A.N.: I recently watched Murder on the Orient Express, and the final scene where Poirot pieces together the murder, the tone of the whole scene, and the song from the soundtrack 'Justice'…as I watched Revenge for the first time, I was reminded so strongly of the theme from Orient Express; how a single act can destroy so many lives, and whether justice and vengeance are one and the same.

This is my take on Revenge, and it will be an eventual Nemily story (I fear there are too few love-letters to Nolan out there), with some amendments to the canon Emily's character and backstory, and her and Nolan's relationship. There'll be a bit more focus on Emily's personality, her hobbies and interests, her struggles with keeping up the charade, blending the kid she was with the lonely teenager she grew into and the polished young-woman she presents herself as to the world. Emily/Amanda's personal history is a lot more tragic than canon. I'd also like to establish a more authentic connection between Emily and Charlotte, because I think that could be something special.

I've started season three but already don't like the newly-introduced characters. I feel there was more than enough going on without them; as such, I'll be taking seasons one and two and putting my own spin on them…

For reference, the Flight 197 bombing occurred in '97, Amanda was released from Allenwood in '05, Emily Thorne arrives in the Hamptons when she is 26, turning 27. David invested with Nolan in April of '96, before he was 'poached' as an executive by Grayson Global.

And can we just carve it in stone that Nolan Ross is the sweetest, sexiest guy out there? I really love the sweet, sexy, nerdy Nolan we got to see when he was flirting with Padma; I feel like Emily really should have seen more of that side of him.

The Girl with the Infinity Tattoo

01

Emancipated

'Here are the women with ancient anger in their veins and the cruelty of a goddess in their hearts. You will beg before her, you will scream; but Hera never flinched from the words of a mortal, so why should she? Do not stand in her way. She will burn down your kingdom, herself with it, if it meant your ruin' - Medea

'He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee' - Friedrich Nietzsche

'There was right, there was wrong, now there is you' - Agatha Christie

'Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn' - C S Lewis

'We each are artists of the self, creating a collage - a new and original work of art - out of scraps and fragments of identifications' - Judith Viorst

'If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go' - James Baldwin

'One of the greatest tragedies in life is to lose your own sense of self and accept the version of you that is expected by everyone else' - K L Toth

'We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be' - Kurt Vonnegut

"Amanda Clarke."

Slightly startled, her heart thumping in her chest, she tucked her head down, shoulders hunched and hands deep in the pockets of her jeans, reluctantly trudging from the one secure home she had had since she was nine years old. The road goes ever on…

It wasn't that she had been expecting a party celebrating her release: All she had been hoping was that there wasn't a media-frenzy ready to capitalise on it. Being the daughter of the most-hated man in America's recent history was a lot to live down. Foster-care had gone a long way to distancing herself from notoriety; there was anonymity in being a case-number, in being just one among many confused, frustrated young girls the world had given up on. She wasn't special.

She tucked her head down, hoping whoever it was would think he had the wrong girl, and stifling a gasp at the pain lancing through her ribs. Her eye was swollen and her lip stung, though her tongue kept dabbing at the warm blood welling there; there was nothing to be done for suspected bruised ribs. She knew from experience. Inside, she had earned a reputation for being able to handle herself: she was not easily intimidated, and had learned how to stop a fight before the second punch was landed. But a group of girls, all seething with jealousy and impotent anger at her upcoming release…

For the first time in nearly three years - really since she was nine years old - she was…free. Emancipated. The strings had been cut, shackles unlocked, however people wanted to phrase it; she had lost her anchor. Adrift. The agitated, fluttering sensation in her stomach that felt a lot like cramps had been getting worse ever since the New Year, realising that by June she would be eighteen, and kicked promptly out of the secure, structured place she had come to rely on… It wasn't home, but Allenwood was a far cry from the foster-families and group-homes she had endured. Her life had been about reaching this moment - she had lived her life in the pursuit of an education and keeping out of trouble. She hadn't thought as far ahead as what she would do after she was released…

"I'm sorry, you're looking for someone else," she said, with a gentle bite that usually stopped people pursuing any further conversation. She had been raised with manners; but she had also learned when to keep her mouth shut, and when to lie. Self-preservation was a learned skill; and experience was a brutal teacher.

Belligerence was something she witnessed in the other girls and knew, got them nowhere. She had been raised with an innate sense of courtesy, and even at her most frustrated, had learned to bite her tongue rather than snap back. She had learned to be careful what she revealed of herself.

"Pretty sure I'm not," the man said. She tucked a strawberry-blonde curl behind her ear, the wind tousling the rest in a riotous tumble past her shoulders. In a practiced movement, she swept up her hair and bound it with the only hair-tie she owned, into a voluminous bun; her hair had gotten long and unruly while inside. The curls that had always given an angelic impression to potential foster-parents were now as riotous as her emotions. She listened to the feeling shivering up her spine, glancing over her shoulder and wincing in the sunshine. The guy was following her, his pace slow, hands in his pockets, thumb hooked around his belt-loop, almost bored, but his long legs ate up the distance between them either way. "Your dad told me you'd be out today."

She almost tripped over her own feet. It wasn't just that he'd said 'your dad' but that he'd said it so casually; people only ever spoke about David Clarke in tones of absolute disgust and righteous hatred.

"I haven't had a dad in nine years," she said quietly, regretting it a second later. She shouldn't have engaged. She sighed. "I'm sorry you had a wasted trip; someone gave you the wrong information."

"Oh, I never rely on other people for what I can get for myself," the guy said, half-laughing, and she was reminded of a particular Agatha Christie passage: 'He always said things in the same slow melancholy way — but half the time there was a twinkle underneath it.' There was definitely a twinkle underneath this man's gravelly drawl. "Especially information. And it's not been a waste. Got here just in time. See, I know that you're Amanda Clarke. You still have the same pretty curls you did when you were a kid. You're - taller now… I know I'm not the first to come looking for you; only I'm not working for any magazine or TV network and I don't want an interview."

She finally stopped, and faced him, startled by how close he was: he almost collided with her, tall and gangly, hands in the pockets of his jeans, off-balance, and her immediate impression was of very pretty lips, and sincere blue eyes. There was stubble on his chin, his dirty-blonde hair was pushed back from his face carelessly, and he couldn't be older than thirty. He was…very cute. And she frowned, biting her lip - instantly regretting it as she felt blood blossoming from the fresh cut - dabbing at it with her tongue, staring into the man's face. In and out of foster-care, new faces were one of the only constants, until Allenwood… But she got the sense she had seen him before, a long time ago… It was the shape of his long face, that strong chin, maybe the unpretentious, gangly awkwardness…

"Oh!" he whispered, leaning back, freeing his hands from his pockets to find regain his balance, finding his footing, an awkward little smile on his face as his eyes dipped from her lips to her eyes. She had learned how to shut down conflict with a look; but she was curious, and kept it in reserve. She had learned how powerful eye-contact was…he looked almost bashful at holding her gaze, but he did, and it was Amanda whose cheeks flushed delicately. This was the first time she had been this close to a good-looking guy in years, and she found it absurd that she wasn't…wasn't terrified, wasn't nauseated, wasn't breathless with anxiety. She wasn't threatened by his proximity.

She frowned. "Have…have we met?"

"Well, I met Amanda Clarke a long time ago," he said, smiling, with that twinkle hiding in his voice, his blue-grey eyes laughing. He shrugged, sighing. "At her dad's beach-house in the Hamptons; there was a clambake. I helped make the strawberry cupcakes for dessert. My baking skills have not improved… That was the afternoon David cut me a cheque as a start-up investment in my company. Amanda gave me a sand-dollar as her investment; she asked me to design high-definition cameras for when she became a naturalist. David Attenborough was her hero."

She flushed, swallowing. She remembered having clambakes at the beach-house, strawberry cupcakes were her favourite - she remembered giggling despite the blood as she wrapped a boy's finger in a clean dishtowel as he went pale and shaky and had to lie down on the kitchen floor while her dad got the first-aid kit and she held his arm up. He'd been cutting up the strawberries to fold into the cupcake-batter - her mother's secret recipe for special-occasion cupcakes. Her dad had said it was a special-occasion that day, when they'd had the clambake: she'd insisted on the special-occasion cupcakes, delighted they had a guest, even if he'd been shy around Sammy. She did remember her dad apologising that they only had Disney princess Band-Aids.

Instead of admitting she thought she remembered this young-man, she frowned at what he'd said. "Why would you tell me David Clarke had anything to do with your company?" she asked, shocked he was so blasé about it. "You're - you're one of them. Americon Initiative."

"I'm definitely not one of those monsters," the guy exclaimed, his eyes flashing. "David invested with me when no-one else would, gave me the start-up capital I needed. He believed in my vision. He believed in me. He wasn't a terrorist. And he wasn't laundering money for terrorists. He had nothing to do with the bombing of Flight 197."

"Oh," she sighed, shaking her head sadly. "You're one of those."

"One of what?"

"The conspiracy theorists who are convinced David Clarke was a patsy for Americon Initiative."

"His conviction was a little too clean, don't you think?" he asked drily, pulling a face, that twinkle underlying his rich, smoky voice again. "All those people happy to testify, all that evidence the Feds conveniently found so neatly tied to him… A lot of people told a lot of lies and paid a lot of money to frame your father. He was a good man, he was brilliant and trusting and sincere and he was a perfect target… What do you remember about him?"

"I remember being dragged from him in the middle of the night when men with semi-automatics stormed our house," Amanda said curtly, her cheeks flaming. It wasn't embarrassment, or shame…it was remembered terror. The agitation that provoked nightmares to this day, nightmares that had prevented her chances of adoption… She remembered the sound of his voice, yelling at the masked men not to touch his daughter; she remembered screaming herself hoarse, remembered wetting herself in her terror, so deeply upset and worked up she had vomited too; she remembered the man with unsettling blue eyes, and the black-haired lady, the lady who lived next-door in the great big house who used to sneak over, in her tennis-whites and diamonds. The lady she had grown up to realise had been having an affair with her father.

Another secret that told her just how little she had known the man who was her father. He wasn't the man she'd been raised to believe he was. The guy stared at her, his expression appalled, gentle, almost contrite.

"That's the last memory you have of him?" he asked gently. She had admitted that she was David Clarke's daughter, without even feeling ashamed of the fact or defensive toward this guy for coaxing the confession from her; she just…didn't get the impression he'd hold it against her, or tease her for trying to deny it.

"They wouldn't let me see him, after," Amanda said quietly. Not since the night she had been dragged from her own home by men deaf and blind to her terror.

"That shouldn't be your last impression of David… I'm sorry you weren't released in time to see him again," the guy said softly. Amanda frowned.

"What do you mean?"

Dawning comprehension wrote itself all over the guy's face. She hoped he didn't like gambling; he had no poker-face whatsoever. "They didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

Hesitantly, the guy bit his lip, glancing over his shoulder at the SUV, as if suddenly this was the last place he wanted to be, staring down the devil's daughter.

"There… The last time I went to try and visit your father, Rikers was on lockdown. There had been a riot; your dad…your dad was stabbed and killed," the guy said, with true anguish in his voice, as he winced at her in sympathy.

"Dead?" The word gusted from her lips unbidden, uncomprehending. Nine years, infinite pleas, she had never been allowed to see her father, until time wore on and she had been worn down by it, starting to believe the truth everyone wanted her to accept: that David Clarke was a loving father, and a terrorist.

Sometimes she'd had the fleeting idea of going to see him, when she got out. To demand why he had destroyed the warm, happy life they had enjoyed together. Why murdering nearly three-hundred innocent people had been more important to him than his own daughter's life.

Dead. He was dead. She had been denied him for nine years while she rotted in foster-care, in Allenwood and similar facilities: Every question she had ever had would remain unanswered. Dead. Dad. Dead.

"Oh," she said softly. Strangely weightless, she didn't know what to make of the way her heart flipped over and her stomach evaporated.

"I'm sorry I had to be the one to tell you, I thought…thought they'd tell you, or…show you the news or something," the guy said, worrying his lip.

"They didn't," she half-whispered. Her father was dead. All over the world, anyone who had lost someone on Flight 197 would be celebrating. And she would have been right there with them, but… But…David Clarke was her dad. Final memory of him aside…he had been a wonderful father; no court-appointed shrink could convince her he hadn't been one. That made the betrayal all the more devastating; and hearing of his death…more unsettling than leaving Allenwood. She did the only thing she could; let her body take over as her mind went blank, and started walking, as if she could flee from the news. "When?"

"April twenty-second," the guy said softly, wincing. She nodded distractedly. Six weeks. After nine years, she had missed him by six weeks. Any chance to demand answers…gone. "You know, it's okay if you don't know how you feel about it." The guy frowned at her, his expression discerning, shrugging his shoulders slightly. "He was your dad, and he loved you more than anything."

"Infinity times infinity," she whispered, blinking slowly, dazed. She blinked, startled to find moisture pooling hotly in her eyes, stinging her sore cheek. She inhaled sharply, shoving the cuff of her hoodie against her eyes. "He was a murderer. Hundreds of people got the justice they were owed when he was killed."

The guy stared at her. "How long did it take them to convince you he's the monster they want everyone to think he was?"

"He was a monster. He preferred killing innocent people to raising his own daughter. He was a terrorist and a liar, and he betrayed his country. He betrayed me."

"That's exactly what they want you to believe," he said fiercely, scowling. She frowned impatiently, as he sighed. "Last time I saw your father, he made me swear to take care of you."

"You're a little late for that," Amanda said quietly, without any accusation in her tone. She had no idea who this guy was, whether he was a friend of her father's - if he was in league with the same terrorist organisation that had orchestrated the bombing of Flight 197 - but it wasn't this guy's fault she had grown into adolescence with no father, no friends, no hope, no safety. No protection from grim realities, no safety from the monsters that preyed on friendless pretty girls who were entirely too trusting - and even the jaded ones who had learned to see betrayal coming a mile off, and fought back viciously.

"I - I know," he said, grimacing guiltily, glancing over his shoulder at the secure gate. "But I - Look, I have something… David gave me something he wanted you to have. Made me promise I'd get it to you; said it's…your future."

"My future?" She scoffed, more hurt than amused. "He destroyed any kind of future for me when he laundered money for terrorists."

"He never did that!" the guy said vehemently, frowning. "If you can look me in the face and tell me he wasn't that wonderful man and father who listened to you practice Beethoven on your cello for hours on end, who helped you pronounce the Latin names of your favourite animals, was there to tuck you in every night after reading to you, and asked about your day and the boy who gave you his green Fruit Gushers at school, and let you stay up late to watch old Fred Astaire musicals cuddling on the sofa because the thunderstorms were always so bad on the coast during Fall, who learned to bake because you missed doing it with your mom after she died, and created thirty-eight mac-n'-cheese recipes because it was all he could cook, the dad who let you put glittery makeup on him and danced around the living-room with you to the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack, and cycled down to the wharf to have crab-dinners..."

"How do you know all that?" Amanda demanded, her throat dry. Beautiful memories of her happy childhood had kept her going, long after she had started to forget her father's face, the sound of his voice, what it felt to be cherished. Safe.

"David was my friend," the guy said simply. He was a lot taller than she was, gangly and earnest, and he kind of crumpled himself up to meet her eye. "Look me in the face and tell me with absolute conviction that your dad was a monster. That you're not the person who believed in his innocence with every fibre of your being… Tell me there wasn't a shred of you that refused to give up on the thought that…he was innocent, and your dad was a good man. The best…"

"What would it matter now? He's dead," she said, surprised when her voice cracked. She pushed down the burning sensation in her throat, at the back of her eyes. She didn't need to start crying in front of this stranger. Emotional exposure led to physical vulnerability; with the SUV crawling behind them, she wasn't in any mood to let her guard down… Not that it would matter to anyone if she did just disappear into the back of someone's SUV and was never heard from again.

"It matters - because you deserve to know that you were loved," the guy said, with such earnestness it hurt. The look in his eyes…like he was surprised she had to ask. "That - that David would never have sacrificed the life he wanted to give you, not for anything. And David deserved for you to know he's innocent, and that you know he loved you more than anything."

"He's dead," she said abruptly, her chest aching strangely. "You don't owe me anything; you didn't have to come here."

"Told you; your dad believed in me when no-one else did," the guy said. "He took me at my word. I took him at his when he tried to tell the world he was innocent."

"So you're not here to write an article or get me on TV to talk about my dead dad, you want me to…what, trust you?"

"It's up to you whether you trust me or not," the guy shrugged. "But your dad trusted me to keep my word about looking after you." Amanda scoffed gently, giving him an apologetic look for being rude. "It's not too late, Amanda. It's never too late to have someone look out for you - I was barely a year older than you are now when I first met David. He changed my life."

"So you want to change my life?" Amanda said dubiously, trying not to scoff. Attitude got her nowhere. He gestured to his driver, who pulled the SUV close.

"That's a little forward," he smirked. "To start with, I'd settle for taking you out to dinner… Whatever you'd like. It is your birthday, after all," he said warmly, tugging the back-passenger door open. Shoulders slightly hunched, his movements at once skittish and enthusiastic, he offered a quick, shy, startlingly handsome smile. "Oh - I'm Nolan."

She glanced from his sincere blue eyes to the hand he offered. He had long, clever fingers, large palms that had never seen a callous, knuckles that had never been split open by someone else's face. There was something hesitant and hopeful in his smile, cautious but sweet, and she found that…she didn't want to be rude to him, didn't want to brush him off… She wanted to know how his faith in her father had never been shaken. And why her father had put his faith in him.

She bit her lip, and found his smile infectious: She wanted to, didn't let herself, but wanted to smile back, and her body compensated for a delicate blush as she shook his hand.

"Hello, Nolan," she said softly, and the transformation of his face when he smiled took her breath away. Suddenly this gangly guy looked incredibly…sweet. Innocent.

Amanda glanced down the road, squinting in the sunshine, the delicate breeze on her neck welcome as the sun beat down, burning the tips of her ears, her nose. She hadn't noticed the heat starting to swelter, making the road shimmer; she glanced down the dusty, isolated road, and bit her lip. She had two choices: To ignore everything Nolan had told her, enticed her with about her father, and keep walking, try to figure out something, start building a life for herself. Or…she could get in the SUV with Nolan. Since she was nine years old she had never had an active part in the decisions made for her own life: now, she had the option. Either way, it was a gamble: Down that lonely road was nothing but uncertainty, or climbing into Nolan's SUV, it was just about the same. Only…she wouldn't be alone.

She had left her only friend inside Allenwood, with ten more months to wait until her own emancipation. Like Nolan, she had made a promise of her own.

Amanda heaved a great sigh, glancing one more time down that barren road, and squinted at Nolan.

"Okay," she said, nodding. That smile grew, and she had to swallow that feeling in her stomach…he looked very handsome when he smiled like that. So sweet and nerdy. Adorable. Sexy as hell.

"You know, you're not exactly the little angel your dad described, Bruiser," Nolan remarked, squinting in the sunlight at her, his lips twitching into a teasing smirk. When he raised his hand to her face, she didn't flinch; his touch was gentle when he curled a finger under her chin, tilting her face to the sunlight so he could better see her swollen eye, the patchy bruise on her cheek, her split lip. "You'll heal okay."

"You know anything about that?"

"Spent half my school years nursing bruises," Nolan shrugged.

"You were bullied," Amanda said, understanding.

"Oh, my school had zero-tolerance for bullying," Nolan said, irony dripping from his tone, but she could see the remembered pain in Nolan's eyes.

"Like you said, I'll heal okay," Amanda told him, on a quiet sigh. "I've had worse." Nolan nodded.

"Birthday gifts from the other girls?"

"They were jealous and angry I was being released today," Amanda shrugged, brushing it off. God knew she'd survived worse beatings - by the skin of her teeth. And she was lucky to have all of those, too.

"You want your real birthday-present? Here," Nolan asked, excited, smiling, and offered his hand to help her climb into the SUV. She caught a breath of his clean, crisp masculine scent as she climbed in, sliding onto cool leather seats. Nolan shut the door on her and scuttled around the SUV to climb in the other side. The A/C was on but not glacial, and she frowned as she put her seatbelt on, hand brushing against a polished wooden box nestled on the middle-seat.

Her stomach turned over, her heart clenched. A double-infinity was inlaid into the top of the box in a different colour wood. Infinity times infinity, her mind whispered. She could no longer remember what her dad's voice sounded like, but she remembered him saying it to her, every single night he tucked her in, every time he left her at school, or went out to one of the fancy parties hosted by their super-rich neighbours. As Nolan climbed into the SUV and buckled himself in, Amanda stared at him.

"Where to, Boss?" the driver asked.

Nolan glanced at Amanda for direction. Her cheeks flushing, she gave him a half-shrug, preventing herself from reaching out and tracing the double-infinity. No-one had asked her what she'd like to eat for nine years, let alone taken her out to dinner.

"Back to the city, Bob," Nolan sighed. He cast Amanda a sidelong look.

"What's this?" she asked, barely moving her lips, her eyes dipping to the double-infinity symbol, the box that was just slightly larger than a shoebox, and beautifully made.

Nolan sighed, glancing down at the box, biting his lip, and then looked into her eyes, shrugging slightly. "It's…from your dad. Happy birthday, Amanda."

She stared at the box as Nolan nudged it toward her, even moving her hand out of the way, preventing herself from touching it, something agitating her skin like a swarm of ants, her stomach turning over and over as her heart burned. She hadn't seen that symbol in nine years. Infinity times infinity, he'd told her; he loved her infinity times infinity. And he had abandoned her to foster-care and institutionalisation, true horrors he could never imagine for his little girl, things she had barely survived and would never escape from. That symbol was a betrayal.

"I - I don't want it," she said softly, barely biting the words out, staring in mingled horror and heartbreak at the symbol inlaid so perfectly in the wooden lid. Her trust in that symbol, in what he'd told her, day after day, only made his betrayal of it that much more painful.

"Oh, no, no, trust me," Nolan said, giving her a stern look. "You definitely do… Every question you ever wanted to ask your father… Don't you owe it to yourself to find out what's inside?"

"Do you know what's inside?" Amanda shot back, and Nolan shrugged nonchalantly.

"Sure. There's a little gift in there from me, too." Amanda frowned, and reluctantly took the box in her lap. It was heavier than she'd anticipated, and the wood was smooth, beautifully tactile, against her fingertips. Dabbing at her bruised lip with her tongue, she hesitantly traced that double-infinity symbol, couldn't even find a seam where the wood had been inlaid it was so smooth. She traced the keyhole, and Nolan handed her a small key; carefully unlocking the box, she lifted the lid, and felt the same way she had when she'd been kicked in the mouth all those years ago.

A photograph of her and her dad, taken at the beach on a sunny warm day, the sun glinting off her windswept strawberry-blonde Shirley Temple curls, making the silver starting to show in her dad's dark-blonde hair glitter, blue-eyed and carefree. She hadn't been more than eight when the photograph was taken, probably by her childhood friend Jack who'd taught her how to sail. She had on a floral sundress and wore pink barrettes pinning her hair from her face, and her dad's top button was undone, his face richly tanned from a long summer spent sailing and cycling and playing with his little girl, taking a sabbatical from work after losing Amanda's mother. She had a skinny arm draped around her dad's shoulders, a sand-dollar in her other hand, and they were both beaming, sun-soaked and happy, the surf bubbling at their feet as her dad squatted beside her.

Amanda couldn't remember the day that photograph was taken: After moving to the Hamptons they had spent all their time walking the beach, swimming in the open water, having clambakes and crab feasts and collecting shells, meandering lazily downtown to borrow books from the wonderful little children's library, taking day-trips to the aquarium and learning to snorkel. To go from those memories, to what had come after…

She resisted the urge to slam the lid shut, pain lancing through her body as her eyes burned, and her hand shook, gripping the lid. She forced herself to look away from the photograph, to the contents of the box, surprised to find it full. She hadn't left Allenwood with anything but the clothing on her back; how had her dad accumulated all this stuff inside Rikers Island?

"My dad made this…" He had always been good with his hands; he had built the porch-swing at their beach house. They used to cuddle on it, wrapped in blankets, watching the sunset and listening to the birds in the trees around their house.

"For you," Nolan murmured, as she ran her fingertips over the spines of over a dozen well-worn little black notebooks, stacked neatly inside, with two cassette-tapes, something tucked inside a leather case, an expensive-looking watch, and loose pieces of paper and old newspaper cuttings folded neatly. There were two crisp new envelopes, one thicker than the other and stamped in the upper-right corner with a company logo, NolCorp; it was unsealed, and had no address. The other envelope had her name written on it.

"What's this?" she asked, picking up the NolCorp envelope, pointedly ignoring the other.

"Open it," Nolan shrugged. She frowned from him to the envelope. NolCorp. Nolan. She opened it, unfolding a wax-sealed document of heavy, official-looking paper watermarked and embossed with the official NolCorp logo, handwritten in crisp, slanting cursive. Her eyes skimmed over the contents of the letter, finding Nolan's signature at the bottom. Nolan Ross. CEO and Founder of NolCorp.

"What is this?" she asked, re-reading the document.

"I told you; David was the original investor in NolCorp. It wouldn't exist without him. Now that you're eighteen, you're forty-nine-percent owner of my company," Nolan said, smiling nonchalantly.

"You're - you own NolCorp? You're… You invented the NolPod thingy?" Amanda said, and Nolan chuckled, his smile rich and self-effacing as he shrugged.

"All my accomplishments boiled down to a single sentence," he sighed, and she could tell he was genuinely amused, not at all insulted, that all she knew about his company was the MP3 players every kid in the developed world wanted for Christmas.

"I'm sorry, I - I don't mean to depreciate your work," Amanda said, flushing, embarrassed. "I just - I only know the name from the other girls talking about them."

"That's okay," Nolan shrugged. "You'll get to learn more." Amanda stared at Nolan, then at the handwritten document.

"You're giving me half your company?" she blurted. She owned half of NolCorp? Even she, who had been institutionalised, neglected, had heard of NolCorp: They were taking over the world with their superior technology and software. First with the elegant desktop computers with superior performance; then the sleek lightweight laptops that left other manufacturers in the dinosaur-age of technology: a subsidiary of NolCorp had developed the software for some of the best video-games out there, and their consoles sold out within an hour of release. And that was all she knew of NolCorp; she had no idea what else they produced, what subsidiaries profited from being swept under the NolCorp umbrella. "You're shitting me."

"You know, I've never understood that expression, but, no, I am not shitting you," Nolan smirked, and his driver chuckled softly as Amanda stared at Nolan. This whole thing was absurd. "Your dad signed some paperwork a few years ago, basically putting me in charge of your cash until you came of age: I took the liberty of opening some accounts, making some smart investments, companies, buying up coveted property etcetera. We can go through it all later, if you want. Oh - and I set up a college fund for you."

Amanda scoffed at that, staring at him in bemusement. "College? Right."

"Amanda - I know that in spite of being locked up in Allenwood with grossly inferior resources not exactly at your disposal, you not only maintained a 4.6 GPA and got a composite score of 1586 on your SATs but you helped a half-dozen other girls get their GEDs," Nolan said. "You're far too smart not to want to pursue higher-education. You like learning too much not to have wished you could go to college. I'm just here to tell you that you can." Amanda cleared her throat. She had always loved to read, to learn, and she was brighter than people gave her credit for. No matter how smart she was, people looked at her and saw a delinquent.

She was a survivor. She made normal people uneasy; she had endured what they could never imagine.

"I…wouldn't know where to start," she admitted begrudgingly.

"I'll help you," Nolan said gently. She glanced over at him, and didn't break eye-contact when he raised his blue-grey eyes to hers. There was such gentle sincerity in his voice, his eyes were guileless, and she couldn't help but want to believe in his honesty. It had been a long time since she had met someone so genuine. She was lucky Warden Stiles had taken an interest in seeing her flourish outside of Allenwood; otherwise she would have had little concept of people believing in her.

"Oh. Here." Nolan grabbed something from under his seat, handing her a clear plastic box, a shiny orangey-yellow bow on the top.

"What's this?" she asked, removing the bow to reveal an etched N on the lid, opening the box. Inside was one of the sleek MP3 players other teenagers were going nuts for, with a dial and a glossy screen.

"Prototype NolPod Video with touch-sensitive dial. 8G storage. Battery time will last two feature-length movies, but we're working on improving that," Nolan said, smiling. "I already downloaded a bunch of albums on there for you, some TV shows. What do you like to watch? We're working on contracts with different distributors to sell through NolPort. WB's being possessive. Shame. Can't fanboy over the Winchester brothers on the move. Probably for the best. And Jo Rowling won't let us have Harry. Down-to-earth lady, though; I like her. Disney's playing hard-to-get but they've let us have Marvel. But I did get your favourites."

"And what are those?"

"Labyrinth. You did hear about Bowie, right?! Secret Garden; Little Women - the Winona version - anything Fred Astaire," Nolan smiled at her, and Amanda stared. "I'm a Rita guy, more so than Ginger, though she got all the press. But then, Marilyn surpassed Lauren… I guess blondes do have all the fun…"

"You…you didn't have to do that…thank you," Amanda said.

It was her first birthday gift in nine years.

"Have a play, see how you like it. I'm very interested to know your thoughts," Nolan said, shrugging nonchalantly.

"I've…not listened to music in a while," Amanda confessed.

"Go ahead. We've got a good long drive ahead of us. I need to make some calls anyway," Nolan said, shrugging, sprawling in his seat, digging out his phone. Amanda gave him a sidelong look, and carefully lifted the NolPod from its case, a neatly-coiled set of in-ear earphones underneath with a small glossy information packet and a cable to charge it.

The screen burst to life as she touched her thumb hesitantly to the touch-sensitive dial, the colours vibrant and crystal-clear, album covers drifting past. She had never used an MP3 player before; her CD Walkman had been a prized possession. But the NolPod was…well, an MP3 for Dummies. Even she could use it. She selected 'Music', frowning at the ticking noise the dial seemed to be making as she scrolled through each album in the Genre subfolder.

"I don't like the ticky noise," she confessed honestly to Nolan, who was watching her expectantly. Bob the driver chuckled softly, and Nolan sort of rolled his eyes, before leaning in, to show her how to get to 'Settings' to turn off the annoying cicada ticking noise, adjusting the brightness of the screen so she didn't burn her retinas if she accidentally nudged it in the middle of the night. Within a few minutes, she was fluent, and she chose to play the Classical albums on shuffle.

While Nolan sighed over the phone, she placed the earphones in her ears, surprised they were comfortable, and sat listening, fiddling with the second unopened envelope.

Finally, she forced herself to flip it over, running her fingers over her father's signature over the seal. Nolan conspicuously turned away as she opened the letter, leaving her to read what her father couldn't have known would be his final words to her in privacy.

A.N.: So, I've changed their meeting and Amanda's characterisation. For starters I don't see how Amanda went from a curly strawberry-blonde kid to a teenager with stick-straight nearly-black hair who's been in juvie for three years! And she's too smart not to know a bad attitude would get her nowhere, raised too well with too much compassion. Instead of a fire-starter, the Amanda of my imagination has a different, brutal history. And I think the little kid Amanda would have been delighted by the gangly, self-effacing, awkward young-Nolan, and would recognise a good person when she saw one.

I've created a Pinterest board called 'Revenge - Justice - Amily' if you're interested; in my head, Emily's style is inspired by the airy outfits worn by Jed in The Night Manager, which I would definitely recommend watching. And I'd like to think Amanda had an innate nerdness that would've bonded her with Nolan: so I've given Emily a bit of a nerdy side that allows Nolan to really relax and be himself around her.

And Nolan's the inventor of a combination of the best parts of the iPods/Pads, Samsung phones, Microsoft Surface Studio desktops all mixed together in MP3, tablet and phone form - and more besides.