Chapter Twenty-Four- Beauty in Walking Away

"You make a very, very beautiful bride." Emily whispers in your ear.

She reaches out her hand and adjusts your veil, her hand lingering on your cheek for a moment.

"Not half as beautiful as you."

Emily blushes, reaching into the bodice of her dress and pulling out a small organza bag, handing it to you with a shy smile.

"It's you something old, new, borrowed and blue."

You raise your eyebrows.

"Well you truly have outdone yourself, haven't you?"

She chuckles, and you feel tears starting to well in her your eyes as you open the bag and tip the contents out into your hand. It takes a moment for you to recognize it.

"Em, is that…?" You feel a lump in your throat and can't finish the sentence.

She nods.

"It's the ribbon you used for my corsage for our senior prom- I made it into a garter. I figured four years is long enough to make it old, it's in a new form, technically it's my ribbon so it's borrowed, and, well, it's blue."

You hand it back to her.

"Put it on for me?"

She takes it and kneels beside you, slipping her hands up inside your dress and slipping the garter around your thigh, her fingers brushing against the top of your thigh and sending a shiver through your body in a way that your fiance hadn't managed in all your nights together.

She tightens it, and allows her fingers to trail down your leg as she moves to stand up again, and you wonder if she knows what she does to you.

There's a look in her eyes as she stands in front of you once again that sends alarm bells ringing in your head.

"Emily." You murmur, taking a step closer to her. "Do you not want me to marry Toby?"

She takes a deep breath and her eyes drop to the floor.

"I want you to be happy." She whispers, "I can reconcile with anyone you marry and any life decisions that you make, so long as you are happy. That's all I want."

You nod, your stomach flipping. You're outside the church on your wedding day, and your fiance is no more than twenty feet away, waiting for you at the altar, and here you are, second guessing everything you've spent the past few months preparing for.

"And what's going to make you happy, Em?"

In that moment, you are simultaneously desperate to hear her say your name, and terrified that she will.

So you don't wait to hear.

Instead, you lean forward and plant a lingering kiss against the corner of her mouth.

And then you turn on your heel, and enter the church, not daring to look back as you know that, if you do, you'll never force yourself down that aisle.

"Em?" Spencer called out as she walked into the apartment at six pm. It was a rare occasion that Emily was home first. Generally, Spencer spent the time that Emily was at work by cleaning the apartment, hanging out with Hanna (who did very little work and made an awful lot of money) and cooking dinner for when Emily got home.

But today was different. Different enough that Spencer couldn't fight back the grin emerging on her lips as she closed the apartment door behind her.

"Spence?" Emily's voice came from the bathroom, shortly followed by Emily herself who emerged in her dressing gown, her hair wet from the shower, "You're home later than usual, did you have a good time at Hanna's?"

Spencer relaxed into the hug that Emily wrapped her in, savoring the smell of Emily's hair as she pressed her face into her neck and squeezed her even tighter, unable to contain her excitement.

"I wasn't actually at Hanna's." She grinned, pulling back and taking Emily's hands in hers. "Well, I was this morning, but I left at around three."

Emily raised her eyebrows, looking from the unrestrained glee on Spencer's face to their joined hands.

"Okay, well, you've clearly been somewhere exciting 'cause you look like you're about to burst."

Spencer inhaled deeply, a grin gracing her lips as she looked into Emily's face.

"Em, I got a job."

Emily's mouth dropped open, letting go of Spencer's hands and looking at her in disbelief.

"You got a job?"

Spencer nodded, taking Emily's hand and all but dragging her to the kitchen table, where she placed a folder of information down between them.

"Uh huh. I got a job!"

Emily nodded slowly.

"Spence, I don't want to burst your bubble, because I can see just how excited you are about this, but didn't we talk about this? We agreed that there's no need for you to get a job until you're totally ready to. I make plenty of money to cover rent and everything."

Spencer raised her finger to Emily's lips, giggling as Emily rolled her eyes and kissed it.

"Will you listen?" She laughed, opening the folder and shoving a sheet of paper towards Emily. "I'm going to be copy editing for a company based near UPenn, who need editors who can work from home reading manuscripts- you know, grammar checking and that kind of thing."

Emily smiled, squeezing Spencer's hand excitedly.

"That sounds perfect. Spence." Emily glanced towards the kitchen cupboards and back at Spencer's face. "How about we order pizza tonight? As a celebration."

Spencer blushed furiously and nodded. She was pretty certain that she had never had a celebratory dinner for an achievement before. Aside from the box of buttercreams her dad had bought her for winning the Golden Orchid, any other achievements had been strictly limited to games of high/low.

Spencer nodded fervently and Emily chuckled as she grabbed her cell phone and quickly placed an order. She loved how happy the little things made Spencer, but it saddened her that no-one had ever given Spencer these experiences before.

"I guess things are going to be different around here now, huh?" Emily asked over dinner, offering Spencer a small smile. "With us both working, we'll be busier, right?"

Spencer nodded.

"In a good way, though. I like being busy."

Emily smile sincerely. That sounded more like who Emily knew Spencer really was, and a lot less like the person Toby had molded her into. Once her original concerns had passed, she'd come to think that going back to work was actually going to be good for Spencer. She had always thrived on having a task in front of her, and that was something that she'd been deprived of. It was good to see her claiming it back.

"I know you do," She grinned, "It'll be nice. You can edit while I grade papers, and we should still have plenty of time to relax together before bed."

Spencer smiled shyly, taking another bite of pizza and noticing the look of satisfaction on Emily's face as she watched her eat, knowing it was her input that had helped Spencer get her appetite back to her usual level.

"So, when do you get your first manuscript?" Emily asked, finishing the last of her slice of pizza and pushing away her plate.

"Day after tomorrow," Spencer said through a mouthful of pizza, "I get my first bundle of four."

Emily gave her an approving nod. That was one of Spencer's favorite things about Emily, she was always interested in what she had to say, even when there wasn't anything of substance to the conversation.

"No-one's ever taken care of me the way you do." Spencer murmured, sliding further down into mass of bubbles on the surface of the water.

Emily laughed lightly from her perch on the side of the bathtub, where she was painting Spencer's toenails. She had always had strong maternal instincts, the raw desire to look after the people she loved, but they manifested themselves most strongly when it came to Spencer.

"I like taking care of you."

Spencer smiled up at her.

"You always have. I would've wasted away during college if it wasn't for your cooking. And lately...you know. You've just always had my back. You could've so easily not even tried to contact me after what I did to you and when you did, there was nothing making you stay. You could've walked away when I shut the door in your face and no-one would have blamed you but you didn't and…" Spencer let out a heavy sigh. "Thank you."

Emily felt tears start to prick at the corners of her eyes. She loved Spencer more than she had ever loved anyone else, and it was moments like this, the vulnerability in her voice, that reminded her why.

"You have nothing to thank me for." Emily whispered, giving Spencer's foot an affectionate squeeze, "Honestly, you being here has made me happier than I've been in so long. I never feel more comfortable than when I'm with you."

Spencer sat up in the bathtub. It'd been years since she could even look at herself naked without feeling disgusted and ashamed, but with Emily she felt so safe that her self-consciousness had dissipated to a concern at the back of her mind.

"The feeling is entirely mutual."

Spencer reached for Emily's hand, clutching it in her own; the look on her face slowly changed from sentimental to devilish as her gaze flitted from their joined hands to Emily's face.

"What's that look for?" Emily giggled.

Spencer's eyes narrowed, her lips twitching into her signature smirk. Locking her eyes tightly to Emily's she gave their hands a sharp tug, pulling her headlong into the bathtub, fully clothed and sprawling on top of Spencer.

Emily gasped as she felt her face subsumed in the water, erupting into giggles as she resurfaced. Re-adjusting herself a little, she rested her shoulders against the porcelain of the tub and pulled Spencer into her side, rubbing their noses together before pressing her lips against Spencer's nose.

"You make it very hard to stay mad at you, you know?"

Spencer grinned.

"It's a talent." She giggled. Resting her head against Emily's shoulder, Spencer allowed the hot water and the comfort of Emily's touch to relax her. Feeling Emily's arm wrap around her waist and support her weight, Spencer let her eyes flicker closed, her breathing slowly down to a gentle rhythm.

"You know," Emily whispered into Spencer's hair, struggling to gauge whether or not Spencer was still awake, "With you in my arms like this, it makes me wonder how I ever made it through five years without you."

A/N

Who's ready for a big step next chapter?