Hey! I'm so very sorry it's been so long, but I have a new chapter! So thank you for all the reviews and PMs and I hope to get just as many with this next chapter. :)

Enjoy?

The three got set down at the table of a small partically rundown cafe called 'The Marque' and ordered their drinks.

"Now Miss Emma, tell me what's wrong," Tom suggested and Emma took a breath in.

"Meribelle! Where have you gone?" Emma called out, trying to balance a basket of fruit and a bucket of paint in both hands while she searched for her daughter.

"Here mama!" She heard the high-pitched voice of Meribelle Gitali yell through the hot air. Emma followed the noise to behind a large tree where she discovered her daughter playing in the mud with the neighbor's son, Philipe.

"No, Phili-pay! You're doing it all wrong!"

"You're doing it all wrong, Meri-BELL!"

Emma laughed. "Meribelle, Philipe, what am I going to do with the two of you?" They both shrugged and she laughed, "Well come on," she grabbed both their hands, "let's get you two cleaned up."

And that was when the first gunshot went off. Then another. And another. Meribelle and Philipe screamed and clung to Emma as she knelt down and picked the two four-year-olds up and ran back behind the tree.

"Philipe?! Philipe?!" Emma heard Susan, Philipe's mother calling for him in panic.

"Mama!" Philipe ran out of her arms and into his mothers and they rushed off into their home, hoping they'd be safe.

From behind the tree Emma could not find the source of the gunfire, but there was an attack going on in the village. Meribelle clung onto her for dear life and cried on her shoulder. Emma peaked out around the tree and her eyes searched for Thaad but she couldn't spot him at all.

A bullet wizzed past her ear and she immediately fell to the ground back behind the tree. She clinched her eyes shut and held back a crying sob.

"Mommy!" Meribelle cried, and Emma held her closer, rubbing her back and trying to calm her the best she could. Tears began to from in her eyes and they blurred her vision. She kept telling herself everything was going to be alright, and as long as they stayed hidden they could stay safe. But the thought of Thaad was in large bold letters floating in her mind.

"Emma! Meribelle!" Emma rubbed the tears from her eyes and saw Thaad running towards them and she'd never felt more happier in her entire life. Thaad rapped him arms around the two of them and he kissed Meribelle on the head who now clung onto him.

"You two alright?" He questioned above the noise, his eyes shooting around left and right .

Emma nodded, "What is going on, Thaad?"

He shook his head fiercely, "I don't know."

"What do we do? What do we do?" Thaad rest his hand on her cheek calming her.

"Shh...I want you to stay here with Meri."

"And what about you? I'm not letting you go out there, Thaad."

"I'm sorry, Emma. I must to protect you. Stay here, please." Thaad ran off leaving Emma cradling Meribelle in her arms. She sat for several minutes before she started hearing screams and blood curtling yells not ten feet from her.

She saw the innocent people from the village running for their lives and men clad in blue following them with guns in their hands and curses from their mouths.

A large boom sounded behind her as a cannon distroyed whatever it landed on. And the last thing she remembers was a large man running towards her, Meribelle's cries, and the intense pain of being knocked out cold.

"When I finally came around half the village was in crumbles and most of the population was dead...I don't know what had saved me from it all, but I sometimes wish it didn't." Emma finished, taking a gulp of her tea.

Tom ran his hand across his face, "That is terribly distressing, dear, I'm so sorry." Emma nodded towards him and looked at Sherlock who was watching her intently.

"Do you know who attacked the village?"

"I do not know, my only guess would be the English, but there wasn't near enough men to be an army of any sort." Sherlock nodded.

"What did-- Thaad do for a living?" Sherlock asked, seemingly forcing out the man's name.

"Why is that important?"

"Oh, the smallest facts are always the most important. Was he working class, got in to the wrong crowd. Gambled maybe?" Emma ran her fingers over the top edge of her glass, making a softly rich sound if you had strong ears in a quiet room.

"Oh, no no, Thaad Gitali was not a working class man. That man was a Scholar." Tom said in confidence.

"A Scholar?" Sherlock looked surprised.

"Such a gifted poet as well, that man wrote the poem that got my wife to marry me." Tom chuckled, Sherlock smirked, a glint in his eye.

"She is desceased, is she not?"

"...Yeah, how did you know?"

"There is an indention in your ring finger where a ring once sat, but too small as you had married young and your hands had grown larger. When Emma explained that her husband had died you subconsiously rubbed your ring finger." Tom sat dumbfounded and looked at Emma.

"Don't worry, Tom, he does that often. And he wasn't my husband Sherlock, we never married."