THE NEWMANS WORKING ON THE PROBLEMS OF THE PAST

Victor is sitting by the window in the estate, memories of his and Nikki's past come flooding back to him. He thinks about the first time he met her, their first wedding, Nikki telling him she was pregnant with both of their children and their last marriage. Nikki comes into the room and sees him just sitting there. She walks up to him and says his name. Victor doesn't answer and Nikki states again, "Victor, Victor." He looks over at her, and says "I'm sorry sweetheart did you need something?" Nikki asks if he is in pain and Victor looks at her and says, "No I was just reminiscing about our past." He asks her to sit down by him so they can discuss the problems that they had and find out why their other marriages never worked. He states that this time he wants to make sure it works for them with no problems. Nikki sits by him and states, "Ok Victor where do we begin." He looks at her and says, "You know as I was reminiscing about our life together one thing was always in common in all of the memories that through the good and the bad, we've always been there for each other. Nikki, "Did you ever notice that when one of us had another spouse; you and I were always jealous of that spouse?" Victor states, "That's because in our hearts and souls we knew we were each others true love."

Nikki tells him, "I'm hoping by us talking about our past that it will work this time. I couldn't handle another divorce between us. I don't want to be with anyone else; I want to spend the rest of my life only with you." Victor tells her it's the same for him. Victor states, "One thing I don't understand is how I could've been so harsh to you last year? I've never treated you that way before; yet you were still by my side through all of it. Even when I tried pushing you away, you remained by me." Nikki states, "That's because I didn't want to see the man I fell in love with all those years ago to go through all of the pain and misery by yourself. I only wanted to be there as a friend and help you through it." Victor states, "That's what is amazing about you. Even during the worst year of our life you remained by me." Nikki, "even though we weren't in each other's lives this past year I was and still am very much in love with you. Nothing and no one could ever change that.

You know when I was with David, I wanted him to be so different than you and in actuality when I look back I was such a fool for believing in him. I gave up the only man whom I wanted to be with forever for a gambler, thief and a liar. Victor asks, "Did you learn anything from that farce of a marriage?" Nikki states, "Yes, that you are the best man that came into my life and that I will always be Nikki Newman. If you noticed during that "farce" of a marriage I didn't even change my last name. I may not have always shown it, but our life and our family is who I am. All of you have always been the most important people in my life. As far as I'm concerned you gave me the best life. I will be forever grateful to Col. Douglas Austin for introducing us to each other." Victor states, "If it wasn't for him I never would've met you and I wouldn't have been blessed with two beautiful children." Victor asks her, "Do you ever wish we could've had a bigger family?" Nikki, "Victor I always wanted to have more Newman babies with you. I only wanted myself to be the one to give you Newman heirs and unfortunately you have five. Remember I wanted to have another child with you in 1998." Victor says, "I remember, and unfortunately I was stubborn and didn't want children at that time in my life. As far as I'm concerned I only have two children."

Victor states, "you know when I was in Paris I did a lot of soul searching and a lot of our memories came rushing through my head. I was a fool for not fighting for us more than I did. I promised you forever in our vows and I messed that up. Can you forgive me Nikki so we can move on with our lives together?" Nikki says, "Victor you never had to ask me to forgive you, I'm the one who should be asking for forgiveness. You know while I was in Colorado, I did a lot of soul searching. The one thing that kept coming to my mind was I didn't want to live the rest of my life without you in it. I want our family to be close and strong again. I want you and I to travel together and spend a lot of time with each other.

Victor tells her that he can't believe how many times he's cheated on her. He tells her that she did it once and he acted like it was the end of the world. "I don't understand why after so many affairs you would remain in my life. I cheated on you several times, yet when I needed to talk with someone you were always there right by my side." Nikki tells him that it wasn't easy for her to listen to him complain about all the other women in his life. "Yet, when I look back on it, I remained by your side because I've always been in love with you. I feel that I only married all the other guys to get you jealous and to try and find the happiness that we had with these other men. I mean I was about to make the same mistake again with Paul. But my knight in shining armor came along the day before and reminded me that 'that I would never love Paul as much as he loved me." You were so right with that, and because of that comment all of our past came flooding back to me before the rehearsal. When Paul stated that he couldn't wait for me to be Mrs. Paul Williams I knew then that it wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to be Mrs. Victor Newman again. Victor tells her that he didn't mean for her to break up her engagement but that he couldn't stand to see her with someone else besides himself.

Nikki states, "You were married to Ashley and she was expecting your baby at the time. I didn't think I had any kind of chance of reconciliation with you. I thought you made that perfectly clear to me the night I left Genoa City." "Yes at the time that's how it was, but to be perfectly honest with you it's not how I wanted it to be. I so wanted to wrap you in my arms and tell you that I never stopped loving you and that I wanted you back and what we had," Victor states. But now here we are in Belgium working out our problems to make sure they don't happen again. Victor states, "you know the only reason I was with Sabrina was to make you jealous. I did love her but not the way I've always loved you. When she became pregnant with my child, I knew then that is was over for the two of us.

Nikki looks at Victor and says, "Well, Mr. Newman the number one new flash between us is that it will never be over for us. I'm not going to lose you again to someone else. I never wanted any of these divorces to begin with. When I said 'I do' all those years ago, I wanted the fairytale ending. Victor states, "so did I unfortunately I thought I'd be better off with her. I've made so many mistakes when it came to us and our family. I basically made you raise our children on your own. I was hardly around to help you. What kind of a man was I back then?" Nikki states, "Victor, your business obviously was more important to you than your family. You were their when I and the children needed you the most." Victor wonders out loud, "Yes, but my worst enemy helped raise my children and he always made sure I knew that. My business was important to me but my family should have been my number one priority. Just think of how different our lives would be if I would've put you and the children first. I never would've had any of these other children, we would've had a bigger family and our children would've grown up with both of their biological parents." Nikki looks at Victor with tears in her eyes and states, "Victor, don't beat yourself up for our past. We both made mistakes, but I do wonder how different our life would've been if we never divorced the first time. That is all behind us now; all we can do is work on our present and future and not make the same mistakes of the past."

"You are so good for me, Mrs. Newman. I have always loved and adored you. I'm so thankful that Douglas introduced us otherwise I feel my life would've been very lonely. Instead we made two beautiful children and have beautiful grandchildren. You've given me such an amazing life that I didn't think I deserved after living in an orphanage. I want to thank you for coming into my life." Nikki leans into him and gives him a hug, and looks into his eyes with tears in her eyes, and notices that he has tears in his, and says, "Victor, you deserve all the happiness that life has to offer. The children and grandchildren and especially myself we aren't going anywhere. We are all family and you and I deserve all this happiness. You are and always will be the true love of my life and I never want you to forget that. I have always loved you and always will." Victor wipes a tear from his eye, and looks into her eyes and says, "Nikki you have always been the love of my life also and I've always loved you. No other woman has ever made me as happy as you always have. I want to spend the rest of my life with you making up for lost time because of our stubbornness. Thank you so much for coming with me to Belgium because I didn't want to be alone and I wanted to be with you."

He picks up her right hand and looks at the ring he gave her before they left home. He states, "This ring signifies my undying love for you and the promise I made you that we were going to work out all of our problems together." He leans into her and gives her a kiss that leaves both of them breathless. He states, "There's more where that came from. Now I hate to break this up but I need to go to rehab for a little while. Are coming with me?" Nikki states, "Yes, I'll be going with you and afterwards I want to call the kids to let them know that we are ok." With that they stand up and leave for rehab hand in hand.