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Abort

Chapter 7

On her seventeenth day, Emily opens her eyes. It happens suddenly, it happens slowly. Charlotte is mid-sentence, rambling about what it would be like to spend her days with Carl and her niece or nephew. She is telling Emily about how much she would have liked to have had Declan's child, she's telling her personal things she never had the courage to write down in her journal for fear of her mother reading it and confronting her. Things she never had the courage to think about for too long. She is talking about how much she misses Declan and how she would have liked for her baby to have Declan's hair. She is telling Emily she thinks it's better that her baby is with Declan because she doesn't think she could have raised a baby by herself around her parents and that is when Emily's eyes flutter. Charlotte thinks she is imagining it; she has imagined Emily waking from her slumber three times already. The nurses now call her the girl who cried Emily.

It is when Emily languidly blinks that her talking stills and she freezes, still not sure if she is imaging this or not. The blonde in front of her does everything slowly, she is blinking, trying to gauge her surroundings, she is gradually moving her hands, moving her toes; she is checking her body. Emily finally wakes up after over two weeks being in the hospital and the first thing she does is check her body for injuries. Charlotte files that piece of information away in her mind for future musings. She doesn't know if to speak up or wait for Emily to notice her presence; she doesn't want to startle her, but she has missed her so much.

"Emily…?" Charlotte squeaks, Emily lets out a girlish yelp at the sound of the voice and Charlotte breaks into a smile. "I've missed you so much," Charlotte rushes out of her chair to envelope Emily into a hug. The blonde winces in her arms, but she doesn't push her away (she doesn't hug her back either). "Should I call the doctors for you?" She asks pulling away.

"Why am I here?" Emily asks slowly, her eyebrows furrowed. She opens her mouth to ask something else but screws her mouth shut.

"You were shot twice in the abdomen," Charlotte steps back to examine Emily's face. Emily gasps and draws a hand to her mouth, Charlotte frowns. Emily Thorne doesn't gasp, neither does she yelp.

"I was shot?" She repeated in a low voice, her dark eyes wide with fear; Charlotte backs up until she is against the door. Every time Emily does something she cannot place, Charlotte takes a step away.

"I think I'll go get the doctor now," she says before she scrambles into the hallway. "She's awake, she's awake!" She grabs the first nurse she sees roughly and tears spring from her eyes. The nurse gives Charlotte a one over and nods her head; this time they believe her.

"Who's awake?" One asks but Charlotte never answers because she's not sure if the woman in the room is Emily or not.

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Daniel is on his way, so is their mother and Conrad. The doctors and nurses examine Emily extensively and all deem Emily in perfect health; they smiley politely when she answers their questions and even when she draws a blank, they still smile. Twenty-five minutes later they leave her room with talk about MRI's and CAT scans. Two of them approach Charlotte slowly; she doesn't like the expressions they bring on their faces with them. She doesn't like the slow deliberate steps they take or the way they exchange a pointed look.

"You were right, she's awake," one starts then looks to the other for help.

"She has amnesia," the other cuts in dryly, "there was no way for us to tell until she woke up. It was expected after all the trauma she induced from the shots and from the impact with the water."

"Tr-trauma?" Charlotte stutters, she was never good dealing with hospitals.

"Sometimes people like to hide inside of their minds when they undergo trauma as a coping mechanism. The best thing you can do for her is to talk to her like you usually would. She's still the same Emily, she just doesn't know it," the other tries to speak soothingly, "you don't want to set her off into any more of a panic. Right now, you're the only person she knows, you're the first person she woke up to so you're going to be very important in jogging her memory. Make her feel safe, make her feel protected and her memories should resurface." The doctor smiles softly at the younger girl before the two white coats take their leave. Charlotte hastily wipes her eyes and sniffles resoundingly before she makes her way to Emily's side. To the Emily who was there when she was in rehab, who held her hand and listened when she complained about her parents and about the food they served for lunch.

"Hi," Emily offers with a forced smile. She is still brave, she is still strong, she is still Emily; Charlotte is chanting to herself. She likes to jog in the morning after her morning coffee, she forgets to have lunch on her busy days and she likes to hold Carl in her arms whenever Jack comes over. She tries to think of other things but draws a blank when Emily's brown eyes look at her curiously.

"Hi, can I come in?" Charlotte almost hopes Emily will say no, but she doesn't. Emily is gracious, she is polite, she is kind; Charlotte tells herself, of course she won't say no.

"Sure," Emily replies her eyes still probing Charlotte's. Emily's hands are clasped together tightly in her lap and she is wringing them methodically, leaving red marks all over her fingers and knuckles. It looks painful but Charlotte doesn't say anything about it. Emily doesn't seem to notice she does it, and Charlotte wonders if it is an old habit that resurfaced. Something else she files away in her mind.

"I'm Charlotte," the younger girl gives a small awkward wave. She fits into her chair next to Emily's bed like she always does, except this time she's afraid to speak but Emily is sitting up and looking at her as if she had all the answers.

"Are you afraid?" Emily asks the girl, still wringing her hands. Charlotte nods and Emily's chestnut eyes smile sadly, "me too."

There is a pause.

"I'm your sister-in-law," Charlotte contributes, her eyes downcast as she stars at her lap. She wishes her brother and her parents would hurry up, but then again she wishes her parents would never make it to the hospital, especially since this Emily can't defend herself from their subtle attacks. At the thought, Charlotte sits up straight and scoots closer to the hospital bed.

"I'm married…?" Emily asks slowly and her eyes immediately travel to her left hand where a lovely diamond is twinkling at her.

"You're…um," Charlotte stops when she notices Emily's downcast demeanor, "so how are you feeling?"

"What were you going to say?" This Emily is not easily fooled, and she is stubborn, just like the old Emily. The similarities make Charlotte relax in her seat. But this Emily is gentle when she speaks, she is cautious, she is curious; she's not as intense, she's not as calculating, she's not as condescending, she's not as quiet. So the differences between the old Emily and the new one resurface again.

"I don't think I should be the one to tell you, I mean-"

"Did someone die?" Emily's eyes widen and Charlotte looks away because Emily almost died, because her baby almost died.

"You almost died, that's why you can't remember anything," Charlotte says slowly. This Emily is expressive, she's open and she doesn't bother to hide her feelings behind a giant façade, it's more than Charlotte has ever seen from her, "that's why you can't remember being pregnant."

"Pregnant?" Emily shakes her head, "no I can't be pregnant, I was shot in the stomach, the doctors said I was shot. Someone tried to kill me. Someone tried to-"

"Emily," Charlotte is out of her chair and at Emily's side instantly. The blonde is trashing her hands and shaking her head furiously. "Emily please calm down," it is only when Charlotte wraps her hands around the other woman that Emily freezes. "The baby survived, the doctors say it's a miracle baby." Charlotte is rubbing Emily's shoulders up and down in a way she remembers her father doing for her when she was younger. "It will be okay, Emily, don't worry."

But Emily doesn't stop worrying. She is shaking in Charlotte's arms, her breathing is irregular and her heart beat speeds up on the monitor. A nurse takes hasty steps into the room and motions for Charlotte to move away but she doesn't; she won't, not when Emily's at her worst.

"Mrs. Grayson," the nurse calls loudly, but Emily can't hear her. She's lost inside her mind, all the while her heart monitor beeps precariously. "You need to calm down," the nurse repeats, "if you don't we're going to have to inject you with-"

"No!" Charlotte commands, her voice silencing the nurse. Emily already has enough needles inside of her, she already had enough of doctors poking around her insides, she had enough of them poking around her mind. "I won't let you knock her out." The nurse doesn't need to knock Emily out because she faints in Charlotte's arms. The nurse opens her mouth to speak again but Charlotte gives her a fierce glare until she leaves the room. The nurse closes the door behind her and Charlotte sighs heavily.

When her parents and her brother arrive a few minutes later, Charlotte is sitting on the hospital bed, trying to smoothen Emily's curls. She is almost kind of glad Emily fainted, she doesn't want her family to see Emily like this. Not even her brother. Not when he barely visits his hospitalized wife, not when he never steps inside of her room, not when he never bothers to speak to Emily's unconscious figure. She loves them, but she doesn't trust them with Emily or her niece or nephew's life. Emily had always looked out for her, she had always offered her a safe place, so now it was high time Charlotte started repaying her debts.

"The doctors called and said she was awake," Conrad is the first one to speak.

"She panicked so much she fainted," Charlotte admits ruefully.

"She panicked?" Victoria asks prudently, "why would she panic?" Daniel stiffens but he never says a word. His eyes are locked on the tiled floor.

"Because she can't remember anything, she has amnesia," is all Charlotte is willing to say before she turns her attention back to the blonde beside her. She can't imagine what it would have been like if Emily was still awake to be the subject of her mother's disdain and not know why. Of her father's cool disinterest or her brother's sudden aloofness. When the doctors usher her family out of the room to talk about Emily's condition as well as the condition of Emily's plus one in detail, Charlotte declines and volunteers to stay with Emily in case she wakes up again.

She will stay by Emily's side until Emily dismisses her, she decides, because Emily's family is never going to walk into the hospital and whisk her away from the Graysons and their toxic lifestyles. She doesn't have one, so Charlotte vows to be the only family Emily has left.

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charlotte is going all mama bear in dis joint kids