response #2 to challenge "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" episode titles
Set during Season Two, with spoilers through "The Getaway" --
"The Three Faces of Emily"
The beach was beautiful - white sand and crystalline blue water. Breezes ruffled Emily's hair throughout the day, keeping her cool despite the unending sunshine. She could sit in her beach chair and sip her daiquiri; the prescription said not to take her painkiller with alcohol, but the painkiller wasn't strong enough on its own to handle post-amputation aches.
She could still feel it, a phantom finger, tapping against the beach chair's arm. It felt so strange to look down and see nothing there.
Arvin, according to their plan, would come to her soon. He'd promised that it would be no more than six months, and certainly no more than ten weeks after her finger was taken. Six weeks in, and she was healing, feeling strong. Good, even.
However, Emily could not forget everyone they'd left behind.
Sydney Bristow had given her eulogy. In one of his too-infrequent letters - security reasons, Emily always understood - Arvin had told her what a beautiful speech Sydney had made. When she'd read the part about being described as the mother Sydney never really knew, Emily's eyes had clouded with tears. Her hand flattened over her belly, where faded stretch marks testified to her one, long-ago chance at motherhood, the one that ended to soon. Her greatest loss - and yet, if she could walk away from one girl who cared for her as a daughter, what kind of a mother could Emily have been? What kind of father would Arvin have been, if he could orchestrate that disappearance?
She'd never asked herself that kind of question before. Every aspect of the short life Jacquelyn had and the longer life she should've known, Emily had gone over and over in her mind - except that.
Jack Bristow stood at her funeral too. Emily remembered him from days when his hair was darker and his smile easier; he had never been her closest friend, but he had become her oldest friend as the decades went on. When Arvin and Laura would get into one of their endless debates over dinner, Jack would devote attention to Emily instead. They'd become engrossed in their own topic, forgetting the nearby warfare, and sometimes had more fun that way. Even during more distant years, Emily never forgot the comfort of that simple togetherness - and knew that, despite his reserve, Jack hadn't either.
That friendship was over. She'd never ended a friendship before, not like that - cutting it to the quick with a lie.
Emily was no longer even a substitute mother, no longer anyone's friend, but she was still a wife. When he came to the island hideaway, free at last, Arvin had promised to bring her wedding ring back to her. She thought maybe it would fit on her right hand.
For the rest of her their lives, Emily would exist solely and completely as Arvin's wife. That would be enough for her, she thought. Hadn't it always been?
Her phantom finger tapped the beach chair again, unaware that it was lost.
"The Three Faces of Emily"
The beach was beautiful - white sand and crystalline blue water. Breezes ruffled Emily's hair throughout the day, keeping her cool despite the unending sunshine. She could sit in her beach chair and sip her daiquiri; the prescription said not to take her painkiller with alcohol, but the painkiller wasn't strong enough on its own to handle post-amputation aches.
She could still feel it, a phantom finger, tapping against the beach chair's arm. It felt so strange to look down and see nothing there.
Arvin, according to their plan, would come to her soon. He'd promised that it would be no more than six months, and certainly no more than ten weeks after her finger was taken. Six weeks in, and she was healing, feeling strong. Good, even.
However, Emily could not forget everyone they'd left behind.
Sydney Bristow had given her eulogy. In one of his too-infrequent letters - security reasons, Emily always understood - Arvin had told her what a beautiful speech Sydney had made. When she'd read the part about being described as the mother Sydney never really knew, Emily's eyes had clouded with tears. Her hand flattened over her belly, where faded stretch marks testified to her one, long-ago chance at motherhood, the one that ended to soon. Her greatest loss - and yet, if she could walk away from one girl who cared for her as a daughter, what kind of a mother could Emily have been? What kind of father would Arvin have been, if he could orchestrate that disappearance?
She'd never asked herself that kind of question before. Every aspect of the short life Jacquelyn had and the longer life she should've known, Emily had gone over and over in her mind - except that.
Jack Bristow stood at her funeral too. Emily remembered him from days when his hair was darker and his smile easier; he had never been her closest friend, but he had become her oldest friend as the decades went on. When Arvin and Laura would get into one of their endless debates over dinner, Jack would devote attention to Emily instead. They'd become engrossed in their own topic, forgetting the nearby warfare, and sometimes had more fun that way. Even during more distant years, Emily never forgot the comfort of that simple togetherness - and knew that, despite his reserve, Jack hadn't either.
That friendship was over. She'd never ended a friendship before, not like that - cutting it to the quick with a lie.
Emily was no longer even a substitute mother, no longer anyone's friend, but she was still a wife. When he came to the island hideaway, free at last, Arvin had promised to bring her wedding ring back to her. She thought maybe it would fit on her right hand.
For the rest of her their lives, Emily would exist solely and completely as Arvin's wife. That would be enough for her, she thought. Hadn't it always been?
Her phantom finger tapped the beach chair again, unaware that it was lost.