Title: The Road Less Traveled
Author: Christy AKA Fallen Angel AKA Girlfearless
Disclaimer: Don't own it! Never will! Wish I did!
Okay, I'll have an authors note at the end, I'm just sitting down to write this and I don't have it planned out. Read on…
They forget that she hasn't always been a Quartermaine. That she didn't grow up in the privilege and carnage that Jason and AJ did, that she wasn't sent to boarding school at a tender age, and that, no matter what they think, not a damn thing has been handed to her on a platter. None of them remember that before she was Emily Cassadine or Emily Smith or even Emily Quartermaine, she was Emily Bowen.
The called her Princess, before she married Nikolas. They though she was frail before she married Zander. They said she was naïve before she believed in Juan. And they watched her too carefully before she ran away with Lucky.
No one ever saw the real girl behind the books, make-up, and heartfelt veneer.
They don't know the girl who would spend hours out in the sun, ignoring everyone who warned she would get skin cancer, or the girl who punched some boy in her preschool class for looking up her skirt. They don't know that her father taught her how to throw a punch, not Lucky, not Zander and not Jason. They can't understand what it's like to be seven years old and hold that same man's head in their lap as he dies. They don't know what it's like to see a semi coming around the corner and knowing, even in your young mind, that it's going too fast and your life is about to change forever.
None of them will ever understand how she felt as she watched the strongest woman she ever knew crying, on the floor in a little ball, because the only man she ever loved died in her daughter's arms. They will never appreciate the pain of looking into their mother's eyes and knowing that the cancer is back even before she says it. And worst of all they will never grasp what it's like to bring death to all of those around them, and not be able to walk away.
Carly Alcazar, back when she was still Carly Corinthos, once told her she was a selfish little girl who deserved everything she got.
She was right.
She's always known, always understood, that no matter what everyone thought of her, she was selfish right down to her core. She doesn't care that her presence in their lives puts everyone she loves in danger. She doesn't care that death follows her like thunder follows lightening. And most importantly, she doesn't give one good damn what people think of her. Not really.
Everyone thinks she's a horrible liar. If they only knew.
She's can lie with the best of them, she puts AJ and Skye and everyone else in Port Charles to shame, because she can even make herself believe it. She can look into her brother's beautiful blues eyes and convince herself that she believes he isn't a killer, more importantly she can convince others. She can look into her father's eyes and not see the anger and the hatred that lies behind them, because she isn't AJ or Jason. She can look into her mother's eyes and believe that neither of them wishes for their true mother or true daughter. She can look into her grandfather's eyes and never see that he believes, as much as Tracy does, that she's an interloper. She can look into her friend's eyes and never realize that a part of them hates her because she's rich. And the biggest lie of all, the one that takes the cake, is that she can look into her husbands soulful brown eyes and not see that he knows she's broken and will never be worthy of him again.
Mostly she can convince herself of the lies, but sometimes the truth slips.
Sometimes when Jason looks at her she sees blood on his hands and when Alan looks at her she can see him wishing she came from him and when she and Monica share a glance across a room she can feel the weight on her shoulders from the pain that radiates from both of them, because they are stuck with each other. She sometimes feels her grandfather's eyes on her back as he talks with Tracy and the sentiment coming from both of them is the same—intruder. When she goes to Lucky and Liz's house and feels genuinely jealous of their happy life she can feel the anger seeping from them, because she will never have to worry about how she's going to pay her bills. And, at night, when Nikolas holds her in his arms she can feel that it isn't the same, because he knows that she no long belongs to him. A part of her, maybe the most important part, belongs to Connor now. What little was left of her heart was ripped out of her chest at the same time he ripped the clothes from her body.
None of them realize that she doesn't regret killing Connor. They don't know, because they weren't there to protect her, that she knew what she was doing and every step he took forward she prayed that he'd take another so that she could pull the trigger. They don't know that when the blood was seeping from his body the hope was seeping from hers. They don't know this because no matter what else she is; she's a great liar.
Everyday she sits in Dr. Winter's office and gives the answers she's supposed to, but while she's there she's waiting for the time to run down so that she can leave. The only reason she still goes anymore is because she made a deal with Michael and she doesn't want him to turn out like her. But she doesn't go to see Michael as much anymore because he's there and she's afraid he'll tell Jason who Emily Bowen-Quartermaine-cut the Smith-Cassadine really is.
He is Sonny Corinthos, mobster extraordinaire and, shockingly, the only person who has ever made her feel like she didn't have to protect him by lying.
When she stood in the room with Sonny she could feel the anger coming off him in waves, she could taste his bloodlust and knew that it matched hers; she could understand his need to break things and make himself bleed because she almost shook with the desire to be able to do the same. She envied him in that moment because he was allowed to be big, bad, and dangerous and when he went off on a tangent people allowed it. She wanted that freedom, she wanted to be able to order men around and "handle" her enemies. She wanted that power more than she wanted to take her next breathe, but she knew it would never be hers to wield, because she was supposed to be a good person. And wanting that kind of power, no matter what the consequences, was wrong.
Sometimes she resents Jason because of his memory loss.
She wants to forget, to be able to look back at her past and see nothing. No hate, no love, no life, no death. That's what she prays for a night when most are wishing their loved ones well. She prays for God, or whoever, to erase so many things from her mind: Connor, the rape, her mother's death, her father's death, both of her brother's deaths, the accident that left her paralyzed for months upon months, the cancer, what little family she had left constantly falling apart, Lucky disappearing…her life. To get rid of all of that she'd gladly let go of the few good memories that were holding her together. What would it matter? A fresh start is a fresh start.
None of them know that most of the time when she smiles brightly she's biting that inside of her cheek to keep from screaming. They call her the angel of the family and tell her she's better than them, but mostly they are just saying that she's a better liar even if they don't know it. Sometimes she wonders if any of them even bother looking at her or if they just assume that she's still the same girl who moved in with them when she was twelve and go on with their lives. Mostly, though, she doesn't care, because as long as they don't look too hard she doesn't have to hide as much and that's the best gift she could ever ask of them.
They forget that she hasn't always been a Quartermaine.
They don't know that she isn't a Princess or frail or naïve. They don't realize that she doesn't need to be protected, but they will one day, because Emily Smith is dead. Emily Quartermaine is dying. Emily Cassadine is losing her fight.
And Emily Bowen willbreath again.
Fifty-five minutes and…ten, eleven, twelve seconds.
I hope it didn't seem to fragmented, I tried to write it the way I'd see Emily thinking of herself, but this was a last minute fic, I did write it in less than an hour and it is 2:41 AM, so give me a break. LOL.
This was suppose to only be a one shot fic, but as I wrote it I kept thinking about Emily's relationships with all of these people and how I wasn't giving them the detail and respect they deserved and now I'm thinking about exploring particular relationships a little bit more in different chapters. Only from Emily's POV and in vignettes, I think, though. I don't know. I don't want to get your hopes up if this is actually any good, because we all know how hard it's been for me to get new chapters of The Road Less Traveled out and I'm using pretty much all of my free time working on it. But, if this gets good reviews, we'll see.