AN: This is a way out of cannon fic. The end game is of course going to be Semma, but we have to establish where our babies are now in their life. It gets a little dark and twisted the further into the story we get. The story starts in the present day which will be roughly 6 years after the shooting and will occasionally jump back in the past to give you a view of how their story changed. The storyline will be canon up until the incident with Jay at the ravine, so everything that happened before then happened, but that's where the storyline from the show ends. There is strong Jemma friendship in this, as I always felt they had an interesting chemistry and could see them being good friends. In future chapters, there probably won't be an author's note unless I need to address something that needed to be clarified or to give a trigger warning. I hope you enjoy this story as much as I am currently writing it. As always, I do not own these characters, and no rights to them or Degrassi tng.

AN2: This was a previously uploaded, and incomplete story, and with HBO Max bringing all of the show to their platform for streaming, it has reignited my love for this show, and helped me to find my muse to correct, and finish this story. I have edited and changed the previous 5 chapters I had already had done, and have more new chapters to add, that will hopefully be uploaded weekly. I really hope you enjoy!

Prologue

They lay on the ground, both bleeding from various injuries that they earned during the battle, but neither of them really felt them. The adrenaline is still pumping through their veins, refusing to give out and let the pain and exhaustion take over. Emma is barely aware of the feel of the blade starting to break the skin on her neck. Her breathing is becoming ragged as the realization of the situation fully begins to come crashing into her. She knows that she is dying, the wound to her side still weeping blood undeterred, and it feels as though all of the warmth has been leached out of her body. And though she knows that it is almost over and that soon the light is going to fade out of her eyes, she feels a sudden need to make him see. Make him understand. She isn't afraid of dying, hell after all of the pain from the past six years and the loss; the thought is almost soothing to her. But she can't have it from him. Her heart can't handle one more wound, even so, close to death's door. She relaxes under him, praying that he sees the shift in the situation. She understands why he would think that she had been the one who had sold out their team, and compromised their mission. She hasn't exactly been herself lately, she had been more distant, and colder than she ever thought possible. That, coupled with her hesitation earlier that ultimately resulted in Preach getting shot, it wasn't hard to see how he reached this conclusion. But she had to make him see. She had to let him know all of the truths she had been fighting to keep hidden. He needed to understand that while she has definitely been keeping her share of secrets, she was not the traitor he was assuming her to be.

Finally, Sean's grip on his knife loosened, and the blade fell from her neck. They stayed suspended for a few moments, both searching the other's eyes, looking for the truth or lies. As she saw him begin to soften, she pulled all of the strength that she had left and raised her hand to the side of his face. He flinched slightly at the contact at first, startled by such gentleness coming from the woman that he had just been about to kill not minutes before. Seeing the conflict and pain in his eyes, she drew in a ragged breath, and began to speak, unable to fight the urge to comfort him, even now as she herself was about to slide into oblivion. "It wasn't me," she whispered, her voice barely coming out loud enough for him to hear. " I know how it looked, and I understand why you thought it was, but it wasn't me." His eyes go wide, as if the sound of her voice, so weak and broken, had finally brought him fully back to reality. Guilt and shame shade his face, and she stops him before he has a chance to speak. " Sean," she says softly, " let me get this out. I need you to hear what I have to say, and then, you can talk until your heart's content." As she says this a ghost of a smile crosses her face. It is a long-running joke between the two friends, both fully aware of Sean's never-ending lack of words. " I know things have been different the last few months, and I know that I have been different. I wish I had the time to explain it to you fully, and maybe I will after all of this is done, but I have to tell you this at the very least. I need you to know." She takes a few seconds to compose her thoughts, not wanting to waste the last bit of energy she has on useless words. It seems almost silly that she is lying here, moments away from bleeding to death, and she is worried about something as trivial as expressing her feelings. But maybe this is the only way she would ever be able to finally say out loud all of the truths that she worked so hard to keep hidden for so long. " I have a lot of regrets," she starts, " about a lot of things. I know that I made plenty of mistakes, especially today. Especially about Preacher. I know that I was the one who pushed for this mission, and now knowing the cost, even though we pulled it off, I am not sure that it is a price I would pay again." Tears begin to creep into her eyes, blurring her vision. She silently curses her body, never one to let her emotions take hold or be seen.

Reluctantly she continues. " I have always been so jealous of the rest of you. You all have so many wonderful things in your life. So many reasons to want to make it home. And I know that sometimes it seemed like I looked down on you all, for thinking about those things instead of being willing to do whatever it takes to finish a mission, I get it. I think I finally realized what all of you were fighting so hard to get back to. And while there are so many things that I am sorry for and would take back, there is one thing that I can never bring myself to regret. No matter how weak it makes me seem, no matter how selfish, I can never be sorry for anything I did to keep you alive. A world that doesn't have you in it is not a world that I would want anyone to be in."

The realization of what she is saying hits him like a ton of bricks. He replays all of the choices she made during their missions, that never added up in his head. He thinks about earlier today, when she hesitated during the ambush, and how it had led him to believe that she had been the one who sold out their team. And how though those two seconds of hesitation cost Preacher two bullets to the back, they had saved him one bullet to the head. The full weight of what she was saying finally registered in his head. Reluctantly he looked down into her eyes, searching for any sign of a lie. Unfortunately, all he saw was raw truth shining out. Feeling the last of her strength leaving her body, she pulls her head up as far as she can. Sensing her need, he leans forward, letting her lips brush the side of his face as he puts his face next to hers to hear what she wants so badly to tell him. With a final breath, her voice beginning to trail off, she tells him the only thing she has left to say before she goes." I am not sorry that I loved you. I could never be sorry for that. But I am so, so sorry, for all of the pain that it caused, to me, and to anyone else." As those words fell off of her lips, she goes limp beneath him. He pulls back quickly, his mind working in overtime, trying to get a grasp on what her words mean.

It takes him a few minutes to realize that she is no longer conscious. His adrenaline spikes again, as he quickly begins to search for signs of life in his friend. As he scans her body, looking for the cause, his eyes land on the puddle of blood pooling beneath her. Frantically, he starts pulling off her body armor and uniform, looking at the wound. He goes into autopilot, his soldier's instincts taking over, quickly finding the wound and patching it up as best as he can. He throws her limp form over his shoulders and tries to ignore how cold she feels against him. Before his brain has time to catch up to what is happening, he has reached the camp and shouts for the medics to come and help. As they lift her out of his arms and take her into the tent, he slumps to the ground. A voice shakes him out of his catatonic state, and he turns to see Jay sitting next to him. It scares him to see his usually rough and carefree teammate with such a severe look on his face. Jay speaks again, slowly and softly, as if he were speaking to a spooked animal, " You should let them take a look at that." He says, indicating a cut running along Sean's forehead and disappearing up in his hairline. " They stabilized Preach and shipped him up to the hospital on post already. They say his chances look good. And they are working on Emma right now. She is in their hands, and we are going to have to trust that they are going to take care of her. But you aren't going to do anyone any good if you sit out here and ignore your own injuries. Preach wouldn't have it, and I know damn well Emma wouldn't. Hell, she would kick your ass if she knew you had not gone to see the medic yourself yet. Not to mention that pretty little wife of yours and your boy." He leans over and touches the cut as he finishes lecturing his friend. " It doesn't look too bad, but I am sure you have other wounds that need to be looked at too," Jay says as he rises to his feet and pulls Sean up with him. Finally becoming aware of where he is and what his teammate was saying to him, Sean brings his hand up to his face, feeling the moisture there. He can feel the cut on his forehead, but what has him worried is the moisture he can feel running down his cheeks. Thinking that his cut was bleeding more than he had realized, he runs his hand across his face and pulls it back to examine it. Startled, he realizes that it is not blood that is soaking his face, but water, he turns to Jay. "When did it rain?" He asks, his voice full of wonder. Jay softens and places a hand on his shoulder, unsure of what to tell the man standing in front of him. As if sensing his unease, Sean examines his friend more closely and then his clothes. It is then that it hits him. It wasn't rain, but tears that had been soaking his face.