“I see your father’s been here. He always brings you white roses, doesn’t he?” Kneeling down, Marlena brushed a finger across the delicate velvet of one fragile petal before setting a small bouquet of marigolds beside their more regal brethren.

“I thought you might like these for a change. The color always reminds me of the coming of summer- bright and fresh and new.” Settling down on the cool grass, Marlena crossed her legs in front of her and gazed up at the clear blue skies. “Guess you know why I’m here, Isabella. It’s the same reason as usual. I’m worried about him. Of course, Lord knows I’m almost always worried about him- you know what he’s like. But this time.... He’s lying to me, Isabella. He went down to New Orleans. It’s the first time he’s been gone from me since I came back to Salem. He left and he was lying. He only does that when he thinks the truth will frighten me. Well, that and when he’s planning one of his ‘surprises’.”

“It’s been three days and he hasn’t called. Bo can’t meet my eyes. Even Abe looks guilty and Abe never looks guilty! It’s been too long, you know. It’s like, it’s like I’ve lost him and nobody wants to tell me the horrible truth. They gaze at me with these sad puppy dog eyes and talk about the weather!” She gave an angry snort and brushed at the tears that crept to the corners of her eyes. “I can’t lose him, Isabella. I can’t. You know....

“Damn! He is so stubborn!” Her hand trembled as she wiped away an escaped tear and she shook her head as if to banish unwanted thoughts.

“I’m sorry,” she finally muttered. “I’m just… worried. He always keeps things bottled up. Some things, he just refuses to face. I think that’s why he never comes here. I know he did love you. In his own way, in the only way he knew how at the time, he did love you. But not once since the funeral.... I asked him one time- why he never comes with me to see you. He just said, ‘Sometimes it’s best to let the dead stay buried.’ He wouldn’t talk about it more than that. He’s never talked about what happened when I was gone. A little about you, about the kids, but nothing about what he thought, what he felt. He shut that part of himself away behind a locked door like he’s afraid of what will happen if I see inside. He’s doing it again now, Isabella. He doesn’t want me to know about New Orleans. He doesn’t want anybody to know- and that frightens me.”

She rolled her eyes and plucked at a blade of grass, thinking of her husband and listening to the wind. Looking down at the polished marble, she reached out and traced the chiseled words with her fingertip. “I know it’s not fair of me to ask you to look after him. None of what happened to you was ever fair. It wasn’t fair when I came back after all those years. It wasn’t fair when Roman let you go and turned to me. It wasn’t fair when the cancer took you, so quick and so young. We tried to be there for you, Roman and I. We tried. But- it still wasn’t fair.” Marlena sighed softly, the memories still painful after all of the years.

“I’ve always kind of thought that it wasn’t really the cancer that took you. I think your heart just decided it didn’t want to beat any more. I couldn’t live without him- and now I know that you couldn’t either. If I could change one thing in my life, it would be the hurt you felt because I came home. I can’t regret being with him- but for the fact that it hurt you, I will always be sorry. But Isabella, there is one thing we have always held in common. One thing that has always bonded us. We both love him, Isabella. I’m asking you to be with him right now, because I’m not and I know that he can’t be alone. Whatever it is he’s facing, he can’t be alone.”

Clenching her fists in her lap, Marlena closed her eyes and whispered her prayer to the wind. “Lord, be with him. Please.”

He was smothering. What air he could draw into his lungs burned, and red fire danced before his eyes. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, could only grasp onto memories and try and keep his sanity as he felt his brain imploding under the onslaught of powerful psychotropic drugs. “Doc,” he whispered in his mind, hardly aware the sound had also escaped his parched lips. “God, Doc, I need you,” he thought, as he found himself once more immersed in a red haze of confusion, anger and pain.

Pain. So much pain, it seems to clot the very air he breathes. The skinning knife in his hand drips fresh blood onto the expensive Turkish rug beneath his feet and he smiles a feral grin as his heightened senses pick up the soft sound of the impact. He stands unmoving, seeking some hint of resistence, some sign of threat. There is nothing- no one left to get in his way. On catlike feet he creeps up the spiraling staircase, ignoring the mad glee that urges him to hurry. No need for haste, no cause for worry. He has a message to send, and that message will not be rushed. He has all the time in the world- when he leaves this house, there will be no life left in it.

The man beneath his gaze sleeps the sleep of the innocent, no hint of his betrayal in the out flung limbs, the gentle snores. Only a fool would double-cross Dimera and have no fear of the consequences. Foolish men deserved to die foolish deaths. His knife drifts out, hovers above the throbbing throat. He makes the moment last, the burning need for this building in the back of his head until he thinks his brain will explode. He can wait no longer, his free hand clamping down over the man’s mouth. A brief hesitation, a duty yet to be done- “Stefano Dimera sent me for you.” The whispered words twist in the breeze and the knife slides through the skin as if it were silk.





Blood, everywhere. It covers his arms, makes the knife slippery in his grasp. The sickly sweet smell blots out the call of the sea as he kneels in the center of the bed, a priest making sacrifice, a surgeon cutting out a malignancy. He hums a pop tune beneath his breath, realizes he is doing it, wonders briefly if it is a sign he is insane. With a grunt, he saws through the last flap of skin connecting head to body, decides he is simply very good at his job. Looking deep into the still staring eyes of the dead man, he can’t help a small smile, a word of advice delivered just a bit too late. “Mess with the bull, boy, and you get the horns.” Tangling blood-sticky hands into the short hair, he slips from the bed and heads for home with his trophy. He has most definitely earned his keep tonight.

Oh God, no. Please, no....

Hail Mary, full of grace.

The shadows lied. The shadows always lied.

Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.

The knife was not real. The knife was never real.

Holy Mary, mother of God.

He was never there. He had never been there. He would never go there.

Pray for us sinners....

“Fuck you, you son of a bitch!” Sweat streaked his face, stung his eyes. He bucked against the restraints from which he hung, the hard metal cutting through his flesh. Flesh was nothing. Blood was nothing. Only the fear was real. Only the fear. Only the rage.

Please, God....

The fear overwhelmed him. He tried not to see, tried not to know. He tried hard. He failed. The blood and the pain, they colored his visions but weren’t his to own. The blood and the pain were his legacy and he had bestowed his gifts with the generosity of a god.

No....

The boiling rage once again engulfed his mind and he screamed into the blackness. He fought the unseen demons until the guards crept cautiously into the room. The kiss of a needle, the sweet heat of chemicals, and the darkness called him down into the depths once again.





They left him hogtied in the center of the dirt floor. Stefano Dimera had made it painfully clear- this man was far too valuable to be allowed to die.

“It’s not working,” Stefano said, flipping off the video monitor and moving to pour himself a stiff drink. The sight of the twitching body that lay in the center of the stone cell was something no amount of whiskey was likely to wash away, but at the moment he was willing to try.

“It is working just as I told you it would. That’s the problem,” Sarte drawled, turning from the open window to address his boss.

“It’s killing him, Sarte! You don’t need to be a doctor to see it,” Dimera snapped.

Dr. Emanuel Sarte, personal physician and general Frankenstein for the Dimera cartel batted his wiry gray hair from his eyes and frowned irritably. “The drugs aren’t what’s killing him. The drugs are doing their job. He’s remembering everything, just as I told you he would. My God, you don’t really think ‘Roman Brady’ could have inflicted the damage saw earlier? That was the work of an animal, Stefano. Your animal, to be specific. The drugs aren’t killing him- the memories are. He’s too dangerous to play with this way. If you keep this up, your going to end up with a raving psychotic on your hands. I told you years ago he was too unstable to experiment with drugs. You should have listened to me then!”

“He was virtually suicidal at the time, you know that. You also agreed that the drugs were the best course of action. Don’t you dare try to weasel out of your responsibility for this mess,” Stefano hissed, his patience at a breaking point.

Sarte had always had problems with authority, but he had more problems with the thought of being dead. Recognizing the fine line he was walking, he nodded in resignation. “I know. I know. There was nothing else we could have done at the time. The problem is, I’m not sure what we can do now. He can’t keep this up, not for much longer. He’s tearing himself apart.”

“What if we increase the dosage? Lock him in a padded room and keep him under until he has no choice but to believe?”

Sarte shrugged noncommitally. “Well, that would keep him from killing any more guards. I mean, he’d be comatose, he couldn’t be much danger to himself or to anybody else. Of course, if he ever regained consciousness, he’d have lost all touch with reality. I’m not sure what use he would be to you. Maybe you could drop him off in a fast food parking lot and watch as he slaughters all of the Happy Meal eaters. Ugly. It would most definitely be ugly.”

“Sarte, you aren’t valuable enough to me to be such a smart ass.”

“I tell you the truth, even when you don’t want to hear it. That makes me valuable,” Sarte replied with more confidence than he felt. “Stefano, you are trying to tame a rabid dog by poking it with a stick. So far, all you’ve managed to do is piss it off. It will not end well, I can promise you.”

Sinking into his chair, Dimera rubbed at his temples, grimacing in frustration. “What if we stop the drugs? Give his mind some time to clear?”

“I don’t know. I’ve told you before, it’s not the drugs that wiped his memory the first time and it’s not the drugs that are killing him now. His thinking processes have always been a little- bent. He’s unpredictable and he always has been. Right now, every time the drugs start to wear off he starts to fight. He’s strong enough and stubborn enough that he’ll manage to kill himself if we let him. Stefano, if you went in to talk to him, I doubt he’d even hear you. If you take him off the drugs, he could die before you manage to get through to him. You freed too many memories to hope to bring him back to a rational state. Those memories are killing ‘Roman Brady’, but John may choose to die rather than lose that piece of himself.”

“It’s not his choice to make,” Stefano stated coldly.

“You may not be able to control this situation, Stefano. You do understand you aren’t God- don’t you?”

“I’m the closest thing to God you are ever likely to see.” Flashing Sarte an ugly look, he steepled his fingers and looked into the distance. Inspiration taunted him from the corner of his eye and he concentrated hard in an effort to unravel the pattern. “What you are telling me is that John needs something to ground him. Something to keep the memories from overwhelming him. Give him time to digest things. Am I correct?”

“Theoretically. But I’ll state for the record, I don’t think he’s likely to come back. He’s lost somewhere in his own past and that’s a very ugly place to be. The kindest thing to do would be to give him enough morphine, let him go peacefully. You owe the boy that much.”

“I owe him nothing, Sarte. If there are debts to be paid, they aren’t due from me. Now get out of my office and don’t come back until you have something useful to say. I have arrangements to make.” Waving a negligent hand, Stefano turned his attention to an open file before him.

Stopping in the doorway, Sarte turned and risked one last comment. “It’s been 15 years, Stefano. It’s been too long. You aren’t going to get through to him this time.”

Looking up, Dimera’s eyes twinkled with a dark secret. “He may not come back for me, Sarte- but he will come back for her.”

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