A/N: decided to do this chapter from Emily's perspective. next chapter will most likely be the last...in the meantime, enjoy! (& review ;)

…

He really shouldn't be looking at her like that, Emily thinks.

Standing at the bar of Nolan's newly acquired beach club, she notices Daniel sitting only a few stools away. She can feel Daniel's eyes on her, even from several feet away and with all of the people in between them. The intensity of his gaze reminds her too much of days gone past, of the time they spent together when they first started dating and she still thought that, maybe, she was wrong about him; that he was the "good" Grayson, and that he was different from his parents.

(Far too much of their interactions lately have her thinking about him in terms of their past relationship, of what the revelation of her identity means for how he views her now.)

Emily meets his gaze, acknowledging the drink in front of him (and the two empty glasses next to it) with a barely raised eyebrow and a slight nod. "Rough night?" she asks, making sure to keep her expression unreadable and her tone light. "What are you doing here?"

Daniel shrugs. "I'm just here, drinking to my sad life. ...And to our parents, who I'm starting to believe just might actually be in love," he says with a smirk. He raises a glass of scotch towards her in a half-assed salute.

She briefly addresses the bartender to order a drink of her own, before turning back to Daniel. He's always been a bit more... blunt after he's had some scotch, she remembers.

"Oh please," Emily dismisses. "You don't honestly believe that?"

He shakes his head, but other than that doesn't really give a response. Emily wonders if Daniel even really believes what he's saying or if he's just trying to get a reaction out of her. (That does seem to be his default setting these days.)

"...You look good," he says instead of giving her an answer. It feels like a compliment and an accusation rolled into one; she's not sure, exactly, how she's supposed to take it. "You going out on a date? Want me to call the poor guy and read him his last rites?"

She scoffs lightly, putting down her drink. She's halfway finished already and she would never admit (to him or to anyone else) that she needs it to calm her nerves. It feels a lot like the first time she left the Hamptons (reentry, Takeda called it) trying to adjust to being this more transparent version of herself, particularly around Daniel. For reasons she still hasn't figured out, it makes it that much more difficult for her to continue playing her roles of deceit without worrying of the consequences for the people she's using.

She thought that she'd buried that part of herself a long time ago, but running into Daniel tonight, barely an hour before she's supposed to meet with Ben (under the guise of a date but really in the hopes of gaining more intel on her father's case) only reminds Emily how much it still bothers her occasionally.

"You know what, Daniel? I'm really not in the mood to be doing...whatever this is that we've been doing lately, so—"

"Oh, what? You mean having honest conversations, probably for the first time in... ever? Yeah, that sucks. ...You know, I think I'm finally starting to realize why we didn't work out."

This I've got to hear. "Really?" she demands, though not unkindly.

"We're the same," he continues and Emily can't help but laugh, a sound as genuine as the scoff of disbelief that follows. She wonders if he's serious. Knowing Daniel, he probably is.

"You and I are nothing alike," she denies.

"Come on; we are! You may not want to believe it but, yeah, we are. I mean, we're both stubborn as hell and we both use people to get what we want without giving a damn about who gets hurt in the process."

She's taken aback by his almost casual, yet stinging, assessment and is surprised to find there's a part of her, when she really thinks back to everything she's done since she's arrived in the Hamptons, that actually agrees with him. Damn it.

"...That is not who I am," she denies, but even to her own ears, there's no conviction behind the words and her voice sounds weak.

"Oh, but it is. I see you, Emily," he insists, and it's more than just the words that affect her, it's the meaning behind them, his tone, and of course, the way that he's still looking at her. Emily shifts uneasily in response.

"So tell me, who are you hurting these days? You know what— I'll go first. So Margaux, the best woman I've been with in years, no offense," he adds hastily, to which Emily responds with an eye roll. "Well, she wants nothing more to do with me because I'm an ass."

Emily scoffs lightly. "Well, we're not friends, Daniel, so I'm not gonna prop you up and tell you to go fight for Margaux. Besides," she adds, bringing her drink to her lips, "you don't fight for anything."

She's thinking of so many times in the past he proved that to be true: the night when he officially learned the truth about the downing of Flight 197, and his parents' role in it, but in the end Daniel chose to hide behind their name; or the night when she called off their engagement the first time around, surprising herself by how much it hurt and how disappointed she was by the way he closed his hand around the ring that not five minutes before she'd been wearing, without a word or a fight or...much of anything, really.

"Huh. Ouch." From the look in his eyes, Emily can guess that he's thinking the same.

"Yeah, well, 'I see you,' too." At that, she stands up to leave. For a brief moment she feels off-kilter, so much so that this time when he slips his hand around hers, gently, to stop her from leaving, she doesn't pull away.

It's an unsettling feeling, which she hastily attributes to a little too much alcohol and spending way too much time going down memory lane with Daniel.

"Hey, Em." When she looks at him now, Emily isn't quite sure what she sees anymore. "...you know," Daniel continues, "you really do look pretty tonight...which makes me think that means you're up to something. I just hope that, whoever he is, the poor guy isn't wearing his heart on his sleeve. Because if he is, trust me, you'll use it against him."

It doesn't take long before Emily starts to think that this "date" with Ben wasn't such a good idea after all.

They've barely been sitting at the bar for twenty minutes, but she's already well into her second beer, trying to use alcohol to drown out the nagging voice at the back of her mind that sounds far too much like Daniel for her liking.

So far it doesn't seem to be working.

("I just hope he isn't wearing his heart on his sleeve...because if he is, you'll use it against him.")

"...Thank you," Emily murmurs as Ben moves behind her to push in her seat. He's being the quintessential gentleman, which is honestly only making her feel worse about this.

"I was actually surprised you called," Ben admits. He looks almost bashful. "I didn't exactly make the best impression the other night."

"No, no, you were sweet. I'd just, um, I'd had a long day, so..." she trails off. She shakes her head, forces herself to smile. "So, let's start over."

And so she tries to do just that, but she's distracted.

It would be so easy to blame Daniel for that, considering it's his words playing on a near constant loop in her head, keeping her from completely focusing on Ben, even as he sits right across from her. She hates how much Daniel has been on her mind lately, and not just tonight.

She hates how she can't seem to get his words out of her head or shake off the feeling left behind from their interactions, which weigh heavy on her mind and heart. It's been a long time (too long) since she's allowed herself to just feel something and whatever it is that she and Daniel have been doing lately is stirring up things that were best left buried.

"...You know, you actually kind of remind me of my ex-wife," Ben tosses out, almost casually, in the middle of their game of pool. "She never let me win at anything either."

"I, uh, didn't know you were married." Internally, she freezes, not expecting to hear that. She didn't know he'd been married. How could I not have known that? The revelation catches her off guard, more than it probably should have.

Ben nods. "Yep. Yeah, we were way too young. I thought she was the only person in the world that got me, you know? Turns out she was just using me to deal with her past," he continues and Emily starts to feel nauseated.

"One day, I woke up, she was just gone. Guess I'd served my purpose," Ben surmises with a shrug.

She tells herself that it's not the same, that whatever happened between Ben and his wife, it didn't compare to her and Daniel. But the similarities are just enough to give her pause, enough to make her question everything she's done tonight.

("…was any of it real?")

"How did you do it?" Emily finds herself asking him, though she's not entirely sure why. "Move on, I mean?"

"I buried myself in work, graduated top of my rookie class..."

She hasn't realized she's tuned out of the conversation until suddenly Ben is looking at her differently, his head tilted a little to the side. "So when's your deadline?" he asks. At her frown he adds, "You know, on this exposé that I'm assuming you're writing on Alvarez?"

"I'm not writing anything," Emily quickly denies and even though it's technically the truth, she still feels uneasy. "I'm—I'm just curious."

"...Me, too." He leans in and whether it's for a kiss or to simply be closer to her, Emily can't be sure—she's really off her game tonight— but she blocks Ben's touch by quickly grabbing his wrist, a purely instinctual reaction.

("…we were doomed from the start, weren't we?")

"Whoa."

Shit. She drops her hands, letting him go and taking a step back. "I—I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me—"

"Something tells me that this isn't a date."

"Ben—"

He shakes his head, seemingly understanding in spite of his obvious disappointment. "You know what? I'm just gonna take care of the bar tab. …I think we should call it a night."

Emily nods, knowing that there's nothing else that she can do but agree.

Standing in front of the door to Daniel's hotel room, Emily starts to second guess herself for coming, a feeling she's not at all used to having.

While this newfound brand of honesty they've been sharing has started to change things between them, she still knows that she is probably the last person he's expecting to see tonight.

She doesn't know what it is that they've been doing lately, wouldn't be able to define what's been happening between them if anyone were to ask; but in spite of everything, there's a wonder within her, a curiosity about where this is headed outweighs whatever caution and apprehension she should probably have about coming here tonight. She knocks on the door before she can talk herself out of it. She can't remember being this unsure of herself; there's something about when Daniel is involved that shifts her off center—especially lately. She takes a breath as the door swings open, revealing him standing on the other side.

"Emily." He says her name in a way that makes her wonder if there's a part of him that isn't actually surprised to see her here.

She shrugs, shifting her stance and she leans her shoulder against the doorway. "Mind if I come in?"

He doesn't answer her immediately. Instead he asks, "What are you doing here?"

"…Curiosity got the best of me," she echoes his previous words back to him, causing a glimmer of a smile to cross his features. She looks up at him and he finally relents, gesturing for her to come in. Even though it's what she wants, Emily finds herself hesitating in that brief moment before she steps across the threshold into his room. Only a moment.

When he asks her again why she's here, Emily doesn't answer outright. She considers avoiding the truth versus just admitting it, admitting that the things he's said earlier have kind of stuck with her, regardless of how much she wishes that they hadn't.

"Something that you said earlier kind of…stuck with me," she admits reluctantly. "Even though I kind of wish that it hadn't."

"And what was that?"

"'...I just hope the poor guy isn't wearing his heart on his sleeve. Because if he is, you'll use it against him,' " she parrots his words back to him. "I know that's what you think I did with you—"

"Isn't it?"

He's gotten under her skin somehow, in spite of all the time she spent training with Takeda in Japan learning how to harness and compartmentalize her own emotions while capitalizing on someone else's. It bothers her far more than it should, the fact that Daniel claims to not know a real thing about her.

Maybe it's because of her father, who Emily has caught on more than one occasion looking at her with a slight disappointment in his eyes, that the hopeful optimistic girl he left behind almost twenty years ago doesn't seem to exist anymore.

Maybe that's why she's here tonight, fighting to convince Daniel (and herself) of something she's not even completely sure she wants yet.

("Was any of it real?")

"...I guess it doesn't really matter anyway, right? Since I was just a cover - an easy way for you to get to my parents?"

Emily tsks in disagreement, shaking her head. Even though she understands why that's the conclusion he's reached, it still doesn't sit well with her. "...that's not all that you were, Daniel, you know that."

"Do I?"

"...Yes." she insists, bringing her gaze up to meet his.

In the blink of an eye, it seems, the space between them has gone from minimal to nonexistent. Emily suddenly finds herself mere inches away from Daniel, close enough for her to feel the warmth emanating from his body, the vibration of his breathing. She feels her own heartbeat quicken, an uncharacteristic flutter of nerves in her belly.

"…this is probably a bad idea," Daniel whispers, referring to the diminished distance between them.

"Probably," Emily agrees with a quick nod, even as she leans forward and presses her lips to his. But Daniel doesn't do anything to stop her, as her arms find their way around his neck to pull him closer to her.

She's overwhelmed by contradicting emotions: the desire for him that she's always felt, on some level— whether she wanted to admit it or not— and an uncertainty about what this will mean once she goes through with this. Of course there is still a lingering sense of doubt between them, a fleeting thought about the true nature of the other's intentions.

But then she opens her mouth underneath his, a soft moan escaping her as his tongue meets hers, making it all too easy for Emily to give in to the feeling of laying underneath him and melding her body to his.

It's not the brightness of the sun shining through the thin curtains that wakes her up the next morning.

It's not even the noise of early morning traffic drifting in through the open window. No; instead it's the feeling of her body pressed against his, the warm and vaguely familiar— yet long forgotten— feeling of anticipation mixed with butterflies in the pit of her stomach as she realizes where she is.

Emily briefly closes her eyes, breathing a sigh of disappointment at her lack of resolve.

She'd let Daniel get to her; she'd allowed their past (and whatever it is that's happening between them now) to affect her to the point that she lowered her guard last night and so easily fell into Daniel's bed.

Being with him was easy in a way that she hadn't anticipated. It didn't feel marred by guilt for the secret she was keeping, much like the first summer they were together; it wasn't heavy with expectation, the weight of clearing her father's name looming over her every decision.

In the moment, it felt good to shut her mind off. In the moment, it was less about deciding to be with him than it was about allowing herself to just feel, something Emily hasn't done in... she can't even remember how long. (It certainly helps that they've never had any problems when it came to this; in spite of all of the lies and manipulation, there had always been a sense of ease to their intimacy that always felt natural, no matter how much Emily tried to ignore it.

It was easier to let down the stone walls of Emily Thorne—built to protect the fragile heart of Amanda Clarke she refuses to admit exists— under the veiled darkness of the bedroom.

Sleeping with him is easy. It's dealing with everything that happens afterwards that's difficult. It's one of the few fall-outs she wasn't prepared for; there's no plan for this, because she never expected for this to happen again.

...Now what?

Emily holds her breath as she sits up, carefully trying to untangle her body and legs from Daniel's without waking him. She's sitting on the edge of the bed with her back to him when she hears him stirring awake behind her. "Hey," he murmurs, softly, his voice cutting through the stillness of the room.

She stops moving, just as she's leaning over to retrieve her clothes from the floor. Emily looks over her shoulder at him, trying not to let her guilt at being "caught" show so clearly on her face. "Hey. Sorry...I was trying not to wake you," she covers and it's not exactly a lie.

"How considerate," he returns and Emily doesn't miss the sarcastic bite to his tone.

She's hit by a sudden and inexplicable urge to apologize, but swallows it down in favor of a sigh. "Nothing's changed, Daniel," she says quietly, looking at him over her bare shoulder. He's lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. "I mean, I'm still—"

"I know," he interrupts her, though he sounds more resigned than angry and she doesn't like that it bothers her.

(He never fights for anything.)

"We can't go backwards," she insists but at this point even Emily has to wonder who exactly she is trying to convince. The implication is that too much has happened in the past to change the future but she doesn't know if she believes that anymore—especially now that he knows who she is and somehow in spite of everything they still ended up here: waking up naked in his bed, with her head on his chest and his arm wrapped around her waist.

Old habits, and all that.

He catches her attention by slipping his hand around her wrist, rubbing his thumb against the tattoo inscribed there: the double infinity symbol. "Really? Because this kind of says otherwise. I mean, doesn't Infinity basically mean never ending?"

She ducks her head in spite of the fact that it does nothing to put any space in between them— if anything the action only brings them closer together— just to avoid looking directly at him. "Not exactly. Besides it's not about you."

"But it still applies, right?"

"Daniel—" She fidgets, shaking her head. He's still holding onto her wrist, Emily realizes. Apparently, there's something about her eagerness to leave that only seems to egg him on to want to keep talking. "It doesn't matter. Daniel, last night...That can't happen again," she says firmly, meeting his eyes this time as she pulls away from him. "It will never be like it was—"

" 'Like it was' doesn't exist—it never did. Only now we both know it. ...Unless that's the real issue? The fact that you're not in control of everything anymore?"

"That's not what this is about."

"Could've fooled me."

Instead of continuing this line of conversation that feels too much like it's going nowhere, Emily gathers up the rest of her things and leaves, slamming the door behind her. She leans against it as she takes a deep breath, urging herself to ignore the strong desire to go back inside.

Nothing's changed, Emily chastises herself. She is still Amanda Clarke, the daughter of a man infamously framed for global terrorism —in spite of everything she's done to distance herself from that reality. And he is still Daniel Grayson, the son of the people who altered the course of her life forever— no matter how much he wishes otherwise.

There's no way that all of this—all of the lives ruined and ended; every awful thing they've said and done to each other—ends with the two of them together, riding off into the sunset.

Nothing's changed. It's what she keeps telling herself over the next several days: through the lack of concrete answers from her father about where he's been for the past twenty years and the distance put between them for, in David's words, "her own safety". It's what Emily tells herself throughout her frustration with being unable to pry her father from Victoria's clutches— and then later feeling vaguely hypocritical about it considering what happened between her and Daniel only recently. (She imagines that David would probably feel the same, especially if she were to tell him who really shot her on her wedding night.) It's all so twisted and there are far too many parallels between the two situations for Emily not to notice, and take heed.

She is her father's daughter, after all, but there's a part of her that wants to wholeheartedly believe what deep down she already knows to be true: that Daniel is nothing like his mother.

After all, he sought her out after he found out the truth from Charlotte when he could have (and probably should have) chosen to simply never see her again; Emily certainly wouldnt have blamed him. And despite his initial anger about her lies and everything Emily hid from him, there's been an air of remorse around him lately that's been hard to ignore. Emily can't help but wonder if that's what has been pulling her toward him, or if it's something else entirely.

There's a sense of comfort with Daniel that Emily's never acknowledged before, mostly out of fear of how admitting something like that would affect her mission and she knew that Takeda never would have approved. But now that her father's name has been cleared, that's not an issue anymore.

Nothing's changed, she tries to convince herself and yet...she still finds herself back at his doorstep, in spite of everything, anxiously awaiting his answer.

(So maybe something has changed.)

-/-