Author's Note: I've added the first five chapters so far. I have more, I just want to see what everyone thinks. So review.

Disclaimer: I don't own Days or its characters. So there.

Prologue

Mimi Lockhart never thought returning to Salem would be an option. She thought she was done with that place and those people, the place of her childhood and all the people she painfully left behind. They hadn't seemed that sad to see her go, though. Maybe Max had missed her at first, but she was glad he'd moved on. They were doomed from the start. She was still too caught up in the Shawn/Belle/Phillip saga and it wasn't right to drag Max into all their drama. He deserved better than that. He'd been a good friend to her and she was happy and hopeful for his future with whatever lucky girl he chose. She hadn't left Salem on the best of terms, but that was what she wished for its inhabitants, the best. She fled to protect herself, but she stayed away to find herself.

After years of living in the cold shadow of what was and always would be Salem's precious example of star-crossed lovers, the ever-present romance of Shawn and Belle, leaving Salem had been a blessing disguised as a necessity. Mimi and Phillip had been crazy and stupid to get themselves caught in the crossfire of such a force of nature. They should have known they'd only become bystanders in a sordid and never-ending history that was already mapped out by destiny. Because of the whole ordeal Mimi had once again been plunged into the second best role of her adolescence. This time, however, she would not stand around waiting for someone to care, begging Shawn D to kiss her, take her to the Last Blast Dance. She wouldn't plead with Belle, Shawn, Phillip, Rex, or anyone else to forgive her for doing what she thought was right. There would be no more begging or groveling for Miriam Lockhart.

Mimi had grown up stronger, wiser and with more grit than everyone gave her credit for and being on her own while looking after Connor had been another challenge to face head on and overcome. At one time she had thought she'd never survive outside of the tarnished gold cage of Salem. It was home and it was family, no matter how screwed up it could be. She'd learned after a while that a certain fondness would always exist for the memories made in her hometown, but it wasn't the fairy tale she'd always presumed it to be. For people like Shawn and Belle, people who lived in their own little world, with no regard for the consequences of their actions or awareness of the outside world, Salem was everything and everywhere that mattered. Mimi had learned differently during her time away. She'd come to know that while Shawn and Belle were meant to have their problems solved for them by the grand entities of the houses of Brady and Black, the Lockhart name did not carry the same weight. She would always have to solve her own problems and in doing so, she would make her own destiny.

And though she had never foreseen a return to Salem in her future, she was in fact returning to the scene of, well, multiple crimes, both hers and those of several other honorable citizens. She wasn't being forced to go back. She'd made a decision and she was sticking with it. She would get her mother out of jail and clear her own name in process, righting the house of Lockhart once and for all. She knew only one man who could help her ensure her family's happiness and freedom and his name trumped that of any Brady or Black. Mimi Lockhart was back in town for a date with the devil…or as some may know him, Stefano Dimera.