A/N: Forty follows, I am in awe! And, as always, I'm so thankful for the comments: to bookbabe68, I used the headcanon that Darcy and Alex went to school together. As for him hearing the story, the three of them were probably on a double date but Lizzie couldn't make it, so the topic just kind of came up. To Guest, I feel like apologizing for making you cry, but I'm glad you liked it! And to toffeema, Ms. Reen, and FunnyxLittlexBrains you guys are too too sweet - your compliments keep me writing.

Well this absolute beast of a chapter hopefully satisfies some of you requesting an Emma centric fic. I finally figured out how I wanted to write it out while still staying true to the Emma we know and love. I'm oddly super proud of this fic, so I sincerely hope it isn't too awful.

I continue to have no royalties to any of the original work; there'd probably be a lot less plot if I did.

You get in the habit of seeing what you want to see.

She was eight years old, the first time it happened.

And it wasn't just any old day, it was Halloween. Emma usually got quite festive about Halloween, like almost any other holiday. But this year had been different.

From the minute her father first heard her sniffles and saw her runny nose, Emma knew there was absolutely no chance she'd get to show off her newest queen of hearts costume on this oh so special of days. Not used to not getting her way, young Emma pouted to her father and said she'd stay in every day for a week if he would just let her go out on Halloween. But to no avail.

This is how Emma found herself at home watching scary movies with Alex Knightley on the funnest day of the year. Apparently, Alex had owed his parents a favour, so when Mr. Woodhouse called them and asked them if their son could watch Emma for the evening, they had been happy to say yes.

"Emma, it's one Halloween. I don't think it's the end of the world."

"Just because you're too old to know how fun it is, doesn't mean you can lie about it, Alex," Emma says, as she slumps down in the couch to show off her frustration. It wasn't fair that Alex's punishment was to babysit her on Halloween. Last year was his last time going out trick or treating because 'Twelve year olds have more important things to do,' so this wasn't even a punishment for him; Emma was the one being punished.

"Why are we watching this?" Emma asked for the third time since the movie started.

"Because watching scary movies is a way better way to spend Halloween," Alex responded, matter-of-factly.

"I think you forgot: trick or treating involves free candy."

"Then I'm saving your teeth too, now just watch the movie," Alex demanded, as he got up to head to the kitchen.

"Where are you going?" Emma questioned, jumping to her feet the minute she noticed he was leaving.

"The kitchen, for like five seconds, why? Are you scared?"

She narrowed her eyes at him and crossed her arms, all of which looked very funny considering she was dressed up like a Lewis Carroll character. "No, just making sure you're doing your job."

He rolled his eyes at her and headed towards the kitchen. Emma sunk back into the couch and pulled her blanket up to her chin. It should have been there the whole time, really, but she refused to look afraid in front of Alex. So she had been trying to survive the five hour fright fest he had left on the screen without any comfort whatsoever.

Emma wasn't even sure what movie was on at this point, she just knew that some guy was walking around with a very sharp knife and the music made it seem like he was about to pop out of every corner in her house. It didn't help that the wind beating against her house was so loud at this time of night, making the noises from the television seem even more like they were happening all around her.

With Alex on the couch beside her, it was hard to be scared. Even at the most gruesome parts, he barely seemed to react; just kept shoving more popcorn into his face. Emma took this to mean that the movie wasn't actually happening in reality so she could breathe a bit easier.

But now, Alex was gone and she was certain her house had never felt so spooky.

As the main girl in the film walks over to the closet, and the music crescendos as she slowly opens the door, one of the branches from the tree at the side of Emma's house smacks into the wall due to the wind. And Emma screams. Very loudly.

Suddenly, the lights in her den flash on and someone is pulling the blanket off her head. Terrified, Emma looks up to see Alex staring at her, checking to see if she was physically injured. "You okay?"

That's the first time it happened. The first time Emma Woodhouse wanted to kiss Alex Knightley. It was an instinctive reaction to feeling like he was saving her from whatever had been in that eerie closet. She doesn't kiss him though, because somewhere at the back of her eight year old mind she realizes that that would be weird, so she throws her arms around him instead.

He hugs her and chuckles as he realizes it was the movie, and not anything physically in the room, that had set her off. So he changes the channel to a Charlie Brown special and hands her the entire bowl of candy they had left over from the trick or treaters.

Emma falls asleep after a sugar high and forgets all about the ridiculous notion of kissing her babysitter.

It was at Emma's sixteenth birthday that it happened again.

Her father's home was full, mostly with students from her school. But unlike most teens, Emma could say with assertion that everyone there knew her name. It was kind of hard not to, really, when she was already the campaign manager for the soon-to-be elected school president, head of the debate team, and captain of the varsity swim team. There seemed to be nowhere on campus where Emma Woodhouse didn't fit in.

She had been practically floating around the room, shifting from group to group, trying to give everyone her utmost attention, when Madison grabbed her arm and seemed to bring her back down to Earth.

"Sometimes, I forget you're such a socialite that I realize I'm not actually supposed to recognize everyone here," Emma's friend joked, motioning with one hand to the huge assortment of people around them. With the other, she was dragging Emma across the dining room of her house.

"I'd be happy to introduce you to some of them, Madison," Emma replied, trying to pull her arm from the other girl's grasp.

"Good! Because we haven't been able to find anyone who knows these guys," Madison finishes her statement and her movement at the same time. Emma turns her head to face her friend and then follows her eyes to absorb what she was looking at.

Alex Knightley, and three of his college friends he had coerced into coming to her party, were watching a hockey game in her father's den. As bothered as she was that they hadn't even tried to join the party, Emma didn't understand what the big problem was as she turned back to her friend.

When Emma did look back, she realized that Madison had been joined by several other girls, peaking their heads around the door frame and peering over Madison's head. Madison herself stood smiling at Emma and looking expectant. Emma gave her a quizzical look; she still didn't understand what all the fuss was about.

"Okay, so Jessica's betting that they're college guys but I told her you couldn't possibly know college guys but they're definitely not from our school, so how do you know them, Emma?" Madison sputtered out, and by the looks on the faces around her, she was asking the question on everyone's mind.

Annoyed that this had somehow become a big deal, Emma spun herself around and entered the den completely and with purpose. That purpose being to shut off the game the guys were watching, initiating a series of frustrated and disgruntled noises, before turning back to the girls who had crowded by the entrance way.

She grabbed Alex by the collar of his shirt, which surprised him a great deal more than her shutting off the TV, which would have been expected. Before he had the chance to say anything other than "Hey!" Emma began speaking:

"This is my family friend, Alex," at this, Alex waved at the group of girls he hadn't noticed before. "He and his friends go to Stanford University. They're supposed to be here celebrating my birthday, just like everyone else." Emma finished, releasing Alex's collar and then returning to her spot in front of Madison.

"Anything else?"

Madison looked like she had been just offered the winning lottery ticket, "Yes, one other thing, which one of them is single?" All the other girls seemed to giggle at this, as if that exact question had been pressing on them as well. Emma felt herself smiling at her friend's question, and how could she not; she loved romance as much as the next person.

However, it was one of Alex's friends who answered with, "All of us," and a wink.

The squealing of all the girls around her, coupled with the party seemingly moving from the dining room to the den in a matter of seconds, had Emma putting her head in her hands as she smiled good-naturedly.

She removed her hands when she felt a nudge at her shoulder. Alex was staring down at her, his twenty years complimenting her sixteen in height difference, and he was looking at her with an apologetic smile.

"We didn't ruin the party, did we?"

She sighs loudly, "I guess it's okay," before returning his smile.

"Good. I wasn't really that sorry," she nudged him, hard. "Hey, we probably just made your party ten times better with our mere presence."

She rolled her eyes at him, "That is, until my friends notice how lame you guys are."

He shrugged, "Lame or not, we still have college written all over us. College is synonymous with cool in virtually all high schools."

"Trust me when I say your lameness still comes off of you in spades," to which Alex laughed, before continuing the heated debate on whether or not he was actually cool. Emma seemed to forget her original objective to spend time with everyone at the party once she and Alex got going on one of their legendary arguments.

"I hate to break it to you, Miss Woodhouse," he said, after their debate seemed to be winding down, "but it's been fifteen minutes, and my friends are still the highlight of your party."

At that, Emma turned to check, and noticed that Alex was right, everyone still had their eyes glued to the college guys. She turned to make some comment about him slipping something into the punch, when she noticed he had snuck off to grab more snacks and drinks.

Seeming to notice her alone for the first time, Madison practically jumped from her seat next to Matt, Alex's friend who had reported they were all single, in order to stand next to Emma.

"Hello, again?" Emma offered.

"Oh, don't give me that!" Emma raised her eyebrows at her friend's outburst, "You've been talking to Alex this whole time. Let me know what that's about." Madison eyes were shining with mischief and Emma knew she had the total wrong idea about their relationship.

"I was explaining to him why he and his friends are so very lame, he was trying to convince me otherwise. And please, stop looking at me like that, Alex is practically my brother," she rolls her eyes at the very idea.

"But he was definitely making you laugh," Carol pointed out, her and half a dozen other girls having left the group to join Madison in her interrogation. "You say that like I don't usually laugh?" Emma responded, looking at all of them confused.

"It's just…different with him, somehow," Marlene determines, and Emma watches the other girls nod in agreement.

"Well, I've just known him longer than most people, I guess. Now let's talk about something else," Emma pleaded, watching her friends eyes widen. She turned around to see Knightley smiling at her, before joining his own friends back on the couch.

This time, the urge to kiss him comes from a very different place, something akin to exasperation. Because she knows if she does, her friends would finally shut up about it, and everyone could go back to enjoying the party. She doesn't, of course, but it was the first time the notion fully develops in her mind, rather than being brought on by extenuating circumstances. Not that that was important, right? A two time thing was hardly something to get worked up over.

But three?

The third time it happens, it's five years later.

She's at a college party, she just finished exams and for the first time in her academic life, she really wants to get drunk.

So she does.

To the dismay of about three or four guys checking her out all night as she did shots, Emma's a remarkably high-functioning drunk. The only real difference between drunk Emma and sober Emma was that drunk Emma laughs a bit more and is a smidge more affectionate. Not enough so that she ends up in bed with some strange guy she's never seen before, but just enough that she ends every conversation with the people she knows using a hug, or a compliment, or a hand shake.

Thankfully, Diane is watching her carefully. Despite having a few drinks herself, she knows that Emma had a rough time with her exams and is trying to forget all the information she had just stored so neatly into her brain. So when Emma starts towards her third game of shots, Diane grabs her by the arm and takes her outside on the front porch.

"Diane, I love you, but I was really having fun in there," Emma hiccups at her as she steps out into the cold evening. Diane wraps her sweater around herself, but if her flushed face is any indication, Emma doesn't even feel the cold.

"Give me your phone," Diane says, starting to shiver in the chill of the air, wondering whether it was the best idea to bring Emma out here.

"Yes, ma'am," Emma giggles in response, pulling out her phone and unlocking it before handing it to Diane.

Diane takes the phone in her hands, her fingers shaking as she scrolls past the contacts. Finally, she finds 'A. Knightley (Cell)' and hits the call button, silently praying that Alex doesn't have a family member with the same first initial as him.

The phone rings twice, in which Diane realizes it's four am and any normal person would be sleeping, when he finally picks up. "Hello?" he questions, sounding like he just woke up, which didn't surprise Diane at all.

"Hey, Alex? It's Diane, Emma's friend," she notices that Emma has started humming to herself on the porch swing. Well, at least she isn't vomiting, Diane thinks before hearing Alex confirm that he knows who she is.

"Is Emma okay?"

"Drunk. Very drunk, but not in any harm's way," Diane promised, not sure what his reaction would be. There was an audible sigh, then she's pretty sure he's shifting something around, before his next question falls on her ears.

"I'm guessing you were designated driver?" he doesn't sound angry with her, simply matter-of-fact, like he's just trying to get his head on straight.

"No, that was Emma," she hears him groan, "I don't think she expected to drink but her finals have been pretty tough on her so I think she just couldn't say no."

There's silence from the other end of the phone for an eerily long time. Then Diane hears him yawn and she feels inclined to ask, "Um, Alex?"

"Hmm, sorry, yeah. I'm on my way," and Diane lets her sigh of relief leave her before she's even ended the call.

Emma thinks the cold air is doing wonders for her alcohol-soaked brain, having successfully been able to carry a coherent conversation with Diane for the last five minutes. She doesn't expect to feel giddy again when she sees Alex's car, but it's almost as though the alcohol in her system was lying dormant until he showed up and was now springing back into action.

Diane ran over to his car first; Emma sees her shake hands in greeting with him before both of them approach her. She feels herself laughing as she pops back onto her feet to greet her knight in a shining Prius.

"There you are, Alex! Thank you, Diane, you are a godsend," Emma smiles at her friend before pulling her into a bear hug. Diane hugs her back, laughing at the shorter girl's attempts to lift her off the ground.

When she lets go of Diane, Emma turns back to Alex and grabs his hand, saying, "C'mon!"

Alex plants his feet in the concrete of the porch, raising an eyebrow at her, "Where are we going?"

"Inside," she says, because isn't it obvious? "Diane didn't let me finish my last round of shots, so you'll have to help me with them." She moves towards him conspiratorially, grabbing both of his hands instead of the one, and smiling at him as she pulled him towards the door again.

His feet stay planted. "Emma, it's four am."

"Yup, but there's no school tomorrow so come on, Alex, please," she hangs the last word in the air and brings their faces close together again. She thinks she can convince him, even if she has to annoy him to death.

"Next time, Emma. Let's go," he says, using their still interlocked hands to pull her towards his car. Emma pouts and moves so her nose is pressed to his, "One. Shot. Please."

He sighs and she feels the air on her lips, "One shot now, or twenty shots tomorrow? Final offer." Emma grins, because she's getting her way, and hugs Alex. Then she somehow manages to wrap herself in his arms and he leads the pair of them to his car. Alex waves a thank you to a very tired-looking Diane and starts the car.

Alex has only been to Emma's new apartment once before so he doesn't want to risk getting lost. Instead, he takes her back to his apartment, at which point she's asleep, so he tucks her into his bed while he falls back asleep on the couch.

The next morning, Emma's hangover is greeted by coffee and Advil courtesy of one Alex Knightley, whose bed is a lot more comfortable than she would have expected.

It's a bit later, when he checks on her to make sure she's okay, and the pounding in her head has subsided substantially, that it happens again.

In that moment, when he bounces on the end of the bed to wake her up, she wants to kiss him. She wants to thank him for picking her up last night, for letting her sleep in his bed, for helping her through this awful hangover. She wants to thank him for not kissing her despite the ample opportunities he had when she was drunk and throwing herself all over him.

She's not sure where the thank you ends and the desire to kiss him starts though, so instead of doing it, she throws a pillow at him. And she thinks that the pillow fight that follows is better than any old kiss. So she forgets about it.

Then it happens again, and this time she just can't quite ignore it.

She's twenty-five now, her drunk college party days way behind her, and it's a particularly awful evening. Well, not that awful really, but the weather is a bit of a downer. Otherwise, it may just be one of the best days of her life.

"And the way they looked at us when we actually pulled out charts and diagrams? It was like we had already sold them on the idea but now they knew we meant business," Alex says, animatedly, going over the business meeting they had just finished with Pemberley Digital.

The two of them are walking back to their respective condos, huddled under a small black umbrella that Knightley had been smart enough to bring with him. Well, huddled was a relative term. In truth, Emma was under the umbrella, Alex was so engrossed in what he was saying he barely noticed he was half under the umbrella while half of him was getting soaked by the rain. A few years back, Emma would have said she didn't mention this to him because it was too funny not to use as potential blackmail later on. Now, Emma just saw it as adorable, like a puppy trying to chase its tail – neglecting to notice it was impossible.

Emma tried to listen to Alex's rendition of everything that happened in the meeting, but found herself distracted by many things. The fact that she had also been in the room when this had all happened didn't help much either. But she caught a fair share of snippets.

"And that guy, on the far left of the table, I swear he was going to faint just from looking at you too long. I'm not even sure he fully understood the presentation, but he seemed glad you were the one giving it," he joked, then laughed at his own joke, eyes shining with pure elation. As he laughed, he let his hand slide down the pole of the umbrella until it partially covered hers. He didn't notice.

"But for the ones who were really paying attention, as they should have been," he added pointedly, to no one in particular, "they could barely hide the wheels turning in their heads! I started talking about budgets and I think I could have mentioned something about putting them all in the poor house and they wouldn't have batted an eye." He's smiling up at the sky, as though the rain isn't even pouring anymore and he's basking in summer sunshine. She finds herself smiling along with him.

Then, he's looking over at her, his eyes still shining, his hand still on hers, and he says "You were incredible in there. I don't think any of what I did mattered, you had them hooked from the beginning."

She's looking down at her shoes, pulling it off as a shrug. But she's also hiding the blush and the smile that's threatening to split her face in two.

"What, no gloating? No, 'I told you I could do it, Alex'? No, victory dance?" he's laughing, but she can hear the genuine curiosity in his voice.

"I'll celebrate when they officially sign onto the company," she says, nodding her head up at him.

He scoffs. She laughs, because she knows this is exactly what their relationship has always been. One of them had to be a dreamer, the other a realist. They were pretty set in their roles, but every once in a while, he got to dream a little more and she had to keep her feet on the ground. She didn't mind though, there was something amazing about seeing that pure happiness coursing through Knightley, and it was made all the more delightful by the knowledge that it was so rare.

They walk in silence for a bit, the sound of rain and boots in puddles their only accompaniment. Then Alex says, "Thank you, by the way."

She looks over at him, he had moved a bit further out of the umbrella, his hands now in his pockets. She hadn't noticed him remove his hand from hers. "For what?"

"Sharing this idea, this company, with me. I didn't expect it to…you know?"

"Take off?" she looks at him quizzically. He shakes his head, "Mean this much to me."

She smiles and moves the umbrella so that it's covering both of them again. "Wouldn't want it to be anybody else."

And then he looks at her kind of funny, like there's something in her eyes he's never seen before. She doesn't like the appraisal so she adds, "Who else would balance my chequebooks?"

He laughs, not the same as before, but enough.

When they reach her door, which thankfully has an awning, she returns the umbrella to her friend.

"So," he starts.

"So."

"You'll text me the minute you hear anything?"

She smiles, "Of course." He takes a deep breath.

"Goodnight, Emma."

"See you," she states, and calmly shuts the door behind her even though she's shaking.

She's shaking because she wants to kiss him. Not because she's acting instinctively, not because she has something to prove, and not because she wants to thank him. Not even because it's raining out and he's smiling his stupid smile. She wants to kiss him, for the first time in her life, because he's Alex. He's Alex, her best friend who saves her from monsters in the closet, who comes to her eleventh grade birthday party and drives her home when she's drunk. And soon he'll be Alex, her best friend and business partner who keeps her from spending the company's last dime or getting too crazy about her clients.

She wants to kiss him so much it consumes her. And it terrifies her beyond all reason.

But these things go away, if they're left well enough alone, right? So she makes a point to force them away from her.

It's later, when she's snuggled on her couch with a cup of coffee in hand that she realizes something else that keeps her up half the night. And that was that he wanted to kiss her too.

It's been two years and that night is less than a memory. Unless Emma is searching for it, digging in her brain and in her heart for those feelings she wants no part in, it doesn't bother her. She and Knightley fall back into the easiest form of their friendship: gentle teasing, spot-on banter, and stubbornly trying to prove themselves right. It's normal. It's easy.

It could have stayed that way, really. But she was beginning to realize that there was something in motion here that neither of them could ever hope to control.

This time, there are no excuses: no scary movies, no party, no alcohol, no rain, no great step forward for the company. In fact, it might even be considered a step back.

Okay, that was drastic, but a power outage was really never seen as a positive thing. So when the lights in the office flickered and went out one Wednesday evening at half past eight, Emma found herself groaning as she reached inside her blazer pocket for her cell phone.

Of course it had to happen tonight, she thinks. The one night out of a thousand that I stay late to make sure the last of the wedding details are organized. She's muttering to herself so loudly under her breath that she doesn't hear Knightley come in until he's right behind her.

"Boo," he practically whispers into her neck.

She jumps halfway to the ceiling and once she's landed she really wants to punch him in his smug face.

"In case I don't say it enough, I loathe you," she narrows her eyes at him.

"Ah, well, you'll get over it," he responds, picking up the paper she dropped and handing it to her. "What are you doing here so late? I almost didn't notice anyone else was here, if not for your obnoxious iPhone shining in the dark."

"I was putting the finishes touches on client number 23," she replies, patting the wedding binder lovingly. She had been working on her latest project almost all day and night, meaning she often ran into Alex on her way out of the office. He was always here late, balancing some chequebook, or dotting an I on a signature.

Alex looks over at the binder, rarely getting to see the precious thing as it remained incomplete. He finds himself blinking as he opens it and runs his fingers down all the different dividers and sticky notes. Shaking his head, he lets out a sigh of either exasperation or awe, she can't tell.

"What?"

He notices her staring in the dim light of her iPhone and his emergency flashlight. "I always seem to forget how much work goes into planning a wedding."

Emma snorts, "That's because you've never actually planned one."

"No. It's because you make it look so easy," he chuckles, as he flips through pages of cake designs and fillings.

"Well, it is easy. For me," she adds when his eyes rise to meet hers, "It's what I love to do, so it's not that hard to put in the effort."

He shrugs at this, slipping onto her bench with the binder still in hand, now looking at different pocket square designs for men in the wedding. "So, Miss Woodhouse, what exactly is the most important part of a wedding?"

She joins him on the bench, looking over his shoulder at the different designs she had mulled over for hours, "The couple, naturally."

He scoffs, "Nice cop-out." She nudges him with her shoulder. "You know what I mean, Emma. What part makes or breaks the wedding?"

She flips a few pages in the binder to look at floral arrangements but replies with, "The vows."

"Okay," he concedes, "why the vows?"

"What you say about a person on your wedding day should be everything you've wanted to say to them up to that point, but haven't, and everything you need them to know after the wedding, in case you never get the chance," she flipped to the page of potential photographers.

Emma is running her finger down the list of photographers, making sure she attributed the right person to the appropriate task, when she feels Alex's eyes on her. She looks up into them but can't read them in the low lighting of his emergency flashlight.

"What now?"

"Nothing," he returns his attention to the book. However, he doesn't fail to add, "It's just nice to be reminded why I jumped onboard this crazy business scheme of yours. You really know what you're talking about."

She finds it's her turn to stare at him now. And for the first time in two whole years, she feels the annoying nagging at the back of her mind. The warmth in her stomach and the longing in her entire being to kiss him. Because while she was warring with this feeling, trying to pull it apart and understand it so that she could master it completely, Alex had just accepted it with open arms.

Emma sees it in her head, like a series of flashbacks she had been ignoring for a very long time. She sees his face appearing as she opens her eyes, expecting a killer but seeing his concerned expression instead. She remembers him smiling at her at her birthday, for no reason other than that he can and he's happy to see her in her element, surrounded by people who love her. Then, he's there in his car as she turns up the radio to a ridiculous pop song she only knows the lyrics to because she's drunk. And he's laughing at her display, even pretending to sing along to a lyric or two when she asks him to. She's 25 and they're under an umbrella in the rain and his hand is on hers and he's laughing at the sky like he's king of the world.

Alex fell for her so naturally, so logically, like a string of dominos falling one after another. She had tripped and closed her eyes to the fall until it hit her square in the face.

But now they were here, in this stupid dark room where they could barely see one another, and they're both finally on the same level. It would be so easy to ignore it, to continue on in this darkness like nothing had changed between them and nothing ever would. But Emma didn't know what she was waiting for; she had every sign in the world, all she had to do now was leap.

So when Alex shines the flashlight in her face to check that she was still all there, she swats the thing out of her face and reaches blindly for the collar of his shirt. And what she said before, about something being in motion that neither of them are in control of? It reared its head again here, so that her grasping fingertips met the rough fabric of his shirt on the first try.

She tightens her grip, pulling him towards her. Alex looks awfully surprised but, in seeing her hesitation to continue, he drops the flashlight onto the floor and grabs her waist with both his hands. There's a breath - their noses are pressed together and they're staring at each as best as they can - and in that moment, either of them could easily choose to walk away. But instead the pair of them start kissing in the dark.

The kiss is like breaking the surface of an ocean that she was drowning in. Emma feels like she is kissing Knightley for hours on end. The first hour, on instinct because she feels so safe around him. The next hour, to prove that she isn't afraid to kiss the boy who made her laugh like no one else. Another hour, to thank her friend who does everything she ever needs him to, and never expects a thing in return. And the last, to kiss the man who always believed in her against all reason.

When she stops to breathe, she aches with the realization that this is what she had been denying herself for so long. "It's about time," she mutters to herself, through her heavy breathing.

Alex kisses her cheek and asks, "Pardon?"

Emma moves her hands from his collar, where her knuckles had begun turning white, to the back of his neck. "Nothing, talking to myself."

"Hmm," he offers, before pressing his lips to hers again as the lights flicker back to life.

Emma breaks the kiss to look up at lights, as if to clarify they're actually working. Also, to roll her eyes at the universe for dropping such a big hint on her.

Then she turns to Knightley and sees a smirk playing on the corner of his lips.

"Oh my god," she says, looking absolutely disgusted, "if you make a joke about this being illuminating, I swear to god, I will never kiss you again."

Alex is laughing as he moves his hands under her blazer to pull her closer. "I was going to go with something more along the lines of our chemistry being electric."

She groans, "Nope," and begins removing her hands from his neck, her mouth set in a hard line. Alex keeps laughing as he leans in towards her again. And even though she's repeating "Nope!" the whole time he's brushing kisses into her neck and on her cheeks and eyelids, the word becomes muffled with her laughter before long and then she's kissing his lips again.

And this was, of course, by no means the last time Emma Woodhouse wanted to kiss Alex Knightley. But every time after this, excluding some awkward situations and those times he had a cold, Emma never chose to act against her instincts again. After all, they had worked quite well at making other people happy, maybe it was time she started focusing on herself.

Hope you made it all the way through, if you survived, prove it by reviewing! Also, question time: was this grossly too long? I'm working on my next chapter, and it's pretty complete right now but I could add in another section - it would just make it considerably longer. Is it worth it, or should I stick to my mildly "short" one-shots (like the previous chapters)?