A somewhat disheveled Emma appears in front of the camera today - casual shirt, minimal makeup, no earrings, and a bit of a lopsided ponytail. The state of the office behind her has also fallen apart, with binders out and open on various surfaces, as if Emma's been moving stuff all around. When she speaks, it's with a very changed demeanour: she's now completely humbled; regret infuses her entire countenance and the tone of every word she speaks.

"Hello," she opens without any particular enthusiasm. There's an awkward silence, and then, somewhat surprisingly, the video cuts right into the opening title sequence and theme song.

When we return, Emma clasps her fingers together above her lap, trying to figure out what to say next. "Well..." Her eyes go back to the camera, and she sighs. "Things...haven't been good." She casts her eyes to the side and bobs her head slowly. "I've been doing a lot of thinking." Another sigh, and she starts shaking her head despairingly instead. "I'm so disappointed in myself. In everything. Everything I've been doing, everything I've been saying, everything I've been feeling..."

She fixes the camera with a direct, honest look. "Most of all...what I've been feeling." She bites her lip for a half-moment before continuing. "I've been thinking a lot about...about Alex." With a bitter laugh and a look ceiling-ward, she exclaims, "Self-deception much, Emma?!" Her gaze falls down to her hands as she works things out while speaking. "I've denied for so long that I cared about him...that way...but after all that, it turns out that I do!" She looks back up and appeals to the camera softly and sincerely, "I so, so do!" Raising her eyebrows, she admits, "I can't even tell how long I've felt this way. When I think about how I feel about him, compared to, say, how I thought I might have been feeling for Frank..." She gives another bitter laugh. "It's been Alex...only Alex...forever!" Another sigh. "I've always wanted Alex's good opinion more than anybody's."

She swallows and becomes self-recriminating. "But by now, I'm sure I don't have it," she admits viciously. "Alex has watched me this whole time, seen all the horrible things I've been doing: the schemes, the gossiping, the prying, the...the jumping to the wrong conclusions...being terrible to people I care about...all the manipulating..." Her severe distress and embarrassment is evident. "And all for no reason! I've been wrong about everything." She rattles off a list of intuition failures. "Who Senator Elton liked, who Jane liked, who Frank liked, and...and...who Harriet likes."

Her face falls. "That's the worst of all. I know this is going to sound selfish and catty, but I know in my heart it's true: Alex and Harriet are just not well-suited together!" She points at the camera. "He may have feelings for her, but I know Alex Knightley, and that relationship will just make him miserable!" She winces as she thinks about it. "Harriet's shy and self-conscious...he'll be spending all his time propping her up, reassuring her. boosting her confidence...and eventually, he's going to find that very tiresome in a partner!" She purses her mouth disapprovingly. "Alex is strong, and he needs to be an equal in a relationship, not a caregiver. He just won't be happy!" Her voice trails off quietly, "I don't know if I can stand watching him become unhappy..."

Horrified at the mess she's made of things, she brings her hands up to hold her face. "And it's all my fault!" she cries, wallowing in self-pity. "I kept telling Harriet to be ambitious, to go for men in the spotlight, men who make things happen...and that's not who Harriet is! She's...she's more of a...a...'behind the scenes' sort of person," she concludes finally. "She's not ambitious, she doesn't want to be in the spotlight. She is wonderful, and kind, but delicate, and nervous, and quiet, and..." Her hands drop back down to her lap with hopelessness. "I never should have chased B-Mart away from her," she finishes in a small voice.

Her thoughts then take a new track, one which is apparently so painful that she shuts her eyes as she speaks. "What am I going to do if she gets together with Alex?" she agonizes. "He's my best friend...and I'm his! How...how is it going to work when I'm..." she chokes up, barely getting out the rest of her sentence. "...when I'm no longer first in his life?"

Sniffling, she reaches offscreen for something and produces a tissue, which she uses to dab at her eyes. "Not that I understand why I even have been first in his life," she castigates herself, "given how much I push him around all the time...how much I take him for granted!" She sniffles a bit. "At this point, he's probably just sticking around out of habit." Suddenly she looks up, eyes wide with a sudden thought. "No..." she says slowly, "he must be sticking around...for Harriet..."

This produces a fresh wave of tissue-dabbing and sniffling. Finally, she seems to have had enough of wallowing. She picks up her posture, shakes her head back defiantly, puts the tissue away, and declares, "I'm just going to have to watch them together once he gets back from Izzy and John's. Then I'll know for sure."

Suddenly, footsteps can be heard outside Emma's office, and a moment later, Annie appears in the doorway. "Hey, you!" she greets her friend cheerily.

Annie's eyes then fall on all the open binders, and she looks surprised, but before she can say anything, Emma puts on a chipper face and spins around to give greetings in return. "Annie!" she cries, holding out her arms in welcome. "Come in! Sit down!"

Annie wrinkles her nose fondly at her friend, settling into her seat and turning to face Emma. "How are you?" she asks cautiously, taking in Emma's altered appearance.

Emma blinks a few times, and smiles very widely, with innocently raised eyebrows. "How are you, 'mama'?" she returns loudly as her reply.

Effectively distracted by this, Annie looks down and pats the beginnings of a tummy bulge happily. "Very well, thank you!" she returns. She then lets out a breath and takes Emma's hands. "So," she says excitedly, "I spent some time yesterday with Jane and the Bateses."

Emma's eyebrows go sky-high in appreciation. "Wow!" she says. "How did that go?"

Annie beams. "It went very well!" she proclaims. "I mean," she says, wiggling her head back and forth in a tempering gesture, her ponytail bobbing with the motion, "I was a bit nervous at first, I didn't know how everyone was taking the news, or how happy they would be to see me, since I'm Frank's sister-in-law." Emma gives her a commiserating expression, and she continues her story. "But everybody was just so happy for Jane that we all got along great!"

A genuine smile appears on Emma's face. "Oh, that's so fabulous!" she enthuses.

Annie nods. "Mm hm! And then I persuaded Jane to come out to lunch with me." Emma's eyes widen with interest. Annie sighs compassionately. "Oh Emma, she's been so miserable. This whole time!" Emma punctuates Annie's narrative with various sympathetic noises. "She's feeling so guilty about how she had to deceive everybody, and that made her miserable, and then she thought Frank didn't love her anymore, and that made her even more miserable...ugh." Annie shakes her head. "The poor thing thinks all that was some kind of...karmic retribution, punishing her for lying to everyone!"

Emma shakes her head. "Oh, no," she says disapprovingly. "Did you tell her to stop being so hard on herself?"

Annie shrugs. "I sure tried," she assures Emma.

Emma sighs. "I'm sure some of the things I did helped to make her so miserable. I feel so bad," she says sincerely, her cheerful demeanour starting to slip back into sadness.

Annie squeezes her friend's arm. "But you didn't mean to hurt her! And Jane knows that, really she does." Annie tilts her head thoughtfully. "One thing Jane did say was how all the stress of the secrecy made her so impatient with everyone. She's got a lot of guilt going on about that. She feels she's been treating people badly. She said she wasn't 'an understanding enough partner' about where Frank was coming from; she was snippy with her family sometimes; and..." here Annie looks directly at Emma, "she feels really bad for rejecting all the help you tried to offer. She particularly wanted me to thank you for everything you tried to do for her."

Emma bats a hand at Annie dismissively and smiles weakly at the camera. "Oh, that's not necessary."

Annie shrugs. "Well, she made me promise to tell you!" she chirrups. "I'm sure she'll thank you in person very soon." The two women exchange satisfied smiles, although Emma's seems somewhat preoccupied. Annie misses this, though, as she looks thoughtful. "Honestly Emma, I don't think she ever would have agreed to a secret romance if she didn't love him so much. She really cares about him. I'm so happy for them!"

Emma looks pleased. "I wish her all the happiness in the world," she declares gratefully. She then adds sardonically, with a much less pleased expression, "But I do think Frank is far luckier than he deserves to be."

Annie raises her eyebrows and the pitch of her voice. "Oh, now," she admonishes maternally, "don't be too hard on Frank, he's had a rough time, too."

"Really," says Emma, her voice loaded with skepticism.

"Yes," emphasizes Annie. "I got a text from him this morning; he sent his love, and promised a full explanation of the whole story, from start to finish...as soon as he can get the time to write it out in an email. I'm sure it will explain a lot that we don't know about."

Emma raises her eyebrows; she doesn't look convinced, but at least she seems willing to listen to reason. "Alright," she concedes absently.

Annie smiles again, and then there's a silence. As it stretches on, she looks about the office, and gives a small frown. "Emma, are you alright? You seem-"

Emma interrupts with a loudly enthusiastic voice. "I'm great!" she insists. As Annie opens her mouth to speak again, she adds quickly, "Are you hungry? You must be hungry. You're eating for two now! Do you want to get some lunch?"

Annie smiles fondly at Emma, then nods, capitulating. "Sure," she agrees affably. The camera stops filming as they stand up to leave the office.