John and Marlena (Finally) Get a Q!

Chapter 45 - Dangerous Honesty

Marlena felt the bile burning her throat as she turned blindly for the elevator. She stumbled and instinctively held her breath, praying that John hadn't heard her. She couldn't face up to him now. She was stunned, and she couldn't even begin to make sense of what was happening, but still, her face flamed scarlet as the humiliation began to sink in.

In front of her, the elevator was still open, and she reached for the bars of the door as though they offered some kind of salvation. Groping for the buttons, she stabbed at the one that would take her to the ground floor, and away from him. *Them*

The door was agonizingly slow in closing and Marlena closed her eyes in pain, willing it to close, as if it would be a barrier between her and the pain that was tearing at the inside of her chest. She gasped for a painful breath as the lift began its clunking movement downward, the air searing its way down her parched throat. Her head became light as she struggled for air. She felt like she was drowning, not in liquid, but in the suddenly heavy, lifeless atmosphere that surrounded her.

The image of John and Kristen sat in front of her eyes, emblazoned into her memory and refracted as though there were a thousand mirrors in her mind, until all she could see was that one picture, over and over again. John kneeling in front of Kristen and telling her they were going to be a family.

Marlena clutched the bars of the lift door as she tried to regain some control. She couldn't faint, not here, not now. She couldn't let herself, as much as she wanted to succumb to the darkness that gathered at the edges of her consciousness. She needed to regain some control if she was ever going to get through this nightmare.

******

"Oh, John honey." Kristen sighed, running her fingers through his thick dark hair. "I just knew that everything would be alright once you knew. We're going to be so happy."

John pulled away from Kristen slowly and looked up at her, almost as if he didn't recognize her.

"John honey, are you okay?" For a horrible moment, Kristen wondered if John had somehow known that Marlena had been there.

"Huh?" John felt lost. He had no idea what he had been doing. It was as though the child, his and Marlena's had wrapped a spell of love around him and for a few moments he had been aware of nothing else but the feel of its movements.

"I just said that" Kristen smiled and reached out to smooth down John's hair, "we are going to be so happy. You and me and our baby. Oh, and Brady of course." She couldn't bring herself to mention Marlena's brat. The less Marlena came into the conversation, the better.

John suddenly felt sick. How could he have said those things in front of Kristen? How could he have been so thoughtless? Half a minute and he could have just ruined everything.

"Kristen...." Suddenly he was distracted by a hint of a scent. A scent he recognized. A perfume that haunted his dreams. He whipped his head around to the doorway, but it was empty. There was no sign of her.

He shook his head, and it was gone as thought it had never existed. And maybe it hadn't. Maybe it had been just a figment of his over-wrought mind.

"What is it, John?" Kristen's voice was husky with an emotion he couldn't define.

"Nothing..." he sounded exhausted. "It was nothing." He turned back the woman that carried his child's life in her hands.

"Listen Kristen. What I said before..... I got carried away," he lied. "I'm sorry. I never meant to mislead you; make you think there was a chance for us."

"But you said that you loved me." Kristen returned with some confusion.

"Did I?" John feigned surprise. "Maybe you misheard." He turned away from her. "The truth is Kristen; I don't feel any different. I want the best for our child..." it choked him to lie like that, to deny his child's true parentage, but he had no choice. "I intend to be there for you and the child, but there will be no relationship. No family."