"There is no way." Emma sighed for the umpteenth time.
"You don't know that." Alexander insisted.
"But I do." She repeated, gazing around her. She only had a few minutes a day for phone calls, she'd rather not waste them talking about impossible things. "Look, there's a whole line here for the phones, I don't have much time," Emma said, looking away when she met the other inmates' gazes. "The point is, we have to accept that this is the state of things."
"I thought you were a fighter."
"I've fought all my life, and if there's one thing I've learnt, is to know when you're beaten." Emma sighed. "Face it, Alexander, she will never let us be. She moved mountains to get me imprisoned, imagine what she would do if she knew we're still in touch."
He snorted. "She knows, she knows. We haven't really talked since you got arrested, but nothing escapes her attention."
"Exactly." Emma pursed her lips.
"Exactly nothing, Emma." Alexander growled. "We made a promise."
"One we cannot keep."
"Says who?"
"Literally the whole US Department of Justice that threw me into this hellhole for 15 years without parole?" Emma barked, slightly raising her voice, enough to catch the other inmates' attention. "I've made a lot of bad choices in my life, and it was obvious that sooner or later the past would catch up with me. I enjoyed the silly idea of me and you starting over a new life, but let's face it, it was a dream, and dreams never come true."
He remained quiet for a few moments. "I'll call you tomorrow." He said in the end, his voice low.
"Alexander ..."
"I'll call you tomorrow." He repeated firmly.
Emma would have wanted to argue, but his tone was meant to say way more than those simple words. She caught herself smiling for a second as she thought of the remote eventuality that maybe they could make it work after all.
When someone kicked her ankle, gesturing for her to hang up, Emma nodded, her smile fading. "Alexander?" She called, unsure whether he was still there or not.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For staying." Because the inmate beside her was getting restless, before he could reply, she added: "I meant it, you know. Those first two lines in the letter. I meant what I said."
He smiled, relaxing for a moment. "I know. We'll sort this out, I promise."
"I know." If only it were true, Emma told herself once she'd hung up.
✧✧ ✧ ✧ ✧
"Hudson. Visiting room." A guard announced showing up in her cell.
Emma frowned. Alexander had promised to come to visit every time he could, as much as possible, but it'd only been one day since the last time. Nevertheless, she was glad to see him, even though every encounter was followed by a thousand questions from her cellmate.
"You're popular," the guard teased, half smirking, as she escorted her to the parlor.
Emma smiled. "He's ... persistent."
"Stalker?"
"Boyfriend." Emma replied without thinking.
The guard frowned, looking at her for a moment. She'd have said something, but she reminded herself that inmates' private lives weren't any of her business as long as those women respected prison rules. "There you go," she pointed Emma at one of the seats in the parlor.
When she saw him, Emma couldn't help but gulp. A lot of emotions and thoughts ran fast, one after the other, but above all, surprise and anger. She absentmindedly followed the guard, and sat down.
At the other side of the glass, the last person she'd have ever expected. "Daniel." Emma gritted through her teeth once she'd grabbed the phone, and brought it to her ear.
"Hey, sweetheart," he greeted, trying to sound cheerful.
"What do you want?" She barked. All he'd done in the past wasn't enough, he had to team up with Nancy to ruin her life a second time. Nancy had made sure to rub that simple fact in her face, claiming Daniel had provided a lot of info for her plan to succeed. Of course, she'd have been able to uncover all her secrets even without him, but he was definitely huge help.
"I come in peace." Daniel raised his right hand in surrender. "I wanted to apologize."
"For what, this time? Did you find more ways to ruin my life?" She snarked.
He sighed. "Alli, I ... back then I tried to fall on my sword for you, you know. My father didn't let me."
She snorted. "Right."
"It's true. I mean, okay, maybe I didn't try enough, but I did. Ultimately, I know what I did is unforgivable. So ... I'm here to make amends."
"Unless you invented a time machine, I don't see how you could."
Daniel sighed, well aware that if she wanted to spend the next 40 minutes insulting him, she had every right to. "I'm fucked up," he admitted, taking her off guard, "I was back then and I was lately with the whole ... Nancy thing. When we met, I was a huge mess, you know that."
"A mess that managed to swallow me whole." Emma murmured.
"That's the thing, you know?" Daniel cracked a small, regretful smile. "I was a mess, you were a mess, together we ..." he sighed, "together we inevitably exploded." They had met at the wrong time, he was certain. A different place, a different time in their lives, and maybe, just ... maybe, things between them would have gone a lot differently.
Emma, for her part, frowned, unsure whether he was truly apologizing or just trying to manipulate her. He'd always been great at that. Back in the day, she was a vulnerable teenager that needed a constant in her life, something to hold onto – and Daniel seemed the answer. "You were an angry spoiled brat looking for every possible way to get back at your old man," she spat, "and dating me was one of those ways."
"That's not true ..." he defended weakly, "I ..." he pursed his lips, averting his gaze for a moment, "Alli, I ..."
"You what? You loved me?" Emma spat. "The shit you put me into, Daniel, you don't do that to someone you love." She remembered it clearly, all the mistakes, all the troubles they got into, barely escaping, until that night when they stole his father's car.
Thinking back, Emma realized, it wasn't love, never had been. Now that she had concrete proof, a clear example of what love actually looked like, now she could look at the time spent with Daniel in a completely different light. "You don't throw someone you love under the bus to save your own skin, Daniel. You let me take the blame for something you decided to do. Sure, I had my share of the blame, we did it together, but how different would it have been, had you taken your responsibilities?"
"I have thought about that every single day for the past 10 years." Daniel said, serious as ever. "There hasn't been a single day I haven't repeated to myself just how stupid I was. And before you say it, yes, I wanted to come see you in prison, but you never let me."
"Why would I?" She scoffed.
"I know. And had you known it was me, you wouldn't have accepted this time either. I had to pull some strings."
"As usual." Emma rolled her eyes. "You still believe everything is owed to you just because you're rich."
He shrugged. "Maybe it isn't, but money definitely makes a lot of things easier." Daniel inched closer to the glass that divided them. "Like getting you a proper lawyer," he looked around, and lowered his voice, "greasing the right wheels and getting you out of here."
Emma blinked her eyes, taken back. He couldn't be serious. "Do you honestly believe I would trust you, Daniel?" She spat. "You think I don't know you're a big reason why it was so easy for Nancy to uncover my past?"
For his part, Daniel frowned. "I what?"
"Oh, please, don't act innocent."
"No, no, no ... Alli," he called her name endearingly, the same way as he did when they were together in bed, after hours of sweet passion, when she lost herself in his arms, "Alli, I would never."
"Sure."
"Believe me." Daniel placed his right hand over the glass, as if promising. "When we met, she just told me her plan, I never told her anything about you. It was her to contact me about you."
"And how would she know?"
"I don't know how, but she knew about us before even contacting me." He sighed, ashamed. "When she told me she had a plan to bring you back to me, I ... it's horrible, but I didn't think things through, Alli, I ... I just agreed, desiring nothing more than to be with you again."
Part of Emma wanted to believe him, to believe that maybe what they had was real, at least partly. But after everything that had happened, and after the whole ordeal with Nancy, it was difficult. "What was the plan?" She asked flatly, even though she mostly knew the answer.
Daniel pulled back slightly, sighing. "The main goal was to split up you and him," he said, "but in order to do that, she needed to ... push you."
"Push me?" Emma repeated, at the same time wondering what, in Nancy's mind, would push her to leave Alexander.
"Initially, it was about confronting you," Daniel went on, "publicly humiliating you by exposing your past." He avoided her gaze, not wanting to let her realize that he knew everything as well, from the prostitution to the sex tape.
"Which she did," Emma confirmed, thinking of that night at Nancy's place, among her friends.
"Yeah." Daniel nodded. "She knows you're proud, and that you ran away from your past. So, being confronted about it, would push you to possibly run again. But it's not just that."
"What else?"
"Did she tell you where she got that info?"
"Yeah, she told me it was you." Emma glared. "You told her everything I confided to you back then."
"No," Daniel sighed, "not that, and also no, again, no ... I didn't tell her anything." He looked straight into her eyes. "I vowed to secrecy, Alli, I would never betray your trust." He claimed wholeheartedly.
For her part, Emma rolled her eyes. "Let's not go there." She grumbled.
Ignoring the jab, Daniel went on: "The first part of her plan was to expose your past publicly. According to her, that would push you to come back to me."
She furrowed her brows. "How? Why would I-" she stopped mid-sentence, realizing something. "She thought I'd turn against him." Emma murmured to herself more than to Daniel. "She made a show of exposing my past, thinking I would assume Alexander betrayed my trust by telling her."
"But you called him, instead," Daniel sighed, "and I ... well, I complained to her about it, which actually helped because that way she told me more about her plan."
"Which is?"
"She knew you left and that he followed you." Daniel went on. "He cannot leave the State due to his parole ... you know that."
Emma nodded, well aware of the danger Alexander had been in even only for following her to Connecticut. It was the only reason she'd decided to go back to New York, hoping they would have some time to figure things out.
"Well, according to Nancy, you have this ... martyr instinct," Daniel said, grimacing, "and knowing he would get in trouble for following you out State, you would fall on your own sword to protect him."
Emma remained interdicted for a moment. Nancy knew her that well? She knew that Alexander would follow her and that she wouldn't let him ruin his life like that? Just how far ahead was Nancy? She possibly even knew that she would try to bargain on Alexander's behalf.
As if on cue, Daniel went on: "She said you would come back to New York to beg for her to free him of this contract they have. She would refuse, and she would have the upper hand. To do what, she didn't say, but ..." he waved his finger around the prison parlor, "I guess now we know."
"So, this is part of the plan, then," Emma accused, "you coming to see me here is just part of her plan. If I fall into your arms, Alexander will be free for her to sink her claws into him." She gritted her teeth.
Of course, Nancy wouldn't stop at jail, she should have thought about the long run. Ultimately, it was all about chaining Alexander to herself. "I need to warn him," Emma murmured to herself, "she's planning on getting pregnant."
Daniel frowned, confused. "Unless she rapes him, I sincerely doubt she can convince him to sleep with her." He thought out loud. "I don't know the guy, but if he almost went to prison for you, I don't think he'd just have sex with the person that caused you all these troubles."
"He wouldn't." Emma defended, her gaze sharp as it landed on her ex. "Alexander is true to his word, unlike someone else ..."
"Alli ..." Daniel sighed, guilty.
"But you should know there are a lot of ways for a woman to get pregnant." Emma gritted her teeth. "I'm sure she's thought of some ... tenenovela-like kind of trap."
"That becomes a legal issue, though." Daniel frowned.
"You don't know him," Emma sighed, "he would feel obliged to stay for the kid. Whichever the means, in the end he would be father." She pursed her lips. How could she help Alexander from behind bars? How stupid had she been in thinking that getting her locked up would be Nancy's ultimate goal? How could she forget the talk they had in her office?
"Alli, I meant it," Daniel broke through her thoughts, "I'm here to help you."
Her eyes shot to him, that fiery gaze he'd long missed now reappearing. "Daniel, I wouldn't entrust you with getting me coffee, imagine with all this."
"I know, I know, you don't trust me ..." he neared the glass, "but I mean it. And I don't want anything in return."
"Right." She scoffed, rolling her eyes.
"No, it's true. This is just me making amends for all the troubles I got you into." Daniel stated solemnly. "I want nothing in return, I just want you to be happy."
Emma stared at him for a long moment while the guards started calling her and the other inmates in the parlor – a sign that visiting hours were over. He was her only chance at helping Alexander, wasn't he?
Next chapter will involve a crossover...can you guess with which of my stories? 😉