AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the love story of Marty and Todd. It also includes several other characters as well as their storylines. This story will be submitted in several parts and is based off the hit soap One Life to Live, yet the "history" has been changed somewhat to suit the purposes of this story. Not all the parts of this story will contain erotic sex scenes as there is a plot. First and foremost, this story is a romance/drama, not a sex story.
Also, I'd like to note that I do not own ABC's One Life to Live or the characters and I will NOT be receiving any payment whatsoever for writing this story. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.
This story takes place BEFORE Marty attacked and killed her psychiatrist, stabbed Kelly, and pushed Natalie from the roof at Angel Square. In this story, those events will not happen. This is my take on the two-Todds story including Marty and with an eerie or supernatural twist. Hope you enjoy the story...
~*o*~
After months at St. Anne's, Marty was slowly coming back to reality, although she was far from healed. Her doctors were helping her immensely, yet she was grief-stricken as she very seldom received visitors. Cole, her only child was in prison, and she had no other family. All her friends seemed to have forgotten or deserted her. Only Starr had come to see her, bringing Hope, her precious little granddaughter. For Hope, Marty struggled to get better. She had to get out of this dreary mental institution and return to her grandchild. Cole couldn't be there for his little girl, so Marty longed to be.
Marty was sitting in a rocking chair in her room at St. Anne's looking at a photo of Hope when suddenly she felt a strange sensation move through her, stealing her breath. She felt as though someone were there, in the room, watching her. Marty became convinced that someone WAS there in the shadows unseen. Marty was certain she wasn't alone. She was being watched.
"Who's there?" Marty called out, looking out the window of her room, searching the shadows of the dying sunlight.
Only the eerie sound of the wind whispering through the trees answered back. Marty shivered. She hadn't been this unsettled for a very long time. She had a strange feeling then. A feeling like she wasn't alone...
As she stood there at the window, she had dropped Hope's photo upon the floor. When Sister Neena called her to the door to meet with her doctor, Marty didn't even notice the child's photo lying at her feet. She walked toward the door and left the room, going with Sister Neena down the hall to her evening therapy session.
Moments later, a hand reached out, grasping the photo. Someone stood in Marty's room at St. Anne's looking at the photo of Starr and Cole's little girl.
Later when Marty returned to the room, the man was gone, along with the photo. "That's strange," Marty uttered, looking all around the room for the photo of her granddaughter. It wasn't in its usual place which was upon her dresser. Where could it have gone?
Marty looked everywhere, but it was as if the photo had just vanished. Marty shivered, realizing then that her window was strangely ajar. A cool breeze played upon her flesh as she crossed the floor to the open window and attempted to close it. But as she began to press down on the window, it was then she saw a man standing in the courtyard below. Although she couldn't make out the figure because of the distance, something told her she knew the man. Every nerve in her body seemed to be agitated as a quiver moved through her and the breath was stolen from her lungs. Who was he? And why was he watching her?
As she slept in her bed that night, Marty was plagued by nightmares. When she woke up, tears streaked her face. Sister Neena had come running into the room to check on her, hearing Marty scream out as though being tortured. "Todd!" was the name that came flying from Marty's lips as she sat up in her bed, her long curls tangled about her face.
"Todd's here..." Marty sobbed to Sister Neena. "He's coming for me!"
~*o*~
Despite the nuns reassurances that Todd Manning was no where near St. Anne's, Marty could still feel his presence there like dark clouds lingering after a great storm. "He's here, I tell you... and he's been watching me..." Marty insisted, but the nuns didn't believe her. They thought she was hallucinating again like she had when she had thought a small ragdoll had been her baby.
"Marty, you need rest," spoke Sister Neena.
"Here, take these pills. They'll help you get some sleep," promised the elderly nun, placing two tablets in Marty's hand and a cool glass of water.
"Thank you," Marty said softly, accepting the pills although she had no intention of taking them. Todd Manning was out there somewhere, and she needed to be at full awareness as he might strike at any moment.
"Good night, dear," said Sister Neena, patting Marty's hand before leaving.
Moments ticked by and Marty remained seated within the wooden rocker. Bits and pieces of last night's dream returned to her, and she could remember hearing his voice as he spoke to her, telling her he was there now, he had come for her. And then he moved out of the darkness, and she saw him...
And to her horror and confusion, it wasn't the Todd she currently knew. But the old one. His face was that of the man who had raped her all those years ago. It had been HIS face... and HIS voice.
Marty's heart raced in her chest as she remembered the dream. What did it mean?
Then she remembered the figure in the courtyard and she froze. It HAD been him, hadn't it? Todd had been the man standing in the courtyard, looking up toward her room. But oddly it wasn't the face of the man she had known as Todd for the past eight years, the man who had tricked her into his home and into his bed when she had lost her memory. His face was now the same as it had been before he had claimed to have undergone plastic surgery. He looked like the man who haunted her nightmares and ruthlessly ravaged her memories.
"Noooo... noooo... it CAN'T be him," Marty murmured. Maybe she was losing it after all, going out of her mind. Maybe her fragile grasp at reality had finally snapped.
But if it were true, what could he want with her... and what did all this mean? Who was this man who looked so much like the man who had hurt her all those years ago? Was he Todd? And if he was, then who was the man who claimed to be Todd Manning now?
As the questions did a wild dance through her traumatized brain, Marty was alerted to a sound coming from the window. Marty stood fearfully, glancing over at the pane of glass. To her surprise and horror, the window began to open as if on its own. Then as she longed to flee, someone left the ledge outside, carefully climbing into the room. "Hello, Marty," he said, gazing at her in the soft lamp light of her room. "Long time no see..."
Marty's heart did a flip-flop in her chest. "Todd?" she gasped, staring at him as if he couldn't be.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"I'm Todd Manning..." he answered matter-of-factly, his voice resonating in her ears.
"You... You can't be..." she gasped.
"If you're Todd, then who is he?" she exclaimed, referring to the one who had claimed to be Todd for the past several years.
"That's what I'd like to know..." he replied, closing the window and going to stand next to her.
"Don't come any closer!" Marty breathed. "You aren't real... this can't be happening..." She pressed her hands up to her cheeks to cool them, looking at the man before her with disbelief.
"Marty... listen... I am the real Todd Manning... and that other guy, I don't know who he is, but he's taken over my life. He took my kids... he stole my fortune, my life... EVERYTHING! And I want my life back... you have to help me," he pleaded.
