A/N: Sorry for the longer wait than expected for this chapter, I moved into a new house this weekend and had some internet issues but they're all sorted now. Thank you for the amazing response to this story so far, I hope you enjoy this one as much as the last!

Emily wakes to her alarm blaring the next morning and reaches for it groggily, groaning as she stretches towards her phone, sliding her finger across the screen to silence the noise.

"Why do you still have the worst alarm tone in the history of the world?" The voice comes from the bed above her, and Emily blearily remembers Alana stumbling into the room in the early hours of the morning and asking if it was okay to crash there, too.

"Because it's the only thing that can wake me up," she grumbles in response, thinking that it should be illegal to have to set an alarm for four forty-five in the morning. She hadn't slept well, spending most of the night tossing and turning, her mind filled with thoughts of Alison for the first time in as long as she can remember, and she feels like she's barely even slept at all. "God, I need coffee."

"Get me some, too," comes the reply as Emily forces herself upright, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and tugging her scrubs back on, having slept in just her underwear.

"Bitch, get your own," she replies as she's yanking the top over her head, and she can practically hear Alana's pout.

"Come on, Em, I'll put in a good word with Ramirez for you."

"Ugh, fine." Emily shoves herself to her feet and winces when she sways on the spot, her head pounding. "Don't fall back asleep!" She calls as she leaves the room, and when she receives little more than a grunt in response she rolls her eyes and shakes her head, knowing what she'll find when she returns to the room – Alana, fast asleep and probably snoring, and Emily will have to shake her awake and then they're both be almost late for rounds.

Again.

Emily should just leave her, really, but she's just too good of a person. Well, that and she knows Alana will kick her ass if she does.

She makes her way to the cafeteria, wishing she had enough time to go to the coffee cart down the street outside which is about a thousand times better than the watery crap the hospital offers, but she only has seven minutes before she needs to be Alison's room so that's not happening.

She grabs two coffees and a croissant, stuffing the latter in her mouth as she makes her way back to the on-call room, rolling her eyes when she finds Alana snoring within – she throws a pillow at her head, smirking at the outraged look the brunette gets on her face when her eyes open.

"Get your lazy ass up," she tells her, handing her the coffee before turning and leaving her to get dressed. She likes the hospital, early in the morning. It's so much quieter than it is in the day – still buzzing, but more subdued, the windows at the end of the hallway showing that the sky outside is still dark, the sky overcast in a way that makes Emily wonder if it's going to snow again.

Emily downs the final dregs of her coffee outside of Alison's room, dropping the empty cup into the trash just as Dr Ramirez comes around the corner, Alana hurrying a couple of steps behind him. He opens the door to Alison's room and nods Emily through, and she sees that the blonde's already awake, soft smile lighting up her face when her eyes meet Emily's.

"Dr Fields, do you want to get us started?"

"Alison Rollins, twenty five year old female," Emily starts as she moves to grab the file that hangs on the end of Alison's bed, reading through it as she continues to speak. "Has breaks to the tibia and fibula at the ankle joint, and today will be undergoing the first of two surgeries to realign the bones and pin them in place."

"Dr Martinez, did you review the procedure last night?"

"Yes, sir."

"Can you walk Dr Fields through it before we go into surgery?"

"Absolutely."

"Excellent, then I'll see you both at eleven am – Dr Fields, you'll be able to prep Mrs Rollins for surgery?" Emily nods, and he smiles before wandering away, telling Alana to meet him in another of his patient's room shortly.

"Come find me when you get a minute?" Alana asks as she's leaving the room, and Emily nods again, not entirely sure when she's going to get a minute, but she's used to being rushed off her feet by now and knows it won't be too difficult.

"That was a lot of big words you just used," Alison murmurs when both of the other doctors are gone, her voice raspy from sleep.

"Well, I gotta impress the patient," she replies, her eyes sparkling when she manages to make Alison smile. "You feeling okay?"

"I've been better."

"Didn't sleep well?"

"Hurts too much." Emily frowns, glancing back down at the chart and wondering if she can increase the dose of painkillers the blonde is on. "They can't do anything else," Alison adds, noticing Emily's scrutiny. "It's okay, though – it'll be on the mend soon, right?"

"He really is the best," she reassures Alison, and the blonde nods.

"I trust you." Emily gets a warm feeling in her chest at that and quickly looks away from Alison's searching gaze, only realising belatedly that the room is missing an occupant.

"Where's your husband?"

"Oh, I sent him back to the hotel," Alison answers with a shrug. "There's no reason for us both to be sleeping on a shitty bed." Emily frowns, because if it was her wife that was in hospital, she wouldn't leave her side, not for anything.

"Can I get you anything?"

"No, I'm okay. It… it'd be nice to talk a little, but I'm guessing you're a little too busy for that."

"Just a bit," she murmurs apologetically, cursing when she glances down at her watch. "Speaking of, I have to go, I have to do rounds with my resident and if I'm late she'll kick my ass. I'll see you later, though."

She rushes off before Alison can say goodbye, slipping through the door of the intern's locker room about three seconds before her resident, Dr Evans, strides in after her.

"Cutting it close, Em," one of her closest friends in the program, Dani Johnson, murmurs out of the corner of her mouth.

"I heard you're getting to work with Ramirez on a case," their other friend, Luke, cuts in, shaking his head wryly. "Who'd you have to kill to get that gig? And how can I join in?"

"Ah, ah, ah, that would be telling," Emily grins back, rolling her eyes when he pouts at her, because he looks absolutely ridiculous.

Being a surgical intern is always pretty cut-throat, and Emily hadn't ever really expected to make any friends here, but she'd been surprised when, on her first day, the two of them had plonked their trays down beside hers in the cafeteria and told her that there was safety in numbers, and they'd been inseparable ever since.

"Seriously, though," Dani whispers as they follow Evans to the first of their patients' rooms. "Reckon you can get him to take someone else on, too? Because the opportunity would be - "

"Johnson," Evans snaps as they all crowd around the first bed of many. "Seeing as you're so eager to be talking at this very early hour, why don't you tell the rest of the class all about Mr Jackson, here?" Dani groans at being called out but still steps forward, taking the file Evans hands to her and starting to read.

Evans can be pretty ruthless, but Emily had learned pretty early on that if you stayed on her good side and didn't piss her off then life was a hell of a lot easier.

She finds it harder to concentrate than usual, that morning, and she knows that she can trace the source of her distraction back to a room on the first floor and hates that, even after so many years apart, it's still so effortless for Alison to get under her skin.

She spends her morning back down in the ER. The other interns all hate how hectic and disorganized it is, but Emily thrives on it, loves the fact that she never knows what she's going to be facing when she pulls back the curtain. It's meant that she's gotten to sit in on some pretty cool cases, much to her friends dismay – when she'd told them all they needed to do was to take a few more shifts down here to do the same, though, they'd made a face and quickly shaken their heads.

But whatever, Emily's kind of glad about it, anyway, because it means they're always looking for an intern down here, and she's always happy to volunteer. She's especially happy to volunteer today, knowing that she'll be so busy that there will be very little space in her mind for Alison to occupy.

She's sent for a break after three hours and wanders away to find Alana, grabbing some food on her way, relieved to find that she's not with a patient and has enough time to go over Alison's surgery with her. Orthopaedics has never been her favourite specialty, and she has to force herself to concentrate on Alana's words as she gestures to a textbook and Alison's x-ray, running through it step-by-step.

"Bored?" Alana teases her when she's done, shutting the textbook firmly and sliding it back onto the shelf behind her.

"No," Emily lies, and Alana grins.

"What's the deal with you and this chick, anyway? And don't say nothing," she adds hastily, when she sees Emily's mouth open. "Cause I saw the way you looked at her yesterday and there's some kind of history there."

"We went to high school together."

"Ah, old flame?"

"Something like that." She sees no reason to lie – Alana's been the closest Emily had come to a relationship in years, for those few months they'd been sleeping together, and the brunette's probably the person she's closest to in this town. She's glad that they hadn't lost that, when they'd ended things between them.

"Oh, come on, you can't just leave it at that."

"I can," Emily replies coolly, "because my break is up. Thanks for the run-through." She hops off her chair and makes her way out of the residents room for research (which she will shortly be allowed in my herself – well, providing she passes her exams, anyway), grinning when she hears Alana's voice ring out behind her.

"I want details, Fields!"

"Go to hell, Martinez!" She heads straight down to Alison's room to get her ready for surgery, trying not to let her good mood fall when she sees that the blonde is no longer alone.

"Feeling any better?" She asks Alison as she glances over the results of the bloodwork that one of the nurses had done that morning to check that everything's normal.

"Not really."

"At least you can get some rest when they put you to sleep," Emily teases, and Alison manages a smile but it's more a grimace. "What's up?"

"I just… the nurse can in with a consent form and…"

"Went through the long list of terrifying things that can go wrong?" Emily supplies, understanding the blonde's worry and stepping closer to her, reaching for her hand and squeezing gently. "Every surgery has risks, but the chance of them actually happening to you is low. Really, really low."

"You'll be there the whole time?" She asks in a small, scared voice, and Emily smiles reassuringly.

"I won't leave your side," she promises. "And they won't be letting me do anything other than maybe stitch you up afterwards, so you don't have to worry about the intern messing anything up."

"I trust you."

"I don't." Alison smiles, and Emily drops her hand – she notices Rollins watching them curiously and clears her throat before turning away. "You're not on any medication, are you? And not allergic to anything that you know of?"

"No."

"Any history of problems with anaesthetic in your family?"

"Not that I know of."

"Ready to go, then?" She watches Alison's throat bob as she swallows, clearly nervous, before she nods, and Emily press her bed flat before starting to wheel it out of the room, Rollins walking at their side, holding Alison's hand. "You can't go further than this," Emily murmurs apologetically as they reach the elevators that are only used to transport patients down to the operating theatres. "I'll come find you as soon as she's out of surgery."

"Thank you." He bends down to brush his lips against Alison's, and Emily looks away, pressing the down button for the elevator a few more times, wheeling Alison inside when it arrives and not looking back at her husband once.

"You don't need to be nervous," Emily murmurs when she glances at Alison's face and sees the barely concealed panic in her eyes. "You're gonna be fine. I won't let anything happen to you."

"Don't want a tarnished record?" Alison tries to tease, but there's a barely-hidden tremor in her voice.

"Don't want to lose you when I only just got you back." Alison's lips quirk into a radiant smile that makes Emily think that she's a goner for sure, because it makes her heart race a little in her chest and how is it possible, even after all this time, that Alison can make her knees weak with just a single look?

When the doors open she wheels Alison into the operating theatre and leaves her in the capable hands on the anaesthesiologist while she gets herself scrubbed in – she watches the panic ease of Alison's face as she falls asleep, looking peaceful and younger, somehow, as young as the girl that Emily had left behind her all those years ago.

She'd wondered, as she was leaving town that day, driving across the country and away from the only place that had ever really felt like home, if one day she would regret her decision to leave. She never had, though, because it had given her this life and this job that she loved, but now as she looks at Alison asleep on the table she feels a pang in her chest and wonders if she'd made the right decision, after all.

Which is ridiculous, she knows. No matter how she'd felt about the blonde back then, she's sure they wouldn't have worked – they were too different, too changed by the things that had happened to them both, and Emily had always been leaving town and Alison had always been staying, and she thinks it probably would have ended in flames.

It's the uncertainty, though, that kills her. The not knowing how Alison felt (although she'd practically admitted to her, yesterday, that there had still been something there back then), the not knowing if they would have ever been able to be happy together – and now she'll never get the chance, because Alison is freaking married and Emily doesn't see that changing anytime soon.

And that's fine, because Alison lives in Rosewood and Emily has at least another five years ahead of her here, and maybe in another life they could have been great together, but in this one… maybe it just isn't meant to be.

The sooner Alison is gone from the hospital, from Emily's life again, though, the better. It's too confusing, having her here – hell, it's barely been twelve hours since she'd laid eyes on the blonde and her head already feels wrecked.

Alana and Ramirez stride into the scrub room, breaking her out of her tumultuous thoughts, and Emily nods to them both before making her way into the operating theatre, settling herself back near the wall where she can have a good view without getting in anyone's way.

"Dr Fields," Ramirez clearly has other ideas, though, looking surprised to see her standing so far back. "Would you like to make the first incision?" He holds a scalpel out towards her and Emily is too stunned to move for a second, before quickly nodding and stepping forward. He shows her where to cut, and Emily's hands are steady as she runs the scalpel across Alison's skin, wincing behind her mask as she does, hoping it doesn't leave too nasty a scar when it's stitched back up. "Good," Ramirez murmurs when she steps back, nodding in approval. "Don't go too far, there are a couple of things you can assist me on."

Emily nods, taking a step back to let him work, watching with interest as he does. Seeing exposed bone, even if it is badly broken, isn't quite as exciting to Emily as gazing at an open chest and seeing a heart beating back at her, but being in the OR definitely beats any other part of her job – she might love the hectic nature of the ER, but it doesn't compare to this, to having a body open on the table and watching it be put back together again. Her adrenaline is sky high when Ramirez asks for her assistance, her heart beating excitedly in her chest and this is why she does this job, because as hard as it is, sometimes, it's so worth the thrill.

The surgery takes five hours, overall, and Emily is almost sad when it's over because it's probably the most involved she's ever been allowed to be in the OR since she started her internship, and maybe she should consider switching her specialty to orthopaedics because she's sure that the head of cardio barely even knows she exists, let alone her name.

She wheels Alison back up to her room after it's done, goes with Ramirez and Martinez to find her husband in the waiting room afterwards and tell him that it was a success, and afterwards she finds herself back down in the ER for the remainder of her shift, knowing that Alison won't be waking up anytime soon.

She drops back by the blonde's room before she leaves for the night, pausing when she hears the sound of raised voices from within – and she knows she shouldn't, that she should walk away and come back later (or even better – just go home and try to forget about the woman that had dropped so unexpectedly back into her life), but instead she finds herself pressing her back against the wall beside the door, and she can hear every word of the argument within and kind of hates herself for it.

"I can't just take another three weeks off of work, Alison, my patients – "

"I'm sure Jenny is perfectly capable of filling in for you for a little longer." Alison's voice is cold, colder than Emily's heard it in a long, long time – it takes her back to when they'd been fourteen and Alison had been the perfect mean girl, spitting insults like they were her oxygen.

"It's not fair to ask her to - "

"I think it's plenty fair to ask that of her, honey." She says the term of endearment like it's a curse. "Considering she's been fucking my husband for the past six months behind my back, I think it's the least she can do, don't you?"

No response comes for a while, and Emily's eyes are wide as she stands in the hallway with her heart beating loud in her ears, and maybe Alison's life isn't as perfect as Emily had thought it was – and she'd been right with her first assessment of 'complete fucking asshole' because who in their right mind would cheat on someone as incredible as Alison?

"Would you not prefer to be back home, with your family?"

"What family?" Alison's voice is raw, aching with pain, and Emily longs to go in there and soothe it away. "My sister's dead," Emily's eyes widen even further at that, because she'd had no idea, "I haven't seen my brother since he walked out two years ago and my Dad… my Dad hasn't been able to look me in the eye for seven years, so, no, David, when I do go home, it won't be for my family. This is a good hospital, and I'm staying here until they discharge me."

"And this has nothing to do with her?" He asks, then, and Emily's ears start to burn because there's no mistaking the 'her' he's talking about.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Please, I recognised her straight away. She's on the photograph you keep on your nightstand – the picture I never understood why you kept because you only still talk to two of the girls on it. I guess I get it now, though – who is she to you?"

"I told you," Alison's voice turns weary, and Emily's considering going in there because she'd just had major surgery and the last thing she needs right now is added stress. "She's just a friend."

"Right." Rollins' voice is heavy on the sarcasm, and Emily feels her jaw clench, angry on Alison's behalf.

"Don't you dare question me," Alison says, then, her voice low, dangerous, and Emily can only imagine the way her eyes are flashing. "Not after everything you've put me through." There's a moment of silence, and Emily only has about three seconds before she hears angry footsteps heading for the door. She scrambles back a few steps and tries to make it look like she'd only just been on her way down the hallway – from the look Rollins gives her as he strides past her, Emily doesn't think that she's been entirely convincing, but whatever. Why should she give a shit about his feelings?

"Hey," Emily calls as she slips through the door to Alison's room, concern rushing through her when she sees that the blonde's wiping away tears. "Are you okay?" Alison doesn't answer, just shakes her head, and Emily is at her side within a second, pulling a chair up to the side of her bed and taking her hand. "Okay so maybe I overheard some of your conversation because I'm nosy and I actually do know what's wrong – I'm sorry your husband's a dick."

Alison manages a watery laugh, and Emily fishes out a pack of tissues from her pocket and hands one to the blonde, which she takes gratefully.

"Sorry," she apologises as she dabs at her eyes. "I must look a mess."

"Impossible," Emily murmurs in reply, and she means it – even like this, with flushed cheeks and red, puffy eyes, Alison is beautiful, just as she always is. "You wanna talk about it?"

"You really want to talk about my marriage issues?"

"Honestly? No." She makes a face, because talking about Alison's husband is the last thing she really wants to be doing after a fourteen hour shift and running on very little sleep, but… "But it's obviously upsetting you, and if talking about it will help…"

"I don't think anything could help us now," Alison murmurs quietly, her attention focused on her hands, clasped in her lap. "We've been having issues for a while," she explains. "This trip… it was for our anniversary, yes, but it was also… kind of an attempt to fix things between us. God," she shakes her head, bites at her bottom lip and looks frustrated. "Sometimes I wonder why I ever married him in the first place."

"So why did you?" Emily can scarcely even imagine being so in love with someone that she'd agree to spend the rest of her life with them. She's not exactly scared of commitment, but she's hyper-aware of the fact that she's twenty-five years old and her longest relationship to date had barely lasted six months.

"Because I was young and stupid and I thought I was in love." Emily's still holding Alison's hand, the blonde's skin warm beneath her fingertips, and she finds herself absently stroking her thumb over the back of her hand as Alison talks, and she wonders how just a single, simple touch can make her feel so alive. "I was twenty when I met him, and he was my first serious relationship so everything was… everything felt so electric, you know?"

Emily does know, because she remembers how it had felt, when she'd been with Maya – how everything had felt like it clicked into place, how everything had been so heightened because it was all so new.

"We'd barely been together for a year when he proposed. Hell, we weren't even living together at that point, but I said yes because he looked at me like I was his whole world and he told me he loved me more than anything I believed him." There's a faraway look in Alison's eyes as she talks, her eyes focused on the wall opposite her instead of Emily's face, and there's a spark of life that flickers on her face and Emily can see the echo of how happy she'd been, at the start.

"I was married by the time I was twenty-two and then it started to sink in, y'know? That I was tied down for my whole when I felt like I'd barely lived at all. Things got a little strained once the honeymoon period wore off but… I stayed, because I thought I had something special, and then… then Charlotte died."

Pain colours her voice and Emily's hand squeezes hers tightly, because she might not understand how Alison was so quick to be able to forgive her sister for what she'd done but she knows that Alison had loved her, and losing her couldn't have been easy.

"I'm so sorry, Ali." More tears swim in the blonde's eyes, and Emily reaches for another tissue. "What happened?"

"She killed herself." Alison's voice wavers, and she takes a deep breath to try and calm herself down. "Overdose. Ironic, right?" There's no humour in the blonde's voice, though. "And David… he was her psychiatrist – that was how we met. And I blamed him for what happened to her, because how could he not have seen that something was wrong with her?"

"It's not always that easy," Emily murmurs, because she knows how difficult it can be, sometimes, to see the underlying symptoms that patients try so hard to hide.

"I know, and I knew I was being stupid, but… it was like I'd been waiting for a reason to blow up at him, and god, that gave me a good one." She shakes her head, frustration written across her features. "He moved out, to give me a little space, and when I'd calmed down I went to him to apologize and I… I went to his office and found him screwing his colleague on his desk." Her mouth twists as she says it, and Emily clenches her own jaw, wants to hurt him for doing this to Alison.

"He's an idiot," she says, her voice quiet but forceful. "An idiot for doing that to you. For giving up on you."

"You gave up on me." There's no accusation in Alison's voice, though – she just looks sad, mostly, and Emily feels more guilt trickle through her veins.

"I…" She trails off, because okay, she doesn't really have a good reply to that, because she had. She had run away with her tail between her legs because that had been easier. "I've already accepted that I'm an idiot," she settles on saying, eventually, and she wonders if her eyes are filled with the regret that she feels, right down to her bones.

"You know what the worst part about me finding him with her was, though?" Alison asks, then, changing the subject (Emily is grateful – she's never been good at talking about her past, let alone about her past with Alison to Alison). "I didn't feel anything. I wasn't hurt or upset or angry, I was just… empty. And that's when I knew that I didn't love him anymore. If I ever truly had at all."

"And yet you're still together," Emily points out, gently, and Alison sighs.

"Barely," she scoffs. "He begged me for one last chance to save our marriage and I agreed out of… some sense of obligation, I guess. So we came back to the same place we had our honeymoon and then on the first day, I fall and break my ankle and it brings me to you." Alison's eyes finally lift from her lap to meet Emily's, and she swallows thickly at the look she sees in them, a storm of mixed emotions. "Do you believe in fate, Em?"

"I… No, I don't think so." Her brain is too scientific for that, too focused on fact rather than things like fate and destiny – hell, she doesn't even read her horoscope.

"Neither did I," Alison admits softly. "At least not until yesterday." She holds Emily's gaze for a long moment, and she feels like she can barely breathe under the weight of it, under the weight of her words, and her throat feels tight, her head feeling dizzy as she thinks about the implications behind her them.

"I… um, I have to go." She watches Alison's face fall and hates herself, just a little, but it's too much – too much, too fast, and she needs to get out of there and away from Alison before she says something stupid like 'I don't know if I ever stopped loving you'.

"Okay." Alison doesn't look upset, as she watches Emily with careful eyes. "I'll see you tomorrow?" Emily nods, because she knows there's no avoiding the blonde, not really – she just hopes that, with a little bit of time to process the last two days, it'll be a little easier to face her tomorrow.

She expects it's going to be another long, sleepless night.