4. Scars are beautiful
Deckard took care of Emma's minor wounds as soon as she got through the door. His daddy instincts kicked in as soon as his grey eyes fell on her bruise, and he scolded her for all the while he applied ointments and band-aids and such.
Owen had followed her back home, but had resumed his silent 'standing by the window' thing. Baby Cutie had been cleaned, changed, and put into clean clothes by his surrogate-dad, which had made Emma smile affectionately at the mountain of muscles that was her friend.
"Wha'?" he had said when she had noticed the soapy scent of their young roommate. She had merely laughed and taken the child for a walk around the flat once more.
Deckard had only once been like this with a kid. It had been in Costa Rica, about six years prior, when on a mission. Emma and him had sought help from a local family. The father had been killed within two days, and the mother had been grieving so deeply that they had had to take care of the four kids while she recovered. The eldest, at fifteen, was blaming them, of course, and had run away, alerting the bandits they had come to arrest. Eventually he had been wounded but had been given back to his mother alive. The next two, at ten and seven, were more vulnerable and had clung to Emma for dear life for near on a week. She had had a hard time letting them go in the end.
But the youngest had been a mere thirteen-months-old baby girl, and despite everything that could be said about him, Deckard had taken a shine to her almost immediately. He had taken care of the babe like a father to his child, and had been rewarded with a 'Deckdeck' that remained his official nickname for a long while afterwards.
As far as she knew, the family had been moved to Mexico a few months after their mission. They were safe. Or so the MI-6 had said.
The second day ended with another meal cooked by Deck, and as the previous day, they all retreated to their rooms in silence. Baby Cutie awoke twice that night, and once with heavy cries that sent a bolt of worry right into Ems' heart. These were the cries of nightmares. And six-months-old babies did not need to have nightmares.
Deckard told her the following morning that the boy's mother had been shot right next to him. She did not return to the room for a while after that, preferring to punch the sandbag in her study until her knuckles hurt before she did.
"So, when are you all leaving?" she asked at lunch, while she was feeding the baby. He was holding the bottle on his own, staring at her with his big brown eyes while she shifting her weight from leg to leg to lull him.
Deck was staring at his computer screen. "I've go' plane tickets for tomorrow afternoon." He eyed her. "Bu' I don't have to stay there for long. I'll come back after, if you'll have me." He smiled, and she smiled back.
"'Course." She looked at the child in her arms once more and sighed. "I'm gonna miss you little chap." The baby let go of his meal and smiled brightly at her before resuming his suckling. Seriously, he was too cute.
There was a gruff at the window and she didn't have to look to know who it was. Owen was standing in his spot – since when had it become his, though? – and didn't even turn around when he said "I'm not going."
Deckard sighed. "You don' have to but Mum would like ya to."
His younger brother shrugged. "I don't care what Mum wants. She'll be back here eventually and then she can fuss over me all she likes. I'm not going and I'm not seeing those bastards again."
Emma's brow furrowed and she turned to Deck for an explanation, but he shook his head as if to say 'later' and she did not push the matter. "Very well then, ya can stay here until Mum comes back."
"Hey!" Emma suddenly burst. "At least ask me my opinion before you force someone upon me like that!"
He merely smirked. "He doesn' have anywhere ta go and we both know ya can't resist my pouty face." He proceeded with said pouty face, and Emma burst into an incontrollable grin. Damn that guy and his face. "See? Owen can stay, can' he?"
She looked over at the lean man by the window and tilted her head to the side. "Can he cook?"
Owen turned his head slightly, meeting her gaze, his retaining some of that mysterious glint, and looked away again.
"Not for the life of him. But he can drive."
Emma remembered he could drive. He had driven like a devil in London's streets not so long prior – three, four years? She remembered the images on the news. She remembered the video of his car zooming through the streets.
Now that she knew what the man looked like in the flesh, she didn't know if she found it sexy or appalling.
Probably the former.
When Baby Cutie was put back to bed and the door to Emma's room left open in case he woke up, Deck announced that he needed to go somewhere to gather some things for the trip. Recognizing in that one of his infamous 'don't ask' behaviours, Emma indeed didn't pry, and soon, she was left alone with Owen, who had miraculously moved from the window to the bookshelf.
Except he wasn't looking at the books, but at Emma's photographs. She suddenly felt self-conscious, and cursed herself for keeping some of those pictures, though she didn't really know why she was worrying.
One of these photos was of a teenage her, with her by-then alive parents, Mick and Joan. A few months before the train crash that had killed him immediately and her a few hours later. Her blonde hair was dyed purple at that time, it had been hideous but the smile on her face eclipsed its ugliness.
Another one was of her military training. She was in the uniform – her helmet a big too big for her – and a big grin on her face there again. She must have been nineteen in that, if she recalled well.
The third and fourth one must have a bit of sour taste for him, though. They had both been taken during Magda's fifth wedding's party. In the first she was dancing with Deck, both sporting stupid grimaces on their faces; the second was with Magda, whose cheek she was kissing.
She realised those two photos could be interpreted as being family photographs. And that Owen would probably burst into rage telling her she wasn't part of his.
But she was, even if he had ignored her for the eleven years she had known his brother. She was an orphan, a soldier, a killer, and the only peace she had found was in the Shaw family. He wasn't going to take that away from her.
But he was staring at the photos without uttering a word, his jaw jutting from time to time and his hands tensing in his jean's pockets, but that was all.
"Why don't you like the baby?" she let out with any reason whatsoever.
He turned to face her, his face set in stone, his stare ice cold as often before. "None of your business."
"Considering we are alone with him here, I'd say it is my business. I'd rather not turn around and find him dead the next minute."
"I wouldn't kill a child."
"You've killed others before," she blurted, knowing she was stepping over an invisible line.
He was in her face in a second, his hands two fists beside him, his eyes two icicles trying to freeze her. But she merely took a defensive pose, feeling the fight brewing inside him. "Don't think I wouldn't kill you."
"I know you would. That's what criminals do. They kill without reason."
He was so red in the face she thought of a kettle about to implode. "I am not a criminal!" he spat in her face, and she closed her eyes for a second under the force of his aggression. And still he had not touched her.
"You are," she said calmly. "You are and you took your brother down with you."
His eyes widened in surprise, and he leaned back a notch. "You…you really think that?" he laughed joylessly. "My brother, the same man who assassinated people on a list without even asking why he needed to do it?"
"Your brother, the same man who was so heart-broken after you had your accident that he put himself in danger just for the satisfaction of avenging you."
"My accident?" There definitely was something dangerous in the way he was looking at her, and Emma's hand moved slightly to the left, where she grabbed her gun under the counter without him noticing. Which was an achievement in itself. "My accident, you complete moron, was me thrown out of a plane and into a fire by that kid's father!" He was breathing heavily, no doubt trying and failing to keep his temper down.
Emma did not back down. "You got what you deserved." And yet a part of her thought that his fate had been too painful, too wrong. He had been a criminal and a murdered, that was true, but so was she. Even if she had the scars to prove that sometimes she did get what she deserved.
Owen snapped then. He brought his hands up to catch her neck, no doubt to choke her, and she blocked one arm with her own while the other threw the blunt side of her gun towards his face. He dodged, throwing himself at her midsection instead and knocking the breath out of her. Under his momentum she tried to bring her fists to his back to make him let go, but already she was on the ground, and he was grabbing one of her decorative bronze trinkets to ram into her skull.
She did the only thing she could think of. She threw both her feet into his gut, but instead of just knocking him back as she expected, he doubled over in pain and brought a hand to his abdomen with a yelp of pain.
Emma sat up, adrenaline leaving her body as she realised the fight was over – he was injured. She could see his light blue shirt being stained with blood on his left side, and although she should have been happy he was in pain, and should have left him there – he had tried to kill her, after all – she was worried.
She stood up and showed him both her empty hands before setting her bronze elephant back down on the cabinet. She eyed his hand gripping his shirt and the blood staining both, and then she sighed.
"Come with me…"
