You Saved Me (Emison Fanfic)

Ch. 21 - The Decisions We Make

AN: So I know haven't done this in a long time - double update, bc I usually cycle through the stories - but those of you who commented/reviewed (from both fanfiction.net and wattpad) on the last chapter which I just put up Monday have left such great and encouraging responses that wanted to write this chapter and give it to you as soon as I could.

Thank you all for the continued support, it means beyond what even I can put into words, you love this story almost as much as me and way more than I expected anyone ever to, so enjoy this surprise, it was all your doing.

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Emily's POV

I had asked Caleb what he meant and I had gotten the answer I know I wanted to hear but something about actually hearing it, actually believing and thinking about what was to come, scared me. This was the goal after all, to get everyone back home and safe and take Charles down, but I couldn't wrap my damaged head around that idea, because until it was actually done and over with, that's all it was, just an idea.

Caleb held his hand out for me to take and I realized how stuck I must look in the doorway, thinking how we were actually going to pull this off. So we found a location, but what would we do; show up and ask nicely that he give everyone back as though they really were our dolls to begin with and he developed an elaborate scheme to steal them from the sandbox when our heads were turned? No, I didn't think so.

But what did I know? Practically nothing. So I willingly grabbed Caleb's hand and let him lead me to the living room where the rest of our group was, frantically shuffling around, Mona with the laptop at her fingers, Toby and Ezra talking in the corner and Alison leaning against the wall near the couch, eyes down. One look at her I could tell she was in deep thought. I didn't know how, but I just did. It was like my subconscious remembered things I was supposed to know and feel without telling me about them first.

Sensing our presence, Alison looked up and immediately our eyes connected. She could've looked anywhere else, but somehow the magnetism I had always felt towards her seemed to have been in effect, taking a hold of my gaze in hers.

There was that look again. I could recognize it on her face now from anywhere. She was worried, she was upset, but not at me. This look, I could tell she was beating herself up. I know she has been blaming herself for this, every little thing that she deems has gone wrong since...well ever, she has been putting herself on trial - convicting her actions, her words, her feelings, everything that makes her her - guilty on all accounts.

So I did my best to smile, hoping it didn't look as forced as it felt and I watched her eyes emit a minuscule amount of light as she forced a smile back. I wanted her to know that I was okay.

I was okay; it was partly a lie, but it was also the truth. What I said to Wren back there, Wren who was now pushed, knees up against a wall, still bound and muted with strips of duct tape over his mouth, was everything I had been repressing. It was the anger, the frustration and pain that I had been trying to put off since I woke up and since I heard what this was all about.

The person I became was like I said, pain's servant. I was hurting, I am hurting, and being so close to easing the pain by getting back the people who were so closely and intimately involved in my life made me feel like I would do anything to have that. It felt like he was just another obstacle in my way - although easier to deal with than the actual obstacles I've been battling - and I just wanted him to know what it felt like for every moment that I have taken a breath after actually dying on that gurney on the side of a road.

I had hoped he'd have a change a heart after hearing what it was he had a hand in doing to me, even if it was implicit. But he didn't, I could see the good in him, but he was in his own world of pain, and who was I to say his pain was less damaging to him than mine was to me. There is no scale that we throw our hearts on, our souls, and compare the suffering.