In time, I know you'll see. | Reven8e

summary: In the wake of her blackouts, Emily decides to tell Charlotte something - anything - so that she doesn't lose her sister forever. The result might bring Emily closer to her family than ever before. / Contains content from 3x15, "Struggle," but canonically happens before Emily's blackouts are over.

notes: You can read this here, on AO3, or on tumblr. I have the same username everywhere. Wherever you read, enjoy and feel free to give feedback.

Emily imagined that was how her life was supposed to be — with Charlotte smiling at the sight of her and Emily sweeping the sand from her baby sister's shoes before their dad could've noticed the mess. They would've done it with a shared giggle when he slipped near the couch and a promise to keep their secrets just for the two of them.

When Charlotte showed up at the beach house that day, tracking little bits of sand wherever she stepped, Emily smiled even wider than in her fake wedding pictures. Charlotte greeted her, all smiles and outspread arms.

"Emily, hi!"

"Good morning, Charlotte," Emily returned while stepping into the embrace. She wound her arms around Charlotte and let herself linger longer than she normally would. Normal Emily didn't have time to waste, but Normal Emily didn't exactly seem to be in control as of late.

Charlotte was the one to pull back first with an apology on her tongue. "Sorry I took so long to get here. Daniel wanted to talk to me about something."

"What Daniel wants, Daniel gets," Emily said, careful to keep a bit of humor in her voice. She didn't need to alert Charlotte just yet. She could ease into the conversation about her own distance with Daniel and her health complications. She had time.

"Right, you are."

Emily used one hand to usher her sister through the house. She led them to the couch, careful not to draw attention to the laptop stashed under the coffee table. "Well, I hope you didn't cut your time with Daniel too short. I know how difficult unemployment is for him."

Charlotte waved the comment off. "Daniel's fine." She sat down next to Emily and rolled her shoulders back. "Well, as fine as he can be with my dad out to get him."

Emily's grin faded. Conrad truly did get Daniel fired, but the phrasing bothered Emily more than she wanted it to. David Clarke was Charlotte's dad, not Conrad Grayson, not this man so caught up with his quest for power and purpose that he often sabotaged his only child.

Charlotte would've been better off without Conrad. She would've grown up with seaweed wrapped between her toes and a dog about as old as she was. She could've even been best friends with Declan her whole life. Though, dating him might've been out of the question. Emily and Jack would have had priority there, maybe a place of their own too. Or would they have just stayed at the beach house?

Never mind. Emily blinked the thought away and shook her head thoughtfully. "I'm sure Conrad has some greater picture in mind."

"Of course. To keep Daniel entirely dependent on him forever." Charlotte laughed. Emily couldn't help but do the same.

"Daniel does tend to take after your father." Emily brought her hands into her lap. Lowered her voice so as to catch Charlotte's attention. "In more ways than one."

Charlotte cocked her head to the side slightly. Her hair tumbled down behind her shoulder, and Emily glimpsed at an image of helping Charlotte style her hair for her first real dance. How did Victoria encourage Charlotte to look at that age? Probably like a mini-Victoria. Like mother, like daughter, like father, like son.

Charlotte, as curious and predictable as she was, wasn't as distracted as Emily. She asked, "Really? In what ways?"

Emily perked herself up and lifted a hand to lazily dismiss the topic. "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up."

Since she had, though, Emily knew, Charlotte would opt to continue the conversation, and the whole thing would play out as if Charlotte encouraged Emily to share rather than Emily complaining about her relationship with Daniel. That made it bonding rather than alienating, unloading rather than gossiping.

"Emily," Charlotte scooted closer, "you can tell me anything. You know that."

Actually, she could tell Charlotte almost anything, except for who she really was, why she came into their lives, and what they really were to each other. They were practically all each other had left at this point, and Emily still had to lie to the last remaining links to the life she could've had. Her stomach twisted at that. Emily used the feeling to power her next confession.

"It's just, ever since the shooting, Daniel will hardly even look at me. We've had problems in the past. I'm not blind to that." Nor was Emily blind to the shadow of guilt that seemed to cast itself over Charlotte's face then. For Sara no doubt. "But… I don't know if Daniel will ever love me again."

"How could you say that?" Charlotte asked.

Emily chuckled humorlessly. "Because there's no use hiding it anymore. It's gotten so bad, I even asked Conrad about possibly getting a divorce."

"What?" Charlotte leaned closer. "When?"

If only Emily knew. She bit down her own questions in favor of the vague answers that she did have. "A few days ago. He connected me with his ex-wife, who obviously understood what it was like to be in a marriage that couldn't last."

Charlotte's eyes doubled in size. "You spoke to his first wife?"

Emily nodded. "Conrad definitely has a type. The first Mrs. Grayson is as well-spoken and passionate as Victoria."

"And both of them never really loved him," Charlotte concluded. "Not to say that everyone who gets divorced does it because they never — I know you love Daniel."

"I do." Did. "Which is exactly why I can't tell him yet." Emily reached out for one of Charlotte's hands. Charlotte clasped their fingers together and smiled supportively. Emily told her, "I haven't given up completely, Charlotte. And I hope you haven't either. On us, or…" Emily blinked a few more times as her eyes clouded with tears. "On me."

Charlotte became all gasps and sincerity at that point. "Never," she promised. She pulled on their clasped hands so that she could wrap the other arm comfortably around Emily's shoulder. "Not after everything we've been through."

Everything, meaning this shooting and Tyler's shooting and Declan's death and Emily's fake miscarriage and Charlotte's real one and Amanda and when Amanda almost died before Carl was even born and —

Emily slipped her free arm around Charlotte's waist to anchor herself. She tucked her chin into the crook of Charlotte's arm. Her sister smelled like coconut lotion and wet sand, like the metallic chill of Daniel's golf clubs and the nose hair burning sting of scotch.

Was Charlotte drinking again?

No, of course not. Daniel was. Daniel never stopped those days. Daniel drank to forget Sara, and Emily, and the pain Emily had caused.

Emily gritted her teeth. She needed to focus. The more she thought about other things, the more she felt the signs of a black out. The disjointed thoughts, the emotion building, the dizziness that made her lean into Charlotte a little more than absolutely necessary. Focus, Emily. Breathe.

Declan couldn't breathe. Neither could her father, or Amanda, or Sammy, or Jack's father, or Father Paul. Focus. Everyone focused on Amanda and never realized Emily was the connection. Mason noticed, but she sent Mason to jail. Stop it. Stop sending people to jail and pushing Aiden away and lying to everyone you love. Listen to them.

No!

Emily jumped back from the hug.

"Emily?"

She shook her head. Had she done that already? She probably had. She definitely had. Was Charlotte saying something?

She glanced over, and Charlotte definitely was saying something. Focus.

Voices fading, darkness creeping. Focus. Move.

Emily's hand stumbled as she reached for her phone on the coffee table.

"Nolan?" Charlotte said. Had Emily said his name? When did she — Dialing. Ringing. The phone was ringing.

"Nolan?" That was Emily's voice. She was talking. She couldn't hear him, but he had to have answered if she was talking. He had to come get her. He had to help her. He promised to help her. "It's happening. Again."

"Ems?" No, not Ems. Her name wasn't Ems. It was Amanda. Amanda Clarke. But Amanda died. But she existed. She couldn't breathe well. She couldn't — was she still there? Was she still conscious? Was she—

"Emily!?"

…

In her perfect world, with her dad and Charlotte and Sammy, Nolan would be there too. He would run around the outside of the whole house with toddler Charlotte on his shoulders and Emily running behind him. David would yell for them to slow down, and Sammy would bark just to add to all of the noise. And Nolan would trip, so they'd all tumble down to the ground near a clump of seaweed that made Charlotte scream.

David would get worried and run from the grill to where they landed. But, before he could even get there, Nolan would've talked Charlotte down with some story about how the seaweed made her into a mermaid, and how he would make her a whole website to share her mermaid adventures. Charlotte would laugh because she wasn't really a mermaid, and Emily would ask how Charlotte knew for sure.

"'Cause you're not a mermaid. And we're sisters."

"Dad's a merman," Emily would say, glancing up at him. "Aren't you, Daddy?"

"I'm whatever you girls want me to be."

"I want you to be invincible! So nothing ever hurts you," Emily would say. Charlotte would echo her, and Nolan would get his lopsided grin of agreement.

David would crouch down to them, look each of them in the eye, and promise them, "Nothing is going to hurt me."

"You know why?" Emily's eyes would sparkle, and she'd giggle. "Because we're mer-people!"

And David would laugh and tickle them to get their fins out, and everyone would just keep laughing.

…

When Emily came to, she heard their voices before anything else. Nolan's and Charlotte's. Where was her dad? Why couldn't she hear him too? She tried to move towards them, but her legs didn't move. That didn't make sense; she wasn't really a sea creature. But her arms didn't budge either. She tugged again at each of her limbs until she recognized why she couldn't do anything. Someone had restrained her.

She blinked a few times to clear her head.

Not someone — Nolan. And she couldn't hear her dad because David Clarke was dead. And she wasn't laughing anymore. No one was.

Emily swallowed against the dryness in her throat and willed her eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room. She scanned around her once she could see. Minimal decorations, nice view of outside where Nolan and Charlotte were arguing on the other side of the large glass wall — glass? — must've been Nolan's house. Damnit, she was in Aiden's guest room. Right, because laying in the same bed that Aiden slept with Niko on would do wonders for her mental health.

"This is crazy!" Charlotte said.

Emily noticed, then, the partially open door. Had they left it open on purpose or forgotten when they went outside? Charlotte's back was to Emily, but she didn't seem very focused on Nolan either. It was probably for the best. Nolan had his arms wrapped at his sides and another one of his button up shirts that screamed sassy.

"Coming from you and your family," Nolan did a little shrug, "this can't be anything we haven't seen before."

Charlotte bristled and wrapped her arms around herself as well. "It's been hours, Nolan. I'm calling for help." She reached for her purse, but Nolan grabbed her arm to stop her, turning her around so Emily could see her. Charlotte reared back from Nolan's touch.

He told Charlotte, "Hey, this is help. More importantly, it's what Emily wants."

"To be chained down?" she hissed.

"To be held back," Nolan corrected. He tousled his hair a bit before sighing. "Ems has… a lot that she keeps in to protect everyone. She can't be out there without a filter, especially when her emotions are so high. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how hard everything's been for her."

Charlotte looked guilty for a second until she covered it up with a question. "You mean with the baby?"

Emily practically heard Nolan's sarcastic voice in her ears. The fictional spawn of Daniel Two-Shot Grayson? Nolan would've said, Not so much.

"I mean with all of it," Nolan actually said. "She's lost a lot these past three years. More than you know."

Like her mother, Aiden, Takeda, her entire future, and Jack, and nearly every single chance she had at avenging her father. Emily grimaced and tugged at her restraints again. She had lost a lot, but she would not lose herself. She refused to let that happen. Or let the conversation continue.

Loudly, Emily groaned and thrashed at her restraints. Nolan rushed to push aside the door and get to her. He paused, though, with one hand near her ankle.

"Howdy, Hulk. Or, should I say Bruce?"

Emily rolled her eyes at his reference. "Hulk would've blasted through by now."

"Fair point."

Nolan undid her restraints. Charlotte lingered in the threshold until Emily noticed her and waved her in with one sore wrist.

"Nolan?" Charlotte shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "Could I possibly talk to Emily alone, for a second? If that's okay."

Nolan checked in with Emily before nodding. "I'll, uh, get everyone some drinks."

"Thanks," the girls chimed together.

Nolan walked off, shutting the door to the room behind them. At first, Charlotte said nothing. She moved to sit by Emily, and Emily pulled into a sitting position to match. Emily rubbed at the marks on her skin. Charlotte studied them, gulped.

"I am so sorry, Emily. I'm the worst sister-in-law ever." Emily fought the urge to correct Charlotte. Charlotte hardly noticed, too caught up in apologizing. "I should've noticed something was wrong. We all should have."

Emily tried nonchalance. "I'm used to taking care of myself."

Charlotte frowned. "You shouldn't have to. You're family."

Family. By blood, not by this stupid marriage. They should've taken pictures at Emily's high school graduation and stayed up until three AM catching up the first time Emily came back from college. They should've had a whole life together.

But, a life with Charlotte meant a life with Victoria. A life — Emily's head spun, and she balled her hands into fists to block it out.

(A whole life with her — with that woman who panted and glared at Amanda. "I don't like her! She hates me!")

Emily dug her nails into her palms until she winced.

Charlotte tried to smile, but it wavered when she spoke. "You'll always be family to me, even if you divorce Daniel." She fidgeted with her own hands. "You deserve a family that's so much better than the Graysons can give you. You should be like… Jack and Amanda." Emily nearly scoffed. Charlotte said, "You should have someone who's looking out for you."

She had plenty of people — Aiden, sometimes Jack, and "Nolan's there when I need him."

"But not all the time. I've already lost one sister. I don't want to lose you too."

(She was losing him. She stomped her feet into the sand, screamed, "Tell her to go away! Now!")

Emily's chest tightened. She blinked away the spots from her vision.

"I'm fine."

"You're not—"

("I'm not gonna do that, Amanda.")

"Stop it." Fuck. That was out loud.

Charlotte swallowed harshly. Straightened up and sobered up so quickly that she honestly resembled Victoria for a moment. "Today, you had a blackout that lasted for five hours. A few weeks ago, you couldn't even remember who you were. You thought you were Amanda."

She is. Was. Shit. "We were close."

"Jack explained that to me, but you didn't see yourself. You seemed so sure that David was your father, that he would've been there for you, that—"

(He wasn't listening to her.)

"I was confused."

"But you were right," Charlotte said. "From what Amanda told me, he would have loved you."

(If he loved her, then why wasn't he listening?)

No. Her dad did love her. He loved her so much that he sent his wife away. He loved her so much that he wanted more than vengeance yet gave her everything she needed in case she wanted to get it for him. He loved her.

("I love her, and you will, too." No. No, she wouldn't.)

Emily shot up off of the bed. "I'm going to check on Nolan." She rushed away from Charlotte's words, but Charlotte followed right behind her.

Charlotte grabbed at Emily's wrist. "Was that too much? I should've left Amanda out of it."

(It wasn't about Amanda at all. It was about her dad finding someone new to replace her. He would go to the beach with Victoria and forget all about Emily. Forget about her mom too.

"You have to accept Victoria," he said, "because we are gonna be a family.")

"Amanda's not the problem," Emily said.

"Then what is?"

Emily looked beyond Charlotte, to Nolan who stood at the front of the hall with a tray of drinks in his hand.

"My family," Emily said. She saw the way Nolan's eyes widened, and his grip slipped slightly on the tray. She shook her head enough to let him know that she wasn't going that far with it, that this wasn't some revelation to Charlotte. This was the key. It had to be. "That's my problem. I think I've been asking myself if it's really worth it."

Her dad chose Victoria. He chose a woman who smothered her children and sent the innocent daughter of the man she claimed to love into institution after institution. He picked someone to raise Emily, and the Emily she was — the Amanda she grew to be — would terrify him.

He loved the wrong person. She'd done it too — with Aiden, with Daniel for the time when she believed in him. Did that mean either of them deserved what they got? Did she deserve getting shot? Did he deserve going to jail?

Victoria might have ruined Emily's life, but she didn't ruin Charlotte's. Not completely anyway. She didn't destroy Daniel. Emily did that part. Emily made more mistakes and hurt more people than her father ever could've imagined. She had to be able to forgive him for his one mistake. Didn't she?

Nolan hummed lowly at the end of the hall. He walked closer, saying, "You can change your mind anytime, Ems."

Charlotte nodded, despite missing some of the context.

"We're not going anywhere. I'm on your side. For real this time."

Emily smiled at them.

Nolan peered back over his shoulder. "Though, we're missing part of our little group." He motioned with a nod of his head behind him. Jack stepped around the corner into view with his hands in his pockets and face as conflicted as ever. "Don't hate me, but I called in reinforcements. In case we needed them."

Emily didn't hate anyone. Not there at least.

Jack rocked slightly before he continued down the hall towards Emily. He used to avoid her at the start of the summer, prior to the shooting and her grand finale plan. Further back, he used to watch her lips form every word she said to him. He used to laugh, and it had always felt like he laughed at his own lack of focus rather than whatever she had said. He didn't laugh with her anymore, but he showed up when Nolan called. He came back.

Charlotte cleared her throat, and Emily tore her gaze away from Jack. Had they been staring that whole time? Had Charlotte noticed?

Emily peeked over at her sister. Daniel told Charlotte almost everything he could to break down their relationship. Charlotte probably knew about Jack, about what might've been but never was. Charlotte, for her part, innocently grabbed a drink from Nolan.

Jack rubbed his hand along his jawline. "I, uh, didn't get the pep talk memo."

"They've got it covered, but thank you, Jack." She turned to Nolan. "You too. Who knows what I would do without you?"

Nolan beamed at her. "Probably go to prison." He chuckled, then she did, then Jack did, and Charlotte alternated between checking them all for what was so funny in that sentence.

Emily leaned towards Charlotte. "Did you know he got his mugshot put on a T-shirt?"

Nolan sipped from a straw in his glass. "If you want one, all you have to do is say the word."

Jack rolled his shoulders back. "Remind me to stay quiet then."

Regardless of how Emily's life was supposed to be, in that moment, what it was finally felt right.