This particular story came together due to an idea I got six months ago, plus a teensy bit of guilt for having deleted Territorial. This oneshot is quite strange, I'll admit (so you had fair warning!) and it gets intense(r) pretty quick. Ah, well. Enjoy.

Rikki's eyes widened at the display in front of her.

"God, Em, what happened?"

The young woman twirled on the spot, the tattered shoulder of her shirt flying against the movement. Her hair stuck up at odd angles, like she was God's pet and he'd been ruffling her fur. She was humming, softly, whimsical and lovely—and totally un-Emma-like.

Rikki went up to her, squeezing her shoulders—hard, probably too hard, but for the love of God she was being freaky—and staring her hard blue eyes into her soft, roaming ones. "Emma. What's going on?"

Emma tapped her dirt-caked, bitten fingernails on Rikki's cheek. "I took a tumble."

Rikki took in her appearance one more time—her shirt was torn and flapping, her jeans ragged, too ragged for it to be by design. Dirt smudged her face, one particularly dark smear under her eyes screaming out in contrast to the light ocean hue of her orbs.

She found herself believing her.

"Em, come on, why don't you sit down..." she was beginning to think maybe she had a concussion. She started to guide her to the nearest table, but she wrenched her wrists out of Rikki's grasp and spiralled away from her.

"No!" she said, shaking her head. "I don't want to sit down."

She ran up and grabbed Rikki's arm. "Let's go swimming."

Rikki frowned. "Why would we go swimming? It's freezing out!"

Okay, asking practical questions to an almost certainly concussed person... not her brightest idea.

Emma slapped her shoulder and scoffed like she was the stupidest person in the world. "We'd go swimming 'cause it's the way to Mako, silly," she said.

Realisation slowly dawned, then rushed up on her and whacked in the back of the head. "Oh. Mako. Right," she said.

"See? You see?" she whirled around, yelling at the open air. "See, she sees!"

Rikki bit back a laugh. Maybe it was possible to be concussed and moonstruck at the same time. "Look, Emma, I don't know how, but you're moonstruck. Alright? Comprende?"

Emma tilted her head, a look of confusion being gradually swallowed by a grin. "Moonstruck," she said, like she was prodding the word with her tongue, rolling it around in her mouth and testing it. Her smile grew. "I like that word."

Rikki shook her head and sighed. "Of course you do."

"Mako, Mako," she said, and started poking her in the shoulder with a broken fingernail. "Say it with me."

"I'd rather not, kay?"

Emma whined. "You're not fun, Rikki-Roo."

Rikki-Roo was seriously considering the possibility of being concussed, moonstruck, and drunk all at the same time.

"I'm going swimming. Don't care if you're coming." Emma said, puffing out her cheeks and pivoting on her heel to start for the door.

"No, no," she rushed out. "Just let me get my sunglasses, alright?"

She grabbed the extra-dark sunglasses Lewis had given her last year in case of any emergencies, insisting they were 'innovative and better than ever before.' They were sunglasses, for God's sake. She used them for hangovers more than anything else.

"You have a headache, Rikki-Roo? Poor Rikki-Roo." Emma went on, grabbing the other woman's arm and linking hers through it. "Swimming will make you feel all better."

Rikki just shrugged the comment off and tried her best to avoid looking at the glittering sky. "So, Em, how'd you get such nasty bruises?"

She frowned for a split second. "Mako told me to come find you. But I fell off the cliffside, I mean, how funny is that?"

It wasn't all that funny. It would have been, maybe, if it were Lewis or even Zane, or even if she just didn't have such a bad gash across the left side of her face. But she just nodded and forced out, "Sure. Real funny."

Emma's head swung side from side in a happy little jig. "It's too bad Cleo's in America. This would have been so much better with all the three of us," she said. "But I guess it's just us, right, Rikki-Roo?"

"Mmm. Yeah."

"You don't sound very excited," Emma said with another frown, one that kind of reminded her of a baby's childish pout. "Why aren't you excited? This'll be great!"

"No, no, I'm sure it will be," Rikki said with a shrug.

"Is it 'cause of Bella?"

She blinked. "Yeah, sure. It's 'cause of Bella."

"The gang's all splitting up!" Emma wailed as the docks appeared in view, the glossed over sheen of the ocean advancing on them. "With Bella and Will getting married, Cleo in America with what's-his-face—"

Rikki found it a little funny that she couldn't remember the name Lewis when they'd known each other since preschool, for about twenty-five years. Then again, she was moonstruck and drunk and concussed.

"—And me and Ash with our thing..."

This made Rikki back up. "Hold it. What 'thing?'"

"Oh! Oh! I didn't tell you...?" Emma said. "We're gonna get a baby!"

"What the hell? You're not even married! What about all your so-called morals and whatever? You're pregnant?"

Emma scoffed. "Pssh. No. Get in the loop, Rikki-Roo. I can't have kids. We figured that out, like, two years ago..."

News to her.

"We're adopting, jeez," she said, and then in a more serious and scolding tone, "And you seriously need to cut down on that swearing if there's gonna be a baby around here, Rikki-Roo."

"I..."

"You know what I'm talking about." Emma said, nodding her head.

This had to be just the moon talking. Gobbledeygook from a screwed up mind. It just had to be.

"Emma—Emma—?"

"Hmm?"

Rikki shook her head, but it didn't help clear anything up. "Why wouldn't you tell us?"

"Zane knows!" She whined. "That's not fair. I told him."

"What?!"

"Zane knows, I said. You really need to get yourself a less nosy boyfriend, Rikki-Roo..."

"Okay... I need to sit down..."

Rikki plonked down onto the hard wood of the dock floor and began cradling her head in her hands.

"Rikki-Roo...?" Emma said, crouching over her. Blood trickled down from the huge gash across her face.

She sat down next to her, her lip curling into a sympathetic pout. "You alright?"

"How—how—how—?"

She shrugged.

Emma soothed, "It's okay, it's okay..." and Rikki looked over at her, hair falling out of what must once have been a trademark impeccable Emma-style bun, her face smudged with dirt which made her look like a tribal warrior, and blood seeping down from her temple, tracing around her eyes and sliding down her cheek.

"You need to be in bed." She said, abrupt, so sudden it was enough to make even a concussed/moonstruck/drunk Emma blink in confusion.

And then Rikki started laughing, long and loud and almost hysterical, because it was just so damn funny that even when she'd just been hit with a bombshell that this young woman certainly didn't mean to let out, and even when that woman was probably going to be a mother soon, that even with all that it was the big whack of concern that bled through.

That was the funny thing.

XXX

(That, and she was so going to totally kill Zane for not telling her about all of this.)