Whisper My Name – By Ms. Goldie

Chapter 1 – Prologue

“You’re right. There’s no other way. I’ve gotta leave,” Roman said dejectedly, slamming his hand into the filing cabinet in his office at the Salem Police Department. 

Abe stared at him, his arms crossed over his chest, while he leaned on Roman’s desk, “So how are you going to tell Marlena?”

Roman looked over at his best friend, “I’m not.”

“Are you crazy? There’s no way in the world she’s going to let you walk out on her!”

“When it happens, she’s not gonna know about it,” Roman said, refusing to make eye contact with Abe.

Abe is surprised, and disappointed, in his friend, “You’d actually do that? Keep her in the dark?”

Roman finally looked up, catching the look of disbelief on Abe’s face. “Come on, Abe, don’t look at me that way! What? Do you think I’ve got a choice in the matter?” Roman said, walking away from him.

“She deserves to know the truth, Roman.”

“Believe me, I’d love to be able to tell her the truth, but if I did that, I’d be putting her in danger! Now, I’ve got to protect her! Her, and the kids!” Roman argued.

“I don’t know,” Abe said. “This doesn’t feel good to me. Roman, Marlena is proud. She’s strong, and she’s going to be angry that you made a decision of this magnitude without her. She’s not the same woman she was in 1984.”

Roman’s mind flashed to John Black, and he found himself getting angry all over again. He looked at Abe, “I know my wife, Abe. She’ll be mad at first, but she’ll get over it. She’ll understand eventually.”

“I’m not so sure buddy. I’m not sure about this at all. You haven’t even been back from Mexico two months,” Abe said.

“My mind is made up, Abe. It’s the only way to protect Marlena, and the kids,” Roman told him, but Abe wasn’t so sure. Marlena had changed in the year and a half after Roman’s supposed death. She went after Stefano on her own, she and John were chased by the KGB through the forest in West Virginia, she was kidnapped by the ISA and Orpheus, and her return last year was no less amazing. Abe stared at his friend, and realized that Roman did not know his wife at all. Roman continued speaking, “Now, Abe…I need you to follow my lead on this.”

“Roman, if you’re not in Salem…what if Raffi Torres decides to go after Marlena, or the kids, to get the leverage he wants? I mean, if you’re not here to target, he could do that,” Abe said.

“He’s not going to do that, Abe. I’m the one he wants, that’s why I have to leave. Stop arguing with me about it, because I’ve already decided. I need you to support me here,” Roman said. “Torres has Bo. He’s going to kill him. We both know that. As soon as he gets the shipment of drugs off that ship, Bo’s gone. Are you going to help me or not?”

Abe sighed, feeling a sick feeling in his gut, “Yeah, partner, I’m with you. The first thing we have to do is get in contact with the ISA.”

Roman smiled at Abe, “I’m already a step ahead of you.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

John woke suddenly, with the word Forrest on his lips. He felt like he was losing his mind. The dreams were coming more frequently, and with more detail. He lay there breathing heavily, his eyes closed, as he struggled to memorize the images that were dissipating from his mind. He felt Isabella’s hand on his chest, and they were gone. He sighed in frustration, opening his eyes, and seeing her beside him.

“Who’s Forrest?” she asked him.

John paused for a moment, trying to get himself together, “What?”

“Forrest. You said it twice, don’t you remember?”

“No.”

“Does the word Forrest mean anything to you?” she asked him.

“No,” John said with increasing frustration. The images from his dream seemed to be gone, and he’d been unable to hold onto them. “No…I don’t know why I said that,” he told her, sitting up in the bed.

“Maybe, it was part of the dream. What did you dream?” she asked him.

“You know, I don’t remember. Like I said, I don’t know what it was about,” he said quickly, throwing the covers off of himself, and moving to get out of bed. “I have to get to work.”

Isabella stared after him helplessly, finally getting off of the bed, and following John across the room. “John, you seem upset.”

“I’m not upset. I’m fine,” he told her.

“Well, I don’t believe you,” she said, reaching out, and running her fingers over his bicep. “I saw what that dream did to you.”

John felt his frustration rising. He didn’t want to discuss this with her. He said, “I’m fine. Really.”

“Why are you doing this?”

John turned to face her, “Doing what?”

“Why are you shutting me out? Come on, you promised you wouldn’t do that,” Isabella pleaded. 

He stared at her for a moment, shrugging his shirt on, “Look, I’m not shutting you out. Okay? It’s just…there’s nothing really to worry about.”

Isabella reached up, touching his face gently, “Tell me what you’re thinking, and then I won’t worry.”

He looks down momentarily, deciding to tell her what he knew she wanted to hear from him. He didn’t know why he was lying to her. Maybe it was to get her to stop asking questions. Maybe it was because the guilt of knowing what she wanted, versus what he wanted was eating away at him. “I’m thinking I oughta maybe just forget about my past. Just…let it remain a mystery.”

He saw the hope light up her eyes when she asked him, “Do you honestly mean that?”

John paused before saying, “Yeah…yeah, I’d like nothing better than to pretend that…I didn’t have any past to unravel.”

“Then don’t shut me out,” Isabella said. “Don’t let the past come between us. We need each other too much right now for that.”

John looked at her for a moment, “The past…you mean Marlena?”

Isabella was taken aback momentarily, “No. No, that’s not what I meant. I was just thinking that we need to focus on our future…together…getting married, maybe having children someday. Let the past go.”

“But my past is Marlena, the kids…”

“Marlena is married to Roman, John…and the kids are—”

“—Roman’s too, right?” John said without any emotion. “I gotta get to work. I’ll see you later, Izzy B.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Abe arrived to see Marlena after she called, and asked him to come by. As much as he wanted to be a friend to both of them, Abe knew that what Roman was about to do was very divisive. Helping Roman, meant lying to Marlena, and telling Marlena meant alienating Roman. Neither position was one he wanted to take. He followed Marlena into the living room, and sat on the couch beside her. She starts to make small talk, but Abe reaches out, touching her arm softly, “Marlena…you don’t have to pretend with me.”

She looks at him, and says softly, “Okay.”

“I know you’re worried about Bo.”

“Yes, I’m worried about Bo. I’m worried about Roman, too,” she said.

“Why?”
Marlena pauses, looking at the floor for a moment, before looking back at Abe, “Because he’s so…distant. I know him so well, and I can tell when he’s keeping something from me.”

Abe knew he was going to have to lie to her, and he had a moment of intense anger towards Roman for putting him in this predicament, “Maybe he’s just preoccupied with Bo. You know how focused he is—”

“—No, I know, but I think it’s something more than that, this time.”

“Maybe you’re over analyzing?”

“No…I don’t think so. I make a habit of not bringing my work home, so I don’t tend to treat my family as my patients.”

Abe said softly, “All I know is that he cares for you, and those kids more than anything else in this world.”

“I know. I know. As long as I know nothing will separate us…I don’t have to worry,” Marlena said, studying Abe. “Right?”

Smiling with reassurance, Abe said, “Right.”

Later, as Abe left her house, she knew all was not right, but she couldn’t specifically pinpoint what was wrong.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Abe found John on the pier. He found that he was at war with himself. Marlena was going to need support when Roman left her, and he would leave her. No amount of trying to reason with Roman would change his mind. Marlena would lose all faith in him, and her trust, what little she had built in the last month and a half, would be shattered. Abe couldn’t be responsible for letting that happen, but he couldn’t ‘out’ Roman’s plan either, and so he found himself approaching John on the pier. Pasting a smile on his face, as he descended the stairs, Abe said, “John!”

“Hey, Carver!” John said, happy to see him. “What the hell are you doing here? It’s good to see you again, man!”

Abe hugged John tightly, “It’s good to see you again, buddy! I guess you heard I was back in town again helping on Bo’s case?”

“Yeah, everybody really appreciates it. So what the hell are you doing here? I heard Torres’ shipment is supposed to be coming in?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, not for a little while yet. I came here to see you,” Abe said with a big smile, smacking John on his arm. “Keep you posted on the situation.”

“Yeah, so what’s happening? Anything you can tell me?”

“No, nothing yet…the ISA have sort of closed ranks. Nobody can get through, not even Shane,” Abe told him. 

“What the hell’s the matter with them? I thought…Commander…Brady had…a lead on something?” John asked, with a sad weight in his belly. He used to be Roman Brady, and not being involved in this was difficult for him to handle, especially since he still felt like Bo was his brother, and he knew the Brady’s were suffering. John turned, picking up his discarded clipboard, and said, “You know, I wish I could help out right now, but I think my involvement might do more harm, then good, you know?”

“Well, that’s why I stopped by…”

John turned to Abe, noting a change in the man’s tone that indicated a slight change in subject, “What’s going on?”

“If I talk to you about this John, if I tell you what I’m about to tell you…I need your strictest confidence,” Abe said, stepping closer.

“Yeah, yeah, Abe, anything.”

“Roman’s been getting threats from Raffi Torres—”

“—Abe! Has he told anyone?” John asked, and then immediately thought of Marlena and the kids. “Does Marlena know, Abe? Please tell me he told Doc!”

“He thinks he needs to leave town to protect her, and the children…”

John knew right then, why Abe was telling him this, “He’s not planning to tell her, is he? He’s just going to fucking leave town without telling her? Run out on her, and the kids?”

“He doesn’t see it that way, John. He thinks it’s the only way to protect them,” Abe said, trying to find some sort of defense for what Roman was about to do.

“You’re not going to tell her either, are you?” John accused.

Abe sighed heavily, “When we were in Mexico…Marlena was so distraught that she had to make a choice between the two of you, and I was able to love you both. Did you know that? But here I am caught between my friendship with Roman, and my friendship with Marlena. So I need you to help me out here, even if you disagree with what Roman’s doing…do this for me.”

“Damn straight I disagree with what he’s doing! He came back Abe! He came back! He took my job, my family, my house, and my wi— he took everything from me, and now he’s going to leave it all? What if Torres decides that since Roman’s gone, Marlena and the children are good targets? Has he even considered that?” John asked Abe, in anger.

“I tried. I tried to convince him not do this, or at least…at least tell Marlena, but he thinks if he tells her, she’ll talk him out of it,” Abe told him.

“He’s going to destroy her, Abe. She’s never going to trust him again after this. You know what he did after the twins were born! They were barely a month old, and he left on an ISA mission, and was missing for seven years! We haven’t been back from Mexico two months, and he’s leaving again? She won’t forgive him, Abe.”

“I need you to promise me, John. You’ll be there for her, and the kids. I can’t change his mind, and I can’t tell Marlena without undermining the whole operation. Please? Can you do that for me, buddy?” Abe was practically pleading.

John watched Abe for a moment, “I would never leave her to deal with this on her own. I couldn’t. I lo—care about her too much. You know that.”

Abe knew better than most how John and Marlena felt about each other, “That’s why I’m trusting you with this, partner, because when he leaves her…and he will leave, she’s going to call you first,” Abe said.

“You don’t know that—”

“I do, John. You didn’t see her face in Mexico when she spoke to me. She’s going to call you first, and I need you to promise me…you’ll drop everything and get to her,” Abe said softly.

John could only imagine the way Abe felt in that moment, so he told him, “I will. Doc’s my family. Those kids are my family. I promise, Abraham. I won’t let her down.”

Chapter 2

Marlena called John in a panic three days later. He was sitting with Isabella when he answered his telephone, “Hello?”

“John! John! It’s me,” Marlena said into the receiver. John’s stomach sank, he could hear it in her voice, the loss, the panic.

“Hey, Doc,” John said, knowing exactly why she was calling. 

“John, please! You’ve got to help me! He’s gone! Roman’s gone!” she cried. “He thinks he protecting us, but he’s not! You’ve got to stop him.”

“Stop him? You don’t even know where he is,” John said gently, hoping to somehow slow her down.

“You must know! You must know! Think, John! Just think! You were Roman, for heavens sake! You have his memories, you have his history, you do know!” John’s heart was hurting just from the pain in her voice. He saw Isabella watching him, and he rubbed his forehead. Marlena’s voice continued frantically, “You do know! Just stop, and think! If anybody can find him, you can! If anybody can stop him from doing this, you can!”

John looks over at Isabella, and then says to Marlena, “All right, Doc. Air travel is the fastest way out of town. My guess would be, he’s at Salem International.”

“The airport!”

“I’m sure he’s got something cooking with the ISA. Yeah, uh, he’s got a private jet, or something. I’m sure of it.”

“Okay,” she said crying harder. “I’m going to go now!”

“Doc, no. You can’t drive when you’re this upset,” John tells her. Looking at Isabella again, John sighs, “I’m coming over. I’ll take you.”

“Hurry! Please, hurry,” she said in a panic. “Just, hurry!”

“I’m on my way,” he said before hanging up. He saw the disappointment on Isabella’s face, and the simmering frustration, but he had given Abe his word, and he couldn’t leave Marlena alone in this much pain. The anguish in Marlena’s voice, had a part of him, the part that loved her more than anything in the world, screaming for him to go after her. “Izzy B…Roman left Marlena, to go find Bo. She’s desperate to stop him. I’m going to go pick her up, and check out the airport.”

“I heard,” Isabella replied. “She had to call you?”

John didn’t respond, he just went to get his coat, realizing that Abe was right. Marlena had called him first. “She called me because I have Roman’s memories. She thinks I could track him down.”

“I see,” was all she said in response.

John knew she was angry, and he knew that he was supposed to be trying to make a new life, and move on. A life without Marlena, and yet when she called, he was willing to drop everything, and go to her. “Look, this won’t take long. We’re just going to check out the airport, and see if he’s there. I’ll be back soon,” he said, leaning over to kiss her on the forehead.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

When John and Marlena arrived at the airport, Roman was already gone. John watched helplessly as Marlena started crying, and then ran to the ticket counter asking for information on flights. In that instant, he hated Roman Brady more than anyone in the world. It was obvious that she was devastated. It hurt John to see her in this much pain, and it hurt John to know that her pain was over losing Roman. He saw Abe round the corner, and approach Marlena, and he decided that he wouldn’t step in. He would allow Marlena to feel, how ever she felt about all of this, and Abe would have to take the fall-out that came with it. In John’s mind Roman’s decision to abandon his family was unacceptable, and Abe supporting it was nearly as bad.

“Marlena,” Abe says quietly, knowing the wrath he is about to face. She looks at him with tear stained cheeks, as he says, “It’s no use.”

She looks at Abe, and whispers slowly, with disbelief, “You knew. You knew what he was going to do. That’s why you’re here.” She can’t believe that Abe, someone she considered one her dearest friends, has been a part of this, and kept it from her.

“Yes,” Abe replied. The room was loud, filled with the sounds of travelers, but Marlena’s whisper carried to him like the boom of a cannon. 

“Then he’s gone? He’s really gone?” she asks him, still in shock that any of this was happening.

“Yes, he is,” Abe said in defeat, knowing that he played a part in her current state of despair.

“And he’s not coming back is he?” she asks him.

“No. No, he’s not. I’m so sorry, Marlena. I don’t—I don’t even know how to tell you how sorry I am!” Abe reaches towards her, and she smacks his arm away harshly, turning away from him. Abe tries to get her to understand, “Marlena, Roman felt like he didn’t have a choice. He felt like this was the only thing he could do. He didn’t want to do this…he had to.”

“No,” she said, with rage simmering under the surface. “No, he didn’t.”

Abe tried again, “If you’d just understand that—”

“—I don’t understand! And don’t you dare defend him to me!” Marlena said, finally allowing her rage to explode from her. 

“I’m telling you the truth. He did what he had to do. He did it for you—”

“—Don’t you say he did this for my sake! Don’t you dare say that! It’s a lie, and I’m not buying it!”

“Why else would he go? Come on! You know he would give up his life to keep you safe!” Abe was begging her to understand, begging her to try, and see Roman’s perspective but it wasn’t working.

“Then maybe he did! He gave up his life with his family. His life with me! Just to keep us safe!” Marlena screamed at him.

“I just really wish I could make you understand thi—”

“—well you can’t!” she interrupted. 

Abe reaches for her again, and she pulls away roughly, “Don’t you touch me, Abe!”

“Marlena, there’s nothing you can do. He’s gone,” Abe said.

John stepped closer, allowing her to sense his presence behind her before he touched her softly on her shoulder, sliding his hand down to twine his fingers with hers, “C’mon, Doc, let me take you home.”

She looked up at John with tear filled eyes, “He left me. He left us…again.”

John glanced at Abe, and said, “He’s not coming back?”

“John, he can’t,” Abe told him. “He’s a marked man.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The car ride back to Marlena’s house was unnaturally quiet. John glanced over at her periodically, and she continued to stare out the window in silence, as hot, wet, tears tracked over the soft skin of her cheeks. “Doc? Are you okay?” John asked her softly.

“I’m not going to cry over him. I’m not going to let myself cry over that man,” she said clearly, wiping at her eyes roughly, even though her face was wet with tears. 

“You cry, Doc. It’s okay,” he said, reaching for her hand, after he parked the car in front of her house. 

Marlena stared at John’s hand, spreading out his fingers, and lining hers up with his. As she studied his fingers, she began to speak softly, “He left us…I can’t—I need to go…” 

She opened the car door, and moved to get out, with John following her, “Doc…are you okay?”

She looked at him softly, as he stepped around the car towards her, “No. No, I’m not okay.”

“Do you want me to pick up the twinners, and bring them home?” he asked her gently.

“I don’t think I can—oh, G-d! Why did he do this, John?”

“I think, Doc, he honestly believes he’s protecting you.”

“From what?” she cried, digging in her purse and pulling out her house keys.

“He’d been getting threats…from Torres. Threats against him, possibly you. He thinks that by removing himself from the equation, he’s protecting you,” John told her, as he followed her in the house.

Marlena tossed her purse on the table, and hung up her coat, turning to face John. “He was wrong, you know? He was dead wrong,” she said. “He did something that he vowed he would never do…he walked out. There’s no excuse.”

“He thinks he’s protecting you—”

“I don’t need a hero! I needed him, but he left us. He left the children, and he left me. He chose his job over us! I don’t even care about what his reasons were anymore. The fact is, he’s gone. My children have no father, and I have no husband, but by G-d he’s got his job, doesn’t he?” she said, as she started crying again. Wiping her tears away quickly with the back of her hand she says, “He’s out there, day and night, protecting the world, but now he’s doing it without his family, without his wife, without his children…”

“Doc,” John said, reaching for her, and pulling her in. “Let it out. Rage. Scream. Cry. Throw things, but don’t bottle it up.” Her scent surrounded him, and John marveled how just the smell of her perfume had his body reacting. This was the first time they’d touched each other since they said good bye in Mexico, and the feeling of her against him was so nostalgic, that he found himself holding her tighter, and smelling her hair.

Marlena tried to control her breathing, “What Roman did…he did knowingly, and willingly, and I can’t forgive him for that.” Her head tipped back to look at John, and her eyes blazed with anger, as she said, “I won’t.”

His hands, smoothed over the curve of her spine. He wished there was some way he could take this from her. Some way that he could take away the obvious feelings of loss and abandonment she had, but John knew that, ultimately, all he could do was allow her to go through this, and support her while she did. Isabella was not going to be happy with this turn of events. Even though she hadn’t mentioned it, John knew Isabella was relieved that John and Marlena were barely in contact over the last month and a half. 

The telephone rang, and Marlena reluctantly pulled away from John, walking to answer the phone. “Brady residence,” she said softly.

There was a long pause on the end of the line before someone spoke, “Roman may be gone, but I always get what I want, Mrs. Brady. Keep those babies safe.” There was a click, and a dial tone. Marlena continued to stare at the receiver in her hand. 

John watched as Marlena’s face slowly changed from confusion to abject fear, “Doc? Doc, who was that?”

Marlena collapsed to the floor with a deep moan, trying to process what had just happened. Roman leaving to protect them had done absolutely nothing. He had gone, and left his family open to violence. 

“Doc, honey,” John said, kneeling before her. “Who was on the phone?”

“Raffi Torres,” she whispered. “Roman left, and all he succeeded in doing was angering the one person he claimed to be protecting us from!”

John felt panic rising up in him, “What did he say? Word for word, Doc. Tell me what he said!”

“He said: ‘Roman may be gone, but I always get what I want, Mrs. Brady…” she looked up at John, and said so softly it was barely audible, “… ‘keep those babies safe’.”

Chapter 3

John’s mind went immediately into protection mode. Raffi Torres was coming after Marlena and the kids. Roman’s plan to protect them had failed miserably. He’d instead left them open to being targeted by an organized crime boss intent on getting his drug shipment through Salem. As he silently cursed Roman Brady, he gripped Marlena’s shoulders tightly, looking directly into her eyes, and said, “Pack a bag. Now.” He stands up, pulling Marlena to her feet, “A week at least. Go!”

Marlena stared at John for barely a split second before she turned, and ran up the stairs taking them two at a time. In a blind panic she pulled a bag out of Sami’s closet, and began packing for the little girl, remembering at the last minute to throw in two Barbies, and a stuffed rabbit. She did the same in Eric’s room, with very little thought, except that she needed to move as quickly as possible, because Torres wanted her family dead. In her own room, she glanced around sadly for the briefest moment, and started to randomly throw clothing into a bag, along with toiletries.

Downstairs, John picked up the phone, dialing Victor Kiriakis. When Victor answered John said, “Victor, I need to borrow some money. A lot of money, and I need you not to ask me any questions. Can you do that?”

Victor was confused about the odd request, but willing to comply, “Well, sure John, but—”

“—The less you know the better. I need it soon. Tonight,” John said quickly.

“Does this have to do with Torres? Did Roman leave town?”

John sighed, “Yeah…look, Torres is coming after Doc, and the kids. Can you help me?”

“Isabella?” Victor asked, concerned about how this would affect his daughter.

“I need you to watch out for her,” was all John said in return.

Victor had a sinking feeling that Isabella’s whole relationship with John Black was about to go sideways, but he also had this deep rooted sense of guilt over his past dealings with John. This was his chance to make that right, “Give me an hour, and then meet me on Pier 29.”

“Can you bring it to the fish market?” John asked him. “I’m heading there to pick up the kids, and I’d rather handle everything at once.”

“I can,” Victor said, before hanging up.

John heard the line go dead at the same time that Marlena came down the stairs carrying three bags, one for her, and one for each of the twins. John dialed Carrie’s apartment next.

“Hello?” Carrie answered.

“Hey, Punkin’,” John said, staring at Marlena, and trying to sound relaxed. “I need you to do something for me, and not ask any questions. Can you do that?”

“Sure Dad.”

“I need you to pack a bag, a week at least, and meet me at the fish market. Do it now, and meet me there, as soon as you can.”

Carrie heard the urgency in his voice, and felt a sense of urgency rising up in her. Glancing at the clock she noticed that it was already past 9:00 pm. There was no way he would ask her to do this, unless he had a very valid reason, “Yes. I’ll do it now, Daddy.”

“Thank you, Carrie. Thank you, for doing this,” John said. After hanging up, he walked briskly past Marlena and took off running up the stairs.

Marlena ran after him, “John, what are you doing?” She followed him into Sami’s room, and watched in shock as he took a side panel out of Sami’s dollhouse, and withdrew a large manila envelope. “John!”

After ruffling through the contents, and ensuring that everything was there, he reached for Marlena’s hand as he left the room, pulling her behind him quickly, and descending the stairs at a run. Marlena barely had time to throw on her coat, while John took all three bags, and headed to his car. 

Once they were on the road, Marlena turned to him, and asked him, “John? What’s in the envelope?”

John tossed it onto her lap, with his wallet, and said, “Switch out the ID’s, Doc.”

Marlena opened the envelope and stared in astonishment at the documents before her, birth certificates, driver’s licenses, passports. “John…how long have you had these?”

“For me and the kids? A few years…ever since the ISA went bad. I had yours done almost as soon as you came back,” he responded, keeping his eyes on the road, and remembering when Marlena returned in 1991. He had thought about it later, that he had gotten documents for Marlena as soon as she returned, but never even considered getting them for Isabella. It wasn’t something he had time to consider now. 

“Were you ever going to tell me they were there?” she asked him softly.

“Maybe? Eventually? I don’t know, Doc. The past few months…” his voice trailed off, unsure of what he’d intended to say.

“What about Isabella?” she asked him quietly. “You can’t just disappear with me, and the kids, John. It’ll break her heart.”

“We don’t have time to stop and discuss it, Doc. Victor will watch out for her. I already spoke with him.”

“Victor?” She asked him, confused over why he was involved.

John didn’t respond to the question in her voice. They would have time for that later. He pulled up in front of the fish market in record time. He turned to Marlena, saying, “Did you switch out the ID’s?”

“Yes,” she said quietly, handing him his wallet. Their fingers brushed, and she looked at him quickly, as a shiver ran through her. 

John felt it, as her hazel eyes held his. They didn’t have time for this, so he said quickly, “Our new names are Charles and Maisie Wright. Sami is Violet, Eric is Seth, and Carrie is Kaci, okay?”

“Yes,” Marlena said, feeling the enormity of what they were about to do. She stared at John for a moment longer, realizing that she was willing to follow him anywhere, because she trusted him with her life. She trusted him with her children’s lives. “Charles, Maisie, Seth, Violet, Kaci.”

John touched her face, tipping it up so she could look at him, “We’ll make it a game, Doc, if we can. I don’t want to frighten the twinners. Carrie’s an adult. I’m going to be up front with her about all of this. I promised her I would, when she returned to Salem. I can’t go back on that promise.”

Marlena said, “It’s going to hurt her…that Roman left. She’s already suffered so much, John.”

“She’s got us, and we’ll get her through this, we will, but right now the first priority is to get out of Salem,” John said softly. Marlena’s eyes had him trapped, and he found himself unable to look away.

“Where are we going?” she whispered.

“Colorado.”

Marlena gasped, “Where?”

“The mountains. I’ve got a place there. I got it years ago,” he said.

Marlena knew there was a story there, but she would have to be patient. “John, you’re beginning to sound like a conspiracy theorist,” Marlena said, with the first smile she’d had in hours.

“Our lives aren’t exactly normal, pretty lady,” John said, smiling back at her. He saw Carrie arrive, and start walking towards the car with her bag. He told Marlena, “We need to get in and out, as quickly as possible. With as few questions as possible.”

“Yes. Yes. Okay, let’s go,” she said unbuckling her seatbelt. 

John reached for her hand, stopping her movement, “I’m going to contact Shane. I won’t let anyone hurt you, or the children. You trust me?”

“More than anyone I know,” she whispered.

“Okay, let’s go,” John said, opening his car door and stepping out of the vehicle. Looking at Carrie, he said, “Let’s put your bag in the trunk.”

“What’s going on Da—John?”

“I can explain everything once we’re on the plane. Right now, we got to get the twinners, and I’m hoping that Vic—”

“I’m here, John,” Victor said, stepping out of the shadows. 

“Hey, Doc? Can you and Carrie go in, and get the twinners?” Marlena nods her head, staring at John with wide eyes. “Remember, as few questions as possible” he told her. She nods her head again, and she and Carrie move quickly to enter the Brady Fish Market.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Victor says from behind him.

“He’s already got Bo, Victor,” John said, turning to Victor. “Roman was getting threats from Torres. He thought if he left, they’d be safe. Torres called Doc tonight. He’s not getting my family.”

Victor stared at John for a moment. He knew what it felt like to covet another man’s wife, and that type of longing didn’t go away easily. “I understand,” he said, handing John a black duffle bag. “There’s $200,000 in there. If you need more contact me.”

“Victor, that’s too much.”

“You said you needed money. There it is,” Victor told him. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, John. I’m only now realizing how many.”

John knew that Victor was referring to his time as The Pawn, and so he simply nodded his recognition for the gesture. “Can you watch over Isabella?”

“You know I will.”

“I can’t have her in danger, Victor. The more she knows the more danger she’s in. Torres already has Bo, Roman’s gone, and now he’s threatening Marlena and the kids. I can’t have him going after Isabella, too.”

“It’s going to hurt her,” Victor said matter of factly.

“I know. G-d, I know,” John said, running his fingers through his hair. “I’m going to try, and get in contact with Shane, and hopefully get this figured out quickly.”

“I hope so. Good luck, John,” Victor said, before turning, and walking away.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Caroline answered the door, surprised to see Marlena and Carrie standing there at nearly 10:00 pm. “Marlena!”
“I’m sorry I’m late Caroline. I had some car trouble, and I wasn’t able to get to the phone,” Marlena said breathlessly.

“Oh! You know you could have just left them here for the night,” Caroline told her with a smile.

“Are they asleep?”

“No, we just finished a movie and popcorn. They are still fairly wound up.”

Carrie pasted a smile on her face, as she walked past her grandmother, “Oh, good! I was hoping to have a sleep over with them at the house.”

Marlena marveled at Carrie’s ability to play along, and watched as the young woman went into the recesses of the house to retrieve her siblings. Caroline touched Marlena’s arm gently, “I heard that Roman left to search for Bo.”

“Roman left for a couple reasons. I’m sure one of them was to search for Bo,” Marlena replied softly.

“He’ll be back, Marlena. He will. He would never leave you, and the children. You know that,” Caroline said softly.

“Do I? I don’t know that I do, Caroline. How many times had he put his job before me and the children?” Marlena asked her with steel in her voice.

“I know it seems that way, but he’ll be back.”

Even if he did return, Marlena wasn’t certain what he would be returning to. She refused to invest her heart in him again, if he treated it so carelessly. She had given him this chance, after him being a prisoner of Stefano for seven years. She had allowed him back into their lives, and he had chosen his job over them for the second time. Roman may or may not return, but Marlena didn’t think he would be returning to her. 

Carrie came down the stairs, with an excited Sami and Eric. They were dressed, and ready to go. Marlena kneeled down, kissing each of them. “Tell your Grandma thank you, and let’s get going,” Marlena told them.

“Thank you, Grandma!” Sami said. “That movie was great!”

“Yeah!” Eric seconded. “I want to search for pirate treasure!”

“But, not be chased by bad guys. I don’t ever want to be chased by bad guys,” Sami said with a scary face, and a shiver.

Carrie looked at Marlena when Sami made her last statement. Marlena nodded almost imperceptibly, and then Carrie took the twins, and left to go pile into the car. Before Marlena could follow, Caroline said gently, “I’ll call you tomorrow, Marlena. Maybe we can talk?”

“Sure, Caroline. That will be fine,” Marlena responded, knowing that if Caroline called, she and the children would be nowhere to be found.

  Outside, the twins were excited to see John waiting in the car. Sami climbed into the backseat, yelling, “Daddy!”

“We’re supposed to call him John now,” Eric said watching John.

“I don’t care!” Sami said angrily. “I don’t even like Mr. Patrick, Eric! He’s bossy, and grumpy.”

John noticed that Eric became very quiet. He turned around more fully, so that he could look Eric in the eyes, “You know what, slugger? We’re going to go on a trip for a few days, so why don’t we just play a game?”

“A game?” Eric asked him.

“I love games!” Sami said excitedly, “What kind of game?”

“It’s a name game. Carrie’s name is going to be Kaci. Sami’s name can be Violet, and I think Eric’s name can be Seth,” John said.

“Do we get a prize?” Eric asked him, feeling himself get a little excited. He loved games, and loved winning.

“Of course there’s a prize! What kind of game would it be without a prize?” John asked him in mock outrage.

“What’s your name?” Sami asked John.

“Well you three can call me Daddy, since you already have to remember each other’s names…but your mommy has to call me Charles,” John says with a laugh.

“Charles?” Eric says with a laugh. “That’s an old man name! What’s Mama’s name?”

John leaned closer, and whispered, “Maisie.”

Sami burst into hysterical laughter, “Maisie! That is an old lady name! This is going to be so much fun! We gotta do it for the whole trip?”

“We sure do,” John said, ruffling her hair.

“What’s the prize?” Eric asked, his eyes lighting up.

“A trip to Hawai’i,” John said. All three of the kids in the backseat stared at him in awe, as if he had just offered them the world on a platter.

Carrie whispered, “Dad? Really?”

“Absolutely, Punkin’.”

That’s when Carrie knew that whatever was happening, whatever was going on, was much deeper than an impromptu family trip. Fake names, leaving in the night, and promises of a trip to Hawai’i to seal the deal? She felt fear grow in deep in her belly, but one thing Carrie was certain of…John would give his life for them. 

She’d returned to Salem so angry by the turn of events after her fathers return. She remembered her initial inability to accept John as Roman, and how he had worked so hard to prove himself to her. Their bond had grown so strong that she’d though nothing could break it, until Anna told her that Roman…the real Roman was back. She’d felt her trust shattered into a million agonizing shards, and upon her return, her anger at John was evident. He had been working to gain it back, to reassure her of his love, even if he wasn’t her biological father. 

Marlena opened the door to the car, and got inside with a look of sadness on her face. John smiled, and said to the twins, “Seth? Violet? You two ready to go?”

Eric started laughing, “We sure are Dad.”

“Yeah, Dad,” Sami said.

John grabbed Marlena’s hand, whispering, “Let the game begin. Let’s go Maisie!”

“That’s a horrible name, John,” Marlena said with a smile.

Sami jumped on her immediately, laughing “Mama lost already!”

John smacked his forehead dramatically, while Eric and Sami giggled in the backseat. “Listen, Maisie,” John said to Marlena. “The point of the game is to remember the names!”

“I’m sorry,” Marlena said with a wry grin. “When I hear the name Charles, I think of an old English sailor who has a dog named Lola.”

John felt a shiver run through his body, as he stared into Marlena’s hazel eyes, “You’ll get used to it, pretty lady.” The children started chatting away excitedly in the back, and John reached for Marlena’s hand, running his thumb over her palm, and whispered, “You okay, Doc?”

“Do I have a choice?” she asked him quietly.

“Not really, and I’m sorry for that,” he told her. “But know this…I will not let anything happen to you, or the children. I promise you that.”

She believed him with everything she had. “I know,” she said softly, and then with a grin she said, “Let’s get going, Sailor.”

John didn’t know how long they were going to be hiding out, but he did know that living in close confines with Marlena and the child was going to be difficult, and losing them again, just might break his heart forever.

Chapter 4

John settled into the airplane seat next to Marlena, after a trip to the restroom, and checking on Carrie and the twins, who were in the row behind them. Marlena seemed exhausted, and ready to collapse. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what was going on in her mind right now. He looked at her, his face lined with concern, “I checked on the kids. They’re asleep.”

“That’s good,” Marlena said absently, glancing at him and then turning back to the window.

“I think we need to talk, Doc,” John said softly, touching her arm to get her attention. He felt her muscles tense under his fingers, and he withdrew his hand.  

“Yeah, I guess we do,” Marlena told him. She turned her face to his, and was immediately caught up in his deep indigo eyes. She was momentarily struck speechless, until she managed to find her voice and say, “I have a question…”

“Shoot,” he said, knowing that she probably had a million questions. Of course, she would. He’d been hiding counterfeit documents in Sami’s dollhouse. He owned a fairly large piece of property in the mountains of Colorado, that no one knew anything about. There were going to be questions.

“How did you know how to fake documents? You did it when you first came to Salem, too. I remember, they were so convincing,” Marlena said. 

“I know how to do a lot of things I shouldn’t know how to do,” he told her with a deep sigh, settling back in his seat, and allowing his head to fall back. Turning his head towards her he said, “Forging documents is just one of those things. My life before I came to Salem is a blur, but before Roman came back, I started having new memories. I assumed, at the time, that they were memories from my life as Roman that were simply returning. It’s hard to distinguish when you’re an amnesiac, but after Roman came home, I realized that the memories I was having were actually my own, separate from Roman.”

“I never knew,” she said quietly.

“I didn’t realize it completely, until Mexico. Once I saw Stefano alive, and realized that I was still a Pawn…that’s when I knew that those returning memories were mine, and not Roman’s. I have dreams all of the time, Doc. I sometimes feel as if I’ve lived nine lives. Nothing is chronological, some of its endearing…most of its violent.”

“What have you remembered?” she asked him. The psychiatrist in her was interested in his mind, and his experiences with his memories, because she was naturally analytical, but the woman in her, the one who still loved him, worried about him, and how remembering his past might affect him in the long term. 

“I’ve seen myself as a child, a priest, a surgeon…and a soldier for hire. At first, I thought the different personas, and the alias’s I’d remembered, were part of the work that Roman might have done for the ISA.  The worst part was, that after we thought you’d died…you were just gone…I didn’t have you. The first time, when we thought you’d died in the house explosion. I barely had time to grapple with that loss, when Orpheus showed me a video of you…alive.” John reached for her hand, threading his fingers through hers, desperate for her touch in any form he could get it, because talking about that time caused a deep ache in him. “I was convinced, so fucking convinced, that I was going to find you, and bring you home, only to seemingly, watch as your plane crashed into the ocean. I was lost after that, Doc. I was having memories that I couldn’t explain, and I didn’t feel safe enough to tell anyone about any of it. I still don’t know who I am, but I know that I possess a very unique skill set that can’t be explained.”

She looked at him for a moment, overwhelmed by all of the information he’d just told her, before saying, “Have you talked to Isabella about it?”

“No. G-d, no,” John said. Marlena watched his reaction to her question with open curiosity, not sure why he would be going through this on his own, and shutting out his main support system. John’s next words, answered her question. “Isabella…she—she’d rather that I give up this search for my past. You’re the only person—the only person, that I have ever discussed any of this with, in any sort of depth,” he told her.

Marlena glanced down at their interwoven fingers, feeling the need to be closer to him, filling her soul. She couldn’t allow herself to even think those sorts of things when she was so scared about Torres, and hurt by what Roman had done. She knew she was vulnerable, and John was such a comfort to her. He always had been. Forcing herself to stay on topic, Marlena asked him, “John? The place in Colorado…how did you afford that?”

He hesitated before answering her, but ultimately decided that the only way this was going to work was by being completely honest. He leaned closer, so their conversation couldn’t potentially be overheard, and said softly, “I have money…I have accounts. Three that I’ve found so far. Off shore accounts, with hundreds of thousands of dollars in each one. I’m sure there are more, but—”

“—John, how?” she asked him in shock.

“I started having memory flashes. I would have a flash of a bank account number, or the name of a bank. At first I would just remember it, store the information away in the back of my mind, but the impressions started coming so often that I needed a way to try and organize them,” he told her. “I started keeping a notebook about six months after Orpheus took you. Every time I remembered something, I wrote it down, and eventually bits and pieces of information started creating a much bigger picture. I discovered the first bank account near the time that I realized the ISA could no longer be trusted. And, I’ll admit, the first account, in the Cayman Islands…the amount of money was a huge surprise, but by then the ISA was dirty, and I needed a plan to keep my family safe. I didn’t know who I could trust at that point,” he told her. “I emptied the account, and moved the money.”

“Why? I mean, that seems so out of character for you. I don’t understand what might have been going through your mind. You found the account…did it have Roman’s name on it?” she asked him.

“No, an alias. Honestly, Doc, I can’t explain it,” John said with frustration, letting go of her hand, and leaning forward slightly, running his fingers through his hair. “The first year after you were taken from us…I grieved so hard. So fucking hard. It was like nothing was permanent in life, and no amount of love would ever be able to keep the people I cared about from dying. The ISA was becoming more and more corrupt. At the time, I think my grief, my desperation to keep my family safe, and the slow deterioration of the ISA were all factors in why I took that money, and created the documents I hid in Sami’s room..”

The grief he must have felt, and what she knew from years of studying the human mind, allowed Marlena to understand with complete clarity, the desperation he must have felt at the thought of potentially losing Carrie or the twins. “How did you even figure out that there were bank accounts?” Marlena asked him with curiosity, while trying trying to stifle a yawn.

John noticed her fatigue again, and slid his arm behind her, for the first time in nearly two months. Pulling her into him, and allowing her head to rest on his shoulder, before he answered her, “I was going back through the notebook, and I found an account number, followed by a bank name that I’d written down about five months later…and then three pages after that, a name…an alias. Sometimes, when I would review things I’d written down, things would just fall into place. Things that didn’t fit before, suddenly clicked. That’s what happened.”

The rumble of John’s deep voice, as Marlena rested against his chest, was like coming home for her. It shouldn’t feel this good. She knew this was the worst time to start losing the ability to control her feelings. John became quiet, and when he  didn’t immediately continue, Marlena lifted her head slightly, and said with wide eyes, “And?”

John smiled at her, with a sneaky grin, whispering, “So, I took a few days off of work, left the kids with Shawn and Caroline, and went to the Cayman Islands to check up on it. I had the name I’d written down name, Father Julio Rober, a bank name, and an account number. It was a long shot that paid off.”

Marlena stared at him in shock, “A priest?”

“The hell if I know, Doc. Whether I was or wasn’t, I don’t know. My whole life prior to coming to Salem is a blank, you know that, but at some point, maybe people believed I was a priest…or I was posing as a priest—fuck, maybe I was a priest.”

“No. No I can’t imagine…” Marlena said trailing off at the end, and laying her head back on his chest in exhaustion. John was too passionate. She felt her core clench as images of their times together rolled through her mind. Imagining him as a priest was so alien.

John could only imagine what she was thinking. It was probably near what he had thought, when he’d learned the information. A priests life, was not something that would fit his personality. A life of celibacy was not for John Black, which is why he believed that it was an alias, and not an actual point of fact. He continued speaking, “The other two accounts were the same. One in Belize, and other in Germany, both with different names,” he said. “I used the money in the Cayman Islands account to buy the property in Colorado,” John finished, as he glanced down at Marlena’s hands, tightly clenched in her lap. “I bought it under the name Charles Wright. I check on it periodically, but I never told anyone, Doc. No one could know that I had it, because I only intended to use it in an emergency situation.”

“When I came back…you never said,” she whispered, looking up at him, and placing her hand on his chest for leverage. 

John looked down at her. “Did we have time? Your return was so unexpected, and we immediately found ourselves trying to unravel where you’d been, and then finding Roman in San Cristobal.” John shrugged. “I guess, it wasn’t important at the time,” he told her. “I thought we’d—”

John suddenly stopped speaking mid-sentence, as if what he had planned to say was something he was second guessing. “What?” she asked him, sitting up straighter.

“I thought we’d have time, Doc. I thought we’d have time. I’d prove I was Roman, and we’d have time…that’s all,” John said, watching Marlena’s hands clench in her lap. He reached for her hands, prying her fingers free of each other, and straightening them out. “We didn’t get that,” he told her quietly.

Marlena whispered, “Do you still keep a notebook?”

“I do. It’s the same one, actually. I keep it in the tire well, in the back of the SUV. I never wanted anyone to find it, and my search into my past bothers Isabella so much…I just decided to keep it hidden, but I grabbed it, when we ditched the car at the airport in Chicago.”

Marlena couldn’t imagine having memories, disjointed and fragmented, and having no one to discuss it with. No one to help you put the pieces together. That must have been so hard on him, emotionally, psychologically. Her own heart hurt for him, realizing exactly how scary that likely was for him. She said to John softly, “Maybe, I could see it someday?”

“I can’t make heads or tails of most of it. Every once in awhile, something clicks,” he told her with a wry shrug.

Marlena yawned again, fighting the urge to sleep, “What did you do about the other accounts?”

“The one in Belize was under the name Ronald Culpepper. The one in Germany was Milo Schmidt. Both of them had nearly $500,000 in them. I emptied them, and put the money into another account, which is in Switzerland…Lugano, specifically, under the name—”

“—Charles Wright,” Marlena finished for him. “I can’t…my G-d, John! I just can’t believe you never told me this!”

“It didn’t matter. Everything in Mexico…it didn’t—it wasn’t your concern any more, Doc,” John told her. “You were trying to make it work with Roman, and I—”

“—chose Isabella,” Marlena whispered. She wished she could take back those two words as soon as they left her lips. John’s facial expression changed from one of sadness to one of confusion in the blink of an eye.

“I chose Isabella?” he repeated, looking at her curiously, wondering what she was meant. Did she truly believe that he chose Isabella over her? Is that how it seemed? But then John realized, that yes, that was exactly how it would seem.

“It doesn’t matter,” Marlena said quickly, wishing, hoping, praying, that John would forget what she’s just said, and let this go. “I—I need to use the restroom,” she said lamely, moving to unbuckle her seatbelt, and stand up. Marlena felt her chest constricting, and she had to get away from him. She was in no frame of mind, after everything that had happened with Roman tonight, and the the situation with Torres. She could not handle this conversation.

“Oh, no. Not so fast,” John said, blocking her attempted exit with his arm. He leaned in, his face mere inches from hers, as he said in low tones, “You don’t get to say something like that to me right now, and then try to run away as soon as it leaves your lips. No, Doc. What do you mean, I chose Isabella?”

“I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry,” she said, looking down.

John refused to let her go. “Do you remember how much emotional pain you were in while we were in Mexico? Do you? How much turmoil? Because I do. I do. Being torn between me and Roman was killing you slowly. I saw that. Every day I saw that!” he said, feeling the need to explain himself. He needed her to understand. “All I did was make the decision that you were too afraid to make, because you didn’t want to hurt me! You didn’t want to hurt the children. You were married to Roman. Ultimately, we both know, that you were going to honor those vows. I just ended it for both of us, so it didn’t keep dragging on!”

“I didn’t ask you to do that!” Marlena said, tearfully. She started crying softly, whispering, “I never asked you to do that.”

“It would have ended the same, Doc. You know that!” he said in frustration. He had to believe that, because if he was wrong, and she would have chosen him…he couldn’t even bear the thought.

Marlena shook her head, overwhelmed by her sudden flux in emotions. “No, I don’t know that! I don’t know that!” she said in a near panic, “Because you never gave me the chance!” John stared at her, at a loss for words. She kept talking, “You came back that morning—oh, G-d—and I knew. I knew you’d slept with her, I could see it on your face. You did that…so, don’t tell me—don’t tell me you didn’t chose her, John, because you did.”

He watched her while she hurriedly unbuckled her seatbelt, and fled towards the restroom. What had just happened? He’d thought, at least at the time, that he’d been saving them both the heartbreak of a long drawn out, emotional, goodbye. Like ripping off a bandaid. Just make the inevitable decision, accept the outcome, and move on with their lives. It was supposed to hurt less. He loved Isabella. He could make a good life with her, but had he chosen her over Marlena? No. He didn’t, but Marlena thought he had.

In the row behind him, Carrie turned her head to the side and allowed the tears to flow from her eyes in a silent path along her cheeks.

Chapter 5

The fog on the pier was dense when Raffi Torres stepped out into the light to meet his contact, Enzo. “So? Did you get them or not?” he asked.

“They’re gone, Boss,” the man said nervously.

“What do you mean gone?” Raffi asked. “How?”

“Not sure, but it was fast. Within an hour of your call the whole family disappeared. I looked through the house. I mean, it’s obvious they left in a hurry, but they ain’t there.”

“Fucking Brady must have had some sort of contingency plan regarding his family,” Raffi said in frustration.

“I don’t think so. The house looks like they left in a hurry. It didn’t seem organized at all. But truthfully, Boss, I didn’t feel right about threatening kids anyway, you know?” Enzo told him. 

“I wasn’t actually going to hurt the kids!” Raffi yelled. “I don’t target kids. Now the wife? She was the one I really wanted. Can you try and track them down?”

“We did try, but once they left the Brady Fish Market, the trail goes cold. Nothing after that.”

“So Marlena Brady is on the run, by herself, with three kids? C’mon it shouldn’t be that hard to track her,” Raffi mused.

“That’s just it, Boss, she ain’t alone.”

“Who the fuck is with her?” he screamed, wondering why the guy didn’t tell him that to begin with.

“John Black.”

“FUCK! Fuck! John-fucking-Black!We’ll never get near her now! Shit!” Raffi said in rage. “Okay. Okay…um, new plan. Look at the rest of Brady’s family…check out his parents. We need leverage, and we need it now. Something to get Roman Brady back to Salem, because I swear to G-d, I will get that shipment when the boat arrives.”

“Is it that important to go after his parents? We’ve got Bo Brady. Roman’s on the ru—”

“—Bo Brady is dead! Tonight! I’ll kill the bastard myself for this trick Roman’s pulled,” Raffi said, before turning, and walking back into the shadows, away from the pier. 

Enzo stood on the pier for several moments after Raffi Torres stormed off, unsure of what to do next. When he finally made his decision it was with a ball of dread deep in his gut. He was going to have to break his cover, and contact Shane Donovan. He didn’t have any other options.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

They had arrived at the Montrose Regional Airport a little after 8:30 in the morning. The Kids and Carrie had slept most of the night, while John and Marlena had each stayed awake with their own thoughts after the abrupt end to their earlier conversation. Charles Wright and family purchased a used SUV with cash, making the salesperson at the car dealership incredibly happy to start his day off so well. They were 65 miles out from a a mountain town called Telluride, and their final destination was about 15 miles out from that. 

Once they had stocked up on groceries, and other odds and ends, they were back on the road towards the property that John owned. The last time he had been out to check on the place was right before Marlena returned to Salem, although Charles Wright did have a property management company that checked the place once per week, paid directly from the account in Lugano. 

Carrie felt the tension in the air since they had stepped off of the plane, although Eric and Sami were oblivious, and John and Marlena were full of false joviality. The conversation that she had overheard on the plane had been full of juicy details, but not the ones that would give her any idea about why they were running off to the mountains of Colorado and using fake names. As soon as they got where they were going and settled in, Carrie had questions, and she expected John and Marlena to have answers. 

Marlena sat quietly in the passengers seat staring out a very familiar landscape. The landscape of her childhood, although they were hundreds of miles from her parents. She turned to glance back at the twins, who were both asleep, again. “Carrie are you doing okay?” She asked her.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. I’ve got a lot of questions, but they can wait,” she said.

“You’ve been a huge help, Punkin’. Keeping the twinners distracted and such. I want you to know that we appreciate that,” John said, looking at her in the rearview mirror. 

“It’s fine. I know something is going on. Something serious…and then there’s Dad,” she said. “He’s not here, so that’s something else isn’t it?”

John and Marlena glanced at each other quickly, and Marlena said, “Yes. That is something else entirely, and the same thing all at once.”

Carrie waited to see if Marlena would add anything, and when she didn’t, Carrie absently said, “I forgot how beautiful Colorado is, although it’s freezing right now. Maybe this impromptu family trip might have been more fun in the summer.”

Marlena laughed, “I’m sure it would have. We’ll see in a few days, if it might be okay for you and the twins to go see your grandparents for a few days.”

“That would be so fun! I love the Denver area, there’s so much to do.”

“We’ll see,” Marlena said, turning to stare back out the window. She was still angry and hurt from her conversation on the plane with John. He had no right to make a choice of that magnitude without her, assuming an outcome and moving forward on a decision that changed the whole trajectory of her life. She’d barely spoken more than a handful of words to him since she’d returned from the restroom last night. 

John knew he’d probably made a serious mistake. Hours later, and with Marlena barely speaking to him, he was certain he’d made a major mistake. He’d been going over it in his mind since then, and the only conclusion he could reach was that losing Marlena, and the fear of losing his family had been a motivating factor in his life for the nearly five years she’d been gone. When she returned from the dead, he had been gripped by a joy so profound, and a fear so deep, he didn’t know how to reconcile them. Maybe giving her up was less about her pain, and more about his.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Isabella stormed into Abe’s office, slamming the door behind her, “You want to tell me where the hell John is?”

Abe looked up in confusion, placing the file he was reading on his desk, “John? I haven’t seen John since last night at the airport.”

“He left me, at home, to go help Marlena…because, of course, she called him, when she needed help. He never came home, Abe. So now, I need to know, where he is?” she demanded.

“I promise you, the last I saw of him, he was taking Marlena home. She was upset…incredibly angry with me. Look, I’ll take a drive over to her and Roman’s place, and see what’s going on, Okay?” Abe said standing up, and reaching for his coat. “I’ll call you when I know something.”

Isabella turned to leave, just as Shane was arriving. He didn’t see Isabella at first, instead rushing in, and saying, “Abe! John just called me on the ISA line in my—”

Abe held up his hand, stopping Shane, and nodding his head towards Isabella standing off to the side. Shane immediately pulled up short, and stopped whatever he was going to say. Stepping forward Isabella looked at Shane, asking, “You know where John is?”

Shane looked at Abe, before answering her, “He’s safe. That’s all I can tell you.”

“All you can tell me? No! That’s not acceptable. Something’s going on and I want to know what it is,” she said, with her voice rising. “I have a right to know.”

“I’m sorry, Isabella, but I can’t tell you anymore,” was Shane’s reply. Glancing over at Abe, he said, “I need to meet with you…soon. I’ll be at my home.”

Abe looked towards Isabella, pulling his coat on, “I have to go.”

She watched him walk out with tears streaming down her cheeks. She knew, even without knowing, that if John was gone, so was Marlena and the kids…probably Carrie, too. She’d go check Roman and Marlena’s house herself, just to be sure. She still had the house key at the bottom of her purse somewhere. Hopefully they hadn’t changed the locks. She was running on hope. Hope that she was wrong. Hope that this wasn’t what it looked like. Hope that he hadn’t run off with Marlena and the kids, leaving her behind with no explanation.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

John walked into the kitchen where Marlena was making tea, and said, “The twins are settled in the loft. Carrie took the back bedroom, you can take the other one, and I’ll use the pull out sofa.”

“That’s fine,” she said, stirring sugar into her tea.

“I just spoke with Shane, and told him what happened last night. I think he’s pulling Abe in on this,” John said.

“Okay,” she said, getting ready to walk by him, and exit the kitchen. 

John stopped her, with a hand on her arm, and took her tea, placing it on the counter, “Doc, we need to talk about this.”

“No we don’t. Not right now. We need to speak with Carrie, and then I need to get some sleep,” she said.

“You’ve barely spoken to me since the conversation on the plane,” he said in a low voice.

Marlena looked at him with a fierceness in her eyes, “I have spent my life with men keeping me in the dark or making decisions on what they think is best for me. Don, Roman, Richard…you. You had no right, John. None.” She picked up her tea, and left him standing alone in the middle of the kitchen.

Carrie was sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace, watching the flames dance. She could hear the twins excitedly chattering away in the loft. They had just managed to settle their argument about who got the top bunk, with a compromise of switching every other night, which made Carrie smile. She looked up when she heard Marlena sit down on the couch next to her. “So are you going to tell me where Dad is?”

Marlena knew that Carrie was going to take this hard, and she tried to start as gently as possible, “Well, honey, he’s gone. He went away.”

Carrie looked at Marlena in surprise, “What?”

“He thought that we were all in danger, and he thought that the only way to keep us safe…was for him to go away.”

“What does that mean?” Carrie asked. “Is it because I came home from Paris without telling him? Did he hate having me around that much?”

“Oh, honey, no! No. No. He loves you. He—he just—this was his way of protecting us, that’s all. He wanted to keep us safe!” Marlena said helplessly, trying to make excuses when there were done to be had. She saw it on Carrie’s face that what she was saying made no difference. To Carrie, her father had left her again. 

“Nah. No. I don’t believe this. Keep us safe? Then why are we here?” she said, panic rising in her voice. She stood up, wrapping her arms around herself, “I was just starting to accept him—he, he can’t do that!”

Marlena stood up, rubbing her hands over Carries shoulders in a calming motion, “Carrie. Carrie, honey, I know you’re angry. I’m angry, too. But look, we have to keep it together right now. We’ve got to stay a family. We can do that. We’ve just got to—”

“—a family?” she said loudly, shoving off Marlena’s hands. “He left us again! And why are we here? If he left to keep us safe, why are we here?”

Marlena suddenly felt as if the house were eerily quiet. The twins upstairs had gone silent, and when she turned, she saw John standing in the doorway to the kitchen. She felt as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders, “Your father was getting threats from Torres. He thought leaving would draw the danger away from us. It didn’t.”

“Torres is coming after us?” Carrie whispered, glancing up towards the loft quickly.

Marlena nodded quickly, “He called the house last night, and we left within the hour. John had a plan in place—”

“—I heard you,” Carrie said.

“What?”

“On the plane last night. I, um, I heard you and Daddy.”

Marlena stared at Carrie, with wide yes, “Oh.”

“It’s fine. I don’t care. Dad’s a liar! He’s always talking about how happy he is to have me, and he’s the first one out the door.”

“No, Carrie, he loves you more than anything—”

“Well, that didn’t keep him from leaving us, did it?” Carrie said quietly. “I need some air.”

Marlena watched helplessly as Carrie grabbed her coat off of the hook by the front door, and ran out of the cabin onto the front porch. Her eyes caught John’s, and he said softly, “I’ll get her, Doc. You sit down and rest. You haven’t slept in more than 24 hours.”

Giving him a wane smile, she said, “Thank you, John.”

Marlena let her body drop to the couch heavily, staring into the eaves of the vaulted ceiling. She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking to just rest them, and fell into a deep sleep.

Later, when John brought Carrie back in from outside, the first thing he saw was Marlena asleep on the couch. He had his arm around Carrie’s shoulders, and gave her a big squeeze before he let her go. He said to Carrie, “Can you go check on the twinners for me?”

“Sure, Dad.”

Stepping over to Marlena, John leaned over, brushing the hair from her face, and staring at her for a moment. She was so beautiful. He gently scooped her up, and carried her towards the bedroom, while Carrie watched from the stairs. She was young, and she didn’t know much about life, but she knew that John still loved Marlena. That much was evident. She supposed, if her life had ever been normal, that she might feel some sense of outrage for her father, knowing another man coveted his wife, but she found she didn’t. It seemed almost normal. Like Roman’s brief interruption into their family hadn’t had any impact at all. She thought she should feel guilty about that, but she struggled to find any guilt within herself. With a shrug of her shoulders, she climbed the stairs to the loft. 

John gently lay Marlena on the bed, and tried to extricate himself from her limbs without waking her. Her eyes fluttered open, as she gazed on him, “John?”

Sitting beside her on the bed, he brushed her hair back once again, whispering, “I’m so sorry, Doc. I’m so sorry. I never wanted you to think I didn’t want you…maybe I wanted you too much. When I thought you’d died…twice…fuck, I could barely get out of bed in the morning. It took me years to truly move on, and then you were back. You were back, and I was elated and scared to death I’d lose you all over again. That was my fault. I held myself back. I couldn’t understand why I was doing it. Why I wouldn’t let you in, but now I think…I think it was because I wasn’t allowing myself. I was pushing you away, because if I loved you the way I had, and lost you again, it might kill me…”

Marlena reached up, touching his face gently, “You don’t have to do this right now. We’re both tired. It can wait.”

“It can’t wait, Doc, because you think I chose Isabella over you, but my decision was already made…in San Cristobal. It was you, and then we found Roman, and everything was so fucked up from there. In Mexico, I gave up. I can tell myself it was to stop your suffering, but I’d be lying. It was to stop my suffering. I gave you up, and I walked away. You were right, but not for the reasons you think. I gave you up, because that made it my choice. I was convinced you were going to walk away from me…so I walked away first, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I took your choice away from you, because that was never my intention.”

Chapter 6

Marlena lay awake for quite awhile after John left her bedroom, trying to process and understand what he had told her. Dr. Marlena Evans understood exactly why John had pushed her away when she returned from the dead. His fear. His grief. All of it. Marlena the woman was still hurt. She understood why he did it, but because John had always allowed her the freedom to make her own choices, and he had generally supported those choices, she was surprised by it. Deciding for both of them, and walking away from her in Mexico, took away her autonomy. 

She tried to imagine John as one of her patients. A man with no past. A man who’d lost his wife, whom he loved dearly, twice. The night he’d slept with Isabella in Mexico, was the day they knew for certain that John was not Roman Brady. That must have been a crushing blow. He would have known that the Brady’s weren’t his family. The children weren’t his. Marlena’s hand clapped over her mouth, as she realized he would have known at that point, that he was going to lose his home…and his job. Of course, he felt it was inevitable that he would lose her, too. Even now, as she was angry with him for taking the decision away from her, she couldn’t say definitively what her final decision would have been. It was a classic grief and trauma response. Push something away before it can hurt you, and John knew, he knew, that he was about to have the rug pulled out from under him. It didn’t make what he did acceptable, but it made it understandable.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Isabella let herself in the back door of Roman and Marlena’s house with the key she still had. Everything downstairs seemed to be in order, but the children’s rooms had scattered clothing, and toys about. Sami’s dollhouse seemed to have a panel missing in the wall, but Isabella wasn’t overly concerned with a broken dollhouse. Eric’s room had dresser drawers still hanging open, as well as his closet. They were definitely gone, and they’d left in a hurry. 

Stepping into Roman and Marlena’s room was a surreal feeling. Less than a year ago, she and John had lived here. They were engaged, they were a family. Not anymore. Marlena had returned, her reappearance destroying everything. She looked around, noting that Marlena’s closet was also open, and her drawers ruffled through. She turned to leave the room, when something sticking out of a drawer caught her eye. Opening the drawer in haste, a photograph fell to the floor. Isabella studied the picture, Marlena, with John behind her, his arms wrapped tightly around her shoulders. They were much younger, so it must have been from before she’d disappeared. Flipping it over, Isabella read: ‘John, my love’. Not Roman, but John. She slammed the photo onto the top of the chest of drawers and left the room.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Abe arrived at Shane’s home, five minutes after him, and Shane answered the door immediately, “I got here as fast as I could.”

“You’re fine. I just got here myself,” Shane told him. 

Abe shrugged his jacket off, saying, “So John called you?”

“Yes, on the satellite phone this morning.”

“Satellite phone?” Abe asked him.

“Yes, it’s a new ISA prototype, although I’m not sure how he got ahold of one.”

“The last time I saw John was at the airport last night. Roman left town, you know?” Abe said.

“I’ve been apprised of the situation with Roman by Chief Vaughn. The rest of the story I received this morning through a phone call with John,” Shane said, moving to sit on the couch.

“Torres is after Marlena and the children?” Abe asked him.

“That’s correct. She received a call almost as soon as she arrived home. John already had a plan in place to move the family in case of an emergency, and decided to implement it. They were gone from Salem within the hour,” Shane told him.

“He did?” Abe said in surprise. “He never mentioned anything of the sort to me.”

“John was one of the best agents we’ve had in the ISA. If he had a plan, no one would know about it.”

“Did he say where they are?”

“He did, but I’m not obliged to share that information at this point.”

“What about Roman, does he know?”

“As far as I know, he has no idea. The ISA had every intention of giving Roman a new identity, and moving him far away from Salem. If they know, they won’t tell him,” Shane said. 

“How long are they going to be in hiding? How can he even afford this? He’s got to be getting help,” Abe said, deep in thought.

“I’m sure he’s planned for all possibilities. He didn’t even leave me a way to contact him, so I can only wait until he contacts me again,” Shane told him calmly. The Satellite phone in Shane’s secret room began to ring, and he rushed in to answer it, surprised to hear the person on the other end, “Enzo?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I had to find a way to contact you without breaking cover. Just two things quickly, Raffi was very angry that Roman left town. He threatened to kill Bo last night, but as of right now, the man is still alive.”

“Okay, that’s good,” Shane said.

“Second, He threatened Marlena Brady and her children; however the children are not the real targets. She is. So the children should probably be moved so they don’t become collateral damage. Raffi wants me to see if Brady’s parents might be plausible targets.”

“Thank you, Enzo. I’m going to have to speak with Chief Vaughn on this, and see how he wants us to proceed. You still don’t have a location on Bo?”

“No. Raffi’s got different people on that. He doesn’t trust anyone with too much information. I’m sorry,” Enzo told him. “I have to go.”

Shane heard the line go dead, and felt a sense of immediacy. Hopefully John did as he said he would, and called him back this evening. They had to relocate the children as soon as possible. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Seth! No! I wasn’t ready yet!” Sami yelled from the hallway closet. 

“I counted to twenty, Violet. S’not my fault you didn’t hide fast enough,” Eric told her. 

“Hey you two,” John called after them. “Go grab a book.”

“No,” they whined simultaneously.

“Yes, each of you grab a book, and go read for an hour. Time starts now,” he said.

Carrie smiled to herself in the kitchen as she trimmed the green beans for the roasting pan, and drizzled them with olive oil. 

John walked into the kitchen, “Whatcha’ cooking ‘Punkin?”

“Those firecracker meatballs you used to like,” she said with a grin.

“Those were amazing. You know, I haven’t had them since you went to stay with your mother in Paris,” he said.

“I figured. That’s why I’m making them.”

“I’m going to go call Shane, and wake Doc. It’s been a few hours, and I don’t want her to be up all night,” John said, kissing Carrie on the cheek before he left.

John pulled the bag for the satellite phone out of the closet, and went into Marlena’s room, placing the phone on the floor, and closing the door behind him. Walking over to where Marlena slept, John touched her arm gently, brushing his fingers over her skin, and whispered, “Hey Doc, it’s time to wake up.”

“No,” she murmured, turning, and shoving her face in her pillow. 

“Carrie’s making dinner, and the twinners are in the loft reading,” John said softly.

“Reading?” Marlena said, sitting up abruptly. “How did you get them to do that?”

“I told them to, and they did,” John said with a shrug. “I’m about to call Shane back, and I was planning to do it in here. You want to stay?”

“Yes,” she said, watching John pull a contraption out of the bag, and engage several buttons. “What is that?”

“A satellite phone. An ISA prototype.”

“How did you get it?” She asked him, sitting up straighter, and leaning over the side of the bed to get a better look.

John smirked at her, saying “I have my ways, Doc.”

Marlena felt her core clench. He was so sexy when he looked at her like that, and even though she was still frustrated with what he’d done in Mexico, and she was married to Roman, it didn’t stop her from finding him attractive. It didn’t stop her body from reacting. She continued to watch him, as he kneeled on the ground, and then finally attached an antenna. Rising slowly, John went to sit on the edge of the bed, and Marlena pulled her legs up.

When Shane answered, John said, “It’s me…we’re fine, everything is fine…you’re sure?…and your contact is solid? Because you know I don’t have a lot of trust in the ISA Shane…fuck! Okay. No. No. I’ll talk to Doc now…Montrose Regional, Colorado. Yeah, tomorrow afternoon. There a bakery in town, The Daily Bread…We’ll be there. Thanks again, Shane.”

Marlena looked at John with concern, “Something happened?”

“So Raffi Torres never intended to target the children. He wanted to scare us, which he did. The real target…is you. He’s desperate to get Roman back to Salem, and so he’s after you… and potentially Shawn and Caroline. He’s hoping that Roman somehow gets wind of the danger your in and comes back,” John said.

Marlena suddenly felt light headed, and weak, “We have to get the children away from me! Oh, G-d! John! If something happens…if they get hurt…” She realizes, she’s having panic attack at her first struggle to get air. She hasn’t had a panic attack since DJ died, and she starts fighting to get air.

“Doc!” John says, brushing the hair out of her face as she struggles to breath. Marlena looks up at him, unable to get her mind calm enough to do the proper breathing methods. She can’t even remember the proper breathing methods. “Doc, honey…baby…listen to me. Breath in. Breath in right now! Hold it. Breath out…that’s right. Do it again…in…and out…don’t stop…”

She feels lightheaded, and on the edge of a complete meltdown, but she continues to follow John as he leads her in her breathing. She realizes that her nails are digging in his arms, and she tries to pull away, but he holds her there, still speaking to her in low tones, and helping her catch her breath. “It’s too much, John…”

“That’s what you’ve got me here for, pretty lady.”

Marlena’s heart was breaking. Roman had left them again, when they needed him the most, he’d left them, and now someone wanted her dead. Being near her children put them in danger, “Oh, G-d!”

“We’re going to move them. Tomorrow. We’ll make it part of the game. They won’t know that anything is wrong at all. They’ll go to your parents, okay? We need to call them…can you do that for me? We need a plausible story.”

“A conference…a conference,” she whispered, still breathing erratically.

“Last minute. You have a friend heading that way…he can drop them off…” John said.

“Who?” she asked him.

“Abe,” John told her. “He’ll be here tomorrow afternoon.”

“Abe!” she shouted.

“We don’t have a choice, Doc. Shane can’t leave Salem, and we don’t trust anyone else. Shane hasn’t even told his superiors about this. I know you’re angry with him, but he would die before he let anything happen to those kids,” John said, hoping she would concede.

“You’re right. You’re right. I know, you’re right,” she said breathlessly, still feeling as if she might start panicking again at any moment. “Okay, I’m ready,” she said taking a long, deep breath.

John dialed Marlena’s parents home, and handed her the phone. John watched as Marlena pasted on a brave face. “Hi, Dad! I know this is short notice, but I was wondering if you and Mom might be able to watch the kids for awhile…they have been asking to see you, and Roman’s out of town on work…Yes, I got a very impromptu invitation to speak at a conference in New York…yes, Carrie, too…” Marlena said, laughing. “I know it’s the opposite direction! We have a friend heading that way, who could drop them off…tomorrow…I know, I’m sorry, I just found out…are you sure you don’t mind…Abe. Have you met Abe? Good, then it won’t be so awkward…they’ll arrive tomorrow evening. Thank you so much. I love you, too, Dad. Kiss Mom for me.” She hung up the phone.

John looked at Marlena, whispering, “Breath, Doc. C’mon, breath for me, honey.”

She looked at him, and John nearly started crying with the look of sadness in her eyes, “He left us, John. He did this. Not intentionally, but he did this! He’s off being protected by the ISA, and I’m scared to death that a drug dealer is going to kill my children!”

“He’s not after the children, Doc. We’ll get them to safety, I promise,” he whispered, pushing her hair behind her ear, and brushing the tears from her face. “I won’t let Torres near you.”

“We need to speak with Carrie,” Marlena whispered, looking up at him.

“I’ll do it,” he said. “You okay?”

“I don’t know…I don’t really have a choice, do I?” she said sadly.

John wasn’t sure what made him do it, maybe it was how vulnerable she looked, but he leaned forward, brushing the hair from her forehead, and kissed her softly on the lips. His lips gently tugging at hers. He pulled back, looking at her, and then went to stand up, and leave the room. Marlena stopped him, with a hand on his arm, staring at him with wide eyes. He hesitated for a moment, before leaning in to kiss her again, gently brushing his nose across hers, and threading his fingers into her hair to hold her in place for a moment. He felt the silken swipe of her tongue, and a soft moan into his mouth, before he released her, standing up quickly, and saying, “I’m going to talk to Carrie.”

Marlena watched John leave the room, and touched her lips with the tips of her fingers. She shouldn’t have stopped him. She’d practically begged him to kiss her again. She knew she did, even without words, he’d known what she wanted. His lips, and the taste of his mouth felt like a million memories. It was wrong. They shouldn’t have done it. Both of them were committed to other people, but Marlena knew…if John kissed her again, she wouldn’t stop him, and that gave her even more to think about.

Chapter 7

Carrie noticed at dinner that the dynamics had changed between John and Marlena. She wasn’t surprised. She may be only eighteen, but she remembered that year when they were all a family. When everyone in Salem, including the Brady’s believed that John was Roman Brady. He and Marlena were so in love, that it had left her young heart in awe. She’d dreamed that someday she would find someone who loved her that much. Watching them at dinner, the sideways glances, the way their fingers would graze over each others as they passed the dishes or handed each other things…Carrie smiled to herself, and scooped another forkful of rice into her mouth.

“Twinners,” John said, clearing his throat. “I’ve got some news, and I think you’re going to be excited.” Sami and Eric stopped eating, and waited with bated breath.

“Daddy always has the best surprises!” Sami exclaimed, squirming around in her seat with excitement.

John winked at Sami before he continued, “Your mom and I spoke with your grandparents—”

“—We’re going to Denver!” Eric yelled in excitement. He hadn’t even allowed John to finish speaking before blurting out. “Right, Daddy? We’re going to Denver?

“I love Denver!” Sami said, nearly falling out of her chair in an attempt to get to her feet. “Den-ver! Den-ver! Den-ver!”

Eric joined her, jumping from his seat, “Den-ver! Den-ver!”

Marlena started laughing, watching the twins joins hands, and dance around the kitchen in a circle. “Okay, you two. Come on…finish eating, and celebrate after.”

“When are we going, Mama?” Eric wanted to know.

“Tomorrow,” Marlena replied.

“…and guess what?” Carrie asked them conspiratorially. The twins both stared at her, with wide eyes, waiting anxiously, knowing there was more to come. Carrie leaned forward, and whispered loudly, so that John and Marlena could hear her, too, “Uncle Abe’s going to take us.”

“Uncle Abe! I love Uncle Abe, too!” Sami screamed, as if she might explode from excitement. 

“He gives us all of the candy!” Eric said, then he looked sideways at John and Marlena. “Don’t tell him I said that though.”

“Yeah, ‘cause then he won’t do it anymore,” Sami said with a sneaky grin.

This time John was laughing at their antics, “I won’t, Peanut. Now both of you, finish your dinner. We have to get your stuff packed after you eat.”

“I can help them pack, Dad,” Carrie said. Realizing that she called John ‘Dad’, she said, “I mean—”

“It’s okay, ‘Punkin. I know what you meant,” John told her, feeling a heavy weight in his heart. “I still feel like your Dad.”

Carrie was quiet for a moment, staring into her empty plate, and listening to the chatter of the twins. Finally she looked up to find John watching her. She said, “I still feel like your daughter.”

“Carrie, honey? Look at me please,” Marlena said softly. Carrie looked at the woman beside her. Someone who was more of a mother to her, than her own mother ever had been. Marlena asked her, “What would you like to call him?”

“I thought—”

“—No,” Marlena said, cutting her off. “What would you like to call him?” John waited, watching the byplay between Marlena and Carrie with fascination. 

After a pause, Carrie whispered, “Dad. He’s my Dad.”

Marlena smiled at her, taking her hand, and squeezing it quickly one time, before releasing it, “Then you call him Dad, Carrie. Okay?”

Carrie started crying, wiping her eyes quickly, before looking at John and saying, “Okay.”

Sami leaned over, touching Carrie gently, and said, “ ‘Cause he’s our Daddy.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Roman sat on the couch in the safe house, and stared at Chief Vaughn. His face was lined with rage, when he said, “How long are you going to keep me locked in here? This was never supposed to be permanent! I was just going to disappear for awhile, and then go undercover to get to Torres. You knew that!”

“Well, I’m sorry, Roman, but there’s no way that’s happening. At least not right now. The plan is to keep you alive, with or without, your consent,” Chief Vaughn told him. “Right now, that’s what you are. Alive. You leave here, you’ll be dead within 24 hours, and I’m fairly certain that wasn’t your plan when you left Salem.”

“Now, wait a minute! What’s that supposed to mean?” Roman yelled, standing up.

“You can cooperate or not, but you’re not going back to Salem right now,” Chief Vaughn said, standing up as well, and wiping the sweat off of his hands, onto the front of his pants. “You haven’t even been gone 48 hours! Torres has his whole organization out looking for you. You know that don’t you?” Chief Vaughn glanced at the clock, and said, “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll be back to see you tomorrow.”

“Wait! What about my family?” Roman said, stopping him before he reached the door and grabbing at his arm.

Chief Vaughn sighed, shaking Roman’s hand free, “Torres has decided to target your wife. She’s safe. The children are safe. That’s all I know.”

Roman was in momentary shock. Leaving Salem was supposed to ensure their safety. Rubbing his hand over his face, he said, “I should have listened to Abe. He told me this was a possibility…fuck! I’ve got to get out of here!”

“No. She’s safe. The children are safe. That’s the end of it. You’re staying here for now.”

“Safe? Where is she? Where are my kids?” Roman roared.

“We don’t know…we’re still working on that information. What we do know? Raffi Torres has no idea where they are either. John Black has hidden them so well, that even the ISA has no clue as to their whereabouts,” Chief Vaughn told him with frustration in his voice.

“John Black? John Black!” Roman said in a low tone. “John Black has my family somewhere, and no one knows where? He was a trained mercenary for Stefano DiMera! One wrong move and the guy could flip!”

“As I said, your family is with him. He was with Marlena when Torres called her, and had  her and the children out of Salem in less than an hour. He obviously already had a plan in place.”

“What about Carrie?”

“She is with them,” Chief Vaughn told him, right before he walked out, leaving Roman alone in the safe house. He heard Roman roar before the crashing sound of glass hit his ears. Vaughn smiled, as he walked to his car. Once inside, he reached for the satellite phone, dialing Raffi Torres.

“You still got him?” Raffi said as a way of answering the call.

“Of course, I do. Have you located Marlena Brady?” Chief Vaughn asked.

“No. Although we’re tracking Abe Carver right now. Hopefully, he leads us directly to her.”

“Listen Torres, I’m holding up my end of this. I’ve got Roman Brady under lock and key. I expect you to hold up your end…find the woman.”

Raffi Torres started laughing, “I make the rules here, Vaughn. Don’t forget that. I’ll be in touch.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

John found Marlena washing the dishes in the kitchen. “Carrie’s reading the Twinners a story. They should be asleep pretty soon. Sami has been yawning for the last hour,” John said with a smile, reaching for a tea towel. He started drying the dishes in the rack beside her, “You want to talk about what we did earlier?”

Marlena’s hands stopped moving momentarily, before she said softly, “I don’t know what to say.” She handed him a plate.

“It was presumptuous of me to kiss you. I think…you looked so lost, and I wanted you to feel cared for…maybe…I don’t know, Doc. I’m sorry if I overstepped,” John told her quietly, running the towel over the plate and placing it in the cabinet.

“You didn’t,” she said, shyly, handing him another plate. “But we…we shouldn’t do it again.” She knew she didn’t sound very convincing, because if she was honest with herself, she wanted to do it again.

John finished drying the plate, placing it in the cabinet, and put the towel down, turning to face her. While her words were telling him they shouldn’t repeat their earlier encounter, her eyes were telling him they should. “You’re right, Doc. I know you’re right, and I promise, I won’t kiss you again…” John stepped closer, tipping her face up to his, “…after this one.” 

His lips took hers in a soft embrace, the softness of them pulling at hers, and his hands settled on the gentle swell of her hips. Marlena felt herself melting inside. Her wet, soapy, fingers laced into the hair at the nape of his neck, at the same time she whimpered into his mouth, and when he tried to pull back, she gripped him harder. 

The feeling of water trickling down the neckline of his shirt, and the pull of her fingers in his hair, caused John to groan deep in his throat. He felt the soft caress of her tongue along his, and then her lips sucking along his. They continued kissing, each of them lost in the moment. John needed to be closer to her, her mouth drawing him in, and her fingernails raking along his scalp. He somehow managed to maneuver her into a corner, and pressed the length of his body against hers, “Fuck, Doc. You taste so good…” He pushed his hips into hers, attempting to relieve some of the pressure he felt building up in him.

“We should…we should stop, John,” Marlena panted into his mouth.

“You’re right,” he moaned, rolling his forehead over hers, and breathing heavily across her lips. “We need to stop,” he said, licking across her mouth.

That lick was nearly her undoing. Marlena gasped sharply, pulling his lips to hers again, and biting the delicate skin of his mouth. John tasted the tang of blood, increasing his arousal, and wrapped his arms around her hips, pulling her into him again roughly, “You bit me, Doc.”

Her breathing was erratic, and she was so overwhelmed with want, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry…we—we have to stop,” she said, resting her forehead on his heaving chest, while at the same time feeling so deliciously trapped in the corner under the weight of him. “We have to stop.” 

John stepped back from her so quickly, she almost fell forward, his hands in the air. He looked out of control, his eyes blown with arousal, and he told her, “I’m going outside to get some air.” Turning on his heel, he was gone in a second.

Marlena heard the slam of the front door, and felt her body flinch. She slowly slid to the floor, her mind still trying to grasp what had just happened. One kiss, one simple kiss, that’s all it was supposed to be, and it had turned into a raging inferno of want within seconds. Seconds. Less than 24 hours together, and she had lost her mind completely. The children were leaving tomorrow, and she and John would be alone. It could be days, weeks, possibly months on the run, and one simple kiss had her ready to throw her marriage out the window. A marriage she wasn’t even sure she wanted. She wasn’t sure she’d wanted it a month and a half ago in Mexico. Marlena licked over her lips, tasting John, and smiled softly, telling herself, ‘No more kisses.’

Outside on the front porch, the freezing breeze caused the wet hair at John’s neck to feel that much colder. He ran his tongue over his sore lip, feeling a bump where Marlena had bitten him. It was supposed to be one kiss. One kiss, but it was so much more than that.

Chapter 8

“Colorado, Boss,” Enzo said, when he met Raffi Torres on the pier that night. “Francis got a seat on the same flight as Abe Carver…Flight #1327 to Montrose, Colorado.”

“Francis? Francis is a fucking idiot, Enzo! Shit! He’ll shoot first, and ask questions later,” Raffi said with frustration. “Why didn’t Mike go?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t there,” Enzo said. “But he knows to keep a tight tail on Carver.”

“Great! Fucking great! If he screws this up, I’ll shoot him myself.” Raffi took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. He felt like this whole deal was going sideways, and he was struggling to find a way to get everything back on track, “Any news on Brady’s parents?”

“They are under police guard, around the clock. Not ISA, but Salem PD.”

“We got a way in yet? I need men inside,” Raffi said, staring out at the river.

“Not yet. We’ve pull out feelers, but there don’t seem to be any takers. The people in the department are loyal as fuck to Carver,” Enzo said, silently praying that they stayed that way.

“Things were easier when Richard Cates was in charge,” Raffi mumbled. “Drugs ran in, and out of Salem like clockwork. No snag in the system, until Cates got cocky.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The following morning, John was helping the twins make sure they had everything they needed for the trip to see their grandparents. He had decided to do it, since Marlena was becoming emotional, and they were trying to keep things light. The twins didn’t need to know exactly how much danger they were all presently in, or how upset Marlena was to say goodbye to them. The idea was that they were taking a fun trip to see their grandparents, and explore the Denver area for a couple weeks.

Carrie found Marlena sitting on the bed in her room, and knocked on the door lightly. Wiping the tears from her face quickly, with the back of her hand, Marlena looked up, and saw Carrie standing there, “You can come in.”

Carrie entered the room slowly, walking over to where Marlena sat on the edge of the bed. “I know that you’re sad about the twins and I going,” Carrie said. “I’ll watch out for them. I swear. I wanted you to know that you’re one of the strongest, and bravest people I know.”

“I don’t feel like either of those things right now,” Marlena told her. “I’m scared to death, and I’m going to miss you all so badly, but I’m a danger to your safety right now.”

“I understand. Dad explained it all to me last night…I know, I don’t call you Mom, but I…I consider you my mother,” the girl whispered. “The same way that I consider John my father. We were a family once.”

Marlena smiled softly, “We had good times didn’t we?”

“Marlena?” Carrie asked her with apprehension. “Can I ask you something?”

“Carrie, you can ask me anything.”

“Do you still love Dad…you know, do you still love John?”

Marlena was momentarily caught off guard, unsure of how to answer, but when she looked into Carrie’s eyes, she knew the girl already knew the answer. Marlena said, “Yes. I never stopped loving John.”

“Do you love Roman?”

“It’s a different kind of love. I loved Roman with my whole heart when he died. Then John came into out lives, and I…I loved him, thinking he was Roman, but he wasn’t. My love for John was deeper than anything…and then Roman came home…it’s so complicated…”

Carrie touched Marlena’s arm softly, “I just want you to know, whatever happens, family isn’t always blood. You and Dad taught me that…and…and if you love him, and you want to be with him…do it. I won’t be angry. I won’t be bitter, because I see it. In just three days together…I see the love.”

“Oh, G-d!” Marlena said, covering her face. “I thought I could hide it. I thought I could deny it, and move on. This is—now it’s just going to be me and John…” Marlena looked up at Carrie, “…alone…”

Carrie leaned over, hugging Marlena, and whispered, “I want my family back, and if you and Dad lie about your feelings, more people will be hurt. In the long run, more people will be hurt.”

“I know you’re right,” Marlena said. “When did you grow up so fast?”
Carrie smiled shyly, “I just see things, and when I see you and Dad, I see love. The kind of love I want to have someday, because of you two, I won’t settle for less.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Abe was waiting for them, outside The Daily Bread, when they arrived. Sami and Eric were out of the car, and racing towards him, almost as soon as John parked the car. Carrie followed behind them, laughing at their antics, while Marlena got their bags from the back of the SUV, and followed.

Abe saw Marlena approaching, and said, “You okay?”

“Do you mean, am I still angry with you?” Marlena ask him.

Abe gave her a half-hearted smile, and replied, “Yeah.”

“I’m angry at Roman. What he did is something I don’t think I can forgive—”

“—Marlena—”

“—don’t, Abe,” she said cutting him off. “Don’t defend what he did. You and I both know it was wrong, and it’s not the first time he’s done something like this.”

He looked at her for a moment, before sighing, “You’re right. I tried to talk sense into him. I did, but he refused to tell you, and I couldn’t compromise the case.”

“How’s that looking now?” she asked him sarcastically.

John approached, catching Marlena’s last comment, “You okay, Maisie?”

“I’m fine, Sailor,” she said with a sexy smirk. “Seth…Violet…come say goodbye to Mama and Dad.”

Sami jumped into John’s arms, and kissed his cheek, saying, “I know this was a game, but I love you like a real Daddy, okay?”

John leaned towards her ear, and whispered, “Samantha Gene, I will always be your Daddy. I love you.”

“I love you too,” she whispered.

“Seth, get over here, and hug me!” John said ruffling the boys hair, and grabbing him up in his arms. John whispered, “I love you, Eric.”

The little boy smiled big, saying, “I love you, too, Daddy!”

Marlena and John said their goodbyes, standing on the corner by the SUV and watching Abe drive away with the three people who meant the most to them in the world. John turned to Marlena, “You okay, Doc?”

“I thought it was Maisie?” she said, with a tear filled smile.

“Trust me,” John said. “No one is even paying attention to us.” John was about to say something else, when a quick glint of sunlight off of metal, caught his eye. Without thought, he grabbed Marlena, pulling her into him quickly, causing her to lose her balance. A loud crack ruptured the silence of the early afternoon, as people around them started screaming, and running for cover. Marlena and John fell into the SUV, just as Marlena screamed.

He saw the blood oozing through the shoulder of her jacket. She’d been shot. His heart started beating so hard he could feel it in his neck. Marlena looked at him, shock and fear written clearly on her face, and then she collapsed into his arms. 

John couldn’t even remember how he managed to get them in the truck, and on the road, but he did. He kept glancing behind them as he sped away, taking multiple turns, and alternate routes, while intent on making sure they weren’t followed. Glancing over at Marlena, John touched her, and said, “Doc? Doc, are you with me?” Getting no response, he drove faster, panic racing through his system. 

The sixty five miles it took to get to the cabin were the longest of John’s life. He found himself stumbling over the threshold of the cabin, with Marlena in his arms. “Fuck! Fuck!” he yelled. He knew he needed to calm down, or he wasn’t going to be any help to her. Placing her gently on the couch, he kneeled beside her. “Calm down!” he told himself, gripping his hair tightly. “Calm the fuck down!” Forcing himself to take deep, cleansing breaths, he tried to clear his mind.

Touching Marlena’s face gently, he realized that he was crying. Still talking to himself John said, “You know what to do. I know it. I know it…” and suddenly he did. He knew exactly what to do. Reaching forward John removed Marlena’s coat, slipping it free of her arms, and began unbuttoning her shirt. It was a clean shot, straight through the shoulder. “Okay, okay…no bullet to remove…clean it, and close it…clean it, and close it…” he said, continuing to have a conversation with himself.

John ran for the medical kit he had stashed in the kitchen, the one he had prayed he’d never have use for. Spilling its contents onto the floor next to Marlena, he found what he needed, antiseptic, suture and a surgical needle, both still in their sterile packaging. Running back to the kitchen John got the largest bowl he could find, filling it with hot water, and several towels. 

“Infection…infection…shit! Antibiotics,” he mumbled, setting all of the stuff on the floor, and again rummaging through the materials scattered about. “Doxycycline…ciprofloxacin…vancomycin…” John read the labels placing them to the side. “At least I was thorough,” he mumbled to himself, applying pressure to the wound. “Fuck, Doc, I’m gonna get you through this, because you absolutely do not have permission to die on me!”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Raffi was sitting in his home, watching the flames dance in the fireplace when he was given the telephone by his butler, “Speak.”

“Hey, Boss. It’s Francis.”

“You better fucking tell me you got the Brady woman Francis,” Raffi said.

“I had a clear shot, but the sun must have glanced off of the barrel, because John Black caught sight of it,” Francis said nervously. “Black pulled her out of the way right as I fired, so I didn’t get the kill shot.”

Raffi was about to blow, “What happened?”

“He…they got away, Boss,” Francis told him. “I tried to follow them, but he knew what he was doing, and I lost them. She was hit. I know that much. Give me some time, Boss. I can track them down.”

“So John Black is somewhere in Colorado with an injured Marlena Brady, and you think he’s not going to double down on his efforts to keep her alive. You’ll never fucking find them!” Raffi roared. “You fucked up, Francis. You fucked up!”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Marlena woke in the early morning hours the following day. She was groggy. That feeling you have when you wake up after being given a high dose of painkillers. Even without moving, she knew she was badly injured. There was a deep ache in her shoulder, and she felt the throbbing with every beat of her heart. Gingerly she reached her hand up, touching her shoulder, only to find it heavily bandaged, and realize she wasn’t wearing a shirt. Turning her head to the side, she saw John asleep. She tried to speak, but found it difficult because she was so thirsty, so she reached her hand over, and found his fingers, squeezing gently.

It took John a moment to remember the events of the day before. The hours he had spent working to stop the bleeding, his careful sutures, the bandages, and the cleanup. When everything was taken care of, and he was sure that she would survive, he’d finally allowed himself to break down, falling to the floor beside her, with her hand grasped in his, and sobbing in relief. It was then, that he finally…finally…acknowledged what she meant to him, and what losing her again, might ultimately do to him. 

Opening his eyes, he saw her hazel orbs staring right back. She was beautiful, and she was alive…and he loved her. He was in love with her. He sat up, moving to get out of bed, “I bet you’re thirsty. Hold on…” 

John held the water glass, watching as Marlena drank through the straw, “I was so fucking scared, Doc. I thought I was going to lose you.”

“What happened?” she asked him.

“We can talk about it later. You need to rest. But, I do need you to start taking these antibiotics,” he said holding the pill in his hand. 

“I’m confused…” she said, after swallowing the pill. “How did you…” She was barely able to keep her eyes open. 

“Rest, Baby. We’ll talk later.”

“Don’t leave me, John. Don’t ever leave me,” she said faintly. Drifting off to sleep she whispered, “I love you.”

Laying beside her on the bed, and smoothing the hair off of her forehead, John whispered, “I love you, too.”

Chapter 9

John sat on the bed, beside Marlena, scooping soup into her mouth. “You know, Doc, I should thank Sami for making me buy all of that soup,” he said with a laugh. “It’s come in handy.”

Marlena moaned, “When do you think I might get some real food?” 

John’s hand stilled mid-air. “Tomorrow,” he told her with a wink.

She felt her stomach roll, and her heart skip a beat, as she smiled shyly. Marlena had seen her sutures for the first time that morning, since she’d been sleeping for nearly two days. They were neat, professional, and clean, with no sign of infection. “How did you know what to do?” she asked him softly.

He thought for a moment, before responding, “I don’t know. I was panicking. I had you laying on the couch, and I remember collapsing beside you, pulling at my hair and screaming at myself to remember…and I did.”

“Remembered what?”

“I’ve had dreams where I’m a surgeon. I remembered that, Doc.”

“All of it?” she asked him in wonder.

“Enough to take care of you. Enough to matter,” he said, placing the empty bowl with the spoon off to the side.

Marlena thought for a moment, “You have the notebook…the one you mentioned on the plane?”

“I wrote everything down, if that’s what you’re wondering. I even drew pictures,” he told her. “For the things I didn’t understand.”

“You did a wonderful job on my sutures. As well as any surgeon in a pinch.”

“I was only concerned with one thing…you. I couldn’t lose you again. The children can’t lose you again,” he said, getting out of bed, and walking around to the other side to help her lay back down. “I felt myself shutting down. The image of you in my arms in Montrose, bleeding in the car, lying on the couch…and all I kept feeling was the same emotions I had when your plane when down and I lost you for five years. Desperation, loss, panic…and emptiness. All of it was coming at me in waves, forcing me down into this emotional abyss.” He kneeled down beside the bed, reaching for her hand, threading his fingers through hers, and whispering, “I started talking to myself.”

Marlena smiled, “I remember. You do that when you’re stressed.”

“I stared talking out loud. Telling myself to calm down. Telling myself to remember things…talking to you, and it calmed me down enough to focus.”

“You saved my life,” she whispered.

“They were trying to kill you, Doc.”

“I know, but you got me out of the way. If you hadn’t moved me, I’d be dead, John.” 

Marlena stared into his eyes, and asked him, “Can you lay with me for a little while?”

John slowly rose to his feet, and walked around to the other side of the bed. “I can’t—I can’t even think about what I’d do if I lost you,” he whispered, lying down beside her. He also wanted to kill Roman with his bare hands, simply for being so careless with Marlena’s safety and putting them in their current predicament.

“Come closer, John,” she whispered.

A shiver raced through his body at the sound of his name on her lips. Her hazel eyes, stared into his, sucking him into her. John touched her face softly. “The other night…as you were falling asleep, you said you loved me,” John told her.

She felt his gentle breath across her skin. Her eyes stared into his, “I did…and you said, you love me.”

John smiled, continuing to look into her eyes, “I did, didn’t I?”

“What do we do with that?” she whispered, touching his fingers softly with hers, and threading them together.

John smiled gently, brushing the fingertips of his other hand, over her cheek softly, “We’ll figure it out, pretty lady.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Roman began to suspect that Chief Vaughn wasn’t on the right side of the law after he had been locked in the safe house for a week. Every time he asked about his family he was put off. Every time he asked about his new identity, he was put off, and every time he asked when he would be allowed to leave, he was put off. He could tell that something wasn’t right. The one thing that kept coming to his mind was what John had said about the ISA. Roman had been gone seven years, and in that time John swore that the ISA had become corrupt, and couldn’t be trusted. Roman had assumed that John was the one who couldn’t be trusted. Maybe he was wrong.

He’d hated John on sight simply for what he represented. While Roman had been kidnapped, and locked in a cell on Isla San Cristobal, his family had taken John Black in, as Roman Brady. They hadn’t missed him, or mourned him, because they thought he was with with them. Roman felt betrayed, and if he was honest with himself, angry. Angry that his family, and his wife had so readily accepted someone who was physically very different from him. Not just his facial features but hair, stature…he still couldn’t fathom it. John was a plant from Stefano Dimera, and in Roman’s eyes, all he represented was lies. Therefore, he couldn’t be trusted, and so, Roman had ignored all of John’s warnings about the ISA, and he had refused John’s help in the search for Bo.

The front door to the safe house opened, and Chief Vaughn entered. Roman watched him warily, and Vaughn could sense the change immediately. Roman Brady was becoming suspicious, which meant he was going to have to feed him some more information to keep him complacent. “I have news,” Vaughn said.

“Do you?” Roman said sarcastically.

“You’re children are now with their grandparents in Denver. They are safe.”

“What about my wife?” Roman demanded.

“We’re not sure,” Vaughn said, gauging Roman’s reaction. “One of Torres’ men tailed Abe Carver to Montrose, Colorado. There was an attempt on her life, and your wife was shot. We don’t know any more.”

“Torres’ man shot my wife?” Roman yelled. “And he missed?”

“John Black must have seen him just before he fired. He pulled her out of the way. She was hit, but not fatally,” Vaughn said.

“How do you fucking know that for sure?” Roman demanded.

“We don’t. We only know that much, because our man inside the Torres organization told us. We don’t know if the shot was fatal…but we think it wasn’t, and we have no idea where John Black has taken your wife.”

“I’ve changed my mind, Vaughn. I want out of here,” Roman said, approaching the door where Chief Vaughn stood.

“I’ve told you before, Roman. I can’t let you do that.”

“I chose to come here! I can choose to leave,” Roman roared.

Chief Vaughn sighed deeply, wishing it hadn’t come down to this. He pulled out his gun, and aimed it at Roman, as he backed out the front door, “Not anymore.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Shane had turned off all of his ISA tracking equipment, except for the satellite phone he used to maintain contact with John. Abe had just arrived. Shane looked at him, and said, “We’ve got a situation, and I’m not sure how we should handle it. I spoke with Enzo…Chief Vaughn is working with Torres.”

Abe rubbed his hand over his face roughly, “Shit. How does this affect Roman? Do we even know where the ISA is holding him?”

“Abe,” Shane said, looking serious, “We know nothing. Enzo is trying to get the information we need, but Torres is smart. He doesn’t allow his people to overlap in their jobs, and Enzo doesn’t get information on that side of things. He doesn’t even know if Bo is dead or alive.”

“Roman walked right into a trap,” Abe said in frustration. “I told him to think about it. I warned him not to just run off, and do this thing.” Abe walked towards the window looking out, “I had a bad feeling about the whole thing, but I let him call the shots because he was the one being threatened. Shane, it was Vaughn who came to him, and suggested he go into hiding because of the threats from Torres…and they were working together the whole time?” Abe stared out onto the lawn, and second guessed everything he’d allowed to happen regarding this case. Allowing Roman back onto the force so quickly was the biggest mistake. The man had been gone, imprisoned for seven years, and he just walked back on the job, like he left last week. Roman was hot-tempered, obstinate, moody, and opinionated. He assumed he knew best, and everyone else was expected to fall in line.  Abe looked at Shane, “I feel like this is all my fault.”

“I wouldn’t go that far, Abe. Mistakes were made, certainly, but they weren’t all made by you,” Shane said. 

“So what do we do now, partner?” Abe said turning back around.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

John felt his body lying on the cold metal table, and, while he was unable to move, he could hear everything around him. He heard the voice of a man, deep, resonant, “Are you telling me Rolf, that you can make a super soldier? A mercenary for hire that would do my bidding?” 

“Yes! Stefano, I can take the memories of the individuals I have mapped, multiple individuals, and place them all in one man,” Rolf replied.

“That is amazing! How does it work?” the man John now knew to be Stefano replied.

“I download the memories onto a microchip, and implant the chip into the specimens nervous system,” Rolf said excitedly. “I’m almost certain it will work.”

Stefano’s excitement waned, “Almost certain? Rolf, I need you to be completely certain. I didn’t have my men find me the perfect subject, kidnap him from the middle of the conflict in Grenada, only for you to be ‘almost certain’.” John felt a hand run along his abdomen, almost caressing him, and felt his mind cower in disgust. “He is perfect isn’t he?” Stefano asked Rolf in wonder.

“He is Stefano…perfect,” Rolf replied.

“This microchip…how does it work?”

“I will have access through a satellite, so that I might alter his consciousness when it is necessary, depending on your needs, or what skill set is necessary.”

“Excellent, Rolf. With a soldier like this, my plan to destroy Roman Brady, and the whole Brady clan, can go forward. Who’s memories do you have in mind to use?”

“The priest…Rober—”

“Ah, Rober, such a pious man, and a worthy adversary,” Stefano mused. “Can he keep the traits he currently possesses? I wouldn’t want him to lose the skills he has…”

“Yes! Yes!” Rolf said, getting more excited. “I also wanted to use the memories from the surgeon, Culpepper…remember him? And the art thief.”

“The one who worked with Gina?” Stefano asked Rolf. “I can’t wait Rolf. When can this be done?”

“Is the plan to still have him believe he is Roman Brady?”

“Of course, Rolf! That’s what we’ve been working towards.”

“The sooner you have Roman Brady, and I can map his mind, the sooner we can move forward,” Rolf told him. 

John woke in a cold sweat, breathing great gasps of air. He felt Marlena’s hand reach for his in the dark, and her soft voice whispering his name, “John?” The sound of his name on the soft whisper of her voice was instantly calming, helping him slowly ground himself.

“I’m okay, Doc. It was a dream…just a dream…” he said, pulling his mind out of the dreamlike quagmire he found himself in.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she said quietly. “Physically I can’t do much, but my mind is sharp.”

“I—I…fuck, Doc, I don’t even know where to start,” John said staring at the ceiling, as his mind replayed his dream in images and sounds.

“I don’t have much to do right now,” she said with a small laugh.

“I think, I was a soldier, someone Stefano kidnapped from the Invasion of Grenada in 1983. That would fit, you know…if he took me in October of 1983, and he took Roman the following year…it would fit,” John mumbled.

“Grenada? That’s in the Caribbean, too, isn’t it? Just like Isla San Cristobal?”

“It is…I—I heard him and Rolf discussing what their plans were for me,” John said, squeezing Marlena’s fingers as he tried to process everything he just learned. Rolling out of bed, John said, “I need the notebook. I’m going to forget all of this, if I don’t write it down…” He starts ruffling through his bag beside the bed, “Shit where is it?”

“You said you wrote in it the other night…after I was shot,” Marlena told him softly.

“The kitchen! Hold on, Doc. I’ll be back,” John said rushing from the room.

Marlena chuckled quietly, and said to herself, “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.” When John returned with the notebook, and settled onto the bed beside her, Marlena said, “John, honey? Maybe we need to revisit the idea of hypnosis?”

John started scribbling furiously on the paper in front of him, turning to her for a moment, and saying softly, “I think you’re right.”

Chapter 10

John took care of Marlena as if she was the most precious thing in his life, because she was the most precious thing in his life. Now that they had admitted their love for one another, they were going to have to tackle very real issues once this whole ordeal was over. Within ten days of being shot, Marlena was up and moving around with limited mobility in her arm. John kept her arm immobilized, and fussed after her, while she reassured him that she was a doctor and knew her limitations. They had been on the run for two weeks, and what they knew of the goings on in Salem, and with Roman did not bode well.

Raffi Torres had gotten his drug shipment, and was laying low for the time being, but Bo and Roman were still missing, and even Chief Vaughn seemed to be out of the loop in communication. Marlena knew that John was planning another phone call in a few minutes, and she was praying for more detailed information. Currently, she sat in a kitchen chair admiring John’s backside while he moved around the kitchen cleaning up after their dinner.

John turned around to ask Marlena something, and caught her looking at him. He asked her with a smirk “You like what you see, Doc?”

Marlena blushed, turning her head away, looking towards the mountains outside the window, “I think we’re going to get more snow. I can tell from the sky.”

“You can?” he replied, allowing her to change the subject.

“We should bring in some more wood, in case the electricity goes out,” she said. “Do you have a generator?”

“No. That’s one thing I didn’t think of. I managed to stock a whole surgical kit, but no generator. I’ll bring in some more wood, after the call to Shane. You ready?” he asked her, holding out his hand. Pulling Marlena to her feet they walked to the bedroom, their fingers still linked, and John pulled out the satellite phone. 

“Hey, Shane. Any news?” John asked when Shane picked up.

“I do, but it’s not good news. I was hoping to avoid telling you, but it can’t wait any longer,” Shane and told him.

John motioned for Marlena to come closer, so they could both hear, “Okay, go ahead, Doc’s listening in.”

“Chief Vaughn’s body was found in the river last night. We knew he was working with Torres, but since Torres got his shipment—”

“—Torres was working with Chief Vaughn? How long have you known that Shane?” John asked, with frustration rising up in him.

“We’ve known for a few days, but, John, you were dealing with Marlena, and we were hoping to handle it on our end, but now…Vaughn’s dead, and we have lost track of Torres,” Shane said. “We know that he has men in the area of Montrose, Colorado searching for you.”

Marlena gasped softly, and John said, “Fuck, Shane! Could Torres be in Colorado?”

“We don’t know where Torres is. He’s completely off grid, so are Roman and Bo. Now, with Vaughn’s body being retrieved from the river…”

“How did Vaughn die?”

Shane was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “A shot to the head, although his body looked to be beaten very badly. I need to know, John…is there a chance that Torres, or one of his men could find you?”

“There’s always the possibility, Shane, but I’ll handle things on my end.”

“Are you in Montrose?”

“Shane, we’ve been over this…I’m not giving you our location,” John said with a sigh, running his free hand over his jaw roughly. 

“I could track your position, John, if I felt it necessary,” Shane told him. “If something goes wrong, I need to know how to get to you—”

“—No. The only way this works, is if you don’t know where we are. If Torres gets ahold of you or Abe, you have deniability. I’m not telling you,” John told him. “I’ll take care of Doc. You just work on locating Bo and Roman.”

“At this point, we’re certain that Torres has Roman, as well as still having Bo,” Shane said reluctantly.
John heard Marlena’s breathing change in pattern, and knew she was crying. He decided to end the call, “I’ll call back in a couple days. Same time. Thanks for the info.”

“Before you go…how’s Marlena?” Shane asked.

“She’s fine. She healing just fine, Shane.” John replied. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye, John,” Shane said, just before John disconnected the line.

John tossed the phone onto the storage bag on the floor, and turned, pulling Marlena into his arms, allowing her to cry into his neck. Her wet tears dampened the cotton neckline of his t-shirt, and her hands gripped the fabric along his back. “This is such a mess, John,” she said softly. “I’m so conflicted. I’m angry with Abe. I’m angry with Roman, and now Torres has him. How can I stay mad at him when he could die?”

“I’m not the shrink, Doc, but I do know this,” John said, wiping the tears from her face. “You’re allowed to be angry, and feel let down. You’re allowed to feel whatever you need to feel.”

“He left when the twins were barely a month old! He left, and then disappeared for seven years. Now he’s back, not even two months, and he chose to leave us again. As scared as I feel for his safety, his choices…he keeps picking his job over his family. It’s not fair to me, or the children,” she says. Marlena stands up, from where she sat on the bed, and walked over to the window. As she watches the first snow flakes start to fall from the sky, she smiles, turning to John, “I told you.”

Walking over to stand behind her, John casually wraps his arms around her waist, and pulls her back against him. She allows her head to fall back on his shoulder, as they stand in companionable silence, and continue to watch the snow fall. As much as John wanted to stay there in that moment with her, holding her, while they watched the snow fall, he knew that he needed to bring in more firewood. From the looks of things, he needed to bring in a lot of firewood. “You want to hang out with me, while I bring in the firewood?”

Looking up at him, her face inches from his, she says, “Hang out with you?”

John could feel his heart rate pick up, as the feel of her breath wafted over his lips. He paused, and glanced down at her lips, before saying, “Sure, Doc. You hang out on the porch while I make several trips in and out of the cabin to get more fire wood. You know, keep me company.” Marlena’s soft laugh vibrated through his body, causing him to shiver with want. 

“Sure. I’ll hang out with you,” she said, standing up straighter, intending to step away.

John momentarily stilled her movement, realizing he wasn’t quite ready to let her go. Leaning down, running his nose along the length of Marlena’s neck, he said, “You smell so good.”

The hot breath on her skin caused an instantaneous reaction. She went from feeling lighthearted, to aroused in a mere moment. She moaned, relaxing back against him. The feel of him against her, his breath on her neck, all of it could make her mad with wanting him, but she knew they needed to talk. A serious talk, because, as it stood, they were both technically committed to other people. Their situation was anything but standard. “John,” she whispered, so aroused she was barely able to speak.

John marveled at how quickly they had gone from friendly, to much more than friendly. He felt blood rushing to his cock, and his heart rate increase. She did this to him. A whisper of his name, and he wanted to take her, right there on the floor. “Fuck, Doc,” he groaned against the nape of her neck, “the way you whisper my name…”

She felt like a schoolgirl. Her belly flopped, her heart fluttered, and her core clenched, at the sound of need in his voice, “John, I…” Her voice trailed off when his hands moved to her hips, and turned her to face him. Staring up into his eyes, all thought of having a rational, civilized, conversation, to discuss what they meant to each other, was gone. She continued to stare up at him, breathing harshly, and then she whispered, “John…kiss me…”

“Fuck, yes,” he groaned, wrapping one arm around her waist, while the other weaved tightly into her hair, holding her in place. His mouth consumed her, licking over her lips, and biting at the soft pillowy flesh. Marlena’s wimpers, and breathy pants drove him further. They stumbled backwards towards the bed, and John carefully laid her down, moving over her, and kissing her repeatedly. “Doc…” he moaned into her. “Baby…you are so amazing…”

She couldn’t think about anything except his mouth on hers. The firewood was forgotten. The conversation she knew they should have, was forgotten, and all she could do was beg him for more. Deft fingers unfastened the makeshift arm brace John had fashioned, and then proceeded to slowly unbutton her shirt. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew they should stop, but she couldn’t bring herself to end it. A fire was burning inside her, and even though she knew the timing was all wrong, she wasn’t going to stop him.

Once he was gazing on the creamy, freckled skin of her breasts, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop this. Marlena hadn’t worn a bra since she was shot, and every day had been torture for him, knowing what was just out of reach. Cupping one breast in his hand, he lifted it, and lowered his head to suck on her skin. Her tight nipple brushed along his cheek, pushing him further in his desire.

“John!” Marlena gasped, arching her back, and then gasping again, this time in pain, as her shoulder strained.

“Lay still, Doc,” John whispered, along the skin of her abdomen. “Don’t move, baby…just let me love you…let me love you…” He licked across her navel once, allowing the cool air to wash over her skin, before pulling back to look at her. It occurred to John that they should wait. They hadn’t yet discussed anything, aside from the fact that they were in love. He didn’t want her to regret this, “Maybe we should—”

“—No. No, no, no. I know what you’re thinking. I know, and I won’t…I won’t regret this, honey…” she whispered, using her good arm to pull his mouth to her. “I swear, John. I won’t regret this.”

John’s fingers fumbled to unbutton, and push her jeans down over her hips. Groaning at the sight of her, spread out before him, he studied her – the open shirt, and the pink, cotton, flowered panties with the little bow. He felt his cock surge in his pants, pulsing, and making them increasingly uncomfortable. Rising up onto his knees, John hurriedly pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it to the side, and began unbuttoning his own jeans.

Marlena’s pussy throbbed, as she watched his body in the moonlight. The snow outside adding its own glow to the dark room. She reached for him, “I want to feel you. I want to feel your body next to mine…your skin on mine…come here…”

Sliding the length of his body alongside hers, caused them both to groan in relief, and arousal. John’s head dipped to her breast, sucking her turgid nipple into his mouth, and sucking deeply. Again, Marlena’s body bucked involuntarily, and she gasped in pain. John’s hand splayed open on her belly holding her down, and whispered, “Let me love you…”

“I can’t, John,” she whined. “I need you…please…”

He was afraid of hurting her, and he knew, this first time, she wasn’t going to have patience for foreplay. Using his fingers to push her panties aside, he used his thumb to gauge her readiness. He encountered slick, swollen folds. He flicked her clit roughly, and then pressed the pad of his thumb into her, rubbing over her roughly. “You are so wet, baby…so fucking wet…” he said, teasing her with his thumb.

“John, please…” she cried, trying to buck her hips again.

“Slow down, pretty lady…I’ll get you there,” John whispered, biting her ear, and licking over her ear lobe. “Believe me…I’m not going to stop.” Pulling his hand away from her, he wrapped his fingers in the elastic of her panties, roughly pulling them down her legs, and used his hand to push her thighs wide. Looking down at her moist, swollen, center John audibly groaned in desire, “You are so gorgeous.” Licking the underside of her breast he whispered, “All of you…”

“I need you, John…stop making me beg…please…”

A sexy smirk lined his face as he leaned closer to her ear and whispered, “I like it when you beg, Doc…” His body moved into the cradle of her thighs, and his cock nudged her opening, causing her to gasp in pleasure. Both of his hands grasped her face, as he balanced on his elbows, and he told her, “I love you. I want you to know that…I will always love you.” And then he began to slowly push inside her welcoming body.

Marlena felt as if she left this world, and came back in a single instant, throwing her head back, and crying out, “John! Oh, G-d, John!”

Holding her tightly, so she couldn’t move, John slowly, almost languidly, made love to her body. She wanted to buck, she wanted to ravage him, but he held her tight, rolling his hips, and allowing her orgasm to slowly build. He absorbed her gasps, and pants, her breathy moans, and her mewling sounds. All of it pushing him higher, and when they reached their climax, it was the melding of two souls that should have never been torn apart. 

Chapter 11

Marlena stood on the porch wearing a pair of John’s shoes and wrapped in a blanket, while he made several trips too and from the wood pile. Every once in awhile he would stop and kiss her going one way or the other, causing her to laugh at his antics. After dropping the last load of wood inside the house, he joined her outside as she watched the snow fall. Coming up behind her, John gently tugged her into his arms, while she rested her head on his shoulder. “It’s so peaceful here,” she said softly. “The snow seems to muffle all the normal sounds, and it’s so silent.”

“It is,” John said, kissing the top of her head. “I know I shouldn’t say this…given our current situation, but, Doc, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now.”

“Me either,” she said, softly running her fingers over his arm wrapped around her. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, I was so scared to lose you, that I walked away. I shouldn’t have done that. No matter how it would have turned out…I should have believed in you enough, and trusted you enough, to make that choice, and respect your decision. I didn’t do that, and I’m sorry.”

Marlena turned in his arms, looking into his eyes, “It hurts to think about it. I almost want to to say it’s okay, and move on from it, because it hurts so much to think about, but I have to say this, or it will forever hang between us. That morning, when you showed up with Isabella…I knew. I knew what you’d done, and I felt like you—it felt like you’d cheated on me. Even though nothing was settled, and you hadn’t committed to me. It hurt that much…I felt like when we were in San Cristobal…it felt as if your decision was me, even if you didn’t say—”

“—Doc! It was you!” he said vehemently, holding her face in his hands. “It was, and I fucked everything up, by not trusting you…by not trusting us. I was losing everything. Everything. My parents, my children, my job, my house, and I was convinced I was going to lose you. Isabella was there, promising me she would always be there for me. Fuck!” John stepped back, feeling so guilty it stole his breath. He stood by the porch railing, and said, so quietly she could barely hear him, “So, I walked away, and that was wrong. So fucking wrong. When I saw your face that morning, it nearly ripped my heart out. Your pain was so clear, and I knew I was the cause. The guilt hit me hard, and I felt like I had cheated on you.” Turning to face her, John said, “You weren’t imagining that.” With one large step, he was back in front of her. Grabbing her face in his hands again, he kissed her mouth, her eyes, her cheeks, returning to her mouth, saying in between kisses, “I’m so damn sorry, baby! I love you!”

“What do we do now?” she whispered. “Because now…we’re the cheaters.”

John pulled her head to his chest, holding her tightly, and said, “I don’t know, but I’m not letting you go again. I’m not walking away, Doc, because you’re mine, and I’m yours. I will fight for you.”

Marlena looked up at him, with tears in her eyes, and whispered, “Okay.” Because, for that moment, it was enough.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Isabella continued driving through the heavy snow, determined to make it to Telluride for the night. She hadn’t been doing intensive investigative work for the last two weeks, to be stopped by a blizzard. She had been through all of John’s personal affairs, and learned all of his secrets. Now that she had tracked him down, she wasn’t going back to Salem, until she confronted him. He had left her, abruptly and without a conversation, to run to the aid of Marlena and her children. Isabella wanted to know why. She wanted answers. She felt like she deserved answers. 

When they were in Mexico and John was feeling lost, and overwhelmed, as if he was losing everything, she’d been there, to comfort him, and reassure him that no matter what, he would always have her. She knew that it was manipulative. She knew that she’d stepped in when he was at a low point, but she’d been desperate to keep him. Taking advantage of the moment, is how she saw it. While Marlena was off with Roman trying to come to terms with who he was, Isabella had taken care of John, because he was hers. The following morning, when she saw the pain on Marlena’s face, Isabella had felt almost smug, because that was the final way to sever Marlena and John’s ties…until Roman had run off, and left Marlena and her children high and dry. 

Pulling up in front of a hotel in Telluride, Isabella parked her rental car, relieved to have finally made it. Hopefully tomorrow she would be able to drive out to the cabin owned by Charles Wright, and have a conversation with John. 

Another car pulled into the parking lot a few minutes later, the occupants smiling smugly to themselves, as they followed her inside. Finding John Black and Marlena Brady had been easier than they had anticipated. All they had to do was tail Isabella Toscano, and she’d lead them right where they wanted to be.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

When Marlena woke the next morning, John was nowhere to be found. Wrapping herself in a comforter, and stepping into the same pair of John’s boots that she wore the night before, she went out onto the porch to look for him, “John?” 

Marlena stopped short when she saw him standing next to another vehicle, with Isabella standing next to him. John turned to look at her, fear and anxiety lining his face, “Doc, go inside, and pack. Now. We’ve got go.”

She knew immediately why. If Isabella had found them, then Torres could find them. She turned quickly, and entered the house, kicking off John’s boots, and running towards the bedroom. Packing wasn’t going to take long, since neither one of them had much to begin with. Marlena started pulling open dresser drawers and dumping their clothes into their bags.

Outside, John turned back to Isabella, “You need to leave, now.”

“John! I came all this way to try, and figure out what’s going on. You left me, with no word…no communication!” Isabella said.

“It’s too dangerous! Fuck, Izzy B, you shouldn’t even be here!” John said. “Do you even know what you’ve done? Do you?”

She started crying, “You left me! You left me to go run off with Marlena! All I did was track you down! All I did was want answers!”

“I don’t have time for this!”

“Make time!” she yelled. “Make time for me, because you are always making time for her!”

John turned to see Marlena dragging their bags out the front door with one hand. Completely forgetting Isabella, he screamed in a blind panic, running towards her, “Get back in the house, Doc! Please!” He was scared to death that Isabella had been followed, that Marlena would be shot again, because of Isabella’s carelessness. Once he reached her, he took the bags, tossing them onto the porch. “Please, Doc,” John begged her. “Go in the house. I can’t lose you again.”

Her eyes said everything she couldn’t in that moment, so she nodded her head once, and touched his arm gently, before she turned, and went into the house. John picked up the discarded bags, and walked them to the SUV, throwing them in the back, then he stalked back over to where Isabella was standing, “Isabella, we can talk about this later, when I get back to Salem, but right now, Doc and I have to go. I don’t know if you’ve been followed, but it’s almost certain that you have. Please leave. For your own safety, leave now.”

Isabella’s mind was reeling. She’d seen the panic on his face, the way he’d run towards Marlena, shouting in fear for her. She’d seen the way Marlena looked at John, touching his arm. Looking up at John, she said, “You slept with her.”

John has always appreciated that Isabella was so direct, but he didn’t expect to hear her say that. He has no response at first. He’s not going to deny it, so he simply nods, saying, “I’m sorry I hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“You’re sorry? For hurting me…but not for fucking her…” she asked him.

John flinched at her words, and her tone, “I’m sorry for hurting you.”

“You chose me. Why would you do that if you didn’t mean it? After everything I did to make you love me,” Isabella said, opening the door to her car, and sliding into the driver’s seat. “I was there for you when you found out that you weren’t Roman. Do you remember that? I was there. Not Marlena. When you knew you were going to lose everything, I stayed by your side, John. Me!”

John studied her for a moment, wondering how much of a role she might have played in his decision to walk away from Marlena. Obviously, he had made the final decision, but had Isabella somehow influenced him? Would he have done something different, if he had been allowed to work through his emotions on his own? “Doc and I are leaving. We can’t stay here anymore since it’s been compromised. You need to go, Isabella. Go back to Salem.”

She slammed the door closed, without another word, glaring at him through the glass of the window. Turning around in the driveway, spewing snow, rock and gravel behind her, she sped away. John didn’t wait to watch as Isabella drove away, instead he turned, instantly running into the house in search of Marlena. Isabella watched him from the rearview mirror, and knew she had lost him. Through the haze of her tears, she saw a black SUV speeding down the road towards her. They were in the middle of the road, giving her no leeway on her side. She honked her horn in desperation, hoping they would slow down, or move to the side. It was only when they were close enough to see their eyes, that she knew they weren’t going to move. Swerving roughly to the side of the road, her car hit a ditch, flipping onto its side, and coming to a rest in a snow bank. 

“Fuck, Francis! She ain’t the one we’re after!” Mike yelled at the man driving, as he looked back, and saw the SUV tipped into the ditch.

“I’m just pissed that bitch left early, and we had to search her trash to find out where she was going,” Francis said with venom.

“Dumbass,” Mike muttered. 

At the cabin, John tossed the duffle bag with the money, along with the satellite phone into the back of the SUV, and hurriedly got Marlena settled in the front seat, handing her the envelope with their documents. Pulling a pistol out of the glove compartment, he told her, “Scoot down.”

“John?” she said, staring at the gun. “What are you going to do.”

“Keep us alive. Scoot down, Doc,” he told her. He placed the pistol on the dashboard, so he could grab it quickly if he needed to, and he said, “I’m not taking chances.”

Marlena slouched down in her seat, and asked, “You think she was followed?”

“I’m almost certain she was followed. She probably led them right to us,” John replied, turning onto the main road. Almost as soon as the words left his mouth, he saw the black SUV in the distance. Picking up the pistol, he said to Marlena, “Stay down!” Taking aim, he fired once.

Francis didn’t even know what hit him. He was dead as soon as the bullet entered his forehead. In the next instant, Mike felt the vehicle lurch as a second shot took out the tire, and the truck lurched into a ditch. There was nothing he could do, as he watched John Black speed by. The fact that Raffi was going to be pissed, was all he could think about, as he wiped the blood spatter from his face.

In the car, Marlena whispered, “What did you do?”

“What needed to be done,” John said softly, before tossing the pistol back on the dashboard. He continued to speed down the road, noticing that Isabella’s SUV had been run off the road. He couldn’t stop to check on her. His only thought was Marlena, and keeping her alive. Keeping her with him. “I’m not losing you again, Doc. I’m not. ”

Marlena watched him, and finally came to terms with what her ‘death’ had truly done to him. He’d been a man, with no memories of his own, and the one person who’d known him since the beginning. The one person who had been his constant, was simply gone. Had he ever truly dealt with her ‘death’? Or had he pushed it to the side, and forced himself to carry on, carrying the weight of the Brady clan on his shoulders? Marlena was almost certain that John had just killed someone. After nearly an hour of silence, she reached for his hand, saying softly, “Where are we going?”

“Right now?” he asked her. “Any suggestions, Doc?”

Marlena was quiet for a moment, and said, “Niagra Falls?”

“Really?”

“It always looked so pretty,” she said softly, staring at their joined hands. “But, I’ll follow you anywhere.”

“Let’s go to Niagra Falls,” he said, lifting her hand and kissing her fingers. “It’s the perfect place to get lost.”

Chapter 12

John drove for hours, stopping only for food, and gas. Marlena had to beg him to stop for the night, but eventually he conceded as they neared Des Moines, Iowa. After parking at a hotel, and digging through the envelope that held their documents, John pulled out another envelope with additional sets of identification. Marlena stared at him in surprise, realizing that there were probably more secrets to be had from John Black. “John, when did you get these?”

He smirked at her, “I had a lot of free time when you were recovering, Doc.”

“But where? You couldn’t hide the stuff you would need to do this in the cabin,” she said, trying to think where he might have hid the equipment for this type of work.

“The shed,” he replied, with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Hmmm, I guess that’s why there was no generator?” she asked him.

John smiled like a child, and gave a short laugh, “It wouldn’t fit.” Handing her a new driver’s license, this one for the state of California, he said, “Your new name is Kathryn Andrews. I’m Matthew. Let’s go get some sleep.”

Marlena and John entered the hotel lobby with everything they currently possessed, and checked in as Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Andrews. Once they had checked in, paying cash for the room, they made their way to the twelfth floor. It was obvious to Marlena that the day of driving, nearly fourteen hours total, had taken their toll on John, and he hadn’t shaved in the whole time they’d been in hiding, which likely added to his scruffy, fatigued look. She watched as he stood near the window, looking out over the city lights of Des Moines. Marlena approached him, running her hand along his back, and said softly, “Why don’t you shower, and get some sleep?”

John turned to face her, saying, “I will, but I need to call Shane first.”

He’d been deep in thought all day. Marlena stopped him, stepping in front of him, and touching his face to get his attention, “Do you want to talk about whatever’s bothering you?”

He sighed, enveloping her in his arms, and pulling her body close to his. Burying his face in her neck, he whispered, “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Isabella said something this morning, that’s all. It has me thinking about Mexico, again,” John told her.

She pulled back a little, looking up at him, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“It won’t change anything. I still did what I did,” he told her.

“But if it’s on your mind…I’m here.”

“She made a comment about being there for me in Mexico, after I found out the truth, and everything she had done to make me love her…nothing in particular, but I’ve been playing that night over, and over in my head, and maybe…maybe I wouldn’t have made the same decision if I’d been alone.”

“What do you mean?”

“That night, she kept saying things…she said, she would never leave me, she reminded me a few times in subtle ways that I had essentially lost everything. She mentioned that you were with Roman because legally he was your husband,” John said, pulling away from her, and walking over to the window again. His features were lined in concentration. “She said that you were so honest and moral that you would stand by your husband, because you took vows, and you were the type of women who honored her promises.”

“I made vows to you, too, at one time,” Marlena whispered, standing closely beside him, and grasping his hand in her, while she looked up at him.

“I know…but for some reason…it was the way she did it, as if losing my life was inevitable, but adding that I had her…at least I had her. I was so lost emotionally, I really felt like I was losing my whole world, and she made me feel like the only constant was her,” John whispered. “If she hadn’t been with me. If she hadn’t sought me out, and spent so much time reminding me of what I was going to lose, and what I could have with her…maybe I wouldn’t have made the choices I did. I don’t know. There’s nothing I can do about it now, except apologize.”

“I find it concerning that she might have so blatantly manipulated you, intentionally. I can’t imagine what you were going through that night. It was a very difficult night,” Marlena murmured.

John hesitated for a moment, looking down at her. He had never asked her what she had been doing that night, always assuming she was with Roman, discussing their future. Maybe that wasn’t the case. He finally asked, “What were you doing that night?”

Marlena looked out over the city, and said, “At first, Roman came to me. He felt that since we had positive confirmation that he was Roman Brady, everything would fall into place. He would get everything he had lost back, including me…I told him no.”

John felt as if he been hit, with the power of that one word. “No?” he repeated. “You told him no?”

“I said that things would not go back to the way they were before he left, because you had been in my life. You had been in the children’s lives…I told him that I needed to find you, and speak with you, but I didn’t know where you were,” she said softly. “I told him, I loved you. I didn’t even know him anymore. I couldn’t simply jump back into a marriage with a stranger, when I was in love with you! He raged, he roared, in typical Roman Brady fashion.” She paused for a moment, and then glanced up at him, “I’d forgotten he could do that, you know? Because you never did.”

“And the next morning—”

“—I was going to talk to you, John! I needed to know where we stood! You walked in with Isabella…and I knew. I knew exactly where we stood…”

“So you went with him.”

“You chose Isabella, and he’d been gone for seven years…I’d already lost you. That much was evident. I decided to give him a chance, but I never let him in. Not really,” she said, walking away. She sat heavily on the bed, watching him from across the room. “He had expectations, and I couldn’t live up to those. He worked all the time. Funny,” she mused with a small smile, “I’d gotten so used to you, that I’d forgotten he was like that.”

“What do you mean he had expectations?”

“He thought the children would immediately bond with him. He didn’t like the house rules you had set for the children…especially Carrie.” Marlena paused before she continued, softly, “He didn’t like sleeping in the guest room.”

“What?”

“I never slept with him, John. I couldn’t.”

“I just thought…”

“You thought wrong. I was in love with you. I am in love with you,” Marlena said, looking down at her hands. “My heart wasn’t giving you up so easily. I went through the motions of trying to make it work. A few kisses, that usually ended with him wanting more…and me being unable to cross that line…because my heart was still yours.”

He feels his heart racing in his chest, as he processes what she’s saying. She hasn’t been with Roman, because she loved him. He made the biggest mistake of his life in Mexico, and Marlena still chose him. John strode over to where she sat, falling to his knees before her, and holding her face in his hands, “I swear, Doc. I swear, my heart belongs to you, and I will be sorry for the way things fell out in Mexico, until the end of my days. I will spend our lives together trying to prove to you how sorry I am!”

“Don’t,” she told him, touching his bearded face. “Don’t. Please. I want to forget about it. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you, and I want you to spend the rest of your life loving me. That’s all I want, John. You.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Shane had been deep in sleep, when a pounding on his door woke him. A storm was raging outside, and he could hear the rain, mixed with snow, pelting his window. He opened his front door to find Enzo, and Roman standing there, soaked to the bone, and supporting the frail body of Bo Brady. No one said a word as the men shuffled into the room, placing Bo on the couch. Shane knew that something major had to have occurred for Enzo to break his cover.

Enzo spoke first, “They killed the guard, Shane. I had finally learned the location where Raffi was having them kept, and when I arrived they had just killed the guard!”

“Damn. Okay, we need medical care for both of them,” Shane said, rushing towards his telephone, and dialing quickly. “Marcus! I’m sorry to call so late…I need help, and it’s got to stay quiet…at my house…yes, it’s an emergency. Thank you.” Next he dialed Abe, “Abe, I need you at my home. Now.” Shane hung up immediately, knowing that Abe wouldn’t waste time on questions. Abe would know that if Shane called him at nearly 3:00 am, it was an emergency.

Turning to the three men, Shane noted that Roman and Bo hadn’t said a word, “Enzo, run into the closet in the back, near the maid’s quarters, and grab as many blankets as you can.” As Enzo ran to get the blankets, Shane started pulling the clothing off of Bo. It was filthy, he smelled, and it was obvious that he had been beaten from the bruises lining his body.

Roman finally made eye contact with Shane, “I’m fine, Shane. Bo’s not. Marcus is on the way?”

“He’s coming right now,” Shane told him. “Enzo said you killed the guard?”

“I don’t remember, honestly. If he says I did, I probably did,” Roman said without emotion. “There’s a whole chunk of time tonight that I can’t recall.” Roman pulled his shirt over his head, groaning in pain, and Shane noted that Roman’s body was also riddled with bruises. “Do you have word on Marlena?”

“He called me earlier. It’s not good, Roman. One of Torres men followed Abe to Colorado. She was shot, but John saved her life. Isabella tracked them down, and she was followed. They’re on the run again.”

“Isabella? Why would she do that? Risk their lives? Didn’t she know what that would do?” Roman said.

Shane was quiet for a moment, “Isabella didn’t know anything. The less she knew the better, but her curiosity almost got them killed. John said he shot one of Torres’ men, but they weren’t followed this time.”

“Where are they now?” Roman demanded, angry that Marlena was still with John two weeks later. 

“He won’t tell me, and honestly, that’s probably best, Roman,” Shane said. “He checks in regularly, and he’d die before he left someone near her.”

“Yeah, he’ll keep her alive…” Roman muttered, knowing that when they returned she wouldn’t be his anymore. He’d lost her to John Black a long time ago.

Chapter 13

Bo was taken to the hospital, and admitted with Marcus as his primary doctor. Although they wanted to admit Roman as well, he refused. He insisted on staying with Shane, and being present the next time John phoned in. Matthew and Kathryn Andrews were lucky enough to find a vacation rental that was secluded, and willing to take cash as payment. Once they were settled, John pulled out the satellite phone, and called Shane.

“Hey Shane,” he said.

“John! I’m glad you called, there’s been some changes that I wanted to let you know about.”

“Did you find Torres?”

“No, but we have Roman and Bo. Roman killed the guard, and one of our guys got them out. Bo’s in bad shape, and currently in the hospital. Roman’s bruised up. He’s staying with me right now,” Shane said.

John immediately knew why Roman was staying with Shane. He had enough of Roman’s memories to remember that the man was incredibly jealous, although John had never been the jealous type. “Is he with you right now?”

“Yes,” was all Shane replied. “How is Marlena?”

“Her gunshot has healed over without any infection, and she’s regaining mobility in it. Sometimes it pulls or pinches, but that’s to be expected. I was worried all the driving might aggravate it,” John said, looking at Marlena, “but she seems to be okay.”

Marlena sat beside him, her fingers laced with his, and her head resting on his shoulder, completely unaware of the turn in the conversation. She was content to be with John, because she felt so safe with him. 

“Roman would like to speak with Marlena,” Shane said tentatively.

John was quiet for a moment, and said, “Hold on. I have to check with Doc.”

Marlena lifted her head up, looking at John questioningly, when he said, “Roman and Bo are safe. Roman is with Shane, and would like to speak with you.”

“No. No…no,” she said, shaking her head. “No.” She couldn’t fully explain why she wasn’t ready to speak with him, but she started crying, and whispered, “No” again.

“Shane, um, she’s not really up to speaking with him right right now,” John said, watching her retreat to the bathroom.

“I see, I’ll let him know,” Shane said. 

John heard a muffled conversation taking place, and then Roman’s voice came on the line, “I want to talk to my wife, John!”

“I’m not in the habit of forcing people to do things they don’t want to do, Roman,” John said. “And right now, she has plainly stated that she doesn’t wish to speak to you.”

“I’m her husband, dammit! Put her on!” Roman roared.

“You should have acted like one then,” John told him. “Put Shane on the line. Now.”

As soon as Shane came back on, John said, “We’re safe for now. The next time I call in, I don’t want him around, Shane. Marlena’s upset, and he’s acting as if he owns her.”

“I understand,” Shane told him before hanging up. Once the line was disconnected, Shane turned to Roman, “What the hell was that, Roman?”

“She’s my wife! She wouldn’t even speak to me? Or John Black wouldn’t let her speak to me?” Roman said. “How do we even know she’s okay? Have you spoken with her?”

“I haven’t, but I have full faith in John. I always have.”

“Well, I don’t. You don’t know what he’s capable of! Nobody does!”

Shane sighed, and finally said, as bluntly as he could, “I have known him for nearly eight years. I know exactly what he’s capable of. I consider you a friend, Roman, but when you chose to leave your family, John stepped in, and saved their lives. I’m not about to start questioning his methods now.”

“I didn’t have a choice, but to leave them! Torres was after me! I thought that if —”

“—You thought wrong, and right now, you’re not in any position to make demands,” Shane told him, walking out of the room, and leaving a furious Roman Brady behind.

Roman knew that the only way to get Marlena home, and away from John was to track down Torres. Grabbing his coat, he stormed out of the house.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

While Marlena showered John made them a light dinner of Caprese salad, and some crusty Italian bread. They had been on the road all day, and stopped for groceries earlier, but finding the energy to cook a full meal was something neither of them would have tonight. Dinner was casual. Marlena sat in a bathrobe with her hair curling around her shoulders, while John was minus his shirt, in a pair of jeans. She was quiet, until finally she said, “I couldn’t talk to him, because I’m so angry.”

“You didn’t need to speak with him, if you didn’t want to. That’s why I asked you. I’ll never force you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable,” he said.

“What he did was so careless. So inconsiderate, and so self centered. How could he not even consider that Torres might come after me…or the children?”

“I’m not sure, Doc. Abe mentioned it was a possibility, and Roman disagreed. He was certain that with him out of the way, Torres would leave you and the children alone,” John said.

“So, because he didn’t intentionally bring harm to us, that makes it better?”

“No, absolutely not.”

“I’m so tired,” she whispered.

John pushed his empty plate to the side, lifting her hand, and said, “Come here, Doc.” Scooting his chair back slightly, he gripped Marlena’s waist sitting her on the table in front of him, and lifting her foot into his lap. “Do you remember those foot rubs at the end of a long day?”

Marlena smiled shyly, and then moaned, “I do…oh!” Having her feet rubbed by a sexy shirtless man in blue jeans was the best way to end her day.

“You used to sleep so well,” he murmured, pushing his thumb along the bottom of her foot. “Just relax.”

His hands swept over her feet, her ankles, and her toes, pushing and kneading, turning her whole body into butter. Pushing her robe to the side, John began to massage her calves, running his warm hands over her skin languidly, and rolling her muscle through his palms. It felt like heaven, and when his fingers reached behind her knees pulling her towards the edge of the table, and his hands moved towards her thighs…she felt her body begin to respond to this slow seduction. Over the tops of her thighs, he kneaded her skin, and when their eyes met, Marlena whispered, “John…”

John swept his splayed hands over her thighs, using slight pressure to push her legs open, “You are so beautiful.” He could see the cleft at the vee of her thighs, and his breathing started to pick up in anticipation. 

Her head fell back, as she reveled in the feel of his hands on her body, “John…”

Every time she whispered his name, his body reacted, he wanted to hear her call out for him. He wanted to know that she craved him. His hands moved to the belt at her waist, stalling on the knot, and he asked her, “What do you want, Doc?”

“You know what I want, John,” she said, looking down at him through half-lidded eyes.

He licked along the inside of her knee, whispering, “Tell me, baby…tell me what you want…”

She knew he was playing with her. She knew what he wanted. It had been years, but she knew. This little game he played, where he wouldn’t move or act, until she specifically asked for him to do so. “Open my robe, John,” she told him.

He smiled at her, “That’s right…tell me…” John’s hands pushed her robe open, baring her breasts, and sliding over her thighs. He wanted her breasts in his mouth, he wanted to lick along the line underneath them. Just the sight of her body, so close to him, so open, and his cock was rock hard, throbbing with every beat of his heart. Pushing his hands up to where her thighs met her hips, John pushed his thumbs into her flesh squeezing her, and pulling her right to the edge of the table. The scent of her arousal, mixed with the scent of soap, had him groaning as he patiently waited for her.

She felt so shy, and yet she knew he wouldn’t move forward without direction. It embarrassed her, while at the same time making her hotter than she had ever been. Marlena knew what she wanted, she knew what she was craving, but asking for it was so out of character. Finally, she whispered, so softly it was barely audible, “Lick me.”

“Fuck yes,” he rasped, dipping his head to lick along the open lips of her pussy. Looking at her, he said, “Lay back, pretty lady, I’m about to have dessert.”

His filthy words caused her body to clench, and fluid slid down her thigh. Marlena nearly fell back on the table, crying out, “Oh, G-d!”

Sliding her body off of the table, John placed her legs over his shoulders, and licked the moisture from her skin. “You taste so fucking good…it’s been so long…” he said, sucking at her flesh, while his hands slid up the length of her abdomen, and his fingers rolled her nipple.

Marlena cried out, her head falling back onto the table with a thud. From that point on, she just felt. His hands kneading her breasts, his fingers plucking at her nipples, and once his mouth latched onto her swollen clit, she was lost, falling over the edge into oblivion. As she lay there, feeling her orgasm continue to throb through her own body, she heard the sound of John undoing his zipper, as he hastily opened his jeans. She felt his beard rubbing along her inner thigh, and his deep inhale of her scent. She pulsed with want, knowing that just the barest touch would have her coming again.

John could barely speak, but the game wasn’t over yet, “What do you want, Doc?”

“Oh, G-d, John! You know! You know,” she cried.

“Tell me, baby…it makes me so fucking hard to hear you ask for it,” he whispered, licking her clit again roughly, and then biting the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. She bucked against his face. “Please…” he begged.

She couldn’t think clearly, he was driving her mad with want, and her thoughts were becoming more, and more scattered, “John, I want you…I need you…”

“Say it!” he demanded.

“Fuck me,” she whispered. “Oh, my G-d! Please John, please!”

Gently moving her legs from his shoulders, he pulled her limp body down, and slid her warm, swollen, folds over his cock. His mouth took hers in a bruising kiss, her essence on his tongue, causing her to body to wrack with arousal. As soon as he entered her body, she started coming again, the anticipation too much. The tight, pulsing of her core was his undoing, and just the heat of her – her orgasm – had him coming. He held her hips, pulling her body down onto him, and roared, “Fuck!” As everything around him went black for a moment. 

Marlena sagged against John, her head resting on his shoulder, and her arms hanging limply as her sides. John held her tightly, still breathing hard, and all he heard her say was, “Oh, my…”

Chapter 14

Nearly a week later, Roman found himself staring out at the water as he stood on the pier. He remembered coming here with Marlena years ago. Those were obviously happier times. The click of footsteps across the wooden planks came to his ears, causing him to turn and locate the source. Isabella stepped out of the shadows, her curly hair a halo around her head. She stopped when she realized Roman was standing there. He watched as she wiped the tears from her face quickly, trying to hide the evidence of her sadness, but it was too late.

“I didn’t realize anyone was down here,” she said softly, stepping off to the side.

“There usually isn’t, when it’s this late,” he told her, watching her carefully.

“So, you’re back. Does that mean Torres has been caught?”

“No. He’s still out there somewhere,” Roman muttered. “The Salem PD is looking for him. The ISA is looking for him. He’ll be caught eventually.”

“Then I guess that means John won’t be back anytime soon,” she said bitterly, knowing he wouldn’t return until Marlena was out of danger. “Not that it matters, I guess.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, Roman! Are you serious right now? I don’t know you that well, but you’re not stupid,” She said, wiping the tears from her face, as they started to flow again. “They’ve been gone for weeks. Weeks!”

“What are you implying?”

Isabella laughed with derision, “Implying? I tracked them down. I wanted to talk to John, since, he left to help Marlena one night, and never bothered to come home. I wanted answers.”

“You could have gotten them killed,” Roman stated.

“I didn’t know that! No one would tell me what was going on, so I tracked them down. John was in a panic that I’d been followed…turns out he was right. I was followed. I ended up in a ditch by the side of the road, while he drove off worried about his precious Marlena.”

“He was trying to keep her alive.”

“That’s true, but there was more to it…I could see it. I saw it in the way he yelled at her to get back in the house. The blind panic in his eyes. I saw it in the way she touched him, before she went back inside. The way she looked at him. I’m not blind, Roman.”

“Maybe you’re just making assumptions,” he hedged.

“Am I? I don’t think so. I asked him. I asked him if he had slept with her,” Isabella said.

“And?”

“Did he admit it?” she said, walking closer to the edge of the pier. “He did. Said he was sorry for hurting me…but not for fucking your wife, I guess.”

Roman stared at her briefly. It was obvious she was angry, and hurt. He should be too, but all Isabella had done was confirm, what he already suspected. In the month and a half he had spent with Marlena, she had consistently held him at arms length. Never allowing him into their bedroom. Never showing more affection then a few kisses after the children were in bed, and he’d heard her…at night. She would call out for John, as if she were desperate. Marlena had never been a silent sleeper, but then, it wasn’t as if she’d lied to him. She’d told him in Mexico that she was in love with John, and that she had been separated from him for so long, she didn’t know if they could ever get back to where they had been.

“I’m not surprised, honestly,” Roman muttered. “Of course John would take the first opportunity he could to get her back.”

“And you think she’s an innocent victim in all of this?” Isabella asked with defensiveness. “Every time something went wrong in her life she called him. Why didn’t she call you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on Roman. She can’t pick up the twins because she has to work late…she called John. She had a flat tire…she called John. Why wasn’t she calling you?” she asked him, her voice rising with her level of frustration. “He was mine!”

Roman looked at Isabella curiously, wondering if he sounded so possessive when he talked about Marlena. “I didn’t—I didn’t even know she did that,” he replied.

“I can be angry at Marlena, and I can be angry at John…but ultimately, it’s my fault,” Isabella said, swiping tears from her cheeks again. “I knew he loved her. I was desperate to keep him, I didn’t care, and when he found out he wasn’t Roman Brady…” Isabella stopped speaking for a moment, ashamed to admit out loud what she had done, but deciding to say it anyway, she continued, “…he was vulnerable. He was losing his whole world…I knew that. I knew he was devastated, and instead of being a comfort, I used it to my advantage.”

Roman couldn’t believe that she was standing here admitting this to him, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Why not? We’re both in the same situation, aren’t we? We both knew that the person we loved was in love with someone else,” she said. “And we both tried to hang onto them anyway.”

“I knew she loved John, but she chose me. She was willing to try with me.”

Isabella, in her bitterness, wasn’t past trying to make Roman hurt as much as she did in that moment, “Did she?”

“Of course, she did!” Roman said in exasperation, but looking at Isabella’s face, he wasn’t so sure.
“So that night, the night everyone learned the truth, Marlena told you she wanted to be with you?”

Roman continued to stare at Isabella, all the sweetness and innocence stripped away, and he was simply confronted with an angry, bitter woman. The sound of the buoys clanged in the distance, as he asked her, “What did you do?”

“I did what I needed to do to hold onto him,” she said without remorse. “I knew as soon as Marlena realized he’d slept with me, she would walk away from him.”

Roman remembered finding her in her hut. She was sitting on the bed, weeping into her hands, completely incoherent. It was over John, because of what Isabella had done. He’d never known why she was so upset. Honestly, once the conversation had turned towards her agreeing to give him a chance, he had completely forgotten the incident. He had done the same thing Isabella had done. He found Marlena in a moment of weakness, when she was so distraught to lose John, and he had inadvertently manipulated her into giving him a chance. “I found her after that,” he said. “She was in her hut, crying…sobbing, actually. At first…I tried to find out why she was so upset, but she didn’t want to talk about it. I see why now. I essentially did the same thing. I took advantage of her weakness. Her vulnerability. I pushed her, when she was obviously upset about something. I pushed her to make a decision.” With a shrug of his shoulders, he told her, “I guess I’m no better in that respect.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It was barely 6:00 am, when Marlena woke to the feeling of John kissing along the line of her neck, and biting at her ear lobe. She started giggling as the hair of his beard dragged across her skin, “John, you are insatiable.”

“I always want you,” he murmured, biting at her skin, and sliding his open palm over her hip. “I can’t help it. I wake up, with this  soft, fragrant body next to me…and all I want to do is make love to you.”

Rolling to face him, she smiles, and says, “I’m sure it’s helpful that I’m already naked.”

“That’s a fact!” he tells her. “Now come closer, Doc. I want to have my way with you.”

“You do, do you? Maybe I’m not interested,” she purred.

John lifts her leg, pulling her body closer, and laying it over his hip. She could feel his arousal at her center, his tip bumping her clit, as she tried to hold back her moan of ecstasy. John saw the way her pupils dilated, and her breathing became more ragged, “Not interested, baby? You sure?”

Snaking her arms up around his neck, and pulling his lips to hers, she mumbles, “I changed my mind.”

Pushing her onto her back, and pinning her hands over her head, John whispered, “Good.” 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Torres listened as Mike updated him on the search for Marlena, “And you’re sure?”

“I’m sure boss. I tracked them to Niagara Falls. They’re renting a cottage under the alias’ of Matthew and Kathryn Andrews,” Mike told him. “It’s them. What would you like me to do?”

“Nothing,” Raffi said. “Absolutely nothing. Francis fucked up twice, and got himself killed. You keep an eye on them, but I’m handling this. I’ll be there in a few hours.”

“You sure? I could take care of them both right now.”

“What about clean up? You gonna handle that by yourself? Think!” Raffi yelled. “You wait for me, and a clean up crew, you hear me?”

“Yeah. I hear you,” Mike said. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Doc? Baby? Come on, wake up,” John said urgently. “We gotta go. Now.”

Marlena was disoriented, as she sat up, watching as John threw their meager belongings in their bags. It took less than two seconds for her to realize they had been found, otherwise, John wouldn’t be in such a hurry. She pulled a sweatshirt over her head, and reached for a pair of sweatpants, “How?”

“I’m not sure, but there are footsteps outside in the mud. Fresh ones. I’m not taking chances. We need to go.”

They were in the car, and on the road in less than ten minutes. Marlena waited nearly a half an hour before she asked, “Where are we going, John?”

“I’ve been having dreams, a lot of dreams, and I’m thinking maybe we need to go someplace and work on what you were saying…”

Marlena was silent for a moment, and then said, “What did I say?”

John laughed, reaching for her hand, “You tired, Doc?”

“It’s your fault, Sailor. Waking me up at all hours of the night.”

“What you said, was that I might need to start doing hypnosis again, to get to the bottom of all of this. To learn about my past.”

“I did say that. Where are these mysterious dreams of yours taking us?” she asked.

“Back to Isla San Cristobal. I’m looking for a place…a plantation house, I think,” John said. “I can see it so clearly.”

“How do you know it’s in San Cristobal?”

“I’m not sure…but I feel it. That’s where some of my answers are,” John told her. “You ready for some intrigue, Doc?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Raffi Torres looked at his companion, Roy, and then down at Mike’s dead form on the ground. The forest around them was momentarily silent, after the crash of the gunshot. Minutes later, the birds were chirping, as if a man didn’t lie dead at Raffi’s feet, with a bullet through his forehead. “Tie him up, and wait until nightfall. Throw him over the falls. I’m done wasting my time on trash.”

“You still want me to search for the woman?” Roy asked him. “Since her and John Black have run off again?”

“Who the fuck is John Black anyway?” Raffi asked. “Why the fuck does he keep getting away?”

“I hear, he doesn’t even know who he is. Amnesia, or some shit. Brando said his past is somehow tied up with Stefano DiMera.”

Raffi wanted nothing to do with Stefano DiMera, even if the man was said to be dead. The breadth and scale of that man’s empire was something that a low key drug smuggler, trying to build his own empire, wasn’t equipped to tackle. “DiMera?” Raffi asked. “You sure?”

“That’s what I’m hearing. You still want to go after them? ‘Cause Brando said the rumor is DiMera’s not dead.”

“He say where he heard that?”

“Nah, could be he’s just, shittin’ me. Brando runs his mouth a lot.”

“One thing I learned a long time ago, Roy…usually if someone’s hearing stuff, there’s some truth to it,” Raffi told him. “I want to see Brando…because if John Black’s all tied up with DiMera, I’m done with that shit. Going after Brady’s wife ain’t worth dying for, but Roman Brady? He’s going to get his.”

Chapter 15

Frank and Susana Hoffsteader flew from New Orleans to the island of Santa Cruz in Ecuador. From there, the happy newlyweds, took a ferry to San Cristobal. To everyone around them they were nature lovers looking for adventure. They settled into a beach bungalow, miles away from everything, and immediately got to work. John’s notebook guided many of their sessions, followed by adding additional information as they went along. What they discovered, astounded them…and in many cases, continued to confound them. 

Marlena continued to speak in a calm reassuring voice, “John, I’d like you to see if you can go back further, before Stefano had you taken from Granada. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” he said softly.

“Where are you?” she asked him kindly.

“A high school graduation…the mother is angry…” he said.

“Why is the mother angry, John?”

“I joined the military. I didn’t tell her. She wanted me to go into the family business…she’s angry, because she is surprised.”

“Do you have your diploma with you?”

“Yes,” he whispers.

“Can you read it? What does the name say, John?” Marlena is concerned that he is still having these memories with almost no emotional connection to the people in them.

“Forrest…”

“Is there a last name on the diploma?”

“…Alamain…” he said. Marlena was surprised for a brief moment. Alamain wasn’t a common name, and she was almost certain that a businessman by that name had recently moved to Salem. John continues speaking quietly, “The mother…she’s yelling at me…I keep telling her it’s my life.”

Marlena saw that he was becoming slightly more agitated, so she decided to change the line of questioning, “Okay, John, can you go back further? To happier time?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you now?”

“A tenth birthday…it’s my tenth birthday…” he said with a small smile.

“Do you see anyone you know?”

“The mother…a cousin…and a friend…Katarina…”

“Good,” she says in a soothing voice. “That’s good. Can you tell me the cousins name?”

“Lawrence.”

“Think for a moment, John…can you remember the mother’s name now?”

“The mother’s name…I’m not sure…Lawrence calls her…Aunt Viv, but that’s not her name.”

“Could Viv be part of her name?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me why this is a happy memory?”

“Lawrence pulled Katarina’s hair…” John said going quiet for a moment with a small smile on his face. Marlena waited for him to continue, knowing that since this was the memory of a ten-year-old, anything was possible. She smiled when John said, “She punched him in the face.”

“You find this humorous?” she asked him with a smile.

“Yes. She bloodied his nose, and he deserved. He’s always picking on her, and it’s not nice. She’s younger than us. It’s not nice.”

“Do you remember any other birthdays, John?”

“The sixteenth,” he said with a frown.

“What happened on the sixteenth birthday?”

“I found Lawrence in the library with Katarina…she was crying, telling him to let her go…” John said. “I pulled him away from her. He ran out…she was crying a lot, but she wouldn’t say what happened…”

“That must make you very sad.”

“Lawrence is a prig,” John said, sounding like himself again.

Glancing at her watch she realized that they had been at this for awhile, so she said softly, “I’m going to count backwards from five. When you wake up, you will remember everything we’ve talked about, and you will feel relaxed and calm…five, four, three, two, one…you can open your eyes, John.” She watched him blink, and look around quickly. “How do you feel?”

“Relaxed,” he said, listening to the sounds of the waves on the beach. “I feel relaxed.”

“Do you remember what we discussed?”

John looked at her, and said, “I do. I remembered a name, a cousin…a mother…” Reaching for the notebook he started writing things down quickly, because he knew, even though Marlena said he would remember, he wouldn’t. The information would be gone from his mind within minutes.

“How do you feel about what you remembered?” she asked him, moving closer.

“It’s odd, I recognize them as family, and I know there’s a connection, but the emotional side of it is missing,” John said. “I’m thinking that probably has more to do with what Stefano did to me, and the microchip.”

Marlena stared at him for a moment in confusion, “Microchip?” John had never said anything to her about a microchip.

John had thought he’d told her about that, but based on the confusion on her face, he realized he hadn’t, “Stefano and his doctor, Rolf, I think his name was…they implanted a computer chip in my nervous system. I had a dream about it a few weeks ago. I wrote it down, but I forgot about it. I just know because I read about it again yesterday.”

“You mentioned the dream, but you never mentioned a microchip. John! If that’s true, it can’t stay in there!” she said. “Do you know what it does?”

“Not really,” he told her, scared to admit that he might have something foreign in his body. Something he didn’t want. “But you’re right…of it’s in there, it needs to come out.”

“Call Shane. He can get an ISA doctor here,” Marlena said urgently.

“Doc, I’m not risking your life, for something that might not even be there! I had a dream. Maybe that’s all it was,” John said, standing up, and walking to the veranda doors, watching the ocean waves beat the shore. The sun was going down, and the air was cooling. It was his favorite time of day.

“If you don’t call him, John, I will,” she said standing up, and following him.

“No, Doc. If Shane sends someone here, and they’re followed…no. I’m not risking your life,” he told her.

“I’ll wait. I’ll wait until you’re asleep, and I’ll call Shane. You know I will.”

Turning to face her, John can tell she’s serious. He can either jump on board with this, or she’ll do it without him. “Has anyone ever told you, you’re a stubborn woman?”

“Yes,” she said with a smile. “I think I’ve heard that once or twice.”

John stepped closer to her, pushing the loose curls back from her face, “I love your hair like this.”

“My hair is a mess, John. No hair dryer, and now I walk around with sheep dog hair,” she told him with a laugh.

“When your hair is curly, and your face is fresh…you are so fucking sexy it kills me, Doc,” he told her, running the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip. These past few weeks, he’d become so used to her face without make-up, that he found he preferred her that way. She was amazing no matter what. “So fucking sexy,” he said kissing her lips softly.

As much as she wanted to see where this might lead, there was a bigger issue at hand. If John did have a microchip wired into his nervous system, it needed to come out. The capabilities, and the possibilities, scared her. Especially knowing that he held Roman’s memories, that he had done surgery on her, and he had memories of possibly being an art thief, and a priest. In order to differentiate which memories were his, and which weren’t, it needed to come out. She also felt like it could be suppressing his emotional response to Forrest Alamain’s memories, and those were the memories that she suspected were actually his. 

She now learned enough through his hypnosis sessions to know, that Ronald Culpepper was the surgeon whose memories John possessed. Father Julio Rober was the priest. They had still been unable to get a name for the art thief, although they were fairly certain that the art thief had worked with a woman who called herself Princess Gina. Marlena was relieved to learn that John, himself, had never been an art thief. She’d been incredibly surprised to learn that Princess Gina bore a striking resemblance to Hope Brady, at least according to John. 

Just as John was about to pull her in for another kiss, Marlena put her hands on his chest, pushing him back slightly. He moaned in frustration, “Doc…”

“Call Shane. Now,” she said.

“And then?” he asked her with a raised eyebrow, while running his hands over the swell of her ass.

“We’ll see, Sailor. We’ll see. Now, call Shane,” she told him, stepping back.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Four days later, they exited a small clinic in Santo Domingo, Ecuador. John’s surgery had taken place two days earlier. They were going to fly back to Santa Cruz and take the ferry back to San Cristobal. Shane had met them in Ecuador, alone. John refused to allow anyone else from the ISA to be informed. Once the microchip was removed, Shane had taken it, to have a forensics team look it over, but they already knew, at least from the neurologists perspective, that it was unlike anything she’d ever seen before. It was literally wired into his nervous system, which directly connected to the brain. 

The neurologists hypothesis was that it could be used to remotely control John’s behavior and feelings. She felt that his memories, those of Forrest Alamain, would return with force, possibly overwhelming him at times. That had been confirmed over the last two days, as his mind was assaulted with emerging memories and strong emotions from his past. Things that he remembered in hypnosis, and lost minutes later, were returning to him as if they had only just occurred. 

The surgery itself took more than six hours, with Marlena worried the whole time. She had insisted that she be allowed in the operating room, even though she wasn’t a direct participant in the surgery. Given the way Orpheus, and Stefano had manipulated her and John’s lives, she wasn’t leaving anything to chance. She watched everything, if only to give herself a peace of mind, that nothing nefarious was taking place. Marlena hated the fact that she had come to a place in her life where she trusted fewer than ten people, but it had become her reality. 

As they boarded the ferry to Isla San Cristobal later that day, Marlena took comfort in having John’s fingers laced in hers, and the warmth of his skin against hers, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I am. My neck’s a little stiff, but I feel fine,” he said smiling down at her. The breeze off the ocean tickled across his face, and he was suddenly transported to another place, another time.

“Come here, my beautiful boy,” his mother said, pulling him into her lap. “Do you feel that air on your skin? The salt in the air? Don’t forget it. Remember to live life to its fullest.”

“Vivian, the boy is eight. He doesn’t have a clue as to what you’re talking about,” the man steering the boat said loudly. “You’re waxing poetic about life, and he’s not old enough to understand the significance.”

“Someday he will, Bradley,” she said loudly. “Besides, my boy is smart, and whether he understands what I’m saying now, or not…someday he’ll remember this day.” She kissed his cheek, smoothing her hand over his hair. “Forrest is a bright boy, aren’t you?”

“John?” Marlena whispered, making sure no one heard her. He’d stopped walking partway down the path, as if frozen in place, and she’d been unable to get his attention for a moment. 

He shook his head, momentarily confused, and then looked at Marlena in wonder, “I remembered something. I remembered my mother…Vivian.”

Chapter 16

“Memorize the map, John!” Stefano roared, stepping towards him in a threatening manner. John sneered at him, almost daring him to step closer than he already was. “You will need to have it memorized if you ever hope to find your way back to the compound!”

John stared at the man hovering near him. He knew his name wasn’t John, but he couldn’t remember what his name really was. He couldn’t remember anything. His whole past was a mystery, but he knew he had skills he couldn’t explain. He knew how to break into high security areas, he knew how to do surgery, and the details of human anatomy, and for some reason, he knew all the rites and rituals of the Catholic Church. All of the things he knew, all of the memories…none of it was his. He did know that. He looked up when the doctor entered the room, and sneered again. He hated that man.

“Have you fixed it yet?” Stefano said in frustration, looking at Rolf.

“I am still working on it, Stefano! I told you that it was still experimental!” Dr. Rolf replied.

“He’s not compliant enough, Rolf! He fights me at every turn!” Stefano told him, pacing the room in frustration. 

John watched them both, angry that they were discussing him, like he wasn’t even in the room. He might be confused. He might have no idea who he was, but they talked about him as if he wasn’t a person, as if he had no sense. “Fuck you!” he roared, standing up so quickly his chair fell over with a clang onto the concrete floor. “Fuck you!”

Stefano gestured towards him, as if he was a child, “Do you see? Do you see this, Rolf? I can’t work with this!”

“I know. I’m trying to isolate the skills, and tamper down the emotion, but it’s all trial and error! I told you this before we started. It takes time!” Rolf told him, almost whining.

“I don’t have time! Fix it, Rolf,” Stefano said, turning back to John. Pointing to the chair he said, “Pick up the chair, and sit back down, John.”

John wanted to refuse. He wanted to fight, resist…anything to prove that his life wasn’t completely out of his hands, but something stopped him. He didn’t know what it was. Maybe it was the fear of the unknown. He slowly picked up his chair, sliding it across the concrete, so that the metal feet screeched across the floor purposefully, and he sat down slowly, almost arrogantly. He might comply, but it wasn’t going to be without making these men miserable in the process. Pulling the topographic map of San Cristobal back across the table, he studied it, learning the route to the entrance to the compound hidden deep in the jungle. 

John awoke in a sweat. His body had saturated the sheets, and the pillow his head had rested on. He felt his hair plastered to his forehead, as he struggled to catch his breath. He felt rage, barely contained rage, that he didn’t know what to do with. He wanted to punch something, break something…anything. Rolling out of bed, he stepped outside, taking a deep breath. The breeze rolling in off of the ocean, cooled his skin, causing him to shiver violently. He didn’t want to wake Marlena, but he could feel the tension in his body. He felt ready to fight, his muscles coiled, and ready to spring. He shivered again, shaking his head, trying to get his mind right. The neurologist had said that as his memories came back, his emotions would be strong, but this was so much more than he expected. It was as if he had just been in that concrete room, as if Stefano had just been demanding that he memorize that map. He felt his fists clench and unclench, while the rage flowed through his veins like syrup, sitting heavy inside him.

“Are you okay?” he heard Marlena ask from behind him.

“If I said I was, you would know I was lying,” he replied, continuing to stare out into the night.

“I would…but, I still thought I should ask,” she said stepping up beside him. “Another nightmare?”

“I guess? It was a dream…I felt so hopeless. I didn’t know who I was or where I was, but I knew I wasn’t John. Stefano kept calling me John, and even though I knew it wasn’t my name…I couldn’t remember what my name was. I was trapped,” he said, staring out at the water, watching the moonlight reflect off of the waves on the beach. “I do know that the plantation house I saw in my mind…that’s not here.”

“Where is it?”

“New Orleans.”

“What significance does San Cristobal hold for you?”

John was silent for a long moment, staring at the ocean, and finally turned to her saying, “It’s where I began. It’s where John Black was created.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Raffi Torres has no reason to still want Roman Brady dead, other than spite and vindictiveness, and he’s currently full of both of those. He’d gotten his shipment of drugs through Salem, but the hassle, the loss of good employees, whether at the hands of John Black or Raffi’s own…all of it was Roman Brady’s fault…at least it was in Raffi’s eyes.  He’d had men following Roman for days, waiting for the perfect opportunity, and when he was contacted, and told that Roman Brady was alone on the pier late at night, he knew, he was about to get what he wanted. Roman Brady dead. He wasn’t going to let one of his men fuck it up. He was going to do it himself.

When Roman first heard the footsteps along the wooden planks, he assumed it was Isabella, since they’d run into each other, in this exact spot, several times over the last two weeks. They never said much, a few words here and there, but he’d come to expect her. As he listened, he came to realize quickly that it couldn’t be her. The footsteps were too heavy. Roman turned, and knew that his time on this earth was short, when he saw Raffi Torres step out of the fog, with a smug sneer on his face, and a pistol clenched in his hand. Roman wasn’t armed. He’d left his weapon at home, and he’d gotten careless. 

Raffi saw the fear on Roman’s face when he pointed his gun at him, “It was only a matter of time before I got to you, you know.”

“What’s the point, Torres? You got what you wanted. You had millions of dollars worth of drugs delivered to your hands to save my life, my brother’s life…hell, even my wife’s life,” Roman said.

“But you see, Roman…you pissed me off. You made everything so much fucking harder than it needed to be,” Raffi replied.

“So it’s pettiness?” Roman snorted, accepting that his life would end here, and deciding that derision and sarcasm were the way to go.

“I call it revenge,” Torres said with a grin. “It’s got a much nicer ring to it.” He cocked the gun, and leveled his shot.

Roman listened to the clang of the bells on the fishing vessels, and the buoys as they bounced in the water. He heard the lapping of the water against the pilings, and took a deep breath of the river air catching hints of algae and fish. If he was going to die, he wanted to take the pier with him. The place where he’d grown up. The place that felt like a second home. Just as Torres pulled the trigger, another shot rang out of the fog, and both Roman Brady and Raffi Torres collapsed onto the pier. One of them was dead. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Every morning John woke early to trek around their bungalow looking for signs that someone might have been there. If he’d learned anything from being a trained mercenary for Stefano DiMera, it was to have a sharp eye. After finding the muddy footprints outside of their cabin in Niagara Falls, John was especially vigilant as he checked the sandy ground around their current abode. He was due to check in with Shane at some point that morning, but had planned on waiting until Marlena awoke. So, when he entered, he was surprised to see her already awake, and sitting cross legged on the bed, digging through her wallet. Pulling out a small card, she studied it, ignoring his presence. 

“Everything okay, Doc?” he asked her, stepping in through the veranda doors.

She looked up, and then glanced down at the small calendar in her hand, finally looking up at him again, and whispered, “I’m pregnant.”

“What?” was all he could think to say, because, of course she was. They hadn’t been using any protection, and they had been together nearly every day, sometimes several times a day, for weeks. Stepping closer, a smile began to take over his face, as he said, “A baby?”

Marlena seemed unsure. “Yes…but, John…I’m married,” she said, looking guilty for the first time since they had been together. He didn’t want her to feel guilt. He didn’t want her to question this gift.

Falling onto the bed, and pulling her into his arms, he laughed, and said, “Not for long!”

“John! This isn’t funny!” she said, pulling away, and trying to roll out of bed. “Someone wants me dead, I’m on the run, I cheated on my husband, and now I’m pregnant! Why are you laughing?”

John caught her by her legs, sliding her body back across the bed towards him, and buried his face in her neck, mumbling, “Because I’m happy.”

“Your happy?” she asked him, with a small grin, realizing that his joy was infectious.

“Fuck, yes! I’m happy, Doc,” John said, balancing his head on his hand, and softly splaying his open palm over her abdomen. “This is messy as hell, but you’re having my baby. You’re having our baby, and I’m elated.” He leaned forward, tugging her shirt up over her navel, and spoke to her flat belly, “Hey there, little guy…or gal…I’m your Daddy.”

Marlena started crying, watching his lips kiss over the skin of her stomach, and threaded her fingers through his hair softly, saying quietly, “You’re right, it’s messy…but, I’m happy, too.”

Chapter 17

“Shane, it’s John,” John said into the satellite phone, later that morning. Marlena was napping, beside him on the bed. The curls of her blonde hair fell in waves around her face, and the lines of her face were relaxed. The sheet on the bed barely covered her naked skin, and just glancing over he body had him wanting her all over again. Whether right or wrong, John had appreciated every moment he and Marlena had spent together over the last few weeks.

“Hey John. I have news,” Shane said, slightly breathless from running to answer the call. “Torres cornered Roman on the pier last night, and shot him. He’s fine, he was shot in the thigh. He should be released tomorrow, according to Dr. Manning. He’s only alive because Isabella managed to shoot Torres at the same time he fired at Roman.”

“Isabella shot Torres?” John said in shock. “What was she even doing on the pier?”

“I don’t know, I don’t have specifics right now, but the Salem PD isn’t pressing charges. They’re calling it self defense. I was planning to go to the hospital later.”

“Doc and I could come home now, I guess,” John said, feeling sadness at not having Marlena to himself for a little longer. He knew it was irrational. She had a job, a family. She needed to wrap up her life with Roman. It was going to be difficult over the next few weeks.

Shane smiled to himself, “Do I detect some reluctance in your voice, John?”

“Yeah…this time with her has been amazing,” John realized that what he was saying sounded insane. He was on the run with another mans wife. He was engaged to marry another woman. “Coming home is going to be difficult.”

“I understand that…and without prying, I just want to say, I’m fairly certain that Roman and Isabella already know where they stand with you and Marlena. Maybe it won’t be as difficult as you think?”

“Marlena’s pregnant, Shane,” John said quietly. “It’s amazing, and wonderful…and it’s messy, but we are both so happy. I want to stay in this bubble for a few more days, that’s all.”

“Do it.”

“What?” John asked him.

“Do it, John. Torres was only shot last night. The ISA and the Salem PD are still working on the connection between Chief Vaughn and Torres. We don’t know for certain that the mark on Roman is cancelled yet. Call me back in a few days, same time,” Shane said, thinking about all of the times he and Kimberly might have been able to make things right in their relationship if they had just been given some time. “Call me back Saturday morning.”

John smiled, stroking his fingers softly over Marlena’s cheek as she slept, “Thank you, Shane. Doc and I have to talk…about us, about the children…”

“I understand. I do. I only wish someone had given Kimberly and I that same grace. I know you love Marlena. Take the time, and call me Saturday,” Shane told him finally before he hung up the phone.

John disconnected the call, removing the antenna and placing the satellite phone back into the bag. The ISA still hadn’t selected a replacement for Chief Vaughn. Until they did, John and Marlena had decided to keep the information that he had brought up in hypnosis, as well as the new information he was remembering daily, to themselves. They hadn’t even told Shane, whom they trusted completely. Shane had an independent forensics team looking into the microchip, because he knew that John’s distrust of the ISA ran deep. 

This last betrayal by Chief Vaughn was simply another notch in the stick of wrongdoings that added to John’s distrust. Vaughn had intentionally lured Roman out of town, and then imprisoned him in a safe house. Once word reached him that Torres was going after Marlena, he put his plan into action. Vaughn offered Roman…in exchange for Marlena, and that was the part that no one could seem to figure out. What was the connection? Why would Chief Vaughn want Marlena Brady, especially after he lured Roman away from Salem?

John stood up, walking to the open veranda doors, and watching the waves roll onto the shore. The sounds of birds and the sounds of the water helped him relax his mind. He kept going over it, trying to find a motive. “Vaughn lured Roman out of Salem, and confined him to a safe house…leaving Marlena vulnerable,” John mumbled to himself. “Raffi found out, and immediately went after Marlena…Vaughn didn’t expect that. Neither one of them expected me.” John knew that Marlena was Chief Vaughn’s primary target, hence luring Roman out of Salem. She was Torres secondary target, because he was furious that Roman was gone. Vaughn had ruined Torres plan to kill Roman. John had ruined Vaughn’s plan to take Marlena, by getting her and the children out of town so quickly.

John’s fist clenched, and he hit the doorframe with the side of his hand saying, “That’s why Vaughn contacted Torres and asked for an exchange! He would give up Roman, if Torres could produce Marlena…but why?”

John felt the heat of Marlena’s hand, as she slid it up his arm and onto his shoulder. She pressed her body against his back, and rested her cheek against him,  saying, “I think someone else is involved.”

He looked down at her hand, lacing his fingers through hers, and tugging her around to face him, “Someone else?”

“Possibly. If I was the one Chief Vaughn wanted, and obviously taking Roman out of the equation left me vulnerable,” Marlena said, shrugging her shoulders. “I feel like Vaughn was working for someone else, because he wouldn’t personally have anything to gain from taking me, but someone else might.”

“Who? That’s what I can’t figure out, Doc. I can’t think of any reason someone might target you,” John said in exasperation.

Marlena was wary of telling him what she thought, because she knew that John had a tendency to come down on himself hard, if she was involved. If he felt like he might be the cause of someone trying to get at her, it would only serve to upset him more, so she paused, unwilling to answer him.

John’s fingers gripped her chin, tipping her face up to his, “Doc! What are you thinking?”

She sighed deeply, “It’s probably nothing.”

“But it might be something,” he told her.

“If Chief Vaughn was working for someone else, and I was the target…maybe it was to get to you?”

“Me? That doesn’t make sense. You were with Roman. I was with Isabella. If the goal was to use someone I loved to control me, or get to me, wouldn’t they go after Isabella?”

“They might…if they looked at the surface,” she said, touching his face lightly.

“The surface?”

“One thing that you and I both know is that we never stopped loving each other. Can you think of anyone who might know that your love for me ran so deep that they could use me to manipulate you?”

John started at her for several seconds, and finally whispered, “Stefano…but why?”

Marlena replied, “That’s the real question, isn’t it? What does he want with you now, and why is he so desperate to insure you comply, that he would come after me?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Stefano DiMera paced around the living area of his home in frustration. To the world at large, he was dead. He had died in Mexico, but Stefano never truly died. He was a phoenix rising from the ashes. He swirled his brandy in the glass he held, and stopped before the fireplace, watching the flames dance across the brick. He had been waiting for days, and with no sign of John gracing his doorstep, he knew something was wrong. He turned towards the sound of footsteps, saying, “You had better have an explanation for me Rolf.”

“I sent the signal, Stefano. Several days ago. I sent it again yesterday. I’m not sure why it isn’t working,” Rolf told him.

“And you are sure you cancelled out the personality that he’s been living with over the last seven years?”

“I did! But the microchip was a prototype. You know that!” Rolf said. “It might not work.”

“Do we have a location on him at all?”

“According to my satellite readings he’s in Oshkosh, Wisconsin,” Rolf said, with a shrug of his shoulders. “But I don’t understand! What’s in Wisconsin?”

“He’s on the run with Marlena, you fool! He could be anywhere. Do you have the coordinates?”

“I do, but what are you planning to do?”

“I’m sending people after him. They will bring him back to me, by force if necessary. I want Marlena, too, if I can. I have a feeling that she is still the only way that I can bring him fully under my control,” Stefano said, placing his brandy glass on the drink cart. “He will most certainly be more cooperative if I threaten the woman he loves.”

“Do we really need him, if we have Gina?” Rolf asked him.

“Of course, I need him. Milo and Gina always worked together. They worked together so flawlessly, and they never failed me.”

“Until Milo fell from the ceiling in the Louvre, and broke his neck,” Rolf said with a snicker.

“Ah, yes, what a tragedy that was. Gina mourned him so deeply, she was lost to me, but, now…now Rolf, I have a new Gina…and as soon as we get John back, you can make him Milo again,” Stefano said with a smile.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Isabella and Bo, helped Roman into the house the following day. Raffi Torres was dead. He’d been shot through the heart by Isabella Toscano. Her shot had saved Roman’s life. Throwing off Raffi’s aim, and causing his hand to drop, hitting Roman with a clean shot through his thigh. The surgery to repair the damage was straightforward, and his hospital stay was brief.

Bo smiled at Roman, “We’re a pair, aren’t we?”

Roman started laughing, “Give me my crutches, Bo, and go home and get some rest, will you?”

“Do you two always bicker this much?” Isabella asked, placing Roman’s bag on the floor by the front door.

Bo shrugged, “Normally. Roman thinks he knows everything and he’s always right, and I think Roman’s an insufferable know it all, and a pain in my ass.”

“When’s your follow-up with that new doctor?” Roman asked him, allowing his tired body to fall to the couch heavily.

Bo groaned, “Speaking of insufferable know it all’s…”

Isabella smiled, slapping her brother on the arm, “She’s not that bad, Bo. She’s trying to do her job, and you’re a horrible patient. Dr. Manning is just trying to do her job, and you were making it harder for her.”

Bo smirked, “She’s bossy.”

Isabella said, “You’re a brat.” She turned to Roman, “Do you need anything before we go? Do you need help upstairs?”

“No. No, I’m fine,” Roman said, looking around the house. “You guys go, I’m just going to get some sleep.”

“Okay,” she said, opening the front door. “If you’re sure?”

“Yeah. I’m sure,” he said, maneuvering himself off of the couch, and heading towards the stairs. “I’ll see you tomorrow, maybe.”

Isabella looked at him for a moment longer, ushering Bo out the door, and said softly, “Okay…goodbye, Roman.”

Using his crutches to awkwardly get himself up the stairs, Roman paused outside the door to the master bedroom. Although he had been staying in the house for the last few weeks by himself, he had never breached the closed door to Marlena’s room. He felt bitterness rise up inside him at the thought of it once being his room with her. Opening the door, he went inside, looking around, and took a deep breath. Even without her being there, the scent of her permeated the air. “Fuck, Doc,” Roman sighed. “Maybe now that Torres is dead, you can come home. Maybe…maybe we can fix this…”

His eye landed on a photograph sitting on top of the dresser, lifting it, he realized that it was a photo of Marlena and Roman, taken years ago it seemed. He didn’t recognize the sweater she was wearing. They looked so happy. Marlena sitting with John behind her, his arms wrapped around her. Flipping it over he read what Marlena had written, murmuring, “John, my love.” The anger boiled up inside him. Fucking John. He could possibly write it off as nothing if it had said, Roman…but it didn’t. She’d written, John. Glancing towards a partially opened drawer, he opened it further, and what he found inside did nothing to reassure him that he could fix his marriage. It contained photos of her and John, some of him with the children, jewelry Roman didn’t recognize, probably gifts from John, and two wedding bands…also not belonging to him. 

Roman’s hope to save his marriage, wasn’t permanently diminished, but it certainly wasn’t shining as brightly as it had been. He slammed the drawer shut, and left the room, closing the door behind him. 

Chapter 18

The sunset was a beautiful golden orange color, that seemed to melt into the sea. Marlena sighed, and lay back on the blanket they had spread out over the sand, enjoying the salty breeze that brushed over her skin. They could go home now, and for some reason that was bittersweet. John had told her about his earlier conversation with Shane. She was excited to return to some sense of normalcy. Her work, and the children; however she did not look forward to the inevitable confrontation with Roman, and likely, the vitriol she would receive from Isabella. 

“What are you thinking about, Doc?” John asked her, watching her eyes close as she listened to the sound of the waves.

“I’m usually the one asking questions, aren’t I?” she responded with a laugh, looking up at him, and finding herself caught in his deep indigo gaze. “I’m thinking about the chaos we’re walking back into once we get to Salem. I have to talk to Roman, you have to talk to Isabella…and then likely vice versa, as they each seek us out in their anger.”

“How do you want to handle it?” he asked her, as he lay beside her, propping himself up on his elbow.
“I know, I want to be with you. I don’t want to wait to start our lives together,” she said, looking up at him. “I want to have a home with you, and the children. We’ll work it out with Roman, but I’m choosing you.”

“We’re going to have to find a place to live as soon as we get there. We can rent a place temporarily. I was living at the loft with Isabella, and Roman’s probably still at the house.”

“I hadn’t even thought of that. I want the children home with me, with us, but we don’t have a place to bring them to.”

“We can stay at the Salem Inn for a few days, and look for a place…go get the children in Denver once we find one?”

“I think that’s the best plan. I’d like us to handle the situations with Roman and Isabella before the children come home anyway. I don’t want them to be exposed to any of that. It could get ugly,” Marlena said.  With a small smile, she added, “I also need to schedule an appointment with Dr. Bader.”  She placed her hands on the soft swell of her abdomen, saying, “After we returned from Mexico…sometimes I would lie in bed at night, and fantasize about having your baby. Roman would be sleeping beside me, while I knew you were across town, sleeping next to Isabella, and I was lying there dreaming about having your baby.”

John touched her cheek softly, brushing his fingers over her jawline. “When we were married…I wanted to get you pregnant. I couldn’t remember the pregnancy with the twinners, and I wanted the chance to watch your belly grow round with our baby. After we thought you’d died, I would have dreams that you were, and when I’d wake up my heart would break all over again, just from knowing that it would never happen,” he told her, leaning down to softly kiss her lips. “Then we found out I’m not even your husband. I fucked up in Mexico, Doc, but I want you to know…I’m choosing you.” Lying down beside her on the blanket, John pulled Marlena into his arms, kissing her again.

“From now on, John…we talk,” she said, touching his cheek gently. “No more assumptions, or miscommunications.”

“I promise. I promise, because I don’t ever want to lose you again. This was our second chance,” John told her, sweeping the hair back from her face, and staring into her hazel eyes. “Our second chance at life, and I’m not going to mess it up.”

“Good. Now kiss me, Sailor,” she whispered.

John’s body shivered with want. While Marlena calling him Sailor had started as a joke, every time it left her lips in the last few weeks, it had put a fire in his blood. An aching want inside him. Sliding his hand down over her waist and the curve of her hip, John groaned, as his lips took hers. He licked across her mouth, cupping her ass and rolling her body so that she was flush with him, while his fingertips played with the hem of her dress. Pulling the fabric up, and over the curve of her thigh, John groaned again, as her pink cotton panties came into view, “I swear to G-d, Doc, these panties are the end of me.”

Marlena laughed, pulling away slightly, “John they’re awful. I was packing for functionality.”

“Oh, no, baby,” he rasped, leaning to nibble on her ear. “These little cotton panties with the tiny bow make me so hard. When we get home…I want you to buy more of them,” he told her, pushing his hips into her for emphasis. “They look so sweet and so innocent, but underneath them you are fire and heat.” His hand cupped her mound, squeezing her slightly, and causing an ache deep inside her to build. “I want you,” he said, running his finger along the line of her pussy through the cotton gusset.

“John!” Marlena exclaimed, her hands gripping his arms tightly. His finger continued to play over her cotton covered center, and she felt the moisture seeping from her body. “We…we need to go inside…”

“There’s no one around for miles, Doc. The sun is down, and I want you,” he said, biting the skin of her neck, and feeling the cotton of her panties become slippery under his fingers. “Don’t make me wait.” His fingers pushed her panties aside, while one finger slid across her already moistening slit, “Open you legs…wide, baby.”

Marlena’s legs fell open at his command, with a whimper of want. The smooth pad of his finger grazed over her folds so softly that his touch was barely there, yet it lit a fire inside of her. She could feel the cool ocean breeze washing over her wet folds, and making her body shiver. Allowing John to spread her open for his eyes, for his hands, while they lay on a deserted beach was more arousing than she could have imagined. The sky had darkened enough that the stars were visible, and the moonlight cast a glow over their bodies that created a scene that felt dreamlike. 

John buried his face in her hair, running the tip of his nose along her neck, and he said  with a low growl, “When we go back to Salem…you are mine…your body is mine, your soul is mine, Doc…all of it…”

Her breathing picked up, as did her pulse, at the simple claim of his words. She wanted to be his. She’d wanted to be his since that first handshake in Shenanigan’s, so she whispered softly, “I understand…and you are mine…”

“That’s a fact,” he said, kissing across her chest, as he began pulling the bodice of her dress down to expose her breasts to the moonlight. “This dress is fucking amazing, Doc. You should wear it more often,” he growled, licking over her rosy nipple, and tugging at it with his teeth.

Marlena hadn’t even considered it when she’d tossed it in her bag. A simple cotton jersey, flowered dress. It wasn’t prone to wrinkle and it was comfortable, moving with her body. John found it amazing for it’s elasticity. He tugged one shoulder down further, freeing her arm, and licked along the underside of her breast with a long moan, telling her, “You taste like sun, and salt…”

Marlena was so close to an orgasm. His fingers still playing over her clit, sliding through the moisture of her pussy and then returning to flick at her or pinch her in the most divine way. John worked the other arm free, pushing her dress to her waist, and continuing to lick across her body. “John! Please…I need more!” Marlena cried out, arching up into his mouth.

Looping the elastic of her panties in his fist, he tugged them down over her hips and thighs, tossing them to the side, and staring at her body in the moonlight. She felt wanton, feeling to moisture continue to seep from her body and wet her thighs. John could see it glistening on her skin, and pulled a finger through it, bringing it to his mouth, “I could taste you all day. Bury my mouth on you, and lick you until you scream.” 

His dirty, filthy words pushed her on, “I want you. I want you now…please!”

He sat up, kneeling beside her, and began to unfasten his jeans, and release his cock. His progress was halted when Marlena reached for him, “Come here, John. I want…I want to taste you…”

Coming closer to her, she wrapped her small hand around his length, moaning softly at the heat and softness of him. Tipping her head closer, she licked over the tip, lapping up the liquid gathering there. John’s head fell back momentarily, “Doc…fuck…”

She licked over the length of him, swirling her tongue over the head, and sucking softly on him. John glanced back down and caught her eyes, staring into him, causing him to whisper, “More…”

While her mouth licked over him, gently sucking, she moaned her agreement, pulling him deeper into her recesses. Slowly threading his hands into her hair, he guided her mouth over him, in long slow strokes, making sure not to go too deep. It was sensual, it was maddening, it was exactly the way he like it. Using his grip on her hair, he pulled her mouth off of him when he knew he was close to the edge. Looking into her eyes, he said, “Mine.”

Marlena smiled back, “Yours.”

Shaking off his pants, he rolled her onto her back, sliding his body into the welcoming warmth of her body. Marlena laced her fingers into his hair, whispering, “Mine.

To which John replied, “Yours.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stefano looked at his idiot employee, “What do you mean?”

“Well, you see Boss, it’s like I said. John Black and Marlena Brady they were’t there, and the place we went? It was just some lab,” Bart replied as if his boss was stupid. Thinking if he said the same thing at a slower pave, maybe it would make sense to the old man.

“Did you check?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, we broke in…looked around, just like you asked us to. But he, and the lady, they must be somewhere else.”

“He can’t be, Bart. Those were the exact coordinates for his location!” Stefano roared.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Boss…how do you know that?”

“He has a microchip in his neck, Bart! That’s how I know! Rolf tracked him using the satellite.”

Bart shrugged carelessly, “I don’t know…maybe he took it out, but he wasn’t there.”

Stefano stared at the other man for a moment, realizing he might not be a complete idiot, and turned on his heel, leaving to find Rolf. Bart stood there for a moment, shrugged his shoulders again, and walked out. If Stefano needed him again, he’d call, in the meantime a bottle of whiskey and a bed didn’t sound half bad. 

After entering the code on the keypad, Stefano wrenched open the door to Rolf’s lab in the basement, causing the man to jump when he entered, “Stefano!”

“Could John have had the chip removed?”

Rolf looked at him for a moment, “I suppose if he knew of its presence, but Stefano, I don’t know how he would know!”

“Bart just told me that the coordinates you gave us…John wasn’t there,” Stefano said in low tones.

“The chip is out?” Rolf said with trepidation.

“Well he certainly wasn’t there!”

“Oh, no! No!” Rolf said, pacing the small room. “This isn’t good. Not good at all!”

“Rolf, what nonsense are you prattling on about? Speak!”

“He may…if the chip is removed, he may remember who he is…”

“So, I have lost him then? There is no way to control him without the chip?”

“It’s not just that, Stefano! He could remember everything!” Rolf said in a blind panic.

Pausing, Stefano looked at him, “Explain. Now.”

“He could not only remember who he is, but everything else as well. He could remember each of the individuals who’s memories were implanted. He would know where all of your compounds are, how to access them, the criminal activities…oh, no!”

Stefano stared at the doctor as he threw himself into his desk chair in exasperation. Unable to speak for a moment, Stefano finally whispered, “Why didn’t you warn me?”

“I tried! I tried to warn you, but—”

“—but what!”

“You just kept pushing me! Pushing me to complete the project, and every time I tried to warn you, that the system wasn’t perfect, and there could be problems…” Rolf laid his head on the desk in front of him, mumbling, “You just told me to stop making excuses, and get it done.” Lifting his head, he looked at Stefano and said, “So I got it done, Stefano. I got it done.”

Although he would never admit it, Stefano knew that the situation he now found himself in was of his own making. He had rushed Rolf to finish the project, and he had overlooked the man’s warnings time, and time again. Stefano would never admit it, but every time his plans failed, it was the direct result of his own arrogance and impatience. 

Chapter 19

John knocked on the loft door. Even though it was technically still his home, he didn’t feel comfortable entering without permission, after everything that had happened. The door slid open to Isabella’s surprised face. “You’re back,” she said softly, looking over his bearded face.

“We—I just got back today. I was hoping we could talk,” John said.

Isabella stood there with a blank look on her face, “What is there to talk about John? I’m pretty sure our relationship ended in Colorado.”

“I know you’re angry, and you’re hurt, but if you’d let me explain,” John told her, stepping inside.

“There’s not much to explain is there? Marlena called, and you ran to her aid. Like usual, only this time…you didn’t come back. You always run to her when she needs you,” Isabella said. “No matter how hard I tried to get you to love me, it was always her!”

John studied her for a moment, before saying softly, “But you knew that didn’t you, Izzy-B? You knew, that no matter what, I would always go to her. I would always be there for her…”

“What? What do you mean?”

“In Mexico…you knew that I was as low as I could possibly be. I was losing everything. My job, my house, my family, my children…and my wife. You knew that…and you took advantage of that.”

She continued to stare at him, without saying anything for a long moment, finally whispering with an air of defiance, “You chose me.”

“Did I? I’m not sure I did. While I loved you, it wasn’t the same, and you knew that. I feel like when I was at my lowest, when I needed support, because I was about to lose my whole life, you—you took advantage of that, and I never thought you were that kind of person,” John told her, his voice cracking with emotion. “I do know, that I wasn’t in any frame of mind to be making that type of decision. I wasn’t.”

“John, you loved me!” she cried. “I just needed time to prove it to you, but I never got it. Every time I turned around she needed help with the children, or her car would break down. Even the night you left, she needed help because Roman was gone. I just needed more time!”

“That’s why you wanted to leave Salem?” he whispered, staring at her in disbelief. “It why you kept mentioning that we should move to Italy. That’s why you kept wanting to start a family. You were trying to get me away from Doc?”

“I was trying to get you to focus on me, but it was always about her!”

“I’m sorry I hurt you. It was never my intention to do that,” John said, sighing softly in frustration.

“You cheated on me, you know,” she said with bitterness.

“I did, and I didn’t mean for you to find out that way. You and I both made mistakes, Isabella. Both of us,” John told her. “I’m going to be moving my things out—”

“—Don’t bother. I already packed you things,” she said bitterly, gesturing to the corner where several boxes, as well as luggage sat. “I had hoped, after Colorado that maybe there was a chance for us, but as I packed your things…I realized that it was over.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s amazing the story that a person’s personal belongings can tell,” she said. “Some of it made no sense by itself, a matchbook from Shenanigan’s, a hospital sign-in sheet, some pressed flowers in an envelope labeled West Virginia, and a bandana, some poetry…but interspersed within all of that were photos of Marlena. Candids that you must have taken when you were married. Photos of her laughing, or with the children…one of her sleeping.”

She had gone through his lock box. The key had been tucked away in his sock drawer. “You went through my things?” He said softly, but he felt the anger inside him, anger that she had breached his privacy in such a way.

Isabella shrugged, “How do you think I found you in Colorado?”

John refused to react in anger, instead telling her, “Again, I’m sorry that you were hurt by all of this. It was never my intention to hurt you.” He started walking towards the boxes, intending to grab a couple, and start taking them down to his vehicle. The venom in Isabella’s voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Where’s Doc, now?” she asked.

John replied, “She’s speaking with Roman.”

“He already knows…that you slept with his wife. I told him on the pier one night,” she said, waiting to see how John would respond.

Turning to face her, he said softly, “I never thought you would intentionally try to control, or hurt people, Isabella. Maybe, I never knew you at all.” Isabella watched in silence as John lifted two boxes into his arms, and walked out of the loft.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Marlena entered the house looking around for Roman. His car was parked in the driveway, so he had to be in the house somewhere. She was placing her coat on the coatrack when he stepped out of the kitchen, using one crutch to balance himself, and holding a mug of steaming black coffee in his free hand. He stopped short when he saw her standing there. Marlena said softly, “Hello, Roman.”

“Doc. I see, you’re back,” Roman said, sipping his coffee, and continuing to stand there, leaning on his crutch, watching her blandly.

“Shane told us that you were hit…and Torres is dead,” she said, stepping closer. “We decided it was safe to come home, once we knew there was no longer a mark on me.”

“Yeah, Isabella saved my life,” he said, setting his coffee on the table, and stepping closer to her. “Look, I want you to know, I’m sorry. I didn’t think that Torres would go after you, or the kids. I was his target—”

Marlena didn’t want to start out so angry, but she couldn’t help it, “—that’s just it, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You never considered the possibility that you would be leaving us vulnerable. You never considered that Torres would make us targets.”

Roman tried to make excuses, “Doc—”

“—No. Abe tried to tell you that it was a possibility, and you didn’t listen. You left us. You left me, and you left your children. I thought—I thought that after what happened before with Stefano, that—” Marlena found herself getting choked up, and emotional, the anger taking over her voice.

“I know. I know, you’re right. Abe did warn me, and I didn’t listen, but, Doc, you gotta believe me—”

“—You left me when the twins were barely a month old, and you were gone for seven years! Seven years, Roman! This time? You didn’t even make two months before you abandoned us again,” she said, with her rage boiling over.

“I didn’t abandon you, I was trying—”

“—You fucking abandoned us, Roman! You abandoned us! Don’t lie to me!” she screamed, allowing all of the hurt and rage she had been feeling over the last month to come out, everything she had repressed and pushed down, so she and John could focus on surviving. 

Roman stared at her in shock, shock at her anger, and shock at her language, “Doc—”

“—I shouldn’t be surprised though. It’s usually your job first. It’s a pattern with you.”

“I don’t do that,” he said lamely. “I’m a cop, Doc. Sometimes I’m going to miss things, because of my job.”

“John didn’t,” she said without thinking, realizing how true it actually was. 

“John didn’t what?” Roman said, feeling angry that she’d even brought John into the conversation.

“When we were married…he was home for dinner. He took Carrie roller skating, he attended school functions. He took me to dinner. He made time, for me…for the children,” Marlena said softly. Looking at Roman she repeated herself, “John made time, Roman.”

“So, because John somehow managed to be the perfect version of me, I’m not good enough?” Roman yelled.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” she started to say, but she paused, because that’s exactly what she was saying. “I feel like your work takes precedence over your family.”

“Isabella said you slept with John,” Roman blurted out, rapidly changing the subject to something he felt he had a right to be angry over, and completely ignoring what she was trying to get him to see. 

Marlena was silent for a moment, before she said, “I did.”

“I thought we were trying to make this work. How am I supposed to overlook that?”

“You’re not. I know what I did, and I’m not making excuses for it. I’m sorry, Roman. I’m sorry that it hurts you,” she told him. Watching him stand there, balanced with his crutch she says, “Shouldn’t you sit down?”

“I don’t want to fucking sit down, Doc! So, you’re sorry that sleeping with John hurt me…are you sorry for sleeping with him?”

“No. No, I’m not sorry for that,” she whispered softly.

“Was it just once?” he asked her. “Did you only fuck him once?”
“No.”

“Great. Fucking great,” Roman said, running his fingers though his hair. “This marriage is over, Doc. You know that, right? I’m not going to continue to stay married to you if—”

“—I know,” she interrupted. “I knew that when I walked through the front door, Roman. I can’t be with with you when I don’t trust you. When I can’t depend on you to be there for me…and for the children. I can’t stay married to you…when I love John.”

“Love John? You chose me!” Roman roared, almost losing his balance in the process.

“I made a mistake in Mexico. I wasn’t ready to make that type of decision. I was upset—”

“—Right, Isabella told me what she did,” Roman said.

Marlena’s head shot up, looking at him intently, “What do you mean?”

“Never mind. It certainly doesn’t matter now.”

“It matters to me…she did it on purpose, didn’t she? She must have, if she told you about it. She was probably trying to hurt you, too, when she told you. She wanted to hurt me. She went to John when his very soul was being torn to shreds, and she manipulated him. She manipulated both of us.”

“Like I said, Doc, it doesn’t matter now, does it. You get John. John still gets you. It’s all the same in the end isn’t it?”

“Absolutely not. It’s not that easy, Roman. You can’t dismiss what I’ve been through over the last month. What the children went through!” 

“Been through? You’ve been gone for a month, running around with John while my children were shipped off to Denver! What do you think you’ve been through?” Roman raged. “You spent a month fucking John Black, when you’re married to me, and you want me to feel bad about it?”

Marlena stares at him incredulously for a moment, failing to understand his apathy, and then said softly, “I just came by to get a few of my things.” 

Marlena headed for the stairs, and Roman followed her, “I was shot, Doc. Shot! I’m probably going to have a limp for the rest of my life! I was trying to save you. I was trying to keep my family safe!”

His excuses were maddening, wearing thin on patience that was barely there as it was. Marlena reached the landing, turning to face him, “Well, you didn’t keep us safe, Roman! You didn’t! John did!” As she continued up the stairs, Roman stared at her in complete, and utter shock. Her anger, and her rage, were fueling her right now, and he knew then, that he had absolutely lost her for good. 

Chapter 20

John and Marlena stared at the ultrasound monitor in the dimly lit room, watching as Dr. Bader tried to get a clear picture of their child. Dr. Bader smiled at Marlena, and said pointing at the monitor, “There they are.”

On the monitor in front of them, Marlena clearly saw two little peanuts. Marlena stared at the monitor in a mix of joy and shock, “Twins again?”

“They do run in families, Marlena, and given that you are a twin, and you’ve already had a set of twins…it’s not surprising,” Dr. Bader told her with a smile. She knew that Marlena had been out of town for a little over a month, and in that time she’d obviously gotten pregnant…and not by Roman, if John’s presence was any indication.

“Twins? Another set of twinners?” John said in awe, with a huge smile on his face. “Doc, this is absolutely amazing.”

Marlena realized she was holding his hand tightly, and released her grip slightly, asking him, “Are you happy sure you’re happy, John?” She so badly wanted him to be happy about this.

“I’m beyond happy, baby. We’re going to have two babies! The twinners are going to be so excited. Carrie is going to be jumping for joy.”

“Looks like, based on their size, your due date would be around the third week of November, although, as you know, twins tend to come early,” Dr. Bader said.

“Doc, that’s right around Thanksgiving,” John said.

“Is this going to lead to turkey and pumpkin jokes, Sailor?” she asked him with a laugh.

“Possibly. I can’t say it won’t…because it might,” John said with a smirk.

“I’ll leave, and let you get cleaned up, Marlena. Can you make another appointment for a month from now?” Dr. Bader said, throwing her gloves in the rubbish can.

“Yes. I’ll be back in a month.”

“We’ll be back in a month,” John corrected, watching as Dr. Bader left them alone in the room. His hand splayed over her belly, and he leaned forward kissing her softly on the lips. “We’re having twins, Doc. Twins!”

“That’s four children under the age of ten,” she said with a soft smile. “You know, we’re going to be exhausted.”

“In the best way,” he said, taking her hand in his, and helping her off of the table. “We need a house…soon.”

As Marlena got dressed, John prattled on in his excitement, talking about how he’d never dealt with babies before, and how old the twins were when they met, causing Marlena to smile to herself, and revel in this newfound happiness she’d found. They walked from the exam room, hand in hand, and collided with a doctor heading in the other direction. Marlena touched the woman’s arm softly, “I’m sorry. We weren’t looking where we were—” she stopped speaking when John started talking.

“Katarina?” he said, looking at the woman quizzically.

She seemed uncomfortable, looking at John, “It’s Carly, actually. Dr. Carly Manning. Do I—do I know you?” His eyes were so familiar, but with a full beard it was hard to say if she knew him or not. To call her Katarina, he had to know her from before. A time she would rather not remember.

“I don’t…I don’t know,” he said, continuing to stare at her, wondering to himself if she was Katarina, or if maybe he was confused.

“John? How do you want to handle this?” Marlena asked him, refusing to just tell his story to a complete stranger without his permission.

“I had…I have memory loss,” he said awkwardly, not knowing where to start. “But I have memories of a young girl who looked just like you.”

Carly kept staring into his eyes, they were familiar, “I didn’t know anyone named John when I was younger.”

“It wasn’t John. My name wasn’t John,” he said, his voice trailing off in his attempt to pull at more memories. While he was remembering some things about his past, he hadn’t remembered everything.

Marlena touched his face, and whispered, “Do you want me to help you?”

He just nods as he continues to stare at Carly Manning, almost positive that she is Katarina. Marlena says to Carly, “Could you come back inside with us?”

Carly looks around quickly, and follows them into the dimly lit exam room. She waits patiently while Marlena starts speaking, “His memory is returning in small pieces. None of it is in order, but he remembers a girl, Katarina. She attended some of his birthday parties. He members her at his tenth, I believe…and his sixteenth. Possibly more that he hasn’t remembered. He…helped her once.”

Carly looks at John again, “Do you remember your name? That might help me.”

John’s throat is so dry he can barely speak, so he rasps, “Forrest.”

“Forrest?” she said, backing up slightly. “Forrest died…they said—they said he died in Grenada.”

“It’s complicated. So very complicated, and obviously not something we can discuss in great detail right now,” Marlena said.

“My mother…do you know my mother?” John asked her.

“I do,” Carly said with apprehension, wondering if she should mention Lawrence. “Do you remember anyone else?”

John grimaced slightly, “Just a cousin, Lawrence. He pulled your hair. You punched him in the face.”

“Lawrence is in Salem,” Carly said softly, with a smile, remembering when she had hit Lawrence, and the trouble she’d been in for it.

“I’m in no rush to see him…I think he was a prig when I was younger, if my limited memory serves me correctly, but my mother…Do you know how to get ahold of her?” John asked.

John saying that Lawrence was a prig sounded exactly like something Forrest would say. Carly smiled at him, and said, “I do…if you want me to do that.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Stefano had confirmation that John Black and Marlena Brady were back in Salem, and yet the registered coordinates for the microchip, that should be in John’s neck, was still Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Stefano had lost his control over John Black, and now lived with the very real fear that all of his secrets, those known by Ronald Culpepper, Milo Schmidt, and Father Julio Rober…as well as everything known by Forrest Alamain, were all going to be his downfall. There was nothing he could do to bring John back. The man was lost to him without the microchip to control him.

Sighing deeply, Stefano walked towards the veranda doors, looking out over his garden and inhaling the deep rich scent of magnolias. He watched as Gina sat beneath a tree on a blanket singing to a child she believed belonged to Milo Schmidt, her lover who broke his neck falling from the Louvre. She had no idea who she really was, or who’s baby she rocked in her arms. She was no use to him without a partner, and with the child in tow, she practically worthless. Rubbing his hand over his face in frustration, he mumbled, “I am getting too old for this.” Making up his mind, he turned to go, and find Rolf. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Carly held the telephone nervously in her hand. She hadn’t spoken to Vivian in nearly ten years, ever since Forrest had been lost in Grenada, and calling her now felt incredibly awkward. The woman would probably think she’d lost her mind, but she had told Marlena and John that she would do this. She would reach out to his mother for him. The telephone rang, and a voice on the other end said, “Alamain residence.”

Clearing her throat, Carly said, “Hello. Can I speak with Vivian Alamain, please?”

“May I ask who’s calling?” the man responded.

She sighed, recognizing his voice, and said softly, “Katarina Von Leuschner.”

“Katarina?” the man asked her hesitantly.

“Yes, Ivan…it’s Katarina,” she replied.

“Where have you been?”

“I need to speak with Vivian, and it’s rather important.”

“Of course, yes…hold on…”

She heard shuffling, and muffled conversation, as if Ivan was covering the receiver and speaking to some, likely Vivian. A voice came on the line, confident, feminine, “Katarina?”

“Hello, Vivian.”

“We’ve been so worried! Your parents—” she began.

“—I only called because…because someone asked me to do them a favor. Someone I knew a long time ago,” Carly said softly. She paused, uncertain how to proceed, and decided to just plow forward, “I think Forrest is alive. I saw him…well, I think I saw him. He goes by John and he’s—”

“Forrest is dead, Katarina,” Vivian said firmly, refusing to allow herself to even hope that her son might still be alive.

“There’s a man here. He’s suffering from amnesia. His story is long, and quite complicated…but he knows things, Vivian. He knows things, and he’s remembering more every day,” Carly told her.

“What things does he know?”

“He remembered me. He was walking down the hall with his…with Marlena, and they bumped into me. He called me Katarina. No one here knows my real name. He remembered birthday parties, and Lawrence…he asked me to contact you…”

Vivian felt her heart rate pick up, “How can you be sure?”

“I can’t, but those eyes…they were so familiar to me, and he—he called Lawrence a prig,” she said with a soft smile on her face.

Vivian smiled to herself. Lawrence was a prig. Clearing her throat, Vivian said, “I’m due for a little trip I believe. Where are you?”

Carly sighed, aware that the small world she had created for herself was about to get smaller, “A town called Salem.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Marlena lay with her head on John’s chest later that evening. They had settled into the Salem Inn, and had plans to look at homes the following day. She felt herself falling asleep when the rumble of John’s voice got her attention, “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Are you regretting it?” she asked him, running her fingers through the hair of his chest.

“It’s just, we’re already dealing with a lot, and maybe waiting might have been better? I don’t know. I still have to talk to Shane about all of the information I have on Stefano now, that will take days to sift through, and I’m worried that Stefano might come after you again,” he said.

“We can’t live like that, John. We can’t live life worried about how much we have going on, or who might be after us. I don’t want to live like that. Carly is a doctor at the hospital. Bo’s doctor. I work at the hospital. Running into her was inevitable. If not her, then Lawrence. Maybe getting it out in the open now is better?” she told him, touching his face lightly.

John closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of her palm on his freshly shaven jaw, “You’re right, Doc. I know you’re right.”

Marlena smiled against his chest, “Of course, I’m right.”

“Smug tonight, are you, Doc?” John said rolling her onto her back, and pinning her arms beside her head.

Marlena’s breathing picked up, surprised by his sudden forceful motion. She smirked at him, and said, “Not too smug.”

John kissed her, softly pulling her bottom lip into his mouth and sucking briefly, before releasing it with a pop. Smoothing his hand over her hip, and pulling her body closer, John murmured, “You will be the death of me, pretty lady.”

Chapter 21

Isabella hadn’t told anyone she was sick. No one had known except her doctor, and finally, Victor and Bo. She’d only told them because she needed to see if one of them could potentially be a bone marrow donor for her, but that likely wouldn’t save her. She was in the last stages of leukemia, and she knew nothing, except a miracle, could save her now. She sat in the doctor’s exam room, holding Victor’s hand in hers, as she waited for the results to see if her father or her brother were potential matches.

Carly paused outside of the exam room, unsure how to proceed. The news wasn’t good, and in this case it would be doubly upsetting. Taking a deep breath, she knocked twice, and then entered the room. Isabella was already looking wane, with a purple hue under her eyes, and a yellowish tinge to her skin, but she still looked up with hope in her eyes, and it broke Carly’s heart to tell her that there was no hope. “I have the results of the tests, Isabella.”

“I know it’s a long shot, Carly. Just—just don’t try to be nice about it. I can handle whatever it is you need to tell me,” Isabella said, trying to sound strong, but with an obvious quiver to her voice.

“I’m sorry, but neither Victor, nor Bo are matches,” Carly told her softly.

“Surely there’s something you can do!” Victor said, as Isabella started crying.

“I—I need to speak with Isabella privately,” Carly said to Victor.

“No. No, Carly. My father can stay. Whatever needs to be said, he can be here for it,” Isabella said, wiping her eyes.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

Carly paused, and finally said, “Based on these test results…there’s no way you could be related to Victor…or Bo.”

“What?” Isabella asked her. “Victor’s not my father?”

Carly continued, “There was a match in the system, though. You had a paternal match with someone within the hospital system—”

“I’m not her father?” Victor asked in momentary shock. Looking at Isabella, he touched her face softly, and said, “It doesn’t matter. I want you to know that. It doesn’t matter.” Victor looked to Carly, saying, “She had a paternal match to someone? So you know who her father is?”

“We do, but as far as everyone knows…”

Isabella was loosing her patience, “What, Carly? Just spit it out!”

“As far as we know, he’s dead.”

Victor looked at Carly, his eyes alert, “Who? Because if there’s a chance the man is alive…I will find him. I’m going to do everything in my power to help her.”

Carly looked up from the report, and whispered, “Stefano DiMera.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

John’s emotions were conflicted after speaking with Bo. Isabella was dying, probably within the week, and her father…well, her father wasn’t Victor Kiriakis. He had to wrap his head around that concept. Victor was searching for Stefano. He had every man working for him out looking for the bastard. John had given him information on every single compound Stefano owned, including hand drawn maps when necessary. 

He had spent hours with Shane, only willing to do so, now that Shane was the new ISA Chief. John gave him every detail, of every life he could remember. He detailed the actions of Ronald Culpepper, Father Julio Rober, and Milo Schmidt. After a week, and over 1000 pages of testimony, John had finally finished by placing his signature on the last page. He wanted to move on with his life, and wash his hands of all if it, but he couldn’t. 

Standing in front of Victor’s door, with a black duffle bag full of money, John waited for someone to answer the door. He was surprised when it was Victor. “Hey Vic, I was hoping I could speak with you?”

“Sure John. Come in. I was relieved to hear that you and Marlena came to no harm…well, almost no harm. It must have been very upsetting when she was shot,” Victor said, ushering him inside the house.

“It was. I’m sorry…about Isabella. I’m sorry that it—”

“—I know she followed you, John. I should have kept a closer eye on her, and I apologize for that. I didn’t think she would go to those lengths to find you,” Victor interrupted him. “I knew before you left Salem that your relationship with her would likely end there.”

“Then why did you help us?”

“Why did I help you?” Victor asked John. John nodded his head, saying nothing. Victor continued, “When I was younger, I made a lot of reckless choices without thought as to how those choices affected other people. You were one of the people who got hurt. My dealings with Stefano, and using your life as if it were a game…I owed you, so I helped you.”

“I brought the rest of the money,” John said handing him the bag. “I can pay back what we used, but most of it is still there.”

“I’d like you to keep it,” Victor told him.

“I can’t,” John said sitting the bag on the floor. “How is Isabella?” John asked changing the subject.

“She’s sleeping most of the time, and she’s on several different pain medications,” Victor said.

“I was hoping I could see her. I—I need to see her,” John said softly.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

John opened the door to Isabella’s room slowly, looking around. The last time he had been in this room was nearly ten years ago. He was there under the guise of working on Victor’s security system, when in reality he’d been snooping for information on The Pawn. Isabella was small, laying in the bed in front of him. John approached her slowly, saying, “Hey, Izzy-B.”

Her eyes fluttered open, “John.”

He sat beside her, pulling her hand into his, and tried to smile at her with tears shining in his eyes, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry we ended the way we did. I’m sorry you’re sick.”

“You were right. I pushed you…in Mexico,” she said weakly. “I knew it wasn’t fair. I knew I should stop. I just wanted you so badly…” she started coughing, and John reached to help her with drinking water. 

“None of it matters now,” John told her, smoothing her hair back off of her forehead. 

“I’m dying, John…it all matters. I knew I was dying when I came after you in Colorado. That’s why I was so desperate.”

“You should have told me.”

“No. It wouldn’t have changed anything, and it would have made things so much harder on you…maybe if I hadn’t pressured you in Mexico, Torres wouldn’t have come after Marlena…because she would have been with you,” Isabella whispered. 

“You can’t think like that, Izzy-B. We don’t know what would have happened. The outcome could have been the same,” John told her.

“It wouldn’t have been the same. I saw it. In the brief interaction between the two of you on the porch…I saw it,” she said softly. “I’m just as conniving as my father.”

“No. No, you’re nothing like Stefano. I promise you that.”

“We all…we all made mistakes in Mexico, Izzy-B. You pressured me, I gave up without a fight, Doc…she withdrew inside of herself, and Roman…he pushed her to make a decision when she wasn’t ready. We all could have done things differently. We all made mistakes, but it certainly wasn’t you alone.”

“I’m so tired…can you sit with me? Until I fall asleep?” she asked him.

“Sure I can. Just rest now,” John replied watching her eyes close, while he pondered how short life was, how fleeting life was. He wasn’t going to waste the time he had with Marlena, or their children. He wasn’t going to waste any of it. Isabella was going to die, and it made no sense to let her go with his anger, and her guilt. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Bart knocked on the door to Stefano’s study waiting for him to respond. When he heard the other man’s deep baritone say, “What do you want?” That was Bart’s cue to enter.

“Hey Boss, I got some news,” Bart said, staring at Stefano.

“So get on with it, Bart! I haven’t got all day,” Stefano said, having already lost his patience with this conversation. 

“I heard Victor Kiriakis is looking for you,” Bart said. 

“I’m dead, Bart. No one should be looking for me.”

“That’s what I thought too, but you see, you’ve been dead a lot, and you’ve come back a lot, so, maybe, he’s just thinking it’s like that. Cause, I mean, here you are…not dead.”

“You’re an idiot, Bart! You interrupted me to tell me that someone is looking for me. Did you hear anything else? Like maybe why?”

“Yeah, seems Victor’s daughter, ain’t his daughter. She’s your daughter…and she’s dying of cancer, or something. I’m guessing he thinks you might be able to save her,” Bart finished with a shrug.

Stefano stared at Bart, attempting to decipher the nonsense that seemed to spew forth from his mouth. “Victor Kiriakis thought this woman was his daughter, but she is mine? I don’t have a daughter besides Kristen. What’s this woman’s name?”

“Isabella Toscano.”

“Toscano?” Stefano tried to wrack his brain, and then he remembered a woman, with gorgeous brown eyes, and wavy long mahogany hair. A woman he’d had an illicit affair with under the guise of Rudolpho Meradi. He’d only found out later that she was the wife of Ernesto Toscano. “Loretta Toscano…I remember, but she never told me there was a child.”

“I think the girl was raised by Ernesto, Boss, but then a couple years ago they figured she was Victor’s kid.”

“How do they think she’s mine now?”

“My source at the hospital says, Victor and Bo weren’t no match for her, but a dead Stefano DiMera was,” Bart said with a grin.

“What does she need?”

“Bone marrow, but it’s too late now, Boss. She’s gonna die soon, the cancer…it’s gone too far. She’s only got about a week left. At least that’s what I hear.”

“Get Rolf in here…now!” Stefano roared, rising from his desk. He had just managed to un-complicate his life by offloading Gina, and sending her back to Salem with her brat, and now this. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hope Brady awoke in a hotel room by the riverfront, with a baby in her arms. She was confused, and disoriented. Not knowing how she got there, and where the baby had come from. She felt herself start to panic, her heart rate increasing, and her breathing picked up, but when the baby cried…she stopped. She knew that cry. She felt it in her soul. That was her baby, but the last thing she could remember was professing her love for Bo, right before the cage fell. That’s all she could remember. Picking up the baby girl, she knew those eyes, and she felt relief flood her body. Her daughter had Bo’s eyes. Picking up the phone, she dialed the number that she prayed still belonged to her husband. She knew from looking at her daughter that she’d lost at least 18 months of time. Probably more.

Chapter 22

Shane wasn’t sure that this plan would work, but John had assured him…there was no way that it would fail. Shane believed him. If there was anyone who knew Stefano DiMera better than anyone else on earth, it was John Black. That could be ascertained simply by the breadth of the testimony he’d delivered. If John said that Stefano Dimera wouldn’t be able to curb his narcissistic tendencies, thereby sneaking into the Kirakis estate to see Isabella, then Shane was going to trust him. Isabella’s room had been fitted with three separate video cameras, as well as recording equipment, because John was also fairly certain that Stefano was going to wax poetic about his many (or not so many) achievements. 

Victor’s house had several points of entry, all of them usually being guarded by a strict security detail. Tonight, however, they were being watched by ISA officers, undercover ISA officers. This was the third night they’d been stationed there. The plan was to allow Stefano in, so that he could see Isabella, she had insisted on that. Even in the end, she was insisting on being part of the plan. 

Shane’s earpiece crackled with static, and then he heard, “I have confirmation of a sighting, Chief. The south west entry point.” 

Shane looked at John, in surprise, and said, “You were right.” Both of them turned towards the monitors in the back of the surveillance vehicle.

“I knew that self righteous bastard couldn’t stay away,” John said, glancing quickly at Shane with a grin.

Stefano entered Isabella’s room quietly, and closed the door behind him with a soft snick. Isabella’s eyes fluttered open, as she stared at him in feigned surprise. He was dressed as a gardner, although she wasn’t sure why a disguise of that nature would be useful at this time of night. “How did you get in here?” she asked him, knowing full well that Shane’s men had allowed him inside.

Stefano stared at her for a moment. Her small emaciated frame was settled in the center of the large bed. Stefano was struck by her features, because she was the vision of his mother, although her hair was that of Loretta. He’d never had a moment in his life where he was struck speechless until now. Stepping closer, he finally said roughly, “I needed to see you.”

“Why? Did you know you were my father?”

“I didn’t know. I never knew until…until just a few days ago.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m dying anyway, so none of it matters,” she said softly.

“It matters to me,” he said. “I’ve made so many mistakes in my life.”

“Is this your confession? Are you trying to unburden your soul?” she wondered. “I’m probably going to be gone in few hours…I can…I can feel myself dying. Isn’t that odd?”

  Stefano wasn’t sure how to react to the depleted woman in front of him. He took a seat beside her bed heavily, saying, “I’m sorry. If I had only known…”

“What would you have done?” she whispered, barely audible. “Did you raise any of your children? Or did you spend your life trying to destroy everyone around you.”

He knew the truth of it. He’d realized it the other day as he watched Hope Brady, thinking she was Gina, as she sat under a magnolia tree, singing to her baby. He destroyed everything he touched, and all of his plans…all of his life, had been spent hell-bent on destroying others…what had he ultimately accomplished? “I know,” he said softly.

Isabella stared at him in disbelief, “You know? I find that hard to believe.”

“I took revenge too far. I became obsessed with it. I let it control me. I let it manipulate me…and now? Now I’m a shell of who I could have been, because I wanted to destroy the Brady’s,” Stefano said, with regret lacing his words.

In the surveillance vehicle John looked at Shane in confusion, “I don’t understand. Is he about to tell her why he—”

“I loved a woman once,” Stefano began. “We were both young, incredibly young, but I loved her. She was vibrant, with an inner light constantly radiating from her. I had lived a life of expectations, never quite being able to live up to my father’s expectations, but with her.she loved me unconditionally. If only I had loved her the same way, instead my demands drove her away, I realize that now,” he said, lost in the past. “She had this hair that was pure fire, and these light brown eyes that would capture a man’s soul if he stared into them. She should have been enough for me.”

“I don’t understand,” Isabella said weakly, trying to keep him talking. Trying to understand what could have happened to make him hate the Brady’s so badly.

“She went on a tour of Europe after high school, and she never came back to me,” he told her. “I made demands, and she complied…every time, but then, I would raise the bar higher. I was never…I would never be happy…”

“You never saw her again?”

“Not that she knew,” Stefano whispered, obviously lost in another time, another place. “She moved on with her life, and I should have let her go, but my father…my father created a beast in me. I couldn’t fail. I certainly couldn’t lose.”

“What did you do?” she asked faintly.

“She had an affair, on her European tour, and ended up pregnant,” Stefano said, without answering Isabella’s question.

“How did you know? If you weren’t with her…and if…if you weren’t in contact?”

“I don’t lose,” Stefano said fiercely. “I won’t lose. She tried to tell him in a letter. I had her mail intercepted.”

Isabella stared at Stefano in momentary shock, before she whispered, “What did you do?” She was scared to know, but Stefano’s vendetta had hurt almost every member of the Brady family in some form.

Stefano stared into the eyes of his daughter, and it was almost as if he was speaking to his mother. She was ashamed of him, and his actions. It made him almost ashamed of himself. “I vowed to never love again. I wanted to destroy her life, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I still loved her. So I turned that rage towards the man she’d been with.”

“That doesn’t make sense. You know that, right?”

Stefano looked at her with sharp eyes, refusing to acknowledge out loud, the truth in her words. He simply repeated, “I couldn’t hurt her…so I set out to hurt the man she’d been with. The man whose child she would bear.”

Isabella was trying to work out how this related to the Brady’s, but then she blurted out, “It was Shawn.” Stefano continued to stare at her without a word, and she knew it was true. “You wanted to destroy him…destroy his family, and you didn’t even know him. Don’t you know how wrong that is?”

“As I said, I’ve made many mistakes in my lifetime. My hatred of the Brady’s being part of that. It started with Shawn, and the anger and the rage, that were born of that, grew and evolved over the years, until it nearly consumed me. I can’t change that now,” his deep voice said.

“You have to stop,” she said softly.

“I returned Hope and the baby,” he said, as if that made up for everything.

John and Shane looked at each other in fear and confusion. Hope was dead. She’d died nearly two years ago at the hands of Ernesto Toscano.

“Stefano…Hope is…she’s dead,” Isabella said, struggling to find her voice.

“Do you need water?” Stefano asked her reaching for the glass next to her bed, and placing the straw near her mouth. He watched as she weakly sipped the water, staring up at him, wide eyed. “Hope is alive. Of course, I had to have her memory wiped. This hatred inside of me…it’s destroying me, eating me from the inside out like a caustic acid.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s confused right now. In a hotel room near the river, but she will find her way home. Eventually,” he said.

“It’s still happening. You say it is over, but if Hope is alive…why play this game?”

Stefano sighed deeply, standing up, and walking to the window, “You’re right. I could do that. A better man would do that.”

“A better man wouldn’t have had her to begin with,” Isabella said quietly.

Turning to face her with a smirk, “You’re right of course. By returning her, I felt like I was letting go…but you are correct, knowing that Shawn Brady’s grandchild is being kept from him, that his son still mourns the wife who died nearly two years ago…I find a bitter satisfaction in that.”

“She’s probably so scared,” Isabella said with a soft plea. “She’s probably so confused.”

“Your empathy shames me,” he said softly, sitting back down.

“It should.”

“Even near death, your strength astounds me,” he murmured, watching her.

“I don’t understand how your hatred of Shawn manifested into what it became.”

“I became my father. Everything I hated growing up. Everything I despised…I now am.”

“What happened to the baby? I know you know. You wouldn’t have had this much hatred in you, enough to want revenge on a whole bloodline, and not kept track of that baby. Shawn Brady’s baby,” Isabella said softly.

John was impressed that she was remaining so strong, when it was obvious that she was exhausted. Shawn had a baby. A baby he never knew. A child that was the antecedent of Stefano’s compulsive need for revenge. It was heartbreaking. For Shawn. For the child. For the child’s mother.

“Ah, yes,” Stefano said. “The baby. She was an excellent mother, and she loved the boy. She doted on him. He looked nothing like Shawn Brady, except the eyes. He had his fathers eyes, but he looked like her father, his grandfather.”

“What did you do to him, Stefano? The child, because I know, I can see it…you did something to him.”

“I ended up hurting her anyway, even though I had vowed I wouldn’t. The need was too great.” Isabella watched him. He wasn’t as she had expected. John had always described Stefano as heartless, evil, ruthless. The man before her was those things, but he also seemed to be tired. He looked at his daughter, and he said, “I took him, and I made him into something else.”

Isabella watched Stefano for a moment, as she realized with sinking dread what he meant…and who he meant. Her eyes large, she said, “No.”

“Ah, yes. The ultimate revenge wouldn’t you say?” Stefano smiled to himself, obviously still pleased with himself, even after saying that he was letting his need for revenge go. “I took him from the jungles of Granada. His mother mourned and I made him a criminal. It was the ultimate revenge.”

Shane looked at John. His breathing had grown panicked, and he began pulling at the neckline of his shirt. Shane knew from John’s testimony what this meant. John had been taken from Grenada in 1983. Stefano had more than just destroyed the Brady’s, he had done his best to destroy Shawn Brady’s son. Shane reached out, trying to get John’s attention, hoping to stop what seemed to be a panic attack, “John? Look at me, please.”

“He’s a fucking mad man, Shane,” John said, still breathing heavily, and trying to come to terms with everything he had just learned. 

Stefano’s voice drew his attention back to the monitor. He told his dying daughter, “I took Forrest Alamain, and I created John Black.”

Chapter 23

Stefano DiMera was taken into custody as soon as he descended the stairs onto the first floor. His eyes connected with John’s and Stefano knew it was all over, although he had known that if John’s memory returned to him the ISA would come for him. He hadn’t thought it would be so soon, or after such an incriminating conversation, but he was tired. Tired of the game, tired of the rage, tired of it all. As he was being placed in handcuff, he watched as John made his way up to Isabella, calling to him, “Even after leaving her for Marlena, you think you have the right to be with her.”

John turned on the stairs, facing the man he hated with every fiber of his body, “She is dying, and I won’t leave her to die alone.”

Stefano watched him go, coming to terms with who John really was. He had tried to destroy the caring, kind, empathetic man who was Forrest Alamain. He had tried to take every bit of Vivian and Shawn out of him, and obliterate it completely. He had done everything in his power to create a cold, heartless, mercenary, but he’d failed. There had always been something in John’s eyes, even if he didn’t say it out loud. Something in his eyes that said he didn’t understand, or he didn’t agree with what Stefano was having him do. That failure had simply fueled him, because Stefano did not fail. Yet, John Black remained kind, caring, and empathetic to Isabella…a woman who had done things to hurt him, and earn his mistrust.

Shane studied Stefano for a moment, watching the man as he stared after John, finally saying, “It’s time to go.”

John opened the door to Isabella’s room, and approached her bedside. She was so frail, and her breathing was shallow. She looked up at him, with wide eyes, when she heard the shuffle of his feet along the carpeting. Reaching for him, she said softly, “John.”

Taking a seat beside her bed, John reached for her hand, “Hey, Izzy-B. You did your last PI job like a champ.” He tried to smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. She knew he was trying to keep it light, but death was coming for her whether she wanted it to or not.

She smiled at him, “We still make a great team.”

“Shane is very impressed,” he told her running his thumb over the top of her hand. “I think he’d hire you as an ISA agent if you were interested.”

“Isabella Toscano, ISA agent,” she said with a soft smile.

Her breaths were becoming stuttered, and she seemed to grimace momentarily, as if she were in pain. John leaned forward, brushing her soft brown curls from her face. “It’s okay to let go,” John whispered. “It’s okay, Isabella. If the pain is too much, just let go.”

“I’m so tired,” she said, so softly he could barely hear her. “Can you sing to me?”

“Sing?” John said with a smile. “You know I’m not much of a singer. What would you like to hear?”

“Anything,” she said.

“Okay…but don’t say you weren’t warned,” John said clearing his throat. “Who’s gonna tell you when, it’s too late? Who’s gonna tell you things, aren’t so great? You can’t go on…thinking, nothing’s wrong, oh oh…Who’s gonna drive you home…tonight?” John watched as her eyes closed, and her breathing became more shallow, but her face, the lines of pain that had previously been there, smoothed over, so he continued to sing. “Who’s gonna pick you up, when you fall? Who’s gonna hang it up, when you call? Who’s gonna pay attention, to your dreams? Yeah, who’s gonna plug their ears…when you scream? You can’t go on…thinking, nothing’s wrong, oh oh…Who’s gonna drive you home, tonight?” He felt the hot tears streaming down his face, as her hand, which had previously been gripping his arm, fell to the side. She was gone, and all that remained was her beautiful face with a soft smile on her lips.

Shane and Victor were waiting in the hallway when John stepped outside of Isabella’s room. He knew from John’s features that she was gone. John looked at him, with eyes that were red and swollen from crying, “I need…I need, Doc. G-d, we need a place to live…I just…there’s so much, and I can’t seem to pull it together.”

Victor asked, “She’s gone isn’t she?”

“Yeah, Vic…she’s gone,” John said softly.

Victor nodded, stepping past John and into the room where Isabella was lying. She looked so peaceful, with a small smile on her lips. As he and Shane had stood out in the hallway, listening to John sing softly to her, Victor was again confronted with his own choices. Softly closing her eyes, his regrets where John was concerned flooded him with regret. If only for the kindness he had constantly shown Isabella, Victor regretted his actions against John. 

John stood in the hallway, looking helpless and overwhelmed, when an idea occurred to Shane. “I have a place. A house. It’s near the lake. I’ve use it when family visits, but it’s been empty for years,” Shane told him, wanting to help out someone he considered a friend. Someone he’d known for years, and considered family at one time. “You could stay there. If you like it you could buy it, I suppose. Would you like to see it?” the man added with a grin.

John looked at his watch, noting that it was nearly 2:00 am, “Isn’t it an odd time to go house viewing?”

“It’s near here. We’re up, why not?”

John felt relief wash over him, even though he hadn’t even seen the home, he knew it would work. Shane wouldn’t have offered if it wouldn’t work. With relief etching his face, John sighed, and said, “Yeah, partner, let’s go check it out.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

John slid into bed beside Marlena, and pulled her sleeping body against his, burying his face in her hair. Isabella was gone. She was gone from this world, and while he’d been angry at her, he’d never wish death upon her. He felt the hot tears falling from his eyes, even before he’d fully realized he was crying again. The loss of her hurt him. It hurt badly, but it didn’t compare to the loss he’d felt when he’d lost Marlena…twice. He’d held himself back from that kind of love. He’d been in relationships during the five years Marlena was gone, but John had always held part of himself back, even with Isabella. He felt her loss, but it was different. Now, holding Marlena in his arms while he cried, he realized that as much as he was crying over Isabella’s death, he was crying over his fear that he might one day lose Marlena again. That pain had fueled and directed all of his decisions for the last five and a half years.

Marlena turned, facing him. The sounds of his soft sobs had woken her. She touched his tear streaked face lightly, and ask him, “She’s gone?”

He couldn’t speak. He could only nod his head, and take in deep breaths, while trying to get himself under control.

“Look at me, John,” she said in a quiet, commanding voice. “It’s okay to mourn her. I don’t want you to think that you have to hide that.”

“I know. I know that…It’s more than Isabella—it’s more. I’m—I’m coming to terms with how much your death affected me in the last five and a half years. How I held myself back…from love. From a true deep love, because of my fear of feeling the pain I felt when I lost you. Yeah, I’m mourning Isabella…but it’s nothing. Nothing, compared to the pain of losing you.”

“Is Isabella’s death bringing that back up for you?”

“I think so,” he whispered, kissing her neck softly. “I’m still so scared of losing you again, that I wonder if I’m holding back from you even now?”
“It’s possible. I haven’t even been back a year, John. I understand.”

“I don’t. I want to immerse myself in you, to the point that it almost feels obsessive,” he said, biting her ear. “You are mine and I am yours.”

Shivers wracked her body. The sharpness of his teeth drawing a long moan from the back of her throat. She whispered, “John.”

“Fuck, baby…when you whisper my name…”

She smiled at him teasingly, “What? What does it do to you?”

“I want to somehow meld my soul to yours, the desire is so strong,” he tells her, pulling her closer.

She can feel the line of his burgeoning cock, against her hip. Pulling her head back slightly, she looks at him in surprise, “Are you naked, Sailor?”

“I need to feel you, Doc. Your body against mine. The softness of your skin…” he moaned. “I need you right now..”

“I’m yours…you know, I’m yours,” she said, pushing John onto his back, and slowly straddling his body.

He watched as she pulled her nightgown up over her head, baring her naked body to the early morning light. She settled her swollen pussy over his cock, causing John to moan in pleasure. The grey haze cast a soft glow over her skin, and he watched while his own hands reached for her, threading their way into her hair, and pulling her mouth to his. “I love you,” he said. “I love you so much that just the thought of losing you scares me…it petrifies me.” John’s tongue lapped over the pillowy softness of her lips, before delving into the recesses of her mouth.

“I’m yours. I will always be yours,” she whispered between his soft kisses. “I feel like my soul, and your soul are one.”

He felt the tension in his body coiled tightly. He needed something, he needed her, but the feeling was so strong he was afraid to hurt her. He was afraid that if he truly allowed himself to give everything he was to her, it would be too much. “Fuck, Doc…I need…”

She pushed herself up, balancing her slim arms on his chest, and stared down into his deep blue eyes, “What do you need from me? I’ll give it to you, because, John, you are my everything…”

“I don’t know…I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, nearly gasping with his deep breathing, and the willpower it took to hold himself back from ravaging her.

“What do you need, John?”

“I need to devour you,” he groaned almost as if he were in pain. “I need to consume you…somehow make you a part of me, just to prove that we are one.” Her breath caught in her throat at his words, and her core clenched, flooding John’s cock with her arousal. When he felt the wet, slippery heat of her, wash over him, his hands gripped her hips so tightly that his fingers dug into her flesh with the force of his self restraint.

“Do it,” she said softly. “Do it, John…destroy me…” She leaned forward, slowly running her tongue over his partially open lips. His hands gripped her hips even tighter. His hips bucked against her, causing the engorged length of his cock to slide through her wet folds, and she whispered, her lips barely touching his, “I want you to destroy me, Sailor…and then…then, I want you to put me back together.”

He flipped Marlena onto her back so quickly, she lost her breath for a moment. Looking deep into her eyes, he rasped out roughly, “You’re sure, baby? You’re sure? Because I don’t think I can stop this train wreck now…”

Staring up at him, she whispered, pushing him further into a sex fueled madness, “Fuck me.”

John pushed her legs wide, staring down at her dripping, swollen, pussy, and said, “You are fucking gorgeous, Doc.”

She screamed his name, when he fell forward, sucking her clit into his mouth almost viciously. Her hips bucked, seeking more of his aggressive mouth, but his hands gripped her hips, pinning her to the bed. Pulling his mouth off of her, he said, “Mine! You hear me, baby? You’re mine.”

“Oh, G-d, yes!” she said, when his lips and his tongue pulled her swollen clit back into his mouth. He sucked hard, almost violently, his tongue swirling around her, over and over again. Marlena’s orgasm came hard and fast, rocking her so powerfully, that she lost time and space, but he didn’t let up. He didn’t stop, and she gasped. Loud breathy pants, and mewling sounds, as she begged him to stop, while praying he didn’t at the same time.

John slid up her body, and pushed three fingers into her warm recesses, using his thumb to continue the assault on her clit. Hooking his fingers inside her, pushing into her g-spot, he roared, “Again, Doc!”

His words, and the forcefulness behind them, broke her, and she started coming on his hand again, crying his name. Weeping his name. “John, oh, G-d! John.”

His hand was soaked with the evidence of her body’s arousal. He pulled his fingers from her, and sucked them into his mouth, his eyes rolling back into his head at the taste of her. “You’re going to do it again…Doc…come again,” he said breathlessly in her ear, while pushing his fingers back into her body, and curling them into her.

She was delirious, her head rolling back and forth. “I can’t,” she sobbed, feeling the heat of him radiate into her limbs. “I can’t.”

“You will,” he whispered, pushing his thumb against her clit hard. The downward pressure was excruciating, and it was bliss personified. Tipping his head down, he licked roughly over her breast, and then bit her sensitive flesh, hard.

Marlena’s hips bucked upward, as she screamed, “Fuck!” and started coming again, her body shaking uncontrollably. When she thought she couldn’t take anymore, he pushed her legs wide, slamming his turgid cock into her.

“Fuck!” he roared, as everything went black for a moment. He grabbed Marlena’s arms roughly, placing them above her head, so she could grab at the rail of the headboard, and growled, “Don’t fucking let go.”

She could barely do more than mumble, “I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.” Pulling his hips back, he slammed his length back into her, repeatedly, rocking the bed with the force of his thrusts, and even when she thought she had nothing left to give, they both exploded into ecstasy. John had done it. He’d destroyed her, and somehow put her back together. Rolling them onto their sides, keeping their bodies connected for as long as he could, he wrapped his arms around her tightly.

Chapter 24

Within a week of John telling Marlena about Stefano DiMera’s lifelong revenge against Shawn Brady, they had settled into the lake house with the twins, and temporarily, Carrie. The house had five bedrooms upstairs, with a master suite, and attached nursery on the ground floor. Marlena had never lived in a house so big, but having the ability to have her family with her, made it wonderful. The downstairs was an open concept. With back doors that opened onto a deck overlooking the lake. 

John was convinced he would find a way to convince Carrie to stay with them, at least through college, and Marlena wouldn’t be surprised if he succeeded. She’d called Roman and left messages at home, and at work, informing him that the children were back, and where she was staying with them. He hadn’t returned her calls or come by. Carrie was hurt more than she was saying. That much was obvious. The twins had spent so little time with Roman to begin with, they barely seemed to notice. They were just happy to have their Daddy back. Marlena tried to have them return to calling John by his first name, but they couldn’t seem to remember. She had given up a few days ago, and had started referring to Roman as their Poppa. 

Today, John had called Shawn at the fish market, and asked him to come over. It was time to talk, and there was no way the conversation would be easy. Marlena had promised to stay by John’s side, and help him, when needed, because Shawn Brady was about to find out his oldest son was not Roman, it was John. 

Shawn entered the house in his usual jovial manner, and bearing a plate of chocolate chip cookies. Handing them to Marlena the plate he said, “Now Caroline wouldn’t let me come over if’n I didn’t bring the cookies.”

Marlena set the plate down with a laugh, hugging Shawn tightly, “Thank you for coming…and thank you for—”

“—I’ll hear none it, missy. None. The situation with you, John, and Roman…well, that’s not of your making is it?” Shawn said, making sure Marlena was looking at him when he told her. “What Stefano did wasn’t yer fault, and I can’t be blaming ye for how ye feel. Understand?”

John entered the room with three mugs of coffee on a tray. His eyes lit up when they landed on the plate of food Marlena had set to the side. He said, “Ma sent cookies?”

Knowing that those cookies were John’s absolute favorite, Shawn laughed, and said, “She did, Johnny boy.”

Marlena took Shawn’s hand in hers and lead him towards the couch. Looking around the house, he said, “This is a nice place. You got it from Shane, Kimmy said.”

“We’re renting it now,” Marlena said, “but Shane said we could buy it from him.”

Shawn looked confused for a moment, glancing between John and Marlena, “I’m not trying to pry, but a house like this. It be costing a lot.”

“Pop,” John said, changing the subject, and sitting down. “We need to talk, and honestly, I don’t even know how to begin.”

“Just tell it, son” Shawn said, taking a mug from the tray, and sinking into the overstuffed chair near the fireplace.

“The night Isabella died, Stefano visited her. I had a plan worked out with Shane because I knew he wouldn’t be able to stay away from her once he found out she was his daughter. Isabella insisted on being part of the plan, and even though I was reluctant, we agreed,” John said, pausing to sip his coffee. Placing his mug on the coffee table in front of him, he continued, “She wanted so badly to be a part of ending Stefano’s reign of terror. Against me, against the Brady’s, and so we allowed it. That night, as he knew she lay dying in her bed, he told her why he hated the Brady family so much much, and Pop…it all started with you.”

“Me?” Shawn asked, leaning forward. “I don’t understand. We always thought it started with Roman, but we we could’t work out the why of it.”

John paused for a moment, before saying, “Stefano was in love with Vivian Alamain. Do you remember her?”

Shawn looked at if he stopped breathing momentarily, before he said, “I do. I met her in the summer of 1952. She was young. We were both young. She was seventeen, nearly eighteen. I was nearing twenty five.” Shawn sat there, processing what John had said, “You say Stefano loved her?”

“He did. He thought he did, but I don’t believe that Stefano has the capacity to ever truly love anyone. That lousy bastard never made much sense anyway, Pop. You know that. He saw you, and her failure to return to him, as reason enough for a lifelong vendetta,” John said, picking up his coffee again, and leaning back against the couch. He stretched his arm along the back, where Marlena reached for his hand.

“That’s foolish! It makes no sense!” Shawn said standing up in frustration. He stood there a moment, and then immediately sitting back down. “Me and Vivian…we barely knew each other two months! It was a summer thing, we spent one night together, and then she was gone. I never heard from her again.”

“She wrote to you,” Marlena said softly. “A few times, if what Stefano told Isabella is true, but Stefano being the evil man that he is, intercepted the letters.”

“She wrote to me?” Shawn asked, with a soft look coming over his features. “Oh, we had fun that summer. She was beautiful, and the way her red hair shined like copper in the sun. It would take any young mans breath away. She wasn’t like any of the girls I ever met before. She was fun loving, vibrant, and always ready to get into some trouble.”

“She gave birth to your son in February of 1953,” John said softly. 

The smile that had been on Shawn’s face slid away, as he stared at John blankly. “No. No, she would have told me that. She wouldn’t have kept that from me,” Shawn said.

“She did. She wrote you on at least three occasions, but you never responded, because Stefano had taken the letters,” John said. “So she assumed you wanted nothing to do with her or the child and she stopped writing.”

Realization came over Shawn’s face, whispering, “…because Stefano took the letters.”

“Yes,” John said. “At least that’s how Stefano’s version of the story goes.”

“I have another son?” Shawn whispered, standing up and walking towards the fireplace. “I need to…I don’t even know where to begin. He hated me, and he nearly destroyed me whole family over this!”

“Pop, there’s more you need to know,” John said softly. Shawn came back, sitting in the chair, and looking lost. “Your son, Vivian named him Forrest. She doted on him, and was by all accounts an amazing mother. Initially Stefano had decided to leave Vivian alone. He didn’t seem to have the ability to take his wrath out on her…until he did.” 

Shawn’s eyes came up to John’s instantly, knowing in the pit of his stomach that Stefano had dome something, either to Vivian or Forrest, possibly both. He waited. He waited for John to say whatever he was about to say, with a growing sense of dread.

“Your son was involved in a military campaign in Grenada in 1983. That where Stefano took him from. Vivian mourned her son as if he were dead. He was officially declared missing in action,” John said.

Shawn’s eyes began to well up, at the futility of it all, “We was kids! Vivian and me, we was kids! He made it his life’s work to destroy me, her, our son, and me whole family…because she and I…we was nothing but kids!”

Marlena rose from the couch, moving to kneel beside Shawn, “He’s a mad man, Shawn. It can’t be explained. None of it.”

“I just…I don’t understand that kind of hatred. What he’s done to this family, all of us, and poor Bo and Hope! Hope’s memory is missing nearly two years of time!” Shawn said in anger. “What did he do with me boy? If he took him, but he didn’t kill him, what did he do with him?”

John said quietly, looking at Shawn, desperate to see his reaction, because rejection at this point might break him completely, “He turned him into a mercenary. He implanted his mind with skills, and memories. He took Forrest Alamain from the jungles of Grenada, and he created…John Black.”

Shawn stared at John, at first unable to process what the man had just said to him. Stefano had taken Forrest Alamain…his son, and turned him into…and then he understood what John was saying. Still in shock, Shawn asked quietly, “You’re me boy?”

“If what Stefano told Isabella is to be believed, I am,” John said, standing up simply because he couldn’t stay seated anymore. He walked towards the fireplace, saying, “We can get the DNA tested if you would like—”

“—I don’t need it, Johnny. I don’t,” Shawn said standing up, and following him. “There has always been a connection between you and me. You know? You know that, right?”

John felt the tears welling up in his eyes, “I do. I felt it when I first met you at the fish market, you remember?”

“That fight with the dock workers over Bo?” Shawn said with a smile. “Bo was always in some type of trouble. I remember. I trusted you as soon as I set me eyes on you. When Marlena said ye was Roman, it was easy enough to believe, because I’d already felt something there with ye.”

“I thought the same, Pop. How could I have felt that kind of connection, if you weren’t my family?”

Shawn reached out, wrapping his burly arms around John, and pulling him towards him, saying, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry Stefano did what he did. I’m sorry…so sorry.”

They pulled away from each other, wiping their own respective tears from their faces. John said, as a sort of half hearted joke, “So, you really are my Pop.”

“Just because ye weren’t Roman, I never stopped loving you. Ye know that, don’t ye?”

“I do,” John said, and reaching for Marlena’s hand, he said, “We’ve got news, too.”

Marlena smiled up at John, and then looked to Shawn, “I’m pregnant, and it’s twins again.”

Shawn started laughing loudly, and gave her a warm embrace, “Marlena, ye certainly don’t do anything halfway do ye?”

“You’re the first person we’ve told. We were planning to tell the kids tonight,” Marlena said. 

“Can I tell Caroline?” Shawn asked them. “About the baby…about John?”

“We wouldn’t ask you to keep this from her, Shawn,” Marlena told him, softly touching his arm. “But I also know you might need some time to process all of the information, and we would understand if you didn’t want to tell her right away.”

Shawn looked at John, and told him, “I’m not ashamed of ye. I’m surprised, but I’m not ashamed.”

John smiled as he walked Shawn to the front door, “I’m sorry that Stefano used me against you. I know that thinking I was Roman for seven years, and then finding out I wasn’t was hard on the whole family.”

“That wasn’t your doing. He used you as a pawn,” Shawn said.

John flinched, but tried not to respond to his father’s use of words. The man didn’t even know how close to the truth he actually was. John had been nothing more than a pawn, but he was finally taking control of his life. “I wanted you to know. I have someone who knows my mother reaching out to her. I haven’t heard anything from them in awhile. Maybe they can’t locate her…or maybe she believes it’s all a hoax. I don’t know. I can let you know, when I hear more,” John told him.

Shawn wasn’t sure what he would say or do if he saw Vivian again. It had been forty years, and she was no longer a seventeen years old girl. Although, he was no longer a twenty four year old man. One thing he did know, he needed to apologize. Not that any of it was really his fault, but he needed to apologize for not knowing, for not being there, and for the fact that she had raised their son alone. 

Stepping out onto the porch with Shawn didn’t notice the pristinely dressed woman and her companion ascending their front steps at first. It was only when Marlena cleared her throat, causing both John and Shawn to turn. The woman looked first at Shawn in shock, and then turned to look at John, and passed out into the arms of the man behind her.

“Vivian,” Shawn whispered.

John looked at Marlena, and said, so faintly she could barely hear him, “It’s my mother.”

Chapter 25

Vivian Alamain awoke on a long soft couch, as four faces hovered over her, but it was her son’s face that almost had her fainting a second time. Staring at him helplessly, unsure of herself, and unsure of him, she said, “Forrest.”

While she was unconscious, John had been bombarded with hundreds of memories of his mother, solidifying that the woman before him was indeed her. The disconnect he had felt when the microchip was in place was gone, and all he felt was relief, and love. Kneeling down beside her, John said, with a soft smile, “Hey, Mom.”

She started crying. She didn’t know what else to do, “We thought you were gone. Everyone thought you had died in Grenada.”

“It’s a long story, and it’s going to take awhile to get through,” he told her, taking her hand in his. “But if your willing to listen…”

Coming to a sitting position, Vivian reaches for him, touching his face softly, before throwing herself into his arms. “I can’t believe you’re here. I want to know. I want to know everything.”

“Would you like some water? Or some tea?” Marlena ask her. Vivian turned to see a blonde woman, with striking hazel eyes, trying to understand the role she played in everything.

John sighed softly, “Yeah, Doc. Some tea would be nice. Do we have any Earl Grey?”

Marlena smiled at John, “We do. I’ll get it.”

Shawn still stood there, nearly dumbstruck, unsure of what to say or do. Vivian looked at him, and said with stark bluntness, “What are you doing here, Shawn Brady?”

Shawn stumbled over his words, unsure of how to respond, but John cut him off, “Hey, Pop? Let me explain everything, because out of all of this mess…you and my mother are the victims.”

Vivian snorted, looking at Shawn again, “Shawn Brady a victim? I don’t see how. He left me to raise his son with no care in the world, and now I find him here with you…”

John decided to just get on with it, “Mom, did you ever know a man named Stefano DiMera?”

Vivian gasped slightly. Everyone knew Stefano DiMera. If they didn’t know him, they knew of him. She looked at John with eyes that were surprised, and then she glanced at Shawn who simply nodded. Answering her son she said, “I knew him years ago. Briefly…but I was very young.”

“Vivian,” Shawn said quietly. “This all starts with Stefano. All of it.” And so began over an hour of questions and explanations that blew Vivian’s mind. By the end of it, the anger she had held against Shawn for forty years was waning, and she had an unyielding hatred of Stefano, but the part that was amazing, and felt surreal, was her son. Her boy. She had found herself in an emotional void for nearly ten years, and she now had him back. His life was complicated, to be sure, but she had him back, and that was all that mattered.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Roman was about to enter the dining area of the fish market when he heard his father say, “Marlena says Roman hasn’t called or come by to see the children.”

“He told me he had,” Caroline said sounding confused. “Why would he lie to me?”

Roman couldn’t say why he’d lied to his mother. He’d driven to the address, but as soon as he’d seen the house with John’s SUV parked next to Marlena’s car, he’d turned around and driven away. He couldn’t fully explain it. He’d spent seven years building the perfect family in his mind, and returned home to something he’d never expected. One thing Roman was certain of, he hated John Black with every fiber of his being. He didn’t trust the man, and saw him as nothing more than a ticking time bomb. The problem was, no one else seemed to agree with him. Listening again, Roman heard his mother say to his father, “Are we going to talk about why John called you over there today?”

“Ah, Caroline, I don’t even know where to begin,” Shawn said. “Ye know how we always thought that Stefano’s obsession with the Brady’s started with Roman? How we always figured it was somehow connected to his working with the ISA?” 

“What else could it be Shawn?”

“It’s me.”

“I don’t understand,” Caroline said.

“Back in 1952, before I came here from Ireland…” Shawn began. Roman listened for the next forty minutes as his father explained a relationship with a young woman named Vivian, who had borne his son, and Stefano’s part in it all. Roman had an older brother, and somehow Stefano had gotten his hands on him. 

“But I don’t understand, Shawn,” Caroline said. “How does John know all of this?”

“Stefano confessed it all to Isabella. It was a trap of course, Stefano was arrested as soon as he walked out of her room.”

“You had another son?”

Shawn leaned forward, holding onto Caroline’s hand, telling her, “I did. Stefano kidnapped him, used him as way to hurt me, hurt his mother…hurt this family.”

“Shawn, just spit it out!” Caroline told him. “You’re not telling me something. Is he still alive? Is Forrest still alive?” Her concern for her husband’s child was growing. Caroline wasn’t angry about Shawn having another child, since it happened before she even knew him. She just wanted to know if he was okay.

“He is, but he goes by the name John Black now,” Shawn said softly. 

Caroline couldn’t believe what Shawn was telling her, and her shock came out in one word, “What?”

“It John, Caroline. He’s me boy. The one Stefano took from the jungles of Grenada, and then he used him to hurt me…to hurt our family,” Shawn told her with tears in his eyes.

Roman leaned against the wall, in the entryway. His emotions were complicated. He had an older brother, and that brother was John. If that information did anything for Roman, it only served to make him more angry and more bitter. Stefano had tortured his family, made them all suffer, because of John. If it was possible, he despised the man even more. 

His ears perked up when he heard Shawn say, “There’s something else, too, Caroline…Marlena’s pregnant. They’ll be having twins.”

“Twins!” Caroline exclaimed in joy. 

Roman couldn’t hold back anymore. He roared with rage, unsure of what to do or where to go. He was slamming out the front door of the house before his parents were able to stop him. “Go after him, Shawn. Please! I’ll call Marlena,” Caroline said.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

John and Marlena stood on the pier breathing in the smell of the river water, and enjoying the quiet of the night. They had gotten the twins settled for the night, and left Carrie watching a murder mystery on the television, to take some time for themselves. They heard heavy footsteps coming down the stairs, and were surprised to see Bo.

“John! Just the person I wanted to see,” Bo said. “I have a question about Hope.”

“I’ll help if I can,” John told him.

“Her memory seems blocked. She remembers everything up to being in the cage with Ernesto, but nothing after that…until she woke up here in Salem with the baby, and I’m—”

“—take her to the hospital and have then do a scan of her head,” John said firmly. “It sounds very similar to what happened to me and I had—I had a G-d damned microchip wired into my nervous system.”

“What the fuck, John! Is it still in there?” Bo wanted to know.

“No. Shane was able to find a neurologist willing to do the surgery required to remove it. It’s out, but I have a feeling, if she has a chip in her head, once it’s removed, she’ll start remembering things,” John said.

Marlena watched the relief that came over Bo’s features. She asked him, “How is she…and the baby?”

“They are fine physically. Hope’s upset a lot. She cries, because she can’t remember where she was, or who she was with, although I’ve told her. She’s upset that she doesn’t remember what she named our daughter, and has been referring to her as ‘the baby’. I told her…I told her we need to name the baby, but she’s determined to remember…”

“She sounds like she’s having a hard time adjusting,” Marlena said.

“Wouldn’t you?” Bo asked her.

“I would. I most certainly would. I could come by to see her if you’d like? Maybe talk to her?”

“I think—I think she’d like that, but first thing tomorrow we’re going to the hospital. I’m going to take your advice, John, because I think you might just be right,” Bo told them.

“Why wasn’t I invited to the family meeting?” Roman said harshly, stepping onto the pier. He watched as Marlena’s body stiffened, and John watched him warily. Looking at John, he said, “I heard Pop telling Ma an interesting story tonight.”

“Roman, now isn’t the time,” John said.

“It isn’t? You fucking bastard, everything this family has gone through has been your fault!” Roman roared. “Stefano hated the Brady’s. He hated the whole family, because of you!”

Marlena started to say, “Roman, you know that’s not—”

“Yes, it is! Do you think Stefano would have come after this family, if John hadn’t existed?”

“Roman!” Shawn yelled, descending the stairs. “You listened at the door the whole time, didn’t ye?”

“I’m so fucking confused, right now,” Bo said. “Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?”

“John here, dear baby brother, is our father’s oldest son. Isn’t that right, Pop?” Roman said with venom.

Shawn sighed, looking at Bo he said, “I found out today I had a son, before I met your mother. I didn’t know. Stefano had been in love with the boys mother, and being the mad man that he is decided to make me whole family suffer for it,” Shawn said. “He took me boy, and well… me boy is John.”

Bo’s face lit up, looking towards John, “So you’re still my brother?”

John smirked at the childlike joy on Bo’s face, and responded, “Yeah.”

Roman found himself even angrier at Bo’s easy acceptance, “If it weren’t for John—” 

“—Roman, ye be shuttin’ yer mouth now! Ye hear me? John had nothing to do with this. Ye want someone to blame, ye blame me…or the one that truly deserves it, Stefano DiMera,” Shawn said.

Chapter 26

3 Months Later

John stared at the vaulted ceiling of the bedroom, as he thought about what had taken place over the last three months. Roman had never come to see the children. He never even called. He simply contacted Shane, since he was now ISA Chief, and requested an overseas ISA assignment. He was gone within a week of the argument on the pier. Sami and Eric went about their lives as if nothing significant had happened. To them, their Daddy was the man who shared the room downstairs with their Mommy. Carrie struggled more. Her abandonment issues coming to the forefront again. All John and Marlena could do for her was continue to be the best parents they could be. John smiled to himself. At least he had convinced her to move in permanently while she went to school.

John rolled over in the early morning light, and lie there, watching Marlena sleep. They were still waiting for her divorce to go through, even though she had filed nearly a month ago, citing irreconcilable differences. Mickey said it was harder to divorce someone who couldn’t be located, but it wasn’t impossible. John brushed his fingers through the loose strands of her hair at her shoulder, and wondered at the softness of her features as she slept. At four months pregnant, her abdomen was softly rounded with their babies, and the whole experience only made him love her more. 

Vivian had decided to stay in Salem. She had the money to stay wherever she wanted. According to her, so did John. He also had the money from the account in Lugano. Through the process of regaining his memories, and his hypnosis session with Marlena, he’d learned that the money in that account, was originally part of Forrest Alamain’s trust fund. Stefano had taken the money, and placed into separate accounts, each one under the name of one of John’s alias’. John had spent years thinking that he had stolen that money, not that stealing from Stefano was a great drain on his morality, only to realize that he hadn’t.

Last week the twins had asked John what they should call Vivian, and he had jokingly replied, that she’d love it if they referred to her as Granny Viv. The name had stuck, much to his chagrin, and his mother’s irritation. As it stood, Vivian had meshed well with the twins, and many times, while John stood off to the side, her interactions with them would trigger memories for him of happier times. Although the people of Salem knew him as John, Vivian still referred to him as Forrest. It didn’t bother him, and he found a certain amount of comfort in it. 

Marlena felt the softness of John’s fingers trail along her neck, and she sighed in pleasure at the heat and sensation that bloomed in their wake. “Hmmmmm. Good morning,” she whispered softly. “That feels good, Sailor.”

“I can make you feel better,” he murmured, using gentle pressure as he moved his hand up, and over her hip. “I can make you feel so much better,” he told her, gently lifting the thin strap of her nightgown, and moving it to the side. He licked a slow, moist path from her shoulder to her collarbone, causing her to moan.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, with smile on her face. Reaching for John’s hand she placed his palm on her belly, just as she felt another small thump from inside. 

John’s face lit up in wonder, “Is that?”

“Yes. It’s just been flutters and butterflies until now,” she said, looking down at John’s hand still splayed out on her stomach. “I guess my excitement, and increased heart rate woke them up.” John had tears in his eyes, at he stared at his own hand, and Marlena asked him, “Are you okay?”

“I was always so—I never thought that I would get this with you,” he said.

Marlena watched a tear escape his eye, and make its way down his cheek. “When I realized I might be pregnant…there was a part of me that worried you might regret being with me.”

“No. Doc, No,” he said softly. 

“I worried that our proximity, and the stress we were under might have influenced your decision to be with me…I kept thinking about Mexico.”

“Our proximity helped, but it wasn’t the reason…even before we left, the thought of being alone with you…fuck, I knew it was dangerous. I knew what I was doing when I told you we were leaving town,” he whispered against her ear. John’s hand’s began to slowly roam over the curves of her body. “I kept wondering how I was going to keep my hands off of you, because I knew that living with you in the cabin was going to be a true test of my ability to restrain myself. And while we were there, with the children, and Carrie…fuck, Doc, it felt like we were a real family. I found myself having to pause, and remember that we weren’t, forcing myself to hold back, and I couldn’t do it. I was afraid that when Torres was caught, or killed, you and the kids would go back to Roman. Within two days, I knew I couldn’t accept that, and losing you again would hurt so badly.”

“Do you remember the morning we sent the children to Denver with Abe?”

“I do,” he said, settling his hand on her ribs, directly beneath her breasts.

“Carrie came to speak with me. She asked me if I still loved you, because, John, it was that obvious,” Marlena said, watching her own hand, while her fingers brushed through the hair on John’s chest. Intentionally scratching him with her fingernails, she dragged them down softly, scraping the sensitive flesh of his nipple. “I was afraid to be alone with you,” she told him, staring up into his eyes. He could feel the sting in his skin from her fingernails, and felt his cock begin to grow when she said, “…because I wanted you, and I knew it was wrong. I knew what was going to happen if you let it. I knew that, because I wasn’t going to stop it from happening. So when I realized I was pregnant…I worried.”

“You…having my babies…Doc, that’s everything I thought I’d never get,” he whispered, drawing the strap to her nightgown over her shoulder. “I can never get enough of you, baby,” he told her, sliding his finger under the beige satin, and freeing one of her breasts. Touching the pebbled tip softly with the end of his finger, John smiled, at Marlena’s small gasp, as he watched her reaction play over her skin. Leaning forward, and slowly licking over her dusky nipple, he rasped, “I can never get enough of you.”

Marlena threaded her fingers through his dark hair, holding his face close to her while he continued to suck, and lick over her breast. The sensations started to become more intense when his hand cupped her, squeezing hard, and lifted her breast higher into his mouth, while his hips rolled onto her. “Oh, G-d, John,” she panted, attempting to pull him closer. She felt his hand start rolling her nipple, pinching and pulling at it, with just enough pressure to make her start to quiver inside, and then he pulled her nightgown down on the other side, effectively trapping her arms.

“I will never get tired of the taste of your skin. The feel of it under my tongue,” he said, licking her neck, while pulling her nightgown down further and freeing her arms. “I love every inch of you,” he told her as his hands splayed over her ribs, holding her in place as he rose up over her. Pushing the fabric to her hips, he groaned as the swell of her stomach was revealed. “You are so fucking gorgeous, Doc. I could worship your body for the rest of my life, and still never get enough of you.”

His hands cupped her belly, smoothing over the skin softly, and John smiled when he felt the thump against his palm from a baby within. John kicked off his pajama bottoms, and finished removing her nightgown. After laying down on his back, he pulled her body over him, where Marlena settled her core over his throbbing cock, with a sigh. He marveled at her body, and the changes taking place, running his palm languidly over her skin in a slow and deliberate fashion, eventually settling in her hair and along the nape of her neck and pulling her down for a kiss. Marlena’s nose ran over his neck, and she whispered, “Oh…you smell so good.”

“I want you to ride me, baby…so I can watch your breasts sway, and feel your hips roll,” he said roughly.

“Oh, G-d!” Marlena replied, feeling her core clench, and wetness begin to seep out.

John could feel her arousal, hot and wet, as it slid over him, and he nearly growled. Using his hands on her hips to lift her, he slid into her in one smooth move, “Fuck, baby, you’re so tight…”

She ground herself down onto him, seating him as deep as he could go. The feel of his hair, roughly brushing her clit had her ready to orgasm, and she rolled her hips a few times, just enjoying the friction. John’s hands on her hips stalled her, slowing her down, and frustrating her. “John…” she groaned.

“Not today, Doc. We’re not going to rush this today,” he told her, running his hands over her hips softly, and around to her buttocks. “You can come as much as you want, baby…but I’m enjoying this…so we’re going to slow down…”

Marlena rolled her hips again, and felt the sensations begin to build. It was so easy when she was pregnant, because she was so sensitive. “Oh,” she whimpered. John thrust up slightly, pushing into her deeply, and Marlena started panting with her desire, placing her palms on his chest and leaning forward so he could hit that spot deep inside of her.

“You like it, don’t you, Doc? I fucking love it,” he told her, watching her body rock along his length. “You’re so tight, and hot. Fuck…you feel so good.” 

His words pushed her onward, and she crashed into her first orgasm, still rolling her hips, and grinding her clit into him. “John,” she whispered. “I need more…please…”

Sitting up, he wrapped his arms around her tightly, bracing her against him. He bit her neck roughly, “You want more?”

“Yes,” she whispered, looping her arms around his neck. “Yes.”

Lifting her with him, John kneeled on the bed, their bodies still connected, as he slid his hands underneath her, grabbing her ass, and pulling her closer, “Lay back.”

She stared up at him, watching as he pulled her lower body higher, burying himself even deeper inside of her. He began to thrust, long, slow, and deep. She could feel herself building towards another orgasm. Every thrust of his hips had his cock hitting that sweet spot deep within her. “John,” she panted, rising higher. “Oh, John…” She had nothing to hold onto as she lay there, prone, while John pummeled her body, and she crashed over the precipice again.

“I love watching you when you come,” he told her, laying her body down, and leaning over her. “I used to dream about it when you were gone,” he said kissing her mouth softly. “I’d wake, and be so fucking hard for you, only to realize you weren’t there.”

His hips thrust forward again, and Marlena cried out, wrapping her legs around his hips, and threading her fingers through his hair, “Kiss me.”

“I love you so much,” he said, pulling out slowly, and sliding back into her body. “I can’t imagine my life without you.”

“More,” she whispered. “I need more of you.”

“You do?” he asked her with a sexy grin, while he thrust his hips into her one time, hard.

“G-d!” she said, barely able to gather her thoughts. “Please, John! Please! Again!”

He thrust hard once more, watching as her eyes rolled back briefly. It was getting harder and harder to hold back. Her body, her words, her reactions, were all pushing him closer to the edge. “Fuck, Doc, I just want to ravage you,” he groaned, resting his forehead on her shoulder.

“John, please! Please. Just do it!”

“You want that? Don’t you, baby?” he asked her, with the question in his eyes. “You want me to pound into you…because fuck, that sounds like heaven.”

“I love you. I love you…but right now, I don’t need slow and sexy.”

“Hard and fast, Doc?” John asked her roughly, biting the skin where her neck met her shoulder.

“Please…yes,” she moaned softly. 

John looped his arms under hers, and reached for her shoulders, bracing them together tightly, “Fuck, yes, baby…yes…” He roared as his hips began to pound into her, and all she could do was lie there, rising higher and higher, until she exploded into space and time for the third time. 

When John’s orgasm hit him, he was lost in Marlena. There was nothing else, except the feel of her, them smell, of her, and her warmth as it surrounded him. She was love, light, and life all rolled into one.

Chapter 27

November 5, 1992

Dr. Bader looked at the monitor, and then back to Marlena, saying, “One of the babies is breech, and I’m concerned about your blood pressure.”

“I’ve been resting, and eating right. I know I need to stay pregnant for as long as possible to give them the best chance,” Marlena said.

“You’re due date is in about two weeks, but I think we should go ahead and schedule—” Dr. Bader was interrupted when the door flew open, and a very frazzled and soaking wet John was standing there.

Marlena thought he looked as if he’d been through a hurricane, “John!”

“I’m so sorry, Doc. There was a car accident, and then I couldn’t find parking, plus the rain,” he said, all in a rush. “I’m sorry. Did I miss anything?”

“One of the babies is breech, and my blood pressure is still high,” Marlena told him, catching him up quickly.

“I’ve been making her rest, Dr. Bader,” John said.

Dr. Bader smiled, “Sometimes taking it easy isn’t enough, but since her blood pressure is elevated, and one of the babies is still breech, I think we should go ahead, and schedule a cesarean section.”

“But her due date—” John said.

Marlena found it endearing that he worried about her so much, “John, it’s okay. I’m close enough to my due date, that it won’t matter.” She turned to Dr. Bader, “When were you thinking about doing this?”

“Honestly? I’d like to get you admitted now, and do the surgery this afternoon.”

“This afternoon?” Marlena asked in shock.

“Your blood pressure is concerning, and with the risk of preeclampsia, I would feel much better doing it as soon as possible.”

John leaned over, kissing her on the forehead, and said, “Looks like we’re having some babies, baby.”

“I guess we are,” she said softly. “Can you call your mother, and see if she can check on Carrie and the twins?”

“I sure can, pretty lady. I’ll be right back,” he said, kissing her again, and leaving the room. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“As if I could,” Marlena muttered with a grin. When John had closed the door behind himself, she looked at Dr. Bader, and asked her, “Why are you rushing this?”

“You’re blood pressure has been elevated for weeks, Marlena. With preeclampsia there is a risk of seizures. You know that. I’d simply like to err on the side of caution,” Dr. Bader told her.

“You’re sure?” Marlena asked.

“I wouldn’t lie to you. The babies are developed enough to deliver, Baby A is breech, and yes, I am worried that if the high blood pressure continues you could have seizures.”

“Ok. Ok, I guess we’re about to have some babies,” Marlena sighed.

“I’ll leave you to get changed, and go make a call to admissions.”

After Dr. Bader had closed the door behind her, Marlena went to get up from the exam table. She was dizzy, at first thinking that maybe she had stood up too fast, but then she was also nauseous and realized her vision was blurry. It was too late. She fell to the floor, and all she could hear was John’s voice screaming, “Doc!”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

John sat beside Marlena, holding her hand in his, and running his thumb over her palm, hoping that the sensation and the sound of his voice would bring her back to him. He’d found her seizing three hours earlier on the exam room floor, and Dr. Bader had taken her into surgery as soon as she’d stabilized her. Now, they were waiting for her to wake up. 

“Hey, Doc, we have two of the prettiest babies in Salem. Both of them are healthy. I can’t wait for you to meet them, and we still have that little issue of naming them, you know,” he said softly. “They’re beautiful, Doc. Absolutely beautiful. Dr. Bader thinks they might be identical. She’s running a test to determine if they are.” He paused watching her prone form lying in the bed, and silently willed her to open her eyes. Looking down at where his hand held hers, he said, “I ran into Pop last night on the pier, and I started thinking about my name. John Black is a name that I will forever associate with Stefano. I’m not sure I want to live like that, and Pop said…well, he said I was a Brady, and he wanted me to be a Brady—” Marlena’s fingers twitched, “Doc? Baby? Can you hear me?”

Marlena’s eyes opened slowly, trying to adjust to the harsh fluorescent lighting in the room. John rushed to shut off the lights, and went back to her side. She stared at him for a moment, and then tried to speak, but her throat was so dry. “I got you, Doc. Hold on,” John said, bringing her a cup of water with a straw, and holding it so she could sip.

“Where are the babies?” she asked him.

“Resting. They had quite the adventure, and they need to be monitored for a little while that’s all,” he told her, sweeping her hair back off of her face. 

“And they’re okay?”

“They are absolutely okay,” he told her. “They have dark blue eyes, and dark brown curls.”

She smiled at him, “So they look like you?”

“The cutest babies in Salem, Doc,” John said with a grin.

“When can I see them?” she wanted to know.

There was a knock on the door, and a nurse poked her head in, “I have the babies if you’re ready for them.”

John looked at Marlena, and said, “Talk about convenience.”

Marlena tried to sit up higher, and winced in pain, forgetting that she’d just had surgery. John held her shoulders gently, pulling her up a little, and said, “Let me help you.”

Once Marlena and John each had a baby in their arms, he said, “You’ve given me the greatest gift of my life, Doc.”

“We need to figure out what we were going to name them,” she said softly, touching the baby’s cheek softly.

Another knock at the door had them looking up, as Dr. Bader entered, “It’s official, you have identical twins.”

“Really?” Marlena said with tears in her eyes, thinking about her sister Samantha. 

“Identical girls,” John said softly, running his hand gently over his daughters head. “Eric and I are outnumbered.”

After Dr. Bader checked Marlena’s incision, she left them to discuss names. “John?” Marlena said quietly.

“Yeah, Doc?”

“Shawn was right. You’re his son. You are a Brady, and if he wants you to take the Brady name…I think it would be good for you. It would break that connection to Stefano, and finally allow you to claim who you really are.”

He was silent for a moment, before he said, “When I thought I was Roman, I felt like such a part of that family, and then it was all torn away from me. I don’t know.”

“They all love you, John. They all want you,” she said. John looked at her, raising his eyebrow in question, and she said, “Roman has left, and when it comes to this…his opinion doesn’t matter. Shawn, Caroline, Kayla, Kimberly, and Bo all want you.”

“So, John Brady, huh?”

“I was thinking, John Forrest Brady,” Marlena said with a smile.

His heart was so full when he heard her say it out loud, “Yeah. Yeah. I like that. That would make you Marlena Evan Brady again, once you marry me.”

Reaching for his hand, and threading their fingers together, she whispered, “The happiest days of my life were when I was married to you, and my name was Marlena Brady.”

“And what about these babies, Doc? People are going to start visiting, and we need names. I know you’ve got something going on in that genius mind of yours.”

“I wanted to name then after you,” she said.

“After me?” he asked. 

“Well…yes…kind of,” she said. “It sounded great when I thought of it, but now I think it might be corny.”

“Why don’t you tell me, woman, and I’ll tell you what I think,” he told her with a laugh.

“Willow and Aspen…because your name was Forrest.”

John looked at the baby asleep in the bassinet and his other daughter held tightly in Marlena’s arms, “Willow and Aspen are very fitting and beautiful names, Doc.”

“I’m so happy with you, with our children, with our family. A year ago—I never thought I could have this with you,” she whispered. “I never thought that my dreams and my fantasies could come true.”

“There’s just one more thing we gotta do,” John told her. “You’re going to have to marry me.”

She studied his face, thinking that she would never tire of looking at him, and said, “Any day of the week. You just tell me when.”

“Friday?”

“Tomorrow? You want to get married tomorrow?”

“That’s a fact, Doc. Tomorrow. Will you do it?”

“Yes,” Marlena whispered, looking into John’s deep blue eyes. “I will follow you anywhere, Sailor. Anywhere.”