A/N: Thank you Lane for betaing :)
"What happened to Carl? We liked him."
Emma scoffed at her parents as her and Will stood in their doorway. She had just introduced Will, her boyfriend to them and that was their response?
"Mom," she sighed. "This is Will, Will Schuester. My new boyfriend. Carl and I-we split up. We got an annulment. I told you guys we were having trouble." Emma looked over at Will apologetically. He smiled in response.
"Yes Ems, but I thought you'd work it out," her mom said. "And an annulment, you said?"
Before Emma's mom could fully process that, her dad, which had been staring at Will pretty intently said, "Schuester, did you say? Wasn't that the name of the guy you called crying about? The one who had been cheating?" Emma's dad glared even harder at Will. Emma could hear Will gulp.
She rarely had told her parents about her love life, mostly because it was non-existent, but she remembered calling them the night shortly after she'd yelled at Will in the cafeteria. She'd spent most of the night crying. She'd spent many nights in the past crying over Will, but this was different. Instead of crying over not being able to have him, she was crying about not even wanting to have him anymore and was moreso mourning the loss of the guy she thought he was. This was one of the perfect times to call her mom, but her dad was actually the first to pick up the phone. Emma gulped herself. Something like that isn't easily forgiven by a father. It was definitely going to be hard to win him over. Her mom too from the looks of it, she noted as she looked over and saw her mom glaring now as well.
"Will's made some mistakes dad, yes. But we've gotten past it. We hope that you two can as well," she looked over at Will to see that they were united in that statement.
"I just want you guys to know that I love your daughter," Will finally spoke up. "I know I really messed up, but I do love your daughter and I'd love for the opportunity to prove that to both of you."
Emma's dad kept his reluctant expression, but her mom softened a little. "I'll give you a chance William, but I did rather like Carl. He was as close to perfect as I've ever seen, besides my Roger here of course," she smiled at Emma's dad. "Come inside please. No sense in you all standing in the threshold all day."
Over the course of Will and Emma's visit to her parents, not much changed. The glare appeared frozen to Emma's dad's face even after she explained that April was a misunderstanding. He just didn't like Will and neither Will or Emma felt that was changing anytime soon. As far as her mom, she would never stop talking about Carl: about how nice he was, how polite he was, Emma was starting to wonder if her mother was more in love with Carl than she ever was. But all of the mentions of Carl did get Emma thinking. She started to realize that at the time of her and Carl's courtship maybe she had taken him for granted.
She thought about how much he had helped her. Before he came into her life, she was still eating out of plastic containers and using gloves, but Carl, who happened to be recovering from OCD himself showed her that eating without the gloves was okay. There was nothing on the utensils that would cause her any harm to the touch. He'd also taken her to see Rocky Horror which had happened to be his favorite film. It soon became hers as well. He'd also marvel at all of her achievements. She thought back to how Will had belittled her grape mixing. Maybe he just didn't get it. Emma was now seeing a therapist regularly. Carl had actually encouraged it once they were deciding to split. He had actually apologized to her for not being able to fully help her himself. She appreciated the suggestion, but at the time she thought that he was just making a crack at the fact that she wasn't able to be intimate with him. But maybe he was being sincere.
She brushed that aside. It would have been nice at the time for her to have appreciated Carl, but it was too late for that. She had Will now. She'd always wanted Will. She just wished her family could let Carl go and let go of their prejudices and accept Will. However, the anti-Will campaign only continued once Emma's brother Joe came to visit. He'd only met Carl once, but they seemed to have gotten along. "Where's Carl," he'd asked as he was greeted at the door by Emma. He could see Will sitting on the couch behind Emma. "And who's the new guy, Ems?"
Emma kind of grimaced at the nickname. For her whole life her family had called her Em, like Will does, but they hear Carl call her Ems a few times and all of a sudden they're all doing it. She probably wouldn't have minded it if there weren't already so many Carl memories floating around. She was beginning to think that coming down here with Will was a bad idea. Maybe she should have sweetened them up to him first or something.
"Carl is-" she began to explain.
"I'm Will," Will said as he got off the couch and made his way over to the doorway. He offered out his hand for Joe to shake.
Joe took his hand at once. "Nice to meet you Will," he looked over at Emma smiling. "Ems, you must really like that name huh? I remember dad telling me before about some lowlife named Will who broke your heart."
"I'm that lowlife," Will said, almost trying to be comical. He really wanted someone in this family to like him.
The smile on Emma's brother's face left at that comment. He stared at Will with a face almost identical to the one that Emma's dad had been sporting. His grip on Will's hand even tightened a little until Will yanked it away once he started to feel pain. Ever since Joe had accidentally pushed Emma into the runoff lagoon when they were kids, he had been very protective of Emma and that protectiveness was showing at full force now as Emma noted Joe's uneasiness. She looked over at Will apologetically. He was shaking his hand back and forth to get back circulation. She rolled her eyes in annoyance.
With only a few days left in their trip Emma thought it best to just ask both her mom and dad why they didn't like Will. She didn't see anything he did as unforgivable. At the time she certainly had felt that way, but even before she knew the truth about April, she had already started to forgive him. Will had just always felt like the one. The person she was supposed to be with. She had tried to deny that with Carl but eventually just couldn't. She just wished her family could realize that Will was the right guy for her despite his mistakes.
She decided to have a heart to heart with her mom. Her dad was pretty dead set against Will. She hoped her mom could possibly help her with her dad. They took a seat on the porch.
"So what did you want to talk to me about dear?" her mom smiled. She seemed as if she thought that there was nothing going on that needed discussion.
"Mom, why don't you like Will," Emma started. "Yes he's made mistakes, but that was in the past. He loves me mom and I love him. Yes he's not Carl, but so what? He's who I want to be with."
Her mother inhaled deeply. "Emma," she began. "why is it that you want to be with Will? Have you ever really thought about that? Have you ever thought that maybe you've painted this perfect picture of who you think he is and because you've had that image of him for so long that you're trying to make him something more than he is?"
Emma processed this. She knew that that was the case before but certainly not now. For four years she'd had a crush on Will and saw him as the epitome of perfect. He was her dream guy. Part of what crushed her so about April and Shelby had been the fact that she had to come to terms with the fact that that wasn't who he really was. Her and Will had been going out for a few months now. Maybe at least a part of her was just holding on to that perfect image of him.
She remained silent as her mom continued. "Emma, Carl was a nice guy. He loved you. You say that your marriage ended in annulment? It wasn't even consummated?"
Emma shamefully shook her head.
"And why was that," her mom inquired. "You were married for months."
"I don't know mom," Emma said sincerely. "I loved Carl, I did, but a part of me that whole time we were together still loved Will. It just didn't feel right to have sex with him."
"But it felt right to marry him," her mom asked in dismay. "I don't know where you got your views on marriage, but you certainly didn't get them from me."
Emma looked down. She knew in her heart that her mom was right. It had been a mistake to marry Carl, not if she wasn't prepared to be a good wife to him and not while she still had feelings for somebody else.
"I thought if I didn't marry him he'd leave me," she lifted her head up.
"So you still had feelings for Will, but you didn't want to lose Carl either," her mom gathered. "So is that what this is? You think you've finally decided and that choice is Will?"
"Well yeah," said Emma, not very confidently.
Her mom shook her head. "I'm not so sure Emma. I think you need time to figure out what you want. And you need to realize that Will isn't this white knight. He's a human. He will disappoint you. It's only natural. Carl helped you through a lot of your OCD. I see you now and you are a completely different person than you once were. You wouldn't have even sat on this porch before," she laughed. "Not only that but he loved you Emma. He loved you with all of his heart. I can see that. And he was a good man Emma. You have to ask yourself why isn't that enough."
Emma nodded at her words. Her mom stood to leave her in thought but first, "And you need to stop jumping into marriage Emma. If it's for any reason other than love, then it's the wrong reason."
Emma smiled. She loved how her mom saved that for last to make sure that it was given the top priority. She knew she was right though. "Thank you mom," she looked up at her. "for everything."
Emma sat on the porch and thought long and hard about what her mom had said. Maybe she was right. Maybe she didn't really love Will, but just the idea of him. The question for her now was if who Will really was better than Carl. She honestly didn't know the answer to that and wasn't sure how it could be found.
At the end of the trip she decided that her and Will needed a break. She wasn't officially breaking up with him but she just needed more time to think, without being in a relationship. She didn't want to make the same mistake twice. Will understood. It would make sense for her to still have unresolved feelings for Carl. He'd give her all of the time she needed, and if in the end she decided that he wasn't who she wanted, he'd learn to be okay with that.
Months went by before Emma finally felt comfortable with her decision. She picked up her phone and dialed her choice.
After a few rings her call was answered. "Hello," said the man on the receiving end.
"Carl, I'd like to talk to you please. Can you come over?"