Disclaimer: I don't own Revenge. Just borrowing the characters. A bit spoilery for 3x22.
She strode down the corridors of the hospital. As she walked, the truth rang in her ears – she was Amanda Clarke.
Except she wasn't, because she was Emily Thorne.
She left the hospital, returning home to an anxious Nolan, giving no answer as she shrugged off her coat and hung it on the hook. It was done. Victoria had suffered the same fate as Kara, her father's name was cleared, and Emily could finally say she'd finished what she'd set out to do.
"Victoria's now institutionalized, diagnosed as psychotic," she told Nolan. He raised his glass to her, decanting red wine into a second glass for her.
A few glasses later he retired for the guest room, and she remained on the couch. The curtains fluttered in the breeze, an apt visualization of the thoughts swirling in her head. Triumph warred with grief over Aiden, mingling with sorrow and disappointment that her father hadn't lived long enough to see his name cleared.
Below the surface, not much further down, was the guilt over what she'd done to Charlotte. The end justifies the means, Machiavelli had said, but she'd terrorized her sister and dragged Jack into her revenge plan.
Was this what it meant to be Amanda Clarke?
Nearly a decade ago she'd left Amanda behind, promising money to Emily and collecting the necessary documents to pull off the deception. She'd created her Emily persona and worn it so well, for so long, that she was starting to forget being Amanda. Surely her father would not recognize her now.
Now, it dawned on her that it would not simply be a case of signing a marriage certificate as Amanda. To get back to that girl she'd once been, she would surely have to change her principles and morals again, having had to skew her perception of good and bad to set her on her path years ago.
She didn't look forward to un-skewing them, assured of how ingrained things had become. A less vengeful person might flinch away from keeping a gun or having a computer-genius friend hack into national databases, but such things had become normal for her.
She stared at her reflection, considering who she'd been back when people called her Amanda. Loving and caring, she was sure of it – though hadn't she been these things as Emily? Hadn't she, after all, accepted Aiden's proposal and meant it? Hadn't she grieved honestly when she found his corpse on her couch? She wondered what he'd seen in her those few times to call her Amanda.
Nolan too had only called her by the name a few rare times, and she'd forced him to stop it early on.
The truth of it was twisted, bent out of shape by a woman thought to be psychotic and her own papers. And yet it was true that Emily Thorne was dead, and Amanda Clarke was alive. Perhaps this meant she was a dead girl walking. She smirked fleetingly at her own macabre humour, sobering when she considered that she'd sent a sane woman to be treated for a feigned illness and that there would no doubt be a price to pay.
The mirror showed her reflection, tired and worn. Suddenly glimpses of Amanda shone through, the tattoo on her wrist and the resilience she felt at having faced down an enemy and arising as the victor, as she'd done so often before. The fresh determination that rose to the surface as she recalled once before planning to give up revenge for a new, happier life was familiar too. It hadn't worked back then, but it might this time. The fights she'd fought could be symbolised in the little cut that ran down her cheek, concealed though it was with makeup.
Threads of Emily shone through too, the memories of all her takedowns and all she'd done. Her diligence and efforts – the ease with which she'd deceived society for the last few years. Maybe it meant she was a survivor, or perhaps it was just the use of Emily as a machine. She stepped away from the mirror, closing the window behind her.
Starting tomorrow, she'd try to be Amanda.
Whatever that meant.