Hard to Love {A Hotchniss Story}

Chapter 41

When Emily was in the bathtub she stared at her hands, her legs, her chest, her torso and at her own face in the mirror. She had never been worse than that and after a while it made her sick to her stomach to look at herself. So she cleaned herself up and got out of the shower with wet hair, but she did look better. More tired, smaller, but better.

She walked into the living room where Penelope and Aaron stared at her without saying a word. "Nothing?" Emily asked and they just kept on looking at her. "Please say something, anything." She was on the verge of tears and still, they didn't say a word. "How long was I there?"

"Forty seven days." Aaron answered promptly. "We were afraid you were gone. We knew you weren't going to give up Declan's location."

"You're wrong." Emily slightly shook her head as she went to sit down on the empty armchair since Penelope and Aaron were sitting on the couch.

"What do you mean?" Penelope asked almost instantly.

"He was gonna, he was..." Emily stopped for a few moments, she felt tears welling up in her eyes. "He was gonna make Jack do to me what he did to me." She said it in one breath then she hid her face in her palms.

"What?" Aaron asked before having had the time to process her words. "He was going to make Jack do that to you?"

Emily just nodded her head. The thought of that was making her sick to her stomach. "If you-if you hadn't come when you did, he would have had Declan. I would've told him." Then Emily burst into tears. 

"Oh Ems." Penelope sighed, tears were present in her eyes also. She could not believe what she was hearing, but neither could have Emily imagined before those days that such things could happen to her. 

"It's fine.'' Emily nodded her head trying to convince herself  her words more than anyone else. ''Really, it's fine.''

''No, it's not.'' Aaron stated without one bit of hesitation. He went closer to Emily and she looked into his eyes. She could barely see him due to her tears, but he was there, he was finally there and she needed him more than anything in the world at that moment.

"Aaron!" Emily stood up and wrapped her arms around him while Aaron was quick to do the same. "I thought I'd never see any of you again, I was so scared."

"It's ok, you're here now, with us." He slowly rubbed her back in circles while Emily was trying to regain her composure.

"You have to go." Emily said as she stepped back and Aaron nodded. It wasn't that he wanted to go, he needed to be with his son, he was his priority and Emily understood that. 

"If you need anything-"

"I know." Emily nodded and moments later there were only her and Penelope left in the room. "Has anything changed while I was gone?" She was trying to take the spotlight off of her. Emily didn't want to talk about what had happened, at least not yet. 

"Not one bit." Penelope said while shaking her head. "We were all pretty much focused on finding you. It was all that was on our minds."

"I should have been more careful that night, I always should've been more careful." Emily whispered the last part and silence settled across the room for the longest of moments until Emily spoke again. "He really is dead, right?"

"Doyle?" Penelope asked because for a second she was under the impression that Emily might have been talking about Sergio. 

"Yes." Emily did not want him to be dead, she still felt bad about lying to him while loving him. That was the kind of person she was, even when not at fault, she still found a tad o blame to put on herself and that was eating away at her. 

"Yes." Penelope answered and she saw Emily's eyes clouded, they darkened just a bit. "Is that a bad thing?"

"No." Emily shook her head. She did not want to sound as if she cared about Ian, but she did, even if it was just a bit and just for the Ian that she had fallen for. "I was just making sure."

Then Emily chose to go to bed. She didn't close her eyes the whole night, instead she cried until no more tears were left for her to do so. She was unsure about how things were going to be from that point forward, she had no idea whether Aaron would take her back, she needed to see Declan, she wanted to apologise for Jack being taken, for wasting resources, for everything. She wanted to apologise for everything when not one bit of it was her fault. But that was her, that was the one thing she was not going to apologise for.