Orange Is the New Emily

Ch. 15 - Batman and Robin

Emily's POV

I was back at square one after my talk with Alison. It was late and we still had no clue as to where Reyes was or how he was really involved in all of this. My only hope was that the pictures were old and taken before Michael ever hurt Ali. Or at least before he knew about it.

After the two of us decided to come clean about our stories and what we planned to do next, we sat in silence - in the attic of sorts - and waited for it to be almost time to wake up.

"We should probably get back now," Ali suggested after a while, "guards will be rotating soon, so we have a few minutes to be unseen."

"Alright," I said while getting up, "how much time do you think we have until wake up call?"

Alison stood, bowing her body back to stretch stiff muscles and shrugged, "I'm not too sure, but since it a new shift and they rotate at 4, my guess is about 4 hours."

Nodding, I crouched down near our door in the floor/ceiling and lifted the panel, "so we can get some shut eye for a while?" I don't know why I asked, but I guess it was because I was ready to talk to Alison some more.

And again, like she was reading me, she tilted her head and despite the poor lighting, I could still see the inquisitive gleam sparkling in her eyes. "Yeah I guess we can," she spoke slow and when she looked at me, she added, "but is that what you want to do?"

It was wasn't it?

Sighing, I put the panel back down and sat on my knees, looking up at her standing above me. "Alison, I want to tell you just as much about myself as you have told me about you."

"Okay, and I said whenever you feel like it's the right time, you can, but you don't owe me anything okay?"

"I know that." She sounded conflicted and that's how I was starting to feel.

"Listen, it's just that tomorrow - or in a few hours from now, whatever - things are going to be different. I don't know exactly how, but I know they will be. We - you and I - we're involved in something bigger than just us you know?"

All she did was nod and let me continue to speak.

"This is all tied together and I can't help but feel like it was for a reason, not just Michael's planning, but something more. I like you, I like you a lot and I want to get the person or persons that you here and prove you are innocent. I want us to get out and before we do that, I should tell you everything. No more secrets because it would really suck if one of us wasn't being as truthful as the other."

Alison just smiled and crawled on her knees in front of me,"you really want that date don't you?"

I dropped my head and laughed, somewhat in relief and also embarrassment, "you caught me red-handed."

"Guilty as charged?"

I looked up and at my blank expression, she covered her mouth to hide the fact that she had almost burst into laughter.

"That was punny wasn't it Em?"

I laughed back as silently as I could and when silence fell again, I looked at my hands, "you called me 'Em.'"

"Oh," Alison stopped, "uh, yeah, yeah I did. I'm sorry," she started to apologize after a few seconds, I guess I shouldn't have before asking you if that was alright, I'm sorry."

"No, don't be, I don't mind. It was just-,"

"Weird," she tried to finish for me.

"No, no, " I reached forward and grabbed her hand, "I was going to say nice, it was nice."