DAYS: ERIC AND NICOLE REUNITE!
■ Eric arrives at Nicole’s door — and she is less than thrilled to see him. Her first reaction? “Panic!” says Arianne Zucker (Nicole). “Panic for several reasons. She’s had to make a deal with the devil, in a way, and seeing Eric just makes it harder for her.”
That deal? Marrying Xander after he swiped the recording of Nicole confessing to killing Deimos and blackmailed her to be his bride. “She’s trapped, lost, drowning, really, because of the choice she made, but she feels she had to to save certain people’s lives — Holly’s, Eric’s and kind of in a way, Brady’s, because he got so crushed, even though he’s the reason this all happened, really,” Zucker adds. “I think that she’s trying to be selfless in a way, in Nicole’s survival way.”
Xander enters and reveals that he was the second shooter at Marlena’s wedding — and that Eric was the actual target. Nicole is shocked. “She’s like, ‘What made you so nasty and heartless? And this rage? You don’t really want me. Why are you so angry at him?’ It’s just strange; she just can’t figure him out, even though Xander is pretty good-looking!” muses Zucker. “But you know what’s weird is when someone’s being hurtful, they become ugly to you.” Xander attempts to finish the job, but Nicole persuades him to let Eric go.
Eric leaves and calls Roman, who reports that they already figured out that Xander was the shooter from surveillance footage. Eric manages to sneak back to see Nicole privately and vows to help her. Nicole proposes that they kill Xander. “She’s very serious,” notes the actress. “Again, it’s all about her choices. I don’t think she realizes what the repercussions would be afterward. But because she feels a huge amount of urgency to get it done, there’s just no thought process with her. Even though it doesn’t come out this way, it’s like, ‘Let’s kill him! Good idea. And then we can be together and this will all be fixed.’ Again, probably not the best idea, but how else do you get out of that situation? He’s a heartless guy so I feel like for her it’s one less villain on the planet.”
Eric and Nicole then share a romantic reunion. “I just don’t think those feelings go away,” observes Zucker. “In fact, I think it makes it harder. I think it makes her want him even more because she keeps pushing him away. He is so amazing and they do have this unbelievable connection, and whether they’re meant to be together or not, they really have never had a chance to really discover it.”
“I just don’t think those feelings go away.”