Monday was quite a day for the Brady family. When Steve woke up the house was quiet, Shawn and Caroline both having already left for their separate fish market duties. After rolling over and trying to get back to sleep, he gave up and rose for an early shower. Much as he wanted to run into Kayla, he didn’t want to encourage her to explore any farther than she already had. Not until the rest of her got there. It was important to him to wait for the rest of his wife to arrive before anything truly intimate happened. Kissing her and loving her felt right. Wanting her felt very right. Acting on it without her did not.
Still, he couldn’t help but take a peek to see her sleep. He very quietly rolled her door open enough to peer inside and saw her sound asleep. He wanted to crawl in behind her and assume their favorite position – introduce it to her. But instead he smiled slightly, closed the door, and got ready for the day.
Steve was surprised to see Caroline when he arrived in the kitchen. “C-Mrs. Brady …” he almost called her by her first name. Don’t blow your cover, dude. “I thought you’d be downstairs making the chowder for the day.”
“Oh, it’s simmering now,” she said, “just making some hot tea and toast for Kayla.”
“Oh?” Steve asked, recognizing that as her go-to sick remedy.
“Yes, she’s feeling a little under the weather. I do hope you don’t catch anything sharing a bathroom with her and all. I’d offer you Kimmie’s old room, but it’s my sewing room now, so there’s nowhere to sleep anymore.”
“Oh, that’s—alright—” Kayla was sick?
“Did you three have a nice time last night?”
“Yes, very nice time,” Steve said, hoping she wasn’t playing dumb and had actually heard what a good time it was. Steve knew Caroline wasn’t so naïve as to think that all they shared after they’d had not one but two public dates was still a bathroom, but he appreciated her attempt to skirt around it. “So, what’s she got the flu or something? She seemed fine last night.”
“I doubt it, I think it’s just a cold coming on. She doesn’t even have a fever.”
“Oh,” Steve nodded. He wasn’t sure what to say.
“Well, help yourself to breakfast, Bo will probably sleep until noon. I don’t know how you kids do that.” Steve chuckled. Sleeping until lunch didn’t seem half bad. “I have to get back downstairs to the kitchen, so I’m just going to drop this with Kayla. When David gets here, can you tell him that she won’t be going to class today?”
Steve was a bit concerned that Kayla wasn’t feeling well, but that she wasn’t going to class meant he could be with her all day, and his stomach flipped. More time with his wife! “Yeah, sure,” he replied. If Kayla had been going to class, he would have offered to help in the market, further solidifying his plan. But with her at home he didn’t actually want to give anyone any ideas to commandeer him today.
Once Caroline left Steve went back to his room and slowly slid open Kayla’s bathroom door while averting his eyes. “You decent?” he called.
“Yes, I am,” she said with an obvious smile on her face. “Come in.”
He did, and her adorable bed head fell in limp curls down over her shoulders. She was under her covers sitting up in bed, nibbling on her toast.
“Your mama said you’re sick. Were you feeling sick last night?”
Kayla hung her head a little bit, but the smile playing on her lips confused him. “No, wasn’t feeling sick last night.”
“Ok, well that’s good.” He put his hand on her forehead just to check for himself, and she felt normal.
“Not feeling sick now, either.”
Steve let his hand drop. “What?”
“I’m playing hooky” she whispered conspiratorially.
“Kayla,” Steve said in an admonishing tone. “What are you doin’, Sweetness?”
“I couldn’t help it,” she said looking adorably guilty. “I wanted to spend the day with you.”
Part of Steve was elated that he’d get to spend the day with her, but another part that was slowly increasing in size was apprehensive, because he was going to have a very hard time resisting her.
“Baby, what part of “I’m not going back to the ship Wednesday” did you not understand? We have time, and you have college, you can’t just skip class for me.”
She knew she was being scolded, but the look on his face said something very different.
“So, you’re mad at me?” she asked knowing full well he wasn’t. He glared at her, trying not to give away his happiness that he’d get to be with her. Kayla held up her plate. “I’ll share my toast with you,” she said reproachfully.
“I dunno, I don’t wanna catch anything.”
Kayla shoved the toast into his mouth and forced him to take a bite, which he swallowed while glaring at her with mock annoyance. “Uh oh, too late,” she said wiping crumbs off of his chin. “Now they’re gonna have to quarantine us together.”
Steve’s heart dropped as the memory she did not yet have within her came roaring back to him. Quarantine. Nearly dying. Suddenly his future hit him at once, and it was all he could do not to flinch. Steve didn’t remember at the time that he loved her – he’d forgotten … how could he have forgotten he loved her? He knew, now, how that happened, because he’d since lived it. But he didn’t completely forget how he felt about her, because when push came to shove, he felt terror course through him when her heart monitor flat-lined and desperately filled her with the will to live in his kiss. Unbidden, this set off the image of the photos Stefano’s men had doctored, convincing him that she’d died a horrendous death. Where are you, baby? I need you! God, I need you! Steve shuddered, and Kayla stopped joking.
“What is it? Did I go too far?” Steve looked up at her, finally shaken from these memories he had to suffer through alone, because she could never understand. “I’m sorry,” she said, seeing that something had turned.
“No,” Steve rasped. “No, I … just was reminded of something.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, placing her hand on his arm. He looked at her and wished with all his heart that his 2009 Kayla – his primary Kayla, he thought – was there. He hadn’t let himself think of the cell of his last jump lately, but now it weighed heavily on his mind. And he needed her to understand it, too. But she couldn’t, he realized. And she never would. Kayla saw the melancholy return to Steve’s eyes, and Steve could tell that she was confused. Concerned.
Steve nodded. “Yeah,” he said, regaining his composure. “I’m ok. Come here.” He gathered her up into his arms and held her against him.
“Are … are you sure?” she asked again. His bear hug felt different. Anxious.
No. I’m not. Because it’s been … my God, it’s been eleven days that I’ve been here without you, and you still don’t remember that I’m your husband, and I’ve been so caught up in getting the privilege of being with this you in this part of your life that I forgot to wonder where the hell you were. So, no, I’m not ok, baby. Please come home to me, I can’t take much more without you.
“Still love me?” she asked with more than a small dose of insecurity. “Or was I dreaming?”
The familiarity was so hard for him to get past. He’d heard her use that phrase so many times in their shared lifetime. Only this Kayla hadn’t shared it with him, had she?
Steve smiled bittersweetly. “Sure do,” he said. Because it was true. He did love her. But without the memories of their shared experiences, he felt like a part of their love was missing. And that’s because it was.
“Good,” she said pulling back and getting out of bed. This nightgown was considerably shorter, and Steve felt wrong seeing it. “Kiss me after I brush my teeth.”
“Baby, you need to put a robe on when you send David on his way. Actually, nevermind, I’ll send him on his way.”
Steve calmed down and forced himself not to panic. There was nothing he could do but wait, it’s not like he could make a phone call and inquire as to the whereabouts of his Kayla like she had a tracking number or something. So, he let David know Kayla wasn’t feeling well today when he arrived, and he just moved on; it was all he could do.
They spent all morning relaxing and watching TV. Eventually the anxiety passed, and Steve let himself enjoy the feel of her sitting so close to him. He kissed her sweetly several times, and Kayla deepened the kiss on more than one occasion. He felt so conflicted. He wanted so badly to feel her with him like this, but very soon she was going to want more, and putting her off was going to hurt her feelings in ways she would never be able to rationalize. He couldn’t deal with it, so he pushed it away.
Steve also took this opportunity to do his laundry. Kayla offered enthusiastically, and she really wanted to do it for him. But he didn’t need her seeing the one pair of crusty underwear that he’d already buried deep within his pile and insisted on doing it himself. It took him a minute to process the ancient washer and dryer, but ultimately appreciated the simplicity of the old school dials.
They talked a lot, too. About everything. He knew her so well, but there was so much he discovered that was new to him, too, and it really surprised him. Like how she almost went to veterinary school instead of going into nursing. He’d known her for 23 years (well, now it was longer), and he’d never heard that before (how?). And not for dogs and cats, either. No, apparently she wanted to doctor elephants. She talked about how she’d seen a PBS special years ago on the mistreatment of Africa’s wildlife and how there was a reserve in Kenya for them now and that she wanted to become a vet, go to Africa, and open her own wildlife reserve. Apparently, she was just two siblings short of that plan. When she saw what both Roman and Kimberly leaving home did to her parents she decided that nursing people here in Salem would be ok, too. Then when Bo left she knew she’d made the right choice.
“And here I thought you were at a disadvantage with us.”
“What do you mean?” she asked as they absently let their fingers lace in and out of each other.
“I know a lot about you, Kayla. Your brother told me all about his family, and trust me when I say I could have picked you out of a crowd before we even met. You don’t really know that much about me.”
Kayla was fascinated and turned herself a way from Bob Barker and his showcase showdown. “Like what do you know about me?”
“I know you love hot fudge sundaes.”
“Ok, what’s your favorite food, then?”
Steve got a very weird feeling of déjà vu with this, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.
“Lobster,” he said, “but I hear you like to set those free.”
“Yes, whatever you do, don’t take me out for lobster,” she said.
Too late for that. “I know that you are persistent. You’re incapable of letting things go until you get what you want. Or fix whatever’s gone wrong. I know that you will fight until the bitter end for what you believe in, and you don’t believe in leaving people behind. You couldn’t; it’s not in you.”
“You got all that from Bo?” she asked in wonderment.
“Some. Some not.”
Kayla made her own assumptions from that and brought his knuckle up to her lips and kissed it. Then she turned his hand over in hers. “You have such gentle hands,” she said. Then Steve laughed when she stuck her foot up into his lap for him to rub it.
“You liked that yesterday, huh?” he said.
“Oh yeah.” Then she moaned in pleasure as he went to work on the spots he already knew she loved most. “Mm … how do you do that? That’s really good.” Because I’ve been doing it for years. “A man willing to rub my feet? You’re a keeper,” she said. “Only now I can’t put the genie back in the bottle, and I want it all the time.”
A feeling of dread came over Steve that he expertly hid knowing the same would go for any other activity they engaged in, not just the rubbing of feet. Or kissing. Or feeling her breast through the fabric of her sweater. And he knew then and there what he’d been denying and trying not to think about all day; that he had to begin pulling away. Not because he didn’t want to or because he felt like she wasn’t actually Kayla, but because he had no possible future with her. His primary Kayla was going to arrive, and then this Kayla enjoying her foot rub … Oh my God … she was going to be gone. He was making memories that she was never going to retain. Unless she never ca—NO.
It was going to be hard, he realized as he elicited more sighs of pleasure from the actions he was working on her foot, but he simply would not be intimate with her. He wasn’t sorry for having kissed her and for having told her how much he loved her, because he did love her. This woman was Kayla. Just because all of her wasn’t there didn’t make it any less her, and she, herself, had told him that. But he couldn’t make any significant memories that only he would end up possessing. It wasn’t fair to him, and it wasn’t fair to her, either. Oh, Sweetness, I see how hard it must have been on you when I returned, and you were the only one who remembered our life together. He thought. I’m so sorry, baby. He had to slow them down to a screeching halt until Primary Kayla got there. He didn’t know how to do that without hurting her. He didn’t know what to do. So, he put it on hold. For the moment.
Just after 11:30 Bo found Steve and Kayla still on the living room couch watching The Family Feud and disagreeing vehemently on what the survey said. He plopped down next to them and rubbed his temples. Wow, Steve thought to himself, talk about bed head. Bo looked like he’d had one hell of a night.
“Welcome to the land of the living, little brother,” Kayla said.
Bo looked at the clock, confused. “Class over?”
“Wasn’t feeling well this morning. But I’m better now. I think it was just a headache.”
Bo rolled his eyes. “Riiiight. K, Sis, whatever.”
“Don’t whatever me, Mr. Snuck in at Three AM.”
“Hey, do I comment on what you do with Steve in your bathroom at night?” Kayla flushed while Steve paled. “Yeah, so shut up.”
“Do you think Mom and Pop know?” she asked, her so-called insouciance showing its true face. Steve hoped to God they didn’t.
“Nah, I think you and your stray are safe.”
They ate a quick lunch together, then Bo tried to disappear. Steve was on him quick and reminded him that they were going down to Salem High School to re-register for his senior year. In reality he’d missed not even three whole months, and if he really applied himself, he might actually make a June graduation a reality. Steve decided that for as long as this jump lasted, he’d help Bo make that a reality, and he’d already snuck a phone call in to the school while Kayla was showering to find out what paperwork was needed. He was really dumbfounded at what wasn’t required at the time, including the registrant to have his parent or guardian do the registering. Ass-backwards school district ya got here, 1979. Steve was starting to get tired of feeling like the parent instead of the peer.
Bo didn’t fight Steve on it when he reminded him that they had to go run this errand, the code for which Bo understood immediately, but Steve could see his friend was apprehensive.
Kayla, on the other hand, was confused and a little bit upset upon hearing that Steve was going to leave for a bit. “Why can’t I come with?” she asked.
“Because you’re ‘sick,’ baby, and I don’t want your mama thinking you blew off class just to be with me.”
“So you mean you don’t want her to know the truth,” Bo said. Steve laughed because it was the truth.
“But I thought we were going to go do some shopping.”
“Well, now that my stuff is clean, maybe we can do it tomorrow.” Kayla pouted and went to her room.
“She likes to get her way, man,” Bo said.
“Just wait, I’ll be right out and we’ll go.”
Steve went into her room through her bedroom door without knocking and found her sitting on the edge of her bed with her arms crossed and her chin stuck out in defiance. He knelt in front of her and her impetuous youth hit him. He knew this part of her, he just hadn’t seen it manifest in so long.
“Don’t be like this, baby.”
“I didn’t stay home from class so you could go play with Bo.”
“It won’t take long, Kayla, just relax. I’ll be home before your mom comes home to start dinner.” Home. It struck him how much this place felt like his home. “You trust me, baby, you’re not going to be disappointed.”
“What do you mean?”
“Kayla, just hang out. Study. And if you’re still mad at me by the end of dinner, I’ll make it up to you.”
Now Kayla smiled. “How?” she cooed suggestively.
Steve kissed her, and her tongue teased his languidly. Dammit, she was getting more aggressive, and he felt himself pulling back even as she did so. She was not going to be satisfied with their current level of intimacy, and he missed being with her so much that resisting her was going to hurt them both. He started to feel the tendrils of resentment and panic rise back up in him that she wasn’t there yet and wanted to know why. “We’ll be back soon.” He assured her. Then he added, “I love you.” He said it in a whisper, but he wasn’t sure why.
“Ok, you’re already forgiven,” she said. “Go.” She continued to pout, but this one was forced.
Steve stood up and from the doorway had a moment of weakness. “Don’t I get an I love you back?” He needed to hear it. Because he was losing his mind, he didn’t know where his 2009 Kayla was, and his insecurity was getting the better of him. What if she didn’t arrive at all? Then this was still Kayla, and he loved her and didn’t want to damage her. Them. Himself. He was feeling selfish and guilty for the selfishness.
“I love you,” she smiled.
She really did. And he really knew it. But it felt somewhat hollow to him, anyway, because this whole experience was going to be like it never happened. The realization that began trickling in to him earlier only intensified, and he became inordinately sad. He loved this girl before him so much, but part of her was missing, and there was no getting around that. And it was a big part, because it held so much of who she would become. Could they really be the same girl? Maybe … maybe Kayla was wrong about that when she assured him of it back in Italy. Now that he’d lived it, he knew for sure that they were definitely not two different people; but they weren’t exactly the same, either. But she felt like his wife, and he had a hard time separating the love he had for her from the love he had for 2009 Kayla.
Steve was so confused. He couldn’t put it into words, but the fact was that Steve had not, in fact, re-fallen in love with her, because he’d never stopped being in love with her. Kayla was a gem with many facets, and this time in her life was a facet that he just hadn’t seen yet. Now that he had, the newness re-awakened the love more intensely inside him, in part because it was new, but in larger part because he needed her so badly. The intensity of the love that poured out of him last night when The Rose played was a continued healing response from the trauma of the previous weeks. It didn’t, however, make his love for any version of her any less true.
The final realization gelled in his mind, and the big picture was now very clear. He hated it. But it was clear. If only these memories would stay within her once his primary Kayla arrived it would be different, but he knew from experience that that simply wasn’t going to happen. We really are in the Twilight Zone, Kayla.
Steve and Bo returned long after Caroline had come upstairs to find her daughter perfectly healthy and wondered if she was faking it all along. Kayla knew her mother’s look and assured her that she really was feeling sick this morning but was much better now. Caroline wasn’t sure what to think, but the fact that Steve was not actually there and had left the house with Bo for a while made her think that what Kayla said was probably true. She grunted her doubt, anyway, and let her daughter help her.
“That was some errand,” Kayla snarked teasingly when the two of them showed up in the kitchen. Bo grabbed an apple and threw one to Steve, and they both began chomping.
“Yeah, we had some stuff to do, but now I’ve got more to wear than head-to-toe black.”
“You went shopping without me?” That didn’t make her happy.
“Yeah, it was on the way, so I just picked up a couple things.”
“Yeah, Steve bought a gold lamme’ disco suit,” Bo teased.
Kayla snorted out a laugh, diffusing her anger a bit, and her mother couldn’t help but join her.
“Real funny, Bo,” Steve said with a wide smile he couldn’t help, because the image of himself in such a getup amused even him.
Kayla turned around and hugged Bo. “You always make me laugh, little brother. I wish you weren’t leaving.”
Bo shot a knowing look at Steve then at the slumped shoulders of his mother, whose back was to them as she stirred a pot. Then he closed his eyes and hugged Kayla back. He didn’t say anything, and Steve didn’t out him. This was Bo’s secret to tell. And since he’d convinced Bo to go back to school tomorrow and not Thursday, he knew Bo was going to be telling it in very short order.
It was a typical Brady dinner with easy conversation and Bo and Steve wolfing down everything on their plates and Steve forcing himself not to meet Kayla’s eyes quite as much as he otherwise would have. Shawn still looked distracted to Steve, however, and this time his father-in-law caught his eye on him. Steve looked away quickly and went back to the last of his pot roast.
Now the meal was over and Bo still hadn’t said anything. There were plenty of good opportunities to have spoken up, but they all went by, and Steve was, frankly, tired of Bo acting like a child. Then he remembered that Bo was a child even if the first time he went through the beginnings of their friendship it didn’t seem that way. Of course, it didn’t Steve wasn’t a 53-year-old man then. And he didn’t really like it, either. When things felt like old times or Bo was the same Bo he’d left back in 2009, it was great. But the times that Bo acted his age, Steve felt the years he had on him like the heavy weight of parenthood. Which made sense, because in real time he was more than old enough to be Bo’s father – it felt wrong, and he resented it. If Steve’s physique was a perk of this jump, feeling the life’s wisdom he’d accumulated by the sheer fact that he’d lived longer than any of them was its drawback.
Finally, Steve had enough and nudged Bo. Bo shot him a look that said, I’ll get to it, and Steve shot him one back that said, no time like the present. Shawn didn’t miss any of that and insisted they fess up on whatever it was they were silently discussing, as if he didn’t know, he’d been waiting since he walked through that swinging door downstairs the day before. He’d kept this knowledge from Caroline, because if it didn’t end up happening it would break her heart all over again. So he anticipated and hoped for it alone as the gears turned in his head.
“I think Bo has something he wants to tell you,” Steve started him off, and Steve was pleased to see Kayla’s attention shift from him to her little brother that she loved more than anything else in the world.
“What’s wrong,” Kayla asked, “Is everything ok?”
“Bo?” Caroline added, “what is it, dear?”
Bo looked at his empty plate and then took a swig of his root beer just like he did with the long necks of real beer he was currently a year too young to drink.
“Nothin’, it’s no big deal, I just – I was thinkin’ –” he shifted in his seat, and Steve was about to pop him one. “I decided that I’m gonna try to go back to high school instead of goin’ back to the merchant mar—”
The melee began before he could even finish his sentence. The three of them erupted in woots and cries and tears of joy from his mother as Bo let them all embrace him and shower him with kisses and claps on the back. Kayla ran around the table and sat across Bo’s lap with her arms around his neck.
“You’re squeezin’ the life outta me, again, Kay!” he choked out.
“I can’t help it, I’m just so happy, she cried … I don’t have to work the fish market every weekend anymore!”
“That’s why you’re happy? Why I oughtta!” Bo mocked as he wrapped his hands around her neck and pretended to squeeze while not a single part of his fingers were actually touching the delicate skin of her neck that Steve so badly wanted to taste and, therefore, looked away from.
“So did ya get it outta yer system, then, son?” Shawn asked hopefully.
“I dunno about that, Pop, but … we’ll see what happens if I graduate.”
“Oh, you’ll graduate if I have anythin’ to say about it,” Shawn said.
“What made you change your mind?” Caroline asked with tears still in her eyes that her son wasn’t going back to sea. Steve scratched the back of his neck and found something very interesting on his plate to push around.
“This uptight guy here threatened to make them give me janitor duty if I didn’t stay home.”
“Ya did nothin’ of the kind,” Shawn said. “Ya convinced my boy to do what was best for him, that’s what. Didn’t ya?” Shawn said.
Steve didn’t do it to gather accolades, but he really did want a better life for Bo. Steve really wasn’t going back no matter what, so even with Bo’s promise to steer clear of the bad news, keeping him here in Salem meant there definitely wouldn’t be any Stockholm. No bonds. No Britta. No KGB. “I just thought he’d be better off with a high school diploma. He decided it, sir, I just gave him some incentive.”
“What do you mean by incentive?” Caroline asked. Shawn tried not to smile.
Steve took a deep breath. This was it. “Well … I’ve decided to leave the merchant marines, myself.”
Shawn didn’t react because he already knew. So did Kayla, but she wisely stayed silent as a smile of happiness spread across her face. One minute ago she thought Bo would be leaving in two more days, now the prospect of not just him but Steve also staying sent a warm glow through her body. Steve took a breath; he swore she was giving off light. He had to have her in his arms as soon as possible. How was he going to push her away when he loved her so much? You’ve done it before, he thought miserably to himself.
“I see,” Shawn said. “And why’s that?”
Steve had prepared for this line of questioning and had all his ducks in a row. He explained to them that being a mariner could get old after a while, and he was ready for solid ground. He also couldn’t help but tell them how much their hospitality and truly welcoming actions had influenced him. It was true, too, he didn’t have to make that up. He did gloss over the fact that Kayla was the main part of it, but Shawn knew that because he’d already overheard it.
When Steve was finished answering questions, Shawn eyed him over his crossed arms from the head of the table, a gesture that was more familiar to Steve than any of them knew. “Steven, I asked ya to help me count out the drawer yesterday.” Steve nodded. “I seen ya mop and work the counter. Can ye catch a fish?”
“Shawn, what are you—” Caroline started, but her husband cut her off.
“Can ye catch a fish, lad?”
“Yes sir, I can.”
“Ye got yerself a plan, or were ye gonna just squat in my son’s room for the next few months?”
Uh oh. “Not at all, sir, I am planning on finding a job, and I won’t stay a minute longer than—”
“That’s where yer wrong.”
“Excuse me?” Steve was as hopeful that this was the moment he’d worked for as he was worried it had started to unravel.
“You’ll be stayin’ a while. If you’re gonna be working the fish market with me, then I’ll need ya close by, and if you’re gonna save any of the money I’m gonna be payin’ ya then you’ll need a low rent, so free room and board will be part of yer compensation, now.”
Every face around the Brady dining room table was agape. And every one of them turned up into a smile, none more so than Steve’s. It worked. I can’t believe it, it really worked. I’m takin’ care of us, baby. For as long as we’re here, I’m taking care of us! Come on home to me!
“You’re offering me a job? And a—”
“And a home, that’s what I’m offerin’ ya, son.”
Despite the fact that he’d planned for this very result, Steve couldn’t help but be overwhelmed. They’d known him five days. Did he manipulate his way in? Yes. But he came by it honestly, and he wasn’t sorry. What was his alternative, move out and be separated from Kayla? No. Well, I guess you’re a fish monger again, dude. Until he jumped, anyway. Whenever that was going to be.
“Thank you, Mr. Brady.” He wasn’t faking the gratitude in his voice. “I’m so grateful, thank you. I’d …,” he looked to Kayla still sitting across Bo’s lap, and the two of them had shocked but hopeful looks on their faces; their unofficial approval perfectly clear. Shawn saw Steve ask for their permission with that look and felt even more warmth for the boy than he did before. “… I’d like to accept your offer.”
Shawn held his hand out, and Steve shook it happily. He really was grateful, because although the Brady’s had no idea, they were giving him and their daughter the safest place they could possibly be on any jump to date. When Kayla got there she was going to be in her own home with her family around her. Seeing her pop alive again was going to rip her heart out emotionally again, that would be tough on her. But, they weren’t going to have to scramble to figure out how to avoid separation, and they weren’t going to have to figure out who was where. It was a port in the storm, that’s what Shawn had just offered Steve. And the fact was that Steve had made damned sure to arrange for it.
So, finally, it was done. Bo was going back to school tomorrow, and he ran off to call Bart and Ted and dig up the text books he’d shoved under his bed (because he really was excited even if he pretended not to be). Steve was set to start tomorrow morning, but not so bright and early. Shawn would tend to the morning catch like always, and Steve would meet him in the fish market at 8:30 AM for his first paid day on the job. It would be a vastly reduced wage in return for the free roof, but the roof was what mattered most here, in the first place; the income was secondary.
As the evening wrapped up for each of them, Steve felt like a weight had lifted off of his shoulders: Income, a roof over their heads, and no threat of separation. Another weight remained, however: His Kayla wasn’t there yet, and the other Kayla was falling more in love with him by the day. The struggle at knowing he was going to be pushing her away clawed at him.
Steve was in the overgrown closet that served as the Brady’s laundry room gathering up the dried clothing he’d forgotten when an intense feeling of loss came over him. He’d achieved a major goal, and he was happy about that, but he missed his Kayla intensely. He needed her to get there, and for the first time he allowed himself to wonder if she’d gotten lost in time. Where was she? It had never been eleven hours, let alone eleven days separating their arrivals in any one jump. How could he have let himself lose focus of that fact?
Because he was scared. He was scared she was never coming. And he just couldn’t face that possibility.
The Kayla of this time found the man she loved staring at his socks and snuck up on him. “Hey sailor,” she said sweetly, and Steve jumped.
“Jesus, don’t do that!” he said very harshly.
Kayla recoiled. “I—I’m sorry, I—I just … I wanted to tell you how … how happy I was, and – kiss you …”
Her voice was breathy and taken aback, and Steve felt immediately terrible. The look on her face wasn’t just hurt, it was almost lost. He’d lashed out that significantly and overreacted that much that he’d actually hurt her feelings.
“I’m sorry,” Steve softened as he reached for her, but she stiffened. No, he realized, I didn’t just hurt her feelings, I scared her. God, I scared my wife. “Please, Sweetness, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you and I just overreacted.” He took her in his arms and kissed her lovingly on the head.
“Why are you mad at me?” Her voice was meek. Unsure.
He knew he should take this opportunity and run with it. But … he didn’t have it in him. He might have 20 years ago, but not anymore. Not only would it appear that he’d been using her to get a job, but he just no longer had the capacity to hurt her, even if he thought it was for her own good. “I just got startled, that’s all, baby, I’m not mad at you,” he tried to reassure her. Boy, he’d really done a number on her, he realized.
“Not just now, I mean all day, you’ve been … different.”
She knew, Steve realized. She sensed the change in Steve’s willingness to be with her, and she was feeling insecure. Dammit! It was what he wanted, but also not at all what he wanted. She sensed his struggle and pulled back to look at him. The look in her eye was curious and apprehensive, and Steve hated himself for putting that look there.
“Touch me,” Kayla said.
“What?”
Kayla took Steve’s hand and placed it on her breast. “Touch me,” she said more forcefully.
“Kayla, stop it,” he said pulling his hand away like she was a flame, “your parents could see us.”
“I don’t care,” she dared him.
“Well, I do!”
“Something is wrong, Steve, and I want to know what!”
Steve gathered up his clothes and started for his room. “I’m not doing this here, come on.”
Kayla followed him into his room through the bedroom door, and Steve closed it behind her. Then he went to her room and closed hers. He would not jeopardize their arrangement and risk getting himself kicked out.
“Ok, we’re alone,” she said.
“Lower your voice, Kayla, I mean it.”
“Fine,” she whispered, “we’re alone. Now what did I do? Why are you mad?”
“You didn’t do anything, I’m not mad at you.”
“Then why are you acting like a different person now? You didn’t try to touch me at all when we were alone on the couch this morning. Then you barely looked my way at dinner. Now you actually pulled your hand away! Don’t … don’t you … love me?”
Steve’s heart clenched. “I do love you, Kayla. You can’t know how much, don’t you think for a minute that that’s not true.” He refused to tell her he didn’t love her. He’d lied to her about not loving her in the past, and it killed him. No matter what the complexity he was facing, he refused to let her think he didn’t love her.
“Then why won’t you touch me?”
Steve wasted no time bringing her into his embrace and holding her tightly. How was he going to do this? How? “I love you, Kayla. Do you feel me here with my arms around you? I know you do.”
Kayla melted into him and tried not to cry. His words did not match what she felt in her gut. “Do you think you’re too old for me?”
“No, that’s not it.”
“That’s not it, but it is something!”
Sh*t. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to,” she started to cry.
“Kayla, please.”
“Sweetness,” she said. “What happened to Sweetness?”
“Nothing happened to it, baby,” he insisted as he pulled her away by her shoulders and held her out to look at him. “Nothing happened to it, you’re always going to be my Sweetness.”
“You said everything right last night, you … you played me …”
“No!” Now it was Steve whose voice needed to be lowered. “No,” he said far more softly. “Don’t you say that. I love you. I love you more than you can possibly know. I wouldn’t say those words if I didn’t mean them. I am in love with you, Kayla Caroline Brady, and don’t you doubt that for one damned minute.”
Now the corners of her mouth turned up. “I just don’t understand what’s happened, then. My pop just made my dreams come true offering you a job and now the man I love is sleeping in the next room permanently, and suddenly you … I don’t know, you withdraw. But I felt it first thing this morning. Last night you sang me the most beautiful love song I’ve ever heard, and I’ll never forget it for as long as I live …”
Oh, Kayla. You will forget, that’s the problem. I have the honor of remembering it for both of us.
“… and now something’s different. Overnight something’s different.”
Steve’s heart raced, and he tried to adjust his patch again.
“Why do you do that?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“Touch your eye like that sometimes. I think you do it when you’re nervous or maybe thinking about something that bothers you. You go and touch your eye.”
Steve smiled. “You’re right, nervous habit. Old battle scars.”
Kayla nodded, but she didn’t smile. “I believe that you love me,” she said. “But if I stood here and took off all my clothes, I don’t think you’d let yourself have me.”
Steve nodded. “You’re right.”
“Why? If you love me, why not show me? Why wouldn’t you make love to me?”
“Because it wouldn’t be right.”
“Are you ever going to make love to me?”
Steve’s green eyes met her blue ones, and he felt their souls ache to be together. “Yes. When the time is right.” She crossed her arms and looked away. Steve tipped her chin to look at him. “You’re going to have to trust me, Sweetness. You trust me.” She nodded unenthusiastically. “Kayla? I love you.” Then he kissed her quickly. “I. Love. You. Don’t forget it.” He kissed her again a little more deeply, but he didn’t let his hands wander past the back of her head, and she accepted what he’d said.
But Steve knew that Kayla knew that things were off.
That night Bo came into Steve’s room while Kayla was getting ready for bed and sat on his bed. “What’s up, Beauregard? Nervous for your first day of school?” he joked. But Bo looked down into his hands without laughing. “Aw, I’m sorry, man, you are, aren’t you?” Bo nodded. “You shouldn’t be, ya know.”
“Steve, those guys … they’re smart. They’re going to college. I’ve never been smart like that.”
Steve put his hand on Bo’s shoulder. “Bart? That guy is a doorknob, dude.” Bo laughed. “Seriously, if Bart was a tool he’d be the dullest one in the shed. I’m not so sure about that Ted guy, either.”
“Ted’s no slouch,” Bo assured him.
“Yeah, well I don’t like him. But you do, and that’s ok, but I’m telling you, Bo, and I wouldn’t like to you, those two guys don’t have a thing that you don’t have, too.”
“They have college acceptance letters.”
“Well, who says you need the same kind of college? Maybe you wanna go to the police academy, huh? Maybe you wanna be a private investigator.” That perked up Bo’s ears. “Maybe you wanna rise up the ranks at the docks, become a supervisor, then a foreman, then maybe own the whole g*ddamned company, huh?
“You think I could do that?”
“No, I know you can do that. Or maybe you can work with your pop and take over the family business.”
“I think he’s got you in mind for that.”
That stopped Steve cold. “Bo, that’s your father down there.” The thought of breathing a word about Victor Kiriakis didn’t so much as enter Steve’s mind. “I wouldn’t dream of stepping in your way. I would leave here tomorrow if you wanted the job. Do you want the job?”
“You would?”
“Yes. Is that what you want?”
Bo smiled. “Naw, I hate deboning fish, I really do.”
Steve was relieved. “Ok then. Now, listen, you get in that bed, get a good night’s sleep, and you study your ass off for the next three or four months, and if it takes summer school or even a whole extra semester or a year, I don’t care, but you do it, and I’ll be there for you.”
Bo did a rare thing for this time in his life. He hugged Steve. “Thanks, man,” he whispered. “For watchin’ out for me all this time.” Then he quickly let go and went back to his room without another word.
“Nope, there won’t be any Stockholm this time, that’s for damn sure.”
“What’s in Stockholm?” Kayla asked from behind his bathroom door she’d just opened.
“Nothin’, baby,” he said with a smile.
“I … I wanted to say goodnight,” she said tentatively.
Steve saw how apprehensive she was but also that she was willing to give them the time he said they needed while he waited for the rest of her to show up. He wasn’t sure how long that would last, but he’d succeeded in buying them some time. Steve went to her and looked down upon her beautiful face with her hair up in her pony-tail, and caressed her cheek. “I do love you,” he whispered.
“I love you, too.” She looked at him like she’d never see him again, and he gathered her into his embrace and held her close. He started swaying her in the doorway to The Rose playing in his head, then pulled back and kissed her very sweetly.
“Goodnight, baby, sleep well. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Kayla smiled back at him and nodded. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For coming into my life.”
“Baby, I’m the thankful one. Then he kissed her lips once more, and she licked her lips and smiled. Then she closed the bathroom door.
Steve sighed heavily in his bed and stared up at Ernie Banks. Thoughts drifted to his Primary Kayla and where the hell she was and if he’d ever see her again. He let a tear fall out of the corner of his eye. Then another one. Then a whole series of them. His wife was lost, and he didn’t know what he was going to do.
The nightmare that gripped Steve was frightening. He stood at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and shouted at the top of his lungs. But no sound was coming out. Above him where the sky should have been was a miasma of color that might have looked beautiful to anyone else, but to him looked angry and torturous. Kayla was in there, he knew she was. He jumped but couldn’t get his feet to leave the ground, and he let out silent screams for her, but he couldn’t make his voice carry. Where was his wife? He needed his wife.
Kayla shot open her eyes to a darkened room that felt familiar. “Steve?” she called out softly, and her voice in her own head sounded a little strange. She realized she was still laying in a bed, though Clyde was gone. She focused on what was directly in her line of sight to try to figure out where she was. It was a clock with white-numbered black tiles that flipped over with each passing minute that said 1:23 AM. Wherever she was, it was the middle of the night. The feel of the pillow beneath her head felt good, and part of her didn’t want to leave it as she unconsciously inhaled its scent. A smile played on her lips at the sense memory, but her conscious mind was far from content. She sat up and felt next to her. “Steve,” she called out a little louder this time, but she got no answer back. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room she saw the ever so familiar contours of the room and froze.
Kayla’s arm shot down from the roiling blue murk above him. It was just her arm, and really it could be anyone’s, but he knew without question that it was hers. She was calling to him. Lost and confused. “I’m here, baby!” he said to her in a call desperate to be voiced. But she didn’t hear, and her hand continued to seek out his. “I’m right here, Sweetness, just come to me!” He was going to lose her in time, he knew it. Tears fell from both of his eyes as he fell to his knees.
This couldn’t be. This absolutely couldn’t be. “What year is this?” Kayla wondered aloud. She looked down upon the covers and pulled them back to reveal a white flannel nightgown that had ridden up to her hips in the night. Her hair was so long that she actually caught sight of it out of the corner of her eye as it hung in a pony-tail from behind her head. I’m at home. Oh god, I’m at home in my bedroom. Steve isn’t anywhere near here! Not again! Kayla jumped out of bed and paced in a circle feeling the shag carpet beneath her feet. “No, not again,” she cried out, “I’m not going through this again!”
Steve woke with a start. The back of his neck was damp, and so were his cheeks. He’d been crying with the nightmare, and he wasn’t actually sure he wasn’t still dreaming. He was disoriented when he looked at his clock but then realized that he’d only been asleep a few hours. He sat up on the edge of his bed, wiped his eyes, and dropped his head into his hands as the nightmare started to slowly dissipate. That’s when he heard Kayla leave her room out of her bedroom door. She padded down the hall and into the living room, then he heard the kitchen door swing and made a mental note that you really could hear the whole house from pretty much anywhere else in the house. Then she ran back into her room, and she was whimpering. What is going on? The bathroom light went on, and she was softly muttering to herself. He heard an odd word here or there, and he wondered if she was sick for real this time. Steve went to his door and listened carefully. She was standing at her sink directly to the right of his door, not at the toilet. Steve knocked very softly at the door, and Kayla’s actions on the other side of it stopped abruptly.
“Kayla?” he said softly. “You ok?”
“Roman?” she answered in a muffled tone.
Roman? Steve slid open his bathroom door to see Kayla tearfully looking at herself in the mirror. “Kayla, what is it, baby?” She didn’t move. She didn’t breathe. She looked like she’d seen a ghost.
“S-S-Steve?”
“What? What is it? You’re scaring me!”
Kayla hurled her body into his and began kissing him all over. His face, his lips, his left eye, and her hands roamed his hard body with something like relief. And she felt different. The very best kind of different. And with ringing clarity like the sudden removal of a blindfold, Steve realized that this was his Kayla. Now he really wondered if he was still dreaming. He gripped her shoulders and pulled her back. He stared into her eyes with hope, and let the lump form in his throat while she stared in amazement back into his.
Kayla spoke first. Her voice was clearly hers. And it was beautiful. “Is it really you, Steve? Do you remember Stockholm?” Her own hope was so palpable he could slice it.
“Oh, Kayla,” he broke down with a voice he fought with all his will to keep quiet. “What is this, 20 questions?” Kayla began to cry happy tears and thought she might pass out. “Shh, baby, you have to keep your voice down, we’re at your folks’ house.” He brought her into his room as far away from the shared wall of her parents as possible. He wanted to hold her tightly, but the look of recognition and true love in her eyes won out; he’d waited for weeks to see it, and he wasn’t giving it up yet.
Kayla nodded. “What year is it?” she whispered in dread.
Steve swallowed. “You’re not going to believe it.”
“How bad?”
“Bad.”
“Am I a kid? You look – you look really young. I’ve never seen you at this age, I – Oh God, Steve, you look 18-years-old.”
Steve chuckled. “No, that’s you.”
“I’m 18?” she asked incredulously.
“Yep,” he said. “I’m 23. It’s 1979.”
“Oh my god.” Kayla reached her hand up to touch Steve’s left brow. She’d seen him with two eyes before, but this was different. “You’re seeing me, aren’t you? You can really see me with both eyes.”
Steve smiled through his own tears that he wiped away with the back of his hand. “Yeah, baby, I am. You’re so beautiful. You don’t know, Sweetness, you don’t know how beautiful you are.” He ran his hands up and down her arms as he gazed at her. “I’ve been waiting so long for you, I thought I’d lost you.”
Kayla sniffed in and held his face in her hands as she felt tears from his left eye fall upon them. Then she looked around her brother’s room and realized Roman wasn’t there. “What … what are you doing here?”
Steve crushed his lips to hers and kissed her with pent up passion and more love and relief than he knew what to do with. She responded and pressed herself into him and marveled at how different yet the same he felt. They thrust their tongues into each others’ mouths and Steve licked her lips and suckled on the skin of her neck as she gripped his rear end in her hands. Finally, Steve forced himself to pull his lips away from her as they continued to hold each other close and began the long process of answering her question.
“Oh, baby. I have so much to tell you.”