Middle 7

"What are you thinking?" Shalimar's question pulled Emma from her reverie. The silence they had fallen into when neither of them knew what to say had filled the room and seemed to put a barrier between them. The longer they sat in silence the wider the distance became.

"I'm angry at Adam." She replied, trying to keep her voice level, but feeling the tears rising. This was going to become an argument, she just knew it. It was there in the hidden anger in Shalimar's voice. Emma didn't want to argue.

"Why at Adam?"

"He hasn't thought this through. He hasn't thought about you."

"I assumed the whole thing was because he was thinking about me." Shalimar retorted. Emma flinched. It was starting.

"I thought we had it all sorted. I thought that it was OK, something you could put behind you."

"Put behind me!? Emma I don't think you understand this." Shalimar gasped, exasperated. "I don't think this is going to be something I can just put behind me. This isn't going to fit into a neat little box that I can hide away somewhere and forget about. You think I haven't been trying to put this behind me? You think I enjoy this? This has been going on my whole life. I have fought with it and lost and won, but it's not going to go away just because we talked about it."

"I don't want to argue with you, Shalimar."

"I'm not arguing Emma, I'm telling you how this is. This is part of who I am. Adam has offered me a way to potentially finish it, really put it behind me. Why do you object to that?"

"Because it's DANGEROUS, Shalimar. Because you might DIE. I don't think you understand quite how much you mean to me. I don't know what I would do without you. I don't know if I'd survive without you."

"I'm never going to leave you Emma. I love you. I would never leave you."

"Not on purpose, Shal." She whispered and stood, somehow feeling better facing this on her feet. She paced a moment and stopped abruptly. "Why, Shal? Why now more than before?"

"I don't think I've ever wanted it so bad." She admitted, hand covering her mouth as she bit her lip to try and control her emotions. "There was no down. You were here and you wanted it as much as I did. It was more it would have been more than just a child. It would have been a family." She sobbed and Emma had to take a seat, almost falling into the chair opposite. "I felt her slipping and I fought. I fought for her. I didn't want to loose this one. Not again." She sighed, a motion that made all of the tension fall from her shoulders to leave her slumped no longer angry, simply sad, in the chair.

"Why, Shalimar? Why would you risk that again?"

"Because I trust Adam. Because I don't want an ending. I don't want to watch my race die out because no one tried. I want a continuation - a future for everything that is me. My love, my hate, my dreams and experiences. I want someone to teach what I've been taught."

"And what if I said I would rather not be near to see you suffer that again?"

"You'd leave?" Shalimar asked, eyes full of shock and sadness.

"What if?"

"You mean so much more to me than this, Emma. I would never, never I couldn't let you leave like that. No. I would turn it down."

"And if you didn't do this, if you said no to Adam" Emma paused, frowning deeply. "Could you promise me that it would never happen again? That you would never go after" She trailed off, not wanting to voice what she was thinking. Shalimar looked away, desperately wanting to answer her question with a yes, but knowing it could never be the truth.

"I'm sorry" Emma held her head in her hands for a moment.

"I have to think." She said, standing jerkily.

"Emma"

"No. I need to think." And she walked unsteadily out of the room.