December 16, 1987
Of all the things you expect to see when you wake up in the morning, your apartment from 20 years ago isn’t one of them. But that’s exactly where Kayla now found herself, because that brick wall with the tall windows not 10 feet away was, without a doubt, the east wall of the loft. The sight was so bewildering she just couldn’t help the little scream of shock.
Which, of course, caused Steve to be instantly awake. His eye snapped open, and he yelled, “What?! What is it?!”
Startled by the outburst, Kayla had all but forgotten that Steve was snuggled up behind her and turned her head toward him with relief. “Steve!” she shouted, turning back to look at him, which resulted in just as much shock as the loft did, if not more. “Oh my God!” she yelled much louder this time. She took a step back from him, stumbling into the coffee table, and falling backward onto the floor with a thud just as her head cracked against the coffee table. “Ow,” she said grabbing the back of her head and squeezing her eyes shut with the contact.
She opened her eyes to see that the loft was still there. Yet, from her spot on the floor, Kayla just did not understand what she was seeing. The big, green eye of her husband was staring down at her from her old peach couch with an astonished look on his face. Only that wasn’t her husband … exactly. Was it? The disorientation was overwhelming, like waking up from a fever dream, not sure what time it was or how many meals you’ve missed.
“Kayla?” Steve said from his position now leaning up from his left side on the couch. “Baby what are you …” his voice trailing off, not quite knowing what to say.
Kayla shot to her feet and opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. Steve just gaped at her, his eye wide with amazement. “Kay … Kayla …” And that’s all he could say before he had to tear his eye away and drag it slowly across the room while Kayla stood there in stunned stillness.
Steve could not believe what he was seeing. The sight that was his wife – My God, she’s so young –standing in what he immediately knew to be the loft stabbed him with a pang of nostalgia so deep that it throbbed in the pit of his stomach. “I must have had half the bottle to end up in a dream like this. Right down to the sweater. I didn’t even know I remembered that one.”
“How did I get here?” Kayla asked.
“My own dream is asking me questions. Maybe the whole bottle.”
“If this is a joke or … or a surprise or something … if you’re trying to … really, how did you do this?”
“This?”
“You – him! This place! It’s … amazing,” she admitted with a hesitant kind of reverence, “but it’s also weird, Ste—… it’s, ah, weird.”
Steve adjusted his patch. “Yeah, that is weird, baby, I don’t usually dream with thing on.”
“Stop it, ok, just stop it! Who are you?!”
“Who am I? It’s my dream, isn’t it, who do you think I am?”
“You look like Steve, but what I’m seeing is just impossible.”
“I think that’s my line, baby, ‘cause if there’s an impossible vision, you’re it.”
“Great, now it’s creepy, too.”
Steve’s confusion was mounting. “This dream sucks.”
Kayla had moved toward the kitchen and started to sway nervously back and forth. Her eyes darted to various corners of the loft, eyeing the spiral staircase, the fireplace, the door, then back to the man that looked like the Steve she’d fallen in love with many years before, rather than the one she went to bed with the previous night. “If we’re in a dream, then you’re in my dream, because I know damn well that I’m me.” Steve sat up, his blue shirt was only partially buttoned and hung awkwardly at his shoulder from having slept in it all night. His shift in movement caused Kayla to take a step back toward the counter.
Steve did not understand why Kayla was reacting this way toward him; in his worst nightmares, Kayla did not run from him. So, it wasn’t until this retreat that the alarm bells finally started going off in his head. Every impossible thing he was seeing was clearly telling him this was a dream. Kayla looked like she did when she was 25 years old, her beautiful blonde hair in the unmistakable 1980’s style that defined a generation. He remembered the shimmery sweater with gradients of grays and pinks she’d woken up in, though he hadn’t seen it since before he disappeared. And her nails. Much longer than they were yesterday. But with every passing moment, he realized that this was not feeling like any dream he’d ever had. This was no dull existence lived through the fuzzy lens of a brain keeping itself busy while the body rests. This was crisp. This was clear. He could smell the air here. And every detail of the loft came rushing back to him as he recognized little things like the color of the phone, the smudge on the loft door, and the crack in the Formica countertop that Kayla was now gripping. No, this was no dream. This seemed as real as the spring day that was now filled with snow that hadn’t been there when he went to bed.
“What the hell kind of dream is this?” Steve said. “Something’s not right here.”
“Ya think?” Kayla replied anxiously, rocking back and forth, and placing a frustrated hand on her head. Then she froze. Her hair was distinctly not hers. She felt the wave, followed it down to discover a length she hadn’t had in a decade, and smelled the hairspray that she used to use so many years ago.
Her stunned visage looked up at him and said, “Steve, do I look different? Do I … do, I look younger to you?
“You do, baby,” he said as he stood up and came toward her at the counter. You look like an angel, Kayla.”
“So do you,” she said, her doubt apparent. “Different, I mean, you look so different. Like before you went away.” And that’s when Steve knew this wasn’t a dream. He was going crazy again.
“No,” Steve said with anger in his voice. “No, this isn’t happening. I just beat it, I’m finally back, I’m not falling back into that!” His voice was filled with fear, yet the sound of it was like home for Kayla. He sounded so real. Like her Steve, but the long ago one. “Time to wake up, dude. Where’s the button I press, is there a magic word in here or somethin’? I don’t know your magic word, Squire and Crumpets!”
As Steve started pacing around the apartment, thinking for sure he must be back in the loony bin with the thorazine cart on its way, Steve’s panic rose, his worst fears bubbling to the surface. Fears that he wasn’t well, after all, and he was never getting his life back. “Come on, Dimera, show me your little picture cards, bring it on, man, you just leave Kayla out of this!” he yelled to the ceiling.
This evoked a protective surge in Kayla. She couldn’t stand to hear him believe he was insane. She simply wasn’t going back there, and hearing those words out of his much younger mouth made her stop short. Something was definitely very, very wrong here. She quickly decided that not only was this not a dream, it wasn’t even a memory. It was happening. And while he may have looked much younger, could this somehow be her Steve, not some imposter?
Kayla walked over to him and put a steadying hand on his arm. It felt different. Bigger. But doughier. Steve was wound up, and her light touch calmed him down. “I’m sorry I panicked,” she said.
“I don’t know, I think I might be crazy, so panicking might work out, here, Sweetness.”
The use of her pet name was enough to drive it home. “No, you’re not! Steve, look at me, you’re right, this isn’t a dream. I’m real, you’re real.”
“Real young, that’s what you are, Kayla, you look … like when I met you. Like you’re 25 years old again, baby. That sound normal to you?”
“So do you! You look exactly like when we met. And look at this place. The loft.”
“I don’t understand,” Steve said much more quietly, as if someone were, perhaps, watching them.
“What year is it? 2009? It’s March, right? We just made love last night? I was shot?”
“Not in that order.”
Kayla laughed with relief rather than mirth. “Yes, right. It’s me. You’re not crazy, Steve, ‘cause if you are, then that’s both of us this time.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I do have company, then, ‘cause this is just all kinds of wrong, baby, look at this place.”
“Look at you,” Kayla whispered in wonder. She looked at Steve and just could barely process it. She couldn’t get over his long hair and how it fell over his sleepy right eye.
“Look at me? Look at you. What is up with your hair, baby?”
“My hair,“ she rebuffed, “you should see yours, Bon Jovi!”
“Hey, I thought you liked it long.”
“I did,” Kayla chuckled.
“Yeah, well, laugh it up, baby, I seem to remember some big hair on that head of yours.” Not so big at the moment, it fell in soft, golden waves, framing the face that he fell in love with the minute he saw it all those years ago.
Then her gaze fell to Steve’s jeans and Kayla couldn’t resist one more playful comment in this surreal conversation that she wasn’t really convinced she was having. “Yes, well, I should just point out your jeans.”
Steve looked down and squared his stance. “What about my jeans? I had these broken in so great back then.”
“Really,” she said with consummate doubt. “You couldn’t possibly have been comfortable.”
“Are you kiddin’, these were comfy.”
“Are you sure? Doesn’t look like a lot of room in there.”
Steve momentarily forgot to be freaked out and raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t know you were lookin’.”
“Well your butt does look pretty good I’ll give you that,” she said with a small but sexy smile, “but I’m surprised we made babies in those.”
With the mention of babies, Steve and Kayla’s demeanor changed and their smiles dropped immediately. “Steve,” Kayla gasped with the kind of fear that grips you at your core.
“Oh God,” Steve said, his fear matching her own.
“Where’s Joe?”