A/N: I'm the absolute worst because I said I would update before the hiatus ended and I obviously did not. Mega sorry about that, I was incredibly busy lately and I just couldn't find the time to put the finishing touches on this chapter. But hopefully this is an added cherry on top after today's episode (I'm still slightly shaking because it'S FINALLY BACK!).

The reviews for last chapter were so amazing I was honestly speechless. It wasn't even one of my personal favourites but you all seemed to love it so much and that's amazing and I am so thankful! Honestly, big hugs to all of you. And to fwentworth, the being sneaky line was more about Emma's approach to such a situation, I highly doubt Annie would ever be sneaky but knows it's a habit of her friend. Emma's line was mostly a call back to her "don't be too obvious" idea fromepisode 20. Otherwise, thank you again!

As for this one, I will say that I wrote it before today's episode (obviously) but I feel slightly bad about the ending now that I've watched the episode but what can you do? Hope you like it nevertheless!

P.S. Several mentions of blood in this chapter, nothing horrific but still present.

Even if it kills me…

Alex has been bringing his own lunch to the office for years now. Over the last few months, this has been fruitless because Emma preferred going out for lunch and, so long as she felt like pushing his buttons, she often insisted he come along.

For the last two weeks, however, he found Harriet knocking on his door instead. She was all bright eyes and smiles, having adopted a confidence he was loath to say she didn't possess prior to meeting Emma, a question visible in her body language. He would offer her a quick prompt and she'd rush straight into asking him out for lunch. Or rather, in for lunch, since Harriet had soon discovered that Alex Knightley packed his own lunch and enjoyed actually putting their small office kitchen to good use.

The first week Alex told himself that he was being nice, something he felt was necessary after the whole Martin-Elton fiasco Emma had spearheaded, and he had allowed, much to his own chagrin. But by the second week, the activity began to feel like routine and less like an obligation. It was nice, too, to eat with someone who didn't critique his every move and found adorable ways of saying "You've ruined your good shirt with that mustard stain".

It seemed to bother Emma a bit, since she was always disappointed to find his office empty when she went by. Or, on the rare occasion that she caught him before he went to the kitchen, was annoyed to discover he already had plans. Thankfully, he hadn't felt the true sting of her anger because she was quite busy with her latest client, meaning that her lunches were often spent in her own office, squeezing in a bit more work, or out to lunch with Annie, trying to keep her head out of business topics.

Surprisingly though, even though Emma's half of the business was in a bit of a turmoil, Alex's side was pretty quiet. He didn't have to do much until the client's needs were settle anyway so he was actually able to fully enjoy these lunches. Though he was beginning to wonder if his enjoyment was sending the wrong signals to one perky assistant.

So on Wednesday, as Alex joined Harriet in the office kitchen for their lunch break, he could tell something was different.

"Hi, Alex," Harriet says, looking up from her phone at the sound of his footsteps. He waves to her before getting to work on making a much needed cup of coffee. Harriet stands up to join him at the counter – the first sign that this was perhaps not a normal lunch engagement between coworkers.

"What are you making?" she asks, despite the fact that Alex makes coffee every day at the same time in the same place, and she's seen him do it.

"Just some coffee, did you want any?" Alex questions when she leans passed him to grab a mug.

"Nope, just thought I'd help you out," she responds brightly, placing the mug in front of him before looking up with a smile. Alex felt his inside's clench.

"Making coffee is kind of a one person job, Harriet," he says, shoving her good-naturedly, as if they'd been friends for years. At least, he hopes he's sending the message of 'friends'. Clearly and loudly.

"Many hands make light work!" Harriet laughs, opening the cupboard above his head and pulling down a few Tassimo boxes. "That's what Emma says, anyway. My neighbour used to say it too, so there must be some truth to it."

"Well, as much as that is not actually an Emma-coined term – meaning I would actually put more faith in it – I don't think 'making coffee' was the kind of work that statement refers to," Alex replies with a smirk, before putting the boxes back in the cupboard.

"What are you doing?" Harriet wonders aloud, as he returns the boxes without taking out a container of coffee. He follows her eyes to his own actions, cluing in, before replying, "I make it the old school way. In a pot."

Harriet swivelled her head to see the old coffee pot lying on the opposite side of the kitchen. She chuckled a bit before walking over to grab it. "So very old school, Mr. Knightley. No wonder Emma thinks you're boring," Harriet winks at him, because she means it as a joke, but it doesn't settle the same way in his ears.

"Does she really have nothing better to talk about than how boring I am, on a day to day basis?" Alex jokes, trying to hide his hurt. He does so terribly, but he can't help it. For all of Emma's frustrating behaviour, she was still his best friend. And lately…well, lately something like the thought of her thinking him boring was the perfect parasite to eat away at him. Emma didn't like boring people, even though she was entertaining enough to not need a single interesting person in the room with her. His being boring could mean that one day she would grow tired of him like a worn out pair shoes and would end up finding herself a better pair. A better Knightley.

Harriet doesn't notice his panic because she's filling up the coffee machine with water on the other side of the kitchen. "No, of course not. It's barely even sporadically, she only says it when you do something to annoy her."

"So…every day, then?" he says, running a hand threw his hair and grabbing the Folger's container. Harriet laughs, turning to look at him and giving him an honest smile. He likes having Harriet around for reasons like this, the way she takes other people's feelings into account long before her own.

Alex pours the coffee into the machine and makes sure everything is perfect before turning it on. Once he hears a successful drip, he turns to face Harriet with a thumbs up. Harriet returns the gesture, before tucking a hair behind her ear. Then, he moves back to the cupboard to return the container of coffee.

"Can I ask you something?" she says, once he's turned back from returning the container to it's spot. She locks her eyes on his and bites her lip, waiting for an answer. Alex doesn't quite know what to expect but his body seems to take over from his brain as he nods affirmatively. Harriet starts walking towards him from the other end of the counter, her eyes still on him.

"This is kind of difficult for me to ask and feel free to say no or not answer or, you know, whatever it is you feel is best to do," she begins rambling, reminiscent of the girl she was before she met his best friend. Of course, that thought clouds his brain a little bit because he has a pretty good idea what Harriet is about to ask him and having Emma in his mind wasn't going to help the situation much. He breaks eye contact with Harriet to try to collect himself, quite pathetically actually, but he worries she can see his thought process written on his face even though he can't quite work it out for himself.

Alex looks up and notices that the cupboard is still wide open. He ducks forward to close it when he hears Harriet's feet stop, meaning she was probably going to speak again and he was afraid for whatever was going to happen next.

"You and Emma were never sleeping together, at any point, right?"

"What?!" Alex practically shouts, turning to face her and trying to close the cupboard door at the same time. In that moment, Alex gets to cross-off 'multi-tasking' from his list of marketable skills as the force of his closing the door and moving to face Harriet caused him to receive the corner of the cupboard into the soft skin of his forehead. It must have a screw lose or something because Alex feels the skin rip away from his face as the door slides back into place, as if in slow motion. He curses, very loudly, feeling the blood start to pool on his face, and then curses again, quieter, for having cursed in the office.

Alex closes his eyes to block out the pain and feels Harriet grip his shoulder as she gasps out his name, having not expected him to bludgeon himself in the middle of the kitchen. He feels pathetic and woozy so he doesn't fight the hands that push him back into a chair as Harriet repeats a quiet "Oh my gosh!" on a loop. This had to be as awful as today could possibly get.

"What just happened?" a voice asked, presumably from the kitchen doorway. A voice belonging to one Emma Woodhouse, because apparently today's tortures were far from over. Alex opens his eyes even though he feels like he'd rather pretend to be dead.

"Nothing. Minor accident. Carry on," he tries raising his eyebrows and feels a stab just above his eye that makes him wince.

Against his wishes, Emma enters the kitchen anyway. In truth, it was probably a good thing that she came in, especially given how terrified Harriet looked seated in a chair opposite Alex. She was trying to be strong, but her squeamishness was coming off of her like fumes.

"Harriet," Emma says calmly, pulling Harriet eyes away from the blood between Alex's fingers. "Can you go grab me the first aid kit from my office, please?"

Harriet swallows, audibly. "Should we maybe call a doctor or an ambulance?"

"No!" Emma and Alex say in the same moment. Alex had never had a particularly good time in hospitals and preferred keeping them in a wide berth from his own person. Plus, he didn't think the cut was deep enough for stitches so it was unnecessary.

"Harriet, the kit," Emma pulls the blonde onto her feet and pushes her lightly towards the door. After a slight look back, coupled with a bit of a wince, Harriet scurries out of the kitchen towards Emma's office.

"I'm sorry if your assistant goes looking for other job opportunities after this," Alex says, almost immediately because he doesn't feel comfortable in silence with her these days. Emma just tilts her head before commanding him to sit on the table. Alex grumbles about it not making that much of a difference, but does as she requests anyway.

"It's really nothing a wet paper towel can't fix," Alex continues. The sound of his own voice keeps him from noticing the fact that Emma's just standing there, not saying anything, with her arms crossed.

"I'll be up and balancing the books in all of two minutes, okay?"

Harriet finds her way back to them before Emma can respond, not that he's sure she would. Emma reaches out for the kit with both hands and smiles her usual smile at Harriet. "Thank you, Harriet. Now there's a list of phone calls I left on your desk. If you could finish those before the end of the day, I'd adore you."

Her assistant shifts slightly on her feet, "Shouldn't I stay to make sure that Alex is okay," she waves to him awkwardly before turning back to Emma. "I feel responsible for all this."

"Nonsense! Alex is in good hands, unlike my business if you don't make those calls," Emma softens a bit, less TV-personality, more friendly. "Please, Harriet. It's important."

Harriet purses her lips and nods, looking more determined that she had been thirty seconds. She gives a triumphant "Hell yeah!" to no one in particular as she returns to her desk to finish the phone calls Emma had left for her.

"The lack of her making those calls won't set us back more than an hour, Emma," Alex says, tilting his head back to keep the blood from slipping further into his eyes.

"Yes, well, Harriet needs to keep her hands busy. In something other than blood," she adds, cracking the lid of the kit open and pulling out the necessary items. Alex often forgets those classes she took to learn first aid when she got a summer job as a life guard back in high school. She needed to keep up her swimming over the break anyway, might as well get paid for it. Plus, Emma loves playing the hero.

Alex decides to just keep his eyes shut to ensure they don't get damaged in any way, when he suddenly feels a sharp sting to his temple.

"Hey!"

"Relax, it's just peroxide," Emma rolls her eyes at him and continues cleaning the wound. Alex squirms a bit out of discomfort and feels somewhat like they were ridiculously reversed in their roles right now. Usually, it was his job to be no nonsense and hers to be slightly flighty. But maybe things change once medical attention gets into the mixture.

"So, other than your head, how was your lunch?" Emma says, which was like being handed a life-preserver in the middle of the ocean. The short silence of the last six seconds had already been starting to weigh on him. He worried she would be able to make out the sound of his heart beating so quickly, which was incredibly annoying since he was probably losing more blood that way.

As such, Alex rises to the topic, hoping to restore some normalcy they had lost since she found him like this. "What, this?" he points to the gash without getting in the way of her hands, "Like I said, hardly worth fussing over. Happens all the time."

Emma laughs and moves so his knee is pressing into her abdomen, taking a closer look at the cut. "You walk into things on a daily basis, then? Oh, sorry, silly question."

He smirks, which somehow tugs his face in the wrong way so that he grimaces again, "Pretty much. It's just an 'occupational hazard.'"

Emma turns to grab something else from the kit, so he can't see her face when she replies, "As long as I get a mention in this chapter in your autobiography, I really don't care what you call it."

Alex raises his eyebrow again, then winces again. "You assume I have an autobiography in the works, do you?" She turns back to face him with a Q-tip, digging some Polysporin into his fragile skull. When he bites his lip to the burn, she simply rolls her eyes again.

"You're worse than some nine year olds I've cleaned up. And they had worse pants than you!"

"Please, no fashion talk. Get back to my autobiography."

Emma laughs and leans closer to him again; this time, he awkwardly let his knees spread apart so that he doesn't damage her internal organs. Which was a totally viable reason to do it, obviously.

"Um, yes, you definitely have one in mind. You just haven't actually sat down and tried to document anything."

Emma is leaning closer again, looking like she was about to put herself at a really awkward angle. Not to mention, the closer she got the more she had to press against him and he wasn't sure he could really handle that right now given their current position. So Alex straightens his spine to try and fix her positioning, but the movement throws him slightly off balance – he is already woozy. His hand finds her waist to steady himself and the apology is out of his mouth before he's fully focused again.

"It's okay," Emma says, warmly, kindly. Completely-unexpectedly. When he can focus on her face, he sees her blushing, and even though she's focusing on his cut and not him at the moment, Alex finds himself smiling broadly. Needless to say, his hand stays on her waist, though obviously less urgently.

"My autobiography…"

"Ah, right, yes. Obviously you would need one."

Alex laughs, "Obviously."

"Well, how else would the world get an entirely unbiased account of my greatness?"

Emma turns to grab a bandage and his hand falls from her hip. "Naturally my autobiography would be centred around you?"

His friend laughs, turning back to him so that he can see the glow in her eyes. She reaches forward and twists his face so that it catches the light better. Alex blames the blow to his head for leaning into her hand, but it's almost impossible not to anyway. Then her hand is gone and she's placing the bandage across his temple as though she were an expert. Which, at some small level, she kind of was.

She flattens the bandage lightly with her fingertips, "Not centred, I'm not that vain. But I do expect about sixty-five percent of the overall work to be about your feisty but loveable and always right best friend." Her hands drop from his face at the last word and she seems to realize that she has nowhere else to put them. So she kind of just wrings them out in front of herself, trying to make it look purposefully done.

"Sixty-five percent?" Alex asks, in mock-shock, as he rocks back to lean on his hands. The action makes him dizzy again and he might have fallen off the table right there if Emma didn't grab him. One hand wraps around his arm, the other on his shoulder, and the words, "I know I deserve more like seventy-five, but I was being humble," breathing into his face. They're so close now that he wonders if the floor might have been a better option.

"It doesn't suit you," Alex replies, letting his hand catch her arm that had caught him. He smiles lightly, feeling it tug on the bandage but not paying it any mind.

"I've always heard, particularly from a rather sarcastic, disgruntled business partner, that modesty was 'essential to being a fully realized person'."

Somehow his body is working without his brain again and he's suddenly pulling her closer, if only slightly. "I meant, about the seventy-five percent. You aren't seventy-five percent."

Emma looks at him, like she can see exactly how this will all play out. In fact, there were only three viable options. Ordinarily, there were only two: turn it into a joke or push the flirtation past her contrived limits. The first would mean laughing it off, telling Alex 'Of course your brain is stuck on numbers and math at a time like this' and they both would know that the moment was over and lost. The second would mean asking him 'If not seventy-five, then what?' and then he would do something stupid and destructive and wonderful like kissing her. But now she also had a third option, one that meant she didn't have to make the real choice she would eventually have to make right in this moment.

"You should really get that cut checked out by a professional," she says, inspecting it to avoid meeting his eyes. But she doesn't retreat or take her hands back. Both her brain and Alex's running monologue were wondering as to Why?

Emma keeps looking at the bandage like it will answer that question for her. But all she can think about is Alex hunched over, holding his head as blood seeped into his fingers. Seeing him wince as the pain rocked through him even though he was trying to keep Harriet at ease. It was such a stupid little scratch but it scared her so much. She was glad it took Harriet as long as it did for her to get the first aid kit because she can still feel her hands shaking, though she did a good job hiding it.

She didn't have a problem with blood – that was a kind of necessity when one takes a first aid course. And she had seen Alex get hurt before. She'd seen pictures of the gashes he got while rock-climbing and witnessed the rope burns he's gotten from sailing. She seen him asleep on hospital beds after surgery and in rehab after his knee healed. She knows what Alex is like when he's broken, knows the smile that says 'I promise, I'm fine' even when he's not, knows the grip of his hand when he's trying not to scream out in pain. Their relationship had never been all glitz and glamour, but injuries seemed so far off. Injuries meant sports and dangerous tundra and Alex being an idiot. They didn't mean staining the mahogany tables in their office kitchen with blood.

So even though nothing about the situation was very different, everything felt so different, like everything had been amplified before it reached her for some reason. And it was only when she felt her hand on Alex's shoulder wandering to the back of his neck that she realized what was different. It wasn't the situation, it was her.

In this moment, she doesn't want to be the Emma who jokes about writing autobiographies and having to hire new assistants when her friend is sitting there in pain. She wants to be the Emma who hits him on the shoulder repeatedly, yelling at him, asking why he had to be so stupid and get himself hurt so stupidly while having a stupid lunch date with her stupid assistant until the only way he could get her to shut up was to kiss her. And when he kissed her, she would hold onto him for dear life, letting herself cry in frustration, letting out the worry that consumed her.

But now he was here, just looking at her. The whole situation seeming like a 'blink-and-you'll-miss-it' kind of scenario. It isn't worth the dramatics of what she felt like doing when she walked in. The moment for yelling and crying had passed. So what did she do now?

Emma turns back to look at Alex, knowing that if she just waited long enough, she could let the awkwardness fester and eventually force them apart from sheer embarrassment. It was tempting, but not enough. It wasn't even seventy-five percent enough, and Emma was done not living her life to the fullest. So instead she lets her hand slide from Alex's neck to his hair, using it to guide his lips to hers.

Alex is so surprised that he doesn't actually react. He had imagined kissing Emma (yes, it was a thing that he did) so many times and it never involved their office kitchen or the smell of peroxide. Plus, he really thought that he had lost a good deal of blood so if this was hallucination brought about by that, he wasn't in the mood to enjoy himself only to have the joy ripped away from him.

But the thing was, in all the times that he imagined kissing Emma, Alex never got to the part after the kiss. The part where she pulls away and blinks back into focus. How her hand moves to her lips as if to see if he left a mark there with his own. The way she kind of smiles when she realizes what she just did. And the glow in her eyes that says it wasn't the worst thing that ever happened to her, far from it. It wasn't something his imagination could create, it was too…Emma. He may know almost everything about her but he didn't know what it was like to be on the receiving end of her just-been-kissed daze. And it just might be his new favourite expression of hers. Especially because it meant this wasn't all a dream.

"Sorry," she says, blinking again and seeming to remember or realize for the first time that he hadn't kissed her back. Her eyes were downcast but she didn't look very apologetic about the whole thing. She kind of looks around awkwardly, like she's trying to find something to say.

"Well, that was sufficiently embaras–" But he isn't listening, or caring really. He's kissing her instead.

People say kissing should be like breathing, but it isn't like that at all. For Alex, kissing Emma couldn't be anything like breathing. All he'd done all his life was breathe, but he'd never felt her lips against his. He'd never known how soft hers were, how good her lipstick tasted. He didn't know that she squeaks when he grabs her bottom lip between his teeth or that she inhales sharply when his tongue finds hers. He didn't know that she could feel like she was everywhere just because being that close to her meant you smelt everything she was wearing – the soaps, the sprays, the creams, whatever. It was like he was drowning in Emma and with that came stunning clarity. No, kissing shouldn't feel like anything as mundane as breathing; it should make a person question whether they even want to breathe at all if this is the alternative.

Eventually, they do breathe, though, because they have to. Emma's hands had found their way to his thighs, where he's sure to find a bruise from her trying to balance her entire weight on them. He makes a face when he notices the red that's travelled from his hand to her neck where he'd been resting it. It certainly does just about the right thing to kill the mood.

But then, Emma starts laughing and Alex feels his spirits brighten up like a shot. He gives her a quizzical look, though, because he's not certain what she finds so funny.

She turns to grab a napkin and dabs it on her tongue, "It's all over your mouth," she says, trying to quell the laughter by biting her lip.

"You need to not do that if you don't want more of it on my mouth," he responds, coyly, placing his finger on her lips to stop her from making the expression. At the contact, she scrunches up her noise and he groans, "Or that," and then she's laughing again. Alex raises his clean hand to take the napkin and wipe the rest of the lipstick of his face.

"Oh, and speaking of messes, sorry," he holds his other hand up to show the blood before pointing to her neck. She sighs, making a snarky comment about teenage girls and vampires as she heads to wash it off at the kitchen sink.

"You should go clean up too, Alex," she says, patting her neck with paper towel from beside the sink.

He nods, and walks over to her. "But first, what just happened is what I think just happened, right?" Emma smirks a bit, but turns over her shoulder to kiss him again, muttering a "mhm" against his lips.

"I finished the calls, Emma, so I was going to check on Al-" the name dies on Harriet's lips as she enters the kitchen.

Emma would move if she could but she was kind of stuck between Alex and a sink, neither of which were moving at the moment. Alex just blinks because he's kissed Emma Woodhouse three times in the last five minutes and he isn't really sure that anything else exists. But when Harriet turns and leaves the kitchen with only a small, "Right…," from her quivering voice, Alex feels the guilt settle in all the right places.

He steps back from blocking Emma, assuming that she wants to follow her friend and assistant. But Emma doesn't move, just stares at the ground with a perplexed expression.

"Emma?" he asks, lightly grasping her hand before it slips out of his. When it does, Emma looks up at him and he feels his head throb like he's having the accident all over again.

"I knew she liked you," but her usual voice would be filled with a knowing pride for having been correct. This voice was just upset and…disgusted? "I knew how she felt and I kissed you. I don't even know if I wanted to or if I just wanted to take you away from her."

"Emma, c'mon, that's not you at all," Alex pleads, confused as to what was going on.

"Really, Alex? Please tell me the last time I kissed you without knowing that someone else wanted to be with you first?"

"Sometimes, you need to fight for something to know that you want it," Alex says, remembering how he felt when James Elton first starting leaning towards Emma. What he wanted to do every time he saw her flirt with Frank Churchill. He knows he'd felt like this all along but he'd been suppressing it for so long that he didn't recognize it until then. He didn't begrudge Elton or Churchill for that, many other things definitely, but not that.

"I don't know, Alex," he reaches for her but she pulls away, "I just don't know."

"Would it help if I told you how I felt?"

She sighs, putting her hands on her face and closing her eyes, as though she was the one who'd just had their head ripped open. "Not yet, okay? Right now, I need to go find Harriet and explain, or at least try to, what's going on." Then Emma turns to head towards Harriet's office, not seeming to care that she has wiped off her lipstick or that her neck is still wet. Not that she didn't look perfect, she always did and always will. Alex thinks about this and then he finds himself thinking about how many different ways you can fall in love with someone before you even say the words aloud.

"Emma, can I just say–"

"Not yet, Alex. Please?"

And so he nods because she needs him to. He lets her go and deal with this in whatever way she needs to, whatever way she can. And, shortly after, when he drove to the clinic to get a second opinion on his head, he reminded himself of her wording. Not yet, she said. Not yet wasn't a no, it wasn't a rejection, or a dismissal of feelings. Not yet was hope, and that was enough to keep Alex waiting until that 'Not yet' turned into something more.

I think my last few fics deserve a #leaveharrietalone, she seems to always be caught in the cross hairs. Hopefully I'll get around to eventually writing something where everyone ends up happy in the end?

Okay, so as I've been saying for far too long, I do have another question for you loyal readers. I'm not one hundred percent on board with this idea yet, which is why I've been putting off mentioning it, but I'm considering starting another fic series. I'd still try to update this one at least once a week but I've also been thinking about doing a tag series to this story, where every chapter is connected to one of the chapters in this fic. Instead of first kisses it would be first "I love you's" set before/after/during each chapter of this fic. Like I said, I'm not totally up to do this but if it seems like something you'd all enjoy reading I could at least give it a try. I've been inspired by some of these chapters but not all of them so I'm still on the fence, but I think writing something different might break my writer's block for this fic, which I definitely want to continue. So yeah, yay or nay on that idea? Also review if you can, that'd be great too!