And the Stars Never Rise

Emma

"Emma, I will never, never give up on you." Julian had said.

"Yes," she'd replied. "You will."

The words still echoed in her head. She had to hurt him to save him. The most important thing was that he was safe. She thought she could handle it if he hated her. She couldn't. It was even worse that he didn't hate her. And that he wouldn't hate her. And he'd promised to never give up on her. And that's what hurt the most. She loved him. She couldn't have him. He loved her.

"If you and Mark ever... I don't think I could come back from that."

The worst thing she could do to shatter his heart, his feelings for her. It hadn't worked. And she'd still loved him fiercer than before. She could see the pain in his eyes every time he saw her kiss Mark, and felt the anger and sorrow. Her chest tightened as she thought it should be him. Her Julian. But she couldn't think like that. He wasn't her Julian. Not anymore.

"Jules. My Julian." She'd whispered on the beach.

"Always."

It was obvious. The tension between her and Julian. She was sure even Tavvy could see it and he was still so young. For their sake she'd tried to act as if everything was normal. Julian was always the one who could lie, not her. The way that when he did look at her, it was filled with betrayal. But neither of them could say anything, because nobody could know. Not that the kids would care. They'd broken the Cold Peace and gotten away with it and they loved Emma. His family was her family.

"Why lie?"

Emma had explained everything to Mark. Everything. She'd cried. He had agreed to do it. They'd kissed. They had done other things. She'd wanted to talk to Christina. Looking back, she'd thought about it a lot. It was now, alone on the beach, she thought the most. Their secret beach. Though, they didn't really go there together any more. The beach, where it had all started, where Julian had saved her life. And that it was too late.

Her feet digging into the sand as she looked out onto the ocean. She'd always been afraid of it. It was dark and silvery with the reflection of the moon in the night sky, small waves sending ripples through it's surface. Her parents had been found dead in it. She'd almost drowned.

Most mornings she would get up early and go for a run, it wasn't unusual, she'd done it a long time. She'd avoid breakfast that Julian had made for Ty, Livia, Dru and Tavvy. She'd train on her own. Avoidance seemed to be the best thing she could think of. Maybe if she didn't see Julian, she would want him less, she would love him less. She wouldn't. She needed to love Mark. She and Mark would make sense. She had almost, almost had a crush on him at twelve years old and he'd barely seemed to age since the Hunt had taken him at sixteen. It had been five years.

She never thought she'd grow used to the numbness of not being with Julian. He said he'd loved her for trying to protect him, and the children. She wanted to run into his arms, pull him close, kiss him. That would defeat everything she'd been trying hard to hide. To tell him she loved him and had always loved him and would always love him. Being without him was almost worse than death itself. She couldn't tell him about the curse or think about his reaction. She'd tried so hard to make him hate her, never trust her.

For now she would have to make do with being alone. Crying on the beach. Wishing she could make him understand what she didn't even understand. They didn't want power. They just wanted to be happy. They would never be.