Thursday, July 12, 2007, Episode #5101

Aly spends the night with her Aunt Felicia.

Thorne drops Alexandria off at Felicia's so Aly can spend the night with her aunt Felicia and cousin Dominick. Felicia promises Aly that they'll have loads of fun, starting with some banana splits. Thorne bids Aly goodbye and tells her to be good. Aly promises to be good and tells Thorne that she loves him. As Felicia leads Thorne to the door, she sees that he's worried and reminds him that it's just one night. She then asks Thorne if he has big plans for some hot date tonight. Thorne simply thanks her again and leaves without answering.

Thorne laments the loss of his beloved Darla one year ago.

Thorne gets home to the beach house and sits on the floor and cries to a photo of Darla. He laments, "It's been a year. Aly doesn't even want to celebrate her birthday. I tell myself every morning that I have to be strong for our little girl. She needs her daddy. But it's just too damn hard!" He then cries out in anguish, "Why were you taken away from us?" He then says, "Forgive me" as he takes some prescription pills and downs them with what looks like alcohol.

Dorothy grows more concerned about Brooke, thanks to Stephanie.

Dorothy Bascomb from Child Services drops by Stephanie's office to talk about Brooke's kids. She explains that she tried to find Hope's father, even though he hasn't been in Hope's life lately. Stephanie hopes she didn't have any luck, since Deacon Sharpe is nothing but a bum and a con artist who married Brooke's older daughter Bridget and made her miserable. Dorothy asks if that marriage was before or after Deacon's involvement with Brooke. "During," Stephanie states, using that as one example of the mistakes Brooke made with her older children. She fears that Brooke's lack of a moral compass will lead Hope and R.J. to suffer, especially since Brooke earlier left her kids with an irresponsible man like Nick, who almost let Hope drown once. She then tells Dorothy that Brooke had a mental breakdown once, but before she can say any more, she gets a call about a 911 dispatch to Brooke's house. Fretting that this is just what she was afraid of, Stephanie bolts out the door, with Dorothy right behind.

Brooke holds the kids while Ridge puts out the fire.

With the smoke alarm beeping, Brooke tells a frightened Hope to hold onto R.J., instructing her kids to stay away from the flames. As Brooke tries to figure out what to do, Ridge comes in. Seeing the flames, he races over to the kids, grabbing them and bringing them over to to Brooke. Ridge then grabs a fire extinguisher to put out the flames, but the extinguisher isn't working. Brooke tells Ridge to get the one at the top of the stairs, so he runs up and returns with the other extinguisher, using it to put out the flames. Once the fire is out, Ridge asks what happened, but Brooke says she isn't sure, since she left the kids here while she went to the kitchen to make dinner. Ridge asks if she left the kids alone; Brooke repeats that she was in the kitchen and asks what he's insinuating. Ridge says he's not insinuating anything, but he's worried that her house almost burned down just hours after she left the kids home alone. He points out that this kind of behavior isn't like her. Before Brooke can respond, they hear fire sirens, so Ridge goes to tell the firemen that everything's under control.

Nick tells Taylor that he's worried about Brooke.

In Taylor's office, Nick frets that he can't find his lighter and guesses that it must have fallen out of his pocket when he was at Brooke's. He fears the kids might find it and play with it. Taylor takes that as an example of what a good father he'll be, but he thinks Stephanie would disagree given how she treated him when she dropped by Brooke's house and saw him with the kids. He tries to call Brooke to tell her about the lighter, but it goes to voice mail, so he leaves her a message about the lighter and asks her to call him.

Stephanie tears into Brooke.

As Brooke and Ridge wait for word from the firemen as to how the fire started, Hope suggests that it might have started by itself. Brooke asks Hope if she knows anything, but before Hope can reply, Stephanie and Dorothy arrive with dozens of questions about what's going on. Brooke doesn't appreciate being grilled by the two women and tells them to leave before she calls the police. Dorothy insists on finding out how the fire started. Brooke takes offense to the social worker even being here, especially when she learns that Dorothy was with Stephanie when the 911 call came in. Brooke asks if she can speak to Dorothy and Stephanie outside and leads them to the door; once the two women are outside, Brooke tells them again that this is private property and closes the door on them, locking it behind them.

The firemen than ask Ridge and Brooke to come over, since they found the cause of the fire. When they see that it's Nick's lighter, Ridge fumes that Nick would be so irresponsible as to light up in front of the kids. He thinks it's bad enough that Brooke let Nick watch the kids, especially since Nick almost let Hope drown once, but now they see that Nick was puffing away in front of the children and left his lighter behind. Hope tells her mom and Ridge not to be mad at Nick and explains how Nick used the lighter earlier to burn the edges of a map. She then owns up to how she accidentally started the fire, even though R.J. told her not to touch the lighter. Brooke assures Hope that she knows it wasn't intentional. The firemen tell Hope that it's a good thing their Mommy had more than one fire extinguisher, since they always suggest that a home have at least one fire extinguisher per floor, with one each in common areas like the kitchen or the garage. Hope promises never to play with fire again. Brooke tells the firemen that she normally has her PDA programmed to remind her to check the fire extinguishers, so she doesn't know what happened this time.

Ridge agrees to take Hope and R.J. for now.

Outside, Dorothy and Stephanie want to go back in to find out how the fire started, but Ridge comes out and tells them about how Hope found Nick's lighter. When Dorothy realizes that this is the same Nick Marone that was with the kids earlier, and the same Nick who almost let Hope drown, she becomes even more concerned. She suggests that Hope's starting a fire could have been a cry for help. Since she's been to this house twice today and has seen how traumatized Brooke seems, Dorothy thinks she has no choice but to remove those two kids from this home tonight. Ridge thinks that's a bit drastic, since it sounds like they're saying Brooke is one step away from the booby hatch. He assures Dorothy that Brooke is just going through a bad time. Dorothy agrees, which is why they have to remove those kids while Brooke gets her act together. Stephanie tells Ridge that they should trust Dorothy's professional opinion. Dorothy knows that Ridge isn't Hope's father, but since they can't find Deacon, she hopes Ridge will let Hope stay with him. Of course, Ridge states, pointing out that he loves Hope like she was his own, and he doesn't think R.J. should be separated from his sister. When one of the firemen comes out with the kids to show them the fire truck, Stephanie suggests that Ridge take the kids home now while she and Dorothy stay behind to break the news to Brooke. Ridge reluctantly agrees. Dorothy assures him that she doesn't want to break a family up, but her focus has to be on the kids.