On leaving the stone stronghold, Grace had found herself in the hands of one of Stefano's thugs. He had gripped her shoulder with vice-like fingers and unceremoniously marched her back up the stairs to the house and then up to the living quarters.
She hadn't been surprised to find her room just as she left it. She's even less surprised to hear the door being locked behind her.
She looks around her, running her fingers down the exquisitely carved strut of the four-poster bed and then across the silken throw which lies in a graceful swathe at foot of the bed. Everything in this room, Grace had chosen, over ten years previously. And it is all exactly as she had left it. Like a silent shrine.
Curiously, she crosses to the armoire and pulls the door open. Inside is a selection of new clothes. They are certainly not the clothes she left behind. They are new; very stylish and *very* expensive. She raises her eyebrows as she runs her hands across the beautiful selection of fabrics and allows herself a small smile. Stefano has always been fond of surprising her. And spoiling her. Even now, after everything she has done...
She pulls out a silken nightgown and robe set and lays them on the bed before she heads for the bathroom.
Again, it is just how she left it. There is even a bottle of Obsession on the counter. The sight of it makes her smile in appreciation. Stefano certainly knows the way to her heart.
The bathroom is all cream marble and gold fittings and it makes quite a marked contrast to the life she has lived for the past few weeks. As she leans over the tub and turns on the hot tap she wonders what the hell she could have been thinking. John might have given her a thrill, he might have been a challenge, but can he really match all this? Even with all his money, she can't imagine he would be capable of creating the kind of paradise Stefano can build her.
She pours some luxurious oil into the bath and watches it swirl and disappear into the deepening pool of water as she ponders her situation.
She could well have taken the goon, she could have made a run for it, but what was the point? There is nowhere to go, even if she wanted to. Plus, she owes Stefano an explanation, at the very least.
And more than that, she is curious to see what happens next.
Stefano is furious, she knows that much. She's not sure she blames him. And she has no doubt that John is down there right now, blabbing about everything that happened between them in the past few days...
She groans in frustration. The moment Stefano knows for sure that she's slept with John, things are going to get even worse than they are now.
Of course, that is not to say that she won't be able to charm Stefano out of his fit of pique; he's been unhappy with her choice of bed partners before now and he probably will be again. He always forgives her, in the end. The problem is that John's big mouth is likely to make that particular *end* a little more difficult to achieve than it usually is. The balance of power has shifted and she's not even sure where it sits any more. She's going to have to tread very carefully.
Of course, she's not entirely sure that John is going to actually *survive* this encounter. She's rarely seen Stefano that pissed before. And when he has been, it's never been pretty. The outcome usually involves a lot of pain... for someone.
She's pretty sure that Stefano gets off on it, but then, that's not surprising, they really are two of a kind.
And maybe it's a good thing that John will be out of her life at long last.
Maybe....
She blinks, feeling an unfamiliar hot pricking behind her eyelids and furiously she wipes the stray moisture away. She's not upset. She has no reason to be. John means nothing to her. He was just a dalliance, a means to pass the time until she could return to Stefano. To the life she wants and deserves.
And besides. He's gone now, anyway. Her John. Marlena's John.
With a fierce sniff, she turns off the tap and runs her hand through the water. And then, unconsciously biting her lip, she slips off her top and slides the sheaf of papers from out of her waistband.
She looks at them for a moment and then, with a shake of her head, she places them at the end of the bath, on the tiled surround.
Quickly, she divests herself of the rest of her clothes and steps into the scalding hot bath. With a pleasurable groan, she lowers herself into the water and leans back, closing her eyes.
God, how long is it since she's actually felt *clean*? Even though she'd bathed in that dreary motel in the back of beyond, it had been miserable and dirty enough that rather than scrubbing her clean, it had seemed that even more filth had seeped into her pores.
She slides down into the water, letting it wash over the top of her head. After a long moment, she breaks the surface, gasping and sluicing the water from her face with her fingers.
Trying to ignore the thoughts that slip insidiously into her consciousness, she rapidly sets about washing her hair and soaping her body from head to toe. When she finally feels clean, she refills the bath and settles back for a few minutes of relaxation.
Then the wad of papers catches her eye and she stares at it.
What's the point? She knows it's true.
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
"No!" The exclamation is audible as she squeezes her eyes closed, trying to dismiss the memories of his anguish that are starting to haunt her.
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.
That can't be true. It can't. Stefano was the one that looked after her. That promised her the world. Roman Brady, he was *nothing*. He'd let Stefano take him from his family...
He'd *let* Stefano....?
The truth is, she doesn't know anything about Roman Brady beyond the fragments of Marlena's memory that she had gathered after the plane crash. Stefano had never furnished her with any information about her past life with Roman. Aside from the fact that he had abandoned her and had a string of new women. That had been enough.
She had never asked for more. She'd never wanted to know....
She wants to know now.
She dries her trembling hands and reaches out for the papers, ignoring the shudder that spills through her as she unfolds them.
Clipped to the front of the paper are three photographs. One shows John as he appeared on his return to Salem in 1986. The second is an interim shot, apparently taken at some time during his facial reconstruction. The third shows him as he had been before Stefano's team had started the process of rebuilding him in John Black's image. Grace has very few memories of Marlena's life prior to her tenure with Stefano, but the photo she holds in her hand tugs at a remembrance which has been locked away for years.
This is the same photograph Marlena had found in West Virginia. The one that had revealed John Black's true identity.
Grace's free hand curls into a fist as she looks at the face before her. She's not even sure *what* she feels any more. She *should* feel anger and revulsion, not least because Lamont has worn this face for so long. And yet, instead she just feels a wave of loneliness envelop her. She's tired of feeling like this. Torn. Empty.
Dead inside.
Things have changed. *She* has changed in some way she can't even define. She doesn't know what to believe. Who to trust.
Maybe they're all lying. Maybe she can't trust anyone but herself.
But suddenly she's so fucking tired. She wants to be safe and she wants honesty and....*god*... she doesn't know *what* she wants any more.
Two minutes ago, it seemed simple. But now...? And the thing that is really fucking with her head is that she doesn't. know. *why*.
Sighing, she unclips the photos and drops them over the side of the bath, onto the tiled floor. Then she begins to read.
Before this moment, the only knowledge that Grace had of the original John Black was that he had worked from Stefano in the late seventies and early eighties. It had never seemed necessary to know more than the most basic of facts, but this file fills in the missing pieces.
John Black had been a priest in a parish here in Louisiana. His family had sent him into the church in the hope that it would bring some kind of discipline to his life. But he had been weak in the faith and in the flesh and when Stefano had discovered his dalliance with Kristen's mother, Stefano had methodically tortured and brutalized him until he had sworn undying fealty to Stefano and his organization.
In time, he had become one of Stefano's most trusted and loyal servants and he had worked in tandem with the Princess in order to appropriate certain items for Stefano. This included tangible rewards like jewelry and other valuables, but more importantly, they had gained access to confidential and intensely personal information from and about their targets. Information which Stefano had then used to blackmail and destroy his enemies.
None of this surprises Grace. These are exactly the same kind of assignments that Stefano had given her.
DiMera prefers simply to provide a catalyst and then watch his opponent self-destruct. He gets intense pleasure from watching those that have crossed him suffer pain of their own making.
Sometimes, of course, it's not that easy. Sometimes they have to get their hands dirty. And according to this, John Black certainly did.
And then, in 1982, Stefano had stumbled across some intelligence that had caused him to send Gina and John into the heart of Soviet Russia. They were seeking the details of a new and highly experimental memory transfer technique developed by KGB scientists. While this new technology was still in developmental stages it involved recording sequences of electrical impulses and chemical reactions from one individual and then inducing the same patterns in a recipient individual. And the early results were said to be spectacular.
Stefano had decided he wanted it. Funded by the growing wealth at his fingertips made available by John, Gina and others, he intended to induce a fast-track development of this new technology. And so he had sent his two top employees to infiltrate the KGB.
It had come close to being a fatal venture. Both John and Gina had come close to being captured. And while they managed to return to France and deliver the information to Stefano, they had both been struck down by a mysterious illness.
Stefano's teams of doctors and scientists had never been able to determine the mystery infection and had concluded that they had contracted it somehow while inside the KGB. Whether it had been accidental or a deliberate infection by the Russians, Stefano had never known.
The pair had made a long, tortuous journey towards recovery. But while they finally regained their physical health, their mental health had slowly deteriorated. As the months passed, both of them had become increasingly erratic and unstable. Due to John's already violent nature, he had grown dangerously unpredictable and Stefano, to his utmost regret, had been forced to have him terminated. Permanently.
It had almost destroyed Stefano at the time. John had been like a son to him and while he had delayed the decision as long as he possibly could, in the end, he had been forced to take action when John had attacked him in a frenzy of animalistic rage.
However, before all this had happened, when the decline in the pair had become evident Stefano had ordered his scientific protégés to test the Russian technology. They had successfully retrieved both John and Gina's complete brain patterns and they had stored them away for future reference.
And then the injured Roman Brady had fallen straight into Stefano's hands.
~ * ~
"Of course it is *true*," Stefano growls forcefully. "Roman Brady fell from a cliff and he... *you* were close to death. It was the *perfect* opportunity. I had not yet had the opportunity to transfer a complete set of memories. Since I cared not if you lived or died..." he grins, showing a set of perfectly white teeth, "you were the perfect *rat* on which to experiment."
"You're lying," John's denials are growing weaker and more desperate by the minute. He doesn't want to believe Stefano. He's can't be Roman Brady. He *can't*. He saw... John saw Roman Brady lying battered and dead on the floor of a Salem warehouse.
This doesn't make any sense. Except that it does, it makes far too much sense for comfort.
"I am *not* lying, *Roman*." Stefano's tongue spills out the R's in a rolling stream and he laughs at his adversary's obvious distress. "It was the ultimate revenge. Roman Brady, rebuilt as my pawn. I would strip you of everything you had been. Everything you were. I destroyed Roman Brady and made you into a blank canvas. And then I recreated you in John Black's image and I wrote his memories into your brain. What better way to repay you for all that you had done to thwart my plans?"
~ * ~
It had all gone according to plan. The doctors had systematically set about using drugs and other therapies to weaken Roman's mental defenses. Then they had implanted a microchip into the base of his skull, grafting it directly to his brain stem. This microchip was encoded with a complex set of instructions which when triggered would instruct his brain to begin producing the patterns of electrical impulses and chemical chains that had been extracted from John Black.
The doctors had triggered the microchip in small and then increasing doses while the world class reconstructive surgeons had done their work. They had monitored him carefully to pick up any signs of rejection of the process but everything seemed to be going perfectly.
It had been a long and arduous process, but just when it was all coming together, Roman had suddenly made a break for freedom. And it had seemed that he had enough of his own memories, or at least enough of Roman Brady's instincts, to head right back home to Salem.
Clearly, there had still been enough of Roman in existence that he had convinced Marlena and they had resumed their married life together. Much to Stefano's chagrin.
~ * ~
"And then, by the most fortunate happenstance," Stefano's eyebrows rise with a twitch that betrays his enjoyment of John's discomfort. "The beautiful Marlena fell into my hands. And she remembered *nothing* of her life with Roman Brady." A laugh rolls from his chest, rich and malevolent. It had been one of those strokes of luck that turns out to define one's life. "How easy it was to mould her. How innocent and *trusting* she was."
He pauses, a malicious smile curling his lips as he tells John how easy it had all been. How Lamont had been a willingly complicit ally in the staged attack on the vulnerable Marlena. How when she had still not broken, he had engineered her 'encounter' with Orpheus. The brutality of it had been regrettable, he can't deny that, and if the situation were to have arisen today, he might not choose the same path, given his feelings for Marlena.
However, at that time, Marlena had meant nothing more to him than a means to punish her husband. Roman had thwarted his plans over and over again. And even Marlena herself. He had owed her some kind of reckoning for almost killing him, after all. Taking her to replace her husband as a thief and assassin had some kind of twisted symmetry that brought Stefano great pleasure.
And truly, the end had justified the means. Orpheus had destroyed the spark of defiance that still burnt even in an amnesiac Marlena. And Grace had emerged from the battered remnants of Marlena's soul.
She had been his *greatest* triumph.
Stefano is glad that none of these details are in the dossier that Grace has taken upstairs with her. He has no idea what affect that knowledge would have on her. It's not a risk he is prepared to take.
After he had 'rescued' her, he had ensured that the doctors had hypnotized her in order that she would not remember the memories of the rape. It was far better that she believe she killed Orpheus simply for the enjoyment of it. He felt it would set a precedent.
And that it had.
John stands stock still, taking in Stefano's words even while he doesn't really hear him. He is enveloped in a kind of fog and Stefano sounds like he is standing at the other end of a long tunnel. The words echo inside John's head, but he doesn't really understand them.
The only thing that sounds clearly inside the maelstrom that fills his head are the words Stefano uttered what seems now like days ago.
You don't even *exist*. You are the walking dead, John.
~ * ~
Grace shivers in the cooling water and drops the papers to the floor. She suddenly feels as though someone has walked over her grave. Her heart is thumping and her skin turns to gooseflesh as she turns to the door.
The room is empty, but it is enough to make her hasten out of the bath and wrap herself in a huge fluffy bath sheet. Pulling the plug, she retrieves the file from the floor and makes her way back to the bedroom.
She looks out of the window into the gathering blackness but she sees nothing. Feeling uncomfortable, she pulls the window closed a little and then climbs onto the massive bed, settling among the plush down pillows.
Scanning the page, she finds the spot where she left off and she continues to read.
~ * ~
"So I set you a series of 'tests'." Stefano turns and moves back to the desk. He spins the leather chair around and seats himself down in it, leaning back into the creaking leather with ease. He looks amused at John's bewildered state as he continues his explanation.
"These were triggers that the doctors had devised in case such a thing happened. If Roman proved to be strong enough to resist the brainwashing, these triggers would serve as switches for the microchip. They would switch it on for short periods of time, unleashing John Black... memory by memory."
There is no response from John, but Stefano persists with his narrative of the series of events. Even despite all the errors and unexpected delays and hitches in the plan, it has a kind of Machiavellian poetry to it. Especially given John Black's re-emergence at this late date.
Fully over his fit of pique at Grace's defiance, he is enjoying himself immensely. He will deal with her later but for now, it is his final revenge on Roman Brady, and he is going to revel in every single moment of it.
~ * ~
Grace skims Marlena's missing years with interest. Stefano had used hints of Marlena's continued existence to taunt Roman. She remembers that. Roman had abandoned the search and moved on with Diana and Stefano had gleefully used it to push home the point that Roman had never really loved her.
Not that she really needed convincing by that point.
There is more in the file about music triggers and something about pagodas being used to trigger John Black's memories but she doesn't find that particularly interesting.
What is interesting is what comes next.
Stefano's decision to send Lamont back to Salem.
By now the technique for memory transfer had been refined and perfected and Stefano had decided that it was time to shake up Roman Brady's life.
Lamont was the perfect choice. He was becoming a liability, he knew too much and Stefano, it seems, had taken the opportunity to silence him.
Grace frowns as she reads this section again.
"He knew too much?" She voices the words out loud. "Never mind the fact that he was a perverted, fucking would-be *rapist*!" Her lips whiten as she tries to calm herself down. Still, it's not like he can ever try it again. Not now he's pushing up daisies.
She allows herself a satisfied smile and goes back to reading.
~ * ~
Stefano's smile abruptly disappears as he recalls what happened next.
"We had just made a start on the process of transforming Lamont into Roman Brady, when Grace suffered a terrible accident."
He closes his eyes briefly, as he recalls the moment when he had been told that Grace had fallen from the house in the Hampshire countryside. It had been shockingly unexpected and it had almost broken Stefano's heart when he had seen her, pale and bruised in the hospital bed.
She had lapsed into a coma shortly thereafter and the doctor's prognosis was grim. It was unlikely, they said, that she would ever recover.
Stefano had continued to hope but after several months, he had ordered the doctors to transfer her to San Christobal. To have her so close was pure torture and so he had banished her far away.
Only for his Sleeping Beauty to wake from her slumber shortly after her arrival.
He had rushed to the island but the doctors had immediately informed him that the woman that had awoken was very definitely not his Grace. And there was no hope that Grace would ever re-emerge.
Heartsick all over again, Stefano had ordered that Marlena be sedated indefinitely and he left the island immediately.
"On my arrival back in America," Stefano shifts in the chair, his elbows on the arms and his fingers interlaced, "and the news that Robert Lamont's transformation was complete, I had, what you might call," his smile is back again, "a change of heart. What better way to torture Roman Brady than return his long lost wife to him on the eve of his betrothal to the *lovely* Isabella? And then to snatch her away again, along with his identity."
He laughs again, long and loud. It had been a thing of beauty, this plan. And it had worked like a charm. Roman and Marlena had followed the clues to San Christobal and there they had found Lamont.
With their return to Salem Stefano had anticipated the inevitable DNA tests and he had bribed a lab technician in ISA central. The lad had simply switched the samples and he had walked away with a million dollars in his pocket. It was unfortunate for him that he had been hit by a car soon afterward, but those in the DiMera Organization knew well that a little knowledge was a dangerous thing. Stefano couldn't have the boy having a change of heart and telling a supervisor. And a million dollars was a million dollars, after all.
And so Lamont had assumed the identity of Roman Brady and John was forced to try and build a new identity from a handful of memories.
~ * ~
Grace is riveted to the page as she continues to read. Despite her annoyance at Stefano's multitudes of lies and omissions, she is full of admiration for the ingenuity of his plan. It seems that every single hindrance that has threatened to derail Stefano's goal to ultimately destroy Roman Brady, has been turned into an advantage.
She reads on through another DNA swap that had identified John as Forrest Alamain, Isabella's death and 'John' and Marlena's affair. The fact that it was Lamont in Marlena's bed through those years still brings bile to her throat if she thinks about it too closely. So she chooses to skim through those bits.
It's clear though, that the man really did think he was Roman Brady, and Marlena's affair with John had just about destroyed him.
And so, all had continued according to Stefano's wishes until John had become involved with Kristen. That was an unexpected twist that had caused Stefano a considerable grievance.
He was in an impossible situation. Kristen would not listen to him and he could not reveal John as the true Roman Brady and so he had devised another option. He had reinvoked the triggers that would uncover more of John Black's buried memories.
Through carefully selected fragments of music and mysterious jigsaw puzzle pieces, Stefano had lured John down to Maison Blanche. And then he had used John to lure Marlena down too.
Determined to once and for all expunge all of Roman's memories, Stefano had set about systematically drugging and torturing him. And then he had used Marlena to break him even further.
Stefano had known that John would willingly lay down his life for his wife, even despite his ignorance of his true identity. He had always loved her, he would always try to protect her. And this would prove his undoing. He would lose everything he was for the love of her. But even that would not save her.
Realizing the double opportunity that lay before him, Stefano had swiftly and definitively severed the final strands of Marlena's 'supposed' marriage to the Roman imposter. His intention, as soon as the transformation of John Black was complete, was to break Marlena. Once she had lost everything dear to her, once she thought both John and Roman had turned their backs on her, Stefano hoped that then Grace might re-emerge.
~ * ~
"However, the beautiful Marlena's temptation proved rather too strong." Stefano's eyes develop a rather faraway look as he finds himself once more in his study with Marlena teasing him. Seducing him. It's a memory he has tried to banish, but alas, as Marlena has found her way into his heart, so the memory haunts his thoughts. It is one of his only regrets on the return of his beloved Grace. That Marlena will never dance like that for him again. Willingly.
"She was quite *remarkable*," he says quietly. "As well as finding in her, aspects of the woman I had lost in Grace, I also discovered more in Marlena to admire. Her tenacity, her passion, her loyalty....." He ignores the sequitur and plunges straight on. "I found these qualities intriguing and enthralling. I must confess, I desired her almost immediately. And through the following years, I became more and more enamored of her. Her strength in the face of adversity was quite enchanting."
~ * ~
Grace reads on with growing distaste as the file details what is evidently Stefano's growing obsession with Marlena. Through Kristen and John's discovery of the real John Black's foray into the religious orders. The file describes Roman's exorcism of the demon that possessed Marlena and supposes that although Roman himself had never taken holy orders, he had been brought up strong in the faith by his Irish Catholic parents. That, in combination with his intense and undying love for his wife and his willingness to give his soul for hers is the only thing that had saved her.
Grace swallows, her mouth suddenly dry. Putting down the papers, she wanders to the bathroom, and fills a glass from the tap. She drinks it rapidly and then fills it again.
Raising her eyes slowly, she looks at herself in the mirror. She is pale beneath the golden tan of her skin and her moss-green eyes carry a haunted quality. She doesn't quite feel herself...
She shakes her head sharply, trying to shake the melancholic feeling that has her so ill at ease. "Pull it together, Grace!" she whispers fiercely. "Don't be such a schmuck. You can't afford to get emotional over this. He's gone. *Deal* with it."
Taking a deep breath, she turns away from the mirror and carries the glass back into the bedroom. There, she places it next to the bed and drops the towel to the floor. Smiling, she picks up the delicate silk and pulls it over her head. Then she lets the beautiful bias-cut gown slither down her body before pulling on the robe over the top.
~ * ~
"I am sure you remember much of the rest," Stefano is getting bored now. Besides that, he notes that John seems to be recovering. "In the last few years, the chip in your head started to malfunction. It no longer responded to our triggers. Instead it triggered of its own accord at random intervals. The doctors tell me it may have even come loose. So from then, up to now, as you know John, the only thing that has kept *you* at bay, is the strength of Roman Brady's will."
John has definitely returned to himself now. He's looking right *at* Stefano instead of looking through him and his anger has reignited. In fact, he is positively seething.
"You're full of *shit* old man," he grits his teeth, the muscle in his jaw twitching like mad. "You expect me to believe this piece of fucking crap story you've concocted? What kind of idiot do you take me for?"
"Oh, it's true, John," Stefano raises himself from his chair, straightening his jacket. "What do I have to gain from telling you such a fabrication? Mmmm?" He raises an eyebrow. "Really John, I have better things to do with my time."
"NO!" John shouts in sheer desperation "It's not true. You *bastard*, it's not *true*!"
"John-" Stefano starts.
But the moment he does, John suddenly seems to make up his mind. "Shut the fuck up!" he grunts as he pushes Stefano away and sprints for the door.
Outside he is confronted with one of Stefano's heavies but the man is slacking, clearly not expecting John's emergence from the room quite yet and John is able to swing a right hook at the man that knocks him for six.
Ignoring the bellowing of an irate Stefano, John runs for the stairs and takes them two at a time. At the top, he enters into the dining room and makes for the staircase in the antechamber.
Upstairs. Stefano had sent Grace upstairs.
She'll tell him the truth. She'll tell him that the old man is lying. She will....
She has to....