John walked into the kitchen, surprised by the sight of Carrie standing in front of the stove. “Since when do you volunteer for kitchen duty?” he asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“Since Stefano told me he had sent Jensen out to take care of some business for him. I thought I’d try my hand at some pancakes,” she replied with a smile.

“Well, it sure smells good.” Coming closer, he peered over her shoulder. “They look great! Want me to grab some plates?”

“Please,” she nodded. “Of course, this is my second batch. You can check out my first attempt they’re in the garbage pail!”

Chuckling, he brought over a serving plate, holding it for Carrie as she piled the pancakes high.

“Well, this looks familiar,” came a voice from the door. Marlena, dressed in jeans and a denim shirt, headed directly to the coffee pot. “Hope you haven’t lost your touch with a frying pan.”

“Hey, don’t look at me!” John replied, placing the plate on the counter. “My chef’s hat has been usurped.”

“Are we eating in here or out on the porch?” Sami asked, walking in trailed closely by her brother.

“The porch,” John and Marlena answered simultaneously.

“Well, the rain finally stopped and we should enjoy it,” John added. “There’s a cold front moving in tonight. We may as well appreciate the last of the warm days. Winter comes in quickly up here.”

With everyone pitching in, they quickly moved the feast to the back porch. Dimera was already there, staring out at the sundrenched fields. A cup of coffee in his hands, he puffed thoughtfully on his morning cigar.

“Hope that’s not all you were planning on having,” John called to him, setting the serving plate in the center of the table.

Dimera turned, quirking an eyebrow as he saw the juice and fruit being laid out beside the pancakes on the table. “I hadn’t realized we had a substitute cook on the premises. It looks good. My compliments to the chef.”

“Thank you,” Carrie replied, bringing up the rear and giving him a nod of acknowledgment.

“So what’s everybody up to today,” Sami asked cheerfully, plopping into a padded chair.

“I should probably start catching up on some paperwork. It’s starting to pile up on me,” John replied over a forkfull of pancake.

“On a day like this? You should be outside. Maybe we could take Mom up and show her the lake,” Sami said. “You’d love it Mom. It was a great hike.”

John fastened his eyes on Marlena’s face, uncertain whether he wanted her to say yes or no.

He felt his face flush when she nodded.

“That does sound like a good idea, Sami. Count me in. How about the rest of you?” Marlena asked, looking around the table.

“I’m in,” Eric said.

“Carrie?”

Carrie stared quizzically at her sister, starting as she realized she had been asked a question. “Um, let me see. I think I might be doing something. I’m into this book...”

“Well, you can always change your mind. Now, if we are going to go, I really should get some work done,” John said, rising to his feet. “How about we meet back down here at noon?” Receiving no disagreement, he headed up to the study.

John looked up from Dimera’s desk, startled by the older man’s entrance.

“I am going to have to get you a desk of your own in here,” Stefano said mildly. Waving John back into his seat, he sat in one of the padded chairs set before the desk.

Giving Dimera a distracted nod, John turned back to the papers in his hand. “We’re close, Stefano. A few more days, a week at the outside. We should get ready to move,” he said, looking up to catch the old man studying him.

“You really want this to be over, don’t you?”

“The brotherhood is a threat. I want them gone the faster the better,” John replied, not seeing the problem.

“John, when the Brotherhood is gone, so is she. You did mean that, didn’t you?”

“Of course I meant it! Stefano… All I care is that she is safe. What I may, or may not want is irrelevant,” John said, his eyes narrowing.

“Okay. Okay...” Stefano placated. “I meant no offense. I just wanted to be certain I knew where you stood.”

“Well, now you know,” John said shortly, immersing himself once more in the paperwork.

“And yet, you are still going to go out on a picnic with the family,” Dimera said, unwilling to let the matter drop. “John! Those children want you back in Salem with them. They are not overly subtle about it! They think you are going to go home with them and it is time you made them understand that is not going to happen.”

“For fuck’s sake, will you get off me about the kids, Stefano!” John said, slamming his pen down on the table. Shooting to his feet, he stalked to the bar and poured a stiff drink. “Damn you’re even hanging out with them now. You don’t have any room to criticize.”

Stefano snorted. “John, I would hardly say I am ‘hanging out’ with Marlena’s children. I hardly see them beyond breakfast and the occasional dinner as, I may add, you ‘suggested’. However, I was surprised when you did not protest my watching the football game with you and Eric last night.”

John shrugged. “I didn’t want to fight about it at dinner. Besides, Marlena didn’t seem to object. Hell, I actually kind of enjoyed it. I mean, I never said you were bad father, Stefano. Believe me, I know the difference. It’s not like you ‘perverted my innocence’ or something. Your own kids, they keep their noses clean. Hell, I even like Tony.”

“Ah, Anthony. He did turn out to be a fine man, didn’t he? Of course, some would suggest the fact that I was around them so rarely might be why they turned out so well,” Stefano commented without rancor.

“Yea, well there is that,” John replied. “Still, I don’t think there’s much reason for me to worry about the kids picking you as a role model not that you wouldn’t be an improvement over me… Still, it worries Marlena.”

Stefano smiled grimly. “Yes, I do seem to make her a bit nervous.”

“Well, you did kidnap her about 80 times and then there was that time she thought you killed her husband, the time she shot you, the time you impregnated her shall I go on?”

“Your flair for exaggeration is not one of your more endearing qualities, John,” Stefano replied with a grimace.

“I have so few good qualities. One has to work with what their given,” John stated with the ghost of a grin.

“How you ever managed to raise a boy like Eric… He is a very impressive young man, John.”

John couldn’t help a proud smile. “Yea. I think he was even tolerating you by the end of the game! He really is a good kid, isn’t he?”

“Nothing at all like you were,” Stefano could not help but note.

John chuckled at the comparison. “No, I was never a good kid, was I? Sometimes, I don’t know how you kept from strangling me with your bare hands. God, remember the time I got piss drunk on your best scotch and decided to take the Mercedes out for a spin! I swear, I thought you were going to have an aneurism when you found out I crashed it through the front gates!”

“Yes. I distinctly remember considering selling you to a whorehouse at that point,” Stefano replied, failing to see the humor.

“Gee. Aren’t you glad you didn’t?” John smirked.

“Only infrequently.” Stefano sighed, studying the younger man who leaned amicably against the bar. “John, I do not want this to end ugly. And it will get ugly if you try to go with them. Do you understand me?”

John merely nodded and sipped at his drink. “I won’t go back, Stefano. I’m not stupid enough to think I could be a part of their lives. You are the only person I have touched and not destroyed. The only one strong enough to resist whatever Gods I appear to have pissed off. I won’t bring that misery down on the kids. I promise you.”

He ran down the stairs, silently cursing himself. “Sorry, I’m late. Had to take a call,” he apologized, jumping down the last three steps. Looking around, he found only Marlena, smiling at him with a bemused expression.

“Where is everybody?” John asked. “I’m not that late!”

Marlena chuckled. “I think the children are conspiring. Carrie decided that she just had to finish this cheesy romance novel. Even less convincing was the excuse Sami and Eric gave. They told me they were playing the ‘World’s Championship Monopoly Game’ and couldn’t make it either.”

“Umm… okay,” he muttered vaguely. Shifting uncomfortably, he wasn’t certain what she was getting at.

“Of course, I think a hike sounds great, so...” She looked at him expectantly.

“Umm… okay,” he repeated, nodding his head up and down like the village idiot. Making his body stand still through sheer force of will, he realized that what he wanted most desperately in life at this moment was to jump into that big lake of icy water. Taking a deep breath, he jogged toward the kitchen, refusing to make eye contact with her. “Then we better make some lunch and get going,” he called over his shoulder. “The faster we get up there the better.”

She sat, staring out across the still waters. It was incredible. They had hiked out of the deep woods into a field of high grass. Whitegold with the coming of winter, it surged like the tide in the gentle breeze. They had moved through the waves, leaving a wake of crushed fronds. Their paths sometimes converging, sometimes not, they had walked in companionable silence until they had topped the hill and Marlena had seen the lake, sparkling in the distance. She had stopped then and shot him a look, a silent challenge. As one, they had torn off down the hill, racing to be the first one in.

Marlena chuckled as she realized what this place had reminded her of. “I know why Sami suggested we come out here,” she said. Giving a contented sigh, she stretched out on the big rock beside John. He was laying on his stomach, chin cradled in his hands, the drops of water still glittering against his tanned skin.

“Why’s that?” he muttered sleepily, breaking her out of her revery.

“Doesn’t it remind you of anything?”

Refusing to turn and meet her eyes, he simply mumbled, “Maybe. What’s it remind you of?”

Reclining on her back, she closed her eyes and let the memories wash over her. “It was a long time ago. Right after we first discovered… first thought that you were Roman. Back before the time I went down in the plane crash. We were walking in the woods, just the two of us. And we came out into a big meadow filled with wildflowers, a lake in the center. Right out there, in the middle of that field, you pulled me down into the flowers and we made love beside the lake… We were so happy, then. So at peace. Do you remember, John?”

“I remember everything I’ve ever done with you.”

The sense of longing in his voice caused her to open her eyes. “This must be so hard for you,” she said with sudden realization. “Being with me, with the children...”

“No,” he said, almost to himself. “No, this has been easy. Leaving again that will be hard.” Retreating into the recesses of his own mind, he pushed away all thoughts of the future. A future without them. He would not face that reality until he had to.

Slowly, almost without realizing she was doing it, she reached over and trailed a single finger along his spine. He lay immobile, as if carved from the stone itself. She allowed her finger to travel downward, slowly circling the ugly scar low on his left side. The entry wound from the bullet he had taken getting her and Roman out of Dimera’s compound. A sign of what he was willing to sacrifice for her.





Against her will, her eyes and her hand strayed to his shoulder. Traced the black wings of the Phoenix, raised in triumph as it emerged from the flames. A sign of ownership, branded into his flesh long before she had ever known him. Beneath her hand, he began to tremble, and a low moan she felt more than heard split the silence.

“Doc, please stop,” he ground out, squeezing his eyes tight shut. Trying to maintain his control. Trying to ignore the burning where her flesh had met his.

She held the contact for another long second before reluctantly pulling away. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Staring down at him, the grief washed over her. Tears sprang to eyes and she realized she could not lose him again she would not lose him again. The words flowed unbidden from her lips. “You don’t have to leave.”

Once released, the invitation hung in the air. Time seemed to slow and she repeated softly, “You don’t have to leave us. You could come back when this is over. Come home, John. I know it is what you want. It’s what I want too.”

She saw the tracks of tears glistening on his cheeks, but the only reply he made was a shake of his dark head.

“John?”

His tears were flowing freely now, but his response was wooden. “No.”

She could feel his agony, it was a palpable thing. She wanted nothing more than to take him into her arms, rock him gently, as she had the children after a bad dream. Afraid of his reaction, she held back. “Why not?”

As the seconds stretched on, she thought he would not respond, that he would wrap himself in his own misery and shut her out.

Reluctantly, he broke the silence.

“Everyone I love, dies. Everyone I try and protect.” The words were said so softly that she had to strain to hear them.

“John, the baby wasn’t your fault. There was no way you could have known. Nothing you could have done. No one blames you for that,” she said, trying to ease his pain.

Abruptly he rolled over. Away from her. Putting his hands behind his head, he stared up into the sun. “It’s not just the baby, Doc.”

“Then what is it?” she asked, watching his face. Searching his eyes. Seeing them darken with remembered sorrow.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“If this is what is keeping you from me, from your family, I want to know. I deserve to know,” she replied gently.

He lost himself in the blazing yellow sun. Wishing its fire would come down, cleanse his soul with its flames and burn away his many sins. Suppressing a groan, he turned his thoughts to the first time he had failed someone he loved.

“No one knows. Not even Stefano...” he began, his voice detached. “It was long before I came to Dimera. I was a kid. Living in New York City. A Russian enclave we called it ‘Little Moscow’. Anyway, I don’t know what happened to my parents. I was raised by ‘Uncle Mike’,” John said with distaste. “I was little when I went to him. Don’t really remember it. I was three maybe four years old. So I was with Uncle Mike. I never have figured out why. The man always hated me. Told me he wasn’t really my uncle. Wasn’t my blood. I think now, someone paid him to do it. I don’t know…

“Uncle Mike was not the nicest of men. I guess about the best that could be said about my childhood was that he didn’t care what I did, as long as I stayed away from him. When I didn’t, when he was drunk which was usually he had a tendency to beat on me. Even broke my arm once. I remember that one. Only time he ever took me to the hospital...” John trailed off, lost for a moment in the memory.

“Okay, so Mike was a bastard. But I learned how to stay away most of the time. And I was getting fast enough, he had trouble catching me. So everything was pretty much all right. And then Kat came into my life.” He smiled faintly and shook his head.

“I was nine years old when she came to live with us. Katherine was her name. I never really figured out why she was there either. I remember the first time I saw her. I came in from school, and snuck back to the little room that was mine. Somehow, Mike had managed to cram a cot into the corner. She was sitting there watching me. This tiny little thing. Just seven years old, watching me with these big blue eyes. Blue like the sky today. Like you just wanted to lose yourself in them.

“Anyway, one day she was just there. Mike told me she was my new sister, though nobody in their right mind would believe it. Here I was, this black hair, big for my age a tough, wiry kid, full of attitude. She was my opposite. She was small, delicate even, with straight whiteblond hair that fell halfway down her back. And she just had this gentleness about her. She was so at peace with herself...” He laughed softly. “I used to call her ‘my angel’. Especially when things were bad. It always cheered her up.

“At the time… Well, at the time, the one ‘fatherly’ thing Mike did do was make us go to church. Russian Orthodox. Every week. So I… I believed. And in my heart, I used to think that God had sent her to me. Sent her to save me.” Again, he stopped. Stared at the sky in silence. The quiet lasted until Marlena wondered if he would continue. But he was lost in the telling of the story, the words themselves demanding release, and his voice again broke the peace of the wilderness

“The only bad thing about it, I had to be at home more. I wouldn’t leave her alone with Mike. I either took her with me, or I stayed home. Mike only tried to hit her once when I was around. It was right after she came. We were eating dinner and he was actually home for once. As kids do, Kat spilled a glass. Mike didn’t even think about it, he just slapped her across her face. Knocked her out of the chair.

“He did that… When he hit her, I wanted him dead. I grabbed a knife off the table and went for his chest. He was a big guy, and strong. Real strong. Well, he got hold of my arm. I missed his chest, but slashed him a good one across his face. Almost took an eye...”

“When I came to, it was dark. He’d locked me in the closet. I kind of freaked out a little. I was hurt. I thought I was going to die in there. Locked in a closet in the dark, the roaches crawling around in the corners. Anyway, Kat let me out. I stuck around the house for a couple of days, healing up. He didn’t come home for a long time. I think I scared him. I think he was scared to go to sleep around me for a long time. It was the only time he hit her, though.”

“So this went on. Actually, it was okay. I had the routine down. We were surviving. Then, one day when I was 12, Kat got sick. A bad flue bug. I was home with her for a week, and finally she started to feel better. She knew me so well. Knew I had to be going nuts, locked up in that damn apartment. So she told me she wanted some time to herself. Told me to go play ball with the guys. Let them know she was all right, and would be at the games herself in a couple of days.”

“So I was selfish, and I was stupid, and I went. I mean, at the time, I didn’t think Mike would come home. And I didn’t think he would hurt her. So I went. Had a great game. Stayed gone ‘till after dark. Had a homer and knocked in two runners. I’ll never forget that game,” he said, his voice bitter.

“Anyway, it gets dark so I go home. And it’s quiet. I tiptoed back to my room… She’s just lying there. She’s on my bed. All white. I really thought she was an angel, laying there on that dirty mattress… Christ!” he cried out, jerking upright.

He grabbed his knees and buried his head in his arms. Rocking himself back and forth, he seemed not to notice Marlena at his side. Rubbing his back. Trying to ease the anguish that engulfed him.

“Shh… It’s okay, honey. It’s okay,” she whispered.

He shook his head, not looking at her. “No no, it wasn’t okay. She was dying. He had… when I was gone, he came home. And he was drunk. And he raped her. She was 10 years old!” John ground out, as if it hurt to even say the words.

“She was too little, it tore something inside. And she was laying on my bed bleeding to death. And it was all my fault, and there was nothing I could do to fix it...” His words trailed off to a whisper.

Marlena eased down beside him, wrapping her arms around his shaking body. Rocking gently with him, she held tight as unvoiced sobs wracked him. Finally, she felt him tense in her grip. Pull away from her arms.

“I’m sorry,” he said, wiping at his eyes. “I just haven’t ever told anybody. I’m sorry.”





She took his face in her hands, forced him to face her. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for, John. You should have told somebody a long time ago. You were just a little boy, John. None of that was your fault.”

Looking straight into her eyes, he said with certainty, “Of course it was my fault. I was careless, and she died. And I was careless again, and your baby died. It’s always my fault, Marlena, and I will never let it happen to you.”

“John, you did all that you could. You were just a little boy. You were younger than Eric. You couldn’t have stopped him. Even if you had been there, you could not have stopped it.”

He flashed a grim smile and shifted away from her to gaze out over the water. “You think not? Do you know what happened to old ‘Uncle Mike’? I covered up Kat’s body and I went and I got my bat. I told you I was good with a bat, right? So I got my bat. I crept down that hallway, just like I had so many times in my dreams. He was right where I knew he would be passed out on his bed, the TV flickering. I went over and I just watched him breathe for a while. And I wondered how Kat must have felt that giant body, smothering her, tearing her open…

“I took my bat and I hit him as hard as I could. I smashed him in the forehead. Damn, he was strong! It was a good hit and he still cameup off of the bed. I had to hit him two more times to put him on his knees. And I kept hitting him. I kept hitting him until I saw his brains.”

He sat still, staring at the silent waters. Finally, he turned to look at her, seeking acknowledgment, recognition of the truth. “Don’t you get it? I could have done that any night. I thought about it lots of nights. But I was scared. I was scared to do it, I thought I didn’t have to do it. I was wrong Marlena, and she died because I was wrong. Because I didn’t protect her. So you see… in the end, it was my fault.”

When she reached for him again, he got to his feet. Not meeting her eyes, he said, “I’m going for a swim,” and walked away. 

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