Jack and I are gonna have a baby.
The wind is knocked out of her. Her legs feel weak. She needs something – air, a shot of Macallan's, a way out. She looks over at him, eyes wide, empty, searching. He stares back, parts his lips, prepares to speak, but nods, silent, unsure.
Wow, congratulations.
The words feel foreign on her tongue. There's no sincerity behind them. But she knows just how to make them seem true. She smiles, just enough, not too much. Amanda smiles back. The girl living the life that should be hers smiles back.
I'm sure you both have a lot of catching up to do. Just….
She hesitates, contemplating, calculating. This isn't real. How could it be? It was never supposed to go this far. So many lives were never supposed to become so irrevocably entwined. And it's all her fault. It's ruined now. There's no going back. It's tainted, weakened, broken.
…wanted to return the collar.
She turns away, rebuilding a wall, rebuilding a bridge, crossing it, distancing herself, moving on. Trying to do all of those things, at least. Amanda says something, but it doesn't register. Emily's mind is too consumed with being anywhere but here. She needs to leave. She can't look back.
But she does.
I'll walk you to your car.
Always the gentleman with the best of intentions. It almost breaks her impenetrable heart, this distance between them. They were so close, but the gap was too wide. It's even wider now.
No. No.
The words leave her mouth as a reflex, not a response. She can't let herself get that close again. She was vulnerable with him. She can't be vulnerable with anyone. Not even with herself. The faintest hint of a smile plays upon his lips, but it's fleeting, and he nods, sure, sullen.
Goodbye, Jack.
Not goodnight. But goodbye. An ending. She doesn't acknowledge the other woman, the duplicitous other side to her coin. She turns and strides out as casually as she can, but once outside, her composure cracks. The walls she's built come tumbling down. She feels like that bridge in the nursery rhyme her dad would sing to her at night. (Emily Thorne is falling down, falling down, falling down…)
She composes herself. She walks the few short steps down to the ground, snow and ice crunching beneath the heels of her boots as she crosses over to her car. The keys are in her pocket, and as she reaches for them, she registers the sound of footsteps behind her.
She doesn't have to turn. She knows.
Jack….
He steps closer, hesitates, then steps further. She's not sure what good could come of this, not now, not with the way their cards have fallen.
Emily, I…
She turns, stares, waits. He moves forward, hand raising, finding the curve of her cheek. She doesn't react; he doesn't act. They're frozen, snow falling noiselessly around them, until, all at once, they collide.
Lips desperately seek lips as hands fist in hair and grope for waists. Keys fumble to find locks and before either can understand, they're in the back, Emily pinned to the seat and Jack pulling the door shut as he fits himself atop her. They're frantic, desperate, passionate. Rushed. It's not romantic, but reality rarely is. Legs tangle together as they struggle to remove layer upon layer, winter coats, flannel shirt, wool sweater.
His hands fit her curves so naturally she never wants this moment to end. She doesn't want the world outside her car. She wants this reality they've created for themselves.
It's a moment of weakness when they fit together. But it's shared. They move together for moments that feel like hours, but all too soon, they come, together, breathing hard and clinging to one another, aching for more.
I'm so sorry….
His whispered words are her undoing. As he nuzzles into the curve of her neck, for the first time in years, she cries and she's not alone.
And yet in some ways, she realizes, this is the most alone that she's ever been.