Maison Blanche Revisited Chapter 2, a days of our lives fanfic

Chapter 5

"So where are you taking us?" Sami asked.

"Taking you? Why you're already here?" Tony laughed.

"What?"

"Welcome to Maison Blanche, Samantha." E.J. said.

A look of horror swept across Sami's face.

"Did you say Maison Blanche?" Sami asked in disbelief. "The place where Stefano kept my mother and John and Hope hostage all those years ago? I thought that place burned to the ground!"

"Oh, it did," Tony assured her. "But I think you're well aware of how us Dimeras always seem to find a way to rise from the ashes. Didn't my brother teach you about that?"

Tony flashes a wicked grin. E.J. is not amused.

"Obviously this isn't the original Maison Blanche, but after the other one burned to the ground Father picked this place up and renovated it to look as much like the original as possible, with a few modifications of course, as you'll now soon find out. You should have seen the house before the flood and wind ravaged it. Well, enough reminiscing. Into the fireplace you go. Chop chop." Tony still holding his gun, motions for them to move.

"Huh?" Sami asked.

"Go ahead. Show her E.J." Tony sneered.

Sami furrows her brow in confusion and E.J. winces as he pulls the lever opening up the fireplace to reveal a secret passage. He takes her hand and they go inside while Tony places Sami's note on the desk and admires himself and his plan.

"I'm so sorry for this, Samantha," E.J. says as they head into the mysterious room. "I promise I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

Sami stares at E.J. fearfully but says nothing.

Tony hears rustling upstairs and tells them they need to get a move on. He follows them into the secret passage and we see the fireplace slide back into place.

Just seconds later Lucas is back at the top of the stairs.

"Sami? Sami?!" Lucas calls before muttering to himself. "Where the hell are you?"

Lucas walks down the stairs. He walks through the living room and past the copy of Gone With The Wind left out lying on the coffee table. He doesn't notice it's been moved from the shelf. He walks into the kitchen but quickly comes back out.

"Sami, where are you?" Lucas wonders as he turns around the room until his eyes spy the note Tony has left for him.

He pauses for a moment as if he is not sure whether he wants to read it then walks forward.

He picks up the note and reads aloud:

Dear Lucas, I am so sorry that I am unable to tell you this in person but there is something that you must know, something that means that we can never be together.

"Sami, no. What have you done?"

Lucas, it was wrong of me to keep the fact that E.J. and I were together the night this baby was conceived a secret from you all this time. I really thought you would leave me if you knew and that is why I waited all those months and until after the wedding to tell you. But you see, when the truth came out and you did stand by me, I was actually disappointed.

"How can she say this, now, after all we've been through?"

You see, I wanted you to leave me so that I would finally be free to be with E.J. without feeling like I was letting down you and Will and all of my family. But I can't keep lying to myself or to this baby, which I have known all along was E.J.'s and not yours.

"How can you be so heartless, Sami? String both of us along this way, marry me when you know the child isn't mine and then run off with him?" Lucas sobs.

Please understand that I didn't want to hurt you and even though I know that you and Will can never forgive me for this, know that I love you both. Just not enough for me to stay in this marriage when I can't give you the kind of love you deserve and when I can't deny my true feelings for E.J. Wells. Good bye. Love, Sami

"Love? Love, Sami? You don't know what the meaning of the word is." Lucas says before crumpling the note in his fist.

"That's it. I can't take it anymore. I've tried to put on a brave face. Tried to let her assure me nothing was wrong. I tried to be trusting. I gave everything of myself. I apologized and asked for her forgiveness. I gave her the perfect wedding she always wanted. I got my mom to stay out of our lives. And... And she still does this?" Lucas breaks down for a minute and then he turns to rage sliding everything on the desk onto the floor. "THAT BITCH!"

Lucas pauses for a moment to look around the room and stops to think.

"Dammit. I need a drink," he says. Lucas grabs his coat and car keys and heads out the front door.

Chapter 6

"I'm so sorry for this, Samantha," E.J. said as the two of them headed into the mysterious room with him holding her hand. "I promise I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

Sami stared at E.J. fearfully but said nothing.

Behind them, Tony was shoving them forward in the darkness warning of rustling upstairs.

Sami gasped as she heard the fireplace door close behind them and then started to scream.

"LUCAS! LUCAS I'm in... hgurhghgh!" Sami's speech was garbled by the hairy tan hand covering her mouth.

"Now, Sami, Lucas cannot hear you through this wall. It's best if you cooperate with us, but it's your choice. We can do this the hard way or the easy way," Tony warned. "Which do you prefer?"

A protective instinct overcame E.J. as he ripped his brother's arm off Sami and put his large hands on her shoulders and bent his tall frame downward to face her eye to eye.

"Samantha, listen to me." E.J. said. "No one is going to harm you. Just keep quiet for now and you will be fine. I will see to it that nothing happens to you or our child."

Sami nodded as the three of them walked through a dark brick passageway yellowed with the light from a candle carried by Tony in his left hand. His other hand was pressed against his coat pocket waiting to remove his gun should the weapon again become necessary.

"Now, brother, it's not really fair to Sami here to make promises you don't know you can keep, is it? Don't want to be giving her any false hope." Tony laughed.

"Don't listen to him, Samantha, darling. When I have a chance to speak to my father I'll..." E.J. said before Tony interrupted.

"You'll what?" Tony asked. "Father finally got fed up with your incompetence and placed me in charge of the family. And now YOU will know what it's like to rot in captivity the way I toiled behind bars for years without my brother lifting a finger to help."

"Tony... you can't," E.J. pleaded. "There is so much to be done with Steve and Mythic and well everything Father has planned."

Sami's eyes darted between the two men as she tried to make sense of their schemes.

"You have had your chance to take care of all that, brother. And you failed." Tony said. "I will take over those matters when I return to Salem. But don't worry. I am leaving you in the best care possible."

Tony sneered as he said those last words and the three of them walked toward a closed door that opened to reveal a short, stupid-looking fool, and a balding old man in a white lab coat.

"Hello, Bart. Hello, Rolfe. I am placing these two in your custody until Samantha's baby is born," Tony said. "I assume you know what to do with them."

Tony had assumed too much as Bart did not even know if he was supposed to tie his shoes without someone telling him.

"Hey boss, if you don't mind me asking, what's E.J. doing here? I thought you said we were just supposed to keep an eye on Blondie, not your brother." Bart questioned with a curiosity that annoyed Tony.

"Yes, well that was the plan, initally," Tony said before turning to glare at E.J., "until E.J. decided he had another plan in mind for Samantha."

Sami turned to stare at E.J. to see if it was true. Her instincts told her it was.

"Father is not going to approve of this, Tony," E.J. insisted. " Bart, Rolfe, you know that's true. Tony has gone power-hungry since he's been back. Just stop this nonsense and let Samantha and I go and everyone will get what they want."

"Everyone will get what they want? HA!" Tony snickered. 'What I want is for you to suffer."

Tony motioned with his gun while Bart and Rolfe gathered some rope and the three of them pushed Sami and EJ together back-to-back and tied them together.

"Now, I have some business to attend to so I hope you don't mind me leaving," Tony said with a smile before exiting the room.

The fate that had befallen Sami suddenly rushed over her at once and she was filled with questions.

"Wait! Tony! What will we do for food? Where will we sleep? You can't keep us locked up forever, can you?" Sami asked.

"No, Sami, I can't keep you locked up in this room forever," Tony smiled walking across the room. "But for tonight this is where you'll stay."

Tony took his candle and lit a candleabra revealing a wash basin and twin bed in the corner of the room that had previously been hidden by the darkness. He walked back toward the doorway.

"Bart, I am trusting you to stand guard outside this room. Don't fail me. And Rolf, I hope you will walk with me out to the car so we can talk over these medical reports," Tony said, ignoring his prisoners, before turning back to get another look at the two of them helpless and struggling against each other.

Tony laughed.

"Now I think I'll leave you two alone. Don't thank me too profusely, little brother," Tony said before exiting, slamming the door shut behind him and turning the lock.

click

Chapter 7

Tony laughed.

"Now I think I'll leave you two alone. Don't thank me too profusely, little brother," Tony said before exiting, slamming the door shut behind him and turning the lock.

click

"Oh, E.J., look what you've got me into now," Sami said with exasperation as she squirmed against the ropes binding them together.

"Just relax, Samantha," E.J. said.

"Relax?" Sami asked, no longer struggling violently against the rope while E.J. continued methodically working to loosen its grip on them. "How can I relax knowing that I'm locked up here WITH YOU, when I know that my baby... our baby... is going to be used to save Stefano and that Lucas thinks that I ran off and left him and Will alone."

Sami burst into tears. E.J. wished he had an arm free to reach for his handkerchief and extend it to her.

"Sweetheart, if Lucas really loves you, as much as it pains me to admit it, he'll know that you would never willingly abandon him to run away with me. He'll know that you would never cheat on the person you truly loved, the person you married, and that you are the most fiercely loyal and protective lover a man could ever wish to have," E.J. said with devotion while Sami, with her back turned toward him, was still self-conscious about the way she was blushing.

"Samantha, if Lucas loves you, he'll know that note is a fake and come back for you and believe that you didn't run away with me."

"Yeah, right." Sami says bitterly, before mumbling, "I almost don't believe it myself."

"You almost don't believe it yourself? What do you...?"

"Oh, I didn't mean to get your hopes up E.J.," Sami says remembering herself and allowing her ice-covered heart toward him to harden once again after its brief thaw. "I just almost don't believe this whole thing myself because I've always been such a screwup and here FOR ONCE I'm in this mess and it's not my fault!"

"No, darling. It's not your fault," E.J. said wistfully. "It's mine."

"Yours?" Sami questioned. "But I heard the way Tony talked to you. It sounds like you're in as much trouble as I am right now."

"More actually," E.J. said taking a moment to laugh at his own misfortune.

"What do you mean?" Sami asked not realizing she sounded truly concerned.

"Well, you see, Samantha, it's my fault that I thought I could make you love me, even after all that happened. I wasn't supposed to come back to Salem from Mexico originally but I begged Father to let me do it. Stefano wanted me to plant the Dimera seed and kidnap the mother before the child was born, but I thought once you were pregnant with my child I could convince you to be with me willingly and we could raise our child together as Dimeras, both of us," E.J. said. "That was the only way I could sell Father on the pairing."

"You mean, us being together, truly together, was your idea? Not Stefano's? But the baby and the rape..." Sami said before E.J. cut her off.

"Darling, for the last time, it was NOT rape! Now I know I am a scoundrel and a cad and maybe even the monster you say I am, but I am NOT a rapist!" E.J. said indignantly.

"Then what do you call what happened that night if not rape, huh?"

"Oh, I know that night in Lexie's car wasn't as exhiliaratingly blissful for you as it was for me. I had made you an indecent proposal, Samantha," E.J. admitted. "And used emotional blackmail to get you to accept it. It was sexual extortion. Sextortion. Hmmm I think I just coined a new word, eh?"

"Just shut up already. Fine, it was SEXTORTION and not rape. But that doesn't change what a bastard you've been to me all these months."

"That is true, darling. I have been somewhat of a bastard, haven't I." E.J. said with a twinkle in his eye and a sly, half-grin. "But the truth is that's the only way I know how to cope with this, Samantha. I never meant to fall in love with you. I certainly wasn't ever supposed to have this happen. I mean I've spent my whole life learning how to avoid getting too emotionally attached to people, and when I fell for you last summer and I found that hold that Lucas and Will had over you and I couldn't have you all to myself, well I... I... I didn't know how to handle you rejecting me."

"Me rejecting you! As I seem to recall it, you made me choose. You made me choose between you and my son!"

"And if I could undo any one of the thousands of terrible things I've done in my miserable life, it would be that night. But I didn't mean for you to think that was really a choice between your son and me. I just wanted you to stop letting Lucas use Will to get what he wanted from you, to stop you from getting what you wanted. I didn't think it fair for him to use your sense of obligation to deny your true passion."

"My true passion?" Sami scoffed. "Oh, you mean, you."

"Yeah, I mean me. We were passionate once, weren't we, my dear?" E.J. asked.

The two of them flashback to last summer. Watch an EJAMI montage here to get a sense of what I'm talking about Make sure it includes the look they give each other when E.J. feeds her oysters, the dance in the abandoned house, the kiss at the bar, the tango on the pier, etc.

"Yeah, I did care passionately about you E.J. Way more than I ever realized or admitted. But that passion died when I found out the police were after you for all the horrible things happening to my family and then there was Kate's monogrammed bra stuffed in the cushions of your sofa. And then... and then I find out you were a Dimera and Stefano's son!"

"Look, I'm sorry you were hurt by me lying about who I was, but I am NOT sorry I did it because if I had been upfront with you about who I was - all those magical, real, romantic moments we shared last summer wouldn't have happened."

"Magical? Real? Romantic moments? So you're telling me that all that wasn't just playacting in your twisted plant the Dimera seed in Sami game?"

"Samantha, it was real. I never was supposed to fall in love with you. And now that I have, it will probably cost me everything." E.J. told her, still quietly and calmly working with the rope behind his back.

"I'm sorry but how am I supposed to believe you loved me the way you've treated me these past several months. Humiliating me at my wedding. Nearly causing me a nervous breakdown with all these games. Making me think you were going to kill me at the hospital!"

"Samantha, I thought if I punished you, tormented you the way you had my heart, used Kate to make you jealous... I thought if I did all of these things it could make me stop loving you, maybe even hate you, but it's really just made me hate myself."

Sami was speechless. And suddenly E.J.'s hands were free from the rope.

Chapter 8

Sami was speechless. And suddenly E.J.'s hands were free from the rope.

Sami was too caught up considering his words to notice.

"Oh so you hate yourself now, do you?" Sami said with a scowl. "Well that makes two of us."

E.J. then let the rope around his hands slide to the floor and stepped around Sami to face her, bending down and cupping his newly freed hands around her face.

"Oh well in that case, shall I let you find your own way out of here, sweetheart?" E.J. asked her as he leaned in to give her a soft, swift kiss on the lips.

Normally, had Sami's hands been free, she would've tried to slap him, but Sami was too excited in that moment about the prospect of freedom to scold him. E.J. was pleasantly surprised by her reaction as he had been accustomed to her constantly rejecting his advances and expected no different this time.

"E.J., how did you do that?!" Sami marveled at his ability to free himself. "Well, don't just stand there! UNTIE ME NOW!"

"Shhhhh, Sami" E.J. said placing his right index finger over her lips. "You don't want Bart to hear you, do you?"

"Well, no. But what do you have in mind?" Sami wondered.

"Patience, my dear," E.J. whispered as he walked across the room and pressed his ear up against the door to hear Bart muttering to himself as he took swigs from a bottle of whiskey. Just as E.J. was about to step back toward Sami and begin plotting his course for escape, his sinuses got the best of him and he was unable to stifle a loud sneeze. "ACH-OOO!"

"Bless you," Bart said from his perch against the door in the hallway. "Hey, wait a second..."

E.J. panicked as he realized Bart had heard him.

"Bart is coming. Quick, Samantha. Blow out the candles!" E.J. whispered.

Sami obliged and bit her lip as E.J. vanished from her sight and the door opened.

Bart entered carrying a lantern in one hand and a pistol in the other. He saw the ropes around Sami on the floor and walked toward her.

"Hey, Blondie. What gives? Tell me where your boyfriend went."

E.J. held his breath anticipating what Sami would tell him.

"My boyfriend? Ha! Did you forget I'm married to Lucas? When I told E.J. I wouldn't run away with him that bastard escaped and left me here to die. See?" Sami said, turning her body to the side to show the ropes still tight around her wrists. "I swear E.J. better hope you are the ones to find him because if I get my hands on him, I'll..."

CRASH Bart collapsed to the floor.

Sami was astonished to see E.J. standing over him holding the handle of the broken whiskey bottle. He dropped it and walked toward her.

"Are you OK? You aren't hurt are you?" E.J. asked caressing her face with his right hand and staring deep into her eyes in a way that made her breath heavy and face flushed. "I must say I get more and more impressed with you every day I spend with you, Samantha. You are quite possibly the coolest liar I've met."

Suddenly she remembered her revulsion toward his advances and quickly turned her head away from his gaze.

"How about you save the compliments for when we're both free of this place, all right? Now untie me."

E.J. quickly obliged her request and handed her the lantern while he grabbed Bart's gun.

"Samantha, just follow me and I'll get us out of here, all right." E.J. said as he stepped out toward the hallway scanning his surroundings with his right arm outstretched holding the gun and ready to fire on any person who got in their way. Sami attached herself to his left arm and followed closely behind.

They walked back toward the fireplace passage they had entered earlier and said nothing but E.J. couldn't help but notice how tightly Samantha clung to him. How good it felt to have Samantha depending on him once again as her protector. The unspoken trust of that embrace he felt the same way when he tried to comfort her from the blackmail notes she received the previous summer.

"We're almost home free, my dear," E.J. said as he bent down to kiss her forehead and Sami smiled at him as he reached to press the button that would allow their freedom.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," said a man with a familiar and menacing accent.