Steve’s eyes were open, but he couldn’t see through the fog of the bay. He held out his hand at arm’s length but could barely make out the outline of it in front of his face. He wasn’t sure what he was doing there and realized that he must have jumped while he was sleeping. He didn’t know where he’d jumped to or when, but he could tell he was on a boat. Right away he reached for Kayla, but she wasn’t there.
“Kayla?” he called out into the inky night. “Kayla!” His words were dampened by the water and shroud of fog that surrounded him. He ran the short length of the stern quickly back and forth to try to find her, but the smooth, clean deck beneath his feet gave no hint as to her whereabouts. He’d jumped alone again. Why! Why again! “Kayla, no! Where are you?!”
A small, barely there voice said, “here” from somewhere behind him. Steve turned on his heel and hurried toward the voice straight into her waiting arms that seemed to float toward him in the fog. “Baby!” he said as he buried his face in her hair and let those arms hold him tight.
“I’m back. I’m here,” she whispered.
But Steve immediately felt something was wrong. Her body was wrong. She was holding him wrong. She smelled wrong. And Steve knew this whole thing was wrong. He grabbed her shoulders and held her back to look at her, and the eyes looking back at him were not those of his wife, but those of Marina.
Steve shoved her hard against the cabin wall and fell backward onto the cool hard surface of the deck. “Where’s my wife?!” Steve spat up at her.
“I’m right here, Steve,” Marina replied in the voice that he hadn’t heard in 20 years. “Can’t you see me, my darling?”
“I’m not your darling, and you’re not my wife! Where is Kayla? What did you do to her?”
“Kayla is not your wife, Steven, I am. I’m the one you left for dead in that cold water below.”
“And you should have stayed dead, you bitch! Why couldn’t you just stay dead? Why did you have to come back and ruin my life! I barely had a year left, and you took, so much of it away from me!” With every step Marina took toward him Steve had inched back toward the end of the boat. Now he looked up at her with his back against the wall and felt sick.”
“Don’t you miss me, Steven? Don’t you miss making love to me?”
“That wasn’t love, that was a boy getting his rocks off. That’s all you were to me! A woman I fucked. Less than nothin’!”
“Why do you want to hurt me, Steven, when I know what makes you happy?” She reached down to touch his lips with her forefinger, and Steve wrenched his head away from her, pulling himself up to face her. Then he pushed her away from him skimming her breast with his hand on its way to the push.
“Oooh, that felt good, Steven, I want you to touch me.”
“Well, I don’t wanna touch you. I want my wife.”
“I am your wife.”
“You were never my wife, you were my biggest mistake, that’s what you were.”
“I made you feel good all day long, Steven,” she said in a seductive voice, “that wasn’t a mistake.” Then Marina reached her hand toward Steve’s crotch, but he caught it before she could touch him and bent it back in an unnatural position.
Marina screamed in pain. “You’re hurting me! You’re going to break my wrist!”
“GOOD! I WANT IT TO BREAK!” He heard a crack and watched as Marina howled in pain. Then he seized her long, slender neck in a crushing hold and saw her eyes begin to bulge. “You were dead, and you should have stayed dead,” he said in a menacing whisper, “but you had to come back and ruin my life.” He leaned her backwards over the back of the boat. “Right in this goddamned bay, Marina,” he spat. “Then you died again, and I only wish your sister hadn’t of beaten me to it.”
“I’m your lover, Steven,” she choked. “You love me!”
“I never loved you!” He was in an uncontrollable rage. “Now when I kill you, you’d better fucking stay dead this time!” Steve squeezed as hard as he could, and a strangled gasp came out of the woman in his arms. Only that woman was no longer Marina. He was now squeezing the beautiful alabaster neck of his wife.
“Ste—“ Kayla choked.
“Baby?!” Steve gasped in horror. “No!” Steve jerked her up and released her neck as they collapsed together on the deck. “Sweetness, I’m sorry!” he caressed her hair and her face with the shaking hand that tried to strangle her as she laid across his lap. “I thought you were Marina!”
Kayla looked back at him with dying eyes that loved him as she gasped for her last breaths. She was beautiful. Her short blonde hair, older face, and the scar peeking out from her white nightgown told him this was his Kayla. God, how he wanted to go home. With his wife. To his time. To his family. How did she get here? He was so confused. And now he was killing her.
“Kayla, I’m sorry,” he started to sob. “I’m sorry!” He was so dizzy, he had to jump. They had to get out and jump before she died. “I love you, Sweetness. I love you, please forgive me! Please baby! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” He was losing her fast as he rocked her in his arms. “Forgive me, Sweetness, please forgive me!”
“Steve,” she said to him.
“I’m sorry, baby, I love you. Don’t leave me!”
“Steve! Nooo, no, no, no, no, baby, I’m here, wake up!”
Kayla was shaking her husband, trying to rouse him from the throes of a dream that was so bad he was flailing.
“Jump us!”
“STEVE!”
Steve’s eyes snapped open and immediately fell on the young face of his wife in 1989. The shock of his surroundings brought him to reality at once, and he grabbed her face in his hands and turned it back and forth so he could see her neck. He saw she was ok and let out a strangled sigh of his own.
“You’re ok,” she said firmly. “We’re both ok.”
Steve clutched her to him and kissed her head. Then without a word, he kissed her wrist and very gently kissed her neck. Then he held her to him again.
“It was a dream, Steve.”
“I know.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No. I just want to go home.”
Kayla cupped the back of her husband’s head in her hand and stroked her palm up and down over his back as he held on to her in the pre-dawn shadows. He leaned his forehead into the crook of her neck and thanked God that they were alive and that they were together.
This bed was foreign to Kayla, and she momentarily forgot where they were. As she whispered that she loved him and that they were ok, she also registered that they were still there in the cabin of the Pioneer Village near Saul’s retreat. She looked at her watch and saw that it was nearly 4am.
Steve had remained silent and simply let his wife hold and whisper to him in comfort. Now he pulled back from her and kissed her lips gently. He saw Kayla’s eyes flicker with unconscious reaction when she saw his face again, still so new to her.
“Pretty bad, huh?” she asked.
Steve nodded. “The worst.”
She knew he was reluctant to talk about it, and she didn’t want to push him, but the things he was saying in his sleep before she finally roused him, the clear anguish he was feeling, compelled her forward.
“You were restless all night, you know. You were begging me to forgive you.” The tone of her voice was so quiet. “Kept saying you were sorry,” she whispered as she interlaced her fingers with Steve’s.
“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Please, Steve, I need you to be ok. Let me help you.”
“I don’t wanna hurt you!”
“But you’re hurting!”
“Maybe I should hurt.”
Kayla just instinctively knew this was about Marina and everything she brought with her. And Steve saw in her eyes that she knew.
“You still want me to talk about it?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. She curled her fingers into Steve’s cheeks as if he’d had a beard there. “Don’t shut me out again.”
It was the use of the word “again” combined with the loving touch of her fingers that made him turn the corner.
“Baby,” he sighed, “I’m haunted by her. I dreamed I jumped … I think … and I was back on that boat in the Harbor when we were – together. You didn’t jump with me, and she was there trying to touch me and make me say I lo … that I …”
“I know. It’s ok.”
“I hate her, Kayla,” he seethed. “I wanted to kill her. It was easy for me. She wanted to erase you, and I wanted to kill her so bad I could feel the hate inside of me. So, I strangled her. But then she changed, and it wasn’t her. It was you. You layin’ almost dead in my arms.”
Kayla took Steve’s hand and held it up to her face.
“And, Sweetness … it was you, baby,” he whispered, “not a past you. From when I’d tried to choke you in my sleep that night. I’d strangled you, not her.”
Steve ran his hand up over her hair and dragged some of it out of its twists as a result. “It’s this face, baby,” he said as he pulled out her ponytail holder at the nape of her neck and started unraveling her hair. “I don’t want to be in it. I don’t feel like your husband in it, I feel like the man who was once … with her … and then lied to you.” His fingers felt good in her hair as he combed through it with them, releasing her blonde tresses around her shoulders. “Then I go and do what I did last night.”
“Steve, I loved what we did last night. I felt so close to you. So, we didn’t make love, I felt your love anyway. Is it really only making love if you’re inside me?” He gave her a look that hinted so slightly at the leer he reserved especially for her that always seemed to be in him, and she smiled. “Ok, well, maybe it’s not quite the same, but … I felt you just the same. Ok?”
Steve grinned slightly. “Yeah … ok. But baby, that dream was so real. I’m having a hard time shaking the guilt, Sweetness.”
Kayla looked at his handsome features and let her eyes wander over to his new left eye. It was so different. Fascinating to look at. She didn’t know what to say to make him feel better. But she had to snap him out of this.
“Steve, I’m not going to say you did the right thing. And we can’t go back and change what happened. You can’t go back and tell me that you were once married to Marina. That—“ this was hard, “that I wasn’t the only woman you’d ever m-marry.” Her eyes misted over despite her best efforts, and it kicked Steve in the gut. “And there’s a part of me that will always feel that. But that’s life. I forgave you. I still forgive you! Now, we just have to go on and live. Just like we did the first time. And we were so happy! My life with you is wonderful and beautiful, even after that whole mess, we were happy! You, me, and this baby we’re about to make.” She patted her belly that in a matter of weeks would be carrying their daughter. She hoped as a stab of worry coursed through her. “Please stop blaming yourself. Because I can’t take seeing you like this.” She paused and kissed him softly. “Look at me. Do you believe that I forgive you?”
Steve looked into her eyes and knew it was true. “I do,” he said.
“Ok,” she smiled.
He held her face in his hands and kissed her deeply. She responded with little sounds of love and contentment, and it made his heart swell.
“And one more thing. This is the face you were born with, Steven Earl Johnson. And I love it just as much as the one that I met in 1986.” He smiled at her. “If you’re wearing it,” she stuck her chin out and spoke with the most adorable conviction that made Steve feel so proud that she was his, “then I love it.”
“What did I do to deserve you, Sweetness?”
Kayla laughed and dragged Steve back down on the bed to snuggle against him. She undid the buttons on his shirt and then laid her cheek on his bare chest, loving the feel of it against her skin. Steve let her and stroked her hair. He couldn’t say he was completely over this, and he was definitely concerned about Marina showing up if they stayed long enough. But he allowed his guilt to wane and acknowledged that they had a serious problem they really did need to talk about.
“Kayla?”
Mm?”
“We have to talk about what’s happening to us.”
Kayla turned to look up at him. “I’ve been trying to do that for days.”
“I know. I just didn’t see much of a point since there didn’t seem to be anything we could do about it. But now with this jumping apart stuff.” He sighed.
“I know. It was horrible.”
“Why did that happen, baby? Did we do something? We were together every other time.”
“Steve, I think we have to go back to why we started jumping at all. Obviously, this isn’t normal.”
He didn’t want to argue, but he honestly didn’t understand how they could figure that out. “Ok,” he sighed dragging a hand down over his face, “Ok, fine. Why? I dunno, baby, the gods are mad at us.”
Kayla had a thought as she ignored his snarky comment. She sat up and sat on the bed cross-legged facing him. “Come on, let’s talk about this. Come on,” she prodded. Steve did as she asked and sat up to lean against the wrought-iron headboard. “Steve what did we do the night we jumped? Let’s go over everything we did.”
Steve raised his eyebrows and grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “The earth moved that night, baby, that I remember.”
Kayla smiled back at him and bit her bottom lip. “Yes, it did, didn’t it?”
“Nothin’ but net, baby.”
“Ok, really, though, if we retrace our steps that day, maybe we can figure out what is … out of place.”
“Nothin’ was out of place, Sweetness, it was a regular day, same as all those days we’d been havin’.”
“Well … we did make love for the first time in a long time.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like we’d never made love before.”
“Ok, you’ve got me there. Did we wear anything different?”
“Our clothes? Sweetness, come on, now.”
“Well, I’m trying to think of everything.”
“Ok, baby, ok,” he relented. “Do you remember what we were wearing?”
Kayla thought about it. “No, actually.”
“You had a t-shirt on when we went to bed. The blue one. Remember, you didn’t want to take it off because of your scar.”
Kayla felt a blush redden her cheeks as she looked into his eyes. He reached a hand over to caress her cheek.
“And that’s all you were wearin’ when we finally went to bed, Sweetness.” Kayla smiled shyly.
“Well, did we do anything that day that was weird?”
“Baby, no, we really didn’t. It was just an ordinary day. I think I bought groceries, and I remember Stephanie went out that night with Chelsea.” Kayla crossed her arms and gave an irritated sigh. “Kayla, I’m tryin’ here, but I’m tellin’ you, I don’t remember us doing anything that didn’t belong.”
Her stance softened, and she drew her knees up to her chest and rested her forehead against them. “I don’t know,” she said as the words muffled into her knees. “But I want to go home, too. Together.”
“Sweetness, maybe it’s not something we did. Maybe someone else is doing it to us.”
Kayla’s mouth hung open. “For what reason? Why?”
“Who the hell knows, baby, why did Dimera turn me into a zombie? People pull all kinds of bullshit in that town. It wouldn’t be the first time something impossible happened.”
Kayla’s head was starting to spin with the concept that someone might have taken them out of their bed and started them on a journey through time, and her mouth hung open again. “You think Stefano Dimera is doing this to us?”
“I dunno,” he started to raise his voice as the possibilities ran through his head. “But I think what’s happening is crazy, and I don’t actually have another explanation, like the wrong clothes.”
Now Kayla was getting mad, too. “So, you think this whole discussion is stupid then, is that it?”
“I didn’t say that, Kayla, did I say that? No, I didn’t say that.”
“Why are you yelling at me?” She swung her legs off the bed and stood up.
“I don’t know!” And he stood up, too.
Then they went to each other and embraced. “Sorry,” they both said simultaneously.
Steve kissed the top of her head. “I want to figure it out. I do, baby. I’ll think harder.”
“No, it’s ok. Let’s just give it a rest and try again later.”
Steve leaned down and kissed her. “You’re too good to me, Sweetness.” Then she snaked her hand down from his shoulder over his rear and reached it around to fondle his penis. He enjoyed the feel of his wife touching him, and she felt him harden quickly. “What are you doing, Sweetness?”
“You don’t know?”
Steve chuckled. “Oh, I think I know,” he moaned. “But it’s getting light out. Are the workers – uh, pioneers – gonna show up here?”
“I’m – not sure. What day is it?”
Steve realized that he had no idea. Then it hit him that he was AWOL as Daniel Lucas and that they were on the run. “Kayla, I think we need to get outta here.”
Kayla stopped fondling her husband and quickly realized he was right. “Yeah, we do,” she said. “What do you want to do?”
Steve knew what he wanted to do, but he wasn’t sure if it was the right answer or not. “Kayla, I wasn’t kidding. I really want to go home. Not just to 2009, but to our home. The house. I miss that house. Can we go there?”
“Well, of course we can go there, but … what about Marcus?” She purposely left out Shane’s name.
“Kayla, nothing is going to change. It doesn’t matter what we do. Besides, I can just go to my ISA contact – what was her name?”
“Gail.”
“Right, Gail. I can go to Gail and tell her everything I already know, and then they can go and get ‘em. Marcus is safe if we do that, right?”
“I don’t know, I think so. He took care of me after I walked back last time, but I don’t know for sure.”
Steve ran his hand through his hair and tried not to lose his temper. “Kayla, let’s just go home, ok? We’ll go, take stock, and figure things out.”
“What about Faith?”
“Dammit. I don’t know. Maybe if we just expose them all now it’ll be better in the end, anyway. Maybe avoid Taylor being killed, too.” Then he threw up his arms in frustration. “But it doesn’t matter, ‘cause it’s all gonna reset when we jump, dammit!”
Kayla knew he was right. And she wanted to go home, too. “Ok, let’s go,” she said. “But … how are we going to get there? It’s too long a walk back to Salem, I know that from the first time.” He hated to say it, but he couldn’t think of a better plan. “Well,” he said. “There’s gotta be a phone in one of these buildings. Let’s call Marcus.”