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To the Limit

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"No."

"But, Em …"

"No."

"What about …"

"No."

Manny sighed in exasperation. She had been tossing out ideas to Emma for the past hour, but so far she had vetoed every one of them.

"Em, I'm trying to help you here," she told her, trying to keep the anger and frustration out of her voice.

Emma threw a disbelieving look at her. "Well so far you've been less than helpful."

"What? Those were some good ideas!" Manny declared.

"Manny," Emma told her slowly, "I am not going to seduce Joey."

"You said you didn't want him to see you as a kid anymore," she said.

Emma groaned and buried her head in her pillow. Manny's plots had gotten more and more ridiculous the longer she went on and Emma wished more and more that she had just lied when she had made the joke about her having a thing for Joey.

"I don't think my jumping him the second he walks in the door is necessarily the best idea." Emma said.

Manny rolled over onto her back on the bed, holding her nails up for inspection. "Then what are you planning to do?"

Just like at the mall, Emma said nothing. Realizing what it meant, Manny rolled her eyes and tossed a pillow at her.

"Manny!"

"You're not going to do anything about the way you feel?" she demanded.

Emma shook her head emphatically. "No way."

"Why not?"

Emma propped herself up on her elbows to look at her best friend at the foot of the bed. "Uh, did you miss the part where Joey sees me as a child?"

"Oh come on, Em," Manny said, "Joey does not think of you as a child."

"He said I was a great kid," she argued.

"Not exactly."

"He implied it," Emma said stubbornly.

Manny shook her head. Emma was hopeless. She would have bet a million dollars that Emma would just wallow in her crush until it made her miserable or worked its way out of her system one. Manny just prayed that it would be the latter, for all of their sakes.

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"Em, Joey called for you this morning," Spike told her daughter at breakfast that Saturday.

Manny watched as Emma dropped her spoon into her cereal with a splat, her cheeks flushing a light pink. She shook her head. If things kept up this way, Emma was never going to survive this crush.

"What did he want?" she asked, trying, and failing, to sound nonchalant.

"He was in a hurry and couldn't talk much. He wants you to stop by the lot later," Spike told her, picking Jack up out of his high chair.

"What about Angie?" Emma asked.

"She's with his mom for the day," her mom said. She headed for the door and stopped to look back at the girls at the table. "Please, honey, no lectures about the environmental hazards of exhaust pollution." With a final wave, Spike headed out the door.

"Em, you're blushing," Manny teased.

Emma glared at her. "Shut up, Manny."

"Are you planning to blush every time somebody mentions Joey? What are you like around him?" Manny asked, popping a strawberry from her cereal into her mouth.

Still slightly pink, Emma stood up from the table and placed her bowl in the sink. "I'm going to be in the shower if you need me."

"You can't ignore this forever, Emma!" Manny called after her.

To that Emma yelled back, "Oh yes I can!"

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"Knock, knock."

Joey looked up at Emma's voice to see her standing in the doorway of his office. He smiled at her. "Hey, Emma. Come on in."

She walked in slowly, instantly regretting the fact that she had worn a skirt when she felt the frigid air in the small room. She shivered.

Joey noticed and his brow wrinkled n concern. "You cold?"

"No. It's just, you know, coming in from the hot air," she said. The last thing she wanted was to draw this out longer. In the past week she had found that the less time she spent around Joey, the easier it became to ignore the bizarre feelings she was still experiencing. That was the safest route, for when she spent long periods of time in Joey's company she tended to let her emotions get the best of her and she was terrified that Joey would see it eventually.

She sat down in the chair in front of his desk, declining his offer of a glass of water. "My mom said you wanted to talk to me about something."

He nodded. "Yeah, I do." The phone rang then, interrupting him and he threw her an apologetic look before picking it up.

Emma let her eyes wander around his office while he chatted on about carburetors and fuel lines. She had really only been in Joey's office about a handful of times and she found that it looked just like him. She studied the pictures adorning the walls and desk, taking in the familiar faces of Craig, Angie, Julia, and her mom and Snake, some dating all the way back to junior high.

But the one that she was the most entranced with was one of the oldest. It showed him and Spike on the front steps of Degrassi with Snake and Caitlin behind them, Wheels and Lucy on either side of them. They all looked around sixteen years old and Joey was wearing his trademark hat over his mop of dark hair, grinning devilishly. And there, on his lap, was a smiling little girl with blonde hair curling down around her face.

"Emma?"

She turned her attention back to Joey, who was now off the phone and had sat back down in his desk chair.

"Sorry," she told him, "I don't think I've ever seen that one before." She directed her hand towards the picture in question.

Joey's face broke into a huge grin when he turned to the photo. "Ah, the good old days."

Emma laughed. "You make it sound like it was a million years ago."

"It feels that way sometimes," he told her, "And then others it seems like it was just yesterday."

She nodded in understanding. That feeling had been creeping up on her a lot lately; with senior year looming before her and her attempts to rationalize her crazy crush away with memories, it was all too familiar.

Joey was still gazing at the image on his wall, a wistful expression on his face.

"Joey?" she said softly, "You okay?"

"Yeah, just … thinking," he replied. "So, I needed to talk to you about something."

She nodded.

"My mom took Angie to the ballet over the weekend, and she loved it. Now, she wants to take lessons, and it being summer, the only ones available are early morning. And my mother volunteered to take her and keep her until I get home in the evening."

"That sounds great," Emma said slowly.

"Yeah. She's really excited, but … that means that she's not going to be needing a babysitter," he explained, not really able to meet her eyes.

"Oh."

Emma's gaze fell to her hands, folded in her lap, and Joey thought that he had never seen her look so dejected. He had known this would hurt her, especially after he had asked her specifically to take the job, but there really was no choice.

"Emma," he said softly, "I'm very sorry. But at least now you can enjoy your last summer before college."

"Yeah," she murmured. It felt like everything was spinning out from under her and she didn't know whether to be sad or relieved.

"Well," She stood from her chair, pulling the strap of her bag up o her shoulder. "Then I guess I'll just go."

"You're not angry, are you?"

Emma paused. She was at the door by then, but stopped at Joey's question. Was she angry?

"No," she told him. And she wasn't. But she was more than a little disappointed. For more reasons than she could say.

An idea, a way of consolation, began to form in Joey's mind at the sorrow he saw on Emma's face. The rational part of his brain was telling him not to do it but it was being drowned out by another, more insistent voice that wanted to make her feel better.

"You know, my secretary just quit on me. She got a better job, and left me in quite a lurch." It came out in a rush, before he could think better of it and the surprised look in her eyes wasn't unexpected. She knew what he was going to say before it was even out of his mouth.

"How about you take over? Just for the summer," Joey knew his smile was forced, a little tight. But Emma seemed to either not notice or care about smiled at him the same way she had her entire life.

"I'd love to."

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