fuck are Irene and Allison?"

Tea backed slowly away from him. "I'll get the doctor."

When Tea reached the lounge, the first thing she did was kick over an end table.

The second thing she did was call Dani.

When Dani didn't pick up, but instead texted that she would return the call momentarily, Tea shoved the pile of magazines off the next end table.

Perhaps she shouldn't have called Dani at all. Dani might be better off thinking that nothing had changed, rather than knowing that the man she had fussed over and prayed over and built her life around had woken up and asked for Starr.

The very first thing Tea had ever promised Dani was that Dani would never feel like a second class citizen. She wouldn't have to fight for everything she got- not a good education, not acceptance from her peers, and certainly not the affections of Todd Manning. She hadn't introduced Dani to Walker (Todd, as he'd been then) until she'd been absolutely sure that Dani would never come second to Starr the way Tea had come second to Blair.

The revelation that Walker wasn't Todd had been humiliating, but the humiliation had been overwhelmed by grief as soon as Walker had been shot and nearly killed. Tea didn't care what the man called himself or who he had been before they met; she and he and Dani loved each other, and the twinge of never having won out over Blair and her brood of charming miscreants paled in comparison to that. She had put aside the destructive bitterness that colored her time with the real Todd Manning and been the better for it.

Then Walker had woken up asking for Blair and Starr. The acidic taint of his words- Blair Starr Blair Starr Blair Starr Blair Starr- as he all but ignored the woman who had been sitting by his side for months threatened to smother her. She screamed out loud just before the phone rang with Dani's promised returned call.

It wasn't until Tea opened her mouth that she was certain she planned to tell the truth. "He woke up, m'hija. He woke up again, and this time he spoke. He knew who I was."

Dani was on the other side of the island, but Tea was sure she could have heard her daughter's scream of joy without the benefit of a phone. "I'll be right there. I'll be right there."

"I have to warn you first," Tea managed to say before Dani hung up. "He's confused. He knew me, but he was very deeply confused. I think he thought he was in some other time or place. He may not remember you right away. I'm not sure he knows he isn't Todd."

"Like I care!" said Dani. "He's awake, and I know who he is. That's all that matters."

Dani was generous in a way Tea knew that she would never be. It was one of the things Tea loved about her.

As it happened, ten minutes' consciousness did wonders for Walker's memory. Even before Dani arrived, Walker began asking for her. Tea watched the father-daughter reunion happily.

Still, Tea asked Dani not to change her status on MyFace to "he's awake!" Dani agreed that the situation was tenuous, and of course she would not tempt fate.

Dani less agreeable when Tea asked her not to call Starr. "Starr is in Paraguay," Tea wheedled. "She can't get here, and if there's a setback and she feels like she missed her chance... I just couldn't do that to Estrella."

"I'd want to know," Dani insisted. "If it were me I'd want to know." Finally, she heaved an enormous sigh. "What about Jack? You have a reason I can't call him?"

"Telling Jack without telling Starr, and with Sam being too young to understand... don't you think that opens up a whole can of worms? Wouldn't it be better to let Walker come back into their lives on his own terms and his own two feet?"

Reluctantly, Dani acquiesced. Tea breathed a sigh of relief. The more time the three of them had alone as the family they were meant to be, the better.

The more time she had to prepare for battle, the better.

They spent the next months working with Walker as he progressed through physical therapy. As his body grew stronger, so too did his mind. He remembered everything about Irene and Allison; he knew that he was not Todd Manning. He even seemed to recall snatches of his early life as Walker Laurence, although he didn't much like to share those with Tea. "Raised on a farm, met my crazy brother, blah blah blah. Who cares?" he would ask. "Nothing mattered until I met you."

He sensed that Tea had been upset by his earlier confusion and he tried to joke her out of it. "When crazy women who aren't you tie me to a bed, it all blends together," he told her. "But from now on, it's only going to be you. You know I love you?"

"I love you, too," she said, but the memory of his asking for Blair still crept out of the dark corners of her mind whenever she had a moment's rest.

When Walker eventually pointed out that he was strong enough to go to Llanview and he needed to, at the very least, see Sam and Jack in person, Tea was almost relieved that the moment of the big test had arrived.

The Green Goblin—Part 1

Sam's first day of second grade was both good and bad. The good was seeing his friends he hadn't seen all summer and his new backpack (Spiderman, of course). The bad was the way Bree would not shut up.

Most of the time Bree was Sam's best cousin. They had spent the night at each other's houses at least once a week all summer. If Bree climbed a tree, Sam climbed higher. If Sam dove into the pool, Bree dove deeper. If someone had told Sam in June that Bree's desk would be right next to his on the first day of second grade in September, he would have shouted with joy.

But in June, Sam's best cousin had been Bree Brennan.

Now she was Bree Brennan Lovett.

And she spent the day introducing herself to all of their classmates, who they'd known since birth, as if Bree were the mayor (Sam knew about mayors) and none of them had ever met before.

"I'm Bree Brennan Lovett," she'd announce, sometimes even holding out her hand for the other girls to shake. "Brody Lovett adopted me. He's my daddy now."

By the tenth time Sam heard it, he found his fingers clenching around his brand new Spiderman pencil case while he imagined shoving it down Bree's throat.

Sam had been happy for Bree when Brody had adopted her. Because Sam and Bree were best cousins, Aunt Jessica (not really his aunt, but calling her that was easier) had taken Sam along to the ceremony and then to the party they'd had after. That very day, Uncle Brody (also not really Sam's uncle) pointed out that Lovett was close to Manning in the alphabet and they'd probably be next to each other if they lined up by alphabetical order at school. Bree and Sam had jumped up and danced around the restaurant. Someone had taken their picture, and Aunt Viki (Sam wasn't sure whether she was his real aunt) had framed it and put it on the table right by her front door.

Bree had wanted Brody to adopt her since she had learned the word "adopt." For as long as Sam had known her, Bree had said that she wanted Brody to be her daddy. Sometimes Aunt Jessica would hear, and tell Bree that just because her Daddy Nash was in heaven, that didn't make him not her daddy and didn't Bree remember him? Aunt Jessica would get more and more upset, and eventually Bree would say that now she remembered her Daddy Nash, then roll her eyes at Sam because she really didn't and Aunt Jessica should have realized that.

Nash Brennan wasn't around to pick Bree up from dance class or take her out for ice cream. Brody Lovett was.

Sam's Daddy Walker wasn't around to do any of those things either (not that Sam wanted to go to dance class), but he wasn't dead, like Nash Brennan. He was in Tahiti. Sam didn't see a difference between Tahiti and dead, really.

He wished Bree would get over it already.

Midway through the day Sam realized he'd forgotten his crayons and Bree shared hers, including the reddest red, which was both of their favorite. Even that didn't make him completely forgive her.

At dinner, after school was over, Mom told Sam that Bree was coming over for pizza on Sunday. Starr said that she and Travis didn't have plans that day, so couldn't Travis come over for a family night? The answer was yes, of course, and that Jack should invite a friend, too, if he wanted.

Jack grunted something around a mouthful of steak.

"Does Bree have to come over?" Sam asked.

"Did you and Bree have a fight?"

Sam shrugged at his mother, and he was glad when Jack started talking about how this year there was going to be a girl on the soccer team and some of the guys thought she should just play field hockey like other girls did in the fall, but other guys thought it would be an advantage because she was definitely really good if she wanted to risk it. Jack was the junior captain this year—he'd been varsity as a freshman, so that was no surprise—and he thought he'd bring the senior captain on Sunday night so they could work on solidarity. Uncle Todd (used to be Sam's real uncle, but not anymore) started talking about team dynamics and leadership and Sam tuned it out and drew faces in his mashed potatoes.

He didn't notice that Uncle Todd was paying attention to him instead of Jack until Uncle Todd reached across the table and added green beans to the top of Sam's mashed potato face like hair.

"What's going on, Sam?" Uncle Todd asked when Sam looked at him.

"Why don't you adopt me and be my dad like Uncle Brody did with Bree?"

For a split second, Sam thought that that was all it would take. Uncle Todd looked happy about the idea—Sam knew he did.

But then Mom and Uncle Todd told Jack to clear the table and told Starr to get Hope and Sage ready for bed while they talked to Sam alone. They told Sam the same things Aunt Jessica had always told Bree. That just because Sam's daddy wasn't with him, that didn't mean that he didn't already have a daddy. That Uncle Todd loved Sam just as much as he loved Starr and Jack and Sage even though someone else was Sam's daddy. That Sam would see his real daddy again someday.

Sam rolled his eyes the way Bree always had.

"Thank you, Todd," Blair said into the quiet darkness of their bedroom late that night.

"What for?" asked Todd. He was making his usual round of the room, checking every window to see that it was secure. He had already run downstairs twice to re-check the front door, opening it each time to make sure no one had left their keys in the lock. It made Blair sad, but she never tried to stop him. She was in favor of anything that assuaged his fears—grounded in reality or otherwise—that he might be taken from his family again.

"For being so kind to Walker's little boy."

"He's your little boy, too," Todd slipped into bed beside Blair, but not close enough to touch. "That still surprises you? That I love Sam? It's been over a year."

"I know." Blair sighed. It was true. "Sorry."

Todd sighed more heavily than Blair had. "Don't be. I know where you're coming from. There's no statute of limitations on what I did to Jack. To you."

"But I forgave you." She reached for him in the dark and was glad when his hand tightened on hers.

"It wasn't a lie," Todd said. "I love Sam as much as I love every other kid in this house. More. He never needs his diapers changed and he never comes stomping in here trying to make everyone else miserable because something went wrong in his love life."

"That'll be here before we know it."

"I'd adopt him if I could, Blair. I'd do it in a second if it were possible. He should have been mine, anyway."

"You should have been tied up and raped?"

"Your kids should be our kids no matter how they get here. Not saying I'm not partial to, say, the way Sage got here. We should have built an elevator into this place so we could re-enact it."

"We'll have to get right on that," Blair agreed.

"I'll work on it while you and Jack go horse shopping next weekend," Todd suggested. It was not the first time he had made that suggestion.

"Jack and I are not going anywhere," said Blair. "I'm not going to be away from Sage for that long." It was not the first time she had refused.

"It's one weekend. Three days at the most. Back when Jack and I bought Boreas for you, I said that the two of you could go pick out his horse together. Next weekend is going to be the only weekend he doesn't have a soccer game until the middle of winter."

"We can pick out his horse without it taking all weekend. There are farms within driving distance-"

"When Jack was Sage's age, there were days I kept him away from you that you never got back. I get that."

Starr, too, thought Blair spitefully, though she didn't say it while Todd was being so sweet. "That's not what this is about."

"Then what do you think is going to happen with Sage if you leave her with her father for three days?"

Blair didn't have an answer, although that didn't mean there wasn't one