Patch Work
A year-by-year guide to the life and times of DAYS’S Steve Johnson.
1985: Years before arriving in Salem, Steve “Patch” Johnson had been a Merchant Marine buddy of Bo Brady’s. They’d had a falling-out over a woman, Britta Englund, and during a knife fight, Steve lost an eye. When he hit town, Steve was tasked by drug-dealing Savannah Wilder to kill Bo and Theo Carver, Abe’s brother. He failed, but Victor hired him to retrieve incriminating film from Kimberly. Steve, Victor and Savannah were arrested, but never served time, because Victor blackmailed Larry Welch into taking the fall for them. Steve got his hands on a bandaged mystery man known as
“The Pawn” and plotted to sell him to Victor, but he escaped before the deal went through.
1986: Britta resurfaced and rekindled her romance with Steve, but left town after being shot. Steve took on his next assignment: scaring Kayla, Bo’s sister. Kayla set up a riverfront clinic, where she began crossing paths with Steve. They got closer after Steve saved Kayla from some thugs. When Orpheus kidnapped Marlena, Steve and Kayla went to Stockholm to help rescue her.
1987: Steve had nightmares about his past and pushed Kayla away. Steve reunited with his long-lost sister, Adrienne, and mother, Jo, who revealed that she had given Steve and his brother, Billy, up for adoption to save them from their abusive father, Duke. Steve took the rap for murdering Duke, who Adrienne shot and killed after he raped her. Steve was released after Adrienne burst into the courtroom and relayed the true version of events. One of Victor’s henchmen set Steve up for the attempted murder of Senator Harper Deveraux. He and Kayla went on the run and eventually cleared Steve’s name. Back in Salem, Kayla was hired as a private nurse for Harper’s son, Jack, who had Hodgkin’s disease. When Steve learned that Jack was really his brother, Billy, he began pushing Kayla toward him to give Jack incentive to beat his illness. Kayla married Jack, but put off having sex with him. Harper began poisoning Kayla. Steve whisked Kayla away and found the antidote to save her.
1988: Steve and Kayla reunited, but agreed not to tell Jack until his bid for state
assembly was over. Jack found out about Steve and Kayla’s affair and raped Kayla, then sent thugs to beat up Steve. Kayla eventually told Steve what had happened. Steve and Jack got into a nasty brawl, and Jack plummeted to the ground from a rooftop. Jack needed a kidney to survive, so Steve donated his, outing their sibling relationship to a stunned Jack. Kayla divorced him, but tragedy struck again; after fighting off the Riverfront Knifer, she was caught in an explosion and awoke unable to hear or speak. Steve rescued Kayla from the Knifer (Harper) and proposed. On their wedding day, Kayla’s speech returned during the vows. On their honeymoon, the Johnsons encountered a lost deaf boy named Benjy and brought him back to Salem. They contemplated adopting him, then learned he was the biological son of Stefano. Harper got out of jail and took Kayla hostage. Steve came to her rescue.
1989: Steve and Kayla were disappointed when Benjy was claimed by his grandfather, Orion. Steve found Nick Corelli, who’d been badly burned after a car accident, and hid him in his old apartment, where Kayla tended to him. Nick gifted Steve and
Kayla with his old mansion. They discovered an old trunk in the attic that contained a Civil War-era diary and began reliving the love story it told of Emily and Gideon. Later, Steve joined the ISA and was sent to investigate Rev. Saul Taylor’s revivalist camp. He underwent facial surgery and got a glass eye so he could infiltrate the group as “Brother Daniel Lucas”. Steve exposed Taylor’s camp as a front for stolen goods and proved that the reverend was a criminal. Steve and Kayla were anticipating the birth of their first child when his presumed-dead ex-wife, Marina, arrived, invalidating Steve and Kayla’s marriage. She offered Steve a divorce in exchange for his help finding a mysterious key. The quest took them to Italy, where Steve lost his eye again in a fight.
1990: Back in Salem, Steve worked to regain Kayla’s trust. Shortly after, Marina was murdered. Steve and Kayla attempted to wed before their child was born, but Kayla was arrested for Marina’s murder and gave birth to their daughter, Stephanie, after going into labor on the witness stand. Kayla was convicted of murder. Stephanie was kidnapped by her nanny, but Kayla escaped from prison and
the Johnsons found their baby in Australia. Kayla was exonerated (Isabella had accidentally killed Marina). Steve planned to become a cop, but ended up in a boat explosion rigged by Lawrence. In the hospital, Lawrence poisoned his IV. Steve “died”, but Lawrence had his casket switched and confiscated it before it was buried.
2006: Steve was discovered alive by Jack, but was suffering from amnesia and going by the name Nick. He suddenly appeared to a stunned Kayla at Frankie and Jennifer’s wedding. Steve got involved with Billie Reed, but after Stephanie was in a car crash and Steve and Kayla were exposed to a toxin at the hos- pital, they began growing closer. Eventually, a trip to a cabin where they once hid from Victor sparked
Steve’s memory to return, and he and
Kayla reunited.
2007: Steve began suffering from blackouts. Benjy, who was back in Salem, explained that Stefano had forced him to give Steve the devil tarot card, which transformed Steve into a Dimera soldier. During a hypnosis session with Marlena, Steve recalled being tortured by Stefano and EJ during the years he’d been presumed dead. After nearly strangling Kayla while dreaming about strangling EJ, Steve agreed to do anything EJ ordered to keep her safe. Steve abducted a comatose John from the hospital and brought him to a warehouse, where Kayla was forced to remove a kidney from John and transplant it into an ailing Stefano. Steve was sent to a mental hospital, where Kayla worked to help him recover. EJ reactivated Steve’s programming and ordered him to kill Bo, but Kayla was finally able to break through to him. When Philip’s son, Tyler, was abandoned at the hospital by his and Mimi’s surrogate, Steve and Kayla began caring for him and nicknamed him Pocket. But the child was taken away from them after Steve took Stefano hostage in retaliation for Benjy’s murder.
2008: Kayla was pregnant, but had complications, so Steve chose not to reveal that his unbalanced ex-girlfriend, Ava Vitali, had resurfaced. Ava took Steve, Bo, Hope and Kayla hostage, and tried to force Steve to sleep with her. Roman and Abe rescued the foursome. Steve and Kayla welcomed their son, Joseph, in May. Joey was briefly kidnapped by Stefano.
2009: Bo had a vision that Hope shot Kayla, so he and Steve kept the two women apart, but Hope did accidentally shoot Kayla during a melee at the hospital. After she recovered, Steve and Kayla decided to leave the country to run a clinic and departed with Joey.
2015: Three years after Kayla divorced him off-camera, Steve returned to Salem with a teenaged Joey. He tracked down a missing Bo at a monastery in Mexico, but was taken captive by Stefano’s goons. The pals escaped and returned to Salem, and Steve was crushed when Bo succumbed to a brain tumor. Ava resurfaced and apologized to Steve and Kayla for everything she’d done to them in the past. Steve warned Joey, who had befriended Ava, that she was dangerous.
2016: Steve was stunned when Ava showed him photos of a baby and said it was their son. Her father had sold the child on the black market, and Ava wanted Steve to help her find him. To assure Steve’s cooperation, Ava knocked Kayla out and hid her, then demanded that Steve have sex with her in exchange for Kayla’s freedom. Steve and Ava got word that their son had died. Ava tried to frame Kayla for murder, but a drunk Joey smothered her to death. Steve took the fall, but the ISA fabricated a story to clear him.
2017: Steve and Kayla remarried on Valentine’s Day. Steve learned that the child he and Ava had been searching for was actually alive. Steve and Kayla tracked down the young man, Tripp, and DNA tests confirmed that they were father and son.
2018: John began administering a toxin to Steve under orders from his ISA boss, Pamela, who wanted Steve and his family dead to ensure they wouldn’t expose her coverup of Ava’s murder. Pamela ended up dead, but the toxin caused Steve to go blind. Desperate for Steve to regain his sight, Kayla made a deal with Stefan for her husband to receive a bionic eye. Unfortunately, Steve ended up being arrested for espionage and left Salem. Once he was cleared of the charges, Steve stayed out of town for over a year.