Kingdom Come Undone

Beyond Your Reaches

A/N: Hi everyone! :) Loved seeing that the gang is all back together with my most recent upload. Thank you again for your patience and continued support. Sending you all all the best. Enjoy this chapter and see you at the A/N at the end.

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Thirty-two.

It had been a full day since Alison and I had our conversation the night before, and I had been sought out thirty-two separate times throughout the day. Just in case. It's the agreement we had come to that morning: until we could find long-term moments for ourselves individually, we would seek each other instead. She said it simply while I was returning from a morning jog. My first attempt at taking care of myself again outside of our relationship.

She was sitting up in bed as I walked back into our bedroom, feeling oddly overheated despite wearing a neon yellow sports bra under a long-sleeved white shirt with yoga shorts underneath in Baltimore weather not yet above 50 degrees. Though I knew she was meaning to speak to the general room as I walked through, her eyes lingered over my torso enough to convince a chuckle out of me. To convince me that not all was lost even in her plea to not sleep together again until we garnered a more conclusive understanding of who we each were inside and outside of our relationship.

Alison didn't wait for my eye contact or recognition of her thought process before she began speaking; my presence was enough. "I was thinking that it may be a few weeks before I can see someone for the... anxiety." My eyes shifted to the right, not meeting hers though we both understood that what she was facing could not exactly be deemed as anxiety alone. "Before we can make that happen while Jake's going through this right now, maybe we can have a signal between us when I notice feeling tense or maybe a symptom of panic or anxiety?"

"What were you thinking?" I asked, looking over my shoulder while taking off my shirt and shorts in preparation for the shower. Her eyes made brief contact before flitting away.

She inhaled through her teeth, squeezing air tightly as though she had been considering a variety of different options. "In person? Maybe a hand squeeze? Over text? A code word or emoji or something? I think I need a way to track it, and I trust you."

"Of course, babe. Whatever system you need." I replied while slowly untangling my hair tie from its grasp on my long ponytail. It was hard to keep the smile from my lips as I turned to face her. She trusted me. It's not something I ever doubted, but it was a hell of a thing to hear. "Are you feeling alright this morning?"

"Would you accept depleted?"

Her honesty only made my smile broader while walking toward her. "Depleted feels accurate to me. But you know I'd accept anything as long as it was true to how you felt."

She reached out her hand silently as I approached, her mouth whispering a silent 'thank you'. "Also, I didn't get to tell you this last night, but I did enjoy listening to you talk about Jake's treatment and medications and everything. Not because I actually enjoy talking about it, but because it's so apparent how much you love your job. You get lost in everything for a bit, and I'm sure that's really comforting to you." Her thumb moved across the top of my hand gently. "I'm proud of you, Emmy."

"Me and my 'little system'?" I titled my head, egging her on for the words she flung at me in the middle of the night.

She bit her lip. "You're right; I deserve that. But yes, you and everything you're doing for the betterment of the world. Your career is thankless, and in my annoyance and frustration, I pitied it in attempts to make myself feel more whole. I'm sorry, and I'm proud of you."

"Thanks, baby." I whispered, kissing her forehead. "I didn't hold it against you no matter how it might have stung. Today is a new day, a new me."

Alison smiled sincerely up at me, "Ah. So that's what the work out's about?"