A/N: The title Gravity is an homage to Sara Bareilles's very sad and lovely song that I absolutely love, and which to me is a pretty good fit for the way Daniel feels about Emily following Charlotte's revelation. This story basically kicks off after Ben's attempt to ask Emily out.

"Most everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories."

― Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase

Chapter 1

She loves the sea.

For as long as she can remember, Emily has felt an affinity with the water, a connection with it. As a child, all she knew was that swimming was one of her greatest hobbies, and that she'd loved every single summer spent in the Hamptons with her dad - practically every day had been spent playing on the beach. But now, as an adult, she can pinpoint what it is that makes her feel so at home in it, and she loves the sea even more.

She loves the vastness of the ocean: how you can swim and swim but never know all its secrets. It represents a world of endless possibilities to her; a world where she can be anyone she wants, and most importantly, be anyone other than Amanda Clarke. When she swims, everything else disappears. All she can think about is the water that surrounds her and blocks out all noise, which is a blessed relief from the chaos of her complex revenge plots and dealing with whoever it is that's in her way for the day - Tyler, Frank, Lydia, etc.

But what she loves most about the ocean is its consistency in offering her a momentary escape from her life, and all the pain and anger that comes along with it. The sea will always be there, she thinks. People, however, will not.

She thinks about Aiden and how he left her several times throughout the course of their relationship - how he left Japan without her, how he left her in that cemetery, and how he left for Bermuda. But some part of her thinks that the minute Aiden stepped back into her life by coming to the Hamptons, she'd known deep down that she still loved him. Yes, he'd chosen to leave her, and more than once, too. But Aiden always came back in the end. Despite all efforts to push him away, he always came back, always trying his best to support her revengenda.

Emily thinks about Aiden and how he is gone for good now.

Almost immediately, waves of sadness wash over her. There is no one around as Emily sits on the sand, hugging her knees to her chest. She feels relieved, almost, in the simple action of letting her tears spill over; it is, after all, exhausting having to put on a brave, tough front almost all hours of the day.

"Being with you is the only time I've ever felt peace."

She remembers sitting on her couch with Aiden and feeling incredibly moved by his admission. If she has ever come close to feeling peace, it was with Aiden, who understood why she needed to avenge her father and accepted her for all her flaws, not least being her tendency to close herself off from the world. She has never been so vulnerable and open as when she was with him, and now he's gone.

Some days the guilt gnaws at her. Aiden deserved so much more. So did Amanda.

It is during moments like this that Emily feels regret for the path she has chosen, but she also knows that these moments are fleeting. For a long time now, revenge has felt like the only thing she knows how to do anymore, and all she has left.

That thirst has become a part of me. I don't know who I am without it... Maybe I don't want to.

She remembers this argument with Nolan, too, and if Emily is being honest with herself, a part of her is afraid to peel away the layers she hides under, because what would she find if she did? Only emptiness, probably. In a way, taking revenge is simpler than the normal things other people do - like dating. Revenge doesn't involve feelings, Emily thinks to herself. Or it shouldn't, anyway. She almost laughs at the thought of Ben asking her out. A cop asking her out on a date, blissfully unaware of the fact that she has a man tied up and blindfolded about 30m away, give or take. Not to mention her threatening him with a red-hot poker stick.

She has no intention of killing this thug, even if he did try to abduct her father - no, of course she doesn't plan to kill him. It's simply that their lives appear to be in danger (when are they not?), and drastic times call for drastic measures.

Emily's pretty sure Nolan would most definitely not see it the same way. He would probably throw a fit if he found out - in fact, she can practically hear the lecture spilling out from his mouth: Torture, Emily? Really? Kidnapping Charlotte was a drastic measure, too, but Nolan seemed up for that plan of action.

Would Aiden approve, though? she thinks. A small voice in her head says no, but she brushes this aside. She will never know what Aiden thinks anymore, thanks to Victoria. And with that, her resolve strengthens. She will do whatever it takes to protect her father. How can she have a relationship with him if he insists on distance from her? The only logical way forward is to simply get rid of this unseen enemy.

"Emily!" a voice calls out in the near distance. "Or... Amanda? Which do you prefer, anyway?"

Recognising the voice, Emily sighs deeply, before opening her eyes to see none other than Daniel Grayson approaching her stretch of the beach. "What do you want?" she asks. God, how many more of these conversations do I have to take? And why the hell is he here at this time of night?

"No seriously, what should I be calling you when it's just the two of us?" he continues, ignoring her question as he joins her on the sand.

Emily snorts. "What makes you think there'll be a next time?"

Oddly enough, this only makes him smile. "Look, I'm not here to fight. I just want to talk." He holds up both hands in a gesture of surrender reminiscent of their previous conversation. Emily merely raises her eyebrows at him, indicating her willingness to engage. For now, anyway.

"Who else knows who you really are, anyway? Nolan, I presume. And Ja -"

"If you're here to interrogate me, then -"

"Alright, alright," Daniel says, backing down. "That's not what I came here to ask you, anyway." He clears his throat.

He's nervous, she realises, amused. She is suddenly reminded of their second meeting at the polo club; he'd hesitated somewhat before asking her out on a date.

"When we were in the elevator, you said... You said that there was a time when the feelings were real. If I hadn't sided with my father," he asks, pausing, "would we - could we have had a proper relationship?"

Emily frowns, wondering where on earth he is going with this. She feels his eyes on her as he waits for an answer, and cannot help but think that this conversation is sure to end badly, no matter what each of them says. No matter how much each of them hopes it won't.

"That is what I said the first time," she replies, a slight edge to her tone. "And anyway, what does it matter now? You did choose your father. There's nothing left to be said."

"What if I said I regret those decisions now?" he asks, and yes, she senses a hint of remorse in his voice, but no amount of regret can change the past.

"Then I'd say good for you, Daniel," says Emily, with barely concealed sarcasm. "Look, it's been a long day, and I'd really like to end this conversation before it takes a turn for the worse. Goodnight."

She gets up, tapping his back once as she leaves, but has taken barely ten steps towards the manor when she hears Daniel call out once more.

"Emily!"

Perhaps it is cold of her, but she keeps walking anyway. She is in no mood for a heart-to-heart, and especially not one with Daniel Grayson.

"Emily, wait. Emily!" he calls out. And then, "Amanda!"

She freezes in her tracks, and he knows he has gotten to her. Seconds, and then Emily is turning around, taking large strides towards him that convey fury with every step.

"Don't," she breathes, "call me that." Their noses almost touching, he can see that she is shaking slightly, anger etched in every fibre of her body. In a twisted way, he is both fascinated yet slightly frightened by this woman, this Emily Thorne he has never seen before. This, he supposes, is the Amanda side to her, a side she'd never allowed herself to show him before. He finds it both funny yet sad that they have been on countless dates, made love God knows how many times, and been engaged twice (he doesn't count the marriage, because, well, of obvious reasons), but he has never actually known her until the events of these past few days. Until Charlotte had told him the truth.

It seems like several long minutes before Emily backs away from him, a tone of warning in her voice as she says icily, "You lost the right to call me that when you shot me. Twice."

Daniel had expected this from her, and he can't blame her for it (not fully, anyway). But his self-preservation instincts soon kick in (Gee, where on earth did I get that from? he thinks sarcastically) and he feels the need to plead his case.

"I'd just found out that Sara had tried to kill herself, and that you'd lied to me about the baby," he argues. "I was drunk and upset, and I know it's no excuse, but you have to understand how angry and betrayed I was. I was in love with you! God, I loved you so much, only to find out you'd been playing me all along!"

"Yes, a love so strong that you cheated on me with Sara weeks before our wedding," Emily laughs scornfully. "You strayed even before you found out about the fake pregnancy, Daniel, and we both know about Conrad inducting you into the little Grayson love shack. Tell me again how strong your love for me was?" She should walk away from this toxic relationship between them, walk away and etch into her brain the fact that she can never start a family of her own because of this man. But she stays where she is, if only to see what other excuses Daniel will come up with now.

"First of all, I told you, I didn't sleep with her - at least not before the wedding. And second of all, you told me I was going to be a father, that we were about to start a family together, and then you took that all away. Do you have any idea what that did to me? I was ready to start a new life with you, raise a child the right -"

"The right way? Like your father did with you, you mean?"

Daniel is silent now, at a loss for words, and even Emily can't help but feel like she might have taken it too far this time around.

"I'm not doing this with you," she says finally, after a tense silence that seems to stretch on for miles. She turns to leave once more, no hesitation as she makes her way home. There is complete silence when she leaves this time, the only sound that of the waves crashing on the shore.

Aiden? Aiden, are you okay?

The second Emily sees his face, with his eyes staring blankly and his mouth agape, she knows there is something wrong, and even as she pleads with him to wake up, she knows she has lost him for good. Gripping his jacket tightly, Emily shakes him, touches his face - anything to get him to come back to her. God, no, this can't be real. This can't be happening.

Aiden, wake up. Aiden, wake up!

The silence is chilling.

"I see you received my gift."

Emily looks up to see Victoria standing in the doorway of her beach house, a slight smile playing on her lips. Hatred immediately burns every inch of her being at the sight of this woman who has ruined her life over and over again. She stands up to face her head on, a part of her simply itching to inflict some kind of bodily harm, but before she can act on this impulse Victoria lifts up a shotgun to point it directly at her.

"What are you waiting for?" Emily asks, completely unafraid. "Do it. Shoot, and end this whole thing right now." She welcomes death now - at least she can be reunited with her father and Aiden.

Victoria smiles, her finger poised to pull the trigger. But the second Emily blinks, she finds herself staring down a different gun, with a different person at the end of it. Victoria is gone now, replaced by Daniel, whose hand is on her gun.

"You ruined my life. You manipulated me to get to my family," he says steadily. In fact, Daniel doesn't look drunk at all, not like he was on their wedding night, and somehow this makes Emily feel even worse. She makes to explain herself.

"Daniel -"

He pulls the trigger.

Emily wakes up with a start.

Just a dream, she thinks, then takes several deep breaths to calm herself down and wipes the tears on her face. My father's alive. But Aiden...

Emily gets out of bed, checking her bedside clock. 4.32. It was nearly 2 in the morning when she'd finally settled into bed in Thorne Manor, as Nolan affectionately calls it nowadays, and she'd been left alone in this tremendously huge house that will never be home (the irony that 20,000 square feet can make you feel claustrophobic is not lost on her). There is no way in hell she'll be able to sleep now, not after a dream like that, so she decides she can probably clock some hours working out, maybe go for a swim - definitely a more productive use of her time than thinking about Aiden's death and her disastrous wedding. Besides, she has gotten some intel from her prisoner, so now all that's left is to figure out if Alvarez is the double agent, she thinks. First stop of the day: Jack. Huh. It really is useful having a cop for a friend.

SECURITY CAMERAS OFFLINE.

I know you better than anybody, Ems, Nolan thinks. So what on earth are you up to?

When he first gets to Thorne Manor he scours the foyer, the study that used to belong to Conrad, the upstairs bedrooms... Nothing. Emily must be off somewhere carrying out her revenge-y things. That leaves... the pool house.

So when Nolan opens a door to what used to be a wardrobe and finds a man handcuffed to the railing, he is both in disbelief yet completely unsurprised, because he is well aware of the fact that when it comes to David, Emily knows no boundaries. But still. When he signed up for this little Revenge Club he never, in his right mind, expected to be involved in such questionable activities. Not to mention illegal. Nolan sighs, knowing full well what he's about to do will inevitably piss Em off.

Listen, I know I'm not in a position to ask for a favour -

I will always watch out for Emily. Don't worry.

Several hours later Nolan sits in his house - Em's prisoner having been dealt with and released - still trying to wrap his head around what he's just witnessed. There is no doubt in his mind that he loves Emily, and will do whatever it takes to protect her because she is his family, but jeez, sometimes he feels he's bitten off more than he can chew. He thinks of the innocent little girl that David described to him 18 years ago, and then he thinks about the instruments of torture he found in the manor's pool house earlier today. He can't reconcile the two images of her, honestly.

As if right on cue, he hears footsteps coming from outside his doorstep, and thinks, Alright, here we go. 3, 2, 1...

"Found this in my pool house," says Emily, everything about her body language tense as she places his button on the counter top. "Where is he, Nolan?"

"You mean the guy you had strung up like a roast pig in a luau? I set him free. Torture, Emily? Really?" he asks her disbelievingly. "How far were you gonna go?"

"You had no right! My father was attacked twice; if that thug comes back and hurts him, it's on your hands."

"Trust me: he won't. I'm worried about you, Emily, and so is David. He came by the club today and apologised."

"Oh, well I'm glad your relationship with my father's back on track; I'm still fighting for mine!" says Emily, evidently somewhat bitter at this revelation.

"And he's fighting for you! He's trying to protect you."

She continues as though she hasn't heard him. "The second attacker was found at the police station hanged; I believe that someone who had the power to get close murdered him, someone like Alvarez. We can't just leave this alone!"

"I'm sorry, Ems. I'm not helping you," Nolan replies firmly. "And neither will anyone else who knows what you're up to." He would do anything for her and she knows it, but he also knows that he needs to set healthy boundaries sometimes - like refusing to harbour capital murderers. And refusing to allow his best friend to physically torture a man in her pool house. What did he say to David today? "She told me she would stay out of it, so you have to trust her. She will."

What on earth was I thinking?

Daniel sits on his bar stool, alternating between staring blankly into space and thinking about Margaux. Occasionally he finds his thoughts also drifting towards Emily, namely the last three conversations they've had recently. He will freely admit to himself that Charlotte's revelation has piqued his curiosity about his ex-wife (who was already very mysterious to him throughout their time together) once more. For the past year his impression of her was that of a grifter who'd schemed and manipulated her way into marrying him, all for the money and status, but now... Damn, he has never felt so blindsided in his life.

Emily isn't who she says she is... Daniel, Emily is Amanda Clarke.

What?

After the initial shock had worn off, he'd found himself thinking about everything that had transpired between him and Emily - from their first meeting at the yacht party, to the proposal, to their wedding... Had it all really been a lie? Emily Thorne is Amanda Clarke. Her motivation had not been money and status after all, but revenge. The more he thought about it, the more it all made sense: why she'd always been so closed off when it came to talking about her family, the change in demeanour after his Nightline interview, her disgust when he covered up Conrad's role in the car crash that killed Father Paul... He could go on and on with this list.

I feel like an idiot, Daniel thinks sourly.

But then again, once the initial anger at being lied to had worn off, he found himself feeling less antagonistic and more... sympathetic.

David Clarke had been innocent, and his parents had taken everything away from him, including his little girl. To think of Amanda being ripped away from her father at the age of 9... To think that it was Emily who'd suffered that fate. It was no wonder she'd come back wanting to avenge him.

Daniel downs the rest of his drink in one gulp, then orders another.

"Is, uh, Nolan in his office yet?"

There is no mistaking the voice of someone whom you were intimately close to for 2 years, and Daniel quickly spots his ex-wife just a few tables away, sitting on a bar stool and talking to one of the club's staff.

"No, but he said he'd back by last call to sort out my payroll."

"Thanks," she replies, checking her phone.

It takes Daniel all of 3 seconds to impulsively decide he wants to speak to Emily again, even after the semi-disaster of their last conversation barely 10 hours ago. He walks over, casually tossing his jacket onto the counter.

"What are you doing here?" she immediately asks, looking at him with a mixture of annoyance and resignation.

"Trying to woo back an old client, but since he's not around, I'm just here drinking to my sad life. And to our parents, whom I'm starting to believe are actually in love," he replies, half-joking, half-serious.

"Go away, Daniel," she says in a half-hearted attempt at making him leave. He ignores this.

It might be the alcohol in his bloodstream talking, but as Daniel looks his ex-wife up and down he can't help but notice how pretty she looks - if pretty is even an appropriate word for Emily. Cheesy as it sounds, she has always been more than just pretty to him. When they'd first met, he saw her as beautiful, independent, smart. She was magnetic.

"You look good," he blurts out, and is immediately greeted with a look of disbelief from her that says "Are you actually saying this to me right now?" Great, he thinks. Stupid alcohol talking, now there's a need for damage control. "You out on a date? Want me to call the poor guy and read him his last rites?" Yup, much better.

"You know, I'm really not in the mood to be doing whatever it is we've been doing lately, so -"

"What, having honest conversations probably for the first time ever? Yeah, it sucks." Emily says nothing, merely takes a sip of her drink. "You know, I'm starting to realise why we didn't work. We're the same person."

She laughs derisively.

"Yeah, we're stubborn as hell, and we use people without giving a damn about who gets hurt in the process."

"That is not who I am."

"Oh, but it is. I see you, Emily," Daniel says, smiling and feeling pretty pleased with himself. "I see you." Again she says nothing, merely raises an eyebrow at his remark while he ploughs on with this one-way conversation.

"So tell me, who you hurting these days? Alright, I'll go first. Margaux, the best woman I've been with in years - no offence - wants nothing more to do with me because I'm an ass." He doesn't know why he's saying all these things, and least of all why he's saying them to his ex-wife. Probably the alcohol. Blame it all on the alcohol.

"Well, we're not friends, Daniel, so I'm not gonna prop you up and tell you to go fight for Margaux; you don't fight for anything." He pauses at this statement, surprised to find himself hurt by it.

"Huh. Ouch."

"Yeah. Well, I see you, too," she says matter-of-factly, before getting up to leave.

"Hey Em." He grabs her elbow, not even sure why he has to tell her what he's about to say, but he does anyway. "You really do look pretty tonight," he says honestly, and is met by another raised eyebrow. "And I think that means you're up to something. I just hope the poor guy isn't wearing his heart on his sleeve, because trust me... you'll use it." I should know.

When she leaves, he finishes the rest of his drink in one.

A/N: This is my very first piece of work ever, so it goes without saying that reviews and constructive criticism will be very, very appreciated! Reviews are to me what Emily is to Daniel - I love them and can never get enough (｡◕ ∀ ◕｡)