John seated at a table in the country club, checking his watch and waiting for Evangeline to show up. Out of his line of vision, she does just that - peering around other people there, seeing for herself that John is waiting for her.
She takes a deep breath and plunges in, headed over to him.
He spots her and stands.
"Thanks for coming," he says quietly.
Do they honestly think we’ll forget??
Moments like this…
"I could find a man – a man that was more in touch with his feelings, a man that didn’t mind expressing how he felt, a man that wasn’t afraid to tell me that he loved me. But that man wouldn’t be you, dammit! Dammit, John McBain! You’re the only one that I want..."
"Prove it!"
Do they honestly think we’ll forget??
Moments like this…
New Year’s Eve 2004 at the Llanview police station.
"Don't worry. I won't read any significance into the fact that we're going to spend the last night of the year together."
"What if I want you to?"
Evangeline turns away, retreating.
John follows and leans close to her ear.
"That make you nervous?"
"A little."
"What I meant was, I'm proud to be with you...happy to be with you especially tonight."
"Wow. John McBain, there is a romantic side to you after all."
"No there's not but if a little happened to squeak through it wouldn't be a bad thing would it?"
"No it's good. It's so good.”
Do they honestly think we’ll forget??
Moments like this…
John and Evangeline in Mary Barnes’ basement, barely able to look at each other after the embarrassment of being caught nude under that blanket after having made love.
"I don’t know how this happened," Evangeline says. "I’m so sorry."
"No, I’m sorry. I should have stopped it."
"I didn’t hear me say no," she says. "I should have known better than to drink all of that wine on an empty stomach. What was I thinking?"
"Yeah, me too," John says. "I’m not...I’m not saying I regret anything."
"Me, neither."
Do they honestly think we’ll forget??
“Whatever this is, I can’t deny…that something happens to me whenever we’re together.”
“I never saw it coming.”
Do they honestly think we’ll forget??
“I should have known you’d like Bogey. He didn’t talk much, either.”
“People can say a lot without talking.”
Do they honestly think we’ll forget??
Moments like this…
Evangeline puts on her jacket, on her way to work on Antonio’s custody case.
"Don’t go."
"John, I have to go. I really have to do this. I really don't want to, but I have to."
"But I never answered your question."
"Right...nice things about me. I have all the time in the world for that."
"You make me think. You made me face something that I avoided for a long time. You make me feel...You make me feel things I never thought I'd feel again."
Do they honestly think we’ll forget??
Moments like this…
“John I don't want to get hurt."
"Nobody ever wants to get hurt. But you can't just make yourself numb to it. Believe me I tried. You know if you wanna kick me out of your bed you go ahead. But I'm not sorry I'm here...and even if I get torn apart again...you're worth it.”
Do they honestly think we’ll forget??
Moments like this…
“t's all over, John. It has to be. I can't go on like this. Everywhere I look, I see us ... here, my office. I can't even walk to the park without thinking about the night you ... you kissed me there.”
“Me, neither.”
“What do you want? What do you want from me? Why are you here? What do you want, John?”
“I can't do this alone anymore! That's what I wanted to tell you. So many mistakes ... afraid to open my mouth sometimes, because the wrong things are going to come out, you know?”
“No, I don't know.”
“The way I figured it, you know, if I never left the station, then I could protect myself, you know, from what I was feeling. Just ... you know, you concentrate on the job, John, and then you ... you protect yourself. You concentrate on the next victim, the next case, and then you don't have to ... I didn't have to deal with me. Then you come along, and ... you come into my life and I ... man, did I screw up. I thought too much with this and ... and not a lot with this. And now I don't know what to do. I look at you and I see all the ways I let you down staring right back at me, and I don't know how to change that.”
“You saved my life, John.”
“No. No, you saved mine. You saved me.”
Do they honestly think we’ll forget??
From The Palace restaurant to Rodi’s to the Llanview police station to the Angel Square Hotel to Evangeline’s apartment, something pretty significant - something pretty darned potent took place between John McBain and Evangeline Williamson between June 2004 and August 2005. We all saw it. Many of us fell in love with it - with both of them, feeling with each scene that we were watching something that just had to be – something that was inevitable, something that was special.
Well, it’s up to us to let the powers that be at OLTL know that we will not be forgetting what we watched. We must let them know that we will not allow them to just brush it all aside, writing the characters we know so well as complete strangers, writing the story now as if none of what we watched happen ever actually happened - not the strings at the country club, not the pearls at The Palace, not the admission from John that if he ever said the words "I love you" to anyone else again, he would say them to Evangeline. No amount of revisionist backpeddling for the purpose of pushing an alternate storyline will erase from our memories the storyline that worked. We cannot and we will not forget the storyline that had us riveted to our television screens each weekday, unwilling to miss even one moment. We cannot and we will not forget the slow-developing love story that we all bought into, the mature adult love story that we all fell for, the love story that made us sigh. We cannot and we will not forget the love story that enticed and excited those of us who had long since grown tired of watching the same old stuff every afternoon. We cannot and we will not forget the story for those of us who wanted and needed so much more than just daytime’s perennial status quo, the storyline acted by performers who touched us, told about characters we cared about – the storyline that had even the jaded among us cautiously daring to believe that such a rare and beautiful love story might actually be told on daytime at long last and knowing that these were the two actors to bring that story to life.
Time to let the powers that be at OLTL know emphatically that we will not!