The tea was hot.
Emma pursed her lips and put the cup back on the table, quickly replacing it with one of the ice cold glasses of water the waiter had left for them. It was refreshing, but she could already feel the sting on her tongue react to the slight hint of lemon in the water.
"Am I boring you Emma?"
"No, no of course not, go on Captain… I mean Commander."
"Sharon," she corrected. "I'm not working anymore remember?"
"Yeah, sorry it's still hard to get used to."
Sharon picked up her tea and drank it unaffected by its temperature. Emma looked at her curiously and Sharon in turn just tilted her head and raised a slightly mischievous eyebrow at the other woman, before becoming serious again.
"The victim can't speak Emma, your job and my job was to speak for them."
"I know that Sharon, but it's a little hard when the accused is painting our victim as the villain. He's louder, has influence and frankly I can't shut him up."
Sharon laughed, and Emma smiled uncomfortably.
"I'm not laughing at you Emma," she replied, straightening her posture and becoming the more refined and serious Sharon Raydor Emma had been used to. "He's a joke, this situation isn't."
"So what do you suggest?"
"Keep talking. Keep others talking, don't let anyone forget the victim's name. He may be loud, but he's still one man, and despite the seeming support he has, he's still his loudest voice. Others came forward didn't they?"
"Yes, but we don't have enough evidence in their cases to prosecute."
"It doesn't matter, the pressure of knowing that there are others might make a difference."
Emma had considered this before, but the victims she had encountered had been through too much to put them through anything else.
"Not everyone wants to talk about it, some of them just want to forget."
Sharon looked thoughtfully at the younger woman before thanking the waiter who refilled their drinks.
"What about the ones who can't forget?"
Emma thought about them, the angry ones, the upset ones, the ones that were questioning their own judgement and beliefs. They all had names, there was Hayley, Maria, Sarah, the taller Maria who had stayed in her office well into the evening telling her story, and there was Jonathan, Karen and another girl whose name she always mispronounced and felt awful for it every time - Siobhan.
"They come to my office. Some of them cry, some of them just stare at my desk and give me a word or two before apologising and leaving. Others are controlled, and they are the ones I worry about. They're too stiff in the face, too distant - every action that they describe seems clinical to them, like it's not a part of them anymore, but when I look down I can see how their nails dig into their hands. They leave marks on themselves."
Sharon reached her hand across the table to Emma's. She had noticed in the time it took Emma to describe the victims, she had also been digging her nails into her hands. As Sharon's hand laid on Emma's she gently loosened the grip between Emma's hands and pulled one of them into her own.
"We can't always speak for the pain we carry, sometimes it's because it's too hard, there's too much to risk, or our voice has been taken away. For every voice that's taken away another one has to step in, and that's where you come in. Keep it in the media, keep people talking - don't let anyone forget what he's done."
"And if I don't win?" Emma asked, trying in vain to keep her voice from trembling.
"Then keep talking about it, and about the next case, and the next, eventually the law will catch up."
Emma had forgotten about the tea that burnt her tongue. Right now she was too concerned about the tear on her cheek, and the next one she felt brewing.
"You know I always admired you, but for some reason I felt like I wasn't allowed to."
"You still can," Sharon replied letting go of her hand and picking up her tea again.
Emma smiled and shook her head at the woman in front of her, "I guess I can allow myself that."
Sharon put the tea down again and straightened her jacket. Emma noticed as she did this, the sun hit her hair in a way that lit an aura behind her. Every dark tress of hair was brightened and changed to a golden hue of red that Emma remembered Sharon having the first time she met her - she looked like an angel, and it made Emma feel cold. Before the feeling could sink in Sharon took her hand again.
"We don't all get a voice Emma, and he shouldn't forget, because… because they can't."