Disclaimer: All things Days of Our Lives belong to Sony, Ken Corday, and NBC. Some of the plot borrows from the movie The Parent Trap, owned by Disney.

Prologue A (Autumn 2010):

Cold fire flashed in Sami's eyes as she flung open her door like some avenging angel.

It nearly took Lucas' breath away. Frankly, Scheming Sami had always turned him on. Oh, he had loved Vulnerable Sami and Playful Sami and Motherly Sami. But Scheming Sami was where it had all begun for them.

"Lucas," whispered Sami with obvious surprise. Her expression softened, but her eyes still danced with fear disguised as aggression. Lucas could see the wheels turning in Sami's beautiful, twisted mind.

What does he want? Why is he here now? How much does he know? What did Will tell him? Is he going to keep my secret? Will his cooperation come at a price?

"Not that you aren't welcome in my home—I'm always happy to see you—now isn't the best time—"

Lucas smirked. Probably Sami needed to call her pet FBI agent, Riff Raff, and strategize with him. (Unless she had kept Riff Raff in the dark, and was using Lucas' teenage son as her only confidant in her latest disaster.)

Lucas brushed Sami's arm aside and strolled through the door. "On the contrary Sami, this is the only time." He seated himself on her couch.

Sami looked mildly annoyed. "You can sit there if you'd like, but I'm going out."

"I know you're busy," said Lucas with mock solemnity. "Places to go, things to do, grooms to shoot in the head on your wedding night while our son watches."

Sami slammed the door and locked it. In one motion, she crossed the room and fell to the couch beside Lucas.

"Will did tell you," she murmured hoarsely.

"How I know isn't what's important here."

"It is to the person who is going to go to prison if she gets caught," Sami snapped.

"Maybe you should have thought of that before you shot him." Lucas cursed himself inwardly before the words had even tumbled out of his mouth. He didn't want to argue with Sami, especially when, in theory, he had no objection to anything that caused pain to EJ DiMera.

But it was too late. Sami's face was flushed and her eyes were bright. "You of all people are going to judge me for shooting EJ? You do remember that you shot him yourself once?"

It was as good an opening as he was likely to get, so Lucas dove in. "I didn't."

"What do you mean, you didn't? You do remember going to prison? Breaking up with me while you were there?"

Lucas craned his neck so he could see every corner of the room. "Are you sure we're alone?"

Sami shrugged. "Oh, no, I'm not sure. I always discuss my attempted murders where someone could overhear."

Lucas ignored the sarcasm. His eyes locked with Sami's. "You understand," he said slowly, "why I might believe you could overlook something."

Sami heaved an enormous, put-upon sigh. "Check for yourself."

Lucas did.

"Satisfied?" Sami demanded.

Lucas nodded. "Where were we?"

"You said that you never shot EJ." Sami's voice was so flat, so emotionless, that Lucas knew that at some level she already suspected the truth.

"You know I went to military school," Lucas began, easing her into it.

Sami forced a pained smile. "Yes sir, General Horton."

"They make you practice shooting a lot at military school. It's like riding a bike. Once you know your way around a gun, you don't forget. If you know how to shoot to kill, it's like an instinct, it's hard to do it any other way. When I saw Franco holding that fire poker over my mom—"

"Let's skip this part of the story."

Lucas nodded gratefully. "Thank you. Anyway, that shot EJ took that day—it wasn't from someone who knew how to handle a gun. Remember how the cops found that shed full of junk food wrappers and sneaker prints and used ammunition? Like someone who didn't know how to use a gun was teaching himself? Like someone very young was teaching himself?"

"But that doesn't necessarily mean that that person was the one who shot EJ. It doesn't, because you—" Tears began to track down Sami's cheeks. "Please, tell me it was you."

"Remember how Will was so angry with you? Wouldn't speak to you? Thought you'd chosen EJ over him because he'd wanted us to be together for so long?"

"Will would never let you take the fall for something he did. Not even if you wanted to."

"He doesn't know, not for sure. He drank until he blacked out. And sending him to Austin was the best way to make sure he didn't start his life with a whole new DiMera vendetta hanging over him. I told him alcohol does funny things to your dreams." Lucas laughed humorlessly. "At least that part is true. I told him he must have dreamed of doing it himself, after he found out that I did it, and that the booze made the dream so intense that he honestly wondered if he'd done it. And I thought that was it. That was it, until he saw you—"

"Oh, God." Sami clenched her fists and paced the length of the room. "Oh, God."

"Will needs to be away from here. Away from anything that might make him reconsider what's real and what isn't. Away from anything that makes him want to confess. Away from EJ."

"Away from me, you mean."

"No. I don't. But with everything you have going on here, you can't leave. Can you?"

Sami was uncharacteristically silent as she blinked away her tears. "You went to prison for Will. You let the DiMeras try to kill you for Will."

"Of course." Lucas' voice cracked. "I'd do anything for that kid. Anything. From the first time I held him and knew he was mine, knew I should have known all along—I never knew it was possible to love—"

Before Lucas knew what was happening, Sami had curled her hand into his hair and pulled his face down to hers. Her lips brushed his cheek, then his mouth, hard and demanding.

He kissed back like it was second nature. Or first nature.

Then he pulled away.

He hadn't come here for this.

He couldn't get caught up in this, not when his children were depending on him.

"All right," Sami said to the floor. "You want to take Will back to Hong Kong with you?"

"Will and Allie."

"Not Allie! No! It's bad enough that you knew this about Will and you didn't tell me. You can't take my baby."

"You have two other babies who don't have anyone but you."

"I can take care of all my children."

"Usually, yes. But it's going to be one thing after another with Johnny and Sydney, isn't it? The DiMeras will fight you for custody. What if EJ wakes up and remembers? What if he kidnaps them again? What if Johnny keeps getting sick? You missed Allie's great-grandmother's funeral, remember?"

"Johnny—"

"Needed you more. I get that. But it freaked Allie out to be there with everyone crying and saying 'Alice is dead.' She kept saying 'Alice is my name,' over and over."

"I know. And I know because I'm a good mother."

"You're a great mother. I'm not talking about forever. Maybe until summer. You can Skype every day. But Sami, I'm begging you. Let me take my kids out of the crossfire."

Sami's insides turned to water. She had always, always sworn that she would never send her children away. She still hurt when she remembered her father loading her onto a plane for Colorado while Carrie lived wherever she chose.

"You aren't sending them away," Lucas whispered, reading Sami's thoughts. "You're letting them go with their father who loves them more than his own life."

Sami died a little.

"All right," she agreed.

Prologue B (3 years later):

Sami didn't wear black.

She didn't wear red, either, out of respect for Sydney and Johnny.

But her stylish blue wrap dress drew a few extra grumbles from the already disapproving DiMeras.

Lexie disentangled herself from the small knot of mourners and approached Sami.

"Are you sure you won't leave the children with me?"

Sami held onto Johnny and Sydney more tightly. "I told you yesterday. They come with me or they don't come at all."

"They need to be with people who are mourning the father that they loved."

"You don't get to decide what they need." She turned her attention to Johnny. "Into the last pew," she directed him.

"At least let them sit with their grandfather!" Lexie protested.

"Stefano has his grandson Theo to comfort him, doesn't he?" Sami's eyes scanned the front of the church. To her bitter amusement, she noticed that Theo was well separated from Stefano. Indeed, Celeste seemed to be shielding Theo from Stefano's sight completely.

"Theo has special needs. You know that! Funerals are stressful, and we need to limit the stimuli around him as much as possible."

Sami rolled her eyes. She sympathized with Lexie; she really did. For one awful month the year before, EJ had had her almost convinced that Sydney was also autistic, that it somehow ran in his family. But after weeks of testing, the doctors had been in no doubt. Sydney wasn't autistic, but the tests had shown that her IQ was off the charts. She often seemed detached, the doctors suggested, because she was often bored.

So doctors prescribed more stimuli for Sydney and less for Theo.

So Sydney was supposed to be Stefano DiMera's plaything—quite literally, since at the age of six Sydney could beat her grandfather at chess one time out of three.

"We'll sit back here," Sami declared firmly. "Johnny—"

But Johnny had long since ceased paying attention. He had darted to the front of the church, attracted by the yo-yo that currently served as some sort of comfort to Theo.

Sami sighed, and dragged Sydney forward to collect Johnny.

The priest chose that moment to begin the service, though, and Sami and her children found themselves trapped in the DiMera pew.

For the next hour, Sami was hard-pressed to keep from laughing. Stefano had obviously placed his bribes well; the priest droned on not only about how well EJ had loved his children but about the "good" he had done the community and how "generous" and "kind" EJ had been to all.

"As kind as his father," the priest concluded, and Sami made a lame attempt to disguise her chortle as a sob.

She could have sworn that the priest winked at her.

After that, they all proceeded to the burial ground. Everyone was given a flower to lay on the coffin, but Johnny and Sydney were given small stuffed animals as well.

"Why don't I get a toy?" Theo demanded.

"Because EJ was Sydney and Johnny's daddy," Abe explained.

"EJ wasn't Johnny's daddy," said Theo. His voice bounced off the surrounding gravestones.

"Of course EJ was Johnny's daddy."

Theo stomped his foot. "No! EJ wasn't Johnny's daddy! EJ wasn't Johnny's daddy! EJ wasn't Johnny's daddy!" His voice grew louder and louder, and he refused to be soothed.

Johnny began to cry, too, though Sami wasn't sure whether it had anything to do with Theo's tantrum. The past week had been tiring and stressful. Johnny hadn't really recovered from Rafe's decision to move across the country with Emily before EJ's death had upset his life further.

"Why don't you think EJ was Johnny's daddy?" Abe asked Theo at last.

"Mommy said so." Theo pointed an accusing finger at Lexie. "Mommy looked at the computer, and Mommy said EJ wasn't Johnny's daddy."

Sami slapped Lexie across the face.

She, Johnny, and Sydney did not stay for the rest of the interment.

Sami bribed Johnny and Sydney with ice cream to keep them quiet while she called Lucas.

He had to hear the news from her before he heard it from anyone else, but she dreaded seeing the look on his face.

"This is good news," she muttered to herself. "Good news."

"Who are you trying to convince? Me or you?" Lucas' voice made her jump. She hadn't realized that the connection had gone through.

Lucas was shirtless and his hair was still mussed with sleep. It was early morning in Hong Kong; he must have rolled out of bed to answer her call.

"Should I get Allie? I'm not sure she's awake."

"No!" Sami shouted.

Lucas leaned closer to his camera. Sami wished she could reach through her laptop and stroke the side of his face, brush his hair from his eyes, hold him while she told him what had happened.

"Sami, what's going on?"

"EJ's funeral was today," Sami began.

"Sorry I couldn't be there to hand out cigars."

Sami squirmed. "It's more like maybe someone should have given a cigar to you. Seven years ago."

"Sami, it's really early in the morning here. I don't feel like decoding riddles, if that's okay with you."

"Johnny is your son. The DiMeras fixed the test results."

Lucas was silent for so long that Sami wondered why she hadn't taken the precaution of putting the Hong Kong paramedics on speed dial in case the news gave him a heart attack or a stroke or something.

"Lucas?" she tried gently. Then, more frantically, "Lucas?!"

"I'm here." His voice wobbled. "Are you sure?"

"I don't know how I'm supposed to be sure of anything. But, yes, as much as I can be."

"I can't come to Salem right now. If it were just work, that would be different, but this would be a bad time to uproot Allie-"

"It's a really bad time to uproot Johnny, too," Sami's words tumbled over Lucas'. "He just lost Rafe, and then EJ, and it's the middle of the school year..."

"Have you told him?"

"Yes. He knows." Sami decided not to explain that Johnny had screamed that he didn't want a new daddy. "He's really overwhelmed."

"I know how he feels."

Sami's heart constricted. "I wish I could hug you," she told Lucas.

"Hug Johnny for me."

Sami nodded. "Kiss Allie for me."

"I always do," said Lucas, and turned off his computer.

TBC