Author's Note: Wow this is quite taxingly angst-ridden… I suppose it was that way in the series, though. And who the hell am I kidding? I love me some angst ;-)

Episode tag 4x07

"I thought perhaps I would tell you I'd stay..."

Emily continued to back away from the glowing light of the gateway, tears streaming down her pale cheeks until her back abutted an unyielding surface. A roughness against the palms of her hands informed her that it was the trunk of a tree. A glance about her informed that she presently resided in a forest, in the middle of the night. The capabilities of those she had met in the 21st century were wondrous indeed, and she did not doubt their assertion that the gateway pulsating before her eyes had taken her to her native time.

The glowing light faded, throbbed and then closed in upon itself, vanishing altogether and abandoning her to the pitch black night.

Her knees felt weak, and she slid into an unceremonious heap at the base of the tree.

It would not have made the slightest difference to her, were she now residing in some alien time filled with monstrous creatures and not another living human soul around for a hundred millennia. For he had sent her away.

She had known what he would do, had spared him the responsibility of rejecting her outright, spared him the guilt of her heartache, by preempting all the rationalizations he would've given. And it was right that she had made her departure so easy.

Easy.

Probably not the most accurate description. It had been a terrible hurt. One she had never quite felt the likeness of before. A sort of hollow loss similar to the sorrow she had felt over Charlotte's death, over her mother's so many years ago. And simultaneously, paradoxically, altogether different.

Matt Anderson was alive and well, free to carry on his mission. Better she were not there to complicate matters. Part of her argued that she could've assisted him, that she could have been an ally of which he was in most desperate need. But she well knew how confused her own feelings had become, how difficult it had become to keep her thoughts straight and focused on her own responsibilities, duty.

Her duty to her husband... Stranger though he may be, she was bound to him.

At the base of the great oak tree, Emily curled herself into tight little ball, in the manner of a child. When first light came, she would seek out her fate, what must be her inevitable destiny. Her adventures had merely been a brief detour, for she was back where she had begun... Back where… she sighed… she belonged.

A/N: Promise there will be some lighter bits eventually. I am actually enjoying writing these short tags and etc. Epic fics can be draining/stressful…