In all their jumps so far, Kayla had never felt so sick upon arrival. Her mouth was bone dry, she tried in vain to swallow, and it was hot. “Steve … where …” are we? She was surprised that the words came to her so weakly that she couldn’t finish the sentence out loud.
The room was awash in blurry shadow, and she was too dizzy to focus. The silence that followed her call to him told her that Steve was not there. Where was he? Did they jump separately again? She tried to direct her attention to her surroundings, but she was so disoriented she couldn’t see straight. Kayla slowly shifted her eyes back and forth as her head followed slowly behind them. The dark walls she didn’t recognize cast an ominous air to this place, and after several moments when the jump effect had not passed she closed her eyes and knew she was in trouble.
Kayla felt the comforter beneath her and realized she was lying in a bed. I think I’m sick. She forced herself to lift her hand to her head and felt her hair tied up in a clip. Another weak plea to her husband was met with nothing more than an empty room, and Kayla’s heart began to race. Why was her mouth so dry? She was so nauseous. The doctor in her knew she had a fever, and from the heat behind her eyes, she knew it was high. Really sick. And that’s as far as she got in figuring out when she was, because she couldn’t think.
Maybe I’m drunk again. It was the last thought she had before she gave up and allowed her mind to drift in and out of coherence.
Steve was trying to get his shit together on the ladder, the hilt of his knife still in his teeth. This isn’t happening, he said to himself, this just isn’t happening! Some memories were more faded than others, but this one was clear as a bell. Not only was there no doubt in his mind when he was, but he could retrace the steps of this nightmare like they happened yesterday. Somewhere not too far below the surface, Steve wanted to scream. He wanted to just stop and take a breath. Take time to think about what he needed to do and who he needed to call. But he had to push it down and simply act, because if there was one thing about the course of these events that was critical, it was the timing.
Knowing he wasn’t going to need it, Steve took the knife out of his mouth, reset it, and nestled it safely back in a pocket. As he moved quickly up the ladder, he took a moment to glance below at the hayride on the not so far off lawn that he and Kayla would be taking in the not so far off future. “I’m comin’, baby. Hang on.”
Kayla’s fever dreams were confusing and euphoric and heartbreaking. Joyful images of Joe swaddled in her arms were at the forefront of her mind. Then her nursing school graduation with her brothers piling on the hugs and kisses. Making love to Steve on the roof of the loft. Riding in a gondola after their first wedding. Soon the dreams turned to nightmares. Jack on top of her in the loft, Steve dead in her arms, watching him leave the prison with Stephanie, and visions of him kissing Billie before his memories returned. “Steve!” she cried out in a stream of whimpers. Steve! But she was alone, and she was scared. It was then in the throes of her fever that she finally understood what was happening to her. What had been happening to her all this time. What this time jumping was all about.
It was the fever.
She was having one big, long fever dream. She couldn’t believe she didn’t realize it before, she’s a doctor, for God’s sake! She couldn’t wait to tell Steve about this crazy dream of their shared life together. Then, unbeknownst to her, she faded back out, forgetting her epiphany as quickly as she’d found it.
Steve didn’t have to think too hard, as even all these years later, he could retrace his steps to where he found Kayla dying in her bed. And tonight would be no different. Scaling the wall, Steve reached the 2nd story window with the ease this young body fueled by fear and desperation easily afforded him. When he opened the window and parted the gauzy drapes before him, it was positively surreal. The déjà vu was strong, and he felt sick to his stomach at the weeks that lie ahead. Without taking a single beat, he poured himself into the hallway and immediately got up and headed for the room he knew would contain his wife.
He knew exactly what he was going to find; yet the sight of Kayla looking so frail, so completely and appallingly ill, and laying in what was quite literally designed to be her deathbed was no easier now as it was the first time around. He watched as she sensed his presence and turned her big, glassy eyes upon him as tears stung at the backs of his own.
She couldn’t say what roused her from the poison-induced waves of delirium, but seeing Steve run to her made things a lot more clear.
“Baby?” Steve cried. “Oh, Kayla.” He wrapped his arms around her, scooped her up, and held her as his tears fell into her golden hair. Tears of relief that he found her so quickly, worry that it was in this state, and anger that they had to go through this all over again. “It’s gonna be ok, Sweetness. I promise.” He couldn’t spare a single moment, but he afforded himself this one to connect with her and feel her in his arms. Seeing her like this again was hell on earth, and he just held her tightly to his chest as he shored himself up to do what had to be done next. Escape with her.
Kayla felt Steve’s cool leather jacket bathe her hot cheeks in welcome relief. She held on while the fever dreams fell away into forgotten oblivion and realized with certainty where she was. Hot as a hare, blind as a bat, dry as a bone, red as a beet, and mad as a hatter the classic med school mnemonic went. “Steve,” Kayla murmured, “atropine … poisoning. It’s the atro … pine.”
“Shh, baby, I know,” he said rocking her. “Don’t talk, honey, I know.” He kissed the top of her head and laid her back down. His stolen moment was over, and now he had to get her out of there. “Ok, listen, baby,” he said in a voice he fought to maintain the calm over, “can ya understand me, Sweetness?”
Kayla nodded and mouthed, “yeah.”
“Good girl, ok. We have to go now. This is gonna have to go exactly like the last time, ok? Do ya remember the last time?” Kayla shook her head no, “Yeah, you were pretty out of it then,” he said scanning the room and spotting her coat. “That’s ok, I’ll remember for the both of us.”
“K,” she whispered, blinking slowly as she tried to focus.
Like the first time they went though this, Steve worked Kayla into her coat, then disappeared into her closet to find a pair of her shoes. “Don’t worry, Sweetness, just looking for something to put on your feet,” he said as the applause wafted in the open door from the political fundraiser below. The first thing he grabbed was the black pumps, but an image of Kayla running through the woods of their last jump made him quickly throw them aside and pick up her sneakers instead. “No swollen feet this time, baby.” It took longer to get them onto her feet than he’d anticipated, however, and he started feeling the pressure of time. “We’ll do the laces later, ok, baby? Yeah, that’s right, we don’t need those laces, I’m doin’ all the walkin’.”
Kayla was too busy trying not to pass out from the serious damage the poison was doing to her body to process whatever Steve’s think-out-loud dialogue was. She was just happy to hear his voice, whatever it might be saying.
“Ok, come here, Sweetness,” he said as he gathered her in his arms. “Time to go to our little private hospital on the edge of town, now.” Steve was on full autopilot now and didn’t even register how light she was in his arms. He was hoping to avoid the senator this time, but it wasn’t to be, and once again, Steve was met with a confrontation just outside her bedroom door.
“Hold it Johnson!” the senator demanded.
“Jesus, I can’t seem to get rid of you, can I?” Steve groaned. “Why do you have to keep turnin’ up, huh?”
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Same thing as last time, but you don’t remember that, do you? No, it’s just Kayla and me on this little trip down memory lane, isn’t it?” Harper looked at him through slits, not sure what to make of the long-haired hoodlum that inexplicably shared a bloodline with his son. “So, get out of the way, old man.”
“Don’t be a fool, you’re abducting her, she’s a sick woman!”
“I don’t have any more time to argue with you this time as last time, so get out of my way!” Steve seethed as he shifted and re-shifted Kayla in his arms.
“I’ll call the police!”
“You go ahead and call the police, asshole, that’ll save me a trip there, myself!”
Harper tried a new tack now that the police bluff failed. “Where’re you going to go with her?” Steve didn’t answer, but instead plowed right into the senator that was blocking his way down the back stairs. Harper wasn’t taking the chance that he might get away with his daughter-in-law while she was still breathing, so he grabbed Steve’s arm in an attempt to halt his progress down the hall. “This is kidnapping!” he barked.
Steve slowly turned a dangerous eye on Senator Deveraux. “Now you listen to me, you serious fuck.” Steve’s voice was threatening, leaving no doubt that he’d do what he had to, including use physical force. “I don’t care who you are. I don’t care who you know. I don’t care if you’ve got a standing lunch date with President Obama.” Harper had no idea who Steve was talking about. “I got her out of here quietly last time, but if you ever touch me again – and if you even think of attacking her in the future – I’m going to find you, and I’m going to kill you. You got me?” Harper remained stoic, but the fear in his eyes betrayed him. “Now you get out of my way before I rearrange your face so it’s even uglier than it is now.”
“You’re making a big mistake,” Harper said without confidence as he stepped aside.
“Come on baby,” Steve said as he kissed her head. He made his way down the back stairs, past the kitchen, and out the door undetected. Now he headed into the cold night of Salem with Kayla in his arms.