Dr. Hopper observed silently as Emma walked into his office. She removed her coat and hung it in the exact same spot she has every week for the past three months.
She nods at him in greeting and takes the exact same spot on his couch that she has every week. She looks down, running her thumb over her wedding ring, twist it over and over.
"Emma, how are you feeling today?" he asks after ten minutes of silence.
She looks up at him, startled as if she forgot he was there. As if she forgot she was there. She clears her throat, stalling, delaying having to answer.
She goes back to fiddling with her ring, after a few unsuccessful tries to come up with an answer. He sighed, placing a hand over hers, stilling her movement.
"Emma," he exhaled. "You have to talk about it," he coaxed.
She simply continued to stare at him, her eyes dull, lifeless. Weary. "Emma," he repeated, almost pleading.
She closed her eyes, as if to hide the sudden pain that flashed in her eyes. He barely caught a glimpse of it, before they disappeared behind her lids. Finally, she uttered her first words to him in three months. "I-uh-I had a dream," she stated, going back to twisting her ring around her finger.
"Tell me about it," he encouraged, leaning back in his chair, giving her the space he knew she needed.
"Ki-We were walking on a street. It was-It was deserted, completely empty," she began, her voice rough from disuse. Clearing her throat she continued. "The street was lined with cherry blossoms. The sun was setting. It was very," she swallowed. "very beautiful."
As he continued to stare at her in silence, she threaded her hands together, trying to keep them from trembling. "Ki-He was with me. He was holding my hand. I remember this part very well, because it was his left hand. And he didn't have his left hand. But it felt normal. In the-in the dream, it felt normal, and real, as if he was really there," she rambled, her mind a muddle of what was real and what was not as she lost herself in her memory.
Dr. Hopper chose to remain quiet. He doubted that she would notice him anyway. Despite the many sessions she'd attended, this is the first time she ever said a word.
"We were happy, just like we were before he-" she stopped abruptly, her breath hitching. She raised a hand to her face when she realised she was crying. The surprise was clear on her face, as she hurriedly swiped at them. "I have to go," she whispered brokenly, already standing up.
"Emma, wait!" he called after her. She stopped, but didn't turn around, waiting for him to say his piece, already knowing what he was going to say. But his next words took her by surprise. "It's been six months. He wouldn't want this for you."
Her throat closed up as more tears threatened to fall. Even as she cried herself to sleep every night, she seemed to have a fresh batch of tears, just waiting to spill. She bit her lip to the point of bleeding before she answered him, looking over her shoulder. "Well, Archie, he's not here now, is he?"
With that, she left the room, grabbing her coat on the way. He sighed deeply, as he sat back in his chair in defeat.
If anyone had walked by his office building, they would have seen a blonde haired woman crying her heart out in her yellow beetle, mourning the love she'd lost.
If they'd waited and followed her, they would have seen her drop off a bouquet of red roses near a gravestone marked: Killian Jones. Husband. Friend. Father.
And if they waited a little longer, they would see her drive to the town line, stopping right before she crossed it.
They would see her get out and lean against the hood of her car. They would see her pull out a worn flask, fingering its frayed leather cover, opening the cap and smelling it. But she doesn't take a drink. She never takes a drink.
They would see her leave after a few minutes.
But what they wouldn't know was that she was dying inside, reliving the exact moment her life stopped having any meaning in it. The moment when she lost all hope. The moment when her husband had been shot, bleeding as she held him in her arms, crying, screaming, begging him to hold on.
She relived that moment every minute of everyday, seeing the light fade out from his eyes every time she closed her eyes, his whispered I love you lingering in the air, as if he were still there, next to her.
But no one followed her that night. No one heard her whisper to the wind, "I miss you, Killian."