InsaneJournal

Hello
Who: Scott and Emma
What: Talking. Awkwardness
When: recent
Where: Mostly Scott’s car
Status: Complete



Scott pulled up to Emma’s apartment, staring at it with his eyebrows raised. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, putting all available shields up. He needed time to absorb - he knew how proud Emma could be, and that she wasn’t going to take any perceived handouts - even if that wasn’t what he was planning on doing.

This was probably a bad idea. Just seeing her again was going to be hard. It felt like he’d been through a ringer. And he owed her some apologies.

He wasn't waiting long before Emma made her appearance. Normally she was a big fan of keeping people waiting, but this wasn't the neighborhood for it. She'd already been mugged once since she'd moved there, and she didn't need Scott dealing with anything like that.

Emma didn't really care about impressing him anymore. She didn't have anything to win or lose, so she'd thrown on a pair of jeans and a clean white shirt. She hadn't even bothered with makeup beyond some eyeliner.

She walked up to the car and quickly got in, making sure to lock her door immediately, "Hello."

Especially since Scott was in his Viper. He glanced at her when she got in, then pulled out in the street to get them moving. She managed to make even that simple outfit look good. “Afternoon.”

Awkward.

Unbearably awkward. And Scott's shields were exceptional, even in this life. She couldn't pick anything up from him at all, and had no idea where the day might lead. "Well... this is fun already."

Scott let out a breath, and shook his head. “I think we’re both acting cautious. Your… situation. And the dreams.” He wondered if anything had changed for her. If she’d dreamed everything. If she could look at him without anger. “I’m sorry. For everything I did there.”

"Oh for god's sake." Emma let out an exasperated sigh and looked over at him, "My situation. Can we please not refer to it like it's dirty laundry? I live in a high crime neighborhood and strip for a living. It is what it is, Scott. We do what we have to do to survive."

As for the other things, she wasn't even sure where to begin. Her dreams had, she was almost certain, finished up on some sort of cliffhanger where younger x-men were still stuck in the future and Kitty had decided - for some crazy reason - to join their side. And their powers were broken. She was grateful that that hadn't transferred over. "And You're sorry for a lot there, too. But lets not chat about everything in the car, or we'll end up eating in silence, mm? So why don't we just focus on how low my life has fallen for now."

“You aren’t doing what you have to to survive, because you’re too damn proud to accept an offered hand!” He gave the universal ‘wtf is this guy in front of me doing’ gesture as he spoke. “I get it, you’d rather earn your keep. But somehow, accepting help from people who care about you is a step too far?”

There was anger in Scott's words, but Emma wasn't sure how much she cared. Caring took effort and emotional energy, and she didn't really have much of that to go around these days. And she wasn't sure what level any of the 'x-men' really cared. He'd made it plain repeatedly that while they were something in the dreams they couldn't be anything anywhere else.

"You sound jealous, you know. Which is utterly ridiculous considering all that we aren't. But here, why don't I admit that it's not simply about taking help from people who care? You put HER name on that building. I don't want to work in it. I have enough of living in her shadow in the dream world. Quite enough of it, in fact."

“It wasn’t just for her there,” Scott said, after a moment to think. “It was for the Jean here, too. The one who went missing and never came back, who left me to raise Rachel on my own. Who would have been all over the idea of that place. But I’ve had twenty years to mourn her. And years to deal with these dreams. Maybe not as well as I could have, sometimes.”

Scott pulled over, then turned towards Emma. “Seeing her again. Come from the past. It … my feelings are complicated. I see a hundred things I would have done differently, and a hundred things I would have done the same. You’re one of the latter. But I would’ve approached our affair a little different.”

Emma sighed, "I don't feel ashamed. Perhaps you think I should, but I don't. And there are plenty of things I've done wrong in that place. Things I'm not sure I would have done differently, if all of the circumstances were the same."

Like shooting her sister. If her students were threatened, she probably still would have done that. It wasn't like there was that much love lost between them. If she was honest, though, there were also things she would have done differently, "I might have handled some of the challenges we faced at the school differently. But... there was no way of knowing. Hindsight gives us perfect clarity but we didn't have that there. Being in this world isn't really the same. How WOULD you have handled it? Would you have turned me down, then?"

Anything was better than discussing her current life choices.

“I would have been upfront and honest with Jean. It had been on my mind for a few days before she barged in on us…” He’d let weakness and loneliness win. And his pathological fear of being with Jean. It hadn’t been fair to any of them. “I’d fallen out of love with her.”

She'd known that, though it was somewhat heartening to hear him actually say it aloud. "There's quite a difference between falling out of love with someone and wanting to finally let them go. I've never been sure what you were afraid of, with that. Telling her, I mean. Of course, I'd have gone along just fine without you ever telling her at all, too. I got what I wanted, after all."

“Losing her entirely.” He looked down at the steering wheel. “She’d been such a constant part of my life, both alive and dead. I left Maddie in a heartbeat for her. But then… things change. Times change. People change. You can’t hold onto the past, and you really shouldn’t reach into it so far.” He wasn’t looking forward to Hank remembering that.

"All you ever did was lose her entirely. And repeatedly." Emma replied, with a long sigh. She'd never had anyone in her life but him that she cared about that much. Even in the end, where her dreams had seemed to stop coming. She was angry with him for what he'd done but he was just as angry at himself. And she couldn't leave him.

"None of this really matters, you know. You were over her but no one else was. I think in the end I was simply tired of hearing about it. I could never measure up. I always came up short. I understand things are different here, with you and with her. It doesn't change how I feel about it."

Scott nodded, and sighed. He supposed part of him just wanted the good things from the dreams, without making the same mistakes or having the same bad things. That was probably too much to ask for. “I never compared you two.”

"You didn't have to. Things like the Phoenix Force did all the comparing for you." And now it was in Rachel, it didn't even want her at all. She supposed overall that was better for everyone, but it was just another insult to add to injury as far as she was concerned.

She rested her head back against the seat and closed her eyes, "I sincerely hope you're taking me somewhere with good drinks."

"Very good drinks." He wasn't sure she should go home alone, after that. He also wasn't sure if he should be the one keeping an eye on her. But old wounds and fresh ones alike had been opened up in his heart. "Brandy and bourbon."

Being at home alone wasn't that dangerous anymore since Emma's diamond form had come in. The only remnant from that day was a tiny scratch on her wrist that was completely insignificant in size. She hadn't even bothered with the effort to cover it up.

Her diamond form had prevented anything from happening to her that night, whether she wanted it or not. She could only assume her own mutation was more optimistic about her future than she was. "You really do know the exact words to say sometimes. It's almost like you're my true love after all."

Scott tilted his head as he started to drive again. Her choice of words had to have been deliberate. How to bring that up, or how to talk about that? He wasn’t entirely sure. Might as well be blunt. “It doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to.”

"Do YOU want it to mean something? I think that's a better place to start, don't you? After all, you're the one who was involuntarily kissed awake." Emma glanced at him, her expression extremely guarded. It was too much to hope that he might answer the question favorably. Even if he did, well... he knew what she did for a living and where she lived, now.

All she had to do was tell him she'd slept with Logan and he'd never go near her again. "Perhaps we all would have been better off if I'd never taken the bait."

There weren’t many people that Scott thought could have pulled that off. Emma was certainly on that list. Anyone who evoked the kind of emotions she did in him would naturally be. He chose his words carefully, knowing that Emma would need a way out. “I wouldn’t be adverse to exploring that.”

"You... really do." Well, he had no reason to lie. He never made a habit of it anyway, unless he was hiding something important. Or at least that was true of his dream counterpart. Of course, his words only made her heart twist inside a little more.

"But it's not a good idea. You've got larger concerns. Your daughter, Logan trying to kill you... And I'm not sure what people would say exactly. Considering my current place in the world. Which--" And she put a few fingers up to ward off his rebuttal, because she knew it was coming, "I know you don't care about. But you run an outreach center for children, darling."

“I don’t particularly care what other people think. Not when it comes to that sort of thing. My work speaks for itself. Lets...go inside and eat.” He parked the car, then rested a hand on her knee. “I don’t know what’ll happen, Em. But what about a date. A real one.”

Her knee tensed a bit under his hand, but she didn't pull away. It was nearly impossible to give him the cold shoulder when he called her 'Em' like that. She almost couldn't stand the way he was speaking to her. Like she was a person, like she deserved any of this.

Part of her wanted to blurt things out that would hurt him and make him go away. That was the same part of her that had buried herself so deeply in self loathing that she didn't see a light anymore.

But if she let him, he could be a light. She let out a sigh, and turned to him, "Alright, Darling. You win. We'll give a date a try. Just one."

Because she was a person, and she did deserve all of this. He took her hand and kissed it. “Today doesn’t count.” He wouldn’t even use any dream knowledge to cheat, either. He knew a few places that might utterly break her to take her to, and he didn’t want to...manipulate her like that.

"Well. You're still buying, darling." Emma replied, snootily. The kiss to her hand made her smile, though, and it felt like the sun was rising.