Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Death Becomes Him
Emily walks up to the cottage, she climbs up the stairs, walks through the door and begins to take off her jacket. “Hey did you hear the news? They cleared him! Aiden? You okay? Aiden? Are you okay?” Emily looks towards Aiden, a look of sheer worry on her face. “No! Aiden wake up!” Emily leans forward and grabs Aiden’s face in both of her hands. “Aiden! Wake up!” She climbs on top of him and begins shaking him visibly distraught. “No, No, No, No, No!” She begins crying and hugs him tightly to her, “Aiden wake up! No, No No!”
Emily stays that way, hugging him and crying for longer than she should, she is destroyed by this, but that is exactly what Victoria wanted. Emily knows it was her, there is no one else it could have been, no one as cold and callous as that woman.
Victoria, the woman who stole her father, stole her childhood, stole the man that she loved more than she even loved her self. If Emily wasn’t out for revenge before, you better damn know she was out for blood now.
Emily did not know how long she had been sitting with Aiden by the time Nolan came in the door, she didn’t even know how he knew to come over. She knew he didn’t know what he was about to walk into however. Nolan had never seen death up close before.
“Em, what is going on?” He asked her, however upon looking at the scene in front of him, it became immediately clear. “Oh my god Em, did you call 9-1-1 yet?” Emily shakes her head, not yet able to make words. “Okay I will call right now.”
Nolan picks up his phone and dials. “I would like to report a murder. Yes, there is a dead person on my friends couch right now. Please send whomever you need to send. The address is…”
Emily listened to Nolan, numb to the words being said, nothing would be okay after this. Her life as she knew it was over again. The man she was to spend her whole life with taken from her without so much as a warning. She looked at the ring on her finger, twirled it around and around.
The police showed up a little while later, and Emily still hadn’t moved, they came in, assessed the scene and called in the coroner. The bagged up Aiden’s body and took him away, Emily knew this was the last time she would see him in her house, the last time he would be here with her, and she broke down further.
The police wanted to ask her questions but Nolan told them they would need to wait, that they would come down to the station later, once Emily was able to move, walk, talk.
Emily got up from the couch no longer wanting to be near it at all, she climbed up the stairs slowly like a zombie, which if she was being honest with herself she was now. She lay down on the bed, not even bothering to take off her clothes or shoes and she cuddled up to Aiden’s side of the bed, curled around his pillow which still smelt like him. She sobbed harder, her shoulders shaking with the force of her cries.
From shock she passed out a little while later, no longer able to keep her body awake. Sleep wasn’t what she wanted though, because for one she knew the nightmares that would accompany it and for two because all she wanted was to plot how to take down Victoria.
Nolan peeked into the room a little while later, spying that she was asleep, he pulled up a chair and sat down beside the bed, wanting to watch her and make sure she was okay. He himself was in shock, she liked 007 more than he admitted while he was alive. In fact he was one of Nolan’s best friends, and Nolan regretted not telling him that while he had the chance.
He was such a good man, and he could see how happy he made Emily, how much Emily clearly loved him and needed him. Aiden was the light in Emily’s otherwise bleak existence and Nolan knew that. He didn’t know how to make this better for his best friend. But he knew he would stop at nothing to try.
Helping her take down Victoria was step number one, because even without Em saying so he knew it was her who did this. Who else could it be but the wicked witch of the west.
Nolan is woken with a start, he looks around the room disoriented at first, he past out of the chair beside Emily’s bed, he looks over and she is still sleeping, though not soundly, he can see her tossing and turning. He looks for Emily’s phone, the reason he was jolted awake was because he heard it ringing.
Not being able to find it in the bedroom, he assumes it is still downstairs in the jacket that had fallen to the ground when Emily discovered the body. He finds the phone and checks the caller ID. It is the Hamptons Sheriff Department. Not sure what they could have wanted he calls the number back.
“Hello, this is Nolan Ross, friend of Emily Thorne, she just missed a call from this number?”
“Yes Mr. Ross that was Officer Hunter calling you with regards to Aiden Mathis. Please hold while I bring him on the line,” the operator said before putting Nolan on hold.
“Hello Mr. Ross?” Officer Hunter speaks into the phone. “I was looking for Emily Thorne. I have some news with regards to Aiden Mathis.”
“I am so sorry the stress of today has knocked her completely out. Can I take the message?” Nolan asked.
“Well Mr. Ross, I will tell you but I think Emily is going to want you to wake her up for this. Mr. Mathis is not dead,” Nolan drops the phone in shock.
After scrambling to pick it back up he asks in bewilderment. “What do you mean he is not dead, I saw his lifeless body with my own two eyes.”
“Yes you are correct Mr. Ross, his body did appear dead, however after he arrived in the morgue our pathologist was examining his body and found a heartbeat, it was very faint but it was there. It appears that he was poisoned before he was suffocated so because of the that it slowed his heart rate down to almost non existence, leading whomever strangled him to believe that they succeeded and he was dead.
“I will inform you as well that he has been moved to the hospital and is in critical condition due to oxygen depravation so I recommend you and Ms. Thorne coming down to the hospital as quickly as you can.” Officer Hunter disconnects the line and Nolan looks at the phone in shock.
He runs up the stairs to Emily’s room, “Em! Em! You need to wake up!” He calls shaking her body.
“No Nolan, I don’t want to leave this room, he was the only person I ever loved and he is gone, my life is over.”
“No Em see you don’t understand, I just received a call from the Sheriff Department, or you did but I answered, and Em! Aiden is alive!”