Part 8- Crisis

It was tradition at Salem University Hospital for the young residents to bring lunch to the med students who were watching surgery from the observation room for the first time. It was also tradition for the residents to take bets on who would throw up as soon as they smelled the food, who would just be grateful and dig into the free meal, and who would fall somewhere in between. Will had always filled out the bingo-like card Dr. Poplar made up for that purpose, but so far he'd never come close to winning. This year, though, he had spent much more time with the students than he ever had before. He just might come out of the betting pool with a few dollars and, more importantly, bragging rights.

Unfortunately, the students were to observe a "straightforward" neurosurgical procedure. This was problematic for two reasons. First, the surgery in question had a rather lower gross-out factor than other procedures the students might have been told to attend. Second, the star of the hospital's neurology department, which was rapidly becoming more and more well-renowned, was Dr. Joel Karlin. Naturally, Dr. Karlin was almost always assisted by the hospital's prized recruit, Joy Wesley.

Will hadn't spoken to Joy since their argument over Cora Fein's surgery. Mrs. Fein had come through the surgery with flying colors and was recuperating as well as could possibly be expected. The procedure had been a complete success; Will had visited her several times and she had never failed to express her gratitude to him. That only made him more irritated with Joy. Why had she insisted on attacking when a few words of reassurance would have meant the world to such a kind, harmless woman?

He hoped that watching Joy work wouldn't make him lose his appetite. The residents would be providing pizza, meatball subs, tacos, Indian food, Chinese food, fried fish, and fried chicken. Someone had been dispatched to each of fast food establishments adjacent to the hospital.

When Will arrived carrying one Hawaiian pizza and one chicken alfredo pizza, most of the table was already covered with the other residents' contributions. Some of the students were looking a little green already, and Dr. Karlin hadn't even arrived.

Will helped himself to a carton of orange beef. Chinese takeout had always been one of his particular favorites.

Below them, Dr. Karlin entered the room accompanied by Joy and two nurses. The procedure began.

The white carton grew cold and forgotten in Will's hands as he watched. It was easy to see why Dr. Karlin so preferred Joy's assistance to that of more experienced doctors. She anticipated his every instruction. Each instrument she touched became an extension of her hand, as if hand and tool had never been meant to exist without one another.

He stood unmoving until the surgery was completed with a distinct lack of flourish but an equally distinct air of artistry. Neurosurgery was far from Will's specialty, but he knew full well that he had just witnessed the nearest thing to perfection it was possible to achieve.

He set the untouched carton of food on the table and fled the room, barely acknowledging Dr. Poplar's call of "Will—you won the pool!" The bragging rights and the cash prize were far from his mind. He needed to find Joy and apologize for snapping at her over Mrs. Fein's procedure. After watching her work, he understood why so many people were willing to give her so much leeway.

She really was that good.

She was still flushed and sweating from exertion when he saw her.

"Joy."

She glanced at him coolly. It was disconcerting in contrast with her disheveled, exhausted appearance. "Will."

"I was watching your surgery with the students—"

"And you thought that I didn't make pleasant enough small talk with the patient even though he was unconscious and I had other things to do, like save his life?"

Now Will remembered why he wasn't going to apologize, and why paying Joy a compliment she deserved didn't seem like the best possible idea.

"And I won the puking betting pool, so thank you."

"So I saved a life and you get to brag about predicting the bodily functions of a bunch of not very bright students. Sounds about right."

Will opened his mouth to tell Joy that she was a brilliant surgeon and didn't need to attack anyone else to prove it when his eye fell on unexpected movement down the hall near the lab. It was his cousin Nick, and Nick was flirting with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed middle-aged woman who most definitely was not Chelsea. "What's he doing?"

Joy rolled her eyes. "So you're another one of the Hortons who doesn't think Nick should be allowed to make his own decisions or have any fun when he and Chelsea are practically divorced?"

"Nick loves Chelsea. Always has, always will," said Will automatically. His family was full of "always have, always will." It was only his parents who hadn't managed to keep that going.

"Whatever." Joy stalked off without another word; Nick and the woman vanished into the lab. Will was suddenly alone, and with nothing else to do, he headed home.

He could hear the clanking of the exercise machines he had installed in one of his spare bedrooms even before he opened the front door. His hours at the hospital were so unpredictable that working out at the Salem Health Club had become almost impossible, and he had indulged himself by creating his own private gym. The fact that his father enjoyed it pleased him to no end.

Lucas noticed Will almost before he entered the gym and beckoned him toward the bench. "Spot me."

Will obeyed happily. This was the kind of thing he had missed most when Lucas had gone to prison, and it was something that they could still do together.

They didn't talk much as Lucas finished his workout. Will teased that Lucas was getting old; Lucas returned that he could still take Will any time, any place, any way.

"Your turn," Lucas said, pointing at the bench and indicating that he would spot Will. Will hadn't really intended to work out himself, but it seemed as good a way as any to get rid of the irritation brought on by talking to Joy.

He lay down and began his first set.

Will's muscles loosened and his lips followed suit. In between sets, he found himself telling Lucas all about the day's events at work.

"… And I can't believe I almost apologized to Joy. Joy's the most arrogant, conceited, spoiled doctor I've ever seen. I'm not even sure I want to be an attending if it means I have to get along with Joy."

He glanced at Lucas, expecting a show of sympathy, and was furious to see a smirk playing about the corners of his father's lips. "What?" Will demanded.

"I notice that I hear a lot of Joy, Joy, Joy when you talk about work."

"It's a very misleading name," Will muttered.

"You're sure you don't have a crush?"

Will let the weights fall back into place with a bang and leapt to his feet. "I'm absolutely, positively sure I don't have a crush on anyone. And if I was interested in someone, it would not be Joy Wesley."

"Who would it be?"

Will shrugged. "No one. At least, not someone who thinks she's always right and wants to be in control of everything no matter what it does to everyone else. Not someone who would destroy everything around her." He was surprised at the venom of his own words.

The teasing atmosphere of camaraderie vanished from the room as Lucas sighed and leaned against the stationary bicycle. "I think it's time we talked about your mother," he said quietly.

"We've talked about Mom lots of times," Will said lightly, but Lucas was unmoved.

"Not really, we haven't. You're still so angry at her for divorcing me to marry EJ."

"And for not doing anything to help you get out of prison, and for taking the twins away, and for letting EJ pretend to be their father. So what? I think a better question is, why aren't you angry at her?"

"I was." This was confessed so quietly that Will almost didn't hear it even though he was standing short inches away.

"And now?" Will prompted unwillingly, just to get this over with.

"Now it's been thirteen years, and I don't want to waste any more time being angry."

That was insulting. "I'm not wasting my time. It's not like I sit around and think about how awful Mom is."

"But you do let your mother's mistakes stop you from falling in love yourself."

Most of Will's extended family was inordinately concerned with his lack of a social life, and he was well-used to deflecting those criticisms. "Just because I'm not dating anyone right now—"

Lucas didn't even let him get started. "In all your letters, you never sounded really interested in any of the girls you mentioned. And now you're accusing Joy Wesley of destroying everything around her."

"You don't know Joy."

"I know that out of all the things she could have done with her life, she chose to become a doctor, the same way you did."

Will rolled his eyes. "Money and glory."

"She inherited a lot of money from Nancy's parents, didn't she?"

"Glory, then." Lucas might have a point about Will's feelings for Sami, but he was barking up the wrong tree about Joy. And Lucas was getting away from the supposed subject. "But you didn't answer me. How can you think about the thirteen years you spent in prison, and Allie and Johnny out there somewhere we can't find them, and not be mad at Mom?"

"Because I know that the last thing your mother wanted to do was marry EJ or let him near the twins. He raped her. He threatened her. She didn't have a choice, not a real one. I was the one who shot EJ, and that's why I went to prison. Not because she married him. Because I shot him. There's enough blame to go around. And… I love her, Will. I've loved other women, too, but your mother was it. It's not worth it to think about the times she disappointed me when I can think about the times she made me so deliriously happy I can't even describe it."

"But she let Allie and—"

Lucas cut Will off. "Not she, we. Your mother and I both hurt all three of our kids. It was the last thing either of us meant to do, but it happened and I'm sorry. She was, too, back when she did it. She thought it was the best way to protect you. We didn't want to tell you, but EJ was making threats against you."

"He made threats against me to my face."

Lucas' jaw tightened. "And you knew he meant them, didn't you? You knew he wouldn't give up until he was dead, in jail, or had everything he wanted."

They completed the thought in unison. "Why couldn't it have been dead or in jail?"

Oh, she was beautiful. Bloody gorgeous.

When had that happened?

Allie—Alice, Alicia—had always been cute and pretty. He had always wanted her, wanted her from the day of her birth. First he had wanted her for a daughter. He and she and Samantha and Johnny-Gianni would have been a perfect family of four.

Samantha was long gone. Allie and Johnny barely remembered her. Allie and Johnny weren't even aware that they were siblings, let alone twins.

Johnny was gone, too, getting a proper education at one of the most exclusive schools in the world.

But his Al-li-ci-a was still here. He hadn't been able to chance sending her away, not knowing as he did that there was no blood between them and he had no legal right to her. Keeping her close had been no hardship.

No blood between them.

The blood rushed from his brain in search of more exotic locales.

His constant sense of guilt heightened, but not enough to stop him from slipping into the room beside Allie's. It was difficult to walk normally, but he managed. Some niceties had to be observed.

Quietly, he removed the framed Van Gogh print from the wall. Shakily, he opened the tiny door concealed beneath it. Reverently, he peered through the two-way mirror into Allie's bedroom.

She was still cute and pretty, but every day she was more beautiful and—God help him—sexual. How was he supposed to think of her as his daughter when she had those curves—those legs, those hips, that waist, those breasts? The child was thirteen years old. What thirteen-year-old had breasts like that? How could he remember that she wasn't like her mother when she had that porcelain skin, those blue eyes, that blonde hair, those lips?

Allie was curled up in a chair and writing something in a notebook. EJ wondered what she was writing; she always did her assignments for her online courses and the tutoring he gave her himself on her computer.

Her hair fell into her face and she brushed it aside impatiently. It tangled just a bit and EJ suppressed a moan. He loved it when Allie's hair tangled. He would brush it out, slowly, sensuously, and kiss it when he was done. He would kiss her cheek and her forehead, and maybe those kiss were a bit too long, but how could he help it?

He hadn't helped Allie with her hair for a long time. She always insisted that she didn't need his help, and he had to devise new ways to get closer to the beautiful, irresistible young woman he had once promised to love as a daughter.

Sometimes, he came into her room at night under the guise of having forgotten to tell her of their plans for the next day. He would enter without knocking and lie beside her on the bed as he told her, letting his arm accidentally brush against her breasts as he reached over her to turn out the light beside her bed.

Sometimes, he kissed her goodbye as a "father" ought to, but his lips lingered on her cheek or her forehead long enough to imagine what it would be like to crush her lips beneath his own, as he had once done with her doppelganger mother.

Sometimes, when she stood on her toes to reach for something—making her legs even more beautiful, if possible—he would come up close behind her to help. Then his body touched every inch of hers. Suffice it to say, he made certain that their home was full of shelves and drawers that were just far enough over Allie's head to give him maximum opportunity.

But this incidental paternal contact was not enough. He tried to keep the strange beast raging within him under wraps. When he wanted more, he tried force himself to settle for visual satisfaction only. Never before in his life had he denied himself anything.

As he watched, Allie uncurled herself and snapped the notebook into a case meant to hold a DVD—one of the duller animated features from her early childhood. The case went to the bottom of the pile, and Allie left the room.

EJ's hands continued to shake as he replaced the painting and dashed frantically into Allie's room. He wanted Allie's mind, soul, and body. He denied himself her body. He would not deny himself the rest.

Within ten seconds, he had snatched the small book from its hiding place. As he had hoped against hope, it appeared to be some sort of journal. He would be able to learn the things about Allie that she seemed intent on denying him.

Her penmanship was perfect, of course; he had taught her and Johnny himself.

It was like I was alive for the first time. I didn't know how to react. The whole world went bright, just like someone turned on a light switch.

And when he touched me to keep me from falling off the roof—I didn't know it could feel good to be touched. I never minded when Johnny touched me (I miss Johnny), but anyone else— I just didn't know it could feel good.

But on the other hand, I almost wish I'd fallen. Then I'd be free. I wasted thirteen years before I even went out on the roof by myself. There's so much out there and I want it all.

I want to be alive again. I hope everything out there is alive, and not just him.

Why couldn't he have told me his name?

"What are you doing?" The venom in Allie's voice was unusual. Ordinarily, she was quite deferential to EJ. This was quite a surprise when one considered how her mother had behaved.

But if one of them was going to be outraged today, it was not going to be Allie. EJ had been starving for her touch every second of every day, and Allie was giving herself up to some man she didn't even know by name.

EJ waved the book in her face. "I think the appropriate question, Alicia, is what have you been doing?"

Allie's baby-round face quivered. "I was writing a novel, but now you've read it before it was finished."

"Nice try." He was still too angry to wonder how Allie had grown into such an abysmal liar. "Do I need to put bars on every window in this house? Do I need to have a guard follow you every minute I'm away?"

"No!"

A hundred thoughts flew through his mind as he stepped closer to her. He remembered the first time he'd seen her, soon after her birth, in Marlena Evans' bedroom. He remembered the first time he'd held her—over Samantha's objection—when Samantha had been packing to accompany him to London after their marriage.

He remembered when Allie and Johnny had been toddlers and he'd set them in swings, side by side, at the park. He would push one swing with one hand, then one swing with the other. Passing women would slow down to watch them, smiling as the doting father catered to his beautiful twins. Their admiration didn't make Samantha's continued rejection any easier.

He remembered when Allie had suddenly taken ill soon after her third birthday. She had sweated through her nightgown, and as he stood her in the bathtub and ran a sponge over her naked body—

Allie didn't remember any of it. That was a blessing and a curse.

She looked more like Samantha than ever as she lunged for the notebook with fire in her eyes.

EJ grabbed her clawing hands and leaned in to kiss her.

"You not only went looking for that house by yourself when I told you not to, you climbed up on the roof?" Jett demanded for the tenth time.

Theo sighed. Jett could be so unimaginative. Sometimes he illustrated the worst stereotypical qualities of an agent of the law. "That's not the point."

"When I agreed to take you to see the DiMera holdings we know about, you agreed that I get to decide what the point is."

Theo didn't remember agreeing to that at all. He had more or less promised to obey Jett, and he had certainly broken that promise when he'd gone to see the DiMera-held townhouse on his own, but that wasn't the same as agreeing to let his stodgy cousin think for him. Anyway, that was hardly the most pressing matter at hand. "Can't we talk about that later? This girl—"

"No, we can't talk about it later—"

"She's being held there against her will, I'm sure of it—"

"What's important is that you could have been killed."

"That's what the DiMeras do!"

"You may have alerted an international crime syndicate—"

"Her window doesn't open, she's not allowed out on her own—"

"That various agencies are aware that he owns that building—"

"She looked so haunted!"

"And who knows who might have been watching you do your Spiderman act—friends, enemies—"

"She said she had a guardian, not parents. She needs our help!"

"No one needs any help from you after the stunt you just pulled." Jett grabbed Theo by the back of his neck and forced him toward the flat where they were staying. "Neither one of us is going anywhere tonight. You aren't going anywhere alone until you're back in Salem."

Theo's mind was such a mixture of confusion and frustration that he let Jett push him down the street to their temporary London home. He knew that the rest of his family hoped that Jett's pseudo-military attitude would be just what Theo needed to break his bad habits and choose a less destructive path for his life. Theo had doubted that he would somehow see the metaphorical light after prolonged exposure to Jett, but he had felt the need to learn more about the DiMeras before he could set aside that part of his history and focus on something else. Jett, who had worked for the ISA and several other anti-crime organizations, was the only one who could provide this bizarre form of therapy.

Theo reminded himself of this and let ten minutes pass before he tried to approach his cousin again.

"Jett," he said softly. "I know that what I did was wrong. But two wrongs don't make a right, and ignoring this girl isn't going to do anyone any good."

Jett sighed. "How old did you say she was?"

"Teenager. Maybe fifteen?"

"Girls are really dramatic at that age. They always think they're being tortured somehow."

"But it was a DiMera house, and the DiMeras really do torture people. My Mom is one, and that didn't stop her family from locking her up in a tunnel underground." Theo suppressed a shudder at the memories of his mother's disappearance and return. He hadn't been old enough to understand much of it, but he thought that that was when he had first realized, on a visceral level, that the potential to inflict pain and horror ran through his own veins.

"It's a DiMera-owned property. They run businesses out of that place, have meetings. It's not a residence."

"They have bedrooms. I saw one!" Theo pointed at his eyes to emphasize his meaning.

"For taking a nap before plotting all night. Or for stashing a teenager while her father hammers out a deal. Don't you think that's even possible?"

Truthfully, Theo didn't.

"This trip has been hard on you," Jett continued. "You're imaging all the awful things the DiMeras did, and you're taking them on yourself because you share their DNA. If I were in your place, I might be seeing damsels in distress, too." Jett clapped a hand on Theo's shoulder. "Your mystery girl is fine. I promise. You do not have some distant relative who's keeping her in a cage."

Jett laughed as if that were the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard.

TBC