The Gift
Part XXVII
After having the nurse come in to medicate Madison, EJ couldn't sleep, he was wound so tightly that all his nerves seemed to be on edge. Thankfully though Madison had fallen back to sleep and Sami appeared to be sleeping too for a change. He watched both of them, the two people who meant more to him than anything else in this entire world and he wanted to weep.
Sleep never came to him and as the early shafts of the morning dawn filtered into Madison's hospital room, it only brought to light the fact that for one of the few times in his life EJ was helpless to do anything. He had stood beside her bed noticing how much hair his baby girl had lost overnight. He reached to grab a handful of the fallen strands that had scattered upon her bed, unbeknownst to either of them in the room and felt such rage and despair at the same time that it literally choked him.
He held the dark tresses within his palm, shocked over how drastic a change it made in his sweet angel's appearance and his hands shook. Tears formed, but he had yet to shed them. He failed to notice Belle walk into the room and when she approached him, he was startled by her appearance.
Belle saw what EJ held in his hands and her heart immediately went out to him. She wanted to offer him some words of comfort, but the words froze within her when she saw his face. She quickly regained her composure, reaching out to him, but he backed away.
"EJ, I'm so sor…" but she was cut off by him before she could finish her sentiment.
"Please let Samantha know that I needed to go out for a bit," EJ said quietly and turned on his heel leaving Belle to stand alone in the room. As soon as he was in the hallway he sprinted for the exiting doors. He would not let them see him fall apart, but he needed to get out of this place before he became a blubbering mess.
Belle knew better than to follow him, he didn't need her comfort, but as she spied her sister Sami asleep in the bed beside Madison, she knew that EJ needed Sami. Belle whispered as she shook Sami as gently as she could, trying to prevent Madison from waking up in the process. "Sami, wake up."
Sami squinted her eyes as she began to focus on Belle standing above her, asking in a sleep filled voice, "Belle, what is going on?"
"Sami, I came in here this morning to check on Madison before I started my shift and when I saw EJ, oh Sami, it broke my heart to see him looking so lost. You need to go check on him."
Sami got up from the bed, raking her fingers through her tousled hair, looked back at Madison and seeing more of her hair loss knew that it had affected EJ. If she hadn't of been exhausted last night she would have stayed up and talked with him, but she'd been so tired that she had fallen asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.
She pulled at her wrinkled clothes and shrugged, she'd get a shower later. "Do you know where he was going?"
"No, he just said to tell you that he needed to go out, but Sami he doesn't need to be alone right now," Belle hoped when Sami found EJ that for once they wouldn't hurt one another. She had been witness to their stubbornness to reach out to the other many times in the past, but this time she hoped her sister would swallow her pride and admit the feelings Belle knew she had in her heart for EJ. She knew all too well what happened when you tried to deny your heart. Right now her life was living proof of that very truth.
Sami looked to Madison again and before she could say a word, Belle offered to stay saying that she had brought with her some really cool hats for Madison to pick out anyway and that they would play dress up until Sami could return. Sami hugged her sister, who told her that the other nurses would help out too for her not to worry, to just go find EJ. Belle assured her that her job as assistant head nurse came with some perks as to what she had to do during her shifts and for Sami not to worry about Madison, she would be in safe hands with her.
Sami left the hospital trying to rack her brain as to the places EJ might go, but quite frankly she was at a loss, she had spent so much time trying to erase EJ from her life that she had lost touch with him other than the times they saw each other for EJ's visitation with Madison on his weekends and holidays. EJ had made no effort to intrude in her life other than sharing responsibility for raising Madison. Sure, they had both attended her ballet recitals, pre school parties and such, but they had always made sure to maintain a cool and polite distance from one another.
Since Madison's illness though they had not spent a day apart, yet there were still so many things neither one would discuss with one another. Now as Sami desperately tried to figure out where EJ could possibly be, she thought how much they would need to overcome to try to be parents again.
Well she was used to challenges and she would manage this one too, Sami surmised as she drove around Salem. She pushed aside the obstacles she knew she would have to face concerning EJ in the future and returned her efforts to find him.
She knew EJ wasn't at Mythic, he at least had been telling her of the well trained staff he now had in place since Kate was no longer part of the company and that he had informed them all until further notice he was on leave until Madison's health had stabilized. She drove by his home, but it was deserted, the well maintained home was beautiful from the outside, Sami never venturing in with the exception of when Madison had tugged her by the hand to see her beautiful bedroom. Sami had been impressed, Madison's room was a little girl's dream, murals painted over all the walls with now what Sami realized where another extension of EJ and Madison's dream world of fairy tales that he had created for their daughter.
No wonder Madison wanted to come home, she missed her rooms, for she had two wonderful places to call home. Now Sami felt forlorn, for now she didn't know if she and Madison would return to the home she had shared with Lucas and Will. She needed to not worry, she knew Lucas would not deprive them of their home, but she really didn't know if she wanted to go back there or not. So much was up in the air right now that it was hard to concentrate.
She drove by a few other places, not seeing a sign of EJ when she thought that she would try St. Luke's, while she doubted EJ would be there, she needed to go say a prayer for guidance to help her with Madison and EJ. She wanted to do what was best for them all and she needed to seek a pathway to choose.
Opening the doors, Sami entered into the sanctuary, at once feeling a peace come over her. She had missed being here lately and silently chastised herself for not making time to come here more often, and then chuckled thinking God understood why she hadn't had much free time lately. While some people would have thought her thoughts irreverent, Sami had come to a closer walk with God in recent years and now more than ever she relied on His guidance in her life.
She walked slowly, taking her time in making her way to light a candle when she saw him, sitting forlornly in a pew, with his head bowed down. She sent a silent prayer up thanking God for leading her to him when she least realized it and walked over to EJ.
"Hey," she sat down beside him as she placed her hand upon his arm to let him know of her presence.
When he raised his head and turned his red rimmed eyes to meet hers, her heart broke; she wanted to comfort him and started to move closer to him when he scooted away from her, breaking the brief contact she had tried to form with him when she sat down on the pew.
"I don't want you to see me like this," came the broken words from the man she wanted to help more than anything, but she could see their torrid past was now going to be a larger hurdle than she even imagined.
"EJ, I want to help you," Sami said truthfully, but she could see the doubt in his eyes. He didn't believe her sincere efforts by her coming here.
"You know I recall a time we were in this very church when I saw you praying and I mocked you and the god you believed in. Don't you remember that Samantha?" His tone was hard as he took her back in time with him.
Oh she didn't want to remember this, not the dark and bad times, the times she had tried to push out of her mind like they never existed, but EJ would not allow her to forget.
"I don't know what you're talking about. I have told you a million times."
"Samantha, give it up. I just heard you kneeling there, praying to God that I am not the father of your child, so it's pretty obvious that you think I could be."
"You're not. I know you're not."
"Why? Because He's going to answer your prayers, hmm? Is He going grant your wish that you and Lucas can live happily ever after and you can pretend that you and I were never together?"
" Together? We weren't together, E.J. you forced me!"
"You can call it what you like. You and I both know the truth. And all the prayers in the world are not going stop what's meant to be."
"Lucas and I are what's meant to be."
"See, I disagree. You are having a DiMera baby -- my son -- my son, who I will bring up to be just like his grandfather."
"Over my dead body!"
"Do you honestly believe that you can keep me away from my child?"
"Stop calling him that. And I will do whatever it takes to protect my child."
"I've got news for you, darling. So will I!"
"Bastard! I'm not going let you do it. I'm not going to let you hurt me. I won't let you hurt my son! I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"
" Calm down!" EJ grabbed her by the wrists preventing her from striking him.
"You bastard! You sick monster! You have no business being inside this church!"
"Nor do you, sweetheart. I find it laughable that I come in here and I find you kneeling, praying for redemption for a deal that you made with the devil."
"You are the devil, and I gave you what you wanted, and yet you torture me. You force me to lie to the man that I love. You force me to betray my father for you."
"I made you do nothing. The truth would have set you free from your so-called torture. But you're as unfamiliar with that concept as I -- one of the many things that we have in common. It's interesting when you think about it. One has to wonder what the product of our unholy alliance is going to look like, eh?"
"I will never let you near my child ever!"
"But you see, sweetheart, what you don't understand is that I'm not asking you. I'm telling you. And I'm going take my child whether you like it or not. Got that?"
"E.J., why are you doing this? You aren't exactly the fatherly type, right? You've never had any interest in children, so why my baby? And don't give me this bull about carrying on the DiMera line because I'm not buying it."
"Trust me, Samantha. I have my reasons for wanting to be with this child."
"Trust you? Are you kidding me? This is my baby we're talking about, and I have every right to know why you want my baby."
"He's going to be raised with his father and only with his father as a DiMera. Do we have that straight?"
"You're insane!. You're sick -- your whole family is crazy. You think I'm going to let you have my baby? You think I'm just going hand him over to you?"
"You will if you're smart, Samantha. And I think you're very, very smart."
"What will you do if I don't? Are you going to kill me?
"Kill you? There's no need to kill anybody."
"You'll have to because I will fight you. With every last breath in my body, I will fight you. I will never let you take my child."
Sami looked at EJ and her heart sunk. They had been so cruel to each other, taunting with thinly veiled threats that day. She fought to keep a control of her emotions, she would not allow them to fall back into the dangerous games they had played with one another in the past.
"So I see you do remember," EJ cut her a glare that hurt more than Sami wished he had the power to do so at the moment.
"EJ, we're different people now," Sami started to explain, only to have EJ roll his eyes at her.
"Oh really? You see, I think we are both still the same self centered selfish creatures we were then, only now we try to play nice with one another for Madison's sake so she won't see how truly awful we both really are." EJ held up the strands of Madison's hair he still had in his possession to examine them in the sunlight that was streaming through the stain glass windows of the church.
"EJ, please don't do this," Sami shook her head as she started towards him.
"You know I'm still the same man underneath it all and the only thing that has kept that man at bay is having Madison. I didn't want her to grow up in fear of me. She brought love into my heart when no one else even bothered to care. She is the only good and pure thing I have in my life and if I lose her there won't be any reason not to become that man again." EJ dropped her hair watching it fall to the floor as he dropped to his knees.
Sami rushed to him, "You have me EJ, you have me. Please you can't give up."
EJ shook his head sadly, "No, you were never mine. I wanted to love you, to give you the world, but you didn't want it. You threw my love away and left me all by myself. But I have to give you some credit, you didn't keep me away from Madison after you found out that she was mine."
"I couldn't keep her away from her daddy." Sami took his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. "EJ, it's okay, I know you're worried. I've been out of my mind with worry over Madison, but remember your promise to me. We'd go through this together and no matter what happens, I'm in this with you. Please don't push me away. I can help you."
"No one can help me," EJ wrenched himself from her touch, but he couldn't get away from her grasp upon him. Sami pulled herself next to him, wrapping her arms around him even as they both started to cry.
"I can and God can," Sami said confidently, even through her tears.
"If God is so good, then why has He let the most innocent and precious thing that I know on this earth go through something like this? You want me to have faith in a being that preserves people like us and strikes the innocent down in the blink of an eye?"
"EJ we have to pray and believe that He'll bring us through this and we'll be stronger than ever before because of it," Sami touched his face so gently, wiping at EJ's tears just as he had done for her many times before.
"I don't even know what to pray because I'm so angry Samantha! Why can't God take me? I'd take Madison's place in a heartbeat. I don't want her to hurt. It's killing me to see my child like this."
"I know, I know," Sami rocked with EJ on the floor of the church. "Please don't give up EJ. Don't give up on Madison. Our girl is a fighter. I believe she will be stronger than either one of us one day."
"If she gets to grow up," EJ remarked, still not convinced of what Sami was trying to convey to him.
"I don't know how I know this, but I have a feeling Madison will grow up and we'll see her go through all the stages in life, having friends over, going to parties, dating, graduating high school and college, getting married, making us grandparents."
"I don't know about making us grandparents," EJ started to show a ghost of a smile upon his face. "We're still kind of young for that don't you think?"
"I know it is hard to believe, but one day you'll see," Sami started to smile through her tears. "Who knows what our other kids will be like? We may have more grandkids running around the house than we'll know what to do with."
"Samantha, have you gone daft? We don't have any other children," EJ looked at her curiously, trying to figure out where she was going with this conversation.
"Well I guess we'll have to work on changing that fact Mr. Wells," Sami said as she rose to stand and pulled him up with her which was no small feat considering his size compared to her small frame. She wrapped her arms around his neck and brought him down to her so she could give him a brief kiss. She clung to him, giving him the courage to accept that whatever was going to happen that they would face it together.
When they broke apart from one another, Sami held out her hand to him and he accepted it.
"Are you ready to go see Madison?" Sami asked as they walked down the aisle together.
"If you're with me, I guess I am," EJ answered honestly, amazed at the woman that stood by his side, maybe just maybe they could get things right this time around.
"Let's go then, because I have to tell you that I think you're stuck with me," Sami said half joking, but not so much that EJ could decipher the true meaning of her statement. He guessed he needed a few more years being around her to figure Samantha out, then shook his head, he'd need a lifetime with her and for the first time ever he thought he may get the chance to find out.
Section in italics taken from Days of Our Lives, US Airdate March 7, 2007.