City on the River
Apr. 9th, 2010 08:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nike_ravusTitle: City on the River 14/?
Author: Alsike
Fandom: Criminal Minds/X-Men
Pairing: Emily Prentiss... eventually Emma Frost
Rating: PG-15
Summary: When one person travels into an alternate universe a thousand others are created. What if Didi showed up without a time slip on Emily's doorstep, in a world without mutants? What would a twenty-five year old Emily do?
Apologies: I told you I was working on it! Now I just hope everyone hasn't gotten bored and wandered off.
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Emma had waved them away from the dishes, and Emily and her mother had bundled up in coats and hats and gone for a walk. There was something too oppressive about staying in the house. Didi decided at the last moment that she wanted to go with them, but to the park, and Emma gave her the look that said, ‘deal with the fact that she is going with you and that I am not your babysitter.’ Emily dealt. It looked like Elizabeth was not dealing quite so well.
Didi stayed in the lead, sliding experimentally on the packed snow, and roaming from one side to the other curiously. Elizabeth watched her. “You were always a good walker,” she said, and Emily gave a slight start of surprise.
“I was?”
Elizabeth nodded. “We dragged you over all sorts of foreign cities and places of historical interest. You never complained about that. Only about parties.”
Emily nodded.
Elizabeth sighed. “What am I missing here? She just showed up and apparently, biologically, she’s yours. No other information? Nothing? What about… her? Did she just show up too?”
Emily wasn’t entirely sure what she thought of the ‘her,’ but, “No,” she said. “No, there was a letter.”
Elizabeth held out her hand imperiously. Emily hesitated. She had brought it, because she knew it might be necessary, but she also knew that her mother would not like what it said. Her mother’s stance only stiffened. Emily sighed, and pulled it out, unfolding it awkwardly in gloves.
Elizabeth took it and read both sides briskly. Her mouth tightened into a thin line. She looked up at her, sparing half a glance to Didi who was designing a fort. “Deirdre Victoria, that’s a pretty name.”
Emily nodded.
“It’s a bit… regal, for you though. You always seemed to prioritize ordinariness. Your rabbit was named Bob, wasn’t it?”
Emily’s face heated up and she was just glad Emma wasn’t there to hear this. “Yes. I might have grown up a little since then.”
“I am rather disappointed that you took her name.”
Emily felt like whacking herself in the head. “It isn’t me, mom.”
“Still, that you would.” Her eyes narrowed. “And what is this about ‘not being your mother’?”
“Mom.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I can just wonder, feel insulted, worried that I didn’t do enough.”
“Mom, I just…” Emily bit her tongue. “I don’t know what her relationship with her mother was. I do know that I wasn’t always happy with… with the way things turned out when I was a child.” She swallowed, not wanting to cry. She tried not to talk about her father often; it always choked her up. “I didn’t want to make anyone else feel like that, but I don’t know if I know how to not. I think I’m failing too. I don’t… I don’t know how I’m supposed to care about her, what I’m supposed to do to show her that I do. I feel like I’m always gone or scolding or tired or picking things up, and I don’t want to let go too much, but if I don’t…”
“Do you think that I don’t care?”
“No,” Emily said immediately. “I know you do. But I know that because I’m older, and I can understand you better, and because everything is no longer about me. When I was young, and everything was about me, I didn’t always think so.”
Elizabeth nodded shortly. “Why don’t you want to let go too much?”
Emily stared at her. “Because. When they come to take her back, it’s going to break my heart.”
“Mommy! Help me build!”
“What?” Emily glanced down. Didi was tugging on her coat and pointing at the shaped out fort. “Oh, okay, sure.” She looked over at her mother and gestured with her head, and then followed Didi over and knelt down in the snow without any hesitation.
Elizabeth watched her daughter turn to the girl seriously, ask about the shape, the proposed height. They packed some snow, and considered angles and buttressing and balance. Didi said something, and Emily smiled. It was easy and bright across her face, and Didi laughed wildly at her response. Elizabeth bit down on the inside of her lip. It was so obvious that she cared, so obvious that she had no trouble showing it. Why did her daughter continually worry herself about things that were no problem at all?
She went over to the construction site and leaned down, catching Didi’s attention. “Is there any way I can help?”
Didi put her straight to work.
They were nearing completion when Emily’s phone rang and she pulled out to finish it up. Elizabeth and Didi managed the rest on their own.
“Do you want to put your name in sticks over the door?”
Didi nodded and they carefully added in the nameplate. “That looks good,” commented Didi.
It looked rather runic, but Elizabeth agreed and they stood to admire it. It was rather good; it even had a roof that didn’t look like it was about to fall in. She noticed Didi watching her and raised an eyebrow.
“I’ve never had a grandmother before,” said Didi, looking up at Elizabeth with a serious expression on her face.
Elizabeth was starting to find this child rather charming, in her strange direct way. She reminded her a little too much of Emily at that age, formal and a little reserved, but at least Deirdre wasn’t shy. She had always hoped that Emily would grow out of being shy, then of course, when she did, she wished she hadn’t. “Well,” she said to Didi. “I’ve never had a granddaughter before, so I suppose we’re even.”
Deirdre considered this. “I think you’re supposed to buy me things.”
Elizabeth suppressed her laugh. “I think you’re supposed to make me things.”
“Okay,” Didi replied giving a short nod. She seemed like she was agreeing to a business deal. Entertained by the idea, Elizabeth held out her hand and Didi took it. They shook on the agreement.
Emily came back over. “Wow, excellent job.” Didi hugged her leg.
“Grandma’s going to buy me things!”
Emily’s eyes widened and she looked up at Elizabeth quickly. Elizabeth didn’t have time to deal with her response, it was quite shocking enough to be called ‘grandma.’
“Well, that’s good,” Emily managed weakly. “Emma needs some things from the store. Is it okay if we stop there on the way back?”
* * *
“I have a grandpa, I think. But he’s sort of scary. I never met him, but I heard him shouting at M’ma.” Didi was babbling happily, half-oppressed under the bag of new things that her grandmother (in great excess in Emily’s opinion) had gotten her.
Elizabeth glanced over at her daughter, who shrugged. “Emma’s not in contact with her family,” she said softly.
“So this was from before?”
Emily blinked. She hadn’t really thought about that. Didi said odd things all the time. She had worked out that she might have actually lived in Africa, with the kusonga and the never having seen snow, but hadn’t really thought about what her life had been like. It felt a little self centered. Or rather, that was the problem with it. She desperately wanted to know more about what the other her was like. But what she really wanted to know, was something Didi couldn’t tell her. She couldn’t tell her how it felt.
She unlocked the door and Didi bolted inside to find Emma and show her the presents. Elizabeth and Emily paused in the entryway to remove hats and coats and boots.
“What if they don’t?” Elizabeth asked out of nowhere.
Emily stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
“What if they don’t come to take Deirdre back? They could be dead. They could have lost the ability. They could be living in a world so destroyed that they can’t promise her a future.” Elizabeth’s lips tightened. “What if she grows up with you and you never let yourself care?”
“I don’t… I don’t believe that. They will come for her. I couldn’t just abandon her to…”
“You couldn’t?”
“This isn’t about me!”
Elizabeth did not like the shaky way she was looking. Emily was intensely frightened, but she couldn’t tell if it was because she wanted to believe her or didn’t. “This is entirely about you and your desperate need to anticipate everything bad that’s going to happen to you!”
And that had been a trigger. “You try having your father die on you when you’re eleven! You try losing all of your friends over and over again: to drugs, to your shitty peripatetic lifestyle, to fatal disease,” Emily cursed at her. She looked like she was about to throw her coat to the ground, but she just turned. “You tell me to not anticipate, to just enjoy, but everyone dies, mom. Everyone leaves. And eventually Didi will go, and then Emma will go, and I’ll have no one again, like I always have no one.” Emily choked and covered her face, breathing out in a rough gasp. “And I know that Didi’s not mine, and I can’t keep her, but it feels so much like having a real life with Emma, but I don’t know how to make her stay.”
Elizabeth stared at her for a long moment, and then pulled her into the kitchen. “You’re in love with her.”
Emily stiffened unhappily. She frowned, her face tensing like she was about to lie. “Aren’t I… supposed to be?”
Her mother rolled her eyes. “Oh please. Do you think I can’t read you? You’re comfortable together, she likes you, and you look at her… like you’re wishing she would notice that you’re looking at her.”
“I’m not,” Emily said vehemently.
“Not wishing she would notice?”
“No. She’s not…” Emily swallowed, turning away from her mother. “I’m not. Why are you okay with this? I’m not okay with this.”
“The only thing I truly wanted for you was for you to find a way to be happy.” Elizabeth touched her daughter’s face. “I was worried about you, about how you never seemed to connect with anyone.”
“I had boyfriends.
“Not ones you wanted me to meet.”
Emily frowned, glancing away. “I didn’t want you to meet Emma either, but you didn’t give me much choice.”
“And I met a few of your boyfriends that way as well. But you aren’t ashamed of her, not like you were the last time…”
Emily flushed with embarrassment. She really couldn’t say she had made a lot of good decisions about boys. But how do you make good decisions when your only choice is between doing what the few people who are willing to acknowledge you ask, and not having any friends at all? She was always the new kid, desperately hoping that someone, anyone would welcome her in to their group. It had been something like an accident, but still, this time, for the first time it was her decision, her feelings, even if nothing would ever come of them. “How could I be ashamed of her?” Emily rested her head in her hands. “If she were mine…”
“Darling. How much more yours can she get? She lives with you, lets you sleep in her bed, you’re raising a child together. Just because she’s withholding sex doesn’t mean she’s keeping back anything that matters.” She looked wry. “Your father and I were still sexually involved long after we had become emotionally disentangled.”
Emily grimaced in horror. “I didn’t need to know that!”
“Perhaps you did. You may need to stop assuming that your relationships are always going to end up resembling mine and your father’s.”
Emily shook her head, bewildered. “I don’t think that.” She had never thought that. She had never been invested enough in a relationship to worry that it would eventually fall apart. She glanced at Didi and then away. Not until now, at least, and that wasn’t even about Emma, at least mainly, and it wasn’t just a futile worry. She knew it would eventually fall apart.
“Not with this girl? Does she have a career?”
Emily’s eyes widened slightly. “N-no?”
“You don’t sound incredibly sure about that.”
Emma was on her back, letting Didi crawl on top of her in the living room and Emily sighed, leaning back against the counter. “She was working when I met her, but was ready for a change. I asked her to look after Didi for me.”
“You support her?”
Emily looked surprised. “Support her? I throw money at her a lot. But, me, supporting her? It’s the other way around.”
“And is that all she wants? To be your wife?”
“My-“ Emily swallowed hard, feeling stricken. “I don’t know. We don’t… talk about that sort of thing.” And they didn’t, because she didn’t want to remind Emma of what she had left behind, make her feel bad about it. And she didn’t want to… consider that. She didn’t want to hear about a future that involved Emma leaving.
Her mother cocked her head. “I’ve never seen that expression on your face before. Are you that desperate for her devotion?”
“I just… I just want it to mean that she wouldn’t ever leave.” Emily stared off through the doorway. “I’d do anything if it meant she’d stay with me, even after…”
“Baby,” Elizabeth cupped the back of her head. “It never means they can’t leave. If you don’t know what she wants, you won’t know why she leaves when she finally does.”
“Don’t say that!”
“Don’t lie to yourself. If you don’t talk to her you don’t have a chance of finding a way to convince her to stay. I know this one.”
Emily had had enough of this conversation. She set down the bags of groceries and walked out.
* * *
Elizabeth took Deirdre ice-skating, leaving Emily and Emma collapsed on the couch watching television. They sat together, but not touching. Emily rested her hand a hairsbreadth away from Emma’s but couldn’t bring herself to cross that distance. They stayed like that until Emma yawned and curled up, resting her head in Emily’s lap.
“Hey!” Emily exclaimed in a surprised whisper.
“Leave me alone, I’m sleepy,” Emma grumbled, curling even farther into her leg.
“Okay.” Emily went back to her book, brushing a few strands of hair out straight, feeling the weight of Emma’s head, her warmth, and the motion of her breathing.
It was always so much easier to say nothing at all.
* * *
Chapter 14
Author: Alsike
Fandom: Criminal Minds/X-Men
Pairing: Emily Prentiss... eventually Emma Frost
Rating: PG-15
Summary: When one person travels into an alternate universe a thousand others are created. What if Didi showed up without a time slip on Emily's doorstep, in a world without mutants? What would a twenty-five year old Emily do?
Apologies: I told you I was working on it! Now I just hope everyone hasn't gotten bored and wandered off.
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Emma had waved them away from the dishes, and Emily and her mother had bundled up in coats and hats and gone for a walk. There was something too oppressive about staying in the house. Didi decided at the last moment that she wanted to go with them, but to the park, and Emma gave her the look that said, ‘deal with the fact that she is going with you and that I am not your babysitter.’ Emily dealt. It looked like Elizabeth was not dealing quite so well.
Didi stayed in the lead, sliding experimentally on the packed snow, and roaming from one side to the other curiously. Elizabeth watched her. “You were always a good walker,” she said, and Emily gave a slight start of surprise.
“I was?”
Elizabeth nodded. “We dragged you over all sorts of foreign cities and places of historical interest. You never complained about that. Only about parties.”
Emily nodded.
Elizabeth sighed. “What am I missing here? She just showed up and apparently, biologically, she’s yours. No other information? Nothing? What about… her? Did she just show up too?”
Emily wasn’t entirely sure what she thought of the ‘her,’ but, “No,” she said. “No, there was a letter.”
Elizabeth held out her hand imperiously. Emily hesitated. She had brought it, because she knew it might be necessary, but she also knew that her mother would not like what it said. Her mother’s stance only stiffened. Emily sighed, and pulled it out, unfolding it awkwardly in gloves.
Elizabeth took it and read both sides briskly. Her mouth tightened into a thin line. She looked up at her, sparing half a glance to Didi who was designing a fort. “Deirdre Victoria, that’s a pretty name.”
Emily nodded.
“It’s a bit… regal, for you though. You always seemed to prioritize ordinariness. Your rabbit was named Bob, wasn’t it?”
Emily’s face heated up and she was just glad Emma wasn’t there to hear this. “Yes. I might have grown up a little since then.”
“I am rather disappointed that you took her name.”
Emily felt like whacking herself in the head. “It isn’t me, mom.”
“Still, that you would.” Her eyes narrowed. “And what is this about ‘not being your mother’?”
“Mom.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I can just wonder, feel insulted, worried that I didn’t do enough.”
“Mom, I just…” Emily bit her tongue. “I don’t know what her relationship with her mother was. I do know that I wasn’t always happy with… with the way things turned out when I was a child.” She swallowed, not wanting to cry. She tried not to talk about her father often; it always choked her up. “I didn’t want to make anyone else feel like that, but I don’t know if I know how to not. I think I’m failing too. I don’t… I don’t know how I’m supposed to care about her, what I’m supposed to do to show her that I do. I feel like I’m always gone or scolding or tired or picking things up, and I don’t want to let go too much, but if I don’t…”
“Do you think that I don’t care?”
“No,” Emily said immediately. “I know you do. But I know that because I’m older, and I can understand you better, and because everything is no longer about me. When I was young, and everything was about me, I didn’t always think so.”
Elizabeth nodded shortly. “Why don’t you want to let go too much?”
Emily stared at her. “Because. When they come to take her back, it’s going to break my heart.”
“Mommy! Help me build!”
“What?” Emily glanced down. Didi was tugging on her coat and pointing at the shaped out fort. “Oh, okay, sure.” She looked over at her mother and gestured with her head, and then followed Didi over and knelt down in the snow without any hesitation.
Elizabeth watched her daughter turn to the girl seriously, ask about the shape, the proposed height. They packed some snow, and considered angles and buttressing and balance. Didi said something, and Emily smiled. It was easy and bright across her face, and Didi laughed wildly at her response. Elizabeth bit down on the inside of her lip. It was so obvious that she cared, so obvious that she had no trouble showing it. Why did her daughter continually worry herself about things that were no problem at all?
She went over to the construction site and leaned down, catching Didi’s attention. “Is there any way I can help?”
Didi put her straight to work.
They were nearing completion when Emily’s phone rang and she pulled out to finish it up. Elizabeth and Didi managed the rest on their own.
“Do you want to put your name in sticks over the door?”
Didi nodded and they carefully added in the nameplate. “That looks good,” commented Didi.
It looked rather runic, but Elizabeth agreed and they stood to admire it. It was rather good; it even had a roof that didn’t look like it was about to fall in. She noticed Didi watching her and raised an eyebrow.
“I’ve never had a grandmother before,” said Didi, looking up at Elizabeth with a serious expression on her face.
Elizabeth was starting to find this child rather charming, in her strange direct way. She reminded her a little too much of Emily at that age, formal and a little reserved, but at least Deirdre wasn’t shy. She had always hoped that Emily would grow out of being shy, then of course, when she did, she wished she hadn’t. “Well,” she said to Didi. “I’ve never had a granddaughter before, so I suppose we’re even.”
Deirdre considered this. “I think you’re supposed to buy me things.”
Elizabeth suppressed her laugh. “I think you’re supposed to make me things.”
“Okay,” Didi replied giving a short nod. She seemed like she was agreeing to a business deal. Entertained by the idea, Elizabeth held out her hand and Didi took it. They shook on the agreement.
Emily came back over. “Wow, excellent job.” Didi hugged her leg.
“Grandma’s going to buy me things!”
Emily’s eyes widened and she looked up at Elizabeth quickly. Elizabeth didn’t have time to deal with her response, it was quite shocking enough to be called ‘grandma.’
“Well, that’s good,” Emily managed weakly. “Emma needs some things from the store. Is it okay if we stop there on the way back?”
* * *
“I have a grandpa, I think. But he’s sort of scary. I never met him, but I heard him shouting at M’ma.” Didi was babbling happily, half-oppressed under the bag of new things that her grandmother (in great excess in Emily’s opinion) had gotten her.
Elizabeth glanced over at her daughter, who shrugged. “Emma’s not in contact with her family,” she said softly.
“So this was from before?”
Emily blinked. She hadn’t really thought about that. Didi said odd things all the time. She had worked out that she might have actually lived in Africa, with the kusonga and the never having seen snow, but hadn’t really thought about what her life had been like. It felt a little self centered. Or rather, that was the problem with it. She desperately wanted to know more about what the other her was like. But what she really wanted to know, was something Didi couldn’t tell her. She couldn’t tell her how it felt.
She unlocked the door and Didi bolted inside to find Emma and show her the presents. Elizabeth and Emily paused in the entryway to remove hats and coats and boots.
“What if they don’t?” Elizabeth asked out of nowhere.
Emily stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
“What if they don’t come to take Deirdre back? They could be dead. They could have lost the ability. They could be living in a world so destroyed that they can’t promise her a future.” Elizabeth’s lips tightened. “What if she grows up with you and you never let yourself care?”
“I don’t… I don’t believe that. They will come for her. I couldn’t just abandon her to…”
“You couldn’t?”
“This isn’t about me!”
Elizabeth did not like the shaky way she was looking. Emily was intensely frightened, but she couldn’t tell if it was because she wanted to believe her or didn’t. “This is entirely about you and your desperate need to anticipate everything bad that’s going to happen to you!”
And that had been a trigger. “You try having your father die on you when you’re eleven! You try losing all of your friends over and over again: to drugs, to your shitty peripatetic lifestyle, to fatal disease,” Emily cursed at her. She looked like she was about to throw her coat to the ground, but she just turned. “You tell me to not anticipate, to just enjoy, but everyone dies, mom. Everyone leaves. And eventually Didi will go, and then Emma will go, and I’ll have no one again, like I always have no one.” Emily choked and covered her face, breathing out in a rough gasp. “And I know that Didi’s not mine, and I can’t keep her, but it feels so much like having a real life with Emma, but I don’t know how to make her stay.”
Elizabeth stared at her for a long moment, and then pulled her into the kitchen. “You’re in love with her.”
Emily stiffened unhappily. She frowned, her face tensing like she was about to lie. “Aren’t I… supposed to be?”
Her mother rolled her eyes. “Oh please. Do you think I can’t read you? You’re comfortable together, she likes you, and you look at her… like you’re wishing she would notice that you’re looking at her.”
“I’m not,” Emily said vehemently.
“Not wishing she would notice?”
“No. She’s not…” Emily swallowed, turning away from her mother. “I’m not. Why are you okay with this? I’m not okay with this.”
“The only thing I truly wanted for you was for you to find a way to be happy.” Elizabeth touched her daughter’s face. “I was worried about you, about how you never seemed to connect with anyone.”
“I had boyfriends.
“Not ones you wanted me to meet.”
Emily frowned, glancing away. “I didn’t want you to meet Emma either, but you didn’t give me much choice.”
“And I met a few of your boyfriends that way as well. But you aren’t ashamed of her, not like you were the last time…”
Emily flushed with embarrassment. She really couldn’t say she had made a lot of good decisions about boys. But how do you make good decisions when your only choice is between doing what the few people who are willing to acknowledge you ask, and not having any friends at all? She was always the new kid, desperately hoping that someone, anyone would welcome her in to their group. It had been something like an accident, but still, this time, for the first time it was her decision, her feelings, even if nothing would ever come of them. “How could I be ashamed of her?” Emily rested her head in her hands. “If she were mine…”
“Darling. How much more yours can she get? She lives with you, lets you sleep in her bed, you’re raising a child together. Just because she’s withholding sex doesn’t mean she’s keeping back anything that matters.” She looked wry. “Your father and I were still sexually involved long after we had become emotionally disentangled.”
Emily grimaced in horror. “I didn’t need to know that!”
“Perhaps you did. You may need to stop assuming that your relationships are always going to end up resembling mine and your father’s.”
Emily shook her head, bewildered. “I don’t think that.” She had never thought that. She had never been invested enough in a relationship to worry that it would eventually fall apart. She glanced at Didi and then away. Not until now, at least, and that wasn’t even about Emma, at least mainly, and it wasn’t just a futile worry. She knew it would eventually fall apart.
“Not with this girl? Does she have a career?”
Emily’s eyes widened slightly. “N-no?”
“You don’t sound incredibly sure about that.”
Emma was on her back, letting Didi crawl on top of her in the living room and Emily sighed, leaning back against the counter. “She was working when I met her, but was ready for a change. I asked her to look after Didi for me.”
“You support her?”
Emily looked surprised. “Support her? I throw money at her a lot. But, me, supporting her? It’s the other way around.”
“And is that all she wants? To be your wife?”
“My-“ Emily swallowed hard, feeling stricken. “I don’t know. We don’t… talk about that sort of thing.” And they didn’t, because she didn’t want to remind Emma of what she had left behind, make her feel bad about it. And she didn’t want to… consider that. She didn’t want to hear about a future that involved Emma leaving.
Her mother cocked her head. “I’ve never seen that expression on your face before. Are you that desperate for her devotion?”
“I just… I just want it to mean that she wouldn’t ever leave.” Emily stared off through the doorway. “I’d do anything if it meant she’d stay with me, even after…”
“Baby,” Elizabeth cupped the back of her head. “It never means they can’t leave. If you don’t know what she wants, you won’t know why she leaves when she finally does.”
“Don’t say that!”
“Don’t lie to yourself. If you don’t talk to her you don’t have a chance of finding a way to convince her to stay. I know this one.”
Emily had had enough of this conversation. She set down the bags of groceries and walked out.
* * *
Elizabeth took Deirdre ice-skating, leaving Emily and Emma collapsed on the couch watching television. They sat together, but not touching. Emily rested her hand a hairsbreadth away from Emma’s but couldn’t bring herself to cross that distance. They stayed like that until Emma yawned and curled up, resting her head in Emily’s lap.
“Hey!” Emily exclaimed in a surprised whisper.
“Leave me alone, I’m sleepy,” Emma grumbled, curling even farther into her leg.
“Okay.” Emily went back to her book, brushing a few strands of hair out straight, feeling the weight of Emma’s head, her warmth, and the motion of her breathing.
It was always so much easier to say nothing at all.
* * *
Chapter 14
