A Touch of Life

13

Fleur came to work with Emmie again the next day. She sat at the back of the bakery and chatted mindlessly to Emmie whilst Emmie nodded and hummed encouragingly, preparing all of the pies and cakes to put in the ovens.

"Aren't you on top form today boss!" Kai said cheerily as he came through the doors to collect an order, waving to Fleur as he passed.

"You should bring Fleur here every day, she motivates you more than I ever could."

Fleur laughed and Emmie blushed as Kai high-fived Fleur, before managing to precariously stack five plates across his arms.

"Our little ball of sunshine is here, by the way," Kai called as he pushed through the doors.

Emmie laughed and shook his head. That must mean that Seamus had more news, or another case to solve.

"Send him back here, Kai!" Emmie called back, and he saw Kai somehow manage to salute him with the plates still balanced in various places over his arms.

Seamus appeared a few seconds later, heading straight to the fridge and pulling out the pie that Emmie always saved for him. Apple and cinnamon, as usual. Seamus grabbed a fork and settled himself down on the counter beside Fleur, taking a big mouthful before he spoke.

"I've found the address of the girl, Madison, that we need to talk to. Lets just hope she's not dead before we get there," Seamus mumbled through the fruit and crumbs stuffed into his mouth.

"Surely it's not a problem if she's dead anyway, since we have someone that can make her... not dead?" replied Fleur, taking a fork for herself and shoveling a forkful of Seamus' pie into her mouth.

Seamus paused to glare at Fleur, raising his eyebrows as Fleur continued to obliviously eat the pie. Emmie sniggered at Fleur's utter blindness to Seamus' attempt at a death stare

"Madison being dead is not necessarily the problem, but if she's dead then she's probably no longer in possession of the pendant anymore. We kind of need that," explained Seamus, moving his plate away from Fleur.

"They've offered us a reward to return it?" asked Emmie.

Seamus nodded.

"Turns out it was an old artifact stolen from a museum years ago and it's been traded around until those rich businessmen found it. But now these other guys have clearly found out where it is and want it for themselves."

Emmie rolled his eyes.

"They're so desperate for money that they're willing to kill people for it," he muttered angrily. Fleur's face dropped.

"People are shitty," said Seamus.

"Only some," Fleur corrected quietly. Seamus turned to raise his eyebrows at Fleur once more.

"People beat you up and killed you just because you got in the way of them and some money. How can you still say that?" he asked.

Emmie knew of Seamus' disdain with the world, and he knew it was because Seamus had seen so many horrific things in his time. Seamus had seen so many deaths, so many terrible murders of innocent people, and too many bad people with no remorse.

"Parce que le monde lui-même, evens ou d'autre il serait un mauvais endroit pour vivre. For people like them, there's people like you willing to help me, or Emmie to give me a second chance. Il y a des gens mauvais, mais les bons l'emportent sur eux de loin," Fleur replied thoughtfully.

Both Emmie and Seamus fell silent. They didn't need to know what Fleur had said fully, but they understood the middle sentence, and just that was enough. Whilst Emmie didn't blame Seamus for his view of the world, he truly admired Fleur for hers.

"I'll meet you two after work," Seamus said quietly, patting Fleur on the back as he left and stealing a cake off of Emmie's tray before walking out of the doors and back to his car.

Emmie turned to grab a pie out of the oven, then he placed it on the counter and slid it over to Fleur with a smile. Fleur took it eagerly, beaming at Emmie and mumbling a thank you.

"We'll find those guys that hurt you, they'll get what they deserve," said Emmie.

Fleur shrugged.

"I'm not yearning for revenge or anything. This entire ordeal hasn't exactly been wonderful, but it brought me some good things. It brought me you."

Emmie looked away and tried not to smile.

"My mum always used to say, "Les choses arrivent pour une raison", which means things happen for a reason. I like to believe that," Fleur added quietly.

"But it would still be nice to see their butts in jail right?" Emmie said, smirking.

Fleur laughed and nodded.

"Yeah," she said.

"They did cause me an awful lot of trouble, I guess it would be nice to at least stop them from making money from killing people."

They sat in silence for a while, whilst Emmie got back to work and Fleur ate the pie that Emmie had made for her. Eventually, Fleur's face spread into a wide grin and she chuckled to herself. Emmie looked up and raised an eyebrow.

"This whole detective thing is kind of fun. It was never on my list of things to do, but it's quite exciting isn't it?"

Emmie laughed and shook his head. He was wearing his gloves that he wore for baking, since he couldn't touch the fruit again once he'd ripened them. Emmie kissed his glove and leant over the counter to press his gloved hand to Fleur's cheek, and Fleur's grin grew wider.

"I guess it is," replied Emmie softly.

Emmie's life had been pretty good before, he had been comfortable and content and kind of happy. But now Fleur was around; it was like someone had turned all of the lights on and opened all of the windows up in a dim room. Fleur was a breath of fresh air into Emmie's life, and Emmie was so glad that he had her.