The Giuoco Piano

Chapter 56 - Bargaining

"Tie me up collect your demons
Inject them into me
I will be the scapegoat for you
A willing casualty
I can't sleep
Its haunting me
The thought of inevitability
I feel it crawling under
I'm sick I can't let go
I'm gonna be the scapegoat
For you i've bargained my soul
Broken bones
Hidden inside me
Cause i just can't condone
The way i feel
Cannot accept this
The devil told me he'd leave you alone
Cause i can't live
To see you struggle
So i will sacrifice
I don't care about myself
As long as you're alive"

                                         ― Scapegoat, Balcony Talk

Marlena's eyes flutter slowly, gritty with sleep and the tears she has shed overnight. It is a moment before she remembers where she is. And what she is doing there.

After her nightmare, it had taken her a while to fall asleep.  Still, after alternately tossing and turning and staring out of the window for more than two hours, sheer exhaustion had ensured she succumbed to a deep, and mercifully dreamless, sleep.

Now it is morning, and outside the snow continues drifting past her window, almost soothing her with its gentle, unhurried progress.

Almost.

With a rough moan, she throws back the covers and sits up, yawning and pulling her fingers through hair still crisp with last night's application of hairspray. Slipping out of bed, she pulls her hair back into a ponytail and wraps a tie around it before she goes to the window and pulls back the already half-drawn curtains.

Outside, the sky is white with snow-cloud and a slush-streaked mantle of snow has settled over the street below, and over the small portion of the park she can see from her bedroom. She wraps her arms around her and shivers. The room is warm enough, the tremor comes more from the echoes of her nightmare, or more accurately the memory that had infiltrated her dreams last night.

And from the thought of the task that lies ahead of her.

One thing the long hours had done, was clarified her options and her choice. In the darkness of the freezing winter night, snow swirling outside, she had made her decision. She can't let Stefano hurt Carrie, Will, or Shawn-D. She doesn't know whether she can live with the guilt of taking an innocent child's life, but she knows she can't live with the knowledge that because of her the Brady's have lost a member of their family.

It's true to say that she loves Carrie like she's her own daughter. And too, there is the baby the young woman carries and will birth in a matter of weeks. Dear, sweet Will is her first grandchild, the son of Samantha, her sister's namesake, and her beautiful and loved daughter. Sami has already been through too much, and Marlena can't be responsible for any more loss in Sami's life.

And Shawn-Douglas is Bo and Hope's only child. She can't possibly live with the idea that she has torn their only child from them, sacrificing him to salve her conscience.

There is always the chance that Stefano is calling her bluff, but she suspects not. He has made it clear he wants her, whatever the price, and she believes that he will carry out his threats if he feels he has no other choice. Alex Harper, the ISA psychologist and profiler had said as much. Stefano is through with playing games where he might be bested. He has set up this game so that he will not lose. So, if she is to refuse him now, it is probable that he will carry out his threat to force her hand.

So, it leaves her no option but to accede to his demands and carry out this heinous crime. It may well condemn her soul to hell, but she has faced that once before and she will willingly go if it will save her children and her family from any more misery.