Trigger warning: topic of domestic violence.

2008

"NICK!" Emily screamed. She had been hauled off by emergency workers. Her brother was photographed and examined before being zipped into a black bag and taken away. She couldn't believe it. She had just seen him, just talked to him merely moments before. How could her brother be dead in front of her now?

"Em," Roger said, hanging onto her. "Em, I'm so sorry."

"What happened?!" she shouted, twisting to look at him. His dark hair was in his eyes slightly as he looked at her. There was sorrow in his expression.

"I don't know. One minute he's behind me, and the next minute I hear a shot. The perp ran off. I fired at him and missed, and then..." Roger trailed off. Emily knew the rest.

"Oh my God," she cried. "Oh my GOD!"

Roger pulled her into his arms, and she let him. She cried and sobbed and screamed, and he was there for her the entire time. He was always there for her. He was exactly what she always needed, and now she needed him even more.

...

Things were a bit of a blur after that. Roger was always there for her, though. They had just started dating before Nick died, but after Nick's death, he pretty much moved in with her at her request because she didn't want to be alone. Nathan was a mess. Roger was doing his best with both of them, but Emily mostly sat with Nate and tried to comfort him. It hurt, though, because every time she looked at Nate, she saw Nick. She wondered if Nathan felt the same way when he looked at himself.

"You gotta eat," Roger said, sliding a plate of food towards her now. She shook her head. Eating just made her sick.

"Later," she promised.

He didn't fight. He didn't push. He was just there, like a comforting shadow. He was sweet. He was kind. He was understanding. He made her laugh. He was tender with her. Emily didn't know what she would do without him.

...

The first time he'd hit her had been about seven months after Nick's death. She had chalked it up to him being frustrated and grieving the loss of Nick since they had been best friends. She had let it go. She knew people acted differently when emotions were high. He wouldn't do it again.

But it kept happening. It started as once a month. Then it seemed to be three times a month. Then it was once a week. He would apologize and cry. He'd buy her flowers or jewelry. He was affectionate and loving, but it stopped feeling real to her after a while. Even when he was "apologizing," it was all about him. Emily was so stricken with grief that she didn't even care. She'd pushed her friends away. Her parents lived far away. Nathan was too young to understand.

She took her hits because Roger was a good guy when he wasn't angry. He could be so amazing. She lived for those moments when he was her Roger, and she figured she knew how to keep from pissing him off. It was simple, really. He'd told her what made him angry. If she just didn't do those things, then she would be fine. She worked harder. If she could go a day without a cuff or getting sworn at or having something thrown at her, it was a good day.

2009

It was almost Christmas. Emily had made the mistake of seeing her old coworker, Serena, and talked to her for ten minutes too long. She had quit her job at Runway about six months earlier because people were asking questions she did not want to answer. Roger wasn't always careful about where he hit her, and she could only say she fell down so many times.

"Where the f*** were you?!" Roger screamed. It didn't matter how much explaining she did or how much proof she had about where she'd been. He still flew into a rage. He still used her as a punching bag.

He hit her everywhere. Sometimes he hit her with whatever he was holding. Sometimes he tried to strangle her. Sometimes he cut her.

He threatened to kill her if she left. He threatened to hurt Nathan if she said a word to anybody. By then, he was pushing Nathan around a bit, and Emily knew it would only get worse from there. He was a cop. He had resources. He threatened to use them to find her if she ever left. He promised that he'd kill her and bury her somewhere no one would ever find her. She believed him.

After this beating over talking to Serena, she found herself at the police station. She didn't know why she was there. She knew it was a mistake as soon as she went in there. She got put with some male cop who seemed jittery and pissed off, and she knew he'd make trouble for her. When he went to get her something to eat, she took the memory card from the camera to save herself and fled. She'd given a fake name in hopes no one would put two and two together that she was talking about Roger. She printed the photos at home and looked at them as a reminder of how bad it could get if she didn't follow the rules. She hid them from Roger and Nathan. She resolved to do better.

2010-2012

Roger became consumed with a case during these years. He was at work more and spent some time undercover, and Emily had a reprieve for a bit. There were a few more moments where he was her Roger and treated her kindly, but he still went at her when he could, though. New scars layered on top of old scars, and soon she didn't even recognize her body anymore. He was good at keeping it off her arms and lower legs most of the time, though, but she didn't wear shorts or short dresses anymore. At one point, in 2012, she had been waiting in the subway station and saw a man looking as though he was going to jump and end his life. She almost envied him. He was going to be free from his pain while she was trapped in hers. She left before witnessing if he went through with it or not, Russian voices yelling as they pushed past her down the stairs. She took a cab to her destination instead.

Visits to her parents stopped. She avoided going to Nathan's school as much as possible. She didn't work. She was going crazy, and she didn't know how to stop it.

2013-2014

The year 2013 passed the same as others. In early 2014, Emily endured another night of hell because she didn't know Roger was going to be home for dinner and had nothing for him. The smashed beer bottle was on the floor next to her where she sat. Her scalp smarted from where he'd grabbed her hair and yanked her around. She knew she was getting another black eye, and she knew there was no way she could tell him the news right now. She had to wait for him to be in a good place before she did that.

But would he ever be in a good place? That was the million dollar question. Nothing she did was good enough. He was never happy, and when he was, it never lasted very long. Those happy moments were so few and far between now, that she stopped hoping she'd see them again. She didn't understand why she stayed, but she was too afraid to leave. Nathan was getting slapped around at this point. She had jumped in tonight to take the beating when Roger had thrown Nathan into a wall. She wasn't about to let Nathan experience this kind of hell.

Nick would be so disappointed in her.

When Roger seemed calmer closer to bedtime, she dared to tell him. She dared to tell him she was pregnant with their child. At first, she thought he appeared happy, but then his face grew dark, and he screamed at her. He accused her of having an affair and having someone else's baby. He attacked her. He sliced her abdomen with his knife. He threw her, kicked her, punched her in the belly.

He killed their baby with no mercy.

She cried the entire time the miscarriage happened. That had been the last straw. Emily waited until Roger was gone for longer than a day, and she packed quickly and grabbed Nathan from school. She didn't care anymore. Anywhere had to be better than here.

2015

They'd gone just over a year bouncing around from place to place until they found a home in Tennessee. Emily got another job. Nathan went to another school. They avoided making friends, and they always had a story prepped when someone had questions. When Emily had seen Roger prowling around town one day about four months after they had been there, she couldn't understand how he had found her. She had been very careful to not leave a trace, but Roger was a cop. He had resources. He had promised to find her and kill her if she ever left. She met Nathan outside his high school, and without a word, he knew what was happening. They left everything behind. They drove all night and all the next day. Emily made sure they weren't followed.

They found Annie's diner, and it seemed like a place they could lay low for a while. She flagged down the owner and asked about a job.

And here she was now.

Present

Luke waited when Emily stopped talking. All that information had made him want to kill Roger that much more, and he understood more now about Emily than before. He realized that she still did not recognize him as the jittery, pissed off cop who'd taken her pictures. He didn't know if he should tell her or not. He also realized she had seen him almost jump and kill himself on the subway in 2012. It had been Mei who had saved him. He had seen she needed help from the Russians chasing her and abandoned his plan to die.

"There's more I could tell you," she said softly after a moment. "The things he did to me, but I don't really want to relive them."

"You don't have to," he assured her. They listened to the water lapping below for a while until Emily inhaled and exhaled slowly.

"I really wanted that baby," she whispered. "As crazy as that sounds."

"It's not crazy," he told her.

She finally started to cry then, and he thought nothing of it as he pulled her into his arms and held her as she let it all out. He remembered a saying he'd heard about tears being the release of the pain and not the actual pain itself, and he knew she had a lot of pain. He knew she had never shared any of this stuff before, so he didn't want to let her down by bailing because crying made him uncomfortable. But the thing was, her crying did not make him feel uncomfortable, and that was a mystery to him.

Luke wasn't sure how long they sat there after she had stopped crying. He was realizing how nice she felt in his arms.

"I haven't done that in a long time," she said quietly.

"What's that?"

"Allow myself to hurt and let it out," she answered. "I just tucked it away over and over again until I was numb to it all."

"I know the feeling," he nodded.

She twisted in his arms until she was looking up at him.

"How so?" she asked curiously.

"No," he shook his head. "You don't want to know anything about me."

Emily fully turned so they were face to face now.

"You're wrong," she said, resting her hand on top of his. "I do want to know. We're friends, right? And you just listened to my sad tale, so it's only fair that you share yours."

She had him there. He inhaled slowly before exhaling loudly.

"All right," he said. "There really isn't that much to tell anyway."

"I'm listening."

So he told her. He told her everything about how he had been raised to be a soldier from childhood alone and with no family, how he'd been sent over to New York after 9/11 to help Mayor Danny clean up the city from bad guys, how he had called out the corrupt cops and quit, how he ended up doing fights and allowing himself to get beaten up as a way of atoning for everything he'd done, how the Russian mafia had killed his wife because he had failed to lose a fight because his opponent had gone down after one, single punch, how he'd spent a year homeless and tormented by the Russians until he decided to end his life, how he saw Mei being chased by the Russians right before he jumped and got a new purpose, how he got involved in saving her and gaining leverage over everyone in New York so they'd be left alone, and how he ended up getting to where he was now.

Emily was quiet when he was finished, processing everything. He waited, wondering what she was going to say. He'd never told anyone this stuff either, so he would be surprised if she wasn't freaked out.

"Annie," she said, catching him off guard. He hadn't expected her to put that together so quickly. "That was your wife?"

"Yea," he nodded.

"I'm sorry."

"It was my fault."

"No, it wasn't," she said sharply. Luke looked at her, Vassily's words in his head.

I didn't kill her...you did.

"Because of me, she is dead, so I'm pretty sure it is my fault," he insisted.

"Then it's my fault that Roger did what he did to me because I kept screwing up," Emily said.

"No," Luke started, but she held up her hand.

"If you're allowed to have your irrational logic, then I'm allowed to have mine," she said simply. He closed his mouth and pressed his lips together. It was hard to argue with that.

Emily got to thinking, and she realized something that Luke had said.

"It was you," she said, looking at him. "That I saw in the subway."

"Yea," he replied softly. "It was."

To have their paths cross this way was a bit shocking for Emily. What if she had gone over to him that day? What if she had tried to talk him out of it? Would they have become friends? Would he have been able to save her sooner from Roger? Would she have taken Nathan and left with him and Mei?

"Well," she said. "I'm glad you didn't jump."

"Me too."

He almost told her about being the one who took her photographs, but something was holding him back. He wasn't sure what it was. Maybe he didn't want to embarrass her, or maybe he felt guilty for not doing a better job at helping her then and leaving her to more years of torture. It was both, really.

"Did you have kids?" she asked suddenly. "With Annie?"

I'm not a doctor, but I think she was eating for two...

The Russian's voice filled his ears. Luke was hearing it less and less these days, but it was still there, still easily accessible to his memory when he least expected it. Sometimes, all it took was a baby's cry to set it off.

"She was pregnant when they killed her," he said quietly. Emily squeezed his hand hard, and he felt sharpness behind his eyes. He swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the lump that had grown there.

"I'm so sorry," she said. So he was just like her, losing something he'd never fully had.

"I'm not sure I'd be a good father anyway," he said, clearing his throat.

"I think you need to give yourself more credit," she replied. He didn't say anything back. He was acutely aware that she was sitting very close to him still. They didn't say anything else to each other, but she didn't take her hand off of his either. He didn't move so as not to make her move it away. He liked how warm and comforting it felt.

"Well," Emily said after a while. "I shouldn't take up anymore of your time." She took back her hand, and they stood up together. They didn't talk as they walked back to the diner. When they reached her door, however, she turned to face him again.

"Thank you," she said.

"Anytime."

He felt a pull in this moment, one he was surprised to feel. It would be so easy to pull her into his arms and kiss her, show her he cared for her more than just friends. He stood there wrestling with it until she opened the door and stepped inside, waving good night.

He wondered if she had felt it too.

...

Emily awoke the next morning feeling lighter. She stared at the ceiling, remembering the night before and how she'd told Luke the darkest part of her life. She remembered how comforted and safe she'd felt in his arms. Never had something been so important to her before, feeling safe. She also felt good that he trusted her enough to tell her what had happened to him too. She listened as Nathan got ready for school and shut the door behind him when he was gone. She wondered if he had anymore nightmares that night.

She rolled over and thought about what had happened when Luke had walked her back once she was tired of crying and feeling exhausted. He had been standing there looking at her, and she could have sworn something was there, but she chalked it up to the both of them just being vulnerable with each other. Luke would not be interested in her, especially after hearing her story. She was a mess. She was broken. No one wanted someone who was broken...Gary's silence was proving that. But the more she thought about it, though, the more she realized that Luke was just as broken as she was, and she was feeling something for him in that current moment. She couldn't explain what it was. She'd never loved anyone before. She thought she had loved Roger, but she knew now she never had.

It was puzzling, feeling this way, and she didn't know what to do with it.

...

Luke had not slept very well. Some of his memories had mixed with Emily's story somehow, and his nightmare had been incredibly confusing and painful. Instead of seeing Annie killed right before his eyes, it had been Emily. It took most of the morning to clear it from his mind. When Emily got to the diner, they had nodded at each other, but that was it. He knew better than to say anything in front of Lucy, but he also should have known better that Lucy would have picked up on something anyway.

"You two," Lucy said, pointing her finger between both of them. "Something happened with you two."

How the hell did she know? Luke was alarmed. Did she have a hidden camera somewhere?

"You've watched too many rom-coms, Lucy," Emily sighed. "How was Brent last night?"

This magically shut Lucy up, and she hustled off to attend to a customer. Luke logged this information away. If you wanted Lucy to shut up and go away, ask her about Brent.

"Hey," he said to Emily now that they were alone.

"Hey," she said back. Luke tried to find something else to say, but nothing was coming. He felt like an idiot standing there looking at her. He knew he should tell her about Gary going out on a date with someone else, but those words wouldn't come out either.

"Luke, I got something burning back here," Tito called. "Help!"

"See you later," Luke said to Emily, leaving to assist in the kitchen. What was happening to him? Why wasn't his brain working properly? And why was he still wondering what it would be like to kiss Emily?

Oye vey.