"I'm not trying to push you into anything, Sweetness. I just think after everything the past year, it wouldn't hurt for you to think about...maybe..."
"I know, Steve-" Kayla cut in, looking down at their twined hands as she bit her lip.
Trying to figure out the best way to tell her husband she'd done more than think about it and that, for weeks now, she hadn't let him in on her thinking at all.
At her reaction, worried he'd put his foot in it, Steve shook his head, bringing her hand to his lips to kiss.
"I'm sorry, baby. Last thing I want is making you feel like-"
"Like what?"
"Like I'm seeing you any different than the way I've always seen you," he shrugged. "As anything but my smart, strong, brave, beautiful wife. My Sweetn-"
"Shh, stop. I know that's not what you meant."
"And I know you never meant to shush me mid-sweetness, Sweetness," Steve chided, getting a soft smile.
"Sorry. Won't happen again."
"Baby..."
Shaking his head sadly, he reached over to stroke her hair.
"You let me in on what's been running circles around in your head, only for me to turn around and tell you to talk to someone. I need you to know I wasn't trying to pawn things off on a professional because you opened up and I can't handle it or-"
"Steve-"
"You're gonna work things out your own way, baby. I know that. I just want you to know I'm right here with you. Your husband, your one-eyed tom cat. Whatever you need from me, Sweetness, you know-"
"Of course I do," Kayla said, sniffing back tears as Steve thumbed one off her cheek. "But like you said, after everything, getting some outside help from someone doesn't hurt to think about or start up and-"
"Right, baby," Steve cut in. "And it's not as if it's something you haven't done before. I know counseling helped you sort things out back then. If there's a chance it might do the same for you now..." he trailed off as Kayla nodded, kissing the palm of his hand before moving it away from her face. Content to twine their hands in her lap and train her eyes there momentarily.
"I've thought about it too. That's why I've been going."
"Going... to- "
"Mm hmm," she confirmed, meeting his gaze.
"I have been talking to someone, Steve. I… I've been seeing a therapist."
"For how long?" Steve asked after a beat, swallowing hard when Kayla bit her lip.
"Kayla-"
"Two weeks after Stephanie and I got back to Salem," she answered.
"I've had sessions twice a week since…since then."
"Twice a… "
Taking a beat, considering this, Steve nodded and softly smiled.
"Well, just let me know what days of the week they are, baby," he said, not catching his wife's frown. "I'll be sure not to bring a snack by or plan a lunch date with you if you're down in Marlena's office or-"
"No, Marlena…she…. she's not my therapist, Steve," Kayla corrected as he frowned.
"She's not? But, I thought of anyone she'd-"
"I know. I...I know she worked with Joey and we'd talked about her working with us in couples therapy, but she was one pod over from me in Megan's lab. I…I couldn't expect her to be objective if that came up and I just didn't feel right seeing anyone else on staff at the hospital. Maybe before but, now? The idea of my professional life being mixed up in something so personal, just-"
Trailing off when Steve didn't respond, got that look in his eye that was usually reserved for when he was interrogating someone; Kayla's eyes narrowed.
"What?"
"Just want to know who's mixed in with your personal now that's still letting you be the working professional, baby," he said sharply as Kayla bristled.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" she snapped.
Apologizing, feeling guilty for the way he asked the question but not for asking it, Steve waited until the dust settled before speaking again.
"I've seen all the shifts you've been putting in at the hospital, Sweetness. And I know firsthand now how long it takes to make couch time at therapy feel like quality time. A couple hour sessions a couple days a week. I could swing that with my schedule, baby, but the way yours has been? And knowing you're probably not seeing a shrink within a mile of the hospital, hell within a mile of Salem-"
"Their office is a half hour from our house with no traffic, Steve, and less than twenty minutes from the hospital. Going off campus for a couple of hours a couple times a week hasn't tripled my workload or left me unable to do it."
"What about when you're through at their office, baby? Back at work having to power through the breakthrough hangover?" Steve scoffed. "They call it progress, you call it I want to crawl into bed at two in the afternoon. And if you get stuck with emotional homework on top of that?" he asked as Kayla shook her head, fighting the urge to smile.
"What?"
"I'm sorry. I just can't believe that the words' emotional homework' just came out of your mouth."
"Oh yeah, I got all gold stars and A pluses, baby. Extra credit, too when I'd turn it in early," Steve smirked before going somber.
"I'm serious, though, Sweetness. You having to work on yourself while you're trying to get through your workday. I just don't-"
"Don't what?" Kayla asked. "Look, I admit it's been an adjustment but it's not like I had a... I needed to find a way to make therapy work, Steve. And I have."
"Have you?" he countered. "Baby, there's days you've come home looking so tired I wondered how you got to and from work without crashing the Bluesmobile. I chalked it up to too many shifts and that asshole Seth Burns and you still getting reacclimated, but if therapy on top of that's causing-"
"Causing what? Last I checked our very much intact car is parked right over there!"
"And my emotionally exhausted wife is sitting right in front of me over here!" Steve retorted as Kayla's eyes flared.
"So what, Steve? You're gonna tell me to stop with the sessions because I scheduled them before you had a chance to suggest I go?"
Regretting her words, seeing the anger, then hurt flash in Steve's eye; shifting closer, Kayla shook her head and leaned in close enough to hold his face.
"I'm sorry. Damn it. I..I.. I'm sorry."
"Kayla-"
"I know, I'm sorry... I'm sorry," she choked out in apology, dotting his face with kisses before hugging him.
Hugging her back, Steve hid his face in her shoulder. Trying to wrap his brain around everything he'd been hearing, be there for his wife, and get to the bottom of what had her so off balance. All the while trying not to get knocked off balance himself.
"I won't lie," Kayla admitted. "It's been exhausting. But I know not going would just be worse."
Pulling back, Steve clasped his hands around Kayla's and looked her right in the eye.
"How much worse are we talking, Sweetness?" he asked. "You said you started therapy two weeks after you got back to Salem and that you had to find a way to make it work."
"That's what I get being married to an investigator," Kayla shrugged. "No detail's lost on you."
"It sounds like something you thought might be a good idea turned into something you were desperate to start, baby. Whatever happened that kickstarted that for you…I need you to tell me what."
Nodding, Kayla shifted so her back was pressed to Steve's chest, then reached for and squeezed his left hand as he slipped his right arm around her.
"Before I do, I need you to know I'm not on track for some kind of a breakdown. I know what you saw today, what you said you've seen the past few weeks might have you thinking differently but I promise, Steve. I found a way to start working through things, and I'm managing. I...I need you to believe that."
"I believe you, Sweetness. Just, please. Baby, you've gotta tell me-"
"Okay. O...Okay,"
Heartbroken hearing the panicked edge in his voice, she held his hand a little tighter.
"The flight back from Greece, I was fine. I was worried about Bo but, knowing he'd remembered Hope and she was with him...I..I knew he was in good hands. And I'd caught up with our baby girl and spoken with Joey and Tripp. Aside from missing you, I felt fine the whole plane ride. I was just ready for things to feel back to normal and all things considered, things were. Our house was still our house. The hospital was still the hospital. But after Stephanie and I got back, I felt like I couldn't settle in or settle down. Even at the house, I was jumpy. Tripp stopped by to make us breakfast, and I almost got him with the baseball bat again, even though he'd texted me the night before and I knew there was a chance he'd be over. At first I chalked it all up to jet lag and fried nerves, but then when I wasn't feeling any different a week out. I should've known everything was starting to creep up on me. I just didn't want to admit it."
"Creep up how, baby?" Steve asked nervously.
"It happened when you were still in Greece, so don't think that you missed some big red flag or-"
"I won't, but I need you to tell me what it was."
"One morning, I got asked to cover the O.R. I...I was surprised they asked. I hadn't been reinstated that long, and I'd only seen a handful of patients when I wasn't up to my elbows in admin work. I was excited to put on scrubs though, if you can believe it."
"I can, baby," Steve lightly laughed, wishing with everything in him he'd been able to see her get that page, go full M.D nerd, and adorably geek out about new surgical techniques and procedures, using terms and jargon he had no hope to ever understand.
"I wasn't there five minutes when we got an incoming trauma. Male, early twenties. Single gunshot wound to the right posterior shoulder. No exit wound. It actually presented as a swallowed bullet."
"Swallowed?!" Steve repeated. "You just said the dude took it to the shoulder, I-"
"Migration phenomenon," Kayla shrugged. "The trajectory of a ballistic projectile can be unpredictable once it enters the body. Bullets don't always travel in straight lines."
"At least the slug you pulled out of me in your office cooperated," Steve noted, rolling his eye. "Fucking DiMera probably had a hand in that. Leave it to Stefano to manipulate brains and speeding bullets."
"Speaking as the surgeon of record, you just got lucky," Kayla said as Steve shook his head.
"I was lucky because I had you."
"Well, I wish with this patient it had been the same."
"Sweetness," he sighed, with too much understanding in his voice.
"How many times have you told me even doing the work we both do, we can't save everybod-"
"I did save him, Steve," Kayla cut in. "I had the chief resident take over the procedure when my hand started shaking. That's how I saved him," Kayla said bitterly, blinking back tears.
Feeling a slight tremor in her hand even now, Steve held onto it and held onto her tighter.
"Baby..."
"I've never had that happen before," Kayla sniffled. "Even the day I removed a beeping, talking microchip timebomb from your frontal lobe, steady as a rock," she choked out as Steve's stomach knotted. Both at the visual and when he remembered the injury he'd sustained the first two weeks that his wife had been in Salem.
"The morning you were in the O.R, was the night before the night I'd called to tell you that I'd-"
"Yeah. It was," Kayla sighed, wishing like hell she was better at lying and her husband was worse at getting to the truth, especially after seeing grief and guilt crease his face and cloud his eye.
"Baby, if that's the reason you didn't tell me all this sooner. I-"
"No, Steve," she said, shaking her head.
"I know everywhere you go, there's gunshots. But it wasn't like there was a shortage of them around me over there. I mean, we thought Bo shot Kate. He'd held me at gunpoint before shooting up that wine bottle in front of us. Thomas Banks pulled a gun on Chad and Stephanie and me in that lab. And then everything happened on the cliff," she shuddered.
"Even if I didn't know what happened to you, as soon as I knew what the trauma was I shouldn't have scrubbed into that OR. I just wanted to. If I couldn't treat your gunshot wound, I could at least treat someone else's. Except, I couldn't."
"So you saying you needed the therapy to work. You meant that in every sense of-"
"Mm hmm," Kayla nodded. "I knew if I didn't get a headstart, try and get a handle on things someplace outside the hospital, sooner or later Seth or the board would step in to handle it for me."
"Kayla, did the patient not-"
"He survived and made a full recovery. If he hadn't though, all that work Stephanie put in to get me unfired…"
"Shhh, hey. Last I heard you're still chiefing a staff of brainiacs over there, baby. I take that to mean no review board's come into play. You're still licensed to heal."
"I know. Just the idea that I wouldn't be, after everything…not having work to put my back up against wasn't an option."
"I know how that goes. If I'd known though my work was keeping me away when you were going through all of-'
"Telling you what was going on wouldn't have made you find Kate any faster."
"But, Kayla, after we found her and I got back to Salem, all this time, baby. You haven't said a word until-"
"I know. But I wasn't trying to keep it from you. I just wanted to keep it away from us. We were both back home. I just wanted to block out everything else. Just be with you."
Nodding in understanding, Steve wrapped his arms around her tight as she curled closer to him.
"I get that, baby. I still wish though that you'd told me sooner. Knowing you were hurting, wrestling with this all these weeks when I could've been helping you?"
Shaking his head, he sighed.
"No secrets keeps the both of us from being hurt, Sweetn-"
"I know," Kayla interrupted, sitting up to look him in the eye.
"But this wasn't going to stay one. I promise. As soon as I knew I was going to go back for more sessions I knew I'd have to tell you. I didn't plan on telling you here , but-"
"The best-laid plans, Sweetness," Steve lightly laughed, running a hand over his face. "Don't think either of us planned on this when we left the house this morning."
"This morning ? God, it feels like days ago," Kayla muttered, getting to her feet. Once standing, reaching her hand out to help Steve up, he rolled his eye but took it.
"What's with the look?" she asked, pulling him to a standing position.
"Nothing, baby," Steve winced as Kayla arched a brow.
"Just what the hell's my excuse for being all creaky and sore and needing help getting up. I wasn't walking around wearing these ," he scoffed, handing her back her high heels.
"Your excuse is you're a mere mortal forced to age like the rest of us, Steve Johnson. And that trick knee of yours has always given you trouble," Kayla retorted, putting her right shoe back on as Steve rolled his eye again.
"The car's not that far away, baby. Don't know why you're putting your piggies through that right now."
"Always drove Mom crazy when I'd run around in bare feet," Kayla sniffed, slipping the other shoe on as Steve swallowed hard, slipping his arm around her.
"I'm already pushing my luck not having flowers."
"Baby...look, why don't we go to the reception, grab a snack, raise a glass to the Big Greek, then duck out when no one's looking and swing by the florist."
"Steve, I-"
"There's one right across from the Salem Inn, Sweetness. We can pick out something pretty for your mama. I haven't been by to see her in a while either."
"No, you should head over to the reception now, eat more than a snack, and have more than one drink, and I'll meet you there when I'm through here," Kayla said as Steve frowned, shaking his head.
"Baby, unless you parked your invisible plane by the Bluesmobile-"
"Roman's car is still in the lot," she said, pointing it out.
"I.. it's nothing against...I just want a minute with my mom and my brother," she explained, getting a nod as Steve stepped closer and stroked her hair.
"Take as many minutes as you need, Sweetness. You stand me up in that buffet line, though-"
"I wouldn't dream of it," Kayla laughed, kissing her husband before he reluctantly pulled back and made his way to their car, only after she assured him that Roman could meet up with her and she wouldn't be walking through the cemetery alone.
Knowing she technically wouldn't be, since Caroline had insisted her memorial be accessible from the church garden, too, after walking past the brick wall and picking some wildflowers from a bed in front of it, swallowing hard, Kayla approached the engraved marker in front of the small marble bench.
"Hi. I'm sorry. Steve's plan was better. I know."
Setting the makeshift bouquet down, blinking back tears, Kayla sat on the bench before glancing over her shoulder. She knew Roman would be able to see and theoretically meet up with her here, but hoped like hell he wouldn't as she unzipped her purse, took out the two envelopes, and tried her best to ignore that her hand was shaking, again.