Glass

Confrontation

Dennis went up to Emma's room and knocked loudly on the door, before practically stumbling into her room.

"Whoa, Dennis have you been drinking too?, can't say I blame you" Emma smirked

"Shut up, we need to talk" he panted

"Have you come to lecture me on my excessive use of drugs and alcohol? David has already tried and I'll give you the same answer I gave him, I fucked up I know that and it won't happen again, happy now" she ranted

"I don't want to talk about the alcohol, but something more...delicate" Dennis stammered.

"What are you talking about Dennis?" she asked, her curiosity piqued 

"Why did you decide to take the case?" Dennis pressed 

"Why so interested?" Emma questioned

"Just answer the damn question" Dennis snapped before breathing slowly trying to regain his composure.

"Alright, I was intrigued, I found the case intriguing so I took it" Emma explained  

"It has nothing to do with your "condition"" he said air quoting the word condition, he hated using it but it might have been the only way Emma had heard it described.

"What could my addiction to alcohol and drugs possibly done to draw me to the case?" she asked puzzled

"That's not the condition I was talking about" Dennis hinted and Emma seemed to get agitated all of a sudden.

"I have no idea what your talking about" she answered 

"Oh I think you do" Dennis responded looking into her dark blue eyes, knowing fully well she knew what he was talking about.

"How did you find out?" Emma asked suspiciously

"The computer in the study, I uh might have turned it on when I was cleaning it" Dennis replied sheepishly as Emma nodded.

"Who did you see, just out of interest?" Emma replied 

"Harper, how many are there"

"Ahh Harper, I miss her, there were six of us together" Emma confirmed

"Were?" Dennis asked raising his eyebrows "What do you mean by that?"

"Well it's a long story but... well they're not actually here anymore" she said tapping her forehead, Dennis just stood there looking puzzled, Emma sighed before gesturing to the bed "You might want to sit down for this" she said before beginning her story.

"I had a rough childhood, I was moved around to foster home after foster home after my parents abandoned me, sadly I wasn't the most popular kid in the block which made me a target for their bullying...I got beat up a lot as a kid, something I'm sure you can emphasize with" she paused as Dennis nodded.

"I didn't have a parental figure and it was a pretty isolating place to be in as a kid, I didn't talk to anyone, I don't really remember having a good memory in those places, Harper was the first of my alters to show up, I was five at that point... I'd just been adopted by this horrible old lady, who was very fond of the old fashioned punishments which she used on me, I had a lot of injuries due to a ruler or an item that was chucked at me, that sort of thing"

"Shit" Dennis muttered

"Yeah, needless to say she didn't meet the requirements needed for an inspection after they saw me with a black eye so I packed and was sent back to another foster home, Harper formed due to my lack of a parental figure or a friend, she kinda became my sister as well as my friend, she would make sure I had a friend to talk to and a family member to look after me and for a long time it was me and her against the harsh reality we were up against, then I went to school...turned out I had the attention span of a goldfish and I wasn't the most academic kid, that's when Christopher formed he got me through school, college and uni, he was a genius and kinda like the teachers pet....not like Jenifer, I got in trouble because of Jennifer a lot... she was the loudmouth in the group and she wasn't afraid to speak her mind...some would say too much and because of that detentions were abundant" Emma chuckled "She would fight the battles I couldn't...I wasn't good with conflict back then but Jen was so that was her role"

"What about Denzel?" Dennis asked 

"Oh Denzel is basically the Hedwig to my group, I guess he was making up for the childhood I never had... he was a good kid, bit of a handful and boy he could sulk if he wanted to but other then Harper...I'd say I miss him the most" Emma replied looking down guiltily.

"You keep talking about them in past tense...what happened?" Dennis asked confused

Emma huffed loudly "Jason happened, he was the last of my alters to form and I remember that day very well, I was an FBI agent back then, just passed all my training...thanks to the others, and I was undercover trying to take down these criminal overlords who were suspected for selling drugs and using the money to purchase illegal firearms, all was going well until another agent blew our cover and left me behind...I was imprisoned and tortured for months, I didn't see the sun once during that time, was hardly given anything to eat and beaten to almost death for most of that time, Jason formed to aid me in escaping that foul place" 

"How?"

"By killing everyone, he manged to snap the interrogators neck and then used their weapons against them, before blowing up the place, after I got back the agency was appalled by what had happened, I had no evidence about the guys that imprisoned me for months and they discharged me due to Jason's ever increasing violent behavior shortly afterwards, he attacked several agents, claiming that they looked at me the wrong way, so my FBI career was over shortly after that, that's when I became a detective, then I met Laura and that's sort of the moment when everything changed"

"Because of Laura?" Dennis asked

"Mmm, you see when I met Laura I had someone else to look out for, whereas before it had always just been me and the others, everyone else was happy for me and they were quite happy to let me have the light for longer periods of time, I wasn't really like your host, Kevin, I could handle reality that wasn't my problem I just hated being alone, never settling down in one place or having a family does that to you, but it didn't mean I would shy away from having the light, anyway Laura became my family and everything was fine, until she moved in with me permanently Jason started getting more and more volatile, we were able to hold him back for the time being but it was only a temporary solution, he became jealous of Laura and started seeing her as a threat and one night I let my guard down and he managed to steal the light from me when I was asleep, he grabbed a knife and slit her throat" she whispered, her voice cracked as she fought to control the sobs that were starting to form "The paramedics didn't make it in time and she died before we even reached the hospital"

"Wait, Casey got told that someone broke into the house and murdered her" Dennis recalled

Emma sniffled "That was the story I told everyone else, I mean what sounds more believable to you? someone broke into the house and killed her or the fact that I have DID  and one of my alters killed her out of jealousy just to spite me, if you were a police officer which would you believe?" Emma answered

"So you lied to protect the others then"

Emma nodded "I couldn't do that to the others, Harper, Denzel, they wouldn't have been able to cope in there so I kept quiet, told them a different story and the case was closed soon afterwards, but it did nothing to reduce the guilt I felt so I drank and eventually turned to drugs in order to escape, the drugs took the pain away and the alcohol would help me to forget and I did that for months until it became unbearable to live like that, so I slit my wrists and waited to die" Emma said hollowly, as Dennis winced at the words "Turns out it was all for nothing in the end because next thing I remember was waking up in a hospital feeling like shit and with an empty feeling in my head" 

"What?" 

"Turns out that David found me in time to save me but the others...they were gone, I killed them and they never reformed so I lost everything including my family just because I couldn't cope anymore" Emma said bitterly, rolling up her sleeve to reveal a pale, white scar running down her wrist "This serves as a reminder of what my recklessness cost me and despite all of that I still turned to the bottle last night because I couldn't cope, what sort of a failure does that make me?" she asked.

"Your not a failure" Dennis told her "We're gonna help you get through this together" he assured her.

"Why?" Emma asked 

"Because we're more alike than you think" he explained

"Oh Dennis we're really not" Emma chuckled

"How so?"

"Unlike yours, my Beast won"