part 4

Sami Brady didn't fly to Los Angeles that week, or until near the end of the week after that. She called Kim Collier's condo at least twice a day, and was grateful for the reports that Will and his father seemed to be in perfect health. Lucas told her the same thing when Sami took his calls, two and three times a day, asking about her health and his family's.

Sami knew that anyone and everyone working at the Medical Center was in danger, and so were any emergency workers, who might contract this mysterious ailment without knowing. She did everything she could to reassure Will and Lucas that she was fine, and that most of the people they cared about were managing. But she couldn't keep the fear completely out of her voice when she talked to Lucas, Kayla and Kim.

And she had good reason, Roman Brady was out sick from his job for the first time since he'd returned to it. And he'd forbade Sami to visit him, as he began to show symptoms of a far worse than normal bout of the flu.. In effect, he'd quarantined himself in his house, their house the one she and Eric and Carrie grew up in. He would not allow anyone inside, not Marlena, not John, not Abe Carver, not Kate, and not even Carrie when she rushed home from Israel on word from John, by way of Shane Donovan.

Sami couldn't remember being more frightened since she waited to find out if Will would survive being born. She called Roman more often than she called Will these days, and only stopped when it became clear that her father wasn't going to let on how ill he'd become. No matter how often they'd fought, no matter how angry she'd been with him in the past few years, Sami knew that Roman Brady had always seemed indestructible to her. No matter how alone or lonely she'd ever felt, in the back of her mind, her father had always been a kind of emotional fall-back for her. She didn't doubt his love for a moment, It was the way he sometimes chose to express it that stung.

Finally, when no one had answered the phone at Roman's house for several long hours one morning, a very mixed group of people showed up there, including the newest local DA, with a rather spurious bench warrant, allowing the SPD to break the door in. Abe, Marlena, John and Sami were the first ones through. Kate, Carrie, Billie and Austin, recently in from New York were on their heels, literally. When Roman didn't answer their calls, they spread out like a trained team of detectives, searching for Salem's Captain of detectives. Austin found his former father in law, unconscious and barely breathing, with his head down on the kitchen table. He'd picked Roman up like a child, and carried him outside, before Marlena or anyone thought to warn the former boxer about the contagion.

Marlena knelt beside her former husband and long time friend, and Sami could see that she was fighting to think and act like a physician. With a gloved hand she checked Roman's pulse and felt his forehead. With her other hand she stroked his face. There was no response.

"His pulse is weak, and thready. His respirations ore shallow. He may be in shock." She told the paramedics who worked with her. "And he's febrile. . Make a note: several years back, Captain Brady contracted a dangerous tropical disease. We were able to obtain an antidote, which saved his life. But his heart had been weakened. You've already seen what this ... virus seems to be doing to older patients. I want Captain Brady's vitals continuously monitored on the way to the hospital and 24 by 7 from then on. You'll be taking him to the respiratory isolation unit just outside the ER, Dr Wesley's already waiting for you. So get going."

As they left, with Roman on a guerney and Carrie climbing into the EMT truck beside him, Marlena stood up and clung to John, hiding her face in his shoulder. Knowing too well how much her mother needed his strength right now, Sami fought the tears stinging the back of her eyes. Then she turned to see Kate Roberts looking as desolate as she felt.

"I'm sorry." Sami heard herself saying, surprising both of them. "I guess I didn't really believe ..."

"That I love that thickheaded Irish cop?" Kate finished for her. "Why shouldn't I?
Why shouldn't anybody? Has anything he's ever said or done made you stop loving him, Sami?"

" ... I tried." Sami answered honestly. "More than once."

"So did I. No such luck. And nothing I've done ... well ... nothing Roman knows that I've done ... seemed to stop him. And you probably will believe me when I say, that's a first, in my lifetime."

"Kate, he's a detective. Do you really think there's anything Victor could find out about you that my Dad couldn't? No, I never squealed on you. I don't even want to anymore. Believe it or not. I want Will to grow up with a better chance at a happy, safe, normal life than I ever had. Do you think we can work that out?"

Kate was staring at her former daughter in law and long time nemesis. She was staring at a young woman on whom she'd pulled every dirty trick in the book and then some. And she was, momentarily, dumbstruck.. But Billie Reed walked up, just as Sami fell silent and gave her mother a nudge.

"Yes, we can, Sami." Billie answered for her mother. " If for no other reason than because of a man we all love with all our hearts. I can't think of much of anything that would make Raman Brady happier than to know that the women who love him have signed an armistice. And happiness may be the only thing we have left to give him. What do you say, Kate?"

"I say that your former sister in law doesn't really have any reason to believe me, no matter what I say." Kate replied, with equally unsparing honesty. "But what I'm about to say is nothing more than the truth. For Will's sake, and for the sake of his maternal grandfather, Sami, I'd like to bury the hatchet, but in the ground between us, instead of in each other. If Roman knows as much as you think, then he's the best man I've ever known, and I don't want to hurt him anymore, ever. If he doesn't then I swear, when he comes to, when he's strong enough to take it, I'll take my chances and tell him, myself. Can we deal on that basis?"

Kate held out her hand, and Sami studied her face intently. How had she ever thought of Kate Roberts as a coward? Clearly this woman she'd hated for so many years was as fierce, and as reckless about the people she loved as Sami was herself. And she loved Roman as fiercely as Sami did, herself. And now, they stood a terrifying chance of losing him. And that thought sent Sami Brady somewhere she'd never thought to be, straight into Kate and Billie's arms, to weep together. It was a strange beginning, but it was definitely a beginning.