Dallas 2012 Spinoff - John Ross and Pamela,

Season 1, Episode 1 - Survive

John Ross is sitting next to Pamela's hospital bed. He's feeling pretty crappy. The woman he loves has taken a massive dose of pills in an attempt to end her life, after finding out he's betrayed her. Her stomach's been pumped but she might still die. She hasn't regained consciousness yet.

The same thoughts are going round and round in his head and the flashbacks keep coming. His mother had warned him not to hurt Pamela like this. He had never meant for her to find out. He always meant to end it with Emma, as soon as he got what he needed from her. He was just doing what he had to do for business. Just making one more play. But Pamela was the love of his life, and now he could lose her for good.

His heart had nearly stopped when Pamela discovered him and Emma in the Omni Hotel. He knew he was caught and there was no explaining it away. When that freaky thing happened, when she said, "May I join you?" he was horrified. As addicted as he was to sex, he had never in his wildest imagination contemplated sharing his wife in a threesome. But he thought in some weird way, if he played along, he would still have a chance with her. But when she started to seize up, unable to breathe, and they found the pills she'd ingested, he realized what was happening. He was getting the most horrible comeuppance a scoundrel like him could get. His wife had figured a way to punish him, kill his libido for life, and shame him, all in one masterful stroke. And Emma, too. She had made them both a party to her suicide.

That's how much he had hurt her. He'd hurt her so much she was throwing away her life. Of course. It had been the last straw for her. He could see it now. She felt she had no one, no reason left to live. After all she'd been through, with her father blowing up the rig when she was on it, killing her twin babies. She'd come to believe in John Ross, to trust him, to believe he was the one person who wouldn't hurt her.

If only she survived, he would make her understand what she meant to him. He would do anything. He would take all the blame for his behavior. If only she wouldn't hurt herself. It was his fault, not hers.

A moan came from the woman on the bed. She was slowly opening her eyes. "Pammie?"

She moved both hands to her stomach, as if it hurt. The doctor had said the after effects of the stomach pumping could be painful. "What's the matter, honey? You in pain? I'll get the nurse."

Pamela's eyes were wild now, she seemed to be remembering how she had gotten here. "Baby, hang on, it's gonna get better. I'm gonna make it better…" he said, even as he knew how lame that sounded. "Nurse, get in here!"

And then it happened. Pamela shrieked like a disembodied thing and started pulling at her gown and hair, and trying to rip the IV out of her arm. "I want to be dead. Why am I not dead?" she raged.

"Pamela, calm down, now. Baby, don't hurt yourself. Stop." He tried to hold her down. This just infuriated her further. She shrieked and snarled and fought him with all her might. "I want to be dead!"

Several nurses and doctors came in and held down her arms and legs, she was so demonically strong. "We're going to give her a sedative."

The sedative knocked her out.

"What happens now?" he asked the doctor.

"Well, she needs to be under the care of a psychiatrist. If she's still actively determined to commit suicide she needs intervention and security."

"I want the best care for her that money can buy." John Ross Ewing asserted. But from then on it just got worse. Any time she came near to consciousness the rage began again. It seemed she couldn't live with the pain in her head.

"We can't keep her sedated forever," A handsome, compassionate psychiatrist named Dr. Macnamara, who had been called in to consult, said. "We have to find a way to deal with the pain she's feeling so she can tolerate being conscious."

They transported her while she was sedated to his private clinic, with state of the art facilities that catered to the well endowed.

When John Ross saw her settled safe in a bed he ran to the penthouse to shower and change for the first time in days.

When he got back to her room she was in a full on rage, being restrained by several bulky orderlies. Seeing him just intensified her state so the doctor yelled to the orderlies, "Get him out of here."

He stood outside her room for a few minutes, tears running down his face while he heard her howl and then a nurse quickly ushered him out of the hallway into the doctor's office. This room was filled with TV monitors. He watched in horror as they got Pamela sedated again, then put her in a straight jacket and carried her to the padded cell. The last scene he saw, before the doctor walked in and switched off the monitors was his wife's body lying inert on a padded cell floor, restrained by a straightjacket.

"Why do you have to keep her in a straightjacket if she's in that cell?" he asked.

"Because, even though we've cut her nails as short as they can be cut, she can still do damage to herself."

"Can't you give her some other kind of medication?"

"Mr. Ewing, your wife has suffered a break. Now, we will try to ameliorate her state by giving her some meds, but ultimately, her recovery depends on her being able to cope with reality."

Now John Ross asked the question he was mortally afraid to ask. "And is there hope, Doc, of her recovering?"

"There is always hope," the compassionate man said, touching his arm in a familiar way. "But I'm going to need you to tell me her story. Every last possible detail. I need to know why she wants so badly to die."

After an hour session with the doctor, where he revealed the life and trials of Pamela Barnes Ewing as if it were a tragic, seedy movie, with him playing a title role, he left the clinic and headed straight for a bar. The barkeep poured him a triple Bourbon and Branch and he picked up the glass.

His purpose was to try and erase the picture of his beloved wife laying on the floor of that cell. The place where his careless actions had put her.

As he looked at his reflection in the mirror he had a momentary flash of his drunk mother. It stopped him in his tracks and he put the glass down. Then he said to himself, "You know what John Ross? You don't get to drown your sorrows. If Pamela's in hell, then you're going to be in hell right along side her. No escape for you. It's the least you owe her."

End of Episode 1