"Clyde's right," Emily told herself resolutely, and clicked the little red 'x' in the corner of the screen. She wiped her palms on her jeans and stood up from the couch; she made it to the threshold of the kitchen before stopping and turning around. "Although..."

Sergio's green eyes followed her from his place curled up on the back of the couch.

"He would come if it were me, wouldn't he?" She reopened the web page she'd closed just moments before.

"In a heartbeat," Derek replied without hesitation. Sergio turned to stare intensely at him, his earlier annoyance with him having faded into subtle disinterest. The cat crinkled his nose in distaste, but didn't hiss at him the way he had initially. He didn't know how or why the cat could see and hear him when no one else could, only that it seemed a cruel trick of the universe.

Emily, of course, hadn't heard him. She never heard him, no matter how loudly he shouted, how urgently he begged. Her fingers hovered over the keys of her laptop in indecision. "But there's nothing I could do for him, even if I were there," she said quietly, "Clyde was right, I should stay here where I can be useful to someone."

"No, don't listen to him!" Derek said, louder than before. "I need you!"

Sergio seemed to decide he was no longer interested and yawned lazily and returned to licking his paws, bored.

"You're not a very helpful conversationalist, Serg," she spoke to the cat as he hopped down to curl up next to the warm laptop. She sighed heavily. "What should I do?" she asked aloud. "A good friend would go. We're still friends, no matter what happened...he said so."

Ian turned to look at Derek, brow raised in an intrigued and slightly superior expression, but Derek refused to meet his eye. He had no intention of getting into a discussion of everything that had transpired between them, especially with the likes of Ian Doyle, guardian 'angel' or not.

"Why didn't they call me? Wouldn't they at least let me know that he was still alive?" She sunk her teeth into her bottom lip. "Maybe he told them not to call me. I'm not sure I'd want him coming here if it were me."

"Emily..." he whispered, somewhere between desperation and heart break.

She leaned back, letting out a frustrated breath between her teeth, fingers catching in her dishevelled hair. "Why!?" she demanded of the room at large. Of course, she knew exactly when and why things had gotten so strained, she just wished there were a better answer. An answer that wasn't her fault.

She turned and pulled a framed photo off the shelf behind her. "You see that, Serg?" she asked the sleeping black ball. "Looks like we were happy, doesn't it? It's easy to fake happiness for a split second. He told me things would be the same, but he lied. They never were the same after what happened. Going to London was supposed to fix things, but maybe he took that to mean we were giving up."

She stood up, chewing at her nails. "It's a bad idea for me to be there. There's too much baggage between us, especially for someone recovering from serious brain trauma." She paced a little, shaking her head. "I'm not going to go, that's the right decision. He'll understand."

Derek stared after her, admittedly a little stunned at her decision, as she disappeared down the hall where she could be heard digging through her closet.

"Well," Ian said, smirk evident in his voice, "Seems you're a better actor than I thought."

"It's none of your damn business!" Derek snapped.

"My, my…have I touched a nerve?" Derek opened his mouth to retort, but Ian continued before he had the chance. "Let's see if I can guess, shall we? You couldn't resist her 'womanly charms' – she's very good at turning it on, isn't she? – and you somehow managed to lure her into your bed. You don't really seem like her type, but I guess there's no accounting for taste.

"Then, like a fool, you fell for her; don't feel too ashamed, it's happened to the best of us. She strung you along and you believed there was something more between you. Then, she broke your heart because that's who she is, she's a heart breaker."

"You're completely off base," Derek said threateningly, glaring at him. "You're wrong. What we had was real, she did love me." He gestured towards the picture frame she'd left on the coffee table. "Look at that! You think she'd keep a picture of us together if our relationship meant nothing to her!?"

Ian raised a brow as he glanced at it. "I remember that...the wedding. Right before she picked up and left the country without looking back. She held you in her arms and danced with you, told you she loved you, and she still left. Didn't you wonder how she could do that if you meant as much as she said you did? How she could leave you behind and move on with her life?"

"Stop it!" Derek yelled. "Just stop it! You have no idea what you're talking about!" But Ian just smiled.

Emily suddenly dashed back into the room and dropped a duffel bag onto the floor and pulled an ornate wooden box from the bookcase where it had been hidden behind some books. Her fingers ran over the carvings on top, preventing either of them from reading it, before she gently added it to the suitcase.

"I have to see him," she said, eyes wide and intense. "There's too much left between us to let it end this way."