A/N: Just a brief drabble inspired by the first few episodes of the season. Set immediately before 1x03, 'The Emily Show', focusing a little more on the relationship of this series that I personally feel matters most - Emily and Flynn's.

"Just watching you with her, with Flynn...you guys are so beautiful together. All of you. I couldn't stop looking."

Flynn's words echo through her head long after she's left the house. The house her son lives in with his father and… his new mother.

You hurt my mom.

His mom. Her son, the little boy she fought so hard to live for, to come back for, was referring to some other woman as his mother.

Emily may not yet remember much from her time in captivity, but she knows Flynn was at the forefront of her mind, keeping her alive, every single day.

She's starting to wonder, to fear, if it was all in vain. If it would have been better for him if she would have just let the water fill her lungs, drown her heart, save them all a lot of struggle and pain.

She sucks in a jagged breath to stop the tears from starting, from drowning her in grief instead.

They were fighting, he said, referring to Nick and Alice, his parents. They never fight.

The 'not until you showed up' was unspoken but loud.

Emily stares up at the ceiling from Jack's couch, shuts her eyes as they begin to sting. Her chest feels raw, her heart cut open and bleeding.

Her son hates her and she doesn't blame him. She abandoned him for six years, whether she chose to or not. He was raised to believe that she's been dead this entire time, that she was never coming back. And Nick provided him with a new mother to raise him, to love him. Of course he's going to be upset by some strange woman he doesn't even know showing up and wrecking everything.

No, she can't blame him. But she so badly wants to be able to love him too.

They never fight.

It strikes an odd feeling of hope in her chest, even though it shouldn't. It really shouldn't. But she and Nick used to fight all the time. It wasn't unhealthy, not severe or necessarily damaging. They were both such intense individuals that when thrown together, the passion between them could be so good, so fierce, that it sometimes burned too bright. In an argument, they were only bound to explode.

He would yell, she would scream, she would shove him, he'd catch her by the wrists, hold on until she stopped. Most of their fights, whether massive or petty, ended with him pinning her to a wall, the couch, the bed, feeding the fire inside of her with the drape of his body until they were both left cooling in the embers.

Few things in her life were better than making up with Nick after a fight.

Their passion was always burning, so alive and vivid. The fact that their bad moments together could be just as rich as their best only reaffirmed how beautiful their relationship was to her.

She can't help but wondering if he has even a hint of that with his perfect new wife, Alice. If the pretty blonde is more than just a porcelain looking doll on the verge of breaking.

All because of her. All because Emily lives.

Emily turns on her side, curls in on herself, and presses her forehead hard into the cushion of the sofa.

She wants her old life back, but it isn't even hers anymore. Her role as a wife and mother has been filled by someone else.

Maybe there's just not any room for her now, maybe she's just not meant to belong in this new reality she's woken up to, but-

Flynn deserves to know the real you.

But Flynn is still hers. He's still her son, that connection never died and runs through her veins like lightning, pumping through her heart even now.

She loved her husband, she doesn't think that will ever necessarily go away, but she would give her life for her son. She would give anything just to have a relationship with Flynn.

Emily sits up on the couch, pulling her knees to her chest and resting her chin atop her patella.

Nick has been supportive of her developing a relationship with their son, encouraging it more than anything, despite Alice's obvious discomfort at the idea. Emily can't blame the other woman. Alice is looking out for Flynn, like any mother would. The only difference is that Flynn isn't hers.

Emily sighs, purses her lips against the bitterness that swells through her chest.

It doesn't matter. It can't right now. She has a second chance and her first priority is her son, spending her renewed life making up for lost time as a mother.

She reaches for her phone on the coffee table. It's late, too late to text Nick, but she types out the words anyway, prepares them to be sent first thing in the morning.

I was hoping we could take Flynn to do something after school today.

She can live with the torment of her lost memory, can live with the years' worth of physical reminders slashed across her skin. She can live without her husband, without everything she loved about her old life, but she can't live without her little boy.

Emily cradles the phone to her chest, sinks back against the arm of the chair, and waits for the sun to rise.