A/N: My first ever try at a Cremma. It's criminally short and probably riddled with OOCness, but after over a month of letting it waste away in my folder, I gave it an extra two hundred words and a quick spell check. It takes place sometime after Secret. Craig and Ashley aren't together as of yet in this story. I hope you enjoy.
She was just a girl, he realized. A too-thin, too-tall, too-extreme girl whose stare would have been more than enough to turn the wicked witch of the west into a puddle. Everything from her painfully preppy clothes and plain features to her four-letter name (was that a coincidence? He wondered sometimes) screamed ordinary. None of that stopped him from kissing every last freckle that sprinkled her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. It didn't change his feelings. Or was this embarrassing one-night stand born from lust? There was a very good possibility, especially considering his history, that when he woke up tomorrow morning to find her asleep next to him he'd wonder what it was exactly that he'd ever seen in Emma Nelson.
Tan lines decorated her shoulders, disappearing under the sheets hiding everything he'd already seen that night. The rise and fall of her shoulders was too measured and rapid for her to really be asleep, and Craig wondered why it was so important to her to pretend. She had always been good at that, though. Craig had an odd desire to reach out and trace the contour of her form, hidden so incompletely beneath a simple layer of white linen.
The sheets. They were something that would have to be taken care of the next morning; he was helpless when it came to laundry, though. Emma would know what to do. How could she, though? This was obviously her first time, and he still wasn't sure what would happen when she finally admitted to being conscious. Would she scream at him for taking advantage of her? Would she smile, kiss him softly, want to cuddle? It was impossible to tell, and this made him jumpy. Wisps of blond hair fanned across the pillow where she rested her head, and the corded muscle of her shoulders tensed when he gently ran his fingers through the flaxen strands. It was softer than he would have imagined; not spiky with hair products like Ashley's or tangled and frizzy like Manny's. Nothing exotic or unique. She sighed gently and pulled the sheet more tightly around her, not aware that the semi-transparency of the material made her look impossibly sexy. "Emma?" he ventured softly. No answer. "Emma, I know that you're awake, and… and I just want… are you okay? Can I… get you something? Or something?"
"This wasn't how it was supposed to happen," she whispered. "I was supposed to be older. And in love. Well, with the person that I had sex with." Craig knew from the first time he saw them together that there wasn't any stopping Emma and Sean, so he wasn't sure why this admission stung so much.
"I'm sorry." He really wasn't; not for the things that she wanted him to be. Yes, he regretted that it had happened in her basement with the flickering light bulb on the bed where he'd been with her best friend a year before; yes, he regretted that he hadn't asked more insistently if she was sure. But he found that he wasn't sorry for the act itself.
"It's not as if it's your fault. You were nice… gentle." Craig smiled slightly. He knew that he would wear the word like a badge of courage. "I'm sorry, too," she said, and the words were laced with so much pain that his own chest ached. "I seem to be good at self destructing lately. First that thing with Jay, and now this… I mean, my best friend used to be in love with you. You're halfway back together with Ashley already. You're just some mystery to me." Craig sighed as he took in her soft sniffles and the motion of her arm extending so that she could cover her face more completely. He had never been able to stand it when women cried.
"Before all that I was your friend. Wasn't I?" Emma turned over onto her back, staring at the ceiling. He followed in suit unsurely.
"You're right. We were always friends." The long, bony fingers of her hand fumbled until they found his own. It almost amused him, the solemnity and chasteness of the way she cupped his hand, not even trying to lace their fingers; cementing that they were just friends, that this was just a one-night stand. Emma Nelson was just a girl from his past that had somehow stumbled into his present. But with her fingers clasped tightly around his, she wasn't just a girl at all.