The woman who had been Emma sat in her condo in Austin, looking around at the new decorations, pleased with them. Sure, they weren’t to GB or Nemo’s taste, but they’re only argument with them was the medium of the craft. Such a silly argument really, when ever would she invite a normal over on her side of the wall of ignorance. This was her place, her domain, one of many. She would have more too, the realator was already looking for a new house in Atlantic City, the Denver house was up for sale. Things were moving along nicely.

Standing up, she padded quietly to the balcony, looking out over the still streets below her. Only the occassional night walker drifted silently through her view, and she liked it that way sometimes, other times she thought the silence would drive her crazy. She leaned on the reinforced railing and sipped her cup of coffee thinking. It had been a month now since Nemo’s wedding proposal, and where at first it had sounded like fun, and a good way to make sure Nemo stayed where she wanted him, she wasn’t so sure any longer.

To many people were trying to get in the way, hell, even the remainders of the memories from before, from Emma were getting in the way. The little spark of what had been Emma railed against the cage she had been put in, rattling the bars night and day. What was really obnoxious were the days she slipped out and made a nuisance of herself. A good example of that was when she’d been told about Cain’s death. Emma had rushed to the surface, aghast at the death. Tears, over a man who had attempted to murder her? Pitiful really. It was no wonder really that Abel Grimm had washed his hands of her altogether, hell he’d had to kill his own brother, and Emma had been soft and squishy. Who needed a constant reminder who felt bad for you for doing what you needed to do?

She’d had to yank control back from Emma again in Inverness. Really, who cared if someone was mimicing a long dead spring courtier?   In fact, the angst of it should have been funny really, but instead, the twit had gone shocky and walked off into a blizzard. What was her problem? She sipped at her coffee and swore silently to herself. If she could snuff that last little ember of what was, she would, but for now… she needed it to maintain the masquerade.

Emma left Nigel behind to stand in the dark outside of her house. She didn’t figure he’d stay there for long and the house would be open and he could use the hot tub if he wanted to.  She had left the keys in the ignition for him to take the car back to town.  She wasn’t entirely sure she’d need it.  All she knew was that she needed time to think, to absorb what had just happened with Abel.

It wouldn’t be long now she thought as she stumbled off into the darkness, into the woods.  It wouldn’t be long now until there would be nothing standing between her and the Empress’s call.  Already it was getting louder in her ears.  She found the opening in the hedge maze and walked into it.  Emma knew exactly what path she needed to take.  Other than the bits of litter from the last two months, nothing impeded her passage through the growing maze.

No one would recognize the maze now if they’d seen it just two months ago.  Back then, Nemo could see over the hedges, but Emma had been working on it.  Everything extra that she had was going into shaping and growing the plants.  For her it was a type of escape.  It was already nearing three acres large now, covering a quarter of her 12 acre lot.  She didn’t know how much longer she would work on it, if it would ever be finished, or if it would just wither and die like so many other things in her life were doing. 

As she moved through the maze she hummed to herself, for once glad that it was nearing the new moon; that the full moon was not sitting high in the sky.  Dark seemed to be best for the kind of ponderings she needed to make.  Emma was pretty sure that if she tried to talk to anyone else about it, all she would hear was that she was wrong.  It was becoming very hard to believe in this world, more so every day.  People kept telling her about their time in Arcadia, and they were terrible terribly stories, but the Empress hadn’t really hurt her, not really.  Not like her father had done before, or the heartsick ways that she felt now.  In the Empress’s court, it was peaceful, she was content, she didn’t have to feel all of this.  All she’d had to do is what the Empress had told her. 

It didn’t take long, even in the dark for Emma to get to the middle of the maze.  In the center was a fountain, dry and dusty and by moving into its range, Emma triggered motion sensors that turned the fountain on and filled the small area with a soft blue light. 

Stone benches ringed the area, the lush grass and fines creeping up their bases, the entire place designed for peace and a sense of luxury in green.  She sat on one of the benches and sighed.  She looked up into the stars and wished for a moment that she could feel like Nigel and so many others did.  That she could feel connected to everything, even if it just lasted a moment.  Instead, the world just seemed to creep further and further away from her.

Staring up into the sky, she lifted a hand to her own cheek and felt the wetness rolling down her face.  Abel had said the one thing that hurt the most.  First he’d said that Emma ma had tried to find out what the heck was going on, how Emma wasn’t a monster, that he and Cain were the monsters.  But when Emma had tried to question him, asking what kind of game he was playing… he’d taken his guns and stormed out.  Emma dropped her hands into her lap, clenching them tightly enough she could feel the nails digging into the marks that were already there, starting the blood flowing again.  Emma hadn’t expected him to come back again, figured he’d just go like everyone else was doing.  But he had come back into the bar, yelling about how she’d done what she intended to… and now he was gonna kill Cain.  Emma felt something low inside clench at the thought again, just like it had earlier.  Even Abel thought that Emma was bad enough to be pushing people to hurt others, and in Abel’s case… his fucking brother.  She barely had any family, anyone she could trust and that he thought she could want to make him kill his own brother?  That she wanted ANYONE dead?  Maybe it hadn’t been Cain and Abel who changed so much, maybe it was herself.

The last time she’d seen him, he’d wanted to show her fear, and had disappeared in the dream.  Emma didn’t understand it, but what she did understand is that right after that dream, Abel HAD disappeared.  For months he’d disappeared, the only thing she’d heard about him was from either Cain or Seth.  At least Cain’s pokes and prods and attempt to hurt didn’t hurt as bad as that one action by Abel.  She’d gotten used to Cain’s games, even if they confused her.  But Abel vanishing, that had been different.

Emma curled up on the hard stone bench, watching the light glisten off the light of the fountain as she cried silent tears.  Nemo and GB are the only ones left that she could trust, that she knew didn’t hate her yet.  She’d meant it when she told Abel that there was no safe place for her anymore.  She was a monster, a monster that dragged everyone around her down, a monster that made their hearts want to do murder, to hurt other people.  All she’d ever wanted was to heal, to fix things… but now… now what was she supposed to do?  She could see the opening to the left, the opening she’d designed to make a quick gate into the hedge, and the opening to the right that led back to the real world, to the cold and pain that was out there. 

It was a warm night and the heat made her warm, only a soft breeze rustling through the leaves and over the fountain cooled her and she just let herself go limp, staring at the sky, trying to decide.  She was still there when she heard a car pull up, a door slam and the car drove away.  But those sounds didn’t really impact the state she’d slid into.  She needed to make a decision soon.  How could she stop the pain and hurt that seemed to be following her everywhere?  Was there any way?  She thought she was already a monster and now it seemed like other people were figuring that out too.  Emma felt that tightening in her chest and stomach again as she thought.  How could she stop it?  How could she stop the pain and hurt that just being around was causing people?  Did she become someone else?  Or just go away?

 Emma looked out the window of her small cubicle in the monastery and watched a bird fly by.  It had been over two weeks since she got there and the pace was like nothing she'd experienced since before she left the Empress's court.  Without anyone trying to tangle her up, she'd had a lot of time to think.  Little Monkey and the monks had left her mostly to her own devices with Mr. Butch.  Other than the daily cup of tea that Little Monkey joined her for, she hadn't talked to anyone.

In fact she hadn't even eaten that much over the last two weeks, tea seemed to be the only thing she could keep down.  Mr. Butch got better food, but Emma had very little concern for herself.  She had begun to accept that her life had changed, that she really had been abandoned by Vestigere and S, that she had to stand on her own, no matter how much it hurt.  She hadn't heard from Gaea in months either.  Now she just had to come to terms with the fact that there was nothing that she could do to change some people's minds about her.  They'd hate her no matter what she did.  She was just gonna have to distance herself from some people.

Mr. Butch, having gotten used to the way Emma just sat, still as the statue she was made to be, curled up on the bed beside her.  Emma didn't really understand the feeling that was sitting in the pit of her stomach.  It was a cold thing, but it was better inside her stomach than inside her chest.  She was starting to feel more things, but she had no name for them, and Ruby wasn't talking to her anymore.  In fact, she couldn't hear Ruby at all.  Just another person who thought she was too crazy and abandoned her.  Cain had been right to tell her to get away, to leave all of the people he knew alone before she hurt someone.  Right now, something in Emma just wanted to hurt people.  No more being nice, no more helping people, and damn the goblin contract, if she was gonna be crazy at least then, there's a reason for it.

In her dreams, the dark had finally swallowed her up.  She wasn't just sitting embraced in it's protection any more, she was a part of it.  It had crawled under her skin and ate up little pieces until she couldn't see anything left.  Little Monkey had a point when he said that the world was pain and that you learned to live with it.  Well, she understood pain, and his words had just solidified what Gaea and Alex had taught her.  She slowly turned her hands over and looked at the cut marks in her palms as she sat there.  At least pain was something that she understood, a sensation, a feeling that she could grasp and hold on to when nothing else made any sense.  It wasn't just a punishment anymore.

Emma sat there long after the sun had set and the monks had finished their last obeisances for the day, taking stock of herself more than anything.  The time away had allowed her to come to a few decisions.  Blacksock was done, V and S were gone one way or the other.  Whether it had just been that they didn't care anymore, or like Cain had decided she was too crazy to deal with and they wanted her out of their lives, that was their call.  Gaea might someday choose to see her again, but Emma wouldn't be the first to make the approach, Emma had been too needy, acting too much like Raina for too long. Abel was a busy man with his own darkness inside, he would understand Emma's but there was still and edge to her that said that darkness plus darkness did NOT equal light and they would probably drag each other down.  And GB and Nemo, well she would see what happened with that.  GB would accept what she was becoming, but Nemo... Emma just didn't know.  Whatever it was with Nemo, it was so new that Emma didn't dare try and quantify it.   

She would leave the temple soon, and see what she'd missed over the last few months.  She had been gone for far longer than she thought she would be, waiting, living in limbo, trying to figure out what to do, how to accept the changes that had come to her life.  Emma knew that some people wouldn't understand, that there would be questions, but she had finally realized that she didn't need to answer them, she didn't have to be nice, or polite, she could take care of herself and if anyone didn't like it, well they could just go to hell.  They wouldn't know what she felt, the cold inside her stomach, the dark under her skin.   She would be what they expected, the light hiding the dark within... but no longer would she allow herself just to be used at will, she would protect herself, because no one else would. 

Emma quietly hung up the phone after her conversation with Nemo, setting the phone on the tray next to the hot tub, trading it for the bottle of JD that was sitting there.  Staring up into the cloudless, starry sky through the steam, she let the tears run down her face.  The drink burned its way down into her empty stomach, doing nothing to ease the empty feeling there.  She’d spent the last four days feeling like she had been kicked and her head was reeling from it.

Everything felt dark, like her world was sliding away, being replaced by a gaping maw that everything good was falling into.  She slid down into the water, the bubbling of the water filling her ears and spraying her face, washing away the tears.  But the water couldn’t drown out the sound of her father’s voice yelling at her, the feel of his fists against her skin.  The mirror man had the same look in his eyes when she’d faced him, the same contempt and disgust, the same cold laughter.  Emma had wanted to help him, to ease the anger, wanted to stop the pain she saw reflected in his eyes. 

His words had chilled her as she realized that there was no way to help, that the anger ran too deep.  Emma didn’t even know his name, but knew that like her father, there would be no stopping him, short of killing him.  And Vestigere was more than willing to get them there.  She’d hidden the drawings she’d made from the vision under her bed, but they told her what she feared could turn true… they were full of blood and death, fire and death, rot and death.  It was like her dreams, they told her that there was no more hope in the world, no matter what people said.  Nothing ever changed, they just got worse and worse.

Even though it had hurt, hurt badly, she missed talking to Abel, talking to people.  The last couple of nights at the clubs had almost been a relief, partying, not caring, ignoring the monsters in the dark.  For a little bit she could pretend that she was human, that she felt like they did, that she was normal and unbroken.  That there were no bogeymen hunting her and her friends, that her friends didn’t want to kill each other, that she was just one of the party scene.  Emma didn’t want to see anyone die, friend or foe, but she couldn’t see any way around it, it was coming one way or the other. 

As she drank, she felt the weariness dragging at her, trying to pull her back under the water, to stay there, to welcome the water’s warm embrace, to forget again.  To let go of all those memories that had come back, the pieces that hurt wouldn’t hurt anymore.  She would just sleep and never wake up.  Only the thought of her friends, of their lights going out too kept her from succumbing to the dark.  So she let the warmth of spring flow through her, instead of wallowing in the dark, she reveled in it, breaking the glass bottle, taking the shards of glass and sliding the sharp edge over her skin.  If she couldn’t feel good, then at least she could just feel.

Emma sat in the room Gaea had set aside for her and sang softly to herself.  She tried to catch the feeling that she had with Fiona at Kirk Hall, but it kept running away from her.  Recognizing Raina, feeling the pure bliss of knowing her sister again, of feeling the music again, really feeling it.  But it just kept slipping away, she couldn’t grab onto the sensation. 

Emma rubbed at her chest, at the pain there and curled up on the bed, pulling the blankets over herself.  It wasn’t until they were on the flight home that the rest of the memories began to coalesce into a solid shape.  She pressed her face into the pillow as she thought about the moment she looked at the moon, at the crescent shaped smile and made the connection.  A connection between Raina and Jack that had nearly snapped her head back against the seat.

Why hadn’t Jack told her?  Why hadn’t he reminded her about her sister?  The note that Jack had left, said that he didn’t know himself.  Did Emma know him either?  She didn’t know.  GB’s question on the plane trip last night had really hit home.  What would she do if Jack came back for her?  Emma just didn’t know… She didn’t really think he ever would, not really.  When he found himself, then he’d realize he was better off… without this kind of pain.  GB said that the pain was because she loved him.  Emma quietly cried into the pillow as she thought about the last conversation with Jack.

He asked if they could be friends after they went out the door… She had looked at him and knew at that moment that she couldn’t.  It already hurt too much to know that he was Raina’s and what she’d done was unforgivable.  She had to leave, to let him go, go back to Raina, to go back to his life.  Even at the cost of her sanity, knowing she was violating the agreement with the Goblins, and that she would suffer visions of him, Emma lied and told him yes.  Emma knew that she had to forget him, had to let him fade back like so many of the memories.  GB had told her to think of what she might lose if she let the memory go… Emma’s heart broke a little more as she realize she’d never really had anything to lose.

The voice struck a chord inside Emma, a voice she didn’t recognize, but a child’s call for help.  One part of her remembered Abel’s story, about how he got the scars on his back… for the sake of a child.  Something deep within her echoed to that, but she didn’t know why.  The voice was still there, calling for help, weeping in the darkness, in pain and sorrow, and Emma was drawn to it.  She opened her eyes in the dark, blinking rapidly, trying, and failing to make sense of what she was seeing.  The world had turned into a white, shattered mirror, broken into millions of shattered bits.  The pieces were there, but mixed up as if a large child had taken a bowl full of broken pieces of mirror and stirred them, leaving next to no frame of reference.

In the mix of imagery, she could see green, the flutter of blonde hair moving between the pieces, a glimpse of blue eyes, crying, flashing images of angry lips curved in a sneer.  Scattered were pieces of the house, but nothing registered right, nothing made sense.  The small voice kept crying out for help even as cold laughter rang throughout the space.  Emma closed her eyes tight and crawled into the broken glass, feeling the shards cutting into her with each movement forward.  The images wouldn’t leave her alone though, cutting through shield of her eyelids, flashing into her mind.  With each crawling movement, she felt pain and the sorrow that she had forgotten.  The small child’s voice never got any closer and it didn’t feel as if she could do anything at all, that she would be torn apart long before she got to the child.  She could hear the Empress laughing at her in scorn.  “See?  You’re no use to anyone but me.  Failed… feel the failure.”  The laughter reverberated through her, Emma felt a pit growing deep inside her.  A chasm that she wasn’t sure that she would be able to breach. 

The world seemed to fall away from her, the distance growing more and more with every moment.  Even the sensations of being cut, and torn apart drifted away into the cold.  Into the white light, a flickering of red surrounded her, illuminating the blood pooling around her, flickering, the light welling up from the depths of the pit forming in front of her.  Up out of the chasm shot arrows of pure fire and warmth, setting fire to the wounds, cauterizing the cuts, while causing Emma to lose her balance and fall into the pit.  She didn’t even scream as she fell, watching the flashing, shattered images flashing by her, illuminated by the lights of the fires far below her.  The warmth of the fires began to seep into Emma, coiling in her stomach like a viper, illuminating her form, causing the warm orange lights to turn a bloody vivid red.  It was only as that viper struck out that Emma finally screamed.  She had no conscious thought as the mental images flooded her, she didn’t even realize that she was taking the anger that the viper felt out on her surroundings, shoving her hands through the glass of the window, tearing the cloth off the furniture with her ruby hands forming shredding claws.  Items flew through the air to shatter against the wall, breaking stone and drywall equally, without care for any consequence.  It was only when the destruction of her surroundings were complete that Emma crashed to the bottom of the pit, into the fires that burned out, leaving embers behind.

Emma nearly screamed as the conflicting needs coursed through her… to make her ‘friends’ happy… to follow the Empress to where things would be easy… not so cold, not so mean.  A part of her missed Arcadia, a place where nothing mattered anymore, a place where she could just lose herself into the music, no pain, no pleasure, just the music.  Yet a part of her denied it, the small part that still held onto the hope that she could be human, could find what had been lost, torn away from her.  She felt pieces of herself starting to chip away, as surely as if someone was taking the hammer to her again, breaking her reality into small, unworkable bits.  Emma screamed in pain, pain more mental than physical and hit her head against the granite of the floor, throwing herself away from the reflection of the Empress.  In that moment she made her first choice to deny someone help, to refuse them what they wanted.

A single musical note rose from her, a keening sound of grief and pain, welling up from someplace that Emma didn’t recognize, that if she could remember where she came from she’d know it, recognize it.  It was the sound of someone’s soul shattering, of pain so overwhelming there was only one path left, no more avoiding, no more sidestepping it.  The only thing left to do was to go through it, blind and unknowing where the path would end.  Emma tried to reach out… for something… any kind of anchor… anchors that weren’t there.  Weren’t there by her own choice, a choice she had known that she was making, but had no clue what it would mean when this moment came.  With no anchor, no one to hold onto, Emma’s mind did what it had been moving towards this entire time, it shattered completely, a completion of what had begun under that hammer in Arcadia.

Her voice rose, shattering the bulbs in the lamps, cracking the windows and destroying the bottles of alcohol in the cabinets, causing liquor to cascade in a colorful waterfall, pooling, ugly and brown across the floor of the kitchen even as the house was flooded by darkness.  The only remaining illumination came through the cracked door of the fireplace, the light flickering over the still ruby form on the floor.  Through the dark, Emma could feel the nightmares creeping towards her, small shadowy figures picking through the wreckage, finding all the little bits of self that had tore apart.   In their hands, the small bits were reformed into little shadowy creatures of their own.  The new parts formed shadows that cavorted in the dark, reveling in it.  They grew larger in the dark, gaining voices of their own, masculine, abusive voices.  “Little bitch never knew her place.  Had to teach her, she was always taunting, sweet little ass, all mine.” And yet another voice joined the chorus.  “My little Pet… you want me, want what I offer, I could beat you to death and you’d thank me for it.”  Under the verbal abuse, Emma’s mind recoiled.  Up out of the pooling darkness, a small childlike voice rose… “Emma… where did you go?  Don’t let him hurt me!  Please… no!  HELP!”

<lj-cut text="Thinking too much can hurt you...">It was late in the evening and Emma had been sitting, thinking, her mind running in circles, hearing the voices of everyone that she had considered her friends calling out to her, telling her that she was real, that they cared, that they loved her.  The voices felt alien, as if her mind just couldn’t understand, couldn’t accept the words. 

Then came the eyes, eyes reflected in every surface in the house, eyes of those same friends, accusing her, angry and full of disgust.  Bits and pieces of their conversations flew through her head, feeling like shards of ice pelting her, telling her that she shouldn’t help, that helping bad people made her bad.  She fell to the floor in the middle of the room, clawing at her skin, beating her hands against the floor, trying to reach for the pain that she’d found stopped the voices sometimes, made the world stop spinning around her.

She didn’t even notice the blood welling up from the long marks, from the bruises on her hands.  Emma lost track of the time as her mind reeled, her entire body starting to shake with memories that she didn’t understand.  All she had wanted to do was help people, to make them feel happy, to do what she had never been able to do before.  As if opening a gateway in her mind, Emma flung herself back against the fireplace when she heard the chiming laughter that she remembered so well from the other side of the Hedge.  It was a voice of pure temptation.  Eyes wide, she watched as the Choir Empress’s image appeared, replacing the accusing eyes, her hand held outstretched as if to welcome her.  The Empress’ voice called out to her.  “Ruby, return to me.  You did nothing wrong… we will fix your confusion… you’ll never feel pain again, no more confusion, no more hurt.  Come home and take your position in my halls again.”

She tried to cover her eyes, and her ears, knowing that she would hurt people if she went, but feeling drawn to follow the voice.  It was only the feel of her skin scorching from the heat of the wood burning stove that brought her back too, reminding her of something Gaea and Alex had taught her.  Pain was feeling, was emotion… at least if she felt that, she actually felt something.   In one moment she finally understood just a glimpse of what Abel had been trying to tell her.  She had a choice… she didn’t have to do what the Empress wanted… she could stay where she could someday, maybe help, or she could go back… Hung on the fence, she felt fingers plucking at her clothing, and peeked her eyes open, seeing little fire-like figures tugging gently against her clothes, as if trying to hold her against the scorching fireplace.  Blinking rapidly at them, she pulled away, trying to ignore the agitated and angry appearance, a part of her wanting to even make them happy, but knowing to do so would end her.  Trying to deny her need to help even them, the ephemeral little creatures, she barely felt the pain as the blisters forming and tearing as she fell to the floor, flinging herself away from them.

That was when the Empress’s voice crashed over her again, the tone changing from cajoling to ordering.  “Come back NOW Ruby, you will be mine again and denying me will only cause me to hurt those around you.  You cannot help them.  Quit trying.  I taught you how futile it was, you can’t help, can’t make anyone happy.  You have failed, and will always fail… except at the one thing you were created for!  Stop trying to be more… you’re perfect for one thing and one thing only.  Come back NOW.”

Emma could not believe how this trip had gone, she had made so many angry, and only one person happy.  It was usually the other way around.  She walked slowly and cautiously down the street, feeling the pain that was shooting through her from all the damage that had been done to her.  Emma knew that she would have to heal up more of it soon, or else the broken ribs and bruised internal organs could get worse.  She had promised that she would not tell anyone what he had done to her, and she would keep that promise, just like she kept all of the others.

The night had been difficult right from the start, with Gaea and Clara and everyone seeming to be in a difficult mood.  Only the Ogres seemed to be themselves, but it had been fun to see all the new people.  The lectures about the magic stuff had been way above her head, but listening seemed to make people happy.  So she’d layed there for a while.  A little late she had been feeling like her hands and face were sticky, so she went to the bathroom to wash up and the next thing she knew, one of the privateers had been throwing her into the van.  Her bag with her gun and Mr. Butch in it had slipped off her shoulder, so she hadn’t had a way to defend herself.  She shuddered slightly at the memory of the ropes chafing her wrists and the blows that forced her to the floor of the van at the point of a gun.  The privateers had been yelling at her that some how their plans were going wrong, but she did not understand half of what was being said.  The driving had been erratic and she’d been thrown into the wall of the van, her head smacking into the metal a couple of times, causing her to see stars.

When they had finally stopped, she had breathed a sigh of relief.  At least until she saw the gateway as one of them was sliding the door of the storage unit up.  The privateers had turned the storage shed into a gateway.  She started to scream for help, hoping someone would come even as she jammed the door so that they could not get it any further open.  Emma did not know if anyone was following from the bar, but maybe someone on the street would hear and come to help her.  They got rough again as she struggled against them when they pulled her out of the van, dragging her closer to the gate.  She thought she heard Gaea yell something, so had looked over and saw them.  Hunters, a whole group of them, coming for her and the privateers.  With weapons and claws and teeth, Emma could hear the baying of the hunters coming after her.  Her heart pounding in her chest, she did the only thing she could think of, she dove into the Hedge as she worked free of her bonds.  Better the Hedge than to risk being torn apart by the hunt.  Emma remembered running then, as fast as she could, but they were not far behind her and the hedge would not grow fast enough to slow them down much.  Only when she heard Arien and Nemo behind her did she slow down and turn around.  Turned around only to see that the hunt had caught up with her.  But… the hunter spoke with her friend’s voices… She felt her reality start to spin even as she felt the thorns closing in on her starting to tear into her.  Emma remembered screaming then, but then her world had shattered.

She did not remember anything else until she woke up back in the bar, surrounded by people.  Clara looked angry and so did everyone else.  Clara said it wasn’t Emma’s fault, but she didn’t understand why everyone was standing around her that way if it wasn’t.  So she listened to Clara talk about the motley that had hurt so many 5 years ago even as she tried to piece herself back together again, stumbling to get out of the middle of the angry group.  Abel had come in looking for Gaea and then had left again, and in the group where she knew so few, she was disturbed, if she had been a bit more familiar with emotions, she would have been able to recognize it as fear, but as it was, she was just uncomfortable, and did not feel safe.  So she found a corner and sat there, trying so hard to normalize.

Then HE had come over.  Emma had met him in passing before, but that night he had seemed so friendly that she had agreed to go out for pie with him.  There was a sad under the friendly that Emma responded to.  She wanted to help him.  So he took her to his house for pie and told her… that he had a really bad side that wanted very bad things.  Emma should have left right then, but she wanted to help him feel happy again.  She sure should not have agreed that she wanted to know more about his bad side, but all she could figure was if she understood it, she could help him find a way to be happy with it.  When he had changed so much and grabbed her, she had been surprised.  She had tried to fight, but he had been so much stronger and after the first couple of blows her head had been spinning.  It had seemed like forever before he stopped, and by the time he had, she had been far more damaged than Emma had ever been before.  She had stayed there, slumped for a moment, assessing the damage.  Broken ribs, internal bleeding, massive bruising on her face arms and back, not to mention rectal bleeding and further injuries that she knew if she had not been recreated by the empress, it would have killed her.  Part of her found herself fascinated by what had happened, but the other part, the remnants of her humanity screamed and cried.  She understood now why he thought it was bad, but when he started to apologize, kicking himself about it, she could not but help respond to help him.  She did not have much left, but she was able to heal them both of at least the superficial damage and plastered the smile back on her face.

She spent nearly half an hour with him to make sure that he felt okay about everything, thought it was okay.  Emma actually thought when she left that he might even be happier than when she met him.  But making him happy had cost her something that she didn't know how to describe.  It felt like there was a hole in her chest, a pit in her stomache and her eyes burned.  Calling Jack, she nearly wept there when he said he was still in town and would pick her up and take her home.  So she walked far enough that HE would not be found out, so she could keep her promise and waited.  The RV looked a lot shinier than it probably was, a haven in the middle of the dark street and she climbed in. The ride home had been long and Jack had tried to help her as much as possible, exposing her to everything she needed to recharge and heal the rest of the damage, while just being there.  She had slept better on his floor than she could remember, no nightmares.  He really did not seem to want anything other than to be there, as he said to be her ‘friend’ and a part of her responded to that.  The human bits again, saying that she needed more than just shelter and food, that she needed the kind of help Jack was offering.  So she tried to make him happy too, thankful that his want was not so… bad.

She had been a bit better by the time they got back to Cold One, but Emma could not stand the thought of Raina or Mavis seeing her like this.  They should not be exposed to anything that would make them angry.  Emma did not want to cause any more angry, she only wanted to help people be happy, so rather than staying there, or asking Jack to take her to V’s, she walked to V’s.  She knew he would not ask questions, that she would have time to suppress it, time to make herself forget, forget everything.  Everything that had happened, either they would think she was crazy, or they would be unhappy… and hurting people that way was not nice, so she wouldn’t do it.  Instead she would remain, hands clutched to her head, keeping her mouth shut so that she did not disturb Vestigere and make it all go away.  She would forget, and find a way… to do what she promised to do, to keep the tears away, to give happy, not take it away from anyone else, ever.