Disclaimer: I Do Not Own Revenge, I Just Love It

Chapter 8: You're Hurting Yourself

Emily was waiting, he could tell by the calculating look in her eye, that she was waiting for him to say something, but what...he didn't know. Nothing could justify what he did and nothing he could possibly say would make her feel better, but even so he futilely tried, "I..." he began to murmur, but that was all he could come up with, he was stuck, at the first word, a simple one-letter word.

That was enough for her though, Daniel realized, as she began to attack him further. She didn't care for what he had to say, she just wanted to scrutinize it and attack him with his own wording.

"I was drunk... I was angry, I felt betrayed, is that what you were going to say?" Her voice trembled with anger.

She could feel her control slowly subsiding and her pain showing through in all her rage, but it felt good to relinquish her mind to her emotions, and so despite the danger it posed to her plan, she continued, "as if that justifies how you harmed me. Do you know what it feels like to have your lover, hold a gun to your chest, it's frightening, alarming, but it is nothing compared to the anguish and betrayal one feels upon the realization that they actually shot. You shot me Daniel, and then watched as those bullets tore through my flesh, soaked my wedding dress with warm vibrant red blood, and then propelled my weakened body over the railing. You left me there in the cold, dark ocean alone, no doubt waiting for the waves to swallow me up and engulf me in their fold. Out of sight, out of mind, is that what you were hoping for when you didn't call for help. How did you feel, when you found out I was alive? That instead of putting me out of my misery, the cold strong waves drifted me to help, help I didn't want when I was on the brink of death, with a diseased mind, a ravaged heart, and a hole in my chest. I guess neither of us got what we wanted that night, did we Daniel?"

Daniels face looked completely drawn of colour as if a ghost had graced his present, haunting him mercilessly, and his whole body was taught and stiff. He felt paralyzed, stuck, but willing his voice to speak from his heart, he adamantly replied, "I never wanted you dead". His voice sounded low and quiet in contrast to hers, but nowhere near weak.

Looking at the pain in her eyes, he felt sick, overwhelmingly so, he hadn't wanted to hear that, what it felt like, what he did. But now that he had, he felt as if his body was burdened by the weight of stones in his pockets, sinking him down to the floor and waiting for him to crash. A lot of stones indeed; guilt, disgust, and disgrace only being three of them.

"I never wanted you dead Emily" he repeated, "I loved you wholeheartedly, and I never did stop, I just got lost, entangled in our problems…I know nothing justifies what I did to you" he continued on with irrevocable honesty and pain in his own voice, "I know that, and you know that. We both hurt each other, but I destroyed us, what I did far surpassed anything you ever did to me, and I don't say that with pride I say that with great regret and guilt, it's on me!"

Looking towards her with such a look of anguish, he continued, his voice elevating in volume, "I fucked up Emily, so much so that I can't even ask you for your forgiveness and so I am not going to, it wouldn't be fair to you and I don't deserve it." He paused for a second, collecting his thoughts before he quietly began to say, an almost desperate tone to his voice, "Emily just tell me what you want from me. If you want to send me to prison, then call the police I'll hand you the phone right now. If you want me to pay through public shame then notify the press, I won't refute your claim. Or if you want to leave, escape this wretched house and get as far away from me as possible, then leave, I'll make sure my mother doesn't try get in your way. Just tell me what you want from me, Emily. I will stand as a man, and take whatever punishment you deem fit, destroy me if you want, I deserve it….. just enough with these games, it's all out in the open now."

Emily looked back at him defiantly, refusing to give in to his words, to let them resonate within her. What did it matter what he said, what he felt, what he told her? Was it suppose to make her feel better? Because it didn't, she didn't feel anything while hearing them, except more pain.

Staring back at him, her dark brown eyes, penetrating his own, she opened her mouth and steadily replied, her voice sounding cold and resolute, "I want to stay".

Daniels eyes widened in disbelief and he shook his head in confusion, "I don't understand he muttered, "You don't love me and even if you did, you know our love has been tarnished."

"No, I don't love you Daniel" she replied sharply, glaring at him, with such a look of disgust for even mentioning the word love, "Not at all" she added for good measure, her eyes boring into his, daring him to think otherwise.

He didn't, he couldn't, but even so, hearing her confirm it out loud, those words slipping off her tongue so easily, as if they never really mattered at all, sends a sharp pain through his heart. "Then why stay? Why not punish me?" He asked angrily his voice raising in frustration.

Emily smirked, her lips curling up, "Can't you see this is my punishment to you, Daniel" she said maliciously, "You can't move on if I stay… or forget"

"So you want to toy with me, my emotions, my future, like some game" he replied slowly, trying to control the anger surging up inside of him. He had apologized, he had spoken from his heart and though he knew that didn't equate to Emily's anger simply disintegrating, he thought she'd at least take something out of it, maybe see his regret and realize how much pain he was also in from what he did to her, and see that he was sorry, really sorry, and that he was willing to handle the consequences of his actions. He had meant that, every word but what Emily wanted; staying, how the hell would that help her? And how could he become the man he should have been for her, if she stayed tethered to his side as a sore reminder of his mistake and an instigator to more of his pain?

"You'd only be punishing yourself too" he tried to rationalize for her, since clearly in her anger she couldn't for herself, "The love is gone, the happiness is gone, and all there is left between us is pain, anger and guilt. Why stay when you can start over, start fresh?"

Her eyes flickered up in anger, and the look she sent him spread chills down his spine, "Start over" she said sharply "start fresh...I couldn't possibly, not after what you did to me and caused me to lose."

"So you're going to let my mistake dictate your life? That doesn't sound like you, not at all, wake up Emily", he shouted in anger, this time letting some of it out, maybe then she'd see, "I'm the one who has to live with my mistake not you".

"I Hate You!" her voice trembled, as she screamed those words at him, tears brimming her eyes in the process, though they never spilt, she blinked them away in her rage, refusing to let them spill, "You think you're the only one who has to live with your mistake" she was shaking now, he could see her body trembling in her fervent fury, "I have the wound Daniel, I have the memory clearer than yours ever will be in the intoxicated state you were in, I have the maddening pain, and above all else because of you I know have no chance of giving birth to a child, you've rendered me infertile! You've taken away my future, so don't talk to me about fresh starts, don't you dare. What start can I have? Why even try fall in love again? Why bother when the one thing I had always wanted to get out of love, was a family, was children, was the chance of giving birth, of linking whatever I had left of my deceased parents, to my own children."

"I am so sorry" he murmured horrified, "I never knew I..." he mumbled something incoherent in his shock, in his horror, he'd done that to her too, he'd taken away her unborn children, rendered her infertile, taken away the one treasured thing she'd always wanted most. There it was again, that guilt, ten times stronger, and fifty times more intense. "I". He didn't know what to say, so he just watched and listened to see what she would say next.

"You did this to me" she uttered sharply, her voice elevated in blatant anger, as she began to slowly lift up the bottom of her shirt, just above her belly button, to expose her bandaged wound.

Placing her fingers on the edge of the bandage around her wound, Emily looked at Daniel with such ferocity in her eyes, gritted her teeth and then tore off the bandage in one quick motion.

Drawing in a jagged breath, as she dropped the blood stained bandage on the floor, her eyes fixed on his as if daring him to turn away, daring his cowardice to show at that precise moments. "I thought you'd want to see your handiwork" she said piercingly.

Daniel winced, but he didn't look away, feeling paralyzed by the dark look in her eyes. So he forced his gaze downwards to the bare wound she exposed, the one he created. Distaste and disgust forming in his mouth, as he saw where the bullets penetrated her skin and where the doctors stitched against her paled skin, trying to force it together so that it could heal again.

He'd seen enough, there was only so much he could stomach and so he cast his eyes away, daring to look back up at her face with all her anger displayed so articulately on it.

"This is no handiwork" he said solemnly, regretfully, "this is the result of my cruel action against you, and I am sorry, so very sorry" he added with a desperation to his voice, like he was begging her to see it; to notice just how sorry he really was, and just how sick he felt.

Slowly walking towards her, stopping just closer than a metre away from her, he bent down and picked up the bandage, she'd purposefully dropped on the floor. "You should cover that wound, this bandage was there for a reason." He said worriedly, holding up the bandage as emphasis, "Where's your nurse?"

"You have no right to act worried" she replied bitterly, the glare never leaving her face but her fervent anger having boiled down.

He cursed under his breath, "You're bleeding Emily" he said clearly frustrated, "you must have accidently pulled out some stitches when you pulled off the bandage so roughly from your wound".

Her eyes flickered down from his face to her wound, where she watched in surprise as blood began to slowly trickle down her stomach. First it pooled by the tear in her skin, where the stitches seemed to have broken, then it spilled out, looking even more vibrant against her weak paled skin as it glided slowly and effortlessly down.

Maybe she should have felt worried, even the least bit worried, maybe she should have told him that her nurse had the day off, or maybe she should have tried seeking help on her own, but it just didn't feel that pressing. She was bleeding, but it wasn't gushing, and it really didn't hurt that much, maybe she was used to the pain by now or maybe because of all the worked up anger she'd been exercising, physical pain took a back seat. Either way, as she looked down at the blood, she realized she really didn't care right now; she wasn't going to die from a little bit of blood loss, and if she was then what kind of cruel sense of irony was that? Making her survive from two gun shots and the vast ocean she plundered into, only to die weeks after from something like this.

She was more occupied on Daniel, and how standing here like this, her wound exposed and bleeding, must leave him with a terrible, sick feeling in his stomach. He deserved it, a little piece of payback, she thought coldly, as he futilely tried to dial her nurses number from his cell phone.

Sliding his phone back in his pocket, he picked up a folded white towel, from the neatly stacked pile, in her cupboard and walked towards her clearly quite agitated by this point. She was being unreasonably bullheaded and she knew it, even at the expense of her own medical recuperation, she just stood there totally unwilling to even give a thought to her bleeding wound.

It pissed him off, to her was exploiting his guilt, pain and anger valued above her own well-being? The thought angered him and terrified him, both for his sanity and her own, how the hell was he suppose to get through to her if that was the case?

Cursing in anger, as he got close to her, he firmly wrapped one arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him, so that with his other hand he could cover her wound with the towel applying pressure, that the bandage no longer could.

"I'm taking you to the hospital," he said firmly, "You need to get patched up".

She scowled at him, struggling to get out of his grip, but he was stronger than her, much stronger due to her weakened state and so eventually she gave up.

"You're hurting me" she hissed instead, expecting him to loosen his grip on her with those words, but instead he tightened it even more, causing her to draw in a jagged breath, as he whispered, "You're hurting yourself".

Well this was the part two I promised, I hope you enjoyed it.