A/N: We're probably drawing near the end of this story; I have a couple more chapters to wrap things up but don't want to drag it out more than necessary.
Triggers warnings in this chapter for pregnancy and implied miscarriage, in addition to everything from previous author's notes too.
...
"I have to tell you something."
It's 5am and they're both lying awake on the sofa. The TV plays an old black and white horror movie, something they've seen before or may as well have. It's 3 years since Emma went missing and they've all but abandoned the news channels now.
"What?" Paul turns his head towards her. "You know you can tell me anything, Em."
"You won't like it."
"That's never stopped you before."
A ghost of a smile passes over her face, quickly fading. "I'm scared I might be pregnant."
Paul blanches.
"Don't be mad." She whispers.
"I'm not mad." He replies immediately. "I just... oh god..."
Nick has always used protection with Emma, at least whenever she's been with it enough to notice - but it's never 100% reliable and she's secretly worried about this exact scenario more times than she can count.
"I haven't had my period for two months." She'd been hiding that from him, although he'd never have confronted her about it, awkward as he is.
"It'll be ok." Paul says softly. "If you are. If you're not. We'll figure it out."
"I don't know if I want to be. A baby..."
"We can't raise a kid." Paul is taking deep breathes, impressively controlled but have to try hard for it. "Not here, it wouldn't be fair."
"Nick wouldn't let us keep it. We could convince him to take it to a hospital?"
"Em, what about you? People used to die in childbirth all the time." He is starting to panic now, the thought of losing her to her own traitorous body too much to bear.
"Hey, I'll be fine. Let's not get ahead of ourselves."
"Ok. Ok. What do we do?"
"I don't know." Emma voice cracks on the last word and she finally let's a tear escape. "I don't know, baby, but we'll figure it out."
"Should we ask for a pregnancy test?"
"Maybe not... but I guess he needs to know one way or another, same as we do."
"It might change things."
"It might not. I might not even be pregnant."
Paul sighs, presses his lips lightly to her forehead.
"My vote is that we wait a while longer before we ask him. But we put more vitamins and supplements on the shopping list this week for you." He pauses. "But it's your call, Em. I'm with you either way."
"Okay." She breathes. "Ok."
...
They don't end up letting Nick catch on, for fear of him snapping and hurting Emma or worse. When she gets her period three weeks later, she's never been so conflicted. She sobs when she wakes up to blood on her sweatpants, relieved and simultaneously feeling a sense of loss for something she never really had. She'd have died a little inside to bring something into the world that was 50% Nick, but the whole affair got her thinking that perhaps a baby half her and half Paul wouldn't be so bad. Not that she and him have ever... Not here, with the ever present chance of being interrupted. She doesn't say any of this to Paul as he holds her and rocks her back and forth, murmuring reassurance and reminding her to breathe. She sees empty cribs in her dreams that night, and the next morning she doesn't get out of bed.
"Morning, sweetheart." Paul perches beside her and hands her a slice of toast. She holds it limply. "You'll get crumbs everywhere."
"Maybe we'll get a little mouse friend." Emma deadpans.
"Hey, if there was a way for mice to get in here, you can bet your ass we'd have found it by now."
The corner of her mouth twitches upwards.
"I know this must be confusing for you, Emma." Paul reaches out for her hand but hesitates before touching her. "Just know that I'm sad too. And I don't know if that's right or wrong, but that doesn't change that I am."
She closes the distance and wraps her hand around his.
"Thank you." She whispers into her pillow.
"Don't thank me." He shakes his head. "You don't owe me anything."
"Thank you." She says again stubbornly, because she does.
...
They talk about Tim that afternoon. Emma has never met her nephew but she thinks he'd be about 10 now, and she smiles as she recalls the way Jane used to talk about him when they spoke over the phone.
"She loved him more than anything, you could just tell." She says.
"I bet you will too." Paul nudges. This is a dangerous way of speaking, and he hasn't figured out yet whether he likes it or not - this future tense which assumes a happy ending. He thinks it's for the best though, when Emma gets like she is today.
"I've never been any good with kids." She admits. "Didn't have any younger siblings or cousins, growing up. I was the little troublemaker."
"I bet you were." Paul smiles. "You know I used to babysit my best friend's kid?"
"Really?"
"Yeah, Alice. She was great, but we never really had a lot in common. She loved that movie, what's it called... the Rapunzel one?"
Emma clicks her fingers. "Tangled."
"Uh huh, that's it. I didn't like it."
"Musical?"
"Yeah, and it was sort of depressing. This girl was locked up in her tower, missed out on so much of her life."
"Maybe Alice liked the fact that she didn't let it stop her in the end. Its a whole different movie if you look at it that way."
"I still prefer A Bug's Life."
"Of course you do." She shakes her head, grinning. "I seem to remember Tim went through a Toy Story phase."
"Hm, Alice went through every possible phase. She'd be all grown up now, I think."
"I'm sure she misses you."
His fond tone grows cold. "She thinks I'm dead."
"Doesn't mean she can't miss you."
"I... guess not."
"I like to think Tim misses his Auntie Emma too. But I know that's not true."
"You don't know that. Kids follow their parents examples, and Jane sure as hell thinks about you every day." He's heard enough about Emma's older sister to know that they cared for each other deeply.
"I think about her." Emma sniffs. "I think she'd have f*cking hated Tangled, if she's ever seen it."
Paul laughs. "Was she not a Disney fan?"
"She hated this idea that everything just works out for you if you dream hard enough. Even though that's pretty much what happened to her."
"Might still happen to you!" Paul says in a chirpy voice that sounds false even as he says it. She scoffs and gives him a shove.
"Oh, f*ck off."
"I'm serious."
"You and her would get along."
"I could be your Prince Charming." He wiggles his eyebrows and she fake retches. "Sorry, sorry." He cringes.
"I forgive you, babe." She pecks him on the cheek. "And I actually might not mind that. If it means I become Queen and get all your gold."
"Hm, I do have a lot of gold."
"It'll be hard to win you over though, what with all your lady callers fighting over your affection."
"I'd pick you." He rolls his eyes.
"Even if I weren't your only option?" There's a vulnerability in her eyes now, an openness he rarely catches a glimpse of.
"Even then. I'd have found you anyway."
"Oh yeah? How'd you figure that?"
He shrugs, cheeks reddening.
"You got something to tell me, Matthews?" Emma jokes, and he smiles.
"I just like to tell myself that you find the people you love in life, no matter what. It's silly."
"Yeah." Emma laughs. "It's still nice, though." Then she thinks on it. "You love me?"
Paul's eyes go impossibly wide. He doesn't know what to say. Eventually, he blurts out: "Emma, of course!"
Six beeps cut him off, and there's a rush of cold air as Nick steps in. He's always on guard these days, like he can feel a tension building in the room every time he enters. He sighs.
"Long day." He explains.
Tell me about it, Emma thinks.
"You done?" He nods towards their empty plates on the table, leftover from dinner. They nod in return. Emma swallows back the familiar feeling of nausea as Nick pulls his jacket off. "Volunteer?" He asks.
Paul hates when he does this. It was almost better before, when it was just him and he didn't have a choice - now the moral dilemma makes it all ten times worse as he and Emma fight in vain to protect each other. So he stands quickly, before Emma can in her unsteady state. Emma reaches for his arm a moment too late. "You can have me today." He says, just as she whispers: "No...".
Nick sneers. "Come on now, not this again. Can't you two just get along?"
What they don't say is that they get along perfectly fine when he's not around, when they're not arguing back and forth to avoid the fate of having to watch one another get hurt - a fate worse than getting hurt themselves.
Paul doesn't address him, looking straight at Emma. "Not today, Em." He says quietly. "Please."
Nick actually laughs. "Please. I don't hear you say that often anymore. What'd the b*tch do this time?"
Emma scrunches her eyes shut, shuddering. After the day they've had, Paul can't help it, he really can't - he strides across the room, past Nick, and takes her in his arms. Nick's eyebrows shoot up.
"When the cat's away, huh?" The bastard smirks, but its cold and dangerous. "You've been f*cking behind my back?"
"What?" Emma cries, alarmed. "No!"
"You think I can't recognise friends with benefits when I see them?" He chuckles. "Has it been since the start? Have I been blind to it all this time?"
"We haven't done anything, I swear." Paul pipes up. He's let go of Emma like the touch burned. It's bizarre to think that Nick cares in the slightest what they get up to in here, but he's always had this weird delusion that they're a family, that he's some sort of devoted husband. He comes home from a long work day to his significant other, and pretends like they're here of their own accord and not scared out of their wits. Paul supposes that this, in his mind, is practically an affair. Sh*t.
"You whore!" Nick screams suddenly, no longer laughing, swiping at the nearest chair and knocking it to the ground. Emma flies up out of her chair, and she and Paul step back up against the wall. Nick takes a deep breath. "What do I have to do to make you understand?" He pants. "I just - I want to look after you. I want you to be here for me, like I am for you. I found you a roommate, so you wouldn't be lonely whilst I was away - and this is what I get?!"
Paul realises with a start that he's the one being addressed; that Nick took Emma for him, so he wouldn't get depressed like some kind of dog left alone in the house for too long.
"You took her for me?" He whispers, feeling faint. There's a buzzing in his ears.
"Of course I did! And how do you thank me? You've - you've replaced me!" Two things are suddenly horribly clear to Paul: that Nick is not just a psychopath but completely insane, and that Emma's life is in real danger tonight. Nick stalks towards them and Paul throws himself between him and her.
"If you touch her," He thinks quickly, speaking as loud as he dares and slowly so the words are clear. "I will never be able to love you."
Nick stops, frozen. "You don't mean that. I've touched her before, and you've never..." But he seems to remember all the beatings he's given them for standing up for one another, all the times Paul has thrown himself in the firing line when Emma has been too hurt or too ill.
Paul can hear Emma's ragged breathing behind him. He thinks she might be about to die and she seems to think the same. She leans forward, pressing into his back, and grasps at his hand, whispering to him: "I love you too."
Then Nick lunges forwards, but he doesn't go for her - he grabs Paul instead, yanks him away from her. Emma cries out in alarm as his hand is ripped away from hers.
"She lives." Nick snarls, somewhere between victorious and devastated. It's like he thinks that this is what will finally win them over, get them on his side - as if there's any universe in which that could happen. "But don't forget whose you both are."
Paul nods, smiles through tears that have slipped down his face. Then Emma has to turn away, slide to the ground and bury her face into the couch cushions, so that she doesn't have to watch as Nick drags Paul to the bed. She can't stand as the weight of the realisation hits her - she's here because of Paul. She loves Paul. She had thought she was about to die for Paul. Its all too much, so she curls up into a ball and stays there until the morning.
...
"Well now we know how to get him to leave you alone." Paul doesn't wake her, the dawn light streaming through the skylight had done that, but he draws her out of her daze and she finally sits up. "I'm so sorry." He says, voice watery. His neck is dotted with fresh bruises and there's blood on his bottom lip. Emma doesn't say anything, just moves to rummage through the kitchen drawers in search for a flannel. "I never knew - god, I never asked for him to do that." She finds one, rough and orangey-pink, and wets it in the sink. "If I'd had any idea, I'd have... God, I'd have-"
He's cut off by Emma holding the damp cloth up to his split lip. "It's ok." She says blankly.
"Please believe me." He says anyway.
"I believe you." She murmurs. He takes the flannel from her hand. "It's not your fault, baby."
"Are you alright?" He asks her, free hand hovering as he scans her up and down.
"That piece of sh*t didn't touch me." She shakes her head. "He just hurt you instead, remember?"
Paul really does seem out of it, because what he responds with is: "Was what you said last night true? Or did you panic because you thought you were going to die?"
Emma casts her mind back through the haze. The room is quiet and still. Finally, she remembers. "Yes." Then she thinks that needs some clarification. "I did think I might die, but... I also did mean what I said."
"Ok." He seems surprised.
"Ok." Emma manages a small smile as she perches on the bed next to him. "I love you, Paul Matthews."
His eyes go comically wide and she laughs.
"I love you, Emma Perkins." He says right back.