AN: Again a little late. Very sorry. I might have had a small freakout concerning the elections. But I hope that everyone is safe and well. I apologize for the political comment. So let's get to the story.

When Emily woke up the next day she found her bed to be empty. She spent a couple of moments looking around, wondering if she had dreamt the entire thing that had occurred the night before had been some weird dream. It would have made a convincing theory except for the fact she distinctly remembered waking up several times to find the other woman deep in peaceful slumber, still closed woven into her embrace. She heard some shuffling around behind the bathroom door which swung open, releasing a cloud into the room of steam and revealing a freshened up Paige who was busy drying her hair. She stopped dead in her track when she noticed her sitting in the room, suddenly becoming quite awkward:

"Oh, you're up?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hog the shower. I would have let you have the first go if I knew you were awake."

"Don't worry. I just got up," Emily said, fisting some of the duvet absent mindedly to keep herself from thinking about last night. "Are we just not going to talk about it?" she thought to herself, not daring to look Paige in the eye.

"You can go now," Paige said gesturing towards the bathroom.

"Shouldn't we be on the road already? I don't want to slow us down."

"I'll get our stuff in the car while you shower. Don't you worry," Emily could hear the well intentioned smile that was surely on Paige's face while she said that.

"I better get going then," Emily said, making a small showing of standing up before waltzing to her own bed and grabbing the towel next to it. If Paige noticed the gesture she made no mention of it and Emily shut the door the bathroom before mumbling to herself: "I guess we should consider it forgotten then."

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The two women settled for a small roadside motel after having driven through the entire day, this time settling for some quality station flipping, with the radio turning more and more conservative as the megachurches started taking over the landscape. Emily got the trunk of the car open while Paige lingered inside the car, staring absentmindedly at the steering wheel. As she was trying to swing her suitcase out she felt a quick jolt of pain shooting up her upper arm and she accidentally dropped it to the ground trying to hold back a small yelp that escaped her mouth.

"Are you okay?"

Paige startled her, having exited the car quietly and appeared behind her.

"It's fine. It's probably just from sitting down so much," she answered trying to brush it off while feeling pain mounting up her shoulder.

"You shouldn't be over exerting yourself," Paige said, approaching her slowly. "May I?"

"Sure. But don't worry about it," Emily mumbled, feeling some sort of resentment bubbling up in her chest. How was it that Paige was able to be always so conscious of her needs but completely shutting down the fact that she was very obviously feeling very vulnerable.

"I do worry," Paige said sincerely, grasping Emily's arm with both of hers and softly probing the upper part of it. "I'm your physical therapist remember? Does this hurt?"

"A little," Emily answered and bit her teeth together as Paige massaged the sensitive area. "But you're making it a lot better."

"It's a hail Mary really. You really got to get busy with these exercises when we get back to Malibu Em. I'll tell you what," Paige said, patting reassuringly on her arm. "I'll take care of the luggage. Just go get us a room. Seaside view, okay?"

Emily nodded, returning the smile that the other woman had given her before walking towards the main building. She heard a small ding of a bell when she entered the pastel colored corridor and saw a chunky looking man with a doughnut beard scuffling for the reception desk.

"Evening," he said, sounding rather exasperated.

"Good evening," Emily said, giving her most accommodating smile. "You have vacancy right?"

"That's right. Just passing through?"

"Something like that. I need a room for two please."

"Travelling with a boyfriend?" the receptionist asked, reaching behind him to grab a set of keys.

Emily furrowed her brow at the weird comment, deciding that social tact might not be this guy's strongest suit. Suddenly an idea planted itself into her head and she got her smile plastered back onto her face.

"No. Just here with a friend. We're carpooling back to Malibu together," she said, eyeing the name tag on that was slightly tilted over his chest pocket. "But tell me… Chuck, do you by any chance have a pool here?"

"We do," Chuck responded, seeming slightly flustered by her assertiveness. "But the pool area is closed down now. Late hours. Sorry."

"Yeah, I know. I totally get that. But listen, here's the thing," Emily said, reassuring herself that what she was doing was for the greater good before she leaned in on the counter, looking straight at the nervous looking man. "But here's the thing Chuck. I'm a competitive swimmer and I have been seriously lacking some proper exercise this Christmas. So if you could let me swim a few laps there tonight I would be so appreciative and I wouldn't tell anyone. Promise."

Paige turned around when she noticed Emily running back to the parking lot, waving a set of keys and looking like she had just won a race.

"Did they conjure up a seaside view just for you?"

"No. It's better than that. Come on, I'll show you."

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The pool casted soft lights on the surrounding walls in the darkness of the night, submitting relaxing sounds of waves as the two women splashed around. Paige giggled as they mirrored each other's movements, taking long, relaxed strokes until they reached the other side.

"I can't believe you managed to make them stay open until so late," Paige remarked as she grabbed the bank, letting herself dangle comfortably in the water.

"Don't act so surprised," Emily said, swimming up close to the other woman. "I can be very persuasive."

"Oh, I know a thing or two about that," Paige said, pulling herself up to the bank before extending an arm to the other woman which she gladly accepted. Once the were both sitting snugly next to each other she spoke again. "Is your arm getting better?"

"Yes," Emily said, before noting that she did not pull this elaborate plan in order to discuss her physical state. She grabbed the towels that were bunched up next to them and passed one to Paige which accepted it gratefully. "Paige, can we please talk about what happened last night?"

The other woman made a concentrated act of drying herself before draping herself with the towel and pulling her shoulders together, mumbling almost incoherently:

"I'm not sure if I can…"

"Well, try. Please. Paige, you can trust me with whatever it is."

The other woman stared awkwardly into the pool.

"If you feel embarrassed I get that," Emily said. "I haven't told anyone about this but after what happened at the Dollhouse I would get these panic attacks. And I didn't face it for years. I was too proud and too stubborn and too damn busy pretending that I had moved on with my life. And I started feeling vulnerable after I arrived in Pepperdine so unbeknownst to everyone I started engaging in behavior that I'm not exactly proud of."

"What kind of behavior?"

"I would drink heavily, at first I would only do it over the weekend, pretending that I was just getting the freshman experience but after some time I was pouring myself a drink almost every night just to make sure that I could get to sleep. And when drinking didn't sort out things on the weekend anymore I would resort to other methods. I would take girls home, only because I was afraid to be alone, but I usually got rid of them the day after because I didn't trust myself with another person either…"

"Em, you don't have to tell me all of this…"

"But I want to. I'll stop if you think it's uncomfortable. But I just want you to know that I don't find your behavior embarrassing. It's very human. And if I had accepted that earlier maybe I wouldn't have been so hard on myself."

"You were always so hard on yourself. In some ways it's what I used to love about you but it could also be very problematic. And I'm projecting onto you again," Paige trailed off, staring absentmindedly into the pool again before jutting her jaw out with a concentrated glance. "When I feel this… gosh, it sounds so dumb. It doesn't happen that often. But when it does, I feel like I'm standing in front of a riot, looking at them with their torches and pitchforks. But they can't see me. So I just stand there, frozen, not being able to move back nor being able to move forward, praying that they won't notice me because if I do they are going to come get me. So I just have to wait until they move onto somewhere else. But I get so scared Em. So incredibly scared. It sounds dumb. I know it does."

"It doesn't," Emily said, taking Paige's hand into her own. "Thank you for telling me."

"Should we get back to our room?" Paige suggested. "It's getting sort of chilly"

"Is the riot gone?"

"Yeah," Paige responded and Emily felt her hand squeezing hers back. "The riot's gone away."