Part 28- Deja Vu
Sami's heart ripped itself into shreds.
In truth, she didn't want Allie to testify. She thought that Allie's sacrifice would be for nothing; she had spent her whole life watching the DiMeras get away with one crime after another. EJ hadn't been punished for torturing and brainwashing Uncle Steve; for shooting John, stealing his kidney, and having him run over; for trying to murder Shawn-Douglas and Uncle Bo; for trying to murder Lucas; for beating Patrick Lockhart to a pulp; for killing a cop by the name of Eve; for the problems at the fertility clinic that had resulted in Tyler being given up for adoption; for causing a car crash that could have killed Stephanie and Max; for… she had sworn that she would make him miserable when he raped her and blackmailed her into marriage, but she hadn't been able to exact revenge on him for that, either.
How could Allie be expected to succeed where John and Marlena and Belle and Shawn and Steve and Kayla and Bo and Hope and Max and Stephanie and Lucas and Sami had all failed?
She couldn't.
But that didn't mean that Allie's anguish at giving up her quest couldn't become Sami's own.
"It's all right, Baby Girl," Sami said, kneeling beside her daughter. "We'll call the prosecutor and tell her you've changed your mind. She knew this was a possibility—"
"No!" screeched Allie so angrily that she sounded more animal than human.
"No, what?" asked Sami. She caught a glimpse of the two of them in the mirror and was amazed, not for the first time, at their resemblance. She remembered being a teenager and dragging her own mother in front of a similar mirror. ("Look at you! Just look at you!") At the time, Marlena's protestations that a mother felt a daughter's pain and confusion as acutely as her own had left Sami thinking that that was the stupidest thing she had ever heard.
Well, she had been wrong before. What was one more time?
Allie leapt to her feet and threw her hairbrush at the mirror. Sami winced, waiting for the shattering of glass and seven years' bad luck (though it might be an improvement if her family's collective luck was merely "bad"). But the brush bounced off of the mirror without doing any damage.
"Why did you throw your brush?" asked Sami.
Allie's wide blue eyes were full of unshed tears, but she blinked them back. "I can't braid my hair," she said, the way most people said "my father just died."
"Oh." Sami pointed at the chair, and Allie sat down. "That, we can fix." Sami ran her hands through Allie's glorious blonde hair, then worked the brush and the comb through it.
Allie leaned into her mother's hands and her mind went blank with relief. She savored the sensation of letting someone else take one of her problems away. She savored the sensation of having a mother. Nothing had ever felt so good.
EJ had liked to touch her hair. When he had done it, it was an invasion. When Sami did it, the experience was something else entirely. It was strange that the very same gesture, coming from a different person with a different intention, could be wonderful instead of horrible.
"How do we want it braided?" asked Sami after stroking Allie's hair a final time.
Allie gestured vaguely. "French pigtails. Like Claire does."
Sami smiled. Of course, when a girl was thirteen, the best person to emulate was her fifteen-year-old cousin (in the absence of an older sister, of course). "I can handle that," she told Allie, and began her work. She tried not to dwell on the fact that she hadn't seen Claire in person since Claire had been toddling around her apartment stealing the toys the infant Johnny and Allie were too young to enjoy anyway.
"Is this how Claire does it?" she asked when one side of Allie's face was framed by a braid?
Allie languidly opened her eyes; Sami was flattered that she'd shut them. "That's right," she confirmed. Her eyelids started to droop closed once more, but then flew open. "Do you think Claire and Ciara will be angry with me for doing this?" she blurted out.
"Did they tell you they would be?" Sami asked, irritated again that she didn't know anything about either of those girls.
"No… they said I should be brave and do what I had to do."
"Then why do you think they might be angry?"
"I don't think they understand. They try. They've heard about the DiMeras and the things they've done. But sometimes it seems like they think DiMeras are monsters in a fairy tale, where the princess does the right thing and she wins. I lived with EJ for thirteen years. I know what he does and what he gets away with and how much power he has. I know that if—if this doesn't work out, and he wants to hurt me, he'll do it by hurting the people I care about, like with you. He'd never do anything to Johnny, but Claire and Ciara… he could… well, for one thing, they're both prettier than I am."
Sami felt her knees go weak, and she fought to keep herself from sinking to the floor. She had underestimated Allie. The things Allie thought her cousins didn't understand were the same things Sami had thought Allie didn't understand. But Allie knew perfectly well what she was risking, and had decided to risk it anyway.
"I don't know Claire and Ciara," Sami said at last. "I wish I did. And I can't wait to meet them again. But I know their parents. Claire and Ciara might be sheltered, but Bo and Hope and Shawn and Belle—they know exactly what EJ can do. They'll do everything to protect their daughters. They know that their daughters have always been at risk because their last name is Brady. And they've taught their daughters to stand by their friends and stand up for what they believe in. Don't you think?"
"Probably." Allie nodded, but she still seemed uncertain.
Sami held onto a half-completed braid with one hand and pushed Allie's cell phone toward her with the other. "Why don't you text them? It's the middle of the night there, but when they wake up and text you back, you'll feel better."
Allie turned the phone over her hand, considering, when it sprang to life. Sami glanced over her daughter's shoulder and read Claire Brady calling, complete with a picture of Claire striking a pose and laughing.
"Answer," Sami prompted, pinning Allie's hair out of the way and stepping back to give Allie privacy. But Allie grabbed Sami's hand and wouldn't let her leave, even as she accepted Claire's call.
"Claire?" asked Allie hesitantly.
"And Ciara!" shouted a second voice over Claire's cheerful "hi, Allie!"
"Be quiet," Claire hissed at Ciara. "We're sleeping, remember?"
"Hypocrites. None of them are asleep either. Oh, but they're adults and they don't have school," Ciara sneered.
"What's going on?" Allie asked. "Isn't it, like, two in the morning in Salem? Where are you?"
"We're home," said Claire.
"Claire's home," modified Ciara.
"Grandma Hope brought Ciara over for a sleepover, but she didn't leave. She and Mom and Grandma Marlena have been downstairs drinking coffee all night."
"They've been drinking more than coffee. Except when they come upstairs to yell at us that it's a school night and we should be in bed. Never mind that they called Aunt Kayla over a few hours ago."
"They did? You didn't tell me that!"
"Yes I did. I heard her voice when I went to the bathroom, I told you that!"
"No, you didn't, I would have remembered—"
"Guys?" Allie injected softly, and Claire and Ciara's bickering ended abruptly. "What is everyone doing over there in the middle of the night?"
There was a long pause.
Then Ciara addressed Allie as if Allie were being very, very stupid. "Well, it wasn't as if anyone was going to sleep, knowing what you're about to do. We're refreshing the news websites every five minutes to see what they're saying about the trial. They're doing that downstairs, too—they took away our laptops, but they forgot Claire's phone."
"And we wanted to call you before you went in there. To tell you we love you," said Claire.
"To tell you we're with you. To tell you to kick that murdering, nasty, cheating, perverted—"
"Kidney stealing, don't forget kidney stealing, my Grandpa John still walks with a limp—"
"Raping, brainwashing—"
"GIRLS!" Four thousand miles from Claire's bedroom, Sami and Allie both winced at the sound of a door slamming open and Hope's voice. "Give me the phone."
"Love you, Allie," said Ciara as she handed the phone to her mother.
"You're talking to Allie?" asked Hope in a strange voice.
"They're talking to Allie?" asked another voice, and Sami and Allie both recognized it as Marlena's.
"Allie?" Hope and Marlena both asked the phone.
Allie, wide-eyed and not wanting to get her cousins in trouble, stayed silent.
"Allie and I are here," Sami answered instead.
"Sami! You take good care of your brave girl!"
"That's what I'm planning on doing," Sami told Marlena. In the background, she could hear Hope calling for Kayla and Belle.
"We're all thinking of you, Allie! Go get him!" Kayla shouted from somewhere in the background.
"Stay strong, Allie!"
"You too, Sami! Remember what a great daughter you have!"
"I never forget what a great daughter I have," Sami told them. "But maybe the rest of you should give Ciara and Claire a little credit and let them join the party downstairs? It was a great idea for them to call Allie. I think it helped Allie a lot."
"It did. Thank you," said Allie, but Sami doubted her words were heard on the other side of the ocean, where Claire and Ciara were shouting that Sami was their absolute most favorite relative regardless of whether they'd ever met her.
"You may have a point," admitted Hope.
Ciara and Claire's clapping sounded suspiciously sarcastic and made Allie laugh. Sami thrilled at the sound, but was all too aware of the minutes ticking down. Soon a car would come to take them to the trial. She ended the conversation, finished Allie's hair, and opened the door that separated the room she shared with Allie from the room Lucas shared with Will before Lucas and Will began pounding on it.
The car had no distinctive markings save its tinted windows, and Lucas, Sami, Will, and Allie rode to the courthouse in virtual silence. At first, Sami told Lucas and Will about some of the things their family in Salem had said, in the hopes that it would distract Allie, but Allie ignored the forced chatter and eventually Sami fell silent.
Allie was greeted by the prosecutor who had prepared her the day before and was rushed off to sequestration. Sami, Lucas, and Will were pointed toward a staircase that led to a balcony that would allow them to witness Allie's testimony in private.
Will, Lucas, and Sami stared at each other, all fighting the urge to chase Allie down the hallway and drag her back.
"We should go," said Will at last. "We don't want anyone to see us. We have to help keep Allie anonymous as long as we can."
"Right, as usual," said Lucas, and he clapped Will on the shoulder and pushed him toward the stairs.
As soon as they reached their hidden compartment, though, Sami's resolve began to fail her. "We can't let her do this," she told Lucas and Will. "She shouldn't have to—what if she changed her mind? That's it, I'm going to get her right now!"
She even took a step toward the stairs before Lucas and Will grabbed her arms and sat down on the narrow bench with her between them. Sami let herself be out-maneuvered and grabbed Lucas' and Will's hands the way Allie had grabbed hers back in the hotel room.
Their hands were warm and strong and reassuring. But Sami didn't want their reassurance. She wanted them to be able to give it to Allie.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" she asked Lucas after a long moment of feeling guilty for being surrounded by people she loved while Allie was all alone.
Lucas' brow furrowed. "Of course I'm not sure this is a good idea. We aren't going to know until it's over."
"That isn't what I wanted to hear."
Mockery slipped into Lucas' voice. "I'm sorry, Sami. I thought this was about our daughter, not about what you wanted to hear."
"Speaking of this being about our daughter," Sami returned, "Why would you let her do something that you admit might be a bad idea?"
"Because not doing anything could be just as bad! I thought you of all people would understand that!"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
On Sami's other side, Will snorted with disgust. That was all Sami needed to hear.
"This is because I divorced you thirteen years ago?"
"Divorced me to marry the man who raped you because you thought he'd keep his word never to hurt your family again if you did. Don't make it sound like I was the monster who wouldn't let you go. But my point was that we all knew something bad would happen if you married EJ. You were convinced that something worse would happen if you didn't. And that's where Allie is now. We think something bad might come out of her testimony. But we think something worse might happen if she doesn't. She made her decision and I respect that."
"She's changing her mind. Lucas, she was practically crying over her—"
Lucas shook his head emphatically. "Allie never cries. When we first met her, Will and I were a mess, but she wasn't." Will tried to wrench his hand out of Sami's grasp, but Sami refused to let go. Lucas glanced at Will across Sami. "Come on, Bud, you know you were a mess. Nothing wrong with that."
"Not important!" Sami interrupted before Will could respond. "I mean, of course there's nothing wrong with a man crying, Will, but you're a wonderful man either way."
"Gee, thanks," said Will with heavy sarcasm.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means stop acting like Dad—and Allie and I—made the wrong decision and you're the only one who knows what's best for Allie, when you're the one who brought us here when we begged you not to. You just had to marry EJ, when there was no chance that was going to work out, no matter what it did to us. At least when Allie tries to save the world by herself, she has a plan that, you know, isn't insane."
"Will!" snapped Lucas.
"No, let him talk," Sami protested. "I deserve it. But Will," she added warningly, "You should know that I want to feel awful right now, so if you start telling me about how much I hurt you and your father and Allie, you're giving me what I want."
Will glared, then slumped back in his seat.
Lucas rolled his eyes.
Sami sighed and leaned forward, willing her daughter to survive her quest and come back to them.
But they were still holding hands when the "minor child who cannot be named" was called to the witness stand.
It was surprisingly easy for Allie to answer the prosecutor's questions. She had answered them in practice the day before. She had answered them for Dr. Medy in the snug little office at University Hospital.
At first, she thought that she was calm because she believed that she had made the right decision when she agreed to testify. EJ would find a way to hurt her family whether she told a judge what had happened or not. After all, everything was supposed to stop when he married Sami. But Sami's sacrifice hadn't been enough. No Brady's sacrifice had ever been enough for the DiMeras. They'd held her Grandma Marlena captive. They'd held Sami captive. They'd held Allie captive. Allie imagined that if one day she had a daughter—a daughter who looked like her and Sami and Aunt Belle and Grandma Marlena—the DiMeras would want to come for her, too.
It was hard to worry about her classmates making fun of her when she could worry about Claire being thrown in a dungeon and Ciara being kidnapped and forced to steal artwork and all the pain being pushed forward onto their own daughters who hadn't even been born yet.
Then she thought that she might be calm because she was so nervous that her body was able to answer the familiar questions with no input from her mind.
"He pinned my arms. I had bruises here and here—my upper arms, between my elbow and my shoulder. He pushed his body against me. I thought—I thought he was carrying a gun, and then I remembered those jokes—'is that a whatever in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?'—and I figured out, I didn't really figure out until it was over, it happened so fast—I figured out what it was. But he kissed me, on the lips, he used his tongue to get my tongue out of the way. It was hot and it hurt, not as much as my arms hurt, but I thought he was going to suffocate me or break my teeth or that I would throw up. His tongue was down my throat, but when he pulled back and there was… spit all over my face, that was almost worse."
The questions EJ's lawyers asked her were supposed to be harder, but they turned out to be easier. Yes, she remembered EJ pushing her on a swing and letting her eat pastries in bed and buying her as many DVDs as she liked. Yes, she was doing well in school—she was ahead of her classmates in all the subjects but American history, and EJ's tutors had taught her everything she needed and more.
The last exchange was puzzling, and unexpected, but she still knew what to say.
"You said that you were afraid of EJ, correct? You said that you believed that he was all powerful, able to find you anywhere you went, able to hurt you?" asked the defense attorney.
"That's correct."
"Then why would you testify against him? Aren't you afraid that that will make him angry, and make him want to hurt you again?"
"I'm very afraid of him," she said, and she flushed. Her mind had fallen, quite unexpectedly, back into her body. "But I'm afraid of him whether I make him angry or not. I never did anything to deserve what he did to me. My mother never did anything to deserve what he did to her. It's because I'm afraid that he'll hurt someone else that I'm here. I don't believe for a second that I'm going to be the 'minor child who cannot be named' by the end of the day. I know that people will find how who I am, and people I've never met will be calling me a liar, saying I'm delusional, saying I wanted it. But if he hurts my cousins, or my brothers, or anyone in my family—if he hurts anyone—because I didn't try to convince the judge to keep him in prison—it would be wrong for me to do that."
Just when her body started to shake, and she was afraid that she wouldn't be able to answer the next question, she was told that she could step down if she remembered not to discuss her testimony with anyone until the proceeding was over, because she might be recalled.
She stumbled off the witness stand and into the back hallway, where someone she couldn't see properly guided her down toward the same car that had taken her from the hotel that morning.
Then she was in the car in Sami's arms. Sami was singing. Allie had forgotten the lullaby, but now she remembered:
Rock-a-bye Allie,
Sent from above
God's little angel
Mom's little love
Now that you're with me
Life's been so sweet
Since God's dearest angel
Made it complete.
TBC