Once Shane had informed Kim that she was going to be taking a trip whether either one of them liked it or not, he escorted her to the hospital to say farewell to Peach. If Kim was going to claim that her dangerously unhinged behavior was about saving sick ISA agents, well, he needed to observe her in the presence of her very favorite sick ISA agent.
And he wanted to see Peachy himself, and he knew that she enjoyed seeing both of them, so really it killed several birds with one stone.
"You're taking Kimberly to the bunker?" Peachy asked.
"The ISA training center, yes," said Shane. Shane had seen bunkers, and so had Peachy, and they both knew perfectly well that the ISA training center wasn't a bunker regardless of what the whinier new recruits chose to call it. As far as Shane was concerned, if you couldn't handle the training center, you couldn't handle the job. And it was better to know that as soon as possible before anyone wasted any more time.
"Why did you call it the bunker, Peach?" asked Kim with a hint of trepidation.
Shane rolled his eyes. Leave it to Kim to be nervous about a little business trip but not about throwing herself at a convicted rapist for no apparent reason.
(He would find the reason. And if keeping Kim off balance would help, he would keep Kim off balance.)
"Let Peach rest, Kim. I'll tell you anything you need to know."
For a woman of advanced age who had been slipping in and out of a coma for weeks, Peach had lost none of her ability to silence a grown man with one look. Her glare was almost physically painful. "I will talk to Kimberly if I decide that I need to talk to Kimberly, Laddie." The use of the time-honored nickname took the edge off his small defeat. Peach gave him the tiniest smile and returned her attention to Kim.
"Now, Kimberly, the reason they call it the bunker is because it rather looks like a bunker. It's half underground and made almost entirely of concrete. When you're inside, you must always, always make note of where you're going. It may come down to counting your steps and memorizing your turns. The designers deliberately chose a confusing layout. The building itself is intended to raise your stress level, test your mettle, and allow you to bond with your fellow operatives who will also be lost. I've only ever met one person who truly knew his way around the building."
"I'm sure I can guess who that is," said Kim with a glance at Shane.
"And since you'll be with me, there's no need for this nonsense," said Shane, even though some part of him had enjoyed the implied compliment.
Peach proceeded as if she hadn't heard Shane. "You will have an access card that will let you into the rooms where they want you and nowhere else. If you leave your card in a room and the door locks behind you, you cannot get back into that room and you cannot open any other doors, either. That includes the door to the ladies' room, incidentally. Potentially the stuff of nightmares, so be careful. Speaking of that, the ladies' and the gents' are on opposite levels. Most of the other attendees will be men, and most men won't be able to direct you even if they want to, although that's really only relevant in the ballroom. The gents' is in plain sight, but you will need to go through a hidden door behind the bar and up the stairs."
"I'll take care of her, Peachy."
This time, Peach at least flicked her gaze fondly if dismissively at Shane. "Three babies in four years does change a woman's body."
Three babies. Shane flinched inwardly. It wasn't wrong for Peachy to count the child who had died. She was right that Kim had gone through every phase of the pregnancy, and simply hadn't come home from the hospital with their daughter in her arms. But it was… unexpected. And not terribly comfortable.
Kim's eyes were suddenly too large and too bright. "Thank you, Peach."
Peachy reached toward Kim; Kim readily grasped Peachy's hand in both of her own. "You'll be fine, Luv."
Kim brushed off the reassurance as unimportant. "I will do everything I need to do to find the antidote to this virus. Everything, Peach. I know you've been fighting it for a long time, but I need you to keep holding on because there's going to be an end to this. If that bunker is a means to that end, I will navigate that bunker so well it'll knock your socks off."
"I have every faith in you. You don't need to worry about me."
"Of course I worry about you. Like we said before, I didn't divorce you when I divorced him."
Shane bit back a scoff. He wasn't surprised that the two of them had said words to that effect to one another, but he still didn't like it. Never mind that he was very close to most of Kim's family. That was different. He wasn't the one who had mailed divorce papers to Kim and then acted like the wounded party. Besides, he'd known Roman long before he'd ever met Kim. So it followed that he was allowed to keep Roman at least as a friend.
He almost missed Peach's next words. "Will you give me a moment alone with Shane?"
Kim nodded and rose from her chair, blowing Peach a kiss as she left the room and shut the door quietly behind herself.
Kim thought of waiting for Shane outside Peach's hospital room, but quickly changed her mind. She only had a short time left in Salem thanks to Shane's insistence that they travel to Washington— no, apparently to a bunker outside of Washington— and Peach wasn't the only person she loved who was on borrowed time.
She'd promised to keep Kayla's secret, and she would. She wouldn't tell her parents or Roman or Shane what had happened to Bo.
But that didn't mean she couldn't talk to Bo himself. After all, he already knew that he was sick.
She swallowed hard. Damn Shane for his sudden insistence on proper procedure. They'd barely known each other two months when he'd first asked her to take part in an ISA operation, and back then he hadn't had any concerns about whether she'd been properly trained.
Her skin crawled at the memory of Leopold Bronsky. She hadn't had to whore herself out to him in the end, but she would have done it for Roman. And she would certainly do whatever had to be done with Lawrence Alamain for Bo.
She was about to set out for Bo's boat when she heard a pair of familiar voices in the hall.
"Shawn-Douglas called 911?" Roman was asking. "It must have been terrifying for the kid. Bad enough that he had to call in the first place, but he had no way of knowing whether the dispatcher could hear him or was sending help."
"Shawn-D's a trooper," Kayla confirmed. "Bo was lucky he was there."
Kim turned on her heel and stormed toward the voices. "Shawn-D had to call 911?" she asked Roman and Kayla. "How bad is Bo? He's in the hospital? Why didn't anyone tell me?"
Roman draped his arm around her shoulders in a half-hug. "No need for all that. Bo's fine."
She couldn't believe how calmly Roman had taken the news that Bo had been infected with a manufactured virus with no known cure. "How long is he going to be fine?" she asked.
Kayla slid behind Roman and gestured for Kim to be quiet.
"He'll be fine until his next scrape, I guess, but this is no big deal," Roman said, continuing to look at Kim as if she were the one behaving irrationally.
"He was just working too hard and was tired and hungry and passed out," said Kayla nonchalantly.
Oh. So Roman wasn't upset because they were all still lying to Roman. She wasn't entirely sure how that was possible; if Bo had lost consciousness and been admitted to the hospital, Bo couldn't have avoided the blood tests that would show exactly what was wrong.
Kayla read Kimberly's thoughts on her face. "Why don't you go and say hello to him?" she asked pointedly, gesturing at the door around the corner. "He can tell you himself."
Kim decided to take Kayla up on that invitation and disentangled herself from Roman's embrace. She took a deep breath before she opened the door. It had been hard enough to see Peachy, but Bo…
Bo was sitting up on the edge of the bed, looking only slightly worse for wear. If Kim hadn't known, she wouldn't have suspected that anything was amiss.
"Hi," said Bo with a cheer that definitely rang false to her. "Not that I'm not happy to see you, but there's no need for the whole family to be down here. I'm going home and I'm not coming back unless it's to—"
"Unless it's to be admitted because you're infected with an incurable virus manufactured to attack ISA agents?"
"That's not funny, Kimber."
"No, it's not. You might be able to fool our parents, and you might be able to fool Roman, and apparently you somehow managed to fool your doctors, but you can't fool me."
"Whatever you think you know, you don't know it," said Bo so casually that she almost believed him. She wanted to believe him.
"Then why on earth would our sweet, thoughtful sister Kayla make up such a thing?"
The flicker of rage that passed across Bo's face would have given him away even if he'd tried to recover. As it happened, he didn't bother trying. "Kay promised— she had no business—"
"She told me because she thought I could help. And I can. And I will."
"You can't do anything about this."
"You do know that Lawrence Alamain is almost certainly behind this thing, right?"
"So?"
"So, you didn't think I was hanging around him because I find unrepentant sex offenders charming, did you?"
His eyes glowed with sudden understanding. "I didn't know what to think. But I've made enough really stupid decisions of that nature, so I figured you were allowed."
It was a remarkably generous take on the situation, really. "Thank you."
"You can thank me by stopping. I know you want to help, but the help I want from you is you keeping your mouth shut better than Kayla did."
"How are you even hiding this? They brought you in unconscious, didn't they? No one took a blood sample?"
"I told Kay that I didn't want anyone to know, so she switched her blood for mine."
Kim's jaw dropped and her temper flared. "And they say I'm the impulsive, self-destructive one in this family? It's not bad enough that you're putting your life in danger, you have to put Kayla's career in jeopardy on top of it?"
"I'm not the one putting my life in danger. My life was put in danger the minute I got infected. The doctors here can't do anything about it. They don't know how to fix me any more than they know how to fix Miss Peach down the hall. So it doesn't matter whether they know or not. I'm going to go out and I'm going to find out more about this virus. I might be able to help myself and everyone else. But I'm not going to be able to help anyone if I'm stuck here with people crying over me."
"What makes you think you can track down any information about the virus?"
"I can start by tracking down the person who infected me."
"You know who infected you?" Kim asked keenly. As far as she knew, all of the other targets had been career ISA agents like Peachy. Bo was the only known case that didn't fit the profile.
"I think I have an idea, yeah. So, you know Emmy Borden? The waitress? She and I had a little bit of a thing right after Hope died. She wanted it to be more but I didn't have anything to offer. I was grieving for Hope, and then Carly, and, look, I didn't mean to hurt Emmy, all right?"
"I'm the last person you need to explain that kind of thing to. Skip ahead to the part where she infected you. Was it revenge? Because you chose Carly over her?"
"No. Well, kind of. What I think happened was that she tried to infect Carly. She came to see me and she was hysterical. Like she put the virus in Carly's glass and I drank it instead."
"But how did she get the virus in the first place?"
"That's why I need to find her. Do you get it now?"
"I don't think lying to your family, or Carly, is necessary for you to try to track down Emmy."
"It's not just that. I don't want everyone staring and me or fussing over me, all right?And your idiotic plan to get answers out of Larry Alamain— which I do not condone, by the way— how well is that going to work if he finds out that I'm sick? You don't have much of a cover as it is. You'll have none if the whole town knows about me. So why don't we make a deal? I don't say anything about you and you don't say anything about me."
"And Kayla loses her career?"
"Kay doesn't do anything she doesn't want to do. And you leave her decisions out of this. I know you've been going at each other anyway and I don't want to have anything to do with the two of you fighting."
Kim didn't realize that they'd both started to raise their voices until Roman opened the door. "I know you're not sick, Bo, but some people around here are," he said.
"Sorry," said Bo and Kim in unison. At any other time, it would have been funny, how quickly they'd regressed to troublemaking children being scolded by their perpetually in loco parentis older brother.
"And what's this I hear about you and Kayla fighting over Bo?" Roman asked, turning his attention to Kim.
Behind Roman's back, Bo hit Kim with a pleading look that wrenched her heart. So. Lying to Roman and everyone else it would be. It was just as well that she was on her way out of town. "Same old, same old, Roman. Nothing new. Nothing worth your time to rehash again."
"Try me," said Roman.
Kim shrugged. "Oh, you know what the issue always is between Kayla and me. He has really great hair and an English accent. And of course, everyone knows about the special relationship between Bo and Kayla. So, yeah, Bo was just telling me for the umpteenth time to stay away from the father of my son, maybe just keep Andrew away from Shane completely, because Kayla is a better partner for Shane than I ever could have been and Kayla doesn't need the reminders of Shane's past mistakes."
"I never said that about Andrew!" snapped Bo, and she thought she could hear an undercurrent in his voice, part-impressed, part-pleading, part offended: I never said the rest of it, either.
"You know how it was that one night when Pop went off at dinner," Kim told Roman. "Bo said that since Kay had to put up with Pop calling me his best and brightest, she should be allowed to have Shane as revenge. Kind of hypocritical coming from Bo, if you ask me." She turned her glare on Bo. "By that logic since you were always Mama's favorite, Roman should get to spend the night with—"
She was beyond grateful that Roman clapped one hand over her mouth while wrapping his other arm around her waist and carrying her out of the room. She remembered to struggle just a tiny bit to make it realistic before letting herself go limp.
"Are you going to behave yourself if I let you go?" asked Roman.
In the midst of it all, she almost laughed. The last time she'd heard Roman direct that particular question at her, she'd been twelve years old.
She nodded against Roman's hand and he removed it from her mouth. "Thank you for not biting me or licking me," he said.
This time, she did laugh out loud. She was so, so frustrated with most of her family right now, but stupid childhood memories reminded her why she cared enough to be frustrated.
"I love you, Roman."
He looked surprised and she wondered whether she should have made more of a show of fighting him off. "I love you, too. Can we take a walk down to the cafeteria?"
She nodded. She had no desire to eat cafeteria food, especially since it sounded like she would be getting more than enough of it at the training facility, but she had bungled her goodbyes to Kayla and Bo. She might as well get it right with at least one of her siblings. Not least because if everything went to hell while she was gone, Roman would be left to pick up the pieces all by himself.
"Now," said Roman when they'd found a thankfully quiet corner to drink their mediocre coffee, "what was that about?"
"Nothing," said Kim.
"Try again," said Roman.
"You have three children. You don't need three more."
"I don't know," he said, allowing the change of subject for the moment. "The ones I have are pretty great."
That was interesting. It had been a long time since something had been interesting in a good way. "Are you and Isabella thinking of expanding your family?"
"She's terrific with Sami and Eric. You should have seen the pancakes she and Sami made this morning. Oh wait, she said they were raspberry crepes. And it's kind of amazing because you know Sami's genetics are working against her when it comes to doing anything in the kitchen."
"Sami looks more like Marlena every day, doesn't she?"
Roman's eyes misted over for just a second. "You noticed that, too? Especially when she smiles. Sometimes I just… I'd give anything for Doc to be here to see her."
"I'm sorry," said Kim. "It's not fair." It wasn't fair that Roman had lost Marlena, or that Kayla had lost Steve, or that Bo had lost Hope. As excruciating as it was to watch Shane with her sister, at least Kim knew that he was alive. She knew that he had a chance at happiness. She knew that he would watch Andrew grow up. And she loved him more than enough to want that for him. "Thank you for stopping me back there. I think we're both glad I didn't get to finish that sentence."
"Yeah, I think we can agree to never again discuss me having some kind of revenge romance with Carly Manning."
Kim shook her head, feeling her cheeks flush with shame. "Worse. It wasn't Carly's name I was going to say. It was— God, I can't believe how awful I am."
Roman followed her train of thought easily enough. "I don't think bringing Hope's name into it makes it all that much worse, Kimmy."
"It hasn't even been a year since Hope died. He loved her. I loved her. And I'm using her name to take a cheap shot at Bo because I was mad at him. What's wrong with me?"
"I think Hope would let it go," said Roman quietly. "Why are you mad at Bo?"
"I'm not."
"Why were you yelling at Bo?"
"You know how we Bradys are. We yell all the time."
"True. But we have reasons. They aren't always good reasons, but they're still reasons."
He was so gentle and concerned and forgiving that Kim had an overwhelming desire to break Bo's and Kayla's confidences and tell him everything. But she couldn't do it. She'd made a promise and if today was the last day she ever saw Bo alive, she didn't want his last thought of her to be that she'd gone back on her word. Kayla was smart and level-headed and she adored Bo. If it really came to the point that her lie was putting Bo in danger, Kim was sure that Kayla would make it right.
"How much did you hear?" she asked.
"Enough," said Roman. Kim rolled her eyes mentally. Of course the police detective was going to pretend that he knew more than he did, waiting to see if she tripped herself up.
"Then there you go. They've always had a special relationship, Kayla and Bo. It makes sense that they'd be even closer now, losing Hope and Steve at almost the same time. And knowing that that explosion was meant for Bo and not for Steve, it makes sense that Bo would want to protect Kayla even more. Would want her to have everything she wants, whether that's Pop's approval or Shane's ring on her finger."
Roman huffed out something that was almost a laugh. "Speaking of Pop."
"I never asked for that best and brightest stuff and I never wanted it. I have tried to stop him. I always point out how great Bo is, and Kayla, and you. It was an anvil around my neck, all right? If Kayla wants it, she can have it. I would pay for her to take it away. Except I wouldn't really wish it on her, because I love her. And if she's going to be mad that Pop wants me with Shane, maybe Shane could do us all the favor of pointing out to her that he always hated it when Pop tried to force me on him. Even when Shane loved me, he hated it. Back before we ever got together— I thought I was never going to see him again, but he had to come back because Marlena was on trial for shooting Stefano— we were in the corridor outside the courtroom and he started complaining about how everyone I knew wanted him to want me."
Roman raised his hands in mock surrender. "First of all, I was never going to ask you to try to get Pop to knock it off."
"Good," said Kim.
"If I thought that were possible, I would have done it myself by now."
"Good," Kim repeated.
"Out of curiosity, what did you say to Shane way back then?"
She shrugged. "I told him that I came with this family and that if that was a dealbreaker for him then he could go home as soon as he finished testifying. Or something. Whatever I said, I was proud of myself at the time because I'd been away from my family for so long. And being honest with this man who— who I already loved, even if I couldn't say it, it felt like a big step to me."
"You loved him for a long time."
"I still love him. I won't ever stop loving him. I can't stop just because he and Kayla think I should." It was strange to have permission to say it out loud. Most of the time she couldn't; it would have been inappropriate to confess her love for the man who had chosen her bereaved sister. But now that Bo's needs trumped Kayla's, and Bo wanted her to distract Roman, she almost had to talk about how difficult it was to watch the love of her life romancing her sister.
"Then what exactly is this mess with Larry Alamain?"
It was one more thing she couldn't share with Roman, that was what it was. "It's something that's not up for discussion."
"He's not a good guy, Kimmy. He's in prison for rape."
"Then surely I can't be involved with him if he's in prison."
"I held my tongue when you got involved with Cal Winters—"
She didn't know whether the noise that rose in her throat was a laugh or a sob. "No, you didn't."
"No, I didn't. But Larry Alamain—"
"If Shane is practically engaged to my sister, I need to move on any way I can."
"I don't think they're practically engaged."
"What do you think that ring on her finger is supposed to mean?"
"Rings can mean all sorts of things."
Kim rolled her eyes. "They can, but in this case they don't. And when Kayla and Shane get married, yes, I will do everything I can to— to— look, I can't stop being Andrew's mother. I wouldn't even if I could. And I won't give up my family. So I'll have to keep seeing the two of them, my amazing baby sister with the only man I'm ever going to love. And everyone else in the room will be staring at me, the pathetic one who got thrown over for my younger, prettier, nicer sister."
"If Kayla and Shane do have a lasting relationship, it will get less painful and less awkward," said Roman quietly. "Time does that." He must have sensed her doubt, because he smiled wistfully. "I bet you never even knew about the time Hope tried to seduce me."
Kim nearly spat out her coffee. "Excuse me, what did you just say?"
"See?" asked Roman. "You never noticed. It got to a point where no one was mortified anymore or even thought about it."
Kim shook her head. "I think you're going to have to explain this one."
"It was when you were still in Europe. Hope couldn't have been more than seventeen years old. She came up with this whole story about bringing my fishing pole to me at the cabin and having one of her friends stall Doc at work. Of course, Doc and Bo walked in just when Hope was…" Roman made a gesture that left little to Kim's imagination. "Everyone got over it. I wouldn't have mentioned it out of respect for Hope, but I don't think she would have begrudged you anything that helped a little under the circumstances."
Kim nodded. Hope was in the air today. It was hard for her not to be, with Bo in such a tenuous position himself.
What was going to happen to Shawn-Douglas if they didn't find a way to counteract the virus?
"I know Pop is on your last nerve right now, but you remember what Pop always said about the Bradys' magic table? About how there was always room for more? There's enough love to go around. Yes, Kayla and Bo's relationship is special. My relationship with Bo is special. My relationship with Kayla is special. And that goes for you, too."
She didn't believe that in the moment, but it didn't matter. Bo was sick. Bo was dying. She might have spoken to Bo for the last time and forgotten to say 'see you later alligator' on the way out the door because Roman had had to carry her out of the room because Bo didn't want anyone to know his secrets and was willing to compromise Kayla to get there.
"The thing is," she said, "You and Hope were never really involved. She had a crush on you, and who could blame her, right? So it was natural that eventually the awkwardness faded and she wasn't a kid anymore and you grew into being adult friends. Shane and I were never friends. I don't know if we can be. Sometimes we'd pretend that we were friends, but that was really when both of us wanted more and we just couldn't see the path. I saw him face to face for the first time on Halloween and we were kissing under the mistletoe by Christmas Eve. Not a lot of time for friendship." She looked at her watch. "Not a lot of time for anything. Thank you for listening, Roman, but I have a plane to catch."
And she hurried from the hospital before Roman could make another attempt at figuring out what she and Bo had really said to each other.
She knew that it would irritate Shane if she stopped by her parents' house to say goodbye to her children before she headed for the airport, but she did it anyway. Shane could demand that she take a last-minute business trip with him, but he couldn't demand that she abandon Andrew and Jeannie without a word. Kayla had clearly been hurt when Shane had ordered her to remove her niece and nephew from his house, and in the moment, Kim had focused on that. Now, with myriad reminders of how brutally short life could be fresh in her mind, she was instead annoyed that she had allowed it to happen.
If Shane could find time to say goodbye to Peach (and she did not object in the slightest to Shane spending time with Peach), Kim could find time to say goodbye to her babies.
Caroline greeted her with surprise. "Kimmy! Kayla brought Andrew and Jeannie over and said that you'd been called out of town for something with the children's clinic."
"I have," Kim agreed, falling too easily into the lie. "Thank you for taking them on such short notice."
"You know I love to have them," said Caroline, as she always did.
"I only have a few minutes, but I wanted to thank you in person and see them one more time."
Caroline gestured to the playpen beside the window. "Well, one of them is right here. Let me find Andrew for you, since time is of the essence. I believe Max was going to show him his new baseball bat."
Stephanie and Jeannie were in the playpen together, co-existing peacefully enough. Stephanie popped to her feet immediately upon seeing Kim. "Hi!" she trilled out.
Every time Kim saw Stephanie, the little girl had learned another word. "Hi, gorgeous." Stephanie giggled as Kim tousled her hair, and Kim forced down a pang of jealousy that threatened to ruin the sweet moment.
She couldn't wait for Jeannie to start talking. Jeannie was thoroughly opinionated but had no words to express her thoughts. Kim didn't want to will these early months away—after all, she'd missed this time with Andrew— but she couldn't help but worry at how small Jeannie was and how slow she was to reach her developmental milestones.
Neil Curtis said that there was nothing to worry about, and that nothing about Jeannie's height or weight or slight delay in crawling or standing would attract the notice of any pediatrician. "No one's going to care when she starts kindergarten whether she crawled at six months or twelve months," he'd said more than once. "Technically, she's not even late." He'd even pointed out that Kim might subconsciously be comparing Jeannie and Stephanie. "I don't care if they were both born last year. For now, Stephanie is almost twice Jeannie's age!"
It was true.
But Jeannie still felt so small and delicate and feather light in Kim's arms.
She did smile, though, and she babbled happily.
"Mama's here," Kim tried. "Can you say 'Mama?'"
Jeannie cooed, but even Kim's maternal prejudice couldn't morph Jeannie's vocalizations into a word.
"I have to go away, but I'll be back just as soon as I can and I'll miss you the whole time that I'm gone," Kim said. She pressed her cheek against Jeannie's warm, fragile head. "Believe me, I hate to go. Unfortunately, I don't have a choice."
A familiar clatter announced Andrew's presence. "Where are you going this time?" he asked.
"A conference for work," she said. It wasn't entirely a lie, but she still felt terrible.
"Are you going away with that man again?"
For a disconcerted second she almost scolded Andrew for referring to his father as that man. Then she realized that when she'd last left town, it had been with Lawrence and Shane had been furious. "Lawrence Alamain? No."
"Good," said Andrew.
She had no idea how much Andrew might have heard about Lawrence and, worse, she didn't have time to find out. "The only man I want to go anywhere with is you," she promised Andrew. "Unfortunately, you're a little young for this conference. So you're just going to have to be good for your grandparents and have fun with Max and your cousins."
"I like it here. There's always someone around," said Andrew, and the implied criticism was far too pointed for a child of his age.
She wanted to promise him that this would all be wrapped up by the end of July, and that they would spend all of August together before he returned to school.
But she couldn't promise him anything but her love.
To be continued.
Author's Note: Since we are in July 1991, the character known as "Roman" is Drake Hogestyn's character, later revealed as John. Not that I care which actor you want to picture while you're reading; just reiterating that the infamous Two Romans story hasn't happened yet. Actually, it won't happen as far as this fic is concerned, since that kind of revelation would eat everything in its path just as it did on the show.