«The things we fear most
have already happened to us.»
Just two hours later Daisy woke up to the sound of her alarm clock. Emily was no longer in bed next to her, but she could hear the water in the shower running. She smiled thinking about how the previous evening had ended, hoping they hadn't exaggerated and hoping that no one would have seen them leave the same room.
She realized that it was seven fifteen in the morning and that she had let her alarm go off a little too long before she actually heard it, but if she moved quickly she could get back to her room without running into anyone in the hallways since it was definitely still early for their eight o'clock appointment at the police station.
Just as Daisy was getting dressed, Emily, in all her devastating beauty, fresh from her morning shower, entered the room with only a towel wrapped around her long-limbed body. She was perfect, every corner of her body was, and Daisy couldn't explain how she managed to be even more beautiful in the morning, with only a couple of hours of sleep.
"Hey, good morning, I took the liberty of going to your room to get your go-bag, I found the key on the floor, you must have dropped it yesterday. I didn't open it, but I thought you wanted to take a shower." - Emily told her smiling
"I could have gone and done it in my room Em, there was no need." - Daisy replied, a little embarrassed by that situation
"Yes, true, but then I couldn't talk to you and I really urgently needed to." - said the older agent, sliding her shower towel from her body, remaining totally naked
Daisy didn't understand the nature of that
gesture, also because they had absolutely no time for another round and Emily's voice seemed too serious to indicate any joke or similar.
Everything was clearer to her when Emily sat next to her on the bed and took one of her hands, bringing it to the center of her belly and making her caress the enormous scar that cut it in two. Daisy hadn't dared touch it until then, it terrified her.
"This cost me my life, in every sense." - she told Daisy shortly after
"Emily, you don't have to talk about it." - said Daisy that actually didn't want to hear that story again and feel terribly bad
"I would be hypocritical if I forced you to talk about what hurts you and then didn't talk to you about what hurts me." - she told her
"Can I listen to you while I get ready though? Otherwise we'll never be able to get ready in time."
Emily's face contorted into an offended and even a little pained grimace, but Daisy couldn't hear that story while looking straight into her eyes. Emily didn't know, of course, but the younger woman knew every detail inside out, perhaps better than the oder woman herself.
"Sure, I'll follow you to the bathroom." - said the older agent thinking that this was Daisy's way of trying to escape for the umpteenth time from the strong feelings that she was not able to handle emotionally
"Come on, I'm all ears and I'm glad you're telling me about it." - Daisy said pulling Emily with her hand into the bathroom where she slipped under the freezing shower, since she needed something to make her feel awake
"Before working for the FBI I worked with Interpol and a particular operation led me to stay undercover for months and pose as the lover of an international terrorist, Ian Doyle. Eventually we arrested him and my death was simulated. Eight years later he broke out of prison and came back to look for me and to kill me and he almost did." - she said in one breath, trying with little success not to waver.
"Hey, don't worry Em, take all the time you need." - Daisy told her; she was taking a shower with the door open and luckily she wasn't even washing her hair, so she could hear the other woman loud and clear
"The night he did this to me, I almost died. The doctors managed to stabilize me, but I still lost. Ian had run away and me, his son and everyone else were still in danger. So I faked my death, again. No one knew I was alive except JJ and our old boss." - said Emily meanwhile she was getting dressed because doing something while she was talking about that topic made it more foreign and less painful to her
"Where have you been?" -Daisy told her, coming out of the shower and leaning towards her to place a kiss on her forehead, as if to give her courage.
"In Paris, for seven months, then I returned to D.C. when the team was finally close to arresting Doyle again, but we never arrested him, he died a few days after I returned before my eyes and those of his son."
"I'm so proud of you Em, you can't even imagine it. I know I wasn't there during those days, I know I don't really understand the anguish and fear, but the fact that you are here now talking to me about it makes you the real winner of that situation." - said Daisy, actually knowing very well that Emily was still a long way from closing that story
"But it's not like that, I felt like I had won all these years, but that's not the case anymore."
Emily's eyes quickly filled with tears and Daisy, now fully dressed, couldn't help but hold her tightly in her arms and stroke her gray hair as she was terrified that someone would rip the other woman out of them.
"Why do you say that?" - she asked her, pretending not to know
"Because since Ian introduced me to his son, Declan, my priority became him. I had to save that child from that tragic fate and so I did for years. I gave him a new identity, a new life and a new opportunity, but he grew up and flushed it down the toilet." - Emily said, her voice full of anger and pain
"What do you mean?"
Daisy could clearly see that Emily blamed herself completely for what had happened to Declan and that no matter how much time had passed, no matter if the boy had committed any crime, she still loved him as deeply as she always had from day one.
"Suddenly he disappeared. No one heard from him again. At first I refused to believe that he had followed in his father's footsteps, but then when I saw bodies appear with a similar M.O. to Ian's I had to change my mind. I've been looking for him for two years, unofficially and officially, but I can't find him in any way." - she told Daisy, slowly breaking away from her embrace
"You can't blame yourself for this. You can't do anything about it if the seed of psychopathy ended up in the lawn you tried to cultivate for a long time. It's not your fault Emily."
"And yet I can't feel any differently. I could have done so much more for him, especially after Ian's death, but instead I continued to keep him at a distance because I didn't have the strength to keep him close."
Daisy glanced at her watch. It was getting late, but she couldn't let go of Emily's feelings. She held the older woman close to her for the last time, gently pressing a kiss on her forehead to show the other woman all her solidarity.
"Emily, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that just as it's not right to blame others for our own choices, it's not right to shoulder the blame for the choices of others. You can't blame yourself because you weren't able to handle that situation and you definitely can't do that because of what happened to Declan when you decided to make yourself your priority. You needed it after everything you've been through." - she told her, caressing her face
"How do you always know what's right to say?" - asked the older woman
"I'm a natural." - Daisy said jokingly and moving away from the other woman to start putting on makeup
They both finished getting ready quickly and then left the room one at a time, hoping not to be seen by anyone and luckily, when Daisy left the room first no one was in the corridors, so she was able to calmly head to the SUV without any problems.
After a few hours that they were all at the station they received the results of the analyzes on the cocaine bought by Daisy the previous night and then it took little time, after an interrogation with a deal with the bartender who had sold it to her, to arrest William Bailey, the man responsible of all those deaths.
The next morning everyone was ready to go home, everyone except Daisy, who felt she still had a big score to settle. During the arrest carried out the previous night at the usual bar, they managed to save two other boys from certain death.
Daisy hadn't had the time or strength to go to the hospital to personally inquire about their health that night, but she wasn't going to leave Chicago without doing so, so that morning, before catching the jet she stealthily headed to the hospital.
She didn't want anyone to know she was going there, not even the kids themselves. They had both been placed in the same room as Amelia, the first girl who survived the cocaine killer, and Daisy watched them all joke together from afar, even if their faces were still terribly tired and sore, as if they had known each other forever.
She necessarily had to hold back the urgency she felt to enter that hospital room to talk to them. She wanted to tell those kids not to waste their time, because it wasn't as much as they thought.
She would have liked to tell them to give a lot to those who asked and that the clouds in the sky were running fast holding back the days of yesterday and only by looking at them carefully they would always know who they were. She wanted to tell them to learn to let go of the joy they had at that age, but not to worry because maybe one day they would find it again.
She wanted to tell them that the hours ticked by, that the minutes didn't stop, that life was passing away and that no one could know anything about tomorrow. She wanted to tell those kids not to waste their time because after winter summer always came quickly.
She wished she could explain to them that life went by quickly, that it only lasted the time for a game and that it shouldn't be wasted on cheap dreams. She would have liked to tell those kids not to waste their time, that not everyone could capture life and not to look down on those who couldn't.
But she couldn't, she couldn't because it wasn't her right nor her duty. She knew that that hospital facility would recommend the kids to a psychiatric path and would help them to overcome their addiction and overcome the trauma they had suffered.
If she had stayed there just one more second, though, she wouldn't have been able to help herself and so she forced herself to leave and head towards the jet where she would probably find everyone and her beautiful Emily already at wait for her.
Daisy Johnson had lost a lot of time in life, a lot, but at least she had learned that after Sunday always came Monday.
_
thank you so much, the story just reached 1k, I can't believe it.
That's my present for you, enjoy!