Marcus sat in the livingroom in stunned silence, digesting what he’d just been told as Rolf very impatiently glanced at his watch. Kayla had made the awkward introduction of Marucs to Dr. Rolf, upon which the scientist stamped his foot in frustration, yelling that this was a distraction that they didn’t need and that the effects of this on the slipstream had now been made worse. Aggravated yelling then ensued, and Kayla had had enough. She somehow found her rational, adult voice and told all three of them to get a grip and move this back into the livingroom before her daughter was awoken, the fact that she’d run out of the room to do just that notwithstanding. Once there they launched into a very brief but very comprehensive explanation, which Marcus took in as raptly as he had from behind the wall. And now he understood – Emily wasn’t part of their original past, and everything they’d ever done since the moment he’d come upon them in the hospital was for her. But more than that, he understood what this Dr. Rolf was saying; if the man was to be believed, then Steve and Kayla’s safety was in serious jeopardy because of changes like … her.
It was positively the last thing his brain would have forumulated as a hint of a possibility, so processing the fantastic and impossible information just shared with him was not easily computing.
Then again, it all made such crazy sense when he started piecing it all together. Even as they explained that they were from the impossible year of 2009 and that, yes, Joey and Stephanie, whose birthdays they were inexplicably celebrating were, indeed, their children and that Kayla was actually a doctor and that Steve had been presumed dead for 16 years and that this creepy, little man was why they were all there in the first place … Marcus was realizing with frightening clarity that he did believe them. Every diagnosis Kayla made, every vague reference Marcus didn’t understand, and every time he saw the looks they’d exchange in tender moments they thought he wasn’t noticing.
It all really did fit. Perfectly.
It didn’t take long for the three of them to explain it all to him, and there was no question in his mind that they weren’t both certifiably insane. But apparently, it took long enough that the mad little scientist guy was now practically doing the toddler pee-pee dance he was so jumpy.
“So, that’s it, Homey. You know everything.” Steve’s voice was full of an angst that he knew Marcus had never heard from him before. Not even on the worst days in the orphanage when Steve was a kid with real tragic circumstances living in his damaged heart had Marcus heard the troubled tone Steve’s voice now held. And it wasn’t about Marcus overhearing it all and now suddenly knowing what was happening. It was about what was coming. Marina. The damned key. The trial and Kayla going to prison, and actually allowing either of his girls to be kidnapped. How could he allow that? How could he live with himself if he let Kayla be married to Jack? Be raped by Jack? How? Only if he didn’t they were all doomed to cease to exist in an imploded reality. This is what drove that tone in Steve’s voice.
Steve looked from Marcus to Kayla, who was still crying rivers and looked like she might bolt at any moment, and saw that his best friend was spooked. “I’m still me, man, I’m tellin’ ya, I’m me. I’m even more me than if I’d never been taken away in 1990, ‘cause those 16 years are like a whole other guy for me.”
“Steve—”
“I remember being that guy, Homey,” Steve’s voice ratched up even more, “but when I got my memories back it was like the next day for me after the hospital. It was like it was still 1990 only I woke up this old man.”
Marcus took a deep breath, rubbed a hand over the back of his wavy-haired head, and was about to tell Steve to stop, but the brief pause sent Steve into overdrive, if that was possible, thinking for sure that his best friend was going to call the men in white. “Marcus,” he said guardedly as he white-knuckled his own thigh, “… Homey, please say somethin’, man.”
“Steve, calm down before you go into cardiac arrest and I have to start beating on your chest.”
Kayla whimpered, Steve cursed, and Marcus instinctively knew that he’d just said something terrifying.
“I believe you!,” he yelled, “Just calm down, I believe you!” They were the words they both wanted to hear, but somehow Steve couldn’t stop the anxiety from coursing through him, and Kayla was past caring about anything but Emily at this point. “You two are completely certifiable, you know that, don’t you?” Marcus said it with a completely straight face, but there was a glimmer in his eye that was unmistakeably on their side, and despite what they had going on in their heads and hearts, they knew he meant it and wasn’t placating them. “In fact, I think I’m offended. You let me think something really bad was going on, like a hangnail, when all it was was an extended case of—” He looked very pointedly at Kayla, then made a recollecting arm gesture as he said, “—funky weird stuff.”
Kayla gave him the saddest smile he’d ever seen in his life, and Steve saw it plain as day when Marcus’s heart broke. A very small part of Steve’s brain recalled Kayla telling him that Marcus had fallen in love with her after his death. He’d ignored that fact and never allowed himself to acknowledge it, but now he saw a seed of it in this reaction. If there was nothing on his agenda, it might bother his inerrently jealous nature, but here all he could do was observe and appreciate that Marcus cared about them both so much, then push it to the back of his mind.
“You believe us?” Steve said with cautious relief.
“Yeah, man,” Marcus answered sincerely. “Clearly I’m the crazy one, ‘cause, yeah.”
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” Kayla said softly as she wiped her cheek. “You’re the only person we’ve ever told in any jump.” She took a shuddering breath then let another tear leak down her face as she pined to hold her child in her arms. “Never like this. We kind of told you a coded version, as you would say, in the jump after Steve died. You were so loyal. So selfless. Thank you for believing us.”
“AFTER Steve died?!” both Marcus and Rolf fairly shouted in unison with equally staggering looks on their faces.
This is when it hit Marcus that they’d encountered … him … before this. He’d gotten it, but now he got it. That ruminated in his brain for a while as Rolf took over this completely derailed conversation.
“You are saying that you had conversation with each other and with this Dr. Marcus, here, after the date of your presumed death? You didn’t just jump to unshared time there, you spoke?” He didn’t wait for an answer, he now sat down, tapped his fingers against his chin, then got up again and paced while muttering to himself some more about the devastating effects upon the slipstream. “What did you do there, I must know!”
“Why, you want more information about our private sex life, you little sh*t?”
“Steve, stop it!”
“What, you takin’ his side, now, baby, is that what you’re doin’?”
“Steve, lay off of her, man, what the hell are you doing,” Marcus defended her.
“And you don’t get to move in!” Steve blurted, so amped up now that he couldn’t control himself. “What were you doin’ lurkin’ back there, anyway, you just walk into people’s houses without knocking?!”
“I saw the rental in the driveway, man, then I heard your voices and was worried about you! The timeline start eating your brain cells, Steve?”
“Gentlemen, I need order, and I need my questions answered if I’m going to get you home!”
“Oh God,” Kayla was near hysterics. “Emily …” she said under her breath, but the three men weren’t hearing her. “Emily … Emily … my baby …”
“Dr. Marcus, this does not concern you!” Rolf continued.
“Like hell it doesn’t!” he countered.
Kayla started to lose control of her breathing again, and she could feel her blood pressure spike so high that she thought she might be on the cusp of exploding into a supernova.
“STOP IT!!! STOP IT RIGHT NOW, GODDAMMIT, STOP IT!!!!” Kayla screamed this at the top of her lungs in a shriek that would haunt Marcus for as long as he lived. Then Kayla repeated what she’d originally intended on doing and bolted from the room and up the stairs so fast that even Steve wasn’t quick enough to catch her before she’d disappeared. He called her name, but all he got back was silence. He immediately went after her, and the two other men followed.
“No! You stay there!” Steve insisted. “I mean it!”
“Mr. Johnson, we do not have time for this, I must – argh!” Steve had gathered up the small man by his shirt front and shoved him so hard against the wall of the foyer that he was momentarily winded. Steve got right up in his face and saw that the scientist was finally looking sheepish.
“You listen to me, Rolf,” Steve said in a menacing tone that even Marcus knew not to mess with. “You got us into this mess. Now I appreciate that you’re here all the way from Tuscany or wherever the hell Dimera’s lair is these days, and make no mistake, I know we need you to get home. But you just laid a bombshell on us, and my daughter’s li …” he couldn’t finish the word as his anticipated grief threatened to swallow up the rage. “ … My daughter hangs in the balance. We are not ok right now, you got that? We are f*cked up like you have no idea. You said you had two hours, and you’re gonna give us every f*ckin’ minute of ‘em, you got that?” Steve leaned more heavily into the captive in his grip as he finished his warning. “Now you are gonna let me go up to my wife and my little girl, and give us a couple minutes to get our heads back on. Ok? You got it? When we get back down, we’ll tell you everything you need to know to get us home. ‘Til then, you sit. Now he released him with a shove and headed up the stairs. “Watch him,” Steve instructed. “Don’t let him out of your sight.”
“He’s not goin’ anywhere, Steve.”
Steve stopped for just a moment to look meaningfully at Marcus. “Thanks.” Just one word, but it held apologies for his outbursts, affection, and a lifetime of appreciation.
Steve took the rest of the stairs two at a time and found Kayla sitting cross-legged on the floor with Emily asleep in her arms as she rocked manically back and forth. She stared blankly at a spot on the wall and didn’t acknowledge Steve when he came in. The sight of his wife in a clear state of breakdown did something to Steve that broke a part of his soul. He sat down in front of them and tried to draw her eye, but her blank stare didn’t waver, and neither did the steady rhythm of her rocking. Steve wanted to kiss his daughter’s head, but he dared not or he’d not survive this moment.
“Sweetness,” Steve said softly fighting with everything he had not to cry, “I need you. I’m in trouble, here, and I need you to stay with me.” She didn’t respond and continued her manic behavior. He reached out to touch the hand that was embracing Emily, and Kayla finally reacted by flinching away from his touch. Her rejection caused a sting in his eye, and when he looked up he watched as a single tear spilled out over her lashes.
Kayla had retreated to somewhere very deep and dark inside of herself by the time she’d found her spot on the floor. She watched herself enter Emily’s room, scoop her up out of the crib, and rub her cheek against her soft, clean hair. She heard herself say the first line of her daughter’s favorite book. She said it several times so softly that it was more like she’d mouthed, “Babies are soft, warm, and cuddly …,” rather than spoken it. She felt herself slide down the wall with Emily in her arms and felt herself start to rock. But all the while it was like she was a spectre of herself watching her living, breathing counterpart go through those motions, because the actual emotional connection of each of those actions would have driven her insane. Actually and really insane. For this brief time, she was incapable of rational thought. The amplification effect that Rolf didn’t even know about yet had hit an emotional limit that burned like molten lava. She could not stay there or her sanity would have burned up. So, she retreated and stayed hidden there while her heightened and completely hysterical emotions found a position she could connect with again.
She saw Steve come into the room and sit in front of her, and she heard him reach out to her. But it wasn’t until he touched her that she let herself come out from within herself. She couldn’t help her physical reaction and let herself feel sadness for the impact it had on him.
“You never run from me, Sweetness,” he choked out over the enormous rock in his throat. Kayla heard the pain in her husband’s voice and stopped rocking. He tried again, reaching his hand out to caress her cheek and rubbed his thumb across the fallen tear. “Never me.” Kayla closed her eyes very slowly, and when her eyelids opened she finally met her husband’s eye. She saw that he was now matching her tear for tear and that she had to come all the way back. She had to be strong and come all the way back, because her husband needed her. Kayla leaned her face into Steve’s palm and watched as he finally broke down and kissed Emily’s head, caressing it with the same hand he’d used to bring Kayla out of wherever it was she’d gone.
“What are we going to do?” Kayla whispered. All Steve could do was shake his head. He was so very tired.
Their free hands found each other, interlaced their fingers together, and gave what comfort they could in the next few moments they allowed themselves with their baby between them.
“How has she not woken up?” Steve asked softly.
“Heavy sleeper like her father.” Steve chuckled, and Kayla smiled. The moment was fleeting, however, and their next words were in the softest of whispers.
“What just happened to you, Sweetness?”
“Same thing that happened to you, I’m just not as strong as you and couldn’t handle it.”
Steve took a very deep breath. “You’re the strong one, Kayla, don’t you forget that.”
“No, I’m the smart one, that’s what you always say. You’re the strong one.”
Steve let it lie and took a deep breath. “Baby, where did you go? You scared the hell outta me when I saw you like that just now, you really did.”
Kayla shrugged and found a second of joy in the way Emily’s little mouth was making tiny suckling movements in her sleep. “I hit an emotional wall, Steve. It was too much.”
“It’s that emotions stuff, isn’t it.” Kayla nodded. “I think you’re right. I really felt it down there, it was like some kind of twisted acid trip or somethin’. But it was real.”
“Oh, it was real, alright. It’s all just, I dunno, magnified or heightened. I couldn’t take it anymore, and all I could think about was getting to Emily. If I didn’t I really thought I might die.”
And that’s why you don’t want to go home, Steve realized. And, really, he wasn’t sure he didn’t agree with her.
“Don’t shut me out again, baby, please, I need you so much.”
Kayla shrugged again and nodded. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “Don’t shut me out …,” he rasped again. And this time there was an unmistakeable undercurrent to the plea. An unspoken sentence that Kayla understsood even if it wasn’t verbalized. … when we lose her.
“I won’t.”
They both wiped the fresh tears from their eyes and got up. It scared both of them, but they put Emily back in her crib and forced themselves to go back downstairs, baby monitor in hand. When they got there Marcus and Rolf were sitting opposite each other in the livingroom, and Rolf had the decency to look completely wary and uncomfortable.
Kayla put her hand on Marcus’s arm and patted it affectionately. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Marcus covered her hand with his and squeezed. “Don’t be. Sounds like you two’ve been through a hell of an ordeal.”
Kayla nodded and looked to Rolf, her eyes like a punishment. “We have.”
Marcus got up and faced Steve as he approached, then brought his best friend into an embrace and patted him hard against his shoulder blades. “I’m gonna need you to explain it all to me, brother, all of it. But right now I think you need to give this man your full attention.”
Steve hugged his friend back. “I dunno how you’re not thinkin’ I’m nuts, Marcus.
“I never said that, now, did I?” Steve laughed. “Womb to tomb, remember?” Marcus whispered.
“Yeah, man, I remember.”
Steve sat down next to his wife, and for the next hour they had a very intense conversation with their chessmaster. They spent a good amount of time answering Rolf’s questions about big changes they made in almost every jump. They explained the first big change, the photographer on New Years Eve at the Deveraux estate, and asked why it didn’t affect their jumps. Kayla referred to her binder quite a lot, and Rolf had a closer look on several occasions, too (Marcus’s eyes bugged out of his head at the scope of it when he saw the size of the binder). The scientist surmised that it took several changes, each causing it’s own little crack in the slipstream before it finally began showing the wear with the large Cleveland change. “If it wasn’t that one, it would certainly have been another,” he said. That made Steve feel less guilty for not being able to keep his hands off of his wife, but it did him no good for what it would mean on future jumps.
“So, it wasn’t one change we made,” Kayla sighed with the same kind of mixed feelings running through Steve.
“No, madam, again, I tell you, it’s like a snowball effect. They’re not exponential, but they compound with increasing strength.”
“I just—” Kayla folded her arms and cocked her head in refusal to accept that there was no other way, “—how are we supposed to live our timelines so closely? If we do that, then I’m going to have to leave my children when I’m found guilty of murder a year from now.”
“What?!” Marcus said.
“Later, Homey,” Steve insisted, “just wait!” Marcus rubbed his palm over his face and tried not to gape.
“I can’t do that, Dr. Rolf, I just—I won’t do that. This – offshoot arc thing – is so off track from the timeline that it’s not even parallel anymore, it’s perpendicular. How much more damage could we possibly do to not follow through with whatever else we’re going to encounter here? The woman that’s on her way here causes us a lot of trouble, Dr. Rolf. We can’t go through that again. I have a daughter upstairs and one on the way.” Marcus gasped, and Rolf’s eyes grew. “You’ll be happy to know that this is the exact baby I was pregnant with when we first lived this timeline, even if everything else has changed around us.”
“A chance pregnancy?” he asked, fascinated.
“Planned. This is Stephanie, conceived exactly on schedule. We want our family, Doctor.”
“Doctor,” Steve huffed sarcastically.
“Steve,” Kayla warned.
“Madam, you cannot know that this is Stephanie Johnson. The odds are remote at best.”
“I’m a doctor, too, you know, and they’re not impossible. And … I just know. It’s her.”
Marcus started pacing.
Kayla went on. “You say we’ll be jumping away but you don’t know when?” she continued. Rolf was silent. “I can’t take the chance that I won’t be here for my daughters. If we don’t follow the rules—”
“It’s not a rule, per se.”
“—how long can we go until this slipstream thing breaks?”
“That is impossible to know, Mrs. Johnson, because much of it depends on your actions once you get there. It could be your very next jump, it could be 50 more jumps from now.”
“Jesus Christ,” Steve muttered. “I can’t do this 50 more times.”
“You have 14 years left.”
“Yeah, I got that!”
“Do we have to be exact?” she asked. “Can it be … close?”
“Close how?”
“I don’t know, close. Like can Marina still be murdered but I’m not accused of it this time? Or the key! Steve, oh God, Victor!”
“I know, baby, I know.”
“Dr. Rolf, what if … what if information is supposed to be learned by someone, and it’s still learned, just in a different way? I mean, Harper Deveraux did things a lot differently in the real timeline, you know that!”
“I don’t know that, I cannot see into the activities of your jumps, I told you that!”
Kayla rolled her eyes, her desperation deep. “All I’m saying is that if we do things a little differently but preserve some of the other things, would that kind of even out?” Rolf looked his beady eyes down his nose at her and sighed.
“Madam, you’re asking me if you can live like you would if it were 2009, are you not.” Again not a question, so again not phrased as one. “This is up to you to control. I can estimate that very large changes on the scale of human beings missing when they’re expected or added when they’re not will break down this slipstream at an alarming rate. You are not likely to feel it in the life you lead, but you will feel it later down the road by way of unshared time, long gaps between arrivals, and extreme durations. This one is a good example, you’ve been here a year and a half?”
“Two in August,” Steve said.
“Yes, yes. That is extreme, and it could get a lot longer than that. You could also see the opposite with very short stays of only minutes. These are both bad signs that the slipstream is trying to find stability.” They explained that that had already happened on their third jump, but Rolf dismissed that one as “growing pains.”
“I don’t know how many changes it will take, but it will happen, of that there is no question. Moderate changes, like getting married in unshared time or altering events that are paramount to the fabric of your lives will also break down this slipstream at a less significant rate. I theorize that you may, how did you say it, have more time that way; but, the compounding causality will catch up with itself.”
“In English, Rolf,” Steve said.
“The slipstream will breakdown, anyway, it just may take longer!” he huffed in newfound, ballsy annoyance. There was silence for several moments, and then Rolf added in a softer tone, “You should not worry yourself with everyday life, such as the grocery shopping you mentioned. Ask yourself if it will mean a change from the way life was led in the linear timeline, and that should guide you.”
Steve leaned back against the couch and rested the side of his head in his hand as the permutations ran through his head. “What about if I jump back to being an unwilling guest at your Tuscan estate? Am I supposed to let myself be tortured? ‘Cause I’m tellin’ you right now, I have no memory of being imprinted.
Marcus did a double take. “What now?”
“I couldn’t tell you how many years it took, and you won’t be there to ask, I’ll have the other you. So, how am I supposed to stick to the script?”
Kayla got up and immediately pointed her finger at her husband. “You’re NOT.” Then she turned to Rolf and repeated, “He’s not! I won’t let him be tortured like that again, do you hear me?! I will come for him! Every single time, Dr. Rolf, every single time, I will come for him!”
“Baby, you gotta calm down,” Steve threw out at her not quite harshly. He plowed his hand through his hair and adjusted his patch before taking a very deep breath. Then he stood up and went to her. “I’m right here, Sweetness,” he said with a much softer tone, “just keep that blood pressure down.” He put her hand to his face and met her worried glare. “We gotta face this. Now, please sit back down, I’m beggin’ ya, here.”
Back on the couch, Kayla picked up where she’d left off. “I guess getting my husband out of Stefano’s compound was one of our biggest mistakes,” Kayla said with real venom.
“Actually,” Rolf replied guiltily, “that was my doing.” All they could do was gape at him. “That was your second jump to unshared time, and I knew something had gone very wrong. The first one lasted such a short time that I’d hoped it was nothing more than an echo, but then you went so far into unshared time I knew it was not. So, I … er … I … yes, I attempted to … er … mitigate the incongruous factors by altering the … er … algebraic pathways of least resistance in order to … re-justify the erroneous—”
“In f*ckin’ English!”
“He tried to fix it,” Marcus chuckled.
Steve slowly turned his head toward the scientist, who was now rubbing at his forehead. “Fix it? You tried to fix it?”
“Oh my God, you’re the mole! Steve, he’s the mole! You’re the one who tipped off the ISA!”
Rolf nodded. “I placed several notes and hacked varioius computers at various points in that offshoot timeline to attempt to remove you from the whole jump you didn’t belong in. I didn’t know then what a disaster veering from the timeline was, and also it did not work.”
“Yes it did!” Kayla insisted, “we got him out, and then we jumped!”
“My actions led you to get him out of the compound, but the jump was a reaction of the destabilizing slipstream.”
“Oh.” It was all Kayla could say. She needed some space, so she got up and leaned against the foyer’s doorjamb.
“Ok, Rolf, so what happens if we’re good little subjects and do what we’re supposed to do.”
“The slipstream stabilizes, that’s a fact.”
“Did you imprint any of yourself onto my husband, too? Or did you just save that for my brother?” Rolf looked at her quizzically, and she waved a dismissive hand toward him. Steve got it, though, and it creeped him out. “What if you break it now. Go back to your lab tomorrow and break it. Could we stay here?” Steve shot a look at Kayla and knew they were going to have to have this difficult conversation as soon as possible. Rolf reminded her that that was only one theory that he had no way of knowing the veracity of, that there were other possibilities, and that breaking the slipstream would mean jumping forever – and he did mean forever – as the most likely scenario.
“What happens after we jump away? Does the timeline stop?” Steve asked.
This was another instance where Rolf thought ahead several steps and wondered if he should lie. Unlike the question of when this jump would end, which he was very sure about, the question of what happens when their awarenesses jump away was more nebulous to him, so he stuck with the truth on this one. “The numbers show each of your 22 previous offshoot timelines as dormant once each of you have exited. No numbers are returned, either because they cannot measure you if the assigned awarenesses are not there, or because the timelines no longer exist. I surmise that without you there to add to the linear equation that it could mean a finite end.
“Wait a minute,” Marucs spoke up aain. “I’m here. Friends and family are here. Emily is here. How can the timeline stop, I mean, it’s not like any of the rest of us are going anywhere, right?”
“One of time’s little mysteries that I fear I will never discover,” he said with a melancholy that had everything to do with himself.
“No, no, no, hang on a minute, I’m a real, flesh and blood person, here, Doctor. I remember my whole life, you can’t just say I’m not as real as they are. It’s my timeline, too.”
“I’m afraid it isn’t.”
“Like hell it’s not!”
“Dr. Hunter, there can be no timeline for them if they are not there to write it.
“Ok, you don’t know, got it,” Steve said. “Next question, what about if we die? What happens to our awarenesses if we die in a jump.” Rolf grudgingly admitted he didn’t know this answer either.
“Now if you have no more questions, I want you to tell me about these dreams.” So they did. By the time they were done they’d told Rolf all about the premonition-like dreams that seemed to tell them Emily was coming right down to the shade of her hair, the jump and arrival symptoms in detail, and the amplification effect. Rolf was fascinated and took the best mental notes he could, as written ones would be pointless. He had no answers for them on what the dreams meant or how they got them, but he was a man strictly of science and did not believe there was a cosmic diety or anything else bringing them visions. But he had no scientific explanation for it either and wondered if, perhaps, the branches talked to each other.
Finally, he felt like he’d completed what he’d come to do, which was deliver his warning, answer their questions, and gather informaiton. Now all he could do was hope they listened to him. This third party, Dr. Hunter, was another compounding factor, he knew this; but he chose not to point that out, because, as the wife had said, the damage was done here with the birth of the unexpected child as it was. He stood on their porch and turned to them a final time.
“You are making history, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. I realize now that that’s little comfort, but … I never meant to hurt you. Truly I did not. You have my word that as soon as time is stable or you finish out your 16 years the formula allows for, I will bring you back into normal time, whichever comes first.”
“Unless neither comes first,” Kayla barely whispered.”
“Yes,” Rolf said but couldn’t look her in the eye as he did. He turned to go, but Kayla called out for him to wait.
“How can we communicate with you?” she asked. “What if we’re in trouble and need help? Can any of the other you’s be trusted? Will they know what to do?”
Rolf didn’t recommend this. “You can try, but I believe it will do more harm than good. If you want to keep my employer, as you say, off your radar, then wait for me to come to you. It is not easy to jump into the offshoot timelines, I cannot know if it will be safe to do so, as it will entirely depend on your actions and their impact. Also, time is unpredictable.”
Steve Johnson fixed Rolf with a hard stare. He saw that the man that had once been one of his captors was being truthful in the last two hours, and he also saw that Rolf had meant it when he said he meant well. But Rolf wore a look of pride, too. The vanity and pure, immodest superiority was like his own personal slipstream, acting as the foundation that held the entire rest of the man together. He and Kayla were the guinea pigs in the biggest scientific accomplishment in the history of the world, and Steve saw that accomplishment splayed across Rolf’s face. That just made anything else that the scientist consisted of moot, as far as Steve was concerned. It made him sick to his stomach. This was a more pleasurable feeling than the grief, so he hung on to it. Kayla didn’t feel much differently, only her face looked at Rolf with a sadness that even his unemotional heart couldn’t bear.
“Auf Wiedersehen,” Rolf said somberly, then he turned on his heel, got into his mid-sized rental, and drove away.
And just like that, all the answers they’d been searching for for two years were delivered to them like a thorny boquet of black roses tied up in a misleadingly beautiful bow.
Marcus didn’t lead them back into the livingroom. Instead he headed for the door to follow Rolf. But Steve stopped him before he could get out. He turned Marcus around by the bicep, but when the two men were facing each other, Steve couldn’t make the words come out. He wanted to tell Marcus that he had to take care of Emily after they jumped. That he had to help the two of them through their missing time if their proper awarenesses returned to these bodies. He wanted to tell him how important he was in their lives, and he wanted to save him from his own untimely death. But no words came out. All he could do was swallow nervously. Kayla watched her husband struggle and felt helpless.
Marcus took Steve’s hand from his arm and grasped it in the most meaningful show of loyalty that Steve had ever felt from him.
“You two have a lot to talk about, so it’s time for me to go. But I’m comin’ back here tomorrow. We’ll talk about it then. Steve thanked him and exhaled tightly. Then Marcus turned one last time to Kayla. “How you feelin’ this time?” he asked with a “you’re pregnant” nod toward her.
“Better than with Em,” she said with a small smile. “Barely six weeks along.” Marcus nodded and told her to take care of herself, then he was gone, and Steve and Kayla had only each other.
Back in their bedroom, they felt … awkward. Their world had changed drastically in the last two hours, and devastated didn’t even begin to define how they felt. This was very bad, there was no other way to slice it. Neither of them knew what to say to each other. Steve sat on the bed while Kayla hovered three feet away by the window.
“I don’t know what to do,” Steve said edgily. “Marina’s gonna be here any damned minute, and I don’t know what the hell to do.”
“I think we do what we already agreed on, we get a restraining order the minute she gets here.”
“We didn’t do that the first time.” Steve rolled his eye at how stupid that sounded.
Kayla let her fingers play at her lips as she looked out into the inky night. “I think tomorrow we go to right to Mickey Horton,” she said breathily, “and draw up trusts to ensure Emily is taken care of.” She didn’t say by whom, because without even discussing it they both knew by whom. “And … we’re going to need living wills.”
Steve stood up and paced. “You heard the man, Kayla, the timeline stops. It all stops.”
“I don’t care!” she flared very aggressively. “And that’s not what I heard! I heard that he doesn’t know.”
“He was pretty damn sure, Kayla, be real!”
“He wasn’t at all sure, and don’t you tell me I’m not being real, goddammit! I’m being very real, I heard ever word the doctor said!”
“’The doctor?!’ Please, baby, you’re a doctor, Marcus is a doctor, that man is a cocksucking motherfucker!”
“And an arrogant prick, yeah, I know!” Kayla rarely spoke in this language in this context. “But he’s the one with the only answers we’ve got, and I listened very carefully. He. Doesn’t. KNOW, Steve. He’s guessing with a lot of it, and, ok, his guesses are probably reliable, but there’s more than a little bit of wiggle room, and I’m not gambling with Emily’s future based on that – Mengela’s – guesses!”
“Oh, baby.” He didn’t go to her yet, but her use of Mengela affected him just the same as his use of it affected her months before.
“He imprinted John and Roman. He imprinted Hope! And he imprinted YOU! Oh, Steve, he did those things to you! God, Steve … . He pulled the “I was just following orders” excuse, and now he thinks that this twisted existence is making up for it?”
“Shhh … Kayla, I can’t take it, I can’t …”
“I know who he is, Steve. I do, I know. But we have to make sure. That Emily is safe. That we’re taken care of in case maybe our awarenesses split themselves or the original ones return or something. Or we just go catatonic and end up in matching rubber rooms. We can’t know for sure, that’s why I have the journal and the jump project. That’s why, baby, that’s why! We have to protect ourselves and Emily and Stephanie on the way, and our future, and theirs!
Now Kayla dropped her face into both hands and cried as she leaned against the wall. “My babies …,” she sobbed.
Steve finally went to her and took her into his embrace. “You don’t want to go home, do you, Sweetness?” Steve stared out the window and looked out at the night sky. He wondered if it would cease to exist whe they jumped. If this Marcus and their families and the world would go on without them, or if they would all just freeze like a pause button. If Emily would never giggle or look at them like she held all the answers ever again. He waited for Kayla’s answer, and finally she shook her head.
Steve took a very deep breath. He tried not to be angry. But he couldn’t help feeling very alone with that admission. He didn’t have to ask why, he knew why, but she followed it up with her explanation, anyway.
“I can’t bear the thought of losing her, Steve. I miss them, I do, you have to believe that.”
“Of course, I believe that!” he hissed softly.
“I ache for them. But as soon as this one is born we’ll know for sure. When we see her face we’ll know for sure if it’s Stephanie or if we made a different baby. But I know it’s her, I just know it! And if it’s her, then … don’t you see … then we can make Joey, too! It might take 20 years, but we can make him. We’ll get them both back, and we can have all three of our children right here with us in this timeline.”
“I want that, Kayla,” Steve assured her. “You don’t know how badly I want that.”
“Oh yes I do. But if we jump away, then we’ll never get her back. God, Steve, we’ll never get Emily back again if we jump from here. We know that Stephanie and Joey are safe at home, it’s like a miracle, but he says they’re safe! We’ll see them again! We can make them here! But we can’t ever get Emily back ag…” Kayla gasped for breath, “…again.”
Steve was nearing that same emotional danger zone that Kayla had reached earlier that evening. The air felt thin on this cliff, and he needed to breathe. Which meant he couldn’t think about this anymore.
“Later, Sweetness,” he said tightly. “No more. Please. No more.” He backed away from her and got in bed. “Tomorrow, ok? We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” He beckoned to her to get in bed with him, and she did, because it was all either of them could do right now.
Their sleep was fitful, filled with horrific dreams that neither of them would remember in the morning, but their souls were tortured by the truth of their existence.
Steve woke up before either the sun or his daughter. He quietly walked in to check on her and was relieved to see her chest rise and fall. Careful not to disturb her, he gazed at her very soulfully, taking in what she looked like when she slept. Quietly, he slipped his finger into her half-open palm and smiled with satisfaction when she instinctively gripped it. Her deep breath that followed sent warmth through her father, and he knew that no matter what kind of nightmare this was, Emily was a gift. Steve was not a religious man, but she was absolutely a gift from God. He didn’t know how he was going to survive losing her, but he did know that he would never regret her. He would never for as long as he lived regret that this beautiful baby girl chose him and Kayla to be her mother and father.
Kayla was in the doorway when he turned to go. She smiled at him, and he smiled back. “Your turn,” he whispered with a kiss to her cheek, then he went back to their room to wait for her, smiling at the portraits of his other two children on the way.
Steve was reading Emily’s diary – the original Emily’s diary – when Kayla returned with unshed tears in her eyes. He didn’t know what made him pick up the old, leather-bound book that they’d read together many times before. It lived in Kayla’s nightstand, and right now he just felt moved to read it. Kayla climbed in, and for a moment she looked a bit green.
“Morning sickness?”
“Yeah,” she said. “It’ll pass.” He put his arm around her, and brought her in to lay against him as he leaned against the headboard. “Little light reading?” Steve shrugged. “Makes you feel a little better, doesn’t it?” He smiled. She knew him better than he knew himself.
“Yeah, Sweetness, it does.” He lay the book down and turned his head down to her. “I’m sorry about last night.”
Kayla looked up at him. “I am, too.”
Steve sighed. “I told you not to shut me out, then that’s exactly what I did. You were tryin’ to tell me how you felt, and I wouldn’t let you. I’m sorry.” Kayla didn’t reply, but her eyes held all the emotions that he was feeling, too. Love, fear, inadequacy. She laid her head back onto Steve’s chest, and held him.
Steve read Emily’s diary to Kayla for the next little while before her namesake woke up with a string of very happy babble. They put the diary down and smiled as she had a very animated conversation with Eeyore, Pooh, Piglet, and Tigger hanging above her. They heard when she stood up, because they knew her every movement and inflection, and giggled, themselves, when she clearly called out to Winnie the Pooh, specifically, with some kind of instruction that they were sure he was paying close attention to. They let her be as she held court in her own personal Hundred Acre Wood and let the sounds do their own imprinting upon their souls.
“I want to stay here forever, Sweetness,” Steve finally whispered as he stroked Kayla’s arm that was draped protectively across his chest. “I want what you want. This timeline feels so right. It feels like this is the way things were supposed to be, and the regular one was us getting it wrong.” Kayla was very still. “But you said it last night, I don’t want to gamble on our kids’ lives, and we have two kids in that other timeline. If we fix the slipstream we’ll get them back. If we break it on the chance we could stay here, we might lose all of them. I would do anything for her if I knew I didn’t have to sacrifice the others. Choosing to stay here and purposely break it on that gamble? Baby …,” he rasped. “It’s an impossible Sophie’s Choice, Sweetness.”
The truth of Steve’s words were powerful. Kayla sat up beside her husband and bore her watery eyes into his before palming his face in her hand. Then she nodded and kissed his lips. They both understood now that there was no right answer, because both answers were equally wrong. They never spoke of it again.
They did, however, go to see a lawyer immediately. Steve balked at Mickey, however, as he never really liked him when thinking of him in retrospect. The man failed to get any of the innocent people accused of murder off, including Kayla, and he charged a lot of money for the failure. Plus he partnered with EJ Dimera, and that was the nail in the coffin on what Steve thought of Mickey Horton. Chris Kosichek, however big an asshole Steve felt he was, proved to be a lot more competent at getting Steve off, and half the time he didn’t even deserve it. Kayla was shocked when he insisted they go to Chris instead. But she didn’t argue, and before Kayla had completed her first trimester they not only had iron-clad living wills, but they had a trust set up for Emily, Stephanie, and any future children.
Marcus was honored to accept the guardianship of Steve and Kayla’s children. They spent a lot of time with Marcus after that horrible night with Rolf, and there was now very little that Marcus didn’t know. They shared the jump project binder with him in its entirety, including the more personal details, because it was important that he understand all of it. They did not share Emily’s journal with him, though. They did tell him where it was and that he was to read it after they were gone, assuming the timeline continued. Not before. Because they’d shared all of this information, he’d learned that he is not alive in 2009, and that, naturally, unnerved Marcus greatly. Philosophers all pretty much agreed that knowing the details of your own future, especially your death meant nothing but catastrophic paradoxes in that future. But there was no written future here, and their children had to come first; so they did what they thought was best. Kayla was very clear about what he died of on May 22, 2004: An ascending aortic aneurysm. Marcus was a surgeon, not a cardiologist, but he knew more than enough to know that at 44 it wasn’t really the aneurysm that killed him, it was what caused it, which was either a murmur or a connective tissue disorder. Kayla told him that he had to get diagnosed right away – or at least before 2004 so it could be prevented.
None of them had any idea what to do about Reverend Taylor and his revival, which had kind of made it there mid-summer, only in this version of their lives it went to Brookeville. Marcus still very much wanted to go to Cleaver, South Carolina, and look into his parents’ deaths. So, Steve came clean about the connection between the two con men running the revival and the church explosion he witnessed as a boy. It wasn’t just Marcus, however, the whole thing was complicated by Shane’s involvement and whether or not the rest of the ISA in the form of Gail Carson or anyone else was going to poke around.
“I thought we agreed not to get involved in this stuff,” Kayla said over lunch at the Emergency Center.
“Yeah, but now we gotta make sure Marcus is actually gonna be here to take care of the girls,” Steve said as he rubbed Kayla’s burgeoning belly. “Now we gotta get involved.”
But as it happened, Shane never went missing, and neither Gail nor Faith ever entered into any of their lives. The revival came and went, and with it went the nefarious dealings and all the danger surrounding Marcus. This was hard for their friend to let go, because he loved them, but he wasn’t just window dressing. He had a life, too, and he very much wanted some closure to it. But, eventually, Marucs came to terms with all of this and agreed to let it go. For now.
Kayla started showing very early in her pregnancy, the muscles not very far out of memory from just two years prior. Emily proved to excel at everything she did other than eat vegetables, of which she was not a fan, and that included talking. She was speaking in shocking clarity by the time she hit 16-months old. Her favorite thing to do was to lay her hands on the bump that was her sister and say, “baby Mommy’s tummy.”
Steve and Kayla loved it when she did this. Kimberly had her baby in June – another boy they named Paul to honor the man who’d loved Andrew enough to give him up to his rightful parents – so that wasn’t Jeannie, and she was fairly shocked at her niece’s development.
“That’s just not normal, Kay, she’s gifted. I can see it in those beautiful eyes of hers. Her speech has even surpassed Andrew’s. I’m telling you, Kayla, you have to have her tested.”
Kayla knew better. Not that Emily couldn’t possibly be gifted, but she just knew that something ethereal had touched her very old and wise soul. Kayla wasn’t about to share that with Kimberly, who really had a hard time letting go of her insistence that Emily be tested for gifted abilities, but she placated her sister and said she’d look into it. When she told Steve what Kimberly had said, he blew crazy raspberries onto Emily’s belly, making her squeal in delight, begging for more.
“That’s a normal Littlest Girl if I ever met one,” he mused, and Kayla couldn’t agree more. Steve obliged his daughter, and she kicked out her legs with such spit and vinegar that Steve had to hold her at arm’s length for a minute while his ribs recovered. “Oof! Ok, I’m gonna start callin’ you Little Butler pretty soon.”
“More, Dah-dee!”
“I’m tellin’ you, Sweetness, I’m callin’ up the NFL scouts before she turns two.”
“Ok, sounds good,” Kayla laughed.
Steve woke up sick as a dog in late August. Kayla wasn’t sure she should leave, but despite feeling like he’d been run over by a Mack truck, he insisted that she go lest she catch it. Two hours later he had to call her to come home, because he was in seriously bad shape and couldn’t actually take care of Emily. Every sign of that year’s strain of the flu virus was all over him, and Kayla went into doctor mode immediately. Six hours later she was sick, too, the virus had travelled that fast. By dinner time they knew they were in serious trouble, because they both spiked fevers of 104, which was dangerous for Kayla being 20 weeks pregnant. She took Tylenol to get her fever down, but the rest of it would have to work its way through her, and she was as down for the count as Steve was. Steve was barely coherent, so Kayla called Jo and asked her to please come and take over Emily. Jo was so grateful to be able to help her son and be entrusted with her granddaughter that she was almost beside herself. And she really came through. She succeeded in staying healthy, took fantastic care of Emily, and nursed her son and daughter-in-law back to health for two solid days before either of them could get out of bed again. And Emily was more than happy to be with her grandma.
“That little thing sure will tucker a grandma out,” Jo chuckled as Steve had his first real cup of coffee and solid food in almost three days. “She’s a joy, Steve, you know that?”
“We know it, Mama,” he grinned. Kayla was in the shower while the three of them were eating in the kitchen. Jo prepared a softboiled egg and toast for Kayla while Steve held Emily on his lap as she chanted “Ma-ma” over and over again. “Thanks for takin’ such good care of us. You have no idea.”
“Oh, I think I do,” she said as she sat next to him and embraced him around the shoulder. “I know what it’s like.” Steve took her hand and held it. Then he nodded and kissed her cheek.” Jo loved her son so much and ran her fingers through his just washed hair.
“Want Ma-ma.”
“Well, of course, you do,” Jo said sympathetically to her granddaughter, “You miss your Mama.”
“Want Ma-ma.”
Just then a crash came from the livingroom. Normally noises did not faze Emily at all, but this one made her jump, and her little face twisted up. She started crying as Steve and his mother looked at each other. “What was that?” he said rhetorically, then he got up and headed for the source of the noise.
Kayla was standing in one of Steve’s shirts and pajama bottoms, the scent of red wine permeating the room, as well as the pajama bottoms.
“Sweetness, are you ok, baby?”
Kayla shook her head, and Steve straightened up. “What is this?” he asked looking around and sniffing the air. He reached for her, and it hit him. It hit him before his mother opened her mouth.
“Oh no! That was from Donna.” Jo shook her head in concern and regret that she hadn’t mentioned it earlier.
“Who?” Steve said absently as his daughter continued to cry and reach for Kayla.
“Donna,” Jo repeated as she bounced and tried to sooth the tot. “Your friend? Donna D’Angelo. She came by with that bottle of wine yesterday. She said she was an old friend and wanted you to have the wine. It looked awfully expensive. I assumed it was for your anniversary next week.”
Steve bent to pick up a piece of the glass bottle that still had the label in tact. Marina Reserva, it read. “She’s here,” he rasped as he grapsed for Kayla’s hand. “Jesus Christ, she’s here.”
“I-I-I’m sorry, I … it must have slipped from my,” she swallowed hard, “my hand.”
“Nothing to be sorry about, you’re still recovering, now, Kayla,” Jo tried to smooth over.
On automatic, Kayla dropped Steve’s hand so she could reach out for Emily, who was now screaming for her mother.
“You really should change out of those pajamas, Kayla—”
“Later,” she smiled faintly for Emily’s benefit, “I will.” Emily went to Kayla and shoved her head into her neck, whimpering. Kayla didn’t know if it was the nearly three days without real contact with her parents, the change in her routine, or something else, but Emily clung to Kayla and would not let go. Kayla let her, the calming effect mutual. Steve was always far more upset by the prospect of having to deal with Marina ever again, but now that it was here in the very real embodiment of that damnable wine, Kayla was rattled.
“Steve? Jo sensed something wasn’t right here. What is it?”
“I think you’d better go have a word with Jo,” Kayla said. Steve nodded. “I’ll take her upstairs.”
Steve didn’t waste a word. He and Jo worked together to clean up the wine and glass shards, and he told his mother everything about Marina Toscano. Jo was completely shocked to hear all of this, but she was even more shocked at her son’s demeanor. He was very upset, and that upset her.
Kayla brought Emily down to say goodbye to her grandmother and to thank her for taking such good care of them, then they began the task of trying to extricate themselves from their daughter’s suddenly vey clingy grasp. She refused and wouldn’t even nap. Kayla was convinced that she’d come down with their virus and was ready to go to the hospital to hydrate her, only she showed no real signs of illness, her temperature was fine, and her skintone was perfectly hydrated. She was cutting several teeth, but that was about it. This truly uncharacteristic crankiness was exhausting, and neither Steve nor Kayla got a moment’s rest, she insisted on being held by one or the other and wouldn’t even go down for a nap. Finally, at 7pm she was so tuckered out that she fell asleep in their bed between them, and all they could do was follow her lead and go down for the night with her.
The next day Kayla had to go back to work, and Emily seemed to be pretty much back to her normal self. Steve called Roman, and Kayla called Chris, and they both told the agreed-upon story, which was nothing short of the truth, accusing Marina of harassment. Sure enough, she was found in the exact hotel that they said she’d be at under the exact fake name that she’d used all those years ago. The sh*t began hitting the fan very quickly after that, because they cut through her ruse right away, and she had to go into her, “you’re married to my husband” crap a lot sooner than she had the first time. No car accident, no moving in, and no tolerance for any talk of the key. Yet. Kayla was forced to face her when she showed up at the Emergency Center to harass her, and she was lucky that Roman had removed her before Steve showed up to kill her. Then they both had to share space with her in court when she contested the restraining order. But it was granted, the Brady family of cop connections kept her from walking through it, and for the time being she was nullified. But the danger of Victor Kiriakis and his need for the key now that Marina had shown up, and their knowledge that Isabella was in the sanitarium still loomed. They weren’t sure where to go from here, and tomorrow was their anniversary, so they put it on hold for now.
On September 5th, Steve and Kayla celebrated their second wedding anniversary in this timeline. The happiness and contentment they’d found since Rolf’s disclosure to them four months prior was guarded, as they were constantly on high alert for either a jump or Marina. But they did choose happiness, and now that she had, indeed, shown up, they didn’t want to let her take that happiness away. So here on their 2nd anniversary, for the very first time, they allowed Caroline and Shawn to watch Emily while they went out. Roman had a uniform on Marina, so they felt safe to do it as long as they came to Steve and Kayla’s house to watch her. Shawn and Caroline jumped on it without a single argument, afraid if they questioned them they’d change their minds.
Only it wasn’t that simple, because apparently Emily’s almost beautific wisdom did not extend to separation anxiety. Once again, she did not want her parents to leave, and clung to Kayla like she was never going to see her again. Of course, she could be right, and Kayla wanted to cancel the whole thing right there. Caroline saw this on her daughter’s face and intervened at once.
“You can’t bubble wrap her, dear. One day you’ll have to let her go to school.”
“Not if I home school her,” Steve muttered.
Shawn rolled his eyes. “You kids have the craziest ideas,” he said. First yer a house-husband, and now you’re home schoolin’. Yeh don’t live with Laura Ingalls, now.”
“Kayla,” her mother tried again, “she’ll be here when you get back.” Then she looked to Steve. “I promise.”
“Ma-ma,” Emily whimpered then pointed to Kayla’s belly, “baby tummy.” As if this might convince her to stay. But Kayla chose to believe her mother – believe in her promise that they’d still be there when they got back and looked at her husband for his decision. He nodded, and they pried themselves away. But it felt wrong.
They were silent as they made the short drive.
“There had to be a first time we left her,” Steve reasoned. “Right?”
“Yeah,” Kayla said, holding in her tears. “We’ll be ok. She’ll be ok. Roman’s watching Marina, I know she’ll be ok.”
“Yeah.”
But it felt like no.
The Cheatin’ Heart was very crowded on this unseasonally brisk late summer day. Steve was shocked when Kayla said she wanted to go to The Cheatin’ Heart, but that really was the only place she wanted to go. She wanted to watch her husband hustle pool. And that’s exactly what she did. Both of them ate hamburgers with fries, and Steve downed two beers while Kayla peed every ounce of water that she drank. Steve smiled at her as he played, and she enjoyed watching him.
But it never did feel right. What it felt like was that they weren’t supposed to be here. And it wasn’t just one of them that felt the strange quality pushing in on them, they both did. So, less than an hour after they’d arrived, they left. Steve drove home very fast.
Emily was wailing at the top of her lungs when they got home. Kayla saw her daughter’s crimson face and red eyes and nearly exploded.
“Why didn’t you call us, we told you where we’d be?!”
“Girl, don’t ye yell at yer mother like that.”
“Pop, has she even stopped crying since we left?”
Caroline shook her head. “No, Kayla, she hasn’t, I was just about to call you, I’m very sorry.” She meant it, too. She’d never seen her granddaughter like this, the little girl who was the happiest thing in any room no matter who was with her. It was unnerving, and Caroline was sure she was sick. “I think you should take her to the ER right away.”
“I’m a doctor, I’ll examine her.”
“You’re a what?”
“Nevermind,” Steve said testily but still in control. “Did anyone come to the hosue while we were gone?”
“Yeh mean that shrew yeh married when you were barely old enough to enlist? No.”
“Pop, that’s enough.”
Steve felt such loss with the way Shawn felt about him these days. He knew that this version of his father-in-law cared about him and even loved him, but the real, fatherly relationship they’d once shared wasn’t part of this timeline, and it upset Steve. Right now, however, he had bigger fish to fry.
“Just go, please,” Kayla said. “I’m sorry, and we appreciate that you came by to watch her, but we’ve got our hands full.” Caroline nodded, kissed her daughter and Steve, then took her muttering husband by the elbow and led him out.
They spent the next hour trying desperately to calm their bereft daughter. Kayla got out her bag and examined her up and down. She did a rapid throat culture and found what her capable eyes had already deduced, which was that there was no strep. Her temp was up past 99, but that was from the crying. She felt in her mouth for new teeth, and felt nothing more than what was already erupting. Emily did not like her mother’s fingers in her mouth and spit them out, which would have made them both laugh if her state wasn’t so alarming.
They tried TV, music, walking with her, letting her walk the house, Steve tried playing his harmonica, and this calmed her slightly, but she never reduced to anything less than soft whimpers. Steve bounced her on his knee, flew her through the house, and even got out her swing, which was really too small for her now, but they tried it anyway.
“Baby Ma-ma’s tummy.”
“That’s right,” Kayla said for the hundredth time. “Baby Stephanie is in my tummy.”
It was nearly 2am, and other than a few short catnaps lasting no more than 20 minutes a piece, Emily would not close her eyes. She would not sleep, and she would not calm from whatever it was that had her in such a right state.
“Dah-dee?” Emily called to Steve. “Dah-dee?”
“Oh, Emily, you gotta sleep, baby.”
“Emmy Girl, you’re killin’ us, honey,” Kayla sighed. “I think mom was right, maybe we should take her to the ER.”
“Dah-dee,” she repeated, and this time it was very insistent that her father acknowledge her sniffly little voice.
“Right here, my Littlest Girl.” He sat up on the bed from where he’d been prone with his arm over his eyes and looked at her. What he saw there made him sit up very straight. “Emily?”
His tone caught Kayla’s attention anew and looked up at her daughter’s face. It was very determined. And very, very scared.
“Baby Mommy’s tummy.” The way she said this was different than all the other times. It was unqualifiable in its tone. Very deliberate. Like she was trying to tell them something. Just then Stephanie kicked.
Steve felt heady. He didn’t know what made him recall it, but the dream he’d had two years earlier in Gabrielle’s safe house came to him with the clarity of the sun. The grief was so close that he could see it from where he was sitting. But it wasn’t there yet, so he smiled and put his hands on his unborn child. Then he spoke to his daughter for the last time.
“Come feel this, Emily,” he said to her as the baby continued to kick. “Mama’s gonna have a racecar driver. How does that sound for a sister?”
“Steve?” The panic in Kayla’s voice told him that she felt it, too. That she knew this was the end. But he didn’t let the tears sting his eye yet.
He took the tops of Emily’s hands in his palms and ran them over Kayla’s warm belly for his daughter to connect to her sibling with. “That’s what having babies is all about. Can you feel that, honey?” Kayla clutched onto the backs of Steve’s hands as they held on to Emily’s. “Can you feel all that love in your heart, my Littlest Girl?”
Emily had finally stopped crying. Her face was still wet with tears, but she’d stopped crying for the first time in hours, and looked almost relieved. Almost like she was at peace that her parents were understanding what she was trying to say. And Kayla and Steve marveled in wonder when she nodded her head at her father’s question, as if she had known since before she was born that he’d be asking it.
“Sure you do. I know you do,” he said and kissed her warm head.
Kayla felt Stephanie kick, making her presence in this family known, and she connected with her first born in that moment on a very deep level. That’s when the panic truly took her. There were no telltale signs, but she didn’t need them, and she had to feel Emily solidly against her. Emily laid her head down upon her mother’s belly, and Kayla started to really cry. Instead of panicking with her, their daughter reached her hand up and found Kayla’s for her to hold it, all while continuing to lay across her mother.
Steve held it together a moment longer and reached his arms around them all. Embracing his wife, his daughter, and his unborn child all at the same time, Steve was … happy. He was incredibly happy. So happy, in fact, that when he felt the air change around him like it had suddenly developed a charge, he was too content in just that one very brief moment to get upset with what he knew was coming next.
Kayla threaded her fingers into her daughter’s hair, then tilted Steve’s chin up to look at her and smiled at him. “We love you, too, Steve,” she said to him, then threaded her other hand through Steve’s hair, too.
Steve locked eyes with her; his smile broke her heart. They kissed, and their souls started weeping.
Then Steve unravelled. He tried to stay strong for Emily, but the anguish was already suffocating him. His lips were still covering Kayla’s when the sobbing began, and he didn’t know who started first.
Kayla picked up her daughter and held her tightly to her breast. She pulled Steve up to embrace him as he did the same, and they both inhaled her in deep, consuming breaths that drank her in.
“I’m not leaving!” Kayla insisted, and she meant it with every fiber of her being. She dug her feet into the mattress as if to plant herself within it. “I’m not leaving, Steve, we’re staying here, do you hear me?!”
“Ma-ma,” Emily soothed.
Kayla sobbed. “My beautiful Emmy Girl. Do you know how much I love you? Do you know?” Emily chanted “Ma-ma” several more times and let her face take up residence in her mother’s neck again. “I love you, baby, I love you so much! Forever, I love you!” Steve watched as Emily connected with her mother and felt himself continue to break. “We’re not leaving,” Kayla hissed again.
“Ok,” he cried. “We’re not leaving.”
“I mean it!”
“So do I, Sweetness!”
But he knew better. Steve knew he was going to jump, and he realized that Emily clearly had known it all night. Maybe even all week. And he knew that he was going first this time and waited for the tug to hit him in that moment.
Only it was Kayla who screamed in anguish, because it was her diaphragm the tug hit first. And for the first time in more than two years, the jump effect began to take her.
“No! No, no, no, no!! I said no, I SAID NO!!!” Steve knew it had started and cried out for her in desperation. “I feel it, Steve, I feel it!”
“No you don’t, we’re not leaving!”
Kayla thought she was going to pass out. “Take her with us!” she begged her husband as the room started to spin. “Take her with us, Steve, don’t let her go! Please, don’t let go!!”
“I’ve got you both, baby, I’ve got you both! I love you, Sweetness! I won’t let go!” But then he felt a surge of abject panic and tried to reason with her. “I can’t do this! Baby, please, I can’t!”
In a moment of strength that Kayla didn’t even know she had, she lifted her head and focused on her husband as the room around him was just about to fall away. She laid the hand not clutching Emily on Steve’s chest where the shell that hung around his neck lay at the hollow beneath her fingertips and said, “I’m your anchor … and you’re mine.”
“Oh God, Baby,” Steve cried.
The last thing Kayla did in her body was place her lips on the top of her daughter’s strawberry-ringletted head. “I love you forever,” she whispered. She inhaled deeply, then Kayla was gone.
Steve watched her go. He watched as the beloved mother of his children and owner of his soul left this world, and he let out a wretched sob as the tug finally hit him, too. His arm was wrapped around her body now devoid of its soul, this woman that he would love with such reverence and devotion until the day he died. And he wanted that day to be right now.
Kayla’s lips were still on Emily’s head, so he let them stay there while he went to do the same. But before he could do it, Emily called out to him.
“Dah-dee?”
Steve felt the room just starting to fall away, but his daughter’s beautiful voice focused him.
When will I see you again, Daddy? her voice now rang in his head as her eyes looked deeply into his. She was holding her mother very tightly, her little cheek still plastered to her breast in a connection she instinctively knew not to break, and her eyes were very sad.
Steve didn’t hesitate. “The next time I close my eyes, Littlest Sweetness. I’ll see you then, ok?” Her red curls bobbed as she nodded her head happily. “I love you, Emily.”
I love you, too, Daddy.
“Forever.” It was the last word he’d ever speak.
Steve took her little hand in his and brought it to his lips. Then as his wife had done before him, he inhaled deeply. He never broke eye contact with her.
“Dah-dee,” Emily said with every bit of unconditional love for him that she was born with.
Steve let out a strangled cry as he smiled at her for the last time. Then the jump took him.