Title: Protection

Disclaimer: Do I look like Jamie Brittain or Bryan Elsley? The answer is no.

Pairing: Naomi/Emily

Summary: Sometimes protection is for your own good and sometimes it can destroy your very existence.

Note: Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. Apologies for the delay in getting this one to you. You know where there's just one part you can't quite get right, you can't quite figure out, this one was it. So frustrating, but I think I'm happy with how it turned out.

Protection - chapter eleven

Looking at the stars in the sky was like staring up at the badly decorated ceiling in the hospital. The vast space above her was a great deal more daunting than the plastered ceiling painted with black and glow in the dark paint. One had been a prison, trapping her beneath the small height of the room and the other could have been never ending for all she knew.

One night a long time ago, or so it felt, when she was a small child, they went camping. Jenna had hated it from the moment they set foot on the mostly empty field, so much so that by ten pm she'd packed up the car with Katie fastened onto her booster seat. That was the first time the family had been divided. At just two years old, James stood with mud up to his knees and dirt all around his cheeks, happy as Larry at being there in a field. Emily had been collecting wood at the time, for a proper fire. She dropped a pile of kindling by her dad's foot and stared at Katie, like the world had ended. After a brief discussion about where she and James wanted to spend the night, Jenna drove herself and Katie to a hotel. That was the first time she'd slept under the stars. Each tiny light had given her a ray of hope about the world. If something so beautiful could exist in something often perceived as scary, how could anything be horrible?

Every year for one weekend Jenna and Katie would go to a spa whilst Emily, James and their dad slept under the stars and cooked food over fires. Rustic, traditional living, right in the middle of Devon. Then there was the one night she spent with Naomi under the stars, their first and only night without cover, except for the large sheet of darkness. As she grew, camping with the family didn't really happen anymore. Then Naomi had died, resulting in her spending a couple of months in that badly decorated room.

After everything, all those memories had been tampered with, destroyed by one event that now she discovered wasn't even real. She hated it, everything, her life had become a broken, sheltered mess. Monitored by family who could never understand her, not after what happened. Each night she'd lain awake in the darkness, staring up at whatever ceiling was above her. Begging the world to return what she had lost, to give her back the only person who understood her better than she understood herself.

Then it happened, as if every wish she'd ever made was being answered. She should have been grateful, she should have been happy. Instead a fire raged inside, stopping her from thinking clearly or breathing evenly. How could she live now? How could her life return to normal when the truth she'd finally accepted was no longer reality? After three and a half years and feeling nothing, she'd finally found a life and found a way to feel alive. She thought, in that moment with Naomi, that it put that burst of life back into her and had awakened her soul. She now knew that really it had taken away that new lease for life, leaving her drowning once more.

The dark, cloudless sky only made her feel worse; torturing her battered body further, until she climbed to her feet and stepped back onto the dirt path. She couldn't lie there forever; she couldn't admit defeat, not after so many years of sorrow. The pitch black park left everything to the imagination, as Emily's feet shuffled along the path quickly. Her heart thumped so loud in her ear that she couldn't be sure if the rustling of the trees was caused by the wind, or something more sinister. Every bush, every additional footpath that disappeared away from the main route made her more and more nervous. Her experience of the dark did nothing to ease her worries. When she entered the park the sun had still been in the sky, shining down on the late afternoon. When Naomi arrived she'd forgotten to worry about how dark it had become.

Then life had changed, again.

Naomi had left, as she always did.

Every last thought that had entered her head before the kiss, before the sex, scattered amongst the wind and the droplets arriving in the air. A chill wrapped around her until her she pulled her useless jacket tightly against her stomach. Her mind and body void of thought, feeling and most importantly, desire. She was empty; somewhat like she had been the day her mother informed her that Naomi had died.

The dark city streets intimidated her more than the park, with a group of students gathered around the entrance, shouting lewdly at anyone who passed, including Emily herself. She closed her eyes in dismay and continued walking across the main road towards her street.

The last forty eight hours had been a runaway train speeding down a never-ending track. Somewhere around the time Naomi whispered her name, the train ground to a halt. Everything had stopped except for her feet as they rushed along the pavement. The constant questions running through her mind disappeared, only to be replaced with an eerie silence that filled Emily with dread. Slowing down so suddenly didn't put her at ease; it only made the issues worse. Anger bubbled in the pit of her stomach, boiling up like a pan of water, filling her with hot air. She wanted to scream. Not only did the time with Naomi awaken the dormant parts of herself, but also the anger raging inside.

How fucking dare Naomi allow her to kiss her and fuck her?

She had no right doing anything. She was meant to be dead. How could she stand there in front of her with a battered apology? Nothing could make up for the last four years of her life, wasted, broken and pointless. She could have gone to university when her friends did, or travelled the world. Instead she spent three months on suicide watch and saw probably a dozen counsellors whilst Naomi carried on with her life barely an hour away.

Fucking coward.

How could she expect to keep it all secret still? How could she think leaving her in the dead of night would help? If anything it only infuriated her more. She could barely control the fire raging in the centre of her heart, the heart she'd carefully constructed after having it torn apart by Naomi's 'death'. Now it was all for nothing. How could she look at her after all that? To say she didn't regret sleeping with Naomi would be like claiming the war in Iraq wasn't because of oil.

Emily walked back to her flat with her fingers clenched around the sides of her skirt. Her teeth pressed together hard, grinding until it drove her insane. Everything was falling apart, again. That feeling of losing control so strong that she didn't know how to be. Her first lecture was only days away and she couldn't even see how the next hour of her life would pan out. The dark pavements bathed in shadow. What time was it? She didn't even know what time she'd left Katie. If she'd left or not, Emily didn't think she had the energy to care.

When she got home the light was on in the lounge, the curtains closed hiding her prison from view. It wasn't a prison though; no room she'd ever been in willingly or forced into by doctors had ever really been a prison. What locked her away was herself, her broken, confused, lonely self. Now she belonged inside. Years of fighting the people around her for her freedom had been wasted. They all wanted what was best and she'd let them take her control. Now she was willing to do it again. Why not? She couldn't be trusted in the world, she couldn't protect herself from pain.

'Where the fuck have you been?' Katie demanded, jumping up from the sofa with swollen eyes and a croaky voice.

'I'm going crazy,' she mumbled, breaking through the flimsy fabric of her skirt with a fingernail.

'No, you're not, where is this coming from? Where have you been?'

'I want to go back to Hillview,' Emily informed her, tearing at the small hole she'd just created, hoping that focusing on the damage of her skirt would stop the tears already forming behind her eyelids.

'You hated Hillview,' Katie reasoned with a confused frown. 'You always said it made you feel well loopy.'

'But I am,' Emily nodded. 'This isn't normal, I'm sick, normal people don't sleep with their fucking dead girlfriend.'

'What?' Katie gasped, her eyes and mouth equally wide.

The words sounded just as insane to Emily, voicing them out loud, as she imagined they did to Katie. The whole night made her feel certifiably insane, her emotions fraught and fractured. She couldn't process anything. That high speed train hadn't just stopped; it had crashed in her mind, leaving her with the after effects of too much to deal with.

'I fucked her,' Emily laughed, tears streaming down her face as the absurdity of the situation really sunk in. 'I fucked Naomi in the middle of some park like it was fucking normal. But it's not, normal people don't do that. Normal people hit her or punch her or slap her like you did.'

'Why would you sleep with her?' Katie interrupted, trying to remain calm, for Emily. But she wasn't calm, she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to calm down again.

Naomi was alive.

Fucking alive.

It wasn't some dream or nightmare, it wasn't something she thought could be true but wasn't.

Everything was real and that was what scared her the most. She'd spent hours trying to understand what was happening, trying to make sense of her being there, alive and in her life once more. How could she ever understand that? How could she ever feel anything but the anger exploding through her blood stream? She wanted to hit her so hard that she could feel the blood spill onto her fingers; she wanted someone to hit her just as hard to wake her up from this nightmare.

'Why not?' she shrugged, her voice raised with anger. 'I can't seem to react to this like a normal fucking person, why shouldn't I fuck her? Why shouldn't I lie there in the grass and watch her walk away like she's done every fucking time it's ever really mattered?'

Katie moved towards her with her arms outstretched, not saying anything except for gentle whispers to quieten her down. But the physical contact set off fireworks in the pit of her stomach, going off in a line like at displays, not stopping until all she could see was Naomi's face.

'It's okay Emily,' Katie whispered, stroking her hair back from being matted up against her cheek.

But she wasn't Katie, she'd stopped being Katie.

The only other person in that room was Naomi, her hair long and dark blonde, her eyes sparkling blue but with a doleful expression. That fucking sorrowful look she had as though she felt sorry for her.

Fucking cunt.

Emily lashed out, pushing here away with as much force as possible. She fell over backwards, stumbling over her own feet before she righted herself and walked back towards her.

'Get the fuck away from me,' she screamed, stretching her arm out fully until her knuckle smashed into Naomi's cheek, bone crunching against bone, skin displaced and a shooting pain running along her arm.

Then Naomi returned to Katie, blonde changed back to red and Emily crumbled to the floor choking on tears.

I wouldn't mind a review if you have the time...