When Emily and Alex arrived back at Emily's apartment, it was to find that Clara had clearly had some kind of potion go awry... The air was filled with a thick haze of smoke and the cloying scent of burning herbs and singed cat hair.

"Jesus Christ, Clara!" Emily muttered, then held her breath and crossed the apartment to open a window and let in some fresh air.

From his perch on the back of the sofa, Sergio watched Emily's progress with an expression that seemed to say fucking finally! Emily could only share in the cat's long-suffering frustration. She scratched between his ears as she passed by him.

"Clara?" she called out, kind of hoping that she was out at the moment as she was really in no mood to endure Clara's signature brand of intense grilling that followed any kind of romantic venture.

"So..." Alex said slowly, following her into the apartment in search of fresh air, "Do we get to talk about what just happened or..." She purposefully left the question dangling, though there was no way she was letting the matter go.

"We could not," Emily said, moving through the apartment to air it out. "Jesus, what did Clara do? Just set off a stink bomb and leave?"

Alex rolled her eyes. "As much as I appreciate your attempt to divert and delay this conversation, I really am kind of curious as to why we had to rush off from a perfectly delightful evening..."

Emily pouted and looked like she would have liked to be anywhere else just then, but when Alex gave no sign of backing down, she heaved a sigh. "Fine." She crossed the room to drop heavily onto the couch and patted the cushion next to her. "Before you let your imagination run while, it's nothing sordid."

"Emily," she said sternly, "Just tell me."

She cleared her throat. "Kristy and I met when I was eighteen, working summer jobs together. It was the first time I'd ever dated a woman – my first serious relationship at all. I was head over heels in love with her. At the end of the summer, she told me that she was a Selkie. It was also my first time dating a non-human, but I was fine with it – enthusiastic, even, because it was different and exciting and it would piss off my mother – and I told her as much."

Alex reached for her hand, squeezed it gently in support.

"A week later, Kristy told me that she didn't think she could continue our relationship because she could only be with someone who she saw a future with. She needed to be with her own kind because Selkies are dying off, blah blah blah..." She paused a moment, scraping her teeth across her bottom lip. "I found out through the grape vine that she got engaged a week later."

"Oh..."

She nodded. "Yeah."

A beat. "Well, that's not really so bad. You had me thinking there was some kind of huge blow out or... I don't know. But worse than that."

"Worse!?" Emily exclaimed. "She broke my fucking heart!"

Alex held up her hands in surrender. "I'm sorry, that came out wrong. I'm sorry for everything that happened. It's never easy to have your heart broken, especially at such a young age. But don't you think it's time to forgive and forget?"

"Maybe," she said reluctantly. "I guess I never really deal with any of my emotions, especially the painful ones, so I've just kind of compartmentalized all of...that. And seeing her again just brought it all back."

Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, Alex pulled her into her chest and kissed her temple. "I'm proud of you, Em."

"For what?"

"For telling me. For letting me in." She stole a soft kiss then and when she moved to pull away, Emily halted her progress with a hand tangling in her hair to keep her in the kiss which she quickly deepened. She moved to straddle Alex's lap and began unbuttoning her blouse...only to be startled out of the moment when Clara burst through the front door.

Sergio immediately hissed and raced across the apartment to find a safe hiding place. Clara called after him, "Ungrateful coward!" She scoffed. "Emily? Are you home?"

"I'm actually kind of in the middle of something," she called back, much to Alex's chagrin.

In the next moment, Clara's head peered around the corner, a knowing smirk on her lips. "You must be the infamous Alex Miller."

Alex felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment. "Nice to meet you," she mumbled, fastening the buttons of her blouse, though the damage had already been done.

Taking some of the focus off her, Emily demanded, "What did you set fire to this time?"

"Nothing!" Clara insisted, though her high-pitched voice belied her. "I just had a tiny little potion mishap and..."

"As usual," Emily interrupted to remind.

"And," she continued pointedly, "There was a little smoke. It's fine."

Emily wasn't sure she believed that, but chose not to argue further. "Anyway, don't you have a coven meeting to get to?"

Clara seemed like she would have liked to make a lewd remark the implication that Emily wanted to be left alone with Alex, but instead she nodded. "Yeah, I'm actually running really late and I'm already on thin ice, so could you help me fish Sergio out from under the bookcase?"

"No way!" she exclaimed. "The last time I tried, I needed six stitches and a tetanus booster!"

"Whiner," Clara muttered.

Emily clearly would have liked to have the last word on the matter, but before she could, there came a knock on the door. Reluctantly, she stomped off to answer it, ready to snap at the newcomer, all the day's frustrations unleashed on an innocent victim...

The victim, however, ended up being a lot less innocent than anticipated.

"Matt?" Emily stuttered after several moments in which her mouth hung open in dumbfounded silence.

Clara appeared behind Emily almost immediately, bat-like hearing having picked up on the name. "Matt Simmons?"

Emily attempted to subtly wave her away, not that it did any good. "Matt, what are you doing here?"

"Something happened to Kristy..."