Disclaimer: Days of Our Lives does not belong to me, nor do any of the characters. I just have a bit of fun with them occasionally!

Summary: A call from John Black brings Bo and Steve back to Salem. With Kayla's life on the line, it is time for the Brady-Johnson family to decide what's really important in life.

When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long
And you think that love is only
For the lucky and the strong

Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snow
Lies the seed that with the sun's love
In the spring becomes the rose

No Silence Without Sounds

The cell phone rang in the middle of the night. Whilst in a normal situation that would normally have caused the four men hidden away in the log cabin in the middle of Europe panic, their line of working negated any real fear. The calls came when they came. The work took it where it took them.

That was the way it had to be and the way which they had to handle such calls.

Bo, being nearest the one cell which Steve, Shane, Jack and he shared when they were at base, picked it up.

"Hello, Brady."

The voice in his ear was not the cold tone of a commanding office, but one of a friend.

It shocked him when he heard it, and there was no denying it. It was a little bit of home.

"Bo, its John."

"Hey!" he said with excitement. "How are you?"

"I'm not great – I am calling from Salem and I have some bad news."

John. Bad news. Salem…

"What is it?"

He had not noted that throughout the phone call so far, his friends had kept their eyes on him. As soon as they had heard the way which Bo's tone went up and down… they know this was not business, but personal. And any notion of a personal life these days seemed foreign, mysterious and wonderful to all of them.

"Are you sitting-"

"Just tell me, please. Who?"

Don't tell me 'who', do not tell me 'who', let it be a 'what'…

"It's Kayla."

His sister's name sent chills down his spine. She was so strong… he never had to worry about Kay… he worried about Hope and Ciara and Shawn Douglas and how they were ever going to forgive him for being gone so long… but not Kayla.

He wished his eyes hadn't landed on Steve right then. His brother in law – ex brother in law, not that that mattered to them – knew in a heartbeat something was up.

"What's happened?"

"She crashed her car off of the Salem Highway. We are not sure why yet, it looks as if she lost control…"

The images which that painted in his mind made him feel instantly sick.

"Well, is she ok? I mean, clearly not if you're ringing me," He answered his own question…

"She is in the hospital… Bo, she is not as stable as Daniel Jonas wants her to be and her condition is still critical…"

"Critical?" he sighed. This was unbelievable… how was his life going over a cliff like this?

She was his sister and Kayla was… she was their rock. The rock of their family, she kept things going it was just what she did.

A critical condition… no. no. no. no. no.

"Bo, Roman has gone to tell Caroline and take her to the hospital… and now I am telling you. You need to come home… just in case. Steve with you?"

Bo nodded numbly as he felt the ground he was on slip away beneath him. Stumbling, he crossed to the table which adorned the small kitchen. He should have sat when John told him too. This house had nothing of home. It was a blank slate, somewhere to eat and sleep… and all of a sudden he hated it more than ever before.

"You there?"

"Yeah… yeah, I am here," Bo nodded. He had to answered the question and ask one himself… one which would stress the men about him out… "I have him with me, we'll start for home as soon as we possibly can. How are Joey and Stephanie?"

"I haven't seen them, but by all accounts, they're pretty torn up."

"What's going on?" for the first time since he had been on the phone one of his own companions had spoken to him and it was not surprise at all that it was Steve. He was never going to sit quietly once he had heard the names of his babies, knowing Bo was concerned for them.

"Ok. Tell them we are on the way. Thanks for letting me know… and, um… tell Kay I love her if you go in to see her."

"Kayla? What's wrong with Kayla?" Steve almost begged to know.

"I will."

John cut off the call and Bo let the phone drop to the table as he turned to Steve. In all their long history together… he did not think he had ever seen him so panicked… but then if their situation was reversed…

He felt as if there was a wall between them all, but then his shirt was being grabbed by two fists.

He and Steve were the best of friends… and that was why he knew his friend was trying to do nothing more than get what had happened out of him. He probably did have to be shaken out of it.

In spite of the fact that Steve was right there in front of him it sounded as if his voice was a long, long way away…

Kayla… what's wrong with her? God damn it, Bo, tell me man!

"She had a car crash… she is in a critical condition… Steve, she could –"

But from the expression of his face and the look in his eye, Bo knew Steve was now he one who had frozen out what he was saying to him at the word 'critical', the way he had wanted to with John.

The two of them were silent and Jack and Shane were too taking in the news.

Kayla…

"I have to go be with her… I have to go back to the kids…" Steve realised.

All of them had been working with the ISA for the last few years. All of them had been trying to take down DiMera. It was the impossible dream though… or at least it was so far… And now Stefano DiMera was the furthest thing from their minds.

Nothing mattered.

Nothing but she mattered.

"I am going to ring the headquarters so that we can start working out getting the two of you back to Salem," Shane murmured.

The family was going to need them at home.

"We have to get going as soon as we can," Steve stated firmly. In fact, if he was not to explode, they had to leave now.

X x x

Adrienne poured a cup of coffee, spilling some of the hot liquid on to her hands.

"Shoot!"

It had already been a long day and it was a long way from over yet. In fact it was only eleven o'clock in the morning… how was it only eleven in the morning?

The day had begun for her like normal… it has all been so normal. She had got up at seven and she had had a shower. By eight, she had been downstairs having breakfast with Maggie and Victor. She had been planning to go in to the restaurant that morning and then she had ring Sonny and Will. She had the afternoon planned out, which involved her and her little Arianna going shopping. She was going to spoil that little princess rotten. That was a role of a grandmother, wasn't it?

But at quarter to eight she had got a call from Hope, who was frantic.

It had taken her ten minutes to get Hope calm enough to fill her in on the details.

Kayla and Grayson Fillmore had meant to meet her and Aidan for dinner last night. Gray was a law buddy of Aiden's and had been spending time with Kayla of late… it had seemed a tentative romance at first…

But then they had seemed to move almost too fast, choosing to spend time alone and no doubt swapping tooth brushes to keep one at the others place and Adrienne had not been entirely easy about it all if truth were known. But Kayla was a grown women and she deserved happiness more than she could say. Her old friend had been left on her own for far too long as far as Adrienne was concerned. If her brother was fool enough to leave her, that was on him entirely.

Naturally, Hope had thought the night before Gray and Kayla were going to be cuddled up in front of the TV with a bottle of wine.

Then she was found the next morning in a car wreck…

It made no sense.

But they were the facts. Adrienne had grabbed her coat, gone over to University Hospital, met Jen and Hope and begun waiting for Kayla to come out of surgery.

Justin had cleared his diary when she had rang explaining. The two of them were not getting on but someone had to be there for little Joey.

He was only twelve…

He needed his mama… but more than that, Adrienne knew the one he needed now was his papa. Not for the first time since all this had begun, Adrienne found herself cursing the idiot who was her brother. Steven Earl Johnson was needed at home. But she had no way of getting hold of him that she knew of.

And it killed her.

Wiping the split coffee off her hand, she took what was left in the cup and moved over to one of the chairs in the waiting room. She was not sure how long it was going to take till they got some news but she was not going to be leaving until she did.

She had been sitting alone for no more than five minutes before she felt a hand take hers. It almost made her jump until she looked up in to the face of Jennifer Deveraux.

"Any news?"

Jen shook her head knowing there was nothing to say. She had gone to call Hope if there was any news but until the investigation gotten underway properly, there was going to be no point in speculating what and why Kayla had ran off the road. And until she got back from her surgery, they could not talk recovery…

There was just nothing they could do and it was that powerlessness which Adrienne hated the very most.

And so the two of them did the one thing they could and sat in silence, hand in hand.

They were sisters of a sort after all… and they would not abandon their sister when she needed them the very most.

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