Title: A History of Names
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
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Instead of meeting up in Japan, they go together.
Takeda thinks it's a good idea for Emily to escort Aiden, watch all his moves closely and make sure his intension to join their mission is pure. In short, Emily is a glorified babysitter.
He sits in the seat to her right, beside the window. His eyes keep going back to search the sky and she wonders if he's flown much before.
For her part, no matter how many times Emily flies she still gets a little nervous. It's ridiculous, really, especially given all the training she's done to become a fearless warrior, but flying is the one thing that makes her uneasy. It must have something to do with giving up full control. Meditation usually helps, but not when she's flying with someone. Especially someone who likes to talk.
"So, how long have you known this sensei of yours?"
"Long enough."
"What can I expect when we get there?"
"Your training will begin after a series of tests, both mental and physical. Then you'll be asked to choose an alias for yourself."
"No," Aiden says, steadfast. "I'm afraid that's non-negotiable. I need to keep my name in the event that my sister seeks me out."
His gaze is so strong and so unwavering that Emily finds herself trapped in it. She hardly knows this man at all—barely a few days—but she knows the pain in those eyes. She recognizes it.
"You think she's still… out there?"
"She has to be," he says. "Otherwise there's no point to me doing this."
She recognizes the pain, and the resolve.
Emily nods and expects him to go back to watching the sky, but he doesn't. He continues to look at her. She doesn't like it.
"What?"
"You don't have to be afraid."
She can't help the way her eyes narrow, her brows knit together. "Of what?" she says. Does he think she's afraid of him for some reason? She almost wants to roll her eyes but she refrains.
"Of flying." Aiden looks down at her hand and when she looks down at it too she realizes she's clutching the armrest too tightly. He knuckles are white.
She lets go of the armrest quickly. A part of her hates that he was able to see that; that he now knows more about her than she does about him.
"You don't ever need to be afraid when I'm here."
A part of her likes it.
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They hide it from Takeda, but of course Takeda knows. They think they're so good at acting like combatants, acting like they don't exist to each other, never touching unless it's to deliver a blow. Meanwhile, they'll slink barefoot into each others' rooms in the dead of night. In the back of their minds they know their affair is about as transparent as the paper walls all around them, but they don't stop sneaking around. That's part of the fun. Especially after a long day of hand-to-hand training.
Aiden lies beside her on the tiny bed. They have to squeeze in close and they are tangled, a comfortable and effortless knot of limbs. A bruise blossoms on the side of his forehead, a result of a roundhouse kick. She feels both guilty and proud as her fingers brush over it. He's a tough fighter, but too cocksure for his own good. His arrogance is always his downfall. Just as he's ready to proclaim his victory she'll land her final blow. She always wins against him. And she knows that it's not because he lets her.
She doesn't know why she keeps caressing his forehead, as if the bruise she put there will disappear if she just sweeps it away. But she can't stop touching him.
And he can't stop looking at her. At her eyes, and her lips. She leans in to kiss him, slow and sleepy. When she pulls away Aiden kisses her forehead. She's noticed that he does that a lot. She looks forward to it now.
"I was meant to find you," he says in that deep, low voice.
She smirks, shakes her head. For someone so big and strong he has a tendency to get mushy sometimes.
"Don't say that."
"Why not?"
"We met because of… what happened to our families," she says.
"All the same," Aiden says, "For me you were inevitable."
She kisses him again like his lips are magnetic. Emily never though she's have this, the luxury of sneaking around with a lover, making out like teenagers in the dark. She thought the chances of that were long past. But for the first time in a long time the idea of an inevitability is a good one. Emily pulls away from him just far enough for her lips to form words.
"I really love you," she whispers.
She's never spoken those words before and they have a weight to them. They press down all around her, heightening the sense of everything. With her eyes closed all she feels is his hand in her hair, the warmth coming off his skin, his lips just barely grazing hers.
"I love you too, Amanda."
/
He's been in the Hamptons for three days and it's three days too long.
He stands in her house, stands out, more specifically. He's all wrong in this new world she's created for herself. He does not belong here.
"Would you please just listen to me, Amanda."
"Stop calling me that," she says. "You don't get to call me that."
She can see the way his jaw muscles flex.
"Fair enough. But know that I'm here to help you." He takes a step forward, intense, and she a step back. "Let me prove my loyalty to you and maybe then—"
"Maybe then what?" Emily says. "You think we'll get back together?"
He doesn't say anything, but she can tell she's wounded him. Good, she thinks.
"You think I'm still that girl who'll whisper 'I love you' in the dark? That girl is gone. You betrayed her."
"Emily, I'm—"
"Save it. I don't need your help. And I don't need you."
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It's the first time Emily and Aiden are together since she has reunited with Daniel.
It feels different.
It's in the way he holds her. She's in his lap, her legs coiled around him, straddling him, and his face is buried in her neck. The way he holds her, the way his arms wrap around her and clutch her is… desperate.
He says something but she can't make any sense of it, too much movement and friction, too much skin muffling his voice. The sound of her own breathing is loud in her ears. "What?" she says. It comes out a gasp.
When he speaks again it's clear. "Do you love him?"
"No." There is a certain desperation in the way she holds him too. Her arms over his shoulders, her fingers crawling trails against his scalp, she can't hold him tightly enough. "You know I don't."
"Say it," he says, his voice gruff.
"I don't love him," Emily says in one breath. "I don't love him. I don't love him I don't love him I don't love him."
She keeps saying it until the words are cut into by other sounds, nothing more than staccato noises mingling with panting, moans, the sounds of pleasure and pain.
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Amanda's eyes flutter open and everything is quiet.
Too quiet.
She turns her neck to the left and to her surprise that side of the bed is empty. She turns her head to the right and a pair of brown eyes belonging to a three year old boy peek over the edge of the bed.
She raises her eyebrows and smiles. "Good morning."
"Bonjour," the little boy says.
"Right," she says. "Bonjour. Do you know where your father is?"
The boy shrugs but smiles like he's keeping a secret.
"Are you by any chance hiding from him?"
He nods his head intensely and his smile explodes into a grin. He puts an index finger to his lips and says, "Shhh."
"Come here." She grabs him under his arms and hoists him into bed with her, his spaceship PJs riding up as he dives under the covers. "He won't find you in here."
The boy flings the covers over his head and giggles. "Merci Maman."
"De rien."
Aiden walks into the bedroom but stops short when he spots and boy-sized lump next to his wife in bed.
"You didn't happen to see a boy pass through here, did you?" he asks. "'Bout yay big, penchant for French, meant to be helping me with breakfast?"
Amanda laughs at 'penchant for French.' They'd been living in France for a couple of years but it wasn't until they put their son in school that he started to speak the language. He picked it up so quickly that he spoke it almost exclusively, much to Aiden's chagrin, who didn't speak it at all.
Amanda shakes her head but there is the unmistakable sound of muffled laughter.
Aiden walks slowly toward the bed, then pounces on the boy-sized lump, tickling until their son finally bursts through the covers in a laughing fit. After only a few minutes Aiden is the one all tickled out on his back while his son dives on top of him.
"Did you wake up your mum, David?"
"No, he didn't wake me up," Amanda says. She leans over until her head hovers on top of his, her hair falling in curtains around his face. "Good morning," she says, before leaning down to kiss him. Aiden kisses her back, and makes sure to kiss her forehead too.
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