"Looks like we won't die of pneumonia after all," John kicks the door open and dumps a pile of wood next to the fireplace. "We may even be able to get our clothes dr-"
He looks up and his heart sinks as he sees the handcuffs dangling from the bedstead. "FUCK!" He yells as he slams his hand into the wall. "DAMMIT!" he can't believe he has come all this way, just to lose her now. How could he have been so damn *stupid* as to leave her alone? He should have *known* she'd have something up her sleeve. She always does.
Immediately he spins on a muddy heel and strides desperately to the door. She is nowhere in sight. "Jesus..... Doc.... what am I going to do?" He rubs his face wearily.
"What's wrong?" Her voice sends his heart pounding and his head snaps around. She is standing in the doorway of the lean-to that lists against the back of the cabin. She is drying her hair with a threadbare old towel and she has shed her sodden leather pants, leaving her in just her saturated shirt and some skimpy underwear that leaves little to the imagination. "What's the problem, honey?"
"Uh," John attempts to swallow but it sticks in his parched throat and he coughs. Shutting the door, he moves towards her and then stops, exhausted and frustrated. The silence stretches between them as he sinks into a chair, fatigue nibbling at his nerves.
Grace lowers her towel and runs her fingers through her hair as she looks at him expectantly.
"I.... I thought you were gone." He flicks his fingers in the direction of the bed as his face grows red.
"Oh," one corner of Grace's lips curl up into a smile. "You really thought I was going to do a vanishing act, huh?" She saunters across the room to where he sits, the smile still lingering on her lips. "I told you," she lowers herself so that she is straddling his lap and her voice becomes smoky and alluring, "you can trust me. I'm not going anywhere."
John shudders as she draws two fingers across his shoulder and down across the skin exposed by the open buttons of his shirt.
"How about we forget the fire and create our own heat?" she suggests with a lascivious grin before she slides her hand under his shirt.
"No!" His voice is hoarse as he closes his fingers around her wrist and pushes her almost off of his lap. "No." His voice firms and he glares at her with an indignant glare. "I can't."
"You can't," she raises her eyebrows, her hazel eyes growing cold and hard, "or you won't?"
"All right," John stands, pressing her away from him as he turns and goes to the fireplace. He's exhausted from the long drive and the constant stress of dealing with her. "I won't. I won't betray Marlena like that."
"You already did," Grace's words are soft and insinuate their way into his soul. "You already did betray her John. You slept with Hope on your honeymoon. And then you slept with me and you didn't even know it wasn't your *wife*."
There is silence for a moment and then John's voice erupts into the void between them, making her flinch.
"I *know* what I did!" He rages, thumping his hand against the wall before turns to look at her, misery etched on his face. "Every morning I wake with the knowledge of what I did. So tell me something I *don't* know, Grace. Tell me... because nothing you could say could hurt me more than I hurt her." His voice drops to little more than a whisper as he turns and crouches down by the fireplace. "I'm not going to make the same mistake again."
"Marlena is gone, John," Grace moves up behind him. "How can you betray a woman that doesn't even exist any more?" She kneels behind him and lays her hand on his back, words silken and beguiling. "John, honey, why torture yourself any more?"
John clenches his fists on the ground in front of him and squeezes his eyes shut. Her query stabs at the fragile shroud of belief that he holds around himself like a mantle. A shield that protects him from the hopelessness that could be his future. A belief that Marlena is not gone forever. That she will come back to him.
"Marlena is *not* gone," he shouts as he turns around to face her. They are nose to nose and the agony in his eyes is so palpable, Grace sways back on her knees in surprise. "I will *not* not believe that. And I would rather spend the rest of my life alone and miserable before I give up on her and try and forget her. I will *never* forget her, do you *get* that?"
"Is that so?" One perfect raised eyebrow accompanies the cynical exclamation. "Forgive me if I find that a *little* hard to swallow, Mr. Black."
"You seem to mistake me for someone who would care what you think," he mutters as he turns and begins to throw logs on the long abandoned fire.
"Oh, *that* I don't," she replies bitterly. "Why would you start now?"
"Excuse me?" John snaps. "What the hell are you talking about? You destroy my life and now hurl accusations at me." He turns and narrows his eyes. "Listen to me, lady. I don't care what you think or how you feel. I just care about getting my wife back. So you'd better get used to the idea that you won't be around forever. I'm going to undo whatever Stefano did to Marlena and I'm going to strip you from her body so that she never knows you existed. You and all the heinous things you've done."
"Is that so?" Grace's lips thin. "Kinda hard to hide the fact that her hands are the same ones that held a gun to Roman's head and pulled the trigger. John, there's blood all over your precious Marlena's hands, you wouldn't even begin to know how much." Her nose flares slightly, and her expression sends chills through John. "So don't you *dare* threaten me."
"I let you hurt too many people in this town," he says hoarsely. "I won't let you hurt her too."
"Hurt her?" Grace laughs bitterly. "Honey, I'm here because of the pain *you* inflicted on her. You're in a big complicated glasshouse, Johnny boy. Watch those stones now."
"All right," John crosses his arms as he sits back on his heels. "You seem so adamant that it was my fault that you appeared. So why don't you explain to me how that happened? That Stefano had you, that he messed with your head and that somehow it was still my damn *fault*." His eyes hold a challenge as he stares her down.
"Stefano *saved* me," Grace pushes herself up from the floor and moves across to the window. Her body is starting to ache and her head is pounding. She's tired and she's not even sure what she's saying, except that she wants to hurt him. No-one turns her down.
"*You* left Marlena to Orpheus. You left her for *dead*."
"There was a plane crash," John replies defensively. "I saw the plane go down. I didn't know. I didn't know how she could have survived that. They told me you wer-" he corrects himself, "*she* was dead...."
"Sure," the single syllable is laden with scorn. "And you believed them. How convenient for you." Her eyebrows lift disdainfully. "Meant you didn't have to go looking for her, didn't it? You could forget she existed and you could move onto the next conquest."
"They told me she was *dead*," John reiterates angrily. "I had no idea... dammit, how could I have known?" He will fight the good fight until he is blue in the face, but the reality is that the guilt is eating him alive. The guilt that he left her to Stefano's clutches. The knowledge that she suffered because of his inaction and he's not sure he can forgive himself for that, so how can expect her to forgive him? The guilt and self-doubt is etched in every line of exhaustion on his face, but it doesn't seem to move Grace to any kind of sympathy.
"You tell me." She moves back towards him, wrapping her arms around herself and John has the sudden impression that she is trying to protect herself. Her face is pinched, but he can't tell if it's with anger or with pain. "You were willing to believe she was alive when you were with Diana. So why not when she disappeared? Was it just that she was *inconvenient*?" Now there is definite pain in her voice and John's stomach sinks.
"You really believe that, don't you?" he asks, realization dawning in his voice, the guilt burgeoning with every word. "You believe I that abandoned her. That I didn't care enough to find her."
"Well, didn't you?" Grace steels herself, her jaw tensing as she faces him. "You didn't come and rescue her John. *Stefano* was the one that found me. *He* was the one that nursed me back to health. *He* looked after me. *He* made me feel wanted and loved. And don't tell me you didn't know I was still alive. I *know* you knew."
She is furious now, two bright red spots burning high on her cheeks as she recalls the empty nights of uncertainty. Nights that she lay awake as flickers of memories strayed into her consciousness and she tried desperately to grab hold of them. To enlarge on them. To understand why the man that haunted her was no longer by her side. Nights that she wept, wondering why he had not come to find her.
"And what the *hell* did you do John? You forgot me, you deliberately *ignored* me, and you stayed in *my* house and made kissy face with your *girlfriends*. You're damn right I believe you abandoned me."
The hush falls heavily between them as she feels his azure eyes burn right into her soul and then she turns around. She has said much more than she intended. More than she ever wanted him to know. She's exhausted and she wishes she could take everything back, but she knows that she can't. She can only try and halt the flow of information now.
"I don't understand." The tenuousness of his voice makes her wince but she ignores him and continues to the window. "Marlena, she knows how much I love her. She knew back then. She would have known I would *never* abandon her." It is almost as though he is talking to himself as he heaves himself into a chair and stares down at his hands. "It doesn't make sense."
"I don't want to talk about it any more." Grace abstractedly lays her cheek against the window, her face burning.
"No!" The exclamation punctuates the moment between them. "You can't just stop there!" He pushes himself up from the fire and crosses the room. Desperately, he grabs her by the upper arms, turning her so that she faces him. "Stefano must have brainwashed Doc to make her think that. What the hell did he do to her?" he growls agitatedly.
He is breathing heavily and his fingers are like iron bars around her arms as Grace faces him. He reeks of desperation and there is a wild fear that shines in his darkened eyes. The utter agony relayed by his face and every nerve in his body is enough to take her breath away. This... this can't be right. It can't be real...
"Tell me!" he yells at her and she jumps noticeably. He curses himself silently and he relaxes his grip a little.
"He didn't do *anything*, John. There *was* no brainwashing." She shivers as he absently caresses her arms with his thumbs. "It was what *happened*." She becomes angry again as she remembers the pictures and videos that Stefano had been so loathe to let her see. "Stop *lying*. I know you knew. I saw the communiqué that was sent to you. And I saw the pictures of you with your *whores*." She wrenches herself away from him trying to deny the unexpected pain that she feels. Pain that she'd thought long dead and buried. "What the hell did you expect? For Marlena to be *happy* for you?"
John frowns, his brow furrowing as he watches her walk back to the fire. This doesn't make sense. Why would she have thought that he would leave her out there if he'd had any idea that she was alive? Marlena would know that he would do anything in his power to find her.... She'd known him. She'd known that his world revolved around her. So why would she open herself to Stefano's twisted lies? Why would she think...?
His eyes widen. "She didn't know because she didn't remember." He stalks towards her. "I'm right, aren't I? You had amnesia when Stefano found you. That's why he could feed you any perverted bullshit he wanted and you didn't know any better."
"He didn't feed me *anything*," Grace spits back. "I *know* what happened, John. I *saw* the pictures. I saw *you*. You looked *oh* so grief-stricken with your string of *sluts*."
"That's enough!" John grabs her wrist and pulls her to him. "The reason you saw those pictures is because Stefano *wanted* you to see them. I never *got* any communiqué. You really think Stefano would have told me you were still alive? When he could use you for his own fucking *evil* schemes?" He pauses, shaking his head in disbelief. "I'm betting you didn't see the nights I held the kids and we cried ourselves to sleep. You didn't see the days I practically sleepwalked through because I was so heartbroken." His voice softens as he draws her close. "He gypped you Grace. The old man lied to you for his own purposes. So he could *use* you. And you fell for it, hook, line and sinker."
"You're a *liar*." Her voice is incredibly quiet, but it's laden with fury.
"The old man is the liar, Grace. Marlena knows that. Too bad you don't have her smarts." He raises one eyebrow and then turns from her. He almost can't believe his own level of control confronted with these revelations, but he refuses to let her see how shaken he is.
"Oh, we are talking about the same woman that was your doormat for the last - how many years is it now?" she demands caustically. "The same woman who couldn't work out that Hope's brat was yours?" She sniggers. "Give me a break."
"I don't want to hear your thoughts on Marlena," John tells her tersely before he crouches down again. The muscles in his cheek twitch violently as he picks up a log.
Grace scrutinizes him as he begins to build the fire. His shoulders are hunched protectively and everything about his attitude tells her this conversation is over. Finally, her lips pursed in an upward curve, she shrugs and turns back to the open door.
Beyond the cabin, the rain still falls in sheets, rattling against the old shingled roof and almost obliterating the woods within Grace's vision. She moves listlessly to the door and steps outside, silently contemplating John's words and her own thoughts, ignoring the fact that the rain is once again lashing her.
A brilliant flash of lightening is immediately followed by a clap of thunder and it momentarily blinds her. Before she knows what is happening, she feels a hand on her arm and John yanks her back inside and slams the door shut.
"Are you fucking *nuts*?" he demands as he pushes her towards the centre of the room. "The storm is practically overhead. The whole point of stopping here is so that we aren't exposed to it."
"I..." she opens her mouth to speak, but is surprised to find there is no snappy retort waiting to spring back at him. In fact, she doesn't feel at all like herself right now. Her head hurts and she feels dizzy and she wishes she were anywhere but here. John's expression is one of pure annoyance and she suddenly finds herself shivering.
"I'm.... I'm cold," she finally spits out between chattering teeth.
John is evidently as disconcerted by her lack of sarcasm as she is and it takes him a moment to recover. He casts his glance quickly around the cabin and finally settles for grabbing the tattered blanket from the bed. He wraps it gently around her before he leads her over to the fireplace and seats her in one of the rattletrap old chairs.
"Stay there, I'll get the fire going," he says with an unusual tenderness in his voice. She nods and he finishes building the fire and picks up the ancient book of matches that he'd found next to the fire. Praying that they're still viable, he strikes one. It is completely unresponsive and his lips tighten as he tries again. Still nothing and he throws the dead match into the fire.
The next match gives him fleeting hope as it splutters but it fizzles out almost as fast, the fugitive yellow flame melting into blue and then puttering into nothingness.
"Damn!" he throws it into the fire and tries again. The next two matches yield much the same results and he is starting to give up hope when one finally catches. He touches it to the twigs on top of the pile of wood he has laid and watches as the flames begin to lick and curl around them.
When he is certain the fire has caught light, he turns back to Grace. She has her knees pulled up and her eyes closed and he wonders what is going on inside that twisted mind.
He's not sure he wants to know.