Today’s Days of Our Lives was certainly full of surprises — at least when it comes to EJ and Gabi! The fallout of their hate sex is just getting started as, even though Gabi had second thoughts about hurting Stefan, it looks like the choice may already be out of her hands. Surprisingly, though, that isn’t because EJ’s determined to hurt Stefan and Gabi!

In fact, EJ was actually kind of understanding. Or at least, we think he was. He could have just been toying with Gabi as she waffled on whether she actually wanted to tell Stefan what they’d just done.

But EJ did explain how hurt he still is by Nicole leaving and how he’d do anything to get her back. While the show may not have been showing much of the fallout of her exit, it was clear EJ was still feeling it.

And that’s a huge relief since, after Eric and Nicole left Salem, EJ just vanished from our screens for weeks, only popping up in a minor role here and there. There was no raging, hardly any mourning, just… nothing. Then came Gabi, roping him into her plot for revenge against Stefan and all of EJ’s wounds from him and Nicole tore open.

And now Eric is coming back by the end of the week to support Brady. It won’t be a permanent return, and no, he won’t be back with Nicole. But it will be our first chance to check in on how he and Nicole are doing building a life and a family outside of Salem.

Plus, it will finally give us a chance to see a big blowout between EJ and Eric if spoilers for Friday are any indication. EJ vowed to make his wife and her beau pay and so far, we’ve seen nothing. But if the secret that Holly finds out is what we think it is, that revenge may come in the form of her finally learning that Eric killed her dad!

That’s sure to bring up a lot of complicated emotions for the teen now that her mom’s skipped town with her dad’s killer and finally give us some meaningful fallout from Nicole and Eric’s reunion.

So while we were worried the show was just washing its hands of Nicole and moving on, it’s nice to know that’s not the case. That doesn’t mean she’s coming back any time soon — especially with Arianne Zucker’s lawsuit — but between EJ, Eric and even Holly, it’s clear Nicole isn’t being wiped from history.

And that means there’s always hope that someday down the line we could see her once again. Though after that romp in bed we just saw, we wouldn’t be surprised if we got an