AUTHOR'S NOTE: So guys, I'm happy to announce that I am going to start a companion ficlet to "It's So Fragile" no more than 4-5 chapters, though, where you guys will see parts of this story from Emily's POV. I plan on giving you two chapters worth of content Naomi never saw, I'll rewrite one chapter of MY choosing from Emily's perspective, and here's the fun part: I'M GOING TO LET YOU GUYS CHOOSE THE OTHER!

I know we haven't finished the story yet, but start thinking about which chapter YOU would like to see from Emily's POV...but there's one stipulation. You cannot you CAN. NOT. choose this one. This is ONE of TWO not up for grabs. The other one is the next to last chapter, and I'll post a reminder when we get there as well. Sorry guys. It's my only rule ;)

I hope you enjoy this chapter and, oh gods, I know you're ready for it, you can just tell from the title what's going to happen and it's been a long time coming. ::snarks:: Anyway, read, review, enjoy, and don't forget to start thinking which you'd like to see in the companion piece, and if you already know, go ahead and leave it in the reviews or send me a PM. Cheers until the next chapter, dears!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Mess Up My Bed With Me

Halfway to the Fitch flat, and still not one trace of Emily anywhere, it became abundantly clear she had not taken the standard route home. Bringing my bike to a halt at the curb, I panted feverishly, wiping my sweat-laden brow as I looked up and down the avenues.

Where the fuck are you, Emily, you didn't have that much of a headstart on me.

Whipping my phone out, I dialed her number and brought it up to my ear to let it ring. And ring...and ring...click! Silence answered on the other end...I waited for her to say something for a few moments, but when I was met with nothing more than gentle breathing on the other line, I knew she wasn't interested in speaking to me...but she wasn't opposed to hearing what I had to say...

"Emily, I just want to know where you are." A long pause... "Please?" Releasing a sigh, I added, "I'm a stupid fucking git, ok?" Licking my lips, I tasted the beginnings of rainfall atop them as my head whipped in every which direction, hoping at any moment I'd see her coming from around the corner with the phone pressed to her ear. Nothing to the left. Nothing to the right. "A hint at the very least?"

"I'm at the park, Naomi," was her very matter of fact reply before the line went dead. There were several parks throughout Bristol, only one held any significance to either of us. Tiny raindrops lightly beat down on my nose and hands as I hopped over the seat of my bike and pedaled as fast as I could still manage. I had to get to her before the downpour started, coax her into some shelter where we could talk.

I found her seated on the swing set, her hair already starting to frizz from the oncoming storm.

If you wear the ring with the heart pointed toward you...

Put it on will you...

Her eyes traced over a small packet resting in her lap, a bag which she hadn't brought into my flat, rested against a nearby tree. One that looked to carry more than just her usual toting supplies. My heart jumped into my throat at the implication she had planned on skipping town without saying anything. Had Scotland been a thing of the future or the possibility of only a few hours away? And why would she lie to me if it had been? I stepped closer, my feet crackling on the crinkled summer leaves, fulling intending to voice just those questions when Emily's tear stained eyes rose to mine. Her hand extended toward me, presenting the all too familiar brochure.

Glancing down, I didn't have to really read the lettering to know what it said, so I chose to keep my focus on Emily. "Goldsmiths?" She licked her lips and swallowed.

"Yeah," was all she replied, standing slowly. I shook my head as the paper in my trembling hand began to shake. I wasn't sure if I was angry, hurt...or simply cold...

"You weren't going to Scotland. You going to London."

"JJ and Lara had a spare room."

"You...you were going to...follow me? Because you thought I-"

"Open the packet," she whispered, a stifling calm in her voice. Slowly I opened the paper and removed...a picture. A picture taken of Emily and I from a wonky old time photo booth at a festival we visited once she and her family had returned from Paris. My hair had managed to grow out a bit the. She still had sugar on her face from the cotton candy I had smeared into her mouth. I remember the sweet, pink taste lingering on my lips after the kiss...which this dinky little camera had captured. "What does the back mean?" Emily asked as I continued to stare down at the photo as it began to wet from the increasing rain. Slipping the picture back into the leaflet, and folding the paper, I shoved it into my back pocket to protect it from any further damage.

"Emily it's going to start really pissing soon, we should-" Closing the distance between us, Emily's hands grabbed my arse firmly, causing made my breath catch before I realized what she was doing. Her lips pursed in a firm line as she roughly yanked the packet free from my pocket. Tossing the papers aside she held the tiny picture in front of me forcing me to look at the words scrawled with a felt tipped pen in my handwriting.

I don't need cat flaps when you're on the other side of the door.

"Emily, you don't-"

"No!" she barked, curling the photo between her fingers, nearly crumpling it before my very eyes. A sharp inhale escaped my lips over the potential damage her gentle fingers were capable of doing to the photographed memory. "I found this on your counter when I came over today. I was beyond distraught over having to leave-" she stopped herself, and I really wish she hadn't, "-about following my family to Scotland. Fuck knows what's in Scotland, their goddamn kilts and gray food. I can't even remember my life here why do I want another somewhere else. So I thought-London...at least there I could have I don't know...something?" She lowered the photograph but kept our eyes locked. "Someone?" she practically pleaded.

"But that's just it," I insisted, "Emily, you do remember your life. You-"

"But not this!" she insisted, the softening swept away as she held up the photo again, "Why don't I remember this? Why don't I know what this message means to me...to you...Naomi, please...tell me...who. are. you?"

My hands shook as I went in with my big guns and just prayed, if there was a God, he'd remind me how strong Emily could be so what I revealed didn't...break her...break us... "You died...Emily..." I began in a whisper, my arms wrapping about my chest, clutching and clawing at the dampening fabric of my coat. The pelts of rain picked up their pace, but I just blinked back the water. "I watched it happen. The doctor told me...if you didn't work things out on your own there would be a chance I'd have to watch that happen all over again...the brain, Emily, it's a finicky thing, and I didn't know what to do...I'm still so terrified of losing you...it was always the only thing that scared me more than-," a loud crack of thunder crashed nearby as I finished, "-actually beingwith you."

"What?!" Emily shouted. At first I wasn't sure if she were shocked at my confession or if she had actually missed what I'd said. I shook my head, running the rain back from my face with my hands.

What do I do? How can I make you see?

Hot tears stained my cheeks amongst the polluted ones hitting my hair, shoulders, and back as I reached for her and pulled Emily in for a searing kiss. She wrapped her hands around my neck, deepening the kiss for several minutes. My mind was going to sabotage the courage building inside if I didn't get this out quickly, so with a sharp inhale I mumbled against her lips, "You were mine..." breaking our lips apart with a sway of my head I kept my eyes closed as I added, "...because I'm yours." When I opened them again, Emily's face was wet. But not from the rain. Her breathing expelled in quick gasps and her nose sniffled.

"I was just waiting for you to say it," she yelled with a broad smile over the roars of the wind. My knees went weak and threatened to topple me as I clutched Emily's arms, her wet jumper clinging to my fingers.

"You remember?" She shook her head with lilt of laughter.

"No. I just...know it." The words tumbled out in the tiniest break of silence from the weather, and landed so tightly around my heart I thought I was going to faint. My hands squeezed Emily tighter. Her arms rose to bring me closer and as I mirrored her smile, she kissed me. Not stopping at my forearms, her hand pressed upward until they were tangled in my dampening hair, tugging down onto my neck to threatening to drown me amongst the rain and our tears.

My trainers slid between hers as I pulled her closer to me, my hands practically clawing their way drown from her arms to her stomach around to her hips. My arms tightened around her waist as our lips spring-boarded in rapid succession, trying to take in every corner of the other's mouth before tongues begged and were granted entrance. I couldn't get enough of her, I couldn't drink her in hard enough...any minute now she was going to rob my senses completely blind. And I wouldn't stop her.

But we absolutely had to get out of this rain. Curling my arms around her shoulders, I gently, thoughbeit unwillingly, called a cease fire our tongue-tied embrace. Removing my coat from around my shoulders, I wrapped it around Emily's. "You'll freeze!" Emily contended over the quickening pace of the droplets. It wouldn't be long, however, before they were the size of boulders.

"No I won't!" I assured her, turning her on her heel, and pointing toward a small stone gazebo whose azaleas were being destroyed by the wet onslaught. Interlocking her hand in mine, we bolted through the grassy mud toward the tiny shelter. Nearly slipping on the change of ground, we tumbled into the stone refuge, giggling at ourselves as we clung onto one another to keep upright.

Seeing as she was practically soaked to the skin, my hands started rubbing up and down Emily's arms, my coat rustling at the exuberant contact. "Get some friction going," I said without thinking. A cheeky grin broke over Emily's face as she retorted, her voice dropping into that sexy, husky octave that drove me mad with want,

"Funny. Just what I was thinking."

Emily's lips found mine again in a hungry and hurried haze. My back was rammed against one of the poles, with a force I was completely unaware Emily could muster in such a state. Gratefully my head was absent of being knocked senseless due to my mouth practically trying to meld directly with Emily's own. "Sorry," Emily mumbled hurriedly as her hands caressed the underpart of my shirt. I smiled into the kiss.

"I'm fine." Breaking contact, Emily's hooded eyes gleamed at me.

"Just fine?" Having her touch absent from mine, I could see the intent in every gesture of Emily's face, and while I knew she was being coy, my head couldn't stop itself from going elsewhere, so I asked,

"Are you? Ok? I mean...are you-"

"Naomi," Emily cooed, her tone dropping as a silky warmth swam into her register, "I won't break." The words hung in the air, each raindrop above our heads which hit the roof of the gazebo acted as a nail to drive the words into reality, cementing Emily's words, willing me to believe them. Removing my coat from around her shoulders, she placed it just inside the entryway, and took my hands in hers. She delicately guided my suddenly trembling arms around her waist, twisting our wrists so our fingers could interlock as the space between us vanished.

Her chest was pressing against mine rapidly, and I was momentarily grateful for my layers of clothing, otherwise I was fairly certain Emily would be able to feel how hard my heart was drumming against my rib cage. Her hot breath against my neck began to mirror the intensity of how hard she was pressing the tops of my hands into her back. They slid back and forth through each other as our palms radiated the heat spinning over us like a tesla coil until mine were tangled in the wet cloth of Emily's jumper. Fingers idly danced up my arms, trailing over the goosebumps left in the contact's wake until the line drawn from my hands to my wrists to my elbows to my shoulders and up against my neck were cupped in Emily Fitch's perfectly sized hands. Her thumbs lightly massaged just under my chin as her eyes bore into mine, her silent, slightly parted lips screaming to be tasted. As I leaned down, feeling the pressure of the wanting pull against me, my eyelids went heavy as Emily closed hers, and before my mouth landed I whispered, "I'm beyond asking you to stay Emily...I'll beg if I have to..." The tug against my neck ceased for a split second, but before I could open my eyes to see why, Emily's lips were on mine in a kiss to rival the one given to me only moments ago in the rain.

And I kissed her back. Oh, how I kissed her back. I had always given my mum a hard time about being this walking cliche, but here in this storm, kissing Emily, I felt everything wash away. Emily's lips were baptizing me anew as I moaned into the intimate embrace. As if the sound were a trumpeting signal, Emily's hands sprang into action as they flung my wet shirt over my head. Almost immediately, my hands grappled with Emily's jumper pulling it free from the skin I yearned to purify with the inferno rising between us. Lips traced from my lips down the center of my chest, resulting in sensations so powerful, my hands flew like two stones released from a sling shot out to either side, my palms splaying against the wet stone of the gazebo pillars. I pushed with all my might to steady my trembling body as Emily knelt lower, my head lulling back so the tips of my hair were getting cleansed by the rain falling from the cusp of the roof.

When I felt her nip and bite my stomach, I wrapped my hands tighter around the marble, pulling my shoulders into a full flex. I didn't try to stifle the high-pitched cries crumbling from the back of my throat. Emily's lips vibrated against me as she released a short, satisfied laugh, her hands lightly clawed at my sides until they reached the hem of my knickers. Once I heard the light tap of her knees against the stone below, I glanced down just in time to see her teeth wrap around the elastic of my pants and with a taut pull of her hands and mouth, tear the hindering object. With another tug, pull, and kick off my own foot, my wet, wanting center was exposed before Emily. My breathing increased as I watched her quietly, almost reverently, take in the sight of me. Her eyes searched as her fingers lightly wandered around the dips of my hip bone, and then trailed down to the inside of my thighs. Her adulating, chocolate doe eyes glanced back up into mine, as if they were seeing me again for the very first time. She rose a little, I felt her eyelashes fall downward as her lips pressed tenderly against my stomach, and her hands wrapped around my waist. New rain from Emily's eyes fell against my flesh. My body melted into the adoring embrace as my right hand reached down and stroked the top of Emily's hair.

"Emily, I-" but my confession never found it's landing as Emily found hers, my voice heralding a cry from instantaneous pleasure as Emily's lips kissed against my swollen clit. I shook so violently I was afraid I'd ripped her beautiful red hair from her scalp, but she merely continued to open me up until she took me completely in her mouth. My lower back pressed against the railing of the gazebo as my hips pushed forward and my legs widened to grant her further access, the heel of my right trainer finding it's way to a resting press over Emily's shoulder. The blinding ecstasy of her lips servicing mine broke through my voice with every press and stroke of her tongue. Even from the very first time she'd touched, she'd always been uncharacteristically good at this, never afraid to just go for it...to take me unashamedly...unleash me unbridled...exactly as she was doing now.

With each surge of rapture, my heart swelled. Every emotion in my soul fought for dominance at having Emily between my legs, unraveling me at her own gloriously agonizing pace. She could, and did, tear me apart when we were like this. I couldn't hide who I was, I never wanted to feel or be anything else other than completely hers. The tightening of the beginnings of my climax threatened to devour me as my ragged breath came in short, audible gasps. But I didn't want to come just yet, I wanted to ride this euphoria out through the waves of the tempest around us. "Slower," I choked out through a piercing cry and without moving a beat, Emily's tongue ebbed out as the thick, wet muscle was soon replaced with her fingers which circled and toyed with my clit but never entered me. That would have fucking ended me.

Slowly she stood and wrapped her swollen lips against my collar bone. When she flushed against me, her goosebumped covered flesh was wet and cold. Wrapping my arms around her, I whispered, "You're the one who's freezing," Her caressing kiss wandered to the center of my neck, applying firm pressure while my hand found it's place in her hair yet again.

"Change that then," her deep, graveling voice commanded. I could never say no to that voice. Wrapping her hair in my fingers, I popped her head back to bring her lips crashing onto mine. My tongue drank in my lingering taste, fueling my desire like an ambrosia as I pushed us both to the other side of the gazebo. Emily's back collided roughly against the stone pillar, and I immediately felt offended by every piece of clothing still on the lithe woman's body.

"These don't help," I practically purred as I rolled down Emily's tights. Her hands were bracing her up as her legs spread a bit to give me all the room I needed to toss the tight fabric to the other side of the gazebo walls. Once they were cleared, I enveloped Emily in my arms arms and continued to kiss everything I could touch. Her lips, her eyes, her cheeks, her nose, down to her jaw and neck. I was going to consume every droplet of rain and replace it with the searing mark of my kiss. As my hands wandered, Emily's fingernails dug into my back, across my arse, down onto the tops of my thighs. Yearning for us to get closer, I broke from the kiss for just a moment to touch the top of one of the wide-set benches. Finding it neither too wet or cold, I tenderly wrapped my hands around Emily's shoulders and gingerly lay her onto her back.

In the days before, I had felt her atop me, had held her as we slept, but now, splayed atop my waiting lover, the weight of my fortune caused every muscle in my body to clench. To show my gratitude, my lips found hers yet again, while I tried desperately not to bury my hips too roughly against hers for fear of marking up any part of her still healing body. A small smile danced over Emily's face. "What is it?" I asked, my fingers dancing lightly atop her abs, trying very hard not to notice the small abrasions of disfigured flesh the wreckage and had torn from my Emily.

"I told you," she said in a throaty whisper, "I won't break, Naomi. I want you. I want this." As my eyes found hers, the blackening desire within was matched by Emily's hands around my waist, pressing my own wet arousal against the rise of her thigh. "Make love to me, Naomi," she moaned, pulling me to her by the scruff of my neck until our lips were stealing us away from the world yet again. Her request echoed back in the back of my memory when she had bade the same thing to me after I had finally torn open my chest and born myself anew before Emily in front of everyone at Freddie's shed.

She wants me...she's always wanted me...it's Emily...it's always been Emily...

My hands were at Emily's command as they freed the beautiful woman beneath me of her bra and knickers, and her naked and wanting form was mine for the taking. With a lowered kiss, I held my breath as my fingers followed the lead of my tongue and both entered her at the exact same time. Sliding into the wetness, I released the breath I was holding with a mirrored moan from Emily whose hips began to immediately rock into my touch. Settling my hips atop my hand I used my own weight to bury myself deeper, and when our lips parted, I was met with an enthusiastic, "Fuck..." as one finger changed to two. Her eyes were open and wide as they latched into mine, setting every nerve ending in my own body ablaze as her dilating pupils drug us deeper into the welcoming abyss.

As her fingernails pressed into my neck and scalp, Emily brought her lips to my ear, her ragged breathing and soft moaning increased as I increased my thrusts. I wanted to drown in her in this storm. I wanted her voice to be the only orchestrations louder than the pounding hail, and as my fingers and hips claimed her harder and faster, I could feel my own body raging into a frenzy to the palpable sounds of "Oh...fuck...Naomi," It was far too soon for my hungry, insatiable appetite, when I heard, "Jesus...fuck...I-I'm going-I'm going to-"

"Emily," I echoed, the cadence of my voice breaking into a cry as I felt her clenching and tightening around me. Both our names became overlapping, swelling psalms as Emily's fingers slid down my skin with lightening speed, finding my center and taking me with a force so unhinged I was nearly struck deaf and dumb with the force of it. "Fuck!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, my body surging from the undeniable pleasure of riding this tidal wave with Emily now, as we both approached the edge. I had no idea how close I had been before she touched me and she commanded in my ear,

"Come with me, Naoms," My voice rose in a surge of high pitched, pleasurable exclamations of,

"Jesus...fuck...Emily...Jesus Christ, Ems...FUCK!" as with a final curl of my fingers, Emily was lost to my touch and as her hips shot up from the soaked stone beneath, it was all I needed to come after her. It was a long, slow ride down our bodies sporadically convulsed in aftershock, and if it were possible to physically glow from such beautiful exertion, I'm sure we were. As my senses slowly returned, I peered down into Emily's eyes and felt tears threaten to escape. It took me just a moment to realize why.

"What did you just call me?" I asked, feeling my upper arm start to shake just the slightest bit as we continued to hold ourselves together. Her brow furrowed as her chest rose and fell in continued, quick succession. Licking her lips, she cleared her throat and muttered in a post-sex haze,

"Naoms," she said with finality. Then as if a light bulb went off in her head, she added, "I called you that...didn't I?" My lips burst into a million watt smile as a short, jubilant laugh escaped them, and I didn't try to hold the tears back a moment longer as I captured my lips with hers.

"Yes, Emily," I answered, "yes you did..."