IN THE RUBBLE OF MAISON BLANCHE:

Tony stared at his sister confused, but before Lexie could explain Marlena interrupted.

“Oh just because we’re family Tony is going to become a model citizen, is he?” Marlena said sarcastically. “Tony once thought he shared parentage of Rex and Cassie with me not to mention how we were once friends, but that didn’t stop him from hurting John over his bitterness about Kristen’s love for him or hurting me when he made me think I was the Salem serial killer or…”

“Look, I know what I’ve done,” Tony said. “And I can’t undo that. I can only tell you that I regret it. All of it. But before you send me back to prison or crucify me or whatever you’d have me do as penance for my sins could you just tell me what the hell you mean when you talk of us all being family?”

Marlena said nothing but handed over the diary to Tony.

“Is this the diary you told me about, Lexie?” Tony asked, hesitating to open it.

Lexie nodded and Tony began leafing through the pages, surprised at how well they held up from the smoke and flame in Marlena’s care.

“Oh, just spit it out already,” Anna said frantically grabbing the diary from Tony’s hands. “What is this about a son of mine and Tony’s?”

Lexie sighed.

“The reason I said we’re all family now is because E.J. is your son,” Lexie said. “And that baby that was just born to Sami and E.J. is your grandchild.”

Tony’s mouth fell agape in shock while Anna squealed with delight.

“All this time…” Tony mumbled to himself quietly. “I hated him so thinking him my brother. Why I treated him no better than Stefano did me. What he must think of me when he knows.”

But while Tony took the news with bittersweet melancholy, Anna was ecstatic.

“You mean I’m a grandmother? Marlena, we’re grandmothers together?” Anna shrieked hugging Marlena who began to cry joyfully seeing her old friend’s exuberance. “We just have to see this baby this instant. Oh, I have to hold him. I started this day without child and now I not only have a son, but a grandson?!”

Anna and Marlena were just about to open the door to the cottage where Sami and E.J. had been alone inside when John stopped them.

“Wait, Doc, I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” John yelled as he stood in a pile of burnt debris.

“What is it, John?” Marlena asked, but John didn’t answer so Marlena, Anna, Tony, Lexie and Celeste walked toward him with their eyes drifting toward the mass upon which John could not help himself from staring.

“Roman,” Anna said sniffling, before turning her face away from the dead body of the man who had once been her husband and she had promised would be her husband once more and burying her tear-soaked face in Tony’s shoulder.

Tony and Anna walked away from the pile while Tony tried to console Anna, but soon there was another gasp and it was Lexie’s turn to cry.

“Stefano!” Marlena said, grimacing as her eyes noticed the charred body below her that she would never have even known was a person at all if not for the Phoenix ring still shining on its flame-kissed fingers.

John embraced Marlena while Lexie sobbed in Celeste’s arms.

“How cruel that Stefano would have to take Sami’s father from her yet again just when she was given a son,” Marlena said bitterly.

“And how cruel that only in death can he finally give E.J. his true father!” Anna cried.

“So this is what the spirits had in mind with this tragedy,” Celeste said to herself, for Lexie was too upset to notice her mother’s ramblings. “This is the chaos and destruction that fate would have, whether the cards warned me of it or not.”

INSIDE THE WOODCUTTER'S COTTAGE:

But inside the sanctuary of the simple cottage, the mood was anything but chaotic or destructive.

In fact, both E.J. and Sami, the troubled, misunderstood and often self-destructive souls that they were found sanity and stability in each other as they looked on the child they created.

The two of them laid in the bed facing each other with little Roman DiMera in his swaddling blanket nestled between them, forever connecting and in some ways completing both of them, whether they realized it then or not.

Despite all the drama and turmoil that waited for them outside the cottage doors and back in Salem, their minds were completely untroubled as they enjoyed the silence save for the soothing sound of Roman’s sleeping sighs.

Finally, E.J. broke the quiet to share what was on his mind.

“Samantha, I just want you to know how truly sorry I am for all of this craziness I’ve brought into your life and all the harm my family has caused you,” E.J. said quickly. “I mean, you couldn’t even give birth in a hospital because of my family and that’s not to mention what I did to you that…”

“Well, E.J., that’s fine and good,” Sami said interrupting him with a wry smile on her face, “but I have to tell you I’m not sorry, not sorry for any of it that has anything to do with us from being here in this moment together with our son right now.”

“But sweetheart, I’ve done so much to hurt you and I haven’t always been there for you or this child,” E.J. said sincerely. “I don’t think I’m worthy of your love and…”

“E.J., I know you may not remember this talk we had last summer when I was confiding in you about something bad I’d done to someone I thought I loved, but when I think back on it I can’t help but think how right you were with what you said,” Sami said.

“What’d I say?” E.J. said.

“Well you said something really insightful and beautiful that I don’t think I really understood until now,” Sami said.

“What was that?” he asked, with an eyebrow raised.

“That true love understands and true love forgives,” Sami said with tears welling up in her eyes. “E.J., we’ve been through so much. We’ve hurt each other so much. But especially now, being with you and our child, I just need you to know that I truly love you and I truly forgive you just as I hope you do me.”

“I do,” E.J. said caressing her face.

“Good,” Sami said with a smile. “Because know this. Listen to me, E.J. No part of me regrets loving you.”

E.J. could not have been happier than he was in that moment.