Katherine
Breakfast at the Hofstadter residence was an awkward one. Penny and Leonard could not put their fingers on the source of the tension. "Is there something you girls wanna talk about?" Leonard dared to ask, Katherine only shot Celine a look,
"No." Celine turned to her father, wearing her mother's smile, "Of course not, I'm just…I'm just worried about Emily is all."
Penny kissed her daughter on the head as she went into the kitchen, "Sweetie, she'll be fine." Then, as if on cue, the phone rang, Penny dragged herself over to the phone, muttering as to who in the hell would call at this time in the morning.
Leonard wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, "I'm off to work, bye girls."
"Bye, daddy." Katherine waved,
"See you later, dad." Celine called, Penny waved a brief goodbye and was pulled back into her phone conversation, and whatever was said on the other side of the phone had to be good, because Penny squealed, and it made Celine yell "Jesus!" and made her spill coffee all over the table,
"That's amazing, of course, I'll tell right now!" She slammed the phone down and ran back to the large oak table, "It's Emily, she woke up!"
Celine bounced into her mother's arms, shrieking thank you's to God, Penny at least, was too busy celebrating to notice Katherine's smile drop.
She's…..awake….She's going to tell them it was me…Of course she was relieved that Emily was out of danger, she loved Emily like a sister, but going to jail for one (Near fatal, granted.) mistake, was out of the question. She had a whole career as a scientist ahead of her, she was destined for wealth and greatness, not living out the rest of her days rotting in a four by eight.
"Oh my god, that's great." She smiled, like she was supposed to, but she wasn't fooling Celine.
"I'm going down there, can you drive me, mom?"
"Yeah, sure, you coming Kathy?"
"Um...no, it might be a bit overwhelming for her." Katherine's nerves were festering into an uncontrollable twisting knot in her stomach, and it was starting to show.
"Sweetie, are you ok?" She looked right at Penny and smiled,
"Yeah, don't worry about me." I'm already doing enough of that for the both of us.
Emily
Emily had awoken from her sleep, through her blurred vision her surroundings seemed peculiar, a smudge of yellow in a sea of white and fluorescent lights.
"Mom?" She realised when her vision was twenty-twenty once more, well, not entirely, her glasses she still had at home,
Bernadette adopted that tender smile, "Hey, you." She said, "You scared the living crap out of me and your dad."
Emily really didn't have the energy to tell Bernadette where to shove it, so she complied, with a simple, "Sorry." And hoped that was all the confirmation Bernie needed, she flipped on to the other side of her bed and found comfort in the unslept side of it, but Celine, standing by the door, caught her eye, and Emily had gone from thunderous to twinkle-eyed and acting like all her Christmases had come at once, Bernie smiled at Emily, "You had a visitor." Then she went out.
Celine glided over to the seat beside Emily, "God, you had me worried."
"I'm so sorry, Celine, I-I don't know what I was thinking….I just needed to get away from it all." Emily admitted, she couldn't bear to have Celine see her in such a pathetic state, she was always proud like that, but Celine, being nice by nature, was never one to judge, (Sure, they'd bitch about their classmates from time to time, but hey! They're girls, it's basically their birthright!)
"And what about me? I was there to talk to, look, I know you've got problems with your mom, but I need you too."
Emily stomach was doing flips, "Really, you-you need me?"
Celine started to do that husky chuckle that made Emily go hot, "Of course I do, your my best friend." She said as she bent over to give her a hug.
Oh, sweet Jesus, just tell me that you love me…please.