Christmas Night Tête-à-Tête – By Cordelia50

She lay motionless under the warm comforter. Exactly when or why she had shifted from dreamless sleep to wakefulness she couldn’t be sure. Since no light yet peeked through the narrow gap between the drawn curtains, she surmised it was still well before daybreak. But she didn’t turn her head to check the decades-old digital clock on her bedside table, much less move to pick up her state-of-the-art phone perched right beside it. Instead she remained quiet and took stock. 

She hadn’t woken up due to a nightmare, that was clear. She hadn’t heard any bump in the night. She was, she thought, too “mature” to wake up so early in anticipation of Christmas morning; that was for the children who would hyperly ring the doorbell later, pulling their parents along excitedly, and who would then soon tear into the presents laid around the tree for them. But they wouldn’t come for hours yet. 

Yet, something had nudged her out of a sound sleep.

She tuned her ears to listen for more than large noises, to delve for subtleties. She listened to the man who lay in bed beside her. Ordinarily, when he slept peacefully, he breathed quite rhythmically and with just enough volume to be heard easily if she focused on him. But right now, she noticed more subdued inhales and exhales, as though he were consciously being quiet so as not to wake her. 

Smiling to herself, Marlena realized her supernatural “John-sense” had poked her gently into consciousness. For a few more moments she listened to him and heard him faintly clear his throat and give a small sigh. He didn’t move around though either. If she had still been sleeping, she wouldn’t have consciously registered these signs of his being awake, but her subconscious did keep tabs; it was always monitoring and had definitely increased its vigilance since John’s aneurysm. 

She sensed though this was no medical emergency. There were no signs of physical distress.

Of course, there were instances (more than they’d like to admit) when one or the other suffered a nightmare. Usually, those were rehashes of some of the multitude of truly insane situations they’d pulled each other through. But reliving those almost always entailed bolting up in bed and yelling, or at least struggling frantically with the bedclothes and grunting or moaning, “No, no, no, no,no….” John clearly hadn’t had such an episode. But, she thought, perhaps he had dreamed something unpleasant. And that wouldn’t do on the night before Christmas.

Marlena murmured, “John? You awake?”

She heard a heavier sigh and his whisper, “Yeah, Doc. Did I wake you? Sorry. Go back to sleep.”

Marlena’s satiny pajamas rustled sheets and covers a little as she turned on her side toward her husband. “I’m awake now, honey. It’s not your fault. Guess my mind doesn’t want to shut down for long either.”

“It’s only been a few hours since we returned from Midnight Mass, Doc. Get some more sleep. We’ll be busy when the kids come.” He still stared at the ceiling as he softly spoke.

“And what about you? Will you turn off your thoughts and get some shut-eye too?” She gazed at John’s profile. His silver hair was bed-head mussed, but otherwise his handsome face looked as strong and endearing as always. She reached out and ran her hand down his body-builder arm from his T-shirt down to his hand which she then covered. “What’s keeping you awake?” she prodded softly.

John enveloped her hand in his as he also turned on his side to face her. He grunted and said, “Not sure. My thoughts are kind of all over the place.” 

In their darkened bedroom, his blue eyes were as gray as everything else, but Marlena’s mind supplied his coloring for her inner eye anyway. 

Snuggling a little closer to him on her own pillow she asked, “Did you have a dream?”

Working his jaw unconsciously, he shook his head. “Nah…”

Then the pieces came together for Marlena. “I bet you’re thinking about the children we saw this morning – yesterday morning – at the Christmas fundraiser. Not just the children, but the adults too.”

John’s hand massaged hers under the covers. “Can’t stop. I mean, my mind has been rolling through a lot, but it keeps coming back to the images of all those wheelchairs.” His expression became even more melancholy. “But especially the little ones. Damn. They shouldn’t be condemned to spending their whole lives in those chairs.” 

Inching closer to him, she noted, “That’s the reason we went, isn’t it? We want to continue to contribute to the advances being made for people afflicted with apparently permanent paralysis. You’ve been pouring mega dollars into that cause ever since you –”

“Ever since I was completely paralyzed from the shoulders down by that deranged excuse for a “therapist,” Charlotte Taylor, in 2009,” he finished with a touch of bitterness.  

“Thank God your tetraplegia and then your paraplegia could be reversed,” Marlena replied earnestly. She disengaged her hand from his and pulled it from the covers. Lightly, comfortingly, she caressed John’s beloved cheek, now quite stubbly since he’d last shaved almost 24 hours ago.

“Thank God too that the crazy woman didn’t inject you. She meant to,” he reminded grimly, his face assuming its protect-Marlena-at-all-costs determination. He cupped her hand in his and brought it to his lips and kissed it lovingly.

He shifted his head, looking at her imploringly, “That little girl with the red-flowered dress – Theresa – she was so bubbly and wide-eyed about being at the fundraiser. She couldn’t take her eyes off that tall, full Christmas tree with the shining, unique, hand-made ornaments. I talked to her for a few minutes, and she said it was the first time she’d been away from her ‘rehab’ facility. She was going home to be with her family for Christmas and an extended stay. She’s such a bright little girl. But really, Doc. They don’t hold out hope for her to walk naturally again. Her mother said she’s been told basically this is as good as it is going to get. And Theresa may lose even more muscle and nerve control as she gets older. She may be back in bed full time in a few years.”

Marlena nodded sympathetically. “I saw you with her. She was very animated and sparkly. I think I was speaking with one of the doctors at the time.” She paused to remember, “Yes. Doctor Wilkins of the Helen Hayes Hospital Center for Rehabilitation Technology in New York. He’s the one who gave the talk – who told the donors paralysis can occur for many different reasons. Spinal cord injuries from falls and injuries – such as you also experienced a few years earlier when I was stuck in Melaswan and thought dead. But also some degenerative diseases like spina bifida or cerebral palsy. And spinal or other tumors can cause paralysis….”

“Yeah,” John quipped with a sour half smile, “That earlier time I got stuck in a wheelchair I wasn’t completely frozen like in 2009. I felt intense back pain, which, as I admitted to you when you returned, caused me to get hooked on some powerful illegal drugs for a while as I tried to deaden the pain.” He snorted. “That was a really bad time – made so much worse because, yes, I did think you had died. That was a persistent back injury that finally healed.”

Both of them grew quiet for a moment, each remembering their own private hells caused by the diabolical Melaswan DiMera plot. 

As if by unspoken agreement, they instinctively closed the space between their bodies, and Marlena was gathered next to John’s side, with his arm comfortingly around her shoulders. She settled into the familiar, safe spot. The only disadvantage to it was that they couldn’t easily look each other in the eye. But, lying next to each other, nestled close together actually reminded Marlena more vividly of their time at the Lugano clinic. Many nights had been spent with her attached, like a good and wanted limpet, to John’s body – at first in his hospital bed when he couldn’t move anything except his head and neck, and then, later, when he started to regain feeling, in the bed in their private suite. 

Swallowing, John continued, “But, the second time, I got in the way of a syringe full of poisons, and I dropped like a bear hit all at once by too many tranquilizer darts.”

Hearing him talk about that awful event, Marlena’s mind involuntarily wandered back to that time. She pictured the two of them in the Lugano clinic, and her thoughts especially zeroed in on one night when John still couldn’t move anything besides his head. The day had been long and frustrating…but also momentous in a very unexpected way. 

After weeks of exhaustive tests that had tried John’s patience no end, causing him to lose his temper a few times and curse out the medical personnel seeking to help him, the consulting doctors had finally settled on a very experimental treatment. To attempt to reverse the effects of the paralyzing agents in the original injection, they would try a series of infusions to flush out or counteract the poisons lodged in his muscles and tissues. They “designed” a number of chemical combinations, each of which would theoretically “attack” a different component of the original concoction. 

Ultimately, these infusion treatments were successful in an uneven way. John’s upper body responded incrementally, and he regained use of his arms and could move from the hips up, although he’d end up spending a lot of time rebuilding his muscles with weights. Oddly – and the doctors’ only explanation for this was that for some medically inexplicable reason the original paralyzing mix had more strongly affected his lower extremities – John’s legs still felt wooden to him even though presumably the poisons in his system were no longer affecting him. He had needed prolonged and painful physical therapy to once again feel, have control, and be able to walk – which of course he was able to do when they returned to Salem.

That particular night at the clinic though, Marlena remembered, had been memorable for two distinct reasons. The second reason really should have been announced hours before she did. 

The first was that John had received the initial infusion by slow drip beginning in the morning and lasting until about 3 p.m. Since he was paralyzed, one would have thought he wouldn’t feel anything, but it turned out he alternately felt shiveringly freezing and then burning hot. The agonizing temperature changes required the staff (or Marlena) to cover him in blankets one minute and the next, put ice packs on his overheated skin. Alarmed at his reactions, Marlena and the doctors had considered halting the infusion, but John insisted he receive the last drop. 

That night, after everyone but the fairly sparse clinic night shift had gone home, Marlena slipped into the hospital bed with John and lay right alongside him, their bodies touching. She nestled her head into his shoulder and draped an arm over his chest and allowed her top leg to angle over his. He gave no indication of feeling those contacts below the neck. But his chin and neck brushed the top of her head. And for a while they just lay there like that, saying nothing. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. But as the infusions continued, John would feel her body against his more and more, and would be able to hold her again.

That night though, they both felt more than a little shell-shocked by the unexpected reactions he’d experienced to the infusion. Thankfully, the temperature extremes had disappeared pretty rapidly once the treatment ended. But it had taken a lot out of John, and he’d fallen asleep within minutes of the removal of the IV. Trouble was, now awake again, he wasn’t sleepy anymore.

Marlena decided to ask, “How do you feel?”

Giving a grunt, he said wryly, “Back to being an unfeeling lump instead of either a popsicle or a live coal.”

She raised her head and looked him in the eye. “I’m so sorry, my love. That was quite an ordeal for you.”

“Yeah, well, if it gets me up and around again, it’ll be worth it.”

They both knew there were no guarantees. 

Marlena kissed his cheek and then his lips. For a few lovely minutes they continued what, in times past, had always been delicious foreplay. Now, though, John finally pulled his head aside. “Honey, this can’t go anywhere,” he reminded her unnecessarily and a little impatiently, regret heavy in his voice.

Sighing, she caressed the side of his neck. She laid her head on his pillow right next to his head, and just breathed him in. Sometimes she wantonly thought about pleasuring herself here beside him, and letting him see her and hear her moans and cries. She knew he loved watching her do that. But, she never had, partly because one couldn’t lock the door to this room, and partly because she feared that she would cause her beloved husband further agony regarding his current inability to make love.

Instead, she focused on something else, “John, I love you. I love you so much. It doesn’t matter to me that we can’t be intimate right now. I’m just so grateful that you are alive, you are yourself, and we’re together.”

John lightly dragged his whiskery cheek along her soft one. He chuffed, and she immediately caught the self-pity that he now allowed to show. “Doc, I’m still not really living. Hell. Not only can’t I make love to you, but I can’t even lift a pinkie. I’m still just as much of a useless log as I was that day we left Salem. And the fact that my memory is back and I’m not that unfeeling jerk anymore isn’t really benefiting either of us as long as I’m so completely useless. ”

Marlena adjusted herself so her face hovered over John’s, and she put both her hands on his cheeks. “Sweetie, I can only imagine how difficult this is for you. I don’t mean to diminish your feelings one bit. But we’re going to get through this.

“I have faith that Doctor Bueller and the rest of his team are on the right track. Each of the infusions are going to be different, so, honestly, we can’t predict how your body will react, but at least, I suspect, you won’t have to endure the same kind of fiendish hot/cold symptoms during next week’s treatment.”

He gazed up at her, his blue eyes paler than usual in the odd, artificial, low light in the room. But before he could muster any response, she continued, “And listen, sailor, you are not useless. You are John Black, hero-of-mine forever. You – thank the Lord – know who you are. You don’t look at me with that curious but lost, hard and arrogant expression that I had to face so often when ‘you’ kept taunting me with ‘that other guy you loved won’t be back.’ ”      

John sighed as she again laid her head on the pillow next to him. “That robotJohn husk of me treated you so badly. I’m so sorry. It sure took a long time for me – the  guy you loved – to resurface.”

“Honey, let’s not dwell on it. It’s over, and you’re back.”

“Yeah, but we’ve never really talked about it. I hurt you with Ava. I was a stubborn SOB who just wanted to live a selfish, egotistical life. I knew you loved a guy named John Black, but I couldn’t see myself as that guy who could have won your love, your heart. I was still as super-attracted to you as always, but my empathetic side, my ability to receive and give love had been erased.”

“John. It did take longer than I’d imagined, but you did start remembering. The real you wasn’t lost forever the way “Jawn” thought.”

“Yeah. That’s when I started seeing psycho ‘therapist’ Charlotte.”

Even though Marlena wasn’t looking at John’s eyes, she knew from the tone of his voice that he probably rolled his eyes when he said that.

A little defensively, she noted, “None of us had a clue she was so deranged. Believe me, I’ve wished many times she’d never figured into our lives.”

Marlena badly wanted to change the subject, and she had something she’d been dying to tell him since this morning. It astonished her that she’d kept it inside so long. Caressing John’s neck, she said, “I haven’t had the chance to tell you about this morning –”

“Oh, right. Sorry. I’m still too wrapped up in myself after all,” he said contritely. He paused, thinking, “How did your breakfast meeting go at Botega Caffè Cacao?”

“John, don’t apologize. You have every right to be focused on yourself. I’m focused on you too, first and foremost. But, remember, it was you who insisted I needed to get away from the clinic before the first infusion. So, yes, I met Denise Gamache there. I keep hoping Laura will be able to come visit us, but, since she can’t right now, it was good to see Denise after so many years, and she –”

“You and she went to med school together, right, Doc?”

She wanted to skip ahead to her amazing news, but she restrained herself yet again and decided answering might actually help pave the way. “Yep. Then we did our first two years of psychiatric residency together. But we haven’t crossed paths since because she transferred her residency to Paris, and then she opened an office in Marseille when she married. We sent each other a few Christmas cards, and very occasionally exchanged emails, mostly about patients. She is semi-retired now, but she decided to accept a special consultation in a nearby city and come see me too.”

“I’m glad you two could meet up.” John said sincerely. “Did you reminisce about the bad old days of 36-hour rotations?” 

Marlena raised herself again on her elbow to see John, her eyes now alive with the excitement she had suppressed during the day because of all the infusion complications. “Yes, we did. But one thing in particular she mentioned when we talked about residency kind of blew my mind.”

His eyebrows rose. “Yeah? What?”

“Denise mentioned the summer after our first year of residency. She said she missed me when I was gone for nearly three months on a leave of absence. I guess I kind of looked at her blankly because she looked a little perplexed and challenged me, ‘You still don’t remember that, do you?’ “

John frowned. “Wait. That was when you supposedly married Alex North, right?”

“Yes. Well, no. Uh. Let me explain. But, of course, Denise was right. I still don’t remember much of anything about that, and, as you know, I haven’t tried to remember it either. I just said lightly, trying to dismiss it, ‘I don’t think back to that time much.’ The last thing I wanted to talk about was Alex North.

“She looked a little puzzled but then said. ‘Yeah, because you can’t remember. Wish you could though. Mar, you seemed to have lived a lifetime in those ten-plus weeks.’

“Before I could wave the topic away, she blurted, ‘You were on top of the world for a while, so in love. You just gushed when you deigned to call – I guess you were too busy with him you just forgot about everything else so I hardly heard from you.’ ”

John’s expression began to turn stormy, but Marlena quickly hurried on, “She then said, ‘It was such a tragedy when he just died – or appeared to! You were so devastated that you actually got selective amnesia.’ Naturally, I was getting more and more upset at this, but then she continued, ‘And it surprises me that you still seem to have it –’ 

“I couldn’t contain myself. I snapped at her, ‘Look, Denise. Let’s talk about something else. I consider that subject closed.’

“Undeterred by my outburst, she said, ‘Closed? But it’s not. I don’t know why you’re upset. After all, you had a happy ending, Mar. Beating stupendous odds, you found each other again in Salem! You and he have had a long, admittedly complicated love story, but you are married and together. And with any luck, John’ll beat this paralysis too.’ ”

John reeled, totally confused. “Huh? What?”

“Yes! My thoughts exactly. I was dumbfounded. I fixed her with a wan, bewildered stare and hollowly whispered, ‘I don’t know what…’ I shrugged helplessly.” Marlena smiled though. She kissed John’s lips again, and added, “The thing is, I don’t remember a blessed thing about that summer. And I know you don’t remember anything much before you came to Salem in 1985. So both of us are in the dark. But Denise has a crystal clear memory. She’s not impaired in any way. And she says it was YOU whom I was with back then!” 

“That’s unbelievable, Doc. She really thinks that? She never mentioned this to you before?” 

Marlena shook her head. “As I said, we seldom communicate. I think she assumed I had put the pieces together.”

John stared at her intently, still wearing a very confused expression. “Doc, why in the world did you wait until now to tell me this? Why didn’t you say something as soon as you came back this morning?” 

“Well, honey, I wanted to. But by the time I got back, if you recall, they were on the verge of starting the infusion, and I didn’t want to do anything to interfere with that. Getting you better is the first priority, baby. The very first!” she said with strong emphasis. 

“Hokay. You’ve got me on that. But. How. It seems inconceivable.” he floundered for words before asking, “Marlena, can I talk to Denise? Can you get her to come here tomorrow?”

Marlena smiled sweetly at him. “Now how did I know you’d ask that? Yes, as a matter of fact, although she is on a tight schedule, I already asked, and she agreed to come.”

Now John’s face finally glowed with anticipation. He said, “Doc, you didn’t leave it there with her, did you? What else did she say?”

Marlena moved, stretching out her hand behind her to pick up her cell phone. She pulled up a photo of a happy John that she’d taken a week or so after he’d awoken from the five-month coma in 2007. “I showed this to Denise, and she immediately said, ‘Yes. That’s him. Of course. Older, naturally, but, yes, I’ve seen pictures of the two of you in the news after all. I know that’s him.’ “

“But you were on a leave of absence, and she didn’t see you that summer you said –”

“Correct. But I did apparently keep in minimal touch. I called once in a while, and she said I even sent her several pictures of the two of us. Snail mail then, of course.”

“Pictures of us? You don’t have any of those…”

“No. She said when I came back and had forgotten that summer, I had apparently destroyed the pictures. At least, I didn’t have any. She didn’t dare talk to me about it because of the tragic ending.”

“Does she still have the pictures?” 

“Eh, that’s the question. She isn’t sure. She said she might have them someplace, but, if she does, she isn’t sure where. She also said, she just assumed I knew that you were the guy I met in ‘74. That since we’d reunited, you must have told me. She never thought she needed to point it out.” She laughed sheepishly, “She doesn’t know about your amnesia history.”

John nodded, slowly. Then he asked, “But what about North?”

“Oh, yes. Alex North.” Marlena’s lips flattened as she distastefully uttered that name. “Denise said there was no other man besides you with me that summer, according to what she heard from me. But. There was an Alex North also doing a residency. He was a couple years ahead of us, and we had no immediate contact with him. I may have seen him on occasion, but he made no real impression on me.”  

John angled his head at her and cocked an eyebrow. “It seems you made an impression on him though.”

She shrugged. “Maybe.” She frowned in concentration. “You know, because of my ‘traumatic, selective amnesia,’ I did see a psychiatrist myself when I continued my residency. But it wasn’t North. It was a Doctor Gerber – a psychiatrist with many years of experience. I don’t know. Maybe North somehow got his hands on the confidential notes of those sessions…”

“And what about the marriage certificate North waved at us when he came to Salem?”

Marlena shrugged again, repeating, “I don’t know. But Denise says you and I were engaged but not married.”

“Engaged but not married.” he repeated several times, stunned. Then, “Did she know my name?”

“Denise said she never knew your last name. She said I acted cagey about giving too much personal information about you. So, I didn’t tell her while I was with you, and when I came back, I didn’t remember. But she knew your first name was John.”

John seemed to be thinking furiously. “It’s just incredible. Astounding! I mean, what if we did meet and fall in love back in the 70’s? That could explain why, in Salem, in 1986, we both felt as if we somehow knew each other, as if we belonged together. Perhaps it wasn’t because I was Roman (as we thought for a while), but because we’d unknowingly met more than ten years earlier!”

He wasn’t done. “Of course, I’m only speculating, but what if Stefano was responsible for separating us back then and brainwashing both of us so we wouldn’t remember that meeting? Maybe he was also the one who destroyed the photos of us?”

“But why would he want to destroy us?”

“Beats me. Could have been something to do with me. You said Denise told you you didn’t want to give her too much information about me. Perhaps I was on the run from Stefano then. He didn’t know you yet, but he might have known me…” John stopped, but then added, “I have no idea how long that old bastard tried to control my life. As for you, could be once you were in his sights, he kept tabs on you until he came to Salem and in due course had that showdown with Roman. Perhaps his vendetta wasn’t all about the Bradys after all.” 

Shifting his focus, John continued, “And maybe Alex North was hung up on you from afar during the residency years, but you weren’t interested. Do you recall any time he approached you and asked for a date?”

Marlena thought for a few seconds. “No, I don’t remember that. But it is possible I guess, because I turned down dates with a number of residents, and I don’t remember their faces. But even after everything that happened later with Alex, he never stood out to me while I was training.”

“Maybe North always wanted to even the score with you, an unattainable woman. It’s possible that Stefano knew of this and contacted him in 2005 and got him to go along with the scheme to show you a fake marriage license and pretend you two had been married.”

“But, John. I hate to bring this up, but I did have some awful flashbacks of Alex abusing me when we were supposedly married.”

John’s eyes flashed with anger at that. “Sweetheart, I know. That was horrifying. It could have been some manipulation by North. After all, he was able to control you to an extent when he came to Salem. 

“But maybe it was a joint effort. If Stefano got hold of you that summer and deleted me from your memory (as he might have deleted you from mine), maybe he somehow implanted fake memories of an Alex/you marriage. Or, maybe Stefano somehow put those Alex memories into your brain at a later time. Though we both hate it, he’s kept you captive several times, and he might have found a way during one of those times.”

She sighed. “Could be, I guess, honey. I can’t conjure up a single memory of that lost summer. That does sound more like a DiMera brainwashing (or North mind control) than traumatic amnesia. If we did meet for the first time then and were together and planning to marry, I’d give anything to be able to remember it!”

“Me too, baby, me too,” John whispered, suddenly drained. Despite the momentous possibilities that had sprung up, John’s present physical strength had reached its limits. All this excitement and the new prospects they were exploring had sapped his energy. Marlena could see he was now on the verge of falling asleep whether he wanted to or not.

She caressed his cheek lovingly again, and put her lips to his ear, very softly saying, “We’ll see what more Denise can tell us tomorrow. Let’s both sleep now. I’ll be right here next to you all night. Sleep well, my love.”

“Sleep well…” was all John managed before drifting off, secure in the knowledge that his beloved wife lay safely by his side.

Marlena’s recollection of that night in the Lugano clinic ended. It was funny that after they had returned to Salem in 2011, they had never pursued a reckoning with Stefano about the presumed Alex North fraud. Even though Stefano had been in Salem for a while after their return, and both of them had had run-ins with him, they hadn’t demanded answers about that long-lost summer when they had apparently first met. Now, of course, they had lost their chance because Stefano had died (really!) a number of years ago. 

And in fact, neither she nor John had talked about what they’d learned about that summer to anyone in Salem. And they hadn’t had the time – what with all the crazy things that Salem threw at them – to try to retrace the steps they had apparently taken together that summer. Both of them had doubts too that, after so long, they would be able to uncover any solid evidence or living witnesses. Since neither of them had ever recalled a single moment of that summer when they supposedly first met and fell irrevocably in love, they’d been simply satisfied with the knowledge that their love could have begun earlier than they had ever guessed. At least, they had been until now….

And, she thought, both of them had chosen to leave the North fiasco in the past. They never talked about it. 

John had no idea that she’d just mentally replayed one of their nights in the  Lugano clinic. In fact, his attention remained on the paralysis charity event.

He winced, and continued, “These folks we saw today – yesterday morning really – aren’t in that boat though. They weren’t injected with a toxic cocktail that the good doctors in the Lugano clinic succeeded in reversing. Medical science still hasn’t solved the riddle of really healing spinal breaks.”

“And that’s why so many dedicated medical professionals are working on changing that. And why you and countless others are supporting that research with financial backing,” Marlena said, reorienting herself to the present.

“Not me, sweetheart. Us. It’s our money, not just mine. And thanks to your medical license and years of practice, your expertise makes sure we contribute where hopefully the most good is being done.” His chin nuzzled her head gently.

Then, John’s fingers idly twirled a wisp of her hair, and his leg travelled over hers, rubbing lightly as he said wistfully, “You know, honey, I might still be in a wheelchair or even prone in a hospital bed today if you hadn’t come with me to the clinic. In fact, you were the one who found that clinic for me.” He chuffed. “Miring myself in self-pity after I was rendered immobile, I told you to leave and not look back. Man, am I glad you are at least as stubborn as I am, and you roundly rejected that.”

Marlena chuckled dryly and said in an amused but resolute tone. “Yes, Mister Black, I’m every bit as stubborn as you. Seriously, if you hadn’t been hopped up on not only the muscle relaxant slash other crap that Charlotte pumped into your back but also additional legit meds from the hospital, you probably wouldn’t have said something so ludicrous. Well, scratch that. Maybe you would have because you sometimes think you are being noble by spouting such trash talk.”

When John’s leg stilled, and he didn’t come back with witty repartee, Marlena worried she might have said too much. She adjusted her head and looked at him. He just looked pensive. He met her eyes but still said nothing. She thought she detected a hint of fear or maybe guilt. She dropped a quick peck on his chin and said, “Honey, seriously, nothing on earth would have kept me from going with you.”

Finally, he cleared his throat and replied with notable chagrin, “I was such a scumbag after you found me in the DiMera basement laboratory. I was really missing some key inner components after the number Stefano and Doctor Rolf did on me. Key things like a conscience and empathy and just about all things good. They should have left me dead.”

Marlena put her hand lightly over his mouth. “Shh. Don’t ever say that. Please don’t. I felt so lost and slain myself when you were run down by that car and died in front of me and our family in the hospital, John. You can’t know the joy and hope I felt when I did find you alive.”

“But I wasn’t really alive. I was Frankenstein’s – well, DiMera’s – monster. 

“That wasn’t your fault. You’re right. They brought you back to life as a mere shadow of the man you really are. But I truly thought the full, the real, you would emerge with prompting and love.”

“I didn’t though.” John stated morosely.

“Yes! You did.” she assured him, giving him a light smack on the shoulder to emphasize. “It just took longer than I expected. I admit I felt defeated for a while.”

“Yup,” he said, “Divorce defeated.” 

“Mmm hm. But ultimately the automaton that Stefano and Rolf made you started to remember, and as we both know, that’s how Charlotte got involved.”

“Huge mistake to consult her,” John said darkly, unknowingly echoing what he’d said in Lugano years ago.

“Yeah, baby, but despite all the craziness, you – the real, complete you – broke out and returned to me and your family and friends. What a miracle that was, regardless of how it happened.” Marlena beamed at him before she settled herself back in the crook of his arm and laid her arm across his midsection and squeezed him lovingly. How good it felt that he could sense every touch of hers as they lay together on this early Christmas morning. 

John kissed her hairline but didn’t really join in with her enthusiasm. Realizing he had dragged up some very unsavory memories of his time as “Jawn,” Marlena thought she might mitigate that. “Besides,” she said, “you’re not the only one who’s been, shall we say, a partial person. I know I must have frayed your patience to the max when, back from Melaswen, I lost my memory, and then Alex North stepped into the picture.” 

Before he could say anything, she hurried along, “Oh, my gosh, honey. I was such an idiot then. I didn’t know Alex from Adam but I still spurned you and insisted I should be with him.”

That got a reaction. John hugged her and tilted her chin so she could see him smirk at her. “That frustrated the hell out of me, you bet. That guy was such an oily bastard – about on par with me when I was the robot guy.”

“Oh, much worse,” she interjected intently.

He laughed. Then he shot her an almost shy look and said a little hesitantly, “Sometimes I wonder whether you felt any attraction to him, or whether you just thought you needed to be with him because he waved an ancient marriage license at you.”

Marlena answered without delay, “The latter. And remember, handsome, I’d lost my memory of our life, so I felt very adrift. Whenever I saw you, I felt mega attraction to you. But Alex’s mind control and my own feelings about marriage kept me from casting him off and running to you.”

She felt, rather than saw, John nod. He said solemnly, “Pretty Lady, I thank God you came back to me finally. North’s sick control methods were tough to ferret out, not to mention shut down. I hated the fact that the only solution was injecting you unawares with the antidote. I thought there had to be another way, but I was running out of time.”

“You did the right thing,” she assured him. “When the scales finally fell, and you were there, I was never so glad to see anyone in my life.” She buried her face in his neck and shivered because thinking about the Alex North episode always made her cringe, even after they had learned what Denise knew.

“John, if only we’d known that Alex and his marriage story were a total fabrication when he showed up in Salem. Even though I was suffering from amnesia then, if we’d known about that summer in ‘74, you might have been able to prove his story was cockamamie.”

He nodded sagely. “Yeah, if we’d been able to call on Denise Gamache to counter his tale, it might have saved us a lot of time and heartache. Unfortunately, we were ignorant. And our earlier memory losses kept us from being able to put the pieces together.” 

He paused, swallowed and added, “You know, sweetheart, maybe we should take that trip now and see if we can retrace the steps we supposedly took back in the summer of 1974. Maybe we can learn more about it. And maybe it will help me to learn more about what I was doing back then.”  

Marlena replied immediately, “That’s a plan, Stan!”

John chuckled. “Don’t call me Stan.”

She laughed happily. “I’m not sure what we could ferret out, but I’m willing, my love. First though, I think we should see if we can get Denise to come for a visit. Now that she is both retired and widowed, it should be doable for her.”

John kissed her again. “Good idea. She might even be willing to go with us to places like Johns Hopkins and elsewhere that might jog your memory. Who knows? Something we come across might jog mine too.”

“And if we were engaged back then, it’s just possible that you bought a ring then that disappeared along with our memories. But,” she felt a sudden wave of pessimism, “one thing that has always bothered me is that I apparently told Denise a little about ‘you’, but I never mentioned any of it to my parents! And that really was uncharacteristic of me. I mean, no, I didn’t tell them everything. But something that big? It’s hard for me to believe I didn’t share any of it with them. Especially with Momma.”

“We don’t know the circumstances. Maybe there were extenuating ones. Maybe, as we’ve theorized before, I met you while on the run from Stefano, for example. Who knows. But, baby, all the more reason for us to see if we can dig up something now.”

Then he sobered, “And since you and Denise still haven’t kept in much contact since Lugano, I bet she really doesn’t know much about our weird life. So many things in our life together have been beyond belief, Doc. Who could possibly believe we’d live through two possessions, countless kidnappings, mind control, deaths staged by our enemies, and – well, you know it all as well as I do.” 

He continued, “But, honestly, sweetheart, even though we are convinced the marriage certificate North showed you was a big fat fake, so far we haven’t been able to prove it. Would be great if we could. Those ‘memories of abuse’ you experienced were somehow deliberately triggered by North. And that strongly points to a possible connection between North and DiMera/Doctor Rolf. Maybe Rolf salted those false memories in your brain at some earlier point.” 

“Yes. It’s speculation. We just don’t have definitive proof though of any of it, as you said.” She spoke drowsily. She was starting to feel sleepy again. Lying here safe in John’s arms in the early morning hours of Christmas Day was the only place she wanted to be.

Her husband caught on. “Go back to sleep, Doc. It’s still not light out yet.”

She answered a little fuzzily, “You go back to sleep too, honey.” But she realized vaguely that John was still wide awake, still at the mercy of a mind that wouldn’t turn off.

When Marlena woke again, she still lay in John’s embrace. His warmth, his signature scent greeted her. She stretched her neck to see his face, and sure enough, his eyes were open and vigilant. She could see their blueness this time because some cold and piercing early morning sun rays passed through the thin curtains and played on their bed.

Her voice sleep raspy, she inquired, “Didn’t you drop off at all?”

John shook his head.

Marlena knew his arm underneath her must be asleep, so she raised herself and supported herself on her own elbow, angling herself to better see John’s face. With her free hand she brushed a few wisps of hair off his forehead, then lightly stroked his temple. “Why, honey? Why couldn’t you sleep?”

He smiled at her concern, and then mimicked her position in bed so that they both faced each other. “Couple of reasons. One, I’m doing a little mental planning for our trip. The more I think about it, the more eager I am to go.” 

“And two, as I told ya, baby, I really want to do more for those people confined indefinitely to wheelchairs. But maybe what’s needed is more targeted assistance. You said it – the reasons for paralysis vary, and so researchers are also attacking the condition with a lot of different approaches, operations, and therapies.”

“True,” she said slowly, struggling a little to fire up her intellect so soon after waking from a sound sleep. John’s mind had obviously been turning this over for hours. “You have something in mind?”

“Well, not in final form, but I’d like to see if we could funnel more funds to specific programs. For instance, I’d like to know more about Northwestern University’s experimental injections on mice to fix spinal cord injuries with injections of “dancing molecules.”

“That did sound very promising,” Marlena agreed. She added, “If they had had human trials for that back in 2010, you might have been a candidate for it at the clinic.”

“Maybe,” he agreed thoughtfully. “Hope when they get to the human stage, it is a less painful treatment than I had.”

John lay back down and stretched his arms a little. He smiled again, and returned to his thoughts. “I guess what I’m saying in a nutshell is I’d like to learn more and help more.”

“I think that’s a great idea. We can learn together, and I’m all for increasing our grants if that’s what you want. Even though you say it’s our money, the fact is most of it comes from you. My earnings are not a big chunk. But, yes, if you want to give more to specific research projects, I’m all in.”       

Again propping himself on his elbow, John brought his lips to hers and kissed her sweetly. Then he said, “I’ve got so much to be grateful for, sweetheart. I’m not stuck in that chair as I thought I might be. I haven’t had any further aneurysms –”

“Thank God! Oh, John. You know that scared me so much, and we both know you may have suffered the one you did as a long term reaction to that noxious cocktail Charlotte shot you up with.”

He acknowledged that grimly. “Yeah, they did tell us at the Lugano clinic that it could happen.” But he stretched his neck and kissed her lips again. “I’m not the only one who’s had medical emergencies though, and I thank God too that you are well after Orpheus’ recent poisoning attempt.”

She felt her eyes begin to tear up. “We seem to end up in the hospital regularly, despite our best efforts…” She felt a lump in her throat and couldn’t go on.

“Hey, hey,” John said swiftly. “Yeah, it seems to be a fixed part of our destiny.” He lay down again, pulling his wife with him and holding her close. “The main thing is, we find our way back to each other. We don’t give up because we both know we’ve been gifted with an amazing love that bonds us forever.”

Marlena kissed John’s neck and replied throatily, “Yes. No more divorces. We’re married, and we’re crazy in love. No one and nothing will change that now.”

Sighing, John admitted, “You know, after you dropped off to sleep, I thought some more about our tribulations. What sometimes confounds me is that after I could walk again, and we returned from Switzerland, we actually got divorced again a few years later – and it was me who pushed it! I mean, I did urge you to divorce me when I was indicted for corporate fraud and embezzlement, but that’s not what I –”

She stirred and raised a finger to his lips. “I know what you mean.” She really didn’t want to revisit that devastating and lonely period in their lives.

But John couldn’t leave it. “Yeah, I know you do. It’s not something either of us is going to truly forget. Sometimes I don’t seem to learn anything from our years together. I mean, I always know I love you beyond measure. But practically speaking, I still am sometimes willing to harm both of us.” He looked very remorseful. “And that is really unforgivable of me. I spent quite a while with you sleeping in my arms wondering anew how I could be so stupid sometimes.”

Marlena shook her head slightly and then moved so her face hovered only inches above John’s. “Shh.” She again hushed him with a forefinger to his lips. “We’ve led very unusual lives – thankfully, a good part of them together – even though we apparently don’t remember the first time we met and fell in love. We’ve had to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds, and we did! I love you so incredibly much, J. B. And our tribulations, as you call them, have only, in the end, made our love stronger. You said you were grateful. Me, too, honey. So grateful for us being together. And so grateful to be here in this bed with you right now.” She gave him a lustful stare. “What do you say we stop analyzing and talking. We still have time before the horde comes to share Christmas Day with us.” She grinned and then gave him a luscious kiss bursting with promise. But before he could reciprocate, she pulled her head back a few inches, met his cobalt eyes with her hazel ones, and whispered seductively, “Make love to me the way only you can.” 

Needless to say, John didn’t need to be asked twice. 

_______________

Note: I enjoyed reading “Touch, Taste, Feel” by Righteous Query. It’s wonderful to have a story about the period John and Marlena left Salem to get him cured of paralysis in Switzerland. I’d already been thinking for some time about writing about that period too because, as far as I’m aware, few if any other stories exist about it. My thoughts were for a tête-à-tête story. And so, this is what appeared on the page.