OUTSIDE THE FRONT OF MAISON BLANCHE:

Kate, Roman and Anna raced out of the front door and into the driveway toward their car, but John trailed behind them, stopping to turn around and look back at the house several times.

“Are you O.K.?” Roman asked Anna once they finally stopped running.

“Yes, I am,” Anna said hugging Roman tightly. “But I just hope your daughter is.”

Kate cleared her throat, peeved not only at Roman lavishing affections on an ex-wife that wasn’t her but also their total lack of concern for her missing child.

“And what about Lucas?” Kate asked as she stared down Anna. “He’s missing, too.”

“Kate, no need to pick a fight right now,” John said trying to play mediator. “We want everyone to be safe but we have no idea that Sami or Lucas were even in that house. I think this may have just been a DiMera trap and we fell right in just like the last time at Maison Blanche when me and Marlena… wait a second. Where’s Doc?”

John started running back toward the mansion before anyone could stop him. To their surprise, they saw a figure come out shortly after he entered but it wasn’t him.

Celeste saw them and started to run in another direction but Roman called out to her.

“Celeste?!” Roman called. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Celeste came over to them begrudgingly.

“I came for Alexandra, my daughter,” Celeste said.

“Well did you come all this way by yourself?” Roman asked.

“No, I came here with Lucas,” Celeste admitted.

“Lucas?” Kate said with surprise. “So that’s why he got this sudden urge to head back here to look for Sami. Well, where the hell is he?”

Celeste tried to find the right words to say, but her eyes betrayed the fact that he was still in danger in the mansion.

“Where the hell is my son?” Kate said shaking her.

“OK, cool it,” Anna said. “Did you and Lucas find Sami in the mansion?”

“Yes,” Celeste said.

But before Celeste could explain, Roman darted into the house with the hopes of being his daughter’s rescuer.

“Roman, Roman, wait…” Celeste called, but he didn’t hear her.

Celeste started to run after him but Kate stopped her.

“You bitch!” Kate said slapping her across the face. “I can’t believe you put my son in danger this way.”

“Oh save your righteous indignation, Kate. It is not I who put Lucas in danger,” Celeste said. “It was your lover, Tony DiMera.”

Anna frowned hearing those words while Kate gulped with shame.

OUTSIDE THE WEST SIDE OF MAISON BLANCHE:

Dr. Rolf came out the side of the mansion confused and disoriented at where his boss had disappeared to when his search of the secret passageway for him had come up empty.

But as he surveyed the yard and looked far in the distance, he noticed what almost looked like two men sitting beneath a tree just inside the forest that lined the grounds of the mansion.

He ran toward them and discovered it was Tony and Stefano.

Stefano was awake, but coughing when Rolf walked up to the two of them. Tony got up from tending to his father and pulled the doctor aside in the hopes they could discuss matters without upsetting Stefano’s delicate condition.

“What happened?” Tony asked. “Where is everyone?”

“Well I think everyone is out of the house now,” Rolf said. “Oh I guess I did knock Lucas Roberts unconscious and in my way out of there I did pass Celeste running back into the mansion and to my surprise, Marlena Evans, of all people.”

Stefano’s ears perked up at the mention of the two very different women he once loved in very different ways, perhaps because a part of him still did love them.

“But what about Sami and E.J. and Lexie?” Tony asked, rubbing his face with concern.

“Well once the fire started, it was like Lexie was back in Salem and worried more about what people thought of her than her devotion to this family,” Rolf said with contempt. “She told me to look for Stefano while she helped the two of them escape, I guess, just because Sami started going into labor…”

“She went into labor? Now?” Tony said as the reality of the situation hit him and he paused to think of what he’d done. “This isn’t good. Tell me, Rolf, how did that fire get started in the first place?”

“It was that pipsqueak, Lucas Roberts,” Rolf sighed. “After you turned off the electricity, we lit some candles in the attic and that drunken fool tripped and knocked over some of them starting the bed on fire.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Tony said to himself, throwing his hands up in the air.

“Now I think Lexie took Sami back to the woodcutter’s cottage,” Rolf said, scratching his beard with the end of the barrel of his gun. “Maybe there’s still a way I could collect some of that umbilical cord blood for Stefano and…”

“No, Rolf,” Tony said, shaking his head. “It’s a lost cause. We’ll have to find something else for my father…”

Rolf glared as he realized how soft all the DiMera children had become while Tony’s voice trailed off and he turned around and noticed Stefano had disappeared. Tony wiped his face as he wondered just where Stefano could have gone. Then he looked back toward the mansion and saw Stefano at the secret door to the house and step back into the burning building.

“Dear God,” Tony said. “Rolf, go fetch him and bring him back here to safety. Even if we’re not going to be doing the blood transfusion from Sami’s pregnancy, we can’t have my father dying this way.”

“I am a scientist, not a fireman,” Rolf said indignantly. “And you have made it clear you do not have any use for my scientific help so I think I will go.”

Tony’s mouth dropped in shock as he watched Rolf walk into the forest and disappear from sight as twilight began to set in at Maison Blanche.

He started to run toward the house when he thought he heard a woman’s voice calling his name and he stopped and turned around.

To his surprise, there were three women running after him. He stopped to let them catch up to him.

“Tony,” Anna whispered and shook her head in disappointment as she walked up to him.

“Anna, I…” he started to say, but Tony had no explanation for his behavior, as much as he regretted it as he saw how ugly it made him in Anna’s eyes.

“You bastard,” Kate said as she slapped him across the face.

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” Celeste said as she smiled with seething hatred looking at the man who had put her daughter, and his own sister in danger.

“Look, I know you all hate me right now, but I don’t have time to listen to your lectures,” Tony said. “My father is in there and I have to save him.”

But Anna grabbed his arm and stopped him before he went back inside.

“Don’t go, Tony,” Anna said caressing his face as tears welled up in her eyes. “Marlena is already in there. And John. And Lucas. And Roman. Their lives are all in danger because of your vain attempts to save that sick, old man. And I am not going to let that monster have one more person potentially lose their life because of his evil and manipulation. Especially not when that person is you.”