the boy was a walking time-bomb. At any moment he could be set off and possibly become argumentative with his mother and his new stepdad John whom he so clearly despised.
Not long after their camping trip, John had proposed to Blair. Now they were man and wife, but John was disappointed because his oldest stepson disliked him.
He only hoped that his relationship with the boy could become better after Todd's arranged, supervised visit. With the mediation of Blair and Todd's lawyers, it was decided that Todd could have biweekly overnight visits with the boys as long as Marty was present at all times considering that now Marty was living with Todd. As for Starr, it was decided that since she was nearly 18,
she would be allowed to see her father at her own discretion.
Both boys up to now had been excited about their visit with Todd. They were in the livingroom watching for their father, and Jack was perched in the window waiting with impatience. Sammy was the less excited one of the two. He was still pretty little and it had been a weeks since he had seen his dad. Sammy was quite fond of John and kind of saw his new step-dad as a father-figure.
Now as the upcoming visit was less than an hour away, the little boy was feeling somewhat uneasy. "What if I miss you, Mommy?" Sammy asked Blair. He then ran over to John and climbed onto his lap, clinging to him. He looked up at his stepdad with puppy-dog eyes and John couldn't help but feel bad for the little tyke.
"It's only for one night, Sam," John gently reminded.
Meanwhile, Jack grumbled, "My dad's NEVER gonna get here."
Blair was still not comfortable with the idea but she knew how much it meant to Jack to see his father, so she hoped that Todd had changed his ways for the better because she would never let her kids go with him if he was the same old Todd who could harm them.
Blair smiled at Sammy. "If you miss us you can call us up on the phone," she said.
"Jack will keep you so busy, I don't think he'll let you miss us too much,"
she said, kissing Sammy's cheek. She knew it would be difficult on the little boy now that John had become a stable father figure in his life.
"He should be here soon," she said to Jack, seeing how anxious the boy was. At least she hoped Todd would be here soon and not find some excuse not to show which would be incredibly disappointing to Jack.
Jack started pacing by the window as he waited anxiously for his father.
After about fifteen minutes, the boy became very upset. As usual, he blamed the frustration he was feeling on his mom and John. "Well, if Dad doesn't show up soon, I know it's your fault, Mom... as well as my new stepfather's. You and John kept me and Sammy away from our dad a very long time, now I guess he just doesn't want us anymore!" Jack said angrily.
"Mommy, is daddy not coming?" Sammy then asked worriedly, hugging John around the neck, then going into his mother's arms. Sammy looked up at Blair, tears filling his little eyes. "If he doesn't come, will Jack run away from home?"
John looked down at his watch, noticing that Todd was only a little bit late.
"Calm down, boys. I'm sure your dad will be here soon," John tried to assure Jack and Sam. As usual he decided to ignore Jack's outburst, knowing it was probably best if Blair handled it.
"I've had just about enough of you. young man! If your father is late, it HIS fault and no one else's. He was never good at keeping promises and never good with time! So, if you want to be mad, then be mad at him!" Blair said to Jack angrily. She really did hope Todd showed up and had to deal with Jack's rudeness, maybe he'd finally understand how out of control Jack really was.
Blair then spoke to Sammy gently. "Daddy is supposed to call if he's not coming."
"So I dunno," she offered, knowing it didn't sound good. "And no, your brother wont run away because then he'd be homeless and out on the streets."
"I would rather be homeless than live here with you and your dressed-in-black, emo husband!" Jack spat out, running out of the livingroom,
then stomping up the stairs to his room. Immediately upon hearing his big brother's shouts, Sam burst into tears.
John winced, hearing the boy's harsh words. Blair and Jack always seemed to be at each other's throats, and he really wished there was something he could do about it. "Blair, do you want me to talk to Jack?" John suggested. He didn't want to get in the middle of this, unless he had to... but Jack really was getting terribly out of control.
"Be my guest," Blair said with a sigh as she took Sam from John as she sat down with him.
"Its okay, Sammy," she said soothingly. "It's okay. Jack is just rude."
"Okay, I'll do my best," John promised as he bent down to give Blair a quick kiss on the lips before heading upstairs to speak to Jack.
"I love you, Mommy. You're the bestest Mommy ever," Sammy said to Blair,
hugging her tightly as she comforted him.
Jack was upstairs, laying on his bed with a scowl on his face. John rapped twice on his door. "Go away," Jack growled.
Meanwhile, Blair hugged Sammy. "I love you too, Sammy," she said softly.
"Please don't grow up." She liked Sammy just the way he was; she didn't want him to grow up and become corrupted. All the Manning men seemed to be corrupted in one way or another, and it scared her that Sammy wasn't too far behind Jack.
Sammy just gave his mom a little grin, because he didn't really understand what she meant. He then hugged her, settling down in her embrace. He yawned a little, getting sleepy in his mom's loving arms.
Finally, John had presuaded Jack to let him come inside. Grudgingly, Jack sit there listening while John took a seat near the bed and began to speak.
"Jack, it's quite obvious you don't like me very much... and sometimes I really can't blame you. When your mom and dad split up, you became the man of the house. You took care of your mom, Starr, and Sammy... and you did everything you could to protect them and keep them safe. Now I'm here, I'm looking after your mom and Sam, and things haven't gone so well with your dad, so you haven't been able to see him in awhile. I know you miss him very much. I also know that even though your dad hasn't always made the wisest choices, he loves you as much as you love him. I don't want to take your dad away from you, Jack...
really I don't. I know I will never be your father... but I want to be your stepdad... and I want to be your friend," John spoke. "Can we at least just try to get along? For the sake of your mom and your little brother."
"Right now your little brother is downstairs crying cause he thinks you might be running away from home. You're his big brother and you need to set a good example for him," John reminded. "Maybe you could just try to think about things and hopefully you will decide to do what is best for everyone in this family. Your mother and I love each other... and we love and care about you and Sammy, too."
"Get out of my room," Jack said in a shout. "Out! Get out!"
With a heavy sigh, John got up and left. After he closed the door, Jack lay down, clutched his pillow, and cried like a small child.
Blair rubbed Sammy's back as she held him. "Getting sleepy?" she asked him.
She knew today must have been a full day already with so much drama for Sammy.
Sammy didn't say anything, just closed his dark blue eyes and fell fast asleep in his mother's arms. His dark head rested against Blair's chest as he breathed deeply, the sleep of an angel.
John walked back into the livingroom, seeing Blair holding the four-year-old boy. He couldn't help but smile at the sweet picture the two of them made.
Quietly, he said, "I spoke to Jack and did my absolute best, but I really don't think it did any good. I tried to reason with him, but he just threw me out of his room. I honestly don't know what to do anymore, Blair. I know this is hard on everyone, but I don't want Jack's behavior to start upsetting Sammy."
John then gently reached for Sammy so he could put the little boy down for the night. Unfortunately, it looked like Todd Manning wasn't showing up for visitation with his kids. Once again, Todd was showing he was nothing but a selfish ass.
Blair sighed. "Yeah, it's going to be a tough road," she said as she let John take Sammy to put him down. She could kill Todd for disappointing Jack the most; she didn't understand him.
He had to have known that Jack would be over the moon about this vistation and overnight-stay and he had flaked out.
*Probably bopping Marty Saybrooke and he lost track of time.* thought Blair.
With the utmost tenderness, John placed Sammy in his bed. He kissed the little boy's cheek, then covered him up with his Mickey Mouse blanket.
Glancing over at Jack, he saw that the other boy had cried himself to sleep into his pillow. Poor kid, thought John.
Going downstairs, John went to wrap his arms around Blair. "I wanna kill Todd Manning," John muttered as he was holding his lady close. "I saw Jack upstairs and he had cried himself to sleep."
"God!" Blair spit out. "He does this everytime to the them! Jack waits and waits for Todd to come around and he always disappoints him! But Jack doesn't see it like I see it, and I don't know what to do. Todd never calls to say he'll be late or he can't make it... and ... and ... ugggh!"
Looking out the front window, John saw the rain pouring down the window pane.
"It isn't like Marty not to call... that's what worries me," said John. "If Manning has done anything to her... I will kill him with my bare hands!"
Blair bit back a groan as she looked at John. "Is that your only concern?
Precious Marty?" She didn't understand what the men in Llanview saw in that woman; she couldn't leave anyone's man alone!
"Whoa!" John gasped out, hearing Blair lose it at the mention of Marty's name. Those two were rivals from way back, and Blair couldn't stand it that John had once been intimate with Marty and continued to think of her as a good friend.
"Of course first and foremost my concern is always with you, the boys, and Starr," John spoke. "But... I do care about Marty. I always have... and I always will. It sickens me that she's in Manning's bed, giving herself to him every night, night after night... He must have completely brainwashed her; I mean, what lady in her right mind would want to bed down with a guy who had raped her?"
"I don't trust Todd Manning... He might have done something to Marty. When I was on my way back downstairs, I tried to call her cell phone, but I didn't get an answer. I have to know if she's okay..."
"Blair, I know you will probably hate me for this... but I have to go looking for her," said John as he went to the desk and retrieved his gun.
"Are you fucking serious?" Blair yelled. "You're going to go off in the rain with your gun to save poor little Marty?"
"You walk out that door. John McBain ... then don't think about walking back into it!" she exclaimed. "You always have to be the one to save Marty! Why don't you let her get herself out of the stupid mess she's gotten herself into!"
"I'm totally fucking serious!" said John as he got the gun ready. "I don't have a good feeling about this, Blair... Marty's in trouble, I can feel it."
Right when he said those words, Starr walked in, and she was totally soaked from the rain. "Starr's here; she can watch the boys. I want you to go with me, Blair. Something is wrong..." John insisted. "After we do this, if you want to kick me out, you can be my guest... but I HAVE to go to Marty. She needs me."
"Absolutely not!" Blair said. "I'm not going anywhere!"
"Marty's fine; she probably just lost track of time because she's busy being Todd's whore," she snapped.
"Alright, Blair, have it your way," John said in a steely voice, sliding his gun into his pocket. He had a scowl on his handsome face as he walked out the door and into the pouring rain. He walked to his car and drove away into the night.
Blair angrily threw a vase of flowers at the door as John walked through it and into the rain. Broken glass, water, and crushed flowers were all over the floor as she slammed the front door after his sorry behind.
John didn't have to go far down the road until he came upon Todd's car on the opposite side of the road along the shoulder. John pulled up next to Todd's car and cautiously got out because it was pitch-dark out, it was still raining and try as he might, he could not see any movement inside the car.
Todd felt Marty's breath against his skin as she whispered to him. "Our baby's okay," he said to her. "I love you, Marty... I thought I was losing you..."
"Don't die, Marty... I cant live without you, I can't," Todd implored her,
just as the door of the car was thrown open on his side and a loaded gun was pressed against his skull.
All John could see was that Todd was practically on top of Marty and there was blood everywhere. He had no idea that Marty had just given birth. He was seeing red, thinking Todd Manning was brutally raping Marty again.
"Get off of her, you asshole!" John commanded, pushing the end of the gun painfully against Todd's skull.
"I can't...everything seems so fuzzy right now," Marty whimpered.
Then she heard angry voices. "Todd..." she murmured. She could barely move as she tried to reach for him to keep away the crazy man.
*Who is that? Is that a gun!* thought Marty. *Oh God, what is happening?*
Martt reached up to cradle the baby laying on her chest protectively.
"Please..." she implored.
Everything went dark for Todd when John pistol-whipped him, bashing the end of the gun into his skull. He fell onto Marty in the process, nearly smashing the newborn baby, causing the infant to wail noisily. "What in the hell?" John quipped, hearing the baby's cry. He managed to pull Manning off Marty, tossing him carelessly out of the car and onto the roadway outside. That's when John saw the squirming infant lying atop Marty's chest.
"Ohhh my God!" John gasped, seeing that tiny baby as well as all the blood. Todd hadn't been trying to rape Marty; he had been delivering her child.
"Marty, ohhhh God... are you okay?" asked John, as he reached into the car,
taking both her and the baby into his arms. The rain beat down in torrents as John tried to sheild the baby from its strength.
Once John had Marty safely placed into the car, he went back for Todd. "I should just let a car drive by and run your sorry ass over, but I guess due to the circumstances, I better take you along, too," John said grudgingly as he half-carried, half-drug Todd to the car. Once John had all the passengers inside, he drove away toward Llanview Hosptial. "This woman just had a baby,"
he said as he carried Marty and the crying infant inside.
Marty was still wavering in and out of consciousness. "Todd," she mumbled.
She didn't know what was going on and she tried to keep her senses about her to listen for the cries of the baby. She realized she didn't even know if her child was a girl or a boy.
When Todd came too he realized he was in John McBain's car and he was covered in Marty's blood. "McBain!" he growled, reaching up and touching his head.
His hand came away bloody. At that point, all Todd wanted to do was pound the holy crap out of John, but when he thought of Marty and the baby, he realized first he had to see if both of them were alright.
Stumbling into the hospital, Todd approached the front desk. He looked a sight with hands and body streaked with blood and a head wound dripping down his face. "Where is Marty Saybrooke? I want to see her; NOW!" Todd demanded.
Seeing Todd's condition and knowing of his unsavory past, the receptionist wasn't all too welling to tell Todd anything about Marty or her whereabouts.
"You better get out of here right now or I'm going to call security," she insisted.
John stood in the hallway as the doctors worked on Marty. The birth had been really bad for her and she needed emergency surgery. After the surgery, John was at her side. She called out for Todd. "No, Marty, it's me... John," he said as her eyes tried to focus on him. "You're at the hospital... and you're going to be alright."
Marty saw John at her bedside. "Todd? The baby?" she asked. She had to know that they were both alright and where they were. Why was John here? She was so confused as she tried to see if Todd was nearby. She began scanning the room for him.
"The baby's fine, Marty. When we arrived at the hospital, a nurse took the baby to the nursery. I'm sure they are just checking the little one over, just to make sure everything is okay. You gave me quite a scare, Marty..." John said as he took her hand and tried to assure her that her baby was perfectly fine.
A muscle twitched in his jaw as she again asked for Todd and began looking around for him.
"I don't know where Manning is right now..." John said. All the sudden,
someone grabbed him from behind and threw him up against the wall. John's hand was wrenched from Marty's in the process.
"Give me one good reason not to kill you right now," Todd spat out.
Marty stuggled to sit up. "Todd!" she gasped. "Stop! Please stop!"
Someone tell me what's going on!"
Marty placed a hand to her now aching head. "Todd, remember what we talked about," she reminded, hoping to get through to him. What had John done? What had happened?
Or was it Todd who had done something?
Todd continued to beat John's head against the wall again and again as Marty's voice seemed to be coming to him from a distance, begging him not to do it. His rage was getting the better of him as his own blood was falling down into his eyes, stinging them. Having seen John holding Marty's hand after everything John had already done had been too much for Todd. Finally he let John go, and he crumpled to the ground, totally stunned. Todd then turned,
going immediately to Marty. "Are you okay?" he asked, completely disoriented as he spoke to Marty with concern. "The baby? Where is our baby?" Todd wiped the blood from his eyes as he sunk into the chair beside Marty, totally exhausted from his head wound as well as everything else that had happened.
John sat on the floor awhile, his legs unable to move. His skull hurt where Todd had beaten it against the wall. For a minute, he couldn't even register a thought. He then saw that Manning was sitting next to Marty, and all of Marty's attention was focused on him. With a heavy sigh, John got up and left the room.
"The nurse has the baby, Todd," Marty said.
"Didn't you hear me? Why did you have to do that?" she asked sadly.
"You promised to try, what happened?"
"I'm fine I think, but we're not talking about me."
Todd was relieved when Marty said the baby was with the nurse and that she was okay, too. But he looked like a whipped puppy when she mentioned that he had broken his promise to her. "Marty, you don't understand," Todd said as he lay his head in his hands. "John pistol-whipped me. He thought I was hurting you in the car... that I was raping you. Before he even knew what was going on, he slammed his gun into my head, and I blacked out. I fell on you... and I fell on our baby. Our child was nearly crushed. When I woke up, I was in John's car outside the hospital... I didn't know where you were... or even if you were alive."
"I was out of my mind with worry for you and our baby," Todd explained. "If you want to think I broke my promise to you tonight because of this... that's fine, I'll go. Security wants to throw me out of the hospital anyway. They think I'm some thug or something..."
Todd got up, slightly dizzy still from his head wound. He didn't really want to go, but he thought he had let Marty down by his display of violence earlier against John. Right as Todd was about to walk out the door, Dr. Michael McBain walked in.
"Todd, what happened to you?" Michael asked, seeing the nasty gash on Todd's head. "That's going to need to be stitched up."
"I'll live," Todd said, sounding defeated.
Turning to his patient, Michael said to Marty, "You're one lucky woman,
Marty... cause if John McBain hadn't have gotten you to the hospital when you did, you would have bleed to death tonight. The bad news is that you hemmoraged and we had to give you emergency surgery to save your life. Marty,
you won't be able to have any more future children... But the good news is, you have a very healthy, 5 pound 8 oz baby girl."
"Todd, don't go," Marty said softly.
No more children? That was it? She had been hoping if things worked out with her and Todd that they could have had one more.
"I...please - Thank John for me, Dr. McBain..."
"And Todd please get that stitched up for me," she added softly.
"Marty, you lost a lot of blood tonight. You're going to need a transfusion," explained Dr. McBain. "We checked your blood type... it's really rare, and we don't have any of it on hand."
"I have the same blood type. While you're stitching me up... take the blood from me," spoke Todd.
"Alright, come with me... I'll have a nurse take care of you," Michael said.
Glancing at Marty, Todd then left the room with Dr. Mc Bain.
A moment later, a nurse walked in, handing a tiny baby girl in a pink blanket to Marty. "Here is your daughter," the nurse said, with a smile. "She's all cleaned up and she wants her mommy." The baby girl, with big blue eyes, looked up at her mother.
Marty held her baby girl her eyes lighting up. "Hi, Paloma. Wait till Daddy comes back;
he'll be gushing over you. You are so gorgeous," she said softly, looking at the tiny little human in her arms.
About a half hour later, Dr. McBain came back, carrying a couple of bags of fluid containing Todd's blood. He got the bags of blood set up so they could flow directly into Marty for the transfusion. "Ohhh there's that little baby now," he said, smiling down at the adorable baby girl in Marty's arms. "She looks just like you, Marty. She's absolutely precious."
"Uhhhh... Marty, I don't know how to tell you this... but after we got Todd all stitched up and we got the blood for your transfusion, he left the hospital.
He said there was something he had to do," said Michael a bit awkwardly. He really didn't understand Todd Manning or Marty's attraction to the man, but he hated to hurt Marty by telling her that the father of her newborn child had suddenly left without proper explanation.
After getting six stitches in his head and giving his blood, Todd left the hospital by taxi. He went home and took a shower after disposing of his bloody clothing. He couldn't stand wearing clothes that were caked with Marty's blood. After he got out of the shower, he sat down on the edge of the bed wearing nothing but a towel. Everything Marty had said at the hospital came rushing back to him. He had wanted to kill John McBain tonight... if Marty hadn't have stopped him, he certainly would have. John McBain, his kids'
stepfather would be dead. He would have someone else's blood on his hands which were already stained with so many crimes. "Marty, I just can't live with this," he said, taking off his cross and laying it down on the bed. He had broken his promise to Marty tonight and he hated himself for it.
"I don't deserve you or our baby," Todd said after he got dressed and walked outside into the night.