Ema dreamt a little too much. Her deepest fears and desires came to her embedded in REM waves, translucent and barely out of reach.

It was a congregation of science and art, but she hated it all the same.

She dreamt of homicide and of crushed families taking the stand in court; as always, she was there with her well-crafted mask of ice, barriers of stone barricading her.

She was safe. (She thought.)

She was strong. (Until the defenses shatter.)

She was powerful. (Until she was killed, just like them.)

They had met – truly met – under pressing circumstances, suddenly being assigned to the same homicide case when they were both accustomed to working alone.

They kept their distance – as much distance as they could keep in such a situation, anyway. Their conversations were curt, their interactions brief. Everything was perfectly fine.

That, of course, was until some strange chain of reactions had been set off between the chemicals in her brain, and some unexplained emotion increased in intensity every time those chemicals reacted. Facilitated by time, that emotion began to consume her until nearly all rational thought was banished from her mind.

"These are yours," she said, dropping a thick, intimidating stack of papers on his desk. "Fill those out and bring them back to me by tomorrow morning."

Without looking up from his report or missing a beat, he laughed and told her, "It's always business with you, isn't it, Skye?"

Rolling her eyes and folding her arms, she scowled and turned away.

"That's all it should be, Mr. Crescend."

She would go home, skip the shower and crawl into bed with a t-shirt and underwear, hoping that dreams wouldn't visit her that night. She wasn't blessed with that luck.

Dreams are rational, she tried to tell herself. They were proven to exist. They were backed up by science. REM waves and electrophysiological states of sleep – they are the parents of dreams, forging something scientific that will never be understood by scientists.

She slept and dreamt of betrayal.

Looking back, she wouldn't say that entirely resisted. If she could stay rational, if she could keep herself afloat and rise above these obscene feelings, then she would be fine.

It was difficult when he had the gall to enable her.

She would be in her office, face buried in paperwork, and she wouldn't hear (or see, miraculously) him saunter in – and, like the bastard he was, he would look over her shoulder and stay like that until she noticed and consequentially squawked in surprise.

"Are you stupid or something? Do you get sick enjoyment out doing this?" she screeched, swiveling around to face him. He cleverly dodged her swats at him with a dangerously thick folder, laughing and waving his hand.

"Don't get your underwear in a twist, girlie. It's not like I was about to stick a knife in your neck."

Swiveling back to her original position, she didn't think anything of that statement at the time.

How stupid she was, indeed.

There had been no clever method of courtship. It wasn't anything particularly memorable.

(And yet, that's what had made it so memorable in the first place.)

She was awkward, of course; she had never done this before. She struggled to find a dress to wear and, knowing Maya had come down from Kurain to visit Phoenix, called on her old friend for last minute advice.

"You're finally putting yourself out there, are you? That's great!" she had said as she twirled through the doorway and flopped onto the sofa. "I was kind of scared that you wouldn't even try, especially with that attitude of yours."

Her cheeks were tinted red – (from all the running around and all of the fuss, really) – and her hair was disheveled, a brown tumbleweed plopped ungracefully upon her head.

"Yeah, well, if that's what you want to believe. I don't even like this guy that much."

Tugging on her ear, Maya smirked and told her, "Oh, is that so? Who managed to sweep you off your feet, anyway?"

Withdrawing slightly, she couldn't find the words. She was aware of three things, of three things only

- Daryan Crescend
- Detective
- Friends with the fop

and they weren't telling about him as a person (save for maybe the last fact).

With a sage smile and an intimate stroking of the aforementioned tumbleweed, Maya's whispers rang (loud and true) through the room:

"Don't be so guarded, just for one night. One night, and that's all."

Against her instinct, she smiled ever so slightly in return.

(Foul words and frowns must not repel a lover;
What though the rose have prickles, yet 'tis plucked
—so wrote the wise Shakespeare.)

That night, and that night alone, she had felt a strange mutation of awkwardness, disdain, and childish exhilaration.

(It's almost as if she's experiencing adolescence a few years too late.)

He appeared in front of her apartment building, dressed in jeans and a trashy t-shirt, and she remembers feeling an acute sense of embarrassment. His hair was down, out of that ridiculous thing that vaguely resembled a pompadour

(what? did it honestly make him feel like he was incognito or something?)

and she promptly looked away, wondering if changing was a viable option at that point.

"You got all dressed up for a stupid thing like this? Now I feel bad."

"Maybe it's your fault for not being specific about what we're even doing tonight."

"Are all women as goddamn nosy as you?"

"Are all men as pompous as you?"

"Ouch, girlie. That was cold."

An awkward silence ensues before she shuffles her feet and says, "Look, if –"

"Jesus Christ, will you quit it? Just follow me."

"Your idea of a date is going to the park at eight in the evening? You're kidding, right?"

"Well, we can just go straight to my place and get it over wi—"

"No."

He laughed, but her scowl didn't falter. The ensuing silence somehow felt more intimate and revealing than what words could ever convey.

Her eyes were still focused on the sky as she swung her feet underneath the bench.

"Let me ask you something," he said, and she knew that it wasn't an indicator of good news.

"Go ahead."

"Your sister was the chief prosecutor once upon a time, right?"

Shit. Why did he have to bring that up? Was he really so stupid to believe that she wasn't touchy about it?

(She could already feel her defenses begin to crack, and she couldn't be exposed, not now, not here, not in front of him.)

"So what if she was?"

His eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "She gave everything just so that you wouldn't get nailed for something you didn't do, huh?"

"…She did. She really did," she said quietly, dryly.

"Well, you don't look like the type who'd go out and kill someone, no matter the circumstances."

"Why? Does a killer have a set profile?"

He shifted uncomfortably and said, "I guess not."

A few moments of silence passed and he looked up, scrutinizing the stars as she was. "You're an enigma, you know that? You just showed up one day, just like that, and – well, it's not like everyone didn't know your name. They just never knew who you were."

Her hands balled into fists and she bit down on her lip to hold down a scathing remark, because she knew that he was right – he was so right, and it was painful. No one knew who she was.

And no one ever bothered to try and find out.

For the first time in what seemed like that entire evening, she tentatively turned her head to look at him, and, sensing her gaze fixated on him, he turned to face her.

"So what are you trying to do now, Daryan? Are you doing this to sate your own curiosity?"

"…I wouldn't say that. Not entirely, anyway. Look, it doesn't matter why."

"It does matter, though! Do you honestly expect me to let you – let you in, or something, when I don't even know what you're after?"

(for a fleeting moment, she swore that his smile was genuine, and that was the only moment she trusted him despite the words that eventually followed)

"Only if you'll let me, princess."

He extended his hand, and goddamn her, she took it.

Her face was stern as she said, "You promise to stay, right?"

"Well, we'll see about that."

She trusted him, and she would tell him that much later, when the crime(s) had been committed and the tears were shed on behalf of a person that she didn't even love.

She watched that trial with her breath barely escaping her lips, and the possibility of him being guilty did not pass her mind (selectively, of course.)

Those nights were the worst nights of her life.

She thrashed in her bed and could not purge the (likely) scenario of him being found guilty from her dreams.

"Why? Does a killer have a set profile?"

She had been so stupid. She had believed that despite his detached tendencies, he would never do anything like that.

Did he even mean a word he said to her? Was it sweet talk? Was it just a lie to see her in her most vulnerable state?

She called him in the middle of the night, uncharacteristically frantic and hysterical.

"Jesus, Ema, what happened?"

"You – you didn't do it, right? You didn't kill him, did you?"

She was met with a silence that kept a firm grip over her heart, and she felt the bile rising in her throat.

"You didn't, right?"

"You called me at this goddamn hour just to ask that? Are you crazy?"

"Answer the question!"

There was inaudible muttering on the other end and her heart sank. She was ready to hang up before she heard him, and she almost felt that she would have been better off if she hadn't.

"I didn't kill him, okay? Stop eating so much before bed and maybe you won't have those insane nightmares."

His voice was so raw, so malicious that she didn't recognize him. She heard the dial tone and promptly hung up, leaning her head against the wall.

"You are such a fool, Daryan," she murmured to herself, laughing bitterly.

She screamed into the darkness, cursing her naïveté.

(Fortune's fool, indeed.)

She surprised herself by being calm when she saw him in prison, but that wall of glass punctuated the sentence that they had both received.

"So you did lie to me, after all."

His arms were folded across his chest and he looked more tired than he had any right to.

"Just tell me one thing; did you plan on killing him when you first met me?"

"No. I can tell you that much."

That statement disappointed her much more than she thought it would, but at least he was honest.

"You never looked like the kind of guy who would kill a man, Mr. Crescend."

She rose to leave and she saw that his expression had morphed into something vaguely resembling desperation, an appeal to an admiration that simply wasn't there anymore.

"Ema—"

"What gives you the right to call me that? I'm Miss Skye now, okay?"

She left feeling as though a burden was lifted off her shoulders.

(And that still did not change the fact that she still dreamt of him, his transgressions, and his empty promises that she still held so dear to her soul.)