WHY IS IT ALWAYS YOU! - Todd & Marty

Todd is back from being shot in Ireland. After seeing Blair and Patrick making love he has kidnaped Starr and intends to take her to Bali. He is at Vicki’s cabin hiding out with Starr while passports are being arranged for them to leave the country. Starr is sleeping in the bedroom and he has gone out just to get more firewood. Unbeknown to him Marty has come up the mountain to clear her head about Patrick and stumbles on Vicki’s cabin. A thunderstorm is about to erupt and she finds it unlocked and goes in. Todd then pulls open the cabin door to enter and both are face to face. He jerks back in surprise, she gasps at stares at him wild eyed (believing she is seeing a ghost) The lightning and thunder crash. She faints dead away.

TODD: It’s you! (yelling at the top of his lungs) WHY IS IT ALWAYS YOU!!

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TODD: (yelling) Not this time Marty! (he quickly crosses to get Starr, and comes back out passing Marty still lying on the floor, starting to moan) Marty, don’t do this. (he stops debating whether to help her, guilt wins out.) (muttering) What am I your St. Bernard? (he quickly crosses to put Starr back out of sight and then quickly comes back to her) Marty get up! Marty come on! Marty, look you gotta get up, you gotta get outta here. (he bends down to her and starts to reach out to touch her or possibly to pick her up, but stops and mutters) Maybe that’s not such a good idea. (he stands again and crosses down toward her feet to shake them) Look Marty come on, come on, Marty get up, come on, you gotta get outta here, come on!

MARTY: (waking and scooting away from him in terror, kicking her feet) No. It can’t be you. You’re dead! (she runs out of the cabin into the storm)

TODD: (yells, and runs after her) Marty!

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TODD: (catching up with her) That’s right! It’s the ghost of Spring Fling past!

MARTY: How?

TODD: Beats the hell outta me. (sarcastically) I guess when really bad people die they go to Llanview. Look I never bought any of that stuff but, I figured if I was gonna come back it would be like a cockroach or gopher or something but God has a sense of humor so I’m back as me! Look I’m as anxious to get out of here as you are but, do me a favor okay? Pretend this was all a bad dream. So go on, get out of here there’s a path down there to take you to the road, somebody will pick you up. What are you waiting for Marty, lightning to strike? (he rushes back to the cabin)

MARTY: (stands numb for a minute and then follows him back) (in the cabin) Hold it! (stopping him before he crosses out of the room to get Starr)

TODD: Marty I told you to get outta here.

MARTY: (says disgustedly) I should have known it would take more than death to separate us.

TODD: (turns slowly around and says pointedly) Womb to tomb, and back again.

MARTY: Back from where? How? To what?

TODD: Look Marty, you have no right to ask me these questions!

MARTY: Oh, I have a million more where that came from! And I’m going to stay here till I get an answers to every one of them.

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TODD: Marty what difference does it make how I got here, I’m leaving. (sarcastic) Look I’m not even here now, I’m a hallucination.

MARTY: You see when I was drinking I couldn’t tell what was real from what wasn’t but I’m sober now...

TODD: Oh for god’s sake who cares if your sober...

MARTY: (cutting him off) There were witnesses! Patrick was in Ireland when you took the bullet that was meant for him. They put you in a car and pushed you over a cliff into the Irish sea. How did you survive? (he pauses then goes and looks out the door, closes and locks it, and turns back to her)

TODD: (coldly) It was fate! The same fate that keeps putting you and me in the same room! And I should of died, I should have drown, I should have bled to death, but I didn’t, cause (he sees a stuffed toy of Starr’s on the floor and kicks in under the sofa so she does not see it) a fisherman found me. Took care of me.

MARTY: Why didn’t you send word back to the states?

TODD: I didn’t even know who I was. It took me months to get back my memory, my strength and when it all came back to me I wanted to come back here, in my own time, in my own way. Look Marty I...I got a lot a loose ends to do, I don’t have time...

MARTY: What about your wife? What about Blair? Does she even know you’re alive? Have you seen her? (Todd has a quick flashback of Blair and Patrick rolling around) (Marty yells to snap him out of his trance) Todd!

TODD: No...no I haven’t seen her. I just got here today. (unconvincingly)

MARTY: Today? (she sounds suspicious) Why did you come to Vicki’s cabin? (noise off in the direction of where Starr is) What was that?

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TODD: (Marty is alone and looking a bit nervous, Todd comes back from the other room where Starr is) No nothing there, as far as I can tell must have been a squirrel or a rat or something.

MARTY: You don’t have to hide up here in your sister’s cabin. You have a family in Llanview, a wife and baby......do you even know about her?

TODD: Yeah I know all about the kid, Vicki told me.

MARTY: Vicki? I thought you came straight here? (suspicious)

TODD: (he nervously crosses over to fireplace, trying to backpedal) I.....did come straight here from the airport where I saw Vicki. She was off on her way out of town and um, I saw her she was in the first class lounge, she was buying a drink for one of her personalities, and uh, boy when she saw me, she wanted to call the ghostbusters.

MARTY: I don’t blame her.

TODD: (nonchalantly stacking wood in the fireplace) Yeah but then she finally calmed down and she told me I could come up here and use the cabin until I was ready to show my face.

MARTY: What’s stopping you.

TODD: Haven’t you ever wanted time to, you know, sort things out. Get everything straight in your head. (Sits on arm of sofa with feet up)

MARTY: Yeah, how do you think I ended up on Llantano mountain tonight?

TODD Well, I don’t know you tell me?

MARTY: No....no you don’t.

TODD: Don’t what? (playing coy)

MARTY: We were talking about you. You’ve been given a second chance here. I don’t understand why you don’t want to run home and make the most of every moment.

TODD: You sound like a greeting card. You think it’s that easy? Marty, coming back from the dead, it’s kinda messy. You want me to just walk back thru the door and say, honey I’m home make me dinner!

MARTY: I’ve been pretty close to death myself, or I wanted to be.

TODD: Yeah. (knowing her meaning)

MARTY: (she sighs, this is difficult for her, she sits) There’s something I want tell you. When I heard the news that you’d been shot instead of Patrick I....I...I was...was upset. Knowing that you had come to Ireland as a favor for me. And uh.......(pause) Well, you’re not the only one with a guilty conscious.

TODD: (chuckle, not believing) Come on Marty, you found out I was dead you must have wanted to drink a champagne.

MARTY: At another point in my life I would have.

TODD: (sarcastic) Oh right lupus, okay so apple cider, whatever.

MARTY: Just stop it. (getting upset) I’m telling you I was upset when I heard the news and Patrick was too and he came back to Llanview and he vowed that he find the men that were responsible and make them pay for it. He was upset.

TODD: (sarcastic) I bet he was.

MARTY: Oh, you blame him?

TODD: Thornhart? No. He didn’t pull the trigger. (he crosses to pour himself a drink)

MARTY: Well good because he’s decided to make Llanview his home.

TODD: (sarcastic) Oh, good. So you married the big dumb hick in a wheelchair, does that make you Mrs. Marty Moody?

MARTY: I’m...I’m not going to fight with you, because I haven’t forgotten that you were the one who gave me the courage to go to Ireland in the first place, to cut off my aunt, to stand on my own two feet. That trip changed my life!

TODD: (pointedly) That makes two of us.

MARTY: (softly) I never had the chance to thank you for that.

TODD: Well if that’s the way you feel about it, then maybe it’s your turn to do me a favor.

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MARTYYou’ve got family, they’re waiting for you. I don’t understand why you want to disappear again.

TODD: It’s my life I can do what I want. Look I don’t want you to tell anybody that you saw me and if you think that's too much for you to handle....

MARTY: (overlap) I don’t understand why you’d want to leave without seeing people who care about you, that you care about.

TODD: If I stay dead it’s gonna make a lota people in this town very happy.

MARTY: Who, people like your wife? I happen to see how Blair took the news of your death. She was....her grief was nearly uncontrollable.

TODD: (dryly) I think she found a way to get over it.

MARTY: What if that were true, which it isn’t, what about your baby daughter, huh? Or is she better off without you too?

TODD: (turns around and saying coldly) Yes, she is. You’ve forgotten, I’m Todd Manning and you of all people should know what kind of a man I am.

MARTY: (almost a whisper) Well, I thought you’d changed, I thought you weren’t that same man.

TODD: (Deadly) Don’t be so sure. (changing his tone)Look you think I’ve changed what about Blair? Don’t you think she’s managed to find a way to move on.

MARTY: (carefully) I can’t speak for Blair. But I’m sure she’d want to know...if you’re alive...

TODD: (Coldly cutting her off) She won’t know unless you tell her.

MARTY: Alright, you know there’s no love loss between Blair and me, but I can’t help but put myself in her place, and if someone knew that the man that I loved and lost and lost was still alive....

TODD: (angry cutting her off) Fine look you do what you have to do! Fine you tell her! I will be long gone before she....

MARTY: Oh come on, that’s not gonna stop her, you know her better than that! Once she finds out you’re still alive she won’t stop until she finds you. Come on, go home, see your wife and your baby daughter. You have a beautiful baby girl. Don’t you want to see her? (Todd looks in the direction of where Starr is)

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TODD: The baby does need two parents even if they are two losers like me and Blair. Just let me be the one to tell her, alright?

MARTY: (nods) Yeah, of course. You won’t take too long?

TODD: No, couple of days here to pull myself together and I’ll go right home, promise. (Marty looks suspicious) Don’t you trust me Marty? You don’t have to answer that. Well thanks for coming by. (crosses and opens door and looks up at the sky) Looks like the storm passed over, didn’t even rain. You can get down to the bottom of the mountain now, or walk around the woods and think about whatever it is you think about.

MARTY: (can't believe she's saying it) I guess I’ll be seeing you around.

TODD: (he closes the door on her) (She shakes her head and walks away) Thought she’d never leave. (he half runs to get Shorty and comes back immediately with her) Trips off. We’re not going to Bali. You know, Marty’s right. Blair would never stop chasing us. (sitting) Besides life on the run is no life for you. (he puts Starr on his lap facing away from him) Don’t you worry, okay? Somehow... (baby makes cute noises, he smiles) someway I’m gonna make sure you’re all mine. (with conviction in a whisper) All mine! (he puts his face to the back of her head and right on cue Starr turns to look at him)