Chapter 7

The door closed and the silence in its wake was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

"Sonny, I'm.." She started to speak but he cut her off before she could finish.

He looked down at the glass in his hand and shook his head. "Don't. None of this is your fault."

She still tried to apologize. "It is though. I should have known better than to call her. Sonny I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."

He sat down, revealing the weariness in his voice. "You needed the break, besides," he shrugged, "I was married to her daughter off and on the last few years I think I can handle whatever she dishes out."

She decided this was her cue to go to the guesthouse so he could rest but before she could suggest it he motioned for her to sit down next to him on the sofa. After all the grief she had caused him she felt like she should if only for a few minutes so she took off her coat and complied.

"So are you going to tell me what happened at Roselawn or not?"

"I already told you," refusing to look at him, "nothing. Besides it wasn't so much what she said as to what I felt she was implying."

"Emily I never meant for you to get caught up in all the drama that is Carly and me. "

Emily looked up at him then. "Why is my conversation or might I say her conversation with me your fault?"

Sonny decided not to hide it from her. He went on to explain about Durant's lies.

"Well I'm glad to know that it wasn't something I did to set her off but Sonny you can't blame her, she's not herself and if I was in her shoes who's to say I couldn't be led to believe the same thing."

"I don't hold her responsible and you're not in her shoes. You've been nothing but a friend who needed a friend and I just wish others wouldn't be so quick to make it something that it's not."

Emily took a deep breath. "Look Sonny, you offered me a refuge in a storm of my own making but maybe it's time I found a place of my own, I'm taking a sabbatical from med school and I can use the time to look for something when I'm not helping with the kids."

He stood up and turned back to face her. "You're not going anywhere and you're definitely not quitting school."

She got up to stand and face him. "Sonny I'm not some teenager walking away from high school, I'm a grown woman who needs to take some time to think about what I need to do and where I need to go. Reese…"

He took her face in his hands, shaking his head at her. "When are you going to realize that her death was not your fault? If anybody is to blame it should be me. I was with her in those tunnels, I saw her in pain, I let her convince all of us that she was ok."

Emily was trying to hold back the tears. "I should have known, I should have been able to save her. Don't you see Sonny," feeling the damn break, "I stole her life from her."

He caught the first tears as the fell wanting to say anything that would ease her pain. "You didn't steal her life but you did help give life to Molly. She and Alexis would'nt have made it without you."

"Come here." He led her back to the couch putting his arm around her shoulder as they sat back down. "Listen I'm not trying to tell you what to do. All I want is for you to just think about it before stepping away from something that means so much to you. After that if you decide to go through with it then I'll respect that. What do you say?"

She answered him silently with a nod of her head.

"Another thing. The guesthouse is your home as long as you want to stay there. Even if you decide that looking after the boys is too much," he put his finger to her lips as she started to disagree, "you can still stay and see them as often as you want. I can find someone else to watch them full-time but you are an important part of their life Emily and don't want to take that away from them."

"Thank you."

Sonny got up a few minutes later to go check on the boys. Upon his return he found Emily had stretched out and was sound asleep herself. He watched her for a moment before finding something to put over her. Sonny reached out to move her hair from her face and caught himself as she began to unconsciously nestle herself against the cushions for comfort. It was an image he couldn't get out of his mind as he dimmed the lights and went back upstairs to try and sleep get some rest of his own.