KING'S BAY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

Back upstairs, Claire is still watching the elevator, consumed by a vision of Molly and Sarah getting into it again in Brent's room. Am I an idiot? I thought Molly should know, but ... maybe all I'm doing is setting up trouble.

She is about to turn and try to forget it for now when she hears her name once again -- in an entirely different but all-too-familiar voice. She freezes.

"Claire!" Ryan calls out again, a little louder this time.

Her back still to him, she grimaces a little. "What are you doing here?" she asks as she turns around.

"I've been looking for you," he says. "I was wondering if you knew how Brent Taylor is doing."

She draws in a heavy breath, and then expels it in a rush with the shortened version of the report: "He's still unconscious. He had to have some minor surgery when he was brought in, but he made it through that just fine. He's got some bad burns, especially on his hands."

"How's the prognosis looking?"

"If--when he wakes up -- he should pretty much be out of the woods then." She stops, folds her arms, and brings a hand up to her face momentarily. "I understand you and your father were in the fire, too."

"Yeah." He catches the accusatory tone invading her expression and says, "My father lives -- lived -- at the Fitch mansion. It's not exactly strange that we would be there."

"No." Bitterness curls the ends of her lips. "But it's funny how so many people around the two of you seem to wind up getting hurt."

"This fire had nothing to do with my father and me!" Ryan comes back immediately. "We were just as trapped in that house as anyone else, for God's sake!"

"So maybe something went wrong. I don't know -- I'm just saying, I really see a pattern here. First Katherine is shot--"

"You're pulling this out of nowhere! Neither of us had anything to do with Katherine's shooting!"

She narrows her eyes, as if to make it clear that both of them know he's lying. "And you two are the reason my husband is dead."

"No one told Tim to be standing out on a pier in the middle of the night," Ryan says. "Neither my father nor I were even there."

"Yeah, because you were too busy keeping me locked up in the cellar and he was too busy marrying Katherine so that he could snake his way into her bank account! There was a change of plans that night, Ryan. Nick was supposed to be on that pier meeting someone -- and I mean, come on, who the hell has a meeting on a pier on a night that happens to be both New Year's Eve and his wedding night? Someone who's up to no good, that's who!"

"Look, Claire, I'm sorry about what happened to Tim, I am. But it's not my fault that you sent him out there on some ridiculous wild goose chase and it's not my fault that he wound up dead."

The coldness of his tone knocks open something deep inside of her, releasing a flood of pain that she's managed to lock away lately. He can see the effect he's had and softens with his next words.

"I am sorry for everything you've had to go through," he says. "I know how difficult it must be ... and I wish you'd let me be there for you instead of shoving me away and tossing all the blame on me. I understand that you're angry--"

"I am angry," she hisses, conscious of where they are and the need to keep her voice down. She nearly jabs her index finger into his face as she speaks, her intensity edging up a notch with every word. "I'm furious, Ryan! Furious that the entire life Tim and I had planned was shot to hell in one night. Furious that my kids are going to grow up without their father. And furious that you and your father keep hurting more people and keep getting away with it!"

They stand frozen for a moment, her finger right up in his face. Finally Ryan takes a step backward, severing the tension a little bit. "No, this goes much deeper than that. Much deeper. What you're angry about is that your father did all those awful things for all those years right under your nose and you didn't have a clue, and once you did there wasn't a damn thing you could do to stop him. You're angry that you killed him before you ever got him to realize how horrible he was and how much he'd hurt you. That's why you're on this insane quest to pin things on my father and me that have nothing to do with us."

He pushes his way past her and sticks a rigid finger out to strike the elevator button. He doesn't look back at Claire as he waits for the elevator to arrive. When it does, he steps through the doors as they are still opening.

And then he turns back to Claire. He looks her straight in the eye. "I've got news for you, Claire: I'm not your father. And until you get past this obsession, you're the one who's just going to keep on hurting people."

The doors close, taking Ryan away. Claire stares into the cold silver doors, at the fuzzy reflection of herself.

"Damn you," she mutters before pulling together the strength to turn around and walk away.

One . Two . Three . Four . Five . Six . Seven

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