Chapter 1: Pilot

Disclaimer: I don't own Revenge (the TV show, anyway)

Emily

"Hold on to your hat."

Nolan says the thought gently, softly, as if he really does mean it, but wishes with everything he has that he didn't. The release of air, the tired exhalation—it is of regret. Of disappointment. It is of painstakingly climbing a hill, killing yourself to reach the top, of telling yourself 'Just a little farther. Hold on just a little longer' the entire time, and then realizing once you've reached the top that there is in fact an even bigger mountain to climb up ahead.

Hold on to your hat, he whispered, leaving out the best part. This is going to be a bumpy ride.

Emily listens politely, but not intently. Not to his last little comment before pressing the play button, at least. Nolan has always taken habit of placing theatrics in moments where there are none, and she has in turn learned to overlook his additions. Therefore, it is not until the blurry but still recognizable—and recently deceased, might she add—woman on the computer screen begins to talk that Emily finally understands her friend's choice of words.

Her brown eyes widen in response to the video's actions, her hands clenching tightly into angry fists on her lap. The lucid taste of a condensed gasp dances across her tongue. "What did she say?" Emily quietly murmurs while she pauses the three people in place, each of her tear glazed pupils twitching from side to side as she runs the last seconds over again in her mind. "That they killed my mother too?" Judging by the Grayson's not so immaculate track record, the idea of this is not absurd. If they were going to go to the trouble of killing David Clarke, why not the crazy ex-wife as well?

It would really just be tying up loose ends at this point.

To Emily's surprise, however, from beside her Nolan dips his head in submission. "No," He breathes slowly, making eye contact with her so that she fully understands the legitimacy to his words. "What she's saying is that…" His lips scrunch, pursing as he looks to his joined hands before finding their way back to Emily's. "Your mother's alive."

Swallowing thickly, she digests this with ease. Her eyes once again flit horizontally, searching for a way to make sense of this. Cold hard fact, evidence, and Nolan Ross had always been the basis of her conclusions when it came to discovering the secrets that were strung between the Grayson's and the Clarke's. Usually it came in a different order than that, but otherwise her decisions of what to believe generally weighed heavily on what the three had to say for themselves. In this context, the fact is that her mother is still alive. The evidence consists of the three people she hates most in the world littered in front of a desk, speaking of such. And Nolan Ross is the one presenting her with this information.

Check, check, and check.

The natural response to things that scare us is to hide from them. To run, and stay as far away as possible because in our minds, what we can't see can't really hurt us. Her heart begins racing at the newly found revelation of her mother, but instead of fleeing from the situation like so many others would do, Emily Thorne holds her ground. The Grayson's don't scare her, not anymore. Their lies are daunting, but what frightens her even more than knowing of what they've done, is not knowing. After all, it's the things we don't know we're afraid of yet that end up being the most terrifying.

"Let it play." She declares. Her tone fills with disgust for Victoria, Conrad, and Gordon Murphy.

Nolan does as he's told, the video instantaneously being restored to its prior activity, and they listen in absolute silence for the next few minutes. He's right, Emily ponders to herself while they view the footage of Grayson Global's #12 security camera, absorbing the things Victoria said almost twenty years ago.

He's right.

"David told me that his wife was no longer with him, which is technically true." The 1993, black and white version of Victoria Grayson speaks. "But she isn't dead." The camera must be set up in the far right hand corner of the room, supervising the whole from afar. Audio for the instrument runs impeccably well, but it's the visual portion that could use some adjusting. The image is hazy, shaky, and unclear—unable to make any up close distinctions of the video's characters—although Emily is nevertheless well aware of the famous pucker currently presenting itself on Victoria's lips. "Far from it."

"So why would he lead everyone to believe that she was?" Gordon Murphy asks, the back of his head to the screen, but his shock white hair still very noticeable.

"He has his reasons." Victoria answers vaguely. "He went to go visit her today, to ask for a divorce."

Up until now, the trio had taken to the silhouette of a triangle; Murphy at the bottom left, Conrad as his opposing twin, and Victoria at the very top. "Ah, so he could marry you, I suppose." The shape changes tremendously when Conrad takes the time to leave his fixed position to no doubt grab a glass of scotch from the front of the room. "The man's an even bigger fool than I thought." He adds as he does so.

Murphy turns away from the conversation so that his face is at last to the lens. "If that's true, and he tells her about your relationship, that makes her a liability."

Victoria's response is short and to the point. "Why do you think I'm telling you all about this?"

Nineteen years go by in seconds, the past freezing in place, the present suddenly becoming vocal once more. Emily's eyes close for a brief instant of contemplation. Nolan recounts what he has just experienced for the second time today.

"What makes you think they didn't just kill her after this?" Emily finally mutters, angling her body away from the computer's direction and to Nolan's. Her thigh comes up to rest on the couch cushions, her ankle tucking itself under the knee of the other leg. "Let's say that they're being honest—that my mother was alive all those years, and for some reason my father was lying about it. But what about after this meeting stopped being recorded? As Murphy said, she was a liability. How does the difference in time of her death change anything?"

"That's the thing, though, Ems." Nolan counters, turning to face her the same way she just did to him. "We don't actually know what happened to her. Did they kill her? Maybe. But we don't know. The video cuts out after this, so what did they end up doing? What ever happened to Kara Wallace?"

That is a very good question. What did ever happen to Kara Wallace? If Americon Initiative wanted her dead, then she's most likely been gone for years. But what if they decided to do something else with her? Emily shudders at the possibility that she's been locked away somewhere this whole time, being tortured for information she doesn't know anything about.

If she had a different life—if she were a different person—Emily would probably be fantasizing stories of how Kara Wallace went on to find another husband, to have another child. To live the way Emily knows she never will, with a normal, boring family, in a normal, boring neighborhood, never thinking or remembering the one's she had first. David and Amanda Clarke are perhaps nothing but distant memories that leave sour tangs in the back of her throat and an ache in her heart.

The ability to imagine and dream has been taken from Emily, though. She knows that fairytales and happy endings belong in stories, not the real world. Emily will never be happily married with children, living somewhere in the suburbs with a white picket fence, driving a minivan, sporting mom jeans and a short haircut to match. The happiest ending for Kara Wallace would have been to die a natural death before David Clarke even met the Grayson's, and the happiest ending for Emily…

Well, would be to make it out of this revenge game alive.

Abruptly, her pant leg begins to vibrate against her outer thigh, starting as a subtle tremble and quickly escalating to a rapid pulse. Drr…drrrrr…drrrrrrrr…drrrrrrrrrrrr…drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Her train of thought lost, a hand flies to the vibrating device and pulls the ringing cell phone out of her pocket without second thought. An eyebrow immediately quirks in surprise to the name attached to the contact.

"Guess who's calling me," She says, prodding the still-buzzing phone closer to Nolan's face.

His expression instantly changes to one of annoyance. "Think he's calling to gloat about the death of the late queen of the Hamptons?"

"Either that, or to beg me to take his son back." Contributes Emily before sighing once, putting on a fake smile, and taking on an even faker tone of sympathy. She has no desire to talk to him right now, but for some reason, a small voice inside her head advises her to click the accept button. "Oh, Conrad!" She gushes, rolling her eyes for emphasis to Nolan. "I'm so sorry! I only just saw the news! Are they sure Victoria was on the plane? Is there anything I can do?"

Nolan rolls his eyes, too.

"Emily, thank god!" Conrad responds, his tenor deep, the usual condescending nature gone and replaced with panic. A tearless sob escapes him from the other end of the receiver. He sounds nothing like the arrogant bastard he is. "You have to get over here. I know about you and Daniel, but I really need your help."

Her sneer falls, all insincerity gone. Something is wrong. Nolan's appearance also drops to one of confusion as he detects the change in Emily's demeanor. 'What is it?' He mouths, his head bobbing forward in an attempt to hear better.

She pushes the cell phone closer to her ear. "Conrad, what's wrong?" The façade falls down at the realization that this can't possibly be about the demise of his wife. He is far too upset.

"It's Charlotte."

Emily's mouth drops in shock, her stomach tightening in a way that makes her feel as if she's going to be sick while she thinks about possibly the only living member of her family being in any sort of serious harm. "Conrad, what are you talking about? What is wrong with Charlotte? Is she okay?"

There is loud crash, and then the line goes completely dead.

For a moment, she simply stares at Nolan in disbelief, her head trembling back and forth as she tries to figure out what is going on. Her fingers dial back the number, only to be sent straight to voice mail, and she tosses the useless mobile into the pillows in frustration. Two firm hands grab either one of her shoulders and gently shake; causing her to comprehend that Nolan has been calling her name for some time now.

"Emily, Emily, Emily." He repeats, his movement picking up with speed each second. "What the hell is going on? What did Conrad say?"

"I have no idea," She retorts, standing to her feet in a hurry, her arms crossing over her chest. "He was freaking out, saying I needed to come over there. He said something about Charlotte—"

All of a sudden, the allusive noise of an alarm resounds deafeningly throughout the house, cutting her off, bright lights rapidly flashing through the windows' long white curtains and doing pirouettes across the hard wood floors. Like moth's attracted to an open flame, Emily and Nolan are drawn to the transparent glass, peering anxiously through to catch sight of a speeding ambulance pull into the Grayson's expansive driveway.

The pair gasps in unison.

"What the—"

Emily doesn't catch the last part of Nolan's rare use of profanity because she is already out of range to hear it. Her heart pounds violently in her chest, each throb causing an echo to take its place in her head, her strides hastening as she takes the porch steps two at a time on the way down. The pace she is at again quickens once she has touched solid ground. It takes no less than a minute or so to reach the front yard of Grayson Manor, the screeching wails of the alarm much louder and the lights brighter than earlier.

Her eyes search the scene, registering despite all the disorientation a black stretcher being carried through the front door by half a dozen paramedics. Her body automatically pushes closer to the chaos, easily ignoring the January frost currently nipping at her through the off-white sweater she's wearing.

"Excuse, me?" She asks the closest EMT, her hand rising up to clutch the snowflake shaped symbol sewed onto his shirt sleeve. "Can you please tell me what's going on here?"

The graying man looks at her once, and then pulls away from her grasp so that he can reach the emergency. "You need to back away, miss. This is a private matter."

It is now that she sees he's holding an oxygen mask. She halts in apprehension, letting the paramedic retreat back to his designated job, squeezing her eyes shut so that she can decide whether or not she really wants to see who's on the stretcher—and in what condition. Her stomach flips again in unease.

"Emily!" Someone calls.

She blinks twice and snaps her head up to find Conrad has now stepped out of the house only a few seconds after the wheeling stretcher. It doesn't take long for her to see that the motionless individual on it is wearing the bright orange night gown of her sister. Her limbs tremor in horror, the same way Conrad's do in genuine fear for the girl he no longer discerns as his biological offspring.

Her hand placed heavily over her mouth in astonishment, fright, and all out dismay, Emily at last comes to an abrupt halt in front of the man who was essentially the master mind behind ruining, and then ending, her father's life. Pure hatred instantly boils beneath her skin, the hairs on her arms standing on end in wariness the way they always do when she come's in close proximity to either of the elder Grayson's.

Somehow, with an inaudible sigh and a colossal amount of self-control, though, Emily manages to push aside the permanent suspicion for the time being so that it is only a faint twinge—something she is still very much aware of, but not the only thing circulating her thoughts. Plans and schemes of revenge temporally fall to background noise, and she puts her full attention to the issue at hand.

"Conrad, what the hell is going on?" She cries to him above the squealing ambulance, involuntarily walking nearer to him. "What is wrong with Charlotte? She's not…" Her questions trail off. The mere idea is too ludicrous to continue.

A quivering hand of Conrad's runs through his silver locks, causing Emily to realize that Daniel has inherited that very same trait. It means he is at a complete loss for words. "I…I don't know." He mumbles innocuously, shaking his head slowly. "I…think she tried to kill herself."

Emily can do nothing but stare wide-eyed at him, her emotions racing in about a million different directions so that she feels as if she might cry, but also want to scream and kick and hurt until what he has just said is no longer the truth. Her eye's then sting, her body fixed, her throat closing. "W-what do you mean she tried to kill herself? Why would she do such a thing?"

"I don't know." He repeats solemnly. "There was an empty bottle of pills next to her bed, her cellphone was thrown aside next to her on top of the covers, and the TV was off. Maybe she saw the news…maybe someone said something to her. I don't know. All I do know is that I just walked into my daughter's room to find her unconscious just hours after her mother died."

The phrase 'I'm definitely going to be sick' runs through her head right as one of the EMT's yell from the open ambulance "Heart-rate is plummeting! We need to get her to the hospital ASAP!"

They say the body register's things much quicker than the mind does. The brain is fragile and needs time to fully understand before it can go on to accept a circumstance, but the body…it doesn't need time. The body can be impulsive, responding to things without rhyme or reason if the habit of routine is present. If instinct kicks in, then there is no wait for the mind to catch up. It just goes, as Emily witness's Conrad's doing when he hears the status of Charlotte's health.

It doesn't matter that she's not technically his daughter. It doesn't matter that her real ties are to a man he framed for terrorism nearly twenty years ago. All his body knows is that the girl he raised is in a fatal condition, and that he's not going to stand around while it happens.

It is at that exact moment that Emily realizes love is instinct, and at the end of the day, your brain has absolutely no say in it. You don't get to choose who you love in life, it just sort of happens.

Conrad runs to the vehicle at full speed, jumping in among the professionals and not turning back until the last second, as if he has only now remembered he never said goodbye. His face is a mask, unreadable, but his eyes…those steel gray pits that are usually so vastly filled with nothingness are now occupied, bursting with such a pure honesty, they hypnotize Emily into almost believing people can change. That even bad people can feel sad sometimes.

"Emily!" He yells for the third and final time that evening through the closing doors, forcing her to listen. "You need to find Daniel!"

Maybe it's his concluding line, maybe it's the breeze that rolls by at that precise second, or maybe it's a little bit of both of the loneliness and the cold, whatever it is, Emily violently shiver's—the kind of shiver that makes you wrap your arms around yourself and hold everything together as if your entire frame will fall apart. The queasiness that had made itself a friend since Conrad called and told her about Charlotte sharply jolts the pit of her stomach. Her throat tightens in anticipation for what is to come, and with a hand lightly on her abdomen, she discretely spins around and empties the day's food into the dead flower bushes lining either side of the driveway.

Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she slowly rotates around again in embarrassment to view on of the paramedics shut the back doors. From what she saw, everyone seemed too busy crowding Charlotte to notice her little episode.

The ambulance drives off swiftly after that, full of people who attempt to save a girl who simply wanted to die.

There is only silence once they are gone.

REVIEWS ARE LOVE!

A/N

So here is my third and final go at this story. If you are someone who has read this from the very, very beginning, then you will notice how different this pilot is. I have all these new idea's that I'm really excited about and so I am basically rewriting it all with some paragraphs and scene's that I could salvage from the original stuff. Anyways, hope you liked it! I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Hopefully, I will have this updated by next week.

xoxoxo

-secretlife1201

P.S. If you haven't noticed, the title and summary of this story suck. For anyone who has read this from the beginning and would like to come up with one's for me, that would be greatly appreciated:)