"War does not determine who is right but who is left." – George Bernard Shaw
With her parents convinced she had driven into the city for the afternoon, for a shop-'til-you-drop date with her best friend, Sophia released any anxiety, as she and her newfound relative acquainted themselves with one another, and her fondness for Victoria had multiplied tenfold.
"Daniel and Charlotte adored every summer here," the elderly woman dreamily reminisced upon the happier moments of her children's childhood.
Sophia's window of opportunity to question Victoria was slammed shut, when an abrupt knock on the door interrupted their conversation, and Amanda leapt from the bar stool in the kitchen to be greeted by Emily's face in the windowed-door. The one downside to her home, was that anyone to pass by could invade her privacy. "Emily, I'm sorry -" Amanda's heartbeat quickened, fearful of her inevitable rage.
The blonde raised her hand, silencing Amanda, and eyed her teenage daughter with the sternest of expressions. "Sophia, I would like to speak with your grandmother... alone." Emily retrieved her car keys from her pocket and chucked them into Amanda's direction, her reflexes quick enough to catch the set. "Amanda will drive you home." Her no-nonsense tone and Victoria's reassuring pat nudged Sophia to her feet, and she glanced back toward Victoria with a weakened expression, before she followed Amanda outside to her mother's waiting car.
"If you're here to run me out of the Hampton's, you'll only waste your breath," Victoria warned, "Sophia asked that I stay."
Emily appeared too infatuated by her childhood home to retaliate. "It's ironic, isn't it?" She couldn't hide her smile, "This was where I first became infatuated by 'the lady with the dark hair' and here I am, decades on, still infatuated by you." There were the rarest of times that Emily pondered on what her destiny may have been had Victoria become her step-mother: what kind of family would they have been; would there have been a happily-ever-after, or would she have merely been another real-life Cinderella, lost in a world without her father and ruled by the iron fist of her wicked step-mother? Life, after all, so very often patterned the fairy-tales that had been recited to little children.
Victoria's eyes scoured Emily's for an ulterior motive, disbelievingly, and none appeared. All she could see was David Clarke, not Emily Thorne. "Infatuated by me?"
Emily nodded her head, seemingly confident in the presence of a woman, who so often reverted her to a childlike state. "My father's love for you was so clear to see in his journals and I... didn't understand," she uneasily confessed. "The virtue within you that he wrote of, I could never find. Maybe that's because he had a naive faith in your humanity, or maybe it's because he had more compassion than I'm capable of, I'll never be entirely certain." Her hand decoratively sketched over the mantlepiece, "Neither can I be certain of the way I feel about you."
Her mother-in-law's eyebrow rose, "You could have fooled me."
"My father loved you. Charlotte loved you. Despite what he says, Daniel loves you and I can see Sophia's taken with you, too." The observation warmed Victoria's heart, pleased she hadn't conjured up Sophia's affection out of wild imagination. "So many people I love, the people whose judgement I would trust with my life can't all be blinded by your power or charm, so perhaps I'm the one who's been blinded by my own bitterness."
"You certainly had reason for bitterness," Victoria conceded, not willing to open too much... not until she could fully interpret Emily's intention, which seemed heartfelt. If so, it was a gracious first step on Emily's behalf. "Mr. Takeda was very informative of the life you led after your father's arrest; your years in Allenwood, included."
"When I read Treadwell's book, about my father's arrest, his supposed crime..." Emily uncomfortably seated herself on the sofa. "He broke my trust, Treadwell let me believe my father had been a monster and, as a result, I hated him, until the day he died." The same sense of anguish and fearlessness arose within Emily. "When Nolan provided me with my father's journals, I read them here. His honesty, his desperation and fear convinced me of his innocence but I needed evidence, or a confession. I didn't know whether I could hope to find those from you but I received the latter, and the promises of the former from a man named -"
Victoria cut her sentence short, "Roger Halstead."
"But Conrad had him murdered, and that was all the evidence I needed to be convinced," Emily recalled the New Years' Eve of 2003, her very first invasion of Grayson Manor. "The deceit, the unfairness of it all... drove me mad. I vowed I would make everyone pay for their part."
"Well, you certainly achieved your aim," Victoria almost celebrated her victory.
"I've always wondered whether it was worth it, though," Emily bowed her head; only in private, not even to Nolan, would she consider that proving her father's innocence may have been a fruitless endeavour - even the outcome didn't satisfy her, because her father's fate could never be changed. "All the chaos that ensued, the lives of innocent people caught up in the web; Jack, Daniel, my children... Charlotte." The older woman's head snapped in Emily's direction at the mention of the deceased's name. "I'm sorry, Victoria." A heaviness weighed upon Emily's heart, threatening suffocation, the way it had done since her death. "I'm sorry for your loss. If I had known..." she faltered upon those words, because she had known and she had capitalised on Charlotte's paternity, her youthful insecurities. Emily had helped to shatter Charlotte's heart, hellbent on revenge.
A disconnect came from Victoria and she brushed away any semblance of tears, "Whatever words you have, it's far too little and much too late where it concerns Charlotte." She strengthened, if only by anger, "Why are you really here to see me, Amanda? Did you hope to threaten me?"
Emily's eyes were shaded with annoyance. "You're not a threat, Victoria. I could click my fingers and Daniel would refuse to see you ever again." Victoria didn't doubt as much was true. Daniel had loved and lived with Emily for twenty years, while Victoria had only been a distant memory of disappointment and deception. "But I love him too much to allow that to happen because, whether I like it or not, he needs you. Our children deserve, at least, one grandparent in their lives and you're it."
"Charming," Victoria snarled, in return.
"Well, I'm not the one to blame here, Victoria. At least, not for that," Emily's patience wore thin, also. The Grayson matriarch flinched and Emily rubbed her forehead, realising she may never learn to like her mother-in-law. "We share so many people close to our heart, Victoria. Daniel, Sophia, Charlotte... and my father, once upon a time," she exhaled, heavily. "Because I really do believe you loved him." If anything, Emily had come to terms with Victoria's love - if not, the way in which she expressed it - and grief for David.
"I did love him..."
"...and you love Daniel, his children." Emily held a strong stance, "On that basis, no tricks, no facade and no agenda. When I married Daniel, I vowed I would love him, for better or for worse. I vowed to be selfless, to think of his best interest, always. So, here's my selfless choice: will you come home?"
Destabilised, Victoria almost allowed herself to fall into what must have been a trap. "You and I both know it's not that simple."
"Maybe not," Emily mirrored her scepticism, "But there's a child inside of me and she's ached to be free. A nine year old girl, who pleaded with Mason Treadwell to find you because she believed you would save her. Perhaps, I placed you on a pedestal. Perhaps, I was so desperate for an escape that I hoped and prayed for a miracle." The little girl inside of her still ached to hurt Victoria, though Emily realised it had gone far beyond hurt, agony even. "Your betrayal was almost inconceivable to me. At no point did you even try to save my father," she incredulously whispered, "Why? Why did you choose him? Why not someone corrupt, like Bill Harmon? My father loved you and you didn't even try to save him."
Emily held so much of David in her eyes – so much so, that Victoria cursed herself for the lateness of the realisation – and the betrayal in her eyes may as well have been him sat opposite her in the very house they had loved in. The inquisition from Emily became unbearable and the already-melted ice shattered into a million pieces as Victoria broke into tears, "I did try! I did try…" she protested, her head buried in her hands.
Emily vividly recalled Victoria's name flashing upon her father's cell phone, moments before the arrest. "How hard, Victoria?"
"I offered evidence," she choked on sobs, "To the Senator, before the verdict came in. I called your father when I knew the F.B.I. were on their way." Victoria buried her face into her hands and cried. Her explanations sounded pathetic, even to her. Truthfully, she had been as childlike as Amanda - like any child, selfishness and self-protection was all she truly understood.
"What about me?"
"I -" There was the briefest of moments, in which Victoria considered accepting guardianship of David's child, but the media speculation would have overpowered the sentiment and Conrad would never have allowed the risk. "I never meant for you to be hurt. As far as we were concerned, the system would work for you."
Emily's voice was bleak, "As you can see, it didn't." There were no words to soothe the devastation Amanda Clarke experienced; Victoria forever pictured the small child, hysterical, as her father was dragged into the abyss. Victoria collapsed into her cries and her father's compassion compelled Emily to offer a tissue. "If I had come to you, for evidence to prove my father's innocence, would you have helped me?"
'Yes' was the easy answer, but Victoria pondered on the past, "I don't know."
"Well..." Emily's forehead flickered, "At least, you're honest."
"Why didn't you?" How different their lives may have become, all the pain they could have avoided... her relationship with Daniel may still have ensued, Charlotte would have been alive and well, with children of her own.
"Because I didn't trust you," the blonde simplistically replied, "I still don't."
The armour returned, and Victoria's eyes narrowed, "Then, why are you here?"
"Every war has to end," Emily clambered to her feet, "This one is way overdue." She offered out her hand, in surrender. "Truce?" Victoria willingly slipped her hand into Emily's and the smallest act heralded the biggest change; the end of a war.