Chapter 25
The door to Scribbs' flat opened, and then slammed roughly as the blonde finally made her way home from work. Her jaw was still clenched from her mind replaying the entire day, and she tried to calm down now that she got home. She tossed her keys onto the nearest flat surface and went to check her messages. Though she had no illusions that Ash would call her, there were still people in her life who didn't know about the split, at least as far as Scribbs knew. The blonde had one messages from 'Melanie' from the bank. After calling back and verifying that she was indeed Emma Scribbins-Ashurst, (she didn't have the heart to correct the woman on technicalities), and Scribbs stilled as she listened to what she had to say.
The once joint account, which the once couple argued about that day, was now completely in Scribbs' name. A thought occurred to her, and Scribbs asked what the ending balance was. Hearing the sum, Scribbs mumbled a curt 'Thank you,' and ended the call. Scribbs' suspicion had been correct. Ash made one last deposit of the ridiculous overestimation of whatever she thought she owed Scribbs. The blonde stared at the cordless, the hand around it tightening while the other balled into a fist.
"THAT STUBBORN - !" Scribbs threw the phone in anger, but she didn't see where it had gone until she heard both the smashing of glass and the clatter of the phone as its pieces hit and slid across the shelf. "Upy, I'm so sorry!" Scribbs cried. The blonde hurried across the flat at her own words, but thankfully, the phone didn't hit the fish tank. Though his mouth moved open and shut as it always did, Scribbs knew that if he could speak, Upy would be screaming, 'What the hell?!' Looking down when the crunch of glass alerted her to what had been hit instead of the fish tank; Scribbs lifted her foot and sighed.
Scribbs leaned down to pick up the remains of the picture frame, removing a sheet of nice document paper and turning it over. As she stared at the names on the paper, the blonde figured the shatter picture frame with the fake marriage license was a sign, but then something about the paper got her attention. What appeared to be right behind the names and signatures was a familiar maple leaf. Suddenly a piece of conversation echoed in her head from a few days prior.
'Looking for a watermark, Boss?'
Scribbs paused, frozen, before she forced herself into the kitchen to throw the glass away. Then she held the marriage certificate up to the ceiling light, squinting to see it again. In disbelief she said, "No." She tried to ignore the new, faster rhythm of her heart. She felt like Charlie Bucket from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory after having just found the last golden ticket. 'Run home, Emma Scribbins. Run home and don't look back!' Scribbs scanned the name of the man whose signature (supposedly) officiated the marriage license. She had to be sure it was what she hoped it was. She hurried to her laptop and waited impatiently for it to boot up, then she did a search for the judge. It took over an hour, and just when she thought it was a fake name, she found him once she finally figured out what to put into the search engine. She hooted loudly in excitement, earning her a pointed reminder to shut the hell up from next door. (She supposed they took all they could from her after the yelling and then the crash. She was surprised they hadn't called the police to the flat.) She read over 'their' judge's work history as she told herself over and over that the marriage document was really, truly real. She reread the name she spent so much time searching for, a name she knew she would never forget.
Scribbs knew that Sullivan had his connections, but she didn't know how far they reached. Thinking back to the day after Ash woke up, Scribbs could make sense of all of the broad man's frantic errands and phone calls, but when had he been able to switch the fake marriage license with the real one? Had it been when David had come over for dinner or even before that while they were moving Ash's things in? Either option made sense, but no matter which one it was, she was holding a real marriage license, the greatest piece of evidence that she and Ash were truly bound together in the way they both wanted to be.
With new hope in her heart, Scribbs practically skipped into her bedroom, where she tore the bandage off of her ring finger. She opened the wardrobe and glanced inside at the two small boxes, and then she opened them both to check which one was hers. She read the inscription 'Only You' before she placed the slightly larger one back on the rightful knuckle, and it felt like breathing a sigh of relief after holding her breath for so long. Scribbs stared at the other wedding band, and was momentarily at a loss as to what to do with it. Then she searched her jewelry box for a gold chain necklace she'd gotten from her sister for Christmas but never wore. She took off the 'E' charm and replaced it with Ash's wedding band. She knew it was cheesy and sentimental, but she wanted to have a small piece of Ash and their time together with her always if she couldn't have the woman herself.
Scribbs' walk back to the shelf was lighter now, and she sighed when she saw the damage to her phone. She replaced it on the charger, but she doubted that she'd be able to use it properly after that night. She checked the shelf and floor for more glass, but didn't find anymore. Then she made sure her printer didn't crap out on her. She wanted to make sure Ash knew all of the facts, and only then would she allow her to make the decision of whether or not to completely write Scribbs out of her life.
Scribbs tried her best to fall asleep, but after all of the new information she had found, she couldn't even fathom the possibility. All she could think of were the pictures, the marriage license, and the printed off information on the judge. The blonde tried again to think about the entire situation from a different point of view as she often had over the past month or so.
What if she had been the one who'd fallen?
What if she had been in love with Ash all this time and suddenly, Ash had become her wife?
What if she had suddenly woken up again, realizing that everything she thought she'd known for a month had been a lie?
If Ash had come to her with a full report after all of that- as she knew the brunette would- and told her exactly what had happened while showing her the marriage license, would she have forgiven the lie? She would have liked to think that the answer to that was yes, she would have, but Scribbs also knew that Ash's barriers were up, and they were stronger and up for far longer than any of Scribbs' ever could be. If those six or seven years spent hiding her sexuality and her pain over Toby taught Scribbs anything, it was that. As closed off as Ash had proven to be over the time they'd known each other, Scribbs had also proven to knock down some of those barriers and had broken Ash's rules while walking away relatively unscathed. Scribbs had always been there to neutralize Ash's tense personality while Ash had brought order to Scribbs' more relaxed personality. It was always what made them the best of partners and the best of friends. She hoped that she could do it all again so they could go back to being that married unit she wanted so desperately. Scribbs realized that accomplishing this now would be different. The woman she'd known only a month before probably never should have existed, and though she had seen some of that woman she'd always known, Scribbs was fully aware of the fact that Ash was being that way for her benefit now, just as she had been before.
Scribbs' mind began to hurt when she thought of all the possibilities of who Ash would truly be now that she was out of the closet and her grief over Toby didn't consume her. Of course, Ash would always grieve the loss of that little girl and the former DCI, but at least now she knew that no one put any blame on her. Still, Scribbs wondered if Ash's rules would come back or it they would fade, if she would keep all the old rules without coming up with new ones.
As Scribbs looked at the pictures of her and Ash together in Britannia Park (having taken them to bed with her as part of her 'evidence folder' she planned to show her partner the next day), she wondered if she would ever see that shy, yet happy smile again, or if she was doomed to see the expressionless or even angry features for the rest of the time she'd know Ash. Scribbs shifted her focus from Ash to the image of herself, seeing her own hand moved to the brunette's face to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She stared for quite some time, studying every inch of her own face, trying very hard to find the lie there. She found none. Slowly, after many minutes, Scribbs let her eyes slide back over to the brunette in the picture, wishing with her entire heart she would be able to see that look directed at her again, like it was meant to be.
"I'll get us back," Scribbs vowed. Her low voice seemed amplified in the silence of the bedroom. She looked down at the wedding band on her finger, then at the one on the chain around her neck. "I'll get us back," she repeated with a nod, as if to reassure herself of this. With those words floating around in her mind along with the rough ideas of what she wanted to say to make her case to Ash, Scribbs put the pictures in the folder along with the printed out pages on the judge and Canadian marriage laws. She set the whole folder on her bedside table and turned out the lamp.