It was a level of fear she had never felt before, all consuming, torrid and blistering through her tender and vulnerable veins. It seized her with a grip so powerful, the disbelief of the reality spinning her sideways and tilting the world on its axis. It wasn't true. It couldn't be. She had been so careful, so prepared, no detail left to chance. Except this. Emily wondered how she had let things get so out of control and tried to place the night of her costly mistake. She couldn't draw on it, like her mind was blocking out the night that would cost her everything.

Daniel.

She blamed him in his entirety. Daniel, with his kind eyes and soft words, ever the distraction. Emily wondered how she had let herself get so invested, so involved, so careless that she had forgotten for one night. One night. It's all it had taken. And now she was pregnant. Worse still that her child was a Grayson. Would share the blood of those who had ruined and betrayed every ounce of innocence that once bled through her veins.

She had known for months, months of convincing herself to end it, to have it all be over as if it never existed, to move onwards to the rest of her carefully laid plans. But there was always a small part of her, a soft and gentle voice in the back of her mind, slowly coaxing the thought to the front of her mind that this baby could be her salvation. Her way out. She could leave, start a new life away from the Graysons, just her and her child, and be there in all the ways she was so cruelly deprived of.

But Emily Thorne did not know how to give up.

Without her greatly laid plans for revenge, she had nothing. Was nothing. It had defined her for so long that she didn't know who she was without it. The thought of giving it all up was almost more terrifying than becoming a mother. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Emily pushed herself from the cocoon she had created on her couch and went to stand in the cool air drifting off the ocean. She leaned, arms crossed over the solid wood that had stood the stand of time, of betrayal, of the thousands of secrets created and harboured within its walls. Absentmindedly her fingers found the carving, faded with the salt of the sea, and traced its edges, the symbol a sense of calm and reason within her fractured mind.

"Aren't you cold?"

He kept his distance, a fitting tribute to the state of their fragile relationship, the expanse filled with a tension that suffocated her.

She allowed the briefest of smiles. "Not really."

He crossed the threshold to her, hands stinging with the urge to reach out and touch her, wrap her in the warmth of his embrace, coax from her the secrets he knew she was keeping. But instead he crossed his arms over the same banister she rested her weight on, allowing the fabric of his shirt to gently graze against the bare skin of her arm, not daring to touch her further.

"I saw your lights from the house. Can't sleep?"

She kept her eyes from him, fearing the weakness of her resolve. "Not really. You?"

He shook his head and she turned to see his response, eyes alight with her presence.

"I hope it's okay that I stopped by?"

She could hear the uncertainty in his voice, the hollow absolution of their nonexistent union, feel the ghost of the ring she had once worn as a token of his love. With a reaction that occurred more from reflex than careful thought, Emily reached out and placed the tips of her fingers against the hard curve of his arm.

"Of course it is, Daniel."

He turned, body facing hers, unsure if he could fight the urge to touch her much longer; moved closer, breath hot and longing against her cheek flushed with cold. She swallowed, sense flooding back into the warm parts of her that had become overwhelmed by his presence.

"I, um-"

He could see her hesitation written into the lines of her face, carefully guarding her protected heart, and stepped back. Regret branded her like a hot iron and hesitant hands carefully guarded over the secret within her.

"Daniel, I -"

"It's fine," he said with a start. "I shouldn't have come by like this."

"No, it's not -" She stopped, lost for words, consumed with indecision and self deprecation. She was overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by her desire for him, still hot within her veins like kindling to fire, by the still surreal fact that they were going to be parents to a child he didn't know existed.

"I just need some time."

He wore his face like a mask, hiding his desire and longing for her behind a façade of plaster and calm, and nodded. "Of course."

Running a hand through the length of his hair, he turned and walked the length of her deck, silently begging her to call after him. But she never did. She let him walk, quiet and without a fight, back out of the life he didn't know he had such a big place in.

RR

"Did you tell him?" No hello left his mouth.

"No."

"Ems!" Exasperation filled him. "You're going to start showing soon! You can't just keep pretending this doesn't exist. I mean, I don't want to pressure you or anything, I realize this is a huge decision, but you can't hide forever."

Emily sighed, fingers tracing the spot that once was home to her engagement ring. "I know that, Nolan."

"Ems." He took his spot beside her, hand stroking soothing lines into the fabric of her arm. "What are you going to do?"

She took a composing breath, breathing in the weight of her decision before allowing it to become something of substance.

"I think I need to leave."

The force of her words knocked Nolan's hand from her arm. "Leave? Leave and go where?"

Emily shook her head. "I don't know. Anywhere but here. Nolan, if I want to keep this baby, if I want it to grow up with stability and warmth and love, I can't do any of that anywhere near the Graysons. They can't have any part in this baby's life. I won't let them ruin it the way they ruined me."

"Emily, the Graysons did not ruin you. They may have shaped your future, but you are strong, and you are tough, and you are the bravest person I have ever met. Are you sure you can do it though? Leave behind everything you've worked so hard for and give it all up to start a family on your own? What about Daniel?"

These were all the same questions she had asked herself time and time again as she came to terms with her pregnancy, with the reality of the new life she was about to face. "Daniel is a Grayson. Nothing can change that."

Nolan didn't know if she was trying to convince him or herself.