As the Days of Our Lives year began, poor Nicole sat vigil with her teenage daughter Holly as she lay in a coma after a drug overdose. Nicole had already acknowledged that Holly had a difficult childhood moving around with her mother from romance to romance, marriage to marriage, and home to home.
She never knew her father and the reason is complicated. But just who was Holly Jonas’s father and how does her New Year’s Eve drama in 2024 relate to her father’s in 2016?
Meet Holly’s Dad Daniel Jonas
It was 2008 when renowned Dr. Daniel Jonas (Shawn Christian) arrived in Salem and saved Bo Brady’s (Peter Reckell) life by performing a live organ donor kidney transplant. A hero to the Brady and Horton clan and godson to Victor Kiriakis (John Aniston), we soon learned there was more to Daniel’s story.
After rejecting Bo’s daughter Chelsea, Daniel entered into an ill-fated relationship with Kate Roberts (Lauren Koslow), but his life truly took a dramatic turn when he discovered that Melanie Layton (Molly Burnett). After establishing a bond with his daughter, Daniel also romanced Jennifer Horton (Melissa Reeves), Chloe Lane (Nadia Bjorlin), and Chloe’s best friend, Nicole Walker. (Arianne Zucker) After a paternity puzzle, Daniel turned out to be the father of Chloe’s son, Parker, but soon another truth was revealed.
Daniel’s Parentage And Death
When Daniel discovered he was conceived using an egg donor, he was stunned to eventually learn that the egg was stolen from Maggie Horton (Suzanne Rogers) years earlier when she donated the eggs that would conceive her daughter, Sarah. Maggie was shocked to learn that Daniel was her son and they soon forged a strong relationship, with Melanie accepting Maggie as her grandmother.
As 2015 was ready to turn into 2016, Nicole and Daniel celebrated their engagement on New Year’s Eve but they never married because of a collision while driving home. With Brady (Eric Martsolf) driving and Daniel in the passenger seat, they were involved in a head-on collision with a drunk Eric (Greg Vaughan). Daniel was pronounced brain dead and Maggie chose to give his heart to Brady and save his life. Nicole mourned Daniel’s death but within a year, she would have a big surprise.
How Nicole Got Holly
At the end of 2016, she delivered Chloe Lane’s new baby. When Chloe slipped into a coma, Nicole named the little girl Holly and took care of her while Chloe recovered. When Chloe woke, she took custody of Holly before revealing the truth. The baby girl was really Nicole and Daniel’s daughter.
Through flashbacks, we learned that Chloe had agreed to carry a child for Daniel and Nicole using Nicole’s egg and Daniel’s sperm. When the first insemination didn’t take, Daniel and Nicole had given up on becoming parents, but Chloe had not given up on giving them a child. She went through another insemination process and got pregnant, but didn’t tell Nicole that this was her child. By then Nicole had entered into an affair with the dangerous Deimos Kiriakis (Vincent Irizarry) and Chloe wanted to protect the baby she was carrying.
After a custody battle and Nicole kidnapping Holly for a short time, Chloe decided the baby belonged with her biological mother and gave Nicole her daughter back. Through the magic of SORAS, the baby girl born at the end of 2016 is now a full-fledged teenager who experienced a New Year’s Eve tragedy like her dad just eight years later.
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