"Aaron!" Emily called out, hurrying after him as fast as she could in heels. Still, he didn't acknowledge her, continuing to walk away instead.

Just hours earlier, things had actually begun to look up. At least, they had in her mind. The president had informed her that Aaron had been cleared by the FBI of any involvement in the Capitol bombing. She had never actually cried from relief before that. Finally, she could be with him. Something she had wanted since the day they met, and him possibly being a traitor hadn't even been able to change that. Sure, there would have been a lot of explaining and apologizing, but Emily was confident she could handle it. Now, not so much.

Aaron had quit because of the whole ordeal. She had tried to remain professional inside the White House, hoping that maybe just seeing her would force him to reconsider, but instead, he just left. His eyes cold and unforgiving, with a twinge of hurt and lingering betrayal.

"You're seriously going to leave, just like that?" she demanded.

"Yep," he replied, his voice tired and monotoned.

"Without even saying goodbye?"

"That was the plan."

The spite in his voice was almost infuriating for some reason.

"Wait," she exclaimed, finally getting close enough to grab his arm and stop him. "I know you're mad at me—"

"Damn right, I'm mad at you," he said, pulling away and turning around to face her.

Emily took a deep breath, trying to compose herself. She wanted to yell at him for yelling at her, but he had every right to be mad. All she could do was try to make him see the reason behind the way she had acted.

"But you have to understand that—"

"No, Emily, I don't understand. I don't understand why you couldn't have just asked me about it instead of blatantly lying to my face on multiple occasions."

His voice was much louder than hers at this point. She couldn't yell at him. It wasn't his fault.

"I'm sorry. I promise none of it was real. I did what I had to do in order to get to the bottom of things." she explained.

"So what, kissing me that night in my office, that was none of that was real, either, right?" he demanded.

"I didn't even know about the file at that point, much less that you had anything to do with it. What we had—what we have is real." the lump in her throat hurt, but not nearly as bad as the look in his eyes, and her lip quivered as she spoke.

"Yet you still thought I was a traitor."

"You say that like it was easy! I fought myself day and night, I didn't sleep for a week, I—"

Her voice was hoarse and raspy.

"You weren't the one being pushed away!" he was most definitely yelling at this point. "I let you in, Emily, and you shut me out! So don't you dare try to tell me about being hurt!"

"I-I," she stuttered quietly.

She had never been at such a loss for words before in her entire life. She wanted to scream, cry, and kiss him all at the same time. Whatever it took to stop him from leaving. She couldn't do this job alone, nor did she want to. Not without him by her side. They both needed each other.

Aaron didn't respond, instead, he turned around and resumed walking to his car.

"Wait," she begged.

"No. I've already been there once with you, and you pushed me out, you said no. I'm not going back there again."

"Just listen to me, dammit!" she almost screamed. He turned around to face her once more. "The president needs you, Aaron, and he's not the only one,"

She wasn't sure how it happened, but the next thing she knew, his lips were pressed firmly to hers and Emily was tasting the saltiness of her own tears.

Things escalated quickly once they made it to his apartment. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he picked her up, proceeding to push her back against the wall. His grip on her thighs was so tight his fingernails surely would have been digging into them, had they been long enough. She could tell by his quiet groans that hers were doing something as she dug them into his shoulder blades while he gently kissed and occasionally bit up and down her neck.

Her hands trembled as she pulled and clawed at every piece of clothing on both of their bodies until there was almost none left. In contrast, his fingers navigated her bare skin almost expertly.

Even in the dim lighting of his bedroom, she could see the scratches on his back and arms already starting to show, which meant the love marks on her neck and collarbone and fingerprint bruises on her hips and thighs were soon to follow. She didn't care what repercussions the marks would have later on, they felt too good to pass up. Nothing else mattered, nothing but his body on hers.

Once it was all said and done, they both laid there, her head resting on his chest. Neither spoke for a while, each trying to catch their breath and process what had just happened. Emily had the sudden urge to pinch herself and pray that it hadn't all been just a dream. She reckoned that her entire body wouldn't be dully aching in the best way possible if it was.

She absently reached for Aaron's hand in the darkness and let out a sigh when it wrapped around hers.

"So, what does this mean for the future," she breathed, then corrected herself. "Our future."

"What do you want it to mean?" he asked, tightening her arm around her waist and rubbing the top of her hand with his thumb.

"You know what I want,"

"Emily," Aaron sighed. "Let's just not talk about that right now."

He planted a kiss on top of her head.

"No, you can't just-" she stopped out of frustration. "I meant what I said, I need you there,"

"Hey," he interrupted, putting his thumb under her chin so that she was looking at him. "I'm exactly where I need to be."

With that, he pressed his lips to hers. This one was soft, more like the one they had shared in his office than the one in the parking lot. It was gentle, sweet, so full of love that Emily felt she might explode from giddiness. Instead of entwining her hands in his hair, she traced his perfect jawline with the pads of her fingers. It made her ponder the most asked question she'd received in the past two months.

How could someone like her, who had lost nearly everyone they knew, bounce back after a tragedy such as the Capitol bombing?

The answer shouldn't have been simple, but it was.

She'd tried to hide it as best she could, but the attack had left her in pieces, and she needed to find someone who could put her back together. That, someone had been Aaron. It was almost funny to think how the event that broke her had fixed her at the same time. And that's what he kept doing. Whether he knew it or not, Aaron put her back together time and time again. After the bombing, after the Michigan standoff, and now. The revelation that he might have been a traitor shattered her like nothing ever before, and his lips pressed to hers somehow had made all of it okay again.

"We'll figure it out later," he said, pulling away and resting his head on top of hers.

Emily didn't respond. She knew they would. Somehow, they always did.

A/N: Please leave a review telling me what you thought of this story and what you want to see next!

-xoxo Harley Quinn