IN THE ATTIC OF MAISON BLANCHE:

"Oh please," Sami heard a familiar woman's voice on the other side of the attic door say."It's time to give up this charade."

It was Kate!

"Just my luck," Sami whispered. "I get captured by the Dimeras and Kate Roberts is on my Salem rescue squad."

"Shhhhhhhh," E.J. whispered covering her mouth again gently.

"What charade, mom?" Lucas asked. "How is it a charade that I happen to care so deeply about my wife that I am willing to turn over every nook and cranny in this place just to find one little sliver of a clue where the hell she is?

Sami smiled beneath E.J.'s hand.

"It's a charade because not an hour after she disappeared and you got that note from her you were on the phone with me telling me how it was over between the two of you for good this time," Kate said.

Sami's smile evaporated while one began to take shape on Tony's face on the other side of the door.

"You were going on and on: 'How can she do this to me? How can she do this to Will? Again? Guess I shouldn't have expected anything else from Sami Brady'" Kate reminded him. "She threw it all away for that limey bastard."

E.J. didn't know what to make of the "limey bastard" comment, but for a reason he didn't understand felt offended. Lucas said nothing but just glared at the truth while Kate continued.

"You know as well as I do that we wouldn't even be here if Roman hadn't talked you into looking for Sami," Kate said. "I mean what does that say about the two of you together that her father believed she'd never run away on her honeymoon and abandon her wedding vows so carelessly but her husband would."

Sami's devastation tugged at her like an anchor and her body started to slide toward the floor. E.J. caught her and pulled her back up. Filled with sympathy he guided her away from the door so the two of them could no longer hear the conversation outside the room and he enveloped Sami in a huge bear hug. Sami's tears filled the front of his shirt.

E.J. caressed the back of Sami's head whispering "It'll be all right, darling" and other sweet reassurances while she heaved with sobs in his arms for several minutes. Finally, her face flushed and with no tears left to cry she looked up at him.

"E.J., I... I don't know what I'll do without Lucas. Without EVER having a real family with him," Sami said sniffling. "I... I... I don't think I can go on living."

With those words Sami fainted in his arms. E.J. carried her over to the bed to lay her down and sat down next to her.

"Samantha... Samantha... wake up... Samantha," E.J. said gently patting her cheek.

Sami finally came to but when she opened her eyes and saw it was E.J. who was there to greet her she was no longer the placid, melodramatic Southern belle in need of her smelling salts.

"YOU!" Sami accused.

"Me?" E.J. asked, confused.

"It's YOUR fault this happened," Sami claimed hopping angrily out of the bed and pointing her finger in his face. "If you... if you had never come to Salem I would be married to Lucas right now and we'd be a real family."

But after saying those words she realized she needed to clarify.

"Well OK... actually I'd be married to Austin if you never came to Salem," Sami said. "But... but... if you had never developed this SICK obsession with me trying to make me fall in love with you and being around me all the time... if you had never tried so hard to come between me and Lucas... if you and your screwed up family had never tried to... plant the Dimera seed in me... then Lucas and I would be happily married together."

"You really think that?" E.J. asked.

"Yes I really think that," Sami said folding her arms across her chest. "I know you don't believe me because you don't have any memory of what happened. But I know it. It's true. Lucas and I would be happy if it wasn't for you."

"Now Samantha, setting aside all this... plant the Dimera seed business...," E.J. said wincing at the phrase. "Why on earth would you think your husband would be justified in thinking that you would run away on your honeymoon with another man if you didn't cheat on him? Have you told him what you think happened when this baby was conceived?"

"Yes, E.J.," Sami informed him. "After the wedding I told Lucas that you RAPED me."

"AFTER the wedding?" E.J. said, perplexed.

"Yes!" Sami said exasperated at trying to explain the situation. "After the wedding I told him everything, well most of everything anyway, and he believed me. For the first time in our relationship, he truly believed ME, not his mom, ME. And he promised to stand by ME and that we would work all this out."

"O.K..." E.J. said. "He promised to stand by you... until you disappeared the first night of your honeymoon together and he said, 'Forget it, that's her problem.'"

"It's complicated, E.J.," Sami said frowning and looking at the floor.

"Indeed," E.J. said taking his thumb and index finger to lift her chin upright to look at him. "You know they say most things of any value are."

AT THE HOSPITAL:

Marlena ran through the hospital with Roman trailing behind her where they stopped at the hallway outside John's room. There they found Belle not crying, but devastated just the same.

"How's your father?" Marlena asked out of breath from the rush of getting there.

"Oh Mom," Belle said hugging her mother. "It doesn't look good."

Marlena gently patted the back of Belle's head.

"We're going to get through this," Marlena told her. "No matter what."

Then she turned to Roman.

"I can't tell you how much I appreciate you coming back with me so I didn't have to be alone," she said. "Now if you two don't mind, I think I need to see John for myself."

Belle nodded and left to get them all cups of coffee.

Marlena opened the door and walked into the room to find John surrounded by a team of doctors and nurses.

"How is he?" she asked a nurse enterting data from some tests she had performed into a computerized chart.

The nurse just shook her head as if to say no while she attended to her work.

In a panic, Marlena rushed over to get a closer look at her husband and was saddened to see the tubes running through his nose and mouth while wires were attached all over his body. Still, she felt a slight comfort in the ba-bump she heard beeping from the heart rate monitor.

Until the the monitor flatlined.

"What's going on?" Marlena cried.

Marlena watched in horror as the machines attached to her husband pulsated with a cacaphony of distress signals and the doctors and nurses chaotically moved about John's bed in attending to him.

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