Linda Speakman had been a nurse at University Hospital a long time, just about as long as she’d been getting her perch at the Brady Fish Market. She’d always known Kayla to be a kind, caring person whom everyone loved, even before she’d become a nurse. So, Linda’s first reaction to seeing the man lying in her hospital bed with her was alarm. But then she saw how the two held each other. How they clearly loved each other. She didn’t know exactly who this man was, but she had seen him around for some time now. She didn’t know they were this kind of serious, but clearly they were. It wasn’t the over the top, dramatic, cling that makes you embarrassed for them; it was something honest and pure she saw between them in that bed. It was this beautiful kind of natural order. The man’s imposing patch and obvious rough and tumble exterior didn’t fool her as he held her hand so gently to his heart, his fingers covering hers, carefully missing where the needle went into the vein in her hand. Kayla’s head rested in the crook of his neck in a way that seemed like she’d been doing it for years; like it was meant to fit there. There wasn’t a question in her mind that they were each others’ world, and although visiting hours were now over, she just didn’t have the heart to tell this young man to leave. So, she didn’t.
Kayla opened her eyes from her light doze when Linda applied the gentle pressure to her pulse point. She smiled down at her colleague and whispered, “Didn’t mean to wake you, honey.”
“Oh, I wasn’t –“ Kayla stopped short, and Linda saw her attention lock onto something outside her door. “—sleeping.”
“Need your other arm,” she said regretfully, and Kayla freed it for her from between she and Steve. Linda wrapped the blood pressure cuff around her slender upper arm and began tightening it with several pumps. She was still looking out that window in the door. “You ok, Kayla?”
“Y—uh, yeah. Why?” She was completely distracted and didn’t even look at Linda as she said it.
“Because your blood pressure is 142 over 96.”
That got Kayla’s attention. “It is?”
“Yep. Which man is it?”
“Excuse me?” Kayla asked with confusion.
“Which man is making you nervous? Is it Good Nervous here in bed with you, or is it Bad Nervous you’ve been watching like a hawk out there?”
“You see him?”
“Honey, he’s been lurking out there for 20 minutes.”
Steve blinked open his eye; Linda was the first thing he saw. “Oh, sh*t, sorry,” he said as he sat up and attempted to leave the bed.
“You lay your head back down, it’s ok, I won’t tell.”
“Yeah? It’s ok?”
“Not officially … but I’m the nurse assigned, and the doctor doesn’t come in till tomorrow morning for rounds, so you’re probably pretty good medicine,” she said. Steve gave her a grateful smile and layed his head back down.
“Thanks, uh …”
“Linda,” she smiled as she retook Kayla’s blood pressure.
“What is it,” Steve asked when she knitted her brows in concern.”
“Your girl has got herself in a nervous knot,” she said. “Kayla, you didn’t answer me, but I think I know it anyway.”
“I – it’s ok, Linda, really.” Kayla said as she watched Ed Daniels pace.
“That guy bothering you?” she asked.
“What guy?” Steve figured she meant Jack, but when he turned his head his heart sank. “Aw sh*t.” Steve went to get up, but Kayla grabbed onto his arm and held him back. “Please, don’t go out there.”
“Baby, I’ve gotta nip that in the bud, you know this is a bad time for that,” referring to them going on the run.
“Linda, can you find a way to throw him out? I don’t want him near me. I also don’t want to see Simon Hopkins.”
“Dr. Hopkins? Why not, he’s a doll.”
“Linda, I know this is hard to believe, but trust me, he’s not a doll.”
Something about the look on Kayla’s face convinced the older nurse that she meant business. She wasn’t quite convinced on Dr. Hopkins, but she had no problem getting rid of the suit outside.
“Don’t you worry your pretty little heads, I’ll get rid of him.”
Steve and Kayla watched as the nurse had what seemed to be a polite but unwavering conversation with Daniels that ended in the man taking a hike.
“Thank you,” Kayla said when Linda poked her head back in.
“You’re welcome, honey. But listen, he said he was FBI. Showed me his badge, looked pretty legit to me. I’m taking your word for it for now, but might want to give that brother of yours a call, ok, ‘cause no telling with the next shift.”
“Ya done good for us there, Linda,” Steve said, nodding his head up to her. Kayla thought he sounded so much more like her Steve than the one that rightfully belonged in this body.
“Don’t thank me, yet. Kayla if that pressure doesn’t drop with the next vitals check we’re getting Dr. Mike in here.”
Linda finished up with Kayla, made some notes on her chart, and exited to give them their time.
They spent the next while figuring out where to go from here. There was no question that Steve wasn’t going to be meeting with Daniels or his band of loons, and he wouldn’t be shooting Senator Deveraux, much as now he would have been happy to do so. The question was whether to bring in Roman and the ISA on the vast wealth of information they had to put the kibosh on the whole thing or not. After all, there was a contract out on Mike Horton’s life, so sitting on this waiting to jump seemed selfish. But trying to change it also seemed pointless. Ultimately, they decided that they’d wait and see how long they were going to be here, and if they were still here when Kayla got released, then they’d go right to Roman. They both realized that where there was ISA there was Shane, but neither mentioned it.
When Kayla’s dinner arrived, Steve was surprised to see that they gave him one, too. “Must be my frequent flyer status,” Steve laughed.
“I don’t know, have you earned that yet?”
“Probably not. That Linda’s a good egg.”
Neither of them had a problem tearing into the less than stellar fare that was University Hospital Food Services, as neither their heads nor bodies had had a meal in quite some time. Linda was much happier with Kayla’s blood pressure when she came in for the next set of vitals, and they both slept like the dead the rest of the night.
Kayla limped her way to the bathroom the next morning and hoped they could get out of there as soon as possible. When she got back in bed, she couldn’t help but feel the erection Steve was about to wake up to. A desire that had nothing to do with lust began in the pit of her stomach and began to spread. Oh, how she wanted him. Oh, how she wanted to feel his hands on her, his penis inside her, his body claiming hers. The hospital smell that’s hard to avoid once you’ve been a guest long enough wasn’t enough to hide the scent of her husband that never changed. Even that first day when he’d returned, she could smell that he was him. She nuzzled her face into Steve’s neck, and he roused.
Sitting up very quickly, he gave her a startled look. Suddenly, Kayla was very wary and rose to a sitting position, as well, a questioning look in her eye. God, please let him still be here!
Steve grabbed her by the shoulders. “Do you remember Stockholm?” His voice was gravely from sleep but layered with worry beneath.
Kayla let out her breath in relief. “What is this, 20 questions,” she said as she embraced him.
“Oh, baby. I got worried.
“I was ok until you woke up, then I wasn’t sure if maybe you didn’t – I mean that I had the other you … gosh, that does sound weird.”
Steve kissed her and threaded his hands through her hair. It didn’t take him long to trail his kisses down her neck. “I need you, Sweetness,” he whispered. “I’ve been so lonely for you.”
Kayla closed her eyes. “I’m right here.”
“I need you closer. I need to be inside you.”
Kayla sighed as he gently sucked on the tender flesh of her shoulder. She opened her eyes briefly, but that was all it took to bring the reality of their location down upon her. “We need to get out of here.”
Steve gave her lips one more soft kiss, then he forced himself to get up out of the bed and walk a bit. When he returned from the bathroom Kayla was up and looking in the small closet by the window.
“I’m just looking to see if I had any clothes here. Looks like someone dropped off some stuff for me to wear home.” She rested her head into her hand, trying to remember the details. “I just don’t remember who. Had to be mom.”
“I didn’t run into anyone when I came to see you, so I don’t remember, either, sorry, baby. Steve took her by the shoulders and walked her back over to the bed. “Come on, back in, baby.”
“I thought you said your mom and Adrienne were here.”
“This time. I meant last time. I didn’t see anyone when I came to see you the first time around.” He brought the covers back over her and then sank down into the chair next to her. “
Kayla smirked a little. “Well that makes sense, ‘cause you didn’t come to see me last time, remember? We had that argument about it?”
Steve gave her a rueful smile. “I did, actually. Right after I met with Daniels and the fake Deveraux. I came while you were sleeping. I even kissed you.”
“You did?”
Steve nodded. “I didn’t want you to know I was there.”
Kayla felt a thrill run through her. “But why?”
“I think I knew you’d talk me out of it. They got into my head, Sweetness. They told me you were in danger if we didn’t fake Devreaux’s death so he could undercover.”
“Harper Deveraux?” Kayla said mockingly. “Undercover?”
“I was stupid.”
“No you weren’t.” She hated when he talked badly about himself.
“After the explosion and being worried the whole time you were gonna die … I was just scared something would happen to you if I didn’t take that job.” Kayla took his hand and squeezed it. “But I did come see you, baby,” he smiled. “Sat right in this here chair.”
Kayla brought Steve’s hand to her chest and laid it over her heart. Steve brought the rest of his body along by scooching the chair all the way to the side of the bed. “I need to be with you,” she whispered. “After the last few jumps, I need you.”
“I need you, too. You have no idea how badly I need to make love to you, Kayla.” He tucked her hair over her ear and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “Things aren’t right yet. I need to – feel you around me, baby.” Steve was entranced by his longing and would have gone on if the tug in his gut hadn’t hit him. And this one hit him very hard.
Kayla startled at Steve’s sudden jump in the chair. “What’s wrong?” she asked with something between denial and dread, as she knew full well exactly what was wrong.
“The pull, baby. Ungh – dammit!” he was dizzy and sank the side of his head upon her shoulder. “This one’s so strong.” Steve’s voice was raspy as he struggled to stay focused.
“Ok,” she said in a slightly panicky tone. “I’m right behind you, right? I’ll see you on the other side.”
Steve couldn’t see his surroundings anymore, but he could still feel her hair in his left hand as she held on tight to his other one. “I love you, Sweetness.”
“I love you, too!”
“Don’t forget we’re ok.”
“Don’t forget how much I love you.”
In the next moment, Steve was struggling to breathe. For the first time, he didn’t reach up to check for his patch or look at his surroundings, he just tried to breathe. Was he back in the lab explosion? Then the pain registered. He was in serious pain. It wasn’t identifiable; it was just unbelievable pain all over. That’s when he heard Kayla crying – no, she was practically sobbing. Baby?
“I can still give you everything,” she wept.
“Wha—wh—.” It was so hard to get a breath.
Kayla laid her head down on his bare chest, laying a kiss upon it, and he could feel how desperate she was. He’d never seen her like this before, she was talking nonsense. That’s when he realized that he was now the one laying in the hospital bed, and she was the one in the chair to his right. The realization of their polar opposite change in orientation confused him. Did he jump or not? He must have, where the hell was he? He couldn’t feel any of the jump effect because everything seemed masked by all the other much worse things his body was currently going through.
What the hell is happening? Steve fought to place when he was. My God, I can’t get a breath. Steve had a very bad feeling about this as he felt Kayla’s sheer panic, and started to panic more than a little, himself.
“You listen to me,” Kayla desperately said as she took his hand and kissed it. “We’ve always gotten our strength from each other. You take what you need. You take what you need from me.” She was trying so hard to control herself and be strong for him. But he could feel her abject terror as she stroked his arm and held on to it for dear life while he gasped for breath. It was in that moment that Steve knew with absolute certainty where he was.
His deathbed.
Suddenly everything came into focus. He could see Kayla, the curtain to their right, the planks of the drop ceiling above, and he could hear the machines whirring behind him. No! No, this is all wrong!
Steve had almost no memory of what everyone had assumed were his last moments. He remembered kissing his daughter, he remembered talking to Jack and Bo and saying goodbye to his mother, and his very last memory was of Kayla being with him. But his last moments were not in him, and this was … terrifying.
He knew this was the destination Kayla. I have to tell her! It was all happening so fast, he couldn’t process. He didn’t know which way was up. A million things went though his mind. It was only two seconds, maybe three, but that was enough time for his world to bloom in front of him. His wife, his daughter, his son, his family. What if we die in these bodies? he remembered wondering when he took care of Kayla after her poisoning. Maybe I’ll jump. Then he had to remind himself that he wasn’t going to die in this body, because he never did die. He was very much alive the whole time. He had to tell her. He had to make sure they knew this time that he wasn’t dead.
“Sweet—sweet—,” he gasped, trying to get her attention. She rose her head while still clutching his forearm, and when he looked into her eyes, he couldn’t believe how scared she was. He’d never seen anything like this in her eyes, not even at their very worst moments. He couldn’t take what he saw there. He couldn’t take how haunted she already was. He dug deep within him to try to tell her. He tried so hard to explain to her that he wasn’t going to die and not to let them take his body away, that he was alive and wasn’t leaving her this time … but he felt the blackness overtaking him. Besides, he could not deny … he was as terrified as she was.
He couldn’t breathe, he was positively drowning as his lungs screamed at him to fill them. Finally, after only mere seconds that felt far longer than they actually were, he did the only thing his quickly fading consciousness would allow him. And that was say goodbye. Kayla looked at him with meager hope as he used every last ounce of strength to utter his next words to her.
“… Sweetness …” he locked eyes with her. “I lo … I love you … Sweetness.”
Steve gasped and whimpered as the tears poured down his wife’s terrified face.
“I love you too,” she sobbed as she stroked his face. “I love you, too. Shh.”
Kayla kissed his hand, then the machine alarmed a flatline, and his world went black.
Only …
… It was a very strange sort of black. He wasn’t conscious. But he wasn’t quite unconscious, either. It was a almost like a thick haze. He wasn’t at all aware of himself or his surroundings, but there was a dreamy quality to his cognition. He heard voices as a thick jumble of sound, no specific words, and only a few people he could identify.
“Come on Mr. Johnson! Mr. Johnson!” That he heard. Suddenly an image of the boat he was on with the drugged sandwich and his guard, Tiny, came to him. It was the same doctor.
Then a smaller voice rose to the surface of his mind, and he reached out for it. “Dear god!” his wife sobbed. “Don’t take him, please. Don’t take him.” It was the worst thing he’d ever heard in his life, and if he was awake, he’d have been sobbing with her just at the sound of it.
The next thing he felt was the sudden pain of defibrillator delivering the electric shock that was to start his heart. Only his heart hadn’t actually stopped beating. The pain was searing, and it electrified his haze with veins of lightning. God, make it stop!
He heard Jack’s voice, then Kayla again. “If they’d let me talk to him, if they’d just let me talk to him, he’d live, I know … he’d be ok!” she continued to sob.
Then another shock of the defibrillator. I’m not dead, g*ddammit!
“I don’t understand what happened,” he heard Kayla say. He reached out for her across the haze. His mind was screaming out to her, trying to make her feel him. Baby, I’m here, please hear me! “You know, he was talking, he was awake, everything was ok, I don’t know what happened!” She was positively hysterical.
Another searing charge ripped through Steve’s body, and he was helpless to do anything about it. With every shock came more awareness of himself. He didn’t understand it, he didn’t even try to, all he could do was lay there and wait for it to be over.
“Kayla please,” he heard Jack say.
Then Marcus’s voice was above him. “Leave, Kayla, now, go! Go!”
No, baby, don’t go!
Now Steve was very alert. The rest of the life-saving measures that occurred in that room on October 23rd of 1990 Steve heard with glaring clarity. The haze was still there, and it was still murky, but his sense of touch and sound were crisp as morning dew.
“Atropine,” Marcus commanded.
“We did,” Dr. Hopkins replied. Of course, this was a different Dr. Hopkins. It seemed all the bad ones were named Hopkins.
“Well, do it again!” Marcus snapped.
“We tried it!”
“Come on, man,” Marcus begged.
“Clear!” someone rang out. God, not again.
“Come on Steve, come on man,”
Lightning illuminated more of his haze as the shock burned from his chest down through his toes and fingertips.
“Come on, hey come on homeboy, come on back to me, now, come on now, you can do it, come on …” Homey, I’m right here, man. “Come on!”
“It’s been five minutes.”
“Five minutes,” Marcus repeated with dread, denial spreading through him. “Come on, come on.”
“Charging.” Sh*t.
Another shock, and his body shook on the bed.
“Nothing. Still nothing.”
“Alright, defibrillate,” Marcus said as he started to lose it. There was a brief silence, and Steve expected they were about to give up, but Marcus erupted. “COME ON! YOU’RE READY COME ON, DAMMIT! I SAID DO IT! DO IT NOW, DO IT!”
“It’s over,” Dr. Hopkins insisted.
“No!” Marcus was now crying. “NO!”
“It’s no use,” the doctor on Alamain’s payroll said.
“No, no, no!” Then Marcus pounded on Steve’s chest with his fist, which felt infinitely better than the crash cart. “Come on!” Marcus begged as he began manual compressions.
“He’s gone!” the older man pleaded.
Steve’s heart broke as Marcus laid himself upon Steve’s chest. “Come on Steve, one little heartbeat, please, come on man, come on back to me man, come on now.” He hadn’t heard Marcus cry like that since they were kids in the orphanage, and it about killed him. “Come on, you can do it. Come on, man, don’t you leave me like this, come on Steve, please! Please!”
“Marcus—“
“Please.”
“I’m sorry doctor.”
“Please,” Marcus cried. “Damn you, Steve. Why?”
Yeah, damn me! Hell yes, damn ME! Why can’t I just open my eyes! He struggled and tried with all that he had to move, but it was as if he were paralyzed. Wait … I am paralyzed. Steve was suddenly very aware of just how this all went down. And he was pissed. The whole thing was going to sh*t. Not only did he knew he wasn’t going to die and couldn’t get the words out, but now he had to sit here and listen to the people he loved deal with it while he laid there helpless.
“I guess I’d better go out and tell his wife,” Dr. Hopkins said with false regret.
“No,” Marcus said. “Me. I’m gonna tell her.”
“You sure?”
“I’ll tell her!”
Steve’s mind was racing. He fought to be rational. He had to do what he could to block out everything around him, his best friend, the doctors, the nurses, the machines humming around him, even his wife. He had to focus on what was going to come next. But it was hard to overcome the strangled cries from Kayla on the other side of the curtain. They were just snippets of the conversation, but what he did hear threatened to shatter him.
“He’s gonna snap right out of it … Give me a chance to prove it … NO, BO!” And the sobs. He heard her pained sobs, and the thought of just withdrawing inside himself and letting himself be dead sounded so good to him. Like such relief from the pain. He thought about it for a few moments. He really did. But somewhere on the cusp of his anguish was the fact that he was not dead. This was not death. This was nothing more than a ruse. A lie. Perpetrated by the very doctor that was still in the silent room with him right now for all he knew. He tried to call up a memory of what happened to him next, but he couldn’t. So, he knew he had to think this through, and if he was going to find her, then he had to get this right.
Let her find you.
The thought came to him, and he realized with relief that his Kayla wasn’t there yet, but when she got there she’d come for him. His relief was misplaced, however, because he realized with dread that she had no idea where to look. And neither did he. Did he?
You weren’t even out of that hospital basement yet, he remembered Tiny say. They had you gagged and tied down to the gurney by the time they assigned me to you. Tiny was the second guy. First there was gonna be some guy whose teeth he was going to kick in. That was gonna feel good, he thought with anticipation.
No, if he was going to get out of this, he was going to have to do it himself, because Kayla had no idea where to look. Why didn’t he tell her what Tiny had said on the boat? He made a mental note to tell Kayla everything about what he knew about his disappearance. He just hoped he’d remember it. In fact, it would be best if he just jumped right now, and he waited a few moments, hoping he could will it to happen. But it didn’t.
His racing thoughts were interrupted by the, frankly, creepy feel of Dr. Hopkins pulling the sheet over his head when he heard him say, “Mrs. Johnson.” Baby? You here, Sweetness? He couldn’t see her. Where was she?!
When he felt her touch his hand, he felt the thrill course through him. How could she not feel it?
“You’re so warm. You’re so warm.” Kayla’s voice was so soft he could barely hear her. She kissed his hand, and he cried to himself as he felt her grief. “You’re so warm,” she kept repeating as she put his hand to her and caressed it against her neck and chest. “You’re so warm.”
When he felt Kayla crawl into the bed with him, he couldn’t take it. Baby, please. I’m here with you. I haven’t left you. Oh, God, Kayla, please! Please!
Kayla rained so many kisses upon his hand, he couldn’t count them. She comforted him, and nurtured him into his death so that he wouldn’t be alone. She laid her head against him and rained down a torrent of silent tears.
“I just want to hold you. Feel you close to me.” She kissed him and sniffed in his scent as she nuzzled against him. “You are my best friend,” she whispered. Steve was overwhelmed. He didn’t have words for how he was feeling other than pure and utter devastation. She kissed his neck. “I love you.” Then she exhaled deeply so that she could take in more of his scent and imprint it within herself. “You know, I’m gonna be strong. For you. For our baby girl. For everybody.” Only now Steve knew. He knew just how hard it was really going to be, and just how much she was going to struggle to be as strong as she said. She couldn’t stop snuggling her face against the crook of his neck. She couldn’t stop, and he didn’t want her to. He needed to feel her against him, because he had never been so scared. “I promise you that,” she said. “I promise you that.” She continued to nuzzle him and showered kisses upon his neck, all while continually stroking his hand with her thumb. A comforting act, as if she thought he could feel her there. An act that said I’m here, you’re safe, it’s ok.
Kayla laid there a long time, and Steve just took in the inordinate amount of love she was silently giving him. Her tears fell in rivers. He absorbed them into his skin and tried to hold onto them like footholds on a precipice. I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t know. He wanted to embrace her and hold her and tell her that it would be ok. But he couldn’t move. He felt himself trying with all his might to move, to shift just a finger, an eyelid. He bore down with the force of what he felt must be a thousand suns, but nothing twitched. He could actually feel the vein in his neck pulse against him, and he recalled Kayla saying that she thought she’d seen that but knew it couldn’t be true. Only it was true. But the signals to move weren’t making it from his brain to a single other part of his body to just move the muscles. He never gave up. Not even as he cried silently to himself as he felt his wife hold him. Not even when he heard Marcus’s voice invade the wretched silence of their final union
“Kayla. It’s time to go.”
Not yet!
“I’m not ready.” It was so soft he barely heard it.
“Kayla, people are out there to see you. They have to take Steve away.”
“I can’t leave him.” She continued to stroke his hand with her thumb. She hadn’t stopped from the moment she’d crawled into the bed with him.
“Come on. It’s gonna be ok. Come on, I’ll take you.”
Steve felt her move away from him with the same pain he felt when the social worker at the orphanage ripped him apart from his mother. He was barely hanging on to his sanity.
Kayla kissed his chest and let Marcus gently lift her away from him. “I love you,” she said as she kissed his cheek and the last of her tears fell upon his cheek with burning hot clarity. Then she finally left his side. The last thing he heard was the sound of the curtain being dragged closed against the people he loved and cared about. He was stuck here now. In a body that wasn’t dead. With no one that knew he was still in there. Alone.