A/N: A tad shorter than the others but important I feel.
Chapter Five
Will's POV
He opened one eye first. Then the other when he found his view of her sheet-draped form disrupted partially by a resilient wrinkle in the pillow that he rested on. The sunlight was streaming in, shimmering through the room with whispers of morning routines only to linger upon her bare shoulder, mingling with the freckles he loved so much.
Memories with no concept of propriety awakened him fully and he decided that now was as opportune a moment as ever to repay her for the way she had roused him the other morning, with her mouth, deliberate and unabashedly confident, in a place that still colored his cheeks if he neglected to call his thoughts back.
He let time remain a mystery as he reached out, curving his palm around the shoulder he could no longer resist as he scooted forward, letting his lips caress the back of her neck, humming softly, a nameless melody that required no words turned low chuckle when his tongue detected goose bumps across her flesh.
He loved being able to do this. Wake her up with kisses and touches in the mornings, his wife.
"Will," Emma half-protested, her upper-half now twisted so that it was facing him, "Shhh," he silenced her first with air, then with his lips.
His hand trailed down her body, stopping to trace patterns teasingly on her hip, his thumb brushing gently against the soft skin of her abdomen. "I bet I could change your mind." He taunted, dropping his hand lower, chuckling at her intake of breath, smirking when her eyes fluttered closed and he knew he had won.
Time is not a fair competitor and the alarm clock crashed into them the way Emma's forehead collided with his chest, a disappointed groan falling from her lips before giving itself over to a whispered plea that would plague him through his day he was sure.
"God, please don't stop." She arched beside him, her hips rocking forward into his touch and he knew that even if they were going to be late, he couldn't disobey that request, not when she sounded like that, and her arousal, warm and slick, tickled his palm.
She whimpered when he moved away just long enough to blindly fumble for the alarm clock, the sound cut off mid-pulse because searching for the snooze had merited second place to simply tugging on the cord. The sounds she was making, he decided, should be standard issue for all alarm clocks. He would be first in line.
"Do you like that?" He whispered hotly against the shell of her ear, slowly pushing a finger inside, his thumb hovering inches above where she wanted it, teasing with the promise of pressure.
Her response was an incoherent string of words that he regretted not being able to understand but he gave in, allowing his thumb to trace languid circles across her sensitive flesh.
"Yes, just like that," she moaned and he chuckled once again against her, at the song lyrics she had unknowingly imparted.
Moving his mouth to her jaw he placed gentle kisses back to her ear, where he spoke roughly in the way she had confessed in his arms one night that she couldn't resist, demanding her compliance. For him.
Her body became heavenly, melting sweetly in his arms and he lingered for as long as he could spare planting kisses along her shoulder, the one the sun had known before he had . With a determined sigh, his forehead against her back, he willed his arousal away but not before he connected his lower half with hers, informing her that he would get his later that night and she giggled when he said it was going to be a long day.
Reluctantly he left her there, wrapped in the comforter, deciding to let her bask for a few moments longer while he took the shower he hadn't been planning on because pushing through the day that loomed before him without one sounded exhausting and torturous.
When he returned to the bedroom, beams of sunlight pushing away the shadows of the night, Emma was nowhere to be seen, that is, until he noticed the red hair that stuck up from beneath the light blue cover. It was unlike her to not be up before him and he took a sense of pride in knowing that it was probably a combination of their activities last night, and his continuance this morning that were keeping her in bed.
"Emma," he drew out her name, letting the last syllable hang in the air as he moved forward and gently gripped the edges of the blanket.
"No, five more minutes, please." Her voice was muffled but adorable as he imagined the way her eyes were probably tightly creased together, as though that might stop what he was about to do.
"You've had twenty." He leaned over and spoke against the blanket before yanking the cover back, laughing as she curled up into a ball, trying to re-capture the heat that had already fled.
"Shower's clean, if you want it." He informed her, as he slid one arm underneath her legs and the other behind her shoulders, determined to get her out of the room at least. "I think maybe we should aim for getting to bed earlier hm? Good thing tomorrow is Saturday." He laughed again when she slumped against him, barely standing of her own free will and mumbled something about it being worth it.
"Go take a quick shower. It will wake you up." He shoved her forward lightly, relishing in the view of her backside that the action presented him with as she shuffled to the bathroom. As he stepped past her, he swatted her teasingly because he wanted to, and he could. And he loved that she now had the confidence to walk around without any clothes.
Emma's POV
Emma grinned to herself as she stood under the warm spray, simply existing in the scent of strawberry shampoo, the tile cleaner Will had used, and the air that had still been heavy with the steam from his shower.
She didn't take long, wanting only to rid herself of any traces of his wake-up call and as she fastened a towel loosely about her body and padded back to the bedroom, where she found the bed made, and the aroma of a breakfast casserole they had prepared the night before indicating Will must be in the kitchen, she realized with a grin meant only for herself, that she felt confident, and sexy, and loved.
Moritz watched her dress with lazy eyes, never once speaking up to offer his opinion when she asked for it. She let her good mood influence her choice; the v-neck of her blouse coming just a smidge lower than the others did, because she felt like it, because she could.
She came up behind him silently, breathing in both the scent of his cologne and the smell of food simultaneously as she wrapped her arms around his waist, announcing her appreciation for this morning silently before moving away to set the table.
It had become a routine that defied routines, random yet fixed in a variable way. Every few mornings they would substitute their usual cereal and milk with the American stereotype and slowly, very slowly, Will was showing her things she had been leery of before the disorder, such as eggs and bacon, were delicious treats.
"You look beautiful today." He mused from across the table, his eyes and their intense honesty causing her to nervously finger the hair that still rested about her shoulders.
"Leave it down." He commented, his tone contemplative and sweet, as though he would suffer a physical loss if she pulled it back, as she had been intending.
By the time they finished eating, Will lobbing compliments that left her blushing and imagining how she could make this morning up to him, they were almost running late but she didn't care. They let the dog out, unable to ignore the way he was prancing, shifting his weight from paw to paw, by the patio door any longer. Stepping out into the deceptively crisp air, her act of rebellion, an attempt to lay claim to this seamless morning that was slipping away to the tune of seconds and minutes, she caught sight of their neighbor apparently doing the same.
It had been a while, days, since Emma had seen the woman outside for something other than a run and after shooting a glance at the retriever, plodding along at a deliberate pace, examining each blade of grass with an intensity that clearly showed his bladder hadn't been in that much distress, she decided she could say hello.
"Good morning!" She called out, raising her voice to ensure she was heard, holding her breath as though speaking to a wild animal that might bolt when faced with the unknown.
The woman, dressed for work she could now see, turned to her with a startled expression that was soon replaced with a smile, a shy one but to Emma's surprise she descended the steps and crossed over to the fence that separated their yards, their lives.
Ignoring the unsteady sensation of walking through the yard in heels Emma returned the gesture, and soon the only thing that separated them was the fence. It didn't do a good job of it, the holes between the links were like the pieces of this woman's life that Emma could see in herself.
They conversed easily for a minute, their eyes taking turns following the retriever until he squatted in the corner of the yard and the both felt the need to afford him privacy. Amanda, Emma learned, a Corporate Accountant whose fiancé had just been deployed for the second time to Iraq. She was friendly, far more inviting than Emma would have expected and her voice was soothing, with a hint of an accent that refused recognition. On some words she could detect a southern spin, reminding her of her father, and sometimes she sounded as though she hadn't been in the South long enough to truly adopt their way of speaking. It was intriguing, like her.
Amanda glanced at her watch, loose on her slender arm, her eyes opening in surprise. "Oh, I have to go. It was wonderful meeting you, really." And there was something in her eyes, some hint of understanding and recognition, like she knew what Emma knew about her. There was something else too, a reluctance to leave, to go on to whatever demanded her presence, and Emma understood that as well.
There had been times that Will's simple conversation had provided her with a sense of normalcy she would have done anything to hold onto for one second longer.
"You'll have to come over some time." Emma blurted before she truly thought about what she was saying, acting on what she had seen buried in the women's eyes but the sincerity in Amanda's gaze as she mentioned that she would like that, made her glad she hadn't tempered her words with thought.
It should be have been out of place, socially unacceptable, inviting someone over after having barely met them but it felt to Emma like she had known the woman for years, and somehow, that made it okay.
"Moritz here!" Emma called out loudly wondering if her voice would be enough to distract him from the Rat Terrier he was currently racing the fence line with. He turned to her, his eyes expectant and she could tell that he had heard and was debating. "Good dog!" She cooed as he shot one last seemingly sorrowful look at his playmate and took off in her direction, tongue lolling out of his mouth as he bounded over.
She smiled when Will poked his head out the door and informed her they were going to be late if they didn't hurry. He stared at her curiously when her smile grew into laughter. It was liberating, feeling so at peace with her life. It was going to be a good day. She could tell.
She was adrift somewhere within her own thoughts as she had been all morning when she rounded the corner to spy on her husband and the Glee rehearsals he had been frustratingly tight-lipped about recently. First she was stopping by her office, to the filing cabinet behind her desk where she could store the papers she had just printed. The ones that seemed to be imprinting themselves upon her palm as if searing into her mind wasn't enough.
Shannon was on her knees, bent over at the waist, the whistle that always hung about her neck thrown over her shoulder so it wouldn't dangle in the face of the blue-jean, sweatshirt clad form that lie in front of her, the nameless, motionless body that Emma was now running towards, because she knew.
In those moments, drawn-out by adrenaline, the sickening lead weight that settled into her bones as her heels clacked harshly against the hall that stretched another eight miles with every step, she hated the morning and the way it was choosing to deceive her.
She fell to her knees, not even registering the sharp contact they made with the floor as Shannon's voice, authoritative and calm, out of place within the muted chaos in her own pounding thoughts, as she ordered a nearby football player to call nine-one-one. Without thinking she reached her hand out, her hand that was both hers and not hers as she seemed disconnected from her surroundings and right then, kneeling next to the student she had come to love like a son she understood why it had been so easy for her grandmother to brush the hair out of her dying daughter's eyes as she brushed the hair away from Scott's sweaty forehead and whispered that he would be okay the way she had heard her grandmother do.
"He collapsed, tried to catch himself on a locker." The coach informed but Emma's eyes were locked on the worn red traveling mug she had come to know so well, the scratches fueled by boredom in her husband's class that spelled out his name, as it rolled to the edge of the hall, the brown liquid trickling from the lid in a thin trail. For an instant, a second that existed outside of the present, she wondered what flavor it was.
"Ma'am" A large hand appeared on her shoulder and although she knew the owner would be wearing a uniform and undoubtedly that uniform designated a job, she wanted to swat it away. "Ma'am, you're going to have to move."
She stood up roughly, her legs functioning as though she had bent down for something as innocent cleaning up some spilled tea. Quickly she whirled on a young EMT busy setting up the stretcher. "I'm going with him." She said forcefully because she didn't want him to go alone and worse if something happened, she knew the importance of being able to say good-bye.
She wasn't going to make that mistake twice.
Emma lingered on the sidelines while they took his vitals and lifted him into the stretcher, the sirens blaring outside reminding her of the night she had overdosed as a teenager. "Go on. I'll let Will know." Shannon whispered, her arm wrapped around her shoulders and Emma placed one foot in front of the other, the way she had walking out of the church after her mother's funeral, and climbed into the ambulance.
As she took in the scene around her, the EMT that was informing an unconscious Scott of his every move as he kept re-taking vitals Emma realized that she was still clutching the papers. She didn't ask any questions, letting the irregular, slow tone that indicated his heart beat lull her into a sense of comfort that seemed on the verge of defining itself as fear.
Time seemed to slow to an infantile crawl as she surveyed the waiting room around her. The waiting room that like the Intensive Care Unit in Virginia seemed to be designed to provide comfort where there was none. The chairs were a deep purple and the carpet, nonsense swirls at her feet, was short and easily cleanable; efficient. Magazines with interviews from celebrities that had died five years ago littered the small, wooden end tables.
As she watched those waiting with her, for reasons she wasn't sure of, she noted that, they, just like her family had, seemed to be inexplicably tied to the coffee maker. Tied to the normalcy the drink afforded. It gave them something to occupy their mouths when they no longer wanted to converse, something to do with hands that felt useless and it kept them awake. Exactly what it had done in Virginia.
It was when she found herself heading for the coffee-maker because she had noticed the spout for tea next to it, that she could no longer question their behavior and as she made her way back to her seat, tucking her legs up underneath her, burning her tongue when she took a sip, she felt closer to him for it.
It tasted wrong.
She drank it anyways.
A familiar touch appeared on her shoulder and she glanced up to find his face, a haunting hybred of relief and sorrow peering down at her and suddenly the strength she had been drawing from was gone and as he lifted her up, wrapping her into a tight hug, folding her head beneath his chin as he simply held her, she gave in to the exhaustion she hadn't allowed herself to feel, and collapsed against him.
A rough sob escaped her lips as she moved her head, resting her cheek along the side of his arm, the fabric of his shirt gripped tightly within her fingers as tears she hadn't known she possessed slid down her cheeks.
The abrasive tone that indicated someone was coming through the large double doors sounded and Emma blinked away her tears, finding Scott's parents, his mother falling into his father's embrace just inside the doors. The woman's eyes caught hers from across the room and they smiled to each other, a reassuring smile, as she clung to husband, and Emma clung to hers.
Hastily she tried to dry her eyes wondering why she was making an attempt as the woman began to walk towards them, her face pained but grateful as she pulled Emma into a hug choking out her thanks for her not leaving her baby alone.
"It was a heart attack, a mild one." She added on as though the words were meant as much to assuage Emma as they were her. "They're probably going to move him tomorrow but he's staying here overnight just to be safe. I-" she started and ended a sentence Emma couldn't even guess at before her expression changed to one of gratitude. "He talks about you a lot. In fact, you're the reason we have so much tea." She sniffled then and Emma found herself caught between a laugh and a cry. What came out was more of a choked sob.
"He's going to be placed on a unit. They said he can have visitors after a few days." The woman informed her and Emma felt her heart sank at the thought of him on an eating disorder unit because like the man behind her had once confessed to her, she was realizing that she wasn't enough to save him.
Statistics she didn't want to apply to him, or herself, or anyone ran circles in her mind.
In a ten to twenty-year follow up after initial onset, only half of the subjects were fully recovered.
One-third were symptomatic albeit slightly improved.
Twenty percent remained chronically ill.
While Emma watched his mother, her eyes reddened while her hands pleaded, talk with a doctor, her inner commentary continued.
One in twenty of those diagnosed with anorexia; die.
Anorexia Nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder. Higher than the suicide rate for Major Depression.
Somehow Scott's parents convinced the middle-aged man that Emma could go back. She couldn't go in the room, there were too many specialists going in and out but she could see him, and at that point, that was all she cared about.
She took a deep breath as she stepped into the white hallway, the glass-encased rooms with curtains drawn or pulled back depending, the glaring reflection of the hospital lights on the floor that for reasons she couldn't ascertain she felt compelled to stomp on as she neared room 204.
It was only a sliver that she could see through and the sight of him, lying in a hospital bed, his frame so tiny, the oxygen mask she had seen on her mother fogging over with his weak breaths, slammed into her with a force she wasn't prepared for and just like that, she was reliving the days that had lead up to her mother's death.
Her body felt useless as she trudged back to the double doors, remembering what it had been like when she had been gripping the white hospital bag filled with her mother's belongings and she hoped to God that Scottie's parents, because somewhere over the course of the day he had became that sign of affection within her mind, never had to do what she did.
As she wiped away a stray tear she thought back to the embrace that had been shared by her and Will, Scott's parents, in the waiting room. They had been standing the same way, in the same room, for the same reasons and suddenly she didn't have to worry that she wouldn't be able to care enough for a child, because she knew she could, because she already did.
"I'll talk to him." She whispered more to herself than the boy through the window. "Remember how you made me promise? I'll talk to him but you have to promise to be around so I can tell you about it, over a cup of tea." And she turned, heading down the hall with confidence because she felt safe in that promise, safe in the tomorrow's it demanded.
By the time she made it back to the car she was a wreck, not emotionally blunted as she had been after her mother's death, but emotionally exhausted from a day of waiting and Will's hand, his thumb brushing over the back of her hand as they drove home kept her grounded.
Will catered to her that night, forgoing Moritz' usual evening walk to cuddle with her on the couch occasionally imparting excerpts from a book on music that he was reading. She loved him even more for that, for carrying out their evening as though she hadn't just spent half the day at the hospital.
They fell asleep together, not bothering to move to the bed, her wrapped up in his arms with the dog lying half on top of her and the book, non-fiction traded for the fiction of slumber, open to page eighty-seven across his back.
Will's POV
He had intended to let her sleep in, to sleep off the emotional gauntlet of the day before but it was the smell of brewing coffee, that woke him up. Emma was singing softly under her breath when he entered the kitchen, noticing that Moritz was already running sprints with the neighbor's terrier in the backyard. Sometimes he felt those people, who had gotten a puppy for the idea of having one, only to ignore it weeks later, should pay them for exercising their dog.
"You are up way too early." He yawned, graciously accepting the mug of coffee she set in front of him. It was when he set the mug down that he noticed the crinkled papers he had shoved into his bag yesterday.
There were underline portions, high-lighted portions, and notes in the margins that even without his glasses he could identify as his wife's tidy script. Squinting through the morning haze that always seemed to cloud his vision he could make out the title.
Pregnancy and Eating Disorders
He paused mid-sip, reaching for his glasses to re-read what he knew was already in front of him.
"Will, I want to talk." Emma sat down across from him, her eyes never leaving his, and he was struck by the difference between this Emma and the one he had known for so long.
"The high-lighted parts are about getting pregnant when there is a history of eating disorders. The rest is about, "She paused, looking slightly uneasy, "eating disorders during pregnancy so we don't have to worry about that, but it's there in case you want it, and I'm sorry, I'm rambling." She cut herself off but he smiled anyways.
He read through the sections she had emphasized, learning that because of her history she was at a slightly elevated risk for post-partum depression as well as a relapse into the disorder. He also read that most mothers, more than half, had no eating disordered problems during their pregnancy, able to put the health of the baby first. Truthfully, he had never envisioned her as the type to endanger a child but he had seen her do a lot of things he had never envisioned. The biggest area for concern was going to be the weeks and months after the pregnancy when she would be dealing with motherhood and excess weight and it was suggested that they have a team of health care professionals lined up, just in case.
Vaguely he wondered what had prompted her to bring this up now, after everything with Scott, but on more than one occasion he had witnessed her acting motherly towards the young man and either way, it was out in the open now. He didn't expect to feel so relieved about that.
"You've put a lot of thought into this." He commented, motioning to the papers.
"Yes." She answered, her voice perched on the edge of hesitant hopefulness the way her body was perched on the edge of her chair.
"I just want to talk about it. We don't have to do anything, or not do anything." She glanced down her mouth opening for what he was sure was going to be a nervous energy fueled speech.
"Okay," Reaching across the table he took her hand in his with a small smile, "Okay" he repeated when she looked back at him adding emphasis to convey that he wasn't adverse to this. "Let's talk."
A/N: I hope this chapter didn't disappoint, and thank you very much for your gracious reviews! They keep me writing!