Episodes 692 – 721
Claire Fisher was worried now that her half-brother, Philip Ragan, also knew the long-held secret that the boy she raised, Travis, had been switched as an infant with Spencer Ragan. In the wake of Spencer’s car accident, Philip pressed him to move out of the fraternity house, an environment that he was convinced was feeding into Spencer’s worst impulses. When Claire found out that Philip had gone to the King’s Bay University campus to talk to Spencer, she panicked and followed him there, fearing he was about to tell Spencer the truth about his parentage. But a fire broke out in the fraternity house, and Claire became trapped. Spencer hesitated over whether to help her, and Philip shouted that he had to — because Claire was his biological mother. A shocked Spencer helped Claire.
In the aftermath, Claire tried to explain the story to Spencer, but she fainted from smoke inhalation. Philip explained the truth to Spencer. When Claire came to in the hospital, she summoned Tim and Travis so that she could tell them the truth, too, but Spencer beat her to the punch and broke the news to Travis. Tim was furious that Claire had tricked him into donating blood to Spencer without telling him the whole story. When a devastated Travis found out that Tim hadn’t known about the switch, he focused his anger on Claire. Tim and Diane were also angry with Claire when she took it upon herself to tell Samantha about the situation. Spencer rejected Claire and Tim’s efforts to reach out to him and left King’s Bay.
Three months later, after a desperate Claire hired Sarah to find out where Spencer had gone, Sarah reported that he’d been traveling around Europe. The Fishers continued to freeze out Claire for having the kept the secret for so long. Philip was about to propose to Molly Fisher when Spencer returned to town, interrupting them. Molly alerted Tim of Spencer’s return, and when Tim showed up to see his son, Spencer was angered and fled. Tim told Claire that Spencer was back and safe, but he asked her not to interfere and risk driving the young man further away. Meanwhile, Claire was unable to turn to her friend, Brent Taylor, for support, since he had been avoiding her since she’d made a drunken pass at him weeks before.
Travis’s girlfriend, Elly Vanderbilt, told him about her hopes of studying abroad during their senior year. She also tried to support Travis through his family turmoil and encouraged him to invite Claire to his 21st birthday party. Meanwhile, Spencer was confronted by bookies to whom he owed money, and when he couldn’t produce it, they savagely beat him. Spencer called Philip for help, and Philip asked Claire to come tend to Spencer’s injuries so they could avoid involving the authorities. Claire felt she had no choice but to help her son, but in the process, she missed Travis’s party, which deepened the rift between them. The next day, Elly — in a rush to make a flight to go visit her parents — asked Travis to mail her study-abroad application. He said he would but, still reeling from Claire’s seeming rejection, he threw the application in the trash instead.
Philip told Spencer that he would pay off his gambling debt, but in return, Spencer would have to move in with him and work as his assistant to work off the debt. But during a photo shoot for Objection, Spencer spent more time flirting with a model than helping Philip, leading to a blow-up between the two. Spencer quit the job, leaving Philip at the end of his rope. Spencer asked Tim if he could work at Vision Publishing again, and Tim agreed. Philip was grateful simply for Spencer to have some structure and responsibility.
As fall semester wore on, Elly began to think it was strange that she hadn’t heard back about her study-abroad application even though other students had. Samantha, who was working in the Student Affairs office, offered to use the university’s computer system to check the status of Elly’s application, but a nervous Travis urged her not to do that. Samantha eventually checked anyway and saw that the university had never received Elly’s application.
Diane Bishop began a new job managing the used bookstore that Elly’s biological father, Jimmy Trask, had taken over with his friend, Keith Huff. The men took Diane’s suggestion and renamed the shop The Blank Page. But Diane became suspicious after a strange man came into the store asking for Keith. At the same time, Diane was grappling with the question of how to proceed with the unexpected pregnancy that was a result of her drunken fling with Ryan Moriani. Diane’s sister, Natalie, overheard a phone message from the doctor’s office and realized that Diane was pregnant. When Diane went in for her appointment, she was told that the baby had no heartbeat. She confided in Tim about her miscarriage but did not disclose who the baby’s father was. Natalie made a comment to Ryan about the pregnancy, and he angrily confronted Diane for not having told him. Ryan’s mother, Paula, tried to convince him to see things from Diane’s point-of-view, while his ex-fiancée, Danielle Taylor, explained what she went through when she unexpectedly became pregnant with Elly years before.
As Diane struggled with her loss, her suspicions about The Blank Page’s operations grew. She noticed a discrepancy between the store’s sales and the bank deposits. When pressed, Keith told her that he was using the story to pass money he was making by flipping houses. Then a man named Wade came into the store and threatened Diane over an inconsistency in the bank deposit amounts. Jimmy was confronted and attacked while walking to his car, but when Diane noticed his black eye, he lied that he’d gotten into a bar fight.
Diane asked her good friend, Sarah, for advice. Sarah asked Ryan, who was well versed in organized crime, for his opinion. Though Diane and Ryan were none too pleased to have to interact, Ryan said he was sure that it was drug-related and advised Diane to quit. She did so but asked Jimmy and Keith to sign a document clearing her of any financial liability related to the store, since her name was on the bank deposits. They refused. Later, though, Keith privately offered her to cut her in on the deal. Diane realized that he was hiding a side business from Jimmy. She told Ryan that she had declined Keith’s offer but, in private, took a call from Keith confirming that they had made some sort of secret deal.
Claire’s foster daughter, Tempest, continued to have a relationship with Annie, the hockey player she had met through her job at the ice arena. Claire hoped that if it was romantic, Tempest would feel comfortable enough to confide in her. Meanwhile, Tempest offered Samantha emotional support after Samantha learned of Diane’s secret pregnancy and miscarriage.
Alex Marshall was determined not to be hung up on his ex, Trevor Brooks, who was now engaged to Liam Cassel. Things were more complicated, though, because Liam was the screenwriter hired to help Alex adapt his novel into a film. Alex accepted Molly’s offer to set him up with her assistant, Cameron Kelley. They began dating, which Alex and Liam finished their screenplay, and Liam — unaware that Trevor and Alex had slept together only months before — pressured Alex into attending his and Trevor’s wedding.
The night of the rehearsal dinner, Trevor freaked out and visited Alex. He asked if there was any chance that they could ever be together. Alex said there wasn’t, because of his friendship with Liam. But Alex did admit to his best friend, Jason Fisher, that he was still struggling with feelings for Trevor. That same night, Trevor broke things off with Liam. Heartbroken, Liam came to Alex for support and thanked him for his friendship. Alex felt terribly guilty, knowing that he’d contributed in some way to his friend’s pain. Trevor told Alex that he had never stopped loving him, while Liam decided to return to England with his parents for a while. Alex continued to date Cameron, who was upset that Alex — who was a few years his senior — never wanted to go out with Cameron and his friends. Trevor, Alex, and Jason were delighted to learn that Trevor’s sister, Lauren, had given birth to a baby girl with her husband, Josh Taylor.
Sarah Fisher moved back into the house that her late husband, Graham Colville, had bought for them, but she was haunted by visions of Graham. Her teenage daughter, Tori, called her father, Matt Gray, for help regarding Sarah’s odd behavior. Sarah initially lashed out at him but then overcompensated by giving him a present: a gift certificate to take his girlfriend, Danielle, to a B&B for a weekend.
Sarah began seeing a therapist to cope with her ongoing guilt over Graham’s death, and the therapist got her to admit that she still had feelings for Matt. When Danielle asked Matt to spend the holidays in California with her family, he declined, saying he wanted to spend them with his daughter. Danielle was understanding but was still upset by the lack of forward movement in their relationship.
Natalie Bishop was furious when her daughter’s coach, Jason Fisher, sent Bree to the Regionals competition with another coach instead of traveling himself, which caused a nervous Bree to flop in the competition. Jason admitted that he’d make an error in judgment and promised not to let it happen again. He confided in his nephew, Travis, that the real reason he sat out the competition was because he hadn’t attended one since he had skated with his late wife, Courtney, and the idea made him uneasy.
Paula Fisher was upset when Spencer declined invitations to join the Fishers for Christmas. Happily, at the Fishers’ Christmas celebration, Philip proposed to Molly, who said yes. Meanwhile, Sarah and Matt wound up locked in the attic together; the moment turned intimate, but just before they kissed, they were rescued. Claire came by to drop off a present for Paula and Bill, but when she looked through the window and saw the family celebrating, she fell out-of-place and simply left the present on the doorstep. She retreated to 322 Bar & Grill, where she met someone else spending Christmas alone: Jimmy.