“Drop the weapon, Marlena!” Her hands stilled, the blade trembled with her restraint. A thin line of red beads dripped down John’s throat. She stared at the blood, the poison flowing out. She recognized the gruff boom of the voice. She held her place, not lowering the knife. She had to finish this. 

 

“I said, stop it, Doc!” Roman shouted, his gun aimed at her.

 

“She can’t.” Fernando turned his weapon on Roman. “She doesn’t have a choice. She has to kill him.” She glanced at her ex-husband; he was bruised but strong. Roman’s confusion resulted in his aim bouncing from her to Fernando. 

 

“What’s going on?” Roman demanded. Fernando made a move to his left.  “Don’t—” The sound of the gun safety clicking off reverberated around the tense room. The agent halted movement, the standoff between them thickening the air, suffocating. 

“How did you find us, Roman?” she asked, not looking at him.

“I tracked his cell phone,” he said quickly. “It wasn’t easy; he kept going in and out of signal, now I know why.” His eyes roamed around the underground walls.

 

She used the distraction to gauge John’s condition. He was weakening. Sweat dotted his forehead; his facial muscles ticed, muscles spasm. She knew the symptoms; she learned them, years ago. Soon, convulsions will take hold. 

He didn’t have long. 

 

That scenario had two contingencies: Roman’s arrival set the first in motion. 

“I’m ready,” John said. “You’re ready, Doc,” she sucked in a fortifying breath. 

 

Then: “You’ve been chasing a liar,” she told Roman. She caught and held his gaze. His Glock was still directed at Fernando. 

 

“He was never a prisoner of Stefano, a victim, perhaps. He was a doctor here. I saw pictures; I can prove it. He designed the microchip, but then I guess, something went wrong, and Stefano had decided to wipe out all of his memories, and plant new ones instead.” She let the truth of her words drift over him. “I was here too, we all were. Fernando injected me with a smart microchip, I remember now. It holds Stefano’s secrets.” 

 

His thick brows drew together. As realization set in, he focused on the man in his sight. “I knew something was off.” 

 

“What are you suggesting, Doctor Evans” Fernando adjusted his stance, rolling his shoulders and lifting his chin. “That I have made all of this up? That I was never a victim in all this? mmmm interesting.” he smirked.

“Maybe you were, in the end, but before that, you were just as much the mastermind Stefano was.” Roman hissed

“You’re not a part of this, Roman. You’re a bumbling, a lame excuse for a detective, and you’re officially off the case.” 

 

A gunshot fired.

The silence broke.

Gunfire cracked with a resounding echo, leaving behind a muted ringing in her ears. On startled reflex, she dropped the knife. 

 

John pulled her down against the container and positioned his body over hers. A loud groan of pain, and then another shot rang out. “I hate guns.” John’s voice was barely audible through the gauzy stuffing filling her ears.

 

“This how you want to end it, Fernando?!” he yelled. “You are much to blame as Stefano is, but you can still redeem yourself.” Then, John’s comforting weight disappeared. 

He released a grunt as a booted foot made contact with his ribs, then a sharp pain lanced the back of her head. 

 

She was yanked backward, her bare skin burning as she was dragged along the cold metal. 

“Get up, Principessa,” Fernando seethed, pulling her to stand by her hair. She lashed out, nailed aimed at his face, but he easily blocked her attack. He smashed the butt of the gun against her temple. Pain splintered her head, darkness blinked before her eyes. He drew her against his chest. 

Pushed the muzzle to her throbbing head. Her feet kicked at the steel despite the pain it caused her injured flesh, seeking purchase as he dragged her over the container. Fernando gripped her shoulder, securing his forearm across her chest. 

“What are you saying, Doc, I was actually a doctor? That’s interesting, no wonder I know my way around drugs.”

 

John watched the moment through a haze of pain and helplessness as the aconite ravished his system. Incensed, she regained her composure and latched on to Fernando’s arm, digging her nails into his skin. 

“Let me go—” 

“Not happening, Marlena,” he said near her ear. “You see, I extracted your microchip, I know everything now. Everything.” He presented his bloody palm to show her a small metal, covered with blood.

 

She quickly glanced down her body, a trail of blood dripped down from her wounded him down her leg; there was no pain. The place was probably sedated. 

"How did you know that it wa-"

“There’s nothing for me to live for anymore, and if I'm going down,” he whispered, “I'm taking you with me.”

As her vision cleared, she glimpsed Roman below. Leaned up against a support beam, he used it as a shield. He was holding his casted arm. Red seeped between his fingers. 

He has been shot. 

John was dying. 

Roman was injured. How badly, she was not sure—but he won’t be able to make a stand against Fernando. She was a sacrificial lamb for Fernando’s escape. Fighting to live only long enough until she transition into a burden. 

 

She could taste the acid infusing the air. She caught John’s gaze and stopped struggling. The clarity she felt has reflected in his sheer blue eyes. He was losing the battle, his awareness slipping away. 

Now. 

When Roman stepped from behind the beam, gun drowned and aimed, Marlena acted. She got limp like a rag doll. Fernando growled his frustration as he tried to hoist her up. Roman took his shot. 

 

The bullet whizzed past Fernando, just missing its mark. Fernando abandoned the fight for a hostage and released her. He took aim at Roman. John was forgotten in the chaos. He raised up now, the last of his strength concentrated into one final burst. 

Fernando noticed too late. John attacked Fernando, and the gun skittered across the container. She crawled toward it, but by the time she had closed her hand around the weapon, she had already lost too much time. 

 

John had Fernando locked in a vise-grip, his arm latched around his neck. 

“The knife,” John said. 

A moment—one clear moment—where their eyes met, and she knew what she had to do. The knife was in her hand. 

She looked for Roman. 

He was ascending the side of the container, slowly. His broken arm a hindrance. Steps deliberated, she approached John. His struggle with Fernando was diminishing him further. He couldn’t restrain him much longer. 

She met Fernando’s eyes and, with a grunt, drove the blade into his sternum. 

 

He sputtered a shocked, incomprehensible admonishment—something with a muttered bitch. She twisted the blade deeper, up beneath his rib cage. From her peripheral, she glimpsed Roman’s hand reached over the top of the container. Only seconds now. As Fernando quickly became dead weight, John nearly toppled over. 

 

“I’m too weak…” He trailed off.

“I’ve got you,” she told John. 

“I know you do, baby.” He winked. 

She braced her bare feet against the metal and slammed her hands into Fernando’s shoulder. Holding John’s arm as tight as she could, as Fernando went over the edge, his fist clutching the tiny metal object in his hand. The momentum knocked her off balance, and she slipped on the blood coating the container.

 

“John—” It happened so quickly, in a blink. She scrambled toward the edge of the container and looked over the side, her hands gripped to John, and the metal like it was the only solid force holding her together. She flashed back to how fast the predator in the maze dissolved—how, within minutes, she could no longer distinguish his body parts. Flesh and bone liquefied. 

 

Below her, the mixture of sulfuric acid churned violently. The fumes irritated her eyes. A thick film already bubbled over the top, blocking her view of the carnage happening within. Then she was pulled back. John’s thick arm locked around her waist as he wrangled her away from the edge. 

He was telling her not to look. 

 

Don’t look. 

 

She folded herself against him, her bones weak. Every ache and pain alive and fueling her oncoming breakdown. “Don’t look, Marlena,” John said again. He grunted from the pain. “It’s over now. He’s gone. You’re safe.” She squeezed her eyes closed. She was not sure if he was trying to reassure her or himself. 

 

Roman put the call in, and within minutes the Italian police arrived, followed by the FBI. They were soon draped in a blanket, just like the morning she awoke tied to their bed, and John was gone. Death and freedom are sometimes described as one and the same. Death was a form of freedom—freedom from the prison of what their life as become. 

 

*******

 

Three days later.

​

Plastic—that was all he could taste. His tongue was so dry that it felt like it was made of paper. His teeth were fuzzy, like mold was growing over the enamel. As he swam through the fog in his brain, it slowly started coming back to him, the very last memory he had. 

 

He had been told Fernando was actually a doctor at Stefano's compound; he had no memory of that time, that was certain… and then everything had turned to black. Everything was still black. His eyes were closed, his lids feeling much too heavy to open. And there was beeping in his ears. Lots of high-pitched beeping… Where was it coming from? 

 

That noise hadn’t been in the underground clinic. But the differences didn’t stop there. There was softness, too. The cold floor wasn’t this feathery. 

It had been hard, cement hard. 

And it wasn’t cold in there like it typically was down there. If anything, he was warm. 

Too warm. It must have been from the poisonous blades. Those drugs he gave him made him feel loopy.

 

Marlena had said it took at least a day for the poison to work its way out of his system. Had it been a day? 

More memories started to come back to him. Fernando had Marlena’s body above acid. She was barely breathing. She needed help. She needed to go to a hospital. 

 

“What’s beeping?” The sound of his own voice surprised him. It was hoarse, a little deep. So scratchy.

 

“Oh, my God...John,” 

“Doc?” 

“I’m right here.” He felt her squeeze his hand, but he still didn’t see her. His eyelids were too heavy to open just yet. Everything was heavy. His muscles ached; his skin tingled. Every thought felt like it needed to swim through a sea of jelly before it surfaced and actually made sense. 

“I need to see you, Doc. I need to see if you’re okay.” 

“Just relax, John. They gave you some heavy medication, so if you’re going to open your eyes, do it slowly.” Was it heavier than what Fernando had given him in the past? His lids certainly hadn’t felt this heavy before. 

 

His body definitely hadn’t felt this tingly. “I thought that whatever Fernando had put in those blades… I thought it was going to kill me,” he said. John lifted his arm to try and cover his eyes, but it was hard to move. He finally got his arm up and blocked out the light. Slowly, so slowly, he shifted it down to let in a little at a time. He took a breath after each shift. 

A little bit of light and then a little bit of air. The air came in so easily, much easier than he expected. There was suddenly so much more air in there and much less pressure on his chest. 

 

He blinked several times, his eyes now fully uncovered but still trying to adjust to the sunlight. Even though they stung and watered from the brightness, he could see her sitting in a chair right next to him. He could see her hand on his. He could smell her. 

Clean. 

She was so clean. So perfect.

 

“It’s so wonderful to see your smile again, Doc,” he said as he studied her beautiful face. “How long have I been asleep?”

“Three days.”

“What? Three whole days?” She put her palm on his chest to stop him from sitting up. “If you move too fast, you’ll get dizzy, and your drain might come out.” 

 

“How did they take the poison out?” She took a second to respond. “You’ve been through a lot, John. You’ve had a trauma. I’m sure it’s making things cloudy right now.” 

 

He looked over his shoulder, and there were machines behind him—a heart monitor and an IV bag. “Am I in the hospital?” 

“Yes, Honey.” 

He glanced back at her face and blinked hard,  “We’re in Rome, John.” 

“… I’m so tired.” 

It was more than just tiredness that hit him; it felt like a heavy blanket of warmth was sinking him into that bed. “I know, and we’ll talk again when you’re stronger. Just close your eyes, and rest.” Her soft hand tightened on his. It made him feel safe. It gave him the encouragement he needed to close his lids again. 

 

******

 

Salem. A week later

​

As they stepped up to the front door of their penthouse, she reached inside her purse and found her keys, luckily, Roman sent some of their personal belongings to Italy. She was about to slide it into the lock when John stole it out of her hand. “My fingers aren’t broken, Doc,” he chuckled. “You could at least let me open the door.” 

“I’ve got it.” 

Her thoughts were in the past, her mind conjuring images of happier times, and her quiet meditation didn’t end until the noise of the alarm drew her attention. She turned it off. 

He walked inside, his eyes roamed the familiar living room. He flinched for a second, and she quickly reached to his side. 

The scars on his arms were covered in new red and silvery slashes. The razor cuts were still sensitive, the poison leaving behind a permanent imprint on his skin. “The pain will subside with time,” she said, tentatively touching the wounds. She looked up. “Any lingering side effects? Dizziness, paralysis?” A grin curved his mouth. “Always the good doctor.” 

 

She wanted to say something more, and he covered her mouth with his. Stealing her breath and inhaling her deeply.

 

She was struggling for breath by the time he broke the kiss, gulping down the fresh air as fast as she could drag it into her lungs. Her distress was not lost on his worried face. 

Lowering his voice to a gentle whisper, he said, “I’m sorry...I’m sorry for what you’ve gone through, Doc. All of that, and I’m still nowhere near figuring out the secrets of my past.” He placed his hand on her back. She felt his pain for what it was if only to purge it from her own body. “I love you, regardless of who you were.” She answered. “I love you for who you are…and now that the DNA test results are in, I want to tell Aric and Sami the truth.”

“They will not be too thrilled about it.” He said quietly as he pulled clothes out of his grey suitcase. She knew they wouldn’t be, but they needed to learn the truth. 

“Roman won’t like it either...” He craned an eyebrow.

 

“We were victims of Stefano,” she started as she followed him around the room, “you are their biological father. You always were.” 

He stopped, his eyes smiled when he looked at her angelic face. “At least some good came out of evil.”

“I still can’t believe he was never whom he said he was,” taking their cell phones out of her handbag, she unraveled the messy cords and plugged John’s cell to the wall. 

“He didn’t know any different, Doc… he was implanted with that same microchip he designed. I guess Stefano wanted to keep him quiet.”

“No one ever looked for him? No one cared for him?” She raised her head from her hands.

“Well, I guess that after they were killed, he was taken by Stefano, sort of punishment for taking his daughter away, and used his medical knowledge.” Handing her the bag with bath supplies, he explained, “I just wish I was able to understand how to take the microchip out of your body.” Nodding, she remembered Fernando’s words. Memories assaulted her. Of him. Of Fernando. It took everything she had not to buckle where she stood — finally, moving to sit on one of the couches.

“Sweetheart, are you okay?”

“He extracted it, after he drugged me. My hip is still healing.” Instinctively, her fingers sent to her injured hip to stroke the pain away. 

The current built, a stream of memories flooded her. She didn’t need to recover all her memories to know the truth.

 

“Marlena, breathe, you're safe now.” John’s voice coaxed her away from the dark corner, and she gulped down a fiery breath. “I don’t want to remember more,” she confessed.

“How much of your memory did you regain?” he asked, offering her his comforting hand. She didn’t want to go back there. She allowed her mind to slip once while she was tied to the lift… she couldn't afford to lose control again. “I remembered enough.”

"When we were down there, you said something about my headaches, about me losing memories...do you remember?" he breathed quietly as to not overwhelm her.

"Yes. I do now...I read it in Fernando's notes," she turned a little to look at him. "Some testers had severe side effects to the microchip. Stefano's twisted mind games caused them excruciating migraines, some of them died during a seizure." she was trembling, memories doing their way to the surface if her conscious.

"So how was I not-"

"Killed? Fernando perfected the microchip, he inserted you with the latest design. That was why he needed all these men" she took a deep breath, "all of these prisoners..."

"They were lab rates" he muttered.

Closing her eyes she spoke softly, "I'm sorry...John, I'm so sorry you had to go through this..."

​

"It's all over now, baby" He ran his fingers through her hair, attempting to soothe her, she nodded her head, needed to get away, “I’ll be upstairs; I want to call Caroline. I want to see the children.” she whispered.

He nodded slowly and felt the soft touch of her hand as she carefully stood up to climb the stairs. 

 

A high pitch sound echoed from his cellphone. 

He stood up and took the device in his palm. The screen showed many alerts. Some were emails, some were text messages from Abe, but his eyes were glued to an unknown sender. 

He tore his eyes from all others, opening the message, he saw a video clip attached. 

 

Tapping the video, It started playing:

 

                     “Look at him out there, playing with him,” she said, glancing out of their kitchen window. It was the cabin they moved into after their escape from Stefano. “Yeah, he's so good with him,” he added wistfully. It always tugged on his heart in a painful way, in the way something can be both beautiful and sad, watching Leo running around, not a care in the world when his grandfather was still looking for them. He looked back at his wife, and she was looking at him with a smile—he knew—that smile. The one where they want you to see they are happy to watch you at the moment.

 

“What?” He asked, sheepishly. “Oh, it's just, I'm happy.” She folded her arms and took a breath. “Listen,” he started “I know I haven't been the greatest—” 

“Husband? don't.” 

“Let me finish, Neomi.” 

She sighed and placed a hand on his forearm as his arms crossed his chest. “I know I haven't been the greatest husband, making us live here in the woods, but I have always wanted the best for you and him. I just wanted you to be happy. When your father was close—I worried so much about you. That I had lost you forever. But I understood you needed to get away from that house, and even Leo. Hell, probably mostly me. I'm just so glad you're feeling better, now that we’re here.” 

“Thank you, Mi Amore..I do.” 

 

Her eyes shifted back to the kitchen. The little boy was there, taking the big video camera from the dresser, giggling; ”were you filming us?”

She laughed and bent to her knees, tickling him as he laughed. “Was this ‘on’ the whole time, Bambino?”

 

“Go wash your hands,” he told him. 

With a smile, he shook his head no. 

“Now, my sweet boy,” he winked. The boy huffed and left for the bathroom, and it was just Neomi and him. 

 

“You're beautiful,” he mouthed to her. She smiled. He leaned in and kissed her. Her lips, they replaced the fears in his head. 
 

“Let's eat!” Bursting into the cabin, Fernando put on the most innocent of smiles, the meat knife in his hand. 

“G, you didn’t have to BBQ today.” Nemoi smiled at their friend. 

“Don’t worry about it, Seniora, what are neighbors for?” Fernando nudged John’s arm.

“You better keep your fingers out of harm's way, Doctor G, you don’t want to lose your fingers over one bad BBQ” the whole three laughed. Their laughter echoed in the small room. 

 

“Leo! Dinner!” Neomi called, waiting for the small boy to dry his hands as they strolled outside into the woods. “Oh, John?”

He moved his gaze from the kitchen counter to his wife at the window.

“Don’t forget the salad.” She smiled when he winked, watching them as Leo sat at the outdoor table, high-fiving with his friend, Fernando. 

 

The video stopped. 

Lowering the Phone, he knew now what he was not able to go undetected for so long. 

“Fernando’s family… his memories... they were...mine. Stefano gave him my memories while erasing my own,” John breathed quietly as he lifted his eyes to the big balcony windows.

How he could summon darkness so strong. They were his. Now they weren’t even shadows, and suddenly everything turned bright and sunny. How he could go from bafflingly complex, to sweetly simple. 

 

“To make you feel my love” - Adele

 

John got upstairs to look for her; he found her in their bedroom. He watched Marlena, sprawled on the bed, a sheet perfectly draping over her breasts and buttocks, her blond hair fanning across the pillow. Then he looked outside the window. It was late into the night. 

 

The memories belonged to him. They were his. But now, he was there, with her, watching her.   

He belonged to her. 

Still. 

Perfect. 

His. 

Every day was perfect. He got a second chance. 

 

We hold secrets that are as destructive as atom bombs. His promise to Marlena wasn’t hard to keep. He didn’t want to go out there anymore. He had no need. The hungry, curious beast that lived inside of him, was fed. 

 

Now he finally had the family he never knew. 

 

She rustled, looking for him with a half-smile. She opened her eyes when she found him. “Mmmm,” she said as she opened her sleepy eyes. “What are you doing?” She knew that look. 

 

“I'm watching you.” She motioned for him to come into bed. He looked outside the window one final time. It all seemed like he was someone else. He slid in and took her in his arms. 

 

Marlena studied his face, “are you all right?” she asked and closed her eyes.

He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t tell her now. He will in time.

She knew where his mind was.

“Honey, your life is more than just memories,” she said. “You have me. You have us. And, now, we have forever.” and almost instantly, she fell asleep again. He made that happen. He made her feel safe in his arms. When you love someone, you'll do anything—to keep them safe. There was no good and evil any more — only the time spent between them, where they found their peace.

And love.

 

His past was known, but none of it mattered anymore. And none of that made his present any less real.

 

FIN.

​

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Thank you for reading!