rayemma oneshots & other

(2) The Kitchen Incident

• Short fic

Spoiler warning for chapter #52 and onward - mentioned characters, mentioned location

Note: edited

It was easy enough to say that Emma was merely recovering from the past day and that was all.

Her flushed cheeks, her clogged nose, and her uncharacteristic clumsiness at the breakfast table, dropping bowls and spilling things on herself could be excused. She was tired, that was all, she'd be 100% by tomorrow. Even the sharper eyes of Gilda and Yuugo could brush it off after a bit of persuasion, since they'd seen firsthand how she bounced back last night. Because Emma never got sick. Emma never ailed, or went down without a fight, or looked anything besides unwaveringly strong, or faltered or went weak for a single moment. Yeah, that was easy to think, because Emma wasn't the type to get sick, and if so, then much less the type to show it. Her smile was carefully sculpted in a way to ward off your suspicions, make you believe you didn't need to help her even though she really did need someone by her side. Emma made her face and her posture so that you wouldn't come to her aid. She never liked getting help. But Ray knew – that venture into the winter and its cold waters last night wasn't just anything, and Emma was hiding the way her fire was shuddering, struggling today.

He could see how pitifully she tried to seem inconspicuous. No no, she could swear a thousand times over there was definitely a reason for her to want to do all the gardening today, and take over Gilda's job of playing with the little ones in the afternoon, and reorganize the entire medical cabinet using Anna's notes as a reference, and do all the laundry and the dishes and the trash, and no no no, she was not suspicious, and she was only going about a normal day of chores, and Ray was a stupid foolish idiot dumb-dumb for thinking she was not normal today.

Right.

Then there was a moment where it showed. Ray had tracked her down better than a piece of prey, and finally, he was hiding behind the doorframe of the kitchen to witness it. When Emma caved for a brief moment and everything that she was feeling finally appeared on her face, because she thought no one was looking.

Her hair clung to her forehead with pins of sweat and unnatural heat. She'd tore off a button or two leading up to her collar, and he could see the shade of red that flamed from her cheeks to her shoulders. Legs trembling, fingers shaking, and she blinked multiple times, as if unfocused, as if she couldn't see through her own eyes like they were blurred. He heard her breathe heavily before rolling up her sleeves, which tumbled down or crumpled in the wrong direction several times before she got them right, and she said something quietly, he couldn't hear the words but he knew she was cheering herself on to finish this, she couldn't do this if she didn't motivate herself.

And she leaned over the counter – all her weight, until it was the only thing keeping her standing – and started washing the dishes. She forgot the soap first. Then she forgot a sponge. Midway through scrubbing gently, too gentle for her usual self, her eyes went blank. He could tell she was working on autopilot now and there was sleep in her eyes. She absently stared at a shrubbery of soap growing in the pit of the drain, and she only snapped out of it when the plate slipped from her hands and clattered violently into the sink, which caused her to jump and make a noise of surprise like she forgot she'd been here at all. After that, she resumed scrubbing the same plate, in the same areas she'd already cleaned, with this look of frustration, like she couldn't remember where she'd already scrubbed anymore and she'd just have to do it all over again.

Ray knew, knew so well, was so terribly close to just stomping in right now and scolding her, because she was the painfully selfless idiot for trying to do this right now, but the words were still fresh. Emma did not get sick. Emma did not go down without a fight.