DAYS: Ciara Leaves Salem
■ Ciara makes plans to head to Johannesburg with Theo, and asks Shawn to call Hope and have her meet them there. Meanwhile, Ben begs Theo to persuade Ciara to stay in Salem, but he refuses. “Ben knew of Theo previously, and he knew him to have a good heart, but time has passed and maybe people change,” notes Robert Scott Wilson (Ben). “The fact that he doesn’t step up for Ben, Ben’s trying not to take it personally. So Ben is trying not to blow his lid with this guy, just out of respect for Theo’s family and also his relationship with Ciara, but that’s all stemming from Ciara’s desire. That’s what she wants and Theo’s kind of just going along for the ride.”
A desperate Ben comes up with a plan to take Ciara up to the cabin where they fell in love, and asks for Claire’s help. She says no, saying it’s a huge mistake and it could traumatize Ciara. “He talks about pretty much kidnapping her and bringing her to the cabin and making her have these memories to hopefully jog her memory of the very beginning of where it all started,” explains Wilson.
“He goes to the hospital and has every intention to, he psyches himself up for this, it’s what he’s going to do, and then the elevator doors open and he sees Ciara. In that moment, sometimes you gotta love somebody enough to let them go, and it is one of those scenarios, at least at this stage of the game. He has to let her go and hope
“Ben is absolutely devastated.”
fully find out on her own, and hopefully her memory comes back. But he stops himself from kidnapping his wife.”
Ben does tell Ciara that he came by to give her something, the washer he used as their temporary engagement ring. Ciara doesn’t want it, but Ben implores her to take it, because of him, but because it belonged to her father. She finally takes it. “He has carried that with him as kind of his guiding light,” says the actor. “He has hung on to that washer because it was found at the scene [of her crash] and that was one of the main things that kept him connected to her. Instead of physically picking her up, dragging her to the cabin and making her remember, he hands off this washer to her and tells her to hang on to it. She’s clearly very affected by it.”
Ciara and Theo then leave Salem. “Ben is absolutely devastated,” sighs Wilson. “He thinks it may be it. He thinks it may be the end of the road and that’s it. He’s been battling to try to win her love and now she’s gone and he’s got to try to stand on his own two feet again.”