October and November are unseasonably cold, and Aaron spends every free minute curled up with Emily. Any night he spends away from DC, away from Emily, feels wasted. He calls her those nights, and they spend hours talking about nothing, and they are the most important hours of his day. But he knows they are in a bubble. All relationships start in a bubble. Sometimes you don't even get a full day in the bubble before one of you is investigating the other one for treason, so Aaron is happy to embrace the bubble for as long as it will last.

But the longer it goes on, the more he realizes a relationship cannot grow in the bubble.

It starts with a State Dinner with the Canadian Prime Minister. Aaron can't pull his eyes away from the Prime Minister's wife. He's a little too captivated if Kirkman's warning that he under no circumstances should start an international incident by seducing her were anything to go off of. But he is captivated by how happy she is, and he wonders if Emily could ever be that happy by his side. But he doesn't know how to ask her, not without bursting their bubble. Just to rile up Kirkman he dances with the President's wife, making her laugh, asking her questions about her life before she married the President. And it does annoy Kirkman, after the guest have gone he calls Aaron reckless, stupid, idiotic. And Aaron wonders that night when Emily curled up in bed with him, how much more this would upset Kirkman.

And then Seth brings his new nephew into the office one day. Aaron can see the ploy for what it is, nobody is going to yell at the man holding a baby. But anytime he sees the two of them, his mind goes to Emily. Does she want kids? And more importantly, would she want kids with him? But once again, questions like that can burst a bubble, so he keeps his thoughts to himself.

And when he makes Thanksgiving plans he asks Emily to come down to Texas with him. He wants her to meet his family, and he doesn't want her to be alone. But she doesn't seem interested and his family will absolutely burst a bubble, so they spend the holiday apart. He tells himself it was just too soon, but he worries it's a sign that she really doesn't see this as seriously as he does.

But the bubble bursts anyway, one night in early December.

It's the middle of the night when Aaron wakes, pulled from his sleep by Emily's tossing and turning. She'd told him that she had nightmares, but then there was nothing. And some small silly part of him thought to himself that Emily wouldn't have nightmares when he was here. He shakes her, lightly at first, but then with a little more force when she won't wake up. When she finally does, she collapses in his chest and sobbing murmurs, "I'm sorry."

"You're okay." He tells her, as he rubs his hand up and down her back. Almost methodical, he's counting. Telling himself she will calm down when he gets to fifty, one hundred, two hundred.

He's at three hundred twenty eight before she calms down enough to talk to him. In a wavering voice she says, "I killed my mom."

"No you didn't." He says brushing her hair out of her face.

"I did."

"You were just doing what she wanted. You were taking her out of her pain."

She shakes her head, "Anytime I think about her I just see the cancer. I'm losing the real her."

"All the good memories are still there. It just takes time." At least that's how it was for him with the capitol bombing. For months he couldn't even think of the people he lost there, then he could only imagine their deaths. But one day he was eating a hotdog and he suddenly remembered how disgusting it was that Mike from Comms ate two every day for lunch, no bun, no condiments, sometimes not even heated up. And from there the good times slowly trickled back in.

"I miss her." She takes his hand and interlaces her fingers with his.

"I know."

"Last year, with everything after the election, all I wanted was her there to hug. And I thought that was the worst thing, not having her when everything was terrible. But this is harder, being happy without her."

"She would want you to be happy." It's trite, but he doesn't know what else to say.

"I know." She's quiet for a moment, and then leans in and kisses him. It's almost too easy for him, the way he gets lost in her body, its the way she fits against him, the way their bodies move together. He wraps his arms around her waist tightly as she drapes her body over his, her nails digging into his shoulders, her hips grinding against his. There's always just a hint of desperation between them, they can never get close enough to each other, no touch, no kiss is ever enough. Even when he's inside of her, and she's tight around him, riding him, it's still not enough. He always wants so much more from Emily; needs so much more.

They're both still catching their breath when the words leave his mouth, almost without thought. "I love you."

"Oh." She looks startled, "Oh, I'm sorry. I-"

"It's fine." He says brusquely, wishing he could disappear. "You don't have to say it back."

"I do really care about you."

"We don't have to do this." He wants nothing more than to just take it back.

She looks for a second like she is going to continue, but then she just puts her hands over her mouth and says nothing.

He puts his arms around her, and lightly kisses her forehead. At least like this he doesn't have to worry about her seeing the look on his face, and starting another round of apologies and explanations. He lies awake, wondering what he's done as she drifts off to sleep. The timing was all off, he tells himself, he shouldn't have sprung this on her when she was so upset. And she didn't go running for the door, which had to be a good thing. So this really wasn't the end of the world. At least he hoped it wasn't.


By the time Christmas rolls around Aaron and Emily have mostly moved past the awkwardness of him telling her he loves her. They danced around it at first, she was a little too nice, he was a little cold. But then when it was clear that neither of them were going to bring it up, they fell back into their old patterns like nothing ever happened. Except their patterns were slightly changed, Emily starts talking to him about her mom, about her nightmares, he stops pretending he doesn't see a real future for them, things start feeling like a real relationship. So even though it sucked, and even though he still sometimes caught her looking at him like a dog she was eventually going to have to take out back and shoot, he tells himself things are going well.

He isn't surprised that she once again turns down his offer to spend the holiday with his family, and now that she's let him in a little more, and he's seen how fresh her grief still is, he understands better. It would be hard, spending the day with a happy family, when all you want is your own back.

He still wishes she could be here, mostly so he would know she isn't alone, but he wouldn't say no to some backup around his family, if he's being honest. He makes it all of twelve hours, to Christmas Eve night before he calls her. He's lying on the couch, halfway through complaining to Emily about grandfather's newfound interest in politics, when he hears his sister snickering from the doorway. He would have thought they had outgrown the whole spying on each other thing years ago, but rolling his eyes he says goodnight to Emily and waves Selena in.

"On the phone with your girlfriend?" She asks in a singsong voice, flopping down in the armchair.

"Yes." He says. "What's so funny about that?"

"Is this one real?"

"Yes, and her name is Emily, not 'this one.'" He rolls his eyes. After he never brought his high school girlfriend home to meet the family, his sister was always convinced anyone he dated was a figment of his imagination.

"Grouchy tonight, aren't we?"

"You sit through Tio Marco's top ten questions about Area 51 and then you tell me how grouchy you are."

"That's your problem, you don't visit enough, so you have no idea who to avoid."

"So, subject myself to more of this, to subject myself to less of this." He's not impressed by her logic. Or happy with the not so subtle dig that they don't see enough of him. After some particularly tense fights years ago that left their mother in tears, they've given up trying to actually talk about it.

"Something like that." She laughs.

"Wanna help me wrap my presents?"

'You mean do it for you?"

"Sort of." He says, shrugging. At least he actually picked out his nieces' gifts this year, there definitely been years that he's even pawned that off on Selena. He rummages through his suitcase until he finds the bags and tosses them at her. Giving her what he hopes is a winning smile, he adds, "Thanks."

"You're hopeless." She says, getting the wrapping paper out of the closet nonetheless, "No wonder you go through girlfriends so fast."

"But you agree they're real."

"Juries out." She snickers, pulling a soccer jersey out of one of the bags. "For Jo?"

"Yep, they're her team right?"

"Yeah." She says, and looking down she adds, "Soccer's a bit of a sore subject lately."

"Why?"

"If she doesn't get her grades up she's off the team."

"Her grades? How bad are they?" He sighs, Selena never shares anything with him until she absolutely has to, so he prepares himself for the worst.

"Not great." She fiddles around with her phone, before passing it to him.

"How the hell did she get a D- in Spanish?" He asks, incredulous. It's not even her worst grade, but for a native speaker, he would think it would actually take effort to do that bad.

"You're one to talk."

"I speak Spanish just fine. And I never got a D in my life, let alone in a language I fucking grew up speaking." He can hear his voice rising, his sister really does wind up up to easily.

"She's having a hard time, Jesus. Not all of us are the perfect Aaron Shore."

Ignoring the barb and the inflection in her voice at his last name, he asks, "Hard time with what?"

"She's dating this little prick, he has her skipping classes and staying out all night, coming home drunk."

"Fuck." Getting kicked off the soccer team was the least of his concerns, Selena sure knew how to bury the lede.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to let her end up like me."

"Hey, no one talks about my sister that way, not even you."

"Aaron, what do I do?" She looks over at him with wide eyes, and suddenly she's fifteen again, telling him she's pregnant and asking him that same question. He doesn't think he was really much help back then, but he wants to do better now. Be more than just an infrequent guest who didn't even really know his own family.

He walks over and, perching on the edge of the armchair, ruffles her hair the way he used to when she was a kid, and tells her, "Don't worry, we'll figure this out."