"Shit!" Roman thumps the heel of his palm against the door and releases a grunt of frustration. "Damn! Damnit!"
"I'm..." Kayla stops herself, her blonde hair bouncing as she flicks her head from side to side. "Wow." She takes a deep breath as she gathers her thoughts. "What happened down there, J-" She stops herself as she realizes what the implications are of what she was just about to say. And what changing it would mean. She looks sideways at her parents and then bites her lower lip awkwardly as she looks up at Roman.
Her oldest brother shrugs and shakes his head sadly. He doesn't really care right now what they think of him. Whether they believe him or not. After all, they turned their backs on him once before. When everything was torn from him, when he lost himself. When he lost Marlena.
All that matters now is Marlena and that she is okay. Everything else is secondary.
"What happened to Marlena, I mean." Kayla continues, as much trying to fill the awkward silence as anything. This is just too much for her parents to digest and this might just give them a little time. "Obviously she got her memory back. But she's not exactly the Marlena I remember any more. I didn't meet her when she was Grace but... "
"Stefano was holding a gun on me," Roman sighs as he makes his way back to where Kayla stands. He leans against the wall, beside the door to the pub and runs his hand wearily across his face. He speaks to her as if she is the only person in the room, his voice low and hard, telling only the facts.
He has closed down now, all his emotion has departed with Marlena, his mind and his emotional commitment completely with her. "He was going to kill me... but it was Marlena that got in the way of that bullet. She fought Grace and she broke through, just in time to take that shot. I don't even know how long she was in surgery... it seemed like days."
"Mom was in *surgery*... and you didn't tell us?" Belle has followed her father across the room and she asks the question in a small, angry voice.
"That was my fault Isabella," Bo puts his hand on Belle's shoulder. "Your Dad was in no fit state to do anything. He wouldn't leave Marlena's side for a minute. Hope and I talked about calling and telling you all what had happened, but it was too complicated... with everything that had happened, and with what we knew... what we thought we knew...."
"We don't care *how* complicated it was," Eric interrupts furiously as he takes his younger sister's hand. "She's our mother and you should have told us."
"Yes, I probably should have." Bo sighs. "Hope told me I should. But I was too confused. And I didn't know how to explain. What Marlena... your mother had done things back here in
"It was a judgement call," Hope deliberately interrupts him, glaring at him furiously. "Your uncle did what he thought was best. There were going to be too many questions that we didn't know how to answer. About Marlena and about Roman. And your father needed some time, he *needed* to be there for Marlena. He needed to focus on *her*, he couldn't do anything *but* that. So we decided to give them that time. And we're sorry if you don't agree with our decision." She shrugs with a small frown. "And if it was the *wrong* decision, I guess we're sorry about that too. But I really don't think it was."
"So, when she came to, after the surgery?" Kayla finds her way back to the original point. "She was Marlena?"
"She was Marlena before Stefano shot her," Roman says in a strained voice. "But yeah, to answer your real question, she's Grace too. The doctors explained it to me. The Grace part of her is still here because Marlena finding her way back to us... it was something that she forced to happen. She fractured the Grace personality which is why she can now remember *everything* that happened to her. Grace is still there to some degree. Not that she would *ever* hurt anyone," he adds hastily.
"Of course not," Kayla assures him soothingly. She lays her hand on his shoulder and peers up at him from under feathered blonde bangs. "Marlena would never hurt anyone, I know that. We all do. But it must be hard for her. For both of you. To reconcile yourselves with what happened. And knowing that you still have to deal with getting Marlena back to a normal place."
"It *is* hard for her." Roman slumps against the wall, dropping his head into the palms of his hand. Groaning softly, he pushes the heels of his palms up over his forehead, as if he is trying to iron out the furrows in his brow with the pressure of his hands. "She has all these new memories and all this guilt which goes along with them." He looks up at Kayla, his blue eyes swimming with anguish. "She wakes at night, crying... Kay, sometimes she's *screaming* in agony and I don't know how to make it better. I don't know how to take it away, how to help her to deal with the pain. She's got all this guilt and all these feelings she's not used to. I mean, the parts of her that were Grace were locked away for ten years." He looks at Kayla with tears in his eyes. "It was like she lost a part of herself. And now she's found it again, but the price is just too high. She *hates* what Grace did and what she stands for. Sometimes she can't even bring herself to look at me...." He shakes his head, rubbing away the tears from his cheeks. Kayla slides her arms around his shoulders and hugs him, kissing the top of his head in a sisterly gesture that is so spontaneous and so sweet it brings him a little sliver of calm in the midst of the torrents of emotion that wash past him.
He shakes his head and wipes his face as Kayla steps back. "Kay, she's carrying such a burden, I don't know that she can bear it. I know she won't be able to without our help and our support. Somehow she has to work out how to merge all that guilt and all those feelings and memories and everything back into a whole, happy Marlena." He sighs, the exhaustion quickly overtaking him now. "And I just don't know how she's gonna do it with the weight of this guilt, of everything Grace did hanging over her head."
"Oh!" Kayla exclaims, her expression conveying her distress. "It must be awful for both of you!" She stills and then moves her hand from his shoulder and touches it to his cheek, studying his face. She realizes with a guilty shock that he looks exhausted, like he's barely slept for days. His eyes are red-rimmed and there are dark circles under the sun-tanned skin. She'd been so absorbed with the story, with the explanations; and with wondering what had happened to Marlena that she had neglected to really pay attention to the man that had once been her brother. That is now her brother again. "Look... Roman" she tries out the name and finds that while it feels strange, it also feels familiar and actually rather comfortable. "Listen, if there's anything I can do to help.... Either you or Marlena... well, I'm here for you, okay?"
It's a genuine offer, but it feels like a lame effort in the face of what Roman and Marlena have just told them all. The scars they both wear, the burden of guilt that both of them carry will take a long time to lighten. This will take a long time to heal and Kayla feels a whisper of despair from Roman as he takes her hand in his and attempts a weak smile.
"Thanks Kay. Marlena is really struggling to gain some equilibrium and I think I am too. It's good to know that you have our backs." His smile shimmers and fades into a trembling of his chin as he looks at her, pleading for the answers she doesn't have to give. "To be honest, I don't really know what ... how I'm going to help Marlena come to terms with this. She's drowning in it at the moment; she's not coping with the knowledge of what Grace did. She insists on taking all the guilt as her own and I don't know how to convince her that she doesn't *have* to. That this burden isn't one she has to bear alone." He groans, scraping his fingers through his short hair. "I don't know Kayla... If she keeps trying to atone for the wrongs Grace did... I'm afraid of where that will take her. Where it will take both of us."
*
Sami fiddles listlessly with a button on her jacket as she stares out into the inky blackness. It is broken here and there by distant lights, muffled by the fog which drifts from the river to encroach on the pier.
She doesn't really know why she's here. Why she chose to come here instead of going home and just pretending that none of this has happened. It's too quiet down here and it leaves her far too much room to think about what she has just heard. But she can't seem to tear herself away. She just keeps staring out at the blackness looking for some kind of answer to an unanswerable question.
She feels sick and angry and very, very conflicted. Her head hurts with all the information she's had thrown at her in the past hour. It's not fair of them to expect the family to take all this in, to listen to it all and accept it and just act like it's a normal family conversation. No normal family has these kinds of conversations.
She groans and rubs her temples with the tips of her fingers as she shifts on the bench. The water laps at the old wooden pier, somehow soothing and somehow eating at her consciousness like a half-remembered memory. Somewhere above her, the ancient wood creaks and there is an answering twinge of pain that shoots through her chest.
"Would it really be so bad?" Marlena's voice comes floating disconnectedly out of the mist. She appears a moment later, emerging from the mist all ghostly and golden, her arms wrapped closely around her. "John being Roman, I mean. Being your father."
"I buried my father six weeks ago," Sami says stiffly, her eyes narrowed and her mouth set into a thin line. She's hardly surprised to see Marlena here. In fact, if she'd thought about it, she'd have realized it was inevitable really. Why else had she come to the pier other than for her mother to find her? "That's the end of it," she adds sulkily.
"We had DNA tests done, Samantha," Marlena says softly as she comes to the bench where Sami sits. Her linen skirt rustles quietly as she settles next to her daughter and looks out into the darkness.
"Yeah, well, you had DNA tests done last time," Sami tosses her head, flaxen hair slithering over her shoulder in a silken wave. She cocks her head on one side and glares at her mother. "And they said my dad was Roman Brady."
"The ones done when your..." Marlena stops and shakes her head. She bites the inside of her lip for a moment and tugs on the bottom of her jacket, as if to straighten both her attire and her thoughts. "Like I said, those tests were switched. These ones... Shane took them and stood in the lab while they were done. There's no doubting that John is Shawn and Caroline's son. And he *is* your father."
"I don't believe you," Sami retorts with stubborn ferocity. "My father was *good* and *kind*. He was a good man. He was NOT a rapist."
"Sami," Marlena sighs as she reaches out to pick a stray hair from the blue cotton of Sami's jacket. She brushes it gently and then shrugs lightly. "What do I have to gain by lying about this? If I wasn't absolutely one hundred percent sure that John is Roman... why would I do that to you? To the family?"
"Because...." Sami searches the nothingness of the river for the words to express the multitude of thoughts and feelings that are bubbling up inside her at this moment. Then she turns back to her mother, a fever burning deep within her to be heard and understood. And mostly to be proved right. "Dad *loved* us and he loved you. You're telling me that a so-called rapist... that someone who worked for Stefano could feel... could love us like that? No." She bats away Marlena's hand and scrambles up from the bench. Her voice rises as she warms to her monologue.
"No. But you betrayed him and you destroyed him. *You*," she points at Marlena with a shaking finger, "*destroyed* our family. And then for good measure, you tore us apart some more. Whether you were Grace or whatever the hell you were thinking, you tore this family apart at the seams." She's crying now and she damns herself for her weakness as she smears her palms across her face.
"And now," her chin trembles as she wipes the remnants of mascara from her hands. "Now, you come here with this ridiculous *story* and you think this makes it all right. That these lies you say you found at Stefano's, that they take away all the guilt and they somehow justify what you did to my father. Well, they *don't*."
"How long are you going to hold this against me Sami?" The question is framed quietly and patiently, but there is a hardness behind the tone that gives lie to the casual nature of the asking. Marlena leans forward, resting her forearms on her knees and clasping her hands together. "How long are you going to keep using my mistakes as an excuse to punish me?"
"How long have you got?" Sami replies bitterly. "Maybe if you stopped making it so easy for me to hate you we might have a starting point."
"Maybe if you started taking some responsibility for your own mistakes and stop using mine as excuses to justify them, we might have a better starting point," Marlena suggests in a low, even tone.
Sighing, she straightens up again and then, almost as an afterthought, she pushes herself up from the bench and walks over to the edge to the pier. Letting her words sink into the soundless space between herself and Sami, she stares into the distant darkness, listening to the foghorns and the lap of water against unseen hulls. This pier has seen so many years of her life, so many crises, so much pain and quite some amount of joy too. It's always been comforting, almost like walking into a safe embrace when she enters this space. But she's a different person now, with a different past and a whole new burden to carry.
Part of her wishes she'd never set foot on this pier again. When she'd come back to
But that's a fallacy too. Stefano had already made Lamont into Roman's doppelganger, before she had awoken. Before she had found Roman on this pier. He would have taken her family, whether she was here or not.
This place is not safe any more. There are too many unanswerable questions, too many unknowns that torture her. And the unknowns will stay just that. Even if she wished, she could not walk back into the past and change her family's future. She knows that she has to face the future and deal with that and not allow herself to be waylaid by the possibilities of the past.
Her head hurts and she rubs her fingertips against the middle of her forehead as she turns back to Sami.
"Samantha, I love you more than life itself and I will always love you more than you'll ever know, but it's time for us both to move on. I have paid for *eight* years for hurting the man we thought was your father. For hurting you. I have tried and tried to make it up to you, but quite frankly, I'm tired of it. I'm tired of having my mistakes continually paraded as reasons to hate me. As reasons for you to behave like a spoilt child. And I if I'm honest with myself, I have lost the patience to continue to beg your forgiveness for something that is long past and forgotten by everyone but you."
Sami is as stunned by the manner in which Marlena says all this as she is by the words themselves. Her tone is cold and emotionless and her expression is almost a mask of indifference. The difference between her normal reaction to this kind of conversation and this reaction is enough to freeze Sami's insides and frighten her a little more than is comfortable. "So, Samantha. The ball is in your court where the past is concerned. And as for ‘Roman'," Marlena continues swiftly, "do you really think that it's *easy* for me to know I wasted all that time... when I could have been with my *husband*? That I turned my back on Roman and took that... that *animal* into my home and into my bed. That I let him into *your* life?" Her almond eyes narrow and a look of disgust flits across her face. "Listen to me, Samantha. John is my husband already. I may not deserve him, but he loves me completely and unreservedly. Whether he is Roman or not, makes no difference to the way I feel about him or the way he feels about me. It doesn't change what happened in our past, or how we live our future. It doesn't change *anything* for me. It doesn't make my guilt any less and it doesn't make the knowledge of what I have done any easier to bear. If anything, it makes things that much worse. Now that I know the truth about Lamont, it's one more thing to deal with. Knowing that he touched me... that I let him make love to me...." She trails off now and looks out across the river again, her eyes glistening in the twinkling half-lights of the boats that trail up and down the expanse of treacherous water.
"But he *loved* us!" Sami exclaims angrily. She can't believe this, can't buy what Marlena is trying to sell. No matter how much it might make sense. No matter how much that tiny voice at the back of her head is whispering to her, softly cajoling her with impossible dreams. "He didn't pretend that. He had... he remembered everything from his childhood. He remembered his life with *you*. He remembered *us* and he loved us." She shakes her head in confusion, feeling suddenly very lost and very lonely. She misses her father so desperately it's enough to take her breath away. "He was a great dad and you were happy with him for a while, I know you were."
"Oh Sami, baby of course I was happy." Marlena looks back at her daughter and a regretful frown slips onto her face. "I was back with *you*. Back with my family. And I *thought* I was back with my husband. We all thought he was Roman, of course we did. We had no reason to think otherwise. Stefano had done an incredible job of making him look just like your father. And obviously he had perfected the job of transferring Roman's memories and personality..." she chews on the inside of her lower lips and Sami feels a sudden pang of fear.
What if it's true? What if she really is telling the truth?
She shakes her head angrily as if to dislodge the perfidious thought before it creeps any further into her consciousness.
"I wanted to love Roman. I wanted to be ‘in love' with Roman," her mother continues. "But maybe something inside me knew that he wasn't Roman. He wasn't *quite* the same man I had lost all those years before. And the truth was, my heart still belonged to the man I had come back to. The man that I had always loved."
"And where was he?" Sami demands, crossing her arms in front of herself as she tries in vain to stop herself shaking. It's a warm night but the air is moist with mist and in truth, the shivering is coming for somewhere deeper and more visceral. "Where was the man who had been your husband? And our father?" Her lips pale as she presses them together. "Would the *real* Roman Brady have walked away from his family like that? Would he have left his home and let a stranger walk in and take what was his?"
"He had no *choice* Sami," Marlena says softly and with infinite sadness. "We gave him no other choice. We *forced* him to believe Stefano's propaganda and in that moment, everything was taken away from him. He lost his children, his wife and his *name*. He lost everything that told him who he was."
"He just walked away from us," Sami whispers, tears rolling from her lashes and trickling down her cheeks. "*We* didn't do anything. We were just kids. We didn't ask to have two strangers walk into our life and take over like nothing had happened. You're telling me that *John* lost everything he knew. Well what about Eric and me?" She dashes the tears away with shaking hands. "At least Carrie remembered you and Dad. But Eric and me, the only man we had ever known as our father... he just walked away from us. He left us with two strangers and he walked away and he never... even... looked... back."
"Oh God, Sami!" Marlena looks appalled. She takes several steps towards her distraught daughter. "Why didn't you ever tell me that was how you felt?"
"What good would it have done?" Sami demands, wiping tears angrily from her face. "No-one bothered to ask us what *we* wanted. And John... he didn't stick around to find out what we wanted. He didn't want to spend time with us, did he?"
"Sami, it broke his *heart* to walk away from you," Marlena's voice cracks as she confronts her daughter. "You... he didn't *want* to walk away from you. It wasn't his choice. He did what he thought was best for you. We only wanted to make it easier on the two of you. We thought it was confusing enough for you without being torn between two fathers." Her shoulders drop as she recalls those days, when Lamont had worn Roman's face. When she had tried to learn to love him again. When all she had wanted was to feel John's arms fold safely around her and never let go. "And Roman... ," she feels the pain inside her chest like someone is plunging a knife into her, "the man we thought was Roman. He didn't want John anywhere near you."
"Well, what about us?" All the fight has gone out of Sami, and her voice sounds low and plaintive. "You did what you thought was best for us? You didn't even *know* us! You certainly didn't take the time to *ask* us what we wanted."
Marlena can't say anything for a long moment. Her voice is caught in her throat, cauterized by the burning guilt and sorrow she feels, both for her children, and for Roman and herself. And mostly for what they have all lost, thanks to Stefano DiMera.
She knows how Sami feels, she knows the anger and the frustration and the anguish of what felt like John turning his back on them all. It's irrational, she knows that. At least for her. She wasn't a child. She had made decisions. And she understands the complexity of the situation they had found themselves in. She also knows that at gut level that she had been desperate for John to fight for her, to want her so much that he would refuse to step aside when "Roman" returned.
But he had been noble. He had been stripped of everything he had known of himself and his life and he had quietly removed himself from the Brady family and built himself a life as John Black. He hadn't really had any choice, Marlena knows that, neither of them had really had any other choice than to do what was ‘right' and fair. To give Isabella and Roman the families that were owed them.
But it had broken her heart. And clearly, it had broken Sami's too. She had never really realized the impact of Lamont's reappearance as Roman on her children. She was so focused, so set on doing the right thing by her husband, on learning to live without John that she had neglected to realize how it had affected Sami and Eric. And she's still paying the price for that neglect.
"Samantha, if I could go back and change what happened, change the decisions I made, I would in a heartbeat. I am *so* sorry it hurt you. John and I, we did the best we could in an impossible situation. We were trying to do what was right, by Roman, by Isabella. I was trying to give you back the family I thought you needed. The man I thought was your father. I thought he deserved to have the chance to be your father. I thought...." She falters now, her strength failing with the renewed onslaught of emotions. This has been an impossibly long day and she is utterly exhausted.
Struggling to hold back the tears, she holds her hands to her side and moans as she returns to the bench and lowers herself awkwardly to the seat.
"Mom, are you okay?" Sami's concern for her mother overrides her anger and she moves forward to help Marlena seat herself on the bench. Seeing her mother's pallor and the light sheen of sweat that glistens on her face, she grips Marlena's hand and runs a tentative hand over her forehead. "God, what happened to you down there? What was this accident?"
Marlena closes her eyes and waits for the wave of dizziness to pass. Then she takes a deep breath and opens her eyes, forcing a smile. "I'm okay sweetie girl," her voice is unsteady and Sami can tell that she is lying. Marlena grips her hand tightly, her gaze earnest as she looks into Sami's blue eyes. "Sami, I know you don't want to believe that John is your father. And honey, I understand why. It pulls the rug out from under everything you thought you knew. It changes your childhood entirely. It's been hard enough for you anyway, I know that. Believe me, I *know* that." She reaches out and brushes away damp golden strands which are plastered to the side of Sami's face. "It makes a lie of everything we thought we knew. All the time we spent as a family. And I *know* you loved your Daddy. So how are you supposed to even *start* to make sense of the fact that he is a completely different man than the one we thought we knew? I don't know..." She sighs. "It's easy for me, I know that. I love John anyway, whatever name he goes by and whichever face he wears. Nothing could ever make me stop loving him and it makes no difference to me whether he is John or Roman or.... anyone at all. But you have to understand Sami; that means I have absolutely no reason to lie. You have to know that if I'm telling you John is really Roman Brady, it's because I know *absolutely* that it's true. And even if I didn't know it in my heart, your Uncle Bo had the ISA do DNA tests."
Sami is aware of her mother watching her face as the flood of conflicting emotions washes across it. She wants to look away, but she finds herself transfixed, lost in the warm golden embrace of her mother's gaze and she can't find anything to say for the longest time. All the fight and rage she felt earlier seems to have leached from her body into the warm mist that shrouds them and all she can find in herself to continue the discussion is the residual shreds of stubbornness that she clings to.
"I don't know what you want from me," she says eventually. "It's all... it's too much to take in. I don't know what to do... how I should feel..."
"You should feel however you need to feel," Marlena tells her gently. She strokes her thumb soothingly over the back of Sami's hand. "And you should do whatever feels right for you. As long," she adds significantly, "as you do it because you've thought about it and thought the consequences through. And not just because it's a gut reaction and certainly not because you want to punish someone."
Sami bites her lip and looks away, her cheeks glowing hotly.
"I'm not trying to make you feel bad, honey," Marlena says softly. "I just need to make sure you think about this. You didn't get a choice last time, you are quite right. But this time, the choice *is* yours, Sami. You can look at the results of the tests and you can choose to believe them or not. It's entirely up to you whether you choose to build a relationship with John as your father. I'm not going to force you to do anything. Neither of us are."
"I want to..." Sami stops herself short biting on her lower lip so hard that it turns white. "What if John... what if I did believe what you are telling me? But John... why would he want to be my dad? I've said *terrible* things to him. I've...said terrible things to *both* of you. All that time I tried... I wanted to keep you apart. I made it as difficult as I could for you to be together because I was so *angry* at you." She faces her mother, not willingly, but somehow her eyes are drawn to Marlena's even as she tries to turn away. Her face burns with humiliation as things she has said to both John and her mother ring in her ears. "Why would he... want to have anything to do with me? For that matter, why do you? After everything I've said and done to you... God, what did I say to you earlier? I was vile to you." She looks genuinely ashamed of herself and a little confused too. "But you always come back for more, Mom. I don't get it."
"Oh Sami," Marlena cocks her head on one side and regards her daughter for a long moment. "You're a mother, you must understand how much I love you. How much I love *all* my children. It's unconditional. You could do anything, you could say anything to me and I would still love you. It hurts, of course it hurts." She holds her hands to her chest, as if to unconsciously protect her heart from the ever-present pain. "It hurts more than *anything* when you say those things to me. But I'll never *ever* stop loving you or trying to be the best mother I can to you. And the same goes for your father."
"But he didn't even know he was my father," Sami cries weakly, her eyes filling with shamed tears.
"That didn't stop him loving you," Marlena tells her as she cups the side of Sami's face in the palm of her hand. With a smile, she tucks the flaxen hair behind Sami's ear and sweeps a waterfall of gold over her shoulder. "He was your daddy for five years. He loved you so much and it broke his heart when he couldn't be your father anymore. And Sami, he will *always* love you, I guarantee that. But if you want him to be your father now, after everything that has been said and done, if you want to have a relationship with him, you're going to have to work for it. You're *both* going to have to work to rebuild those bridges and to regain each other's trust."
She watches the light flicker in Sami's eyes, the grief and guilt dancing backward and forward through a minefield of emotions. "It'll be okay sweetie girl," she whispers tenderly. "We both love you so much."
There is silence from Sami, a doubtful, mistrustful, frightened and hopeful silence as her gaze wavers from her mother to the nothingness of the water and then back again.
"Okay honey, well, it's up to you." Marlena sighs wearily.
"I just have to think about it," Sami says slowly. "I understand what you're saying. I do Mom, but it's not that easy. If John is really my dad, then..." she looks down, inspecting her fingernails. "I loved Dad and I miss him so much. I can't do this in five minutes. I can't make sense of it and just accept John is my dad and this other guy was a stranger." Her eyes flash stubbornly and her mouth sets in a thin line as she stares at her mother. "He *wasn't* a stranger to me. He was my father and I loved him. You can't just expect me to turn my back on that like I had to with John."
"I don't expect anything Sami, I told you I want you to think about it carefully." Marlena raises her eyebrows. "But consider this. If you accept John is your father, then you still *have* a father. You can miss Roman, but he's gone and you have to move forward. You have to build a life without him; you have no choice in that. But now, you have the opportunity to have what you always wanted, your mother and father, together. I know it's not exactly the family that you expected, but it's something. And if you turn your back on that, you punish yourself more than you punish us."
"I don't want to punish anyone Mom!" Sami sounds exasperated now. With a flash of irritation that sweeps across her face, she pushes herself from the bench and walks across to the edge of the pier. She watches the lights glitter on the inky water, losing herself in the vast emptiness of the night.
"You told me I should do what is right for me." She turns back to her mother, her face conveying all the hurt and confusion that she feels. She looks so vulnerable and she reminds Marlena of the small child she once was. The little girl she came home to, the little girl's life that was changed forever by Stefano's lies and schemes. "You can't just expect me to welcome all this with open arms. You tell me that you were this... that you did these things for Stefano. That we were at home living a normal life and you were out sleeping with men for secrets and money. And worse than that, you *murdered* people. People who I'm assuming had wives and children and lives of their own. And *then* you tell me that the man I called Daddy is really nothing more than Stefano's plant. That he was evil and he hurt you. And that John is actually my father." Her chin trembles and her eyes are glazed as she glares at Marlena. "Do you know what this feels like for me? Do you have any idea what's going on in my head right now?"
Marlena bites her lip and looks forlornly at her daughter. No, she can't imagine what this must feel like for Sami. It's hard enough for her to know how she's feeling herself. Looking beyond that to discern her family's reaction to all this news is next to impossible.
"Well, it's not that easy for me to process, Mom. It's really fucked up and honestly, *I* don't know how I feel right now. I don't know what I want any more. I'm angry and I'm confused." She's stubborn again now, a firm set to her jaw and her eyes flashing defiance as she crosses her arms in front of her. "So Mom, you can do whatever it is that *you* need to do to make yourself feel better. You can welcome John into the family with open arms and play happy families with Belle and Eric. Honestly, I don't really care what you do. Just don't expect me to jump to attention like everyone else. Because I won't."
With that, she turns on her heel and starts for the stairs, leaving Marlena staring after her in dismay.